In my editorial on Monday, I complained about some ‘uneven’ news coverage in our local newspaper, the Pagosa Springs SUN — specifically regarding its coverage of Archuleta County’s published ‘TABOR Notice’ connected with Ballot Issue 1A, a proposed sales tax increase that — if approved — would generate an estimated $6.5 million next year.
I had reported, in a previous editorial series, about the possible violation of Colorado election law by County Manager Derek Woodman, when he composed the TABOR notice.
I had also exchanged information with the SUN about this alleged violation, and SUN editor Terri House had provided me with documents obtained through a CORA (Colorado Open Records Act) request. I assumed that the SUN staff had the same concerns I had, about a County manager possibly violating election law in the midst of a sales tax increase campaign. So I was somewhat surprised, last week, when reporter Randi Pierce ran a story that seemed — to me — biased in favor of the County government.
Surprised and disappointed.
Apparently, I only had to be more patient…
A front page article written by Ms. Pierce in yesterday’s SUN (October 13) focused on the petition I filed in District Court last week, asking the court to look closely at the County’s TABOR notice and determine if its composition violated Colorado law — in particular, CRS 1-7-901 and 1-7-903.
The TABOR notice has already been mailed to registered voters, but there may still be ways to address the faulty election notice — assuming the court determines that further action is appropriate.
Although Ms. Pierce did not choose to contact me directly to hear “my side of the story”, she apparently got a fair understanding of my complaint from reading the court documents. (I don’t understand why some reporters feel comfortable interviewing government officials, but are less comfortable interviewing ordinary citizens. Speaking from my own experiences, ordinary citizens are typically less ‘guarded’ and less secretive than government officials… more willing to lay it all out on the table, you might say. Makes for a more interesting story… when people are willing to share their honest feelings and perceptions.)
At any rate, I am grateful for the more balanced coverage I found in this week’s SUN. I was pleased that Ms. Pierce published a summary of the arguments I had submitted to be included in the 1A TABOR notice, which had been severely edited — ‘censored’ is a more accurate term — by County Manager Woodman, or someone working under his direction.
Here’s how Ms. Pierce summarized the ‘Against’ arguments that — in my humble opinion — should have been included in the mailed TABOR notice, if the County had followed the law:
Hudson’s submitted argument against the ballot issue includes six points:
• That, since 2016, the amount of sales tax collected by Archuleta County “has practically doubled, from $9 million in 2016 to an estimated $17.6 million in 2022. During that same period, rental housing costs have also doubled, gasoline prices have doubled, food prices have increased, and inflation has more than tripled.”
He also outlines county employees have received salary increases, the county borrowed money to build a $19 million jail and the county is now “proposing to extract even more money from struggling families” by increasing the county sales tax rate from 4 percent to 5.5 percent — a 37.5 percent increase.
• The estimated sales tax collection increase for 2023 will be approximately $6.5 million, “and the tax is perpetual and will increase with inflation, year after year.” It states there are about 6,000 households in Archuleta County and the new tax would, in 2023, average more than $1,000 per household.
• The town and county governments hired a “Front Range strategy company to conduct a survey, to find out what problems the voters are most concerned about, because the governments didn’t know. But they had already chosen the $6.5 million tax amount, before they saw the survey results. The survey confirmed that only 4% of likely voters ‘strongly agree’ that Archuleta County can be trusted to spend taxpayer money wisely.”
• That the county claims a large portion of sales tax is paid by tourists, but has never presented “reliable data” to support that claim, but that independent analysis of Colorado sales tax trends based on county data, suggests that local, full-time households “bear at least 80% of the sales tax burden.”
• That economists acknowledge that sales taxes are “regressive” and “especially impact” low- to middle- income families.
• That a report by the Region 9 Economic Development District of Southwest Colorado reports that Archuleta County has the highest cost of living of any county in southwest Colorado and “We don’t need to add to the struggle our families are dealing with in 2022.”
I would call that an accurate summary… something very similar to what County Manager Woodman should have included in the mailed TABOR notice.
Last week, Ms. Pierce interviewed Mr. Woodman to get his perspective on the controversy, and Mr. Woodman admitted that he had taken the liberty of extracting arguments from a document that did not, in any way, meet the requirements of CRS 1-7-901.
From the SUN interview:
Woodman indicated the county also received two other statements, explaining one resident provided a pro statement outside of the survey and, similarly, one resident provided a con statement. “So, those were summarized and put into what the text was,” Woodman said.
Apparently, Mr. Woodman was embellishing the truth. The County did not receive any such “pro statement” for the TABOR notice. They received only one submission, which was my ‘Arguments Against’ submission.
Ms. Pierce’s news story, yesterday, concludes thus:
On Oct. 6, Woodman reported to The SUN he “completely misspoke” in stating that two letters were received related to the TABOR Notice pro and con statements — one in favor and one against. He indicated only one letter, Hudson’s letter against the ballot issue, was received by the statutory deadline.
One wonders how many other statements made by Mr. Woodman — relative to the Ballot Issue 1A campaign — have involved the act of “completely misspeaking”.