It is Tuesday, June 10th. The time is
9:01 and we are here at the Donana
County Board of County Commission
chambers and I'm going to go ahead and
call this meeting to order. The first on
the agenda is our invocation by Mary
Beth Holsey who just arrived. So, if you
want to join us at the podium.
At the podium. Yep. Thank you so much.
Well, in these times of
less security and
greater
chaos, I want to invite us all to take a
minute to dedicate ourselves,
a minute of silence.
Okay.
Thank you. Thank you.
Next up, we do have the pledge of
allegiance. If you are able to stand and
join us, please do.
I pledge algiance to the flag of the
United States of America and to the
republic for which it stands. One nation
under God, indivisible, with liberty and
justice for all.
Wonderful. Brandy, if I can get a roll
call for determination of quorum,
please.
Commissioner Gomedos here. Commissioner
Reynolds here. Commissioner Sanchez,
Vice Chair Chaparo present. Chair Sha
Dodinandez
here. So we do have quorum today. So the
county commission convenes as a board of
county commissioners and the county
board of finance in open session. Mr.
Andrews, is there any changes to the
agenda today? Morning, sir. Good
morning, everyone. Yes, we have one
change. I'd like to request that we move
item number 10 to the next meeting,
please. Item number 10, which is the
resolution for the New Mexico Department
of Transportation state appropriation.
Yes, sir. Okay. Any other changes? No,
sir.
Perfect. Seeing none, we will go ahead
and take that to the next agenda.
Next up, we have the consent agenda
where the board will be asked to approve
by one motion the following items for
reoccurring or routine business. And we
do have items number one through nine.
skipping item number 10 and items 11 and
12. Do we have a motion? So moved. Okay,
we have a motion by Commissioner
Reynolds. Do we have a second?
Second. Okay, we have a second by
Commissioner Gomedos. Commissioners, any
discussions, Mr. Chair? Yes,
Commissioner. I'd like to pull item
number 12 for a few questions. Thank
you. Okay. Would you like to pull it or
would you like to ask your questions
before we vote on the consent agenda?
I'd like to pull it, please. Okay. So,
we have an amendment to the motion to
remove item number 12 from the consent
agenda for future consideration.
I'll go ahead and second that.
Any questions on that?
Seeing none,
Brandy, will you roll call vote us on
the removal of item number 12 from the
consent agenda or? Yeah, we'll just do
it that way.
Roll call is for the removal of item 12.
Commissioner Gomez, yes. Commissioner
Reynolds, no. Commissioner Sanchez, yes.
Vice Chair Chabato, yes. Chair Shaundes,
yes. Item number 12 will be considered
on after the consent agenda. So now we
have the motion to approve items number
1 through nine. Skipping item 10 and
continuing on item number 11.
Commissioners, any discussion?
Seeing none, Brandy.
Commissioner Gomez, yes. Commissioner
Reynolds, yes. Commissioner Sanchez,
yes. Vice Chair Chaparo, yes. Chair Shao
Hernandez, yes. Motion carries. Granny,
if we can get those resolution numbers,
please.
I have item number five, resolution
2025-61.
Item number 6,2025-62.
Item number 7205-63.
Item number 9,2025-64.
Awesome. Now we will consider item
number 12 which is a resolution to
approve restructure of the utilities and
engineering road department into a
department of public works. I will go
ahead and make the motion for approval.
Do we have a second? Second. Okay, we
have a motion by myself and a second by
Commissioner Sanchez.
Welcome, Assistant County Manager Lopez.
Good morning, Mr. Chair, Vice Chair,
members of the commission. The request
in front of you uh is based on the need
for this board to approve any
organizational chart changes. What we
are requesting is authorization to go
back to the organizational chart that
existed uh in 2010.
In fact, the signage in our building
still has that organizational uh
structure. Uh still identifies our
offices as the Department of Public
Works. The reason for this is starting
back in February, we started an
evaluation of uh departments
specifically that report to my ACM
position and we noticed that there is a
lot of overlap in planning and execution
between public works and engineering and
roads, what I'm going to refer to as the
horizontal infrastructure.
And that planning uh really makes a lot
of sense to have coordinated in a single
department. And as we look at the needs
moving forward, especially for economic
development across the county, having
good consistent uh planning that works
through all of those areas, uh we think
is very advantageous. This
organizational change does not require
the addition of any new positions. Uh we
do have already a position that was
going to be made an assistant director
uh of public works or of utilities,
sorry, under facilities. So it's that
position that would become the
director's position. Um and then we also
have the benefit of economies of scale
when we look at things like grants.
We've been working with HR since
February on how we can have a grant
position that serves all three areas so
that we don't have a need for somebody
in each of those areas doing grants. Um
so again, we we think this really does
benefit the county. It it aligns
departments that need to work closely
together and allows us to develop for
the future uh especially in those areas
to support economic development and that
horizontal infrastructure throughout the
county. Happy to answer any questions.
Thank you, Mr. Lopez. Mr. Chair. Yes.
Thank you. Um, Mr. Lopez, you mentioned
an organizational chart. So, can you
describe how that would work because I
couldn't quite wrap my head around it?
My apologies for not having a graphic uh
for you, but absolutely, vice chair. The
organizational chart will have the
director and then there will be three
units underneath the director. There
will be engineering, there will be the
road department, and there will be
utilities. Each of those three
components will be supervised by an
assistant director. The assistant
directors are existing staff positions.
And so we would be actually elevating uh
a couple people into those positions. Uh
which actually provides us with a little
bit better competitiveness and career
growth opportunities. uh in those areas.
Another follow-up question. You've
mentioned the assistant uh staff
directors. From which departments will
they come? That would be from utilities,
from the road department, and from
engineering. So, there'll be one for
from each department. Correct. And so,
the assistant director for engineering
would be the county engineer, the
assistant director for roads would be
the road superintendent, and the
assistant director for utilities would
be over water and wastewater. And the
director would come from we will either
one of our existing assistant directors
uh assuming you approve this uh would be
able to apply or we would be hiring from
outside for somebody and per the
resolution in front of you. They would
need to have a background in one or more
of those three areas.
Okay. I think the just a second I think
I had another question.
So, you mentioned that this original
public works department was created in
2010. What happened between I'm I'm
missing history, Mr. Lopez, and so um if
you'd fill in the gaps, I'd appreciate
it. Mr. Chair, Madame Vice Chair, that
is a great question. Uh and and if
you'll give me a little latitude here on
the history, up until 2010, it was
public works and in many municipalities
and counties across the US, it is public
works department. But as the uh three
four county managers ago was looking at
it, there was a decision made to try to
sell off utilities. Um when that
decision was made, that's when the break
took place. As we all know, uh those
efforts were not successful in selling
off utilities and we are still to this
day cleaning up from some of that. We
just changed some of our utilities staff
from being temp workers to being regular
staff. Um they had been put in in that
that perm contract uh status be with the
intent that they would be going with the
utilities. Uh so we just now uh just
recently gave those employees
the the knowledge and assurityity that
their jobs exist and are going to to be
staying with us. The other factor that
came into us being unable to sell it is
quite frankly with 28 38 sorry 38
colonias in the county and those are
where we need water and wastewater by
definition of a colonia.
It is not cost-effective under a
traditional utility model to run
utilities. We are spending an average of
$30,000
per household to hook them up to
wastewater.
You can never recover that on a fee for
service model. Um in fact, our fees
right now for service are almost four
times higher than the city of Los Cru's
for our people that live in Colonia. And
that's something we'll be bringing to
the board later this year to discuss in
detail uh on our fee structure. But if
we're serious about providing for the
health and safety of people, it it we're
going to have to continue to operate the
utilities and and actually put forth
more effort uh in doing so because the
private sector for-profit side is just
not interested.
Thank you. No more questions. I
appreciate your time.
Thank you, Vice Chair. Any other qu
Yeah, go ahead, Commissioner Reynolds.
Thank you, Mr. mayor, you know, in all
the areas that I've been and I recognize
that one of our primary responsibilities
is the health and safety and welfare of
the community and utilities and have
certainly been a problem for the whole
county for that reason. I think that's
kind of what you said. So, I echo that.
Well, in addition to that, we've also
realized that it impacts every other
operation in the county because we lack
the infrastructure necessary to support
the changes and the growth that we need.
So I mean we are kind of even if we
don't take on the responsibility and we
don't manage it correctly it still
affects the outcome of what we're trying
to accomplish and what we're ch charged
with as a county for our people. So I
think that u actually bringing this in
house forming an organization so we can
actually focus on it with the right
resources is the only way we're going to
meet the challenges as we go forward and
the regulations from the federal
government the requirement for the
people and the safety and the health and
welfare is not going to be impacted
unless we take responsibility for it. So
I'm all in favor of doing this for that
reason.
Okay, anyone else?
Okay, Brandy,
if you will please roll call us on item
number 12.
Commissioner Gomez, yes. Commissioner
Reynolds, yes. Commissioner Sanchez,
yes. Vice Chair Chaparo, yes. Chair Sha
Jordan, yes. Motion carries.
I'm sorry. The resolution.
Did we I thought we were discussing it.
Did we actually pass a resolution or did
we actually make a a resolution? I made
the motion and Commissioner Sanchez
second it. Sorry, I was reading
something. Oh, okay.
Go ahead, Brandy. Thank you. Okay, the
resolution number for that item is 2025
dash
let me see it went all over
66.
Awesome. Thank you, Brandy.
Okay, moving on. We do have our employee
recognition portion of our meeting today
where the commission will recognize
Donana County employees for their years
of service to Donana County.
And we have our assistant county
manager, Miss Weir Dubir, who will be
doing these for us. So, welcome. Thank
you. Good morning, Mr. Chair,
commissioners. We have five employees
who've hit milestones in their service
with Donana County that we would like to
recognize today. We'd like to start with
detention officer Lori Diaz, who's been
with the county for 10 years.
Crime scene technician Luis Garcia has
been with the sheriff's department for
10 years. Angie Rodriguez, who I believe
is with us today, is the victim advocate
supervisor for the sheriff's department
and she has 15 years of service with the
county.
[Applause]
Mr. Daniel Hawus from facilities and
services is an electrician too and he
has been with the county for 15 years as
well. And finally, detention sergeant
Thomas Burns has been with the detention
center for 25 years. So, please take the
time to thank them for their dedicated
service to our county and its residents.
Thank you.
Awesome.
Thank you. Next up, we do have one
proclamation on the agenda today, which
is to proclaim June 19th as Junth in
Donana County.
Commissioner Reynolds. Thank you, Mr.
Chair. Um Junth is a special holiday in
my opinion and um it's a historical day
we welcome with a national holiday
and proudly recognize
on June the 19th. We commemorate the
emancipation of enslaved
African-Americans.
Today we invite everyone to rejoice in
the celebration of this impactful moment
and our shared history and join us in
recognition that we still work hard at
work work have work ahead of us.
Genti celebrations throughout Donetta
County will be hosted by the National
Association for the Advancement of Color
People by New Mexico State University
businesses and municipalities alike. We
all aim to foster unity, promote
cultural understanding, and encourage
dialogue among among businesses,
government, academia, and individuals
like you and me.
We encourage everyone to reflect on this
day and join the discussions and
celebrations. Events throughout the week
include jazz concerts, gospel concerts,
and also a Junth banquet.
To receive the proclamation
proclamation, we welcome Professor Dr.
Bobby Green who is also the president of
the National Association for the
Advancement of Color People and Dona
County. And would you like to say a few
words?
Good morning board of commissioners,
Chair Shalo Hernandez, Vice Chair
Japaro, Commissioner Gomeros, former
Chair Sanchez, and Commissioner
Reynolds. I woke up this morning with a
smile on my face because I thought about
all of the years that you have been so
supportive of the NAACP, what we stand
for, and a Junth celebration, which is
um as you said, a reason to rejoice. I
watch the news. Most of it is bad.
Some of it is is really bad and some of
it you know is absolutely unacceptable.
So uh when I think about how far we have
come and the fact that we are today
celebrating or this whole week we're
celebrating uh Junth we are recognizing
a victory.
