Following a meeting in 1951 of several local ranchers and the county extension agent, the group decided to initiate a county fair. During the first meeting of the Fair Committee, Ray Macht was elected chairman and the fair was set for September 28 and 29, 1951… The fair was deemed a competition and celebration of community while offering a time to relax and share…
— “History & Mission” on the Archuleta County Fair website
Some things, we can count on… to happen year after year. The 2018 Archuleta County Fair is scheduled to begin this Thursday, August 2 at 9am, thanks to the work of dozens of volunteers and over 100 4-H families.
According to ‘Citizens for a New Jail’ committee member Richard Vihel, the seven members of that political committee hope to operate an informational booth at this year’s County Fair, to help inform the voting public about a tax increase proposal slated for the November ballot.
I’ve been following the ‘new, bigger jail’ discussions as closely as I can, because I believe the voting public deserves more than just propaganda, when making decisions about government operations.
prop·a·gan·da, noun
1. information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view.
Some people may consider the editorials in the Pagosa Daily Post to be ‘propaganda.’ While I personally don’t consider our editorials to be misleading, they certainly represent a particular political point of view.
Honest, transparent, efficient government, with liberty and justice for all. That’s our political cause.
This morning, I visited the website created to promote a new jail in Archuleta County. The website bears the title, ‘Citizens for a New Jail: Archuleta County Facilities Review and Advocacy Committee.’ The committee was established by — and is being at least partially funded by — the Archuleta Board of County Commissioners, with two goals in mind. To come up with a reasonable facilities proposal, and to then sell it to the voters.
From the ‘New Jail’ website:
Who is the Facilities and Review Committee?
In April of 2018, the Archuleta County Commissioners placed the following classified advertisement in the local newspaper (The Pagosa Springs Sun):
“The Board of County Commissioners are soliciting the participation of persons interested in serving on a facilities review and advocacy committee. The initial charge of the group will be to familiarize themselves with the current Sheriff/Detention plans, funding program and ballot language to promote, market and endorse the development of the project. Additionally, the group will be asked to offer an opinion on the present plan as it related to their view of the success at the ballot. Upon delivery of their findings, the group will ultimately become the primary advocacy group supporting, on behalf of the Board of County Commissioners, a ballot question for new faculties to be put before the voters in 2018…”
Seven people answered this request: Harold Bright, Gary Hardin, Rob Keating, Vic Lucariello, Carl Mellberg, and Richard Vihel. According to their website, the committee has done, or is doing, the following:
- Reviewed the current Sheriff/Detention plans
- Looked at questions regarding the funding plan
- Reviewed previous ballot language
- Promoting, Marketing and Endorsing the development of the project
- Offering various opinions on the present plan as it relates to our view of the success at the ballot
- The primary advocacy group supporting, on behalf of the Board of County Commissioners, a ballot question for new facilities to be put before the voters in 2018
On the website’s Home Page this morning, you were given the opportunity to express your opinion about a proposed one-percent sales tax increase to fund a new jail. Not many people have yet participated in this unscientific survey — only 20 people, as of this morning — but the results currently indicate that the ‘Citizens for a New Jail’ may have their work cut out for them.
Of the 20 people who had taken the survey so far, 55 percent did not favor the proposed tax increase. 40 percent said they did approve of the tax increase.
We had heard a similar difference of opinions on July 24, at the joint Town Council-Board of County Commissioners work session. County Commissioner Ronnie Maez — the only commissioners in attendance at the meeting — apparently felt that the BOCC would have its best success winning a $28 million (estimated) tax increase for a proposed Sheriff’s Office-Jail facility, if the tax was a sales tax instead of a property tax.
Town Council member Tracy Bunning argued that a one-percent sales tax increase would make it difficult, if not impossible, for the Town to pass any additional sales tax increases — as needed for special projects — during the 15-year term (estimated) of the County’s bond measure.
These were both hypothetical ideas, of course. The BOCC has not yet announced the size of the proposed facility, nor have they announced the size of the proposed tax increase, nor the size or duration of the debt. They’ve been hesitant to take any official action on those matters, in part, because their planning process has been (and still is) rather poorly organized — and in part, because the BOCC wants to use at least $5,000 in taxpayer revenues to fund a political campaign promoting the jail debt… something they can’t legally do, once they take official action on the proposal.
(What a Board of County Commissioners can ‘legally do’ is not necessarily the same as what they can ‘ethically do,’ as was pointed out by local activist Allan Bunch in his letter last week.)
That $5,000 in County tax revenues has been promised to the ‘Citizens for a New Jail.’ Unfortunately, that citizen group doesn’t yet know what, exactly, they are supposed to be promoting, because the BOCC has not yet made any official decisions. The whole bonded debt proposal remains mildly hypothetical, at this point.
The County probably has good reasons for wanting to use $5,000 in taxes they’ve extracted from us, to convince us to give them more taxes. One reason for funding an active campaign organization with taxpayer funds has to do with competition; the Archuleta School District appears ready to place its own tax increase on the November ballot, and two state-wide tax increases might also appear on the same ballot — one for ‘transportation’ and one for ‘education.’
If government were truly efficient, it’s possible that we wouldn’t even be discussing this jail tax increase. If government were truly efficient, the existing County jail — the existing, abandoned County jail — might have been upgraded, several years ago, to meet federal guidelines. If government were truly efficient, we would probably not be talking about a new County jail that will cost the taxpayers more than $4 million per year to operate…