Yavapai County talks OHV use on public lands – Sedona Red Rock News

The Yavapai County Board of Supervisors discussed what members said were negative effects of OHVs on rangeland in the Prescott and Coconino National Forests during the final part of the Yavapai Cattle Growers Association meeting held at the Yavapai County Administration Building in Cottonwood on Thursday, Sept. 7. 

“It’s been about two and a half years where we’ve developed language to have the legislature take a look at regarding the OHV violations that are occurring at a rampant rate in our state,” said Yavapai County District 3 Supervisor Donna Michaels [D]. “Some of you might say, ‘What does that have to do with ranching?’ What we are here to tell you, as supervisors, is it is everything, it’s inextricably intertwined. Our ranch lands are being decimated by OHV abuse and that impacts grazing allotments, and whether it’s a drought or not, we support ranchers having the most grazing allotment that is practical [and] permissible … This is fundamental to who we are in this state.

“Whether it’s an OHV, a water issue, or wildfire issue this board stands ready to do what it takes to support our ranching. Because if ranching doesn’t happen, ladies and gentlemen, nothing else does. I so appreciate this industry, and I’m proud to be a card-carrying member of the Yavapai and Arizona Cattle Growers Association.”

Ranchers Becki and Dustin Ross gave a presentation on 347 locations between Sedona and Cottonwood, on public U.S. Forest Service land that they use as rangeland for their cattle, that they said have been damaged by OHV use. The monitoring is part of a project they have been working on for eight years following a suggestion from the meeting moderator, Andy Groseta, a former YCGA president.

“There’s a lot of [damage],” Becki Ross said. “The roads and the range [have] been impacted by the misuse of OHV operators and with the budget cuts of the Forest Service’s maintenance, and law enforcement, they just can’t keep up with the rapid increase in volume that we’ve seen over the last 10 years.”

“I hear from people all the time that ‘I don’t go out there anymore because I never see deer.’ So why would you hunt out there? Or if I take friends to hike Doe Mountain, all you see is a big trail of dust, or all you hear is noise all the time … and I hear that about Bear Mountain as well,” Ross added. Ross also said that she views increased OHV enforcement as a major need on rangelands, a view shared by most in attendance.

How that would come about is unclear, considering that the two Congressmen in attendance, U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar [R-District 9] and U.S. Rep. Eli Crane [R-District 2], expressed austerity-based views on federal staffing levels and local law enforcement reimbursement ahead of the budget discussions for next fiscal year.

“The problem is the Forest [Service] doesn’t have enforcement capabilities, neither does Game and Fish, and the speed limits on those roads, they may not even be posted, but they’re certainly not adhered to,” Yavapai County Sierra Club Chairman Gary Beverly said. “[Yavapai County District 4] Supervisor Craig Brown [R] told me last legislative session, they were trying to get a bill through the legislature to lower the speed limits on those kinds of roads.”

“My experience has been the ranchers aren’t thrilled with the off-highway vehicle crowd, and that’s often been a tool I’ve used to communicate with them in trying to build a working relationship,” Beverly said. “Some of the residents are being hammered by noise, high-speed OHVs that are rented by rental companies in Sedona. They’re going very fast, making huge clouds of dust, and it’s actually killed the piñonjuniper trees lining the roadside on Dry Creek Road.”

“I don’t think we’re looking at a lot of new regulations against OHVs or anything of that nature,” Yavapai County District 1 Supervisor Harry Oberg said at the meeting. “I think what we are looking at is what Supervisor Michaels and I have talked about is the three E’s.”

Oberg said that the “three E’s” were “education, enforcement and environment” and called for increased enforcement of OHVs on public lands in Yavapai County, saying that such an effort needs to be supported but that “I don’t know” if that means the state of Arizona or Yavapai County government providing the material support.

“The last thing, of course, is trying to do something environmentally, trying to clean up some of the mess that we see when you go down around my area around Castle Hot Springs, you look at all the hills, you can see where people are going up on the hills, straight up,” Oberg said. “Of course, the first time you have rain, that starts creating ruts, and then you got almost a gully there. There’s a lot that we can do to try and support, maybe recovering some of our ground to where it’s not impacted anymore.”

Other Lawmakers

“The videos that [Ross was] showing at that meeting were very compelling,” Arizona State Sen. Ken Bennett [R-District 1] said at a Mingus Mountain Republican Club meeting on Sept. 12. “I think there’s a role to look at some legislation to make sure that those kinds of activities aren’t happening on rancher’s lands and destroying the environment. That’s very much something that I think will be part of the next session.”

