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Reader Outraged by Sedona Community Plan Insanity

Sedona AZ (January 30, 2013) – Sedona resident, Warren Woodward, read the City of Sedona mailed Community Plan this week and was not pleased. Woodward took to the keyboard to express his displeasure and opinion in an IMO Sedona Letter to the SedonaEye.com Editor:

Community Plan Insanity Plans?

Information & Opinion by Warren Woodward

I could barely read the Community Plan bilge the City of Sedona wasted our money on and sent out. On any given page, I was outraged at the absolute and complete utter nonsense that I read. 

The proposals I saw are completely unhinged, stunningly divorced from economic reality and reflect zero comprehension of individuality or of the rights inherent in individuality.

Park outside the City and pay a “Sedona Pass” at the “Gateway Center” to get in?! Who dreams this stuff up, someone trying to recreate the Middle Ages? 

Then, while you are at the “Gateway Center” you “may sign up for trail maintenance or environmental classes!” 

I laughed to the point of tears at that one.

I can hear the cocktail chatter now: “We used to come to Sedona to relax and get treatments at the spa but we’ll never do that again. You just haven’t lived until you’ve done trail maintenance. What a great detox when it’s hot and dry out! And the work gloves, impregnated with locally grown aloe vera made from the recycled shoes of Waste Water plant “Discovery Center” workers, make my hands so soft!” 

Think I am kidding about the gloves? The City’s document fantasizes about “new businesses that manufacture products from reclaimed waste.”

The thing is this: If there was any demand for such a business, someone would be doing it already! Clearly, the Community Plan Steering Committee members responsible for this drivel are economic illiterates with no understanding of how a market economy functions. And, if they think ‘manufacturing products from reclaimed waste’ is such a great business idea then why aren’t they leading by example and doing it themselves?

And when will these people understand that no one comes here to live above a shop? That type of development has sat vacant for years opposite Picazzo’s. People do not come here to ride a bus either. The Road Runner was free. It was also worthless. Rides could literally not be given away.

People do come here to hike – but not to walk to stores and schlep groceries or other purchases especially when it’s 100 degrees!

By the way, I called the Elks ClubNo one from the Community Plan Steering Committee consulted them about that time in the future when, “The Elks Club has evolved into a unique Sedona Center.”

The choices we are given in the “plan” are really no choices at all. Every single one reflects top down management, control and coercion in some form or other, and submission of the individual to the collective.

The whole publication is a variation on the Delphi Technique of consensus manipulation. The last couple pages are particularly blatant. They list “your most mentioned ideas.” Each idea listed begins with “You want.”

Yet no mention is made of how many people actually wanted these ideas, or how the ideas were chosen or presented, or if any cost analysis was given!

I am willing to bet money that the actual number of respondents is statistically insignificant.

If a significant number of people were involved, then, wouldn’t those numbers be given? Wouldn’t that be a bragging point? For example, wouldn’t we be reading that ”over half the town wanted this or that”? All these tired and failed social engineering concepts – higher density housing, “affordable housing,” busing, and faux “green” everything – so beloved of elitist planners, busybodies and ungrounded “visionaries” who know what’s best for us – unfortunately just never seem to die.

But what else should we expect? Like any City committee, the Community Plan Steering Committee membership is a who’s who of insufferable busybodies in Sedona.

Their “Imagine Sedona” logo shows a mass of literally faceless people. I suspect this is how the Committee imagines residents: the masses devoid of any individuality to be herded into “gathering centers” called “Gateway Centers” and “Discovery Centers” and mass transit, mass housing, mass this and mass that, as we “age-in-place” and are “educated” endlessly about “water quality issues” and ‘the environment’ since “the Citizens Academy concept has been expanded to the general public.”

Or do these faceless images represent the faceless bureaucrats and other tax eaters who will swarm over us should any of these awful ideas be adopted?

The word, “Communist” is not one I use much. It is a throwback to a bygone era with lots of connotative baggage but it is entirely appropriate to describe everything about this insane “plan.”

In closing, please join me in my prayer…Oh God, save me from the world improvers.

