The complaints against Mr. Goodman came to a head, you might say, at the August 14, 2018, Archuleta Board of County Commissioner’s work session. The room was packed with Mr. Goodman’s neighbors — fine folks who’ve purchased property in the funky, minimally regulated community of Aspen Springs.
There are numerous reasons why a person might make the decision to purchase property in Aspen Springs. The affordable price of land might be one of them. Peace and quiet might be another. Freedom from too much regulation — by government and homeowners associations — might be yet another.
Maybe you need room for your horses? Or other animals?
I cannot say, at this point, why Warren Goodman chose to purchase a parcel in Aspen Springs. I hope to learn more about his reasons. But I do know some of his neighbors, on August 14, were share to tell the BOCC their outrage with the way he lived on his property.
They were even more unhappy, it seemed, with the way the County government was dealing with Mr. Goodman. Or rather, with the way the County government was not dealing with Mr. Goodman.
The neighbors seemed unhappy with the County Sheriff. They seemed unhappy with the County Attorney and the County Administrator. And they seemed unhappy with the County Commissioners.
(Normally, I’m able to provide accurate quotes from public meetings, like the one on August 14, and share those quotes with our readers. Unfortunately, I’ve been unable to find my audio recordings of this particular discussion. So I’m reporting from mere memory.)
Ms. Ronnie Zaday — Aspen Springs resident, former Archuleta County Commissioner, and one of the main architects of the County’s controversial ‘Nuisance Ordinance’ — kicked off the discussion. A bit later, many of her neighbors shared their displeasure with the situation.
The complaints were many. Lack of proper sanitation on the property. Dogs running loose in the neighborhood, and dogs living in unsanitary conditions. RVs on the property, occupied by unsavory characters. Possible drug activity. Aggressive behavior by certain residents of the property. Piles of trash.
At one point, Ms. Zaday set a pile of papers on the table, for the commissioners to consider. The pile contained some of the complaints filed with the County Planning Department or the Sheriff’s office … (I don’t recall which) …
Dozens and dozens of complaints.
According to an August 30 article written by reporter Avery Martinez for the weekly Pagosa Springs SUN:
The Sheriff’s Office has dealt with the property multiple times over more than five years.
The Archuleta County Sheriff’s Office has had approximately 173 calls for service to the property since 2011. In 2017, there were 72 responses to the address for fires, warrants, arrests, theft, animal complaints, trespasses and more, according to [County Attorney Todd] Starr.
The resident on the property is Warren Goodman, as written in the court documents, according to Starr. Since 2011, there have been over 60 complaints just about dogs…
Laws governing our private use of our private property — laws about the possession and treatment of animals, for example, or about how much trash we are allowed to store on our private property — are found mainly in the County Land Use Regulations. Those laws are numerous, but the penalties for violating those regulations are not always clear. If the penalties are financial, and the violator happens to have no money… well, what’s a government to do?
The remedies are not always obvious, even when the neighbors make repeated calls to the Sheriff’s Office, or file numerous Nuisance Ordinance complaints with the Planning Department.
About eight years ago, Archuleta County established new rules about ‘camping’ on private property. Folks were allowed to live in RVs (or tents?) while building a permanent residence, but absent a building permit, they could ‘camp’ on their own private property for no more than 120 days per calendar year.
It appeared, from the comments offered by the neighbors at the August 14 work session, that Mr. Goodman was allowing friends to ‘camp’ on his private property for longer than 120 days. It was not immediately clear, from the discussion, how Mr. Goodman and his guests were dealing with the issue of human waste.
What are the most crucial priorities, for our local governments to address in the year 2018? We can’t have it all. What do we really “need”? Do we really need, for example, places where impoverished residents can ‘camp’ permanently?
Do we need to outlaw poverty?
A curious thing took place back in 1971. A developer — or maybe, a group of developers — created one of the largest subdivisions in the US about 10 miles west of the sleepy, rural town of Pagosa Springs. Some dirt tracks that passed for roads appeared along the platted right-of-ways, and people with a longing for solitude began to purchase the (very affordable) parcels.
The subdivision — graced with the name Aspen Springs — had no central water system, nor did it have a central sewer system. It still doesn’t, to this day. But it nevertheless attracts a certain type of property owner.
By 1987, however, the ‘roads’ (such as they were) had fallen into such disrepair that the Aspen Springs Property Owners Association was able to promote the establishment of the Aspen Springs Metropolitan District, which was able to levy a tax on the subdivision properties and use the revenues to provide road maintenance and snow plowing.
Some folks claim that Aspen Springs now has some of the best maintained gravel roads in Archuleta County — without any assistance from the County government (to whom they also pay property tax.)
As the old saying goes, you get what you pay for. The folks in Aspen Springs, as a voting block, made the decision to tax themselves to pay for better roads, and that’s what they got. We might want to note that the voters themselves approved the Metro District, and also approved the amount of the mill levy. That is to say, the decision was not made by a few politicians meeting in a smoke-filled room, but by a whole community, acting as a democratic body.
Presumably — and I am definitely presuming — the community of Aspen Springs could come together in a similar fashion and install a subdivision-wide sanitation system, paid for out of their own pockets. If that’s what the community really wanted, I mean.
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.