Historic Preservation Advisory Board - Regular Meeting

All right, let's call the order. So I'm Patrick Cruz, the chair for the Historic Preservation Advisory Board.

Carolee Gregory, member of the Preservation Advisory Board. Rachel Adler, I'm a new member of the Historic Preservation Advisory Board. I don't know if you want me to say anything about my background. So I've been in Los Alamos for about 16 years. My background is in archaeology. I have a master's in historic preservation. I've been working in preservation with the National Park Service for about 14 years.

Welcome. We're very excited to have you. We're happy to have you.

We're very happy, yes. So the first thing is to, it looks like, the approval of the agenda. So if you want to, everyone's looked at the agenda and... Can I make a motion?

Patrick, may I request an amendment to the agenda? Sure. Can we delete the work plan? Can we table the work plan until the next meeting and then remove the Ashley Pond bollards from the next meetings? Because we're discussing that today. So if we can please amend the agenda.

I move that we approve the agenda as amended.

So then the next part is the approval of the minutes. So do we want to make a...

Yes, I move to approve the meeting minutes of April 1, our last meeting.

I'll second that. So then we're going to section D, public comments for items not on the agenda.

Is there anyone online? No one is online, sure.

And then to historic preservation and business. So we tabled the work plan. Is this where we have the Ashley Pond?

Yes. Will you please bring up... You're welcome. Jennifer to come and present and start the Ashley Ballard presentation.

Do you want me to stand or do you want me to stay sitting? Whatever you're comfortable doing. I think it's small enough. Okay. It can be cozy here, right? So thank you for having me. I'm here today because unfortunately I think we all see on the news too many times of a car departing the road, whether it's intentional or whether it's accidental. and going off into crowded areas where there's a lot of pedestrians. And so safety became a prime factor for the county. And as part of the safety, it was decided to make sure that Ashley Pond was well protected. As we know, Ashley Pond's a huge historic market for the area. It is a marquee location for Los Alamos. We have all of our music festivals there. We have crafts there. festivals, fairs, and a lot of public, especially the music festival, right? There are tons of pedestrians. And as an interim measure, the county put out the jersey barriers, and the intention was to actually put out a more permanent before this year came around. Well, we started looking into the world of crash protection bollards, and it's the world is your oyster, like what do you want, right? And so we thought it was a good idea to bring in a landscape architect who's a little bit more experienced and they could look into the background of Los Alamos and come up with some ideas and they could give us these great graphics so we could actually get an idea of what it's gonna look like when they're implemented. So we had three concepts that we're bringing to the public. This is our first concept. We're calling it the peer design in our survey. And these are bollards that you can use as seats. We looked at a darker color based on requests from Parks and Rec because of graffiti. And they were fond of the round bollards as well because it kind of negates a lot of the skateboarding and some of the issues that they have with their just throughout the parks and everything that they have to care for. There's three images. Do you want to give them? They're just different angles of Ashley Pond, but this is all the same concept. Here's Ashley Pond looking out directly from the road, what you would see. Our second concept was to put planters and then some kind of another here in between to break up the planters a little bit. And that would also provide some seeding. Here's the first angle. We can go on to the second angle, which is the pond looking out. And then the third angle is from the groove looking in. And our last, and these would be with, the plants could be optional with this one, actually, because with it being a planter, we can work with Parks and Rec on what works best with them. and the irrigation with it. The third option is natural boulders. For them to be a crowd control, it's supposed to be a four ton boulder. It's about a four by four by four boulder to be four tons, which is a nice sized boulder actually. And then the idea is to put some plantings in between Those we try and do a lot of more of the native grasses, ones that sort of match the other plantings that are around Ashley Pond. And once again, we have three different options of these. And as part of this outreach, we are reaching out to the public. So we've been handing out flyers of the concepts. You know, this is kind of a quick overview. You can see on your flyer, we got the design concept one, two, and three. We have this lovely QR code that you can go and you can vote. And we also have on the backside, you'll see this. These are banners that we're having made. They will be delivered tomorrow. We're going to put them on the jersey barriers on the backside facing into Ashley Pond because we don't want to distract the drivers. And so when people are at Ashley Pond for the events, they can click on that QR code and vote. We opened up the voting on June 4th. And we have, she gave me a thing and she didn't have me tally on the other one. But we have, let's see, let me do my math as an engineer. We've got 290 votes already since June 4th. So that's not even out a week, right? And at this time, the natural rock got 271 votes, or 390, sorry, 271 votes. The rustic planters got 65, and the piers got 50 votes. So that's the outreach we've had today. That survey is still open, and we're still looking for additional feedback. So tell everybody to time in. I'm amazed, like, that amount of feedback that quickly. In six days?

