The Yavapai County Board of Supervisors will discuss the Sedona Airport’s event venue on July 6 after the airport requested the item be pushed back on the agenda for undisclosed reasons.
On Monday, the county administration received a letter from the Sedona-Oak Creek Airport Authority board asking that the board delay consideration of this matter for 90 days, Yavapai County Assistant County Administrator Jack Fields said at the Yavapai County Board of Supervisors meeting on April 20.
The item is regarding the Sedona Airport’s development agreement with Venue on the Mesa to operate out of the former Masonic Lodge. The county’s initially agendized item stated if the Board of Supervisors did not consider the lease within 45 days then the lease and license are deemed approved. But with the airport’s request for 90 more days then the lease can stay in limbo for a few more months.
In the letter to the county, the Sedona Airport General Manager Ed Rose wrote that the airport “respectfully requests this item be tabled from the 20 April 2022 meeting agenda and respectfully requests a continuance of 90 days for the county to best understand the external influences and circumstances attached to this item before scheduling for the board’s consideration.”
The letter also highlighted the airport’s need for revenue from this kind of venue to support ongoing and increasing costs in operating the airport’s facility.
City Objections
At its meeting on Feb. 24, the Sedona City Council also sent a letter to the Yavapai County Board of Supervisors discussing the issues that the city had with an events venue at the top of the Airport Mesa, as well as a request that the county and city finally work out their four-decade-long disagreement on the airport’s jurisdiction.
The airport has seemingly been in limbo since the incorporation of the city.
Although the Federal Aviation Administration dictates much of what happens at the airport when it comes to the aircraft and flights, the county has been in charge of the logistics and legal agreements in most cases.
City Says It Has Jurisdiction
“Since the city’s incorporation, there have been some questions over what jurisdiction Yavapai County and the city have at the Sedona Airport,” city of Sedona Director of Community Development Jess McNeely said in the city’s letter to the county board of supervisors. “This confusion is further complicated by the fact that Yavapai County and the Sedona Oak Creek Airport Authority, the county’s lessee, have gone back and forth on whether they believe the city has zoning authority over non-aeronautical businesses at the airport but continue to welcome other city police powers like Sedona Police Department presence at the airport.”
The letter went on to give an example of the airport’s confusion in the jurisdiction with the zoning decisions made for Sky Ranch Lodge by the Sedona City Council.
It also highlighted issues that concerned city staff regarding emergency vehicle accessibility, noise control and overall use of the property near the airport.
“We are up against a deadline to act. The continuation would give the board additional time to consider it,” Fields said. “It will also give us time to talk to the applicant, Harrell Cooley, about the event venue they have planned for the airport.”
The event venue will be able to hold hundreds of guests, as well as an outdoor area to accommodate weddings, galas or receptions.
The discussion for the airport is now slated for the Yavapai County Board of Supervisors’ meeting held in Prescott at 9 a.m. Wednesday, July 6. It will also be live-streamed on the county website.
Rose declined to comment on the event venue’s contract and 90- day delay.
