By Boyd Neagle
Last week, Archuleta County Sheriff Rich Valdez announced he would not be seeking reelection.
Although I welcome this announcement, I’m concerned that the political network often referred to as the “Good Ole Boys” will field a Sheriff candidate dedicated to maintaining the Status Quo — rather than someone with innovative ideas about improving the overall safety of our community.
The Sheriff’s announcement came on the very same day the sitting Undersheriff was picked as the new County Administrator. Although Undersheriff Derek Woodman is not yet officially hired for the Administrator position, his appointment would mean that nearly all the County’s top leadership and decision-making positions belong to a group intimately connected by a shared loyalty to the Sheriff’s Office. This group includes Sheriff Valdez, plus sitting County Commissioners Alvin Schaaf and Warren Brown, and Undersheriff Woodman — all formerly part of the Sheriff’s Office administration.
An additional issue is the County HR Director Tina Woodman, the former campaign manager of one current Commissioner and the wife of the apparent new County Administrator.
How does this even happen? This leaves one lone commissioner to object to anything the Sheriff and his confederates want to push through.
This unhealthy consolidation of political power cannot go unchecked. The Sheriff has said he has “his boys” on the BOCC, and this is the result. This type of consolidated power is exactly how an oversized jail — twice voted down by the taxpayers — gets built.
This political monopoly is how the Sheriff’s Office is allowed to go $302,000 over budget (and counting) on renovations to a house now used for an office. The County spent an additional $36,000 on a new fence for that office this year, and has been asked for an additional $75,000 to now renovate the exterior. This does not include the use of $280,000 in COVID funds appropriated for a walkway from the jail to the new courthouse.
This is not merely a pattern of “Tax and Spend” — it’s “Borrow and Spend”. This is not an appropriate use of county taxes, nor does it indicate careful planning for the future. These choices have required the property tax revenue to be taken from other departments and road maintenance to make up for the mismanagement. The BOCC borrowed millions of dollars for the jail and courthouse projects at the expense of other community needs.
There are many public safety needs our current Sheriff has neglected due to bad management and poor planning. Meanwhile, the Sheriff’s Office invents supposed emergencies to get what they want. Their next fiasco is with the use and sale of the old court/jail building — a building the Sheriff abandoned in 2015, claiming it was environmentally unsafe to use, but which continues to be occupied (apparently without safety concerns) by three County departments. If the old courthouse is sold, the County will need housing for those three departments, and also a place to store Sheriff’s huge collection of evidence — so they will need to find a new building for those obligations.
You cannot fix bad management by throwing more tax dollars at it. The “Good Ole Boys” will simply end up mismanaging a larger budget. We should be spending the taxpayers’ money on better service, not on lining the pockets of out-of-town contractors.
Together, we can work together for positive change, at the Sheriff’s Office and the County administration. If you would like to learn more about how our community can begin turning things around, please visit https://www.facebook.com/BoydNeagleforSheriff/ and learn more about my campaign for Sheriff.
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