Letter to The Editor: What’s the Correct Answer?

By Henry Twombly, Sedona Resident
(July 5, 2017)

In the SRRN article “SFD tentatively OKs its budget” (5/24/17), we are told that the budget was increased by 6.8 percent, a $1.1 million, to $16,994,094. “Included in that are a few new non-firefighter positions, fleet maintenance, an increase in training, a 3 percent (bold mine) cost of living bump and bond-related expenditures.”

Then in a more recent SRRN article “$17.9M bond passes amid fiery talk” (6/24/17), Chief Kazian defended various SFD positions in a Power Point presentation. One of the bulleted points was “Staff raises this year will be 0.3 percent and not 3 percent” (bold mine).

So what are we the public to believe? Either the SRRN was inaccurate in its reporting, or the SFD was back-peddling and/or political spinning. In any case it is very confusing for us SFD constituents to discern fact from fiction. Obviously someone is wrong. So I appeal to the SRRN and the SFD to explain this discrepancy and give us the correct answer.