City Council Meeting April 7, 2025 MINUTES City Council Monday, April 7, 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 MCCLURE. 1.2 PRESENTATION OF CERTIFICATES OF APPRECIATION/PROCLAMATIONS - COUNCILOR MCCLURE. Councilor McClure presented Jennifer Gorham with a proclamation for National Public Safety Telecommunications Week. Councilor McClure presented FYI+ and CYFD with a proclamation for the Child Abuse Prevention Month. Councilor McClure presented the City of Las Cruces Housing staff with a proclamation for Fair Housing Month. Councilor Corran presented John Holzman with a proclamation for International Dark Sky Week. Councilor Corran presented NMSU and DACC Public Health programs with a proclamation for National Public Health Week. Mayor Enriquez recognized graduates of the Neighborhood Leadership Academy. 1.3 JOBS OF THE WEEK. Sarah Raney, Americas Job Center for Southern 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. 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 live on the East Mesa and at this point in time I have no idea who in the heck my representative or councilor is but for twenty- four and a half years I have been complaining to the city council, to Councilor Gail Jones, Councilor Gil Sorg, Councilor Corran, I haven’t had an opportunity to hit up Councilor Flores yet and I think she is my new representative but there is a street and it’s a short street. It’s named Stewarts Street. It is between Mesa Grande and Mesa in that little area in between the two where you have Midway. It runs north/south of Mesa Grande and Mesa, you can access it from Clifford which is off of Mesa Grande but that street is less than a quarter of a mile long. I will make you a bet right now that there is not a single one of you or a person in this building that can drive down that street and not have to avoid or run over a pothole. This is twenty-four years I have been complaining about this. It runs from Cortez to I think Midway but it’s a north/south street and actually a whole section of the street is not even macadamed, or black topped, it is not even paved. It is like a mud bog out there in the wintertime or when it rains so I am asking again please somebody because I know that Councilor Corran looked into it and I think the Street Department gave her the wrong information because she even courteously sent me pictures of what I was supposedly referring to and it was not the street. So, they gave you misinformation and I have been told by four different Councilors that we have been on the agenda to be repaired since 2003. It ain’t happening. They are out there filling in the potholes. So, somebody please send somebody out there that can do something about the street and take care of us for it. It is a well traveled, highly traveled street. Yoli Diaz, Member of the Public said my thoughts and prayers are with all of our community on the Young Park massacre. I am here to provide my opinion. This is to inform you that there were four residents who could have been put in the pilot project for cancer treatment through Dona Ana County’s contract with Memorial Medical Center. A contract specifically for four residents and up to $200,000. I provided notice of these four residents to leadership as follows, in 2024, September 25th, November 22nd, December 5th and March 20, 2025. Among my many concerns is that when Dona Ana County Board of County Commissioners receive a report of the success of this pilot project, I do not want anyone to think that these four residents were not in need because they were and are. I believe this pilot project is unfortunately a failure to these residents who contacted me for help because they were not put in the pilot project. Was this pilot project planned, designed, and implemented effectively for success? Was there a unform policy procedure for provider/patient navigation for care coordination? Had these four residents been processed, qualified, and enrolled this contract would have been fully executed. Barriers created these residents to experience addition financial hardship in additional to the physical anguish of a cancer diagnosis, a potentially fatal disease, a life-or-death situation, the second cause of death globally. The December 2024 resident was not originally assisted when MMC asked, is she a US citizen or a legal permanent resident? Three of these four residents have children, please think of the children. Mayor Pro Tem, three of these residents reside in your district. I hope you get involved. I still want to know what is happening with MMC to ensure all Dona Ana County residents receive the care they need when they need it. It is past time to tell our community what is happening. Let’s discuss many important subjects related to Memorial Medical Center like the asset purchase agreement, MMC policies, MMC’s discrimination towards the non-US citizen that resides here, MMCs removal of cancer care from their policy, the county’s indigent care resolution, the New Mexico Constitution, and how Dona Ana County has much room for improvement toward how this county’s responsibility of indigent care has operated the last ten years. Let’s discuss current concerns like the senate budget committee bipartisan staff report of January 2025, Profits over Patients, the harmful effects of private equity of the US health care system which includes discussion of Life Point and Apollo Global Management referencing MMC and the 2024 Shkreli Awards by the Lown Institute ranking Memorial the winner of the 5th most egregious example of profiteering function in health care in the United States reported January 7, 2025. Lynn Moorer, Member of the Public said it is more than four months since significant concerns were first presented to you by citizens regarding Las Cruces Utilities implementation of the new Lead and Copper Rule. Other than finally sending out a deficient letter in Spanish it appears that nothing has been done to address these concerns. Instead, unfortunately the concerns continue to grow as we discover more fact-based information. Las Cruces Utilities has now revamped the online inventory map. Scanning it makes clearer why this city doesn’t want to talk about city owned pipes. Pipes for numerous neighborhoods many in the middle of the city don’t show up on the map at all. Pipes for more than half of the city’s elementary schools likewise are not on the map. Keep in mind that health effects of lead on young children can be especially devastating. For lots of properties that do show piping the information listed is obviously incorrect or missing. Here is a record for a property not far from here that says the customer owned portion of the piping is non-lead plastic, yet it says this service line was installed in 1952, thirty-four years before the lead ban and it lists no basis whatsoever for classifying this pipe as non-lead. In many other cases the inventory says the basis for designating the property as non-lead is that the piping was installed after the lead ban which occurred in 1986, but the inventory indicates these installations actually occurred before the lead ban in 1961, 1973, 1979. For example the city has taken this indisputably incorrect action regarding piping next to Las Cruces High School, Mayfield High School Complex, J Paul Taylor Academy, Saint Paul’s United Methodist Church which hosts a daycare in addition to all its other activities, Lion’s Park, Young Park, Apodaca Park, Cardon Park, Raymond and Paz Sports Complex, the Community of Hope, and numerous residences and businesses. Look at any of these named places on the inventory map and you will see that it says the installation occurred before 1986, yet the city classified this as non-lead. This signifies that it doesn’t need replacement. It seems doubtful that this is just a massive record keeping problem. It suggesting incompetence spreaded throughout all the so called investigations Las Cruces Utilities says it is conducting . Not only is just checking the meter box inadequate, there is no evidence in the thousand records I have reviewed online that Las Cruces Utilities is doing any verification whatsoever of the materials the service lines are made of. You should know that EPA requires at least two methods of verification for every pipe. If any piping were to be verified the question is what method the city would use? The city’s initial method for determining the nature of the pipe is inadequate as delineated at a previous meeting. The judgment of the people who are making the decisions must be examined by one or more independent engineers since there is so much evidence that they are not doing a competent job so far in so many areas. Liz Rodriguez-Johnson, Member of the Public said for more than four months the local citizens have been trying to call your attention to the deficiencies in the city’s implementation of the new Lead and Copper Rule. The only identifiable thing accomplished after prolonged refusal was a letter in Spanish that was finally sent out, but it was loaded with web links to sites that are not in Spanish. Where is the map showing all the city owned piping? That is an issue that was raised four months ago too. I am worried about 65% of property owners who may not have received a notification letter because the city inventory doesn’t even show that the property has service lines. The huge gaps in the inventory map suggest among other things that the inventory that the city submitted to EPA in October 2024 was not compliant with the new rule. Plus, the map designations are highly misleading if not wholly inaccurate. A green dot for a property is supposed to signify non-lead material class. However, when you actually look at many of these green dotted properties you discover that the record designates only the city owned portion of the piping is non- lead and this is based only on installation date after the lead ban in 1996 and it not based on actual field verification. The customer owned portion of the lines shows unknown. Apparently because it was installed before the lead ban, the green dot designation of non-lead is not really accurate. At most, only the city owned part of the line might be non-lead but there is no proof that the customer owned part of the line is not lead. This is another piece of the troubling picture regarding Las Cruces Utilities’ substandard performance on this issue. Citizens are potentially being hurt when asked to rely upon inaccurate and/or misleading information from the city regarding piping. Citizens are being required to bear a considerable expense to replace lead piping when the city doesn’t either know the true situation regarding whether piping is lead or doesn’t want to tell us. Lead is a dangerous pollutant with serious health ramifications. The city needs to find at least one experienced manager/engineer who can take a strategic look at this problem and come up with a managerial approach but deals with it comprehensively not through patch work. You should be throwing your very best at this not just attempting to look like you are trying to comply with the new rule. The city council has been made fully aware that the city is not dealing with this issue properly and even if the city council did try to claim ignorance everyone knows ignorance is not a valid legal defense. Tim Jenkins, Member of the Public said a holistic approach to crime, discipline, respect, and fear is a holistic approach to crime. Growing up as a kid in my neighborhood, every single child knew that we had to be home when the streetlights turned on. If not, we had mothers and fathers from every porch and window screaming for us to get our asses home or they were going to call our parents. We all had discipline, respect, and fear. That is what this generation needs. Deming has a curfew. I believe we need to start there and hold kids and parents accountable. Four days before the Young Park incident a member on city council was screaming that our police need more oversight. Police in this town are held to a higher standard and a higher accountability more than anybody in this room will ever be held to. The only people that need more oversight are the people sitting on city council demanding that our police need more oversight. Our Police Department needs to be given the tools they so desperately need to effectively make this city safer for all and to be able to hold juveniles and parents accountable for their actions. That is how we jail ourselves out of crime. Giovani Hernandez, Member of the Public said I am a resident of Las Cruces and I would like to say three things, love, care, and respect are greater values than fear and authoritarianism. Our community has suffered a lot and will continue to suffer as wounds heal and irreplaceable people continue to be missed. The answer to youth violence is not punishment, it’s not authoritarianism, it’s not being scared, it sure isn’t a curfew. It is a holistic approach, right? It involves many different things. It starts at home, extends to the community and it is reflected here in our city council. So, I would just like to say that speaking loudly doesn’t always mean you are right, speaking with compassion, with care and understanding is more important than just being an angry person all the