At a meeting of the Republicans of the Red Rocks at the Sedona Elks Lodge on Oct. 21, Arizona Sen. Ken Bennett [R-District 1] and Arizona Rep. Selena Bliss [R-District 1] joined Sedona Mayor Scott Jablow and Vice Mayor Holli Ploog in calling for increased regulation of short-term rentals and off-highway vehicles, as well as reform of Northern Arizona Healthcare, a nongovernmental nonprofit hospital network.

Short-Term Rentals

“We have tried since 2016, when the law [SB1350] went into effect, to change the statute in any number of ways to give us more local control, more ability to regulate [STRs],” Ploog said. “In the last two years we’ve had bills in the legislature that would cap the number of short-term rentals in our community. That wouldn’t mean that they would go away, because they would be grandfathered in … but we could control the number going forward, and eventually, perhaps, let’s say we put a cap at 10% … it would take a while before we could get below that number.”

Ploog also spoke in support of three resolutions passed by the League of Arizona Cities and Towns requesting the legislature allow municipalities to cap the number of STRs, limit the density of STRs in areas and set minimum separation distances between STRs.

Bliss expressed an intention during the next legislative session to bring back HB2047, her proposal to allow municipalities to limit the number of STRs within their boundaries and regulate them like transient lodging, along with four other proposals to increase STR regulation. “First of all, call them what they are,” Bliss said. “They’re either a short-term rental or they’re a long-term rental. We need to differentiate the two, because they’re different markets. That’s one idea. Another is to increase the fines and penalties based on current regulation requirements … If you increase the fines and the penalties, you’re going to eliminate those that are really not serious about maintaining the integrity of the rental … You could also use that revenue then to fund better administrative aspects of this, code enforcement.”

“A third idea is we could say no more than two — they call them accessory dwelling units now, that’s a new term, ADUs … no more than two per owner,” Bliss continued. “If you own three or more, you’re in business … If you own a short-term rental, you should be within 30 minutes, 45 minutes, whatever’s reasonable, to respond to if there’s a noise violation or a disturbance.”

“She’s already publicly stated, Gov. [Katie] Hobbs, that she’ll support bringing back some of the local control on this,” Bliss added.

“The Arizona Board of Realtors, not only are they opposing it, they are leading the way for a fight against the change,” Jablow said.

“Every level of government looks at the ones above them, other governments above them, as oppressive and always telling them what to do, and then they turn around and do the same thing to the ones below them,” Bennett said. “I can remember promising myself … that I would not do that.”

“The state of Arizona should not be dictating how Sedona feels as a community. Sedona should be deciding that,” Bennett added.

“The speaker of the House was able to single-handedly kill [HB2047],” Jablow said. “I was shocked when it would not move forward … The speaker is a Realtor.”

“Realtors are not bad people,” Bennett said. “Ben Toma, the speaker of the House, is a fine individual. I hope he ends up taking the seat in Congress that [U.S. Rep.] Debbie Lesko just announced she’s not going to seek reelection.”

“You’ve got to make a change within your professional association,” Bliss said to the realtors in attendance.

OHV Ordinance

“We don’t want to hurt people here if we don’t have to,” Jablow said of a proposed OHV ban. “It’s a matter of a balance.”

“Our goal for the last few years has been a permitting system,” Ploog said. “We want to control the number of these vehicles … The Forest Service was not supportive of that.”

Ploog added, “We have gotten a commitment from the new supervisor that they will follow the recommendations” of the Greater Sedona Recreation Collaborative with regard to OHV access to public lands when those recommendations are issued at the end of the year. “Hopefully a permitting system will be recommended and the Forest Service will agree. If not, it is our intention to bring back this tabled ordinance.”

Bennett described the OHV regulation effort as “to prevent the bad apples of an activity from destroying reasonable opportunities for everyone else.”

“I want to applaud your mayor and vice mayor and the council for using the threat of the ordinance,” Bennett said.

Health Care

“Our whole health system with NAH has been less than we desire,” event moderator Ann Kelley said. “Can you give us some information about potential solutions?”

“We have a new CEO of NAH that I’ve been in communication with,” Jablow said. “It’s a huge, monumental task. He says he’s up to it and is going to make some changes to address staffing. It’s hard when most of the doctors have left because of the prior administration.”

“Since 2014, the staffing and the level of services has diminished,” Bliss said. “Interestingly enough, Northern Arizona Healthcare took over Verde Valley Medical Center in 2015. Think about that … The good news is that the administration, Dave Cheney’s group, shared that their retention is above average with their nurses and health care staff, their patient satisfaction scores are trending back up.”

“I might be wrong as far as how you define takeover,” Bliss said when later asked to clarify her statement, because VVMC and Flagstaff Medical Center merged to form NAH in 1995. “If that’s what the records reflect, I stand corrected.” She stressed that she was trying to emphasize a drop-off in the number of physicians at VVMC after 2014.

NAH contracts with about 500 physicians, 200 of whom are employees with the rest being independent medical practitioners with privileges at the hospitals, as of October 2022. NAH’s annual medical provider turnover was 18%, below the national average of 24% to 28%.

“There’s conversations right now — we’re being very open about it — to see if Northern Arizona Healthcare will let go of their oversight of Verde Valley Medical Center and either bring in Banner, Dignity or Honor Health,” Bliss said. “We want a five- to 10-year strategic plan … and we want their board right-sized.”

Bliss is also working on a bill to require mandatory safety reporting on breast cancer screenings following a number of misdiagnoses at NAH.

When asked by a member of the audience what proportion of the federal health care budget is spent on illegal immigrants, Bennett replied, “Probably about 20%; 15% to 20%.”

Undocumented immigrants are not eligible for federal healthcare benefits except in emergencies, which accounted for $974 million, or 0.2%, of total Medicaid spending in 2016.

Jablow and Ploog both announced that they will be running for reelection in 2024.