The photo above shows Archuleta County Sheriff Mike Le Roux, and Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation District (PAWSD) Manager Justin Ramsey, facing the music.
Actually, they were facing three Archuleta County commissioners and four Pagosa Town Council members, at a Monday, March 24 evening joint work session. Mayor Shari Pierce was chairing the meeting at Town Hall.
I was seated in the audience, behind them. (As you can discern from the photo.) My attendance at the meeting will become part of the story, shortly.
The joint meeting had already dispensed with three agenda items of mutual interest. They’d heard about, and discussed, the Highway 160 reconstruction that began earlier that morning, with information provided by the Colorado Department of Transportation’s (CDOT) public relations team.
Next on the agenda was a give-and-take about the Pagosa Springs Area Tourism Board, and what powers that board had been granted by the Town Council and the County Commissioners acting jointly. There seemed to be a general agreement that the Board had not been given the responsibility of supervising Tourism Executive Director Jennie Green, and that her proper supervisor was Town Manager David Harris.
Rather, the PSATB’s job is to make recommendations to the Town Council and to the BOCC.
The meeting then discussed solutions to the pot holes at both entrances to the City Market Shopping Center… (which are, in my humble opinion, similar in size and persistence to the pot holes at the entrance to Walmart.) The main problem being, that the entrance roads are not public roads, but are the responsibility of… well, of whom?
Some of the suggested solutions sounded reasonable.
Then we arrived at the most contentious agenda item.
Fire hydrants.
Mayor Pierce invited Sheriff Le Roux to introduce the topic.
Sheriff Le Roux:
“Mayor Pierce, Madam Chair Medina, Council members, Commissioners, Esteemed Guests.
“I’m happy to talk about the Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation District fire hydrants. Thank you for the opportunity… I just wanted the opportunity to go on the record. To set the record straight, about what was published in the [SUN newspaper] on Thursday, regarding the Sheriff’s Office and the Office of Emergency Operations, overall, in the testing of the fire hydrants…”
He was here referring to a March 20 SUN article written by reporter Josh Pike, concerning a discussion during a recent meeting of the PAWSD Board of Directors.
Disclosure: I currently serve as a volunteer member of the PAWSD Board, but this editorial reflects only my own opinions and not necessarily the opinions of other PAWSD Board members nor of the PAWSD staff.
Mr. Pike reported the meeting accurately. His article begins:
At its March 13 board meeting, the Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation District (PAWSD) Board of Directors discussed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Archuleta County Sheriff ’s Office’s (ACSO’s) Office of Emergency Management regarding the testing of fire hydrants.
At several and various public meetings, the condition of our community’s fire hydrants have been fretted over, ever since people learned that it’s been a decade since a scheduled testing and flushing program has been in place. From this information, certain elected leaders — and many members of the general community — have inferred that some of the fire hydrants might not be functional.
Due to the unexpectedly dry winter — with a snowpack about half of normal — and following the media coverage of the disastrous Los Angeles County fires, and the inability of the Los Angeles Fire Department to control those fires, many people have become concerned about the upcoming ‘fire season’ here in Archuleta County.
Living as we do, in a flammable landscape.
Sheriff Le Roux:
“The article somewhat alluded to the fact that there was an ‘MOU’ [Memorandum Of Understanding]… and at no point in the discussion we’ve had, prior to any meeting that we’ve had, has there been any discussion about the Sheriff’s Office entering into any MOU. I certainly will not be signing an MOU. I will not be taking the lead role [in hydrant testing]…”
Archuleta County is somewhat unique among Colorado counties, the Sheriff explained, in the fact that the Pagosa Fire Protection District does not cover all the private property in the county, but instead includes only the primary urban and suburban residential areas.
In most Colorado counties, one or more ‘fire districts’ do cover the entire county, the Sheriff explained.
Archuleta County consists of about 1,360 square miles, most of which is National Forest or Southern Ute tribal land. Only about 350 square miles are within the Pagosa Fire Protection District. Another 230 square miles are the direct responsibility of the Archuleta County Sheriff’s Office (ACSO) in terms of fire suppression.
Sheriff Le Roux reminded his fellow elected officials that the suppression of wildland fires, outside the Fire District, does not typically rely on fire hydrants — because fire hydrants exist only within the Fire District.
The Sheriff noted that he had participated in meetings related to a hydrant testing program, and had suggested that some of his wildland fire crew might be available to help with hydrant testing, in between work on wildfires. But the Sheriff clearly indicated that he has no plans, at the moment, to sign an MOU with PAWSD.
I was surprised by the Sheriff’s stated position, because I had heard PAWSD Manager Justin Ramsey clearly indicate that PAWSD was in the process of creating just such an MOU, and apparently expected the ACSO to participate in the agreement.
Reporter Josh Pike had heard the same comments at the PAWSD meeting, and had reported it in the SUN.
PAWSD will provide training on this test to the ACSO, and ACSO staff will perform these tests, likely beginning in May, Ramsey noted.
PAWSD board member Gene Tautges commented that this was an “awesome solution” for the PAWSD ratepayers and “the right thing to do”…
That’s was the newspaper reported on March 20. And that’s what I had heard from PAWSD Manager Ramsey on March 13.
But we were hearing something different from Sheriff Le Roux on March 24.
At this point in the discussion, Justin Ramsey joined the Sheriff at the presenters’ table, facing the gathered elected leaders of the Town and County.
Facing the music, so to speak.