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Last modified: October 1, 2008

Headline News From Dec. 14, 2001 Issue

City’s cash reserves dwindle by $3.5 million in 5-year period 

  The City of Truth or Consequences ended fiscal year 1995/96 with $5,614,385 in its various cash accounts and is expected to end the current fiscal year next June 30 with only $2,175,549, according to a five-year trend analysis by the New Mexico Department of Finance and Administration.

City of T or C official says $3/4M never lost, just cashed in from CD 

  “There was a concept out in the community that we had no cash, that we’d spent all our money and that there wasn’t any money in any of the bank accounts - there is,” Truth or Consequences City Manager Richard Ramsey said.

Recall of city officials should move forward 

  Ron Sullivan, Freddy Torres and Joe Fandy would like to know where their fair share of forgiveness is behind the two-faced mask of Myrna Baird-Kohs, publisher of the Sierra County Sentinel and owner of KCHS radio station who led the recall petitions against them a few years ago.

Click on photo to see story

   John Wasilowski pleaded guilty to the murder of Jeff Connor in district court on Monday, Dec. 10, but Judge Thomas Fitch would not accept the plea.

  Truth or Consequences city commissioners in a letter they approved this week scolded the hot-rodding, young whippersnappers of United Parcel Service and Federal Express.

City worker recognized by heavy equipment rag

  Moises Garcia, an employee of the City of Truth or Consequences Sanitation Division, was recognized as the Equipment Operator of the Month in the September issue of Heavy Equipment News magazine.

Shrinking, shrinking, shrinking, shrinking

City of Truth or Consequences cash reserves have dwindled by more than $3.5 million, or by 60 percent, in five years, going from $5.7 million in 1997 to a projected low of $2.2 million by the end of this fiscal year.

City’s cash reserves dwindle

by $3.5 million in 5-year period

By Fred Mramor of the Desert Journal

The City of Truth or Consequences ended fiscal year 1995/96 with $5,614,385 in its various cash accounts and is expected to end the current fiscal year next June 30 with only $2,175,549, according to a five-year trend analysis by the New Mexico Department of Finance and Administration.

The DFA analysis reveals that the city ended FY 96/97 with $5,719,676 (up slightly from 95/96), ended FY 97/98 with $5,674,014, FY 98/99 with $4,462,063, FY 99/2000 with $3,399,616, and FY 00/01 (June 30, 2001) with $2,442,288.

If projections for the current year prove correct, the city by June 30, 2002 will have depleted $3,544,127, or 62 percent, of the cash it had June 30, 1997.

City accountant George Marshall this week said the raw figures don’t tell the whole story of how the city came to be $3.5 million cash poorer in five years.

Marshall said the depletion can be attributed in part to capital expenditures including the city’s new fire station, shop/recycling center, vocational technical school, skate park and new vehicles and to city employees’ pay raises and new jobs created during the last couple of years.

To prevent further depletion of its funds, the city has adopted numerous cost-cutting measures including the elimination of some jobs and delaying planned purchases. The city also has been raising its utility rates to increase revenues.

New City Manager Richard Ramsey in a recent interview said he has not decided what additional measures he will take, other than being very frugal with the city’s money, until conferring with Carol Arnold, T or C’s new financial manager.

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City of T or C official says $3/4M

never lost, just cashed in from CD

By Fred Mramor of the Desert Journal

“There was a concept out in the community that we had no cash, that we’d spent all our money and that there wasn’t any money in any of the bank accounts - there is,” Truth or Consequences City Manager Richard Ramsey said to city commissioners Monday evening following reports that Christmas came early for the city when city financial staff “found” $1 million in “lost” funds.

“This got a little out of hand and we thought we’d try to clear it up,” Ramsey said to the commissioners.

Ramsey said the money, actually about $750,000, was never lost, was always there, and had been accounted for in the city’s budget.

Ramsey explained that $750,000 in various city funds (such as the general and joint utility funds) had been invested in one certificate of deposit.

The CD was cashed in recently so that $100,000 could be paid to a contractor for work on T or C’s new fire station. A Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) will reimburse the city’s $100,000, Ramsey said.

Ramsey said the remaining funds from the CD are “in transit” until they are reinvested. “The one big CD was cashed in and now we need to reinvest it and that’s all it amounts to,” Ramsey said.

Ramsey said the city’s auditor didn’t catch this because the funds were still in the CD when he performed the audit.

Ramsey said also the different funds will be invested into separate accounts to prevent this from happening again.

Commissioner Lois Reaver-Black, who had requested the explanation for the “found” money, said it was nice to have the explanation because it will help her answer some of the phone calls she and the other commissioners have been getting.

<<<   >>>

Recall of city officials should move forward

Editorial by Bill Johnson of the Desert Journal

Ron Sullivan, Freddy Torres and Joe Fandy would like to know where their fair share of forgiveness is behind the two-faced mask of Myrna Baird-Kohs, publisher of the Sierra County Sentinel and owner of KCHS radio station who led the recall petitions against them a few years ago. This was a time when the City of Truth or Consequences, which they led as city commissioners, was financially healthy with nearly $5.7 million in the bank.

