Funding request made for museum employee

Tucumcari’s city manager said he would look into using lodgers tax funds to hire a part-time employee to expand operating hours of city-owned museums, especially the New Mexico Route 66 Museum.

Matt Bednorz, chairman of the city’s Lodgers Tax Advisory Board, made the funding request near the end of its Wednesday meeting.

He said a common complaint about the Tucumcari Railroad Museum before Tucumcari MainStreet took it over was its lack of hours. Connie Loveland, executive director of the city’s MainStreet program, said earlier in the meeting that since May 2021, the museum had greeted about 3,000 tourists, not counting an estimated 600 who visited during MainStreet’s monthly Fired Up Friday events last summer.

Bednorz said it was time to address the lack of hours at the New Mexico Route 66 Museum, housed in one wing of the Tucumcari Convention Center. In one case, a family traveled from Pennsylvania to visit the museum, only to find it closed because of a lack of volunteers there.

City Manager Mark Martinez said he would look into whether using lodgers tax funds to pay for a part-time employee was legal. He concurred with Bednorz about the museum’s staffing problems and proposed using such an employee on a rotating basis at several city-owned museums, which includes the Tucumcari Historical Museum.

“If we’re going to fund these (museums), we need to make sure they’re open,” Martinez said.

Board member Lila Doughty, general manager of the Palomino Motel, said she no longer recommends the Route 66 museum to overnight tourists because it is not open enough.

Scott Crotzer, executive director of the Tucumcari/Quay County Chamber of Commerce, agreed something needs to be done about the New Mexico Route 66 Museum’s lack of hours.

Referring to earlier discussions about tourism advertising and a forthcoming visitors guide, Crotzer said: “All this marketing is going to fall flat on its face if they’re not open.”

Several suggested an internship or work-study program with Mesalands Community College or Tucumcari High School to help staff the museums.

The New Mexico Route 66 Museum’s website states the facility is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Monday, Friday and Saturday and from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. However, its Facebook page states it is open only three days a week — Thursday, Friday and Saturday — from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

The museum website also states the museum can be opened to groups by appointment, but no phone number is listed there or on the Facebook page.

The New Mexico Route 66 Museum also stated Thursday on its Facebook page it would be closed until February due to floor construction throughout the convention center and a heater that is “is being worked on.”

Martinez said earlier in the meeting that work on the convention center, including improved flooring and repairing a water leak on the facility’s north side, had begun and would be finished by late January.

In other meeting business:

• The board set up dates for lodgers tax funding applications for city events. Applications will be due March 15, with applicants making presentations during a board work session on March 30. The board would make formal recommendations during its regular meeting April 6, and the city commission would make a final decision on funding during a regular meeting in late April.

Martinez recommended such a calendar for lodgers tax funding requests before city officials set the annual budget.

Most of Tucumcari’s events have been canceled in the last two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

• Loveland gave a follow-up report on MainStreet’s Fired Up Friday events. She said attendance grew with each event, as did the number of vendors participating. Costs for the events were minimal.

She said a meeting this month would determine whether to continue Fired Up Friday or go back to its annual Fired Up festival in September. Board member Al Patel asked whether Tucumcari MainStreet could do both; Loveland replied such a decision would depend on funding and volunteers.

Loveland also said the Tucumcari Railroad Museum recently landed a $25,000 grant from the Union Pacific Railroad to remodel the east wing of the depot. She said renovations would make the wing more suitable for pop-up markets and meetings.

• Robyne Beaubien, the city’s tourism marketer, said she completed a series of print and social media ads for Tucumcari tourism during the holidays. Tourism ads are being prepared for D Magazine (based in Dallas-Fort Worth), New Mexico Magazine and Texas Monthly magazine.

She said she and Alamogordo-based firm Leighton Moon are finishing the city visitors guide, which should be available by spring.

• The board authorized Crotzer to use $2,700 in chamber funds to pay for a long-running back-page Tucumcari advertisement in the quarterly New Mexico Route 66 Magazine. Crotzer then would have those funds reimbursed by the board.

• City Finance Director Rachelle Arias didn’t attend the meeting due to a family illness, but Martinez reported motel tax revenue was trending higher than the previous year.

• At Patel’s suggestion, Martinez said he would talk to Beaubien about drafting a marketing plan for the convention center so it would be “ready to go.” Martinez acknowledged he had been reluctant to launch those efforts because of ongoing uncertainty due to the pandemic.