The city of Sedona opened the Splash Pad at Sunset Park on May 1.
As it is every summer, the splash pad is the highlight of toddlers and young children’s lives for several sweltering months. My wife has taken our three children to the Splash Pad numerous times this month alone, and while only our 3-year-old daughter is ambulatory, it’s the highlight of their day. Our newborn twins get sunlight and fresh air while our toddler gets to play with little boys and girls her age, splashing around in the water features, getting soaked while getting exercise — not that most 3-year-olds need assistance running around nonstop.
Thanks again to the Sedona City Council members who voted to build the park, which opened in 2014 and to all those who helped fund and design it. The splash pad was jointly funded by the city of Sedona and private groups, including an anonymous donation of $30,000 and a $62,000 donation from the Lexi Kazian Foundation — a nonprofit run by former Sedona Fire District Fire Chief Kris Kazian and his wife Kristy, named for their 2-year-old daughter who died in 2004.
There are hundreds of children from Sedona and the Verde Valley, as well as tourists’ kids who have found joy at the splash pad thanks to donors and civic-minded Sedona residents.
In Sedona, with its notorious dearth of young children, making friends isn’t easy for kids too young for preschool, especially when children are as rare as a Western spotted jackalope. Whenever I post photos or videos of our children at the park, I’m often asked by surprised friends that “there are children in Sedona?”
Yes, there always have been. It’s only been recently that children and families have been moving out of the Sedona area due to the lack of affordable rentals and the increasing cost of housing. There are fewer and fewer public events conducive to kids than in the past, but ours have enjoyed seeing the planes and cars at Airport Family Fun Day at the Sedona Airport, or the madhouse that is the Celebration of Spring at Posse Grounds Park, or the Sedona St. Patrick’s Parade, but some of other events have gone by the wayside.
Admittedly, our daughter has become something of a minor celebrity, not necessarily because we take her everywhere, because she’s often the youngest person in the room and becomes, by her mere presence, the center of attention.
A city without children is a dying one. So, as we get into the 2022 Sedona City Council election, voters should be asking candidates what they’re doing to attract or retain families.
The Sedona-Oak Creek School District has been on a declining trend of students leaving the district over the last 20 years, so much so, that SOCSD closed Big Park Community School in the Village of Oak Creek in 2018. SOCSD had floated a school closure before with immense public push back, but by 2018, the writing was on the wall.
Consolidating all elementary school students in the area to one campus isn’t a negative if that’s all the district can accommodate, but having a shuttered school campus in the middle of a neighborhood is a blight reflecting the health and appeal of a community.
So aside from asking how to work with the Arizona State Legislature to regulate, limit or outright ban short term rentals; manage sales and bed tax dollars; spend money on new facilities and programs; and determine our city’s destination marketing plans, voters should also be asking potential mayors and City Council members what sort of programs or amenities they can offer children, young families and working class families, and how they can help them afford to live here with rents skyrocketing.
Our youngest residents will grow up here even if they’re rare anomalies. It’s here that they learn how to be good citizens and what the purpose of government is, whether it’s here to help all its citizens or cares little for them. They’ll be running our governments soon enough and what they learn is how they’ll lead.
Christopher Fox Graham
Managing Editor
