Zane's World
Derring-Do or Derring-Don’t?
By: Zane Fischer 04/27/2009
The College of Santa Fe is playing lead actress in a drama with a twist: It has become a comedy or, if you prefer, a farce. CSF is a damsel in distress if ever there was one, but she has been now lying on the train tracks of impending doom through the heroic but failed efforts of so many suitors, she herself must be wishing the damned train would just round the bend and finish the job.
The latest hero vying for a chance to rescue the maiden is the City of Santa Fe. Mayor David Coss has proposed the city issue a revenue bond (or bonds) in an amount sufficient to satisfy the college’s ever-swelling debt, an act that would also result in the purchase of the college’s land and facilities by the city.
This, after the college has been courted—and rejected—by the Savannah College of Art and Design, Laureate Education, Inc. and the state of New Mexico. And that’s just a summary of the major courtships; there were several flirtations along the way. But none of these organizations and entities have the same stake in the college that the city does. The college’s economic boost to Santa Fe has been estimated as high as $25 million annually. The city desperately needs to retain, rather than export, its youth population. And the demise of CSF—an established liberal arts school and a fledgling art school with some rare assets in film, theater and writing—would leave an uncomfortable hole between the community college and St. John’s College.
Add that death for CSF likely means at least intensive care for the Santa Fe Art Institute and the gruesome specter of private development on a swath of land big enough to legitimately be considered one of the city’s vital organs, and it starts to make sense the city would hasten to borrow more than $35 million in order to secure both higher education and the property.
Unlike several other rescuers that have rode past as the college squirms—some with the appearance of plucky heroes, others looking more like banditos—Coss is intent that CSF remain an art school. It must have something to do with arts and culture pretty much being the economic driver in town and the knowledge that the city gets something close to a 5-to-1 return for every dollar it invests in art. That’s a fair sight better rate of return than Thornburg Mortgage stock.
If the economic impact to the region is so significant, why isn’t Coss proposing a joint city/county effort? The answer, Coss tells SFR, is he’d be happy to work with the county and grateful for the help, but he’s not going to wait around for it or enter the drawn-out negotiating process such collaborations usually require. There’s a phrase, I think, about pots and either being on or off them.
Of course, the Santa Fe City Council is going to determine whether or not anything happens at all, beginning with a vote on Wednesday, April 29. If it approves a resolution directing city staff to negotiate with potential operators and investigate bond options, the process will move forward. After 60 to 90 days, staff would return with a proposal and a super-majority of Council votes would be required to approve issuance of a bond.
At this point, the most likely operator is Laureate Education (in a dramatic return to the scene, just as the train rounds the bend). It is still undetermined whether or not a request for proposals will need to be issued in order to lease the school to an operator.
But assuming Laureate is the real contender, the following will be key points:
• What is the strategy and vision for the school and how are they in alignment with the goals of Santa Fe’s economic development plan and the ethos of taxpayers and voters?
• What tuition structure will ensure Santa Feans (and New Mexicans) are able to attend and benefit from what would normally cost $30,000 a year?
• How will it be ensured that revenues from the use of the property cover any bonds issued, so taxpayers don’t get stuck with the bill (we all know the Railyard Community Corporation is still struggling to cover the debt service on the Railyard property)?
• Who will pay for the deferred maintenance on the campus, which may be as much as $20 million?
• How much of the campus will be reserved for the use of complementary entities that provide a use in conjunction with the city’s goals and ideals (continuation and expansion of the Art Institute, a high school for the arts, New Mexico Filmmaker’s Intensive, an expanded version of Santa Fe Complex, for example)?
As Jared Diamond points out in his book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, it is those societies that choose short-term benefit over long-term value that fail. The school is too important to allow failure, too critical to be left to lie fallow for even a while. But if the mayor’s going to climb on a white horse and the city’s going to posse up, we’d better pick that damsel up this time and not just roll her off the tracks and toward the nearby cliff.
