Never have so many been lied to by so few
Checks and Balances
Today, the corporate oligarchy has eliminated the old-fashioned constitutional protections of checks and balances between Congress, the Presidency, and the Courts in America. Both law and political custom have been fused and transcended in the equivalent of a financial coup: everyone works for Corporate America. Even intelligence gathering organs of the state have been privatized as in NSA contracts for Booz Allen Hamilton.
Private contractors with access to all secrets, who work for contractors, have run amok: witness Edward Snowden. Despite violating the rules against spying on Americans, according to NSA internal audits, the President and his courtiers say, “not to worry.” Intelligence Chief Clapper Jim lied to the U.S. Senate but Senator Feinstein says that’s okay, too. The law, after all, required Clapper to lie. The President lies, too, and cannot quite bring himself to a call a military overthrow of a democratically elected government—a Coup. Pobrecito Obama: Can you say, “hopey and changey”?
Fortunately, in local government we still have one independent body, the County Commission, which “checks” up on the calls for the private-public fusion of government and corporate interests in the Kit Carson Command Center. No doubt my readers are sick of this issue but the more one reads the file the more dramatic the lies of public officials, who are promoting the venture, appear. The unholy triumvirate of CEO Luis Reyes, Mayor Darren Cordova, and Councilor Rudy Abeyta stand on hallowed ground here.
The speculator-in-chief, of course, is Luis Reyes, KCEC CEO, a man renowned for double—talk, according to his board of trustees. For more than ten years Luis has promoted his folly, the Rube-Goldberg Command Center but nobody would bite, until Mayor Cordova unilaterally decided to abandon the town’s own paid-for E911—Dispatch Center, based partially on the willing Rudy Abeyta’s expertise as an “environmental safety inspector.” Rudy said (and I summarize), according to the tape, that imperceptible levels of non-threatening asbestos threatened personnel, a claim disputed by the town’s own inspectors and denied by the town’s own paid-for environmental study, which found negligible non-threatening amounts of the dreaded substance. Mayor Cordova owes Luis a deep debt of personal gratitude for services rendered, according to Coop bill collectors and trustees.
So the speculators, now a threesome, have engaged on a public relations campaign (?) to dupe their fellow elected leaders and the citizenry. In the process several fraudulent claims (dangerous levels of asbestos, concern for public safety) broken laws, (the anti-donation prohibition against grants for private businesses, substantiated by letters and recordings vis-à-vis the town and KCEC), and other false claims—like the “Regional Command Center” was the town’s project–have come to light.
KCEC built the facility in a flood plain and spent $400,000 on two acres of property but didn’t bother getting an appraisal of the property prior to purchase. According to correspondence with RUS, re: its claims about the so-called Command Center, Reyes used some $400,000 in design-build loans for architecture. Why then did he take another $175,000 from the legislature via the Town of Taos? A town government that expressed no interest then in the facility? KCEC or the Town might have to return the $175,000 grant–if the state sees fit to enforce the law.
(The State of New Mexico, as a practice, rarely enforces the law per se but rather acts conveniently and politically if it suits the executive in charge: attack the schools and health services for the sake of privatization. Ignore El Norte. Martinez follows Richardson here.)
On May 21, 2013, the County wrote a 7-page letter to the Local Government Division, Department of Finance Administration (DFA), asking for a delay of the move from Civic Plaza Drive to the new location while an audit of the PSAP (Public Safety Access Point—E911) and JPA (Joint Powers Agreement) was performed. The County claimed the Town, DFA’s designated agent, violated the JPA. Chairman Dan Barrone signed the letter. The clear language of the letter lists a number of contract violations, including threats to life, public safety, and questionable fiscal management. But DFA has stonewalled the County.
According to news reports, a work-study session will be held for a Q & A with a DFA representative and two members each of the County Commission and Town of Taos next week—ex post facto—after DFA spends another $400,000 for wiring Luis’s “state of the art facility,” an office building, according to the building permit application.
Given the “History of Violence” in Taos, state officials tread softly in El Norte. Pope’s rebellion against the Spanish Conquest was launched from Taos Pueblo in 1680. In 1847 Taosenos massacred the state’s first territorial leader, Gov. Bent. Famed Mountain man and Taos resident Kit Carson conducted a scorched earth campaign against the Navajos, the only successful takedown of the Dine in history. Serial killer Arthur Manby, the premier swindler, set the standard for con artists—realtors, developers, bankers. Nixon’s support for the Taos Indians at Blue Lake gave him and them their only reason to celebrate the 20th Century. Now, the Mayor’s attack dogs at DMC Broadcast, relative newcomers to the political fray, are trying to out “la Raza” la gente’s own leader of la plebe, Joe Mike Duran of the Penasco Valley. His trucks are much bigger than yours, my friends.