How we have fought to abolish sla
slavery. How a president signed an
emancipation proclamation.
how the citizens
took up and said, "No, we we can't stand
for this." And how the Union soldiers
who didn't have to but notified the
uninformed with information that was
relevant, very relevant, but they
wouldn't have known but for those Union
soldiers. So that is something to
celebrate. And when we think about that
and we think about where we are today,
we have fought to get this to get that
progress, we're going to have to do that
again. We're going to have to stand up.
We're going to have to fight for our
brothers and sisters who are being uh
unlawfully detained uh right down the
road. And we have to fight for the
oppression that they're trying to take
us back to. We cannot go back. We will
not go back. And so this celebration and
the fact that you would take time year
after year to celebrate Junth and to
recognize the victories that we have won
and how we can do it again makes me
smile. So I want to say thank you for
your service, for your work, for your
compassion, your love and your support.
I appreciate it greatly. Thank you,
[Applause]
Mr. Chair. I believe we have one more
comment.
Good. How are you? Good morning,
commissioners. My name is Corey
Stonefielder. I'm speaking to you today
just as a resident of district 5.
Um, in 2025, as we
debate over how history is taught in our
schools, as voting rights are confused
or contested, and as equity efforts face
resistance,
Junth calls us to remember the struggle
for freedom. And it didn't end in 1865.
It hasn't even ended today.
This holiday challenge uses challenges
us not to be passive observers of the
holiday, but active participants in
building a more honest and inclusive
future.
Honoring this holiday means standing up
for truth, protecting civil rights, and
ensuring that every American's dignity
is recognized and respected.
So let us use this day not only to
reflect but to recommmit to justice.
Thank you
Mr. Chair. The proclamation reads
whereas Junth is also known as freedom
day or emancipation day and is a
significant historical and cultural
observance commemorating the
emancipation of enslaved
African-Americans in the United States.
And whereas President Abraham Lincoln
issued the Emancipation Proclamation on
January 1st, 1863.
However, the enslaved population in
Texas and New Mexico did not learn of
their freedom until Union troops led by
General Gordon Granger arrived in
Galveastston, Texas on June 19th, 1865
to enforce it. And whereas Junth
represents a pivotal moment in our
nation's history, symbolizing the end of
the enslavement and ownership of human
beings as property and the beginning of
an ongoing struggle towards racial
justice and equality. And whereas Junth
also provides an opportunity to reflect
on the challenges, achievements, and
contributions of African-Americans
throughout history, recognizing their
resilience, creativity, and enduring
spirit in the face of adversity and
oppression. And whereas Junth
celebrations and activities aimed to
foster unity, promote cultural
understanding, and encourage dialogue
about the history and remnants of
slavery in America. And whereas we
encourage residents to observe this day
and participate in the events hosted by
the city of Los Cusus's, New Mexico
State University, the NAACP, and other
organizations who gather to celebrate
the progress we have made as a nation
while recognizing the work that still
lies ahead. Now therefore, County
Manager Scott Andrews does hereby
proclaim the 19th of June as Junth
signed this 10th day of June, 20125.
Wonderful. Thank you. Okay.
Yeah. Come on up.
Yeah,
table.
Okay.
really bad.
Okay, thank you so much.
Okay, next we do have public
who's talking
heard voices.
Okay, next up is public input. If you're
a member of the public and you would
like to give public input and address
the commission, if you'll please come up
front, there is a white binder to your
left hand side. If you will please sign
in. We have three minutes on the clock
and you will have three minutes to
address the commission.
Morning. My name is Jim Hurst. Uh at the
last commission meeting uh Mark Ve
argued that Jesus suggested the second
amendment of the US Constitution when
Jesus instructed his disciples to buy
swords
uh in Luke 25:35 through 30 36.
I agree I disagree with Mr. V's
understanding of Jesus the Bible the
second amendment and the utility of of
assault rifles.
But his remark was useful because it
illustrates the meaning and purpose of
the first amendment. It was written to
protect those of us who desire to be
governed by reason instead of
superstition from those who would seek
to govern us by what their opinion of
what the Bible is, what the Bible says,
what Jesus may or may not have said, and
how it applies to our law and
constitution.
I do not want to live in a nation
governed by interpretations of the
Bible. I want to live in a nation
governed by reason, reasonable persons,
and laws founded on evidence and
science.
The American Revolution was fought so
that these American states
so that the United States of America
would be a country founded on reason.
What Thomas Payne called common sense
and his compatriots and intellectual
allies Franklin, Jefferson and Madison
agreed so that they gave us the wall of
separation between church and state.
When I consider there are so many
theocratic Christian
nationalists who wish to write laws
based on their reading of the Bible
rather than reason. I am all the more
grateful for the wisdom of our founders
and the heritage of separation of church
and state. I do not want to live in a
nation where everyone walks around with
an assault rifle on their shoulder.
Magga heaven sounds more like hell to
me. Thank you very much.
Good morning, commissioners. Mark Ve,
District 1.
On Sunday,
Prime is going to air season 5,
episodes one and two of The Chosen.
The chosen is a very good depiction of
the biblical Jesus.
The church that I grew up in would
depict a non denominational church,
happy, happy, joy, joy, would depict
Jesus as being a wimpy guy.
So, I'm going to read John 23
through 16 to show that Jesus wasn't a
wimpy guy.
It was nearly time for the Jewish
Passover celebration. So Jesus went to
Jerusalem. In the temple area, he saw
merchants selling cattle, sheep, doves
for sacrifice. He also saw dealers at
tables exchanging foreign money.
Jesus made a whip from some ropes and
chased them out of the temple. He drove
out the sheep, the cattle, scattered the
money changers coins over the floor, and
turned over their tables. Then going
over the people who sold the doves, he
told them, "Get these things out of
here. Stop turning my father's house
into a marketplace."
Episode two is going to contain this
scene.
Heavenly Father, I thank you for this
day. Lord, I pray that you would give
godly wisdom to our county leaders, that
they would lead this nation in a manner
pleasing to you.
Father, I pray for those that don't know
you, that you would bring them to the
cross.
And Father, I thank you for those that
won't bend a knee. I thank that you will
cast them out. Cast them out like you
did Joseph Biden and Camela Harris. In
Jesus name I pray. Amen.
Mr. Chair, vice chair, members of the
board. Uh my name is Kenny Luhan. I'm a
representative of AMR but also a
resident of Donana County District 3.
And I just like to thank you for the
opportunity to speak today. Um AMR has
served Donana County and Los Cusus for
18 consecutive years, a total of 20 plus
uh in the area. We have over a 100
employees who have families here in Los
Cruus and Donana County. We acknowledge
that there's a lot going on between AMR,
the city of Los Cusus, and Donana
County. But we remain hopeful that
there's a mutual path forward that
includes AMR in the system. We want to
make it clear today that we have no
intention first and foremost of leaving
Donana County without planned
coordinated exit. We would highly
encourage that both the city and the
county representatives agree to sit and
meet with AMR to discuss this.
The controversy around AMR's response
time performance were from early 2024
where we did struggle with the new
contract that we had with the city of
Los Cusus. But since 2025 began, AMR has
a much better response time performance
and overall contract compliance. This is
mostly in part due to staffing increases
that we've achieved here in Los Cusus
and Donana County. So on behalf of
myself and the AMR employees, we just
implore you all to please sit down with
us and to allow us to provide our
perspective. We believe that there's a
collaborative solution that will provide
a public private partnership that gives
the residents of this great community an
improved EMS system.
Um, and also if I may, uh, chair, I have
a written statement that I'd like to
give to you to disperse to the board.
Again, thank you for your time.
[Music]
Good morning, county commissioners. My
name is Michael Simmons, District 1,
following up from some the last board of
county commissions. Uh where I was
accused of uh what misdirection or using
words incorrectly and that no person is
illegal. Uh that's a little bit of
thought policing and political
correctness in that the US codes
themselves refer to illegal aliens um
and improper entry by aliens in 8 US
code 1325. Uh it's also a case that
political correctness takes over the
language, tries to redefine or limit
thought of what can be said or what is
acceptable thought uh by groups and
individuals uh and thereby changing the
political landscape. I pretty much
reject that at this point. I've been
living under that for I don't know 30 40
years. Uh so that's getting to be kind
of old. Uh so we've got that going for
us. Uh, as far as civil authorities
versus military authorities being in
control of border situations, I believe
the US Army is going to have their 250th
anniversary and the fundamental purpose
of an army is to defend the borders of a
nation um from invasion and other
places. Um, the border patrol itself is
a newer entity covered u under
legislation as opposed to I believe the
article powers for the armed forces. Uh
it also used to be under customs and a
whole bunch of stuff. It's it's been
around a long time in various forms. Um
but it is not the same as defense of
borders. So we've got that rolling for
us. Um and as far as borders, we've
touched on some of that. If you have a
house, uh I have a title from the state
of New Mexico giving me legal right. And
if somebody is there, I can ask them to
be trespassed and I will refer to a
higher authority in order for them to be
removed. If they don't if they aren't
removed just by me talking with them
then we have police, we have other
entities. Uh gated communities operate
similarly. They often uh some will have
um um security guards and other
entities. So there's a legal right to
the border uh and if they are not wanted
by the owners of that border uh they can
be removed. The same goes for counties,
states, nations by long-standing custom
and law uh that if entities are in there
uh without permission of the legal
authorities, they can be removed. Uh and
in that case, it's just a matter of how
we refer to them. We can refer to them
illegals. We can refer to them as uh
criminal aliens uh illegally in the
nation. We can do other things. Uh and I
think that covers what I had written
down for today. And I appreciate your
time on these matters and have a great
day.
You contemplated it. I saw it. He gave
me reason. Okay.
Um, good morning um, Mr. Chair, county
manager, commissioners. My name is Tena
Sosa Gonzalez and um I did I
contemplated whether or not to um to
speak this morning, but I I you know I
watched the last county commission
meeting and I thought, "Wow, we all
really love libraries, don't we?" I love
libraries so much. It's it might be hard
for you guys to believe, but I was a
really bad kid. And I um used to skip
school at Cru's High because I thought I
had already learned everything I needed
to learn in there. And I would get on
the Roadrunner bus or I would walk to
the NMSU library and I would spend my
time. I got kicked out for kicked out of
Los Cusus High for fighting and skipping
at the library. Graduated from San
Andreesco Turtles, but I would um I
would read books in the library. And it
just so happened that one of the books
that I read was Night by Ellie Vicel.
And what I learned from that has shaped
my entire being. He talks about
indifference and indifference is the
epitome of all evil and a neutrality
helps the oppressor and never the
victim.
I want to be really really clear
about integrity and choosing courage
over comfort. And I want to say to you,
Commissioner Sanchez, thank you for
having integrity, for for choosing
courage over comfort and talking about
what's really happening on our border.
On June 3rd, the first people were
detained at the Trump border in
Commissioner Gomed's section, right near
Santa Theesa. And so I'm curious I'm
curious with all of you learned people
who love books so much what if any
response the county will have. It is
really difficult to stand in a place
I've spent my whole life advocating and
it is really difficult to stand in a
place of advocacy. It's never
comfortable. It's never comfortable. And
the word illegal alien to be very clear
is porative.
It is disrespectful. It denies the
humanity of the individual and it should
not be tolerated or allowed at all.
There we're talking about Junth and
there are words that we know we should
not say that are hate words. People are
not illegal. In 1849, my grandmother had
to decide to stay here or move. Her land
was taken. The people that came and took
her land were here illegally.
Right. So, I just want to be really
clear and I'm I'm I'm hoping I'm hoping
there will be a unified voice and a
unified response. I mean, we have an ICE
detention center, the what the Otto
County processing center. We have one
here in our county. It's it's the
address is in Chapparel. So, I just want
to I just want to be really clear and I
also um I also just want to make sure I
just want to give my deep my deep
respect to you, Commissioner Sanchez.
Thank you for being faithful.
Any other public comment today?
Seeing none, we'll move on to commission
input. Commissioners
Seeing none, we'll move on to Sorry,
Mr. Chairman. I did have Sorry, I
got a little distracted, but I I did
have a few Yeah. items. Go ahead. Buckle
up.
Um
tomorrow uh at 11:30 we'll be having a
constituent meeting at the Radian
Springs Community Center. Um it'll be
from 11:30 to 12:30 uh located at uh uh
12,60 Lindbeck Road. If there if you
have a chance to come up to Radio
Springs, it's behind the Family Lindbeck
is it runs right next to Family Dollar
uh right next to the Ben Archer Clinic.
