Historic Preservation Advisory Board - Regular Meeting

This is a meeting for the Historic Preservation Advisory Board, September 2nd. I guess we should do introductions. My name is Patrick Cruz. I'm the chair for the board.

Irene Powell. Kerry Gregory, member.

Looking at the agenda, just a question. The section that asks for comments for public

items that are not otherwise included is that also repeated between a and d that we had that fixed i thought we did too it's returned um and it might have returned because jackie or granicus jeannie has retired oh no so that might be what we just need to come back to but um it should not be on the second portion so there shouldn't be us at the latter part of the meeting there should not be a public comment. It should all be saved for the beginning and then any public comments through items that should be discussed during those items.

Okay, so I should consider section A.

Yes. Okay.

So do we have any public comment on items?

Patrick, may I recommend that we amend the agenda to strike the second public comment on item five?

I move that we amend the agenda to strike the public comment on item five. I second.

Are there any items not on the list for the public to be interested in? Do we have any one?

We have only ourselves. Danielle? While we're talking about that one, it looks like it's also replicated between A and D. The little subtext came back. So which one is correct, A or D?

Well, that's the question I had.

I'm sorry, Carrie. I'm not. That's okay. The subtext IA and ID.

The section is reserved. Yeah, that should be struck. Okay.

I have not seen any items not on the agenda from the interest of the public. I wish to move to B, which is the approval of today's agenda.

I move that we approve today's agenda.

Second.

I'm going to excuse myself. I'm feeling a little under the weather, so I thought I'd be here if we didn't have a quorum, but with you, we do. So if you don't mind, I apologize to you all. Have a good meeting. I'm going to go take care of myself.

Have some ginger tea.

I would pass some ginger tea just for you.

No problem. Was that?

Not Danielle. She read very partly to it. It was lovely to see you all. I hope to see you next time. Thanks for coming. Sure. I will. I'm not.

Oh, you're welcome.

Thank you, Danielle. Appreciate it. Appreciate the opportunity to comment. They will be here. They'll be giving a presentation on the framework in October, and we should have a draft in November. Oh my gosh, that's amazing. Congratulations. That's really good news.

Hopefully, you guys will approve and we can actually start fabulous.

Sounds great. Thank you all so much. Thank you. Sorry, that was a staff report.

Okay, so we'll get to it. Okay, I was going to ask you questions. Okay, so review and approval of the minutes.

anyone want to make a motion i'll make a motion we accept them it's it's red

All right.

So all in favor. Section two.

Portion A. So this is about the chair election.

Do you have a nomination and or would you like to postpone the election until Kerry is back? We can do either.

Yes, absolutely. I think all of us should be here. Section B is the work plan.

So I was not here last month, but you all were discussing next steps for the work plan and how to continue moving it forward. I don't know where you want to pick up or if you want to determine what the next activity or steps or on attachment came, which goals you guys would like to work towards or move towards or which we were discussing what uh so I wasn't hearing either for for the last months so what did we leave off on that so we have in the minutes uh member Gregory reviewed the progress of the 2026 work plan and remaining items including with your training The board discussed grant opportunities, potential staffing, or internship options, and confirmed the work plan follows the calendar year. Member Adler suggested prioritizing the remaining work plan items to further discussion at the next meeting. And member Gregory will follow up with me, Danielle Valdez, regarding potential staffing, the fuels, and responsibilities. I did get an email from member Gregory requesting information from staff if there's currently someone staffed for consulting roles with any historic assets that we are working on, current projects, without being repetitive and repeating the same information that I've repeated on previous projects. When a project goes through with the county, like the Manhattan project, for example, The contractor that is chosen to run the project, the GC architects are responsible for hiring a historian, historic consultant of some type, who then is the liaison to SHPO, calls in the inspections, does those types of reports. So it is within the contracts of the public works of the capital improvement projects that their consultants have a someone on board or online that were on call that they can call in and discuss and get an expert opinion on these on these items. As far as someone on staff, there is no one on staff. If an issue comes up that we need someone, some consultant, an expert is called. So, for example, there was a remains uncovered in White Rock a few months ago. The police were called first. The, you know, the investigated determined that there was no foul play. It was archaeological. An archaeologist then was called and someone from the tribal, our neighbor's son of the Fonso tribe, came up, determined that it was an archeological body remains that was found, determined that the best route to move it forward was to just rebury the body because they could not determine whether it was there previously or whether the fill dirt had brought it in. So it, so yes, to answer the question, yes, someone is called when we run into, um, These types of circumstances, I wouldn't call them issues, but we do have people who are on call. I do not have the names of the company. I don't know if it's someone different every time. Typically, the way the county and any government runs is there's a list of experts and consultants for each individual type of work that people do. General contractors, appraisers, historians, experts. architects, and you typically choose from your lists that are approved from a procurement standpoint. So I don't have that list, but I have requested it.

