With 2020 being an election year, we all knew that the year 2021 was going to bring a lot of changes.
Compounding this was the COVID-19 pandemic that upended nearly everything in our lives, from local festivals and travel plans to voting and politics, to grocery shopping and school attendance.
The start of 2021 also brought with it local changes not directly related to political elections.
So while the Yavapai County side of Sedona has a new supervisor, District 3 Supervisor Donna Michaels, and the Sedona City Council has two new members, Holly Ploog and Kathy Kinsella — plus the more obvious: A new U.S. senator from Arizona and new occupant of the While House — the end of 2020 and the start of 2021 also brings changes not directly related to politics.
■ Sedona Arts Center Executive Director Vince Fazio departed for Florida late last summer after 17 years as the director of the SAC School of the Arts, years as chairmain of the Sedona Plein Air Festival and three years in the top job, to be replaced by Julie Richard from Maine, about whom you can read in Kelli Klymenko’s Arts & Culture column on Page 6 in today’s edition of The Scene, as well as our website.
■ Long-time Sedona Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Jennifer Wesselhoff announced her departure last year, taking a job in Park City, Utah. She is replaced by Candace Carr Strauss from Big Sky, Mont., who made her first appearance locally at a joint Chamber and Sedona City Council meeting on Feb. 4, although she technically does not start until later this month.
■ Long-time Sedona Recycles Executive Director Jill McCutcheon will be leaving her position on March 2, to be replaced by current board member Trevor Sparks. McCutcheon’s final Serving Sedona column will be published Wednesday, Feb. 17.
■ Sedona City Manager Justin Clifton announced last month that he would be taking a job in Palm Springs, Calif., earning nearly double what he made here.
He will be replaced by his long-time assistant, Karen Osburn, who worked for the city for nearly 10 years and before that the Sedona Fire District for years. She was quickly hired after Clifton announced his departure.
■ Sedona’s short-lived Parks & Recreation Manager Steven Richardson is leaving the program after just over a year. Circumstances really didn’t give Richardson much of a chance to show what he could do — many of the duties of his job became moot after Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey imposed limits of no more than 50 people at public events, and the city of Sedona’s management and Sedona City Council declined to offer permits or waivers for any festivals or events to come along in 2020.
With the recent announcement that most city-sanctioned events in 2021 have already been canceled just one month into the year, it appears the city of Sedona will not be looking very hard to find Richardson’s replacement as parks and recreation activities and city-sponsored festival clearly won’t be a priority.
■ In addition, Sedona City Councilman William “Bill” Chisholm announced Tuesday, Feb. 9, that he was resigning, effective immediately, to support family in Colorado. Chisholm was elected from a crowded field of seven candidates in 2018 along with Janice Howes Hudson, who herself resigned in 2020 after a short 17 months in office.
With all these changes in local leadership, our city will soon see a major overhaul as the pandemic perhaps begins to subside and life can return to some sort of normalcy. As these new leaders get settled, we have an opportunity to reshape our city and how it functions going forward. We hope these new leaders are given a chance to succeed and that residents work collectively with them to improve Sedona.
Christopher Fox Graham
Managing Editor
Addendum
Your editorial of February 12, 2021 listing new leaders in our community did not include our new Director of the Sedona Public Library. Virginia Volkman retired at the end of 2020 and has been succeeded by Judy Poe. Judy is an experienced librarian who brings along with her extensive experience a joy for and enthusiasm for libraries and a vision of what libraries can do for the citizens of our community.
Avrum Cohen
Member of the Board of Trustees
Sedona Public Library
