As reported here is yet another strong effort by our Seco friends, and neighbors:
Los Politicos Roil Round Pete
Who’s on First?
Bill, Tom, Diane v. Heather?
October 04, 2007
By Bill Whaley
Yesterday, about 4 pm NPR announced that New Mexico’s longest serving senior U.S. Senator, 35 years; Pete Domenici had decided not to seek re-election. Health problems were given as the reason-not spending more time with family. Domenici has been a longtime supporter of northern New Mexico residents, despite the overwhelming numbers of democrats. The don’t call him St. Pete for nothing. During Pete’s last appearance in Taos, in the spring, I think at Kit Carson Electric Cooperative, he came bearing gifts, some $2.8 million in federal funds for the E911 Command Center. We ought to name it after him if we can ever get it built. We only need a few more signatures from local government to push the project forward.
With Pete’s seat empty, the Republican most likely to take up the challenge is Heather Wilson, a Domenici protégé. As for democrats, the ubiquitous Patricia Madrid said on the news she is interested in a rematch with the incumbent Congresswoman. It’s more likely that Bill Richardson, Tom Udall or Diane Denish will take advantage of the opportunity. If none of the above, then look for Martin Chavez to throw his hat in the ring. According to news reports last night, the Democratic National Committee may be urging Richardson to give up his plans for president and run for senator. The Big Fella could win in a cakewalk, get back to Washington and do a lot for the state and country under a democratic administration. Run Bill, Run.
On the other hand, if Richardson’s quixotic quest for the presidency continues, we predict that Tom Udall will take a serious look at the race. He has a safe congressional seat in the north’s third district currently. He could keep it and wait for Senator Bingaman to retire and run for the latter’s seat. Since Udall was a statewide winner as AG and is well known for his integrity, it seems like he could beat the Republican.
Then there’s Diane, who will be in Taos, later in October at fundraiser-pot luck to raise dough for her 2010 gubernatorial bid. While she and Marty Chavez are expected to compete for the governorship, much depends on Richardson’s decision and ultimate fate. If Richardson leaves early, Diane becomes the incumbent. She could easily become the first woman governor and is considered a stronger candidate than Chavez by most observers, due to her hard work as Democratic Party chair, lieutenant governorship, and the perceived fairness of her principles. At the same time, if neither Richardson nor Udall run, Diane might throw here hat in the ring. Her father lost to Domenici when the incumbent won his first race. Family feelings run deep. Yet, Diane has been training for the governor’s job and a successful campaign for decades. If she ran for Senator and lost, she could still run for Governor.
Who knows? Everybody is reading the tealeaves. Phone calls and feelers are feeding speculation on Capitol Hill, around the Roundhouse, and at various campaign stops. The three top demos have known each other intimately and politically for years. I’d like to see the Big Fella grab the senate seat. His experience, stature, and a grateful democrat in the White House could sure help New Mexico. But Bill thinks more about Bill than he does the state and nation if you ask this supporter. Udall could wait and take Jeff’s seat. Diane could run the state. That’s some good accessible leadership. Still, regardless, it gives the demos a boost.
Run Bill Run.
Run Tom Run.
Run Diane Run.
Grimshaw’s Coleman Double Winner
Prizes for Originals, Open, and Invitational
Thanks for the money and the memories
September 30, 2007
By Staff Reports
See the shows, attend the openings, buy and sell some art.
