Town of Taos and KCE Coop: Unholy Alliance

(In the old days, according to this 40s era photograph, Taos County knew where and how to sequester threats to civil society. The German doctor on the left was picked up as an enemy “alien.” The two guys on the right were picked up for creating public disorder. Today the above characters remind one of  elected officials serving on the Coop board and town council, still creating disorder. Does that fellow look like Peter Adang? We’re only asking!)

On the agenda this Tuesday night at 6:30 pm, the Town of Taos will consider the acceptance of a grant from NM DFA of $362,000 for enhanced 9-1-1 services and equipment. The town will also consider terminating the JPA for dispatch services with other communities, including the county, as of Dec. 31, 2013.

Despite generous and collaborative offers from the county, apparently, the town and the KCEC are working on an independent deal that will help the Coop offset its payment of $115,000 in annual loans and fees to RUS for the ill-fated Command Center. The town is expected to claim a minute amount of asbestos might be found in the current E911 facility, giving the mayor and councilors an excuse to move.

Now the town is bailing out the Coop trustees, who have rubber stamped the CEO’s adventures in self-aggrandizement–call it “Luis’s folly.” (St. Pete, the father of a “fatherless child,” delivered the check of $2.8 million for the Command Center loan to the Coop in a famous photo op.)

How will the town pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in moving and remodeling costs? Plus as much as $8500 monthly for the “triple-net” lease? We hear the mayor and council plan to pass an additional 1/8th of 1 % gross receipts tax in the near future to fund E 9-1-1. The proposed 1/8th funding mechanism does not require a referendum or vote by residents (who have no standing).

Despite a stagnant or sinking economy, and while shops and restaurants continue to close or businesses and residences are for sale at bargain prices, the public sector–local government and the utility division–continues to expand and exploit ratepayers and taxpayers. Now the members of the Coop shall pay twice for the Command Center, once on their KCEC bill and a second time at local cash registers because trustees allowed the Coop to plunge deeply into debt and refused to acknowledge executive mismanagement.

For screwing up at the Coop you get an all-expense paid trip to Vegas or New Orleans.

The Mayor and Town Councilors refuse to recuse themselves from voting to bail out KCEC—despite obvious and well-known conflicts of interest: Cordova’s DMC Broadcasting contracts with KCEC and Silva’s Broadband deals for his dirt company; Abeyta’s potential or real property deals, Gonzales’s real or potential sales of doors and windows, not to mention Father Fred’s paternalistic plans for the community.

The mayor and council appear to be marching in lockstep to Reyes’s commands. Maybe “Father Knows Best” (or is it the Energizer Bunny?) and maybe most of us, like the county, as Town Manager Oscar Rodriguez says, “have no standing.” But when you see a KCEC Trustee or a Town Councilor, ask him why Trustee Manuel Medina and CEO Reyes dine on oysters in New Orleans, while the rest of us eat frijoles at home. Eh? Sin Verguenza!

Attend the town meeting tonight at 6:30 and gaze upon the gang that can shoot itself in both feet.

Sequestration: According to a county employee, the Taos County Housing Authority (TCHA) might be hit by a 30% decrease in funding if Republicans and Democrats in Congress can’t avoid the current budget impasse. The reduction in funding will affect all aspects of low-income housing including Section 8 support for landlords and residents.