I wonder if it would be consistent or more consistent with what you've called

have someone on staff that is the go-to what i have asked is that that was the purpose of the board and why the board is required to have expert members in the board is that they are supposed to serve as the county's experts in historic preservation so uh i did bring this up we were discussing the clg and and some of the the state requirements and And the reason for having experts on our board is that they are supposed to act as our expert consultants within their recommendations and preservation. So I think what we need to do is really establish a more defined work plan for next year and maybe actually seek out areas on which the board could investigate and determine this is the area that we want to survey or maybe put in a grant for or, but it would be the board, the board needs to act as the county's expert in any type of recommendation. Not as the person we call in to consult on projects or to ensure that we're meeting SHPO standards or registration standards, but for the county to be assisting in, we need to look in this area, we need to do this, we should do this, those types of recommendations.

Okay. This is pertaining to the cultural resource specialist that we're trying to determine to justify, can we hire this person? And I didn't quite understand, is it just temporary or would it be permanent? And then I agree with you that I, when my first meeting last, I was just blown away. And I thought, well, Rachel with her working at Bandelier and Carrie with her credentials from the lab, I thought, what am I doing here? Because that's where I thought these people have the know-how to be consultants on this board.

Two members of the board are required to be within their experts in their field. And we actually are very fortunate to have three. So we have Patrick and Rachel.

And Patrick, I didn't know what your background is.

We do have three technical experts on our board, which I think gives us quite a... This is wonderful. Good.

Now I feel... I thought, what am I doing? I'm just... So that's why I thought I'll just go to planning and zoning meetings. And that's all I can do.

No, I think it's really helpful. But where I think we get stuck is that We do call in a consultant when we are doing projects, but we don't, or when we have an issue come up. But other than that, we actually don't have anything that they would be doing unless they were called out to a project, which seems like an incredible waste of.

So that's, yeah.

But then on call. So we've also discussed that someone to have on call, which is what we currently have and the list that I was just discussing.

Okay, and so that's what we're trying to discuss. Do we need this? Do we have it? Temporary and is this what we were considering? Maybe a grant to.

It is 1 of the things that we've discussed with the rent. Um, and I think it would be best as on call for to have a grant that would be there utilized there in the budget. That would be specific for an on call consultant. Um. However, there's different ways you can use the grant and then that may not be the best route that the board sees fit to move forward with the grant because you can also use the grant to conduct other types of surveys. So it would really be dependent on your research and how you decide on moving forward with that CLG research.

Okay.

What about the question of acting as a liaison, bringing issues that could tend to the Historic Preservation Advisory Board, someone to come and raise those issues in that position?

I guess, I guess, but like, what you're describing is somebody on staff who's just going to go around and find issues to bring to the board?

Well, someone, someone that sort of does the Yeah, I guess kind of like that, but essentially. The question of, like, there's other different committees and activities going on within the county. Someone that could come in specifically raise those issues that if they pertains to the advisory board that.

Bring that I think that's where the advisory board is supposed to have a liaison to the other boards. For those reasons, so, uh, as the planning and zoning, um. the Ashley Park items, sorry, the Ashley Park bollards, the Manhattan Project. So someone coming to you first, but I think it was initially flagged the first time during the public hearing at planning and zoning that that should have came here first. So having a liaison on the boards to also understand what's going in front of planning and zoning, but really what we're in charge of right now is county assets. So now we also understand that the capital improvements division in public works, any time they are now going to deal with one of the assets within The county, if it is on our store plan, they have to come here first, which is why Jennifer came here first. Oh, good.

