The Daily Post received a press release yesterday from the Pagosa Fire Protection District, the taxpayer-supported agency that has been run as a “volunteer fire department” since at least the 1980s. Currently, the District operates with about 9 paid staff and about 47 volunteer firefighters.
The press release concerned “Volunteer Recruitment” and was sent out by Lt. Megan Macht, the District’s Public Information Officer:
Can you fill these?? If not you, then who? If not now, then when???
Pagosa Fire Protection District is actively seeking volunteer firefighters. No experience needed, PFPD will provide beginning fire fighter classes and hands-on training.
Applicants must be over 18 years old, have a current drivers license, live in Archuleta County, must pass a background check, and be able to obtain a Colorado Fire Fighter I certification within six months.
Contact PFPD at 970-731-4191 or stop by Station 1 at 191 N. Pagosa Blvd for more information or an application.
Give back to your community by volunteering!
Some of our readers may have noticed the banner displayed on the PFPD float in last week’s Fourth of July parade. That banner likewise urged us — any of us — to step up and volunteer to become trained firefighters.
I can’t recall, at any previous time during my 25 years in Pagosa Springs, hearing the PFPD making such obvious appeals for volunteers. For the past 2 1/2 decades, it seemed, the District had found it relatively easy to maintain a crew of trained volunteers ready and willing to charge into burning buildings.
Something seems to have changed, over the last couple of years.
The canary in the coal mine? Are we seeing yet another indication of a serious housing crisis in Archuleta County — a situation where younger families and younger individuals can no longer afford to live here?
The types of younger men and women who have traditionally volunteered for the fire department? That’s a question. I have no answer for it.
I mentioned yesterday that I attended a meeting of the Pagosa Springs Area Tourism Board this past week, where Pagosa Housing Partners staffer Lynne Vickerstaff was suggesting to the gathered Tourism Board members that it might be the time to start using some of our generous Lodgers Tax revenues and begin addressing our local housing crisis…
…considering a couple of things.
For one thing, considering that a vibrant tourism industry requires a ready-and-willing workforce, to provide the services and accommodations necessary to serve the tourists…
…and also considering that the notable success of our Archuleta County tourism marketing campaigns has helped create an economy where younger working class families and individuals can no longer afford housing in our community.
And considering that the reason the Pagosa Fire Protection District is now struggling to find volunteers might be partly the result of vacation renters occupying the homes that were once available to young employees (and volunteers.)
Considering that our success in one area of the local economic system has created a crisis in another area.
Ms. Vickerstaff told the Tourism Board they should expect even more positive growth in their Lodgers Tax collections over the next few months, due to increased participation by vacation rental owners.
“Pagosa Housing Partners would like to work in partnership with you guys, because one of the big problems is, people can’t keep good help. And it’s not just retailers; it’s not just bartenders and waiters; it’s increasing medical needs because of tourists; it’s firefighters and police officers; it’s all kinds of income levels that we’re not able to address with housing.”
Ms. Vickerstaff mentioned her recent conversations with the County Sheriff and with Pagosa Springs Medical Center administrators, about their employee recruitment struggles.
“We are not being able to recruit and keep talented people here. So I would like to encourage you to use a portion of this increase, that might be coming down the road, to go towards affordable housing solutions…”
After Ms. Vickerstaff finished her presentation, the Tourism Board spent the next 15 minutes discussing the housing crisis, even though such a discussion did not appear on the meeting agenda. Clearly, this was a problem on everyone’s mind, and that touched each of the Board members in some way.
Executive Director Jennie Green then promised the Board that a discussion about “housing” would be added to the agenda for an upcoming Tourism Board retreat.
Some of our older Pagosa residents may recall a time when most Americans lived in extended families — during a time when Grandma and Grandpa typically lived in the same house with their grandchildren, and when the whole family pitched in together to raise the garden and the animals, and pay the bills.
That’s not the world I grew up in. From a young age, I understood that I was expected to leave the family home after high school — to find a career of some type and settle down in a monogamous marriage and raise two or three children in a single-family home — leaving my parents behind to deal, on their own, with retirement and old age.
And that’s pretty much how things unfolded for me.
Times change.
Out near Lake Pagosa sits the Actors House — a large structure built by the Thingamajig Theatre Company two years ago.
This professional theater company (you can learn more about them here) runs a repertory season of Broadway-type musicals each summer, to appeal to both locals and tourists. To that end, they bring in two dozen or so young actors — singers, dancers; talented young people — to perform from June through August.
The company, now in their eighth year in Pagosa, gradually found it impossible to find housing for their summer crew, and determined that the only way to continue producing professional theater here was to build their own dormitory-style living quarters.
I suspect few of us can imagine living in a dormitory year round. But maybe it works… for some young people… for three months during the summer? Maybe, for some young people who have not, as yet, started their families?
Maybe, for some young people who have no clear intentions of ever starting a family?
Generally speaking, young people are no longer getting married at age 20 or 25. Some are now waiting until they are 35. Many of them have graduated from college with enormous debt burdens. Many of them cannot find housing that fits the idea of “raising a family.”
Is this a problem, for all of us?
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.