This city council to date has focused entirely on the area of the State Highway between Airport and Dry Creek Roads, completely ignoring the acquisition encompasses far more. Not acknowledging the city’s future responsibility for improvements and maintenance from the City Limits (near the high school) and, especially, the upkeep of the Highway Interchange at the “Y” is a major disservice and extremely misleading to residents of Sedona who will ultimately become responsible for future expenses incurred, including but not limited to a traffic light at the Sedona Medical Center, snow and/or rock slide removal, traffic signal maintenance, and potential repairs and/or replacement to roundabouts in the event of accidental wipe-outs.

Last but not least is the results of your two polls, both of which clearly defined the will of the people as being that you do not accept the turn-back. Weak attempts have been made to discredit those poll results, but that’s all they amount to . . . weak attempts. It’s very likely the percentage against the turn-back would have been substantially higher if the threat of ADOT to turn the route over anyway had not been distorted, misleading, and, in fact, questionably truthful. For those who haven’t read the State Statute, it’s ARS 28-7209. Other legal opinions differ from the interpretation publicized by the City of Sedona.

The moment of truth is but a few heartbeats away. Will you uphold your commitment to the will of the majority of the people or continue the past practice of playing big brother, or even God if you will, and vote your own beliefs which is what the last city council did and why they weren’t re-elected. However, there’s one major difference here. Your blunder could well leave Sedona not only with owning a State Highway but also installation of lights since it’s doubtful any of you will be in a position to decide how that “promised” money is spent when the time comes. It’s true, Karma can be a bitch but in some situations the undeserving are forced to pay, too. How fair will that be?

Eddie Maddock

The most unfortunate part of this fiasco (again my opinion) is that the lighting issue became tied in with this SR89A turn-back because the 60% opposition to that option, as reflected by the results of the professional poll, clearly disconnects the popularity of the two matters..

The newly elected city council members collectively pledged to reverse the previous city council’s approval from ADOT to have the lights installed, including taking vigorous legal action if needed. Therefore, kindly indulge me by retracting your erroneous statement that their campaign commitment was to “take back the road.”

Would you also give some thought to asking the city council members to which you are directly referring why it is they abandoned their commitment to take legal action prior to the only option being reduced to taking back a State Highway which wasn’t part of their campaign promise . . . at least I was never aware of such a promise.

I financially and whole-heartedly supported the election of the five recently seated members of the Sedona City Council. My support, however, would have gone elsewhere in a heart beat had I known this route turn-back would be considered the only alternative to the lights.

Sorry, Grumpy. However, again you made my day because I thought no one out there in the choir was listening at all, whether or not they were worth salt.

E. Maddock

Then on the opposite side maybe offer a contest for promoting new off-the-main-drag businesses which would qualify same as L’Auberge for special signs. Funny, L’Auberge was built before Sedona was a city and folks seemed to be able to find it back then. Oh well. New business suggestions:

Snip & Clip, two doors west of the Humane Society; Fill Your Own Pot Hole Supplies, drive south on Shelby or Sunset Drive and pick your own location; Be Seen But Do Not Be Heard if You Object to the City Owning SR89A, take Southwest Drive to Fire Station, pick and choose your own location near City Hall. . . many vacancies available.

This might prove quite lucrative for generating and promoting new businesses, all good for the economy and a positive spin for providing establishments offering both incentive and reason for locals to “Shop Sedona.”

Federal highway funds to AZ are in jeopardy because Phoenix continues to be out of compliance with the Clean Air act. ADOT has also, lagged behind in its efforts to conduct “route transfers” as directed by FWHA (see ADOT’s “Route Transfer and Level of Development Study” of 2003 http://www.azdot.gov/mpd/priority_programming/pdf/study/rtranstudy.pdf.

In addition, if you consider the number of years that we have spent trying to negotiate with ADOT, the Transportation Board, the Governor, etc. it would be highly unusual for ADOT to want to continue their relationship with us.

Lastly, we all should have learned by now since we elected an African American as President that the past should not necessarily predict the future.

I’ve got to hand it to you…you have style.

Rick