 

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15 Comments

  1. Having read “Imagine Sedona 2020 and Beyond” in its entirety and subsequently availed myself of the opportunity to submit a couple of comments (the most recent under “Sedona Storm Water Plan Incomplete After Spending Millions”) it behooves me to post script those remarks at this time, based on Warren Woodward’s astute observations.

    I find two distinct missing links to the three recommended “visions” for future Sedona:

    (1) Sources of funding for the ambitious, numerous, and extensive proposed projects addressed in the three examples provided; and

    (2) Missing is the suggestion of a name change from to Sedona to, perhaps, Colorado City since it’s obvious the future here is headed for communal living if the “alleged” majority, in reality, are in support of the ideas offered. That being the case, of course it would necessitate switching the concept of a mayor to a cult leader.

    Thank goodness I still have my sewing machine and will be able to make my own clothes from home-grown material obtained from future cotton fields. Phew!

    The recommendation contained in the last sentence of my previous post under the storm water plan article remains solid.

  2. Randy says:

    can’t stop laughing

  3. Sandy says:

    I hear you and I question you. Where were you at one of the three meetings set aside to listen to your input and explain what the document was about? Not a challenge, just a question.

    I am new to Sedona and was very impressed at how the planning committee did exactly the opposite of what you described above. They didn’t try to make Sedona into Disneyland. They didn’t try to make us into hemp wearing vegans. They didn’t try to make us ino isolationists who would end up in our own enclave eventually eating soilent green. (Forget who, but where is John Galt? Maybe that’s why the people are faceless. Not because they have no identity, but your needs are waiting to be identified.)

    What they did was lay out three PLANS that did not cross each other. From there, a ven diagram could be created. The statistics, numbers, bragging rights cannot all be given at this point as the PLAN is still in it’s infancy. I can hope my young daughter will grow up and be successful, but on the day she was born, we just proclaimed, “It’s a girl!” As a teenager, I’ll report, she’s a remarkable girl, that’s what the plan is doing at this point with the information the group has.

    I agree that living above a business went out with the immigrants in the early 1900’s, yet most of the Sedonian’s I go to for my massages, clothing repair, and even medical consultations aren’t in a facility nor a non existant “Sedona 3-level Mall”; they are in the vendors’ own homes. I don’t go where the tourist go as I’ve found the best.

    People mover to Oak Creek – Oh, ya! I’m a city girl, but that doesn’t even work for me. The meetings were a wonderful experience to realize how to use the document, the tool, to say that this option works for me in environment, yet another option under community works for me regarding another kind of event.

    Thank you “planning committee” for recognizing the diversity in Sedona and doing your best to address it.
    As for me, I need a mall where I can wear the Jimmy Choo’s, DKNY’s, and Tahaari’s I snuck into the pots and pans, nooks and cranny’s I could find when we relocated from “The OC” when my tree hugging husband had his mid-life crisis. Though I’m blessed every morning by the Red Rock “art” from my bedroom window when I wake up. Please incorporate both. Thank you.

  4. Jean says:

    Did you know that Scottsdale voters didn’t like their Plan update and rejected it during last March’s elections? Critics of the Plan said it catered to special interests, threatened Scottsdale’s character, and wasn’t resident-friendly.

    What wil the City be like after the Steering Committee’s unrealistic “visions” get incorporated into the new Sedona Community Plan?

    The City is already economically unhealthy and is becoming less attractive every day. Traffic congestion, bad development, a deteriorating quality of life and sight-blight are alive and well now.

    The Steering Committee is not the voice of reason. The City of Sedona should re-adopt its current Community Plan and send it to the voters for approval.

  5. Wendy says:

    At the meetings the Citizens Steering Committee invited the public to multiple times, at multiple locations, over the course of several years, (since May 2010), everyone’s input was collected (of those who felt it important enough to show up). The vast alternative means put together to gather the opinions, ideas and visions of local residents who could not attend these meetings was set up so as to make it as easy as possible for everyone’s voice to be heard in these important matters.

    The culmination of ALL ideas over the years were presented in the Community Plan that went out in the mail recently. These ideas came FROM the community. Obviously we have a wide variety of local opinions for the future of Sedona. These ingenious ideas need to be whittled down to into workable actions for the not too distant future. This was the purpose of inviting the public to the presentations done by the Steering Committee in mid-January. They represent YOU. Your ideas! Your dreams.

