Photo: Lisa Scott explains to her audience how a campaign to get Archuleta County voters to approve new school bond debt might unfold… at a ‘Citizens for ASD’ campaign meeting at the Community Center on August 17, 2026.
I guess we all want things to turn out for the best… the way we imagine them, in our hopeful dreams.
But they often don’t. At least, not the way we imagined them.
Public education advocate Lisa Scott has headed up a couple of previous Archuleta School District (ASD) election campaigns here in Pagosa Springs — one in 2018 for a $1.7 million Mill Levy Override (MLO) to boost teacher salaries and add security features to school buildings, and another one in 2023 to make the MLO permanent. Both campaigns were successful, and as a result, ASD staff are relatively well-paid compared to surrounding school districts.
On Monday evening, August 17, Ms. Scott was soliciting campaign volunteers for what might be a much more challenging campaign. She has already hired folks to create a campaign website and to design printed materials, and hopes to hire a company to handle social media advertising. A volunteer has stepped up to write for the campaign. But many campaign jobs remained unfilled as of Monday evening…
…One of the most important jobs being door-to-door canvassing in neighborhoods. Ms. Scott said she hopes dozens of bond measure supporters will step up to fulfill that task.
I currently serve as a volunteer board member for Pagosa Peak Open School (PPOS) — a tuition-free public K-8 charter school authorized by ASD — and PPOS has benefited from the community-approved MLO funding. If the community approves a $130 million bond issue this coming November, a fraction of that amount, perhaps $1.7 million, will accrue to PPOS — according to Superintendent Rick Holt, speaking at the Monday evening presentation.
One of the things I consistently hope for, and imagine, is government transparency. Our governments forcibly extract money from us through taxes and compulsory fees… and that obligates them, in my humble opinion, to be honest and transparent about how they are using, and how they plan to use, the money we are compelled to provide.
Complete transparency implies that “all sides of the story” are being shared. The good, the bad, and the ugly.
This actually happens on occasion. But it’s rare, in my experience, for a government to be completely transparent when seeking a tax increase. More often, a government will tell one side of the story — typically, a story of desperation — and hope no one presents the other side.
Here’s Rick Holt, giving a summary of how ASD got to this point and where things seem to be headed.
“I think I’ve been pretty transparent along the way, and I’m going to continue with that, this evening, and just… I’ll answer a bunch of question, if you have questions, but…
“What Lisa just said about the School Board being on the ballot — that’s just an intergovernmental agreement [with the County Clerk] just to make sure to save a space on the ballot. We haven’t decided on the language for the ballot, and that’s a critical point for the Board, and they will be doing that sometime around September 1 or maybe August 31…
“On that day, the Board votes on the actual bond language and the amounts that they are asking for and what those dollars might go to.”
Colorado has strict requirements for government tax measures, including a requirement to tell the voters the total amount of taxes they will be obligating, including any interest payments to the investors buying the bonds.
Mr. Holt stated that all the money from the bonds will go to “new PreK-8 classrooms” to replace the existing Pagosa Springs Elementary and Pagosa Springs Middle School, plus “upgrades to all K-8 classrooms at Pagosa Peak Open School.”
“It makes a nice package, because it’s PreK-8 classrooms across our entire district.”
I didn’t understand why Mr. Holt was describing the ballot measure in this manner? A new PreK-8 facility on Vista Boulevard would obviously include much more than just “classrooms”. It would include two gymnasiums, one or more cafeterias, one or more music rooms, one or more art studios, office spaces, one or more libraries, labs, technology spaces, playgrounds, athletic fields, parking lots, school bus drop-off zones, and all the infrastructure to make these spaces function.
Basically, then, all the functions that already exist at our two downtown schools, but rolled into one very expensive package at the other end of town, on property the District owns.
According to current plans, the lion’s share of any money allotted to Pagosa Peak Open School would not go to “upgrades to all K-8 classrooms at Pagosa Peak Open School”, but rather, to remodeling a large warehouse space in the former Parelli office building to serve as a dedicated P.E. space and for other “non-classroom” uses like science labs and art studios.
Mr. Holt explained that last year, RTA Architects had estimated the cost of the Vista school facility at $126 million. This was however only a rough estimate, because an actual school design has not been developed. Nevertheless, ASD used that rough estimate in its application for a BEST grant, which it failed to win.
The cost of building the school has increased since that rough estimate was developed last year, due to ongoing inflation.
Mr. Holt:
“We heard from our architects that we can anticipate about a 3% increase [from the previous estimate]. 3% doesn’t sound like much, but when you’re talking about a $126 million project, that brings the cost up to about $129 million.”
Actually, it brings it up to almost $130 million.
Even if BEST were to provide a $50 million grant next spring, then the Archuleta County property owners would need to increase their property tax burden by about $125 million… when you include the interest payments…
Read Part Seven… tomorrow…