We posed a question, yesterday in Part One, as to whether a large display ad featured in the weekly Pagosa Springs SUN (October 3, 2019) contained misleading information about a proposed “Urban Renewal” project that includes the Springs Resort.
Years ago, my best friend Jeff taught himself how to do magic tricks, and became a semi-professional magician — performing for fundraisers and children’s birthday parties.
One essential component of almost any magic trick is ‘misdirection.’ If you can get your audience to watch your right hand closely, they will never notice that your left hand is sticking a $20 bill into your pocket. And then, voila, magic happens.
Being Jeff’s best friend, I watched him practice his tricks, and after a few rehearsals I could easily see what the left hand was doing. But it was still pretty amazing to watch him work his magic, and hear the squeals of delight from the children.
Politics often involves the same type of misdirection. If you can get the citizens worried about, say, refugee families fleeing violence in Central America, they might not notice what’s happening to the federal deficit. They might not notice the suicide epidemic among returning veterans, or the shortage of qualified teachers in our schools.
Misdirection can be a very powerful tool.
For example:
This is the top section of the large newspaper ad we mentioned above, as featured in the Pagosa Springs SUN. If you watch the magician’s right hand, you will note that a proposed “Urban Renewal Project” that includes the Springs Resort and some adjacent vacant land will not utilize existing taxes — already existing taxes currently funding our schools, fire department, water districts, library, County government, and Town government. In fact, those already existing taxes are expected to increase over the next 25 years.
Once again, if you are watching the magician’s right hand, you will note that the URA will not impose any “new taxes” on the community’s taxpayers.
While you are watching the right hand, here is what the left hand is doing.
This chart was provided to the Town government, back in August, by consultants working for the Springs Resort, to show how the proposed “Urban Renewal” project would use Tax Increment Financing (TIF) to funnel an estimated $79.7 million away from our local government entities and into the pockets of the Springs Resort owners, to reimburse them for their resort expansion.
You can download the full “Economic Impact” report here.
The information in this colorful chart was not included, however, in the large display ad featured in the weekly Pagosa Springs SUN, because… well… hopefully you were watching the magician’s right hand. But obviously, this $79.7 million in taxes must be coming from somewhere.
What the SUN advertisement doesn’t tell you: if the Town government were to approve the proposed URA scheme, then all of the taxes paid over the next 25 years by the Springs Resort expansion would go back into the Springs Resort’s own pockets, as “reimbursements.”
When you visit the website mentioned in the October 3 SUN advertisement — URAPagosa.com — you will find many sensible arguments in favor of an “urban renewal” project that includes the Springs Resort and adjacent vacant land. Oddly enough, you will not find any mention of the $79.7 million tax subsidy mentioned in the “Economic Impact” report, or any mention of the report itself, even though the website arguments are directly connected to that report.
As we know, some of the world’s most famous magicians made use of attractive assistants, which enhanced their ability to misdirect your attention, especially if the assistant was rather scantily clad. (The magicians themselves wore business suits.)
As far as we can tell, the Springs Resort does not plan to roll out women in short, sequined dresses to sell their URA scheme to the people of Pagosa Springs. But they have enlisted some (good-looking?) local business owners to help misdirect your attention. Yesterday, in Part One of this editorial series, we mentioned Butch English’s Letter to the Editor in the October 3 SUN. On that same ‘Letters’ page was a similar letter submitted by business owner Jason Cox, offering us his conclusions about the proposed tax giveaway:
Keep things simple. An Urban Renewal Authority does not affect current taxes for anyone: Residents, Businesses or Visitors. An Urban Renewal Authority does not decrease tax revenues for anyone: Pagosa Springs, Archuleta County, Upper San Juan Health Service District, Pagosa Fire Protection District, etc. Supporting a URA allows investors to create infrastructure to support community development without increasing taxes. Simple.
Mr. Cox is keeping things a bit too simple, however. Here’s another section of the Springs Resort advertisement in the SUN:
Essentially, the developers are proposing to create a $180 million expansion of the Springs Resort… and arrange it so that the expansion pays zero taxes for 25 years… no taxes of any kind…
…while the rest of us — the rest of the county residents and businesses — continue paying our taxes and funding the community services provided by our various local government agencies… the same services that the Springs Resort expansion will access, free of charge, for 25 years.
The magician will tell us that it didn’t cost us a dime to watch him funnel $79.7 million back into his pockets.
“Total community ask = $0”
Really?
Magic and misdirection can be wonderfully entertaining. And we might find ourselves thoroughly entertained by this particular conjuring act. We might believe we’ll get our money’s worth. Obviously, intelligent people like Butch English and Jason Cox think the proposed “URA” would be a great deal for the community.
But maybe this is not merely an entertainment. Maybe this is a defining moment for the future of our once-small town, which is slowly turning into a complex of hotels, motels and vacation rentals, where few working families can afford to settle, but where the owners of hotels and vacation rentals get rich.
Read Part Three…
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.