Parking plan inches toward next steps – Sedona Red Rock News

Council approves parking rates for garage and surface parking

The city’s Uptown parking plan is circling the block.

The Sedona City Council voted 5-1 at its Tuesday, Aug. 25, meeting to move a residential permit parking program forward, with Councilwoman Kathy Kinsella opposed and Councilwoman Melissa Dunn absent.

Council also unanimously set maximum parking rates for the Uptown meters, the parking garage and the Sacajawea Plaza surface lot — the framework for a future in which all public parking in Uptown has a fee.

However, none of the changes from Aug. 25 will take effect soon because the Uptown parking garage is not anticipated to open until December or January. City staffers said they want to monitor Uptown for at least six months afterward.

Deputy City Manager Andy Dickey said “it’s our intention” to bring the residential parking program back to the council for final approval.

The permit program would let the city restrict on-street parking to registered residents and their guests, to be implemented later “if future conditions indicate that restrictions and/or enforcement are needed,” according to the Parking Work Group’s letter of support in the council packet.

Once implemented, all non-resident street parking in the affected areas of Uptown will be prohibited, requiring visitors and non-residents to use the Uptown parking garage or public or private parking lots instead.

The residential permit parking program would cover three blocks in Uptown, Van Deren, Price and Smith roads, bounded by Schnebly Road on the north and Forest Road on the south.

Six conditions would trigger the plan, any one of which could be enough: Emergency access or public safety being compromised, spillover parking from the garage onto residential streets, resident feedback, parking use and occupancy data, a recommendation from the Parking Work Group or direction from the council.

The city is still deciding if the permits will be physical placards or a digital database, and specifically how residents will enroll vehicles in the program, but either way Sedona Police Department staffers will enforce the program using mobile license plate readers.

“Sedona’s parking management system is not ‘Flock-like; and is not connected to any law-enforcement network,” the city posted to social media Wednesday, Aug. 26. “The City Council, in a public meeting, reviewed the use of license plate recognition technology on Jan. 27, 2026. They approved a specific data governance policy that limits the technology to parking purposes and prohibits law enforcement, investigative, or surveillance use and sharing with outside agencies.”

Employee Parking

The maximum parking rate for the garage and City Lot 5 will be $2.50 an hour, with peak season rates of $3.50 in the March-May and September-November peak. On-street meter parking on State Route 89A and Jordan Road will run $4 an hour with a three-hour limit, or $5 in peak season. The fees will be in place from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., and there will be no parking from midnight to 5 a.m.

“Any other examples we have [when] our fee schedule is set and we actually implement something lower?” Councilman Pete Furman asked, though City Manager Anette Spickard was unable to provide an example.

The employee parking proposal stalled when the council tabled it to hear the fee ordinances and later returned to the item without adopting it. The council also rejected a recommended $25 annual fee from the Parking Work Group to join a new parking advisory group and instructed Spickard to work with the Parking Work Group on a revised employee parking plan to reduce the financial burden on employees in Uptown and avoid a gift clause problem.

The proposed plan was seeking free parking for carpools of two or more employees who register with the city, $2 a day for an employee’s single-occupancy vehicle in Uptown and a $25 monthly pass for employees.

“The proposed program identifies approximately 205 potential employee parking spaces,” the council packet reads. “Of these, approximately 104 spaces are drawn from the city’s public parking inventory … and not already identified as employee parking only,” approximately 16.5% of the city’s current public parking inventory. “Existing employee parking spaces reserved for Sacajawea and Matterhorn [21 spaces] are not included in this total.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to belittle anybody, but $2 a day — when I heard that, ‘Oh my gosh, who could have a problem with $2 a day?’” Councilwoman Charlotte Hosseini said. “It seemed so minimal, and granted, everything goes up over time, and you can get nickeled-and-dimed over many things. But if it’s really a problem, and free is the answer, let’s work on trying to make it free.”

Hosseini also requested a future agenda item to discuss a potential policy to waive parking fees during special events such as the St. Patrick’s Parade.

Other Council News

Sedona City Council’s next meeting is on Tuesday, Sept. 8, where it is scheduled for another marathon session:

■ Yavapai County discussing its proposed sales tax hike to fund the Yavapai College Jail District that voters will decide on Tuesday, Nov. 3 ballot

■ A council vote on whether to approve an extension for the Village at Saddlerock Crossing

■ Possible adoption of the Sedona Balanced Housing Strategy

■ a possible building code update

■ winter tourism marketing

■ city spending on athletic field improvements and security enhancements at Sedona Red Rock High School.

