January

■ The Sedona City Council rejected the results of the city’s latest study on the environmental effects of off-highway vehicles, which became available in June, after the study revealed that there are no significant environmental or health problems resulting from the use of OHVs.

■ During its first full year of operation, the Sedona Shuttle program recorded 309,559 boardings over an estimated 238.5 service days. Through Dec. 17 in FY24, the system logged 121,049 boardings over 103 service days.

■ “There are zero plans to close the ED in Sedona,” newly-hired Northern Arizona Healthcare CEO Dave Cheney stated. “We’re going to build services in Sedona around oncology, but there is no plan to close that ED … We have to rebuild some of the programs that were taken away from the community.”

■ At its Jan. 9 meeting, the Sedona City Council unanimously directed city staff to move ahead with planning for the creation of a homeless campground for local workers living in their cars at the Sedona Cultural Park, which the city purchased in November 2022 for more than $23 million.

■ Village of Oak Creek resident Jan Taylor watched some of the remains of her late husband Anthony “Tony” Hollis Taylor, who died on Aug. 7, 2019, take off for the moon aboard the Peregrine lunar lander, which launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Monday, Jan. 8.

■ Sedona Sister Cities Association Chairman Chuck Marr said he is optimistic that the group will make a recommendation to the Sedona City Council sometime this year that Sedona enter into its first Sister City relationship with Canmore, Alberta, Canada.

■ 9-year-old Toma Tsai of the Sedona Public Library’s chess club won his first two tournaments in Flagstaff in November and December of last year in the kindergarten-to-third-grade division.

■ The Sedona City Council voted 7-0 on Tuesday, Jan. 23, to approve a contract to hire Anette Spickard, of McCall, Idaho, as the new city manager. Spickard was scheduled to take over the role on Monday, April 8, following the departure of Karen Osburn.

February

■ The city of Sedona settled with three of the defendants, anticipated a fourth settlement within the next few weeks and moved for default judgment against the two remaining defendants in its lawsuit against six residents who filed what the city described as “bogus liens” against the sitting members of the Sedona City Council and three city staffers.

■ Sedona Red Rock High School senior Lauren Pfaff was selected as one of the 36 finalists for the Flinn Scholarship, which includes tuition to an in-state public university, meals, housing and an opportunity to study abroad. The scholarship is valued at $130,000.

■ The Verde Valley Yavapai Democrats hosted a meet-and-greet with incumbent District 3 Supervisor Donna Michaels and her Democratic primary challenger, Nikki Check, a former mayor of Jerome who ran for the Arizona State Senate in 2016.

■ Michael Adam Jung, 33, of Scottsdale, died the morning of Saturday, Feb. 3, after falling off of Merry Go Round Rock. On Saturday, Feb. 10, first responders were called out at 12:55 p.m. for a 79-year-old man visiting from North Berwick, Maine, who fell 30 to 35 feet from the Pyramid Trail while hiking with his wife.

■ The Sedona-Oak Creek School District Governing Board moved to start the process of having voters decide in November if the district should have the ability to sell the former Big Park Community School in the Village of Oak Creek on Feb. 13. Under Arizona state law, public school districts can sell school-owned real property to other governments, but voter approval is required to sell any real property to non-governmental third parties.

■ The Sedona-Oak Creek School District Governing Board moved the end of the school day to 1:05 a.m. at West Sedona School and the start of the school day to 10 a.m. at Sedona Red Rock High School in order to accommodate staff professional development.

■ U.S. Rep. Eli Crane [R-District 2] visited Sedona on Tuesday, Feb. 20, for a Republicans of the Red Rocks breakfast, a meeting with Sedona Mayor Scott Jablow and a tour with DeAnna Bindley, a resident off of Forest Road 152C who has been trying to get off-highway vehicles restricted on U.S. Forest Service lands west of Sedona city limits.

■ Amy Tinderholt, district ranger of the Red Rock Ranger District, left her position with the district on Saturday, Feb. 24, to move to a remote position as a recreation planner with an enterprise team within the U.S. Forest Service starting Monday, Feb. 26.

March

■ The Red Rock Ranger District closed the Cathedral Rock Trail on Wednesdays through Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. through Saturday, April 13, to construct additional rock steps, build retaining walls, improve trail drainage and attempt to eliminate user-created trails.

