North To Taxland
by Chuck Ring
Readers will recall a short notice posted on the 5th of September with an announcement of a meeting on September 10th. If you don’t recall here is the notice Taxation & Transportation, ETCÂ
The notice provides an attachment which was supposed to give the meeting time (6:30 PM) and the meeting location (the Edgewood Community Center). Myself and three others appeared for the meeting at 6:30 PM, but there was no one present to open the facility. At approximately 6:45 PM, Mr. Ivan Guillen, the Assistant Regional Coordinator for the North Central Regional Transit District (the district), arrived to apologize, stating that the meeting was supposed to have been announced for 7:30 PM rather than 6:30 PM. Mr. Guillen was very gracious and offered to provide information for those of us present so we would not have to wait until 7:30 PM for the new meeting time.
Mr. Guillen took questions from those present regarding the existing system operated by the district from Eldorado south and in response to a question regarding the daily ridership from Edgewood north since January 2008 and through August 2008 stated that the average ridership to and from the communites served was as follows:
- Edgewood – 5
- Moriarty – 3
- Stanley – 3
- Eldorado – 25
I asked Mr. Guillen if the 1/8 cent gross receipts tax (previously the subject of at least one other article by this writer)
The reader of this article and the previous article hyperlinked should recognize several things when considering the impact of the district operations and the Railrunner:
- few folks from Stanley south are/will directly benefit from the district’s operations
- few people, if any, from Stanley south will directly benefit from the Railrunner operation
- Governor Richardson’s GRIP which is the daddy of the Railrunner has been a gaint milking machine that certainly has a “GRIP” on most of New Mexico’s population
- this 1/8 cent tax is yet another example of Santa Fe County’s propensity to tax without any consideration for allowing citizens from this town to serve on the board governing the beneficiary, i.e., the district or to provide any real direct benefit
- the water/wastewater tax and the dispatch/emt tax are two more examples of the above
- without opposition from the citizens of Santa Fe City, this tax will pass because the rest of the county does not have votes enough to defeat the referendum
- “Death and Taxes?” There will be more of each.
2 Responses “North To Taxland”
Being one who was also there at 6:30 on the night of the meeting, I can only agree with the information that Mr. Ring presents in his article. Why do I have the feeling that Santa Fe “City” is the sole community in Santa Fe County that will receive any tangible benefits from this Tax “boondoggle.” I would also point out that Mr. Ring , in his normal humble and polite manner,adoitly avoids mentioning that the man from Sant Fe told us that committees that control this projected “venture ” have no representation from South Santa Fe County. If my memory serves me right, our forebears started a revolution over “taxation without representation”! While others may support this attempt to fund Richardson’s toy train, I , as a South Santa Fe County resident, say “”Slip the Grip” and vote no on this measure!
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