After reading Daily Post editor Bill Hudson’s “Confusing the Big Box Issue, Part Four”, I honestly wanted to scream — I was so incensed.
Later I read Jim McQuiggin’s article “Council rejects second Big Box referendum” in the Pagosa Springs SUN, covering the exact same topic as Mr. Hudson’s article — and found nothing at all to scream about.
This is a perfect example of the pro-town-politician bias the SUN has when covering town politics, and in this particular situation, Mayor Ross Aragon.
As the Daily Post has previously reported, the SUN was awarded a sole-source contract for producing the Summer and Winter Pagosa Springs Official Visitor Guide for, in my estimation, a great deal of money — rendering them a great deal of profit. The SUN received much more than the Town would have paid if it had followed its own rules and implemented a competitive bidding process. The SUN and the Town are so intertwined and beholden to each other, it must be difficult for SUN reporters to judge what is newsworthy and what is not, when writing their articles.
What incensed me in the Daily Post article was Mayor Aragon’s admonishment of attorney Matt Roane for getting involved in opposing Referendum A when he doesn’t live in the Town and therefore cannot vote on it.
Mayor Aragon outrageously compared Mr. Roane’s involvement in Pagosa town business to himself, the mayor, going to Bayfield to involve himself in their town business.
Mayor Aragon continued his outrageous statements to Mr. Roane with, “If you cared so much for this community, you would move into town and you would have run for the Council.”
What?
 I hope Mr. Aragon will allow me this opportunity to admonish him.
Today there are 8,798 registered voters with physical addresses in zip code 81147. It’s safe to say that all of those voters are affected by Pagosa town political decisions and votes.
Today there are only 976 registered voters within the Town boundaries. Thus, only 11.1 percent of the voting population that is affected by Town politics and election results — including the upcoming Big Box referendum, Referendum A — are allowed to vote.
Why are only 11.1 percent of the interested and affected voting population allowed to vote in Town elections?
In case Mr. Aragon has forgotten, let me refresh his memory.
Mr. Aragon was instrumental during the 1990s in annexing for the Town nearly all of the commercial properties along 160 up to Pagosa Blvd. Conveniently, he and the Town Council failed to annex the surrounding residential areas and their voters, leaving the maintenance for those areas to the county.
I also credit Mr. Aragon for being smart enough to realize that if the Town had annexed residential areas with more educated and affluent residents than the old downtown, new candidates would have run for Town Council — and for Mayor — and would eventually have been elected, stripping Mr. Aragon of his control of the Town and Town politics.
Mr. Aragon has been mayor of Pagosa Springs for 32 years. His vision of Pagosa town — with its 11percent of the voting population making decisions for the remaining 89 percent of the community — has hurt, and will continue to hurt the health and wealth of the greater Pagosa Springs area.
They say this is a bad year for incumbents. And especially in Pagosa, it’s past time for a change. |