Back on Plaza: What next for monument?

After years of hand-wringing, the future of the Santa Fe Plaza — specifically its controversial center — could be decided Wednesday.

That’s when members of the City Council and Mayor Alan Webber will consider a resolution designed to determine what happens in the place where the Soldiers’ Monument once stood.

Toppled on Indigenous Peoples Day in 2020, the monument proved a casualty of the national unrest over race and diversity. Dedicated to Civil War veterans, one inscription at its base also honored soldiers who fought “savage Indians” in New Mexico’s Indian Wars. The offensive word was scratched out decades ago, yet the monument remained contentious. Today, a plywood box covers the base to protect what remains of the monument while city leaders and residents debate next steps.

A year-long Culture, History, Reconciliation and Truth process led to dozens of recommendations, with the City Council taking those ideas and fashioning a resolution up for final consideration Wednesday after being heard by several city committees.

The resolution being discussed, though, has changed considerably since being introduced. That’s part of governing: amending and shaping proposals along the way. However, when considering something so important — and permanent — as what the Plaza will look like going forward, proceed with caution.

The resolution as it stands tries to do too much in one document.

The short version is this: The resolution will direct the “city manager to take next steps based on and inspired by some of the recommendations of the CHART report.” The “inspired by” is new language.

Those recommendations are as varied as rebuilding the obelisk in some form or fashion without the offending plaque and with better explanations of the city’s complicated history. One version of the resolution includes an amendment to be brought by Webber to add a “water feature” to the final design; a 1922 archaeological report describes a rustic rock fountain built 10 feet southeast of the obelisk in the decades after the monument was erected.

Adding water as a feature to the reconstituted obelisk is in recognition of the “community’s input that acknowledges the elemental and unifying importance of water to all communities in Santa Fe,” the proposed amendment states.

The long-absent statue of Don Diego de Vargas, removed from Cathedral Park for safekeeping in 2020, would find a home in this version of the proposal. The resolution recommends Don Diego be placed at the New Mexico History Museum, along with the statue of Pueblo runners accepted as a gift from Tesuque Pueblo but never formally installed — pending, of course, consultation with the state.

The juxtaposition of two strains of our common history is a welcome step.

Establishing an office of equity and inclusion remains, to be responsible for both internal and external work to meet the needs of a diverse workforce and city. Rather than a feel-good growth of government, such as creating what likely will be an ill-defined office of inclusion, city leaders could redouble their efforts to listen to their community rather than one another. If the obelisk’s destruction should have taught them anything, it was they weren’t listening both to those offended by the monument’s presence and those who cherished it.

The resolution also discusses the need for a history museum focusing on Santa Fe and Northern New Mexico and outreach to city schools to discuss how multicultural history is presented in classrooms. One thing the city can do that’s mentioned in the resolution: alter its marketing materials to eliminate references to Santa Fe’s tri-cultural history.

As we said, this resolution is packed. Much of its content is historical in nature, including noting the request from then-Gov. Bruce King in 1973 to remove the controversial plaque at the monument’s base. In response, the City Council voted unanimously to uproot the entire monument. For various reasons, that never happened.

Instead, a mob of people did the job in 2020, writing another chapter in a seemingly endless controversy. One certainty: The controversy won’t end come Wednesday.