Re: Taos News Editorial

Re: “‘Frank’ discussions about Taos”, by Tom Collins, Taos News, June 19, 2007.

While driving back today after The Police concert, I had a chance to think along the same lines as Mr. Collins, about the future of Taos and comparisons with other places we know. Imagine my surprise when I came home and opened up the paper! The object of my aimless fantasy, though, had been another community, even closer.

Now, we’re not talking about “the town’s aesthetic and/or historical problems”. Those are the topic for another occasion. If you ask me, Taos’ “problems” in these areas are superior to each and all of the others. And I mean that in the best possible way. Ours above even Santa Fe’s, if you’re talking “historically”.

We’re talking business, here. The real thing: economic and political power. Military, if necessary.

Santa Fe is in another league from us here. Has been, for 300 years or so. There’s a reason it’s the state capital (and how does Albuquerque feel about that, exactly? Has anyone asked Martin Chavez?)

No, the real and operative comparison is with our friends down the Rio Grande in the Espanola Valley. I’m suggesting that Espanola is the right object of comparison for consideration of our potential future. We, too, can become a sizable traffic obstacle for all to endure, an educational nightmare, a political skeleton in a cavernous closet (for cavernous, think of the closed winery a few miles south of their town), and a two-bit highway town with a casino on the way to The Ski Valley.

We have all the resources we need—except more people to live in the houses. This is no problem: we can easily parcel up the land for them, market and construct homes, and there should be little doubt they’re coming. We can do it!

As far as transportation, I can’t help thinking there should be some sort of transportation route for transients that uses some of the ample table lands west of town and ends up somewhere closer than Tres Piedras but farther out than Millicent Rogers Road. Another story? No, very much the story. We’re not quite as big a snafu as the Espanola border area speed traps, the 85/285 forkoff and Ohkay Owingeh, but we do have some notable traffic obstacles, and we have cars (and all other manner of vehicle) cutting into traffic on the main drag from every conceivable angle. Maybe we can put something somewhere "just over the horizon"--my line-of-sight horizon, I'm thinking.

OK, later. Let’s talk about politics. The recent flap within the Democratic party about county chairman somehow managed to get under-reported in both The Taos News and The Horse Fly. No further airing of this movida seems forthcoming. Sorry I stepped in that!

Anyway, my provisional judgement is that ethically, we’re in a close race with Espanola. Electorally, the percentages are somewhat different, but the numbers show the same malleability (in Taos' case, due to turnout considerations) that make Rio Arriba County (county seat Tierra Amarilla, for Chrissakes!) such an important swing area in a statewide race given inherent tightness by the close contest for control of the Albuquerque area. Beyond the potential of a high no-show rate here, any Democrat could lose tens of percent of Taos County voters to a viable state-level third-party candidate. So, there’s a lot on the table—not that the local residents derive the benefits. Except jobs, of course.

Speaking of jobs, educationally—and I mean the prevalent form, public education—we should look toward the secondary schools of Espanola in a cooperative way rather than a competitive one, so I don’t want to engage in that particular invidious comparison. Medically, though, I’ll bet someone downstream has figured out the economics of how a private hospital can possibly pay an adequate salary to an Ob-Gyn (see the article on the fold above “‘Frank’ discussions about Taos”; “Increase pressure on state to attract doctors”).

The name of the game is jobs. Espanola has played its cards on being the guys who sell the stuff to us yokels upstream. We can play their game of “Megaboxes”, or we have the choice of hosing ourselves, too (care to fill ‘er up?). Or, perhaps, we can develop a source of 21st-century power worthy of this place and its unbelievably rich natural resources, and, as we would require, attitudinally and altitudinally, on a different plane than the current Bushite mess our general society is becoming.

I would start by challenging Kit Carson cooperative to make a commitment--a revocable one-- to bring to parity the prices of its wind-powered and its gas/coal/whatever-powered electricity on some fixed date (say, January 1, 2009). I give my personal guarantee that Bill Richardson, or Jeff Bingaman-and-Pete-Domenici, or George W Bush’s successor in his 2008 campaign will make good your bet through a policy which would bring grandfathering of your investment, your pioneering achievement. If none of those bastards come through with a sane policy, then you simply cancel the commitment after the election. You did your best.

But, I’m betting that, even if none of them do, the resulting flow of customers to renewables resulting from the commitment announcement will swamp such considerations as those Kit Carson faces today, and the eventual incremental revenue from RAISING the non-renewable rate will fund the second round of investments. And, they’re on their way.

Windmills on the mesa. Can you picture it? You might want to consider doing so.