MHCC Board members
Mt. Hood Community College Board Member James Zordich (left), Board Chair Susie Jones (center) and MHCC President Debra Derr listen to Board Member George "Sonny" Yellott talk about "illegal immigration" on Wednesday, July 13, 2016.
(Andrew Theen/The Oregonian)
Several Mt. Hood Community College board members asks George "Sonny" Yellott to resign Tuesday night following offensive comments made at public meetings and a Facebook post shared earlier this month that featured President Obama in a noose.
Michael Calcagno, another elected Mt. Hood Community College board member, said multiple people asked Yellott to resign at a closed door executive session meeting Tuesday.
But Yellott, who is also a Republican candidate for Oregon House of Representatives District 48, is apparently digging in his heels.
"He refused," Calcagno said in an email.
MHCC is the fourth-largest community college in Oregon.
Yellott, 76, told KGW and KPTV-TV that he didn't know how the Obama lynching meme showed up on his Facebook page and that he'd done nothing wrong.
George "Sonny" Yellott was elected to the Mt. Hood Community College board in 2013 for a four-year term.
Oregon House Republicans have asked Yellott to resign from the Legislative race and called the Facebook post "absolutely abhorrent."
Last week, Yellott ranted about illegal immigrants during a routine board meeting discussion, and also said that a policy that is friendly to breast-feeding mothers discriminated against men.
Calcagno told KPTV that Yellott, "has a history of making comments that are not based in fact, that incite violence, and that are racist, sexist and xenophobic."
There's not much MHCC can do if Yellott declined to step down. He was elected in 2013 and is serving a four-year term.
"The Mt. Hood Community College Board of Education responded quickly and appropriately to address the complaint against one of our board members," board chair Susie Jones told The Oregonian/OregonLive by email. "As an elected governing body, the board does not have the ability to remove one if its members. That authority lies solely with the voters."
In an email, Calcagno said he asked for another special board meeting sometime "within a week" that will be open to the public.
The board could vote to publicly reprimand Yellott at that meeting.
-- Andrew Theen
atheen@oregonian.com
503-294-4026
@andrewtheen