These 2 first responders will now lead Sedona police and fire departments

Two longtime Sedona first responders now lead their respective departments after Deputy Chief Stephanie Foley and Division Chief Ed Mezulis assumed their new roles within the Sedona Police Department and the Sedona Fire District.

“I think people are excited to have somebody that's from the community and not from the outside that already knows Sedona, knows the community,” Foley said.

After a nationwide search, Foley, who served as deputy chief of police since July 2021, started as chief of police Sept.1 following the retirement of Charles Husted, who concluded a 34-year career in law enforcement.

Foley has nearly 20 years of experience in Sedona law enforcement, both on the civilian and sworn side of the badge, after starting as a dispatcher in 2005. Over time, she eventually held various positions in the department as she worked her way up including as a K-9 handler and a patrol lieutenant.

“All my time has been spent here with the city of Sedona and the Sedona Police Department so I have an intimate knowledge-base of the inner workings of our department, the city, and our community,” she said. “Every step along the way will help me understand what everybody is going through and have more empathy and sympathy for discussions and decisions that will be made.”

At the same time, Mezulis, who has spent the last 22 years with the district, was selected to become the new fire chief following the Sept. 3 retirement of Chief Jon Trautwein.

“With being in the community for so long, I’ve had the opportunity to meet a lot of community members and even cooler is we’ve hired a lot of folks that were born and raised in this community,” Mezulis said. “So just having those relationships internally and externally and having a good knowledge-base of how our system operates, I think all those things will assist me in hopefully working toward success and continuing moving the district forward.”

Sedona's strict residency rules for first responders

The ability to hire internally for both leadership positions is due in large part to both strong candidates and an amended residency requirement for the fire district. With the median home price in Sedona easily exceeding a half-million dollars, requiring personnel to live within city limits significantly decreases the amount of potential recruits.

The residency requirements stretch back to a time when the department chiefs were more involved in the day-to-day operations on the ground, conducting their own traffic stops or responding to fight fires, Mezulis said, where they needed to be on scene right away. The modern police and fire chief hold a much more administrative role, he said.

Today, Sedona Police Department employees are required to live within 45 miles or a 90-minute drive of headquarters, and the fire district just recently amended its rules ahead of filling this position.

When he started his career with Sedona Fired District decades before he would be in the running for this job, Mezulis built a home and began raising a family in Camp Verde, less than 10 miles outside of Sedona. But with the old rules still in place, this would have disqualified him right away.

“I’ve dedicated 22 years of my professional life to trying to make the Sedona Fire District the best it can be,” Mezulis said. “So I happen to build my house 18 minutes outside of district boundaries because it was what I could do at the time but I’ve established a residence that I’ve been in almost 18 years and to just pack up and move my whole family eight miles for a requirement — our board was really thoughtful about considering those things and we appreciate it.”

Dave Soto, the chairman of the Sedona Fire District Governing Board which oversees the district and appoints the new chief, said that while the requirement may have made sense in the past, it was now severely limiting them in terms of hiring and retention.

“What it really did is it kept out the local members, the members who are from the local area who have been hired by this fire district, go through the ranks, purchase homes and raise families,” Soto said. “Many can’t afford to live within the district so they move outside the district and they set their roots. They’re not going to then pick up and just move a couple miles for the sake of being chief, so they don’t apply,” he said.

While there is still a residency requirement for some higher administrative positions within the district, “we opened it up to a 50-mile radius from headquarters, which not only captured those two candidates (for fire chief) but also captured all but one existing fire chief and captain that work here in the fire district,” Soto said, meaning there are even more potential internal candidates for future positions.

More: Will $10,000 convince Sedona homeowners to rent to locals instead of tourists?

New leaders focused on building community

The fact that both Foley and Mezulis have spent so much time working in the community was a major consideration in their hiring and is sure to impact their new roles.

“Fit is always really important, especially in a community like Sedona,” said Sedona City Manager Karen Osburn, who ultimately appoints the chief of police.

Still a place that feels like a relatively small town, the city welcomes more than 3 million visitors a year and in a lot of ways operates as a larger jurisdiction, Osburn said. Over the years, the department has been able to establish strong relationships with the residents, visitors and businesses and the new police chief needed to be able to maintain that, she said.

“Stephanie’s tenure, the fact that she is really well-respected externally as well as internally, fit wasn’t a question,” she said. “She certainly fits in our organization and in the community.”

Moving forward, both chiefs are determined to continue strengthening their relationships with the community and other departments they frequently work with across the Verde Valley.

“We’re in a unique spot. Both the police chief and I kind of came up the ranks and we spent many a night in the snow on the side of the road with a car accident and now we’re going to be managing both organizations,” he said. “To have that unique perspective of the two department heads having come up together, it’ll kind of be a synchronous relationship and I think that’ll reflect on how our officers and our firefighters work together.”

Contact northern Arizona reporter Lacey Latch at llatch@gannett.com or on social media @laceylatch. Coverage of northern Arizona on azcentral.com and in The Arizona Republic is funded by the nonprofit Report for America and a grant from the Vitalyst Health Foundation in association with The Arizona Republic.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Stephanie Foley, Ed Mezulis named new Sedona police and fire chiefs