Work Session Meeting May 11, 2026

MINUTES

Work Session

Monday, May 11, 2026 @ 1:00 PM

City Council Chambers, City Hall

PRESENT: City Councilor Johana Bencomo, City Councilor Becky Corran, Mayor Eric Enriquez, City

Councilor Cassie McClure, City Councilor William Mattiace, Mayor Pro Tem John Munoz, and City Councilor Michael Harris

ABSENT:

1. 1.1 City Councilor Becky Corran moved, seconded by City Councilor Michael

Harris, to allow Councilor Bencomo to attend via Zoom.

RESULT: Carried

MOVER: City Councilor Becky Corran

SECONDER: City Councilor Michael Harris

AYES: City Councilor Johana Bencomo, City Councilor Becky Corran, Mayor Eric

Enriquez, City Councilor Cassie McClure, City Councilor William Mattiace,

Mayor Pro Tem John Munoz, and City Councilor Michael Harris

2. AGENDA ITEM 2.1 ACTIVE TRANSPORTATION Kyle Arend, Interim Public Works Director introduced the topic.

Vanessa Morales-Romero, Interim Engineering & Surveying Manager gave the overhead presentation.

Brent Crowther, Kimley Horn and Associates continued the overhead presentation.

Councilor Mattiace asked are you familiar with our Police Department and their traffic stops and what they are doing when people don’t have registrations, they don’t have licenses, they don’t have insurance and they are speeding? Will that help your

program?

Brent Crowther asked are you talking about to understand that data to cooperate with law enforcement?

Councilor Mattiace said yes.

Brent Crowther said absolutely. Part of the development to the Safety Action Plan doesn’t bring all stakeholders together. We have been working on a project in a different state and law enforcement has been our committee and the corridors that are identified within the Safety Action Plan have been referred to law enforcement then they can help prioritize enforcement on those corridors where there are seeing a higher frequency of crashes.

Councilor Mattiace asked in another collaboration effort, I believe it was slide 11, maybe if you could bring it back to 11? The one where it showed the alcohol where I think it was 30 something percent alcohol and then 22% alcohol and 37% drugs. Will there be a collaborative effort and can the council help like with our judges and sentencing and making sure for some reason I have a friend and I think he has been stopped I think 17 times in Dona Ana County, can that be addressed as well?

Brent Crowther said yes, the Safety Action Plan will identify, it brings all of those stakeholders together and the committee. I will defer to determine, to answer who is on their committee already if you would like to address that.

Kyle Arend said that committee hasn’t been fully established yet. The Safety Action

Plan is part of the Safe Streets For All analysis which is just getting started and so we will identify those other members that will include Fire. It is part of their response to crashes is a big issue, enforcement, education, engagement, all of those are key elements that come into play as you implement the Safety Action Plan but that is all forthcoming in the next phases of what we are going to be doing.

Councilor Mattiace said I think that is good. When you look at the percentages and if we could just address those two, we don’t have to wait till 2050.

Brent Crowther said I just want to be clear that this is 22% of crashes that have involved alcohol that resulted in a fatality.

Councilor Mattiace said a death.

Brent Crowther said it is not 22% of all crashes.

Councilor Mattiace said that is what led to the fatality, a death. Someone got killed.

That is the important part. There is a lot pedestrians, I call them close shaves, and I am sure we have reports where people call up and say like at the hospital, I have

District 2 and it is Memorial Medical Centers 25 miles an hour and no one does 25 miles an hour there, no one. So, if you could help with that. They do 45/55/65 and I

see a lot of people in the crosswalk and that may be another opportunity to where I don’t know how expensive this gets for a city and we have to be careful because our budget is not overflowing. It is a little tight and so there will be grants available for maybe flashing lights, signal lights that we can slow down in that crosswalk would probably more important than right now just painted lines. Is that possible?

Brent Crowther said those are the types of strategies that we are looking at yes.

Enhanced crossings are a low-cost systemic measure where you can establish the criteria within the Safety Action Plan of when you would do that, where they are needed and where they would be prioritized. That is all outcomes from the Safety

Action Plan that is just getting underway.