Bennett did not say what such legislation might look like.

Bennett and the two Arizona District 1 representatives, Rep. Quang H. Nguyen [R] and Rep. Selina Bliss [R] did send a letter warning the city of Sedona about the possible illegality of a proposed municipal ordinance to regulate OHVs in city limits.

“We need to figure out a way to balance the use and to encourage less environmentally damaging uses,” Sedona City Councilman Pete Furman said. “I can’t imagine the impact on the ranchers that are out there. … I’ve talked to some of the rancher folks and it just has to be super impactful on their business and their quality of life as well.”

Two items Furman wants the state legislature to look at is regulating the speed of OHVs on dirt roads and the volume of use.

Council says ‘no’ to public discussion on new city manager – Sedona Red Rock News

Councilman Pete Furman, left, proposed that the city council’s Sept. 12 meeting to discuss the hiring process for the new city manager, who will be replacing Karen Osburn, right, be conducted in public as much as possible. His colleagues did not agree.

Prior to the Sedona City Council’s retirement into executive session on Tuesday, Sept. 12, to discuss the hiring process for the new city manager, Councilman Pete Furman proposed that the council should conduct the discussion in public to the greatest extent possible.

Council rejected his proposal by a 5-1 vote. Councilwoman Jessica Williamson was absent.

Sedona City Manager Karen Osburn is leaving her post in the spring but has not yet announced her last day.

“We all want to honor our obligations under the open meeting law,” Furman told the council. “Nothing in the law says that we have to convene behind closed doors, even for authorized topics, unless the law specifies that we must. I refer to [Arizona Revised Statute] §38-431.09, [which] says that we should construe executive session decisions, quote — quoting from the statute — in favor of opening public meetings.

“There’s also an attorney general opinion I96-012 that states, ‘The open meeting law prohibits public bodies from conducting in executive sessions lengthy information-gathering meetings that explore the operation of public programs’ and recommends a bifurcated process that should be both open and closed,” Furman continued. “Further, the Arizona open meeting ombudsman tells us that, ‘The public body must weigh the legislative policy favoring public disclosure and the legitimate confidentiality concerns underlying the executive session provisions’ … Selection of a search firm, meeting the recruiters, discussing the qualifications, talking about process steps, all of which I anticipate we’re going to talk about today — in my opinion are best done in public. Perhaps today we will encounter a legitimate confidentiality concern, and if we do, then I would support moving at that point into closed session.

“I think the city manager is one of the most important topics our constituents entrust to city council,” Furman summed up. “I urge us to lean toward open government and let our community be as informed as possible … We as a council need to carefully consider what our community needs, what our city staff needs and what council needs with a new manager. It’s an awesome responsibility and it’s best done by informing the public.”

Furman’s fellow council members disagreed.

“How do you think there is an advantage to doing this conversation as an open meeting discussion as opposed to an executive function?” Councilwoman Melissa Dunn asked. “Do you believe the public is never going to hear the end result? Do you believe the public needs to have the ability to weigh in and tell us what a city manager should be when they’re not qualified to do so? What is the advantage in your opinion?”

“First is my general orientation toward open government,” Furman replied. “I believe open government is good government. I believe that informing your constituents of all the issues in the deliberations, so they can see what we struggle with and what we don’t, what makes sense and what doesn’t, and in many — all — city manager hiring processes that I’ve been involved in in the past, there is definitely a role for the public, whether they’re qualified to make an opinion or not. It’s important for them that we bring them along on this journey, which is, as I said, the most significant decision that we’re going to make as a council.”

Dunn did not respond to a request to clarify how she differentiates between the public’s ability to vote for City Council and the public’s lack of ability to be involved in hiring a city manager.

“There’s a real risk of us having some discussion in public that will drift over into stuff that needs to be protected,” Councilwoman Kathy Kinsella said. She noted council may reference other city managers or city staff by name, requiring closed-door discussions of individual personnel. “If we don’t do this in executive session, I think we run a risk of going into executive session, coming out, going back in, coming out … the most really open way we can have the conversation and not worry about that is by staying in executive session.”

“Doing our business in public is not easy,” Furman said. “It’s difficult, it’s lengthy, it’s messy, and there will be that risk. But I say the risk of doing it all in closed session is that we’re actually violating the law.”

“You could just continue to do all of it in open session if you wanted to,” City Attorney Kurt Christianson said. “While you may do this in open session, the law specifically allows council to go into executive session to consider the employment, appointment and assignment of a city manager.”

