Taos News Announces Lumps of Coal for Incompetents

KCEC’s Consultant critical of Coop

RUS’s Bruner Breaking KCEC

TCC Bailout for HCH

PD Chauvinism

Taos Kitsch

I love it when the mainstream press confirms prior stories posted by Taos Friction. Call me Scrooge.

Coop Consultant 

For instance, in the Dec. 10, 2015 edition of The Taos News, a story by the intrepid J.R. Logan, who actually reads documents, published remarks by KCEC’s rate consultant Steven Seelye. The Coop’s own consultant used language like “ `financial distress,’ and `underlying financial underperformance.’” (Why can’t he say, “mismanagement?)

Logan summarized, saying “it (the Coop) is struggling to meet several accounting benchmarks used by lenders to judge the financial stability of their borrowers…operating well below nationwide industry standards.” According to Logan’s own study, “Kit Carson is among the poorest-performing co-ops in the state.” Instead of paying cash, the Coop borrows and spends.

The County and EPWSD: tax and spend.

In a second article by Andrew Oxford, the reporter writes that the Taos County Commissioners recently passed what I call “a pig in the poke” tax to benefit Taos Health Systems (THS) d/b/a/ HCH. While Commissioner O’Donnell voted no, the good old boys, who are running for re-election especially Blankenhorn, all voted yes, just like Painter and the board at the “district.”

Health advocate Carol Miller called the tax a “bailout” for THS which serves Quorum Health Resources, an out-of-town management company. The Trustees at HCH are volunteers unlike the “traveling trustees” but that doesn’t mean they are anymore virtuous or competent. As Carol said about the famously secretive management team in Oxford’s article, “no sunshine, no bailout.”

The property tax election on March 8, shortly after the Town elections, if passed will provide an estimated 1.28 million bucks per year that can be used for “operations” or “maintenance,” according to reports in The Taos News. THS’s  CEO actually admitted to “problems.” How refreshing and so what?

Apparently Tom Blankenhorn and the Commissioners, THS d/b/a HCH, have been studying the ways of the Coop: reward incompetence by shoving off the debt on the rate payers or tax payers, If nobody runs against Blankenhorn, we citizens, too, are guilty of tax and  spend policies as well as bailouts for  “incompetents.”

Bandido Alert

Also in The Taos News, Terry Bruner, who is the USDA/RUS representative for economic development in New Mexico,  praised himself and federal economic development programs in a “My Turn” piece. Bruner didn’t mention how he helped KCEC down the garden path into millions of dollars in debt for the Command Center and Broadband program et al.

According to grant letters in Friction’s possession, Coop wrongdoing occurred because there was no “federal oversight” by Bruner (or anyone else). Call the AG, IG, or the FBI: “Bandido Alert!”

“Don’t be doing him thataway, Jani.”

In a story by Oxford, again, Police Sergeant Jani Davis was acquitted by a jury at Magistrate court of “battery charges.” She apparently took a tough customer into custody against his will and had to get  a handle on the miscreant. Now the Town’s Police Chief, One Weaver, apparently, wants to fire the female officer. Charges have never been filed against male officers, who chased down female suspects and broke necks, arms, or “tased” the overweight woman lying face down on the ground.

Maybe Weaver is following the advice of his “unofficial” chief of staff in the department. She was “maid of honor” at the chief’s wedding and yes, dear reader; she is the sister of Frankie Olonia, Jr. (“Leave my bro alone.”) Olonia apparently has a long rap sheet and threatened cops with the “Mexican Mafia.” But when your sister is boss, you don’t need help from the cartel.

You’ll hear more about cop morale and alleged “wrongdoing” in Weaver’s shop. Several former town employees are chasing “risk management” money due to wrongful termination just like “the purchasing agent.” The Shadow knows.

Kitschy Taos

By the way, don’t you like party-man Mitch Miller’s kitschy lights on the Historic Plaza? Victorian Christmas runs amuck with wreaths on faux lampposts. The party man is helping out Luis and the Traveling Trustees with his giant symbols of coal-generated electric power while undermining the “dark skies ordinance.”  The juxtaposition of El Norte’s subtle Farolitos and the grotesque influence of Carbon Walmart on the plaza achieves new standards for kitsch in Taos.

Flavio, the loyal custodian of custom, said he prefers funky Taos to kitschy Taos but admits that “we’re all aqui en Milwaukee now.”