[music]
Well, good afternoon everyone.
Welcome to the city council meeting.
Today is Monday, May 18th, 2026. It's
approximately 1 p.m. I'm Mayor Eric
Enriquez. Before we start, I want to
mention that we have an ASL, American
Sign Language Interpreter up front,
available at every city council meeting
if anyone requires. We'll start with a
moment of silence for the brave men and
women of the United States Armed Forces
as they protect our interests around the
globe, as well as the courageous men and
women of the Los Cusus Police and Los
Cruus Fire Department as they keep our
city safe 247.
Councelor Harris, if you lead us in the
pledgece
to the flag of the United States of
America and to the stands one
for
The next thing is I'll need a motion and
a second to allow counselor Beno to
participate uh via Zoom.
So moved.
Second.
Christine.
This is on the motion to allow councelor
Ben Como to attend the meeting via Zoom.
Councelor Mccclur. Yes.
Councelor Matise.
Yes.
Councelor Harris.
Yes.
Councelor Bencoml is absent right now.
Councelor Karan.
Yes.
Councelor Munoz.
Yes.
Mayor.
Yes.
Next will be the presentation for
certificates and proclamations.
Councelor Michael Harris.
just the one.
All right. Um, this is for public works
professionals. So, anyone in public
works who's here, um, I guess we could
have you up here in the front since
there's quite a few.
Quite a few. Okay. You You weren't
kidding.
Yeah. Come on up and be recognized.
Mayor. Mayor.
Yes.
Can we restrict it to each one getting
only a two-minute comment?
That's a good point.
Yeah. Stand in front.
Yeah. Yeah. Of course.
All right. Do we have everybody?
I think we do. Um All right. Whereas
public works professionals focus on
infrastructure, facilities, and services
that are of vital importance to
sustainable and resilient communities
and to public health, high quality of
life and well-being of people of Los
Cusus. And whereas these infrastructure
facilities and services could not be
provided without the dedicated efforts
of public works professionals who are
engineers, managers and employees at all
levels of government and the private
sector who are responsible for
rebuilding, improving and protecting our
nation's transportation, water supply,
water treatment and solid waste systems,
public buildings and other structures
and facilities essential for our
citizens. And whereas it is in the
public interest for the citizens, civic
leaders, and children in Los Cusus to
gain knowledge of and maintain an
ongoing interest and understanding of
the importance of public works and
public works programs in their
respective communities. And whereas the
year of 2026 marks the 66th annual
National Public Works Weeks sponsored by
the American Public Works Association.
Now therefore, we, the mayor and city
council of Las Cusus, New Mexico, do
hereby proclaim May 17 through 23rd,
2026 as National Public Works Week, and
urge all citizens to join with
representatives of the American Public
Works Association and government
agencies in activities, events, and
ceremonies designed to pay tribute to
our public works professionals,
engineers, managers, and employees, and
to recognize the substantial
contributions they make to protecting
our national health, safety, and
advancing quality Day of life for all.
[applause]
Can I ask that everybody get on the
right half of the room to take this
photo, please? [laughter]
Other right that way. your
my right in front of the blue city of
Los Cruus background.
Shorter people in the front, please.
And we can have a couple people sitting
those chairs in the front if they'd
like. Also,
And if you can't see me right here
to your right,
then I'll ask that you either come
forward or get into a position where you
can see me. Thank you.
[applause]
Sorry. Did anyone want to say anything?
Huh? No. Okay, very good.
Well, thank you, Councelor Harrison.
Thank you, public works for all that you
do. We really appreciate you.
Next is a departmental highlights and
first is parks and recreation.
Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor, Mayor Prom,
members of the council and staff. For
the record, my name is Jake Gut
Gutierrez.
still learning that um
I was asked to come and present
um our presentation today. Forgive me,
it has been a while since I've graced
the uh podium. Um
trying to locate the presentation.
Well, this just give me Yes, sir.
No, go ahead. I thought Katrina was
coming, but Oh, okay.
You got help. Okay.
You have help.
Where were you, Katrina? Thank you so
much. Well, this will just give me time
to to say it's been a while since I've
had the pleasure of gracing the podium
here and
want to thank you all for the service
and that you provide our community.
Thank you so much. Thank you.
So I was asked to share the uh
highlights for the athletics and
aquatics sections of our department and
the uh programming that we are proposing
for this summer.
So before you you have the youth leagues
uh and what we intend for our
programmings here. Some of the programs
are underway. Our little suggers program
is uh currently underway there at the uh
complex. Indoor volleyball is uh
registration has passed. I would like to
just mention indoor volleyball is the
next big thing here. Um and this is for
speaking with our youth. We have seen
growth of over 10 plus teams just this
second year. Um and just to translate
that's 100 plus new uh kids
participating in youth volleyball. So,
um definitely uh good to see a good sign
and we are behind the scenes
trying to understand how we're going to
continue to meet the demand and we will
um we have outdoor soccer uh coming up
and these dates here are the dates that
uh we have registration the programs
will start after the fact um a few weeks
after that. Um I want to highlight 6v6
co-ed team sand volleyball. I will uh
credit the staff for making sure that we
offer something across the board. A lot
of the times we have our younger youth,
but we are actively trying to seek
programming that is targeting more of
our older uh pre-teen and and teens in
our uh high school age. Um there's a a
tournament there on July 17th. Um, we
also have Tyson Spikes flag football and
the league begins August 17th.
This is our adult programming. U, we
have two grass volleyball tournaments as
I was alluding to. Uh, volleyball is not
just to to youth. Adult programming um
is just bursting at the seams, if you
will. Um, this has been probably going
on for a trend better part of five or
six years. uh staff does an amazing job
offering and preparing uh the facilities
that we have and we are never
disappointed with the registration
demand. I believe registration
uh usually taps out within the first 5
10 minutes online. Um I'll be happy to
say that this year uh adult volleyball
we added 10 plus more teams. We added a
uh new division and one of the things we
are uh looking into is adding a
corporate division so we can further
expand what we're doing. Uh we have a
semi basketball uh that will be a league
there uh at Mirite. Um I believe it's
six to eight games. Um that will not be
a tournament that's an actual league. Uh
we also have a fourv4 sand volleyball uh
tournament um that will begin July 15th.
Move on to aquatics and the biggest
thing obviously is opening our
facilities and making sure that
everybody has the opportunity to enjoy
our facilities but also summer swim
lessons. Um before you is the
registration dates. uh we will have most
of our registration are online but this
one will be in person. Uh there are some
reasons for that to make sure the
logistics and everything are not missed
and that everybody has the opportunity
uh to have their questions answered uh
that day of. Um they will be uh
registration will be at the regional
aquatic center. There will be three
sessions offered um and the all sessions
will be covered between June 1st through
July 17th. They will be at our outdoor
pools this season.
the lessons or the options that we have
for our swimmers. Level one and level
two and then a parent and me uh option
was a very brief presentation. I will uh
stand for questions or comments and
return the podium back to the council.
Well, thank you Jay. Thanks for that
information and letting us know what's
going on this summer for our youth and
adult programs. Thank you very much.
My pleasure. You have a wonderful day.
Next is highlights from visit Los Cusus.
Good afternoon, mayor, counselors, city
management. I am Michelle Miller
Hernandez, visit Los Cusus's director.
For the record, today I'm giving a brief
presentation on Mida Los Cusus. Um, the
festival's final report. Uh, this year
marked our fourth anniversary and the
first year that we added a five or
excuse me, a Friday night event. The
event, of course, as many of you know,
centered around the arts, culture,
outdoor recreation,
uh, and the many other highlights, our
cuisine, um, just everything that makes
southern New Mexico and Los Cusus uh,
unique. The event was held over Friday,
April 24th, and Saturday, April 25th.
So, this is a brief look of the event
this year.
[music]
Heat. Heat.
[music]
So again, that was just a very brief
book at this year's event.
Um,
there we go.
So, some highlights. Oh, one thing I did
want to remind everyone that this event
is 100% funded by lodgers tax, but it
brings millions of dollars to our city
in uh GRT
um marketing and ad value and PR value.
So, the highlights for this year was our
headliner was uh Annie Bosco. We also
had the 575 band, Zaki uh who is well
known here locally. Our Friday night
expansion had Rebel Creek Radio. uh
Norteno banan. We had a bigger drone
show. We had the public safety zone
area. And I want to thank Chief for that
wonderful garrison flag to gave us some
beautiful photo opportunities which you
can see one of them here. Um
and uh
we also had the land acknowledgement and
traditional singing by the Muscalero
Apache tribe. The prehispanic dance
[snorts]
connect and I apologize if I'm
mispronouncing that. a preview of the
New Mexico Juneenth Jazzfest at the Rio
Grand Theater artist alley and just so
much more. There's too much to even put
on here. Um, we also had the American
250 mural. As you know, this mark this
year marks the 250th anniversary of our
nation and we're doing a lot of
activities around that and Liz Vega will
actually be presenting on that at our
next council meeting.
So, here are the fun numbers, the great
numbers. uh our total attendance did
rise this year 33%
from last year and outside of the area
um it was 10% it was 13% this year and
that's outside the 100 mile radius which
means they're most most likely to stay
in our city at least one night so that
is actually a very significant um
increase in our industry standards
but the real highlight I have to say was
our ad value and our PR value. Um, so
our return on investment was obvious uh
with these numbers. For our ad value, we
had a 100, excuse me, a 101%
increase from last year and our PR value
was up 235%.
Our page views were up 462%
from last year. And what we forgot to
mention on here, our promo video had 1
million views on YouTube this year. So
this is a huge indicator of the success
because a lot of our marketing is done
outside of Los Cusus and our staff
attended a lot of trade shows uh
consumer trade shows this year and they
heard a lot of people saying I've heard
of that festival or I'm actually going
to Los Cruises for that festival. Um so
everything is paying off. So for a
four-year event these numbers are
actually through the roof.
So, this is my sheet with the most notes
because you know how they say putting on
an event this size takes a village.
Well, actually, in our case, it takes a
city, the city of Los Cusus. So, I
wanted to just thank first uh Liz Vega.
If you could please stand, she's our
event uh manager, and without her
year-long plan planning on this, the
event would not be possible.
And Sergio Selenus, uh please stand.
He's our distribution specialist. Uh he
handles all the a lot of the logistics
and working with the other departments.
Uh Emily Lambs, she's not here today,
but she's um was a former intern to be
an intern. It's a long long story, but
anyway, she was amazing and she made all
the uh stamps for the 250 mural and
Lorenna Lozano and the marketing team.
But also, we wanted to say thank you to
the rest of the visit Las Cruis's team,
but a special call out to Parks and
Recreation with a special thanks to
Franco Grano
um Arasco
Arasio
um Marmalo
and Joey Dominguez. as well as a special
thanks to Toeer Lininger and his team at
the Rio Grand Theater, utilities, the
police department, the fire department,
of course, our city manager's office,
communications, quality of life,
finance, and our employee volunteers.
And I'm sure there's other departments
I've forgotten. And also, we wanted to
say thank you to the public for coming
out and attending the event and
supporting um our efforts.
With that, I stand for any questions.
Councelor
Matise. Yeah.
In saying thank yous. I just wanted to
thank you for the extra tickets that we
received for the reserve section. That
was folks from Tennessee,
um Michigan, Illinois, Massachusetts. My
sons had a birthday on that same
weekend. And so all of those folks
attended.
Oh, nice.
And they just love the festival. They
love the food. And most of all, they uh
they love Las Cruises. So, thank you.
Thank you.
All right. Thank you, Michelle. It was a
great event and the the drone show, it
was just spectacular. Thank you.
Thank you.
Next, we have pets of the week is
Amelia.
Hello, mayor, city council.
There we go.
All right, I am here again for our pets
of the week for this week. So, our first
dog of the week is Canela. This sweet
girl has a wonderful mix of gentle si
shyness and playful affection. She can
turn into a total love bug and she's
eager to climb into your lap and just
nuzzle in. She loves meeting new people
and she blossoms with encouragement.
She's looking for an adopter who can
give her a little patience up front and
lots of love when she opens up. So
that's our first um pet of the week is
Canela. Our second one is Chai. Chai is
smart, energetic, and people loving, a
dog who enjoys attention, and knows her
commands well. She's confident, and
she's playful, and she does good in
playgroups. Um, she has a big
personality, enthusiasm, and she's
always eager to please, and she'll
thrive with someone who enjoys an
active, fun, and engaging companion.
Our long-term residents, as you can see,
Rosa, who was our longestterm resident,
has been adopted. So that's super
exciting. Thank you all so much. Our
adopters who've been coming in. Yes.
Thank you. We still have Gkins, Dobber,
and Francesca. So they are our long-term
residents. Um, of course, we have
long-term residents, short-term
residents. We encourage the public, the
community, come out and adopt and see
our amazing animals.
Our events, you can visit us at the
farmers market on May 20th and May 27th.
We were at Petco on May 9th. We'll be at
PetSmart on May 23rd. And we are at
Tractor Supply on May 30th. The Tractor
Supply on McGuffy Street. Last time I
presented, I forgot that there was two
Tractor Supplies now. So, we will be at
this one for our event. Come and check
us out. We'll have adoptable animals
there. And then just a little call to
action. Um, we need fosters. Kitten
season is here and we are seeing a major
increase in kittens coming into our
care, including very young bottle
babies. Um, if you or the community see
a litter of kittens, please, and don't
know what to do, go to our ASCMV page.
It shows what to do for kittens. If
mom's not around right then and there,
um, it kind of gives a list of what to
do. You can always call us, but
currently we are urgently in need of
kitten fosters and bottle baby fosters
to help us get these fragile animals out
of the shelter and into a safe and
temporary home where they can grow,
stabilize, and thrive. If you're already
an approved foster and you're willing to
take additional kittens now, please
reach out. Um, we also are in need of
dog and puppy, I apologize, and puppy
fosters. Our dog kennels are over
capacity and even short-term foster
homes can make a huge difference.
Fostering gives dogs and puppies a break
from the shelter. It reduces stress,
opens kennel space for incoming animals,
and helps us learn more about each
animal. Um, Francesca, one of our
long-term residents, is in a foster. So,
just because they're in a foster, it
doesn't mean we don't showcase them. We
don't put them, you know, on social
media or anything like that. It's just a
helpful way to get us get them out of
the shelter, give us some more space for
other animals who are coming into the
shelter. Um, community members
interested in fostering can find
information in the foster application at
ascmv.org
under the how to help section. And as
you can see, the more information,
you'll see our website right there,
ascmv.org. You can always call us and
reach out and we will gladly help you
get to our foster coordinator who's
really amazing. Um, just a shout out to
all of the community members who are
fosters now. When you guys step up,
animals need you guys the most. We need
to come together for every animal in our
community. Your support gives animals
comfort, safety, and a better chance at
finding their way home or into a new
family. So, just a shout out, if you're
interesting in fostering, we'd love an
application from you. Those who are
already fosters, just a huge thank you.
And to those who are interested in
adopting, come by and see us. Our
adoption hours are 12:30 until 5:00.
We'd love to have you and come out to
our events. They're really great. Our uh
off-site event coordinator is amazing.
And that is all I have. So, thank you
guys for your support.
