Pete Furman

We would like to commend Sedona City Councilman Pete Furman and Councilwoman Kathy Kinsella for getting their ordinance on ordinances passed de facto unanimously at the July 11 meeting and thereby requiring new city laws to be read twice.

Unfortunately Furman, who had spearheaded the new policy, was excused from the meeting and was thus unable to vote on it, but it passed 6-0 and he most certainly would have been the seventh vote.

The change was relatively simple. Sedona City Code Section 2.25.040 currently reads, “All ordinances shall have at least one reading. This reading may be by title only if the council, in possession of printed copies of the ordinance, unanimously allows reading the title only.”

The new amendment changes that language to require “two readings.”

While seemingly inconsequential, in practice it will give residents at least one more meeting — and roughly two weeks of time depending on when council officially reads the ordinance aloud — to hear what the new law affecting the community will involve. This means that items that appear at one council meeting can’t be immediately made into city law by the end of that meeting.

That potential swiftness has always imperiled the public, who could be blindsided by a new ordinance conceived, crafted, debated and made into law during a single heated meeting. Residents have then had to spend time and effort organizing a referendum or convincing officials to repeal or modify an ordinance rather than letting cooler heads prevail and waiting for one more meeting so the public could weigh in. To prevent bad ideas from becoming bad laws, this pause lets residents contact council members directly or through the medium of Letters to the Editor in this publication, or motivate their neighbors to show up and speak against disastrous proposed laws.

It’s a win-win for both good laws and bad, as proponents of new and popular ordinances could have one more meeting to show up and voice their support.

The ordinance also states that a reading of a proposed ordinance by the Sedona Planning and Zoning Commission could count as one hearing under the new law. New ordinances could also become law in an “emergency,” but aside from the declared emergency during the COVID-19 pandemic or some pending state-imposed deadline or court order, there is almost no “emergency” that can be invoked to deny the public two readings.

The caveat is that previously, city council members could skip reading the whole ordinance aloud to the public and instead just read the title if council unanimously decides that’s enough for them.

Reading ordinances in their entirety is not for council’s benefit. It is for us, the public, the residents of Sedona. Council members have time to meet with the city attorney or city manager or department heads for hours to discuss new laws and their implications. We, the public, do not have this luxury, so ordinances should be read in their entirety for the public.

One argument against reading whole ordinances aloud is the length of the meetings, which is bit silly. A regular Sedona City Council meeting routinely lasts four or more hours, while a contentious one with controversial items can last six or more hours.

Compare that to the brisk one-hour meetings in Camp Verde, which has 2.32 times more land and 25.4% more residents. Cottonwood — which has 24.2% more people, a comparably-sized budget and far more city departments and city services Sedona lacks like a municipal fire department, a recreation center and a city-run library — has meetings that barely break an hour. Even this spring, when Cottonwood had its most contentious meetings in years, they still ended in less than three hours.

New ordinance or not, Sedona’s meetings could be shorter if council members were less verbose, or formulated questions before meetings rather than pontificating in stream-of-consciousness ramblings that lack actual questions, or if the mayor or vice mayor running the meetings kept debate limited and council members focused on the task at hand. Or, council could have more than one marathon meeting per fortnight, and instead, more shorter meetings.

Alternatively, council could make the reading of an ordinance a part of the meeting that residents would want to watch rather than just a bullet point on the agenda. Instead of having the city attorney read the ordinance from a table, council should go one step further and make the reading a full-on spectacle.

John Conway, or someone with his equally booming and commanding voice, could read the ordinance aloud dressed in 1770s colonial garb and powdered wig. Tom and Shondra Jepperson could read the ordinance in tandem dressed as T.C. and Sedona Schnebly. Residents or supporters who proposed, advocated for or shepherded an ordinance through the process could be recognized for their public spirit by being chosen to read the ordinance into the record.

Lawmaking is boring, but it doesn’t have to be.

After two days of discussion on June 14 and 15, the Sedona City Council decided to increase the proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2024 from an estimated $84.5 million to an estimated $85,653,790.

New Gated Community

The city’s new director of Public Works, Kurt Harris, revealed that the city is considering closing the public Back o’ Beyond Road to non-resident traffic.

“We’re tracking all of the pedestrians and bicyclists that are going in there to use for that [federal] grant application, and that’s to try to look at a whole concept of how to remove bicyclists and pedestrians from that whole road,” Harris said. He suggested the possibility of building a segregated path or access for non-resident foot and cycle traffic. “There’s also another project we’re trying to do, is put an automatic gate there … make it safe and easier for the residents to get in and out.”

“That’d be great,” Mayor Scott Jablow said.

Councilman Brian Fultz referred to an alternate proposal to eliminate trailhead access to Cathedral Rock from Back o’ Beyond completely as “brilliant.”

“It’s our appetite to push hard on the [U.S.] Forest Service to play ball,” Fultz said.

New deputy city manager Andy Dickey noted that while the city has tried to get the Forest Service to close that trailhead multiple times, “it’s a nonstarter with them.”

Housing & STRs

Vice Mayor Holli Ploog commented that contractors and homebuilders have complained to her that the city’s building codes add prohibitive costs to new home construction projects.

“Those people say that, but they never quantify or identify what specific things they’re talking about,” City Manager Karen Osburn said. “If those people would like to give us the list and the associated cost … produce it, and we’ll respond to it … No one’s been able to produce the list.”