Councilor Mattiace said I have a quick strategy implementation. The pine tree on

Telshor is blocking the flashing light that says slow down to 25. If you could just maybe chop those limbs that might be strategy that would work and slowdown that traffic. It is just a suggestion to help with this program.

Councilor Harris said during the campaign season asked me what is one thing that gets you fired up that you want to see changed in the city and I said traffic because this is absolutely an area where we have virtually 100% control over how our traffic management and engineering is done in the city. I know there is some state highways and stuff maybe we have a little less say but for the most part like we can just decide this I think. I really liked that there is big focus on controlling speed because that is the squared term in the kinetic energy equation and there is no reason I think for any corridor inside the city proper to be more than 35 miles an hour and we have been eliminating some of those. I am also totally onboard with design changes to slow traffic and kind of even it out. I think that the point you made about evening out flows increases through put anyway. I read a thing last year that actually replacing signalization in a lot of cases with stop signs actually increases through put because it is a little more predictable. I don’t know if it is appropriate in all cases. That was probably a very specific case study but this stuff helps drivers as well and I think to another slide that you had that point in there that is an important point to make because you can go as fast as you want on the highway but if there is an accident on there it is almost always serious enough to close it and then increase your commute time from 5 minutes to an hour. So that is making safer streets for everybody, helps everybody. A couple of specific things to mention and to note, one is I think on those maps there is no surprises there. I think everyone looking at these maps can kind of get that is not surprising at all and I think it is good that we are mapping this stuff and I would be very interested to see as part of our Safety Action Plan or just something that we can start doing. That type of crash analysis studio, that kind of group that gets floated in the space to take a look at each crash that happens and with all of our stakeholders, with police, with fire, with members of the community to really think about why that crash happened. We know that there is the hot spots here and rather than just say there is a hot spot here we should do something about it like looking at all of those individual crashes and what led to them and what led to the outcomes to0

I think is very important. There was a tragic crash in District 3 on Lohman and

McDonalds that was like an accident, right? There was a medical emergency, complete accident but there was other extenuating circumstances around it around the area in the built environment that led to some of the outcome. So I think that is

definitely worth looking into and also since you mentioned crosscutting, that is another issue I have seen a lot on Telshor also where people are cutting across the street where it is not safe to do so away from the intersections and where it is one thing to put signage and striping and flashing lights and tell people what to do but when we build our streets and build our structures in the community we send different messages sometimes. So, looking at that I think is very important and then from a budgetary point of view, I think Kyle this came up when we were talking last week. In a lot of cases, it is cheaper actually to do some of these things. So instead of making a road two lanes wide or making the lanes 12 feet wide we make them 10 feet wide, and everyone can still get down there. It sends the signal that you should drive slower, you still have 20/30 feet of road for emergency vehicles and stuff to pass and that is perfectly fine, but we also have 4 feet less right-of-way that they have to keep paved and maintained. Doing this stuff can have positive budgetary impacts. It doesn’t just cost money.

Councilor McClure asked at a certain point I heard the data on some of the streets, and I am just curious of how you are working with the MPO?

Kyle Arend said this data comes directly from the MPO. They collect all of the data.

They share it with NMSU and UNM who corrects and adjust the data for outliers for a report that was written down a little bit incorrectly or it was listed as in intersection but it was actually in a parking lot so they kind of correlate and data and give it back to us.

Part of the next strategy with the Safety Action Plan and the Safe Streets For All is to further look into that data and to see exactly what is happening and where and the whys and create a heat map as well as the Safety Action Plan of this is where you should be prioritizing your efforts.

Councilor McClure said from my brief time at the MPO I would say that if you aren’t already attending those meetings I would like to have somebody as a representative there. It is helpful to have that sort of larger conversation with the county then to and I think that we were looking at an hour-long presentation. It was really valuable you know. Things that we kind of know anecdotally you know Telshor is a beast at certain hours of the day they had data on that was actually really helpful and I say this more as to give people a sense of the data that you guys can work with is already happening and being crunched at this point but I would like to see that we work in those spaces too because it is just not the city it is as the county as well.

