There are many reasons why the Archuleta County Road & Bridge Department has consistently struggled to properly maintain Archuleta County’s rural roads that spread out, to the north and south, from U.S. Highway 160.
Mostly, those reasons are financial, and are related to financial priorities.
I mentioned in Part One of this editorial series that the Board of County Commissioners, in 2015, budgeted $1.4 million from County property tax revenues to Road & Bridge. That was 25% of the County’s property tax collection.
In 2024, the BOCC budgeted only $389,908 from property taxes for Road & Bridge… about 5% of the County’s property tax collection and $1 million less than in 2015, even though property taxes have greatly increased since 2015. And even though we’ve seen massive inflation since 2015.
Where did that $1 million go instead? Possibly… to pay the mortgage on the new County jail… a massive loan borrowed by a previous BOCC, when they built an oversized jail in spite of having their plan rejected twice by the taxpayers.
Ah yes. Financial priorities.
As was also mentioned in Part One, the audience turnout at the BOCC’s July 23 ‘listening session’ — five people — was disappointing to me. The session had been scheduled to hear the community’s ideas about a potential increase in the County Lodging Tax, allowed by new state legislation. With voter approval, the County could increase the Lodging Tax from the current 1.9% to as much as 6%, and could use the additional revenues for:
(II) Housing and childcare for the tourism-related workforce, including seasonal workers, and for other workers in the community;
(IV) Public infrastructure maintenance or improvements; or
(V) Enhancing public safety measures by funding local law enforcement, fire protection services, and emergency medical services.
This question could be placed before voters next November. But two of the three commissioners — Warren Brown and John Ranson — made it pretty clear on Wednesday that they both wanted to wait until 2026 to place this question on the ballot. Commissioner Veronica Medina, meanwhile, sounded willing to put the measure on this year’s ballot.
Disappointing numbers. On a commission of three people, two commissioners can make this decision.
The same division appeared when the audience asked the commissioners what their spending priorities would be, if the measure were approved. State law requires a BOCC to specify how the Lodging Taxes would be spent, as part of any ballot measure to increase the tax.
Housing?
Roads?
Emergency services?
Commissioner Medina expressed an openness in splitting any additional revenues between housing and roads.
Brown and Ranson seemed to have their minds set on dedicating any new Lodging tax to road maintenance. In fact, the informational sheet distributed by Commissioner Ranson at the session mentioned only Road & Bridge as a recipient of additional funding.
We might wonder about the value of a ‘listening session’ if two of the commissioners already have their minds made up?
Here’s my analysis of the problem.
Putting $1 million of additional Lodging Tax revenues into the Road & Bridge budget would essentially fill the hole left by the BOCC, when they dropped the property tax allocation from $1.4 million down to $389,000.
But $1 million is merely a drop in the bucket, in terms of the massive amount of deferred road maintenance in Archuleta County. Back in 2010, the County Public Works Director estimated the deferred maintenance at $42 million. The problem has only become worse, as the roads have seen more and more traffic and also gotten older… and as inflation has driven up the cost of public services.
If we estimate that the problem is now closer to $100 million in deferred maintenance… then $1 million is not even going to scratch the surface.
There is one solution, though, that could actually address the problem. Metro districts.
Several of our suburban neighborhoods have created metro districts — special taxing districts, approved by the residents in those neighborhoods, that maintain the subdivision roads.
Loma Linda, Aspen Springs, Timber Ridge, San Juan River Village, Alpha Rockridge, and Piedra Park.
Reportedly, these are some of the best-maintained roads in the community.
But back in 1972, when Archuleta County approved 21 square miles of new subdivisions known as Fairfield Pagosa — now called Pagosa Lakes — the County seemingly assumed that Fairfield was going to maintain all the neighborhood roads, and the County would maintain only the main arterial roads.
Fairfield did not create metro districts to maintain the roads, however, and eventually Fairfield went bankrupt. (Maybe the bankruptcy was due in part to the cost of road maintenance?) The Pagosa Lakes Property Owners Association (PLPOA) took over the buildings and recreational amenities, but Archuleta County took over the neighborhood roads.
Unfortunately, there was no possible way Archuleta County Road & Bridge could maintain 21 square miles of neighborhood roads based on its available tax revenues. In my humble opinion, the only way those individual neighborhood roads can be well-maintained would be through metro districts.
But no metro districts have been formed in Pagosa Lakes. And Archuleta County, in spite of its noble efforts, has continually struggled to keep up with the necessary maintenance. $1 million in additional Lodging Taxes won’t come close to addressing the problem.
Passing a Lodging Tax increase, dedicated to roads — without new metro districts — would amount to putting lipstick on a pig.
If our BOCC continues to pretend that our road issues can be resolved without creating metro districts in the PLPOA neighborhoods, then those necessary metro districts will probably never be formed, and County Road & Bridge will keep struggling to properly maintain neighborhoods roads in PLPOA.
To arrive at a real solution, the County will have to stop pretending to keep up with the maintenance, and require PLPOAneighborhoods to form metro districts.
That will likely make the commissioners extremely unpopular among the PLPOA voting block. But who said life is easy?