Notes on Politics & Art

(Coop) At the KCEC, thanks to Mother Mary’s prayers and the Coop’s summer jobs program for teenagers, the local voters re-elected incumbents Chris Duran and Ambrose Mascarenas in Penasco. Desperate Coop leaders, upset by resurgent activists, who supported the election of Luisa Mylet and Peter Adang in Taos, made some last minute movidas and allocated 90% of teen jobs to the Mascarenas-Duran machine. The Coop mob went all out in Angel Fire and beat back the challenger, Ron Anderson, re-electing Jerry Smith and Bruce Jassman, two more rubber stamp incumbents. Now comes Ojo Caliente’s Art Rodarte, running unopposed.

So Taosenos, the majority of the KCEC membership, have been successfully disenfranchised. The current trustees and CEO will maintain their grip on the $60 million “contracts for cuates” program—a tab guaranteed by the long suffering members, whose electricity rates continue to skyrocket—thanks to KCEC exploitation and Tri-State greed-heads. All hail Mother Mary and the gold dust twins, Art and Ambrose, who will always be with us or until their own lights burn out and our pocket books are empty.

(Town of Taos) The Town has hired a new manager with a wonderful resume. And why does Oscar Rodriguez with a gold-plated education from Harvard and MIT, and commensurate experience as a consultant, come to Taos for a post-graduate education in El Norte politics? Eh? In Taos the Mayor Cordova and Councilor Silva never met a “conflict-of-interest” question at the Coop they couldn’t ignore—despite the Sign Man’s disapproval. You’ll take that Command Center and like it if the reliable scientists at LANL—who never met a bomb they didn’t like—come up with the right study?

Suggestions (not endorsements) for Consideration

(Judges Running Wild) One current district judge, we’re told has 2800 open cases? Eh? Signs are going up and coming down faster than a pogo stick throughout the 8th judicial district. And “hypocrisy” is thy name: one candidate wants to “end the revolving” door which he keeps open due to his job with the DA and is trying to redefine what it means to a local but as natives know, the law and order man is “not from here.” Keep these names in mind when you vote for district judge: Backus, Cruz, Lopez y Lopez.

(Magistrate Court) We say vote for attorney Jeff Shannon, whose record of compassion and principle is a step above the rest among the candidates in the June primary.

And Taos needs change at the DA’s office where the record suggests attorneys might know something of the law but something less about ethics though much about political retaliation. Vote for Sarah Montoya if you want decisions about whom to prosecute made on the basis of principle and policy—not political retaliation. During the last decade, the current DA, Donald Gallegos and his staff have ignored murder, vehicular homicide, manslaughter, and rape, not to mention child abuse and domestic violence, when it suited them. Taosenos in the Valley and up north know that homies and relatives, large families—get special consideration from this DA’s office. It’s time for a change.

In the north Taos Valley commission race we are voting for an informed candidate, who has made a difference in the community due to good works, and has a foot in both the Anglo and Hispanic worlds: Pennie Herrera Wardlow.

Consider for Treasurer the honorable Lorraine Coca-Ruiz and for Clerk, the honorable Lillian Rael Miller. Voting for Coca-Ruiz and Miller is like a two-for-one: Incumbents Vangie Romero and Elaine Montano will come along for the ride as deputies in tried and true continuity. Currently, at the county, the offices of Clerk, Treasurer, and Assessor are seen as the most effective of offices managed by publicly elected officials. Vote for the women of the decade.

In Ranchos, the voters are playing craps in the commission election. Quien sabe?

The Art of Return

The art community is talking about the opening at 203 on Saturday, where gallerist and artist Shaun Richel photographed four (4) extant Taos Moderns: Wesley Rusnell, Cliff and Barbara Harmon, and John DePuy—alive, aging well, still making art and inspiring their younger contemporaries—like Tom Dixon. Dixon, whose work sells for up to $18,000 at 203, hangs around World Cup, and sells “pocket art” from his “pocket gallery.” Lucky were the buyers of bargains last week from this subversive and exemplary fellow–the image of a real and authentic artist because, like a historic left banker, he refuses to compromise. See Dixon below at 203 photographed by the late Dennis Hopper, thanks to 203’s website.

Meanwhile, Ed Sandoval, who stands and paints in living color high and outside–above the crowd at our favorite Espresso shop and meeting place, World Cup, received the Governor’s award for excellence. Since everything is aesthetically permitted, Sandoval, aka Zorro, has transformed the concept of “kitsh”—a la the right bank–into a triumph of “art,” offering the public sentimental reassurance in counter point to the sublime visions of the modernists and abstractionist et al the rest. In Taos, while seeking to survive, we go back to go forward and go forward to go back or sell art in pocket galleries to avoid fees and surcharges. Here’s a poster image inspired by the one time picture palace on the Plaza–a favorite Sandovalian image. 

The hot ticket everyone is talking about is the June 1 event at MRM, where you can meet the subjects and writers featured in Paul O’Connor’s idiosyncratic Taos Portraits, edited by yours truly–thanks to the Healy Foundation. The 90s crowd is returning for the event in jet plane and turbo-charged Porsche. Of the sixty subjects and forty writers, some are dead, some are alive, some are left out but all will be celebrated, including John Nichols, who has written his own eulogy.