Yavapai County is being sued by a group of property owners southwest of Sedona who are arguing that the county’s 2020 land use settlement agreement with the Global Community Communications Alliance, which operates the Camp Avalon nature retreat off Upper Red Rock Loop Road, violated the state’s open meetings law.

Camp Avalon

The Camp Avalon retreat was formerly the headquarters of Tony Delevin, who styled himself “Gabriel of Sedona.” The leader of a New Age religious group based on his own interpretation of the Urantia Book, Delevin has since relocated his followers to Tumacacori, 16 miles north of Nogales. Now calling himself “Gabriel of Urantia,” Delevin’s “spiritual intentional community,” legally incorporated as the Global Community Communications Alliance, still owns the 15-acre Camp Avalon parcel along Oak Creek, which was known as Avalon Gardens when the group was called the Aquarian Concepts Community.

In spring 2019, Loop Road residents complained that GCCA was operating Camp Avalon as a commercial campground without proper facilities or a permit. The Yavapai County Board of Adjustment unanimously ruled against GCCA at a hearing on June 18, 2019, finding that the group’s religious orientation did not exempt it from being required to follow planning and zoning ordinances [see the Sedona Red Rock News for June 28, 2019].

GCCA then sued the county for religious discrimination, but on Feb. 14, 2020, the Yavapai County Superior Court dismissed the case without prejudice.

On Feb. 19, 2020, the Yavapai County Board of Supervisors held an executive session to consider the lawsuit. A keyword search of Board of Supervisors minutes and agendas revealed that this was the only occasion on which Camp Avalon or GCCA were discussed between 2019 and 2022, with the exception of the board’s waiver of service in the lawsuit on Sept. 4, 2019.

The minutes of the public session for Feb. 19 state that District 2 Supervisor Tom Thurman “motioned to enter into a settlement agreement with Global Community Communications Alliance to resolve pending litigation.”

The motion was seconded by District 1 Supervisor Rowle Simmons and passed unanimously. No copy of the approved settlement agreement was attached to the minutes.

According to the settlement, GCCA agreed to submit a site plan for Camp Avalon, construct a permanent bathroom and wastewater facilities, restrict its online advertising to exclude vacation rental websites and request special event permits in advance if holding gatherings above the capacity of the facility.

In return, the county agreed to grant the necessary building permits, recognized the religious use of the facility and paid the GCCA $18,750. The agreement was signed by Catherine “Centria” Lilly, CFO of GCCA, on Feb. 26, 2020, and by Craig Brown, then-chairman of the Board of Supervisors, on March 5, 2020.

A commercial certificate of completion for an outdoor religious gathering and assembly was issued to GCCA on April 23, 2020 by David Williams, director of the county Development Services Department.

The existence of the settlement agreement was not reported publicly until Aug. 18, 2020, in conjunction with the publication of a letter by District 3 Supervisor Randy Garrison expressing opposition to proposed changes to the county’s religious zoning ordinances.

Motion and Counter-Motion

On Feb. 18, 2021, La Merra Holdings LLC and the Smoke Trail Ranch Property Owners Association filed suit against both Yavapai County and GCCA. La Merra Holdings planned the Sedona Ranch subdivision and still owns lots there; the Smoke Trail Ranch Association represents other neighboring property owners.

The complaint declared that GCCA “has consistently used the Global [aka GCCA] property in ways not permitted by any applicable District Provisions imposed by the Zoning Ordinance, including, inter alia, open fire pits, camp sites, nonpermitted improvements, outdoor latrines, stages, amplified music, commercial sales and food sales,” and that it allowed and encouraged invitees to trespass on La Merra property.

After the Board of Adjustment unanimously voted to enforce the zoning ordinance against GCCA, the complaint continued, “Yavapai County secretly negotiated and entered into what it characterizes as a ‘settlement agreement’ with Global wherein Yavapai County has consented to not enforce the zoning ordinance and to allow Global to continue [and, in fact, expand] the prohibited uses.”

“Approval of the settlement agreement was purportedly the subject of a Feb. 19, 2020, Yavapai County Board of Supervisors meeting,” the complainants stated. “However, Yavapai County did not provide any description of any putative settlement between Yavapai County and Global in the statutorily required Notice for the Feb. 19, 2020 Board of Supervisors meeting. Moreover, Yavapai County did not indicate on any agenda for the Feb. 19, 2020 Board of Supervisors Meeting that a settlement agreement would be discussed, debated, or voted on. To be sure, to the best of plaintiffs’ knowledge no draft of the settlement agreement was ever made available to the public for inspection and review prior to the Feb.19, 2020 Board of Supervisors meeting. Because it was agreed to in secret, plaintiffs did not learn of the existence of the settlement agreement until August 2020, when the settlement agreement was the subject of media reports.”

