Sedona AZ (August 9, 2018) – The Sedona City Clerk will restore an initiative to establish a permanent base adjustment to the city’s expenditure authority to the Nov. 6 ballot.
City Attorney Robert Pickels says he erred in advising the city clerk that removing 35 non-residents from an initial review of petition signatures was within her authority.
“While these 35 individuals do not live in Sedona and therefore are likely not qualified electors of the city, it was not the role of the city clerk to remove them,” says Pickels. “The role of verifying validity of signatures belongs to the county recorders.” [Stipulation]
The review process is established by the Arizona Legislature with guidance from the secretary of state, and the process for removing ineligible signatures is governed by A.R.S 19-121.01-04. Restoring the 35 removed signatures will result in a total of 429 signatures, the precise number needed for the initiative to qualify for the ballot.
The proposal on the Nov. 6 ballot would establish a permanent expenditure limit of approximately $25.2 million subsequent to the Home Rule vote scheduled for the Aug. 28 primary ballot. If approved, it would effectively cap all future city spending to roughly half of the city’s annual expenditures for the past five years.
The city of Sedona will conduct its 2018 primary election Tuesday, Aug. 28, and the general election on Tuesday, Nov. 6.
7 Comments
You are misleading voters by mistakingly stating an expendable limit of $25.2 million would apply should Permanent Base Adjustment passes and Home Rule fails. Do your homework! $25.2 million would be a state-imposed limit if Home Rule ($47 million) is voted down and Permanent Base Adjustment ($36 million) is voted down. Permanent Base Adjustment at a budget of $36 million is the financially responsible choice.
~ Kim Z. Turtenwald
“Growth for growth’s sake is the ideology of a cancer cell.” ~ Edward Abbey
Nice try (sarcastic) to SedonaHomeRule.com (SHR), who took out a full-page ad in the 8/8/2018 Red Rock News. Lots of misinformation:
SHR stated, “… Permanent Base Adjustment (PBA) is not an option for November.” WRONG! The City has capitulated and is allowing a token amount of signitures to be counted as valid which they previously declared invalid in return for Arizona Liberty dropping a major lawsuit. The City knows that if the lawsuit went through, they would lose, and over 100 signatures they denied from petition sheets “because they were not from the county of majority,” would be declared VALID! The city would also have to pay all attorney fees, likely to be in the six figures.
SHR stated, “It (PBA) got thrown out on a technicality.” Fact: The City “blew it” in a desperate move to keep PBA off the ballot. While giving the illusion that Arizona Liberty “… slapped something together that failed to meet minimum requirements of the state of Arizona for ballot initiatives,” the statement is totally untrue. Arizona Liberty was advised by a top Arizona election attorney to do the ballot initiative in a meticulous and legal manner. Also, all petition pages were notarized. The city was using rules used in a different kind of election to invalidate signitures while claiming they were just following the law. In a city election, petition sheets do not have to be separated by signitures between residents of Yavapai and Coconino County.
City Attorney Robert Pickels stated, “Ultimately, the city has no stake in the result other than ensuring that the law is followed.” Hahaha! The City Council blatantly tried to suppress the PBA option at a meeting (I was there), voting down Councilor John Currivan’s proposal to examine/educate the Council on a PBA option. The city government obviously has an agenda to continue Home Rule, thereby financing high salaries, financing the Chamber of Commerce, entitlement programs, building roads through residential areas, and an expensive/disruptive road plan which will still funnel traffic into two lanes.
Vote NO on Home Rule to stop uncontrolled growth and expenditures. We are losing our small town charm and Home Rule will finance roundabouts and a pedestrian bridge downtown. Hello Las Vegas!
Vote YES for Permanent Base Adjustment, a budget alternative for necessary expenses, savings, and putting a stop to overpromoting our city!
~ Kim Z. Turtenwald ~ City of Sedona Resident
Dear Editor, please correct the spelling of the word “signature” which appears in a couple of places in my previous submitted post.
~ Kim Z. Turtenwald
Kim,
You are exactly correct in your assumptions. The city is again trying to mislead the public.
That is a shame.
YES on PBA adjusts city spending limitation UP by $11.7 MILLION that permits the city to spend MORE than the average of the last audited 5 years statements protecting the status quo.
That is the constant number, the variable in the equation are the estimated exclusions.
I am not saying this is easy to understand. The city wanted to use $24.3 as a low point, and we went along with that line of thinking, but now they want to change the rules.
For CLARITY – for anyone who has not attended one of our ongong seminars every Tuesday through August 21th at the Christ Center Church on Brewer road, I have lined to a page on our web site that shows EVERYONE, including Mr. Pickels how the whole system works and where the numbers fall. He knows, but he is counting on the voters to get scared and simply pull the YES lever.
For a SIMPLE explanation of a YES vote in November, go to http://www.arizonaliberty.us and click on the BREAKING NEWS icon.
Thank you Arizona Liberty for ‘stopping cold’ the blatant attempts by our City Council and City Attorney to sabotage the will of the Citizens of Sedona.
What would we do without Arizona Liberty? Many of us were stunned by the arrogance of our Mayor and City Council when they TWICE ‘voted down’ putting a 3rd more reasonable option to Home Rule/No Home Rule on the ballot! (Councilman John Currivan was the ONLY voice of reason). As a result, the Mayor and Councilmen put Sedona residents in a position of having to sign petitions to put Permanent Base Adjustment – the only common sense alternative – on the Ballot. THEN, after gathering over 600 signatures (when only 425 were needed), to have ‘King’ Pickels cavalierly toss out just enough signatures to keep PBA off the Ballot – ordering a City staffer to take the heat for the dirty work – many of us were dumbfounded. What else is going on in our City’s Legal affairs?
The Arizona Attorney General has already ruled against Sedona on the ill-fated Business License ‘money grab’, passed by Council and drawn up by Sedona’s ‘cracker jack legal team’… Not to mention, the Attorney General is presently looking into questionable legal agreements between our Chamber and City. With an $800,000+ legal budget in place, perhaps our City Council should be asking more questions – or even better – simply listening to the will of the people and not counting on their attorneys to move heaven and earth to cover their backs.
It is sad that the Chamber gets so much of the “Bed Tax”. Shouldn’t that go to the city to fund things like the Humane Society, Meals on Wheels, and programs that support the community and residents of Sedona? We, the residents, struggle with all of the heavy tourism/traffic times. The residents should benefit from that tourism by having more of the tourism dollars going to the city to support OUR community. Why does the Chamber get 55% of the “Bed Tax”? They did a great job when the economy was down, they have been rewarded, and it is time to move on. The economy is booming again under the new president. More people are traveling and spending money in Sedona. How about the city gets 85% and the chamber gets 15%? The Chamber does not need to spend money on out of town advertising anymore. I don’t understand how the Chamber gets funded by more tourism, and yet they are supposed to be interested in controlling tourism, conflict of interest? I am sad to say but it appears there are smoke and mirrors involved in the home rule. We need to open our eyes and be practical, not emotional, about how we move forward. Let’s not lose our respect for each other, the rest of the world is doing that. This is Sedona, remember? I must say that if my salary was dependent on tourism, I would not be committed to responsibly controlling tourism, just sayin! With more tourists comes more trash, more water usage, more disrespect for the land(look at Oak Creek Canyon!), and more chaotic bad city vibes to our beautiful home. Please comment and tell me why I shouldn’t vote “no” on the home rule. Thanks!