By Sedona Mayoral Candidate Henry Silbiger.
Sedona, AZ — I’m running for mayor because Sedona deserves leadership that listens, acts, and stays true to its roots. My platform is simple: put residents first, protect our small-town character, and make sure every decision reflects the people who live here — not a bureaucratic agenda. That means transparency, accountability, fiscal discipline, and limited government that empowers private initiative and safeguards our quality of life.
I was born in Toruń, Poland, and when the Russians began closing the borders in 1956, my parents made the choice to leave our home behind. We arrived in the United States in 1960, and I became a proud American citizen in 1966. Like every immigrant family, we had to start from scratch — and those early years taught me resilience, gratitude, and the value of the dollar by working hard.
Over the decades, my career took me from public service to entrepreneurship and eventually to helping American companies navigate a changing global economy. I’ve worked with people across the country as well as around the world, and through it all, I’ve carried the same principles: honesty, responsibility, and a belief that opportunity is something you earn every day.
After retiring, I eventually found my way to Sedona — a place that immediately felt like home. The landscape, the community, and the small‑town character spoke to me in a way few places ever have. My wife Kimberly and I built our home in West Sedona. We’re grateful to be part of a community that values its people, its beauty, and its way of life.
That’s the Sedona I’m committed to serving and these are the major issues we must focus on.
Transparency
Residents need information before any major decision is made NOT after a decision is made.
City Council and Mayor allow the city manager and staff to run the show without regard to decisions already made by Council.
Parking garage
1. Pitched as solution for employees who would have free parking.
2. It ran millions over budget, so the city manager proposed parking fees to fund.
3. Obviously parking fees won’t offset the costs to build.
4. Council ONLY agreed to move forward if it would be funded by user fees.
5. Staff couldn’t prove it so they didn’t answer and we are building the garage.
6. Council did nothing.
Fiscal responsibly
- Current projects. Need to understand why they were done costs, bid process, and why costs skyrocketed.
- New proposed projects need to make sure we are doing the right thing: Is the project a need or a want.
- Review the cost of running the city with its current employees. now close to 200 for a city of 9,500 residents.
- Limit spending on expensive consultants for current and future projects.
- Expose how the office of city manager selectively controls the flow of information to the Mayor/ Council to achieve desired outcomes.
- Demand the manager at proposed future projects conform to what residents actually want.
When revenue rises, spending tends to rise with it. The real driver of today’s fiscal imbalance is spending on entitlement programs (such as employee benefits) whose costs grow automatically.
Traffic
We need to have an honest and thorough evaluation of the Sedona in Motion (SIM) program. After 8 years and $40,000,000 spent, Traffic is still an issue. Review previous options presented and rejected by city Council, Stop spending on ineffective programs.
Arts and Culture: why people come here.
- Revive the arts community
- More festivals
- Keep trails beautiful
- Stop unneeded construction of multi-level high density apartments…
You voted for them. We must stop the council from telling us what we must do.
Let’s get back to what makes Sedona special. Together we can make the necessary changes.
Please visit my website to learn about my platform as well the other candidates on the slate. If you want to change the direction of the city and give the residents a genuine choice about our future.
12 Comments
You sound principled but what is your background and how can it be applied towards Sedona City Management? What are you views on the Flock Citizen Surveillance System? What do you think about creating reasonably affordable (based upon average annual salary of Sedona’s workforce after taxes)housing for our workforce? Are you for or against Sedona PD’s decision not to assist ICE/DHS in general immigration enforcement while still agreeing to assist them if a high risk WARRANT (signed by a Federal Magistrate) is being served upon an alleged dangerous migrant criminal felon? Do you think Sedona should build huge arenas for giant crowds and do you think Sedona PD and City in general could even handle the large scale events being proposed? Do you believe in building more ginormous water and electricity sucking resorts in and around Sedona? What are your thoughts on having humans living in the stench filled contaminated dells that will continue to wreak of feces even if mega millions of clean up are done to remove and replace the contaminated soil and plants from the spray fields?
