The Archuleta Board of County Commissioners held a work session with their County Manager and County Attorney yesterday morning, as they normally do on Tuesday mornings, and followed up in the afternoon, with a regular public business meeting, as they typically do on alternate Tuesdays.
The morning work session kicked off with a presentation by Liane Jollon, Executive Director, San Juan Basin Public Health. Ms. Jollon has been making regular presentations to the Archuleta BOCC since the beginning of the year, presumably in response to requests from our commissioners for better communication.
Ms. Jollon’s presentation focused almost entirely on communicable diseases, and mainly on COVID’s latest variant: “BA.5”. She admitted that we don’t yet have much information about “BA.5” but it initially appears to be less threatening than certain previous variants.
Ms. Jollon shared a Power Point slide that stated, “CDPHE’s current epidemic curve for SW Colorado is in ‘sustained decline’…” and that “Hospitalizations are relatively flat.”
Nice to know that this particular crisis might be fading into the sunset.
But we have other crises to deal with. Notably, we have the La Plata Board of County Commissioners discussing the dissolution of our shared public health agency, San Juan Basin Public Health, in reaction to dissolution discussions, last year, by our Archuleta County commissioners.
I wrote about that controversy a couple of weeks ago.
I also found it odd that no one — no one — mentioned the threatened dissolution of the health district during the morning meeting with Ms. Jollon.
At the BOCC’s afternoon meeting, the hot topic for public comment was going to be a proposed six-month moratorium on Short-Term Rental (STR) applications, and the commission chambers was ‘standing room only’ with realtors and STR owners, and other interested parties.
But the initial public comments, at the start of the meeting, concerned the Health District crisis.
First to address that topic with the commissioners was local activist Candace Jones.
“Last Thursday, the Pagosa Springs SUN reported on the June 30 meeting of the San Juan Public Health District. According to the SUN’s report, LaPlata County Commissioners have discussed “the legalities of separating from the district,” held a public work session on that topic, and directed county staff to “determine the financial situation and personnel policies of the SJBPH.”
“I scanned the agendas of your work sessions and meetings going back to January. The future of the San Juan Basin Health District appeared on a work session agenda on March 1 and as ‘citizen concern’ on June 21.
“I didn’t see the topic on a regular meeting agenda of the Commissioners this year…
“From the SUN’s report, it appears LaPlata County is moving expeditiously toward a decision to withdraw from the public health district. When LaPlata County withdraws, dissolution of the public health district will follow, and Archuleta County will face another significant infrastructure issue – on top of water, sewer, and landfill limitations.
“San Juan Basin Public Health consults with and inspects childcare facilities to confirm they comply with health and safety requirements. San Juan Basin Public Health conducts required food safety inspections at restaurants and retail locations. San Juan Basin Public Health provides water quality testing for private wells, and it is the permitting authority for on-site wastewater treatment which includes septic systems.
“This is just a fraction of public health and environmental services that would have to be replaced by Archuleta County in the absence of the public health district. These services impact the health and safety of residents and visitors as well as planning for future development.
“La Plata Commissioners have staff working to understand the operations of the public health district so that they can plan for the future. What is Archuleta County doing?
“I don’t want to assume the absence of public health from your agendas means you are doing nothing. On the other hand, silence doesn’t engender confidence this matter has the attention it deserves from Archuleta County…”
This concern — about the lack of public discussion by our three commissioners, about the Health District dissolution — was echoed by the next speaker, Patricia Byers.
“I attended the [BOCC] meeting that happened right after the [SJBPH] Board of Health recommended dissolving… and Commissioner Brown, at that meeting, you stated, ‘I am not in favor of dissolving, because we can’t afford it.’
“So I’ve been looking at the County’s 2022 Budget, and I don’t know very much about County finance, but we can’t afford any additional costs. It says, our County basically — and I quote — is ‘operating under survival techniques.’ We’re barely able to meet our obligations. So the possibility of taking on something additional — that is already been working — makes absolutely no sense at all…”
Having myself read through much of the County’s 2022 budget, I couldn’t recall coming across that exact quote.
But Ms. Byers’ quote from that document was, in fact, fairly accurate…
County’s response to these conditions: Taken together, the conditions continue to threaten the County’s financial health. During the last decade or so the County has employed a number of “survival tactics” in an effort to cope; as follows.
- Keep operating costs lower than projected revenue, regardless of the “need” for increases.
- Aggressively control spending, to come in under budget each year, as much as possible.
- Defer Capital Replacements and Capital Maintenance, when absolutely necessary.
- Use “unanticipated revenue” to catch up with deferred Capital Replacements and Capital Maintenance.
- Never use “unanticipated revenue” to expand operating costs.
The 2022 budget document notes specifically that, in order to pursue its rather aggressive program of building new County facilities, the County has shifted resources “away from the Road & Bridge fund, further limiting the amount available for badly needed road improvements.”
Ms. Byers detailed the financial advantages the County has enjoyed, as a result of operating a shared public health district with neighboring La Plata County, and concluded her comments yesterday:
“Commissioner Maez, you said at the meeting I attended, that there was a possibility of a phone call. Did this phone call ever happen between La Plata and Archuleta?
“Have a meeting. Work out your differences, before you take on this huge, expensive, time-consuming task.
“Why aren’t you telling us what this [dissolution] is going to cost us? Why aren’t you telling us what is going to happen to these valuable services?
“All of us use these services — we want our restaurants inspected, we want our child care facilities inspected — but it’s the lower income people in the county who use a lot of the service that most of us don’t know about. Are those services g
going to be affected? Are those services going to go away?
“Start telling us what is going to happen, if in fact you can’t stop La Plata County from dissolving the district.
“Be transparent. Tell us why this is going on, and if it has to happen, tell us…”
Some advice for the commissioners.
The commissioners also got some advice from the public, when they reached the following item on the agenda:
A. PUBLIC HEARING
Consideration of Resolution 2022-75: Imposing a Temporary Moratorium on the Submission, Acceptance, Processing or Approval of any Application for a Permit or Other Land Use Approval Related to the Operation of a Vacation Rental in Unincorporated Archuleta County.
The resolution was passed unanimously, with a slight modification. But not until the commissioners had heard complaints from certain people in the audience.