A week after Keep Sedona Beautiful’s new president made a speech in favor of KSB sharing a common ground with Sedona City Council, he resigned.
On Jan. 13, Ernie Strauch, elected KSB president Dec. 13, made a six-minute speech to City Council which highlighted the similarities between the nonprofit’s objectives and the city’s Community Plan.
Contentious issues between council and KSB do exist and were escalated last fall after council voted 4-2 to approve continuous roadway lighting along Highway 89A.
By Alison Ecklund
A week after Keep Sedona Beautiful’s new president made a speech in favor of KSB sharing a common ground with Sedona City Council, he resigned.
On Jan. 13, Ernie Strauch, elected KSB president Dec. 13, made a six-minute speech to City Council which highlighted the similarities between the nonprofit’s objectives and the city’s Community Plan.
Contentious issues between council and KSB do exist and were escalated last fall after council voted 4-2 to approve continuous roadway lighting along Highway 89A.
KSB met council’s approval of lights with protests at the state capitol and City Hall. In September, former KSB President Barbara Litrell filed a complaint with the Arizona Attorney General’s Office in KSB’s name against the four councilors who approved the motion. The four were later cleared by the Arizona attorney general of any wrongdoing.
According to a resignation letter Strauch wrote Jan. 19, controversy erupted at KSB over his authority to give the Jan. 13 speech without presenting it to the KSB board for approval.
Strauch’s new tone as president of KSB left the board feeling “blindsided” and they feared an implied change in board policy, he wrote.
But Strauch accepted the position under the condition that he could set a new tone, he said, not new objectives.
According to KSB’s newest president, Stephen DeVol, who was elected Wednesday, Jan. 21, as Strauch lets go of the olive branch he extended to council last week, DeVol will pick it up.
“We all love Ernie [Strauch] and he was so respected in the group and he still is respected,” DeVol said. “We honor his wishes and our mission remains the same. We want to work with the community and remain a part of preserving the wonder.”
Strauch admits that he’s no longer the man KSB board members may have thought he was.
During his two-year hiatus from the KSB board, Strauch “evolved to a more encompassing level of conflict resolution, inner peace and self-actualization,” he wrote.
KSB may have thought they were electing “the fighter guy,” Strauch said, based on his past confrontational position on the Highway 179 construction project. But instead, they got “the guy who learned to collaborate and get things done through personal relationships and working with people,” he said.
KSB may have felt blindsided because they were expecting one thing and got another, Strauch said.
Under his new approach, Strauch would have preferred to sit down with each council member about the lighting issue and ask them what a win-win situation on Highway 89A would look like to them.
“Maybe having been on council, I have a broader view and I’m thinking of the whole community and not just KSB,” Strauch said.
Alison Ecklund can be reached at 282-7795, ext. 125, or e-mail aecklund@larsonnewspapers.com
