By Shaeri Richards
I’m writing in an effort to bring clarity to the issue of Home Rule which is on the ballot here in Sedona on August 2, along with the position of mayor and three city council seats.
This is my second time writing about Home Rule.
Last time it was on the ballot back in 2018, I made a Facebook post suggesting that Home Rule was important to pass with a YES vote if we wanted to support our city’s non-profits like the Library, Sedona Recycles and the Humane Society. I got a lot of push back from that post, some of it pretty aggressive. While pondering how to reply, I had to admit I really didn’t know that much about it. I used to be a reporter back in the day, so I decided to go out, do some investigating and do my best to really understand the issue.
The result was an article I wrote for Sedona.biz called “A Crash Course in Sedona Civics: Why I Decided to Vote YES on Home Rule.” It’s still available to read, and a lot of the information still holds true, so if you are interested, here it is.
https://sedona.biz/a-crash-course-in-sedona-civics-why-i-decided-to-vote-yes-on-home-rule/
No one asked me to write that article. No one paid me. I was not working for or with anyone.
I have been a resident of Sedona for 30 years and I’ve always believed in the peace, beauty and serenity of my home town. Four years ago, there was just so much division, anger and unclarity playing out on social media from this Home Rule thing, that I simply felt compelled to find out what was going on. After I wrote article, the organization in favor of Home Rule asked me if they could create a mailing and send my article to every household in Sedona. I told them that as long as they printed it exactly as I wrote it, I would be fine with that. Other than saying “yes,” I had nothing more to do with the mailing.
Home Rule did pass in that election with about 67% of the vote. Now, four years later, it’s up for a vote again, and once again there is an effort under way encouraging voters to turn down Home Rule.
Since then, I’ve spent even more time looking into Home Rule. After the last election the City of Sedona convened a Citizen’s Committee to research and explore whether Home Rule actually is the appropriate method for developing Sedona’s budget. I applied for and was accepted to that committee. We spent hours looking into the issue, talking about our city’s needs, and exploring what other cities are doing and why. The committee was made up of individuals who had been both for and against Home Rule in the 2018 election. After all the discussion, we came together and voted strongly in favor of recommending Home Rule to the city council as the preferred expenditure limitation for our city’s budget.
If you like digging into the weeds on things, you can find that report at the bottom of the city’s information page on Home Rule by clicking the link below.
https://www.sedonaaz.gov/your-government/departments/city-clerk/elections-information/home-rule
I still intend to vote YES on home rule in this election cycle, and in the course of this article I will share how I came to that conclusion once again.
What is home rule and why should you care?
Back in 1980 Arizona voters approved a constitutional amendment designed to keep cities and towns from overspending. With it came a formula to determine just how much each city and town could spend. That amount was designed to increase over time as population and inflation grew. This is called the STATE imposed expenditure limitation.
Sedona was given such a number back 1988 when the city was first incorporated. Because our city has not grown much over the years, (in fact last year our population shrank) the amount that the city can spend under the state-imposed limit is pretty small, a fraction of what the city has budgeted for projects and services. The city has the money, but under this limitation would not be able to spend it.
The state (in its wisdom) recognized that this form of accounting may not work for every city and town, so they also created the ALTERNATIVE expenditure Limitation which is known as Home Rule.
Home Rule allows Arizona’s cities to develop their budgets based on the amount of money they actually bring in. All cities and towns in Arizona must have a balanced budget. Sedona included. The city can’t spend more than it brings in. Home Rule allows the city to budget and spend what it makes. Sedona does not have money issues. The city has PLENTY of money. We have LOTS of other issues, but money is not one of them.
Now, to make things more complicated, there’s another possible way to deal with city spending in Arizona. It’s called a Permanent Base Adjustment, or a PBA. In this scenario, the city looks for a number that’s large enough to handle all of the needs of the city and they present that number to the voters. If the voters approve the PBA, it adjusts or raises the base of the state-imposed expenditure limitation once again allowing the city to spend the money in its budget.
(This was the issue in the election four years ago, so if you want to dive deeper check out my previous article which is linked above.)
But wait…there’s more!
Just in case voters do turn down Home Rule, the state offers a provision called a one-time override. This over-ride allows the city ask the voters for a specific amount of extra money that they can spend for determined purposes. It requires a special election that would cost somewhere between 25 and 30 thousand dollars and it can only happen on the third Thursday in May or during another regularly scheduled election.
This last provision is important. It is at the heart of the current argument encouraging voters to turn down Home Rule. I’ll get to that later.
