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Village of Oak Creek Residents Say No to Incorporation Nonsense

Sedona AZ – The following is a letter to the SedonaEye.com editor:

Editor:

Sedona Arizona’s Village of Oak Creek in 2012.

Yet again, we Village of Oak Creek residents have been told what is for our own good. The impetus for this new thrust for incorporation is because of the Hilton and Element hotels, and to that we say:  “barn door, meet late closer.” This time Mr. Krupa and Mr. Engler want all of us to “wake up and smell the obvious”. Both articles in the January 1 edition of the Villager pontificate and chide us about our failings as citizens. Even though we citizens did all the right things to voice our oppositions, the County Board failed, not us. The Board failed to respect its constituents.   

Mr. Engler also waved the specter of annexation as incentive for incorporating. The list of salaried positions that would be needed to be an incorporated village was long and certainly incomplete. Mr. Krupa has allegedly begun the work for us poor villagers, so that he can educate us, the uneducated.

His claim is that there would be “no requirement to have a property tax” as a result of incorporation. Ah, yes, the promise that is meant to lull us into complacency, an empty promise based on lack of future knowledge. What happens when the economy tanks, as it will at some future point, and all those salaried positions need payment? Will a VOCA mayor and his minions set before the community dire predictions and strong arm a tax based on urgent need? If tourism drops and revenue streams slow, who will tell us ignorant Villagers how we must rally now for the common good? 

The Village of Oak Creek in Yavapai County already pays and is serviced by the Sedona Fire District VOC fire station located on Cortez Drive, and pays and is serviced by the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Department with an onsite station. The Sedona VOC library is private and a well-funded branch with no debt. The Sedona city limits tax after incorporation has increased to almost 11% while the combined Arizona state plus Yavapai County VOC sales tax remains at 6.35% outside Sedona city limits in 2019.

Contracts, he says, could be drawn with services such as Sheriff and Fire Departments…services already available and provided. We have choices now as to who would provide our services such as trash collection, would we be forced to accept our incorporation’s choice? And what about the sewer service…will the Mayor wish to section off that in order to create its own department and fees? Will the local services find themselves in a bidding war or feeling frozen out of the competition because someone on the Mayor’s staff doesn’t care for the owner?

Mr. Krupa also said “residents want to have a local share in the revenue.” That sounds amazing. We have been local residents for 28 years, should I be expecting a portion of the proceeds sent to us each Christmas in the form of a check? 

We do agree however with the overall theme: heed the warning! Yes, if the lack of respect that Yavapai County Commissioners showed the residents is any preview, then we should heed the warning indeed. For it has shown that any form of governing body can become disrespectful of the very people it claims to serve, and will eventually serve themselves. 

Whether it is a County Board or a local town mayor and his commissioners, or an association called VOCA, the foreseeable infighting will be, as Mr. Engler states regarding Big Park Council,  “an exercise to petty one-upmanship.”

We do not need to incorporate. We need to vote for County commissioners who have some sense of what it means to serve the citizenry and not their own private agenda or egos.

Just take a look at the past few years of leadership at VOCA to get an idea of how a small select group of  people push forward and manipulate our association into higher costs and still they want more. Take a good look at that history as a preview to incorporation.

And tell us, how will we manage to avoid voting for similar people? Please, do tell us, Mr. Krupa, Mr. Engler…do you have a magic potion that will protect us from self serving or corrupt forces once we yield to your masterful insights? Please do tell.

Mr. and Mrs. C. J. Matina
VOCA residents
Sedona AZ

14 Comments

  1. POUTING MEN... says:

    so unattractive.

    The dark clouds have just blown out of the BPRCC and now the boys are mad because their friends are no longer calling the crooked shots. Awwwwww
    Finally exposed to light, now all the big boys are pouting and name calling cause they are not going to run the show anymore.
    We do not have a school or a medical facility. No need to incorporate. WE HAVE IT MADE IN THE SHADE BABY!!!!Supervisor Clueless, now he needs to go.

    Look at Sedona? Ready to implode. They need a union to move in and take care of all those 10,000 employees and big name chains that are moving in. Focus on that Verde Independent! Focus on that Mr. Dan…..Unionize. No there is a story. Plus there is only 5666 employees, so there is that. Who wants that kind of city life? Not me.