time so as our community heals and continues to heal, I hope we all keep that in mind. Sarai Guerrero, Member of the Public said I live in District 1 and I grew up here my whole life and it is really tragic to see what happened at Young Park last month. As a youth that grew up here, as a youth who had siblings who were not like me for a lack of a better word. It wasn’t because I wanted to be that way. It wasn’t because they were bad it was because there was not resources available to them. My family and I struggled in poverty through child abuse, through domestic violence and I think the last thing that we needed at any given moment was someone arrested, someone being tough on us just for the fact that we were alive and that is just to say that I am not the only child in Las Cruces that is dealing with that. We had some folks come up here and talk about child abuse and that is if anything a huge catalyst for change sometimes, usually always for the worse. My brother was an example of that and although my brother had that opportunity to change a lot of young folks don’t. A lot of people don’t have the safety nets, the community resources to reach out and a lot of them are scared and rightfully so and I think to really get to the root of this issue we must look at everyone with compassion and with kindness and with love that we might not even give ourselves and I hope that the city works to do more for our youth. I grew up here and I never saw anything until I reached the age of 21, which is really great. It is nice that this is happening now in our town, but we can do more. We can do so much more to have these resources available to youth, give them activities, give them things to do. Like the thing where people go and look at the different departments that the city has, extend that to the youth you know outside of government classes or whatever you want. Have these kids engaged with the city and maybe these things can change for the benefit of the entire community for the youth, for the parents, for the everyone. Lucas Herndon, Member of the Public said I am a resident of District 2. I am a person who spent my whole life here. I grew up as a child here. I went to high school here, went to college here, bought a house here and have raised my daughter here. My daughter was a classmate of one of the young men who was killed at the park and one of my neighbors it was his nephew and so like almost everybody in this town this tragedy has affected my family in personal ways. It has been hard to have a conversation with my 16-year-old daughter about gun violence that has affected us in our town. We are a family that has firearms. She has been shooting with me since she was four and one of the conversations we have always had is how to make guns safe and the issue is that you can make a gun safe but you can’t make people safe. One of the things that we have talked about is what makes us unsafe is when there are not resources available to make us feel safe and when I was growing up we at least had a bowling alley. We at least had a Putt-Putt. We at least had cheap seat theaters. Our kids don’t have even those things. I do want to address something that was said about fear and anger. The Chief of Police said the day of the shooting. “This horrendous senseless act is a stark reminder of the blatant disregard that the people in New Mexico have for the rule of law and order”. And went on to say, that as angry as he was right now he was not going to make the conference political. That is a political statement. That is a call out of every New Mexican. He said it. Your Chief of Police says that every New Mexican has a disregard for the rule of law and order. People in this community have to come up here and have talked about fear a lot and that fear is often directed at the most marginalized members of this community. When the guy who has the gun in the room right now says he is angry, and he thinks that everybody hates him that is what you should be scared of. That is what everybody in here should be afraid of. Abigail Soluksogan, Member of the Public said I have and have been a Las Cruces constituent for over 17 years. I was raised around the Park & Rec area of District 1. Every summer I would be at Meerscheidt where they provided free food for the kids, get us moving around. There would be stuff happening at Young Park. Young Park is mostly where I was at. There were so many youth engage events. These funded youth organizations are the reasons I love this city so much and as I grew older, I knew I wanted to stay here in Cruces and continue to work with and support the youth as much as possible. After this recent shooting at Young Park which I want to take this time and give my condolences to the families, friends and the youth who have been impacted by the shooting. It is very telling that our youth is very underrepresented in the community. I also want to take this time to comment on Jeremy Story’s statement which he said, “this horrendous senseless act is a stark reminder of the blatant disregard that the people of New Mexico have for the rule of law and order”. The statement is not only blatant disregard to the families, friends, and youth who are still grieving from this, but it is also a blatant disregard for the real systemic issues that are most underrepresented community faces. Listen to our youth more, engage with them, act upon those issues and concerns they have. Jeremy you are quick to blame on the people in the community I so deeply care about is dangerous and reckless. It’s defeatist and nihilistic to spew these to the public. I want to take the rest of my time to thank our city council and community who provided resources for the community in these times such as the victims resource center. Thank you to NM CaFé for opening up spaces for the community, especially for the youth to grieve. Let’s engage with the youth more, prioritize youth behavioral services as James Baldwin said the children are always ours, every single one of them and as always viva Palestina and viva los ninos. Liz Bennett, Member of the Public said as we come together to do better for our community I have a few follow-up questions for Chief Story. First, I would like an update on the storage locker idea that you proposed back when you were advocating for taking shopping carts away from people living on the streets. Is that plan still moving forward? My concern is when we push for carceral policies that promote fines and jail time your rhetoric Chief Story is that this punishment will lead to services and support but more often than not the second half of that equation is left neglected because it requires ongoing consistent investment, action, care and concern and doesn’t lead to the same adrenaline spiked political payoff of being tough on crime. During your January town hall Chief Story you mentioned that were unsure as to why there are so few supportive services for youth and adult struggling with mental illness and violent behavior. I would like to recommend a documentary to you called the Shake Up. It details how in 2013 the Martinez administration destroyed the community based behavioral health care system through a rigged audit process resulting in the closure of 15 mental health providers, all of which were later found to be clear of any wrongdoing. The providers were replaced by five Arizona companies hired on no bid emergency contracts, all of whom have since bailed. New Mexico has been trying to rebuild supportive services ever since and despite your clear and publicly stated opinion of the blatant disregard of the people of New Mexico this legislative session did see the approval of a $62 million investment in behavioral health services throughout the state. I would like to encourage you, Chief Story, this council, Mayor Enriquez, and the community to commit to the long term work of cultivating a community that our young people want to be part of by taking advantage of the opportunity that these funds might offer and speaking of the blatant disregard for the rule of law and order in the January town hall Chief Story you stated that the LCPD would not interfere with ICE’s ability to do their job and I would like to know if that statement still stands as we see ICE abducting legal residents off the street and detaining and deporting them with no due process often as punishment for critical speech. So finally Chief Story, council, Mayor, my question is will you commit to restoring community support, recognizing the humanity of all Las Cruces residents and expanding our strategy beyond detention. Sylvia Yancy, Member of the Public said I live in District 2. Last month’s shooting hit our community very hard, and it is not something and it is not something that we will recover from anytime soon. The rise of gun violence and mass shootings in this country is apparent and I want to see our community do its best to prevent something like this from happening in the future again. I want to address Jeremy Story specifically. You said after the mass shooting last month, this horrendous senseless act is a stark reminder of the blatant disregard the people of New Mexico have for the rule of law and order. It is also the reminder of the utter lack of fear and accountability here in New Mexico. I don’t know if you lack media training or what, but I and many others were incredibly offended and disgusted by your statement. I think my friends that spoke here today said better words on why this is blatantly not true and why we need love and support instead of fear in our community. To put the blame on our lack of respect for authority on this tragedy is sickening as well as disrespectful to any citizens that have valid concerns and criticism for LCPD and other law officers in the state of New Mexico. Frankly I am also very concerned that every time that I come to a city hall meeting that you Jeremy Story are on your phone half the time. This shows that you are not truly listening to any concerns brought up during public comment. Please do better and listen to the citizens that you and LCPD are allegedly supposed to serve and protect. Gwen Stacy, Member of the Public said I am a resident of Las Cruces. I would also like to speak about the tragedy that happened in Las Cruces and about the response that Jeremy Story has had to it and about his comments not only about New Mexicans blatant disregard for law and order but also his comments regarding house bill proposals, talking about how it is but also by claiming that he didn’t want to politicize a tragedy. I just would like to point out that both those statements inherently have political aspects to them, and I would actually appreciate if there weren’t so many politicizations because recommending a house bill from the New Mexico Legislature as a political body is inherently politicizing an event. The other part of it is that anyone who knows anything about preventing tragedies suggesting a bill that increases sentencing duration is something that only happens after a tragedy has already occurred. It doesn’t make any sense to say that those prevent tragedies and even on that the idea of instilling fear into youth is going to stop them from committing a heinous acts is also just not true. Any sociological look at what does and does not prevent these things shows clear indications that the prevention of childhood poverty is the largest preventative measure for acts of violence and aggression in youth and teenagers and I can also just say from my own personal experience that I used to be an angry kid and when you are an angry kid you don’t really care. You need someone to reach out to you before you do something stupid or irresponsible because the angry kids, they don’t care about themselves, they don’t care about anyone else, and that is why they do it. Attempting to instill fear on someone who is a disregard for their own life doesn’t prevent anything. Michael Harris, Member of the Public said I have been a resident of Las Cruces for a very long time, well over 30 years and obviously the main topic of this is crime prevention and the recent tragedy and the question that is asked is what are you going to do about it? What is the city council going to do about it? And the assumed answer in a lot of circles is make the police do something about it. Put all the effort on to Chief Story and his department and that is the answer and somehow that will magically fix things. Frankly this is a very lazy take. It is easy to say that and it is easy to say give more work to the cops. The question was asked I guess on why there aren’t more preventative programs and youth programs? The Police Department gets roughly one third of city budget as you are well aware, the non-capital budget at least. So, what are they doing with all that money? They are doing important work, and they do have a job and they have a very specific job of solving crimes. That job is specifically not preventing crimes. They show up after crimes have been committed and help solve them and help bring justice to the people that committed them and hopefully justice for the victims. So, to that end there are some things that I think city council can do that are well within your purview, mandate and legal of powers