City Council Meeting August 4, 2025

MINUTES

City Council

Monday, August 4, 2025 @ 1:00 PM

City Council Chambers, City Hall

PRESENT: Mayor Eric Enriquez, Councilor Cassie McClure, Councilor William Mattiace, Councilor

Becki Graham, Councilor Johana Bencomo, Councilor Becky Corran, and Councilor Yvonne

Flores

ABSENT:

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

APPRECIATION/PROCLAMATIONS - COUNCILOR BENCOMO. None. 1.3 JOBS OF THE WEEK. Sarah Raney, Americas Job Centers of New Mexico presented Jobs of the Week. 1.4 PETS OF THE WEEK. Carol Nielson, Animal Services Center of the Mesilla Valley presented Pets of the

Week. 1.5 FY25 AUDIT ENTRANCE CONFERENCE PRESENTATION. Josh Saffell, Accounting Supervisor introduced the presentation.

Chris Garner, CPA gave the overhead presentation.

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

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

3. PUBLIC PARTICIPATION 3.1 Lynn Moorer, Member of the Public said it appears that Las Cruces Utilities staff and many of you on the dais may be in denial about the Lead and Copper Rule improvements mandate. It centerpieces that all service lines that distribute drinking water throughout the city must be accurately investigated to determine whether they are lead or galvanized requiring replacement. Both types of piping must be replaced.

This investigation is mandated to be thorough and provide proof that it is accurate.

The technique that the city uses for determining the nature of piping violates EPAs requirements and does not lead to accurate results. The city’s technique of merely looking in the meter box is deficient because it is not capable of identifying lead lined piping or a lead segment further up the line or dealing with a setter’s meter. It is not an evidence based technique that proves the piping is not lead or galvanized requiring replacement and lines must be visually inspected in at least two locations. Handout 1, spells out this EPA requirement. Because of its deficient technique none of the city’s investigations has credibility. Again because of this city’s deficient investigation technique none of the investigations across the city has credibility. It is troubling that the city displays no concern about doing it right and and making sure all hazardous lead pipes and galvanized pipes requiring replacement that feed into taxpayers’ properties are actually identified and removed. It seems that Las Cruces Utilities is in denial that there is a problem. The city is also in denial about how many galvanized requiring replacement pipes must be replaced, falsely claiming there are only two when there are at least 56. It appears that Las Cruces Utilities point person, Deputy

Director of Regulatory Compliance Steve Perez is also in denial about the challenges that the city faces to meet the legal mandate. He assured me that the city doesn’t have a lead pipe problem, and the city would get through the process in five years rather than ten. He implied that because the city doesn’t have any or many lead pipes that Las Cruces Utilities is just going through some of the required motions. It is a concern that Mr. Perez is not qualified for his compliance job. He is not an engineer and has little experience with water, nor does he have any legal education. Instead, his experience in education are predominantly in soil science and physical education, plus he has demonstrated little respect for the facts. He falsely denied to a caller that financial assistance was available for lead piping replacement when the notification letter clearly stated that it was. The city’s misguided decision to cook the books and disappear inventory records represents another form of denial. Denial of its responsibility to follow the law and make drinking water safe for all taxpayers. Please bring in an independent engineer with management experience to evaluate the city’s implementation of the new rule and make all findings public.

Liz Rodriguez-Johnson, Member of the Public said the disclaimer that Las Cruces

Utilities posted on its Lead and Copper Rule website proves a point we made some time ago. This pop-up which is the first thing you see when opening the website is clear evidence that the website can be modified to have the first pop-up be in English and Spanish statement directing how the website can be translated into Spanish and other languages. It should be done. The city can’t hide behind a disclaimer to avoid compliance with the rules so the disclaimer is doing nothing. It is not doing the city any good. It should be replaced with a statement in English and Spanish about how to translate the website. A Las Cruces Utilities memo used to request state funding

stated that the city would mobilize staff to areas with disadvantaged populations first.

Yet all of the information about disadvantaged populations was disappeared from the inventory in mid June. That indicates to me that disadvantaged populations in the city will not be prioritized for service line investigations as they should be and as promised. The city has at least 56 properties with galvanized piping requiring replacement as documented at the last meeting. However, the city has not provided the required notification to these property owners. EPA requires that owners with galvanized requiring replacement be notified within 30 days of the completion of inventory which was mid-October 2024. Handouts A and B are EPA documents that spell out this requirement. Owners of galvanized requiring replacement piping are to be treated just like owners of lead or unknown service lines. Those folks received letters last October, but the city says it does not plan to send any notification to galvanized piping requiring replacement property owners until the fourth quarter of this year. This is even though it knows that there is at least 56 property owners who need to be informed right away and this is unacceptable and also it violates the rule.

At your July 7th meeting I provided you with a handout showing 11 neighborhoods left out of the city’s inventory. The map indicates water hookups with either a green dot, a yellow triangle or a purple square. Now almost a month later nothing has been done to include any of these properties. Handout C shows 22 more neighborhoods that have been left out. These two handouts reflect hundreds of folks who have been ignored or forgotten by the city and this is just deplorable. Leaving large numbers of properties off the inventory looks like a trick among many the city is using to avoid finding lead or galvanized requiring replacement piping. The city needs at long last to bring in an independent engineer with management and experience to evaluate Las

Cruces Utilities compliance with the rule.

Lucas Herndon, Member of the Public said I am a resident of District 2. I wanted to take an opportunity for rare praise. I appreciated Chief Story’s comments recently around gaps in our system that have allowed for people who are suffering in a mental crisis to face the violence that currently our system only allows for the police respond to with said violence. In the last few weeks two similar instances have happened in

Albuquerque both of which resulted in the person being shot and killed by the police. I am not thrilled that the officer here in Las Cruces immediately drew his weapon and fired for better or for worse he missed, and the person has been taken into custody and now we have this situation where we have to figure out what to do and I realize that it is not just the city issue it is something that the state needs to address and as they say credit where credit is due and to that very specific end I just wanted to commend the Chief on his comments and I do agree. We need to do more as a state and as a people and as a community to address mental illness and people suffering from a mental crisis that does not involve the police being the people to show up when that happens.

Juan Garcia, Member of the Public said Carlos isn’t some outlier, he is what local business looks like. Remember when he first turned up asking for help? A small business on Missouri and Solano and every week got hit. Break-ins, smashed windows, spray paint, everywhere. It got so routine that it barely registered until at night someone decided to write a slur on his wall with of all thing’s human feces. That is where the city left him. This was a targeted hateful act and the thugs have returned.

Carlos isn’t alone. He is part of a group of small business owners who have faced the

same threats, the same fear and sense that nobody in power is willing to do anything about it. All of the while those who are supposed to represent people like Carlos at the city and state level don’t believe in accountability and consequences and instead “coddle the criminals”. Property is not all being destroyed, its trust, it is the feeling of safety. When leaders refuse to act people like Carlos get the message, you are on your own. The only person that has advocated for Carlos was Peter Goodman because Carlos’s representatives don’t care. This is where you see just how fake leaders are. Senator Hamblen felt some in the LGBT community were not giving credit for accomplishments and took to the media. Councilor Bencomo who supports illegal immigrants brought against deportation. Who rallies for Carlos? He is a native

Las Cruces and with deep faith he started stacking fruit in a grocery store, went to

Dona Ana Community College. His crime, if you may, is he worked hard to build a business, something to be celebrated but the people in charge don’t care about that.

Carlos never played the victim card or begged for handouts from politicians who loved to posture about equity. No headlines for him, no crowds in the street chanting his name, no upside down flags flying for how bad the broken criminal system grinds up guys like him and thousands of others in this community. He is just a regular guy scraping by to give his family a shot at the American dream. The same politicians who ignored Carlos turn actual criminals into martyrs, kids they call them even when they are sixteen, seventeen caught with guns, Fentanyl, deep in gang life. We are living in an upside-down world yet when it is time to pick up the pieces it is Carlos alone who is sweeping up the wreckage and shouldering the cost. The ones that should speak for him don’t care and never really cared for folks like him. He was never part of their story and now standing amid in the ruins of his business, he is left to wonder if he ever was.

