Outside Agencies Tough on Taosenos?

What Say You?

For years we’ve heard how there’s a right way, a wrong way, and the Taos Way. But today the Taos Way, a kind of lawlessness combined with cruelty and laughter, is under siege by outsiders. We citizens here in the community have seen our elected and appointed officials summarily taken to the woodshed at the Taos Municipal Schools (TMS), the 8th Judicial District’s District Attorney’s Office, and at the Stray Hearts Animal Shelter by outsiders.

New Mexico Public Education Department

In a January 14, 2014 Taos news article, reporter Elizabeth Cleary writes, “Documents obtained from the state’s Public Education Department reveal years-long tensions between the Taos school district, the state and a disability rights group with regard to Taos’ special education program.” And, “The Taos school board placed superintendent Rod Weston on a three-day administrative leave last month due to ongoing issues with special education in Taos.”

Despite the best efforts by education activists, since at least, the late nineties, many Special Needs children have been denied services by TMS, school boards, administrators, and the Director of Special Education, who ignored state laws and the laws of humanity. The cruelty directed at children and parents was as excessive as the callousness of administrators, who care more about political movidas and who’s on first than delivering care and nurturing to kids in need.

Finally, when an outside agency with authority delivered the verdict, a few local board members and sleepy members of the press woke up. Weston got three days. Some of the parents and kids got short-changed for a lifetime.

State Disciplinary Board of New Mexico Supreme Court

Recently, we Taosenos read about the charges filed by the State Disciplinary Board against the District Attorney’s office. But aspiring politician and candidate for sheriff, Jerry Hogrefe, a former police chief and Red River Marshal, who has seen the work of the DA up close and personal, has a different spin on the matter. According to remarks quoted in the press from Monday Night’s Oct. 20 forum, when asked about the “Hometown Subpoenas” in the Kit Carson Bank Robbery, Hogrefe said:

“As an investigator, we followed what we thought was the proper procedure for obtaining information,” Hogrefe says when asked about subpoenas issued with his name but never signed by a judge. “I had no idea they didn’t have the authority to that and they didn’t either.” The investigators and prosecutors were doing their jobs in good faith to “put criminals behind bars where they belong,” Hogrefe adds. He objects to a judge’s ruling on the issue but says the judge is likely right. ”

Say what? The Judge is right and he’s wrong?

Taosenos have struggled to find justice under Boss Donald Gallegos’s 16-year reign of injustice because the DA doesn’t prosecute the folks who fit his personal definition of La Buena Gente. If your name is Baillon and you’re from Questa you can run down and kill two Veterans and maim their girlfriends for life but you and your road-racing friends will get off scott free, cause you’re “good people.” (But don’t steal Tio Frank’s tools ‘cause you’ll go to jail for that!)

The DA and the Cops can short-circuit the civil rights, as have both Hogrefe and candidate for sheriff Ron Montez (i.e. framing Edward Evensen, a Ute-Taos Pueblo Indian) while they were officers at the Town of Taos. (I have the recordings of cops in violation.) A disgraced former magistrate, sanctioned by the Supreme Court, who now, thanks to compliant judges and county officials, makes his living off “inmates down on their luck” as a bail bondsman, one Erminio Martinez counts himself as a Hogrefe supporter, Hogrefe proudly told me.

As Judge Paternoster finally said, “ It is objectively unreasonable for the prosecutor to believe that his (Chavez’s) conduct was lawful.” Is Emilio Chavez a liar?  Jerry Hogrefe told me he thought Chavez, who lied to the Appeals and Supreme Court, according to a judge in a particular case, and whom the D’Board, is aggressively pursuing, would make a good DA. No kidding, Jerry? I guess the ten gallon hat and the mustache go a long way toward “aw shucks” justice for Jerry.

The New Mexico State Board of Veterinary Medicine

Now comes one of the worst stories inflicted on the public but by alleged do-gooders. “How Petey’s Foot Fell Off”  describes a series of acts, focussed on cruelty to animals, like the cruelty to Special Needs students, and the cruelty inflicted on the survivors of homicide. According to Andy Stiny’s story posted in the Albuquerque Journal, “The board’s decision contains eight complaints against Aversa (the Vet employed by Stray Hearts Animal Shelter). The decision also includes  allegations of poor record-keeping or alleged mistreatment of 15 cats and dogs.” Mistreatment? More like cruel and unusual punishment inflicted on man and woman’s best friends.

Sure the members of the Board of Directors will claim, like all politicians in Taos who get criticized: “It’s politics.” Sometimes Taosenos can’t govern themselves: the politicians, appointed and elected officials, and the do-gooders refuse to listen to activists, lest they say something somebody doesn’t want to hear. Just because she or he is your “cuate,” your “comrade,” your “primo,” or your “vecino” does not mean he or she is not covering up some crime or act of cruelty.

Even The Taos News has to ignore their advertisers from time to time.

And there’s more, much more. The Shadow Knows.