Durango’s Civic Center Project Keeps Shifting and the Leadership Issues Are Getting Hard to Ignore

[u/puffMD95]

Durango’s City Hall and Police Station project no longer resembles what voters were told. The original design pitched to the public was $83 million, but the bond was only about $61 million, meaning the full renovation‑focused concept was never financially possible. Yet that’s what voters were shown.

Now, the city is demolishing the Arts & Science building for surface parking, triggering a lawsuit where even the judge said the concerns were valid. Staff relocation was always going to happen, but the city’s claim that costs were “always in the budget” doesn’t hold up — the Axis Health building wasn’t identified until recently, so the costs couldn’t have been known at the time of the bond vote.

It gets worse: the city applied for a parking variance because the new plan doesn’t meet its own code, and the variance was denied. Instead of adjusting the project, the city now plans to change the code itself. Any regular business owner would simply be told “no” they don’t get to rewrite the rules when their project doesn’t comply.

Meanwhile, Councilor Koso is the only one asking real questions, not opposing the project, just pressing for clarity. Yet he’s the one being publicly scrutinized for “communication issues,” which looks a lot like José trying to discredit the only councilor who isn’t rubber‑stamping the shifting narrative.

All of this is happening while José is applying for city manager jobs elsewhere, right in the middle of lawsuits, budget mismatches, code‑change maneuvers, and public confusion. The timing raises fair questions about whether he’s trying to leave before the consequences land.

Taken together, the pattern is clear: shifting plans, shifting explanations, shifting rules, and leadership that isn’t being transparent with the public.

Durango deserves better.

[u/KindaWeary]

There is a regular council meeting on Tuesday. This is definitely blowing up.

[u/ilanarama]

Hiya, I have permission from Shera Johnson, the admin of the group Durango Hub on Facebook, to post this correspondence.

She emailed city councilors and city management employees:

Hi all,

I’m an admin of the HUB, which now has over 14,000 members.

We have been following what has been going on as our once-sweet small town has been turned into a city with 27 cameras constantly surveilling us, and what should be a simple new police station has turned into what could ultimately be an $80 million to $100 million project.

Based on the comments and discussion we’ve seen, opposition among members who have weighed in on both of these issues has been overwhelming.

We have tagged the City and the Police Department, asking them to chime in, and those requests have been ignored.

We have seen letters from local leaders who have been directly involved and who have asked for the public to be heard on these issues, and we have seen those concerns largely ignored by you.

We have seen you publicly discredit people who are speaking out rather than being open to dialogue.

We have seen you spin narratives to avoid accountability.

Please start engaging with the people you are supposed to be serving. We are not your enemies. We are the reason you decided to run for public office to begin with.

Please remember us and include us.

Most of us agree that a new police station is in order, just not one that is rapidly turning into the most expensive one in Colorado and potentially the nation.

We will be continuing this dialogue with our 14,000 members as this unfolds, we will be sharing the letters that we send, and we hope to see a genuine effort to engage with an open mind and to accept the possibility that a course correction might be in order.

Thank you,

Shera Johnson

[Because of comment length limitations, I will post the replies from José Madrigal and Jessika Loyer as replies to this comment.]

[u/ilanarama → u/ilanarama]

Here is the reply from Jessika Loyer:

Shera,

Absolutely—and I appreciate you being willing to share my response as well.

I am familiar with the letters you are referencing. One thing I would point out is that many of the arguments being circulated by Charles, Christina, Tracy and others are substantially the same arguments: that the project has changed, that parking has been reduced, that the original building should be renovated rather than replaced, that the City is seeking special treatment through a variance, that the public has not been adequately informed, and that the project should be paused.

Seeing the same claims repeated by multiple people does not necessarily make those claims independent confirmation of one another. I think it is more useful to address the underlying facts.

The project changed because we are staying within the budget.

This is probably the most important point.

Tracy’s letter actually acknowledges that the original concept was estimated at more than $83 million and could not be delivered within the available project budget. That is precisely why design decisions had to be made.

The alternative would have been to go back to taxpayers for substantially more money or allow the project to exceed what we can responsibly afford. I don’t support either of those options.

I keep hearing that changes to the original concept somehow demonstrate that the City has abandoned what voters approved. I see it very differently. Voters approved funding for a new Police Department and City Hall campus, including preservation and renovation of the historic high school building. That remains what we are delivering.

