To say the community of Sedona has an interesting mix of people would be an understatement.

This town has more than its share of so-called professionals. Ironically, living here for more than 45 years, it never ceases to amaze me how the “new guy” in town has all the answers that will fix Sedona’s myriad problems.

It never ends. I have just recently read some amazing so-called facts about the city’s mismanagement of its finances and just can’t believe that our council members are the diabolical members of our society that can’t get anything right.

Instead of constantly ripping the council and the mayor, maybe some of these “we know better than anyone else” types should put their time in to help our council come up with some new ideas of how they can handle our budget situation.

Why do they always have to attack one side or the other? Why can’t they understand that every single person who runs for office does not have a hidden agenda and that they are just human beings like the rest of us?

Do they understand that all of America is in poor financial shape? Do they know why? Have they come up with positive suggestions in helping the council, instead of just trying to get the “right people” elected?

Baseball season may be over, but they need to step up to the plate like our city manager is currently doing.

Due to the current recession, and a shortfall in this year’s sales tax revenues, currently totaling $426,000 in this year’s budget, City Manager Tim Ernster is implementing a variety of reductions in this fiscal year’s budget. He recently directed all city departments to identify reductions in their budgets.

As a direct result of department recommendations, the city has identified expenditure reductions of approximately $452,000 in the General Fund. The General Fund expenditure reductions will be implemented immediately.

According to Ernster, the budget cuts are consistent with direction received from City Council at their recently held retreat. This shows me that our current council and the mayor are doing what they can to help relieve the problems facing our city.

At the Nov. 20 retreat, fiscal stability was established by the council as its top priority for the upcoming year. In addition to the budget reductions being implemented immediately in the General Fund, expenditure reductions in the Capital Fund and the Wastewater Fund are being studied and will be presented to the council in January.

These do not seem like steps taken by people that do not care about our community. These seem to be reasonable reactions to a situation that was basically forced upon them due to the current economic conditions.

So, get off their backs!

The city manager is working on proposals to implement additional General Fund cuts. The current hiring freeze will continue indefinitely. Even more potential cuts affecting services and employees will be made after the staff receives direction from the City Council in January.

These all seem like reasonable ways to handle our current situation.

In fact, let me the first to publicly say thank you to all our council members and the mayor for doing the best possible job they can. I encourage you to do the same.

And when you see Tim around town, you can also thank him for being a responsible city manager who is dealing with these issues in a very timely manner.