Okay,
cool. Thank you.
Okay.
Stupid.
Can't
Christmas. Excellent.
Good morning.
Morning.
Good morning.
How are you?
Yes.
Good.
Hallelujah.
years. So,
Right. Exactly.
[music]
Good morning everybody. It is uh 9:06
a.m. here on Tuesday, June 9th, 2026,
and we're uh here to meet for the uh uh
meeting, the Donian County Board of
County Commissioners
meeting. We'll start with our invocation
and moment of silence. Before we do, I
did want to um
make a mention that back in May, we did
lose a team member from our animal
control team, Sher Su Dudan, who passed
away.
And I'd like to while we take this
moment of silence reflect on her service
to the residents of Donana County and uh
express that uh our thoughts and prayers
are with her co-workers and with her
family.
Thank you. And if you're able to, I ask
that you join and rise in the pledge of
allegiance
to the flag of the United States of
America and to the republic for it
stands one nation under God indivisible
and justice for all.
Thank you Randy. If you'll do a roll
call to determine quum.
Commissioner Shao Hernandez,
present.
Commissioner Kimell,
present.
Commissioner Chabato,
present.
Vice Chair Gomedos.
Chair Sanchez,
present. The commission convenes as the
board of county commissioners and the
county board of finance in open session.
Scott, are there any changes to the
agenda?
Good morning, sir. Good morning,
everyone. No changes to the agenda
today.
Very good. All right, then we'll move on
to consent agenda. This is items one
through six. If there are any items that
need to be pulled for separate
consideration, commissioners,
not hearing or seeing any. If I can get
a motion and a second to approve. So
moved. All right. I'll have a motion by
Commissioner Shel Nandez.
Second.
Second by Commissioner Kimell.
And if there are no comments or
questions, Mr. Chair, I just have a
comment. Yes. Um, on item number six,
which is the accept the grant for the
national fitness campaign, if I may, um,
I just want to say that I'm really
excited, Justin, and I saw you. I'm
really excited to see this on the agenda
again. Um, for everyone here today, if
you've never been to one of our um, kind
of outdoor fitness parks, there's one in
Vado. Uh the most recent one is in La
Mesa and there's also a Zumba pavilion
attached to that one. And then the one
that's coming up will be for the Dolores
Wright Community Center um in Chaparel.
And I think it's just great. It's it's
literally free for us, right? We just
have to have it installed. And it's just
great to see and I hope that we can keep
seeing these come through every year uh
until we get them at all the community
centers because they're a great they're
just great to have in the community. I
know that uh every time I go down to
Lame Mesa there's always people walking
the path and using it. So I'm just
really proud to see that again and I'm
excited and I hope we can see it year
after year. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank
you, Commissioner. All right, any other
comments?
All right, Brandy, if you do a roll call
on agenda items 1 through six.
Commissioner Sha Hernandez,
yes.
Commissioner Kimell,
yes.
Commissioner Chabato,
yes.
Chair Sanchez,
yes.
Item number six has a resolution. That
number is 2026-78.
Thank you, Brandy. All right, we're on
to the employee recognition portion of
our agenda. And with that, we'll turn it
turn it over to you, Lucia.
Good morning, Mr. Chair, commissioners.
Um, today we have five employees to
recognize for their years of service to
the county. First, we have Sergeant
Jordan Hill from the Sheriff's Office
with 15 years of service. Christopher
Valenuela from the assessor's office
with 15 years of service. Miguel Estrada
from Fleet Department with 20 years of
service.
Brian Baker from the detention center
with 25 years of service and Captain
Patrick Howey with the detention center
uh with 40 years of service. And so we
want to congratulate them and thank you
for their years of service to Donana
County.
[applause]
Thank you, Lucia.
All right, next is uh our employee
special recognition. And with that, I'll
turn it over to our HR team for this
portion.
Good morning, Chair Sanchez and
commissioners. Uh my name is Brandon
Masters. I'm the senior HR administrator
with Talent and Culture, and we are
pleased to announce today um an employee
of the month recognition for the month
of May. And thanks again to everyone
that submitted nominations through the
DACNet homepage.
Um so first for the month of May, we
have employee of the month for internal
customer service award. Um this award is
to recognize employees who do an
exceptional job assisting other county
staff. Um this month's winner is Joel
Forbes. Um he's our facilities
maintenance lead. Um Joel was nominated
and selected in recognition for
exceptional dedication and
professionalism in supporting
departments and staff across the county.
His commitment to internal customer
service and collaboration has had a
significant positive impact on county
operations. Um his willingness to help
others communicate effectively and
provide dependable support reflects
outstanding internal customer service.
He approaches every request with
professionalism, patience, and a
solutionsoriented attitude, making him a
trusted resource for staff across
multiple offices and departments. His
initiative, teamwork, and dedication to
serving internal customers make him
makes him highly deserving of this
recognition. So, congratulations to Joel
for his exceptional performance and
contributions to the county.
[applause]
[snorts]
[applause]
Um, we did have one other um recipient
for this month, but uh due to
availability. We're going to present
that at the next BOCC. Thank you.
Thank you, sir.
Okay. Next order of business is item
number seven, which is to proclaim June
19th as Junth in Donian County. That
I'll turn it over to you, Commissioner
Kimell.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Junth is a
historical day we celebrate with a
holiday and proudly recognize. On June
19th, we commemorate the emancipation of
enslaved African-Americans. Today, we
invite everyone to rejoice in the
celebration of this impactful moment in
our shared history and join us in the
recognition that we still have work
ahead of us. Junth celebrations
throughout Donanna County will be hosted
by the NAACP, businesses, and
municipalities alike. We all aim to
foster unity, promote cultural
understanding, and encourage dialogue
among businesses, government, academia,
and individuals like you and me. We
encourage everyone to reflect on this
day and join the discussions and
celebrations. To receive the
proclamation, we welcome Dr. Bobby
Green, who is president of the NAACP in
Donana County. Welcome, Dr. Green.
Thank you. [applause]
Each year I come up here and I sound
like a broken record because I say the
same things, but I'm going to say it
again this year anyway. So, um, Chair
Sanchez, former chair Shaojo Henderson
or Hernandez, sorry, former chair
Japado, and managers Andrews, uh, County
Clerk, Dr. Amanda Lopez, Askin, and, uh,
Commissioner Kimell. I want to say thank
you for your continued support and
partnership with Donanna County for many
years. It's always been uh a partnership
of and it's a labor of love for you.
It's uh greatly appreciated by the
members of the Doniana County NAACP.
This year's theme for Junth is we the
people. And I think it's a perfect
theme. Uh the the it goes on to say we
the people in order to form a more
perfect union. I think we can all agree
that the union is far from perfect right
now and we have some work to do. But if
you keep in mind that this uh the US
Constitution from which that clause
comes was established in 1787
and back then uh only a fraction of the
people were even accepted as citizens.
uh people of color were not accepted as
citizens nor were um women accepted as
citizens. So, but we fought they fought
to get those rights and we have those
rights today. We have to fight to keep
those rights and we will do that. So we
I stand here in solidarity and I'm
grateful for everything that the county
has done in support of Junth and I am so
proud of all of you and I'm great. Thank
you for the proclamation.
Thank you Dr. Green.
[applause]
I appreciate your your words as always
and uh and you cut right exactly to it
and especially explaining the state of
our of our union. So I really appreciate
that. Um Commissioner Kimble, you have
the proclamation.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you.
Proclamation from Donana County, state
of New Mexico. Whereas Junth is a
celebration of the promise of freedom as
decreed by President Abraham Lincoln
with the signing of the emancipation
proclamation on January 1st 1863.
And whereas more than two years later on
June 19th, 1865,
news of emancipation was shared with the
oppressed people who most needed to hear
it by General Gordon Granger and
well-meaning Union soldiers. And whereas
Junth stands as both a celebration of
freedom and a solemn reminder of the
delayed promise of equality underscoring
the enduring strength to realize the
full meaning of we the people as
declared in the constitution of
constitution of the United States. And
whereas the phrase we the people calls
upon all of us to rect on reflect on who
has historically been included, who has
been excluded, and how we can
collectively build a more just,
equitable, and inclusive society. And
whereas Junth invites us to honor the
resilience, contributions, and cultural
legacy of African-Americans whose
perseverance has strengthened the fabric
of our nation. And whereas Junth
encourages communities to come together
in remembrance, education, and action,
fostering dialogue and understanding
across generations and backgrounds. And
whereas the observance of Junth affirms
our shared responsibility to advance
freedom, uphold dignity, and ensure that
the ideals of democracy extend to every
person. Now therefore, we do hereby
proclaim June 19th as a day to and urge
all people in Donana County to
recognize, reflect, and celebrate with
renewed commitment to the principle that
we the people truly means all people.
proudly proudly proclaimed on this ninth
day of June 2026 by the board of county
commissioners Donana County.
Thank you.
[applause]
And before we take a picture, I don't
know commissioners if you wanted to add
anything to or any comments.
Commissioner Chap.
Yes. Thank you. Good morning, Dr. Green.
It's always a pleasure to have you here.
And if I may read the proclamation
to me today when this proclamation was
read
and Junth is celebrating we the people
[snorts]
to be inclusive and not exclude anyone.
That's right.
To be inclusive. [applause]
We the people.
The people speak. People are the power.
And so I'm so proud for you and your
organization to celebrate Junth.
It's
a very I think
for this proclamation to go forward
today is
something that is very important for
something that's happened to happen
happening today in these chambers. So
thank you Dr. Green. Thank you to your
organization and I look forward to
seeing you at your breakfast. Thank you.
It's a banquet this year at 6:00 p.m.
Thank you for the press. Uh 6 p.m. at
the uh convention center on Saturday,
June the 20th.
Awesome.
I'd love to see you all there.
Awesome.
All right. Thank you, Commissioner
Chapa. Are there any other comments? All
right. Well, Dr. I like to you don't
mind. We'll go ahead and come up and
take a picture.
Okay. On next order of business is
public input. Uh if there's members on
the public, uh I I want to do make I
want to make a announcement though. If
you are here to speak on the
presentation for project Jupiter and the
community open house and careerfare
during pres generally presentations, we
do not allow public input. So, if you're
going to provide input, I recommend that
you do it at this time. Um, I did want
to take a uh see how many people were
going to be providing public input this
morning. If you might be able to raise
your hands.
Okay. I was
then we'll go ahead and go on with uh
three minutes uh with and and uh and
moving forward with public input. So,
all right. With that, if you can, when
you come up, please state your name for
the record. Uh, after you're done, if
you can fill out the book on your left,
I do appreciate it.
Good morning.
Good morning, Mark Ve, District 1. Glad
to see my commissioner here this time.
It's the end of the world. We'll get
back to that.
True story. An apologist and an atheist
who holds a doctorate are arguing over
God. And finally the apologist says okay
let's see if we can come to some kind of
understanding. So he says of all human
knowledge how much do you believe you
know
2% 3% let's say we'll give you 5%. So is
it not possible in the 95% that you
don't know God exists?
So, I thought about that standing in
front of my encyclopedias and I'm like,
I don't even know 1% of that. And then
you go to a library,
you might say that you've read 1% of all
those books if you're a real serious
reader like Commissioner Chaparo, who's
does lots of reading and loves the
library.
But has she remembered all of that? Not
likely. So, I think it's a bit arrogant
for man who doesn't even know 1% to
think that he's going to change the
climate. We spent $13 trillion over two
decades
and got little or no results.
So, it's the end of the world.
Chemtrails and AI, the same old story.
It's the end of the world. It's the end
of the world. Chemtrails. So, I was an
aviator for 38 years.
uh over 11,000 hours of flight time. A
helicopter can make contrails. So if you
look up in the sky and every aircraft is
got trails behind it, it's very very
naive to think that there's chemical
equipment on every aircraft flying and
that they turn off and turn on in the
same spots and then there's a gap. It it
just doesn't work that way. But that
aircraft that's up there twice as high
leaving a trail. That guy is doing chem.
Jupiter,
they keep saying you're using all our
water, you're using all our water. I've
had two reliable sources tell me million
gallons contained closed system just
like we got on our vehicles. A closed
system one time. Maybe in 10 years you
got to change the water or whatever, but
it's not going to be every day. And
that's what we keep hearing. AI is a
million gallons every day.
The other thing is is that it's going to
tax the grid. It's going to use up all
our electricity. There's going to be
pollution, but they're using fuel cells.
It's the end of the world.
Thank you, sir.
Good morning, sir. Good morning,
Commissioner San. Mr. Chairman,
Commissioners One Garcia, I've gone
through most of the audit results and
the message could not be clearer. The
letter states and I quote, "This letter
is issued as an open expression of grave
concern regarding the documented and
systemic failures in governance,
operational effectiveness, internal
controls and fit
responsibility within Anna as detailed
in the attached special audit report.
This is July 1st, 2021 through April 15,
2025. And some of you were here during
this time and I continue this letter is
not procedural, ceremonial nor
informational in nature. It is issued to
state clearly, directly and without
equivocation that the conditions
identified in this audit reflected in 42
significant findings represent serious
and systemic failures by county
leadership.
to maintain effective internal controls,
uphold obligations, and ensure a
functioning and accountable system. The
executive summary underscores that the
county is not experiencing isolated
operational challenges, but rather a
systemic failure characterized by weak
internal controls, inconsistent policy
implementation, lack of clear authority,
and a deterioration organ organizational
culture.
These deficiencies have resulted in
increased legal exposure, operational
inefficiencies, financial risk, and
finally, and I think this is most
important, an erosion of public and
employee trust. An erosion of public and
employee trust. What does that mean?
We're not referring to complex issues.
basics and I quote breakdown in EPRA
compliance fragmented authority the
county has an environment in which
internal mechanisms for resolution are
ineffective leading to increased
reliance
[clears throat] or an external process
that consume public resources i.e
tax money.
From a citizen's perspective, this is an
outright failure. [snorts]
The elected officials sitting before me
have left the public down, plain and
simple.
The trust placed in you was betrayed.
So the question is, who will be held
accountable or will this audit be quote
corrected? And in a matter of time, the
findings are repeated again. My question
once again is who is going to be held
accountable. Thank you.
Thank you. [applause]
Good morning.
I'm Lyn Mo. The community openhouse and
career fair that Project Jupiter has
announced should not be regarded as a
substitute for a genuine public forum
for serious education and discussion
about the huge project plan for Donana
County. If the commission does regard it
as such, it would be another false step.
Can you hold on a second? Please allow
the speaker to speak. If they're I
understand people want to support this,
but this is their time to speak and be
respectful. If they're not, then we will
start either cutting public input or
removing people from the chambers. Thank
you.
Sorry, please continue.
I'll begin again the sentence. If the
commission does regard it as such, it
would be another false step by the
county. This benefits Jupiter, not the
citizens. Rather than helping to calm
things down, this simply exacerbates
citizens distrust of Jupiter. It also
tends to deepen distrust of those of you
who appear to think this plan is a good
idea. The format Jupiter has announced
demonstrates a classic divide and
conquer strategy. Get concerned citizens
split up and spread out. The fair and
food are great distractions and
impediments to serious conversations.
All stakeholders need to be able to hear
what each Jupiter representative says.
This is essential for true understanding
of what they're doing and planning and
then holding them accountable. A job
fair can go ahead, but not as a
substitute for a town hall type meeting
where everyone can hear everything that
the Jupiter representatives say and
where everyone gets an opportunity to
pose questions for all to learn from.
And it's not one and done with a public
meeting. This should be the first of
several town halls. At each more
questions can be asked and answered.
It's unrealistic to say that everyone
will get all their questions answered at
a job fair. It's important the
commission recognize that every time
Jupiter representatives have changed
their public statements, they have
created dozens, if not hundreds of new
questions in citizens minds. Every
equivocation has brought a host of new
questions and concerns. This is there is
now a need for several town hall type
meetings where substantive questions can
be asked and then answered fully and
truthfully without spin or evasion.
Moreover, they need to be held
accountable regarding every one of their
statements. Jupiter representatives are
fully aware that it's almost impossible
to hold anyone accountable for anything
said in a conversation with one person
unless that person is wearing a wire.
I'm familiar with how this works. The
developer representative says, I didn't
say that. You misunderstood me. Every
interested party needs to be able to
hear and weigh all the Jupiter
representative statements. Also
important, town hall type meetings need
to include independent experts who set
out and explain relevant information
that may contrast, expand upon, or
provide a different perspective or
fuller context to the statements of
Jupiter representatives. The
commissioners certainly need this kind
of information in addition to all other
interested members of the public. Thank
you for this opportunity to speak
and thank you FOR YOUR SERVICE.
[cheering]
THANK YOU. Please come up.
Good morning.
My name is Indira Castner. Hello,
commissioners. I especially like to
honor Commissioner Chaparo for always
standing with us.
Um, so, Commissioner Ednandez, uh, you I
am one of your constituents and, um, I'm
going to go broader since I understand
this is not the time to speak on certain
issues. So, I'm a transplant from out of
state. I moved here 5 years ago. Uh, I
consciously researched where I should
live. I declined Arizona and Texas uh
because this state is absolutely
affordable, but it's also beautiful. And
the area where we particularly live,
it's amazing. You have a little bit of
Texas if you want to. You can go down to
Mexico. It's it's a great location. Um
however, I do want to say I am what the
future looks like. I'm an NMSU student.
I'm a social work major. I want to stay
in this area and support the community
in a profession that is desperately
needed in this area. Um, however, there
are certain realities in regards to
pollution andor financial
and that is something that it doesn't
matter what project it is, whether it's
an alternative way to use more resources
here. We're pretty restricted with our
resources. We have our beautiful pecan
agriculture. We have our gas, you know,
oil business.
That all requires water. And it requires
other aspects of our environment. And
that is what we always need to keep in
mind. I don't care what project it is in
the future.
This is something that my generation and
younger, we don't want certain projects
in our state.
And if there's any chance of a political
future for certain commissioners or any
individuals, it would be wise to support
the future generations desires to have
clean air, clean water, have plenty of
resources, not worry about there being
limitation on basic necessities. And I
know this is an opportunity for certain
individuals financially that will
benefit from certain projects, but the
majority of the people will not. And
when something is totally against going
against what the general population
wants, that's kind of the whole point of
our representatives to represent our
interests and to represent what we would
like for our future. So I I support our
agricultural future. I think it's
beautiful. I think it can be modified,
but either way, it's something that I
truly enjoy as a transplant.
And so, I just hope that in the future
people keep that in mind. Thank you.
[applause]
Good morning.
Good morning. My name is Dian Romero. Uh
I'm a constituent of uh district 4 and
I'm here today to talk about the audit,
the state audit. First of all, the re
resolution regarding special uh audit
findings should not be passed until the
commissioners discuss issues and give
direction to staff.
It is that important right now for the
commissioners and Donanna County to be
absolutely open with everybody.
Uh the special audit is an absolute
example of a dysfunctional county
administration.
Page 49 of the report. Human resource
department requesting eight cadets not
be hired due to their psychedaval is
absolutely illegal. The sheriff's
department, any police department does
psych evaluations before they ever send
a cadet to the academy. Okay. Overstep
of human resource. Page 39. human
resource um with the sheriff uh
department hiring is a prime example of
misuse. For instance, the sexual
offender registration officer resigned
the end of June 2024.
That position is still not available and
that's all because of misdeeds of human
resource not communicating with the
sheriff or the sheriff, you know, it's
back and forth. This is not uh drama. is
not a soap opera. This is a county
business. You represent the public.
Interaction with the county manager,
commissioners, and assessor was less
responsive and less accessible.
And that was page 42 of the report. I
don't know why.
Recently, last year, the county manager
who just left filed a lawsuit against
the sheriff on um February 4th 14th,
2025,
but it doesn't seem like there was any
notification or close session for the
county commissioners to know that there
was a lawsuit being filed, although
there was a meeting on February 11th.
These are some of the examples of mis
misuse. I I ask that the county
commissioners bring in community members
like myself, 13 and a half years of of
service to my city as a council member
and a mayor four times. Bring us in. Let
us help you. Okay? Bring some ethics to
what we have right now because it's
suffering
and the public suffers with it. Thank
you very much.
Thank you. [applause]
Good morning.
Good morning, Mr. Chair, commissioner,
members. Uh my name is Adam Valdez. I'm
proud to be here today to represent the
men and women of organized labor. I do
want to say I do appreciate all these
people being here today. They're
speaking out for something they believe
in and uh that's what this country is
about. But
as you all may know by now, I'm here uh
to stand in clear support of Project
Jupiter. This project is extremely
important to my members who live and
raise their families in the southern New
Mexico area. Many of these hard-working
individuals are currently employed
hundreds, even thousands of miles away
from their families, their children,
their spouses, their elderly parents,
their community.
Currently, this is something they must
do in order to earn a respectable living
and attain proper benefits in order to
support their loved ones. I support the
project. I support the the idea of this
open house because it creates a platform
for real and genuine conversations. It
gives residents the opportunity to
connect directly with project
representatives, ask questions, and
learn from people who are closest to the
work. Oftentimes, public discussions can
be dominated by a handful of voices
while many others who are seeking
information and understanding may not
have the same opportunity to engage. I
have a hundred members who would be
happy to be here today speaking in favor
of this project if they were not
currently working out of state uh
previously for my formentioned reasons.
My members want to stay in this area and
work close to home and their loved ones.
The upcoming openhouse format has the
potential to create a more meaningful
and collaborative learning experience
where people can have thoughtful
conversations, explore information that
matters to most of them, and gain a
deeper understanding of this project and
the uses of the resources involved. For
working families, this matters. The
people we represent are on the job sites
every day. Rain, extreme heat, snow,
feeding, and supporting their families
and helping build our communities. When
they have questions about a project that
could shape the future of this region,
they deserve an opportunity to engage in
the way that is accessible, accessible,
and meaningful. Project Jupiter has the
potential to be a transformational
project for our region. One of the
biggest questions we hear is about
workforce opportunities. I'm here to
answer those questions. Uh, I'm sure
many of my cohorts are as well. People
want to know whether these are going to
be real and sustainable projects and and
jobs for local workers and what pathways
will exist for the next generation.
That's why organized labor is excited
about the workforce conversation
surrounding this project. Our unions are
continually adapting and expanding
training programs, apprenticeship, and
career path pathways to bring more
people into skilled trades and prepare
the next generation of workers. We see
tremendous opportunity to connect local
representatives with careers that
provide sustainability, purpose, and
family sustaining wages. Thank you.
Thank you.
Good morning.
Good morning. Good morning, chair,
county commissioners. My name is Durella
Podaka. I am a union representative with
the International Union of Painters and
Ali Trades. I am here for the working
families who want to build a better
future in New Mexico. I understand the
concerns about our state's water. I live
here. I am concerned too. But let's be
clear about the reality we are facing.
That data centers have been built for a
long time. I know it's because my own
career started over a decade ago as a
dry finisher on a large data center
project. Back then we were building the
backbone of the internet and there was
nowhere near this level of opposition.
But the industry has changed. Today we
are looking at the multi-t trillion
dollar artificial intell intelligence
industry. AI is now the global focal
point of investment. It is the
infrastructure of the future. N New
Mexico's water future crisis New
Mexico's water crisis is decades old.
Project Jupiter did not create it and
stopping it will not solve it. Talking
about the crisis does not create one
drop of new water. If we want the
resources for new reservers, critical
pipeline repairs, and modern
conservation, we need a strong economy
to fund them. A healthy growing economy
is the only way we get the capital to
solve our water challenges.
Critics are still talking about the data
centers of 10 years ago. That is not
what is being proposed today. Developers
have pivoted to prioritize
sustainability, drastically reducing
greenhouse gas emissions and redesigning
their cooling. While older systems were
water intensive, Project Jupiter uses a
closed loop approach. The initial water
fill is 960,000 gallons. That is roughly
the amount a single golf course here in
Donana County uses in just one night.
Once operational, the water usage of
this facility will be comparable to that
of a standard office building. Now ask
yourselves, as we stop Project Jupiter
here, does the global demand for AI
disappear? No, it doesn't. It simply
moves to another state or across the
border to Mexico. If it moves to Mexico,
we lose all the influence. We lose the
investment. We lose the jobs. And most
importantly, we lose the oversight. When
we push this development away, we lose
our ability to ensure these facilities
are built to our rigorous environmental
standards.
Environmental responsibility isn't
achieved by pushing progress away. It is
achieved by holding it to high standards
right here at home where we have the
regulatory oversight and the public
accountability to make sure it's done
right.
That's enough.
The choice isn't whether AI shapes our
future. It already is. The choice is
whether New Mexico will have the
resources to leave that future or we
will simply watch someone else take the
investment and do it instead. I
respectfully ask for your continued
support to Project Jupiter. Thank you.
Thank you.
If I continue to hear these outbursts
and I hear these this is not a comedy
show. This is a public meeting. I will
cease public input. This is not an a
show for for you all. Please. I want to
respect public input both for against
whatever it may be.
But these continued sound effects and
outbursts is not respecting the speaker.
Thank you.
Sorry. Good morning.
Good morning, chair and members of the
committee. My name is Esparansa. I live
in the Mskita neighborhood in district
1. I'm here on behalf of Youth United
for Climate Crisis, Yaka, and Fight
Chihuahuan Desert Extraction, FCDX. Yaka
is a movement of young people from
across the state who are dedicated to a
livable future beyond extractive
economies. FCDX is a group of grassroots
local organizers opposing Project
Jupiter. For months, your constituents
have called for a public meeting to
discuss you and the company's
accountability and lack of transparency
to the people. Your board has a lot of
audacity to reschedule this public
meeting so last minute to allow these
companies to reframe it as a job fair
and to completely disregard the
community's concerns yet again.
Especially now with the latest proposed
change to how the companies intend to
power the facility. The community's
questions and distrust keep mounting.
When I and others reached out to Bloom
Technologies via email, their response
included an offer to send over a
non-disclosure agreement, which speaks
to the ways that this company does shady
business. Scott Andrews, which
unfortunately he's not here, um, and the
rest of you that continue to do business
with these companies behind
non-disclosure agreements, what are you
hiding? You may think you are hiding,
but we see you for what you show
yourselves to be. Anti-democratic
technocrats who are hungry for unchecked
power. It's also important to continue
talking about how greenhouse gas
emissions from this proposed project um
continue talking about the emissions
from this proposed project. We know NMED
has no legal requirements for regulating
Project Jupiter's greenhouse gas
emissions, which is why they reapplied
with very little change to this
pollutant. Fuel cell technology
proposals are not a sustainable climate
solution. They present dangerous heat
complications and would still pollute
more greenhouse gas emissions than the
cities of Albuquerque, Santa Fe, and Los
Cusus combined. They also generate
dangerous amounts of hazardous waste,
which the company has been sued for in
the past and have not been tested at
this scale. This is not a sustainable
proposal for this desert's long-term
economic and social well-being. It's an
experiment. If you're an audience member
listening to this, please urge NMED to
reject these air quality permits from
Yaka Growth Infrastructure LLC and call
for a public hearing. FCDX recently
hosted a public forum with over 120 um
uh con concerned people in attendance
and wanted to learn more about the risks
that this project entails. Instead of
letting these companies run another
propaganda session next week, you should
have actually invested county time and
energy towards hosting hosting a robust
job fair with more than just these
companies. And I urge you to consider
that opportunity. If you signed an NDA,
I believe you should resign from your
position because you don't represent
what it means to be a public servant in
a democracy. Finally, the data center
along with its pipelines needed to power
it. I'm running out of time, but I hope
that you thank Thanks FOR YOUR TIME.
GO AHEAD. GOOD MORNING,
COMMISSIONERS. HELLO. I'm Roy G. Dulf.
You've seen me before. You'll definitely
see me again. I am a local drag artist
here in Donana County. I fear that the
words spoken by many individuals at
these meetings since September of last
year are falling on deaf ears. what we
are going to have to do to make it
abundantly clear. It just it does not
show or reflect in the community that we
do not
want this project. We do not want this
project. We gave you a meeting with
experts and no one showed up.
We file in every other week and talk to
you for three weeks, like three minutes
each. It's every other week. I see blank
stairs.
I see how your eyes glaze over.
I see how this community has not been
given the consent to say no to a project
of this size. And you already decided
our fate. It's yours as well. And I feel
like I have no choice in my future. It
seems that now you want to blindside the
members of the community further by the
integrity of what was supposed to be a
meeting.
The agenda will happen soon. And I do
beg of those who have the ability to
stay to hear what else they want to
pedal to the community and really decide
for yourselves. I'm ashamed of those who
are in favor of this project, including
my county commissioner for District 1.
I'm doing my due diligence. I am voting.
I'm using my voice. And with that voice,
I am doing a digital drag show on the
19th. We are showing support for Junth
and showing support for our local
community, including those who are being
impacted by the ICE raids, those who are
needing to get supported for FCDX.
This is really important so that we can
show our community up and out because
this is pride.
I want to be proud of my community.
So, I'm going to take the last couple
seconds and I'm just going to stare at
you.
and take it as a form of rejection.
25 seconds.
two one.
Thank you.
Morning.
Good morning. My name is Annie Ersing
House. I first want to say thank you
Commissioner Kimble and Chapado for
being willing to be have conversations
with us and be transparent. the rest of
you that's been lacking. Um, I'll start
with the state audit. It finds serious
weaknesses in crucial systems affecting
virtually every aspect of county
government. The people of Donana deserve
a government that operates with
integrity and confidence, and the state
audit did not find this.
Scott Andrews, who was here and is not
here now for some reason, is escaping
public comment, but I'm reading this
from an article. Scott has consistently
worked to build a vibrant community,
establish a strong sense of place, and
most importantly, restore trust through
transparency and ethical governance. His
leadership style blends strategic
thinking with empathy, ensuring that
policies and initiatives are not only
effective, but are also people centered.
Do you think it was people- centered to
cancel the meeting we had been waiting
for for three months that was already
delayed? Was that people centered? Was
that transparent? Was that ethical
governance?
So Chris, you sit there and you miss
public meeting. I've seen you come here
after public meeting has started
and I'll talk to you Manny. Um, so Chris
comes and is late to meeting and public
meeting shows up right after public
comment starts.
Right. You're gone. Gloria's not here.
where Gloria had a meeting with us and
she explained that when she voted for
this project September 19th, she felt
like she was drinking from a water hose
and was already overwhelmed with all of
the other jobs she had as a
commissioner. Why did she say yes to
this project? She was clearly not in the
place to make a decision and neither
were you. So, we watch you. I watch you
guys when I'm sitting over here. I watch
you fail to even pay attention to your
employees of Donana County. You're on
your phone. You're looking at your
computer. You're receiving your little
messages from Scott Andrews on Teams,
right? You can't even pay attention to
your own employees.
We We watch you. You You are individual.
You are singular. We, as you see here
behind me. And today, we are the
community.
We are together. We are Donana. And you
do not represent us. And you have not
represented us with this decision.
We don't want a data center. We don't.
And we want you to do what you can to
stop it. And that is what the community
wants. That's what your representatives
want. You will never get reelected if
you ever want to. I know you don't want
to to run again. It's because you This
is what it feels like to be responsible
for your actions.
This is what it feels like to be
responsible for your actions.
The impacts of your decisions are so
great that you cannot even begin to
understand where they reach.
That's it.
Good morning, commission chair,
commissioners. My name is Mary Martinez
White and I'm short. [laughter]
Microphone doesn't want to go that
short. Um, [clears throat]
a recent Gallup survey across the United
States shows that 70% of Americans
oppose building AI data centers in their
local area. So, you are facing um a
tsunami of public uh outrage about these
data centers, but you're not the only
leadership across the country that's
going through this. Um, I don't
necessarily think that AI data centers
are a bad thing. However, I do not agree
with placing them in southern Donana
County in New Mexico because we are
already a water starved region uh and
parts of our region are in
non-attainment zones meaning that
meaning that our air is already badly
polluted.
As you make decisions, safety first
should be our guiding principle,
especially safety first for our
children. Uh, I'd like to provide you
with some information that may or may
not be new information. If it is new
information, just like with the
scientific process, you state a
hypothesis. Once new information is
provided, the hypothesis may change.
Okay? So, I hope that this may be new
information for you to put into your
calculus of decision making. Um, so
safety first and especially for our
children regarding air. We know that air
We know that safe air is air that you
can't smell or see. Um, but in our
valley, we see the air blocking out the
Oregon mountains. We see the plume that
hangs low in our valley. That's the air
that is low enough for us to breathe,
for you to breathe, for our children to
breathe. And that's the worst part
because our children breathing that bad
air um their little lungs are still
developing and so they breathe in many
more times than we do uh per second. So
it impacts them far greater than itac
impacts you and I. Um, asthma is one of
the most common chronic diseases in New
Mexico. According to the New Mexico
Department of Health,
between the years 2000 and 2017, the
number of adult
uh, New Mexicans suffering from asthma
jumped 40%. 40%. And that's back in
2017. It's worse now. And that's before
an AI data center. Uh, we're already in
an AI in an attainment zone. Air, fresh
water and pollutants enters the lungs,
it goes into the bloodstream. Experts
link air pollution like ours to adverse
health effects including asthma, birth
deformities, cardiovascular disease, and
even childhood cancer. So, please
calculate that in. Thank you kindly.
[applause]
Good morning.
Good morning, commissioners. I'm
Charlotte Lipson.
Uh, I'm here to remind you that your
responsibility
is to your constituents and not to
outofstate billionaires or to a soontobe
gone governor.
A reliable source has told me that each
of you in office last year
were beguiled and flattered by a call
from the governor
urging you to accept the Jupiter IRB
which you did bypassing your commission
your constituents.
That's all I have to say. Thank you.
Thank you. [applause]
Good morning.
Good morning. I'll introduce myself in a
moment. I want to begin by um addressing
what seems to be your top priority. With
my assurance that I'll save all my big
scary criticisms of Project Jupiter for
later in the day when there's less
people here to hear it because I know
how important that is to you all.
[gasps] Um, with the time that I have
now, I'll tell you a little more about
myself and why I am here today. Um, so
my name is Dylan Ray and I have lived
here for the last 12 years. Now, what
you might hear when I say that is that I
am not from here. Um, however, that 12
years is the longest I have lived
anywhere on this earth. So, make no
mistake, this is my home. When I show up
here, as I plan to do again, given the
behavior of this board, it is to protect
my home. and it will continue to be that
that brings me here. So when you see me,
know that you are failing to protect my
home.
