City councilors wants money from groups using facilities

By Bill Donovan
Staff Writer

GALLUP — City officials are talking about charging organizations more money if they use city services during their events.

This includes non-profit organizations who in the past have given the use of city facilities at little or no cost.

The council, in a special meeting Wednesday morning, spent more than half an hour talking about the idea but decided there needed to be more discussion.

In the end, it became a debate between economics on one side and improving the quality of life on the other side.

On the economics side is the fact that when an event is held at Red Rock Park, the courthouse square or even downtown, it costs the city money to provide security or to clean up after the event.

Mayor Harry Mendoza said that over and above the money the city gives to the Inter-tribal Indian Ceremonial each year, it costs the city $125,000 to provide services that it does not get any reimbursement for.

Ben Welch, the city’s events coordinator, pointed out that it costs the city about $1,000 to put up four bleachers when an event calls for it. It costs another $1,000 to take them down. Providing law enforcement security at an event can cost another $1,000 a day.

Welch has been given the responsibility of developing a new fee structure that the city is looking at enacting in the near future. He said that the proposal being considered by the council is no different than the ones that other cities in New Mexico has put in place except for one fact – Gallup doesn’t plan to charge as much as the other cities do.

“We don’t want to recoup everything we spend,” said Mendoza, who added that the purpose of the fees is to allow the city to recoup some of the expenses that it has to pay to help these events happen.

On the other hand, both councilors Allan Landovazo and Bill Nechero were worried that if the city came down hard on events like the Fourth of July Celebration, the Relay for Life or Run for the Wall, it would create a situation where these events may not be able to be held because of the expense and that would be detrimental for the city.

In the proposal presented to the city council for consideration on Wednesday, there were suggested fees such as $250 per day for setting the site up and cleaning up afterwards and $35 per hour for each city employee – including city police – who would be needed to put on the event.

Even the schools would be expected to start paying since it was mentioned that in the past the city would pay for clean-up whenever it used the high school auditorium but the city would not charge the schools for use of city services for graduations.

The reason is that 99 percent of the events that are held in the city are done by non-profit organizations and city officials said non-profits will be expected to pay some of the indirect costs just like events for profits do.

But then Nechero brought up the point that while some of the events put on by non-profits make money to help pay for the organization’s expenses, others, like the Run for the Wall, do not make any money.

Under the proposal, all events that receive city lodger’s tax would have to pay the full fee but city-produced events could have their fees waived.

Which brought up the question of events like the Fourth of July celebration which is co-sponsored by the city - do they get half their fees waived?

There was also discussion about what to do about certain kinds of bands.

The proposed policy has a strict anti-noise provision which says that events with “unnecessary noises” and/or “nuisances” shall result in termination before or even during the event.

This seems to be aimed at certain types of music like hard metal, hip-hop and punk, which would also be affected by another provision which disallows use of foul language and inappropriate behavior.

The question was asked, however, is whether Christian heavy metal groups would be prohibited under these provisions and no clear answer was given.