I was the eldest high school graduate at the Tooele Adult High School graduation ceremony last year, and have been enrolled in Salt Lake Community College for the last couple of years.

Unfortunately, because of the (interim) commissioner for Utah Higher Education and Tooele County commissioners, the Tooele County School District Superintendent and Rep. Jim Gowans, my program is being interrupted, and I don’t know where I will be placed.

All classes at SLCC are to be discontinued, including all credit classes, concurrent enrollment classes and the Skills Center. The only educational entities that have been given permission to serve our county are Utah State University and the Salt Lake/Tooele Applied Technology College. But Utah State University extension service doesn’t offer the classes I need, and the Utah College of Applied Technologies does not have the accreditation required in my field.

The Skills Center has done nothing but good for our community for the past 25 years. It has offered highly successful programs to serve socially, economically and educationally disadvantaged students with disabilities, or anyone who wanted to gain training to help them gain a promotion, get a job or just enhance their well being.

The programs have been set up so that flexible scheduling can be accommodated. They have worked with such agencies as the Department of Workforce Services, the Division of Rehabilitation Services, LDS Employment Services, Veterans Affairs, and our own city and county governments, as well as many businesses. The Skills Center has done so much good for our county. They should be recognized for it, not set aside.

No one seems to know when this was done, or how, just that it has been done quickly and quietly. Why the big secret? Who is behind this move? Who benefits? Certainly not the citizens of Tooele County.

Our leaders are gearing up to build a new career and technology education center that we will pay for in taxes, but yet the only higher education choices we will have are what they believe will be good for us. Instead of offering any and all higher educational opportunities possible, they are cutting down our choices under the guise of “duplication of services.”

Does this mean they will be closing all but one of our golf courses in Tooele County, or all but one gas station, or all but one grocery store?

Another question I have is why aren’t our county commissioners, legislators, and other leaders up-in-arms and fighting this decision? A few years back when the president of SLCC tried to pull the Skills Center and SLCC out of Tooele, Rep. Jim Gowans, Mayor Charlie Roberts and our county commissioners came to the rescue and fought to keep these programs in Tooele. Why do they sit back now?

Rhonda Menlove, who is one of our legislators, doesn’t even live in Tooele County — but she is a vice provost at Utah State University. I imagine she had a lot to say about the decision to make USU the only accredited college in Tooele. Does that seem like conflict of interest to you?

We need to stand up and let it be known that we do not want backroom deals to decide or educational future.

Colleen Grover is a Tooele resident.