When you’re a reporter, covering local politics in a small town in Colorado, you get to listen to plenty of discussions related to the expenditure of tax money.
This editorial series will touch on a few of those discussions,
A discussion about a new County office building, for example.
A new County bus facility.
A proposed, government-funded ‘events center’.
Allegedly-excessive payments made by San Juan Basin Public Health to its former executive director.
A proposal by the Pagosa Springs Medical Center to construct a a facility for concentrating oxygen.
For example:
The August 15 regular meeting of the Archuleta Board of County Commissioners dealt with a number of fairly important items, many of which concerned coin of the realm.
The meeting kicked off with County Finance Director Chad Eaton kicked off the meeting with a brief summary of the County’s spending during the first two quarters of 2023. Apparently, the County has, by and large, spent its revenues at approximately the rate predicted by the annual budget. Meaning that the County will likely spend about $53 million dollars this year, as planned.
But not everything is going as planned.
County Attorney Todd Weaver reported on the County’s ongoing attempts to auction off about 39 vacant tax lien properties through a website called GovDeals.com
You might assume from the name of the website, that you can find deals there. Governments, eager to unload used machinery or office furnishings, or — as in the case of Archuleta County — parcels of vacant land that previous owners didn’t value highly enough to pay the property taxes on. As a result of the unpaid back taxes, Archuleta County had obtained the deeds, and is now hopeful that the parcels could be sold for a decent price, to a private owner who will pay the property taxes in the future. (The County does not pay property taxes.)
Maybe the new owner would even build a house on the property, someday?
39 of the 51 real estate offerings displayed on the GovDeals website are being offered by Archuleta County.
Here are a few of the listings.
Most of the properties in this particular list appear to have received either one bid, or zero bids, indicating that some of these quarter-acre properties are not deemed to be worth even $2,000.
Or at the most, $2,025?
From the property description for 145 Travelers Circle, which as yet has not received a minimum bid:
Parcel 569919339030 (145 Travelers Circle., Pagosa Springs, CO) is 0.23 acres of vacant land. It is considered residential and is located within the boundaries of the Pagosa Lakes Property Owners Association. There is water and sewer connections to the property. The County Assessor set the 2023 Actual Value on this parcel as $27,290.
Perhaps this indicates that the County Assessor’s “actual values” are on the high side?
The properties are located in an insufficiently-developed subdivision called Pagosa Trails, platted maybe 40 years ago. Pagosa Trails is the area in the center of the map below. You can see Highway 160 in the lower right corner. The Vista mobile home park is at the top right. The Chris Mountain Village subdivision is at the lower left.
The subdivision was accepted by the Archuleta County commissioners — back then — in spite of the fact that the developer had failed to install utilities and decent roads. Water and sewer were installed later, but I believe many of the parcels in Pagosa Trails, and in Chris Mountain Village, still don’t have electric service.
The auction at GovDeals was supposed to end yesterday… but given the poor response, the Commissioners voted to extend the auction for another four weeks.
We’re listening, here, to County Attorney Todd Weaver, discussing the low bids — or lack of bids — for the offered parcels. He noted that the auction was supposed to end yesterday at 5pm.
“Unfortunately, a lot of the bids are coming in really low. They are not even meeting the minimum bids. So I guess we’re here to see what the commissioners would like to do.”
He estimated the total ‘assessed value’ of the properties at $175,000. When I visited the website, none of the 39 parcels had met their “reserve” price. Most had not even received their ‘minimum bid’.
Commissioner Veronica Medina:
“How did we advertise these properties?”
Attorney Weaver:
“Um… I believe there were notices in the newspaper; there were social media posts,; there was stuff on our website.” Supposedly, GovDeals “sent out email blasts to 7,000 potential bidders.” It wasn’t clear, from that comment, how many of the 7,000 “potential bidders” may have known where Pagosa Springs is located.
Perhaps the advertising has been insufficient?
The County is not required to accept any of the bids, we were told.
Commissioner Warren Brown, commenting on the bids that didn’t even meet the minimum, let alone the reserve:
“I’d rather donate every single one of these properties [to a non-profit housing group] as opposed to selling them to what is being offered here. I think we, as a community would benefit far more…
“My concern is that we have people submitting bids at such a low price, and then are going to come back to the County afterwards to ask for money to have utilities installed; they’re going to wait for a road improvement to come around, and make their property worth 50 times more because they got it for dirt cheap.
“And although I can appreciate the business prowess on that speculation, I don’t think I would be comfortable with them selling — with just a few exceptions, and those are only coming in at 50% of the suggested retail price.”
Commissioner Ronnie Maez:
“I’m kinda bummed that we can’t bid on these.” That comment elicited some laughter.
Donating the properties to a non-profit builder is not a terrible idea.
In fact, some of the County-owned tax lien properties in this neighborhood have already been donated to Habitat for Humanity, or earmarked for some affordable housing projects proposed by the Pagosa Springs Community Development Corporation. But it’s my understanding that all of the proposed dwellings are single-family homes. What Pagosa Springs needs, however — if it wants to survive as a diverse community — is housing density. Bringing electric service to a 10-unit apartment building makes a lot more economic sense than bringing electric service to 10 single-family homes spread around a neighborhood.
I’ve heard no indication from the commissioners that they have a strong interest in housing density. But even if they did, Pagosa Trails and Chris Mountain Village are within the Pagosa Lakes Property Owners Association (PLPOA), and might be under restrictive covenants that prevent housing density.
As noted, the BOCC decided, yesterday, to continue the auction for another four weeks.