Councilor Corran said I was going to say something similar, but I also just had a couple of quick follow-ups. MPO does have a lot of good data that already exists that people can look at in their safety plan including a really cool in depth breakdown of a lot of those crashes that are alluded to. So, thank you for this presentation. I really appreciate you bringing this forward. I think this came from MPO. I mean we were really horrified when that 470 number appeared on the screen and we were like wait we are going to agree to a goal that is 20 deaths more than our existing number and it really brought and I think if a board of pretty boring elected people talking about maybe stuff that is really boring to people can get mad, that was one of the most mad meetings I have ever experienced was the MPO when they showed that data point of ya, sure it is going to go up and however much and we have to accept that of the

federally mandated goal setting process or whatever so I appreciate you providing some of that context and also I acknowledge like there are a million externalities that aren’t necessarily within our domains of control. I think we might have also had a reduction in fatal crashes similar to the places that adopted Vision Zero if you actually look at that. So, I don’t imagine that this is the answer to all of those externalities that we can sometimes control and sometimes not and so I guess I one, would direct folks who are really interested in this to check out the MPOs safety reports written for the last few years and they are really in depth and powerful. The second part that I would ask or point out is this is almost if we wanted to put this map on the socioeconomic status of our city you would see on the place where the places are the hottest you would see that it is very similar, right? My district doesn’t have any lights up. It also has streets that were designed in the last 25 years. Intersections, we have a roundabout. When people come and complain to me about the roundabout I am like I am so glad you are alive to complain about that roundabout, to me because I know that is saving peoples lives but I say this to point out this is also a very variable of our history, 80% of our streets were probably built before we thought about vulnerable road users or 85%. I can’t even imagine the percentage of our streets that are from a different time of thinking and so now we are reckoning with that history of design that wasn’t thinking of pedestrians or cyclists and so I am curious what our ask, what you all are sort of looking for here today. I would like us to start right away with any low hanging fruit of things that in the safety action plan and we know that things like reducing the speed wherever can make a difference. We know that markings perhaps you can change markings. I would hope that we can take action before we even go through this process of establishing things to do the low hanging fruit as much as we can. Updating paint. I have faith that we are now designing things better and thinking about that in our planning but those are bigger things. Speed reduction in terms of cameras, other traffic related things that we might have conversations about. I hope we can do that sooner. It sounds like we would be on track to have a goal in the distant future. Some of us might not even be around anymore depending on how we drive. Probably less or more proportionally but I hope that we can set a goal but I also hope we can just start doing the things that we know are already called out in this idea of framework and I am curious as to what you are looking from us in this discussion and if anything I would say yes I would like us to go to this just because it will give us something to focus on not because it can solve all of our problems. I know that it doesn’t, and I understand and I think that we understand the multitude of factors that go into this but I would like us to take a step in establishing moving forward on the

Safety Action Plan going toward Vision Zero resolving to reduced fatalities as much as we can. Whatever other things that you would like from us speak now.

Kyle Arend said what I can offer you right now at this moment is the Safe Streets For

All process has started so that is collecting all the data in it will produce a heat map with better maps and better data but it will also produce the Safety Action Plan along with prioritizations on how to implement that. So that will be forthcoming. There isn’t anything specifically that we are asking of you today.

Councilor Bencomo said I agree with what a lot of my colleagues have already said.

Especially Councilor Corran, thank you for always bringing in that equity lens over the map. I think that is really important. That is something that we should talk about a lot more. I wanted to ask you as we move forward with all of these plans, thinking of the

reporting of it all. You know a few months ago our Police Chief sent to council some reporting of pedestrian accidents and fatalities and part of the reporting talks about you know whether it is the total crashes non-injured, injury fatal, and then there is one column that talks about pedestrian error and that always just makes me deeply uncomfortable to be honest with you right? It feels very victim blaming and so I am wondering how as we go through this, how do we reframe some of that moving away from who was at fault to what made this crash predictable and preventable. For example, a pedestrian was at fault because they failed to use the crosswalk, reframing that to the nearest safe crossing walk was this many feet away. I also just really want to engage in a conversation about reporting and how we can do that in a way that informs us a little bit better.

