A few of the folks who have been intimately connected with Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation District (PAWSD) off and on over the past decade, contacted me last week to comment on some of the… facts? assumptions? judgements?… expressed in the first few installments of this editorial series.
We are here speaking about the controversial 7-mile-long sewer pipeline that delivers downtown sewage to the Vista treatment facility, and — as it turns out — is generating uncomfortable levels of hydrosulfuric acid along the way.
One person wrote, “My only wish is the Town and every other political entity would take heed and take responsibility for their past actions, but I doubt that they will. They never learn!”
Another asked, “What was the final cost of the pipeline, including the subsequent modifications, the storage reservoir, and all the legal and engineering costs? I have no idea. Does anyone?”
Good questions. When the sewer pipeline was nearing completion in 2015, a member of the PAWSD board suggested that the final project cost would be close to $8 million — about twice the $4 million cost originally estimated by PAWSD staff. The Town Public Works Department then realized that the system had been designed without sufficient overflow capacity, should a pipeline break occur while raw sewage continued to flow. That curious oversight was dealt with in late 2015, but in a somewhat non-transparent fashion.
When writing an article titled “Perpetual problems plague pipeline project” in November 2015, Pagosa Springs SUN reporter Ed Fincher carefully quoted a conversation between Town Council member Kathie Lattin and Pagosa Springs Sanitation General Improvement District (PSSGID) manager Gene Tautges, and also summarized a long series of historical missteps and questionable decisions that had led two local government boards into a disagreeable sewer situation.
Ms. Lattin was expressing her dismay that the Council (acting as the PSSGID board) had just approved a $618,000 addition to the brand new sewer pipeline, without a single word of discussion. The money had been approved — offhandedly — because it appeared innocently on the PSSGID meeting Consent Agenda as a “Small Communities Grant.” Maybe the Council members simply weren’t paying attention?
“I’m sorry,” Ms. Lattin objected. “I wasn’t looking at this agenda and did not realize right off the bat that this item was on the Consent Agenda, because I’d like some discussion on this.”
Mayor Don Volger quickly asserted that the resolution had already been approved as part of the Consent Agenda — a part of the agenda that does not permit discussion. So it was too late to reverse the vote, he said… but she could still ask questions, he said… after the fact… about a $618,000 sewer pipeline expenditure. Ms. Lattin did, indeed, ask questions, but it was too late to change anything.
This illustrates one of my themes in this editorial series. Not only do we now have a 7-mile pipeline of questionable design, but much of what happened between 2010 and 2015 regarding the engineering, intergovernmental negotiations, and final approvals happened behind closed doors or without sufficient public discussion.
For example:
I was sitting in the Town Council chambers on January 3, 2012, a few feet away from local activist John Bozek, when he stood up and asked why the Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) clutched in the hands of various Town Council members and PAWSD board members had never been made public. Mr. Bozek was concerned about the painful lack of government transparency, because the Town Council and the PAWSD board appeared ready to mutually approve the agreement on the table and thus officially start the process of building a 7-mile-long sewer pipeline costing millions of dollars — without allowing any type of public hearing whatsoever.
Here’s Mr. Bozek, speaking to the assembled elected and appointed officials:
“I am personally disappointed in your current lack of transparency, on this issue. Correct me if I am wrong, but I don’t think there has even been a public hearing on this, where a draft of the agreement or a list of bullet-points has been presented to the public. Am I correct on that?”
Mr. Bozek was indeed correct. And he continued his questioning, pointing to the meeting table where members of the PAWSD board and the Town Council were seated. Everyone at the table was holding a copy of a proposed Intergovernmental Agreement — the IGA.
No one in the audience was holding a copy of the document.
“Everybody at that table saw this IGA,” Mr. Bozek asserted. He then turned to the dozen or so citizens seated in the audience. “Did anybody here in this audience see the IGA… or any bullet points? Anybody? Any taxpayers?”
No one from the audience raised a hand.
“That’s what I mean by transparency,” he continued. “And it doesn’t exist.”
A few minutes later we heard from PAWSD board member Jan Clinkenbeard.
“I had also requested that this document be made available to our rate payers — our PAWSD voters — and I started making that request in December. I would periodically email and ask, has this document been made available? And what I heard was that it might be made available today.”
In fact, it had not been made available to the public.
Ms. Clinkenbeard continued. “So I can understand the voters’ concerns, because this is a ‘forever’ document. This isn’t a minor thing, like changing our trucks from blue to white. This is something that is going to last forever. I have no problem making this document — and other financial information — available. I think we should.
“We have a PAWSD board meeting on January 10. It’s been suggested that we put this on the agenda. That should give people, who want to look at this, ample time to look at it. They can come to the meeting, they can ask the questions. With our staff, we will try to see that people get the information they want. I just think this is important enough, that we should give our rate payers a chance to look at this document, and inquire about whatever financial questions they might have.”
Ms. Clinkenbeard’s request — like Mr. Bozek’s complaint — fell on deaf ears.