Archuleta County is seeking public input on what might be a rather important, and timely, matter.
If you visit their Survey Monkey Page (by clicking here) you can answer “Yes” or “No” to a single question.
What’s the correct answer?
At their June 13 work session, our Archuleta Board of County Commissioners — Ronnie Maez, Veronica Medina and Warren Brown — discussed a variety of topics.
The progress on certain road maintenance projects.
The possibility of auctioning off some very old road graders and buying slightly used ones as replacements.
A request from the eight board members of the Veterans Memorial Park committee to invest a rather large amount of taxpayer funds into their struggling park project on Vista Boulevard.
The concept of funding a community event center at Cloman Park, in spite of the complete lack of utilities there.
And also, they discussed the idea of hiring a team of perhaps three real estate professionals, as an advisory committee, to hear possibly 200 property valuation appeals during July and August. Potentially, such a committee could hear the appeals and provide analyses of each case to the Commissioners, who would act as the Board of Equalization (BOE) and make the final decisions.
We don’t yet know how many appeals might be filed by the July 15 deadline.
Commissioners Medina and Brown seemed to be in favor of forming the advisory committee. Commissioner Maez seemed to be basically opposed.
County Attorney Todd Weaver shared what he understood from talking with folks in La Plata County — where such an “expert” committee has already been formed — and noting that, typically, the County Attorney attends the BOE hearings. Which would, of course, occupy a considerable amount of Mr. Weaver’s time.
It’s somewhat time consuming to equitably extract taxes from property owners, in other words.
Attorney Weaver:
“I talked to [County Assessor Johanna Tully-Elliot] yesterday — I was over at the Courthouse. She estimated around 2,000 protests that her office had received. I asked, ‘In the past, what percentage do you think, based on your memory, have gone on to the BOE?’ And she said, around 10%. So that could be 200?”
Considering the dramatic increase in some property valuations, the commissioners might see more than past history would suggest.
“So that’s 200. If we see 20 per day, that’s 10 days. That’s a lot of hearings to hold. We won’t know until July. I think, July 18th is the deadline to file?…”
The deadline to file an appeal to the BOE is actually July 15.
Commissioner Ronnie Maez gave an overview of how he viewed the process, prior to appeals landing in the BOCC’s lap.
“Prior to [the BOE appeals] the Assessor sits with the people who are protesting, and she works it out with them… either seeing the rationale on their side, or have them understand the rationale on her side. And then they work it out from there.
“And at that point in time, if they can’t work it out from there, then it gets presented to us, and each person presents their side of the case. And then, we make the determination.
“It’s always worked. I don’t know why adding another group to it is going to make it work any better or any faster…”
Commissioner Medina:
“Why I’m even considering this, is for the constituents. For them to feel like we are hearing them, that it’s going to be independent. I have 100% faith in the County Assessor… but so many people think that this is County-driven… that we’re going to get all the money, and there’s this misunderstanding.
“And I feel like — and maybe it’s not true — I feel like maybe having this independent board that we select to do this, that it might help.”
Commissioner Maez:
“Are they going to educate the public? Or are they just going to hear the cases? See, I think that’s the problem here, that we have a lack of education for the public, more than anything…”
I suppose I can get on my soapbox at this point.
The Archuleta County taxpayers do not generally trust their County government, in terms of financial issues. (We won’t get into the question, here, of trusting the Colorado state government or the U.S. federal government, even though those are also valid concerns.)
Last year, the BOCC and the Pagosa Springs Town Council hired Magellan Strategies to survey registered voters, to assess the potential support for a 37.5% sales tax increase. Magellan’s survey asked 1,081 voters, “Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Archuleta County is fiscally responsible and spends taxpayer money wisely.”
Only 27% of the population “Strongly Agreed” (4%) or “Somewhat Agreed” (23%) with that statement.
62% “Strongly Disagreed”(31%) or “Somewhat Disagreed” (32%).
(One thing the Magellan survey did not ask is “Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Government-funded surveys are trustworthy.“)
So we may have a problem here, in terms of education.
Commissioner Maez mentioned educating the public about the valuation increases. If someone is trying to educate you on government spending — and they are part of the government — are you going to trust what they tell you?
Perhaps not.
By whom would you like to get educated about government spending, and taxation?
Some people will trust the local news media. Some will not.
Some will trust what they read on social media. Some will not.
Some will stick their heads in the sand and simply avoid thinking about taxes and spending and government waste, figuring that, when you can’t trust the information from any source, apathy is the best solution.
After mentioning the need for educating the public, Commissioner Maez turned to County Attorney Todd Weaver.
“Even I… I mean, are we [the County] de-Bruced? Are we de-TABORed? Or are we under TABOR? That’s a huge question.”
Attorney Weaver:
“According to CCI [Colorado Counties Incorporated], we are fully de-Bruced.”
Commissioner Maez:
“So we are fully de-Bruced. So from my understanding, I don’t remember the county voting to de-Bruce.”
Attorney Weaver:
“…I will provide it to you.”
Education begins at home.
Contrary to the advice provided by Attorney Weaver on June 13, Archuleta County is not ‘de-Bruced’. The County is still fully under TABOR restrictions. As we found out later that same day…