The Arguments Against Home Rule
I like to be fair. It’s part of my nature; it’s part of seeking the truth. In that light I have spent a lot of time looking into the arguments against home rule in this election cycle.
The group that is most vocally opposing Home Rule on social media seems to be related to a website which can be found at https://homerulesedona.com/
They are also holding a number of workshops about Home Rule at the Ultimate Light Mission.
I watched their “Home Rule VS Baseline” video several times, I watched a 45-minute video interview with them explaining their ideas on YouTube, I went to their Home Rule presentation on Saturday July 8th and I stayed an hour afterwards and continued to ask questions to gain more understanding about their viewpoints.
As I understand it, this group believes that the Sedona city government can’t be trusted and that we need to vote down Home Rule in order to limit the spending of the city.
If Home Rule is voted down, the city’s spending will have to be drastically reduced. Remember, this is not because the city doesn’t have the money, but because the state expenditure limit won’t let the city spend the money. The money doesn’t go away. It’s still in the bank, but the city can’t spend it
The anti-home rule group believes this can be remedied with a one-time budget override. They feel that after voters turn down home rule, the city can then develop an override proposal, present it to the people, and the people can have a voice in approving the budget.
Here’s where I have a problem with their thinking. Why force the city to have a limited budget and then force a one-time override election annually in order to give the people a voice in the budget process when they ALREADY have a voice in the process.
From everything that I have studied about the way the city operates, Sedona residents have every opportunity to get involved in approving the budget if that’s what they want to do. The City of Sedona is incredibly transparent. Anyone who’s interested in the budget can download it and study it. They can go to the appropriate city council meetings and listen to the discussion of the budget. Every citizen has the opportunity to speak about the parts they disagree with.
If they can’t make it to the council meeting, every meeting is recorded and stored on line. They can be accessed at any time by anyone who wants to take the time to look at them. You can also download the meeting agendas and supporting documents.
If you are interested, click the link below.
If you are interested in the budget itself, you can download it here.
In addition, Sedona has a citizen engagement plan. You can sign up to be on all kinds of committees and work groups discussing all kinds of issues. If you are truly a budget person, you can even sign up to be on the Citizen’s budget work group where they go through the budget with a fine tooth come.
If you want to know more, click the link below.
https://www.sedonaaz.gov/your-government/departments/city-manager/citizen-engagement
It is true, that this particular work group didn’t happen for last year’s budget. I asked Councilwoman Holli Ploog about it. She herself spent five years on budget work group before deciding to run for council. Councilwoman Ploog told me that she too was upset about the finance department’s inability to put a work group together last year. Apparently, it had to do with a lot of turnover in the finance department, and an inability to put more staff together due to Covid, lack of housing and other issues. She does report that the department is back on track and there will be a budget work group again this year, just in case you are interested.
If you want to have a voice in the budget process there is plenty of opportunity.
What happens if residents vote down Home Rule?
If residents vote down home rule the city budget will be drastically cut. It will have to be. Again, not because the city doesn’t have the money, but because without Home Rule, the city will fall under the state-imposed expenditure limit and won’t be able to spend the money.
I got involved in the Home Rule issue four years ago out of concern for our cities non-profits like the Sedona Library, Sedona Recycles, Verde Valley Caregivers, The Humane Society, The Sedona Community Center and the list goes on.
If Home Rule fails, Sedona city manager Karen Osburn tells me that the grant funding for all the city’s non-profits will be cut. She said, “I don’t see a scenario with as little funding as would be available, that the city could continue to fund any of the non-profits. It isn’t a bluff or a scare tactic. It is simply the reality of having such little money available to spend, and other things that the city is either mandated to do, or what would be higher priorities for those limited dollars. Utlimately those decisions would be made by the city council.”
The anti-Home Rule group says on their printed information that the Sedona Library and Sedona Recycles will be safe with or without Home Rule. So, I reached out to those two organizations and asked the question, “Will your ability to operate be hampered should you lose the grant funding that you now receive from the City of Sedona?”
Library director Judy Poe answered like this:
“The City of Sedona funding currently makes up approximately 1/3 of our yearly operating budget. If we lose this funding, our ability to provide the services, materials, and programming we currently provide will also be reduced by approximately the same amount–one third. The result would, most likely, surface as reduced service hours, reduced staffing, and both reduced materials and programs. It would also limit our ability to offer our meeting spaces that many Sedona organizations use for their various trainings, events, and meetings.”
Sedona Recycles Board president Doug Copp also said his organization would be hurt by the loss of city funds.
