A vote by the Archuleta Board of County Commissioners in early June, directing staff to write up a “Letter of Intent” to buy five acres of vacant land on South Pagosa Boulevard for a (possibly inflated?) price of $2.1 million, generated considerable interest in the community — including a petition to recall Commissioner Veronica Medina, by a group calling themselves “Reclaim Archuleta”. The group asserted that, because Commissioner Medina is a licensed real estate agent with EXIT Realty, and because the owner of EXIT Realty — Shelley Low — was marketing the property on South Pagosa, Commissioner Medina had a legal conflict of interest and thus violated Colorado law by voting in favor of a purchase agreement on June 4.
We received a press release from Reclaim Archuleta yesterday:
The efforts to recall Commissioner Veronica Medina took the work of many volunteers from employees of the county, to longtime residents, to local business owners. As time progressed, many of those who chose to sign the recall had second thoughts. Some did in fact reach out to the Clerk & Recorder asking to rescind their signatures. What began with a strong momentum in the beginning of the petition filing, slowly faded for various reasons, and those reasons are for those individuals to tell, not a story to come from Reclaim. We can however, as a group, speak with absolute certainty that some of the reasons include acts of retaliation, intimidation, and falsifying of facts. It was a very difficult decision, but for these reasons, Reclaim Archuleta ultimately decided not to turn in any petitions.
Without a doubt we know our efforts were not wasted. The community seems to have ‘awakened’ to see the corruption, the ethics violations, and the alleged breaking of state statutes by Commissioner Medina. We hope the state agrees as well, as the Independent Ethics Committee continues with their preliminary investigation into the actions of Medina. As statutes continue to be broken, and more ethical violations are made, the file continues to grow.
We also hope county residents continue to be active at County Commission meetings and let their voices be heard. That is after all, why the petition was filed in the first place. We hope this has been a reminder to constituents that we have a voice and the Commissioners of this County work for us – it is not the other way around.
Thank you to all who helped, signed, and heard our side. We are grateful for each of you.
Certainly, the opportunity exists for more ethical violations to occur at yesterday’s regular BOCC meeting on September 3, related to Commissioner Medina’s connection to EXIT Realty, but I did not see evidence of conflicts, other than possibly Commissioner Medina’s statement, at the beginning of the meeting, that she had no conflicts of interest to declare. (The other two commissioners also declared no conflicts.)
The BOCC listened to a string of concerned citizens, from a packed audience, protesting the real estate process thus far — not only at the start of the meeting but also near the end, during the discussion about proposed property purchases.
The pertinent items on yesterday’s agenda:
A. Letter Of Intent With ArenaLabs, LLC
This agenda item is to approve a Letter of Intent with ArenaLabs, LLC for the purchase of approximately 5 acres of land located at X W Highway 160…
B. Purchase And Sale Agreement With ArenaLabs, LLC
This agenda item is to approve a Purchase and Sale Agreement to go under contract with ArenaLabs, LLC for the purchase of approximately 5 acres of land located at X W Highway 160…
C. Letter Of Intent With Pagosa Partners I Inc.
This agenda item is to approve a Letter of Intent with Pagosa Partners I Inc. for the purchase of approximately 5.5 acres of land located at 2901 Cornerstone Drive…
The proposed five-acre purchase from the Montrose-based Dragoo family — officially, ArenaLabs LLC — has been discussed at some length in the weekly Pagosa Springs SUN and in the Daily Post (for example, here, and here, and here.) This proposed purchase is a bit awkward, because the Dragoo family doesn’t yet own the property they are proposing to sell to the County, nor have they obtained, yet, any grants to build the “missing middle” workforce housing they have promised to build adjacent to a future County administration building.
Some of the audience may have been surprised to see the “Letter of Intent With Pagosa Partners I” on the same agenda. I’ve attended a number of BOCC meetings over this summer, and I never heard the three commissioners vote to ask the staff to bring forward a “Letter of Intent” for alternate vacant land available the Aspen Village subdivision. In fact, the idea of purchasing a parcel in Aspen Village was unanimously rejected by the BOCC in early June, in favor of the parcel offered by EXIT Realty.
I was nevertheless happy to see the alternate parcel appear on the agenda, since it indicated that no final purchasing decisions had already been made.
The complaints from the public focused on lack of transparency, inflated real estate prices, possible conflict of interest, lack of public participation, failure to consider all options, and failure to thoroughly consider remodeling an existing commercial building as a cost savings approach.
At the conclusion of the meeting — one of the longer BOCC meetings I’ve attended, and also one of the most “interactive” between the commissioners and the audience — Commissioner Warren Brown made a motion to table all the Letters of Intent and Purchase Agreements, and to engage a financial advisor to help clarify the likely “total cost” of the various options on the table. The motion set a date of “the first BOCC meeting in December” for a final decision about what property to purchase, if any.
Commissioner Medina voted with Commissioner Brown in favor of the motion. Commissioner Ronnie Maez voted ‘No’.
But that’s not quite the whole story.
Read Part Two, tomorrow…