that contribute to just safety and health of the community in general and downstream reduce crime. I think this has also been brought up, ensuring health care access to all citizens. There was a very passionate statement about Memorial Medical Center earlier today. Very well taken, we have a big problem in the country, in the community, with access to healthcare. If you are healthcare poor you are living in poverty. The city has things that they can do. They have some direct power over Memorial Medical Center, they have a lobbyist in Santa Fe who they hire and could advocate for some state programs like Medicaid buy in, can ensure that everyone in the community is safely housed. I think that goes without saying, if you are secure in housing, you are a lot less likely to commit petty crimes so that you can spend a night in jail. Shift the focus of public works to prioritize safety of the community. There are various things that public works can do to ensure that citizens are safer just overall. We can design roads better for safety, reduce road rage and such, we can design lighting. That was a very interesting thing from earlier today. We can design for safety, but that direction has to come from the top. Juan Garcia, Member of the Public said on March 21st my 17 year old son came home with shadows in his eyes. His voice described the horror that unfolded at Young Park. The crack of gunfire and desperate scramble for safety. While he and his girlfriend found refuge in his car others were not granted such mercy. She witnessed a stranger’s final moments, his blood seeping into the grass, three souls were stolen that night, fifteen more forever marked by bullets and trauma. My son and his girlfriend survived but something in them died at Young Park. Now the place where children once played will be forever known as the Las Cruces Young Park Massacre site. Joining the Bowling Alley Massacre site. They are a reminder of how quickly violence can shatter our illusions of safety. KOB, “as for the juveniles that have been suspects or charged in aggravated burglaries, vandalism, sexual assault, robbery, attempts at selling guns, shop lifting, drug possession, suspected in batteries, domestic violence, and aggravated assault”. One was charged with smuggling illegal immigrants in Texas. Investigators said the fifteen year old, “walked down one of the victims shooting him on the ground like a standing executioner.” So why were these kids not stopped while on their criminal career path? Or as District Attorney Bregman asked, about the legislature, “I want you to hold these young people accountable when they violate the law and start when they first, first violate the law. When they steal their first car. Make sure they understand there is a consequence to that behavior. They are going to be accountable so that down the road we don’t have situations where the first time they are being held accountable is when they are being prosecuted for murder”. Does this sound familiar? His, Rivas’s defense attorney stated, “and warned against using the incident to push for harsher juvenile sentencing laws”. Why did the laws remain unchanged? The progressives watched the juvenile crime crisis unfold like a reality show, entertaining from a distance but heaven forbid that they actually do something about it. They have plenty to blame, guns, skin color, poverty, but dance around deterrence and consequences. Why lock up criminals when you can process them and send them back to terrorize the community? Meanwhile small businesses and citizens are being picked clean like carcasses in the desert but at least our lawmakers can sleep soundly that way they are not too harsh on criminals, and we support LCPD and Chief Story. Angelica Calderon, Member of the Public said I am the Executive Director of La Pinon. Our mission is to empower survivors of sexual assault and child abuse with a community of support through healing and comprehensive services, advocacy, and prevention education. We believe that by offering unconditional support, information and a safe environment for change the person who has been sexually assaulted can take the steps to regain control of their life and make the transition from victim to survivor. We strive to seamlessly provide high quality intervention services to children and their families to reduce trauma and minimize long term effects of child all forms of maltreatment, abuse, and neglect. La Pinon on average provides wrap around service to over 1,000 survivors a year. We are the second largest sexual assault services provider in the state. Our service area covers Dona Ana County, Luna County, Sierra County, and Hidalgo County, with satellite offices in Deming and Truth or Consequences. Why are our services imperative in our community? A recent victim data survey conducted by the Catherine Cutler Institute for Health and Social Policy, according to that policy a total of 54% of New Mexicans reported being sexually assaulted within their lifetime. Of those 54%, 40% of respondence reported being sexually assaulted before they were 12 years old. When our services are available to all community members it provides the hope that the victims and survivors need to start their healing journey. La Pinon is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to respond with crisis intervention whether the assault or abuse occurred five minutes ago, five days ago, five or fifty years ago. Our victim advocates are there to provide compassionate care and advocacy. Our team connects all of our clients with imperative services at no cost. The City of Las Cruces support for many years has played a role in that ensuring services are available to victims and survivors. The continued grant funding that has been awarded to La Pinon has provided vital medical to victims care for sexual assault and child abuse. I want to thank the council for your support. I would also like to invite you all to meet with me and discuss further how the City of Las Cruces can continue supporting victims and survivors. Thank you to Mayor Pro Tem Bencomo for visiting our facility and having conversations with myself and my staff. Thank you for believing survivors, we all play a role in preventing violence and in helping victims on their healing journey. Jorge Aguirre, Member of the Public said I am a local citizen and I would like to share a couple of thoughts. The first one is in support of Realize Las Cruces. There was a lady that was evicted at the end of December and there was a huge community uproar, even the legislators said that it was the landlord’s fault because they should leave money on the table instead of evicting somebody and I think the real problem is supply and demand. We don’t have enough houses, and it is unreasonable to ask landlords to leave money on the table. We just need not have people take advantage of tenants. Thank you for voting for it though. The zoning status quo protected the comfort and property values of a few at the cost of increased inequality and homelessness for too many in growing poverty and crime for most. Without houses people end up on the street. Second thought is about the shooting. I don’t agree with the police presence alone would have prevented violence, maybe? But it is likely also that police presence would have made it worse at great taxpayers cost. It has been so before. The solutions to the past cannot solve the problems of the present. Sometimes they are the cause of them and the police system was an old institution that was not built with the tools to deal with the multi-layer problems like the ones the community is experiencing. No se le pueden pedir peras al olmo. And on the other hand, this is not the first time at Young Park that people gather at this place to socialize and show off their cars and the situation gets out of control. There was this accident where they were doing car stunts, and it was really tragic too. So, I don’t know what the integral solution would entail but perhaps some of it will be the city would be taking the leadership of helping to organize these gatherings in an organized way and channel this event spaces to help them gather and show off their cars to each other and socialize without the risk of them doing it by themselves with guns and car stunts. Lastly the intentional slowdown of the American economy by the US President has decimated the stock market today, they are calling it Trump Monday, Orange Monday, Black Monday and it will cause job loss across the country and poverty in the near future including our city. Many Americans may lose their homes, and we may see a rise in the number of people needing help here. Big companies will surely get bailed out but we the working people are probably not going to get help from FEMA or any federal agency or anybody just each other. So, I just tell you all of this stuff so that I hope that you realize that when the stuff hits the fan pretty soon our community will need your help and your leadership to help them navigate these hard times. Jim Hoerst, Member of the Public said a few weeks ago there was a shooting at a Sonic burger. There was only one death, so it didn’t get the coverage that three deaths and 16 other casualties get but that person happened to be known to me and I consider him family. He is 20 years old. He was a troubled youth, and his friend was a troubled youth and they got into an argument and there was a gun and there was a gun death. There are 390 million guns in America, 1.25 guns for every American. That is why we have the violence we have. No other country has anywhere near the gun violence we have. Yes, indeed it is the guns. We are not going to change these realities, these events without dealing with guns. It is just that simple. We have tried to dance around it for 50 years. There is no way around it. The only way is through it. I suggest we have liability insurance for the gun owners that will deter the amount of guns in the amount of irresponsible gun ownership. Jay Choate, Member of the Public said I reside in District 5 and I have been here for over a decade. I think there is a lot of thoughts I have here. First of all, I am studying for my Masters in Political Science and Public Administration at NMSU currently and having studied Public Admin as for the statement of the Police Chief it is ill advised to generally say that you know better than the public because you are always going to get backlash for that and situations are complicated nuance. I don’t think it is best to speak as if you know better than everybody. As far as the problems themselves. I don’t think it can be solved through punitive measures. I don’t think we can keep trying the same thing we have been doing for decades and decades just smacking our face into a brick wall hoping to get a different result, trust me it will be different this time. It is not going to be. We have seen what happens when we try this approach. I think we need to look at it as a rehabilitative community measure. We need to be ensuring that everyone has access to affordable housing, we need to ensure they have access to fair paying jobs, they need to have access to affordable food, necessities, clothing, they need to have access to resources in community, places where they can gather. I know since Covid a lot of places close down at 10 now so all these kids, they don’t have a place now to go and socialize. Let alone recreational facilities that we already have. We have the parks, we have hiking trails but maybe not everyone is interested in that kind of stuff. We are all forced to buy a car pretty much because of our car centric society infrastructure so I makes sense to buy a cool car and show it off to your friends but we need to make it to where they have organized places to hang out or things to do and that requires engaging them, asking them what they want in the community and working with them to achieve that and I think not representing them and leaving them out of loop just makes this problem worse over time. Just telling them they need to be home before the lights go out, they are kids they are going to go out and do what they want. You can yell at them as much as you want but I grew up as a teenager and I feel as if we all grew up as teenagers at one point, most of us were rebellious, rambunctious sometimes, maybe it is not good to do that but ultimately if they are going to it we want to work with them so that it is safer and make it so they have access to resources and people who actually care about them as opposed to just speaking down to them assuming that they are going to listen. So, I think we just need to approach things differently. I am glad that you all did pass Realize Las Cruces. It is not perfect, but no policy ever is and it will help build out the character better in the city I think. We are building more places closer to our homes where we can actually socialize and get food, clothing, stuff like that. That is how you build community. Not by telling them how they need to live, orchestrating their lives, and telling them they need to be home by this time, you need to do this things here, here, and here, at this time, this time, and this time. That is not how society works. We are humans, we are not machines. We can’t just be put into boxes. Fred Miller, Member of the Public said I am asking for increased support for our public libraries. About a month ago it came to my attention that the library next door doesn’t have a full time Collections Development Librarian. I have since then talked to two or three other Librarians. They all have diverse ideas about exactly why they need a full time Collections Development Librarian but the notion that there is so many different ideas about why they need it just adds to the notion that they do need it. It is my understanding that the City Manager will be getting some kind of report from the Quality of Life Department and that will be among the requests for Museums and Libraries, is specifically a request to implement a position for a full time Collections Development Librarian for Branigan Memorial Library. 