So just to make sure that we are still in the group.

You should be, from my understanding of what happened during the last meeting, you should still all be reviewing the New Mexico CLG if you haven't or you're unfamiliar with it. And then I'm assuming coming up with recommendations. And then also if you receive the email I sent for the historic plan outline and then Carrie's and Irene's notes, as I mentioned, I won't need to give a staff report because I've discussed this now. but they'll be here with their framework and an outline of what the plan will be in October. So that'll give us the opportunity to review the outline and then move that forward to the draft, and then you can review the draft.

Okay, sounds good. Is there any other things that we can cover on the work formula right now? Oh, going back to the liaison question, it was in reference to 1.3. remember what number that was. So Questions. I guess we can Especially if there's like another as understand another draft, then we come in carries input. Sure.

and sent over. And now they'll be presenting something. They'll have an update presentation for you in October.

Okay. Sounds good. All right, then. We'll move on to Section C. Chairman's report. I have nothing to report right now. I've been able to attend some of those meetings and such with other communities in the county. Back reports, reports and updates.

If you guys have any questions or you have any comments about what I've sent out or want to send me an email on anything that I've sent out, please let me know. I want to make sure that we capture what we need to capture and as a non expert, I don't know what I'm looking for. And I don't know what I would be missing if it's missing. So I want to make sure that we do capture everything that we need in this plan. So is take take a moment to look over the outline comments that you might need or want to see or want them to consider that way. They don't come back with a draft and we don't tell them later that they missed the There will be a survey open next week. I'm trying not to overlap my surveys with what they want to be mad at me for. So our historic survey will open sometime next week.

Is there anything about the county council?

Sure.

Well, a little bit of time in Espanola today, talking about a regional landfill with the city of Espanola and Rio Arriba County, and it looks like that's going to continue to move forward pretty positively. There's been a feasibility study done, and the location that they were looking at, which is on 31 Mile Road, the former pumice mine area, Looks pretty promising. So that process will continue. At the August 25th council meeting, we approved the electric coordination agreement. Approved the Friday concert. It's not great productions to do the Friday concerts for the next seven years. Approved the gas rate ordinance. and um and then also we approved the lita mra project in white rock where the previous pizza and or mcdonald's and then our work session on the 18th that's the one where you gave a presentation right yeah i think it was i don't know thank you um but we we had several presentations but then we moved in um modified the rules so that we could approve the ballot measures that are going, um, that were third ballot, uh, that affect boards and commissions. One has to do with the political makeup of, um, of these boards and commissions, basically removing the requirements with the exception of personnel planning, planning and zoning and board of public utilities, which is the part that we'll make up. Um, And then there's a profit transfer that we're talking about suggesting be removed from the Board of Public Utilities. That's something we've just been blanket approving here. And then the other one is extending the number of terms, if desired, to a third term for credit commission members. So those are up for, will be up for votes. They'll be on the ballot. Try to get some information about that to the public, because I think those aren't, it may not be really clear when you see the wording what exactly those are for. And then on the 13th, let's see, this was on the 4th, we've had a quarterly climate action plan update, ordinances for the gas service rates and which were We discussed the plastic bag band. I can't remember if I covered these already, but I'm just going back to the PRB meeting. The bag band did not pass.

Did I already talk about those here?

About the bags, yeah. I've already covered those. I think that's it. Jim, do you want to consult?

I'm just curious how close are the bags to the .

So you have to have four to pass. We only had six counselors present. So it went 3-3. Good. So I'm pretty darn close.

How many rounds did the fight go outside? It didn't go outside. I was so upset that the person who records from the back corner didn't record the fight. Gosh.

I'm not sure I'd call it a fight, but okay.

Well, as opposed to Los Alamos. Yeah, right.

Exactly. Exactly.

So then section four, informational items.

We got nothing. I think that's just a generic. Okay.

And then section five is all in common.

Where we sketch that.

Oh, yeah. So then the question, I guess, is for next meeting. Do we have agenda items? What is this going to be for?

This will be for October 4th, I believe it is.

Oh, and then we'll review the...

