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Taxpayer Eye on Sedona Tax and Spend Politics

Sedona City Council

Sedona City Council

Sedona AZ (July 30, 2013) – In an open letter to the Sedona City Council and the SedonaEye.com editor, Jean Jenks, a City of Sedona taxpayer writes the following:

SPERLING’S BEST PLACES website reports “Compared to the rest of the country, Sedona’s cost of living is $26.30% higher than the U.S. average.” The St. Louis Fed’s economists found that, except for concentrated holdings by wealthy families, Americans have recovered only 45% of what they lost during the great recession (St. Louis Federal Reserve’s 2012 Annual Report).

Last Thursday’s Wall Street Journal reported 1st-Quarter 2013 growth was an anemic 1.4% as a result of sluggish consumer spending and that most economists are predicting even slower growth in the 2nd quarter. The fire district is increasing the mil rate, and the school district will have a bond issue on the November ballot. Plus there’s the adverse effects of the State’s recently-expired, regressive 3-year 1% sales tax increase from which the City must recover to consider, not to mention the adversities the sequester may well bring. ADDITIONAL taxes and/or assessments in this environment, if approved, would be regressive and reductive in nature, extremely risky for Sedona’s declining economy, and very harmful to the many financially-battered small businesses and property owners presently barely hanging on.

At the end of the day, more extraction from locals means the City of Sedona would wind up traveling a very long distance down the road to insolvency, if not actually arriving there.

Sedona Arizona

Sedona Arizona faces huge backlog of drainage issues with projected costs in excess of $30 million

According to AB 1650, 56 of 91 Arizona cities have a property tax, 35 have no property tax, 4 have a secondary property tax, and but 22 have both a secondary and primary property tax. Allow me to ask the following questions about the 22 cities with both a secondary and primary property tax: (1) How many cities have a cost of living that is 26.30% higher than the U.S. average? (2) How many are retirement communities with a majority of residents living on fixed incomes? With many hard-hit non-tourist small businesses barely getting by as a result of residents having less and less money to spend every time they turn around? (3) How many cities have a fire department funded by the city, not a prohibitively-expensive fire district funded by a Secondary Property Tax as is Sedona’s case? (4) How many cities are aided financially by County flood control funds?

Please be advised our family already has several Secondary Property Tax line items on our property tax bill. Last November we paid a Secondary Property Tax of $143.90 to Coconino County for its “15000 FLOOD CONTROL DIST” line item, more in prior years. Why does the City currently have $6 million in Coconino County Flood Control funds in its coffers gathering dust? Speaking of Secondary Property Taxes, our family paid the Fire District $622.36 the last go-around. In fact, our 2012 Secondary Property Taxes amounted to approximately $1,500.00. WHOA! 

DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, SERIOUSLY CONSIDER TAXING OR ASSESSING SEDONA PROPERTY OWNERS TO FIX CITY DRAINAGE/FLOODING PROBLEMS. Property owners are not financially responsible. The problems have been caused by inept City decisions, worsened due to the fact very many problems were let go year after year.

Sooooooo, with $6 million in Coconino County flood control funds, why are few drainage problems in this area of Sedona being fixed in a timely manner (i.e., Tlaquepaque, etc.)? This is no way to run a City.

AND NOW I ASK, no matter how much money is thrown at him, will the City Engineer truly get all that many required drainage projects done, even over several years’ time? By fixing so few drainage problems over the decade before 2013, the current Mayor and his Councils–perhaps more–have given birth to a huge, unnecessary backlog. Not to mention the appalling waste of funds on things of lesser importance, then crying wolf. To complicate matters we are hearing that the City Engineer does not know whether or not his several million-dollar, pie-in-the-sky WWTP “experiment” the City Council keeps rubber-stamping will work.

sedona jobs accountingBy the way, a few citizens have mentioned that the City Council needs to vote on a change in the allocation of Development Impact Fees such that they be directed towards “development impacts” instead of purchasing vacant land. This must be done ASAP as the current version of the 10-year CIP Program lists “Park Land Acquisition” at $1.5 million for this fiscal year.

