[Music]
Your Honor okay well good afternoon
everybody welcome to the work session of
Las Cruces City Council today is Monday
April 27 2020 it's approximately 1:00
p.m. before we begin if you please join
me in the Pledge of Allegiance please
thank you now we have Jennifer from our
communications office is going to
introduce our pet of the week
good afternoon mayor I'm going to share
my screen here if I may are you able to
see the screen not yet there you go okay
I would like to introduce to you Gudda
Gudda is a three-year-old male who is
charismatic energetic and loving Gouda
loves attention affection and tummy rubs
he is a perfect companion for morning
jobs jogs a movie night in or he is
perfect for any starter home and you can
meet Gouda at the animal service center
of the Mesilla Valley which is located
at three five five one Tom memorial West
see some how my screen is not moving
there we go hours of operation are
Monday through Friday noon to 6:00 p.m.
Saturday and Sunday noon to 5:00 p.m.
you will need to call an advance to make
an appointment that number to call is
three eight two zero zero one eight and
of course there are some limitations
that the animal service center which in
clewd free adoptions the animal service
center is not accepting anything but
those reservations that you make so if
you do want to check online you can get
a SDM lead up org and click the
adoptions link animal control is only
bringing emergency cases into the
shelter that's sick or injured animals
only accepting sick or injured owner
surrendered animals they're taking
emergency health appointments only from
adopted or fostered animals and that is
because they have reduced staff right
now dogs and Las Cruces can only be
tethered to a stationary object for no
more than two hours in a 12 hour period
and can only be tethered to a running
line pulley or trolley system for no
more than 4 hours on a 12 hour period
and non-compliance could result in 500
dollars in fines and up to 90 days in
jail and if you feel outside right now
it's about 84 degrees so that's one of
the reasons you don't want them to be
outside for that long over nineteen
basics there are some things that the
Communications Office would like to
share and that's just some knowledge on
Kovach 19 what we do know is that there
is no vaccine
you can prevent illness by preventing
exposure it would night either spread
through friends or your outlets
what you can do you can wash your hands
often use a fan Baptizer that is 60%
alcohol at least avoid touching your
eyes nose and mouth avoid close contact
stay at home if you are sick wear a face
covering if you go out in public and
keep at least 6 feet apart from others
Thank You mayor ok thanks Jennifer
we have two items on the agenda the
first one is going to be the inspection
process review and I saw Larry Nichols
so I'm going to presume he is
presentable
Larry yes good mayor good afternoon
mayor and city council Larry Nichols
community development director will be
bringing you information today on the
inspection process that is part of our
strategic business plan the building
safety program and I'll be sharing the
screen though
first I would like to mention to
everyone that our inspection process is
a part of our strategic business plan
and it as a result of a strategic
business plan we got infamous our
inspection requirements we set up a
results that we wanted to achieve when
we first put this into into our youth
what we said was that 90% of our reviews
will be completed on or before the
establish due date the community
development department has been meeting
that goal through the second quarter of
fiscal year 2020 for both residential
and commercial plan review and we were
at a 93 percent achievement to that goal
the second part of the strategic
business plan the results was 90 percent
of our building inspections will be
conducted within 24 hours
the community development department did
not meet that goal for the second
quarter of fiscal year 2020 in the
electrical inspection sector
particularly the solar boat a a
photovoltaic inspection we were at a
forty seven percent on that the read
there were several reasons behind that
we have a we have a staffing vacancy in
our electrical inspection session and we
found that the photo will take
contractors are returning in about 15 to
220 inspections per day there through
the months of starting about Baja
September October the other and so that
put us at that percentage we have made
corrections for that and my eye and dr.
piss will be presenting that here
through that presentation of how we
address that and brought it back into
our standard
all the other inspection sectors did
mean our goal for the inspection of 24
hours or less and we were at 92% on
those sectors of the inspection program
measures taken to achieve the inspector
gold were filling vacancies we we worked
overtime through the months of December
particularly and into January of this
last year we worked on weekends we
worked holidays and improved our
inspection technology the one stop shop
blind of business and the building
safety program in the Community
Development Department has a division
structure that had six disciplines and
certifications for our staff they are a
certification building inspector for a
general building we have electrical
inspectors we have plumbing inspectors
we have mechanical inspectors zoning
staff and we have engineering staff that
performed form our inspections are just
a quick update on the inspection
activity 2019 and that would be from
January through December of that year he
issued 7125 permits through the
department that was basically a 9%
increase overall in construction
activity which by the way has need to
mention that that was an increase from
the previous year increase from the year
before that so we have been on a very
much of a upward trend and then 16
percent increase in permits for
residential through that same time
period I'd like to point out that during
that time we talked about the inspection
activity the general building
inspections and the trade inspections
being mechanical electrical and plumbing
we had twenty six thousand four hundred
five inspections for that time period
and of those solar photovoltaics as I
mentioned a moment ago I had seen a
dramatic increase but we had 1234
photovoltaic inspections during that
time based on an issuance of 617 permits
disowning we inspect those as part of
ours but inspection process as well and
over 100 building permit inspections
related to the zoning
our engineering staff they're the ones
that inspect our drainage structures or
rock walls our right-of-way inspections
and they had over 950 inspections
business registrations business licenses
are issued and we inspect those
facilities to see that they are located
where they state they are and the fact
they are in business according to their
permit business a license registration
and we did twenty eight hundred and
thirty-four new and renewal inspections
on those the building safety division
are not the only folks that perform
inspections in the city the fire
department those inspections they do
their annual inspections of commercial
businesses Public Works does inspections
on utility work and filthy lines utility
cartman also does inspections with the
same and then we get a lot of support
from the lease department for the code
compliance staff to go out and look at
our complaints that folks may have in
relationship to an inspection that might
be needed at this point I'm going to
yield the floor to okay Thank You mr.
mayor thank you for having me Timothy
I'm the Deputy Director for building and
development for the city I'm going to
talk to you
little bit about how our building
inspection process works and it all
begins with a an application someone is
wishing to build something submit plans
and an application for a permit to our
front desk staff that are here in the
front of City Hall on the first floor
those building plans are reviewed and
approved the people in our department
and also eight eight other agencies
around the city and we coordinate all
those reviews to get those those
building plans approved and at that
point if the building plans are
approvable plan we issue the permit to a
licensed contractor we can only issue
permits in the state of New Mexico the
only people eligible to receive permits
to have an permit issue to them if
somebody was licensed by the state to do
work in the area in which the the
project is the construction is going to
take place and so we have all of those
steps that happen before we do our first
inspection before really the job even
begins we have a lot of steps to go
there now not every permit requires and
plan review and not every permit needs
to go through every one of these steps
every one of them does have to be as to
a licensed contractor but not everyone
has a plan working but I want to make
the point that the building inspection
utilizes the building plant the approved
building plans you can look to the
cartoon to the right to understand why
it's important that we follow the plan
and that I think more than anything for
most of our problems it comes down to
that issue that the building plans
either take we have a very hard time
getting them approved because of for
some reason or another or that somebody
does something in the field that does
not follow their plan one
the once the plans have been approved
and they've been and the permit has been
issued
we as the city staff as the building
safety program wait for the permit
holder to schedule an inspection and
they have several inspections they have
to they have to schedule they know what
they are because on their permit card
and tell them which permits which
inspections they're going to need and
there's their responsibility to contact
us most people contact us via the online
system although we have an email system
you can call us by phone you can you can
come in and although not at the moment
you can't come in but some contractors
just prefer to come in and and talk to
people they don't like the computer but
we we take care of everybody the best we
can but it's up to the permit holders
scheduled for the inspection staff goes
out inspects the project results the
inspection and records that
electronically in our Excel assistant
and that Excel system has acid's of an
access portal that allows anybody in the
city to be able to investigate what
permits have been issued and where they
are in the process
correction notices it used to be that we
posted them in the building so we still
do that
I accept in one case that we'll talk
about in a little bit but now we also
post them online so as a as a member of
the public you can see what Corrections
were asked for in there correction
notice associated with the online permit
and then we do a final we do final
inspections to sir compliance and it's a
final inspection that that kind of
finishes everything off we usually will
do plumbing mechanical first and then
we'll do electrical and then we will
finish off the building final the
building inspector is responsible for
making sure that all the other permits
all the other inspections were done and
done properly a pass and then when
that's done we
teller Permatex okay we have finished
our inspections now it's time to issue a
certificate of occupancy and that gives
the property owner or the project
manager the ability to occupy that space
for the intended use so in in our system
we have building as Larry said we have
building inspectors we have electrical
inspectors mechanical
inspectors and we have plumbing
inspectors in our in the state of New
Mexico these are state certified
inspectors and we have them in three
categories so we have building
inspectors and they do both commercial
and residential inspections they are
responsible to to be aware of the proud
of the of the Building Code and the
residential code in in both commercial
and in residential the same is true for
electrical it's both commercial and
residential many other places have a
separate residential inspector and a
separate commercial Spector New Mexico
decided that's not the way they used to
do it and so we we follow their their
certification mechanical and plumbing
generally are the same inspectors they
are expected to have a certification in
both commercial and residential in both
mechanical and plumbing our inspectors
especially our eighth building
inspectors are all International Code
Council certified in multiple
certifications and they are all
certified by the New Mexico State the
construction industry division of the
state of New Mexico we have in our
department education and experience from
the bachelor's master's PhD level
everybody has at least three years and
in many cases we brought people in at
ten years in the trades so these are
people that are extremely well versed in
the industry they've been doing this for
a very long time we are the second
largest jurisdiction of State and
we're one of the few I think five that
that have all the certifications and we
have multiple inspectors in each
certification which is most of the other
jurisdictions have one possibly two in
each in each of the three we are well
respected by the state they they look to
our inspectors for it advice they ask
them to be on boards to talk about how
we how we how the State Building
Division is going to move forward the
construction industry division will move
for we have 44 certifications between
the group of us most of them are the
standard building commercial building
residential building commercial plumbing
and so on but we have some some unique
ones so for instance one of our guys has
a med gas met at medical gas
certification he's the only one in
southern New Mexico that certification
so we can do our own medical gas
inspections here in in Las Cruces
everyone else has to call out for a
special inspector for them between us
they have a hundred sixty two years of
experience and to give you some numbers
of what we currently have in people who
can do inspections of the various types
we have one building official is
currently Laird
we have one combination inspector who
can do both building and electrical we
have two building inspectors if two to
stand below an electrical inspector if
three mechanical and plumbing inspectors
if to engineering inspectors in one zone
inspector we have a few more that can do
some of those those last two categories
I didn't put myself on this list I could
do those I have done some building
inspector inspections but that's
the group that was doing those but this
is 12 people of the group that were
doing that what'd he say Larry 26,000
inspections in 2019 and lest you think
this kovat 19 is has put us back we are
actually up in number of permits issued
in March and April of this year we had a
record number of new single-family homes
in March we had a normal number in April
so it's not stopping people from buying
houses to us stopping people from
building houses and I'll let Larry talk
a little more about that a little later
so Larry talked about the 47% of meeting
our goal on inspections the biggest part
of that problem was we had an electrical
inspection electro inspector vacancy we
lost on one of our electrical inspectors
he left an account and in the state of
New Mexico there are only 42 certified
electrical inspectors so it's very
difficult to find a certified electrical
inspector bring him in and have him have
experience and ready to go and it took
us a long time to find somebody we were
comfortable with it hurt it earnest
terribly that at the same time the
petroleum industry was doing very well
and everybody could get jobs in in Hobbs
and Midland and they didn't need to come
to Las Cruces that may be changing today
we may see a little bit different result
today but that was at the time we were
searching for that inspector it was a
very serious a very serious problem for
us to try and fill that position we also
have had Larry talked about the rise and
the number of permits and as I said
again in 2020 we're seeing another rise
in permits we're having more and more
permits issued more and more inspections
being being performed
and we have just about if everything
goes great we can keep up with the
demand based on the staffing we have but
even with planned uh planned vacations
and and doctor visits so on it sometimes
can can give us some it can really throw
us off that meeting the the next day
inspection is very difficult when I've
got three people out because it's it's
easier or something like that we can
usually catch back up by the next week
but every once in a while you get that
unplanned thing you get the the person
that has to go in for surgery and and
they're out for ten weeks and those are
very difficult we don't have enough
capacity to deal with that that is a
loss of somebody like that so we have
and with discussion of the city
management we have asked for a building
official a separate building official so
that Larry can be our director and not
have to also the our building official
we've asked for another combination
inspector in that you know in the