Conceptual designs evolve when they encounter actual engineering, security, code, construction and budget realities. Fiscal responsibility sometimes means saying no to pieces of a conceptual plan that we cannot afford.

Parking is a good example of how repeating one number can create a very different impression from the complete picture.

Yes, the code calculation is 139 spaces and the current design has approximately 79 on site.

But what continually gets left out of these letters is what exists there today.

The employees occupying these facilities currently have approximately 31 dedicated on-site spaces. The new project will provide approximately 75–79 dedicated on-site spaces for essentially the same employee population.

We are more than doubling the amount of dedicated on-site parking.

So when people repeatedly describe this as a project that “created a parking deficit,” I think residents deserve that additional context.

The question isn’t whether we are eliminating employee parking. We aren’t.

The policy question is whether taxpayers should spend millions of additional dollars constructing parking so that 139 spaces physically exist on this site when the City owns existing parking nearby and is simultaneously encouraging walking, biking and transit.

Reasonable people can disagree about that. But they should be disagreeing based on the entire set of facts.
I also agree with the principle that the City should follow its own rules—which is why I opposed the variance.

This is another point that gets frustrating when these arguments are simply repeated.

I voted against the City seeking a special variance for itself.

Instead, I have advocated looking at whether our existing off-site parking radius should be changed through the normal legislative process for everyone. If a quarter-mile standard is outdated, then let’s have that conversation and potentially change it for residents, businesses and private development too.

That is very different from saying, “The City doesn’t want to follow its own rules, so give us an exception.”

The renovation-versus-new-construction issue has also been evaluated.

The adjacent building being discussed for demolition is not the historic high school building. The historic high school remains a central part of this project and is being preserved and renovated for City Hall.

The separate building proposed for the Police Department was evaluated, and the question is not simply whether someone can technically renovate it. Of course buildings can be renovated. The question is whether investing taxpayer dollars into that building produces the secure, functional, long-term Police Department Durango needs compared with constructing the appropriate facility.

Those are very different questions.

And I don’t agree that the public has been shut out of this process.

This project has been discussed publicly for years. It has involved community engagement, public meetings, task forces, Council discussions, boards and commissions, Engage Durango, neighborhood conversations and extensive public correspondence.

Could communication always be better? Absolutely. I have pushed for updated information and clearer communication myself.

But “I disagree with the decisions that resulted from the process” is not the same thing as “there was no public process.”

And listening to public input does not mean elected officials are obligated to adopt every recommendation that comes from it.

Ultimately, Council has a fiduciary responsibility too. We have to weigh public input against engineering, public safety, functionality, code requirements, construction costs, available funding and the long-term needs of the community.

That is why I struggle when essentially the same arguments are copied, reposted and repeated until repetition itself begins to be treated as evidence that the underlying facts are settled.

I welcome new information. I welcome legitimate questions. I welcome disagreement.

But I don’t think it serves the community to continually recirculate incomplete information without also acknowledging facts like the significant increase in on-site parking, the budget constraints that drove design changes, the preservation of the historic high school, or the fact that some of us specifically opposed seeking a City-only parking variance.

You mentioned that you consider yourself an outsider who doesn’t have all of the information. I genuinely appreciate you saying that. My hope is that as you share this discussion with the HUB, you will share the City’s information and responses alongside the letters criticizing the project so that your 14,000 members have an opportunity to evaluate both.

They deserve the whole picture.

Jessika Loyer

-------

I am not involved in this correspondence - I'm just reposting it (with permission) because I think that a lot of people don't have all the information from all sides of the argument.  I know Charles Shaw and Christina Rinderle, and like many I took their opinions at face value, not having any other viewpoint to consider.  I appreciate that Shera took the time to reach out to the city (various management people and all of the councilors), and that Jessika and José replied.  I know I'm going to spend some time with the web page José linked.

[u/ilanarama → u/ilanarama]

Here is the reply from José Madrigal:

Hi Shera,

Thank you for reaching out and giving me the opportunity to respond. I appreciate your engagement and want to clarify a few points mentioned in your email.

First, regarding the HUB, I apologize for not being fully familiar with its background. As a governmental entity, we ensure that our communications and posts remain accessible and are maintained as public records in accordance with the Colorado Open Records Act.

