Monday, December 31, 2007
Six Action Steps for 2008
In the recently released “Archuleta County Housing Needs Assessment” written by EPS consultants, we can find a prime example of the type of fractured, small-picture thinking that has led to the current financial chaos plaguing Archuleta County government, the downtown core and blue-collar citizens alike. In short, “poverty mentality” and the fear of growth has led to increasing poverty in this county.
The EPS document states: “This (housing needs) study included a survey of businesses in Archuleta County. Combined with the economic data presented above, the survey indicates stable economic growth.” But part of what EPS “presented above” was the following: “The average annual wage in Archuleta County is just under $27,000 per year, or approximately $12.90 per hour.”
Excuse me -- “stable economic growth”? What are the consultants at EPS smoking?
Did anyone at EPS ever consider the fact that the rate of annual inflation means “real wages” are decreasing every year in Archuleta County? Does anyone doubt $27,000. buys only half of what it bought five years ago? Maybe the problem is not prices going up everywhere, including Archuleta County, but maybe the problem is the number of employees growing faster than the number of jobs and this is what keeps wages artificially depressed in our County. We need more income from top to bottom.
According to the website “Shadow Government Statistics” (SGS - www.shadowstats.com/), “Inflation, as reported by the Consumer Price Index is understated by roughly 7% per year.” A chart on the website shows inflation running at almost 12% this year. What this means is a fixed wage of $12.90 per hour this year, compared to last year, is actually a reduction in purchasing power of 12%. EPS states “the average wage in Archuleta increased by 4 percent annually from 2000 to 2006.” The federal government claims inflation over that time period was about 2% per year. The SGS website puts inflation over those six years at about 10% per year. In other words, the purchasing power of wages has gone down about 6% per year, in a county with historically low wages.
None of this is a surprise. The US government has been printing money out of thin air for years and the rate of this increase has been increasing exponentially. To hide this truth, the US government stopped reporting “M3” statistics in March 2006. The SGS website estimates M3 is growing almost 16% per year at this point. The financial statistic “M3” includes: hard currency, money lent out by banks greatly in excess of their reserves, loans from foreign governments, and other methods of hypothecating debt which allow the United States to literally create money out of thin air. This allows the US to obtain goods and services from around the world and in exchange we give foreigners white pieces of paper now which promise to give them green pieces of paper later.
At the moment, “the U.S. current account deficit is approximately US$50 million an hour. That is roughly the rate at which its indebtedness is rising.” (The Dollar Crises by Richard Duncan; 2005) This means we are getting goods and services from the rest of the world and we are giving them promises to give them green pieces of paper at a later time……and the US is doing this at a rate of $50 million an hour in the year 2005. So, we get the stuff and they get the promises to be paid later. This is probably a good deal for us (think flat screen TV) but in the meantime the value of the dollar continues to fall. And so a $27,000. annual salary buys roughly 12% less this year than it did last year. Real assets like gold and real estate keep going up because the value of the dollar keeps going down.
But, according to the myopic view of the EPS consultants and many of our “leaders”, the problem is to hopefully be solved by socialist price reductions in housing for our workers. Never once does EPS mention the simple fact that Archuleta County workers’ real wages are falling year after year. In other words, just assume the rich get richer and the poor will get poorer. Bad working premise.
The EPS document notes: “The average home price in Archuleta County is $305,000. as of September 2007. To afford this, a household needs to earn approximately $88,000 per year. This annual income is equivalent to one earner making $42 per hour, or two earners at $21 per hour. This disparity between wages and home prices indicates that housing prices are influenced more by factors outside the local economy rather than by local wage and income levels.” Duh.
Let me put this another way, the economy of Archuleta County is failing to keep up with the real world. The doubling and tripling of real estate prices in the past few years was Archuleta County playing catch-up with the effect that inflation has quietly had on real estate prices throughout the nation over the past ten years.. Unfortunately, we did not grow our economy to keep up with real prices. Rather, the average County wage earner has seen her purchasing power decrease in the past few years.
A document from 2006 found on the Archuleta County website states: “Archuleta County has been unable to keep pace with the costs of inflation and the demand for services within the county due to population growth.” “The challenge faced by county government is to do more with less resources.” Excuse me……property taxes are up by how much from five years earlier, tourism has continued to grow and yet the county government has “less resources”. Why?
By way of comparison, consider the Southern Ute nation. They share the same geographical location as “Archuleta County”. Does the Indian Nation share the poverty mentality of the neighboring Archuleta County citizens? Apparently not. The Southern Utes have made entrepreneurial decisions to take advantage of their natural gas resources; arguably a finite resource. An example from the Southern Ute website: “Red Willow is the oil and gas production business of the Southern Ute Indian Tribe. We use state-of-the-art technology to find and develop economic petroleum reserves. A key component to our growing success is our ongoing commitment to the highest standard of financial and operating business practices.”
Pagosa Springs has potentially far more valuable resources than the Southern Utes. We have something people across the continent want to enjoy, if we let them know it is here and we grow to accommodate their visit.
Without realizing what they are missing, the EPS paper quickly stumbles over this fact: “Despite the current market downturn, Pagosa Springs and Archuleta County will continue to be attractive for second home and tourism oriented real estate development.” Then EPS draws the conclusion “This creates an opportunity to work with the private sector to expand the supply of workforce housing through developer agreements and partnerships.”
In other words, let’s create programs to hand workers a fish. At no point is there any thought to teaching workers to increase their hourly wages or to become entrepreneurs themselves. At no point is there a vision that economic growth in this Town can benefit everyone financially. EPS blindly promotes the concept that $12.90 per hour is set in stone indefinitely and that working two and three jobs is an acceptable lifestyle for our blue collar workers.
Reading between the lines, EPS unconsciously promotes the theory of “the man” and “the system” which has enslaved the majority of the workers and consigned them to a fate of toiling away never to actually become financially prosperous.
The EPS report buys into and re-affirms that the prevailing “poverty mentality” in our Town is a God-given fact for the future. This is a lie. But only if you say so. If you subscribe to a belief of being a victim, then you are.
EPS notes “Archuleta County’s economic base is characteristic of many rural mountain areas that have transitioned from a natural resource - and agriculture - based economy to an economy based more on tourism, second homes and retirees, and services.” But have we taken advantage of our new economy opportunities? Apparently not.
In his masterpiece book “Critical Path”, Buckminster Fuller addresses the topic of scarcity and abundance. “Since Thomas Robert Malthus (1810) it had been assumed by all the world’s political ideologies -- as it is even today -- that there is a fundamental and lethal inadequacy of life support on our planet, wherefore, poverty and misery for vast millions of humans have been accepted as unavoidable. Wherefore, the also universally assumed law of ‘survival only of the fittest’ had given historical rise to various political ideologies, as ways of coping with this fundamental inadequacy -- each convinced that the ultimate proof of which ideological group is fittest to survive can be resolved only by periodic trial of arms.”
“Humans -- in politically organized, group-fear-mandated acquisition of weaponry -- have inadvertently developed so-much-more-performance-with so-much-less material, effort, and time investment per each technological task accomplished as now inadvertently to have established a level of technological capability which, if applied exclusively to peaceful purposes, can provide a sustainable high standard of living for all humanity, which accomplished fact makes war and all weaponry obsolete.” Imagine if you will, when Fuller wrote this book in 1980, even a visionary of his talent was mostly unable to predict the rise of the internet, for example.
Buckminster Fuller committed himself at the age of 32 to become his own guinea pig in a experiment “to discover what, if anything, the little, penniless, unknown individual, with dependent wife and child, might be able to do effectively on behalf of all humanity that would be inherently impossible for great nations or great corporate enterprises to do.” Though possibly best known for his invention of the geodesic dome, over a fifty year period Fuller compiled an extensive inventory of inventions, architecture, books, organizing principles and other tools for seeing how humans could do so much more with so much less consumption of materials so as to make obsolete the Thomas Malthus generalized theory of scarcity on the planet.
With regard to all of us humans moving bravely toward our destiny of abundance for all people, Fuller noted that “Much that I see to be inevitable is unthinkingly opposed by various factions of society. Reflex-conditioned society, facing exclusively toward its past, backs up into its future, often bumping its rump painfully but uncomprehendingly against the ‘potential-wealth coffers’ of its future years’ vastly multiplying capability to favorably control its own ecological evolution and the latter’s freedom multiplying devices.”
And so it is with each and all of us here in Pagosa Springs. The tangible potential for our little Town as a national tourist destination and as a center for healing in our world-class healing waters within the great outdoors that surrounds us, is a “potential-wealth coffer” that could easily enrich each and every citizen of the greater Pagosa Springs area, far beyond any of our imaginations. And, yes, all this can be achieved while protecting our small-town character.
The thing that stops us from reaching out and enjoying the fruit of our Pagosa Springs bounty is simply fear. There is fear of change, fear of the unknown, and fear deep inside each of us individually that, somehow, we are not really good enough to live the life of abundance that we have spent our entire adult lives consigning to “wishful thinking”.
Some may say the idea that the potential of Pagosa Springs will make all of us, together, wealthy beyond our dreams is utter lunacy. Consider the point of view of someone from the big City who comes and visits Pagosa Springs. The idea that a talented, mature adult would work three different jobs for 60 hours a week and make an average wage of $12.90 per hour would appear to be the total lunacy; especially considering that we are all sitting on this infinite pot of gold easily recognized by all who visit.
