Reduction of Kitchens at Sedona Center new Culinary School Challenged before Sedona City Council
Yavapai Community College has been telling Sedona residents that it is going to invest around $5.8 million in renovating the Sedona Center. As a part of that renovation, it will install a Culinary school. However, as it begins to develop its plan, the first step was to reduce the number of kitchens needed from four to two. According to the College, two will do the work of four.
Mr. Paul Chevalier, the co-chair of the now dissolved Verde Valley Board Advisory Committee, alerted the Sedona Mayor and Council to the decision by the College to reduce the teaching kitchens from four to two at the Sedona City Council meeting September 27, 2016. He said that he was a party to the various early meetings with the College and local culinary experts about the culinary school. He said that at the time everyone talked about having “four separate kitchens; one each for commercial, teaching, pastry, and chocolate.” In early September he was notified via email of the newest configuration. To his surprise, the diagram sent to him “had only two kitchens.”
According to Mr. Chevalier, there is not sufficient room in the existing renovated Center for culinary, the Osher Life Long Institute, and general education classes. “Everything got promised,” he told the Mayor and Council. Chevalier argued that with the money now allotted to renovate the Center, it would be better spent on constructing a separate 10,000 square foot building to house the culinary program.
He said that the final decision on the Culinary school has been delegated to the College President, Penelope Wills. “She is the person [the Mayor and Council] must talk to,” said Mr. Chevalier. His short speech to the Mayor and Council can be viewed by clicking here.