By Steve Segner
Sedona/AZ — The following are exact words written on Next Door by Dr. William Noonan, the chief architect of the “referendum” to overturn the City Council decision on the Safe Place to Park initiative by Sedona’s elected representatives on the City Council. Noonan moved to Sedona 2 years ago, in March of 2022, and is a lead advocate for the rebirth of the failed entertainment arena at the Cultural Park instead of housing.
“The City plans to turn the Cultural Park into a parking lot and an apartment building. The RFP refers to the Western Gateway plan that calls for “high-density housing” with multistory buildings exceeding Sedona’s normal height limits. It’s not. It is better to turn that beautiful site into an apartment complex. This city plan wants to turn Sedona into just another soulless generic town. The residents of Sedona are custodians of the beauty that has been given us, and we must protect Sedona from blight. There are better places to put apartment buildings.”
Mr. Noonan wants the citizens of Sedona to believe that an outdoor event center 1/2 the size of the Radio City Music Hall in New York is a better use of the 40 acres at the Western Gateway (old Cultural Park property) than the pursuit of housing on the property which is the reason it was purchased by a collective decision of the City Council in 2022. There was never any discussion about reviving the bankrupt venue. Housing and event centers are mutually exclusive to each other.
Listen to the city council discussing the idea of buying the Cultural Park to address housing issues in their annual retreat in 2022 here:
The City borrowed money and bought the property, understanding that it would mostly be residential including all types of apartments would be its ultimate use after a lengthy design review/master planning process with citizen input.
Over the years, I have noticed that when new arrivals remove the “visitor goggles,” they see a different Sedona from the one they loved to visit. Some adapt to life in a tourist town with all its benefits and enjoy interacting with visitors. They treat our visitors as a guest, just like a “guest” visiting them personally.
Still, some become bored with our rural lifestyle, complain about traffic, and tourists on “THEIR” trails and in THEIR restaurants, and, eventually move on. But some stay here and make complaining a daily part of their life and join groups attempting to make Sedona more like their previous home and stop any change in Sedona they don’t like.
Anti-Safe Place to Park individuals at the council meeting commented on how the proposed zoning change and the Safe Place to Park would interfere with their desire for a new event center. They tried to paint a picture of a homeless camp with dangerous drug addicts next to “their” event stage when nothing could be further from the truth. The Safe Place to Park is for local workers and is funded for only two years.
Let’s not be fooled: A Safe Place to Park is “NEEDED.” workers already are living in their cars, and a new Sedona event center should not be funded by tax dollars.
For more information go to No2CulturalPark.com.
Sedona is mystical and magical, and the use of fear, bullying, and xenophobia is unacceptable in a small town like Sedona.
To listen to William Noonon speak on a recent conversation on Jeff Oravits Show (a National online podcast) about his involvement in the referendum to kill the City’s initiative for a Safe Place to Park and save the 40-acre Cultural Park/Western Gateway for an entertainment venue:
Go to 23:45 in the show to hear Noonan’s speak.
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26 Comments
Let’s look at where Noonan lives, in a very affluent part of town. No wonder he doesn’t like the employee overnight parking, he doesn’t want it in his neighborhood. If the music venue folks get their way, let’s see how Noonan likes to listen to rock music every day on his back patio, he’s new in town and doesn’t understand. Be careful what you wish for.
Steve Segner has a parking lot at his hotel El Portal in Talaquepaque. He could allow workers to sleep there, in the lot or hotel, or in one of the many short-term rentals he advertises on his hotel site.
The city could buy his little “inn” and give working families a home. But he wants to profit off Sedona’s tourist teet until it’s dry. Build apartments around the amphitheatre and make the free concerts an amenity. It’s a perk of the affordable housing complex the city could build. But Steve Segner doesn’t want the poor in Sedona to have anything but a homeless parking lot.
Low wages for homeless workers makes it easy for Steve to find housekeepers for his “inn” and underpay them
Look, you got a place to park! The city will kick you out by 8 so you’ll be late for a shift at the “inn” Be at work on tme!
An “affluent part of town”? That’s everywhere now thanks to the tourists Steve Segner brings to town with his little bed and breakfast.
Steve however lives at a $2.1 million ($2,192,700 according to Zillow) gated compound on Thompson Road in Oak Creek Canyon — outside Sedona City Limits — I might add. He’s not even a Sedona citizen or a legal voter trying to tell legal Sedona voters how to run our city or what to do with our tax money. He might run a tiny business in the city, but he’s buying elections with his campaign donations.
