For almost two years, Sedona’s Historic Preservation Commission has been looking to fill vacant seats.
There are almost always between two and three vacancies on the commission’s board that city staff has been trying to fill since September 2020.
“The commission is created so that we can landmark and designate properties that we find are historically correct,” Commission Chairwoman Brynn Burkee Unger said. “We have two different paths, one of which is actually landmarking, which we use the National Standards for landmarking at the property. We’ve also started a recognition program for historical properties but do not meet the standards of a landmark.”
The commission is comprised of seven seats total, two being the chair and vice-chair. The meetings are scheduled on the second Monday of each month at 4 p.m. to discuss the preservation of landmarks around the city of Sedona.
Alongside Unger, Kurt Gehlbach, Jack Fiene, Bob Huggins and Steve Segner are in the four other taken seats.
Last January, two of the seats were finally filled when Huggins and Allyson Holmes joined the commission. This left only one seat open until October 2021 when Holmes resigned from the position.
“At that time Karen [Osburn] and Susan [Irvine] determined that we would not do another public notice since the posting remained active, and we were still actively trying to fill the position with no responses,” Deputy City Clerk Cherise Fullbright said about the vacancy in October 2021.
This means the city also has active postings for the position since 2020.
And although some of the seats have been filled after previous resignations, there always seems to be an opening as other members of the commission continue to express their desire to resign after replacements are found.
At the City Council’s last meeting on April 12, the council approved Gelbach and Segner, who served previously years ago and is now coming back after Derek Pfaff’s recent resignation, to be reappointed after no other new applications were submitted for the positions.
“Should we be talking about … maybe holding off and looking at this commission, whether it should be a seven-member commission or a five-member commission?,” Councilwoman Kathy Kinsella said.
The other council members agreed to discuss this at an upcoming City Council meeting.
The city requires that members must be residents of the city of Sedona, with the exception of two out-of-city members who are allowed on the commission if they have a direct connection to the city corporate limits such as being an employee within the city limits or owning a business or property within the city limits.
Currently, the term of service for this volunteer position began immediately after the council approved them and expires on Nov. 30, 2024, or until a successor is appointed.
Applications are submitted through the city clerk’s office. The applicants then go through the selection committee made up of Mayor Sandy Moriarty, Vice Mayor Scott Jablow and Burkee Unger, who reviewed the current reappointments of Gehlbach and Segner on March 29.
There will also be two more available seats by the end of this year when Unger and Fiene come up on their terms.
The commission currently has 23 landmarks. Some of these include nonresidential properties like the Chapel of the Holy Cross, Jordan Ranch and Cook Cemetery, while some of the private property landmarks include the Bennett-Purtyman cabin, the Gassaway House and the Doodlebug Ranch. The commission requires landmarks to be 50 years or older, with possible rare exceptions on a case-by-case basis.
