Taos Animal Issues and Endorsements

Animal Issues 

The Town of Taos will discuss animal issues at the Tuesday, Oct., 28 meeting, 1 PM, on Civic Plaza Drive. Manager Rick Bellis will be asking the Council for permission to do an RFQ (request for qualifications) and a national search for an expert to help Taosenos resolve animal issues, ordinances, and the struggle to present a unified front by local governments on the matter.

 Animal lovers and activists need to pack the house.

 The Town and County spend way too much money on Animal issues to ignore the current crisis while searching for an outside savior. Activists are way too powerful and the situation far too fraught with emotion and canny partisans for an outsider to figure out who’s on first.

Commissioner Tom Blankenhorn’s work with the committee on the Holy Cross Hospital health policies suggests he has the demeanor and training to chair a local committee and hold public meetings on behalf of the community. The community needs to experience a public catharsis or the therapeutic arousal and purgation of pity and fear to clear the air and save the animals from becoming emotional footballs. Vote for Tom.

 (According to Friction sources, whitewashers at The Taos News would not help credible local activists who brought the issues of animal abuse to the attention of the award winning weekly. Similarly, The Taos News would not investigate the Special Ed scandal fifteen years in the making or the scandals at the DA’s office, fifteen years in the making or shenanigans at KCEC and etc.) Local newspapers have their own constituents. The endorsement of then Mayor Darren Cordova and now Susana Martinez speaks volumes about the editor, publisher, and owner’s priorities.)

Hold Your Nose

Despite his support for the Los Alamos war machine and the back door support of Oil and Gas, Tom Udall, long a credentialed liberal is a decent if contemporary politician in the dialing for dollars political climate. Born into a safe district Ben Ray Lujan generally votes for his constituents. Though Gary King has little in the way of character or interest in corrupt practices when it comes to Taos, he did send an Assistant Attorney General up to help curtail the incompetent vet at Stray Hearts. As Gov. King would represent New Mexicans unlike La Texan Susana, a creature of the Rove–Koch Bros. trust. Vote for Hector Balderas as AG, Maggie Toulouse Oliver for Sec. of State, Tim Keller as auditor, Tim Eichenberg as Treasurer, and Ray Powell as Land Commissioner.

 Vote for Republican Ron Montez as sheriff, he’s flawed but who isn’t? The “Dimocrat”, Jerry Holgrefe, a former Red River Marshal and Taos Town Police Chief, who knows better, can’t seem to detach himself from DA Donald Gallegos’s influential machine, which grinds out unlawful Hometown Subpoenas and corrupts cops like it was making sausage.

Thanks to the DA, law enforcement is exceedingly unlikely to catch the KCEC bank robbers and will likely lose the Plumbers Crack Case because of systemic short-cuts and civil rights violations. You can’t grab a monkey wrench as evidence and ignore drugs, guns, and money if you want to prosecute a drug case.

 Your best Taos advocate in the Commission race is the man from Cerro, Virgil Martinez. He’s the man with a record of standing up for those without representation: animals, inmates, the poor people, and good roads for his district. Virgil Martinez has a heart.

 Vote yes for the Bonds to support seniors, schools, and libraries.

Caveat: Taosenos can’t count on outside agencies to fix local miscues except as a last resort. See: PED, Vets Board, Disciplinary Board. Naïve outsiders who mean well can get eaten alive by con artists masquerading as politicians or officials or do-gooders: see Town Hall miscues at Kit Carson Park and the Plaza, not the Farmer’s Market but the arbitrary and capricious closures, which negatively affects merchants. Speak softly and watch your back my friends. The whispering campaigns are getting louder in the Town of Taos: what about the Spring Ditch? what about the Planning Department? what about the public relations and advertising person? After 8 months? We’re only asking.