Archive for Film School

SEDONA RED ROCK NEWS REMINDS US THAT 10 YEARS AGO SEDONA CENTER FILM SCHOOL HAD FIVE FILMS CREATED BY STUDENTS AT SEDONA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

Yavapai Community College’s decision to completely abandon the thriving film school program  in 2013 still has  some Verde Valley residents scratching their heads

The Sedona Red Rock News on February 16, 2022, reminded us that it was just ten years ago, February 17, 2012,  when Yavapai Community College  students were turning out great student films at the Community College’s Sedona Center. That year,  the Sedona International Film Festival (SIFF) featured five films created by students attending the Sedona Center’s film school. Those films and nine others all had Arizona ties as either films shot in Arizona or films made by Arizona residents. “There are a lot of great films made right here in Sedona and around Arizona in this year’s festival. We’re so proud to have so many local filmmakers who won a spot in the festival. They went through the screening process, just like all of the other films,” said Sagan Lewis, program director for SIFF.

Here is a part of the Redrock News report of February, 2022  (in Blue), slightly edited,   that recalled the accomplishments of some Yavapai Community College students studying film making at the Sedona Center ten years ago:

A five-member team screens every film submitted for consideration. This year they received more than 850 films, which they pared down to 145.

One of the . . .  films by [Yavapai student] Susanne Barr is “Christel Clear” about a trauma nurse who discovers she has a special gift that changes people’s lives.

Bianca Luedeker [Yavapai Student] created a film about her dream to follow in the footsteps of her idol in “I Want to Be Tom Savini.” “It’s mostly about makeup special effects and my personal experience while on vacation without my parents for the first time,” Luedeker said.

“Symmetry” is a suspense between a homicide detective and a vigilante that turns deadly. Filmmaker [Yavapai student] Jeremy Naranjo said he plans to make a feature-length version of the 18-minute short fictional film. “I studied political science to be a lawyer but after serving an internship in Washington, D.C., I decided I didn’t want to be a lawyer,” Naranjo said. “I find filmmaking challenges you on every level, and that’s something I’m drawn to.”

Katja Torneman [Yavapai student] created a documentary around her passions: conservation and the environment. With “Anna, Emma and the Condors,” Torneman worked with a family dedicated to saving the large birds. “We worked together for a year to make this film. I want to spread the message we can make a change; we just have to do it,” Torneman said. 

The final . . .  student-made film [by Yavapai student Karin Kwaitkowski] is “The Stopwatch Gang” about the true story of three men from Canada who used a stopwatch when robbing banks during the 1970s and early 1980s.

The reader  might recall that the Sedona Film School, was the successor to the internationally acclaimed Zaki Gordon Film School, which had partnered with Yavapai Community College beginning in 2000. The Institute severed its relationship in 2011 with the College after a dust-up of some sort over control between then College president Penelope Wills and Dan Gordon. The Zaki Gordon Institute moved to Liberty University where today it is recognized as providing one of the better college film training programs in the nation.

Two years following the breakdown of the Community College’s relationship with Dan Gordon, in October 2013, Sedona and Verde Valley residents were taken totally by surprise and stunned by the College’s Administration’s sudden decision  to completely abandon the film making program in Sedona.  The abandonment was a part of the ten-year $103 million  College development plan, which anticipated spending over 95% of development funds on west county community college improvement. The original plan contemplated  entirely  closing the Sedona facility  and putting it up for sale. Once the Sedona Center was shuttered and sold,  Wills  promised to lease other facilities in the area for OLLI and any other programs.

The plans to shutter the Sedona Center completely were thwarted by local Sedona politicians and residents throughout the Verde Valley.  However, the College refused to return the film school to Sedona. 

Although the Community College has some involvement this year with the Sedona International Film Festival, it is pretty clear that emphasis in  the College’s film training is now primarily located on the Prescott Campus as evidenced by the Yavapai College Film and Media Arts Facebook page:  https://www.facebook.com/YCFilmandMediaArts/.  There is no film school training at the Sedona Center.

