City Council Meeting March 4, 2024

MINUTES

City Council

Monday, March 4, 2024 @ 1:00 PM

City Council Chambers, City Hall

PRESENT: Councilor Cassie McClure, Councilor Becki Graham, Councilor Johana Bencomo, Councilor

Becky Corran, and Councilor Yvonne Flores

ABSENT: Mayor Eric Enriquez and Councilor William Mattiace

1. OPENING CEREMONIES 1.1 PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE - COUNCILOR CORRAN. 1.2 PRESENTATION OF CERTIFICATES OF

APPRECIATION/PROCLAMATIONS - COUNCILOR CORRAN. Councilor Corran presented Public Works and Parks & Rec with the Natatorium Award. 1.3 JOBS OF THE WEEK. None. 1.4 PETS OF THE WEEK. Amy Defelix, Animal Services Center of the Mesilla Valley presented Pets of the Week.

2. CONFLICT OF INTEREST INQUIRY BY MAYOR AS REQUIRED BY LCMC

SECTION 2-27 (E)(2) 2.1 None.

3. PUBLIC PARTICIPATION 3.1 Vic Villalobos, Member of the Public said we were here at the last meeting as well. I appreciate Mayor Enriquez as he stated at the end that not all of us are able to stay for the whole meeting because of the length of time and many of us has to go back to work and the one thing I did watch till the end, and I was able to participate through

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that. One thing I was a little disappointed in was that most of the council what you actually took from that meeting was that was that you felt a little picked on or that people were ganging up on you when the reality was I think 90% of the people were here showing true concern about how we change things and I realize that at times in your position that you can feel like you are picked on or people are ganging up on you and stuff but the truth is you chose to be in that seat and you chose to be an elected official and with that comes the good, the bad, and the ugly unfortunately and so I really hope at some point in the very near future everybody can see through that because I can tell you as a group of concerned business owners the first time we met at our facility we had 61 businesses there. The second time we met we had 182 businesses, and we expect that to continue to grow and the bigger concern is listening to all the problems people are having with the vagrancy and the crime. This isn’t about you personally and I am looking at you because you take it very personally.

This is everybody. It’s in every district. It is in everything, and you guys really need to do something and I watched the video. I shouldn’t have but I did and that happened at our property there and it was horrible but what was more horrible to me was that thirty minutes before that happened my wife was there alone at our facility right so a little shift in things. That could be her. The day before we confronted that same vagrant with issues. He was a little bit nicer at leaving but still somewhat hostile and since then we now lock our outer fences so when customers are coming we have to go through extra efforts. I can tell you yesterday alone there was another vagrant out there acting the same manner screaming, yelling, jumping in the air, acting violently and so we have to do something we really do. We have a big event coming up this weekend. We have over 100 people coming to our dock diving center and I just look out into the street and wonder what are these people going to think coming to the city of Las Cruces and honestly how are they going to feel safe and I get it they are people too. They are people to, but these are violent people and they are becoming more and more violent out there and if we don’t do something I know it is going to get worse before it gets better but we have to do something and I feel like you’re not listening. You’re just not, I think you are taking this very personally and this is about the public safety and I hope you will truly take that stand.

Devin Narvison, Member of the Public said I have been a Las Cruces resident for about ten years now and today I am here on behalf of Las Cruces for Palestine. Since

October 7th at least 30,000 Gazans have been killed by the state of Israel including

12,300 children and more than 8,000 women. We know that the actual death toll is much higher given that there are at least 8,000 Gazans currently missing. On top of that more than 70,000 are injured with virtually nowhere left to go for treatment. Today

1.5 million people are sheltering in Rafah, the southernmost town in the region lying against the border of Egypt. Despite being told to move there for safety Rafah is currently under attack by Israel and 1.5 million people have nowhere left to run to and the US is an active participant. This is ethnic cleansing and genocide. We have seen innocent civilians being intentionally starved to death and gunned down when trying to get food. If you have been paying any attention you know that this systematic state of violence has been going on for over 75 years. As women, as mothers, as elected officials, and more than anything else as human beings we are calling on you to use your positions of power to do something about it. In just the last two days we have collected 352 signatures from fellow Las Cruces residents calling on you to pass a resolution for the following, an immediate cease fire, permanent cease fire, restoration

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of UNRWA funding, and an end to Israeli blockage of humanitarian aid to Gaza, abidance of international law, and an end to all funding and weapons transfers to

Israel. Repeated, countless demonstrations all over the world including right here in the city of Las Cruces show that these demands represent the will of the people. A genocide is taking place right before our very eyes and it is time for all of us to act.

Richard Farr, Member of the Public said I am here to express my dismay and disappointment over our Mayor’s stated intentions to restrict the public comment portion of these council meetings and to move it to some unspecified time after the completion of the council agenda. I apologize if I seem to be unfairly imputing motive, but I see this as not only being vindictive and punitive and also with thinly veiled stifling of opinions and viewpoints you just don’t want to hear. While at the same time unnecessarily shielding some delicate sensibilities. At the last council meeting we all witnessed some very powerful and very emotional comments expressing frustration, fear, anger, rage, sorrow, pain. It was disturbing, difficult, and emotional for all of us as we empathize with our neighbors sincere and heartfelt remarks. You have to know that those emotions and opinions are out there, and they should be voiced, and they should be heard and you should hear them. It is not unexpected that you may disagree with some of the comments expressed and it is unfortunate that some of those comments may seem to you rightly, wrongly, hurtful, unfair, erroneous, and even personally hurtful. Let me remind you that rightfully or wrongly those are amongst the unavoidable consequences at seeking and accepting an elected leadership position. Let me share a sage reminder that I have often had occasion to reflect upon in my profession of life. It is a quote from Super Chicken, my favorite cartoon hero, which simply states, “you knew the job was dangerous when you took it”. Our fellow citizens have a civic to step forward and voice our concerns and you have a corresponding responsibility and a duty to hear and consider those concerns.

One council member stated that you are not all in it for the money and I respect that but clearly no body in this audience here is in it for the money either and you need to respect that. Those of us out here all have demanding obligations and responsibilities in our busy personal and professional lives and coming here to participate in community issues as often is a major inconvenience therefore I strongly urge you to abandon this ill-conceived, punitive and repressive notion that will inevitably discourage public participation.

Chuck Widger, Member of the Public said I have lived in Las Cruces for 47 years including obtaining my degree from NMSU. I know that you recently heard from the small businesses, and I come to you today as a resident. I would like to relay a particular incident which occurred at home last Thursday morning at 12:51 a.m. and what I have observed over the last few years in Las Cruces and my neighborhood. I have two pickups parked in my driveway and these are covered by motion ring camera. Thursday morning upon wakening I reviewed the footage and found a young man running in front of one pickup and pulling on the door handle of the other pickup to see if it was locked. When I attempted to file an online police report I found no category that trespass and attempted auto burglary would fit in. My belief is that if these incidents cannot be reported how will Las Cruces Police Department be able to properly compile statistics and be able to formulate plans of patrol and in high crime areas. Please note that this same individual was observed on cameras in two other neighborhoods that night attempting to burglarize vehicles. He appeared to be about

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15 to 16 years old, not homeless as he made his escape with an accomplice in a vehicle. This was not a random incident as my neighborhood has had cars stolen, riffled through, multiple incidents of mailboxes broken into, porch pirates stealing packages, theft of porch furniture, and items stolen out of garages over the last 18 to

24 months. We have had neighbor’s backyards and homes entered by uninvited persons. Fortunately, so far there has been no physical assaults or injuries to the homeowners. It is obvious to me that our neighborhood is being targeted and cruised on a regular basis. We have a good neighborhood with longtime residents, and we watch out for each other. Besides forming a Neighborhood Watch Program many of us lock our gates, have installed security systems, we have installed security doors, and have the Club on any vehicles that which are not in our garages. I speak with many individuals, some known to me some not and the conversation around the last couple of years invariably gets around to the safety of ourselves, our families, and our friends living in Las Cruces. So, this lawlessness is not only happening in my neighborhood but neighborhoods all over town. I also know individuals that come to

Las Cruces for many years to winter and now they are not planning on coming back for any period of time if at all due to concern for their safety. I believe this trend will continue and accelerate if you the Mayor, the council don’t do something to stem this title of lawlessness. Please take Chief Story’s suggestions seriously and work with he and his officers to turn things around. I don’t blame the LCPD for the lawless trend and I fully support them, and I am extremely grateful for their efforts.

Dr. Chantal Savage, Member of the Public said I am a medical provider, business owner, and a member of the Armed Services. I am here today because I have seen firsthand what great leadership can do for an organization. The biggest problem with communication is we don’t listen to understand, we listen to reply. One of the fundamental principles that I have adapted and applied to good leadership is to build a strong team you must see someone else’s strength as a compliment to your weakness and not a threat to your position or authority. Great leadership is a selfless act. Not seeking personal gain or recognition. The wins belong to your people and your people alone whereas the weaknesses, the flaws, and the losses are that of the leadership and the leadership alone. I believe that we are especially lucky here in Las

Cruces to have a police force that is made of officers that truly make a difference.

That want to uphold the law and make it home safe to their families but without financial legislative and moral support they are set up for failure. With legislative action, clear, and concise law writing and a proactive leadership from this council they can focus on protecting citizens and each other. I do know from personal and professional experiences that giving those whom you are leading the proper tools to succeed is paramount. Those tools I believe are as follows, a change in ordinance repealing those that are constitutionally questionable and replacing them with ones that are enforceable to their entirety, state legislative action especially competency laws and bail reform, recruiting and retaining officers that are already budgeted for and establishing a real time crime center. I truly believe from what I have seen from

Police Chief Story and heard from his subordinates that he is the leadership that we need to support.

Laura Smart, Member of the Public said I am addressing the scary deplorable third world situation at Apodaca Park on Madrid and Solano. I believe this is District 3 and

Councilor Becki Graham’s district. Everyday there are a minimum of 32 to 100

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pickleball players who come to play at the only eight public outdoor courts in Las

Cruces. When I drive into the park, I feel like I am entering a lawless, graffiti homeless encampment. I am now scared to park my car and play for fear that when I return the windows will be busted out, my catalytic converter will be missing, which happened to one of the players, or I may be accosted by some meth addict begging for money.

One of the ladies had her purse stolen out of her car while playing in broad daylight.

There is graffiti all over the old pool house which has been an eye sore for over ten years. I distinctly remember presenting to the city council in July 2019 posters with photos of this disastrous city park. I also remember a female councilor stating we will clean up that graffiti. I was so hopeful, that was five years ago, and nothing has been done. If the city would demolish the pool and building by the courts and Apodaca which should have been done years ago you wouldn’t have any graffiti. There is no toilet paper in the restrooms by the ballpark, the water fountains have not functioned for over five years. I addressed the water fountain issue to the Parks & Rec office more than a year ago. The response I received is that we are waiting for the water company to repair a pipe. The sprinklers are misdirected and actually water the courts on the south end and destroy any flyers handing on the fence which are posted about future pickleball events. I have a lot of questions. Where is the $750,000 grant which was awarded to improve Apodaca Park? I have called Senator Heinrich over five times over the past four years asking where this money was. The last phone call I was told that someone in Las Cruces City Management didn’t follow through with the paperwork, so it was stuck in administration. Who is in charge of this paperwork? Did we lose this funding due to lack of follow through due to Las Cruces City

Management? Why haven’t the East Mesa Sports Complex opened? The eight courts have been completed for over two years. Part of the GO Bonds money was voted on for that sports complex, has money been redirected to some other project without permission of the public taxpayers? I could continue describing the disgusting situation at Apodaca Park but instead I am going to offer my services to work with

Parks & Rec Director Steven Bingham and his team and Apodaca Park employees on improving the current situation at Apodaca Park for free. Each of you has my contact information because I sent you all an email asking you to leave the public comments at the beginning of the council meeting last week. I received a response from 3 of you, thank you for responding and thank you for listening.

