Letter to The Editor: SFD Governing Board votes to hire public relations firm

By Dwight Kadar, Sedona Resident
(May 21, 2018)

At its regularly scheduled monthly meeting in May, the Sedona Fire District Governing Board voted unanimously to hire a public relations firm.

They agreed to spend $2,500 a month, or $30,000 a year, to employ David Leibowitz, out of Phoenix, for “community awareness and public relations needs.”

This was the job retired Fire Marshall Gary Johnson did very effectively for years as SFD’s Public Information Officer at no additional cost to the taxpayers.

Chief Kris Kazian explained that current Fire Marshall Jon Davis and staff should “focus on other duties” and they needed to hire someone new “in communicating who SFD is, what the organization does and how it helps residents. In an effort to meet the goal to educate the community on what SFD does as well as promote safety in the community.”

Leibowitz stated “that SFD could be better at explaining in an aggressive way what the public is getting in return for a $15,000,000 annual budget.”

So Chief Kazian, never at a loss for words, and his entire Executive Management and Command Staff can’t explain what we’re getting for all our tax dollars? We have to hire a PR guy out of Phoenix to “educate” us?

You would think, after the recent defeat of SFD’s bloated bond proposal, the Governing Board would have gotten the message:  The taxpayers have had it. We don’t need additional justification on how SFD spends all our dollars, we want strategies to save money and reduce costs.

In November, three of the five seats on the Governing Board are up for election. As taxpayers, that will be our opportunity to finally elect some new members who will prioritize these goals. And, yes, this can be done while still maintaining SFD’s high level of service that we all expect and deserve.