WHAT YOU SEE WHEN YOU LOOK BACK TWENTY YEARS AT THE SEDONA CENTER ― FILM SCHOOL WAS SO SUCCESSFUL THAT COMMUNITY COLLEGE BEGAN SEEKING LAND TO EXPAND

Considered adding up to  80 acres of Coconino National Forest land adjacent the Center; Zachary Gordon Independent film  program overflowing with  a two-year student waiting list; However, film school training collapses following  2011 dust up between Institute Director and Community College president over curriculum and control with Independent Film Institute fleeing to a private university

The Yavapai Community College Sedona Center had been open only one year when in June 2001 the Administration began looking to purchase up to 80 acres of land of the Coconino National Forest adjacent the Center. The purpose was to expand the facility to meet the unexpected huge number of students seeking admission to the Film Institute.

The Red Rock News of June 13, 2001 reported that when Keith Harwood of the special projects office of the Community College president’s office was interviewed about the lack of space to accommodate applicants to the film program, he said, “we’re bursting at the seams.  In the short term, we expected to have 100 in our Sedona multimedia program and we have 500.”  The 20,000 square foot Center had only six classrooms.

The Red Rock News also reported that the “success of film-making and other programs has shocked school officials.“  It indicated that the Administration was in the process of putting  together a report supporting its decision to seek the additional land. 

However, the Community College  never succeeded in its efforts to purchase additional land from the Forest Service.

The Sedona Center as a film school was a smashing success from 2000 to 2011.  Here is how Helen Stephenson, currently the  Managing Director, Yavapai College Performing Arts Center Operations & Director, YC Film & Media Arts Program, described the Sedona program in a December 2007 article in the Prescott News.

“People from Thailand, Japan, Brazil, Canada, England, and all over the U.S.” come to the school. Typically, “Half of the class is usually from out of state.” Hawkes says, students range in age from 17 to 65 years old. The older students bring great stories with them and the younger students generally have the advantage with technology. On the other hand he says that a person’s age in no way stands in the way of them learning the technology. “We’ve had people who’ve never turned on a computer but they’ve become the best editors we’ve ever had.” The one thing the students have in common is a passion to learn the latest technology in the digital filmmaking world and put that knowledge immediately into practice.”

The film school received national and international recognition and honors. It flourished. However, in the summer of 2011 the Community College administration and the  main supporter of the Zaki Gordon Institute for Film Making got into a very public “dust up.”  Following their strong disagreements, Mr. Dan Gordon, the president of the Institute,  moved the Institute out of the Sedona Center  to Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia.  Gordon charged in a subsequent newspaper editorial that:

“. . . [T]he current director of the school and the President of Yavapai College violated their contract with the Institute by unilaterally changing course content.

“As president of the Institute, I cancelled their right to use our name or our copyright-protected methodology and I ceased providing my services, which were offered gratis for twelve years, as lead instructor. The result speaks for itself. Their enrollment dropped 44 percent and the college is dropping the program. When you cut the heart and soul out of something, you cannot expect the body to survive.”

Many months later, during a radio interview on KAZM in Sedona, Dr. Penelope Wills provided the Community College’s side of the dispute with Dan Gordon. She said: “[H]e wanted to go ahead and evaluate faculty and run the entire program.  It was not a partnership. . . . the advisory committee was very upset with what he was dictating and he wasn’t working as a peer with that advisory (committee).”

The Community College Director of Marketing and Communications, Mike Lange, was quoted on August 9, 2012  in the Sedona RedRock News as  stating:  “The Yavapai College film program is continuing and is being enhanced. It is not being dissolved.” 

In December the College said it was “expanding [its] relationship with the renowned Sedona International Film Festival (SIFF) and planning for a special series of technical workshops during the 2013 Festival.”  It also stated that it had “launched a significant recruiting campaign and doubled its enrollment this year! In these tough economic times, that is a significant achievement. . . . The community truly banded together this past year to show support for the Film School and make a unanimous statement that ‘We love our film school’ and want to keep it in Sedona.’”

But the Community College film school without the Institute may have been  staggering to survive. Or, was it?  No one knows for certain given the public statements issued by the Community College regarding its bright future in Sedona and increased student enrollment.

Then the biggest surprise of ever came in  October 2013 on the Verde campus in Clarkdale. At a public meeting the administration, led by then president Dr. Penelope Wills, announced a new $103 million  ten-year capital development plan it had decided to implement pending Governing Board approval. (It was approved.)  Residents from Sedona and the Verde Valley were aghast as Dr.  Wills’ outlined to them the sudden  decision to close  the Film School by the end of 2014.  Wills’ said that  the Community College’s ten-year $103 million development plan (with over 95% dedicated to west county improvement) contemplated  closing the Sedona facility for good and putting it up for sale. Once the Sedona Center was shuttered and sold,  Wills  promised to lease other facilities in the area for OLLI and any other programs. 