Kathy Fuller, Member of the Public said I am a retired Captain with the Dona Ana

County Sheriff’s Department, and I am here in support of the Las Cruces Police

Department and I just want to speak about the continuing problems that have been addressed earlier today and of course at last week’s council meeting. The time has come for us to have to do something. What I am afraid of is the next time someone is hurt or killed it is going to be a family member. It is going to be somebody close to home. I don’t want any of us to have it said that we didn’t do anything, that we didn’t come forward. I know the Mayor said it is just not a city problem, it is a community problem and that is true but nobody has the power that the city and the city councilors have and I know that you can’t solve the problems of the world and deal with

Palestine and things like that but you have the key to the purse strings and you have staff under you and you can see that programs get implemented to address this. I am from Albuquerque, but I have lived here for over 40 years. If you follow the

Albuquerque Journal things are so out of control there that the city has had to form a unit that goes around and cleans up feces left behind by the homeless. Businesses

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have to step over it and customers have to deal with it. Do we want that in Las

Cruces, I don’t think so. I think that we can do something about it and I am not just attacking the homeless but statistics show that there is a high amount of mental health issues and a high amount of substance abuse issues and that is something that we can attempt to address and another thing that I think we really need to address is the change that happened I believe four years ago where the voters, we the people got rid of cash bail bond and I think that was a huge mistake. Every year since then there has been an attempt to overturn that and claw back at it but our

Governor keeps saying no this is the way to go but I don’t think so because it is a revolving door. I talk to people daily, you heard from the businesspeople. I have talked to farmer friends, community friends, we heard about neighborhoods, it is getting worse. They say well it’s the violent offenders, but it is not. Anybody can become violent when there is mental health issues and there is substance abuse issues. Over and over and over they are getting released and I think that is something that the council can put pressure on at the state level to change our bail reform. We do not need people going around and around and around in that revolving door but please don’t let the next victim be a family member, do something.

Juan Garcia, Member of the Public said the Coalition of Conservatives has advocated for the forgotten victims of crime during the last two years. We give voice to those marginalized by lawmakers. We have the Las Cruces Wall of Shame with almost 200 small business victims. A crime where they are victimized again and again by a failed legal system. We put up billboards to highlight the increasing crime and drugs. Focus has been on the criminal while ignoring the victim. As an example in this chamber, I was called insensitive because I posted a split board with a vagrant on one side and the destruction of a Dollar Store on the other side. CCIA helps citizens present their grievances in this chamber pushing for change. We advocate for stronger ordinances, and I was told by the previous council we can’t do anything else and just pass the blame. We have silence from state representatives and senators. I am glad Chief

Story had the replacement or new ordinances as a goal in his press conference. We have asked the council to advocate with the state legislation for changes in laws in

2023 and 2024. Almost every small business that we visit has damages exceeding $500, so almost any broken window is valued higher so why aren’t these cases sent to the DA for prosecution? So now we fast forward to 20 February when we had 15-20 small businesses present their grievances which were “categorized by some of the council as a bashing” resulting in the new mayor wanting to change public input, public participation to the end of the council meeting. In my opinion this is retaliation clear and simple and an effort to suppress public comment. Regardless of how the council spins the change the optics are horrible. It shows the community the Mayor and council will make it difficult for citizens to voice their grievances. Many speakers are parents with kids and workers taking time off to come and speak. With the change it may be one to four hours before they get their three minutes. I am sure the Mayor and council know this but they are proceeding. Citizens will continue to peacefully assemble and petition the city government for a redress of their grievances. Public input, public participation may be slowed but citizens will not be silenced.

Lisa Parrot, Member of the Public said I am a resident of District 6. Our nation was founded upon the rule of law. We the people expect the rule of law to prevail. If we the people are inconvenienced by having to wait until the end of these public meetings in

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order to express our concerns so be it but do you really want those optics? Your next election cycle is closer than you think.

Daina Alire, Member of the Public said I own a business at 925 North Mesquite Street it is a gallery. It is basically two blocks from the police station over here. I as many businesses on Mesquite Street have been broken into many times. Last time I was broken into it was January 29th of this year and over $500 worth of security equipment was taken from me and I actually had a video that I turned over to the police of the person who stole my security equipment. I compared it with videos that my fellow business owners on Mesquite Street had and we think it is probably the same person doing this. I have provided the videos to the Police Department. I have not been contacted by the detectives as to if anything could be pulled or any comparison of those videos happened. I do think and I am very concerned about some things that I think are acerbating this problem. We have tons of druggies walking up and down Mesquite Street and Amador and all of the streets around Main

Street. One thing that is not helping this is that there are abandoned businesses, there are abandoned houses that the owners have not been tearing down or boarding up significantly so that these druggies can’t find a place to cook their meth or hang out. I also think that there is a lack of lighting on North Mesquite Street near Spruce and Mesquite, there is no lighting on that corner, and I was told that we were going to have more lighting on Mesquite Street. That has not happened. Finally, it is very very sad to me that we allow the panhandlers which I don’t call homeless people, they might look homeless, but they have made a decision to go on the street, beg for money, or break into cars, or break into businesses in order to get money for their drugs. If they were truly homeless, I know this city has a place for them to go. So, like

I said it is just very upsetting to me to see. I have been in Las Cruces ten years. I love this little town. I want it to grow. I want the businesses on Mesquite Street to be safe and grow. So, I hope you can do something about that.

Jo Ruprecht, Member of the Public said I am a resident of Las Cruces. In comparison with some of the other comments you have heard this is a small thing, but it has some point of gravity and order for the residents of the Mesquite Historic District. During the

City Council meeting on February 5th an error in procedure seems to have occurred and needs to be noted before a vote to accept the minutes. My point relates to actions taken on Resolution No. 24-050 as shown on the bottom of page 14 of the minutes.

According to Robert’s Rules a motion to table item indefinity is debatable, further a motion to table indefinitely opens the main motion in this case Resolution No. 24-050 to debate. As shown in the minutes before you no debate on the tabling or on the main motion occurred. In fact, I attended that meeting and believe that a review of the video would show that through the action of a city staff member no debate or discussion was allowed, instead one seconded the motion and it was abruptly moved to a vote and approved unanimously but improperly. The voices of numerous residents who had come to that meeting prepared to speak against the resolution were silenced by what I will term an abrupt end run to avoid public scrutiny of the issue and to forestall a constructive discussion including information not previously presented to council. Briefly Resolution No. 24-050 is part of an effort to demolish a former residence at 643 East Picacho in order to convert this city owned property to a parking lot for city use. Historically 643 was one of four homes on this block owned by members of the Fielder Family, two of the other Fielder homes occupy the lots

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adjacent to 643 and continue as privately owned residences at 641 and 645 East

Picacho. This area holds touch stones to black history in Las Cruces and the blocks sit squarely in the nationally recognized Mesquite Historic District. While tabling the resolution indefinitely would seem to drop the issue of demolishing or otherwise compromising the building that is not the practical effect. As a city owned building and without additional public discussion or action by city council 643 East Picacho is fully in the hands of our Community Development Department. A department that has repeatedly taken action including demolition in this historic district with little regard for residents’ concerns and with slim accountability to the public. Based on my understanding of Robert’s Rules I therefore ask that under old business at its next regular meeting council entertain a motion to rescind the indefinite tabling of the resolution.

Fred Huff, Member of the Public said after listening to the public comments of the last city council meeting concerning the crime and lawlessness that our small businesses are facing, I was surprised that our Mayor announced that the public comments would be moved to the end of council meetings. Having a couple of weeks to think about this

I want to share my opinion on the pros and cons of this change of the traditional agenda that the Mayor controls. Pros for the public: 1. None. Cons, these business owners are struggling to get enough employees to staff their businesses and need to be on site while the business is open. This is a struggle just to step away from their business for the hour and half to participate in the public comments. To wait until the end of the meeting it would take them away from their business for the rest of the day.

Pros for the City Council and Mayor: 1. This is a great way to censor the public from bringing issues before the city council and it gives the councilors a good feeling that no one is bringing issues before them, so they think their policies are bringing prosperity and law and order to the city. 2. No news media coverage of public comments since they will most likely not wait four to six hours to hear the public comments. Maybe the Mayor could put the councilors comments after the public comments then the media can report on both sets of comments and I hope the Mayor watches these comments today. 3. The Public comments and council comments are not a conversation, anyway. Each side is talking at each other and not to each other.

Quite a few people that day asked for a Work Session where the public could talk to and with the city council. Even the Mayor in his comments had heard that idea, so my question is has anything been done to start the process for a Work Session. The

Mayor also said that you are the leaders of the city and are responsible for community issues. These issues are not solved in a vacuum. It takes a community working together. In his column last week Peter Goodman stated that we all need to work together producing creative, helpful ideas debating factually, and collaborating to improve the situation. Not folks personally attacking councilors or councilors ignoring us.

Jim Hurst, Member of the Public said let’s blame the liberals. Liberals support programs and facilities that help the homeless and the homeless are a big problem in

Las Cruces therefore it’s the Liberals fault. Listening to me make these comments one would give the impression that the Liberals were responsible for all social ills. Liberals did not create homelessness. Liberals did not create our society’s mental health crisis.

Liberals did not create crime. Liberals did not create poverty. Liberals did not create drug and alcohol abuse. Liberals did not create our housing shortage. Liberals did not

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create our failed healthcare system and our failed mental healthcare system. Liberals did not create the wealth disparity that exists in our country. The problem with the homeless in Las Cruces is a symptom of many social ills. It is what a mental health crisis looks like. If you ever wondered what a society that doesn’t take mental health as seriously as physical health looks like, now you know. If you ever wondered what happens to a state governed by a Republican Governor who defunded mental health for eight years, now you know. If you ever wondered what a society that fails to provide adequate affordable housing for all its citizens, now you know. If you ever wondered what a society that fails to raise the minimum wage for decades looks like, now you know. If you ever wondered what happens to a people in their communities who leave the workforce because of meager wages, now you know. If you ever wondered what happened in a state without a policy for homelessness and that allows one jurisdiction to dump its homeless when surrounding jurisdictions, now you know.

No, we have not found a successful strategy for dealing with the homeless yet. It doesn’t mean it is wrong to try and it doesn’t mean that those who try are to blame for the current situation. With the time remaining I concur that you need to keep the public comment at the beginning of the meeting so that the citizen knows when they can come to comment. You are the first line of defense for democracy. If the people cannot freely express their grievances to their government, they will find other ways and they won’t be as polite.

Henry Young, Member of the Public said I am Director of the Las Cruces Gospel

Rescue Mission. Most of my comments have already been voiced so I will address something else at this time, but I will reserve my final sentence for you. Mayor Pro

Tem, I am still working on the last council meeting that you chaired as far as trying to get together all of the hospitals to meet with the city and us who are in charge of the homeless. I have been unable to get all three hospitals to come to the table at the same time, so I am still working on it. I want you to know that. Other than that, there have been some misspoken things that we have heard today. For one, Peter

Goodman is vastly wrong in his percentages on the homeless who are either drug addicted, or mental health challenged. It is much higher than his statistics show. I won’t venture to say what my research has said but it is at least four times higher than what he said. The other thing is we just heard about the Liberals versus the other side. Many of those statements were inadequate and after saying that I do have in place within the Las Cruces Gospel Rescue Mission a program that is successful for those who come to us. We have a high success rate of those people eventually leaving and becoming productive members of our society locally and/or other places. I have one lady that left here, went back to New York and is a successful businesswoman today. Others have similar situations of success. Do we have failures? Yes, but we have also had a great deal of success with our program. So, in summing up after everything else is said and done we the people are the voice that governs through the elected representatives.

Henry Hartig, Member of the Public said I live in District 2. I am here today to ask our city council to sign onto a resolution to pressure the Biden Administration to stop the funding for the war in Gaza. We should be joining a growing list of approximately 70

US cities who have passed similar measures. We saw significant demonstrations here on Saturday in our downtown and there is clearly public support. We left a petition with City Hall with 352 signatures gathered indicating public support but what does

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Gaza got to do with us? Why don’t we focus on the issues in our city and not abroad?

Allow me to make another simple moral appeal on this point. If any amount of our tax dollars are being used to have bombs dropped on hospitals, universities, and homes anywhere in the world then we have a responsibility to speak up and our city council has a responsibility to take a moral position on our part. Over the last five months the

Biden Administration has used flimsy excuses and sometimes outright fantasy to buttress their policy of deprivations of food and medical supplies to Gaza while simultaneously providing Israeli military with two-thousand-pound bombs used to decimate and absolutely level centers of open civilian population as well as actively participate in the starvation of the people of Gaza. Not only is everyone who could possibly take a stance on this issue in the US government implicated it is directly responsible if they continue to do nothing. In 150 days of genocide, we have seen three emergency aid packages rushed to Israel against the will of the American taxpayer. We know that the government can act very quickly when profit is on the line, yet they are slow to the point of absolute stagnation when it comes the humanity and desperation of the least fortunate. The only thing the Biden Administration has offered so far here is a lukewarm chastisement toward Israeli leadership. This is unacceptable. We have also seen US aid drops along the coast of Gaza as of

Saturday by Jordan’s Airforce. This is also unacceptable and no more than a band-aid over a bullet wound which our government continues to ignore. If these atrocities and crimes of war under the international standards continue the fastest famine in history is predicted to at least double the death toll of civilians in Gaza strip via starvation.

Biden could open Gaza’s borders and restore funding to UNRWA and stop the bombs falling today, he could have done it yesterday, he could have done it when the death toll hit 10,000 even 20,000 and so on. This last week that official death toll finally topped 30,000. On Saturday we saw protest in every major US city and then some throughout the rest of the world. Again, I ask that the city council sign onto a resolution ending these atrocities that would otherwise go ignored despite our direct implication in its continuation.

