Something is afoul atop Airport Mesa. The Sedona Airport has had two plane crashes in a month. We heard about one of them on the police scanners in out newsroom and sent a photojournalist.
The airport told our staff there was no crash or at least nothing they would define as a crash, even though our staff could clearly see a crashed aircraft just off the runway.
It was so damaged by the impact that it could no longer fly. That is a crash by anyone’s definition, and we described it as such on our website and social media pages.
When we received a subsequent press release from the Sedona Fire District about its response, SFD crews were also not fooled and referred to it as a “crash.”
Yet the airport’s mantra is “Nothing to see here.”
For over two years, the Sedona Oak Creek Airport Authority misled the public about their right under federal law to fly drones in Sedona’s airspace. The airport was not simply misleading drone pilots, but intentionally misled U.S. Forest Service officials, getting the Red Rock Ranger District to post signs at trailheads around Sedona claiming a “No Drone Zone” existed for five miles around the airport.
These signs were 100% wrong and not in line with federal law. When we delved into the signs’ legality, airport officials gave us the runaround seemingly because they don’t know what federal law actually is.
USFS officials were not so easily duped and within days of our story being published, the USFS removed all these misleading signs from their trailheads.
The airport imposed a parking fee at the Sedona Vista Overlook ostensibly to make improvements to the overlook’s parking lot. To date, no improvements have been made.
The airport was so foolish and lackadaisical in implementing the parking fee that it put up signs without first discussing the issue with and getting permission from the city of Sedona — the airport is county-run, but within Sedona city limits. Thus, city of Sedona code enforcement officials confiscated the signs as they violated the city’s sign ordinance, and airport officials had to go retrieve them.
The Sedona Oak Creek Airport Authority is waging a lawsuit against a business that has operated at the airport unmolested for more than two decades over a lease.
As we have also covered, other businesses have woefully unclear leases about who owns what structures and who’s responsible for their upkeep and repair.
The lawsuit is costing Yavapai County taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars. The airport alleges there are lease issues and attempted to evict the business.
To date, it is not clear the business being sued needs a lease, per Federal Aviation Administration regulations, so it is entirely possible a judge will throw out the case ruling that the airport does not have standing to sue. Yavapai County taxpayers will simply lose hundreds of thousands of dollars because their airport’s caretakers don’t know what the law states.
It’s not even clear why the airport is trying to evict the business. It’s not as though there are dozens of new businesses clamoring to get hanger space and an eviction will free up room for another. There’s plenty of vacant space.
Remember that when you pay to park at the overlook. Those fees are not going to asphalt but to lawyers.
Until it was forced to decide in court, apparently the airport didn’t even know what kind of agency it was — a government or a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. For the record, the Sedona Oak Creek Airport Authority is a quasi-governmental agency given authority by the Yavapai County Board of Supervisors and operates in its stead. It is not an independent nonprofit nor an independent government agency.
The county could repeal its authority to manage the airport at any time and has threatened to do so.
Perhaps the supervisors should consider doing so again and spend these wasted tax dollars on things the county actually needs.
— Christopher Fox Graham
Managing Editor
