Pagosa Springs workshop facilitator Yvonne Wilcox — inventor of a strategic planning technique known as ‘Gainstorming’ — has been leading the Pagosa Springs Town Council’s annual summer retreat for, I believe, the past three years, and has been attempting to refine her methods along the way, with the aim of helping to create a meaningful outcome.
As we all know, a “meeting” — be it personal, business or governmental — can occasionally be an inspiring, even profound, affair. But more often, we leave the meeting wondering why we wasted our time participating.
A facilitator’s primary aim, presumably, is to avoid the latter result.
As Ms. Wilcox explained to the Council at the beginning of the day-long session, she had two primary goals in mind.
First, that the meeting would conclude prior to 5pm. (Meetings that last longer than 7 hours having lasted too long.)
And secondly, that the Council would end up with no more than 10 “priorities” for the 2020-2021 tax spending season. Previous Town retreats had ended up defining almost every conceivable municipal purpose as “a priority” — which of course drains all meaning out of the word, “priority”.
Ms. Wilcox achieved her first goal, when the July 31 workshop concluded at about 4:15pm. And she came close to achieving her second goal when the Council agreed — reluctantly? — to about a dozen key goals for the coming year. (The final number seemed somewhat nebulous to me, watching from my corner of the room.)
Here are some issues that got discussed, but didn’t appear to make the “Top Council Priorities” list:
COVID-19; better cooperation with the Board of County Commissioners; expansion of the municipal geothermal heating system; improvements and repairs to the Town’s problematic sewer pipeline from downtown to the Vista Treatment Plant, seven miles away; a long-range plan for parking improvements in downtown; historic preservation; economic diversity; remodeling of Town Hall after the departure of the County Human Services Department in maybe 2021 or 2022; relocation of the Pagosa Springs Middle School from downtown to somewhere near the high school.
As I said, from where I was sitting, it sounded like these items were not priorities.( I presume some of the Council members were equally unsure about what, exactly, ended up as a priority, and what didn’t.)
I did take a photo of some items that did appear to make the priority list.
Broadband.
Streets/Sidewalks/Walkability.
(“Council facility update” appears on this list but didn’t seem to end up a ‘priority’.)
Economic development.
LUDC (Land Use and Development Code)
Parks.
Affordable Housing.
Advisory Boards.
Communication.
Land Acquisition.
URA (Urban Renewal Authority.)
The Daily Post has explored a number of these issues over the past several years, in our own quirky (but thoughtful!) manner, and I might end up linking to some of those articles as we explore where the Town government seems to be heading. But we can start, this morning, with “Broadband” — an Internet speed standard generally quoted as “25/3”.
Twenty-five million bits per second (25 Mbps) when you’re downloading, and three million bits per second (3 Mbps) on the upload. 25/3.
Here on Loma Street in downtown Pagosa, my Visionary Internet connection typically runs at about 3 Mbps down and 1.5 Mbps up. That’s for a normal household account, nothing fancy. With that level of service, my family has been able to publish the Daily Post, handle ‘distance learning’ with two elementary school students, spend way too much time on Facebook and Instagram, allow the girls to play various online games, and watch movies with minimal interruptions. Yes, the connection goes down on occasion — a rare occasion — and that’s a perfect time for everyone to take a walk up Reservoir Hill or run to City Market for milk and eggs.
Our service has been provided, as far as I know, without any expenditure coming from our local tax-supported governments. But many Pagosa leaders and appointees — including, it seems, the Town Council — have embraced the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) standard of 25/3. You can purchase that speed in certain areas of Archuleta County, if you can afford it. But it’s not available everywhere.
But maybe we need to clarify the “standard”. During the Obama administration, the FCC changed the definition of “broadband” from 4/1 (4 Mbps down, 1 Mbps up) to 25/3. This new definition drew attention to the “digital divide” — and annual FCC reports consistently concluded that broadband was not being deployed “in a reasonable and timely fashion.”
But in 2018, the Trump administration’s FCC chair Ajit Pai proposed that “10/1” was a more reasonable definition of broadband — and, additionally, that it was perfectly okay if that speed was available only on mobile phones.
With a definition like “10/1” instead of “25/3” a huge chunk of the “digital divide” instantly disappeared, much to the delight of ISPs (Internet Service Providers) who prefer to invest in highly populated urban areas where the cost of implementation, per customer, is much lower than in isolated rural areas.
But our Town leaders, with a total annual budget of $12 million for all municipal services, seem convinced they can play a role of some kind, in making sure every household in Archuleta County has access to “25/3” broadband.
Here’s Town Manager Andrea Phillips, speaking at the July 31 retreat about building out a robust broadband system here:
“I think there are a lot of strategic partnerships, too, and some private entities that can get onboard. I don’t know that we want to get into the ISP business. Maybe we build the infrastructure, or help build the infrastructure…”
Newly elected Council member Rory Burnett sermonized upon the “middle mile” — community-wide fiber or wireless infrastructure often shared by multiple private providers who then bring “last mile” service to actual businesses and homes:
“We have to build those type of assets, because there’s a lot of money in that middle mile arena, that could allow for the self-sufficiency of the [local, government-subsidized ‘Broadband Services Management Office’]. Because they have a lot of good ideas, and they have a lot of energy… I would say, as far as this Council is concerned, it’s a matter of letting them loose on: ‘Come to us with some proposals and partnerships that make this work’. And allow them to be self-sufficient…”
It’s now been five years that the Town and County governments have been handing hundreds of thousands of dollars to local broadband advocates, with the idea that we could solve our broadband access problems locally — without the need for constant taxpayer subsidies.
But maybe we’ve been wasting all that money? Because it sounds like some folks — far away, in a different social galaxy altogether — might have a very different solution to the rural broadband problem…