Dana Hopkins, Member of the Public said I live in District 4, and I will be very brief. I think the young folks here that are speaking about Palestine are really eloquent and I want them to be able to use their own words. I noticed some comments, people wondering what the relevance was as we are discussing things very vital here in Las

Cruces. I just wanted to speak to that. This is indeed a symbolic gesture, but it is a symbolic gesture that is being made around our country in small towns, big cities, etcetera and taken as a whole it makes a really powerful statement that potentially, actually changes our policies and watching these young folks who are bombarded everyday with images of death and dying and genocide. I truly understand their passion and I wanted to also because I am hearing this elsewhere make really clear that antizionism is not antisemitism and that these folks are addressing a real concern based on what they are seeing and I hope that you all are hearing them and for the folks who are waiting to speak that all of these things including everybody behind me has to say are relevant to us here in Cruces.

Brent Barlow, Member of the Public said I have lived here in the valley for four decades, local business owner, graduate of Las Cruces High School, New Mexico

State University, retired Law Enforcement Executive and Veteran. First God bless

Officer Hernandez’s family and all the law enforcement personnel that had to

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experience the night Officer Hernandez was brutally murdered and the continued protection of our community. They place their lives on the line every day for us. We as a community are truly grateful to all of you regardless of what you hear from elected officials and most media outlets you are appreciated, you are valued, we as a community will support you, we will always have your back, don’t get discouraged.

Keep fighting the good fight, we need you, we will always need you. 149,821 that is the total number of calls for service that Las Cruces Police Department answered in

2023. That is an 11% increase from 2022 and a 13.7% increase from 2021. Our community’s safety falls apart when we don’t have enough law enforcement officers to answer the call. Citizens want a proactive Police Department in our neighborhoods.

We want a quick response when we call 911. We want an engaged law enforcement community that are actively looking to defeat and deter crime. It is your job as elected officials and city management to make sure that they have all the necessary resources and backing to achieve those missions. Are you willing to come out today as elected officials and affirm in complete opposition to any defund the police initiatives? Are you proactively letting other officials at the state and federal levels at cities that Las Cruces has no tolerance for any type of defunding initiative and that we will lobby against it if rears its ugly head. In April 2021 the Governor of the state signed a New Mexico Civil Rights Act into law. What that law should have been called is the removal of necessary protections of police officers so attorneys could fleece their pockets with taxpayers money act. The fact of the matter is most politicians wouldn’t know what qualified immunity was if it came up and it slapped them in the face. Qualified immunity allows for protection for police officers so when the law was not clear and established of how they should respond in certain situation that the officer would be covered by immunity. Our Governor and every single state senator and representative in Dona Ana County voted to pass that mess of legislation. Needs to be repealed. So why is LCPD missing 25 officers? People in elected officials in government management should already know the answer. Cops are routinely trashed by politicians and local and national media pundits who literally don’t have the first idea of what cops do or what it takes to do the job but will second guess them at every turn and then make policy and legislative actions based on their ignorance.

Cops are not stupid people. They currently live in a world where much of what they see is not supported by their efforts. Removing essential legal protections for cops, segments of our society calling for protest against cops, people spitting on cops, people violently attacking and killing cops and elected officials using cops as cannon fodder for their political agenda, criminals who have zero respect for our laws, and the list goes on and on and on. So, we wonder why we don’t have anybody? Pretty stupid, isn’t it? I have people ask me all the time about a career in law enforcement, what do I say? Not in today’s world, get sued, lose everything, get criminally charged for doing a job in a lawful manner, go to prison, lose everything, job gone, family gone, house gone, better yet get killed in the line of duty. You’re gone, people forget, family destroyed and community broken. I just want to say thank you to Chief Story and all your people, we love you and appreciate you very much and we are not going away.

Jorge Aguirre, Member of the Public said I am a resident of twelve years, a small business owner, and employer, father and husband. I see a lot of anger here.

Probably some rightful anger against everybody and I want us to keep in perspective is that this is a national problem. Everybody is having homelessness and

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homelessness comes because of poverty and more poverty creates more homelessness and more homelessness creates more crime, right? I am from Juarez, and you can tell from my accent and in Juarez they had a really large crime problem and with help from the United States they brought a lot of money and bought US weapons and US cars and US equipment and US training to Mexican Police and they enlarged the Police by a large size and you know happened? Crime came two-fold.

We have had kidnappings like never before and yeah you can say Mexico has its problems, yes but you know what happened in California? They had this homelessness problem like a couple of decades ago and they hired more cops, and they enlarged the Police Department, and they enacted policies to protect the right to single homeowners to forbid every other type of housing that the market needed from being built so homelessness became a worse problem. So, all I am saying here is let’s try not to follow the California policies of not building housing and just enlarging the police and spending all this money on things that don’t work. If we do that it isn’t going to work here. I hear a lot about the revolving door. Yes, it is a problem but what was happening before was that we are just incarcerating the poor. The laws only apply for the poor because if you have enough money, you get out. So how come you want to have the privilege to get out because you have enough money, but you don’t want the poor to get out. So now that we say no, everybody has equality, everybody is out on the streets and now we have a bunch of homeless and now we have much more crime. It is a tough problem, but it is not going to be solved with the solutions that didn’t work in the past. So that is all I am saying, take a lot of the things like a grain of salt, everybody is really angry. There are no good solutions and so there are a lot of contradictions if you give money to the poor people are going to be angry even if it creates solutions. So, I just want to say thank you to all of you who are trying to do the tough things and the right thing at the same time. I know it is hard.

Jason Cogdill, Member of the Public said I am a resident of Las Cruces and I also served Dona Ana County as a Sheriff’s Deputy for twenty-one and half years. I would disagree with some folks here. I don’t think what you are hearing is anger. What you are hearing is frustration and the frustration is this, you all have the power to change things and for whatever reason it is taking a very long time. I want to commend Chief

Story and Las Cruces Police Department for their transparency in this most recent murder of Officer Hernandez. That was terrible and completely unnecessary. If there is legislation in this city that is anti-police, I am asking you to repeal it, reform it, and get rid of it. There is no reason for it. These men and women are warriors that keep us safe every single day and they need the tools to do their job. It is incumbent upon you and your power and the responsibility that comes with your positions to enable them to do that. So, thank you very much sir for what you have done and what you continue to do. I would agree with my colleague Mr. Barlow, we love you, you are in our prayers, and we just want this city to be safe.

Henry Cooper, Member of the Public said I am a retired Lieutenant from the Dona

Ana County Sheriff’s Office and cancer survivor. Before I go too far I want to say that we have an excellent cancer center here in Las Cruces. With all the things that been talked about here about law enforcement, being retired for the number of years that I have it is just extremely frustrating to watch on TV, whatever the news source is or who the politician is or whatever party to see how they talk about what law enforcement officers actually do on the street. I also directed several of our

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academies at the Sheriff’s Office. I taught at the academy in Santa Fe and I have taught several times at the Las Cruces Police Academy. Every time it is always about what it is that we teach our law enforcement officers and how they learn how to do their jobs on the street and millions of times just to keep from getting in trouble. Too many times law enforcement officers will get complained upon because of a simple procedure they did as they were taught in the academies and it is not unconstitutional, it is not against the law, it was what they were taught. But there is something else, another group of people that need to be educated about law enforcement and that is the public. What you see in movies, I could come up with numerous examples, movies, tv series that I will sometimes throw my shoe at the tv and then go get a new tv because I broke it. That is how frustrated I am of how they present law enforcement to the public and we see a failure of that education to the public, from our elected leaders, and maybe even from top law enforcement agencies and officials in those agencies. Qualified immunity is not about making excuses for wrongdoing. It is about letting the officer being able to do a job they have and how they have been taught.

Jonah Hernandez was killed by a man with a knife and too many times when we hear about law enforcement officers returning fire and utilizing deadly force somebody says they guy only had a knife or when he shoots somebody who is driving a car, and they try to run him down they were unarmed. No, they were in charge of a several thousand-pound weapon. How many people are killed by cars every year? That is where we also need to start, the education to the public about how law enforcement do their job. It is not always pretty, it is not always nice, but it is all dependent on the type of crime these officers are facing and the education they have.

Fern Adams, Member of the Public said I am an Anthropologist at NMSU with a focus on culture and language. I am here on behalf of Cruces for Palestine and as an

Anthropologist it is extremely painful to be witnessing the genocide that is happening in Gaza. The world is aware, and the people are not blind to the crimes that Israel is committing. Israel has taken away so many innocent lives and actively depriving the remaining ones of any basic human decency, denying them of food, shelter, and water. Things that people should not have to beg for, and they are actively erasing an outright and performing a cultural genocide. Destroying whole communities of people who are simply just trying to exist peacefully. These communities were forced to evacuate from their homes and were shoved into “safe zones”. It is blatantly obvious that there are no longer any safe zones especially at the events of last week’s power massacre where dozens of starving civilians were murdered when attempting to collect food. People who are weak and starving and the Israeli government justifies that they took this action because they felt threatened. To feel threatened by people who are malnourished that just wanted to feed their children, who did not want to simply lose their rights to the one thing that they had left which was life. Mothers and children are actively dying. It is painful to know that if so much if not all of their culture and language will never see the light of day again because it is now trapped underneath the rubble and blood of so many innocent human beings. These are selfish acts that the Israeli government could have put a stop to and prevented but instead have chosen not to and continue to justify and turn a blind eye to their actions.

We are asking our City Council to pass a resolution that calls to the Biden

Administration to facilitate an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, restore

UNRWA Funding and ensure Israeli allows unlimited humanitarian aid to enter at the scale needed at both north and south Gaza, and to uphold international law and basic

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human decency by demanding that Israel ends extra judicial members of Palestine in the west banks and ends all settled terror on Palestinians and to end all funding and weapons transfers to Israel.

Danny Miller, Member of the Public said I want to tell you about a Monday that I witnessed a lot of vandalism about a month and half ago. I went to pick up my clothes on Lohman at the Comet Cleaners and their drive thru glass plate was just completely shattered. Then after that I went down to the Chick-fil-A, same thing there. Windows were broken. Then I had to go down to Batteries Plus and as I walked in, I observed somebody had tried to break into a plate glass double door that was extremely strong, and I am thinking that took a lot of pressure to get that open. The owner did tell me that the Sally’s next door had also experienced vandalism. Pet Smart, they had some plate glass windows that were broken out also and then our daughter has a medical practice in that area and she has spent thousands of dollars to replace glass, to reenforce her doors, and the concern that my wife and I have is that she relayed to us a story that one afternoon when going out to her car and that there was someone that was messing with it and so she went back in and closed the gate that they had just installed and went and called the police and the police were there right away and we really appreciate that. So, I am asking the City Council to please listen to all these statements that have been made today and look at what we can do and make Las

Cruces a safer place for not only businesses but for customers.

Yoli Diaz, Member of the Public said shifting gears, since October 2021, I have been advocating for access to much needed health care. My focus has been Memorial

Medical Center since they are on a lease with the City of Las Cruces and Dona Ana

County and the only hospital with medical and radiation oncologist. Today I will expand my discussion. We have three for profit hospitals, Memorial that is operated by Light Point and owned by Apollo Global Management, private equity firm,

MountainView is owned by Community Health Systems, another major US health

System. Both have very charge to cost ratios, 625 to 725 according to a national report. It doesn’t compare to UNM or Presbyterian and according to this report the top ten hospitals in New Mexico with the highest charge cost ratios. I have two of them right here, which is Memorial and MountainView. I don’t know too much about Three

Crosses. It’s a beautiful hospital but I read they are also owned by a private equity firm. I want to discuss two estimates of service just to kind of get these numbers out there and I am going to use two hospitals. The first one I am going to use is from

Memorial Medical Center by a resident of Dona Ana County who was uninsured at the time that he needed his service and keep in mind that when someone has a potentially fatal disease, they are thinking about their disease not these numbers. So, they had an estimate that was $7,022.83 so what they do is they have these estimates, and they will allow a prompt payment discount so due today was $5,618.26 which would be due June 30, 2023. I don’t know what went wrong but they took $7,000 instead of the $5,600. There is plenty of studies where people don’t even have $500, I don’t know how you are going to have $5,000 or $7,000, that was Memorial.

And then at MountainView there was actually a child who needed a surgery and the estimate $173,827.87, there was some CPT Codes missing and there is a law right?

The Price Transparency Law effective January 2021 where they should be having these CPT. Anyway, that item with no CPT code, $65,782.82 and so this estimate had that they were going to be billing the insurance almost $97,000 so the estimated

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patient responsibility was $9,190.94, so with our social determinants of health and demographics please answer me how are these people who live here are going to be able to afford these amounts? And so Affordable Health Care yes, we can do things, yes. So, I hope I keep getting to meet with some of you that have not been able to meet with you but think of those numbers.