4. ACCEPTANCE OF AGENDA Councilor Becky Corran moved, seconded by Councilor Johana Bencomo, to accept the agenda as presented. RESULT: Carried MOVER: Councilor Becky Corran SECONDER: Councilor Johana Bencomo AYES: Mayor Eric Enriquez, Councilor Cassie McClure, Councilor William Mattiace, Councilor Becki Graham, Councilor Johana Bencomo, Councilor Becky Corran, and Councilor Yvonne Flores 5. CITY COUNCIL MINUTES 5.1 REGULAR CITY COUNCIL MEETING OF MARCH 3, 2025. 5.2 SPECIAL WORK SESSION FOR MARCH 5, 2025. 5.3 JOINT WORK SESSION OF MARCH 10, 2025. 5.4 WORK SESSION OF MARCH 10, 2025. 5.5 REGULAR CITY COUNCIL MEETING OF MARCH 17, 2025. 6. RESOLUTION(S) AND/OR ORDINANCE(S) FOR CONSENT AGENDA 6.1 RESOLUTION NO. 25-110: A RESOLUTION REPEALING RESOLUTION NO. 19-188 AND ADOPTING THE STATE FUNCTIONAL RETENTION AND DISPOSITION SCHEDULE. 6.2 RESOLUTION NO. 25-111: A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING AN UPDATE TO THE VEHICLE ACQUISITION PROGRAM. 7. RESOLUTION(S) AND/OR ORDINANCE(S) FOR DISCUSSION 7.1 PUBLIC HEARING REQUIRED. RESOLUTION NO. 25-112: A RESOLUTION APPROVING THE REQUEST FOR A RESTAURANT A – BEER AND WINE ONLY LIQUOR LICENSE WITH ON PREMISES CONSUMPTION ONLY TO CORAZON DE ORO, LLC., D/B/A CORAZON DE ORO, LOCATED AT 1300 EL PASEO ROAD, SUITE 302, LAS CRUCES, NM. 88001. Public hearing began at 2:39 p.m. There was no one for or against. Public hearing ended at 2:40 p.m. Adam Ochoa, Senior Urban Planner gave the overhead presentation. Councilor Bencomo said I really just want to thank the owners of this establishment and the owners of other locally owned establishments in this area. This as we know is part of the MRA and I just want to thank them for their continued investment in this part of town and I know from our end it feels a little bit slow, but we really committed to El Paseo and this area through the MRA and hope that we can deliver right back. Mayor Enriquez said I also want to say thank you to the owners for stepping up. I know that they had already had an establishment there with the liquor license but since the name changed this has to go through the process again, but it has been something that has already been there so thank them for pursuing and keep doing what you are doing. Councilor Becky Corran moved, seconded by Councilor Becki Graham, to Approve Resolution No. 25-112. SECONDER: Councilor Becki Graham Corran, and Councilor Yvonne Flores 7.2 RESOLUTION 25-113: A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING AN EXISTING CONTRACT PURCHASE AGREEMENT FOR VIDA CORE & NETWORK HARDWARE UPGRADES WITH DAILEY AND WELLS COMMUNICATIONS, INC. OF SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS, VIA HOUSTON-GALVESTON AREA COUNCIL CONTRACT NO. RA05-21 IN AN AMOUNT NOT TO EXCEED $329,204.04 PLUS GROSS RECEIPTS TAX, SUBJECT TO APPROVED BUDGET APPROPRIATIONS (PROCUREMENT NO 24-25-064). Alysha Zamora Morales, Buyer gave the overhead presentation. Councilor Flores asked I would like to know what the length of the contract was? Is it an extension or a renewal of what we already have? Is there anything new? Alysha Zamora Morales said this is a new contract that will end July 31, 2025. It is an existing contract with Houston-Galveston and it is to buy the software and so the end user would just be able to develop, purchase the services but we wouldn’t have to contract further with them other than the installation of the services. Councilor Flores asked it is just a three month contract? Alysha Zamora Morales said it started before. It was September. Councilor Flores asked it’s a retroactive contract? Donny Prosise, Purchasing Supervisor said this is a contract that was bid out by the Houston-Galveston area council, it is a purchasing cooperative. So, the contract is already in place we are just accessing that contract for the purchase of the licenses and the installation, so the city didn’t do the procurement we are just accessing the contract with the vendor that is available to us. Councilor Becki Graham moved, seconded by Councilor Becky Corran, to Approve Resolution No. 25-113. MOVER: Councilor Becki Graham SECONDER: Councilor Becky Corran Corran, and Councilor Yvonne Flores 7.3 RESOLUTION NO. 25-114: 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 FY2025 BUDGET. Gaby Prats, Grant Manager gave the overhead presentation. Councilor Flores asked do you know any details of the Pioneer Women’s Park? Steve Bingham, Parks & Rec Director said the grant is to continue the renovation of Pioneer Park with lighting, with the sidewalk replacement and improvements around the park. Councilor Flores asked what about the structure that is there? Steve Bingham asked the gazebo? David Sedillo, Public Works Director said the gazebo is its own project itself. These funds that are being allocated are actually going to be going to the improvements of the master plan there at parks so that will include the sidewalks if you will. If you remember the park itself there is a central point where the gazebo is and then from each corner you have sidewalks coming into the center. Those will be upgraded, irrigation, and there will also be some pergola installation as part of that plan. Councilor Flores said the reason I ask is that I know the League of Women Voters has been wanting the gazebo to be restored and also the Women’s Building there. Has there been any movement in that? Have you received any calls from the League of Women Voters regarding the gazebo? David Sedillo said like I mentioned the gazebo is its own project right now. We have had some questions regarding it. Right now the gazebo has been rebuilt. We are waiting on the decorative panels to come in to be installed along with some lighting around the area on the center. Councilor Mattiace asked there is a building there with the women, would that be Parks & Rec? Sonya Delgado, Assistant City Manager said I just met with them last week and now we are talking to them about the WIA Building that is right across the street. I am working with facilities. We did do some improvements on the roof. We do have a few extra funds that are going to help with that facility as well. We have already done a complete assessment and now we are just prioritizing what we can do with the funds that we received. Councilor Johana Bencomo moved, seconded by Councilor Becky Corran, to Approve Resolution No. 25-114. MOVER: Councilor Johana Bencomo Corran, and Councilor Yvonne Flores 7.4 RESOLUTION NO. 25-115: A RESOLUTION AMENDING THE FY2025-2030 CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS PROGRAM. Cynthia Alamillo, CIP Manager gave the overhead presentation. Sarah Booth, Library Deputy Director continued the overhead presentation. Carol Brey, Quality of Life Director continued the overhead presentation. Cynthia Alamillo continued the overhead presentation. David Sedillo, Public Works Director continued the overhead presentation. Councilor Flores asked is there anything like this happening in District 6, Hacienda Acres and if it is not can you keep that in mind? David Sedillo said there is absolutely a project going on in District 6 and that is with Cortez Drive. That is a full reconstruction adding that connection between I believe Dunn all the way out to Porter. Councilor Bencomo said I know you know this because you do this work everyday. I would just like to put a finer point to how this kind of project improves immediately the quality of life for people. I just want to say that and so much of the work that was done in Realize was to ensure that neighborhoods like this never have to experience this kind of thing ever again, right? Can you just talk a little bit of what was the total cost of this? David Sedillo said the total cost for Midway without GRTs was $780,031. Councilor Bencomo asked what was the length of it? David Sedillo said this covered 920 feet. So that was the full block from Gasline Road over to Mesa Drive. That was from the start of those improvements to the center line of Mesa Drive is 920 feet. Councilor Bencomo said obviously this is the goal right for all of Las Cruces and it takes a lot of investment and resources so just thank you David and these are very much the kinds of things I had envisioned when we talked to voters about a GRT increase and how this can improve people’s quality of life. Councilor Graham said I am so excited to see Bellamah wrapped up. That was kind of my baptism to council. I came in and got to see all of staff particularly Public Works, particularly David and Tony’s ability to make really difficult information much easier to understand especially for me and you helped learnto interact with constituents with a range of concerns and also thanks, you always make me Google stuff David because of your last presentation I now know the difference between a gazebo and a pergola. Councilor Becky Corran moved, seconded by Councilor Johana Bencomo, to Approve Resolution No. 25-115. SECONDER: Councilor Johana Bencomo 7.5 RESOLUTION NO. 25-116: A RESOLUTION APPROVING A REIMBURSEMENT AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE CITY OF LAS CRUCES AND SIERRA NORTE DEVELOPMENT FOR AN IMPROVED NEIGHBORHOOD PUBLIC PARK CONSISTING OF 3.182 ACRES KNOWN AS TRACT C OF METRO VERDE EVOLUTION PHASE 2 IN AN AMOUNT NOT TO EXCEED $959,449. Katherine Harrison-Rogers, Parks Plan and Construction Administrator gave the overhead presentation. Councilor Corran said I just want to put a pin on the idea of Park Impact Fees and I am always hoping that we will continue to have that conversation and I hope that we do keep having it but I also just want to ask what sort of the time line is for this process and sort of what kinds accountability is built into this timeline? I know that is part of reimbursement and developers doing parks so that is the first part that I would ask. Katherine Harrison-Rogers said the subdivision itself is under construction. Typically, the way Metro Verde has worked in the past is large swaths of those subdivisions are sold up front to home builders and so they are constructed essentially as quick as things are finished. That is historically what has happened. So, we start collecting those fees as soon as those individual units are permitted through Community Development and as that nest egg is sort of built up then we can either pay the contractor i.e. Metro Verde, John Moscato in one lump sum or in installments as those are collected. He is very well under construction. He did send me a note before this meeting and was unable to attend today but they have done the earth work and perimeter sidewalks have already been completed. They are working on irrigation systems next week, the play equipment, site furnishings, bike skills ramps have all been ordered and he anticipates the construction will be completed by August 2025 and so as we collect those fees in the area that has been outlined for the Metro Evolutions Subdivision and there is also one subdivision that is part of the total lot number which is Metro Verde West Phase II, once those fees come in then we have enough to then submit to the developer we will do so and then exchange the land and it will be available to use but we anticipate August. Councilor Corran said I am really excited for us to have another park in District 5 for the residents and I just want to say how excited I am. I just want to give a shout out to Ashleigh Curry who is always encouraging people like me who don’t ride bikes very often to do dangerous things and ride more, not dangerous but I just want to give a shout out to our Safe Routes to School/bike encourager for kids because I think bike skills, I know that when I took my motorcycle class they literally just threw a two by four in front of us and we had to ride over it and it was very harrowing. This seems like a much better approach for kids to practice their bike skills so I will be sure to see folks including Ashleigh at the park in August. Councilor Flores asked those park fees are paid by the developer and so Moscato is privy to that, he actually works for Royal Jones, so how does that work? So, they provide the money up front but then they expect money back, why? Katherine Harrison-Rogers said what happens in this particular case and not always, sometimes we have a developer that develops the land and also constructs the houses, in the case of Metro Verde the developer basically builds out all the land including the park in this case