Traditionally, the Seven Christian Virtues or Heavenly Virtues combine the four classical Cardinal Virtues of prudence, justice, temperance, and courage (or fortitude) with the three Theological Virtues of faith, hope, and charity…
— from Wikipedia, ‘Seven Virtues’
I’ll share some thoughts about last night’s Town Council meeting in a future editorial series. But not today… because yesterday was full of other government meetings. A lot of ideas got thrown around. A few decisions were made.
The first meeting of the day — a work session — took place at the Archuleta County Administration Building. We heard Al Pfister, representing the Upper San Juan Watershed Enhancement Partnership, ask the Archuleta County commissioners for a taxpayer donation of $30,000 to a project that would ostensibly make the San Juan River more friendly for fish and other aquatic lifeforms, and possibly more inviting to tourists. Most of the funding for this project would come from the Colorado Water Conservation Board and the Town of Pagosa Springs.
Mr. Pfister promised that this was only the first step in what might be a multi-million dollar effort to make the San Juan River more attractive to tourists and recreationalists.
We then heard a proposal from Emergency Operations Director Mike Le Roux, Undersheriff Derek Woodman, and Planning Director Pam Flowers to establish a permitting system for private citizens who grow marijuana for their own personal use. It appeared this proposal is an attempt to simplify the process of identifying individuals who are growing marijuana in excess of the number of plants legally allowed by state law.
I plan to write an editorial about this proposal, at a future date.
The commissioners also heard requests for additional County employees.
Following the work session, the three commissioners — Alvin Schaaf, Ronnie Maez, and Warren Brown — sat down for a lunch of pizza and salad with four other elected County officials: County Treasurer Elsa White, County Clerk Kristy Archuleta, County Surveyor Ron Sutcliffe, and (arriving near the end of the lunch meeting) County Sheriff Rich Valdez.
I assumed the conversation would focus on the 2022 budget, but much to my surprise, most of the talk centered around the County facilities that have appeared in Harman Park over the past two years — the new County jail, the new County Courthouse, and the renovated Harman Art Museum that now houses the Sheriff’s Office and the Combined Dispatch operations.
Plans for the Harman Park neighborhood also include a future facility for the Archuleta County bus system, known as Mountain Express Transit.
But as Ms. White noted, the plans do not currently include new facilities for the County Treasurer, the County Clerk, or the County Assessor, who are all still operating out of the historic Courthouse building in the heart of downtown Pagosa.
Naturally, Ms. White (and Ms. Archuleta, and Mr. Sutcliffe) were curious why certain elected County officials have been blessed with new facilities — which is actually only one elected County official, our County Sheriff, Rich Valdez, who now has new offices and a new jail, plus a new courthouse to protect when court is in session.
As mentioned previously, the County Department of Human Services is also getting a new, $1.2 million office building, on Hot Springs Boulevard.
The commissioners got their new admin building on Lewis Street back in 2015.
The three commissioners were not able to explain exactly how all three elected County officials — who happen to be women — have somehow fallen through the cracks, where new facilities are concerned… left to run their offices in the historic Courthouse that was abandoned five years ago by the 6th Judicial District, under the direction of Chief Judge Jeffrey Wilson, and by Sheriff Valdez and his staff, on claims that the building was unhealthy and unsafe.
Carelessness, perhaps?
Could another dynamic be at work? Why would so many departments headed by males now have new facilities, but not so many, headed by females? Your guess is as good as mine.
The commissioners, yesterday, sounded slightly apologetic, but generally supportive of the idea of building a new County facility to house the female elected officials, except that they have pretty much shot their financial wad, so to speak, over the past two years on four other facilities, leaving the County about $27 million in debt as of 2022.
The wallet is pretty slender at the moment.
A couple of commissioners suggested that maybe they could scrape together some savings, over the next year, or two, and then go back to the voters for a tax increase.
No one seemed willing to suggest that the Treasurer, Clerk and Assessor have functioned just fine in the historic downtown Courthouse for the past 80 years, and maybe the best possible solution was to let them remain there? Considering that more than half the building is vacant… so there’s plenty of room to expand?
Ms. White wanted to stress the importance of having all the County officials within walking distance of one another — for the convenience of the public, of course.
In this day of instant communication and wireless technology, some folks might assume that having all our County officials in walking distance of each other’s offices, in brand new facilities, is not such an important feature — if it means the County is going to put the taxpayers even more deeply in debt for the next 25 years. There was a time, after all, when prudence was a virtue.
During this conversation, I heard it mentioned, a couple of times, that Archuleta County is growing at a surprising rate, and our County government needs to have ‘room to expand’.
In this editorial series, we noted previously that the rate of population growth between 1990 and 2007 averaged about 6% per year. That’s a high growth rate, for any type of community.
Since 2007, the population growth has averaged less than 1%. Sort of like it was prior to 1990, dating back to the furious population growth of the early 1900s, when the lumber mills were going gangbusters.
Does anyone really think Archuleta County is headed for a 6% growth rate — ever again, in our lifetimes?
Not me.