COUNTY WHIMSY:

100,000 SQUARE FEET

August 16, 2007

Dream a little with Horse Fly’s whimsical illustrator Nora Anthony (left) and draw your own version of Taos County’s proposed Justice, Administration, and Jail complex. Call it the Taos County Government Center (TCGC) and sell the name—like a sports stadium—to Hugo Chavez’s CITGO gas and oil company to pay for the construction costs. Or you can vote for the county’s capital outlay GRT (gross receipts tax) of 1/4th (.25%) and 1/8th (.125%) and raise about $1.6 million annually to pay on the loan for the proposed $35 million (more or less)100,000 sq. foot structure. Early and absentee voting begins August 28. The final day for a decision is September 25. On this project, the Commissioners are a year ahead of schedule or a year behind, depending on your point of view.

If all goes well and you vote to tax yourself, the county’s gross receipts taxes will rise from 6.4% to 6.88%. The Town of Taos, Questa, Red River, and Taos Ski Valley will all reach a stratospheric 7.9 %. Remember this: Groceries and medical services aren’t taxed. Don’t forget El Prado Water and Sanitation (voting ends Aug. 30) and El Valle de los Ranchos (voting ends Sept. 27), who are each asking voters for a 1/4th to help with their infrastructure needs. (Residents in El Prado and El Valle will have slightly higher rates than the 6.88% of residents in unincorporated areas.) Throughout Taos County, buildings, roads, water and sewer systems are aging and breaking and being overwhelmed by growth.

Last year, when few were watching, the commissioners passed a 1/8th GRT Corrections Facility to fund jail operations, which will generate about $600,000 annually. This spring, when everybody was watching, a slightly different group of commissioners enacted a 1/16th county GRT, good for about $300,000 annually. Apparently, the commissioners will use the revenue from the 1/16th to purchase an additional 4 acres for the complex, creating an 11-acre site.

So, in terms of baby steps, the commission has found a way to fund jail operations and buy the additional land they deem necessary for the project. The Commissioners also promised to use $65 grand or so from the passage of the 1/16th to help repair roads. But the tax doesn’t kick in until January 1, 2008. Similarly, the proposed Sept. 25 GRT of 1/4th and 1/8th—i.e., the giant steps—will kick in on Jan. 1, if voters support these taxes, which should generate about $1.6 millon a year to fund a loan of about $35 million for the complex.

As for the giant footprint, the architects have proposed three buildings: a 30,000 square foot single-story jail, a 30,000 square foot two-story courthouse, and a 40,000 square foot admin building—all on Albright St. Commissioner Dan Barrone and his hired gun, Sunny Sam Pacheco, have advised the architects to get that one-story proposed jail behind thee, and build it close to its current home. During recent presentations, lead architects Don Dwore and Beverly Spears of Spillis Candela DMJMA and DMJM Design (aka DIM JIM), which company has designed more than 80 courthouses and 120 detention centers, presented a variety of configurations and footprints. They have proposed building around the current structures so that not a day of county business will be lost during either the construction or demolition phases. The permutations and public presentations will continue into the months ahead.

Currently, there’s no space at Judge Sam’s District Court Inn for inmates, attorneys and clients to talk, or juries and witnesses to huddle. Sheriff Miguel Romero’s deputies spend more time singing “On The Road Again� while chauffeuring Taos homies around the state than they do making traffic stops or busting burglars. And the commissioners need an exit door (not to mention an executive bathroom for aging kidneys) to escape the rabble when protestors show up to oppose yet another project by the evil developers. We need more space to house the elected ones: the County’s Treasurer, Evangeline Romero, Clerk Elaine Montaño, and the incredible shrinking woman—due to radon—Assessor Darlene Vigil. An increasing number of employees and file cabinets in the current building are falling into hallways and odd closets designed for mops and brooms.

At the current building, steps, stairways, mezzanines, stairways, bathrooms, and basements eliminate all but the most athletic and youthful from attending to their business at the county. You could be perfectly sober and get arrested for suspicion of walking while impaired if you don’t pay attention to the stops, starts, and crumbling walls that trick the unwary visitor. It’s an ADA nightmare.

Now Dim Jim Don Dwore has the experience to build the practical parts while architect Beverly Spears possesses the style to give the complex a creative or inspirational lift. Whether it’s Spanish Pueblo Revival, Modified Territorial, or Mission Moderne, Spears can turn traditional forms into contemporary artifacts. She wrote a book on northern New Mexico residential architecture and won an award for designing the new public building in downtown Santa Fe. Dwore and Spears have proposed constructing a park along Highway 68 with courtyards connecting the buildings and discreetly landscaping the single story jail so that it fades into the background behind walls and trees. Nobody will notice as you visit your relatives or if you’re wearing handcuffs when you check into the local lock-up.

Commissioner Dan Barrone has said he will meet with his constituents on Albright St. and try to assuage their anger at the alleged secret process of site selection. Commissioner Gonzales has begun wielding a shovel, clearing mud from the highway to Red River, in preparation for groundbreaking in 2008. Joe Mike is more concerned with other things such as gravel and county equipment that keep disappearing at night from the Peñasco road yard. Nick Jaramillo, as always, is nitpicking the project and playing the public ombudsman—if not the obstructionist. And Gabe Romero, we think, is merely thinking good thoughts or lighting candles for the complex.

Horse Fly understands the cynicism of the voters. Nobody is more aware of the historic bumbling by the county commissioners or the rumble on the street that says, “They can’t operate what they’ve got now.� But the commissioners, like the poor, will always be with us. We simply need a new Taos County Government Complex in which to do the public’s business. Socially speaking, the right kind of architecture can lift the spirit and create good will. Architect Frank Gehry designed an art museum in the Basque Country and transformed the industrial city of Bilbao into a world-wide attraction. Those were some smart Bascos, who recognized that their community needed a boost. If we don’t do it for ourselves, nobody else will.