All right. Thank you, Amanda.
Next is a conflict of interest. Does any
member of the city council, city
manager, or any member of the city staff
have any known conflict of interest with
any item on the agenda?
None.
No.
None.
Next is public participation. We'll
allow up to three minutes. No pending
litigation or items on the non-consent.
Please uh come forward and state your
name clearly
and Katrina will usher you to the
podium.
[clears throat]
Mayor counselors, my name is Michael
Hayes. I live in Los Cusus. Four weeks
ago, I spoke before city council to ask
police chief Jeremy Story two questions
which I and then my counselor had asked
him and to which he did not respond.
Why did he request the city to seek
$500,000 in stake funds to purchase SWAT
vehicles and why five of them? As I
waited for a response, the mayor
inserted to say that the period for
civic comment was not the time for
discussion of issues. Turning to his
left, he assured me that the city clerk
had heard my questions and would get
back to me. She did not. The mayor knew
that the city cler clerk would not
because not getting back to some
citizens is part of her job. He knew
that she had not complied with my
inspection of public records act request
for records about a secret council
committee on public safety. Her
violation of the law cost the city about
$150,000 in legal fees and settlement
costs. With the likely concurrence of
the city attorney or the city manager,
she did not comply with the mayor's
false assurance to me. If the mayor had
wanted to get answers to my two
questions, he would have turned to his
right and asked Chief Story to answer
them after the council meeting, but he
did not want me to get those answers.
Two weeks later, I got answers because
of the efforts of others. Directed to
answer my questions, Chief Story replied
not to me, whom he lieled behind my
back, but to his two addresses, neither
of whom believed is liable. He informed
me that the SWAT vehicles are not
militarystyle vehicles, but merely Ford
150s with emergency lights and decals to
support state police in critical
situations in southern New Mexico.
This answer is unremarkable. So the
question is why did Chief Story refuse
to answer my two questions and why did
the mayor and the city clerk shield him
from answering them? The obvious answer
these officials resent my questions, my
successful laws suit to get answers and
my public criticisms. In abusing their
offer office, they show among much else
contempt for transparency and
accountability in matters of public
concern. Las Cusus devote deserves
better leadership.
Mayor, city council, I'm Liz Rodriguez
Johnson. We continue our efforts to
stand up for the disadvantaged in our
community.
We've brought to your attention on many
occasions the fact that the city made a
commitment to prioritize disadvantaged
properties when inspecting and replacing
lead and galvanized piping that conveys
drinking water throughout the city. This
commitment was made to the New Mexico
Finance Authority in order to receive
$15 million in funding and for which the
city must repay only a quarter.
Unfortunately, the evidence continues to
grow that Lascisa's Utilities is not in
fact prioritizing disadvantaged
properties. As explained at the April
20th meeting, only 20% of city
inspections so far are for disadvantaged
properties. This is unjust. This is
dishonest. It looks like fraud. It
smells like fraud. This needs to be
rectified. Handouts A and B are the
fifth fifth set of lists that we've
provided identifying genuinely
disadvantaged properties with estimated
values of less than $200,000.
Like the previous four sets of list, we
again ask utilities to inspect these
disadvantaged properties immediately.
Handout C is yet another example of a
mobile home community that has been left
out of the inventory that should also be
inspected. Now, we've asked city
management and the utilities department
numerous times to demonstrate that fraud
is not intended by doing the right
thing. Getting back to focusing on
properties of less than $200,000
estimated value. This is necessary to
remediate the clear evidence that lower
value properties are not currently being
prioritized.
However, at this point there is no
evidence of progress. Instead, 80% of
properties inspected are not
disadvantaged. Now, we ask for a clear
demonstration that the city does not
intend fraud. The first way this can be
done is to immediately inspect 50
properties we have included on the five
sets of list of properties with
estimated values of less than $200,000.
We've done the work in looking up their
estimated values. Of course, each
inspection needs to be fully documented.
The second way is for the city to
immediately inspect 50 properties
Lasusa's utilities classifies as
disadvantage which are estimated to be
valued at less than $200,000.
In this case, the city needs to do the
work in looking up their estimated
values. Inspection of 50 properties can
easily be accomplished in one week's
time. We ask that this city demonstrate
it does not intend to defraud by
immediately carrying out these 50
inspections of disadvantaged properties.
Then all disadvantaged properties in the
city should be inspected before even one
more nondisadvantaged property is
inspected absent an overriding reason.
Thank you.
Mayor, mayor prom folks here today,
those watching online, I'm Lin Moer. We
citizens are dealing with a utilities
department and city management that
again and again failed to do the right
thing. They fail to comply with the lead
and copper rule and they fail to behave
like decent people. They're certainly
not like ducks hard at work paddling
their feet under the water. Rather,
unfortunately, they're supine on the
shore, chewing gum, laughing, and making
snarky comments. Councelor Matise asked
former assistant utilities director Carl
Clark during a meeting February 17th
with what specific properties were being
sampled for lead. Mr. Clark said he had
checked addresses and suggested that new
sampling was underway. IPER request
responses reveal that in reality no
sampling at all was carried out in 2025.
And because they sample only once every
3 years as shown at the last meeting in
handout one, they won't be sampling the
largest water system, the Las Cusus
municipal water system in 2026 either.
Added to this significant shortcoming is
the fact that Las Cusus Utilities is not
sampling the tap of anyone with
galvanized or unknown piping who
requests it. Even though the federal
lead and copper rule requires it,
they're not. Unfortunately, the director
has never displayed the courtesy to tell
people who've requested sampling why the
department won't do it. Management has
not prioritized disadvantaged properties
despite its explicit commitment to do
so. Consider this. A taxpayer owns a
property on North Mosquet Street in the
oldest part of the city that's most
likely to have lead pipes. It's valued
at less than $100,000.
She's asked to have her tap sampled, but
the city has never responded to her
request. She cleans house for a property
owner who lives on Arrowhead Road, a
property valued at almost $600,000 built
in 1987 after the lead ban. She's aware
that Los Cusus's Utilities has tested
the drinking water at this property four
times, every third year since 2015. She
wonders why city management considers
her property not important enough to
sample and why the director doesn't have
the courtesy to tell her why. Here's
more examples of the city's not doing
right by its citizens. Failure to
resample drinking water of a
disadvantaged property owner whose lead
was 89 parts per billion. The action
level is 15. Failure to report lead
levels truthfully in the annual consumer
confidence reports. Failure to include
all mobile homes in the city's
inventory, much less inspect them for 18
months answering virtually none of the
public's questions. These failures
unfortunately demonstrate again and
again a lack of honesty and common
decency. Thank you for this opportunity
to speak.
Good afternoon. My name is Rigo Salazar
and I'm a resident of District 1 and
general manager of a striking image, a
36-year-old cleaning company based in
Las Cusus, New Mexico that serve as
residents in every district of our city,
including members of our esteemed city
council. I'm here today because I
believe Las Cusus is facing a threat
that is rapidly approaching. A threat
that I believe many in our country are
actually sleepwalking into. Since late
February, the Straight of Hormuse has
been effectively closed. 20% of the
world's daily oil supply has been cut
off. The strategic petroleum reserve is
being drawn down faster than at any
point in our history. And just this past
week, officials in California, the state
most dependent on Middle Eastern crude,
announced that they have four to six
weeks of gasoline and diesel supply
left.
Analysts at Chevron and JP Morgan have
identified June and July as the window
when critical shortages start reaching
American consumers directly. That is not
far away. Now, Las Cruus produces some
of its own energy and we are not
California, but we are a city where most
people have no real alternative to a
car. When the stations in El Paso start
running dry, people will drive here. And
when the panic buying begins, and it
will begin, stations can go from full to
empty in a matter of hours. I'm asking
this council to act now while there's
still time to do so calmly and
strategically rather than in the middle
of a crisis. Specifically, I am asking
for three things. First, fuel purchase
limits. Cap transactions at 10 or 15
gallons. It costs nothing to implement
and it is the single most effective tool
against panicdriven dryouts. It worked
in the 1979 oil crisis and it will work
now. Second, a priority fueling plan for
essential workers. Our firefighters,
nurses, and grocery workers need to be
able to get to work even if lines start
forming. That framework should be in
place before we need it, not scrambled
together after the fact.
Third, expand Roadrunner transit now and
advertise it heavily. I believe public
transit will become increasingly
necessary as the world adapts to a new
status quo. I've left a brief summary
with the city city clerk that outlines
these requests and a few more, but more
importantly with the data behind them. I
understand that there are many demands
on the city council, but the cities that
got through past energy crisis and
without chaos were the ones that planned
early. We have a window, a shrinking
window, and I am asking Las Cruises to
use it. Thank you.
Good afternoon everyone, mayor, city
councilors, everyone else. So nice to
see you. Um, my name is Pamela Court and
I currently serve as president of the
school board of Los Cru's public schools
and I also serve on the community
schools partnership board and I have
done so for six years.
As you are prioritizing budget items, I
would like to insist that you continue
to fund our community schools as you
have in the past. Los Cusus Public
Schools has a joint partnership
agreement with you, the city of Los
Cusus, that establishes a framework to
combine resources, budgets, and
personnel to transform our now eight
campuses into neighborhood hubs.
Together, we integrate academic
supports, health care services, food
banks, and family outreach directly into
those eight school buildings. Because of
our mutual agreement, we are able to
tackle nonacademic barriers and learning
such as poverty, food insecurity, and
health needs, just to name a few, so
that our students and families can
succeed. Without these supports,
students cannot learn. As Maslo's
hierarchy of needs explains,
if um excuse me, if we don't satisfy
foundational basic needs be we then we
cannot fulfill higher level growth
needs. Which basically means if you're
hungry or frightened, there's no way
that you can learn. Without the funding
provided by the city, our eight
community schools will not be able to
provide the services necessary for our
students and our families to thrive. The
money the city spends on community
schools is an investment in our youth,
which means it's an investment in our
city. And it is one of the most valuable
investments you will ever make. Thank
you so much for your time.
My name is Fred Huff.
At the first of this year, there were 11
illegal homeless encampments in the Burn
Lake area.
While the park rangers were being
trained around mid January, they
discovered these illegal encampments and
started getting them removed. The last
encampment was removed around February
7th.
What has attracted these trespassers to
the B burn lake area so much? One reason
I discovered is that when I t asked some
of them why they came here, they said
that the community of hope had sent them
to over to the area.
But I believe the biggest reason is that
unmaintained or abandoned properties are
where the homeless people target to set
up their abodess because they know that
these areas are not being watched.
We have [snorts] seen numerous abandoned
buildings getting burned because these
trespassers have broken into them and
set fires inside.
It is the same story with properties
like Burn Lake. If it appears abandoned,
they will gravitate there. The trees and
the brush provide shade, shelter, and
anchor points for the illegal
encampments that they build. in the burn
lake bed. They've altered the soil and
landscape and left major impacts within
the lake bed. Since these tr trespassers
built illegal campfires, the risk of a
major fire in the lake bed was very
high. They had started a fire in the
lake bed several years ago, and we had
to evacuate our house for several hours,
and we did not know if we were going to
have a house to return to. If the wind
had been blowing from the north that
day, it would have blown across I 10 and
caused a major accident over on the
freeway.
The reason all these encampments had
flourished so well is because for the
last 5 years or so, parks and wreck and
public works could not agree on who was
to in charge of maintaining that area.
Well, we now have a new public's work
department head, Mr. Kyle Erand, and
he's got it figured out, and it looks
like he is there to get things done. On
May 4th, city crews started a
maintenance project over there, and the
results have been absolutely amazing and
have far exceeded any expectations I had
on what the city could do to maintain
the Burn Lake area. the trees, brush,
and grass grass has been removed or
mowed, and the altered landscapes have
been bulldozed back to what they're
supposed to be. So, a big thank you for
making a huge difference in Burn Lake to
parks or to public works department.
Thank you so much. Great job.
Mayor Council Juan Garcia, thanks
Council Matise for bringing up RCV, rank
choice voting, up for discussion and
possibly leading to a repeal of this
ordinance designed to often
disenfranchise voters in our municipal
elections. RCV negatively impacts voting
due to its complex complexity in
understanding the process on the ballot
itself.
And on the subject of repealing
ordinances, let's not forget the
repressive tax that came from banning
single-use bags. Albuquerque scrapped
theirs, but Lasuses clings to it in the
name of quote making Lasuses beautiful
and ridding the city of ugly trash. Fast
forward from 2022 and now we've got some
scenic piles of garbage, bonus feces and
trash decorating near every corner.
Plus, the city has pocketed hundreds of
thousands since then. And I continue,
the mayor kept his cool when he was
attacked and even cursed in these
chambers, all because he stood by his
faith and backed a pro-life event.
Meanwhile, we have a counselor who
throws a tiss when someone points out
problems in her district or turns her
back when a citizen doing public comment
just because
she doesn't like what she hears. I won't
say it's childish behavior. Let's just
call it unprofessional.
And in closing, according to the FBI,
there were 90,178
assaults on officers in 2025 and 53
officers lost their lives to felonious
acts. Police FOPs say non-stop hate and
dehumanization of the officers makes
attacks on cops feel normal, even
expected. It's not just talk anymore.
Look at the shootings and assaults.
Meanwhile, the head of the Les Cruises
anti- police group and his crew keep
pushing venom like, and I quote, "LCBD
killed a person in the act of being a
person." Never mind the felon had over a
pound of meth, 500 fentinyl pills, 20
grams of fentinyl powder, 28 prior
arrests, and drew a gun. Otherwise, I
guess you could say he was an upright
citizen.
What? one other gym. More training for
the police leads to help kill us better.
That's not protest. That's irresponsible
speech. Stuff like this puts every cop
at risk. There are people out there who
are unstable or just itching for an
excuse to go off. It's only going to get
uglier. In my opinion, I think the Las
Cruises anti- police group won't let up
until another cop gets killed. Thank
you.
Hello, council members. [clears throat]
My name is Robert Williams. I'm from
district 4. I was actually here to uh
talk to Joanna Banko, but uh I am here
representing a small community school
uh named Raises Desab. And uh what I
wanted to do, I wanted to ask one of you
all uh we're looking for somebody to
come say some kind words. Uh first of
all, I'm the secretary of the Conilo de
Padres of the school and we're looking
for somebody to come talk to our
students that are graduating from
kindergarten and fifth grade uh on May
29th. Um I was going to ask Joanna
Vinko. I've been trying to get a hold of
her, but I've not had a chance to do so
and I showed up to the office. But uh if
there's anyone of you all that can spare
maybe 20 minutes of your time, please um
if u you can reach out to either me, I
can leave my card or Lucia uh to like I
say the 29th is the is the um
graduation. Uh it' be really nice for
the kids. Um I was very fortunate as
soon as I became a u the secretary of
the council. Um I was really blown away
by the student council there that is K
through fifth grade. Um how they put
their agenda together. They have an
actual agenda the chairperson all the
way down to the secretary and they
really do like a really good job. It's
very very professional and they raise
their own money. So I would like to shed
a little light on recognition for them
and if one of you all can do that I
would really appreciate that. Okay,
thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Williams. If you leave
your information with the city clerk,
someone will get back to you.