    We are blessed to be in an unincorporated place with the exception of The Wastewater District which also needs to be cleaned out of excess overpaid “waste” if you will.

    Great article.

  2. Peter Cline says:

    VOC RESIDENTS PLURAL THATS TWO FOLKS WHERE BE THE REST ? Poor headline

  3. @Peter says:

    Focus Peter.
    Are you a creative writer that can’t get past a title that Sedona eye usually creates?
    I would love to work with you in a group setting, in fact, why don’t you go help the opposition, then the VOCA residents against incorporation will be sure to win.
    You could be a troll that diverts attention, not very good though……

  4. @POUTING MEN says:

    City of Sedona incorporated on a lie. The developers convinced sedona residents that they had to incorporate because oak creak canyon was polluting the water with their septic systems and the residents of sedona were going to lose their properties if sedona did not incorporate and build a water treatment plant. The most dismal thing to ever happen to sedona. Advice to the village, “NEVER INCORPERATE”.

  5. Frank says:

    Or incorporate?

  6. Steve segner says:

    Advice to the village, “NEVER INCORPERATE”.
    That’s right let the far off supervisors determine what happens in your tiny little village and they love growth. but you don’t need to worry the voc does not have enough tax generated income to support a city much to do about nothing

  7. @stevesegner says:

    Nobody but elected officials determine our growth and nobody but the electorate decides who they are. Odd man to think their location matters, because it doesn’t. Cities like NY or LA or places like Houston or Seattle are bigger and further apart than VOC to Prescott.

    Actually it’s nice to be far away from Prescott with its homeless and druggie problems and bending over and taking it from the California retreads. In the VOC we will keep our HOAs and organize to pushback against development and do our best to unseat those that fail our best interests instead of serving government coffers and special interests which is themselves.

    The Borowsky category types and their lackeys are beneath contempt. You one of them?

  8. VOC Residents says:

    And why should the likes of @Steve Segner care what we do out here in the Village of Oak Creek?

    He might be interested in knowing that back in the late 90’s Sedona’s Mayor at the time, Alan Everett, set up a meeting out here in the clubhouse for the purpose of annexing the VOC into City of Sedona. Well, if anyone is still around who can remember that event you will recall standing room only and a bunch of angry folks not-so-politely telling Mayor Everett to “go home – we don’t want you out here.”

    Now that was then and this isn’t to say it’s possible the attitude has changed. But for people within Sedona City Limits to be giving us advice? And all the crap and constant scandal over that questionable relationship with your “regional” chamber of commerce? Get real!

    As someone else made mention, we benefit from the free promotion from your city financed Chamber of Commerce Visitors Center, but other than that? BUTT OUT!

  9. Ernie says:

    US Today reports FEMA says it may have to bill fire victims if it can’t get PG&E to pay bill – hello California, your state is so poorly managed you need to elect Republicans because the Democrats have sold you down the river (ps which they drained before selling you a ticket on the cruise)

  10. Molly & Reagan says:

    Not coming back, couldn’t get good hike in, trails overused.

  11. Laurence Mifflin says:

    You said it M&R. What’s with the toilet paper on trails Sedona???? Couldn’t believe the fly swarms from crap & piss. Get people working on cleaning the trails & have it paid for from the advertising budget for people we don’t want or need. Saw a DIAPER tossed behind a cactus. That took deliberate action by trashy people. Stop inviting them to our neck of the woods. Let them go elsewhere that accepts that sort of disgusting behavior because we don’t and won’t. There should be a $1000 minimum fine for littering the dessert that can’t sustain even a banana peel tossed on it. Leave No Trace should be enforced. If they arrive by car & have a fine, impound the car and put a lien on it with the DMV. If they can afford to drive & hike here, they can afford to pay a fine.

  12. Montague says:

    You want to live like up in Sedona, NO WE DON”T

  13. Barb Weidman says:

    “Born in other countries, yet believing you could be happy in this, our laws acknowledge, as they should do, your right to join us in society, conforming, as I doubt not you will do, to our established rules.” —Thomas Jefferson (1801)

    If it was good enough to create the greatest nation on earth then, it’s good enough now and in the future.

  14. Ken says:

    Can somebody tell us what’s going on here now in the village that things changed?

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