The city of Sedona will hold a Community Conversation public meeting on Wednesday, Sept. 9, the Community Library Sedona, 3250 White Bear Road to talk about Fire Safe Sedona and emergency preparedness and from 4 to 5:30 p.m. and a brainstorming session for a possible recreation center from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m.

Uptown garage opening delayed ’til winter – Sedona Red Rock News

City commits $3.7M to water main upgrades and Forest Road sidewalk improvements to State Route 89A

The money will continue to flow to support opening the delayed Uptown parking garage, which is now expected to open in December or January.

Sedona City Council voted 6-0 on Aug. 25 — with Councilwoman Melissa Dunn absent — to approve a Memorandum of Understanding with Arizona Water Co. and the Sedona Fire District, along with a related $3,741,285.50 contract with J. Banicki Construction Inc. to bring the long-delayed garage closer to its opening.

About $2.54 million of the contract covers previously planned Forest Road improvements, while roughly $1.2 million funds water-system upgrades that will be integrated into AWC’s infrastructure.

“Once we upgrade the size of the [water] line, it drops those velocities down and brings us into a safe condition,” Deputy City Manager Andy Dickey said.

Additionally, a voluntary $60,000 to $80,000 sprinkler system for the garage’s electric vehicle charging area is anticipated to be completed through a minor construction contract within City Manager Anette Spickard’s spending authority.

“The current garage project cost is approximately $28.25 million, including the approximately $1.2 million McCarthy settlement previously approved by Council,” on Aug. 11, Dickey stated after the meeting. “There was no additional garage construction cost approved at Tuesday’s meeting.”

Work to resolve structural issues with the garage’s external serpentine facade was scheduled to wrap up on Aug. 25, according to city staff during the meeting.

Phase 2 of the project was not authorized Tuesday. That potential future phase includes extending the water main upgrades up Van Deren Road and across Schnebly Road to Jordan Road, upsizing the city’s line from 6 to 8 inches.

Phase 2 is estimated to cost about $2.5 million, with construction potentially starting next summer at the earliest and finishing in December 2027.

The Forest Road improvements include a sidewalk on the north and south sides from the garage to the existing sidewalks connecting to State Route 89A.

‘Under Pressure’

Dickey told council that water moves through the 6-inch main feeding the garage’s sprinkler lines faster than plumbing codes allow, requiring new 10-inch pipe to be installed. AWC has elected to install a 16-inch main and cover the incremental cost.

“The higher the velocity, the more it can scour, or you might say it’s kind of like rubbing sandpaper on the inside of the pipe,” Dickey later said. “So, the higher that velocity, the more it has a tendency to scour that pipe.”

AWC identified its water velocity criterion for the garage during a Feb. 18 meeting with the city, a determination that required additional hydrant flow testing and the creation of a hydraulic model of AWC’s system.

“The initial modeling was completed in late June and then refined based on comments from AWC,” Dickey wrote. On July 13, AWC asked that the model be expanded to evaluate a much larger portion of the Uptown distribution system, which required additional system information.

“The expanded analysis was completed July 16. That analysis identified high velocities in multiple existing 4-inch and 6-inch water mains and also identified differences between the actual system configuration and the information previously available for the modeling. That was when the extent of the existing system issue and the need for broader water system improvements became clear.”

Five members of the public spoke on the garage’s water issues, and a question common to both them and the council was why the problem wasn’t known sooner.

“We didn’t have the ability to rely on that information being there ahead of time, and we did our due diligence through the design process,” Dickey told the NEWS. He noted the modeling gap came from not having AWC’s system details. “It’s just what we learned in going through all of that. We realized later that it changed the project cost and scope, and that just wasn’t foreseeable, just based on the conditions that we were under in the moment.”

According to Vice Mayor Brian Fultz, the silver lining is that potential new water projects will reduce future AWC rate hikes to Sedona customers.

“The way things work in the state of Arizona, even if we didn’t pay for these improvements, even if Arizona Water paid for them,” he said. “In fact, if Arizona Water paid for them, that cost would come back to the ratepayers ultimately because it would go to the [Arizona] Corporation Commission, who would rubber stamp the investments that the utility has made.”

Accountability

The council expressed frustration over the parking garage’s price tag and delayed opening, calling for a formal performance audit of the project once complete.

“Staff does a good job of financial audits, but the thing that we’ve seen lacking in the past is an actual performance audit function, and [the garage] opens itself up to be a great test ground of what we can actually see and learn,” said Councilman Pete Furman, who is also on the council’s audit subcommittee that was approved earlier this year.