“I don’t agree with your interpretation,” Vice Mayor Holli Ploog said to Furman. “This is a personnel matter. I think it’s clear personnel matters have to be discussed in executive session … I don’t want to run the possibility of violating a privacy issue for someone by making a statement because I don’t know if I’m in executive session or open session.”

“What we’re going to be talking about is potentially compensation, and that is something that I think has to happen in a closed session,” Kinsella added.

“I found all of what you said to be offensive,” Mayor Scott Jablow told Furman. “You’re going against the city attorney’s opinion … I’ve done this before. I don’t know what you’ve done. You had a strong mayor back in California? Here, we do managers and executive staff in executive session … If all of that information was out to the public, it could tip the scales to somebody who we may not want. We might end up hiring them and it turns out not to be the person we want. I want to make sure we are all in alignment for the person that we want, and that should be done in executive session.”

“What we’re going to decide today, I am strongly against doing out in public,” Jablow added.

“Setting the [salary] range in my opinion is not closed session,” Furman said. “I think our constituents deserve to hear our thoughts of what we’re looking for.”

Jablow said that making the salary range for the position public in advance might give some candidates “an unfair advantage” in negotiating.

“I think just because we’re human we run the risk of violating someone’s privacy,” Dunn said. “The movement between will stop and stifle the flow of conversation … I think it puts us at risk for saying things on the record that really should have been held off the record.”

Councilman Brian Fultz, who voted with the majority but did not comment during the meeting, later said that “based on the legal assessment provided by the city attorney, I voted in accordance with his counsel.”

Council talks tax trends and STR revenue share – Sedona Red Rock News

Sedona city staff presented the preliminary sales and bed tax results for Fiscal Year 2023 to the Sedona City Council on Tuesday, Aug. 22, which showed that collections were $1,348,274 below Fiscal Year 22 collections and $6,458,502 below the FY 23 budget estimate.

The council also pressed finance director Cherie White on providing the proportion of bed tax paid by short-term rentals. White responded with concerns about taxpayer confidentiality.

“I keep trying to look at this data to understand the impact of short-term rentals on our community,” Councilman Pete Furman said, examining a graph showing historical changes in revenues. “Why can’t we get this split up between short-term rentals and hotels?”

“Because of the confidentiality rules,” White said. She had earlier explained that Arizona Department of Revenue rules prohibit disclosure of any information about a segment of taxpayers when there are fewer than 10 payers in that category on penalty of being denied access to the detailed taxpayer data in future.

“Forgive me for pushing this a little bit more, but why does Scottsdale disclose that number?” Furman asked.

“I can’t answer for Scottsdale,” White said.

“Did you ever try to get an opinion from ADOR as to whether you could actually do this and not violate the rules?” Furman continued.

“It’s not always easy to get to people at ADOR who will be helpful,” White said. “Who I talked to were the sales tax experts from the League [of Arizona Cities and Towns].”

“Given the significance of this issue to our community, I would like to see us push a little bit more,” Furman said. “The customer here is the person staying in the room, and there’s thousands of those people, so we’re not actually exposing the data for the individual … Look at the city of Scottsdale’s very public website and very beautiful charts,” Furman said, holding up an example for the audience.

“If there’s over a thousand short-term rental properties in the city, then if we’re getting an aggregate value of bed tax from them, how does that violate confidentiality?” Councilman Brian Fultz asked. “It’s more than 10 and we’re not looking to understand them at an STR level.”

“It’s not just 10 in the category, it’s if 10 or fewer make up the majority of what’s happening in that category,” White said.

“That would imply that there are fewer than 10 owners of the 1,000 — or that 10 owners of the more than 1,000 STRs somehow have high concentration and therefore they would be exposed by us knowing what the aggregate amount of bed tax is?” Fultz pursued.

“I cannot answer that question in a way that would satisfy you without violating confidentiality rules,” White said.

“I’m going to chime in with Councilor Furman that some way, somehow, we need to push ADOR on this,” Fultz said.

“It’s not based on the owners, it’s on who’s paying the taxes,” City Attorney Kurt Christianson said. “If there’s less than 10 major players who are paying the taxes.”

“That’s goofy,” Fultz said.

City manager Karen Osburn suggested that the city could possibly report a number for traditional lodging, as there are “many more than 10” establishments in that category.

“I’ve had those conversations with the League,” White said. “If I give you that information, you can just take that number minus the other number that you see there and you have the difference.”

