Sedona Arizona
Sedona AZ (January 7, 2013) – In a Letter to the SedonaEye.com editor, a Sedona, Arizona city resident writes:
…Wed to a pro-growth agenda that subsidizes developers, consultants and the construction industry, the Sedona City Council is out of touch with us taxpayers. The mayor recently stated that streetlights were a highlight of 2012, though a majority of residents opposed them and voted out three council members who supported them in 2010. The vice mayor said, “maintaining our budget and financial management needs to be consistent in being fiscally conservative,” though this year Sedona was ranked the sixth highest city in per capita debt at $5,261.17. Another highlight of 2012?
In spite of $41.3 million in the City’s reserves, the mayor wants to float a bond to improve the wastewater effluent to A-plus, so the city can create yet another park, possibly a cultural park. Council members probably want to clean up the water, so that area can be developed. More affordable housing? They are also considering buying up vacant land for housing and assigning as head of the proposed commission a council member whose husband is a general contractor. A conflict of interest? Regardless, the City should not become a builder/landlord.
Clearly the Council is willing to put us taxpayers in more debt to grow the city for the benefit of special interests. If the Council was truly working for the common good, it would pay down our debts and stop spending money on unnecessary construction projects. It would stop using wastewater rate increases as a surrogate property tax, since there is already a $16.9 million surplus in that fund. Moreover, it should conduct a referendum to gauge the support of its pro-growth agenda that puts us deeper in debt. Then it should enact policies according to those results.
Henry Twombly Sedona, AZ
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Great letter, Henry, but Sedonans had their chance to rein in the spending and totally blew it. They could have stopped The Moronic Convergence (AKA Council) by voting against Home Rule. Instead they voted for Home Rule spending and now they are getting it good and hard.
The amazing thing was that over 50% of the registered voters didn’t even bother to vote. People get the government they don’t care about.
In addition, I have heard from various people who have been here awhile that citizens successfully passed a referendum to stop growth in 1993 and, although the majority voted in favor of it, the commercial property owners and real estate interests took the case to Superior Court, I believe, and it was roundly defeated.
It is a sad state that those in certain industry are permitted to shape City and State policy so blatantly without any regard for making housing, etc. “better,” rather than creating “more” houses.
When did the council lose its vision and its way? Has Mayor Adams succumbed to Mayoral Fever like Pud and Jerry before him?
I don’t care for the constant harping of pro or con creek development but it ‘s not a good idea no matter which side of the creek one is walking by.
I’m a walker and hiker. I can tell you that tourists don’t know how we watch for weather changes or understand how fast and furious dry washes and creek beds can get with a little water. Our small walking group had to inform people from Germany to seek shelter during a lightning storm they were unfamiliar with its potential for striking. A man in a friend’s neighborhood was from out of state and he didn’t understand why his yard flooded in a rain. He blamed it on the city. We must do the right thing for the people and not create a hazard. What if children are swept away while walking by the creek? Thank you. I like this news outlet better than any other in the area. Thank you again. It was fun having a say. Rachel (Sedona)
When you have concerns about the budget, the process or the amount budgeted, you can speak by phone or in person to Assistant City Manager Karen Daines, or Director of Finance Barbara Ashley.
The Budget Oversight Commission is a group of seven citizen volunteers who study budget details in depth and discuss pros and cons of various short- and long-term ramifications. The Commission meetings are open to the public, yet rarely does anyone from the public attend. In the years I have been on the Commission, no one who has written on this page, including Mr. Twombly, and no Sedonan well-known for sending out email blasts berating every spending decision the Council makes has attended a single meeting.
When juxtaposing debts and surpluses, it would behoove those who do so to find out what the rules are and why certain debts cannot be paid early, etc.
The Budget Oversight Commission meets – usually – the third Wednesday of the month from 10:00 a.m. till noon in the Vultee Conference Room at City Hall. Any resident may ask for three minutes to speak. Please takes the time to learn.
The Budget Outtasight Commission is total joke and complete failure. The proof is in the pudding and ours is getting expensive.
If City finances were in the great shape claimed by Council, staff and Budget Outtasight members then how come our already highest-in-the-region sewer fee increases yearly and is on schedule to ultimately double?
And how come businesses have to pay new “licensing fees”?
How come there are now “court costs”?
There used to be no fee required to submit opinions to the Voters Guide. It was part and parcel of living in a democracy, but not any more thanks to the tax-and-spend Council. Now it costs $250.
