Pete Furman

Sedona City Council may create an independent auditor – Sedona Red Rock News

The Sedona City Council’s annual retreat gave some early direction for 2026. Council could potentially add crisis shelter Hope House of Sedona as a city Community Service Provider, create a Council Audit Subcommittee, create a citizens’ committee to look at increasing the compensation for council members and bolster city public relations.

Council Pay

Currently, the monthly salary for city council members is $550, and the mayor receives $800. Councilman Pete Furman is seeking to raise these amounts in an effort to attract younger and more working-class candidates to run for office, with a citizens committee recom­mending to the council whether or not to increase salaries.

“There’s never a good time for the council to consider raising its compen­sation,” Furman later said, when asked if he thought the potential to raise sala­ries is counter to council’s general direc­tion to staff for this budget cycle to not increase the number of staff positions and to project essentially flat revenue. “But I thought it would be a good effort to start a community conversation with a citizens work group and kind of think through all the issues and come back to council with a report.”

Increasing the compensation would require an ordinance amendment and can not take effect until after the 2026 elections.

Independent Auditor

Additionally, following the recom­mendation by Furman, Councilwoman Melissa Dunn and Vice Mayor Brian Fultz, council agreed to create another subcommittee to look at the creation of an independent auditor to monitor city spending and operations.

Phase 1 would involve hiring a consultant with the subcommittee and staff to create a committee to develop city performance metrics and use the Enterprise Resource Planning to create publicly available dashboards.

Phase 2 would involve the “creation of an office of independent perfor­mance auditor whose function would be to hold government accountable, both elected officials and city manage­ment; recommend ways to improve services; report how government funds are being spent; assess emerging risks and showcase successes; ensure compliance with policies, laws and regulations; and identify cost savings,” the council packet reads.

No timeline has been set for the creation of either committee.

Hope House of Sedona

Dunn submitted a discussion request to potentially add Hope House of Sedona, which provides transitional housing services for homeless local families, and the Sedona Community Food Bank to the city’s Community Service Providers — organizations that receive city funding through formal contracts to deliver social services on behalf of the municipality.

For example, for city fiscal year 2026 the Sedona Heritage Museum’s city service provider contract is for $167,050, according to museum Executive Director Nate Meyers.

“I spend a large chunk of my job fundraising … that’s one of my main priorities,” Hope House Executive Director Turiya Weiss later said, adding that she is “cautiously excited.”

“Having another piece of our funding secured for fiscal year 2027 means that it frees up a small amount of my time to … ensure that we are able to expand in a conscious way,” she said.

Dunn wrote that her intention for adding them is to bolster the city’s response to homelessness.

“I do not believe the community has any interest in creating a drop-in center, or any additional services already being provided by non-profit organizations already within the community,” Dunn wrote in the council packet. “Based upon this assumption, I would like council to consider adding Hope House and [Sedona Community Food Bank] as current Sedona contributions to help the homeless within the community as service contractors, if those facilities are interested in such a contract.”

Councilwoman Charlotte Hosseini requested that staff develop environ­mental sustainability performance measures in the Community Service Provider contracts and “Update on any county owned streets within the city limits dating to annexation in order to understand the city’s intent” such as with repairs the packet reads.

Fultz’s retreat proposal could expand public participation through semi-annual listening sessions. The new Communications and Public Affairs Manager Tyler Maffitt who started on Monday, Dec. 22, would develop an engagement plan potentially including weekly podcasts.

Liaison Roles

Interim Mayor Holli Ploog serves as liaison to the Greater Arizona Mayor’s Association, League of Arizona Cities & Towns, Sedona Historical Society, Sedona Wastewater Municipal Property Corporation, Verde Valley Mayor/Manager Group and Yavapai County Mayor/Manager Group.

Furman was named as the liaison with Councilwoman Kathy Kinsella as the alternate to the recently formed Yavapai County Water and Open Space Committee that is slated to start in January. Furman will serve as liaison to the Airport Advisory Committee, Coconino Plateau Water Advisory Committee, Keep Sedona Beautiful, Northern Arizona Municipal Water Users Association and Public Safety Personnel Retirement.

Kinsella is liaison to the Sedona Community Center Board.