Outrage from citizens in Sedona and throughout the Verde Valley was immediate and vocal.    After several months,  the Governing Board and Administration eventually backed away from the idea of selling the facility and leasing property for OLLI and any other programs it might develop.  However, by 2015 the Center had only two small courses and was being essentially closed down.

Under enormous pressure from the community, the Community College administrators and Governing Board decided to repurpose the Center into primarily a culinary school.  It would not continue as a film school.  After two years of renovation,  on August  21, 2017, the Sedona Center reopened for the  fall semester. It announced it would feature Culinary Arts Fundamentals certificate classes in two state-of-the-art teaching kitchens. The Center housed a Sedona Culinary Institute and offices for the OLLI program.

Today, the Culinary Institute and OLLI continue in the Sedona Center.  What a difference 20 years makes.

Sources:  Sedona Red Rock News, June 13, 2001, Vol 38, No. 77;  Sedona Red Rock News, June 16, 2021, p. 5A. Original research.

COMMUNITY COLLEGE HOSTS PRESCOTT TENTH ANNUAL FILM FESTIVAL

Festival programs run from June 7 through June 15

Yavapai Community College is hosting this year’s tenth annual Prescott Film Festival. It has been the host for several years.

This year’s Festival runs June 7–15, 2019 and includes multiple screenings of quality independent and foreign films, sneak-peeks of films prior to wide distribution, FREE workshops, social events such as an annual wine tasting and Closing Night Cabaret Party, and filmmaker interviews.

The Prescott Festival is hosted by Yavapai Community College, with movies screened in the Performing Arts Center. Among the many programs offered during the festival is the High School Filmmakers Annual Film Competition, conducted in partnership with the Yavapai Community College’s Film & Media Arts program.

Helen Stephenson is the Founder and Executive Director of the Prescott Film Festival. She is credited with providing vision and direction for the festival for the past several years. She is also the Director of the Film and Media Arts Program at Yavapai Community College. She was in charge of the Yavapai Community College Sedona Film School back in 2015 when a decision was made to shut the internationally recognized program down.

20 YEARS AGO COLLEGE ANNOUNCED PLANS FOR SEDONA CENTER

Says it will begin construction in April 1999 on its digital media center and campus building at the cultural park; Nationally recognized film school flowing from this decision shut down by Wills

It was 20 years ago, November 30, 1998 that Yavapai College announced that it was going to construct a digital media center and campus building at the cultural park in Sedona.  Construction was approved and additional funds included in the $69.5 million dollar 2000 bond for another building at the Sedona Center. That second building was never built.

The digital building was constructed by 2000 and Dan Gordon and the Community College joined in a  partnership.  That relationship resulted in creation of the Zaki Gorden Film Institute (named after Gordon’s deceased son) and brought national and international recognition to the Community College because of its film training program.

However, Dan Gordon and president Penelope Wills got into some kind of dust up in 2012 over control of the curriculum that led to Gordon leaving Sedona and moving to Liberty University.  President Wills then closed the Institute that was using Gordon’s name. However, she said  she would continue the film program and enhance it.

In a subsequent editorial, Gordon commented on the decision to essentially kick him out saying in part that “[i]n 2012 the current director of the school and the President of Yavapai College violated their contract with the Institute by unilaterally changing course content.” 

According to Mr. Gordon, “As president of the Institute, I cancelled their right to use our name or our copyright-protected methodology and I ceased providing my services, which were offered gratis for twelve years, as lead instructor. The result speaks for itself. Their enrollment dropped 44 percent and the college is dropping the program. When you cut the heart and soul out of something, you cannot expect the body to survive.”  He concluded:  “Meanwhile The Zaki Gordon Cinematic Arts Center at Liberty University is adding an online Master’s Degree program and inside of a year will have some 800 students taking courses in the program.” 

As noted above, when Gordon left, the College promised to “enhance” the film school, which was now renamed the Sedona Film School.  It did not meet that promise.  Instead, Wills essentially shuttered the facility in 2013 and abandoned any film instruction there.  After deciding not to sell the facility as a part of a ten-year 2013 capital development plan,  the College reopened the Center in 2017 as a culinary institute.

Special thanks to the Red Rock News of November 21 for the reminder.