upcoming budget that you'll be seeing in
in a few weeks we also have asked for a
couple other things that that should
help that but in terms of the
inspections those are the two okay
coming back to the inspection and what
happens in the process on-site we do we
typically do twelve inspections so we
have three primary disciplines we have
the building the electrical and the
plumbing mechanical and we usually do
them together like that and then each of
them have a Larry's use the words for
the building inspections so the
foundation the frame the finishes and
the final in electrical or plumbing we
might call it the rough in the top out
and so on to the fine but but they all
have multiple inspections you want to
look at you know you want to look at the
plumbing
before the concrete or do you want to
look at the electrical before the
drywall is put on the wall you want to
look at it you want to make sure that
the things that are behind the walls are
done properly so each of the inspectors
do on a residential job and we're
currently doing about well last year we
did about 600 new homes last year so you
can you can do that do that math on that
the commercial projects are generally
more complex not always it's just an
interior completion they're not but but
most like the hospital the the three
crosses Regional Medical Center for
instance we do we're usually out there
for at least a full day maybe maybe two
days or doing inspections and so given
all the issues that we have had in terms
of we're not meeting our goals we have
things we really would like to be able
to do and Larry and I back in December
started to notice we were having a very
serious problem with our especially our
electrical inspections we could not get
them done in time it wasn't acceptable
to Larry or me we are not in the
business of holding people up we're in
the business of making sure their
projects get done I have a great love
for the construction industry I like to
see guys work and I like to sleep you
guys getting paid because that's that's
their thing that's their that's their
livelihood you know work they don't get
paid so when we hold them up it doesn't
make me feel good and Larry was a
builder for a long time he knows what
that feels like when you can't pay your
guys because you're not getting paid
yourself so we had to come up with some
solutions and it wasn't just to get the
position hired that we we did continue
working on that but we started looking
around asking around the country what's
what are people doing and we came up
with a few things and so we have a few
innovations that we came up with
back in November December time one of
them is that
we have convinced most of our inspectors
to learn another tray and to get another
certification and we have said if you
can get another certification so that
you know and when you're out there doing
the plumbing in plumbing final
inspection you can also do the
electrical final inspection save an
inspector from going out let's let's do
that there was a long time when the when
the goal was to have inspectors be
specialists in their area we're it's our
belief that we will get a lot more
resiliency if we have inspectors that
can do multiple tasks and so that's what
we've been working on the second one
Larry and I after talking to a couple
people when we were in the International
Code Council Convention we got on to
this idea of interactive video
inspection and so this is a an
inspection in which the inspector sits
here in the office we have special
equipment for him he contacts the
contractor or subcontractor and they
show him on video the the project some
project is hard to do that on on a frame
job for instance if you're trying to
look at how tight a bolt is it's it's
not always easy to figure out how tight
it is all you need to know is these
studs or X number of inches apart or
that yes you have your your wires screw
it in in the right locations and they're
not they're not bending or they're there
more than six feet away from the edge
and you can have the contract to put
down a measuring tape or something it
works really really well and and and
here's here's a typical inspection and
especially if we're in town a typical
inspection is somebody calls in the
inspection on let's say Sunday afternoon
and we get it Monday morning we come in
we have this inspection on the books
we'd like to get it done today my
inspector takes it and let's say it's
now
Hadley West Hadley somewhere the
inspector says well I've got to get down
to brownie a dove I've got to get up to
you know North Main Street and I've got
to get so he spends 20 minutes driving
down to out the West Headley ocean does
a seven minute inspection it's back in
his truck driving 20 minutes down to
bravia dove does a 15 minute inspection
drives up to legends West does a frame
perhaps that's that's a 45 minute
inspection and and he has spent more
time in his truck than he was spending
actually doing the inspections so what
the IV idea is to remove that travel
time out of the equation and we found
that we could we could do two or three
times the number of inspections by video
as I say it's not always perfect and it
doesn't work in every case but in the
current situation we're very much
learning that we can use it a lot more
than we thought we could especially when
a guy is stuck at home and his choice is
take leaver or do some inspections he
figures out how to do inspections on the
on the video and it's it's gotten great
results and great response from the from
the contractors some of them are very
reluctant at the beginning listen I
don't know how that works I can't figure
out how to make that work but they now
say you know we are we are
I don't know Larry may be the only the
only one in the state that's kept up our
inspections at we're probably better off
than we were in February in terms of how
our inspections are going so and then we
do have some special inspection we do
have to call in engineers especially on
things like steel and things like that
that we don't have special expertise
here architects sometimes you get test
labs percent concrete work we have test
lab Steve
okay and then why is this inspection
process so important we don't view the
inspection process as a us against the
inspection process is not us against the
developer or the contractor or the owner
the inspection process is certifying
that the developer or the contractor or
the owner has a project that has a
building that meets code code is the
International Building Code is a
commonly used code across 47 states the
United States multiple foreign countries
virtually every city that I've ever been
into uses the IBC or some very close
modification of it and so it's us saying
to the industry we're gonna stand up and
make sure that you build to code why do
we why does the industry want us to do
that well because the industry needs a
third party to have gone in there and
looked at what happened so that they can
say hey to the mortgage company know
this was built to code the mortgage
company can say okay when we give you
our three hundred thousand dollars a two
hundred thousand dollars we can have
assurance that this was built to the
standards and it needs to have been
built it and we're very proud of that
we're very proud of the way to be we
provide the lending institutions
insurance companies the title companies
everybody that's we relying on us to
have a project that isn't gonna fall
down at the first win I hate ain't gonna
fall down we have snow fall isn't gonna
have problems this is gonna have a fire
break out in the wall the electrical
wiring was putting everybody that
requires that that's that's who we are
certifying to and so when we give a
certificate of occupants to some
binoculars somebody we are saying you
know this is a house that I would feel
comfortable living and so the new buyer
can feel comfortable knowing that
[Music]
that they could live in it and we've had
situations where a builder was maybe a
little upset with us for not getting the
CFO out as soon as we could
but we've also heard in those cases from
the perspective owner saying well thank
you for doing that because I wouldn't
have wanted it that way
so and and usually we do our best to
work that out with them make sure that
this project gets done properly and we
can issue a proper certificate of
occupancy that means for a safe building
that's all I'll hand it back to Larry
for some finishing comments okay well
thank you dr. bit Barry and before you
jump in there I hear that you actually
did a inspection through the video and
made a contractor pretty happy so that's
pretty good I appreciate you doing that
going the extra extra mile oh I think
you're muted Larry here you go there are
we on on my yes sir
there we go before we get into the
discussion I would have a few other
comments ending the presentation and
those would be related to the the
culprit endemic that we were all
experiencing at this time of course the
building contractors opers that part of
that scenario but but we have no way of
knowing when we had no one I'm talking
are you hear me are you not there yes
sir
yep okay I'm sorry my sister came inside
she thought I'm experimenting in January
and February when we were bringing on
this interactive video inspection that
we would be faced with what we're facing
here in March and April but thankfully
we have that innovative idea and we put
it into play and we are being hearing
from
there's our developers say that this is
working for us this is enabling us to
continue our operations I have been to
the field a number of times to eat a few
inspections on site the contractors are
working with the Public Health
guidelines
fortunately the construction activity on
site they can maintain distancing they
can keep their groups of staff no more
than five you know they're doing the
have placed sanitizing hand-washing
stations among other sites as well so
many of those things have been put in
place to help the process continue I did
a real quick checkup before this meeting
today we are close to 40 using the
residential section as a barometer our
benchmark we're about 43 to 44 instable
inspections and permits for the month of
April as we close out the month that's
going to be above what we were a year
ago
I mentioned earlier last month we were
at 72 new residential applications the
activity fortunately they are able to
continue I said our continuing operation
plan and our standing operating
procedure for the interactive video to
the state construction industry's
division for them to support our
continuing of operations and fortunately
we've been able to do that and things
are are continuing to progress as we
come out of endemic restrictions on
activity I think we're going to find
that the construction industry aspect
it's going to be in a very good position
to not have to push the restart button
it's going to be a
so with those remarks about how we have
continued with an implemented the
inspection process with the cobia
pandemic I will stand for questions you
may have regarding the inspection
process thanks Larry we have councillor
Vasquez who has a comment or question
and then councillor abate this to me
Thank You mayor Thank You Larry thank
you Tim for that presentation could you
explain again briefly just the you
mentioned the 47% permit rate for the
solar photovoltaic installations
I think 617 to date are those remaining
inspections that you have or where those
inspections not approved could you just
go over that a little bit Morgan yes
mayor and councillor vasca so I'll start
with that and if Tim we want to have a
little as we go along but councillor
that's what we found was that there was
a real interest and this was driven by
tax incentives on the solar photovoltaic
systems for folks and there was a
deadline of December 31st to achieve
some of those tax benefits so we begin
to get a lot of projects come in like 15
or 20 a day that the the 18 solar
voltaic contractors and the city were
putting these systems in we could not
keep pace with that and so it impacted
our percentage of completion for
electrical inspections within our three
to five days the figure the 40% was that
we we backlogged at that period of time
we were backlogged nearly 300
inspections trying to catch up we as an
inspection requests would come in we
would put it on a roster and then we
would begin to address those on a basis
of the first as they had had
called it we would take that inspection
and schedule it but it was very
concerning to myself especially and Tim
as well in their 22 years that I've been
in the building department business I
have never had a situation of that
nature so we recognized that that was
unacceptable to our customers and to us
and that's when we begin to find
innovative ways to address that today we
are current with all of our electrical
inspections all of our building
inspections of our solar photovoltaic
inspections one of the means of doing
that that enabled us to achieve that
status was that we begin to schedule
Fridays so only for solar photovoltaic
inspections all three of our electrical
inspectors were assigned projects we
were doing 40 to 45 a day and we're
doing that now and we are we are and in
all of our inspection requests okay
thank you for that appreciate that Larry
um yeah I think it's it's it's
definitely been a good economic driver
in the solar industry and I know there's
been both state tax credits and federal
tax credits that have kind of bounced
around for the last few years some
reauthorize some not some some different
changes that have prompted homeowners to
put solar on the rooftop I think
ultimately it generates jrt for the city
creates jobs in the solar industry and
also helps us meet our our climate
change mitigation goals and so I think
making sure in the future that we have
as you mentioned today the capacity to
take on that activity that economic
activity from an industry that really
benefits a whole bunch of different
parts of our community is really
important and so thank you Larry and Tim
for prioritize
I think we want to make it as easy and
painless for homeowners to go solar and
anticipate that that that industry is
just gonna keep growing
I also have a question for you about the
general building and trades inspections
you mentioned in a previous slide or you
have an in previous slide there you did
twenty six thousand four hundred and
seventy five building and trades
inspections of those inspections how
many of those were successful or how
many times did you have to go back to
correct or mitigate certain issues
related to those inspections if you
could characterize it you might not have
the exact number I realize that and
councilor mouse goes up I could get that
number for you I I don't have a top of
my head at this particular moment but
you have a you have identified something
that has caused a difficulty with the
inspection delays and then there's an
inspection is requested by the applicant
we schedule it we go perform the
inspection and find that it fails which
requires a reinfection re-inspections
are very time costly for the contractors
the developer and the building
department so what we're trying we're
trying to find a means and method of of
reducing re inspections because that
would move everyone along one of the
things that we're asking of the
contractors is for them to do a a pre
Quality Control if you will a QC review
of their work before they call for the
inspection and perhaps catch a few items
small items that would create a
reinfection so we've been working with
the contractors on that a counselor a
beta Stewie attended our government
affairs site builders govern affairs
committee meeting the other day when we
talked about
particular issue of finding a way to
reduce the number of rien spec ssin
reduce the number of rien sections it
would be helpful to everyone counselor
if I if I maybe it's to add to what
Larry saying one of the problems we had
with a lot of our especially the solar
photovoltaic is that the the industry is
such that people doing the installation
are not necessarily electricians and and
they they should be getting sort of
certified and doing electric electrician
work and and the big ones are and and
they they're working on it and they're
trying to get there that's it it's
certainly something we need to work with
the industry on to assure that we're
getting good quality but what we were
finding especially in 2019 is that we we
put easily go out and fail 60 to 70
percent of the solar photovoltaic
systems and and there's some reason for
that that's not really of their own
making it has to do with how some of the
some of the services are undersized
they're not ready for the the type of
electrical system it's getting put in
they have to get rebuild they're not
really electricians so there's some
there's some institutional things and
some some structural things that I think
maybe we need to be a little more
proactive and work on to make it a
little easier for them but but that was
a very serious problem you know it's
very disheartening to send out an
inspector have him go out and do 20