“Depending on the amount of fee reduction, our service would decrease or could go away entirely. Sedona Recycles is a 501c3 non-profit company, and just like a for profit company, we must generate enough income to cover our expenses. Our income comes from selling the materials we collect, hauling (service) fees from municipalities and businesses, donations, memberships, fundraising and grants.
Treasurer Ron Mohney added that if the city service fee were eliminated, they could not stay in business unless donations increased 500% annually.
Although I didn’t have the chance to reach out to the other non-profits, I imagine most of them are concerned about losing their city funding.
So, what about the one-time override? Can’t that solve the problem?
This is the solution proposed by the anti-home rule group, that we use a one-time override as an annual expenditure limitation rather than Home Rule. Theoretically, there can be a one-time override proposal drafted and presented to the residents for a vote should Home Rule fail.
I asked the city manager about that as well, here’s her response.
“First, going to the voters in May of each year to ask for approval for a budget that would start July 1 is impossible if the community wants the city to continue providing services and capital improvement projects without interruption from year to year. The more likely scenario is that if home rule failed, we would immediately start the wheels in motion to ramp down all of our operations to the state expenditure level, with the possible exception of doing a one-time override in May of 2023 only for the purpose of finishing the large capital projects in process now, but my recommendation to council would be to honor what the community has asked for, which is the state imposed spending limit and begin to put the plans in motion to spend the next 9 months ramping down virtually everything we do.”
Voting down Home Rule is an option for severely limiting spending by the city of Sedona, and if that’s what residents want, they are free to do it. But the idea of doing it and then forcing a one-time override so that residents can have more power in the budgeting process doesn’t make sense to me.
Now comes the big question. What is the city government doing, and do we like it?
Toward the beginning of each year, the mayor and city council get together over a series of days to discuss council priorities, and come up with a city council priority list. The meetings are open to the public and result in a document that is downloadable on the city’s website.
If you are interested you can download your copy from this page:
https://www.sedonaaz.gov/your-government/projects-plans-citywide/city-council-priorities
Earlier I said that Sedona has issues, and boy do we. Many of them related to over tourism. On busy weekends we have traffic backed up for miles. We have an excess of ATV’s roaming our streets and disturbing the forest. We have a lack of affordable housing due to a state law passed in 2016 which stops cities from being able regulate short term rentals. This is why our city’s population actually shrunk below 10,000 in the 2020 census. Many of our city’s homes that were formerly rented to locals were sold and turned into Airbnb’s forcing our locals to move away.
So, is the city actually trying to do something to solve these issues? I’ve posted the table of contents from the council priorities list and I like what I see. Traffic improvements; check! OHV use; check! Affordable housing, check! They are also looking to update the emergency operations plan, develop economic diversity in Sedona, improve citizen communication, and explore environmental sustainability opportunities. I’m on board with these priorities.
It’s debatable whether you like the method that the councilors are employing in each of these areas, but you can read about it, you can call or write the mayor and councilors, or you can show up at a city council meeting or join a work group and be part of it.
What about the Chamber of Commerce?
Number two on that list of council priorities is Monitor Chamber of Commerce Tourism and Marketing. One thing I’ve learned from the Home Rule controversy these past few years, a LOT of residents are angry at the Sedona Chamber of Commerce. As we have watched tourism grow and get out of control in our town, the chamber has taken the blame.
I’ve been doing a lot of research lately trying to really understand what happened. First let’s take a moment and think about the chamber. Who are they? When you think about it, the chamber is made up of us, the residents of Sedona. Chamber members include doctors and dentists, massage therapists and healers, restaurant and shop owners, architects and janitorial services, ministers, insurance owners, spas and salons and the list goes on. Most of us know and patronize many of the businesses and services of chamber members. They are our friends; they are our neighbors. I personally have never been a chamber member, but I know many who are. In a town of just under 10,000 people we are going to know each other. We are a community.
The chamber has been around a long time. It was founded somewhere in 1949, way before the city was incorporated in 1988. About 20 years ago it expanded from just the Chamber of Commerce, to the Sedona Chamber of Commerce and Tourism Bureau, and it began developing an arm which is known as a destination marketing organization or DMO.
When I first moved here 30 years ago, Sedona was a lovely, sleepy town with one stop light, one funky movie theater and lots of opportunity to skinny dip in Oak Creek without seeing a soul. At that time, we had what was called “tourist season.” Things got busy in the spring and the fall, businesses fattened up their savings accounts and put money away for the leaner months of summer and winter. Businesses like restaurants depended on the locals coming out during those months in order to survive.