When people ask me what keeps me rooted
in this place of all places, my answer
is always the same. It is this
community. I have seen people come
together here in Dona County to care for
one another in ways that I could not
have imagined before living here. It is
a care that promises to build a better
world. Not only for the people who are
here right now acting selfishly, but for
the people who will inherit this place
when we are all gone. because that is
how humanity endures in a good way.
[sighs]
As I mentioned
um
that care that I am talking about I see
in this building today and I also see
the board's resistance to it which is a
huge disappointment to say the least.
And as I mentioned before, I'll be
saying more later, but for now, suffice
it to say that once again, I am here to
remind you that you all should carry the
shame for the way that you have failed
this community. And any of you still
dodging the accountability for that
shame and that failure should bring a
letter of resignation to your next shift
at work. Thank you.
I'm sorry.
Dylan, [cheering]
Dylan, Dylan, I I just just just for
clarity, there's not going to be public
input during the uh discussion on
presentation. So, if you had to say
anything, it was going to be here during
public input.
Okay. I'll be back when you
we don't get to make you told people not
to make comments about Project Jupiter
now because there will be time later. Is
that not accurate?
No, it was the opposite. There's not
going to be there's not going to be
public input under a discussion item. uh
because it's not up for action. So
that's why I was encouraging people if
they had uh to speak about Project
Jupiter to do it during public input.
Okay. I think I had about 50 seconds
left. So I'll say that um I think the
And if you don't if you don't mind, I'm
sorry.
Yeah, no problem. Sorry.
Sorry. Thank you.
Um I'll take my uh 50 remaining seconds
to say that um as the rest of the
community has let you know, the um
proposed event on the 17th is nothing
that we've been asking for. the meeting
that we have asked for would make clear
one of two things. That you all made
this decision without any accurate or
insufficient information. Um or that
eight months later after all of us
showing up um lots of people more so
than I have um to make sure that your
job is done more than you care to do it.
Um you still don't have the information
you need to see the massive risk that
this poses to our community. So it makes
no difference to me. It makes perfect
sense why you wouldn't want that meeting
to occur because regardless of which of
those two is true, you have failed this
community as I mentioned and you should
be ashamed of that.
Thank you. [applause]
Sorry. Thank you for your patience. I
appreciate you.
No problem.
Good morning, commissioners.
I would like to remind each and every
one of you that you are elected to serve
the best interests of Donaana County
residents.
As a resident, I'm concerned about any
project in Donana County that affects
our water use. Donana is an agricultural
county and at the present time we don't
have enough water to support the
agriculture in Donana County and yet you
are supporting a project that will
demand a tremendous amount of additional
water. This is disgraceful.
In doing this, you are not serving the
best interests of the residents of
Donana County, and you are making it
more difficult for farmers to run their
businesses. You are putting slick
presentations by huge corporations and
empty promises ahead of the needs of the
residents you were elected to serve. In
addition to the stresses you are putting
on our water resources, we're also
facing additional increases in our
electric electricity rates due to the
project's huge demand for electricity. I
was told, Commissioner Sanchez, by you
that our electricity costs would not
increase. But I have received a proposal
from El Paso Electric in which they are
asking for rate increases that
ultimately will be more than double our
current rates. This is beyond the
resources of many of our residents and
again is not in the best interests of
the people of Dana County.
Project Jupiter should be shut down
immediately. You need to find the
backbone to stand up to corporate
propaganda
and say no. My husband has been
communicating with you for several weeks
and has asked Commissioner Sanchez
repeatedly for the research that you say
that you have done and has so far
received absolutely nothing. He has
responded with all sorts of research
that he has done and you have not taken
that into account. The people of Donana
County have asked over and over for a
meeting at which we can voice our
concerns about this project and every
meeting has been cancelled. Now you want
to turn the promised meeting into a job
fair again to avoid hearing from your
constituents.
Again, this is disgrace disgraceful. If
you're not willing to work for the best
interests of the residents of Donana
County and instead are willing to be
swayed by money and slick presentations,
then you have no business being
commissioners and you should resign
immediately.
And your name, please.
[applause]
You didn't state your name for the
record.
Oh, I'm calling.
Thank you.
Good morning. Good morning.
Hello, my name is Abby Keffer. I'm
greatly concerned about our water supply
because of the data center. During the
people's forums in regards to Project
Jupiter, a state water resource officer
reminded us that the Rio Grande River is
bankrupt. It's not a water crisis
because the state of the Rio Grande is
far worse. Bankruptcy meaning it will
never go back to how it was ever. So we
have to be so careful on how we use it
and conserve as to what is left.
But here we are allowing Project Jupiter
to drain and exagerbate the issue.
Project Jupiter announced that they are
planning to only use about 20,000
gallons a day. However, according to
Project Jupiter's legal documents, they
are technically allowed to pump 2
million gallons of water a day. Yep.
Legally, that's what they can do. And if
they were truly set on fulfilling their
promise for 20,000 gallons per day
limit, then their legal document should
reflect that, not the 2 million.
We cannot let the industry regulate
itself because they will always care
more about profits than our well-being.
It is up to our commissioners to
regulate Project Jupiter. So, please do
your jobs.
In the end, the community had questions.
Someone asked, "I'm only 18. I'm scared.
Is there hope?" I think majority of
people can relate to this sentiment. We
do have hope. Daisy Maldonado, who is a
county commissioner candidate for
district 1 and is fiercely against the
data center, just won her primary.
Commissioners, that should show you how
much the community opposes Project
Jupiter. It's up to your political will
to end the contracts. The amount of
litigation does not matter when our
precious water is on the line. We have
to shut down Project Jupiter and revoke
the IRB contract.
For the individuals who support Project
Jupiter because of the job
opportunities, let me say this.
You want good paying local jobs that
will let you stay in this area and
support your families.
But what will you and your families do
when the air is polluted, the water is
gone, and the electrical bill goes up?
Would it have been all worth it? There
are other job opportunities, and it
starts with the commissioners. Union
workers, you should be demanding for
responsible local infrastructure
infrastructure development.
Project Jupiter sees you and all of us
as mice and they're asking you to build
a giant mouse trap. Thank you.
Thank you.
[applause]
Good morning.
Good morning, Commissioner Sanchez and
rest of the commission. My name is
Alberto.
I am an organizer with the New Mexico
Dream Team. I am a student at NMSU. I
love the state of New Mexico. I live
here. I plan on growing up here and I
plan for my family to grow up here. I
want to raise my children here. [snorts]
This is your job. You're being paid to
be here. Actually, let me word this
better because it seems like some of you
think that you're just paid for just
being here.
Your job that you signed up for is to
represent us, your constituents, by
regulating them, the industries.
I have heard many informed, passionate
members of this community show up here
and speak truth to you, and you simply
sit there and stare. Some of you even
have the audacity to feel disrespected
when confronted by the emotions shown
here by your community.
If you're part of the overwhelming
majority, that is the working class in
this country, you know that we're living
through an era of scarcity. We feel this
every day as we see the cost of
groceries, gas, and other goods rise
with no regulation. Majority of us are
renters who live paycheck to paycheck as
cost of living spikes.
Sam Alman has been quoted to state that
he intends to see AI as a utility. This
is something that is informed by our
artists, our researchers, our people,
our voices, and is trying to be packaged
and sold back to us.
This sense of scarcity is not actually
real. It is a manufactured illusion
enforced upon us by the bailer class.
The very same people you all continue to
remain loyal to as they hoard our
resources. It is embarrassing. It is
insulting. And most importantly, it is
disrespectful.
We are not paid for the time we waste
here speaking at you. We are not tricked
by billioners of the likes of Sam Alman
and Larry Ellison. We know that they're
not the solution to any of our problems
regarding water, air quality, or
employment. They are not here to provide
us with any opportunities. Our land, our
water, our air, our expertise in our
labor is the opportunity that they are
seeking to exploit and profit off.
To the union workers, I hear your
concerns. Workers should have the
freedom to sign to dignify labor, to be
paid enough to look after their families
without having to distance themselves
from them. These jobs are temporary. To
speak about Project Jupiter as the only
opportunity to better the material
conditions of our workers is simply
wrong. Our fight against these
billionaires is a fight for workers.
They are here to exploit us, not uplift
us. Workers need your labor not to
sacrifice our morals and our
environment, but to have better
infrastructure, affordable housing,
water treatment facilities. initiatives
led by us and for us. With your
continued loyalty to Project Jupiter and
lack of transparency, you have proven
yourself unfit for office. The
consequences of your inactional echo for
generations, either revoked the IRB or
resigned and leave space for other
leaders with an actual moral backbone to
step in. Thank you.
[applause]
Good morning.
Good morning, comm county commissioner
chair Sanchez, commissioners Kimell,
Jafaro, and SJ.
My name is Terry Miller. My husband and
I moved to Donana County in June 1972.
And for the past 54 years, we have
raised our sons here, had our careers
here, and are now enjoying our
retirement here. We are truly invested
in this county that has been our home
for most of our lives. And that's why
I'm here today. It is human nature to a
to seek answers when we have questions
about something we do not understand.
And that's why we are all looking for
that's what we are all looking for when
we ask you questions about Project
Jupiter. And your answers are what we,
your constituents, deserve. After the
public meeting at Branigan Library in
late May, we were told we would have an
opportunity to ask our county
commissioners and project Jupiter
representatives questions about the data
center installation. This meeting was
scheduled for Thursday, June 18th here
at the county building. Then just
recently, we learned the question and
answer meeting had been changed to an
event in Sunland Park on the 17th. I do
agree it is important to hold an event
where project Jupiter is based to give
residents who actually live near the
installation an opportunity an
opportunity to learn more about it. But
I think we can all agree that is not
even close to a satisfactory way for the
rest of us residents of Donana County to
get our questions answered. So, my
request is to the county commissioners
for you to please honor your commitment
to serve your constituents by giving us
the opportunity to submit our questions
to you in writing by the end of this
week and then post our questions on the
county website. Then reinstate the
original public meeting at the county
building to give us the answers to the
questions we submitted and then post
your answers on the website for every
one of us in the county to see. I
realize this will not resolve all of our
issues and concerns, but it is a way to
begin the open dialogue we are looking
for. We are all in this together, and
when we work together, we get things
done. Thank you.
Thank you. [applause]
Good morning.
Good morning. My name is Anastasia Wall.
I lived in district five. Um, I am
coming here today and I've been
wondering if um, county commissioners,
if you would have voted the same way you
did back in September 19th to approve
those IRBs, knowing what you know now,
having experienced everything that
you've experienced since then? Do you
think you could have saved yourself some
stress and grief if you had made the
process more open, taken the time to
invite in the public, maybe hear about
from health experts, from union workers,
from the general public, from electrical
engineers who could have used this as an
opportunity for renewables or maybe just
members of the public who had a lot of
concerns. Would that have changed how
you would have voted on September 19th?
Um, rather than hiding behind
non-disclosure agreements and closed
sessions, maybe you would have voted how
your constituents wanted you to vote.
Shannon Reynolds just came in third in
his primary after a very challenging
campaign. I'm sure that was very
difficult uh for him to have to
constantly apologize for his vote on
September 19th on the campaign trail. I
am sure that future will await you all
if you all decide to continue to run.
The only way to attempt to repair the
relationship that you all have with your
constituents is to acknowledge this
wrongdoing and to work to prevent any
other future county commissioner from
making the same mistake.
The tools using non-disclosure
agreements, closed sessions, hiding, and
lack of transparency. These are tools to
isolate yourselves from your
constituents. I call on the county
commission to ban the use of
non-disclosure agreements uh for county
business. NDAs are a shield that
separate elected officials from voters.
I also call on you to fire Scott
Andrews, the county manager, for signing
the NDA about Project Jupiter and also
for his bad judgment which has
ultimately caused so much unrest and
distrust in our community. THANK YOU.
[applause]
GOOD MORNING.
Good morning. Uh my name is Dave Mooney
represented by Chair Sanchez. Um
there are other parts of the country
that are much better suited for data
centers, but there is a reason why
Project Jupiter is here and it's because
they think they can take advantage of
us. And unfortunately, so far it seems
like they've been right. Um, we
desperately need a county manager uh
that will represent the needs of the
community, not out of state
corporations. Thank you.
[applause]
Good morning.
My name is Cindy Habber. I was here a
couple weeks ago and had a meltdown. I
couldn't keep my hands straight, so I
have cards now.
Um, what I've been doing this weekend, I
spent a lot of time on YouTube
researching AI
and I learned a lot from a lot of
different speakers on there. One in
particular, I listened to her be
interviewed by three different people.
From that I learned that there's
something called an AGI
is what they want to use these mega
centers for.
And they are to create
artificial general intelligence
which is going to work
well replacing
white collar jobs lower level white
collar jobs not assisting them.
So, this is something I think we need to
look into more, but I want to take a
minute and mention her book.
And the author's name is Karen Ho Hao.
The name of the book, Empire at AI,
subtitle, dreams and nightmares.
There was a statement she made in here I
really like.
The empire of AI is engaged in the same
overt violence and brutality that marked
our history.
But they seize and extract
precious resources
to feed their vision of artificial
intelligence.
the work of artists, writers,
the data of countless individuals
posting about their experiences and
their observances
online
online and energy and water required to
house and run massive data centers and
supercomputers.
She also made a statement
that we feel the loss of agency
to determine our own futures.
AI is threatening our democracy.
Thank you.
Good morning.
Good morning. Sorry. Good morning,
commissioners. Uh, my name is Lenny
Dupas Maldonado. I'm 19 years old and um
I will be start I've been living in Los
Curses my entire life. I'll be starting
my first year of college in two months
at NMSU. Um, so I'll be here for at
least four more years, but I plan to
continue living here after graduation.
Um, I really wish that more of my peers
could be here today. Um but
unfortunately there's a lot of young
people who do not participate in
democracy because they can confidently
say their voices have no power in
politics um in our local politics. And
um I really can't argue with them, you
know, because you proved as much when
you approved the IRB and um you're
proving it now again giving the giving
the companies a bigger voice than the
people. Um, I might be the youngest
member, the youngest activist in FCDX,
but I'm far from the youngest person
watching you guys, watching what's
happening. Um, we we're watching we're
watching exactly our democracy fall
apart before us and our voices be taken
away. Um, and so I mean, I guess just to
end it off, you know, the youth is the
future, which is true. Um well the
future is is looking down on you except
you Commissioner Shabaro. Thank you.
[cheering]
[applause]
Good morning.
Good morning. My name is Christine Doin
and I'm from an unincorporated area in
Anthony near Lion. For my entire
childhood, our tap water had dangerous
amounts of arsenic. So, my sisters and I
drink plastic water bottles my family
had to buy from the store every week.
Eventually, it was a federal government
with some help from the state, none from
you, who treated our water so other kids
could have a better future than me. We
had houses burned down waiting, but fire
crews never came. They weren't
dispatched at all or in time to save
lives. We get an F every year. Our air
is so polluted. This year, we're 14th in
the nation for dirtiest air. There was
no way for me to know there was a county
government all the way up here that was
supposed to be protecting us. Naturally,
I wanted to leave as fast as I could.
So, I did. I got fire out of here. I
studied ecology. I even went to medical
school before I realized I had to come
back because running away from your
problems doesn't make them disappear.
While finishing my masters at public
health at NMSU, I came to you and helped
you pass a civic health proclamation in
August 2025. Manny, you said our
communities flourish when every
individual has a voice in the decisions
that impact their lives. And we believe
in this so much that the very center of
our vital conditions is belonging and
civic muscle. Whether they speak English
or Spanish, live in Los Cusus or any
part of the county, it's important they
get involved. But within the next month,
you not only suppressed but ignored the
strongest show of community civic muscle
I've ever seen in my lifetime. Data
centers used to be the size of tiny
closets. Now they're destroying acres of
ranch land, taking our water to cool
down machines. Well, every single summer
someone in our county dies because they
can't afford air conditioning. Do you
think we weren't smart enough to realize
that this is a generational disaster? Do
you think 20% of New Mexico workers is
good enough? It should be 100%. but
actually not because Jupiter is acting
like using arsenic contaminated water
for dust control around those workers
from Montana and Texas um is safe even
though they're not using any personal
protective equipment. Do you just not
care that they're going to get cancer
once these corporations leave town? Is
that arsenic dust blowing into your
backyard cuz it's blowing into mine a
few miles away? Thank you, Chapter. Who
knew listening to your constituents
would be so unpopular these days? The
county owns this project. It is up to
you and you alone to cancel this IRB.
The rest of you should have resigned
after you made that vote on September
19th. When you turned your back on the
people who put you here. We need leaders
who don't shrink and become puppets
under pressure. Step down immediately.
Until you do, you'll have nothing, and I
mean nothing to be proud of.
[cheering]
Good morning.
Good morning. My name is Patricia Lon
and frankly I'm just about done with
this. I'm done with this fake dialogue.
I'll remind our community that residents
held an education forum with nonparty
professionals at the Brandan Library two
Sundays ago. This effort exemplifies
actual representation and government by
the people. By the way, you can still
access the recorded stream of this
presentation of peer-reviewed expertise
at the YouTube channel of Annie Ersing
House, where you can also view footage
of ongoing progress at the construction
site under the series titled Jupiter
Watch.
We trust community for information on AI
and its harm, its ties to surveillance
and by extension mass incarceration.
Do we think we can trust the industry
players OpenAI, Oracle, Stack, and Bloom
who would directly financially benefit
from increasing border militarization,
increased utility rates, and water
scarcity?
What does the leadership of these
companies care that our air will be
slowly poisoned, key islands expanded,
and untold environmental degradation?
They don't live here.
This is a deadly escalation of the
climate crisis affecting our region and
a depraved spiral into fascism plaguing
our border region. So, thank you very
much for that. To be sure, we do want
jobs.
Um, jobs should create infrastructure
though, space and relationships, support
for the community because community is
the economy.
Our environment is our economy, not
surveillance, not overpolicing, not
incarceration. It's traditional
econological knowledge. It's public
services. It's in public health.
Taxpayers invest in these things because
we know that it'll benefit us. human
jobs being done by humans. Stop playing
into the corporate infinite downsizing
and independent contractifying of our
meaningful jobs in every industry.
stop. You guys are
fools. I'm done.
We demand your resignation. Manny
Sanchez, Chris Shaljo, Gloria Gometo,
how absolutely goddamn dare you occupy
those seats still?
The commissioners who replace you should
explore the legal way to withdraw from
the IRB contract with Stack and
Borderlex. The people of this county are
done with this You're done. You no
longer have the respect of the people
who work and survive here. Okay?
And furthermore, at the job fair that
you let the company host in Santaa is a
farce. We want just you guys owe us that
meeting still.
You need to watch.
We're going to keep No, I'm going to
keep I'm going to keep talking. I'm
going to take 30 more seconds. We You
owe us that You owe us that meeting.
Excuse me. And you are no longer
deserving of our respect.
Thank you. Thank you, ChristoJo, for not
having fallen asleep yet. Manny, you're
a real Olympian up there. Scott Andrews,
you're a real devil.
I'm sorry. You know, you're done.
Please.
Thank you very much. My mic is still on,
isn't it? Thank you, guys. Thank you.
[applause]
Good morning.
Hello. Liz Bennett, public health social
worker, resident of district 5. I want
to start by thanking Commissioner
Chapato for being a real one, for being
a person of conscience and integrity,
refusing to back down in the interests
of serving the people. I also want to
express my deep disappointment and
absolute disillusionment and dismay with
each of you on this commission who
continue to support Project Jupiter.
Shame on any of you who have not done
your research since that rushed,
secretive, and ignorant vote last year.
Today, the conversation on the harmful
impact of the hundreds of existing data
centers across the country is almost
unavoidable. There's growing concern,
evidence, and documentation of how
emissions contribute to respiratory and
heart disease and climate change. How
the noise is enough to rob residents of
their sanity. How data centers are
blowing past regulations to guzzle down
water. and how the cost and consumption
of electricity goes up and up and up and
up. Miles and miles of natural habitat
destroyed by sprawling and soon to be
obsolete infrastructure.
And you're telling us that an
undetermined and ungaranteed number of
temporary jobs is worth the immediate
and long-term irreconcilable harm to our
health and our habitat. It's like being
handed a glass of water by the person
responsible for burning your house down.
When you consider consider the facts and
listen to the lived experience of the
people grappling with the data centers
popping up across the country, it is
obvious that the risks far outweigh the
mirage of benefit. So I would really
like to know why you support this. The
only conclusion that I can come to is
that you are either too cowardly to face
the reality of the consequences of your
decisions or that you are so callous
that you are willing to further
sacrifice those already living on the
margins for a bag of inflated promises,
both of which make you unfit for office.
Our county is currently playing into the
hands of monopolistic technobillionaires
riding high off the AI bubble, buying
off poor rural communities with fantasy
tax math hidden behind disclosure
agreements.
But it's not too late.
It's not too late to open your eyes to
the writing on the wall. To let the
truth of the moment settle into your
hearts and minds and bones.
Please govern as if you care about the
people and place you represent. Please
recognize that we don't have to
willingly walk into our own demise. We
are in a closing window of opportunity
to protect the sanctity of our home and
all who live here. So, please act
accordingly or resign.
Thank you. [applause]
Good morning.
Good morning, Mr. Chair. My name is Chad
Getats. I'm representing the Greater Los
Cusus Chamber of Commerce as well as a
business owner in Los Cusus in Donana
County. Um, as a chamber, we we do have
lots of members that are for and against
this project. Um, so we're not here to
tell you you're doing a bad job. We're
not here to tell you you're doing a good
job. Um, what we are here to ask is for
you to please come forward with an open
mind and listen and not listen to react,
but listen to educate yourselves on
what's going on for or against whichever
you decide. Um, we have I I don't envy
you in any way. Um, I would never say
that all of you are doing a horrible
job. I would never say that you're doing
a perfect job. We know that that doesn't
happen. What I am saying is we've got to
do the best that we've can do for our
community. Whether you feel that's for
or against, that's what you were elected
for. Um please please take your time and
listen to both sides. Um throughout this
entire process, I've heard wide ranges
of facts and what is right and what
isn't right and you know the water usage
and salinated water and all these
different things. And I think that an
open forum is a good thing. I think a,
you know, to be able to go and have this
job for them and this open house is
great. Personally, I feel that you learn
a whole lot more about a person whenever
they're not in the spotlight and they're
not putting on a show. You can find the
true character of somebody whenever they
don't think anyone's watching. That's
huge. So, figure that out. But I also
agree that you do need to have a forum
where you can bring everybody together
to ask questions. It's tough because
those can be canned answers. Those can
be canned questions that can be
rebutted. And that's where I need you to
listen in order to learn, not listen to
rebutt. Because we have a big problem in
our community, in our world now, where
we always think that we're right no
matter what. And if you listen to learn
instead of listen to react, that makes a
huge difference. So that's my my request
of all of you. Thank you.
Thank you.
Good morning.
Good morning, Chair Sanchez,
Commissioner. My name is Jessica Len
Robles. I'm with Nvidita, but today I'm
going to be speaking on behalf of Beth
Williams, the bridge of southern the
bridge of southern New Mexico,
and if there's time, I'll I'll say my
piece. Uh, chairwoman, commissioners,
and county staff, thank you for the
opportunity to speak. My name is Beth
Williams, president and CEO of the
Bridge of Southern New Mexico. I would
like to express our support for project
Jupiter and the jobs and economic
opportunities this project will bring to
Donana County in southern New Mexico. At
the bridge, our mission is to connect
education, workforce development,
industry so that local residents,
especially young people and those who
have become disengaged from traditional
educational career pathways can access
meaningful opportunities for employment
and advancement. Project Jupiter
will create exactly this type of
opportunity for our community needs.
Beyond the direct impact, Project
Jupiter represents the investment in
people. It creates pathways for the
workforce development, skills, training,
career advancement, and long-term
economic mobility for residents
throughout our region. These
opportunities help ensure our student
and workforce can build successful
careers without having to leave southern
New Mexico.
As we work with the local schools,
employers, workforce agencies, and
training providers, we consistently hear
that the need for quality jobs that
allow these individuals to apply their
skills and continue their education.
Project Jupiter helps strengthen that
ecosystem and sends positive message to
Donana County as committed to investing
in its future workforce. We also
recognize and appreciate the county
commission's leadership in supporting
responsible economic development
initiatives to create these jobs,
attract investments, and expand
opportunities for residents. Your
continued commitment to fostering growth
and workforce development is critical to
the long-term success of our region. On
behalf of the Bridge of Southern New
Mexico, I respectfully encourage your
support in Project Jupiter and thank you
for your service to our community. Thank
you for your time and consideration.
I my name is Jessica Len Robles. I live
here in Los Cruus. Um and in my role I'm
with MSA Valley Economic Development
Alliance and I work with existing
businesses here and as you can imagine
the existing businesses here major
concern is workforce development
within the programs that we've created.
I was able to attend yesterday a camp
that we put on for STEM and it was
filled with students,
recent graduates and high school
students who are excited about these
jobs and they're pursuing the
certifications and skill sets needed to
do them and a majority of them would
like to stay here. Thank you for your
support of the project and I appreciate
your time.
Thank you.
Hold on a second. I don't know if at
this point I need to just empty this
side of the room where I hear the noise
coming from because this is getting a
little ridiculous of why, you know, I've
tried to be respectful trying to allow
speakers whether for or against, but you
all continue to disrupt
Let's see. I I don't know. Security, do
we can we just can we clear this side
and we'll take a we'll take a five
minute recess
[applause and cheering]
and then we'll continue after where
we're at.
It is
10:37.
We'll get back
seven.
You're going to stay on
Like I said since the beginning of this
is that I understand this is your
opportunity to speak and I want to allow
and give deference to that and give the
respect for people taking the time to
come speak especially those I I get you
know there's those of those that are
opposed and I absolutely appreciate you
participating.
What I want to make sure is that the
voices either for or against both are
respected in this space because you know
whether whether we agree or not I want
to make sure that people allow that have
their chance to speak
and so with that I just want like I said
that's where my that's where my where my
ask is from. I get that people are
passionate about this and so please just
understand that is where I'm coming
from. So thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. Good morning and
thank you for your patience.
Good morning. Um
my name is S Guerrero. Um I am a
lifelong resident of Lasus uh New
Mexico. Um,
and I'm going to tell you about the last
time that I was in this building, which
was in I believe March 22nd. No, I think
about a week before that in 2022 and
where I was disappointed for the first
time by the county. Um, the second time
being when the IRB was approved. Um, and
that was when I came here as a survivor
of sexual assault. Um, I was doing my
services through La Pñon and I went
through six different prosecutors before
my trial happened. And when that
happened, uh,
all of the officials that were supposed
to be there for me did not listen to me.
And what ended up happening is my abuser
fled the country. Um, and that sucked.
That sucked for various different ways.
Um, and I say that because I think when
I hear all of this talk about consent
being removed, when I hear um people
saying that they are not being seen or
heard, that touches me. It touches me in
a way that
it's scary. It's not fun. Um,
and you know, yesterday I went tubing
with some of my friends down the Rio
Grand and that was one of the most
beautiful experiences of my life. I
think about how we laughed and, you
know, floated down the river and we saw
the beautiful, you know, trees and the
ducks and sure like the mosquitoes and
the flies, but like it was still
beautiful. And I think about how
wonderful it was to be in community and
how it's been to be in community with um
these people that I am in this work
with.
And I I think about the implications of
Project Jupiter because I don't plan on
leaving this city. I don't plan on
leaving this county. If I could if I
could die here, I would. And so when I
see
um you know people who have way more
money than I probably ever will in my
lifetime make these decisions for me and
you know my friends and my family and my
mother who
um quite literally would rather doesn't
want to leave
it. It makes me really sad because she
should have the freedom and I should
have the freedom to stay in this county
and not be pushed out by corporations
that think that um you know these
aquifers
are,
you know, like that's that's their whole
jam. And I don't know, I I really hope
I think you can figure that one out.
Thank you.
Thank you. [applause]
Good morning, sir. Thank you for your
discussion. [laughter]
Thank you. Uh I think I'm still Peter
Goodman. I can't claim to be 17 like one
of the speakers. I but I probably will
die here. Uh um hope so eventually. Um
thank you for your patience with us. Um
and I respect you. I do frankly have
questions about whether you deserve that
respect uh based on what's happened with
this uh project. I'm not saying you
don't, but I'm saying it's a fair
question for everybody to ask, but I
want to address primarily and I thought
Lynn Mo did a great job on this. I think
it's fine for um you know Jupiter to
have a job fair and a dog and pony show,
whatever they want to do.
But we've asked our county commissioners
for a meaningful town hall type meeting
where when they say things uh they can
be pressed on those things by and we can
hear from experts who know more than I
certainly do or you do probably uh about
these things.
Why is that so important? Let's lose
logic. Use a little logic here. It's
important because when they speak
publicly, they say stupid things.
That sounds extreme perhaps, but they
had a Charlotte sent an ad around that
they had in the journal that said, "If
you believe in protecting the air, you
believe in Jupiter." And I understand
that reasonable people, including the
guy behind me, whom I hope everybody
will applaud when he finishes, believe
that the the air pollution and the con
cons contribution to greenhouse gases uh
that's equivalent to Los Cruus's plus
Albuquerque
is worth it. That the good things that
this project's going to give them make
it okay. But nobody seriously could say
that doing that that adding Cusus and
Albuquerque to what Cruis and
Albuquerque always already do to our
environment would be protecting our
environment. And they had a column in
the uh um bulletin the other day where
they said uh this is nonpable water.
That's stupid too to anybody who thinks
about anybody who lives around here for
any length of time. Uh, that's like
saying 16y olds aren't interested to me
as a politician because they can't vote.
Non-potable water is talking about a
moment in that water's existence and it
depends on what happens next. And the
real question is what's the connection
with the hy is it in the same
hydraological system? And if it is, it's
important whether it's portable or
non-potable at this moment. Thank you.
Thank you, sir. [applause]
Good morning, sir.
Good morning. It's still morning, right?
Um,
yeah, I'm the guy behind Peter Goodman,
uh, Jim Hurst. Um,
I'm a member of many political groups,
and I'm speaking only for myself.
Um,
yes, I support Project Jupiter. I
support Project Jupiter because of the
economic development and because of its
contribution to our tax base. Uh $18
million a year is a lot of money. Uh
it'll be 5% of our overall tax base. Um
$50 million contributed to the southern
county uh to fix the water problems
there uh means that it's possible to fix
the water problems there. Um, concerning
water, uh, we use 400 million gallons a
day in Don Ana County. Uh, if Jupiter
uses a million gallons a day, it will be
one quarter of 1% of our water. That's
worth it for 5% of our tax base.
Agriculture contributes relatively
little in terms of revenue to this
county.
It ex it consumes enormous amounts of
water.
So, um, consider the airline industry.
The airline industry is essential to our
economy.
It pollutes a hell of a lot.
It takes jobs.
There'd be more jobs transporting people
by train and other modes than by
airline.
The point is we allow airlines to
disturb our environment because we
consider their contribution to our
economy worth it. How come it can't get
the same access to resources,
environmental resources as every other
industry?
It is about 15 20% of our economy right
now. It share will only grow. It's not
using 15 or 20% of our uh environmental
resources.
Do we want technology or not? If we want
technology, we will have to make
sacrifices for it.
It's just that simple.
We live in a technical age. Our national
security depends on it. Uh no one can
watch what's happening in Ukraine
without valuing technology.
Technology is keeping the Ukrainians
free or as free as they are.
I'm a student of history.
World War II was won because the United
States had superior industrial
development. That's why we won the war.
The new war is technology.
Thank you very much. Thank you.
[applause]
Good morning.
Good morning, Commissioner Commission.
Um, it's been a while. Uh, this time,
last time I spoke in Spanish. This time
I'll do it in English. Maybe this time
they'll understand. Um, first of all, my
name is Jose Vara. I am here as a
resident. Um, I'm no longer an employee
of Border Plex Digital or any of the
Jupiter um, entities. Um, so but I'm
still here as a supporter. I'm a
supporter of the economic development
and jobs that come along with Project
Jupiter. I support the upcoming meeting
and the job fair. And let me tell the
opposition, you don't like the format.
You don't have to be there because this
meeting is for the people that are
actually being impacted, not for less
cruises. I look around and all I see I
see community. I see them getting
together,
but I see hypocrisy. hypocrisy because I
didn't see this opposition fighting meta
when they took all those millions of
gallons over to Texas. Where were they?
They're so concerned about our
resources. They're so concerned about
water. I didn't see them over there. I
didn't see them in Chaparel, not once
fighting meta. This looks more like a
personal vendetta against Jupiter. Why?
Who knows? Maybe it's because the
economic development for for the first
time is going down south. is not coming
to cruises. For the first time, we are
being considered.
What I see, I see a bunch of white
people pushing on a brown community. My
community, that's what I see. I haven't
heard anybody saying, "I'm from Salon
Park or Santa Teresa. I grew up there. I
grew up there with hunger. I grew up
there with cold days. Why? Because of
lack of economic." [clears throat] And
when these people come and create this
type of blockage, they're blocking a
bunch of kids, including my two boys who
I have custody of. I am a single father.
How many parents can say that here in
New Mexico or anywhere else? And I have
to provide for them. This is a lack of
economic development by a blockage of
white people from Las Cruises.
I'm not going to make you stare at me or
I'm not going to stare at you,
Commissioner Sanchez or Commission. I
want them to stare at me. I want them to
stare at me for the remaining of the
time to look at this brown guy that was
once a brown little boy that went
through hunger, that went through cold
days because there there are kids like
that right now going through that in one
of the cities that is under the poverty
line because of lack of economic
development. So go ahead, judge me.
Hi
Just so you know, I'm Hispanic here
before Mexico is a state.
Please don't look at me and judge me.
Thank you. That's
Thank you, sir. Look at me.
Look at me.
Thanks.
That's enough. Thank you, sir.
And to uh commission.
Thank you.
Good morning.
Okay, I just go.
Yeah, you can go ahead and start.
