My name is Dan Frazier. I live near the hospital and I sometimes hike on McMillan Mesa. You received a letter from me last week with some of my concerns. If you have misplaced that letter, you can go to my Web site, CarryaBigSticker.com, and click on the link in the upper left corner. I have posted a number of photos there of the proposed development site, as well as official documents, maps, site plans, etc.

I do not want to see anything built on McMillan Mesa. But if we are going to allow this school and church to be built on the proposed site, we should do everything we can to minimize the damage that will be done to the view from the FUTS trail.

Let's talk about the public participation process. If this room seems full of people, it is partly because my wife and I have been working hard to alert the public to the threat posed to McMillan Mesa. We have written letters to the editor, set up a Web page, lobbied nonprofit organizations to get involved, sent e-mails and distributed about 1,000 fliers to neighbors who live near the mesa.

We are glad to see some of the public here tonight. But it is not our job or responsibility to alert the public. That is the job of the church and the city, and that job has not been done properly. This job of notifying the public is spelled out in the Land Development Code, section 10-10. Unfortunately, the rules are vague, and easily evaded.

As a result, we have seen a rezoning notice posted on a fence where it was partly obscured by trees. A similar notice appeared in the Arizona Daily Sun, but only once, five weeks ago, when it was buried in the sports section. The notice included a map of the area to be rezoned, but the map did not show exactly where the church and school would be built. The notice says, "The development will include structures totaling approximately 63,300 square feet in floor area, parking areas, and related amenities." That's wrong. The actual square footage relating to the development is perhaps 10 times higher than what is stated in the notice.

Meanwhile, on July 25, as part of its public participation effort, the parish held a public meeting. They sent a letter inviting neighboring property owners to attend. But the letter did not mention the need to rezone the property, nor did the letter attempt to pinpoint the location or size of the development. The meeting was not advertised in the Daily Sun. At the public meeting, 97 written surveys were completed. It is clear that most of these were completed by church members, which explains why most surveys were so enthusiastic. Of course, it also helped that the survey included only five questions, and four of them were meaningless Yes or No questions like, "Were the visual aids helpful and informative?"

I have run out of time, but my point is that the public participation process has been a joke thus far. I urge you to slow down this process and redouble your efforts to involve the public in this very important process.

I brought the square footage discrepancy to the attention of staff. As you may know, I have sued the state of Arizona and the City in the past. And I won. Please keep that in mind.

Dan Frazier's Oct. 6 Statement to City Council:
(This is the prepared version. Actual statement differed slightly.)

Hello, my name is Dan Frazier, my address is P.O. Box 22324, Flagstaff, 86002.  As you may know, I have posted photos, videos, documents, and commentaries about this controversy on my Web site, where I also sell bumper stickers. The site is CarryaBigSticker.com.

The ordinance says, "Whereas, the Council finds that the proposed rezoning with conditions will not be detrimental to the uses of adjoining parcels or to other uses within the vicinity." That statement is laughable. How can a 14-acre development that includes two huge buildings and a large parking lot within 25 feet of a public trail and public open space "not be detrimental to the uses of adjoining parcels?"

Requiring the construction of a four-foot high wall to block the view of a 57-foot high school is equally laughable. A four-foot high wall won't even block the view of the parking lot, unless you are less than four feet tall.

The major question of any rezoning is whether or not the rezoning serves the interests of the public at large. In this case, I don't think it does. It may serve the interests of the property owner, but that is not the same as serving the interests of the public at large. If 3,000 Catholics will make use of the 1,500-seat church and a school built to accommodate just 200 or 300 students, that works out to just 5 percent of the city's population. Ninety-five percent of Flagstaff residents do not want to see this development built on McMillan Mesa, though most are afraid to say so for fear of being demonized as anti-Catholic. But many of these same people are not afraid to vote in City Council elections.

The church and its supporters are promising to make a deal with the city to provide or sell land to the city for a fire station, and to allow the city to extend Ponderosa Parkway and the Arizona Trail through church property. This feels like bribery to me. Why don't we just ask the church for a big pile cash? God knows we need the money.

Meanwhile, how many letters has the city received from residents saying we need a fire station near Enterprise and Route 66? Or that we need to extend Ponderosa Parkway? Or even that we need to extend the Arizona Trail? My guess is that there is little if any demand from residents for any of these things.

It is not even clear that most local Catholics agree that this project serves their needs. If this project moves forward, it will mean the end of hopes to keep neighborhood churches alive. It will mean the end of hopes to have a church or school that is within walking distance of a large population center. It will mean the end of hopes to have a church or school that is accessible by bus. Perhaps 400 Catholics attended the Sept. 15 public hearing in this room. Many wore red t-shirts to show their support for the project. But that is only 5 percent of the estimated 8,000 Flagstaff Catholics. It may well be that the majority of Catholics oppose this project, but obediently keep quiet.