All these tax increases are the result of failure to budget properly and rein in spending. To top it all off, a City document from last month suggested the Budget Outtasight Commission “evaluate the various potential options for new funding sources” — in other words, dream up even more new taxes. There was of course no mention of ‘evaluating the various potential options for cutting spending’. (See my Sedona Eye article, “Sedona Home Rule Voters Sucker Punched”)
Poor Lin Ennis condescendingly thinks we need to “learn” but cannot even get her numbers straight. Back before the Home Rule vote she said $14 million would have to be cut from the budget if Home Rule was voted down. Yet according to the Voters Guide compiled and sent to all voters by the City itself, the cut would be $10.48 million. Lin — who had the audacity to accuse others of not ‘understanding the budget’ — was off by over 30%!
Additionally, Lin’s attempt to guilt trip people for not going to a meeting is pathetic and typical of those who think they and their meetings are so important. There is no point to going to a meeting to sit and listen to egotistical buffoons gab about how to waste other people’s money in order to speak for 3 minutes and then be ignored anyway. Been there; done that. I have been to the Budget Outtasight’s previous incarnation, the Budget Steering (off of cliff) Committee and I have been to several Council meetings. Total waste of time. Stupid can’t be fixed. It can only be voted out.
Sedona is viewed as a cash cow by a few business owners and developers; those who live here do not count. One poster made a comment on my petition that, “no one should live in Sedona, it should be used to make money for those with tourist businesses.”
Rich people like John Breeding sell their homes here for a great loss just to escape the airport noise over their homes. Many people have no privacy in their yards and have been viewed naked many times in Back o Beyond by low flying helicopters. Who wants a million dollar home with dozens of helicopters flying over your yard all day long? Why is this being allowed? Are you looking for a way to sink the real estate market here? Who wants go on a long vacation in a place that is not relaxing?
I see no point in attending any meetings when the Sedona Community Master Plan means nothing and is rewritten whenever any developer or special interest group wants it changed to meet their needs. TELL ME HOW OUR VOICE COUNTS HERE? Sedona bureaucrats can’t even uphold the Sedona Master Plan, it is a sham.
The jets were never to be allowed in Sedona, the runway was never to be expanded and yet that happened and now my blood is full of jet fuel and many people have or had cancer in Sedona and many have died. I have three neighbors who died of biliary cancer and none of them had Hep C or were alcoholics. Additionally, full pages ads were taken out in the Red Rock News warning this would happen! That ads went so far as to say “our blood would be full of benzene.” So the City went ahead and let the jets in anyway when they had the power to stop it. Besides the decreased property values, noise, pollution, illness and death it is a fire hazard every time a jet or plane crashes inside our forest.
Does this mean anything to anyone here? Where is the outrage? How many young people need to get sick and die here? Liver cancer is rare and caused by hepatitis C or hardcore alcoholism. To see three cases of non justifiable liver cancer in one small block in Sedona is outrageous. There is no mystery as to what caused this, my blood and my husband’s blood are at the highest levels of jet fuel in the country! No one has this amount of jet fuel from exposure in their own yard or home unless low flying jets dump fuel or vent fuel over their roof. I got my blood tested for jet fuel because a jet pilot came forward and told me their dirty little secret and recommended I test myself for jet fuel.
I have a right to be safe in my own home in Sedona, Arizona and not be murdered with my blood pressure going as high as 212/140! We could literally die here, murdered in our own home so some rich person can spend a weekend at Enchantment or have dinner at L’Auberge.
This is what growth has gotten us in Sedona, death, suffering and debt. We could all do without the traffic, noise and pollution. The only one making out on this deal is the local Sedona Cancer Center and a few businesses. How many people have had strokes or heart attacks from the airport? My husband went to the walk in clinic one day and other people who had normal blood pressure were also sitting there sick with unexplained high blood pressure. The doctor said, “he had seen many high blood pressure cases that day and he had no idea why.”
For the above mentioned reasons I have quit attending meetings, I find them only infuriating. The Sedona Community Master Plan was changed again recently to allow expansion at the Sky Ranch Lodge. John Breeding offered to move the airport out of town with his own $7 million dollars and was turned down, so he left Sedona. He would still be here today, he obviously cared a lot about making Sedona a better place. There are others like him who also were spending money on this town and they left.
Preserve Sedona http://www.closetheairport.com
I doubt we can put any stock in the $41.3 million in reserves figure. City Hall is spending down its savings reserves big-time.
