Yes, I voted in favor of the new Town of Pagosa Springs Lodgers Tax in 2005. And I then voted to increase it in 2006. As a Town voter.
County voters weren’t allowed to vote on those two tax measures.
The Archuleta County government had established a Lodgers Tax many years prior, as approved by countywide voters, in the amount of 1.9% — the maximum allowed by state law for statutory counties. The Aechuleta Board of County Commissioners simply handed the revenues over to the Pagosa Springs Area Chamber of Commerce, with instructions to market Archuleta County as a tourist destination, as best they could.
But in 2005, the Pagosa Springs Town Council was learning to flex some new financial muscles as a “Home Rule” municipality. That new status allowed the Town government to bypass state law in matters of local interest.
One particular matter of local interest was to increase to flow of tourist, and the Town Council decided that a municipal Lodgers Tax might benefit the entire community, so town voters were asked to create a 3% Lodgers Tax in 2005. The tax would be paid by people booking rooms in hotels and motels and B&Bs within the town limits. (This was before the arrival of AirBNB and VRBO and the rest of the Short-Term Rental platforms.)
The Town Council believed, on the advice of their attorney, Bob Cole, that the new 3% Lodgers Tax would be collected in addition to the County’s 1.9% tax, thus yielding a total revenue stream of 4.9%. The town electors — myself included — voted “Yes”.
It was later discovered that the Town tax had replaced the County tax within the town limits, so in order to collect a total of 4.9%, the Council would have to go back to the town voters to boost the amount. In 2006, the majority of town voters — myself included — boosted the Lodgers Tax to 4.9%.
The new Town Lodgers Tax was expected to generate more than $300,000 a year, which would be enough to hire a staff person to handle the marketing and spending duties. To assist the new Executive Director, the Town Council created a Town Tourism Committee, made up of appointed volunteers with their own spending ideas.
This resulted in an awkward situation, when the Chamber of Commerce suddenly lost a big chuck of their marketing budget that had now been handed over to the Town Tourism Committee.
The Town Tourism Committee later morphed into the Pagosa Springs Area Tourism Board.
That’s a little bit of history related to the never-ending saga of the Pagosa Springs-Archuleta County-business community effort to extract money from tourists in order to encourage more tourists.
The situation with the Chamber of Commerce wasn’t the only awkward financial situation created. In fact, awkward situations just seem to keep cropping up.
As many Daily Post readers know, the town voters this week approved a new 1% town-only sales tax, for the purpose of repairing and upgrading a failing sanitation system that serves the downtown area’s businesses and homes. The county voters were not able to vote on the measure, but they will probably be paying the lion’s share of it.
Another group that will be paying part of this new sales tax: tourists who book rooms within the town limits. The Town’s consultants estimated that tourists might pay 28% of the total sales tax, which is expected to amount to around $3.7 million during 2026.
Expectations can be a wonderful thing, so long as you don’t take them too seriously.
We’ll get back to the fabled history of the Town Lodgers Tax and the County Lodgers Tax presently. But first, a couple of thoughts about the Wednesday morning work session held by the Archuleta Board of County Commissioners.
This item on the agenda:
3. Pagosa Lodger’s Association Introduction and Plans – Jesse Hensle, Anne Marie, Kelly Spence and John Harper
The Pagosa Lodgers’ Association LLC is a relatively new private association that represents 13 local lodging companies. I’ve heard an estimate at a recent Tourism Board meeting that the Association members represent about 400 available rooms, out of more than 2,000 available rooms in the county. Maybe 3,000, if you count all the vacation rental rooms.
But the Association LLC does have a certain elite status, because their primary spokesperson is Jesse Hensle, Marketing Director at The Springs Resort…
…The Springs Resort being one of the community’s ten largest employers. Here’s a chart from Region 9 Economic Development District, showing the top 10 employers in Archuleta County in 2023. I’ve colored the tourism-related businesses in pink:
I assume that number of employees has changed since the Resort’s new hotel expansion opened its doors in April.
But that not the only number that may have changed recently.
Here’s John Harper, owner of Fireside Cabins, speaking to County Commissioners Veronica Medina, Warren Brown and John Ranson on Wednesday morning:
“I think this flood (of the San Juan River, October 11-14) kind of brought attention to the things we’ve experienced of the past couple of weeks in regards to loss of business, cancellations, things like that…”
Marketing Director Hensle:
“The flood here has been devastating to the lodgers. I can’t echo that enough. What we’ve experienced since the flood, really because of the videos that have [been shared on news outlets and social media], is a rash of cancellations — that we’re struggling to recoup right now at this point in time.
“And this really evidences that, if we had the ability to help, as lodgers, to be more nimble, be more reactive or even proactive in these situations, we can help control, or maybe change, some of the trajectories that we can see in our data and the trends going on there.
“Right now, I’ve seen that VisitPagosaSprings.com has done a lot of initiatives to cover some of this stuff, but I’m wondering what are the next steps? What are the plans? And how can we create impact today, that can help save the rest of the year.
“We’re calculating our cancellations right now. I can say, from our resort, we’ve lost about 50% of our business in December. And that’s all the way in December. This flood happened in October, but because of the videos, people think our entire resort has been ravaged and the town is gone…”