“But we don’t know the who behind that subtraction calculation, so how is there a violation there?” Fultz said.

“The rule is if it’s 10 or fewer that make up the majority, we cannot disclose that,” White repeated.

“This is important for our community,” Councilwoman Kathy Kinsella said. “I want that number as well.”

Mayor Scott Jablow and Vice Mayor Holli Ploog directed Christianson to reach out to Scottsdale to find out, in Ploog’s words, “how they’re getting around this.”

“I’ve reached out to them,” White said. “They didn’t respond.” She repeated that she had talked to a League official instead.

“Did he tell you why they’re doing it, how they’re doing it?” Councilwoman Jessica Williamson inquired. “I don’t think this is the right forum to share what he said,” White said.

“Kurt, we’ll proceed,” Williamson said.

Sales Taxes

FY 23 sales tax collections were $31,755,509, down 3% from FY 22 and 13% below the budget, and bed tax collections were $8,587,989, down 4% from FY 22 and 16% below the budget. Adjusted for inflation, sales and bed taxes were down 6% and 7% from FY 22, respectively.

“We were actually very conservative,” White said of the city’s high predictions for FY 23 revenues. “We thought we were doing very modest increases.” She attributed the city’s official optimism in part to the advice of former Sedona Chamber of Commerce President Candace Carr Strauss, who left the post in March 2022, and the resulting underperformance to tourists choosing to visit Europe instead of Sedona, the effects of inflation, the talk of a possible recession and the city’s hold on destination marketing.

From 2019 to 2023, sales tax collections increased by 49% and bed tax collections by 79% in unadjusted dollars. Cumulative inflation for the four-year period, as derived from the Consumer Price Index, was 20%. The hotel sector saw the largest increases, with hotel sales tax collections rising an unadjusted 82%, followed by retail at 52%. Restaurants and bars paid an extra 38%, while communications and amusement collections rose only 13%, less than the inflation rate.

Estimated taxable sales for the fiscal year came to $907 million. Retail accounted for $309 million of the total, hotels for $252 million and restaurants for $172 million. Average annual hotel occupancy declined from 68% in FY 22 to 65% in FY 23.

Both leasing and retail collections declined in May and June 2023 compared to 2022, while hotel and restaurant collections were down in May compared to the previous year but ticked upward in June by 7% and 13% respectively. Sales and bed taxes were lower from August through October of FY 23 than they were in those same months in FY 22, but were higher in March and April than they were the previous year.

Council defers Jablow’s OHV ban pending negotiations – Sedona Red Rock News

The Sedona City Council agreed to defer consideration of Mayor Scott Jablow’s proposed OHV ban pending the city’s completion of a voluntary agreement on noise and traffic reduction with four of Sedona’s OHV rental companies during its meeting on Tuesday, Aug. 22.

As summarized by city attorney Kurt Christianson, the four rental companies wrote in a letter that they will commit to installing turn signals on their vehicles, providing customer education on driving on paved roads, governing their vehicles to restrict them to a maximum speed of 35 mph, installing quieter mufflers on their vehicles as available, discouraging the use of Morgan Drive, installing color-coded flags on their vehicles and supporting the city’s efforts to petition the U.S. Forest Service for a permitting system and daily limits for OHV trailheads.

“In a paragraph in the agreement, there’s talk about vehicles monitored by GPS,” Councilman Pete Furman said. “What’s the status of the discussions in the agreement here with our rental companies about whether they are willing to step up and do private enforcement of their private agreements with customers for speed limits?”

“We’ve actually taken the next-step approach that if there’s a rapid braking or there’s a rapid acceleration, it actually sends us a company email instantly,” said Dan Candler of Outback ATV. “For instance, somebody’s at the front desk, they would see this vehicle is now acting erratically. That way, they would take a closer look and they can replay the whole route in real-time of the vehicle … We can reach out to the customer right then and there and find out if something’s wrong with the car, they’re behaving badly, then we can take care of it right away.”

“We do have currently certain penalties for certain things, and one of them is for certain locations that we don’t allow vehicles to go to, and if they go there, then it’s clearly stated in the contract that you will be penalized financially for that,” Candler added. He said that such penalties were rare due to their customer education process.

Permit System

Jablow discussed trying to get the U.S. Forest Service to impose an OHV permitting system to limit access to public trails within the Coconino National Forest. Most OHV trails are outside the city limits.

“The permitting system is key,” Jablow said. “What I really want is that permit system, and they’ve agreed to support that permit system,” referring to the OHV companies.