Dr. Paul Funk, Member of the Public said I am concerned about our town just like everybody else. I think we need to frame the questions and the answers based on the biggest problem right now which is Fentanyl. It just hit this nation like a tidal wave, two hundred people a day are dying from it. A lot of the crime is driven by it. So come back next week or next time we meet with some ideas on how to address the

Fentanyl pandemic.

Dylan Davis, Member of the Public said I am a mother of three children, under the age of three. I am a full-time student at New Mexico State University, and I am a full time

Special Education teacher with LCPS. I have spent every second of my precious free time, which is not very much advocating for the rights of the Palestinian people. I know that a lot of the people in this room feel that it is not our duty to worry about matters happening outside of our town, but I would argue that these people are not accessing their humanity. We bring to you today request to bring forward a resolution in support of an immediate and permanent ceasefire. We are decentralized informal community group of concerned people who defend no more violence in our name being funded by a government with public money. We have collected over 350 signatures from Las Cruces residents who also call on you to support an immediate ceasefire and to put an end to the ongoing terror, destruction, and humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza. You don’t have to take our word for it about this being a genocide or about how the actions of Israel with full United States support are in violation of International Human Rights Law National, international, Jewish, and Israeli human rights organizations, and media outlets have been documenting this crisis for decades. I am sure many people in this room and in this town are waiting on us to get tired of protesting, petitioning, and speaking on this matter and I can assure you that will not happen. Let Gaza live and support an immediate ceasefire.

Enrique Salas, Member of the Public said I just want to say one thing, Chief Story you are doing a great job. You got thrown into a huge mess here, I mean first year. I just want to say that Qualified Immunity when it was taken away tied the hands of all kinds of police officers because they don’t want to do the job for fear of retaliation by attorneys and you guys as our leaders, our voice have the ability to pressure the people up north that make these laws to repeal that and you need to do that so that our officers can do the job that we have asked them do. Chief Story, we do love you.

4. ACCEPTANCE OF AGENDA Councilor Becky Corran moved, seconded by Councilor Becki Graham, to accept the agenda as presented with item 7.3 to be heard first.

RESULT: Carried

MOVER: Councilor Becky Corran

SECONDER: Councilor Becki Graham

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AYES: Councilor Cassie McClure, Councilor Becki Graham, Councilor Johana

Bencomo, Councilor Becky Corran, and Councilor Yvonne Flores

5. CITY COUNCIL MINUTES 5.1 REGULAR CITY COUNCIL MEETING OF FEBRUARY 5, 2024.

6. RESOLUTION(S) AND/OR ORDINANCE(S) FOR CONSENT AGENDA 6.1 RESOLUTION NO. 24-086: A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING AN INCREASE

IN THE ANNUAL NOT-TO-EXCEED AMOUNT OF THE CONTRACT FOR

OUTSIDE COUNSEL SERVICES WITH ROBLES, RAEL & ANAYA, P.C. TO $1,500,000, PLUS NEW MEXICO GROSS RECEIPTS TAX ANNUALLY AND

AMEND THE FY2024 BUDGET (PROCUREMENT NO 23-24-021). 6.2 RESOLUTION NO. 24-087: A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING AN ANNUAL

NOT-TO-EXCEED AMOUNT OF $750,000.00 COMBINED FOR BARRICADE

RENTALS WITH JAVIER R. CHAVEZ DBA LAS CRUCES BARRICADES

AND R2 CONTRACTORS SPECIALTY INC. BOTH FROM LAS CRUCES,

NEW MEXICO SUBJECT TO ANNUAL RENEWALS AND APPROVED

BUDGET APPROPRIATIONS (PROCUREMENT 22-23-057). 6.3 RESOLUTION NO. 24-088: A RESOLUTION APPROVING A ROADWAY

LIGHTING MAINTENANCE AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE CITY OF LAS

CRUCES (CITY) AND THE NEW MEXICO DEPARTMENT OF

TRANSPORTATION (NMDOT) TO PROVIDE FOR THE MAINTENANCE OF

ROADWAY LIGHTING ON I-10 BETWEEN MP 141.40 AND MP 141.80,

CONTROL NO. LC00371.

7. RESOLUTION(S) AND/OR ORDINANCE(S) FOR DISCUSSION 7.1 RESOLUTION NO. 24-089: A RESOLUTION ADOPTING THE CITY OF LAS

CRUCES AFFORDABLE HOUSING INVESTMENT STRATEGY. Natalie Green, Housing and Neighborhood Revitalization Manager gave the overhead presentation.

Councilor Flores asked I have a question about the exception to the anti-donation act, how is that circumvented or why does it not apply or how is it that it does not apply?

Natalie Green said the State Legislature adopted an exception for affordable housing.

In order to be able to have an exemption we have to, one have an affordable housing plan which we do and then we have to qualify projects through a qualifying grantee process and so we do that call every October. We qualify either projects or developers, send that to the New Mexico Mortgage Finance Authority who is the entity in charge with enforcing the Affordable Housing Act and they work with us on qualifying those projects and council action is also part of that process.

Councilor Flores asked the land, is that state owned? Is it owned by the City of Las

Cruces or is it owned by a private person?

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Natalie Green said it can vary from project to project. In some instances, it is city land that we are activating. Many times, the developers have the land already and they come to us with a proposal and a potential land development project in the future is state land through some of their leases that they are doing. The state has been working with the City of Las Cruces to mandate attainable and affordable housing on any future state land leases coming forward for approval.

Councilor Corran said one thing that I did notice in your Project Moxie Report was that for hotel conversions to be something that you guys don’t necessarily have the capacity to do at this time which I understand and I think it is really complicated and I think that as part of the MRA conversation goes I am assuming that is sort of a planned future expansion of these conversations so this isn’t for today but for a future conversation and I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about that.

Natalie Green said we did look into the hotel conversions. It wasn’t something that we could reasonably put GO Bond dollars in and move into in actual item in the three years but as we work more specifically on the West Picacho MRA plan that is something that we can look into. There is a funding source that we have identified, it is our Community Development Block Grant Funds. The challenge with that is we use that funding to fund other things so we would need to look at that program as a whole and figure out how to prioritize that in addition to that it also needs to be identified in our consolidated plan and be able to use federal funds for that process and it is something that we will be working with the Mayor Pro Tem on, the MRA staff on, and so it is in the works. We are also watching Albuquerque. Albuquerque has done a number of motel conversions, so we like to use their lessons learned to help us develop our best practices sometimes.

Councilor Graham said I want to appreciate the thoroughness of the report, easy to understand, well put together and I encourage anyone with an interest in this to go to the agenda packet which is available to anyone who clicks on this meeting and see how varied the projects we are doing for affordable housing are because I think the consistent conflation of affordable housing and homeless assistance which while that is a portion of affordable housing it is so much more. It is subsidies for land developers. It is increasing financial opportunities for home buyers, leveraging more affordable mortgages. So, it is everything from single family home to multifamily housing and I think it is important just to acknowledge affordable housing is such a broad spectrum and it helps so many people in the community of many income levels.

Mayor Pro Tem Bencomo said I have really enjoyed working with Project Moxie. I think that was a really smart partnership. They are really knowledgeable. I thought this process was really well done. I think that in many conversations that I have been having especially in the last few weeks but really in the last few months is helping people understand that what is happening right now didn’t happen in a vacuum, right like the deep intersectionality of housing, mental health, and substance abuse and all of those things right and how deeply intersectional they are in the context in which we are operating in is that there has been a decades long disinvestment from public housing from the federal government and now we find ourselves post-ish Covid where

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we saw not only rents rocket but many rental units became unavailable because people decided to sell. Many different reasons are gap increased and it’s getting more expensive and more expensive and so people are finding themselves at risk of being homeless more often or even homeless for longer periods of time because of the lack of availability. I just want to point out the strategies moving forward are many. There are many pieces to the puzzle and this arguably is one of the biggest, most expensive, and most time consuming one but I do just want to express a lot of gratitude for you and your team for doing this and I hope that we can continue within those intersections working more closely with the Police Department, with the Fire

Department, with our Economic Development staff, our Community Development staff, all of these to try to break down these silos and get to some of these pieces a little bit faster. I am especially really interested in MRA intersection of housing and infill and getting rid of blight and reinvesting and revitalizing some of those areas and so I know that hotel conversions have come up a lot. Probably mostly from me honestly because I am very well aware that motels on West Picacho especially have sort of filled a gap, that huge gap that we are talking about. They have sort of filled it.

I think they need support as much as accountability. So I did just want to point that out, not to focus on the sort of the no capacity areas of the strategy but I am wondering Natalie when we are talking about motel conversions or mobile home park preservation and we talk about no capacity or resources at this time what specifically does it mean and if its time it is also time right, I am wondering if you can expand on that?

Natalie Green said some of it is not necessarily city capacity but either capacity at the state level where there is not necessarily state law or programming that exist yet. It also could be funding sources that don’t necessarily meet the exception of anti- donation and how do we cultivate those so the capacity can vary and some of it is just time for staff to research. As you know we have taken on some pretty extensive low- income housing tax credit projects. We are about to close on one March 7th, fingers crossed it has been a long time since coming and so as those sort of get out the door and are on their own we can start to look at other projects. I told the council before that we are very happy that our manager is on board so that has doubled our capacity to be able to research some of those more complicated issues that need a broader discussion. So, you will see a lot of that come forward. So, it is not off the table it’s just not in the next couple of months, but we will get there.

Mayor Pro Tem Bencomo said I think for me it is not necessarily priority for these pieces but I will take it upon myself to do a little bit of research and maybe with some advocates in the state like the Center on law and Poverty and others around this mobile home park preservation but also and I only say this because literally just this weekend I was talking to a federal probation officer at the track meet but once people find out I am a city councilor they just want to tell me all the things. This person was telling me that they have a client at a mobile home park in my district and the issues that they see and I think codes would speak to that as well. I do feel that it is a pertinent, I wouldn’t say that it is right there, right at that priority of all of these housing projects that we have because there are many but I would love to in the near future or sometime in the future maybe have a Work Session discussion about how we improve situations for both landlords of mobile home parks but certainly tenants. I did just want to say that because it was present for me.

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Councilor Yvonne Flores moved, seconded by Councilor Becky Corran, to

Approve Resolution No. 24-089.

MOVER: Councilor Yvonne Flores

SECONDER: Councilor Becky Corran

ABSENT: Mayor Eric Enriquez and Councilor William Mattiace 7.2 RESOLUTION NO. 24-090: A RESOLUTION APPROVING A PEDESTRIAN

HYBRID BEACON MAINTENANCE AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE CITY OF

LAS CRUCES (CITY) AND THE NEW MEXICO DEPARTMENT OF

TRANSPORTATION (NMDOT) TO PROVIDE MAINTENANCE OF THE

HAWK SIGNAL ON PICACHO AVENUE AT 4TH STREET, CONTROL NO

L100518. Tony Trevino, Assistant Director Public Works gave the overhead presented.

Councilor Becky Corran moved, seconded by Councilor Becki Graham, to

Approve Resolution No. 24-090.

ABSENT: Mayor Eric Enriquez and Councilor William Mattiace 7.3 COUNCIL BILL NO. 24-020; ORDINANCE NO. 3062: AN ORDINANCE

AUTHORIZING THE ISSUANCE AND SALE OF CITY OF LAS CRUCES,

NEW MEXICO, TAXABLE GENERAL OBLIGATION IMPROVEMENT

BONDS, SERIES 2024, IN THE PRINCIPAL AMOUNT OF $6,000,000,

PAYABLE FROM AD VALOREM TAXES LEVIED ON ALL TAXABLE

PROPERTY WITHIN THE CITY, LEVIED WITHOUT LIMIT AS TO RATE OR

AMOUNT; PROVIDING FOR THE FORM, CERTAIN TERMS AND

CONDITIONS OF THE BONDS, THE MANNER OF THEIR EXECUTION,

AND THE METHOD OF AND SECURITY FOR PAYMENT THEREOF;

PROVIDING FOR THE METHOD OF SALE OF THE BONDS PURSUANT TO

A PUBLIC COMPETITIVE SALE; PROVIDING FOR THE MATURITY DATES

AND AMOUNTS, INTEREST RATES, PRICES, REDEMPTION FEATURES

AND OTHER FINAL TERMS OF THE BONDS TO BE ESTABLISHED IN AN

AWARD CERTIFICATE; DELEGATING AUTHORITY TO THE CITY

MANAGER AND CITY FINANCIAL SERVICES DIRECTOR TO AWARD THE

BONDS TO THE PURCHASER; AND PROVIDING FOR OTHER DETAILS

CONCERNING THE BONDS. Erika Jaquez, Treasurer gave the overhead presentation.

Councilor Corran asked why this moment to sell them?