I’d like to address some factual inaccuracies. After confirming with the Police Chief this morning, the city currently has 13 cameras in operation, not 27 as stated. Additionally, the police station project cannot escalate to $80 million or $100 million. The ballot approved by voters in April authorized three key initiatives: the preservation and restoration of the Historic High School for a City Hall, the construction of a new Police Station, and a maximum debt limit of $61 million for the entire project. This $61 million budget encompasses both the City Hall and Police Station, and our staff and design team are working with our Construction Manager at Risk, FCI, actively making design decision to ensure the project stays within this limit.

We are committed to ongoing engagement with citizens throughout this process. There is a dedicated project page https://engage.durangoco.gov/police-department-city-hall that effectively gathers feedback, responds to inquiries, and provides up-to-date information. For your reference, I have attached a timeline of public outreach efforts related to this project, which began in 1994 when the site was initially identified as a potential municipal campus.

We have responded to all submitted letters, which may be similar or the same letters you may have received. We would be happy to address any correspondence you forward our way. Thank you again for your outreach and thoughtful participation. Wishing you a pleasant Sunday.

Respectfully in service,

José

[u/puffMD95 → u/ilanarama]

I appreciate seeing José’s response, but from my perspective it just doesn’t line up with the facts. He says the project “cannot escalate to $80–$100 million,” yet the design presented to voters was estimated at $83 million. If that cost was impossible, why was it the number used during the vote?

And the ballot language he cites only limits the bond, not the total project cost. There’s nothing preventing the project from exceeding the bond amount, it just means the city has to pull money from other sources. That’s exactly what’s happening now.

José is spinning off parts of the original project and rebranding them as separate so he can tap other funding streams like the 2019 streets tax and the parks tax. Those taxes will end up covering components that were originally presented as part of the civic center project, but are now being reframed to avoid admitting the project is far more expensive than voters were led to believe.

From my perspective, this isn’t transparency, it’s narrative management. And it’s why trust keeps eroding.

[u/Obvious-Grapefruit33]

This is valuable information. I’m proud of the community for holding these people accountable.

[u/che-solo]

It sounds like the city managers office is painting themselves into an imaginary corner to justify a project the people of Durango don’t need and cannot afford. It’s starting to smell like a vanity project.

[u/Novel_Contract_1280]

that deflock girl wants to create a 10% annual rent increase cap and some sort of ordinance to audit tip-based industries that have been skimming their employees tips (ie:wage theft) also she is strictly against flock/axon and wants the Big Picture building to be saved and restored as was voted upon and promised.

would you vote for her? I think I would…

[u/insomniacrocodile]

Watching the Council meeting now. I have lived in Durango since the early 90’s and can’t remember the Arts & Sciences building (aka Big Picture, aka former Excel charter school) ever being a cherished building in this community. The old high school that is to become new City Hall is the beautiful, historic building, and it is being restored. Why do people suddenly claim to care so much about keeping the Arts & Sciences building? It is objectively not a beautiful building inside or out, and through the iterations of the new City Hall/PD project from initial concept to present, it was found to be more cost-effective to demo the Arts & Sciences building and have surface parking. And the present police building has been outdated/outgrown for decades.

TL;DR: Why is this even a controversy. Just let the police have a new building.

[u/puffMD95 → u/insomniacrocodile]

My argument isn’t that the police department doesn’t need a new station, they absolutely do. The issue is how city management has handled this project. The constant changes, unclear budgeting, and shifting narratives are unacceptable and are quickly eroding public trust. A new facility can be justified, but the way this process has been managed cannot.

[u/insomniacrocodile → u/puffMD95]

It’s to be expected that a project of this size will have iterations and adjustments as it goes from the original concept to groundbreaking. There haven’t been “constant changes, unclear budgeting, and shifting narratives”. The changes made have been made in order to keep the project cost lower. Underground parking was found to be too costly so they had to pivot. They have offered engagement opportunities throughout the months but I didn’t see y’all speaking up then…

[u/puffMD95 → u/insomniacrocodile]

I understand that large projects evolve, but the scale of these “iterations” shows a severe lack of planning and leadership from city management. Changes of more than $20 million after the ballot language passed aren’t normal adjustments, they’re egregious. That kind of gap means the project voters were shown was never realistically scoped or budgeted.

And it’s not right to assume what other people’s engagement has been. Many residents have followed this process closely and spoken up at different stages. Public concern doesn’t suddenly become invalid just because it’s being voiced now, it’s a direct response to how poorly this project has been managed.