For one example, as to the $11.4 million the Assistant City Manager told us was in the Capital Fund, she now says (12-12-12 Budget Oversight Commission meeting) that although the needs were not prioritized, there’s only enough funds for the next two years, and that’s it.
Commissioner Steve Segner of the Chamber of Commerce Lodging Council stated: “We are going to have to look more to the people who live here to pay more taxes.”
With regard to the Creek Access/Park/Walk, $1.6 million has been budgeted for this project in the current fiscal year. The total cost is estimated at $4.02 million.
By the way, a new City Council Priority A surfaced recently: “Public Outreach to educate the public and inititate a public dialog on future funding mechanisms for Capital Projects.”
Not spending money is never the answer. WATCH YOUR WALLET IN 2013!
Thank you, Jean. You answered a question I posted under Sedona Beyond 2012 by confirming Steve Segner having made the suggestion for us residents to pay more taxes. You also have thus substantiated my suggestion for the Chamber of Commerce to change their marketing slogan to: “Sedona, a fine place to visit but a helluva place to live” which has occurred since Sedona was incorporated IMO.
we’ve rights to refuse to pay any more taxes by voting out liberal spenders
Responses to Warren Woodward’s comments above…
WARREN: If City finances were in the great shape claimed by Council, staff and Budget Outtasight members then how come our already highest-in-the-region sewer fee increases yearly and is on schedule to ultimately double?
ANSWER: 1) The wastewater treatment plant and the sewer lines were installed after the city was built. That is the most expensive way to do it–after the streets and buildings are in place, so it cost a lot. 2) The Arizona Department of Environmental Quality *mandated* that the treatment plant be built and that businesses and many homes near Oak Creek be connected to the sewer. ADEQ also mandates the capacity, which has been increased as sewer use increased. 3) The Wastewater Treatment Plant was established as an “enterprise fund.” It is supposed to make money–at least enough to pay for itself. It has been far from that. Until recently, daily operations were subsidized nearly 50 percent from sales tax. The Council voted for users (and people with access to use) pay more of their fair share so that the sales tax subsidy could be reduced, allowing more funds for much-needed paving, storm damage abatement, and other city needs. The monthly charge, as high as you think it is, is insufficient to pay off the debts against the plant or support required improvements.
WARREN: And how come businesses have to pay new “licensing fees”?
ANSWER: Most cities require businesses to be licensed. When the city instituted the business license, the reason given was to cover the cost of managing the database of businesses. This is particularly important for proper sales tax collection. The fee effective January 1, 2013 is $25 per business. Some cities charge in the hundreds of dollars.
WARREN: How come there are now “court costs”?
ANSWER: Those who use the courts should pay a greater portion of court expenses rather than all taxpayers sharing court costs equally, whether or not they use the services.
WARREN: There used to be no fee required to submit opinions to the Voters Guide. It was part and parcel of living in a democracy, but not any more thanks to the tax-and-spend Council. Now it costs $250.
ANSWER: Each statement submitted adds to the size, and therefore the cost, of printing and mailing. Therefore, those who voices are being heard—candidates and supporters and detractors of candidates and referenda—are asked to help pay for the printing and mailing of their comments. Again, are you suggesting everyone who buys anything in the city (the sales taxpayers, about half of whom are not local) should pay an equal share of printing your opinion? What you call democracy?
WARREN: All these tax increases are the result of failure to budget properly and rein in spending.
ANSWER: None of the items mentioned above is a tax. Each is a partial fee for services rendered.
WARREN: Poor Lin Ennis condescendingly thinks we need to “learn” but cannot even get her numbers straight. Back before the Home Rule vote she said $14 million would have to be cut from the budget if Home Rule was voted down. Yet according to the Voters Guide compiled and sent to all voters by the City itself, the cut would be $10.48 million.
ANSWER: I used the number the city published in their pamphlet.
The Chair of the Budget Oversight Commission, a gentleman with impressive financial acumen, wrote in the February 29, 2012 ‘Sedona Citizen,’ “The current city budget is $32 million dollars. Without Home Rule, under the state imposed limitation, the allowed expenditure would be $21 million dollars. That is a 33% decrease in spending. This would set the city back at least ten years. If the city collects in sales tax, bed tax, wastewater fees and state revenue sharing $32 million dollars, the amount in excess of $20 million dollars by state law cannot be spent and will be added to the city reserve. Therefore, little, if any, of the capital improvements that promote the quality of our lives will be done.”
