|
Local News from my former home, Pagosa Springs,
Colorado
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
| Planning for an Uncertain Future, Part Three |
| Bill Hudson | 7/23/10 |
|
| Back to the News Summaries |
|
Read Part One
One of my main jobs here at the Daily Post is to report on the things people say in public meetings.
Which is to say, I get to write about people who are being very careful about what they say. In a small town like Pagosa, it’s all too easy to become the subject of gossip — and criticism — for a public slip of the tongue.
To look it another way, my job is to listen to what people don’t say, and then try and fill in the spaces between the lines.
It’s a common assumption that politicians generally keep their cards hidden and talk out of both sides of their mouths. From my experience at Town Council meetings and Board of County Commissioner meetings, however, I must admit that some of our elected government officials — some of them — are remarkably candid in public meetings.
We must tip our hats, I think, to any elected official willing to truly speak his or her mind, or to pose the hard questions, publicly, in front of a small-town Pagosa audience.
 Yesterday, I mentioned Clifford Lucero’s suggestion at a July 8 joint meeting between the BoCC and the current County Planning Commission: a suggestion that the Town and County consider maintaining its current waivers and reductions on building permits and other development fees. Those fees have been reduced by 50 percent this year — and were waived completely during the last half of 2009. Lucero said he wanted to continue the 50 percent reduction into 2011.
These waivers and reductions are aimed at spurring local construction projects by encouraging people, who might otherwise hesitate, to build their home this year. But of course, the waiving of fees for builders and developers has another effect: it makes the rest of us, who already live here and who aren't builders, shoulder additional government costs.
The obvious fact: we are all having a hard time lately here in Pagosa, and we’d all be delighted to see our taxes and fees reduced. So if our leaders are going to pick a select group to encourage with incentives, wouldn’t it be a good idea to make sure the incentives are actually accomplishing what they were meant to accomplish?
At yesterday’s joint meeting between the BoCC and the Town Council, Town manager David Mitchem — who in my experience is generally very careful about what he says in public — raised the question about continuing various fee reductions and rebates into 2011. I can’t be absolutely certain, but I am guessing that everyone at yesterday’s table in the Town Council Chambers — the Town Council members and selected Town staff, and the County commissioners and selected County staff — has at some point spoken in favor of “incentives” to help revive the community’s stumbling economy.
As I mentioned in Part One, our local governments have taken it upon themselves, in these hard economic times, to spend the taxpayers’ money to try and stimulate the local economy — if such a thing is possible.
But we might note: only certain parts of the economy appear worthy of stimulation. An awful lot of the government “stimulation” seems to be aimed at people who don’t live here — tourists, and second-home builders, and potential new businesses, for example. The mindset that is driving these “stimulus programs” assumes, I think, that “people out there, in other places, have more money than we have, and we need that money.”
But at least one program is aimed at existing businesses: a schedule of sales tax rebates available to local business owners who show a growth in revenues, and those who buy and hire locally.
Town Council member Shari Pierce took it upon herself to ask the hard question, bless her heart. Yet it was such a simple question.
“Do we have any figures of how many people took advantage of these incentives, and numbers of how much we rebated?”
David Mitchem responded. “We’ve actually had no applications for the sales tax rebates, for either local hiring or purchases of local building materials. There was very little activity last year.”
“How about the [building fee] waivers?” Pierce asked.
“Yes, we have waived some fees,” Mitchem responded. “But I don’t have a hard count.” Mitchem didn’t have any evidence, apparently, that the Town’s 100 percent fee waiver last year, or the 50 percent fee reduction this year, had produced a single new building.
“And I’d like to see how many of those permits were for actual houses, verses decks and garages,” Pierce told Mitchem. The implication here was that fee waivers aren't really working if they are only encouraging remodeling projects. Maybe we don't want to rebate fees to local homeowners — only to those newcomers who are building new houses?
“Well, certainly, within the Town, the majority of those were for home improvements, rather than new construction." Mitchem admitted. In fact, the Town has not issued a single building permit for a new home in 2010, according to Town building inspector Scott Pierce. (No relation to Shari Pierce, by the way.)
Apparently, the County has likewise failed to track the success or failure of the fee waiver programs, judging from the comments at yesterday’s meeting.
But maybe no one really expected the waivers to bring any significant results? Maybe our government is just trying to make us feel good, by showing that they are at least trying?
County commissioner Clifford Lucero asked that the Town and County continue discussing the fee waiver extensions at next month’s joint meeting. once some real numbers can be gathered. (I wonder if those numbers can, in fact, be gathered at this late date — after the projects are completed?)
The next discussion on yesterday’s joint meeting agenda concerned some development that definitely didn’t happen over the past year — and a possible solution.
I neglected to mention that Pagosa Fire Protection District chief Ron Thompson was also sitting at the table yesterday, and he now introduced a Memorandum of Understanding — a friendly agreement, you might say, between four government agencies, the Town, the County, PAWSD and the Fire District, who are all concerned about two seemingly incompatible events: new construction, and new fire codes.
As a result of some newly adopted fire safety codes, the location of certain fire hydrants, and the water pressure coming from certain Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation pipelines, have — after many years of faithfully serving the community — become inadequate.
Imagine, if you will, that you have been devotedly bringing your paycheck home to your wife for 30 years, and then one day, she tells you, “I’ve adopted some new codes, and your paycheck is no longer adequate. No more sex.”
Well, that’s not quite the situation here, but there might be some similarities. As a result of the new fire safety codes, a couple of local business owners suddenly found out they were not allowed to remodel their own buildings — without first fixing a portion of the town’s water system.
Several months later, four government agencies are sitting around a table looking at a way to upgrade its fire safety infrastructure — without stifling local construction projects.
Read Part Four... |
|
|
|
|
| Visit the Pagosa Daily Post |
| |
|
