City Council Meeting April 21, 2025

MINUTES

City Council

Monday, April 21, 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 GRAHAM. 1.2 PRESENTATION OF CERTIFICATES OF

APPRECIATION/PROCLAMATIONS - COUNCILOR GRAHAM. Councilor Graham recognized the General Federation of Women’s Clubs, Progress

Club, Las Cruces Water Conservation poster contest winners.

Councilor Graham presented Sarah Stegall with a proclamation for Parkinson’s

Awareness Month.

Councilor Graham presented Lupe Jimenez with a proclamation for Donate Life

Month.

Councilor Graham presented Annette Granado with a proclamation for Administrative

Professionals Day.

Mayor Enriquez presented George Maya with a Certificate of Excellence.

Mayor Enriquez recognized City Clerk Christine Rivera for receiving the Clerk of the

Year Award. 1.3 JOBS OF THE WEEK. Carol Nielson, Animal Services Center of the Mesilla Valley presented Pets of the

Week. 1.4 PETS OF THE WEEK. Carol Nielson, Animal Services Center of the Mesilla Valley presented Pets of the

Week.

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

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

3. PUBLIC PARTICIPATION 3.1 Lori English, Member of the Public said I would like to direct everybody’s attention to what is on the monitors right now. I have a problem with what happened two weeks ago concerning Chief Story’s situation. It has all been said up there and there is also additional information concerning behavior at city council meetings for public input and I have noticed over the years more and more of that has become very relaxed.

Personally, I was very offended at some of the comments that were made directed at

Chief Story two weeks ago basically blaming him for everything that happened. Now in my opinion his comments were made under duress, they were made in a very emotional and tragic situation and his comments being made in public at that time under pressure shouldn’t be held against him. He is an honorable man, he does a lot for this community, and I think that you all will agree we respect him with the most profound respect but comments made by anybody, any councilor made taken out of context to be used against him later on it should not be allowed. With all due respect

Mr. Mayor and honor to you I think that should have been ceased and desisted at the time. There should have been a little more control over the input being made against

Chief Story. He has done a wonderful job, and I am not against freedom of speech at all. I am a constitutional conservative, so I am a very big supporter of the First

Amendment but I do think that when something starts to looks like it is going to be getting out of control it needs to be taken into consideration and last week it even got brought to the attention that the behavior was inappropriate of the people that were making the comments. I would just like to call it again to the council’s attention that this is something that is in the rules for the city council meetings. It is available to everybody out there and maybe everybody should be handed maybe a copy of this when they come in the door for the next couple of months until things get sorted out.

This is what is expected of you, we have to respect you as much as you have to respect us and getting in an altercation first of all you are in a very tenuous situation where you just can’t respond. You are not allowed to get into an argument so thank you for your service to the community believe it or not. I do appreciate each and every one of you and what you do for us.

Lucas Herndon, Member of the Public said I am a resident of District 2. Certainly glad to know that there are people here who support freedom of speech as long as it agrees with them and also I would like to address speaking of the council’s behavior there were comments made after some of us spoke last time about that you wished

that some of us would stick around after we spoke. Well, we wish you would hold these meetings when we weren’t at work and having to take time off so that we could be here. Most of us have lives and jobs and we have to take time off to be here to participate so please forgive us that we can’t stay and listen to you dribble on. Today just after 10 o’clock unmarked masked thugs kidnapped human beings off the street in Las Cruces at the corner of Montana and Solano. Under the auspices of a federal administration of which there were some marked vehicles and some marked officers amongst them were also unmarked officers in unmarked cars with civilian New

Mexico plates. I have pictures and videos. We should all be terrified. This is the behavior of fascists. It is the behavior of secret police. They would not answer our questions about what was happening to the people that they were detaining. They would not address us. They wouldn’t even look us in the eyes. I don’t know what else to say to that. It is happening all over the country. You think it is just happening when you see it on the news, you see it on social media, I have video, I was there because there are people in this community who care and they called and they showed up when they saw their neighbors being harassed by masked unmarked men putting them in handcuffs and putting them in the back of cars that didn’t have any definable markings. It happened in District 3. We may have political differences here, some of the people that come and speak but if you think that is acceptable behavior you really need to question what you think of when you think of representative democracy because to me I can’t think of anybody who would vote for that kind of behavior from any armed “representative” of the state if that is what they were.

Lynn Moorer, Member of the Public said EPAs new Lead and Cooper Rule requires water authorities to manage and carry out replacement within ten years of all lead piping. Property owners are required to bear the cost of replacement of this piping on their property, the city is required to bear the cost for city owned piping. Funding from the federal government is available to help. It has been three months since we alerted you to significant deficiencies and the technique Las Cruces Utilities is using to determine the nature of pipes. This deficient technique is also one the city is recommending that property owners use. It has been two months since we alerted you to huge gaps in the city’s inventory map of piping and an enormous number of properties. Currently 65% show no service lines at all. EPA requires that this map be complete and accurate and for cities of 50,000 or greater be posted online for citizens to be able to search, review, and rely upon regarding their own pipes. Citizens have recommended that an independent engineer be brought in to examine these issues to help Las Cruces Utilities get on track. Despite these serious deficiencies and these recommendations, it appears that nothing has been done to address these problems.

When analyzing why the city has done nothing to address these issues a disturbing thought has emerged. What appears to be incompetence may also be intentional efforts to falsely minimize the true number of lead pipes. Perhaps this is upon instruction from upper management so that the city’s cost for repairs for replacing lead pipes can be reduced, public health be damned. Possibly by design the overriding message of the November 18, 2024, Las Cruces Utilities briefing for the city council was no lead pipes had been found. A news report conveyed this message. A city councilor emphasized this message both at the meeting and on a subsequent radio show. I commented soon thereafter that the city seemed to be trying to declare victory on lead pipe removal ridiculously early. The fact is EPA required a complete inventory of all piping to be filed by October 16th, 2024. EPA guidance recognized the nature of

some piping might be unknown, the water authorities should indicate when that was the case and work expeditiously to replace all the unknowns with the facts as soon as possible through competent investigation and verification. In contrast EPA did not indicate it was permissible to omit all together half the city’s neighborhoods from the inventory. This is what Las Cruces Utilities’ current inventory map appears to reflect.

More than half of the city’s elementary schools and middle schools have been omitted for example. It is a lot easier to boast no lead pipes when the city is ignoring half the city’s pipes. It is also easier to claim no lead pipes when you use a deficient technique to determine whether a pipe is lead or not. Please engage at least one independent engineer to comprehensively evaluate Las Cruces Utilities’ work on implementing the rule and publicize all recommendations.

Liz Rodriguez-Johnson, Member of the Public said over the past four months citizens have brought numerous problems to the city’s attention with respect to compliance with EPAs new Lead and Copper Rule. Unfortunately, there is no evidence that a single one of the problems has been adequately rectified. Here is a brief list of some of the issues that have been brought to your attention additional to those just mentioned. Do property owners need to have their water tested to determine whether we have lead in our water? The city’s notification letter is not clear on that point.

