The draft of the city of Sedona’s new municipal sustainability plan is out for review and has been expanded from 14 pages to 24 pages since the original plan was released in February 2020.

The 2020 plan set out six general goals for the city of Sedona with regard to sustainability: Be resilient, support thriving municipal lands, be water smart, be zero waste, be carbon neutral and be a healthy workplace. These six goals were broken down into 57 action items.

The new plan adds a seventh general goal, “be equitable,” and includes 61 action items, many of which are carried over from the previous plan. Some, although listed in the appendix to the 2024 plan as having been completed, are still included in the draft plan with similar wording, such as risk assessments for city facilities, providing staff training on native plants, figuring out how to reuse biosolids, installing more water bottle filling stations, more employee retention meetings and employee surveys and reviewing barriers to diversity, equity and inclusion.

Action items added in the 2024 plan include developing emergency energy systems for city facilities, introducing annual safety training for city employees, workshops on “low impact development,” ensuring at least 80% of plants at city facilities are native species, removing invasive species, public outreach campaigns on invasive species, hazardous waste collection programs, increased cleanup events, reusing the water from the splash pad at Sunset Park, getting city employees to carpool or providing a shuttle for them, adopting Coconino County’s sustainable building program and increasing Spanish-language services.

The final five pages of the new plan are an appendix tracking the city’s progress on each of the action items included in the 2020 plan.

Of these, the 2024 plan states that 20 have been completed, or 35%. Another 20 actions are listed as “ongoing” or “started.” Eight actions, or 14%, were not pursued, while another eight are listed as “COVID-impacted.”

One, “increase educational canvassing on stormwater pollution,” is not assigned to any category.

Completed actions items included updating and developing emergency plans, assessing pest management, installing a native plant garden at city hall, surveying employees, creating a green fleet policy, energy and fuel audits and developing a sustainability award and welcome packet.

Conversely, actions not pursued included sustainable design standards for city buildings, implementing composting, seeking alternative water sources and retrofitting city buildings with more efficient water fixtures.

Although the 24-page plan does not include a definition of sustainability, as described by Nobel Prize-winning economist Elinor Ostrom in “Governing the Commons,” “sustainability” involves the local production and recycling of all essential resources in a closed cycle that can be sustained indefinitely, which can be established when resource users make decisions on resource allocation through democratic consensus in the absence of government intervention.

Council has no final date for approving the new plan.