Last year, a man with a plan from Albuquerque, and a man with some land from Pagosa, asked Town government for a favor. A $79.6 million favor. The man with the plan and the man with the land also asked the Town to create a new form of local government to funnel that $79.6 million favor to them.
And so the Pagosa Springs Urban Renewal Authority was hastily created. How hastily? Well, on the day the PSURA (not the sweetest sounding acronym) was formed, the Town Council was also informed their estimated $35 million contribution was illegal — and that nearly all the funding for ‘urban renewal’ projects would be extracted from entities that serve mainly Archuleta County residents. (The Town has been less hasty about just how they will fund their commitment to the project; seven months later, not a word, though I’ve heard the word “transparency” twenty times at Council meetings since then.)
The resolution title:
RESOLUTION NO. 2020-03
A RESOLUTION ADOPTING A GUIDING VISION AND DEVELOPMENT PRINICIPLES FOR THE PAGOSA SPRINGS URBAN RENEWAL AUTHORITY
The PSURA will meet tonight, Tuesday July 7, at 5pm to discuss their ‘Priniciples’ (sp) which purport to reflect the Town’s recently-updated “General Plan.” You can download the 7-page agenda packet here.
Okay, basing an article on a misspelled word, and a incorrectly labeled “Plan”, is petty. More so since I myself once printed 2,000 copies of a magazine with a typo on the front cover. Yet the “Development Priniciples” to be approved by the PSURA tonight are more evidence that the PSURA is still little more than a device to hand $79.6 million to David Dronet and Jack Searle.
Maybe subconsciously someone misspelled “priniciples” because they realized there are no principles at play here. (Too much “I” is often a problem in politics; and, yes, mea culpa).
The resolution starts with a restatement of the dangerous blight posed by the Springs Partners property. Is this a legal requirement? Those of us in the reality-based community will never accept that ‘dangerous blight’ exists on Hot Springs Boulevard. So, if not a legal requirement, why reprint these deceptions?
The “Development Priniciples” to be approved are largely a touchy-feely word salad topped with some East German dressing — “solid expression of its collective identity” (can we get an “our” at least?) and “diverse offering of cultural and arts” — along with some red herring and a large portion of ‘dog that doesn’t bark’.
The Development Priniciples are largely a cut-and-paste from the Town Comprehensive Plan, known as the ‘Comp Plan’ forever at Town Hall. Tonight’s resolution repeatedly refers to the Comp Plan as the “General Plan” (though not, mercifully, as the “Gen Plan.”) Again, why is Town Administration familiar with every detail of Mr. Dronet’s plan but seemingly forgetful of the actual name of its own ‘Comprehensive Plan’? (To be fair, the updated Comp Plan was rebranded “Pagosa Springs Forward” two years ago, which sounds like a Yiddish language version of The SUN).
The first red herring is the oh-so-reluctant language regarding eminent domain. We are assured eminent domain is “the very last resort.” Legally, it’s always the last resort… and it’s always the first threat. Might as well say “the very, very, very, very last resort.” Question is what, at last, you will resort to. And the PSURA will resort to eminent domain.
That’s clear from the next red herring, the best sentence in the resolution: “The PSURA’s mission is to facilitate public and private investment in underutilized areas to address community priorities and create thriving places.” A well written sentence with a very carefully chosen word: “underutilized.” That’s the keystone concept which permits URAs to take private property and transfer its ownership to a URA developer who can promise more sales and property taxes by “fully utilizing” the property. According to the US Supreme Court, no blight determination is required. That term — “underutilized” — was the basis for the Kelo v. City of New London decision. Not a word that appears in an English sentence randomly.
Think on it, and you realize what a menacing basis for government action that is. In fact you must think on it, for not to think on it would be to underutilize your…
Please don’t be fooled by what’s happening tonight.
And what about the helping of ‘dog that doesn’t bark’? There are two helpings actually. The first was mentioned above. The URA priniciples still don’t mention how the Town is going to fund its commitments in its new URA legally. No one on the Council seems troubled by this.
The second is debt. URAs are authorized to assume massive debt without voter approval. Will the PSURA issue bonds to construct infrastructure for developers or back the developer’s construction loans? Again, no one on the Council seems troubled by this.
I am troubled by it. I hope you are as well.
If anything has been underutilized over the past year, it is the talents of the men and women on our Town Council.
Glenn Walsh began contributing to the Daily Post in 2006, with an eye towards government overreach, and underreach. Glenn is a great admirer of the later works of John Stuart Mill and the early photography of Anita Ekberg.