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Pagosa Springs Local News
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| Confusing the Big Box Issue, Part Four |
| Bill Hudson | 3/11/10 |
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| Back to the News Summaries |
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Read Part One
“I agree with Mr. Roane on this,” mayor Ross Aragon began his speech in the midst of a proposed “Referendum B” discussion at Town Hall last Tuesday.
The discussion so far had been remarkably frank, but respectful, on both sides of the issue. At the table sat attorney Matt Roane, arguing that the Town Council should allow the voters to go to the polls with one single referendum on the ballot: Referendum A, asking whether or not the Town should repeal the Big Box regulations contained in the Land Use and Development Code, Section 2.4.5.
In their chairs on the dais sat the six members of the Town Council: mayor Aragon, Shari Pierce, Stan Holt, Don Volger, Jerry Jackson and Darrell Cotton. The seventh Council member, Mark Weiler, had resigned a week earlier.
The Council was being advised by Town manager David Mitchem to place an additional measure on the April 6 ballot: a referendum related to more Big Box rules located in various other parts of the LUDC. We should left the voters decide about all aspects of Big Box regulation, Mitchem seemed to be suggesting.
You are too late in the process, and too close to the election, to be adding more issues to the ballot, Roane argued. The voters need a certain amount of time to study the issues — and Referendum B is being added too late to allow that study.
Now the mayor was speaking up, for the first time, about his feelings about Referendum B.
“I have never felt comfortable with the two-part referendum. We’re going to create mass confusion. And I apologize that I haven’t been vocal about it. I just haven’t felt right about it. I don’t feel right. And I think it’s going to create a mess.
“I apologize to you, Mr. Mitchem. I should have asserted myself, more, regarding that two-part referendum.
“I guess one of the reasons .. a lot of times, when you’re hurting, and with the economy .. and you try to say, well, you’ve got to do this .. and maybe I don’t want to be a stumbling block.
“I drove through town yesterday, about 7:30. And so help me God, it looked like The Day After. And that’s what we’re faced with. We have a huge responsibility, as community leaders. And so we’re trying.
“And yet I can’t help but feel that you [Mr. Roane] are an adversary, because instead of you saying, ‘Look, I don’t live in the Town. I’m coming in here. I’d like to help you guys. Let’s see how we can do this.’ You’re probably not in favor of growth. Anybody that would try and stymie development, would not be ‘pro-growth’ in my opinion.
“So I have to look at you as an adversary. And you probably look at me the same way. And that’s not to say, we can’t have coffee or something. But I want to be real careful of you, because I would never, ever think about going to Bayfield — living here, and going to Bayfield — and tell them what they ought to be doing over there. They would tell me, hey, you live in Archuleta County. Get back over there.
“And that’s what I think. If you cared so much for the community, you would move into Town and you would have run for the Council. You’d have got involved. That’s the reason all of us got involved. Because we care. And we have a huge responsibility for the overcome of the economy.”
The mayor then struggled a bit to express his meaning.
“And we’re trying, in every sense of the word .. and then to have somebody .. I appreciate that somebody .. I just can’t help but feel that we’ve been, maybe not been ..
“I want to be on the up-and-up. And I don’t think we’re getting the right information. If we are getting the right information, we shouldn’t be off track. But obviously, we’re not, because you [Mr. Roane] can come in here and lecture us.
“And we shouldn’t leave ourselves that wide open. And some of us have left ourselves wide open, to scrutiny and criticism .. and maybe, not being sensitive enough or forceful enough.
“So I would ask the Council to reconsider. And if we have to wait and subsequently take action — 60 days or 90 days — I don’t think that can help us any worse than we are now. Or 45 days.
“But we do it right.”
As I understood the mayor’s meaning, he seemed to be agreeing with Matt Roane’s proposal: let the voters speak on Referendum A; if they vote to repeal Section 2.4.5 of the LUDC, then the Council will have a clear mandate to repeal the other Big Box sections of the code as would be appropriate. If, on the other hand, the voters vote to retain Section 2.4.5, then the Council will have no reason, or need, to repeal the other sections of the LUDC.
The solution seemed simple enough, and Roane made it clear that he doubted any legal challenges would arise, if the Council took the “one referendum approach” and abided by the decision of the Town voters.
The mayor had also hinted, as he is wont to do on occasion, that a business owner, like Roane — living outside the Town limits — had no more right to question Town Council policy than Aragon himself had to question decisions made in the town of Bayfield, 40 miles away to the west.
That same sentiment is often heard coming from certain members of the Town Council — the same board that voted, last week, to allow business owners from outside the Town limits to sit as members of the Town Planning Commission.
At the end of the lengthy discussion, Council member Jerry Jackson withdrew his motion to approve Emergency Ordinance 751 — and the push to place “Referendum B” on the April 6 ballot died a wordless death.
Now we have been left with only one key proposition to try and explain to Town voters. Which way should they vote on Referendum A? |
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