Board member asked to resign over summer break

Did your summer not quite go as planned? You’re not the only one.

George “Sonny” Yellott, Mt. Hood Community College District board member and Republican candidate for House District 48 in the Oregon Legislature, is in that boat after some of his statements made news repeatedly during the Summer Term.

First, Yellott made disparaging remarks during the July 13 board meeting, where he referenced “illegal immigrants” as the reason MHCC’s recent bond measure failed to pass and for the college’s budget challenges, saying, “Illegal immigration is driving everything out of sight. The the only reason we’re all in this is because of all of these people that are coming in here are illegal.”

Days later, he was found to have posted offensive messages on his personal Facebook account, including a depiction of President Barack Obama being lynched.

His summer controversy earned him substantial local news coverage across Portland and even garnered some national attention, thanks to political websites like rawstory.com.

For his part, Yellott claims he doesn’t know how the image of our president made it on to his Facebook account. Pleading ignorance has not helped his case, to this point.  His is own political party (GOP) has denied any affiliation with Yellott and has gone so far as announcing he should withdraw from the Oregon legislative race.

Preston Mann, Oregon House Republican spokesman, told The Oregonian “George Yellott’s Facebook post is absolutely abhorrent… He should immediately remove the post, withdraw from running for office, and apologize to Oregonians for posting something so blatantly offensive and disgusting.”

When KOIN-6 TV reporter Lisa Balick asked Yellott if he would (quit the MHCC board, his answer was quite simple. “Will I resign? No! I haven’t done anything wrong…”

For its part, the MHCC board of directors called an executive session on July 19 to discuss Yellott. While the Facebook posts were mentioned, the meeting was officially set to address a formal complaint made against him for his July 13 comments.

Board colleague Michael Calcagno told The Oregonian that during the executive session, both he and other members of the board asked Yellott to resign from the board. Yellott again refused, later telling KOIN-6 the board is being “pretty one-sided about it.”

The board met again July 29, and with Yellott the lone “no” vote, censured him for his comments – the most it can do, by law.

The censure declaration said Yellott’s “repeatedly reprehensible comments reflect upon the College in Mr. Yellott’s public role as a MHCC District Board member, which egregiously differs from board policy,” the Gresham Outlook newspaper reported.

“Therefore, the MHCC District Board publicly expresses its abhorrence of ongoing comments and formally issues an official reprimand in the form of public censure,” the reprimand said.

Judging by his social media accounts, Yellott has no plans to remove himself from controversy any time soon either. His Facebook page is full of posts that could be construed as racist, sexist, or homophobic.

The Obama-hanging meme has been removed from the page, but there are plenty of other posts including one that says all transgender people have a “psychological disorder” and another claiming that African-American slaves were treated better than Irish immigrants in early America.

Yellott’s Twitter feed is no different. It’s chock full of inaccurate information about Planned Parenthood and abortion, and includes a post from earlier this year that accuses the Black Lives Matter movement of being “devoted to eliminating all human use of land.”

Regardless of Yellott’s statements or the public’s opinion regarding those statements, Yellott will likely serve on the MHCC board for the remainder of his first, four-year term, which runs through June 2017.

Voters could formally recall him as an elected official, but that would require a petition with 2,300 valid signatures from MHCC District voters.

Yellott is up for re-election to the MHCC board in May 2017 – as are Susie Jones and Jim Zordich, the board chair and vice chair.

He ran unopposed in 2013.