Sedona AZ vista
SedonaEye.com c2015 exclusive photo by Eric Williams
Sedona AZ (March 23, 2015) – The following is a letter to the SedonaEye.com editor:
Ok, so this is just an exercise in futility, but what the hey why not.
My reply to Larsen (Red Rock News) — what unmitigated gall — it’s our fault for not buying the land ourselves??!!
I find the high handed accusatory stance of Larsen Publishing very offensive! To say that homeowners refused to buy the parcel for years is simply ridiculous! If it was zoned as commercial all along, why would homeowners go through the ridiculous process and expense if they could even afford to?
The question isn’t whether the homeowners nearby are to blame for the current battle! Stick to the subject Larsen.
Does the Town of Sedona really need another drug store? Everything CVS has to offer is available in multiple other establishments in town. Walgreens, Safeway, Bashas, IGA just to name the biggies. For those who prefer less toxic means of obtaining health, wellness, and beauty supplies, they are there as well — as are several other independent operators who can provide free samples, money back guarantees, and right to your door service! But let’s keep cluttering up 89A with more duplicate businesses that will struggle, due to the small population available to frequent those businesses.
No, I think the real issue is and has been for quite some time an actual sensible and workable business plan to ensure businesses that come to Sedona succeed and provide good service. I know this is when the free market capitalist pot bangers stand up and yell; but, before you do, understand that I believe in free markets, but they still have to be sensible.
When either CVS or Walgreens pulls out leaving their empty shells behind because business was not sustainable, what then?
Have a chat with the landlords of the many many empty storefronts in Sedona. They can’t rent them out and every month more businesses fail. What is the Council doing about that? Bringing or allowing more unnecessary redundancy? No, their eyes have not been on the ball for a long time and apparently still aren’t.
Not to stir up yet another hornets nest, but what did the Council do to protect the public from unwarranted RF exposure when APS began its tyranny? I don’t recall much of anything. The battle still rages, meanwhile the studies are mounting about how unhealthy that is! I say the writing on the wall is clear — big business is what they’re about — not small town ambiance or small business owners or even homeowners.
So Larsen so sorry — not buying your arrogance and now not buying your newspapers either. I’ll stick with Sedonadotbiz who incidentally agreed with you, but without throwing their neighbors under the bus. Or the SedonaEye.com.
See how you like the redundancy.
Donna Solomon
Les Springs Homeowner
Sedona AZ and Roseville CA
Read www.SedonaEye.com for daily news and views!
If homeowners stand up like Ms. Soloman, Sedona will regain a role as an Arizona wonder. Not one to buy or read the RRN, stopped it years ago and most neighbors don’t get it or read Devol because both are tied to the Chamber’s pockets and city coffers and are buddies. Granted the Sedona Times Eye can be raw, yet how’s that a downside? Couldn’t help but notice RRN and Biz names weren’t edited from your letter, how’s that for fresh air?
Count me in agreement that city government’s decisions are carving away our gem. CVS we don’t need or want on any lot in the city, but Council wants its tax receipts at any cost, even a financial loss and future eyesore. Like the President, and I regret voting for him twice, it’s all about the now and damn tomorrow. The bought and paid for silence in this city is deafening. Council is opening doors that common sense says keep closed.
Congratulations for speaking up. Note to Sedona 30 and business community, you need to get on board because cache, property values and rents will come down if Council stays on this vain glorious path.
In fairness to the previous Council who intervened after our continued pleas to do so, the City’s hiring of Attorney David Pennartz did result in eliminating set-up fees, for everyone who already had retained their non-transmitting analog meters, and reduced the monthly fee from $30 to $5.
However, the ACC 12/12/14 Decision 74871 failed to address opt out policies for solar or businesses and by all logic the City still has the opportunity to represent those stakeholders as an “intervenor” since the ACC Administrative Judge had allowed previously. Nearly 33% of 86336 APS rate payers opted out (from a total of 8,945), we want the rest of our community; solar and businesses to receive the same consideration.
Pennartz wasn’t representing the City of Sedona, he was representing himself or others, not the city. A needed correction.
@Jaspar – Your statement is not correct according to my knowledge as he was hired and paid by the City of Sedona to represent it as intervenor with the Arizona Corporation Commission.
I have a question after reading of this in the RRN & taking out the sarcasm, what I took away from the story is that no one else can buy the property because CVS is still buying it. I agree that we don’t need a pharmacy but I don’t think that anyone has a right to tell a property owner what they can and can’t do with it. Someone told me that on a commercial lot they can have like 50 types of businesses.
