Sedona City Council nixes community event funding

by Carl Jackson

SEDONA, AZ (December 9, 2009) - With overall City of Sedona sales and bed tax revenue at its lowest level since 2005, the ripples from the city's budget woes are beginning to rock other boats; in particular local event organizers hoping to be allocated a portion of $20,000 in grant funding set aside by the city in July 2009 for the 2009/10 fiscal year.

Earlier in the year the City Council decided to divide the funding into two $10,000 rounds.  In the first round, funds were granted to the Sedona Community Fair ($4,500), Sedona Idol ($1,500), the Sedona Book Fair ($2,500), and Mitzvah Day ($1,500).

For the second round the city received 8 grant applications from 1) the Northern AZ Watercolor Society for its 2010 Student Art Show, 2) Scorpion Booster Club for it Casino Royale event to be held at Enchantment, 3) Sustainable Arizona / Sedona Waterwise Alliance to promote Water Awareness Month in Sedona, 4) Sedona Visual Artists' Coalition for its Open Studios Tour 2010, 5) Keep Sedona Beautiful for its Native Plant Workshop, 6) Sedona Sunrise Center for Adults to support a conference on Neurological Disorders of the Elderly and the Intergenerational Effects on the Family, 7) Red Rock Community Chorale for its Music of the 40's & 50's concert, and 8) Desert Star Community School for its 2nd Annual May Faire to be held outside the Sedona city limits (Desert Star Community School is also located outside the city limits).

At the December 8, 2009 Sedona City Council meeting, the council voted 7-0 to nix all event funding. 

Sedona City Manager Tim Ernster made the initial case for holding back the funds by saying that the city will be cutting $450,000 out of city departmental budgets, and staff reductions and furloughs are likely in 2010. In that light he said he couldn't justify spending money to support local events. Said Ernster, "I don't feel that any of these activities would not happen without our funding. In other words, they will still go forward."

Said Councilor Pud Colquitt, "$10,000 in hard times is a lot of money. The community needs to step up to the plate and help the non-profits.  There should be more publicity in the community that their help is needed financially, not just volunteers."

Mark Gorchesky, Treasurer of the Scorpion Booster Club that supports Sedona Red Rock High School curricular and extra-curricular activities was the only one to speak on behalf of an applicant.

Assistant City Manager Alison Zelms said that it was difficult to evaluate the various grant applications and make recommendations for funding to the council.  In general, city staff felt that events held outside the city limits should not be funded since they would not directly benefit the city, and that funding should only be used to support event marketing and advertising. 

Said Zelms, "I'm not comfortable saying that this event is more valuable than that event.  We just assumed that all the events are equally important so we used an objective criteria of just funding advertising."

Mayor Rob Adams acknowledged that the city could have done a better job communicating to applicants its criteria for evaluating applications.  Said Mayor Rob Adams, "It was never my intent to make yearly [grant] funding of community events a permanent line item in the city budget.  I see it as seed money to help a new event get on its feet until it can be self-sustaining."

Vice Mayor Cliff Hamilton said he thought the purpose of the funding was to support signature events that bring in sales tax revenue.

In general, the city says it is looking to fund events that either increase the city's sales and bed tax revenue, benefit a large swath of the community, or provide a social service to the community that the city might otherwise need to provide.

The city also considered bringing in outside organizations such as the Sedona Chamber of Commerce and the Sedona Community Foundation to help develop criteria for evaluating event funding requests.

Related articles:

Close call for Mitzvahh Day funding; Council splits on vote

Sedona City Council approves community-event funding application process for 2009/2010