Thank you.
get adjusted here.
Howdy. I am Lonnie Montgomery. I'm a
follower of Jesus Christ and I haven't
been in here in a long time. Last time
that I'm also a person to pray. So I'm
going to pray Lord God send your
blessing on this council that they may
have better just discernment and wisdom
that they can make wiser decision in
Jesus holy name I pray last time I was
here a fellow man here pointed out that
uh
our forefathers were deists some of them
no all of them were deist
comes from do which means God they
believe in God meaning Jehovah, Yahweh,
uh
the great I am. And then I I am a
teacher. So in this uh thing here, I can
uh preach what I want to. But in the
riff raff as a teacher, I think I would
dabble in history and civics and science
and things like that, but I'm going to
skip that today. So we'll go on to state
things and different things like that.
But Martin Luther King once said, "I
have a dream that my little children
will one day live in a nation where they
will not be judged by the color of their
skin, but by the content of their
character." And what had we done in the
21st century? We have promoted CRT,
critical race theory, where the teachers
tell the children of color, "You're a
victim."
And the light-skinned people, you're an
oppressor.
Was this Mr. King's dream? I think not.
And that's just one thing that's going
on in our schools. In the high schools,
we're supplying books so that students
can, and I quote a librarian there, can
explore their sexuality,"
unquote.
They can learn that it's enjoyable. It's
okay to do it. If you want to have sex
with your young sister, that's okay if
it feels good. How about your young
brother? That's okay, too. There's also
a law that teachers don't have to inform
parents that their son wants to be a
woman.
They they don't have to tell them. The
son will be given drugs to help him turn
into a woman and even have his genitals
removed without the parents consent.
So, that's going on time after time.
And in in Santa Fe, I think they finally
passed a law that they're going to teach
uh they're going going to teach reading
this year. And I I like this public
forum because we can say anything.
There's one young man comes in and says
there's so many police things and I've
got the statistics, but I didn't give
them. We can show you use the f- word.
And there's the young ladies here. They
bring in the lead thing every time and
they put it up here and it goes there
and it goes over to the next part. And
it's, you know, it's like the city
council and it's like the city council
doesn't give a rodent posterior
about having lead in the lead in the
water of the people of Los Cusus. Thank
you very much.
Hello, my name is Connie Chapman and
these remarks are in response to the
misleading, exaggerated, disrespectful,
and hateful comments expressed at the
end of public participation during the
May 4th council meeting. A man proudly
commented as if he was some super
citizen hero that he had personally
quote all by myself unquote called LCPD
127 times in the first 123 days of this
year. He stated that 119 calls pertained
to issues within District 4 and that he
had made them in an attempt to make the
community safer for all. He questioned
what councelor Ben Como was doing in her
own community to make it safer. The real
question is why did he orchestrate the
circumstances that led to those calls?
Calls that potentially put people in
harm's way. What was his motive? The
vast majority of those 119 calls
centered around people seeking shade
from a building near the Community of
Hope campus, which happens to be located
in District 4. Let me repeat. He
targeted people seeking shade. People
waiting for the community of hope to
open, waiting for a ride to a medical or
legal appointment. Or maybe, just maybe,
they were there simply to eat their
lunch in the shade. He decided all by
himself that those folks were a nuisance
or a potential hazard or a threat and
needed to be removed. So he proceeded to
create the circumstances leading to his
119 calls. What a misuse of our public
resources.
And for the record, as a resident of
district 4 living near the community of
hope, I have no concerns around my
safety from the folks on that campus.
But I do feel unsafe in a community with
a man who would manufacture conditions
and then call the police on people
seeking shade and then place the blame
at the feet of someone else. He ended
his comments by saying that he will
stand in support of law enforcement
against the evil found within our city
council chambers. The only evil found
here in these chambers is his level of
disdain and lack of compassion for his
fellow human beings. That is truly evil.
[applause]
Good afternoon, Mayor, Council,
everyone. My name is Yoli Diaz. Today I
sent over 80 people an email titled
urgent escalation and request for
immediate intervention alleged barriers
to cancer care access for uninsured and
indigent resident. Described in the
email essentially says that Memorial
Medical Center did it again. On Friday,
May 15th, I was informed of a resident
diagnosed with cancer who reportedly was
unable to obtain an appointment through
the Memorial Medical Center Cancer
Center due to uninsured status. This
resident reports that she was also not
financially screened by Memorial Medical
Center nor Memorial Medical Center
Cancer Center after being referred to
Memorial Medical Center Cancer Center by
a Memorial Medical Center physician.
Thus, unfortunately, the usual problem I
have complained about is the people, the
vulnerable sick people who are not able
to get through the Memorial Medical
Center door to receive needed treatment
at all. My efforts have not been
complaints towards care, just those who
are not provided the opportunity to
receive needed care.
I appreciate the work of both city of
Los Cusus' Anthony Turner and Donana
County Commissioner Gloria Gomez in
their immense dedication of time to
consider all residents in Donana County
and their work towards improving the
local health care system.
I am not surprised with Memorial Medical
C Center's action of not providing this
resident an appointment. It is the same
old problem that I began my advocacy
with in year 2021.
However, what does surprise me is that
Memorial Medical Center seuite including
CEO Dennis Knox continuing to allow
these barriers of access to cancer care
for the most vulnerable in our county
while they are being investigated by the
New Mexico Department of Justice and the
city of Los Cusus' and Doniana County's
lawsuit.
One might think that they would show
some very real concern and prove that
they are serving the most vulnerable as
they should.
Most often I do not provide personal
comments, but today I will. I'm asking
you to try to imagine what you would
feel if you were a child again, an
underage child, and your mother was
diagnosed with cancer and she was not
able to access an appointment for cancer
treatment. Do you think that you would
feel the fear that your mother would
die? What if the tables were turned? You
were the mother or father and you were
diagnosed with cancer. Would you feel
the fear of dying and your child left
without you? I want you to put yourself
in the position of residents in this
position and try to feel those fear
fearful feelings and demand healthc care
access to all residents in our community
at Memorial Medical Center. Thank you.
[applause]
Good afternoon, mayor, city council. My
name is Fred Miller. I would just like
to request that we keep ranked choice
voting. There are potential benefits to
ranked choice voting. I won't go into
the complaint that it's too complicated
is specious because you don't have to
rank all the options. If you only care
about one candidate, just put a one next
to that one. It doesn't have to be more
complicated than that. That's no more ch
for people who don't like rank choice
voting. They don't have to treat it as
rank choice. They can just pick one
candidate as they would otherwise. Thank
you.
[applause]
Good afternoon, mayor, city council. Uh,
following one of those. This will be
tough. Uh, this morning I met with my
radiation oncologist at Med Memorial
Medical Center, Dr. Call, and I am three
years cancer-free.
It was a it was a long and arduous
journey. Started out in Silver City
being diagnosed by the National Science
Institute, sent to El Paso, big big uh
tumor removed, came right back, then
sent to Colorado Springs uh UC Health
and they treated me for about a month
and said, "We're not getting anywhere.
You are you have about three or four
months to live." We came back to Los
Cusus. I got signed up with the hostage
program and the death with dignity
program.
Uh but before we left Colorado Springs,
we did ask one of the members of that
team to at least see if they could find
me some pallet of care. Uh and
fortunately they did. One day the phone
rang and we get a call from Memorial
Medical Center. Dr. Call said, "Come see
me." Uh went and visited him, CT scan.
He said, "I think I can treat you." Uh
it was it took a year. uh quad shots,
lots of radiation, and then uh
chemotherapy after that. But here I
stand here today, three years
cancer-free. And I would not be here if
it were not for med uh Memorial Medical
Center. I hear that there's some
grousing going on and there's lawsuits,
but I would urge you to go sit down in a
room and share your differences and work
something out. All lawsuits do is cost
people money. And I think the last thing
that this community could afford is if a
Memorial Medical Group decided, "Hey,
it's no fun doing business there
anymore. Let's move on." And we got
nothing. So, please, if you can, uh,
pick up the phone, go knock on a door,
sit down with them, and talk. I think
there is a great group over there, and
I'm happy to be here. Thank you very
much.
Oh, sir. Um, no, we're all happy for
your health. Thank you for sharing. Uh,
but I think for the record, they need
your name. If you could state your name
again.
Uh, my name is Charles Foot.
Thank you.
And I'm sorry I forgot to do that.
Not a problem. Thank you.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My
name is Leticia Magayanes and I am here
speaking today for a woman in our
community who was diagnosed on May 5th,
2026 with breast cancer while also
facing another painful reality. She is
undocumented and uninsured.
No person should have to beg for cancer
treatment because of their immigration
status or because they cannot afford
insurance. Cancer does not ask for
papers. Cancer does not care about
citizenship. It only cares whether
treatment is given on time. The patient
was referred to Memorial Medical
Oncology in Los Cruus, seeking medical
help during one of the most frightening
moments of her life. Instead of feeling
protected, and cared for, she felt
dismissed, afraid, and concerned about
whether she would receive the treatment
needed to survive.
Hospitals exist to h to heal people.
Medical ethics require compassion,
dignity, and equal treatment for every
human being who walks through the doors
with a patient with breast cancer. When
a patient with breast cancer is denied
access to the oncology services because
lack of insurance or documentation, it
raises serious moral and public health
concerns to our entire community. We
understand hospitals face financial
pressures. We understand systems are
complicated, but there are financial
assistance programs, charity
care obligations, patient navigators,
and emergency protections that are
supposed to help vulnerable patients,
especially those facing life-threatening
illnesses like cancer. Undocumented
residents are part of our communities.
They work here, raise families here, pay
taxes here, worship here, and contribute
to New Mexico every day. They deserve
humane medical care. We are asking for
fair review of this patient's case,
access to charity care, screening and
financial assistance,
transparent communication from MMC and
MMC oncology, protection of run
vulnerable cancer patients regarding our
im of immigration status, accountability
when medically necessary care is delayed
or denied. Breast cancer already brings
fear, pain, uncertainty, and emotional
trauma. No sh No patient should also
carry the burden of feeling invincible
or unwanted while seeking life-saving
care. Health care is is not only a
business issue. It is a human issue.
Today, I ask that our healthc care
institutions, elected leaders, and
community members to stand on the side
of dignity, compassion, and equal access
to care. Thank you.
Council Mayor, I am Jim Wilcox. Today I
speak to you as the bicycle
representative on the bicycle and
pedestrian advisory committee. The city
of Los Cusus is reapplying for a bicycle
friendly designation from the League of
American Bicyclists. Establishing vision
zero goals works towards raising our
status from a bronze level to a silver
level. Unfortunately, after five years,
we are only hoping to retain our bronze
status. In fact, threearters of our
achievements have been from nonprofits,
not from the city, such as safe routes
to school, Everybody Rides with Grace,
and the Hub Bicycle Repair. Becoming a
safe place to bike is good for business.
If you doubt me, please consider what my
assistant says. Hey Google, what are the
reasons corporations consider whether a
city provides safe bicycle facilities
when deciding where they will locate?
Whoops.
Let me try that again.
Hey Google,
what
Hey Google, what are the reasons
corporations consider whether a city
provides safe bicycle facilities when
deciding where they will locate?
Corporations prioritize safe bicycle
facilities during relocation primarily
to attract and retain top talent,
particularly younger professionals who
value active transit and a strong work
life balance. Dedicated infrastructure
also supports corporate sustainability
goals, reduces the need for expensive
parking structures and fosters a
healthier, more productive workforce
with lower healthare costs.
So some these are some of the things
that corporations look for. And I would
say that given this, I would expect our
business development department to be
actively pursuing safe bicycle
facilities, including vision zero goals
to attract businesses and improve our
economy. Proclamations that Los Cusus is
bike friendly, are appreciated, but they
don't mean anything to businesses.
Results are what hap are what matters.
Biking is good for business. Don't leave
money on the table. And I've left you a
written statement of that Google
statement. Thank you.
Good afternoon all. Diane Starbucks for
the record. I wish to address the issue
of reserving the flag pole space.
Apparently, at least three groups tried
to reserve the flag pole in front of
city hall on May 7th. All three of these
groups were told different things at
different times during the past year.
They had the flag pole. They didn't have
the flag pole. The city is working on a
procedure. The procedure is not
available.
None of this is fair to anybody.
Then I guess in an effort to be fair,
word comes down that groups need to take
turns. Is there any type of written
record over the years of who has used
the flag pole? How is turn taking to be
determined?
My issue is not who or who did not get
the flag pole uh but about the process.
If there is a procedure for reserving
the flag pole, it seems to be a mystery.
There needs to be a clear public fair
and equitable standard operating
procedure for reserving this space.
The lack of SOPs continues to be a city
problem. We all remember the hiring of
the city manager and how painful that
was to resolve. At that time, I spoke to
the city attorney, Mr. Douglas, and he
agreed that SOPs come in handy.
Um, that's the gist, not Mr. Douglas's
actual words.
Um, so here is another example of when
an SOP would have come in handy. A
simple fix is to say nobody can use the
flag pole.
This is not a reflection on any city
employee, but points to a lack of
leadership. I know the city has more
pressing issues to deal with other than
who's using the flagpole area, but
instance like these undermine faith and
trust in our government. The city
government needs to be accountable and
transparent. I know you can do better.
Thank you.
Good afternoon, Mayor, city councilors.
Appreciate the chance. Good afternoon.
Congress shall make no law respecting an
establishment.
Ma'am, can you state your name?
Oh, I'm sorry. Excuse me. Leslie Woods.
Congress shall make no law respecting
establishment of religion. You may
recognize these words as the beginning
of the Bill of Rights. One of our
founding fathers, James Madison, begins
his statement of American rights by
forbidding our Congress for making any
religious law or any law establishing a
federal religious institution, thus
establishing a wall of separation
between church and state. The first
amendment was violated in 1952 when
Congress declared an annual national day
of prayer on the first Thursday in May.
According to the First Amendment, our
government has no right to tell us what
our beliefs in a God ought to be or
ought not to be. Our government has no
right to declare the existence or the
benevolence of a God any more than it
has the right to affirm the divinity of
Christ or the inspiration of the Bible
by the Christian God. In 1952, when
Congress passed the current National Day
of Prayer resolution, affiliation with a
religion and a belief in a god was
nearly universal. Mr. Mayor, this is no
longer the case. Today, somewhere
between a quarter and a third of
Americans identify as nuns. We declare
no religious faith and identify with no
religious institution. We do not share
the sentiments or declarations made in
the typical National Day of Prayer
Resolutions. Unlike the religious, we
consider the many contributions of the
United States of America to be the
advancement of humanity to be the work
of enlightened men and women, not the
interventions of supernatural beings.
Given that the National Day of Prayer is
unconstitutional
and is not representative of the
opinions of all the citizens of this
city, we ask you cities counselors for a
resolution forbidding National Day of
Prayer and any other religious service
or cere ceremony using the grounds of
Los Cruus City Hall. Yes, we are here
again and will continue to bring these
issues to you until a resolution is
made. Do better. Thank you.
Good afternoon,
Mr. Mayor, City Council.
My name is Jim Hurst.
Yesterday at our nationals nation's
capital there was a national prayer
jubilee.
The speakers included the three most
powerful men in our government.