ORIGINALS 2007 artists winning $1000 each are:
Harwood Museum of Art:
1. Amelia Milazzo’s “PURGATORY 2006,” Oil on Canvas
2. Ema Tanigaiki’s “TALES OF PARADISE,” Silicone Bronze
Millicent Rogers Museum:
1. Flo Perkins’ “CACTUS UPRISING 2006,” Blown Glass
2. Laura Robbins’ “ALTER FOR THE WILD HORSES 2007,” Moasic of Glass, Ceramic
PURCHASE AWARDS FOR THE MUSEUM’S PERMANENT COLLECTIONS
Harwood Museum of Art:
1. Angie Coleman’s “SANTA BARBARA CANYON 2007,” Reduction woodblock print
2. Renee Brainard Gentz’s “LIGHT AND LIVELY 2006,” Hand Dyed Silk Organza
Millicent Rogers Museum:
1. Mildred Tolbert’s “TAXI STAND”
“TAOS INVITES TAOS” AWARD WINNERS
REPRESENTATIONAL PAINTING
1st Place: Barbara Bartels - “Vermillion Hills on Rio Chama”
2nd Place: Richard Alan Nichols - “Elder Sisters”
3rd Place: Libby Hart - “Sous Chef”
REPRESENTATIONAL DRAWING
1st Place: Ann Huston - “Evening Veil”
2nd Place: Audrey Davis - “White Façade”
3rd Place: Dinah K. Worman - “Road to Dixon”
CONTEMPORARY ART
1st Place: Margaret Nes - “Sundown Reflections”
2nd Place: Barbara Zaring - “New World”
3rd Place: Lori Malott - “Once in a Lifetime”
CERAMICS
1st Place: Susan Ammann - “Twig Pot”
2nd Place: JoAnne De Keuster - “Untitled”
3rd Place: Richard Hawley - “Taos Lightning”
PHOTOGRAPHY, DIGITAL, AND HIGH-TECH ART
1st Place: Chris Dahl-Bredine - “Hondo Fire, Snow”
2nd Place: Dorie Hagler - “Sheep”
3rd Place: Kathleen Brennan - “Eggs 0559 c/2”
FIBER
1st Place: Pat Dozier - “Pottery Dreaming I”
2nd Place: Fred Black - “Rug #83”
3rd Place: Margaret Hermann - “Taos Blanket”
FURNITURE
1st Place: Andrew Garcia - “Fechin Writing Table & Chair”
2nd Place: Alan Powell - “Arches”
3rd Place: Ron Cline - “Vanity”
GLASS
1st Place: JoAnne Paulk - “A River Runs - Bowl w/ Stand”
2nd Place: Rick Finney - “La Cruca de Penetra Amo”
3rd Place: Karen Kerschen - “Monsoon Season Sky #1”
GRAPHICS and PRINTMAKING
1st Place: Angie Coleman - “Aspen Shadows and Last Lights”
2nd Place: Barbara Brock - “Sounds of Silence”
3rd Place: Doug West - “Evening in Taos”
JEWELRY
1st Place: Gail Golden
2nd Place: Regina Ann Becker
3rd Place: Ron Wesley
MINIATURE
1st Place: Patricia Traynor - “Taos Pueblo Storm”
2nd Place: Eduardo Chacon - “Sweet Harmony”
3rd Place: Audrey Davis - “Fall Clouds”
SCULPTURE
1st Place: Julia Ives - “Mother Earth’s Daughter”
2nd Place: Michael Forbes - “Bow to John Storrs”
3rd Place: Terrie Bennett - “Spirit”
SANTOS
1st Place: Lorrie Garcia - “Madre de la Paz”
2nd Place: Roberto Barela - “Holy Trinity”
3rd Place: Leonardo G. Salazar - “St. Francis in Meditation”
RETABLOS/RELIEF CARVINGS
1st Place: Lorrie Garcia - “Our Lady of Guadalupe”
2nd Place: Lydia Garcia - “Mother and Child”
3rd Place: Lydia Garcia - “The Holy Trinity”
BEST OF SHOW
Lisa Burge - “The Gorge”
PATRON’S CHOICE
Julia Ives - “Mother Earth’s Daughter”
PEOPLE’S CHOICE
Ouray Meyers - “Morning”
ARTIST’S CHOICE
Terrie Bennett - “Spirit”
TAOS OPEN” AWARD WINNERS
REPRESENTATIONAL PAINTING
1st Place: Jim Cox - “Valley of the Utes”
2nd Place: Jane Grover - “Winter Scene in Seco”
3rd Place: Ramona Montano - “Rio Grande Sunrise”
REPRESENTATIONAL DRAWING
1st Place: Vonpat - “Woman in Breath”
2nd Place: Valerie Procha - “Orlando’s”
3rd Place: Nancy St. Lawrence - “Sunset Sail”
CONTEMPORARY ART
1st Place: Sandra Richardson & Patric Carther - “Kaleidoscope Coat”
2nd Place: Russell Scot Coleman - “Modern Times”