Eddie Thomas, Member of the Public said I would like to start first of all by thanking

Mayor Pro Tem Bencomo for her quick response to the situation in front of my house on my street where the recent rains caused a buildup of very despicable algae formations on the curb due to the fact that there is no drainage in the Casa Lindas area just not too far here from the center of town. The next thing I want to call your attention to is an apology that I would like to make. The last time I was up here speaking I made reference to a rally, a benefit for ex-officer Brad Lunsford at the Farm and Ranch Museum. I made a mistake, and I called people out to go to the Farm and

Ranch that night. What happened is that I was looking at an old message, it was a week old, so I apologize to anybody who went out to Farm and Ranch and found nothing going on. That is how you do it City Council. You own up your mistake and you apologize for it. Next thing I want to bring up is the fact of my utter failure as a stand-up comedian. The last time I was here I made reference to being arrested and the procedures that might ensue if you ever have a reason to be arrested and I was just making a joke which nobody got and the only thing I was trying to shed light to is that Chief Story is tasked with fighting crime here we can’t leave that entirely up to him. Parents are the first offense against crime. It is the way that people, that kids are raised here. There is a culture of crime he has to fight as well and it begins with the parents. If we don’t raise our children right, they are going to get into these gangs.

They are going to be taught to resist arrest, they become adults who resist arrest, and we have the ensuing shootings and problems like we had a Young Park and most recently the person who got shot so this is what my point is. The parents need to get involved.

Jim Wilcox, Member of the Public said I keep coming back with kind of the same stuff.

Today I was mowing down some of that vegetation you know from all the rain, and I saw this one plant and I thought oh, is that a weed? Is the city going to get me for the weed thing? I haven’t heard back anything about the weed ordinance, and I want to remind you that Albuquerque has a really nice one and it’s got pictures of what you can’t have and what you can have and the other thing is I know some people are like well we are Las Cruces. Well, the thing to remember is federalism. Federalism means we look at other cities and other states and we say did it work for them? I don’t know where it is? I called the head of Codes, never heard back. I wouldn’t come here if somebody called me back and let me know what is going on, but I think we need something like what Albuquerque has and secondly I am the bicycle representative on the MPO for the Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee and so I am now representing myself on that committee and today I listened to the jobs report. I didn’t hear the Active Transportation Coordinator, and I know you guys want to see that happen. It has been five years that you have had that position open that I have been here. It is only been filled once. The last I heard is that you are revising the job description. At least the city was, and I used to work for the feds. I worked in Head

Start, in management, I worked for HUD Housing and management. We did job description revisions, just a revision would take us a couple of weeks. I don’t know where that is. So, if please if somebody could check on just those couple of things.

Maybe you could hire somebody who is an Active Transportation Coordinator/Weed guy. I appreciate your efforts on this. Look at Albuquerque, type in Albuquerque weed enforcement. You will see some really cool pictures of beautiful plants that are native plants. The ones they want to keep, the ones that bring the birds around you know the insects that the birds eat and that improves our landscape and think of that with the beautiful plants and a person riding by quietly on a bicycle because they think that this is such a great town and it is so quiet and serene, great vegetation, human powered, good for your health.

Belinda Contreras, Member of the Public said the concern I want to share this afternoon deals with children that reside in our state, in our county, and for the city of

Las Cruces. I assist children, our Las Cruces children find homes in which they can live in a safe environment. As a Resource Foster Care Recruitment Specialist for New

Mexico I am centered on finding homes for children. A lot of the children, my former students, fellow employees just call me Ms. B. As of July 2025, there are currently

125 kiddos of varying age in Dona Ana that need a home and place to stay. I am here to appeal to the kind and compassionate city of Las Cruces populus if you or anyone you may know would be willing to open your home and your heart to these kids please consider signing up with New Mexico Children, Youth and Family Department as a resource foster family, as a resource foster parent, as a mentor, maybe helping out in respite. Information and sign-up info can be located on our New Mexico CYFD website and again thank you for your consideration and your time on this important matter dealing with local children in need of a safe place to live.

Jorge Aguirre, Member of the Public said I am here because I am concerned with the upcoming wave of poverty that will likely sweep through our nation thanks to the successes of the federal administration. Americans from all backgrounds are about to have the rug pulled from under their feet and there is no safety net to catch them. The

jobs report that came out last Friday indicates that our economy is in decline. This means that we are going to see more people lose their jobs in the near future and we are going to see the prices of everyday items go up in price. Sometimes up to double and one of the most important of these primary items is of course access to housing.

This council has already done important work to allow more housing to be built and now we need additional steps to diversify the type of housing we allow. Of course, it would be amazing and necessary to be able to build complete apartments for everyone. All the 5,000 houses that we need, and we can probably even build them by the end of the year. But that is impossible and with additional poverty the housing crisis is about to grow out of proportion. We are running out of time, and we want to avoid having needy people unhoused on our streets, hordes of them. exposed of being taking by masked men and armed to the teeth and jailed in a camp somewhere without a trial. We would be able to avoid a lot of that by building an emergency shelter and allowing more sorts of housing like tiny homes and modular homes because the ones that we have right now are priced out of reach and like we already know they are about to double in cost. In addition to increased poverty natural disasters are on the rise and FEMA is being dismantled. We may not be the region that gets the disaster but we surely will receive refugees who lost everything everywhere else in the United States. We are on our own as a city and it is up to us to help ourselves before the housing crisis grows so much all of our other problems.

Tim Jenkins, Member of the Public said I would like to make you all aware of some staggering statistics. As of June 30th, 166 law enforcement officers have been shot in the line of duty in this country. That is an equivalent to one officer per day. I have gotten the opportunity this last month to spend a significant amount of time with our officers along with countless other concerned citizens and I have come to a clear understanding that our officers in this city are not supported, taken care of, or backed as they so desperately deserve to be. I have gotten to hear countless stories behind the scenes of what our officers hear in this community do to protect and to strengthen and to encourage this community. They are never asking or looking for any kind of recognition from no one but it is who they are from their hearts with a sincere commitment to the safety and wellbeing of this city and I would challenge this city council that we all as a whole begin to back and support our officers and fight to encourage and strengthen them as they fight daily for the safety and wellbeing of this city and I am going to challenge every single member on city council that each member on city council for the entire month of September nominate one officer in this community and reach out to that officer and email that officer and watch out for that officer and his family for the entire month to encourage and to strengthen officer and his family for their own good and their own wellbeing so that our officers understand that we are in the trenches fighting right alongside them for the same goal and the same purpose of making a safer city for all and I am also going to ask that from this day forward in council chambers that we no longer allow the progressives to publicly slander and ridicule our officers and to call them murderers for simply doing their job and I ask you Mr. Mayor that if this does begin to happen that you please immediately put it to a stop and do not allow it and I hope and pray to God that we can turn this city into a city that is known for proudly backing our police department and fighting with our officers for their safety and for their good as they so desperately deserve and need.

Jim Hoerst, Member of the Public said I guess I need to talk about two things. One is freedom of speech. First Amendment gives me the right to criticize police. Second issue, on my phone, which I am sure you can see very clearly, I am at the portal to register to vote by mail on a permanent basis. This website is maintained by the

Secretary of State. At this point I should be able to go to this webpage and get a ballot sent to me for every election for the rest of the time I live in New Mexico. It is not functional. We are 100 days out of the next election. I plan on working on campaigns and the success of all those campaigns will hinge on voter by mail turnout and on the off-year elections you are lucky to get 10% of the voters to turn out so voting by mail is essential and most likely the winner will hinge on participation in vote by mail. So, you guys have more influence with the Secretary of State than I do. I have yet to get a satisfactory answer from their IT Department, the Voting Department, or anyone else about why this is not functional so please call Mary Toulouse Oliver. Tell her how urgent this is. One hundred days is no time at all between now and an election.

Anybody involved in campaigns knows how quickly those 100 days go. Fortunately, you are working long hours, but it goes real fast. So please put pressure on her at this point to open this portal and some of your political fortunes depend upon it.

4. READ CLOSED MEETING STATEMENT 4.1 READ AUGUST 4, 2025 CLOSED MEETING STATEMENT INTO THE

RECORD. The Las Cruces City Council met in closed session and only discussed those limited items stated in the posted notice:

1. To discuss pending litigation regarding Erick Lopez v. City of Las Cruces, Case

No. A-1-CA-42539, which is pursuant to NMSA 1978, Section 10-15-1H(7).

2. To discuss threatened litigation in the matter of the wrongful death Estate of

Jason Gomez, which is closed pursuant to NMSA 1978, Section 10-15-1H(7).

5. ACCEPTANCE OF AGENDA to accept the agenda as presented with the removal of items 7.1 and 7.2 for discussion.

6. CITY COUNCIL MINUTES 6.1 REGULAR CITY COUNCIL MEETING OF JULY 7, 2025. 6.2 WORK SESSION OF JULY 14, 2025.

7. RESOLUTION(S) AND/OR ORDINANCE(S) FOR CONSENT AGENDA 7.1 RESOLUTION NO. 26-016: A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE CITY OF

LAS CRUCES (CITY) TO ACCEPT GRANT AWARDS FOR VARIOUS CITY

DEPARTMENTS THROUGH AN AMENDMENT TO THE CITY’S ADOPTED

FY2026 BUDGET AND FY2026 VEHICLE ACQUISITION LIST. Councilor Bencomo said I don’t need a full presentation. I just had a question about attachment B, the homelessness and behavioral health survey. If you could touch on

that? Really my question is who is leading this and if there is already a process set up for this?

