Pete Furman Has A Few Concerns About Our Home Rule Debate. Here We Go Again

Sedona, AZ — Sedona voters are facing another “Home Rule” campaign, and if the “No” arguments feel familiar, that’s because they are. Same arguments, largely the same voices, every four years, for over a decade. The villain changes each cycle – roundabouts, housing, roads, a particular councilmember – but not the rhetoric. It’s like shouting “fire” on a four-year cycle.

It’s strange and frustrating because each time since 1996 the majority has approved Home Rule. They understand the difference between “I’m unhappy with a specific decision” and “let’s kill the mechanism that pays for police, roads, parks, and non-profits to the standards Sedona expects.”

If You’re Upset About Spending, There’s A Process For That

The anti-Home Rule activists resurface in a predictable cycle, not offering input into next year’s budget, but running a campaign to blow up the funding structure entirely. If the goal is to choose good projects and improve fiscal management, that energy would be better spent in the budget process than in an anti-Home Rule ballot measure campaign.

What’s Actually At Stake

Home Rule doesn’t raise taxes and never has. It simply sets a city budget ceiling, based on the revenue the city already collects – responsive to local conditions and local needs.

This year, however, voters are being enticed with a risky alternative: kill Home Rule and live with annual budget override votes in special elections, until a Permanent Base Adjustment (PBA) is approved.

What could go wrong? Special elections have always existed but are rarely used, for good reasons. Preparing for and winning a special election comes with no guarantees. It’s costly, and if a vote fails, it leaves the city with service cuts for up to two years, until a PBA is approved and/or Home Rule restored. Override votes can fail.

Special elections might sound appealing, but they can favor special interests. With turnout typically smaller than in a regular election, a committed, organized group can swing the outcome and push through unrepresentative results.

How many of us are eager to vote annually on a complex and hard-to-understand budget? Even Councilors must catch their breath after the exhausting budget process (speaking from experience). With a low turnout, will a majority truly rule, or the most organized minority?

I can’t see a single reason to advocate for the death of Home Rule.

What’s my advice? (Yes, I’ve been asked by Sedona voters.) Vote YES on Home Rule. Then we embark on the PBA conversation – as soon after this election as we can bear. But please know the conversation won’t be simple. Many won’t have the time or the energy to fully engage. That’s understandable. And in the end, Home Rule might still be the best approach.

Vote YES On Home Rule

Submitted to Sedona.biz on 7/1/26 by Pete Furman. Pete Furman and his wife Lisa live in West Sedona. Pete has served on the Sedona City Council since 2022 and is not seeking reelection. When not riding either his road or mountain bike, Pete keeps local area doctors gainfully employed. The opinions expressed here are his alone and do not represent the position of City Council or city staff.  

Council OKs $97,963,222 FY27 budget – Sedona Red Rock News

Council OKs $97,963,222 FY27 budget

The vote was 6-0 with Councilwoman Charlotte Hosseini absent. There were no major changes from the tentative budget council approved on May 26.

“We are continuing to hold sales and bed tax revenues flat,” Deputy City Manager Barbara Whitehorn said. “We are seeing year-over-year increases, however, given the global uncertainty, that seems to be a more prudent way to move forward.”

The approval caps six months of work that began with the priority retreat Dec. 16 through 18, during which the council expressed little desire to increase the number of municipal employees and favored a more conservative budget in light of economic volatility. This led the council to call for a zero-based budget model, in which every expense was justified from scratch rather than every department adjusting its previous year’s budget.

The FY 2027 budget marks the second consecutive year the total budget has fallen from its all-time high of $106.1 million in Fiscal Year 2025. While the FY 2027 budget is a 5% reduction from the current year’s $103.3 million budget, that decrease is driven by a 20% drop in capital projects, from $42 million to $34 million, as projects such as the Uptown Parking Garage near completion. The garage does not currently have an opening date because its decorative exterior wall is under structural engineering review.

Operating budget year-over-year grew 4% from $61.235 million to nearly $64 million, with nearly five full-time equivalent employees added, with three of those positions created specifically to aid local schools following a March 25 joint session with Sedona-Oak Creek School District, when council directed city staff to find ways to financially back local schools, which are independent from city government.

This lead to the creation of full-time recreation programming coordinator in the Parks & Recreation Department for after-school programming, a Parks & Recreation janitor to aid the program, and a full-time maintenance worker who will also maintain the Sedona Red Rock High School’s baseball field, with the goal of improving SOCSD student recruitment and retention.

The city committed $76,000 to hire a school security consultant for both SOCSD campuses, and a series of smaller one-time appropriations for SOCSD that focus largely on security improvements — with the independent Sedona Charter School receiving $23,000 in new playground equipment.

Other staff changes in the budget are the creation of a full-time Information Technology support employee, a converting a part-time court specialist to full-time, and converting a part-time bicycle pedestrian coordinator into a full-time position.

In FY 2023, the city had 177.5 full-time employees; 201.65 in the current fiscal year, with a total increase of 4.97 FTEs in the approved FY 2027 budget.

Among the operating increases, the city’s most significant are an Arizona State Retirement System contribution of roughly $1.9 million; a $766,000 increase to the city’s community service contracts with Community Library Sedona; $300,000 for advertising and tourism; $250,000 for a mini street sweeper for the Uptown garage; $150,000 added to the pavement preservation and road rehabilitation contract; $125,000 for an Uptown Community Focus Area design services; $100,000 for pre-approved house plans required under Senate Bill 1529, and $75,000 for updating the city website.