3rd Place: Valerie Nielsen - “Fire in the Winter”
CERAMICS
1st Place: Ginto Naujokas - “Wood-Fired White Mica Pot”
2nd Place: Ginto Naujokas - “Wood-Fired Jar”
3rd Place: Sandra Harrington - “Mayan Tower”
PHOTOGRAPHY, DIGITAL, AND HIGH-TECH ART
1st Place: Carol Mell - “Skeeter Universe”
2nd Place: Doug Yeager - “Oak Tree”
3rd Place: Karen A. Fielding - “Urban Mirage”
FIBER
1st Place: Anna Mae Patterson - “Honey’s Blue”
2nd Place: Cindy Campbell - “The Gourd Ladies”
3rd Place: Joe Bacon - “Inka”
FURNITURE
1st Place: Pablo Vesey - “Four Sisters”
2nd Place: Pablo Vesey - “Magpie and Crescent Moon”
3rd Place: Yavanne Jaramillo - “Room Dividers”
GLASS
1st Place: Derek Heagerty - “Jewelry Case”
2nd Place: Ira Lujan - “Water Carrier”
3rd Place: William C. Davis - “Le Petite Canna”
GRAPHICS and PRINTMAKING
1st Place: David Farmer - “Presidio Morning”
2nd Place: Mukta Webber - “Adobe and Stone”
3rd Place: Jennifer Lindsley - “Ethiopian Priest”
JEWELRY
1st Place: Jacqueline Rickard
2nd Place: Heather Cleary
3rd Place: Linda Michel-Cassidy
SCULPTURE
1st Place: Stuart Wittwer - “One Bug”
2nd Place: Steve Jackson - “Venus”
3rd Place: Lowber Welsh - “Mother and Child”
SANTOS
Chris White - “Saint Virtue”
BEST OF SHOW
Lynda M. Jasper-Vogel - “Glory” (Mixed Media)
PEOPLE’S CHOICE
Roto Mesmer -“Artifact 15”
ARTIST’S CHOICE
Allegra Sheep - “Potters Rabbit”
Editor’s Note: My personal favorite at the open was Adam Teitelbaum’s outrageous commentary on the mores of the U.S. Senate.
Wild Film
September 18, 2007
Film & Performances
by Steve Fox
4th Annual Wild Film Festival
World-renowned “grizzly whisperer” Charlie Russell, star of “The Edge of Eden: Living With Grizzlies,” will be in Taos Saturday, Sept. 22, to do Q&A after the film’s showing at 7 p.m. at the TCA as part of Rivers and Birds’ Wild Film Festival. On Sept. 21, Friday night, live hawks and owls from Santa Fe Raptor Center will be present.
This year, the Wild Film festival is being held on two consecutive weekends: Sept.
21-22 at the TCA, and 28-29 at the Lensic Performing Arts Center in Santa Fe. Each weekend, there will be one night of short films and one night with a feature-length film plus some shorts.
Here’s the schedule for the TCA: Sept. 21 (Fri.), 7 p.m., “Sharkwater” feature, plus short films. Sept. 22 (Sat.), 1 p.m., Shorts for the Shorties (kids); 7 p.m., “Edge of Eden: Living With Grizzlies.”
And for the Lensic in Santa Fe: Sept. 28 (Fri.), 7 p.m., “Sharkwater”; Sept. 29 (Sat.), 1 p.m., Shorts for the Shorties; 7 p.m., “Edge of Eden: Living With Grizzlies,” plus short films.
Both feature films are fantastic, epic award-winners. If you’ve ever hoped that the grizzly was not the T-Rex man-eater portrayed in outdoor magazines for three generations, this is your film. Charlie Russell is a gentle 70-year-old who grew up in the Alberta Rockies in a family that had a pack-trip business. When he discovers grizzly cubs orphaned by poachers in the “biggest town” of Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula, Charlie decides to build a cabin in the gorgeous wilderness preserve and try to raise the cubs. The backdrop to his cabin is a perfect Mt. Fuji-shape snowy volcano. The cubs are adorable, mischievous, frolicking. They run to their wooden house when bigger bears appear to be menacing the compound, but Charlie suddenly realizes the two visitors are his last-year cubs, and welcomes them in.
