Words-smithing is a challenge and  to its credit the Board completed its review and edits of the Policy Manual  successfully; discussion and 4-1 vote against inserting word  “unfair” into presidential limitations declaration exemplifies difficulty of editing content of such a document

All of the members of the Yavapai Community College District Governing Board spent two and one-half days struggling with editing a new Governing Board Policy Manual at the Prescott Valley Campus September 7-9.  There were no absences despite the amount of time the all-volunteer Board (no one gets paid) devoted to the effort.

Third District Representative Paul Chevalier appeared to have been the most thoroughly prepared for the Workshop as he came armed with numerous questions, concerns, and suggestions.  In terms of success, Mr. Chevalier appeared successful about 25% of the time in making his suggested changes.

The first six minutes of the first day’s discussion focusing on the manual exemplifies the struggle. The issue was a simple one, or at least it appeared so.  The draft manual given to the Board  read that “the College President shall not allow conditions that are unlawful, unsafe, or disrespectful.”  Mr. Chevalier suggested that the word “unfair” be inserted into the conditions the president should not allow.

Chair Deb McCasland, and representative s Ray Sigafoos and Mitch Padilla argued that “unfair” was too subjective of a term to be included.  President Rhine agreed with them.  

Mr. Chevalier argued that the word had appeared in previous manuals and should be included.  He contended the word had a meaning different than “unlawful, unethical, unsafe, or disrespectful.”  He also contended that defining the meaning of “unfair” was no harder that defining “unethical.” 

In the end, the vote was 4-1 to not include the word “unfair” in this sentence of the Manual.  You may listen their entire six-minute debate on this issue below.  (Sorry about sound quality.)