inspections and come back and say I
passed four of them you know and you're
sitting they go what's the point of
going out why did we just eat their day
and and it's gotten better
we've we've been better in the way that
I think some of the things that some of
the things where it was kind of they
would feed into themselves so we would
go out we would have an inspection
scheduled we'd go out and then the
electrician for instance might say well
he's not coming out for another week and
then they
wouldn't be ready and Colin in Ireland
and we'd show up and yeah where's your
why isn't this done they said well we
didn't think you'd be here till next
week and so they were a lot of those
sorts of things that were kind of
playing into it and I think by getting
back to a more standardized here's what
to expect we do our solar Mondays solar
systems on Mondays we do regular
inspections on on the remaining days we
do emergency inspections at Friday's
always full of electrical you know
same-day change outs and things like
that it's a very it's a very rush around
and do whatever sitting there because
you want to get it in you don't want
people sitting around with no
electricity don't mind so that's I think
it's a little bit more of how it it kind
of fed on itself during that that time
area and maybe why you got you probably
heard a lot more complaints during that
time and I think that we are past that
sure well thank you and I support any
measures as well as any budget
adjustments to your respective
operations support more of that public
education especially especially around a
growing industry right that's creating
good jobs clean jobs
realizing that solar companies big and
small probably aren't going to be able
to hire the electricians the qualified
licensed electricians that they need and
and dealing with that reality right that
they're still going to be selling the
rooftop systems customers are still
going to be buying them and that us as a
partner that the city should be doing
our best to educate you know from the
best perspective that we can those
companies and those contractors on how
to be successful in that process that I
think that's a win-win for an industry
for jobs for the city
like you said rather than you know
failing 80% of inspections as perhaps
was the case at one particular point in
time so I think that I support that and
I think identifying that is a good thing
for management and for Council
make sure that you guys have the
resources you need to do that and that
goes you know some conversations I've
had in particular you know that with
some subcontractors that say hey you
know if you're gonna do like a building
remodel or you're gonna do a you know
you're going to license your kitchen or
you're gonna do X and while you have to
know which contractors to work with
locally because there are some who know
how to get it properly inspected and
some that don't and so what I'm hearing
is that there's contractors out there
who may take on a project that
ultimately has to be inspected by the
city for like you know commercial
kitchen or for some rewiring that end up
delaying that project right by by weeks
or months because they didn't know
exactly what the inspectors wanted and
so what I hear is that which is
unfortunate because we don't want
business to I think be unfairly done in
a way where you know people are saying
work with this company because they know
what the city wants don't work with that
company because they're they have no
experience right we want people to be on
a level playing field I think when it
comes to being able to take on those
redevelopment opportunities and to me
that's that's a particular concern
because in my district I want to promote
infill right I want to promote getting
as many buildings and commercial places
re redeveloped right into new into new
businesses new facilities that means
adding that means remodeling that means
upgrading electrical systems that were
probably built in the 70s or 80s to get
them up to code and so being able to get
those businesses up and running when
they can do with folks that that
ultimately speeds up that process or at
least that that helps business people be
able to to create those jobs in our
community is great I do have a question
about the virtual inspections that you
that you mentioned which I think is a
great opportunity to build maybe on that
past coated are there plans Larry or Tim
to continue with virtual inspections for
certain things past coated as you've
realized that you can make some
efficient
he's in that process oh yes mayor
Councillor Bosco so we have this
interactive virtual inspection prior to
the koban and I think okay we have every
intention to continue it because we have
found it if some increases the
efficiency on both sides on the
contracting and in a construction
industry side and for art of inspectors
sites so we'll be building on that and
Tim will be also might mention we're
continuing with innovation ideas for our
department one of them is a software
that would enhance the battery the plans
some it'll Tim you want to give a little
more information on that sure Larry
Thank You mr. mayor Councillor rusted
and just add two just before I talk
about that plan review I just add two we
actually find that the interactive video
there's one area in which is a huge
savings for the city and actually it
will very much have a one of our biggest
problems is someone gets injured on the
job
and they're out they can't do any
inspections during that time and where
they're likely to get injured and I
don't know if you've noticed but seems
to me that the roofs in this city are
getting taller and taller and taller and
our guys are getting older and older and
I don't know about you but I haven't
it's a scary thought to go up on a
20-foot ladder I get up there I'm like
well Messer my balance is quite where it
was when I'm 90 so I do not want our
inspectors going up on roofs if we can
avoid it and what the video inspection
allows is the contractor to show the
roof from right there when he's already
up there he's got the proper equipment
he's got the proper ladders he's got
he's got someone to help him out so
that's something for instance that I
think has been we have learned on that
one we've learned that that is the
absolute way to go and in fact
if the IECC ever lets us have a
conference again i would like to present
that as a as a reason to do video
inspection to the International Code
Council by getting back to Larry's
comment one of the things as he said we
are continuing to try to innovate I am a
big believer in making sure we could do
with what we've got and not keep trying
to ask for resources I want to make our
resources more effective and what
they're doing one of the things that
we're finding is that there is some dead
time in plan review and I think that we
can find ways to innovate that through
software where we can we can reduce the
time it takes to get it from our
reviewers into the hands of the
applicant and vice versa right now it
takes us anywhere between one and three
days to get from a reviewer back to an
applicant and there's some technical
reasons I explained them to you but it
really doesn't matter what the reason is
it's just there is some time some dead
weight a time lost in there and and it's
probably the time that my staff likes
the least because it's a waste of their
time and so if we can get that cut down
we could very much improve the response
time we could put some some of the onus
back on the applicant instead of having
them be allowed to wait for us and you
know and then they you give it back to
them and give them the time it takes for
them to revise their plans get them back
to us instead of us sitting around
waiting for two or three days so we're
gonna be probably bringing to you I'm
not sure in terms of the total price of
it whether that's going to come to you
or something you can do operationally
but we are talking about some other
innovations where we're looking to do
Thank You Larry and thank you Tim I
think that's a smart investment right
we're we're essentially investing in
something that invests back into the
city right the more the more
construction that we have both
residential and commercial the more DRT
we get in return so I would definitely
encourage you guys to think about what
those
efficiencies are what those budget needs
are to bring to Council that helps that
helps everybody right helps homeowners
top business people that helps the city
I think that's a smart investment on our
part I just have one last question and
it's it's more of a big picture question
but from where you were and the
significant progress that you've made
thus far today where you know where do
you want to see the inspection process
in a year if there was if there was a
couple of things that you could say you
wanted to fix in a year what would those
things be and how can how can we help
get that get you guys there a council
boss Gaston a year from now I'd like to
be able to report to the mayor council
City Council that we have reduced our
reinfection situation by 50 percent or
more
I think that would be one the other
thing would be able to report back to
you that we have met our and are
compliant with our strategic business
plan for plan review and inspection
we're there but we want to be continued
to be there and find ourselves giving in
a unusual circumstance that we fall fall
below those percentages of our of our
goal thank you Thank You mayor Thank You
councillor tell sir about the Stevie
thank you here and thank you Larry and
dr. Peck um I also want to thank you for
allowing me to be present over zoom for
the Builders Association meeting that
was actually very insightful and I was
able to hear how helpful the virtual
inspections have been and how pleased
people have been on the other side for
that one of the questions that kind of
hate to be touched upon and I wanted to
follow up with was it seems to me that
everyone smile there's some
communication issues between shep
contractors and their clients
and with the city to make sure things
are flow very smooth together do we
often engage with the applicant of
inspecting applicants letting them know
that there are these holdups but they're
not necessarily with our site but
they're with their subcontractors side
do you clean that process a little bit
for me yes mayor and because for a
change to bake we well thank you I want
to thank you also for your your interest
in attending our government affairs
committee meeting with the home builders
those meetings are very productive for
both of us to answer your question the
construction industry division in
particular subcontractors faced the same
dilemma that we faced in that we've had
this increase of activity or workload if
you will and what they have been unable
to to find a staff you know they can
hire individuals but they may find that
they have to be journeyman electrician
or have to use of like fishin's as an
example or they have to be a journeyman
plumbers and they're they're having
difficulty finding those those folks to
staff their work and so I think that's
where a lot of the difficulty comes to
to the contractor and subcontractor that
that was one of the most difficult
things to overcome was to get your
subcontractors to the job with qualified
staff to perform work so we all share in
this dilemma of having the skilled
workers Larry do you want to also point
out about the Acela system how that's
hope reduce you know having the plans
put in so that the contractors can see
it the subs can see it I guess
of course the city and the owner of the
project so that one side can be pointing
fingers at the other and they can see
who's approved
where it's at versus tomorrow I'll take
that one if that's okay
I'd absolutely that's that's our goal
and what we're finding is that not
everybody knows how to use Excel ax as
well as they need to and I we we have
tried doing courses over at the Home
Builders Association every every few
months we try and do something and I
think that we we probably need to we
just need to continue that because that
you said mr. mayor is absolutely right
if the applicant for the EU the
contractor is the applicant on the
general building from the subcontractor
the electrician let's say is the
applicant on the electrical and and you
know what ends up happening is is you
know one guy saying you got to get this
project done and the other guys saying
well I got six other projects I get and
I'm gonna get to yours when I get to it
I'll do my best to keep you happy and
and there's a lot of interaction that
goes on and and in the past it was
always easy to blame the city well I'm
waiting for the inspector and now they
can look at what the mr. mayor said they
can look at the Excel a system and they
can see oh wait that that inspection was
never called in so that's helping a
little bit but one of the things and
just again going down this road of
innovation we have Larry and I have
asked our GIS department to spend some
time on some some maybe some dashboards
and things that can help people along
with their so it's a little easier to
find the information you're looking for
maybe we can get your whole project
together and that's a little bit of
learning on our side of how you've got
set things up in the system and make
sure they're easy to find and then we
also need to produce some things so that
it's clearer to everybody where a
project is and so that's that's
something that I know our GIS section is
working on right now that we as you as
you know up until December of
mm 18 we still had half of our projects
all of our business registrations were
still in Munich and so it wasn't until
January 2019 it would move them into
Axela
we had a rough year and I will admit it
that was a rough year yet through the
building the business registrations but
you'll notice that people aren't
complaining anymore because Axela is a
better system it just works better for
people they're finding it easier to work
with it just you know change is
difficult for everybody for people on
our side and people in the public so we
got that through we haven't yet and now
we're now we're having axela be migrated
into a different platform so that we can
integrate with its database better we've
had a very hard time integrating with a
database in Excel because Oracle and
nobody in my shop I'm probably the only
one that knows any Oracle and I haven't
done Oracle sequel in 10 years so I am
NOT writing I am NOT writing some
database analysis on something I haven't
done in 10 years so we're left with so
now we're going into the sequel server
that's what the rest of the cities works
on that'll be in sequel so so that
should help us be able to get this data
okay and then it seems like it's really
probably important for not only home
builders but those even opening up you
know mom-and-pop shops and having to buy
things out to kind of know this Axela
program so you may already be doing it
with the economic development department
but having some sort of training or
introduction on this is where when
you're having this project on your reef
changing out your business you know look
here you you know that type of education
I think might be really helpful for all
commercial and the residential
businesses to be able to know about that
and really use it to its full advantage
too
I did have a question about business
registrations and how those are looking
right now on renewals especially with
our locals if we're keeping track
especially during this time on those
renewal systems with our local
businesses counselor I made a pass today
we are speaking of business registration
Reno's we have about 2,800 total
business right license registration they
come up renewal time of the year
feel every month do you see though they
amount to between the brick and mortar
Reno's at the home we have found that
we're on track with that we report that
every month on our construction activity
report I believe you you receive that we
give it to to the city manager's office
for their week and then they forward it
on to you but if you know there is a
page in there that talks about
registration renewals and find that
there are about 200 to 250 per month we
seem to be on track from where we were a
year ago thank you
I think that it'll be important as we
move on and we're dealing with the
current situation with Kovac to look to
see if we're seeing any tracks of trends
with certain industries not renewing
those types of businesses I think it
will give us good indicators on how we
can better help different industries as
well but counselor that's a good point
you make both will be very vigilant
about on the April report to see if
there's a bit
the significant reduction yeah those
three notes very well could be because
people have not operations yeah and then
I had a question about when we send out
a contractor to go do the inspection
does do we charge for that each time
they have to go out and if we have a
contractor that can deal with the dual
inspection is it still two separate
charges is it one charge I'm just not
familiar as much with that process dr.
