We’ve seen a lot of changes, here in Pagosa and across the world, over the past couple of months.
We’ve seen many changes over the past couple of decades.
But some things remain, in spite of ourselves. Personality conflicts, for example. They don’t disappear easily.
In some ways, the level of service at Town Hall in Pagosa Springs has improved in recent years, as the result of several interesting developments. For one thing, the number of staff has greatly expanded, in an effort to serve an expanding Archuleta County community, and also in an effort to spend the greatly increased tax revenues collected by the Town since the late 1980s.
One specific change at Town Hall was the adoption, by the Town voters, of a Home Rule Charter. Prior to that adoption, the Town of Pagosa Springs was required to operate, in all regards, according to Colorado state statutes. The Home Rule Charter gave the Town government and the Town voters the ability to create certain laws that better serve us — here, in this particular geographic location, with our particular economic conditions and demographic composition.
Some state laws still apply, but in some cases, we can do things differently than they are done in ‘statutory towns’. One particular difference is the ability, provided to the Town voters, to change the Home Rule Charter itself.
Which brings us around to the Town’s new Urban Renewal Authority — the URA — and the ongoing political controversy surrounding it. You might even classify it as a ‘personality conflict’…
Many of us are well aware of the personality conflicts — the name-calling, the personal attacks — that have lately become so common in Washington DC. It sometimes seems as though political compromises that ought to be made logically and rationally have become impossible, due to personal vendettas.
Similar personality conflicts occasionally arise in a small town like Pagosa Springs. We wish they didn’t, of course. We wish that political agendas were based upon “what’s best for the whole community” rather than on judgements held against this or that individual. But we’re all human, and personality-driven agendas — sometimes sloppy, sometimes ingenious — are perhaps more common that we’d like to admit.
Some of our Daily Post readers may have noticed an article by reporter Chris Mannara in the May 28 issue of the weekly Pagosa Springs SUN newspaper. The article was titled:
‘I don’t know how we got here’: URA commission addresses July 14 election
The little quote, “I don’t know how we got here”, was taken from an exclamation made during a May 21 Zoom meeting of the newly formed Urban Renewal Authority (URA) commission, a commission which includes all of our elected Town Council, plus former Town Manager Greg Schulte, Southwestern Water Conservation District board member JR Ford, and County Assessor Natalie Woodruff. (The Archuleta School District is allowed a seat on the commission, but has refused to appoint a commission member, in protest to the way the URA was formed.). Mr. Schulte was the source of the quote.
Here’s a bit of background which you might not have found in the Pagosa Springs SUN article.
After the Town Council voted, last November, to create an Urban Renewal Authority — based on findings of ‘dangerous’ conditions on the vacant travertine meadow south and east of the existing Springs Resort & Spa — the Town Council had a choice to create a URA commission that had wide representation from various government districts — the various districts which might be required, according to Colorado law, to provide millions of dollars in tax subsidies to future development schemes within the Town boundaries.
The Town Council decided against wide representation, and appointed itself as the majority of the new commission, even though the Town, it appears, would be contributing very little in the way of future TIF (Tax Increment Financing) funding for such projects. You can read more about the TIF controversy here.
In response to the way the URA and its governing commission were formed, six town residents requested permission to circulate a petition, proposing an amendment to the Town Home Rule Charter that would require voter approval for large TIF-funded development projects. The petitioners (myself included) believe that big tax subsidies given to private developers deserve voter approval, and we found plenty of Town voters who agreed with that political stance and who were happy to sign our petition.
Ballot Question A will go before the town voters, via a mail election, with the last day to vote being July 14.
Several other Colorado communities have already passed similar laws, requiring voter approval of TIF-funded projects, or in some cases, disbanding the Urban Renewal Authority altogether.
Voter participation in government can be frustrating to career bureaucrats and elected leaders. One of the career bureaucrats appointed to the URA commission is former Town Manager Greg Schulte, and his frustration with the idea of voter participation was evident at the May 21 Zoom meeting.
Here’s Greg Schulte’s full exclamation:
“I guess I just have to say I’m kind of disappointed. I don’t know how we got here. If the ballot question that is put forth in July is approved, then we’re essentially inviting a lawsuit that, based upon what I read, the Town is going to lose.”
Mr. Schulte’s statement is chock full of suppositions and assumptions, as we will discuss shortly.
Personality conflicts are unfortunately common during political decision-making processes, unless the board in question is acting merely as a rubber stamp for decisions already made by the bureaucracy. Such conflicts at Town Hall have been evident for many years. But at its core, the conflict is between Ever-Expanding Government and We the People.
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.