Work Session Meeting August 25, 2025 MINUTES Work Session Monday, August 25, 2025 @ 1:00 PM City Council Chambers, City Hall PRESENT: Councilor Johana Bencomo, Councilor Becky Corran, Mayor Eric Enriquez, Councilor Cassie McClure, and Councilor William Mattiace ABSENT: Councilor Yvonne Flores and Councilor Becki Graham 1. JOBS OF THE WEEK 1.1 Giselle Palomares, Americas Job Center of New Mexico presented Jobs of the Week. 2. PETS OF THE WEEK 2.1 Carol Nielson, Animal Services Center of the Mesilla Valley presented Pets of the Week. 3. AGENDA ITEM 3.1 CITY OF LAS CRUCES ECONOMIC OUTLOOK Monica Torres, Economist gave the overhead presentation. Councilor Mattiace said I have two questions, I think it was page actively looking for work it was 2,391. Do you have any idea of what they’re actively looking for? What industry or what we need to get these people to work? Monica Torres said this data comes from the Bureau of Labor; that’s the only thing I know. This is the number of people looking for a job. I can look farther in different data sets and see what’s available over there and see if I can give you a better answer. Councilor Mattiace said okay and then if you go to page 7, I was thinking that many of them might be in construction, because I noticed your new residential permitting was down for 2025. I don’t know if that could correlate there. Monica Torres said residential permits and contracts for construction are very important, as you said, more permits, more construction jobs, more retail sales, but I cannot tell you for sure if this is a sector that is, but I can look into it. Councilor Mattiace said maybe a brief analysis of the labor market and what bills they may have. Councilor Bencomo said you know a few weeks ago I had asked the City Manager to really think about creating a team that was focused on looking at national trends, it feels like every day is different these days and I know that you are part of that team. So, thank you City Manager for doing that, I think that’s really important. I’m wondering if you’ve never really done this before, but I am wondering if in future analysis you can include like grocery prices, what does that look like in Southern New Mexico, in Las Cruces and how is that impacting potentially households here. Do you think that is something that you could do? Monica Torres said yes. Councilor Bencomo said seems like you’re like yeah, duh, pretty easily. But I just feel like that’s I think that would be a fairly interesting perhaps difficult statistic to present but I think that it is something that is on a lot of people’s minds right now. My only other question for you was on the cannabis, so those are like total numbers, do you have to year what that’s translated in terms of revenue for the city that’s come into the general fund? Monica Torres asked the excise tax? Yes, I have the monthly data I just consolidated by fiscal year. Am I answering your question? Councilor Bencomo asked what is that number so far? Monica Torres said I don’t have it right now, but I can give it to you. Councilor Bencomo said that would be great. 3.2 FY24/FY25 ANNUAL INTERNAL AUDIT REPORT. Viola Perea, City Auditor gave the overhead presentation. Mayor Enriquez said I did have one on slide number 12. You talked about business licenses. Viola Perea said yes sir. Mayor Enriquez said a little bit more detail what you’re looking for in or what is that really? What are some of the details to that? Viola Perea said okay our scope of work for the business license audit is going to include a few different aspects of it. Number one is going to be existence. Do we have policies and procedures or controls in place to ensure that businesses throughout the community do have in fact a valid business license? It’ll look at whether or not the city is collecting the fees or assessing late fees for those business licenses. We’ll be looking at codes enforcement, if you will, for businesses that are still in existence or still conducting business and determining whether or not we’re identifying those lapses, whether they’re expired and are not renewing so we can get those folks with current licenses. Then our last aspect of that is going to be to identify some of our businesses that are going to be in the I’ll say the hotel for the tie back into our lodger’s tax. So, it could be hotels, motels, possibly even the short-term rentals will determine how that factors in. So that encompasses the high-level scope of work that we intend to be accomplishing through that audit. Mayor Enriquez said just want to mention like on the previous presentation we saw where there was an increase in business activity in the City of Las Cruces and we want to continue that. I’m all for accountability and you know setting those rules and everything in place and to make it a safer place for our customers to shop and people to work. But we also want to be business friendly, so we want to be very transparent with those rules or guidelines and things that are taking place as to why it’s being done. So now that’s why I was inquiring about that one we want to make sure that we continue that upward direction of more businesses coming to Las Cruces. Viola Perea said absolutely I agree with you, and this is going to be the compliance aspect of our ordinance that manages those licenses and then leading up again to the lodger’s tax. So, we’ll be addressing that and be presenting that as well. 3.3 IMPROVE LAS CRUCES: COMMUNITY IMPROVEMENTS BOND Cynthia Alamillo, CIP Manager gave the overhead presentation. Sara Gonzales, Interim Deputy Director of Community Development continued the overhead presentation. Lesley Doyle, Director of Finance continued the overhead presentation. Councilor Corran said I just have a few quick clarifying questions and then sort of my thinking on this which