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Taos County presents Cultural Treasures mapping project, seeks community input
Summary
County economic development staff updated the council on a Cultural Treasures Project: a participatory ArcGIS mapping and storytelling effort funded in part by town discretionary funds and grants, with a May soft launch and community surveys guiding policy recommendations.
Jessica Stern and Contessa Trujillo presented the Cultural Treasures Project to the Town Council, describing a county-led effort to map cultural and natural assets and to build locally informed policy recommendations.
The project, running into its third year, combines community storytelling sessions, focus groups and existing geospatial datasets to produce a publicly accessible ArcGIS map, Stern said. She thanked the town for discretionary funding, and listed partners and funders including the Lohr Foundation, Northern Rio Grande National Heritage Area and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Trujillo, the project manager, said the effort is meant to balance growth with heritage protection and to inform land-use regulations and future economic development plans. “We cannot safeguard that which we have not identified,” she said, quoting a community sentiment emphasized in outreach.
Staff said the project has collected about 132 survey responses so far (with some duplicates to be merged), and that EDAC provided large datasets—including geolocated points for roughly 50 museums and anchor institutions and a broader set of mapped wetlands and acequia segments—to be synthesized into a culturally relevant map. Stern said the platform will prioritize human-scaled categories (for example showing whole waterways rather than many tiny LIDAR segments) and that the team will return to the town in May to show a preliminary map view and gather feedback.
Councilors thanked the presenters and asked for clarification about privacy and sensitive sites. Trujillo said the project distinguishes things that should not be publicly shared and will exclude or withhold sensitive locations. The team also committed to continuing outreach: events in Amalia (March 19) and Peñasco (April 8) were listed and a May soft launch in Taos is planned.
The presenters said funding reduced the initial scope from roughly $700,000 to about $400,000 in secured grants, not counting the in‑kind fellowship contribution, and that additional reporting, design and policy‑distillation work will continue through the project’s close. They asked the council to encourage local participation through the survey and stakeholder referrals.
