Who Has a Say?
Preservation Office Asks If It Should Have Been Consulted on SFIS
Akey state official has asked the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs to clarify whether decades-old buildings that have been demolished at the Santa Fe Indian School were subject to the National Historic Preservation Act.
If so, the federal law would have required consultation with the New Mexico Historic Preservation Division, according to Katherine Slick, the state division’s director.
“It doesn’t necessarily mean the buildings wouldn’t have been torn down,” Slick said of the federal law.
“It just says we need to be consulted,” she said, adding that such discussions could have included consideration of various options including saving some of the structures.
Slick, in a letter sent Wednesday to BIA regional director Larry Morrin, said her office is “confused” about apparently conflicting positions taken by the BIA in similar cases involving protection of cultural resources on Indian land.
She wrote that she was sending the letter due to “continued concern by the public and the New Mexico Cultural Properties Review Committee” about the recent demolition of numerous old SFIS buildings and houses along Cerrillos Road.
Slick said in an interview that she communicated with the BIA previously but “I didn’t feel like I had enough answers from them about what happened and why.”
Slick said in the letter that she spoke to Morrin in late July and Morrin said the BIA had no right to intervene regarding the fate of the buildings at the Santa Fe Indian School because the school property is trust land that been transferred out of federal ownership to the 19 Indian pueblos of New Mexico.
But in a 2007 case, Slick noted, the BIA’s solicitor general concluded that the BIA was responsible for “cultural resource protection” after property was conveyed to Santo Domingo Pueblo.
A BIA survey in 1994 determined that a district of 24 buildings on the Indian School grounds was eligible for placement on the National Register of Historic Places. Slick said the BIA in 2002 reconfirmed a National Register-eligible district at SFIS.
In her letter, Slick wrote to Morrin, “I hope you can appreciate why this office is confused about the SFIS example which raises serious issues about future undertakings between (the state Historic Preservation Division) and the BIA where conveyance may have occurred, and in this case three remaining historic buildings we are to believe are still standing and in use (at SFIS).
“To further complicate issues,” Slick wrote, “I haven’t found information that speaks to separating the buildings from the land and what responsibilities BIA might have to the district’s long-term preservation.”
She concluded the letter with, “Since we are unsure of the status of the three remaining historic buildings, I look forward to a speedy response.”
In her interview with the Journal on Thursday, Slick said, “I hear one thing from the BIA that says we don’t have any involvement in projects like this... and then there’s the solicitor general’s opinion that said cultural resource protections needed to be applied when land is transferred.”
“We need to know when and how we interact with them on historic property,” she said.
Efforts by the Journal to get a comment from Morrin or the BIA on Thursday were unsuccessful.
SFIS officials have said little about the demolition, other than that the buildings were torn down to protect the public and the campus community.
Many of the old buildings were dilapidated and new school facilities have been built in recent years behind the older structures.
The school has not disclosed any plans for the cleared property along Cerrillos, although one source who spoke with school leaders has said they’ve indicated a museum and retail space are in the works.
Journal Santa Fe editor Mark Oswald contributed to this report.
