In drafting this editorial, we thought the best option to avoid any potential fallout for what might follow was to discuss it in committee, belaboring all the points and arguments we wanted to bring up, address and explore. Then, rather than decide on who should write the editorial, we instead directed the editorial to write itself. When complete, we would simply publish it namelessly and, in doing so, none could be held liable for what we decide to write.
This is how our Sedona City Council has chosen to lead and manage itself for the past several years because it’s fantastic for elected officials: It denies them any fault if or when a city project or purchase or dumb decision goes south.
Up until about a decade ago, council members would take votes on issues big or small to give direction to the city manager or city staff. Our elected officials were on the record, with procedural votes for consensus before the city moved forward on certain issues.
This non-vote policy emerged after the streetlights debacle from 2008 to 2011. The Arizona Department of Transportation wanted to install street lights in West Sedona after a series of four fatal pedestrian collisions. Residents got elected to council to fight the lights and conducted a vote to potentially buy State Route 89A from ADOT to prevent this desperately needed public safety improvement.
Voters were able to use that vote to initiate a referendum against council’s decision. Several months later, voters overwhelmingly rejected the vote by nearly 70%. At that same election, 77% of voters also told council via a second proposition that any future road transfer had to get voter pre-approval. These voter-led propositions were only possible because Sedona City Council put themselves on the hook with a vote.
Around a decade ago, the city attorney, city staff and council discovered that they could instead indirectly suggest actions to staff by consensus, let city staff “figure out” what council really wanted and act more or less independently to fulfill council’s unstated wishes.
It’s the same way a mob boss suggests that “something should happen” to Jimmy the Nose, who disappears in Brooklyn one day. When Jimmy’s body gets discovered a decade later buried in a cabbage farm in New Jersey, the mob boss has plausible deniability.
Likewise, by avoiding a vote council members prevent themselves from being held liable, should the public object.
This policy has caused some frustration among city staff because they have said mere “staff direction” is more nebulous than an actual, clear vote made after a council motion — the same way a spouse suggests they want something “nice” for their birthday.
As past city councils and the current one instead “indirectly direct” staff, individual council members can tell the public, “well, we directed staff to do this dumb thing, but I certainly didn’t ‘vote’ for it,” allowing council members to do an end run about the public process and campaign for re-election without being held accountable.
We have no doubt a future mayoral candidate will use the argument, “Well, I didn’t actually vote for that thing you hate” in campaign literature in 2022. Technically speaking, that’s accurate.
In practice, though, if council members are not held accountable and do not take votes except when obligated by state statute or city ordinance, they can falsely pretend they were innocent in a fiasco. It’s the same logic used in a firing squad by giving one shooter a blank round.
Council should no longer direct staff to buy property with millions of our tax dollars or implement dumb policies affecting the rest of us or draft ordinances without any accountability. Voters should demand city council members end this non-vote charade. Residents must pressure council to actually take votes on issues, even if they are small, so we know where they actually stand. Residents must forcefully demand accountability from elected officials. We don’t need cowards hiding in the shadows of procedure.
Here’s how it’s done: I, the undersigned, crafted this editorial on my own in consultation with some members of my staff.
I proudly signed my name, in ink, so all readers of the above know without question or doubt that I wrote it:
Christopher Fox Graham
Managing Editor