“I don’t want to ever see a project like this again,” Councilwoman Kathy Kinsella said.

Addressing the ongoing delays and scrutiny, Dickey outlined steps the city is taking to improve its process on major capital projects moving forward.

“One would be going about the procurement process differently, and making sure that as we bring a contractor on board, some of these issues are built into their contract that require these issues are dealt with more proactively,” he said. “Of course, in hindsight, things are going to be more clear. Knowing what we know now about [AWC’s] system, it will be at the forefront of our minds to ensure that we check the details of their model moving forward at the front end of the project.

“Typically, when you submit for review to an entity, you would expect to get all the information up front. But like we explained to council on Tuesday, we don’t know the ins and outs of their private water system, but we know a lot more now.”

“Our confidence level is pretty high for [opening in January],” Dickey said.

Submitted to Red Rock News on 7/22/26. Printed as a Guest Perspective on 7/29/26.

Sedona voters renewed Home Rule – Proposition 400 – keeping budget decisions under local control for four more years.

The same voters passed Proposition 403, designating the Cultural Park for parks, recreation, and culture – taking housing off the table there.

Voters also elected Fultz as mayor, and Dunn, Buillet, and Hauserman to Council. Congratulations. I welcome the new voices and note their balance.

On the Cultural Park:

I voted No on Prop 403 and said so publicly. I believed the planning process should have finished before options narrowed. The voters disagreed, and that settles it. I will support implementing the Cultural Park designation in good faith.

I still believe Sedona has a housing problem that is hollowing out our community. Finding locations for housing just got harder. One thing I would do differently: begin the Cultural Park planning effort with less dense housing options. We now look to the Balanced Housing Strategy to help us plan elsewhere, and better.

On Home Rule:

Home Rule won, as it has every time since 1996. Some neighbors believed defeating Home Rule would send a message about spending. The margin, smaller every time since 2012, sends it anyway.

For years, our surveys have shown many residents lack confidence in where the city is headed. Some of that criticism is unfair. Some of it is earned. A council candidate skeptical of the direction won the most votes this election. All of this is data. Winning Home Rule while ignoring all the feedback continues the fight.

On the Permanent Base Adjustment (PBA):

Although it wasn’t on the ballot, supporters and opponents of Home Rule agreed on one thing during the campaign: Sedona should pursue a PBA – a voter-approved change of the state spending limit.

I called for a Permanent Base Adjustment; so did people who disagree with me on nearly everything else. When both sides of a hard fight point at the same next step, take it seriously.

The soonest a PBA can practically reach the ballot is July 2028, and Home Rule governs through FY2030, so there is time to do this thoughtfully. The hard part is setting the number. Set it high and it replaces Home Rule votes for 15 to 20 years. Set it low, below current spending, and the community must trim services and projects – a choice no Arizona city has ever made. A third option, also novel: keep Home Rule, set a low PBA – higher than the state limit – and hold it in reserve. It would make for a softer landing if Home Rule someday fails. Whichever way, voters should decide with clear eyes.

This debate will be difficult and emotional. Anyone who tells you it will be quick or painless is selling snake oil. What matters is a process the community can stand behind. Residents must be in the room from the start, especially those who voted No on Home Rule or Yes on 403.

On Coming Back Together:

After eight years of city service – four on Council – and having chosen not to run again, I will use the freedom of leaving to say a few things.

To everyone who ran: putting your name on a ballot is its own service. Thank you.

To residents who are angry with the city: your vote mattered. Stay engaged, and if you show up at every step your voice will be more powerful. The budget routine starts in December, work groups need members, and Council meetings have a podium with your name on it. The city can listen.

Much of this election played out online, where the sharpest voices often get rewarded. But those forums are not the whole town, nor are they built for constructive dialogue. The Council also hears from people who never post online – and other residents say nothing at all. It still must decide what’s in our community’s best interest.

To the city: trust is rebuilt through behavior. Implementing Prop 403 well is one crucial behavior. Running an open, patient PBA process is another.

To the winning candidates: you inherit all the messages from Tuesday, not just the friendly ones. Governing is where you prove your vision. The concerns that fueled this year’s campaigns now have a seat at the dais.

And to our entire community: the people on each side of these questions are your neighbors. Although I have disagreed, sometimes sharply, with people who campaigned against my views, I don’t doubt they love this town. That is what we have in common. And that ain’t nothing.