Gabriela Prats, Grant Manager said this will be handled out of the City Manager’s

Office. Sergio Ruiz, Policy Analyst has been assigned to lead on this particular project for CMO.

Councilor Bencomo asked I am curious to know if there is a process already in place?

Mayor Enriquez said with this one it is a grant that was awarded by the Governor’s

Office to do a survey on homelessness and behavioral health services. So, what is going to take place is right now the process is to gather the stakeholders in the community, police, fire, mental health providers, homeless shelters, the hospitals, the court systems, education, businesses and bringing together to have a survey on the impact, the issues and the concerns with homelessness and behavioral health services. In addition to that the grant also provides for a public health coordinator to be contracted. It is still in the process of getting a strategic planner on board and then the position I think is going to be posted here soon for a public health coordinator that the City Manager’s Office will run that process and contract an individual to do that.

Councilor Bencomo asked will you or Sergio provide us more information? I just want to make sure that obviously like our housing team is also involved and I am glad you mentioned all the stakeholders. I am curious, last week I tuned into the Legislative

Finance Committee meeting where Secretary Nair presented because the Office of

Housing is now under Workforce Development and what was interesting about that presentation is that she sort of just really said I am not even going to talk to you about the problems, we all know the problems already I want to talk to you about the solutions and the gaps and I guess I don’t want to go backwards and I want to go forward in terms of what, we can talk about problems all day long. Frankly I feel like we have. What is the hope, the vision for this particular survey?

Mayor Enriquez said the hope and the vision and I will share that the housing, Natalie

Green was very instrumental in applying for this grant that we successfully obtained through the Governor’s Office and the hope is to discuss the issues, the concerns and what are results and we will also team up with NMSU and other members of the community that are already going out and doing a survey but compile that survey through this group so that we find those gaps that are falling within Las Cruces and start to look for best practices in solving some of these issues, concerns and problems that we are all facing.

Councilor Flores asked I have a question about the purpose, to develop and inform strategic plan and implement a comprehensive best practice process to meet the needs of persons experiencing homelessness? And $350,000 has been allocated?

Gabriela Prats said yes.

Councilor Flores asked has anybody done a study whether that is going to be enough?

Mayor Enriquez said that is the maximum that the grant was available, that is what we received. We asked for it and we did receive it so we will continue to work with what we have.

Gabriela Prats said plus that does provide additional information for us to look for grants in the future. When we have a strategic plan, it is a lot easier to know what we are looking for and also, we are more competitive in looking for additional funding to eventually implement programing so it is not a one quick answer grant. It is a first step.

Councilor Flores said we will see how far $350,000 takes us. I hope we are able to gather information that we can apply to remedy the situation because we have been talking and this is my eighth year on city council and same old, same old. This is not a criticism to anybody here, including me, but that is just the way the system works. I just want people to know that this is a tiny baby step.

Councilor Bencomo said I want to disagree that it is same old, same old. I actually think we actually have incredible staff and incredible stakeholders like the Community of Hope leading on this and so I would not say that it has been the same old, same old. Councilor Johana Bencomo moved, seconded by Councilor Becky Corran, to

Approve Resolution No. 26-016.

RESULT: Carried

MOVER: Councilor Johana Bencomo

SECONDER: Councilor Becky Corran

AYES: Mayor Eric Enriquez, Councilor Cassie McClure, Councilor William Mattiace,

Councilor Becki Graham, Councilor Johana Bencomo, Councilor Becky

Corran, and Councilor Yvonne Flores 7.2 COUNCIL BILL NO. 26-001; ORDINANCE NO. 3093: AN ORDINANCE

APPROVING VARIOUS ZONE CHANGES TO CORRESPOND TO THE

SONOMA RANCH EAST II MASTER PLAN AMENDMENT #5. THE MASTER

PLANNED AREA AFFECTED BY THE PROPOSED ZONE CHANGES

ENCOMPASSES APPROXIMATELY 122 ACRES AND IS GENERALLY

LOCATED NORTH OF SONORA SPRINGS BOULEVARD, SOUTH OF THE

SOUTH FORK OF THE ALAMEDA ARROYO, EAST OF PAGOSA HILLS

AVENUE/PETALUMA AVENUE, AND WEST OF MESA GRANDE DRIVE.

SUBMITTED BY SOUDER, MILLER AND ASSOCIATES ON BEHALF OF

SIERRA NORTE DEVELOPMENT, INC. (CASE 24CS0500130). Sara Gonzales, Interim Deputy Director, Community Development gave the overhead presentation.

Councilor Flores asked where is the map that shows the arroyos? Or do you have one? Or do you know where they would be?

Sara Gonzales said this area right here is going to map essentially one of the primary arroyos and then this is maintaining as well as the bottom portion for the area that is

going to be left as natural topography.

Councilor Flores asked how close is that arroyo to from the development and the building of homes?

Sara Gonzales said that is going to be within inside of those developments and so those areas will basically be mapped out and left out of those areas to be maintained as separate tracks.

Councilor Flores said the reason I am asking is because there has been two incidents, just recent ones. One was in fact, Mr. Sedillo and I were out in my district on White Sage, I think it was or Purple Sage and there were some problems with the arroyo. Mr. Sedillo was able to take care of it. They were very concerned because water was coming in through that thick wall that is built in those areas. I am not an engineer by any stretch but it seems to me that why would anybody build so close to an arroyo and the smart aleck reply I have gotten early on when I started on city council well we haven’t had the 100 year flood yet and I think that is cynical and I am not saying that this plan is cynical but I am worried about that and then I learned through a young woman who lives in my district whose parents used to live in that area and they had to move out because there was a flood and they lost their home.

The insurance company would not compensate them because they saw it as an act of

God so maybe we can do act of men and women where we don’t create those situations where people are losing their home and they moved back to Deming where they originally from and this young lady is studying in Colorado. That is my concern and that is something that I have spoken to you about and I just hope that we are not building that close and that is why I wanted to see where those arroyos were.

Paul Pompeo, Souder, Miller and Associates said on the map before you, there are two primary arroyos that runs on this property. One on the very south and one that bisects the southern portion of the property. We have mapped those, taken those into account, prepared the flood study and the boundary lines that create those arroyos are significantly away from them so as to prevent any kind of flood damage in the future.

Councilor Flores asked what is significantly not close to them? Isn’t that a relative term?

Paul Pompeo said in the mapping standards it is one foot above the 100-year flood plains so that elevation is mapped out and pushed away. Those areas are now set aside as open space. Quite significant on this map is the area to the south. We have not taken the arroyo out but gone all the way the escarpment all the way to the top and those areas are but out and removed from the development process and be left in perpetuity as open space.

Councilor Flores said I saw that but I think there was also that little note that maybe for further development. I am really concerned about that and I just have to put that on the record. I hope that it is closely monitored or watched or whatever. I am very passionate about this. It is hard to hear that someone lost their home. It is hard to

hear that people who live on White Sage or Purple Sage are worried about their homes, the water going into their homes and it has up to the wall, through the wall.

Councilor Corran said I am excited about this as I am about Mesa Grande Road and all the things that are happening there. My day job office is off of Calle Jitas and I know that I have students who would love to live in walking distance to the community college there, so this is an exciting addition and change to the area. One question that

I did just want to quickly follow up or raise just to sort of just to keep a finger on is that

I know that the neighborhood knew about this plan and really see it coming and support it but I think there is some concern about how much chaos the construction will add to so I am wondering if anyone could have just sort of flag that in hope that the neighborhood would have sort of construction driving and all of the associated activities are sort of managed which I believe they will be but I just want to elevate that concern on behalf of the neighbors that are in the area as the area develops.

Sara Gonzales said we do have traffic control plans whenever sites are being simply redeveloped or under construction so as part of that process, we do ensure that neighbors are notified when roads are going to be used or basically the area is going to be under construction. The next step in the process will be to notify the neighbors of the plans coming forward. So, there is still going to be another public hearing to let everyone know when the subdivision is actually going to be prepared and for construction and so this is just the first phase so there will be multiple phases happening to where the public will be notified as well.

Councilor Corran said that is great. I hope that is reassuring to some of the people in the neighborhood that to hear that not only hear things specifically related to them but that they will have another chance to weigh in so thank you again.

Councilor Flores said I was trying to think how someone coming in from not living in

Las Cruces and therefore did not attend the meetings. I think the meetings were attended by people who live in the surrounding areas to express their concerns regarding the building of those homes and not the objective conditions that are near those homes. So, would there be any way that the property that is sold along the arroyo well pretty much that whole area could get a buyer beware warning?