Now he has four ravenous mouths to feed, so he teaches them to fish for salmon. There’s an encounter with a grown bear who wants to eat a cub, but he runs away when Charlie and his pepper spray stand up to him. This film is an antidote to the horror of last year’s feature where the stupid guy gets himself and his companion eaten. “The Edge of Eden: Living With Grizzlies” won the Grand Prize at this year’s Telluride Mountain Film Festival.
The short films showing on both weekends include a portrayal of the great intelligance of elephants; a funny animated short about driving flies away from The Emu Bar; an animated collage about Native storyteller Willie Whitefeather explaining how life gets out of balance; a short claymation showing the stages of evolution flowing into each other; the hilarious “Ride of the Mergansers,” in which one-day-old Mergansers have to take a literal leap of faith from high over a pond; an animated daydream in which a girl and boy fly to the rainforest to see why songbirds are struggling; “Rita,” in which the 7-year-old daughter of adventure-film makers longs for a companion her age, and finds one in a Sherpa girl who takes her to a 17,000-foot adventure.
The other feature is “Sharkwater,” which has also won over ten top awards in 2007. Like “Eden,” “Sharkwater” gives us a sane, conservationist’s experience with sharks, not the teeth-dripping cage attacks of so many “sharksploitation” films. “Both of these films,” says Rivers and Birds director Roberta Salazar, “star the Jane Goodalls of their species. There’s a deep truth to be learned from both of these features. It’s amazing that Ralph Stewart made ‘Sharkwater’ when he was only 22. It’s a call for saving sharks from the black-market trade in their fins, not fearing them.”
For the first time, this year’s festival is being co-produced by student volunteers Aili Seiler, Grady Jaramillo, Dylan Felt, Robbie Forbes, Carolina McGarity, and Maggie Manning. “This festival is youth-driven logistically,” says Roberta. “They all called, on their own, and we’re so grateful.”
Go to riversandbirds.org to see the schedule, film synopses, and a preview of “Sharkwater.”
Valdez is Coming…Back
Board Welcomes Roy Martinez
Vista Grande on the Move
September 13, 2007
By Bill Whaley
At Tuesday night’s Taos County Planning and Zoning Commission meeting about sixty Valdez partisans filled the chambers. While the commission considered and approved a Special Use permit for the Willow Clinic in El Prado and 155 temperature-controlled storage units on Highway 522, the attendees waited and waited. The proposed Rio Hondo Park-Multiple Family Development finally was heard after about an hour and forty-five minutes. Commissioner Rudy Pacheco moved almost immediately to table the application due to about seven deficiencies or incomplete items in the application. Attorney Julia Armstrong asked for the commission to consider the application and grant conditional approval based on developer agreement.
But Pacheco said the commission had been waiting years for other applications to meet their conditions for years. “Conditional approvals are not valid anymore,” said Pacheco. The P&Z Commission concurred with Pacheco and the application was tabled. The deficiencies included a number technical issues: waste permit, DOT exit permits, traffic engineering, documents from the state engineer regarding the use of surface and ground water, converting irrigation rights to domestic water rights, a liquid waste permit, and a fire prevention permit. With the exception of the liquid waste permit, Attorney Armstrong said the other permits were “easy to get hold of.” The liquid waste-permit for the 12 2000 square-foot plus condominium units, garages, meeting rooms, etc. is considered fairly complicated and may take some negotiations with NMED, according to Armstrong. The project will be re-noticed.
Retired haberdasher and long-time sheepman Nick Martinez caught the tenor of the crowd when he stood up and said, “We’re opposed to it.” The crowd was filled with familiar faces from the battle in the early 80s that successfully stopped the Cottam Condo project on the same parcel of land. If anything, newcomer-residents sprinkled throughout the audience suggest the Valdez coalition to stop the out-of-town project will succeed even more quickly this time round: more awarness, more money, more organization, more legal muscle.
