Let’s Get Ready to RRRRummmble!
According to nmcourts.com, Judge Jeff McElroy will hear motions at district court, 3:30 pm, Wed. June 26 on Taos County and El Prado Water and Sanitation v. the Town of Taos regarding shoestring “annexation.” The town has moved for summary judgment, believing that neither entity has “standing” whereas petitioners, regardless of the merits, have presented much evidence of “procedural violations” re: lack of notice, lack of maps, etc. prior to the action taken by the town.
Given the Town’s Attorney, Brian James, who is well–known for his abrasive persona and Taos County’s quiet but steady solicitor in the person of Attorney Bob Malone, the courtroom drama should provide a welcome air-conditioned relief from issues of drought, fire, and propaganda regarding public safety.
This week’s excellent local, The Taos News, featured a remarkable editorial that nailed the town’s disregard for public safety and the follies aka the KCEC “Command Center.” To wit, the editorial writers summed up what activists and others have been saying for some time:
“The town council had no business making that decision for the entire county. It should have been left to an independent board of emergency response officials formed under a new joint agreement.
“Such a board would have been made up of experts in the field, in contrast to a council comprising a real estate agent, a window salesman, a retiree, plus a mayor who is an entertainer/business owner. (A councilor who owns an excavation business abstained in the most recent vote to move.)
“Real problems are being overlooked amid all the patronizing talk about public safety. Moving dispatch from its cramped location may need to happen at some point. But basic repairs, better training and updated equipment are the kinds of fixes we truly need.
“These things will actually save lives.”
The town has a remarkably dismal record of ignoring its public responsibility under the Cordova administration: decline in public safety and public service, the rise of politicized policing, ensuing fiscal irresponsibility, and the decline in employee morale, fostered by forced lay-offs, arbitrary raises for favorites, and “my way or the highway” orders.
Mayor Cordova has been aided and abetted in his dictatorial policies by a rubber stamp town council, apparently more interested in private rewards than in governing. Mr. Real Estate, Mr. Window Man, Mr. Radio Entertainer, and Mr. Backhoe never saw a contract they could pass up. As for the so-called “retiree,” he is a danger to society.
Former Mayor Fred Peralta, now a councilman, tried many of the same things Cordova is implementing, including annexation. Mayor Peralta tried to trade airport approval with Taos Pueblo for the Kachina Casino; he promoted out of town big box stores like the Super Walmart; and even tried to create a schism in the community by moving the post office. Then councilors like Meliton Struck, Erlinda Gonzales, and Bobby Duran represented their constituents on the big issues and stood up to the Mayor on behalf of the citizens and stopped the empire builder’s megalomania. (Peralta’s successor Mayor Duran left $7 million in the reserve, called by Councilor Frank Cruz, the “rainy day fund.”)
Course, that council went along with Fast Fred and Slick Gus on the scandalous private contracts for the –no bid—swimming pool project. The duo tried to blame circumventing state statutes on a private donor’s bequest of $2 million—as if Agnes Martin ever read the state procurement code. Really! And guess who did the excavating on the swimming pool project, eh?
Course Councilor Sanchez was a thorn in all their sides because he read the budget and raised the issues of the swimming pool and the follies at the town’s convention center, which has lost hundreds of thousands of dollars for decades. Slick Gus quit when Sanchez began reading him the riot act because the manager had never met a councilor who would read and understand audit reports.
If the current gang can read, add and subtract–then they are guilty of far worse than ignorance or apathy or rubber stamping.
Today, while doing the Mayor and council’s dirty work, town spokesman Oscar Rodriguez has tried to create a sham opponent or straw man in the person of the county commission. He blames past county commissions or speculates on the behavior of future commissions, and then he asks current commissioners to rubber stamp failing public safety and fiscal policies regarding the Command Center, the airport, and the library.
Apparently, it’s okay to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on annexation or Luis Reyes’ failed “Command Center” while shifting the burden of reading costs to county bibliophiles, all of whom spend their dollars in stores wherein the town rakes off the gross receipts taxes.
It’s worse than you think.