Has revised and narrowed the Public Records request he initially sent to Yavapai Community College asking for more data
The saga of Yavapai Community College Third District Governing Board representative Paul Chevalier’s quest to obtain data supporting the College’s administrators decision to use $10 million to construct a commercial brewery/distiller somewhere in the Sedona/Verde Valley area continues. Recall that the Administration, with support from the Governing Board Chair, refused Mr. Chevalier’s request for more information following the May meeting where the Board 4-1 (Chevalier dissented) approved the concept.
Third District Yavapai Community College Representative to the Governing Board Mr. Paul Chevalier
Because he had run up against a solid wall when he sought more information following the May meeting, Mr. Chevalier filed a formal request for public documents as allowed by Arizona law with the Community College. In response the College said it would cost him $2,500 to obtain the information and the information could not be provided for at least 90 days.
The College suggested he might reconsider his request. In a recent interview with the Blog, Mr. Chevalier said that he was revising and rewriting the request to make it much narrower. His apparent hope is that the public documents with data can be provided at much lower cost. As of the posting of this Blog story, Mr. Chevalier had not yet received a response from the Community College.
Recall that Chevalier is the elected representative to the College Governing Board from the Third District, which covers Sedona and a large portion of the Verde Valley. There are several major concerns associated with the decision by the Governing Board to approve this expenditure. As noted in the September 3 Blog post, Chevalier and others have received no hard data showing an actual need for such a facility. He and others have also not received hard data showing the potential number of graduates from such a program, the number who might be employed in the brewing industry after receiving a certificate or degree, or the estimated starting salaries of students with a certificate.
As also noted in the September 3 Blog story on Mr. Chevalier’s initial request, the Governing Board has not debated or even discussed the pros and cons of using $10 million or more for a commercial brewery project versus using the funds for expanding the small Skills Trade Center on the Verde Valley Campus with a goal of providing a wide variety of high-tech training opportunities to a large number of east County residents. Many of those graduates may enter the workforce following a certificate with a large starting salary.
From the Blog’s perspective, Chevalier’s gallant effort to obtain information via a public records request should not be necessary. It is hard to understand why a publicly taxpayer supported institution is providing such scarce information to the public and the public’s elected officials about spending $10 million or more in taxpayer money.