but the Park Impact Fees are actually collected from the individual home builder who is permitting out those individual units and we collect from the home builders and then ultimately and then we reimburse Mr. Moscato and his company, it’s not his he is just a representative of the company for these particular features and so all of those costs and I can’t speak for Mr. Moscato and all how they deal with all of that but all of those cost and the assumptions are built into whatever real-estate deals they have with the individual home builders. Councilor Flores asked that is a general accepted business practice in that field? Katherine Harrison-Rogers said to my knowledge yes. It is done here, and it has been done for years. It is a bonafide practice in other places. Councilor Mattiace asked what is the total Impact Fees on a home for a home buyer? It’s Park Fees and it’s other fees? Katherine Harrison-Rogers said yes, there are several fees. There is generally the Park Impact Fee is one, there is a Utilities Impact Fee that is assessed at the time of construction as well and there are Public Safety Impact Fees assessed as well throughout the process. I can’t speak to the exact amount only to the amount that we collect which is $2,600 for Park Impact Fees per unit. Councilor Mattiace said I bring the up because we have had several people come through in the public comments about housing getting expensive. So, it is actually the homeowner that probably pays for all of these. It is probably in the cost of the home? Katherine Harrison-Rogers said I would assume like any construction, any fee whether it is a permitting fee or what have you is usually wrapped up into the total price of whatever that person is purchasing. Councilor Becky Corran moved, seconded by Councilor Johana Bencomo, to Approve Resolution No. 25-116. Corran, and Councilor Yvonne Flores 7.6 RESOLUTION NO. 25-117: A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE CITY OF LAS CRUCES (CITY) TO ACCEPT BUDGET ADJUSTMENTS FOR THE SPORT FIELD LIGHTING REPLACEMENTS THROUGH AN AMENDMENT TO THE CITY'S ADOPTED FY2024-25 BUDGET AND THE FY2025 CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS PROGRAM (CIP). Jacqueline Rubalcava, Budget and Grant Administrator gave the overhead presentation. Cynthia Alamillo, CIP Manager continued the overhead presentation. Councilor Bencomo asked is it all sports fields across the city or? Steve Bingham, Parks & Rec Director said the lights at a number of fields are not being replaced. Ron Galla is remaining, Apodaca Baseball, some soccer fields, East Mesa Complex. The lights that are being replaced is at Maag, Harty, Paz, and Apodaca Softball. Mayor Enriquez asked this is new? Cynthia Alamillo said correct. Mayor Enriquez asked I thought we had already allocated some funds for the lighting when it had gone down at Harty Field a couple of years ago I thought there was funding for this project? Can you explain the new? Cynthia Alamillo said we currently have another project related to lighting, specifically for Hadley Field lighting. The reason why we are presenting a new CIP project is because this we want to encompass more than one location so we are providing a little bit more flexibility to the department so instead of having individual projects for each of the fields we are going with one that will encompass all of them. We went with sports field lighting. The only project that I recall for lighting related to parks is for Hadley Field so there might have been one in the past and I don’t know if it was completed or if there was a change. I would need to go back to historicals to see if I can find more information on specific lighting project. Councilor Becki Graham moved, seconded by Councilor Becky Corran, to Approve Resolution No. 25-117. Corran, and Councilor Yvonne Flores 7.7 COUNCIL BILL NO. 25-020; ORDINANCE NO. 3091: AN ORDINANCE REPEALING AND REPLACING CHAPTER 7, ANIMALS, OF THE LAS CRUCES MUNICIPAL CODE (LCMC). Brad Douglas, City Attorney gave the overhead presentation. Mayor Enriquez asked Gino, did you want to speak to the item or issue you were talking about? Gino Jimenez, Animal Control Supervisor said the reason that Mr. Douglas brought that up was for clarification if needed on that three strikes or that community cat being impounded three times within that calendar year. If there is any explanation needed for that I am more than willing to explain. Mayor Enriquez asked what you are advocating for is to return them not to the same location is that correct? Gino Jimenez said that is correct. Right now, it is simply a policy with the Animal Services Center it is not part of our ordinance so all we are asking is to make that agreement between the director into the ordinance. Where as if a community cat is impounded three or more times within that calendar year it can no longer go back to that same colony it could be placed in an enclosed colony, adopted, any other place. Once a cat has been impounded such it is showing signs of domestication. So, it has a great chance of adoption. Councilor Flores said it seems like the cat thing isn’t quite clear or there is something not quite right with that part. Can you clarify it? I mean the way it is written and the way it would be enforced. I know that there has been a lot of people who attend the Animal Service Center meetings were against it and when all of this was being proposed like five or six years ago to codify everything there was a lot of push back, so I am just wondering how that language it just doesn’t seem complete. Gino Jimenez said again that agreement was already in place so that practice is already in place. It was an agreement between Mr. Thacker, the Director at the time, at that any cat that was impounded three or more times would not be returned to the area that it was initially impounded from or captured in. All we are doing is putting that into the ordinance to state the same thing. Like I said previously a cat that has been captured or impounded is basically showing signs of domestication so that cat has a better chance of being placed in a forever home rather than being placed back out into a colony. Councilor Corran said I just want to give really a huge appreciation to all of the community folks who have been talking to us about this for a really long time. I know that the city has been thinking about things like TNR in the past, thinking about spay and neuter, thinking about euthanasia rate, thinking about the shelter in all of these different ways and that big missing piece was our ordinance and I really appreciate the persistence of the community folks who have committed extraordinary amounts of time and hours to this and Animal Control for being there in those conversations and for you all contributing to this different vision which is we expect people to care for their pets in our community and we are going to support them in a way that we can most meaningfully can and keep animals out of our shelter. I really just want to give a shout out for years, literally years of work that you all have done and thinking about this and compromising and coming to different places and having conversations about what it means to take care of animals in our community in a whole bunch of different ways. So, I just really want to give extreme appreciation for bringing this forward all of you who contributed to this and have been thinking of this for a long time. I think it is really meaningful, and I do hope that we can with this I think it is really important symbol regardless of enforcement details that I know are included as a part of this too, but I really hope that one of things that we can say is that everyone should be spaying and neutering their pets. We are here to support you. That is part of our norm in our community and really getting to the not thirty dogs going into the animal shelter every day, which is really the sad part of this which I think that drives the need. So, changing the norms in our rhetorical approach to how we say we are caring for animals in our community. So, thank you for your efforts in this and I commit to continuing this conversation. Councilor Mattiace said what I would like to bring up is that when you rewrite something, and you have a lot of new enforcement strategies in this new ordinance can I find out how much the budget will be increased and how many more animal control officers will be hired. This is why I am asking for a compliance officer in the City of Las Cruces because we rewrite things, we bring in new ordinances, but we have to back it up with a big increase in the budget and new codes, ACO people so is that happening? Is that in the books? Is that in the planning? Brad Douglas said with regard to this ordinance no. This ordinance does not address anything like additional hiring, additional resources that will be needed. What I can tell you is that when and I can tell you that it is a bear of a project to rewrite an entire chapter. To echo Councilor Corran, I would like to thank Animal Control Supervisor Gino Jimenez, Lt. Joy Wiitala of LCPD and I want to give a special shout out to at least two of our community partners, Kathe Stark and Geri Wheelis who are here today. With regard to this ordinance I am not exaggerating just the meetings that went into this is probably somewhere between thirty to forty hours and that is just for the meetings that doesn’t include all of the rewrites, all of the conversations over the phone, over the emails but with regard to the way in which the ordinance is written we tried to be conscientious about the way that we drafted it because we didn’t want to give animal control just this unfunded mandate that you have got all of these new duties now and you don’t have nearly enough people. I am sure that Mr. Jimenez would gladly take a few extra animal control officers, correct? But we were thoughtful when we drafted this. Is that something that could probably come up in the future. I am sure that it could and probably should but repeat myself, I am a broken record sometimes. The way that this ordinance was drafted was so that it could affect the maximum possible change without adding additional just unbearable stress or additional requirements on our ACOs. The intent of the ordinance was really two-fold, to protect companion animals throughout the city but also to empower our animal control officers and I believe Councilor that we have done that with this rewrite. Councilor Mattiace said with that said on April 14th when we come up with come priorities for the budget this will be a priority that I will bring up if that is not a problem. I think that if you are going to have a rewrite, I noticed that you do have a lot more enforcement provisions in it. I cannot see the same staff handling all those new provisions and the growth in the city and now the respect and care for animals will have to be enforced because if it is not then it is just a token. You know it is just a token ordinance and people will say they aren’t doing anything about it and then we will be in the same place. So, I will do that on April 14th and hopefully our City Manager Ikani will respect my request. Councilor Flores asked is there a budget for the additional officers that you are going to be needing? Because I know that you are overwhelmed. So, my question is are we fully funded to provide additional officers? Gino Jimenez said yes there is always a need for additional support. The request has always been made. Councilor Flores said my experience with Geri Wheelis, dear friend, it goes back six years or so and then with the other members of that committee or that group and I know that there has just been so many discussions it was how many chickens can you have, can you have horses? But the cat issue is the one that is probably the most difficult because I just see, I just don’t know is it really enforceable or are we just putting it down to appease the community? Gino Jimenez said yes that discussion on that topic is always greatly emotional. There are citizens that feel great that the cats should be left alone and then there is the enforcement part of it where we can’t actually turn our back to it. We have got to address those issues. So, I think in the last rewrite which I believe was in 2019 is when this compromise of community cat issue came to the table so over the past couple writes into the proposal that you have now is something that I believe like something that Mr. Douglas said earlier is it is huge compromise on both parts. Everybody is understanding everybody else’s role. Councilor Flores asked is the county going to have a similar legislation? Gino Jimenez said I know that in the past the city and county have always tried to mirror our ordinances however there is different requirements and different restrictions. Of course, in the county the plot sizes are much greater than those in the city so they are allotted to have more animals and such, but we do our best to mirror each other. I have not gotten with Mary Lou Ward yet to see her opinion or feedback on this part yet so as soon as we are approved I will reach out to her. Councilor Flores asked you are saying if we approve it maybe they will do the same thing? And maybe not. It is an