ARTS: Facility a big plus

Tuesday’s edition of The Press brought a very welcome article about a potential new arts facility in our beautiful city by the lake. However the article, while focusing on costs and funding, neglected the very significant financial benefits such a facility would bring.

A good example of benefits can be seen in the success of Opera Santa Fe. Santa Fe has almost the same population as our city. Since 1966, it has been the venue for stellar operatic performances. It all started with a facility such as your article discusses. In 2016, the last date I could find, Opera Santa Fe sold 85,000 tickets and brought $6 billion (with a “B”) into the community.

Certainly it would take time to position us as a competing venue, but think about it this way: Would you rather spend time in the New Mexico desert or be by the lake, mountains and pines of Idaho? The question I keep asking myself is “Why not us?”

TODD M. SLOAN

Hayden