It’s a bit awkward, writing this little editorial column, this morning.
I developed an (almost inexplicable?) interest in local politics back in 2004, when a group of local activists gathered at my home in downtown Pagosa Springs to discuss the idea of creating a daily, online news magazine to cover the social happenings in our favorite small mountain town.
The social happenings to include local politics, and in particular, the decisions being made by elected and appointed government officials.
We had a collective concern, in 2004, that Pagosa Springs might be heading in an unpleasant direction — in the same general direction that so many other Colorado mountain towns were also headed. We perceived that we were slowly becoming affordable only to the wealthy.
We were also concerned that our town’s primary source of news about social happenings (including politics) was not giving us ‘both sides of the story’. We felt, as a group, that the weekly Pagosa Springs SUN had a tendency, in its coverage of government board actions, to quote the government officials making the decisions… but when the public spoke up, or protested, the SUN reporters tended to ignore those comments, for whatever reason. In other words, we felt our local newspaper was a voice for the ‘status quo’, supported largely by real estate advertising, and with a tendency to paint Pagosa Springs as a little paradise in the mountains where everyone gets along. Where, to quote Garrison Keillor, “all the children are above average.”
Since 2004, the SUN has become much better (in my humble opinion) at delivering unbiased news, and at telling both sides of the story… and seems considerably less fearful of sharing news that might cast Pagosa Springs’ community leaders in an unfavorable light.
Prior to 2004, I’d pretty much steered clear of Pagosa politics. I understood that a local citizen had very little chance of influencing the community’s general direction, unless they were elected or appointed to an important government board.
Or so I thought.
But since I was a website designer in 2004, and since the team ultimately picked the name “Pagosa Daily Post” for our new website, I became — like the rest of the team — an amateur journalist, on the lookout for a good story, on a daily basis.
It wasn’t hard to find those stories, if you were looking for them.
Eventually, the team that created the Pagosa Daily Post moved on to other (less controversial?) projects, and left the original website designer (me) in charge.
As a result, the Daily Post abandoned its original goal of becoming a profitable enterprise, and now runs almost entirely on volunteers and donations.
Luckily, the stories are still easy to find.
One of the stories unfolding at the moment concerns a proposed development called ‘Pagosa Views’. A group of experienced developers have indicated their intention of creating an 80-acre subdivision immediately west of the Pagosa Springs Elementary School, to be built out over the next decade and to include perhaps 650 residential dwellings and perhaps 144 ‘lodging units’ plus various amenities.
Sketches of the proposed development suggest that most people driving up or down Highway 160 would barely know it exists.
This development will need water and sewer services — among other services — but the property is not currently included in the Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation District (for water service) nor is it currently included in the Pagosa Springs Sanitation General Improvement District (for sewer service).
The Town of Pagosa Springs also has a lot of rules and regulations about creating a subdivision within the town limits.
The Pagosa Springs Planning Commission will be considering, this coming Tuesday, August 23, whether the Town government ought to allow the ‘Pagosa Views’ subdivision to move forward, and if so, what requirements would apply to the development…
The Town has not yet posted the agenda packet for the August 23 meeting. The last time the Planning Commission looked at the ‘Pagosa Views’ proposal was June 28. You can download the packet information from that meeting, here.
I mentioned that this editorial is a bit awkward for me, because one of the reasons I love writing for the Daily Post is: the act of researching and writing (hopefully) helps me better understand the complicated issues unfolding in Pagosa Springs.
Every weekday morning, I share my research and my conclusions… ideally, based on common sense.
Tomorrow, Thursday, August 18, the Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation District board will consider whether to provide a ‘Will Serve’ letter to the ‘Pagosa Views’ developers.
You can view that proposed letter, here.
The PAWSD board will also have a chance to consider whether to ‘include’ the 80-acre parcel into the water district. For whatever reasons, the parcel was not included in the district when the rest of downtown Pagosa joined the PAWSD water district — back in the 1980s? So the parcel has not been paying taxes to support the PAWSD district, nor has it had access to PAWSD services.
I currently sit on the PAWSD board of directors, and I’m expected to make a decision about these two questions, tomorrow. So we need to touch, briefly, on the issue of government decision-making.
Our government boards in Pagosa Springs generally have three main functions, in the service of their specific constituencies.
They approve an annual budget, based on expected revenues.
They vote on regulations and fees.
And they vote on specific requests that apply to specific properties. Tomorrow, for example, the PAWSD board will consider specific requests from the ‘Pagosa Views’ developers.
In the first two instances — budget and regulations — a board is expected to make decisions that best serve the entire constituency in a general way.
But when a board considers a specific request from a specific customer, or possible future customer, the board is expected to listen carefully to the arguments, for and against, and come to an unbiased decision, without having ‘prejudged’ the situation.
So I will be writing tomorrow, in Part Two, about the growth of the PAWSD district, generally. Writing is part of how I come to understand my community.
I won’t be discussing the ‘Pagosa Views’ project, specifically.
We’ll see how that plays out.
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.