Taos Bizarro

“God may not play dice with the universe but los politicos do.” –Flavio

We Taosenos are living in interesting times. The question for future historians will be: Who were the Pendejos and who were the visionaries in 2010? Where to start?

KCEC

According to Luis Reyes, CEO KCEC, the local utility received a federal grant for $63 million to expand Broadband here in El Norte. Reyes says that $19 million is a loan—all from USDA. During the last few months, Luis held a series of meetings—flaunting “transparency”–with Coop activists. He explained how the Coop functioned and candidly admitted that the member-owned utility lost several million in propane and Internet service, while taking on $63 million in debt (more or less) to the fund the former and by investing in infrastructure upgrades for electricity, the merger with Plains, etc. He said he couldn’t discuss the Broadband plan until after the grant was denied or approved.

Reyes has called a meeting for August 25 at 5:30 pm at the Coop for activists concerned with redistricting at the Coop. Currently, representatives of about 6,000 plus members manage the Coop while more than 12,000 members here in the Taos area are under-represented. The movida-makers in charge have marginalized about two-thirds of the public membership by gerrymandering. Taosenos have little or no say so over Coop policy or decision-making due to the power of the villages and newcomers from Angel Fire.

More importantly, how does the Coop plan to generate revenue, based on “information?” How are we in Taos going to use Broadband to generate revenue? As a come-on for second-homers? Homegrown moviemakers? Home-office entrepreneurs? Grab a piece of the out-sourced credit card collection movement like one of the successful local call centers?

The current national economy is unable to recover, due to being snarled up in a grotesque financial–information system that stymies reinvestment in real estate, manufacturing, industry, and agriculture. Wall St. speculation and corporate plundering has destroyed America’s economic base. We have been out-sourced. But the trustees, many of whom have only rudimentary knowledge of Internet and email, apparently have a solution. Or does Broadband offer metaphysical comfort like the Gospel of John, lighting candles, or enjoying an espresso or a beer? Quien sabe, senor y senoras?

Town of Taos

Despite the Great Recession, our wise men and one woman at the Town of Taos saw fit to increase GRT on behalf of investment in infrastructure, public safety, and sports fields. Compared to the metaphysics at the Coop or the victimology practiced by TMS administrators, the town sounds absolutely empirical or evidenced based to this layman. Contrary to the Coop, the town has a history of operating profits and maintaining huge reserves i.e. it’s financially very conservative. Plus the town has made enormous changes in executive culture during the current administration—unlike, say, the Coop or the disastrous TMS administration at CRAB Hall.

But, as cronyism peeks out from under the mayor’s pants cuffs, we tremble. Will the town really cut out the fat and operate a lean machine—given all the votes by La Familia? Close the Convention Center and Visitor’s Center? Etc.? Will the cops catch the burglars or just tase the fat girl and focus on fashion standards? Do we give lip service to “Aqua es vida” or just ignore the parciantes in favor of outside developers? Can we meet halfway? Do the paperwork of annexation and enforce planning and zoning regs? Can we truly embrace 21st Century transparency?

TMS

Despite the best efforts by the current majority on the TMS board and three audits confirming incompetence at the business office and a half-decade of test scores—once again–revealing a bankrupt curriculum, the CRAB Hall culture continues. El Weston, the current superintendent, has rehired two retired business office employees at $60 an hour each to do payroll—employees who have been part of the systemic accounting disaster, according to the audits. Weston’s kept the same Director of Instruction in charge who has been responsible in name for the race to the bottom at TMS. Here’s what the Director of Curriculum and Superintendent told board members when asked why students who couldn’t read were still being promoted: “I don’t know.” (I kid you not.)

The town cops ought to put up yellow tape around CRAB Hall and tase the Fat Cats. Supporters of the status quo—like the current Taos County Democratic Chair–should be censored for condoning failure—similarly the Citizens for Quality Education and The Taos News. “Get your mind right, Luke.”

Taos County

The commission proposes to do a moratorium on (what?) development while it completes a water study in the southern part of the county. And commissioners want to set up a task force to study (Chevron) mine pollution. It all sounds good. But why a moratorium in this market? Do the Study. Ask Ecuador about taking on Chevron. Good luck. The war with Afghanistan will be finished before you bring Chevron to heel. It’s taken Ecuador 17 years and counting.

(Questa, a company town, is filled with conflict about Mother Moly: She’s got’em coming and going. Los Vendidos in Questa are planning to sell more water rights to the thirsty metro monsters in the south– as soon as they vote in Mama Martinez as Governor—La Tejana. What happened to the Nuevo Mexicano Denish campaign?)

Meanwhile, we wonder where the County will find the money and employees to operate their new $44 million jail and justice complex. The commissioners wouldn’t listen to activists and plan for operating expenses prior to the passage of GRT tax for the Complex. Now they are studying the sky for oracular signs, hoping a god, a congressman, or an owl will appear with a solution. And the only Taosenos with years of detention experience are the inmates themselves.

Waiting for Godot

Perhaps democracy and common sense are quaint terms, neither much practiced–either in Washington D.C. or in Taos. Obama’s hopes for Afghanistan, Iraq, health care, bank reform, industrial–environmental regulation are not much different from the Coop’s for Broadband, or the county’s for the new jail, and the town’s for the Sports Fields. Everyone’s betting on the future the way metro NM is betting on our water rights and banking on the mythic Rio Grande. But hope based on extraordinary speculation is like the faith true believers have in metaphysical comfort. There is a difference between God’s world of grace and the world of man, where mammon and the laws of physics apply. Sometimes Taosenos get lost in their metaphysical taxonomies (a fancy word for reality classifications).

Happily, this fall I am an instructor in the arts of imaginative literature. We keep the drama between the covers of a book or confined to the silver screen. There we interpret the plot of the story and try to understand the motives of fictional characters—a far easier task than speculating on the motives or plots of enigmatic local politicos. As Virgil, our favorite politician used to say—about subjects like the the above–“I may be right, I may be wrong.”