Sara Gonzales said during the process whenever it is subdivided that area will be designated as a track so if someone were to come in and look at a property as well as our realtors who are selling lots, they already have that as a disclosure that it is located next to an essentially open space. A lot of times that when you look at land and it is knowing what is around you and doing that due diligence. The best way we can do this is by the platting process, understanding what is there and then informing everybody as they are coming in. Once again, the best process is still working with staff to come in and work with us and let us know what is in your surrounding area and know what is on the property. It will be designated on a plat. That is what is provided to you whenever you close on a home during your closing paperwork, but it is up to the owner to understand what that really means and get clarification when those come in.

Councilor Flores said I think most people aren’t educated in reading those contracts and they trust the realtor with all due respect to realtors. You are aware of that one family, there is that gated community and the homes are right next to the arroyo and it was dry and then a flood came and it just went up so high that the home actually was flooded and the people there lost their home and subsequently they were older, like

80 or 90 and he died of a heart attack and she had to move out and she had to move out. I think she moved in with her children I don’t know. But that was a tragic story I heard when I was running for city council and that just stayed in my mind, and I can’t imagine being in that situation. So that is why I bring it up and it is not a criticism of anything or anybody it is just a concern that I have.

Sara Gonzales said we do a lot in order to update our maps so it is reflected on our zoning maps when people are looking at properties. We designate our open spaces so that people understand that it may be a park or it may be in arroyo and it may impact you. With us going to our new code we definitely identify things that are drainage structures as opposed to park structures to try and inform the public a little bit better. It is a little bit easier to know what they are adjacent to and around.

Councilor Mattiace asked I noticed that this is under the 2001 Development Code, could you explain the reasoning?

Sara Gonzales said the process started in the 2001 zoning code because there was a petition submitted at the time of Realize and in order to not lose any momentum the applicant chose to continue to move forward with the 2001 zoning code. If there was ever a case or a clause when they would choose not to move forward, they would have the zone change once implemented and in place. From here we can work with the applicant to move into our Realize Las Cruces Code where the zoning can be modified and changed.

Councilor Mattiace asked what utilities will be provided in the new subdivision? Will there be natural gas hookups?

Paul Pompeo said there will be water, sewer, and gas provided by the City of Las

Cruces for this development.

Mayor Enriquez asked I know Councilor Flores brought up the issues, the arroyos, flooding, running water, and things but just east of that is there not a dam already that is existing?

Paul Pompeo said yes there is a dam associated to the east. However, that dam does not modify our controlled flows that go through this particular property. As I stated previously, there are two major arroyos that flow through the southern side of this property and those have been mapped, not by myself actually in conjunction with the city’s East Sports Complex. That study was prepared for the city of Las Cruces by another engineering firm. We have taken that flood data, projected it through this property and that is what the basis of the mapping is before you.

Tim Jenkins, Member of the Public said this is just a little side note. I live out there in

the Sonoma Ranch area and just for you guys to know I sent pictures to Chris this morning but up there at Sonoma Springs and Calle Corte, at that intersection we got 2 inches of rain in less than an hour last week and all the water from the Sports

Complex came down into the neighborhood in to the middle of that intersection and we had four and half feet of water. It is a major concern to me that something is not right about the engineering out in that Sports Complex area and I sent Chris pictures, but I think that needs to be addressed. It seems like we have got a major problem.

Grant Eggert, Member of the Public said I live on Monument Court which is adjacent to this change. Along these heavy rains, along Calle Jitas Boulevard we have an incredible amount of mud and dirt going into the neighborhoods from this area and my proposal is to build a wall and create a drainage pond in the corner there so that we can capture the water and we won’t have the mud going into the neighborhoods that we would just have water. I am really excited for this project. In my backyard I see a nice mound of dirt and then beautiful mountains so I would like to have a big wall or desert landscaping or something and also keep the beautiful mountains. I think they just need to do something about the water situation.

Diane Starbuck, Member of the Public said I live on Petaluma Avenue so this is really going to affect our neighborhood. I share the same concerns as Councilwoman Flores about the arroyos. In the northwest corner that is the newest development, that big swath of open you see is an arroyo and I recently learned that our HOA is responsible for that. It has had erosion problems since it was built, which have always been fixed but it seems that every time it rains there is a washout. The water is not running down the middle of the arroyo, it is running down on the northern side closer to the new homes which back up to a rock wall. So, I am concerned about the arroyos and

HOA’s responsibility, essentially us the homeowners are having to pay for the arroyos. The signs for the zoning changes were posted along Pagosa Hills. That is the south side of Calle Jitas and there were none that I could see north of Calle Jitas and that is the first area to be developed. So, I was a little concerned about that but most of my neighbors that I spoke to they did receive letters from the city telling them what was going on. So that was good. Calle Jitas is not 100 feet all the way out. After you pass Petaluma it is one lane that goes nowhere so I am hoping that is the part that is going to be built out for construction vehicles and while I appreciate notification of construction vehicles on my road I would prefer that there would be none at all.

Kate Wagley, Member of the Public said I live on Pagosa Hills Avenue so this is probably a good time for me to talk. We are concerned about the linking, not only during the construction period but where traffic will go once all of this is built out and

Pagosa Hills Avenue is a single lane road, and we are concerned that all of the traffic will go up and down Pagosa Hills Avenue coming in from three different arterials. So, we would hope and recommend that those arterials lead directly into the new developments rather than directing around and through the smaller streets. That is a big issue.

Liz, Member of the Public said my house is right in front of Pagosa Hills too so this is going to affect me. I have a couple of questions. I am wondering what the difference is between open space and natural conservative space is? And how many acres are

you allowing for each of those things? And my other concern is that we do have bus stops on Pagosa Hills and how is this construction and traffic? The traffic speed limit is 25. They don’t go 25. It is not going to get any better with the extra traffic.

Sara Gonzales said you have open space, that is going to be your arroyos that is going to be designated as drainage areas. You also have open space that is natural which means they are not disturbed at all. Arroyos are generally not disturbed but there may be embankments that basically protect homes or protect properties and so there may be just a regular disturbance in just flow patterns, but they are still considered open space. They are non to be touched. They are to be maintained or directed in those areas. When you are dealing with just open space for drainage a lot of times you would tend to see drainage ponds. So, they may have slopes that are protected. There may be riffraff that may be put into the end of them so that the water can actually slow down. It depends on how they are actually developed and built.

Each one serves a different purpose as to maintaining the water that they are actually encompassing.

Councilor Flores said my concern is that, I guess this is a done deal but there has to be some kind of buyer beware notices going out to perspective buyers or the residents because you can’t control where water goes. You may say we are going to put a wall up to keep the water from going, well the water can rise above the wall or it can seep under the wall and/or the arroyo can go a direction that you think it wouldn’t go there because the dry arroyo has been there forever and then the water comes in and then there is a new design in that flow so I don’t know how planners do it. I don’t know how engineers look at it. How do you plan on mother nature or whatever you want to call it, water, you just can’t put it in a tube like in a playground place? This is real water, you can’t channel it.

Paul Pompeo said your point is well taken. One of the bigger issues that has caused problems from the past is trying to control or redirect mother nature and under current thinking we don’t mess with mother nature. So, what you see as far as what is delineated on the map is going through accurately mapping where the arroyos are flowing now with a slight set back as simply staying away from the arroyos. In other words, there is no realignment we are not making them narrow we are not basically touching them at all. Leave mother nature alone and let the arroyos be where they naturally exist at.

Councilor Flores said I understand what you are saying. I don’t think you understand what I am saying. I am saying that irrespective of how you have planned it with all due respect the water is going to have a mind of its own and that is a part I am concerned about because that is a situation that happened to that elderly couple over in that gated community where the water rose so high that when I went to go look at it I couldn’t believe that their home was flooded. So that is my point, and I just wanted to say that loud and clear. I think there has to be buyer beware type of notification for prospective buyers. Otherwise, I think it is unethical and immoral.

Paul Pompeo said now days we run the flow down the arroyos, we put safety factors in and what you have seen in the past is where we get into issues that you speak of

and I know exactly where you are speaking of is when you try to control the arroyo or channelize the arroyo or convince the arroyo of water to go another direction. Current thinking is we just stay away from the arroyos, give an ounce or a little more for factors of safety but stay away from the flow paths because that is where they have been flowing for a million years. Just stay away from it, that is the current thinking and that keeps us out of trouble for the situation that you have described.

Councilor Johana Bencomo moved, seconded by Councilor Becky Corran, to

Approve Ordinance No. 3093.

