County Commission Votes Against Town-KCEC Command Center

In a 3-2 vote on Tuesday, June 25, 2013, Taos County Commissioners rejected the town’s proposal to move to the Kit Carson Electric Cooperative Command Center. Commissioners decided to invest approximately $1 million in equipment and their own building for an E911-Dispatch Center. Commissioner Joe Mike Duran made the motion and Commissioner Gabe Romero seconded. Commissioner Larry Sanchez joined the majority.

(County employees, depicted on the right,  crank up Tio Vivo during fiesta, circa 1940.)

Deputy County Manager Rick Bellis noted that the Forest Service and BLM were ready to join the county at the former planning department office asap and Manager Steve Archuleta said the County would be required to spend about $150,00 for remodeling the building. Staff said the County would need about $850,000 for state of the art equipment. Commissioners Duran, Romero, and Sanchez noted that they were determined to provide the community with improved public safety services.

Both Commissioners Barrone and Blankenhorn held out hope that the community could save some $350,000 or so by cooperating with the town but as Joe Mike said, “The Town has been jerking us around.”

KCEC CEO Luis Reyes has long envisioned a command center that could capitalize on economies of scale. But between the rent at the Command Center and recent stories about incompetence at the town-managed E911-Dispatch facility, the commission wasn’t buying. And, apparently, neither the Forest Service nor the BLM wants anything to do with the Command Center. Bellis noted that a JPA and board, formed by the county, and other interested parties, Questa and Taos Ski Valley, would make technical and financial decisions regarding the operation of the new facility.

Manager Archuleta said the County would try and have the new facility up and running by Dec., a couple of months before the current JPA with the Town expires in Feb. of 2014. Ultimately, the County believes they will save money by investing in a county-owned facility and might, at some future time, become eligible for DFA funds for the PSAP. The county has the money left over from the construction budget for the Complex.

Despite the tension between the Town and County, Chairman Barrone and Mayor Cordova combined forces on Tuesday to write a letter to a Walmart vendor, protesting the sale of fireworks in Taos County. In other news of “cooperation,” the County has taken over the tasks of doing building inspections for both the Town of Taos and the village of Questa. Apparently, both the Town and Questa have seen a drop in revenues and are counting on the County, the only solvent government entity, including Kit Carson and Holy Cross Hospital, in the greater community.

Have things changed around here or what? I can remember when the County didn’t have a pot to piss in and couldn’t get a trial balance for the audit, two or three years running. Back then Lovely Lorraine, the County Treasurer had to call up DFA to reign in county commissioners and staff to keep the county solvent. The difference between 1999 and 2013 is night and day. Meanwhile, insiders say the Town is almost broke.

Water, Water, Deeper and Deeper

In other news at the county, the state Interstate Streams Commission chief, Estevan Lopez, his staff, and representatives of the Abeyta-Taos Pueblo Water Settlement presented computer models of Taos Valley ground water flows, based on hydrology reports and deep well tests, to the commission. Taos Pueblo, Taos Valley Acequia Association, El Prado Water and Sanitation, the Mutual Domestic Water systems, Spring Ditch, Amigos Bravos, Taos Regional Water Plan, the Soil and Water Conservation Service, and the Village of Questa were all represented.

The settlement of the Abeyta—Taos Pueblo Water lawsuit, now being implemented, requires a number of deep mitigation wells and so many rules and regulations that the simple act of irrigating and sharing water is sure to become a complex and competitive race to secure and protect current water rights. The settlement requires complicated Rio Grande and tributary offsets even as local and state regulations require onerous studies before water rights transfers can occur.

Since the Abeyta settlement only includes 54 acequias, 12 mutual domestics, El Prado, and the Town of Taos, much of Taos County remains outside the pact. In northern Taos County, the City of Santa Fe, El Prado, and others have come calling to purchase and transfer water rights. Meanwhile, as Questa Mayor Esther Garcia pointed out in response to El Prado’s purchase of the Gallagher Ranch and water rights in Sunshine, that Questa itself is in need of water rights and feels responsible for protecting upstream communities like Sunshine Valley, Costilla, and Amalia. The Penasco Valley water has yet to be adjudicated.

Bryan Shields of Amigos Bravos mentioned that the settlement agreement still used the Rio Grande as a way to offset ground water flow with deep mitigation wells that could curb springs that feed the river. Tony Benson of Taos Soil and Water said that studies of well location, flow measurement, and underground geology were still problematic and needed more research. Mitigation wells are expected to reach down more than a thousand feet to “compressed water” in deep aquifers but nobody really knows how much water there is or how fast the deep aquifers recharge. A member of the advisory committee for the Public Welfare portion of the Taos Regional Water Plan urged commissioners to study carefully decisions about whether to protest or accept water rights transfers.

Some of the water promised to the Abeyta—Taos Pueblo Water Settlement is based on expected flows from the San Juan—Chama water, which originates in Colorado and is meant for downstream urban users. But if that source dries up or if drought strikes hard in Colorado in the upper watersheds of the Rio Grande, then the competition for water from Taos County will increase.

Meanwhile, here at home, parciantes on the Spring Ditch in downtown Taos, are litigating the Town of Taos, which has allegedly diverted or reduced the flow of the historic acequia, due to pumping, building, and road construction. Instead of meeting and mediating with the parciantes, the Town has typically chosen to ignore the concerns of their own constituents, as they did with parciantes on the Sanchez and Moreno ditches in the Valverde Commons—Autumn Acres project.

A hearing on the County’s lawsuit filed against the Town’s attempt to annex El Prado and 6 miles of highway to the airport will be heard tomorrow at 2:30 pm in district court, according to a memo sent out by the county.