I got fired last night, as a volunteer member of the Town Planning Commission, by a unanimous vote of the Town Council. “Removed without cause” was the wording of the motion offered by Council member Mat deGraaf.
Back in 2016, when a group of us were working on the creation of Archuleta County’s first District-authorized public charter school, one of the key principles we wanted to build into the school ‘culture’ was the acceptance of failure. No, actually, we wanted to promote failure as a positive aspect of human development. We knew that placing a child into a situation where ‘failure’ is consistently punished or discouraged would be the very best way to squash a child’s creativity and entrepreneurial spirit.
We wanted students to feel unfettered in their exploration of ideas and alternatives. To be fearless about the unknown.
That was my basic attitude, joining the Town Planning Commission. To be fearless about protecting the rights of all of town residents — the families, the businesses, the developers, the rich, the poor, the homeless. Surely, such a mission calls for an allowance for failure.
How do we protect the rights of millionaire developers… and homeless motel workers… equally and fairly? Quite a challenge.
Even more challenging when the existing Town bureaucracy feels free to ignore sections of its own adopted Land Use and Development Code (LUDC)… and feels free to publicly attack and then remove a volunteer commissioner who rocks the boat.
But at least one person got part of the outcome he wanted, last night: local developer and philanthropist Jack Searle, whose development projects I have supported in the past but who intensely disliked my suggestion that his Cobblestone townhomes development, built several years ago, apparently failed to meet Sections 7.2.1, 7.3.3, 7.3.4, 7.3.5 and 7.4.1 of the Town’s LUDC. (I invite Mr. Searle to explain, in a publication of his choice, exactly how Cobblestone did in fact meet all those required regulations when it was built.)
His recent River Rock Estates subdivision proposal appeared poised to ignore the very same LUDC sections, but changed its tune during the final approval process, and in the end, agreed to meet most of the requirements I’d complained to Town Council about.
Last night, Mr. Searle expressed his dislike for Bill Hudson, in no uncertain terms.
“I did want to comment on this issue of removing Bill Hudson from his position as a Planning Commissioner. I know this was recommended to y’all by the Planning Commissioners, and they voted to [recommend his removal] ‘without cause.’ I’m asking tonight that the Council remove Bill Hudson based on clear, ethical violations. If Bill is removed ‘without cause’ then this opens the door to individual interpretation as to why Mr. Hudson is being relieved of his duties.”
Mr. Searle then quoted from Part One of this current editorial series, which you can read here. He seemed to be objecting to my characterization of the relationship between himself and Town Planning Director James Dickhoff.
He continued:
“[Mr. Hudson] may call it ‘annoying behavior’. I call it despicable behavior. I see Bill Hudson — and this is my opinion — as a destructive force who tends to see only the negative in his fellow man, particularly government officials and business people. His negativity feasts on the carcass, plans and dreams of those who strive for the betterment of Pagosa Springs. His false statements and wild, imaginative innuendos are the result of a decrepit and suspicious mind, in my opinion.”
Ouch.
“But putting this all aside, Mr. Hudson should be removed from the Planning Commission due to unethical practices…
“…Bill Hudson has had a large part in circulating a petition that would require a Town vote for any URA project that involves over $1 million in [Tax Increment Financing] money. This would essentially thwart most potential URA plans that would be considered…”
Interesting that Mr. Searle should bring up our petition. Last October, Mr. Searle circulated a petition among town voters that had the potential to direct millions of local tax dollars into his own pockets, to help pay for a development on his vacant property on Hot Springs Boulevard. Mr. Searle’s project is the only development thus far to propose TIF tax incentives — taxes to be extracted from Archuleta School District, Archuleta County, Pagosa Fire Protection District, Upper San Juan Health Service District, Upper San Juan Library District and three water districts, over a period lasting up to 25 years.
The tax subsidies proposed by Mr. Searle, and his partner David Dronet, are not small. Here’s the chart from the proposal they submitted to the Town, last summer:
Total TIF revenues: more than $79 million.
Mr. Searle concluded his thoroughly negative presentation of a fellow business owner and community member:
“This man should not be representing the Town in any capacity.”
My personal goal, when I applied for a seat on the Planning Commission, was never to ‘represent the Town.’ I would much rather represent the taxpayers — the taxpayers whom the Town was incorporated to serve and protect. My goal was to try and change the ‘culture’ of the Planning Commission… to bring about a change, from being a group that occasionally rubber stamped arbitrary, unsubstantiated rulings by the Town Planning Director… from being a group that consistently failed to fulfill what I considered its primary mission:
Develop and recommend to the Town Council new policies, ordinances, administrative procedures, and other means that allow expansion to be accomplished in a coordinated and efficient manner;
Mr. Searle didn’t get all he wanted. He didn’t get a Council resolution that carefully delineated all of my unethical crimes. The motion merely stated I was being removed ‘without cause.’
But his publicly expressed distaste for a volunteer commissioner certainly brought some drama to the Council meeting, and offered a clear contrast to the two members of the public who spoke, respectfully, in support of my efforts to reform an occasionally-unethical bureaucracy.