I haven't done this in a while. Okay, so
my name is Don Franco. Um, shout out to
the security guards. Thanks for
representing the public. That was
awesome. Um, and then, you know, so just
a little bit about myself. Um, I am a
New Mexican. My family has been New
Mexico for generations. My great-grandma
is Native American. My dad is a first
generation American. Um, so just a
little background about me because
there's there's kind of some stuff going
on with that. Um, so you know, recently
I was terminated from my job because
earlier this year I pursued my own
business through a real estate license
because the economic development here is
so instable that I was like, I need to
take initiative and create a future for
myself. And then I found a really
wonderful job and they disagreed with
that. It's okay. We've parted ways. Um,
I understand there's like a job fair
next week and as a community member, I
won't be going. I'd rather live in my
car. I don't know how I'm going to pay
rent for July. But that is how opposed
to Project Jupiter I am. There is no
amount of desperation that would get me
to consider working for that company.
Additionally, if you don't know much
about AI and the way they hire and, you
know, create jobs, basically Meta had
tens of thousands of layoffs last year
and this year alone. these jobs are
instable, underpaid, um, and
replaceable. So, this economic
development that they're promising you
is going to be very like finicky and
flaky. I wouldn't like be like, "Oh,
that's going to solve the issue." That's
kind of that's really silly. Um, 5% of
taxpayer money is outlandish for
something that will pollute and harm our
waters. As a New Mexican resident, I'm
here to protect the animals and the
environment as well as my community.
Completely unacceptable that we would
consider this project, sign NDAs, and
approve it.
I feel very like um sorry I'm like
really nervous trying to calm down. I
feel a little betrayed as a community
member. Um you know obviously you you
tried to just remove half the community
for a monopia you know silly things.
Adults will move on. It's okay. Um but
yeah I just another thing about AI you
probably don't know is AI is actually
everywhere. There are businesses with
security cameras that have AI that
monitor the employees. you know, how
fast they can make a latte, how many
orders per hour they take, how many
orders they make mistakes on. Um, and
what this does is this creates a
surveillance state obviously, which you
know, whatever happened to freedom. Um,
and secondly is it creates inhuman
conditions so that people are fired and
replaced by AI. How many jobs we've lost
to AI already? Like probably tens of
thousands. But you are literally
allowing a data center to come into here
and take more jobs. and you're like
under this impression it's going to make
jobs and economic development and that
is just like really silly. Please just
like really reconsider this whole thing
please. Um so yeah that's all. Thank
you.
Thank you. [applause]
Good morning sir.
Good morning uh Mr. Chair and members of
the commission. My name is Davin Lopez.
I'm CEO and president of Msia Valley
Economic Development Alliance. Uh we are
in an organization with about a 100 plus
private sector members, local companies
uh that support our mission of growth,
uh job creation and opportunity. Um in
my circles that I cross that I walk
around every day, I hear a lot of
positive comments about Jupiter and uh I
hear a lot of of of what you're not
hearing every day is those that are
supporting the project, supporting your
decision, want to move forward with
economic development in a bold way.
Um, I'm here not to tell you why we're
defending uh Project Jupiter, why we
support it, but I've I've done this in
the past. I do want to talk about some
of the e economic impacts that you might
not be hearing about. However, uh, and
this is not all comprehensive. This is
just the types of impacts that we see in
terms of our line of work on a daily
basis. But uh since the decision was
made in September um and this is really
since January, five new company locates
have gone into the Santa Teresa area
directly because of Project Jupiter,
representing over 520,000
square ft of vacant space that has been
absorbed up there. That's almost 10% of
the entire industrial base. For that to
happen in just a few months is huge.
And this is happening without
incentives. It's happening because
demand is being created because Donana
County is finally being recognized as a
place where business and growth can can
finally take place and happen.
Uh for those who don't know uh many of
us have been working on the Santaas area
for years, myself almost 20 years.
There's people beyond me 30 40 years
working on that. It's finally do that
time of growth. Some other things that
are happening is three companies that we
know of, existing companies in Santa
Teresa are now part of the data center
integrated supply chain on a national
level.
One of those companies has been a
resident of Santa Teresa for almost 30
years. So, it's an opportunity for local
businesses to grow and thrive. uh on our
side with business recruitment
since the decision was made in September
we have seen a 68% increase in interest
by manufacturers over the last eight
months compared to the same eight months
the prior year and that has directly to
do with the fact that Jupiter has put
you on the radar as a place we can do
business. Uh and then finally uh we're
on track hopefully you know if things
can happen we're on track to close about
three new businesses uh both in Los
Cusus and Santa Teresa that are directly
related to the manufacturing supply
chain of what data centers bring. So
there is economic opportunity and it's
happening in a fast way. So on behalf of
Mvita and you don't hear this often but
I want to thank you for your leadership
in economic development. It is long
overdue. it is needed and that is the
future of our opportunity prosperity for
our kids going forward. So, thank you
for your time.
[applause]
Good morning.
Good morning, council.
My name is Jay Hill. I'm an area real
estate agent and lifelong farmer here in
southern New Mexico. And there is a
common thread, even though it's been
loud in this room today, but everybody
wants change. We're all passionate about
seeing a future that is brighter for
those that come behind us. And right
now, I don't envy you and the amount of
pressure and the burden that's put on
your back. But at the same time, one
thing that we need to think about is
what are we going to leave behind us? On
one hand, we have an environmental
impact. Regardless of what you want to
say in opposition or in uh trying to
support this project, there will be
changes that will impact our
environment. At the same time, there
will be impacts that will help our
communities. And in doing so, uh it is
one of those things that as a farmer,
I've always wondered about how much
water do I use and am I doing the right
thing by growing a certain crop at a
certain year? Um and and what is the
economic output of that? Uh there was a
gentleman before me that spoke about
what agriculture brings back to Donana
County. And while we have a long
heritage of growing some amazing things
here, it does not provide much for water
systems in Southernland Park, it doesn't
do it does not do much for uh community
centers in Badino or Chambarino. So with
that being said, my position behind
product project Jupiter is that we must
explore and we must support things like
this that are going to bring enough
funding back that we can make change
happen. As everybody in this room wants
something better, the best thing that we
can do is be able to hold y'all
accountable to make sure that the funds
that come to this county are utilized in
a positive way that impact everybody
here for the better. For too long, we've
set up here and we've heard people say
that we're getting left behind because
of what's happening in Texas. And when
you hit the state line and you see the
industrialization of what's happening
there and you get here and we have a
bunch of dairies that were run out of
town, we have the opportunity to change
that once and for all. and you're going
to have the funding to do so. So, with
the responsibility that's already placed
on you, and I know you already feel it,
and I see your names, wanted posters in
a coffee shop and things like that, I
want you to understand that without your
support and without being able to bring
in funding for this county, then we will
never make a change. We will stay where
people do not have clean, safe drinking
water, where people wake up cold in the
mornings because this county cannot
support them. Communities for far too
long have relied on the state of New
Mexico to support them and the state has
left us in southern New Mexico high and
dry. You will have the funding that you
need to make critical changes that are
going to impact this community. So with
that, I support 110% Project Jupiter and
hope that you will as well. Thank you.
Thank you. [applause]
Good morning.
Good morning. My name is Sierra Edmister
here again. Um
I it makes me so terrified and
disgusted. Um Manny, I I know you hear
all the different sides of this, but I
hope what you can see even the people
that are for Project Jupiter are using
Project Jupiter's um tactics that they
are being used against them, which is
leveraging the dire situation that we
are in against them. and painting
themselves as the the one who's going to
save us from that.
We can't say in one breath, yes, all of
this is bad and we need funding for it.
While also like I know that that's a
huge issue and like it's one it's an
issue that a lot of people that are
older than me tell me that I could never
possibly comprehend and that this is
just like what needs to happen. But we
need to look at what putting profit over
people and like sustainability has done.
Even these um it was called rigorous
environmental standards which we don't
have rigorous environmental standards.
Um but let's say we do where do those
come from? Those come from industry
being given the job to um monitor
themselves and failing and then the
community suffering and then having to
fight for regulations to be put in
place. Also, the unions. I love unions.
I am such a big supporter of unions
because of all the work I do. I ask you
and I ask other union members to
question why unions exist in the first
place.
They didn't just pop up out of the
ground. It's because their employers
were mistreating them and using them as
a means for production, not humans with
kids. So to hear someone, it it hurts my
heart to hear Jose talk about how afraid
he is for his kids,
but again leveraging his suffering
against him and giving him a little
carrot of of, you know, saving him. Um,
again, I want to say that I'm really
upset that you guys didn't attend the
open forum. um and that you guys
completely disregarded everything that
we've been asking for this whole time. I
have sent emails that have still been um
haven't been responded to. Uh it's just
a it's a slap in the face. Um I'm
running out of time. I want to talk
about um first of all, this is serious
and it's really unfortunate to see like
Scott laughing when people bring up um
his resignation or being fired. like
that's a very serious thing that your
people are like pissed off about. Um Sam
Alman said, you know, I think AI will
probably like most likely lead sort of
lead to the end of the world, but in the
meantime, that's the guy in charge of
open AI, by the way. Um he said, I'm
happy to say that I'm convinced that the
job destruction in the next couple
decades is going to be massive. Larry
Ellison talks about surveillance
constantly. He's the the other guy.
These are evil people.
Thank you.
[applause]
Good morning, sir.
Good morning, uh, Mr. Chairman, members
of the commission. Uh, my name is Joshua
Rosco, uh, from Santa Teresa, the board
of industrial association. Um, I I want
to build off of Davin's comments really
quickly. um he had mentioned you know
some of the growth that we are seeing in
Santa Teresa and Sunland Park because of
uh project Jupiter not just Jupiter but
other industries um looking at our
region um I I I'd like to point out that
probably for the six past six months we
have not seen any crossber industries
looking at us and and the reason is
USMCA is being um renegotiated the
tariffs have thrown a lot of chaos into
crossber trade and so we've seen um a
lack of not interest but a lot of
companies putting expansion growth uh
plans on hold right now but you wouldn't
know it because of everything that is
happening with project Jupiter and that
that also represents a change in our
region in what industries are looking at
us we're moving from just uh uh crossber
trade mackila related industries ries to
advanced manufacturing, building
components that you know in in the palm
of my hand is worth more than something
you know the size of a car. Um our
industry is changing in the area. Um and
Project Jupiter isn't the cause, it's a
representation of that. Uh we're in a
unique area in
we have so much uh industries locally
and when I say locally I mean Wades, El
Paso and Donana County that support
servers and computers
and Project Jupiter came here because of
that. But one of the reasons is because
they're in an area where it will be easy
and quick and cost-effective to replace
components.
So I just want to make you aware that
our region, the industries that look at
us are changing. The jobs are changing.
We're going to have access to more high
higher paying jobs, not traditional
factory warehousing manufacturing jobs.
And that is a good thing for our
community. higher paying jobs are good
for our community.
Um, really quick, our organization fully
supports the uh event in Sullen Park. We
think it's important that the people
that are right there next to the project
have an opportunity to ask questions. It
takes a lot of bravery and strength to
stand up in front of a public forum to
ask questions. This type of event makes
it easier for people who don't have that
type of courage or that ability to come
to Los Cusus to ask those questions. We
think that's a great opportunity for
people to learn more about this project.
So, thank you very much for your time.
Thank you, sir.
[applause]
Good morning, commission. I want to kind
of echo a couple of comments that u I
heard from Mr. Get and uh from Mr. Hill
um that I I I don't envy you on this
panel, but I will say that I am grateful
for many of you for the past, you know,
for for the many years that you've
already served. Uh I'm not going to call
for anybody's resignation. I'm I I
always want to be as respectful as
possible regardless of my um regardless
of my take on the issues, and I I really
wish that the opposing side would do the
same. I wasn't here to talk about this.
I was here. I've been I I've had
conversations with Chair Sanchez
regarding our internship uh our
internship issues. But in hearing the
comments today and hearing the
narrative, uh I believe I can tie all
this together. For the past four years,
I believe I've heavily participated in
our internship program, bringing me very
very close to these kids that we've
mentored. One in particular showed them
how to how to dress for a for an event.
showed him how to shake an elected
official's hand and look him in the eye.
Showed him how to carry himself um you
know at at at
events and in places where where he
could perform well in a in a job
interview. And you know we we coached
him on what type of career to choose
after he left us. We this kid's
developmental um this this kid's
business development, his his personal
development thrived. And I've been very
very uh proud to have been able to tell
this story with with the kids that we've
mentored. So tying this together is when
we get these kids ready, you know, it it
takes a village. We do have to provide a
healthy um a healthy economy and healthy
and and and and lots of opportunities
for for these young kids so they don't
leave us.
I I it's possible to take a narrative or
a moderate approach to how I feel and
how many people feel about Project
Jupiter. We're very happy with the jobs
and the economic development uh that
this is going to bring. We're also very
happy with what we've heard. Jupiter
stack infrastructure has made
modifications to their [clears throat]
development plans that are going to be
more environmentally friendly. they have
made those commitments and um I and I do
understand I and hearing the comments it
doesn't surprise me that a job fair
offends these people but we can also we
can do both we we can have a very
interactive one-on-one discussion with
stack with Oracle with every stakeholder
where they can ask their questions and
then we can also have a town hall type
discussion we know what they want they
want their moment moment. They want
their moment behind the microphone. They
want the dopamine rush. They really
really want to show what they can do. We
we totally get it. But in in taking
this, I I just I want to say thank you
to all of you because you all have
endured a lot. Uh and and I want to say
thank you for respecting both sides,
commissioners, those of you who are able
to [sighs] actually comm
I I I' I'd appreciate if you just show
them a little respect. Show them how to
be a little respect.
Thank you, sir.
Good morning.
Um,
so I'm Navajo. I live here in district
one. Um, and so I just wanted to
introduce myself because that's really
important to the work that I do. Um, as
just a person who tries to do my best in
the world. Um, but I'm three water
clans. So, the reason why I want to talk
today is because of water. I am so tired
of fighting big corporations against
water. I've done it with Standing Rock.
I've done it with Choco Canyon. I've
done it with Peabody Coal Mine. I've
done it with the Keystone Pipeline in
Alaska. And it's all about big money.
And it's for corporations that don't
even live in these communities. And this
is the same that's happening with
Project Jupiter. And so I really want
you guys to hear my narrative about
what's happening on my reservation. Um,
and I came here and I love being here. I
don't know if I'll retire here, but the
res is calling home. Um, but the res is
not the same one I grew up in because
big corporations like Project Jupiter
and people who are backing it are coming
in and they're promising all of these
great things, jobs, economic boosts, all
that stuff. All these companies are
coming up. And I'll give you an example
of Peabody coal mine which is in
Cayanta, Arizona. Have you guys been
there? No, there's nothing. I love Kay
actually. There's Kay's awesome grill
good basketball team. Um but there's
there's the economic boosts that all
these people were boasting is not there.
A lot of our people on the reservation
are still living in poverty third world
country um systems and and conditions.
And when I go to Vado and Bino and
Santaa, it kind of like feels like home
in the fact that it's rural. It's still
beautiful. There's still grass. There's
still all of that there. And all of it's
being taken away by this ugly big
building that's going to come in. Not
only that is the environmental impact. I
was there when the project Jupiter first
came in and I asked for environmental
impact statements and we got smirks. We
got m we like they already had it in the
bag. And those similar faces I'm seeing
are what's happening on this board right
now. It's kind of scary to see how these
people are kind of using like this
person said our leverage against us. And
I want to remind you guys all you guys
have water bottles on your desk right
now. Why? Because it's regulation. It's
a reminder that you're still grounded.
It's a reminder that you have life. And
it's a reminder that you need water in
your life to survive. And that is what's
going to take be taken away from us. And
don't forget that water is going to
humble you. There's a lot of nature, a
lot of things come out. You guys may be
getting paid or whatever is happening
under the under the dark, but wind,
water, air, sand is going to humble you
whether you guys think it's going to
happen or not. So, I'd say reinstate
those meetings. We need a forum with
experts. We need the impact assessment.
And don't be another modern-day monster
for for this county.
Thank you.
Would
[applause]
you sorry can you just uh repeat your
name one more one more time?
Shantalia Azie Martin.
Thank you.
And also World War II was won inde like
a lot by World War Navajo co- talkers.
Thank you.
[applause]
Good morning.
Good morning. Um, good morning
commissioners, uh, chair and
commissioners. My name is Robert Ober
and I stand before you today to voice my
strong unequivocal support for Project
Jupiter and to thank you publicly,
the forwardinking commissioners who had
the courage to approve it. We're
standing at a historic crossroads.
Project Jupiter is not just an
investment in technology. It's a $165
billion investment in the families,
workers, and the future of Dona County.
Change can be daing and big projects
bring big questions,
but leadership requires vision. And I'd
like to commend
um Chair Sanchez, Vice Chair Camos, and
Commissioners Reynolds and Shel
Hernandez. You did not vote for a blank
check. You voted for 750 permanent
high-paying jobs for our children. You
voted for over 2500 construction jobs
that keep our workers employed right
here at home.
Because of your vote, our young people
won't have to continue to leave New
Mexico to find worldclass careers in the
tech industry. They can build it right
here in Santa Teresa. Let's look at the
facts of what this project actually
brings to our neighborhoods. We're
talking about 360 million in legally
binding community payments. This
includes 50 million specifically clawed
back from tax breaks to be injected
directly into the water and wastewater
infrastructures of Sunland Park and
Santa Teresa.
The project isn't draining our
resources. It's providing the massive
funding res funding needed to fix and
modernize the infrastructure our
communities have been begging for for
decades.
On top of that, millions are already
flowing into local workforce education
and public safety. To those who have
valid questions about our environment
and our water, our commissioners hear
you. True support doesn't mean blind
approval. Look at what happened this
past April. When concerns arose about
our water usage, this entire commission
unanimously demanded absolute
transparency and strict compliance from
our from their developers. You can have
you have proven that you can balance
economic progress with environmental
protection.
You're holding open AI, Oracle, and
stack infrastructures feed to the fire.
You're ensuring that this data center
operates safely, sustainably, and
ethically. You're protecting our water
while building an economy.
Project Jupiter is a generational
opportunity to lift Donana County into
the future. We shouldn't let fear turn
away the largest private investment in
New Mexico's history. We should stand
with the commissioners who chose
progress over stagnation and have worked
tirelessly to build a prosperous county
for generations to come. Thank you and
have a blessed day.
Thank you. [applause]
Good morning.
Good morning. Um thank you guys for your
time. Thank you Chair Sanchez. Thank you
for the rest of the county commissioner
for being here. I'm District One Chris.
You're my guy. But um basically I went
to other Project Jupiter meetings and I
have the same feeling today that I did
then. I feel like a wedge is being
driven into our community and it's being
driven because for mostly the policies
of the commission and the how fast they
have fasttracked things. I'm pro- Union.
I was a teacher in Chaparel in Anthony.
I know Sunland Park. I was there for
years and years and I love those kids.
Love those families. And I'm pro union.
My union helped me so many times as an
educator. And so I think most of us are
pro- union. Most of us want strong union
jobs. We want jobs here.
Absolutely we do. And for some reason
the people that are protesting, it's
making them seem like they're anti-UN. I
don't think they are from having spoken
to them. I don't think they want their
moment at the camera. I think they have
a deep frustration. And I don't mean to
speak for them, but as an older woman,
and I think some people are
misinterpreting them. It must be hard to
hear their frustration. It must be hard
to hear their booze. But their
frustration, in my opinion, comes from
the way Project Jupiter was handled by
the county commission. It was
fasttracked. If I was at a used car
salesman place and I wanted a car and
they said, "We love you. We want you to
give you this car, but if you don't do
it right now, today, we're going to
Texas and selling that car. We're going
to Arizona and selling that car." I
would have walked. There was not enough
transparency with Project Jupiter. When
I went to the first meeting, I said, "I
can't even make up my mind because I
don't know. This is all a draft. This is
all redacted. If they have nothing to
hide, why aren't they here being totally
transparent as much as they possibly
can? If they had transparency, then some
of those beliefs might be different. And
also, I don't think most of the union
members want their children to be harmed
environmentally. I think we have more in
common together as residents of Dona
Anna than we do with anyone from Oracle,
than we do with any of the corporations
and billionaires. And I hope moving
forward we see that. When I say that I
am not for Project Jupiter, that doesn't
mean I don't want to hear from the union
members who took time today to come and
speak to us. I do want to hear their
opinion. I do want to know their
rationale. I may disagree with them, but
I want to hear them. So with the little
time I have remaining, my challenge to
you, my elected official, for us, find a
way forward for us. In my opinion, you
move forward very fast with lack of
transparency and you helped cause this
division in our county. And now it is
your responsibility to find the path
forward. How do we do economic growth?
How do we help the water in Sunland Park
and Santa Theesa, which is so
desperately needed, but also care about
the environment? It keeps sounding like
it's an eitheror. Either we have the
high-paying jobs or we have the
environment. I don't believe that. It's
your job as the county commission to
bring us together and find a path
forward protecting all of our interests.
And that is my challenge to you, please.
Thank you.
Hi, my name is Cindy Brown and I live in
District 4. I was not going to get up
and speak. I spoke privately a few
minutes ago, but um after that gentleman
talking about being brave at a public
hearing, here I am. Um I think we need
to have an independent review of all the
things that Jupit Project Jupiter is
claiming like how much water they're
going to use, how much pollution there's
going to be. We can't just rely on
project Jupiter people to tell us what
it is. We also need to have a good way
to hold them responsible if they don't
meet those requirements.
And I ask one thing of each of you. I
would like for you all to contact some
communities where data centers have
already been built and talk to the
community to see what kind of effects
it's having on their people. I moved
here from Memphis right before Elon Musk
built his big project Colossus or
whatever it was called. Well, anyway, it
was a majority black poor community and
those people now can't go out and do
anything because the air is so bad and
they're a poor community and their
voices are not being heard. Please talk
to these people where these uh centers
have been built and get some reaction
from how things are going there. Thank
you.
Thank you. [applause]
Good morning.
Manny, there's nothing good about this
morning. Stop making me have to come
back here. My name is Yvani. And also to
the gentleman earlier, the people aren't
here because this meeting starts at 9:00
a.m. Dude, uh, usually people will be
working. That's right. My name is
Yavanni Seastanes. I'm the campaigns
manager for the New Mexico Dream Team,
the state's largest youthled immigrant
advocacy organization in uh, New Mexico.
I live here in Los Cruus.
Um, as we speak, the US House of
Representative Representatives is voting
um on the budget reconciliation bill to
fund ICE and CBP. This budget
reconciliation would give CBP and ICE a7
$70 billion blank check on top of $150
billion that they were already given.
[snorts]
Congress is currently considering that
72 billion package to further
turbocharge ICE and CBP with no
guardrails. We know that CBP and ICE are
plagued by sexual violence. On May 13th,
2026, the Southern Borders Community
Coalition sent a letter to Congress
highlighting widespread rape, sexual
abuse, and abuse of children by CBP and
ICE agents, including the rape of a
child in a border patrol youth program,
an ICE agent who raped a six migrant
women in the alternatives detention
program and an agent who tried to rape a
child, then train claimed to be
investigating human trafficking. The
abuse starts with leadership, including
the three top border patrol positions
who all resigned following the exposure
of abuse.
[snorts]
Last month, this commission voted to
pass a safer communities resolution
strengthening our stance that the Donana
County, Los Cusus, and all the
colonialas in this in this county are
ones where immigrants belong. It turns
out a broken clock is right twice a day.
This commission is capable of passing
that resolution unanimously
and is also capable of selling out those
exact same residents saying that they'll
be protected by ICE and CBP
and they won't be protected from lung
cancer, asthma, and other health
detriments that will be a result of this
data center.
[snorts]
Commissioners
and Scott.
[laughter]
Um, you guys are so embarrassing. Um,
you I I I came a few weeks ago and I
said, uh, you we think that Donana
County, the border county commission can
negotiate with a billion dollar company
like Open AI. Well, to those of us who
have uh families or children uh and are
thinking about working for Open AAI at
this community at this career fair, I
want to let you know that Sam Altman,
CEO of Open AAI, was accused of his
sister by sexually abusing her more than
more than two decades ago. The same
abuse and is now being sued by her. The
same abuse that is rampant ICE in CBP,
it's rampant within Open AI and rampant
within these companies. and you are
saying you are agreeing to having them
in our community. Shame on you.
Thank you. [applause]
Morning sir.
Good morning. Uh wenos
wenos. Uh project Jupiter a call for
community investment. Dr. Adamo
transparency and shared prosperity in
Donana County. Project Jupiter
represents one of the most significant
economic development opportunities in
the history of southern New Mexico. The
potential for substantial capital
investment, high wage employment,
technological innovation, expanded tax
revenues, and the diversification of our
regional economy cannot be understated.
If implemented thoughtfully, Project
Jupiter could position Donana County as
a national leader in digital
infrastructure, advanced technology, and
workforce development while creating
opportunities for generations of New
Mexicans. Economic development however
must be measured not only by the size of
investment but by the degree which it
improves the lives of the people who
have historically uh borne the
[clears throat] burdens of
underinvestment. The residents of the
lower valley the colonas of southern
Donana County and the working families
who have contributed to the agricultural
and cultural heritage of this region
deserve to be active participants in the
wealth created by this project. If
millions of dollars can be spent laying
f uh high fiber optics and heavy power
lines for servers, we possess the
resources to lay basic water and sewer
lines for human beings, transparency,
tax accountability and public trust, tax
incentives and revenue sharing, water
consumption and long-term
sustainability, energy demands and grid
impacts and environmental and
infrastructure impacts. Mitigation plans
from everything for e-waste to heavy
construction on traffic on frag uh
fragile rural roads. Investing in the
colonas and the lower valley wa
wastewater and sewer infrastructure
protect public health and hygiene.
Preserve the groundwater quality of our
shared aquifers and support safe
residential and commercial development
as a dedicated percentage of project
generated uh revenues or pilot payment
in le of taxes. Funds must be re ring
fenced to expand and modernize
wastewater systems throughout the lower
valley. Flood control and storm water
management. Flooding is a recurring and
devastating threat to southern Donana
County. The project must fund regional
flood control, improvements, and a royal
stabilization, upgrades to drainage and
infrastructure that currently leaves
Colonia's residents vulnerable, and
long-term resilience planning to local
homes, farms, and schools. Education,
investment, and workforce development. A
permanent educational and digital equity
trust fund should be established to
support students and equip the entire
technological economy. The trust has to
support STEM and career technical
education, targeted programs in cyber
security, data, HVAC management and
network infrastructure, paid internships
and internships connecting local youth
directly to Project Jupiter's
operations. Digital equity is huge here.
It is unacceptable to build a global
internet hub in a community where
families lack still lack basic
broadband. Project Jupiter must fund the
expansion of highspeed internet. Water
stewardship and environmental
responsibility, cultural preservation
and economic inclusion must also be
considered in this planning. The good,
hardworking poor people of our region
have long contributed to its strength
through sacrifice, labor and preserv uh
preservance. They deserve more than
empty promises and trickle down
economics.
Thank you, Mr. Mad.
Thank you.
Good morning. Good morning uh to all the
commissioners. My name is Randy Jones.
I've lived here in Los Cruus for five
years. I want to tell you a little story
about my father.
He was a construction worker for 50
years. He worked on the atomic uh plants
in Oakidge, Tennessee. He worked on an
atomic plant in uh Paduka, Kentucky. He
worked on two huge
uh uh generating plants that were
nuclear plants. He worked on a huge
plant in uh Memphis, Tennessee, that
burned huge amounts of coal and polluted
the air. And one of the last things he
worked on, which he was kind of proud
of, was a gas plant in North Mississippi
that produced electricity.
That plant supplied electricity. It was
a a natural gas plant. That plant
supplied electricity to 400 homes,
400,000 homes. But believe it or not, it
produced less pollution than Project
Jupiter did. Now, I've got 20 years
experience in uh construction. I was a
field surveyor for 20 years for a large
uh um uh engineering firm. When my dad
died, that was when I changed careers.
Before that, I was in the medical field,
but I changed careers because of
eyesight. Uh, one of the last things my
dad told me, "Well, son, be proud of the
jobs that you did because there was a
lot of the jobs he did, he regretted. He
regretted the nuclear work. He regretted
the work on pipelines. He he worked in a
coal mine for a while. He was a uh steam
fitter. He had special abilities that
very few sting fedters had. But what I'd
like to say is to the workers that are
working, when you go home at night, can
you be proud of what you did? Can you be
proud of the projects you worked on? Not
just Jupiter, but others. I'm very
[clears throat] proud of the jobs that I
worked on. Only have one I regretted,
and it was a steel mill.
My biggest
thing I was proud of is I shot I shut
down a huge work project in North
Mississippi because the construction
company was polluting the local streams
and waters.
As construction workers, you need to
stand up because you're on the forefront
of what's happening. You need to be
proud of what you do, but when you see
something that you don't like, you need
to report it. And like I said, when you
go home at night, can you sleep really
well thinking about what you did? Did
the work you do today really help
mankind or did it just help to make
things worse? Thank you.
[applause]
Thank you.
Good morning.
My name's Robert Brocade
and
Mr. Sanchez, we exchanged some emails.
Uh,
so it's nice to meet you in person. I
got to say, you don't look like an evil
man.
So that's a good thing.
Um, to me,
one of the major things is I don't see
this Jupiter project is being so
timesensitive.
I don't uh I don't believe
the people behind that project
are
in competition with every other
database builder
for a place here in Donic
that we uh that you guys have the
ability to pump the brakes and say,
"Whoa, let's uh let's take a look at
this." You started off with one program
where you're going to have turbines to
produce the power. So, they put the load
on the uh El Paso Electric and then they
went to a methane gas line. Then they
went to fuel cells and uh so they're
like a moving target. No matter what you
do, you can't focus on them. So the
thing I would ask the commissioners to
do here is to get guard rails in place
so you have control of these guys.
Corporations lie.
They their bottom line is the dollar and
they don't care who they hurt or what
they destroy as long as they make their
buck.
And this is a what the data center is.
There's been people up here talk about
uh growth
that uh this data center will bring
growth to this area. Well, we live in a
very
uh
delicate environmental
state here
and it's almost like they're tonedeaf.
People are saying we don't have the
resources to support this data center.
But they come up and say well we have
the data center we'll have growth.
So that's [clears throat] like these
people aren't that are moving in are
going to for the growth aren't going to
add more
uh
weight to the or more use more water
uh contribute more to the utilities
uh put stress on our infrastructure.
It's all part of growth and I'm not
anti-growth,
but let's control it.
Thank you, sir. You have to wrap it up.
That's the end of the time. That's the
end of your time, sir.
Thank
you, sir. I appreciate you coming.
Thank you.
Hi, my name is Glenn Landers and I'm in
District 1. I hadn't really planned to
speak today, but you know, listening to
all the pleas for respect on both sides,
it makes me wonder what kind of respect
has the county commission shown the
people of Donana County. You absolutely
rammed this thing down the throat of the
people. You ignored the voices that said
you need to slow down and think it
through. And now um you promised a
meeting where people could actually
confront
uh the developer and ask substantive
questions. You've turned it into a
propaganda fest for Oracle. I don't
think you've shown anybody any respect.
And I think if you vote for this
openhouse slashcareer
um uh fest uh that uh the question of
respect that ship has sailed. You are
earning the contempt of the citizens of
Donana County. Thank you.
Thank you.
[applause]
Good morning.
Good morning. Uh my name is Daisy
Maldonado. I am a resident here in
Joanna County. I'm a voter in district
1. My commissioner that represents me
has exited uh the dis. Not sure why. Uh,
but thank you for not listening to my
comment. Uh, Commissioner Shao
Ernnandez,
I'm addressing the commission today,
Chair Sanchez, and I like to read
definitions because I think it provides
clarity.
So,
I'll just read Donana County's mission
statement.
It states, "Donanna County government
enhances the health, safety, and quality
of life for all residents as determined
by law and community interests,
health. [sighs]
What part of project Jupiter
and all of the emissions and all of the
water that's going to be used to cool
machines
is part of fulfilling your mission to
serve the health of Diana County
residents
safety.
What part of Project Jupiter
is [clears throat] enhancing the safety
for Donana County residents?
Your constituents who voted you into
office so that you could represent them
here.
How is a project enhancing their safety?
And the last part, community interests.
We've heard from a handful of folks who
agree with this project.
We've heard from a whole lot more folks
who disagree
because they know that this project will
not enhance anyone's health, will not
enhance anyone's safety.
And the story of jobs,
workforce development, and economic
development
is a false narrative.
It's a false narrative that continues to
get played out here and in the news. But
guess what? 750 so-called jobs for our
youth.
How many students graduated?
just a few just a few weeks ago.
Way more than 750 students,
they're going to leave.
This project is not going to keep a
single child here
because they will not be able to live.
Thank you.
[cheering]
[applause]
Good morning.
Hi, good morning. Uh, my name is
Christopher Cassada. I am a an employee
of Donana County. I do work with IT, but
I'm not speaking on behalf of Donana
County, my employment. This is all just
my personal um opinion. If anything,
I've been uh goed a few times saying,
"When are you going to speak?" And I
have no great message, no nothing. I
just simply have my own personal
opinion.
uh though I work have worked for many
years prior to here um with any sort of
computer science computer related uh
technologies it's never been my passion
I've um never really wanted to work with
computers to work on computers I've
always just been the quickwitted one
quick to learn as soon as I learned how
to program a television or a VCR my
family just put me in that role
[laughter]
so I've accepted being in this role
being in job simply because it is a job.
But I know I have a son. I know there
are uh younger generations who are more
interested in how can I pursue this
field? How can I achieve connection with
other people across the world uh other
people within my community and I can see
I want to say I can see both sides. I
can see there's the hope, there's a
benefit, there's the wish that we can
pursue a better sense of connection with
these tools.
And I can also see that there is
definitely a fear and a risk of losing
something. What are we paying to achieve
that connection? For example, when I was
in elementary school, I had I had
stubbornly decided to use the card
catalog instead of all the children who
are going over to the computer saying,
"I can simply type in the title or the
author and find the book I need." But I
learned the Dewey decimal system. I
learned the card catalog. I learned how
to just walk up and down the aisles. Now
that I'm an older man, I'm still
Google searching. I'm searching through
something through a search engine
because I can't recall it because I
don't know it. And it could be something
as wondrous as how can I balance a
workbook or a checkbook or who's the
actor or the actress in this book? I'm
starting to worry that I'm losing
something. I'm giving up something for
convenience and I don't think that
that's something that I want to carry on
or or teach to my children or my future
descendants. But that's just my personal
opinion. I I know that when I graduated
all my peers, our goal was let's get out
of Los Cruises. Let's get out of
southern New Mexico. Let's go see the
world. Let's go find something bigger
and greater. Some of us did have the
virtue of let's go learn something from
somewhere else and bring it back. So, I
just hope whatever decisions we make
that we're able to endure it. We're not
paying too much of ourselves and that
we're able to work with each other as a
community. But I really don't like AI.
