By Bear Howard
A Sedona-specific comparison of governing philosophy, revenue reality, and real-world consequences
Before we dive into the process of understanding the difference between the two types of government style Sedona could be managed under, one that is left-leaning and progressive, and the other is right-leaning and conservative, here is the Core Conclusion this study will highlight:
Sedona’s current active-government model fits its reality better than a strict small-government model. The city is a small-population, high-impact destination whose revenues are heavily shaped by visitors and whose problems are larger than its resident count. Sedona still needs scrutiny and budget discipline, but a hard right turn toward austerity or anti-City Hall politics would weaken the tools needed to manage tourism, housing, traffic, public safety, infrastructure, and livability.
Now, let’s dig in.
Number 1. Sedona is a small city with big-city impacts
A normal small city of fewer than 10,000 residents might be able to operate with a limited-government philosophy: roads, police, sewer, parks, permits, and basic administration.
Sedona cannot. Sedona must manage millions of visitors, heavy seasonal and weekend traffic, trailhead congestion, tourism-dependent business activity, short-term rental pressure, housing costs that push workers out, public safety demands, infrastructure wear, land-use conflicts, and environmental pressures.
The mistake some residents make is thinking Sedona should be governed like a quiet residential town. It is not one. Sedona is a destination city with a small resident base and a large service burden
That is why the city’s revenue system matters. Sedona’s sales and bed tax collections are not minor side revenues. They are the city’s financial engine. In March 2026, the city reported about $4.04 million in sales tax and about $1.27 million in bed tax, for a combined March total of about $5.31 million, 17% higher than March 2025.
So when people say, ‘The city is spending our money,’ the answer is: partly, but not mostly in the way they imply. Residents contribute to the city economy, but Sedona’s spending capacity is heavily supported by visitors who stay, shop, dine, tour, and use the city without living there.
Number 2. The current Sedona model: left-leaning, practical, and capacity-oriented.
Sedona’s current style of government is not radical. It is better described as capacity-oriented local progressivism.
That means the city believes local government should solve practical problems; tourism revenue should protect residents’ quality of life; public planning is necessary; housing is a legitimate city concern; traffic management requires investment; nonprofits and civic institutions are part of the public fabric; professional staff matter; and environmental stewardship is a public responsibility.
This philosophy has produced a city government that is more active than a traditional small-town government. It plans, studies, builds, funds, partners, regulates, hires professionals, applies for grants, uses consultants, manages visitor impacts, and tries to shape outcomes.
That is exactly what right-leaning critics dislike. They see the same government and call it bloated, bureaucratic, arrogant, expensive, staff-driven, anti-resident, or disconnected.
The better question is not whether the city is ‘big’ or ‘small.’ The better question is whether Sedona has the capacity to manage the real problems it faces.
Number 3. The revenue disconnect: “our money” versus visitor-generated money.
This is one of the most important political misunderstandings in Sedona.
Some residents view a large city budget as if the city were taking a direct tax from them personally. That is a standard conservative instinct: government money is taxpayer money, and taxpayer money should be guarded fiercely.
That instinct is not wrong in general. Public money should be watched. Waste is real. Staff can overreach. Consultants can become too common. Capital projects can drift. City Hall can become too comfortable with spending.
But in Sedona, the conservative instinct often misreads the source of the money. Sedona states that it relies primarily on sales and bed taxes and does not levy a city property tax. Groceries are not taxed by the city.
So the argument should be reframed: Sedona is not taking a pile of resident property-tax money and throwing it around. Sedona is using visitor-generated revenue to manage the impacts of being Sedona.
A right-leaning critic may still say, ‘Even if visitors generate the money, the city should not spend it foolishly.’ Correct. That is fair. But that is a demand for accountability, not a serious argument for crippling the city’s operating capacity.
Number 4. Home Rule is the governing pressure point
Home Rule is where philosophy becomes machinery.
Arizona’s state-imposed expenditure limitation is based on an outdated 1980 formula, adjusted for population and inflation. Sedona’s Home Rule option allows voters to let the city make budget decisions locally rather than be bound by the state formula.
The city states that Home Rule does not directly raise or lower taxes. This is crucial. Home Rule is not a tax increase. It is a spending authority. It determines whether Sedona can spend the revenue it already collects.
If Home Rule passes, Sedona continues setting its budget locally, considering financial resources and community needs. If Home Rule fails, the city says it would operate under the state-imposed expenditure limit and, based on FY2026 figures, the annual budget would be reduced by 70%, creating major reductions in services; revenue would still be collected but could not be spent on city services and community needs.
Without Home Rule, Sedona could still receive the money but be blocked from spending millions of dollars of it. That is not fiscal conservatism. That is fiscal handcuffing.