again is evolving and obviously there I think community input is fundamental to whatever we do. So, I really want to make sure that that’s a big part of the ongoing conversation. But my first few questions are probably more for Lesley. So, I just wanted to make sure that I completely understand what exactly the restrictions are and also the assumptions that underly the assumed sort of amount that’s increasing. There are a few things like a 3% increase in GRT, I know is based on a lot of data, but there are a few things that I wonder in terms of our accountability to having the debt and whether or not that is a safe assumption that is increased economic volatility that’s happening right now in addition state discussions about whether or not medical services should be excluded from GRT which I think are more than 10% of what our GRT revenues are. So, I worry a little bit about what impact that might have on our overall GRT forecast. So do you feel like I might want a more conservative estimate before I might ask for us to be a little bit more conservative in this just because I don’t know if those volatile factors are part of that assumption or not. Could you talk a little bit more about where the 3% comes from and what’s underneath that? Lesley Doyle said we did discuss this with our financial adviser, Mr. Harrigan. I’m sure you guys are familiar with him, and we did kind of go back and forth also. He did feel, as do I, that the 3% is conservative enough and so I am comfortable that we would definitely have the 8.8 million for the debt service. I do feel like the 3% is if you look at how we have trended overall that is also a number that I am comfortable with. Councilor Corran said we’ve trended very high like I guess that’s what I acknowledge that that’s recently the increase has been relatively steep. I don’t know because I don’t know the world is wild right now. Lesley Doyle said it certainly is. We could come back with some additional information on different scenarios if that’s something you would like us to do. We can definitely provide that. Councilor Corran said I think I just want to make sure that we are being as conservative as possible in this particular domain, would be my ask. If you feel like that is the most conservative number, then I trust y’all’s expertise, I just have an impending sense of doom that I can’t shake. Lesley Doyle said you will find that I am often the most conservative one in the room and I am comfortable with 3%. Councilor Corran said so, that was my main question related to that. Then the other question is the restrictions on the three-year and five-year thing those come from the places we’re borrowing the money through the bonds? Lesley Doyle said so those actually come from the IRS. We are required to spend 85% and it has to so with how we can invest the money and then receive that interest. So, the IRS requires that we spend the 85% and we can invest a certain way and then after we hit that three-year mark, we have to invest differently. So, the goal is actually to spend within the three years, but if we don’t, then there are some additional restrictions that the IRS puts on us investing those proceeds. Councilor Corran asked we’ll be primarily investing in the state investment council as we typically do or is this a separate way that we translate this money into interest and use it? Lesley Doyle said we would look and see how we feel like it is most appropriate to invest and how we could receive the best return. Councilor Corran said so that’s not dictated that we can do that based on whatever we have. Okay, that’s what I was curious where that three- and five-year thing came from. Then it will be cycled like then the five-year thing is like a cycling similar to GO bonds as far as I understand it, or no? Lesley Doyle said that is well it will be every two years. So, we would receive 20 million every two years. Councilor Corran said okay thank you, that really helps me understand how this money is coming into being, which might seem opaque given the different variables. So, thank you for being the conservative person in the room. So, my other question again I really want community input to be a huge part of this, I hope we can have public comment today and I hope these conversations we can really elevate how often we have these conversations. My thing sort of goes more to Sara’s presentation about what the options are. I really want us to not have a bunch of city facilities that are neglected, raining on people that people literally cannot be in. Municipal Court right now is like I think about Municipal Court in this category. I think about the LCFD folks who are showering somewhere else. I noticed Sara that you mentioned that you called one of the stations across the street “historical” and I thought that was a really nice way of saying old and kind of wreaked like in this case, don’t call the historical preservation folks because those buildings are not I don’t think historical and I thought that was the nice way of saying antiquated and out of function, but let me just clarify on that. Okay thanks, not actually historical. No, I would really ask that whatever happens, I really want us to make sure that our own facilities that we have that people are functioning in or trying to function in are the highest priority on the list for me. Whatever I think there’s a lot of discussion to be had about new things and other things. But I just really continue to be a little this really bothers me that we have facilities that are unlivable or unworkable and so I just want to speak to that first. And I know that there’s lots more conversation to be had, but I just sort of want that to be an underlying value that I think is really important which no one in the public is necessarily even thinking about. So, I think