Since $1.5 million will not begin to cover the ADOT property at the “Y,” the Brewer Road property, and the land for the Creek Access/Walk/Park (additional drainage problems and all), will property owners be seeing another $4 million or more appear on the CIP list of projects once the City figures out how to raid property owners wallets?

In addition to DIF matters, the 4-page CIP project listing must be reworked and more public input taken. This listing contains several projects that are not high priority, many budgeted for the current fiscal year. Not to mention there were serious SNAFUs during the official public comment period for the 10-Year CIP Program. I refer to both the Jan. 31st and the Feb. 14th P & Z meetings where public comment WAS NOT TAKEN as the CIP document promised (check out the P & Z agendas that moved public comments by fiat to a later date, then the later date never arrived), AS WELL AS as the Feb. 19th General Public Meeting on the CIP that went AWOL. Only after asking a few questions about the latter, did I receive an apology from the Assistant City Manager–on Feb. 19th, the very day of the meeting–indicating the meeting would be cancelled and rescheduled.

Hmm, I found looking back and reading the City’s FACTS ON HOME RULE AND CITY FINANCES document troubling. It states “Since 1996, the City has built savings for any adverse future economic times and other unexpected emergencies…..The City’s operating savings account is in excess of $10 million and reserve savings for all funds are more than $30 million.”

This document was mailed out twice in January or February 2012.

Nowhere does it provide one word of information about the City having projected costs for drainage problems in excess of $30 million, massive even by Phoenix standards per Mike Ward (REF. Councilor Ward’s January 2013 “Sedona Storm Water Plan Incomplete After Spending Millions”).

Wouldn’t levying a Secondary Property Tax and/or authorizing one or more Special Assessment Districts–even raising the City sales tax–render this City document a fraud and cast a very dark cloud over the Home Rule election?

Sincerely,

Jean Jenks
Sedona Resident 

P.S. Agenda Item 3a does not mention whether public comments will be taken. If not, I request the Mayor to hold a vote of the entire Council on this matter. Thank you.

For the best in Arizona news and views, read www.SedonaEye.com daily!

For the best in Arizona news and views, read www.SedonaEye.com daily!

 

12 Comments

  1. Jean,

    You are the best researcher and archivist in Sedona, bar none! Yet, the City is always, erroneously, claiming that you’ve got it all wrong. Why do you think that they always feel compelled to do that? If anyone in the City Administration knew what they were doing, they’d hire you and let some Staff go.

  2. We would be better off to let the whole city go.

  3. Jean says:

    GO-BONDS (secured unlimited property tax bonds) in the amount of $20.29 million over a 10-year period and SPECIAL ASSESSMENT DISTRICTS were the topics covered during yesterday’s Council meeting. Councilor Litrell said she preferred GO-BONDS (i.e., Secondary Property Taxes) to pay for the drainage projects needed, and the other Council members were non-committal. More meetings to come.

    If the City has no other source of funds available, by law it must levy an unlimited property tax to pay the debt service on the GO-BONDS (General Obligation Bonds).

    Folks, the Mayor and City Council will not propel itself into the red until FY 2016. In the meantime, the non-prioritized City staff project wish-list below will move forward. REF: 10-Year Capital Improvement Program, Finance Dept. website.

    PROJECTS AND SOURCE OF FUNDS: Art in the Roundabouts + Schnebly Home Rehabilitation (Percent for Arts); Sugarloaf Trailhead Parking Lot Expansion, Pool Slide, Jordan Park Historical Museum and Office Space, Feasibility Study for a Multi-Purpose Facility at the WWTP, Sandborn Road Sidewalk, Sandborn Rodeo Sidewalk Park, Chapel Road Sidewalk + Coffee Pot Sidewalk (General Fund); Park Land Acquisition (General Fund & Devt. Impact Fees); Bike Skills Park (General Fund and outside sources), ETC. The City receives only $800,000 annually for Flood Control from the counties.

    Are we talking about the public’s list of non-WW capital projects here? Of course not. It’s the City staff’s. The Mayor and Council must re-visit the first 5 years of the 10-Year Capital Improvement Program projects and get real.