Uh we welcome you there. uh we will have
some of the uh departments and uh there
we'll we'll give some updates, try to
take questions and uh comments from our
constituents and so we hope to to see
people there. Um on Friday we're going
to be having a ribbon cutting for the
Abeta Pond uh in the in the town of or
the village of Donana. Uh the nice
thing, this is our first uh kind of
joint project with the flood commission
to um have some sort of outdoor
recreation space. And so it's going to
be uh the site for park algana.
Um and so I I really want to invite
people to come out. It will be again
Friday at 10:00 a.m. um at the corner of
El Camilal and Donana School Road. Um
and and come check it out. It's really
cool to finally have some walking spaces
and paths in the community there. Um, I
did have a couple of items for our uh
county management that I had questions
about and I don't know just for future
for for future consideration. I know um
I didn't know if there's a chance for us
as we're talking about public works uh
to look at revisiting our mandatory
trash service. I know there had been a
lot of upfront work. There was some
discussions even after the presentation
about where to do it um and then how we
might be able to do some billing. Um I'd
like to see if that might be a topic we
can uh have on a future meeting or work
dis uh a work session. Um, and then the
other item is because I've been getting
uh complaints on is a the mobile home
that's been dumped illegally on another
on on a private property. It's on
Camille Royale uh near Sanicedro
and I I know people have been talking
about it because it's in it's in really
bad shape. It looks like it's falling
apart even worse now. And I know
internally we've discussed it. I know
this is kind of one of those things
that's we don't have a clear answer for,
but I want to see if we can figure out
an answer because um you know I think
it's pretty really unfair that you have
a private resident who had a mobile home
just basically dumped on their property
uh because it was in bad shape. It was I
mean I've heard so many different things
of that and so I I I hope that we can
figure out how we can help address it
whether it's to cite the owners for
illegal dumping or um I I I don't I you
know I don't know where they're working
with the state because I I doubt that
was permitted to be moved from Radium
Springs to where it was going. So I
don't know what what avenue we may have
but I I want to see like I said I I how
we can come up with a a solution there.
Um, I do have some board updates, but
I'll wait till we do those. But I I did
want to say um
in light of what we're seeing in LA,
almost a month ago, May 13th, during
that meeting, I raised the issue about
the Department of Army
starting to patrol our borders and
enforcing immigration or sorry,
trespassing.
I said it was normalizing having the
armed forces
enforcing domestic laws
and now all we have to do is look at Los
Angeles
where they're mobilizing
Marines.
They even we even see the president that
jumped a step without allowing the state
to step in and federalizing the National
Guard.
and we already have the army patrolling
our southern border.
How soon is it that we're going to see
them in the city of Lasus or or or
Sunland Park in Santa Teresa or any of
our communities
enforcing some sort of laws and we can't
and we can't be quiet about this.
I I think what what frustrates me is
we're seeing the the tensions that are
happening in LA, San Diego, and other
cities across the nation.
And I think back of my the history of my
family
and seeing people comment online about
what we're seeing right now. My
grandfather was a brasero. He came over
the border legally as if you know people
want to keep tabs. He came over and
started working because that was what
the country needed at that time. They
needed help working the fields. And so
what do we do? We reached re reached out
to our neighbors in Mexico and said
please help us.
So he came over and eventually was able
to bring over my grandmother and and my
dad and his siblings.
But if you look back on that history of
them coming over, the braseros
were not necessarily welcomed.
They were sprayed with DDT. They were
sprayed with pesticides and other
poisons because they were told they were
they could bring infestations into the
US.
So they were not treated
like you know friendly neighbors
but they still came over because of the
jobs
my dad and his family when they went to
school here in the Messia Valley
they were forced to assimilate
to the American way of life. I even
heard stories of how they had to be good
about being know knowing how to speak
English and Spanish because if they
spoke Spanish at school, they got
paddled. If they got home and spoke
English, they got hit with a belt.
And so we see that to the point that
that generation found shame in speaking
Spanish or showing their culture.
And what happened in 1960, I think it
was 1964, the Brasetto program
eventually ended. It was this, like I
said, it was a program where people
could legally come over, work, and if
they wanted to, they could stay in the
US with a green card or they could go
back home. But then we started hearing
the sim a refrain that probably sounds
similar to today, which is they're
taking our jobs. They're taking our
jobs. So they had to cancel the program,
right? 60 years later, we still hear the
same things. And now we're seeing this
president starting to call out political
leaders and people for disagreeing.
Heck, I mean, this is McCarthyism
almost. I mean, we're we're I feel like
we're almost a step there. We're not
learning from our history and we're
continuing to demonize and and oppress
people. And what I hear so often is,
"Well, they're here illegally. Oh, look
at them. They're waving a Mexican flag.
I get it. I get how people want things
to be presented to them in a nice bow so
that they can jump on board and and be
part of the cause, but at what point
will we have respect for people's
cultures
and just humanity?
But going back to the beginning, like I
said, when are we what are we going to
do
when when the armed forces are starting
to come in and start enforcing laws
here? So, like I said, I I I'm I know
I've I I
just want to raise that because we
cannot be quiet
and I I tell that to my fellow
commissioners and my fellow constituents
here. We can't be quiet
because it will continue to go on and on
and on and we're going to repeat history
like I said because we're seeing it
happen in front of us.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[Applause]
Any other commission comments? Mr.
Chair. Yes, vice chair. Thank you,
Commissioner Sanchez. Thank you for uh
having the courage to speak out on this
and I wholeheartedly agree. I as a court
interpreter, I work in the courts and I
get calls from constituents about what
are people doing or what are we doing
about the people that are here that are
undocumented. Well, let me tell you what
happens in the courts. If there is a
person that is arrested for a criminal
matter, then ICE is called and they are
detained by ICE.
I am not aware or maybe very few
occasions where a person that is
convicted of a crime that is not from
this country is released out into the
community.
They are held for ICE to be picked up
and deported. And so I think there's a
lot of fear in this community thinking
that
people that are convicted of crimes are
being released into the community and I
assure you for the most part that is not
happening. Um, Commissioner Sanchez, my
father also was a brasero and came into
this country and my family was brought
in one by one and I mentioned in a
commission meeting before Primo Primo
the Porta Mano Pormano one by one
and Miss Samora is very much aware of
that because your grandmother came in
with my mother
and so I'm very proud of that.
The people that are coming into this
country are not taking jobs, especially
those that are providing the food that
we eat. They are being the food that we
eat is being harvested by people from
other countries that come into this
country to build a better life, to get
away from oppression. And most of them
are this color.
And I will give you an example. Um, and
I think I've shared this with the
chairman about a year ago. Someone told
me, "Well, I'm color blind."
And I didn't quite understand that
because as a Latina, when I look in the
mirror, I know I'm brown every day and I
see my color every day and I speak the
language of my forefathers every day.
And I'm quite proud of that. And to be
shamed
No,
I will continue to celebrate my culture,
my language, my forefathers, and my
ancestors.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you.
[Applause]
Any other questions?
Mr. Chair. Yes, Commissioner. Um I can't
speak a lot to the what's been spoken
already except to say that um people
coming here are not illegal. They're
undocumented. And I think we have to
understand that everyone coming here to
find a better life. Even my ancestors
coming from Ireland, okay, who were
treated not like this, these people
here, there's no comparison. But they
being even coming here and trying to
immigrate into this country, they're not
illegal. They're just undocumented. And
I have friends that took 20, 30, 40
years to get the documentation necessary
to become a citizen. And they they
stayed here that long. So I I can relate
that way, but I can't relate to the
cultural challenges that you have
locally. Uh because I'm from Kentucky
and not here. Uh however um I do
empathize and I understand the concept
of not being colorblind.
Um I wanted to did I did want to make a
couple announcements
to go along with this time and that is
there's going to be a change of command
at the White Sands Missile Range which
I'm attending for both the command
sergeant major and also for the general
in the next week or so. Um the 200 the
250th Army birthday ball is actually
going to happen here at the convention
center on Saturday the 5th or excuse me
5th Saturday the 14th from 5:00 until
11:00. Uh I will be attending that
representing the county.
Uh the other thing is happening is the
Junth uh banquet is happening on
Saturday um June 21st uh again at the
Los Cusus Convention Center from 6:00
until about 8:00 if anyone's interested
in picking up tickets for that. And
that's all I have sir. Thank you.
Okay,
I will save my commission comments till
the later part of the meeting.
Commissioner Commandos, anything? Okay,
next up is county elected officials
input.
Hello, chair. Hello, commissioners. Good
morning. Good morning. Caroline Samura,
chief deputy county clerk. Just here to
give you all some updates. But first, I
want to start off by again reiterating
um that no human is illegal. And that's
just common decency, humanity, um and
Christian values, of course. Um
Commissioner Chaparo, um your dad and my
grandpa came over and they were in the
Brasetto program together. I believe
they worked at the Peon Farms. Um, and
then of course came your mom and my
grandma and look at what they created.
They started jobs. Um, their daughters
sitting on the diets. Um, granddaughters
educated Latina working on a PhD, you
know, and look at what they did and the
amazing things that they brought to this
country like your family. Um,
Commissioner Sanchez. So, I just wanted
to go ahead and say that. Um there is an
update that I'm sure you all got the
press release on it but I wanted to go
ahead and talk about it here today and
that is that with uh Dr. Lopez Asin at
the helm we've partnered with Sea and we
are working on a ballot verifier and
election shield um program. This is very
exciting uh transparency ballot
verifying technology. Um, Donana County
will be the first to have in the state
of New Mexico to have roundby round
results for rank choice voting and it
will also be the first to have the
Spanish translation for that as well.
So, we're very excited to be working
with SEA on that. Um, also we expect
this project to take about 6 to 8
months. So, it won't be ready for the
election in November, but we plan for it
to be ready for the primary next year.
Um, we just want to give a shout out to
the departments who helped us. Um, thank
you to the county manager for letting me
walk into your office and being really
excited about an idea. I appreciate
that. Thank you to Chair Shao Hernandez
for um, also being on board with ideas
that we have and for always supporting
our departments. Thank you to um, also
Amanda Gomez. I walk into her office a
lot and have ideas and she's always very
excited. Um, thank you to uh, Lucio and
also to Michael um who helped us out and
of course our amazing election team um
Janice our supervisor of elections for
helping us get everything going and just
again this was really I want to say in
about a month we were able to get this
done and going and this is really an
example of what happens when um
government is efficient and when our
departments work together and I think
we're it's just a really really prime
example of getting things done. And so I
just want to say thank you to all of
you. Um,
and I think that's all the updates I
have for today. Thank you. Thank you.
And I'm very excited about that, too.
The round by round is going to be
awesome.
Welcome, Madam assessor.
Good morning, Chair Selder Hernandez,
Vice Chair Chapato, Commissioners
Reynolds Sanchez, Angos, Gina Elhena,
Montoy Ortega, accompanied by Chief
Deputy, Mr. Ruben Reyes, as well as our
data analyst coordinator, Mr. Adrien
Aosta. I just wanted to share that the
deadline has passed for people to
protest our property. The deadline was
last week, Monday, June the 2nd, 2020
2020 2025 at 5:00 p.m. We currently have
approximately 435 protests which have
been processed and we'll have a better
number once our data appraisal doct
staff will actually uh finish the
processing of the protest. Our appraisal
staff and supervisors are already
working uh with our customers, sending
them letters, setting sending visits, uh
going out and doing reinspections to
address our customers concerns uh in
reference to their values. Mr. Adrian
Aquesta is currently working on
certifying our values, which will
determine our 25 which will determine
our 2025 tax rates. These certifications
are due to property tax division on June
the 26th.
The original due date was June the 16th.
However, being with the a um the
veterans exemptions that we were holding
off on that that our notices of values
got sent out a month later, uh we as an
assessor's office requested an extension
uh to turn in those certifications. So,
they granted us June the 26th. I would
like to also give a huge thank you to
all of our staff and supervisors in the
assessor's office. We survived another
protest season. Uh it's technically not
over. Uh we had our office, our foyer
was filled with customers all the time,
plenty of phone calls. Um and thank you
to our customers who were patient and
thank you to those that were not patient
as well because it's always a learning
opportunity for us and our staff. Uh and
that's all we have to share. So, thank
you.
