Santa Fe Gallery Association

Candidate Questionnaire

(Questions in Black)

Non-Cultural events on the historic plaza: The Santa Fe Gallery Association was formed 30 years ago to address important issues of our industry. One issue that remains unresolved is the negative impact that non-cultural events taking place on the historic plaza have on our local businesses. These events have a negative financial impact on the city and they deter tourists from returning to Santa Fe. What is your stand on this subject? (Events such as Challenge New Mexico, Girls’ Inc. arts + craft fair, Pancake Breakfast arts + craft fair, Labor Day fund raiser for Fiesta de Santa Fe

I support the recommendations from the Plaza Roundtable to try and mitigate the impacts of Plaza events. Outside of the three-four main events that need to continue to remain on the Plaza (Fiesta, Indian Market, Spanish Market, and Pancakes on the Plaza), we should strive to relocate other markets or fairs to other appropriate locations. These secondary events should also bear as muchof their associated costs as possible.

Tourism: Will you publicly support local and state policies that promote tourism and send the message that Santa Fe is a welcoming community for tourism?

How can Santa Fe further promote our great art industry within tourism marketing plan?

I will continue to support local and state policies that promote and strengthen Santa Fe’s tourism base, including reaching out to new segments of visitors.  For example, I worked with local groups to bring the International Aids Conference to town this past fall and actively pursued the International Mountain Biking Association gathering that will be in Santa Fe this coming October.

I also support making Santa Fe more desirable to our visitors in the following ways: improve our “way-finding” program; provide a greater police presence in the downtown and the Rail Yard areas (along with greater enforcement of our “panhandling”, “busking”, and open container laws); and ongoing improvements and maintenance to our Plaza, downtown, Rail Yard and Canyon Road. 

It was recently noted by the U.S. Census Bureau, that Santa Fe has the highest concentration of visual artists for its population size of any U.S. city.  Although the City’s economic strategy stresses the importance of the arts to our local economy, we can further promote our prolific art and design industry by strengthening and refining our marketing campaign to emphasize the important contributions of our working artists and designers, past and present.  Our promotional materials should promote the traditional and the contemporary as a part of our artistic character.

Santa Fe: In your opinion what is Santa Fe’s most important asset and how would you protect it and leverage it to improve the quality of life for Santa Fe residents?

Santa Fe’s greatest asset is the unique character of our city: our beautiful natural environment; our unique 400 year-old historic legacy; our multi-cultural traditions; and our role as a leader in the arts – visual, musical, theatrical, literary, and healing.  Protecting and promoting these world-recognized attributes will continue to be the bedrock for Santa Fe’s future prosperity. 

But there are basic and fundamental city services that are owed to our residents as well as to our visitors.  We must provide – and continue to ensure – public safety on our streets and sidewalks, on our roads and highways.  We must put more emphasis on enforcing ordinances currently in place, and enacting other laws as situations are identified which threaten our city’s well-being.

We must make property crime and destruction a top priority.  A safe and graffiti-free city is one of my most important objectives.  It is essential to our residents; it is critical to our tourist-basedeconomy.

The character of our downtown historic districts has been protected for decades by careful adherence to our Historic Ordinance.  But we have not paid adequate attention to successful urban planning in the developing parts of our City.  Going forward, the historic core of our charming city must be maintained, while the growing neighborhoods of the Southside must receive greater attention on the part of the city to appropriate planning and design as those areas build out.   

Equally, we must be guardians of the environment.  We need to continue our rigorous protection of open spaces; we must expand safe access to our beautiful natural environment for residents and visitors alike.  I have long been a champion of the expansion of our parks, pedestrian and bicycle trails, and the efforts to restore our river and watershed.  I will continue this effort going forward.

Business: What do you see as the greatest challenge in starting and/or growing a business in Santa Fe, and what, if anything should the local city government do to make it easier?

As a small business owner for over 20 years in Santa Fe, I understand what it takes to start and/or grow a business here.  In fact, I helped create the Small Business Advisory committee and the Small Business Ombudsman position in city government.  I also originated the “Small Business of the Year” award, which recognizes the important contributions of small businesses to our local economy. 

I also sponsored the Home Occupation ordinance that allows for non-invasive business activity to take place in residential areas; the funding/creation of the SF Business Incubator; changes to our procurement code to enable a local business advantage when bidding on local government projects/services.

