Over the past several months, it’s become apparently that the folks in charge of running the Archuleta County Dispatch Center are looking for a fresh infusion of cash from the community’s taxpayers. So when I attended a special meeting of the Dispatch Board on Monday, July 15, I expected to hear a conversation about proposed building locations and proposed tax funding schemes.
I was surprised when the entire meeting was focused on alleged violations of the Colorado Open Meetings Law, and whether the Dispatch Board should continue using County Attorney Todd Weaver for legal services. Some board members expressed their discomfort at having their names mentioned in a July 1 article in the weekly Pagosa Springs SUN, alleging that they had violated Colorado law by excluding a member of the media from a subcommittee meeting.
Mr. Weaver was not in attendance at this week’s July 15 meeting.
The SUN had reported on two July 1 Dispatch Board meetings — a full board meeting and a subcommittee meeting — alleging that SUN reporter John Finefrock had been excluded from the second meeting. The article had borne the following headline:
Dispatch board hears from new manager, SUN reporter blocked from subcommittee meeting
The article states:
In recent months, the dispatch board created a subcommittee comprised of members of each of the four participating entities, to tackle some of the big issues that face the dispatch center. That group, the Dispatch Exploratory Subcommittee, met later that day. A SUN reporter was told the meeting was not public and was not permitted to attend the meeting.
Per Colorado Revised Statute 24-6-402(2), “All meetings of a quorum or three or more members of any local public body, whichever is fewer, at which any public business is discussed or at which any formal action may be taken are declared to be public meetings open to the public at all times.”
PSMC CEO Dr. Rhonda Webb, Archuleta County Administrator Scott Wall, dispatch board chair Connie Cook and [new Dispatch Director Kati Harr] are all members of the dispatch board and were present at the subcommittee meeting. Harr is an ex-officio member of the board, meaning she has no voting power.
A little more than a decade ago, the Dispatch operations — accepting and routing emergency phone calls for the County Sheriff, the Town Police Department, the Fire Protection District and the Upper San Juan Health Services District ambulances — were the responsibility of the Archuleta County Sheriff, and the operations were housed in the County Courthouse, in the center of downtown Pagosa. Under former Sheriff Pete Gonzalez, the County government came to an agreement with the other agencies being directly served by the Dispatch Center, to form a semi-independent agency funded by all four government organizations.
The agreement stipulated that the new entity would be overseen by a cooperative board that included representatives from each government entity, but that the day-to-day operations — bookkeeping, payroll, maintenance, legal services — would be handled by Archuleta County. The agreement created a new ‘local public body’ as defined by Colorado law, meaning that any meeting that includes three or more members of the Dispatch Board is legally an open public meeting.
The Dispatch Center has been operating in a commercial shopping mall on Talisman Drive. Recent public presentations by the Dispatch Board have represented the current Dispatch Center as dysfunctional. Complaints include the location, lack of security, and outdated equipment. The implication is that all four entities are responsible for addressing the problems — with an as-yet-unspecified price tag.
According to Mr. Finefrock’s article, Pagosa Springs Police Chief Bill Rockensock addressed that price tag during the full Dispatch Board meeting on July 1.
“When we did this 10 years ago, it cost us $500,000 to open the center that we have right now,” he said. “So, we’re not talking about something that’s cheap, especially if we’re going to update equipment and move and do everything else. I was part of the move we did 10 years ago; you’re probably looking at a million- dollar price tag at a minimum, and that’s if we don’t build [a new facility].”
As Daily Post readers are probably aware, the prices charged by architects and contractors for designing and constructing government buildings in Pagosa have lately been through the roof, so to speak. The only cost-effective way to house a government in Archuleta County is to move into an existing, vacant building. Unfortunately, those are in short supply in our community. We do have a large one, however; the County Courthouse, where the Dispatch Center was previously housed.
At the Monday meeting, the Dispatch Board voted to begin the process of hiring an independent attorney to represent the board, as a semi-independent local public body. County Administrator Scott Wall was the lone ‘nay’ vote.