Are we willing to let go of our unconscious, deep-seated fears which keep each and all of us trapped within a “poverty mentality”? Are each of us individually and as a community ready to open up to our divine right to experience the abundance beneath our feet? The theory that God placed us here on this earth to struggle and to suffer is a lie. God placed us here on this earth, at this time, to realize a dream called “heaven on earth”. The nightmare we call “hell on earth” was conceived of by the human mind, not the mind of God. Each of us has the power individually to let go of this nightmare called “hell on earth” and begin training ourselves to live “heaven on earth”. And in so doing we allow the space and the light for others to do the same.
So now, how are we going to get there?
Action step number one is for each individual person to commit themselves to be willing to open up to a world of abundance within themselves that previously they kept shut down. Without your personal willingness nothing more will happen.
Action step number two is for each person to individually commit, on a daily basis, to no longer live from the fears which have guided their life in the past. Each of us must do this personal work. We must stop clinging to the past and fighting change and growth. We must dare to think that through a concerted team effort, all of us can benefit, together. This is called “thinking outside of the box” and moving beyond the fear.
Action step number three is for the people of Pagosa Springs and Archuleta County, which I now refer to simply as Pagosa Springs, to become aware of the “potential-wealth coffers” which exist beneath our feet and all around us. We have something here in Pagosa Springs that many, many people across the nation desire; this is why you and I live here.
We can offer this to many, many people without compromising the integrity and the beauty of what we have. Yes, we need more housing, more hotel beds, more restaurants, more shops and more services. Yes, we need modern government. Yes, all this will provide far more jobs and a higher standard of living for all citizens; if we are willing. If you look closely, all the naysayers are speaking the language of fear.
Action step number four is Pagosa Springs must hire a powerful public relations firm which can put Pagosa Springs on the map, nationally, as a must-see destination. Our current marketing efforts to date have focused on automobile-dependent tourists from a short list of states including: Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California and Colorado.
We must intentionally become a nationally known phenomena. We are not offering some Disneyland. We are offering a healing journey to mother nature.
Action step number five is the Town government of Pagosa Springs must become a prime partner to making development happen, especially in the downtown core. If you want people to visit, then give them something worth showing up for. We need tourist services and amenities. There is significantly more vacant commercial space downtown than there was two years ago. The current half-dead state of the downtown core is a clear testament to the policies and actions of the Town Council and staff over the past five-plus years. This is neither condemnation nor praise, just a statement of the facts.
Question: Is it acceptable to the Town Council if the downtown commercial core continues to die over the next five years? If “yes”, then do nothing. If “no”, then the Town Council needs to move into the driver’s seat of making development happen downtown. The Downtown Master Plan is a beautiful document. Will it ever be built? The Town Council had better figure out right now what it will take to make it financially feasible for development to happen downtown. Otherwise, the locus of commercial development will continue to shift uptown around the new City Market and Aspen Village area and the downtown commercial core will continue to die.
Right now, there are three competing forces for the heart and soul of future downtown development. Those three options are: [a] the cheap-aesthetic, automobile-dependent Aspen Village style of land use, [b] the downtown master plan, and [c] nothing at all.
The Aspen Village style of land use can also be called the “1980’s shopping mall” style of land use. All trips to and from the shopping mall are automobile trips. There is no sense of place. You don’t go hang out there with friends. You don’t take visitors there on tour. You don’t walk there. Most of the uptown development is like this now. Fortunately, some of the newer commercial developments like: La Tazza, Higher Grounds, and Pagosa Brewing Company do provide a sense of place even within the sea of automobile-oriented, shopping mall style, suburban development.
The Aspen Village style of construction is a cheaper sort of poor mountain town, “rustic” aesthetic. The redundant use of various shades of “baby poop” brown and “forest” green is a little hard to understand. Even harder to explain is the failure of the owner of “The Jolly Green Giant” (a.k.a. the new Parelli building) to spend an extra $250. for a professional color consultant.
[Mark Weiler of Parelli informs me that he did spend money on those colors but that the developer of Aspen Village force Parelli to pick the green stucco color. I'll talk to Mark in early February to get the whole story.]
The Downtown Master Plan is a well-conceived, professionally-articulated vision for the downtown commercial core. The weakness of this plan is that it is very likely overly restrictive to an extent that it may never be built. Here are some quick back of the napkin numbers. Say it costs $250. per square foot to permit and build a new commercial building downtown. Currently, it is very difficult to find a tenant willing to spend even $18. per square foot, annually, in rent. Now quick, would you invest $250. for an annual return of $18.? Neither would I. Would you invest $250. for an annual return of $36.? (Note: we are not even talking about the cost of the land here.)
The downtown commercial core is facing another most likely scenario: nothing gets built at all. In the next five years, the only possible way that any commercial development will occur downtown is if the Town Council steps in as the leader to make it financially viable and becomes the lead partner with the developer/investor and the forward thinking citizenry.
Action step number six is County Home Rule. The massive problems we have seen with County Government will continue to unfold and be revealed in 2008. More time and energy will be wasted on finger-pointing and the assignment of blame. Some other key employees will leave. The election season will amplify the noise and true progress will be hard to find. Even once we have the problems behind us, the annual debt service to the airport all but ensures the County budget will be tight at best. Measure 1A funds will be used to balance the budget.
One way out of this mess is a County Home Rule charter. We need a hierarchical, streamlined County organization that functions like a business. Right now, the separately elected department heads act more like independent fiefdoms. We need a functioning, business-minded County government organization answering to a charter written by the people of greater Pagosa Springs. Right now our County does not have its own charter!
I have asked County Commissioner Bob Moomaw to place Home Rule on the Ballot for March. Home Rule requires the people to vote for an eleven member charter commission to be formed (in March, for example) and then the people get to vote again on the proposed charter (in November, for example). If Bob Moomaw will not pass a County resolution this January to place Home Rule on the Ballot, then I will personally coordinate a grass-roots citizen petition signed by approximately 600 County voters to place it on the ballot. Who else will step forward with me to ensure that this happens now?
The reason County Home Rule has not already been placed on the ballot is fear and mistrust of the general public to understand the process and create a strong new County charter. The time has come to move beyond fear and take control of our County government.
In case you are wondering, Home Rule does not affect any current County employee. All good, honest employees will be needed to perform County functions well into the future. The only ones to potentially feel threatened by Home Rule are those elected officials who currently do not answer to the people or who do not play well with the other County team members.
Later, we can use a Home Rule charter to begin creating a regional government between the Town and the County governments (or not). Eventually, I believe, the County government should disappear and be merged into the Town. All County employees and services would continue but the Town Council and Town Manager would run both the Town and the County functions as one unified body. The only people who will fear and protest this idea are those who are afraid of giving up power. The only power to be given up is the power of separation, division and personal empire building. The Town Council would be elected by and answer to the greater Pagosa Springs community. The Town Council would necessarily expand and mature into its vastly larger role.
It is time to shed our poverty-mentality limitations of the past and move into our destiny as a nationally-known destination for a healing journey to mother nature. It is time to admit our abundance to ourselves and to then share it with the world. All of us citizens of Pagosa Springs are standing on a resource which, right now, makes each of us wealthy beyond our wildest imagination. Do we have the courage to take advantage of it now for ourselves and our unified community?
Remember these things. We all live in a small one-town, unified community. There is no “us“ and “them“. We have nothing to fear but fear itself. From the time of birth, each human mind has learned to deceive itself such that each of us must be dragged kicking and screaming into the paradise of the natural flow of abundance. Let go of your own fears and your own resignation to the limitations someone else taught you. There is a way for all of us, as one community, to unselfishly tap into and share the wealth of the healing powers of mother nature found here in our town.
The EPS document states: “This (housing needs) study included a survey of businesses in Archuleta County. Combined with the economic data presented above, the survey indicates stable economic growth.” But part of what EPS “presented above” was the following: “The average annual wage in Archuleta County is just under $27,000 per year, or approximately $12.90 per hour.”
Excuse me -- “stable economic growth”? What are the consultants at EPS smoking?
Did anyone at EPS ever consider the fact that the rate of annual inflation means “real wages” are decreasing every year in Archuleta County? Does anyone doubt $27,000. buys only half of what it bought five years ago? Maybe the problem is not prices going up everywhere, including Archuleta County, but maybe the problem is the number of employees growing faster than the number of jobs and this is what keeps wages artificially depressed in our County. We need more income from top to bottom.
According to the website “Shadow Government Statistics” (SGS - www.shadowstats.com/), “Inflation, as reported by the Consumer Price Index is understated by roughly 7% per year.” A chart on the website shows inflation running at almost 12% this year. What this means is a fixed wage of $12.90 per hour this year, compared to last year, is actually a reduction in purchasing power of 12%. EPS states “the average wage in Archuleta increased by 4 percent annually from 2000 to 2006.” The federal government claims inflation over that time period was about 2% per year. The SGS website puts inflation over those six years at about 10% per year. In other words, the purchasing power of wages has gone down about 6% per year, in a county with historically low wages.
