We’re sharing a somewhat unusual op-ed in the Daily Post this morning, written by local builder Bob Hart, concerning the (flawed?) process that has unfolded over the past several weeks at the County Administration Office on Lewis Street.
Mr. Hart’s op-ed is based on a letter he wrote on Sunday to Commissioner Alvin Schaaf, chair of the Archuleta Board of County Commissioners, objecting to the ‘Analysis and Finding’ report submitted to the BOCC on March 29.
I refer to Mr. Hart’s op-ed as ‘unusual’ because he is, in fact, one of the people who has made an offer to purchase the Courthouse, and in my experience, it’s unusual for a anyone in the Pagosa business community to publicly criticize the BOCC, and even more unusual for someone who is proposing a business arrangement with the County, to criticize the BOCC…
…and even more unusual than that… for the critic to allow an op-ed to be published in the Pagosa Daily Post, of all places.
The Commissioners also received a letter objecting to the ‘Analysis and Findings’ report, from the Investment Group of Loeser, Blumhardt and Scholl, who also made an offer on the Courthouse.
I don’t always agree with the op-eds we share here in the Daily Post. In Mr. Hart’s case, I fully support his perspective and his proposed solution, which is to disallow offers made after the BOCC’s stated deadline, and to run a new (and more thorough) analysis of the offers.
The proposed sale of the downtown County Courthouse as been in the works for many years. Circa 2005, the dream of building a new, modern County government facility — and abandoning an old but historic government building to the wrecking ball — generated the purchase of 5 acres of vacant land across the street from Town Hall on Hot Springs Boulevard, with the idea of creating a ‘whole-community government complex’ at the end of that formerly dirt road. The Town was able to complete its Town Hall on the west side of the boulevard, along with the Ross Aragon Community Center… but the County ultimately abandoned its 5-acre purchase ($750,000) as the site for a new jail and Sheriff’s office due to deed restrictions included in the original purchase agreement. Instead, half the site was leased to the Archuleta County Housing Authority for the Rose Mountain Townhomes low-income housing development. The other half remains vacant.
You can read more about the curious kettle of Courthouse fish in this 2019 Daily Post editorial.
Nevertheless, several iterations of the BOCC have continued to pursue the dream of seeing the Courthouse demolished, to make room for… something?… that might contribute more vitality to the downtown retail district than a government building does? This was, and is, something of an delusion, because for most of the year — outside of peak tourist season during the month of July — the County Courthouse is still one of the busiest buildings in downtown… even now, after the Commissioners and the Sheriff and Sixth Judicial District have moved on to other facilities.
As a result of this abandonment agenda, the Courthouse has been poorly maintained since 2005, since it was presumably going to be sold and torn down anyway.
Once the new County jail was completed in Harman Park, and construction of the new Judicial Courthouse was begun next door to the jail, several offers to purchase the old downtown building began to arrive, and the BOCC announced that they would make a decision about selling the Courthouse at their February 15, 2022 meeting.
When February 15 arrived, however, Commissioner Ronnie Maez proposed that a decision was premature — perhaps grossly premature? — because the BOCC had no plan, whatsoever, detailing how the County was going to accommodate the three offices still occupying the old Courthouse, following the sale.
I have to salute Commissioner Maez for his appropriate hesitation. The BOCC has put the taxpayers deeply in debt, building a new County jail and new Judicial Courthouse and remodeling the old Harman Museum into an office for the Sheriff, and unfortunately, all of these projects were done without voter approval, and thus proceeded without the benefit of the lower-interest-rate general obligation bonds that typically finance government facilities. In order to build yet another building — somewhere? — the BOCC might be forced, by financial circumstances, to wait until the voters agree to approve a general obligation bond for the additional facility.
How likely is it that the taxpayers will hand the BOCC the millions of dollars need to completely abandon the old Courthouse, when it’s still functioning reasonably well?
The main problem, as I see it: the taxpayers have refused every financial request from Archuleta County since 2006. The voters recently agreed to pledge higher taxes to the School District and to the Fire Protection District, but the County has consistently failed to win their endorsement for 18 years. I doubt the BOCC enhanced their reputation when they went behind the voters’ backs and built a new oversized jail, after having their plan rejected twice by the voters. I have been told that the oversized jail is now understaffed.
As mentioned, the BOCC currently has no plan for future accommodations for the County Clerk, County Assessor and County Treasurer, if the Courthouse gets sold. No Plan A. No Plan B. No plan at all.
Yet they have, on today’s 1:30pm agenda, a plan to choose a purchaser for the Courthouse?
At this point, the only sensible offer on the table, it seems to me, is the offer from builder Bob Hart. Mr. Hart’s offer would allow the Clerk, Assessor and Treasurer to remain in the old Courthouse indefinitely, with the first five years being rent-free. None of the other offers provide that kind of long-range flexibility to the County.
To put some icing on the cake, Mr. Hart is offering to include six units of workforce housing into his Courthouse remodel. (He is not planning to tear the building down.) None of the other offers say anything about workforce housing.
I plan to attend the BOCC meeting today at 1:30pm, and look forward to the Commissioners rejecting the ‘Analysis and Finding’ report as incomplete, and also as tainted by an unethical bidding process.