Rezoning is not automatic. Rezoning is not a right. It is not up to the property owner. It is not up to Planning and Zoning. It is not up to city staff. It is up to you, the Council, and it is entirely discretionary. You can deny any rezoning, and you don't even have to give a reason. That is as it should be. On behalf of most Flagstaff voters, and many Catholics, I urge you not to approve this rezoning.

Dan Frazier's comments on the article that appeared in the Arizona Daily Sun on Sept. 15 about the Church and School and the Council Meeting to be held later the same day.

A few corrections and additions are in order:

The Planning and Zoning Commission (not the "Planning Board") voted 6-1 (not unanimously) on Aug. 26 (not Aug. 25) to recommend rezoning. The new zoning includes a stipulation that the City will have a right of way (not an easement) to extend Ponderosa Parkway from Enterprise to the existing portion of Ponderosa Parkway at the top of the mesa. A right of way is different from an easement because the City will own the land under the parkway. In an easement, the land would be retained by the Church, but the City would be allowed to use it. I am not sure what is meant by "limited access parkway." Sounds like a toll-road. It will not be a toll road, and probably not a limited access parkway either. The Parkway will be a public street. It will have two driveways that branch off to the developed portion of church property. The Parkway will not be fully built until and unless there is additional development on church property beyond the proposed school and church. Only a short stretch of Parkway will be built initially to provide access to a church/school driveway.

I don't know if 57-feet is really the maximum allowed under High Density Residential zoning. Seems like an odd number. More likely, it is the minimum height the church felt it needed to build a two-story school that included a gymnasium on the first floor. The 85,000 square-foot figure refers to the floor area of the church and school. The actual figure is 84,650. This does not include the parking lot, the two large playing fields, and the playground. Nor does it include any extension of Ponderosa Parkway. If you count all the development except Ponderosa Parkway and potential future residential development, the development appears to cover about 12 to 14 acres, according to maps and site plans. An acre is 43,560 square feet. 14 acres equals 609,840 square feet.

Part of the reason so much forest canopy is being preserved is because the slopes of the property are steep and only a small portion of the 107 acre property is flat enough to build on.

There may not be any lighting on the playing fields, but there are plans to light the parking lot.

The story does not make clear that the parking lot will be located within 25-feet of a beautiful section of the FUTS / Arizona Trail and near a wide expanse of City-owned open space on the mesa.

Dan Frazier's comments on the article that appeared in the Arizona Daily Sun on Sept. 17 about the Sept. 15 Public Hearing before Flagstaff's City Council:

I would like to point out a few things: The church and school would not be built directly above Route 66 as this story implies. In fact, the church and school would be built half a mile from Route 66, very near the FUTS trail and city open space.

Bob Wilson's comments were interesting, and I'm sorry that they were not quoted at length. I felt his actual comments suggested that the Catholic Church had in the past been racist in segregating its hispanic members in neighborhood churches. He called them "Mexicans." I am concerned that the proposed church will continue a pattern of racism seen in some churches. The new church will be high on a hill, far from bus lines and transportation corridors, meaning low-income individuals without access to transportation will not be able to easily walk to church. At both of the public hearings that I have attended related to the proposed church and school, church members in attendance have been overwhelmingly white -- much more than you would expect given the location of St. Pious on Fourth Street in Sunnyside.

"Opponents were fewer in number" is vague at best. I think about seven people spoke up with concerns about the proposed development, including a representative of Friends of Flagstaff Future, and at least one Catholic.

The story says, "Dan Frazier said one of the documents in the public notice postings for the hearing failed to label the size of a proposed building. That convinced city planners to recommend that the hearing be ended and the council restart the 30-day public notice process." That's wrong. What I said was " The notice included a map of the area to be rezoned, but the map did not show exactly where the church and school would be built. The notice says, 'The development will include structures totaling approximately 63,300 square feet in floor area, parking areas, and related amenities.' That's wrong. The actual square footage relating to the development is perhaps 10 times higher than what is stated in the notice."

The development covers 14 acres, not the 1.5 acres suggested by 63,300 square feet.

The story says, "That convinced city planners to recommend that the hearing be ended and the council restart the 30-day public notice process." It should have said that city staff (not planners) recommended that the public hearing before Council be allowed to proceed because so many people had come out to speak. However, staff recommended that in the interest of full transparency (and avoiding a possible lawsuit), the public notification and public hearing process should start over. They recommended that new, corrected notices should be printed and distributed in accordance with state law, and then public hearings be held before Planning and Zoning and City Council.

