Pueblo Council Rejects $885K Budget for Leonardo da Vinci Museum

The Leonardo da Vinci Museum of North America just opened its doors to the public, and it is already broke.

Or at least, that’s how the story reads if you look only at the bottom line of a 5-2 vote cast by the Pueblo City Council on Monday. The council rejected an $885,000 request for the museum’s operating budget from the city’s half-cent sales tax fund. The vote was quiet, final, and delivered without a single word from the council members who cast it.

To understand why this matters, you have to look at what was actually on the table. The museum, located on the Historic Arkansas Riverwalk in Pueblo, opened on June 12. It is a collection of human-powered machines designed by Leonardo da Vinci, including a robotic drummer. According to the Colorado Sun, it employs 14 people with an average salary of $34,000.

The question is whether a museum that pays its staff $34,000 a year qualifies for public money meant to create "good paying jobs."

Council member Ted Hernandez voted against the ordinance. He cited the primary criteria for the tax fund: job creation. Even after the council added "placemaking" to its criteria in February, Hernandez said the main factor remains the creation of primary jobs. To him, a museum with an average wage in the low $30s does not fit that definition.

That depends on who you ask, because Council President Mark Aliff and member Brett Boston voted in favor. They argued that the February change was intended to create a "paradigm shift" in how the city approaches economic development. Under their view, placemaking — the creation of high-quality public spaces that encourage people to live and work in a region — is just as valid a use of the tax revenue as a factory that hires line workers.

Mayor Heather Graham has championed the museum since its inception two years ago. In an email response to questions Tuesday, she criticized the council for wasting six months of staff and museum time in a process that ended in defeat.

“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 wrote. “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.”

She went further, accusing the council of failing to change the trajectory of economic development in Pueblo.

The contrast between this Monday’s vote and the scene in August is stark. In August, tempers flared during a raucous public meeting as council members and the mayor sparred over whether the sales tax could support a tourism project without being tied specifically to primary job creation. A work session on Sept. 8 provided a more detailed presentation and answers to those questions, lasting more than an hour. There was little indication during that discussion whether the council would support or oppose the measure.

To hear Joe Arrigo tell it, the defeat is a setback, not an ending. Arrigo is the founder and president of the Leonardo da Vinci Museum of North America. He said he was disappointed in the council’s action but promised the museum would continue to grow. The $885,000 would have enabled it to add more educational space, signs, and a café more quickly.

The math holds up for the museum’s survival; it does not hold up for its expansion. The city has effectively told a new cultural institution that while it is welcome to exist, the public will not pay for its growth.

Arrigo said he expects the museum to continue growing regardless of the city’s decision.