Petch I think your stove me I mean it
laid the waited too long to click it he
shrunk down the the building permit they
includes the inspections in it so do not
charge a fee for inspection unless
usually if if we show up and we show up
and when when you we were asked to show
up and you aren't ready for it we're
gonna charge a reinfection fee this the
city taxpayer shouldn't have to fund you
not being ready for us when we when we
go
and and the rest of the builders
shouldn't have to have to deal with that
so we charge it then we will charge it
if if we're going out and not getting a
whole lot but for the most part what
we're trying to do is avoid charging
re-inspection especially on things that
we can do a follow-up inspection by in
my video if we a call when you're done
and show it to me we want that's what we
want to do so the idea is not to charge
them extra if we can avoid it but we
also have that penalty in there when
it's when it's clear they're wasting
they're wasting taxpayer resources thank
you thank you for that and thank you
Mary Thank You counselor we have a mere
pretend gondola
Thank You mayor Thank You Larry and dr.
pitz for your presentation and your
insight your thoughtful insight
I appreciate the transparency and the
willingness to sort of just put it all
out there
I think that was one of the benefits of
purchasing the seller was so that we
could get the number of the data right
to support the the work some of my
questions are around I think it was on
page nine where you you listed all the
inspectors youdon't over 26,000 so
basically that's about what 2,900
infections per inspector maybe even a
little more given what each of them are
certified to do do you feel that with
the request the current request of a
combined inspector and the other can you
hear me now I can hear you okay so do
you believe that with the additional
inspector that it'll reduce obviously it
will reduce for each each inspector but
is that enough people to manage what
you're me what you're receiving in my
hair
a pro team under up you noticed on our
presentation that we had requested
additional staff up building official
being one of them
the there was for the combination in
spectrum we recognized that if we
continue this increased activity
I used to inform you that when I wrote
my thesis for my certified public
manager credential from Arizona State
University go Sundevils
I use the formula and it was called W
sub L plus R sub a equals CS sub L it W
sub L with workload the R sub a was
resources available and then the equal
CS sub L must customer service level if
you change anything in the first part of
that formula they work out plus some
resources available your going your
customer service level if your workload
goes up such as what we have now our
resources remain the same or lessen for
some reason your customer service level
is going to suffer it's trying to be
compromised so by us reckon that I see
that we have a if we were enabled to
have a additional combination inspectors
with our existing staff and a new hire
enable us to do multiple inspections on
the same site at the same site visit in
other words they could do a foundation
inspection and a plumbing underground
plumbing inspection at the same site
visit and that would help us to address
the number of inspections that could be
performed daily and then plus the
interactive video institution is going
to enable us to do 20 to 25 even 30
inspectors one of my building inspectors
reported last week and our our tailgate
meeting that we have every Wednesday
morning at 7 o'clock with our inspector
the previous day he had done 27
inspections because he was able to do a
number of those with the dibi that's
gonna enable us but yes additional is
going to be needed at some point because
we're on a growth posture right now even
with the open even with the Colvin
pandemic we're going to see that once we
are reinstated from the restrictions
we're going to see it really really take
off I believe I appreciate that Larry I
guess my question is is that one
inspector combined inspector are going
to be enough because the way I see it
the resources have increase will
increase and we have to be ready for it
and I don't know that one is going to be
enough I guess this is our time right
that that you're in front of us giving
an update but it's an opportunity for us
to sort of question an answer right back
and forth asking you is just enough and
if it isn't what is going to be that
magic number in terms of the staffing
and I guess that's what I'm asking
so Larry could I uh can I take this one
is more a matter Pro Tem I appreciate
what you're saying I agree with it but
what I would say is that as a scientist
for us that we are trying to be
proactive we're trying to get as much
out of the resources we have I think we
can get more out of the resources we
have by making them more efficient and
and the whole excel the process was a
part of that this isn't the only thing
we're asking for we're also asking for a
we're taking one of our permit techs and
we're asking to make him into a
commercial review coordinator to take
the commercial projects that handle them
through the process so we have other
things we're asking for but I believe
that
with the efficiencies we can gain out of
what we're doing and these petitions and
along with that he things like the the
combination inspectors the cross
cross-training the ability for one we've
already found this to be the case that
we can send one guy out and he can do
two or three inspections at I and it is
really helping us out and and part of
this is we have taken you know since
Larry's been here we've taken a
different philosophy on what inspection
is about and again I said this before
it's not about having the one guy that's
expert in this one field we have been
trying to get people cross trained this
is what we learned when we looked at
some of the Colorado cities that have
dealt with this some of the places like
Vegas that they're those suburbs and
Vegas that are doing 50/50 inspections a
day and you're going how were you
pulling that off and and I would ask
them how are you doing this and I took
whatever advice I could and we're taking
it trust me I'm not shy about asking for
money but I'm also don't believe that I
should ask for money when I think that
we can we can cover it we can we can do
the job no I I appreciate that I just
remember we hear those complaints right
from all those people the contractors
are developers and sometimes sometimes
they're fair sometimes they're not but
it's been a long time at least in the
four years that I've seen you all come
back and ask for additional inspectors
and so here's an opportunity and I'm
just saying have at it tell us
I appreciate as an administrator that
you're looking at efficient efficiencies
right looking at the process and where
can we reduce times and you talked about
the dead time I appreciate it that's a
from one administrator to another I
totally get it
I understand that and I appreciate that
are you giving people incentives
financial incentives forgetting the
various
certificates Larry you're you're muted
is that better that's better my apology
mayor pro-tem I have discussed many
times with my staff and with the also
the city manager's office that Argenti
should be to incentivize and retain our
skill staff it's a much better policy in
my opinion been a continual recruitments
and so yes we've asked that if a person
achieves a combination inspector status
that he be given a percentage increase
on the salary to accommodate that
certification so that's currently
happening we're triple certification
gets an increase each time whatever the
other salary Oh Larry I'm unmute again
sorry yes we have two folks that have
achieved that status well you know it
would be really helpful also as far as
your power points where you've listed
the number of inspectors the total but
how many of them have the certain
certification so we can see that I think
that would be a help to me I've also sat
in a couple of meetings at least with
you Larry when there have been
difficulties with owners and an owner
going for either a rehab or a new space
where we've talked about this issue of
salaries private versus government and
and how that is driven and in fact where
we seem to be the the ones that get the
you know that either they leave or they
don't even consider because we don't
have competitive salaries so where are
we at with that where have we been
I know that there's been some reluctance
to raise the salary but I don't see any
other way we need to be competitive and
I think we can be especially with the
kind of package that we have with
insurance and the various the various
things that the city offers yes Council
Mayor Pro Tem
Kandra we obviously the the HR
department has completed their class and
compensation study I think about a year
and perhaps two years ago and of course
all the inspectors classifications were
involved with that usually where we run
into difficulty in terms of compensation
is that we require a certain number of
experienced years of experience and to
include in some cases a journeyman a
license and in the trace that of course
is compensated with more money usually
where we have our difficulty is so we
have our salary ranges for each of these
classifications and the entry level is
not what they can experience in the
industry we also say well wait a minute
you have City benefits you know you have
you know you have a health insurance
which is a big big issue for most
everyone these things felt like those
and we show that how it's equated to
what would be dollars per hour on
dollars per hour equivalent that helps a
great deal but I have to say it quite
candidly candidly that most folks look
at the page that they take home and
they'll even pass up the benefits in
order to have the money that the
industrialize them that
because of that it's it's um yeah but uh
we do find folks that recognize those
benefits and they come to work for us
yeah I definitely can relate and
understand that and I'm again advocating
for a higher increase in salary for
these folks because I think retention
recruiting and retaining them is so
important because you can't retain them
because you're not competitive I think
that is a problem and so you may mention
about the electrical inspectors and
having issues you've talked about and
and so I'd like to ask if there has been
any discussion about paid internship
programs working with the university to
be able to facilitate the recruitment
and retaining those individuals it seems
like that's been successful in utilities
the water inspection and I saw a
beautiful write-up about an individual
who wasn't intern with utilities who got
hired on who currently works for
utilities in the water treatment
facility so I think that we can show
some some strides as it relates to to
that and I wondered if there had been
any discussion or thought about about
that in that particular area there
pretend to you we we have we have
discussed this with the community
college and we talked to them about the
project the program they have with
utilities and it's a great program and
we've had a few people go through it and
I am very pleased I wish we could do it
the problem is the problem is what's in
the New Mexico Administrative Code about
what your experience has to be in order
to be a qualified certified building
inspector and you
need to have at least three years as a
journeyman in inter so what we would
have to do and what we would have to do
is get them through the program get them
to do three years in the field and then
we could bring them in and and as Larry
says we're already in that boat that if
we have somebody that's got three years
as a journeyman they're already I mean
we were having people on the on the the
electrical inspector position saying
we're already making $10 an hour over
what you're willing to give and the the
one we hired took a pay cut to come work
for us and and but for him it was as
Larry said I mean for some of them it's
the when you get young kids the ability
to know that you can be home at six
o'clock the ability to know that you can
have Christmas off or have you know
let's say Labor Day off because you know
your kids are off and you want to be
able to do things with them that that
probably more than anything would be was
the was the thing but but what you're
talked about absolutely correct we would
love to do it we will continue to work
on that we ran into that problem that
the CID his only to go so far in their
certification they might give them a
year and a half if they had a if they
had that degree or something like that
so we and maybe that's something that
Larry and I should when we when we got
the current electrical inspector Larry
and I drove up to Albuquerque to meet
with the director CID and we managed to
get him on board certified in the field
within six weeks the normal process of
six months you know so that's how we
managed to do it I mean we doing what
you're talking about turning over every
corner and say and turn over stone and
say what can we do to make this thing go
faster I'll Drive
I Drive the guy's resume up to you if
you'll make a decision on sloth and so
is your legislative response
I'm dr. Pat Larry that we can work on
working with our state delegation to
change because you said it's like an
Administrative Code if you will I would
assume that it would need be a law
change in order for maybe there needs to
be a step process because there feels
like there's a bottleneck and I can
definitely appreciate that because we
had lots of problems and continue to
have problems with capacity around
social workers and counselors with
social workers specifically and so how
we we did it we did a lot of work around
around around that but that required
some legislative response and different
things so I guess I'm just trying to
forecast vision with you and trying to
use you know what experience because I
have legislatively to to how because
that's where I keep hearing over and
over that the construction industry
honestly can be a barrier to some things
and it and it doesn't make sense to me
if our GT comes from that that why
shouldn't we work with our local our
state legislators you know to find a
craft a bill that works for everybody
because I doubt we're the only ones that
are having this problem mayor Burton I
agree with you that that's probably an
avenue we need to go down what I would
we need to be very careful that we don't
and I'm sure that this same in this
inserts of work there's a reason why
there's a bottleneck and that's because
you want people that know what they're
doing and the same is true in building
inspections I don't want to send out an
inspector that doesn't know what he's
doing
I want inspect it's going to say no
that's unsafe here's why it's unsafe
here's what you need and so we need to
be very careful that we do it in such a
way that it allows qualified people to
get the system without
also allowing unqualified people to get
the certification and start doing
inspections and really hurting the
industry so I thought to be the only
costume but I agree with you and we very
much would appreciate your okay and then
on page 10 you talked about the
interactive videos I'm really excited
that that the innovation that you've
created here within the city of Las
Cruces to do that and I think even more
so now with the pandemic how helpful
that's going to be do you is respect to
explain a little more in detail there is
further there is specific inspections
that you do are all can be inspected via
video and is all of your inspectors
trained and feel comfortable and
confident doing that report to the all
of our inspectors our current veterans
are trained and do have the equipment to
perform the div we call them IV
interactive video inspections there's
something that we want to increase and
utilize more particularly for the
re-inspections and I think that's going
to we're almost going to be a hundred
percent on Rios patients ibi but to
answer your question all staff is
equipped and trained to you I see the IV
I and just a side note the Las Cruces
building program is the most innovative
bitly program in the state of New Mexico
I could say that with confidence I'm
president of the southern New Mexico
building officials association I'm also
on the International Code Council a
board of directors for the region
Colorado Arizona New Mexico and Texas
and Utah and we have presented our
program to them and they they said wow
you guys are are ahead ahead of the game
and it really being very at all ready
we're going to continue that but for the
ivi it's going to be a program that's
going to be increase our efficiencies
and reduce the delays and inspection now