Sedona is a great place to be. Let’s get back to work.

The opinions expressed here are mine alone – I am not speaking for City Council or city staff.

Anna’s hummingbird is Sedona’s official bird – Sedona Red Rock News

Ahead of the 14th annual Sedona Hummingbird Festival set for Friday to Sunday, July 24 and 26, the Anna’s hummingbird [Calypte anna] has been officially designated as Sedona’s city bird.

City Council voted unanimously to approve the designation during its meeting on Tuesday, July 14.

Nearly 40 people came to the meeting, several of whom were waving sticks adorned with hummingbird silhouettes. When asked who came to the meeting to support the designation of the Anna’s hummingbird, only two people remained seated.

Why Designate?

Alice Madar, the executive director of the Sedona-based International Hummingbird Society, told council the designation would cost the city nothing.

“It promotes sustainable gardening, planting native trees and flowers,” she said. “They’re naturally pest-resistant and droughttolerant, and the flowers that attract hummingbirds— I looked this up — are also fire-resistant. They’re green and less oily than some of the other plants.”

Additionally, she said birders are the “best kind of tourists,” because they avoid the crowds and come in the off season, when businesses need more revenue.

They’re also on the road early in the day, she said, meaning their impact on Sedona traffic is minimal.

“There are hummingbird images all over Sedona,” Madar said. “Many people have said they thought a hummingbird was already the city bird.

“Hummingbirds have inspired an annual Sedona Hummingbird Festival dedicated to them, and there is another separate hummingbird workshop scheduled for August, and that is run by an entirely separate organization from Colorado.”

Sedona is home to eight species of hummingbirds, but the Anna’s hummingbird is the only one that calls Sedona home year-round.

It’s also the fastest recorded hummingbird, comparing speed to body length.

“In body lengths per second [385], faster than a Peregrine Falcon or a space shuttle re-entering earth’s atmosphere,” Madar said during her presentation.

Support

In a letter Madar distributed to the council before the meeting, she said Sedona would be the first city in the state to designate a city bird, and the first city in the nation to designate the Anna’s hummingbird.

While it’s the only hummingbird to reside permanently in Sedona, the Anna’s hummingbird also ranges throughout the Southwest and up the West Coast, including parts of Oregon and western Washington.

In its application to designate the city bird, the Hummingbird Society included letters of support from the Northern Arizona Audubon Society, the Butterfly Enthusiasts of Northern Arizona and Keep Sedona Beautiful.

“We believe the designation of the Anna’s hummingbird as the city of Sedona’s City Bird will help raise awareness of the fragility of our high desert ecosystem and the necessity to preserve all aspects of the scenic beauty and natural environment of the Sedona Area,” KSB President Carla Williams wrote in her letter.

Madar said she put out petitions for the designation, which garnered 259 signatures from Sedona residents.

Out-of-town signatories included about 160 from the Village of Oak Creek, several hundred more from the Verde Valley and Arizona and more than 50 from out of state.

Process

In the beginning of discussion by council, several members expressed concerns about setting a precedent before there’s a process.

“A vote tonight doesn’t just pick a bird; it creates a de facto designation process,” Councilman Pete Furman said. “If we direct that a formal process be created afterwards, the next group lobbying for a flower or a tree or a crystal might arrive with their own petition and justifiably ask why the rules were different for the birders than they will be subsequently.”

In 2025, council designated the bird as the official bird of the Sedona Hummingbird Festival, but not of the city.

The July 14 vote was a simple resolution, which city attorney Kurt Christianson said could be undone if need be by a later resolution.

Other concerns included other birders wants a different bird designated.

Councilman Derek Pfaff said he’s not for a process because of the effort and energy the Hummingbird Society put into getting this to happen.

If “there are any champions for the ravens or the quails or whatever, we probably [would] have heard from them by now,” he said. “So, as much as I’m not in favor of the process, I don’t know how we could say ‘no’ to this.”

City of Sedona unveils program to get subdivisions ‘Firewise’ status – Sedona Red Rock News

‘Fire Safe Sedona’ aims to stabilize insurance rates due to region’s higher-risk urban-wildland interface

The Community Development Department unveiled its Fire Safe Sedona Program during the City Council meeting on June 23, during which council unanimously supported the program to move forward.

“Fire safety has always been one of my concerns. It’s been a community concern for as long as I’ve been around, because of where we live,” Councilman Pete Furman said. “I thought this could be one issue that the community really could rally around and work together as a team.”