Dunn is liaison to the Greater Sedona Area Recreation Collaborative, Community Library Sedona and the Verde Valley Caregivers.

Fultz serves as liaison to Northern Arizona Council of Governments and the Sedona Lodging Council.

Council OKs arts & culture grant funding – Sedona Red Rock News

The Sedona City Council unanimously approved the recommendations of the Arts and Culture Grant Review Committee on Tuesday, Dec. 9 — award the Sedona International Film Festival and the Sedona Arts Center each $100,000 in the city’s first disbursement of the recently created Arts and Culture Grant Program.

“We have two very fine organizations,” Councilman Pete Furman said. “I don’t like the process. We developed a competitive grant process. [But] it’s not really competi­tive. I would prefer that we do contracts for services for these two fine organizations.”

Council approved the creation of the grant program 5-2 during its Sept. 9 meeting, with Furman and Councilman Brian Fultz opposed. Subsequently, the Arts and Culture Grant Committee reviewed applications on Nov. 17, forwarding recommendations to council.

ACOG eligibility is limited to Sedona-based 501(c)(3) nonprofits focused on arts and culture with annual budgets of $1 million or more. Qualifying organizations must offer year-round programming for residents, expend awarded funds within the fiscal year, submit outcome reports and forgo other city grants during the same period.

SIFF and SAC were the only applicants that satisfied these requirements.

“We are really honored that the city has recognized us and the Sedona Arts Center for the value and the arts and the culture that we bring daily to this community,” SIFF Executive Director Patrick Schweiss said. “This is a huge step in support for arts and culture on behalf of the city, for two very well established longtime organizations.”

Among SIFF programs that ACOG will support are: The Sedona Professional Theatre Company that brings profes­sional actors and directors to the Mary D. Fisher Theatre, the “Movies on the Move” outdoor screening program, a new live music series with four dates and the continuation of the annual festival’s closing night free concert.

A portion of the funds from this grant are earmarked to help support four programs at the upcoming festival taking place from Sunday, Feb. 22 to Monday, March 2: “Marilyn Monroe at 100: A Celebration” with film screenings and a live tribute; “Right In the Eye: Movie Concert on Georges Méliés’ Films” featuring a small live orchestra from France; “From Broadway with Love: Part II” with Megan Hilty.

Finally “‘Eisenhower: This Piece of Ground:’ Live one-man stage production starring Tony Award-winner John Rubenstein as Dwight D. Eisenhower,” SIFF”s grant application reads. This production would be staged as the preevening kick-off event of the festival, in celebration of launching of the Sedona Professional Theatre Company.

ACOG is “something that Patrick Schweiss and I have both been working toward for the past year and a half, just laying all the groundwork to make it happen,” SAC CEO Julie Richard said. “We really need this funding, and it is going to go a long way in helping to support our programming.”

The $100,000 will go towards supporting SAC’s Creative Aging program, the The Sedona Entrepreneurial Artist Development Program a two-day program in March that teaches business skills to artists, Gallery 928 a summer art apprenticeship program for teens, and the “Faces” exhibit series.

SAC and SIFF originally applied for and were awarded $30,000 and $27,300, respec­tively, under the city’s Small Grants Program, on June 24.

With the creation of ACOG, those funds will be redistributed to other area nonprofits under the Small Grants Program: The Sedona Symphony, $19,500; Low-Income Student Aid, $6,065; Chamber Music Sedona, an additional $4,500; the Sedona Chamber Ballet, $4,500; Gardens for Humanity, $4,500; the Sedona-Oak Creek District Educational Foundation, $3,225; Piano on the Rocks, $2,500; the Rotary Club of Sedona, $2,000; the Sedona Arts Festival, $2,000; St. Vincent de Paul, $2,000; the Sedona Sister Cities Association, $1,000; the International Hummingbird Society, $1,000; and Wisdom Age Metaverse, $5,000.

Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to accurately state Sedona City Council’s prior vote in September.

Yavapai County hopes water talks flow – Sedona Red Rock News

Yavapai County Supervisors Nikki Check [D-District 3] and Chris Kuknyo [R-District 4] were tapped by their fellow supervisors to join the newly formed Water Resources and Open Space Committee during the board’s Dec. 3 meeting in Prescott.