“A lot of these things — they might add to the cost of housing, but they’re adding a very minimal percentage to the cost of a house that’s already a million dollars,” housing manager Shannon Boone said.

When asked by Councilwoman Jessica Williamson how much funding it would be “prudent” to allocate to housing in the coming fiscal year, Boone proposed $12 million for four projects.

“I would be perfectly delighted to be in the position of your needing more money in order to get some housing built,” Williamson told Boone.

“This just feels like all of a sudden we’re going to be the biggest landlord in town. Or we’re going to be the money behind the landlord,” Councilman Brian Fultz said.

“I’m not sure that we as a city yet have done everything that we can to … encourage low square-footage, market-rate multi-family housing in town,” Councilman Pete Furman said.

“The only thing holding us up is the financing,” Jablow said. “Enough has been done for market rate.”

“Even those are very difficult to build,” Boone said. “I’m talking to developers who want to build something like that, and they still need subsidies.”

Osburn said that the Sunset Lofts project “is our fastest opportunity to actually get units built.” The development is currently in limbo while awaiting [U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development] financing; the city will likely need to contribute another $2 million to the project, bringing the per-unit cost to over $317,000.

Boone estimated the per-unit subsidy for city housing projects currently underway as $80,000 per unit.

The city’s short-term rental specialist Teresah Arthur informed council that compliance with the city’s STR permitting program is at 95%, with 1,092 permitted properties out of 1,105 reported listing. “We seem to have stabilized,” Arthur said, adding that there have been fewer than 10 neighbor complaints so far about STR owners failing to notify adjacent residents about their properties’ status.

“I’m surrounded by them, and I’ve only seen one notification,” Furman said.

On the Road Again

The council was in favor of spending $64,500 to install TVs in the trailhead shuttles, which Transit Administrator Robert Weber said “would be a good way to convey whatever messaging we wanted to convey” to “a captive audience of 300,000 people a year.”

Sedona Cultural Park

City staff are planning to put out an RFP for a consultant to advise on the master planning of the Sedona Cultural Park in September, with the master planning to begin in January 2024.

When Jablow mentioned the ongoing public interest in restoring the event venue as well as possibly constructing housing on the site, Osburn said, “Those two uses are completely incompatible … The community’s going to tell us, but in terms of having both of those things exist, I don’t think that’s an option.”

Osburn did not explain why she declared those uses to be incompatible.

In the meantime, the city has been in discussion about using the park as a car camping site for local workers via the Verde Valley Homeless Coalition, which would cost around $400,000 in management expenses and supplying portable toilets and showers.

“One of the things I really like about this is it would enable us to count this population [of car workers],” Boone said.

Going to the Dogs

Council spent 44 minutes discussing a $55,320 line item to install shade structures and grass at the Sedona Dog Park at Posse Grounds Park before eventually deciding to leave the item in the budget and possibly reconsider it at a later date.

When the city council approved the dog park in January 2004, its construction and operation was supposed to be funded by Sedona Dog Park Inc., a private nonprofit organization.

Ploog and Councilwoman Kinsella argued that as the council had already agreed to test a partial grass surface at the dog park provided water use could be reduced, it was necessary to proceed with the installation.

“I don’t want something that looks like we’re reneging on a promise,” Kinsella said.

“The decrease in the water usage is green-washing. It’s whacking the mole,” Williamson commented.

“The Yappy Hour folks are very set on the grass,” Parks & Recreation Manager Josh Frewin said, adding that conversely, parents dropping their kids off at soccer games were not happy to see dogs urinating on the field where their kids were about to play.

“Parking is a huge issue,” Frewin admitted in response to a question by Councilwoman Melissa Dunn about the available parking for expanded events at Posse Grounds. The city has in recent years eliminated approximately 300 nearby parking spaces by closing Soldier Pass Road to parking.

Departures

The exodus of city staff appears to have intensified over the last six months. Human Resources Manager Brenda Tammarine informed the council that from July 2022 through June 15, 2023, 51 out of 165 city employees left, a turnover rate of 31%. Thirty-four of these positions were full-time and 17 were part-time. The turnover rate for the previous fiscal year was 22%.

However, Tammarine noted, while the city is having trouble finding “highly qualified candidates” for management positions, it recently received 15 applications for a janitor’s position within a 14-hour period.

City finance director Cherie White said that she anticipates another 15 retirements over the next five years. Code Enforcement Officer Brian Armstrong will be retiring shortly, followed by Tammarine herself, most likely in the first week of January 2024.

Osburn will leave the city in the spring of 2024.

“I am eligible to retire next year. I am hoping to do so in the spring-ish timeframe,” Osburn said, adding that recruitment for her replacement will begin “end of August, beginning of September.”

In addition to keeping up with turnover and replacing the city manager, the city will be looking to hire a second deputy city manager as well as two tourism coordinators and a tourism manager.

“I do ponder a question about whether we should pursue an independent analysis of employee satisfaction somehow, if there isn’t something we’re missing,” Furman said.

“I remember a parks and rec director, couple of them, who just said, ‘I can’t deal with this anymore,’ and I don’t think other communities have that,” Williamson said. “The stress of having to deal with as much public scrutiny, anger, lashing out at our staff — it’s going to have an effect on them.”

Osburn said the city was “struggling” with “how to preserve the sanity of our staff.”

Fultz queried the city’s financial commitment to recruiting.

“You’re only going to spend $50,000 on recruitment and relocation in a year? OK. That’s not much,” Fultz said.