Short Circuits at KCEC
According to the KCEC web site, “the election for the District One seat will be held May 14 in the Kit Carson Board Room. The District Two election will be May 9 in Questa. More information will be released soon.” In the past, the Coop has promoted the election and invited interested members to run for the board of trustees but now a knowledgeable Coop observer says the trustees are trying to discourage “outsiders from running for the board.”
District One incumbents up for re-election include longtime board member Manuel “Parking Lot” Medina and appointee David Torres. Torres has run twice and lost. Looks like he could strike out again: the members in Arroyo Seco, Valdez, and El Salto are restless.
Though April 16 is the deadline for filing petitions to run for the Coop, the only challenger we’ve heard about so far is Andy Vargas. Vargas, a onetime Green party candidate for district attorney and current probate judge in Taos is anti-war, pro civil rights and a progressive on energy policy. He should garner plenty of votes among reformers and progressives.
During Manuel Medina’s decades on the board, the Coop debt has skyrocketed to $80 million as spendthrifts have lost millions of dollars on investments in diversification and travel to hot spots. Medina himself has said he’s against email and mail-in voting. He is part of the club that stone walls attempts to make the Coop more transparent. (And he always hides behind a woman’s skirts come election time.)
Meanwhile, safety procedures are also an issue at the Coop: two electric-side employees have been severely injured during the last couple of years due to poor procedures. A poorly installed Propane system resulted in the death of the fire chief in Brazos and led to a million dollar payout. What say you, Manuel?
Now we hear that an office worker was mugged in the Coop parking lot for the KCEC bank deposit and lost anywhere from $60,000 to $100,000 late last week. (Where was Mr. Parking Lot?) The mugger might have tired of increasingly high electric bills while continuing to suffer from poor service. Or maybe it was an insider doing business the Coop way. Considering the way the Coop Trustees and the CEO have mugged the Town for the E911—Dispatch services, the banditry sounds like poetic justice.
Losing 100Gs to a mugger is small change compared to the waste in the Broadband project. Recently, Taos Friction interviewed a longtime Coop member who lives in the Verdolaga Road/Sugar Lane area. He said KCEC employees and Broadband contract employees have visited him five times during the last year or so in search of the same transformer, meter, and, yes, KCEC power lines. They can’t find their own power lines folks! Apparently the Coop’s maps are out of date or nonexistent.
This member happily assisted both KCEC employees and Broadband contractors each time, explaining how the power line went up Sugar Lane and crossed over to the western end of Verdolaga. He says he witnessed employees duly enter the location of said transformer with GPS devices to certify the discovery of electricity but the information never found its way to the mapmaker—so back came employees, trucks, etc. with the same old maps—five times! Frustrated Broadband subcontractors repeatedly told this loyal member, “It’s stupid. Nobody knows anything. We can’t find anything.” Apparently the Broadband project is supposed to be finished by April 15. But whose counting? Better yet, who can read the maps? What maps?
KCEC’s Annual Membership Meeting, a dog and pony show, organized by Coop cheerleader Mary Mascarenas, will be held June 8, 2013 in the Taos High School Gymnasium. To reduce friction, the board hopes Coop members will not attend because no quorum means “business as usual” for the rubber stampers.
Keep your hand on your wallet or your purse when you approach the Coop to vote on May 14. But vote for one candidate: Vote for Andy. Stay safe, my friends. Don’t touch the electric lines.