This was also a time when Mrs. Baird-Kohs and her band, “Betrayers of the Public Trust,” removed Sullivan and Torres (Fandy resigned because of the pressure and alleged phone threats made to his wife) in a special recall election led by Kohs as chief organizer, instigator and propaganda mouthpiece. Her main beef was that the trio deposed the mayor and then appointed Torres as mayor.

There was no offense committed. They did nothing ethically wrong. It’s up to the commissioners to find a mayor they can work with but Kohs used extortion (even threats at public meetings) to try to get these three commissioners to reinstate Lois Reaver-Black as mayor or else face the recall process.

Simple as that… Kohs created upheaval and she got it. Her coup won. Now the city is in a mess.

And now Kohs says she’s against the current recall effort waged against Mayor Everett Banister and Commissioners Nadyne Gardner and Jim Rainey despite all of their shenanigans. They will be leaving the city with $3.5 million less than did Torres, Sullivan and Fandy at the end of this fiscal year when it’s projected that there will be a mere $2.175 million left in the city’s coffers.

Because of poor past management, interference in the affairs of day-to-day operations and personnel matters, these officials should be recalled. The public should be outraged at all their poorly misguided actions. The public should support this recall effort or else the public should be deemed corrupt.

Why? Because the past city administration of the last couple of years bought their votes. They bought their support. They bought off Kohs!

They lauded her and her business with certificates of appreciation and recognition because she would give them good press while they slipped a big Mickey to their constituents. That’s right, while everyone was sleeping, they stacked the politico deck by hiring their friends in high places and in newly created, unbudgeted positions, and made the city top heavy with a bunch of chiefs, but no Indians willing to do the work.

Public corruption is a concept that Kohs should know but winces at because she also knows she has been brown nosing her way through the power structure where the money is. Didn’t anyone find it strange how Kohs withdrew her support of Reaver-Black when Reaver-Black found herself in the minority fighting - actually just questioning but getting no answers - City Hall? And how Kohs instead threw her support behind the majority where purse strings are attached?

Kohs in her “Dear Boss” column this week is asking city voters not to support the recall petitions, all for the wrong reasons! Where was her mercy for Torres, Sullivan and Fandy when she burned them in her political frying pan?

It seems Kohs thinks that only she can call for chaos in this community when she decides to blink. She admits the wrongdoing of her friends at City Hall – all of which she helped to create (the pot calling the kettle black?) – and says the voters shouldn’t recall the three city commissioners at this time. Quoting her, “I can think of a lot of reasons that maybe they should be recalled… But NOT at this time, and in this manner.”

Only Kohs has the right to stir the pot? I DON’T THINK SO!

The public trust has been betrayed and Kohs was one of the betrayers. Now she wants to appear like she may be on the other side of the fence, but still defending her friends at City Hall - just in case they don’t get recalled. What a bunch of phony baloney. Why didn’t she have that kind of forgiveness for Torres, Sullivan and Fandy when they did NOTHING wrong?

City Hall needs to be emptied entirely and rebuilt with strong character and righteousness – NOT with a bunch of noise and confusion coming from the peanut gallery. It will be devastating to this community to allow business as usual – it will bankrupt us!

Common sense should dictate how government grows. They grew government more than 40 percent in just a couple of short years while our economy grew only a few percent in the same time period. (I debate the growth claimed by local economic pundits as many businesses have complained of a slump).

The economy cannot support a runaway government and this one left the tracks on a collision course with financial hell. The only way to repair our great city is to get an entirely fresh slate of new faces in City Hall – our elected officials are a great place to start.

I don’t buy Kohs’ argument that it will devastate our city if we happen to get rid of all five current commissioners at the next regular municipal election in March (that is, if the recalls succeed in getting on the ballot along with the election of the two seats now held by Cookie Garcia-Johnson and Lois Reaver-Black).

The city’s projects will go on as planned, but unnecessary projects should be thrown by the wayside, especially considering the budget crunch the city just experienced laying off valuable employees and the like.  The city needs to move forward but Kohs would keep it under her thumb and derail progress should she get her way… again. The Desert Journal is committed this time to prevent that from happening – if it does, it will be over our dead bodies!

The Desert Journal is committed to seeing the democratic process carried forward and that is why we are allowing the recall petitions – this time the effort of Vicki Ballinger-Rivera, former administrative assistant to the city manager, to be signed in our office at 111 N. Date St. This editor personally says, “YES!”

The public has until Jan. 7 to sign the petitions at which time they will be submitted to the City Clerk’s office for verification of the signatures. Filing date for candidates seeking city offices in the regular municipal election is set for Jan. 8.