Where is the map showing all the city owned piping? In the map that is available piping is frequently mischaracterized based on date. Pipes that were installed prior to the 1986 lead ban are characterized as non-lead based on installation after the lead ban. The designation of piping as known or non-lead on an inventory map are not necessarily true. The map misleadingly characterizes an entire line as non-lead with a green dot when in reality at least one portion, either the system owned, or customer owned is unknown. A property owner who believes the green dot thinks their line is non-lead and checks no further could have a very nasty surprise. The inventory indicates that some but very little verification of its characterization of piping has occurred. Some callers have been falsely told that no financial help is available for lead pipe replacement. This is despite the fact that financial help is available from the federal government. The fact is that the rule requires that financial help be available and the city’s notification letter says financial help is available and the city’s notification letter says financial help is available. Now even if the current administration gets rid of the EPA this issue is not going to go away. Dealing with a potential health hazard to the city of Las Cruces goes beyond government regulation.

Protecting the people in this community is a responsibility you signed up for when you ran for this job. The concerns I just reiterated are clearly documented not just in this public participation but in numerous previous others. So, it is very clear all of you are aware of this issue. All of you are tied to this issue morally and politically. You need to have an experienced engineer with management experience to deal with these potentially life-threatening issues systematically and comprehensively.

Brittany Gillingham, Member of the Public said I come to you as a community member and a concerned parent. In October we were promised that there would be Park

Rangers put over at Young Park. I haven’t heard of any update on that. I know that there is funding available. That was October, it is now April. That is six months. I don’t think that there is enough for the kids to do here in Las Cruces. I noticed that the skate park is still closed, it’s been nearly a year since that construction has started on the skate park. While I haven’t seen any progress on the skate park, I did see a brand

new fence that was put up at Meerscheidt Rec Center for the volleyball courts just actually last week. So, I am kind of confused as to why there is no progression on the skate park but there is progression other things. I know there is a Rec Center and

Aquatic Centers and the city has tried to keep the cost low for parents like myself but I know there is a lot of parents out there that can’t even afford the $3 or the $4 for themselves and $3 per child. For me and my children to go to the Aquatic Center it comes to $10 and that might not seem like a lot to a lot of people but to me as a single parent on one income that is a lot of money. I think that possibly trying to work in like a SNAP discount or a discounted membership to these things would be absolutely helpful. There is also the community boxing center off Solano. I don’t know if there are a lot of people that know about this space but it is a great place for kids that have no outlet and have very hard lives at home. I think it is a great place for them to go and be able to get out certain aggressions and things. I would love to see another skating rink or do skate meet ups like they do in El Paso or a free community center. I know that money has to come from somewhere, but I know that there is grants, scholarships, and even fundraisers available that we could do to provide these things for children in our community because our children are our future and if we are not looking into them now we need to look and see that there is going to be hope. I want to see change in our community just as much as you do but it starts with us the people and what can we do to move forward? What can we do to make a change?

How can we make Las Cruces as a whole better to be a happier community? I reside on Young Park. My apartment sits on Young Park and to be in that neighborhood it is very hard, and it is very tragic what happened but as a community member and someone that sits right there I can’t even fathom taking my children over to that park anymore. So, it is not anything against the Police Department or anybody else I think it is as a community we all need to work together to make Las Cruces better not only for people but parents, especially for the children here. The children, the children, the children.

Steven Jaramillo, Member of the Public said I am a lifelong resident here in Las

Cruces for the past 63 years. I am a retired Air Force Veteran. We live in the inner city, and I love Las Cruces. I can never imagine living anywhere else even though I have been all over the country, many of the different cities and the last five years me and my wife have started bicycling around the city and using a lot of the city bicycle trails and they are very helpful and keep us out of the inner city and the street but one thing that I am concerned about is the e-bikers that use the same bicycle trails because we use our pedals, we use our normal bicycles. We do 25 miles every other day around the city and we leave from our home on Kansas and Solano and we ride up through Young Park and go up through the Triviz Trail down Nevada and I told

Parks & Recreation maybe three or four years ago and city streets about the problem trying to cross there at Nevada there across Triviz into the bicycle trail because the city has the bicycle trail that dead ends at Triviz but yet there is not flashing signals. I have video taped people, younger kids riding their bicycles nearly getting hit there at

Triviz and Nevada. Also, there is an area off Solano where they don’t put any crosswalks off Colorado and Solano and a lady got killed there last year because there are not enough crosswalks on Solano for the inner-city people that live there.

Again I have informed streets but they told me they were going to do some more work at Llorona Park and the Llorona Park Trail was completely falling apart from like Norte

Bridge all the way to Mayfield and I guess maybe their solution was to spray paint the

bumps on the entire trail but I was told three or four years ago there was funding to repave it and maybe stripe it and that is another issue. I have been on bike trails all over the country and normally they are striped and people know to ride their bicycles on the left or right side, and if e-bikers are passing at least they know to warn the people in front, anyway and then there on Spruce there is a crosswalk on Spruce that they did stripe a year or so ago but it’s completely blacked out and the same on

Missouri and Triviz. You can’t see the crosswalks so my concern was if they could maybe look into those areas a little more. One dangerous area is by Mayfield where we cross our bikes across Valley Drive there is no flashing lights or anything and we witnessed people actually get hit there on Valley Drive. So, my concerns are for the bicycle trails and crosswalk.

Juan Garcia, Member of the Public said the Regional Aquatic Center staff deserve recognition for their exceptional service. As a senior with diabetes, I found exactly what I needed here. The facility offers great exercise equipment, different exercise options and the staff members maintain it well. They are always friendly and provide flexible payment options including a senior rate of just $1 per visit with no contract required. Thank you Mr. Bingham and Mr. Ikani for making fitness accessible and welcoming and perhaps something can be done to help the kids for the speaker that just came before me. The facade of political hypocrisy is crumbled once again before my eyes during four years as a community advocate revealing a disturbing pattern of selective outreach and calculated silence. Nothing illustrates this more than the most tragic case, a Rachel Moran, a mother of five whose life was brutally stolen on a summer trail in Maryland, her death at the hands of an illegal immigrant was met with deafening silence from the very leaders sworn to protect your constituents. Senator

Van Hollen’s office buzzed with activity championing the return of the “Maryland father” when Moran’s name never crossed his lips inany official capacity. The same haunting silence echoes in New Mexico where Representative Vasquez frontiers for the “Maryland father” while their own community safety deteriorates under his watch and crime rates climb. How telling that our local and state progressive leaders turn a blind eye to law abiding citizens yet rush to coddle those who loot and burn their dreams to ash. Hard working citizens, many of them woman of color living in poverty ask only for protection and basic dignity. Instead, they watch their life’s work crumble when the very people claiming to champion social justice cheer on their destruction.

The recent aggravated assault on a peace officer with a deadly weapon was just dismissed by Judge Driggers with no explanation. The shameful attempt of one of our councilors to rationalize the Young Park massacre through excuses about poverty, race, and age only serves to dishonor the victims and enable future violence. Such misguided apoligism has no place in our discourse about this atrocious act yet it continues. So, Mr. Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, council when will you finally demand real action. The time for empty words is over, demand strong deterrents. Deterrents be reflected in the message to the Governor and state legislators and we will continue to support Chief Story and the LCPD officers.