None of this is a surprise. The US government has been printing money out of thin air for years and the rate of this increase has been increasing exponentially. To hide this truth, the US government stopped reporting “M3” statistics in March 2006. The SGS website estimates M3 is growing almost 16% per year at this point. The financial statistic “M3” includes: hard currency, money lent out by banks greatly in excess of their reserves, loans from foreign governments, and other methods of hypothecating debt which allow the United States to literally create money out of thin air. This allows the US to obtain goods and services from around the world and in exchange we give foreigners white pieces of paper now which promise to give them green pieces of paper later.
At the moment, “the U.S. current account deficit is approximately US$50 million an hour. That is roughly the rate at which its indebtedness is rising.” (The Dollar Crises by Richard Duncan; 2005) This means we are getting goods and services from the rest of the world and we are giving them promises to give them green pieces of paper at a later time……and the US is doing this at a rate of $50 million an hour in the year 2005. So, we get the stuff and they get the promises to be paid later. This is probably a good deal for us (think flat screen TV) but in the meantime the value of the dollar continues to fall. And so a $27,000. annual salary buys roughly 12% less this year than it did last year. Real assets like gold and real estate keep going up because the value of the dollar keeps going down.
But, according to the myopic view of the EPS consultants and many of our “leaders”, the problem is to hopefully be solved by socialist price reductions in housing for our workers. Never once does EPS mention the simple fact that Archuleta County workers’ real wages are falling year after year. In other words, just assume the rich get richer and the poor will get poorer. Bad working premise.
The EPS document notes: “The average home price in Archuleta County is $305,000. as of September 2007. To afford this, a household needs to earn approximately $88,000 per year. This annual income is equivalent to one earner making $42 per hour, or two earners at $21 per hour. This disparity between wages and home prices indicates that housing prices are influenced more by factors outside the local economy rather than by local wage and income levels.” Duh.
Let me put this another way, the economy of Archuleta County is failing to keep up with the real world. The doubling and tripling of real estate prices in the past few years was Archuleta County playing catch-up with the effect that inflation has quietly had on real estate prices throughout the nation over the past ten years.. Unfortunately, we did not grow our economy to keep up with real prices. Rather, the average County wage earner has seen her purchasing power decrease in the past few years.
A document from 2006 found on the Archuleta County website states: “Archuleta County has been unable to keep pace with the costs of inflation and the demand for services within the county due to population growth.” “The challenge faced by county government is to do more with less resources.” Excuse me……property taxes are up by how much from five years earlier, tourism has continued to grow and yet the county government has “less resources”. Why?
By way of comparison, consider the Southern Ute nation. They share the same geographical location as “Archuleta County”. Does the Indian Nation share the poverty mentality of the neighboring Archuleta County citizens? Apparently not. The Southern Utes have made entrepreneurial decisions to take advantage of their natural gas resources; arguably a finite resource. An example from the Southern Ute website: “Red Willow is the oil and gas production business of the Southern Ute Indian Tribe. We use state-of-the-art technology to find and develop economic petroleum reserves. A key component to our growing success is our ongoing commitment to the highest standard of financial and operating business practices.”
Pagosa Springs has potentially far more valuable resources than the Southern Utes. We have something people across the continent want to enjoy, if we let them know it is here and we grow to accommodate their visit.
Without realizing what they are missing, the EPS paper quickly stumbles over this fact: “Despite the current market downturn, Pagosa Springs and Archuleta County will continue to be attractive for second home and tourism oriented real estate development.” Then EPS draws the conclusion “This creates an opportunity to work with the private sector to expand the supply of workforce housing through developer agreements and partnerships.”
In other words, let’s create programs to hand workers a fish. At no point is there any thought to teaching workers to increase their hourly wages or to become entrepreneurs themselves. At no point is there a vision that economic growth in this Town can benefit everyone financially. EPS blindly promotes the concept that $12.90 per hour is set in stone indefinitely and that working two and three jobs is an acceptable lifestyle for our blue collar workers.
Reading between the lines, EPS unconsciously promotes the theory of “the man” and “the system” which has enslaved the majority of the workers and consigned them to a fate of toiling away never to actually become financially prosperous.
The EPS report buys into and re-affirms that the prevailing “poverty mentality” in our Town is a God-given fact for the future. This is a lie. But only if you say so. If you subscribe to a belief of being a victim, then you are.
EPS notes “Archuleta County’s economic base is characteristic of many rural mountain areas that have transitioned from a natural resource - and agriculture - based economy to an economy based more on tourism, second homes and retirees, and services.” But have we taken advantage of our new economy opportunities? Apparently not.
In his masterpiece book “Critical Path”, Buckminster Fuller addresses the topic of scarcity and abundance. “Since Thomas Robert Malthus (1810) it had been assumed by all the world’s political ideologies -- as it is even today -- that there is a fundamental and lethal inadequacy of life support on our planet, wherefore, poverty and misery for vast millions of humans have been accepted as unavoidable. Wherefore, the also universally assumed law of ‘survival only of the fittest’ had given historical rise to various political ideologies, as ways of coping with this fundamental inadequacy -- each convinced that the ultimate proof of which ideological group is fittest to survive can be resolved only by periodic trial of arms.”
“Humans -- in politically organized, group-fear-mandated acquisition of weaponry -- have inadvertently developed so-much-more-performance-with so-much-less material, effort, and time investment per each technological task accomplished as now inadvertently to have established a level of technological capability which, if applied exclusively to peaceful purposes, can provide a sustainable high standard of living for all humanity, which accomplished fact makes war and all weaponry obsolete.” Imagine if you will, when Fuller wrote this book in 1980, even a visionary of his talent was mostly unable to predict the rise of the internet, for example.
Buckminster Fuller committed himself at the age of 32 to become his own guinea pig in a experiment “to discover what, if anything, the little, penniless, unknown individual, with dependent wife and child, might be able to do effectively on behalf of all humanity that would be inherently impossible for great nations or great corporate enterprises to do.” Though possibly best known for his invention of the geodesic dome, over a fifty year period Fuller compiled an extensive inventory of inventions, architecture, books, organizing principles and other tools for seeing how humans could do so much more with so much less consumption of materials so as to make obsolete the Thomas Malthus generalized theory of scarcity on the planet.
With regard to all of us humans moving bravely toward our destiny of abundance for all people, Fuller noted that “Much that I see to be inevitable is unthinkingly opposed by various factions of society. Reflex-conditioned society, facing exclusively toward its past, backs up into its future, often bumping its rump painfully but uncomprehendingly against the ‘potential-wealth coffers’ of its future years’ vastly multiplying capability to favorably control its own ecological evolution and the latter’s freedom multiplying devices.”
And so it is with each and all of us here in Pagosa Springs. The tangible potential for our little Town as a national tourist destination and as a center for healing in our world-class healing waters within the great outdoors that surrounds us, is a “potential-wealth coffer” that could easily enrich each and every citizen of the greater Pagosa Springs area, far beyond any of our imaginations. And, yes, all this can be achieved while protecting our small-town character.
The thing that stops us from reaching out and enjoying the fruit of our Pagosa Springs bounty is simply fear. There is fear of change, fear of the unknown, and fear deep inside each of us individually that, somehow, we are not really good enough to live the life of abundance that we have spent our entire adult lives consigning to “wishful thinking”.
Some may say the idea that the potential of Pagosa Springs will make all of us, together, wealthy beyond our dreams is utter lunacy. Consider the point of view of someone from the big City who comes and visits Pagosa Springs. The idea that a talented, mature adult would work three different jobs for 60 hours a week and make an average wage of $12.90 per hour would appear to be the total lunacy; especially considering that we are all sitting on this infinite pot of gold easily recognized by all who visit.
Are we willing to let go of our unconscious, deep-seated fears which keep each and all of us trapped within a “poverty mentality”? Are each of us individually and as a community ready to open up to our divine right to experience the abundance beneath our feet? The theory that God placed us here on this earth to struggle and to suffer is a lie. God placed us here on this earth, at this time, to realize a dream called “heaven on earth”. The nightmare we call “hell on earth” was conceived of by the human mind, not the mind of God. Each of us has the power individually to let go of this nightmare called “hell on earth” and begin training ourselves to live “heaven on earth”. And in so doing we allow the space and the light for others to do the same.
So now, how are we going to get there?
Action step number one is for each individual person to commit themselves to be willing to open up to a world of abundance within themselves that previously they kept shut down. Without your personal willingness nothing more will happen.
Action step number two is for each person to individually commit, on a daily basis, to no longer live from the fears which have guided their life in the past. Each of us must do this personal work. We must stop clinging to the past and fighting change and growth. We must dare to think that through a concerted team effort, all of us can benefit, together. This is called “thinking outside of the box” and moving beyond the fear.
Action step number three is for the people of Pagosa Springs and Archuleta County, which I now refer to simply as Pagosa Springs, to become aware of the “potential-wealth coffers” which exist beneath our feet and all around us. We have something here in Pagosa Springs that many, many people across the nation desire; this is why you and I live here.
We can offer this to many, many people without compromising the integrity and the beauty of what we have. Yes, we need more housing, more hotel beds, more restaurants, more shops and more services. Yes, we need modern government. Yes, all this will provide far more jobs and a higher standard of living for all citizens; if we are willing. If you look closely, all the naysayers are speaking the language of fear.