Then in 2007 to 2009 our country went through what we call the “Great Recession” brought on by the housing crisis and the near collapse of our country’s financial institutions. Things looked bleak in the country and Sedona was no exception. Money was tight, people weren’t traveling as much and being a tourist-based economy local businesses were concerned. So, the chamber started marketing to bring in more people.
In 2013, something happened that has been quite controversial ever since. It has to do with the city’s bed tax and I’m going to do my best to explain it. Hopefully I get it right. When the city incorporated in 1988, a 3% bed tax was part of the city’s original funding resources. Like I said earlier, the city does not have a property tax, and we as residents don’t pay the bed tax. That’s only paid by visitors who stay in a hotel or vacation rental. So, visitors who come to town would pay the 3% and the city could spend the money as it saw fit.
In 2013, the chamber, along with the city’s lodging council proposed that .5% be added to the bed tax. Remember, residents don’t pay this tax, only tourists do. At that time, we were still coming out of the recession, the future was unknown and the city and the chamber felt responsible to make sure that businesses and the town survived. An agreement was made that 55% of the bed tax money would be utilized by the chamber in order to continue to promote the city as well as to fund the visitors center and other tourism related expenses.
Then everything exploded, some of it was the chamber’s marketing, some of it was social media, some of it was just that the cat simply got out of the bag and Sedona was DISCOVERED.
The tourist spigot got turned on and we as a community have been trying to turn off, or at least turn it down ever since.
After the last Home Rule election in 2018, the city revised its way of funding the chamber, the 55% split of bed tax money no longer exists and the city hires the Destination Marketing arm of the chamber to do specific services for the city, including helping to manage our tourist situation.
The city asked the chamber to cut all funding for destination marketing from it’s budget some two years ago, and the chamber has not been advertising in that way ever since. At its last meeting, on June 29th there was even discussion of asking the chamber to split off its Destination Marketing Organization from the chamber proper so that the structure of how the city does it’s contracting with the chamber can be more clear in the future.
If you are a weeds kind of person and you’d like to listen to that whole council meeting, you can find it here:
https://sedonaaz.swagit.com/play/06302022-516
Meantime all of that bed tax money has made the City of Sedona very wealthy. I find this Arizona Family 3 TV story explains the whole situation very well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KZiCCHgJv4
So does the city deserve our trust?
When it comes to Home Rule, this to me is the question at the core of the debate. We as a city have problems that need to be solved. Most of these problems require the expenditure of money.
The city has plenty of money, both in its budget to be spent and even in the cash reserves after the budget funds have been spent. Without Home Rule, the city will not be able to spend the money it has.
When I look at the council priorities, they tell me that the council is moving forward on the issues that concern me as a resident. They are trying to solve traffic problems. They are looking at the issue of short-term rentals. They are trying to get the forest service to help manage and limit the explosion of ATV’s. They are managing the funds they give the chamber, and insuring that the money is not used for destination marketing, but for management purposes.
I can go to the city’s website and find out anything I want to know. If I have questions, city manager Karen Osburn makes herself very available to the public.
You can book an appointment with her, or attend a straight talk session that she holds once a month. Learn more about that by clicking the link below.
https://www.sedonaaz.gov/your-government/departments/city-manager/straight-talk-with-karen
So how do residents have a voice?
If you really want a voice, you have to be involved. You have to make an effort to find out what’s going on and show up at the council when an issue of importance is being discussed.
The city has an extensive newsletter list and you can sign up for those here:
https://www.sedonaaz.gov/community/news-information/enotify-sign-up-for-news/-fsiteid-1
We can also have a voice at the ballot box. On August 2nd, we vote to elect our mayor and three council members. We can decide with our votes who we trust to help guide the city.
Whoever is running the city is going to need money to make a difference. You can make sure they have that money by voting YES on Home Rule.
Shaeri Richards is a local improv artist, author, filmmaker, musician, energy healer and an all-around lover of Sedona.
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32 Comments
Well written, and informative. Thanks Shaeri!
Shari,
Thanks for your input. I have been a resident for 20 years. You say that organizations such as the library and humane society would have their funding cut, but even though you discuss at length the chamber you don’t mention that their funding would be cut. The visitor center is mostly run by volunteers. How can you justify six figure salaries for chamber management?
As to all the things our city government is doing to “solve” the problems caused by too many tourists cars, not a single one of them will state that there are too many tourist cars. If you don’t recognize the root of the problem, too many cars, all your proposed solutions won’t fix it. Rapid transit, parking garages, and new lanes on our streets won’t solve the problem.
