I usually enjoy learning new things. But not always.
We learned a few things at the Tuesday, November 5, Pagosa Springs Town Council meeting, that had not been previously made clear.
We learned that Town Planning Director James Dickhoff was willing to describe the 27 vacant acres adjacent to the Springs Resort — land that has been sitting vacant since time immemorial — as a surprisingly dangerous place, and as eminently suitable for urban renewal.
Mr. Dickhoff cited, for example, the following dangerous conditions:
As shown on Exhibit B, the northerly and westerly borders of the Survey Area are in the 100-year flood plain and floodway area. Such areas are designated by FEMA as Areas of Special Flood Hazard. These problems in the Survey Area qualify as an unsafe condition under the Act. Areas of natural hot springs that emit scalding water exist on the open land area. Also present in the Survey Area is evidence of voids/caverns beneath the ground surface of the open land area. There is evidence of materials dumping in parts of the Survey Area. These conditions constitute unsafe conditions in the Survey Area.
A Daily Post reader wrote to me yesterday, asking why the Springs Partners — owners of the dangerous landscape described by Mr. Dickhoff — had not been required to fence off the property years ago, to protect unsuspecting residents and tourists from being drowned in unexpected floods, burned by scalding water, swallowed up by hidden underground caverns, or otherwise harmed by the “materials” dumped on the vacant property.
At a minimum, warning signs should have been posted.
All these years, I’ve been ignorant of just how hazardous this property actually is. A few weeks ago, I published a photograph I’d taken of the Springs Resort, not realizing that I was unintentionally documenting dangerous conditions — totally unaware of the perilous situation in which I had placed myself.
Mr. Dickhoff also described the vacant property as ‘blighted’ due to the simple fact that it has never been developed.
The large open land portion of the Survey Area lacks streets and related improvements such as curbs, gutter, and sidewalks. Inadequate vehicle and pedestrian ingress and egress and lack of circulation through the large open land portion of the Survey Area exists. Hot Springs Boulevard needs vehicular and pedestrian improvements to meet current and future demand in the Survey Area, including improvements to the vehicular bridge over the San Juan River that will become functionally deficient due to the proposed development and additional development activities on Hot Springs Blvd. Additional roadways and related infrastructure will be required to develop the Study Area as required by Town code.
A thoughtful review of Mr. Dickhoff’s assessments (which you can download here) suggests that nearly the entire 1,355 square miles (867,000 acres) of Archuleta County could be defined legally as ‘blighted’ due to the absence of curbs, gutters and sidewalks… access problems… uneven terrain… and of course wild animals. (The presence of free-roaming bears and mountain lions would certainly qualify the entire county as ‘dangerously blighted’.)
Four of the seven Town Council members on Tuesday evening took Mr. Dickhoff’s assessment of the vacant property adjacent to the Springs Resort as a valid “Conditions Survey” and voted to declare that the Town of Pagosa Springs is plagued by ‘blight’ — dangerous ‘blight’ no less. This declaration will legally allow the Town Council — at some point in the foreseeable future — to extract tax revenues from the Archuleta School District, the Pagosa Fire Protection District, the Upper San Juan Library District, the Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation District, Archuleta County, and four other taxing districts, and bestow those tax revenues on private developers who meet development criteria established by the Town Council (acting as the Urban Renewal Authority). The criteria have yet to be defined, but the definition is not a terribly serious concern, because it can easily be changed at the Council’s whim, from time to time.
Our current Town Council is one of the most ethical, thoughtful boards I’ve had the pleasure to cover over the past 15 years of writing for the Daily Post. I dread to think what might happen to our community, should a less ethical, less thoughtful Council assume those elected positions and seriously abuse an Urban Renewal Authority’s powers.
That sounds truly dangerous. Unlike the vacant property next to the Springs Resort.
But perhaps I’m merely ignorant? Perhaps I don’t understand the facts. Perhaps my fears for the future are unfounded.
Or maybe Sidney Yoshida had discovered something very important, back in 1989?
As noted previously in this editorial series, Mr. Yoshida studied quality control problems in certain Japanese corporations, and had determined that, although the top executives in those corporations may have earned handsome salaries, and may have known a great deal about how to keep a company profitable, they knew very little about the quality of the products coming off the assembly line. It was the production workers who truly understood the quality control issues.
Maybe it works that way in government as well.
Maybe the Town Council is focused on its municipal bottom line, and is so eager to extract money from other public agencies to fund private projects that the Town Council feels good about, that they are paying no attention to the quality of life experienced down on the production line, where the production line workers are earning too little to afford decent housing… if they can even find decent housing.
I’ve often written about “growth” here in Pagosa Springs, and the belief some people hold, that “getting bigger and fatter” is the proper definition of that particular word. But as we all know, “getting bigger and fatter” also describes a serious American health issue known as “obesity.”
Our local public schools also focus on something called “growth.” In that context, it means “to become less ignorant.”
Time to send the Town government back to school?