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[Music]
you're
on hi everybody welcome back from that
short recess and now we're on to our
regular work session agenda for Monday
March 10th
2025 which followed immediately after
the joint work session that just ended
and we just have one item on today's
agenda which is Museum's Master Plan
update by Carol Bray go ahead good
afternoon uh mayor mayor brm and uh
Council city manager and staff uh Carol
Bray director of the quality of life
department for the city of Las crusis
and uh I'm very uh pleased to be here
today to present an update on uh our ma
Museum's master plan that was approved
by this body in 2021 uh our presentation
today is intended to show uh the
advances that the Las Chris museums have
made in the past four years in relation
to this plan and also to get your
feedback about the Museum's future
Direction so I am very proud of our
Museum's team and all they have
accomplished and we'll now turn the
podium over to Garland courts our deputy
director of museums who will tell you
more thanks Carol um good afternoon I'm
again for the record Garland courts I'm
the deputy director for quality of life
and it's good to see you all mayor protm
councel glad we get a chance to talk um
a little bit of background on the the
master plan as as Carol said it was
adopted in 2021 we started in about 2019
with a lot of meetings and then we all
know what happened in 2020 with covid so
a lot of things went onto zoom and we
did things uh uh kind of uh a little bit
outside of uh the physical contact but
we uh we were able to do it over over
Zoom we all learned Zoom at that time um
but it was good because we were able to
get uh stakeholders uh members of the
public in involved and of course our
staff was heavily involved in in
developing this plan so there was two
parts to the this plan there's the
master plan itself and then there's the
short range plan I'm going to go over
them very briefly the short range plan
gives Clear Vision goals and priorities
what I kind of tell my staff this is our
culture this is how we how we operate
and do things uh the master plan then is
is the identity stewardship and
functionality of the museums that's kind
of the nuts and bolts our buildings that
we work in how we work in the buildings
and how we get along with with them so
um after a lot of discussion with our
stakeholders and and staff uh our
consultant was able to um give us some
recommendations that they they found
what we needed uh the need for Equitable
access to the art arts history and
culture and science uh an obligation be
responsible stewards of our collection
uh our collection being uh I think it's
at uh it's over 11,000 items right now
so not only uh keeping our collection
intact but also looking at what our
collection is does it represent our
community does it represent our
demographic so we really we're looking
into that too uh the importance of
collaborative teamwork among staff the
public and Community I think for any
organization collaboration is is a key
to getting anything done so we have to
collaborate with our with our public and
uh amongst staff so we get things done
um we have four museums as you know and
sometimes we can get siloed and museums
do their own thing but we we wanted to
make it a team effort with the Las
crusis Museum system so we wanted to
make that a
team um as part of the the work we did
uh with the master plan we needed to
come up with a Museum's vision and this
was uh something that all staff worked
on WE Wordsmith it quite a bit there was
lots of discussion back and forth that
make sure that this represents us so I'm
going to read it out and uh I this is
what something we're committed to we are
committed to becoming a vibrant
connected Community Hub and visitor
destination that reflects the US Mexico
Borderlands by providing top-of-the-line
facilities and by creating an
organization that builds a trusting and
reciprocal relationship with the
community um as you can see by that
picture it's one of things we're we're
happy to be doing it's pictograph um
there's two there's actually two murals
there we do one per year um and we work
with the indigenous artists quite a
number of them uh some young folks that
get a chance to to show their artwork
and it's really become a a really neat
thing we got lots of good comments about
the the murals uh last year was in
indigeny the year before that was uh the
uh Apache leader loen that was on that
so this year we got another one planned
I'm not going to give it away just yet
but we got another good one I believe
it's April 21st is our is our next
pictograph so uh once we learned about
the the things that we needed to address
as a staff we talked about how do we how
do we accomplish the these things how do
we connect with our community more and
what we decided we needed and and we
also look at what other museums are
doing and things like that uh what we
needed that we don't have is a visitor
experience person we have collections
people we have um education people we
have exhibits people but we didn't have
somebody that would connect us with uh
visitor experience so through the budget
process um we were able to hire an a
person that would would drive our
visitor
experience and once we had them on staff
they began taking surveys holding
Community forums we do those uh forums
uh quarterly uh trying trying to bring
in the public ask them what what do you
want to see in the museums what kind of
exhibits do you want to see how are we
