A political parable about living in Paradise

Taoseno is 1/4 of a Person at KCEC!

For those of you who pay attention to energy politics, you know that TRI-State G&T (KCEC electricity provider) has upped the ante and filed a lawsuit in federal court to evade regulation by the NMPRC—despite having agreed to same during the merger with Plains Electric more than a decade ago.

As local KCEC CEO Luis Reyes once said to me, “Tri-State is an unregulated monopoly.” Both Tri-State’s request for rate increases and its capricious and arbitrary application of “policies” have come under fire from three New Mexico Coops and a plethora of off-the-record critics of the 44-member four-state Coop headquartered in Denver. In terms of an analogy, Tri-State and KCEC are mirror images of each other; both exemplify today’s Coop culture, wherein public service has been subordinated to private interests.

At home KCEC applies their own policies in the form of by-laws arbitrarily and capriciously even as the home grown trustees continue to implement gerrymandered political districts that devalue Taosenos’ voting rights: a trustee from Penasco represents 800 meters; a trustee from Taos represents 3000. While Reyes and the Trustees have indebted the current balance sheet with some $85 million in loans by investing in non-electric related ventures—Propane, Internet, Call Center, and Broadband—now they want to shift their follies at the Reyes Command Center to the Town of Taos.

(When members have protested against the incompetence of trustees, the Coop turned to the courts and the judges did their dirty work for them–throwing out the requests for by-law changes and/or petitions to recall incompetent trustees.)

The Command Center, a public relations initiative brought by Reyes to the board, involves a $3 million debt and must include the Town’s E911 PSAP to make sense of the unnecessary project. For years Reyes tried to sell it to the feds, state, and local governing entities but got nowhere though the KCEC trustees, as usual, rubber-stamped the proposal and a compliant USDA-RUS loaned the Coop the money. Now the town’s own report suggests the hypothetical facility is the best alternative to the current operation on Civic Plaza Drive, given the appropriate JPAs among the villages and other entities, including Taos County.

Officials use magical words like health, safety, and public welfare to justify the project.The town’s underused buildings on Civic Plaza and El Camino Placita add up to an enormous amount of vacant square footage–25% or more–but they want more new public space.

(A Friction in-house expert is going through the latest Command Center report with a fine-tooth comb and has found all kinds of self-interest, conflicts of interest, and anomalies. We urge the county to hold off supporting a Command Center until we have the details ready for publication. Ironically, a supplement to the report done by LANL experts suggests the space needs minor tinkering.)

It is a commonplace, at least in terms of reports and appearances, that Reyes has used the $60 million in Broadband money to garner votes at the Town Council from compliant councilors, who have private contracts to install or support Broadband. KCEC spends an extraordinary amount of money each month on DMC Broadcasting, the Mayor’s radio station, according to listeners. Given the relationship of money, politics, and private business, including the media, the average consumer or activist has little in the way of power to combat the coalition of private and political forces with the exception of a single sign man and a few marginalized activists, who, incidentally won a couple of elections last year to the Coop board, thanks to “Suitors” and the unnameable opposition.

The local gadfly, who protests the old-fashioned way with signs, has, like a former publisher, been targeted by officers of the courts and judges, whose ethics are less than transparent. If you step out of line in Taos, you will be attacked and marginalized as you would in any fascist state but with a sense of humor. (You can hear the listeners giggle on your tapped lines.)

Recently, the Town of Taos, if you can believe it, announced its intent to annex the airport, several miles from its contiguous boundaries, as the crow flies. The Boosters at the Town of Taos, led by Rudy Walmart and El Cabeza Grande, want to emulate the 1965—1967 group of Taos councilors who used the statutes of “eminent domain” to expand the empire.

(Shortly after condemning the land for the airport, the 60s era councilors were no longer electable.)

A former mayor and current councilor once dreamed of annexing El Prado, Blueberry Hill etc. only a decade ago. But Bobby, Erlinda, Frank, and Meliton—his non-compliant council, frustrated him. The latter council and Mayor Bobby also stopped Walmart from swallowing up the local merchants sooner than later. Councilor Rudy Walmart supported Walmart then and he’s come back like Freddy the Realtor to haunt the community.

As the Sign Man has said: “Bobby we miss you.”

This administration at the town, the alleged signers of the longtime Abeyta—Taos Pueblo Water Agreement—are also endangering the 44-year old negotiation, due to their refusal to enforce a local water ordinance, requiring those inside the town limits to hook-up to the town’s water system due to private interests: Et al don’t want no stinkin’ water bills. At the same time, the current council has allowed acequia abuses to continue, whether undermined by developers (Valverde Commons) or due to their refusal to remediate the Spring Ditch despite the coming closure of Well No. 5 (adjacent to McDonald’s).

So, due to the break down, the Spring Ditch parcientes will not sign the Abeyta agreement. Stuff it!

Indeed, the Spring Ditch parciantes have taken the Town to Court, exercising their early 19th Century water rights, guaranteed by the New Mexico Constitution. The Anti-Cultural pro-privatization politicos at the town and Coop are the poster boys of the way a minority culture internalizes the dominant cultural paradigm of conquest. It’s the way small town boosters sacrifice the interests of the public for the sake of private gain.

During the Taos Pueblo’s battle for Blue Lake, a local county commissioner is quoted in R.C. McCutcheon’s fine book as saying about the Spanish appropriation of Taos Pueblo, “We didn’t steal their land, we took it by conquest.” Indeed. The Town and Coop aren’t stealing the county’s GRT tax base and Kit Carson Coop is not picking your pocket, the two greedheads  are merely annexing the County’s taxes—continuing a twenty or thirty year program–and raising electricity rates—a trick the Coop learned from Tri-State.

Neither the Town nor the Coop may be acting ethically, just as targeting political enemies via the courts is not considered ethical. But it is customary and legal to interpret the statutes to your own electoral or financial benefit. Self-interest rightly or selfishly understood is the American way.

That’s how Arthur Manby did it. All he lost in the end was head. And a local woman, allegedly, cut it off though a judge declared (at first) the death was from natural if unknown causes. Hang on to your cojones, amigos. La Plebe is coming and they’ve got their pitchforks. Well, at least that’s how it is in the movies.