By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
City council members have approved negotiations with a company to begin the long process of rehabilitating the historic Paul Poag Theatre, with the mayor directing city staff to consider the project “a priority.”
Council members took the action during their most recent meeting on June 25.
City Secretary Mari Acosta read the agenda heading, “a resolution to authorize and direct the interim city manager to negotiate an award with Able City Engineering for engineering and architectural services for the Paul Poag Theatre rehabilitation project.”
Mayor Al Arreola called for a motion, and Councilman J.P.
Sanchez made the motion to approve, with Councilwoman Ernestina “Tina” Martinez giving the second.
“Do we have any questions?” Arreola asked.
Councilman Jesus Lopez Jr. said, “Yes, sir, when are we going to get started on this particular project? As far as them coming in and doing all the structural engineering and everything? When will they come in?”
Interim City Manager Manuel Chavez replied, “Again, with this particular award, we can go ahead and have the agreement in place.”
Chavez asked Scot Carcasi, the city operations and compliance auditor, if the company has provided the city with a timeline for the work at the theater.
Carcasi told the council the company has given the city a tentative timeline of 21 to 24 months to complete the rehabilitation project.
“That’s a very long time, 21 months,” Lopez commented.
Councilwoman Carmen Gutierrez said she, too, had questions.
“As I was campaigning, a lot of the citizens were asking, what was the last time anything was addressed, regarding the design and remodeling of the Paul Poag Theatre?”
Carcasi replied, “Well, we had multiple people go into the building while we were trying to do some piecemeal repairs. But everything kept leading to bigger and bigger issues. That’s why we decided to find a company that could do a restoration of a historic building,”
He added the building was closed to the public in February 2022.
After asking if any other council members had questions, Arreola said, “I don’t even want to stir this, but we shut it (the theater) down, and we left it on the burner. Now we’re trying to catch up, and it’s going to take another two years, possibly two-and-a-half, because you know how it is.
“This is where, if we shut something down and the vision is to do good for our citizens, quality of life, I don’t see why we put it on the side. . . We need to address it before we go out on other adventures. This is a priority. From this council, I think that’s the word. Stay on top of it. Let’s get this thing rolling. We don’t want it fast and not done right. . . This is where my frustration is. We shut things down, we let it go and then all of a sudden we’re trying to catch up,” Arreola added.
Gutierrez commented, “This is what I was getting at. I have been approached by citizens, (saying) we start a lot of projects, and we don’t finish them.
“We here on the dais have got to support the operation through our city manager, but we’ve also got to make sure we’re communicating with our citizens, why or why not is something being done? Is there something else that came up, something more urgent? I think our citizens deserve that because of the property taxes that they pay and how they support the economy of this community,” Gutierrez added.
Carcasi said over the past two years, city staff “has not done nothing” on the Paul Poag.
“We’ve come to council and given some updates. Initially it was planned that we were going to do emergency repairs to get it back open. I think our timetable was a couple of months, but the further we got into it, we found more and more. It’s an old building, and it can be brought back 100 percent. . . I know it’s frustrating and it takes time, but it hasn’t fallen off the radar, and this is step one to getting it resolved,” Carcasi said.
Gutierrez asked if funding has been allocated for the project, and Chavez replied it has.
“Mayor, council, the message is loud and clear. This action here is the step to get us to move forward. I’ll provide a timeline from when we closed it up until now, and it will be a progress report for this particular project, and that should provide some of the responses and actions that have been taken to this point, but we understand. This is something that we need to work on as quickly as possible,” Chavez said.
Sanchez asked, “Has finance allocated funds for this project?”
Interim Assistant Finance Director Roxy Soto replied, “Yes, sir, we do have some funds available, but part of the scope of Able City also includes probable cost of construction, so they’ll be providing that to us, and then we’ll have to bring that back.”
“And then we’ll have to budget for it?” Sanchez said.
“Yes,” Soto replied.
Sanchez added the city would have to find funds for the project once the engineering company has a cost estimate, and the city would have to work the cost of the reconstruction into its annual budget.
Councilwoman Ernestina “Tina” Martinez commented, “I think it’s very difficult until we find out exactly how much money so we can budget that because I know when they started working on it, they didn’t think it was going to be such a great job. Come to find out that’s a very old building, so you can imagine all the repairs that have to be done, so I think the first step is to find out exactly how much money it’s going to take to bring it up to par.
“And, yes, the citizens are frustrated because they can’t use it, especially the non-profit organizations. They want a place like the Poag Theatre where they can have their programs or whatever, so we need to really look into it and try to make it one of our priorities and get it going, because the public out there does not understand how much it’s going to take or what has to be done,” Martinez added.
She also said she agreed with Gutierrez.
“Citizens come up to us and they tell us we’re not doing our jobs, but that’s not it. They have to be informed and told it takes a lot of money to do something like that, so I think we really need to look into it, and find out exactly, so we can put it into the budget and get it going,” Martinez said.
Arreola then asked Carcasi if the main building of the old theater is safe.
“Structurally, they believe the building is sound. They believe it’s salvageable. The electrical needs to be completely redone,” Carcasi replied.
Arreola began asking additional questions about the structure, and Carcasi replied that part of Able City’s assessment of the building will be to go over it “with a fine-toothed comb” and make sure.
Leno Hernandez, the city’s civic facilities director, stepped to the podium to address the council.
“I think it’s fair to say that nobody has more frustrations that I do. I’ve spent 27 years with the building, but I will say that I think that everything happens for a reason because we had a really fantastic meeting this past week, and this company that we’re selecting, I think if you’d seen their presentation, the confidence would rise considerably,” Hernandez said.
He said Able City has a team that will look at the historical components of the building and work toward getting the old theater certified as a national historic building.
“I’d like to request a small amount of patience to allow them to do the work that they need to do to see what’s the extent of the work it’s going to take to get back to what we had or, definitely, better,” he said.
Hernandez said he “cares about that building so much” and has an enormous amount of confidence in the company and the rehabilitation of the theater.
“Proceed. Get things done. . . Continue with the vision,” Arreola said.
After some additional discussion, the council members unanimously approved Sanchez’s motion on the resolution.
The writer can be reached at delriomagnoliafan@gmail.com