Councilor Becki Graham, Councilor Johana Bencomo, and Councilor Becky

Corran

NAYS: Councilor Yvonne Flores

8. RESOLUTION(S) AND/OR ORDINANCE(S) FOR DISCUSSION 8.1 PUBLIC HEARING REQUIRED. RESOLUTION NO. 26-017: A

RESOLUTION APPROVING THE REQUEST FOR A TRANSFER OF

OWNERSHIP AND CHANGE OF LOCATION OF DISPENSER LIQUOR

LICENSE NO. DIS-001140 WITH ON PREMISES CONSUMPTION ONLY

WITH PATIO SERVICE TO LAS CRUCES HOTEL MANAGEMENT

CORPORATION, D/B/A HOTEL ENCANTO DE LAS CRUCES LOCATED AT

705 S. TELSHOR BOULEVARD, LAS CRUCES, NM. 88011. Public hearing began at 2:28 p.m. There was no one for or against. Public hearing ended at 2:28 p.m.

Adam Ochoa, Senior Urban Planner gave the overhead presentation. Councilor Johana Bencomo moved, seconded by Councilor Becky Corran, to

Approve Resolution No. 26-017.

Corran, and Councilor Yvonne Flores 8.2 RESOLUTION NO. 26-018: A RESOLUTION ADOPTING A FOUR-YEAR

STRATEGY FOR EXPENDITURE OF FUNDS FROM THE TELSHOR

FACILITY FUND OR OTHER APPROPRIATE FUNDING SOURCES FOR

HEALTH-RELATED PUBLIC SERVICES. Sylvia Caldera, Housing and Neighborhood Services Program Specialist gave the overhead presentation.

Adolfo Cardenas, Accounting Supervisor continued the presentation.

Councilor McClure asked is this where we were giving out sort of flat fees for every

non-profit that applied at one point?

Natalie Green, Housing and Neighborhood Revitalization Administrator said the committee has historically given the same funding for each non-profit through the competitive process.

Councilor McClure said this just reminded me that if I wanted to suggest something it would be going for greatest need and I am not sure if that has the most impact, so I just wanted the community to be very aware of it. Maybe funneling more to certain things would be more helpful.

Councilor Flores asked the Telshor Fund, I am okay with keeping my checkbook on check but I am not okay with millions of dollars but what exactly are we doing today that is different from what we have done in the past? Don’t we allocate monies to worthwhile entities, non-profits?

Adolfo Cardenas said as of June 30, 2025, every investment that is in that fund is invested in the state investment council. The reason for that is because it is available.

It is available for budget, for commitments, so let’s say that we invested in TIDD builds for instance, that money would not be available, the reason as of June 30th everything is in the state investment council because it is available in case something is needed you can just pull it for that project.

Natalie Green said today’s action authorizes the health-related public service program for four years so normally we do that competitive application process in the fall but we don’t want to do that until council has made the commitment to be able to fund this program for the next couple of fiscal years. So that is what today’s action is.

Councilor Flores asked the numbers we see here are $44 million plus, that is all of the money in the Telshor Fund right now?

Adolfo Cardenas said as of June 30, 2025, that is the actual cash balance.

Councilor Flores asked is this being distributed to different entities or different ways of doing it or how does it change the way we have been doing it for the last 7/8 years?

Natalie Green said the bulk of the funding for the Telshor Fund is in an investment account and it generates interest and so the cash balance so to speak, it is almost like stock if we were to sell all of our stock that would be the value of the day that we sold it. That can vary from time to time. So, we take the investment income or in this case up a portion to $600,000 and we run a competitive application process and then we come every year in May before our budget adoption and allocate up to $600,000 to our local non-profits for services to the public.

Councilor Flores asked this is money that is interest money, so it is going to be spent accordingly?

Natalie Green said if the resolution is approved today, we will take up to $600,000 of the interest earned for the next four years and award that to local area non-profits providing services.

Councilor Flores asked the usual services, or the mental health?

Natalie Green said it would have to be direct services to public that meets the definition of both the health related public service programs and the anti-donation exception.

Councilor Flores asked don’t we already do that? That is where the Telshor money goes, those entities. Is it going to expand to more entities for more services?

Natalie Green said council approved this program for four years and it has since expired so we are just renewing council desire to continue to fund this. So should it not be approved we would not do the process.

Councilor Corran said just to follow what my fellow council members have said, $44 million produces significantly more than $600,000 of interest every year. Correct? Is that part of this graph that we are seeing here?

Adolfo Cardenas said yes, it’s $44 million and as you can see fiscal year 2025 on the investment income and on the capital appreciation for that year it was a little bit more than $4 million.

Councilor Corran said in theory the Telshor Fund is helping community needs but we are throttling it by keeping it at $600,000 and I guess I am asking this not necessarily about this particular topic, but I am asking sort of philosophically why? I remember when we moved from $400,000 to $600,000 and there was actually less in the

Telshor Fund at that time than there is now and I guess my question really is one of both function and sort of what are we doing here with $600,000 which I tend to agree that I don’t think that $33,000 for each of those community organizations which I am really glad we do, I don’t think it is enough in most cases. I think most of those community organizations could use more and so I guess I am sort of asking us maybe not as a function of a question but as a function $4 million a year in interest in addition to I know things like loans that come from the Telshor Fund are also being paid back.

We are back filling a lot of things. I am just interrogating I guess why $600,000 and why not more because it feels a little weak and hoarding to me to only distribute $600,000 a year. I am just sort of expressing that. Not that I am not opposed to authorizing, does this commit us to $600,000 for the next four years?

Adolfo Cardenas said we need to keep in mind that is the actual as of June 30th, this fund already has commitments for fiscal year 2026 and the commitments for fiscal year 2026 is up to $24 million. So, if we take those into consideration and in reality, we need to subtract those $24 million out of the $44 million.

Councilor Corran said even if we assume a regular, similar return that would be $2 million of interest that we would get from the remaining amount so that still seems like

a pretty big difference between $600,000 and $2 million. So, I get it, and I understand all of that and I am not trying to be difficult here I just think holding onto cash when community agencies could really use it seems like not that great of an idea.

Natalie Green said part of our feedback loop to council especially during the budget process is to ensure that there is still sufficient funds in the Telshor. While this sets sort of the baseline in theory council could allocate it additional funding should the

Telshor see an increase or a decrease so that we can work with our finance in the upcoming budget year to make those considerations or at least give you that reporting annually so that council could make an informed decision.

Councilor Corran said I would really appreciate to know the gap of what we are making in interest and how much we are distributing to folks when we have these upcoming conversations. Councilor Becki Graham moved, seconded by Councilor Becky Corran, to

Approve Resolution No. 26-018.

MOVER: Councilor Becki Graham

Corran, and Councilor Yvonne Flores 8.3 RESOLUTION NO. 26-019: A RESOLUTION APPROVING A $6M HOUSING

TRUST FUND LOAN AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE CITY AND

PEACHTREE CANYON APARTMENTS II LLLP FOR AFFORDABLE

HOUSING DEVELOPMENT. Jan Lauterbach, Housing and Neighborhood Manager gave the overhead presentation.

Councilor Flores asked is this for middle income people?

Jan Lauterbach said all tenants in this complex would be earning up to 60% of area median income.

Councilor Flores asked which is what? Do you have that number?

Jan Lauterbach said yes. Right now, we are looking at let’s say for a household size of 4 we are looking at $42,420. So, you would be earning less than that.

Tom Andrews, Thomas Development Group said really appreciate the cooperation and the support from the City of Las Cruces to support this type of housing project. It is a unique combination of federal, state, and local funds and these projects don’t happen unless there is this type of community support and recognition of housing in their community. Phase I is a little over 50% complete. We expect to break ground in phase II early September at this point. The weather seems to be holding, and we think we are going to start making some really good progress on both projects. Councilor Becky Corran moved, seconded by Councilor Johana Bencomo, to

Approve Resolution No. 26-019.

MOVER: Councilor Becky Corran

SECONDER: Councilor Johana Bencomo

Corran, and Councilor Yvonne Flores 8.4 RESOLUTION NO. 26-020: A RESOLUTION APPROVING AN

AFFORDABLE HOUSING GRANT AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE CITY OF

LAS CRUCES AND TIERRA DEL SOL HOUSING CORPORATION FOR

DEVELOPMENT OF INFRASTRUCTURE OF SKYLARK SUBDIVISION 5401

CENTRAL, LAS CRUCES, NEW MEXICO 88012. Natalie Green, Housing and Neighborhood Revitalization Administrator gave the overhead presentation.

Councilor Bencomo asked I think I sneezed, and you said the number of units?

Natalie Green said 32 lots. Councilor Becki Graham moved, seconded by Councilor Johana Bencomo, to

Approve Resolution No. 26-020.