Yeah. Impressive. People care.

Yeah. So we're here today to, you know, make sure that, one, that as the Historic and Preservation Committee, that you don't have any huge red flags about any of these that we presented today, that they do all fit with... the nature of it and we are also interested in if you guys have a recommendation moving forward of which one of these threes that you have a preference for and that's your option we will take if you guys give us a recommendation of which one you want us to let council know that will be what we're going to go before parks board we're going to go before t board we're going to give them the same spiel and then um And we'd love to have a recommendation on their part, and we're going to go to council and we're going to give them the survey info and then the feedback we got from the boards. So any feedback you have or any recommendation you have moving forward, we'd love to have that.

Is there a substantial difference in cost between the free...

You know, surprisingly, there is not. I should have printed out the cost with them. They're all right around the $100,000 mark. The boulders will probably, I'm not sure how much delivery, like getting the boulders, moving them and stuff. I'm not sure what that cost will be. But the boulders are the only one of them that won't require an engineered foundation. The others are all done with an engineered foundation. Except for the planners, they're also relying on weight. The seating itself. Yeah, it was fun. I'm so glad we brought the... Landscape architect on its grass groundwork studio is our landscape work, and it makes all the different having the visuals, right?

Yeah, I agree Yeah, because this is like what would that look like yeah, this is great.

Yes. We just gave you this and Excellent presentation. Thank you.

What are you closing voting?

We are closing voting on right before we go to council which we're going to council on June 30th

What's the extent of where these are going to be, like, along the length of Trinity?

They will start at the Justice Center end. Whichever option we go, like, everyone says, how many are they going to be? Well, it depends on the option and the size. And the seating ones have some options, like, 30-inch or 24-inch. But we're going to put five feet in between because other than, like, a little teeny electric car, nothing's fitting five feet, right? And then in that, you know, on the rocks, that five feet will be some landscaping and such. So it'll depend on the size of each one, right? That will determine, whichever one we choose with a five foot gap, and then that's going to be... So this is center till... We're going to go all the way to the ice house access. Okay. And then we'll probably put some in, there's this little triangle that... where the food carts are right right just the rest of it and we'll probably put something in there as well it may not be like this if we go with the seating it may not be that but maybe those are kind of details that we're we're kind of get the concept down we're going to start hammering out those specifics but for now we're really looking at the sidewalk just

All right. So on this item, we would like a recommendation and a vote from the board so she can take a recommendation to counsel if you guys will vote on it tonight.

Okay. Should we just say which one that each of us favorite? Yeah, if you say which one you like. We'll start there. Should we all say it at once and see if we get the same one?

Yeah. One, two, three.

We can start with you. What do you think?

I like design concept number three. I think with the boulders, I think it's most sympathetic to the current landscape, including the waterfall that's coming off on the west side. And I also think when you're looking from the road across the park, it's the least usually disruptive because it just kind of blends into the trees that are behind it. So that would be my first choice. I'm not opposed to any of them. No red flags for any of them, but that's my first choice. Glad to hear that.

Yeah, for me, I think all of them. Every one of them would have been certainly a great opportunity to change outlets there right now. I'll go with number three as well. I like the natural look. But again, as Kerry had said, any one of them would be good.

Yeah, so number three is also my top choice. I like the idea of the native plants fitting into what's already there. I think, you know, I love those planters personally, but I think that would add some work to the county staff who has to maintain and take care of the plants or whatever ends up in them. And I'm not a huge fan of concept number one. I just think the shape doesn't really go with the overall landscape design of the area. But yeah, I do like option three, the natural boulders.

