BlackSwan Zine

By Robert Nott for The New Mexican

The state Board of Finance on Tuesday approved restructuring of a Santa Fe County land sale that gives Santa Fe Studios the right to start building.

The board voted 2-1 for the move after reviewing an updated study on the economic feasibility of the film studio, which will be off N.M. 14 near the Penitentiary of New Mexico at the Santa Fe County Media Park.

Construction could start as soon as April, according to Lance Hool, chief executive officer of Santa Fe Studios. Hool said he’d like to see the studio ready and open for business by October.

Questions about the financial viability of the project arose almost immediately after Santa Fe County announced last autumn that it would lend $6 million to Santa Fe Studios to encourage economic development and job growth. The county will generate the $6 million through bond sales and gross-receipts tax revenues. In addition, the state will provide $10 million in grant monies to support the enterprise.

Before the Tuesday’s vote, Gov. Bill Richardson — who signed a state film incentive program into law in 2003 — told those assembled in his Cabinet room in the Roundhouse that he considers the studio project important. “My hope is that we that we can move ahead,” he said.

All five Santa Fe County commissioners — Harry B. Montoya, Virginia Vigil, Mike D. Anaya, Kathy Holian and Liz Stefanics — showed up to voice their support for the studio.

Stefanics stressed the need to have such a facility to maintain growth in the film industry in New Mexico. She noted that roughly half of the state’s film technicians — members of IATSE 480 — live in Santa Fe County, which makes a Santa Fe-based studio even more attractive.

“This is a worthwhile project, beneficial to everyone,” she said, emphasizing that the loan would be paid back.

Like Stefanics, Holian said taxpayer money is secure in the sense that the business plan created by the studio, the county and the state will ensure repayment of all loans.

Holian said she thinks the public doesn’t understand the financial basics of the deal. The $6 million “is a loan, not a gift,” she said, and it will not be given until after the studio has used up the $10 million in state money.

The only opposition to the proposal came from Board of Finance member John Loehr of Montezuma, a former New Mexico Highlands University regent with extensive business experience, who said he could not buy into the Field of Dreams notion that “if you build it, they will come.”

“For me, this project does not meet my criteria for fiscal responsibility,” he said, without elaborating.

Other board members, State Treasurer James B. Lewis and Steven K. Moise, both voted yes, though Moise stressed that he was relying on the competence of the county commissioners to ensure that their research was sound and that the money will be repaid.

The project was the subject of an overwhelmingly positive March 2008 report from Santa Fe researcher Bruce Poster. The County commissioned an update on that report, which was issued to state Board of Finance members before Tuesday’s meeting. Attempts to obtain a copy from County Attorney Stephen C. Ross were unsuccessful. Ross also didn’t return a call seeking comment.

After the vote, Hool said he was unconcerned with either the possibility that state legislators will cap or kill film incentives intended to lure filmmakers here or that whoever succeeds Richardson as governor might not be so supportive of the movie industry.

“What we want to do is make it a permanent industry (here),” he said, “where we have a critical mass of crew, producers, directors, entertainment attorneys, film accountants. If the infrastructure is in place, you don’t have to import talent, and that’s what we want for New Mexico.”

Hool estimates the studio regularly will employ about 20 people, and film companies that use the premises will also employ workers.

Hool said his research indicates that Northern New Mexico loses a lot of film business to producers who anchor themselves at Albuquerque Studios, and that the roughly 8-acre Santa Fe Studios may offer competition to the College of Santa Fe’s Garson Studios.

Debra Epstein, vice president of corporate communications for Laureate Education Inc., which runs the College of Santa Fe, said the sound stages there have been booked since last May. The Steven Soderberg film Knockout and the Coen brothers’ remake of True Grit will use the studio into the spring, she said. She declined to say whether the college saw Santa Fe Studios as a potential rival.

Hool will run the new studio with his son Jason and his brother Conrad, as well as Javier Gonzales, a former Santa Fe County commissioner who is now head of the state Democratic Party. Gonzales told The New Mexican last November that the Santa Fe Studios project moved forward “on its own. It has not needed political influence to advance it.”

Holian, the county commissioner, also said that there was nothing unethical about the public involvement in the project.

Still, she joked, she couldn’t wait to see her two horses being used in films made at the studio.

“They’re both paints — perfect for Westerns,” she said.

[highbeam.com]