Michael Morris – In Focus

Mark your calendars for today folks. On a single vote on Item 17 Tuesday the Alamogordo City Commission will cast its lot in full equality with the latest Economic Development bakery, Marietta Biscuit Company. The agenda item is adding another $200,000 to the bakery handout. Marietta, apparently a bit less solvent that this Commission had led us to believe after their series of unwholesome secret meetings where this latest beggar got this plant, and your $2,000,000 for a song, well, and a dance too.

How many times do we have to be lied to before we wise up? If you are a real person then once will often do the trick, twice at the most. If you are a politician things are not this easy. When the scammers from Sunbaked rolled into suckertown their stories were the most poorly crafted, conflicting and illogical collection one could imagine. The problem is no one on the Alamogordo City Commission really cared enough to even give this almost sit-com quality con job a thought, save Don Cooper, who was tossed from office, in part, for questioning the wisdom of tossing $3 million into a third rate scam. If this is their best, then perhaps their best won’t do.

Here is the deal as I recall it. Sunbaked went belly up and foreclosure proceedings were begun. During this time there were several entities interested in the property and the business. The hitch was only one of these suitors was willing to deal with the Roberts family. The rest declined because, well, the Roberts have a quarter century of reputation in the industry including quite a bit of public record generation Ed Carr and Co. somehow missed during their “extensive background checks”. So, instead of what was good for the community the Commission did what was good for everyone who pulled some unethical or criminal act in the Sunbaked deal, including, most notably Alamogordo Federal who came under fraud allegations from the City a few days before the closed door meetings with Lou Misterly and Co. that eventually incorporated as Marietta Biscuit Company a few days before taking the first handout.

We were assured that this new company was much more substantial than its predecessor Sunbaked. We heard how this new venture was financially able to pick up the pieces of the Sunbaked scam and run with it. That seemed to be undisputable until recently we hear that the taxpayers will be forking over another $200k to fix the second oven. What was it they had the money to do? Hello, this is not oven 5. I suppose things like this are best swallowed in small bites. Why can we not get honesty from anyone around this deal? If these guys need this $200k just a few short months after we heard how fine their finances are we are left with only a few choices. I wonder if this subsidy was pre-arranged. The issue of $200,000 for anything else gets quite a bit of discussion, but this has been dealt with in a perfunctory manner. Why not? After all this is state money, you know, like manna.

Let’s say it is OK to consider money collected as state taxes as “free money”. We still have to understand why we have imported another band of neer-do-wells to suck our citizens dry in order to try their hand at running a baking company. The problem seems to come down to leadership too dumb and lazy not to get sucked into a scam. If the current leadership is the best the city has to offer what shall we do when, instead of bush league scammers like the Roberts, some really skilled ones ride into town? It is time to forget economic development until we stop lining up the village idiots and swearing them in. Until then the citizens will remain firmly fastened to the rutting stand with the board of fools binding our ankles for the deed.

Last week has was a hoot. The top story in the ADN Friday about the sieve-like financial controls in the city payroll was outrageous, but not the least surprising in a city where the back-alley deal is the rule. The library re-creation crowd is looking not to try their bond election next year on account of taxpayer unrest. Is it any wonder the taxpayers are unwilling to allow this band to control any more of their hard earned dollars? Heck no. This commission’s credibility is now on the line. If they are now tossing another $200k down the drain the new taxes are dead. Not many I can find are willing to vote for more of this mis-management.

Question – If this deal includes a $3.2 million loan from CommerceWest on the equipment as previously reported in the ADN and Commission Minutes then how is the City taking a note on the same equipment? Commissioner?

The winds of change are beginning to blow. Moncada and Carroll are not expected to run in the spring, Marion Ledford probably ended his political career by voting, nay, moving for a vote on the hospital bond when it is his firm that does the hospital’s taxes and so forth. Both Ledford and Ron Griggs will be vulnerable once the many hundreds of low wage workers sued and garnished by GCRMC over the last several years, most living in Griggs and Ledford’s districts, are aware of the impact of such exemptions on the indigent fund of the county as it is affected by the reduced taxes. You know, the Commission subsidized the people who took your kid’s Christmas. For those interested in another take on this you might want to understand why this hospital is still paying the former CEO $550,000 last year some time after his departure. This was interesting in contrast to the $160k paid to the last former CEO before she resigned. Also interesting is that the hospital had $23 million in investments including a significant portion in un-named common stocks.

It is high time to throw the people out who have run this town into the ground through their wanton avarice and greed. If banishment were lawful I would be advocating just that for some of the people responsible for the deplorable condition of a town with such potential. If you want to live better when you venture out of your house the only sane thing to do is a clean reboot on Election Day.