Since this past August, your City Council has met Tuesdays and Wednesdays every 2^nd and 4^th week of each month. These meetings last four to five hours. The Council packet for each meeting usually fills a three-inch binder with materials prepared by City staff.  The workload for both staff and Council is jammed with so many matters, both great and small, that in addition to our regular Tuesday meetings, we will be possibly meeting every 2^nd and 4^th Wednesday through February 2011.

Your current Council members are perhaps the most engaged in recent memory.  We share responsibilities for attending the meetings of approximately 40 local and regional boards in which Sedona is a stakeholder spanning both Coconino and Yavapai counties.  We attend as many community events and organizational meetings as possible.  Each of us also serves as a liaison with two or more commissions appointed by your Council. 

One of many small matters that fill our agenda is a recent proposal by Parks and Recreation city staff to commission a consultant to study our parks and recreation needs. The goal is creating a 10-year master plan outlining the desired capital improvements to our parks, possible land acquisitions for new parks, and to identify the community’s recreational needs.

In December 2006, a former City Council identified the development and expansion of our parks as the major beneficiary of impact fees collected by the City. Approximately 80% of those impact fees are earmarked for parks and recreation. Unfortunately, in 2009, the state legislature froze impact fees for cities in Arizona through July of 2011. Until the expiration of the freeze, Sedona cannot conduct another impact fee study to adjust or reallocate the City’s impact fees for other purposes.

The City has accrued $1.8 million from impact fees that by state statute can only be spent on capital improvements in our existing parks and on land acquisition for new parks. State statute requires that if impact fees are not used in 10 years, those funds must be returned to the originator.

On October 24^th, City staff brought to your Council a Request for Proposal (RFP) based on a format commonly used by cities and counties, including Flagstaff and Coconino County, for a “ten year master plan” to guide the City in spending funds earmarked for parks and recreation.  Council’s response to the proposal was guarded. 

While campaigning for City Council, I discovered that many residents feel that past councils wasted public funds on consultants for studies now collecting dust on a bookshelf.  So I am particularly sensitive to spending public funds for consultants.

However, our fiduciary accountability requires that our Council ensure that public funds, including the $1.8 million for parks and recreation, are spent intelligently.  This means planning to understand Sedona’s needs before expending public funds. With this in mind, your Council directed City staff to work with the Parks and Recreation Commission to draft a new RFP tailored for Sedona.

We requested that the RFP be scaled down by eliminating demographic data that is available to staff through other sources, a parks’ facilities inventory, equipment condition, and other peripheral work. The intent of the study is primarily to survey the public to determine specific community needs.

The final point made to the staff was that any contract proposal resulting from their RFP that does not clearly demonstrate community value will be rejected by your Council.

In writing this, I have reviewed the factual information with members of the City staff to ensure correctness.  Please remember that any opinions that may be read into this article can only be attributed to me and should not be construed as representing the position or opinion of the City Council.

This City Talk article was authored by Sedona City Councilor Mike Ward on behalf of the Sedona Arizona City Council.

Sedona Arizona City Council