Action step number four is Pagosa Springs must hire a powerful public relations firm which can put Pagosa Springs on the map, nationally, as a must-see destination. Our current marketing efforts to date have focused on automobile-dependent tourists from a short list of states including: Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California and Colorado.
We must intentionally become a nationally known phenomena. We are not offering some Disneyland. We are offering a healing journey to mother nature.
Action step number five is the Town government of Pagosa Springs must become a prime partner to making development happen, especially in the downtown core. If you want people to visit, then give them something worth showing up for. We need tourist services and amenities. There is significantly more vacant commercial space downtown than there was two years ago. The current half-dead state of the downtown core is a clear testament to the policies and actions of the Town Council and staff over the past five-plus years. This is neither condemnation nor praise, just a statement of the facts.
Question: Is it acceptable to the Town Council if the downtown commercial core continues to die over the next five years? If “yes”, then do nothing. If “no”, then the Town Council needs to move into the driver’s seat of making development happen downtown. The Downtown Master Plan is a beautiful document. Will it ever be built? The Town Council had better figure out right now what it will take to make it financially feasible for development to happen downtown. Otherwise, the locus of commercial development will continue to shift uptown around the new City Market and Aspen Village area and the downtown commercial core will continue to die.
Right now, there are three competing forces for the heart and soul of future downtown development. Those three options are: [a] the cheap-aesthetic, automobile-dependent Aspen Village style of land use, [b] the downtown master plan, and [c] nothing at all.
The Aspen Village style of land use can also be called the “1980’s shopping mall” style of land use. All trips to and from the shopping mall are automobile trips. There is no sense of place. You don’t go hang out there with friends. You don’t take visitors there on tour. You don’t walk there. Most of the uptown development is like this now. Fortunately, some of the newer commercial developments like: La Tazza, Higher Grounds, and Pagosa Brewing Company do provide a sense of place even within the sea of automobile-oriented, shopping mall style, suburban development.
The Aspen Village style of construction is a cheaper sort of poor mountain town, “rustic” aesthetic. The redundant use of various shades of “baby poop” brown and “forest” green is a little hard to understand. Even harder to explain is the failure of the owner of “The Jolly Green Giant” (a.k.a. the new Parelli building) to spend an extra $250. for a professional color consultant.
[Mark Weiler of Parelli informs me that he did spend money on those colors but that the developer of Aspen Village force Parelli to pick the green stucco color. I'll talk to Mark in early February to get the whole story.]
The Downtown Master Plan is a well-conceived, professionally-articulated vision for the downtown commercial core. The weakness of this plan is that it is very likely overly restrictive to an extent that it may never be built. Here are some quick back of the napkin numbers. Say it costs $250. per square foot to permit and build a new commercial building downtown. Currently, it is very difficult to find a tenant willing to spend even $18. per square foot, annually, in rent. Now quick, would you invest $250. for an annual return of $18.? Neither would I. Would you invest $250. for an annual return of $36.? (Note: we are not even talking about the cost of the land here.)
The downtown commercial core is facing another most likely scenario: nothing gets built at all. In the next five years, the only possible way that any commercial development will occur downtown is if the Town Council steps in as the leader to make it financially viable and becomes the lead partner with the developer/investor and the forward thinking citizenry.
Action step number six is County Home Rule. The massive problems we have seen with County Government will continue to unfold and be revealed in 2008. More time and energy will be wasted on finger-pointing and the assignment of blame. Some other key employees will leave. The election season will amplify the noise and true progress will be hard to find. Even once we have the problems behind us, the annual debt service to the airport all but ensures the County budget will be tight at best. Measure 1A funds will be used to balance the budget.
One way out of this mess is a County Home Rule charter. We need a hierarchical, streamlined County organization that functions like a business. Right now, the separately elected department heads act more like independent fiefdoms. We need a functioning, business-minded County government organization answering to a charter written by the people of greater Pagosa Springs. Right now our County does not have its own charter!
I have asked County Commissioner Bob Moomaw to place Home Rule on the Ballot for March. Home Rule requires the people to vote for an eleven member charter commission to be formed (in March, for example) and then the people get to vote again on the proposed charter (in November, for example). If Bob Moomaw will not pass a County resolution this January to place Home Rule on the Ballot, then I will personally coordinate a grass-roots citizen petition signed by approximately 600 County voters to place it on the ballot. Who else will step forward with me to ensure that this happens now?
The reason County Home Rule has not already been placed on the ballot is fear and mistrust of the general public to understand the process and create a strong new County charter. The time has come to move beyond fear and take control of our County government.
In case you are wondering, Home Rule does not affect any current County employee. All good, honest employees will be needed to perform County functions well into the future. The only ones to potentially feel threatened by Home Rule are those elected officials who currently do not answer to the people or who do not play well with the other County team members.
Later, we can use a Home Rule charter to begin creating a regional government between the Town and the County governments (or not). Eventually, I believe, the County government should disappear and be merged into the Town. All County employees and services would continue but the Town Council and Town Manager would run both the Town and the County functions as one unified body. The only people who will fear and protest this idea are those who are afraid of giving up power. The only power to be given up is the power of separation, division and personal empire building. The Town Council would be elected by and answer to the greater Pagosa Springs community. The Town Council would necessarily expand and mature into its vastly larger role.
It is time to shed our poverty-mentality limitations of the past and move into our destiny as a nationally-known destination for a healing journey to mother nature. It is time to admit our abundance to ourselves and to then share it with the world. All of us citizens of Pagosa Springs are standing on a resource which, right now, makes each of us wealthy beyond our wildest imagination. Do we have the courage to take advantage of it now for ourselves and our unified community?
Remember these things. We all live in a small one-town, unified community. There is no “us“ and “them“. We have nothing to fear but fear itself. From the time of birth, each human mind has learned to deceive itself such that each of us must be dragged kicking and screaming into the paradise of the natural flow of abundance. Let go of your own fears and your own resignation to the limitations someone else taught you. There is a way for all of us, as one community, to unselfishly tap into and share the wealth of the healing powers of mother nature found here in our town.
Monday, December 3, 2007
Teddy in Pagosa Springs
Here I am on the south side of Town looking northward to the San Juan mountains. Click on the photo for a bigger view of it.
Pagosa Springs Downtown Master Plan
Might we take one more look at the advantages of the Hot Springs Blvd. property for the future County government center and suggest an architectural concept not yet considered for that site?
The major design impediment to the 4.7-acre site is the current desire to include the jail underneath one roof with the County administrative offices and the Court. The Hot Springs property was sold deed-restricted to prevent a jail being built on that location.
I’m looking at the sketch site plan for the Hot Springs site that the County Commissioners were working with in January. It is about what you would expect: a smallish one or two story structure surrounded by a sea of parking spaces. That means a total building footprint of probably less than 25% of the lot. One advantage is that the County already owns the property.
In January, the Commissioners and involved public preferred a one-campus-under-one-roof scenario on the south-west corner of Highways 160 and 84. Everything would fit on that site. But, the County does not own that property.
The Town has a well-articulated plan and vision for the County to locate its administrative offices on Hot Springs Blvd. to create a unified government center. That was the plan when the County bought the 4.7 acres in 1999. That would mean that the jail would need to be located somewhere else. The County is concerned about transporting inmates from a new jail to a new County Courthouse. One of the options would be to build the new jail with or without the new County Courthouse over on the Fairgrounds property. Video conferencing would eliminate some of the necessary trips from the jail to the Courthouse. Another option is to purchase adjacent property on Hot Springs Blvd. which is not deed restricted.
The County’s consideration of the Hot Springs Blvd. site was constrained by the assumption of surface parking. Just for a moment, consider a new design concept. Put the parking in a lower basement level of a large-footprint County administrative building. The existing grade would allow a slight excavation for this parking. But the “basement” parking level would be enhanced by dirt fill around the sides and front to bury the basement level in a natural-looking landscaped hillside toe. The steep Stanley Levine hillside is immediately to the rear.
Underground parking allows a much bigger footprint for a new building than the “surface parking” concept. Then, imagine two stories on top of the basement parking level. Maybe 100,000 square feet per floor. How much is needed? This design would require a variance for height from the Town Council. No one knows if the Town Council would support a variance because no one has asked, yet.
The advantage of a three-story building is the potential for energy efficiency beyond a sprawling one or two-story campus. The Levine Hillside behind would provide a natural canvass against which the tall building would not seem so out of character with the vicinity. Possibly, the building could slide towards the rear of the lot. Maybe Levine would allow dirt fill on his property graded into the rear of the building effectively creating a highly energy-efficient earth-berm building and, at the same time, mostly hiding the building from views from Levine’s property. These initial design concepts could lead to the most energy-efficient building in all of Archuleta County.
There would be a lot of concrete retaining wall work involved. But, maybe, this expense would be offset by the fact that we already own the property. And, there would be significant yearly operational cost savings to heat and cool the earth-berm building.
But here is the real advantage. A historical small-town Main Street, anywhere, is typically defined by older-looking commercial buildings, a Town square or park, and the government administrative buildings. Right now, the most visibly prominent building downtown is the County Courthouse. By removing the County building from downtown, we are tearing out a major piece of the social fabric of our small town, downtown.