Erika Jaquez said I spoke with our financial advisor earlier and basically, we try to set up this to get a good rate. We can never predict what is going to happen in the market

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we can just do our best estimates. So, he estimated about a 5.325% rate for these bonds that will be sold March 14th.

Councilor Flores asked the 5.3 rate, and you say does that go away like the pumpkin goes away in Cinderella on March 14th? Is it guaranteed through March 14?

Erika Jaquez said that is an estimate. We can’t really predict what is going to happen on the market but that is our best estimate at this time.

Councilor Flores asked what if we agree to that now?

Erika Jaquez said that is not actually the interest rate that we are going to pay on these bonds through the competitive sale. We set a time and date, and we get bids from brokers and banks and then we just accept the bid with the lowest interest rate.

Councilor Flores said which could be anything. The lowest relative to 5.3 or just lowest?

Erika Jaquez said it is just the lowest it can be lower than that. We can’t go above the

10% though per the parameters set in the ordinance.

Councilor Flores asked so why is March 14, 2024, crucial?

Erik Harrigan, RBC Capital Markets said we are the City’s Municipal Advisor. So, we looked at selling the bonds in and around this time. Interest rates really hit a high in the November time frame. Rates have since come down to that point with the idea that the Federal Reserve was going to start pivoting from raising interest rates to actually cutting interest rates. Based upon the economic data that we have received again the year, labor market is still incredibly strong. The feds sort of key inflationary factors are kind of staying where they are at and so instead of the federal reserve anticipating this is all anticipated that they might lower the rate two or four times this year based upon how strong the economy is they may not even lower the interest rate. Where the rates are they have come off their highs we recommended a spring sale and the sale does coincide with obviously the approval of the city council. The interest rate as Ms. Jaquez is talking about is set around bids that we received on a week from this Thursday, so we are going to post the preliminary offering document this Thursday, then notice gets sent out to investment banks all across the country inviting them to bid on the city’s General Obligation Bonds. Note that these are taxable bonds because of the way that the proceeds are being used. This is a little bit different then General Obligation Bonds which have been sold on a tax-exempt basis which usually come with a lower interest rate. We estimate that the interest rate is about 5.3% and that is based upon what current taxable sales similar to what the city is rated. The city just affirmed its Aa2 rating to Moody’s so congratulations on that.

That is terrific and so that is what we estimate. Of course, we can see interest rates fluctuate significantly even on a day-to-day basis depending on what kind of economic information is being released but we anticipate that it is going to be in and around a

20 to 30 basis point range around that 5.3%.

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Councilor Flores asked what if we say yes, go ahead and then the interest rates shoot up?

Erik Harrigan said there are parameters that are laid out in the ordinance that are before you. The interest rate can’t proceed 10%. We think it will come in way way below that, but the city has the option should we receive unfavorable interest rates.

So, if we are receiving a rate that is around 7% which is way way higher than current market conditions we can reject all bids. We don’t have to accept any of the bids. The city is not tied into whoever provides the lowest bid comes Thursday we anticipate that it is going to be much lower than that like 5.3% but there have been periods of time when there are significant market disruptions especially during the onset of the pandemic where you had issuers that saw really crazy bids. We rejected those bids and then we went back out a few weeks and maybe a month later to issue those bonds. The city has that flexibility to this delegation I believe is good for 120 days and so you have some flexibility should the markets be in a really bad situation. If you are not receiving the bids you should we can just reject all bids and go back out to the market at a point when the markets are more stable. We don’t anticipate that happening. We do anticipate fairly stable market conditions between now and the time that you sell.

Ifo Pili, City Manager said one other thing I wanted to do is make a point of clarification. The first question was just a good one especially for the public of why now? What is the magic date of March 14th? As you can recall and public may recall we chose to push off this particular part of our GO Bond and not issue it at that initially, not necessarily because we were chasing rates. That is really the secondary reason that we were hoping that maybe if we pushed it out further enough when we would issue the debt the rates would lower, and it has since we first talked about this.

The whole reason for pushing it over was that we didn’t want to issue debt and then have that debt sitting and us pay interest and paying this debt back while waiting for projects to get moving. So that is the primary reason for us not issuing the debt sooner and as we are getting it you see some of the groundbreaking and the moving in with some of our affordable housing projects. We are in a position now where we are able to say you know what we are going to need this money sooner than later and so we are just issuing the debt because we need the debt and whatever the market is based upon our bond rating we are going to have a pretty good I can say maybe a year or two ago if you told me 5.2% I would have thrown up but right now that is what the market is for and again the longer we can prolong the need to issue debt the better it has been for us. That is what the market is and bond rating is. It is a really good bond rating for a city our size and our situation it is one or two steps below Aaa and it is a really good time and not just because of the interest rate but because we are going to need that money and so the 10% is a huge parameter but our recommendation will not if it is anywhere near that we will figure something out. I just wanted to put that and maybe answer some questions even for the public listening in.

Councilor Flores said it does answer a lot of questions and the most important part of that is that there are projects that are ready to go and that is really the fundamental reason, I think. Councilor Becki Graham moved, seconded by Councilor Becky Corran, to

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approve Ordinance No. 3062.

MOVER: Councilor Becki Graham

ABSENT: Mayor Eric Enriquez and Councilor William Mattiace 7.4 COUNCIL BILL NO. 24-021; ORDINANCE NO. 3063: AN ORDINANCE

APPROVING A ZONE CHANGE FROM R-3 (HIGH-DENSITY RESIDENTIAL

FROM THE SOUTH MESQUITE OVERLAY) TO C-1 (NEIGHBORHOOD

COMMERCIAL DISTRICT FROM THE SOUTH MESQUITE OVERLAY). THE

SUBJECT PROPERTY ENCOMPASSES 0.233 ± ACRES AND IS LOCATED

AT 541 CAMPO STREET. THE ZONE CHANGE IS TO ALLOW FOR THE

FUTURE DEVELOPMENT OF A COMMERICAL BUSINESS ON THE

SUBJECT PROPERTY. Adam Ochoa, Senior Urban Planner gave the overhead presentation.

Councilor Flores asked on December 19th P&Z voted to recommend denial of the zone change?

Adam Ochoa said yes ma’am. They voted unanimously to recommend denial to the city council for the proposed zone change.

Councilor Flores asked a yes vote is to agree with the P&Z?

Adam Ochoa said no ma’am. To clarify, if you vote yes this will approve the proposed ordinance and approve the zone change from R-3 to C-1. If you vote no you would deny and upholding what the Planning and Zoning Commission voted and HPC, ma’am.

Councilor McClure asked are there any type of business or commercial opportunities allowable in that?

Adam Ochoa said there are actually under the South Mesquite Overlay, very limited commercial service related uses are permitted on the subject as is which would include I believe an art gallery, service related as in barber shop/beauty salon, and similar types of uses, limited offices are allowed, I believe a dental and doctor’s office are permitted there as well but that is really it from a standpoint of service and commercial standpoint. That is all that is permitted in an R-3.

Councilor Graham said not to do a spoiler here, but I have no intention of voting against the denial of both the Historic Planning Commission made and the Planning and Zoning Commission. Read through all of the notes, received the petition and again I know we say this every time but if you email, when you email us and you don’t get a response on which we are called to vote that is because we can’t. We can’t respond and so I hope that nobody feels overlooked or slighted by a lack of response but although I do agree with this, I wanted to just voice a little bit of opinion on some of the details that were included in the push back of this proposed zoning change. I think I am always interested in when people will kind of send the rhetorical question

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with the, would you want this in your neighborhood, because this is my neighborhood.

I live right on the boarder of District 3 and District 1. A lot of the pushback and expect to hear, and I respect that I am going to hear in public comment to was that this was a proposed cannabis dispensary. That was the stated purpose and there was a lot of pushback about the idea of such a business would ruin quality of life in my neighborhood, would compromise the feeling of place, unsafe, and again not only do I live about a half mile from this one about a year ago a dispensary opened a tenth of a mile from my house. I live in a C-2 zoning so lots of allowable commercial, residential.

I am surrounded by a bunch of small businesses, some other single-family homes and just from my anecdotal one person sample I have noticed no deterioration in my neighborhood with the move in of this business. It took up a storefront that had been empty for some time so all that to say just a gentle reminder that when we make these decisions it’s not, phrase of the day, it’s not happening in a vacuum. These are our neighborhoods. This is my neighborhood but again I respect everything that I read, everything that you have presented Adam and thank you because I think your initial over explanation of how we are going to vote was for me because I am always the one who is like okay wait, yes means yes or yes means no.

Mayor Pro Tem Bencomo asked on the C-1 zoning in the Mesquite Overlay, there are

C-1 designations, yes?

Adam Ochoa said there are currently some C-1 zoning designations in the South

Mesquite area that fit within the neighborhood zoning designation. They are a little further north along Campo I believe there are a couple, along Mesquite as well, nothing really on this side. The commercial essentially ends along Lohman in this area of the South Mesquite Overlay.

Mayor Pro Tem Bencomo asked this does have some allowable commercial uses as it stands right now, correct?

Adam Ochoa said that is correct.

Mayor Pro Tem Bencomo asked like what?

Adam Ochoa said very limited, an art gallery, more service oriented, doctor’s office, dental office, a beauty salon is allowed there, and/or similar uses, barber shop, spa, things like that will be permitted on the subject property right now.

Mayor Pro Tem Bencomo asked the difference right now is the rate of customers?

Like the traffic the business would bring?

Adam Ochoa said when the section of the code was rewritten, they saw those as kind of minimal impact types of uses by appointments if you will. When it comes to C-1, now you have yourself actual retail and people coming in and out as is when business hours are open essentially, so it is a step up when it comes to intensity on the property.

Mayor Pro Tem Bencomo said let’s say a dispensary does not qualify for the current

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designation. What else does not qualify?

Adam Ochoa said any type of retail related land uses, no restaurants, no cafes are permitted under R-3. Again, essentially the five that I stated is all they are really allowed to do. On top of that they are allowed by right home occupations as well but they would have to live there to support that is what the home would be used for again a portion of the home could be used for office use, music lessons, that type of stuff but again it is very limited as to what they could do as compared to what a C-1 would allow.

Mayor Pro Tem Bencomo asked what about an Airbnb?

Adam Ochoa said Airbnb would be permitted as well.

Mayor Pro Tem Bencomo asked do we know the applicant/owner, did they inherit, is it theirs for a long time, did they recently buy it? How did they come about the property, do we know?

Adam Ochoa said I am not exactly sure about that. I believe they might be here and be able to answer that question.

Mayor Pro Tem Bencomo said I know this neighborhood is a tight knit neighborhood, they worked a long time to have that designation and to protect that designation if there was any conversation between the applicant and the residents and the neighbors around what could essentially be put at this location?

Adam Ochoa said I think there was some minor discussions. I don’t think there was an actual public meeting with the neighborhood or anything like that but by all means

I’m sure they can answer those questions for you if you like.

Irene Oliver-Lewis, Member of the Public said I live on Kansas Avenue, Lot 45 of the

Original Las Cruces Town Site Plat of 1849. My family has lived at this address for 88 years. I am here today to urge you to deny the zone change for 541 South Campo from residential to commercial. I not only represent myself today, but I also represent

413 concerned citizens/residents who signed this petition asking that the city council to deny this zoning change. A group of 8 women in our neighborhood organized the drive to show commitment to the historic preservation which led to this petition. The

413 people in this petition represent the Mesquite Street surrounding neighborhood and/or their family members who grew up in the neighborhood, individuals who are concerned to keep our original townsite intact and citizens who are opposed to commercial businesses appropriating existing historic homes for use not represented in the South Mesquite Street Overlay. A former city mayor, a former state senator, a former state representative, two former city councilors, a former DA County Sheriff, and numerous other concerned citizens signed this petition. I echo the 413 people in this petition who urge you to deny the zone change to maintain the historic nature of our neighborhood. I want to say that the Chair of the P&Z said that they had been very supportive of cannabis, but they have never been supportive of cannabis in a neighborhood.

