Sedona Mayor Scott Jablow, Vice Mayor Holli Ploog and, in a separate session early in the day, Councilwoman Jessica Williamson visited Katharine Hill’s 12th grade government class at Sedona Red Rock High School on Friday, Dec. 8, to answer student questions concerning housing, homelessness, transportation and recreation.

“The students chose an issue that matters to them, and they’ve been working on it all semester,” Hill said. “They wrote a research paper on it, and now they’re in the process of taking some form of action on that issue … the goal is to hopefully get them to take action beyond the classroom.”

Most of the student projects focus on raising awareness of issues ranging from social media addiction to the rising cost of higher education, with other students taking a more direct approach by reading to English language students at West Sedona School or raising $700 to benefit some of the Verde Valley’s unhoused residents.

“It’s really a wide-ranging interest that you guys have,” Williamson said. “I’m so old that when I started school at University of California, I paid $76 a semester. I just want to put that out there. It’s crazy. They’re all incredibly important that you’ve chosen. It’s pretty cool.”

“I was basically born here and I live here … so it’s very important to be here,” student Maxwell Jankowski asked. “But living here for me is unaffordable. I can’t hope to have an apartment because we don’t. [Are] there any plans to build apartments or something, because I would love to live here.”

“We put $15 million in the budget this year for housing,” Williamson said. “Every year the council gets together and puts together a list of priorities and housing is our top priority. Not only can young people not afford those homes, 99% of anybody in America can’t afford this. The demographic is that the median age is 57. That is huge.” The current median age in Sedona is 58.5. “We did buy the Cultural Park and housing is planned for the Cultural Park,” Williamson said. “We do plan to build affordable housing there.”

Sedona City Council stated at the time of the park’s purchase in December 2022 that the city would do extensive public outreach prior to making any decisions regarding the park’s future. No public meetings dealing with the park’s future uses have been held so far. Williamson later added that she will not be seeking reelection in 2024 after serving on the council off and on for the last decade.

“What council lacks is any young representation. We’re an old council. The youngest person would be in their late 50s and we consider her young,” Williamson said. “We’d love to have younger people, younger entrepreneurs. But we don’t pay anything or we pay $400, $500 a month … But for people who are retired and have money. It’s not a lot of money and people who are getting their business started,  people who are having young families, people who might have to work two or three jobs in order to be able to get by, can’t afford the time to run for council. So one of the things, but it would be wonderful if somebody could.”

Hill later asked Williamson what she was most proud of during her time on the council.

“I am really excited about shared use paths,” Williamson said. “I love the idea of the whole city connected for bikes and walking. I think we did all of Thunder Mountain, we’re doing Dry Creek Road now. We’re going to connect all of Sedona to make it walkable and bikeable … I’m excited by the traffic changes that we’ve done. I know, it doesn’t seem to be making a lot of difference to a lot of people, but it actually incrementally has made [a] difference. The thing about the traffic program, which is a 10-year-long program, is no one thing can stand by itself. Everything has to fit together to make the whole system work.”

Williamson also cited the city’s trailhead shuttle system as another notable achievement of her tenure and elaborated on how she would like to see the transit system expand.

“We’re building an actual transit system, that I hope will eventually start out in Sedona, hopefully connect the VOC and hopefully go up the canyon,” Williamson said. “So that maybe we can get some changes where people can’t drive up the canyon to park along it, and create that everybody would have to take the shuttle in order to access certain points, which will help the traffic a lot.”

During his session, Jablow also brought up the resumption of work on the Forest Road Connection project.

“If you haven’t heard about the demolition blasting up on the hillside behind the post office, that’s to bring the new road down from Uptown that’s going to help people get out,” Jablow said. “We’re trying to prepare for [an] emergency evacuation in Uptown is one of those spots down on Brewer Road. That’s a challenge to get people out. You want to make sure if, God forbid, we ever have a problem. We want to try to keep people safe and be able to evacuate as quick as possible.”

Other student concerns about transportation included a desire for more public bus stops along State Route 89A, particularly at the intersection of SR 89A and Airport Road, and the lack of public transit to the Village of Oak Creek.

“It has to do with funding and we can’t fund a project in the VOC because our money is here,” Jablow said. “We need the county to get involved. Two county supervisors have tried to institute a lodging tax … they want to take lodging money and put it toward a transportation system countywide and it would all come from hotels, and it wouldn’t be residents, and they would fund a whole transportation system … Because a lot of people that maybe they can’t afford cars but they want to work, they can’t get to a job in Sedona or anywhere else. It would help the entire region.”

Another student asked if the city has any plans to install nighttime lighting at the Jack Malmgren Memorial Skate Park. 

“What we’re doing at Posse Ground Park is doing a study to redevelop the entire park,” Jablow said. “That’s something young people like yourselves have asked me a couple of times in the past, and it’s on my list to look at. Because we want to encourage people to use the skate park and what better way to encourage more people to use it than by putting lights on, so that is on my plans.”

“We can share with you that one, one solution … is that we are about to, fingers crossed, because of supply chain issues, implement an Uber-like system in Sedona,” Ploog said. “Initially, it’s only going to go within the Sedona city limits, and not the entire city, but most of the city. It’ll be an on-demand system that you can call or use your phone to order the car. It’s shared. So it will be a little bus, but it will be designed to pick you up within 15 minutes of placing the order for transportation.”

The system has been on hold because the city has not yet obtained vehicles to operate it during the year and a half that the system has been under discussion.

The students’ Community Action Projects will be on display in the lobby of the Sedona Performing Arts Center on Thursday, Dec. 14, at 5 p.m. The event is open to the public and will be followed by the Winter Concert performed by the Sedona-Oak Creek School District orchestra. Student photography and art projects will also be on display.