■ In the city of Sedona’s 2024 budget survey, 71% of respondents opposed the construction of pedestrian bridges in Uptown, 63% opposed the city increasing its support for arts and culture programs and 80% opposed a city purchase of the Sedona Airport.

■ City of Sedona staff began work on constructing parking spaces at the Sedona Cultural Park for the city’s proposed car camp for homeless workers, although the program and required zone change had not yet been approved by City Council.

■ On March 4, the Sedona-Oak Creek School District resumed offering free adult English classes with free childcare for parents of students in the district on Mondays from 6 to 8 p.m. at Sedona Red Rock High School.

■ West Sedona School student Dhara Alston won first place for an essay on water ethics in a contest conducted by the Coconino Plateau Watershed Partnership and the Willow Bend Environmental Education Center.

■ A woman died in a “devastating structure fire” at the Sunset Mobile Home late on Tuesday, March 12. A secondary fire flared up at the site on March 13.

■ A referendum petition was filed on March 15 to challenge the Sedona City Council’s March 12 decision to rezone part of the Sedona Cultural Park to create a car camp for homeless workers.

■ Attorney James Ledbetter of the Cottonwood-based Ledbetter Law Firm notified the city of Sedona that he had been retained by the Arizona Conference of Police and Sheriffs labor association to represent Sedona Deputy Chief Ryan Kwitkin, Sgt. Laura Leon and Executive Assistant to the Chief of Police Charlene “Sherri” O’Connor in their complaints of a hostile work environment at SPD.

■ The Northern Arizona Climate Change Alliance and the Sedona Public Library launched Sedona Tools Empowering People, a tool lending library consisting of donated tools that allows those working on projects who might be in need of a tool they don’t have to borrow it through an online interface and pick it up from a STEP volunteer at the library.

April

■ The city of Sedona issued a request for proposals from design firms to help develop a new master plan for the Sedona Cultural Park, with proposals to be submitted by Thursday, April 25, with the goal of producing the new master plan by Aug. 28, 2025.

■ Music teachers Kristina Beachell and Courtney Yeates, in collaboration with Chamber Music Sedona, founded the Sedona Community Youth Orchestra, which subsequently performed with the Sedona Symphony on April 7.

■ On April 2, the Sedona-Oak Creek School District Governing Board unanimously approved placing the district’s ability to sell the shuttered Big Park Community School to a third party on the ballot for the Nov. 5 general election.

■ The latest figures from the city of Sedona indicated that average budgeted staff compensation had risen to $112,156, while the number of employees making more than $100,000 increased over the past year from 20 to 24. Director of Public Works Kurt Harris and Communications Manager Lauren Browne received raises of 29.4% and 18.4%, respectively.

■ Members of Sedona’s arts community, led by Sedona Arts Center CEO Julie Richard, made a pitch to the Sedona City Council to increase arts and culture funding in next year’s budget to $550,000 during the council’s April 9 meeting, a request that was rejected by the council.

■ On April 15, the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office responded to a report that a woman had fallen down a 140-foot cliff on Bear Mountain while hiking with her husband and 1-year-old child. She has been identified as 40-year-old Zaynab Joseph. The Sedona Fire District was the first to arrive at the scene and confirmed that Joseph had died. The circumstances of her death are still under investigation by YCSO.

■ Following two days of budget work sessions on April 17 and 18, the Sedona City Council elected to move ahead with city staff’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2025. The estimated final budget total was $105.5 million, including $46,082,000 in capital improvement projects and $20,314,000 in personnel costs.

■ The Save the Cultural Park organizing committee submitted petitions with 1,053 signatures to the City Clerk’s Office on April 8, as part of the referendum challenging council’s rezoning of the site as a car camp. The clerk subsequently verified 991 of the signatures. Council voted to suspend work on the site on April 23.

May

■ West Sedona School principal Elizabeth Tavasci announced that she would be leaving her position on Sunday, June 30. “That decision was made because my husband and I are expecting our first baby in September,” Tavasci said.

■ Mike Ward, a former Sedona City Councilman who was running for election to one of three open council seats, died Friday, May 3. First responders were called to his home just after 8 p.m. when his wife found him unresponsive, according to Sedona police. Life-saving measures were performed but he was pronounced dead at the scene.

