Where are we headed, on this seemingly endless train ride we call “Pagosa Springs”? Yes, it’s a place, a collection of geographic features, but it’s also an experience, an occurrence in time — and the scenery is always subtly changing. Some of the changes seem more sudden than others.
Most of the changes have at least a peripheral connection to the actions of our local governments, and to policies adopted by the elected and appointed citizens charged with operating those bureaucracies. Every once in a while, the entire community is asked to help make policy, during an election. A rare occasion. Not because we necessarily have a lack of ideas about what changes we hope to see, but rather because participatory democracy is… well, it’s inconvenient. And messy.
Better, to leave the key decisions over to a few elected representatives? With their hands on the throttle?
Last summer, the Pagosa Springs Town Council and their core staff met for a day-long retreat to establish some “Goals and Objectives” for 2019-2020 and further into the future. The basic assumption driving the event could be summarized as, “The Town government can help make Pagosa into a better place.” The Council even took a stab at defining, more clearly, what a “better place” would look like.
The retreat took place in a Pagosa Springs Medical Center meeting room — a room which, not so long ago, served as the waiting room for the Mary Fisher Medical Clinic. The medical center and hospital has grown exponentially since I arrived in Pagosa in 1993. 26 years ago, we had no hospital at all, only a very modest tax-supported clinic.
A fair number of other changes have taken place here in those 26 years. For one thing, the full-time population of Archuleta County has apparently doubled (if you can trust the estimates generated by the US Census Bureau.) Our Town government’s budget has nearly tripled in size, and they’ve spent millions of tax dollars encouraging a tourism economy. We saw the arrival of two very popular annual music festivals. A new high school was built. Possibly 10 percent of the single family homes in our community have been converted into (basically unregulated) mini-hotels known as ‘vacation rentals.’
Many other changes have occurred in our various neighborhoods. Some resulted at least partly from government actions — local, as well as state and federal. Many changes resulted mainly from non-government initiatives by private citizens.
At the conclusion of the day-long Town retreat, the seven Council members and core staff were each asked by facilitator Yvonne Wilcox to summarize the best future they can imagine for the community, twenty years from now. Presumably, these visions were related, at least peripherally, to the 15 pages of Town Council “Goal and Objectives” created by the retreat activities. You can download the 2019-2020 Goals and Objectives here. The 20-year vision can be found on the final two pages of the document.
Here’s the list of fourteen 20-year goals, in no particular order of importance:
- Convenient Bypass for Walkable Downtown.
- Well-Connected Trail Network and Sidewalk System Leading to Multi-use Park Facility at Yamaguchi South.
- Pagosa Springs Continues to be a Refreshingly Authentic and Healthy Small Mountain Town.
- Residents Walking Through Neighborhoods on Sidewalks — Smiling!
- Businesses and Homes That Appeal To and Support a Wide Range of People.
- A Thriving Economy (not solely tourism based).
- Less Cars on Main Street (due to a new parking garage).
- Well Maintained and Connected Neighborhoods Where People of Diverse Backgrounds and Incomes Live Together.
- Preserved Open Spaces and Parks — Natural River Flowing Through Town (not encased in concrete).
- Streets, Sidewalks, Trails, and Parks are Modern, Clean, and Welcoming.
- A Diverse Age Strata Of Locals.
- An Active and Well-Functioning Local Citizen Government: Diverse Council and Long-Serving Staff.
- Infill Development Has Reduced Number Of Vacant Lots (infill vs. greenfield).
- A Large Community Recreation Center.
The question posed by facilitator Wilcox — basically, “What would you like to see Pagosa become 20 years in the future?” — may have taken the Council and staff by surprise; the off-the-cuff answers shown above did not result from a vigorous discussion, or from hours of research and careful consideration. Nevertheless, we have a thoughtful Town Council that’s been grappling with various issues related to our community’s long-range future, and we can assume that the 14 long-range aspirations listed above are a reasonable indication of the key issues that our current Council feels worthy of government regulation, intervention, and spending, in 2020 and going forward.
Of the fourteen ideas listed, more than half — eight of them, to be exact — reference “walking” or “recreation.” Our current Council seems wonderfully interested in increased pedestrian activity.
Three of the ideas reference automobiles, and two of those refer to “less automobile traffic” in our core downtown, achieved via a “bypass” or via a “parking garage.” The third merely mentions streets in passing, as one of the Town’s several maintenance issues.
The current Council does not seem terribly fond of cars.
One person expressed the hope that Pagosa would continue to be “a Refreshingly Authentic and Healthy Small Town.”
As many of our readers know, the motto “Refreshingly Authentic” appears on certain Town documents and at least one Town website (without the words “Healthy” or “Small Town” attached.)
The motto appears, for example, on the cover of the print version of the 2019-2020 Goals & Objectives.
I’ve not come across a clear definition of the term “Refreshingly Authentic.” But it definitely implies that I have come from some other place that was either unrefreshing or inauthentic — or both — and that being in Pagosa has refreshed me, and provided a rare experience of authenticity. I’m not clear whether the motto is intended to describe Pagosa as it currently exists, or if we are talking about an aspiration.
So… what does the term “Authentic” mean, to the average citizen? (Assuming without any evidence that our Daily Post readers are average citizens.) Since this word appears on important documents…
Maybe we can start with a place that is the opposite of “Authentic.”
As I recall my experiences at Disneyland, as a child back in the 1960s — at the original theme park in Anaheim, CA — we did a lot of walking. The only cars I recall, within the park itself, were the tiny kid-friendly cars that drove around equally tiny streets in the “Autopia” ride. (My first thrilling experience of driving a car.)
The real cars were parked outside the entrance gates in a massive parking lot.
This was an authentic theme park… no doubt about it. But it was the opposite of an “authentic community.” No one lived there. It was meant to be experienced within the space of one or two days. Walking here. Walking there. Walking. Walking. Walking.
The future of Pagosa?