"You can't buy underwear here. Are we doomed to be dependent on big box stores in Durango?" community member Ron Dunavant asked at a May 29 meeting to discuss Bayfield's business climate.

Dunavant is president of the Durango First National Bank branch in Bayfield.

He plus three other community members, two town trustees, the town manager, and Roger Zalneraitis from the La Plata Economic Development Alliance attended the meeting, the last in a series of follow-ups to a visioning meeting on April 29.

The other follow-up meetings in late May dealt with transportation and land use, parks and recreation, housing, education, and workforce development.

All these sessions revisited a list of economic development action steps created in 2008, some of which have been done.

Town Manager Chris La May was looking for brainstorming about the business climate. He noted that the business zones on Mill Street and north of Highway 160 have different feels to them and different needs.

He noted that there had been little feedback on the town web site to six vision statements written by people at the April 29 vision meeting. He'd gotten around 13 responses, pretty much all from people who were at the vision meeting.

Items discussed on May 29 included the benefits and drawbacks of home-based businesses, high speed broadband internet, and availability of commercial rental space.

Participant Suzanne Arms said, "I'd like to see the town become proactive and pull in the businesses we want." She also wanted more people who live in Bayfield to be able to work in Bayfield, in jobs that pay living wages. She suggested promoting the presumably lower price to rent commercial space in Bayfield compared to Durango.

But Jim Tencza, who runs international shipping business HDS Freight Services from an office on Mill Street, said, "I hear all the time, 'I want to put a business in Bayfield. I don't want to build. I want to rent.' There isn't anything. The key is, who wants to invest the money?"

Zalneraitis said there isn't enough Bayfield data to really compare rental prices in Bayfield versus Durango. "I try to direct people to Bayfield when they complain about prices in Durango," he said.

Tencza said, "It's very expensive to get stuff in and out of Durango. I can go cross-country for what it costs to get stuff down from Denver."

As for broadband access, he said, "When we bought the building, there wasn't even DSL service." It was hard to find information on what services were available. Broadband service has improved, but not enough, he said. "Speeds are okay. Reliability is relatively okay. But if you need high speed access, we aren't there yet."

The town has expanded the amount of fiber optic cable in town and partnered with Fast Track Communications to share infrastructure with fiber that Fast Track already has in town. The two sets of fiber were linked instead of duplicating each other.

Until last year, the fiber in town did not have a fiber link to the outside world. Fast Track brought that connection from Highway 172 up County Road 509 to Bayfield Parkway.

La May said, "Right now the biggest beneficiary is the town. Once we get that lit, there's the opportunity for Fast Track to carry the signal (to private customers)... Our fiber provides for other carriers, competition to keep the cost down."

La May clarified to the Times that the fiber is in place, but activating it is waiting on a fiber swap agreement between the town and Fast Track. "That's pretty much the whole system. We need them to turn the switch, and they won't do that until there's an agreement," he said.

Town trustee Ed Morlan said, "The infrastructure is available. It's a matter of telling people... You get what you pay for, but I think the capability is there."

As for home-based businesses, Zalneraitis cited projections that in 30 years, those could be a significant share of the national economy.

Zalneraitis cited statistics from the 2010 Census that La Plata County was 19th among counties in the entire country on the share of people who worked from home. Tencza commented that a lot of home-based businesses are one person operations with no employees, and that won't generate sales tax revenue for the town.

In contrast, Zalneraitis cited a home-based software business where the owner is spending money on home improvements and business-related services.

Zalneraitis suggested the town needs an ombudsman to deal with business inquiries, and the town should work to strengthen its chamber of commerce as a business development goal.

La May suggested more community meetings to continue these discussions.

Participants lamented the low turnout at the series of meetings.

"The same people tonight were at the other meetings," trustee J.J. Sanders said. "Where do we get the rest of the people?"

La May asked, "Who should be here? Chamber members, town planning commissioners, business leaders, more people in general."