How’s Tommy O’Halleran doing, Stevie? Your money couldn’t buy him a seat in 2022, could it?
He’s lied about this for decades
The “referendum” will allow the residents to vote on this contentious project. Sounds like someone else is off base.
This is only partially true. The zone will determine if the Safe Place To Park can be sited at the Cultural Park. If the vote fails, the zoning of the Cultural Park can not be changed (this has far reaching implications of uses for the Cultural Park beyond Safe Place To Park). This does not mean the Safe Place To Park program dies. It just means some other place needs to be found to operate the program at.
I moved to Sedona in 1991. Sedona had three movie theaters, an outlet mall and lots of funky new age shops. The schools were full, the school in VOC was brand new and people could afford to live in town. Sedona was enchanting, a place I raised my then 4 year old daughter in. The Kwanis ran the Easter Egg hunt. Donations from residents built our beautiful library.
Now Sedona is an overtaxed tourist trap with traffic jams. NO WAY I would move to Sedona now.
Dr. Noonan is not an advocate for the amphitheater as Mr. Segner falsely claims. Noonan is an advocate for democracy. When he said the people of Sedona wanted an “entertainment venue” Noonan was reporting what he had been told by hundreds of Sedonans he spoke to about the topic. He did not and does not believe an amphitheater is the only future use for the Cultural Park. For example he also mentions maintaining the site as a tranquil oasis or gathering place for the people of Sedona, away from the more crowded tourist areas in town. He does believe the rocky hilly terrain of the Cultural Park is an inappropriate place for “affordable housing” in part because it is an expensive site to excavate and build. He merely advocates for democracy: to let the people decide whether they want a homeless car park in the Cultural Park. To cloud that issue with bitter personal animosities and distortions about the referendum undermines our democracy. For an actual representation of Noonan’s views see: https://sedonavotes.com/guest-essay-by-william-noonan/
I suggest you go to the city is website and watch the council meeting , May ,12 and hear for your self what he has to say about his support for the out door theatre.Mr Noonan also said on next door “ There are better places to put apartment buildings.” Sedona needs housing not a visitor actraction. The web site no2culturepark.com asks some good question, take your time and learn the facts.
Pretty sure they’ve gone to the city website and have seen if not attended the council meeting.
“Sedona needs housing not a visitor attraction”? From the same individual who wants to shuttle thousands of tourists to overrun the trails?
I would be happy to lose my access to the Sedona Trailhead Shuttle to make it available to transport workforce employees from the surrounding area where there are hundreds of apts for rent in the $800-$950/month range.
https://vimeo.com/931771575/9a7cf3fc99?share=copy
Mr. Noonan‘s own comments at the council meeting clearly stated that if the people of Sedona don’t get behind the cultural park, they would be overrun. He also stated that if the city passed the ordinance, allowing the overnight parking, it would put a steak in the heart of rebuilding the cultural park, This is not Fox News.. Facts count Mr Noonan ajenda is clear go to No2culturalpark.com to see Mr Noonan own words
Cherry picked comments? Thankfully there are a number of us who can see beyond that and can make informed decisions.
In many speakings by Bill, he uses the entertainment venue as a platform, rather than sticking to the issues related to Safe Place To Park. He keeps saying or implying that a music venue could be put into operation before the Safe Place To Park program ends. Even if the two were in operation at the same time, the Safe Place To Park program would end and the entertainment venue would continue. So at worst there would be some number of months where (to use Bill’s phrasing) those at the venue would have to be horrified by the presence of those working in the city of Sedona would be seen with their cars parked close by.
At least Noonan lives in Sedona. You’re not a resident, Steve. You live in Oak Creek Canyon and bitch and moan about the Sedona you refuse to live in.
Bill may not be an advocate for an entertainment venue, but he has given warnings in multiple places (public meeting comment, interviews, online response) suggesting a bad outcome of having an entertainment venue operate along side the Safe Place To Park program. In the worst case that would only be true for a few months while the program winds down. A related issue is whether participants would sue to keep the program open past two years. So the concern is the program would stay open forever sited next to the entertainment venue, and that for some unstated reason the program could not be moved somewhere else. This is a whole lot to do about nothing.
