I was born in the Los Angeles area. I have two brothers and five sisters. Neither my mother nor my father graduated from high school, but all eight of us have college degrees. My parents understood the value of a college education in the competitive world we face. My first job was as a cleaner at Snappy Taco. I worked at Mattel Toys while attending college and earned a degree in finance. My work history includes Beckman Instruments, Hunt & Wesson Foods, ConAgra Foods, Boeing, and finally, when Carol and I moved to Sedona, I was the Director of Finance for Nutra Health, a small company in Cottonwood.

We bought land in 1991 and moved to Sedona in 2005. Luckily, the town has changed in many ways, mostly for the better. We knew then that Sedona would become a tourist destination. We understood that the place was extraordinarily beautiful and that its beauty should be shared with others. After all, we were tourists once. I have an article in the Sedona Red Rock News that quotes Earl Van Deren, who moved from Sedona to Montana in 1940 because it was too crowded. I guess it's all relative.

After I left, I volunteered to serve on the Sedona Budget Oversight Committee, which Rob Adams started. That was my introduction to government accounting. The change from the private sector was a shift in understanding revenue. You can't run city government like a private company, but you can run it like a business.

Barbara Littrell and Mike Ward encouraged me to run for City Council in 2012. Their belief in me has allowed me to provide leadership during my eight years on the City Council. At the time, we were still recovering from the Great Recession and the City had to cut its budget by over 30%. A major win was convincing the Sedona Chamber of Commerce and hoteliers to raise the hotel tax by 0.5% to invest in promoting Sedona to cities across the US. This partnership has increased revenue and generated a nearly 400% ROI for the City.

When I left City Council in 2020, our debt was just over $7 million. Today, our debt is over $50 million. We have the funds to pay for projects without increasing our debt. One of the major sources of this debt was the purchase of Cultural Park. The City already owns over 200 acres of land on which to undertake projects that will fill workforce housing and other amenities.
Its residents.

I think accepting a divorce with the Chamber of Commerce was a bad idea, and despite that arrangement, I want the City's DMO program to be successful because our clients generate over 70% of our sales and hotel tax revenues, so it's very important that our businesses continue to thrive.

Since leaving City Council, I have been a proud member of several non-profit organizations that bring much benefit to our community.

Editor's note:

Here are the essays written by the candidates, with minimal corrections to punctuation and capitalization: Former Sedona Vice Mayor and City Councilman John Martinez is challenging incumbent Mayor Scott Jablow. Election Day is Tuesday, July 30th.