Sychohants

“All organizations are merely conceptual embodiments of a very old, very basic idea – the idea of community. They can be no more or less than the sum of the beliefs of the people drawn to them; of their character, judgments, acts and effort.” Dee Hock from The New Transitional HR Model

About twenty-five days out from the 2008 national elections I wrote an article for the Daily Post endorsing Ron Chacey. I lamented over concerns I had for the direction the County might take under a majority consisting of John Ranson and Bob Moomaw. After the election, and as a result of the ambush and assault on the County’s planning commission, I wrote another article lamenting concerns that Archuleta County continued to disregard good process, policies and predictability. Since then, I have pelted Bill Hudson and Glenn Walsh with information, but refrained and even refused to write anything myself.

A couple of weeks ago, I re-introduced myself to Terri House at a Rotary meeting, and to my astonishment she remembered me; “Oh yeah, you’re the guy we ruined in the paper.” Obviously, that brought back a good many bad memories, and re-ignited the disgust I felt at the time for being associated with people of poor character and even less scruples.

In the late fall of 2008, I became the target of some hateful e-mails from Commissioner Schiro. They were absurd illusions to power and authority so I passed them on to Bob Campbell and the other commissioners. Eventually, excerpts were printed in the Pagosa Sun, and the Financial Task Force weighed in on the controversy. The Sun never verified the e-mails with me, and the controversy might have gone away, except Ms. Schiro sought to repudiate the aspirations cast on her by conducting an “exclusive’ interview with Bill Hudson.

When the article ran in the Daily Post I received a lot of calls because so many people knew just how false her allegations were. Bill Hudson never called to verify statements made by Ms. Schiro. By this time, I was the temporary County Administrator, and had so many things on my plate, I told everyone that I would address the issue at the appropriate time and under the right circumstances. After we moved the department and settled back in, I was advised to make an annual report to the Board of County Commissioners, and I took that opportunity to lay out my complaint that violations of a recently passed ethics standards.

From the time I wrote the annual report to it’s submission the County made another change – the appointment of Greg Schulte as county administrator. This was an important factor in my decision to make the complaint against Ms. Schiro since as temporary county administrator I would have been in the uncomfortable position of investigating my own complaint. Things did not turn our as I planned.

Instead of an investigation, Greg Schulte simply removed the complaint from the report. He did say he would investigate so I turned my whole file of everything that had taken place, and he promised to return the file after he copied it. The file was not returned, and to the best of my knowledge, there was never an investigation. Rather, Mr. Schulte made charges against me for an e-mail exchange I had with Keren Prior that only reflected I was out of patience with an incompetent administrator who blamed others while refusing to recognize her own shortcomings.

Mr. Schulte never did any investigation, never asked any questions, and never even provided information. However, he did impose harsh punishment for my response to Keren’s asinine accusations against County departments. There was never really an infraction, and Greg had no business trying to evaluate the nuances since he had only been there two weeks. He concocted an issue, provided no process, and in a star chamber way, handed down judgment.

Greg Schulte made no pretence to following disciplinary procedures, did not allow me to defend myself, and made sweeping pronouncements without a scintilla of documentation. When I saw the infamous Bellis memo that led to the assault on the planning commission, I recognized the fingerprints of Schulte on the whole mess.

Interestingly, I was on a committee reviewing personnel policies at the time all this was happening. The committee was formed to review the County’s personnel policies because several serious defects had already been noted; one of which is finally being addressed – accumulated comp time. I raised two points; 1) although there was reference to a disciplinary process, none was set forth with particularity; and 2) although there was reference to disciplinary action to be proportionate to the violation, no standard was provided to determine proportionality. It is an issue that still needs to be addressed if employee morale is ever going to be a factor for the County.

I never did get to present a defense. Greg Schulte’s letter said I had to the end of the day of my dismissal to ask for a hearing, and although I made that request in a timely manner, I was denied a hearing within minutes of making the request in a very short e-mail. It was this action without thought, and baseless action concocted in a fog that came to mind when members of the planning commission were ambushed.

On several occasions I have responded to criticism of planning commission members with articles extolling their efforts. My Mother told me there are three kinds of people in the world – those that talk about ideas, those that talk about things and those that talk about people. She told me avoid those that talk about people and seek out those that talk about ideas. While planning commission criticism seemed to center on the people involved, I responded with the things and ideas keeping those people from fulfilling the mission of the planning commission. I am convinced poor policies and bad regulations are at fault – not the people relying on those documents.

If in fact, the Planning Commission follows the law as Lynda Carter would have us believe, then they will fair no better than the last group. I could name a number of flaws, but basically; the comp plan fails because it was too watered down to provide needed direction for developing good land use regulations; the land use code fails because it was conceived as a top-down document, fractured in form, and written for performance standards and a full compliment of staffing - neither of which came about; and finally, both documents are seriously flawed because the future land use plan reflects the zoning map and neither really reflects either the status quo or the community’s best hope for land uses.

Unfortunately, I cannot give much credence to Ms. Carter’s premonitions on how the new planning commission will conduct itself. Other planning commissions have reflected a range of views and backgrounds because, with staggered terms, the timing and changes in the board of county commissioners, allowed for it. By dismissing everyone at the same time, all of the reasoning behind a process for staggered terms went out the window. This planning commission now reflects only the views of three (3) men at a single slice in time. By dismissing the whole planning commission at once before a new set of standards, processes and mission for the planning commission was in place, means there is no institutional knowledge, no experience to rely on in choosing a chair, etc. The French Revolution was structured in much the same way – they did away with the institutions without anything to replace it with and took out everyone that might have contributed to re-building – chaos ensued.