Corran, and Councilor Yvonne Flores 8.5 RESOLUTION NO. 26-021: A RESOLUTION APPROVING AN

LAS CRUCES AND NORTHWEST INTEGRITY HOUSING CO. FOR THE

MULTI-FAMILY AFFORDABLE HOUSING PEDRENA APARTMENT

COMPLEX Natalie Green, Housing and Neighborhood Revitalization Administrator gave the overhead presentation.

Councilor Mattiace said Natalie and the Housing Department even though I have not been here to see all the ingredients that went into these hamburgers ultimately it looks like it is going to be a good product, and I just want to say thank you for quite an improvement in District 2 for this senior development. It looks really good. I think it is going to be quite an asset.

Councilor Flores said I just want to thank you. I think that you are distributing funds all over the place and making homes available for people that would otherwise wouldn’t have them.

Natalie Green said it is certainly a team effort between both council and the staff and then of course our partners at the state who are funding many of these projects. Councilor Johana Bencomo moved, seconded by Councilor Becky Corran, to

Approve Resolution No. 26-021.

Corran, and Councilor Yvonne Flores 8.6 RESOLUTION NO. 26-022: A RESOLUTION APPROVING A REAL ESTATE

PURCHASE AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE CITY OF LAS CRUCES AND

SIERRA NORTE LAND HOLDINGS, LLC FOR THE PURCHASE OF AN

11.797 ACRE SUBDIVISION LOCATED NORTH OF PEACHTREE HILLS

ROAD AND WEST OF RED HAWK GOLF ROAD FOR THE PURCHASE

PRICE OF THREE MILLION TWO HUNDRED FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS ($3,250,000). Diane Bustillos, Real Estate Specialist gave the overhead presentation.

Councilor Flores asked who owns the holding company, do you know?

John Moscato, Member of the Public said the owners of Sierra Norte Land Holdings are Royal Jones, Dean Rigg, and myself.

Councilor Mattiace asked explain to me how it brings wealth building opportunities for the Las Cruces residents? Maybe you could just expand on that statement?

Natalie Green, Housing and Neighborhood Revitalization Administrator said we will work with our non-profit partners to do homeownership programs for first time homebuyers. Often times the home is their largest asset and then part of the purchase we will either subsidize a portion of the purchase through the land cost and it creates equity and wealth within their home. Your home becomes your asset, you have unrealized equity until you sell it but often times it is very much a hand-up for our first time home buyer families who otherwise wouldn’t become homeowners. It will be a similar program to Skylark just we are buying an as built subdivision.

Councilor Mattiace asked do you see any risk at all in this particular budget?

Natalie Green said our single-family ownership program has been one of the most successful. If there was a foreclosure, like market foreclosures are somewhere between 7% and 10%, our affordable housing programs are less than 1% of 1% for foreclosure rates. I don’t know if Rose is still here, but I think in all our time we have only seen maybe one foreclosure and it is because that person died. We see very little turnover in our homeownership program.

Councilor Bencomo said I don’t have a question, I just want to put a real fine pin on what just happened here today on the last four items. That is 452 new units of housing for our community. I know that what we did today was just part of the process. We have been talking about these for a long time, but I just wanted to highlight and underscore the power of that. The power of your team and the power of partnerships in this community and the commitment that we have to addressing our

housing crisis and so I just want to elevate that because it is really powerful.

Councilor Graham said I also want to point out we are talking about all different kinds of housing unit options. We have single family homes, we have multifamily homes, we have a community dedicated to seniors. So also pointing out housing is never a monolith, and I just want to applaud the work that we are all doing together as a community to recognize that.

Councilor Becky Corran moved, seconded by Councilor Johana Bencomo, to

Approve Resolution No. 26-022.

Corran, and Councilor Yvonne Flores 8.7 COUNCIL BILL NO. 26-002; ORDINANCE NO. 3094: AN ORDINANCE

FORMALLY APPROVING A COMMUNITY ENERGY EFFICIENCY

DEVELOPMENT (CEED) BLOCK GRANT FROM THE NEW MEXICO STATE

ENERGY, MINERALS AND NATURAL RESOURCES DEPARTMENT. Gabriela Prats, Grants Manager gave the overhead presentation.

Councilor Graham said I just want to point out how amazing this program is. If you read down into the weeds. First of all, we are working with a bunch of community partners. We are targeting the infill development overlay, I believe, those thirteen thousand or so they are not all going to get this but one thing that really jumped out to me is that one of our partners is DACC. This is also going to be some workforce development. I don’t know if you want to talk about that a little bit or I am happy to.

Jenny Hernandez, Sustainability Officer said there are lots of different layers to this project. You all may know it as Plug in for Good. Essentially this is the vehicle to fund our Plug in for Good Program and so there is a workforce component to it.

Unfortunately, we have an additional grant that would pay for the workforce component that we have lost due to the administration change and so we have some funding in our fiscal year 26 budget that you all have approved that will still support the workforce program and it is in partnership with DACC, specifically the audit portion. We were able to get them certified to be able to train auditors which this program needs and so their auditor program will actually be serving as the auditing component of this program and we hope and are working diligently with our grants team to find additional funding so that we can continue to expand on that and offer the additional services that we had planned and hoped and anticipated to which would be to actually pay for some of the testing. It can be really expensive sometimes for that testing and additional certifications for the installation of these products. For example, when you are installing heat pumps, you can be like, it depends across the brand, you can be certified in the specific brand. We had wanted to help pay for those certifications as well to the workforce that would be doing this work and we are targeting small businesses and so our hope is that we can work with mom and pop shops and really develop their skill set so that they can then be poised to apply for

bigger projects that the city has to offer later and so this would really open a kind of entry point for them to get familiar with our processes but also give them the resources to then be able to hopefully expand their business and tap into some city projects later on.

Councilor Graham asked when you say audit, you mean the energy audits, correct?

Jenny Hernandez said yes, the energy audits.

Councilor Graham asked can you explain what an energy audit provides to a household?

Jenny Hernandez said we have steps that we will take in this process. First the resident has to apply. They do have to be low income and so we will walk them through that process to make sure that they qualify and then we will schedule them for an energy audit. So essentially what an energy audit is, we go into their home, run some tests to see how effective their current unit is working and so obviously they don’t need a new unit we won’t put one in and then to see how leaky their house is and so when I mean leaky I mean is there any energy escaping from their house through the windows, through their doors and can we help them better insulate their house so when we put on a new AC unit they are not wasting energy and their utility bills aren’t rising and so that test that will really give us all those answers to understand exactly what we need to do in the house and kind of shape the scope of work that we would then ask the small businesses to help us with and so that is why it is super critical to have that energy audit component first because we don’t want to do worse in people’s homes. We want to make sure we are improving them correctly based on the kind of science behind an energy audit.

Councilor Corran said I would just add that these arguably should get added to the total because this makes folks homes more livable. I think, and really is doing something really important to keep people in their homes in the face of things, but I just wanted to add I had DACC graduates of this program that did an energy audit at my house. So as Jenny sort of outlined they come to your house and point out the things, they attach like a big vacuum blower to your house and suck out all the air and then measure how much the air gets exchanged within your house I think is the very basic science of my understanding of what happened and then they go around and measure she said leaky things. In my house almost every single one of my electrical outlets was just bleeding air. So, like burning hot air was coming through my electrical outlets because they weren’t really very well insulated and just after I had this audit my exchange rate was 9 and I think the ideal exchange rate is like 4. Everyone else that they had ever done was 11. So, if you all have the opportunity to do this that is what you should shoot for, less than 11. Anywhere less than that is what you should hope for, but it was really helpful for me because it did give me places where I could make very small changes in my house in just putting certain types of insulation on things and it was students from DACC audit program who had just completed it and it was a very cool process. I just want to say thank you for advocating for this and please keep us posted on how it goes because I do think this is a way for people to stay in their homes and afford their homes and continue to remain in place as long as

they possibly can so thank you Jenny for your leadership on this. I really appreciate what you all are doing.

Councilor Mattiace said I just have some questions on going in and doing the energy audits and making it less expensive for homeowners to operate their home. There is no bias in the call of the homeowner. Let’s say they wanted to go all gas or all electric, all solar, in other words that is open to the homeowner, correct? In other words, this particular funding doesn’t necessarily lean towards the Decarbonization Act, does it, or not at all?

Jenny Hernandez said so we have specific requirements with this grant that we have to meet. One of those is that we do and if they are eligible and the home is deemed a good fit, we do have to put in a heat pump. That is a part of this source of funding.

