Comments on: Future Sedona General Obligation Bond Issues Difficult

By: jean

jean — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 18:23:25 +0000

In answer to AN AHA MOMENT’S query about what our sewer fees add up to:

$7,741,811 are the fiscal year totals thru March 2013 (9 months) from the City’s Finance Dept.

This amount includes service charges for sewer service, permit fees, City sales taxes and miscellaneous charges pertaining to the WWTP.

Sorry for my delay in getting this info to you.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 18:07:09 +0000

To AN AHA MOMENT

By: Ted

Ted — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 19:50:54 +0000

Everybody’s talking about the Chinese buying up food production & agribusiness now but they’ve been at it secretly through shell companies for the past decade. Why is everybody surprised to hear the Chinese bought Smithfield hams and now will own the town? The lining in those owners purses is of pure gold and Smithfield Virginia is done for because money bought pride & quality. Instead of being known for ham they’ll be known for spam when the chinese get done processing it. Who would have guessed that J. Rick Normand had something right, Josh?

By: Si Bircher

Si Bircher — Wed, 29 May 2013 20:07:59 +0000

Terrie Frankel writes that City Council has been awarding expensive contracts for ridiculous pet projects (over a hundred thousand dollars for picnic tables at our sewer plant) with alacrity and abandon.

$100,000 for picnic tables??? Good god even ADOT the spendthrift spent less on entire rest area refurbs!!! Call California and buy its closed rest stop picnic tables or look in an ADOT warehouse. Damn you people are lazy bureaucrats. Put staff to work and get them on the phones or eBay or ask the prison to build more like they did for the bus stops at an inflated price elsewhere. Idea not working for you yet? Call WALMART.

By: Sharlett

Sharlett — Tue, 28 May 2013 03:41:16 +0000

With all due respect J Rick, (and thanks for the education on the various Bond ratings) China really isn’t our local problem — I’d call our local problem being our City Council and their dreams of spending money that is simply not theirs to spend and via any means they can dream up only in order to “play” with their personal agendas!

Many have screamed “Fire” about this and the last council! The biggest scream was when the elected (anointed) were just driven to own 89A in West Sedona. Guess the citizens pulled their fire trucks out of their garages and put out that fire. Thank heavens we are lucky enough to have outsmarted them as the State continues to own that stretch of Major Hiway running through town.

Lets just all get real and get back to how badly Council wants to spend money and All the lengths they will go to.

Sharlett

By: Terrie Frankel

Terrie Frankel — Mon, 27 May 2013 12:47:48 +0000

This ‘spend what we can while we’ve got it’ mantra of our Mayor and City Council flies in the face of any fiduciary and financial responsibilities they were elected to uphold. City Council has been awarding expensive contracts for ridiculous pet projects (over a hundred thousand dollars for picnic tables at our sewer plant) with alacrity and abandon. Does our Mayor and City Council think money is going out of style? Maybe it is. As J. Rick Normand points out so brilliantly, BEWARE…when the money is gone, it’s gone. Then what?

By: J. Rick Normand

J. Rick Normand — Sat, 25 May 2013 03:30:45 +0000

Sedona Cynic,

From your third sentence on, you are absolutely correct. Please, though, don’t misunderstand what I’m saying. The Chinese will only help us to the extent that it will help them. They own $1.2 TRILLION worth of US debt instruments known as US Treasury Bonds. There’s no way they can sell those to any half-aware investor on this 3rd rock unless these would-be investors believe that the US bond market is trustworthy. They certainly have no reason to believe it now. No one in power in this country has the know-how or the motivation to clean up our bond market mess unless outside powers step in and do it for us. Once that happens, the Chinese can get their money out of here. And, that’s why they will help us, for now. But, once they have their money in hand, they will, as you say, drop the hammer on us with all the might they can muster.

By: Sedona Cynic

Sedona Cynic — Fri, 24 May 2013 19:25:34 +0000

Mr. Normand, like your article and all told its merits outweigh its negatives. But I see an ineffective argument here that the Chinese have every reason to help us succeed. They want us to fail. Once they finish gathering all our technology and government secrets, we’re a piece of land to be acquired to offload a billion of their inhabitants that they cannot feed. I don’t believe in conspiracies, think it’s a load of bunk, but I do believe in poor governing by local, state and federal officials have lead to our overall poor direction and demise. From Clinton on we’ve been sold a pot of puss. It stinks.

By: Cole Greenberg

Cole Greenberg — Fri, 24 May 2013 15:12:31 +0000

Rick, you are awesome! Some Sedonans might say you are shouting “FIRE” in a burning theater, but without you, who would have the courage to call our attention to the fact that our “theater” is burning? That our City Counselors are even having a discussion about a City property tax is frankly embarrassing. The answer is not to give our irresponsible City staff and our “elected representatives” more money. It is time to tighten our belts and prepare for a rocky financial ride.

By: An Aha Moment

An Aha Moment — Fri, 24 May 2013 01:23:25 +0000

Because time share folks don’t pay bed tax because they own deeded properties, then why doesn’t each and every TS owner pay a monthly sewer fee. Is it $40/MO? since they are one reason the entire city isn’t on the system. how’s that for a solution for city funding that should have been collected a long long time ago. how many time share owners? @ $40/MO what does that add up to. Jean, do you know? Wake up city council.