Consequently, La Merra and Smoke Trail argued, the Board of Supervisors failed to comply with Arizona’s open meeting laws, violating Arizona Revised Statutes 38-431.01, 38-431.02 and 38-431.05 in the process, and therefore the county’s settlement with GCCA should be declared null and void.

The complaint also sought an injunction preventing GCCA from continuing with its prohibited uses in future, and damages from GCCA for injury to the complainants’ property.

On May 6, 2021, the plaintiffs filed an amended complaint that replaced La Merra Holdings as a plaintiff with the Residents of the Red Rock Loop, a nonprofit corporation established in Delaware on March 10, 2021. The complaint described it as representing the interests of property owners in Sedona Ranch and other residential subdivisions.

Yavapai County Attorney Sheila Polk moved for dismissal of the suit on May 28. Polk argued that the Yavapai County Superior Court lacked jurisdiction, that the two corporate entities bringing the suit had not demonstrated any injury to themselves and that the complaint “does not allege a legally cognizable violation of Arizona’s open meeting law.” In Polk’s view, the published agenda for the Feb. 19 meeting had met all statutory requirements for public notification.

GCCA filed a joinder in the county’s motion to dismiss on June 24, in which it agreed that the plaintiffs did not have standing and the open meeting law was not violated. The joinder added that the complaint “fails to state a legally cognizable violation of Yavapai County zoning ordinances.”

Residents of the Red Rock Loop and Smoke Trail responded to both motions on July 26. They termed the GCCA claim that they had no standing for a nuisance claim “frivolous” and the county’s similar claim “meritless.”

“Because of the county’s abdication of its obligations, and the execution of the secret settlement agreement, the plaintiffs and their constituent members have been forced to endure the nuisance impacts of Global’s unregulated commercial camp operation,” their response alleged.

“There is nothing in the February meeting agenda, nor does the county point to anything, that would alert a reasonable observer that the county was proposing to settle the Global litigation to give Global carte blanche to continue its violations of the county’s zoning ordinance at its leisure. To make matters worse, the Settlement Agreement also required the county to pay Global $18,750 in public funds, again a fact no reasonable observer would have had notice of based on the published agenda,” the response continued. It also argued that the county’s motion to dismiss had been improperly filed.

On Aug. 3 and Aug. 13, respectively, Yavapai County and GCCA filed replies to the plaintiffs’ response, repeating their earlier assertions that the complainants did not have standing, that no open meeting law or zoning violations occurred and that a claim for nuisance was not clearly stated in the amended complaint.

Discovery

Judge John D. Napper heard oral arguments in the case on Sept. 10. Napper denied both motions to dismiss and directed the parties to proceed with discovery.

On Oct. 8, the county filed its response to the May 6 complaint. In the response, the county formally denied that Smoke Trail Ranch had a border with GCCA property, denied that the Board of Adjustment had voted unanimously to enforce the zoning ordinance against GCCA, denied that the negotiations and settlement agreement had been secret and denied that the specific terms of the settlement needed to be placed on the Board of Supervisors’ agenda.

GCCA filed its answer to the May 6 complaint on Oct. 11, denying that it owned property adjacent to Smoke Trail Ranch, and repeating the claims that the plaintiffs had no standing and had failed to allege any specific damages.

The plaintiffs and the county requested expanded discovery on Feb. 2, 2022, and discovery proceeded throughout the remainder of the year. Napper issued a scheduling order on Aug. 9, which stated that a trial would take place after May 26, 2023 and would be expected to last nine days.

“The matter is in litigation and the county has denied any violation of open meeting law,” the Yavapai County Attorney’s Office said in a statement. “We have no additional comments.”

Attorneys for Smoke Trail Ranch and GCCA did not respond to requests for comment.

According to the Arizona Judicial Branch Public Access to Court Information website, Yavapai County is currently listed as a defendant in at least six pending lawsuits, the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office is a defendant in three suits, Yavapai County Sheriff David Rhodes is the defendant in a separate suit and the Yavapai County Treasurer is a defendant in over 40 suits.