emotional issue I think for a lot of us, but I know that Barbara Bencomo and I worked on revising the JPA, the agreement between the city and the county and we went through it with a fine tooth comb. I don’t know if this really affects anything accept the manpower or the person power. I just don’t see how it can really work. I can see the thinking behind it, the humanity, the empathy, but I don’t know I am really torn without a doubt. Gino Jimenez said with the passing of this ordinance of course it is not going to affect the JPA. You brought up the topic of manpower. Animal Control has not had an increase in manpower since 2009. There has always been that request made, and I believe that with the passing of this ordinance they may increase that or the opportunity to increase that. Councilor Flores said it may increase, it may not increase. I am just wondering if there is going to be legislation on the books that can’t be enforced and are there to just look pretty or something. Councilor Corran said I think in the budget presentations Councilor Graham actually included Animal Control as one of her priorities as a funding priority in December when we did that, so I just want to say that it seems like it is in conversation so thank you for pointing that out early on. I also just want to point out that I think in some ways the work that happened with TNR, the shelter was putting to sleep many cats that were being taken in, many community cats prior to us passing a rule and kind of just changing the conversation. Recently the shelter has had very few cats coming in and it has been an extraordinary, there has been weeks where they have had no cats in the shelter for people to adopt and that has been a year’s long conversation and that has to do with many community partners and a range of policies and practices but that was a community sort of statement on what we want to do about cats in our community and we didn’t want to put them to sleep and we did it sort of haphazardly I think in the way that we wrote that original ordinance. I think there was a lot of loose ends and not necessarily thinking about the resources but those have come steadily since then and I think there has been a change in how we approach that. So to me I would say I don’t know that it is always the perfect is the enemy of the good but to me saying collectively that we want to change our values in the way that we talk about this and think about it does make a difference I think and that is why I think that this is really promising to me and hopeful because I think that we can say we are changing the way we think about this and changing the way we talk about this. We are changing the way we support animal control and what they do and the animals service center, so I just feel like there is hope. Councilor Bencomo said I just want to echo everybody, thank you for the work you have put into it. I know it has been long, and I just wanted to acknowledge that for sure. I have sort of one request around particularly around spay and neuter, citations that may be given out and how many of those municipal court is seeing. Obviously, I was an early on sort of a critiquer of this might criminalize more people which is why I also talked about animal welfare during our budget retreat just like Councilor Graham did early on especially in spay and neuter funding and those kinds of things. I would like to see like six months in, a year out Brad are people funneled through there? Are people being sort of intervened early on and engaged and asked to participate in the many efforts in our community. That is just really my request, but I do want to just thank all of the you for the many hours. Brad Douglas said if this measure passes I will get with Mr. Jimenez and Lt. Wiitala, I will get with my internal staff and we can do some updates for you and make sure that it hopefully does what we want it to do but if it has unintended consequences that we don’t like we can always come back and amend at a later date but we will keep you apprised at those numbers. Geri Wheelis, Member of Public said I am with Animal Advocates for Change. Councilor Flores, I just wanted to address one item that you brought up and that was coordination with the county. Kathe and I have been having many meetings as well with the county and Mary Lou is on board to try to mirror as much as possible with the city. So that should not be an impediment. Deena Dargo, Member of the Public said last month I had the honor of lobbying at the state capital with animal advocates from all across the state on behalf of Animal Protection New Mexico. I came away knowing that Las Cruces is much to big to still be considered kind of the wild west and whatever goes with animals. That is not just who we are as a community anymore. HB 113 is the Animal Welfare Program Fund, it passed both chambers nearly unanimously and is currently on the Governor’s desk waiting to be signed. That fund allocates $5 million for government agencies and non- profit groups statewide to better serve animal control, sheltering, rescue, and population control. These funds will be available as early as June 20th of this year. I respectfully ask you to pass this new animal ordinance in time to apply for funding for a greatly expanded and easy attainable low cost spay/neuter program as well as public education and enforcement of the new ordinance. This is an opportunity to get a handle on animal over population and make a lasting difference so that our shelters and animal control departments aren’t permanently overwhelmed and pets don’t continue to be abused, neglected, abandoned or euthanized simply because there are too many of them. If we love animals let’s make that love matter by taking action to protect and manage them in a way that reflects our humane values and I have copies of the fact sheet for that House Bill 113. The Governor has until the 11th, just four days from now to sign that. Lori Englis, Member of the Public said I would like to introduce you to a Mesilla Valley Animal Services Center success story. I have had her for twelve and half years. She was scheduled to be euthanized the day I adopted her. Her name is Brandi Alexandra, and she was one of my pets that helped raise over $20,000 for the Dona Ana County Humane Society several years ago and was recognized by this August body. I definitely want to make sure that the Spay and Neuter Action Program is continued. In fact the budget probably if you approved this measure we can get it in time to get some of this money that is going to be available coming up here from the new legislation. Spay and Neuter Action Center, I have been working with them for years just as I have with the Dona Ana County Humane Society, and it is a successful program. It is working and we need to get more animal control officers out there. I know that has to be a budget item but definitely we need to produce and promote the Spay and Neuter Action Program as a high, high priority. I am requesting that you approve this measure. Councilor Bencomo said I did want to bring up the matter of the amendment. I didn’t hear any sort of public comment on that as Brad maybe was maybe hoping for. I generally want to sort of say yes to the recommendation from the folks on the front lines. In humans I don’t love the three strikes rule but I recognize that this could potentially be different and so I did appreciate the further clarification you provided. I am okay with it but I did want to make sure that we made room for that conversation for folks if they are feeling any other way. Brad if you have it written maybe you can provide that to one of us. Brad Douglas said if there is a motion for an amendment I would recommend language to the following affect, and it would be a new paragraph under Section 7- 32A, Community Cats and Community Cat Caregivers. The proposed language would be, if a community cat is impounded three or more times it shall not be returned to the area where it was captured. Councilor Becky Corran moved, seconded by Councilor Johana Bencomo, to amend as proposed by Brad. Approve Ordinance No. 3091 as amended. 8. BOARD APPOINTMENTS 8.1 DAVID STROBHAR Councilor Johana Bencomo moved, seconded by Councilor Becki Graham, to appoint David Strobhar to the Capital Improvement Advisory Committee. 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 have been thinking about what I am going to say today, and I am hoping I can get through it. A lot of times it is in response to what I hear in council comments, but I have been thinking about this for a long time, and you will get a sense why here in a second. It is hard to say anything new about the epidemic of gun violence in our country. Aside from the fact that there are members of our community that should have gone home a few nights ago and they didn’t, and I grieve with the parents and the family and the friends and our city frankly. My heart is heavy, but my heart has been heavy for a long time, and I just want to elucidate that a little bit. Columbine happened as I was going into high school, Virginia Tech happened when I was in college, there has been a night club, there has been a concert, there has been theaters, there has been a Walmart, but the two that stand out the most for me are when Newtown happened and I was holding my newborn and first graders and their teachers lost their lives through gun violence and when my daughter was a fourth grader a bunch of fourth graders lost their lives at the same time. I have carried gun violence almost my entire youth and I am angry, and I know that others angry and as municipality it is really hard to make changes that are going to make a difference, but we can try. So, let me change it into a different tact. After that Friday was the first meeting of the Dona Ana County Juvenile Justice Consortium. As I am a person of let’s do some stuff that always gets me in trouble, now I am the chair of that which was a very strange conversation to have that week and we actually wanted to have a conversation about let’s make this a working board, what does that look like? What can we do for our youth in Las Cruces? The youth that I have in my house that are going to grow into the city hopefully and it was a really good place for people to be vulnerable honestly in that day. We were saying, how was this impacting your organization? We had LCPS there, we had Peak Behavioral Health, we had LCPD representatives, we had the county, we had Parks & Rec, we had Youth Diversion, FYI, CYFD, were all there at a table. We were talking about what can we do and that day was more about how we are feeling and how that impacts us but there is a flaw in our system right now for us specifically that I would like to address. I would like to make that plea to the younger crowd that was here that always leaves but I understand like I have been the youngest person in many rooms and my hair is starting to get grey and now I am still bringing down the age limit on some of the meetings that I go to. I want to encourage kiddos to come to this. I say kiddos really respectfully. I was there, I was in my twenties and people in their sixties were super happy that I was here. Sorry if that is a harder statement to hear but I am aging up into it and I’m excited. Join us for these meetings. Our next one, we meet every two months, May 22nd, noon at City Hall. We want you at the table to tell us what exactly we can do. What works better because we are all there. We are all doing what we can and also someone had stated I think it was Robert Nunez had said there are successes in our city and we have to focus on that to. What we can do and how we are doing it. Start small a lot of times. That week it was just how they were feeling. Weed and Seed had one of the students, they were impacted. They were talking about it so again I want to see some of the younger people at these meetings. I am calling you all out. You can come and have a conversation with us here and see what the resources are. 10.2 COUNCILOR MATTIACE Kind of along the same lines. I have lived in Las Cruces 57 years and that event was quite shocking to me and therefore I think everyone on this council wants to introduce something that could help, and my aim would be the community meetings. I think that is an excellent idea with the youth, but I would also like to see the City of Las Cruces budget more money for really good after school programs. I would like to see those programs expanded. I would like to see more social workers and therapists hired in Las Cruces Public Schools. I have been talking to the superintendent. I did a tour of La Clinica. There is quite a lot of services out there for those that have behavioral or personal problems, and I think the after school programs would be an excellent way to bring the parents. I remember when we expanded the after school programs with Dolores Archuleta in 2002, 2003 and in 2005 we actually included an expense for food so that after the after school program the schools offered meals and this brought the parents down and if you had more parents bonding and eating with the kids and then you had therapist there and social workers and the teachers being paid after school time it brings the families back together and