City project funds may fade away

Copyright © 2008
Gallup Independent
By Bill Donovan
Staff writer

GALLUP — So many city needs. So little state money.

That was the crux of the discussion Tuesday night as members of the Gallup City Council debated which of several capital improvement projects should be listed as top priorities when they seek grants from the state Legislature in January.

With state oil royalties down sharply because of low gasoline prices, no one in the city government expects that state legislators will have a whole lot of money in their discretionary funds this year to parcel out to local governments. So while the city came up with five projects they wanted to be top priorities, the likelihood is that only one or two will actually receive any funding, Mayor Harry Mendoza said.

The project that seemed to get the most support was the building of a Native American center and cultural museum.

“This will help increase tourism,” Mendoza said. The other members of the City Council also agreed that this was needed, pointing out that it has been under discussion for several years.

Mendoza said he city is looking at property across from the Octavia Fellin Library as the site of the museum. The center is projected to cost $5,750,000 but only $750,000 is being sought for 2009.

There was a question brought up about whether this museum will compete with the Navajo Code Talker Museum that the Southwest Indian Foundation has been talking about creating at the Gallup Cultural Center, but City Attorney R. David Pederson said these are two different projects.

SWIF officials were scheduled to talk about the project at last night’s City Council session but they canceled because of the weather.

Pederson brought the council up-to-date on talks with SWIF about continued use of the cultural center, which is owned by the city. The two entities have been squabbling in recent months about the future of the cultural center.

The solution to this, he said, may be ask SWIF if it wants to buy the cultural center from the city. That way SWIF could go ahead and do whatever it wants with the center. Otherwise, it would have to accept the city’s decision on what direction should be taken.

While the Native American Center proposal had the most support, it may not wind up on the top of the city’s wish list.

The reason is that there are other projects on the wish list — installation of artificial turf at the TDFL Football Field, reconstruction of the road on Hospital Drive, and improvements to the water and sewer lines on First and Second Street — that may be more to the liking of state legislators because they are relatively inexpensive and can be done in one phase.

With money so tight, the feeling is that legislators would rather see projects that can be completed in one phase rather than paying for phase one of a five-phase project.
The TDFL project is estimated to cost about $862,000, the hospital drive reconstruction $350,000 and the downtown sewer projects about $925,000.