PRESCOTT CAMPUS IS CENTER OF PRESCOTT FILM FESTIVAL ACTIVITIES JUNE 9 -17

Prescott Festival Executive Director is College Media Director Helen Stephenson

Yavapai Community College is the Center of the Prescott Film Festival that runs from June 9-17 on the Prescott Campus. This is the 8th year of the Festival.

The Executive Director of the independent nonprofit Festival is Professor Helen Stephenson,  who is also the Yavapai College Film and Media Arts Director.

All of the Festival programs, films, and events are scheduled for the Prescott Campus at the Performing Arts Center.

Among the formal sponsors for the program are Yavapai Community College and the Yavapai Community College Film and Media Arts Department.  (See http://prescottfilmfestival.com/sponsors/.)     Is it usual for a Department to sponsor an event?    

 The full Festival schedule and tickets on-line can be obtained at  PrescottFilmFestival.com.

You might recall that the Sedona Film School, which was the successor to the internationally acclaimed Zaki Gordon Film School located at Yavapai College’s Sedona Center, was closed down by Dr. Penelope Wills in 2013. Prior to its closing, the Sedona Film school was heavily involved in the Sedona International Film Festival. 

Yavapai College Film & Media Arts Program May 14

Exhibition is Saturday, May 14 at 1:30 p.m. at the Mary D. Fisher Theater; must sign up in advance

The Yavapai College Film & Media Arts Program will be held this coming Saturday, May 14 at the Mary D. Fisher Theatre in Sedona. It is located at  2030 Highway 89A, Sedona, Arizaona. Admission is free but you must reserve a seat in advance. Please contact Helen Stephenson, at [email protected], for tickets.  Registration is now open at: www.yc.edu.
 

The following is the announcement put out by the College about the program.

The ingredients of good filmmaking, a sneak peek at scripts-in-the-making and a demonstration of the medium’s enormous historical and informative power will all be on display when the Yavapai College Film & Media Arts Program presents its FMA Student Film and Screenplay Exhibition, Saturday, May 14 at 1:30 p.m. at the Mary D. Fisher Theater, 2030 Highway 89A, Sedona, AZ. Admission is free.
 
The FMA Student Exhibition will begin by offering film buffs a chance to watch the script development process. Student screenwriters bring their recent pages out for an open “table read.” The event, which features actors performing selected student scenes aloud, lets instructor Jeff Wood’s FMA screenwriters hear and evaluate dialogue and storytelling as they hone their scripts for the camera.
 
The exhibition then moves to the other side of the camera, as Film & Media Arts Production students showcase their films from the previous year. FMA instructor Dave Lehleitner supervised production on a broad slate of styles, including comedies, dramas and films about personal discoveries and growth.
 
No filmmaking exhibition would be complete without a demonstration of the medium’s capacity to educate and inspire. That’s why YC’s FMA program will unveil two of its Service Learning documentary film projects:
 
·         A client-based video, for the Friends of the Verde River Greenway, takes a Native American perspective on the history and habitats of the Verde River, including the local nonprofit’s efforts to protect it.
 
·         Clips from a short historical documentary on Miss Lassie Lou Ahern, one of only 12 silent films stars living today.
 
The programs demonstrate the variety of training available through YC’s Film and Media Arts Program. Based at the College’s Verde Valley Campus ­ with classes taught in-person and on-line ­ the FMA program will offer certificate training in Film Production, Screenwriting and their newest program, Animation, this fall. 
The exhibition is free, but only a limited number of seats are available.  

 

Blog responds to misleading Verde Independent editorial

Claim that College “saved” the Sedona Film School fails to comport with reality

The Blog has responded to a recent editorial in the Verde Independent in which the editor claimed the Community College “saved” the Sedona Film school with the handful of media courses it offered this fall on the Verde Valley Campus.    By clicking here, you can read the newspaper editorial.  The following is the Blog’s editor’s letter in response to the Verde Independent editor.

Commentary

Commentary by Bob Oliphant

Your November 19 editorial, “College decision actually saved film school program,” is long on rhetoric, short on facts, and misleading. It is an understatement to say that it is “embarrassingly wide of the mark.”

First, you ignore the fact that the College made no actual effort to “save“ the 69 credit nine-month nationally recognized Film School program located at the Sedona Campus.  Rather, the closing of the Film School, formally announced October, 2013, was the last step in the calculated decision by Community College President Penelope Wills to remove all courses from the Sedona Campus  so it could be sold  and the money banked to finance construction of a third large campus on the West side of the County.  That campus is an integral part of the College’s published ten-year plan and it needs at least $45 million to get off the ground.  