In other words, regardless of how much income the city acquired, spending would be limited by an arcane rule based on 1978 population figures and adjusted for population increases or decreases, and inflation. It does not account for a city with 300,000-400,000 visitors a year that needs a budget twice that size to support it. In other words, our city of about 10,000, is double that, based on averages. To wit, the “no home rule” limit of $20,000,000 suggests our city, with an average daily population of 20,000, should have a budget of $42,000,000, not the $32,000,000 we had in 2012. In other words, we’re managing at 24 percent below what the state says we should have, if they used the correct daily population numbers.
WARREN: Additionally, Lin’s attempt to guilt trip people for not going to a meeting is pathetic and typical of those who think they and their meetings are so important. There is no point to going to a meeting to sit and listen to egotistical buffoons gab about how to waste other people’s money in order to speak for 3 minutes and then be ignored anyway. Been there; done that. I have been to the Budget Outtasight’s previous incarnation, the Budget Steering (off of cliff) Committee and I have been to several Council meetings. Total waste of time. Stupid can’t be fixed. It can only be voted out.
ANSWER: The Budget Oversight Commission and the Budget Steering Committee are two different things. Maybe not an apple and an orange, but at least an apple and a pear. You cannot know whether the Budget Oversight Commission would ignore your suggestion until you make a suggestion. Suggestions are perhaps a more productive course than accusations and name-calling.
Municipalities have legal obligations by state statute. City staff have been doing “more with less” for so long, it’s challenging to find a place to cut even a little from the budget. Here’s a link for you to begin looking at state laws for cities:
http://www.azleg.state.az.us/ArizonaRevisedStatutes.asp?Title=9
E-mail to Warren Woodward:
As I just checked new postings on Sedona Eye I picked up on a comment from Lin Ennis. Specifically what jumped out at me is her statement that Sedona’s “real” population is 20/30 thousand because of tourists.
Now then, this becomes interesting. I would like to know if the number of “deeded timeshare property owners” who were able to sidetrack paying bed taxes . . . are they assessed the same monthly sewer rates as “regular” property owners (users of the service.)
That being the case, seems the WW Treatment Plant should be pretty well financed. In other words, does anyone know how sewer fees are collected on timeshares since so many different people own the properties? This is my main reason for cc’ing Sheri Graham as a general partner in the ownership of a hotel as well as a former P & Z Commissioner and member of the Sedona City Council. As a courtesy to Lin Ennis I’ve also cc’d her with this e-mail.
Although I do not have written verification, I know it was the promise of proponents for incorporation that sales tax and/or bed tax would be the source of funding for the sewer plant. Of course, without written documentation that’s essentially of little value unless there’s another severe uprising within the community.
With the advent of approving the multitude of Sedona timeshares, as usual it became apparent that “staff” didn’t do proper research on the feasibility of collecting of bed taxes . . . oops . . . or so the story went. But sure, “in lieu of” fees were imposed but when I researched how that worked with the former Assistant City Manager (Alison Zelms) and wrote a story for Sedona Times (printed edition) even she couldn’t explain the how or amount of the “in lieu of” fees . . . only that they somehow were supposed to compensate for the inability to collect bed tax. Obviously another major goof up by city planners and staff unless, of course, they had their own agendas.
Had the simple procedure of following the original promoted intention to sewer all existing Sedona properties at the time of incorporation, prior to new developments, it’s doubtful any of this would be happening. Yep, hindsight is 20/20 but most of those responsible have earned their city retirement benefits, cut the cord, and hit the road.
In closing, regardless of what city budget commissions/committees recommend, the bottom line decision is made by seven elected members of the Sedona City Council.
If any sort of INITIATIVE (I believe a REFERENDUM is a ballot issue challenging a decision already made by City Council) is under consideration, perhaps it would be well to include, in solid and legal language, that voting council members approving anything that has been documented to be so dangerous and obviously potentially libelous as a creek walk and/or park in a floodplain, must be held personally financially responsible when flooding or an other hazard, as the case may be, again occurs . . . and it will. In addition, how about a term limit for mayor?
Sincerely,
Eddie S. Maddock
The City of Sedona, not Warren, needs to familiarize itself with the Arizona Revised Statutes.
ARS 41-563.02.B.8, ELECTIONS FOR EXPENDITURES IN EXCESS OF EXPDNDITURE LIMITATION, mandates: “The person, group or organization filing an argument shall not be required to pay any cost of the paper nor any cost of printing the argument.”
