PUEBLO, Colo. (KOAA) — Pueblo City Council is set to vote Monday on whether to give the Leonardo da Vinci Museum $885,000 in taxpayer money, a request that has drawn scrutiny from community members.
The museum has been open for about two months and says it has welcomed 10,000 visitors in that time, it reports half of those visitors came from outside Pueblo, and 15% outside of the state and even the country.
Museum President Joe Arrigo said the institution has already spent about $2 million from private donations and grants, and now needs additional support from the city.
"Everything we did was projections, we didn't quite anticipate that many coming from out of state or out of the country," Arrigo said.
Arrigo said the $885,000 would go toward signage, STEAM programming, and construction of a café. He said without the city funding, building out those elements could take years, but with it, he estimates the work would be completed in about 18 months.
"Everything was a projection. It's very difficult to try to build something from the beginning. I think now we've shown that we are up and running. We're having tourism. We're getting a lot of visitors," Arrigo said.
When asked what the community would get out of the $885,000, Arrigo pointed to broader economic benefits.
"What happens is we will be more visible, we will continue to have a greater impact and increase of tourism. It's affecting the businesses around us," Arrigo said.
Arrigo said the museum would survive without the funding, but that the money would accelerate its impact.
"Absolutely, it's just going to be able to allow us to make an impact quicker," Arrigo said.
The funding would come from revenue collected through a half-cent sales tax, one designated use of which is "placemaking”, an economic development concept, but Nicki Hart, a former contractor for the museum, says she does not believe the museum qualifies under that definition or the city's own criteria.
"When you actually look at the whole agreement and the whole pitch for this updated request, there's a lot of questions. They don't fit within that original criteria, and just because a museum may or may not be placemaking is really not enough," Hart said.
Hart is asking city council to delay a decision on the funding until a legal review clarifies whether the museum meets the criteria.
"Placemaking has definitions in economic development, and it has a definition in the city's own criteria," Hart said.
Hart also raised questions about transparency in the funding agreement.
"If somebody's gonna ask for eight hundred and eighty five thousand dollars, how does the public benefit from that? Can they access it? Is there an economic impact? Hotel stays, visitors? All of those things need to be looked at, and transparently is not in the agreement tonight," Hart said.
The museum previously requested $1.8 million from the city. It amended the request down to $885,000 after it said the original ask did not meet certain criteria.
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