Good luck and I look forward to hearing more of your ambitions and thoughts on the questions I’ve put forth.
A full technical analysis was done on the soils at The Dells. No remediation was found to be necessary to build there. For a long time, A+ water (good enough for you to drink) has been sprayed there. The report is available on the city website.
And that’s why the signs on the fence surrounding said spray area say Danger Water Non Potable because it’s A+ water being sprayed? Yeah right and America has no history of putting people to live atop toxic sites. Get real nobody buys that nonsense. The area surrounding the dells and treatment plant may not be toxic but the spray field across the street most definitely is! The entire places wreaks of feces non stop and you want humans to live there because it’s conveniently located outside of Sedona proper.
Hi Jill. I am unaware of the signs so I will not argue with you. I have gone through the tour at the water treatment plant. You literally can see the steps they go through to get it to A+….Once a year they offer a tour, or take the Sedona Citizens Academy also gets a very thorough tour.
WS Dave just walk the back southern fence line of the spray area. There’s a sign ever 30 feet or so. Again, the end product may be A+ but they’re spraying non potable water. The soil around the dells may have tested safe but I’d put money on them not having tested the soil, plants and air of the spray area. If they did and say there’s no toxins then they should remove the non potable signage. But that won’t happen because it is toxic. And for the last time, the place stinks to high heaven so why would it be ok for humans to have to live in a cloud of fecal stench?
Dave,
The signs are real. Park at the trailhead next to the Cottonwood end of the fenced in area they spray the water into the air at. Then walk the back fence line and you’ll see the signs. I don’t think when they gave you a tour of the facility that they took you over to the spraying field otherwise you’d have seen the signs and you’d probably have asked why the water is non potable I’m guessing? Non Potable water is un drinkable due to toxins/impurities as I’m sure you already know. When that area dries up and it gets windy those toxins become airborne and the contamination area slowly expands in size.
Jill,
I’ve said the exact same things about the “spray area” and the stench down there but it fell upon deaf ears.
Reminds me of a nuclear reactor I did security for in the military. The reactor itself was deemed safe and stable by military leadership but what they didn’t tell us about were the toxic radioactive cooling ponds we had to stand guard next to without any protection whatsoever, the aluminum shed called “the Monkey shed” where the corpses of dozens of radioactive chimps (tested upon during the first Space Race) and remain radioactive for another 30,000 years or so we had to stand guard next to as well. We were given RADAC Dosimeter Badges to wear but they were handed off from soldier to soldier without ever being read following potential exposures and there were many including when we were sent there during an “Environmental Alarm” which I learned meant the reactor was possibly in a meltdown status. And yet all we ever heard was how safe the reactor was while ignoring those things and more. The year after I left that base and deployed to Bosnia for a year and a half of more “safe” fun, while deployed former soldiers of mine informed me that due to numerous unexplained events of soldiers wives having babies with birth defects, female soldiers menstrual cycles being way out of whack and reports of contaminated drinking water the FDA, OSHA and EPA were dispatched to the base to conduct “testing” of the reactor. Testing of the reactor for leaks was done. Zero tests were conducted of the water in the cooling ponds, zero tests were conducted of the soil and air surrounding the reactor, cooling ponds or Monkey Shed.