President Donald Trump, Vice President
JD Vance, and the speaker of the house,
Michael Johnson.
The prayer by Michael Johnson included
so many falsehoods and distortions of
Christianity, Western European history,
and American history that it requires a
response
from me this afternoon.
Speaker Johnson asserted that the idea
that all men are born equal and free is
a biblical principle
and that its inclusion in the
Declaration of Independence was due to
Christian influence.
Mr. Mayor, that assertion is false. If
it were true, the American Revolution
would have been unnecessary.
I defy any Christian to show me any
verse in the Bible that says explicitly
that all men are born equal and free.
Instead, we find the New Testament
verses that say slaves submit to your
masters, which implies that the God of
the Bible willed some men to be masters
and some men to be slaves.
Another principle we find in the Bible
is the divine right of kings. Romans 13.
The idea that secular authorities are
ordained by the God of the Bible and men
are commanded to submit to them and that
anyone who opposes the secular
authorities opposes God.
That's what we find in the Bible.
In contrast, the Declaration of
Independence declares that governments
are instituted by men and that men have
the right to abolish any government that
doesn't protect their national right,
their natural rights.
Mr. Mayor, you can't have a Bible that
both defends slavery and declares all
are created equal and free.
Mr. Mayor, religious groups are pose are
prone to distorting history in ways that
put them in the best possible light.
This distortion of history is an insult
to the intelligence and to the legacy of
more enlightened founding fathers like
Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Franklin,
and diminishes America's unique place in
history.
Mr. Mayor, please preserve the
separation of church and state in this
city and base the governance of this
city on reason, not religion. Thank you
very much.
Good afternoon, council mayor. My name
is Donna Striker.
We're supposed to maintain a
professional, respectful tone when
addressing the city. That doesn't happen
every month, every week, every meeting.
And there definitely is disrespectful,
degrading, threatening Sandra's remarks.
And they are supposed to be strictly
prohibited. I spoke last week with
several people who say that they are
fearful to come to council
because they don't feel safe. And the
reason they don't feel safe is because
of the disrespectful, degrading,
threatening, and slanderous remarks. The
intent of public comment is to allow
everyday citizens and impacted
communities to directly inform
government decision-making, ensuring
transparency and accountability. It
provides lawmakers with diverse
perspectives, highlights, and unforeseen
impacts and helps agencies craft fair
regulation. It's to inform and to
educate. It allows the public to provide
local or technical information and that
policies may not policy makers may not
have been aware of. It helps government
bodies spot unintended negative impacts
or proposed rules or projects that uh
may have an negative impact on the
committee. It also establishes an
official documented record. But when
there are disrespectful, degrading, and
downright threatening remarks, so much
so that a city person cannot come here
or feel safe because they feel
threatened by people not necessarily up
there, but back there. that concerns me
as a citizen and I feel bad for them and
I just thought it might be good to
understand what is public comment really
supposed to accomplish. Is it personal?
Is it private? Look at me. It shouldn't
be. That's not what it's supposed to be.
At least I don't think that's what it
is. Maybe you guys could answer that for
me. Thank you.
Good afternoon, mayor, city council,
chief of police. Tim Jenkins here. I
would ask that we all take a moment to
consider and to reflect on National
Police Week that just passed us as an
honor and a respect and a thank you to
all the men and women who selflessly
serve our community day and night. God
bless and protect them from this day
forward.
I stand before you this day as a member
of our community that is sick and tired
of seeing our police officers blamed for
problems they didn't create.
Every time crime rises, every time
another repeater has been repeat
offender is back on the streets, the
first reaction is often to question the
police. But the truth is officers can
only do their job if the rest of the
system does theirs.
Our officers arrest the same offenders
again and again only to watch them
released back into the community within
days and sometimes within hours. Many of
these are repeat offenders with long
histories of violence, theft, drug
crimes, and assaults. And every time
they are released without meaningful
accountability, it puts the public and
our officers at greater risk.
We ask police officers to run towards
danger. We ask them to stop violent
people, break up domestic disputes,
respond to overdoses, and to confront
armed criminals. Then when they do their
jobs and make arrests, too often the
same system turns around and sends the
same offenders right back out into our
community.
This only creates frustration in our
community, burnout in law enforcement,
and danger for everyone. Supporting
police means more than just saying thank
you during ceremonies. It means creating
a justice system that actually backs
them up. Accountability matters.
Consequences matter. Public safety
matters. Our officer safety and
well-being matters. I am not saying
every person belongs in jail forever.
Rehabilitation matters as well. But
repeat violent offenders who continue to
threaten the public should be kept
should not keep getting endless chances
while officers and citizens have to pay
the price. If we truly want safer
neighborhoods and streets, we need
honest conversation about where the
system is failing and not keep blaming
our officers. We need leaders willing to
stop treating police officers like they
are the root cause of every problem in
society.
Our officers deserve support. Our
residents deserve safety. And our
community deserves a just system that
protects law-abiding citizens instead of
repeat offenders over and over again.
Thank you very much.
Good afternoon, mayor, counselor, city
staff. My name is George Pearson and I'm
vice president of Velocus, the local
bicycle and pedestrian advocacy
organization. I'd like to thank you for
the recent work session on vision zero
and traffic safety. The presentation
gave a good explanation of vision zero
and the idea that the only acceptable
number of traffic deaths is zero. The
importance of using the safe systems
approach was explained where we
understand that people make mistakes and
that the built environment needs to
anticipate these mistakes to reduce the
severity of crashes. Using proven safety
countermeasures, we can create a safer
environment for all modes of
transportation.
The presentation talked about the safety
action plan that is underway and funded
by the safe streets for all grant. But
once again, it seems that we're waiting
for some future action before we
implement any meaningful traffic safety
solutions. Five years ago, we adopted
the active transportation plan, but for
the most part, we have been waiting on
finding an active transportation query
coordinator. Now, we're waiting for the
safety action plan. At the work session,
we heard how in 2019, Albuquerque
committed to vision zero by 2040,
showing progress with a 7% decrease of
fatal crashes in 2025. El Paso adopted a
vision zero goal in 2022 and is showing
results with about a 15% decrease of
fatal crashes in 2024 and almost 25%
decrease in 2025.
Do we have to wait for the safety action
plan to make any progress? Why can't we
start now with the lowhanging fruit?
Let's pass the Vision Zero resolution
and join the Vision Zero network. Let's
change the default speed limit for
unmarked roads from 30 mph to 25 miles
hour. Let's evaluate speed limits so
that they are consistent according to
roadway function, not changing along the
same segment of road and no higher than
35 miles an hour on any city's surface
street. We should do a crash analysis
studio treatment for fatal crashes, not
to determine blame, but to prevent
future similar crashes. Let's update
city ordinances to reflect changes in
state law for the Idaho stop. We've
talked about speed safety cameras, but
have not moved forward towards any
implementation.
When we address safety issues for
vulnerable road users, we make the road
safer for all users. Please, let's not
kick the can down the road waiting for
the safety action plan. We've already
we're already years behind Albuquerque
and El Paso. Let's start immediately and
prevent future fatal and serious injury
crashes now. Thank you.
Good afternoon, council mayor. My name
is Nicole Martinez. I'm here with the
Missia Valley Community of Hope. First,
I want to say thank you for funding the
health related services uh fund for all
of the agencies who applied. I'm
speaking today to offer context on this
process. I've been through many cycles
and I have seen the process shift from
competitive to at times an inequitable
ranking of partners. The process
requires a letter of intent to apply and
when you get the thumbs up for that,
then you can submit a full grant from
there. And then after a few months, we
uh show up for over the course of two
days, uh we're required to make an
evening presentation to the committee
members and our peers. We then get
publicly ranked at the discretion of the
committee members. It is, shall we say,
humbling. It's also rare. Certainly
don't do this for HUD or our federal
granters. When awards get smaller and
the process is highly competitive, it is
our clients who suffer. I know that
community of hope depends on the amounts
given to fund a unique program that
doesn't have access to many funding
sources. And if we were to change that,
I wonder which agencies would get more
and which client programs would be
crushed by the changes. Many of the
agencies are already working on
shoestring budgets pieced together by
various funding sources. All of our
agencies are connected and I speak for
myself when I say that I feel happy when
everyone gets funded at equitable
amounts.
They are all doing amazing work.
I pause it. If Casad Peragos doesn't get
funded, what happens to our client food
allotments? We need a stable, equitable
funding model. The clients served by
agencies like ours and our partners
depend on consistent, reliable sources
and not a lottery of which committee
members show up to rank us. In fact,
we've seen declining participation from
the committee itself with only three
members present at the last several
competitions. I know it can't be easy
for the committee members to decide when
there are so many agencies doing
important work for vulnerable residents
of Los Cusus. I'm grateful to the
members that are making the effort to
support this funding. I urge the council
to move away from competitive grant
cycles for these essential services and
toward a partnership model. We will
still uphold rigorous monthly and annual
compliance and reporting. Submit the
grant applications, but we must stop
treating basic health and hunger needs
as a competition. If you're not going to
just add us as the budget line item we
should be, then at the very least,
please do away with the presentations
and consider funding all agencies at a
higher level. Let's face it, we know
that the issues we are addressing for
constituents are not going away. Hunger,
healthcare, diabetes,
uh domestic violence, homelessness,
helping people with disabilities, and
cancer. Let's fund our partners at the
levels needed to keep our community
healthy. I would love to discuss this
further with any of you interested in
making some of these positive changes
for the health related public services
fund. Thank you.
Good afternoon, mayor, mayor prom, city
councilors. My name is Alberto Campo and
I'm an organizer with New Mexico Dream
Team here in the community of Las Cruus.
There's an evident disregard for working
families in Los Cruuses. Just in the
[snorts] recent comments made before me,
there's an evident through line going
from preparing for a short shortage of
fuel crisis, utilities impacts on
household valued under $200,000 and the
city's failure to respond to water
testing requests from lowincome
households to asking from support for
support for students as they continue
their studies, emphasizing how lack of
access to food and poor housing
conditions impact their performance.
This is what we mean when we talk about
community health and safety. It means
providing your constituents with the
resources they need to thrive.
A lot of the concerns brought up in the
earlier portion of public comments
exposed the painful violent reality of
the failure to identify what makes our
community safe. Our priorities when
assessing city funding are wrong. The
slogan defund the police is received as
a roomsplitting violent statement. The
reality as presented by the police
department is that crime has risen even
while funding for the police continues
to grow higher and higher. Listen to the
request made of you by the constituents
in this room who have highlighted the
total disregard for working-class
families health and safety in the city
and reckon with the fact that as you
continue to pour funds into the police,
you're also taking on the violent act of
defunding our communities.
This community is strong and resilient.
Many initiatives here are volunteer-led
and have direct material impacts in the
days of everyday people who live here.
This is a strong community even without
government funding. So, please stop
defunding our community. Thank you.
Okay. Next is the acceptance of agenda.
Move to accept the agenda.
Second.
This is on the motion to accept the
agenda as presented. Councelor McCclair.
Yes.
Councelor Matise.
Yes.
Councelor Harris.
Yes.
Councelor Beno.
Yes.
Councelor Karan.
Yes.
Councelor Munoz.
Yes.
Mayor,
yes.
First item on the agenda is resolution
number 26-142,
a resolution adopting the municipal
budget for fiscal year 2026 and 2027.
Move to approve.
Second.
Good afternoon, Mayor Council. Lesie
Doyle, finance director. For the record,
before you today is the proposed fiscal
year 27 budget.
Many of these slides you have seen at
the work session just some a little
updated information for you as we go
through but a lot of the information
will look familiar.
So this slide is encompassing of all of
our funds.
Specifically I want to speak to the
special revenue funds and the capital
projects funds because they do have a
significant decrease. This is due to the
fact that we do not bring in the budget
until we have uh grant agreements. So
those funds will increase throughout the
year as we receive the grants.
Additionally, internal internal service
fund decreased because we did move the
fleet department and function into the
general fund.
You can see here for the general fund
which I will be speaking in much greater
length later in the presentation but
there is a 2.2%
increase from our current fiscal year 26
revised budget
going from 167.5 million to our proposed
of 167.9 million.
Again, for those of you like me who like
to see nice pretty pie charts, you can
see here that 28.6%
of our budget is general fund.
Enterprise funds is 33.9.
Enterprise funds are inclusive of uh
utilities, airport, transit,
and then we also have our capital
capital funds at 16.4%.
Again,
just noting that from our adopted budget
or from our revised budget, which is our
fiscal year 26 budget as it stands today
to the proposed budget that I am seeking
approval of, there is a 0.2%
increase.
So this is our general fund summary and
the fiscical year 27 work session that
column there in the middle is really
just for context of where we were at the
work session and where we are today. So,
for our revised budget, again, I'm not
going to go through all of the numbers,
but I will say that our expenditures,
which are the ones that I think were all
most interested in, fiscal year 26
revised is 167.5. As I just mentioned,
at the work session, the expenses were
180.7.
And so after the direction that council
had given us to go back and reduce, we
are coming back with a 167.9
general fund expense request.
Specifically, I want to look at the
unreserved fund balance because in
fiscal 26 it is 18.2.
At the work session, it was 2.1 and now
based on the proposed budget, it is 20.2
million.
So where does the money come from? This
is the revenue side of the equation.
We have a total of 186.4 million. By and
large, 79% of that is related to gross
receipts tax. We also have fees and
charges of 10% and then property tax of
9% and then franchise and cannabis tax
rounding out the remainder.
So for general fund again
we have 125.6%
in personnel and I will show you kind of
the difference in the subsequent slides
from where we were at at work session
operating of about 41.8 million and then
a small capital amount of 461,000.
Again, we don't typically pay for
capital from general fund, so that's a
pretty small amount with a total amount
requested for expenditures of 167.8
million.
So the change in the general fund is as
I mentioned before about 2% which is4
million or 400,000.
So again 10.2 2 million of that is
personnel. Operating expense went down
8.9 based on the direction the council
had given us
and then capital went down at.9
million. So again just kind of
reiterating that the difference in
fiscal 26 proposed and 27 is it's a
pretty flat budget.
So, because so much of our budget is
based on personnel, there's a lot of
thought and consideration that goes into
what it is that we budget for. This
year, we have budgeted for a 2% general
wage increase. Any longevity is
incorporated in the budget and we
budgeted our vacant positions at 50%.
health and insurance at employee plus
spouse spouse rate and there was no para
increase this year at the work session I
will note that we included a premium
increase of 20% we've gotten additional
information that it's actually going to
be closer to 18% so as part of the
reduction we did go in and reduce health
insurance by 2%
so this is the fiscal year 27 personnel.
You can see again at the work session it
was about 130.3
million and now we are requesting 125.6
million.
Not surprisingly public safety are the
two highest because they are the two
most staffheavy departments that we
have. Parks and wreck and public works
rounding out the top four there.
And this is the personnel breakdown um
from
the work session to current just so you
can see where those savings were were
recognized. Again, I want to note that
health insurance and parah which is a
huge amount of our salaries budget we
have no control of. That is dictated at
the state and we are at their mercy
every year. All of that to say about 4.7
million was reduced in salaries.
Then we have our operating. You can see
here at the work session it was about 50
million and now it is 41.8 million.