■ U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney [R-Utah] and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken put in appearances at the McCain Institute’s 2024 Sedona Forum at Enchantment Resort.

■ Former Sedona Finance Director Cherie White departed her employment with the city of Sedona. White, who had joined the city in November 2015, had been assigned to work from home in February following the launch of an internal investigation into her conduct as department head.

■ The Sedona and Canmore, Alberta city councils approved a two-year friendship agreement between the two cities to discuss potential collaborations.

■ Mingus Union High School District Governing Board President Lori Drake announced her candidacy for the Yavapai County Board of Supervisors District 3 seat.

■ The Sedona City Council unanimously approved the contract for the proposed Uptown parking garage at a contract price of $17.5 million, and a total cost of $26 million, on May 14, after council members spent six hours discussing it and how much they disliked the price tag. In particular, Councilman Brian Fultz called attention to the $5,184 price tag for a single toilet, which he then joined other council members in voting to pay.

■ The Sedona-Oak Creek School District awarded $97,000 in scholarship money to 31 graduating high school students.

■ The Sedona City Council approved allocating $150,000 for a summer marketing campaign to attract visitors to Sedona, bringing the total that the city has spent on branding and marketing since the Sedona Chamber of Commerce declined to renew its tourism management contract with the city last April to $431,000.

■ The Sedona City Council approved the city’s fiscal year 2025 tentative budget on May 28, which, at $106,155,786, was the largest budget in Sedona’s history, breaking the FY23 record of $105.7 million.

June

■ The board of trustees of Sedona Lago Gardens, an affiliate of the Rainbow Acres assisted living community, unanimously voted to shutter its operations and liquidate its business operations due to a lack of economic development and little revenue.

■ After local nonprofit Manzanita Outreach shuttered its School Supplies for Teachers program to focus on food distribution, Lew and Nancy Hoyt and the Arizona Community Foundation stepped in at West Sedona School to provide every teacher with a $50 gift card for school supplies to fill the gap.

■ Sedona City Attorney Kurt Christianson, representatives of the cities of Cottonwood, Clarkdale, Flagstaff and 25 other municipalities, and Sedona residents Ann Kelley, Carol Kurimsky and Mark TenBroek opposed the legislature’s reduction of setbacks for accessory dwelling units to five feet.

■ A group of Bear Wallow Road residents and an Uptown resident filed appeals of the Sedona Planning and Zoning Commission’s April 16 approval of a development review for the proposed Oak Creek Heritage Lodge off Schnebly Hill Road.

■ The Sedona City Council expressed unanimous support for Yavapai County constructing multiple crossings of Oak Creek to reopen alternative routes and relieve traffic congestion at its June 11 meeting.

■ Sedona city staff repurposed the old Chevron station located next to the “Y” roundabout at the intersection of State Routes 89A and 179 in Uptown, which the city of Sedona purchased from the Arizona Department of Transportation in fiscal year 2022, for use by police and traffic aides.

■ A 44-year-old woman vacationing from Pennsylvania died while hiking the Hi-Line Trail with her two daughters and husband on the afternoon of Friday, June 14.

■ Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office deputies responded to the report of a stabbing in the area of Coffee Pot Rock Road in the Village of Oak Creek, on Saturday, June 22. A YCSO patrol sergeant was the first on scene, where he encountered the alleged stabbing suspect, Lauren Levinson, 33, on the street near the home. Levinson was taken into custody without incident.

July

■ Alisa Stieg took over as principal of West Sedona School on Monday, July 1.

■ Clients and former staff of the Verde Valley Sanctuary, which operates a domestic violence shelter in Cottonwood, reported multiple instances of ongoing neglect and verbal abuse at the shelter.

■ The Board of Directors of Verde Valley Sanctuary voted to close VVS’ Cottonwood Thriftique, a resale store that provides part of the funding for the shelter’s operations, on the grounds that it was losing money, and sell the property. Community Enterprise Director Barry Maketansky, who had been with VVS for 20 years, and Community Development Director Tracey McConnell were fired, they said which came after they questioned the decision to close the store.

■ The Sedona International Film Festival launched its “Movies on the Move” program to bring outdoor screenings of feature films to locations throughout Sedona, the Verde Valley and Flagstaff.

