Following a messy and public airing of cultural turf wars via e-mail last week, two organizations contracted by the city to promote arts and culture in Santa Fe have decided to work together, along with radio station blu 102, in order to host an "Arts and Culture Mayoral Candidates Forum" at the Center for Contemporary Arts (1050 Old Pecos Trail, 982-1338) at 7 pm next Thursday, Jan. 19.
Tense and combative e-mails cc'd to press, city staff and just about everyone else between the respective figureheads of New Mexico CultureNet and Creative Santa Fe, Alex Traube and Tom Aageson, looked for a moment to be proof that Santa Fe's "cultural leadership" cares more about jockeying for position and clinging to their own private slices of funding pie than devoting their efforts to a substantial vision for the future and wellness of our community's greatest economic resource and identifying trait. Top behavior fellas, really-I only hope that, like so much of the lip service bouncing off the adobe around here, this too, can provide the proverbial "example for our youth." It's also a great way to prove to the mayoral candidates that the local culture lobby is an important and unified front that must be taken seriously. In case there's any vagueness in the printing ink, the last couple of sentences are an example of sarcasm.
Fortunately, everyone appears to have decided, at least for the sake of public appearance if nothing else, kissing, making up and walking boldly into the future hand in hand is the best approach. So, the debate will go on, Alex and Tom will admonish pesky columnists for suggesting petty power struggles and, hopefully, at least one or two of the actual candidates will exhibit something bordering on opinions, eloquence and-dare to dream-leadership. Maybe one of them will even know something about culture, which would be a change from the last time candidates for mayor were grilled at CCA, somewhere around eight years ago.
The most telling moment back then was when the perpetually cranky and hot-headed artist Pedro Romero told the assembled candidates that an organization called CCA had raised millions of dollars in order to build a flagship center for teens and then failed to come through. What, he demanded to know, would be done about it by the victor? Now, this was not a particularly helpful question as the issue he raised, tragic though it was, was more complex than implied and being repaired as well as possible while the teen program in question had been set free of CCA to become the very vital and important Warehouse 21; poking old wounds wasn't going to solve any problems at that point. But it was something of a trick question in that it revealed that none of the candidates actually knew they were being hosted by the same organization Romero was talking about. They had dutifully arrived at 1050 Old Pecos Trail, been ushered to their seats and didn't really give a damn where they were and were perhaps slightly baffled by the arts and culture slant of the questions. To this day I remember Larry Delgado, the man who would go on to win the election and serve two terms as mayor, solemnly pledging in farcical politician fashion to appoint a committee to investigate this organization which had so wounded our community's youth. And by the way, he'd like to remind everyone that he grew up here, in Santa Fe, which, if you didn't know, is quite sunny.
Obviously no committee was ever formed and the extent of Delgado's service to the arts has been limited to enduring opera previews and trying to understand why he received credit for all of City Councilor Rebecca Wurzburger's hard work in getting Santa Fe included in UNESCO's Creative Cities program.
So, this time around, consider voting. It doesn't matter if you don't vote for president of the United States 'cause you think all those money and power schmucks are just variations on the same tired theme-you may well be right. But if you happen to care about, oh I don't know, affordable housing, water conservation, small and local business, big box encroachment, progressive planning, public transportation, bicycle paths, education, commuter rail and, obviously, arts and culture in any way, leadership would be a big change from the smiling bobblehead of dear Delgado who appears to take quite seriously the fact that being mayor of Santa Fe is, technically, a part-time job.
With the impending development of the Railyard property and a focused economic development plan with an arts emphasis that was unanimously adopted by the City Council, the immediate potential for cultural and creative industries is larger than many people realize, but it can easily be squandered by a lack of civic leadership and infighting among our cultural organizations. Heading to next week's candidate forum, cobbled together by warring factions though it may be, is not only the best way to see if a particular candidate represents your views, it's also a good opportunity to find out if one of them is tough enough to straighten out any city contractors who allow personal agendas to get in the way of the job our tax dollars are paying them to do.