Many cities around the world are experiencing over- tourism. They are closing their cities to tourist cars. When I bring this fact up to our elected officials they say “Oh we can’t do that.” When I tell them to sue the state to allow us to manage our STRs they say “Oh we can’t do that.” You mention all the money the city has. Why can’t we use it to battle the state on STRs? Hiring one lobbyist isn’t going to cut it. Saying that the chamber is “managing” tourism is a joke. They have no control over all the day trippers from Phoenix, America’s 5th largest city and fastest growing. Our city “leaders” are ignoring the elephant in the room: too many tourist cars. It is no wonder people want to vote against home rule. If the city won’t spend the money to help the residents, why should they be allowed to spend, spend, spend on solutions that won’t work?
Hi Tyler, thanks for taking the time to read the article. I am far from knowing the details of how everything works. I know the chamber budget has already been cut pretty drastically and it’s one of the council’s priorities to monitor that. I always believe we should support volunteers in all our non-profits. I for sure think there are too many cars on the city’s streets. Everything you are saying could very well be true, but I don’t think voting down Home Rule is going to solve the problem, and that’s the main point of my article.
Shaeri, I didn’t know you before we served together on that citizens group four years ago and I thought you distilled a lot of what we reviewed into an easy to read article then. Now you’ve done it again and I hope people take the time to read what you’ve written.
I don’t know why anyone who sees the benefit of local control for issues like STRs and OHVs wouldn’t want the same thing for the city’s budget.
Thank you Shaeri! What an incredibly informative article- Thank you for all of your donated time and amazingly neutral thinking- And purely as a selfless gift to all of Sedona.
How refreshing!
I am forever grateful for your dedication and selfless service—-
Not to over simplify our traffic problem but I honestly think Covid restrictions in the United States increased travel to Sedona. We were open, we had trails, families took the opportunity to travel inside their own country. I I feel like there is an element of hysteria around the opposition to home rule as if the city is spinning out of control when in fact we have been influenced by so many outside influences of Covid. I enjoyed this article very much. I have lived here for 12 years. I moved here when the economy was very depressed after the big bubble had burst and saw the Sedona city Council resuscitate life into the community bringing about beautiful upgrades in sidewalks and art followed by a drastic increase in tourism that will settle down. Already you can see people are traveling outside of the country and to Canada again. I am voting yes for home rule. I appreciate this article and how it help me see a little more house city government and city Council works and the transparency with all of the links provided for more research.
Thank you so much for this clear description of our present Sedona problems. It clarifies all the complicated issues of our home town.
Thank you Shaeri for your well researched article on Home Rule. I agree with Linda Roemer about the hysteria. A once in a century pandemic leaves a mark. Couple that with social media and a state government that passed a preemptive bill, SB-1350, and predictably they all came. I am mystified that some Sedona citizens are promoting austerity. It never works. Nostalgia for the good old days is stasis. Sedona would be smart to fund the future because the future always wins.
Well said Marie, “The Future Always Wins”.. I like that simple thought… going backwards never works. Revisionist history is imaginary history. The good ole’ days are appealing, even if in reality they are fantasy and nostalgic wishful thinking.. This once in a century pandemic and SB1350/STR’s and rogue Sedona-focused Social Media are the perfect storm that created the community storm we are experiencing. It too will pass and the future will take over the narrative.
Marie, this is not a “once in a century” pandemic. It is related to climate change and human encroachment on formerly untouched ecosystems. These types of spillover zoonotic events will continue, as global warming and environmental degradation continue worldwide. Past pop-ups of SARS, MERS, Ebola, and now Marburg were/are warnings that, unfortunately, were not taken seriously. I think we were lucky that the current pandemic was the result of a coronavirus and not a filovirus or, worse, a prion agent that crossed over into our species.
There are many respected scientists who believe we have already passed the tipping point for oceanic climate regulation. Managing the problems that result from climate change will take more and more of our resources in the future. Examples include increasing forest fires, severe weather, coastal flooding, agriculture effects, increased migration because of economic impacts, public health costs associated with pandemics and their after-effects, etc.
My point here is to say that passing-off the pandemic as a “once in a century” event that will pass (and then the good times will return) is a very bad idea. Most Sedona residents who are voting No on Home Rule are not doing so because they want austerity. They are doing it because they have lost trust in the council / city’s ability or desire to respond to a changing world and changing resident needs. We need new ideas and new approaches from our city council and the past eight years have shown us that we’re not going to get it until we send a strong message about our desire for change.