Okay, Mr. Chair, if I may. Yeah. Thank
you. Good morning, Mr. Ortga. Morning,
Mr. I'd like to meet with you. I'm
getting calls from uh people over
probably 65 and 70 in my district that
are wishing to discuss seniors tax
exemptions.
Um, and I need more information on that
because I think that might if we go that
route, it might just pull a lot of money
from the county. So, whenever you have a
chance, please, uh, sometime next week,
I'd like to meet with you and your chief
deputy and maybe pull some numbers on
that because I just don't think that's
possible in this county anyway. Uh so uh
uh vice chair chapado yes definitely uh
we can definitely meet just to give
people uh right now the only exemption
that the state does offer is the
valuation freeze and that's for any
person uh minimum age of 65 years um
with a income of no more than 42,900
um and or dis people under the age of 65
uh with some type of disability um
that's not an exemption. And these are
not decisions that the assessor's office
makes. This once again is legislation.
Um but yeah, we're more than happy to
meet with you. Thank you. I what they're
talking about is not paying any property
taxes at a certain age and I think that
would be quite devastating to the
operations of the county. So yeah,
Commission uh Vice Chair Chapato, that
would probably be definitely a
discussion for them to have with their
their senators and their
representatives. uh because that's not a
decision that we in the assessor's
office would make. Um that would
definitely be something that would have
to go I would hope to the voters. Um
because definitely that would be not a
good thing for any county.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Vice Chair
and Madam assessor, really quickly, um I
know that we postponed the resolution
for the 1% fund approval for DFA. Do we
have an update of when you're going to
bring that in for the board? Uh, Chair
Shelder Hernandez, um, I just actually
had a brief conversation with Lucio now
as he is walking out. Um, he and I and
probably we need more people to get
involved on this. Um, I know that you
all are asking for a resolution uh, to
do this. I have reached out to several
other counties. It's not done by
resolution. It's usually on the consent
agenda for the other uh, counties. Um,
so I'd like to actually Lucy and I need
to have more discussion about that
budget. Well, we can have a resolution
on a consent agenda. That's perfectly
fine, but it's still a resolution
accepted by the board. Yeah. So,
Commissioner uh Chair Shelder Hernandez,
um, being that I wasn't sure exactly
what that resolution was going to cover.
The way that I see it, u, Lucio and I
need to definitely have a longer
discussion about my budget. Okay.
So, before July 1 or what are we looking
at? Uh if uh Chair Shelter Hernandez, if
Lucio and I um and probably have to get
with legal if we can come up with
something ASAP, we will have it on that
next agenda that we can possibly have it
on. Okay. Thank you, ma'am. I'm just not
willing to sign up on something that I'm
not 100% comfortable with. And neither
are we. So, we'll we'll agree with that.
Thank you, ma'am. Thank you. Any other
elected official comment?
Seeing none, we'll move on to staff
input this morning.
Thank you, sir. We have a couple updates
from Jonathan, Stephen, Carrie, and some
employee recognitions from HR.
Thank you, County Manager Andrews.
Jonathan Msas, assistant county manager.
I am coming before you to give you an
update. We've been talking a lot about
the ICIP process that is now due. As I
uh previewed earlier this year, we are
now going to have to submit it a month
earlier than last year. So, it will be
due July 11th. In preparation for that,
you will be seeing it on the June 24th
agenda. I know chair, I saw the look in
your eye as you saw the heard the
deadline, but we are making improvements
to the way that we've been doing this to
include removing projects that are fully
funded. An example of that is just last
meeting you took action on the funding
of the equipment hanger for the Jetport.
Ironically, we still had that same item
on our ICIP list for $900,000. So things
like that where we have fully funded
them internally or our directors or
managers such as u manager province was
able to go and get money from the state
to be able to fund that in full. So
we'll take it off and clean up the list.
We'll also be setting thresholds so that
we understand what true impact looks
like instead of asking for a litany of
deferred maintenance and at $100,000
mark or less looking really mostly for
transformational change. We'll be
looking to prune that 82 plus long list
so that we actually have actionable
items and that they're more tied to the
actions that we hope we'll be able to
speak to later today in terms of
alternative funding for projects as well
as funding at the federal level, state
level, and also any other revenues that
we have the option to be able to fund
our projects with. We'll also work in
coordination with our delegation as we
talked just last week with our state
lobbyists to be able to make sure that
they're informed. You'll notice that
some of the delegation are already
having meetings in our community and
they're going to be happening after we
take action. For example, we have
Senator Hamlin that's going to be
convening on July 8th. And if I'm not
mistaken, she'll be talking specific to
Kapllay, which works in conjunction with
the ICIP process. And we we have others
uh such as Senator Mesus that I believe
is going to be convening later this
month or in about a week or so. And with
all that being said, I do have an ask
and it will be that as we prepare for
the ranking, please set aside some time.
The list will be shorter, but I will ask
that you rank that on your own prior to
coming to the June 24th meeting so that
we can have a more substantive working
meeting rather than having to rank in
real time as we did last year. We'll
save everybody the headache. And then
the second thing will be for the
departments that are watching to make
sure that they start preparing updates
for their existing funded projects. and
then we'll have the discussion for what
those critical needs are. We've already
had discussions with other departments
or affinity departments such as the
flood commission to give us their top
three so that we can start working on
that list. So that's the preview of what
it looks like for the next generation of
ICIP and making it more targeted and
working in conjunction with the state.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Good morning, Mr. Chair, Commissioner
Steven Lopez, assistant county manager.
I'd like to start off by bringing up our
emergency manager, Amanda Bowen, to
cover two quick items.
Good morning, commissioners, chair, vice
chair. Uh Amanda Bowen, your emergency
manager. Thank you for allowing me to
speak today. Came to talk to you for two
things. First, to uh introduce our new
emergency management coordinator, Tim
Hydrich sitting near me somewhere. Uh
Tim's on his second day, so for standing
before the commission. Um and so you'll
see his face around with Joy and I. I
know you've got used to seeing us. Uh
the second thing is to ask you for some
assistance. Uh we are in the process of
updating our allhazards mitigation plan.
Um it's every bit as exciting as it
sounds and we are going to be uh asking
for we've asked once for some public
input. We've put that out via social
media both in uh county uh PIO and the
other jurisdictions that we represent.
Um but we haven't had a good response
and so I'd like to ask your assistance
in uh helping us to increase that. We've
reopened the survey. It's posted on our
web page. I've got some flyers if you'd
like those today and I'd be happy to
email that to you. We're going to do
another uh PIO push to try to get uh
that out there. Basically, what we need
is assistance from the community helping
us to determine what the hazards and
vulnerabilities are in their
communities. They live there. They know
those things better than we can ever
imagine. And so, we want them to help us
to identify those. What that does is
allows us to uh in the future be able to
create some mitigating actions and
obtain some funding to be able to make
fixes for these things that are hazards
and hopefully prevent something from
going wrong in their communities. So,
thank you for your assistance. I'll
shoot you an email with the link if you
would be kind enough to send that to
your community leaders or whoever. Thank
you. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Amanda, for talking
about the importance of uh recognizing
the lived experiences of people that are
out there in our communities. And that
brings me to the last item I have for
you. The US Customs and Border
Protection has reached out to the county
asking us to help kind of spread the
word. They are considering a 1.3 mile
fence in the Anapa area along Mount
Christo Ray and they are looking for
community feedback. Uh the kind of
summary of the project is uh utilizing
existing access roads but uh building
drainage gates, erosion and drainage
control, uh removing vegetation from
near the border, uh building patrol and
maintenance roads, creating a staging
area, and uh they have recognized they
will be using a lot of water in the
area, which as we know comes from the
KURA system in that zone. Uh, so anybody
that has comments is asked to
email el paso comments at cbp.dhs.gov.
Again, for anybody who is uh listening
online or live, it's el paso comments at
cbp.dhs.gov.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, sir.
And HR is coming up for our employee
recognition. Come on up, Christina.
Christina's.
Good morning. Christina Hullman with HR.
Sorry, I never used this before. Um, I
would like to take a moment to thank
everyone that participated in nominated
fellow employees for the employee of the
month awards and the special recognition
award for May. The fellow employees were
nominated uh Norbeth Godina from health
and human services, officer Carpio Gomez
with the detention center, Rebecca
Martin with community development, Ramon
Ramirez with facilities and services,
and Julie Younglood with the clerks.
So the following employees have been
selected and so at this time I would
like to bring up Rebecca Martin with
community development.
So Rebecca was selected for employee of
the month.
So Rebecca was nominated for employee of
the month for internal customer service.
Among some of the comments that led
Rebecca to be selected was that she goes
above and beyond to assist employees and
other departments with GIS questions
that come up. Also, Rebecca provides
exceptional customer service. Thank you,
Rebecca.
Oh, hold on one second.
And for our special recognition, um,
Officer Carpio Gomez was selected from
the detention center. Unfortunately, he
was not able to be here today. Some of
the comments that led Officer Gomez to
be selected was that he has demonstrated
dedication and professionalism with a
positive attitude and with a high level
of respect and integrity in all of his
interactions in his role as an officer
at the detention center. So,
congratulations to Carpio officer Carpio
Gomez.
[Applause]
Also, thank you again for everyone that
participated. Nominations are currently
being accepted for the month of June.
Um, and you can access the form on Elul.
Thank you.
Awesome. Thank you.
County Attorney Krie Neil is coming up
to the mic.
Welcome.
Come down here so I can see all of you.
Um, Mr. Chair, Madame Vice Chair,
commissioners, I wanted to let you know
that um we had uh Steven Lopez and I met
with uh several individuals from the
clerk's office as we were looking as
they were looking at the lodgers tax and
the uh way that that was ordinance was
written and um supposed to be
implemented. It um does not work well
for our usual processes and procedures.
So, I'm just letting you know that we
will be submitting an amendment to that
just so that it is in accordance with
the way that things are usually handled
and and the best processes and
procedures. We will make it work for the
time being, but we're also working on
getting the technology up to speed and
and those sorts of things. And so it
might be a little bit clunky for the
time being, but uh we will get that
straightened out and and uh work with
the clerk's office to make sure that
that is written the way that it needs to
be so that it works in practice as well
as on paper. Thank you.
Awesome. Thank you.
That's it, sir. That's it. Okay.
Next up, we have commission appointed
board report backs.
Commissioners,
Mr. Chairman, I have three uh updates.
Yes. Take it away, sir. All right. Uh we
had our uh STRT SCRTD meeting uh the
week after uh Memorial Day. Um we not uh
a whole lot of of business there that we
did. Um but I guess significant in that
uh we did approve the preliminary budget
for the uh transit district for this
next fiscal year.
Um, we then also approved an extension
of the three-year contract or an
extension of the contract which ended up
going for three years, excuse me, for
the executive director, David Armo. Um,
and then one other kind of update was
that uh the SCRTD will be starting to
add Saturday service to some of their
routes. Um, and so, you know, people
hopefully the nice thing is is that
while people whatever they're doing on
the weekend, uh, the SCRTD bus is
another option to use. And just for
anybody that may be watching and the
reminder, the SCRTD is is, uh, offers,
uh, rides, uh, with no fairs for them.
So, um, just working on trying to
continue to increase, uh, accessibility
to the different services and locations
that they they have. And so you can get
anywhere from uh now from Elephant but
all the way down to downtown El Paso. So
we have uh quite the range of service.
Um the second item was for and I don't
know if I'll be stealing your thunder. I
figured you wouldn't mind since you were
out since you were on vacation. Uh the
South Central Solid Waste Authority
officially hired its new director. It's
Jose Gyos. um during our meeting last
week uh he will have a tenative start
date of July 14th and in the meantime
Miss Rosa Montoya will still continue as
the uh interim director until Mr. Gyos
joins us and so uh we look at welcoming
him to the um to the solid waste
authority. Uh and then the third update
was for uh the uh spaceport uh tax
board. Uh comm myself and uh
commissioner Chaparo uh attended the
meeting. I uh was we had a change in the
chairmanship from Sierra County to
Donian County and so uh I'll be serving
as the chairperson of that board uh for
this year. Um we also uh got some
updates on some of the projects they're
working on. uh they uh but probably the
two significant items is that uh they uh
established their own uh bank account um
for the first time. It was they were
utilizing a suspended account with T
Spaceport America. Um or and then our
funds here in Diana County were kept by
the treasurer. Um but uh even the
treasurer was trying to disperse those
funds so that way we weren't holding on
to them, but they did establish that. Um
and then there was some additional uh
capital funds that were um approved for
their uh for for capital projects at
Spaceport America. So, um those were the
uh the updates that we have at the
moment.
