The city of Española is moving forward on plans for a permanent railroad museum, but without a consensus on what that museum will look like.
The city has $400,000 in federal grant money that became available in October to design and construct the museum, Planning Director Cyrus Samii said. An advertisement went out last week seeking a design firm, and the city plans to put the museum on the southeast corner of the Plaza, Samii said.
Mayor Joseph Maestas said former city manager Gus Cordova had suggested creating an unmanned installation, with plaques and exhibits visible from the exterior only. That would save operation and maintenance costs — not to mention construction costs like the installation of plumbing and heating systems — but Maestas said he envisions a place where visitors can view original photographs, garments from the period, testimonials from local families and other exhibits.
“I’d like to see it as a nice walk-in museum,” Maestas said.
But Maestas’s idea will encounter resistance from at least two city councilors.
Councilor Chayo Garcia said she is not sure how many visitors the city’s Bond House and Misión museums receive, and rather than a third walk-in museum she’d like to see the city build a theater or a cultural center where local artists could display their work. Garcia said she visited Phoenix, Ariz., recently and saw Pueblo works in a museum.
“It was all our artisans from Santa Clara and Ohkay Owingeh,” Garcia said. “We need to showcase what we have here instead of them going to Santa Fe and Tucson and Arizona.”
Garcia said for the railroad museum, an exterior exhibit would be fine with her.
“I think we need to just put a train out there — that there was a railroad and that’s why we’re here,” Garcia said.
Councilor Danielle Duran said $400,000 is simply not enough to build and sustain a working museum.
“The amount of money that we have for that is not equivalent to setting up and running and actually having a railroad museum,” Duran said. “If that’s your real dream, find us the money. If you can’t find the money, then give it up because it’s not coming out of any other part of the budget.”
Samii said an idea currently being discussed is to recreate one of the early Chili Line stations, but the specifics are far from settled. Once the city hires a design firm, they’ll work together to analyze different options and place an approximate price tag on each one, Samii said.
Councilors Alfred Herrera, Helen Kain Salazar and Eddie Maestas said they’re still open to ideas since the Council has never seriously discussed the railroad museum.
Duran said the city hasn’t done much serious work at all on the project, other than Cordova researching the purchase of an engine. No one has conducted surveys to determine the tourism potential of a railroad museum, Duran said.
Joseph Maestas said he first conceived of the museum project back in 2000 or 2001.
“I always teased the (state Highway Department) that our project has been in their three-year program for seven to eight years,” Maestas said.
What about the
Post Office?
Although the mayor had once mentioned the soon-to-be vacant post office on Bond Street as a possible site for the railroad museum, he said that’s no longer an option. The Council is more interested in using that space as a new library or art space, he said.
A few councilors said the building itself is beyond meaningful renovation.
“I think it should be razed and we should put a new library there,” Duran said. “I don’t think anybody thinks it’s useful for anything modern.”
Last year the Council discussed a resolution to promise the site to the Library Board, but never passed anything. Duran said if the site isn’t set aside for the library, the mayor will have a “very active Library Board” on his hands. Duran’s sister Clarissa Duran is a Board member.
Eddie Maestas said he would like to see either the library or a homeless shelter on the Bond Street lot. Maestas has been heavily involved in private non-profit efforts to build a homeless shelter, but that effort has met with resistance from neighbors at several proposed locations, the latest being Chimayó.
Since the library would quickly outgrow the current post office building, Eddie Maestas said the best thing to do would be to tear it down and start from scratch.
The biggest question is where the city would get the money to fund any of these projects.
Joseph Maestas said although the timing is “terrible” with today’s economic climate, he’d like to see the city pursue a bond issue, to build either a new library facility or a combination library and City Hall building. He said placing the library on the city’s Main Street frontage property would add to the long-desired revitalization of the downtown area.
Duran said the city will go to the state legislature’s next session, which begins in January, and ask for planning funds for a new library facility. But it could be an uphill battle.
New Mexico Municipal League President William Fulginiti has said with the current economic climate, legislators will likely focus on urgent infrastructure projects such as ones that improve water and wastewater services.