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Growing Concerns, Part Two |
Glenn Walsh | 3/25/08
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Read Part One
The invitation from Mayor Ross Aragon to “volunteer to come up and expound a little bit on your concerns about the economy” was taken up by many local business owners at Thursday evening’s three-hour meeting. Continued...
Archuleta County Commissioner Bob Moomaw addresses the Town-sponsored meeting last week. |
Town Manager Mark Garcia’s expressed hope that these business owners would adhere to the Town’s “desire to focus on the downtown development authority’s feasibility study” was not taken up by a single speaker. No speaker referenced the very detailed 25-page downtown business study they had been asked to read. These owners were perhaps reading their own bottom lines after a winter with the most snow and the least growth in business in ten years.
The comments of the Pagosa business community were both wide-ranging and detailed, and delivered with respectful and patient seriousness. The comments were clearly not part of coherent public relations effort. No one expected the turnout of nearly one hundred, which occasioned a mid-meeting migration to a larger room.
 Indeed, the criticisms and suggestions were often contradictory, with some speakers exhorting the Town to undertake bigger investments in clean-up and repair of downtown streets and sidewalks, and some calling for large cutbacks in fees that fund these amenities, some speakers calling for Town to recruit diverse businesses with expensive incentives and new staff, while others called for expansion of economic strengths: tourism and real estate.
There was a deep reservoir of resentment over fees being charged for the proposed Dry Gulch project, fees which run over $10,000 for a single family home and upwards of $50,000 for a modest-sized restaurant. When local businessman Steve Van Horn characterized these fees as “monstrous,” there was grumbling agreement and no murmurs of dissent in a room filled beyond capacity.
Van Horn reported he had cut staffing at his title company from eighteen to seven in less than two years. He asked the Council, “If someone is coming and looking at our community, and looking at all of southwest Colorado, why would they choose Pagosa Springs over any other area?” He characterized the cumulative effect of impact fees as “trying to squeeze lifeblood out of people who are bold enough to give it a try.”
Local commercial property owner Bruce Hoch lamented,
George Johnson added complaints about fees on new construction, citing PAWS and Town fees of $15,000 for an 800 square foot cabin and $30,000 for a 3000 square foot home. Johnson reported the comment of one potential buyer, “I can go to pretty places elsewhere where I don’t have to pay these fees.”
Paul Bauer related that his firm had cut back from nine employees to three in the first quarter of the year. Bauer offered some analysis of the local construction slowdown, “It can’t be just the national economy. We are getting calls from Farmington, Durango and South Fork to go to work there. ... It is like somebody turned the spigots off here the last six months.”
Bauer’s comment appeared to register with Aragon, who responded very directly and quickly, “Your point is well taken.”
Local builder Bob Hart added that he had reduced his workforce from 38 to 20 and charged that slow turnaround times in the Planning and Building departments and restrictions on streetside advertising had cost him seven sales in his eight-condominium development on San Juan Street. “It took a year to go through the planning and permitting process.” Hart was chagrined, “It should be able to turn over in three or four days with an architectural stamp.”
At this point the roomful of participants, seats in hand, joined the roomful gathered in the hallway on a migration to a larger venue. County Commission Chair Bob Moomaw was talking affably, walking the hall holding one empty seat in his left hand and one in his right, an apt election year visual metaphor, perhaps.
After settling in the comfortable seats of the Senior Center cafeteria, the audience was asked two questions by Bo Warren of Circle T and Ace Hardware. The results were discomforting. “How many of you folks are in business?” Warren asked in a gentle voice. Nearly everyone raised their hand.
Warren followed up, “How many of you are worried about surviving this year?” Nearly no one lowered their hand.
Aragon, assessing the political implications, added with comic timing, “I could probably raise my hand on that one.” The room erupted in laughter despite the unfunny predicament.
Warren continued very effectively, “We’ve been in good times, but we are fixing to return to hard times. ... We need a leader to step up for the whole County. We don’t need a planning department for the County and one for the Town. Everything is here within a ten mile radius.”
To this point, most criticism had been from a cost-of-business perspective. The focus was on costs of construction, and the need for reduced fees on that construction. Little focus had been thrown on the demand side of the problem. Why are scores of commercial spaces empty and hundreds of vacant houses for sale when few if any fees are assessed against them?
Local realtor Mike Heraty addressed Councilor Mark Weiler’s question -- What can we do right now? – with a demand-side answer: “The answer is to get more tourists here now, and I don’t mean next summer. I mean now. So we can have the chance at converting those people to second home owners.” Heraty was emphatic, “And show them good hospitality, good service and good value for their money.” He added, “Without the cooperation of the Town, the County, the Chamber, the Town Tourism Committee and PAWS, we will be sitting here a year from now, only with two-thirds of these people gone.”
Bootjack President David Brown opened his remarks with a genial objection to the frequent characterizations of his wealth during the meeting, “I am not a billionaire. I am not even close to a billionaire, and if I were I would help you guys out right now.” After the laughter subsided, Brown continued in a genial and sort-of fatherly tone to give some very candid assessments:
“I have had the last six to nine months to hibernate out at the ranch recovering from my transplant and I have thought a lot ... I don’t mean to be negative. The Town, the County -- this whole area -- has a “half-full attitude.” It pervades every segment we come in contact with, through the schools, the water district, the restaurants. ... We have to change our attitude here and we have to be can-do. Send a message to the whole region that we are open for business. .... I recommend waiving all fees to entice new development to come here. The problem that we have today is we are in the midst of a very severe economic readjustment and from what I hear it could be getting worse. But what can we do? We can change our attitude. And say “You are welcome here.” ... We are competing with every part of the country. And I am behind you 100%, whatever my family can do.”
Local restaurateur Todd Stevens asked the Town Council to be more open to the concerns of local business owners. Stevens noted that all the concerns were being directed to Weiler, the newest member of the Town’s governing board and its most prominent businessman. Continued...
Restaurant owner Todd Stevens referred to the physical divide — the empty aisle — between the Council and the audience, as a symbol of the lack of regular communication between the Council and the business community. |
“I talk to people all day long from the dishwasher to the developer,” Stevens stated, “ and most of the people in this room feel like they can’t approach you.” Stevens pointed to the open space between the Council table and the audience. “This gap right here is a symbol of what is going on. ... And there doesn’t seem to be a forum to close the gap.” Stevens was realistic, “You can’t fix their problems, but you can give them hope.” He recited some of the challenges faced by local business owners, and closed, “Business owners only want the Town to be efficient — like their businesses have to be.”
Part Three: Hints of Leadership? |
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