Talk is cheap, wishes are free and a fool is included with every purchase. So spend your time wisely.
— Jaime Reed
The photo above shows the Pagosa Springs Town Council considering a motion to enter into ‘executive session’ at their regular meeting last Tuesday, July 5. Shown on the far left is Town Attorney Clay Buchner, and — scratching her head — Town Manager Andrea Phillips, facing the dais. Seated at the dais we can see, from left, Brooks Lindner, Mat deGraaf, Mayor Shari Pierce, and Maddie Bergon. Not shown in the photo but also part of the executive session were Council members Matt DeGuise, Jeff Posey, and Gary Williams, plus Community Development Director James Dickhoff and Town Clerk April Hessman.
The State of Colorado — the government, that is — requires that tax-funded entities like the Town of Pagosa Springs do their talking and decision-making in public meetings. Talk is cheap, but it can cost the taxpayers plenty… so the Colorado Open Meetings Law provides a small measure of protection.
The protection is limited, however, when a governing body like the Town Council wants to talk about a potential real estate purchase, as was the case on July 5. Community Development Director James Dickhoff (recently promoted to that position) had presented the Council with a document listing nine vacant properties within the town limits, or at least close to the town limits, that might be suitable for a workforce housing project. You can download the 31-page presentation here.
The Town has already engaged Texas-based Servitas LLC (here’s their website) to build at least 64 units of workforce housing. From that website:
Workforce housing development creates affordable housing options for those earning between 60 and 120 percent of the area median income. Our workforce housing development often serves police officers, fighters, teachers, healthcare workers, clerks, and similar occupations. Applying our P3 structure directly benefits the moderate & middle income workforce, who are often priced out of the market and unable to afford housing near their workplace, yet do not qualify for other government assistance for subsidized housing.
I suspect Servitas didn’t actually mean “fighters” but probably, “firefighters”.
The proposed workforce housing project would be the largest taxpayer-supported housing project in Pagosa history, and also the largest aimed at ‘middle income’ households. The Town is proposing to provide the vacant land; Servitas is proposing to coordinate the construction and eventual management of the rental units.
Two Town-owned parcels on Apache Street have been proposed as the sites for some of the housing, but the Town is seeking another vacant parcel to accommodate perhaps 30 apartment units. Or maybe more than 30?
Tuesday’s executive session (from which the public and the local news media was excluded) lasted 2 hours. When the Council reconvened in public session, Council member Mat deGraaf made the following motion:
“I’d like to authorize staff and Mayor Pierce to negotiate, as discussed, the purchase of real estate, up to the amount discussed.”
The Council approved that motion, with one ‘Nay’ vote.
The Town government has set aside about $850,000 in this year’s budget, to address the local housing crisis. That might not seem like a lot of money, when the average home on the Pagosa real estate market is now selling for $450,000.
Other things were talked about on July 5, prior to and following the Council’s executive session. One of the discussions concerned the one-percent sales tax increase that Archuleta County Manager Derek Woodman had proposed at the June 28 joint Town-County meeting. Mr. Woodman had suggested that a one-percent increase might generate $4 million annually?
The expectation at the June 28 joint session was that each board would suggest possible uses for the additional tax money, and talk about those uses at a July joint meeting
The Council agreed at their July 5 meeting that — if the Town and County were to approach the voters with a tax increase — the Council would be interested in using the additional money for street maintenance, the problematic municipal sewer system, and recreational amenities.
Many other possible uses were talked about — police, dispatch services, childcare, housing — but didn’t wind up on the list.
We also heard from some Council members that they are not necessarily in favor of putting a sales tax increase on the November ballot.
Earlier that same day — July 5 — the Archuleta Board of County Commissioners had held their regular meeting. We might note that, although the sales tax increase proposal had originally come from the BOCC, and although both government boards had been tasked with developing ideas around possible uses for the additional tax money (if approved)… the BOCC didn’t bother to discuss the sales tax idea at their Tuesday meeting.
More to the point, perhaps, the BOCC did not discuss, on Tuesday, the ways in which the larger community could become part of the conversation.
Nor did the Town Council discuss how the community might be included in the tax discussion.
Government boards — tax-funded boards — sometimes talk as if they are in favor of community participation and effective communication with the community.
But maybe that’s just talk?
As I have always understood the concept of ‘community’, it implies a group of people who have developed a mutually supportive relationship. From the “What Is Community, Anyway?” essay that appeared on the Stanford Social Innovation Review website in 2015:
Members of a community have a sense of trust, belonging, safety, and caring for each other. They have an individual and collective sense that they can, as part of that community, influence their environments and each other.
That treasured feeling of community comes from shared experiences and a sense of — not necessarily the actual experience of — shared history. As a result, people know who is and isn’t part of their community. This feeling is fundamental to human existence.
Do we have those things in Pagosa Springs? A sense of trust, belonging, safety, and caring for each other?
Let’s talk about it.