Taos Issues: Meters, Command Center, Annexation, Arts, Acequias

For months Taos Friction has been saying the issues in this year’s Town of Taos election are crucial. The current mayor and council have taken extreme positions, ignoring the law, violating common ethical standards, while retaliating against their critics. The town government displays a lack of “respeto” for their own taxpayers and exhibits outright contempt for the safety, health, and welfare of citizens of Taos County.

Meter Minders

In what might seem like a silly feud, compared to the life-threatening decisions surrounding the Command Center, town government has set meter minders against local merchants. Each day Robert and Eric stand on the Plaza waiting for meters to expire. Then there’s a footrace between merchants with their quarters and the cops with their twenty-dollar tickets. Do you interrupt a potential sale to feed the meter? Meanwhile, dozens of parking places are vacant, especially on the Plaza.

The hostile faces presented by Robert and Eric represent the retaliatory attitudes of Manager Oscar Rodriguez, Mayor Cordova and Councilor Abeyta. They apparently enjoy punishing the merchants who oppose the parking meter policy. Whatever gross receipts taxes that tourists or shoppers might contribute fail to appear in town coffers due to meter madness and unfriendly representatives of local law enforcement.

Robert brags to his buddies at the Quality Inn Coffee Klatch about how he tickets the spouse of one of his critics. Councilor Abeyta attacks the senor citizen sign man at forums and town council meetings just as the Mayor and Police Chief ignore lawless behavior by a tow truck driver, who strikes out at the free speech advocate.

The Mayor and Council are responsible for creating misguided policies and setting the cops off against citizens, trying to earn a living or allowing lawlessness in special cases, cause they don’t like Jeff.

Command Center

Contrary to the lies and myths, Mayor Cordova and Councilor Abeyta, et al voted to move the E911-Dispatch Center from Civic Plaza Drive to the KCEC Command Center for political reasons, quid pro quo at the Coop, not for reasons of health, safety, and welfare. The Town ignored its partners in the PSAP JPA and made a unilateral decision, attacked the County for raising questions, and ultimately antagonized all its partners in the JPA.

Similarly, the town made a unilateral decision to ignore its contractual obligations to maintain repeaters and towers in the County, which contributed to the death of Commissioner Sanchez’s “primo.” Security for the tower and antenna in town at the Civic Plaza Drive location, the main E911—Dispatch center communication link is non-existent.

The Cordova administration signed on to a pig in a poke at the KCEC CC and now the whole community can see the heavy feeding at the trough. Meanwhile, the County has been forced by town politics and out of concern for its citizens to engage in constructing a Command Center at a facility where, even government agencies have expressed real, not feigned, interest in a single command and incident center.

As we go into this election, the New Mexico Department of Finance and Administration is considering claims that the town violated the “anti-donation” clause for architecture while subsidizing a private facility built on land that the Coop bought but never appraised for some $400,000 and for which the building rent and electricity charges are extraordinary.

Coop members and town voters get to pay for the folly twice under the Cordova Administration. If the Cordova administration continues, all citizens will be paying triple charges, taxes for two E911-Dspatch centers, and another charge as Coop ratepayers for the original Coop Command Center folly. It’s mind-boggling.

Airport Annexation

The shoestring annexation, a fraud perpetrated by town government, has been soundly reversed by the District Court judge. The Town violated common procedures: notice to property owners and affected parties, providing neither maps nor descriptions of boundaries in the land grab. According to Judge McElroy, the Town violated due process by sitting in judgment on its own petition for annexation.

The New Mexico Supreme Court refused to hear the Town’s appeal for a special writ of superintending control. Legally, the appeal of Judge McElroy’s decision by the town appears laughable to lay people. You can’t blame the County for defending itself, El Prado, El Prado Water and Sanitation, various acequias, and the potential loss of GRT against the town.

The County offered to rebate GRT in an effort to subsidize the matching grant for the FAA grant for expansion. Further, the County offered to negotiate a “regional airport district” and help subsidize operations at the airport. But, as the Town did in the late sixties, when they condemned private land for the airport, they ignored the citizens. Some property owners in the airport environs remain land locked, almost fifty years after eminent domain.

Arts and Cultural District

The Town approved the designation of the historic arts and cultural district as a way to study, design, and renovate the greater Plaza area. And the Town helped get a grant for an architect to study and design a plan for renovating the old County Courthouse, the heart of the Plaza. Whether due to in fighting, envidia, or incompetence, the Town reversed course, lost the initial grant for plan and design and the potential to acquire an even larger grant to finish the project.

The Town forced out the director of the Arts and Culture District, who now works for the County as an economic development specialist. The County itself is trying to glue the pieces back together.

Acequia Issues

Although the Mayor claims credit for settling the Abeyta-Taos Pueblo Water lawsuit and we know that’s not true, he has ignored, either as councilor or mayor, the culture of the acequias. The Spring Ditch and snafu surrounding Valverde Commons are a case in point.

The Spring Ditch filed a lawsuit in District Court, claiming their ditch, the point of diversion for the springs, was impaired by an illegal development, Central Station, set atop the springs. Not only that but the Town’s hydrologist has confirmed that Town Well No. 5 impaired the ditch previously. The DOT and town engineers who funneled storm water into the ditch—you can smell residual corn dogs and cotton candy in the ditch after fiesta—also contributed.

The spring ditch, like all acequias, is protected by state statute, and has a priority date of about 1800. The Town manager of the previous administration issued a back-door certificate of occupancy to the developer without telling the parciantes. Mayor Cordova promised parciantes to fix the problem then back tracked after getting elected.

Now the Town has a “Historic Preservation Commission” (HPC), a kind of show committee, whose members say they have a study and will hitherto recommend enforcing the law even as they advocate a plan that restores some historic acequias. But the Mayor, according to candidate Fritz Hahn, shelved the study. The well-meaning members of the HPC are relative newcomers to the acequia culture.

When the town council and mayor don’t like an appointed commission’s recommendations, they fire commission members. Rudy and Darren, et al as council members did just that in the infamous “Thursday night massacre” during the dispute over the expansion of the ill-fated Plaza de Retiro. Ironically, the applicant ended up getting indicted and the project was never completed.

When Judi Cantu, was on the HPC, the mayor and incumbent council got rid of her four years ago when she announced she was running for town council. Apparently, the rule doesn’t apply to current Historic Preservation Commission member Pavel Lukes.

Conclusion

When Councilor Abeyta was first appointed to the Town Council, he used to speak in support of hiring local people at the Town of Taos. But, as we have seen, a variety of itinerant professionals have replaced locals as executives or newcomers and compliant developers, realtors, and other rubber stampers etc. have been appointed to commissions. Rudy and Darren are following in the footsteps of longtime manager Gus Cordova, who understood that hiring or appointing testy locals with deep roots meant political payback if you fire them. Rule by fear, divide and conquer that’s the key to covering up the contracts for cuates program. Create a smokescreen and confuse members of the media, who patronize the community and support you in your “faux” battles with the County.

At a recent forum Rudy said he supported the merger of town and county government. State statute prohibits it in counties of this size but if you vote for Dan Barrone as mayor, collaboration with the County becomes a reality and taxpayers save money and the community saves lives. Vote for Fritz and Judi and you bring honesty to local government. It’s that simple. Throw the rascals out.