Well, I have to say parks is on the number three board as the people who will own and maintain it because of the fact that the boulders are difficult for skateboarders, not really appealing for graffiti. And having the landscape, all the irrigation into the ground, they say is so much easier to maintain than to put it into a raised bed. So I think they're super excited with the fact that So far the survey is natural rock, and it seems like your response is also natural rock.

This was the picture that got me. Because you can't even, if you're driving by, you don't even really notice because it just blends into the background. Can you make a motion?

Yeah, so...

There you go. She has it all written out for us.

Okay. So I move that the board give the following recommendation on the Ashley Pond Safety Improvement Design. The recommendation is option number three. I second it.

All in favor? Aye. Aye.

All right. Thank you, guys. Thank you. Appreciate it. The visuals were so helpful. Thank you so much for bringing those and having them on screen.

Is that your cup?

Thank you, guys. The next one is presentation and possible action giving recommendations. We just did. So then we are off to staff reports. The only thing that I have to report is just that I went down and accepted the proclamation. I have that with me.

I can now give it to you.

I've been holding on to it. So that was a wonderful event and experience.

You attended the booth?

Yes, I attended the booth.

May is preservation month.

Yes.

And we didn't have a board. Yeah, yeah. But we had activities we participated in.

Yes. So I was there. I did see some ways that maybe we could improve having a booth maybe for next year's. So that's there. Absolutely. I don't have anything else.

Can you go to the rosary for me, please? You were very busy back then.

I did, although I came in late for that, so I don't know how much. I got to see the cutting. I did get to see the ribbon cutting. Presenting.

And I attended the Historic Preservation Master Plan Contractors' presentation.

Oh, wonderful. The keynote speaker.

Excellent. I will say, honestly, in my six years here, it was the best presentation I've ever seen in that building. That's wonderful. So I was, yeah. I'm sorry it wasn't better attended, but those that attended were extremely engaged. There was a couple of...

conflicts scheduling conflicts that we were dealing with and we needed to kind of keep on our timeline and schedule which was unfortunate but we we proposed a bunch of different times and that seemed to be the only the only time that worked yeah i meant by the public yeah like it wasn't a full house but the public was what their scheduling right like we were trying to get as many people as possible but um thank you for your feedback it was excellent yeah

to see Joshua laugh, and I can't remember, Megan, I think, maybe, yep, got to meet her, and so, yeah, it was really good. Wonderful, thank you.

Staff report?

Yeah.

Staff report, we had our historic consultants in a few weeks ago. They had a couple of, they had one keynote speaker and then did a couple of, like, walks around town, and a little bit of more information gathering and public engagement. Really just gathering additional data on top of what they've done within their research and in their site visits. Really wanting for this last visit to be the most public engagement. Let us know what the community concerns are, what we're doing right, what we're doing wrong, what we need to do, what we need to plan for, just getting all that community data together. So that happened. So then we'll get the findings from that in the next couple of weeks. I should actually have something tomorrow. But we had the Rose Garden... ribbon cutting for the deer fence. So good. I am so pleased with it. I'm really. So we worked with Wendy and Manny, and I coordinated that. Almost as we were hoping so badly to have a board, and then the majority party rule of too many Democrats on the board fell through, and we had to postpone the appointments. which I'll let councillors speak to that a little bit more, but we're hoping to get rid of that majority seat rule. So that's what happened there. That's why our last couple of meetings have been cancelled. Welcoming Rachel, our new appointment. We are very thrilled to have you. I'm very excited to work with you. I'm glad you're back, Carrie. Thank you for having me. I'm also always excited to work with you and Patrick. I feel like this is a small but very efficient and very well, you know, just well-informed board. Then, so our rose garden ribbon cutting went really well. It was very cute. We had a full crowd. We had about 40 people. We had to run and go get you snacks. We did not prepare for that. We did not prepare appropriately. That's a good problem to have. So we were prepared for about 15, and we had an outcome of 40, which was wonderful. Rose Garden was very appreciative. They gave a nice shout out to Historic and the county for their assistance and for the way that they're taking care of everything and for the assistance and the help that Historic Preservation has assisted them with. And then... What do we have coming up now? We will go over the work plan in the next session. I will not be here, but I'll have that ready for you all with Kristen. I'm traveling that week. Will you all be here? So we can plan to have a meeting. If not, we can reschedule. It's the 4th of July week, and it's July 1st. So it's Wednesday, July 1st. I know it falls very close to a holiday. So if one of you cannot make it, let's cancel now. So that way we can maybe reschedule for either later in the month or...