engaging with you how can we engage with
you better and of course our visitor
experience also goes out to all the
events that are at the parks and rec has
that uh local community groups have we
try and be there and tell the public
what we do there was also an increased
focus on social media and that really
blew up for us in a good way uh we we I
think we now have about 12,000 Facebook
followers 3 or 4,000 Instagram uh folks
that follow us and people were getting
the word out what you know where the
museums are at what we're doing and we
also came out with a magazine access
some of you might have seen this before
if you haven't and want to get a copy
just let me know this is a quarterly
magazine that we provide uh everything
that the museum does and it started with
the museums at first but then working
with Carol we decided Well let's talk
about what all quality life does so it
also includes Library events and Senior
programs and we even include the the Rio
Grand Theater so don't let anybody tell
you that there's nothing to do unless
this is 45 pages 46 pages so there's
lots to do here not only you know with
the museums but parks and recck does
their thing too so there's lots to do in
Las
cruus um some of the other actions we
took in responsive plan we looked at
Museum exhibits that focus on Borderland
issues
um many of our exhibits came from
Community groups and
collaborations uh I see in the picture
there we have our icons and symbols of
the Borderlands uh we invited Gaspar
Enriquez a very well-known artist out El
Paso to come and did a a retrospective
exhibit with us that was widely attended
uh by everybody from El Paso of course
came up but everybody in Las Cruis got
to see it too and even some obscure
things like the Chinese and the
Borderlands where we found this is a
awesome story it's it's great to get
that word out and talk about the Chinese
experience in the Borderland so that's
the type of exhibits that we we have
brought to the community in the last
couple years plus a number of others we
did the Downwinders group from tul laosa
that uh that got lots of uh coverage too
because it's a pertinent
issue we also sought grants to help with
our Outreach and Exhibits we uh fairly
recently got an imls grant for our
indigenous uh travel trunks so we can
take our ex indigenous exhibit that
we're developing take it out to the
community take it to the to the
schools education we look to bring in
diverse speakers that enhance exhibits
um we continue to work collaboratively
with NASA NMSU BLM uh all kinds of other
groups uh that uh work with us and just
provide extended education that we can't
necessarily do with with the the uh the
Educators that we have but we can expand
that by getting experts in other fields
that come out you can see in the
photograph there all those people there
in the gallery which kind of filled up
together that was Gaspar speaking um
about his influences I think that was
very influential uh to a lot of people
they really saw where where Gaspar got
his his uh you know his focus on Art and
how he became he's pretty well-known
artist now and then uh anhel cabales did
his uh it came from uh sorry it came
from Beyond the border which is kind of
a light-hearted look at a very uh
pertinent and and and serious issue of
immigration um so we we try and be very
diverse in our in our exhibits
and and really uh reach out
there outcomes
um of course we had better connection
with our communities we saw increased
attendance if you look on the graph the
left hand side was prior to uh covid we
were all our our highest was 96,000 then
it went down in 2021 fiscal year 2021 we
were down to 33,000 most of that was on
Zoom we did a lot of programming through
zoom and and brought people in in to the
museums that way and then it's steadily
risen since uh since 2021 so we're up to
25,000 last fiscal year and we did 700
programs I I would say that's two a day
and we're not even open every day so our
our educators are just knocking out of
the park and and doing great with with
doing lots of programming lots of events
we've got got our Moonlight event that's
in the evening time evening time I've
seen some of you there um and we're just
trying to do different things get the
public out have different events for
different people maybe adults don't want
to hang with kids they want to have an
adult night so we came up with something
like Moonlight our our prek class we had
to split it into two classes we got 40
to 50 uh on every Thursday morning at
Natural History Museum uh people love to
come see the animals and see the
programming we do
there uh the second part of the master
plan of course is the master plan itself
which did a SWAT analysis looking at our
strengths and weaknesses um and there
was a focus on building program capacity
you know we have these buildings how can
we make them work better what's the
what's the flow what's the uh the staff
areas what's the public areas what's the
the back room areas where you need to do
your work
uh stewardship of resources and
addressing our facility needs taking
care of our buildings making sure that
we are asking the right questions and
and getting uh facilities to help us
with
that and uh of course two of the
buildings that are with the museum are
historic structures the 1910 uh railroad
Depot and the brandan culture itself
1935 90 years old this year um and so we
need to take care of that um we have
just finished the Portico on the outside
of the uh the brownan cultural center it
just got done last week so we're really
