Our 2023 wish list for Taos County

The approach of the New Year is a time to think about where we’ve been, and one of a community newspaper’s many roles is to serve as a record of just that. As in any year, our reporters wrote hundreds of stories, your stories, and our photographers captured thousands of moments that will live on digitally and in print. But while we take a look through where we’ve been, it also got us thinking about where we’re going next in 2023. Here, in this final editorial of the year, we thought we’d give our thoughts, a wish list, if you will, on some of the things we’d like to see when we get there.

Here it is (in no particular order).

Complete the NM 68–US 64 construction project

Please, universe, Taos Mountain, Hephaestus, Greek god of construction — smile on us; make this one come true. The NM 68–US 64 construction project began in March 2020 and is slated for completion sometime in 2023, but with workers still stuck in Phase 2 of 4, numerous delays already on record and a section of roadway from the county courthouse complex to Smith’s that still looks like a warzone, we’re getting nervous. Over nearly three years, this project has caused delays for everyone in Taos — from locals commuting to work to emergency services vehicles trying to help people. And as nice as we’re sure it will look once completed, it’s been an eyesore to tourists who come to visit and who may, or may not, choose to return to spend their vacation dollars here. Worst of all, it has hurt local businesses that operate on either side of its path. It’s more than a little hackneyed to complain about road construction, but we think it’s justified in this case. This project needs to pick up the pace and reach the finish line next year.

Open a detox center

Taos has been without detox services since a facility run by the now-defunct Tri-County Community Services on Weimer Road shut down in 2015. If you’ve been through it yourself or you’ve asked an addiction expert, you know that detox services aren’t a luxury — they are a medical necessity for anyone in the potentially-dangerous throes of detoxing from true alcohol dependency, which can be deadly. It was disappointing to see that our town and county could not reach an agreement on a building in time to allow Rio Grande Alcoholism Treatment Program to execute on its plans to open a detox center. We know there are complexities at play here — a building needs to fit the bill, especially when starting a medical detox center, but it seems like our priorities are not in order when a project like this can’t get off the ground in three years’ time while we know there are people among us who need this essential service.

Take care of our environment

As our state’s decades-long drought drags on and we look back on a year that saw the worst wildfire in state history caused by two U.S. Forest Service prescribed burns, we must focus on protecting our waters and managing our forests more effectively. While it was a series of federal oversights that led to the devastating Calf Canyon–Hermits Peak Fire, efforts at mitigating fire risk and improving forest health begin at the local level, as they have for centuries in Taos County. Learning about forest management starts with education, as this is a complex, science-heavy topic with a great deal of history behind it, as well as differing schools of thought regarding best practices. There has been some renewed discussion lately about community-based forest thinning projects, and a little research can reveal if one needs volunteer support in your area. On the water side of things, volunteering with local acequia associations and supporting them through charitable donations can be effective ways to contribute. Donations can be made to New Mexico Acequia Association at lasacequias.org/product/donate. Lastly, let’s hope we get more snowfall this year to ensure we have water in those acequias and our rivers this spring and summer.

Develop more affordable housing and consider rent control

As if Taos County weren’t already a difficult place to afford to rent a home (much less buy one), we’ve heard numerous stories of locals being priced out of their rentals by landlords who pushed prices even higher as the housing market became red hot during the pandemic. Unlike some other states, New Mexico has no regulations on how much a landlord can raise the cost of rent in a new rental period, which we think needs to change; while there are plenty of scrupulous landlords who truly do provide a fair market price, the lack of guardrails in New Mexico only leaves tenants vulnerable to landlord exploitation, and one need only peruse rental listings in Taos County to see that this happens here, too. One ongoing problem with the market here is that demand still far outstrips supply, leading to higher prices for the housing that is available. We hope Taos County and the Town of Taos will continue to look for ways to provide quality affordable housing in 2023 and enforce regulations on short-term rentals to ensure that the people who live here and make Taos what it is year-round have roofs over their heads.

Give our youth a great year

The last two years have been rough on our local youth, to say the least. The pandemic forced kids into a world of remote learning brought on by a new and still-poorly-understood virus that causes a disease whose long-term impacts are yet to be seen. Not only is there emerging data that suggests all of the time kids spent inside caused negative psycho-social effects, we also saw in recent months that all that time away from classrooms and each other caused a new wave of cold and flu strains strengthened by the disruption in the natural exposure kids would have had to these diseases outside the home. Even after the pandemic waned, Taos Municipal Schools immediately entered into one of its most difficult periods in recent memory, with a string of tragedies sending ripples throughout its 2,000-person student body. In light of all this, we hope 2023 is filled with new opportunities for our youth — district expenditures that have tangible benefits for kids to help them not only learn more effectively in the schools, but to actually enjoy doing it. We hope the town and county seek new ways to provide new infrastructure that benefits our youth, such as fixing our crumbling skatepark at the youth and family center. Here at the Taos News, we welcome any inquiries from our local schools about internships or scheduling time for kids to come by to learn more about how a newspaper works.

Thanks to our staff, our readers, community partners and everyone who contributed to the success of the Taos News this year. We wish you all a great holiday season and a prosperous New Year.