In sports, it's called the curse of the commentator: Some fool with a microphone says, "Black Beauty is way out in the lead! Black Beauty is going to win the Triple Crown without a doubt!" And then Black Beauty breaks a leg, eats mud and Swarthy Moonbag wins. So wouldn't you know it? Last week I praise Bernalillo County for getting it together to have a quality of life initiative on the ballot, and then 58 percent of voters promptly say, "Culture? We don't need no steeeen-kin' culture!"
A quality of life initiative is a local-option tax that counties and municipalities may pursue as a result of House Bill 336, passed in the 2005 New Mexico legislative session. The bill describes the manner in which communities meeting certain requirements may add up to one quarter of one percent to the gross receipts tax. According to the law, the proceeds from a locality opting to enact such a tax may be spent on promoting and preserving cultural diversity; enhancing the quality of cultural programs and activities; fostering greater access to cultural opportunities; promoting culture to further economic development within the city or county; and supporting programs, events and organizations with direct, identifiable and measurable public benefit to the residents of the city or county.
Obviously, a lot of specifics are left to the imagination, but the tax is essentially intended to allow a community to invest in all those facets of cultural activities-like free days at
museums, funding for libraries, cultural heritage festivals, etc.-that
are construed to improve the quality of living in a place. It also acknowledges the fact that when cities want to court new businesses that will bring employment, "quality of life" is now a primary index for businesses choosing a location.
Why should we care that such a thing is, apparently, of little interest to Albuquerque-area voters? A quality of life initiative in Santa Fe would mean somewhere in the neighborhood of $8 million a year for cultural, educational and economic development projects. That's around seven times the current annual budget of the Santa Fe Arts Commission, the primary civic provider of cultural funding. So we may not care about Bernalillo voters, but it's worth wondering what went wrong in the lobbying efforts for the initiative to get such an election day ass-kicking. Well, despite the fact that Denver, a national model for such a tax, turned cumulative tax revenues of $304 million into annual culture-related economic activity of $1.4 billion by 2005, the stodgy Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce came out against the tax. Also, exit polls by the Albuquerque Journal indicated the majority of those against the tax were senior citizens and the majority in favor were young adults. That's cool, Bernalillo seniors, you'll get yours soon enough.
Despite Santa Fe's lack of young adult voters, our senior population is undeniably more hip and our entire city-even its most disparate elements-is relatively unified in support of arts and culture. Still, it's clear that getting such an initiative on the ballot in Santa Fe won't be enough-the marketing and outreach to voters will need to be significant. And there are other serious issues to contend with. I snarkily implied last week that Santa Fe's leadership seemed to barely have a grasp on what a quality of life initiative is. Let me say that a few lengthy e-mail exchanges with City Councilor Karen Heldmeyer have made it clear that at least two councilors have given the idea a lot of thought, so I stand corrected. However, Heldmeyer did indicate that city staff believed, until recently, that such a tax was not legally an option for Santa Fe. It is, however, and it's no secret, making it tough to view staff's ignorant opinions with anything but alarm. First on Heldmeyer's list of concerns is that continuing to raise an already high gross receipts tax would mean continuing to rely on an extremely regressive tax. Because the tax is added to sales and services, the brunt of it is borne by those in lower income brackets with less expendable income-yes, even though wealthier people buy more stuff. However, state legislators were clever in the case of regulating quality of life initiatives-any community enacting such a tax must appoint a local advisory board comprised of nine to 15 members and serving staggered three-year terms. The board would distribute the funds and prepare an annual evaluation on the use of the funds, thus enabling a mechanism whereby services may offer greater benefit to lower-income citizens, offsetting the impact. Further, the tax has a "sunset" provision, meaning it expires in 10 years and would have to be renewed by the voters once more. If Santa Fe truly wants to distinguish itself from other "cultural tourism" destinations and offer entrepreneurial opportunities to its citizens, it needs to make a much more serious investment in culture and economic development than it currently is making. This is the tool that's available.
Now, it may be a smidge ridiculous to talk up a quality of life initiative when we're about as far as we can be from an impending election and no local legislation has been drafted, but it's apparent that many people, including city staff, don't know it exists or don't know how to use it. After all, our culture industry is a huge block of local businesses, and if people are going to get uppity about, say, REI moving into the Railyard, we're going to have to talk about how we can realistically support local businesses in that location instead. The city has a debt service on the Railyard property-it has to make its monthly nut, just like you and me. The Railyard Community Corporation, which manages the property, has to ensure that rents and leases provide the city with that income. Because leases are cheaper for all of our favorite nonprofits in the Railyard (like Warehouse 21, SITE Santa Fe and the Farmers Market), rents are pricey for other folks. Therefore, the Market Station developers want to lease to national companies that can afford to pay top dollar. Therefore, REI.
Still, the community of Santa Fe has decided that local businesses should be given preference in the Railyard. It would be a shame to see that preference fall by the wayside, but we need to get real about the money-if we want local businesses, maybe arts and culture businesses, to be there instead, something has to be subsidized. If only there was a way we could come up with millions of extra dollars each year.
