AZ Daily Sun
By KATHLEEN STINSON
Last January the Flagstaff City Council, facing stiff citizen opposition, told city staff to go back to the drawing board on proposals to sell city-owned property to raise millions of dollars for a new courthouse.
The staff undertook an extensive review of the city’s parcels and have made their recommendations, with the plans changing on two of the most contentious parcels.
Instead of selling the San Francisco and Schultz Y properties in total for development, staff is suggesting only parts of them should be sold if the council opts for that fundraising option.
Meanwhile, local opponents who showed up in the dozens for the first council hearings in January have gathered 2,000 signatures on a social network petition they will present at a council work session Monday, when council is set to provide input into staff’s recommendations.
Suzanne Motsinger, a Flagstaff resident who lives in the neighborhood of the San Francisco parcel, said this is not solely a backyard issue. There is community-wide support for keeping the area undeveloped.
“(The San Francisco Parcel) is adjacent to Buffalo Park and has always been used by our citizens and tourists as part of the park,” Motsinger said. “It is the viewshed to the Peaks, it is the buffer between city and forest, and it has been photographed and published innumerable times in national magazines.”
