As election season approaches, Scott Moffatt and the other five Sedona City Council candidates answered questions about their goals in the position and vision for the city. The six candidates are running for three four-year openings on the council.
Q: How long have lived in Sedona?
My wife, Diana, and I moved to Sedona in April of 2021.
Q: What do you or did you do for a living?
I am currently retired, after having spent a successful 20-plus year career in a variety of sales and marketing roles for small businesses, Silicon Valley start-ups and Fortune 500 companies.
Q: Where in Sedona do you spend the most time?
My wife and I are fortunate enough to have a home in one of the subdivisions along Dry Creek Road, near the base of Thunder Mountain. Aside from occasional visits to local restaurants, we spend most of our time on our patio, enjoying the beauty that exists right in our own backyard.
Q: How else have you been involved in the Sedona community [other than running for office]?
As we are relatively new to Sedona, my wife and I have been getting to know our neighbors. On the occasional Saturday, I’ve been playing tennis with a small group of other West Sedona residents. And I was recently inducted into the Sedona BPOE [Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks] Lodge.
Q: What do you believe are the most important values to Sedona residents?
One doesn’t choose to live in Sedona without recognizing the draw of the natural beauty that surrounds this community, and valuing the environment that attracts us all — residents and visitors alike. Second, a sense of “community” is valued by all people who choose to call their primary residence “home.”
Q: What are Sedona’s top three issues right now?
There are no “three” top issues, right now — there is just one: Tourism. Poorly-managed tourism growth has led to all of the “issues” that the residents with whom I have spoken are complaining about: Excessive traffic, destruction of Sedona’s environment, increasing noise and air pollution, declining road safety and a decline in affordable housing. These are all merely symptoms of the failure of the current Sedona City Council to properly represent Sedona residents’ interests, in the council’s short-sighted pursuit of more tourism.
Q: What do you feel is the City Council’s biggest responsibility to the residents?
The City Council, in my humble opinion, has just one obligation: To represent the interests of Sedona residents above all other competing interests. To place any other goal above protecting the “community” of Sedona is to abdicate the city council’s obligation to represent the Sedona residents who elected them.
Q: Why are you running for City Council?
Upon deciding to move to Sedona last year, my wife and I were blissfully unaware of the economic issues that have faced Sedona residents for the past five-plus years, and equally unaware that people like us, “California” transplants, were viewed as part of the problem.
Only after we closed escrow, we were educated as to the challenges that face Sedona, as a community. We are now part of the Sedona community that wants to save Sedona as a “community.”
