Mr. Richard Vihel — spokesperson for a campaign committee called ‘Citizens for a New Jail’ — stood before the Archuleta Board of County Commissioners at a BOCC work session on Tuesday morning, July 17, and explained, as gently as possible, the numerous reasons why his campaign committee is feeling confused and frustrated.
We could feel his pain.
One of the key points of confusion was related to an apparent promise coming from one or more of the elected commissioners, that the BOCC would allocate $5,000 out of Archuleta County government bank accounts to fund the activities of the ‘Citizens for a New Jail.’
More about that promise, later.
The politically-biased committee was officially appointed by the BOCC for two reasons. First off, the committee was to advise the commissioners on the design and cost of a new County jail and Sheriff’s administration offices, to allow the County Sheriff to finally and completely abandon his offices and jail facility in downtown Pagosa Springs. It appears that the committee has endorsed a plan nearly identical to the $27 million plan that failed at the polls in November 2017, except that the facility would now cost the taxpayers closer to $29 million due to increases in interest rates and construction costs.
Mr. Vihel:
“The second reason that [our committee] was created was to run a campaign for a sales tax [increase] — or at least we think it’s for a sales tax — to finance a new jail. And we’ve been working, and now it’s very close to when we have to take action. The County Fair starts in less than two weeks, and if we are going to run a campaign, we want to have that campaign going by the time of the Fair. So we have very little time left.
“And we can’t proceed until the BOCC makes some decisions.”
Indeed, the County Sheriff, with the blessing of the BOCC, abandoned the existing jail facility in April 2015, but the three commissioners — Steve Wadley, Ronnie Maez and Michael Whiting — still have not made an official decision about the design and cost of a new facility, nor about the funding mechanism for such a facility — for a very good reason.
The BOCC wants to use taxpayer revenues to help fund the activities of the Citizens for a New Jail campaign committee — but the BOCC can no longer use taxpayer revenues to fund a campaign committee if they’ve made official decisions about a tax increase proposal.
Kind of a Catch 22?
Once the BOCC votes on a definite plan, they can’t legally spend our taxes to get us to vote the way they want us to vote. But the Citizens for a New Jail — created by the BOCC as a campaign committee — can’t easily promote anything, if the BOCC is still vague about what might (or might not) go on the ballot next November.
A curious situation.
Mr. Vihel spoke about the campaign committee’s frustration.
“The first thing we need is a commitment to build a new jail. We made our recommendations [to the BOCC] but we never received any feedback, that the Board has publicly committed to build a jail. And we can’t run a campaign for a new jail, if the Board hasn’t concluded that they are going to build one.”
Commissioner Michael Whiting asked Mr. Vihel if the project recommended by the Citizens for a New Jail is the same project that was on last November’s ballot.
Mr. Vihel:
“Yes, essentially, but not exactly.”
“My recommendation is that we take it to the voters and let them decide, because that’s the law,” said Commissioner Whiting.
“Of course. Because the voters have to approve the financing,” Mr. Vihel agreed.
Commissioner Whiting:
“My only concern is that people are under the false impression that we’ve ever really, in the last year or two, considered remodeling the old jail. And I’m opposed to that. I think all three of us [commissioners] are opposed to that. So the alternative is to build new.”
I took Commissioner Whiting to mean that he’s opposed to remodeling the existing County jail, which served the community from 1991 until 2015, although the above-quoted statement could be read to mean that he’s opposed to even considering the idea of remodeling the old jail.
That said, I disagree with Commissioner Whiting. I don’t think anyone is under the false impression that the BOCC has ever really considered fixing the Courthouse they already own. For the past couple of decades, the Archuleta County government had allowed the roof of the County jail to leak, and had generally done the bare minimum necessary to maintain that historic downtown structure — basically allowing the Courthouse to reach a state where the BOCC themselves abandoned the building in 2015 to move into nicely remodeled offices on Lewis Street. (The County Sheriff subsequently occupied the abandoned BOCC offices in the Courthouse.)
The BOCC decided, in April 2015, to abandon the existing County jail, based on a superficial, cursory study of the building done by architects Reynolds Ash & Associates — the same folks who are hoping to design the new $20 million jail.
Three years later, the community still has no competent estimate of what it would cost to upgrade and renovate the existing 27-year-old building — instead of building a brand new building.
Mr. Vihel nevertheless continued his plea.
“So the next thing we need, to proceed with the campaign, is to know how much money you are going to borrow. How much do you want to finance? Because we can’t go to the public and say, ‘You should vote for the jail,’ if they don’t know how much the jail is going to cost. So we need a number… and we need it quickly.”
Outgoing County Administrator Bentley Henderson then estimated the cost. “I would guess that we’re looking at about a $20 million project.”
In case we wanted a rough guess, to run a campaign on. That guess doesn’t include the financing costs. If the County wants to pay off the bonds quickly, Mr. Henderson reminded us, then the tax rate would be higher, but for a shorter period of time. (Maybe only 15 years? That time frame was mentioned.)
But then we have to consider, what new tax amount are Archuleta County voters willing to stomach… considering that the School District has already officially voted to place a property tax increase on the ballot… and a coalition of Colorado organizations is trying to collect 98,000 signatures by August 6, to place a statewide 0.62 percent sales tax increase on the ballot to pay for transportation needs?
At this point in the conversation, I had the impression that Richard Vihel and his campaign committee would not have exact tax increase numbers in time for the County Fair, which runs from August 2-5.