public input should be the main driver of a lot of these conversations that we have. But I just want to speak from an internal perspective that I really want us to make sure that we get those things together as much as we possibly can with this new money. Councilor McClure said I just wanted to acknowledge kind of what you said too about different funding sources. I think at the MPO we were thinking about trails and some of the outdoor economic grants that might be available and tie those things together. But I don’t want to have a sort of loss of focus then too for things like restrooms at parks that make sort of that public good. I think given that I see similar shirts here, the public good is the library. And we’re not sure how those funding sources will be going. So, having some sort of assurance that we know that that is something that encapsulate a lot of different things for our community. I just want to highlight that too. I had some meetings last week as well with some folks for the Hatfield area for detention ponds and I know that could be another funding source as well. Capital outlay may be in play with that, I’m not entirely sure, but I just want to make sure that for people who where the city kind of grew around them, I’d like to make sure that they have adequate drainage that we’re not catching up with the silt that kind of comes into their front yards and washes it away. So, things like that in terms of public good is something that I’d really like to focus on. Councilor Bencomo said Councilor Corran there’s a couple questions that got answered as you were trying to clarify for yourself and for the public for sure. I am curious in terms of some of the projects that have been put forth by staff. What has design already and what doesn’t? Do you feel like mostly there’s projects that need to be funded for design or do you feel like there’s a equal balance? Sara Gonzales said I would say out of the projects that were identified currently right now the library is the closest one to being completely designed when we’re looking at the other facilities there were only two that were mentioned throughout the process currently which would be the public safety joint complex with fire department and police department. Then the other complex would be the recreation center. That’s where the consideration comes into design phase may need to come within maybe years three and four or design in one and two, three and four. Those may be some of the options that we do come back with based on the public input that we do receive. Councilor Bencomo asked okay and we’re looking at this in a 16-year term, right? Sara Gonzales said that’s correct. We would look at it as a 16-year term, but it extends. So there as it goes on the projects we’ve identified right now were what can we basically provide that can all be accomplished within that time frame. So if we can accomplish all this now it’s getting them in order and prioritizing them to say where we want to actually start and then knowing that there’s going to be increments in between where if you have a design element if I’m designing in year one that means funding would come in in part two and three and then you would have the funding that may lead into four and five. So those larger projects have to be built out into a span of multiple years as opposed to some of the renovations or the remodels that may take place that we could actually have funding and start moving on in the early years while design is taking place. Councilor Bencomo said I just want to zoom out a little bit because I think I literally have been thinking about this so much as I was preparing for today. I feel like we are in an infrastructure emergency at the city and it’s actually something I feel like the majority of the public sees as well. That’s why when we said we kind of have a hard question for you guys as a community, can you please raise taxes on yourselves? Can you please increase the GRT? The majority of the community said, “Yeah, actually we do. We will pay a little more out of our pocket because we believe in our community and we know that we can make it better.” How we move forward in the next couple of months I think needs to honor that and the ultimate decision we make in November I think needs to honor that people said, “yeah, we believe in our community enough to do this, and we want to be part of the solution.” So, saying that, I think there’s this really fine balance between this infrastructure emergency that we currently find ourselves in versus this big vision, dreams coming true. Oh my God, yes, we have the fund, let’s build that brand new shiny thing we really want. So, I want us to approach this with the emergency in mind first that what if we build like brand new shinier things and I’m not talking about the library. The library has been waiting for a long time. I fear that if we build these new exciting facilities that we continue to neglect the facilities that are currently really needing our attention and when I talk to the public because at first I was like I don’t know if I’m going to support this, but I changed my mind because I also believe in my community and so when I talk to people about why they should vote for this increase, the importance of it. Here are the things that I hear from our community consistently. In terms of public safety, the biggest thing right now and we keep talking about it, Chief Story’s been talking about it, is this juvenile crime conversation, which if we read between the lines, it’s young people don’t have enough to do in our community. So, how do we address that with library services? Libraries are excellent for young people, to stay out of trouble. Recreational facilities, even though I’m willing to admit that would be a brand-new shiny situation, but I do feel like