Awesome. Any um one else with board
report backs?
Hello, Mr. Chair. Hi. Good morning. Good
morning. So I just have um yesterday was
a crew meeting
and so uh thing that I have to report
back is as the board we um approved a
memorandum of agreement um which will be
coming to the city of Sullen Park and
another one to the Donana County um and
it's for financial responsibility uh
certification for utility infrastructure
projects due to the um um termination of
the JPA Okay. Uh, Kua is having a hard
time
getting finance um getting help with the
finances. So, there's certain loans and
grants that they were going to receive,
but now um certain legislators have
pulled back and they're not wanting to
and certain banks because they're not
going to be here um within, you know,
the next four years. So, they want to
make sure that um they have a guarantee
as to uh payment. And so this is one
step that that we are going to try to do
in order to state that the city of Selen
Park would be responsible in receiving
those um funds and uh the other
memorandum is the same for Donana and
that will be coming to the board as well
for us to approve in our own language.
Thank you. That's it.
Awesome. Thank you. Anyone else? Okay, I
will uh go. So, ASCMV um is currently uh
looking for an executive director. We
finally got the contract approved for
the executive search firm uh with the
city of Los Cruises to use Afon. So, we
will begin that process this week uh
starting to meet with them to formalize
what is going on. It has been a very
long road it feels like to get this
going, but we will have that meeting and
hopefully get that ball rolling fairly
quickly so we can identify a new
executive director for animal services.
And besides that, I think we've all
covered everything else. Anything else,
board? Okay. Any staff report backs on
boards?
Okay, seeing none, we move on to
presentations this morning. We have one
which is item number 14 which is a
presentation on no throw reporter hub.
No throw reporter hub.
Good morning and welcome. Good morning.
Oh my god. Yes
reporter.
So hi. Good morning commission. I am
Rebecca Martin. I'm the GIS
administrator
and I'm just here to give you a little
bit of an update about an illegal
dumping reporter application that I have
created for the county. It's already
been in use some time by the
environmental codes. I just wanted to
let
you all know that this thing exists and
that it's being utilized and hopefully
we can get a little bit more use out of
it.
So, a little bit about what I'm going to
talk about is we're going to
touch on a little bit about the old
application. Um, moving into ArcGIS
solutions
and I'll show you what the illegal
dumping hub looks like.
I clicked the wrong button.
So we had the old application which it
was very useful in its time but
unfortunately at the time that it was
created
that was quite a while ago. So now the
technology is a bit outdated
and a lot of it
you would have to wait on any individual
to come in and extract any of the data
and it wasn't in a very userfriendly
sort of way. there'd be a lot of coding
and um
the data extraction was just not very
user friendly
and um it's operating system dependent
which means that if you had an iOS
versus an Android those would be two
different operats.
So, I know you recently had a meeting
about the illegal dumping issues that we
have
and um I found ArcGIS solutions which
industry specific configuration for
ArcGIS and it's very easily configurable
and the best part about it is that it's
built on the software that we already
have. We already have a uh enterprise
agreement with EZRI. So this comes at no
additional cost.
So I settled on um modeled after the
citizen problem reporter that they offer
through ARGIS solutions which solicits
non-emergency requests. Um for example,
like it says on here, the blight, the
graffiti, trash, flooding, and in this
case, illegal dumping.
So the nice thing about this illegal
dumping hub is you can actually preview
the reports uh review previous reports
make a report
view to any of the latest no news news
upcoming events get some dub site
information. So I'm just going to click
on this and
just to show you what it looks like.
So here we have the number of open
reports that we have and the number of
completed reports.
And you can click on any of these
and it will zoom into it and show you an
image if they attached one.
And there are a couple different ways
to report which is actually my next
slide. You can call the dispatch
or you can click here and actually make
the report itself.
And it has the information of any of the
codes officers,
any of the upcoming ACES events.
And this is our report link.
You need to allow it your um
location
and it will click to it. You know this
is where the signal comes from I
suppose. Attach an image any of this and
you just hit submit. That's it. It's
very easy to use.
Let's see.
Trying to get this back up. Nope, that's
not mine. Can you get it back up, Billy?
Appreciate it.
There is also a QR code that you can
scan. You can um click the link on the
hubite as I mentioned or you can call
the no throw number
which I went over.
So, what happens when the report is
made? It automatically a trigger
triggers
an email to the codes department to show
that some illegal dumping has taken
place. Somebody has reported it. So it's
an immediate feedback
and there is a dashboard
that they use to manage this. Um
again I'm clicking on it.
This is
I just wanted to show it's behind a bit
of a
So this is our dashboard that they can
use. They can update any of the
information here. They can click on one
of these,
go to the side of it, view an image of
it, and down here in the corner, we have
some information, infographics about it,
what type of information, what type of
illegal trashing has been reported. Um,
how many times the application has been
used and a heat map here so that we can
view where the dumping has actually
taken place.
and hopefully
provide more um surveillance in that
area.
So let's talk about what's next.
Hopefully
we are looking into doing filled maps
application so that they can update this
immediately as they clean it up.
Automating any sort of monthly reports
and um get any more information that is
necessary.
And
I do have some
scanning. You just scan here. I'd like
to say thank Sabrina Schrader for
creating these for me.
And the report is available in Spanish
and in English. And so these are
two-sided,
Spanish and English. So I open myself up
to any questions that you might have.
Thank you so much. Commissioners, any
questions? I see Commissioner Sanchez
playing with it right now. And let me
tell you, it's already been in use. And
any of our codes officers, if they see
something in the field, what's nice
about it is they can just report it
here, get back and create any sort of um
work order for it. So, it's already
being commonly used, but this is open up
for the public as well. Awesome. Thank
you. Thank Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I I
just and I think the only comment it's
kind of it took me a little bit. I I
because of where it is on the website,
you have to like really scroll down to
find it. So I I don't know if there's
any way to make it a little more
prominent or if we might have a redirect
that makes it um because when I'm when
I'm in the actual site to actually
report it, it's really it's it's a
actually a really nice format to fit
within the mobile uh you know device.
And uh just that's why I was kind of
curious because I see how it looks on
the Yeah, the um application itself, the
reporting is um the scan and go is
mainly for the mobile application versus
the hub site because it's built off of
ARGIS hub. Yeah. It's actually for
more for a um computer. Yeah. And and
and I think that's great. Like I said, I
think if if people had like having this
is nice because it like you're saying,
it lets you put a a pin on the map so
you can report the location. You take
the picture, upload it, and put in the
necessary information. Um, I think the
like I said, I would love
thinking in my mind, like I said, I'm
going to be going out to for my
community meeting tomorrow. I I would
love for us to have like maybe a
redirect that's like, you know, either
no throw or something like that that
redirects because I I look here at the
at the to put it in. It's
survey123.arches.com.
Yeah, that's kind of our that's why the
QR code. Um we're talking about possibly
creating some sort of little business
cards with a QR code on it. I know it's
kind of hesitant to put it in any sort
of large um signs or anything like that
just because but it but it could be very
like I said for us we could very easily
and I'm sorry Kent I'm looking over at
you. Um you know it's very easy to just
create a simple link that's just like I
say like you know yeah or a bit.ly or
even make it easier like just something
that's easy to say off the top of your
head like I said like no throw.dona.gov
ordana.gov/
/nthrow and then it redirects
immediately to that. So, it's just an
easy thing to for people to remember
where they're at just in case they don't
have that. But, but I love the the
format. So, appreciate the work on that.
Yeah. So, and just so you know, if any
of them call you, they have um if they
call somebody, any of the staff members
here, the staff members go and put it
in. So, it's nice because it creates
more of a robust data set so that we can
look at the more of the problem areas.
Well, and I and I was just I was
mentioning to the chair the chairman
here that when I saw your heat map, I
love the heat map. I love it because
then I can go and say to my
constituents, "Man, we're seeing a huge
issue here. Help us out." But on top of
it though, I think the thing that
worries me is that when I look at it, it
almost looks like they're aligned very
close to our transfer stations. And I I
I wonder may like I said I I not I was
just looking at the heat map and maybe
I'm totally off but it sure looks like
they're very close to where our transfer
stations are and I wonder because when I
go to Hill all on Del Rey you see people
dumping on the sides or it flies out
because they're not tarping and so
it's a great education piece. Definitely
need to create awareness because this is
all of our homes and we should all take
care of it. But but having that having
the maps, having the data that makes it
very easy to see on a map where it is, I
I love it. It's great because it creates
automatically it brings itself into a
spreadsheet and you can do all sorts of
data analytics with it and I'm very data
driven. So awesome. Thank you so much.
Great job. Anything else?
Well, thank you very much for your time.
I appreciate Mr. Chair. Yes. Oh, I have
I have a comment question. Yeah,
Rebecca, first thing I think this is a
great tool. I appreciate it. Done some
great work here. I really love it. I
have one one thought though. Um, is it
possible to put a link on here to the
regulations that actually tell them what
the illegal dumping is? Oh, that is no
problem at I would throw I would like to
see a link on the first page to say if
you want to know more about what
resolutions, what state statutes, you
know, what uh what uh laws actually, you
know, guide this guide this and so you
can become educated. I think that's uh
this is a good place to put it on the
first page. They can link out and say
let's let's find out more about what the
role laws are about this. Yeah, I can
definitely get with um the officers.
I've been working with um officer Jesus
FR the most. Yeah, because a lot of the
questions that I get when I'm talking to
my constituents is they say, "Well, what
are the laws? I mean, what's the
penalty?" You know, uh, can they dump
tires? Can they dump anything? And when
they dump it, you know, what kind of
impact does it have? And what are the
laws that surround that? So, we could
throw that on. I think be great. But
otherwise, fantastic job. Thank you very
much. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank
you very much for your time.
Okay. Next up, we have the approval of
the minutes from the May 27th meeting. I
move approval.
We have a motion from Commissioner
Sanchez and a second from Commissioner
Reynolds. Any comments, questions,
concerns?
Seeing none, Brandy.
Commissioner Dtoos, yes. Commissioner
Reynolds, yes. Commissioner Sanchez,
yes. Vice Chair Chabato.
Chair Sheldon, yes. Motion carries.
Next up, we have item number 16, which
is an approval.
So, item number 16 is authorizing the
allocation of up to 1.35 million from
the hospital lease funds to DAC fire
rescue for emergency medical services,
vehicles, and equipment, plus 1.2
million to the city of Los Cusus, the
town of Msia, and the city of Sunland
Park in the form of grants to support
firebased emergency medical services
capacity building. Do we have a motion?
So moved. Second. We have a motion by
Commissioner Sanchez and a second by
Commissioner Gomez. Welcome, Mr. Lopez.
Good morning again, Mr. Chair and
Commissioner. Steven Lopez, assistant
county manager. The resolution in front
of you uh is a request to allocate some
funds from the county's uh health
hospital lease fund uh in order to get
us our capacity built up countywide.
That's both Donana County Fire Rescue as
well as the other professional fire
services within the county. In order to
be ready to assume firebased emergency
medical services, uh, which includes
transport, as you all are aware, uh, AMR
did provide notice, 120day notice, uh,
to the city of Los Cruuses, uh, unless
they received $5 million in subsidy for
the next year of operations. The city
did accept that 120day notice and thus
we are on the clock for the end of the
AMR contract uh as managed by the city
of Los Cusus's. So the request in front
of you is to allow us to get the
vehicles and equipment we need on the
county fire side as well as to support
the other response partners that we
have. Uh this would help the city of Los
Cruuses obtain two uh rescue transport
vehicles. It would assist the city of
Sunland Park in in finalizing funding
for a rescue vehicle and getting two
EMTs hired on for firstear salaries. And
it would assist the town of Messia in
getting two EMTs hired for their first
year of salaries. Uh in talking with the
fire chiefs from the various
departments, uh secondyear services
would most likely be covered on their
ends. So this really is kind of that
transition to get us going. And I would
like to point out that this comes in
well below the uh $5 million ask that
was uh put forward. So we believe this
is also financially prudent for the
county uh and is also much less than the
$3 million that the county had provided
for the last year of subsidies for
prehosp ambulance service. So with that
said, I am happy to answer any questions
that you might have.