happy about that and then we're going to
move on to um taking care of the the
exterior uh paint on on the uh the
Branigan uh there was also a look at
additional space that needs uh uh that
we might need a collection space owned
by the city actually in the in the
couple of years since this plan we were
able to secure a larger collection space
we had a 5 ,000 uh foot unit square foot
unit and we're now up to 8,000 squ foot
it's got HVAC it's a well taken care of
space that that houses our our
collections um they looked at trying to
expand our exhibit space and additional
program space since we have the programs
we need uh educational rooms and and
different areas where we can hold those
programs uh they did an overview the uh
Consultants did an overview the provided
kind of a strategic overview of of our
current facility they really love that
we kind of have a campus we have three
museums that are that are all together
um that's really really good and it it
creates uh a lot of opportunities for us
we can use a courtyard space as outdoor
space and hold events uh actually just
Saturday we had our chalk the walk in
between the museum art and brand culture
center there was over 1100 people that
came to our chalk walk event so we're
able to use that space Outdoors or
indoors uh we we are able to use it um
and then they looked at maybe if if you
need to do an expansion expanding the
campus using the footprint of of the
buildings and maybe putting your
collections there adding an extra
gallery or adding a workspace uh for uh
our staff um and they they looked over
all kinds of possibilities if we are to
expand
and they also looked at the Municipal
Court um because that has been mentioned
as a place that maybe the museum museum
of art would would go uh of course the
municipal court is an older building um
and it needs some extensive renovations
to to make it uh acceptable for museums
museums need uh large galleries space um
we need uh freight elevators to get
exhibits up and down if it's on a second
floor or if it's in the basement or what
have you and so there's lots of
challenges for for that including the
the cost of something like
that you want to say something on that
slide yeah so yeah thank you Garland I'm
just going to interject a couple of
points about this slide uh mayor proam
and Council uh just wanted to note uh
you may be aware that uh a previous
Council passed a resolution in
2009 uh calling for a move of the Museum
of Art to the old post office which
which of course is the municipal court
building uh upon the relocation for
Municipal Court uh this was resolution
r9270 um so as Garland noted though in
his previous slide uh Our Hope really is
to expand um in this uh current let me
go back to it here in our current
location um and this is not exactly what
it would look like this is just one
concept drawing but because of the
Synergy we have there and when you think
about all the activity on Main Street on
Saturday morning for example when we
have the market going on or other events
um we just have a better um opportunity
to engage all of our M almost all of our
museums three of them anyway with uh
other events going on in Los crues so um
we are a bit concerned about the
potential for moving uh to Municipal
Court from Museum of Art because I would
say partly because of the feas
feasibility and also the potential cost
um So based on your feedback today we
could bring an item back to you to
resend this resolution at a future
council meeting so I'm going to turn it
back over to Garland to sum up and then
we'll take your
questions thank
you uh so in summary uh the mass plan
and short range plan uh provided a
conceptual layout and guide for future
growth um and so so everybody knows uh
this plan everybody can see it it's
broken into two parts the master plan
and the short range plan it's on our
website and it's it's translated in
Spanish as well um and the they
emphasize the need to continue meeting
the needs of our community and that is
really our Focus we want to make sure
that we are meeting the needs of our
community what does our community want
what do they expect and are we
delivering it and with that I will take
questions thank you so much oh go ahead
Carol yes uh sorry Carol Bray for the
record just one other thing I wanted to
note um I I really do think the museums
have worked very carefully to
strategically position our museums for
the future and we have appreciated your
support as well uh both the council
mayor and Council and our our city
manager and staff um we do have a few
things going on right now to just kind
of show how we're moving ahead we just
recently renovated the Museum of Nature
and Science Atrium which is sort of that
space between the Museum of Art Museum
of Nature and Science uh we do have a
legislative project before the
legislature right now to um to renovate
and the uh Nature Center at the Museum
of Nature and Science so uh I think that
what you're seeing is a very uh
successful response to the plan so far
but you know we hope that we'll be able
to continue on the trend we're on now
and and make it even better so thank you
and now we will stand for questions
thank you both so much I will take some
questions yes counselor gr Corin I have
I have a very very specific question
which is um related to the names of
turtles uh the
the naturalist here the the parks and
rec turtles name I always forget um
anyway he needs to meet the extremely
thick with 3c's snapping turtle at the
