Chevron lends economic help to Questa; Peñasco pot farmers busted; governor rejects party’s platform, promises Taos alcohol treatment center
– 10 YEARS AGO – ‘Chevron mine pledges $2.6M donation to Questa village’
By Andy Dennison
Sept. 11, 2008
Questa Mayor Malaquias Rael Jr. couldn’t stop smiling.
That’s how reporter Andy Dennison opened his story on the village meeting where Chevron Mining Inc. and the village signed an agreement to form an economic development corporation funded by the company that owned Questa’s major employer, the molybdenum mine on its eastern boundary.
Chevron told village officials—and the room full of people and mariachi music— that it would pay them
$320,000 annually for the next eight years to create an economic development fund to help transition the town’s economy away from its mining dependence and toward a different, if yet unknown, sort of economy.
“We are mine based here,” Mayor Rael told the gathering of about 50 people. “Mining has ups and downs, and we are all too familiar with money leaving this community. Now we can move toward a stable economy in the village.”
But Chevron’s generosity didn’t stop with the $2.6 million. That night it also promised another $1 million if the fund was still in existence eight years later. Further, the 29 acres for the village’s business park, which Rael said that night would be getting infrastructure, such as water and sewer lines, was also donated by Chevron. The water system plus an 8,000-square-foot building was being funded by $625,000 from the state. And, Rael emphasized, the jobs that the village hoped to attract would have to be renewable energy development since the state grant was tied to that kind of technology development. What has happened since:
• In 2014 Chevron closed the mine completely, laying off several hundred remaining workers.
• In 2015, an economic development plan was completed by an outside consultant with another $500,000 contributed by Chevron. The village identified four potential economic drivers: recreation, business attraction and retention, agriculture, and arts and culture.
• In 2016 Chevron agreed to keep kicking in the annual
$320,000 into the economic development fund for another seven years.
• Also by 2016, with the help of various government agencies and some nonprofits, Questa restored fish habitats on the Red River, convinced Taos Mountain Energy Bars to relocate to Questa Business Park, piloted a plan to grow barley for craft beer production and planned a visitor center as tourists were lured to historical sites, such as the renovated San Antonio del Río Colorado Catholic Church.
In addition, the Questa Creative Council has promoted a half dozen new art and history events only in the last year, attracting even more visitors to the little town that can no longer depend on mining for its livelihood.
– 25 YEARS AGO – ‘Forest pot growers busted’ By Mike Stauffer
Sept. 16, 1993
Bob Dylan was right: The times are changin’.
In today’s paper, both Democrat and Republican candidates to be New Mexico’s next U.S. Senator are quoted as saying they want marijuana legalized nationwide. Already several states have legalized the recreational use of marijuana, and New Mexico has approved its use as a medicine.
But 25 years ago, the front-page story was about two Taos County residents, Sosteno Lopez of Peñasco and Fred Medina Jr. of Vadito, being arrested for growing 50 marijuana plants in the Carson National Forest near the Río Grande del Rancho about
2 miles south of Pot Creek. They had grown the plants in buckets to between 2
1/2- and 4 1/2-feet tall. Law enforcement officers estimated each plant would have produced about $2,000 in sales.
The growers were busted by two Carson National Forest officers, Anthony Trujillo and Tony Rodarte, plus “members of the New Mexico National Guard and the Counter Drug Support Group” after a stakeout that lasted two days.
The two were charged in federal court in Albuquerque because the plants were on federal land. They were charged with possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute.
Today local officials regularly talk about marijuana as a promising new cash crop to re-awaken agriculture in Northern New Mexico, assuming it is legalized. No need to call out the national guard. What a difference 25 years make.
– 50 YEARS AGO – ‘Cargo renews center pledge’ Staff report
Sept. 12, 1968
Taos had a friend in former Republican Gov. Dave Cargo.
First, he came up with funds when the town’s water system pumps failed – twice. But in today’s news Cargo went out on an even longer limb for Taos.
Rejecting, or at least ignoring, his own party’s platform that was written at the Republican State Convention here in Taos, Cargo reiterated his promise that the state would build one of two planned alcohol treatment centers in Taos.
The state is “going to establish an alcoholism treatment center in Taos, regardless of the platform,” Cargo told The Taos News Saturday (Sept.7) moments after party delegates to the Republican platform convention had rejected a plank supporting the Taos Center and one in Las Cruces.
The proposal for the two centers was made to the platform committee by George Roulette, a member of the State Commission on Alcoholism, who also bragged that the two centers already operating in Albuquerque and Roswell were having some of the best recovery results in the nation.
But, as the newspaper’s reporter put it, “the convention turned thumbs down after an Albuquerque delegate, a Mrs. Galloway, made an emotional protest on money and ‘prevent, not cure’ grounds. Debate was brief and rejection nearly unanimous.”
Here was Cargo’s response to the vote: “I’ll stand by my previous commitment... we’re going to establish one here...I’m going to ask for the necessary matching funds in the next legislature to go with the federal money and private donations that have been promised. I don’t believe the delegates had enough explanation...We need that center to serve the northern counties, and we’re going to get it.”
Regardless of how they voted on the treatment center, the Republicans were a boon to the Taos tourist industry. About 1,000 of them showed up to the event, which apparently took place in part in Otero Gym and in part at the Kachina Lodge.
Interestingly, although it was probably a sign of the times and widespread worries about drug-addled young hippies taking over the country, the Republicans did approve a plank that would have required “a lifetime non-parolable prison sentence for any person convicted for the second time of illegal sales of narcotics.” In other words, the state should lock away drug dealers forever, and thus pay for their room and board forever, but the state shouldn’t spend a penny on treatment for addiction to the most commonly used and most readily available drug of all: alcohol.