■ Windsong Mobile Home Park residents were informed that their rental rates would increase by $300 to $400 per lot following J&J Real Estate Holdings’ purchase of the property from RMB Sedona LLC.

■ Murals by Marlys Mallet and Kevin Karnes at the Sedona Arts Center were painted over by a group of high school students working with a SAC summer program.

■ The Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office opened an investigation into Village of Oak Creek resident Nicholas Silvestri for defrauding neighbors of more than $1 million in a bullion-trading scheme.

■ The Sedona City Council declined to enter into a development agreement with BCT Sedona Multifamily LLC, a housing project set up by philanthropist Basil Maher, to build a 54-unit affordable housing project at 60 Goodrow Lane during its July 9 meeting.

■ Sedona Housing Manager Shannon Boone was terminated by the city for failing to meet professionalism standards after public records requests revealed that Boone referred to residents opposed to the city of Sedona’s car camp proposal as “short-sighted, selfish bullies.”

■ Olson Real Estate Group, doing business as R.D. Olson Development, and its subsidiary 115 Schnebly LLC, developers of the proposed Oak Creek Heritage Lodge, filed a lawsuit against the city of Sedona and seven residents following the Sedona City Council’s reversal of the Planning and Zoning Commission’s approval of the Heritage Lodge.

■ An external investigation cleared Sedona Police Chief Stephanie Foley of eight allegations that she had created a hostile work environment and violated department policies made by former Deputy Chief Kwitkin.

■ Sedona Police Department Deputy Chief Ryan Kwitkin was terminated on July 10 following an investigation into his professional conduct. Following interviews by an outside third-party firm with police officers and SPD staffers in regards to Sedona Police Chief Stephanie Foley, who had been cleared of any wrongdoing, investigators recommended a second investigation into Kwitkin, resulting in his firing.

■ In the July 30 Democratic primary election, former Jerome Mayor Nikki Check defeated incumbent Yavapai County District 3 Supervisor Donna Michaels 72% to 28%. Sedona Mayor Scott Jablow won reelection, defeated former Vice Mayor John Martinez. Incumbent Vice Mayor Holli Ploog won reelection, joined by newcomcer Derek Pfaff while incumbent Sedona City Councilwoman Kathy Kinsella came in third for the third seat. In Cottonwood, Ann Shaw defeated Councilman Michael Mathews in the mayoral race, while Felicia Coates and Bob Marks won seats, with Joy Mosley and Lindsay Marsten heading to a runoff, though Marsten later dropped out. Of 10 candidates in Camp Verde, none met the threshold to win, so six head to the Nov. 5 runoff. Mark Finchem defeated incumbent Arizona State Sen. Ken Bennett in the Republican primary for Arizona District 1 nomination.

August

■ The Coconino National Forest approved Phase I of the Red Rock Trails access plan to construct 4.06 new miles of trails, officially recognize 4.07 miles of existing trails and close approximately 0.17 miles of trails on Aug. 2.

■ The Sedona City Council voted unanimously on Aug. 13 to approve a zoning reversion for six parcels of land adjacent to Oak Creek and the Sedona Arts Center from planned development to a combination of commercial, multifamily and single-family residential. The property, which is being purchased from Axys Capital by the Stevenson family, owners of Ambiente Hotel, is planned to be developed as the 50-unit Ambiente Creekside hotel.

■ The city of Sedona’s microtransit service launched on Aug. 29. Sedona Transit Administrator Robert Weber explained that the two-year delay in launching the service was largely attributable to the city’s desire to maximize the federal funding for the buses and to provide Americans with Disabilities Act-accessibility for that service.

■ Fired former Deputy Police Chief Ryan Kwitkin filed a notice of claim against the city for $360,000 for defamation and alleged violations of his First and 14th Amendment rights.

■ The Sedona Planning and Zoning Commission voted 6-1 on Aug. 20 to grant a conditional use permit to the Cloth & Flame event venue operating at the site of the former Sedona Masonic lodge on the property of the Sedona Airport after the venue operators demonstrated that their activities would not cause increased noise levels in the surrounding neighborhood.

■ The city of Sedona hired former Cottonwood police chief Christopher Dowell as interim deputy chief on Aug. 26.