we know more about the children and the children know more about us and the parents are a big influence in what is happening today. Many of these young adults maybe have a single parent or a grandparent or sometimes no parent at all when they go home from school so I would like to see that made a priority. The second item I have is a little more complicated because I would like to see job development. I looked at the economic development numbers and the jobs created whether by MVEDA, or the City of Las Cruces or the county and the jobs are just not there nor are there good paying jobs and that is where the Industrial Park needs to be supplemented, it can be done by the El Paso Electric Company and that can be done with just sitting down and I would like to ask the City Manager if he can put together a meeting with our Economic Development Department, our new Economic Development Director and see what we can do to actually get that extra grid built through the right-of-way. By the right-of-way I mean that we already have the right-of- way so a line can be made to go up to the Industrial Park to provide more megawatts, more power, and I think if we have the power up there and we have the grids supplemented then we could attract bigger companies, better paying companies. It just surprises me that Los Lunas can get Facebook. Facebook is doing a big expansion in Los Lunas and then Carlsbad getting a 2 million square foot warehouse, Portales, Farmington. Las Cruces needs to get there, and we need to spend the millions of dollars to serve more people and we are spending millions of dollars sometimes on projects that are only serving 50, 60 a couple of hundred people. We need to spend the millions for example in the after-school programs and I mean millions to serve more kids, more youth, more recreational parks, more parks as we see, more fields, maybe more club fusions or Amador Live, more places for the kids. Maybe a bowling alley. Maybe we need to support more recreational facilities and reach more people. We are spending millions of dollars and not reaching, we should be reaching thousands of kids, thousands and then we should be doing the same thing reaching people that can get jobs. We just have to prioritize where we are spending our millions right now and we need to spend less in certain projects to actually serve more and if we can do that maybe with Councilor McClure’s idea, my idea and everyone on this council coming up with a bold new idea maybe we can prevent more tragic happenings. 10.3 COUNCILOR GRAHAM I don’t have a bold new idea, but I am going to talk about my bold ongoing idea. Councilor McClure, I love your call out to young people to come to our table and I want to expand that and say we want to come to your table. We want to come where you are. The impetus does not have to be on you to come to us and I speak as somebody who has the great pleasure two nights a week of spending time with some of the best people in Las Cruces and those are the elementary, middle, high school and young adult fighters who call the Las Cruces Police Athletic League Boxing Gym, PAL Gym home. One thing that soothed my heart a little bit on March 21st when we started getting word as to what had happened at Young Park was I knew that a big chunk of our boxing team was in Roswell, New Mexico at New Mexico State Golden Gloves Championships and not just PAL, House of Pain Boxing, Cross Town, Dona Ana Boxing Club. I am focusing on one sport because that where my history and my heart is but I watch these programs work and so much of it is what I have learned especially from Mayor Pro Tem Bencomo is making it accessible, lowering barriers and opening your door to anyone who wants to be there and over the past four years that I have been on council the city has consistently supported my outcry for more support for PAL and it is seen and it is something that is currently working and we need more of it. That is my comment. I also talking about job development I know at least two current Las Cruces police officers who came through the PAL Boxing Gym and I think we have got four firefighters right now who came up at PAL. It is a great place to come and recruit your next class of public servants. They are warriors with hearts, and I think that is another place where I am seeing how we can expand something that is maybe “just a sport” into something that can have a bigger impact on our participants lives. 10.4 COUNCILOR CORRAN I first just want to really just give enormous gratitude to LCPD and LCFD, I know you saved lives that day. I am very sure that our first responders did things in such a timely fashion and in such a well skilled way that we can be extremely proud of their contributions, and I just want to share my appreciation for knowing that you work for our city and care about our folks in the ways that you do including that day. I also want to give a follow up to all the community organizations that were part of the victims resource center. I had the opportunity to visit with those folks who really stepped up and into unfortunately something that they trained for so that was very apparent when it got set up in a really quick way and was able to help and support community members who are visiting there and I suspect as this crisis evolves many folks who experience trauma of many sorts will need ongoing support and I know that our city has that after visiting with the victims resource center. So, I just want to share enormous gratitude to all the folks who responded in the various ways and brought their talents to bear to save lives at that time and now saving lives on an ongoing basis. I think I am perplexed in talking to everyone that I know about what should we do and I don’t think we have heard any singular answer that said this is what will fix this problem and I think anyone who has a singular answer is not really seeing or hearing what folks are saying. So I look forward to all of the opportunities that we have to have conversations about that and I say that in the next week we did our Thrive visits to schools and I say this as one of the most heartening things, I visited Mrs. Quezadas fourth grade bilingual class and the student who was there, this was during a time when the Allen Theaters was hosting a film festival for all of the LCPS schools including these kids in fourth grade, many of whom had acted in an avant garde dinosaurs in space movie with one of their classmates and it reminded me that we can never see young people as a risk only as a hope and I say that as someone who works at the community college and I see and feel hope from my students all the time and so the contrast of those things, this weekend visiting with volunteers, the people who volunteer for the City of Las Cruces. Thank you for the invitation, it was an extraordinary event to get to meet so many people who contribute as coaches for sports teams at the Rec Center, who are training people to do food service, speaking of job development, who are working as docents at the museums, and seeing all of those folks who are engaged all different ages both young people and older folks working with young people and old folks, teaching them tai chi and Dungeons and Dragons and a myriad of extraordinary things that folks are doing as volunteers. I feel the contrast of the despair that comes from a tragedy and the hope that comes from the many people who are doing extraordinary things in our community all the time and so I want to give gratitude to those folks all the time including those volunteers we saw this weekend. That was a really great opportunity and I hope to continue to engage with those volunteers and I love the ways that our city provides places for people all across a range of spectrums. I just hope that we can expand that and fill that role in the ways that make our community stronger and more hopeful. 10.5 COUNCILOR FLORES I want to share, I think we are trying to look at solutions here and maybe there are just little grains of sand going into a huge bottle but it should help. I want to share with you what Maria Flores, some of you may know her. She served on the Las Cruces School Board for many, many years. I think twelve years, fourteen years and she would visit classrooms. She would just go to different schools and sit and talk to children and on one occasion or in visiting this class she saw that this little girl never went to lunch. You know there was kids that would go out and get their little bags and whatever and there weren’t any free lunches there, but she would sit there with her little brown bag at her desk and so Mrs. Flores asked that little girl, aren’t you going to eat your lunch? And she would say no I’m not hungry and she would say oh, okay. It went on and on and what Maria had discovered at one point is that she didn’t have any food in that bag. She had a rock that made it look like there was food in that bag. That is probably one of the most heart-breaking stories that I have heard, and this is our LCPS schools. The other story that she shared is that she would actually go and former Mayor Miyagishima did this too, I think he still does it, goes in and talks to kids, makes arrangements of course with the school district, the school, and so on another occasion Mrs. Flores was talking to the kids and asking them, just going around and asking them what is your favorite activity at school? What is it that you like about coming to school? The kids would say I see my friends, I like my teacher, I like to read, I like recess. She came upon this little girl who reluctantly replied and she was a very low voice and she was almost embarrassed and she said I come to eat and when Maria shared this story with me there was just about two or three of us who have been in the classroom, I was a substitute teacher for LAUSD while my kids were young and you would see that children had problems but at any rate it was really heartbreaking to think that, it’s heartbreaking I am sure you’re sitting there thinking those are horrible stories and they are. We are trying to look at solutions, but we can’t get to solutions unless we really know the fountain or the root of the world we live in today and I really salute and praise my colleagues for their contributions. I am not saying this is the root problem because there is a lot of things that need correcting in our world but you can’t function without food. These are children who are going to school to get food and I know now that I think schools are providing breakfast and lunch even during the holiday season. Again, we have another joint powers agreement with the LCPS. So, the City of Las Cruces and LCPS worked on the proposal for the JPA from the State of New Mexico and I was with the League of Women Voters at that time, and I participated somewhat, I wasn’t one of the leaders or anything but to create this JPA so that we could set up community schools. So, we do have community schools, and they are thriving and Councilor Graham sits on that board. It was really sad to hear how a lot of these children in our schools don’t come from homes that there is a meal for breakfast, there is a meal for dinner when they are home and a lot of other issues but what has happened with the community schools, I don’t know if there is a measure but we meet once a month and of the principals are very committed. There is one principal, Sherry Love who is at the Dona Ana Elementary School and her area is like in the boonies sometimes and when kids are maybe absent because they had a cold or whatever, measles, but if they are absent more than two or three days she actually goes out to those homes to find out why the child isn’t in school and then she takes whatever measures are appropriate to make sure that the child gets back in school and I don’t think we have a report on that. Anyway a lot of the kids are thriving in all of those schools so I think that is a start and I think that recognizing that our children come first because if a child is not eating and in a lot of these homes there is unemployment, frustration, and then they take it out on the kids and all of this comes out to which is very sad. It is a tragedy. We have to look at those root issues before we can come up with solutions and in the meantime, I think it is good that we are applying Band-Aids. 10.6 COUNCILOR BENCOMO I am a little bit dreading this moment because what do you even really say except what is on your heart and my heart is deeply broken for the families in Las Cruces who lost their loved ones much too soon, for the people that were there that will be forever impacted, forever carry this with them, for first responders who will also always carry this them and that is hard and no amount of solutions that we come up with now will take that away. That is just deeply heartbreaking and as I started thinking about what I want to say today I found that there have actually 87 mass shootings in the United States since the year began, since 2025 there have been 87 mass shootings and actually the data was only up until April 5th which did not include a shooting that happened at a mall in Ft. Collins, Colorado yesterday where my brother lives where two died and there was one juvenile suspect. The organization