I have three grown children, and all of them own the latest iPhone: the iPhone 12.
I mention this seemingly extraneous fact, because I recognize that having the latest “thing” is important to a fair number of Americans. That’s one of the ways we measure success. Owning “new” things.
If you’re a government official charged with spending taxpayers’ money, you might also want purchase and “own” new things, on behalf of the taxpayers. A new County jail, for example. If your old County jail was struggling with an occasional roof leak — as ours did, here in downtown Pagosa Springs — and you have the ability to put the taxpayers $20 million in debt for a brand new jail, it only makes sense to do exactly that.
And if you’re also responsible — on behalf of the taxpayers — for an old, architecturally-challenged Courthouse in the heart of downtown, it’s easy to assume that the taxpayers want that building to be sold and demolished, to make way for something “new”.
But finding a ‘replacement’ office building is a bit more challenging, perhaps.
During County Finance Director Larry Walton’s 2019 budget presentation, he included the following chart, showing the ongoing debt burden from the Certificates of Deposit (COPs) used by the Board of County Commissioners to finance the new County detention center.
What we see illustrated in the chart — with the darker blue bars — is the debt created by the BOCC (without voters approval) to finance the construction of the new County jail. The annual payment on that COP debt will be about $800,000 a year, for quite a few years. By the year 2044, the taxpayers will have forked out about $20 million, to pay for a $14 million jail.
That amount does not include the cost of operating the jail, which this year will cost us more than $1.7 million, according to the 2021 budget. Adding the debt and operations together, we are now paying for a detention center that costs in excess of $2.5 million per year.
To put that number in perspective, in 2019 the Sheriff’s Office paid about $600,000 to house all our inmates at the La Plata County jail. Obviously, it will cost considerably more to house inmates conveniently in our own jail.
Once the jail was underway, the next question facing the BOCC was, “Where will we find the extra $4 million needed to complete a new County Courthouse by the end of next year, so that the County can qualify for a $1.9 million grant promised by the Colorado Underfunded Courthouse Facility Commission?” That grant requires the County to finish building a $5.8 million courthouse the end of 2021, in order to receive the money.
So the 2021 budget proposed to allocate zero property tax dollars to the Road & Bridge Fund for 2021, and also, to completely empty out the “Strategic Fund Reserve” — the rainy-day fund that previous commissioners had spent four years creating — thus leaving the BOCC and the County government “without that safety net.”
According to Mr. Walton’s October 6, 2020 budget presentation, $3.9 million is slated to be “consumed” out of the Strategic Reserve in 2021. Unless some additional grants magically appear…
…leaving the ‘Strategic Reserve’ bank account at zero.
In 2020, Archuleta County witnessed a surprisingly prosperous summer — despite, or possibly because of, the global COVID crisis. Thousands of people, who had expected to use air travel for their vacation last year, apparently decided to drive to Pagosa Springs instead.
We’ve seen what appear to be record tourist visits, record home sales and prices, and record sales tax collections. Meanwhile — as mentioned previously — the 2021 budget allocates zero property tax dollars to the Road & Bridge Fund. That’s $1.4 million less than in 2019.
So we’re getting a new courthouse, to house the state Judicial District employees. But the building is not sized to accommodate the three County departments — Assessor, Treasurer and Clerk — that continue to operate in the old County Courthouse downtown. The BOCC appears destined to empty out our ‘Strategic Reserve’ this year. They’ve already cut way back on road maintenance. Their back-room credit cards (“Certificates of Participation”) might be maxed out.
But they’ve now received an offer from developer David Dronet — representing Olympus Real Estate Group — proposing to buy (and demolish) the downtown courthouse… with a very vague suggestion as to how the BOCC — already up to its neck in debt — will house those three County departments…
Here, once again, is a paragraph from Mr. Dronet’s March 30 Letter Of Intent, wherein ‘Olympus Real Estate Group’ is referred to as “Tenant/Buyer”:
Tenant/Buyer owns and/or has access to land parcels in downtown Pagosa Springs and in Harman Park. The parcels are adequate for the development of a new office building and Tenant/Buyer will work with the County to provide the ability to buy a land parcel, sufficient for the construction of a New County Building, at fair market value. The exact parcel to be purchased may require rezoning, platting or other approvals, which the Parties agree to cooperate in furtherance thereof beginning upon the execution of the Lease.
The paragraph talks about vacant parcels… but Mr. Dronet does not explain in his offer, who will build the new ‘replacement’ office building, not does he explain if the BOCC will be expected to find enough money — somehow — to finance yet another multi-million-dollar building.
Why is no explanation offered in Mr. Dronet’s Letter Of Intent? (Which you can download here, if you haven’t already.)
Perhaps the Letter of Intent was dashed off without too much thought? Perhaps Mr. Dronet has no actual “Intent” to deal with the three displaced County departments?
I think back to when I signed up for an email account with Gmail, and I was offered a seven-page ‘Terms of Service’ agreement, which I could choose to accept.
For an email account.
But the BOCC gets one-and-a-half pages… from a developer who wants to buy the most prominent historical, publicly-owned building in downtown Pagosa?
Somehow, that just don’t seem right.
Do developers from Texas think we’re a bunch of country bumpkins?