Second, you ignore the fact that in January, 2014 the Sedona campus had been appraised to establish its market value by an expert in anticipation of a sale. By then, the College was in the process of stripping it of all credit courses. Only because of an avalanche of protest from Verde Valley citizens and Sedona officials in March, 2014 did the District Governing Board retreat from supporting the Wills’ decision to close and sell the Campus.

Third, you misled readers by implying that the current 12 credits of face-to-face media course offerings are comparable to the 69 credits required of the Sedona Film School graduates. They aren’t! For example, using your figures, in 2009 there were 69 students enrolled in the Film School in Sedona. They were required to take a minimum of 66 credits in a nine month intense training program—a total of 4,761 credit hours.

The current media program on the Verde Campus has 51 students with some of them taking all of the 12 credits offered face-to-face and some of them taking the one on-line 3 credit course.  At best, they experience a total of 612 face-to-face credit hours per semester, assuming all 51 students enrolled in all the face-to-face courses.  There is no comparison to a film school curriculum and what is now being offered!

Fourth, you failed to explain to your readers that the low enrollment of 13 by the fall of 2013 was a result of the College’s own internal decisions. Because it was shutting down the Campus in anticipation of selling it, there was no marketing for the Film School. Therefore, 13 students were left to complete their training.  Even so, 13 students accounted for 858 credit hours of training, which is far more than offered today.

Fifth, you ignore the disingenuous statements made by the College in 2012 and 2013 in which it lauded the Film School and its increasing enrollment. For example, in August, 2012, the College stated that “The Yavapai College film program (on the Sedona Campus) is continuing and is being enhanced. It is not being dissolved.” As late as December, 2012  one finds statements in College press releases such as  the College “launched a significant recruiting campaign and doubled its enrollment this year! In these tough economic times, that is a significant achievement.”  Are you oblivious to what the College said about the Film School and what it actually did?

Finally, your claim that Sedona residents are “sore” about moving the program is without substance.  First, a legitimate nationally recognized film school was not moved.  It was closed. Second, the current media course offerings do not make up a film school; there is nothing to be “sore” about.  Third, not a single resident who spoke at the recent Sedona Town Hall meeting indicated any resentment about the media program on the Verde campus.  I speculate that you were attempting to create a false jingoistic divide between Sedona and the remainder of the Verde Valley?  If so, that is shameful.

Bob Oliphant

 

College Executive Dean tries to bluff Sedona City Council saying “film school has returned”

Wills blames block scheduling, full-time students, and absence of dual enrollment for closing Film School; absolves herself of any blame as though Film School was under control of an alien power rather than her administration

Sometimes listening to Dr. Penelope Wills and her associates explanations about their decisions causes one to wonder if someone is not in Alice in Wonderland.  That was surely the case when Wills appeared before the Sedona City Council October 27 and the issue of closing the Sedona Film School came up.  

For example, Wills’teamed with Executive Dean James Perey to explain the closing of the nationally recognized Sedona Film School and its claimed resurrection on the Verde Campus.  Perey claimed that  “the film school is back, it’s on the Verde Valley Campus.”  Perey was apparently hoping that no one listening knew how a real film school curriculum looked when compared to the Fall offerings on the Verde Campus.

For those folks from Missouri who say “show me,” the Blog has set out below the fall Scottsdale Film School curriculum, which can be compared with the fall “Film School” curriculum on the Verde Campus.  The difference is so stark that Dean Perey’s remarks fall into the category of administrative prattle.  

Scottsdale Film School Fall 2015

FILM TRAINING OFFERINGS FALL 2015

Only 12 credits of face-to-face training are offered on the Verde Campus while about 80 credits are offered at the Scottsdale Community College. 

Dean Perey also said that one “of the real issues with the Film School program was that it was full-time.  “Unless you were a full-time student you could not enroll in that program,” he said.  He was joined by Wills’ who criticized the Film School program she was running at the time as a failure because of block scheduling, having full-time students, and not allowing dual enrollment. It’s a though Wills’ saw the Sedona Film School as in the control of some alien power rather than in control of her administration.  Odd, very odd, to say the least. You may view the video of Dean Perey’s remarks on this issue by clicking here.

