The Town of Pagosa Springs posted signs, this past week, warning folks that one particular section of the River Walk Trail — the section just south of the Sixth Street pedestrian bridge — is under water at certain times of the day, due to unusually high (and very muddy) water in the San Juan River.
The river through downtown was flowing at more than 4,000 cubic feet per second for several hours last Saturday, as a record snowpack continues to melt. Historically, the average flows for the first week in June have been closer to 1,300 cubic feet per second.
The snowpack high in the San Juan Mountains typically melts more quickly during the late afternoon… and then it takes about 12 hours for the increased water to reach downtown Pagosa Springs, so the very highest flows have been rushing through town at around 2am in the morning.
It appears there will be plenty of mud to clean up along the River Walk, once the water drops. (And it will drop, eventually.) And in the meantime, the boaters will have a great time.
Many towns and rural areas in America suffered severe flood damage this past winter and spring. Some reports have estimated the economic damage in Nebraska, for example, at more than $1.5 billion, with the largest portion — perhaps $500 million — resulting from damage to roads and bridges. Here in Pagosa Springs, however, the hard winter was actually something of an economic blessing — dependent as our local economy is, during the winter, on snow sports like skiing and snowmobiling.
So far, the only river-caused damage I’ve heard about, locally, seems to be taking place south of town along Trujillo Road, where homes are often built close to the river.
There’s nothing much we can do about the vast amount of water in our rivers in a year like 2019. Nor were we able to do much of anything about the meager river flows and shortage of water in 2018, other than conserve water and be careful. Nature takes its course, and we learn to accommodate. Even if the disaster forever changes our community, we learn to adapt.
In a similar sense, we have been watching a natural disaster take place at the County Administration Building, and there’s nothing much we can do about it. Three Republican commissioners have made a series of decisions that will put the community’s taxpayers deeply in debt for the next two or three decades, for an enormously expensive County Jail.
Practically speaking, Colorado law makes it impossible for the taxpayers to stop the process, even though the voters twice rejected the plan at the polls. Disasters happen, and we learn to accommodate.
Back in February, Archuleta Commissioners Steve Wadley, Ronnie Maez and Alvin Schaaf voted to put Archuleta County taxpayers $13 million in debt to fund the construction of their new County Jail. Several local Republican Party leaders had stepped up to the microphone and encouraged them to make that decision. Those Republican leaders included Sheriff Rich Valdez, Republican Party chair Marilyn Harris, Republican Party vice chair Deborah Van Gundy, and Archuleta County Republican Women club president Carol Mellberg. (I already mentioned that all three of our County commissioners are also registered as Republicans.)
The BOCC also voted to allocate a 15% ‘contingency’ amount from the County’s existing ‘Justice System Capital Fund.’ That would presumably have added about $2 million to the project cost.
So in February, we were looking $15 million in possible expense, not including the interest payments on the loan.
Those of us who’d been watching the County Jail debacle for the past four years had seen a fair number of price estimates for this jail, depending upon the time of year and the site under consideration. These price estimates have come primarily from the same joint team of architects: Reilly Johnson Architects, and Reynolds Ash + Associates. One thing has been pretty consistent over the past four years: the Cost Per Square Foot. $400 per Gross Square Foot (gsf). That price doesn’t include the architects’ fees, which have been estimated at around 10 percent of the project construction cost.
For example, we were shown this estimate, with the price-per-square-foot for the jail portion shown as $400:
And here’s an estimate from 2016:
Here’s another official price estimate, from November 2016:
Again, we see the price estimated at $400 per square foot, not including the architects’ fees.
Is this a reasonable estimate? $400 per square foot?
While researching that question a couple of years ago, I had the pleasure to correspond with Gunnison County administrator Matthew Birnie, his community built a new Courthouse, Sheriff’s Office, and Detention Center between 2011 and 2015. Gunnison’s population (16,000) is similar to Archuleta County’s population (13,300). Their reasonably attractive new Public Safety Center (combined Sheriff’s Office, Emergency Operations Center and Detention Center) measures 34,113 square feet and was completed at a cost of about $11.9 million.
According to my pocket calculator, the cost was about $349 per square foot. But that was a few years ago.
So what the heck. Let’s go with $400 per square foot, as a reasonable cost for a new Detention Center in Pagosa Springs. In February, the BOCC voted unanimously to spend $13 million on a new Detention Center (not including the 15% contingency.) Subtract the $1 million fee charged by the architects, and we have $12 million allocated for construction costs.
How many square feet would that be? According to my pocket calculator, the Archuleta County BOCC has approved a debt that would allow for a 30,000 square-foot Detention Center, at $400 per square foot. That is to say, a jail the size of Gunnison’s entire Public Safety Center — the Sheriff’s Office, the Emergency Operations Center, and the Jail.
But the Archuleta County BOCC is not building a Public Safety Center. They’re building only a jail.
Our existing (but abandoned) County Jail measures 9,000 square feet, and accommodated 34 beds. So we could assume that a jail twice that size — 68 beds — might measure about 18,000 square feet? But in February, the BOCC was talking about a 54-bed jail, that will measure more than three times the size of our existing (but abandoned) 34-bed facility, if we use $400 as our square foot cost estimate.
What in the world were the County Commissioners planning to build, back in February? A $13 million luxury hotel?
Bill Hudson began sharing his opinions in the Pagosa Daily Post in 2004 and can’t seem to break the habit. He claims that, in Pagosa Springs, opinions are like pickup trucks: everybody has one.