The Taos News Scores!
Viva Ray Rael
The Feb. 16-22 issue of The Taos News is the best edition of the excellent local since the end of the last century. Editor Joan Livingston and her crew of scribes got the news and the news behind the news. Now I’m going to give you a little more news about the news.
Above the fold, Kit Carson denies election season `favor’, reporter J.R. Logan quotes 32-year employee Ray Rael, who calls “the unnecessary use of co-op funds” a “`no-brainer.’” Apparently Coop tree trimmers, ordered to go forth and multiply, engaged in an exercise that resulted in a bountiful wood supply for a supporter of Trustee Ambrose Mascarenas in the Penasco Valley. Trustees and employees have been telling this Friction man for years about the practice: The wood from tree trimming and the construction of power lines goes to trustees, who sell it or trade it for votes. Current Coop employee, Ray Rael, who went on the record about the customary but corrupt practice, is a whistleblower and hero of the first degree.
Mighty Matt’s story about Michael Silva’s call for a personal investigation, Councilor urges his investigation is a classic Taos tale. Silva, an elected town councilor confirms the charge of “conflict of interest.” He confesses that he has received contracts from the Coop and voted to support the (financially irresponsible) movida to the Command Center. Now he wants to add to the appearance of “conflict of interest” by paying an attorney himself to investigate himself for “conflict of interest” in a multilevel post-modern conceptual marketing scheme. It’s called a “conflict of interest,” when you have a potential or vested financial interest in the outcome of your vote. And it’s illegal, too, according to the muni code–even if rarely enforced. But if you don’t know the difference between right and wrong, how are you to identify “conflict of interest?”
Silva has engaged in the practice several times: Coop, Valverde Commons, Eco Park. He should accept his confession and self-designated punishment and resign as stated. But how is Michael supposed to understand this sudden switch from the private to the public sector? The Mayor himself has huge advertising contracts with both the Town of Taos and the Kit Carson Coop at DMC Broadcasting. Yet he has no problem breaking ties and voting to bail out the Coop Command Center with town funds. No conflict there. The former members of the ersatz Hispano Chamber have seen all this before.
(Meanwhile the Town is charging the sign man with larceny for assisting them in regulating the sign man’s activities. When the regulators busted Jeff, he helped them pick up a commercial sandwich board from the highway right away in front of Casa Los Cordovas and placed the offending sign in a town vehicle. The townies returned it to its prior location and then charged Jeff with larceny. The town’s special prosecutor will provide legal cover for the Mayor’s private vendetta against his former competitor. The Town by the way “takes” Jeff’s signs without giving him a receipt or ticket. You can’t make this stuff up. Below we find out why the cops are so politicized in their implementation of policy.)
Reporter Chandra Johnson’s story, Ex-police chief assessment: Taos department’s environment `toxic’ is based on the ex-chief’s exit interview. We learn that micromanagement by town hall has led to infighting and factionalism—call it a tale of political bias and prejudice when it comes to investigations: Think “Sign man,” burglary, drug dealing—who knows? The ex-chief knows.
But here’s the back-story.
For years—two or three decades that I know of–Town Hall, including the cop shop, has been a kind of Peyton Place–especially among the executive sweets, whether at home or abroad at muni meetings, etc. An employee once filed a federal lawsuit that revealed much about Adam and Eve; a sexual harassment case was settled by a former town attorney—now a judge. The shared emotional experiences of working together in stressful conditions breeds a highly charged sexual environment. Musical beds and relationships are the result–all of which makes for problems in the pecking order at Town Hall and at the Cop Shop on Civic Plaza Drive. I can think of three former chiefs who came a cropper of the beauties working from their desks—eyes flashing come hither looks. Oh, dear.
It’s a commonplace in politics. The puppet masters squeeze the cojones of El Caudillo. In turn, the front man or elected official looks for a scapegoat–like the sign man–who gets busted by the boys in blue. But Jeff, like The Taos News this week, says the unsayable and more—if you read between the lines. And there’s more, much more. The Coop employees are singing like canaries about unpaid electric bills and political favors being called in for payment. Oh, dear.