Eddie Thomas, Member of the Public said I would like to start by addressing Chief

Story and the way he was impugned. His reputation was impugned the last time we had a city council meeting by somebody that got up to speak. I for one support Chief

Story and my money is on him. As far as his authority to carry a pistol in these chambers makes me feel safer rather than the person that got up and made those

comments against him. Next thing I would like to speak about is myself and fellow petition seekers that were seeking signatures on a petition, I am sure you are all aware of have been impugned also. We have been labeled as people that are against low-income housing. Let me reassure you all nothing could be further from the truth.

We are not against low-income people. We are not against low-income housing. What we are seeking is a redress of the way the city code treats the established residential areas moving in commercial entities that is just not fair to the people that purchased homes there. Furthermore, I just don’t think that the city council has been effective with their delegation that gets sent to Santa Fe to advocate on our behalf. This legislative session the very few things that were produced was a law that addresses the Red Flag Law that takes away arms from citizens. I would like to see that law used to take away the arms from the juvenile gangs that seemed to be predominant here in Las Cruces hopefully avoiding another situation like what happened in Young

Park. So, at the very least this delegation was ineffective and at the very worst it was a total failure. I would ask that you all would address this and do something about the competency law that seems to have not changed one bit during this legislative session. Please do something about the safety factor here in our public parks.

Julia Ruiz, Member of the Public said in New Mexico it is not known exactly how many babies are abandoned each year. The Safe Haven for Infants Law shields parents from criminal prosecution when they choose to leave infants in safe havens instead of a dumpster or an unknown area to be found later and many times too late. I would like to bring to your attention the fact that we are missing in this city an invaluable means of safely assisting a parent in crisis and saving a child, the Safe Haven Baby Box. The

Safe Haven Baby Box is a safe legal and compassionate option for parents in crisis who are unable to care for their infant. The Safe Haven Baby Box is used as a means for the parent to surrender their baby anonymously. The Safe Haven Baby Box is fully compliant with state laws. These boxes are equipped with advanced safety features to protect the baby and allow medical personnel to retrieve them quickly. The boxes provide a safe and legal way to surrender an infant and ensuring the well being of the parent and safety of the child. As of today, Espanola, Hobbs, Belen, and

Carlsbad have installed baby boxes and this weekend Hobbs, which has a fourth of the population of Las Cruces will have its third Safe Haven Baby Box. There have been three babies surrendered safely in Hobbs now. I have been working with

Espanola’s Assistant Fire Chief John Wickersham and Monica Calsey, the founder of the Safe Haven Baby Box, to bring one here. Today I bring information to the city council to inform the City of Las Cruces how important it is to have a baby box available for parents in crisis. Ultimately, I would love to have three within Las Cruces and in Dona Ana County. I have spoken with several of you on the dais and have received very positive feedback and have agreed that having a baby box is a critical tool for helping parents in crisis. I ask that you consider installing a baby box as it is better to have one and not need it than to need it and not have one. I have brought a pamphlet with all the information about the baby box and I ask if I may leave it with the City Clerk. As a point of contact again I am working with the Assistant Fire Chief

Wickersham and Ms. Kelsey the founder of the baby box. I am asking that you work with me to continue towards the next step in making the Safe Haven Baby Box a reality in the city of Las Cruces for parents in crisis. New Mexico legislators have allocated $330,000 in support of the installation of the Safe Haven Baby Boxes throughout the state. I will be leaving my contact information along with an information

packet and please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns you may have.

Elizabeth Winterroad, Member of the Public said I came today hoping to be supportive of a proclamation for the National Day of Prayer. Apparently it is not being honored today but I want to thank all of you in advance for your support on the National Day of

Prayer, which is May 1st, there will be different events going on around the city and I pray that all of you who are believers will be a light to this community and those who are not believers will see the light. I thank you in advance for any support that you can give the people going out that day.

Sarah Smith, Member of the Public said I extend my condolences to the victims of the

Young Park shooting. Several of you have said you want to find solutions to the youth crime and violence problem. For thousands of years one of the most basic tenants of society has been do not harm others or encroach on their property. One of the fundamental purposes of government is to uphold this law so that the society can function well. Here in Las Cruces and across New Mexico we are seeing what happens when we do not uphold this principle. Parents should be teaching their kids from a young age that they cannot harm others, take other kids toys or damage the property of others. Once the kids go to school this principle should be reinforced over and over again so that by the time the kids are adults it has been engrained. Once people are old enough to be held legally accountable, must be consistent and short enforcement of this flaw no matter if they are rich or poor, Hispanic or White, housed or homeless. This is literally the overarching principle that allows society to continue to survive. There have always been some parents who don’t raise their kids well but now schools are perpetuating the same cycle. I advocate for teachers and parents across the state, and they have shared that kids in schools are allowed to harm others with no real consequences. Kids are throwing chairs in the classroom, hitting other kids and throwing temper tantrums and the teachers are not allowed to really stop it.

For example, a Las Cruces mother related that in her daughter’s class one of the kids has violent temper tantrums. Instead of imposing consequences to help this child learn proper behavior the teacher takes the rest of the kids out of the class and allows the child to trash the classroom. Year after year all of these kids are learning that there are no consequences to hurting others and that no one will stop a kid who chooses to hurt others, steal, or destroy. By the time kids reach their teen years the behaviors have escalated to fighting, doing drugs, shop lifting, stealing cars and guns and shooting others. With New Mexico’s lax juvenile crime laws and catch and release policies these kids are ripe for getting involved with organized gangs and cartels who know that youths can break the law with very little consequences in New

Mexico. We now have many kids growing up with no respect for the most basic laws of society and thus we have high rates of juvenile crime with tragic consequences like what happened at Young Park. City Councilors, I appreciate that you want to find solutions. Recreational activities for kids are important and I hope the schools will own their responsibility to teach kids self-control and respect for rules. For you as council I hope you see that your paramount role is to ensure we have good laws, that the laws are applied equally to everyone, that we have enough police officers to keep our community safe and that there are sure consequences for those who break the law.

Our state legislature refused to tighten up our juvenile crime laws so I hope you will take action here in Las Cruces instead such as imposing a curfew for teens and

holding both the teens and the parents accountable. You can also greatly increase the salaries of our police officers in the upcoming union negotiations so that Chief Story will be better able to attract and retain officers. As a body if you decide that you will no longer tolerate people harming others, breaking into and destroying our homes and businesses you can make a big difference.

Steve Colleti, Member of the Public said 2024, wow what a year. The year the Amish saved the Republic. I am not sure of the state of your fantastical democracy but the

Republic is alive and well. I bring this up for a reason, but I will get to that in a minute.

Peter Goodman recently conducted an interview on his radio show with your Chris

Faivre regarding Realize Las Cruces. I found it interesting Mr. Faivre’s main argument for Realize was to improve the “quality of life” image Las Cruces has. I am curious how much this ordinance does to improve that image for the amount of effort the city council is fighting for it but let’s assume you are right that it does improve that image.

