Be informed.
Sedona AZ (March 5, 2012) – The following is a letter to the SedonaEye.com editor:
Dear Sedona Eye readers,
More Reasons to Vote NO on Prop. 420 (if you have not already)! As the March 13, 2012 deadline for mailing in your City ballot approaches, I would like to make some additional points and some additional reasons to vote NO on Prop. 420 (Home Rule).
Some candidates for Council as well as members of the City’s so-called and misnamed “Budget Oversight Commission” (AKA the Budget Outtasight Commission) have been spreading misinformation about Home Rule.
One particular Commission member cannot even get numbers straight. This member says $14 million will have to be cut from the budget if Home Rule is 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. The poor Budget Outtasight Commission member — who has the audacity to accuse others of not ‘understanding the budget’ — is off by over 30%!
All of the Home Rule proponents fear monger. They threaten us with police cutbacks, no sewer, and my favorite, no improvements to drainage. This last is a hoot. Ask yourself: how great has been the City’s efforts to fix this problem while they were living large under Home Rule and could budget as they pleased?
And just what have the years of living large under Home Rule accomplished? Nothing but more money for the City to waste.
Essential services — roads and drainage — have been neglected. Yet cuts to these same necessary services of government are always used to beat up and scare the voters whenever budget cuts are mentioned. You will never hear about cutting waste, fluff, and free money given away. And you will certainly never hear about cuts to the bloated City staff salaries and benefits.
Council is so loose with money under Home Rule that, in addition to a huge salary, our City manager got a “housing allowance”. Imagine, getting paid to live in Sedona!
City apologists and various City office holders claim our population is not an accurate reflection of the number of people here. They claim the influx of tourists doubles our population and that this will not be taken into account by the State budgeting formula. Perhaps they should have thought of this before they sold Sedona out to tourist-related business and used our money to promote tourism. Perhaps they should have thought of this before raising our already highest-in-the-region sewer bill to pay for tourist waste treatment.
Those who know Sedona’s history know that the City has failed, from the day of its incorporation, to ensure tourists pay their fair share of the services, facilities and amenities used by tourists. I and many others are weary of hearing how tourists butter Sedona’s bread when in fact they butter the bread of those in the tourist industry.
To be clear, I have no problem with people being in the tourist business. Good for them if they are. But I do have a problem with the constant guilt-tripping of residents and the constant misinformation spread about how tourists “support” us. Our local sales tax rate is 3%. So when the City gives away or spends $100,000, tourists have to spend $3.33 Million just to make that up.
So vote NO on Prop. 420. Force Council to focus, prioritize and budget properly like all of us have to do with our own money.
Warren Woodward Sedona residentPS – Feel free to forward this to all the Sedona voters you know. (SE Editor note: Email option is below this article as are social networking options.)
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I couldn’t agree more!!!! It is laughable when the City has had years to rectify flooding, drainage, and roads, and now all of a sudden its a huge issue. Call their bluff and vote NO.
Thank you for printing what the RedRock News wouldn’t print in an editorial. You just blew this wide open!!!!!
Nice for the City Manager to get a house allowance must be nice! I’m voting NO on PROP 420.
Its true, here is the proof.
http://www.sedonaaz.gov/FTP/City%20Council/Archives/2009/2009%2004%2014/Meeting%20materials/06k-02_Sedona_CM_Emp_Agreement_final_draft.pdf
And of course the dialog presented above merely addresses what is already fact and does not take into account the wish list agenda that has been quite well publicized such as:
Purchasing uptown acreage for a bypass; Purchasing houses and/or lots for “affordable housing;” Dreams of extending city limits to WW treatment plant and create some sort of Disney Like attraction out there???; Creek walk in a flood plane; Potential for city to own and operate Cultural Park to mention a few presently on the table.
Again the Red Rock News denied printing the other point of view in their latest front page article. Same old story.
Hey, kids, if you don’t apply the brakes by voting No on Prop. 420 it’s most likely you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
What, a bypass uptown?
The city wants to do that even after they added big time to the traffic problems with the poor design of that section of 89A after they claimed ownership from ADOT? You can’t be serious?
Did we not just go through a very expensive ballot measure to undo another stupid decision? Will people actually vote to give these folks carte blanche for another spending spree?
Please someone, tell me this is only a nightmare and not a proposed reality.
WHAT? What doesn’t the City get that affordable housing is here and did it without the city having to allocated, misappropriate, realigned, cut, balance or even squat to get it done! Housing dropped over 50% in Sedona! Million dollar homes are going for LESS than half build/sold prices of 2 years ago! There’s so much affordable housing that one stumbles across a foreclosure/short sale/devalued resale every other lot line!
This makes me so mad that I want to move to where government has a real social agenda that has real intelligent people running it. GIVE US A BREAK City of Sedona! And cut that housing allowance for the city manager – it’s not necessary any longer and actually never was. NO, NO, NO to you people lining your pockets with money. NO TO HOME RULE. It’s time for some fiscal restraint by the City Dollars Gone Wild Spenders!
Just an FYI about the City manager’s housing allowance. It was temporary and is now over. But that fact that he got it all, plus about 30% more in salary than the previous manager, illustrates Council’s fiscal incompetence. In short, it’s sooooo easy to spend other people’s money.
All I have to say is the Chamber of Commerce should have a new slogan: “Sedona, Arizona . . . A Great Place to Visit but a Lousy Place to Live.” Little wonder the population here decreased by, I believe, 1.6% according to the 2010 census. Wow, what a testimonial.
Also there’s the matter of just who has $$$ to spend on “selling” this idea of “Home Rule.”
In addition to the bulk mailings from the city, there’s at least one other “paid for” ad in RRN 2/29. And then the Sedona Gallery Assn. and the Sedona Lodging Council, under the “logo” of the Sedona Chamber of Commerce has at least one ad in the RRN on 3/2 besides the Chamber’s “freebie” article “urging residents to vote yes on Prop. 420”.
It would be remiss not to mention the Mayor’s gratis “Guest Perspective” (2/29) advocating a “yes” vote on Prop. 420 and then the most recent grand-slam front page article tooting even louder.
Wonder where the RRN stands on this? Oh, forgot . . . that was blatantly made public in one of their own editorials by Trista Steers MacVittle, Managing Editor.
So fellow residents, those of us with properties that aren’t under water one way or another, look on the bright side. Maybe we can unload them to the City since they will soon be in the real estate business, or so it seems if the Housing Commission has their way.
Good points, Discouraged in Sedona, and I loved this:
“Maybe we can unload them to the City since they will soon be in the real estate business, or so it seems if the Housing Commission has their way.”
Yes, I hope everyone notices that the outfits advocating for YES on 420 will all have their rice bowls broken when a majority votes NO on 420.
Tell me the difference between these two jobs? How many assistants does a City Manager of 10,000 people need? Come on people, open your eyes. You are being fed a bunch of bull. Ask questions and demand answers!!!!! VOTE NO.
Assistant City Manager
http://www.sedonaaz.gov/sedonacms/index.aspx?recordid=56&page=510
Assistant to City Manager
http://www.sedonaaz.gov/Sedonacms/index.aspx?recordid=58&page=510