An odd thing has been happening in Pagosa Springs. The leaders of several different government entities, including the Town of Pagosa Springs, Archuleta County, the Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation District, the Pagosa Fire Protection District and the Archuleta School District have been meeting on a somewhat regular basis to discuss a mutual concern: the high cost of growth.
 I call it an odd thing, because during the 15 years I have lived in Pagosa Springs, I have not heard of it happening ever before. Although all these entities serve the same small-town community — the boundaries of the School District, the Fire District, the Water Districts and Archuleta County all encompass essentially the same population, and practically all the community's businesses are located within the Town boundaries — but from what I can gather, they have all tended to act as autonomous, independent organizations, with only limited lines of communication open between their various boards.
Part of that damned independent Pagosa spirit, I guess. But things might be changing.
PAWSD, the County Commissioners, and representatives from the Town Council have now met four times this year to discuss a community-wide impact fee policy, and at their most recent meeting last Monday morning, they invited School District Superintendent Mark DeVoti and Fire Chief Ron Thompson to join the discussion. At one point in the Monday discussion, the participants even decided to invite the Upper San Juan Health Service District to join them at future meetings.
The unprecedented growth that Archuleta County — and much of Colorado — experienced between 1995 and 2005, put every one of our local governments to the test. Growth had put pressure on every kind of service and infrastructure, At the same time, long-time residents of the community were calling out for the preservation of our "small town character." Every government entity added new staff positions to try and deal with the new pressures, and that tendency caused its own problems. In 2007, the County nearly went bankrupt and had to suddenly lay off a quarter of its workforce — a workforce which, it turned out, was beyond the County's financial means.
Along with community growth came another, very mixed, blessing — higher property values. Home prices spiraled out of reach for working class families, rents on commercial buildings headed upward, and property taxes more than doubled for many property owners.
During 2007 and 2008, that growth ground to a halt, and we all had a moment to catch our breath. But many local businesses found themselves, not catching their breath, but gasping for breath.
Some government entities, too, have found themselves struggling for financial air.
In this climate of stalled growth, the unprecedented impact fee levied by the Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation District in 2006 — a "Water Resource Fee" on new and remodeled construction amounting to $7,210 per Equivalent Unit, added to already substantial capital investment and hook-up fees — have become a subject of intense discussion, not only at PAWSD meetings, but also at Town Council and Board of County Commissioner meetings.
Those PAWSD impact fees are designed to fund a 35,000 acre-foot reservoir in Dry Gulch, about a mile north of downtown Pagosa — a reservoir for which PAWSD has claimed a clearly documented need, and also community support.
In fact, the community support is highly questionable. I estimate that I have attended, as a news reporter, over 25 meetings where the Dry Gulch Reservoir has been discussed. I cannot recall a single member of the public standing up in favor of the Dry Gulch Reservoir — except, ironically, Post reporter Glenn Walsh (supporting repeatedly the 12,500 AF model) — at any of those meetings. Many people, on the other hand, have raised questions about it. Three of the people raising serious questions have been County Commissioners Bob Moomaw and Ronnie Zaday, and Town Councilor Mark Weiler.
In that questioning atmosphere, PAWSD has agreed to sit down with the other entities and talk things over. There seems to be a general consensus that impact fees are necessary; the questions are basically two: at what total dollar amount do impact fees start to hurt rather than help the community, and, what is the equitable way to divide such a "safe" level of fees between the various government entities.
Commissioner Bob Moomaw and Town Councilor Mark Weiler have clearly expressed a familiar perspective at recent meetings: the current PAWSD fees are leaving no room for other entities to levy their own fees — or worse, may be already harming the community's economic vitality. PAWSD — represented by District Manager Carrie Weiss and Board President Karen Wessels — has stuck to its guns and insisted that the Water Resource Fees are justified and necessary.
At last Monday's meeting, agreements were somewhat tentative — but agreements there were, nevertheless.
To date, the two-year-old PAWSD Water Resource Fee has been based on calculations performed by Durango water engineer Steve Harris, taking a 35,000 acre-foot reservoir and pumping station and spreading its cost — plus the cost of certain Snowball pipeline upgrades — over the next thirty years of supposed growth.
The impact fees being levied by the Town, the County, the School District and the Fire District were calculated in 2006 by Economic and Planning Systems (EPS), one of the more respected impact fee consultants in Colorado. According to the EPS study and report, the proper level of impact fees for a future reservoir was about $1,100 per new home.
Using the numbers generated by amateur demographer Steve Harris, PAWSD had come up with a reservoir impact fee of $7,210 per new home.
Can these dramatically different numbers be reconciled?
On Monday, Commissioners Moomaw and Zaday pressed PAWSD to participate with the County, the Town, the Fire District and the School District to fund an update to the existing EPS impact fee study — to be performed by EPS, not by Steve Harris. (PAWSD critic Town Councilor Mark Weiler had originally offered to fund that update out of his own pocket, but the Monday meeting decided to keep things publicly funded.)
That study update will look at three important components, I would imagine: what are the currently projected capital needs of the whole community, what are the best estimates of the total capital costs, and what are current projections for growth over the next 20-30 years?
PAWSD recently hired engineering firm MWH to recalculate the cost of their proposed reservoir and pipeline upgrades — a calculation which will likely come in somewhat higher than Harris' 2006 estimate, due to ever-increasing construction costs — and those numbers are expected in early October. EPS will need those numbers, and also an updated list of capital projects from all the other entities.
Crunching all those numbers together will supposedly give us an overview of the whole community's future needs. Then the entities will need to do two things: agree that the EPS study was done fairly, and then agree on what community-wide capital needs are most pressing.
Wessels and Weiss were clear that they needed the approval of their boards before they could commit to helping fund an EPS update. I assume the other entities are in the same boat with their own boards. A more crucial decision by the PAWSD board, however, is whether to abide by a new EPS study once it's completed. There is some evidence that a new EPS calculation of the PAWSD Water Resource Fee would come in much lower than PAWSD's existing fee — even if MWH recalculations of the cost for the proposed reservoir come in higher.
So far, I do not sense PAWSD is ready to make that kind of commitment. |