After nearly three months of watching Sedona’s City Council take action, one thing is clear.
There is a split between those who are willing to support motions moving forward and those who aren’t.
Of the seven big issues council has looked at since it was seated May 27, Mayor Rob Adams and Councilman Cliff Hamilton have voted “no” four times each.
By Alison Ecklund
Larson Newspapers
After nearly three months of watching Sedona’s City Council take action, one thing is clear.
There is a split between those who are willing to support motions moving forward and those who aren’t.
Of the seven big issues council has looked at since it was seated May 27, Mayor Rob Adams and Councilman Cliff Hamilton have voted “no” four times each.
Three times they voted “no” together on the same issue and each voted “no” once alone on separate issues.
On the other side of the bench, Councilwoman Nancy Scagnelli and former Councilman Ramon Gomez voted “no” once on the same issue and Vice Mayor John Bradshaw, and Councilmen Dan Surber and Marc Sterling have never voted “no.”
Gomez resigned from council Aug. 1 to move to California, leaving behind an empty seat.
Lighting — round one
On June 10, the newly seated council got its first look at a hot topic — recommendations by the Highway 89A Pedestrian Safety Committee.
This was the first time Hamilton, Surber and Sterling had a say in the heated issue.
After listening to the committee’s recommendations, which included reducing the speed limit to 35 mph, adding 10 streetlights and installing medians, council voted 5-2 to accept the short-term solutions and a traffic light at Andante Drive.
Two veteran councilors, Scagnelli and Gomez were the “no” votes.
Scagnelli was concerned with medians between Airport Road and Dry Creek Road and if 10 lights were installed from Harmony Drive to Madole Road, drivers would go from dark to light, back to dark in a short time.
On June 24, council approved reconsideration of the motion after Surber asked for more information from the Arizona Department of Transportation on funding, and a time line.
Wastewater
On July 8, council voted 6-1 to decide what to do with Sedona’s wastewater when the city’s plant reaches capacity.
Council approved a report that recommended the city dispose of future wastewater by aquifer recharge. They also agreed to set up a task force.
Adams was the lone “no” vote. If the water were recharged, there would be no demand from local cities to buy Sedona’s water credits, he said.
Burgess and Niple, a Tempe-based engineering firm, recommended the city pursue aquifer recharge at Gyberg Wash on state lands about 4.5 miles from the city’s Wastewater Reclamation Plant.
The plant currently disposes about 1.2 million gallons a day, while daily capacity is 1.6 million gallons. Director of Public Works Charles Mosley doesn’t know when the city will reach capacity, he said.
Chapel area sewer
On July 22, City Council moved 4-2 to connect the Chapel area to the city’s sewer by awarding a contract to Tiffany Construction Company for $10,131,143.38.
Adams and Hamilton voted against it.
Some Chapel area residents argued that their septic systems were working fine, so there was no reason to make them connect to the city’s sewer.
They also didn’t want to pay between $5,000 and $25,000 per property to be hooked up to the city’s sewer main, nor the $5,325 connection fee, nor the $30 monthly sewer bill.
“Exactly what folks in the Chapel think about the project is suspect in my mind,” Hamilton said.
Adams voted against the contract, because proper procedures weren’t followed in getting the public’s input or looking at alternatives, he said.
Uptown parking lot
With its only unanimous vote thus far, council voted, 6-0, to move ahead with an Uptown parking lot July 22.
Surber was absent.
Property owner Tom Gilomen offered to sell the city four parcels of his land in order to build a 104-space parking lot on Van Deren Road.
In return for selling his land, Gilomen requested to transfer the development rights of the approximately 6,000 square feet of office space to be demolished to his Commercially-zoned properties elsewhere in
Uptown.
Park Place extension
On Aug. 12, City Council voted, 4-2, to grant the Park Place Sedona development more time to build.
Adams and Hamilton voted “no” to the extension.
Council approved the final phase of the project to be commenced by September 2013, instead of July 2009.
“This project has bothered me since the first time it went up there,” Hamilton said. “I can’t think of anything in Sedona that irritates me more. It grates me every time I drive by.”
Adams didn’t want to grant the extension without requiring the developer to meet the current height ordinance, which went into place after the project was initially approved.
According to Director of Community Development John O’Brien, the current code would be a height reduction of about two feet throughout.
Falls at Oak Creek
With a 5-1 vote on Aug. 12, council approved the rezoning of the Oak Creek Mobile Lodge property from Single-Family Residential to Planned Residential Development.
The rezoning means the eventual destruction of 59 workforce mobile homes in exchange for 47 condominiums, to be called The Falls at Oak Creek.
Hamilton was the lone “no” vote.
According to Hamilton, of the 311 condos that have been approved in the past, 39 have been built, and 275 units aren’t going to be built.
“We just don’t need 50 cookie-cutter condos out there,” he said. “We’re not getting what we need.”
Lighting — a second look
On Aug. 13, council voted 4-2 to approve seven recommendations to increase safety on Highway 89A and asked ADOT to move forward with continuous roadway lighting from Airport Road to Dry Creek Road.
Adams and Hamilton voted against it.
Unlike the other councilors, Hamilton was willing to approve all 12 solutions recommended by the Highway 89A Pedestrian Safety Committee. If the city needed $2 million to $12 million to pay for the medians, it could come up with it, he said.
Alison Ecklund can be reached at 282-7795, ext. 125, or e-mail
aecklund@larsonnewspapers.com
