The Town of Pagosa Springs will be sending out ballots on Monday, March 16, for the town’s April 7 election.
Town residents will see two questions on their ballots.
One question will ask voters if they would like to amend language in the town’s charter pertaining to maximum fines and jail sentences for town ordinance violations, keeping these sentences within state law limits.
At a Feb. 3 town council meeting, Town Manager David Harris explained the ballot question as “charter language cleanup,” which would bring the town’s fines and sentences in line with the state’s.
A council-passed ordinance setting the ballot language states, “Recent amendments … of the Colorado Revised Statutes have modified maximum fines and terms of imprisonment permissible in municipal court, and the Supreme Court of Colorado has found maximum sentences for certain non-felony offenses are a matter of mixed statewide and local concern, thus municipal penalties may not exceed the state caps for corresponding state offenses.”
The council found that these changes “are appropriate and necessary for the function and operation of the Town to provide for municipal court penalties that are consistent with the maximum fines and penalties permitted by state law,” the ordinance states.
If passed by town voters, the charter would be amended to delete language in “Section 6.6 - Penalties” that currently states, “a fine or single violation shall not exceed $1000 and a jail sentence for a single violation shall not exceed one year.”
The language, if passed, would be replaced with, “Fines and jail sentences for violations shall not exceed the maximum fines and sentences by state or federal laws.”
At the Feb. 3 meeting, council member Madeline Bergon asked if the voters reject the change to the charter language.
“We will cross that bridge if we get there,” Harris replied.
The other ballot question will ask voters if they will give the town permission to apply for a $3 million loan, with no tax increase, to pay for the town’s flood recovery efforts in the wake of being denied Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) funding.
The loan would come from the Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB).
In February, Town Development Director James Dickhoff stated that while the town had secured state funding sources to help fill the gap, the town was still “about $3 million short” of its estimated cost to make the river “safe” ahead of the summer recreation season.
The intent is not to “reconstruct the river corridor to what it was before the flooding,” Dickhoff explained, but to instead focus on “public safety” for those wanting to recreate in the river this spring and summer.
“We want to make sure it’s as safe as possible … We are really focusing on public safety and bank stabilization,” he said.
The total project cost of river cleanup and restoration, following the October 2025 flood event, is estimated to be just shy of $6 million, stated Harris in correspondence.
The CWCB loan would be a 30-year period and comes with a zero percent interest rate for the first three years, with about a 3.35 percent interest rate for the remaining 27 years of the loan period, an agenda document on the matter states.
This would amount to the town paying about $170,000 a year once the interest kicks in during the 27-year period, Dickhoff explained.
The ballot language states that the loan will be used “solely for costs of repairs and replacements associated with damages to the town’s public infrastructure caused by” the flood.
The language further states that the funds can be used for damages, “including but not limited to: roads, bridges, culverts, trails, San Juan River fisheries habitat improvement, San Juan River recreational improvements, [and] San Juan River channel sedimentation.”
It lists a repayment cost of up to $4,605,297.95.
Also in this election cycle, four seats on the town council are up for election.
Three incumbents — Mayor Shari Pierce, Madeline Bergon and Gary Williams — are running unopposed since no challengers filed nomination petitions by the Jan. 26 deadline.
The council seat currently held by Matt DeGuise will not have a candidate in this election since DeGuise did not run and no one else filed to run for the seat by the deadline.
Harris explains that, at some point after the April 7 election, the council will need to appoint someone to that seat, but “no announcement of that process” has been made yet.
The April 7 election “shall be conducted as a mail ballot election in accordance with all relevant provisions of the Election Code,” states the ordinance setting the election.
It adds, “There shall be no election precinct or polling place. All mail ballots shall be returned to the Election Official’s office, located at the Town Hall, 551 Hot Springs Boulevard, Pagosa Springs, Colorado.”
derek@pagosasun.com
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