Fishing. Conservation. Community. We bring together diverse interests to care for and recover rivers and streams, so our children can experience the joy of wild and native trout and salmon…
— from the Trout Unlimited website.
We are sitting in the Council Chambers, at Town Hall, on September 23, 2021. The folks who had come to complain about government COVID mandates have already spoken and departed, so there are only a couple of us left in the audience.
The Council has also already heard about the ever-increasing stream of sales tax revenue, and the fine flow of Lodgers Tax money into the Tourism Board’s bank account. The Council has approved a density bonus for the new owners (or soon-to-be owners) of the Pagosa Springs Inn & Suites, which will apparently be converted from a motel into a fairly massive apartment building offering up to 98 long-term rental units. Or vacation rentals, perhaps.
The final matter for the Council to consider concerns Archuleta County’s aquatic life. A request for significant taxpayer funding is going to be presented by Town Planning Director James Dickhoff, on behalf of the Upper San Juan Watershed Enhancement Partnership, better known as “the WEP”.
Mr. Dickhoff is not just the Town Planning Director; he’s also a member of the 14-member WEP Steering Committee. Another member of that steering committee is also in attendance, via the ZOOM connection: local activist Mely Whiting, Colorado Water Project Legal Counsel with Trout Unlimited.
Ms. Whiting will argue in favor of the WEP request for taxpayer funding, a bit later in the presentation.
I have a bit of familiarity with this issue because I serve on the San Juan Water Conservancy Board (SJWCD), which has been supporting the WEP with annual donations of taxpayer revenues. Our SJWCD president, Al Pfister, is employed by the WEP as a consultant… and that can make discussions about WEP funding a bit tricky, as you might imagine.
(This editorial series does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the SJWCD Board; the opinions expressed are my own.)
September brings about annual budget discussions, among the elected and appointed officials who spend taxpayer money in Archuleta County. Draft budgets must be publicly posted by October 15, and public hearings on those budgets typically take place in November, with final budget approvals in December.
I happen to be the Treasurer for SJWCD, and as such, I was asked to put together a preliminary 2022 budget for the SJWCD Board meeting on September 20.
Prior to assembling that draft budget, I received an email from Mandy Eskelson, who is employed by the Durango-based environmental group Mountain Studies Institute as the WEP Project Manager.
Hello Al and Bill,
I am reaching out on behalf of the Upper San Juan Watershed Enhancement Partnership (WEP) to inquire about San Juan Water Conservancy District’s (SJWCD) preliminary budget drafting for 2022. The WEP and Town of Pagosa Springs are currently drafting a package of pilot projects along the San Juan mainstem, just upstream of the town and within the Yamaguchi South area. Partners hope to apply for several grants to cover the majority of the project costs, but several grants require a smaller portion of matching funds.
The SJWCD has generously supported WEP’s efforts to develop an integrated water management plan since 2018, and we hope the Board will consider supporting these projects as a demonstration of the type of work that can be accomplished on the ground through this collaborative planning process. We would request and appreciate if the SJWCD would include $2,500 in your planning efforts for 2022.
I assured Ms. Eskelson, via email, that I would insert $2,500 into the sample SJWCD budget, and that our Board would discuss that insertion at the September 20 meeting.
My experience, covering local politics in Pagosa for the Daily Post, and serving on various government and non-profit boards and committees, suggests to me that the people making decisions about spending taxpayer money sometimes have limited knowledge about potentially expensive proposals, and often make funding decisions based on incomplete information presented by the very people hoping to get their hands on that taxpayer money.
My experience also suggests to me that board members are sometimes hesitant to question these requests for public money because:
1) It’s their friends asking for the money, or
2) They haven’t had time (or haven’t taken the time) to thoroughly study the request, or
3) Someone within the government organization is connected to the project, and it’s uncomfortable to raise questions, or
4) It’s just the taxpayers’ money, so why ask questions and look like a penny-pincher?
When the WEP made their presentation to the SJWCD Board on September 20, I would say that conditions 2 and 3 were in play.
The Board had not had time to thoroughly study the request, prior to the meeting, because the WEP had thoroughly failed to provide us with any information prior to the meeting… other than the dollar figure: $2,500.
One Board member (me) had done some incidental research prior to the meeting, and also happened to be quite comfortable raising questions, in spite of the fact that our Board president was employed by the group asking for the money. (Mr. Pfister recused from the discussion, and left the room, in line with SJWCD’s Bylaws.)
One thing I can say about the WEP and its parent organization, Mountain Studies Institute. They are quite transparent, in terms of posting information on their website. You can spend days (literally) reading the information that MSI and WEP have made accessible to the public.
Not all non-profits are so transparent. In fact, very few non-profits are so transparent.
Thus, it was fairly easy for me to find out what the WEP has been up to, for the past three years, in terms of acquiring taxpayer funding to create a community-driven Stream Management Plan (SMP) for the Upper San Juan River.
Except, as far as I could tell, the three-year process has not been community-driven. At least, it has not been community-driven, in the way the WEP had promised us. Despite the WEP’s stated good intentions, the tax-funded process seems driven by a private committee.
As the SJWCD board prepared for its September 20 meeting, I was preparing my case for denying funding for the WEP’s next, rather expensive project.