Comments (3)
meant to sign my name to that...
Alysha Layla Shaw CSF '09
As one of the weary crusaders for the College of Santa Fe, I must say that it is heartening to see that people still care about the situation over here, and what the loss of this institution will truly mean to this region. Whether enough of the right people will care in the right ways at the right times to make sure that this beautiful, history-filled campus doesn't become overrun with strip malls has yet to be seen.
I'm a 22-year-old-soon-to-be-graduate of the College of Santa Fe. I'm poised to go and leave my footprints on this world, and I sincerely have wanted to stay in this town for a while. However, the loss of the College of Santa Fe is creating an exodus of youth and magnificently skilled professionals (i.e. our faculty and staff) that makes me and many others wonder what kind of two-horse town this Santa Fe will become without the college that has graced it for more than 100 years. I already know of many CSF students who would have stayed longer in Santa Fe, but are leaving after this summer to go to bigger cities, because of the loss of the college.
Santa Feans really do need to think deeply about what the long-term effects of a demolition of the College of Santa Fe would mean. The arguments I've heard against acquisition are all based on issues of CSF's poor administration and concerns over tax-payer burdens.
The concerns over tax-payer burdens are, of course, valid, but I think that people's wary sentiments towards our indebted institution have been greatly exacerbated by the national scene of automotive and bank bailouts. I think people need to start viewing this situation with the perspective of CSF as a public good, with significant, invaluable contributions to the Santa Fe community and economy.
Think about what Santa Fe will be like without the College of Santa Fe, without a significant youth population, without the skilled professionals who teach and work here, without a four-year institution, without the estimated $25 million that we contribute to this economy, without a steady draw of eager, young out-of-staters, many of whom who fall in love with New Mexico and stay for a long time. The list can go on.
As an aside... Zane mentions "rare assets in film, theater and writing" at CSF, but the Contemporary Music Program is unfortunately and mistakenly overlooked, as it often is. This program has some of the best gems in the entire College (in the form of diversity of music studied and played, pedagogy, faculty, facilities, where the program stands in relation to the typical programming at music schools, and more), and as an Interdisciplinary Arts student who has hopped around in practically every department, I would know.
Whichever way the Council votes, the current cohort of skilled professionals and most of the students who have comprised the CSF community are already packing--academic job and transfer season is almost over, and those who were fortunate enough to get an offer have grabbed it. As people scatter, it will be more and more clear that in every practical sense, the College of Santa Fe is finished.
Should a private contractor come in to provide educational programming, there is indeed no reason to believe that it would be affordable (for example, Laureate's Kendall College Riverworks campus, one of the two US colleges it owns, charges tuition that ranges between $12,000 and $21,000 per year, with another $18K of housing costs per year on top of that) or that it would look anything like the current CSF. So, can we please, PLEASE, let poor old CSF rest in peace and look toward the future?
Given that the actual financial status of the CSF property is murky in all local news accounts (there are the $35M worth of bonds, questions about other liens on the property, including one outstanding held by Laureate for $2M, that are not being included in what passes for public discussion around here) and that most people neglect to mention the additional $20M in deferred maintenance and asbestos abatement that is necessary to bring some CSF facilities up to acceptable standards, this deal might not be the best long or short term return on investment, and may pose significant financial and logistical challenges for the City.
Unless the City has a clear long and short term plan, why the rush? Again, people, CSF is over. Period. Rushing will not do anything at this point to "save" CSF. Oh. Except maybe these last ditch efforts might save the bacon of the current CSF Board of Trustees and current and past administrators who it's been reported might be held accountable for alleged untruths on those pesky bond applications. To use Zane's damsel analogy, that would be the same crew who tied the school to the tracks. Could those same Trustees be campaign contributors? Should the City issue bonds to cover CSF's fiscal blunders, these Trustees could breathe a sigh of relief--and I imagine they could be mighty grateful. But the Mayor and Councilors would not be that cynical and self-serving, would they?