The Town’s draft Downtown Master Plan Chapter 3 envisions that the majority of County and Town governmental offices will be in the downtown, pedestrian core. Coupled with the river walk and the Hot Springs, this area will effectively be the public heart and soul of the downtown. The heart of the Downtown Master Plan is the civic space of the government hub. Placing a new County campus at the corner of Highways 160 and 84 creates a sprawling, divided Town center. Rather than creating a distinct sense of place as envisioned in the Town’s Comprehensive Plan and the Downtown Master Plan, the “two isolated government centers” County concept would create a vehicle dependent small-town sprawl with no identifiable “heart of the Town”. I’m thinking that the Town’s well-crafted land use plan should trump the County’s lack of planning.
We all live and work in the same one-town, small county. The County is merely looking for a 12-acre site to “plop” a future new facility campus.
But most seem to agree that some sort of joint regional government is in our future. How can we merge two Planning and Building Departments if staff have to drive to meet? The more that the County and the Town begin to operate cooperatively, the more we will need a new County campus to be near Town Hall. There is no “us” and “them”.
The intersection of Highways 160 and 84 will never be pedestrian-oriented. Every trip to and from County offices at that site will be automobile trips. The slowly improving housing stock downtown suggests the possibility of some pedestrian and bicycle trips along Hot Springs Blvd., a public transit node, and an ever-expanding set of lunch options.
I applaud Bob Moomaw and Bob Campbell’s efforts to keep the new facilities question moving forward. I suggest that we not rule out the Hot Springs site just yet. I suggest that we support the vision of the Downtown Master Plan and create a downtown civic space designed to articulate a “sense of place” radiating out of a unified future government hub. Are we looking to build a truly inspired Town plan or are we just rushing into the quick and easy thing?
The major design impediment to the 4.7-acre site is the current desire to include the jail underneath one roof with the County administrative offices and the Court. The Hot Springs property was sold deed-restricted to prevent a jail being built on that location.
I’m looking at the sketch site plan for the Hot Springs site that the County Commissioners were working with in January. It is about what you would expect: a smallish one or two story structure surrounded by a sea of parking spaces. That means a total building footprint of probably less than 25% of the lot. One advantage is that the County already owns the property.
In January, the Commissioners and involved public preferred a one-campus-under-one-roof scenario on the south-west corner of Highways 160 and 84. Everything would fit on that site. But, the County does not own that property.
The Town has a well-articulated plan and vision for the County to locate its administrative offices on Hot Springs Blvd. to create a unified government center. That was the plan when the County bought the 4.7 acres in 1999. That would mean that the jail would need to be located somewhere else. The County is concerned about transporting inmates from a new jail to a new County Courthouse. One of the options would be to build the new jail with or without the new County Courthouse over on the Fairgrounds property. Video conferencing would eliminate some of the necessary trips from the jail to the Courthouse. Another option is to purchase adjacent property on Hot Springs Blvd. which is not deed restricted.
The County’s consideration of the Hot Springs Blvd. site was constrained by the assumption of surface parking. Just for a moment, consider a new design concept. Put the parking in a lower basement level of a large-footprint County administrative building. The existing grade would allow a slight excavation for this parking. But the “basement” parking level would be enhanced by dirt fill around the sides and front to bury the basement level in a natural-looking landscaped hillside toe. The steep Stanley Levine hillside is immediately to the rear.
Underground parking allows a much bigger footprint for a new building than the “surface parking” concept. Then, imagine two stories on top of the basement parking level. Maybe 100,000 square feet per floor. How much is needed? This design would require a variance for height from the Town Council. No one knows if the Town Council would support a variance because no one has asked, yet.
The advantage of a three-story building is the potential for energy efficiency beyond a sprawling one or two-story campus. The Levine Hillside behind would provide a natural canvass against which the tall building would not seem so out of character with the vicinity. Possibly, the building could slide towards the rear of the lot. Maybe Levine would allow dirt fill on his property graded into the rear of the building effectively creating a highly energy-efficient earth-berm building and, at the same time, mostly hiding the building from views from Levine’s property. These initial design concepts could lead to the most energy-efficient building in all of Archuleta County.
There would be a lot of concrete retaining wall work involved. But, maybe, this expense would be offset by the fact that we already own the property. And, there would be significant yearly operational cost savings to heat and cool the earth-berm building.
But here is the real advantage. A historical small-town Main Street, anywhere, is typically defined by older-looking commercial buildings, a Town square or park, and the government administrative buildings. Right now, the most visibly prominent building downtown is the County Courthouse. By removing the County building from downtown, we are tearing out a major piece of the social fabric of our small town, downtown.
The Town’s draft Downtown Master Plan Chapter 3 envisions that the majority of County and Town governmental offices will be in the downtown, pedestrian core. Coupled with the river walk and the Hot Springs, this area will effectively be the public heart and soul of the downtown. The heart of the Downtown Master Plan is the civic space of the government hub. Placing a new County campus at the corner of Highways 160 and 84 creates a sprawling, divided Town center. Rather than creating a distinct sense of place as envisioned in the Town’s Comprehensive Plan and the Downtown Master Plan, the “two isolated government centers” County concept would create a vehicle dependent small-town sprawl with no identifiable “heart of the Town”. I’m thinking that the Town’s well-crafted land use plan should trump the County’s lack of planning.
We all live and work in the same one-town, small county. The County is merely looking for a 12-acre site to “plop” a future new facility campus.
But most seem to agree that some sort of joint regional government is in our future. How can we merge two Planning and Building Departments if staff have to drive to meet? The more that the County and the Town begin to operate cooperatively, the more we will need a new County campus to be near Town Hall. There is no “us” and “them”.
The intersection of Highways 160 and 84 will never be pedestrian-oriented. Every trip to and from County offices at that site will be automobile trips. The slowly improving housing stock downtown suggests the possibility of some pedestrian and bicycle trips along Hot Springs Blvd., a public transit node, and an ever-expanding set of lunch options.
I applaud Bob Moomaw and Bob Campbell’s efforts to keep the new facilities question moving forward. I suggest that we not rule out the Hot Springs site just yet. I suggest that we support the vision of the Downtown Master Plan and create a downtown civic space designed to articulate a “sense of place” radiating out of a unified future government hub. Are we looking to build a truly inspired Town plan or are we just rushing into the quick and easy thing?
Sunday, December 2, 2007
Pagosa is a one Town, small County
The creation of a money-saving, efficient single government for Pagosa Springs will happen in one of two ways. Number one is to sit back and wait for the bureaucracies within the Town and Archuleta County to figure it out. Number two is for the people to take the matter into their own hands and make it happen. It is time to create “The Town and County of Pagosa Springs“.
As reported in March 2007*, the Town and County administrations had been meeting and talking for an entire year about moving ahead with developing a study for a joint plan to create a regional government. Even the old guard leadership in Town Hall, while characteristically cautious, was willing to proceed with studying the matter. The County stopped the process dead in March.
A regional government formed by the County and the Town would start, logically, with combining the Planning and the Building Departments. Law Enforcement and Road maintenance are obvious candidates for a unified facilities operating under one budget. In order to actually proceed towards a Regional Government, the County would need Ballot Box approval by the voters to form a County Home Rule Charter. This is just what the Town did in year 2000. Here we have another example of the huge waste of time and money involved in two separate governments duplicating the same steps to govern the same community.
The problem with this “regional government” approach created by a joint committee of the Town and the County is that it would move at the speed of a bureaucracy; if at all. I believe that if County Commission chair Bob Moomaw gave the green light today for a joint study of regional government then it would pick up where it left off in March. I believe that if we, the citizens, gave Commissioner Moomaw a few more phone calls about building the future and a few less calls about the budget audit then he could be encouraged to put regional planning back on the table. Neither the audit nor the District Attorney’s office will fix the long-term budget woes of the County.
Commissioner Moomaw stated Tuesday night at the County “Audit Meeting” that he expects the disfunction amoungst the three Commissioners to continue unabated for the next 14 months until the next election. He was hopeful though that talks with the Town of a regional government plan could be revived early next year.
I like what those guys in Philadelphia were talking about in the year 1776. “ ….Governments are instituted among Men (and women), deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…..whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
Functioning democracy never was handed out from the top on down. Democracy in action requires more from each of us than using the remote to watch the evening news from the safety of the sofa and getting involved only on election day. Let the bureaucrats do their job but don’t expect them to lead us into “a more perfect union”. If one unified Planning and Building Department and one unified Road Department make more sense for Pagosa Springs than two --- and it does --- you and I, the people, need to rise up and make it happen.
Right now, the people of Pagosa Lakes can rise up and ask to be annexed into the Town. Other residential subdivisions could request the same. The Archuleta County government would be left out of the process of such a request. No ballot box expense is needed; simply the signatures of 51%.
What would be the benefit to the existing Town? The Town would receive increases in new property tax revenue. It is also possible, for example, that the Town would receive more Highway User Tax Funds per person from the State than the County currently receives per person.
The Town would need to provide services to all of the newly annexed areas. These services to be provided are already provided by the Town elsewhere. Very roughly, the Town would receive monies that the County receives for delivering those services and the Town would enjoy an efficiency of scale as its law enforcement, roads and other departments grow.
