Pete Furman

Council returns ADOH homelessness grant – Sedona Red Rock News

The Sedona City Council’s proposed rental assistance program is off the table after the council voted unanimously on April 8 to return the Arizona Department of Housing grant originally intended to fund the planned car camp for homeless workers at the Sedona Cultural Park to ADOH to be redistributed to organizations in the Verde Valley.

Council had previously discussed a city staff proposal for reallocation of the $875,638 grant on Feb. 11, which would have redirected the funding to a two-year program run by Catholic Charities Community Services to provide rental assistance to homeless individuals or pay to move them out of the Sedona area.

“Council, during the discussion, wanted to clarify the eligibility requirements to explore potential impacts on Sedona homeless students,” Housing Manager Jeanne Blum said. “School students fall under a different category … they are not necessarily experiencing literal homelessness, which is what this funding needs to target … some of the homeless students who are in Sedona may not qualify for this particular program.”

“Staff was directed to come back with an amended scope of services that was kind of Sedona-specific, to serve the local community, and make sure that the persons that we were served had a verifiable Sedona connection,” Blum continued. “There were some challenges with that, because it reduces the number of households that are being served and it’s pretty much unlikely the city will expend the full grant. Additionally, the Department of Housing may prefer a broader service area.”

The alternative option, Blum said, would be “to request a transfer of the grant to a qualified nonprofit,” which would “expand housing opportunities for more people, and it would also ensure data collection for future policy decisions.”

“Staff recommendation is to transfer the grant to a qualified nonprofit,” Blum concluded.

In discussion with ADOH, “we learned about this distinction between the two definitions of homelessness that would not allow us to serve the students at the school district,” City Manager Anette Spickard added. With regard to staff’s estimate that the amended scope of work would only affect about 25 families, instead of the 103 estimated in the original proposal, “ADOH was a little concerned that would be too small and not meet the legislature’s intent for this grant.”

“Our grant would actually just be transferred back to ADOH for them to administer directly,” Spickard said. She clarified that council could ask staff to set up a separate city-funded program to benefit homeless students.

Councilwoman Kathy Kinsella asked what would happen to the unexpended funds if the city was unable to spend them all due to a reduced scope of work.

Since it was a reimbursement grant, “it just stays with the state,” Blum said.

“Do we have reason to think that Catholic Charities will still be the qualified service provider when the grant is reassigned?” Kinsella asked.

“My understanding is that they would work with them,” Spickard said. “They would still have this network of referrals happening.”

Councilman Brian Fultz asked staff to assess ADOH’s response to the council’s desire for “this really strong nexus.”

“They were a little lukewarm about our original request to scale it down to just the Sedona nexus because it doesn’t meet the full intent of the legislature,” Spickard said. “I don’t think they would accept the transfer and then only spend the money on Sedona nexus people. I think they will do Verde Valley region because that’s the underserved community in the state.”

“So you’re saying a nexus still exists, just the nexus is a wider area of the region,” Kinsella said. Spickard and Blum agreed.

“These are all very soft terms,” Councilwoman Melissa Dunn said. “Is there an assurance that Sedona will be considered as part of the Verde Valley?”

“In the conversation with ADOH staff, they did state clearly to me that when we request the transfer of the grant, that we could identify some terms for that, and they threw things out like, you will get data and reporting that you request, things like that, which tells me that we have some influence on what that new contract’s going to look like with Catholic Charities,” Spickard said.

Public Comments

“I do support you all looking at a regional solution to a regional challenge,” Sedona Chamber of Commerce President David Key said. “I think that feels appropriate.”

“The rental assistance funding … would have a direct and immediate impact. It could help families in our program move more quickly into permanent housing,” said Elizabeth Slane of Hope House of Sedona. “Anything that help the homeless in Sedona I think need to be considered.”

“I support the idea of moving these funds either the original plan, which is, what, phase two, where we contracted with Catholic Charities, or we give to ADOH and have them allocate it,” Jo Martin said. “We are relying on the administration of the state to give us help … We’re trusting the state to help our community instead of us maybe having more control over those funds.”

“The grant is a solution in search of a problem,” Bill Noonan said. “It’s a bit of an affront to the democratic process that the city reconsidered applying for this grant or that the state of Arizona is still trying to foist it on us through this NGO.”

Council Comments

“Nobody denies that there are homeless people here, but there is a perspective about whether it is a big monumental problem deserving of big government resources or not, and when we’ve spent no money, essentially, on it, to go from that to $875,000 in two years is a pretty big ramp-up,” Fultz said. “I support moving that money back to ADOH. I certainly hope that we will provide direction that says that any recipient needs to have a strong nexus then to the Verde Valley so it’s not a ‘come one, come all,’ it’s not an incentive for van lifers to participate.”

