The Drifters Sing the Budget Blues

Along El Rio de DeNio

The Bad Gringo

Upstate Taos County is adrift due as much to financial drought as a lack of imagination and courage on the part of the elected and appointed leadership. The rivers of federal and state cash that used to keep local government solvent have dried up. The real estate bust, thanks to bank swindlers and the sub-prime crisis, has curtailed construction. Now the local land-grant grabbers have slammed the door shut on the toes of their friends and neighbors in addition to bashing the dreaded newcomers.

As if to put an exclamation point on the dwindling market for art, Artisans, the town’s only art supply store, has announced plans to close at the end of June.

Lay-offs have been announced at the hospital and schools; empty storefronts along the Paseo grow increasingly common. Indicative of the public angst, local politicos seem incapable of adjusting to change and reining in their appetites or planning for more recession. Our leaders have fiddled while the fire burns up the equity and the cash reserves.

In preparation for a course on the New Mexico Trilogy by John Nichols I have been re-reading “The Milagro Beanfield War.” The novel itself grows more timeless in its portrayal of the

The Milagro Bean Field War by John Nichols

internecine rivalry among the villagers. Taosenos do better when the conflicted Joe Mondragon leads la gente against a common foe—like Ladd Devine in the novel. Today our local governors are fighting among themselves for a piece of the pie distributed by the Town, County, Schools, or Coop but for friends and family members.

As one of my longtime merchant friends has said, “The rest of us are here to pay our taxes and keep our mouths shut.” Yes, like good children, we newcomers or Anglos are to be seen and not heard. As for jobs, “No Anglos need apply.” Rather, we must go into business for ourselves like Milagro’s red-haired hellion, Ruby Archuleta, the Body Shop and Pipe Queen, who led the petition drive. (Ruby reminds me of Butchie Denver.)

Of course, if you’re a local woman who speaks up, the good old boys will cut you off, too. You must be a member of the club. Admission requires that you keep your mouth shut—cause “Father Knows Best.”

At the Taos Municipal Schools, the new board has scheduled several budget meetings but refused to discuss revenue projections or plans for restructuring the schools i.e. the budget in public. Despite the declining attendance rates, failing test scores, and lowered graduation rates—the trend in place for the last decade—the school system has neither created a contingency plan nor asked for public feedback. The state imposed budget deadline approaches while the administrators and their lackeys on the board or in the union dither–scared to death of their own shadows.

Like the Taos Municipal Schools, the Kit Carson Coop finds itself under siege due to declining revenues and the downturn in the economy. The Coop bet on the come line but they crapped out, lost millions of dollars on diversification into Propane and Internet services. They built a white elephant command center, which remains empty but is being paid for by loans—guaranteed by member-owners.

Due to disgruntled members who have lost respect for Coop leadership, the Coop finds itself spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on legal and promotional fees as it prepares for a Public Regulation Commission hearing. Like the schools, the Coop has refused to make public a plan for the new age of diminished expectations. They even ran and hid behind the robes of Judge Peggy: “Mom, they’re saying bad things about us.”

Long ago, activists warned the County Commissioners to consider developing an operations budget for the new “Complex.” But the commissioners drove into El Rio de DeNio and ignored the canaries. Now they know not what they do or how they will pay for the utilities in the huge 135,000 square foot “Complex.” We voted to build a modest $32 million facility—not the $48 million “bait and switch” behemoth of today.

Course, the Commissioners deny new sources of GRT revenue i.e. business applicants, like La Martina. Yet, they allow cuates to build obnoxious businesses in high-priced residential neighborhoods, devaluing half-million dollar houses. “No outsiders need apply for residential CC&Rs or building permits that might offend one man’s family.” And the Commissioners won’t invest in personnel to analyze revenue sources by hiring folks to assist the Assessor’s Office. That’s called cutting your nose off to spite your face.

And the County will not hold Mother Moly accountable for her sins against Mother Earth—despite an $800 million EPA Superfund Grant–cause Commissioner Peepers might offend his masters at the Moly mine. Horrors: Questa’s favorite grandson (and attorney) might offend those who pay him a $16,000 per month as a consultant fee to represent the village in the Superfund project. After all, the fee is reportedly paid for by Chevron (Mother Moly) Mining—the once and future source of pollution being monitored by the favorite grandson. Best to say little and appear less in public.

Oh, Senor Sophocles and Senor Freud, can you say “Oedipus Rex”? You cannot utter the words “conflict of interest” in a community like The Taos News did last week, when all the institutions, including the privileged private media mavens, have their hands in each other’s pockets. And these pols and privateers aren’t just playing pocket pool. Look at the links–the intermarriage, historic miscegenation, and incestuous avatars–and you will see the results of a Byzantine tradition that looks more like a Gordian knot than a hierarchy of Maslow’s needs or a modern management chart.

While the pols and their kin are mad-dogging each other, like parents fighting over kids in family court, the more enlightened folks are packing up their wheel barrows and leaving the area. Even the Taos Chamber of Commerce has abandoned the downtown historic district in the Town of Taos for cheaper suburban digs. Notice the rise of outdoor markets, vendors long side the roads, used merchandise stores, tattoo parlors, and cars for sale along the Paseo.

The age of Milagros is over. Now all we have is a war over beans.