Group plans to erect entryway signs after limited input
Keep Santa Fe Beautiful halfway to raising $50,000 for first marker after choosing design with limited input
The nonprofit civic group Keep Santa Fe Beautiful is moving ahead with a plan to install the first of a series of four welcome signs next to major traffic corridors leading into the city, using a design selected by the group’s board with input from various elected officials.
Spokesman Steve Sandoval said Friday the organization is about halfway to raising the approximately $50,000 in private funds needed to erect the first marker, which he said is planned for placement on the shoulder of the northbound lanes of Old Pecos Trail, about 250 yards south of the Zia Road intersection.
He said the group circulated renderings of three possible designs among about two dozen elected city, county and state officials and displayed posters showing the options at public events in which Keep Santa Fe Beautiful has been involved.
Up to this point, the group hasn’t held a public hearing or presented its design concepts at a meeting of a public body, such as the City Council. The group also hasn’t issued any news releases about the initiative.
“We didn’t issue a news release per se,” Sandoval wrote in an email. “The entryway signs project was something that several board members, myself included, began discussing three, four years ago. The discussions led to board members addressing various aspects of it, i.e., location of signs, proper notifications and required approvals from various entities, and then progressing to having various sign alternatives designed for review, input and selection [with] the idea being to at least get the ball rolling, if you will.”
Chairman Rick Martinez, a neighborhood activist who advocates for public input when neighborhood issues go before the mayor and city councilors, said soliciting public opinion for the entryway sign initiative would have been challenging.
“The trouble is that when you have too many voices, you lose sight of what you really want to get,” he said. “We have to start somewhere.”
Santa Fe-based Sketchbook Studio LLC prepared the three design options, following guidelines that called for the signs “to be consistent with traditional Santa Fe style or a contemporary interpretation of the style.”
Martinez said the Keep Santa Fe Beautiful board struggled to pick the best design. “We argued amongst the board on which is the best one,” he said.
The design chosen for the first entryway sign calls for an adobecolored marker that is 20 feet wide and nearly 10 feet tall and features a zia symbol over the words “Santa Fe.”
Emilee Cantrell, a spokeswoman for the New Mexico Department of Transportation, said Keep Santa Fe Beautiful has obtained some approvals to install the signs at different gateways to the city.
“There is an agreement on the location, size, and concept for the signs,” she said via email. “The air space agreement for the ownership and maintenance of the signs is currently in progress.”
The additional sign locations are on South St. Francis Drive, on the right shoulder of the northbound lane about 600 feet before the Sawmill Road intersection; on the south end of Cerrillos Road, on the right shoulder of the northbound lane near the Beckner Road intersection; and on North St. Francis Drive, in the median between the southbound lane of St. Francis Drive and the exit lane leading to North Guadalupe Street.
Martinez said Keep Santa Fe Beautiful, which is helping to host a motorcycle ride and cleanup Saturday to raise money for the first entryway sign, hopes to solicit more public input on the project.
“We’re not going to do the same generic sign throughout the city,” he said. “We just want to get one going and be proud of it and then start soliciting the public for a better design.”
Sandoval maintains that Keep Santa Fe Beautiful offered the public “a number of opportunities” for input, beginning last fall when the group announced the project “and asked for comment real-time and via email.”
The New Mexican requested copies of comments received. Sandoval said he didn’t have access to them and referred the inquiry to city employee Gilda Montaño, program manager for Keep Santa Fe Beautiful, who is out of town on vacation.
“I personally don’t feel that the public was left out and I believe that board members feel comfortable with the feedback we received, including to the various alternatives of the signs that were presented,” Sandoval wrote.
“The design that was selected took into account feedback received,” Sandoval added. “We’re looking forward to seeing this long-desired [Keep Santa Fe Beautiful] project come to fruition and are confident … that once one sign is erected, it will create positive comment that we hope to leverage toward completing the other three signs.”
Sandoval said Keep Santa Fe Beautiful offered at least a halfdozen opportunities for public input, including at its Toss No Mas Fall Clean Up Day and the Great American Spring Clean Up Day.
“Last fall at KSFB’s silent auction/wine tasting, we had poster-size reproductions of the sign placed strategically near auction-item tables and board members were positioned near said tables to answer questions attendees had,” he said. “At that time we also asked attendees to provide additional feedback, if any.”
He said information about the project will be on display at an event scheduled from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday at Santa Fe Harley-Davidson, 4360 Rodeo Road.