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Rosemary Leyva, Member of the Public said I would like to share with you a bit of history of my neighborhood. In our neighborhood everyone knew their neighbors and, in some cases, we were related to them either by blood or religious manner. Everyone helps each other in any way they could. Whether it was taking food to the sick or an elderly person or watching out for the kids in the neighborhood. Many of us attended the same school as our parents and in some cases live in the same homes our grandparents built, adding rooms as necessary as families grew. I am the fourth generation of my family to live in this area. My great-grandfather Baltazar Madrid and my great-grandmother Clara Martinez lived here in 1876 and they raised their family here. My grandfather built the home and the land where my home is now but then the street was called Convent Street, now it is called Kansas. Baltazar worked as a farmer, a blacksmith, and did construction work. He farmed the land that is now the

Citizens Bank drive-thru window section. When he harvested his crops, he gave the food to the nuns of the Loretto Convent, later known as the Loretto Academy. My grandfather Ramon, son of Baltazar, also farmed this land and gave food from his harvest to the Franciscans that occupied the former Loretto Academy. On the corner of the Calle al Composanto now called Campo Street lived his brother and next to him lived the Diaz-Martinez family, owners of the Golden Crust Bakery. To the left of my grandfather, Ramon’s home, lived John and Doña Juanita Fitch, grandparents of

Irene Lewis-Oliver and Sylvia Camunez. The homes on the corner of Campo and

Kansas were built on higher land and no effort was made to lower or level the land due to the results of the flood of 1875 when the neighborhood and the majority of the city was destroyed through the flood. Neighbors like the Lopez family that lived in the house on the corner of Kansas and Campo, they had an open driveway and let the

Romero family, the Camunez family, and those living in the apartments behind the

Lopez house enter to get to their homes. People could and did take the shortcut through Contreras house by cutting across the Lopez driveway to Lohman then a two- way street to the Greyhound Bus Station or to the Golden Crust Bakery. On the corner of Kansas and San Pedro there was a little store run by Tomas and Josie

Aragon where we could purchase small items needed such as bread, milk, and of course candy and sodas. The home where it was is now being renovated by Faustino

Zamora, whose parents owned the store and the home attached to it. On the corner of

San Pedro is the home of Eugene Van Patton a local businessman in the early years of Las Cruces. Changes to the neighborhood will soon cause this history to be forgotten and the close relationships of neighbors to unravel.

Celeste Conrad, Member of the Public said I will be reading a statement prepared by

Josephine Lannert who is having some voice issues. I oppose rezoning the property at 541 South Campo. I live in the Josefa Martinez Holguin house at 315 South

Mesquite. Four generations have lived in this historic adobe home hand built in 1912, the same year New Mexico became a state. I have personally seen how a residential street in the Historic Mesquite area can change with commercial zoning. Rezoning has brought many changes to Mesquite Street. These are changes in neighborhood character, safety, and the loss of history. Mesquite Street is now zoned C-1. In the

1950’s Mesquite Street was primarily residential with a few family businesses. There was a nearby butcher, a variety store and a baker. Narrow streets and a shortage of parking kept businesses local. Eventually the butcher talked neighbors into allowing

Mesquite Street to become designated commercial. When visiting my grandmother

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Josefa 60 years ago Mesquite Street was an unpaved dirt road. Neighbors knew each other, families had strong roots in the community. Many of us living there today and still keep those roots dear. I feel fortunate to now live in my grandmother’s house. I have personally seen many changes due to the commercialization of Mesquite Street.

My elderly mother can no longer cross the street to Nopalitos Restaurant without fear due to heavy traffic. Entering my driveway vehicles behind me become impatient forgetting that there are still residential homes on Mesquite. Even with street signs showing that Mesquite is on the Camino Real speeding drivers do not respect neighborhood. Vehicles park on both sides of Mesquite obstructing lines of sight for pedestrians and other vehicles. More than frequent accidents are more common now especially at cross streets, parked delivery trucks limit what other drivers can see and sometimes block driveways. Commercial vehicles bring diesel fumes and noise too.

More important still is this prior to commercial zoning to Mesquite Street neighbors knew each other, with more commercial activity allowed residents no longer knows who belongs in the neighborhood.

Sylvia Camunez, Member of the Public said I am here today in opposition of the zone change of 541 South Campo from R-3 to C-1. Reason for my opposition is that staff is leading you to believe that the zone is valid as there is already commercial businesses on South Campo. These businesses are Citizens Bank and what was

Church’s Chicken. These businesses appear to be part of South Campo Street. The physical and legal address of Citizens Bank is 505 South Main Street. The physical and legal address of what was Church’s Chicken is 300 East Lohman Avenue. Main

Street and Lohman Avenue are zoned commercial, not Campo south of Lohman.

North of Lohman, Campo is commercial. Commerce is a huge issue within the city and this South Mesquite Ordinance allows businesses well over 30 types listed in the ordinance. These businesses are known as cottage industry, therefore a zone change is not necessary. I invite you to read the SMO Ordinance online, Section 38-49.2. The south side of Campo is protected by the SMO as a neighborhood intact. Changing the zoning is disrespecting and slowly dwindling away all of the Mesquite Street Historic

District Original Town Site of Las Cruces. As former President of Las Esperanza’s I had a dream of preservation and protection of the original neighborhood in Las

Cruces. My vision is still there. Troy Ainsworth, Historic Preservation Specialist has presented facts on the zone change to the public and to the Historic Preservation

Commission. His presentation was comprehensive and accurate. He clearly explained the reason for recommending rejection of the zone change. Historic Preservation rejected the zone change, Planning and Zoning also rejected it unanimously. Now as she said she has 413 signatures. They represent every one of you councilors’ District.

Now it is up to you elected officials.

Deb Dennis, Member of the Public said I have lived in Las Cruces for 45 years, I ask that you deny this ordinance for four reasons. First the analysis by city planners is flawed. If one actually looks at the South Mesquite neighborhood plan maps, they clearly indicate that the property is not adjacent or transitional to a residential area but in fact is imbedded in an area set aside for protection of a nationally recognized historic residential neighborhood. Second, your vote for a zone change will be precedent setting and irrevocable. Never before has a single property been plucked out of a protected historic residential area to be zoned commercial. You will be initiating the unraveling of our oldest neighborhood. The zone change will have a

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domino effect with one residential property after another being lost to commercial enterprise until the 175-year-old original town site is no more. Is this how we elevate

Las Cruces? Third, council has repeatedly been presented, even today with information detailing the need for affordable housing, converting this property from high residential use to commercial is counterproductive. Fourth, the owners are not being denied the opportunity to operate a business. The South Mesquite Overlay identifies 113 types of businesses permitted in this residential zone. During the earlier hearings the owners repeatedly indicated that they have considered operating a barber shop. This is one of many cottage industries currently permitted and welcomed by neighbors. Because the Las Cruces community values historic preservation we residents are bewildered by city actions to the contrary such as allowing the Amador

Hotel Project to languish for 15 years since city council declared it at the southern gateway to a revitalized downtown and we mourn the loss of historic homes while demolition by neglect is the primary operating principle for the Community

Development Department to dismantle the Mesquite Historic District one property at a time. By this petition with over 400 signatures in opposition to this ordinance we demonstrate that we will not silently condone the continued degradation and loss of our shared cultural history and unique heritage.

Faith Hutson, Member of the Public said city staff has presented the argument to both the HPC and P&Z that the zone change of 541 South Campo is both in character and compatible with the Mesquite Historic District because Campo Street is dominated by a variety of commercial office and retail land uses that buffer the various types of residential housing in the area. Staff has stated that this property is adjacent to a burgeoning commercial district and that commercial operations are to be welcomed.

This is true on North Campo Street but there are no commercial buildings south of

Lohman that have a Campo address. The Loretto Shopping Center has its back to

Campo, its address is on Main Street. Sutherlands also has its back to Campo, its address is El Paseo and the El Paseo Plaza where Crunch Fitness ishas a Wyatt

Drive address, 541 South Campo is within the federal portion of the Mesquite Historic

District. The Federal, it is part of the original town site. Changing the zone would fail to protect historic integrity of the structure that was built in 1910 and since practical access to the property is on Kansas Street not Campo the proposed zone change actually encroaches into the historic neighborhood and leapfrogs residential commercial use onto a uniquely residential street. The Mesquite Historic

Neighborhood design plan states that the block south of Lohman Avenue where this property is located are proposed for residential use with the objective of encouraging new single family residential infill. The plan also states that this should be able to be accomplished without disrupting the historic fabric of the neighborhood. This house is a house, and it should remain a house especially considering all the discussion on affordable housing. If a goal of the city government is to encourage economic growth, then I argue cultural heritage tourism should be promoted rather than commercial rezone. Millions of hours and dollars have been spent developing Section 38 which is the South Mesquite Overlay, Chapter 40 which is the Historic Preservation Ordinance,

Elevate Las Cruces and the Downtown Master Plan. All of these documents advocate for the preservation of our historic buildings and historic districts. Perhaps my most compelling argument against this rezone is objective 3 of the Mesquite Historic

Neighborhood Design Plan which states, “prevent Las Cruces downtown development and traffic flow imperatives from encroaching on and destroying the Mesquite

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Neighborhood”. I ask you as a council to please deny this zone change.

Olivia Nevarez-Garcia, Member of the Public said I am a former Judge here in Las

Cruces, having been a Judge for 18 years. I was born at the corner of Amador and

Church Street, two blocks from this location. I am here on behalf of my dear cousins.

When I was little, I would walk two blocks to my grandparents’ house which is now the home that Sylvia and Irene live in and it is a wonderful neighborhood. I love the old neighborhood and I thought about buying a house in the area, but I have a house in

Santa Fe and I have a house here. I was born 81 years ago in that neighborhood, and

I am asking you please deny this petition request to rezone this area. These are dear, wonderful, old people living there that want to remain in a peaceful neighborhood and

I fear for my cousins who had been there for so long and want to stay in their home. I would like to read something to you that I did a little research on cannabis, and I would like you to look it up. Two years since cannabis has been legalized, this is in

New York, only 26 dispensaries and just 11 of them in New York City have actually opened their doors. Think about that and we have a cannabis shop/dispensary on almost every corner of Las Cruces. Do we need this? Let’s protect our children. I have seen more violations, traffic violations, more accidents, more speeding, running red lights, and I wonder why, since cannabis was opened. Thank you so much for listening to me, please consider denying this request.

Jo Ruprecht, Member of the Public said I am a Las Cruces resident, long time. I want to mention just a few things that were brought out here. Several weeks ago, when I talked to John Castillo, city staff member in Community Development about what was the next step after P&Z, after first HPC recommended denial, after P&Z recommended denial, the applicants did not get a single vote in favor of approval and

I talked to John and I said so why does this have to go to city council? Isn’t it a dead issue? He said no because of the nature of what is being asked for, it has to be brought to city council and I said well what can we expect? And he said well, city staff will present basically what they have presented already. So, we are not presenting anything new and that is basically true if you look through your packet most all of that is from before any public discussion or any discussion by the HPC commissioners or by the P&Z commissioners. Most of it was done weeks ago before those discussions.

What John told me to expect on the opposition side, on the side I am speaking for is this was to gauge the contentiousness of this issue. What would happen if the zone change were approved, how contentious would that be, and I want to just clearly say to you that what you have heard so far in terms of the personal comments and in terms of the petition that is being presented to you by many people in the city, not just neighbors saying I don’t want this here but many people who are concerned about the preservation of historic districts in this city at this time. It is very contentious and one of the things I want to point out that is left out from, well I want to compliment Mr.

Ochoa for some of the corrections he made to the earlier materials. He has corrected an issue about how the vote for HPC was reported in your packet. He has corrected a couple of other things, but he has maintained a language suggesting that there is very limited uses for within this R-3 for home businesses. That is not true as you have heard two of the other speakers say that there is well over 100 allowed businesses, and they are outlined in the land use development pages. It covers like 3 pages of materials specifying those businesses. Also, one comment from the dais was that much time has been spent on cannabis and the proposed use of this as a cannabis

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business. That was not the issue at HPC. They were very careful both the public and the members of the commission to focus on simply the zone change toward any commercial use outside of R-3 three home businesses or cottage industries. It is not an issue per se about cannabis, it is an issue about setting a precedence by allowing this zone change effecting the Mesquite Overlay District. That precedent was emphasized in the P&Z hearing and that also does not come through on page 2 of your summary of the P&Z.

Troy Miller, Member of the Public said I am one of the owners there at 541 South

Campo.

Sandra Calderon, Member of the Public said I am one of the owners also. I do have a few concerns about, first of all the first two meetings I did feel right off the bat that the councilors were going to say no because of the cannabis thing. It was just saying cannabis and I could see their reaction and their faces, and they said no. So, I knew it already and the historical part, we have a lot of citizens here to my point of view are okay historical, family, homes, but I would like to know and of course they are not going to answer me right now, but they don’t know me. I have been there since 1999.

My kids grew up there and I am sorry one of my kids, my 27-year-old died two years ago and the reason why we want the cannabis store is because he was already going through the process of opening his cannabis store so when he died, I just want to continue with his dream. A lot of people here are like our neighborhood. When my son died, I didn’t see any of my neighbors come to my house and say, “Sandra I am sorry for what happened to your son”. So, if there is so much community in my neighborhood why didn’t anybody come up to me and say, hey I knew who your son was personally. I have been there since 1999. They grew up there. They don’t know not one single teenager from back there. I am pretty sure they can’t come up here and say my kids name, neighbors’ my name. So where is the neighborhood, hey that they so call this is our community. They talk about grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, do they really know their neighborhood? You want to preserve that but you don’t even know who we are and yet you are denying us from me doing my son’s dream.