[laughter] That's the only That's the
only thing. And if anything else, I I
just wanted to overcome a fear of
talking out loud and giving my personal
opinion. That's all. Thank you very
much. Thank you, Mr.
[applause]
That will conclude the public input
portion of our section. I appreciate
everybody
um who came and spoke. Move on to
commission input. Commissioners, is
there any
input? Commission.
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Ladies and gentlemen, I I'd like for you
all to know that
in spite or despite our differences that
sometimes are glaring with this
commission, we're able to work them out
and things got a little heated this
morning. Um, but I respect my fellow
commissioners. I respect their opinions.
We don't agree on everything. and we
don't need to, but I just I respect the
position and I respect the position of
this chair. Just wanted to state that.
And also, Mr. Chair, if we can move up
number 10 before number eight, as I
thought it was going to be on the agenda
late Friday night when I spoke to Mr.
Lopez, it somehow got moved down to 10.
Thank you.
Thank you, Commissioner.
Mr.
Um, I just want to give a shout out. Um,
I know that there'll be time
on Friday during the canvasing of the
election, but since we have a full
house, I'm going to say it out loud. Uh,
we do have our county clerk and our
county clerk staff that ran a great
election on Tuesday. Um, I just want to
give you you and your team a shout out.
You guys do a fantastic job always, um,
answering questions, answering the
phone. you know, I went and voted on
election day and you're greeted by a
smile and everyone's very excited. Um,
and it's it's just great. So, I wanted
to give you and your team a huge shout
out. Um, you, Madam Clerk, your chief
deputy, Caroline, that you know, it's
it's just great. And it's one thing that
Donana County does really well is put on
a really great election. So, I wanted to
say thank you on that. Um, and thank you
to your staff since we have everyone
here. And I'll say it again on Friday at
the canvasing board. So, thank you.
Thank you, Commissioner Shazwood.
Any other comments input?
County elected officials input.
Whichever you'd like,
Chair Sanchez, uh, Commission, I
actually am going to just reiterate, uh,
Commissioner Shelder on this is kudos to
my team. One of the things that my goal
was when I first started eight years ago
was to create an environment and a team
in which um if I won the lottery
tomorrow and disappeared, the work would
go on and we would continue to run great
elections as well as serve our business
community. Um, so I want to thank my
team and again I part of uh Donana
Countyy's policy is that if you are on
the ballot you um cannot have direct
oversight um during the actual election
time. So um I took that required time
and and and exactly what should have
happened happened is that they ran a
great election. There will always be
things in elections because it is a
human uh process that we will have to
fix whether it's long lines, no printer,
um electioneering, we have to address
any of those things. But I just want to
say a deep and heartfelt thank you to my
team who um every day work for our
community and do an amazing job. There
are li many many long nights heading
into election. Um they're still working
on the election as we speak. um that is
all of the checks and balances New
Mexico elections as our postelection um
canvas and that is what we're doing
right now. We are accounting for every
single piece of paper, making sure we
have every single vote accounted for and
I appreciate their long hours, hard
work, dedication more than I can act
actually accurately express. And so um I
will reiterate this again and again
every day hopefully um this week because
I I will see many of them um and also to
our community members. So one of the
things that we do in Donana County, well
we do statewide is there should be a
fair breakdown of party affiliation at
each of our sites. And so somehow
there's often an impression that if you
have a certain letter after your name
that we're not interested in the other
the opposite side of the aisle
participating. We actually need every
single one of you to have um create that
accountability at our at our polling
locations. So, I appreciate all of our
election officials and the long day that
they put in on election day and our
early voting folks um every single day
in day out. I voted at East Picacho
Elementary, my daughter's school with my
daughter and so um it was of course a
great experience and I actually heard a
bell ring. And so when I got here
several years ago, I thought new voters
need to have a celebration and we need
to make sure they feel embraced and
welcomed. So when we have a first-time
voter, we ring a bell. And um I we had
quite a few of those this election. So
thank you all for everything you you did
this election and beyond. I appreciate
it more than you know. Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Clerk, and appreciate
it. And I think I'll reiterate uh you
know, Commissioner Sheldon Nandez and
appreciate all the efforts that go into
from the start from early voting to the
expanded early voting to the full
operations and and even the updates and
the um you know, I think the the
what's become a custom for your office
to show what's been submitted off your
bingo board is is a really great way to
inform the voters. So really appreciate
everything that you do and your and
everything your team does through that
day.
And I'm going to go ahead and give a
specific shout out. I could go through
all of my election team, but one of the
things that I did a couple of years ago
was I hired one of our um interns. And
so he supports elections. He does the
day in day out. Um but Cynthia um
Cynthia is head of our comm's team and
they do all of those on election day to
keep everybody updated. I think it's
really important to engage young people
because they are where they're they
know, um, so much more than we do
connected to technology often and so um,
they did a great job and running our our
comms and I'm greatly appreciative of
them. So, thank you.
Thank you.
Um, let's see. Are there any other Oh,
sorry.
Good morning, Chair Sanchez,
Commissioners Kimble, Chaparo, Shel
Hernandez, Gina Henya, Mononttoy Ortega,
assessor here at Doniana County. I
wanted to thank our uh taxpayers that
actually came and filed their protest.
The deadline was last week, Monday, at
5:00 p.m. Our numbers did come down and
that has to do with our appraisers being
able to talk to the public in reference
to the questions that they might have
had in reference to wanting to protest
their property. Uh so thanks to our
office, everybody that worked to make
that happen. It was very very busy. Once
again, thanks to our taxpayers who felt
that their properties are not valued as
they should be and they took the
opportunity of protesting their
property. Our appraisers are now in the
process of working through those. Uh you
should be hearing from your appraisers
soon. It does take a little bit of time
and hopefully we can get those all
settled. Otherwise, we will be going to
formal protest. Uh so thank you to our
customers. If there's anybody that still
has any questions about anything that
our office does, please don't hesitate
to reach out. We are here to serve. We
are here to help and try to make this
process the whole office process better.
So, thank you.
Thank you, MATT. [applause]
Any other county elected officials
input?
Staff input?
Hello, sir. [clears throat] Yes, we have
a couple employees. In fact, Amanda, you
want to go ahead and kick us off and
then we'll move Ashley, then Brian, then
Carrie, and then I'll take us home, sir.
Oh, sheriff here first.
I apologize. I'm sorry. Under sheriff,
please come on up. Sorry about that.
Then we'll go on to the public inputs.
It's okay, Mr. Chair, board of county
commissioners. My name is Robert Pa the
undersherf
and uh it is unfortunate that I have to
come and stand before you here today. I
feel compelled to do so um in a form of
a quorum and I'm going to relate to the
um the audit report.
Um
and my apologies in advance if I offend
anyone. That is not my intention here.
In all fairness to some of the
commissioners, I really believe that had
the commissioners in their defense had
knowledge of any of these improprieties,
I am confident that they would have
addressed it and taken care of those
improprieties. We probably wouldn't be
here today.
That's probably as a result of the lack
of transparency from county management
with the board of county commissioners,
the complacency and so forth. Now, I
don't want to
talk specifically about the audit
because you have already heard about the
accountability and holding
elected officials or supervisors
responsible.
Um, you heard about a writ that was
illegally filed against the sheriff.
You heard about the HR overruling a
decision made by a licensed psychologist
in regards to the hiring of seven or
eight cadetses thereafter the sheriff
being compelled to terminate such
employees which when I was the uh
compliance officer. I opposed that
because I knew that was illegal and the
HR did not have the right to do so. I
also opposed the RID because I also knew
that was a malicious intent by the
county attorney, county management to
remove the sheriff. I'm all for removing
a sheriff or an elected official if
there's malfcence or misfecence. That is
the only way that you can remove a
sheriff. Okay? Now, I'm going somewhere
with that because I really believe that
you you don't have this information. You
don't have this transparency and this is
why you're in the dark. So, I speak in
your defense as well. Okay. Um,
as the under sheriff, I have no regrets
being the undersher because we have been
able to work together and turn the
sheriff's department around. In regards
to the audit audit, there was about 43
violations. 10 of those were ours and
they were very minor. We have corrected
those. I see that audit as us being
vindicated DASO to include Sheriff Kim
Stewart and we are offering our
assistance to continue to move forward
and work together and rectify these
matters. It's not going to be overnight.
But I have a concern. I have filed
complaints
through the code of conduct and they
have rested on deaf ears. I have
addressed through correspondences with
my recommendations as to how to move
forward and rectify these matters and
they have rested on death ears. I have
made and the sheriff has made I'm going
to speak for me. The sheriff has also
made though attempts to work together to
no avail.
Okay. The code of conduct was of a
severe violation. Three parallegals were
deprived their right to a fair hearing.
Under the code of conduct during the
time that I was the compliance officer,
there was a open meetings act in my
opinion violation to include an abuse of
power because their accused was actually
those allegations were sustained by an
outside investigator, a county a an
attorney by the name of Deborah Molton.
But yet there was a meeting without a
quorum between a commissioner, our
county manager, and a former
county contract attorney
and prepared and served us with an
order, emergency order to vacate. In my
opinion, and according to the the Open
Meetings Act, you cannot do that without
a quorum. And that was done illegally,
depriving the three parallegals who had
been discriminated, harassed,
intimidated, and threatened. And that
discrimination and intimidation tactics
continues today, not just with the
parillegals, not just with Dasso, but
with many other employees within the
sheriff's department, within the the
county.
It's an injustice
board of commissioners, and I really
want to help in rectifying this. I I
also submitted another complaint. Um
again rested in death ears on death
ears. We have an administrative captain
who has been on administrative leave for
approximately 9 months.
Nine months. That investigation
board of commissioners has been
compromised by your county attorney.
The the role of a of an attorney, in
this case a county attorney, in regards
to investigations which the auditors
cover specifically on improprieties is
only to determine whether or not that
investigation is legally sufficient.
Does not give the authority to the
county attorney to go on a fishing
expedition and try to find other
possible violations, alleged violations
three, four, five years ago. You just
cannot do that. The county attorney's
job is not to direct Bord of Blue
investigators to investigate outside the
scope of that particular investigation
and encourage Bord of Blue investigators
to file a complaint with the attorney
general's office against the sheriff and
myself for guess what malfcens and
misfence
there's been malicious intent against
the sheriff's department
enough is enough okay we have the
support of Dassel
our employees and we also have the
support of the county employees. Now,
I'm really disturbed about this one
particular situation here. Speaking of
the parallegals,
this is not a vengeance here. I really
want to work together ever since I was
the compliance officer in moving forward
to more professional businessoriented
administration.
to no avail though.
So the audit report or investigators
surface we had we have a had a
parallegal who was working specifically
with me covertly in obtaining
information and I'm I'm not going to say
any names here. I'm trying to respect
the confidentiality as well.
Parallegal also worked closely covertly
with state auditors and they guaranteed
that she would not be retaliated against
because it was her duty as all other
county employees to cooperate and per
policy you cannot be retaliated against
if you cooperate with an investigation
or in this case the audit. This
particular parallegal was interviewed by
the auditors for five and a half hours.
Okay.
Goes on vacation and contacted me and
the auditors. Feared retaliation and
feared losing her job. Upon return from
vacation, she was placed on
administrative leave. And I'm going
somewhere with this. She was, and again,
a lot of this information you probably
don't know, otherwise you would have
taken care of this. Okay? She's placed
on administrative leave despite being
guaranteed by the state auditors by me
that she could not be retaliated
against. And there was a strategy behind
that. She was on administrative leave
for two months prohibiting her to
continue working with me and the state
auditors. But we still had the
information. It's nothing against the
county. It's just we the system is
broken and we need to correct it. We
need to work together. But the injustice
continues over and over and over. And
I'm not convinced
uh board of commissioners, Mr. Chair,
that we will move forward and be
victorious unless the cancer is
addressed. Okay. Subsequently, back to
the uh the parallegal, that
investigation
was unsustained, unfounded, and she was
reinstated after the auditors completed
their their report or their
investigation.
The writing is on the wall. I could go
on and on and on and on about this.
So, as a result of the audit report and
talking to some of you, I was really
excited about new beginnings.
Let's let's acknowledge our faults and
the system, whether you agree or don't
agree, it's broken. And and let's start
working together. On May 29th,
I filed a complaint against a staff
member from the legal department. A
serious complaint, serious allegations,
egregious alleged misconduct
in regards to investigations, in regards
to going outside of the scope of
investigations, maliciously coming after
the sheriff over and over. And that
complaint was filed with the county
manager.
I requested that it be considered
that she be placed on administrative
leave as my captain has been placed on
administrative leave as the parillegal
has been placed on administrative leave
as others have been placed on
administrative leave. And I am appalled
to learn that that employee was not
placed on administrative leave. Knowing
that investigations are being
compromised
and manipulated and depending on who the
accused is determines the outcome of an
investigation and disciplinary action
which is illegal.
So, having said that,
enough is enough. And I mean no
disrespect,
but
again, you probably didn't have this
info. You probably did not
cuz I am convinced that you would have
addressed it and taken care of this. I
am not convinced that we can move
forward if the cancer exists.
And I and I I ask this of you as the
board of county commissioner. You owe it
to your constituents,
okay, that you consider.
I see that on the agenda we have a
resolution to um address the the the
audit violations and stuff. I'm not
convinced that resolution should be
specific and we should focus on the core
of the issues and not just look at the
surface of things. Number two, I see
that you have a close session to discuss
or review the evaluation of of uh job
performance of our county manager.
I'm not convinced and I mean no
disrespect but I'm going to call or ask
that you consider
on a
these are potential risk factors here
and rest assured we're going to get
sued. We are and in order to start
moving forward
we have to remove the cancer.
So I call for the termination of Scott
Andrews and attorney
Miss Neil Carrie Neil effective
immediately on account of injustices
improprieties and continued
discrimination favoritism
and etc etc etc otherwise we won't be
able to move forward.
I stand for questions.
Thank you. Thank you, sir.
[applause]
move back on to staff input.
That's a tough act to follow.
And I'll just start by saying we
certainly aren't going to comment on
active investigations.
There's no need to respond to comments
from the
um Amanda, you want to go on come on up?
Uh Amanda has a new employee we'd like
to introduce today.
Good afternoon, Chair Sanchez,
commissioners. My name is Amanda Gomez,
division manager. I was just here to
introduce our new employee. Her name is
Cecilia Bermudez. She comes from the
court DWI and now she'll be at the
formerly known as constituent services,
but now it's called community
engagement. So, she is the community
engagement specialist.
Good afternoon. Good afternoon, uh,
chairman and commissioners. Um, it's an
honor to be working with you guys and
hopefully I'm able to work with each of
you individually to try to help and
resolve some issues. So, I'll be here if
you guys need any help. I'll help you in
any way I can.
Awesome. Thank you. And welcome to the
team.
Thank you. Thank you.
Carrie, you want to go and come on up
next?
Commissioners, I am very excited to um
introduce you today to our new deputy
county attorney, Alonzo Meestis. He has
been the director of the veteran and
military resources center at UNM and
brings um a wealth of knowledge and
experience and uh has already jumped in
and been helping out with different
matters and so I'm very excited to have
him with us. Um I'm also very excited to
introduce you to Sasha Pena who is one
of the um parallegal IRA positions that
you all um approved very recently. Uh
she has been a victim services
coordinator and project manager with the
PBLO of Nambbe. Um I'd also like to take
a moment to thank each of you for your
service. Uh, I wish that the community
could see the effort and the time that
you all put in and the consideration
that you all put into this position. Um,
despite
taking on fire for the decisions that
you make, whether um the community
agrees with those decisions or not, I
want you to know how much we all as
staff appreciate you.
Thank you and welcome to both of you to
the to the team.
Thanks for having me. I'm glad to be
back home. Los Cruz is home. Um I was
gone for too long. I'm glad to be
serving my community again. Thank you
guys.
Awesome. Thank you,
Mr. Chair. [clears throat]
Thank you. [cough]
Pardon me. Um I know that Miss Neil is
leaving us and is taking a job with a
law firm. Um, but I take this
opportunity to state that we as
commissioners need to really work on
getting a more robust legal department.
I work in the court system and I think
that we should have an attorney for
utilities, an attorney for contracts, an
attorney for public works, etc., etc.,
etc. It's a lot to ask to just have one
or two positions.
I'm going to encourage this commission
to
probably increase the pay for the
attorneys we hire because that's a must.
Law firms all over the state are hurting
for attorneys and the city takes our
attorneys. We take the city's attorneys.
We take people from wherever we can get
them from the DA's office, public
defender office. And in order to protect
the interests of this county of Donana
County and our people, we need to expand
our legal department to include several
attorneys. Um, thank you, Mr. Chair, and
good luck, Carrie. I wish you the best.
Thank you.
Got Ashley coming and then, uh, Mr.
Baker will follow after that.
Good afternoon, chair and commissioners.
Ashley Sunniga, assistant director with
talent and culture. I just wanted to um
provide you with an update. I know there
is an agenda item to discuss the audit
um the resolution on how to address the
audit findings. Um but there was an
audit um finding that was the deadline
was on May 31st and it was assigned to
talent and culture. um that is the
standardize and clarify hiring
procedures, define roles, establish
service level expectations, enhance
tracking, reduce inefficiency and use
analytics and reporting. And I just
wanted to report um that we have met
that deadline. So um Telen and Culture
has worked on um all of the actions
needed under that finding.
Great.
Right. And as soon as we have direction
on how to move forward, um, I'll give a
more formal presentation with how we've
addressed those findings.
Thank you, Ashley.
Thank you.
Thanks, Ashley. Mr. Baker.
Good afternoon, chair, commissioners.
and I'm here to just give you a quick
update on the emergency procurement
status. Um, after the meeting on the
2nd, um, where it was approved by the
commission, we were able to get the
vendor on board, the signatures were
applied to the contract on the 4th.
Since that time, we've gotten the
timeline and the timeline for broke down
to where the takeover will effectively
begin on June 22nd at midnight.
21st
starting on the 22nd. Um, so far they've
been keeping pace with the schedule that
they have. They have it broken down into
four phases. The contract's been exe
executed. They've had some transition
meetings with IT and stuff like that to
make sure that the systems all transfer
over. Uh we've issued formal
notification to the current provider um
with the transition of June 22nd and
they're working towards getting the
resident census and active clinical case
summary so they can begin building their
database for it. Um this current phase
is going to go on to the 15th. uh
they'll be finalizing their staffing and
confirm all officer of employment for
the existing staff that's there. They'll
begin the clinical credentiing,
privileging, and county badging for
their staff. They'll get the clinical
systems all up in the pharmacy services
in line and then start transitioning
records from Yes Care over to their
system. And then they're going to make
sure that they continue uh the Matt MUD
medication services. Um and then we'll
go on to successive phases from there.
Commissioner,
um just a quick question. So is it a new
system or are they continuing the use of
the old system? I thought it was one of
the same.
They are basically the same system, but
they basically got to take the
information out of Yes Care's custody
and transition it over to theirs. It's
just licensing and stuff like that to
make sure that there's no gaps and then
no delays.
Wonderful. Well, thank you for coming
in. I I appreciate these updates. So,
thank you.
Thank you, uh, Director Baker.
Thank you.
Thank you, uh, Chair. I just wanted to
make a few remarks regarding Project
Jupiter. I know that's everyone's
favorite subject, but just want to echo
some things just pure factualbased. So,
this project was approved nearly a year
ago
to a 4-1 vote.
On the staff side, we are here to
execute at the will of the board. People
calling for my resignation today, you
know, appreciate your voices and things
like that. Uh staff, we're here to
execute no matter what that looks like.
So, there's votes we may not love as
staff and there's others that we all
totally behind. Project Jupiter. Yeah, I
think the majority of staff really stood
with that one. And since the pivot to
Bloom Energy, using less water, using
less power, this this looks even better
today than it did before. But there's
30% that just are going to be against it
no matter what, 30% that are probably
for, and then there's a bunch in the
middle. And that's the reality of
anything AI now. There's this whole
stigma around it. uh you know at our
house it's you don't talk church
politics or or data centers. So it's my
tempted humor there. But 1.5 million
hours has been put into this project to
date. It's one of the top union
employers in the state. Nearly 2,000
employees are out there right now
according to stack infrastructure.
Thank you for your comments. Uh you
heard from Josh today, you heard from
Davin. You've heard from some of our
economic development leaders in the
region. This
we're running out of space in Santa
Tesa. The brokers are filling up spaces.
This has been an economic development
boom. Even crossing the border looking
at Wades in Chihuahua.
Before it was just lowcost
manufacturing. Now we're looking at
intelligent manufacturing producing
guess what? Data center components.
The project's definitely better today
than it was when this was voted on back
in last September.
Now, it is our goal from a staff side to
hold the developers accountable and I've
heard that over and over here today. We
made a comment uh in a resolution couple
weeks ago and we've had significantly
improved communication not just with
stack infrastructure but with Oracle
with open AI. Um I will ask in the
future that they also come to these
meetings to hear from everyone just as
we do.
So those calling for more engagement
overall and that topic will be discussed
here shortly.
We had five six town hall meetings prior
to the one that we're also going to
discuss here. It's coming up on June
17th. And not everyone's going to like
it no matter what.
That's
we listen to you guys for hours. Can you
please just hang in there just a few
more minutes, please?
So those calling for more engagement,
we've had hours and hours of public
comment. The day of the vote in
September, I think it was eight hours we
sat here and it was half and half for
and against we continue to hear from the
same 50 people throughout the community
that are really upset about this. But
the ones that don't come are the ones
that agree with it in the past. You have
rough
Thanks again. Uh we had roughly 230,000
residents here and we continue to hear
from the same core people and I think
that resonated in some of the comments
here today.
Most of other communities around are
going through something similar. You
guys follow the news see what's
happening and our neighbors across the
borderline here in El Paso as well. I I
can honestly tell you that our agreement
is in much better shape than a lot of
other communities. the use of power, the
use of water is looking better than a
lot of other communities. And those
calling for the IRB roll back and then
also holding up signs for environmental
causes. I don't know if people realize
if that's stripped away, there's less
protections in place.
The going carbon neutral by 2045, that's
just out. That's just not an option.
The environmental impact would be worse
without these restrictions because now
we have something in place. But again,
those against it will not want to hear
it. Those for it already know it. So I'm
just just again just sharing facts
today.
We have another town hall on June 17th.
It's not what everyone wanted.
So that's enough. That's enough from the
That's enough from the commun that's
enough from the crowd, please.
Again, we listen to you all for hours.
So
that's enough. That's enough. That's
enough from the from here in the
community.
That's your motto.
Now, there's enough outbursts
for for, you know, for a meeting that's
happening. We continue to ask and
there's continue to be outbursts.
So, according to Stack Infrastructure,
the June 17th date was brought up
because and we previously were looking
at the 18th. We've discussed that for
some time. So, they knew if they made
the call to push it back, there'd be,
you know, probably twice as many people
here today upset. So, they offered to
move it forward. All along there was
consensus from the most part of the
board wanting to do something further
south in a region that is impacted by
open AAI and Oracle. So that is why that
area was chosen. We offered up some
suggestions of sites. But again, I can't
stress enough this is their event. This
is their event.
That's stay.
That's enough. There's no one said there
is no opportunity to participate at this
point. Thank you.
We are wasting you are not
Thank thank you for your voices. Thank
you.
You are
you want me to continue chair?
Yes please.
So, with this
town hall meeting that's occurring on
the 17th,
we we continue to get more of this
expert verse expert thing. And I know
even some of the commissioners will
bring that up shortly and some have in
the past.
The challenge we run is this this right
now because no matter what we do,
certain people are just not going to
like it. They're not going to believe.
They're not going to go for whatever it
is. So, can the county even run an RFP
for expert solicitation
and ultimately land in a place and
people say, "No, this person doesn't
know what they're talking about because
the county paid for them." We run into
this chicken and egg game over and over
again.
So, I talk with the I know this topic's
coming up and this is my last chance to
speak before the board conversation. So,
I guess we need direction as staff what
that looks like next. if you want
another town hall, you know the type of
environment we're going to get if it's a
different type of setting.
So, we're trying to balance that with
letting voices be heard? Hey, sir.
And furthermore, if we continue down
this path, even if we hire consultants,
are they going to be believed?
So, that's that's the next part of that.
When I was about two two years ago now,
I applied and interviewed here stood
right up there and um the article that
ran before I started and even packed my
stuff to move here said economic
development top priority for the county.
Stressed me out at the time because we
had one staff member in economic
development.
um
purely as I said executing at the
majority of the board we landed the
largest project in the country and even
in the midst of that the go bonds both
successfully passed emphasizing quality
of life bringing amphitheaters bringing
high messa road improvements bringing
brand new state-of-the-art community
centers to the north and south part of
the county to our residents this was a
challenge that was put on staff we have
executed across the board project
Jupiter go bonds we have built about an
economic development department, a
housing department, a quality of life
communications departments. I am so
proud of this team.
Guys, you hear they're calling for my
neck right now. So, let me tell you as I
look at you, I am just so proud of you
all and your contributions.
I just want to make a few comments on
Jupiter. So, thank you so much.
Thank you, Scott.
All right. Uh next item is commission
appointed port report uh board report
backs. Is there any report backs?
Then we move under uh presentations
here. I know there was a request to move
agenda item number 10 uh to be next
before item eight. So we'll do that. So
it was for project Jupiter's proposed
comet community open house and
careerfare. And if if I may just to
start with the conversation, I know
there's been a lot of discussion as to
the date change. The date change, this
is the first time we're having a
community meeting with five or not
community meeting, but a commission
meeting with all five commissioners uh
in a quorum to discuss. And so um that
date change happened from the last time
we met in there. And I know Scott kind
of touched a little bit on it in terms
of the availability which drove that. Um
the the intent of the town hall versus
openhouse style
was driven by the requests from the
community. What we heard is people want
information. People want information.
They want details
in the in the project.
And what we've seen is that in a town
hall format, it's a mile wide, an inch
deep.
The questions can run the gamut from
water usage to emissions
back to something else and so on. and
doing an openhouse style format allows
people to go and talk to the subject
matter experts. Yes, it is from the
company because they're the ones that
have the details, the designs and how
they're executing.
And so if you want to go three, four
questions deep, you can go down several
levels on water. if they wanted to go
about power generation, we'll have Bloom
Energy will be there to talk about the
fuel cell technology as well as the
power generation plant. There's going to
be people from stack that will talk
about the data center design and talking
about the cool uh the closed loop
cooling systems if there's questions
around that. And again, it was designed
so that people could go into depth to
get actual details because that's what
people have been saying has been lacking
other than the occasional press release
or things like that. So that's where
this came from was to be able to allow
those types of discussions. Um, I know
one of the things that uh I'll note and
and hopefully Stephen you don't mind. I
think for the commissioners um and we
can probably continue this. I know one
of the question what what I know the
staff have been working on as well has
been the concerns that have been brought
up in meetings and by the public and how
we may be addressing them as a county.
Um, and so that's something that I know
we're working on to try to I I think
he's I think he sent it out to the
commission as just a rough draft. Uh,
but something that we can put out into
our website and post in public so that
if people under have the questions, how
do we hold the developers responsible
for water usage? we we we outline how
that is um around emissions. How do we
hold them accountable for the jobs? How
do we hold them accountable for all
these things? So hopefully, like I said,
I know there'll be probably further
discussion on that, but wanted to at
least put that out there that I know
this is something the staff have been
working on to try to address those
questions that the community been
asking. So, Commissioner Chabo, sorry,
thank you for letting me uh start with
that, at least frame it a little bit,
but
Sure. Thank you. Thank you, Chair
Sanchez.
Papa, mama abos familia.
And this is how we should proceed.
Ladies and gentlemen, it's afternoon
now, and I'd like to thank you for
taking time off from work, taking time
away from your children, taking time
away from your medical appointments, and
important everyday tasks. I really
appreciate your presence today. Whether
you are for Project Jupiter or against
you took the time to engage Avando
Cente.
So, let's just start talking about this
proposed community open house and career
fair that's scheduled for June 17th.
Couple of BOCC meetings ago, I requested
a robust meeting to be held with the
commission with Project Jupiter, their
representatives, and you, our community.
I also requested that the county bring
in our own neutral subject matter
experts to help all of us understand
me as well. Not just you, but me as
well. I have a lot of questions and I'm
not quite capturing the essence of this
AI uh data center. I asked the county
manager to schedule the meeting and to
move forward with the meeting to address
our concerns. Not just
your concerns, but our concerns. Then I
became aware of the change of not only
the date of the meeting but the format
of the meeting which had changed
drastically from what I had requested
and what you had been promised. The
change went from a serious discussion,
thoughtful, meaningful discussion to
fiesta affair.
So, and if we can please hold comment. I
I know it's a very passionate concern of
many people. It's mine, too. I'm the fly
in the soup, ladies and gentlemen. I
really am. Um, so then I sent I had my
assistant send a message to Mr. Andrews
with several questions which included
who created the flyer, who from Donana
County spoke to the project Jupiter
folks and is responsible for the format
and agenda of the event, who finalized
the event, when was the event finalized
and I wasn't aware until at the last
minute. Uh the responses were well I'm
not sure which company created it. All
of the board members spoke with them and
three or four staff. They finalized the
event as it is their event and we only
provided suggestions
and I forwarded a text from one of the
project Jupiter representatives Tessa
Beta to you and other board members 2
minutes after receiving the notification
of the date change. I just assumed it
was going to be driven by the county
because you're requesting it
and it's our meeting. It belongs to our
county. It's our responsibility as
county commissioners to move this
meaning this meeting forward whether
you're for or against.
September, October, November, December,
January, February, March, April, May,
June. Nine months.
You've been asking for this meeting to
address our concerns as a community.
Commissioners, we represent a body. As a
body, we represent over 230,000
people. Whether you're for or against,
we've been contacted by hundreds of
them. Phone calls, texts, emails, in
person. More than the 50 people that
just show up to this meeting.
I can go out and I get stopped by people
pro and con for Project Jupiter.
Are we just hearing or are we choosing
not to listen and understand what our
residents want?
You've asked for a robust robust
meeting. You've urged us for a meeting.
You've demanded a meeting. You've even
begged us for a meeting.
And you've begged for this meeting to
answer wellfounded questions. And we're
still not listening. In my opinion,
this open house and career fair is a
great thing for those that want to
attend that, but it's a bit of a
distraction in my mind.
and we've had enough distractions over
the last nine months.
My proposal as a county commissioner and
as a representative of a fraction of
those 230,000
people in this county is that we meet on
a Saturday carving out time and it's
going to take hours because we must
listen to our residents. We must explain
how we're moving forward. Listen to what
you want, what you're demanding, what
your needs are. Economic development,
jobs, air, water,
land use. Address everything, not just a
portion of it.
And sit there and listen so that our
community doesn't have to sacrifice
their time coming to meetings like this
and missing what I me mentioned earlier.
and let's have a meaningful, thoughtful,
rich, frank discussion along with
neutral subject matter experts and and
uh
Project Jupiter representatives. It was
mentioned a while ago that to get an RFP
and bring subject matter experts in,
people wouldn't believe them. It might
be a waste of time. We can't keep We
can't stop trying. We need to connect
with our community.
We can't stop trying to connect with our
community. Never. Ever. Never.
We talk about transparency and openness.
Well, now's a time to step up. As for
Project Jupiter representatives,
Stack Construction, Oracle, OpenAI,
Bloom Energy, this is your opportunity
to have a rich and thoughtful discussion
with this community. I'm seeing
commercials on TV, on newspaper, on
Facebook. How community is so important.
You've paid lobbyists.
You have community engagement people.
You've paid. You're donating to
candidates, elected officials. You pay
for TV commercials, radio ads, social
media ads, newspaper ads.
Several public meetings, if it costs
anything, whether it be time or money,
are going to be a drop in the bucket for
you.
Your people, Project Jupiter people have
told us that they value our community
and our residents. Show us, show me,
show us, show our community. We deserve
this. So, commissioners, I don't have
all the answers. I'm opening I'm open to
suggestions. I prefer a meeting where we
have the representatives, where we have
our experts, and they may cost the
county a little bit, but I think it's
going to be less than what we're
spending for the 250
uh year celebration
for the United States. I was told that I
invited this interaction today.
Wow, the passion from both sides is
wonderful. Thank you to both sides.
Thank you, union workers. My daddy was a
union worker. I appreciate it. And he
didn't have a voice, but you have a
voice here.
And our community has a voice here.
There's five of us. And we will direct
county and county staff to follow
through and hold Project Jupiter
accountable because that's why you
elected us. We represent you. We are
your voice. I want to hear from you. You
deserve that. So commissioners
suggestions and how we move forward
because as I mentioned before I don't
have all the answers but I am passionate
about the voice of our people all all of
us including the business community
because I had good friends come up here
Josh Orosco is a very good friend of
mine Davin Lopez and we are on opposite
sides right now but it's refreshing to
hear your point of view so thank you all
for being here.
Thank you Mr. Chair.
Thank you Mr.
I [applause]
commissioners have comments before I I
had some a couple things to say, but
Commissioner, I I appreciate your your
thoughts.
Again, I think when you look at the town
hall format and what we've seen by best
practices by other local governments and
how they've approached this because what
we've seen is that when there is a
contentious subject, town hall meetings
don't allow for true meaningful
conversation.
um what ends up happening and we've seen
it. I'll recall one of the one of the
town town halls that one of the
commissioner that's one of the one of
the commissioners was physically
threatened where police were called in
and you people can shrug their their
thinks is but that's ex
but I'm just saying you're but I'm just
saying that that's exactly what's ended
up happening
just like you
and so what ends up happening is there's
not that that meaningful conversation to
really understand and get information
And what we've seen is that this open
house style does allow for that does
allow to go down. No, there there's a
there's a piece there will be a piece
where it's
I'm sorry, sir. This is enough. There's
enough there's enough from the from the
this is not public participation at this
point.
This is my life.
