At the last meeting of the Sedona City Council on Nov. 22, before the new council was sworn in on Monday, Nov. 28, the members of the council voted themselves a raise. To be fair, Sedona Mayor Sandy Moriarty and Councilmen Tom Lamkin and Jon Thompson only voted their succes­sors raises before departing and will not personally benefit from their votes. Councilwoman Kathy Kinsella and then-Councilwoman [now-Vice Mayor] Holli Ploog voted against the measure.

Incoming Mayor Scott Jablow and Councilwoman Jessica Williamson voted to give themselves more taxpayer dollars.

There was a straightforward question as to whether council members work enough per month to warrant an increase and what fair compensation for the work they do would be, but given the small wage and the very small increase involved, the discussion itself was almost absurd as council members weighed whether they deserve an extra $50 a month. Teens have the same debate with their parents.

With the 5-2 vote, council members now make $6,600 a year, while the mayor earns $9,600.

Elected office should either be a full-time job with a full-time salary that requires officials to make a full-time commitment, or a volunteer position in which officials serve out of a selfless love of community, not a half-real position.

Council members dismiss complaints from residents by saying that residents effectively don’t pay them salaries because the amounts are nominal.

All towns and cities in Arizona reimburse traveling costs and expenses like any employer would, but most do not pay elected council members full-time working salaries*. Instead, they expect them to work for free for the benefit of the community. Other positions, including those on school boards, fire district governing boards and special districts, are unpaid. County supervisors’ salaries are set by state law at $63,800 per year for small counties like both of ours.

The Arizona State Legislature pays legislators $24,000 a year, but they only work from January to April, or a bit into May if the session runs long. Most have other jobs as workers, business owners, ranch or farm owners or lawyers.

In the past, a small stipend to cover Sedona City Council members’ actual hours in meetings seemed sufficient, but now these stipends have ballooned into quasi-salaries. Council has also floated the suggestion that they should be paid for the extra hours they work beyond meetings, such as when reading agenda documents, responding to emails or meeting with members of the public.

It’s very difficult to say if all council members deserve the same salary for their labor, as some certainly put in the work while others are phoning it in. We can tell from their meetings that certain council members don’t read the agenda documents, since they seem utterly surprised by some of the things they discover for the first time during meetings. Other council members clearly do their due diligence and in the midst of a meeting can refer speakers or other council members to certain pages in the agenda and scold fellow council members.

There is a more colorful way to say this — but council members need to pick a lane: A real salary or none.

Residents who are independently wealthy or retired often feel they have the time and income safety net to serve the city. Taking this into account, Sedona could go back to a fully volunteer council, only reimbursing members’ expenses.

This model saves taxpayers money and ensures that only the most dedicated residents are the ones who run for office, but it also leaves us stuck with the recently-arrived retir­eocracy that doesn’t understand families, the importance of community events, youth, why creek access matters, the concerns of the business community, the hassle of daytime traffic problems, real issues with finding rentals, the lack of workforce housing or making ends meet.

Business owners and full-time workers serve on the Cottonwood, Jerome and Camp Verde councils. Sedona’s council used to have a few of those, but they all left office by 2010.

We obviously don’t get our best and brightest to run for office. So if council is serious about paying real salaries in order to get Sedona’s best and brightest to run, they could seriously consider paying a salary equivalent to the median income: $33,284 per year. A total of $232,988 per year for seven officials is a drop in the bucket compared to the $20 million council just spent on dirt that won’t become housing for decades.

Working-class residents, small business owners, parents with young children and community activists who represent our community don’t run simply because they can’t afford to. They might if taking on the job didn’t risk landing them in a debtor’s prison.

Council could vote on the issue now and get potential candidates geared up for the 2024 election, one that could usher in a council that again represents the city’s demo­graphics, not simply those retirees with nothing better to do on weekday afternoons.

Christopher Fox Graham

Managing Editor

• * Clarification. The original version of this editorial read: “All towns and cities in Arizona reimburse traveling costs and expenses like any employer would, but most do not pay elected council members salaries,” implying other towns and cities pay no salary whatsover, which was not the intent of this argument, rather, this distinction was supposed to be between a nominal salary like Sedona’s of a few hundred dollars a month and a full-time working salary, like those in some larger cities in Arizona.