By admin 
Without a word, the Pueblo City Council on Monday shot down the Leonardo da Vinci Museum’s request for $885,000 of the city’s half-cent sales tax revenue.
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The 5-2 vote to defeat the ordinance was a sharp contrast to a raucous meeting in August where tempers flared during questions as the public, council members and the mayor sparred over whether the voter-approved sales tax could be used to support a tourism project without being tied specifically to primary job creation.
A work session Sept. 8 provided a more detailed presentation about the museum, which opened June 12, and answers to questions posed in August. There was little indication during the discussion, which lasted more than an hour, on whether council members would support or oppose the measure.
Council member Ted Hernandez said Tuesday that he voted against the ordinance because the museum did not meet the criteria to provide primary jobs.
Even with the new “placemaking” criteria added by council in February, the main factor for allotting the tax revenue is the creation of primary jobs — “good paying jobs,” he said, noting that the average salary of the 14 employees of the museum is $34,000.
Council President Mark Aliff and member Brett Boston voted for the ordinance and had said at previous meetings that the February criteria change was intended to create a “paradigm shift” in how the council approached economic development. Placemaking is defined as “the process and act of creating high-quality public spaces and amenities that encourage people to want to live, work, play and learn in the city, community or region.”
Mayor Heather Graham, who has championed the museum from its inception two years ago, criticized council in an email response to questions Tuesday, saying it had wasted the time of city staff and the museum in the six-month process that led to Monday’s vote.
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“From April to September, they had multiple executive sessions, work sessions, tours and meetings to get all their questions answered and all their information provided,” Graham said in the email. “This request was the exact use of the changed criteria ordinance, and it also fit the previous use of the criteria for the ½-cent sales tax fund.
“The council had the chance to change the trajectory of what economic development looks like moving forward for Pueblo and they failed us.”
Joe Arrigo, founder and president of the Leonardo da Vinci Museum of North America on the Historic Arkansas Riverwalk in Pueblo, said he was disappointed in council’s action but promised the museum would continue to grow.
The money would have enabled it to add more educational space, signs and a café more quickly, but the museum will seek grant money and donations to pay for those expansions.
“We’re going to stay focused on our museum and our mission to ignite curiosity,” he said Tuesday.