    Not all dreams come true. We, as community members, need to come together to let the Committee know which of the vast array of ideas presented in the Community Plan should shape the dream that does.

  6. Penny says:

    I think Mr. Woodward should have attended the many, many, many meetings that were held BEFORE the plan was submitted. He obviously lives to criticize everything, but does not bother to attend meetings!

  7. Warren says:

    To all those who participated in the Delphi Technique sessions — oh, I mean community planning meetings — please tell us all which great “dreams” were yours. What genius came up with “underground parking”? Or “neighborhood compost piles”?

  8. The problem is, you have too many city employees with nothing to do, so they sit around and think of ways to spend money. What a job, you go to meetings, make plans and supervise something that was not needed.

    The solution, cut staff or eliminate the City of Sedona.

  9. City Planning? Gates to the town with classes on environmental agendas??? Seriously? People moved here to be left alone. Now a group of wanna-be’s are trying to “tax-and-spend” us all. Fire them all.. we truly do not need or want them.

  10. Warren, thank you so much for resurrecting this under the post you made on my recent review of the proposed consideration for a sustainable pilgrimage site in Sedona. That meeting was on October 27th and I believe a special meeting the following day included a review of council, staff, and public roles in local government.

    Having caught but only a small portion of that meeting, what I did hear convinced me to take time and listen to more when I have the chance. Both the new city manager and city attorney, also new to Sedona, were gently attempting to clue council members in that at least some of them are apparently confusing staff on what duties they are to perform by over-indulging in too many personal contacts. How many masters is city staff supposed to serve?

    That, of course, is based on an extremely narrow observation of only a slim portion of the meeting but current events will inspire me to check it out more thoroughly.

    The community plan, a state-mandated document, was never intended to serve as anything more than a suggested guideline every ten years. Clearly this council doesn’t get that concept and will trash basic necessities for health and safety for their own translations of the ambiguous missing link to this trilogy – that being “welfare.” Therein lies the mysterious conclusion that “welfare” is an invitation for them to interject their me, me, me, I, I, I, think mentality that they were elected to be judge and jury for the masses – including the entire Verde Valley.

    The future should remain in the hands of legitimate voting Sedona residents and not manipulated in accordance to the whims of those who do not seem to understand the limitations of their elected positions. Why is that so difficult to grasp?

  11. @ESM

    LOOK AT ME……LOOK AT ME…….LOOK AT ME…..

    Seems to be your mentalitity ESM

    Why is that so difficult for you to understand Those elected officials actually stood up and did something to become involed in something whether you agree or disagree … It’s a democracy, you chose to point fingers as you sit at your computer writing posts , putting your picture up as you point fingers…
    Your part of the problem….not the solution

  12. Jack M says:

    @West Sedona Resident please take your attacks elsewhere. The more you post the clearer it gets that you are JESSICA. You are not doing a good job JW.

  13. ESM says:

    Well WSR – you finally got something correct: “It’s a democracy” which allows not only elected officials to take action but also offers the opportunity for others to speak up and finger point if they so choose due to the opportunity for freedom of expression.

    Because you are so miserable in reading anything that opposes your own thinking, why is it you waste your time checking on what any of us write on Sedona Eye since you hate it so much. You must surely enjoy your self inflicted misery.

    The day you proudly and with honor make your real identity known – then maybe, just maybe what you spew out in writing from your own computer might have some credibility. Until then you are nothing more than a big-mouthed blow hard that enjoys your own type of self-punishment.

    Your time might be better spent with a shrink. But thank you for letting me know how easy it is to keep you in misery. Makes my day.

  14. ESM

    We have something in common::

    I find You a grandstanding loudmouth, DO NOTHING complainer.

    Anyone who must continually show us all how smart she thinks she is with a very large picture of herself to boot…must be a delusional chase your tail crusader.
    ESM your a bore.

  15. Ex says:

    @west sedona resident I am a retired SCC served 4 years. I completely disagree with you. Ms Maddock has with neutrality always reported the facts. Your continuous attacks only show you have a personal agenda. Whatever personal issues you have with Ms. Maddock need to come off the grid as her strong following sees right through it. Our City Manager’s office has arbitration as you know. Please work through your private issues, privately.

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