Taos: Desperate Times Call for Desperate Measures

El Mitote

At a time when the gross receipts taxes related to tourism, whether in the retail or hospitality sectors, appear to be flat or declining in Taos, the Barrone Administration, Town Council, and Executive Staff have yet to recognize their own responsibility in creating the crisis and divisiveness in the community.

Barrone and Bellis took 13 months to hire a coordinator for marketing and organizing advertising buys. Now we hear, a month later, she’s gone, due to poor vetting by the Human Resources Department and Bellis’s own committee. There is no excuse but “incompetence” for this continuing scandal.

Insiders say the Town’s Tourism Grant and Promotion Program and its “request for proposals” have been muddled. According to longtime and experienced members of the Lodger’s Tax Advisory Board (LTAB), as well as private entrepreneurs working in the hospitality trade, Bellis has changed the rules mid stream and lost control of the procurement process.

Since the Town’s Public Works Department has manipulated the procurement code and the Taxpayers have lost an estimated $600,000 during the last five or six years, we’re not surprised that the same thing, due to incompetence and cronyism, is going on in the Tourism sector.

Ever since Barrone and Hahn summoned their “supporters” to attack Councilor Cantu, who raised questions about Bellis’s competence, any number of merchants and tourism professionals say they are afraid to speak up lest they become the subject of retaliation by the Bellis Babes, like Cynthia Spray and Lawrence Baker, who had, reportedly, much to do with summoning the mob that ridiculed Judi. Similarly, Barrone and his attorney, Floyd Lopez conspired to ignore Robert’s Rules of Order and let loose the barrage of insults at Cantu despite Councilor Peralta, who called for “point of order,” and the “question” and etc. all to no avail.

Like the Reagans in the White House, who took phone calls from their San Francisco astrologer, Bellis and Barrone apparently listen to a certain mystic on Facebook, whose shop appears more metaphysical than physical as it changes location every few months. We don’t light candles in Taos anymore; we just look to the stars for guidance. Course Mother Nature, if not God, seems to be raining on the parade.

Now Bellis and Hahn have done their best, along with the reporters at The Taos News, to undermine Councilor Cantu’s Cesar Chavez Day project, due to its “alleged” link with a “yard sale.” (Matt Van Buren has come back in the persons of Andrew Oxford and J. R. Logan to haunt not the school board but “Judi.”) Apparently Bellis offered up a budget on behalf of the Cantu committee, a budget created to embarrass the naïve councilor so that Councilor Hahn might have an opportunity to attack Cantu, and his own supporters from El Prado, all of whom stood out on the corners of the Plaza and main street on winter Saturdays to show their support for the ersatz social engineer.

Now Hahn sides with Bellis though I am reminded of how Bellis tried to back door the social engineer during the election and talk him out of running. (Keep your enemies close but your friends closer.) Bellis was seeking support for Cynthia Spray so she could serve, officially, in her role as town groupie. (The County terminated her at the Old County Courthouse and relations between Town and County have never recovered.) Bellis claimed Hahn couldn’t get elected and should abandon the election and the Town to Spray. Fritz refused then but now he has apparently joined the dark side, helping not to engineer reconciliation but to create more schisms.

Meanwhile Bellis has moved closer and closer to the Solar Fest producers from Colorado, forking over $20,000 from the public purse for the “Kongos” (again). What? When Bellis isn’t flogging the courthouse as venue for “craft beer” he’s trying to talk private property owners into similar ventures. (The Shadow Knows.) Maybe the Brewery could hire Bellis as an apprentice brew master. The Town, according to the ads, supported the Lilac Festival Day—despite the “lack of Lilacs” due to drought. But it rained during the festival, suggesting that Mother Nature’s metaphysical response was something different from Holy Water. Has God withdrawn his blessing from Taos, due to its incompetence and corrupt practices? We’re only asking.

Plaza Merchants are still waiting for the Council to call a special meeting to address their concerns re: the re-configuration of the Farmer’s Market, a plan offered up by Lynn Fitzgerald, that asks the Town to merely keep a couple of traffic lanes open on Saturday and remove booths from shops, which object to having their entrances blocked. Frightened, apparently, the Mayor and Hahn appear to be blocking the proposed meeting.

While Councilor Peralta suffers from health problems and Councilor Gonzales appears otherwise engaged, Hahn polemicizes and makes lists and Councilor Cantu is the scapegoat. The Mayor, one Dan Barrone, red-faced, flails around like a lumberjack lost in the woods. Bellis, the Manager, looks in the mirror mirror on the wall, and sees Cynthia, then blows more smoke and sprays more B.S.

Why is local government battling the Merchants, the Tourism entrepreneurs, and the Taxpayers i.e. the voters who brought them to the dance? Today the elected and appointed ones appear to be going home with strangers while citizens pay for the band and the lights that still light up the Plaza. The Mayor, Manager, and the Town Council have much to answer for in terms of creating several schisms in the community. Now if we could just rename Kit Carson Park everything would be fine…