We have yet to hear a logical and coherent argument for why the city of Sedona should build a temporary transit hub at the former ranger station on Brewer Road rather than anywhere else, such as the pending garage, the existing Uptown parking lot, the newly acquired building on Jordan Road, Sedona City Hall or Posse Grounds Park.
Since our editorial last week, city officials, both paid staff and elected, have been eerily quiet about why they think this proposal is not one of the dumbest ones in the city’s history.
We here and residents would love to hear the logical reasoning behind our leaders’ decision aimed at forcing visitors, nearly all of whom are supremely unfamiliar with our city, to push through the worst traffic jam in the Verde Valley, which can be upwards of 20 minutes on a weekend, then find parking, then wait for a bus, then take said bus out of that same traffic jam to their destination, then get back on a bus, then wait in the traffic jam again to return to their car.
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” the council seems to declare. “As the council is higher than the residents, so are our ways higher than your ways and or thoughts than your thoughts.”
So city leaders obviously have a plan … right? This new transit system isn’t just a carbon copy of the failed Sedona Roadrunner, but “now with Wi-Fi!”
Certainly, city officials can explain how this plan is well-deduced and was vetted for potential flaws and hiccups. Clearly, our elected leaders can cite city studies and reports demonstrating how this plan would create a functional and efficient bus service that visitors will flock to, learn how to navigate in the few hours or one day they’re here and will trust to carry them where they want to go.
Please, residents, ask our esteemed leaders for this evidence. Elected office is the big leagues; council members need to show their work.
To make this transit stop maybe, kinda work, a lil’ bit, it would be logical for the Sedona City Council to spend funds working with the Sedona Chamber of Commerce so it could inform visitors about how this bus system works before visitors arrive, but it seems like council fundamentally misunderstands what the chamber does or how it works.
It’s pretty evident that council members, including the newest ones, think the chamber is some arm of the city able to do things beyond the power of a municipality — like make a call to a waste hauler for trash cans at trailheads — so it’s not clear that council might actually rely on the chamber to communicate with visitors, which is one of its primary purposes.
So far the only explanation we’ve heard for this proposal is, well, the city … owns the land? The former Ranger Station land is undeveloped because the city is so inept and lethargic that city leaders haven’t built the promised park.
Neighbors off of Brewer Road are justifiably livid at this betrayal of the city’s promise of a park in their neighborhood, a park they had long hoped for, and had organized more than 10 years ago to help acquire during a bidding war for the “Heart of Sedona” parcel.
When that bidding war went belly up and the parcel was eventually purchased by a surprise bidder with ties to the then-owner of the adjacent resort, most residents thought the land was a lost cause. Yet the city was able to later acquire it after the Great Recession, giving residents some hope that this would indeed become a park.
Now those hopes are dashed because the city wants to use it for a new temporary transit hub because it failed to use it for the promised park.
Don’t blame the current council, they weren’t in office when the promise was made. Don’t blame city management, the promise was made two city managers ago. Don’t mind if the adjacent resort wants to build a new road across the future park for its guests, the agreement to not ever allow access on Brewer Road was made last century.
Who knew that bureaucratic incompetence would pay off?
Christopher Fox Graham
Managing Editor