is all of your inspectors um feel
comfortable and confident using the ivi
I got a reaction let's just say it took
one of our inspectors his wife came down
with symptoms and we set up you got to
stay home for 14 days and he said well
does that mean I can't work and I said
well you wonder why VI and he all right
I'll try and Larry gets a text the next
morning this is great this works so well
and the same on the contract
construction people are conservative
people you know they know they don't
like a lot of change but but once you
get them going they jump in you know
both deep forward and and they adopt it
so as I tell you I love this industry
and these guys once you get them going
they will they'll adopt it and they'll
use it for everything good I'm glad to
hear that yeah it sort of heard that not
everybody is comfortable using that and
there's been some challenges with that
but it's good to hear that you know
nothing I've been saying this a lot
nothing like a pandemic to get us but
you know past a certain space to move
move into a you know a different
strategy that we've been talking about
but people have been kind of humming and
you know like no I don't really want to
do it so cool and then Mayor Pro Tem I'm
suffering erupting can I let looks like
David my ass this has a quick comment
Thank You mayor I appreciate that
good afternoon Mayor Pro Tem I wanted to
talk with you specifically about your
questions comments and concerns with CID
one of the things that I will do
start a discussion at least a regular
meeting with the bureau chief that
oversees the CID and that way we can
work with them on whatever
collaborations we might be able to
assist them with whatever inspections
that we might be able to actually take
over if they allow that and whatever we
might be able to do to help facilitate
and expedite inspections that we are
waiting on with them for so I just
wanted to make sure that that you knew
that that is something I will be looking
into and working on Irene I'm talking
about it at our individual staffing
David that was one of the things that we
agreed you could do thank you for
mentioning thank you thank you thank you
thank you
just from two concert I baked us to
these comment about de cèlle and sort of
the timeframes with developer an owner a
developer maybe there's some contractors
I do know that we've had some issues
specifically when someone comes in and
that someone happens to be a developer
they there's they to get a permit and
and all the various things that are
required deadlines or whatever there
isn't a space for the owner right to be
a part of that process to get updates
and many times I've understood some of
our developers don't want to have that
clearly stated and so I wondered if
you've sort of changed your process or
protocols to include the owner and so
that they get deadlines because it feels
like communication is such an issue when
you have second and third party people
and the owners sort of like what's going
on and I know Larry and I have had at
least a couple of times that that has
happened and so when when you include
the owner in that process and they get
natural updates that's important but I
didn't think it was happening regularly
yes
Pro Tem gandara we you know you and I
have had those discussions with
our permitting process that it's
basically regulated but communication
for the permit the request for
inspections or requests for information
does go through the applicant and that
the reason being is the permits are
issued to licensed personnel licensed
contractors now that doesn't prevent the
the owner from learning information
that's mayor noted earlier that through
the SL portal they can they can see what
the applicant is doing in terms of
inspection request inspections status
comments that might be needed on the
answered by their design professionals
we are we we do not schedule inspection
requests it's not the applicant that's
what we are able to track and keep
record of I think it would be important
to include the owner because that's
where I see a lot of problems exist is
because there's a lack of communication
and then they blame the city so I would
ask for you to look into that in hopes
that you would include the owner as part
of that communication on thread thank
you
Thank You mayor thank you dr. pitz did
you have a comment yeah I just like to
add to that you know if we have this new
commercial review coordinator position
and and I'm feeling like that is a good
position sorry says the problem we have
in the in the permits themselves it's
the licensed contractor is the one that
has the right to that permit and one of
the problems we've had in the past
is is when people who are not a licensed
contractor calling for the inspection
and we show up and there's no and
they're not ready for the work the work
to be inspected whose
responsible is is it right for us to
charge them a reinfection fee when they
never called it in
so we run into legal legal aspects of
the contractor permit responsibility and
and and status however having a and we
tried to work with this you know Donald
Bustos he's been very helpful to us and
and we try to have him work with people
the problem is Donald doesn't really
know the permitting process real well
so I believe that the commercial review
coordinator working very closely with
Donald we can get much better
communication going out we have one
place to go for information
one person somebody if they only want to
call in find out where things are
there's one person two ducted or two we
can get call Donald you can call a new
commercial review for it but but they
will work together to do this I think
there may be an avenue to get to what
you're talking about and you know you
mentioned before that and I think
Kosovo's has mentioned this as well
there's people who don't really know the
process and we've got to help them out
and we've got to help them negotiate it
better than and where it is right now
and so that we're hopeful that this is
going to be a very I'd use this in
another place I work and I'm telling you
it it makes a huge difference to have a
single person point of contact so with
this commercial sorry Mary just it and
I'm doctor pips some reply or response
I've got me thinking a little bit this
commercial person would have those
inspections and have sort of authority
to with your inspectors in a sense that
person would be a super permit tech they
would be somebody that knew the permit
tech position real well how do we issue
permit how do the permits about what are
the limitations what are the what are
the steps that need to be taken and and
that's what they would have they
have this experience with the actual
day-to-day how do you get how do you get
where you're trying to get and and we're
leaving a little bit open I want that
person to kind of define the role a
little bit because I want some
innovation out of them I want to see
them come into a position take it on and
say you know to them we really got to be
doing this this is where this is of the
six people I saw last week five of them
had this problem so let's see if we can
fix that and so that's that's really
where where that that comes from and and
they they will know the process intimate
exciting I look forward to that
thank you Thank You ver thank you
dr. Pitts is that heisenberg there in
your office it is indeed as well but
good show cows are being homo Thank You
mayor and thank you both very similar
she ate all this information and
learning from you all about this Olive
process um in my one-to-one chickens
with our inner and city manager I
requested some of this information that
gets given to us anyway and specifically
about her about districts and they
wanted to learn more about some of these
things happening in district 4 and so I
really appreciate you accommodating that
and giving me that information I really
appreciate it as I was pulling up the
document I'm gonna have to a couple
questions about it because there's some
things I found really interesting but
first I do I want to just clarify for my
own learning so last march 2 at 430 you
issued 430 in this and this March at 742
is that correct seat
mayor and councillor Bencomo I don't
have that number in front of me but I do
recall a report I believe that that is
correct what you're saying there yes and
that's really impressive that's really
incredible and like I mean 742 permits
issued in the month of March is really
really impressive I'm curious about you
know and then I hear you talk and hear
you say that perhaps you you don't think
you need any more inspectors but that
seems like a really big caseload is that
does that feel like supportive and does
that feel like your inspectors are able
to handle that and councilor Bencomo we
we practice religiously and I said every
month that we have that construction
report in addition to just being
interesting information for not only the
economic development department and the
councillors on the mayor it also gives
us an opportunity to be able to go to
the city manager and the city manager's
office and say based on this trend is
not just a an anomaly it wasn't just a
period of a few days this has been going
on for several months and we are able to
identify I use the word whenever your
activity goes into a double digit
percentage
I call it exponential and so if we're
seeing this exponential growth in
activity would need to be requesting and
there's no resources in this case either
additional staff there's no technology
that enables us to address that
exponential growth and we'll be doing
that and can I add to that councilor
this isn't the only innovation we're
doing we also have with our existing
budget we we've been buying new
equipment for our our staff so they have
better equipment
for the field they have they have they
are and we're also trying to better
utilize the technology we have we're
trying to get the software to do some of
their work for them
you know 15 years ago when we were doing
thousand houses a year we had 12 I think
that's right 12 inspectors plus a
building official buffa so we probably
had 15 where we're now we have 12 and
you know you don't want to get over
staff either because what ended up
happening when we had that many staff
and then in 2007 the home building went
virtually nothing we were down even as
late as 2014 we were doing 240 homes a
year 240 homes I mean people were bored
we had we had inspectors that didn't
have anything to do that's that's a
management problem do I trust me trying
to keep somebody that's bored from
sleeping in the truck it's not as always
easy so you know it's not all you got to
balance it you got to make sure that
you're not yeah I don't want them
overworked but I don't want them under
work either I think we got to be good
stewards of the resources were given and
I think that's why I think the
technology gives us a little bit more
room especially to purchase it in these
good times when we have lots of revenue
from our building permit purchase
through the technology now so that in
the bad time we don't have to I don't
want to be carrying a bunch of of labor
cost in a time when maybe who knows I
mean as a result of what's going on
right now maybe nobody buys another home
for two years and we're we're all in
trouble I don't want to be there you
know I don't want to just you know you
gave us a permission to hire for any
people and and now I'm going I don't
have any work for you you know let you
go so I just
we have other innovations that we're
doing we are we are definitely using our
resources as efficiently and as a
actively as we can thank you doctor but
I really appreciate you saying that I
think that that's yeah why I think it's
it's an important thing to say um quick
question I thought going through this
report which is very easy to read by the
way I really appreciate that in the
different types of projects that you
provided there's there's um
permits issued for windows / doors
what does that mean well I can take that
counselor of the folks off and realize
that some of the older properties older
albeit a resident or a commercial
building they want to increase the
energy efficiency they may have an older
single pane window that has a lot of
heat loss he getting through it and they
want a new window even we have found
that many times the window won't become
larger and if they do that it has a snow
framing that's needed oh we asked them
to get a permit so that we can make sure
the framing is correct to support the
aloneness placed on the structural
support above the window contract that's
so that's why we issue a that type of
permit got it thank you I think as a as
a new homeowner I've owned my first home
for a year there's you know I often
think about oh my god what are the
things that I don't even know yet that I
don't know that I need to do that are
coming down that what rules have I
broken already because I didn't know
right and I think about all those things
and you know from this conversation I'm
what I'm hearing is that I have to trust
that whoever I hire to do something will
know those rules right so what is what
is the do we have a process that perhaps
there's a conversation to with with MS
green I'm like how do we ensure that
homeowners a specialty or understand a
lot of these
things not just and because of this a
lot of this conversation is focused
around industry people right and and
those folks they got their job they're
supposed to know but what about folks
that they're just starting their new
business or people like me who just
puppet your new home right like what is
the communication line between you all
the department and some of these folks
if I could take that I'd appreciate it
counselor thank you you know I think our
staff our inspectors they care very much
about building safety they this is a
very important part of their life as
part of why they came inspectors it's
not just money it's not just it's
because they love building and they love
they love making sure that people live
in a safe environment and if you listen
to the compassionately they talk about
that you would be amazed and and you
learn a lot I learned a lot from every
one of them every time they go off on
this this thing about it so I think
that's something that we have dabbled
with what you're talking about we
dabbled with over the years and every
time we have enough staff to start doing
something it's either too busy and we
don't have time to do it or it's too
it's slow and our big goal is to get you
know we got a we got introduced a for
something that's we always you know go
between those but I've got something
that the staff and the building safety
program would very much love to do we
Larry and I talked with the Grant's
office last year about what's called the
pool safely Brant will safely grant and
it was for a program manager to run a
pool safety program how do you how do
you have a safe pool and I don't know if
you're aware of this but if you have a
pool in your house that is the single
most deadly thing to children and there
are rules and regulations and I would
recommend especially young children all
of those as closely as you can because
it's not just drowning it's it's getting
your hair cotton in the in
the pump system it's theirs is falling
from the the concrete someone and we
wanted to do a whole program that would
go out to the schools teach kids how to
how to behave properly in a pool where
your danger point and so on so we didn't
we weren't best with that grant but we
if they open that up again we very much
would like to to apply for it and and
and bring someone in that would get us
down the road of what you're talking
about
how do we do some education for people
and how do you have a safe home
yeah absolutely I mean I appreciate you
saying that about the the pool safety I
think that's a that's a small piece of
sort of what I'm trying to get at and I
would love to see something like this
create something like this so if you you
know however I can be supporting I think
that's important and again I think just
as a new homeowner how much how much
easier it was then I thought originally
right so then that there's now all these
other things that I have to worry about
that I'm like learning as I go and I
would love to provide vaccine and
support for new new homeowners in our
city for sure and perhaps in maybe it's
in those months that you have projected
as lower lower permit months that we can
you know when they're sleeping in their
tracks I'm just kidding
but I think I would love to see
something like this come to life I think
it'd be really important to feel really
supportive for our residents what you
mentioned that fire also does
inspections is that and supplement to
the inspectors that you listed in your
presentation or do they do a whole when
