By Tommy Acosta — It was a celebration of new hope at the May 25 Sedona City Council meeting where the new council was ceremoniously sworn in.

One could feel the joy bouncing off the walls as the standing-room-only crowd applauded and cheered for the victorious candidates representing their dreams and hopes for the future of Sedona.

The defeated incumbents took their lumps gracefully, save for two who walked out prior to the official hand-off.

Of course, the new council did what they promised, rejecting the string of lights for 89A and endorsing and NSA designation for Sedona.

A splendid time was had by all who put their faith and votes behind the new slate, a New Order, which swept the Old Guard out of office in a Tsunami of voter discontent and disillusionment.

The question remains how could the Old Guard have been so out of touch with the will of the people? Time after time they ignored the community members who showed up at almost every meeting pleading the Old Guard deny the lights and endorse NSA.

 And let us not forget the final and fatal mistake that did them in when they tried to eliminate the Democratic and Constitutional right to vote for the mayor rather than appoint. That effort was the final straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back.

Citizens were ignored, rejected, disrespected, called a minority of discontents, dismissed as irrelevant and treated like worthless peasants incapable of understanding the higher elements of politics and what was best for Sedona as the Old Guard thought they knew.

What a devastating experience it must have been for the Old Guard when the election results poured in and they began to realize it was over; they were wrong; they had lost.

A clean sweep; a landslide victory; a new beginning and new hope for Sedona!  This is what those who voted for the new council and ensuing change hoped for.

One telling event at the May 25 meeting was when the remaining appointed-councilor remnant of the former council majority tried one last time to flex the vacant power of Old Guard influence on council hoping the city attorney would find a legal loophole to stop the new council from officially rejecting the lights and threatening ADOT with legal action should ADOT try to force the lights in anyway.

Calling for an Executive Session behind closed doors in an attempt to ring up the old tired and impotent threat of “liability” to stall the inevitable official rejection of the lights, he was soundly dismissed as the New Order simply voted him down and went ahead and did what they promised to do.

And people should be aware the four new council members, the New Order, excluding the mayor, are the new majority.

So even if the mayor and vice mayor and the appointed-council member should vote different than what the new councilors want, they will lose.

Uh Oh! What does this mean? This means the seasoned councilors best heed because the newbie’s got the power now.

Remember the favorite line of the Old Guard “Unforeseen Consequences?” Well here is déjà vu all over again.

And I remember writing one editorial after another foretelling the demise of the Old Guard because of their failure to listen to the will of the people. Step-by-step I laid out the strategy for the rebels and for the Old Guard as well on how to win. In the end, it was the tenacity, will, hard-work and of course alternate-media support of the New Oder that led to the crushing defeat of the Old Guard.

My advice to the seasoned councilors is listen well to the New Order councilors. They all took an oath to follow the will of the people and in America; this is what it is all about.