Brent Crowther said that is one of the key tenants of the safe system approach, recognizing that our multiple layers, multiple facets that it all can contribute to improving safety and reducing fatalities and serious injuries. How one of them is safe road users and you mentioned pedestrians specifically so it is important to understand what behaviors they are choosing to engage with that is leading to the crash or the fatality or serious injury and like you said understanding what is causing to make that decision, is it crosswalk spaced out 5,000 feet so they don’t have a choice to do that.

The bottom piece of this pie here, safe roads does that and it says if we have a high frequency of pedestrian fatalities we need to identify what is causing them to make that choice and what infrastructure can we do to help them make a different choice and so it is not just victim blaming but understanding the process through their decision making so that they are not forced to make bad decisions. Another example is putting a raised median in a roadway. You can put a raised median that extends for several hundred feet it doesn’t mean you have to mark the pedestrian crossings on that but if a pedestrian chooses to cross the road away from his signalized intersection they would at least have a refuge or a place to wait for the other traffic. It is not legalizing the crossing, but it is giving them the opportunity to survive when they do make choices like that. So, it is all those different layers helping us, helping the driver or the pedestrian make good decisions and then designing the infrastructure to reduce the impact of poor decision making and that is done through reducing speeds.

Another example is roundabouts where we are reducing the kinetic energy of vehicles instead of colliding into each other, they may collide sideswipe, the speeds are less, the result is less, they still collided but the result does not automatically lead to a fatality or serious injury.

Councilor Bencomo said I really appreciate this core principle of this because I think as a city we have to internalize this shift away from pedestrian error towards like shifting responsibility to the planning, the building, the maintaining of how we move in our community, to me that feels really important. I think the last thing I wanted to lift up today is since you are not necessarily asking or looking for guidance today given the new GRT funding that we have really said that traffic calming is a big priority for that funding. I want us to really think about how we are going to prioritize certain projects for traffic calming. For me this is one of the biggest, the most important pieces because it is one of the things I get the most constituent concerns about. In my email I get calls about traffic calming pretty consistently from neighborhoods, from all over

District 4 about this being a problem in their community and fearing walking to the park, fearing or just walking around the neighborhood and so I just really would love

us to think about how we incorporate the conversation about how we are going to distribute those funds as we plan out this whole safety plan and active transportation plan.

Kyle Arend said what I can tell you is that we have addressed a plan in the future for the Safety Action Plan but that does not mean a lot of these things we are not doing right now and trying to do more of. So, with the traffic calming we have implemented several new locations where we are trying some different things out and we intend to do a lot more of that. The designs, the striping, all of these other things, more enforcement. We have been cooperating with PD to time our pilot programs with their enforcement programs to try to drive home the message of we need to address these speeds. All of these things that we are talking about we are trying to do more of right now. We are not waiting to start it.

Councilor Munoz said thank you for putting this together, it is very thorough and I love the aspirational goal. I do have a request. I think on slide 12 or I might have seen it on your data I think but what I would like to see is a per capita ratio. So in 2000 for example as I mentioned before we were a city of 74,000,now we are upwards of around 120,000, maybe 240/260 with the county so as you look at whole numbers and no lives lost is acceptable but you might see an increase in 25 or 2026 because the population as a whole is driving that, right? I would recommend that a little bit more upsize to it and I think I saw it somewhere but when you present and read out I would love to see that as well and thanks for the good work and I know Kyle you and your team have a lot on your plate and I appreciate the focus.

2.2 CITY OF LAS CRUCES REGISTER OF CULTURAL PROPERTIES. Caitlin Beesley, Historic Preservation Specialist gave the overhead presentation.

Councilor Mattiace said I just wanted to thank you very much for a very complete detailed presentation. I learned quite a lot today, thank you.

Councilor McClure said I just want to thank you for coming on and taking on some of this challenging work with the community getting their feedback but also kind of giving a vision of what this could look like and how it could benefit so that we don’t lose more of our identity in the future so thank you.

