There will be three new faces on Pima Community College’s five-member Governing Board next year. The results of the election last week had already determined that two newcomers, Theresa Riel and Greg Taylor, will take over serving Districts 2 and 4 in January.
And board chair Catherine Ripley’s resignation Monday opened up another seat on the sometimes-divided board.
“I have found it more and more difficult to spread my time and efforts between home and the college, and to give my mother the care and constant love she so deserves in this, her last stages of life,” Ripley, who was elected to serve District 1 of the board in 2020, said at a work session Monday evening. “I did not see that coming.”
PCC's board chair Cat Ripley announced her resignation during a Nov. 14 governing board meeting. Video courtesy of Pima Community College.
In addition to citing urgent family matters as the reason for her resignation, Ripley also made clear her “disappointment, astonishment and shock” about two board members, Maria Garcia and Luis L. Gonzales. While Ripley and her two other outgoing colleagues Demion Clinco and Meredith Hay have generally supported Chancellor Lee Lambert, Gonzales and Garcia have joined community group People4PCC in vocalizing dissent.
Clinco lost his bid for re-election to Riel, a retired PCC faculty member, by more than 20 points. Hay did not run for re-election and Greg Taylor, a regional vice president for Arizona Complete Health, won the open seat.
One day after the election, at the board’s meeting last week, Ripley said she was resigning her post as chair, which she has held this school year. According to board bylaws, that move put Clinco (who is vice-chair) in the top spot on the board until he leaves office in January. At that point, the new board will establish a procedure for selecting a new chair.
Voters elected Ripley to serve District 1 through 2026. But now that her resignation has created a sudden vacant seat on the board, Pima County Schools Superintendent Dustin Williams’ office is moving forward with the process to appoint her replacement, per Arizona law.
This week, the superintendent will open up applications to any eligible person for approximately one month. After the application window closes, the superintendent will interview finalists before making a selection sometime in January.
