The Town of Pagosa Springs hosted a delightful ‘ComFest’ music event in Town Park on Thursday evening — a free event featuring one of Pagosa’s favorite rock ‘n roll bands, Ragwater, with an opening act by songwriter and guitarist Brooks Lindner.
Mr. Lindner is also a member of the Pagosa Springs Town Council. In the photo above, he is shown performing on the Town-owned portable stage at ComFest.
The Town staff manned the beer and wine tent at the event, and from what I could tell, a good time was had by all.
The stage was purchased by the Tourism Board in 2019 for $83,000 with the intention of promoting outdoor music events in the community. So far, the portable stage has been used mainly by the Town government itself, possibly due to the high cost of renting the stage ($870 per day, including the stage ‘wings’.)
Basically, only the Town government can afford to use our community-owned stage.
Earlier that same day, Thursday, at a special meeting of the Pagosa Springs Town Council, Brooks Lindner shared a few thoughtful comments with his fellow Council members, concerning a $6.5 million sales tax increase proposed for the November ballot.
We will hear some of his thoughts in a moment.
As mentioned on Friday, in Part Two of this editorial series, our local governments have seen a rather fabulous increase in sales tax collections in recent years. The sales tax paid by Archuleta County residents currently amounts to 6.9% on purchases made online or locally, with 2.9% going to the state government, and the remaining 4% accruing to our Town and County governments.
Prior to the 2018 US Supreme Court decision in South Dakota v Wayfair Inc, Archuleta County residents paid local sales tax only on purchases made within Archuleta County, which were split 50/50 between the Town and County governments. In 2018, the sales taxes totaled about $10.2 million, with the Town and County each receiving about $5.1 million.
Following the Wayfair decision, Archuleta County residents began paying Archuleta County sales tax to online retailers as well, and that revenue also accrued to the Town and County. (Tourists visiting Pagosa do not pay this additional online tax, because their sales tax is remitted to the city or town where they live.)
The total sales tax that the Town and County expect to receive in 2022? About $17.6 million.
Following the Wayfair decision, the Town and County saw their sales tax revenues increase by about 75%. Presumably, most of the increase has come from the pockets of Archuleta County residents, because tourists don’t pay online sales tax to our local governments.
One might think — with an increase from $10.2 million to $17.6 million — we would’ve seen a rather fabulous improvement in government services since 2018.
Perhaps the ComFest events are an example of the improvement?
But this 75% increase in revenues was not enough for our elected leaders, apparently. They seem to want even more sales tax money.
The Town Council voted 4-2, on Thursday, to support a County-sponsored tax increase measure in the coming November election.
The ballot language for that proposition will be discussed, and possibly approved, by the Archuleta Board of County Commissioners tomorrow, Tuesday September 6, at their 1:30pm meeting. You can download the County resolution here.
The proposed ballot question begins with this language:
SHALL ARCHULETA COUNTY TAXES BE INCREASED $6,525,000.00 ANNUALLY (FIRST FULL FISCAL YEAR DOLLAR INCREASE) BEGINNING JANUARY 1, 2023, AND BY SUCH AMOUNTS AS ARE RAISED ANNUALLY THEREAFTER…
A losing proposition?
Council member Brooks Lindner seemed to feel such a tax increase proposal was doomed to fail at the polls… and he said as much to his fellow Council members on Thursday.
“I don’t think this has a chance of passing. Period. And I’ll just state that, and give you the reasons why I believe that.
“For one thing, I don’t think we have enough information and enough research about the sales tax, and its impacts on a community. So, I think we’re flying blind, right there.
“Secondly, I’m not sure of the exact voter numbers, but I believe at least 80% of our community is either registered Republican or Unaffiliated, and our Unaffiliated voters tend to be conservative. So we have about 80% of our community who are fiscally conservative. You put a sales tax on the ballot, you’re going to wake those people up, and they are going to be looking at this very hard.
“They’re going to be looking at all this ballot language; they are going to be looking at the research regarding the impacts of sales tax; and they are going to be coming out of the woodwork.
“Do we have enough momentum and enough information to combat that, at this point?
“The numbers from the [recent Magellan Strategies] survey were not that great. They really weren’t. Especially the part about trust…”
Below are some of the numbers to which Council member Lindner was referring. Only 4% of respondents “Strongly Agreed” with the statement, “Archuleta County is fiscally responsible and spends taxpayer money wisely…”
Council member Lindner continued:
“This is a huge trust issue, and trust is the biggest thing, whenever you have a ballot issue. The County had two ballot issues that failed, not too long ago. I would ask, what have they done differently, in the interim, to suggest that this one is going to pass?
“But the biggest thing for me, really, is the the timeline for this. It just seems so rushed. You know, we keep talking about ‘education’ and educating the community. There’s not enough time to do that, guys. I mean, I’m sorry, guys… ballots go out October 17? That’s less than eight weeks. That is not enough time. There has not been a community process to this. A survey is not a community process…
“I think we might be able to do this, if we were super-focused on roads. But when you start talking about ‘other infrastructure’… the voters can see through that. ‘Oh my gosh, what does that mean? Who knows how they’re going to spend this money…’
“And one more thing. We should be having professionals help us with this. We’re sitting here, trying to hash out ballot language. That’s not our job. We don’t know how to write ballot language. We should have professionals doing that.
“And that should have been been done, already…”