fire gets called to do inspection is
that because they have a whole different
set of things are looking at also
vehicle modes up the fire inspections
utility inspections they are in addition
to the inspections that we listed ours
are very much so
particular to to the building Billy
structures more
utilities and code compliance there
again is another group of inspectors
that did not were not included in the
number that were was on the presentation
so then when you save one snapshot does
that include all of those folks too or
is it a one-stop shop just for the
Community Development Department of
inspectors counselor that the the
nomenclature of one-stop shop was and
after that many jurisdictions have
undertaken so that people don't have to
take their plans to several different
locations for them to be distributed and
reviewed so we collect those we separate
them and we send them to the eight
agencies that will be looking at them
then we collect we collect their
comments and send them out and it's
similar for inspections similar for
inspection so that's how the one-stop
shop is was designed and how it
functions but there are also inspections
that they do particularly the the
utility department for gas and water
lines and that were you know not in the
figures that we gave you today okay
that's it for me with you Mary thank you
both so much
okay thank you councilor sword Thank You
mr. mayor can you hear okay now
yep yeah pound cast dropped me here a
while back but I did catch most of what
you all were saying and I just picked up
a few things just here lately that
councilman como talked about that I
thought were quite interesting she was
talking about other projects or other
work to be done on a house other than
just buying it um just let her know in
the last few years not too long I've
replaced three windows in my house a
sliding glass door two routes
and an h-back too so I've got a lot of
experience in that if you have any
questions counsel bencomb I'll be glad
to help you out tell you what I did
wrong okay so and then to the most
important thing I thought you were
mentioning is that about the future of
inspectors and staffing and and so on
and so forth you all have been talking
about a lot I just want to remind
everybody our future is in big doubt
right now we don't know what's going to
happen with the results of this Cova da
19 and so we can't make any big changes
at the moment until we get a good handle
of what we're gonna end up doing here
the housing industry may just come to a
standstill it may not but we just have
to be prepared for as many scenarios as
possible my well as you were talking
there I was thinking back when I first
got on the council that was in the just
at the beginning of the last recession
and I was pretty proud of our city staff
being able to go through that old
recession without any furloughs or
layoffs the housing the building the
building industry came to near
standstill then and yet they were able
to manage it so that we were able to do
it so I give my hats off to our
Community Development Department
mr. Nichols and dr. Pitts here I think
you're doing a fantastic job especially
with especially with the things I've
seen today the ways you're trying to
handle problems that have come up in the
past um yes also there again I just want
to caution uh city council to be careful
and wait let's wait and see what's going
to happen here in the next few months to
where see where we're going to be at and
with our whole city government okay
Thank You mr. mayor okay well thank you
a counselor before we get to the next
item
I also Bencomo just a couple things
sinking fund and termites is not covered
by your insurance so just couple things
alright number two is gonna be our
Energy excuses energy transition and I
believe dr. Martinez and Lisa lorac
might be presenting both hey Lisa I I'm
sharing my screen now okay so good
afternoon mayor council city manager and
staff and others listening I my name for
the record is Lisa lorac I'm the
sustainability officer for the city of
Las Cruces before I began my
presentation I wanted to take advantage
of this moment and really think the
leadership during this ten Demick you
have made everyone in the community feel
safe and secure and as one of those
members I wanted to thank you so today I
will be presenting I will be presenting
the energy transition for Las Cruces the
shocks instructors that we fill indicate
existing system failures with the
pandemic we see that the global economy
and their health and well-being and the
natural world are interconnected and
climate change shows many of these
interconnections as well we can learn
from these systems failures to be to
create a resilient equitable and
thriving community and it can come it
can be an opportunity to reset these
systems to utilize ecological services
enhanced community spaces and local
talents and invest in the health and
vitality
of all of our residents the values just
described are also manifested in
sustainability practices and the
intersection of equity economics
environment are always woven through the
word sustainability is also embedded in
many of the plans
the council has adopted such as elevate
community blueprints the active
transportation plan water conservation
plan and others and for the past year
with the assistance of a consultant
Lotus sustainability and engineering a
steering committee and stakeholders have
been working on a climate action plan as
a guiding document for the energy
transition and in the next few years the
sustainability office will expand its
work to develop a resiliency plan
another specialized sustainability plan
to better adapt to the shocks and
stressors were facing today I'm here to
talk to you about climate action plan in
the context of the energy transition and
the next 25 years the sources and
sectors of energy will change
dramatically this is a bar of the US
Energy from 2017 you can see that
renewable energy and nuclear power make
up less than 20% of the sources in the
next 25 years fossil fuels either need
to be developed that so that they're
carbon free technologies or more likely
be replaced with renewable energy so
that gold box that you see will all be
replaced with renewable energy or new
technologies if you consider the
different sectors where energy is
consumed transportation industry and
residential and commercial building will
be powered by electricity that means
that those bread boxes will all be part
of the electric grid
that is a huge change as well so I'd
like to paint a quick picture of what
the energy transition will look like and
what it will affect today energy
generation comes mostly from fossil
fuels and often large central generators
in 25 years we can expect zero
greenhouse gas emissions and a mix of
Central and local generation and storage
distributed energy utilities will be
Orchestra leaders of energy and what
when we consider energy distribution
today we think of energy being delivered
to a consumer and using a meter to
determine cost and 25 years energy will
be multi-directional everyone will be
producers and consumers or prosumers
real-time metering will be smart meters
that will drive real-time energy
management to lessen our energy use and
our demand when we consider energy use
in our buildings today we think of
fossil fuels standard efficiency and are
ok with wasteful behaviors in 2025 and
we won't have a carbon footprint and we
will be amazed at our efficiency and our
behaviors you will have a lot of stories
to tell your grandchildren now I'd like
to put this into the context of las
cruces I will start by describing a
couple describing the first couple of
steps in the process quantifying energy
and emissions and identifying the
benefits at the end of the presentation
I'll discuss the other steps listed here
this is a les Cruces greenhouse gas for
GHG that's going to be your new initials
that you have to learn from emissions
but by sector and 2018 we started the
inventory in 2019 so we
back to 2018 the last full calendar year
this inventory includes all GHG
emissions for residents businesses and
disability it looks at operating costs
but it doesn't look at lifecycle costs
mining transporting and disposing of
fuels and other materials it does not
include NMSU although they are also
producing their own greenhouse gas
baseline with the Lotus consulting group
as well and it does not include Dona Ana
County
as you can see 53 percent of greenhouse
gases come from transportation this
represents a larger share than a seen in
many communities our size this may be a
consequence of the development pattern
of the city over the past decades that
has prioritized traveling by car over
other alternative options emissions from
electricity and natural gas in the
residential and commercial sectors comes
in at 38 the 21 and 17 percent which is
slightly lower than what is seen in
other communities our size half of the
emissions are from electricity the other
half is from natural gas the carbon
emission factor is a little lower than
in other New Mexico investment owned
utilities because El Paso Electric does
not source any of its electricity from
coal which lowers our overall emission
rate as an aside
well the next I'm sorry the next largest
sector is the creation and disposal of
solid waste in the community that 7%
industrial processes like refrigerates
refrigerants and wastewater treatment
processes make up a small fraction of
the emissions we're also in the process
of doing a specific study of just
municipal greenhouse gas emissions I can
tell you at this point that the
municipal government contributes about
10%
of the emissions in the graph you're
looking at right now and like this graph
half of the municipality's greenhouse
gas emissions come from transportation
before we begin before we began
developing strategies a steering
committee identified important community
benefits that also needed to be included
alongside three alongside greenhouse gas
emission reductions the community values
include resilience innovation health
access to services green jobs and a
circular economy a circular economy is
when you design out waste and pollution
and keep products and materials and use
the community values are noted with each
strategy members of the steering
committee developed emission reduction
targets for 2030 and 2050 based on their
perception of the municipality and
community's readiness for such a shift
the Excel spreadsheets developed for
this exercise model the impact of the
reduction as I'll show you later
so with this slide with the
transportation sector nearly 99% of the
emissions are generated by local drivers
65% who use gasoline 34% who use diesel
gas participants in our exercises
identified for transportation strategies
increase the use of public
transportation by 15% in 2030 and and
35% in 2050 develop at active
transportation alternatives like bike
lanes and walking past by 12 percent by
2030 and 40 percent by 2050 connecting
transportation and local growth although
this didn't have a target we were
cognizant that the urban sprawl had can
contribute to transportation use and the
fourth strategy to inclusively promote
electric vehicle at
um adoption which you'll see later has a
significant impact on reducing
greenhouse gases it's important to
remember that these strategies apply to
all members of the city not just the
municipality the transportation strategy
strongly supports resiliency health
access and green jobs innovation with an
innovation with the e V adoption in the
building app to all groups there's a
strategy for the municipality to examine
energy efficiency strategies beyond the
low-hanging fruit of lights and HVAC
systems and examine how we can manage
demand during peak hours this will be
aided by smart technologies that we
anticipate seen in the next decade
there's all there are also strategies to
expand residential energy programs
especially for low and moderate income
communities to decrease their cost
burdens and ensure their safety and
health the this is even more important
as we live through this pandemic a third
strategy encourages a commercial sector
to improve their energy use and the
fourth strategy inches towards
electrifying buildings for those
buildings that use low-cost renewable
energy by 2050 we recognize that
electricity wherever it is generated
will become the new normal building
strategies will support resiliency
innovation green jobs and a circular
economy discussing renewable energy is a
little complicated in 2018 EPE
had 3% renewable energy in its portfolio
with the passage of the New Mexico
energy transition Act the ETA investment
on utilities like a passel electric are
now required to generate 50 percent of
their total resale set retail sales from
renewable energy sources by 2030 and a
hundred percent of its retail sales from
which also includes nuclear by 2045
it's my earlier prediction about how
electricity and energy sources will
change will easily come through because
of the energy transition energy
transition act this is truly an amazing
push towards zero carbon energy but it
still doesn't mean it's affordable for
everyone for example this March month
the city is actively intervening in a
Public Regulation Commission case to
argue against a paso electrics proposed
new gas generation facility as
unnecessary and a likely stranded asset
leaving ratepayers to cover these costs
the city's participation in utility
cases is an important tool to address
climate climate in a system-level
finding ways to help low and moderate
income households get solar for their
homes will decrease their utility costs
and not subject them to rate increases
that we have come to expect in 2018
there was about 20 megawatts of
distributed renewable energy used by
residents businesses and municipality 20
megawatts is equal to the whole amount
is equal to the amount of electricity
city government currently uses but Las
Cruces avoided a hat 1/2 percent of the
community's total emissions profile
through this on-site solar because Oh
Castle electric owns the renewable
energy credits the recs associated with
this renewable energy production it is
credited to EPA es el paso electrics
energy portfolio our renewable
investments are added to and lower Epes
emission factors in the way sector all
the waste we create and dispose of in
it's greenhouse gases our strategy is to
minimize or produce less waste possible
actions including using reusing
construction materials encouraging
composting focusing on food waste
diverting underlied underutilized edible
food to community members in need that's
just a few this is going to be a
complicated graph but I'll walk you
through it I promise
this graph illustrates the impact of the
nine strategies I just prevent presented
keep in mind even though we set some big
targets their impact on greenhouse gas
emissions may not be proportional these
strategies are equally valuable though
because they serve other important
community benefits the municipal use we
do seen municipal energy use represents
about 10% of all of the o of the overall
energy consumed in the district as I
told you before and the city meeting its
greenhouse gas targets will benefit
taxpayers by reducing city energy costs
and it will allow us to meet our
commitment to generate 25 percent of the
city's own electricity from renewable
energy by 2020 to 50 percent by 2030 and
100 percent by 2050 and our own
successes in meeting these targets will
also provide demonstrable initiatives
that will encourage similar successes in
the community at large residential and
commercial energy efficiency the next
second the second and third bars will
not have that significant of an impact
and greenhouse gas emissions but it will
lower bills provide jobs and it will
make the investment in solar less
expensive because you can downsize the
solar system the fourth bar set of bars
show you that electrifying buildings can
have a sizable impact
greenhouse gas emissions but it's
dependent not only on transitioning to
renewable energy but making sure
electricity rates are affordable for
everyone
consider how the cost of communication
cell phones internet cable network cyber
security have skyrocketed in the in the
past 20 years if this were to happen in
the energy transition transition we will
continue sorry we will continue to see
great disparities for our frontline
communities I've already talked about
solar adoption these bars just
illustrate the impact of the energy
transition act on residents it doesn't
necessarily represent the community of
benefits we all aspire to increasing
public transportation use will not have
a big impact on greenhouse gas emissions
however it's an example where community
benefits are paramount I'm very
impressed with the impact of