However, we will not go in and electrify any other appliance unless funding is available after the remaining of what each house gets allocated, and they are deemed a good fit and so the only other appliance that we are considering is a heat pump water heater and that again there are very certain things that make that an easy option. I can give you an example, we have already started pre-vetting some residents for this program and a lot of them have an electric water heater already but it is not good and it is older and it is on its way out and so they would be a good candidate to get a heat pump water heater. So, if we have funding left over there is an option for that to be done but that is the only other electric appliance that we are considering as an opportunity but the heat pump is an electric heat pump because it provides both heating and cooling using electricity.

Councilor Mattiace said that was my concern, the message to all the residents in Las

Cruces is that they will always have the choice. In other words, they will have the choice whether they want natural gas, whether they want electricity, solar. The choice will not be taken away from them in using grants or using persuasive methods of installation. You know sometimes we tell people that an all-electric home is less to operate and that is not true in other words a gas operated home is less expensive for people that are on less income and so I didn’t want to take that option away from them because that is what we are all concerned about is affordable housing and affordable living and having people actually be able to live with less expenses in their home. It is good to hear that it is not a plan to go all electric, so I appreciate you saying that, thank you.

Jenny Hernandez said I just want to note that we are very sensitive to that in that the grant also if you want to get really technical, the grant requires an SIR, which is a savings to investment ratio for a certain number which would make us do an analysis to make sure that we are not increasing utility cost and if we are there is a deep dive that we have to go on justification and in some instances depending on what kind of unit they have it can create a utility increase but in those instances we have already signed up or saved spots for all our thirty residents of this program if they are interested and want to sign up for community solar which will guarantee them a reduction of energy savings per month and so again we will have to do analysis to make sure that is not happening but that is a component of the grant. We are very sensitive to that.

Councilor Mattiace said that is good that all the alternatives are available. You know that they have a choice.

Lucas Herndon, Member of the Public said I am the Energy Policy Director of

Progress Now New Mexico, the title I have had for eight years, and I am very excited for this city to take advantage of this CEED grant. I was actively involved in passing the bones of the project in 2022, as well as for the funding for it this year through the

Community Benefits Fund. I am just really over the moon to see the city that I live in that I call home take advantage of something that I have fought for at the state level and to the Councilor’s point earlier this is providing affordable housing for people who already own their homes. Statistically for people who already own a home it is not only their greatest asset but also their greatest expense and usually that expense has to do with the utilities and the upkeep of the home and so providing this funding to make it more affordable to live in your home is wonderful and just to the point that was being spoken about I would remind Councilor Mattiace that according to the LCOE, the Levelized Cost of Electricity in the United States right now, the most affordable energy that comes from onshore wind at $27, next to solar PV, solar energy which is $29 and then the next closest is gas combined cycle of $45. So, it is actually far more affordable to draw in electrical energy from renewable sources in the United States across all points of energy production and so if we are talking about making living in your home affordable than electrifying it. Great job, kudos, thanks, keep going, appreciate all the work you are doing. Councilor Becky Corran moved, seconded by Councilor Johana Bencomo, to

Approve Ordinance No. 3094.

Corran, and Councilor Yvonne Flores

9. BOARD APPOINTMENTS 9.1 FERNANDO BAEZA Councilor Becky Corran moved, seconded by Councilor Yvonne Flores, to appoint Fernando Baeza to the Historic Preservation Committee.

SECONDER: Councilor Yvonne Flores

Corran, and Councilor Yvonne Flores 9.2 NORMA HARTELL Councilor Becky Corran moved, seconded by Councilor Becki Graham, to appoint Norma Hartell to the Historic Preservation Committee.

SECONDER: Councilor Becki Graham

Corran, and Councilor Yvonne Flores 9.3 ROSANNA TORRES Councilor Johana Bencomo moved, seconded by Councilor Cassie McClure, to appoint Rosanna Torres to the Historic Preservation Committee.

SECONDER: Councilor Cassie McClure

Corran, and Councilor Yvonne Flores 9.4 JEREMY WILLIAMS Councilor Becki Graham moved, seconded by Councilor Becky Corran, to appoint Jeremy Williams to the Parks & Rec Advisory Board.

10. 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). 10.1 None.

11. CITY COUNCIL MEMBER BOARD REPORTS AND COMMENT 11.1 COUNCILOR MCCLURE I want to do a shoutout to Project LIGHT, particularly Wes Smith and Mindy Fowler who came to speak at the Juvenile Justice Continuum. They dug into their call stats and shared that one out of four calls involved the ages between zero and eighteen and how call volume changes between the time kids get out of school and when parents come home. Spoiler, it is way higher when parents come home. Chief

Daniels, I would really love for the presentation and more if possible shared with the full council when Wes thinks it is ready.

I want to share about two other meetings I have had. The first was with Las Cruces

Recovery Center. They spoke about the success they have seen with their clients struggling with addiction. The struggle the center has had is finding sober living options for those transitioning out of their care. They asked me, is there anything the city can do and what would that look like with their help? Their clients need more housing options but Las Cruces as a whole needs more options for rapidly housing many different populations. This bubbled up again when I went to the Criminal Justice

Coordinating Council meeting, a statistic from its strategic plan that in 2024, out of the

849 cases of domestic abuses actually made it to trial, only 29 had successful outcomes and I am a little dubious of what that means. That is .03%. The top reason for not progressing was the unwillingness for victims or witnesses to testify. Which is completely understandable but what if those victims had more options for leaving, for housing? Would that have helped? Which victims stay because they have no place to go quickly? Sort of a sidebar from my regularly programed speech here is that we got an email from La Casa yesterday that said, “we are looking to connect with fellow community leaders and advocates for expanded domestic violence services and shelter in Dona Ana County.” They need options. We need options. We need to look at more options for housing. The conversations I have had with staff on things like tiny home villages, emergency shelters, or pilot homes have alluded to the financial risk of these temporary investments. They are right, they are not supposed to be long-term investments or complete solutions. They are transitions from one situation to the next.

A welcoming place until we continue to work on our traditional housing stock over the next few years with developers and legislators much like we have seen today and aren’t we a welcoming city? We are. We have seen that through the migrant crisis of

2019, but we will start to see more refugees, not from other countries but other states.

Maybe they come because they are pregnant and denied prenatal care like in

Tennessee because they are not married. Maybe they are trans and need to give up a life in Florida and receive health care here. They are starting from scratch. Maybe they are a college student whose grant funded job was cut by a federal mandate, and they can’t make up the cost for their room in their shared apartment but and hey they still have their job, no they just have their car. We need options. They need options.

Along with the financial cost and the risk of considering more options I ask what is the cost of inaction? What ripples happen in a community when a child watches a parent be beaten because they have nowhere to go? What happens when a Veteran is on a yearlong housing waiting list? Do they debate if they wait that long? What if they don’t stay with us? What if someone in early sobriety has to return to their previous unstable environment without support? Will Project LIGHT get that call? I would like to make a different call. I would like to call for a Work Session before the end of the year to see how we develop options for transitional living that include pilot programs for emergency shelter, tiny home villages, and pilot homes that serve multiple populations. I want to include stakeholders like Las Cruces Recovery Center, La

Casa, Habitat for Humanity, NMSU, Community of Hope, our churches, our LGBTQ+ community, our Veterans, our business leaders along with others who understands our need for more options.

11.2 COUNCILOR MATTIACE I just want to share that I attended the meeting with Cassie and City Manager what they call tiny homes, less expensive homes and looking at what we have done. It has all been good, from Amador Crossing, that averages about 375,000 a unit, to Pedrena which averages $300,000 a unit, and this latest one which averages about $284,000 a unit. They are all good and they are all worthwhile and I commend Councilor

Bencomo on providing 542, it might be more if we use the residential homes, but we need a lot more and what this idea that Cassie brought to the City Manager can maybe address more homes for less investment. So, if we could reach 1,000/2,000 of the tiny homes and spend less and were are putting more working people and those

that are making less income into a home. I really support Councilor McClure’s idea of bringing a different design and idea to the City of Las Cruces to the Housing

Department. I hope Natalie and her staff will consider it. 11.3 COUNCILOR GRAHAM If we are throwing hats in I will entertain any possibilities on housing. So, I would also

I love to see that Work Session. If I am going to see it it will have to be before end of the year so I will add my voice to that and just a kind of blanket shout out to various city departments, units. We have had crazy weather lately obviously. We have been kept up to date, this has been an extreme group effort under rapidly evolving conditions. Not just within our city but also sending support to other communities. Our

Swift Water Rescue Team through LCFD has been out several times. I know Utilities, various departments have been out responding to dangerous conditions and things changing rapidly and I just wanted to shout that out. 11.4 COUNCILOR CORRAN None. 11.5 COUNCILOR FLORES None. 11.6 COUNCILOR BENCOMO I did want to note that I mentioned the LFC, the Legislative Finance Committee meeting that I tuned into last week because they were talking about housing and I just have to tell you that on multiple occasions Secretary Nair who was entrusted with the

Housing Department from the Governor multiple instances shouted out the good work that Las Cruces is doing. I think I just want to point that out because as we zoom out, we have the pieces in place. Like we are doing tremendous work and certainly hope to see more green chile come from the state in order for us to complete our projects but we are being recognized for the incredible work that we are doing right and I just think and you’re right Mayor I didn’t include in the 452, the 50 additional units that

Amador Crossing provides. That math is simple math. It is not that much per unit. The facility includes so much more than just units and so I do want to just gently push back against that, but I wanted to lift up that the City of Las Cruces is being recognized at the state level for the kind of work that we are doing on addressing our housing issues. So, thank you for our partners and certainly for our staff involved in that. Also, they are here this month, the LFC committee so stop by wherever they are and say thank you and give us more green chile.