Yes, there'll be a presentation for you all on October 4th of the outline of the Stork Master Plan. And... Anything else that you would like to add to the agenda? And then it's October 7. I'm sorry. And then if you think of something that you'd like to add from now until September 24, let me know and we can add it to the agenda. Otherwise, it'll it'll just be the presentation for from the consultants.

And the chair election. Just certain. Is there any profits that you?

I won't be here. I'll be out of town, but I'll try to do it soon. Yes, I had one question. Maybe I should do it off the record after the meeting. And maybe I've missed it is that it concerns the Oppenheimer House. Isn't that one of the properties? Or is it considered under just bathtub row? Do we have any... Did we have anything to do with the remodeling of the Oppenheimer House?

We did not. I don't think that the county owned assets. Okay. That's true.

It's a historical society.

I don't believe it is.

I'm thinking it's not. We have the Baker House.

Yeah. I think it's Historical Society. Yeah, somebody was privately donated to the Historical Society. But I was wondering, because it's such a key historical property in Los Alamos, and I just didn't know. And I know it's probably private funds. They tried to raise $3 million to renovate it. But still, we don't. It's just like a private-owned historic property in our town. We still kind of work with the owner's. Do we work with?

We don't actually. We're already privately owned historic assets.

I know, but there was something in here where they try to work with owners, private owners. And I guess you're right. They can think or.

I don't think they will. Historic Society owns it and is also very respectful of historic communities.

I just was wondering if we had, because it did say that if anything gets private government federal funds, that it's part of this board's to do some sort of updating how they're progressing. But if we're not, if it's not getting any federal funds, because it's private collections to... And that's kind of a shame because I know they're probably doing a good job. I live across the street and I think it's like, oh, I hope they're...

I mean, they would probably have to go through SHPO inspections in order to keep it started. In order to get that federal funding, they would have to be doing it per...

I think that's why they wanted to just private funding. They were raising funds privately. So perhaps they didn't want to go through that.

They mean that I wanted to keep it as a historic preserved on the registry, but I don't.

That's true. In order to keep it on the historic registry sites, they have to have some guidelines, follow some guidelines. That's true. Thank you.

Were we supposed to look at the Los Alamos historic preservation planning goals this time around?

We went through them last month.

We have a brief overview of what was discussed. There was no other items that anybody brought up.

Because I was just thinking, and what you were speaking for, that fell under number seven about encouraging stewardship and privately held. I think I would fall into that, I would assume. But I did also have one other question regarding this plan, though. is regarding section number five, the collection, archive, and study local history section. Do we have an archivist or elections manager, curator, anything like that in the county? I feel like you're asking me the same question with different verbiage.

Oh, no. At least I don't, we have a, It has one.

I mean, there, there, there is, or at least there was an archivist within the county. And I don't know, I don't know who was paying that person, but it was a paid position. That was a professional position with the historical society. I believe it was with the circle society. I don't know if that position or that person still exists. Um, but they do have, I mean, they do have an archives circle society building. My guess is that I don't know what they do in terms of like climate control and appropriate storage. But it's them and then the LANL.

What about the storage that's here within this facility though?

Our archives? Yeah. I could not tell you if they were climate controlled. And I couldn't tell you how well they're organized. But we do keep records for a certain amount of time. Think anything that would be considered historic we would send to the historical society. For for their preservation, because ours are mostly maintained as government records and not as historic records. State then correct if you might go to the state, I. feel like there's facilities here that we pay the historic society, but I can't speak that that's true. But I do recall having conversations that the historic society manages a few of our buildings and also we send them archives. But I don't know if it also goes to the state or where it goes first. I can find out.

I do recall that there was a collection space. There was a person that actually care of those collections within this building?

Our records. I don't know if that's historic documents that like would have, you know, our old, I don't know what we would consider our historic documents or any type of documents that would be considered for historic preservation. I don't know if that's what our archives and our records preserve or store, because I think we have a mandate to keep them for a certain number of years, but they're like building permits and, you know, council minutes and stuff like that. I don't think it has, there would be considered like historic documents. I'm not sure though. I'll check into that later.

Oh, that's all I had. So then we will go ahead and meet October 7th. And that's it. So we will join then. All right. Thank you, everybody. Thank you, everybody.