“I would go with moving ADOH money further into the region,” Dunn said. “I would like for us to have some kind of assurance that people who are in Sedona have a way of getting resources, whether it’s at the library or wherever.”

“I also support moving the grant from Sedona to an NGO and serving the Verde Valley,” Vice Mayor Holli Ploog said. She added that the number of people to whom the original plan proposed to provide assistance “was more than we had in Sedona to serve.”

“I support the money going back to ADOH … the homelessness here is a regional issue,” Councilman Derek Pfaff said. “I don’t think we attach strings to it. We’re trying to have it both ways.”

“Regional solutions are the right approach,” Councilman Pete Furman said. “We need to be good partners in the Verde Valley on this issue.”

“I think it’s important to make sure the full amount of money that’s available from the state can be utilized,” Kinsella said.

“I don’t support putting restrictions on ADOH. They know what they’re doing, they do it best,” Mayor Scott Jablow said. The council then voted to send the money back.

Sedona City Council votes 6-1 to annex 3,422 acres – Sedona Red Rock News

In five minutes, Sedona got about 30% bigger — or rather, it will on Thursday, April 24, when the annexation of 3,422 acres west of town takes effect.

The Sedona City Council approved the annexation ordinance in a 6-1 vote, with Councilman Pete Furman opposed, on March 25.

City Attorney Kurt Christianson called council’s attention to “one little unique bit of information that came out during the preparation of the ordinance.”

“As required by state law, all the area annexed will be zoned to the city’s most — basically the same zoning the county has. It can’t be any less or more restrictive, we need to match it as best as we can,” Christianson said. “I thought originally that all the property was the county’s RCU-2A, so two units an acre of residential. Turns out this one little section right here by the Cultural Park is basically one unit an acre instead of the two units an acre. So this little square right here, this is the section 16, town ship 17, north range 5, shall be zoned city of Sedona RS-35, so that corresponds pretty well. The whole rest of the annexation area will automatically be zoned per the ordinance RS-70.”

“That’s kind of a lot to say about nothing because none of this can be developed, necessarily,” Christianson added.

He also noted that staff would likely ask for the city’s wastewater treatment plant to be rezoned to Community Facilities at some point in the future.

“It’s a little bit strange, but we’ll probably move the city limit signs,” Christianson said. “We’ll probably move it and-or duplicate it, and put another one on [State Route] 89A right by the wastewater treatment plant.”

There was no public or council comments and no discussion prior to the vote.

The annexation will become effective 30 days after the approval of the ordinance, which Christianson said would be April 24.

Council plans three Uptown kiosks, removal of trail information – Sedona Red Rock News

The Sedona City Council approved a new contract with the Sedona Chamber of Commerce for operation of the Uptown Visitor Center on March 11, as well as authorizing city staff to spend $115,000 installing three information kiosks.

Visitor Center

City Communications Manager Lauren Browne said that the city’s Tourism Advisory Board had recommended that the physical Visitor Center be maintained permanently on the basis of the existing 80-20 funding model split between the city and the chamber, respectively, as well as suggesting the introduction of other elements such as “a curated trail map to assist with visitor management” and “an artificial intelligence chatbot.”

“To me it’s very impersonal,” Mayor Scott Jablow said of the chatbot concept. “I hate the AI.”

Browne also said that city staff were in the process of having the Visitor Center wrapped with the city’s branding information, for which the city is paying.

The Visitor Center’s bed tax funded expenses budget for FY25 was $426,535, of which the city’s share was $341,228, while the proposed FY26 contract put the center’s budget at $439,300 with a city contribution of $351,440. The contract also gave the city the option to renew for FY27 for $358,892.

The city’s FY25 tourism and economic initiatives budget was $2,097,730.

Chamber president David Key attributed the budget’s growth to factors including building maintenance, an expected increase in utility costs due to Arizona Water Company’s proposed 48% rate increase and salary increases. “We’ve got good people, we’re going to keep them and we’re going to keep them happy,” Key said.

Key said that the Visitor Center saw 156,713 walk-in visitors in fiscal year 2024 against a goal of 150,000, with volunteers providing a total of 7,076 hours to operate the center for 57 hours per week. For FY25 so far, the center has seen 75,051 visitors, or 50% of its goal, compared to 43% of the goal at the same time last year.

“We moved from a mortgage interest reimbursement style to a rent, and that rent of $25,500 for a year for a prop erty of that size in Uptown is really a great rate, to say the least,” Key said. “We moved from two full-time staff to one part-time director, eight part-time people” as well as about 30 volunteers. Citing information provided by Sedona Historical Museum Executive Director Nate Meyers, Key noted that the museum saw an estimated $22,000 in revenue from admissions and gift shop sales in 2024 attributed to Visitor Center referrals.