<<<   >>>

“Carpet John” Wasilowski pled no contest to a second degree murder charge of his roommate, saying it was an accident at a hearing Monday in district court in Truth or Consequences.

DJ file photo by David Pierre

Carpet John cops a plea

By Carol Main of the Desert Journal

John Wasilowski pleaded guilty to the murder of Jeff Connor in district court on Monday, Dec. 10, but Judge Thomas Fitch would not accept the plea.

The fact that Wasilowski shot his roommate, Jeff Connor, between the eyes with a black powder handgun on Jan. 5 was never in doubt, however, Fitch questioned the plea.

Prior to court, Deputy District Attorney June Stein signed off on a plea of guilty to reduced charges in an agreement that Wasilowski's attorney, Abigail Aragon, offered her.

The original charges against “Carpet John” Wasilowski were first-degree murder with firearms enhancement and tampering with evidence.

If found guilty by a jury trial of these charges the result could be the death penalty or life in prison without parole.

The plea agreement was for guilty of second degree murder and tampering with evidence while dropping the firearms charge. The maximum penalty for these two crimes is life in prison plus 18 months with parole possible after 30 years.

However, Stein and Aragon agreed to a maximum penalty of a possible 15 years prison time plus a possible $12,500 fine.

After reading the plea agreement Judge Fitch questioned Wasilowski who said, "I believe my original charge should have been manslaughter because it was an accident. I was sitting across the table from Jeff and the gun went off."

"We have two witnesses," Stein said, "one of whom testified at the preliminary hearing that they were all sitting around the table and John got up and went into the other room and got a gun and came back in loading it and the witnesses went outside. Then they said they heard a shot and they came back in and saw John standing over Jeff holding a smoking gun."

Stein said the witnesses claim Wasilowski then left and they watched him put his dog in his pickup and drive off taking the gun with him.

Aragon said the confusion about Wasilowski sitting or standing with the gun came about because as the witnesses were coming back inside Wasilowski was on his way out.’

Under further questioning by Fitch, Wasilowski said, “I did not shoot Jeff on purpose, the gun went off accidentally. But I do not feel there is any way to get around pleading guilty because I have totally given up and I want to get this over with."

Judge Fitch then said, “I cannot accept your guilty plea if you say you are not guilty. I am unable to accept your plea because you don't accept the factual basis for the plea. I will need to set this matter for a jury trial."

During a court recess Stein, Aragon and Wasilowski revised the plea agreement to read no contest to the charges instead of guilty.

Upon reconvening court Judge Fitch accepted the no contest plea and ordered a pre-sentence report to be prepared within 30 days after which he will schedule a sentencing hearing.

<<<   >>>

The 21^st Century Community Learning Center After School Program featured an art show of elementary school students Monday afternoon at the Sierra Elementary Complex. Here (top photo) Art Teacher Kathi Underwood and Oralia Piper stand with participants displaying a mural of ceramic fish they made and are donating to the school for display. The kids in the first through fifth grades also made other items, such as masks (bottom photo), during the program, which was very successful this fall with about 45 students taking part, Underwood said.

Photos by Bill Johnson

City scolds UPS & Fed Ex drivers

By Fred Mramor of the Desert Journal

Truth or Consequences city commissioners in a letter they approved this week scolded the hot-rodding, young whippersnappers of United Parcel Service and Federal Express.

Commissioners said it has come to their attention that on numerous occasions Fed Ex and UPS drivers are impatient and rude to the city’s older drivers.

“We realize that older citizens sometimes drive more slowly and are not as alert as younger drivers. However, they are an important and necessary part of our community and we feel they should be treated with respect,” the letter states.

The letter requests that UPS and Fed Ex drivers exhibit some restraint and that they act in a more courteous manner when confronted with the city’s driving conditions.

Before approving the letter Monday evening, commissioners said the letter should point out that it appears to be out-of-town and not local UPS and Fed Ex drivers who have offended T or C’s elderly drivers.

<<<   >>>

The Outsider Art Show was featured Saturday at 111 Main St. in downtown Truth or Consequences (above photo) where the artists on display included Gloria Giron, Don Newman, Camille Wedier, Joyce Eagle Light, Russell Bozeman, Tyrone and Andromeda Alexander, plus more. Local artist Joyce Eagle Light (below photo) demonstrates her style.
Photos by Bill Johnson

City worker recognized

by heavy equipment rag

Moises Garcia, an employee of the City of Truth or Consequences Sanitation Division, was recognized as the Equipment Operator of the Month in the September issue of Heavy Equipment News magazine.

The nationally distributed magazine honors one outstanding equipment operator each month by publishing his picture and a small feature story about him.

Because the magazine was mailed to former City Manager Sam Isom, city staff only became aware of the honors bestowed upon Garcia last week.

Garcia, an employee of the city more than a quarter of a century, operates a compactor truck. He said his favorite equipment is an “air-conditioned” compactor truck.

When not working for the city, he enjoys relaxing, gardening and working on automobiles.

<<<   >>>

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