CAVE -man Maury Calvert (dubbed a Citizen Against Virtually Everything by a former county commissioner) and a member of the Valdez-Seco neighborhood association almost immediately raised a legal issue, saying the project should be vetted as a “Major Development, not a condominium development” under the county’s current LUDC. Whether Calvert’s claims can be validated, the legal issue suggests a P&Z approval of the project would be appealed ad infinitum.
Reports of e-coli in the Rio Hondo near Upper Arroyo Hondo and near the confluence of the Hondo and Rio Grande suggest that increasing numbers of septic systems on the Hondo, whether in Valdez or lower down the Hondo, are loading the river with contaminants. Regardless of the ecoli issues, the community, which warms up for opposing projects like this by fighting with each other, appears united against the new development. Caveat Emptor.
VALDEZ IS COMING!
County and Town Meet
Privatizing Public Funds
September 09, 2007
By Bill Whaley
Valdez is Coming
During the 80s, one of the great community protests involved residents from Valdez and provocateurs from neighboring villages, which stopped the Cottam Condo project. Despite planning approval and commission compliance, the project was never built. Residents marched, Signs were painted-Nuestro Pueblo, No Se Vende. Shots were fired. Now, a new developer will confront residents from Valdez, Arroyo Seco, Arroyo Hondo et al on Tuesday night, Sept. 11, at 6 pm at the county P&Z meeting. The new developer wants to do a similar thing in the same place: 13 units, water and sewer, set in the vega on the Rio Hondo. We have no idea who will show up but you might see local legends like Maury Calvert and Ralph Garcia, ditch notables like Doug Wagman and Jackie Garcia, not to mention representatives of various neighborhoods and communities, including a few Hondo Dogs at the meeting as they exercise their right of free expression and protect the stream.
These are Seco stories of note:
Song for Arroyo Seco
Art, Culture, & Gentrification
Business District Revisited: 1966-2006
April 15, 2006
By Bill Whaley
The First Impression
In the late spring of 1965, some college mates and I were driving along State Route 150, heading toward the Sangre de Cristos and the promise of adventure at Taos Ski Valley. Upon entering Arroyo Seco, we slowed to a crawl between the adobe buildings, between the Mountain View Tavern— now Doug West’s Gallery and school board member Gary Embler’s architecture office—and Abe’s Arroyo Seco Tavern, today known as Abe’s Cantina y Cocina. The adobe houses, verdant-looking fields, and sparkling spring air created a mysterious drumbeat inside me. That memory returns today, as I drive back and forth through Seco on my way to hike in the mountains, or stop at the Taos Cow, leaving my truck in Abe’s lot next to the Rio Lucero and across from the vast buffalo pastures of Taos Pueblo.
While living in Valdez in the fall of 1966, I visited Arroyo Seco to buy Spanish bread at the Martinez store (I think), or an occasional beer from Abe’s, and stoically endured the taunts of the local vatos, who called out, “Gringo, que pasa carbon?” The vatos hung around the parked cars across from Abe’s, next to Rachel Brown’s and Kris Wilson’s Craft House (Arroyo Seco Mercantile, today). One night I tried to drink all the wine in the St. Bernard cellar with a red-haired Chicano who washed dishes there during the winter of 1967. Hence I got to know my first Seco native under the right circumstances, “in vino veritas,” as it were. Unfortunately, I missed the famous doings at the Gay Nineties (formerly the Mountain View Tavern)—the night of the famous shoot out, when the locals fired from the outside in and those inside fired back like a scene out of John Ford’s “Fort Apache.”
Juan Valdez (R.I.P.)
This song about Arroyo Seco and the downtown business district was not my idea. In August or September of 1971, Calvin Trillin from The New Yorker magazine visited Taos. He was traveling cross-country, writing a series of stories under the rubric of “U.S. Journal.” His piece, which was published on Sept. 18, 1971, was called “Arroyo Seco, New Mexico: A Short History of the Business District.” It ran to four or five pages. He interviewed Juan Valdez (R.I.P.), Abe Garcia, Rachel Brown (above-mentioned author and weaver), and Joe Maes of El Salto Lodge.