says that firearms are the leading cause of death for American children and teens and there is an article recently that said six of the nine deadliest mass shootings in the United States since 2018 were by people who were under 21 or younger, predominantly young men and so I don’t know if all of those communities that have experience this awful tragedy like we did, now we are on this list, right? And I don’t know if those communities also struggle with not enough laws, bad laws, lack of police, whatever it might be I don’t know those details. What I do know is that there is a very common threat and the threat is that children and teens can easily access guns and people die and I think that I have also been feeling a lot of shame around the very normalized cycle that we go through around mass shootings, we say our thoughts and our prayers, some of us are very angry for a while and it sort of sticks with us. I really never considered what happens in that community the day after. What happens in that community the week after? What happens two weeks later? How does that community come together to heal and I hope that we can do that in Las Cruces. I think I have seen a lot of things that make me sad in terms of the responses, but I have also seen a lot of things that make me hopeful and some of the things that I want to commit to our one, continue to center the voices of youth. Especially youth that were there that night. Youth that we have tagged as “troubled youth”. I want to understand their lives, their environments. I want them to help us. Whatever initiatives come out of this tragedy, programing, education, infrastructure, policy, that it is led by youth, by directly impacted youth. That feels like a commitment that I am very strong on. One of the ways that I hope we can do this in FYI, and you also have been here today, they are already committed to this but they are willing and they stepped up to lead some youth conversations with the city. We will pull in the schools. I have invited my colleague Councilor Graham to join and some city staff to join those planning meetings but as soon as details on that come out I think we should all go and listen, just deeply listen about what youth in our community, especially if they have been justice involved have to say about what they need and wish to see in our community. That is one, number two, I sort of immediately started thinking about what diversion looks like in our community and I found that out of District Court here there is no diversion program for juveniles involved here in any kind of violence or crime. The Second Judicial District Court does have a program that has been tremendously successful called the Community Gun Violence Intervention Program, specifically focused on people ages 14 to 21. In order to qualify for this program they must be justice involved with juvenile charges stemming from gun use, they must attend groups in person and must be able to engage in programing, 81% of program graduates have no new felony offenses to date. There has been hundreds of referrals that have come from many of the partners like Bernalillo County, the Bernalillo County Sherrif’s Office, Albuquerque Fire Department, New Mexicans to Prevent Gun Violence which I have also spoken to, Albuquerque Public Schools and many other partners that have said yes, we want to do this because we don’t want to wait until youth commit even worse crimes to then say go to jail for the rest of your life. We want to intervene. If they are already in the system let’s divert. Let’s focus on diversion and Councilor McClure maybe I will give this to you and maybe this is perhaps a great project for the Juvenile Justice Continuum folks that you are a part of. I feel really strongly about this. I believe that there are many wheels that we don’t have to be reinvented. There are programs out there that exist. I want to pursue things that are evidence based. I want to pursue things that I know will work. Curfews do not work. The evidence in fact shows the exact opposite of that, right? So, I want us to respond in ways that will support our community to thrive and will bring those especially if there is some sort of special legislative session to come out of this later in the year. These are the kinds of things that I will be fighting for. These are the kinds of programing that I will ensure, and I will fight to advocate to bring money to our community for. The last thing I wanted to point out was that I really hope the city engages in conversation with and I was really happy that Angelica with La Pinon came. I was there last week and got to meet so many of their staff and talk about so much about what they do. They actually had a very similar sort of community intervention program through the J. Paul Taylor Juvenile Detention Center that focus specifically on gun violence, and they had a curriculum where they would go and teach the kids that were there, and it was tremendously successful even though they ran out of money though. They did tell me that there is $9 million out of DOH for this that the county sadly decided to turn down but I am hoping Ikani that you or maybe someone on staff can reach out to Angelica to talk more about the potential collaboration opportunity that can exist here if this pot of money already exist and we just need that governmental body to say yes we will take the money and provide it to the folks already doing the work. These are the things that I am committed to and I hope to continue talking about more in detail. 10.7 MAYOR ENRIQUEZ Thank you to the rest of the council. Thank you all for what you are bringing up in showing the care we have for this community, and we want to come with some solutions. We want to have the accountability, the prevention and the intervention and so I thank you all for the comments and before I get to some of those comments, I just want to bring up some of those on the agenda. It is board comments, and I do have a board comment with Mesilla Valley Economic Development. Last week there was a couple of meetings, the cold storage unit that has been talks in the works for several years. They are looking at April starting the permits, that is this month and then hopefully breaking ground sometime in June or July at the Industrial Park and also there was a group of business individuals from India that the Governor had gone out to meet them last summer and so they look like they are going to be starting some businesses in Albuquerque but they wanted to come down here and see Southern New Mexico and see what the potential is for expanding so we were able to meet with them and have some good conversations and tell them how much better the green chile is down here and the friendly people so hopefully we can convince them. We are saddened by what took place at Young Park and it is a devastation, and we never want to say that is our community and I know there is a lot of good there. We are sad. We are frustrated. We have anger but we are not here to blame. It is up to us as leaders of this community to find some solutions and to find some intervention and to find prevention, but it is just not right, and I do have to say this it is wrong to come in and blame the police and to blame Chief Story for a comment he makes. This was not his fault. I said this over and over about public safety and whether it is the Police Department or it’s the Fire Department. There is intervention. There is prevention. There is education but their primary duty is to respond. They never started the fight, they never started the fire, they just respond to it so I thank them for all of the work that they do. Thank you, Chief Story, for your leadership, Chief Daniels for your leadership in public safety and we will continue, and we will put in the resources, and we will do everything we can to support that because it is a community that we want to protect and be proud of. With some of the things that go on I have been very fortunate to share as other councilors have mentioned with Thrive Con Cariño to the public schools and it is great to see that there are some students out there and so when we start looking at all the negativity I want to say thank you to the parents and the teachers that are sending their kids to school and then are encouraging and motivating them. We went to Centennial for the first one that we did, and it was the high school students and I believe he was a senior and that classroom was calculus. Monday through Friday for two hours every morning that is how they start their day with calculus. That is amazing. That is something to be proud of and that is something to say we have a future. So, I was very pleased to be a part of that. I have mentioned that I have adopted Hermosa Heights as my school so every Thursday that I am in town I walk with those kids to school to show them that leadership cares and I get invited to several programs. Last week they had NDI, the National Dance Institute that came down and different kids in the class performed. It is about movement and exercise and the four things that they worked on aside from physical activity and the movement was to know these four things, work hard, do your best, never give up and be healthy and that is what we have to do as a community. And those are the programs and the things that are going on. The Governor came down and she gives her condolences. We had a meeting with other elected officials, Legislators, senators and what we have come up with is different intervention. This summer we will have the youth program between the county and the city to employ students at the high school level so they can have the internships with city, with county and if we get enough funding we can start looking at local businesses to also have high school students so that we can get them involved in the work place so they can see what it is all about and what it is like to be responsible and have a job and have some accountability in what they do day in and day out and this is a great way of doing it and we look forward to all the funding that we can get from our Governor for that. 11. CITY MANAGER REPORT 11.1 IKANI TAUMOEPEAU In public comment Stewarts Drive was brought up and I do want to thank Public Works for the update working with Sonya, ACM. Apparently, the section of Stewarts that is in question is private property so the challenge that is happening is that we are maintaining from my understanding the property is city property but the property that is a chunk that is private property that is something that hasn’t been in maintenance for and a question of ownership, but we are looking into it. I have been told that we will reach out to a property owner, and we will have some discussions with them but I just wanted to bring some light to those, but we are not tracking this so thank you to the resident that brought this to our attention or continues to bring this our attention. Another issue and alas from public comment that I wanted to share an update a connex box was mentioned, this was something that was asked to our police and so just an update from Chief Story that this was up and running in October of 2024. Regarding Quality of Life Department, we have a few updates. Las Cruces Museums are gearing up for two annual events with their education team. One the first annual STEM Festival on April 12th and two our 11th annual Pictograph event resulting in the painting of an indigenous mural on the exterior of the museum on April 19th. Also last Saturday, just a heads up, March 29th was Branigan Library’s Wizard of Oz days. We had a Wizard of Oz themed event from costume contest to crafts and trivia. This turned into a popular event with 75 participants who stayed most of the day. We will be working to make this a regular event. The library staffed dressed up with Wizard of Oz days. Library Assistant II, Beatriz Rudisill was a munchkin, Library Assistant II John Stout as the Cowardly Lion, Library Assistant I, Laney Lujan as Glenda, and Library Assistant I Megan Romero as Dorothy. So, thank you Quality of Life for being so creative with that and kudos for 75 participants. Last, Parks & Rec just a few updates. Adult Basketball League online registration begins on Tuesday, April 22nd, at 9 a.m. until capacity is met. KLCB, Keep Las Cruces Beautiful, will be hosting a free community tire dump day on Saturday, April 12th from 8 a.m. to noon that will allow opportunity residents to dispose of used tires at the following locations, East Mesa Rec Center and Young Park. KCLB will also be hosting free dump your junk, starts Saturday April 12th through Saturday April 19th, and the weekend of April 26th and 27th from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Amador Transfer Station. All residents can dump trash for free at the transfer stations during this event. And just the status of sports fields, Ron Galla is open for day and night play, Maag and Paz have been open for daytime programing including weekend tournaments. Harty will open starting tomorrow and Apodaca Softball field remains closed until further notice. 12. ADJOURNMENT 12.1 Councilor Yvonne Flores moved, seconded by Councilor Becky Corran, to adjourn at 4:52 p.m. MOVER: Councilor Yvonne Flores Mayor City Clerk