Taos: Rated X for High Cost of Living
See Tax and Spend Elites Perform on Nov. 17
at County Meeting
Social Injustice!
If your elected and appointed leaders aren’t picking your pocket for the sake of filling up their purses, then they are privatizing the local culture for the sake of crackpot ideas on the Paseo or for out-of-town two-steppers. As gross receipts taxes and property taxes rise, so do the salaries and perks for primos and elites at the Coop or in the executive suites of town and county government. The leading egos, drunk with power, see themselves as “change agents,” agents who aim at accommodating a new generation of invading “gentry.”
The good old boys who signed and orchestrated the $150 million Abeyta/Taos Pueblo Water Settlement, TVAA’s Palemon Martinez and EPWSD’s John Painter, Taos Pueblo’s Gilbert Suazo and Nelson Cordova all hope they live long enough to reap and spend the windfall. Local residents also see the KCEC CEO and Trustees, who reaped the rewards of the Broadband $60 million gold rush similarly to the Four Horsemen who have transformed “Aqua es Vida” into “Aqua es Dinero.” Now, apparently, whether as “do-gooders” or “social engineers,” Commissioner Blankenhorn and the County aim to aid and abet this coalition of the Gentrifiers on Tuesday, Nov. 17.
Just as few parciantes, Taos Pueblo residents, or EPWSD board members, and politicos at the Town of Taos have read cover to cover the $150 million Abeyta Agreement, few if any of the Trustees at the Coop have read Luis’s business plans, the audits and the 990s. And so the County’s Tom Blankenhorn led the rush in the past to ignore “water transfers” within the County, which resulted in pilfering Questa’s water for folks in Seco and El Prado, his districts, and in favor of Palemon (and Joe Torres), and John Painter. Now there’s more.
Forgive them Father for they know not what they do.
CEO Luis Reyes and a gaggle of elected trustees have buried the Coop in $84 million in debt due to failed ventures and who knows how much ghost debt they haven’t counted, including the $37 million due Tri-State for an exit fee. Now they want a rate increase to bail out their enterprises, alleged side ventures, and the electric Coop itself. Luis will explain himself to Commissioners on Tues.
Entrepreneur and Water Market maven, Mr. Wite-Out, John Painter of El Prado Water and Sanitation is way ahead of Luis on this one. He already got a GRT and a property tax instituted to save the “District” from insolvency, due to high legal bills, penalties, and ongoing attempts to purchase some of the community’s most expensive water rights (for whom?).
Now the Taos County Commission, chaired by Blankenhorn, Mr. Do-Gooder and community savior, is considering a tax to benefit the failed, failing and soon to fail again hospital. Like the Coop, the EPWS District, (and the Taos Municipal Schools), the Hospital wants a financial “supplement” to pay for the incompetent boards and the executives who specialize in “mismanagement” and even “plunder.” The County appears poised to allow tax elections or revenue benefits for another failing institution. Each year Taos County residents’ property taxes rise though “values” remain stagnant. Gross Receipts Taxes in the community (like our overbuilt “public buildings”) are some of the highest in the state. The Town also wants help in the form of an increase in GRT to subsidize E911 expenses, increases partly due to the tumult caused by crooked doings between the Town and the Coop. The County government is solvent because of frugal management and following the procurement code, unlike the Town, where the elected and appointed officials continue to cover up illegal activity.
But just as the Mayor and Manager exploit local apathy and implement “Cultural Gentrification” so the County, on behalf of a myriad of losers, permits tax elections, which only means more gentrification.
The citizens and residents, most natives and some newcomers, don’t want to pay higher taxes due to failed policies and corrupt politics at the town, Coop, and hospital. Mr. Blankenhorn, a former republican, has been sucked into the role of “Mr. Tax and Spend” and the County Commissioners appear to be “classic enablers.” But the people’s pocketbook is empty.
The Hospital, the Coop, and the EPWSD should be shut, the business models liquidated, and the three entities re-opened as 1) a modest “urgent care facility,” 2) a sustainable “electrical coop” and 3) a “water and sewer district” (not a water marketing agency).
In Taos “Gentrification” policies are turning locals and natives into strangers in their own hometown. The Coop has betrayed the trust of a generation of members. Now, the County, by promoting another tax for hospital elites and incompetents, invites in the newcomers and sends the natives spinning down the highway to the Barrios in Albuquerque. The locals are not just leaving because of their grandchildren.
Basta!