Thank you, Miss Lopez. Commissioners,
questions?
So, with the $3 million that was already
allocated to the city for the contract,
what is happening with those funds?
Those will need to be reverted back to
the county. Uh and so those would go
back those were originally from the
indigent fund and uh instead of trying
to use those funds for this purpose uh
in consultation with legal counsel uh we
believe this is the much cleaner
approach because those funds really
should be tracked more of a a patient by
patient basis and the use of the
hospital lease fund uh seems much more
appropriate for this capacity building.
Okay. And then do we have a ETA on when
that will occur?
Mr. Chair, I do not, but uh our county
attorney Carrie Neil works closely with
the city of Los Cruus's attorney and I
know that has been a point of discussion
that they have had. Carrie, anything
else you can offer on that?
So um we will be discussing this a
little bit more um in the executive
session. Um so with that my one of my
main concerns is one of the 1.2 million
is part of the 1.2 million is going to
the city town of Msia and city of
Sunland Park. So the three
municipalities to stand up a EMS
program. What I would probably rather
have seen is that out of the three
million that the city would have taken
what they needed to reduce that 1.2
million. Um
but that's just my thought on that.
We we understand Mr. Chair that that was
a a big point of discussion of Okay. I'm
glad you all are thinking about it.
Anything else commissioners?
Nothing. Plenty to think about, but
nothing to say.
Okay. Well, I will make sure to remind
you of that fact at a later meeting when
it benefits me. Oh, great. Thank you. I
will. That is uh word for word in
verbatim in the minutes, please. Brandy.
Uh I will make sure that we talk about
that later.
Anything else, though, Mr. Lopez? That
is all, Mr. Chair, uh except for the
vote. Okay, he's pushing for that vote.
Brandy.
Commissioner Gometos. Yes. Commissioner
Reynolds, yes. Commissioner Sanchez,
yes. Vice Chair Chapato, yes. Chair
Shalonz,
yes. Okay, we do have a resolution on
that. Um, I would like to backtrack a
little bit. Item number
12 was going to be I stated resolution
66. It's actually 65.
So item number 16 will be resolution
number 02025-66.
Okay,
got it. Easy. Thank you for that. Thank
you.
Okay, next up we have item number 17,
which is to approve resolution for Goon
question to be placed on the November
2025 election ballot. And there are so
many names on who's presenting right
now. Uh but commissioners, do we have a
motion?
So moved. Second. We have a mo.
And while Chris is walking,
where's all the background noise coming
from?
Hilltop who's on the WebEx. Oh, got it.
Thank you. If we can mute them. Um,
okay. So, we have a motion by
Commissioner Reynolds. Do we have a
second by Commissioner Gomez? Perfect.
Mr. Chairman, just a point of order. I I
guess I I just wanted to understand if
we're approving the resolution,
are we set on what the question will be
exactly stated as and have an agreement
now or is that could be amended as we go
on? I think it can be amended as we go
on. We just haven't been doing Okay.
discussion on resolution items unless we
approve. Absolutely. No, I just want I
just wanted to make sure like I said
before we move. I just wanted to Yep.
Nope. We can amend it as we we can have
55 amendments on this if you really
wanted, Commissioner. We'll we'll go
through that. But good morning and
welcome. Good morning, Mr. Chairman,
Commissioners. Chris Mirhead with the
Model Firm, your public finance or bond
lawyer. Uh the resolution in front of
you is related to a possible general
obligation bond question to be on the
November 4th, 2025 uh election to uh
submit to the voters question and
obviously there's some discussion
related to uh improvements for
recreational facilities, parks, and
county buildings. The current draft in
front of you has it at 140 million. Mr.
Willford from Hilltop Securities is
online uh and has a presentation to show
you the impact of the various amounts in
terms of what that would do to mill levy
rates and uh uh per uh household based
on about a $285,000
average house. But I'll turn it over to
to George to walk through that for you
and then I'm happy to address any
questions in the short resolution that's
in front of you. Thank you, sir.
Welcome.
Thank you. I apologize I couldn't be
there in person. Uh hopefully everyone
can hear and uh
I cannot control this presentation so
I'll have ask someone to handle the
slides for me but uh we put this
together. This first page con reflects
the assumptions or key dates that are
kind of incorporated. uh bond election
being November of 25,
uh planned issuance would be early 26
and so the first payments would not
occur until March 27 and then in fact
the first principal maturity September
of 27 so that the uh levy could be in
effect and in place before debt service
commenced. The next page if you that's
the existing debt service on the series
2013 you see it's roughly 500,000
slightly below running through 2034.
We could go to the next page.
What we did working with uh M Dawu and
others is uh uh
modeled based on uh assumptions and uh
the most recent word we had received was
that the commission might be looking
most likely at around 140 million but we
retained kind of the range that we had
been uh evaluating or running numbers
for ranging from 100 million to 70. But
I will just focus on the uh
140 million which is the middle uh line
going across there. And what you'll see
is that the uh annual debt service and
it says on new issuance, but that should
really uh say after new issuance, the
aggregate annual debt service would uh
go up to around 11.28 28 million uh for
140 million and and with a 20-year
repayment on the new debt. And you'll
see that the total required levy for
debt service and this is based on a
valuation of 6 billion which uh
hopefully uh uh with uh this upcoming
valuation may even be a little higher
and then over time be expected to
increase as well. But to be
conservative, we were using 6 billion of
assessed value. Uh you can see the total
levy in the case of 140 million would be
uh 1.9196
per thousand uh or 1 91 mills. And that
represents as you'll see in the second
column an increase of 1.8386
that would be required above. As
footnote one indicates the current uh
0.081
uh mill that's in effect for the debt
service on 2013.
Uh so that uh page really shows the
aggregated impact of a new issuance. If
we might look at the next page,
uh what we tried to do is reflect uh
with respect to an individual property
uh in this case a homeowner for example
uh what the impact would be. And so we
were using a value which uh I assume uh
reflects more or less the average home
value in the county. 285,000.
That's market uh or overall appraised
value. The assessed value would be
literally one-third of that. So $94,000.
And so if in the case of 140 million, as
we said before, uh the increase was
1.8386.
Uh multiplying that out, the uh increase
in annual uh tax uh in that case would
be $172.
0.9 and 92 cents. Uh on a monthly basis,
for example, if someone was uh paying
their taxes in u incorporated into their
mortgage payment or whatever, uh it
would represent an increase of about
$1441.
That's the increase above uh the current
tax. behind that page we have uh
literally five schedules which are the
detailed uh models for each of those
amounts uh and and you can see that but
I won't go into the detail on those but
that's where the uh total required uh
tax levy and the uh resulting increase
was uh pulled from. But with that I
would also be glad to answer any
questions uh the commission might have.
So, really quickly on Oh, ho ho
that was trippy. Um, so really quickly,
I see that on a lot of these schedules
the mill rate does tend to fluctuate
over the years. Can you talk about that
a little bit more?
There's an attempt Yes, sir, Mr.
Chairman. Uh, to keep it as consistent
as possible. Like I said, we used a
constant uh value assumed of $6 billion,
but in the case of bonds, uh the uh uh
principal amount uh is in $5,000
increments. So to the extent that the
debt service varies uh roughly, you
know, within a $5,000 range yeartoyear,
uh it will create a little bit of change
in the calculated uh mill levy rate, but
you it it's relatively consistent from a
standpoint that for example, what we're
looking at now, the 125 million, uh the
average is 1.718.
And it's really a matter of uh that last
decimal place varies uh because of the
$5,000
variation in annual debt service in that
case. If that answers the question, I
hope. Yeah. And then currently on our
current outstanding debts, is the mill
rate is the last decimal on the mill
rate does it change as well currently
for the county or is it pretty standard?
Each year uh the department of finance
administration uh DFA uh does a
calculation of the levy uh on behalf of
the county as well as all other
governmental entities. So it takes into
account what the new assessed value is,
what the annual debt service uh
requirement is for that year and then
also takes into account uh any monies
that might be available to offset. So
yes sir the uh uh millage rate can vary
from year to year on that basis.
Okay. Thank you sir.
Mr. Chair. Yes. I have a question. I'm
looking at the debt service for the 140
million and what I'm wondering why we
don't combine the total debt service for
the county into one line because as the
debt service on the existing debt um
matures in 20 2034 uh I don't get a good
representation of exactly what the debt
is for the the total debt for the county
there. I think if we had those two
together, it would help us to better
formulate formulate what um the total
amount responsible other counties
responsible for to pay back these bonds.
Got it. Okay.
See, adding half we're adding half
million dollars to the debt service. It
looks like uh for the first seven years
and then after that that debt goes away
unless we generate another go bond.
Correct. So that I think is um I think
it's important for the public to
understand that even though our debt
service will go up that uh the relief
will come in seven years that that'll
actually go back down and so they'll get
some of this money back as their
property values increase. Yeah. So in
2034 the mill rate should drop
something. Correct. Well I think and
I'll defer to George. I think it's
structured so that you have the that
even after the debt drops in 2034, you
have a a level debt service. So the the
increase ties to that debt dropping off
and an increase in the new debt. But
I'll defer to George to answer that.
Yes, Mr. Chairman and uh Commissioner
Reynolds, uh in discussion and planning,
instead of having the new issue with uh
totally level debt service from year one
added to existing debt, we structured
the new issue uh more or less around
that as Chris said. So if you'll look in
this case at the uh third column from
the right that says aggregate and then
debt service that is the uh sum of both
the existing and uh the new issue. Uh so
you you can see that it's around 11,283
to 28 uh8,000 per year. And the reason
is if you'll look to the left of that
that total for the new issue initially
is around 10.7 to 10.8 a year and then
it's structured to elevate uh to around
11.28 once the existing debt is retired.
So so let me ask the question a little
bit differently. So, if I understand you
correctly, what you're saying is that
we've structured the debt so that
doesn't change so that we can actually
decrease the amount of time necessary to
repay the the uh bond. Am I correct?
So, this should lessen the amount of
time to cover the bond,
Mr. Chairman and Commissioner Reynolds,
it it really wouldn't alter the uh time.
What it does is it mitigates the
required levy initially uh so that it it
wouldn't have to be higher. Uh in this
case, it would literally have to be uh
around 8 pennies higher than what we're
showing if we uh didn't structure around
the existing debt. So it's really uh an
attempt to keep the uh imposition of the
levy uh more moderate and to level out
the overall debt service over the life
the life of the bonds would be 20 years
uh regardless of how we structured.
Okay. So the uh so we don't see an
impact in the debt service but because
it's included it doesn't drastically
change the debt service model over 20
years.
Yes, that's that's correct. Okay. Thank
you.
Yeah. Yeah. And as George said that mill
rate line the goal there is to keep that
consistent property.
the resolution just to hit on a couple
things real quick on the resolution and
I know Mr. Wilford still can answer
questions with the general obligation
bond because it has a pledge of
advalorum taxes and the full faith and
credit of the county the it is required
to go to the voters and so that is
different than the revenue bond and some
other potential bond issuance you might
do. So this resolution would authorize
submitting that question as outlined in
the resolution to the county clerk by
August 29th uh for inclusion on the
November 4th ballot. It is drafted to be
as broad as possible in terms of the
various verbs that describe how you
might you know use the you know to
improve to construct rehabilitate
renovate all of that is as broad as the
statute and the constitution allows tied
to the more specific aspect of what the
question is for the fairgrounds
recreational facilities and county
buildings. So that would give you as the
county commission maximum flexibility
for specific projects tied to the
overall categories.
We like flexibility. Yes, we truly do.
Is that the end of this particular
presentation? I'm sorry. Is that the end
of this? Yeah, if you have So yes, so
the Mr. Wilford's presentation on the
mill levy uh is completed and then any
questions about the resolution I'm happy
to answer. But as you see, I mean, it's
relatively short. The highlight being
you want to focus on exactly how much
that you want to put in front of the
voters and then the scope of the
question. Yes, sir. Commissioners, any
questions before I kick it off to the
county manager?
