Last week’s resolution commits the ACHA to developing 30-50 multifamily affordable housing units pursuant to a near-term action plan to be approved by the Board within 60 days. And it also commits the ACHA to formation of a following 5-year plan to continue the expansion of the community’s stock of affordable housing, so long as the need exists.
— From a November 2017 press release by the Archuleta County Housing Authority
Politics is complicated… and like marriage, it’s not for the weak of heart.
Those of us who attended the Joint Strategic Priorities Funding Advisory Group (JSPFAG) meeting on June 25 needed strong hearts to get through the meeting — whether we agreed with Commissioner Steve Wadley, or whether we thought he was playing political games with government funding.
I was among those who believed he was playing political games. Here’s my evidence, for anyone interested. Get ready for a mess of acronyms.
Sitting in the front row of seats at the meeting, facing the JSPFAG committee were representatives of Pagosa Housing Partners (PHP) and representatives of the Archuleta County Housing Authority (ACHA) — the two funding applicants approved this month by the Housing Advisory Committee (HAC) to receive $50,000 each to further two separate (but coordinated) affordable housing programs.
The HAC had spent several months writing an RFP (Request for Proposals), soliciting responses, and then analyzing those responses. The best overall responses — in the opinion of the HAC — belonged to PHP and ACHA.
Near the middle of the front row, at the June 25 JSPFAG meeting, sat former County Commissioner Clifford Lucero. Mr. Lucero grew up in Pagosa Springs and is highly regarded as a Little League Football coach. He’s also a consummate politician, having served on the Town Council, the Archuleta School Board, the Town Planning Commission, the Chamber of Commerce, and maybe a dozen other local boards and commissions?
For the past several years, Mr. Lucero has committed himself — as a volunteer board member — to the Archuleta County Housing Authority, a quasi-governmental agency that operates the 16-unit senior housing complex on South 8th Street known as ‘Casa de los Arcos.’ Mr. Lucero has also been busy lately, buying up vacant lots in the South Pagosa neighborhood, and building moderate-income single family homes.
While serving on the Archuleta Board of County Commissioners, Mr. Lucero became best friends with fellow commissioner Steve Wadley. The two commissioners regularly voted in unison on issues — on both important and unimportant issues — and also endorsed one another during their respective re-election campaigns, despite belonging to opposing political parties. (Mr. Lucero was elected as a Democrat; Mr. Wadley, as a Republican.)
Mr. Lucero’s dedication to the Archuleta County Housing Authority is more than skin-deep. Mr. Lucero’s girlfriend, Sara Ward, serves as the Authority’s Executive Director. His daughter, Anissa Lucero, has been hired as the ACHA ‘Fair Housing Specialist.”
The Archuleta County Housing Authority was established by the Board of County Commissioners in 1978, and has been managing its one low-income-housing project since about 1981.
(According to the County Assessor website, the 1.2 acre Casa de los Arcos property was sold for $10 in 2002. The seller was the “Archuleta County Housing Authority” and the buyer was “Housing Authority of the County Archuleta.” I’m not clear why that transfer took place, and I have been unable to locate any agency with the name “Housing Authority of the County Archuleta.” I’ve contacted the ACHA Board to get clarification.)
Another curious twist to Mr. Lucero’s involvement with ACHA relates to his recent efforts to get the Town government to donate 6 acres of vacant Town-owned property on Trujillo Road to ACHA, for a proposed Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) housing project.
What makes this request somewhat curious is that the 6-acre parcel in question was sold to the Town in 2005 for a price of $150,000. The seller, in 2005, was none other than a certain Clifford A. Lucero.
Last November, the ACHA Board of Directors — Clifford Lucero, John Egan, Ray Finney, Steve Wadley, and Stanley Velarde — approved a resolution expressing the organization’s intention to acquire $100,000 from the Town and County for various housing projects. (A press release about that resolution appeared in the Daily Post, here.)
Over the past few months, however, the Housing Authority board has taken a different tack, by negotiating an agreement with the newly-formed non-profit, Pagosa Housing Partners (PHP) to collaborate as a cooperative team to begin addressing the community’s housing crisis — and to split the available government funding between the two organizations: $50,000 each.
That collaborative approach was approved by the HAC on June 7, and by the JSPFAG on Monday, June 25.
Mr. Lucero has apparently been confused by this cooperative approach. At a recent HAC meeting, the approval committee was attempting to further clarify the separate roles of the two recommended organizations, and how each would spend their allocated $50,000.
Clifford Lucero suggested that such a conversation might be unnecessary:
“We were told… we were already told that [ACHA] received the full $100,000. That’s what they told us. Or we assumed that? So now it’s kind of changed for us a little bit; we’re shifting gears to see what’s going on. And if there was more information we need to present, we weren’t told about it. Were you told, John? I wasn’t told to present more information…”
I’ve been part of the HAC committee for the past several months, and had previously attended their meetings as a news reporter. At no time did I hear anyone suggest that ACHA had been approved to “receive the full $100,000” allocated for affordable housing.
Who, then, is the “they” that told Mr. Lucero that ACHA had received “the full $100,000”? I’m really curious.
And a perhaps related question:
Why did County Commissioner Steve Wadley argue forcefully and repeatedly, during the JSPFAG committee hearing on Monday, to deny all funding to PHP? Was Mr. Wadley trying to subvert the funding approval process — and redirect “the full $100,000” to an organization dear to the heart of his close friend, Clifford Lucero?
Perhaps we will learn more about that question at the July 3 Board of County Commissioners meeting.