Potholes, Abeyta Vendidos, Taos Lessons Learned

The Carrot and the Stick

After one year and one month, the Mayor of Potholes, one Dan Barrone, has doffed his cap, donned his work gloves, and offered to assist Le Francais (Francisco “French” Espinosa), the Town’s own Director of Public Works. According to Le Francais’s allusions to the “mayor’s letter,” it sounds like the Mayor wants to duck the epithet “potholes” and substitute “resurfacing” as a proper nickname.

We’re glad El Patron finally kicked some ass at town hall. According to both French and the long-suffering finance chief, Marietta, the town has about $80,000 for potholes and will spend 2/12ths of the reserves in the next few months, some $500,000 on resurfacing roads.  At the meeting on April 14, Councilor Judi Cantu was all smiles, as French summarized how the street crews had located and counted more than 100 potholes, while urging residents “to call us” if they missed one.

As for long-term help during the next seven to ten years, quien sabe, amigo? We can light candles and pray. But at least the Mayor has lit a fire under the recalcitrant Town Manager Rick Bellis, who, incidentally, also hired a Planning Director and Marketing person after one year and one month in his job.

Starkly blond and rather slender, Ms. Renee Roberts, the new marketing director, lately from Las Vegas, Nevada projected a quiet confidence and exuded a sense of purpose. Cantu praised the hiring of Roberts, who also said she could with some basic software (adobe, InDesign, Microsoft Word?) do “90% of the work” herself and would pursue a “no cost public relations” strategy aimed at turning tourists on to Taos.  Tourism, as I see it, is the only source of real revenue for the private sector.

Ms. Fambro projected a “no growth” trend in GRT revenue. Apparently, the god of tourism and development has withdrawn his blessing from “Funky Taos.” But maybe Ms. Roberts, Ms. Fambro, and Ms. Cantu can persuade Mr. Big to recant.

On a side note, former Councilor Sanchez attended the morning meeting but due to the lack of progress (one year, one month) and the policy of hiring outsiders, expressed his disdain for Barrone, Bellis, and Hahn by ignoring the conversation. I think the night owl might have missed a change in tone at the Town yet who am I to argue with “Clean Gene”? He calls it like it is and Fritz doesn’t listen.

Living with Abeyta: water flows toward money.

Friction sources have read the fine print in Abeyta-Taos Pueblo Water Settlement and have discovered, no surprise, that Los Vendidos at EPWSD, Taos Pueblo, Town of Taos, 12 MDWCAs, and TVAA have, in deed and by signature, endorsed the concept of a market driven water mechanism. Basically, the good old boys reserved San Juan Chama Water as part of the deal instead of hanging on, to say, Top of the World water rights or buying outright water rights within water basins. San Juan Chama Water Rights can be marketed downstream below the Otowi Gauge to thirsty and rich municipalities in Santa Fe and Bernalillo Counties.

The water babes who worked the trenches behind closed doors, like Palemon, Painter, Nelson Cordova, Gilbert Suazo, Mary Humphrey, as well as Fred and Gus, operated under a “gag order” i.e. no transparency. The result of this agreement is “self-interest, selfishly understood.”

Here is an example of the Palemon Martinez/Fermin Torres results on the Acequia del Madre Rio Lucero. Parciantes were precluded from completing bylaws by Palemon Martinez and Mayordomo Fermin Torres. These bylaws would have given parciantes, according to state law, the right of first refusal in the event that a Torres or a Martinez wanted to sell water rights. Now Torres and Martinez et al can sell to the highest bidder either downstream or to Taos Pueblo. According to the latest reports, Senior Joe Torres made that point at a recent water meeting.

El Prado Water and Sanitation District (EPWSD) has four times as many water rights as it needs. Why? Because Painter et al and his supporters at the Town and County, apparently, want to benefit from water rights sales. Commissioner Blankenhorn claims we need the water in the County for “growth.” But we argue he’s been out-maneuvered by the ultimate “movida makers.”

The Abeyta Agreement, despite the praise and photo ops at Taos Pueblo in 2006, which I attended, is, as longtime land-grant and water rights activist Alfred Trujillo has always said, a movida aimed at undermining senior water rights in Arroyo Hondo by the upstream junior water rights holders in Valdez and Arroyo Seco and Taos Pueblo.  All politics is local.

Spring Ditch parciantes, like David Rael and Jerome Lucero, have repeatedly warned the Taos County Commissioners and Town of Taos Council members that they have been sucker punched by TVAA/Abeyta and bought a “pig in a poke” called “custom” (share in the abundance and share in the shortage).

But what “Custom” means here is: “we got the money and the water and you get nothing but the run-off.” The trickle-down got invented aqui en Taos.

The committee that fought so hard for the Taos Regional Water Plan and Public Welfare Committee at the County saw this coming. Butchie (RIP) said the signatories, like Palemon and Painter were wearing horns, not halos. Still she’d be glad that the Rip Van Winkles at Taos County are waking up—even if fifteen years late.

Commissioner Blankenhorn might thinks it’s about “growth” but while the County was holding on to its wallet, Palemon and Painter were picking the pockets of the parciantes and members of the El Prado Water and Sanitation District. Oh, yes, my friends, as always, it’s worse than you think aqui en Taos. It’s about petty crimes and misdemeanors.

Gringo Lessons

Yours truly will read from and sign editions of “Gringo Lessons: Twenty Years of Terror in Taos” (circa 1966—1987) at Rick Smith’s fine Brodsky Book shop on Friday, April 17, from 5 to 7. I am grateful to John Nichols for his fine review and for responses from many readers who say they “enjoy” the book. My greatest lesson: there’s no substitute for experience. Until you’ve gotten a good beating, physically and psychologically, whether literally or figuratively, you haven’t really lived in Taos.