The city also moved to pay off the remaining balance on several debts, including financing for energy conservation equipment; micro-transit vehicles; a vactor truck, a dump truck and snowplow and police vehicles, with at a total cost of $948,053 and an interest savings of $75,548.

Capital Projects

Whitehorn flagged capital projects that several residents had raised as costing more than the budget allocates, such as a debunked claim the city intended to overspend on purchasing the Brewer Road building, home to the Parks and Recreation Department and City Court offices, from SOCSD before any serious talks had occurred.

Sedona City Council candidates Jean-Christophe Buillet and Rich Gay, as part of their campaign, made a social media video citing the city’s West Sedona Intercept Lot at SR 89A and Upper Red Rock Loop. The project, PT-05, carries a $100,000 appropriation in Fiscal Year 2027 to 2028, and last year’s FY ’25 to ‘26 Annual Budget had included a $24.8 million placeholder “for a possible parking garage” that has since been removed.

“The eventual plan was to possibly add a parking garage out there, but it was determined in evaluating the capital projects that that was an unlikely thing for us to do in the next 10 years,” Whitehorn said. “So that is no longer in the budget, there, so if you look at last year’s budget, there was a placeholder for that, and in … coming fiscal year, that is not in there.”

The modeling approach for the Fiscal Year 2027-28, budget will be decided at a future meeting.

Amphitheater seeks partner – Sedona Red Rock News

Council OKs SCP 2.0’s letter asking for plans to revive 5,500-seat outdoor venue

The Sedona amphitheater is seeking a partner for a serious long-term commitment, music is a must.

The Sedona City Council unanimously approved a non-binding letter of intent with Sedona Cultural Park 2.0 nonprofit — and issued a request for information open to any interested organization — during its Tuesday, May 26, meeting. Councilman Derek Pfaff was absent.

The public request allows other potential groups to develop business plans exploring options to bring live music back to the 5,500-seat Georgia Frontiere Performing Arts Pavilion that has been shuttered since 2003.

“SCP 2.0 is not requesting construction funding, operational funding, subsidies or taxpayer dollars from the city of Sedona,” SCP 2.0 board member Jennifer May said during public comment. “Our intention is to explore whether a revitalized amphitheater could be supported through private philanthropy, sponsorships, strategic partnerships and professional venue operators.”

Both of the documents are open to any individual or group. The letter of intent is a template City Manager Anette Spickard can sign with any qualified party, and signing it is not required to respond to the Request for Information, City Attorney Kurt Christianson said.

Under the letter, which runs through the end of 2026, SCP 2.0 will research whether renovating and operating the amphitheater is financially viable and how it could be structured on up to 25 acres of the 41-acre Cultural Park that the city purchased in November 2022 for $20 million.

The remaining acreage on the 41-acre site breaks down as follows:

■ 5.88 acres of slope protection and open space in the southwest corner.

■ 5.358 acres designated as a “Public Benefit Area” in the northeast corner.

■ Roughly five acres along State Route 89A, west of Yavapai College’s Sedona Center campus, where the Sedona International Film Festival could potentially construct a new theatre complex, a use the council gave initial direction to in December, pending completion of a land survey and appraisal.

“We’re kind of in the RFI phase with SIFF, so there’s nothing set in stone yet,” Christianson said. “No promises have been made on either side.

“They have proposed some plans with Community Development, but it hasn’t made it outside of” that department yet for review.

Council gave direction to Community Development Director Tony Allender to investigate three community uses that ranked above the amphitheater from an April resident survey: A festival space, a smaller gathering space and a recreation center.

Council members indicated a potential recreation center in particular would not necessarily be located at the Western Gateway.

“When I think about a unique, attractive, daily use thing like a rec center, you don’t put it at the edge of your town, you try to put it more in central parts of your town,” Councilman Pete Furman said. “I can think of a couple in West Sedona that could be a better location for it, and so that’s got to be part of the conversation going forward.”

The RFI expires on Wednesday, Sept. 30. Staff would likely spend October preparing information, aim to present it to the council in November, and could return around January for a possible second discussion on whether to issue a Request for Proposal, according to Christianson.

Request for Information for Cultural Park Amphitheater:

The city of Sedona issued a Request for Information on Monday, June 1, inviting private entities to share their interest and ideas for the restoration and operations of the Sedona Cultural Park Amphitheater, a 5,500-seat outdoor performance venue located on city-owned land in West Sedona called the Western Gateway.

The outdoor amphitheater was in operation primarily as a music venue from 2001-2003 and hosted nationally recognized artists. The city purchased the property in 2022 and is now exploring options to bring the venue back as a cultural and economic asset for residents and visitors.

The city is seeking responses from private organizations and businesses with expertise in developing, operating and managing outdoor amphitheaters, performing arts venues or comparable entertainment facilities. The RFI is an information-gathering step that may lead to a formal Request for Proposals process for a ground lease of up to approximately 25 acres of the city property. The city intends to lease the property at fair market value, with renovation and operating costs the responsibility of the private party.

Respondents are encouraged to share creative ideas for programming, business models, community benefit components and approaches to comply with Sedona’s sound attenuation requirements. The city is particularly interested in how a restored venue could serve residents and complement Sedona’s arts and tourism economy.

Organizations interested in scheduling a site visit may contact the city to arrange access during regular business hours with 48 hours advance notice.

The RFI package contains additional information, including a structural condition assessment, a site diagram, site photographs, zoning documents and a non-exclusive Letter of Intent available to respondents upon request. To learn more and to respond to the RFI, visit https://sedonaaz.bonfirehub.com/opportunities/238073.

Applications are due by Wednesday, Sept. 30.