prioritizing active transportation like
bikes trails a.da accessibility the
community benefits are also terrific
increasing health outcomes building
social cohesion and really appreciate in
the place that you live promoting an
inclusive electric vehicles will have a
big impact on greenhouse gas emissions
but also has a big impact on renewable
energy production it's interesting to
note that the decrease in auto gasoline
and diesel emissions with the pandemic
has significantly improved the solar
generation where the inverters are all
working at maximum capacity and I've
also touched on the waste and
incentivizing waste minimization so I'll
move on from there
the breath this graph helps you
understand the impacts of the targeted
strategies by 2030 the first column
shows how our greenhouse gas shows our
greenhouse gas emissions and 2018 almost
reaching not just over 900,000 tons of
greenhouse gas equivalents the small red
bar and thus in the second column shows
us if we continue with business as usual
the city's emissions will increase
another 8% the next four orange first
show you the percent decrease for the
sec for that sector building energy
strategies decrease emissions by almost
two percent renewable energy and
transportation strategies each
contribute almost twelve percent and
wastes about two percent by 2030 if we
follow these targets we will have
decreased emissions by 19 percent as
well as intervene to a host of community
benefits this graph tells you the same
story for 2050 you can see the impacts
of a moremore ambitious targets that
will be in line with the energy
transition technologies we expect to be
seen in the upcoming decades all told we
will decrease less Christmas's
greenhouse gas emissions by almost
seventy three percent which is very
impressive given that the Paris climate
agreement that the city supports is 80
percent by 2050 tackling climate change
and the energy transition is a process
we've accomplished into and I've just
explained the first two steps there we
have the next three in motion sorry we
have this three in motion and that will
push
to the final two to understand the
energy system steps three and five it
requires identifying that the key
players and the political and
legislative landscaping characterizing
our sphere of influence is about us
determining our degree of interest
influence or control over the energy
system and identifying opportunities and
barriers is self-explanatory our
approach to this transition must be
thoughtful and deliberate I've included
the climate action plan in your packets
describe the data and the broad
strategies and targets and includes an
appendix of action ideas brought out by
our stakeholder groups the actions need
more development and community input but
I would encourage the council to move
this process forward with the following
actions
I recommend that the City Council adapt
the 2030 and 2050 climate action plan
targets with accompanying community
benefits that the City Council used the
policy review committees to develop and
advance energy transition plans and
policies that the city staff incorporate
energy transition targets and benefits
and utility work renewable energy
transportation buildings and waste
sectors and that the city staff continue
to participate in community gate
engagement processes to develop and
achieve the targets so that's my story
of energy Chancellor's transition for
the next 25 years I hope it's been
helpful to the council and I stand for
questions
thank you Lisa that was very good is
very comprehensive and I know councillor
sword would like to sit has some comment
simply before I and then councillor
Vasquez and before I turn it over to
councilor sword I just want to take a
moment to thank him for his a longtime
advocate advocate seat and leadership on
energy issues councillor ever since I've
met you since you've come on
or I think Lizabeth 2009 I can't
remember if it was around there but you
and counselor Nathan small and council
Pedrosa was instrumental in helping
inform the sustainability position that
Lisa lorac now now holds and so and I
know you pushed for the renewable energy
sources by 2020 to it I believe at fifty
point five percent and then by 2030
fifty percent and 100 percent by 2050
which is about the time I think you and
I will probably be off the council
thanks for your advocacy on end so
councillor sort I Thank You mr. mayor
thank you for those kind comments um
yeah I just wanted to add a couple
points I may need to thank Lisa for all
the work she's done on this I have sat
in on a couple of those meetings that
they had and there was a lot of going
back and forth on just how we could
possibly do it different scenarios that
different people in the committee would
bring up I think they worked very hard
and and we're very dedicated to all that
um yeah I want to say a word about the
electric vehicles as you saw from the
presentation the vast majority the
majority of the greenhouse gas do come
from our vehicles and and I realized
that living in a spacious Western
community where you have things that are
far away from each other and have to get
transportation that is convenient for
that and that's usually the family car
or pickup truck or trucks in general um
there's manufacturers though in in the
in the country and indeed in the world
that are moving towards building
electric vehicles you've heard what
China is doing Shannon is going whole
hog on electric
vehicles they are building them far
faster than anybody else in the world
and being a Toyota owner I've been told
that by our territorial Toyota dealer
that by 2025 all of Toyotas models will
have electric options and so so they're
coming and so I just want to be ready
mentally for that time when we can move
to more electric vehicles um there's
other there are actions there's these
are the kind of actions that leads a
outlined that we need to take in the
future here as we go along and I would
anxious to get going on them as soon as
we can because that's the only way we're
going to combat climate change and if we
can reduce our climate change and in our
country in our world we'll have less of
a problem in the future I having enough
water for our selves and for our crops
our food and so forth um but I want to
say one last thing about this and and
something that we in Las Cruces are not
going to be able to do alone by any
measure is that is the cost of Green
Green ha ha and that greenhouse bit cost
of fossil fuels the cost of the price of
natural gas right now so low that it
just does not compete hardly with
anything else it
nothing else competes with it I mean and
as you heard last week the price of oil
has gone negative they are paying people
to take it off their hands just
temporarily though that is going to
change shortly but still it's going to
be so cheap and so there needs to be a
change in the price of fossil fuels to
help this go along so I hope we continue
in the future to work towards that that
that goal of having a more
cost fossil fuels the oil and natural
gas the real costs and when it comes to
climate change so thank you there and
again thank you Lisa for that excellent
presentation Thank You counselor
counselor ruscus thank you Lisa good to
see you and thank you for a great
presentation so happy that you've been
able to develop this plan I was looking
at the report made in working with Lotus
consultants earlier today as well and
that's a wonderful report that I I just
think we we should show to other cities
that we should really be proud of in
terms of what we were able to put
together with that working group and
with your work Lisa and consultants I
think what kind of a model city in that
sense especially being you know located
in in a very unique place in the
southwest desert as counselors or
mentioned with a lot of limitations
including water anyhow I think today as
we speak right construction is started
on the Nevada cooling corridor which is
a project Lisa that I know you brought
forward working with community working
with neighbors working with a bunch of
different partners to address this issue
of equity in very many ways right it's
the it's the hottest street I think the
hottest urban heat island in the city
and it's also in one of the the more
low-income areas of the city and I think
all the concrete that we've built out
across different parts of the city
create you know these conditions with
heat islands and figuring out how to
mitigate them in an equitable way that
also promotes for example rain
harvesting cooling of neighborhoods
through the use of different types of
landscaping that's both suitable for our
community but also drought tolerant is
like it's part of the innovation I think
that that helps to tie in this is this
this issue of equity and
and change the sustainability and I love
that we are leading with projects like
that so that's something I'm so really
really happy to see also just want to
address the community solar portion of
things also in relation to equity I know
that's something that we have advocated
for and supported in the past at least
at the state level for the legislature
to allow a community solar bill to go
through that would decentralize the way
that power sharing across large solar
fields is is really driven right not by
the corporations or not by necessarily
private utilities but by municipalities
would be a huge benefit to starting to
get affordable solar on people's homes
and apartment complexes and places where
people rent and so I think that's a huge
thing for us to continue to push for at
the local level for the state chains
that I think could be transformational
not just for our community but for other
cities as well to make solar affordable
so I know that's a top top of your list
Lisa I just want to remind us that that
fight is still ongoing and obviously the
utilities don't particularly like it
they don't want it but you know but
that's okay like you said we intervene
where we have to for our people for our
customers for our constituents and
that's a really important bill for us to
continue to advocate for I think
councilor also made another I think good
good note about you know as we as we get
away potentially like you said 78% or
you know lower greenhouse gas emissions
by 2050 means that the demand for fossil
fuels is going to keep going down not
just in our community but really around
the country and so thinking about the
revenue that comes into our state right
almost a third or more of our revenue
that comes from oil and gas in the
fossil fuel industry that currently
powers our state state government you
know thinking about what our role is and
helping to diversify the state's economy
at the same time that we're diversifying
away from oil and gas and putting more
electric vehicles on the road and that
kind of thing will be an important
important part of how we lead as a city
and so that means job
creation through clean industries and so
that's something I'm really interested
in and also having you know having to be
a part of this this discussion and
natural gas is another one that I know
councillor story and I have talked about
you know we have this I think we had
kind of a dilemma with this big count
with this big natural gas expansion out
in Talavera just recently that was
approved by the Las Cruces Utilities
Department right and it's to add
potentially new customers right put them
online to get - to get new customers and
gas out to folks out in that particular
neighborhood which is outside the city
limits but regardless those folks would
be in our in our customer service area
knowing that also natural gas is not the
future right of the way that people are
going to power their homes and people
are going to heat their homes right we
would probably we should probably be
looking to electrifying homes so that
they're actually being heated by
electric heaters that are powered by
solar energy or you know that kind of
that that kind of technology that's
already out there in terms of the
electrified electrification of homes is
the future right so how much should we
invest in things like expanding natural
gas lines and natural gas projects as a
city knowing that it's kind of runs
counter to what we're really trying to
do but also brings revenue that's
immediately needed by the utilities and
so that's something that'll be really
interestingly so with with the work that
you're doing and our utilities being
enterprise funds and how we're gonna you
know potentially make sure that we have
revenue to bring in to make those
utility sustainable but also make sure
that they're they're getting away from
the fossil fuel industries that
currently make us money so those are
just some of my comments I'm super happy
about this plan super grateful for your
work Lisa I think this has a lot of
really important elements and so glad
that you are keeping equity at the
forefront of this I think that's so
important to be thinking about an energy
transition even municipal II you know at
the local level that that doesn't leave
anyone out and what our role can be and
making sure that that we put our
communities and our people
first so thank you so much Lisa thank
you man Thank You counselor
councilman : Thank You mayor um I a
mostly just have comments - and how many
questions Lisa thank you so much for
your presentation I you know I also want
to thank you you've dedicated your
career to this and I think it shows and
you know often staff will come on here
and all say how lucky we are to have you
and I think you're one of those people
too so I think was lucky to have you on
our team for sure and you know one of
the one of the biggest reasons I wanted
to be on the sustainability committee
moving forward was was because of this
plan and it was because of the city's
commitment to to climate action and and
to ensure that like councillor Ruskin
says equity stays at the center you know
communities of color and low-income
communities are disproportionately
affected by climate change by the
effects of climate change yet they're
the ones they're the least who
contribute to climate change and so I
want to make sure that those voices are
heard and represented as we move forward
and that you know as we begin to move
into electrifying our homes and those
things that the burden of class does not
fall on on low-income communities or
folks who might not be able to even
afford those things and you know in
pushing for more equable conversation
around electric vehicles and and I know
that the game might have cost for those
is very wide-ranging but I've also seen
what the cheaper area electric vehicles
look like and just because you can't
afford tests but doesn't mean you are an
ugly car so I think it's an important
conversation to have about about what
would all of these things mean right and
that it shouldn't be middle-upper class
conversation that's being had around
climate change but that it includes all
of our communities so I'm you know I'm
really excited to be on the
sustainability committee I'm even more
excited about it as I read through this
incredible plan that you that was in our
attachment
um and I know that we're gonna be
talking about elevate las cruces pretty
soon and thinking through some of those
short-term goals that elevate las cruces
late lays out for us but I think that
some of these that some of these
strategies that are in the climate
action plan should we should also
consider looking at some of these things
as we begin to look at the short term
policies that elevate left truces like
that for us thank you so much Lisa Thank
You councillor FLOTUS FLOTUS thank you
yes Thank You mr. mayor and thank you
you thank you so much for your wonderful
work and for having Lotus put the plan
together I thoroughly enjoyed working on
it and I look forward to it being
implemented and I know with you at the
helm
it'll happen I think that I agree with
councillor Vasquez brought up very good
points about and councillor van como the
equity issue is very very important and
and I'm so happy that we are a model in
many ways and I think that Motors did
say in its report that last loses is
pretty much pretty much ahead of other
communities the size insofar as actions
that we've taken and what we're
currently doing so kudos kudos to you
Lisa Laura for your work on the neva and
the Nevada corridor I'm trying to say
that we are a community the state of New
Mexico is yeah an impoverished state and
we also are also Hispanic Latino and
where you have a double whammy there but
I think that the city is moving forward
beautifully at you with you at the helm
and
again I want to thank you and I and I
counter boxes rather if we have to do
work at the legislature to to make sure
that some of the stuff is implemented
but thank you so much again you sir
