Applications are now being accepted for the Sedona Workforce Housing Assistance Program. Qualified homebuyers may receive up to $25,000 toward a down payment on a first home in the Verde Valley. Through a partnership with Housing Solutions of Northern Arizona, the city of Sedona is providing funds to help make homeownership an option for households that do not have sufficient cash to purchase a home but are otherwise mortgage eligible based on credit and income.The city’s housing study, prepared for the city of Sedona in November 2020 by Elliott D. Pollack & Company, identified an affordable housing gap of approximately…
Author: Sedona Best
… This Great Egret seems to be re-imagining himself as he fluffs out his feathers … perhaps a new way of presenting himself to others … in any event it was a delightful sight to behold. I took the photo below from a place south of Beaverhead Flats Road looking pretty much to the north. Beaverhead Flats Road runs along the bottom of the image on the right side and joins SR179 which travels to the left into the Village and then Sedona. The large greenish area which takes up much of the image is part of House Mountain which…
The Sedona International Film Festival presents Ballet in Cinema on Sunday, March 13 when it hosts the big screen premiere of “Romeo and Juliet” – a new production from The Royal Ballet in London. There will be one show at 3:00 p.m. at the festival’s Mary D. Fisher Theatre. Shakespeare’s star-crossed lovers experience passion and tragedy in this 20th-century ballet masterpiece. “Romeo and Juliet” has become a great modern ballet classic of the ballet repertory since its creation by Royal Ballet Director Kenneth MacMillan and its premiere in 1965. In this special screening, the doomed lovers attempt to find their…
Film nominated for two Academy Award premieres at Fisher Theatre The Sedona International Film Festival is proud to present the Northern Arizona premiere of the Oscar-nominated film “The Worst Person in the World” showing March 18-24 at the Mary D. Fisher Theatre. “The Worst Person in the World” is nominated for two Academy Awards, including Best International Feature Film and Best Original Screenplay. Sedona audiences get to see the film prior to the Oscar telecast later in March. Director Joachim Trier returns with another modern twist on a classically constructed character portrait of contemporary life in Oslo. Chronicling four years…
Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have seen a substantial rise in the incidence of domestic violence in the Verde Valley. Social distancing and other efforts to slow the spread of COVID-19 over the last year have escalated the risk of violence for survivors through more time spent at home, increased levels of household stress, and compromised access to advocacy and direct support systems.Verde Valley Sanctuary (VVS) has been tracking occurrences of family violence since before the COVID-19 pandemic began. In our surrounding communities, domestic violence incidents increased as high as 138% with an increase in the severity…
On March 24, 2022, the city of Sedona will launch the first phase of its transit implementation plan. The new transit system, the Sedona Shuttle, will begin with service to several of the area’s most popular trailheads, including Cathedral Rock, Soldier Pass, Dry Creek, and Little Horse.In early 2020, the city of Sedona adopted the Sedona Area Transit Implementation Plan (which can be viewed at www.SedonaShuttle.com). The plan contemplates a network of public transit services within Sedona, the Village of Oak Creek, and Oak Creek Canyon. Since that time, the city of Sedona has been working to implement this first…
The Arizona Community Foundation (ACF) and the Arizona Commission on the Arts announced today a renewed joint effort to support Arizona artists, including additional funding from the Newton and Betty Rosenzweig Fund for the Arts, an endowment held at ACF. This public-philanthropic partnership strategically pairs the Arizona Community Foundation’s resources and collaborative practices with the Arts Commission’s statewide reach and artist-services infrastructure to serve a common goal: to invest in artists, supporting the work they do as innovators and creative contributors to Arizona’s future. “We are thrilled to renew our collaboration with the Arizona Commission on the Arts, made possible…
Fiesta Bowl Charities, along with Salt River Project (SRP) and KABOOM!, unveiled a new, 2,000 square-foot playground at Camp Verde Elementary School. The space was built by volunteers across the organizations and the Camp Verde School District and is the 11th playground built across the state by Fiesta Bowl Charities and KABOOM!In November, children from Camp Verde Elementary School were asked to share drawings of what their dream playground would look like. Fiesta Bowl Charities, SRP and KABOOM! came together to make those dreams a reality, taking the children’s visions and incorporating them into the design.On Friday, February 25, more…
… some winter days when I would head up to the Colorado Plateau, everything would have a strange appearance and an ethereal quality to the earthscape below me … almost anything was possible and all I needed was a palette of colors, brushes and filters to complete the fantasia that I saw in my minds eye. These two photos are examples of what is possible from the same lighting conditions when you free yourself from convention and alter the world to accommodate your imagination. In the top photo you have a view from roughly near the top of the switchbacks…