The effort is set to assist at least two subdivisions annually to get Firewise USA community certified, host five to 10 annual educational presentations, host an annual Firewise USA event, Community Development will amend city codes to comply with Firewise USA program, and create a Fire Safe Sedona website.

“My division has been doing it for a few years now, I’ve spoken to many subdivisions, few of them are already accredited, and there’s no profiting to it at all,” Sedona Fire District Fire Marshal Kirk Riddell said about Firewise. “The whole intent is … ‘let’s reduce those fuels between your home and the forest.’ It’s kind of like what the Forest Service does on the fire when they burn out the fuel to keep it, so when the fire gets there, there’s less to burn.”

The program is spearheaded by Assistant Director of Community Development Steve Mertes, senior planner Christian Santa-Gonzalez and Emergency Management Coordinator Chance Wnuck, with City Councilmen Derek Pfaff and Pete Furman backing the effort. It promotes Firewise principles and Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety Wildfire Prepared Home standards, after the council directed the department to prioritize Firewise work at its December retreat.

Firewise USA certifies entire subdivisions through assessments by agencies and city staff. While the IBHS program is for individual homes, with homeowners applying for one of two certifications, funded by the insurance industry. Homeowners do not have to meet both requirements, but they both have similar requirements of removing fuels from properties, and don’t require clear-cutting.

“The Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety Wildfire Prepared Home is a designation given by IBHS when a homeowner accomplishes wildfire reduction efforts and improvements to their homes in accordance with IBHS standards,” the plan reads. “IBHS is known for providing resources and has been recognized to provide mitigation strategies that are science-based to meaningfully reduce wildfire risk to homeowners’ properties when meeting the requirements of the IBHS Prepared Homes checklist items.”

The incentives for joining the program are: City-supported chipping and/or disposal days from the Public Works Department, priority access to city or grant funded mitigation projects, Fire Safe Sedona signage and public recognition, matching funds for fuel reduction or road clearance and access improvements, reduced permit fees and expedited approval for home hardening projects.

The Sustainability Department will provide education and guidance to staff about drought-tolerant plants that can be promoted for landscaping, the city will also conduct residential property assessments.

“In-person and online workshops, demonstrations and informative material will be conducted throughout the year,” the plan reads. “The website and outreach efforts will, at minimum, cover topics such as evacuation preparedness, defensible space, fire resilient landscaping and benefits to the Fire Safe Sedona Program.”

Insurance Industry Engagement

“Challenges include insurance agencies dropping policy holders due to high-risk threat designation within specific areas, evacuation logistic difficulties due to roadway constraints and roadway design patterns, and funding for prevention projects,” the plan reads.

A major reason for Fire Safe Sedona is a desire by the city to slow rising insurance payments and reduce the number of policy cancellations by companies because of fire risk by increasing “insurance underwriters’ confidence,” presentation material reads.

“Our results indicate that the current discounts are small: The costs of property retrofits are orders of magnitude greater than the insurance savings,” according to a December 2025 study by Resources for the Future, a nonpartisan environmental and energy research nonprofit in Washington, D.C.

The plan also “builds structured data reporting shared with insurers and brokers to increase transparency and support underwriting confidence,” presentation materials read. But “does not guarantee a reduction in insurance premium rate.”

Riddell told council that despite that data sharing, SFD does not hand homeowner inspection results to insurance companies, and inspections happen only at a homeowner’s request.

“We do have one major company, that being State Farm, who has indicated to us that they will actually reduce rates if you are certified, and so we’ve been trying to reach out to other companies, I think this is going to grow,” Mertes said.

“A few years ago, I started talking to some folks in the insurance industry, … looking around the country, this was inevitable,” Furman subsequently said. “It’s happening here, and it’s a concern everywhere. I think there are communities that have helped reduce their overall risk rating and got lower rates, and it’s something we can do as well.”

During the meeting the U.S. Forest Service also provided an update on their response to the Pocket Fire burning north of Sedona, during which District Ranger Alex Schlueter also provided a brief update on USFS’s project to construct additional firebreaks focused on the south side of Sedona.

“My hope is to sign a decision at some point next calendar year, and then to work toward implementing it,” he said.

Visit nfpa.org for more information and visit wildfireprepared.org for more information about IBHS and how to apply for the certification.

Those interested in a Firewise certification or free fire risk assessment can contact Kirk Riddell at 928-204-8926 or kriddell@sedonafire.org.

Contact Assistant Director of Community Development Steve Mertes at 928-203-5097 or smertes@sedonaaz.gov for more information about Fire Safe Sedona.