■ Sedona’s latest visitor study, presented to the City Council by Kimley-Horn on Aug. 14, showed that Sedona receives around annual average of 1.39 million unique visitors, approximately 860,000 of whom from outside of Yavapai and Coconino counties. The firm calculated 2,835,947 to 3,160,322 total annual visits from 2018 to 2022, with a peak of 3,286,675 visits in 2021, the year after the COVID-19 pandemic response.

September

■ The Sedona International Film Festival screened “God’s Not Dead: In God We Trust,” starring Sedona resident and former mayoral candidate Samaire Armstrong alongside Dean Cain, Scott Baio and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, from Sept. 13 through 18.

■ The monumental bronze sculpture of “Merlin” in the Old Marketplace parking lot roundabout in West Sedona “disappeared” on Sept. 5. “Merlin” was sculpted by the late John Soderberg, Ph.D. [Oct. 13, 1950 — May 13, 2023], who lived in Sedona and Camp Verde. According to city of Sedona Arts and Culture Specialist Nancy Lattanzi, the iconic larger-than-life sculpture was removed by the property owner to be restored. The property owners did not return calls or emails about the restoration work or when it will be completed. Six weeks later, a financial firm announced it was assisting a new buyer in the purchase of the Old Marketplace meaning “Merlin” had disappeared and would not be reinstalled.

■ The Sedona City Council took the first step on Tuesday, Sept. 10, toward making Sedona the first city in Arizona to have a separate and lower speed limit for off-highway vehicles after receiving a petition signed by 43 residents who live along a single road requesting such a speed limit reduction on their street.

■ Eric Leigh Karnezis, 34, was arrested on Thursday, Sept. 5, by plainclothes agents with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service and was indicted on Monday, Sept. 9, for conspiring to devise and carry out a scheme to defraud the U.S. Small Business Administration of at least $178 million in small businesses loans during the COVID-19 pandemic.

■ The Rotary Club of Sedona presented local philanthropists Basil and Mimi Maher with the club’s Make-A-Difference Award and Paul Harris Fellow recognition awards during its Sept. 10 meeting.

■ The Sedona City Council approved an 11th change order for the Forest Road extension project during its Sept. 10 meeting, which increased the amount of Fann Contracting’s contract for the project by an additional $1,474,527 to $16,945,572.

■ The Sedona City Council voted 4-3 on Sept. 24 to approve a zone change and a development agreement for the planned Village at Saddlerock Crossing 100-unit hotel and 46-unit residential project at the site of the Biddle’s former nursery.

■ The city of Sedona shot down a consultant’s recommendation that it purchase the Sedona Airport on Sept. 25.

October

■ The Coconino National Forest announced that the Palatki Heritage Site would be closed through Oct. 10 for repairs following failure of the well pump at the facility.

■ Dennis Ott, the head of the Sedona Arts Center’s Ceramics Department for 22 years, died on Saturday, Oct. 12. Ott started as a ceramics student at SAC and later received the Sedona Mayor’s Arts Award for Arts Instruction in 2017 and a 2018 Arizona Governor’s Arts Award for an individual in the arts after being nominated in 2017.

■ On Oct. 9, Arizona Rep. Quang Nguyen [R-District 1], who represents Sedona and the Verde Valley, notified the Sedona City Council that Sedona City Code 12.30.090, regarding the carrying of firearms in certain public places, appeared to violate state law. City Attorney Kurt Christianson said the ordinance would be updated by early next year.

■ The Goldwater Institute filed suit against the city of Sedona, Mayor Scott Jablow and City Manager Anette Spickard after the city refused to grant a short-term rental permit to the new owner of the Oak Creek Mobilodge. “The city’s prohibition on using mobile homes in a mobile home park as short-term rentals is unlawful and contrary to the plain language of state law,” the institute’s attorney wrote in the complaint.

■ City staff announced on Oct. 8 that sales tax collections for fiscal year 2024 were $33,441,918, an increase of $1.67 million, or 5%, over FY23, while total bed tax collections were $9,340,377, an increase of $752,388, or 9%, over FY23 collections, for total city 2024 tax collections of $42,782,295.

■ Sedona City Council members proposed creating new regulations for privately-owned sports courts at an Oct. 9 meeting.