Mayor I also wanted to bring to your attention that public lands advocates here locally reached out to several of us, Councilor McClure, Councilor Corran, myself spoke to the local groups and we want to bring a resolution in support of public lands forward to hear and I have passed that information onto Sergio but I would love to get it on an agenda and really behind that it is just for Las Cruces to say that we support public lands, that we are against selling of public lands like has been proposed at the federal level and that we want to protect our national monument for as long as we can and for every single inch and every single corner of it so we would love to get that on an agenda so I wanted to bring that up today.

Lastly, I mentioned this before, Catrina and Scott, thank you so much for the office

hours. We have responded to most of the concerns folks brought and are working on the rest, but I wanted to just highlight one important thing in the spirit of you know in talking about good things that are happening. Someone came to talk about the hidden gems/unhidden gems. The Unhidden Gems Interactive Public Art Map and this person was so ecstatic, and she was so grateful for this that she wanted to make sure that people at the city knew how wonderful this program was. I went through it myself after she mentioned it and it is really lovely so whoever’s idea that was thank you and

I will continue to talk about it as much as I can. 11.7 MAYOR ENRIQUEZ Thank you, Councilor McClure, for bringing that item up and we will definitely look at having a Work Session. I too was present and I shared with you before that there is a

Bloomburg Grant pending still for the City of Las Cruces, maybe a million and maybe being able to build tiny homes so hopefully we can get some of that and move forward but we will definitely push forward with the Work Session and the grant that we are talking about the $350,000 that the Governor gave us will also help us with some of those issues and concerns and we can look at some of the strategic results that will come from that.

Last week I attended the CBA in El Paso, the Central Business Association. The

Mayor, the City of El Paso gave a presentation, so I just want to give thanks to members of the city staff that were in attendance also from Community Development,

Economic Development Parks & Rec, Quality of Life, and Visit Las Cruces all attended. Thank you all for attending. We always want to reach out and see what our neighbors are doing and learn from them.

Congressman Gabe Vasquez came in last week. He came into town, had a meeting with the county, with Dona Ana Community College, Parks & Rec, the City of Las

Cruces talking about how good the collaboration is and what we are trying to do for the youth in our community so we will continue to do that kind of work and also get the support from our congressman and he is willing to support all of the things that we are doing here in Las Cruces from the Boys and Girls Club on El Paseo to other things to help our youth in the community.

I was also in Albuquerque last week for the Mayor’s Innovation Summit that took place and one of the things was a tour at the City Hall of Albuquerque where they have what they call, it’s a coincidence that we are talking about energy savings for our private citizens. This is what they were demonstrating in Albuquerque in their Public

Works Department and Sustainability Department, what they call the Brain and I know they are working with members here in Las Cruces and our organization on that but it is a way to have a meter inside all of our city buildings and detect what our utilities are that are being spent and make sure we are not wasting anything and they flag things immediately so that we can invest and they have already saved about $1.7 million a year just in their energy efficiency so that is another thing that we as a city are going to look into doing.

As Councilor Graham had stated thanks to our Fire Department for assisting those in

Ruidoso and Vado but also to our Public Works also, she mentioned Utilities but our

Street Department, shout out to our Southern New Mexico Correctional Facilities.

They delivered on the 24th of July, like 560 sandbags and then the next day delivered another 400. So, two trucks went out there filled with sandbags so thank you for all your work and helping out and we will look at the public land sale as well.

On Friday a trip to Juarez with Dona Ana Community College just to keep the relations on economic development and those types of things with the Mayor of

Juarez and their economic development team always looking at how we can partner with our neighbors and so that was trip that was very interesting and fun time there in

Juarez.

I just want to mention that every meeting we hear comments about the lead pipes and our Utilities, and it seems that we are not taking it serious or that we are ignoring but we are not and I know the Acting City Manager Sonya Delgado will address that issue later in her comments but I will turn it over to her now.

12. CITY MANAGER REPORT 12.1 SONYA DELGADO, ASSISTANT CITY MANAGER For Fire we received notice from DFA that we have received funding to install a baby box at one of our fire houses. The funding still has to be accepted by the council but will provide a resource that is greatly needed for the safe surrender of a baby.

For Parks & Rec, Keep Las Cruces Beautiful will be offering a neighborhood cleanup for the community on Saturday, August 16th from 8 a.m. to noon. There will be commercial trash roll offs at the following locations for the public to dispose of summer clutter. The Young Park Parking lot, and East Mesa Recreation Center, will have roll off containers to toss away trash and garbage. Arcadia Park in Metro Verde is now open for everyone’s enjoyment. This two-acre park located between Starling

Lane and Belmont Lane east of Red Hawk Golf Road has opened turf areas for lounging or playing, a playground, a basketball court, and a book walk. We can’t wait to see you out there.

For this weekend join us for two fantastic free community events. The first on

Saturday, August 9th, bring the family to our next movies at the park event at the

Amador Live space to see Captain America, Brave New World. The gates open at 7 p.m. and the movie will begin at dusk. Then on Sunday, August 10th enjoy live music at Young Park for our Music in the Park Concert from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Get ready to groove to local variety bands Encore Band, a local Las Cruces band. Followed by the amazing R&B cover band Profile Band. These events are free and open to everyone.

So come out and have a great time.

For tomorrow, Tuesday, August 5th from 5 to 9 p.m. the National Night Out Program will happen at Downtown. We hope to see you there as well. I would like to provide a couple of items from public comment. The first regarding the Active Transportation

Coordinator position. This position has been reviewed and will be posted very, very soon. So, we hope to see that, and we hope that if anyone is interested that you will please apply and we hope to have this filled this time around. The other item as

Mayor had mentioned regarding the copper lead comments. Beginning today at our

city council regular meeting during City Manager comments. If there are any comments that come before during public comments, we will try to address them to provide additional information for everyone watching, everyone who is here in the audience and of course for our Mayor and council here on the dais. So, at this time, I would turn it over to Adrienne Widmer, our Utilities Director, to provide some comments on the information that came before us.

Adrienne Widmer, Utilities Director said NMED and EPA are very well aware of how we are inspecting the lines. Our initial inventory was based on our historic information which came directly from our GIS maps. We are continuing to update that as we go through, as we are looking at when subdivisions were built. What materials were used at that time, so we continually update that. The map eventually once we get to it on a yearly basis we are required to resubmit that and any additional unknown lines, we have to send out notices out to them as well, so we are continuing with that effort. A lot of our inspections are with field staff. We have been working with our funding agencies. We have right now we have applied through the New Mexico Water Trust

Board and the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund. Both of those programs have been approved. We have received award letters through the trust board and a binding commitment from the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund area. Appropriate ordinances are currently under development for consideration and for you all. As far as disadvantaged populations we are going off of when a lot of areas were built. So, a lot of that is this internal area so we are focusing on that but in addition as we are going through part of our plan is service line replacement plan and that particular plan does talk about disadvantaged communities, and we have to have that completed by

November 1,2027. We are in the process of hiring a third-party consultant that is going to help us put together a service line replacement plan and additional information. So that kind of gives you a little bit of an update. We have prepared a sheet on what our current process is, we have sent that to NMED and EPA to have it reviewed to make sure that we are doing everything in accordance with the Lead and

Copper Rule and we are waiting for them to respond to us and so as soon as we get that response we believe that we are meeting all regulatory requirements related to the lead service line replacement regulations.

Mayor Enriquez said there was one other item that came up during public comment and it was about the weeds, and I know that our City Attorney mentioned that we are going to try to get that on August 18th to update that. It has been in the works for a while now so that should come soon.

13. ADJOURNMENT 13.1 Councilor Johana Bencomo moved, seconded by Councilor Yvonne Flores, to adjourn at 3:50 p.m.

Mayor

City Clerk