Government Accountability

The removal of our former Public Works director, and decision not to renew the County Manager's contract, are a good start in terms of accountability. But these recent events underscore both the need to properly vet employees and contractors to ensure they actually have the experience and competence to do the job. Ethics violations, investigations, and misuse of funds have cost the Archuleta taxpayers well over $1,000,000 in the past year alone.

Consider the County Courthouse, as another example. It was sold by the County to a private investor for a mere $550,000 - despite having several higher bids submitted by local parties, and the building still carrying nearly 800,000 in debt at the time of sale. Not only was this a poor decision at the time, but a plainly missed opportunity in many ways. That building is now listed for sale at 6 Million dollars - nearly 12 times what the County accepted for it!

These are but two examples of the egregious failures in our past administrations - and in both cases these decisions were affected by lack of business and real estate experience, and in general, a lack of long-term thinking.

The bottom line - we need smarter use of county funds and assets - and long term, business oriented strategies to use the revenues from these resources wisely.