“Our ultimate goal is to get a permitting system,” Vice Mayor Holli Ploog agreed. “More than two years ago we had a meeting with the Forest Service here and we said we need a permit system.”

“There’s an oversaturation of this use in the forest area, there’s an oversaturation of this use on the city streets of Sedona. A permitting system is the only thing … that is going to limit that,” Councilwoman Kathy Kinsella said. “The industry support for a permitting system, which I’m grateful for, is a big give.”

She described it as “the only hope” of getting the Forest Service to concede to the city’s demand.

“A linchpin to making real progress for the long haul is getting the U.S. Forest Service to act, which they have been woefully slow and unwilling to do so,” Councilman Brian Fultz said.

“If we can reduce the number overall, we would have less in the forest, less in our neighborhood, less on 89A.” Jablow said.

“Get comfortable. You’re going to be waiting,” Councilwoman Melissa Dunn said regarding the permit proposal.

“If the Forest Service decides no permits, then we go the legal route, and we’ll get sued,” Jablow said. “We can always bring back the ordinance,” he added, before remarking, “I’m not using that as a hammer.”

“I do not believe that implementation of an areawide limited entry permit system for OHVs is feasible, nor do I believe that it would be the correct management action at this time,” Coconino National Forest Supervisor Laura Jo West wrote to the council on Jan. 27, 2022. “Motorized use is a legitimate use of national forest lands.”

No USFS representatives attended the meeting. The Greater Sedona Recreation Collaborative, an ad hoc working group of government officials and business owners discussing OHV use, also had no formal representation at the meeting.

Road Closures

“I’m concerned about Morgan Road,” Jablow said, noting that the process to implement a permitting system was likely to be lengthy. “I was wondering if we could discuss, and see how the council feels, about this ordinance going into effect — the banning of OHVs on Morgan Road only until such time as there’s a permitting system in place … That would help remedy some of the issues that the people on Morgan Road are going through.”

“It’s within council’s authority to designate OHV routes and to close routes to OHVs,” Christianson said.

“Why Morgan Road?” Dunn asked. “I hear lots of residents complain about Schnebly [Hill Road]. Why would we choose just the one? Are we in essence opening ourselves to more annoyance from residents who say, ‘What about my road?’ Should we be considering, if we were to close this, to close it to multiple roads where we know that residents today have issues with the volume of traffic?”

“It’s a fair question,” Christianson said. “If you’re going to close one, why not the others?”

“In a perfect world, I’d ban ATVs, but I’d also ban motorcycles and people who don’t use their turn tickers. We don’t live in a perfect world,” Councilwoman Jessica Williamson said. “Under the voluntary agreement [residents are] going to get quieter vehicles … I don’t see any benefit to the city or the residents to be caught up in litigation while nothing gets better without any guarantee or any reason to think at the end of it the city would prevail anyway … We can fashion a compromise that gives residents who object to OHVs some relief.”

“I look forward to a time when if someone goes over 50 miles an hour on a trail, the computer shouts ‘slow down,’” Williamson added.

Debate over ‘Safety’

“The ordinance, as I understood it, was about improper equipment for safety within the jurisdiction of Sedona,” Dunn said. “When I look at the volunteer list [in the letter from OHV owners], I see very few items that have anything to do with safety. There’s nothing in our ordinance that has anything to do with noise.”

“A lot of these do have to do with safety,” Christianson said, then referenced the agreement’s speed limits, education for renters and GPS installation requirements as examples.

“Do we have a big problem that you’re aware of in Sedona with OHVs going beyond 35 mph now?” Dunn asked.

“Not generally, ” Christianson said.

“I wasn’t quite sure how the GPS was actually a safety thing,” Dunn continued.

“That safety is primarily for outside the city, so they can’t do doughnuts,” Christianson said.

Dunn then described the proposed agreement’s provisions as “soft language” and “squishiness” and repeatedly said that “we have no control” over a number of aspects of the OHV industry.

“It doesn’t apply to anyone who owns their own [OHV], it doesn’t apply to anyone who brings in their own from outside of the state or outside of our city,” Dunn said. “It doesn’t apply to any new businesses that open, because they have not signed this commitment, nor does it apply to anyone who buys a business within the city limits … There is a lot of faith that we as a city are having to put in the hands of a few businesses.”

“If this meets our demands, then this ordinance should be tabled, because it doesn’t follow what’s inside of the voluntary commitment,” Dunn summarized. “At this point, what I am is a little confused as to what we as a council were and are and want to actually do for the residents.”