The person: Simon Brackley knows Santa Fe. A resident for almost 30 years, he has worked in the Chamber of Commerce for 13 years, the last six as its President and CEO. The chamber seeks to give voice to its 1,200 member businesses, and Brackley is the embodiment of that voice. In addition to his regular responsibilities, Brackley is a cornerstone of the chamber’s weekly radio show, “Business Matters,” on KTRC 1260 AM. The show hosts local chamber member businesses to discuss local business ideas.
The plan: Brackley offers two ideas on how to pump life back into Santa Fe’s stagnant economy: simplifying the land use code and investing more money in marketing.
How it works:
First, simplify the land use code.
“The current land use code is complex, hundreds of pages long, sometimes contradictory and very difficult to understand,” Brackley tells SFR. “It’s hard for a businessperson to navigate through hundreds of pages of regulation.”
Brackley wants to simplify the entire document. Working with city staff, he would create a code that would encourage people and businesses to build and expand, not shrink away from an overwhelming bureaucratic affair. Brackley cites Rio Rancho as an example: Despite having more than twice the land area as Santa Fe, as well as a larger population, Rio Rancho has managed to craft a planning and zoning document that’s a mere 90 pages long. The length of Santa Fe’s Land Development Code? A whopping 330 pages, not counting the 57-page glossary.
“Someone can get a permit approved very quickly in Rio Rancho,” Brackley says.
Second, invest a larger percentage of revenue from the city’s lodger’s tax into marketing and advertising.
The lodger’s tax is a 7 percent tax levied on “gross taxable rent for lodging within the city of Santa Fe paid to vendors”—essentially, an additional tax on one’s hotel bill. Brackley says the tax “generates millions of dollars, but currently only a few hundred thousand goes directly to market Santa Fe.”
Right now, 3 percent of the tax goes to the Santa Fe Convention and Visitors Bureau; another 1 percent is used to support nonprofit art activities; and only 2 percent is specifically allocated for marketing and advertising. (The rest of the revenue is used for tasks such as collecting and administering the tax; audits; the operation and establishment of tourist-related facilities; and principal or interest of revenue bonds.) Brackley wants to persuade city staff to rewrite the code and have “as much as possible” of the tax revenue leveled directly at marketing and advertising Santa Fe—specifically, at attracting a younger visitor base.
“Young people enjoy activities, experiential things. I think it’s important to target our next generation and let them know what there is to do here,” Brackley explains.
Bottom line: Brackley is passionate about Santa Fe and its potential. He says the city “has a huge array of things to do. Go river rafting, hiking, biking, art events, and listen to music. There’s a lot of variety.” Without advertising, however, people aren’t going to show up. And without a friendly land use code, people aren’t going to stay and build.
Yes, indeed, simplify government regulations to allow more innovation and lower compliance costs. Regulations are the antithesis of innovation, though they are required at some level.
The City of Lost Angles has a whole force of people whose mission is to make sure signs that businesses have in their storefronts are no bigger that 4'x3'.
The choice to be made for those in Santa Fe is whether to freeze its appearance or to let it evolve, perhaps in ways one doesn't like. Having regs requiring storefronts to conform to a certain look has its attractive side, people with 'poor taste" are constrained from exposing themselves. Then again, what is poor taste to some is avant to others. Like Che being a hero to some, not so much to others.
Evolution implies change, adaptation to new things. Being someplace where English is a minority language in CA stirs mixed feelings. It's an "is", the way things are, and I may have to get a Rosetta Stone course in Spanish, which requires work on my part, when I think I have enough work otherwise.
Community "preservationists" are often trying to freeze their environment at a point they really like. I lived in CA where a group (none of whom seemed to be affected) decided that 1767 was the penultimate year of where I lived, and proposed regulations to make sure nobody could remove or plant vegetation without proper permission, and replacement of a removal with a plant documented to exist in the area in 1767.
This is classic thinking out of CA, even if it was 1984 when this brilliant idea got put down. Heh, some people don't do irony. Nobody supporting this bright little idea laughed when I said in my speech to the City Council that I lived in West Pasadena, not East Germany, and 1767 was in the books and closed...no comebacks.
Taos in 1992 is a lot different from Taos today. My life in 1998 is a lot different than it is now. One can refuse to admit evolution (which is pretty funny in a way for progressives, as they are so irked by "intelligent design", and then insist nothing they see can change) or deal with it.
Deal with it, SF. Make the adaptation as positive as possible, but reckon that you can adapt or get rolled over, and lose all influence over the path taken.
The future belongs to those who show up and act. If you aren't going to be there, and your kids aren't going to show up, then the future is in the hands of people you don't know. Think about that.