So this morning (Tuesday, June 24th) Katelyn Peer (Creative Santa Fe) and I had a meeting with Matt O'Reilly (Director of Land Use Department), Zach Schandler (City Attorney's office), Georgia Urioste (Land Use), Barbara Lopez (Special Events), Councilor Signe Lindell, a private security firm, Girls Inc. Art Fair, and Albert Martinez from parking.
Some things were determined that will shift the vision for the project.
In order to close the streets (Galisteo and San Francisco) the police will need Night Wave to pay for 6 extra police officers. This would be overtime pay at $80/hr. When you calculate this out, this would come to $2400/day. I was awarded $4000 TOTAL for the entire event. Not viable.
In addition to the extra police officers, I would also need to pay for barriers ($500/night) and private security.
The Fire Chief felt like closing the streets would make fire safety an issue.
So, without closed streets, where can food trucks go? Councilor Lindell (District 1) was at this meeting specifically to support having late-night food trucks, and we settled on setting up a Food Truck zone in the Water St. parking lot. I thank Councilor Lindell for making time to show her support.
Matt O'Reilly and Georgia Urioste (Land Use) were both very supportive of the project. I was surprised, to tell you the truth, but the support they both showed me was fantastic. I hope a similar energy of support and collaboration continues in the department.
Land Use approved the canopy lighting over the street, the extra garbage/recycle receptacles, cigarette receptacles, and video projections.
The representative from the Girls Inc. Art Fair (who has a Plaza event that weekend) suggested that the late-night partyers would damage the art booths, and asked if I could pay for additional security. I pointed out to her that Girls Inc. is one of 8 organizations that get to host a fundraiser on The Plaza (where over $50,000 is raised annually) and that it seemed a bit unnecessary and unfair to ask me to supplement security. But, I obliged and will be handing a few hundred bucks over to Girls Inc. to cover costs.
Ultimately, it was a clarifying meeting. It seems as though the Police and Fire are really the two biggest sticklers to the Night Wave proposal. I would have loved some more reasonable support from Barbara Lopez (who is the one who issues the permits for these things). It would be nice if she could understand the limitation of our budget, and find a way for us to close the streets without the overwhelming police costs. But I do commend Barbara for organizing such a good meeting on short notice, and I appreciate her willingness to give this project a shot.
Although I do find it ludicrous that we would need so many overtime officers for this area at night. This is an area of town where bars
already exist, you would think that the city would allocate proper resources appropriately. And doesn't it seem like tons of officers congregate around Evangelos/Matador on a weekly basis anyway? This is where things got real murky for me.
Instead of considering Night Wave to be a "special event", city departments need to view it as a re-envisioning of the nightlife area. Let's accept that we have bars and clubs there, lets accept that we have inebriated pedestrians, and lets accept that the area is not properly designed or managed for this type of economy. Police resources should be found within the city budget, garbage and ashtrays should be placed by the city, better lighting should be designed and paid for by the city. By closing the streets and installing better lighting and allowing for food trucks, the city would be creating a HEALTHIER and SAFER nightlife.
Forward we go -- with a more clear understanding of what will be possible and what we will have to scrap.
