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.