We’ll get around to actor Harrison Ford in a moment.
But first, a story about a local board meeting held here in Pagosa Springs.
The Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation District (PAWD) board of directors held a ‘special meeting’ last night, to approve the District’s annual audit performed by the folks at CPA firm R Farmer LLC. The audit covered PAWSD’s financial activities for 2024, and was presented by Ronny Farmer, who has been overseeing the annual audit for several years now.
Disclosure: I serve as a volunteer on the PAWSD board, but this editorial reflects only my own opinions and not necessarily the opinions of the PAWSD board or staff.
Most of our local governments are required, under state law, to have an annual audit performed by an independent auditor. This requirement is aimed at preventing the misappropriation of public moneys — both accidental and intentional misappropriations — and also at helping governments improve their bookkeeping processes.
Mr. Farmer’s presentation lasted about 30 minutes, during which time he fielded questions from the PAWSD board. At the conclusion of his presentation, the board voted to accept his audit report and submit it to the state. You can download the audit report here.
This is apparently the last time our current PAWSD Business Manager, Aaron Burns, will be involved in the audit preparation, as he has submitted his resignation; he will soon be leaving PAWSD to take a position with a hospital in New Mexico.
At yesterday’s meeting, the board also approved moving the District from the current ‘Drought Stage 1’ — which encourages voluntary water conservation by customers — into ‘Drought Stage 2’ — which places limits on outdoor irrigation and increases the fees for high (excessive?) water use. During Drought Stage 2, watering is allowed only between 9pm and 9am; properties with ‘odd number’ addresses may irrigate only on ‘odd days’ and properties with ‘even number’ addresses may irrigate on ‘even days’. Garden watering must be done ‘by hand’.
At the conclusion of the meeting, District Manager Justin mentioned a couple of items that will be discussed at the upcoming August board meeting. A few customers have complained — in writing or through phone calls — about the Affordable Housing Surcharges that the PAWSD board has authorized, to help cover fee waivers for organizations and corporations that are building workforce housing in Archuleta County. The surcharges have been added to monthly water and wastewater bills.
The waived fees, in the case of one new apartment complex case, have amounted to hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Those fee waivers, and the related surcharges, will be one of the main subjects of this editorial series.
I spend an inordinate amount of time sitting in board meetings, because we have a ‘republican’ system of national, state and local governments… and one of the ways our society maintains that republican system is by having citizens elected to serve on government boards, and in legislatures and administrations…
…and by having other citizens — non-elected citizens — observe the government officials in action, and report what they see and hear. The citizens generating those reports typically work for The Media: radio, TV, newspapers, magazines…
…or, more recently, websites and podcasts.
The citizens serving on the government boards come to the job with different backgrounds and ideas and values, and whatever abilities they may have to achieve certain political goals.
The citizens reporting on the government boards also come to the job with different backgrounds and ideas and values. Some reporters may be satisfied with simply sharing, ‘objectively’, what they saw and heard — or they may have been instructed to report in that fashion by their employers.
Other reporters feel free to insert themselves, with their backgrounds and ideas and values, into their stories.
I fall into this latter group of reporters.
Another group of people who dedicate their careers to telling ‘stories’ about our society are movie actors.
Harrison Ford is such an actor — one of the highest-grossing actors in the world. Star Wars. Indiana Jones. Blade Runner. Witness. Regarding Henry. He’s currently getting rave reviews, I understand, for his role in a TV series called “Shrinking”.
But he’s not an elected official, nor a news reporter, so I doubt that he attends government meetings on a regular basis. Nevertheless, he has ideas and opinions about our republican system of government.
Here’s a quote from Harrison Ford, from an interview with reporter Angelique Jackson, published in Variety magazine on July 30, 2025:
In politics and in life, you don’t always get what you want, but you get what you get and you don’t get upset.
They teach us that in kindergarten, but they also teach you to fight for what you think is right.
I certainly agree with Mr. Ford that, in politics and in life, you don’t always get what you want.
And of course, when Mr. Ford says, “You get what you get and you don’t get upset”, he’s referring to what our kindergarten teachers attempted to teach us, and not always successfully. It’s obvious that some people do, in fact, get upset when they “get what they get.” I have, myself, been upset on occasion.
Right at the moment, in a time of relatively chaotic politics here in America, some people have forgotten the lessons taught in kindergarten. Mr. Ford has some ideas about why that has happened.
And I, too, have some ideas.