At the Monday, May 21, City Finance Committee meeting, when last week's column was already in the bag, city councilors-in particular Karen Heldmeyer and Rebecca Wurzburger-grilled Design Week representatives on metrics. No, not the sensible measuring system we never managed to switch to in the 1970s, but performance metrics. In the process, city government proved, once again, to be adept at identifying failures in the minutiae, but utterly unable to grasp the big picture.
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The committee, quite rightly, wanted to see reliable tracking of data on visitors and participants, as well as evidence of some concise planning and organization for this year's event (scheduled to take place Oct. 11-17). Craig Fiels, special projects administrator for the city's Economic Development Division, and Naomi Woodspring, the principle at management consulting firm Solution Development (the presumptive contractor that will be organizing Design Week this year), defended last year's data and vowed to improve this year. The vaguely withering scorn of the committee on this point deserves some sympathy: Looking toward the third year of an event that received significant funding for the purpose of economic development through highlighting Santa Fe's design community, the tracking of hard numbers and a tangible assessment of results should be a process that is nailed down to a level far deeper than any councilor would care to tread.
But when the totality of the committee's concern boils down to how many are coming to town, how much money they're spending, and whether or not local participants have hired more people and made more money since the last event, it is missing the point of a long-term economic development strategy. "Those are the basic questions," an emphatic Wurzburger said.
No, councilor, they are not. Those points, are, in fact, among the chief goals, but the questions that require answers right now are quite different. Is the event showcasing and attracting the best and most innovative design in the region? Is it generating buzz in national and international design communities? Is there a niche or an idea inherent to Santa Fe's hosting of the event that bears persistent dialogue and that will attract growing numbers of attendees each year? Is it creating a platform for industries and companies that may eventually be able to provide quality, high-paying jobs within this community? If the answer to any of these questions is no-which, lamentably, is the case across the board-the follow-up questions are these: What are the strategies to address each of these factors; what steps are we going to see over the coming years to work toward the solutions; how will we gauge that process; and what budget does the Economic Development Division require to make it happen? Nitpicking visitor stats can come once the event has been given enough support and enough autonomy of management for it to succeed.
The current thinking on the City Council is obviously to tighten the budget, watch the organizers sell booths to local "designers"-who will end up being small-time vendors in actuality-and pretend that Design Week is going to magically transform into an international destination for free-spending "cultural tourists." Heldmeyer, who chairs the finance committee, said she'd like to see the event forego any expensive speakers and out-of-town talent, because that sort of thing is too high-priced and doesn't focus on the local designers. Wurzburger wants the out-of-towners' influence, but doesn't want to drop the ducats for it.
Why does the city government have such a hard time comprehending that it takes committed investment to foster a thriving economy? It's true that the manifestation of last year's Design Week was not impressive in relation to the amount of money the city ultimately paid for it (a bit more than $500,000). But to batten down the hatch is an instinctive, fear-based reaction-not a bold, leadership maneuver
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The creative industries, entrepreneurial spirit and artistic evolution that signify a cultural center and an ongoing global destination do not exist in a vacuum. Design Week, more than anything else, needs to be a platform for ideas and information exchange. It needs to be a not-to-be-missed industry event. That is not the result that comes with consigning it to an existence as an overpriced crafts fair.
Tripling or quadrupling the budget, for example, would allow the fees and expenses to employ local design and architecture talent in the creation of a world-class venue in tandem with the budget to bring speakers, thinkers, designers and artists who are at the bleeding edge of theory and practice in their fields. It would make the event worthy of collaboration with the UNM Artslab and the Santa Fe Institute and energize the real creative minds in this region to participate enthusiastically (up to this point, only a few charitable souls among the truly talented have bothered). Finally, a significant increase in resources allocated to Design Week would create much more competitive bidding for the project's management. This is not a slight to Woodspring-we'll see how she fares come October-but shrinking the budget only lowers the denominator of potential contractors and, well, you get what you pay for.
Most importantly, strong support of Design Week would indicate that city government has at least a vague concept of marketing the city toward the future. There is not another annual event, so largely funded by city monies that has more potential to represent the contemporary culture of Santa Fe. Selling the city's romanticized past is a game of dwindling returns. Investing in its future, even at the rate of $1 to $2 million per year for a signature event, is a winner's bet, the kind that losers are always regretting that they failed to make at the right time.
Design Week-and the context of economic development through the creative economy that surrounds it-is at the heart of this question: Is Santa Fe going to keep faking it based on fauxdobe dreams or is it going allow the creative legacy that is the city's cultural tradition to respect its true past and evolve into a meaningful future?