That was an excellent and informative article, Shaeri. Thank you for doing all of the research and educating us on Home Rule.
Excellent article. Well researched. Great links. Factual. I’ve always thought Home Rule was appropriate for Sedona. This is not a ” belief”. This is based on many hours of study.
There is a group of folks in town that are anti-government that are telling people that if HR were to fail that we could “just do an override” each year allowing people to vote on any item in the budget that they supported. That’s just not true. A recent mailing from them said “Did you know, our Sedona Recycles is safe without Home Rule” The fact is that the city funds 50% of their budget, how long do you think that they’ll survive without that funding. The Library does have a small property tax and even with our funding they still only open at 10 am, do we want a library that opens at Noon? Don’t believe me, call each organization directly and ask them, very simple!
Thank you for a well researched and very informative article. While everything you say makes a lot of sense I think there’s more than ‘one elephant in the room’. Citizen engagement is all well and good but when the council doesn’t actually listen to resident’s direction they lose trust (see Tyler’s comments). My non-profit organization was recently monumentally negatively impacted by a back door deal which has significantly effected my trust in the current council. I believe what has precipitated the campaign against home rule is not just a lack of trust of city council (which I think is happening thtoughout the city), but that residents feel unheard, unimportant, and unvalued. Being involved with committees and such also does not solve the problem. Is it generally good that we have the opportunity? Yes! Does it make that much of a difference? Unfortunately, not always. I have a personal example of that. I served on a citizen committee about 5 years ago (with some city staff present as well). I don’t remember the exact topic, but it was setting prioritized recommendations for city council. I was outvoted on trying to set affordable housing as a top priority five years ago. I’m not sure it even made the list at all in the end. And here we are with a city losing residents, businesses, schools, jobs, etc. because of a lack of affordable housing. I was so disillusioned by my experience that I didn’t go back. Having the bleak experience I just had with the city (then having to go through a grueling CUP process because of it); other contentious situations in my neighborhood; learning that many other residents feel unheard when they try and speak to something; and my previous committee experience have all been enough for me to say that I do not feel the city council has the resident’s best interests at heart, and hasn’t for many years. I don’t think it’s necessarily that this group (which I have no affiliation with) wants the city to be hampered by voting no on home rule … I think we all just want to be able to trust again and feel that our voices, concerns, issues, needs, etc. are actually being represented by who sits on council. We want to be listened to, we want to be heard, and we want decisions made based on that. We want to be a part of a city with Servant Leadership versus Autocratic Leadership. A friend said to me recently that Sedona is the perfect microcosm to the macrocosm … displaying what is happening all around the world. We are living in Autocratic times and we want something different from our town council. (I continue to say “we” because I think there are many more residents who feel similarly.) I have purposefully stayed out of recent Sedona politics as not to make a name for myself as a dissenter. I know that council gets a bad rap most of the time, and despite it all they make good decisions for the city too (for which they should be recognized and thanked more often), but there is still something key that is missing in Sedona, and I believe it to be Servant Leadership.
Hi Guadalupe, thank you for your thoughtful comment. I understand your feeling.
What’s interesting is that make of the council changes over the years, and with it their perspective.
My husband also served on a work group about 5 years ago regarding the ATV issue. In our opinion we have way to many of them in the city. He and the other residents on the committee felt unheard and that the voices of the residents were not prioritized. Now 5 years later, the council voted to ask the forest service to find a way to limit ATV use in Sedona proper. We were asking for that back then…and now they have responded. They are supposed to listen and follow the will of the people, that is their job.
Regarding affordable housing, from what I understand of THIS council, affordable housing is a priority and there is at least one project that the city is intending to develop with the intention of creating that housing. As I understand it they would like to do even more projects like it. You can read more about the council priorities by clicking the link in my article above.
Of course there are those in the city who don’t believe that affordable housing should be provided by the city. So they push against it. There are always people on both sides of an issue, and I’m sure there always will be.
I’ve never been on council, but I imagine it’s tough when people are pushing from both sides. As we know, it’s the squeaky wheel that tends to get the grease.
I do know that the council tries to gather information from its citizens in a variety of ways and tries to implement policies based on what they gather. Here’s the list of their priorities for this current year. You can download the whole report from their website.
