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The Unkindest Cut of All

The Unkindest Cut of All

By Tommy Acosta

Editor

 

The pain of a cut varies depending where it is made and how deep it is.

Such is the case with this year’s proposed budget cuts in the City of Sedona and for the various organizations it funds.

No doubt each and every cut suggested is painful and there will be belt tightening in the city and funded organizations, but there is one cut that will hurt far more than any other and that is the proposed $7,500 cut to the Sedona Community Center.

The difference between that cut and the others is the human impact and the devastating results it will have on senior citizens in our community who depend on the center for sustenance.

City employees working harder and not getting a raise; less pool hours; less money for cats and dogs; no movie department for the Chamber of Commerce; less hours for teens to use a center; less funds for recycling plastic and glass; and Sedona having less events will create pain, but that kind of pain pales in comparison to the pain our senior citizens living on fixed incomes and depending on the center’s Meals on Wheels Program will face, if the center’s budget is cut.

We are talking about a profound impact on human beings who will go hungry in our affluent community if that cut is approved by the council.

Personally, I am horrified our city council would even consider such a cut, a cut that directly and unequivocally creates harm to the citizens they are supposed to serve.

There remains a budget surplus of close to $10 million in the General Fund. What’s $7,500 in the face of that?

Or what is $7,500 in the face of a possible allocation of $450,000 for an outside contractor to come in and develop a study for the redevelopment of 89A that we may never have the funds to pay for anyway?

Or the $160,000 plus for the new city manager?

The proposed cut for the Sedona Community Center is an outrage. It is cruel. I just can’t believe the council will go through with it.  

It’s bad form. It just doesn’t compute. And if the council goes through with such a cut, the Karma they will collect come election time, will more than fit the crime.

For the sake of human decency, kindness, caring for our elders and respecting their needs, please, do not cut their budget.

Stay tuned for an up-close-and-personal story on some of those in our community now being served by Meals on Wheels.

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