The story says, "But a majority of the council believed the city and church acted properly and opted to continue the public hearing." The story should have said that at first most Council members seemed to support the recommendation to repeat the public notification process. However, after hearing 10 to 15 church members explain how a 30-day delay would be costly and inconvenient for the church, the Council members agreed to move forward with the rezoning ordinance, despite the recommendation of City staff.

The story says, "White asked parish officials if they would consider indemnifying the city from any lawsuit if the council agreed to proceed, but officials responded they lacked the authority to make such a promise." The story should have said that Terrence Milligan responded by saying that the archbishop had the authority needed to indemnify the city, but it was not clear if Milligan was authorized to speak for the archbishop, or if the archbishop was likely to authorize indemnifying the city.

Report on letters to City Council - Posted 10/23/09
By Dan Frazier

I recently spent many long hours reading the letters sent to the Flagstaff City Council in support of building a new Catholic Church and School on McMillan Mesa. There were close to 250 letters. There were also between 15 and 20 letters that expressed concern about the project. A few of these expressed outright opposition. All letters to Council are public record and available to anyone from City Clerk Margie Brown.

Most of the supportive letters were obviously from parishioners of San Francisco de Asis church. There were only a few instances where a supporter claimed not to be a member of the parish. In one instance, a supporter claimed that he was not a Catholic or a member of the parish. Not long after reading this letter I came across another letter from someone else with the same last name, and the same phone number. This person identified herself as a member of the parish and a realtor.

One of the things that I realized while reading these letters was that none of the supporters gave any good reason why the new church and school should be built on McMillan Mesa. Nobody wrote, for instance, "Our religion requires that we build our church in a central location that is higher than most of the surrounding landscape so that we can show that our religion is superior." Nobody wrote, "The Pope has declared that from now on we should build our churches in isolated areas away from the worldly influences of urban neighborhoods." Only one person dared to mention the obvious: If the Mormons are allowed to have a church on a hill (Cherry Hill), then the Catholics should be allowed to have a church on a hill.

The only argument that most letter writers could come up with to justify putting a church and school on McMillan Mesa was that this is supposedly a central location. To test this argument, I plotted the addresses of about 56 letter writers who supported the McMillan Mesa site on a map. (The map is a 1983 edition and so does not show many roads.) I then drew lines from each of these locations to the McMillan Mesa site. The resulting map does indeed suggest that McMillan Mesa is a central location. But it is probably not the most central location. That honor would probably go to a point somewhat farther south and west of the McMillan Mesa site. The current sites of Nativity Church, and St. Mary's School may actually be more centrally located. (See this map. The PDF file is large (11 Mb) and may take some time to load.)

Of course, this assumes that the 56 letter writers who provided their addresses have provided a truly representative sampling of where Flagstaff's church-going Catholics live. Nearly all the letters I read appeared to have been sent by e-mail, and they were all in English. Church-going Catholics in Sunnyside were likely under-represented because Internet connections may be less common in Sunnyside homes, and English proficiency may not be present in some Catholic homes in Sunnyside. Plus, some Sunnyside residents who currently appreciate having a church in their neighborhood may not support moving the church to McMillan Mesa.

Curiously, not a single supportive letter writer provided an address in University Heights. Could it be that a neighborhood dominated by NAU professors and students has very few Catholics?

In a second experiment, I created another map. (View map as 2 Mb PDF.) I drew a big red circle around the McMillan Mesa site, and a similarly sized green circle around the St. Pius Church location. My big red circle only contained the locations of two supportive letter writers. Meanwhile, my big green circle contained the locations of five supportive letter writers. Each circle had a radius of about half a mile. This suggests that if the St. Pius church location were to be redeveloped, more than twice as many people would be able to walk to church compared to the McMillan Mesa site. In reality, if the St. Pius location was redeveloped, it would likely attract many times more walkers and bikers because it is not high on a hill where daunting slopes are sure to discourage many would-be walkers and bikers.

Another thing I noticed while reading these letters was that nearly all of them had the exact same subject line: "I am in favor of the SFdA project." Several of these messages had ONLY a subject line, or a subject line and just one sentence that echoed the subject line. It appeared that these e-mail messages were a direct response to an appeal by the church leadership to contact City Council in support of the rezoning. Nearly all of these messages were sent on Sept. 13, 14 and 15. September 15 was the date of the public hearing before the City Council. The messages were not a spontaneous result of ordinary Flagstaff residents reacting to, say, an article in the newspaper, with a heart-felt message to the Council.

Many of the letter writers complained about the crowded conditions at St. Pius, and the sad condition of the old St. Mary's school. While these concerns are understandable, they have nothing to do with whether or not a large church and school should be built on McMillan Mesa. There are other places that a new church and school could be built without harming the mesa.

