This is Part Two of my effort to transcribe the audio recording provided to the Daily Post on Friday, August 19, in response to the order by Judge Greg Lyman to make the recording public — on account of the Judge’s belief that the September 17 executive session should properly have been conducted publicly, rather than in secret.
The question that the Council had declined to consider thoroughly, before going into their executive session on September 17, was whether two private developers should be allowed to participate in an executive session supposedly convened — according to the Colorado Open Meetings Law — to “instruct negotiators” and “develop a negotiating strategy.” My lawsuit had raised that very question.
In Part One, we’d heard Council member David Schanzenbaker ask why the Town Council was considering the idea of a $6.5 million bridge and connection road, when they had not yet heard a definite commitment from the Springs Partners — Matt Mees and Bill Dawson — to actually build anything on their 27-acre vacant parcel. In response, Town Attorney Bob Cole explained why he’d crafted the 2012 resolution in the manner he’d chosen.
“I think the intent was in the preference that the Town would build the bridge and connection road. But we wrote [the resolution] so that — if it couldn’t feasibly be done — you had an out. So the out is… if the Town doesn’t build the bridge, the developers have the option of moving forward with Sketch Plan B, that doesn’t have the bridge.”
Town Manager Greg Schulte:
“So after meeting with the Partnership, and reviewing the documentation, my job is to offer you what your options are. So your options are, you can seek the [HWA] grant, you can go to a vote, or you can try and do a Lease Purchase.
“Or you can do nothing, and the Partners have a vested right, through 2022, to build out Sketch Plan B.
“I have spent some time, trying to ascertain what the implications would be of a Lease Purchase, because that seems like the easiest route — if the Council chooses to go down that path. So again, a Lease Purchase is just exactly like the Lewis Street loan. And you could go down that road.
“And I think, as a backdrop to this, the Council has to ask itself, what is in the best interests of the community?”
Yes, good question. What is in the best interests of the community? To place the proposed $6.5 million debt before the voters? Or perhaps to assume that the voters are ignorant and don’t understand the issues, and maybe are selfish and self-serving to boot… and so choose instead to create a $6.5 million debt without voter approval, and thereby violate the spirit of the Colorado Constitution?
If you, dear reader, are a Town voter… you might want to review a previous Daily Post article that explains the (unethical but seemingly legal) Lease Purchase process, which has been used by the Town Council on numerous occasions to fund projects that the voters probably would not have approved, had they been given the option. In my opinion, the main problem with a Lease Purchase — compared to voter-approved bonds — is that the mortgage payments on a Lease Purchase come out of the Town’s existing revenue stream, rather than out of a new voter-approved tax increase. This means that a Lease Purchase necessarily reduces the Town’s maintenance budget, or reduces the amount of normal services the Town can provide. It might even reduce staffing, should the economy head south — as it did beginning in 2007, and when Town staff was significantly reduced as a result of that downturn.
Mr. Schulte continues:
“On a long term basis, does it make sense to have a bridge and a connection road … does that serve the town in the best way, over time? And if the development happened according to Sketch Plan B — once the development starts to build out that way, it would be difficult if not impossible to put a bridge in later.”
Unless, of course, the Springs Partners were generous enough to preserve a small parcel of land as the location for a future bridge, whenever one were deemed necessary? Or, alternately, if the Springs Partners themselves were to fund the $6.5 million bridge and connection road, as a valuable element of their proposed $200 million project?
Mr. Schulte:
“So that is, I think, the key question for all of you. What is in the best interests of the town, long term, for traffic circulation? So if you want to do a Lease Purchase, there is probably a way of doing it, and there has been some thought given to doing this, and basically you could go through a Lease Purchase — it would be a Certificate of Participation. As Council may recall, when we were talking last year about what street projects we wanted to do, we wanted to do South 8th Street. So we would be looking at that, and that would be about $1.5 million. We still have an outstanding loan on the Lewis Street project.. so there is the prospect, if the Council wants to pursue this, is … to combine the South 8th Street project with the [5th Street] bridge and connection road, and retire the Lewis Street debt. That would total $8.7 million.”
As we learned last month, the South 8th Street project was actually funded by the Council — including the Lewis Street debt, but without any 5th Street bridge — at $2.675 million, at an interest rate of 3.43 percent over 20 years. This means the South 8th Street reconstruction will actually cost the taxpayers about $3.7 million, when you include $1.02 million paid in interest to satisfied bankers who will profit handsomely from the Council’s decision to use “Lease Purchase” financing. This decision will drain about $185,000 a year out of the Town’s budget, (by my calculations) no matter what happens with the economy over the next 20 years. That’s slightly more than the entire annual budget for the Ross Aragon Community Center operations.
But let’s get back to the secret September 17, 2015 meeting, which is no longer secret…
Bill Hudson began sharing his opinions in the Pagosa Daily Post in 2004 and can’t seem to break the habit. He claims that, in Pagosa Springs, opinions are like pickup trucks: everybody has one.