Both Wills’ and Perey ignore the College rosy press releases issued just 9 months before the announced closing of the Film School—hoping, no doubt, that memories in Sedona are extremely short. 

For example,  Yavapai College Director of Marketing and Communications Mike Lange, was quoted on August 9, 2012  in the Sedona RedRock News as  stating:  

“The Yavapai College film program is continuing and is being enhanced. It is not being dissolved.”  

On December 11, 2012 the College issued a press release praising the Sedona Film School. This was just nine months before announcing it was being closed.  In that College press release one source was quoted as saying

“The Sedona Film School . . . contributes so much to this community and to Yavapai College. Sedona can be proud to have a world-class film school with personalized one-on-one attention to its students by a staff that is dedicated to giving the next generation of filmmakers’ unparalleled education and training.”

In the December, 2012 College press release the College stated that the Film School was

“expanding [its] relationship with the renowned Sedona International Film Festival (SIFF) and .planning for a special series of technical workshops during the 2013 Festival.”  It also stated that it had “launched a significant recruiting campaign and doubled its enrollment this year! In these tough economic times, that is a significant achievement. . . . The community truly banded together this past year to show support for the Film School and make a unanimous statement that ‘We love our film school’ and want to keep it in Sedona.’”

It turns out that all those press releases were Community College twaddle, if not outright deceptive.

Sedona residents list unmet post secondary educational needs at Sedona Center

Culinary arts, Film Institute, and hospitality at top of educational needs expressed by 35 citizens at town hall meeting

The Verde Valley Board Advisory Committee (VVBAC) to the Yavapai Community College Governing Board held a town hall meeting at the Yavapai College Sedona Center October 21.  The purpose of the town hall meeting was to provide input to the VVBAC on the unmet post-secondary educational needs of the community.  At least 35 residents took the opportunity to express their views of the community needs to the Committee.

town hall meetingThere were a total of 97 persons who attended the event. Included in the audience were members of the Verde Valley Board Advisory Committee, two members of the Yavapai College District Governing Board, and the Mayor and six of the seven Sedona City Councilors.

Representing the College were Vice President Clint Ewell and Dean Dennis Garvey, both from Prescott.  It should have come as no surprise to Ewell that the residents listed Culinary, return of the Film Institute, and hospitality as the top three unmet post secondary educational needs in the community.  He and President Penelope Wills have heard those requests repeatedly from Sedona and Verde Valley residents at numerous meetings over the past two years. Despite the many requests, President Wills and Vice President Ewell have consistently shown an arrogant propensity to ignore them. 

In an effort to placate the Verde Valley and Sedona folks, a small culinary effort was launched at Camp Verde High School this fall and twelve credits in digital photography were made available in Prescott and on the Verde Campus.  Neither of these offerings can be compared in any way to launching a serious culinary program, such as that operated at the Scottsdale Community College Campus, or take the place of the Sedona Film school, which offered almost 70 credits in film training.

Graduates of the Film School who spoke at the Town Hall meeting leveled biting criticism at the College for its 2014 closing.  One Film School graduate reflected the views of several others saying that “what we did at Zaki Gorden was unique in the country.  Fifteen years ago almost no one had a program like we had at Yavapai College.  In the last five years [of the Film School’s existence], while Yavapai College was cutting salaries, cutting staff, cutting the marketing budget, community colleges around the country were taking our idea and they were running with it.” Another Film School graduate focused on a lack of College management saying  that “it was a constant struggle to educate the College on what we [were] about. And how to properly run and market a Film School.”

Leaders in the restaurant, culinary, and hospitality industry in Sedona lamented the absence of a significant culinary and hospitality training program at the Sedona facility.  Kevin Maguire of the Enchantment Group said: “We can’t fill the positions we have at our properties.”  Sedona Rouge Executive Chef Ron Moley  expressed exasperation with the “small pool of [trained] chefs” in Sedona to service the 4 million or more annual visitors.  

Ms. Ruth Wicks suggested that the situation with Yavapai College had reached a point where the only option left for residents was to create a separate taxing district for the East side of the County. Only in this way, Wicks said, would the East side of the County be permanently removed from control of West County College administrators.

The videotapes of the citizen presentations will be available on YouTube in about a week.  The Blog will let you know when they are posted. A story about the Town Hall Meeting in the online edition of the  Redrock News can be found by clicking here.

An online poll is  being conducted by the Redrock News and asks: “What should Yavapai College provide to Sedona?”   You may take that poll by clicking here.