The Maes descendants recently sold the burned out El Salto across from the Seco school grounds, once a gas station and grocery store, just behind Francesca’s unique shop (where you can dress stylishly for $30 or less). El Salto looks like it will be renovated. Francesca’s is in the old Seco post office, where Abe Garcia served as postmaster for 29 years.
Back in 1971, Trillin’s wide-ranging discussion with the then 76-year-old Juan Valdez, a retired storekeeper, included the subject of vegetables, which were suffering that year, Juan said, due to drought. Valdez told the writer about Seco’s former history as home to more than 10,000 sheep and generations of sheepherders, who traveled up to Wyoming ranches.
Local historian Paul Martinez, of Paul’s Men Store in Taos, recently told me the herders came home at the end of the season to “seed the land and seed the women,” and to pay off the store owners who gave their families months of credit while they were away.
Valdez, whom Trillin called “an accomplished conversationalist in both English and Spanish,” “had closed his store due as much to extending too much credit as to . . . break-ins.” Valdez said he used to take his canned goods home at night so they wouldn’t be stolen. There had been four stores in Seco, but by 1971 there were just two, the (Lavinio) Martinez store and the Joe Maes store (later El Salto Lodge), and the long-enduring Arroyo Seco Tavern, as well. In 1971, Rachel Brown’s Craft House had been joined by two or three other craft and antique merchants and the Gay Nineties Bar.
Trillin was interested in Juan’s take on the hippies, who began arriving around 1968, and in rumors that local Anglo businessmen had called for “hippie baiting.” The boosters evidently thought hippies were bad for the tourist business. Prior to 1968, as Rachel Brown pointed out to Trillin, there was little trouble and much quiet acceptance of Anglo newcomers by the native Spanish. At one point Rachel intervened to save a hippie from a beating and called the police. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, the hippie beaters were neither winos, nor toughs, nor teens. One of the local guys involved was part owner of a store in Seco and the other worked as an assistant manager of a supermarket, according to what Rachel told Trillin.
Valdez told Trillin that the hippie-baiters were hypocrites. “One of them was in here talking against hippies. I told him, ‘You and your brothers have nothing to say about hippies. You brought them here. You sold them land—our best grazing land.’ So this man says, ‘The man who bought the land didn’t look like a hippie.’ ‘Well,’ I said, ‘tell me: did he look like a Spaniard?’”
Abe Garcia
Trillin’s 1971 conversation with Abe Garcia confirmed much of what Juan Valdez had said about the downtown business district. But Abe also told Trillin that relations between hippies and locals had calmed down. Occasionally hippies came in and bought a six-pack, but they didn’t stick around when the locals arrived, according to Abe.
Today, Abe says the former hippies, whose names he doesn’t usually remember, come back and visit. During our noontime conversation at his Cantina, while I drank soda water, 82-year-old Abe knocked back a couple of shots with the local primos, who were eating lunch and quenching their thirst with Bud or Sobe fruit drinks. “They expect me to drink with them,” Abe said, adding that he takes a hazelnut liqueur with his coffee in the morning.
He wears a cap and has a thin, more-salt-than-pepper moustache. I gave him a copy of The New Yorker article, but he said, “I had laser surgery and can’t see so good.”
“What about keeping track of the bar tabs?” I asked, noticing that he wrote down the figures for certain noontime customers.
Tapping his head, he said, “The computer still works pretty good.”
Though Abe mentioned a fire and said he had rebuilt the bar and moved it, not much in the way of inventory has changed since 1971. There were still miniatures for sale along with half pints, pints, and cigarettes. American Sprits had joined the Camels and Marlboros. Jagermeister, a new addition, was nestled among inexpensive bottles of tequila, gin, vodka, and the omnipresent Seagram’s 7, Wild Turkey, and Bacardi. A bottle of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale was squeezed in among cans of Bud and Coors. Despite the seeming jumble of stuff on the back bar, it looked like everything had its place, as Abe moved steadily back and forth, serving customers and responding to greetings of “Tio.”
