Read part one

The new pickleball courts at Yamaguchi Park, near Pagosa Springs High School, have been active this summer, with participants of all ages, though I’d guess the average age of participants is over 60.

That is, people of retirement age, who need some fun activity in their lives.

The new courts were jointly funded by the City of Pagosa Springs, the Tourism Board, the Archuleta Board of County Commissioners and the Pagosa Pickleball Club.

The club, which has about 350 members, spent five years fundraising to raise $100,000 to help pay for construction of the new outdoor courts.

I mention this – in an article about Stevens Field, the airport operated by the Archuleta County government – because “special interest groups” are sometimes expected to pay for the services they receive from the government. Other times, society’s taxpayers pay for the services provided to certain “special interest groups”.

Archuleta County taxpayers pay for the operation of our public schools through property taxes, for example with additional subsidies from the state of Colorado – even though most of our local households do not include children.

However, it is not always easy to tell who pays for what. Sometimes you have to dig to find the information.

The agenda for the Archuleta Board of County Commissioners’ Tuesday work session was posted late Friday. Here are the topics to be discussed:

1. CSU Extension Department Mid-Year Update – Robin Young
2. Discussion of potential water line work for hangar expansion – Chris Torres
3. Discussion on opting out of gun free zones – Ronnie Maez
4. Initiative 50 and 108 – Veronica Medina
5. Administrator report
6. Other items of mutual interest

Item number 2 relates to Stevens Field and any tax-funded expenditures that may benefit private aircraft hanger owners.

As mentioned in part one, the county has offered “land leases” to aircraft owners, to allow them to build hangars on public property … and many of these leases are adjacent to the old “Bravo” runway. In the picture below, the taxiway ‘Bravo’ is marked in light blue. The light rectangles are the existing hangers.

Two residential areas are adjacent to the Bravo taxiway: Piedra Estates and The Knolls. Suzanne Dimeff is one of the property owners who belong to the Knolls Property Owners Association (KPOA), and she contacted me last week to express her concerns about several ongoing controversies.

She had written a letter to Commissioner Veronica Medina, whose district includes Knolls and the Stevens Field airport.

One controversy concerns aircraft hangers being built without the approval of the Pagosa Fire Protection District. The fire district is concerned that the water pressure along the Bravo taxiway is insufficient to facilitate firefighting by our partially volunteer firefighters – especially perhaps in a situation where the building contains an aircraft loaded with jet fuel.

That controversy may be discussed at tomorrow’s BOCC work session. We may also find out why these new hangers received temporary certificates of occupancy despite the fire district’s concerns.

Another controversy involves hangers connecting to Knoll’s privately owned sewer system without a permit.

Another controversy concerns the airport layout plan, approved by the BOCC in 2022 – apparently without holding a proper public hearing required by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

Another controversy involves hangers being built along the Bravo taxiway beyond the limit promised by the county in previous airport expansion plans.

And perhaps the biggest controversy of all: who will pay for a potential $60 million in planned airport maintenance and improvements?

Here is a brief excerpt from Dimeff’s letter to Commissioner Medina:

Dear Commissioner Medina:

Stevens Airport, KPSO, and the old airport, now Bravo taxiway, are within your district. This notice is to put the Board of County Commissioners (BoCC), County Attorney, and others
affected parties are notified of potential catastrophic liability exposure for the county.

Potential for catastrophic risk to the county

The purpose of this notice is to make the BoCC and others aware that a jet fuel powered turboprop aircraft continuously uses a hangar for which fire fighting capability is known.
is missing. The hangar lacks a certificate of occupancy and lacks liability insurance.

Specifically, Hangar 511 H, a duplex at the north end of E Condor has been occupied since early May 2024 by 1979 Commander N84G. The airport manager is aware of or must do so
be aware of. The tenant has an insurance quote, but no binding liability policy, which is required by the lease agreement. Even if coverage were purchased immediately, a claim would be denied due to the well-known fact that the hangar lacks fire protection, yet is used by a commercial company (Pagosa Air Charters LLC) without the issuance of a certificate of occupancy.

For less than $2,000 a year in land revenue, the county is exposed to disaster risks.

I have reached out to our three commissioners in hopes of getting a chance to discuss these controversies before tomorrow’s work session.

In the meantime, here’s a detail from a proposed capital improvement plan that may — or may not — have been approved by the Archuleta County Airport Advisory Committee, a volunteer committee tasked with advising the BOCC on airport matters. According to the county’s website, this board held its last meeting in November 2023.

As you will note, the county spent close to $1 million on airport maintenance in 2022 (shown in yellow). Another $1 million in spending is planned for 2026 (shown in pink), and a $13.7 million reconstruction is planned for 2027 (shown in yellow). Much of the funding is expected to come from federal and state grants.

You can download the full CIP spreadsheet here with some maps of the planned expenditure. The full spreadsheet mentions $46.8 million in possible future expansion projects — in addition to the $15.8 million to be spent by 2030. So a total of about $60 million.

I started today’s episode with a question. Who should pay for government services that primarily benefit a small “special interest group”?

Perhaps the BOCC will share its feelings on that topic at tomorrow’s work session, at 8:30.

Read part three, tomorrow…