The Town would want to first determine a genuine interest from us in proceeding with the annexations. Next, the Town would want to create a long-term annexation plan that addresses the logical way to proceed with annexations that eventually achieve the Town’s Future Land Use Plan. Third, a financial plan would need to demonstrate that the tax dollars we bring with us from Archuleta County would offset the cost of the Town’s expanded services for us.
What would be the benefit to the residents who would be annexed into the Town? Our tax dollars would be going towards a future worth building. Specifically, our tax dollars would be going toward the Town Planning and Building Department which already controls the growth and long-term vision of this Town. The commercial properties are already within the Town’s jurisdiction and are the economic future of the greater Pagosa Springs area. Newly annexed residents would vote and participate in the political process of the government body which already controls our economic future.
Annexed roads will be a large item of concern for the Town. The County has spent years and years dancing around the issue of road standards and maintenance. The County never has had the financial capacity to provide an adequate long-term maintenance plan for roads and bridges and the County never will. (If you disagree then show me the money.) The citizens of the residential subdivisions will be best served by crafting a new arrangement that makes it financially viable to incorporate into the Town.
Many of us have a vision of a thriving tourist economy. We see a future where Pagosa Springs is a national tourist destination. We see new hotels, restaurants, performing arts, conference spaces, destination weddings, seminars, retreats, a healing center, and maybe even an Arts College. For the most part, all of this will be built within the jurisdiction of the Town. Eventually, the sales tax revenues for the Town will grow.
If you live in a residential subdivision somewhere within three miles of the Highway 160 corridor then you live “in Town”. Your lifestyle is determined by the shops, jobs, and business opportunities made available by this urban core from Ace Hardware on the west end of Town all the way through Day Lumber on the east side of Town. “The County” is not where you live. You live “in Town”.
Let’s join the Town government which already controls our financial future. Let’s continue to create businesses, jobs, tourists, and sales tax revenue. Let’s become directly involved with future development along Highway 160. Let’s have a say on, (my personal pet peeve) for example, a total ban on the use of hideous shades of the colors brown and green (check out the new development in Aspen Village).
It is time to merge the County and the Town together. Logically, this entity will be called “The Town and County of Pagosa Springs”. We assume that this new entity would share the same borders as the old County of Archuleta. But maybe it doesn’t have to. Maybe we should investigate a “Town and County of Pagosa Springs” that occupies an area slightly larger than the area delineated in the Town’s Future Land Use Plan. This way there would be no revenue sharing with Archuleta County. Buckminster Fuller once said, “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
Proceeding with annexations of the residential subdivisions into the Town builds for the inevitable, logical and desireable future of “The Town and County of Pagosa Springs”. Annexation could best benefit the existing Town if Pagosa Springs becomes its own unified Town and County. Next year, the Town is supposed to re-negotiate its 50-50 sales tax split with the County. Maybe the better plan is for the Town to become a Home Rule Town and County, take most of the residential population, and keep all of the sales tax.
Let Archuleta County keep the outlying areas more than three miles beyond the Town’s jurisdiction and keep the airport.
The County Community Plan continues to be outdated. Next year’s budget does not allow the County Planning Department to do what it really needed to do last year. The Ballot Measure 1A funds approved by County residents only one year ago have already disappeared into a black hole called “backfilling” (*refer to the patient analysis of Glenn Walsh, Pagosa Daily Post 10/24/07). No need to panic, we the people just need to do what needs to be done.
We are looking for a few good leaders from each of the distinct residential subdivisions within Pagosa Lakes. Community leaders are needed from: The Pines, Central Core, Village Lake, Ranch Community, Lake Pagosa Park, Lake Forest Estates, and Twincreek Village.
If you are willing to be a community leader and build for the future then contact me and I will get you the information and the support you need for your local subdivision to request annexation into the Town. We will figure out, together, how to make this work. It is a project but it will be done.
The people who say that it can’t be done, always say that. Home Rule means that the Town can amend its Charter any way that it sees fit. There are already two examples of merged City/Counties in the State of Colorado.
Don’t let the small details and the small thinkers overwhelm the logic of one Town - one government. Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come. All of us who live in these residential subdivisions right now live in Town as one community. It makes absolutely no sense to continue paying for two governments to manage our one community.
I call upon you, the citizens of Pagosa Springs, to rise up and take control of the future of your Town. The time to shed the unnecessary, outdated, and expensive Archuleta County control of our tax money has arrived. It is time for us to act.
Teddy Herzog learned how to renovate old houses from his dad and how to play music from his mom. He lives on North Village Lake with his daughter. Teddy writes and speaks about living from the heart, moving through fear into the flow of abundance, and living the life of your dreams. Teddy has five years career experience as a County Land Use Planner.
As reported in March 2007*, the Town and County administrations had been meeting and talking for an entire year about moving ahead with developing a study for a joint plan to create a regional government. Even the old guard leadership in Town Hall, while characteristically cautious, was willing to proceed with studying the matter. The County stopped the process dead in March.
A regional government formed by the County and the Town would start, logically, with combining the Planning and the Building Departments. Law Enforcement and Road maintenance are obvious candidates for a unified facilities operating under one budget. In order to actually proceed towards a Regional Government, the County would need Ballot Box approval by the voters to form a County Home Rule Charter. This is just what the Town did in year 2000. Here we have another example of the huge waste of time and money involved in two separate governments duplicating the same steps to govern the same community.
The problem with this “regional government” approach created by a joint committee of the Town and the County is that it would move at the speed of a bureaucracy; if at all. I believe that if County Commission chair Bob Moomaw gave the green light today for a joint study of regional government then it would pick up where it left off in March. I believe that if we, the citizens, gave Commissioner Moomaw a few more phone calls about building the future and a few less calls about the budget audit then he could be encouraged to put regional planning back on the table. Neither the audit nor the District Attorney’s office will fix the long-term budget woes of the County.
Commissioner Moomaw stated Tuesday night at the County “Audit Meeting” that he expects the disfunction amoungst the three Commissioners to continue unabated for the next 14 months until the next election. He was hopeful though that talks with the Town of a regional government plan could be revived early next year.
I like what those guys in Philadelphia were talking about in the year 1776. “ ….Governments are instituted among Men (and women), deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…..whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
Functioning democracy never was handed out from the top on down. Democracy in action requires more from each of us than using the remote to watch the evening news from the safety of the sofa and getting involved only on election day. Let the bureaucrats do their job but don’t expect them to lead us into “a more perfect union”. If one unified Planning and Building Department and one unified Road Department make more sense for Pagosa Springs than two --- and it does --- you and I, the people, need to rise up and make it happen.
Right now, the people of Pagosa Lakes can rise up and ask to be annexed into the Town. Other residential subdivisions could request the same. The Archuleta County government would be left out of the process of such a request. No ballot box expense is needed; simply the signatures of 51%.
What would be the benefit to the existing Town? The Town would receive increases in new property tax revenue. It is also possible, for example, that the Town would receive more Highway User Tax Funds per person from the State than the County currently receives per person.
The Town would need to provide services to all of the newly annexed areas. These services to be provided are already provided by the Town elsewhere. Very roughly, the Town would receive monies that the County receives for delivering those services and the Town would enjoy an efficiency of scale as its law enforcement, roads and other departments grow.
The Town would want to first determine a genuine interest from us in proceeding with the annexations. Next, the Town would want to create a long-term annexation plan that addresses the logical way to proceed with annexations that eventually achieve the Town’s Future Land Use Plan. Third, a financial plan would need to demonstrate that the tax dollars we bring with us from Archuleta County would offset the cost of the Town’s expanded services for us.
What would be the benefit to the residents who would be annexed into the Town? Our tax dollars would be going towards a future worth building. Specifically, our tax dollars would be going toward the Town Planning and Building Department which already controls the growth and long-term vision of this Town. The commercial properties are already within the Town’s jurisdiction and are the economic future of the greater Pagosa Springs area. Newly annexed residents would vote and participate in the political process of the government body which already controls our economic future.
Annexed roads will be a large item of concern for the Town. The County has spent years and years dancing around the issue of road standards and maintenance. The County never has had the financial capacity to provide an adequate long-term maintenance plan for roads and bridges and the County never will. (If you disagree then show me the money.) The citizens of the residential subdivisions will be best served by crafting a new arrangement that makes it financially viable to incorporate into the Town.
Many of us have a vision of a thriving tourist economy. We see a future where Pagosa Springs is a national tourist destination. We see new hotels, restaurants, performing arts, conference spaces, destination weddings, seminars, retreats, a healing center, and maybe even an Arts College. For the most part, all of this will be built within the jurisdiction of the Town. Eventually, the sales tax revenues for the Town will grow.
If you live in a residential subdivision somewhere within three miles of the Highway 160 corridor then you live “in Town”. Your lifestyle is determined by the shops, jobs, and business opportunities made available by this urban core from Ace Hardware on the west end of Town all the way through Day Lumber on the east side of Town. “The County” is not where you live. You live “in Town”.
