Bayfield rancher Paul Black is running for La Plata County commissioner in District 3 on a platform centered around deregulating land use.
The Republican is challenging former Bayfield mayor and sitting Democratic Commissioner Matt Salka, who is seeking a second term.
District 3 is anchored in Bayfield and spans the eastern part of the county. Although the commissioner representing each district must live within its confines, commissioners are elected at-large by all county voters.
A former firefighter/EMT for Upper Pine River Fire Protection District, Black now works full-time running a ranch where he and his wife raise cattle, grow hops, and operate a wedding venue and vacation rental.
Black serves as the president of three local boards: the Upper Pine fire board, the Pine River Conservation District board and the Schroder Irrigation Ditch Co. He is also a member of the Los Pinos Irrigation Ditch Co. board.
On the campaign trail, Black has routinely appealed to voters on the basis that the county’s land-use code, which was written in 2020, is hampering development and making housing unaffordable.
Get to know Paul
What is your primary vehicle?
A 2008 Chevy Duramax one-ton.
What was the last vacation you took?
Santa Fe.
What book are you reading right now?
I don't know if I have one open right now. Summertime is just busy.
Other than the Herald, where is the first place you go for news in the morning?
For the weather and everything, I go to MSNBC.
If you had to live in a town outside La Plata County, where would you live?
I would probably live in the Caribbean.
DH: When you call for revisions to the land-use code, are you proposing amendments and code revisions, or a 2020-scale rewrite? And if you’re calling for revisions, what are the numbers of some specific chapters or sections you want to see rewritten?
Black: I think it’s going to be revisions. I think we’ve got a decent base, but we need to definitely get some revisions in there. It’d be nice to just start in the first chapters and start working our way through.
I believe it lands in chapters in the 70s, where most of the building and land-use regulations landed, if I remember, right. So that’s probably the biggest piece of it.
I think Chapter 90 is one of them. I think we should actually pull it back.
DH: Given that one commissioner cannot direct county staff to revise a specific code section, what can and will you do to revise the code that your opponent cannot or will not?
Black: If the planning department has things that they’ve been working with on all these projects that keep coming up that’s not working, let’s bring that to the county commissioners, let’s start looking at the stuff to revise it.
I would like revisions to start to come every meeting, if not every other meeting, have something from that department come forth to the county commissioners so that they can start making headway on this.
DH: You would ask of staff every meeting or every other meeting, which would be roughly once a month, to have something up from Community Development for revision. They would have to go through the planning commission first. Do you think that’s feasible?
Black: I think it’s a start. I think we need to start requesting that, see how our staff can start bringing that up to us.
DH: County staff are contending with a structural deficit and are cutting spending next year. Would you vote in favor of a resolution asking taxpayers to raise property taxes by increasing the county mill levy?
Black: I think we actually need to do some really good PR work with our citizens, because if you talk to the county right now, they feel like they have really good odds of passing a mill levy. I think that is insane.
If the county was to get out and talk to their citizens, they would probably be better off to look at a sales tax increase rather than a mill levy increase, just because a lot of the citizens are saying the impact we’re having is coming from tourism on our roads, on all of our structures. So I feel the county would be much better off going after a sales tax.
About this Q&A
The Durango Herald met with opposing candidates running in contested races across Southwest Colorado. Candidates were asked similar questions on the same issues. Their answers have been edited for clarity and brevity.
DH: Would you have reservations about increasing the county’s reliance on a generally more volatile revenue source?
Black: Not as much. I’ve asked the question several times to our municipalities and our county about sales tax – the breakdown, and how to get granular with that. What businesses are making money? Where is that revenue coming from? There’s no answer to it. To me, that is something that is very important that the county needs to know so they can make better decisions with their land-use code.
I’m not against a mill levy, but I think we’re going to have to really prove to the citizens that they’re going to benefit from it.
DH: You’ve proposed funding the road and bridge department through the sales tax. The county has historically directed $5 million of sales tax revenue to that fund, but will not next year because the county cannot afford it. Are you proposing asking voters to increase the sales tax to benefit road and bridge, or cutting spending elsewhere?
Black: I don’t know if we need a specific sales tax increase for that.
I think just in general, the county is going to have to look at all the departments, look at the funding, and we’re probably going to have to make cuts through a lot of this stuff.
DH: What is one thing Commissioner Salka has done in office that you applaud?
Black: I do feel that he is in the community, probably, more than the other commissioners. He does have a lot of conversations. I think he’s taken projects in the past that timed out and he has kept them rolling.
DH: Other than cutting development regulations, what initiative would you push as commissioner to lower the cost of housing or increase the volume of available attainable housing?
Black: When I was kid, growing up, there was lots of trailer houses. I don’t know the last trailer park that has gone in. We have a lot of builders here. I call those starter homes. You can afford that, you can get in there. You can do that. We need to have more starter homes.
DH: You have called fees “a secret tax.” The argument that development should pay its own way aligns with your stance that tourists using roads should help pay to maintain them. Why do you disagree with the road impact fees?
Black: When you come to fees, they’re not voted on by the public. That’s the biggest issue here. If I already have a house and I do an addition, that impact has already been there. I don’t believe there should be an impact fee for that addition. When you do have a new house going in, I completely get that. The problem that I have with it is that if you’re in the east side of the county, you’re never going to see any of that money coming back to any of those roads.
DH: Housing is one solution to homelessness. But the cocktail of factors that leads someone to homelessness is complex. What others contributors should the county target and how would you do it?
Black: I think people area looking for skills, so it would be great to see more mentorships with industries that we have going here. I think there’s a lot of businesses here that would love to do internships. Just networking the stuff we do have to get more options for people to be able to walk in those doors.
rschafir@durangoherald.com