Let’s assign it a 5 out of a scale of 100. Now we are turning to Lancaster County,

Pennsylvania where my mother lives among the Amish. I received a call from her on that dark Saturday morning in a panic where she awoke to reports of the cartel shooting at Young Park. She called to verify that my family and I were well. While I was still on the phone my mother-in-law called from Eastern Kansas with the same question. Now before you go off on me about cartel reference, remember we are talking about image and that is how this is being perceived if not reported outside of

New Mexico. I can assure you that neither my mother-in-law nor my mother have ever heard of Realize Las Cruces but they are now more scared than ever for the safety of their grandchildren. Back to the 100-point scale of image. If Realize Las Cruces is worth 5 points, how much of a hit did this tragedy leave, maybe a negative 500 points.

Yet you, our city council, fighting so hard for Realize have done little to nothing to address public safety in Las Cruces except point your fingers at Santa Fe and say it is their fault and there is nothing you can do. When given the opportunity to address our state delegation with our concerns you choose animal welfare as our number one priority, and I don’t recall any dogs being shot at Young Park. Is the Young Park massacre enough for you to start taking your oaths of office seriously? Or do we need to wait till one of your loved ones is hurt for you act? Mr. Mayor, your honeymoon period is over. You own this one. It is time for you to stop collecting data and lead this council into action. No one cares about your tireless work unless it produces positive results and this council, just like many before have little in the way of positive results especially when it comes to public safety. We want action. It is time to leave you activist roles and start being the leaders that you are elected to be for the entire Las

Cruces community.

Jim Hoerst, Member of the Public said I want to inform you of an event, National Day of Reason at Las Cruces City Hall, Thursday, May 1st, 12 noon. Join us to celebrate reason demonstrate to our local government that there are many citizens who care about the principles of separation of church and state as defined by Thomas

Jefferson. Logic and rational thinking are the center of the modern western democracies. Unfortunately, not all Americans understand our constitution as our founders intended. So, we observe this day to reaffirm American desire to leave the dark ages and absolute disgovernments behind in the old world. We founded our government independent of religion and based on common sense. The uniqueness of the United States of America is in its inclusion of every kind of person, race, culture,

religion, and non-religous disbeliefs in this very diverse country. Reason and our history testify that El pluribus unum is not only possible but desirable. Please join us and consider with us the blessings of reason, science, and equality in this great land and how it can be preserved. This event is not sponsored by the city and all are welcome and I want to say on other comments, the safest people in this country are illegal aliens. They are the least likely to commit crimes because they want to stay here and that is pretty simple, and it is very easy to vilify a few. To highlight the actions of a few to vilify many, certainly there are illegal aliens that have committed horrible crimes in America, but they are far less likely than an ordinary American to commit a crime.

Lisa Parrott, Member of the Public said I am a resident of District 6. I wanted to thank the organ donation people for their work because of the cooperation between people in New Mexico and Colorado, my son is still alive today. He received two major organs in one week in February of 2022, and is doing well. I also want to thank the emergency workers, all of them in our city, our Police Department, our Fire

Departments, our emergency call takers. Every time I hear a siren when I am at the house or out in public, I immediately say a prayer and hope that the people that have a siren on will arrive where they need to be safely and the people that they are going to be helped will be helped. I also wanted to highlight the fact that Saturday from 4 to

8:30 at Young Park will be the first event of the National Day of Prayer other than the proclamations and I can’t think of a better it would be a better use of that park than for people of this city to come together and pray there for this city. Anybody that would like to know the information the website is nationaldayofprayer.org and I also have one Bible verse that I would like to take the liberty of reading while I still can because I will always do that. Luke 19:39-41, some of the pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, teacher rebuke your disciples. I tell you he replied if they keep quiet the stones will cry out, as he approached Jerusalem and saw the city he wept over it.

Bill McCamley, Member of the Public said I live on the corner of Calle de Suenos and

Locust in District 3. I have had that house for over 20 years. I was away from Las

Cruces for about 5 years but recently have moved back to town and one of the first things that I got in the mail was this public notice saying that someone two blocks away from me wanted to put a house in a single family yard, in the back there and then I heard that you all just made recent changes to land use policy allowing for more density, more mother-in-law houses, situations like these apartments and I want to tell you exactly how I feel about that. I feel great. This is an amazing thing that you all did to move this community forward and there is three main reasons for this. The first is young people can’t get housing in the United States. This is not a Las Cruces problem, a New Mexico problem, it is an America problem, and the more opportunity young folks have to be able to get a decent place to live, to buy a house the better we are all are off because of it. So, thank you for making this town more affordable with your actions. Secondly you all know because you do this all the time how much more efficient it is to put internet, water, roads, everything to houses when they are closer together. More density in responsible ways is better for all of us because it creates again of more affordability with better services. Third thing, climate change is real.

When I was a student at Mayfield back when Coach Maya was just starting off in the mid 90’s I rode my bike to school from my folks house up on North Valley and I remember maybe three or four days out of the year when really strong windstorms

when I didn’t feel safe on the bike coming across from the west. We had three days last week where you couldn’t see more than 30 to 40 feet in front of your face because of the wind and the dirt. This is real and one of the best ways that we can as communities can contribute to less greenhouse gases is with more efficient denser homes closer together. So, I say to you yes in my backyard, please keep up the great work for those of you that voted for this and I want close by just saying one thing.

Back when I was a county commissioner when Council Member Mattiace was mayor the first time the only time I lost it is I was chairing a joint city/county zoning commission and a guy wanted to put in a bunch of condos on South Main and all the neighbors showed up and you heard the stories about we are worried about roads, worried about schools, they were worried about those sorts of things but one person said the quiet part out load. She said I don’t want those people living next to me and I got pretty angry because that was my income demographic. I am those people. So, as a representative of those people, the teachers, the firefighters, the janitors, the workers at the grocery store who want to live affordably near their jobs, thank you. We appreciate you and keep up the good work.

Tim Jenkins, Member of the Public said I would like to address the elephant in the room from the comments in the last city council meeting concerning our Chief of

Police being on his phone during time here in council chambers. For the record I would like to make it crystal clear to everyone that while our Chief of Police sits here helping support us he also is single handily managing and running our entire Police

Department force as well and comments and rhetoric from members on city council and public as well about our Police Department needing more oversight are highly offensive and unless you are willing to pick up a badge and protect and serve and take a chance at never coming home to your family I suggest you stop criticizing those who do and be thankful for their service and look for ways to encourage and support them in every way possible. As for me and my family, we back the blue every day, all day.

Donna Stryker, Member of the Public said I wanted to congratulate Christine.

Unfortunately, she works with me a lot. Christine, thank you, you are amazing, and your staff is amazing, and I really appreciate you and Annette. I had to call her on a

Sunday from Mayor’s Top Teens and her and Ikani really came through and it was amazing so thank you so much. I would like to thank you Chief Story for your continued professionalism and your leadership during the last 16 months, which I think has been very difficult for I think everybody on the dais and the city’s citizens and the county citizens. It has been a very difficult time. I watched the ugliness of April

7th meeting, and I was so sad. It is another commentary on some of our citizenry and

I do believe in the First Amendment, but I don’t think you have to be ugly. I really appreciate the public participation statement, thank you so much for doing that. I don’t think people understand that cities are not required to do public comment. I did a lot of research on it when I started speaking and cities are not required to and there are cities that in this state that have done away with public comment so I think we need to appreciate it and say thank you city council I appreciate you letting us speak even though we don’t always say what you would like us to say but I for one really appreciate you continue to allow us to have it. My son-in-law is an LCPD police officer, and he had Easter dinner with us yesterday. Ben can’t always be with us but he would be so mad at me for here but he is just the microcosm of the macrocosm.

