Annexation and Command Center on Tues. at Complex

Culture Card

On Friday night, Feb. 8,fans of Jonathan WarmDay came together to celebrate the artist, writer, and son of a legendary Taos Pueblo woman: Eah-Ha-Wa (Eva Mirabal), at the Harwood Museum of Art. Jonathan’s mother joined the military as a WAC and became famous for her “G.I. Gertie” cartoon strip. She also enjoyed a reputation as muralist and painter. Her talent for colorful depictions of deer and Taos Pueblo life was inherited by her son Jonathan, whose storyteller paintings and books are equally lyrical and indicative of an imaginative sensibility. The opening also featured gnarly-glazed sculpture by Hank Saxe, renowned conversationalist and clay artist. Downstairs you can view a portion of the Mandelman-Ribak Foundation’s Oral History Project, featuring a number of local artists discussing their work. (The Centinel Bank and Hulse-Warman Gallery are revisiting Paul O’Connor’s Taos Portraits.) The shows above continue through February…

Politics Writ Large: Entertainment and Information

On Tuesday, Feb. 12, a joint meeting will be held at the Taos County Complex among the major players in the community: Taos County, Town of Taos, and the KCEC Coop. Two items appear on the agenda: the Command Center and Annexation. Chairman Dan Barrone has promised to allow citizens to ask questions (a frightening prospect for the Coopsters).

Annexation

On Wed. evening Feb. 6, several county citizens appeared at the Town’s Planning and Zoning Commission hearing to ask questions about annexation. Apparently, the Town Council is seeking support for its Dec. 11 resolution directing the Town Manager to prepare an ordinance to annex the Municipal Airport (several miles from the community). According to Town Attorney Brian James and Interim Planning Director Matt Foster, the Town plans to annex the width of the State Highway 64, including the rightaway by running yellow police tape down the middle from the Taos Diner through El Prado, turning west at the Blinking Light and proceeding to the Airport. As Foster presented it, a “tether” would attach the town to the airport, thereby proving the legal cover for contiguous boundaries, a necessity, according to state statutes for annexation.

Ultimately, the town P&Zers continued the hearing until March 6 and advised town staff to provide more notification to the public. The agenda for the meeting was not posted on the town’s website, though there was some mumbling about having printed the notice in the legals back in Dec. or early Jan. Oddly enough, Tele Gonzales, president of the El Prado Water and Sanitation District for 30 years, said neither he nor the government of Taos Pueblo had been notified. Highway 64 crosses Pueblo land just north of Taos Diner, the current town limits. Tele noted that El Prado W&S had easements across the highway for pipes and wanted to know how said easements might be affected by a change in jurisdiction.

Neither the P&Z Commission nor the town officials could provide answers regarding jurisdictional issues, the width of the highway rightaway (which varies from 200 feet to 60 feet or less, depending on the area) or how the annexation would affect adjacent county residents or even explain the lack of notification to affected property owners. County property owners adjacent to the airport have suffered from a version of landlock since the town condemned the airport property through eminent domain back in the mid sixties. Now the Town appears to be proceeding without doing its due diligence in terms of the public or property owners.

The only justification for annexation appears to be financial: grab the GRT from the construction costs associated with the $24 million expansion project to supplement the town’s $1.2 million match. But as Tele suggested, a JPA with the County could provide the match. The County has offered to rebate the estimated $500,000 in GRT in lieu of annexation. El Prado residents are especially worried about annexation because they have experienced the “arbitrary and capricious” nature of the town’s administration of the ETZ in the past. County citizens raised the issue of “spot zoning,” and “patchwork” annexation of property, an inevitable product of this knee-jerk plan.

The Command Center

By maintaining the current E911 status quo in lieu of moving to the proposed Command Center,  the town and county could save the rest of the money needed for airport expansion. The current E911 facility on Civic Plaza Drive will have a total of 5,000 square feet available after the police operations move to town hall. Employees have told commissioners they are happy where they are. Inspection reports (unreleased to the media by the town) say the building not only meets all current codes but already has the infrastructure (electrical) in place for expansion. Employees say they need one additional position to bring the current center up to standards.

By maintaining and refining the current status quo, the town and county would save $5,000 a month in rent and some $300,000 to $500,00 in moving expenses.

The Coop

The Trustees and the CEO at KCEC are seeking a subsidy from the Town and County for their 40-year loan from RUS—USDA of some $115,000 per month for a virtually empty and useless facility. Prior to construction, when CEO Reyes lobbied the local, state, and federal entities for support of a Command Center, he couldn’t find any takers—for good reason. He never provided the County, for instance, with estimated or firm operating costs. None of the entities were convinced to join in Reyes’ venture: now the Coop is stuck.

It became clear on Thursday night that the Town was asking the P&Zers, staff, and citizens to buy a “Pig in a Poke” regarding annexation. The Command Center is the real “Pig” and we urge the Town and County to let the Coop pay for it.

Maybe someone at the Town, County, or Coop can answer all the mysteries surrounding the questions of “Annexation” and the “Command Center” on Tuesday at 9 am over there at the county’s Complex. At the very least, the event promises to be entertaining, informative, and an opportunity to study the effects of human voice combined with a form of geothermal energy.