those are the conversations we need to be having. People talk to me about pedestrian safety and the kinds of alarming numbers we are seeing in the City of Las Cruces for pedestrian deaths and injuries due to poor design. I consistently hear people telling me that people are speeding in my neighborhood, and that impacts the walkability, the quality of life. To me those are all public safety, in addition there are leaky roofs at the dorms at station firehouses where people literally live half of their week. Yeah, Station One, historic, old, whatever you want to call it, the air conditioner doesn’t work. There are firefighters taking baths in portables right now, I think there are serious issues with the current infrastructure of our firehouses and then the NAT and I don’t know how we sort of this incorporates into that, but I keep talking about these abandoned neighborhoods and what that team may require. Okay bear with me I have a long list, but it all sort of matches with what you presented. I also consistently hear about one of the main things people talk to me about is when are you going to repave my road and sometimes I tell people let me check, oh no worries, you’re on the CIP for 2030 and that’s crushing, that’s crushing for David to tell me that, for the public works team to tell me that and then for me to be the messenger to my community. Since I got on the Council we’ve been talking about the 82 mile backlog that we have for roads that need to be repaved. I would love if we made a dent in that and not just 5 miles, 6 miles, 8 miles, 10 miles. I would love it if in the next few years, we made a serious considerable dent in the first thing our people when they walk outside their house to go to work, it’s the first thing they see. I think that’s important. Our parks, I think that’s the list that you presented is right on. So, these are the things that I hear, here’s also my analysis for what I see and what I hope are the kinds of infrastructure emergencies that I’m talking about. Our bus infrastructure, there are people sitting waiting for the bus in smoldering heat. Zero bus shelters, zero benches and from what I hear from Councilor Corran, the numbers are only increasing of people who are riding the bus. That to me is a matter of equity. Most of the people riding the bus are going to work. Most of the people riding the bus are low-income. Most of the people riding the bus don’t have their own vehicle. I want to see us take a serious investment in that. I know that gap exists. I know that list exists already. Sidewalk gaps and Municipal Court is literally operating out of the second room conference floor at City Hall. That’s not ok and I think we need to seriously consider why that is and that we know that we use this opportunity to say we will no longer allow ourselves to get to this place with any facility. And the last thing I’ll say is that I really want this team to apply an equity lens to everything we do. So, if we say let’s do these two big road projects, those are dream come true projects. Let’s do these big two road projects on Sonoma Ranch. There’s no equity in that. We just have to be honest about where there are newer neighborhoods, where there are neighborhoods that have more resources, where there are neighborhoods that already have complete streets and where there aren’t, and where we haven’t invested. So, I really want us to apply an equity lens to the projects and in terms of how they arise in the priority list. My last question I really if you already have a plan for community engagement I would love to hear about it now. If you don’t, that’s okay. I’m just curious how many you’re planning on having, where and then I want to put a plug that as City Councilor for my district meeting, I would like it to be around this. Cynthia Alamillo said we currently do not have a solid community engagement plan, but we know that’s initiative as our next step, and we do want to develop a robust plan. We’ll be working with other city departments, including Communications, to make sure we tackle as many opportunities and resources that we have available. Councilor Bencomo said I want this to be as robust as possible. Make sure that we have translation services if needed, that we are doing marketing in both Spanish and English so that the majority of people that we have a diverse, not that we don’t love our usual suspects that come to all of our meetings, but I want to make sure it is as diverse as outreach as possible so that we are hearing from as many folks as possible about the vision that they see for improving Las Cruces. Councilor Mattiace said this is great leveraging. It’s really good how you played what we have guaranteed into 20 million, 40 million, 60 million, 80 million, because it looks like there’s a lot of fixing to be done that was neglected over the last 15 years or 8 years, 10 years anyway. We have a lot of things in the parks, public safety, police department stations. We have so many things that have been neglected only because we didn’t have the resources, we didn’t have the money. So, I’m glad we are having public participation in a lot of it. I think the public’s a very important aspect in what these visions will be. On the other side, I think financially if you have a design done it’s good to move forward on those priorities because it costs more money if you wait on that. The design is done; the money has been spent. You basically know what the cost may be today, you do not know what the cost may be if you put it off three, four, five years with the price of steel, inflation and other things happening and just getting a contractor today because everybody’s building everything today unfortunately in other cities. That’s my other point, in other words, I think another priority will definitely be public safety. I