Check my calendar. Yeah, no, please. I didn't have a conflict the last time I left.

Just in case, because it is that fourth of July weekend, people tend to make plans. And family comes into town. So let us know. We'll keep it on the schedule for right now for July 1st, but if anything changes, let us know. And then we'll go over the work plan and just touch base and see where we're at and see what we need to work on and then see if you know, how we can meet those goals. And then I think that's all I have for you guys. That's my staff report. You guys have any questions for me?

I want to follow up on the work plan. So Patrick and I met and put together like a strategy addressing all of the goals. Is that something that you would like to see in advance so that we can just work off of that? How does going over the work plan on the agenda look to you so that we can be prepared? Let's...

This will be the first time Rachel sees the work plan. I'll send it to her prior to, but let's... So she has a chance to...

I think it's in the agenda, actually. Oh, wonderful.

So first time seeing it, let's go through it and make sure that we're still... Those are still like obtainable goals for the rest of the year. Okay. And if not, let's know why. Let's kind of have a strategy for the ones that we want to meet. Let's see where we're at and then, you know, just kind of gauge progress and hopefully we've hit some milestones.

Yeah, we discussed that too. I'm like, okay. We had planned to start on this in January. It's now June. I'm not sure. We've lost a few months if we can do everything that we wanted to, but we kind of came up with a strategy and a schedule for each one.

Also, before I forget, I did have another update for you. We are going to be requesting that facilities and capital improvements from the Public Works Department, those two divisions, come and meet with us on an agenda item, maybe a standing item every few months. to discuss the work that they're doing and the maintenance that they do on our historic assets so that we are all in the loop and we understand how they're taking care of them and then ensuring that they're taking care of them appropriately per historic preservation standard and our capital improvements division are the ones who take care of like the capital improvements for historic assets, but facilities is the ones who provide the maintenance for the recoding of floors, painting, or any type of water mitigation damage. Anything like that along those lines, like our deferred maintenance type stuff goes to facilities. More capital improvements is more of the renovation of a project. The Little Theater was capital improvements, whereas the recoding of the floor and Fuller Lodge's facilities. So we'll have updates, standing agenda items from them probably starting in August. I have to give them a heads up and then let them get a chance to get their information together. And that's all I've got for you guys.

Patrick and I did already kind of think about the work plan and strategize. Would it be okay if I emailed I emailed that draft to HPAB so that Rachel can kind of see what we were thinking. You can see what we were thinking just to better guide the conversation.

As long as no one responds back, then we have no rolling for it.

I just BCC everybody.

You can send it out and then, you know.

Would you like to do that since we spent the time on it and wrote it and then Rachel would kind of have an idea of where we're coming to?

Mm-hmm.

what our thoughts are, especially about schedule, so that we can prioritize, because I don't think we're going to be able to meet everything that we had intended to because we've lost a few months. Okay, cool. Okay, yeah, I'll do that. Great. Thank you, Patrick. I appreciate that. I didn't have any changes since our last version shared.

I didn't have any, so it's good to go. So our counselor lays on any report?

