The purpose of this report is to highlight key accomplishments for Fiscal Year 2011-2012 (July 1, 2011 through June 30, 2012) and to provide major objectives for Fiscal Year 2012-2013.

The report was mailed to residents in the City limits. If you did not receive one and would like one mailed to you, please contact the City Manager’s office at 204-7127.

It is also available on the City’s website at http://www.SedonaAZ.gov/AnnualReport.

The City Manager’s Office informed me concerning the City’s ten-year Capital Improvement Plan: “We are looking at identified capital needs averaging around $8 million annually.”

That would be $10.66 million for the current fiscal year folks, including such “needs” as the Creek Walk ($1.6 million in 2013, $4.02 million total), Banners for Uptown (wanted by the Mainstreet Program and the Chamber of Commerce), etc.

According to the 12-12-12 Budget Oversight Commission’s discussion [on audio] concerning capital needs: There’s a ton of capital projects…The project list is basically a categorization…The needs are not really identified…There’s no prioritization of capital projects, etc. Also, Commissioner Segner remarked that the people who live here are going to have to pay more taxes.

Our City Council at Work? “Public outreach to educate the public and initiate a public dialog on future funding mechanisms for capital projects” is to commence in 2013.

Hey, I KNOW a little something about the Zaki Gordon Institute, XXXX was in the last graduating class, and it is now called SVG.

Here’s the thing, Dan Gordon had provided a private funding endowment and owned the name. Yavapai College pissed him off. A school in South Carolina said, hey, we’ll buy you 10 Million in equipment if you’ll bring your school here. Because of problems with Yavapai, he moved it! In August. Just like that! One week from offer to close.

So, Yavapai was left holding the bag. They had actually increased enrollment over the prior year, but now had no “school” so they kept it as SVG.

Here’s the thing, it operates under the Yavapai Community College nightmare. Yavapai is a nightmare of incompetence, I have NO IDEA HOW MANY TIMES XXXX had his classes cancelled for non-payments, when the payment had been received, double charges, no answer, etc. At one point, I had him call the Dean, and believe it or not the Dean fixed an issue in ten minutes that no one had been able to fix in two months.

XXXX also took regular college classes at Yavapai. It is a VERY VERY BAD SCHOOL. While it is not expensive as colleges go, it is VERY expensive for what you get. I tutored my room mate YYYY in psych courses. OMG, they were such a joke.

Back to SVG, formerly Zaki Gordon Film Institute. This school has suffered from a bunch of problems. The primary one is that there is no film or arts industry in the region to support the school. Yes, you can bring young film makers in, but you can’t get instructors, and Yavapai won’t pay enough to attract real instructors. Dan Gordon, being famous, did bring people in, but without him, you’ll have hacks and alums. But then, video and film require ACTORS, there is NO ACTING POOL. You can’t get anyone to be in the films. You can’t get crew. You can’t get locations. These were constant ongoing hassles that simply can’t be done away with. There is no TALENT in the area.

The problem with the school is the usual Sedona one. Too small, too many little feifdoms, weird people who will fight over it, rather than make it better. The over riding institution, Yavapai, being absolutely uncooperative and incompetent. It all kills anything you ever want to get done or accomplish. There is no money, no talent, no simple competence to draw upon.

But then of course, the stupid City Council will save it. They won’t save a public swimming pool, but they’ll save their little film school, so they can pretend they are somebody.

Arizona passed some special film taxes a couple years back, which drove the last of the fledgling industry from the state. It is one of ONLY TWO states in the country that has a special film industry tax. It is also one of the most difficult states to film in. Most states allow you to film public places and parks and stuff, as long as you aren’t blocking anything, you only need permits when you overhwelm an area. Not in Arizona, go sit in a park and pull out a camera, it’s a violation.

So a bunch of well meaning people might say, hey let’s make a film industry here. But the higher and lower ups will just nibble away at it, until like Dan Gordon, they’ll just pick up and go. He says he’ll never set foot in that state again. He had a few other choice words, but I’ll leave them out.