Let’s join the Town government which already controls our financial future. Let’s continue to create businesses, jobs, tourists, and sales tax revenue. Let’s become directly involved with future development along Highway 160. Let’s have a say on, (my personal pet peeve) for example, a total ban on the use of hideous shades of the colors brown and green (check out the new development in Aspen Village).
It is time to merge the County and the Town together. Logically, this entity will be called “The Town and County of Pagosa Springs”. We assume that this new entity would share the same borders as the old County of Archuleta. But maybe it doesn’t have to. Maybe we should investigate a “Town and County of Pagosa Springs” that occupies an area slightly larger than the area delineated in the Town’s Future Land Use Plan. This way there would be no revenue sharing with Archuleta County. Buckminster Fuller once said, “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
Proceeding with annexations of the residential subdivisions into the Town builds for the inevitable, logical and desireable future of “The Town and County of Pagosa Springs”. Annexation could best benefit the existing Town if Pagosa Springs becomes its own unified Town and County. Next year, the Town is supposed to re-negotiate its 50-50 sales tax split with the County. Maybe the better plan is for the Town to become a Home Rule Town and County, take most of the residential population, and keep all of the sales tax.
Let Archuleta County keep the outlying areas more than three miles beyond the Town’s jurisdiction and keep the airport.
The County Community Plan continues to be outdated. Next year’s budget does not allow the County Planning Department to do what it really needed to do last year. The Ballot Measure 1A funds approved by County residents only one year ago have already disappeared into a black hole called “backfilling” (*refer to the patient analysis of Glenn Walsh, Pagosa Daily Post 10/24/07). No need to panic, we the people just need to do what needs to be done.
We are looking for a few good leaders from each of the distinct residential subdivisions within Pagosa Lakes. Community leaders are needed from: The Pines, Central Core, Village Lake, Ranch Community, Lake Pagosa Park, Lake Forest Estates, and Twincreek Village.
If you are willing to be a community leader and build for the future then contact me and I will get you the information and the support you need for your local subdivision to request annexation into the Town. We will figure out, together, how to make this work. It is a project but it will be done.
The people who say that it can’t be done, always say that. Home Rule means that the Town can amend its Charter any way that it sees fit. There are already two examples of merged City/Counties in the State of Colorado.
Don’t let the small details and the small thinkers overwhelm the logic of one Town - one government. Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come. All of us who live in these residential subdivisions right now live in Town as one community. It makes absolutely no sense to continue paying for two governments to manage our one community.
I call upon you, the citizens of Pagosa Springs, to rise up and take control of the future of your Town. The time to shed the unnecessary, outdated, and expensive Archuleta County control of our tax money has arrived. It is time for us to act.
Teddy Herzog learned how to renovate old houses from his dad and how to play music from his mom. He lives on North Village Lake with his daughter. Teddy writes and speaks about living from the heart, moving through fear into the flow of abundance, and living the life of your dreams. Teddy has five years career experience as a County Land Use Planner.
Saturday, December 1, 2007
Do we need a County government in Pagosa?
This may be the perfect time to ask the question “Do we really need a County Government structure in Archuleta County?”
We, the tax payers, are paying two administrations to do many of the same tasks plus we have a third redundant government entity. Let’s deal with the first two, first.
We have a Town of Pagosa Springs Planning and Building Department and an Archuleta County Planning and Building Department. But, we can merge the County into the Town and eliminate unnecessary bureaucracy.
All we need to do is delete the County structure, modify the Town charter and become an expanded home-rule Town adopting the Council-Manager form of government, with an elected mayor and Town council, and a professional Town manager. Which is a lot like how the Town works right now. Home-rule means that we can easily create our own local rules for a single entity government that works for us instead of blindly following the two layer Town and County system boilerplate laid out in the State Constitution. Colorado already has 58 Cities and 28 Towns that are Home Rule Municipalities.
Why should we pay the Town to develop a comprehensive plan and vision for parts of Pagosa Springs and then turn around to pay the County to develop comprehensive plans and visions for other pieces of Pagosa Springs? We have intelligent, hard-working staff in both the County offices and in the Town offices.
A unified Planning and Building Department would be able to make use of most of the existing County and Town staff. We don’t need both a Town Manager and a County Manager and two separate staffs with separate budgets. We can choose to remove this unnecessary overhead. We would lose the need to talk about the “Big Box” issue at a series of Town meetings and then start all over again at the County level.
We would lose the need to pay for and maintain separate County offices which perform functions that an expanded Town government should handle. We would lose the need to pay for the Town and County to constantly negotiate policy with each other. Granted, there would be growing pains for the Town as it matures and modernizes into its larger role. There are two other examples in Colorado of combined Counties and Cities occupying the same geographical area. Functions like the jail, the sheriff, and the tax assessor would be administered by the Town Council though current staff would continue serving.
Not only would we save our public money on overhead, we would save our public time and focus by having one set of meetings for planning and administration instead of two separate processes. How much public time have we lost in the current County fiasco still in the early stages of unraveling?
The long finger of the Town’s jurisdiction already runs up the Highway 160 hill and includes the shopping mall of the new City Market and most other commercial properties. Although Pagosa Springs still acts like a Tale of Two Towns, the east side and the west side of Town are now functionally unified. The vast majority of the residents in Archuleta County already use both the west and the east sides of the County as a unified Town because it really is. The Town already receives half of the sales tax generated by the new City Market anyway. Why shouldn’t the west side of the County benefit directly from the 2% of the sales tax which gets sent down the hill to Town Hall. At the moment, most of the sales tax revenue which the Town receives is generated on the western side of Town though over time downtown will become an economic force.
Archuleta County covers an area of 1,364 square miles but only 34% of the lands are in private ownership. About half the County land is National Forest and about 15% of the land belongs to the Southern Ute Indian Tribe. In other words, the total amount of land that the Town and the County manage is only 34% of the total amount of land in the County. If you subtract the land included in the Town’s Future Land Use Plan, and the National Forest/Open Space Land and the Tribal Lands from the entire area of the County, the remaining privately held residential and agricultural lands do not form a large enough area or populace to justify the existence of a separate County Land Use Planning administration.
It just doesn’t make sense for us to pay for an obsolete layer of government. Let’s not bother with trying to bring the County into the 21st Century, let’s just get rid of it.
The traditional Town-County model in the Western United States envisions something like several distinct towns or urban centers surrounded by a sea of agricultural lands. In the case of Archuleta County, Pagosa Springs serves as a central urban axis, the backbone, of a single unified entity more urban at its axis and increasingly more agricultural or open space the farther beyond the axis you travel.
Our small Town axis radiates as a single vector from Aspen Springs in the west and through the downtown at the east and beyond. This single axis and unity of County-wide purpose is hinted at in the map of the “Future Land Use Plan” of the Town’s Comprehensive Plan. Some people may still cling to the outdated myth of a community divided. But the Hispanics, the Utes, the ranchers, the Christians, the healers, the artists, the horse people, the hunters, the outdoor athletes, the second-home jet setters, the retirees, the real estate investors, the contractors, the merchants, and the employees all comprise a unified community clearly orbiting around the one, single commercial axis of Highway 160.
More than any other factor, it is our old remnant, redundant layers of government which serve to perpetuate a myth that somehow there exists more than one community here. It is already true that the terms “Archuleta County” and “the greater Pagosa Springs area” mean the same thing. We are a single, unified community primarily focused in providing tourism, recreation, and agriculture.
This is not some “melting pot” theory of unity but by actually celebrating and acknowledging our diversity and common commercial center we can enhance our functioning unity. Let’s acknowledge and build upon the history and contributions of the Hispanic community. Let’s open the door wider and invite further participation of our neighboring Indian Nation into our Town.
So what procedures could we use to merge the County and the Town? The most simple approach could be for a large majority of the property owners in the County to simply sign on to a letter requesting that the Town annex their land. This is what has happened to all of the commercial properties along Highway 160. The Town has annexed the commercial lands all the way up to the new City Market.
An education and outreach program would need to explain to the County land owners the financial benefit of merging the County into the Town, unifying redundant staff, overhead, and meetings, and finally removing the need to pay for an unnecessary County government. There are, of course, more complicated ways, including ballot measures, to achieve a County and Town merger which will be explored at a later time. All we need is the vision and the will of the people to get it done and the details of a County and Town merger will be worked out.
There will always be the naysayers and the small thinkers and those who are afraid to grow. So, let’s just get this out of the way right now. To those who cry “Keep Pagosa……Pagosa”, the truth has to be told that change is already upon us. Retreating to yesterday is not an option. There are only two options from here: poorly managed growth or smart growth. Pick one.
I like to say that all philosophies, all religions, all politics, all personal attitudes and all cultural beliefs fall squarely into one of two camps. There are only two ways of thinking for humans. Camp #1 believes that scarcity prevails, life is difficult, the limits of what we humans can accomplish are already known and we should generally be afraid of change. Camp #2 trusts in the flow of abundance, that life is a joyful experience, and that as clear-minded individuals and as a unified community we can accomplish all that we can dream of. There are only two ways to think. Pick one.
Our small Town way of life, the open space, the ranches and our growing appeal as a tourist destination, all need to be fostered by visionary leaders who can take us into tomorrow. We need visionary leaders who are willing to do whatever is necessary to unify our community and provide efficient government capable of guiding our inevitable growth into the 21st century. We need visionary leaders who understand how to promote and honor our cultural diversity and our unity of purpose as neighbors sharing the same commercial center.
