Clarifications and Continuations about KCEC v. E911

An expert writes to us from the massive County Complex with special knowledge about the $1.6 million upgrade and reminds Friction readers of the following (herein paraphrased) concerning the current E911 facility.

True, the town could have made the old building on Civic Plaza Drive ADA compliant for only a few hundred thousand dollars.

But the equipment and software had several issues: repeater problems in the outlying areas, including Amalia, Questa and southern Taos County. Every report recommended new radios, repeater upgrades and software upgrades.

(Editor’s note: under town management the E911 system suffered from neglect.)

The bulk of the $1.6 million was used to address these issues so that members of the JPA, Taos Ski Valley, Town of Taos PD, Taos County Sheriff and Questa PD could all share any data, with the new Computer Assisted Dispatch (CAD) system, including the Detentions Center, and, potentially, the Taos Fire Department. More software and training continues in the coming months.

(Ed. Note. Maybe folks won’t get lost in the jail!)

(Taos Friction) In summary, ladies and gentlemen, when the emergency response teams and the public servants, the adults, finally got involved, they determined that the KCEC Command Center was under-designed and nowhere near a “state of the art facility.” All the political jockeying and KCEC movidas had obscured the real issue: public safety. The County and the Citizens of the Town elected a new mayor and council while also wresting away control of E911 from KCEC and their cronies at Town Hall. During the run-up to Luis’s decade-long coup aimed at the “E911” system, the political noise diverted management from operations. KCEC politics became a threat to public safety.

(Editor’s Note: The KCEC Command Center as built does not match the original proposal, outlined in the grant application to RUS or even come close to matching Mr. Reyes’s promises. Somebody changed the project or somebody got screwed. The Trustees, as usual, were asleep.)

Having upgraded the E911 system, the Town and County now say they need a new tax to keep the system operational. Fair enough.

Today, CEO Reyes and the Board of Trustees at KCEC are threatening the financial viability of the electric Coop, due as much to failed investments as the hoary culture of the Gerry Manders. The Coop needs transparency and fair voting procedures, fewer politicians and more public servants, liquidation of failing assets and a return to the Coop’s mission of delivering electricity.