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| Planning for an Uncertain Future, Part Five |
| Bill Hudson | 7/27/10 |
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| Back to the News Summaries |
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Read Part One
So far, at their Thursday morning work session on July 22, the Town Council and the Board of County Commissioners had taken turns offering their opinions on three general topics bearing on the future of Pagosa Springs and Archuleta County, our two political subdivisions that occupy the same conceptual space but that feature various and multiple boards and governments, collecting separate taxes and making separate decisions. (The term “work session” defines such meetings as events where no real decisions can be made — no motions can be made, and no votes can be taken.) The three topics we’d so far seen disposed of: medical marijuana, economic development, and a somewhat vague (but usefully vague) Memorandum of Understanding concerning fire code enforcement.
The next topic was a proposal by County commissioner Bob Moomaw to create yet another layer of government, you might say. Except that it would be a ‘non-profit corporation’ partially supported by public taxes — much like the new Pagosa Springs Community Development Corporation, which was formed out of the ashes of the Archuleta Economic Development Association last April.
 “Back in the late ‘70s, early ‘80s, I was on a town council — an eerie déjà vu of what I’m looking at here in this community,” Moomaw began, with a bit of personal historical background. “[Gulf Breeze, Florida] was a little town of 6,000 that provided recreation facilities for the southern half of Santa Rosa County — a county of about 25,000. It’s probably now grown up to about 45,000. The town is still 6,000.”
Moomaw was, of course, drawing an historical parallel between Santa Rosa County — a reasonably well-populated and growing county that was relying on one little town to provide its recreational amenities — with our own Archuleta County. Archuleta County, population 12,000, has no recreational amenities of its own — no park facilities, no sports programs, no park maintenance crews, no recreation directors — and thus relies upon the Town of Pagosa Springs, population 1,700, to provide those recreational amenities.
The Town maintains four parks — Reservoir Hill Park, Yamaguchi Park, Town Park, Centennial Park and South Pagosa Park — and provides a lineup of youth and adult sports programs. Those programs are open to all county residents, not just town residents — but the Town pays for most of the costs.
Outside the Town, we find one significant recreational facility: the Pagosa Lakes Recreation Center, located in the heart of the Pagosa Lakes subdivision, and operated, maintained and funded by the Pagosa Lakes Property Owners Association (PLPOA).
As our local government budgets (and POAs) have been crunched somewhat by declining economic conditions, the Town has been urging the BoCC to make a larger contribution to the community’s recreation program. The BoCC has been hesitant to do so, partly because it has no control over the parks and recreation programs, and partly because .. well, everyone’s budgets are pretty tight lately.
Moomaw was now explaining that Santa Rosa County had addressed its funding and control issues by forming a ‘non-profit’ sports association to maintain and schedule the parks and recreation programs — thus taking the load off the town’s shoulders.
“We were struggling, just like the [Town of Pagosa Springs] is now, to maintain these facilities. The solution that we came up with was to form a sports association — a 501c3 — and it was run by a board made up of the entities involved. And one mistake we made was, we didn’t include the school board in that one.
Here in Pagosa, two public school buildings are located directly across the highway from Town Park, so naturally that park gets considerable use from school district athletic programs. I’m not sure how much use the new Yamaguchi Park — a stone’s throw east of the High School — is now getting from that school’s students and teachers.
Moomaw assured Thursday’s work session participants that the Santa Rosa association had “worked extremely well.” Why not create something similar here in Archuleta County?
”I’ve spoken with PLPOA [about this idea]. I’ve talked to the school district. And obviously, I’ve talked to [fellow commissioners John Ranson and Clifford Lucero.] And I’ve had a discussion with [Pagosa mayor Ross Aragon.] And I’d like to see a committee gather, from the four entities — the Town, the County, PLPOA and the school district — and see if this might be a solution for our community.”
One advantage to a ‘501c3 non-profit’ is its ability to seek grants from non-governmental sources. Of course, such an entity also has the ability to accept contributions from the “four entities” as well — that is to say, from the taxpayers and the property owners.
There’s no question in my mind that cooperation between governments and property owner associations will lead to efficiencies of scale and personnel — in some cases at least. Likewise, there’s no question in my mind that Pagosa Springs boards have historically had a hard time cooperating on things.
Moomaw, who was briefly campaigning for re-election until he dropped out of the race earlier this month, said he’d heard a lot of concern from county residents about park facilities.
“While we do have some facilities, they aren’t adequate for what the public perceives as our needs. And this is one solution to look at, to deal with this.”
A moment later, BoCC chair Clifford Lucero asked Moomaw to serve on a preliminary task force to look at the issue, and mayor Ross Aragon asked Town Council member Jerry Jackson to represent the Town.
“My phone has been ringing regularly, about this very topic,” Jackson told the group. “And my concern is, with the current budget, we’re so far behind — well, we have a lot of catching up to do, through no particular person’s fault, just a budget problem.
“And I don’t want us to look at new projects, going forward, and then realize down the road what the real dollar figure is to maintain these parks.
“My phone has been ringing a lot.”
This comment refers to a real problem facing the Town lately, with its steadily declining budget — due to a steady drop in local sales tax collections. The Town had been reasonably successful over the past couple of decades in acquiring grants for new parks such as the new Yamaguchi Park (which sits next door to Jerry Jackson’s home on South Fifth Street.)
But the grants do not pay for daily maintenance; that cost must come, in the case of the Town of Pagosa Springs, from sales tax revenues. And there haven’t been a lot of those revenues lately. Like many of us personally, the Town now realizes it has overextended itself somewhat.
Yes, we’d all like to see more parks in Archuleta County. And we’d all like to see our current parks better maintained.
But can we afford “more and better”?
Well, I personally think we could. But the Town, for some reason, keeps refusing to embrace a significant new revenue source. How curious...
Read Part Six... |
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