Just a couple short years prior to all that I was at a base where the military tested and trained with live chemical and biological agents. The base was also surrounded by Monsanto owned fields where they tested their highly toxic carcinogenic chemicals. The base tested and trained with chemical and biological agents there since before WWII and it was determined in the mid 90’s that the facility where the training and testing was conducted had been leaking for decades “allegedly unknowingly leaking” and had potential exposed everyone military and civilian who had spent any time at that base during the decades of leakage. The Monsanto crops and soil surrounding the base we were tested and found to contain carcinogenic chemicals deadly to animals and humans. Long story short, a class action lawsuit was filed by veterans and civilians who were at the base and have a medical history of diseases and illnesses related to exposure to the chemicals they were “unknowingly” exposed to. The base was completely shut down. A university took it over for about a year until they discovered they were sitting in a toxic cesspool. The GOP led House and Senate of the time period the class action suit was pending put the kabash on that lawsuit which had over 80,000 signatory parties. (The same GOP now MAGA Government who fervently resisted the Burn Pit Act initiated by Comedian Jon Stewart and disability compensation for veterans and civilians exposed to Agent Orange and Gulf War Syndrome studies being conducted by the VA. Why? Because they don’t believe in compensating the people they knowingly and willingly put into those toxic environments)
Investigations were shut down cold in their tracks, the base silently abandoned and scientific evidence was disputed or ignored. Monsanto ebbs and flows with lawsuits against them as our government sways from law makers to law breakers and back and forth again.
So just because someone says things are honky dory in and around a toxic location (untreated human waste is toxic) doesn’t mean squat to those who have to live and or work in those environments.
Living next to a sewage plant (toxic or not) is like living in a house that has toilets with the bowls permanently loaded to the brim with human feces and urine along with everything else people are known to flush but shouldn’t in house that ranges from -30• – 112• Fahrenheit and lacks ventilation so the stench just sits there.
Not one person pushing for housing down there would live their themselves and they damned well know! If they’re honest with themselves and others they’d admit that and then explain why it matters to them but shouldn’t to anyone else.
The Government pays billions of dollars in disability payments to veterans and civilians who were knowingly put into toxic environments. They’ve had to do remediation and toxic site cleanups that cost millions and that’s exactly what will happen if the Sedona City Government proceeds with such an ignorant plan (not of their own choosing). It’s a plan designed to go through the motions of providing workforce house while ensuring the people it is intended for remain out of sight and mind while not serving the community. And for their service they get to insultingly live next to a smelly assed sewage treatment plant or they can remain homeless so far as those behind this plan are concerned.
If somehow housing is constructed down there it will end up being another financial loss just like the defunct unusable amphitheater that is more important than the people keeping Sedona on the map as a tourist destination on a daily basis.
So, A+ vs potable is a legal distinction to keep A+ water from being served to people, hence the signs. But it is an input under the new Part E rules for Advanced Water Treatment (Toilet to Tap). A+ water can be used for irrigation of food crops, residential/schoolyard irrigation, fire protection systems, snowmaking (safe enough for people to eat!). See page 16 of the PDF below. ADEQ has no problem with Sedona developing the land. We’re good.
https://static.azdeq.gov/wqmwg/water_recyc_rules.pdf
I have talked with Henry. I like him but he has no business being mayor. I sat near him at a council meeting about a month ago. He and Lita Boyd, another unqualified candidate, kept whispering back and forth throughout the meeting. It was annoying to people who came to hear the meeting.
Got my vote! Anything is better than the current liberal members on the council that rubber stamp anything the city staff requests. We need accountability and transparency….and DOGE, efficiency, which our current city management does either not understand, or probably doesn’t give a s*#t about, the way they spend taxpayers $$.
What makes the two unqualified? Simply whispering and causing a distraction is not disqualifying. Maybe rude and inconsiderate but wouldn’t be a disqualifying factor for me as a voter unless they develop a track record of being disrespectful and disruptive toward their political opponents like our current POTUS is and does routinely. Then it’s a disqualification to be sure!
They were being disrespectful to councilors, city workers and others in the audience who got up to speak. Lots of “he’s lying,” “she doesn’t know what she’s talking about.” I heard nothing factual just a lot of criticism for the sake of criticism. It made it difficult to follow the actual meeting. As far as I can tell, they have no ideas just complaints. Knowing how to gripe is not the same as knowing how to govern. They are trotting out the same tired campaign slogans about residents first, transparency and fiscal accountability without offering any ideas that might actual improve the lives of us residents.