What there are what what ends up
happening is with an openhouse style,
you can have direct one-on-one
conversations and get those details, get
those questions answered. And there's a
lot of that information that doesn't
always get that information to do that.
And so that's where we're trying to go
with this. Um, and like I said,
Commissioner Chapo, like we we have
several examples. We've seen local
school districts. We've seen the city of
El Paso do it this way. We've seen uh
other communities do the open house
style format and so I I understand
wanting to have those direct meaningful
conversations. I completely agree.
It's just we need to have them in a way
that people can have those conversations
and be able to get the details that they
that they've been asking for.
You want the Mr. Chair,
if I if I may.
Yes.
I I'm confused at this point. bec um I'm
confused because you said that we're
moving forward when I got a message from
our comm our county manager that said
it's their event. So I'm confused. So
whose event is it? Because
are we holding it as a county or are
they holding it as the um
representatives from Project Jupiter? I
I'd like the answer to that because I
don't know.
No, I think I I think we've answered
that. It is it is the company and the
project that is putting it on.
Well, then I'm requesting a meeting with
our constituents and if we have to sit
for hours and listen to our community,
then let it be. So, we can't stop
trying. Again, we cannot stop trying
[cheering and applause] to have a format
that is
maybe it's a format the commissioners
don't like. Maybe it's a format that
some of our community members don't
like. We're all going to have to give a
little and we're all going to have to
have decorum and respect, but we cannot
stop trying. And just saying that we're
going to have one meeting that is a job
fair.
I don't think that's enough for some of
the members of our communities and it's
certainly not enough for me. Thank you.
Thank you.
And [applause] Kimble,
Mr. Mr. Chair, if I could offer if if
perhaps I'm wondering if if we had a
town hall meeting like this, if the
questions everybody has are submitted
beforehand so we can do research on them
and have true answers, if that would be
a way to help it a little bit. We know
they have a lot of questions. Let's open
a spot on the website where people can
send us questions and monitor it so that
we know what the questions are and
respond to them either at a meeting like
this, a commission meeting or at a town
hall meeting as Commissioner Chaparo
suggests. We it does appear to the
community that we're not listening to
their questions.
And I know that this is a vocal group
that comes and wants to talk about
Jupiter, but we have people on both
sides. So, if um we get questions from
both sides, it'll be a little more
balanced. And if they have to be
submitted before the town hall, that
would hopefully hold down some of the um
I don't know, animosity or um the
feeling that they're not being heard.
Potentially, we could do something like
that.
Mr. Chair, if I may,
I Commissioner Kimble, that seems like a
good start to move forward.
um so that our subject matter experts
can anticipate questions and can do the
research and present the data from their
point of view and project Jupiter can
present their point of view or their
data and then it's up to us to balance
that and understand that and make the
best decision going forward. But just
having information from one side is
really just unfair. But Commissioner
Kimell, thank you for that suggestion. I
think it's a fine suggestion. I
appreciate it.
Commissioner Chabo, I do have a
question. As you mentioned um our
subject matter experts, how do we
procure such subject matter experts?
I'm glad you asked that question, Chair
Sanchez. We have subject matter experts
at uh New Mexico Tech in Soro, NMSU,
um UNM,
the uh state office of engineer. I I was
sent a video and I didn't write the name
down. Forgive me. I read hundreds and
hundreds of pages last night and um the
name escapes me, but we have experts in
New Mexico. We have water,
environmental,
um air quality, health experts in New
Mexico. We're not
We have these experts out here. You have
experts from the union. You have experts
from economic development sitting in the
same room. You have biologists. You have
environmental engineers sitting in this
room.
We have the expert.
But exactly like I think like you say
though, how do you how is that an expert
or identified? because I will say very
clearly that um I did view the meeting
from Brenan Library and some of the
facts that were presented
by the experts which are um were not
totally true.
What's your degree? And so that's
and so that's one of the things that I
look at is this information that's being
shared by experts and how we do that. Um
I think that's how we we we would have
to define that. I would have to say then
we would have to wait on a procurement
process if we were going to be selecting
or paying for said
uh experts. And so this just gets the
the can keeps getting kicked down the
road. And so that's where I'm trying to
say what how do we how do we address
that understanding that it becomes a
longer lead item if we're going to do it
in a certain way.
Well, thank you for that. This takes
more time.
You're the one.
Thank you. Um, Chair Sanchez, we have
moved things along at this commission
with lightning speed before.
Uh, and I'm sure it can be done again.
Uh, it won't be the first time. It won't
be the last time, but as I mentioned
before,
there are there are experts at the
universities.
I I'd have to think about how to procure
those experts. I was writing this last
night after reading the packet.
Um, I have confidence
that our universities have those subject
matter experts and you're going to get
different sides of an issue, but it will
be for us to figure it out the
information and who we trust, who we
believe, what is presented. I can't
guarantee you that every subject matter
expert is going to answer every single
question.
We can't. That's impossible. But for us
to listen, discern, think about the
process, think about the effects, think
about our union jobs, think about
economic development, have a full
and complete understanding as best we
can.
It can be done. So let's move forward
and and if we have to move at lightning
speed and have extra meetings
to to what end other than the connection
I know you say connection but what what
is the goal? Is it just the connection
or
like I'm trying to understand what the
goal is of
the goal is so that our constituents
understand and have the most information
that they can have. We passed
and I say we because I was part of the
board when this IRB was passed and I
will take responsibility. I was here. I
tried my best to get more information.
To what end? More information so that
our community is comfortable with our
decision. We had blank pages. We didn't
have all the answers. It keeps moving.
Yes, it's getting better to a certain
degree.
But as a commissioner, I would like to
have more information so that
accountability is first and foremost.
And I don't have those answers, chair. I
don't. And maybe those subject matter
experts can help me better understand.
And I I don't have your engineering
degree. I don't. But I'd like to have
someone help me make decisions for my
community. someone that I trust, someone
that I can lean on, someone that I can
call if I have a question, and those
subject matter experts are the people in
my mind that I have with this
commissioner. I can't speak for the rest
of you,
but it's someone that I can lean that I
can trust and not be wondering, okay, so
what's
that? What is it that they want?
But but I think you just said like it's
to make a decision. But I'm trying to
understand what decision you're trying
to make here.
Accountability for project Jupiter for
our community. That's the decision I'm
trying to make so that we together so
that the staff's not doing it's our
responsibility chair Sanchez, not the
staffs. They're doing a great job.
But it's our responsibility as
commissioners to leave [applause]
for everyone.
Understand? And so the IRBs have already
been approved with guidelines that they
have to contractually meet. And so then
that way that's where I'm saying that uh
you know that's why I'm saying I I don't
understand is if the decisions already
made
the contractual requirements are already
there.
What decision are we making at that
point?
WHY IS
this community
if I may
what are we afraid of? Why are we afraid
of sharing information? I don't know.
[cheering]
[applause]
I I'm just asking where you said you
wanted to make a decision and holding
commissioner and I don't know enough
about bloom cells. I don't know. I mean,
I can go to a presentation and hear if
I'm selling a pen
and I am the subject matter expert on
this pen. Well, I'm going to tell you
how wonderful this pen is. It has four
colors. It can ride in the dark and I
can write upside down. But when you buy
it, it's not going to glow in the dark,
but maybe 5 seconds.
Um, I want to know as much as I can so
that we in the future can hold Project
Juper accountable for all these things.
Commissioner, you and I are only going
to be here for two and a half more
years. They're going to be here forever.
And so I'm going to be here forever
hopefully. And as this commission move
forward moves forward, we must put it in
a way so that my replacement, your
replacement, Commissioner Shelto's
replacement, and eventually yours,
Commissioner Kimble, um, will have the
tools to move forward in a positive way
for our community. Um, you had, we had
had a meeting before where I was
questioning and you mentioned, go talk
to the staff. They have the answers.
Well, the staff doesn't have all the
answers. That's why I'm asking. I need
more. I need more information. Our
community needs more information. We
deserve to give them that. We don't have
to like it.
No, I I encourage you to go and go and
do the research. I think that's one of
the things that that that I've done and
my responsibility
my responsibility was to do that and
that is I'm sorry that is enough public.
THERE IS NO PUBLIC.
I'M NOT
MR. CHAIR. If I may, I'm just trying to
say I'm trying to save.
Ladies, ladies and gentlemen, if I may,
please, because I need to be able to
hear the response from Chair Sanchez.
And as I mentioned before, we're not
going to agree. We are on different
sides. Um, and I was told I invited
this. I did because we have to have a
robust conversation. But I'd like to
hear from my fellow commissioner. I
don't have to agree with it. He doesn't
have to agree with me. We're having a
respectful conversation in front of you
so that you can hear our responses. So,
if I may, thank you.
So, all I'm offering is that we've had
opportunities to speak and and learn
more whether that's with the office of
the state engineer to understand what
the effect on our community is with
water usage. Um, we've had opportunities
uh to speak with the uh Bloom Energy or
Oracle. Um, you know, there's going to
be an opportunity to continue to find
out more information as the air permit
comes out with or not the air permit,
but the uh um
the the permit application and the
hearing that will happen with that.
There's additional opportunities where
that will also come out with with uh
with further details on the fuel cells.
I think like I said there's still
opportunities in the along the process
where all this is still available. I I
just I I guess one of the things that
that you know when we go and have
discussions about um you know
there are I think you're right there are
subject matter experts across the state
including with the state government. I I
invite that so that way you understand
that. I think that's one of the things
that I had tried to do myself especially
after that that alleg the allegations
that came out that that the office of
state engineer had indicated that they
were there was an in the Santa Fe New
Mexican and so we talked with the I I
reached out to the office of state
engineer to have that discussion with
them to help me understand was that real
was it not what does it really what is
water usage what is the impact of the
state of the Supreme Court settlement
case they said it it's been these are
things that you're absolutely right we
have to do. But like I said, I think as
as we do them, um we we don't
necessarily need to always hire somebody
to do our due diligence and understand
that um or understand
uh you know there there's other research
that we can do to understand how the
micro grid is designed with redundancy.
Uh statements that were made that
they're going to run 100% of the 2.4 4
gigawatts or gigah uh yeah the the
gigawatts um of power generation which
is completely false because that's not
how it was designed and there's data out
there that you can find that type of
information but you know like I said
those are just things that we can do as
commissioners to do our research and do
our due diligence
and I'm and I think like I said those
are just things we can absolutely do.
I'm just I'm just concerned that like I
said, we have an opportunity
with this project and this is the only
time we've ever done this as an as a IRB
or an economic development project where
we've had where we've asked a company to
come in and [clears throat]
provide all this information. We've
never done it for any other IRB. We've
never done it for any other opportunity.
And so this is by far
going above and beyond after that
and show your ass like you're doing now.
That's I'm sorry. That's enough of the
comments. We're going to be we're going
to be enough. If there's additional
[snorts] outburst, I will ask that the
chambers be cleared.
You're not doing anything.
So,
if if I may,
if I may, ladies and gentlemen,
ladies and gentlemen, if I may, please.
Thank you. Thank you, Chair Sanchez, for
your comments.
Um,
I agree. We we do we have a due
diligence to fair it out information.
But I'll tell you, if I pick up the
phone and call the office of the state
engineer, they'll probably answer. If
you, sir, in the front row call the
state office of the engineer, you're not
going to get a person on the line.
They'll get back to you. Um, but it's
our due diligence to inform our
community. We can't keep them covered up
in the dark.
It's just a simple request. Have a
meeting. Let's get the experts out here.
It's a simple request. It doesn't take
rocket science. It doesn't take AI
science. It takes a meeting of the mind.
It takes.
That's all I'm asking for. It's a simple
request. Let's talk. Let's sit down.
Let's chat as neighbors, as community.
I want to talk to the union workers and
find out how your construction site is
going. I'd like to talk more in depth
with Josh Orosco who was back there and
saying, "Hey, how is this impacting the
tri uh border area that way we all get
to hear it and it's just not the
commissioners gathering information but
all of us." So, thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Chair, Commissioner Sheldon on this.
So,
someone came up during public comment, I
believe it was Terry, and then we heard
it again today from Commissioner Kimell
about and
both of those meetings can happen.
There's a purpose for both. There are
some people that might want the open
house forum with a career fair. There
might be people that want that, that
desperately need that. And that might be
more approachable to some of our
residents. And for those individuals, I
think that meeting will work. For those
individuals that are asking for a more
town hall style,
that's fine. I think they can both
happen. Um,
hold on, hold on, guys. Stop.
I mean, I love applause, but stop. I
think the way that we look at this from
here on forward and
you know it
submitting questions ahead of time and I
would like to say that the individuals
that are asking for that information
that is something that commission that
vice chair Gomedos did um last year. She
did a great job. She got every single
question that was asked at her community
meeting. She forwarded it to the
companies. She got the responses and
those responses are online. That is the
exact same thing that I think we're
hearing from Commissioner Kimell,
myself, we're hearing it from some
individuals in the community is that
same exact format. There has to be a
reference point for individuals to go
to. And if we want to do a column for,
you know, outside of Project Jupiter and
Project Jupiter and that way there's a
comparison, fine. But and and chair
Sanchez, I'm not saying that anyone here
is right or wrong. All I'm saying is
that both can be true, inherently true
at the same time, and that's okay. So,
I'm not going to say that, you know, the
open house and career fair should not
happen. Let it happen. Let us go. Let
the people hear, let them talk, let them
ask, let them engage. And it's all about
engagement. And then we do, let's do
another one. Let's do one that is more
the town hall side. You know, we passed
the resolution about communication with
Border Plex Digital asking for um
members of management with members of
the commission to go forward and have
these conversations.
Let's figure it out. Let's figure out a
way forward because
I think after
almost four hours of these
conversations,
everyone is tired, everyone is beat
down, and then we're all not thinking
clearly right now. So, I think we need
to think clearly, come up with a path
forward, but both can be true. So, let's
go forward with a plan that includes
both of them. I love Commissioner
Kimble's thoughts on the submitting the
questions. I like that because I know
what I can see it. I can visually see. I
can look. I can research myself. But
send it out to those individuals. So get
the individuals from NMSU, UTEP, Tech,
wherever you want to, and and get them
on board. Let's figure this out.
Commissioner Kimell, you and I did this
a year ago at the crisis triage center.
We got everyone together in a room. We
answered all the questions. Jamie, you
were there and it worked. We found out
the answers. we were able to relay that
information to all of our community
partners that were there saying this is
what the future of the CTC looks like.
This is where we're going. This is where
we're headed. I loved it. I feel like we
connected. We figured out a path and we
answered those questions. And if we get
to that point
with this, I'd be infinitely happy.
So, I'm all for it. and we just need to
figure out a path forward because
both of them can be true and I want both
of them to be true cuz I think both are
beneficial to the county. So that is my
two cents for the day.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Commissioner.
Mr. Chair,
yes, Commissioner Kimble.
Um, and I I appreciate that,
Commissioner Shaundes. I I believe if we
gather the questions and share them with
experts and and gather answers from
experts, it takes out opinions and it
takes out feelings and we'll get to some
real answers. And I think that's what we
need because people come in there,
everybody's so passionate about this
because it's a very passionate item.
It's a very passionate issue. And I
think if we do it this way, as as
Commissioner Shaw Joe Hernandez said,
Crisis Trash Center was in crisis and we
came together and said, "Okay, who can
work to make this better?" And I
represented a hospital. There was
another hospital there. We even said,
"You know what? We can't do it. Can you
do it?" And it came to a good agreement.
It came to a good solution. So, I think
if we can get the the opinions out, the
emotions out, the heatedness out, it
will really help. And if we Here's the
thing. The the um IRB's already been
voted on. It's already done. We can't
revoke it. The data center is coming. We
can't stop it. Even if we take the IRB
away, they will still build it. They
have plenty of money to build it. They
really do.
Yes, it is. But they can still build it.
They bought the I'm sorry, I shouldn't.
They can still build it whether we have
the IRB or not. So, we need to find a
way to get answers to the most
concerning questions in non-opinioned in
opinionated ways, educated ways. And I
think the questions and answers and it
could take us two months to get the
questions together and then say, "Okay,
now we can have a town hall." Or it may
be a website that's the town hall
website. Post them up there. Every time
we get a question, get an answer, post
it somewhere so people can go and look
at it and that it will be there in
writing. And it will hopefully hold down
emotions. that will hold down anger and
accusations. I wasn't here. I didn't
vote for Project Jupiter. I know that
y'all know that. But I'm on this team.
I'm on the board of county commissioners
and I want to help find solutions and I
want to help serve our community. So, I
want to find the answers that are going
to bring the most peace to our area. So,
I think we should find a way and and
gathering the questions, I think, is is
fairly simple. Finding the experts will
take some more work, but offering a
place for people to send their
questions, I think, will be very
valuable.
Thank you, Commissioner Kimble. I'll
I'll say I'm not against
the the collecting questions or the idea
of trying to get the information 100%.
I think my concern goes with Scott and
how we address because what ends up
happening and I saw I've seen this over
and over again. I've seen it when people
try to when I try to talk to people and
people say
they don't, you know, I'm I'm full of
crap.
The thing is is that when you try to
share information,
will it be accepted? Will they be open
to hearing it and then or not they'll
say, "Oh, this was a slanted person or
they're not looking at it the right way
or they're doing this." You know, the
engineer in me says data is data and it
it's it's this is what it is. And that's
where, like I said, I'm 100% behind
sharing, having the facts out there and
doing that. I think one of the things
that that I just want to make sure is
how we address it. And I do want
Exactly. to achieve the goals you're
saying because we can do this in a way
that is less emotional,
um, fact-based, continuing to hear or or
or for them or maybe we're already
addressing some of these things and it's
just not well known. Um, you know, there
there's that piece of it. Um, I I will
say I know there's been a just kind of a
minor little U-turn because it was
brought up during public input and maybe
I'm taking a little liberty here with
this topic, but there was a comment made
about El Paso Electric's rate case and
how Project Jupiter was affecting that.
I will say number one that based off of
what I read on the um on that rate case
that wasn't the fact but if it is
something that is being affected we as a
county have already intervened in that
rate case and so you know we can take a
look at that as we go forward with this
intervention process I know the city of
Los Cusus has also intervened in that
case and so you know that's and that's
also a requirement of the IRB was that
this project cannot affect affect
rateayers. So that I can say is that
something we will work on and we've
already done and approved. We voted in
open session that we to intervene in
this case. So anyways,
thank you. I I um appreciate your time.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, what I'm
hearing is that
putting forth questions and having our
subject matter experts respond to them
from on both sides because that's a fair
thing to do to have PJ um subject matter
experts explain their site and then have
our subject matter experts explain their
site. Is that what I'm hearing from the
commissioners? and then having maybe the
two meetings because uh Commissioner
Sheldon on this I thought that was
probably didn't say it as as well as you
did and explain it as accurately as you
did. So I appreciate that because that's
what I was thinking. It just wasn't
coming out of my mouth as eloquently as
you put it. Um but having those two
meetings I think um that it's an
excellent idea. So is that what I'm
hearing commissioners? Just wanted to
make sure I'm I'm understanding
Mr. Chair Commissioner and I think comm
uh Commissioner Chapata what you're
saying is is correct but I don't think
it's two sides. I think it's a fact
check. It's data. It's that I don't want
to say it's two sides because then it
sounds like they're bias and there
should be no biases with these
conversations. It should be factually
what is the project doing? what
technology they're using, everything
like that. And then you get, you know,
and I I like using the university
setting. I think that's proper um to
say, "Okay, we're going to deep dive."
And we've done it before um with HHS.
We've used Crimson Research time and
time again to do projects in our
community when it comes to mental health
and it comes to um well-being and
everything like that. And I think that's
what we need to look for. So,
if we can give county management kind of
a task out of this conversation,
um it's that we [clears throat] need to
find those individuals that are like
Crimson Research. And it doesn't have to
be just at NMSU. We can look at a broad
broad spectrum of um universities and
places throughout the country that can
help us with this and ask them. And part
of me would think that like Crimson
Research, they would love to partner
with us on this and get that
information. And you know, I I also want
to say it doesn't have to just be the
two meetings. I think that these
meetings should
both types of meetings should happen
regularly. Um because I think people do
want to have those open conversations
with people down there as well as they
want to have a place for um
you know a job fair is not a bad idea,
guys. I I it it isn't. I understand why
we're having issues with the way that
this is done. I understand that. I've
heard you and I I can resonate with
that. um probably not the best PR that
they could have thought of, but I think
that there is a place for that within
the project spectrum. Um it's part of
what we challenged them as a board. We
challenged them to do this. We
challenged them to put on the trainings.
We challenged them to get with community
partners to make sure that we have those
career pipelines. So, in my mind, that
is part of that challenge that we gave
the project. So, I'm not going to gripe
on that too much because we kind of
asked them to do it. Um, but I will
challenge county management and if you
all can give directions is we need to
kind of go in this direction. Um, we've
seen their response from the project and
I think that's fine, but now we're going
to have a response and I think we can go
unilaterally with that. And thank you,
Commissioner Chapado, for bringing this
up today. So, thank you.
So,
Mr. Chair,
Mr. Chair.
Yes, Commissioner.
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Andrew, for
allowing me to to um to speak.
Alando Cente, we're speaking. We're
talking about discussing this issue and
I find it very stimulating and I think
it's transparent for our community. So,
this is a way the board should work and
I'm so grateful for your thoughts,
commissioners, um, as we move forward
because as I mentioned before, I don't
have all the answers. Uh, be but we as a
group can move together quickly. Um, so
I'm just thinking maybe just getting
some sort of system on our web page to
start gathering questions and then based
on those questions that we're gathering
then going to the subject matter experts
because we may have a subject matter
experts on I don't know nuclear energy
and nobody's asking questions about
that. So perhaps
putting something I know that Kent
probably can do it very very quickly but
uh
getting something on our site so that
these questions could be added somehow.
And Mr. Andrews I I maybe you can help
me with that because I'm not sure how to
do that or Mr. Lopez is nodding his
head. I maybe you you know, but I think
that's a good start just gathering
questions and it may be hundreds of
questions, but at least start to gather
them so that we can get to to the
subject matter experts. Thank you, Mr.
Chair.
I don't think that'll be a problem. And
Stephen and I, Mr. Lopez and I have had
some discussions on what that would look
like. In fact, he did a heat map
recently that uh we'd like to share with
you all maybe even at the retreat that
betweenou and IRB addresses uh pretty
much all of the concerns that have come
up saying that we've looked to move the
project Jupiter because it was the
website was a little tougher to find. We
recently did some website movement.
Thank you. I can't remember who was it
that shared that with me. We moved it to
a more prominent place. Um the website
can certainly be updated to include a
question Q&A section. the procurement
side. Uh Lucio, I I don't know. That's
the one that's the toughest. I'd
probably like Chapato since you were the
only just no vote and then maybe one of
the others that was for it. So one for
one against and then we could have some
different staff. I don't need to be
involved. That's fine with me too. So
whatever that looks like, Lucio, start
thinking and talking to Michael PZ. I
think by the time we get this together,
it's probably a two to three week
process. Two weeks to review.
So realistically about a month and a
half out I think is probably more
realistic. So at least for the planning
for a meeting for the website itself
that's easy. Thank you.
I I think if if if you're okay with
this, Commissioner Chapo, what what I
maybe would ask is um I don't know how
quickly you can have like a mockup of
what it would look like. Um I think it's
important that we have a good way to
capture the the questions and like you
said make it accessible, easy to see on
the website. So before we we go live, I
I don't know whether the necessarily I
don't know if it's something that can be
done before the retreat um that quickly
or if if it's something in the next, you
know, we come back in two weeks um for
our meeting on the 23rd and we have
maybe another follow-up presentation
that shows what it'll look like um for
us or for the public. Um and then we can
share where it will be. So then that way
we can share with the public where to
find that to submit it so that it's very
hopefully very prominent, very easy for
them to find and be able to submit their
questions.
Yes, sir. Sounds good.
And Mr. Chair, I think two weeks is is
reasonable and and we can uh perhaps
include a little more discussion at our
retreat. We're having a retreat Thursday
and Friday and we can have a more I like
that word robust. I've been using that
today a lot. So to have a more robust uh
conversation regarding this, but two
weeks to have a followup and present to
our community, I think is fair and it's
fair for our staff as well because
they're going to be doing a lot of the
work probably in the evenings and the
weekends. So,
thank you in advance to the staff.
And then I don't know when if in two
weeks we might at least have a kind of a
skeleton of what how how we can identify
those whether as Commissioner Chabato
noted with New Mexico Tech, NMSU, UN
wherever though that subject matter
expert could be and maybe identify those
of how we move forward. Um, and maybe
like I said before, that way we might
have like that not necessarily this is
for sure how we're going to D, but at
least how we can identify it. So then
and make have have that as part of the
presentation so that then we can present
that'll be part of the presentation as
to how we're going to reach out and who
we're going to reach out to. Um, and and
hopefully, you know, that will provide a
little more clarity on, you know, at
least we have approval of the plan
before we um execute it.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. That sounds fair.
Yeah, just so I can clarify uh the
website itself in two weeks. No problem.
We can have that framework together. The
going out to bid for experts, so to
speak. That's the part for our
procurement. I believe that's roughly
60-day window. We have 30 days and then
the 15-day protest, as you all know. So,
I just want to make sure I understand
the website.
Can I can I throw a can I throw a a a
caveat out there and I could be wrong. I
know I don't see Michael here, but I
believe because they're universities and
they're state organizations, we don't
necessarily have to go through a full
procurement process which might expedite
things if we need to.
But I mean, like I said, that might be
an opportunity to expedite
Yeah.
where we go with it.
Yes,
I agree. We should do that because I
think if we're sitting on trying to do
procurement, that appears to be another
stalling tactic.
Yeah. And I I just don't think we need
to Well, we've sent out the RFP. We need
So, anything we can do to make it happen
more simply, more quickly would be
great.
Yeah. And like I said, I could be wrong
when I say that. I'm not a I'm not an
expert at all on procurement, but I do
believe being a a state entity um or
state government does allow us to either
soul source or directly kind of um you
know, I guess because they have certain
rules that we everybody has to follow,
it may allow us to expedite that that
process. And Mr. Chair, they may not
charge us for the answers.
They may not. Um, so we
they may have people standing in line
wanting to give us the answers. So there
may not even be money involved.
True. And and and I think also because I
think the other part could also be also
maybe in addition uh maybe also getting
some of the state offices like I said
this office of state engineer u some of
those that might preview provide some
additional information additional
background or information
with the questions so that you know you
can get one piece of it get the
additional and we can provide that out.
chair.
Okay. Like I said, my my thought is is
by the way before we go live, I don't
know if you can do like the the example
like in a QA for in a QC format kind of
thing um that we can see before [snorts]
we hit you know hit publish and it goes
live. But, you know, having that
but I do, like I said, hopefully in two
weeks just have just have at least that
bit of it so we can approve of the plan
and then we can we can go forward and
move move towards that. And then I think
at that point that'll at least give us
some timeline on when you know how long
we can collect questions
um and then try to target a day for the
for the meeting.
We we'll try to have some of this
together by the retreat and then
obviously two weeks out we'll have the
rest figured out. So between the
conversations at the retreat, I think
we're in a good place. Thank you, chair,
for the feedback. Thank you, board.
Last comment, Mr. Chair, I promise. I
just want to thank our community for
holding us accountable. You deserve
that.
Thank you,
Mr. Chair. And with the with the
thoughts on the website, um I just want
to point out that the web development
team did a great job on the ICIP website
commission. If you haven't been on it,
please do. Um, there's a place to submit
your comments, your ideas, your
thoughts, but it also drives down by
every single commission, district, house
district, senate district, project
number. Staff did a great job on the
ICIP website, and you guys turned it out
so quickly. I'm very proud of you all.
So, I know that this will be another
lift. Um, but I know that if it's as
good as what we've done for the ICIP
that it will be beneficial to our
community. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. All right.
Okay.
Okay. Well, we'll take uh So, it's 122.
Uh we'll come back at 1:30 uh and uh
with the Crisis Triage Center 2025
report.
Uh we're going to get ready to continue
on with our agenda.
So
the next order of business is item
number eight, which is a crisis triage
center 2025 report. And with that, I'll
turn it over to Miss Jamie Michael from
uh the director of our health and human
services department.
Thank you, Commissioner. I'm Jamie
Michael Countyy's Health and Human
Services Department. We are here today
to provide you an update on the crisis
triage center. I'm joined by two folks
from Summit Behavioral Health. They do
have just about 20 minutes um left for
us uh time on their their agenda for us
and the um market CEO was here earlier,
but she did have to leave. So today with
me I have their um assistant director of
nursing and their chief operating
officer for Peak and Summit Behavioral
Health. So before they join me, just a a
quick background. We contracted we the
county contracted with Summit in May of
2024. So two years ago. the um first
eight months from May to December was
startup time for them to hire, for them
to get credentialed with um credentialed
and contracted with all of the managed
care organizations, staff training, and
everything that it takes to start up a a
program. And in January of 2025, they
began operations. At that point, the
county was covering 100% of the
operating costs. And as they are able to
bring in Medicaid reimbursement, the
that revenue is offsetting the county's
investment. So you can see um for the
current fiscal year, we have a contract
with them for just over a million
dollars and we've paid the 888
um over the the first nine months of
this contract year.
This slide gives you information about
the billing and the potential revenue
that they will be able to bring in. And
this slide is going too fast. There we
are. Um, so they were um eligible to
bill Medicaid beginning in 2025 in July.
The VA billing was pending when I
submitted this presentation, but I was
informed, Amy told me that last week
that was approved. So, they will be able
to begin billing the VA. And those are
right now the only two allowable um
payers in the the system in in the
country. That's not a Donana County
issue. You can see in the calendar year
2025, 64% of the admissions were covered
by Medicaid. In the first quarter of
2026,
74% of the admissions were covered by
Medicaid. Our business plan estimated
that closer to 80%, but the 74 is higher
than it was under the previous operator.
So, I I think that's probably where um
where we're going to to stand is about
3/4 of the admissions are going to be
covered by by Medicaid. Um the way we
generate more of that financial
stability is by increasing the number of
people that utilize the facility each
day.
um the last or the first year, the full
calendar year of 2025, the average day
admissions were 2.5 people or admissions
per day and the goal really is to get
closer to six. But you will see based on
the information that Sarah's going to
provide today that they are getting
closer to that goal. So I would like to
invite Sarah to come up and provide you
with some information. She has the
calendar year utilization data and the
first quarter of 2026.
Sarah, all you do is just you can push
the down arrow. Okay.
Hi, my name is Sarah Willis. I'm the
assistant director of nursing at the
Crisis Triage Center. I'm accompanied by
the COO, CNO of Peak, Mario Guzman. Um,
and I just wanted to take a second to
thank you and the board of commissioners
for your curation of the CTC prior to
even my leadership and all the hands
that have gone into CTC including uh
Jamie. Um, so starting with the calendar
year of 2025,
we had a total of 957 admissions for the
year of 2025.
We had a high of 92 admissions in
September and a low of 64 admissions in
March.
And again, it was an average of 2.5
admissions per day.
This is a justice system breakdown of
the referrals that we got for CTC in
2025. It was a pretty steady referral
amount from the justice system. um
anywhere from the high teens to high 20s
and November was the highest with 29
guest drop offs from the justice system
and in June it was 17 guest drop offs.
Um and the justice uh system including
LCPD, Dazzo, the state police, um Lucia
Valley Marshals, the fire department and
light team.
Uh here you can see the arrival sources
for 2025 and a breakdown of those, but
I'll highlight um the top three. So
there the our highest referral um was
was walk-ins. I believe there's a stigma
that we get majority of our referrals
from law enforcement. Um this data shows
that actually a lot of our referral
source is straight walk-in or um family
bringing in guests. Um we had 522 guests
uh walk in. Um and then we had 301 from
the justice system and 70 from mental
health referrals. These just being from
outpatient referrals um and other mental
health providers that were involved in
that one
for discharge disposition data in 2025.
Um, as you can see here, the top three
were to impatient, to home with
referrals, and to temporary housing. Um,
home with referrals. All of our clients
left with a follow-up um, appointment of
some sort. They weren't just discharged
back to the street without some type of
follow-up care. Um,
just to note that, um, you will see that
there was an increase in impatient
dispositions here. Um but I believe that
this is just a testimony to um show how
much CTC is needed for the community.
Another uh misconception that we have
for CTC is um we do have that um power
to turn guest status from voluntary to
involuntary with our provider oversight.
And um I know that a common common rumor
right now is that we are switching
patients involuntary in order to get
those inpatient numbers up. But actually
um for 2025 we only had 33 involuntary
patients
for 2026 overview and updates. I started
with CTC in the end of January. So the
the beginning of the year was really um
working with our staff um and creating
that basis so that we could really grow
from there. Um just like anything else,
it runs on customer service to these
guests and making sure that they're
getting that service needed. So um with
that focus, um
hold on one second.
These numbers aren't correct.
Um, I'm just going to skip to
this one. So, the breakdown for referral
sources in 2026, um we had 132 so far
come in for walk-in um and we had 104
come from the justice system and 42 from
referrals from medical uh mental health
um associations. And then um our fourth
that I wanted to point it out is we've
had um 17 come from medical
uh in total. I just a way of looking at
it is 104 people were kept out of the
detention center and given a second
chance versus um them going um and being
admitted through the detention center.
So I think that was a huge win. And then
also 17 people redirected from the ERS
this year um is also a big win for us.
Um, so January, I know that this is for
quarter 1, but for um like month to
date, like current, we've served 456, so
we're now at an average of three per
day. Um, which has grown and we're at a
plus 23 yeartoday admissions. Um, June
has been a great month for us and we're
starting to see the pickup of marketing.
Um, we also started with a court liaison
in May, um, which has also helped us
push the CTC mission throughout the
county.
Uh, discharge disposition for 2026.
Starting with our first one, you can see
that there is a huge increase from 2025
to 2026 to acute impatient. Um I believe
that this again just reinforces the need
um for the community. Uh they don't get
into inpatient if they're not meeting
that criteria. And just to know that
amount of patients that we're getting
through CTC are meeting that criteria um
is very powerful data that we've
tracked. Um 46 have gone to home. Um
counseling services 19 temporary housing
16. Just to note a few others. Um,
another thing I want to highlight on
this chart is that we've c made zero
calls to law enforcement due to uh
patients we weren't able to handle as
staff. Um, our staff is Ukiru trained.