questions thank you
Thank You counselor yes I'm I'm proud to
say that the city has been a leader in
an energy transition and a lot credit
like I said those two counselors organ
and councilor small representative small
Council for the rosa mayor pro-tem
emeritus Sharon Thomas and a few others
so let's see who's next
mayor pro-tem Gandara thank you banner
thank you Lisa for your amazing
presentation and work I participated in
some of that subgroup work I was
impressed with you and Lotus and the
people who participated I thought there
was a wide range of folks that were
invited to attend and it was interesting
to sort of move from the table and
always fill in my god we don't have
enough time but I thought the group that
I participated in was very innovative in
their discussions and brought up issues
and concerns especially around equity
but thinking of innovative ways right to
to move this into to move this to
continue to move the needle as it
relates to climate change and reducing
their greenhouse gas um one of the
things that I didn't notice and I know
how difficult that is is I didn't think
I saw a school representative there at
the meeting and I wondered how we were
going to incorporate them especially
around the food waste like the waste
piece I think that's super important and
I think um I know that there's already a
group working on that if you have had
any conversations with the school
specifically about about that
mayor pro-tem Sandra yes during during
the during the process we did cast a
wide net inviting a lot of different
people and although we had a good
showing the school was invited but there
were no representatives there and I feel
even though we had a really stimulating
conversation throwing out a lot of
innovative ideas each one of those
different sectors demands a much longer
more thoughtful discussion with the
people that will be most impacted as
well and so that's why the
recommendations right now are just to
adapt targets and then as we have those
deeper conversations with people that we
will have strategies that overcome some
of the barriers that that have stopped
people from being able to take advantage
of opportunities that are out there so
this this is not the end of it this is
really just a point to reflect and so I
expect to see a lot more conversations
and and participants as he actually
flesh out the plans thank you yeah I
appreciate that I think in my work in
the past with Department of Health and
when we've often changed food policies
right we've worked with Department of
Health and the schools using they have
health promotion specialist that that
works specifically on on this and so I
would recommend reaching out to Don
Sanchez and Gil but you know Gil was the
one that was highlighted in the
newspaper doing a lot of his work who is
also a social worker sort of directing
people to go into the sites to get
tested and so this is one of many things
that he has done as it relates to public
health but I
I know anytime we wanted to change sort
of things around what is in so vending
machines less sugar those kinds of
things it's been a sort of a dual work
with the two of those entities and and
we've often reached out to the
nutritionist their school so just some
recommendations around around that I
also notice around utilities being a
energy utility and all the emissions as
it relates to I wondered how we will
begin or how we'll continue to have
conversations with dr. Garcia about
moving into that into that arena of
being an energy utility right and what
that might that might look like um
have there been discussions yet around
that mayor of proton under there there
is that certainly is a sector that we
need to explore about utility scale
energy and I have received a lot of
support from the utility department and
they have been active participation
participants in the development of the
climate action plan so I think we are
going to explore all the sectors and and
really look at the trade-offs from that
so we we need to go through it
thoughtfully and I don't think that I
think our level of transition was pretty
modest by 2030 but I think we can hit
the ground running once we made a full
decision about how we want to move
forward
you can't hear thanks Lisa I'm really
excited about that and I know I'm
anxious to continue to move in in that
direction with dr. Sheehan and his staff
I think it'll be an excellent
opportunity for us Lisa around the that
that graph that showed the
transportation that we're not going to
see like you really any major increases
but what would yeah yeah public
transportation how would we be able to
measure though with the purchase of the
five electric vehicles the five electric
buses that that's making an impact mayor
and proton gondola the I get into the
weeds quickly so I'll try to control
myself with this explanation I the part
of the issue is that ridership isn't
isn't that high and there's not that
many buses so it's great that the buses
will be electric and it's super that
this isn't as an option for people to be
able to use but in the grand scheme of
things in terms of greenhouse gases it's
just a very small drop in a large fossil
fuel bucket and or a lack of a drop and
so it doesn't really show up but it
doesn't preclude we went in with the
idea that yes we need to really think
about how to help underserved
populations and that's why we kept it
there it's important there for that
reason and the electric buses are great
to have but they're just not going to
make a big impact and I but I'm not
saying don't do it I'm just saying that
compared to other
strategies their benefits are more about
equity than they are about greenhouse
gas yeah I know that in discussions with
Jaime Rickman and in our policy
committee on the quality of life policy
committee we have often talked about the
use of transportation especially you
know be leveling the playing field for
people who do not have that opportunity
or choose not to have a car a vehicle
right to get around town and and whatnot
and so we we talked a lot about
campaigns with the schools and and so I
I don't want to I don't want I know that
that conversation has sort of been put
in the back burner but I know that
especially and unfortunately with the
you know the work that Jamie did with
the schools bringing the students in the
youth and to do all you know kind of and
you were a part of that we say you did
that whole presentation it was
wonderfully received and that sector
actually won right and and so they have
some incredible ideas for students and
so how do we tap into the student
population that is very mindful and
thoughtful about climate change and
wants to have some some action steps
around that and so I I just want to
remind us not to forget I thought their
presentation was amazing
the one that that ended up winning I
thought that we have plans mayor if I
don't if I if I remember correctly to
honor them the students that one and
have them do their presentation and so I
could see that very easily transform for
me action for that I'm getting some
feedback so but I don't want us to
forget that because I I think the
student population is a very important
piece to this as well and a way to
involve the schools in in this process
because they do that
kids want to be involved in it lastly is
I would recommend that we talked to the
community in the schools with our joint
powers agreement with the schools I'm
Yvonne and I don't know what and I
wondered doing this presentation to them
and especially around equity is maybe an
avenue right to get the school active
and involved in this process I think
they'd be very interesting we have
talked about food waste I think more
more often than not we talk a lot about
policy around that and how do we
effectively mitigate you know those
kinds of things so I could see this
being like a an agenda item in that in
that particular group move forward so
thank you Lisa Thank You mayor
congratulations I think it's an
excellent it was an excellent
presentation and a great report thank
you
okay thanks we have a counselor basis to
be Thank You meryt and thank you Lisa
for everything I think my colleagues are
pretty much thumbs up many of our
questions and I appreciate mayor pro-tem
bringing up the schools and the active
the students as well I had my video off
because I have too many kids coming in
and out and saying ho ho but it does
bring right there very induce
education is really important with them
to training I would say the next
generation so that these habits become
automatic you know i we struggle in our
household sometimes with the little
things but they have those big picture
views already in place so I I'm happy to
help and partner up in any ways possible
and thank you so much for a great
presentation Thank You councillor else
our Florida
did you have another comment or you
forget to put your hand down counselor
Florida's oh you yeah actually okay okay
well again that's very good and just a
couple things Lisa I just want to say
again thank you very much for the
presentation come survey at the studio
did you still want to say something or
did you create too much random nope okay
so I think Lisa I think you've heard the
comments are very supportive of this and
I think what I'd like to see council
supportive of it is for us to bring
forth a resolution to adopt these
targets and and outline these benefits
in this in this plan is that something
there that you can maybe work on and
that way there we have it we know what
we're at we know what we're going to do
we've we've seen these targets we've
seen the benefits outline and I think
it's really a good time because it
allows us to address the challenges of
climate change this allows us to set
those clear priorities for our future
decision-making and where we're going to
allocate those resources I think it's
good for the city that it saves us money
it saves our residents money it provides
a secure energy future all the way from
you know just just the cost savings but
I also want to take a quick moment when
you stop and think about it you know
this covered 19 issue I stop and think
about how a few years back when we had
that freeze and save our house was
having some problems and thanks to dr.
Garcia and his team they we we still had
water and we were still at it throughout
that 48 hours that everything was frozen
but imagine if something was to happen
now that may be sabotage or natural
disaster and imagine if we had on our
water pumps a solar that would allow us
to continue to to me
pain that water source stuff throughout
so I think it's kind of really important
so that's something there you all are
supportive of who were to move forward
and get a resolution to address this
okay I mean there is absolutely thank
you yes very thank you okay so looks
like that's the case and was that it
Lisa oh I did want to say one thing that
and I don't know if you could provide us
an update on this but we're talking
about cars and electric cars and I know
the the biggest thing is they're
charging so let's say for example you
were say you were company and you had
employees that go traveling a lot that
is obviously one of the best benefits is
use electric cars but the charging
stations around the state or even in our
city are somewhat limited do you have
any update on what on how that's looking
I mean if you could theoretically have a
charging of a car almost as quick as as
adding fuel like gas everyone would
switch to electric vehicles and argue
now I mean if there was a way the
supercharger literally supercharged a
car's battery so that you know you can
get 120 miles on it and things of this
nature what's really cool about this is
is if you use your car for business you
still get the fifty eight and a half
cents that the IRS allows you and it
doesn't cost you any money you know it
doesn't cost you any gas I mean that's
what's really neat yeah when you some
think about it a lot of it comes down to
money savings and if it's good to the
environment great that's just that much
more of a benefit but I mean a lot of
consumers you know it looks they look at
the bottom line so do you have to know
anything on that are they developing
vehicles to be able to be charged that
quick instead of having to wait yeah a
long time mayor um thank you for the
question there are abilities there are
different levels or referred to charging
stations we just received the city just
received a grant
from the BW settlement money for seven
to eight dual chargers so that means
that's fourteen to sixteen charges that
we'll be placing around different city
properties and on the baseline averages
that you should have a charger for one
charger for every 10,000 people and that
will clearly changes as adoption rates
change those level two can if they take
up to two hours if your battery is
almost depleted usually people top
things off what you've described the
quick ones that are like 15 minutes are
level three chargers they're about 10
times more expensive I do agree with you
that we need to have at least one or two
available just to provide that as an
option and as more grants come up that
is a priority that I hope that we can
address it but at this juncture right
now we're just trying to show that show
that this technology is around and that
we're using it well I hope council
doesn't mind maybe I'll reach out to the
University and see if that's something
there that they may want to take a look
at and help develop those level 3
Chargers not only would that be helpful
for us and our community but the state
and it can bring in revenue to PSL you
know they're working on on these masks
for healthcare workers and they're doing
a good job so let me reach out to them
if you all don't mind and you never know
they could they could develop that and
can you imagine that would be they'll be
pretty tell us our sort Hey Thank You
mr. mayor I just wanted to add to what
Lisa said and what you're saying car
manufacturers are this is still a new
technology and car manufacturers are
going to be improving the charging and
improving the cars that and then bring
the price down
so I get it will get better over time no
I agree with you counselor but if you
something about her if we help develop
this type of a business so to speak and
then we can turn it over to two other
companies to continue to run and expand
on it and just think if we could get
that going in our industrial park if we
could start developing that then we turn
it over and next thing you know we could
actually be on the forefront of
producing these level three chargers
that Lisa was talking about that I think
that'd be something look at I mean it's
gonna happen it's just a matter of when
and I I really believe that that is
going to be key if you could if you
could literally have these level three
Chargers everywhere you know like right
now I have a friend who has a test line
and and he gets a charge in Socorro and
then Albuquerque because his car
supposedly can only go 200 miles and he
didn't he was concerned that his wife
would if she was the drive to
Albuquerque that she'd run out of a
charge and so he charges up in Socorro
but can you imagine if you had one of
these Chargers every you know tier C
Socorro Lunas orbital in Albuquerque I
mean all along the line we'd be pretty
doing pretty good so yes if you guys are
okay I'll reach out to the to the
University and see if that's something
they collaborate and work on
partnerships city if we could do
anything
Tamara actually the state does have that
going on now a plan they're working on a
plan to put charging stations along the
interstates for example yeah but yeah we
hope develop it I think we could bring
revenue into the city yes very good very
good state that you know we we're gonna
be thinking about religion okay can we
do can she do okay so okay so then let's
go ahead move forward that resolution
and if there's nothing further
I believe that's I think that's it thank
you very much it was using my
thank you so much okay oh if there's
nothing further entertain a motion to
adjourn
hello I'll second it okay motion made by
councillor photos and second by
councillor story that we adjourn all
those in favor signify by saying aye aye
return on a fifty nine pm
a contractor whose license I think yes
you'll have a fallback if the person
doesn't come through with it
whatever anyway so long don't want
paneros I may be there okay there I'm
ready when you are
are you ready okay so this is the agenda
set a meeting for our May 4th 2020 City
Council meeting number one on consent
one non concern to non consent to non
concern three consent
three constraints or non consent for
nine content
5 consent 5 consent six non consent 607
on consent Evan unconcern thank you I
moved my lamp by the way
you