There isn’t very many people who can take the application, do the psychological, do the fingerprint background check, go through everything it takes to be a police officer but there is a lot of people who can poke fun and poke fingers but I think it is really just criminal that they are allowed to do that because until you walk a mile in another person’s shoes you cannot criticize and say what goes through their mind and the immediacy of the decisions that they have to make in a bad situation. So, I want to thank you Chief and also welcome our new Chief of the Fire Department, thank you so much for selfless service because everybody that serves our Fire Department and our Police Department are selfless. I can’t thank you guys enough and Tim said it, not everybody gets to home and we saw that last year.

4. ACCEPTANCE OF AGENDA Councilor Yvonne Flores moved, seconded by Councilor Becky Corran, to accept the agenda as presented.

RESULT: Carried

MOVER: Councilor Yvonne Flores

SECONDER: Councilor Becky Corran

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

Councilor Becki Graham, Councilor Becky Corran, and Councilor Yvonne

ABSENT: Councilor Johana Bencomo

5. CITY COUNCIL MINUTES 5.1 WORK SESSION OF MARCH 24, 2025.

6. RESOLUTION(S) AND/OR ORDINANCE(S) FOR CONSENT AGENDA 6.1 RESOLUTION NO. 25-118: A RESOLUTION APPROVING THE VACATION

OF A 60-FOOT-WIDE RIGHT-OF-WAY KNOWN AS CAMINO DEL REX,

LOCATED AT THE SOUTHWEST INTERSECTION OF MAIN STREET AND

SAMARITAN AVENUE, WHICH IS ASSOCIATED WITH A FINAL PLAT

KNOWN AS ROYAL CROSSING SUBDIVISION PHASE 1A. 6.2 RESOLUTION NO. 25-119: A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE CITY OF

LAS CRUCES (CITY) TO FORMALLY REQUEST A ONE-YEAR TIME

EXTENSION FROM JUNE 30, 2025, TO JUNE 30, 2026, FOR NEW MEXICO

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION (NMDOT) MUNICIPAL ARTERIAL

PROGRAM (MAP) CONTROL NO. HW2L100582 SPRUCE/TELSHOR/TRIVIZ

INTERSECTION IMPROVEMENTS PROJECT.

7. RESOLUTION(S) AND/OR ORDINANCE(S) FOR DISCUSSION 7.1 RESOLUTION NO. 25-120: A RESOLUTION TO ENTER INTO A CONTRACT

WITH ROOT POLICY RESEARCH OF DENVER, COLORADO TO

COMPLETE THE HUD 5-YEAR CONSOLIDATED PLAN AND

AFFORDABLE HOUSING PLAN FOR AN AMOUNT NOT TO EXCEED $131,000 PLUS APPLICABLE TAXES, SUBJECT TO APPROVED BUDGET

APPROPRIATIONS (PROCUREMENT NO. 24-25-038). Lisa Padron, Purchasing Specialist gave the overhead presentation.

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

Approve Resolution No. 25-120.

MOVER: Councilor Becki Graham

Councilor Becki Graham, Councilor Johana Bencomo, Councilor Becky

Corran, and Councilor Yvonne Flores 7.2 RESOLUTION NO. 25-121: A RESOLUTION TO AWARD CONTRACTS FOR

LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN SERVICES ON AN AS-NEEDED

BASIS TO MOLZEN CORBIN & ASSOCIATES, INC., SITES SOUTHWEST,

LLC., AND STANTEC CONSULTING SERVICES, INC. IN AN AMOUNT NOT

TO EXCEED $2,000,000 PER VENDOR ANNUALLY, FOR A TERM OF FIVE (5) YEARS THROUGH MARCH 31, 2029, SUBJECT TO APPROVED

BUDGET APPROPRIATIONS (PROCUREMENT NO. 24-25-003). Lisa Pardon, Purchasing Specialist gave the overhead presentation.

Councilor Flores asked it is a five year contract and it is for different vendors or just

Molzen Corbin?

Lisa Pardon said three, Molzen Corbin, Sites Southwest, and Stantec Consulting.

Councilor Flores asked how do they go about assessing what they are going to do and how much is the $5 million?

Lisa Pardon said $2 million per vendor annually.

Councilor Flores asked how many vendors?

Lisa Pardon said three.

Councilor Flores said my concern is that it is five years and then they are going to do projects. Do they come back to you, to your department, to the city to say we are going to do this, that, or the other? I am just wondering about how that money is going to be spent, when it is going to be spent and where? And who makes the ultimate decision?

Steve Bingham, Parks & Rec Director said I asked that our team put together an RFP to get architectural services so that we could speed up the process of being able to plan Parks & Recreation projects and put it on call like we do with engineers and the

RFP allows for up to $2 million in any given year. There are I believe three different architectural firms that were selected, and it is based on budget and so if there is not funding for this approval by city council in the budget then you wouldn’t spend it. This is simply an on call.

Councilor Flores asked the part that I am dazed and confused for lack of a better word

is how exactly is a decision made as to where, when, how, how much is going to be allocated to that particular? Where is the oversight and where is the plan in terms as to how you are going to approach this?

Steve Bingham said the oversight went through the purchasing process that is identified in the city’s purchasing ordinances, and we will select the architectural company that best fits the project.

Councilor Flores asked how are you going to be reporting to the city, to the City

Manager, to the City Council, to the people of the city how things are going? How are these things going to be approached? Have you already assessed what areas are going to be targeted first? Is it going to be reporting to the City Manager about that or to us and the public?

Steve Bingham said all of these projects that will be used for these architects are ones that have already been approved in the Capital Improvement Program. There has been budget authorized through the budgeting process and the funding has been made available and so these projects are ones that have already been identified, authorized, and approved.

Councilor Flores said what I would do and what I would ask is and I don’t want to over step anybody’s role here in terms of the Mayor and City Manager and the department heads including you Steve, it would be good to have progressive communication with the public in terms of just letting the public know because we heard from several people today about the parks and we all know that parks are instrumental. There has to be more transparency in terms of letting the people know, letting the residents know this is happening, and then reach those goals and then enumerate them and let people know that we are just not verbalizing things and doing nothing.

Steve Bingham said we will continually update the public through our website, social media, through city council meetings and that we do have projects that are moving forward. We have significantly increased the amount of money for projects in which the speed of what projects are getting done in the last year.

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

Approve Resolution No. 25-121.

MOVER: Councilor Becky Corran

SECONDER: Councilor Johana Bencomo

Corran, and Councilor Yvonne Flores 7.3 RESOLUTION NO. 25-122: A RESOLUTION APPROVING ROADRUNNER

TRANSIT'S TRIENNIAL TITLE VI PROGRAM UPDATE. Richard Hanway, City Transit Director gave the overhead presentation.