■ The city of Sedona held the first public meeting to hear residents’ ideas for developing the Sedona Cultural Park at the Sedona Posse Grounds Hub on Oct. 24. The preliminary results indicated Sedonans wanted fewer than 200 housing units, an event venue and a recreation center as part of the Cultural Park buildout.

November

■ Winnie Muench of Sedona Ballet, Mike Upp of the Sedona Visual Artists Coalition, Kristina Beachell and Courtney Yeates of the Sedona Community and Youth Orchestra and sculptor Susan Kliewer received the seventh Mayor’s Art Awards, last presented in 2017, at the Mary D. Fisher Theatre on Saturday, Nov. 2.

■ The Planning and Zoning Commission extended the development review for the proposed Sunset Lofts apartment complex on Nov. 5, giving the city, which now owns the project, additional time to attempt to secure a contractor.

■ In the 2024 elections, the Proposition 483 referendum to block the city’s proposed car camp for homeless workers at the Sedona Cultural Park suceeded with 3,805 votes to 2,316, or 64% to 36%. Nikki Check defeated Lori Drake by 12,769 to 12,540 votes, and Republican Tammy Ontiveros flipped the Coconino County District 3 Supervisor’s seat, with a 908-vote lead of 8,446 votes to 7,538 over Democratic incumbent Adam Hess. Sedona interim Deputy Police Chief Christopher Dowell, the former interim Cottonwood Police Chief from September 2023 until August 2024, ousted Cottonwood City Councilwoman Lisa DuVernay in a recall election. Republicans swept races for Arizona District 1 House and Senate seats, and all three seats on the Arizona Corporation Commission. The Arizona State Legislature saw all but a handful of its propositions defeated by voters, who also approved a citizen-led proposition codifying abortion as a fundamental right into the Arizona State Constitution.

■ Sedona-Oak Creek School District Governing Board member April Payne proposed during the board’s Nov. 5 meeting that the district restart its dormant theatre program in order to better compete with Mingus Union High School.

■ The Sedona Verde Valley Association of Realtors announced they were funding a new study to examine the economic role that the short-term rental industry plays in the Verde Valley and across Yavapai County as a whole.

■ The Sedona City Council directed staff to continue with the process of possibly increasing development impact fees on Nov. 12, after hearing a staff report explaining that Sedona’s DIF fees were higher than those compared across Arizona.

■ On Nov. 18, Rep. Quang Nguyen [R-District 1] and fellow Rep. Selina Bliss [R-District 1], both of whom represent Yavapai County and all of Sedona, requested that Attorney General Kris Mayes open an investigation into the city under the provisions of ARS §41-194.01 for failure to update its firearms ordinance.

■ The Yavapai Community College Governing Board attempted to delegate the authority to operate the college to YCC President Lisa Rhine on Nov. 19, although no such delegation is allowed under state law, and to restrict the speech of board members and college staff, which likely violates the United States Constitution’s First Amendment protections, as well as freedom of speech rights protected by the Arizona State Constitution.

December

■ The Sedona Dance Academy presented its fifth annual performance of “The Nutcracker” to a sold-out crowd at the Sedona Performing Arts Center on Dec. 14.

■ Sedona Police Department officers responded at 8:51 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 5, to a report of a suspicious person, later identified as Nathan Andrew Nichols, a 28-year-old transient, who reportedly threw a chair into the window of a residence in the 200 block of Northview Road in West Sedona before entering a different home, He allegedly assaulted a woman at a grocery store, fled from police, later stole an unlocked police car from one of the officers pursuing him, that he drove northbound on Coffee Pot Drive before making a U-turn and driving the patrol car progressively into a street sign, a telephone pole, a fire hydrant and a deep ditch. Officers tased and arrested him.

■ The Sedona City Council began discussing the annexation of an additional 3,422 acres of mostly national forest land west of the city in order to bring the city’s wastewater treatment plant and undeveloped property at the Dells within city boundaries and city code control.

■ The Arizona Water Company requested that the Arizona Corporation Commission allow it to increase rates by nearly 50%.

■ The Sedona City Council voted on Dec. 10 to reverse its June 25 reversal of the Planning and Zoning Commission’s unanimous approval of Oak Creek Heritage Lodge hotel project, allowing construction of the Heritage Lodge to proceed, and updated its firearms ordinance in order to put an end to the ongoing attorney general’s investigation.