Daily Post humor writer Louis Cannon yesterday touched on the pending ‘public health district’ divorce between the La Plata County commissioners and the Archuleta County commissioners that appears fated to take place in the not-too-distant future.
I’m not sure if Mr. Cannon’s advice was helpful.
Terri House, editor of the weekly Pagosa Springs SUN, shared a more pessimistic view of the pending divorce last Thursday, in an editorial titled, “Too little, too late?”
Ms. House compared the situation to getting dumped by a boyfriend in high school.
She wrote:
What if your boyfriend told you he wanted to play the field and see who else is out there? You might wait for awhile and hope he comes back to you, but without a commitment, you most likely won’t hang around for long. You will want to move on to something better for yourself and your future. You aren’t going to wait around for him to recommit to a relationship.
What if your boyfriend did not even bother to talk to you about breaking up before he started looking for someone else?
An apt metaphor, in this situation. From what I can tell, the Archuleta County commissioners — as they became increasingly dissatisfied with the San Juan Basin Public Health district during the COVID crisis — did not communicate well with the La PLata County commissioners.
Curiously enough, one of the key complaints expressed by our Archuleta commissioners about SJBPH, concerned a lack of communication.
But rather than sitting down with the La Plata commissioners, face-to-face, and discussing ways to improve the health district… our Archuleta commissioners formed a citizen group to explore the dismantling of SJBPH.
Here’s an excerpt from Ms. House’s editorial.
Archuleta County Commissioner Warren Brown appealed to the La Plata County Board of County Commissioners on Tuesday morning in what appeared to be a last-ditch effort to keep San Juan Basin Public Health intact.
Brown was the only commissioner from Archuleta County to make the trek to La Plata County. He spoke about his desire to keep the district whole.
He noted that Archuleta County was leaning toward keeping the health district together.
“Unfortunately, it sounds like La Plata County is at least leaning towards going down a different path than Archuleta County chose to go with, and I can tell you, from my point of view, at least from a financial standpoint, I don’t believe that Archuleta County is prepared financially to stand up a health department. I believe there will be a day, and it may be sooner than I would like, … based upon the tone of our meeting here and on this topic, but it’s going to be a substantial struggle for Archuleta to bring these services,” Brown stated.
From the response of all three La Plata County commissioners, Brown’s attempt was too little, too late.
I didn’t attend the La Plata County Commissioners’ meeting, and I appreciate Ms. House writing about the meeting, and the unpleasant situation we’re all facing.
Perhaps, Ms. House could have written an editorial about the situation a year ago… before things got to this point.
Too little, too late?
Meanwhile, I appreciate Commissioner Brown’s effort, appearing in front of the La Plata County commissioners and making his appeal. In my experience, you often need to make more than one appeal, if you want to change the minds of elected officials. Dozens, perhaps?
I hope Commissioner Brown doesn’t throw in the towel after one attempt.
We have a couple of other ‘too little, too late’ stories unfolding in Pagosa Springs.
The Town Council is meeting with the Archuleta County commissioners today at 5pm at Town Hall, to discuss a proposed question for the November ballot. Should our two local governments ask the voters for a $6.5 million tax increase? And if so, should our two local governments have some idea what the money would be used for?
As Town Council member Brooks Lindner suggested two months ago, discussions about a ballot question of this magnitude — a 37.5% increase in sales tax collections — ought to have started a year ago, with numerous open and honest conversations with the voters.
Another ‘too little, too late’ situation might be apparent at the Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation District, concerning a sizable expansion of the Snowball water treatment facility — a project that has seen its estimated cost triple over the past year, to $44 million. PAWSD is nearly done with the design for the project, but at least a couple of the PAWSD board members (myself included) are wondering what happened to the original cost estimates.
Is it too late to change course? Are there alternatives?
Effective communication doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time to talk things out… and get everyone onboard… or find a suitable compromise.
And no matter how we try, sometimes it’s simply too little, too late.
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.