As of Thursday, Feb. 6, only five residents had pulled election packets from the Sedona City Clerk’s Office.
There are two possible candidates for the one mayor’s seat and three for the three seats on council.
Neither Councilman John Currivan nor Vice Mayor John Martinez, who are both eligible for reelection for four-year seats, have yet pulled packets. Martinez has said he believes in term limits and likely will not run. Currivan has not yet voiced his decision to us.
The election for mayor may be a contested one if the challenger turns in a packet by the deadline. If not, the incumbent mayor, who has been collecting signatures, will be automatically reelected.
If no other council candidates pull packets and turn them in by the election deadline, the election for council will be uncontested and the current three candidates will be automatically sworn in on council.
To some, the lack of a selection for a local election means the community has full faith and trust in the current candidates running and sees no need to change. To others, it implies that a community is politically complacent and has little interest in how their town or city is managed. And for more, it suggests that a community is in general agreement with the standing political body and sees no real need to challenge those who run.
Financially, the lack of an election will save the city some funds.
Politically, however, the lack of an election deprives the public a real choice in who it wants to lead. Elections don’t need to be nasty nor costly, but they should be wide open, with a number of candidates who feel their ideas can best shape their community’s future.
Nationally, with dysfunction in both houses of Congress, an unpopular president with steady but underwater job approval numbers and growing partisanship on the state legislative level, communities are seeing an uptick in candidates running for office.
Sedona appeared to have faced this uptick in candidates two years ago.
In 2018, there were seven candidates running for the three open four-year seats on Sedona City Council and three candidates for mayor, making for a dynamic and lively contest and a mixture of ideas at the public debates.
There were also six candidates for three open seats on the Sedona Fire District Governing Board, which had passed by uncontested for a number of election cycles. Three of those candidates in 2018 ran as a slate, but in doing so, split the votes of their potential supporters and suffered a crushing defeat. The other three candidates won the rest of the votes because they were not fighting to split the same small minority.
However, the nastiness that pervaded the council election as well as the fight over home rule and a permanent base adjustment in 2018 may have dispirited candidates from running in 2020. Nobody wants to be lambasted on social media and residents remember how cruel and brutal someone of those online battles were.
In general, local incumbents tend to win reelection. As contentious as Sedona is, local voters are generally willing to let them continue unless an elected official really screws up during their term. When an incumbent does lose, it tends to be by a very narrow margin, so incumbents are not really running to win, they are running to not lose.
We sincerely hope for a solid, robust election with plenty of candidates from which to choose. While the council is officially nonpartisan, it helps to have a healthy mix of liberals, moderates and conservatives so that our council reflects our local electorate.
We strongly encourage residents eligible to run for office to do so. Voters need a diverse mix of voices to lead our city. Candidates can pick up packets from the Sedona City Clerk’s Office and file them by Monday, April 6, to compete in the Tuesday, Aug. 4 primary.
Successful campaigns can be run relatively inexpensively and in a small town, it only takes some campaign signs, coverage in the Sedona Red Rock News, public appearances and debate forums to get your message out to every voter in the city.
Once the candidates have declared, we will cover each candidate in depth, so look to us as your election resource. Don’t just gripe about local government. Do your civic duty and run for office. Serve your community.
Christopher Fox Graham
Managing Editor
