What should our local taxes pay for?

Decent roads without potholes for sure. Good schools, well-kept parks and great libraries, yes. And of course, decent pay for the hard-working people in local government who keep our services operating smoothly, especially in the midst of a sudden pandemic.

What about public restrooms? Should that also be the responsibility of a town where both visitors and locals might need to relieve themselves and find themselves looking desperately for somewhere to go? Should it be considered an ‘essential service’?

Taos has public restrooms just off Taos Plaza. The pandemic caused town officials to, rightfully at first, close the restrooms when they closed all other public facilities to prevent the spread of COVID-19. They tried to reopen them, said they were vandalized and closed them again.

The state has now instituted a red to green framework for reopening. Taos is in the red, but that means businesses can be partially open as can restaurants. With any luck the county will soon move to yellow, allowing an expanded reopening. And everyone is encouraged to get outside for exercise and mental health, while masked up, which many do around Taos.

All this makes the need for restrooms urgent as reporter Will Hooper details in a story this week.

Downtown merchants want, desperately, for the town to reopen the public restrooms.

Town of Taos manager Rick Bellis has said no for the time being, citing failed attempts to provide the restrooms in the past. In addition, he thinks reopening the restrooms will make it appear the city is encouraging people to congregate and spread the virus. Since neither the mayor nor the city council ever weigh-in publicly on these issues with the newspaper, or almost any others for that matter, it appears Bellis has the final say in the matter.

Nothing about this argument has changed much since the last time the newspaper wrote about it a year ago – except now there’s a pandemic to consider.

And while Bellis has often been right about how he has handled the pandemic, he needs to rethink this issue. Soon.

Access to a restroom is a matter of gender, age and income. It has little to do with whether one is a visitor or a resident.

If you can’t buy a cup of coffee or make a purchase, private businesses may rightfully refuse to let you use a toilet.

If you are a local elderly person or one of 40 percent of women who suffer a number of bladder problems, you might relieve yourself at home before going downtown to take a walk for your health, only to find you need the restroom again in 20 minutes. Any parent with little kids knows when a child needs to go, they need to go – immediately.

If you are a delivery person or utility worker or any number of other people who must drive to different locations and you are working on the clock, you indeed might need to relieve yourself between stops.

If you are a man, it is easier to relieve yourself wherever – like the alleyways and bushes in downtown Taos, which is happening frequently, according to merchants. Not so for women.

“The pandemic has brought the restroom issue into focus for many people — landscapers, utility workers, runners, walkers and cyclists,” according to a national report by the PEW Research Center. “But for some, restroom equity will remain an issue even when COVID-19 is no longer a threat.”

So what to do about reopening the public restrooms?

Bellis said in a long email to a concerned business owner that the town’s staff is fully occupied with mitigating the pandemic. He also pointed out the town had tried hiring a private contractor to bring in and manage port-a-potties; the experiment didn’t end well, with the bathrooms graffitied and left filthy.

In the same email, Bellis notes: the primary mission as a municipal government under the state constitution is literally

“... to promote and preserve the public health, safety and welfare of the residents of the local jurisdiction”.

One could argue providing sufficient public loos for locals as well as visitors precisely addresses issues of public health and welfare.

First, the public restroom safety issue. The PEW study and a report from Harvard over the summer notes that while there is risk, it is no more likely to spread the virus than people in restaurants or a grocery store, especially if everyone wears masks and washes their hands. In some ways it is less risky if there are bathroom stalls and given the short amount of time people will be around each other.

The restrooms could be opened during regular work hours, 9 a.m. - 5 p.m. weekdays and 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. weekends to reduce vandalism.

Who should staff and clean the bathrooms?

Bellis says the town’s staff are all fully occupied with other issues to address the pandemic. Only he and the staff and the town council know if this is true.

He said he’s repeatedly offered to give the bathroom keys and control of them to John Dunn Shops, the Chamber and the downtown merchants. The chamber, MainStreet and the merchants should get together, accept the offer and figure out among themselves how to open the restrooms.

The merchants who say the bathrooms are needed could sign up to take turns cleaning the restrooms once a day at midday, including the weekends. Local service clubs such as Rotary could also do a big service by stepping up to help clean the restrooms.

Then perhaps the Chamber of Commerce could pay a cleaning service to come in three times a week to do a deep cleaning until the pandemic is over. Could the town use some of the federal CARES act funds toward the maintenance of the building as well? It should.

Public restrooms are a (much appreciated) public service and a public health need. Providing the service is something the town, the Chamber and the merchants will have to collaborate on or it will never happen.

Unless the town of Taos is going to issue a mandatory stay-at-home order and shut everything down, people are going to be downtown. No, they aren’t all just a bunch of out-of-state tourists.

And they will need somewhere to go.