Troy Miller said and like she said we are trying to go with what our son wanted to do because he was pursuing it but the big thing with the zone change, you have to have a zone change for commercial to run in the cannabis. We are not stuck on doing a cannabis store at that location because we have talked about doing other businesses there. Like the neighbor said we have talked about a barber shop, that is one of them.

One of our sons is maybe looking at doing a mechanic shop but the thing is under the

R-1, if you try to go get grants or funding or special financing and stuff like that you are more likely to get that kind of funding if it is commercial location because of the way the building is built, the codes. Everything has to be a certain way for funding. We can’t run a cannabis store, we can’t run a cannabis store, but we were gonna run a business in there. We already run an Airbnb off of the front part of Campo Street so we do have an Airbnb there and then our other son lives in the back part right now but he is getting ready to go off to diesel mechanicing school and we are looking on how to better stuff for the kids coming up. Right now, it seems like if you drive through the neighborhood, how many houses are empty? How many houses are ran down? They are not painted, there is supposed to be code back there but when our house caught

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fire we had to go through all of this and have it painted for a certain way, decorations, everything had to be approved in that area but if you drive through right there in just that two block area there are houses that are graffitied, there is cracked stucco, stuff don’t match. I get it, you want to preserve history but everything changes, everything evolves. Right now, it seems we are stuck, we are going to stick to this right here.

How many kids live in that neighborhood? What is the youngest person who has bought a house in that neighborhood? Do you see any new kids coming in say I want to live in that neighborhood. They are all going out to fancier neighborhoods and stuff like that so that is my point in it. We are going to do something that we can there, but we want to change the zone so that it opens it up more to what we can do and funding options of course.

Wilma Hutchens, Member of the Public said I live in the historic district, but I am a child of the sixties, cannabis is not a problem with me. Anybody that knows me knows that I lived in a number of foreign countries, I have been around the world, I have talked to 100 countries I have visited and where I go is to the historic districts to see the thing that created that society and that world. Please deny commercial in the historic district. Focus on what we can get with our own historic district and tourists.

Dolores Archuleta, Member of the Public said I am a Native American. My parents were full blooded Pueblo Indians of the Isleta Tigua Tribe and they lived where it is now, the original town site. At the age of 14 his mother died, and his father took him to the Pheonix Indian School in Pennsylvania. They never saw each other again. From there he enrolled himself in the Colorado Indian School in Pennsylvania and graduated from there, he then joined the Navy during World War II. He came home to the original town site. He was prepared, he saved his money to build some adobe homes right there. He had already met my mother, they were already going to get married. The trouble is, the Indian schools didn’t teach how to make adobes, so he had to hire people to do that for him and that is where he lived and that is where he died, in a Veteran’s house.

Mayor Pro Tem Bencomo said I do want to ask the public, you don’t have to, but I am going to ask that you have some grace for staff who are consistently being told or accused that they are not business friendly and or that they are trying to demolish historic neighborhoods and that they don’t care about residents and that their information is flawed. They are always stuck in between this place and so I do want to ask all of you to have some grace for them. I am going to be voting no today but I do want to note for me and it should be a note for all of us that it is precedent setting because shall another proposal come for a different C-1 use it is a slippery slope to discriminate based on industry, based on business and that is not what I will be doing because you all know where I stand on cannabis. The other thing I do want to note is,

I did bring up Airbnb’s because I also think they are a threat to our community, they are a threat to affordable housing, they are a threat to preserving historic communities so I would love to continue to having conversations about what primary use Airbnb’s look like in historic neighborhoods as opposed to Airbnb’s that are casitas or that people live there and only rent them out when they are not there. I think that those are threats as well. I appreciate people talking about the importance affordable housing. I hope that in the future if there is any affordable housing proposals in this area that you do not come and fight against it because that would be very hard for me to hear as

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well so I did want to note those few things before we move on to voting.

Councilor Flores asked how do these C-1 come up in residential areas? What is that process and what does it take? I am surprised, very surprised it being a historic district area such a permissive zoning code would allow nonresidential. In who’s mind, it’s a historic district, who comes in and says they want to change to something other then a historic district?

Adam Ochoa said really it is anybody. If you look at the 2001 Zoning Code, commercial of C-1, it is commercial neighborhood. That limits the size of the property, it limits the uses as compared to your C-2/C-3 zoning districts. The actual definition of

C-1 commercial neighborhood, it is that. It is a commercial use that is compatible with a neighborhood that would not affect it by the intensity of what would be allowed on the property ma’am. Again, by the types of uses that is permitted on there, the size of the buildings is restricted as well like when it comes to other zoning districts, C-1 and outside of the South Mesquite if you will and it also it limits the number of uses dramatically compared to the next step-up C-2 commercial medium intensity ma’am.

Councilor Flores said I think my point is that I live in a residential area so I would never expect that a commercial type of business would be allowed on my street because it is a residential area. So, someone would petition the city and say let’s change this to a non-R residential area, just like that?

Adam Ochoa said that is correct. As a property owner you have the ability to request the zone change. It does not necessarily mean it will be supported not only by staff or our adopted policies Elevate Las Cruces, 2001 Zoning Code and other policies we have in place as well, ma’am. Potentially staff would also look it as a spot zoning potentially as well literally if it is just one spot in the middle of what is a CR-1. That might be a hard sell for staff to be able to support something like that.

Councilor Flores asked the part that I find very problematic is that it is a historic district, why would a zone change be going to commercial be allowed in a historic district?

Adam Ochoa said that is what basically staff’s job is to analyze what our existing codes are, what our comprehensive plan calls out and what would be allowed or not, what policies are set in place as well including the South Mesquite neighborhood policy plan as well to see if that is something that could be supported or not.

Councilor Flores asked the fact that it is a historic district has no bearing on zoning?

Adam Ochoa said it does take bearing as well. That is why it has to go before the

Historic Preservation Commission for their opinion as well.

Councilor Flores said but they voted no. They didn’t want it.

Adam Ochoa said correct, but it had to move forward. A zone change has final authority here at city council so even though the HPC, all they could do is make a

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recommendation, they made a recommendation to P&Z. P& Z took that recommendation made that vote as well for denial and then they made the recommendation to you all and that is why they didn’t stop there ma’am this is where it stops.

Councilor Flores said it seems like the buck should stop that it is a historical and I don’t know but the buck definitely stops here.

Adam Ochoa said I understand what you are saying but per our code the Historic

Preservation Committee is a recommending body.

Approve Ordinance No. 3063.

RESULT: DEFEATED.

AYES:

NAYS: Councilor Cassie McClure, Councilor Becki Graham, Councilor Johana

8. BOARD APPOINTMENTS 8.1 MAYOR ENRIQUEZ Appointed to the New Mexico Municipal League and South Central Council of

Governments.

8.2 BLANCA SCOTT Councilor Flores appointed Blanca Scott to the Heath & Human Services Advisory

Committee for District 6. 8.3 JENNIGER DAHLGREN Councilor Becky Corran moved, seconded by Councilor Becki Graham, to appoint Jennifer Dahlgren to the ADA Committee.

ABSENT: Mayor Eric Enriquez and Councilor William Mattiace 8.4 ERIN WAHL Councilor Yvonne Flores moved, seconded by Councilor Becky Corran, to reappoint Erin Wahl to the Library Board.

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9. NOTICE OF PROPOSED ORDINANCE(S)

1) There will be no public discussion.

2) A Councilor may ask staff for clarification on the proposed ordinance(s). 9.1 None.

10. CITY COUNCIL MEMBER BOARD REPORTS AND COMMENT 10.1 COUNCILOR MCCLURE I would like to see where we stand on creating a legislative team. When we went to

Santa Fe I had really hoped and asked the question of City Management to, how do we be more effective? I feel that we could have been more effective had we had more conversations about it. I am not sure about how this needs to be led. How this needs to be focused but I think we need to, have a clear conversation that when we work with legislators and what does that look like and be unified in that message. So, I would like to see if we can make some sort of legislative team. If that is something, we can do in the next thirty days I would really like to see how we can do that.

Listening to the comments on public comments, this is what I emailed to somebody. It is a little disheartening to see everybody just get up and leave. Partially let me give you an example, the pool situation. We had a lady come by and say how dare you with the pool, how dare you and I am sitting here trying to texting that we know about that. That got shipped today. We have a path forward, but we can’t say anything. It is really hard and she stayed so close to for council comment for us so it is really hard to have that sort of feedback and you are itching to give it and you can’t. I suggested that lets have two sections for council comment, everyone was like no but if there was a way for us to have more conversations, I am down for that but I think that came up earlier too. Are we really responsive via email? I am. I would recommend that you reach out to us and a lot of times we would have that feedback here too so those are the two things I would like to say. 10.2 COUNCILOR GRAHAM I also want to comment on public comment because this whole thing is my fault. Lots of people emailed and I responded to everyone who had reached out to me kind of after the first response you got a copy paste. So, I actually proposed this change last year. I feel like it was October or November. This is a perfect illustration of why it came about because for some reason around that time we must have had a zone appaloosa of there is all of these zoning changes. A lot of people had reached out to me because as our comments showed today zoning changes tend to bring folks out to comment on an agenda item because it is impacting their neighborhood in a very direct, in a very visible way and to each of those people who reached out on various zoning issues who had asked me for a ball park, when do you think my agenda item will come up? I would have to say I have no idea and the main timing wild card in a council session is open public comment, could be 15 minutes, it could be two hours, no idea. So I had thought about what if we prioritize the agenda item commenters,

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let’s say and I push back against the idea that you folks don’t have places to be, jobs to do, children, grandchildren to care for, all of the things that you know at the end of the day someone is going to have to wait longer than they want to have to wait but I had suggested this change A, to prioritize people with pressing issues for their own neighborhoods and also as Councilor McClure mentioned we do have an opportunity here in council comments to address things a little more openly. So, I know that

Mayor Enriquez made this announcement he has taken most of the heat, it’s my fault so bring it.

Chief Administrative Officer Bencomo, I know this is not new news because we had a press release but I did want to shout out here that we are honored to share the dais with one of the top 50 Women Chief Administrative Officers of 2024 and super timely

Barb, I don’t think there is a person up here who doesn’t appreciate your expertise, your dedication, and just the way you make it all happen. Kind of nicely timed with the start of Women’s History Month and making history right up here so congratulations.

Big thanks to Las Montanas Charter School, their ENLACE Student Program had myself, Catrina and Grace from Community Engagement out. They did an amazing study of the neighborhood around their school. Had some really incredible actionable changes to present to us that we are investigating now. Just an amazing environment.

This is a 9-12 grade school with 194 students. It is an incredibly tight knit community and seeing how they care about one another, about their school, and about their community was just absolutely inspiring and these are the times that it is so rad to be a city councilor. I love going and seeing things like that so many thanks to Assistant

Principal Estrada, Coach Sid Robinson, Coach Rob, and to Ms. Salas who I think was the ENLACE coordinator. 10.3 COUNCILOR CORRAN I also want to shoutout CAO Bencomo for getting things done in a way that I have not experienced a lot of but it has always been impressive to witness for you when you get things done when you put your mind to something and get it done. I am completely unsurprised that you were recognized for that.

I want to thank the ASCMV staff for doing an enormous vaccine and chipping clinic and I think they did 2,000 total vaccines on 600 or so different animals a few weeks ago and it was an enormous effort and they really stepped up and are working to do that in our community. So, I wanted to give some appreciation to them. I also wanted to give a side sort of note to the animal organizations since I sit on the ASCMV I did have the opportunity to meet with the folks from the Community Foundation to think about ways of funding support for animal organizations and the ASCMV in different and dynamic ways going forward and so I think that is a nascent conversation but it’s an opportunity for us on how to leverage our community’s support to approach for animal organizations that is enormous and the needs that out strip that support and how we can streamline that and make the best out of the money that folks give in enormous ways to animal issues in our community. So, I had that conversation this past week, it’s a joint conversation with folks from the county and the community foundation and so I will keep you updated in that area.

One other item on some things that we serve on together, the MPO has been putting

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out a number of grant opportunities but just as a note the Metropolitan Planning

Organization that I serve on with Councilor McClure and Mayor Enriquez, but which

Councilors Graham and Bencomo have also served on with me is going to be sort of leaving the city administration and also potentially setting up a new JPA and MOU and so I am just putting those on all of our agendas as things that will be coming to us because those will have to be approved by the city council and it is moving forward in a really positive way. So, I want to give a shoutout to the MPO staff that have been working really hard on making those things happen. I also want to thank the folks who put on the health fair in City Hall. I was lucky to visit and see a whole bunch of folks getting all kinds of health-related screenings and stuff. My students were working on some diabetes outreach but there was folks from Burrell and various health industries and I saw a whole bunch of city staff participating in that so thanks to the folks within the city working on wellness and operationalizing that for folks that are here.