Public works, fleet, parks and wreck and
police are rounding out the top four for
operating expense.
Then our general fund transfers,
we've got MO at 40,000, Griggs Walnut at
200,000, vehicle vehicle acquisition,
which we'll speak to more in a later
slide, airport $776,000
transfer from general fund, workers
comp, about $950,000.
Prisoner care 1.3 million. Transit 4
million. This is inclusive of uh this is
the required match for our grant. Then
we have liability claims of 6.5 and debt
service of about 9.4 for a total
transfer from general fund of 23.7
million.
Now this is our fiscal agent
contribution. This is inclusive of
animal services and metro. This slide
has both the city of Los Cru's
contribution as well as the county
contribution.
Specifically for animal service, you can
see that there is about a 7.5%
decrease. Both county and city have a
2.1
million contribution and the reduction
is actually due not to a reduction in
expenses but an inclusion of fund
balance that they had that they have
incorporated into our
uh contribution meaning that we can
contribute less and they can still uh
keep the same amount of expenses.
MVA. Similarly, we did ask for them to
include a utilization of fund balance
and while that did go up about 1.8%,
the increase would have been more had
they not utilized that fund balance.
And then Metro remains the same
year-over-year.
So, this is the slide that I started
with.
Make no fear, it does look better in the
next slide. But I just did want to give
some context to where we started because
this was a huge undertaking. And I I
think it's prudent to give a shout out
to every single department because
everybody came to the table, the amazing
budget team that worked tirelessly and
did everything that I asked them to do
and even some that I didn't ask them to
do. So this is where we started.
This is where we are now. It's not
perfect by any means, but it is a much
better place to be. You can see that we
are now much closer and headed on the
right track.
Just for some additional context as we
work to close that gap that council did
give us the uh you know the direction to
go and work to well close this gap. You
can see again 4.7 of that
closure amount was personnel. 8.1 was
operating capital of about 16,000.
1.1 was a transfer that we were able to
reduce and then we were able to find uh
two two million in revenue that we can
actually recognize.
So again, similar information here, just
a little bit of apples to apples where
you can see the proposed budget on the
left was at work session and we had a
fund balance an ending fund balance of
two about 2 million.
And if you look at what we are proposing
today, you can see uh revenues increased
uh our beginning balance increased a
million. That's because we were able to
recognize a million in revenue this year
and then another million in revenue in
fiscal 27. Expenditures decreased from
180 to 167. We also had a transfer
increase of uh just over a million. So
our ending fund balance as it is
proposed today is 48 million with a
required 212ths of about 28 million with
an available balance of 20 million. So
all of this shows a budget reduction, a
net impact of budget reductions of 15.9
million. We are still utilizing 5.1
million of our general fund or of our
reserves, but it is much better than the
20 million that we were utilizing at the
work session.
So, this is our updated outlook kind of
going forward because I think it's
important that we put into context what
that $20 million fund balance will look
like in subsequent years. So, you do
have the proposed budget on the left
with a $20 million available balance.
And then if we move that in to 28 with
some, you know, assumptions that we are
making,
our available balance will be 13.6 6
million and in 28 we will continue to
utilize about 6 million in fund balance.
So again we are on the right track but
there's still work to do. And so I do
want to
just make note that we're not out of the
woods but we are definitely headed in
the right direction.
And so a lot of what we have done is you
know look long term like we want to we
don't just want this to be a one-time
like we have to you know do all this
work and then everything kind of just
stays the same.
So we do have two committees that we are
currently uh have have currently
convened. The realignment committee is
chaired by Mandy Leatherwood. She's the
director of communications and this is
to evaluate current departmental
structures and identify any
collaboration and efficiencies between
departments.
Then we also have the revenue and
efficiencies committee which is chaired
by Chris Faver and he's the director of
community development.
This committee is being utilized to
assess revenue opportunities where
appropriate and then also process
improvements and efficiencies. Our
internal auditor, Viola Perea, actually
sits on this one and she's working more
specifically on efficiencies
for uh maybe even separately from this
committee. But these are two committees
that we have put in place at the
direction of the city manager to make
sure that everything that we are doing,
we continue to, you know, gain those
efficiencies and don't lose sight of the
fact that there's still some work to do.
I sit on both of these committees and
I'm pretty excited about some of the
stuff that's actually coming out.
Again, I know you've seen this slide,
but I love it. So, I'm going to continue
to share it.
As we
look at bond cycling and not continuing
to cycle and are more strategic with how
we incur debt, you can see that our debt
service does continue to go down. And
essentially what this means is it
lessens the burden on general fund
because we do not have to continue to
pay that debt from general fund and
transfer it.
This is the veh vehicle acquisition list
that I mentioned earlier. There is a
$500,000 transfer from general fund.
This has not changed from what you've
seen before. I do just want to note
again that both the fire and utilities
vehicles are being paid from other
sources from general fund. So those are
not included in the $500,000 general
fund transfer.
So here you have our tailshore facility
fund. We are estimating our beginning
balance of about 34.1 million. No
estimated revenues and our proposed
expenditures and transfers out of 17.4 4
million. I do just want to add to this
that there is investment income that is
being recognized in this fund, but it is
really not great budgeting practice to
budget against investment income because
it's really volatile and we don't really
know what that is. So, I don't want
anyone to think that there's no
investment income. There is. We just
have not budgeted it.
So, our estimated ending balance for
Telshore is about 16.4 4 million.
These are the project fund updates for
Telshore. You can see your original bud
budget and then carryover estimate
and then a continuation here of those
projects.
And then finally, just the regular
annual uh allocations from Telshore for
Monoemano of 737,000.
We do have the transfer out of 600,000
for public health services and the
homeless outreach program of 175,000. I
will note that the security for Msia
Valley Community of Hope as well as the
nuisance abatement, both of those have
historically been paid from general
fund, but we are requesting that they
are paid from Telshore fund at this
time.
And then uh want to speak a little bit
about Los Cusus Public Schools
Partnership. Uh we did we do have the
community schools funding of 90,000. In
prior years that funding was 150,000.
This year we are we have currently
budgeted 90,000.
Additionally there's crossing guard
funding of 337,000.
I will tell you as a former CFO of a
school district that typically crossing
guards do not get paid by
municipalities. They get paid by the
district. Additionally, we reached out
to the chief chiefs of police throughout
the state to see how other
municipalities did it. And I would say
99.9% of those the school district
covers as well. So for this year, we are
going to go ahead and cover this for the
schools, but that they are aware, the
district is aware that in fiscal 28,
this is an expense that they will need
to pick up.
And then just this is just you know a a
summary of everything that we've gone
over. So you can see fiscal 25 actuals
revised work session and proposed. This
is everything here all
laid out for you. This is the revenue
side
of the equation.
And then
I know that this is kind of a horrible
slide and I apologize for that. But no
matter how many different ways we tried
to slice and dice it, this was
kind of where we ended up. So you can
see again fiscal 25 actuals, 26 revised,
27 work session and proposed budget.
Our request for expenses is 167.8
million.
And with that, I'm actually going to
turn it over to some of the directors.
We have quality of life, parks, and
public works that are going to be
speaking specifically about any service
impacts that these budget cuts have uh
will have.
So, Carol, where are you? Okay.
Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. Carol
Bray, director of the quality of life
department. And I didn't know I was
first, so uh but I'm ready. So uh and
thank you Leslie for guiding us through
this process and uh city manager and
assistant city manager Sonia Delgado. I
want you to know that our
[clears throat] department took this
exercise very seriously and uh we tried
to minim minimize the impact of these
reductions on our services. Um however I
will say that with two reduction
exercises we've had for this fiscal year
now uh we have reduced our operations
budget by 42.3%
and uh this will result in some impact
on programs and services. Um we still
have most of our wonderful team and they
have been um they have resolved with me
that we are going to do our very best
for the community with what we have. But
I want you to be aware of where there
will be some reductions. [clears throat]
Uh that 42 point
Carol, if you wanted to just move to the
next slide.
Pardon me. Oh, I'm sorry. We're not on
my slide, are we? Excuse me. There we
are. All right. Well, just in time
because I was just getting there. Uh so,
um as I said, 42.3% that totaled, uh
1.16
million roughly, uh in reductions. Um
so, some across the board reductions.
These first three uh were reductions
that we saw throughout our department.
So supplies and instructors for public
programs. This is going to result in the
elimination of some of our paid speakers
and musicians at museum events as well
as uh fewer dance classes for seniors um
and other senior programs where we have
outside paid uh instructors. Um, also,
uh, and as I said, we'll use our
talented staff to step in where we can,
uh, but the public will likely see fewer
[clears throat] of our more specialized
programs at our libraries, senior
centers, and museums.
Minor office equipment, uh, may sound
like a minor expense. Um, no pun
intended, but, uh, we are reducing this
about $50,500.
Um and this will be for computers, other
hardware, specialized equipment needed
for our kitchens and certain programs.
This reduction is not sustainable. I
will say as we have a schedule for
replacement of staff computers and uh
other equipment and when we can't
replace these items which happened in
FY25 and will happen again in FY27
we risk using aging technology that just
doesn't function properly and will
affect our ability to provide service
eventually. [clears throat]
Food and beverage for programs and I
want to stress this is not food and
beverage for seniors meals. This is not
food and beverage for our living
collections at the Museum of Nature and
Science in case you were worried about
that. Uh but uh this is a $16,535
reduction uh for snacks and light
refreshments that we provide at many of
our programs. Something that our public
has come to to expect. for example, um
signature programs such as Moonlight at
the museums, our museum exhibit openings
which happen frequently throughout the
year, and senior dances such as the
Halloween dance and the spring formal.
We also provide food for our teen
programs and our story times for little
ones. Um, and you might see that
dichotomy, but both of those groups
really need food to engage uh well at
our programs. Um and then I also want to
mention uh we are looking at a small
reduction in Branagan Library hours. Um
we are proposing a reduction of eight
hours per week. This would be Sunday
afternoons and then evenings Monday
through Thursday we would close at 7
instead of 8:00. There's two reasons for
this. One is we cannot afford the
security it takes and I will not allow
my staff to work at the Brandan Library
without security being present when
we're open. um because of the uh more
intense nature of incidents we're seeing
there, we need to keep our staff and our
patrons safe. Um the other thing as we
thought about this reduction in hours,
we realized that um we have a lot to do
in preparation for vacating the Branigan
Library uh as we get ready for the hoped
for um expansion and renovation project.
I have been through numerous library
moves in my career and I can tell you
that there is a lot we have to do to
withdraw outdated materials uh get our
collections in order, organize our files
and archives, our special collections
and more in order to prepare for for
what will be a major move and relocation
of items while we are under
construction. So, uh, following
reductions of some staff positions at
the library, which we face some
vacancies we could not fill, this will
allow us to have, um, more staff on duty
during work hours as well, so we can
assign staff to these special duties.
Uh, we do expect to return to our full
schedule of 64 hours per week. This
would reduce us to 56 hours per week
once the newly expanded and renovated
library opens. So, we assure you of
that. Um, in terms of streamlining
digital resources, here we're talking
about Hoopla and Canopy. Uh, that's a
reduction in total of about $100,000. We
will still have Libby, which is a very
robust uh, digital resource um, tool
that we have, which will provide many of
the same kinds of digital streaming
experiences that our patrons have now.
We'll just have one platform instead of
three.
uh the elimination of the museum studio
art classes. Uh we're actually hoping to
put in place a new model. The studio art
program has been a long-term program at
the Museum of Art. It's a very good
program, but we have found that
attendance is decreasing and generally I
would say these programs in a sense are
not as inclusive because of the cost.
They're generally $60 to $80 per class.
And of course, much of what we offer to
the public is is free or at a lower cost
than that. Um, so in place of the studio
art program, we plan to provide more
free workshops and one-off classes that
our very talented staff can provide with
limited assistance from outside
instructors. U, this was something that
the museum team worked on long and hard.
I think they've come up with a good
solution. um and it will save us some
funds. Um also at the museums and
actually throughout the department I
wanted to mention we've eliminated all
professional membership memberships
except our Smithsonian affiliate
membership and uh as well as travel had
already been eliminated. So this will
affect our professional development of
our staff and something again that is
not sustainable.
Uh I wanted to mention our weight list
for senior programs. Um, this is
something that we just recently
recognized would happen um because we
were required to eliminate all temporary
staff for for FY27 and we had been
relying on some temporary staff this
fiscal year uh to provide home care
services for our homebound clients. So,
we're going to have to put about 14
clients on a wait list because we simply
do not have the staff in place to
provide this kind of service. Um, and I
want to take this opportunity also to
mention that we do not yet know how much
state and title three federal funding we
will receive for senior programs uh
programs for our um our congregate
meals, our home delivered meals, our
respit care, our home care and our
grandparents raising grandchildren
program. Um so we are really hoping we
will not face any reductions in that in
those grants but we do not know at this
time. So, uh, we're just I'm kind of
preparing you that if those grants do
not come in as they have in past years,
we may see more weight lists for some of
our programs. Um, so, and what that
means in terms of home care, the 14
clients out of 69 that we currently
serve is about a 20% reduction.
Um and then uh as was mentioned by uh
Pamela Court during the public comment
um and also Leslie mentioned this as
well, we are proposing a reduction of
60,000 it's about a 40,000 40% I'm sorry
40% reduction uh in what we have been
giving to the Lasus public schools
community schools. This does reside
within our operating budget. However, I
want to say we believe in the importance
of this program. This was a very
difficult decision for us to make, but
given the the reductions we were making
in our own programs, we felt this was
one we could not avoid. Um, our team
will still work hard, our museum team
will still work hard to provide
curricula for the community school
classrooms and our outreach team will
still be at their events um that support
families with students at the community
schools. Um, however, we felt we had no
choice but to recommend this reduction
this year. Um, I also want to mention
one other significant reduction that I
didn't have room for on my slide. Uh,
that is our quality of life marketing
budget. Uh, it was reduced by 33%,
$89,365.
And, uh, we have a relatively large
marketing budget and even so, our
community survey that that we do every
two years showed that people are not
aware of many of our services and
programs. as hard as we try to keep them
informed. U you've seen the wonderful
access magazine. We also uh we advertise
on radio, we advertise on television, we
advertise in the bulletin and other
media um traditional and non and also
social media. So we had to reduce our
advertising somewhat for radio and
bulletin ads. Um we're reducing vendor
services for required surveys. So, our
staff will take over the data entry and
we're um reducing some of our special
products and production for social and
digital media. Um you know, we will
continue to do all we can with outreach
and um what uh media we have available
to us. So, those are the reductions and
the impacts that we're proposing as part
of this budget. And I want to thank you
for your time and your attention to our
department and uh the support that
you've given us to date. Thank you. I
guess I'll stand for questions when
we're all done. Correct. If we need to.
Okay.
Steven Bingham, parks and recreation
director. Um
you you know I don't want to downplay
the challenges but at the same time um I
went through the great recession and saw
a 20% cut that happened over a couple
week period. Um it allows for an
opportunity to be innovative. It allows
to for an opportunity to create
partnerships as it allows for us to
evaluate
every single program on its merits and
whether the money we are spending on it
best serves our community.