Trillin wrote back in 1971 that “attentiveness on the part of the bartender amounts to taking the tab off the beer can before he puts it on the counter.” Abe has a little gizmo to grab the tabs and jimmy them open, probably to save his fingers from wear and tear.
Abe also said, “I’m the only Spanish businessman left” in Seco. A local landlord, Ray Martinez, still owns the buildings where Antiquarius Imports, the exotic rug and artifact shop, and Taos Cow are located. Abe opens up each day about 11 and sometimes stays open until 2 a.m. if the guys get a good pool game going. Most of the time he closes about 9 or 10. A friend of his daughter, Lena, helps out, but Abe says, “When I go to bed early, I toss and turn. Can’t sleep. I got nothing else to do. I might as well be here. I open when I get up.”
Abe also says business is better than it was in 1971. He used to go to Mazatlán to do some deep-sea fishing but says now he has trouble finding company. “I started playing golf and quit fishing,” says the octogenarian. “We play nine holes. Sit down, eat lunch. Then we play nine more.”
“What do you shoot?” I ask.
“Heck, I’m not any good. I just enjoy it.”
But somebody else said he hit a hole-in-one during a golf tournament.
“Into the New Millenium”
While doing a bit of research for this piece, my wife Deb and I spent some time in Seco, buying some gifts at the Arroyo Seco Mercantile, Francesca’s, and initiating some negotiations with Jack Leustig, who specializes in giclee prints. On the bench outside John Bradford’s pottery shop, the morning coffee drinkers—including Scott Carlson, who owns and operates his own pottery shop on the main drag, as well as longtime bon vivant and bartender Craig Stagg, who now works at TSV’s Edelweiss—suggested we dine at Abe’s Cocina. So Deb and I sat down to enjoy what the fans call “Northern New Mexico’s best breakfast burritos,” prepared by Abe’s daughters, Olympia and Lena. The café includes a store and sells the staples: Folger’s, TP, paper towels, cereal, and newspapers. Artist and jewelry maker Claire Haye had been bragging to us earlier about her nine years in Seco, and said the tamales at Abe’s and the ice cream at Taos Cow were village highlights.
We had what the Seco crowd calls a healthy lunch, from the round-the-world fusion menu at Gypsy 360, during one of our extended days in Seco. The cafe was recently purchased by Michael Schuetz, whose mother, Daphne, was married to Godie Schuetz of Casa Cordova fame, now the defunct Momentitos de la Vida. So Michael grew up just down the street.
Two more young men who grew up not far away, brothers Subra and Amu Duncan, own The Abominable Snowmansion (formerly the Burch Mercantile), an inexpensive hostel for travelers. Their father, Michael, hosted the hippie communes called Reality Construction Co. and Morning Star. The Snowmansion was well-known as an off-campus outpost and source of coeds from Goddard College during the seventies.
Some 16 artists, restaurateurs, barkeeps, and storekeepers now own and operate their enterprises in Arroyo Seco, which seems like a study in appropriate development, scale, and symmetry; a tonic to the eye and the memory. The B&Bs, the subdivisions, the developments, new construction, and renovations in the Seco area all seem like exemplary models of how best to preserve and conserve the light and the love of the vega and the mountains.
The realtors, in addition to the visitors, are coming to Seco. An acre up the road in the El Salto area can cost more than $100,000. The Taos area was named in the February 2006 issue of Mountain Living as one of the 10 best places to buy real estate. Arroyo Seco itself is featured in the current spring issue of a national B&B magazine. According to Paul Martinez, about 25 families are still holding on to their membership in the Martinez Land Grant, which owns about 900 acres of undeveloped land. Perhaps they are lighting candles to ask for help, in holding on to their land, at La Iglesia de la Santisima Trinidad, the local parish church in Seco.
