The City of Sedona Arizona

Sedona AZ (December 1, 2013) – The following is a letter to the SedonaEye.com editor requesting public involvement in the Sedona Community Plan publicity pamphlet which the letter’s author believes caters to special development interests by allowing unchecked city development and loss of national forest lands without city infrastructure investments on behalf of citizens:

This is a call to arms. Well, actually it’s a call to pens, because we all know that the pen is mightier than the sword.

Those of us who are opposed to the City Council’s profligate spending have a December 11th deadline to submit our letter for Arguments Against the 2013 New Sedona Community Plan. We need to submit them to “the Sedona City Clerk, CIty of Sedona, Sedona, AZ 86336 for insertion in the publicity pamphlet. Arguments can not exceed 300 words in length.

Individuals submitting arguments must provide their name, physical or mailing address and a telephone number. Only your name will be included in the publicity pamphlet. Each argument filed shall contain the original notarized signature of each person sponsoring it. If the argument is sponsored by an organization, it shall contain the notarized signatures of two executive officers. If sponsored by a political committee, it shall contain the notarized signatures of the committee’s chairman and treasurer.” 

Are you tired of continuous tax increases? Are you frustrated that members of the City Council, School District Board, and Fire District Board seem to be representing special interests instead of the public good? Watch what they do, not what they say. They say it’s for the public good, but their policies benefit special interests.

So check out the Community Plan online, read in between the lines and come to your own conclusions. Whatever they are, act on them. Unfortunately there were no Arguments Against the Budget Override in its publicity pamphlet. So this absence may have given those undecided how to vote the impression that there was no opposition. If you value your pocketbooks, you don’t want that to happen again. It’s time for all of us to step up and take responsibility for what is happening to our beloved city. 

The effect of the new Community Plan will be to enrich special interests, pander to the tourists and impoverish resident taxpayers. It’s all about construction, the industry and the related business that are subsidized by the City’s largesse. The Council wants to build a bike park, a park in Uptown along the creek, sidewalks throughout the neighborhoods, and low-income housing, for which the City would be (and shouldn’t be) the landlord.

With the average age of 56 for us residents, how many of you will be using the bike park? Do you use the already existent skateboard park? How many of you will go to Uptown to walk along the creek? That park will be mostly used by tourists. How many of you want sidewalks in your neighborhood that will narrow the road or encroach upon your property? How many of you want low-income housing? It’s a noble concept, but how will those occupants find jobs in Sedona, when small businesses are closing due to exorbitant sewer rates and other stifling policies by the Council?

The plan will rezone neighborhoods, so the City can “densify” housing. The net effect of the plan is to overdevelop the city and further desecrate the beauty of the national forest in which we live. Moreover, the Council plans to pay for all this new construction through general obligation bonds, special districts, and inevitably a property tax, when Sedona is already the sixth most indebted city in the state and each of us is responsible for $5,507.45 of that debt.

If the Community Plan passes, the Council will interpret this decision as a mandate to go ahead with all this construction. And they will spend, spend, and spend every bit of the money that they can squeeze out of you. So check out the Community Plan online, come to your own conclusions and then act on them. Express yourself either here in this webzine or in the publicity pamphlet.

Write Arguments For or Against. But whatever you choose to do, be pro-active in determining the future of Sedona. 

Sedona, AZ 86336

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