think the gross receipts tax was passed basically because they want a safer city. They want crime reduced. Madame Bencomo mentioned the juvenile delinquency. That’s very important. I think I’d like to see more money spent in after school programs. Maybe better participation with Las Cruces Public Schools so that we can introduce more programs like the new D.A.R.E. program. I’d also like to see recreation programs, maybe teen centers to keep busy. Recreation programs. The baseball fields, the football, all the fields need to be upgraded. A new library, of course, would be another good attraction for the city of Las Cruces getting new residents. If you have a safe city, you have good services, you have a new library, you have paved streets, you get rid of the blight that we see, and you have parks that are not run down and/or the restrooms not even able to go into. People see this when they come to look at Las Cruces to buy a home. We saw in the statistics the new residential housing, a little bit of dip. Well, when we dip, that dips and when we build and create excitement and create a beautiful looking city, not only cosmetically, but I mean internally, socially, taking care of people who have less money, that’s important, too. The economic picture of housing, I think we’ve done a good job. I’ve been asking for a history of our affordable housing. I think Natalie just got that email today. I’d like to see a 20-year history of affordable housing and what it looks like today. I want to make sure that when we build affordable housing that we actually monitor it, license it, take care of it and make sure that it stays nice. We do not have to have things get dilapidated and looking bad. We’ve had a habit of doing that. In other words, I’m sorry I was absent in the last eight or nine years. I was down in Santa Teresa, I was watching things be built, I was watching growth, I was watching companies come in. That’s my other priority, some of the money has to be spent on ready-built facilities in the industrial park. We have to do more to attract businesses here so we could get those 2,300 people jobs. I don’t know if that’s the qualification for them to be into that type of employment, whether we could attract contract people that make chips or some type of industrial work out there on that industrial site. It’s been kind of dormant; it hasn’t really been building like it should be. So maybe we could take some of this 20, 40, 60, 80, 100, 120 million over the next few years and actually make an investment in not only fixing what we need to fix, but adding something that actually attracts new people and attracts new industry and creates a vibrant city that is not growing at 2 and 3%, but is growing at 4 and 5 and maybe even 6%. I’d like to stay the number 2 city in New Mexico. I’m very competitive, I can’t see Rio Rancho becoming number two and us dropping to number three. On ranking my public safety priority is that our police department when our starting police officers start, we should be number two ranked. That money needs to keep them in the number two compensation ranking. Not number eight, not number nine, not seven, five. We’re the second largest city in New Mexico. Our public safety officers, both fire department, police department should actually receive that compensation for being in the second largest city. Councilor Bencomo said I think GIS should be part of the conversation around especially the equity lens piece. Mayor Enriquez said it’s a great day because we have a dilemma. Where do we spend our money? But again, I have to say thank you to the voters for passing the increase in the GRT so that we can have these things that we’ve neglected, that become an emergency. That became a crisis in our community. So, this is so good to have, we’re not going to please everyone, I understand that, but these are the things that we need to talk about. It’d be great to get the community engagement and as Mayor Pro Tem had stated the Town Hall meetings like make sure they’re scheduled so that everybody has that same opportunity and can have that one-on-one with their councilors and that time to voice their issues. Pigging back off of what Councilor Mattiace said about being very competitive and not wanting to be number three. I feel the same way, but I say it a different way. I don’t care who’s one, who’s two or three I care who’s the best city in New Mexico. This GRT will give us the opportunity to be the best, to have the things that we need, to have the public safety, to have the quality of life, to have economic development. I want Las Cruces to be the best in the state of New Mexico. So, with that I can share that fire station one was built in 1964. So, yes, it does need to be renovated, fixed, not just piecemeal, not just a roof, not just an AC unit, but really dive in and put some funding into that building so that our fire fighters will have a decent place to live, work, and respond. Then with public safety, I know that the dual training facility had been in the talks since 2007. We’re going on 20 years now and nothing has been done. This is an opportunity not only for our training I say ours, not anymore, but in the past, and it still continues, it’s scattered everywhere. You have to drive to Deming to do your driving course. You have to drive to what is that place where the shooting range is at another 20 miles. Defensive tactics wherever you can find a place where there’s a vacant building and then eventually a portable is built but the training is scattered everywhere. The fire department had the tee time and then it was like you’re out, find your own place so they’re renting one now. So having a state-of-the-art training facility is a priority for public safety. So we can recruit, we can retain, and we can even share with Southern New