On July 3 — the day before the Independence Day celebrations in Pagosa Springs — local activitist Lynne Vickerstaff appeared before two Archuleta County commissioners, Steve Wadley and Ronnie Maez, to urge them to fund a new non-profit organization she would be heading up: the Pagosa Housing Partners (PHP). The requested support, coming from the BOCC — and thus, from the taxpayers — would be $25,000. If the BOCC were to contribute this amount, and if that amount were matched by the Town Council, then Ms. Vickerstaff and her fellow PHP staff members and board volunteers would set to work immediately on a problem the BOCC had done very little about over the past two decades: the local workforce housing crisis.
Ms. Vickerstaff has been working on solutions to this crisis — as a volunteer — for the past 2 1/2 years, and has helped craft several changes to the Town’s Land Use and Development Code that address the crisis. You could say, with some accuracy, that Ms. Vickerstaff has done more work on the affordable housing crisis than almost anyone in Archuleta County.
Our two well-paid commissioners, Ronnie Maez and Steve Wadley, had nothing but distain for Ms. Vickerstaff’s proposal that the County contribute $25,000 to her group’s ongoing efforts. They both voted to offer nothing at all to the PHP effort.
Not one penny.
This happened on July 3.
The day after the Independence Day celebration, Ms. Vickerstaff appeared before the Pagosa Springs Town Council, to make another plea for funding. Pagosa Housing Partners had been the only organization to respond to a joint Town-County request for proposals, to develop a community-wide action plan to address the housing crisis.
The Council discussion about PHP funding began with a short speech by local business owner Jason Cox, whose ‘Joint Strategic Priorities’ committee had recommended PHP funding to the BOCC and Town Council.
“The purpose of the [Joint Strategic Priorities] group was to vet the recommendations coming from three work groups and determine whether they warranted funding… In my mind, we’ve had a good process; two meetings with meaningful discussions and a meaningful review of the proposals. To me, it’s been a transparent, democratic process.
“Our recommendations were not binding, but we’ve been entrusted to do this work… I understand that these are just advisor roles that we’re in, but if our [elected leaders] don’t choose to follow our recommendations, then I feel there’s something else at work…”
I agree with Mr. Cox. Local government is democratic and transparent, except when it’s not. When I moved to Pagosa Springs in 1993, our local governments operated on the ‘Good Ole Boys’ model. Decisions were made, not in open public meetings, but behind closed doors. If you were friends with the elected leaders, you got special treatment. If you questioned the elected leaders’ decisions, you were persona non grata — an unwelcome pest.
From what I can tell, that system is still in operation, to some degree, at the BOCC.
Our Town Council, on the other hand, now seems to be operating on a more democratic, transparent model of government.
Following Mr. Cox’s testimony, we had a chance to hear from Ms. Vickerstaff.
“As you all know, we have a terrible housing crisis. I talk to people all the time, and it’s not just retail workers, it’s not just restaurant employees — it’s our hospital, it’s our Sheriff’s department, it’s our teachers. We have a wide range of income groups that need to be addressed.
“I support the [Archuleta County Housing Authority] proposed LIHTC project, but I want everyone to realize that it might take four years to get that project built. So we have four years where we need to address other segments of the population.”
“Community information will be important. PHP would like to inform the community through community events, speakers — to get the community involved and understanding the situation. But our main work will be finding out exactly what the community need is. The [2017 EPS Housing Needs Study] collected some information, but they even stated that they only collected information from renters.
“Many people are not renters. They are sleeping on their friend’s sofas. Many people are sleeping in tents, in campers, living in their cars. My son, for example, couldn’t find a place here; he has now moved to Phoenix, but he was living at home with us. He wasn’t counted [by EPS.]”
Ms. Vickerstaff mentioned another serious aspect to the housing crisis — people who have a home or apartment to live in, but who are now paying over half of their monthly income on rent as the result of an inflated rental market.
The Town Council then discussed the (inexplicable?) decision by County Commissioners Wadley and Maez to reject the PHP funding proposal, considering that PHP was the only organization to come forward and offer to address the problem in the manner recommended by last year’s $34,000 Archuleta County Housing Needs Study.
Council member Mat deGraaf then made a motion that addressed the stated intention of the BOCC and the Town Council — to jointly fund the recommended housing programs with contributions of $50,000 from each government.
“I understand that good ideas and good intentions only go so far, and at some point, it’s important to call on people who have more experience and more knowledge than you do, to move something forward in a direction that it needs to go to be successful. While certain members of the BOCC may feel that consultants are a waste of money, I am on a completely opposite end of that spectrum…
“I think the easy way to solve this [funding disagreement] — if we are going to fund these housing projects jointly and equally — is for the Town to fund PHP to the tune of $50,000 and then let the BOCC go back and fund the Archuleta County Housing Authority — which they seem to prefer anyway. They can fund that at $50,000. And we still meet the verbal agreement [to fund the housing programs equally]… I’m in 100 percent support of the Archuleta County Housing Authority and them moving that [LIHTC] project forward. My proposal [to fund PHP] is not a reflection of any distain for the Housing Authority project…
“Mr. Mayor, I move that we allocate $50,000 for the PHP study.”
The motion passed unanimously.
I assume the BOCC will, at some point, vote to provide Archuleta County Housing Authority with a grant of $50,000, meaning that we will have two publicly funded housing groups working on different aspects of the housing crisis.
Can we perhaps get some other groups involved? Like, maybe, the Pagosa Springs Chamber of Commerce? Or the Pagosa Springs Community Development Corporation?
Or maybe even… the Pagosa Springs Area Tourism Board?
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.