By Rachel Suh
As your official “No on 1A” Candidate for Archuleta County Commissioner on the November 8 General Election Ballot, I will preface my position with the fact that it is very difficult to get current numbers for Pagosa Springs Area tourism.
For my analysis, I used a 2015 Consumer Report found at https://pagosasprings.civicweb.net/filepro/documents/59383/ and a 2017 Smart Growth Report, found at http://visitpagosasprings.com/ckeditorfiles/files/work-with-visitpagosasprings-v1.pdf.
The numbers that I can work with, to estimate the impact of tourism in the area, are outdated at best, but to generalize, the numbers show that about 375,000 tourists are coming through Pagosa Springs every year, with the average length of stay being about 5 nights.
With this being said, Archuleta County infrastructure is crumbling, as we depend on 14,000 residents to support a population of 375,000 people using our roads, water, landfill, and sanitation systems.
For this reason, I am not in favor of raising the sales taxes on Archuleta County residents to support our infrastructure needs. Estimates range from 60-80% of our sales tax will be paid by full-time residents.
According to the 2017 Smart Growth Report for Region 9, taxes are also the second highest expenditure for Archuleta residents.
I believe there is another solution, and another way to solve our fiscal issues (besides deeply questioning the exponential growth in government bureaucracy).
I am suggesting a graduated Lodgers Fee up to $6 per person per day visitors who want to stay overnight in Pagosa — this would apply to all short-term rentals ($6), bed and breakfasts ($6), RV and camp sites ($1), and other hospitality venues ($2 per room).
Approximately 13% of tourists stay with friends and family or do not stay overnight in Archuleta County, meaning 326,250 tourists can be charged a fee — or graduating fees that are lower for campsites than short term rentals — on a yearly basis. The Town of Silverton has already taken this approach.
With the average stay being approximately 5 days, the annual revenue the town and county could see from a daily lodging fee could be as high as $10 million dollars a year, depending on whether a standard or graduated fee schedule is adopted.
With this approach, we would not be overburdening working families and retired individuals who work at and support our local businesses so that we can provide an enjoyable experience for our visitors.
We need to focus on having the correct group of people paying for the infrastructure needs of a tourist community. It should be the tourists who pay this additional cost to support our infrastructure needs — and not the working people who are already struggling in our current economy.
For this reason, I will be voting ‘No’ on 1A. There are other solutions that should be discussed that will give relief to full-time residents who are instrumental in keeping our tourism economy flourishing, celebrate our community’s hard work, and provide solutions for the problems our community is experiencing due to not being able to support our growth in tourism.
As your next commissioner, I will fight to ensure this funding is transparent and and expenditures are broken down into a yearly budget with metrics to show exactly where these funds are being spent: 50% of funding should address critical and at-risk infrastructure, such as roads, the landfill, and the sanitation district and the remaining funds towards solutions to our housing crisis — and minimally towards administrative costs.
Discussions on these solutions and expenditures should be open and transparent to all voices in Archuleta County.
Vote ‘No on 1A’ with me, so we can focus on what our Community needs most, by doing what is best for all.
Rachel Suh is an Unaffiliated Candidate for Archuleta County Commissioner, District 3. Learn more at her website.
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