There will be impacts. Um,
since I've come on, I believe we're in
the neighborhood of 47 additional acres
of parks and medians
um that we have brought on as we have
caught up on our um construction
projects.
That said, we will find ways to be
creative and innovative and partner and
um I always like going after additional
money that's not our own.
We are going to um have to extend
maintenance schedules.
We they there will be uh more time
between
periods in which we get back to maintain
a specific area. There's reduce um
public events. We're going to have fewer
music in the park. Um fewer movies. We
are going to use more local talent and
bring in less from the outside. Um some
of our um lower priority park planning
efforts
um those projects will be slowed down
but they will continue. They may be
pushed into another year
but we'll make efforts to continue to
the highest priority things to continue.
Our efforts in these cuts is about
preserving the core and that's what we
will do. Um we'll see reductions of
water schedules resulting in an
increased plant dormcy.
Um we'll see extended time frames to
replace park amenities and equipments.
Prioritization of the maintenance for
those core um assets and the high public
use areas.
And we will um put end up putting
participation caps on programs
like I mentioned. Um, it's given us will
give us opportunities and is already and
I I'm going to let Kyle help talk about
this because it's provided an
opportunity for us and incentivize us as
a department two departments to look at
how we can better handle the work and is
there ways to redraw lines that make
more sense.
Good afternoon. uh your interim public
works director, Kyle Arand. Um as
everybody who has spoken before me has
uh has laid out for you, these steeps
are are
pretty these cuts pretty steep. Um but
evidently they're quite necessary as
well. Um I'm going to highlight a couple
that we feel that the citizens might
notice uh with regards to public
service. Uh we have seen a huge increase
in vandalism due to copper theft to our
street lights. Um we have 8,000 street
lights citywide and we currently have
about 240 that are offline and not
functional. Uh as we seek to repair
those, we're going to prioritize our
arterials, our collectors, our main
roads, all the areas of acute safety
concerns in our intersections. Um some
of them will have to wait for us to get
to them. Our pavement condition program
which is our pavement maintenance system
uh consists of everything from chip
seals, crack seals, surface treatments,
overlays and complete asphalt reups. Um
the complete asphalt rehabs are the most
expensive. Uh what we will see is a
shift away from doing as many of those
and doing more of the really inexpensive
chip sills and surface treatments. This
will buy us time to get us past this
difficult time.
our pothole system. Uh, currently that
crew does a stellar job of getting to
almost all of our requested potholes uh
within 24 to 48 hours. Um, we can expect
that that crew is going to see some
delay and hopefully we can keep it
minimized, especially where safety is
concerned.
Our facilities, uh, we will prioritize
all the facilities requests that are
health and safety welfare concerns.
Things like putting f fresh paint on a
building will be secondary to uh a
sanitary sewer leak uh within a
building, water not working, stuff like
that. Um
public works has a lot of expensive in
infrastructure, streets, traffic
systems, buildings. Um all this stuff is
pretty expensive to maintain. These cuts
are heavy on operational. Um, but what
it allows us to do is prioritize our
most important investment and that's our
staff, our highly qualified and
dedicated staff, which we want to keep
working for the city for as long as we
can. Thank you.
While we did ask that uh quality of
life, public works and parks
specifically speak to the service
services that might be affected because
those would be the most forward facing
for the citizens. There's every director
here that can speak to any questions
that you might have as to how it might
affect their affect their department as
well.
And with that, any of us will stand for
any questions.
Okay. Thank you, Leslie. Uh before we
get to any questions, I'll let the city
manager um say a few words.
Thank you, Mayor Enorz, Mayor Patel
Munoz, and city councelor Zikani
Tamopia, city manager. And I just I
appreciate the opportunity, mayor, to to
share appreciation for for staff,
especially to Leslie and the budget team
for doing this. uh with underresourced
staff in budget, we didn't rehire
certain positions and so Lesie not only
being finance director uh she acted as a
role as budget manager and that's
something that uh we don't plan on
filling because of the budget reduction.
So there are impacts happening but kudos
as well to all of the staff 18 1,800
employees trickling down from the
department heads
allowing them to look at their required
reductions and they having the um the
direction to work with their staff and I
appreciate uh Mina and several managers
and and and
staff who are listening online here
today. Um, everyone took part in these
budget reductions. Um, I'd love Leslie
if you could go to slide 15. This is
probably my favorite slide here um
because it it shows a bit of the picture
of what's happening here. There's a lot
happening here and I just wanted to
point out uh to to council and to those
on online and and we have a lot of staff
paying attention as well. So we have two
times that the lines intersect and
whenever the red is above the green that
means that we are out of balance and we
have to work towards a balance. So it
intersects at um 19 FY20 and then it
also intersects again at FY23 24. I want
to bring to everyone's attention and
remind everyone um the the not only you
know what what's happening here because
in FY27 we have red and green going in
separate ways and if we don't bring them
back and bring these lines back
we're we're going to be in trouble and
it's not sustainable. So, thank you to
council during work session last time
giving us the direction to start
bringing these lines together so that
the green can at least balance and it it
is our goal as staff to always balance
the budget. Uh, one thing that may be
missed is why is green above the red in
FY21?
And this is something that um you all
may remember but destinationbased taxing
o occurred during this time. So this is
why revenue spiked. Revenue spiked u
during this time and essentially is
whenever you make an online purchase
the local municipality can now get part
of the GRT didn't exist before 21. So
that's this is why we have a a spike and
because of this spike we were able to do
things that the city uh had never done
before. This is when three things
occurred and so because we have
additional revenues we city we're not
trying to make a profit. So um council
uh work closely with staff to to start
raising um the quality of life for
employees. And I'd like to remind the
public what happened. We raised the
floor so that nowhere full-time position
exists in the city that you'll get paid
less than $15 an hour for a full-time
position. So, that's one that happened.
Number two, we raised the premiums. So,
the employer right now covers 82% of the
premiums and the employee only covers 18
where before that was 6040.
And um third, there's a class and comp
which essentially is an analysis that
looks at all the different positions in
the city and we do our best to get all
employees to where they need to be
closer to market. It's not perfect. It's
always a challenge to get everybody
there, but all of that costs money. All
of that is great and I think as staff uh
in council we would we would defend that
because that's what makes us become the
employer of choice and be the employer
of choice and also treat our number one
asset as they should. But there is a
cost to that and as you can see the red
line continues to grow and in the next
slide Leslie as we see because of what
you have done and the decision you made
in work session and for all the work
that staff has done we see the lines
coming together. This is what I
appreciate and um hopefully uh this is
where we continue to go so that the
lines can intersect and we can balance
the budget. Again, I just wanted to say
thank you to all the staff. Couldn't
have done this without without you. And
and there are impacts and thank you to
the department heads who shared what
those impacts are. And we are asking
staff to do a lot. 47 ac 47 additional
acres
and not hiring additional staff can be
tough. Uh but I appreciate that because
the the staff that I have seen that I've
heard from are working with this
challenge as an opportunity to reset to
reimagine the level of service that we
can do for our community and for our
departments and I want to thank staff
and I want to thank you as council.
That's all mayor. Thank you.
Thank you city manager. Any questions
comments by council? Councelor Curran,
thank you. Thank you, Leslie. This is
very powerful and also very painful um
to those of us who who are not wanting
to reduce service at all. Right. Like
this is so I really appreciate you
working on this, bringing this up to our
so that we can have a facility in
understanding these this ga this graph
and also considering all of the
department's um contributions as they've
gone along. So, thank you to the city
staff who have I know worked on coming
up with a plan to um
uh do this in the best way possible in
which is still extremely painful and I
don't think uh any of us wants to this
to be a persistent uh approach in how we
how we offer city services. So, I think
I appreciate all the staff who have
thought about this and continue to think
about being really economical with your
with your efforts and
um
I hope that this this is an investment
in the future as much as it can be um
for for our future sustainability. I do
have I so I I just want to appreciate
you and folks who have been contributing
to this and also acknowledge that it is
not without
uh pain on the part of the staff on the
part of the folks who are going to feel
the impact on the part of us as decision
makers. So I I want to acknowledge that
I do um have some worries about the
future that you know we heard about we
got this explainer on oil cho oil
prices. uh we know that
um there electricity prices are going to
be changing in a direction that is going
to affect us very dramatically probably
and we know that water also will become
probably more costly in our in the
immediate near future. So um we've been
able to preserve our staff. We haven't
been able to preserve our services at
the same level. I'm curious I I guess I
would just like to speak to the two
committees that are formed. I hope that
they can also do some
future casting for those types of things
that are going to increase at a rate
just like this when health insurance
increases at a rate that we have no
control over but have to continue to
respond to those those are three
variables that I can think of that in
the next three years we're going to have
to have dramatic changes. So I'm hoping
that the committees the future the
committees that are working on this can
consider those things as well as
variables. Um there are the city the
staffing things. I I really appreciate
that we have kept staff in place and
continue to give to plan to give staff a
a small increase in in wages. But um as
we consider staff community service
impacts, I I hope that we can also add
those externalities to this. Like I
think health insurance, whatever our
projections are, we should probably
increase the way that we're calculating
that. I think that's also true of our
util basic utility uses and and
considering the use of uh natural
resources in particular that we will be
having to pay a premium for. So I hope
we can do a little bit of conservative
estimations in the future and that will
be part of those two committees while
they're talking about that. Um, and I
would that that is also to say I hope
that in the future we can have more
conversations about what this looks
like,
how how to if you can extrapolate the
graph a little bit for us and and and I
hope that maybe mid year we can have a
little bit of a discussion about what
this is looking like in terms of our
impacts in terms of our budgeting for
the next year when we start the budget
conversation. I would love to see um
this graph with some of those additional
projections into the future. So that
would be my my hope. I I do really
appreciate you including me having a
meltdown last week of not being able to
read a bunch of graphs. So Leslie
herself was helping me um in that in
that context. And so I really want to
appreciate you and all the staff that
have put their work into that. So that
those are my requests at this time and
again acknowledgement that this is
painful.
Thank you um Council Mccclure.
Thank you mayor. I also want to thank
you and your staff and this is squeezing
blood out of a rock and I know this is
hard and it's it's hard choices that we
have to make. Um but I guess we are the
nitpickers, right? And so I'm going to
pick one nit and I do think that we need
to refund the community schools. Um,
I've only been a part of it for six
months, but what I've seen there is
speaking directly to some of the needs
that people are asking for is how do we
actually re-engage with our larger
community? How can we We're asking
teachers to do so much. And this is our
moment to step up and be part of that
village. And I think $60,000 is really a
little bit more of a squeeze we can do.
Um, for those who don't know, this is
this is an ask sort of for community
schools or uh coordinators. So, what
they do is basically they're the person
who realizes that a kindergartener is
not coming to school wearing the same
clothes every day, you know, he's um or
someone else is hungry. And we can
leverage our resources in very
actionable ways with these coordinators.
So, um I I would also like to say that
the caveat would be as much as Oh, yeah.
Afternoons for for the library is going
to be hard because that chess club is
really great and I have a bunch of kids
that that are loving it. So, if you guys
can move that, um, our household would
appreciate it. But also, I know other
people are going to see some of these
issues, but it's going to get me
probably kicked out of a book club if I
say, "Hey, maybe we can squeeze a little
bit more for things like the library
where we will see just an explosive
growth because of some other choices we
made. But when we're talking about our
youth, I do think that we do need to
fight for them a little bit more."
That's what the community is asking for.
And so, I'm going to have that asked
too, that we look at that a little bit
more. I liked what Stephen said earlier
too is preserving the core and when
we're, you know, making sacrifices, I
think our families all will sacrifice.
You know what? I'm not going to have
Netflix, but my kids are going to get
shoes, right? And if we're at that level
right now, that's where we need to be.
Um, what else did I write down? I think
that too is specifically what councelor
Cornin said. That is a legitimate um ask
for our future here, right? This is
investment. This is also so that we can
look at a long time like if we we are
following these community schools from
elementary to how did they end up in
high school. If we cut it now, we're not
going to be able to do that. So yeah, I
do not want to pull more out of for
quality of life. If this has to be a
teller fund ask, I will make that
request. I hope my other counselors
would be willing to say that $60,000 is
something we can do right now. Thank
you.
Thank you, Councelor Harris. Um, thank
you mayor and Leslie and everybody for
the presentation. Um, I do have a couple
technical questions. Um, on slide 27,
speaking of the Telshore fund,
okay, maybe not 27. Um,
yeah, there you go. 26. Um, so if we're
paying NAT out of the Telshore fund, if
Nat then turns around and sells a
property, not that, you know, we're
getting a huge amount off of those
things, does that go back, will that go
back into the Telshore fund?
Mayor, councelor Harris, yes. If if it
is, if the
cost of abating a property is paid from
Telshore, then any sales would also go
back to Telure.
Um, cool. Good to know. Um, and then on
29,
hopefully I got this one right. Um,
fleet.
Why, this was obviously before my time,
but why is fleet zero in 2526 and then
it's new in 27?
Mayor, councelor Harris, this is because
in prior years, fleet was actually
considered an internal service center
and this would be the first year that we
have moved it to general fund. So there
was actually no general fund expend
expenditures related to fleet in prior
years
but we still spent money on it. It just
was came out of other parts of the chart
that were shown.
That's correct.
Um
and then of course I think as with
everybody else uh I greatly appreciate
slide 21 that shows our debt going down
uh into the future and I fully support
continuing that trend. Um so my other
comments are are also about uh quality
of life. Um I really appreciate the
thinking of consolidating services to
like the digital services to the stuff
people use more. Um I had some initial
concerns about that, but then I talked
with um Sarah about it and that that
seems like it's on the right track. Um,
and um, I'm also concerned about the
community schools funding. Um, I do
understand though that we probably have
other funding methods. Like I I want to
continue funding community schools. U,
but I also think that there are other
funding sources that we can use for that
um, that are going to come up later in
the summer. Um, maybe the Telshore fund
is an option. I think we might have some
discretionary opioid settlement funds um
that will be coming up for discussion in
the future as well. Um and some of those
those programs, you know, align with
what the community schools coordinators
are trying to do anyway. Um so those
might be interesting ways to to continue
those programs. Um and then my my last
comment is on the food. While I am
perfectly happy to forego lunches for
city council meetings and events, um I
think that we do need to fund food for
teen programs and um kids cuz that
that's why you show up and it's probably
not that much money. Uh if we need to to
scrge somewhere or come up with 10,000
bucks out of the, you know, 5 million
that were still structurally deficit, I
I don't think that's a huge ask. Um, but
that that's a really important thing.
So, um,
that's what I got. Thanks.
Let me see if Councelor Ben Como, are
you on the line?
I am, mayor. Thank you. I appreciate it.
Um, yeah, thank you so much, Leslie, and
your team and city manager team and, you
know, all the directors for getting us
here. It's obviously
incredibly difficult to, you know, say
in this position and and have to hear
the kinds of cuts that we're having to
make. Um, especially in quality of life.
Not going to lie, I think those and not
that some matter more than others, but I
think there's just some cuts that are
having a very direct impact on people's
lives. Um, and and you know, I'm sitting
here thinking about like the backdrop
that this is happening in, right? Like
we're watching the state of New Mexico
have fairly
healthy budget with his like historic
high reserves. Um, we're watching, you
know, some federal volatility happening.