Now, on to that third redundant layer of government. There was a time when a resident of the Pagosa Lakes subdivision was truly in a separate, distinct portion of the County. There was a time when the only agency overseeing building permits in the Pagosa Lakes subdivision was the PLPOA. But the recent growth of the County Building and Planning Departments have already made much of PLPOA’s old purpose obsolete.
PLPOA served a vital role 20 years ago but now it is an unnecessary third layer of government. Anyone building in Pagosa Lakes needs a building permit from the County and, illogically, also a PLPOA building permit. The PLPOA administers it own set of land use regulations and has its own separate, redundant meetings to approve building projects. We don’t need to pay for three levels of government when one will do the job cheaper and more efficiently. To simplify the process, maybe the best way to remove the redundancy of the PLPOA is to have a majority of PLPOA land owners change the Bylaws and grant land use planning and building oversight to a streamlined, unified Town Building and Planning Department.
Archuleta County really has solidified into a single, unified entity. The need to spend money for three sets of administrations and to have three sets of governance is over. Like Benjamin Franklin so aptly pointed out to a divided set of “individual” colonies in the year 1754, maybe the time has come to “Join, or Die.” We will continue to grow and the land will continue to be built upon. Going forward, either we maintain the archaic governing structures of division or we continue to foster the unity, quality, and desireability of the greater Pagosa Springs small Town community.
We, the tax payers, are paying two administrations to do many of the same tasks plus we have a third redundant government entity. Let’s deal with the first two, first.
We have a Town of Pagosa Springs Planning and Building Department and an Archuleta County Planning and Building Department. But, we can merge the County into the Town and eliminate unnecessary bureaucracy.
All we need to do is delete the County structure, modify the Town charter and become an expanded home-rule Town adopting the Council-Manager form of government, with an elected mayor and Town council, and a professional Town manager. Which is a lot like how the Town works right now. Home-rule means that we can easily create our own local rules for a single entity government that works for us instead of blindly following the two layer Town and County system boilerplate laid out in the State Constitution. Colorado already has 58 Cities and 28 Towns that are Home Rule Municipalities.
Why should we pay the Town to develop a comprehensive plan and vision for parts of Pagosa Springs and then turn around to pay the County to develop comprehensive plans and visions for other pieces of Pagosa Springs? We have intelligent, hard-working staff in both the County offices and in the Town offices.
A unified Planning and Building Department would be able to make use of most of the existing County and Town staff. We don’t need both a Town Manager and a County Manager and two separate staffs with separate budgets. We can choose to remove this unnecessary overhead. We would lose the need to talk about the “Big Box” issue at a series of Town meetings and then start all over again at the County level.
We would lose the need to pay for and maintain separate County offices which perform functions that an expanded Town government should handle. We would lose the need to pay for the Town and County to constantly negotiate policy with each other. Granted, there would be growing pains for the Town as it matures and modernizes into its larger role. There are two other examples in Colorado of combined Counties and Cities occupying the same geographical area. Functions like the jail, the sheriff, and the tax assessor would be administered by the Town Council though current staff would continue serving.
Not only would we save our public money on overhead, we would save our public time and focus by having one set of meetings for planning and administration instead of two separate processes. How much public time have we lost in the current County fiasco still in the early stages of unraveling?
The long finger of the Town’s jurisdiction already runs up the Highway 160 hill and includes the shopping mall of the new City Market and most other commercial properties. Although Pagosa Springs still acts like a Tale of Two Towns, the east side and the west side of Town are now functionally unified. The vast majority of the residents in Archuleta County already use both the west and the east sides of the County as a unified Town because it really is. The Town already receives half of the sales tax generated by the new City Market anyway. Why shouldn’t the west side of the County benefit directly from the 2% of the sales tax which gets sent down the hill to Town Hall. At the moment, most of the sales tax revenue which the Town receives is generated on the western side of Town though over time downtown will become an economic force.
Archuleta County covers an area of 1,364 square miles but only 34% of the lands are in private ownership. About half the County land is National Forest and about 15% of the land belongs to the Southern Ute Indian Tribe. In other words, the total amount of land that the Town and the County manage is only 34% of the total amount of land in the County. If you subtract the land included in the Town’s Future Land Use Plan, and the National Forest/Open Space Land and the Tribal Lands from the entire area of the County, the remaining privately held residential and agricultural lands do not form a large enough area or populace to justify the existence of a separate County Land Use Planning administration.
It just doesn’t make sense for us to pay for an obsolete layer of government. Let’s not bother with trying to bring the County into the 21st Century, let’s just get rid of it.
The traditional Town-County model in the Western United States envisions something like several distinct towns or urban centers surrounded by a sea of agricultural lands. In the case of Archuleta County, Pagosa Springs serves as a central urban axis, the backbone, of a single unified entity more urban at its axis and increasingly more agricultural or open space the farther beyond the axis you travel.
Our small Town axis radiates as a single vector from Aspen Springs in the west and through the downtown at the east and beyond. This single axis and unity of County-wide purpose is hinted at in the map of the “Future Land Use Plan” of the Town’s Comprehensive Plan. Some people may still cling to the outdated myth of a community divided. But the Hispanics, the Utes, the ranchers, the Christians, the healers, the artists, the horse people, the hunters, the outdoor athletes, the second-home jet setters, the retirees, the real estate investors, the contractors, the merchants, and the employees all comprise a unified community clearly orbiting around the one, single commercial axis of Highway 160.
More than any other factor, it is our old remnant, redundant layers of government which serve to perpetuate a myth that somehow there exists more than one community here. It is already true that the terms “Archuleta County” and “the greater Pagosa Springs area” mean the same thing. We are a single, unified community primarily focused in providing tourism, recreation, and agriculture.
This is not some “melting pot” theory of unity but by actually celebrating and acknowledging our diversity and common commercial center we can enhance our functioning unity. Let’s acknowledge and build upon the history and contributions of the Hispanic community. Let’s open the door wider and invite further participation of our neighboring Indian Nation into our Town.
So what procedures could we use to merge the County and the Town? The most simple approach could be for a large majority of the property owners in the County to simply sign on to a letter requesting that the Town annex their land. This is what has happened to all of the commercial properties along Highway 160. The Town has annexed the commercial lands all the way up to the new City Market.
An education and outreach program would need to explain to the County land owners the financial benefit of merging the County into the Town, unifying redundant staff, overhead, and meetings, and finally removing the need to pay for an unnecessary County government. There are, of course, more complicated ways, including ballot measures, to achieve a County and Town merger which will be explored at a later time. All we need is the vision and the will of the people to get it done and the details of a County and Town merger will be worked out.
There will always be the naysayers and the small thinkers and those who are afraid to grow. So, let’s just get this out of the way right now. To those who cry “Keep Pagosa……Pagosa”, the truth has to be told that change is already upon us. Retreating to yesterday is not an option. There are only two options from here: poorly managed growth or smart growth. Pick one.
I like to say that all philosophies, all religions, all politics, all personal attitudes and all cultural beliefs fall squarely into one of two camps. There are only two ways of thinking for humans. Camp #1 believes that scarcity prevails, life is difficult, the limits of what we humans can accomplish are already known and we should generally be afraid of change. Camp #2 trusts in the flow of abundance, that life is a joyful experience, and that as clear-minded individuals and as a unified community we can accomplish all that we can dream of. There are only two ways to think. Pick one.
Our small Town way of life, the open space, the ranches and our growing appeal as a tourist destination, all need to be fostered by visionary leaders who can take us into tomorrow. We need visionary leaders who are willing to do whatever is necessary to unify our community and provide efficient government capable of guiding our inevitable growth into the 21st century. We need visionary leaders who understand how to promote and honor our cultural diversity and our unity of purpose as neighbors sharing the same commercial center.
Now, on to that third redundant layer of government. There was a time when a resident of the Pagosa Lakes subdivision was truly in a separate, distinct portion of the County. There was a time when the only agency overseeing building permits in the Pagosa Lakes subdivision was the PLPOA. But the recent growth of the County Building and Planning Departments have already made much of PLPOA’s old purpose obsolete.
PLPOA served a vital role 20 years ago but now it is an unnecessary third layer of government. Anyone building in Pagosa Lakes needs a building permit from the County and, illogically, also a PLPOA building permit. The PLPOA administers it own set of land use regulations and has its own separate, redundant meetings to approve building projects. We don’t need to pay for three levels of government when one will do the job cheaper and more efficiently. To simplify the process, maybe the best way to remove the redundancy of the PLPOA is to have a majority of PLPOA land owners change the Bylaws and grant land use planning and building oversight to a streamlined, unified Town Building and Planning Department.
Archuleta County really has solidified into a single, unified entity. The need to spend money for three sets of administrations and to have three sets of governance is over. Like Benjamin Franklin so aptly pointed out to a divided set of “individual” colonies in the year 1754, maybe the time has come to “Join, or Die.” We will continue to grow and the land will continue to be built upon. Going forward, either we maintain the archaic governing structures of division or we continue to foster the unity, quality, and desireability of the greater Pagosa Springs small Town community.
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