Most of the discussions at the Pagosa Springs Town Council meeting on Thursday evening — the final meetings for Council member Nicole Pitcher and Mayor Don Volger — were friendly and somewhat perfunctory.
As a member of the audience, the only irritating event of the evening was the decision, by the Council, to go into executive session to discuss a $3 million proposal to purchase vacant land just east of, and adjacent to, the stagnant Mountain Crossing subdivision… a subdivision approved many years ago, but which has shown little evidence of an actual development.
One piece of evidence has made its appearance, however: the recent paving of Mill Creek Road by the property owners, along the south edge of the proposed subdivision. The paving project has been completed, and on Thursday, the Town accepted the stretch of street as a public amenity, meaning that the Town will now be plowing and performing maintenance on the road, going forward.
During the 15 minutes while I was out taking photos of the new pavement and the surrounding neighborhood, only one vehicle passed me by.
But the street has been converted from a dirt road to a three-lane street, with a center turn lane. Apparently, someone is expecting a lot of traffic on this street someday. As far as I know, only three other Town street segments exhibit a center turn lane: one block of Hot Springs Boulevard, one block of Pinon Causeway, and one block of North Pagosa Boulevard.
At the east end of the new street, near where the road turns back to dirt, we find the Strohecker asphalt plant. Typically, the Town of Pagosa Springs uses Strohecker for its asphalt paving projects. The street in front of the site is, of course, paved.
One of the last statements made by Council member Nicole Pitcher, at her final meeting, was a recommendation to enter into executive session to discuss the $3 million project, thereby closing the doors in the public.
Although this proposed land purchase has been under discussion for several months at Town Hall, the public knows almost nothing about the details. The lack of transparency continued on Thursday evening.
But that wasn’t Ms. Pitcher’s very last statement. Her final comments were delivered after the executive session.
Here are a few of those comments, the first of which was directed to Mayor Volger.
“I think you have set a tone, on Council, that has been so welcoming to conflicting ideas, to different personalities, and it has created a culture that’s so… not what you hear in the news, and not what’s going on nationally. It’s a culture of respecting other people and their ideas. So I’m very grateful to you for your leadership…
“You know, I feel like I’ve grown up, a lot [during the past six years]. Got married, had a baby. Not necessarily in that order, but…”
Laughter from the room.
“I’ve changed careers twice… I feel like, when I started on Council, I was in my late 20s, and I was a lot more… I’ve become more humble, watching our decisions play out over time. I certainly support what we’re doing… You know, obviously I’ve been part of the housing issue, and have been supportive of it…
“But I just have to get this off my chest. I have this nagging concern that… you know, when you think about the role of government, and any time we interfere with anything, the unintended consequences of our actions. And I’ve thought, many times, if we did nothing [about the housing issue], eventually Pagosa would be a less desirable place to live. We won’t have employees, we won’t have services, we won’t have a diversity of people.
“Eventually, ‘the market’ would fix itself, but Pagosa wouldn’t be… it wouldn’t be as nice. Because we won’t have services. This would obviously be a painful, long-term ‘solution’. However, if we continue to build housing… when we [support workforce housing], I do worry that we’re artificially supporting these increasing [real estate values]…
“…When I think about growth, and I think about Pagosa, there’s always that discord, between retaining the authentically refreshing, small mountain town, but also, people wanting to move here. And we are growing. So, it’s like — what can you actually control?
“And it seems to me, that a really important part of the culture, and why I love living here, is the respect that we have, when we treat one another… like, I’m not only going to know you for the rest of my life; I’m going to know your kids, and your kids are going to know my kids. And I think that fabric is what creates one of the things I love most about living in this small town… that this is not an isolated event. It’s all part of our larger story, and our lives will always be entwined.
“One thing I’ve always loved about Pagosa… that we’re not Red vs. Blue, in these simplistic ways… we’re our own thing… and I implore our community to remember that, and be ‘bigger’ than the ugliness you see in national politics…”
The seven people currently serving on Town Council did not dig the economic hole in which Pagosa Springs currently finds itself. The housing crisis and the borderline poverty into which some local families have found themselves sinking… the topographical tyranny of 50 years of sprawl development… the selling of our souls to the tourism industry… property owners associations with an overriding aim to increase property values… an active real estate industry with the same goal, of higher and higher prices…
…Many government and business community decisions, and their ‘unintended consequences’, unfolded well before Ms. Pitcher and her colleagues stepped up to fill seats on the Council dais.
Some questions for the Town Council members, in 2022, might be:
“Should we sit on our hands, and allow ‘the market’ take care of our problems?”
“Should we act like we know how to be developers, and risk millions of taxpayer dollars on a dicey greenfield venture at the east end of town?”
“Should we conduct the public’s business behind closed doors… or shall we gamble on transparency?”
Bill Hudson began sharing his opinions in the Pagosa Daily Post in 2004 and can’t seem to break the habit. He claims that, in Pagosa Springs, opinions are like pickup trucks: everybody has one.