The vote to recall the zoning change will determine if the Safe Place To Park can be sited at the Cultural Park. If the vote fails, the zoning of the Cultural Park can not be changed (this has far reaching implications of uses for the Cultural Park beyond Safe Place To Park). This does not mean the Safe Place To Park program dies. It just means some other place needs to be found to operate the program at.
“… the zoning of the Cultural Park can not be changed.” Why not? It’s a question, not an attack. Why can’t a zoning change subsequently be changed?
This essay is full of the most egregious false statements. For instance, when the Cultural Park was purchased, statements in the paper from the City Council were that there was NO PLAN for what to do with it and that they couldn’t have a plan until they purchased the entire Park. Further, I have grown curiouser and curiouser about this Steve Segner fellow who was behind some of the most personal attacks during the last mayoral campaign. It is my belief that some of the editorial admonishments from the RRN were directed in part at Mr. Segner for his bully tacticts. Now, here he is sullying the name of a resident. I have noted also that Mayor Jablow has resorted to personal attacks on the residents of Sedona as if he doesn’t represent them all. This is very bad form and Sedona should stand up to these political shenanigans. Which they are, through the petition of redress.
I don’t think being Mayor entails pleasing everyone on everything especially when our entire nation is splitting at the seams. Also that would be impossible!
I so hope Sedona’s un housed workers walk away from Sedona and force it’s numerous un housed employee run businesses to permanently shutter. That’s what you want so I sincerely hope that is what you get! Perhaps you could have a farewell Sedona concert at the defunct Amphitheater as Sedona becomes a shuttered ghost town.
Or maybe wealthy Europeans will buy it up like they did with Telluride, Aspen, Vail and numerous other mountain towns where they have built Ginormous Bigly European homes and towns with never ending mass tourism clogging their streets on a daily basis year round! Wouldn’t that be Bigly M’erican? Butt since Sedona doesn’t have ski slopes that is a Yuge improbability!
You are uninformed on the trajectory of Sedona. Sedona signed on to become in ICLEI city in 2018 under Sandy Moriarity and continues to implement the exact policies of Aspen, Telluride, Boulder, etc. They are all ICLEI cities. The Cultural Park is slated to be another ICLEI dumpster fire, with a transportation depot, low income housing, and the rest of the ICLEI demands. The workforce of Sedona have given up on the traffic in the canyon and 179, do not want to wait in hours of traffic on their own dime. This is due to the ICLEI-fication of Sedona into a tourist trap full of shot glasses and t-shirts. Those in the lodging industry such as the author of this article, Steve Segner, need the tourists. But residents don’t. And we certainly do not need to subsidize lifestyle choices of the car camp industry. Uptown Sedona is a dumpster fire of a town center. A highway with a mall on either side. Sedona government is broken.
That’s why you only got 38 Dumpster Fire Votes in the election not because someone called you bad names but because you have bad judgment and are selfish.
That’s exactly what Jessica Williamson said, they had to buy it so they could figure out what to do with it. $23 million bucks.
If there was ever a reason to NOT have HOME RULE, here are 23 million of them. There is no check and balance or public oversight on city council spending.
Steve Segner’s essay fails to reveal the zoning change issue, which is what the referendum by the people is about. Is this because it is the one factor the Council and their surrogates want to bury? The zoning change to allow homeless cars opens the door to a much more sinister plot in the purchase and redevelopment of the Cultural Park. Yet Segner skips this altogether in favor of a personal attack on an upstanding citizen who knows his rights and unrolled a spirited conversation in which the residents talk to power and say that the Council did not act in the interests of the residents. Segner is in full-blown panic, but WHY? Let us uncover that in the coming weeks and months.
Let me tell you something. If we did vote on it, the same whiny complainers will continue to cry. They always do and always have. We have people to this day complaining that Sedona incorporated and became a city. That was over 30 years ago!
As of now its temporary and for 2 years. I dont care, but it is nice that there is help for those! Look at any parking lot in town you will see 3 or 4 cars everyday. You cant miss them.
The other problem I have is soon these same dumb asses will want a vote on everything! From parking garages, to hotels, to roads being added. Why have a P&Z then? We can be just like VOC where they put hotels next to storage garages? And why? For the tax money, screw the people. We live in a Democratic Republic. So all you now go deal with it!
Put the safe Parking lot in the VOC.
Your either not from around here or not very bright! How does a city decide to build something in an area they dont have any jurisdiction? wow