Um, if you're not familiar with this,
this is a blocking system technique that
prevents having to use the use of
restraints and it's a very
trauma-informed
um training. Uh, yukiro means to
receive. So, our actual monthtodate uh
or year-to-ate restraints for 2026 is
only two restraints that we've had to
use actual CPI training for.
For
moving forward, sorry.
For 2026, um we've had six readmissions
in January, 11 readmissions in March,
and February we had four. and in April
we had 10. Um again just reiterating
that I believe um these readmissions
just goes to show our service excellence
is working um that these patients are
willing to come back to CTC in order to
get placed. Um if you're very familiar
with working with mental health, you
know that a lot of these um clients go
back and forth and have highs and lows
um and we're being that source for them
through these times.
summit contributions to CTC.
Uh, one of the biggest ones I want to
highlight is the staff coverage. We've
borrowed directly from Peak. We've
borrowed three to four BHAs per week and
one to two nurses per week. Um, and
there's always constant ongoing
recruiting um, for the facility. Right
now, we're recruiting CPSWs, RNs, BHAs,
and therapists.
um we simply would would not be able to
run without the mentorship and guidance
that I've had through not just alone
with the peak leadership but with the
peak staff. Um there's been times the
nursing supervisors at peak have taken
the floor in order to provide a tech um
over to CTC um which is a big ask and
not easy either.
Um peak training is also the one that
trains um all of CTC staff. So CPR, CPI
and Ukira training is um provided
through peak
maintenance overall. We are responsible
for the fire um and generator drills.
Um, and then they're also responsible or
our maintenance director through Peak is
responsible for creating those work
orders with the county and we've been
working um closely with the maintenance
director of the county as well to get
those work orders. Um, Peak has pharmacy
coverage that overlooks CTC's pharmacy
coverage as well, and they're
responsible for verifying and refilling
all of um the pharmacy on a weekly
basis.
Infection control is also through peak.
Um so there is monthly hand hygiene
surveillance and review and regular
cleaning scheduling for the facility
again through um peaks um oversight.
Uh lastly transportation we have drop
off to community partners post DC via
vehicle provided through summit. Um in
2026 um we've started tracking more
closely. We've actually transferred 21
to Messia Valley Hospital for inpatient
services and 53 to Peak.
For outreach efforts, um we had an open
house on June 4th. We were expecting
um 40 to 60 people and we actually ended
up having 146 community partners come
and tour CTC which was a great event,
very successful. Um we are pending um
the wellness fair hosted at CTC in
collaboration with Los Cus's Fire
Department and um 911. Um we're pending
the dates for that. We're also looking
at starting a first responders Fridays.
So every Friday for a month there will
be an open house to firefighters, PD and
sheriffs for coffee and donuts. Visits
will include in continued education or
for education um provided by myself as
the ADO.
Um right now we are also working on
reoccurrent meetings with several
different partners. Um, we have a
recurrent meeting already started with
Llinica de Familia, uh, Los Cru's Fire
Department, light team, three crosses,
trans and queer block party, and we're
waiting confirmation from directors for
monthly meetings for MSIA Valley, DASO,
Los Cusus PD, Community of Hope, NMSU,
DACC, Regional 2, and EMS. We're in the
process of making those ones set in
stone. um for current and upcoming
collaborative events. We're also working
with both NMSU and DACC
um for their um student events and
getting into their orientations
um and just overall any wellness fairs.
Uh we are also working closely with the
Los Cusus uh school district and trying
to work with getting into parent teacher
conferences
and we're planned participation also in
the wellness expo for August 29th this
year.
Um, one thing I want to highlight is
that we are doing frequent daily street
marketing. Just um, going out onto the
street and marketing, whether it's at a
motel, Walmart, Shell, the gas stations.
Um, one thing that I've taught my team
is that mental health has no specific
face. So, it could be somebody that
looks perfectly normal in the community.
Um, so that's why we're just reaching
out everywhere we possibly can and not
just um trying to work with meetings and
get community partners on board. We're
also just reaching out to the community
community themselves, excuse me.
Um, so the goals for our outreach is to
increase the awareness of the crisis
triage center. Um, I've been pushing the
crisis triage center more specifically
the past um, two months and you'd be
surprised how many community partners
still haven't heard about the triage
center. Um, so that's been very
enlightening. And then um, strengthen
strengthening the relationships with the
community. Um, one thing that I'm very
proud to say is that CTC has not been
short staffed to a point where there's
no nurse on shift. I know there was a
conception where um we weren't accepting
patients or we were deferring because we
didn't have a shift on nurse since since
I've been a director since January. Um
we've had that consistent client care.
Um so that's helping strengthen the
relationships a lot. um improving
referral coordination, the reoccurring
um meetings that we've had with Los
Cru's Fire Department and um just the
other other partners. I always provide
feedback of where where their referrals
ended up going, whether it was impatient
or whether it was outpatient services.
is um I provide that information and I I
believe that's strengthening um the
coordination and it's also giving them a
look of oh they're not just going back
to the streets like I've been hearing or
whatever they hear from other people. Um
it's kind of eliminating those rumors
that have been going around. Um and then
also to promote early intervention and
community based support services. Um,
there's been several times we've walked
up to people and we've handed them a
flyer or just talked to them one-on-one
and then they've ended up at our
services within the next few hours. Um,
so that early intervention has also been
really big for CTC's growth.
Um, that is what I have to present for
2025 and 2026.
Thank you.
Commissioners, questions, comments?
Commissioner Kimble, Mr.
Um I did attend the um Bi Sarah, thanks
for coming.
I did attend the open house and it was
really full of people. I mean so many
people came and they were really pleased
and I agree with you Sarah until
recently a lot of people in the
community still didn't know about the
crisis triage center and I can see the
difference now as y'all are getting out
and I think it's really helpful and
we've got to make this place successful
anyway that we can help you keep it
going. and we can't let it we can't let
it fail again and we can't let it stay
empty like it did for so many years. So,
we can see that you're I can see that
you're doing a lot of good work there
and and I'm hearing good things about it
as well as going to the open house and
seeing good things and the place was
clean. It was really really clean and
sometimes you got a 24-hour place. It's
kind of hard to keep it clean.
So, that's it.
Thank you, Commissioner Kendall.
Commissioner Chado,
thank you
Sarah. Wow. I went to the open house as
well and it was such a difference
between when I went a year and a half
ago to June 4th. [clears throat]
You have an exceptional team. Everybody
was engaged uh excited about the crisis
triage center. So, thank you for your
hard work and I look forward to seeing
your team out on the or unincorporated
parts of the county because I think it's
so important to reach out to places like
Chaparan and Hatch. Um, Anthony, we we
have um people that could be guests
there. So, good for you. Keep doing a
good a good job. Thank you.
Thank you, Sarah. I know. Commissioner
Commissioner, please. I'll
No. Um, thank you, Mr. chair, thank you
for joining us today. This was great.
This is exactly what I think we needed
to see to see the growth and see the
success um and the future continued
success. So, thank you for this. I love
that you're getting out there. I think
that's amazing. That's exactly why we
wanted a [clears throat] a local
operator for so long was because we
wanted that tie to community. We wanted
to have those conversations and you're
doing exactly that. So, thank you so
much. I really love to see that and I
hope we can get more people utilizing it
because it is a great resource in our
community. So, thank you.
Thank you, Commissioner. Uh, sir, I know
you you got to head out here. Um, but
just wanted
just want to say thank you for the
presentation. Um I I would ask in in um
and you don't have to answer this now,
but I think in as you continue to to
work on your outreach efforts, if there
are any other suggestions that we can do
as a as uh county administration or
anything else we can do to support this
or find other ways to engage people to
to use the CTC, um please let us know.
Um, I think you and your team are the
ones that are on the front lines serving
the people. So, you guys, I believe,
will have some of the best uh
information and and suggestions that
that might help us. Um, you know,
the thing that I I really appreciate
about the CTC is that with it being 247,
it is accessible and if people can know,
you know, they're in crisis, yes, they
can do 988. And I know there wasn't a
lot of of transfers and I know there's
there's a lot of there's a lot more to
that that whole puzzle there between 9
and8 and transferring but um you know
I think knowing if if people do know
that it's there for them to use and and
they have a resource um it means so
much. Um and I just think like said the
outreach efforts I appreciate everything
you're doing. Uh but again, if there's
any other way we can support it or any
other suggestions you have so that way
we can find ways for additional
utilization um you know I think we're
we're all ears because I think from the
comments we all support what you're
doing and appreciate you what the team
is doing out there.
Thank you.
And Mr. Chair, if I may last comment
here.
Um Jamie,
your hard work has not gone unnoticed.
You've been working on this since I
first became a commissioner and that's
been six years.
I feel like I've been working this since
I became an employee here. [laughter]
Thank you. Thank you for making this
dream part of the county and this dream
for part of for our constituents.
You are an exceptional representative
for our community. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it.
Just I want to touch three things real
quick. you had talked about a recent
meeting you had with three crosses um
the ED there and then the result of that
you shared with me. Do you mind sharing
that?
Yes. So um recently I started a weekly
basis meeting with three crosses every
single Monday. Um, and what I've found
within the last two weeks, um, is I've
basically put myself as a point of
contact for CTC and the charge nurses
that are needing to get clients out out
of the ER. Um, and just this past
weekend, they've referred 11 to me and I
accepted all 11 um, from them. So, I was
on call on all weekend and um it I think
what prior was happening was the nurses
were like, "Oh, I want a repeat of this
lab and that lab." And there was um the
discouragement to send clients to us.
And when I got to the bottom of what was
happening in that process, um I just
made myself the point of contact and
took out that component and the patients
were already accepted at CTC. Um, so
that was um basically our admission over
the weekend.
So 11 people didn't have to sit in the
emergency department and it's proven and
we know from research and from people
that the emergency department is much
more traumatizing. These folks were able
to come into a safe place um where they
were more appropriately cared for thanks
to your work. So I appreciate that. um
the opioid settlement funds. We also
approved some funding for the CTC to
hire a justice liaison and that
individual is not only working with the
detention center but we'll be working
closely with community of hope and
Amadore. So um Sarah already has
meetings set up with them to do more
targeted um outreach and hopefully
transportation to connect people to the
emergency department. And then
Commissioner Chapado, we were also able
to use some of the state's behavioral
health funding and some of our local
opioid settlement funds for Llinica to
expand their ACT team into the rural
community, which um again will then be a
natural connection to the CTC,
especially for ACT teams on the evenings
and weekend hours in the rural
communities when they don't have a place
and a community member may not be safe
where they are. um getting them to the
CTC will be uh of great benefit. So
those are some things that are on the
horizon and I hope to come back in six
months and tell you how successful they
are as well.
Awesome.
Thank you.
Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you all.
Okay. Uh next item is uh number nine,
the county investment portfolio update.
So, I'll turn it over to
our treasure. No, our deputy treasure,
but uh treasure Richardson. Hi.
[laughter]
Sorry. I just want to at least
acknowledge I see you there. So,
bring her bring her up here.
Good afternoon, chair, commissioners,
county treasure, Bonnie Richardson. Um
I've always said I don't have to be the
smartest person in the room. I just have
to associate myself with them. Um Eric
does an excellent job with our
portfolio. So um naturally he will be
providing a presentation on how well
we've been doing and provide you some
information on some um information we've
been working with budget and finance. Um
so with no further ado
there you go.
What we're learning in Toastmasters is
you have to do the handshake when you
hand the podium over. So that's the
proper etiquette. Uh Mr. Chair, members
of the board, Eric Rodriguez, chief
deputy treasurer. I'm here on behalf of
the treasur's office to provide to you
the investment update uh for the county
and of course for the public. Uh but
before I do, I just wanted to
acknowledge two different things. And
the first one is I want to acknowledge
our investment advisory board. uh this
board actually approved uh Commissioner
Shao Hernandez to be a member of the
advisory committee and so I want to
thank him for his service. Um I also
want to acknowledge Miss Julia Brown who
h was our member at large from the
community who served two years on the
board. Um her term was over in our last
meeting in in May. And we recently added
a new board member for Miss Laura Gene
who's vice president of Century Bank. Uh
the board the sorry the committee is
made up of f different members and it's
the treasurer, the finance director, the
county manager, a member from the
commission, two members from the local
community, local banking community, and
a member of the community at large. And
so the advisory committee is the purpose
is to serve as an oversight committee to
advise uh the county treasurer on their
investment activities and and uh
strategies. The second thing I wanted to
acknowledge, and this is [clears throat]
in reference to the special audit, is I
wanted to ensure the commission and the
public that the county's investment
portfolio remains secured, fully
accounted for, and managed in full
compliance with state statutes, county
comic,
and our established investment
practices. I think it's important to
note that the special audit and any
audits for that matter um from those we
have not had any significant or any
discrepancies or any compliance issues
with the management of our investment
portfolio. Every penny is accounted for.
I will go further to say that the office
of the county treasurer did not have any
findings that would impede, affect or
affect the security, accounting or the
performance of the portfolio. We
continue to create, implement and
enforce sound policies and procedures
and under the leadership of our county
treasuren,
we continue to enhance and improve our
practices, our best practices at the
treasur's office. So, I think that's
something to celebrate from our
department. Uh and so with that I will
go ahead and get started and I believe
this is the one. No.
So actually before I go just the period
that we're covering here is the third
quarter of fiscal year 2026 which spans
from June of last year to March 31st of
this year. The objectives of the
portfolio are always the same. Safety,
liquidity, and return. Safety of the
portfolio. This is just saying we don't
invest in anything that it puts the
county's tax dollars at risk. Um I'm
looking at you Bitcoin and other you
know other investments like stocks. We
make sure that we maintain liquidity and
that's just ensuring that do we meet our
expected expenditures. And finally our
last u objective is return. Return is
just ensuring that we do get some kind
of return on our investment for our
buck. So we do prioritize that but it is
our third priority not our first
priority.
I won't go through [clears throat] the
executive summary but I'll just recap
the summary portfolio of uh the last 12
months. So our operating cash at the
reporting period of March 31st was 1.9
million and that's just saying that this
is how much we're spending. That's how
much we had in the bank account in our
checking account to to spend money. As
you can see the bulk of our cash is
sitting in the portfolio balance. That
tells you that we are putting every
dollar to work as we receive it,
ensuring that we get some return from
it. The total balance as of this
reporting period was 162 million. Um the
lowest within the last 12 months, the
lowest balance that we've had in the
portfolio was 149 million, the highest
going up to 241 million. That's simply
because of the property tax collections
that uh cycles that we go through. We
collect taxes, we distribute them. So
our portfolio balances does fluctuate.
The rolling balance uh the rolling
average balance in the last 12 months is
179 million on the value of the
portfolio. Uh the market value of this
period uh of this reporting period was
159 million. That means that if we were
to sell every single asset in our
holdings, we would get 159 million. We
paid 160 million. So yes, we would take
a loss of 127,000. that's actually a
very small uh loss uh or or unrealized
loss if we were to liquidate everything
at that point. And what that tells you
is that our investment strategy is
investing at par, not investing in
anything that is um risky. Um but also
is that the way we structure our
portfolio is that it doesn't expose us
to very much interest rate risk or any
risk of of value. Um, and so for that
number to be so close to the market, the
book value to the market value just
tells you that we're being very cautious
in how we invest. Now, we do hold
everything we are buy and hold
strategies. So, we do hold everything to
maturity. So, because we don't have to
sell anything at market value, we won't
take these losses. They are unrealized.
If we do wait until maturity, we
actually have a small gain of about
$400,000 or $500,000. And so, um, that
is our strategy. We just don't go out
there and do arbitrage where we buy low,
sell high. We buy it, hold it until it
matures. Our performance metric here is
our effective rate of return is 3.66%.
Uh portfolio duration that just tells
you the u sensitivity to rate in
increases or decreases in the market and
the exposure that the portfolio is
exposed to with those changes. Um that
duration is at 1.84 in eight four years.
And that just tells you that um if there
is an increase in interest rates,
normally the value of the portfolio just
plummets because you could get higher
rates at the current market than you did
when you purchased it back in the day.
Um and so because of the shortness of
our duration, we were not exposed to
that value risk of it going down. Um and
and it's just making sure that we we
don't expose a county to too much of
that risk. Um another way they also
explain this is if I dumped all our
money in a 5-year US Treasury, then
interest rates change, then we are
having bigger fluctuations in value and
exposing the county portfolio to more
risk of losses. Uh the benchmarks that
we set for ourselves is the US Treasury,
the two-year US Treasury, and we also
compare ourselves to New Mexico local
government investment pool, which is
managed by the state treasur. As you
could see, we're pretty on par with the
local government investment pool. The
U2E US Treasury is outpacing us a little
bit, but these are not really good
comparisons. They're not apple to apple
comparisons, but it's something that we
at least like to benchmark so we know
that, you know, if we're significantly
below or significantly above those
numbers, then there's something to worry
about. Um, our target duration is 1 and
1/2 years to 2 and 1/2 years. As you can
see, we're at 1.84. So, we're meeting
that metric and staying staying fairly
safe in where we put our money in terms
of a maturity schedule.
the portfolio balance. This worksheet
right or this spreadsheet right here
just shows you more uh where our
balances have gone in the last 12 months
and and the purpose of this is to show
you specifically
um how the draw downs in our reserves
have been occurring to the portfolio. So
if you look at June of last year, 175
million and this is the best marker
right here because if I look at this,
this was we had property tax revenues
coming in which we're going to disperse.
That's not a really good metric. Uh but
once we disperse those property taxes,
this was our what was remaining of the
portfolio balance 175 million. We're
drawing down slowly but surely uh
throughout the months. Then we have this
spike here in property tax revenues come
in. Again, we uh we do a dispersement.
So it brings the balance back down. But
after those dispersements, what we end
up with at the end of March is $160
million. Um, so it's about from the last
June to to March, we drew it down about
$15 million. And so that's just to show
you that we are tapping into those
reserves and we are drawing down some of
that cash that's available for
investment, which affects ultimately
investment return later on, which I'll
cover.
Mr. Chair, if I can ask a I'm sorry to
interrupt, Eric,
if you can just go back to the last
slide so that I'm understanding this
um
because you're the numbers expert here.
So, I'm looking at May 2025 where we had
240 million and change.
Yeah.
And then January where we had 227
million in change.
And so those include property taxes at
that time. Am I correct? That is
correct. So is it property taxes
throughout the year or property taxes
just for that period
for the six months
just for that period. So the the prop we
we collect every month property taxes
but when we bill we bill in November. So
you have this huge influx which is why
the December mark right there you have
this huge influx of property tax
revenues come in. It's very important to
note here that the reason it spikes up
is because we collected all that cash
not only for the county but city of Los
Cruz, city of Southern Park, all the
municipalities. These are all property
tax revenues for everybody. The reason
it drops down is because we disperse
those the following month.
So, we're taking advantage of those cash
uh balances that we have in our books
and investing those while they're at the
custody of the county. Once we disperse
it, then that's where those balances
draw down. And that's why I don't want
to make the comparison in May to March
because in May or December to March
because we have um in the c our custody
somebody else's money that we're
investing let's put it that way and so
that's why I'm comparing once we
disperse those revenues what we're left
with is just our money and that's why
the June balance of 175 it's just our
money that's left couple maybe a couple
of collections from property taxes but
not significant enough to you know
change the whole
Um and that's why I make those
comparisons after we do those
dispersements.
Okay. Second question. So you said you
we have custody of other municipalities
monies. How how long do we retain that?
Is it 30 days?
Less than 30 days.
Yeah. We we do disperse immediately
after the month of after the period of
collection. We do disperse them back out
to the entities typically around the
20th of the following month. And so
while that's in our custody, we take
advantage of it and we invest it as fast
as we can.
All right. So we have a return of less
than 30 days wherever the money is.
All right. Thank you.
Y
So how do we diversify our investment
portfolio? Well, we put it into a um
agencies, CDs, money market accounts. Um
this time last year if you looked at
this graph it would probably be half of
it would be gray where we were holding a
lot of cash. Uh but slowly as we started
seeing a decrease in interest rates by
the Fed Reserve we started putting our
money further out on the timetable. So
we're investing five years four years
more heavily and hence why that blue
part of the graph started increasing
because we started loading more into
government agencies. By state laws, all
the by state law, all these uh all these
asset classes right here are allowed for
us to invest. You notice that we don't
have stocks or real estate. We don't
have anything else on there that put
that would put taxpayer dollars at risk.
Um we just invest in those asset classes
that are allowed by law and are safest.
Um and so that you know it's it's a
pretty well distributed graph uh
considering that we were once very very
heavy in cash. We still are heavy in
cash. uh but that distribution you know
it's being dispersed out to different uh
different maturity dates and also
different types of investments.
This next table is very much the same
thing. It just puts it down to you in
dollar format and also sets the limits.
Um we mitigate risk of what's called
concentration risk and not making sure
that we don't invest in just one thing.
For example, let's say we invested all
the money in municipal bonds or the US
Treasury notes. Um, you know, that would
create concentration risk and so we
spread that risk out and on the far
right hand side you see the limits bar.
Um, we that is by our policy how much we
are allowed to invest in each asset
class and if you look at the percentage
of the total you'll see that we're
meeting that limit and not going over
it. Uh so this is just a breakdown of
and and also a compliance um marker here
to ensure that we're not going outside
of our our limits of of concentration of
investment.
Another way to put it, we're not putting
all our eggs in one basket. So
maturity distribution. Maturity
distribution here shows you in a
timetable when we will get our money
back. Uh so zero to one years we have
most of our cash there because our cash
balances are pretty heavy. Luckily for
us uh interest rates are in a really
good position right now. So we're not
losing money to investing out three,
four, five years. Uh so we have stayed
pretty heavy on cash. Another reason we
want to stay heavy on cash is right now
there's a lot of uncertainty on you know
expenditures and and and um accounts
payables or things like that that we
just wanted to make sure that we were uh
fairly healthy on our cash balances and
so we remained healthy on our cash
balances. uh the interest rates that
we've had in the last five years, six
years, it it really was to our benefit
of staying good, staying short uh
because we really capitalized on those
higher interest rates in the short term.
Um you do see over here at the end of
it, uh you see a little dip and it kind
of goes up a little bit here. That's a
barbell effect. And what we're doing
there is when we started seeing interest
rate cuts in 2024, we saw about three of
them and two of them last year in 25. we
since we started seeing a rate a cut a
rate cut environment we started trying
to lock in those longer term rates and
hence why we loaded up on the five plus
years um I'll talk a little bit about
rates in a little bit but it it's just
you know it that changes so much from
month to month and so we just you
looking at the information and the data
that we have we use our you know our our
best u estimates to what potentially
could happen and try to capture as much
return as we So hence why we have that
little increase in the five plus years.
Um but nevertheless the maturity
distribution is a good distribution. You
always want to see it high up in the
short term and kind of go down the
longer it gets. You don't want to have
all your money over here at the end of
the tail of that
credit quality. This is just to assure
everybody that we don't invest in
anything that's risky. I put a Moody
scale there for reference to show that
we don't um we don't invest in anything
lower than high grade. And so we have
AAA rated $40 million where our
portfolio is sitting in AAA rated
assets. Um and then it just goes down
nothing lower than a A2 plus. Um then we
have FDIC insurance. A lot of our local
banks um sorry not local banks, a lot of
our brokered CDs are FDIC insurance.
Those are increments of $250,000 per
bank. We have $14 million worth of
brokered uh CDs. We have collateralized
assets and that's local banks that will
hold our money, but because they're
holding public money, they have to
collateralize that public money by tying
up their own money. Um, and we have $9
million of that. Um recently we started
accepting letters of credit and this is
to the bank local bank's benefit in that
instead of tying up their money to hold
our money they could just give us what's
called a letter of credit and it's
basically a promise to pay uh if their
bank defaults and they have this we have
this letter of credit to go to the bank
and say we still need to get our money
back. Um and I think this is a benefit
to a local community because local banks
will not be tying up county or public
money. uh they will be able to have that
though for example that collateralized 9
million they could use that to then lend
out back to the community and put it
back locally.
Uh the next slide is our earnings trend.
This right here just gives you a
comparison of what we've earned in 24 25
and currently in 26. As you can see in
25 was probably one of our highest
earning years. Of course, that was
because of interest rates. But in FY25,
which would have been the year, the end
of the year of 20 to 2024 is when we
started seeing rate cuts and you could
see that decrease in revenue in our
investments coming in for FY26. Um,
we're projecting to go over 5 million uh
but not too much over and we definitely
fortunately not going to get as close as
we were to FY25.
This is just a breakdown of those uh
numbers just by month. And uh to your
question, Commissioner Shapo, this shows
you in those peak months as we increase
as we get those collections. Then during
uh property tax season, we invest that
money, we capitalize on those balances
to invest those. And that's why we get a
little bit higher return January,
December, February because we're holding
those funds. and February actually just
shows it because we don't get the money
that's invested in December, January
sometimes until the following month. Uh
but that's just a breakdown of our
investment of our investment returns by
month.
And then finally we have our investment
compliance uh report card. This right
here we put it into three categories.
Safety, liquidity and return. Um the
first one in safety is we try to
mitigate different kinds of risks. the
concentration, maturity, credit risk,
interest rate risk. I won't go into
detail as to what kind of risk these
are. Um, but we have parameters for how
to manage those risks. And as I showed
you earlier in a graph that showed, you
know, we're not putting all our eggs in
one basket and we're meeting these
limits. Um, that is that is the
mitigating factor that we have for
concentration risk and so we are in
compliance to making sure that we're not
exposed to that. Um, the next category
is liquidity. and liquidity. We just
want to make sure that we have money to
pay our bills. Um we uh on our cash
flows, we meet all our operating needs
for the budgetary cycle. So we know what
the budget looks like. We could
anticipate those uh anticipated
expenditures, those that static
liquidity. And then there's dynamic
liquidity uh which we want to make sure
that we have money for unanticipated
budget demands. Um because we're so cash
heavy, we easily meet that requirement.
The final report card uh measure here is
our return on this one. We have a no in
compliance there. And the reason for
that and it's a good reason uh is
because the metric that we're comparing
our benchmark to is a three-month US
Treasury bill. And this is what's on our
investment policy. When you compare your
portfolio to a three-month US Treasury
bill, it's not a good comparison. It's
not a good comparison because we invest
in as you know saw earlier we invest in
assets that go out five years, four
years, three years. We invest in assets
that are a little bit riskier than the
US Treasury. Uh and so the US Treasury
benchmark, it's not a applesto apples
comparison. Um, and because of where
interest rates are right now, the at the
time when we did this report, the US
Treasury, the three-month US Treasury,
which much was much higher than what we
could earn ourselves, uh, investing in
our effective return rate of return for
the whole portfolio. Um, so we will be
proposing to the investment committee a
new metric for this which averages out
uh, the returns and will be a better
comparison to what we are actually
investing in. Nevertheless, it's better
for us not to meet this metric. that
would just mean that we would be we
would not be investing anything and
everything would just be in a very
short-term um investment uh asset and
that's probably not the best strategy as
that would violate our concentration
risk, maturity risk and all these other
risk factors. So,
so moving forward our strategy is to
maintain a ladder structure to spread
risk and lock in higher rates. Uh we
stay invested in high credit quality
instruments to hedge credit risk. We
limit exposure to non-government issuers
and continue using collateralized
deposits uh and governmentbacked in
instruments. We secure long calls and
bullets holdings. And then we monitor
cash flow projections through
communication with the county. Um, this
is just ensuring that every time that
there's going to be anticipated
expenditures or draw downs, we know
about them so that we don't have to sell
any of our assets to get cash. We have
the cash available. Economic
considerations. These are external
considerations that we're often
monitoring uh to see how we're going to
change the portfolio strategy. U as of
the as of the reporting date March 31st,
the Fed has signaled a posture towards a
more hawkish that means cautious on
interest rate cuts. They are holding
back on interest rate cuts during that
time primarily because of the Iran war.
Uh current CPI at that time was 3.2. The
Fred target is still 2%. Uh US crude was
at 104 and Brent was at $111 per barrel.
Projections at that time uh continued uh
weak job creation and the private sector
hiring remains cautious. Um S&P and
NASDAQ were reaching record highs. uh
the market was unfased by the war in
Iran. AI driving a lot of the market
increases uh in in in stock market
currently. That was as of March 31st.
Since then things have really changed.
Uh so April CPI came out as a matter
April came out CPI came out last month
and that was at 3.8%.
Um WTI and Brent went uh WTI went from
104 in March to $87 a barrel. Brent went
from 111 to $91 a barrel today. Uh the
unemployment rate which uh those numbers
came out on Friday. The unemployment
rate is 4.3% and jobs added was
$172,000.
Um in the last three months they've
averaged to 188,000 new jobs being added
in the workforce. What does that mean to
us as a county? Well, as the Fed looks
at these new numbers and they see a
strong jobs market, they see people
working. Um wage uh wages haven't really
increased, but they've remained stable.
Um the price of uh barrel oil is coming
down a little bit, but not that much. It
still signal signals inflation, and the
Fed's primary concern is inflation. They
want to get to that 2% target. We're
going to get CPI numbers tomorrow and
everybody's watching that because if
it's a high CPI number then that might
signal that the Fed is going to increase
rates instead of cut rates. A couple
months ago it people were anticipating
rate cuts later this year and now we're
looking at rate increases. So for us
sitting on all that cash if we do see
those rate increases that is good for
our portfolio as we will generate more
revenue from it. Um and so that's why we
keep an eye on these things to see what
should we lock in do now do we take
advantage of those longer term rates um
but you know like we don't necessarily
just base it on that we continue to
maintain as I mentioned up up on top
strategy is a lateral approach as assets
come due we do invest them it's where do
we invest them five years out one year
out or do we invest it in the short term
um and so those are considerations that
we are always looking at uh as well as
budget considerations ations budget
impacts. Uh we are looking at reserve
draw downs. I've been keeping an eye on
the budget meetings that you have been
approving and it looks like now I
believe it's the $50 million that we
will be drawing down in FY27. So we are
considering though that as well and
ensuring that we have sufficient cash
for those draw downs.
Mr. Chairman, members of the board, that
is my presentation. I will stand for any
questions if you have them. like to make
a disclaimer that uh all information
provided does not replace a personal
investment strategy for those for those
who are personal financial advisor do
not trust this guy. [laughter]
Thank
you. Appreciate it, sir. Commissioners,
any questions?
Mr. [laughter] Chair,
Treasurer Richardson, I just like to
thank you. government isn't exciting
sometimes,
but I'm so glad that we can trust you
and your office
uh to do this because you've always been
so dependable and as you mentioned, you
didn't have any audit findings. So,
congratulations, Treasure Richardson, to
you and your staff. I appreciate you
tremendously. And if we can get a 20%
return on our monies, Eric, that would
be awesome. Yeah, I I probably would be
working somewhere else. [laughter]
Well, thank you, commissioners.
Thank you. Appreciate it. And thank you
again for for everything. Um I know,
like I said, I think we we've going
through and seeing the performance and
seeing what you've been able to do with
our with our funds. Um appreciate that
it's in in good hands and that uh really
being able to explain how how the
investment strategy works to show the
public that it's not um risky
investments. It's done uh with a
strategy uh in mind.
Yeah, absolutely. And I always say uh
you know, as long as we follow state
law, it's like bowling with the rails
up, you know, we it would be hard to
miss. So, just following those policies
and having those policies and and
procedures and and so that is very
helpful to to our cause. So, thank you
guys very much.
Thank you.
All right. Uh, next item is agenda item
number 11. It's the under minutes, the
regular meeting minutes for May 26th,
2026 and the special meeting and work
session minutes from June 2nd, 2026. If
I can get a motion, a second to approve.
So moved.
Motion by Commissioner Seljand, second
by Commissioner Chapo.
Any comments, changes to the meeting
minutes?
And Brandy, do a roll call on the
meeting minutes, please.
Oh, are we not?
We're having some technical
difficulties.
Oh, Commissioner Sha Hernandez,
yes. Commissioner Kimble,
yes.
Commissioner Commissioner Chapo,
yes.
I, Chair Sanchez, vote yes. And so with
that, it's uh it is approved. 4 Z
and I'm back on.
We can do this.
All righty.
Awesome. All right. Uh, agenda item
number 12, uh, which is to approve the
use of the New Mexico State pricing
agreement 30-0000-22-00008
with Flock Group, Inc. for license plate
reader, cameras, and annual subscription
services in the amount of 162,000 and
delegate signature authority to the
county manager for all related
documents. I get a motion and a second
to approve.
I'll move approval if I can get a
second.
All right. I have a second by
Commissioner Shraandez.
And we have uh under sheriff Robert Para
coming up. Um
I don't know if there's any full
present. Do you have a presentation on
this or
just available for any questions, sir?
All right. And we also have Lieutenant
Eric Flores who oversees that project
and is the expert with the data
collection collection of the data.
Perfect. I I well I'll defer to the
other commissioners if there's any
questions.
Okay.
Okay. Um
I did you have one Commissioner Kimble?
Okay. I I'll start with one real quick.
I I was kind of w with the with the
latest safer uh safe communities
agreement um and how the data is shared.
I know generally speaking uh you utilize
it with local law enforcement agencies
such as Lasus PD uh the town of Messia
and so on but just trying to ensure that
uh the data that is collected through
the flock cameras is not uh being
utilized for uh federal immigration
enforcement. That is correct, sir. We're
well aware of the uh SP40, [snorts]
the safety act, and rest assured that
the data that is collected is not
released to any federal agency, more
specifically ICE. We have a an agreement
with Flock and it is confidential. Um,
so we are in compliance. The the act is
in effect, I believe, July 1 of of this
year. So, we are already in compliance
and we do conduct our audits as well. So
it stays within New Mexico.
Okay. Commission.
Thank you. Thank you, Chair Sanchez.
I had a member of the public ask rather
pointed questions about this that I
didn't know how to answer under Sheriff.
So could you just briefly explain where
the cameras are, how they're going to be
utilized, how effective they're going to
be for the sheriff's department, please?
Okay. I'm going to yield the mic to the
expert here, Lieutenant Eric Flootus.
Good afternoon,
Lieutenant. I didn't recognize you out
of your uniform.
Yeah, I'm sorry about that. Yeah,
it's nice to see you this way.
Yes, I I work plain clothes mostly these
days. So, um just to answer your
question, um as far as the location of
the cameras, we don't uh we don't
disclose the locations of the cameras.
