County to offer town lease on Taos Plaza
Toppled cottonwood highlights tree health concerns
The Town of Taos could soon have formal authority over the Taos Plaza park in the center of its historic district.
The Taos News reported in early June of last year that the only plaza property record on file showed it was granted to Taos County — not Taos — in 1935 during the Franklin D. Roosevelt presidential administration. But the town had for many decades counted the plaza park among its facilities, hosting events like Fiestas de Taos and Taos Plaza Live in the park and paying for its upkeep.
Last April, before the ownership news broke, the town began the first phase of a restoration and repair project that concluded in December. In January, Town Manager Andrew Gonzales informed the county that the town would no longer maintain the plaza park, but signaled the town’s openness to an arrangement where the town could manage the property in collaboration with Taos County.
“Several options were considered,” District 1 Taos County Commissioner and Commission Chair Bob Romero said last Thursday (March 21), when the governing
bodies of Taos and Taos County met for a joint meeting. “The upshot was that we gave direction to the attorneys to begin working on a property lease agreement between Taos County and the Town of Taos regarding the plaza.”
Mayor Pascual Maestas said the town council would consider a lease agreement at its earliest opportunity. Despite protests from some community members, officials indicated the next phase of the plaza renovation project will likely move forward as planned.
“Once all of this gets figured out, Charles [Whitson, executive director of Taos MainStreet] will be hosting some public forums and listening sessions to gather input,” Maestas said. “We have a draft idea,
but we want feedback.”
The state awarded Taos MainStreet a $1 million grant last year the organization intends to use for lighting and landscape improvements on the plaza.
“The time is now to continue to invest in our community by revitalizing its historic center,” Whitson said, noting the Historic Taos County Courthouse restoration is expected to be completed in 2025 and that the town is preparing to purchase the former U.S. Bank building on the plaza.
“The time is now to strengthen partnerships and build coalitions to undertake this important work,” he said. “The time is now to seize
the opportunities in front of us.”
“I think we have an opportunity to come together as a community to make that place shine like never before,” said District 3 Commissioner Darlene Vigil agreeing with Whitson’s sentiment but also acknowledging several commenters who asked the town to delay the plaza project. “This is going to be a test of true collaboration, and true collaboration sometimes takes respectful disagreement. We welcome that as much as we welcome agreement.”
Wayne Rutherford’s comments represented members of the Taos Roundtable group who requested the plaza renovations be delayed until the state completes the next segment of its Paseo del Pueblo Norte U.S. 64-N.M. 68 reconstruction project. This year’s work will see the narrowest part of Taos’ main thoroughfare to be torn up on both sides of Kit Carson Road intersection (and the entrance to the plaza).
“This is an ideal time to slow things down so our communities can engage in fact finding and then move along to consensus-building,” Rutherford, a retired general contractor, said, requesting that officials immediately cease “negative construction-related impacts to locals, visitors and businesses by putting in place a ‘major project moratorium’ inside the plaza curb until 2024 highway work is functionally complete.”
Rutherford asked the town and county to form a Plaza Commission to engage with the public on the best path forward, and asked officials to launch “immediate and attainable projects” like installing benches, planting flowers, erecting “functional lighting,” and bringing back “on-plaza activities such as live music.”
Additionally, Rutherford and others, including Robert Eaton, pleaded with officials to plant new trees, allow them to get established, then look at which trees need to be removed.
For the past year a debate has been raging among folks who believe the town intends to cut down several trees on the plaza without an adequate plan to replace them. In the past, Maestas stated the town’s commitment to planting two trees for every tree that may be removed, but lately has declined to discuss the town’s plans for the plaza trees until the ownership issue is resolved.
“It will take years before they have any shade,” Eaton said. “I went round the plaza, and every shop owner did not want those trees cut.”
At a town council workshop meeting on Monday (March 25), Councilor Darien Fernandez reminded officials that Rocky Mountain Youth Corps received a three-year, $1 million grant for urban-forestry projects in Albuquerque and Taos. Enlisting a youth corps crew to prune and map trees and shade canopy throughout Taos could allay concerns about the fate of the trees on the plaza.
“There’s funding through that grant to pay for up to 15 weeks of crew work, 100 percent paid for by the grant,” Fernandez said, adding that crews will also plant trees. “The corps is going to be contracting with Paul Brian Jones and is looking to work with staff and the [Town of Taos] Tree Board. That’s 15 weeks of work at no charge to the town; hopefully that can help address some of the tree issues across not just the parks, but the entirety of the town.”
Parks and Recreation Director Tony Struck told Fernandez he would follow up with Rocky Mountain Youth Corps. Fernandez is leaving his longtime post with Rocky Mountain Youth Corps at the end of this week and will be become the Taos Land Trust’s new executive director.
Taos has a wealth of shade canopy, however many of its trees are aging out or need maintenance. A century-old cottonwood on Burch Street uprooted and toppled earlier this month, for example, crushing a vehicle.
According to a town press release, arborists determined that high winds impacted the tree, “which had lived beyond its lifespan” and was also suffering from severe rot and root decay. No one was injured when the deciduous giant fell.
“We are a community with old homes and older trees,” said John Rodriguez, community relations manager. “The town is encouraging property owners to take notice of the health of their trees” and assess “if a tree could be at risk of causing injury, death or property damage.”
The town advised property owners to seek expert help if they spot fungi on elderly trees such as those that line Burch Street, which 100 years ago was irrigated by a nowdormant section of an acequia.
The fungi have a bark-like color but are distinctly mushroom-shape in appearance, Rodriguez advised, and could be a sign that the structure of a tree has been compromised by rot.