It seems like it's been forever since I've been It has been. I forgot I had missed the April 1 meeting. I'm just kind of glancing at a few notes in May. We did have an interesting discussion on vehicle and road safety at our work session in May. That actually led to the removal of the parking places along Central. near the crosswalks, again, because of the lack of visibility of the crosswalks. So that, yeah, in case you're wondering, one of the things that we conveyed to our folks that do that kind of work is that if it's something you can do relatively easily and it's important enough to do it, just do it. So there are They also took that advice and I believe have put in a four-way stop sign at Urban and North Road, not waiting to come back to council with their recommendations. So some of those good conversations that we had. Last night, well, because we were off for two weeks, we had a meeting that went until 10.30. Should have gone until 11 because Wrighty skipped all of the miscellaneous stuff at the end. I was guessing that we would be there until 11. So I was right, even though we left at 10.30. So, as was kind of mentioned, one of the things we did talk about were additional charter changes. Well, first of all, we did approve putting on the ballot in November an extension of terms for boards and commissions, so from two to three. That was something that most of the BNCs had wanted. We got that one out of the way about a month ago, and we were able to get the resolution put forward and approved last night. But then we also talked about the makeup of the boards and commissions with regard to the political affiliations. And we did agree to... put forward a change to that section basically saying the only ones that that has to apply to are planning and zoning personnel and BPU. So again, these things have to be approved by the public in the election in November. The other thing that we put forward was a change on the Board of Public Utilities and that was to delete the item that says all remaining operating profits shall be transferred to the County General Fund because technically they shouldn't have any operating profits and what we've been doing most recently is just giving them the money back so they're supposed to be taking money in and spending it it's kind of a tough way to estimate things but They typically need additional funds for capital improvements and things like that. So those are the things that will be on the ballot. There was some discussion about filling vacancies for elected positions and wanting to do something similar to what the school board does, but it would have been too complicated and too late to try and do that. And I think it might have required two different ballots. Even though I put it into one motion, after I did that, I went to sections that were talking about changing. We would have probably had to do two motions or two ballot items. The gas rate increases, that failed last night. Four councillors voted against it. That doesn't mean it's not going to happen. We did get quite a few negative comments. Feedback on the rate increase, bad timing. But, again, Board of Public Utilities has to basically balance their books. And unless they can figure out a way to cut back on their operations and maintenance and some of their other fixed costs, and those costs are going up, there's just... The really odd thing about that is that people are using less gas. And so those fixed costs get spread among fewer people or fewer gas usage. And that means the price ends up going up. And it's really frustrating. That will probably come back. It will go back to the Board of Public Utilities to discuss. They may just recommend one year. I don't know. That was part of the discussion last night. We'll see what happens. And that will have to come back, and it will be after the beginning of the fiscal year, which is when they wanted that to take effect. We did approve two board members for HPAB. Thank you. And two additional members for the health council. I'm guessing we still have a request out for additional board members, but with either... non-Democrats, because we weren't able to... We published a new one.

We'll renew that advertisement, and then we did fill a planning zoning seat last night as well.

Yeah, that's right. That was on consent. Yeah, we had about 12 items on consent agenda last night, so it made the agenda look really, really long. The agenda was really long. There were four items that we introduced that'll be coming up at the end of this month, and I... I can't remember all of them. One of them was water rate increases, I think. And then we did approve the Ski Hill FEMA grant. We do a 25-75 split on that. So we had to approve the county spending 25%. I think the total is like $3.9 million. But that FEMA grant was held up forever. And it finally got approved. So that'll end up... resulting in them being able to bury the electric lines along Skehill Road, which will really help with the wildfire situation. You know, I could go on, but I won't. There has been a lot going on since the last time I met with you all. Sorry about that. Do you have any questions? And I did go to the Rose Garden ribbon cutting. That was fun. That was a lot of fun. Any questions that you all have?

Thank you. Next for, let's see, informational items.

You got nothing on that one.

Then public comment.

It's just us in here. Nobody online.

Okay. So then next meeting we said is July 1st. I can make that. All right. Everyone? Okay.

Yeah. I'll be out of town.

And the future agenda items is just going to be the word by this. Okay, sounds good.

And I think, when did Jennifer say they were going to council? June 30th?

Yes.

So we should actually have a... decision council they're going on June 30th right yeah so we'll have an answer so we can update you guys on that yeah if anything else comes up I'll add it to the agenda if anything comes up that you want to discuss let me know and we'll add it to the agenda wonderful thank you