Numerous other local taxpayer-funded entities are currently going through their budget processes. Or so it would appear…
Category: Opinion/Letters
EDITORIAL: Pagosa Springs, Refreshingly Blighted… Part Two
“Look at us,” the magazines seemed to be shouting, “we provide the same high-quality visitor experience as Telluride, Aspen and Vail!…”
EDITORIAL: Pagosa Springs, Refreshingly Blighted… Part One
After spending over $1 million trying to figure out the best way to increase tourism in Archuleta County, the Town Tourism Committee had still not come up with a truly exciting “branding” idea…
EDITORIAL: Icebergs of Ignorance, Part Four
Four of the seven Town Council members on Tuesday evening took Mr. Dickhoff’s assessment of the vacant property adjacent to the Springs Resort as a valid “Conditions Survey”…
EDITORIAL: Icebergs of Ignorance, Part Three
I counted about 100 people in the audience at last night’s Pagosa Springs Town Council meeting at the Ross Aragon Community Center…
EDITORIAL: Icebergs of Ignorance, Part Two
Does the Town Council know about the corruption that often accompanies URA projects, as time goes by?
EDITORIAL: Icebergs of Ignorance, Part One
Many people have written about this “Iceberg of Ignorance” concept, and some have suggested that the situation is unavoidable…
EDITORIAL: Can Rural America Be Saved? Part Five
I will go out on a limb and suggest that our Pagosa Springs leadership has been paddling frantically in the same direction for the past 20 years…
EDITORIAL: Can Rural America Be Saved? Part Four
Archuleta County certainly qualifies as a rural county with fewer than 50,000 residents, and last time I looked, we were not adjacent to a metro area…
EDITORIAL: Can Rural America Be Saved? Part Three
Our poverty rate in Archuleta County is near the national average: 12 percent. That’s substantially lower than the average poverty rate for all rural counties…
EDITORIAL: Can Rural America Be Saved? Part Two
Pirsig didn’t know it at the time — none of us knew it at the time — but the nation was just beginning its own journey into a new economic landscape…
EDITORIAL: Can Rural America Be Saved? Part One
What if an overarching economic mission of growth isn’t actually what rural places want, or need?
EDITORIAL: The Old Swimming Hole, Part Three
The River Walk is, in some ways, the prize jewel of the Town’s Parks Department — the proof that our little rural town is pedestrian-friendly and walkable…
EDITORIAL: The Old Swimming Hole, Part Two
Thankfully, our Town Council is composed of non-engineers, so we sometimes hear a different perspective…
EDITORIAL: The Old Swimming Hole, Part One
When we first arrived, in late June, the water was still chilly, and not much more that chest high on an adult…
EDITORIAL: The Murder and Resurrection of the Colorado River, Part Six
Here in Archuleta County, where most of our water still flows like… well, like water… agricultural users don’t have to pay for water at all…
EDITORIAL: The Murder and Resurrection of the Colorado River, Part Five
“Then we got plastered by My Weekly Reader,” explained Reclamation staffer Dan Dreyfus. “You’re in deep shit when you catch it from them…”
EDITORIAL: The Murder and Resurrection of the Colorado River, Part Four
Agriculture uses 94 percent of Archuleta County’s water. And our farmers and ranchers have to keep using it — even if they are losing money — if they want to hold on to their water rights…
EDITORIAL: The Murder and Resurrection of the Colorado River, Part Three
USGS calculates that non-agricultural water consumption — residential, commercial, industrial — at about 2.44 million gallons per day…