Complete Various Traffic Improvements 1
Monitor Chamber of Commerce Tourism and Marketing 2
Explore Environmental Sustainability Opportunities 3
Neighborhood Impacts from Parking/OHV Use 4
Develop Economic Diversification Options 5
Foster Affordable Housing Opportunities 6 I
mprove Citizen Communication 7
Monitor CFA Development 8
Update Emergency Operations Plan 9
Monitor Short Term Rentals 10
It seems to address most of the issues that I hear residents are concerned about. It’s always a debate about how to address those issues, but it’s seems the issues that are plaguing our city are on their radar.
Anyway, it’s always good to be engaged the best we can. Again, thank you for sharing your thoughts. Shaeri
Home rule has ruined Sedona.
Vote No
and take back our city.
There are plenty of reasons to vote no om Home Rule. First I would like to say that our taxes are used to buy votes if you look at some of the supporters they are recipients of city grants. No city gifts grants to the same organizations over and over, year after year. These people stand in line with their hands out and are afraid the gravy train will stop. Sone are not located within the city limits. Shaeri Richards has a huge conflict of interest as a grant recipient. The only thing growing in Sedona is the city government, City employees have increased by 40%. City salaries have gone up in the last year by one million dollars for ten employees. All this is happening while our population has gone down. Sedona needs a reset. I have lived and run businesses in Sedona since 1994. We had better tourism business in the nineties. City Council including Mayor Sandy have stated without the Chamber we would still have plenty of tourism in Sedona. I submit the 30 million paid to the Chamber for tourism promotion was and is a huge waste of taxpayers money. This money should have gone to infrastructure. Now special projects like transit, Brewer Road and West Sedona is driving up the budget from 52 million to 113 million in three years. If the economy tanks the residents are going to be left holding the bag. I for one do not want to ride a shuttle every time I want to hike. The city council have not been good stewards of the people’s money. They have lost trust. No trust no home rule. A no on home rule gives power back to the people. Currently City Council can raise and spend taxes without any say so from the people. You are handing them the checkbook without transparency of where the money goes. I challenge anyone to follow the millions that have gone to the Chamber. Trough the annual override the people will have a say in how public money is spent. Please vote no on Home Rule and give the people back their power.
Dana, It’s not my nature to be confrontational, but what you say above is an outright lie! I have NEVER received a grant or any other money from the city.
I explained this personally to your wife Donna Joy and to Shelley Evans as well. Yet you persist in putting out this complete fabrication.
I do try to take in well made points from both sides, but since you continue to push a lie in order to try to discredit me, I don’t see how anything your group says can be trusted. Shaeri
Have you participated in any art group that has recieved a grant from the the city of sedona?
You have publically performed and your picture was in ads. Therefore you benefited. Anyone that benefits has a conflict of interests regarless of the size. Ethnics 101.
I’m speaking for myself and no one else.
You are a self appointed artist , actress and home rule expert.
Dana,
Participating in an art group that received a grant from the city, is very different from being the recipient of the grant. Very different. Yes, I did enjoy performing in the plays I did some years ago. And I suppose you could call it a benefit. And if the plays were good, hopefully the audience benefited as well. But that doesn’t make us grant recipients. That money goes to the organization and the people who run it, not those who volunteer or are involved in some way.
Have you ever recycled anything at Sedona Recycles? Or taken out a book from our public library? If you have, you have also benefited from a city grant as the city does provide money to both of those area non-profits.
That’s the point of voting YES on Home Rule, so that we as a community can continue to benefit from the services these organizations provide. The money from the city helps them to continue to function so that members of the community can benefit from the services they provide. That is the point.
Are you serious? Those of us who have benefitted from City grants have a vested interest, not conflict of interest, in supporting the program or process through which we received funding. Saying it’s a conflict of interest is absolutely ridiculous, misleading and shifty. You exaggerated and bent the truth saying Shaeri directly received money from the city. And you know it. Goes to show how desperate you people are. You bet we support home rule and those of you who want the state to impose their will upon us are going to lose.
@ Robin, please forgive these people…They think politics is winning and losing, and hate compromise. They dont have any polices, nor do they have any care to fix anything. For the most part ,old and live in a glass half empty world…..This is the Rush Limbaugh syndrome complain about everything routine…They are unhappy with their lives and want everyone to suffer like they do.
The good news is, they are a dying breed, and hopefully fade away in time…..
Try rationalizing buying your vote. You do benefit. It may not be much money. The real money is in the millions given to corporations. That is the system you have bought into. You have allowed the city to control you with peanuts. It is harmful to the community. Never mind that the residents have their rights taken away. You help the government to grow at the expense of everyone who contributes to the tax base as citizens. It is not about the grants. It’s about the corporations. Without Home Rule you can stop the real money going to big corporations. Then there would be more for community grants. Time to level the field.