Mexico to come and train, and it provides even a place not only to share, but maybe there’s an economic value to that as well, that’s what I see with public safety. Being born and raised here, I saw Meerscheidt as the only facility to go and play basketball and share with volleyball and now with pickleball it’s still the only place. So, we’ve neglected that for years and another rec center would be great. When Mayor Pro Tem talks about equity, I totally agree. Maybe we need to see something on the west side. A rec center that we can share. But when the growth is going to the east, we don’t want to make sure that the infrastructure, we’re not having bottlenecks. We’re already seeing them in certain areas. So, I do say Lohman needs to be addressed, Engler Road needs to be addressed. All those places where we’ve had increased housing. We’ve got to protect our city with those bottlenecks and traffic and accidents and things that will occur to create that public safety. So definitely the GO bond I think another funding source definitely for the library that has been neglected and needs to be done for sure. One other item that I wanted to add is maybe we can use a TIDD funding, but another thing to get out there as a thought is our Municipal Courts. When they have to relocate every summer to hold court sessions because of the facility that they’re in is not adequate. We need to really focus on really prioritizing and finding Muni Court a new home. So those are some of my thoughts. I totally agree, but again, I sit up here with an attitude of gratitude because the voters said yes. Yes, to better Las Cruces. Yes, to improve Las Cruces. Yes, to recover from the things that have been neglected and planned for the future and 20 years from now we will be better financially in a position that I say that we’re financially stable and that’s the outlook that’s for the future of this community. So, it is a dilemma with everybody having different opinions and thoughts and ideas and biases whatever the case may be but it is a good thing to have for the betterment of Las Cruces, and I think it’s great. A shout out to Chris Faivre spearheading that GRT process and attending all those events to educate and make people aware. Thank you, Chris and the City Manager, as well. Linda St. Clair, Member of the Public said I am the president of the Friends of the Library, and we were very happy to hear so many people refer to the importance of the library. I do think that the message is getting out that we are more than just books at the library that we do provide lots of opportunities for people. So the idea of building opportunities for more youth activities, we have phenomenal librarians who work really hard to make sure that we have interesting activities and things for people to do and the design process has been going on for the renovation and it is astonishing how much work that is and how many improvements need to be made but I think that things appear to be going very well. So, we’re really excited about that. If you ever have any questions about what the Friends of the Library are doing, you’re always welcome to come and get in touch with us. We’ll have our annual meeting in January, and I certainly hope that you’re able to come out for that to sort of get a picture of some of the things that we’ve been doing. The library supports so many different aspects of our community and provides shelter during hot days and water and serves as a cooling center and things. It is so much more than books, and it definitely is a place where anyone can come and feel they can just be and do and look at books and look at the internet and connect in all sorts of ways. So, we really appreciate the support that we’ve gotten from the city government and look forward to continuing that positive relationship. George Pearson, Member of the Public said I want to speak to you have trails as an item that you’ll be looking at. So, I’d want to have whatever sliver of monies for trails set aside and especially look at some of the gaps. The Mesilla Drain Trail currently ends at Burn Lake, so it’d be great to extend that through so we can connect to Lakeside Drive so that we actually have some transportation connectivity. I also want to pick up on Councilor Bencomo’s comments on transit. We’ve been building just approved or are building new affordable housing out on the East Mesa, but I believe that those are all outside the current Roadrunner Transit areas. So, when you ae looking at transportation costs, ownership of a car is about $10,000 a year. And when you’re looking at low-income housing, that’s a significant impact on where people need to choose to live. So, looking at transit in that respect, extending those routes, I think would be good. And since I have some time left, I would be remiss if I didn’t put on my Almeda hat and talk about the WIA building. It may not be part of the GO Bond, but let’s look at capital improvement projects and do the improvements for the WIA building to preserve it. Chris Johnson, Member of the Public said president of Las Cruces Professional Firefighters Local 2362. I’m here to speak on a couple of the public safety initiatives that you guys have brought forward. First, to thank you guys to putting together all the work for this process and the list. It’s awesome to see that development come and I’m in total agreement with the Council and Mayor for what that can do for our city. So, thank you guys for all the hard work behind that. Mayor Pro Tem, you hit everything I think with how to be equitable, the infill of our facilities and some of the problems that we’ve faced. Thank you for recognizing that, especially from the firefighter standpoint. We’ve been living in some facilities for quite some time that I couldn’t say are the best to date. So, I appreciate