Plan for $155M TSV corridor tabled
Public commenters cite lack of notice, discussion on plan
A “public-private partnership proposal” to spend $155 million — including $110 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds — on a major transportation infrastructure project met with overwhelming public opposition during a special Taos County Commission meeting Tuesday morning (Feb. 8).
Many of the online meeting attendees who provided public input said it would be premature for the county to provide a letter of support for the project because many residents had only heard about it for the first time less than 24 hours before the meeting began.
“None of us has had time to review the plan,” said Valdez resident Sylvia Rodriguez, whose comments were echoed by many others during the public input section of the meeting, some of whom said they had only heard about the plan an hour or two before the meeting started.
“I just want to be clear here,” Rodriguez added, referring to a list of partners. “All the commissioners on the Rio Hondo have not met to discuss this plan [and] we were unaware of it until about 24 hours ago. This is a very typical approach by the ski valley. This is a tactic.”
Several others said that the partner list included in the proposal, which listed several entities as being “enthusiastic and unanimous” supporters of the project, was misleading.
Carlos Miera of the Des Montes Community Ditch Association indicated that Taos Ski Valley Chief Executive Officer David Norden had reached out to him and fellow ditch association commissioner Dean Archuleta in December about the project. Miera said Norden described the project, but added that the association board as a whole never managed to formally meet with Norden.
“As members of the Rio Hondo ditch we thought it would be good to have another meeting with all the commissioners in January,” Miera said. “Unfortunately, Dean and I got busy and didn’t reschedule that meeting.”
The proposal by Taos Ski Valley, Inc. asks for considerable public funding to build a clean energy public transportation system connecting Taos, the Taos Regional
Airport and the Taos Ski Valley, where a $10 million gondola would also be constructed. The proposal also calls for road improvements, trail and campground upgrades, “watershed management” and upgrades to water and wastewater infrastructure along the transportation corridor and in the ski valley.
Miera said the proposed wastewater improvements and watershed management would help fix longstanding problems in the watershed related to malfunctioning septic systems.
“In order to help clean up the Rio Hondo we felt it was important that that section be tied into the [Village of Taos Ski Valley] sewage treatment plant to eliminate all these septic systems,” Miera said. “So there were some merits to the program that we felt were important to address. Therefore I don’t think we need to throw out the whole project. It needs to be better fleshed out and discussed further.”
One person in their comment expressed a concern that Taos Pueblo may not have been consulted about the project and didn’t appear to have a Pueblo representative at the meeting. Taos Pueblo, however, is listed in the proposal as having “provided preliminary verbal approval of endorsement” for the project concept.
A message left seeking comment from the tribe was not returned by press time, but TSV Director of Marketing Tania McCormack confirmed the pueblo had been a part of discussions from the start.
A copy of the project proposal, including a cost schedule and timeline, had been available online in the packet for the special meeting on the Taos County website, but it was no longer available after the meeting adjourned. County Manager Brent Jaramillo provided the Taos News with a copy of the proposal Tuesday afternoon but did not respond to questions regarding the online document that was no longer available.
Commissioners were set to consider a formal letter of support for the project but tabled the agenda item after Norden withdrew his request for the letter of support and decided to cancel his scheduled presentation of the proposal. Norden has already secured letters of support from Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, N.M. Sen. Bobby Gonzales of Taos and District 42 state Rep. Kristina Ortez.
“When you’re going to make these huge government investments in the local economy, you’ve got to have a lot of thought, you’ve got to have open dialogue with all the players and parties in the political and economic spheres in order to determine how all the sectors of the population and the environment is going to fare as a result of this funding,” Hank Saxe said in his public comment. “This proposed plan, asked for a total input of about $155 million, which is a public works project that just dwarfs the magnitude of anything this county has ever seen or contemplated, and it does it all in one fell swoop.”
Some commenters said it would be inappropriate to spend public money on a project that would mostly benefit a private corporation, while others said more study was needed of the potential negative impacts of the project, which would facilitate further development of the local tourism economy, on county residents.
“For every $50,000 of lodger’s tax collections, we see median home values increase by about $13,000,” which would further exacerbate the housing crisis,” Pascual Maestas said. Maestas is a current member of the Taos Town Council and is running for Taos mayor in the March 1 municipal election.
Norden thanked the meeting participants for their comments, adding, “We see no need to present at this time.”
Commissioners invited Norden to reschedule his presentation for a future meeting.