Um kind of defeats the purpose of the
cameras if they if everybody knows where
they're at. Um they are spread out
throughout the county in various spots.
Um, we are working on getting
approximately 20 more cameras put up.
Um, they're in permitting right now and
and as far as what they're used for, um,
primarily we use the cameras to locate
stolen vehicles. Um, that's their main
purpose is to help us locate stolen
vehicles. However, we are also able to
use the cameras um to locate suspects to
other criminal activity.
So, I have a question for you,
Lieutenant. Let's say I'm shopping at
the mall.
and somebody takes an interest in my
vehicle. How far will you be able to
track me from a camera? Is it from
camera to camera? I I'm not
understanding that. Thank you.
Yeah. So, I think the situation you're
talking about is if somebody stole your
vehicle, would how would we track it? Is
that what you mean?
Okay. Um, so we can only see the vehicle
when it passes by one of the flock
cameras. Once it passes by the flock
camera, the camera will then take a
picture of that camera. If for instance
your vehicle was a stolen vehicle and
you reported it stolen, then we could
enter that information into the flock
system and if your vehicle was to pass
one of the cameras, then it would send
us an alert that that stolen vehicle
just passed that camera and and any
subsequent subsequent cameras that it
would then pass.
So that camera is a continuous feed and
you can take shots of whomever is
strolling by a car that's passing. Is it
just specific to vehicles in other
words? Yes, it's only specific to
vehicles. It is a live feed, so it's
constantly taking pictures of every
vehicle that passes through it. Uh, but
it we it only gives us whatever vehicles
we query. So, if we were to want to use
the system for a specific vehicle, we
would have to request that information,
say, enter the vehicle description or
license plate number, and then the
system would let us know if that vehicle
passed by one of our systems. One of the
safeguards to it not being improperly
used is that um if we were to say search
for a particular vehicle when we do that
search, it has to have a case number
assigned to the search. And that's part
of part of our audit process and that's
also part of um the requirements for um
the Senate Bill 40. And so that's a
safeguard for us not just looking at
every single vehicle that passes by a
camera. We can only look at vehicles
that are related to a specific crime
and only to a crime, not just for public
surveillance. Is that correct?
Yes, correct.
Thank you.
Any other questions?
You all asked the questions that I was
thinking as well. So, thank you for
doing that.
Okay. Is there any public input on this
item?
Okay.
With that, uh, Randy, if you'll do a
roll call on agenda item number 12.
Commissioner Shelnandez,
yes.
Commissioner Kimell,
yes.
Commissioner Chapato,
yes.
Chair Sanchez,
yes.
Thank you, gentlemen.
Thank you. Thank you, Commissioners.
Next item is 13. It's to use the CES
contract number 2026-03-R1271-L
with Smith and Agira Construction for
the general construction at the Santa
Cla Jetport maintenance shop in the
amount of $615,692.87.
If I get a motion, a second to begin
discussion moved.
Second.
I have a motion by Commissioner
Sajnandez, a second by Commissioner
Chabaro, Mr. Weaver.
Good morning, Chair Sanchez. Good
morning, Commission. Actually, good
afternoon at this point. Sorry about
that. I wish. Yes, I know. I know. So, I
am here to present this project on
behalf of Jody Young and the Jetport.
So, this is going to be a 3500 square
foot maintenance facility. We're looking
to have one section of the offices at
approximately 650 square foot. That's
going to be the office where the
maintenance staff will be housed. Um,
and for the future growth of the the
Jetport maintenance. Um, currently we're
looking to have a couple vehicles housed
in there. One is going to be the current
maintenance truck, our street or runway
sweeper. It's essentially uh what goes
out there and kind of cleans up the
tarmac for uh planes to land safely and
take off safely. And
currently, uh we have those housed out
on the tarmac itself right now, which is
taking up some
valuable uh real estate because we
actually do rent those out. So, this
will actually be located to the east of
the current Jetport facility,
and this will help improve the lifespan
and protection of that equipment.
We're funding this project through uh NM
aviation grant uh that Jod and the
Jetport received in the amount of $1
million.
And for that, that is my presentation
and I stand for questions.
Thank you. Commissioners questions.
All right.
public input.
All right, Randy, uh, if you'll do a
roll call on agenda item number 13.
Commissioner Shaldo Nandez,
yes.
Commissioner Kimble,
yes.
Commissioner Chaparo,
yes.
Chair Sanchez,
yes.
Good job, Justin.
Thank you, Commissioner. Thank you.
Next item is uh 14 to approve award of
request for proposal 26-0036
with Trinity Services Group, Inc. for
food services for the detention center
in the amount not to exceed $1.4 million
within the first contract year. The
commission is asked to delegate the
signature authority to the county
manager on all change orders and
documents related to purchase. I get a
motion and a second to approve.
So moved.
Second. I have a motion by Commissioner
Shernandez, a second by Commissioner
Chapro. Director Baker,
good afternoon. Uh, unfortunately, our
last contract uh came to the end of its
renewal, so we had to go back out to
RFP. Uh, so we issued the RFP in early
March. Uh we only had two vendors
respond and the current vendor that we
have came in uh $236,000
less than the other party and we have a
long-standing relationship with the
current provider and have been more than
happy. So uh it would we're asking to
approve the award uh to Trinity Services
Group and
I'll stand for questions.
Okay. Thank you, Commissioner.
Thank you. Yes, Mr. Chair. Thank you.
So, the trailers are gone, right, Brian?
Huh?
Are the trailers are gone and now you're
serving from the kitchen or the trailer
still there?
No, that's just reference to all the
things that they've done for us. We put
them through the ringer back with the
kitchen remodel and everything else like
that because originally they were going
to be out in trailers for three months
and then it was six months and then it
was nine months and they trucked through
and they didn't push back at us at all.
And since part of it was funded by them,
they actually kind of helped the county
out even though I keep kept telling
them, you know, you guys are there. So,
if you if you're paying for stuff that
we're supposed to be paying for, you
need to come talk to us. But they're a
good company.
And and another note, I did have a bit
of food the last time I was there.
It was tasty. Just needed more salt and
um maybe a little little bit of comino,
but apart from that, it was good food.
Thank you.
Salt is always problematic because
says cut back on salt. It's tasty.
So,
London, do you have any questions? All
right. Any public in input?
Just waiting for for someone to come
running in because they wanted to
comment on this. All right. Uh Randy,
will you do a roll call on agenda item
number 14?
Commissioner Sha Jordan.
Commissioner Kimbell,
yes.
Commissioner Chapo,
yes.
Chair Sanchez,
yes. That was approved. Thank you,
director.
Thank you. All
right. Next item, uh, agenda item 15.
It's an annexation petition submitted by
the city of Sunland Park for
approximately 1,784 acres located along
the west municipal boundary of the city
of Sunland Park and Country Club Road.
Uh, I believe I'll ask for a motion, a
second to begin discussion.
So moved. Second. Okay. Uh, so we have a
motion, a second, and turn it over to
Miss Insworth.
Thank you.
So this this ex annexation is one that
they had previously submitted uh last
fall which they did have approved as
well and um repealed and so they are
once again requesting uh or they're
they're processing an application for
the annexation. The only thing that's
different from the previous version is
that they have removed an area here on
on the northern part. Um it still
contains all of the um doughnut holes
and uh basically much of the the area
that they had previously processed for
annexation. And so they are now
requesting comments from the BOCC. We
did provide a draft letter and it has
the same comments that had been provided
by the DRC along with an additional
comment that was provided by the county
attorney's office regarding
recommendation of denial of the
annexation.
Um, and that letter is in your packet.
We do have um it's 30 days from when we
receive their their packet to provide
comments back and so um we'd like to
send them as soon as possible. And with
that, I'll stand for any questions.
Thank you, Christina. Commissioners
comments.
So, Christina, I was just talking to a
constituent about this actually today.
So, on the map, can you kind of explain
where the donut hole is again? It's
where the Yeah, right.
Yes. Um, let me see if there's a better
map.
So
areas that that are shown
largely in in color there are the ones
that
see
yeah these areas are the ones that are
in the county.
And do we know why they have yet to
include those in the annexation?
in large part because they were already
developed. And so there are multiple
property owners that live there, uh,
single family homeowners who do not want
to be included. And so they, in order
for them to do the annexation by
petition, they would need to have a
majority of those property owners
um, joining the petition for annexation.
Okay. And in the letter to
um the city of Sunland Park, we are
stating again that
uh the islands or the
the donut holes are not preferred by the
county and we would rather them annex
um
the whole
That's correct.
Okay,
that's correct. Uh the other comment
that we have in the letter is that
Country Club Road should be dedicated
either to the county or Sunland Park in
large part because uh for continuity of
maintenance of that road and for our
ability to then um accept for
maintenance roads that uh new roads that
might be uh coming off of Country Club.
Thank you.
Uh commissioners, any other questions?
No.
And just for I know you had mentioned in
here I know that's in it's the the
letter is in the agenda packet that uh
we're recommending to send. I think this
is very similar to what we've previously
sent.
That's correct.
Um
I don't know if there's any other
comments
public input.
Okay. Right. Randy do a roll call then
on agenda item number 15.
Commissioner Sha Jordan.
Uh, yes.
Commissioner Kimbell,
yes.
Commissioner Chabato,
yes.
Chair Sanchez,
yes.
Thank you.
Um, I know the next item is is item 16
to discuss on the audit findings. Um, I
got a note here that uh regarding the
ordinance about issuing bonds that uh we
do have some time constraints for those
that'll be presenting at 3:30. If
there's no uh objection to that, if we
might be able to just jump to 19 and
that way we can have that discussion
before the everybody else before uh they
have to leave. So with that, I'll I'll
go to agenda 19 and then we'll come back
to 16. Uh so agenda item number 19, it's
an ordinance authorizing the issuance
and sale of donian county general
obligations bond series 2026 in the
aggregate principal amount not to exceed
$10 million. I get a motion and a second
approve.
Thank you. I have a motion by
commissioner. I'll second the motion.
That I'll turn it over to Miss Dawwood.
Uh
good afternoon commissioners. So we do
have Mr. George Willifford from Hilltop
Securities to present this item on
geobonds.
Thank you.
Mr. Chairman and members of the
commission, it's good to be here. Uh,
you should have some information.
Yeah, I think we need to skip, sorry, we
skip ahead to the agenda item 19 for the
bonds sale.
Well, it's not. Oh,
okay.
Thank you. For the record, George
Wilford with Hilltop Securities, pardon
me, [clears throat] we're the municipal
advisor for the county and uh been
working uh originally on the election
which was passed. And I also might
mention that Katherine uh is with the
Mald firm, your bond council, Katherine
McKini as well. And so the ordinance
that you have before you is actually uh
to authorize the issuance prepared by
module. But we prepared some information
regarding the issue.
What's planned is out of the 140 million
overall authorization this would be 10
million primarily for planning purposes.
As you can see uh the dates first
interest payment would occur in March of
27 with first principal maturity in
September of that year and the final
maturity in this case uh September of
2045.
This is a uh table that shows just
really a perspective issuance of not
just the 10 million but uh it's purely
speculative as far as the timing and
relative amounts but we uh just took the
remaining 130 million and split it into
two annual issues. And you can see the
10 million is structured uh a little bit
to wrap around the existing geo debt
service to accommodate and mitigate uh
uh some of the tax rate impact initially
and then the in this case next two
issues which would be for the bulk of
the construction would be structured
with level annual payment uh in both
cases 20-year uh repayment of each of
those. I might mention the interest
rates we've used we're assuming 4.6 6%
that's above what current tax exempt
rates are. So uh hopefully uh things
will stay at least with regard to this
10 million and in the future uh
conditions such that no dramatic
increase. Everything as far as the tax
impact or projected levy is based on as
you see footnoted at the bottom uh an
assumed assessed value of 6.4 billion
which is approximate current. So as
value increases over time the required
tax rate would naturally come down as
well.
We were asked also based on that table
show the impact on individual property
owners uh in the county and you can see
that uh the top section is with respect
to this 10 million issuance and uh this
is really a two uh year. It would it
would take two years for it to elevate
quite to that amount, but it would be a
0.0832
mil uh increase. And as you'll see at
the bottom, the average home value is
288,500
in the county. And uh that would only uh
impact around $8 a year, 67 a month. So
very nominal. with respect to when the
full issuance uh has happened and full
debt service uh has kicked in the
overall uh millage rate would uh go up
to around 1.67 based on that taxable
value I mentioned that 6.4 4 billion.
You can see on the bottom part on a
monthly basis for the average home
value, that would be about a 12 point or
$12.80
uh increase uh per month. And I think
that's in line with what the public was
told that the average uh I think Lucille
said would be $14. So everything's in
line with expectations.
As far as timing for this uh process,
this issuance process, of course, today
you're considering the action uh which
would authorize issuance of the bonds.
Uh then we'll prepare information
including a preliminary official
statement or offering document to send
to rating agency uh in this case SNP.
And I failed to mention uh the county
has uh a double A rating with standard
and pores which is very good. So uh
they'll evaluate and assign a rating. Uh
we wouldn't expect really any change at
this point. The timeline is such that uh
early August we'd receive the ratings uh
put the preliminary official statement
uh out into the marketplace uh and then
conduct competitive sale on August the
18th. and that would enable closing by
uh uh really before midepptember. But
that's uh summary information with
respect to uh the issuance itself. And
then you may have some questions of
Katherine uh with regard to the uh
document and the actual action. But I'd
be glad to answer any questions.
Thank you. Uh commissioners questions
the process
or anything else?
No.
All right,
Katherine, thanks for coming up. I I
don't think we have any questions for
you, but just want to say appreciate you
coming down and joining us.
All right. Uh if there are no questions,
then uh Brandy, if you'll do a roll call
on agenda item number 19.
Commissioner Sha Nandez,
yes.
Commissioner Kimell,
yes.
Commissioner Chaparo,
yes.
Chair Sanchez,
yes.
That item does have an ordinance number.
The number is 371-0226.
Thank you.
All right, Mr. Lopez. We're on agenda
item 16 to approve a resolution
establishing procedures for addressing
and correcting special audit findings.
Um,
okay.
As we kick it off, I wanted to
Sorry. And actually, let me let me start
with a motion in a second, too.
Sorry. Good point, sir.
I was just jolted by
Oh, so I'll second uh the motion. So, we
have a motion and a second.
So, let's So, let's talk about the audit
a little more. Covered this at team
meeting a few days ago, and perhaps I
should have pushed back a little more
before. So, I'll say it again. I want to
apologize to the team that I didn't push
back more previously. of these 42
findings, all but three or four of them
predate the last two years. So I don't
think it's reflective of all the good
work our team is doing and really just
grateful for all the contributions of
the team. But saying that we do take
this very seriously. Uh some of these
findings typically in audit you see
high, medium, and low they're ranked
based off how important they are, how
rigorous the process is. We we didn't
get rankings when this
what continues to bother me a little bit
is the process. I don't think the public
realizes that we asked for this audit.
We invited this audit. We did an RFP for
this audit. Only one company responded.
So guess what? We're using that company.
That's how we moved forward. That
process took the better part of 18
months with these 42 findings. Uh,
realistically, there was one event there
that really got my attention. There was
a lot of process improvement that went
in this. Some of these were simply,
well, these shouldn't be in the same
folder. Maybe we split those up. So,
some of these were really silly. As you
heard earlier today, we've already
addressed some of these. Stephen's going
to talk a little bit about the process
today, but I wanted to talk about how we
got here and and moving forward. We hope
to bring these to the board one by one,
each one of them, so that we can speak
to the merits of it, speak to the
solutions of it, and speak to how it's
never going to happen again. So again,
on behalf of the team, I don't I don't
know how we went from one or two audit
findings a year to 42 somehow. Maybe it
was election [clears throat] season,
maybe it was grandstanding. I I don't
know, but we have to own this. We have
to move forward. Stephen has a great
idea on the process there, and I'll turn
it over to him from here. Thank you.
Yeah, if you don't mind real quick, I I
did want to just state one thing and I
think um I've mentioned to a couple of
people is um absolutely
this was something that that we wanted
for the the audit team to come in and
and take a look at this. Um you know, I
don't think I think we've tried to be as
open as we could. Um the the audit took
four months, five months,
six months, [laughter] seven, eight. I
mean it was I mean I think the length of
the audit
really did allow itself to
um dig in deep and that is exactly what
we wanted it to do. Um understanding
what the findings were. Um I I think my
only frustration was and I I think
whenever we deal with any other type of
audit generally speaking you you have
classifications of audit findings. One
is a recommendation meaning you know
where where something isn't as effective
as it is but it it's it's maintaining
compliance but there's an opportunity to
improve. the second level which is
actual findings usually considered minor
findings or you know or uh I think I'm
trying to think of what they how we do
it in the in the financial but it's
generally like a minor finding and then
you have a major finding which has shown
you know complete breakdown in a process
that absolutely needs to be addressed
immediately
um and and so that's where you have a
major so you generally have three types
of findings if someone were to go look
through the audit that was presented um
because I think it was even noted I
think um you know we we talked with you
know we heard from from the under
sheriff a little bit about the audit
findings a little bit earlier but when
we look at some of these findings that
were there I don't believe it
necessarily when you do a normal audit
be a a actual finding it would be a
recommendation and so those wouldn't
necessarily be reported as a finding so
for what it's worth like I said there's
42 items that are being addressed I know
we're looking at every single one of
them have presented a plan from all the
departments, from us, the assessor to
the sheriff's department, a plan to uh
for correction um and and for control.
And so, but just wanted to say that we
never had that opportunity in the
reviews we did to even understand should
this be classified as such, should it be
addressed as such. It was just take it
or leave it. Here are all the things
that we found and then it was reported
as such. And so I I do believe it's not
indicative of the work that the team has
done over the last couple of
you know the the the past year that
we've been working on some of these
things. So sorry I just wanted to put
that out there. Thank you very much Mr.
Chair. Good afternoon commissioners.
Steven Lopez, assistant county manager.
And this is your time. This is the first
time public may not realize this is the
first time the board has had a chance
since the audit findings were presented
to talk about how we move forward. Um
that's an open meetings act requirement.
You could not talk about it until we had
a public meeting. So we have a
recommendation for you to consider but
it is only a starting point for
discussion. We will take no offense if
you wish to make modifications, if you
wish to, you know, do some work on it
today, table it to the next meeting
because ultimately this is it was at the
beginning in March of 2025 the board's
request. This is your audit. Um the the
timeline for those who are not aware,
the original audit was supposed to be
done by December. So that would have
been eight months worth of work. it got
extended by three months. So, we ended
up with 11 months of auditing. So, um
that that was a lot of work that went
into it by a lot of county staff, by the
audit team. And now we are back to you
to talk about how do we move forward.
So, you have a draft resolution for you
just again as a starting point to
consider. But what we have kind of put
together as a discussion point to start
from is how the process as we're seeing
it from the staff side could or should
move forward.
We have currently staff assigned to
every one of the findings and I do
appreciate the comments uh Mr. Chair
about
findings in the audit world having more
precise definition uh than we may have
received in this report. Um, but because
they are called findings in this report,
we're sticking with that terminology and
the presentation we're doing right now.
So, we've got staff assigned to them,
uh, the normal process for getting in
front of the board is to then go to
county management. So, you already heard
from, uh, our assistant HR director,
Ashley Zuniga, this morning. She's
already got one of those findings that
has been addressed by the talent and
culture side of HR.
um if you approve a process then they
will be bringing that forward to you for
consideration. So if the county
manager's office says yes, we think this
is a robust response, we think it meets
all of the requirements uh or all of our
commitments that we put forward in the
county management response, then it
would be brought to the board. Um, we're
envisioning right now that that might be
a resolution, but it does not
necessarily require a resolution, I
don't think. But the board might want to
vote on is this enough for this one
particular item. And if you feel it is
not enough, then the board could direct
it to go back to staff for improvement
uh for whatever you think it needs to
have added on to it. If you do think
it's enough, then the process set out by
the state auditor is it then goes to
external review. The county, for those
who are not aware, hires an external
auditor who is independent of the county
every year. And they actually work more
than just one month a year at the end of
the fiscal year. They're actually
working uh a good four to five months
out of the year. um moving forward that
may actually be 12 months out of the
year as we clear some of these findings.
But they are responsible for taking the
information on that finding, reviewing
it as an external thirdparty auditor or
independent auditor and if they are
satisfied it has been addressed, they
will put that in the annual audit for
the county and then also notify the
state auditor that this item has been
cleared uh by the independent auditor.
So that's kind of the process that is
envisioned at this point and I am happy
to take any questions or direction from
the board.
Mr. Chair.
Yes.
Go ahead if you
Oh, no, no, no. I was just I wasn't so
much on the on the process as much as
the opportunity to maybe look and I
don't know if this is the appropriate
time to do it, but I I I think for us to
maybe look at at uh the idea of getting
an inspector general to help address
some of the concerns and and
investigations in in the future. Um, and
I know that was something that's come up
as as part of this audit uh as a
recommendation. And so I don't know if
there might be an opportunity to uh you
know define a process. I know what's
been I know it's been discussed. I think
we've seen originally the city had
somebody uh then they they left and then
there's that not that you know there's
always that that uh loss of continuity
there. Um, but you know, I think in
previous discussions that that you and I
had, there was a thought or probably an
opportunity that there are firms that
have that can do this work that can be
contracted for that. Um, and so, you
know, I'd be curious to know if we might
be able to in the future have either
move move forward on on a proposal for
that um as part of as part of addressing
these. So, I'm I think I'm okay with
with the process for now, but I'd love
for us to maybe look at that that IG
proposal or how we move forward with
that too in the future.
Mr. Chair, I think that is this is
absolutely the right time to talk about
the role an inspector general might play
in this and where you would see them
being inserted. Is that before it gets
to the board so that they are giving you
a recommendation? Is it uh after the
board has had a chance to look at it?
Um, so that that is that is why we
didn't insert it here yet because a you
the board would need to approve a
contract for an inspector general. Uh,
but then you need to tell us where where
it fits, where their oversight would be.
Thank you. So, Commissioner on this
side.
Well,
okay. So, I do have a couple of process
questions. Um, one of that being, so now
that we have these findings and um,
county manager Andrews, this kind of
goes to you too. So now that we have
these findings and we do have our annual
audit, does that annual audit and these
findings cross over at all? And if so,
can you kind of explain how they I know
you kind of just talked about a little
bit, but how does that cross over? What
will they be looking for? How are they
going to be reporting back? Is that kind
of their new guiding light or are they
still doing the generalized audit on
their end as well?
Mr. Chair, Commissioner Shelder
Hernandez, uh, great question. Uh, so
let's go a little more in detail about
that external auditor requirement. So,
uh, we had to actually when we went out
to RFP for this coming year's external
audit, we had to notify all of the
prospective, uh, biders on that that we
had this special audit going because
they needed to program in time to handle
this. Um but it is absolutely the
requirement of the state auditor that
the external auditor has to look at
everything that is scheduled to be
addressed between now and the end of
next fiscal year. um in well sorry
anything for this fiscal year has to be
in the report that will be coming out in
next fiscal year and and ongoing 2027
fiscal year items that have a deadline
there have to then be addressed in the
28 report and ongoing. So it is very
much a they have to look at every single
item determine whether it was done on
time and whether it met the requirements
that were established.
Thank you.
Uh, Commissioner, I don't know if I
thought I saw you.
I You did. And I'm just thinking of the
resolution and the draft of process.
And just looking at the draft of
process, I think it's not in the right
order.
Okay.
Um, and I'll explain why. The board of
county commissioners has one employee
and that one employee has to move
forward with our direction
regarding this audit. So in looking at
the resolution and I'll give you an
example. Uh number one, each item should
be assigned to a department to be
addressed within the timeline identified
in the special audit report. It would be
my preference to move the county manager
over in this draft of process. So, for
example, number one would read as
follows. Each item shall be assigned to
the county manager
to be addressed within a specific
timeline with specific details
and identified in a special audit
report. now that he can assign a
department or whomever
um to help him address the audit I think
is a good idea because I I I believe
then it puts us in a position it puts
this body in a position to have to go to
a staff member or department head or uh
assistant CM or legal and
that may not be appropriate sometimes.
So, if we go to our county manager
directly, then he assigns
then we can address any issue with our
employee and then go back. Um, that's
what I'm thinking.
Uh, number two, same thing. Uh, it says
a member of the county manager's office
staff will be assigned to each item. I
would prefer um the county manager shall
be assigned to each item and then he can
direct
whatever department he needs to address
that to ensure that it's addressed
appropriately. Uh number three when the
county manager designate I just take out
design
um and then the county manager prepare
it for presentation and action. Number
four, upon approval of the BOCC, the
county manager will direct staff to
notify. I prefer that the county manager
just directly notify the external
auditor as to our recommendation and to
our findings. Uh, number five, the
external auditor will review the item to
be addressed. And I don't know how to
incorporate that inspector general with
that. Uh, I think legal legal would have
to help with that. I'm not certain of
how what the legal boundaries are on
that.
Yeah.
But that's my recommendation and that's
a way I'm seeing this process that it
comes from BOCC to the county manager to
the staff that he feels comfortable
addressing whatever item it is uh with
specific details and a specific
timeline. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Commissioner Chab.
Um
I I don't
I think Mr. Chair um I think the
inspector general is separate from this.
Okay.
I think the audit is one thing and the
inspector general needs to be a standing
fixture at the county for all things
going forward. I mean if we can wrap it
into this for something that's fine but
I think they need to be considered
separately.
Yeah. I I think the reason that that was
I think suggested and I think what we
heard from some of the constituents that
had recommended it. I think the thought
would be was and I think this was you
know maybe you know while they while
they have an kind of an independent view
well while well still I think it goes
back to what was saying where I I get
what where you know the county manager
takes the is is kind of the one in
charge of pulling this all together. Um,
I think what I understood from some of
the responses and maybe I I didn't
understand it properly, but I think the
thought was is by having an inspector
general kind of be a um third an
independent third party looking at what
we did before we submit it, it just kind
of gives a little bit of oversight to
make sure that they that they gave
guidance on whether they met that need.
So, I I I agree. In my mind, I think we
approve.
I don't I don't this I I guess I could
see I could see that.
But, Mr. I don't want that to be the
inspector general's only role.
Oh, yeah. No, no, no. I 100%
That's all I want to know.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. I agree with you. If we could wrap
them in here as well, that's okay with
me, too.
And maybe and maybe for now, because we
don't have a process yet, we don't have
an inspector general or a timeline. We
we approve it as is and then when we
have that and we can maybe we amend
this. I I don't know. I'm open to how we
do it. But I completely agree with you
like I don't want them that that
shouldn't be their only role. I I think
we do need them as
a larger u being able to do
investigations and such.
Okay. Mr. Chair, so I agree with with
Commissioner Chaparo about it should be
the county manager in these places where
she mentioned not not county manager
staff because we can't go into the staff
and say how are you doing on that?
That's not our connection.
Yeah.
So it needs to be the county manager I
think knows.
Mr. Chair, I'd like to make a
suggestion. Inspector General and
Commissioner Kimell and I exchanged
emails on that before and she had that
suggestion and I had to process it for a
couple days and in lie of some of the
comments and in lie of some of the
optics I think not only do we do that we
invite it I say I don't mind reporting
to them just like everyone else have the
attorney general report to you have the
audit report to you I Curtis is looking
at me crazy but I think uh that's not
uncommon other places. We invite it. We
invite the transparency. And again, uh I
I know that would be one of many duties,
but just want to go ahead and put that
out there,
Mr. Chair. So, you're saying it's it's
okay with you if we have the inspector
general report to us. Is that what
you're saying?
Yeah. Yeah. A lot of pl other places I
work, the auditor, the lawyer, you know,
there's all kinds of different setups in
different governments, so it's not
uncommon.
Yeah, I like that.
So,
and we can change this resolution. I
agree.
Yeah.
So, we can change this now to say county
manager and then we can update the
resolution when we get to the point to
have an inspector general. Yes.
Which needs to happen soon.
Yes. Agree.
Okay. So, wait, forgive me, Mr. Chair.
So, what do we need to do to budget that
spot for the inspector? What else do we
need to do to make that happen?
Well, I think my my thought would be is
I I don't know. Do we need
do we need to approve something before
it goes out for an RFP uh to start
getting quotes or an RFI or what would
be the process to to explore that?
Mr. Chair, commissioners, um I believe
that you can proceed right now by simply
turning to Deputy County Manager Lutrell
and saying, "Please include in the final
FY27 budget funds for an inspector
general." And then you'll be able to
approve that when it comes before you
next month. And in the meantime, the
team can go ahead and prepare an RFP.
And I think because this may report to
the board, the board probably needs to
take a look at the RFP and make sure
it's covering what you want and need.
And so that is probably something that
we should have at a board meeting um for
you to to officially look at. While you
could look individually, I I think
because of its importance, it would be
better handled actually as an approval
item.
Y agreed.
And Mr. Chair, I guess it's a question
for Lucio.
Do we put a number limit on that, a
dollar limit on that, or do we just
leave it open-ended? I mean, do we say
it's going to be $20, or is it going to
be $120,000?
Um, Mr. Chair, Commissioner, we could do
either or. And so, we know this is this
is something that the county needs. And
so, we could do open-ended or we could
put a limit. And so, the limit may um
limit the amount of respondents we do
get. And so if we leave it open-ended,
we could have a wider range and then see
what we could work into the overall
balanced budget.
Mr. Chair, let's do it that way.
I agree.
And Mr. Chair, uh, commissioners, one
thing that would be very helpful for us,
um, is confirmation. We just mentioned
going out to RFP, but that presumes a
decision by the board that we want to
hire an outside
entity, firm, individual to be the
inspector general rather than a staff
position. I just want to make sure that
we're all understanding that correctly,
that that's the direction we want to go.
And Mr. Chair,
yes, please.
Since we're this is on [clears throat]
excuse me on approvals um I think this
is an appropriate motion to make that we
hire an outside firm individual
not from within the county to perform
the duties of inspector general
reporting to the uh bocc directly.
So I think we already have our motion on
the floor. I don't know if we can amend.
Do we amend it to add it as part of this
or as part of that or
or do we need a separate motion or I
mean Yeah.
Yeah. Because I mean it's not
um Mr. Chair
I need to in in my very limited Robert's
rules of order understanding um I
believe it could be made as an amendment
to the original motion to where you are
actually approving two things. One is
you're approving the resolution and you
are authorizing uh hiring of an outside
firm to serve as inspector general.
So two approvals. So I think we can do
that or we can just we can amend the
agenda item such that it include well
outside of the resolution we want to
take action and hire a inspector general
from outside of the count from outside
of county
staff. Did I capture that right? I'm
trying to figure out.
Well, if I may, Mr. Chair, [laughter]
maybe somebody from legal can help us
with this. And I'll tell you why.
Because we're suggesting changes and
unless we see the changes that we're
requesting on the resolution in writing
before we vote on it, including the
inspector general.
um we might have to just move this until
the next uh board meeting with the
language that is being suggested. Am I
correct on that or
Well, I I think we can we can ask the
staff and direct staff to move forward
with an RFP. I don't think we
necessarily have to approve the RFP. Um
or like I said or or bring they can
bring forward the wording of the RFP and
then we can approve that at that point.
Um so I don't know that we necessarily
need uh they just need the direction.
We're not saying that this is the the
the specific people we're going to hire
or anything. It's just we're asking them
to to move forward to bring that as a
proposal to us.
And I understand that part of it, but I
I was requesting changes within the
resolution itself.
Yes.
To direct our employee, the county
manager, to be in charge of responding
to different items. And I mean, I can go
over the wording, but I I'm not certain
that we're ready to vote on it right
now, unless Stephen can type real fast.
Uh, I can go back to my office and type
it up for for final signature, but if
I'm understanding correctly, item number
one is now rewarded to read. The county
manager is hereby assigned to
address within the timelines identified
the items
in the special audit report.
Item number line number two is struck in
its entirety.
Line number three. Nope.
If I may. Okay, Mr. Chair. Thank you.
Okay. So, and commissioners chime in.
I might need some help here.
Okay. So number one, um
it would read the county manager shall
be assigned to address within a specific
timeline
those items addressed in the special
audit report
addressing specific details requested
and if needed and I'm sure it will be
assign in a department or a staff member
because he can't be addressing each item
on his own. That would be that would
take him months.
But if he if we just assigned it to him
and then he assigns it to a staff member
or department or an assistant county
manager
that specializes in that area. That's a
too many words. So, if you all can just
kind of tie that up, I appreciate it.
Um and then number two, the county
manager shall be assigned to each item
to ensure it is addressed appropriately
within the given timeline.
Three, when the county manager believes
an item has been adequately addressed,
the county manager shall prepare for
presentation and action at an upcoming
board of county commissioners meeting.
Am I going too fast?
You're good.
Wait, Mr.
That was just striking or designate out
of number three. Correct.
But
in number three, should we say when the
county manager believes an item has been
adequately addressed, it should be
presented to the inspector general?
Well, it'll come to the board of
commissioners before
before the inspector general. Don't we
want the inspector general to see it and
then tell us it's
Oh. Oh, I mean, if we want to include it
now. Yeah, that's fine. Sorry. Sorry. I
was thinking I was thinking auditor the
state auditor or the the
general before it comes to us. I
I'm fine with I didn't get that.
General could do it before it comes to
us.
Yeah, that's fine.
That's our step.
Okay. Number four. Upon approval by the
board of county commissioners, the
county manager will notify the county's
external auditor
and the inspector general. Is that a
redundant?
Because we're to notify the inspector
general before that.
Okay.
And number three,
before it comes to us.
Okay. Thank you.
We don't want it to come to the
commission and then we go, "Okay,
inspector general, is this right?"
You're right. We want Inspector General.
Okay. Then number five, the external
auditor will review the item. That's
good.
Okay. So then, uh, Mr. Chair and
commissioners, if you don't have any
other questions, and if that all sounds
good to you, I recommend you table this
for 15 minutes, hear other business, and
I will run up and retype. Mr.
Chair, I have one other question,
though. I know that we're not we're very
hopeful that this is not going to
happen, but what if the auditor refers
any of these to the AG?
How does that throw a knot in this?
