By Eric Betz | Arizona Daily Sun
After years of debate, the Sedona City Council will decide Tuesday whether to seek an official International Dark-Sky Association designation.
If approved, the city would become just the fifth community in the world to win the illustrious designation.
Flagstaff was the first such city.
“Sedona is a lot like Flagstaff,” said Sedona Mayor Rob Adams. “We have a strong commitment to sustainability and the environment. We feel like, with the dark sky designation, we are making a statement about our city, as well as giving us some guidelines to move forward and maintaining or improving it.”
The designation would be good for business he says, but overall it’s a quality of life issue. There are no astronomical observatories being jeopardized by the level of light pollution the city is putting out.
The school district, fire department, chamber of commerce and board of supervisors have all moved to support the IDA application.
But the debate in Sedona has been surprisingly contentious, where some residents say that their city should be disqualified because of the recent installation of 100 35-foot-tall lights along Highway 89A.
Mayor Adams is not one of those detractors, and now a Tucson group has the data to back him up.
The Arizona Department of Transportation drew widespread criticism in Sedona when it announced plans to install the lights along the roadways it maintains inside city limits.