Councilor Harris asked is there a timeline for eligibility for a property? Does it have to be older than X amount of years?

Caitlin Beesley said the general rule of thumb is 50 years but there is no actual rule.

Buildings can be nominated that are younger than 50 years. Buildings of course can be nominated if they are older than that as well. That is kind of just a general rule of thumb.

Councilor Corran said I also want to thank you for bringing this forward. I don’t think we have ever had a class of buildings. I don’t know, maybe you can tell us this. I don’t remember saying these are going on the city’s register. Do we have an existing city

register buildings?

Caitlin Beesley said we do not currently. So, our inaugural nominees will be the ones that I mentioned on the last slide. There have been attempts in the past but they have never made it to city council.

Councilor Corran said thank you for getting this done. It is very exciting and I want to just comment on the monumental tongue in cheek work that you must have done to get these things before us so I am very excited for this to go through. I also just want to thank you for calling out Clara Belle Williams with her full name as I know in Las

Cruces there are many monuments to Clara Belle Williams that don’t actually make it clear who the Williams in the name are so I appreciate that and I look forward to that consideration as part of our conversations. So, I would love to hear more when you present to city council about the properties that are highlighted here if that is possible.

I think the community would love to hear it too. Thank you again for our inaugural class, this is really exciting so thanks.

Mayor Enriquez said thank you for the work you have done and again partnering with the committee to get some of these nominations and working together with the community as well is very important. So, I thank you for that. I was looking for the old post office here and when you said we don’t have any I thought maybe that was one that was already in existence or already registered.

Caitlin Beesley said that one is on the state register, and I think in the future we will definitely be looking at that one to list on the local level.

2.3 2026 GO BOND. Cynthia Alamillo, CIP Manager gave the overhead presentation.

Mayor Enriquez said one of the things that I am extremely proud of for the City of Las

Cruces is when we go to the GO Bond, the General Obligation Bonds, we have fulfilled a commitment. When we put the question on the ballot, we complete things.

As you can see in 2018 and what we have done with that from the ball fields to the

Fire Station, to the Animal Shelter and the trails, even through Covid the city was able to fulfill the obligation and so for me that is important to gain the trust and to make sure that we fill those obligations. What I see in our options even though I want them all, I would say Option 1, is where I would go so that we can fulfil the obligation and do what had been long overdue and take care of things and not split our funding and get it through the finish line the first time around. That is where I am at and I want to share that based on not so much the project but the trust in what we can do, and the project is important because it is long overdue but so is everything else that we are trying to get back to this community. I just wanted to share that and I would be with Option 1.

Councilor McClure said let me just say that perhaps the bias is because District 1 is the library, but Option 1 is really the only thing I can believe in right now because of the fact that we have kind of let it go and it is the only and I know we have satellite libraries, I get it but it is the only library that a lot of people recognize and see as a

safe space for doing things that enable democracy, enable workforce development, enable just a generation of people understanding what literacy means for their lives and there is nothing else I can really say and I know that a lot of other people with purple shirts in this room feel but I think that Mayor has it right we have to complete it.

We have to do the things that make it visible difference, and this will do it.

Councilor Harris said I concur, we can get that project done and it will be great and we can deliver on it and then in the next cycle we can pick another project and get it done and it will be great and deliver on it.

Councilor Mattiace said again I favor the Option 1 but I just want on the record that and I am not a fan of robbing the Telshor Fund, you all know that, but I am also a fan of youth programs. I mean these recreation programs, we have to bring more recreational and afterschool programs to Las Cruces, and I just want to thank the

Director of Library, attending our after-school programs and trying to get that initiative going. I will favor Option 1, but I just want on the record that we have been robbing that fund for so many years let’s just keep robbing it and do something good with it and maybe we can earmark that if we can get consensus for the recreation and the gymnastics.

