We have some very intelligent, caring people in our community.
Of course, people are intelligent in different ways, and we also care about different things. Some people are very good at salesmanship, for example.
Selling products, perhaps? Or selling ideas?
Other people are good at understanding complex situations, and at proposing feasible solutions to those problems. I ran into an acquaintance yesterday at Walmart who has obviously been thinking deeply about our County jail situation. He mentioned the new ‘Public Safety Center’ recently built in Gunnison County. Reportedly, this new 58,000 square foot facility — which includes a new County jail — was built for less than $12 million. When I checked the inmate roster last week, the jail had 16 inmates. As of yesterday, it housed 19 inmates.
Gunnison County’s population is about 17,000 — according to the US Census — which indicates that approximately one person per 1,000 residents is currently incarcerated in the Gunnison County jail.
Here in Archuleta County, our Sheriff has been jailing an average of about 23 inmates per day. That’s two people per 1,000 residents.
That in turn suggests our incarceration rate in Archuleta County is currently twice the rate of Gunnison County. Does that mean we have twice the amount of crime as Gunnison County? Or does it simply mean that different County Sheriffs have different ideas about which people should be arrested, and for what reasons?
We’ve heard lately, from the Archuleta Board of County Commissioners — especially from BOCC chair Steve Wadley — that Sheriff Rich Valdez is not incarcerating all the people who really ought to be in jail. That we really have more than 23 criminals each day who ought to be locked up. And therefore, we should increase our sales tax and build a very large, $20 million facility, so we can lock up more people. This plan is now being sold to the community by the officially-appointed, BOCC-funded ‘Citizens for a New Jail’ committee.
Other people have other ideas about our need for a County jail.
I plan to attend the Archuleta Board of County Commissioners work session at 8:30 this morning, and their regular meeting at 1:30. The morning work session is usually pretty interesting, but the audience never knows what, exactly, will be discussed at any given session — so it’s something of a crap shoot.
The agenda for the 1:30 meeting has been posted, and I didn’t see anything especially interesting, other than the final approval of the Off Highway Vehicles (OHV) regulations, which will allow ATVs and other types of non-highway vehicles to legally use certain county roads — including all of the roads in Loma Linda and Aspen Springs. Both of those subdivisions maintain their own roads, and apparently “asked” to have OHV traffic allowed, everywhere.
But I’m hoping that local activist Mark Weiler will be at the 1:30 meeting, to address the BOCC during the public comments section.
I’ve shared just a little bit of Mr. Weiler’s County jail idea in this article series. Basically, Mr. Weiler believes the County could build a smaller jail (than what has been proposed) without any tax increase whatsoever, and without raiding the revenues from other County services (like, say, road maintenance?) Last December, the BOCC earmarked $2 million for “facilities,” but apparently have not yet spent any of that amount. If the BOCC took that $2 million, and maybe added another $1 or $2 million in 2019 — could the County begin constructing a new (smaller) jail next summer, and eventually complete it without needing a huge tax increase?
In my limited experience, our local governments are pretty good at spending our taxes to build new facilities and other capital projects, but not so good at maintaining those projects afterwards. Part of that problem derives from the fact that, all across Colorado, local governments are awarded big grants by the state and federal governments, to “build new stuff.” But the state and federal governments do not subsequently supply grants to maintain that new stuff.
So we end up with roads that are falling apart, and with courthouses and schools and jails that, some people claim, are suitable only for demolition. It’s more exciting to build new stuff; maintaining and improving old buildings is generally regarded as “not feasible,” or as a waste of money.
Lately, I’ve heard the Town and the County and the School District proposing expanded facilities — and expanded tax collections — which they claim are necessary to the proper provision of government services. But we never hear them admit that more buildings and bigger buildings require more and bigger maintenance, and more and bigger utility bills. (The heating bill at the Pagosa Springs High School is enormous, compared to the cost of heating the old high school on 4th Street — now the Middle School.)
In January 2016, a team of consulting architects presented the Board of County Commissioners a sketched plan to expand our existing County Courthouse to accommodate the expansion of the Judicial Department, a new “state of the art” detention center, and an expanded Sheriff’s Office.
The rough sketch, as presented in January 2016 by architects Brad Ash of Reynolds Ash + Associates, and Bob Johnson of Reilly Johnson Architecture, made generous use of the one-acre vacant parcel located just to the west of, and adjacent to, the existing Courthouse — a parcel on the market (in 2016) for around $600,000.
The two architects had converted the west wing of the Courthouse — the part built in 1991 that used to be the Sheriff’s Office and County jail, but which is at the moment unoccupied — into a 14,000 square-foot courtroom and court office space. They then located a new jail and a new Sheriff’s Office next door on the adjoining (vacant) property.
This “complete Justice Center in one location” plan was estimated at $19.9 million.
Just to be clear. This estimate was presented by a team of trained architects, not by a volunteer political campaign committee.
The plan was summarily rejected, however, by two of our three County Commissioners — Steve Wadley and Clifford Lucero — purportedly because the owner of the empty lot wanted to retain six parking spaces on the vacant parcel.
Now we are hearing about a potential ballot measure for a $20 million facility in Harman Park that does not include the courts — it includes only Sheriff facilities. Meaning that the Sheriff will have to transport inmates, back and forth to the downtown Courthouse… for the next several decades?
Let’s see. Our BOCC could have chosen a new and expanded Sheriff’s facilities, AND new and expanded court facilities — an “everything in one location” solution — for around $20 million.
But now — if we approve this ballot measure — we will get ONLY separate Sheriff facilities located two miles away from the courtrooms, for $20 million.
How does a government board come to make such a financially misguided proposal?
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.