PRC Sets Jan. 10 for KCEC Rate Hearing

Ex Parte Communication Undone

Commissioner Chavez Leads Charge

On Tuesday, Dec. 14, the Public Regulation Commission held a semi-secret meeting with KCEC’s CEO Luis Reyes and Trustees Bobby Ortega, Chris Duran, Jerry Smith, Bruce Jassman, Francis Cordova, Art Rodarte and Ambrose Mascarenas. According to Flavio, the Trustees were allegedly paid $225 each plus mileage and lunch to attend the “semi-secret” meeting.

County Commissioner Andrew Chavez, who read a notice about the hearing on the PRC web site, said when he walked in, “I didn’t want to talk but nobody was there [to represent rate payers]. According to Chavez, KCEC representatives were telling the PRC “three instigators were speaking for the 200 protestors.” And that “there were no valid protests.”

Chavez said Commissioner Jerome Block mentioned [ex parte] meetings with CEO Reyes, saying the Coop did a great job and Reyes had kept him informed.

(Readers might remember that Commissioner Block has been accused of misusing public campaign funds by a variety of state regulatory and judicial bodies. Commissioner King allegedly settled a sexual harassment suit for about $800,000, and Commissioner Jones allegedly hired a convicted embezzler to work in his office. A former commissioner was convicted of beating another woman with a rock.)

Anyway, the KCEC trustees apparently felt right at home with the PRC. So Chavez stood up and said, none of the (200) protestors were present because “nobody knew about the (Dec. 14) meeting.”

Trustee Duran (Penasco) apparently told the PRC that Chavez himself (former Director of KCEC Propane) was a disgruntled ex-employee. Reyes apparently said the protests were collected at a bar. (But Rabbit, ain’t that the El Norte way? What about Paul’s Men Shop?)

The attack on County Commissioner Chavez allegedly stems from a grilling Reyes underwent at a prior County Commission meeting in Taos. The County passed a resolution questioning the need for a rate increase of the current magnitude. According to Friction sources, the Coop retaliated against Chavez with a letter from an attorney threatening the Llano Quemado resident.

Further, the Coop has allegedly intervened in the construction of the county’s “Complex,” nitpicking the project, which could cost taxpayers a month’s delay and hundreds of thousands of dollars. The County will be discussing legal action in response to the Coop’s double-whammy, according to Flavio.

First the Coop goes after ratepayers and second, now, the county taxpayers. Que Pasa, cuate?

Regardless of the Coop’s disingenuous arguments, the PRC voted to hold a public hearing on the rate protest on Jan. 10. The Coop will try to attack members and invalidate protests, according to statements made on Tue. Dec. 14. So Chavez, the David in this battle against Goliath, urges Taosenos to make the drive to Santa Fe on Jan. 10.

The unseemly and seemingly nasty turn the Trustees have taken is indicative of retaliatory politics in Taos. (We hear management has ordered a lockdown on employees tongues, too, at the Coop.) Two trustees who voted against the rate increase—Virgil Martinez and Luisa Mylet—were not informed of the PRC meet and greet, according to Flavio. Trustees Martinez and Medina of Taos did not attend, leaving Taosenos—the majority of Coop members with a single representative, Francis Cordova of El Prado. The obsequious Cordova long ago drank the kool aid and joined the “traveling trustees” as a full-fledged member.

(Virgil and Luisa are the only pro-member trustees on the board.)

Still, Flavio says Reyes is coming under increasing pressure to clarify the RUS loan to build the three million dollar Command Center.  (Why did the Coop pay, reportedly, $400,000 for two acres of non-highway frontage sans appraisal?) No public entity, neither the county nor the town, neither the state police nor the BIA—USFS have consented to join in and help pay for the project. Members suspect the Trustees of building a “safe house” for themselves in the event of a terrorist attack.

Ultimately, the rate protest is about the combined KCEC balance sheet, which shows more than $60 million in loans due, much of which debt was created to service failed ventures in Propane, Internet, the Command Center, green energy redundancy, and overestimated demand for electricity in rural areas.

Just as the Coop has a cozy relationship with PRC regulators, so they have spent thousands on a public relations campaign with The Taos News to soften coverage of controversial issues. KCEC, along with Tri-State G&T, buys big ads, and like Tri-State, pays board members with travel perks and per diem, to keep Trustees in line.

Meanwhile, like the Wall St. banks, the Coop privatizes profits in the form of high salaries, travel budgets, per diem charges, and paeans to the adventures in expansion, while it socializes losses, using the members assets to play fast and loose with big egos.

Now the Trustees are spiraling into debt by taking on another $19 million loan to fund the federal Broadband Grant of $60 million. You’ve got to ask yourself what these guys smoke.

On Jan. 10, the PRC will have a couple of newly elected commissioners. Meanwhile Mr. Ex Parte, Jerome Block, like Art and Ambrose, the Gold Dust Twins, Trustees et al, slides a hand into the tax and rate payers’ pocket to grab public dollars.

And the Coop does it—sin verguenza—in plain sight.