Councilor Corran said I am in agreement, there is consensus it sounds like across the board. I do want to say having been through several bond cycles and I am very excited and love many of the facilities which are also in District 5 but I do want to say that we have done a really good job of as they say splitting the baby and not to use a horrifying metaphor but we have done a really good job of getting things done as we do that but I think what you said Mayor really about being accountable to our community and having a very concrete visible sign that we are investing in all people, investing in our literacy, investing in our understanding, investing in technology and investing in a future for a range of different folks is a really powerful symbol and so I just for the sake of doing something different for the second bond cycle I really support us going all in for the library. So, thank you for considering it and I do have hope and believe we have a range of other funding opportunities that we can leverage to get recreation facilities built as well. I have faith that those might be sooner rather than later in the next GO Bond cycle. I think we can figure that out, but I also support

Option 1 and thank you for the opportunity to have this discussion and I would also ask if I know the folks are here to speak to it even though there is consensus I suspect they might want to share their insight from the community perspective.

Councilor Bencomo said I think that Option 1 is the right option and exciting, Option 1, high impact project. We haven’t done that before and we have seen how difficult it is to do things in phases so I also think it is just being responsive to what our community has very clearly said they desire to see but I really also want to just appreciate staff for providing the three options because I think it shows additionally the high need that we have in our community for different kinds of facilities that make a community a community. Like these third spaces are so deeply valuable for so many people in our community and whether it is the library or a rec facility or more park improvements. All of those things are so important and at the end of the day I would just rather see us get one project done and so I do want to thank staff for lifting that up and showing the

community that we are being thoughtful with this process and honestly just for the community that is there. I just really want to thank you for your advocacy for so many years and getting us here.

Councilor Munoz said I just wanted to thank Carol and her team for just creating a wonderful culture and what they have created in the ecosystem. I wanted to thank also the Friends of the Library and everyone who is involved, Jen and her props, I think. It helped but it didn’t sway me. I knew it was the right thing to do but thank you, I appreciate that. While we are looking at funding, we have our financials to look at.

There are also other priorities to consider as we move down the road. Like having an all abilities, all access park, programing for young adults and for mature adults. Those are key public safety. So, there are so many projects out there, but I feel good about the library and what it means to our community and to see it come to fruition. I can’t wait to participate in the ribbon cutting. I will have to go out and buy some purple shirts, it’s not in my wardrobe but I will get some purple soon.

Mayor Enriquez said Cynthia I think you got the consensus there.

Cynthia Alamillo said yes, thank you. Our next step like I will mentioned is the city will work together in refining and identifying the appropriate ballot language. We will work with communications to identify a plan so that the city staff can be on the same page and they will help us promote or create the awareness of our upcoming ballot questions. We will then come back to you with the actual resolution to adopt the resolution with the questions and then move forward to elections.

Carol Brey, Quality of Life Director said this is just a proud moment for us just to hear your comments. We have worked very hard as you know to get this project to this point. We are almost at 50% with our construction documents. Meaning that by the end of this calendar year we should have our entire design and construction documents and be shovel ready. So, I know our hardworking Friends here would like to say something. I think they will also help us get this over the finish line. Thank you for your support and this is going to be an amazing thing for the city of Las Cruces.

Jennifer Kreie, Member of the Public said by the way in this fiscal year that is coming to an end over 170,000 people will have accessed the library in the fiscal year online and in person. So, if we want something that is going to have high impact you know that this is one. You can do so many things at the library. I checked out a book on how to write poetry, and I am going to share with you today. I have two poems. One I plagiarized, I have no idea who to give credit to for the majority of this. Roses are red, violets are blue. Funding is critical, we need you. Roses are red, Milk Duds are brown, renovate the library, air I am in the ground. Then how to write haiku, only three lines, five syllables in the first line, seven syllables in the second and five syllables in the third. This was a struggle for me. Council has vision. Library renewed serves us.

Community wins.

3. ADJOURNMENT 3.1

City Councilor Michael Harris moved, seconded by Mayor Pro Tem John Munoz, to adjourn at 2:31 p.m.

MOVER: City Councilor Michael Harris

SECONDER: Mayor Pro Tem John Munoz

Mayor

City Clerk