I know that every single day some people
in our community like every day Los
Cruus are having to make very similar
kind of decisions in their household
every single day and
and so none of this feels good, none of
it feels right. I think for every time
we ask, you know, can we save this? I
know that something else is going to get
cut. So I think those are just important
considerations to make as we move
forward and think about um the
stakeholders involved. I am curious
about Leslie. I am curious about the
what was that conversation like with the
superintendent or this or you know LCPS
around
um community schools and the crossing
guards. I'm I'm curious where if you can
provide any
um sense of where they're at.
Yes, mayor, councelor Bencomo, that
conversation happened with the city
manager and the superintendent, so I
will defer to him to speak to that.
Thank you, Leslie. Uh, Mayor Enriquez,
councelor Beno, and city council. Thank
you for that that question. Talked with
Ignasio and told him that we would hold
it for one more year on paying about
330,000 for crossing guards. I I I think
it's important for context to share that
we're one of the few cities that pay for
crossing guards in the state. And so it
has come to our attention as we're
looking at anything and everything uh
from all departments. That was one of
the things that we looked at on why we
are paying that. Obviously not of uh the
reason of importance. We know that
education is important. It's just um we
noticed the pattern that we're one of
the few that are are paying that. Uh so
uh we agreed with Agnosio that we would
pay it one more year. They needed time
to figure it out since they're funded uh
from PED and from the state that they
would figure it out. And so we'll take
that off our books if it um if it that
would be our recommendation to council
to take that off our our books so we can
have more capacity for our internal
departments. Thank you.
Thank you. And yeah, thank you for
having those conversations. I think
cultivating those relationships is
important for moments like this where
you're you're going to have to have hard
conversations. So, I appreciate that.
Um, you know, I also am thinking about
why I'm so adamant about the GRT, the
new GRT funds being more diversified and
not one project being, you know, overly
funded versus the many priorities that
we have in our community, right? parks,
public works. You heard from them about
getting, you know, making these
difficult cuts and yet we're also um
trying to make those pots smaller with
the GRT funding. To me, that doesn't
make sense, right? And so, I think this
is one of the reasons why we why I want
the public so badly to understand that
running a city is deeply complex. It is
not just one department. It is not just
two departments that must be fully
funded. it is every single department
does incredibly valuable work that
touches the lives of people and um we
just have to remember that. I mean I
would ask for the public to have some
grace around this and you know to have
some un to try to understand the
position we find ourselves in um given
the increase in health the insane
frankly increase in health care costs
and those kinds of things that are
really out of our control. Um, but you
also don't have to. You can be as
frustrated, especially if your life will
be impacted. You know, I certainly want
to hear from folks and and and continue
to have conversations so that the city
can manage these better. The last thing
I will say is that I one of the biggest
concerns that I have is that I don't
think as a city as a whole,
we
take our liability risk seriously.
Um, I don't think this is something that
we are willing to face and talk about
and make some changes to and I think
it's going to continue to be a really
big crutch. And um I hope that changes.
You know, it hasn't since I've been
here, and I get a lot of push back when
I talk about it, but I certainly hope
that being in this position helps us
better look at um how much of, you know,
like our liability risk is is a pretty
serious crutch here. So, again, I just
want to thank
all the staff, all the directors, budget
staff for sure. I'm I'm sure it's not it
hasn't been easy. I'm sure it's been
lots of sleepless nights. So, I really
appreciate appreciate you getting us
here.
Mayor Prom,
mayor, counselors, Leslie, thank you for
the presentation and thank you
directors. I'd like to look at um slide
28 or six to talk about franchise fees
and cannabis. Um, but before I do, you
know, we we we look at these numbers, we
look at projections.
Um,
we want to balance the books and and I
appreciate all the hard work that's gone
into this. The bottom line is that when
we
finish talking about this, the bottom
line is people. Is the people that are
out there working for the city,
trying to do the best job that they can
have to work through this, working
faster, working more efficient,
optimizing. That's that is appreciated.
It's also the citizens who and the
residents who pay their taxes and expect
services as well. And so I know this has
been a very difficult exercise. It's
been a very difficult um ask and it's
totally appreciated.
I um you know especially as frustrating
as the um the community school funding
last couple of weeks I spent some time
with some schools. I went to Mayfield
High and spent some time with some
students there, some artists, up and
cominging artists and they were so
passionate about the work they did and
they explained, you know, different
techniques that they used and how long
it took to come up with their pieces and
how excited they they are about
furthering their education in their
craft. Uh, I spent some time with um
Picacho
uh East Picacho
Elementary School. You know, young um
young elementary kids that are so
curious, so innocent, um just amazing
amazing um
just just they're so engaging, right?
And uh I could not leave without taking
a slice of pizza because they forced me
to eat some um
some uh I think it was I don't know if
it was Peter Piper or little Caesars but
um no no eat with this eat with this.
I'm like okay. And the questions they
asked so they asked me what exactly is a
mayor pro pro whatever that is prom what
what are they what is that? And so I
explained a little bit and then uh one
um young student raises his hand. Oh, I
know what that is. It's like a
substitute teacher. I'm like, well,
maybe it is. Maybe it is. Um, and then,
you know, I topped it off with Alma
Dearte.
They invited me to their mariachi
conference. Well, it's amazing. It was a
soldout crowd. Um, probably a couple of
hundred of students learning mariachi
music. Machi music is not simply a few
folks at a restaurant walking around
singing, but actual historical and
cultural music where the original
composers learned from the master's
composers in in Europe and traded back
and forth where Europeans learned from
uh folks in Mesoameica
and also vice versa where the uh
conductors and the composers in Mexico
learn their music. And so these students
for a few days learned how to read
music, learn how to play together, learn
how to play um with different students
in in our area. And I thought that was
just extraordinary. The disappointing
piece was that uh the director told me
that um he had to turn away turn away uh
you know hundreds of students because
there was just not enough room. Not
enough room. And we've been talking
about engaging our youth, our young
adults, and helping them
grow.
So, um, particularly frustrating,
I understand. But let me let me, um,
let's let's get to to slide six or slide
28.
Cannabis. Um, any field, Leslie? you
know, it seems like there is a
significant amount of money's going into
the state coffers um but not flowing
down to municipalities
or maybe that's just my perception that
it seems to that the state seems to be
getting a bigger cut of of the um uh
excise tax. Do you feel that maybe that
might change or things will balance out
in the future where we may see an
increase there as far as revenue coming
in?
Mayor, Mayor Pro Tim Munoz, honestly I I
don't I see it continuing to be flat, if
not decreasing.
Gotcha. Okay. I appreciate that. Thank
you. Um and that's that's disappointing.
As far as franchise tax, are there any
other opportunities to grow that or is
do you see anywhere we could optimize
that in the future as well?
Mayor, mayor prom, I would actually need
to defer or have to defer that to I
would there's a lot of different areas
that touch franchise fees. Um, I'm going
to start with public works.
Kyle, is that the right are you the
right person for this question?
Again, Kyle, our public works interimm
director. Um, actually, I don't have a
lot of information on the franchise fees
other than it affects a lot of our
infrastructure often. Um, not sure who
exactly is working on it. It was kind of
a combined effort.
Let me get some additional information
for you and I'll find out because
there's a I know there's a lot of
departments that touch it and I'm just
not sure where I need to ask that
question, but I I'll get you the
information.
The city manager can chime in on it.
Mayor Rick, mayor, Mayor Potam Munoz,
thank you for the question. Uh it it is
true what staff said, various
departments uh touch this and work with
this. Right now we receive about uh 1.5
million from EPE in franchise fee and I
that is something that is being
discussed and um whether a increase to
the franchise fee can come back we we
can do that. We have brought it to a
work session to council to see if we
could uh bump that. I think it's about
2% looking for an additional percentage
to total 3% and with that additional
percentage uh years ago they talked
about energy efficiency for uh for LMI
community low to moderate income
community. Um in addition to that
broadband um every time that they're
looking in our in our easements we we
charge them a tax um as well a franchise
fee sorry not a tax but a franchise fee
to to to connect. that's not uh voting
well for us. Um but uh we also receive
franchise fees from our own utilities as
well. Um, so there is a combination of
things, but um, if you were to ask me, I
would love to, um, I would love to see,
and what we're looking in to is reooking
at our franchise fee agreements with
broadbands, um, so that every time that
they're touching our roads, getting into
our our easements that we can charge
them and ensure that we're charging them
for linear feed or looking uh, to ensure
that we're we're charging the market
rate on that. So, we can look into that.
Mean,
thank you very much. And that's what I
um want us to do. The the two committees
that Christopher and U Mandy are leading
and the and the teams and stakeholders
look at uh opportunities to optimize to
to be more efficient to increase um
revenue um you know within a positive
way. Um, you know, I also want to ensure
that from from, you know, at least my
perspective, you know, as you're looking
at services and something is is super
critical and you're seeing the effects
on that on the community u and your
employees. Um, I I want to hear that
feedback. I want that push back. I I I
we we won't or at least speaking for
myself, I'm not going to take that as
we're not a team player, but someone
who's saying, "Wait a minute." Um, we've
we've cut in in certain places and we've
we've tightened up, I get it. But in
this area, after we have reviewed it for
a while, we've tried to make this work,
it's not working. And um I from what I
understand, the committees will come
back and keep an eye on that and provide
some some feedback on on that piece. and
provide other feedback perhaps on on how
we can um get some additional uh revenue
that we may you know be leaving on the
table. What I will say is with those
committees and with the employees, I've
had an opportunity since coming to the
city to work and spend some time um with
the city family and tell you that the
folks are are hearty people. They work
hard. Um and I I appreciate that. And
again, as as we work through this
together, um we'll get through the other
side, we'll get through this side, but
that's it's going to involve
communication. It's going to involve
creativity. Um and any way that we can
be supportive, please let me know. And
thank you, Leslie, for for this
information. Appreciate it. Thank you,
Mayor.
Councilman Chase,
Mr. Doyle, could you bring up the slide
on the committees that you've created? I
guess that
Um
uh with the city manager's uh permission
and and possibly yours could uh I spend
some time with these committees
and then give some suggestions. I don't
want I bel labor and and go through the
whole thing today, but I have some
suggestions and I and I'd like to look
at each particular department
and then look at its impact and how many
people it's reaching. You know, like I'm
really upset with the quality of life
and and and the sacrifice that Carol has
to make and again with with Park. So
would that would that be okay and and
and to actually sit with them and find
out how they're doing it, how they're
doing the assessing and and how they're
looking at the revenue and then on their
on their diligence, you know, their due
diligence when we give money out and
whether it's hundreds of thousands or
millions of dollars, uh do we have a do
we have their their financials and and
what they do with the money? Do we do we
get that? Do we get all the information
back that they're doing everything with
the uh the IRS, revenue, state, uh and
they're they're properly spending the
money. Is there accountability on some
of the millions that we give out to
whether it's nonprofits or different
departments or a developer? I, you know,
I'd like to look through all that
because it it seems like there's um
millions of dollars that have come into
the city of Los Cusus and I realize the
debt your
your debt retirement it is it's
enormously high for a city this size. Um
is it not
Mayor Councelor Matise? Uh I I believe
that it is. Yes.
Yeah. And so if if I you know if they
would value my experience
um I've been around few years.
Council Matis, you don't even attend
closed sessions.
Pardon me.
You don't even attend closed sessions.
Councelor Karan, hold on.
Okay.
Councelor Matise, uh city manager will
speak to it.
Thank you, Mayor Enriquez, Councelor
Matise, and city councilors. To answer
your question um on um the opportunity
to meet with with staff and the two
committees, the realignment committee
and the revenue efficiencies, um I would
afford that that opportunity be offered
to you and any of the council members
that would like to meet with them. um as
they're coming up if you wanted to share
your thoughts um you could share uh
absolutely you could share your thought
but I would ask that um that opportunity
comes again to you as all counselors if
if you would like that that is afforded
to you. Thank you.
Thank you C man. Thank you m I I wanted
to make sure it was you know proper and
it met all the the legal u stages of
approval. So, thank you for that
statement and and I promise I won't take
a lot of their time up. Thank you,
Councelor Harris.
Um, thanks. I have uh one other comment
just to kind of piggyback on what
councelor Mos was saying about franchise
fees and stuff. Um, something else that
I'd like to uh make sure we're we're
looking at when studying that is um
making sure we're reimbursed for damage
to public rightway and structures. Um,
you know, whenever you bore a hole
through the sidewalk or through the
street um or gas has to come out and
locate for utilities and they have to
dig a pothole. um it might seem like a
small little patch the size of a piece
of paper or something, but um you know,
you're still cutting into the roadway
and that decreases its lifetime
significantly. And so like Kyle was
talking about we're having to prioritize
um pavement fixing and things. Um so we
need to make sure that I I think we're
being compensated for the decreased
lifetime of some of our infrastructure
that's being caused. Um, and I
understand that we might not have an
existing fee structure for that. So,
since that was mentioned, it just popped
into my mind and I wanted to to mention
it. Thanks,
Mayor Councelor Harris. I do know that
that is something that we are working on
a process for. So, it's not the first
time we've heard it. So, yes, that is
something that is on the radar.
Okay. Again, Leslie, as it's been said
over and over, uh, it is very difficult.
It's very challenging. So, thank you to
[snorts] all the staff, the city manager
and everyone. It's it's difficult when
you have to cut. So, I thank everyone
for that and the efforts and the
attempt. I I share with councelor
Mccclure as well that I think the
community schools has been something
that has been moving forward in a
direction that we like with the
relationship and partnership with the
schools to not lose opportunities with
their facilities, afterchool programs
and things like that. So I definitely
want to see if that that can be looked
at and the the onus is really on this
continuous strateging strategizing team
that is going to have to look at that
like monthly. I mean stay on it, see
what our revenues are, see what our
expenditures are. And if it comes to
like again, if we have to go into the
Telshore fund for things like that, I
would I would advocate for it as well so
that we don't lose out on services and
opportunities for our community. I I
wouldn't say we do that immediately
because that's an impact right now in
quality of life and for the partnership
and what we want with the community
schools. I want that to continue. But I
know there's other impacts elsewhere
that other departments are going to
feel. So if we continue to work and see
with this uh revenues and efficiency
realignment committees and see where
we're at and where those impacts are.
Again, uh, Ben Como mentioned the GRT
and we have that deferred maintenance
and that's what a lot of that is for
that if we have some of those
maintenance and issues that come up, we
can always look at that for for
addressing some of those issues. So,
those pockets of the opioid, the the um
the telshore fund or even some of the
GRT for critical infrastructure, we can
always look at those things. and then
again at mid year start really
addressing those issues and see where we
can always come back and advocate for
for funding for different areas where
they're being impacted the most. That
that's where I'm at with that. But I
really feel strongly as Mccclure and I
think everyone else here with the the
community schools and see what we can do
to start looking at that closely and not
lose any ground.
Um, do
Council Harris again?
Sorry. Um, so since since there's
interest in this preserving this
community schools funding, is that
something we need to to do something
about? Um, make a
formal motion to do that.
