Powers and Jaramillo ‘a tag team act’

It was with some interest that I read the letters to the editor in last week’s Independent. One came from Edgewood Town Councilor Audrey Jaramillo (“Against Edgewood taking over EPCOR water system, June 5-11) and the other from Jerry Powers (“Problems with Edgewood include latest audit,” June 5-11) of CORE. These two have become something of a tag team act in Edgewood politics. During our Town Council meetings Powers often takes the floor during public comment where he lays out the “issue” for that evening’s discussion. Once he's done setting the scene, he retires from the podium. After a suitable pause, Jaramillo speaks up from the Council side of the dais and favors the audience with a graceful off-the-cuff speech suggested by Powers' topic of the day.

In last week’s letters, their chosen topics were the Town of Edgewood’s investigation of a possible purchase of the local EPCOR water affiliate as well as the Town’s annual financial audit.

Jaramillo goes first on the EPCOR matter and begins with a statement which is, as she is fully aware, inconsistent with known facts. She alleges that I acted alone in my capacity as Mayor of Edgewood to undertake a possible purchase of EPCOR. When the matter was first discussed, all five members on the Governing Body including Sherry Abraham gave their consent to look into a possible purchase. Two things have changed since then. First, Abraham has turned 180 degrees from her previous position. Second, Jaramillo has recently joined the council. Since her arrival, she has treated the proposal as something she can exploit to further her political career instead of examining its merits.

Jaramillo’s letter continues with many other statements which reveal exactly how little she understands the reasons why the previous Council and I decided to explore the possibility of acquiring the water company. Is she representing all the citizens of Edgewood by taking a hard position on this important issue before we know the facts?

For his part, Jerry Powers uses the Town’s latest audit as his springboard to go off on a litany of issues he scrapes from CORE'S wretched social media sites. Like Jaramillo before him, he offers a fictional version about the reasons for a possible purchase of EPCOR. Next, he writes about millions wasted on an “unwanted” residential sewer line on my family’s property. This is another fiction that has been exposed everywhere except in CORE'S own social media echo chamber.

Next, Powers complains about the Town’s decision back in December of 2018 to opt into the new Local Election Act. A recent opinion from the New Mexico Secretary of State reaffirms what we already knew. The Town of Edgewood opted into the new system correctly and followed the letter of the law in doing so. Jaramillo in fact voted in favor of the change. Sherry Abraham got up and walked out of the meeting before the vote.

He tries to argue both sides of the question about our recent audit. First, he (incorrectly) alleges that our financial situation is in dire straits. Then, he complains that the Town won’t maintain Santa Fe County’s equestrian center. He says we're broke on one hand but on the other he says Edgewood needs to give money to an equestrian center wholly owned and operated by Santa Fe County? Does he really think we are that stupid?

Jaramillo and Powers, Powers and Jaramillo, doing everything they can to disparage and discredit the Town, my administration, the Town’s staff of hardworking employees and anything or anybody else who get in their way. Like stage magicians, they wave a series of shiny objects to divert attention first here, then over there. They invite us to look anywhere but at the facts.

I believe their twin letters in last week’s paper were a frightened, reflexive response to the fact that the Secretary of State’s office finally spoke up and revealed the lie of a quick election for new Commissioners this November if the Special Election set for August changes of our form of government. Always remember folks, the people who signed their petition were misled by CORE into doing so!

For anybody thinking about voting for a change in our Town’s style of government come August, I suggest you take a very hard look at both the words and actions of these two and their cohorts. Ask yourselves, if they couldn’t bother to find out how the election law works before getting signatures on their petition, what else have they gotten wrong? Take it from me, someone who has lived in Edgewood my whole life and attended most Town Council meetings since 1999, this is not the type of change we want or need.

John Bassett Mayor, Town of Edgewood