Sometimes we need to support the business community by getting out of their way—by not imposing overly burdensomeregulations whenever possible.

We must also recognize the importance our educational system plays in workforce development and support our schools in any way that we can.  The City currently dedicates 2% of our General Fund operating budget to support programs for children, youth, and families.  We work closely with the school board to physically supplement our schools with playing fields and crossing guard etc.  Also, we have funded apprenticeship/mentoring programs and allow our City employees paid leave to volunteer in our schools.

I have also supported recent efforts to advance our institutions of higher learning, such as the purchase of the College of Santa Fe (now renamed the SF University of Art and Design), and waiving of fees and requirements for the SF Community College’s Higher Learning Center.

Realizing that you may be serving Santa Fe in office next year, what one thing, more than any other, do you want to see accomplished?

The one thing that I want most for my community is for our police and fire departments to be fully staffed with the majority of them living right here in Santa Fe (their patrol vehicles parked in the driveways of Santa Fe neighborhoods). Then I would know that we had successfully tackled some of the most significant hurdles that we face in creating a healthy, sustainable local economy—our educational system and housing costs.

Are you aware that Santa Fe has been holding the official title of 2nd largest art center in the U.S. and in what way will you support that recognition?

Santa Fe continues to receive well-deserved recognition for the strength of its art market, and over the years has continued to rank high in the reasons tourists say they come here.  The city’s Convention and Tourism Department should continue to do all it can to serve as a strong liaison between our visitors and our art community, arranging private tours of museums and galleries, highlighting art events on the city web site and providing links to appropriate museum and gallery venues. 

Keep Santa Fe Beautiful: 7-a. The aesthetic condition of the downtown Plaza has been suffering as far as cleanliness, excessive number of newspaper/magazine distribution boxes, false going out of business marketing, disintegrating sidewalks and curbs. 7-b. Canyon Road has concerns regarding crumbling sidewalks, absence of public toilets, street lighting, and general street cleanliness after any major snowstorm. 7-c. The Railyard has been subject to issues of graffiti. Will you actively support the improvement of these issues and what suggestions do you offer as solutions?

I support the most recent efforts, which are working their way through the Land Use Department, to limit the amount of, and placement of publication boxes.  Currently, there are areas in the downtown where the proliferation of these boxes is an impediment to pedestrian traffic.

Just as I have advocated for and procured funds to upgrade and replace the flagstone and cement on the Plaza itself, I will continue to pursue funds to make improvements to the downtown sidewalks and curbs.  As you know, the sidewalks in front of a business establishment are the responsibility of the business owner; however, we do have a small sidewalk fund that could be used for some of the maintenance and repairs.

I also pursued the procurement of a small 4-wheel plow to keep our downtown sidewalks cleared of snow and ice in the winter season.  On a regular basis I call for street sweepers after snow storms to remove the scoria.

I have also supported tougher penalties for graffiti taggers and new ordinances to prevent perpetual going out of business signs.  However, stepped-up enforcement is the key to getting a handle on both of those concerns.

Public Safety: There have been increasing incidents with vagrants harassing residents and tourists throughout the city, and especially in the downtown vicinity. Are you aware of this issue and what will you do to improve this dire situation?

I am well aware of this issue and continue to work hard to address it. 

I have worked with previous Chiefs of police to get a prominent police presence in the downtown area.  I advocated for the first officers on bicycles, who we initially stationed in the Plaza area (recall Cecile). It is my understanding that a few of the Southside Councilors wanted more coverage in their districts, so perhaps that was the rationale given for shifting our downtown patrol. 

I will continue to press for a prominent police presence in the downtown to keep our visitors and residents safe.

I also voted to strengthen our “Solicitation Ordinance” to help our officers maintain a panhandling-free downtown, and I introduced the “Buskers Ordinance” to provide for a licensure system for street performers, whichalso limited the location of such performances in the downtown area.

Recently, I successfully passed an open-container law to aid the police in their efforts to control our chronic inebriates problem and will continue to pursue long-term solutions to assist the segment of our homeless population that needs help with addictions.  I helped get the funds to build our new homeless shelter and am a strong supporter of Youth Shelters programs.