City Hall violated Arizona law during last March’s Home Rule election. The City of Sedona, not Warren, needs to look at the state laws for cities.
ARS 41-563.02.B.8, ELECTIONS FOR EXPENDITURES IN EXCESS OF EXPENDITURE LIMITATION, mandates: “The person, group or organization filing an argument shall not be required to pay any cost of the paper nor any cost of printing the argument.”
City democracy at work? The City illegally required $250 to cover the costs of paper and printing to get an argument published in the voter pamphlet. I, personally, know two citizens who could not afford to submit an Argument Against as a result of this illegal city fee.
Lin gets most everything wrong as usual. Probably why she was chosen as a Budget Outtasight member. And I am not kidding about that. Only Tax & Spend Kool-Aid drinkers get appointed – no contrary opinions allowed. Just ask Terrie Frankel. She was treated so shabbily she wrote a letter to the SRRN about her experience.
Like most of her ilk, Lin’s history of the sewer system conveniently leaves out the fact that people who voted for incorporation (which also involved establishing the WW plant) were promised sales taxes would “pay for everything”. Lin gets it right about homes and businesses along the creek making the WW plant necessary but conveniently leaves out how, in typical mission creep, the City annexed many neighborhood systems that were not polluting the creek and were doing fine. My neighborhood is such an example. We had a perfectly good system but got taken over by the City. The recent battle over mandatory hookups in the Chapel was the same. People with state of the art septics complete with grey water irrigation were forced to connect to the City’s inferior system which then reached over capacity. Duh! I could go on but basically what is happening is that the City is increasing our sewer bills so it can keep wasting money on nonsense like giving away free money to well-connected beggar groups.
Lin’s answer to why there are new business licenses speaks for itself – because “Most cities require businesses to be licensed.” Hey, great reason. Thing is, the City got along fine for decades without it – that is until they ran out of money.
“Court costs”? Again, how is it the City managed for so long without that rip off? Justice is supposed to be City service but Lin and her ilk have turned it into “user pays”. It’s more like payers getting used.
Lin’s answer to why we now have a new $250 “fee” (AKA Free Speech Tax) to get an opinion in the Voters Guide is particularly galling. Nitwits on council decry lack of voting participation while at the same time they charge people $250 who want to participate in the process!
The $250 fee is most assuredly a “barrier to entry” into the political process. It is an obvious impediment to free speech. It stifles political dialog and has the effect of lessening interest.
The notion that the money is needed to offset ‘printing and postage’ is complete rubbish. We are already paying for services of this sort via our taxes. So again, this is not “User pays”. It is “Payers gettin’ used”. The amount of money gained by charging people who make comments is miniscule. There is no “offset” to be gained, only annoyance. And since the fee has the effect of discouraging people from commenting, the “offset” is guaranteed to stay miniscule.
Council wastes so much money in other areas and actually gives away hundreds of thousands in “free money” to beggar groups. What a warped perspective it is then to bilk residents who want to take part in the political process.
Lin claims none of the above charges are tax items but instead are “fees”. She can call them whatever she likes. They are all rip-offs whatever they are called. I consider them taxes via the backdoor.
Lin claims the Chair of the Budget Outtasight is “a gentleman with impressive financial acumen”. HAHAHAHAHA If that was true then the City Manager would not have just sent out a panic memo about having to find “new revenue sources”. And then Lin tries to use the Outtasight Chair’s numbers to cover her own numerical mistakes that she made in her SRRN Home Rule letter in which she was over 30% off. It was too perfect. The City’s own Budget Outtasight member totally mislead people. She should have been canned.
Her bit about all the tourists here is more baloney. Tourists pay about 1/3 the sales taxes. For every 2.7 residential units in Sedona there is 1 lodging unit. Tourists are a wash.
As for going to a meeting, both Lin and Budget Outtasight Commission chairman Fagan have been on my email list for years and so both should know full well the specifics on how the City wastes money. Like I am supposed to go to a meeting so I can be ignored in person?! My time is too valuable and the vibrations of the meeting too low to subject myself to it.
Keep drinking the City flavored Kool-Aid, Lin, and enjoy the higher “fees” to come.
Just within the past couple of weeks I received what appeared to be quite a costly blurb advertising the revision of the Community Plan. Then came a three-fold (six page) publication, “2012 Annual Community Report.” Are we to expect follow-up billing to help offset the cost for these questionably necessary mailings?