There were only two items on the agenda for Tuesday morning’s joint work session between the Pagosa Springs Town Council and the Archuleta County Board of County Commissioners — early childhood care and education, and affordable housing.
As it turned out, however, these topics were too much to handle in a single one-hour meeting.
Commission Chair Michael Whiting began by introducing a paper titled “Pre-K Education in Archuleta County” by Garry Lassman, J.D.; Pat McKenzie, Ph.D.; Richard Richardson, Ph.D.; David Smith, Ph.D.; and Fred Uehling, CPA.
“Early childhood education and affordable workforce housing,” Whiting reminded the group, “are the two subsets of economic development that we felt we could work together to solve.
“With that being said, I’d like us to think of this … as the first opportunity to figure out how we actually fix this dilemma, and think of it not in terms of finding solutions and jumping right into action today, but to figure out what the questions are.”
Mayor Don Volger added, “This paper that you refer to is exceptional. It is probably the best summary of our need for early childhood education and development in Archuleta County that I have read.”
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