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Business owner presses council on Planning Department oversight; merchants and staff debate plaza parking kiosks
Summary
A Taos business owner urged the Town of Taos Council on Aug. 26, 2025, to address alleged dysfunction and lack of oversight in the Planning Department before hiring a proposed Planner I; downtown merchants and town staff also debated whether plaza parking should be treated as two‑hour curbside parking or as paid kiosk lot.
A Taos business owner urged the Town of Taos Council on Aug. 26, 2025, to address alleged dysfunction and lack of oversight in the Planning and Community & Economic Development Department before the town fills a proposed Planner I position.
Steve Weinerbig of Warren Ventures LLC submitted a written statement for the record and asked the council to include it in the meeting minutes. He said his business has been "a repeated target of unlawful restrictions and administrative outreach" and that alleged misconduct has gone uncorrected at the leadership level. "This pattern of dysfunction is not corrected by hiring more staff," Weinerbig wrote, arguing that adding a junior employee could "compound rather than resolve existing problems" and asking the council to require stronger oversight and accountability before hiring.
During the public comment period, merchants also continued a dispute over the town's trial parking operations, which have used kiosks on some lots and proposed free two‑hour curbside parking on prime curb spaces. A merchant group representative, Julie Lake, asked why plaza parking is being treated as a "lot" rather than on‑street curbside parking. Another participant, identified as Ruth Ann McCarthy, argued the difference between a plaza and a lot matters and said the changes were hurting merchants, saying "you're killing our businesses" and asserting business declines after kiosk implementation. The claimant provided no sales documentation in the meeting record; council members and other attendees repeatedly requested more detail.
Assistant Town Manager Mark Flores responded to the merchant group's presentation, saying the town considers the plaza an open lot accessed through streets and that the town had told merchant representatives it would "revisit the request for the plaza to be free on street parking after the trial run of the current phase that we are in right now." Flores said the town is in a trial phase and that "nothing's set in stone" and that the group had agreed to reconvene in early November to review the results.
Councilor Ortega responded to merchant complaints by cautioning that supporting downtown merchants is "not a silver bullet" and noting that other businesses and property owners also shoulder costs for parking, lighting and security. Ortega said the town should not subsidize every small business simply because Taos is a tourist destination.
Why it matters: the comments raise two operational issues for council — human resources and oversight in the planning office, and the effect of parking policy on downtown commerce. Both topics touch on day‑to‑day town operations and forthcoming council decisions about staffing and parking policy.
No formal action was taken on the Planning Department complaint at the Aug. 26 meeting. On parking, Flores said staff would revisit the plaza parking question after the trial period and that the town and merchant representatives planned to reconvene in November.
The public record for the meeting contains written materials submitted for the record by Weinerbig; he said he would provide documentation and evidence supporting his claims on request.