In “January, myself and our county manager at the time, and several Yavapai County directors attended a Growing Water Smart conference, where we brainstormed amongst ourselves: What could the county do to make progress on water?” Check later said. “We coalesced around the idea that we’d like to see a more regional conversation, and that Yavapai County would be the most appropriate and best facilitator for [that] conversation.”

“Topics and reasons for convening this conversation would be to find areas of agreement where we could have some mutual coopera­tion to get some projects together, both in understanding our regional hydrology but also doing proj­ects like stormwater capture, and additionally looking at what tools are already in our toolbox that we can implement for being water conscious, but also identifying areas — specifics that we would like to see added to our toolbox as far as decision-making on regional groundwater.”

The Yavapai County Water Advisory Committee was first approved by the board on Jan. 25, 1999. Check served as appointed member through the Jerome Town Council when she was Jerome’s mayor, before the committee was disbanded in 2014. Check expressed support for reforming a committee at several points on the 2024 campaign trail.

“Here’s what’s different about the way things used to be,” Check later said. “We had a Water Advisory Committee. So yes, Yavapai County has kind of been in this position of facilitating a regional conversation before, but that was at a time when the state was not very active. Since then, the governor [Katie Hobbs] has really activated the [Arizona] Department of Water Resources.

“They’re analyzing basins. They are making progress and forming ideas about how our groundwater is going to be managed. So what I would like to see is our regional stakeholders be able to have a cohesive voice in that conversation with the state.”

Check said the new effort must focus on areas of agreement rather than disagreement if it hopes to be productive. She described the prior committee as prone to get “mired around misunder­standings and disagree­ments around the inter­pretation of the data that’s available.”

“I think that there is a regional desire,” Check later said. “Prescott … the Verde Valley communi­ties, they’ve all said they are committed to ensuring that the Upper Verde River continues to flow. But how to get there is an important topic. So that’s the area that I’d like to focus on — finding those areas of agreement. I don’t know why there wouldn’t be an area of agreement around doing some smart stormwater capture to help bolster that watershed. There’s so much around it, or preserving some open space to protect the hydrology there.”

The main focus of the committee’s conversation will be how to keep the upper Verde River flowing, Check said.

Calls for stronger regional coordination on water issues have been growing across the county. In May, Citizens Water Advocacy Group Executive Committee member Gary Beverly warned that cities within the Prescott Active Management Area continue to pursue new development while relying on a shared groundwater supply that is already in decline.

“The numbers are sobering,” Arizona Water Sentinels Program Manager for the Grand Canyon Chapter of the Sierra Club Jennifer Martin wrote in a March blog. “Groundwater pumping and climate change have reduced the Verde River’s base flow by more than half compared to pre-development levels, “Del Rio Springs, once the historical headwaters, has been reduced to a trickle — just 5% of its original flow. Six miles of the upper Verde have already dried up, and projections suggest that the base flow at critical points could reach zero within a few decades. These declines threaten not only the river itself but the intricate web of life it supports.”

Sedona’s water supply is stable but declining, according to Arizona Water Company represen­tatives during their Oct. 29 update to City Council.

Assistant Yavapai County Manager Tyler Goodman told the super­visors that Prescott Valley, Chino Valley, Dewey-Humboldt, Clarkdale, Cottonwood and Jerome have confirmed participa­tion, with Sedona expected to finalize its representa­tive by Friday, Dec. 19.

Sedona City Councilman Pete Furman told the NEWS he has an interest in being on the county’s new committee in addi­tion to his current roles on the Northern Arizona Municipal Water Users Association and the Coconino Plateau Water Partnership.

“The watershed in our particular area is in rela­tively good shape relative to the rest of the Verde Valley and the rest of the county,” Furman said. “So, it’s going to be very interesting to see what this county group wants to take on, but it’s really important for Sedona to participate as well.”

The Water Resources and Open Space Committee is expected to begin meeting in January. The committee will be supported by a two-year, $25,000 grant from the Growing Water Smart for professional facilitation services, with the goals of creating web-based mapping tools for water data by February and a county-wide open space plan by June.