A practical conservative should support Home Rule because it is local control. An anti-government faction may oppose Home Rule because it wants the state formula to force cuts it could not win honestly through normal budget debate. That is the difference between conservatism and sabotage.
Number 5. What an active/progressive Sedona looks like
A left-leaning or progressive Sedona council would likely continue the city’s current pattern of active governance.
Budget:
The council would treat the budget as a tool for protecting the town. It would be spent on police, streets, parks, wastewater, drainage, transit, housing work, city staff, public engagement, infrastructure, planning, sustainability, tourism management, and nonprofit partnerships.
Housing:
The council would treat housing as a public problem, not just a private-market issue. Sedona already acknowledges short-term rentals as a major housing pressure. The city’s Rent Local Program page states that more than 18% of Sedona’s housing inventory has been converted into short-term rentals, making it harder for local employees to find affordable housing
A progressive council would likely support workforce housing, incentives to convert short-term rentals to long-term use, mixed-income housing, public-private partnerships, housing on appropriate city-owned land, higher density in targeted areas, adaptive reuse, zoning reforms, and long-term restrictions on short-term rental conversions where legally possi
Tourism: The council would not be anti-tourism. It would be anti-tourism-dominance. Tourism funds the city, but tourism must be managed so it does not consume the city.
Western Gateway / Cultural Park:
A progressive council would likely view Western Gateway as a major public asset that should serve multiple needs: park space, cultural uses, recreation, housing, possible reuse of an amphitheater, public amenities, trails, and resident-serving facilities.
Nonprofits and community life:
A progressive council would see nonprofits, arts, libraries, senior services, meals programs, festivals, and cultural organizations as part of the public fabric
Number 6. What a right-leaning Sedona looks like.
A right-leaning Sedona council would probably begin with suspicion: suspicion of spending, staff, consultants, housing programs, tourism management, regional planning, nonprofit funding, and city-led change.
It would present itself as resident-first, taxpayer-first, property-rights-first, and common-sense. The practical result would be a city government that begins to pull back.
Budget:
A right-leaning council would likely ask why Sedona is spending this much, why it has this many staff positions, why consultants are involved, why nonprofits are funded, why the city is involved in housing, and why it is spending money on transit or planning. It would likely push to cut, delay, audit, freeze, reorganize, or cancel programs.
Housing:
A right-leaning council would likely say it cares about housing but opposes most tools that actually produce attainable housing: apartments, density, city land for housing, subsidies, incentives, zoning changes, public-private projects, workforce housing near existing neighborhoods, and Western Gateway housing.
Tourism:
A right-leaning council could split. Some conservatives would defend tourism businesses and oppose regulation. Others would attack city tourism spending and say Sedona should stop promoting itself. Either way, tourism management could become reactive instead of strategic.
Western Gateway:
A right-leaning council would likely turn Western Gateway into a symbol of government overreach. It would probably oppose housing there, oppose dense uses, question master planning, question costs, and push for park, open space, or cultural use only.
Nonprofits and civic institutions:
A right-leaning council would likely reduce city support for nonprofits and arts/cultural organizations, arguing that worthy causes should be funded privately rather than through city government.
Staff and city management:
A right-leaning council would likely challenge staff more aggressively. That can produce accountability, but it becomes destructive when every staff recommendation is treated as suspicious, and every city project is treated as proof of arrogance.
Number 7. The real-world consequences of a shift to the right
If Sedona shifts from its current active, left-leaning operating model to a right-leaning model, the change would not be abstract. Residents would feel it.
Immediate consequences would likely include more budget fights, more attacks on city staff, more demands for audits and cuts, more delays in capital projects, more skepticism toward planning, more pressure to reduce consultant costs, more conflict over Western Gateway, and more questioning of nonprofit support.
Some residents would cheer this. They would feel that City Hall is finally being challenged. But disruption is not the same as reform.
Medium-term consequences could include slower or stalled housing efforts, reduced transit and traffic management programs, smaller nonprofit funding, weaker long-range planning, staff caution or departures, delayed public projects, a politically frozen Western Gateway, and a more reactive city government.
A right-leaning council would not solve Sedona’s problems. It would mostly reduce the city’s ability to respond to them.
Long term, Sedona could become wealthier, older, less economically diverse, harder for workers and families to live in, more dependent on commuters, more hostile to housing, more reactive to traffic, more skeptical of public investment, and less able to use visitor-generated money for resident benefit.
Number 8. The “their money” problem
The conservative emotional frame is powerful: ‘The city is spending our money.’
The better Sedona-specific response is: ‘The city is spending public money, yes. But much of that money is generated by the visitor economy, and the purpose of spending it is to protect residents from the impacts of that same visitor economy.’