Museum of Nature and Science who I now
come and visit all the time because I
want to see where he's going on his
weight loss Journey um who's both iconic
and
um just he manifests this moment right
now just so well I recommend everyone go
visit him at any time but I think he
should meet um the perhaps meet the
parks and wreck turtle um at some point
in time because there might be some
crossover in their in their goals for
Fitness at the city that's why I like
the access magazine because it brings
all the things together just two turtles
meeting would be my only ask um I I
really want to thank you I think I have
seen and felt a lot of the um exciting
things happening at the Museum and I
know I remember when we um were
presented with some of the the things
related to branagan's sort of failing
infrastructure in the front and I I
really want to just sort of again
support the ongoing Improvement and
renovation and and making sure that
those historic buildings are are
functional and working for the people
that work there um so I really want to
thank City management for figuring out
ways to to make that happen and I hope
that we can continue on with that with
that process because it was pretty
alarming the last time actually when we
heard about what was happening um there
all jokes aside and then I I also just
really quickly want to express we talked
about this in the quality of life
committee meeting the the um Municipal
Court transition potential transition
and and we definitely heard you know
sort of reflections of what you're
thinking but I don't know that we knew
that we necessarily had an alternative
you all just were sort of saying oh you
city council passed this in the past is
it something we should consider so I
really appreciate seeing a different
kind of vision and I would say I think
um given the historical nature of the
building I I also support your sort of
proposed referendum to think about or
you know consensus around um building
the campus where it is and not taking
over that I think it's been really
difficult for us to get the municipal
court building even approaching
functional as it as it is I can't it's
hard for me to imagine how expensive it
would be to transition it to a
completely different type of space so I
think um from my perspective I I really
support your proposed sort of change or
direction that that keeps the campus
together um and thinking about Municipal
Court in a separate the municipal court
building in a separate context than than
at making it a museum so just as far as
moving forward that was also the
consensus of the quality of life
committee when back in the day when this
came to it there was definitely
consensus that that Council ordinance
from before is anachronistic and not
necessarily representative of what the
museum needs at this time so just to
carry that forward I don't think there's
anyone here who was on quality of life
with me at that time but thank you again
for bringing that up and again please
let me know the name of the chunky
snapping turtle who I visit I forget um
but I'll keep visiting him the big guy
yours our biggest it's Godzilla but we
call him Zilla Zilla yeah I if you
haven't seen him he's he's amazing he's
an icon um yes yeah Monas so thank you
thank you councelor Corin and then
Moonlight is AKA bugs and booze got it
thank you well that that was that
particular we we change up the theme so
we're going to have a a different theme
coming up and we're going to have kind
of a a jazzy type theme for 21st next
two Frid a couple of Fridays from now
thank so we'll have jazz bands there
thank you so much there yes councelor
Flores thank you mayor and thank you uh
Garland and thank you Carol um in all
the years I've been on Council this is
my eth and I think my last year on city
council this is the first time I've seen
so much
enthusiasm about you know the the the
museums library and it just makes me so
happy and there's been also a lot of not
a lot but there's been press on the
library and the activities there and uh
museums and and uh and and libraries
they're indispensable I mean if we lived
in a you know
horrible
country um the first things that would
probably go would be the museums and
museums and and you know I'm thinking of
like a war so please forgive me but um
but it it just makes me so happy that
there's so much energy going into that
and then Carol's staff and with you
Garin I think um we're very fortunate to
have the two of you and I museums and
libraries are I think the blood life uh
of of who we are as a as as as a as a
people and um it shows a lot of humanity
and that's what we need thank you very
much thank you thank you thank you
anyone
else go ahead councelor mclair just to
confirm to say also I think I can't see
Municipal Court moving out of there
right now and I don't think we quite
have a home so I'm glad also for the
complex idea of one home for the library
or the museum system too so that's it
thank thank you but on a matter of
Municipal core I do think it needs some
serious maintenance um upgrades and
caring for it's pretty bad over there so
okay okay that's it thank you all so
much for this presentation and really
just for everything you do thank you and
that is all on our agenda can I get a
motion to adjourn motion to adjourn by
Flores
second this is on the motion to adjourn
the work session Council mlar yes
councelor matis is absent councelor
Graham is absent councelor
cran yes councel flus no I want to stay
here you always do yes mayor protm yes
and the mayor's
absent
e for