What Happened to Christmas in Taos?

First of all, thanks for buying so many copies of “Gringo Lessons” this last year. Mostly, hardbacks are in the stores but I’ve ordered more softcovers and they should be here early next week. Maybe. For those of you who need custom Christmas Cards, “Just Deb’s” (old County Courthouse) and the “Taos Artist Collective” (old Penney’s) still has Deb Villalobos’s original cards, collages and small works of art. Frequently folks retain and frame these whimsical cards. We all get by as best we can.

Second, the merchants keep waiting for the tourist to show up on the Plaza between the noisy and motorized erector sets and wondering when the Mayor and Council are going to close the Plaza next. The social engineers are doing their best to transform the Historic Plaza into something like White Plains, New York, Peoria, Illinois, or Euclid, Ohio. Yesterday I found myself yelling at the former (?) or once and future Silver City Arts and Cultural District Director: “Cindy, were these garish lights your idea?” She said, “No, I’m traditional.”

Sure some of my longtime friends love the way the Xmas lights light up the dark skies. They’ve been up in El Salto too long. The rental trucks are displacing parking, freight trucks, UPS. What gives?

As Flavio said, “The way the Town Council is going, we’re just going to look like any other town.”

The juxtaposition of the grotesque plastic lights and Xmas figures hanging from lampposts clash with the tradition or smother the farolitos, soft outlines of the adobe structures, and block out the famous night skies and bright stars. Not only are you guys trying to kill the Plaza but also you’re trying to smother the local culture with a layer of Walmart. Now we know why the Town hired Batman, the promoter of Super Walmart, as lobbyist in Santa Fe.

(You’ve seen what kind of underwear the Mayor wears.)

Now the Town has scheduled another assault on our Plaza sensibilities (no doubt supported by Blankenhorn at the County). Somebody named “John Miller,” senior planner for the Town, will hold a meeting on Jan. 14th from 6 to 8 in the Old County Courthouse. Oh, yes, he’s studied all the “maps” and “photos.” He’s working with an outside group to prepare a “Cultural Landscape Report” (CLR) http://www.mundusbishop.com.

(Here’s a question: Why don’t you meet with the families and folks who have lived and worked on the Plaza for a hundred years? Oh, you don’t know them, the landlords and your neighbors. Right, right, I forgot.)

Maybe the town read the CLR discovered the closed acequias, the titles to secretly sold affordable housing lots, and the precedent for the Mitch Miller band of Xmas tree lights. Whatever happened to “Vision 2020?” A fine planning document that was shelved? Eh? Eh? That document talked about growing and planning while keeping Taos in tune with Taos. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel.

While the Mayor and Manager were spending $50,000 or $100,000 on “lights,” Marsha Carter died in her car outside the public library on a cold night and The Detox Center closed because they couldn’t afford to repair the heater in a town-owned building for $10,000? according to the news? I remember when Dan Barrone said, “We need to build the Detention Center so we can take of our own (inmates).” But, apparently, the Mayor has had “a change of heart.” A modest Christmas Tree seems appropriate but lighting up the Taos world at the expense of lives? And culture? Not so much.

I guess the Mayor and Coop Manager dine at the same table with Scrooge. Fritz and Batman might be joined at the hip but we still got Virgil “I feel sorry for Taos County” Martinez: The Trustee who voted “no” against KCEC rate increases.  Amen, Virgil, Amen.