Sedona residents live with the traffic, noise, congestion, housing pressure, trail crowding, emergency-service demand, infrastructure wear, and land-use pressure created by being a destination. If the city does not use visitor-generated funds to manage those impacts, residents bear the burden without the benefit.
That is why the current model makes sense. It says: let visitors help pay for the services and improvements needed because of visitation.
A hard-right model risks saying: collect the money, complain about the spending, cut the tools, and leave the impacts. That is not fiscal responsibility. That is governing backward.
Number 9. The best argument for each side
Best argument for the current left-leaning model: Sedona is too complex and too heavily dependent on tourism to govern passively. The city needs local control, professional staff, planning, infrastructure, housing tools, traffic management, public safety, nonprofit partnerships, and long-term investment. Since visitors generate much of the revenue and create many of the impacts, using that money to protect the residents’ quality of life is reasonable and responsible.
Best argument for the right-leaning model: Sedona’s active government can become too comfortable spending money, hiring consultants, expanding programs, and trusting staff-driven plans. The city should be forced to justify spending more clearly, prioritize essentials, reduce waste, respect property rights, and stop assuming every problem requires a city program.
That argument has merit. But it only has merit if it leads to better discipline, not ideological demolition.
Number 10. Bottom line
The model that fits Sedona’s reality is not small-government conservatism.
Sedona is not simply a small town. It is a high-impact destination city with a small resident base, heavy visitor use, major housing distortion, significant infrastructure needs, and a revenue system built mainly on sales and bed taxes rather than a city property tax.
The current left-leaning, active-government model fits that reality because it uses visitor-generated revenue to manage visitor-created impacts and protect resident livability.
The right-leaning model fits the emotions of residents who feel alienated from City Hall, dislike spending, distrust staff, oppose density, or believe government has become too ambitious. But it does not fit the actual operating demands of Sedona unless it remains practical and pro-Home Rule
The danger is not conservatism itself. A practical conservative voice can improve Sedona by demanding accountability, clearer priorities, better budget discipline, and stronger oversight. The danger is an anti-government turn that confuses cutting with fixing.
Sedona does not need a government that spends blindly. But it absolutely needs a government with sufficient authority, funding, staff, and public confidence to manage a city whose problems are far larger than its population.
Sharpest summary:
Sedona’s current model says visitors help fund the city, so use that money to protect residents and manage the impacts of being Sedona. The right-leaning challenge says City Hall spends too much, does too much, and should be pulled back toward basics.
The voter question is: Do you want Sedona to keep using local government as a tool to manage its future, or do you want to reduce that tool at the very moment the pressures on the city are growing?
Bear Howard’s conclusion:
Whether you like it or not. Sedona is best served by a left-leaning, more progressive government style, reflected in the City Council’s personality and its philosophy of operation. That, to me, is self-evident from the evidence provided here and from the common-sense overview of the Sedona we see in 2026.
As a result, everyone should vote for the Home Rule, Proposition 400. Vote against Proposition 403, an initiative that, at its core, is anti-housing but in many ways anti-government. And reflects a right-thinking model. It’s not good for Sedona.
And you should vote for three specific candidates for city council: Brian Fultz for Mayor, Melissa Dunn, and Tony Hauserman for City Council.
The third City Council seat will be filled by someone more right-leaning and conservative. I do not recommend voting for a third person at this time. Hopefully, there will be a runoff in November between two of those three people, and we can study the choices then.
My voting recommendations:
Vote Yes on Home Rule, Proposition 400
Vote No on Proposition 403, the anti-housing initiative
Vote Brian Fultz for Mayor
Vote Melissa Dunn, incumbent, for City Council
Vote Tony Hauserman for City Council
And do not pick a third candidate for the city council in the primary election on July 21, 2026.
We can debate the best choice in the general election in November of this year.
Source notes
City of Sedona tax code/city tax overview: no city property tax; sales and bed tax information; groceries not taxed. https://www.sedonaaz.gov/your-government/departments-and-programs/finance-new-home/city-tax-code
City of Sedona March 2026 sales and bed tax report.
https://www.sedonaaz.gov/Home/Components/News/News/6826/1198
City of Sedona Home Rule information: alternative expenditure limitation, state formula, local budget authority, and projected FY2026 impact if Home Rule fails.
https://www.sedonaaz.gov/your-government/departments/city-clerk/elections-information/home-rule
City of Sedona Rent Local Program: short-term rentals and housing inventory pressure.
https://www.sedonaaz.gov/your-government/departments-and-programs/community-development/housing/owners/rent-local-program
Note: This document is an analytical comparison, not an official city document. It uses city-published figures and descriptions where factual claims about taxes, Home Rule, and short-term rentals are made.