Scott Jablow

"The city council is unique. It's a body of seven, and it actually has to be a body of four, the quorum. It's a team effort. Sometimes you have a team that works well together, sometimes you don't. It's better not to, because you want different ideas, different challenges, and that makes the win that much better. We have an amazing staff here at City Hall. Most of them work almost two jobs because everybody backfills each other. If you want to get the job done right, you have to work with other people."

"I got involved in the Sedona Fire District governing board and ran for that. That was a little bit simpler. I worked into it, and then a few years later I ran for the city council. That was a challenge, but not as much as it was to be mayor. I never even looked or aspired to be mayor. I just wanted to give back in my way, try to help in some way. The more I did on the city council, the more I was able to do that. Somebody suggested I run for mayor, and I did. Now I'm just starting my second term, and I'm really excited. The passion hasn't dimmed at all. In fact, it's getting better and more powerful with me."

"No matter what you look at, don't go for the job. Jobs are fine to an extent, but go for the career. No matter what it is you're looking for, go for a career, and hopefully if you find the right career, those people will feel good inside. I know plumbers and electricians who say, I went to someone's house today, they had no power, they didn't know what to do, and I was fair with my price and I helped this single mother with three kids, and I felt good today. We need a plumber, we need an electrician, we need a firefighter, we need police officers because they touch people in their own way."

"What inspired me, especially in law enforcement, was just coincidence in my neighborhood. I was always befriended by different cops. They would tell me what they did, and we'd spend maybe 20 minutes talking while they were patrolling the neighborhood. My parents were very supportive. They said, whatever you want to do, just aspire to be something good and something that's giving. They were both working people. I saw how hard my father would work. He would leave at 5:00 in the morning and come home at 6:00 at night. My mom worked in a dress shop. She was a saleswoman, and she would work long hours."

"I don't know if you know or not, but I was part of 9/11. My department was the owner of the World Trade Center. The psychological effects of that were tremendous. For 18 months, nobody had even one day off at all, except if you had to go to a doctor and show a note. Everybody had to work, and there were no exceptions. The psychological aspects of being a police officer, plus my job wasn't the conventional neighborhood officer. As a police officer in New York at the airport, you're working at the gateway to the United States, where people from around the world come, so you have to have the mindset of being able to work with all nationalities, all different beliefs."

"My mother fought and fought for the desk chair. I was a little kid, maybe eight or nine, and I watched her fight. I do that now as a cop. You have to fight to get where you want. It's not easy. Not a single day is easy. They can be fun, but they're not easy. You have to fight to get what you want to be. I spend a lot of time down at the state capital fighting. I don't give up. That's how my family has supported me to get where I am today. Never surrender, never give up. You just can't."

"My purpose in life has always been to help people. Back in New York on Long Island, I was a police officer at Kennedy Airport for 31 years. Then in 2010, I retired, moved to Sedona, and now here it is, 14 years later, and I am the mayor of Sedona. You've heard the saying you want to leave a place better than when you found it. I want to be a part of the win. I want to be a part of a success. I want to leave Sedona better than when I arrived here in 2010. In city government, I'm fighting for the people. I'm listening to people, listening to the residents, and when there's a need, I'll fight. I don't give up."

"When I was a teenager, I was with a group of friends in the middle of a huge snowstorm, and one of our neighbors was missing her child. We looked all around nearby. All of my friends worked together with the police department to just walk the neighborhood to help find this child. I mean, we were just kids, but we wanted to have a purpose, and we wanted to help people. We actually found the child in a parking lot where somebody had removed a manhole cover. The child was in the manhole, covered with snow, and just walking through a parking lot, we heard calling out for help, and we found the child. The exhilaration you get when you actually save someone is remarkable, and it left an impression on my life, like this is really cool, helping people. That's where my life has really moved forward, and I haven't regretted it at all. I get huge excitement out of it every day. I never even thought of that whole story until I got your list of questions. I said, wait a minute, and it all came back. I was 15, 16 years old, and here I am, 68 years old, and I hadn't ever thought of that. Your questions really brought back some good memories for me."