Lastly, I just wanted to thank Chief Story and Lieutenant Gutierrez for working with community folks as well as David Sedillo to think about Monte Sombra and the neighborhood traffic calming potential issues related to that within my district. So, thank you Chief for your response and for Lt. Gutierrez for working on that as well and

I know that you all have already done a whole bunch of studies and work there so thank you for being so responsive to the community in that way. 10.4 COUNCILOR FLORES I would like to address the failure of SB16. That was a very important piece of potential legislation that failed. I don’t know why. It was a bill that would have allowed, it is called the Competency Bill and that has to do with the procedures that take place in court when someone is being tried for a certain misdemeanor crime, and that bill would allow an assessment of that person’s mental status. Was that person able to stand trial? Does that person fully understand? I read it and it is several pages. It gave different alternatives as to what can be done, how the person can be helped, and unfortunately it failed and apropos of what Councilor McClure just said I think that we would have been more effective as a body if we would have gone over this way before the legislature even met because it is crazy, its crazy up there, it’s crazy making the legislators. I don’t know how they are able to weather it but at any rate in our problems that would be and could be alleviated had this legislation been adopted.

That leads me into my being at the funeral of Officer Jonah Hernandez. All funerals are sad, but this one was superbly tragic, and he left behind a young wife, a toddler and a baby and the funeral was just incredible. There were police officers from different parts of the country and not just a representative and the place where the service was held was huge. It was reported that there was maybe about 200 people. I think there was a lot more than 200. Coattail it to the SB16 that failed. I think that the person that people are calling homeless who killed our officer is someone who needed help and as a community we failed, and we failed again with the legislature and hopefully things will be different and thank you Councilor McClure for bringing that up. We will all be more in tuned to be more effective. We did meet with some of the legislators when we were up there from the city but it wasn’t focused. The

Governor did not meet with us. She did have I believe his position is Chief of Staff and his name is Jesse Guillen, and he was very responsive. He wanted to know about

Amador Crossing, he apologized for not knowing the layout of Las Cruces. That was a very interesting trip. This is the third time I have been up to the legislature, and I did

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walk away feeling that are goals were maybe met but we don’t know yet.

The other thing I want to share is that the Animal Service Center of the Mesilla Valley had the Legislative Committee meeting and I want to thank Barbara Bencomo for always being on top of funding and how things are going and all that sort of stuff, so the finance committee of that board met and things are in very good shape.

The SCRTD also had a meeting, that is a body of about 6/7 municipalities in the southern part of the state. That is going very well, what I failed to mention is that last year the SCRTD was named the Best Public Transportation in the state, and I think that it will probably be that way again. The Director is David Armijo, and he has really developed that and right now there has been provision for getting the electric buses, but the batteries are hard to find, or there is something that is hard to find.

The other announcement I have and thank you Chris Faivre in the Economic

Development Department. He has organized a workshop. The New Mexico Finance

Authority, the NMFA is excited to meet with you in person to share the following, it’s about public, private lending overview process, assistance, discussion on future projects. I attended one of the presentations and it is amazing how the NMFA funds so many businesses that I was appalled, and I didn’t know that it could just provide so many services and funding for businesses to start up. So, I hope the word really gets out. Whatever media is available we should let our community know that they can be startups, they can really find funding for their projects because they fund just about everything.

I also want to say that we have a learning academy, and that learning academy is for the public. We started that before Covid. It is just wonderful and there is graduation at the end of a certain amount of weeks and fortunately now it has been started up and I want to thank Grace and Catrina who did a wonderful job. This was on Utilities, and it was at the Utilities Facility on Motel and the presentation was by Adrienne Widmer who is the director of Utilities. She gave a 45-minute presentation, nonstop, very smooth, slides, everything, describing every aspect of Utilities and it was amazing and it was very good to know that we have very good water. They also had stations of all the different functions of utilities which are many which were set up for people to look at and see how things really work.

I have been invited by the Chamber of Commerce in Jacksonville Florida to speak to the Mexican Chamber of Commerce about Cesar Chavez. I was on the picket line back in the 70’s and was a member of the Migrant Legal Services and we were able to boycott lettuce and green grapes and we finally got the Union to join the NCIO.

10.5 COUNCILOR BENCOMO I want to thank Natalie Green and her housing staff for inviting us to the groundbreaking a couple of weeks ago for the Three Sisters Affordable Apartment

Complex. They have started to build a 70-unit affordable housing complex on the corner of Griggs and Walnut and it is going to be beautiful and I am honestly really excited that is coming into fruition, the investment, the millions of dollars of investments that we have made toward housing. We are finally going to start seeing

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them in real brick and mortar. There is a groundbreaking next week and groundbreaking soon to follow so we are very very excited.

There was a little bit of a mistake, a social media post went out about two District 4 open house meetings that I will be having but that will be corrected. Those will be in the first two weeks of April so a huge thank you to Catrina and her staff for helping me set those up, but I will talk more about those at the next council meeting as we get closer to those dates.

The other pieces I wanted to talk about, a lot of it are in regards to public comment but also the press conference that Chief Story had last week. I won’t go through all of it but there is a statement and my response to that presentation that Chief made on my

City Council website under District 4 News and Events. Please go read it. It touched on almost everything that he touched on, even the three things that are out of our authority that are at the state level, and I do want to say that in terms of Senate Bill

16, Criminal Competency Determination it did not fail it just ran out of time. What is a failure is the structure of the Legislature and so it is 30 days, and it ran out of time.

However and I have talked to Chief Story about this and I want to make this very clear with the public, as a social worker and one who is seeing everyday what is happening in our community I don’t take this lightly and I do support this type of legislation but it should have its due diligence when we are talking about taking peoples civil liberties away. It should have a significant funding source to meet the gaps that we obviously have in mental health care and substance use treatment facilities which are very few and even those have huge waiting lists. I do want to say that and the other thing is that have been in discussions with advocates around this legislations that are, there is a commission that is out of the New Mexico Supreme Court that is working on this legislation and there is an adjacent advocacy task force that is being formed to advise that creation of that bill as it will come to the legislature in 2025. I am doing everything that I can to ensure that Chief Story and some of us are in those conversations as well and that Southern New Mexico doesn’t get left out of that conversation and please go read my statement. It was well thought out and even just today I am having a hard time sort of choosing the words I want to say because I feel like everything I say especially in the couple weeks has been really distorted, getting distorted. It comes out of my mouth and then it gets distorted, and I have heard it, I have seen it happen to Chief Story. I have seen it happen to many of us and so it is not in my nature to be super thoughtful and thinking about what I am going to say. I just generally speak from the heart, but my thoughts are there on all of those things including pre-trial release and detention, on Fentanyl and on some of the more short term and localized goals that the Chief presented. I am yet to hear any pushback from any of us. That is not what is happening. We are actually working together incredibly well as a new council with our new Chief, and I suspect that things will move forward.

What I have a difficult time with sometimes is when folks accuse me of not listening.

Sometimes I think that because I don’t just say yes to everything that is being thrown at me that immediately I am not listening, that my disagreement immediately means I am not listening, and I want to push back gently against that because that is not true. I think about these things really well and thoroughly and me just saying yes let’s bring back panhandling ordinance. To me that is not a sentimental disagreement. That is unlawful and unconstitutional and frankly I think people think of it as this magic solution that will just get rid of all of our problems and frankly that is not how this

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works but I have really thorough and well thought out ideas that we have been discussing over and over here and so I have yet to hear from the business group that is meeting. I hope they reach out to me, and I would like to sit down with them and talk more about their ideas and if they think that in my progressive haze, I have missed something, and I am not seeing something that we are not doing I want people to point that out. I would also challenge folks to send me a list of my so called progressive failed policies that have led us here. I will review them, I commit to reviewing them and to bringing them back if we need discussion but please send me a list of those policies that you think I have led on and have failed.

I also wanted to bring up this really important and timely conversation about the type of public dialogue that I have been experiencing. Definitely in the last couple of weeks but I want to say in last couple of years and maybe it is fitting that it is also Women’s

History Month. Happy Women’s History Month to all the incredible and amazing woman on this dais, on the staff that lead a bunch of these departments, I respect you all deeply. I did want to talk about this report that came out recently from the Brennan

Center for Justice, titled Intimidation of State and Local Office Holders, The Threat to

Democracy. It is a little lengthy, but it is really important because I hear things here that say, well you signed up for the job. These things are unavoidable, you signed up for the job. Somebody said the Chicken Little thing was dangerous and we have to deal with it. I am going to push back on that. I think that actually it is incredibly harmful to democracy that we normalize harmful language, threats, especially insults, harassment, those types of things should no live in democracy and just because we ran for office, and we chose to be here does not mean that I am going to allow you to use me as your punching bag. That is actually not how democracy works and I have found myself in the last couple of weeks feeling like I shouldn’t speak up on that anymore, maybe I shouldn’t post so much, I shouldn’t do these things and this report help me realize that that is not actually what I should be doing. This report speaks about the big federal things that are happening to federal public officials which are awful like Representative Steve Scalise who in 2017 was shot. The US

Representative Nancy Pelosi’s husband was brutally beaten in his home. They speak about those, but they also say yet over the same period with far less attention and often little recourse office holders serving in local and state governments across the country have faced a barrage of intimidating abuse. Threats and attacks constrain how freely office holders interact with constituents, narrow the spectrum of policy positions they feel safe to support and make them less willing to continue in public service. Unaddressed the problem stands to endanger not just individual politicians but more broadly the free and fair functioning of representative democracy at every level of government and the kind of abuse that I am referring to are insults, demeaning, derogatory or offensive comments, gestures, or actions that upset or belittle or humiliate which I will say two weeks ago I feel like there was an attempt to do that, harassment, persistent uninvited behavior, attention or actions that causes stress, fear, or discomfort, such as stalking. I know members of this council and previous councils have been stalked by members of the public, threats, implicit or explicit expressions, communicating and intention to harm to cause damage of an individual or to others associated with them implying the imminent risk injure or to a person’s wellbeing and safety and physical attacks, slapping, pushing, subjugation to projectiles, beating, abduction, assassination attempts, or other acts of violence.

Those are obviously some of those extremes there, but I have in this job in the last

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four-ish years been accused of not being a lawful citizen of this country. I have been accused of being anti-police. I have been accused of many things because I think often people disagree with me and then decide that it means that I am anti something else. That I am then posing a danger to their beliefs. I highly recommend this report it is open to the public. I also want to say that the way that we fight some of these things because that will lead to many of us either not running for reelection which I am sure many people will be happy with that but I also think that somebody said that I often take things personal because yes politics is personal to me. Politics is personal and that is why I decided to run and I want to see fair representation in all of local government but I think one of the biggest things that we have to do as public officials, community members, business leaders, any other person is to publicly reject abuse and to not allow that kind discourse to continue because it is actually not the way we will solve the challenges in front of us and there are many and we need people. We need people’s ideas. We need people who have directly impacted by these challenges to come forth and share their stories and also present solutions and I want to work with those people. I have never been closed off to that and I don’t want to close myself off because I feel there are threats to my safety. So, and that includes my mental health safety and all of our mental health safety.

11. CITY MANAGER REPORT 11.1 IFO PILI I wanted to give an update regarding the Apodaca Park, and I know there was some conversation there. The funds for the Apodaca Aquatic Playground remain committed to completing this project currently budgeted at 1.9 million. The notice to precede in demolishing the old swimming pool was issued on February 22nd, the state issued the demo permit on the first, demolition will commence tomorrow on the old pool. So, staff is working on procuring a contractor to commence construction of the aquatic playground at Apodaca Park and more updates to come in the next few months. Staff is aware of the graffiti on the restroom facilities. They will need to be sand blasted.

This is currently on the staffs’ to do list for completion.

Councilor McClure, with the legislative team we can certainly get together and talk about what our plans have been. You know we certainly learn every time we go up there and so we do have some sort of team but we can certainly talk about something like that and how we can become more effective moving forward. Although my time is short, we will be able to address that. I do appreciate the faith that the council has had on our staff, on our internal staff to be able to post internally. That is a big deal and I think for transition and again just a statement that you have chosen to do that shows a lot of faith in the staff that we have. I will add my faith to that. You have a ton of applicants, very much qualified to be able to continue and that is what is making this transition easier so I think the public can have confidence that we will continue to move forward so as I am transitioning you will have again City Manager will be coming from our current organization so I don’t think there will be anything lost in translation or transition. So, I think that is a great thing to have. So, I appreciate it and thank you Mayor Pro Tem and Councilors for that faith.

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12. ADJOURNMENT 12.1 Councilor Yvonne Flores moved, seconded by Councilor Becky Corran, to adjourned at 4:34 p.m.

Mayor

City Clerk

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