Route 66 Visitor Center will get a city commission

The city-owned Route 66 Visitor Center will have a commission to recommend policies and goals for the center, uphold the original vision of the center and recommend contracts.

The visitor center has yet to open regularly, but the Albuquerque City Council approved creating a Route 66 Visitor Center Commission on Monday in a 7-1 vote. The commission members will include city officials and representatives from the nonprofit that was running the visitor center for much of the last year.

The commission will include seven voting members and three non-voting advisory members. All 10 will be confirmed by the City Council. The initial members will serve five-year terms, and subsequent members will have three-year terms.

Three city officials will have voting power on the commission: the mayor or someone to represent the mayor; and two city councilors, one of whom has to represent the section of Albuquerque south of Central, west of the river and east of the city limits.

The West Central Community Development Group was contracted to operate the Route 66 Visitor Center from June 2023 until February and, long before, advocated for its creation. It will designate four representatives with voting power on the commission.

“After 30 years worth of work, these people feel like they did what they intended to do and they didn’t necessarily have the capacity anymore. Many of them are aging out. ... They really wanted to make sure, by them relinquishing some of this, they still had some teeth to carry out the vision of the community,” Klarissa Peña said.

Peña, a city councilor, sponsored creating the commission and has also been involved with WCCD as a previous executive director. Her husband is a past board member.

The director of the city’s Arts and Culture Department will serve as an advisory member. The nonprofit Visit Albuquerque, which is contracted for convention and tourism promotion by the city, will have an advisory member, as will the Hispano Chamber of Commerce.

The commission is tasked with recommending policies for the visitor center, establishing programming, recommending a fee schedule for renting the visitor center, review policies for collections and acting as a forum for communication with residents and visitors about Route 66.

The commission will also recommend contractual arrangements between the city and contractors providing services to the Route 66 Visitors Center.