Town paperwork snafu blocks couple’s home sale, Archbishop Sheehan installed, Kit Carson House to expand
– 10 YEARS AGO – ‘Lawsuit: Affordable housing poorly run’ By Patricia Chambers Sept. 18, 2008
The town of Taos blocked Debra Divell and Simon T. Hinkler from moving to England.
At least that’s what the lawsuit documents filed with the 8th Judicial Court District Court charged. The couple filed the suit against the town when they discovered that the town’s recordkeeping, or lack thereof, would keep them from getting a clear title on the house they wanted to sell here before they moved. Divell and Hinkler were moving in part to get better care for their autistic child.
Here’s what happened, according to the story by Patricia Chambers:
Divell and Hinkler owned a home in the Chamisa Verde subdivision. They found a buyer and Hinkler quit his job. As the closing date approached, the town administration could not provide documentation of their sale of the town-owned lot to Land and Homes Realty of Taos, which in turn sold the building lot to Divell and Hinkler. Thus, the couple could not clear the property’s title for the sale.
The story states, “The lawsuit is the latest turn in a series of events challenging the management of the town’s affordable housing project as far back as 1999. Chamisa Verde subdivision is behind the Taos Youth and Family Center on Paseo del Cañon East.”
State housing officials said, at the request of state Attorney General Gary King, that they had requested documentation on the Chamisa Verde transactions from the town for more than a year to no avail. The Mortgage Finance Authority, by law, was required to review all land transactions in municipal low-income or affordable housing projects.
The lawsuit asked the court to issue a temporary injunction ordering the town to pay Hinkler’s lost wages ($500 a week) until “the obstructions created by the town are removed.” And, the suit asks that the couple be allowed to rent the house out and that the town could not “freeze the mortgage.”
Town Manager Daniel Miera, who was not in the position when the documentation problem was created, said that legally the town could not give the couple any relief in terms of paying them for the house’s new value or allowing them to rent the property. He said he had asked the attorney general’s office to meet with him to work out “lot by lot solutions for consideration in these areas of the subdivision.”
– 25 YEARS AGO –
‘History repeats itself at installation vespers’ By Larry Torres
Sept. 23, 1993
Historian and Taos News columnist Larry Torres took the long view when he reported on the pre-installation vespers of Michael J. Sheehan as Archbishop of Santa Fe. Sheehan held the position until 2015 when he was succeeded by Archbishop John C. Wester.
Torres’ long view included a comparison of Sheehan’s entrance to St. Francis Cathedral in Santa Fe, which included the bishop’s traditional knock at the cathedral door and a welcome from three local priests, to the story of the first Archbishop of New Mexico, Jean Baptiste Lamy. Lamy had been sent by the Roman Catholic Church in 1851 to stamp out the locally grown church leaders, such as Padre Antonio Jose Martinez of Taos, who were viewed suspiciously by the church establishment back East.
Lamy, who was French, is reported to have said when he saw what was then an adobe cathedral built in local architectural style, “What is this? A mud pie palace?” As Torres recounted, the church he was looking at was the fifth Catholic church that had stood on that site since 1610. The devotion of the faithful for the previous 240 years seemed to be lost on Lamy.
Sheehan became the 11th archbishop of Santa Fe after the rather sudden resignation of Archbishop Robert F. Sanchez earlier that year. The previous years had been characterized by stories of child sexual abuse by priests, many of whom had been sent for treatment in a center in the Jemez Mountains and then returned to work in New Mexico parishes.
Sanchez himself was accused of having sexual relationships with three women in the 1970s, and some questioned whether he had done enough to remove the priests accused of molesting children. Sanchez died in 2012.
Sheehan’s installation, which Torres covered, included the choir singing the traditional “Ecce Sacerdos magnus (Behold
a great priest)” and many notable figures in attendance, including Gov. Bruce King, Santa Fe Mayor Sam Pick, plus many priests included in the procession who had served in Taos County. The letter from Pope John Paul II that installed Sheehan was read and circulated. Sheehan’s homily included some Spanish.
Torres’ story reflected the hope of many New Mexico Catholics that the church had turned a page. “If anyone had doubts that a new era was about to dawn for the Catholic Church in New Mexico, they were quickly dispelled,” he wrote.
– 50 YEARS AGO – ‘Kit Carson House Expansion Planned’ Staff report
Sept. 19, 1968
Jack Boyer, director of the Kit Carson Memorial Foundation, told the Taos Chamber of Commerce that his 20-year hope to expand the historical site on Kit Carson Road was finally going to happen.
He said that the organization, founded in 1949 “without a cent” now had assets of $150,000 and the site Carson house was attracting 50,000 people annually. He compared it to the Albuquerque museum’s total visitors that year of 22,000.
The answer, he said, was to build a large museum “as close to the Kit Carson house as possible,” to house the foundation’s large collection of historical and archaeological objects and to provide research facilities. He also envisioned a “genealogy center.”He said that more than 700 “Carsons” had registered at the museum thus far.
The foundation had acquired the Blumenschein House on Ledoux Street and the Ferdinand Maxwell House on Bent Street.
At the time, the foundation was run only on money from admissions and the gift shop and rentals of the Blumenschein and Maxwell Houses. In 1968, it cost 35 cents to enter, but they were raising it to 40 cents in the coming year. Boyer said the foundation was seeking grants, both public and private, and bequests, endowments and trust funds, and had already received some such donations from Rebecca James and Helen Greene Blumenschein. He had also recently sent out membership invitations.
Boyer said, “We are now at the point where we must pay salaries sufficient to hire and keep good staff members. We plan to employ a curator...early next year.”