During its Tuesday, Sept. 12 meeting, the Sedona City Council agreed to table Mayor Scott Jablow’s proposed OHV ban until April 9, in favor of entering into a voluntary agreement on noise reduction with Sedona’s OHV rental companies.

Representatives of the rental companies expressed their objections to the council’s last-minute, unilateral decision to change the terms of the agreement that they had previously worked out with the city.

“That wasn’t our agreement for our side of the voluntary agreement,” Jimmy Custer, of Red Rock ATV, told council following the vote. “We’re talking well over $1,000 per vehicle if you’re talking exhaust, turn signals and mapping … You’re expecting us to put all this capital — it kind of blind-sided me as to what we have been meeting with for the last six months …

“There’s a huge threat. I have lost employees that are fearful of a city ban coming. I have lost business. My business is down nearly 40% because there’s news of an ordinance affecting Sedona, and now you’re asking me to put this voluntary agreement in and I can’t even get an indefinite tabling of the ban.”

“This pushed it off at least till April for you,” Councilwoman Kathy Kinsella told him. “The position hasn’t really changed … that’s always been dangling out there as the nuclear option hammer.”

“We’re doing this voluntarily,” said Dave Swartout, of Sedona Off-Road Center. “What are we getting from the city?”

“You’re doing better for our community,” Jablow said. “You were going to do these things anyway.”

“But not to the extent of this voluntary agreement,” Custer said. “The intent of the agreement — which it states right here, we’re asking the city ordinance to be tabled indefinitely. Which is what we want. I completely understand the legality that this could be brought back tomorrow. But the tremendous amount of pressure that we are under, and the threat of saying that we have to go through this entire process again in less than 180 days, I am not happy with.”

“That’s negotiations,” Jablow said.

Ordinance Triggers

Sedona City Councilwoman Melissa Dunn returned to address the presumption that the original ordinance was supposed to be about safety.

“To the best of your knowledge, has any of that changed?” Dunn asked City Attorney Kurt Christianson in reference to the sources cited in the ordinance that claimed OHVs were unsafe. “Do manufacturers now say they are designed — has any of that changed?”

Christianson said they have not.

“Do you believe or do you know whether or not the manufacturers, ROHVA [the Recreational Off-Highway Vehicle Association lobbying group] or any of the other people who are listed as evidence in the supporting documentation would now say that these vehicles are designed for on-road use given the modifications that you’re about to make?” Dunn asked the company representatives.

“We operate under Arizona state law. That’s all I can tell you,” Swartout said.

Dunn then suggested a tipping point that would automatically bring the ordinance back for consideration in an event of a failure of the voluntary agreement.

“We need some kind of trigger that we’re all agreed on,” Dunn said. Asked by Jablow for suggestions as to what that trigger should be, she did not provide an example.

“It’s difficult for me because I haven’t been involved in the conversations,” she said.

“I’m not too motivated to push for triggers at this moment,” Councilman Pete Furman said.

“A hard trigger on any of these are not something realistic,” Councilman Brian Fultz said.

Changed Agreement

“If we did an ordinance that would just be restrictive for Morgan Road, would you support that?” Jablow asked the OHV representatives.

“No, we couldn’t really do that,” Swartout said.

During the public comment period, resident Craig Swanson proposed that the ordinance be tabled only until March 31, 2024, rather than indefinitely. Swanson also suggested that the OHV rental companies be required to make a written commitment to support whatever recommendations on limiting OHV use that the Greater Sedona Recreation Collaborative plans to recommend by the end of the year.

“It does put a stake in the ground with the date. I kind of like that,” Vice Mayor Holli Ploog said. “All it means is we’re going to discuss it again.”

“I’m happy to use the March date based on the GSRC,” Kinsella said.

Dunn and Jablow supported picking a specific date to reconsider the ordinance. Fultz moved to table it until April 9, the date of the next council meeting following the deadline for the GSRC to submit its recommendation, and the motion passed unanimously.

“We’ve invested significant money trying to mitigate the negative externalities associated with your industry,” City Manager Karen Osburn told the OHV representatives, referring to the $100,000 cost of the city’s environmental impact assessment regarding OHV use on U.S. Forest Service outside Sedona city limits.

Osburn previously told council during its June budget work session that “there was nothing that came out of that that indicated that regulatory action was needed.”

With reference to Jablow’s desire for a “limiting permit system,” Swartout reminded the council of the opposition that the Forest Service’s introduction of Red Rock Passes had faced in the early 2000s.

“The community in Sedona was up in arms, saying, ‘I’m not going to pay for a permit, I live here.’ You think you’ve seen some controversy now? … This place is going to be full of citizens upset.”

A federal judge threw out the ranger district-wide Red Rock Pass in 2010, ruling that the program affecting all 160,000 acres was too broad and arbitrary, and requiring that six specific amenities must be present at any sites where the pass could be required, limiting the area to Oak Creek Canyon and a handful of trailheads.