@ Jaspar – You are wrong. Pennartz was hired by the City and he represented the City.
I stand corrected. Thank you.
I don’t see the property purchase comment holding water, Laura Johnson. Like most caught off guard that a chain box store would find that corner worth a second look, it’s on an intersection with a road that has issues, it’s out of the way for most resident drivers who use the commercial business hub in west sedona and not a tourist location because the opposite corner attracts no tourists regardless of its name. In short, the commercial and business zone functions in west sedona and uptown. Sprawl is a disaster for a tourist economy in a town that doesn’t have room for sprawl. Compact commercial districts are good planning. P&Z usual lack of planning experience strikes again.
Let us not forget who owns the property on the opposite corner (round building, small strip mall, and real estate agency): Larson’s who, coincidentally, publish local print newspapers including but not limited to the Sedona Red Rock News. (Also and conveniently the source of public notices posted by City of Sedona.)
All that’s going on is coincidentally in compliance with the newly revised “Community Plan” and all the proposed “focus areas.” (Have you checked out plans for Schnebly Roundabout and West Gateway, home of the proposed new Marriot hotel?)
If any of you that are complaining didn’t bother to vote (one way or the other) you are getting exactly what you asked for. The CP was approved by only approximately 1500 Sedona voters.
If you sat in silence then, aren’t you offering too little too late here?
Please, think about it the next time there’s an election in Sedona.
Thank you.
Agreed @What did you all expect?
Failing to vote and not speaking up only enables those in control to direct things for their personal agendas.
Rationalizing your behavior by saying “I want to live in peace” ” It’s not my fight” “Not my money” or “I don’t want them to do that to me” while you watch others get hurt, slandered, bullied, and run out of town is dishonorable.
Watching City Council give a Regional Chamber 1.2 million dollars without the businesses that collect those dollars to have a say so, horrible. No accounting or transparency, impertinent. Not giving those business owners their own voice, disrespectful. Allowing the chamber to take credit for all the in city businesses, despicable. This made each and every business in the city limits second class citizens. Allowing the Regional Chamber to spend that 1.2 million on their “regional” membership and their own pocketbooks is further than words, unlawful in most States.
Allowing the city to tell you that you don’t contribute, you don’t matter as you are a “retiree” sickening. All monies do not come from tourists, and they use that to rationalize their behavior, bizarre discrimination.
Sitting silent while the International Film Festival and other non profits take millions of Sedona taxpayers money because you like films and the Arts, or you find Patrick entertaining, appalling.
Watching Larson’s paper and Steve Segner slander Cliff Hamilton, atrocious.
Standing up, speaking up together only gives you all strength and enables positive change. Silence endorses bad behavior. You heard it in the city council meeting. By not speaking up they think you agree. Not your neighborhood? It will soon be.
Love your city? Doesn’t mean you go with everything “They” want you to. City Council is suppose to represent you. Are they first class citizens and you third? Demand fairness and respect. City Council doesn’t treat anyone but the chamber and their entertainers well. City Council enables maltreatment.
If you truly love your city then it time to unite. Remember the road -89A Take your City back. Together & united you have strength in numbers. Think about it. The road of Sedona is going to get worse unless you unite. It is written in the community plan, and you all enable it if you don’t speak up & stand up.
N*R*
@Norma
BRAVO!!! Very well written and makes probably way too much sense for the nay-sayers.
Please keep up the great observations.
HOAs are the bane or the salvation of communities. Sedona has both kinds. City Councils come and go. Some should and some should be kept. Vote’s out for the current group. Sedona P&Z has never risen above political arse kissing and uses all sorts of excuses for decisions & actions & for Sedona to survive the new city manager better have bigger cojones than lips.
Exasperated at the direction the city has been headed in the past few years. We moved here, shop here, entertain here and the city council doesn’t appreciate its residents. Negative word of mouth from the residents will keep many away! We are the magnet for families and friends, we are the reason for restaurants and shops surviving during off seasons and through the recession (which hasn’t quit). Not the distant landlords living high off our hog, not the hit or miss businesses, not the sudden appearance of dirty streets and homeless, not the absence of dark sky friendly government. I am speaking to the vacuum of Council. Glad that Mrs. Solomon wrote what she did on our behalf. Thanks.
Thank you Connie for the post. As a long time resident, my family has lived, shopped and played in the city limits first. I raised my family here. Run a few businesses in Sedona, one in Uptown now in West Sedona. We have also volunteered for non-profit business associations, even put on non-profits events all unpaid.
