Save the Cultural Park group submits 1,400 signatures for July ballot
Organizers of the Save the Cultural Park Political Action Committee turned in their signature petitions to the Sedona City Clerk’s office on Thursday, March 19, seeking to place a citizen initiative called the “Sedona Cultural Park Preservation Act” before voters on the Tuesday, July 21 primary election ballot.
The PAC submitted approximately 1,400 signatures collected by 26 volunteers, exceeding the required threshold of 1,089 signatures by roughly 30%. The initiative’s largest single collector was Robert Koster, the PAC’s chairman, who gathered around 500 signatures alone by attending the West Sedona farmers market every Sunday over the past year.
“It was a relief, but as this is only the first hurdle we have to get over, we still have to go through the process of signature and address verification,” said William Noonan, the PAC’s treasurer. “Next, the city will set dates to review the petitions, and I’ve asked to be invited as an observer to those meetings.”
The measure aims to set aside the Western Gateway exclusively for cultural and recreational activities and block any residential development there.
“About 20% of signatures are typically lost in a referendum or initiative,” Noonan said. “We did much better than that with the 2024 referendum. I think we only lost about 13%, and I’m hopeful that we would keep it down to just that this time. We do have about a 30% excess of signatures, so if 20% are normally lost, something pretty unusual would have to happen for us not to qualify for the ballot.”
The PAC was successful in passing a predecessor initiative, Proposition 483 in 2024, when 68% of voters rejected the city’s “Safe Place to Park,” homeless worker car camp at the Western Gateway.
The city wants to develop the site at least in part as workforce housing after purchasing the 41-acre former cultural park for more than $23 million in 2022.
“My understanding is that zoning by initiative is not allowed in Arizona,” Christianson said at the time. “The Arizona Supreme Court has ruled against that many decades ago, I believe. Zone changes are only allowed through ordinance.”
“That is likely grounds on which they may decide to challenge the initiative,” Noonan said. “From my view, the initiative would not change the zoning, because the current zoning is Planned Development for a cultural park, and the initiative would also be Planned Development for a cultural park. I don’t see that as a successful grounds for opposing the initiative. And I believe that if they wanted to challenge the initiative on any substantive grounds like that, they would probably have to wait until after a vote. Certification of the petitions can be challenged prior to the vote, but I think anything substantive like that would have to wait until afterwards.”
The initiative text gives the PAC legal standing to defend potential legal challenges in court.
“It depends on how much money we have on hand at the time,” Noonan said about how much the PAC is ready to commit financially to a legal challenge. “We would just have to evaluate the circumstances at the time any litigation is filed.”
The PAC’s cash on hand at the end of the most recent report filed on Jan. 7, was $577.54.
Balanced Housing Strategy
The Sedona City Council is set to meet for a work session on Wednesday, March 25, at 3:30 p.m. with the Sedona-Oak Creek School District Governing Board about the district’s material needs. The city will present the initial results of the Community Development’s Balanced Housing Strategy and put out a proposed number of how many housing units the city should encourage to be built over the next decade.
Vice Mayor Brian Fultz said he sees the results of the Balanced Housing Strategy informing how many and what type of units City Council would pursue being constructed at the Western Gateway.