Okay, thank you so much. We'll keep them
on the line just in case. Uh, Mr.
Andrews, thank you, Chair. Thank you,
Chris, for the presentation. So, I want
to give a little historical context to
this. I've only been here about nine
months now, but several of you on this
board have been working on this concept
long before I got here. So, if we rewind
back to April, we had our board retreat
where we had our staff and board there
and discuss this exact topic. So,
serving the board, three topics kind of
rose and spoiler alert, Chris covered
some of that here, but just for those
listening at home or here today, quality
of life and economic development were at
the forefront of that conversation.
There's this is a really young
demographic for community. We want to
have opportunities for our families to
have opportunities to play. So, the
three things that came to the top of the
forefront were potentially adding two
rec centers, possibly one to the north
part of the county, one to the south
part of the county, making some
improvements at the fairgrounds. Some of
the conversation even went around the
amphitheater, revisiting some of the
nostalgia from the past, reactivating
that and bringing back the heyday of the
concert series that used to take place
there under Mother Hubard. So, those
came up as well as making improvements
to our current facilities. We have
roughly 16 to 20 facilities throughout
the county that host people u
recreational opportunities and we want
to spread the wealth there. Now, to be
clear, we have a bonding capacity that
exceeds the 140 million presented today.
However, just because we can spend it
doesn't always mean we should. So, with
some uneasiness we've uh discussed
earlier today in in the economy and even
uh the world today, we we're going to
ask for 140 million. So, again, this is
something that's been vetted by the
board. We've leaned in from a team
perspective. We're coinciding this with
a parks and wreck master plan. So, it's
not just my idea, the board's idea. This
is going to be matched by thirdparty
consultants. We brought in experts Chris
and others here today to talk through
some of this. And I just want to give a
little more context to how we got here
today because uh once the gavl drops
today, if this is ready to go, you're
going to be hearing from us quite a bit
in the community because just because we
think this is what we we want, we want
to hear from the community. We want to
go to people where they are and hear
exactly what their needs are. If those
needs don't exactly match this, we'll
have to pivot. But we want to make sure
that just if the the gavl drops and the
board proceeds, we still have a lot of
leg work to do in the community between
now and November when this is on the
ballot. And uh I'll take a pause there
and I I'll ask Osma Lucio to maybe come
on up and help me just uh layman's terms
some of the finance there. I know some
of that even went over my head a little
bit. So I'm going to bring up a couple
of the experts to help on that side of
things a little bit. Thank you for
allowing me to give some context, chair.
Thank you. Good context. We like that.
Good morning, Mr. Chair, commissioners.
Lucille Latrell, budget and research
officer and asthma, um finance director.
So, um, from this presentation, I know
everyone's looking at seeing a lot of
numbers. Uh, but we
really, I went a little too far. Can we
get that started again?
We really want the public to focus on
um, one of the slides that talks about
the impact to them.
One more. And so this is the slide we
really want them to focus on because it
really talks about um how much their
property taxes are going to increase.
And so we when you look at the other
slides, it's Amort schedules. Um but
this is the slide. So if the board wants
to proceed with 140 million, the impact
to them is $173
for the year in their property taxes on
average. So that's based on the average
market value of a home. Um so we want
them to focus on that. The amort
schedules is more of an internal thing
for us. Um, debt service payments and we
want to try and relate that to what the
public experiences in their personal
life. It's similar to the car payment,
the ammo schedule to pay off debt for a
car or their mortgage. And so, um, to
try and simplify it, that's what we
have. We love we love this slide. This
this is the slide we needed today. Um so
just to kind of go over it from the dis
as well and our median household is
285,000
we tax at a third of the market value
which is a taxable property value of
94,000
and then we have our bond issuance if we
take out 100 million 125 140 150 or 170
with the increase to the levy rate which
is the annual increase which brings out
the monthly increase to the property
owner or to the household. Right? So for
the 140,000 or $140 million would be a
monthly increase to their taxable mill
rate of $1441
for everyone in that home. It's the home
owner. So thank you for this slide. I
think this is what we all really needed
to see right now. Um, so thank you.
Great work. The best slide I've seen in
years. That's great. Mr. Chair, can I
make an observation about this? Of
course. Thank you. I'm gonna talk now.
It's okay.
I won't use a tip. I want, you know, if
when I as I look at this, I have to put
it in perspective of the things that I
do. And I'm looking at about a dozen and
a half eggs a month. Okay? It's about
$12.40 40 cents for a couple of dozen
eggs or one meal at McDonald's. So, I
mean, when you think of it that way and
put in that perspective, it's not a huge
increase to anybody's budget. Uh, if you
eat out once a month, I mean, you
basically cover the cost of what this
is. If you buy an extra couple dozen
eggs as at the prices they are today,
that's what we're talking about here is
increasing your payments u to that much.
So, it's shouldn't be that much of an
impact on everybody's home. That's all
I'm suggesting. Thank Okay. And just a
quick question and I might have like
blanked on this but the BOCC has not
done a bond
ever. Well correction for this purpose
we have not done a general obligation
bond for a quality of life initiative in
the history of Donian account. So, this
is something that can really
jettison us into some really great
quality of life initiatives that, you
know, we've all been really wanted
wanting here in the county. So, I'm
really excited to see this. I think I've
read this resolution 27 times. Um,
mostly because my anxiety has really
triggered with this one. So, believe me,
it's a really great resolution and I'm
really excited to support this. Um, you
know, it it's really crazy how one
little paragraph and a two-page
um
and a two-page resolution really hits
home. But, uh, plan, design, develop,
construct, rehabilitate, renovate,
expand, furnish, equip, enhance, and
otherwise improve, and acquire property
and equipment for fairgrounds,
recreational facilities, and county
buildings within the county, which are
all things that the residents use. We
all cherish them every time we drive. I
drive by the fairgrounds. I have a home
there because I go there with my family
for events, Southern New Mexico fair and
all those things. So the things that I
think about when I think of county are
in this and that excites me. So I'm
excited for this. Commissioner Sanchez.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
You know, one of one of the things that
since I've been on this board is that
we've been able to
really invest in this county. But the
only reason why we were able to invest
it is we we we piece we've had a
peacemeal so many projects over the
years through capital outlay. So without
our legislative partners, we wouldn't be
able to do this. But I think when you
look at what the funds we got through
ARPA were able to do for us that we got
after CO
the biggest flood project in the in the
county's history is being done in
district 4. um that's been on. We we've
had this idea for many years knowing we
were needing it and we were finally able
to do it because it was such a large
project, but we finally had money from
the federal government to do that. And
the only reason I bring that up is when
we have the ability to have funds, we
can truly invest in this county, in our
people. Um I know we're asking people to
it's going to impact them as well but I
think it's an investment for the first
time as as the chairman noted we're
trying to do more and I think it's
really important as you know I think we
talked on potential
concern with the economy but the reason
why we should be doing it now is that we
need to improve the quality of life for
the residents that are here and for the
residents that could come and the
businesses that could come because when
people want to relocate here. They want
to know
what are the what are the services that
we have here? What are the amenities
that we have here? And so I think I'm
I'm excited that we're going to I know
there's going to be a lot of work that's
going to come after this um if this is
approved. But like I said, I I want the
people to know we're trying to invest in
them. And yes, I know like one of the
things I'm really excited about is the
potential for an amphitheater because if
if you know growing up in here in Los
Cusus, we used to get amazing shows,
right? I mean, I I go back I I happen to
look back in the in in like the 90s when
we had at AI Memorial Stadium, you had
Metallica and Guns and Roses, you had
Paul McCartney, you had the Eagles, you
had um in in the Panama, we had KISS, we
had um I mean, you could go on and on
and a lot of that was was with with a
lot of credit to uh Miss Barbara Hubard
who had these amazing connections, but
this used to be a place to come. Now, we
have to go to, if we're lucky, we'll go
to El Paso, but people here in Los Cusus
have to go to Albuquerque, Phoenix,
Tucson, Houston, Denver. If you want to
see a, you know, a good concert, that's
just one thing. And I know that's just
one piece of this, but it's just an
example of how we can back differentiate
ourselves again and really start
bringing more in for our community. Um
because that's one of the things I I
continue to hear or see on social media
is what is there to do for us? What do
we do here? We don't even have a bowling
alley. We don't have this. We don't have
that. So, like I said, this is and and
you know, it's even and it's even worse
for the people in in in the outlying
areas um who could really benefit for a
lot of this. So, I I'm excited. I'm
excited because this is the first time
we get to bring hopefully develop this
big vision of what we see for Dona
County and stepping in for the next
decade or two and where this will put
us. So, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank
you. Well said, Mr. Chair. Yes,
Commissioner Sanchez. You forgot Prince
and Tina Turner. Oh, thank you.
Um, but anyway, I I just wanted to add
to what the commissioners stated. Uh,
previous to my comments, I just want to
assure the public that we will be
getting your input. what every district
need, what needs what every community
needs because the needs differ from
district to district, from community to
community to Puebito, from Puebito,
whether it's a community center or rec
center or more lighting on streets or
whatever you all think is important and
we will follow that. I I want to assure
you that it's not going to be what we
want, but rather what you want and we
will support what the communities need.
Um, thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr.
Chair. Yes, Commissioner. Hi. I just
want to let you know that um this
passes. I'm going to have community
conversations in my district with um
every one of my communities um because I
want to know what they um would like to
um have this bond um invested in. Of
course, that's perfect. I don't know if
anyone does a Los Cruus community watch
page, but it it kind of fits because
last week there was a post that had like
500 comments, like 26 shares asking why
there's no pool, a public pool off of
seven. Like 500 comments like why do
they not have this very simple kind of
thing that just you know what do you do
with your kids in the summer? They sit
in the air conditioning and play video
games all day. like I help my kids like
go walk the dog and but there's not a
lot and I think this is one of those
things that we finally get to invest in
the community to kind of bring awareness
that you know we're not just Joemo on
the corner like we are the second
biggest county in New Mexico we are next
to the largest drivable city in New
Mexico which is El Paso which is closer
than Phoenix and Tucson and anything
like that we are a huge you know
tri-state region
and and our communities deserve these
amenities and these quality of life
things. So, I am so excited to call for
the vote on this one, but unless any
other commissioner has anything to say.
Okay, any public comment? Feel like it's
one of Okay, I get to call for the vote.
Um, Brandy, go ahead.
Commissioner Gomedos, yes. Commissioner
Reynolds, yes. Commissioner Sanchez,
yes. Vice Chair Chaparo, yes. Chair Sha
Jordan, yes.
The resolution number to this item is
2025-67.
It's a big resolution number. Feel like
we should clap or something. We should
clap or something. Yay.
[Applause]
Okay.
I see the headline now as it's written.
PIO office as county chair calls for the
vote for the No, I'm just kidding. Just
giving you some like highlights there.
Okay, next up we Oh, um are we still
wanting to call a break really quick for
you?
11:20. Uh
yeah, I can get through a Lita thing in
8 n minutes. Okay. Number 18, which is
approve an ordinance repealing LITA
ordinance number 304-2019,
the boutique unlimited Donana County. Do
we have a motion? I'll move approval.
Second.
Commissioner Gomedos and Commissioner
Reynolds. Oh my god. Sorry, Sanchez.
Welcome, Miss Denise.
Good morning. Denise Carter, interim
economic development director. I don't
know if you all have any questions. Um,
I do want to acknowledge our community
partners in the audience. We have MVita
and economic and the New Mexico economic
development department. And we have a
representative from the company as well,
Mr. Glenn Astro.
Okay.
So, we're repealing. So, the project is
complete. They've met the metrics. They
hire the people. We love to hear that
here. Absolutely.
Cool. Do you all want to say anything?
Thank you for the opportunity and the
support.
Yeah, come on up. Join us up front.
Sure. I love attention. Do you? No, I
don't. Um, I just wanted to say thank
you. It was wonderful to be able to be a
part of a project that we came together
and we successfully reached an
obligation and uh and a goal together.
So, that's huge. Thank you again for
working with us. Yeah. And this was
originally done in 2029. So that's
awesome. We'd love to
2019 2029 that's out there. Yeah. So
that's great to hear. Thank you for
joining us today and we're excited to
close it out. Perfect. Thank you. Cool.
Anything else, commissioners?