that and the emphasis that you guys have placed on backfilling that both at the fire department and across the city and the struggles that Municipal Court’s dealt with. I can’t even imagine that as well. When it comes to the joint training facility and logistics, I just hope that it’s recognized that that’s also an investment in the infrastructure of both the fire department and the police department and how those work. That’s the background or the backbone of our organizations and our training and our development. It’s hard to see that sometimes, on an outward look about how that affects us, but that’s investing in the fire department and the police department to make sure that they continue to operate at that level that we all expect, that number one in the state. That facility would address some logistics issues that we’ve been having for quite some time. Mayor, you addressed it, we moved around the city three, four times now to try and accomplish that and we’re already outgrowing the facility that we currently have. That facility, correct me if I’m not wrong, we’re spending about $200,000 a year just in rent. That’s nothing coming back to the city. That’s no investment in our capital or anything like that. So, thank you again for bringing those forward. That training facility, I think in our eyes, is fully supported by our union. From a training perspective though, what I wanted to touch on the most is that that has to do with our safety. That has to deal with how we provide a service back to our community. I can probably attest that the police from the very same side not having those places to do that. When I came in the fire department, we were pulling hose out in dirt lots. We were pretending like we had buildings to go into and that was wholly inadequate. Fifteen years ago, we started the conversation Mayor, and previous fire chief 10 years ago, we were able to get the training facility, the training prop building up at the airport. So, we had the land allocated. We had a site plan with the expectation of growth. And since then, we haven’t really advanced that much. Although, that gave us a much needed prop to work on to perfect our skills so that we could be safe for ourselves and provide the highest quality service to the community. Since then, we’ve started to lag behind. As we build on that, we’re starting with a class A facility that comes with real life fire, real life smoke, real life contaminants, real life cancer risks that our firefighters are now facing. And have a facility where you can actually doff your gear, clean up, get outside of the sun and the heat and the cooling. I think is essential into building what we should be as a fire response and the skills that we need to respond safely. I can’t wait to see where this list goes. I think everything on that that I watched is of the utmost importance, and I’m very glad that we have this opportunity to start addressing those things within our community. So, Mayor, city councilor, and council, thank you guys for what you guys have done and the team that put it all together. Lucas Herndon, Member of the Public said I’m a resident of District 2. Thank you for having this discussion. It is something to be excited about. As you stated, Mr. Mayor, what a problem to have, right? How do we spend our money to make our city better? So, between my various hats that I wear, just being in the community, I have been working with folks and asking the question, if you had the opportunity to make direct improvements to the city, what would you love to see? I am excited to see what the public listening sessions will look like so that we can have that input. So this is just sort of a list that has been compiled just through these casual conversations in various places, on the street, at tabling events, online through social media. They’ve kind of been broken down into three things: physical infrastructure, service oriented issues and quality of life. Under physical infrastructure, things like street repair, traffic calming, bus stop shelters, buses on Saturdays and Sundays, more frequent stops, lower fares or no fares, and climate cooling infrastructure, including more trees, looking at becoming a Tree City USA, more solar panels, specifically solar panels as shade structures, cooling centers, drinkable flood prevention, water conservation infrastructure. Under service oriented, flexible services that are accessible to low- income and unhoused people including mediation services, uninsured low-income people, investment in a network of mental health and substance use treatment centers, diversion programs, and Municipal and District Courts, flexible funding streams for supportive services such as mobile rapid response crisis intervention teams and implementation of permanent supportive housing projects like the Amador Crossing and finally other quality of life youth programs infrastructure, something like water park from Deming, roller rink drop-in centers, free accessible sports fields courts as well as center for the arts for young people, infrastructure for car meets, a large lot with shade, water, bathrooms, etc., more libraries, innovative parks with lots of shade, as well as chess/ domino tables, water features, etc., and accessible local cultural events like the event center in Rio Rancho. All of which are things you go to other cities to do and visit. Those are the things that you do when you’re in other places. So, let’s invest in those things. 4. ADJOURNMENT 4.1 Councilor Becky Corran moved, seconded by Councilor Johana Bencomo, to Adjourn at 2:26 p.m. RESULT: Carried MOVER: Councilor Becky Corran SECONDER: Councilor Johana Bencomo AYES: Councilor Johana Bencomo, Councilor Becky Corran, Mayor Eric Enriquez, Councilor Cassie McClure, and Councilor William Mattiace Mayor City Clerk