Key added that part of the center’s community value would derive from its promotion of visitation that was “eco-conscious, conscious of the residents here.”

Tourism Manager Andrew Grossman connected the role of the Visitor Center to city efforts to control visitors.

“We want to be able to control the narrative about how we want you experience the expectations that we set around responsible and respectful use,” Grossman said. “That’s really what our marketing campaigns are designed to be.”

“The challenge is that it’s a lot of decentralized actors that are the ones that are sharing information to visitors,” Grossman continued. “How we present information to get you to come to Sedona should reflect the similar type of information you get when you arrive, and allows us to really kind of control to make sure that the presentation is what we want. We’ll continue to lean into this idea of reputation management.”

“How can the [Sedona] Lodging Council, and vis-a-vis the private sector industry here, the tourism businesses, share that communication?” Grossman asked, discussing city staff’s initiatives to get hotels to share city messaging. “It becomes the role of the private sector to communicate after the bookings.”

‘Giant Cellphones’

Grossman presented the council with a proposal to install two or three digital information kiosks — which Councilman Brian Fultz described as “giant cellphones” — in “priority visitor locations” in Uptown to promote city messaging and steer tourists to certain locations.

“Some folks were engaging with it, but then they would come up to the counter to validate what they were getting from the kiosk, so it didn’t really save time,” former chamber President Michelle Kostecki told council in April 2024 when discussing possible kiosks.

“If we can create a more informed visitor that understands our expectations of them, understands our recommendations for how we would curate this place, ideally they’ll move faster or with less friction,” Grossman said. “A digital kiosk strategy helps us not only communicate that we have additional touch points but gives us a way to report on the actual engagements.”

Grossman said digital kiosks displaying trail maps would allow city staff to determine which trails are displayed on those maps.

“We can essentially curate our own custom maps within AllTrails, so we can define which trails show up on the map,” Grossman said. “We know that the social trails are on AllTrails. I met with them this month, and I understand that there’s a way that we can help getting a vendor on board to go into Open Street Maps to recategorize the presentation of social trails or non-system trails, and that essentially deprioritizes them on this.”

“Hypothetically, I can toggle on and off trails throughout the day,” Grossman said. “We can control the narrative around what we want you to hike, and we can share that with everybody, and we can change it in real time.” Grossman also said that he was negotiating with map providers to remove social trails from their systems entirely and suggested the idea of including a large photo of Devil’s Bridge with each kiosk for tourists to take photos with instead of hiking to the formation.

Social trails are regularly used shortcuts or detours off designated trails.

Comments

“None of us could imagine having visitor services in Sedona without a physical Visitor Center,” TAB member and Keep Sedona Beautiful President Craig Swanson said.

“Visitors will benefit from quick access to information through these tools while still having the ability to talk with a friendly, knowledge able volunteer and staff at the Visitor Center,” Lodging Council President Cheryl Barron said.

Chamber Visitor Services Director Victoria Latunski said international visitors especially appreciate a face to-face experience with Visitor Center volunteers.

“Personally, I’m resistant, as I do not love technology,” Dyanna Nichols said. “Even though I am opposed, I feel that it’s a great move for our city.”

Fultz said he felt compelled to respect the TAB’s recommendations and would support both proposals.

“Mayor, the kiosks are not for you, Mr. I-don’t-like AI-chatbots,” Fultz said. “I think it’s pretty cool.”

“I will not complain about $30,000 giant cellphones now,” Fultz added.

“I have never been a fan of the Visitor Center in Uptown,” Councilwoman Melissa Dunn said. “I’m willing to fund it for another year because I would love to get more information about what people are actually doing in the Visitor Center.”

“Recently I was overseas and they’re everywhere, kiosks,” Vice Mayor Holli Ploog said. “I support the one-year extension … and the technology now.”

Councilman Derek Pfaff said that after thinking cutting the Visitor Center could save money, “I am definitely in favor of funding it for another year. I think it’s great for people to have the one-on-one.”

“The kiosks I feel differently about,” Pfaff added. “The technology already exists right on our phones. I think we could accomplish the same thing with signs advertising our website.”

Councilman Pete Furman said he was “uncomfortable” with the Visitor Center giving business or restaurant recommendations instead of encouraging visitors to stay longer or directing them, but would support the contract renewal as well as the kiosks.

“I think this is the way of the future,” Councilwoman Kathy Kinsella said of the kiosks. “This actually might entice people to go to the Visitor Center.”

“In Uptown I think the kiosk is important,” Jablow said.

Council approved the chamber contract by a 7-0 vote and the kiosk purchase by a 6-1 vote, with Pfaff opposed to the latter.