Mr. Chair, uh Commissioner Kimble, I
believe the items that and this is just
from the interaction I had with a
special auditor uh during the process. I
believe the items that were referenced
and I could be wrong in this assessment
that being referred to the attorney
general were related to IRA and open
meetings act. Um I don't I'm not aware
of anything beyond that. Um
so I I think I think though the response
to the audit finding is still something
we would if it goes to the attorney
general that will still be part of our
response on how we're correcting it. uh
any of the non-compliances. So, I I
think we I think we continue on. It'll
just be how we I guess it'll go back to
number five in terms of how we respond
or who we respond to.
But I have forgive me, Mr. Chair. I have
concerns about how we respond to open
meetings now. And if the attorney
general comes back and says, "This is
how you have to respond," then we have
to do that. So, so we would just
incorporate that into the work they're
doing. I don't want I don't what I don't
want to happen is us to go and go,
"Okay, we fixed that one. we're all in
good and open meetings and then we get
sent to the attorney general and it's
not right.
Yeah. I mean I think if if you know I
think if that's the case then then
they'll have we we would
take another step.
Yeah. We'd have to take another step. I
I just feel like at least for now until
we until we know for sure. But I think
at least we we would hope at least that
would be our initial thing. They look at
our initial response. They look at it
and like you said if they feel it's not
adequate, we can work with them on a I
guess how it needs to be addressed. But
I don't know. And since the inspector
general is going to be ours, he'll help
us. Whoever that is will help us get it
fixed.
Yeah, I think that's to drive.
And Mr. Chair and commissioners, just so
you're aware, uh just a little while
ago, we did get uh communication from
the office of the attorney general
asking if the open meetings act training
for the board if uh August the 12th
would work for you all. So, we'll follow
up later on that. Just wanted to let you
know that we did hear uh back from them
on our request for that training.
Okay.
And it's a I think take that always as a
good sign that they're willing to
provide us the training because that's
their normal process.
Or is it a good sign? [laughter] I don't
know.
They they usually don't hit you with the
sledgehammer if you're open to the the
training. Uh
yeah. So,
and yeah, so we'll take it. But I think
if if there are no other questions, I
I'll I'll agree with what uh what you're
saying. we can move to table this um
until the end of the I guess we'll table
this for now and then come back and
revisit this here a little later on.
Perfect. So,
chair Sanchez.
Yes.
I apologize. Is that a motion? Do we
need a second or
a second to table?
Second.
I'm sorry.
Yes.
It is a motion. I'll make the motion.
Commissioner will second the motion to
table
to table it. So, the changes was not a
motion.
Not yet.
Not yet. Okay. until we get it in front,
then we can read in what the changes are
if that's okay.
Okay.
So, we'll do that amendment after when
we bring it back.
Sorry about that.
All right. So, if there's that uh we'll
take a roll call on the motion to table
it
on the table.
Okay. Um Okay. Commissioner Sheldand,
yes.
Commissioner Kimble,
yes.
Commissioner Chabaro,
yes.
Chair Sanchez,
yes.
Okay. We'll see you back in a little
bit. Okay. All right. Agenda item number
17. It's a approval resolution
reauthorizing the state of New Mexico
Department of Transportation State
Appropriation ID J3265
and C1253265
to ID number K4134,
C1253265
for solar lighting and street signage
and traffic calming devices in the
amount of $600,000. If I get a motion in
a second. So moved.
Second.
I have a motion by Commissioner
Srosnandez, second by Commissioner
Chapro. Mr. Sbrano.
How's it going, sir? Uh, Chair Sanchez,
commissioners. Um, we sent this to get
it reauthorized to include traffic
calming. Um, it was originally just for
street lighting, but it was going to be
too much for street lighting. So, we
wanted to utilize everything. So, we
added traffic calming. And this is in
the bottle area.
Okay.
For this. So that's all that was done on
that. I'll stand for questions.
Questions
real quick. Mr. Chair,
Mr.
Um
Dan, I I was asked what kind of
different traffic calming devices will
be utilized and I could think of
probably three just off the top of my
head. So what what are your thoughts on
that?
Um what we're going to be looking at is
mostly chicanees where the road narrows
and stuff. You can see it kind of by um
Young Park and Lynn Middle School. So,
we're going to be looking at chicanees
right now. We're doing a study in
Tortugas on um speed humps or speed
tables is what they're calling it now.
So, we're waiting for that to come back
um our study to come back and see if it
actually did work and stuff. So, those
are the two that we're looking at right
now.
Canes that sounds like some French food.
[laughter]
We're hungry.
Yes.
Tell us what a chicane is.
Yeah. The
It's a chicane.
Yes. Yes, ma'am. Um, if you go down, it
it narrows it narrows the road so that
the the drivers automatically slow down
because they see a narrow in the road,
which would be with curbing. It could be
with um candlesticks.
Oh,
yes. So it just narrows the road so that
you have to slow down passing it
like on the lenders.
Yes.
Okay.
Yes.
Okay. I got it. Thank you.
And miss No, no, that's Mr. Chair. I
have another question. I went to an an
ebid an EBID meeting and I had uh
Donanna soil and conservation there.
And so would it be possible while you're
constructing the chicanees to leave an
area to put in native trees? Because I
believe what I heard at that meeting and
I'm sure I'll get an email correcting me
but there were either 11,000 or 1100
trees available
free of charge to be placed as long as
there were native trees. And I'm just
thinking maybe that would give shade or
would that be
um going over the money that you're
requesting
or would that be something that we could
put in a tree along a neighborhood
because I know it's utilized in the
PBLO's area.
Yes. Um Chair Sanchez, Commissioner
Shabado. Yes, ma'am. we can look into it
because if you drive down again
um
by Young Park and that's exactly what
they have done with the chicanees
kicking out. They had did some natural
planning in each of those kickbacks. So
we can definitely look into that and see
if um if that's in the budget.
Okay. Thank you. And and also just
publicly I'd like to thank you and your
team. We had some flooding up in the
East Messa and your team got there the
very next day and addressed the
situation for a
resident of ours that has a child that
needed some extra help. And so they are
so appreciative because now the bus can
actually go to the front of that house
to drop off that child. So thanks Dan.
You all rock. Thank you very much.
Yes ma'am. Thank you. and our crew had
worked all night in that rain to get
areas cleared like um Sonoma Ranch East,
the part that's ours, and also Telbrook.
Yes.
Thank you.
Thank you. Commissioners, any other
questions? I'm
good.
All right,
Randy, if we do a roll call on agenda
item number 17.
Commissioner Shaandez,
yes.
Commissioner Kimell,
yes.
Commissioner Chabato,
yes. Chair Sanchez.
Yes.
That does have a resolution number. The
number is 2026-79.
All right. Thank you, sir. Appreciate
it.
Right. Agenda N item number 18, the
assessor's office status report, annual
property valuation maintenance and
property valuation program with related
budget considerations. I get a motion
and a second to begin discussion. So
moved. I have a motion by Commissioner
Shernandez, a second by Commissioner
Kimble.
Madam assessor,
good afternoon.
Good afternoon, Chair Sanchez,
Commissioners Kimell, Chaparo, Shelder
Hernandez, Gina Montotega, accompanied
by Chief Deputy Assessor, Miss Karen
Archeletta, who will actually be doing
the presentation for us.
Deputy Assessor, good afternoon.
Good afternoon.
So this is a followup presentation to
our April 28th meeting. Uh this is a
continued discussion, but it actually is
uh some additional information of the
assessor's office's two types of
reappraisal activities and the related
budget uh sources for those activities.
So, I like what uh Commissioner Shago
Hernandez said the last time where he um
very simply said, "Where are we now and
where are we going?" And so, that really
was my guiding principle as I created
this brief presentation for you. So, I
hope it helps um inform you in some ways
and answer some of your questions.
So, we completed our valuation
maintenance. We talked about that at the
last meeting. This is an annual project
that we have reappraising properties. Um
it is an account review with a
statistical analysis.
Um and then as we look ahead, we want to
conduct a comprehensive property
valuation program. This is something
that is recommended. It's not an exact
every number of years. So uh we look at
it as every four to six years or as
necessary.
The purpose is really important to note
here where the purpose for the valuation
maintenance is to make sure we're
updating our values to meet current and
correct market values. With the property
valuation program, we really are
verifying all property characteristics
and updating the values according to
those uh characteristics
and then also doing that current uh
market value analysis.
This is a comprehensive inspection of
all properties. Uh it can be doortodoor
or it can be uh by aerial review or a
combination thereof.
And I really want to point out that it's
important to remember that the valuation
maintenance that we do every year uh is
completed concurrently in the years that
we're doing that valuation program. So
we have to do both at the same time and
I'll talk about that a little bit more
in upcoming slides.
But both activities, it's very important
to know both activities are
comprehensive and they are meant to
achieve those current and correct values
so that we're being fair and equitable
to our property owners across the board.
I've listed some uh annual property
valuation maintenance milestones. I
won't go over those. We did have a
successful PTD evaluation. We are
waiting on the uh final written
determination from the bureau chief, but
we did have a positive review and
discussion with our evaluator
and she was very helpful and answered
our questions.
Right now, we are processing protest
petitions. This is the public's
opportunity to contest their property
values and a few other things, but
generally it's the property valuation
that we've assigned to their parcel.
Uh, and this is going to go through
October. This is not a quick process.
And in addition to that, we're still
responding to our daily requests for
service.
As far as the property valuation program
goes, uh we began considering our
options for that program.
We did look at uh the option of
conducting an in-house reappraisal and I
have another slide to go over uh the
next slide uh to talk about that a
little bit more. There's a lot of
considerations there when you're doing
an in-house. We also have options for
outso outsourcing
some aspects of the program that we're
also looking at. This is where a request
for information comes in. We completed
that. It closed in April of this year.
We had two responses.
Um it's basically a hybrid option where
the assessor's office will perform tasks
associated with the annual property
valuation maintenance while the if we
hire the external source would um review
and update and correct existing parcels
and structures and that could either was
still negotiable
um but the option is for the aerial
photography
uh and site visits as Well,
we did request, as you saw at the last
work session, uh to redistribute some
funds for FY2728,
moving more funds into the general fund.
Uh the general fund should be used for
administrative and regular and routine
expenses. And we want to limit the 1%
expenses to those things where we can
show that it's actually reappraisal
activities.
Right now, we have requested and finance
has uh moved all the expenses and we're
limiting the 1% fund to the incentive
pay, employee training, and the
memberships that go along with the
reappraisal responsibilities.
In preparation uh for the reappraisal
and the annual maintenance, uh we did
upgrade our office computers so that it
would be able to keep up with our cameas
system. We're always adding software and
uh different functions and the camera
systems are getting smarter and faster
and so we are in line with the um
redeployment of new equipment according
to IT's schedule. So we upgraded our
computers.
We also imple or are in the process of
imp implementing some software called
changefinder.
And what that is is a software that will
help us easily see um parcel changes as
far as the property characteristics
meaning the the structures whether
they're new structures that we didn't
see before or something that's missing
uh that's been demolished and no longer
there.
We're also in the process of
implementing something called EPEN
software and this is going to make
collecting our sales affidavits hope
hopefully easier uh for the real estate
community and for us to gather and
collect into one one central location
and process and have a better record of
receiving those documents.
So, when we were talking about when
we're thinking about the in-house
reappraisal
uh program,
um one really important note is that we
have to make sure that our day-to-day
operations
continue with minimal interruption. Uh
we want to avoid falling behind on our
functional uh daily functional work. And
so that's something that we need to uh
be mindful of. Right now we have a staff
that uh we're able to follow the uh the
annual valuation maintenance. We can do
that. But if we interject this
reappraisal
uh program, then that's going to be
added work. And I've tried to split
these up in very general broad
categories for you. Preparing for a
reappraisal program if we were to do it
in house. Of course, our human capital
would be adding staff. Um, I do believe
that the reappraisal program would
probably take or preparing for the
program would probably take a one to
twoyear leadup. Um, because we are going
to need quite a few additional staff
members, possibly some um new positions.
Uh, for example, I think we would need a
project manager, dedicated project
manager. Uh, probably an assistant for
that project manager. a technical lead
and someone dedicated to audit and
quality assurance control so that as we
gather this data and enter it into the
accounts, we can be assured we're doing
it accurately and correctly uh for the
money we're spending for it, the time
we're taking, and then just to be true
to the residents of our county.
If I can interrupt, thank you. I'm so
sorry.
That's okay. Um, so you said a project
manager, assistant project manager, uh,
tech leader,
audit and quality control.
Audit and call and that is aside from
your appraisers and your appraisers
assistance.
Yes. Because appraisers and appraisers
assistants would strictly do the data
collection and go out to the properties
or they would look at either the aerial
view and if they needed to they would do
a site visit to the property to actually
do the measure measurements, do the
visual inspection and collect the data.
That would be their responsibility as it
is now.
All right. And I'm glad you brought that
up on the aerial views. So then we're
having drones go out there or how are we
collecting that data? No, we have an
aerial program that we do
every other year.
Every other year. And so we would want
to have that in place. So we would have
the most current and up-to-date pictures
so that we could then use what's called
changefinder, that software I mentioned
that we're trying to implement. uh so
that we can readily see any changes and
then we can hone in on those changes and
we can actually do measurements from the
aerial picture. We have additional
software that's attached to the aerials
so that we can actually measure height
measure the dimensions of the property
uh we can confirm the the roof type and
so on and so forth.
All right. So going back to your staff,
just based on
and this is just an estimate, just based
on the number of properties that that we
have here at the county
and having the reappraisal process go
forward, are we looking at 10 additional
appraisal appraisal assistance? Are we
looking at 20?
Just a ballpark figure.
Chairman, commissioner, yes, thank you
for that question. And I actually have a
study coming up to show bless you
to show our appraisal team right now and
what we are anticipating which I I think
10 is that was my ballpark number as
well. It could go up one or two but I
think that's a that's a reasonable
start.
So we're looking at 14 to 16 people.
Well, we also have to talk about
administrative staff data entry. We're
going to need more people to enter all
that data as it comes in.
Okay.
Yeah. So, we we that might increase
another one or two folks.
Thank you.
Yeah.
One thing we have to remember if we're
doing the in-house reappraisal and we're
going to take the responsibility for
hiring staff um our human capital is our
most unpredictable asset as well. Uh
you'll see in the ne one of the next
slides we calculate about 220 work days
a year. We've accounted for holidays and
things like that. two weeks of vacation,
some sick leave for individuals. Um, but
also life happens. We know that and we
want to make sure that our employees
uh have the time off that's necessary if
they have a personal crisis. There are
also people who if we're hiring people
fixedterm or temporary, which I'm not
sure the fixed term is even going to
meet our needs because that's only three
years, um they may not wish to stay with
us. They may not be invested in the
work. And so we have to be careful. Uh
we'll need supervisors for that as well
to make sure that we can closely monitor
anybody we might bring in. So that's
always a consideration.
Then there's also the funding costs um
the cost for items that were describing
above and the increased workload of the
other county departments who we rely on
as our support [clears throat] as we go
through these processes. So, since we're
talking about human capital, human
resources is a big partner with us um
for creating uh job descriptions and
posting and hiring and going through the
vetting process. Uh risk management,
we're going to be using vehicles. So the
fleet department purchasing contracts
legal we have legal questions and legal
supports us it to set up the inf the
office infrastructure and the computers.
Um if we're doing this alone we would
need the support of our public
information office because we really
would need to ramp up our public
outreach. Um, people are concerned when
they see people in near their property
or on their property and they don't know
who they are and I don't blame them. And
so we really need to saturate on the
public outreach for the safety and
security of our residents and property
owners, but also for our employees and
then facilities and parks department
because we do need physical
infrastructure to put these people. They
need to have desk space and office
space. Even if it's a cubicle, we still
we're not we're maxed out in our office.
So whether we have space somewhere else,
we take up multi-purpose room for quite
a while. Uh or we would have to rent
other facility if that's an option. So
those are all expenses that we need to
consider. our records readiness is we
need to make sure that our data is good
data and everything's entered so that we
can start out with a clean good slate.
You don't want to put good data with bad
data. You're going to get a bad result.
Um process and procedural readiness. We
need to make sure that we've got all the
processes in place um and the people
know that they're what their
responsibilities are.
Technology readiness is that
infrastructure that office
infrastructure and making sure we have
the hardware and the necessary software
and licenses that we need. We need to do
a lot of project schedules and
administrative coordination not only
internally but also with our partners
here at the county and funding. I have a
slide on that as well.
when we're talking about actually
implementing the program, the
preliminary account review. Again, that
goes with the record readiness. Um, but
we also want to make sure that we have
all the information that the appraisers
need on the on the account like for
example a sketch so they have a starting
point when they're doing a review and a
site inspection.
Uh then there's the actual the big
component the field inspection and data
collection. Uh this is a huge component.
So it's not just the uh going it's not
just being at the property and
inspecting it and collecting data. It's
also travel time. And so we have 3,800
square miles for the county and we go
everywhere. So, if it's in the city, we
can probably get away with travel time
of maybe I don't know these days 30
minutes to get AC across town is is the
minimal. Um, but if we have to go up
towards Hatch and Garfield and those
points and down south and over to
Chapperel, we're talking more travel
time.
Uh when you're doing a field inspection,
oftentime you will encounter public and
you'll have public uh contact and so
that will take time to explain what
we're doing or uh answering questions
which we encourage our appraisers and
appraiser assistants to do because we
want a wellinformed public so that they
will support us in our in our project
endeavors.
Once the field inspection and data
collection is done, the data has to be
re reviewed for completeness and
accuracy and then it has to be entered
into our CAMA system. Um, and then once
it's entered into the system, we want to
do an audit uh data audit and
verification one more time to make sure
it's good information.
Anything that needs to be corrected, we
want to correct. We want to make sure we
have all the proper documentation.
uh so that if someone challenges our
valuations during protest season uh it
is defensible. And then finally the
debate de debrief would be to wrap
everything up and get everything filed
away and uh and complete and pay all our
bills and things like that.
All right, here's the staffing capaci uh
capacity comparison that I mentioned
earlier. Um our um International
Association of Assessing Offices is a
standard for mass appraising. And so, uh
they believe that one appraiser can
review 3,000 parcels per work year. Per
work year, 220 days is what we
calculated.
Um this is a full-time person employed
continuous for the year under this
assumption
under that staffing capacity model.
Uh with us having and this is just
residential properties. This is not all
our parcels. Uh we have 76,657
residential parcels.
Uh and so one appraiser can review
7,665.7
parcels per work year.
Um
and so when you look at our staffing uh
when we did our uh annual report under
this assumption with a staff of 10
full-time appraisers that includes
appraiser assistance they would be able
to review 30,000 parcels. As I said our
actual parcel count is over 76,000.
uh that leaves a deficit of the 46,657
parcels.
When we did our annual evaluation
maintenance, the reason we were able to
touch all these parcels was because we
were doing a review of the account and
it was only when we needed to go out and
do a site visit that the appraiser or
the appraiser assistant went out. So, we
were able to meet our requirements for
the valuation annual valuation
maintenance, but if we're doing a
full-blown
uh program that we're going to have a
deficiency. So, that's where we were
talking about the additional appraisers
coming in.
All right. So, our current uh 1% fund um
it's a little lax right now. The fund
needs to grow. Um we're hoping that as
the year progresses, we'll see uh
because we moved some of the money, some
of the requests from the 1% fund into
the general fund. We're hoping that
we'll see that 1% grow so that we will
be able to start this uh appraisal
program
uh within the next couple of years.
We want to make sure though that what
we're expending our 1% fund from uh with
that we carefully scrutinize it to make
sure we're using it for the intended
purposes.
We also have our general fund bud
budget. This is consistent with other
county departments.
Um, again, we did request that some
funds uh such as the day-to-day uh and
routine operation items be moved from
the 1% to the general fund.
We did request uh some new positions in
the FY2728
budget. We are looking, we are seeking
two additional residential appraisers
and this is to keep pace with the
residential growth that we're having in
the county.
Um, we do need someone who understands
how to appraise tangible assets for our
business personal property uh valuation.
So, we're looking for someone who can do
that as well as our livestock. We have a
lot of livestock in Donana County and we
want to make sure uh that we're
verifying and capturing those as well.
And then we have we requested a GIS
mapping supervisor.
So we based on the analysis we've done
and and research we've done, we are
inclined to seek a vendor to help us do
this comprehensive property valuation
program. Um we just don't believe that
it is financially feasible and within
time constraints to do an in-house
program. We think it would take too
long.
We did put out that request for
information. Two vendors responded to
us. They're projecting that they could
do the reappraisal in the phases we've
identified uh within two years once the
program is implemented. It still would
take a ramp up time of maybe close to a
year or six eight months so that we can
get accustomed to working with each
other. We still would have to do
preliminary work. We would have to make
sure our accounts are updated and
accurate. Um, we would have to inform
our employees in the assessor's office
and train them on what's coming. We have
a lot of new people on staff, so we need
to educate them on what this program
really means and what it does. And then
we'd have to work with our v vendor on
the preliminary tasks. Uh public
outreach is an example of that.
The vendors that responded to our RFI,
they're willing to do the public
outreach. That's a huge component for
us. They will do the data collection and
verification. They have people on staff
who are IAA certified. Um it's their
staff. We wouldn't have to assume the
risk for hiring anybody and they will
take care of the data entry. uh uh the
vendor and the county assessor's office
would be responsible for auditing. Um we
would audit some different accounts than
they would and we would audit the same
accounts so we could make sure that what
they're giving us is good information.
Mr. Chair Commissioner,
thank you. So you're saying they would
audit themselves, then you would audit,
and then together you would audit.
Yeah. So we would pick accounts and this
is yet to be flushed out. I'm sorry
chairman commissioner. Um but we would
we would take I don't know out of a
hundred maybe we take 20 accounts. We
would look at what their data what they
came up with. We would have our internal
folks look at that same property or
those parcels and then we would compare
what they came up with and and what we
believe uh was good data collection. And
if they matched then um we would be more
assured that they're working in line
with our requirements.
So would you be doing spot checks in
other words?
Yes. Yes.
Every month or every two months or
whenever you would have a regular
schedule of checking the information
that's incoming so that you're aware and
assured that it's correct
data. Absolutely. That is that is the
intent. We would do it in the phases. We
would do more immediate reviews so that
that if we had a miscommunication and
they were data collecting one thing and
we do it in a different manner that we
could capture that right away so that we
wouldn't perpetuate those errors.
Right. And if you happen to catch many
indiscreancies
or errors for that matter, what's your
plan for that?
Yes. So we have talked about that and we
have contingencies for would we have to
terminate the agreement? How many would
we accept? What would be the percentage
of error rate that we could that that
well we understand human error that we
would accept and then make those
corrections and move on.
Thank you.
Yes ma'am.
Uh, one of the RFI quote estimates for
the program as I described it was 2.6
million.
Uh, another one came in higher at 4.5.
And that's the end of the presentation.
If you have any questions, I'd be glad
to try to answer them for you, Mr.
Chair. I know it's late.
So is that 2.6 million for the entire
project or per year?
For the project.
The entire project. Estimated four
years. That's what it would be.
Well, this particular one for the 2.6 is
estimating two years.
And the 4.5,
the 4.5 was two to three years. And I'll
tell you why I'm asking this because our
county is so large and it goes from
Hatch to Sunland Park and you have all
these ranchitos and tritas and little
barancas and all kinds of little things
that can be picked up, you know, a barn
or whatever. Um,
I'm hoping that whomever you select
would would understand that about our
county.
Chairman, Commissioner, that's certainly
uh part of the conversation we need to
have with any uh once we do the request
for proposal. Uh that's a conversation
and maybe something even to put in the
proposal to discuss our unique area.
Mr. Chair,
yes, Commissioner Shernandez. Um, is
there a way we can So, I
when we originally were talking about
doing it externally, I thought this
dollar amount was much higher.
Were we in like the four to5 million
range when we originally talked about
this?
I think seven
or seven like seven and a half or up to
up to seven.
Mr. Chair, commissioners, the the range
that we received was 2.5 to 7.5.
So,
with that being said, um, and just
knowing and seeing, can you go back to
the slide if you could for the appraisal
with the per person that you had that
had all that data? That one right there.
Thank you. So, just knowing that those
two proposals came in less than median
um
as far as it goes with price-wise, I
think I can definitely see the benefit
um with that. So, my only question would
be is if you did the external
company to come in and do this project,
um would you have the staff internally
to be able to do these checks?
Chairman, commissioner,
I'm not sure is my honest answer. That's
something we have to further develop.
Okay,
that was my only question.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Last, well, maybe
not the last question. I I say that and
I keep asking questions. Um, as I recall
from our last meeting, we had six
vacancies and that was regarding
appraisers and appraisers assistance.
off the top of my head. Um,
if you brought in this outside company
and having to connect with them, I would
just assume I have little business
myself and in order to
communicate, connect with other
contract employees that I hire, I need
to have someone take care of that while
my regular business is going. So I would
assume that besides filling the
vacancies that you have at this time,
you'd have to hire more people to work
with this outside company, do you have a
number in your in mind of how much how
many additional staff you would need to
hire to to go through that process? uh
chairman, commissioner, so both of the
vendors from the request for information
assured us that they would be fully
staffed and they could take care of the
all the data collection and the data
entry for us. They also are going to
supply us with a project manager, a
technical lead, an audit person uh that
would then also work with our uh chief
appraiser and our uh appraiser
supervisors
uh in collaboration and we may need
another audit person. We do have a
database administrator who's very good
at auditing. uh he does a lot of that
quality assurance for us for our data
throughout the year for different
activities. Uh so we would also um loop
him in on this process. Um but it is
possible that we might need another
audit person.
But I also don't believe we would need
them the full three years. We could do
the preparation work maybe without them
where then we could use someone on a
fixedterm basis which is only 36 months
under our policy.
I I don't know that I have any specific
questions. I think you've talked a lot
about, you know, I think I I still have
further questions, I think, on the
reappraisal plan, but I think as we're
working to approve, whether that's the
vendor or through
full-time hires, whatever it is, I think
we'll we'll get it all sorted out. But I
think overall, I'm I'm okay with the
direction or at least, you know, kind of
we're starting to move in that
direction. I'm good with, you know, I
think where where you're at or at least
where
what you're kind of strugg or or
challenged with and trying to trying to
juggle and figure out how the best way
to attack it. So,
appreciate you.
Thank you.
Commissioners, any other questions?
Awesome.
Thank you for your time.
There's no other questions. And uh
Brandy, if you'll do a roll call.
Commissioner Sheldon on this.
Um, really quickly, just a question
before we do that. Are we just approving
the
There is no budget consideration today.
Is that correct?
Uh, chairman, sorry, I didn't want to
talk.
No, no, go ahead, please.
Chairman, commissioner, there's nothing
to approve today. I talked to property
tax division. They were not interested
in having a resolution for the annual
report approved. They were happy with
it. They were happy that we came before
the board and presented it. So, there's
not that and there's no there's no
budget information. We're not requesting
anything. We're relying on what we gave
the finance department for FY2728.
Okay.
So, there's nothing to approve.
Okay. Never mind. So, I guess I guess if
that's the case, then we take our
But there is there is
I do have a resolution here.
I just I'm confused because there's a
resolution and there's also it says with
related budget.
So I just want to know what that is.
Chairman, commissioner, that was from
the original agenda item. I had deleted
it out of there and put the presentation
in there and when I pulled it off this
morning, I saw that it was still there.
Okay.
Or was back on there. In that case, I
guess we can whatever you want, we can
we can remove our our motions and and
the second if we can do that and
as if there's no need for it. Like I
said, if we're if the budget consider if
it's going to be part of the the fiscal
year the final fiscal year 27 budget
then you know we'll take care of it then
and and move forward with it and then
you know the presentation whatever I
know madam assessor
uh so chair Sanchez commissioners uh
Lucio so I have a question so like how
we are wanting to do this reappraisal is
this what we've already discussed uh to
be able to request that as part of our
budget or where would that money come
from if we do get approved to do
Mr. Chair, commissioners, uh, county
assessor, and so we would need a formal
request on the use of the 1% fund. And
so that formal request would have to
align with any plan for a comprehensive
reappraisal. And if that has to do with
an RFP that we need to issue still, then
we may need to come to the board during
the final budget and say we have this
amount allocated to this RFP for year
one. Um, and as the RFP comes in, we get
specific amounts, it comes back to the
board for a formal approval and
contract.
But I think I think in terms of the
budget though, that would that would
come in July when we approve the final
fiscal year 27 budget.
Uh, Mr. Chair, that is correct. It could
come in July or it could come as a
budget adjustment during the year.
Okay. And if you're okay with that,
Madam assessor, then we'll just go ahead
and remove the
the motions and say thank you for the
presentation.
Thank you. Thank you, chair. Thank you
commissioners and thank you Lucio.
So is there a withdrawal of the motion
and second?
Who made the first and the second?
Um
I think you made I think I had here that
you made that motion.
I withdraw my motion
and then I think uh madam or
commissioner made the second. I thought
yes I withdraw my second. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you.
Uh all right. Uh I'd like to
I'd like to move that we remove item 16
from the table for consideration.
So moved.
All right. And I'll take a I'll make the
second. And with that, we'll back to
item 16. Um I know we've got uh some
revised language here. Um so if we're
okay with it, I'm just going to go ahead
and make the motion to amend. I'll read
the the if and I'll read what was what I
have here. So this is now the we'll
amend to read the following items.
Number one, the county manager is
assigned to address the items specified
within the timeline identified in the
special audit report and to provide
specific details as needed. Number two,
the county manager may utilize county
staff to assist with addressing fi with
addressing the findings. Number three,
when the county manager has determined
an item has been addressed, it shall be
forwarded to the inspector general once
hired for review and recommendation to
the board of county commissioners.
Number four, the item shall be presented
to the board of county commissioners by
the county manager during a public
meeting for review and action. Number
five, upon approval by the board of
county commissioners, the county manager
will notify the county's external
auditor. And number six, the external
auditor will review the item to
determine if it has indeed been
adequately addressed. If so, it will be
noted in the annual external audit with
a copy sent to the state auditor. So, if
I can get a second on that amendment.
Second.
Thank you.
All right. So, we've got the proposed
amendments uh for the resolution. Is
there any comments or any other changes
to those or concerns about those
amendments?
Okay. So, I'll do a roll call on the
amendments.
Uh Randy, do you need a copy of this so
you can
No, I I I I have
Okay. You had that look of like you
expected me to write all that down.
I think [laughter] I'll be good.
Okay.
Okay. Motion is we're doing the
amendment, correct?
Correct. This is to this is a vote on
the amendment.
Commissioner Shaldo Hernandez,
yes.
Commissioner Kimble,
yes.
Commissioner Chapado,
yes.
Chair Sanchez,
yes. Okay, we're back to the resolution
as amended. Are there any other
comments or questions?
Mr. Chair, I just have one question
since we're it is related just about the
um
internal investigator.
Is that what we're calling it? Internal
investig inspector general.
Wow, that is a big title.
It is.
Um so just checking on that, what what
are the next steps that we can see from
county management regarding that
position? Is it going to be I don't need
to give you my examples. Just tell me
what the next steps are.
Yeah, RFP process would uh be suitable
at that point. Typical process 30 to 45
days actually 60 if there's a dis any
disputing it. So at that point we would
come back to you all and you would lean
in and make a decision.
All right. Thank you sir.
And Mr. Chair if I can add to that. Um,
typically we have a team of staff who
evaluate the responses to an RFP because
this position would report directly to
the board. Um, the board at some point
as we get to that stage may want to uh
assign a couple of board members to do
that evaluation.
I' I'd agree,
Mr. Chair. we could do the way that we
did um when we hired the search firm for
uh the last time is we actually went
through those RFPs in open session as a
commission and voted.
Yeah. And that way it's very open and
transparent with that.
I'm open to the suggestion or you know
if you want it pre-evaluated at all by
by somebody I do agree that we can have
someone from the board be a part of that
uh assessment and then and then we bring
it forward to the commission for the
decision
and Mr. Sure. I think because the
inspector general reports to the board,
just two of the board members would be
test with that and not include the staff
because that inspector general would be
reporting to the BOCC
and I trust all of you all. So
yeah, I mean I I'd only think I think
the only reason I I wouldn't mind even
having staff as being part of it is only
just to have some additional thoughts or
suggestion. But I'm I'm open to how how
how I guess however the however we want
to review the RFPs before it comes to
the to the board in open session. So,
but I guess we can do that maybe in
another meeting and discuss the you know
I guess like as a presentation how the
RFP will go. Okay.
All right. Uh I guess with that we have
uh the amended resolution
um on before us. I don't see any public
input. So Randy, if you will do a roll
call on item 16 as amended.
Commissioner Shaldo Ornandez.
Yes.
Commissioner Kimble?
Yes.
Commissioner Chapado?
Yes.
Chair Sanchez?
Yes.
That does have a resolution number. The
number is 2026-80.
Thank you. All right. Thank you,
Stephen.
Thank you very much.
All right. All right, we're on to
commission input followup.
I don't know I don't know if any
commissioner has anything at this point.
[laughter]
I I do do you want to share the I I know
I know it's not necessarily commission
but we did get get some good news from
our uh friends in Washington DC. Scott
if you don't mind sharing. Yeah, it
looks uh Stephen and I just received an
email shortly ago from our federal
lobbyist Nick Crockett who many of you
met and it looks like Ky Mesa Road has a
million dollars coming its way.
So, great news all around and that
should help our go bond initiatives.
Awesome.
All right. Um,
correspondence. Brandy.
I have Caitlyn Ashton versus Dona
County.
Thank you. All right. We're on to the
close session.
So I'll make if I well I'll make the
motion that we convene in close session
to discuss a limited personnel matter
related to the county manager's
performance and discussion on midter
evaluation to discuss bargaining
strategy preliminary to collective
bargaining negotiations with the
communication workers of America local
pursuant to attorney client privilege to
discuss threatened or pending litigation
related to the outcome of the internal
complaint investigation and to discuss
the purchase, acquisition, and disposal
of real property and water rights as
authorized by the Open Meetings Act
sections 10-15-1,
H2, H5, H7, and H8
per NMSA 1978. If I can get a second
by Commissioner
Brandy, if you do a roll call for us to
go into close session.
Commissioner Shaldo Ornandez,
yes.
Commissioner Kimble,
yes. Commissioner Chapato.
Yes.
Chair Sanchez.
Yes.
And with that, we'll go into close
session at 4:25 p.m.