Given my experience with Archuleta County leadership and management since Bob Campbell left, and Greg Schulte took the stage, I would have to say the last thing the board of county commissioners were looking for was a group of people anxious to follow the rule of law. As an example, Dan Aupperle left the planning commission during my tenure because he did not attend meetings, was disruptive in meetings, and tried to influence administrative action inappropriately. Now, Dan is back on the planning commission, and I fully expect he is there because the board of county commissioners wants him to deliver on a pro-development community. I do not know any of the other members to the planning commission appointed recently, but this one appointment raises serious questions about the appointment process, the standards used to make those appointments, and the possible “chilling” effect the prior ambush might have on the appointees.

In some ways Archuleta County has come full circle. A few years ago new residents began to out-number generational residents, and they used that strength to start changing voting patterns. The “Good Ol’ Boy” network started to break down, and new residents concern about the amenities they moved here for asserted themselves. However, now that the economy has taken a downturn, another constituency has been able to frighten people. Poor leadership and management in recent years, a lack of vision and consensus on growth, and in-fighting between and among governmental entities, HOAs and utility interests have all converged to get us to this point. This last election brought back a form of “Good Ol’ Boy” politics.

My fear is the turmoil the community has seen over the last couple of years is not waning. Instead of seeking collaboration and resolution, leaders and managers are continuing to be self-serving, short-sighted and position oriented. For instance, the recent push to put a Utilities Services Area (“USA”) in place by the County was wasted effort to further development interests. Colorado does not have statutory enabling legislation to support a USA. The State put in place “Smart Growth: legislation toward the end of the 1990’s, but the USA put in place by the County is not Smart Growth – it is sprawl supporting.

There is a movement on to consolidate governmental services, and with the general downturn in the economy, governmental entities that might not have cooperated otherwise are being forced to do so. When revenues decrease, a government has a simple choice; increase revenue or decrease services. Either course of action requires hard-choices, real leadership, and functional management. Archuleta County is not making a choice - it is continuing to borrow money, playing slight-of-hand tricks with services, and trying to trash PAWSD and the town for not cooperating with them. The County has been most successful at wasting everyone’s time, while alienating the very entities it needs most to remain viable.

As presently constituted the board of county commissioners is more interested in extolling the virtues of peripheral feel-good projects that have little or nothing to do with the issues at hand. Unlike the new administration at the federal level, which is seeking to change basic component of the economy to assure long term sustainability, local leadership is actively seeking to revive a failed economy built on construction and real estate sales. What we need is a good process, strategic thinking community-wide, aimed at formulating an implementation plan for a more sustainable economy.

What’s To Be Done:

• .Replace the so-called “USA” with a three-mile plan memorialized in an inter-governmental agreement envisioned by State law so it’s binding on both the town and county, but also encourages participation by utility interests. There are plenty of successful models out there to draw from.

• Re-negotiate the sales tax sharing agreement to phase it out. In my opinion it was this agreement that lulled the County into thinking it was not having financial difficulties, and lulled the town into thinking it could dump urban responsibilities on the County. The town annexed in commercial areas without annexing in the access points that serve those commercial areas. As a result, the County’s costs in road maintenance increased substantially, while the town was able to increase revenues without substantially increasing their costs. It was probably seen at the time as a fair trade-off, but it has not worked out.

• The Town needs to divest itself of responsibility for water and sewer services. In the late 1980’s the federal government mandated regional water and sewer facilities. PAWSD cannot maximize its efficiencies and effectiveness unless it can tie into the Town’s facilities. It is unfair to consumers to be subject to different rates, rules, etc. In my opinion, the push for annexation is being driven principally by the Town’s need to build new sewer facilities, and to do that they need taps to carry the cost. PAWSD would not be driven by that same need. Those cost savings to the Town will enhance their ability to take on more of the urban services, like the transit system, that the County has subsidized and operated for years. PAWSD gains water rights, more options, and taps to carry the cost for a regional sewer facility. It will also help to regionalize the water system to enhance fire protection opportunities.

• Negotiate for shared services – not to consolidate departments. Each entity staffs for services. It is disingenuous to say that there is duplication of these services. What needs to be looked at are gaps in services that can be filled, and making better use of under-utilized staff. The regional dispatch agreement reached some time ago needs to serve as a model for further agreements that allow for more shared services utilizing the best people for most advantage. Most communities moving toward shared services start with emergency services, and then move to other areas of governmental services. Certainly, building officials generally work under model codes, which are very similar so it would be easy to consolidate codes within the three-mile doughnut around the Town so that building officials and code enforcement officers could easily cover both areas.

• Go back to the strategic plan adopted in late 2007, and start implementing it’s provisions. It was a document with broad input, it’s thoughtful and provides a good basis for policy making.

• Do not give up on Home Rule for the County. County government as presently structured is a relic of the nineteenth century. The County now has urban responsibilities and needs a twenty-first century approach to properly and appropriately deal with urban issues. This is not an over-night process getting to Home Rule, but the County does not get any closer by ignoring this option as a significant tool to bring down costs of government, foster collaborative government, and taking local control for best effect.