Councilor Corran said this is one of the most powerful and interesting analysis that I

feel that I have ever learned about on city council, and I really appreciate you coming and talking about it in this context. I do want to point out that I serve on the Transit

Advisory Board and the folks that are there are really committed and caring about transit and it is parallel to many of our city boards where white folks out number folks of color and I do think that is notable when we talk about having any kind of community board, what are the inputs that we have and you are one of the few, this is one of the few required reports where we consider that as a very serious consideration and so I appreciate you talking about that which I know is probably not easy for anyone to talk about and I know this is your first presentation to us as a bunch of meanies as we are. Don’t be nervous, you did a really good job, we got you.

Thank you for being here and thank you for this presentation.

Councilor Flores asked this is an ADA requirement, so the funding comes from the federal government?

Richard Hanway said this is a FTA requirement. Federal Transit Administration requires us to have civil rights. Since we receive federal funds, we have to follow the compliance rules under civil rights.

Councilor Flores said I think there is things happening in Washington DC that are horrific, and a lot of actions have been right and left, slashing programs and all of that and so I am concerned about all of that, but the funding is federal. Anyway, that is something to keep in mind, there is kind of a storm coming. Councilor Becki Graham moved, seconded by Councilor Becky Corran, to

Approve Resolution No. 25-122.

Corran, and Councilor Yvonne Flores 7.4 RESOLUTION NO. 25-123: A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE CITY OF

LAS CRUCES (CITY) TO ACCEPT THIRD QUARTER BUDGET

ADJUSTMENTS FOR VARIOUS CITY DEPARTMENTS THROUGH AN

AMENDMENT TO THE CITY’S ADOPTED FISCAL YEAR (FY) 2024-25

BUDGET. Vanessa Perez, Budget Analyst gave the overhead presentation.

Councilor Bencomo asked if you could just say a little bit more about this pilot program and then also given the cost of this expenditure what that means for the budget for traffic calming measures at this point?

David Sedillo, Public Works Director said this is a pilot program that we are looking to do on traffic studies that are real close but don’t actually meet the thresholds for having a permanent installation. We get these complaints as you all are well aware.

We get them throughout the year, different neighborhoods, different locations so as part of this pilot program what we are trying to do is to do a temporary installation, temporary signage with some rubber or hard rubber items that get drilled into the

asphalt and placed temporarily. That will give us an opportunity to study those anywhere between six months to a year. With that data if we see a great improvement then we will remove those and put in a permanent installation even though the initial study didn’t show that. We want to see that grate change if you will in behaviors. If those aren’t done at least we have said we have done something here right now it doesn’t meet but the good thing about the temporary installations is not we can utilize those in other locations throughout the city. So, we are not tied to having something and then leaving it there for months and months or even years. We have the ability to study it, place it somewhere else, see the effects of those things. If it does help us, great we will do a permanent installation if not we will remove those and move on to other locations. What it will do to our budget is we will still have the studies to do but again this is to help look at a proactive way to help our citizens in a residential neighborhoods and look at those issues that they are seeing on a day to day basis.

Councilor Bencomo said I wanted to highlight this specifically because I think a lot of do get questions about, I think we all have long lists of neighborhoods that wish they had some sort of traffic calming measures and studies and I just think about as we go into conversations regarding GRT and how to think about how we invest that in our community. I really think this is one of the biggest places where we need to look.

Councilor McClure asked how is that street selected?

David Sedillo said the way we go about choosing is recently we have looked at how many complaints we get in the area, how many times have we studied a roadway in the past. Typically, when we study those, we give it a gap in time until we study it again because traffic patterns do change. So, we have seen over a period of time then that study isn’t valid anymore. So based on some of those areas that have come up repeatedly our staff is taking note of those and that is how we will go down through the list. Councilor Becki Graham moved, seconded by Councilor Johana Bencomo, to

Approve Resolution No. 25-123.

Corran, and Councilor Yvonne Flores 7.5 RESOLUTION NO. 25-124: A RESOLUTION AMENDING THE FY2025-2030

CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS PROGRAM. Cynthia Alamillo, CIP Manager gave the overhead presentation.

David Sedillo, Public Works Director continued the overhead presentation.

Vanessa King, Facilities Management Administrator continued the overhead presentation.

Councilor Corran asked the slide where you are saying how much this is as you may

know I am also lobbying for this to happen at Roadrunner which I think is something that residents have really been begging for because people are really terrible at four way or three way stops but this cost, can you give me just a rough, I saw it on there and I never really realized exactly what the total for this is and I would love to be able to tell people this is how much this cost? This is an extraordinary effort, and it requires significant engineering, design, and work on your part. Can you just give me a rough estimate?

David Sedillo said the overall project cost is $1.5 million. Councilor Becky Corran moved, seconded by Councilor Yvonne Flores, to

Approve Resolution No. 25-124.

SECONDER: Councilor Yvonne Flores

Corran, and Councilor Yvonne Flores 7.6 RESOLUTION NO. 25-125: A RESOLUTION ADOPTING THE 2024 LAS

CRUCES INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT MASTER PLAN AND THE LAS

CRUCES AIRPORT LAYOUT PLAN. Andy Hume, Airport Director gave the overhead presentation.

Councilor Flores asked when is the interstate travel going to be established and where is the interstate that we are going to?

Andy Hume said the latest round of the RASE Funding, the Rural Air Service

Enhancement Funding has just been released. The applications have just been released by New Mexico DOT. Our hope is that we can go to Phoenix. That is our plan. There was $12 million set aside by the legislature for funding and we are going to pursue it aggressively as I mentioned in the presentation and so that is our plan is the next stop, Phoenix.

Councilor Flores said I just really want to thank you Andy for the work that you have done. I know that Main Street, you were in the Economic Development Department at the time when Main Street really took off and became what it is today, and you have had the vision in so far as how the airport is crucial to economic development and we just can’t minimize that. It is hopefully going to bring a lot of industry especially with our park there, Industrial Park. So, I just want to thank you for your vision, your hard work and putting up with the advisory board. Councilor Becki Graham moved, seconded by Councilor Becky Corran, to

Approve Resolution No. 25-125.

Corran, and Councilor Yvonne Flores

8. BOARD APPOINTMENTS 8.1 DR. BUELHING-GARDNER

Councilor Becki Graham moved, seconded by Councilor Becky Corran, To appoint Dr. Buelhing-Gardner to the ASCMV Board.

9. NOTICE OF PROPOSED ORDINANCE(S)

1) There will be no public discussion.

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

10. CITY COUNCIL MEMBER BOARD REPORTS AND COMMENT 10.1 COUNCILOR MCCLURE I would like to give a shoutout to the Historic Preservation Commission. I hope that I am not stealing Ikani’s glory by saying we might be getting a Historic Preservation

Specialist. So, I am pretty excited about that. The commission is doing a really good job, it created a watch list of different areas in town to kind of make sure that we keep and recognize the history of and some of these are if you were going to college here at a certain time going to the club you will recognize that but also things like the mall and what that means for our history. Of course, the roller rink but also Municipal Court which we are fixing up now. So, things like that, those are 6 p.m. meetings so there is flexibility if you want to get involved in the city.

