The Sedona City Council unanimously approved an intergovernmental agreement with Coconino County to install up to four emergency sirens around Uptown, which will be funded by a grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, during its May 13 meeting.

The agreement provides that the county will absorb the costs for the design and installation of the siren system, while Sedona will become responsible for the costs of the system’s administration and maintenance after the first year of operation. Staff estimated the annual cost to the city would be approximately $10,000. County funding under the terms of the IGA will not exceed $269,200, and ownership of the system will be transferred to the Sedona Police Department on Dec. 31, 2026.

The agenda bill accompanying the agreement stated that Uptown had been selected for siren installation “as it generally has a higher concentration of tourists” who have not signed up for the city of Sedona’s Nixle text messaging notification system.

SPD Chief Stephanie Foley’s executive assistant Jessica Bryson told the council that the sirens may be either pole mounted or roof-mounted and will have the ability to broadcast voice messages in multiple languages.

Coconino County Emergency Manager Tim Carter told the council that the city will have primary authority to activate the siren system but that it will also include “a backup to our county-wide notification system, “a backup to our countywide notification system. That way, for whatever reason, there’s a redundant system that we can set off remotely.”

“It’s not the old air raid sirens that go off every Saturday at noon,” Carter also assured the council. “The testing for that is completely silent. It’s just a systems check of the electronics. The only time they make noise is when we want them to.”

“I grew up near one of the nuclear attack sirens in Phoenix and I’m very happy to hear that they can be tested silently,” Councilman Derek Pfaff said.

Coconino County Emergency Management and Sedona Fire District operate sirens in Oak Creek Canyon and conduct annual tests, usually in July.

Councilman Brian Fultz asked whether, since the project will be funded by a FEMA grant, the National Environmental Policy Act process would be “applicable for a pole in a city right of way?”

“If you want to hang a federally-funded photo on that wall, and put a nail in that wall, it’s applicable,” Carter said. “Unfortunately, yes.”

“Some of the locations we tentatively, preliminarily looked at, would be more of the roof-mounted,which goes into what we’re requesting with some of the companies that have that capability more so than others, and also that meet some of our specific codes to color,” Foley said. “We could also say that, depending on the system, that we could pick three and then add discs for adding additional radius to that location.”

“Is there any risk of those funds being lost at this point?” Fultz asked.

“We have received written confirmation from both [U.S.] Senator [Mark]Kelly’s office, who sponsored this, and from the state Department of Emergency Management that the funding is still there and is still in place, so we should proceed,” Carter said.

“You said if this was successful, we would be looking at whether or not we would want to place additional ones throughout the city,” Councilwoman Melissa Dunn said. “How do you know if it’s successful if we have no emergencies?”

“As far as how the implementation went, that system itself, and then some of the testing,” Foley said. “Ideally we never have to use it. So we might not know.”

“Can you give a timeline?” Vice Mayor Holli Ploog asked.

“I wish I could,” Carter said, explaining the timing would depend on the NEPA review and that county staff intended to score the nine proposals they had received from contractors by the end of the month and award a contract within 30 days after selection, which would be followed by acoustic studies, the submission of those studies to FEMA and finally construction. “If there’s ground disturbance, that could potentially take longer. If we submit a project that’s going on top of an existing building … that usually will be much shorter.”

“The visitor center would be an ideal location,” Ploog said.

“I was looking forward to hearing the chief’s voice beamed down to me every Saturday morning at noon,but I’ll live with that disappointment,” Councilman Pete Furman said.

Councilwoman Kathy Kinsella expressed the hope that residents would sleep better at night knowing they could be woken up by the city.

“Hopefully the system could be transitioned into Yavapai,” Mayor Scott Jablow said. “We would have control of these speakers, whatever it is that they’re speaking.”