The Sedona City Council will have four seats up for election in 2022. The mayor’s seat is a two-year term, so it is up for election every term.
Vice Mayor Scott Jablow, Councilman Jon Thompson, who was appointed to fill Councilman William Chisholm’s vacated seat in March, and Councilman Tom Lamkin, who was appointed to fill Councilwoman Janice Howes Hudson’s vacated seat in 2020, are up for re-election for four-year seats, should they decide to run.
We sincerely hope for a solid, robust election with plenty of candidates from which to choose.
In 2016, there were only four candidates running for three open four-year seats, so in the election voters decided who would be the odd one out. In 2018, seven candidates ran for three four-seats in a wild and contentious campaign coupled with a vote on home rule. In 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic began its first wave, a challenger and the incumbent ran for mayor but there would not have been a council election — three candidates ran for three seats — until a write-in candidate jumped in the race to remind all voters that republics require voter choices.
With a narrow field, many major issues are reduced to a handful that get an outsized focus considering what council actually focuses on. In 2010, four candidates were elected with promises to fight the installation of streetlights on State Route 89A, and they discussed little else. Voters rejected their plans, the lights were installed, and Sedona residents were left with a council of strangers who they had to re-meet. It’s worth noting that not one of those four candidates served a second term.
Traffic will be a huge topic as it is every cycle, but council never seems to have any real big fixes, so leaders with bold, logical, workable ideas might invigorate voters.
State Route 179 won’t be widened and the current council lacks the political will to press the Arizona Department of Transportation to do it.
The current council also seems unwilling to build an alternate connection between West Sedona and the Coconino County side of the city, so backups on Cooks Hill will continue to ruin our quality of life.
Short-term rentals and rising housing prices have eviscerated our housing market, pushing young people and families to live elsewhere. Vacation rentals have turned many neighborhoods into commercial districts destabilizing portions of our community. While tourists pay 77% of our sales taxes, they shouldn’t occupy 77% of our houses. This leads to a worker shortage and businesses cutting back on hours, services and supplies to stay afloat. The problem is complex and requires innovative solutions to repair the damage.
A large, strong field of candidates provides voters with plenty of options to examine these problems, more open debate about the city’s challenges and more suggested solutions. It helps to have a healthy mix of liberals, moderates and conservatives so that our council reflects our local electorate even though municipal councils in Arizona are officially nonpartisan.
We’ve heard scuttlebutt about who may be running for council seats and for mayor because, well, we’re a newspaper and secrets are impossible in a small town that whispers as loud as Sedona. That said, we need a diversity of candidates with a variety of ideas. We hope clubs, nonprofits, civics groups and others provide forums for candidates to speak to the public and present their ideas.
Successful campaigns can be run relatively inexpensively. It only takes some campaign signs, profiles and essays we offer in the Sedona Red Rock News, public appearances and debate forums to get messages out to every voter in the city.
Election packets will be available at the Sedona City Clerk’s office the first week of November. Potential candidates need to make an appointment with Sedona City Clerk Susan Irvine to go over the information in the packet — especially campaign finance and candidate petitions — and fill out a statement of intent. They can then start collecting signatures and donations. If you decide to run, call Irvine in November at 282-3113 or email her at sirvine@sedonaaz.gov to schedule a meeting.
Candidates can turn in their petitions starting Monday, March 7, 2022, or as late as 5 p.m. Monday, April 4.
The primary election is a bit earlier than in previous years, Tuesday, Aug. 2, 2022. Candidates who win enough votes are elected at that time. If there is a need for a runoff, it will be at the general election on Tuesday, Nov. 8.
Christopher Fox Graham
Managing Editor