10.2 COUNCILOR MATTIACE None. 10.3 COUNCILOR GRAHAM Speaking of the ASCMV Board, I just want to share that we are making good progress in our search for a new Executive Director and to give an ongoing shout out to

Elizabeth Seely who is doing an incredible job as Interim Director, so I just wanted to acknowledge that.

The only other thing I will bring up since we had a lot of public comment about public comment, I will renew my what now feels like annual call to take a good look at how we structure and format public comment. I spoke with our City Clerk who I might mention again, the top City Clerk in the State of New Mexico let’s not forget and

Mayor I believe you had requested that New Mexico Municipal League do an analysis of some of our meetings. That analysis has been completed and I think that the most productive and effective way to structure public comment is covered in that report. So,

I will just again bring up my hope that we can explore that. 10.4 COUNCILOR CORRAN Thank you, Councilor Graham, I second that desire to revisit that. Not that we are proposing any limits on public comment just a restructuring of. Sometimes we are here and we don’t have an opportunity to say anything until now which is sometimes, three or four or five or six hours later definitely not always ideal in that context but other than supporting Councilor Graham’s ask I don’t have any other comments. 10.5 COUNCILOR FLORES I first want to, and I hope we get more publicity on this to encourage people to become a donor and go to the Motor Vehicles Department to show that on your driver’s license just in case you are in an accident.

I want to also comment on the Pope’s passing, and I happen to be watching him when he was blessing the people there in Vatican City and when he was just sitting and waving at people and he passed away this morning. I was raised Catholic and then the family found out that we were actually Jewish. The beauty of the Pope was that he was so humane. He was the first non-European Pope from Argentina. I just want to acknowledge that he actually either spoke to the President or the Vice President about some of the inhumanity that they are imposing on our country and the world and so he was a person who had a global view of the world, and I will miss him.

I also want to give a shoutout. I had a terrifying experience this past weekend where I was coming home from El Paso and a rock hit my car and another car. It shredded one of my tires and I was stranded there and AAA never showed up. The other driver changed his tire, and he said I will change yours. I had called AAA already and this was a little after 7. In my Hyundai I didn’t have a spare. So, then the young man who offered was very, very tired but he was wonderful, he said I will stay here until someone comes and then all of a sudden, I thought, I am going to call Ikani. I was like scared, it was the middle of the desert, and I had just crossed into Anthony, New

Mexico. So Ikani called Chief Story and then Chief Story called the State Police, the

New Mexico State Police and they stayed there with me and then finally it was almost

11 o’clock and AAA kept calling saying where exactly are you? I said you are the third or fourth person I have spoken to. I just want to give a shoutout to Sgt. Arellano and

Officer Barron. At any rate I just want to share that with you and I know that we get a lot of rotten tomatoes thrown at us but it is just an example of how a community comes together and I am just so grateful because it was scary out there and the young man that wanted to stay there was like falling asleep because he was coming from back east and was on his way home. Thank you Ikani Taumoepeau and Chief

Story and the State Police Arellano and Barron.

In so far as our community we had several people commenting on how we need more recreation for our children and I just hope that it happens sooner than later. I think we really have to focus on our youth. I started last week or last meeting commenting on the little girls who and how la Sra. Maria Flores was on the school board and visited all the schools and asked one little girl why she goes to school, she didn’t say and finally she said, “I come to eat”. The other little girl that had a paper bag she always carried she finally let her see that and she didn’t have any food in there and all she

said is I have my lunch, and it turns out she only had a rock and she just made it look like it was her food. And what I was trying to get at and I digress so much because I have got so much on my mind but a lot of people say we can’t blame poverty but we can look at it analytically and if we live in a society where we are sending our children to school on an empty stomach, what do we expect. Think about how you feel when you are hungry you get irritable. It is a horrible thing to be hungry and then not know where your next meal is coming from and the other thing is that even though New

Mexico is largely Latino, Spanish, or Mexican American or whatever, the same trauma that affects every minority group is prevalent here in spite of that. So, people become marginalized. People feel that they just don’t belong then they start forming their own groups and this is something that we studied a lot back in the sixties and seventies in terms of demonstrations and all that sort of stuff. I hope that our community, I know our City does, but I just hope that we invest more in our children and everything and anything we can do and of course the Safe Streets is very important and I want to say that when I was a delegate, I was a representative to the World Green Conference or something but there was a huge exposition, it was in Germany. It was a huge, huge exposition and all the countries in the world has their little thing and there was one country Bhutan boasted that it was the happiest place on earth. So, I asked the lady who was sitting in her booth, and I said so people are happy, people talk to each other, and they are happy? She said no, it’s not that kind of happy, it’s not like hello, how are you? No people have their bad days, people can get mean sometimes, but happy in so far people who live there get everything they need to be a human being and that was the year that I was asked to run for city council and I had just gotten back from that or was it about a year later so and I decided I would run for city council to make it better. I won’t be running again so if there is anybody in District 6 who wants to have tomatoes thrown at you please think about it. I recommend to the readership to the public that is listening I recommend two books. One of them is called the Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck and the other is titled Wretched of the

Earth by Franz Fanon. 10.6 COUNCILOR BENCOMO Yes, I wanted to ditto Councilor Graham’s idea. I think additionally I just want to speak to the criticism that I hear often about the time of our meetings and that they are inaccessible. I do want to say that this governing body of all the governing bodies in

Dona Ana County I think is the most accessible. I think we have the most meetings out of everyone including Dona Ana County Commission, School Board, and us that we meet nearly every Monday with a few exceptions. I will also say that the school board does have their meetings in the evenings and folks don’t stay for that either and so sometimes staff and school board members are having meetings till 10:30 p.m. We are public servants, but I think there is limits to certainly what we should require of people. I am not sure I could get any business done that late anyways. It is difficult because I think no one has really figured out what the best time is but I do just want to note that I always appreciate that folks are able to come here. There was a couple who came here today and when I think about public comment, I think gosh that is really, it’s not the disinformation and not the tomato throwing, it is the residents coming up to speak about problems in their neighborhoods or in their city and bringing solutions or wanting to have answers. So, I appreciate both Steven and David for running out and catching folks that had questions specific to their departments and thank you for answering those. Though I would love a better way to sort of answer

people’s questions as they are happening because those individuals want the answer, but I think many more in our community want the answer to those questions without us ever having to engage and debate. That is absolutely the last thing that we need.

I will say that I am looking forward to our Work Session for the recap of the

Legislative Session which to many folks’ opinions it was nothing effective happened. I wholeheartedly disagree. I think even if you just look at SB 1 and 3, the largest investment in our behavioral health system in decades happened and that is pretty incredible and powerful. I also want to note that we had a very effective year in capital outlay appropriations, a little bit over $13 million and we would have had $23 million with the $10 million appropriation that a couple of us lobbied for and got in the budget that was unfortunately line item vetoed that would have gone for housing with that being said I am happy to report that today myself, Mayor, our City Manager and a couple of other folks from housing did meet with the Secretary of Work Force

Solutions and Secretary Sarita Nair who is now overseeing Housing. We met with her today here in Las Cruces. She toured some of our current projects, housing projects and we are still advocating for those $10 million to come to a community for the projects that are that are literally currently being built as we speak they can start housing people in as short as a year and a half or two years and those are incredible investments for us to continue lobbying for and we will continue doing so alongside

Chairman Nathan Small.

