Yesterday, the Archuleta Board of County Commissioners held a rather brief executive session at the County Courthouse to discuss a possible real estate purchase. At the beginning of the meeting, at 9am, the folks sitting in the Commissioner’s meeting room consisted of:
- Commissioners Cliff Lucero, Bob Moomaw, and John Ranson;
- County staff members, Special Projects director Karin Kohake, County attorney Todd Starr and County administrator Greg Schulte;
- And three members of the media, KWUF reporter Jody Blankenship, and Pagosa Daily Post reporters Glenn Walsh and Bill Hudson.
 According to the Colorado “Sunshine Laws”, public boards are required to conduct their meetings openly and publicly, except in a very few special cases. Real estate purchase discussions are one of the few topics that legally permit a public board to meet in secret — in executive session — since the public exposure of the board’s intentions could have a significant effect on the eventual negotiations about, and final selling price of, the property in question.
The “Sunshine Laws” require, however, that decisions — actual votes — must always take place publicly, even when discussing real estate purchases.
Yesterday, the three commissioners voted to conduct the morning’s pending discussion out of public view. The media was not told what property was being discussed, and attorney Todd Starr suggested that it was unlikely the commissioners would reconvene in an open session and vote on anything. We were told we would be notified by phone if the commissioners decided to take any action.
One might wonder that a government board would even be considering a real estate purchase in the current government economy. By all accounts, the County budget is rather tight for 2010, what with the drop in various fees expected to be collected this year.
But the commissioners do, in fact, have some cash they could spend. Thanks to the dedicated “Ballot Measure 1A” funds approved by the voters in 2006 — a result of a “de-Brucing” of the County mill levy for five years — the County has a special fund set aside that can be used, according to past commissioner resolutions, for only four types of expenditures:
Roads
Technology and training
Parks, recreation, and trails
New County facilities
Yesterday’s real estate discussion, we were told, was connected somehow with “trails.” That implies that the property under consideration might be related to the stalled “Town to Lakes Trail,” for which the County and Town have been pursuing easements through various private properties for the past couple of years.
But we can't say for sure.
As it turned out, no decision was made yesterday, about whatever it was. Commission chairman Cliff Lucero summarized the situation later:
“The situation will have to change before we can make any decision on this matter.”
Lord knows, the situation in Pagosa Springs seems to be changing daily. We’ll keep you informed if anything new happens concerning whatever subjects we know nothing about. |