PHOTO: Rose Chavez and Christina Knoell at the November 1 meeting the Pagosa Springs Town Council meeting.
ASI is grateful for the generosity of the Town of Pagosa Springs Council members in extending our lease and working with us to cover the cost of our rent for a period of 6 months. At that time we look forward to reevaluating the status of our rent and hope the council will consider a long term commitment to provide an affordable home for the Pagosa Senior Center at the Ross Aragon Community Center so that we can continue providing essential services including congregate meals, Meals on Wheels, medical monitoring and more for our seniors and their caregivers.
Rose D. Chavez, executive director for Archuleta Seniors Inc. (ASI) sent us the message above, following the Tuesday evening meeting of the Pagosa Springs Town Council.
Indeed, the Town Council exhibited considerable generosity on November 1, on behalf of an important non-profit community group in financial straits.
A bit of background:
Many years ago — as in, the late 1990s — Pagosa’s mayor, Ross Aragon, assembled a group of local activists to plan and raise funds for a proposed ‘community center’ that could serve as a venue for a wide a variety of community events, classes, and activities. The plan eventually included a multipurpose auditorium/gymnasium/banquet space; a wing for a new senior center with a dining room, kitchen facilities and office space; a ‘teen center’ with a video game room; and two classrooms that would be managed by the Pagosa Springs Arts Council.
The Arts Council soon realized that, as a volunteer organization, they didn’t have the bandwidth to publicize and host regular arts classes, and the classrooms fell into disuse. The teen center proved to be unpopular among teens, for various reasons, and soon closed its doors. The acoustics in the auditorium/gymnasium/banquet room weren’t all that great, and the community eventually stopped hosting music and theatre events there; the space was apparently most suitable for pickleball, basketball, and the occasional non-profit fundraising event.
But the Senior Center has somehow lasted as a functional element of the Community Center these past 20 years.
For the first decade of its existence, the Community Center was nominally owned by a non-profit organization called (if I’m remembering correctly) the Pagosa Springs Community Center, but the mortgage and staffing and maintenance were paid by the Town government. (If I am remembering correctly.) As a result of these government subsidies, the rental rates charged to community groups were quite reasonable. In particular, the Senior Center was charged only $10 a year for its dining room, kitchen and staff offices during that first decade. Another sizable subsidy was provided by the Archuleta Board of County Commissioners, who paid the Senior Center’s half dozen staff salaries during its first decade. But in 2014, the County stopped subsidizing the staff salaries. I don’t recall the BOCC’s justification for that move.
Around that same time — 2014 — the Town government officially took over the ownership and management of the Community Center, now renamed the Ross Aragon Community Center, and rental rate for the Senior Center space was increased substantially. As a result of those higher rental rates, the overall use of the Community Center by community groups began a slow decline.
Also around that same time, a new non-profit was created to keep the Center operating after losing its government subsidies from the Town and County. The new organization was called Archuleta Seniors Inc. affectionately known as ASI.
In order to somehow continue serving the seniors of Archuleta County, ASI entered into a contract with the San Juan Basin Area Agency on Aging. That contract had certain strings attached, as will be discussed later.
On Tuesday evening, at the Pagosa Springs Town Council meeting, it sounded like the Senior Center would be closing its doors within the next couple of months.
Here is ASI Executive Director Rose Chavez, speaking to the Council.
“This is my first time meeting most of you, and I look forward to getting to know you today, and more into the future.
“I did grow up here in Pagosa Springs in the ’80s and ’90s, and I’ve been on the job for about three and a half months. So I’m coming into this conversation with you, with a steep learning curve. And I want to thank you for your patience and your willingness to learn as we embark on this conversation this evening.
“So that we don’t get lost in the weeds, I want to be upfront with you today about our request…
“I’m here in front of you today to propose a funding request. I realize its kind of late, because you guys have already developed your preliminary budget [for 2023] and I’m so grateful that I can take up a few minutes of your time today.
“Our organization is experiencing a budget shortfall of $125,000, and I’ve been to the County Commissioners to share information about our situation… and I wanted to have my colleague, Christina Knoell, help explain the funding shortfall…”
Christina Knoell, seated next to Ms. Chavez on Tuesday evening, is the executive director for the San Juan Basin Area Agency on Aging (SJBAAA), an agency that’s primarily funded by the federal government through programs created by the Johnson administration during the 1960s.
As our readers may be aware, a non-profit organization is a special type of community-owned business that typically supports itself financially through some combination of donations, government subsidies, government contracts, or by providing some type of useful service for which patrons pay a fee. Under IRS rules, a non-profit organization must be governed by a volunteer board, but it can have paid staff.
To judge by Ms. Knoell’s presentation at the Council meeting (which we’ll hear tomorrow) the ASI budget has been funded, over the past decade, primarily through its contract with SJBAAA.
In exchange for that funding, ASI has been providing services to elderly citizens in Archuleta County, including — among other services — free daily meals.
But without the substantial local government subsidies that the Senior Center once received, and possibly also as a result of the turmoil caused by the COVID crisis, the financial situation for ASI appeared — on Tuesday evening — to be untenable.
Time for life-support?
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.