Nope. We good? Okay, cool. Brandy, go
ahead and roll call us.
Commissioner Gometos, yes. Commissioner
Reynolds, yes. Commissioner Sanchez,
yes. Vice Chair Chabato, yes. Chair
Shajnandez.
Yes. The ordinance number for that is
364-2025.
Wonderful. Thank you, ma'am.
Can we get through 19 on 10 minutes?
Well, we can try.
Yeah. Okay. Uh, commissioners, we do
have item number 19, which is a
resolution to declare severe drought
conditions within Donena County. Do we
have a motion? So moved. Do we have a
second? Second. Okay. We have a motion
by Vice Chair Chapado. We have a second
by Commissioner Sanchez. You're welcome.
I knew if I didn't give it to you, you'd
be really upset. Okay. And we have our
interim fire chief, Mr. Bowen. Welcome,
Deputy Fire Chief Cody Haver. Um, you're
not Mr. Bowen. I am not Mr. Bowen. He's
much better looking than I am. Uh, good
morning. Uh, Chair, Vice Chair,
Commissioners, uh, County Management. My
name is Cody Haver. from the deputy fire
chief and fire marshall for the county.
And uh the resolution that you have in
front of you today uh in very simple
straightforward terms is to um invoke uh
New Mexico statute 6D-2C-8.1
which states that the governing body has
the ability to further restrict the use
sale of fireworks in its jurisdiction if
severe or extreme drought conditions
exist.
uh the governing body basically just has
to hear information to make a
determination that severe or extreme
drought conditions do exist currently
and based on that information you are
then allowed to make a decision on uh
further restricting fireworks. So I'll
give you just a little bit of
information about the drought conditions
um and then I'll be able to stand for
any questions that you may have. Okay.
So, what you have in front of you here
is a map that was just released on
Thursday of last week. This comes out
every Thursday. It's the US drought
monitor. Um, it gives information about
the most current drought conditions um
on a weekly basis. And very quickly,
what you see at the very bottom of New
Mexico, our county, Donana County, um
the vast majority is in extreme drought
conditions with the very bottom portion
being in exceptional drought.
100% of our county is currently in at
least extreme drought conditions with
the very southern margin uh 12.42%
of our county um as being described as
exceptional drought. This time last year
in 2024, only 49% of the county was
experiencing extreme drought, which was
that bright red that you saw. And there
were no exceptional drought conditions
at this point last year. So, um,
everybody's very aware of the weather
conditions that we've had, the dust
storms, the wind storms, the lack of
precipitation, um, around New Mexico and
in our county. And so, those are the
conditions that have led to the data
that you're seeing here in front of you.
And this last slide is just a little bit
of my kickoff to the last bit of
information that I'll share with you.
So, um, this is the June outlook from
the, uh, national inter agency, uh,
fire, and basically they're they're the
ones that predict wildland fire
conditions, the potentials. They put
warnings out about those types of things
as they're as the nation is preparing
for uh, wildland fires. And you can see
New Mexico and you can see southern New
Mexico where we fall into that uh very
above normal conditions that are ripe
for any type of fire, wildland fire,
brush fire to start and you know
progress and continue. Um, so with that
being said, Donana County, um, very
similar to the city of Los Cusus, has
what we would call a safe and sane law
for the sale and use of fireworks within
our county, the unincorporated portions
of our county. Um, and basically what
that means is that cones, fountains, you
know, flittering devices, those types of
things are available to buy and use. But
uh such things as firecrackers, ground
audible devices, and aerial fireworks
are not allowed to be purchased, sold,
used or have in your possession here uh
within the jurisdiction of Donana
County. City of Los Cusus is very
similar. A little bit of information I
want to pass on to you is that um there
are some jurisdictions that do typically
allow the sale of aerial fireworks.
Those are those are really the fireworks
that we talk about that cause a lot of
the concerns and issues. uh for fires to
start and for pets and those types of
things. Um the town of Messia uh did
consider a resolution last night that
was presented by Messiah Fire Chief Greg
Whited and they did choose to disallow
the sale and use of aerial fireworks in
Messia this year. Uh so the resolution
that you have in front of you is very
similar. It's under the same statute uh
that New Mexico allows for the drought
conditions to um to prompt the the
commission to further restrict
fireworks. For us, what that means in
Donana County is that we continue to
follow our current ordinances. We don't
allow the sale of aerials and the use of
them ever. Uh but it also further allows
us to restrict the use of any fireworks
any permissible fireworks to be on paved
only or baron only surfaces or areas
that basically have an immediate water
source available to them. Uh so in
Donana County we have wild uh you know
some wildland type areas. We've got bow
we've got brush we have areas that have
vegetation on them farmland all those
types of things. Uh this resolution
would basically give us the allowance to
enforce fireworks to only be used by any
person on paved or barren surfaces. So
that's really what's added uh for you to
consider today. Uh but I just wanted to
give you that information on the drought
conditions where we're at uh and answer
any questions that you may have uh
before you approve this resolution.
Thank you, sir. Commissioners, any
comments, questions?
I have a I have a question, Mr. Chair.
Yeah, go ahead, Commissioner Reynolds.
Um, well, how long will this be in
effect or will it be in effect until we
pass another resolution to change it?
Yes, sir. Great question, Chair and
Commission. The answer to that question
is that um the resolution has to be
passed no uh no closer than 20 days from
the holiday, which is the 4th of July.
Once the proclamation's passed it uh is
passed, it stays in place for 30 days
unless a another proclamation is passed
by the commission as well. So basically
from today, if it were to be passed, it
would go into effect for 30 days, which
would pass the July 4th holiday. If for
any reason we were to get a mass amount
of peruh precipitation, something that
really changed the uh the climate here
and that drought outlook, the commission
could convene again and choose to pass
another proclamation that would rescend
this one. That is possible. But again,
um we're just, you know, little little
more than 20 days out from the 4th of
July and and all the indexes right now
for climate and and weather are showing
that we don't expect to change between
now and then. Thank you very much. I'd
like to I'd like to make a public
comment about this as well. Yes, sir.
And that is to say that, you know, we
get winds here at this time of year in
the 60 70 80 mph range and if we did
somebody violates this ordinance or this
law and actually chooses to go ahead and
use fireworks, we we could be looking at
a pretty severe catastrophe here in the
county. Yes. And so I would hope that
the public will understand that this is
not an an effort to hurt them. It's an
effort to protect everyone in the
community, especially those who are not
participating in firework displays. So,
um I'm I don't want I don't want this to
be a turn out to be a Hal or a Hawaii or
California situation in Dona County and
we are responsible to be prudent
servants for the community to make sure
this doesn't happen. So, thank you. Yes,
sir. Thank you for your comment.
So currently the way this resolution is
written
um are we prohibiting the sale from the
specialty sellers in our county right
now? No, that is not correct. The uh
permanent specialty vendors such as
travel centers that they produce the
mass amount of their income from
tourism, those are allowed year round to
sell uh aerial fireworks in in state
statute. So, this is basically just
prohibiting anything off of pavement.
That is correct. Okay. Yes. Okay, then
I'm good. I don't need to do anything.
Mr. Chair, I have a question just based
on what you um inquired.
So, what you're saying, Deputy Chief, is
that the travel centers will continue to
sell their fireworks because I
understand one particular travel center
only sells to out of state residents.
Are you assuring me that it will not
impact that particular business at all?
Uh, whatever they are allowed currently
to sell, what they have been selling,
this resolution will not change what
they have been allowed to do up to this
point. Okay.
Thank you. Cool. Anything else? No. You
have public comment?
Mr. Chairman, I did have one just one
quick. Yeah, of course. And I know I
know Commissioner, I'll keep it really
quick. I just want to say, I know
Commissioner Reynolds said a lot, but I
think given in my district where we've
had the Pina fire um and some of these
others and we've only had 4 in of rain,
which is less than half of our normal uh
average the last two years is all we've
gotten. So, um I appreciate us for
considering this because it it it really
does scare me for the potential of what
it could mean um in terms of potential
fires and such if if people are going to
be utilizing fireworks. And I've already
had several people um that that live um
I I think actually in district one that
used to be my district had reached out
and with concern of of fire. So but
appreciate us taking a look at this
given uh the drought conditions we're
in. So thank you and thank you so much
for bringing this for crafting this
together uh for us. Yes, sir. Thank you
for your comment. Thank you commission.
And Mr. Chair, another comment. Yes. If
the county is truly going to look at
this, uh, we have to, I believe, start
talking to the other communities,
Sunland Park, Hatch, Messia,
uh, and, and if we're, if we are in
extreme drought, then I think partnering
with them and coming up with a solution
that encompasses all the communities
communities instead of just really
focusing on the unincorporated part of
the county. Um, I think that might be a
good idea. Yes. Thank you for your
comment.
Cool. Okay. Anything else? Seeing none,
no public comment. Brandy, if you'll go
ahead and roll call the vote, please.
Commissioner Gomez,
yes. Commissioner Reynolds, yes.
Commissioner Sanchez, yes. Vice Chair
Chapo, yes. Chair Shaldo Hernandez, yes.
The resolution number for that item is
2025-68.
Thank you. This is like the day of
yeses. Kind of like it. Thank you very
much for your time, Commission. Thank
you, sir.
Okay,
next up is commission input. Followup.
Commissioners, any follow-up input?
No one. Just me? No, it's going to be
me. Actually, I have a couple things I
want to say.
Sorry. Do a little backstream, boys. Oh,
I could I can do a lot of things. Um,
okay. Sorry. And I I wanted to wait
until now because I didn't want to take
away from the emotions and the feelings
um of the prior commission comments, but
I just wanted to make a note. I will
start uh here. Well, I started this week
and I'll continue it on, but I'm going
to start doing rotating office hours at
the community centers in my district
every Monday. Um, so from 10 to 1, so
I'm hoping to hit people on their lunch
break if they're able to join me. I'll
be at the La Mesa Community Center the
first Monday of every month. I'll be at
the Vado Delero Community Center the
second Monday of every month. And I've
actually invited Commissioner Gomed, so
if she wants to join me on those, she's
more than welcome. I might need someone
to keep me company. Um, and then I'll be
here in the government building the
third Monday of every month, which I've
had outstanding since I've been here.
And then I'll be at the Mosquite
Community Center the last Monday of
every month from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
And I'll be there to help you all with
any comments, questions, concerns. If
you're having trouble paying utility
bills, I'll have my laptop, my EA will
be there, Fernanda, she'll be ready to
go, and we'll help you guys out with
anything that you want to do. kind of
kicking off the like pseudo satellite
offices that we've been talking about,
but come and hang out with me. Bring me
a cup of coffee. I'll need one. Um, but
I'll be there. And we're actually going
to get those posted on my commission
page uh later on as well. So, come out
and join me. Anyone else? Seeing none,
going on to correspondence. Brandy.
Uh, Mr. Chair. Yes. There was one more
comment I wanted to make about the um
income the property tax and the and the
uh bond issue. And uh I wanted to remind
people that we have u this board has
actually twice each time it's came up
passed a resolution um and um allowing
the lowincome families to debate uh to
not pay as much on their property tax.
So, if anybody's worried that this bond
will increase the cost to lower income
families, uh we've passed the resolution
to do the rebate back for the property
tax on those people. So, they shouldn't
be worried about this as much as true
story. And we did that what, three years
ago, my first year, I think. So, cool.
Correspondence. Randy
Hector and Angela Messa versus Donana
County. Moyes Reese versus Dona County.
Jared Brown and Douglas Wit versus
Donana County.
Awesome. Thank you.
Okay,
we do have a close session on the agenda
today. So, I go ahead and move that the
board convene in close session regarding
the purchase, acquisition, and disposal
of real property and water rights as
authorized by the Open Meetings Act,
section 10151H8,
NMSA 1978. Second. And we have a second.
Brandy.
Commissioner Gto, yes. Commissioner
Reynolds, yes. Commissioner Sanchez,
yes. Vice Chair Chabato, yes. Chair
Shawandez, yes. And we're in close
session.
No.
Welcome back. The time is 10:05 in the
afternoon and I just want to make the
statement that nothing was discussed in
close session other than the items in
the motion to put us into close session.
And we are back and it is 105 and we're
going to go ahead and call this BOCC
meeting adjourned. Thank you for joining
us.