Photo: Local taxpayer Larry G. Allen testifies at the Board of County Commissioners meeting, concerning proposed County administration building expenditures, September 16, 2025.
By Tuesday, September 16, I had pretty much come to terms with the decision, by three of my fellow Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation District (PAWSD) board members, to refuse the request for Capital Investment Fee waivers for five workforce housing units planned by the Pagosa Springs Community Development Corporation (CDC). You can read that story here.
Which is not to say I’d gotten over the sad and confused feelings. But after 20 years of reporting on Pagosa Springs politics, I’ve learned how to “come to terms” with sad, confused feelings… without actually feeling any better.
Nevertheless, the Tuesday afternoon meeting of the Archuleta Board of County Commissioners merely added to the feelings of sadness and confusion.
The meeting was fairly well attended — something that is unusual for BOCC meetings, but not surprising on Tuesday, considering the last items on the meeting agenda.
C. Consideration to Award of Winning Bid for Engineering and Design Services for New Administration Building
A request for proposals for Engineering and Design Services for New Administration Building fielded with a deadline of August 1, 2025. Three (3) proposals were received. This agenda item is for the Board of County Commissioners to award the winning proposals and direct staff to prepare a contract.
To judge simply by the public comments offered to the commissioners at that meeting, no one in the community wants to see the BOCC spend $300,000 for the preliminary design of a proposed $20 million administration building that may or may not ever be built.
Daily Post readers may have heard about this planned expenditure of public funds — a new County administration building — which has been talked about for at least the past ten years.
In 2015, the BOCC obtained an estimate of the amount of space they would need in a new Administration building, based on the amount of room the elected officials and department heads thought they needed. (I don’t recall who produced the report.) The BOCC had already planned, in 2015, to abandon the historic Courthouse and building a new administration building.
Before this estimate was done, the Commissioners and their administrative staff had moved into the old Education Center building on Lewis Street (3,829 square feet) but decided they needed 6,300 square feet. Human Services was renting space in Town Hall, but has since moved into their own new building on Hot Springs Boulevard — which measures 10,400 square feet. Community Development occupies one end of the Road & Bridge Building on Highway 84, but recently added a new modular office building (…not sure of the total square footage).
The “Elected Officials”, who were operating in the old Courthouse until an alleged arson attack caused fire and smoke damage there, are now located in an 8,000-square foot office building on Talisman Drive, once occupied by Wyndham Resort employees. This suggests that the Treasurer, Clerk, and Assessor, collectively, now have more than twice the amount of space they were operating in since 2015, and nearly as much room as they requested in 2015.
Although various commissioners have been promoting this project for over ten years, the actual sale of the downtown Courthouse didn’t happen until 2022, when commissioners Alvin Schaaf, Ronnie Maez and Warren Brown sold the 25,000 square foot building for a mere $550,000 — less than the cost of an average new home in Archuleta County..
Meaning that the Courthouse was sold for a price of $22 per square foot.
From the RFP response recently submitted by Vega Architects. for design of the future Courthouse.
Proposal is based upon RFP dated June 19, 2025.
Proposal is based upon a 22,000 – 23,000 sf building.
Proposal is based upon a $20M hard construction cost for the building…
This suggests that the BOCC is looking at a cost of more than $900 per square foot.
Perhaps that makes sense to someone? Sell your existing office building for $22 per square foot and build a new office building for $900 per square foot.
The first half of that equation — the sale of the downtown Courthouse at $22 per square foot — is water under the bridge.
The second half — a proposed $900 per square foot administration building — is the part that was protested by the audience on September 16.
Some sample comments.
“My name is Larry G. Allen. I come before you today because, 20 years ago, I served on a County task force, for avoiding bankruptcy. The County’s bankruptcy.
“Commissioner Ranson was on that task force with me.
“The reason I’m speaking to you is, I’m concerned about our spending. We’re looking at sewer upgrades of about $100 million; the water treatment upgrades; and $100 million for the schools. My concern is, what I’m seeing are fiefdoms forming, with the Town, the County, the water districts, the school district. All have good intentions. And they want to tax me. But the pot is not big enough.
“It gives the impression to the citizenry that it’s ‘tax and spend’. My recommendation is to have this issue tabled, and to initiate a work session utilizing expertise in our community, by forming a citizen task force similar to the one established in 2006.
“Taking an overall look at what’s going on here, with all these agencies vying for money. I really think we need to look at that. Where we stand, before we start spending more money.”
I have to agree with Mr. Allen, on a couple of his points.
Yes, we have government fiefdoms here in Archuleta County. Each of our elected boards is charged with maintaining the financial viability of their particular agency.
Town of Pagosa Springs.
Archuleta County.
PAWSD.
Archuleta School District.
Fire Protection District.
Library District.
San Juan Water Conservancy.
And the several metro districts in our community.
We also have a generally shared belief, here in America, that if a business is not steadily increasing its profits and its capital assets, then the business is failing, or is doomed to fail.
We tend to believe that “growth” is an essential sign of “success” — for a family, for a business, for a community.
Our government boards feel that same pressure. To grow and grow their agency; to be an important player in the community. To grow its number of employees, to increase their salaries, and to provide them with expensive offices or work spaces or classrooms or other capital assets.
Ah… but bankruptcy is always a threat, lingering there in the background.