  4. Warren says:

    Maybe if we could name drainage ditches after them … had some little brass plaques (with perhaps a small sculpture attached – “Art in Drainage Ditches”) … maybe then …

  5. Dan, Sedona says:

    alot of good stuff on this site and don’t know where to comment first, read the letters first and liked them all, the projects and sources of funds list is (deleted by editor) INSANITY , (deleted by editor) criminals on that council , clean up your acts, it’s our $$$$$$ not yours

  6. Jim DeGeorge says:

    Jean,

    We have not yet met, but I hope we soon will. Your article is an outstanding and a timely wake up call for all flood battered citizens, as well as anyone living or visiting Sedona.

    I have fairly extensive photo/video/ E-records documentation which support and illustrates empirically without bias, instances of willful and fully informed neglect of drainage issues by our City Councils and City Staff, as your article indicated. City Council and Staff meeting transcripts also provide a revealing look at the fiscal/political shell games of wasteful spending that the City has engaged in to create the false appearances of meaningful City action, while at the same time pouring money into campaigns and ordinances designed to shift public attention of the City’s long neglected action on drainage responsibilities and their costs, away from them and onto the backs of the Flood Victims themselves.

    I have thus far resisted releasing my six year compilation of facts and footage for use in a film documentary of these and other financial/property rights/civil rights issues. I have concerns that once such facts are empirically presented, a large number of highly valid lawsuits against the City could occur. I have been advised that a large number of valid lawsuits of the types likely to occur, could drive up the cost of the City’s Errors, Omissions and Liability Insurance, possibly to insolvency levels depending upon Court room results. I personally don’t know the statistical likelihood of this occurring, but feel that such an outcome serves no ones best interest, and needs to be avoided if at all possible.

    I hope our City Government can find it’s way back very soon, to serving the needs of the our Citizens, rather than choosing to feed upon them like vultures, and thus avoid the long simmering Citizens Backlash against abuse on these and other fronts, which now appears to be growing quite massive and eminent to reaching the boiling point.

    Thank you for your fine and deeply researched article.

    Jim

  7. David says:

    The city residents are vocal in expressing displeasure and approval. I am surprised then of the lack of recognition given to this and other articles by the elected council and its staff workers and its receivers of grants and gifts. This is a groundswell. Where are their comments? Are they paying attention? While many of us remain readers and not commenters we are voters. We do take note of the comments here. I was at a function over the weekend and was reminded of this web address by a man in our circle of conversation. He highly recommended it. I will recommend it also. Sincerely, David (last name removed by request) (address removed by request) (phone number removed by request)

  8. Norma says:

    Don’t hold your breath waiting for them to agree or disagree. Recalls are the only thing they don’t count on like the 89A turnback and the way to send a message that business as usual isn’t happening.

  9. As a taxpayer I want to see the documentation that supports such nonsense in:

    1) giving the CofC any money at all. Only 1/3 of our businesses belong to this organization! More important is the question that keeps nagging at me, what kind of marketing has the CofC been doing for all its years of existence if not “destination” marketing?

    2) Has anyone ever examined our occupancy rates in the motels, resorts b&b’s to see if they justify raising the bed tax?

    3) Does every lodging facility (timeshare excluded) belong to the Tourism Bureau of the Chamber?

  10. Jean says:

    Jim, although I am very lucky and do not live in an area with drainage problems, nothing you write surprises me in the least.

    The City is pouring millions into non-essential projects this fiscal year alone as a result of failing to prioritize its 10-Year Capital Improvement Program wish list (CIP). In order for the City to self finance, this must be corrected immediately, giving drainage projects top priority. Pursuing GO-Bonds in the amount of $20.29 million over 10 years is a phony need manufactured by City Hall which will harm the poor, small businesses struggling to survive, and financially hard-pressed residents.

    Hopefully, a few people from drainage-ravaged areas will have an interest in running for City Council in 2014.

  11. Paul says:

    Jean, thank you for your well researched article. We are fortunate to have people like yourself who can demonstrate with facts and figures the bloated and inefficient city government we currently have.

  12. Great work. More evidence that the Community Plan should be voted down in March, and that Home Rule should be voted down in 2016. It’s the only way to curtail the Council’s profligate spending. We need to find and elect people, who will tackle a budget that’s $12 million more than what the state recommends for a town our size.

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