We greatly appreciate our local clients. Our business plan targets them and their needs. New products have been developed to help service the local needs. We have many more on the way. We would not be in business today if we did not have our locals following. We are not alone. More and more business owners are seeing the value in local first. We buy local first supporting our businesses like printing, office suppies ect whenever we can, even if it is slightly higher in cost.
Thank you for supporting the local businesses. We are one team. We LOVE our neighbors, friends, and locals. Thank you
A special thanks to Donna Solomon for speaking up. By addressing things we can make positive change. Our world has changed it is time for Sedona to move forward respecting each other.
Sincerely,
Donna Joy Varney
dan’s bistro out of business & now Shallott’s in same locale OUCH & kfc move from busy 89A intersection was death knell;; paint store gone near harkins & now we to to flagstaff/cottonwood for paint if don’t want ace. she’s right. we don’t need one more redundant store; we need different not same.
@Lois
FYI thankfully Sedona paint has not left our city, they just moved down the road a bit. Mike and Michele are now providing the best paint and service in town out of the old auto parts store.
To bad they moved Just Saying, it was a great location. New site not as convenient (bank, drugstore, grocery, exercise, movie routine at old location). Reminded me that paint was sold there when at movie.
I believe the residents option to purchase the parcel refers to the adjacent parcel that is currently zoned residential, allowing up to 12 homes. CVS wanted to rezone it from residential to commercial to allow for a larger facility.
The nearby residents apparently never thought of banding together and purchase the residential property to prevent more homes being built. Of course it would be quite an expensive deal, especially when the rate of return is simply having more open space between Les Springs and 89A. I dont think RRN was saying they had the opportunity (or should have) to buy the commercially zoned parcel at the corner. And not all undeveloped properties are for sale, so the arguement that they should have bought it years ago is off base.
Regarding the point about the City being a bit more responsible for the success of a business is naive as to how zoning works. Each zoning district allows for a number of allowable uses. The question of whether the City (or residents opinions) needs any particular type of business is not subject to City scrutiny. It is the risk the business owner takes by opening up shop in any particular location provided their business is an allowable use. Businesses come and go not because of the City, but because of either poor business skills, poor business planing and feasibility analysis, or under capitalized.
Most businesses that fail (those that we know about are usually highly visible storefronts) are not tourism based. Those that target locals and that succeed truly meet some need that local residents have and that is a niche or can withstand more than one business offering the same service. Restaurants by the way are among the highest failure rates. Location is also a big factor. No wonder Nicks Bistro and the subsequent restaurant failed in that less than impressive strip center so common in west Sedona. How are you going to serve customers if the parking lot can only handle a few cars? The other 3 storefronts in that center control the other parking spots.
@John Stuart – you make interesting points but are you aware the CVS project (Plan A) has been approved therefore qualifying most comments for the “redundant” stock pile.
BTW it seems it was the number of people that removed their signatures from the original petition that required the super majority of six that convinced Angela Lefevre to change her vote. Three or four of those who changed their votes spoke at the meeting and pleaded with Lefevre and Dinunzio to reconsider their votes for Plan A since CVS was going to build anyhow.
If by chance the availability of a pharmacy on that corner will relieve congestion at the Coffee Pot intersection it could actually be a good thing. Isn’t it maybe time to accept the decision and move on and away from more redundancy?
To think that CVS would have just walked away from the whole deal if they did not get the zone change is the naivete I am talking about, especially the residents who originally signed the petition to require a supermajority. Seems like they thought signing the petition was a way to make it difficult to get a yes vote (which it did) but those two councilors who voted No and who apparently wanted to align themselves with the NIMBY residents are just as naive, evidenced by their change or heart when they realize their original knee jerk opposition was not a good idea after all (except for DiNunzio).
Anyone care to speculate as to why DiNunnzio kept his vote as a No in spite of weighing the pros and cons of a Plan A vs. Plan B?
Great points John Stuart. I sat there watching the last 2 hearings and was disgusted. That DiNunzio would make up all of those excuses for not wanting the cvs and when each one was debunked, he still voted it down. Obviously he has only those 2 houses in mind and cares not about the people who put him in office.
If he really thought that cvs wouldn’t build those houses he’s a fool and was playing the odds on our backs. What would he say to us if plan 2 went through and those houses went up? I know who I’m not voting for in 2017, DiNunzio!