I also just wanted to speak a little bit on Pope Francis passing. I was a young community organizer doing faith-based work when he came up and he had made a tremendous impact on my journey as a community organizer and I don’t know if any of you have gotten a chance to read his encyclical, Laudato si’, which focused on climate change and inequity. It was the first time a Catholic Pope had ever talked about climate change and what it means to care for mother earth and the people on it.

In this encyclical he also talked about that we must reject the culture, the throw away culture that often exist so much in our economies and he is quoted once by saying\that “in the end it is not simply a matter of having more but being more, a fundamental renewal of hearts and minds so that the human person may always be placed at the center of social, cultural, and economic life”. I just wanted to speak to that a little bit because it was definitely sad news this morning. 10.7 MAYOR ENRIQUEZ We can definitely revisit the public comments and look at that. The whole objective, the whole goal of city council is to run a government meeting so we will definitely look at how we can do that. Ms. Stryker mentioned it herself, public comments/public participation is not really a requirement in city council meetings but we will definitely look at it. I think it is twofold, it is not only individuals coming here but it is also us going out there. Last Saturday I met with the neighborhood watch captains to go over a lot of the issues and concerns, Councilor McClure was there with me and we met to hear their concerns, their issues about public safety, public works. Things that are going on in their neighborhood, code enforcement. So, we get that list to the City

Manager and see how we can make a difference in the community so we are out there also listening more than just three minutes that are allowed. The other one is the

Safer Business. I was there as their guest speaker last Monday and answering questions and I appreciate these neighborhoods, watch teams, captains, Safer

Business that want to get involved and make Las Cruces better. So, we support that, and we go out there and we work with them as well. Looking to the future our youth in this community is precious to me. We have the Mayor’s Top Teen, they just had their annual banquet and just the ambition, the drive, the goals that they want and make their lives better to improve. So, it is a great thing to see and also, I mentioned before

I walk with the kids from Hermosa Heights Elementary every Thursday morning. It is not just a matter of showing that leadership cares for them, but they also feed me and it is a good feeling. Chief Story is not here right now but I already shared with him there was this second grader, and I will just call him Jay and I asked Jay, what do you want to be when you grow up? He said I want to be an Officer. I said what kind of

Officer? He said I want to be a Police Officer. So, it gives me hope. It is great that there is still kids in our community that want to be in public safety and it is a good feeling. And with that I am glad Mayor Pro Tem mentioned the housing. We did meet with the Cabinet Secretary from Work Force and thank Natalie Green and her staff for having projects ready available, permit ready, shovel ready so that we can move forward and take advantage of some of that funding. With that also this coming weekend we have the Third Annual Mira Las Cruces. So, kudos to Visit Las Cruces for putting this on. It will Saturday, April 26th at 2 p.m., 9:30 p.m. on the Downtown

Plaza. Free friendly family event, performances throughout the day. Our City

Manager’s favorite the luchador matches, there will be mariaches, ballet folklorico, just a lot of entertainment for the community and that is what I have said from the get go. I would rather that we gather then scatter. So, this is a way that we bring our community together so please come out and join us at the plaza and celebrate.

11. CITY MANAGER REPORT 11.1 IKANI TAUMOEPEAU Talking about gathering and scattering, right before this meeting the reason why I was a few minutes late was because staff from the City Manager’s Office and LCPS, DAC, we were huddling together because Summer Internship Programs are coming up and some of you may already be tracking but the Governor has allocated $10 million throughout the state for Summer Internship Program and last year she allocated half of that to DAC, so $5 million. This has typically been on Dona Ana County to do and so this year we have come together to see what we can do to help out and so I just want to give thanks to LCPS, Ignacio Superintendent, Rachel, Chief HR Director, Dr.

Wendy, HR Director, and Cindy, Career Specialist from LCPS, from DAC we have

Scott, CEO, From County, Deb Weir, Meg, HR Director and Deputy Director of DAC.

Assisting as well as on our staff, Jose, Deputy Director of HR, Melanie, HRIS

Manager, and Valerie, Career Development Coordinator, and Jo our HR Director and

CMO Staff along with other staff, supporting staff. This year we are working together with organizations to see what we can do to get this off the ground successfully and so I just wanted to share that. We had a successful meeting before this meeting and staff will continue to do everything, we can to get this going. The internship program will be posting within the upcoming days. So, there is a race to get this posted and as you know there is just so much operations and logistics to be done within that time before kids are out for summer and so there is just so much to do before that but I just want to appreciate all the staff and Lesley as well, our Finance Director.

I appreciate Councilor McClure sharing information about our Historic Preservation

Specialist, he starts May 4th, so we are excited for that. Quality of Life in collaboration with Dona Ana County for Library Services, Quality of Life Director Carol Brey and

Deputy Director of Library Sarah Booth attended a meeting with Dona Ana County officials on Monday to discuss progress on opening the library in Chaparral as well as the MOU between the city and county for library services. In addition, we are excited because the book mobile has been awarded by state legislators as well. So, this is a book mobile that Quality of Life has CMO staff, Sonya. They all discussed about coming up with a book mobile that could be run by the city but that can serve the region and county so we are excited about that. Additionally, Senior Programs is planning the Abuse in Later Life Awareness Health Fair. We plan to have between 20 to 30 vendors this year and are looking at hosting this health fair at the Munson

Center on either June 13th or June 20th.

Volunteer Income Tax Assistance Program, VITA a success story. Monday was the last day of tax season and our VITA tax assistant at the Branigan Library. During the ten-week program there prepared over 500 state and federal tax returns for the community so kudos to those who supported that and the volunteers making that happen. Las Cruces Museums first annual STEM Festival was held on Saturday, April

12th at the Railroad Museum and nearly 200 attendees, a great crowd for the first attempt. This annual event provides opportunities for all ages to learn about science, technology, engineering, math, STEM activities in a fun environment.

Parks & Rec, our annual Mother’s Day Concert will be held at the Downtown Las

Cruces Plaza on May 11th from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Come hear Darren Cordova y Calor and celebrate all the mothers in our community. Last but not least join us in keeping our community beautiful by participating in this year’s Great American Cleanup this

Saturday, April 26th from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m., volunteers can select a location or have one assigned by KLCB coordinator. Trash collection supplies can be picked up from

7:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. at Walmart on Walton Drive, also Walmart will be providing a free breakfast to all volunteers.

Ikani introduced the following newly appointed employees and their titles.

Chris Faivre, Community Development Director

Jenny Hernandez, Sustainability Officer

Richard Hanway, City Transportation Director

Michael Daniels, Fire Department Chief

12. ADJOURNMENT 12.1 Councilor Yvonne Flores moved, seconded by Councilor Becki Graham, to adjourn at 4:01 p.m.

SECONDER: Councilor Becki Graham

Mayor

City Clerk