Some letter writers complained that the parish has been trying for many years to get a new church and school built. As if, because of delays, which may well have been caused partly by the incompetence of church leaders, the process should now be fast-tracked without the usual public review. I notice that in the years that the church has been trying to get its church and school built, many other large buildings have been built in Flagstaff. Apparently, some project managers know how to get their projects built, despite the rules and regulations down at City Hall. As far as I know, there are no other churches or schools that have been waiting as long as the Catholic parish, or that are so desperate for new facilities. Somehow, the other churches in town managed to plan ahead, picked less difficult or controversial building sites, and built their new buildings before they were in a crisis situation.

I can't help thinking that some of the crowding at St. Pius is the direct result of Catholic doctrine. For instance, a prohibition against the use of condoms contributes to a rapidly growing Catholic population. Furthermore, a shortage of priests puts pressure on the church to consolidate all services into a single facility. But why is there a shortage of priests? Perhaps because of the requirement that priests be celibate.

A number of letter writers said that it was inevitable that the property would be developed, and that a church and school on the property would be better than a housing subdivision on the mesa. I do not believe that development of this portion of the mesa is inevitable. This portion of the mesa has not been developed in the last 100 years for a reason: The ground is rocky, and the steep slopes make it difficult to develop this property. It is true that Flagstaff has grown dramatically in recent decades. If that trend were to continue, it would probably not be long before this area of the mesa was developed. But times have changed. We are in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the great depression. And we are not out of the woods yet. Anything could happen: The value of the dollar could collapse. The price of oil could spike again. Beyond the economy, there are other changes that could reduce pressure to build on the mesa. For instance, the current drought could continue, leading to a water shortage. Or a forest fire could ravage a large area of Flagstaff, making Flagstaff a less attractive place to live.

Even if the property is to be developed one way or another, there is no reason to think that a large church and school would be better than a few houses, which is all that could be built under current zoning. Even with a rezoning to allow for higher density, including apartments and townhomes, the apartments and townhomes would be unlikely to be as tall as the proposed school. There are apartments and townhomes already on the mesa in another area. None of these is anywhere near as tall as the 57-foot height of the proposed school. In fact, they may only be about 30 feet tall.

As for the letters raising concerns about the proposed development, I will not say much about them because most of these concerns have been touched on elsewhere on this Web page.

But I do want to mention a letter from one parishioner whose concerns deserve special attention. The letter was sent Sept. 24, 2009. The parishioner begins his letter, "I fear that you and the citizenry of Flagstaff have a serious misunderstanding concerning the extent of the proposed development on McMillan Mesa." He goes on to write, "The impression left after the public hearing on September 15 was that the church/school complex plus a possible couple of 'small ancillary buildings' is the extent of the the planned development. I questioned our pastor, Fr. Patrick Mowrer, after the meeting and asked him directly whether the parish was going to forego development on the 'unused' land that the church now owns on the mesa and he replied, 'Well, the newspaper got it all wrong.' Another parishioner asked the same question of him at a different time and place and got the same reply. Hence, I don't believe that the parish has any intention of leaving the remaining land up there vacant."

The writer continues, "When the land was purchased by the diocese a number of years ago it was announced quite publicly that the intention was to use part of the property to develop the church and school. The parish would then sell the remainder to a developer or work with a developer to turn the remaining land into a housing development. The development of this land would raise the funds necessary to pay for the new church and school." You can read the letter here. (I have blacked out the writer's name and contact information because I do not know if he wants his identity publicized.)

Perhaps it is no surprise that one supportive letter writer is Deidre Craig, the current president of the Northern Arizona Association of Realtors. I met Craig when she attended the walking tour to the proposed building site in September of 2009. During the tour, which was led by me and my wife, she was clearly an advocate for the church and school project. In her letter to the Council, she calls the proposed church and school development a "perfect example of smart in-fill." She says that she once walked the property while showing the property to a potential buyer. "I noticed many transient campsites," she writes. "This was very concerning since it was a in a high fire danger time of year." Apparently, to reduce the risk of wildfire, we should develop all forested areas around the city.

Craig goes on to write, "I and my family moved here from a rural area that failed to develop and find their city is dying out. A community must always grow to survive and thrive." This is typical realtor nonsense. I have heard the grow-or-die myth so often that I now find it nauseating. In the natural world, there are no organisms that I am aware of that grow continuously forever. In nature, health is more often the result of finding the right balance. A healthy human maintains a healthy weight throughout his or her lifetime. A human who continuously grows will soon be obese and will die if growth is not controlled. In nature, animals and plants whose populations grow and grow do so at the expense of other organisms and the results can be catastrophic. Think of Kudzu, Quagga mussels and other invasive species.