Mt. Taylor protection to be mulled
Meeting Saturday in Grants will include input
from public

Mt. Taylor reaches into the summer sky in the middle of the day in early June with the Pueblo of Acoma tribal offices and public safety buildings in the foreground. [photo by Jim Tiffin / Independent]

By Helen Davis
Cibola County Bureau
GRANTS — The state Cultural Properties Review Committee will bring its regularly scheduled bimonthly meeting to Grants Saturday and will reconsider the February decision to temporarily designate Mount Taylor as a Traditional Cultural Property.

Saturday’s meeting will include a public input session where the committee can listen first hand to the tribes that nominated 422,840 acres of Mount Taylor for the register and to citizen concerns and questions. The amount of time set aside in the agenda will be based on the number of people who sign up to speak at the meeting. Sign up will be at the meeting.

Responding to complaints for Cibola County citizens and civic leaders, the committee will hold the meeting near the people most affected by their decision. A news release June 11 states that the HPD notified 298 parties in late May of the June 14 meeting, including people who requested notification. In addition, media statewide were notified of the meeting.

“We are coming to Grants seeking information relevant to the proposed TCP listing from all parties with an interest in Mount Taylor before we decide if the mountain should be temporarily listed in the state register for a period of one year,” CPRC Chairman Estevan Rael-Gálvez said.

The bimonthly meeting will be held at the Cibola County Building from 10:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Regularly scheduled business will be heard at 10:30. The committee will reconvene at 1:00 p.m.. to hear the Mount Taylor discussion, beginning with HPD staff, agency and nominators’ presentations. Individual members of the public will then be invited to comment. The county building is located at 515 West High Street in Grants. A fact sheet about the history and effect of TCPs will available.

According to material provided by Tom Drake of the historical preservation division, if the CPRC decides to reinstate the temporary designation at Saturday’s meeting, it would signal the five tribes who proposed the nomination and other interested citizens to continue to research the property and its value as a TCP. They would then have to provide a final Register nomination within 365 days. If the tribes do not do not bring forward additional information warranting a permanent listing, after one year, or a property owner has not been notified of committee action to list permanently, the temporary listing would lapse, and Mount Taylor could not be listed in the register for a at least five years.

The committee is a governor-appointed body of the Historical Preservation Division of the Department of Cultural Affairs and has policy and decision-making powers in relation to protecting historical and cultural properties and buildings in the state through listing on the State Register of Historical Properties.