On Feb. 17, Pagosa Springs Town Council member Brooks Lindner and Recreation Supervisor Amanda Gadomski reported to the council on funding efforts for a potential expansion of Reservoir Hill Park.
At an August 2025 meeting, the town’s Parks and Recreation Department presented to the council an opportunity to expand the park along the remainder of the hill, to the south and toward County Road 119, also known as Light Plant Road.
At that meeting, Gadomski pitched it as an “opportunity to conserve Reservoir Hill” and to protect “a community treasure for future generations.”
Lindner described the chance as “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity … that will benefit generations to come,” and has since spearheaded the effort on the council to acquire the land.
After the August 2025 meeting, Lindner explained that a committee had been formed that included Gadomski, himself and council member Madeline Bergon.
He said that “our committee has met a couple of times, in October and December,” and that he had a call with “the person that’s in charge of the conservation fund,” and “they expressed their willingness to help us in whatever capacity we might need.”
On the most “current status, as most of you know, we have applied for the [federal] Forest Legacy Program,” he explained, adding that the town has received “25 letters of support from different organizations around town” for that application.
“Ranking will happen in April or May, and that is when we’ll have a better picture on where we stand with the Forest Legacy Program,” he explained.
He added, “To clarify, the area that we are going for on [Reservoir Hill] with the Legacy Forest Program is approximately 300 acres on top [of the hill]. It’s the forested part.”
At the August 2025 meeting, staff had identified around 490 additional acres of potential town parkland currently for sale and available on the hill, but also expressed that a smaller parcel of perhaps 300 acres could be desirable if that’s what the council wanted.
Parks and Recreation Director Darren Lewis explained then that at least one of the grant opportunities has some flexibility to “downsize” from the 490 acres available to “possibly 300 … so, yes, there are options to do that.”
At the most recent meeting, Lindner explained that “there aren’t substantive discussions, yet, about going for the whole thing. We are just focusing on what we can get with the Forest Legacy [Project].”
He added, “It’s important to know that that federal funding timeline extends into 2027-28, so the financial picture” is that “we’ll be looking for a local match of around $2 million — could be a little less, could be a little more, depending on the sale price that’s negotiated.”
Other grant funding opportunities identified by the committee and town staff include a Great Outdoors Colorado (GOCO) grant, but Lindner and Gadomski both indicated that the timing of applying for this grant would depend on the Pagosa Multi-Purpose Pavilion and when it would be applying for the GOCO funding.
“It may be better to go for that in January 2027, depending on the status of the multipurpose pavilion’s efforts in what they’re doing with GOCO,” Lindner said.
Gadomski added that “we can’t” go for the GOCO funding at “the same exact time” as the multi-use pavilion, because that would not “look like we have a good community plan.”
Lindner added that the GOCO board meeting is in Pagosa Springs this September and that “might dovetail well with our efforts here in terms of visibility, them seeing what we are trying to do here and them seeing the site.”
Gadomski then explained to the council that the town had already received a grant for “the forest mitigation work that we do every year at Rez Hill, and we leveraged that to get a grant from the Forest Preservation Wildfire and Risk Mitigation grant.”
She said that this is a “two-part grant,” explaining that “this is really just getting us ready for the Forest Legacy because they are gonna ask for a management plan.”
She added, “This was a really big win for us to get a forest management plan for the current property that we own and then some extra funding for the fire mitigation up there, so it’s a pretty big win for the little capacity that we have up there … to create a healthy forest downtown.”
She added that the town should get its reward packet in late March, and then “we can kinda start that planning process, but that gives us a good fuel … to get some planning in place for the management of Rez Hill already.”
Lindner explained that, potentially, a public campaign to “secure some pledges for that $2 million match” would launch in late spring or early summer.
Leading up to this, the effort would be to build “awareness and visibility around Rez Hill through some kind of messaging campaign,” adding that perhaps some sort of “master planning around the land acquisitions that we’ve done already and how this all relates to our park systems and outdoor recreation, so thinking about Bob’s LP, the Goodman property, Rez Hill, South Yamaguchi and other potential projects.”
He suggested that the council schedule a work session around a master planning strategy for land acquisition and the parks system, describing the chance to expand Reservoir Hill Park as “a once-in-a-generation opportunity.”
At the August 2025 meeting, he said, “If you think about how much we all enjoy Rez Hill, and what a huge quality of life it brings to us all, and they figured that out 75 years ago,” describing the current opportunity as “a legacy project” for the current council and staff.
Lindner ended by saying that the committee “would keep on moving forward.”
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