It is a shame that the working group on Permanent Base adjustment that was by invitation only in December of 2019 did not include the two people who knew more about the funding of cities in AZ than most. But that was a decision of the then city manager. And who is surprised by that. He was the beneficiary of the Home Rule program.
We should be alarmed that we had a $49 million budget in 2018, with about $39 million expenditures balloon in 4 years to a $110 million budget with a potential of $88+ million in potential expenditures and a population loss of about 300 over 10 years.
And Home Rule cities fell from 51 to 43 in the last 4 years. Maybe other citizens got tired of no oversight from the voters? Just facts.
The annual May override without Home Rule is a real deal, but staff and council never will like that becasue they have to explain themselves. Now they can do what they want, create more job positions (now at about 165) PLUS make work projects for a Chamber of Commerce with it’s huge employee costs – that WE are paying for. They should be funded by members like every other Chamber in the country.
Shut the citizens out and fund programs that defy logic. Home Rule can be brought back by the citizens, but we have to have a council who earns that trust. $49 to $110 million should create a NO CONFIDENCE vote. Prove you can manage money.
What was pathetic in 2018 when we had this discussion, is that with the program we put on the table, not only did the city have more than enough to fund what their average expenditures were for the previous 5 years, but no 501c3 grants were cut, unless you listened to the council, and our city manager who purposely used scare tactics to manipulate voters. Sound familiar today? Vote for Home Rule or Sedona and your grants are doomed.
Candidates for council or mayor who take one position or the other are simply buying a vote. It is their job to manage what the PUBLIC decides. If you are into that slight of hand, you get what you vote for. And in this case – you get to live with a permanent .5% sales tax. What you should be asking ALL candidates; are they willing to REPEAL that sales tax, and clean up the waste programs that they have been put into place without public oversight.
Welcome to 2018 Redux.
Hi Michael,
Just so you know, the PBA work group that I was a part of was not by invitation only. It was advertised by the city as you can see in this article. https://www.signalsaz.com/articles/city-seeks-applicants-for-expenditure-limitation-options-work-group/ I’m sure it was advertised elsewhere as well.
I don’t know how they did their selection process, but to be factual, any citizen was invited to apply.
There were members on the committee who had come out both in favor of, and against Home Rule in the 2018 election. There were clear reasons why the committee recommended Home Rule again at this time rather than a PBA, although it was recommended that a PBA could be appropriate for the city in the future.
You can read more about the committee’s recommendations in the report which can be downloaded on this page, https://www.sedonaaz.gov/your-government/departments/city-clerk/elections-information/home-rule
Or in this article by the Red Rock News. http://www.redrocknews.com/2020/01/22/no-pba-question-on-2020-ballot/
I Love when ESM posts under an alias on “the biz” ….just goes to show what a bunch of “complainers” post on the other blog. She can’t even take it.
If Samaire Armstrong were elected mayor I would support Home Rule, hands down.
I trust her and I am a registered Democrat.
And there are a lot of us Democrats who are going to vote for her, no matter who she supported in the past.
I agree Thomas however, if Home Rule passes it won’t matter who gets in. Their hands will be tied. Because of the consent items that are already imbedded. By the way I’m voting for Samaire Armstong also.
Perfect article Mike. You tell the honest truth that is not enjoyed by the Mayor, Current Council and their supporters on the gravy train such as the shady Chamber. They have hurt Sedona in so many ways due to their greed and amateurish short thinking.
Great comment Mike. Jean Jenks was on that work group. She said it was awful. Her reasons were the city management was there to control the narrative. It was directed, limited, and controlled by the city.
Attention Lisa Green: Someone called my attention to your comment here. If the “ESM” to whom you made reference is Eddie S. Maddock, please be assured that any comments made on Sedona.Biz have not been made by me – no aliases from this ESM, a contributor on Sedona Eye. Sorry to burst your balloon and ruin whatever pleasure you might have derived from thinking you exposed a culprit.
FYI – as an avid supporter of “Freedom of Speech” that also includes “The Press” and also in my opinion it’s an exchange of opinions, ideas, and thoughts that maintain the privilege we enjoy on a daily basis to live in the best country in the world. Agree to disagree here and we aren’t committing a crime.
Enjoy the moment. Nothing lasts forever.
Eddie S. Maddock / ESM
Oh ESM…
You are a bit of a culprit … you know it to be true.
I see your anger release on the other blog….. same ole same ole. As usual SE changes NOTHING… just a sounding board for extreme complaining….IMO