Tio Abe told me, “I’ll be 83 in 14 days, April 20th.” Then there will be another community celebration, the famous Fourth of July parade. In late summer there’s a bicycle race. And the merchants are talking about celebrating the town’s 200th anniversary on Labor Day weekend. They have much to celebrate. Recently, local resident Palemon Martinez of the Taos Valley Acequia Association, helped settle an historic water rights conflict with Arroyo Seco neighbor, Taos Pueblo. If Abe and his golf partner (not to mention the merchants, whose vitality seems undiminished by drought) are any indication, the water flowing down from the El Salto waterfalls into the Rio Lucero must be damn healthy.
MEGA-WINNER: EMBLER
Gonzales Machine Flat
Merit v. Patronage
February 02, 2005
By Bill Whaley
Commentary and Perception
Unofficially, incumbent school-board member Gary Embler won 57% of the vote over challenger, Roberto Bobby Gonzales, who received 47% of the ballots in yesterday’s Feb. 1, 2005 election in district 3. Due to the magnitude of the win 365 to 272 Embler’s victory can be considered a strong message aimed at merit over patronage. Embler says his supporters, also known as Yes For Kids managed to get their voters out and mount a victory in what he calls, Parents over Politics. Anecdotal evidence suggests parents supported Embler and teachers supported Gonzales. The so-called Gonzales political machine, which spent thousands of dollars and secured endorsements from a variety of state and local politicos, evidently got a flat tire on the way to the polls. The voters don’t always listen to their leaders or the advertising blitz on radio and in the press. Merit has become more important for parents than political patronage.
In district 5, Patrick Romero of Taos Pueblo was unopposed and didn’t lose a precinct in his bid for the board. Romero says he will certainly represent the members of Taos Pueblo but acknowledges his debt and responsibility to the community as a whole. Romero has the reputation for being a progressive at Taos Pueblo.
Embler has said re-election will give him the opportunity to finish projects that he and the board have started: setting up school councils; instituting a coherent curriculum; renovating the physical plant.
Four years ago, Embler and his stealth partner, Beau Schoen, who is retiring this year, made a huge splash in local politics when they won seats on the board of the Taos Municipal Schools. Native Taosenos who are familiar with the history of the schools say a long tradition of appointing friends or family members to jobs at the schools–at the expense of those without influence–has backfired as the cross-over vote helped give Embler victory over Gonzales. Now, two of Taos’s historic minorities, Native American and Anglo, are represented on the board. Parents say they want their kids to get an education so they can compete in today’s fast-paced society.
Voters have mentioned that while many of them support Representative Gonzales’ work in the legislature, they don’t think he should sit on the school-board. The notions of vesting so much power in one individual troubles some voters and creates conflict of interest’ issues in the minds of others. During the school-board election, local observers and board members say Gonzales may have carried legislation on behalf of youth but has done little to directly support the local schools at the state legislature during the last few years. Gonzales has claimed that the school board didn’t apply for state funds available to them.
Politics as usual has changed in Taos. While grass-roots groups have organized and attained power in what might be considered niche elections, they have also achieved much in cross-community elections. During the last five years, progressive reformers have successfully changed the character of the democratic party, the county commission and the school-board. The community has gained as a result. With the election of Gene Sanchez and the resignation of Gus Cordova at The Town of Taos, we can expect more changes, which will culminate in the municipal elections of 2006. The potential for regress, however, always exists, as activists become exhausted and apathy ensues.
Later this spring, the local democratic party, which appears to be in a state of flux, will hold precinct elections and central committee meetings to elect a new chair. Street talk suggests that the past in the person of Frank R. Skitt Trujillo and the future, in the form of Billy Knight may both be vying for party chair. The Kit Carson Coop Board of Trustees will also hold an election and is under some pressure to change its long-time good-old boy culture. The issues, however, seem more the product of rumor than an aspect of reality as few challengers actually Coop doings. Francis Cordova of El Prado and Lorraine Coca-Ruiz have been mentioned as possible challengers to long-time incumbents Juan Valdez and Manuel Medina.
Despite his loss in the school-board race, Bobby Gonzales’s seat at the state legislature, like the county’s other three representatives and three senators, appears to be safe. Bobby was unopposed in the last election. Still, he can’t be happy having to face his colleagues today after such a resounding defeat.