Well, I believe it'll still be
continuing. It's just been reduced. So
that's something with this uh I believe
with this realignment committee to to
focus and look at that and see how we
continue. We don't want to lose any
positions or anything uh based on that
dollar amount but see how we can
continue to move forward as if it was
there and then if we need to add to it
later then we can we can bring it
forward.
Is that will that work or are we looking
at
Mayor I I think the best approach would
be to continue with the budget that we
currently have as it resides in quality
of life and then the additional 60,000
we could budget from Telshore
if everyone would be in agreement with
that.
Councilman,
do we have to do a motion? I guess we're
asking procedural question here.
So moved as amended for 60k for
community schools.
Second.
Is that simple enough? I don't I give me
what what to say, Christine.
Okay, hold on. Is Is that what we need
to do right now?
Okay. So, did you get that or
correct? And the second.
Yeah.
No. Councelor Mos
Oh, they both did.
So, you even got a third.
I'm removing my second even though it's
the third.
Okay, Chrissy.
So, this is on the motion to amend
resolution 26-142
to add 60,000 for the community schools
from the Telshore fund. Councelor
McClur,
yes.
Councelor Matise,
yes.
Councelor Harris,
yes.
Councelor Bencoml,
yes. Councelor Karan.
Yes.
Councelor Munoz.
Yes.
Mayor,
yes.
Oh, go ahead. Call the RO.
Would
you like to speak to it? Is there anyone
of the public? Can you raise your hand?
Yeah, I'll give you two minutes. Come on
up.
You can all start forming a line.
Thank you, mayor. My name is Lucas
Hernand for the record. Um,
I would like to just say out loud that
it is
disheartening to sit through this
presentation and watch a presentation
about services being cut after we've
spent the last almost full year talking
about how to spend the GRT money to the
benefit of this community. And then to
look through the budget um as being uh
drafted here and voted on apparently um
without a slide or a presentation from
the chief about what the cops are giving
up. Where's that slide? Where's the
slide about how they're not getting a
racetrack? Where's the slide about how
they're not getting their new vehicles
that get 20 miles to the gallon?
Speaking ear to the point earlier about
fuel crisis.
How is this city going to come to the
voters and ask us to vote on a bond for
the library, which I very much support.
Library folks don't come for me. I'm
here for the library. But when you're
asking us to fund this new library with
cut services, what is the point?
It's been said many times in different
ways that a budget is a moral document.
and the morals of this city council
moving this budget as approved today and
on the backs of workers with a 1% raise.
Meanwhile, the cops continue to get
their raises every year, year after
year. They get their new toys, they get
their new racetrack, they get their new
cars with not a blink from anybody on
this council.
Shameful.
Hello, my name is Sierra Edmister. Um,
yeah, I would like to echo the
disappointment. Um, I know everyone is
disappointed in seeing these cuts to
quality of life. Um, and yeah, again, I
would also like to echo the fact that
it's just disappointing that if you look
at the police budget, the funds that are
going to the police, the GRT money
that's going to the police, I feel like
it doesn't reflect the economic
situation that we're in right now. But
if you look at any other area in life in
Los Cusus, it very clearly reflects the
economic crisis we're in right now. Um,
[clears throat] I've heard it brought
up, you know,
this this was brought up in the public
comments about we're calling the police
the root cause. I'm not calling the
police the root cause. I'm saying that
we should be funding
to fix the root causes of of crime and
and unsafe communities, which is not
having quality of life for the community
members. When I look up the type of
funding that the police department
receives, when I hear numbers like
1,750,000,
194,000 or specifically 450,000 secured
by Heinrich for camera trailers, drones,
automatic license plate readers,
autoactivated car and body cams. I just
find it hard to believe the Saab story
on why the police need such a huge
portion of our GRT money. Um, this feels
a lot like the GRT meeting of trying to
figure out where to put these tiny
amounts of money and making cuts here
for that. And again, yeah, just the
aspect where we're not saying
we're saying fund the community. Um, and
it's just really it's really tragic to
not see that reflected um on all aspects
and all departments and that the
community are the ones that are having
to take the biggest hit for this. Thank
you.
Mr. Mayor, city council, city staff, I'm
Linda Sinclair. I'm the president of the
Friends of Thomas Branding Memorial
Library. As you know from my emails, I
care a lot about strategic budgeting.
And so I was very pleased to see the
creation of two committees to start
looking at things a little bit more
strategically in terms of um trying to
get more alignment and increased
efficiency because I do think those are
important. Um and of course you know
that I'm disappointed in any cuts that
are made to the library. But I do want
you to know that the friends of the
library will be working very closely
with Carol Bray and Sarah Booth to try
and make up as best we can some of the
cuts that have been made so that the
library is able to meet the needs and
the expectations of the community.
Counselors Matise and Harris, we have
money for food. That will be done. Not a
problem. Um, if anybody on the council
would like to suggest other areas where
they'd like to see cuts not made,
councelor Mccclure evening hours, come
and talk to the friends of the library
because that is what we are here for.
That's what friends are for, to try and
help and make up when there are
problems. So, I'm really um pleased to
be able to do that to the extent that we
can. We just had a book sale last
weekend. I don't recall seeing any of
you there spending money. You should
have been. Um, it was a great sale. We
made $1645
goes into your food budget. Um, but
finally, I want to thank all the members
of the council and the staff for
answering my myriad questions and
listening to my ideas, some of which are
not fun to listen to. Um, and some of
them are not as wellbaked as others are,
but there will be lots more questions
going forward. So, I hope that you'll
continue to be patient with me. Thank
you very much.
Okay. Thank you, Christie.
This is on the motion to approve
resolution 26-142
as amended. Councelor McClur,
yes.
Councelor Matise,
yes.
Councelor Harris,
yes. Councelor Beno,
yes.
Councelor Cran,
yes. Councelor Munoz,
yes.
Mayor,
yes.
Thank you, Liz.
Next is item 7.2, resolution number
26-143,
a resolution approving the capital
improvement program for fiscal year 2027
through fiscal year 2032.
So moved.
Second.
Good afternoon, mayor, city council. My
name is Cindia Lamo, capital
improvements program manager and I'm
here to present the proposed FY27 2032
CIP program.
I first want to start with talking about
what is the actual what is capital
improvements program or better call CAP.
So it is the city's capital planning
document required by city charter that
identifies what council authorizes to
build or to improve the cost of each
investment and the project's plan for
the future. So in essence it's a
document that gives the opportunity to
look in one single place all of the
projects that we have related to
infrastructure.
So what why is CIP relevant for us? In
past work sessions, we have noted how
our funding for infrastructure needs is
not enough to cover what we have. So our
needs increase what we have available.
So with that we have limited funding. So
the CAP can help identify the projects
that have received funding this fiscal
year and the cost associated with the
each project. So when we have to make
the difficult decision as to what
project gets funded, the CAP help us
communicate those projects. It also
provides visibility into projects are
needed but do not have funding yet. So
while this is uh simple uh it's very
critical to identify the projects and
its associated costs that need to be uh
funded. We have multiple opportunities
including capital outlay and grants. So
knowing and having clear scope of works
and cost estimates can facilitate the
process of matching those funding
opportunities to the projects that we
have in place. Specifically talking for
capital outlay, the CIP is the basis for
the state capital improvement program
which is a requirement for us to
consider uh or to submit project into
the capital outlay process.
Lastly, it helps us or the city manage
and track the use of capital funds,
which means that the cip is a
transparency tool where we can uh help
track and manage and make sure that the
funds are spent to what uh council
allowed us to.
So, how does the CIP work? We start in
the fall where departments identify
capital needs and submit them to the CIP
program. Then the selection is informed
by city council approved plans which
includes and it's not limited to elevate
the action plan climate action plan in
and even the MIA plans. All projects are
evaluated and funding opportunities are
explored as possible and lastly the
projects are organized into the six-year
plan.
Out of that process, this is what we
generate which is the CIP document.
So I'm going to quickly mention how to
read this document for the public. So
first [snorts] we identify categories.
We have 16 categories which help us
answer the basic question as to how are
we investing our infrastructure
projects.
We also have project types. We want to
make sure we identify this the type of
projects we have. ually funded,
carryover, annual and future.
We then identify the projects. As we
mentioned, this is a transparency tool.
So, we want to make sure that funds that
have been allocated to specific projects
are spent in that project.
We identify the department that's
helping implement that project.
We then have a column for the funded um
what we have funded this fiscal year.
That means that is funding that the
projects have available to move forward.
We then list the five next years of
unfunded needs. These are needs that we
have not been able to secure funding
for. Lastly, the LA column identify
potential funding sources.
So, the proposed F2732 CIP has 311
projects.
As we mentioned, CAP is six years, one
year funded and five unfunded. So, we do
that uh add addition. We're talking
about a program that has $1.7 billion.
But out of that, the funded amount is
for this fiscal year is $210 million.
That's allocated across 133 projects.
Then for the next five years where we
need to secure funding, we're talking
about 1.2 billions and that's spread
across 178 projects.
This is a breakdown of the 311 projects
that we have on the CAP again divided by
the categories and the categories help
us under answer the question as to what
type of infrastructure project we're
funding. As you see, the smallest
category is streets new the which
includes the Mesa Grande project and the
categories with the highest number of
projects is utilities with 34 public
facilities which includes all of those
facilities are open to the public like
the library, the rec center, the senior
center. There's 61 projects and street
improvements which includes 7 67
projects.
Out of those 311, as I briefly
mentioned, we have different types.
One and one 10 projects are carryover
projects. Those are projects that had
some sort of funding last fiscal year
and we're carrying it over to this
fiscal year. More than likely, these are
are multi-year projects that need more
than one year to implement.
We also have 50 annual projects. These
are projects that we know that year with
year we have the similar type of
project. For example, this is where we
have our roof programs, our parking lot
projects, all of those that we know that
are recurring in nature. We have 145
future projects. Those are the projects
that we know that are needed, but we
need to secure funding for them. So,
we're trying to plan ahead for them. And
lastly, we have six newly funded
projects. These are projects that are
receiving funding for the first time in
the CIP program and those are the ones
that are expecting a capital outlay that
was awarded this year.
So I mentioned how much money we need to
cover all of the projects that are
across the six years that is a 1.47
for fiscal year 27 we noted that we have
allocated 210 million but for the next
five years those are starting 28 29 30
31 and 32 the total needed is 1.2.
So the significant part and the takeaway
is the way we have allocated our future
needs. If you see fiscal year 28,
our programs or projects had identified
a need of almost 500 million which is
quite significant and it's quite a
challenge to try to secure in one year
about 500 million. So we have initiated
conversations with departments. CAP will
start the process of working with
departments to refine our projects and
make sure that we scope out our projects
better and we have the opportunity to
spread out those future years more
equitably. So right now you will have
the CIP that will be adopted for this
fiscal year but we have already
initiated conversations about how can we
secure funding or how can we bring
additional funding for the future years
because we need to plan ahead but we
also need to have um realistic project
estimates and uh projects that will be
able to get uh higher opportunity to get
a grant or capital outlay. So we'll be
working with departments to spread out
that future cost throughout the years
and so we can use CAP as a planning
tool.
Now we have 210 million allocated for
this fiscal year with 133 projects. So
out of that 199 million are the
carryover projects again projects that
have already some sort of funding and 18
million is allocated to those annual
programs that are recurring in nature.
This is the breakdown of the funding.
You see the majority of the funding
comes from local funding. We have
grouped that but on the um you will see
on this side the table of the funding
sources that compromise that local
funding. We have the telure fund, TID
taxes. The other category are different
C um capital improvement accounts which
majority come from utilities. We have
included some of the GRT pay as you go
uh funding and we have PIFF and the
impact fees of water and wastewater.
Next we have bonds and loans would
constitute about 30%.
Grants 22% at 46 million and lastly
capital outlay that represents 6% which
is about 13 million. So, as you can see,
in order for our capital projects to
move forward, we need to do some sort of
capital stacking. That means a
combination of multiple funding sources
to get our projects move forward.
This is a breakdown by categories.
As you can see, the C the category with
the least amount of funding right now,
city operation facilities, which that is
city hall. Those are facilities meant
for operations.
The top three we have attainable
affordable housing with 22 million,
street improvements which includes
street reconstruction to cheap seal
replacement at 25 million and utilities
at 72 million.
This is a summary by department. So
these are the departments that have a
role in implementing the current
projects. We have Visilas Cruises with
75 million which are improvements to our
convention center. And again our top
three uh departments are housing a
neighborhood, public works and
utilities.
So what you have today is the adoption
of the cap but if approved this starts a
next cycle of maintenance. Internally we
have worked with departments to ensure
that projects get completed or advance
as much as possible. We have quarterly
meetings with all of them to review uh
specifically capital outlay projects to
make sure that our funding is moving
forward. We also have tracking
documents. We will be expanding that
review to JT funding and go bond funding
as well. But after that, we still need
to make sure that our cap is updated and
uh kept as accurate as possible. As we
mentioned, that is our communication
tool to ensure that the community knows
how our capital infrastructure
uh funds are spent. So, as we identify
and we allocate new funding sources,
we're going to come to council and
update the CIP to reflect the available
resources.
Since we're still working on the current
fiscal year, projects can still move
forward. So after the completion of the
fiscal year, we're going to come back
and make amendments to reflect the
funding that the projects have
available.
Lastly, when we come back to council for
amendments, we want to use that
opportunity to provide additional
details on all of the projects that we
bring forward to help communicate each
project's scope of work and cost. We
want to continue the conversation and
want to make sure that the 311 projects
that we have on the document, we
recognize what is it that we're trying
to accomplish and what is the benefit to
the community.
So lastly, council does are you have
your council options, but um we're here
for any specific questions that you
might have.
All right. Thank you, Cynthia. Council
current.
Thank you, Cynthia. This is great. As
always, I appreciate reading through the
CIP. I was wondering I I really
appreciate the weight of all the
unfunded projects and also the process
that we use to determine how we're going
to fund things, the updates that come
and some things that have no funding
whatsoever. So, I was and I think
streets is the place where I've seen
this the most, but I was wondering and I
know you're pretty nerdy, not to like
affectionately I say. I know that you um
really like data and are always thinking
about this and I appreciate the way that
you think about that, but I was
wondering if you might be able to at
some point when we're doing CIP updates
or something in the next however long,
forever if you want to do this forever,
we do it almost every week. Um
there there could be some kind of cost
some kind of rough [snorts]
number that's included with this about
our delay cost that is we put it off on
average each project costs 10% more 12%
more and I understand that's affected by
lots of externalities but
um and I'm not saying for every project
I just mean generally I think it would
be helpful for us to understand what it
means when we say yes, we're going to do
this at this time. No, we're not going
to do it for three years. No, we're
never going to do that. We just put it
in the outer years and hope for the best
uh money raining down from somewhere. Um
that there is a there is a building cost
to that. And I think that's somewhat in
the but sometimes we do a plan and it's
that's the amount that we go with and
even the next year it's totally
different from that. So, I'm just hoping
maybe you could include a little bit of
um uh not getting stuff done cost to
help motivate us to think really
critically about [laughter] this. Um
yes.
And so again, it's just a mild request,
but I just think that weighs heavily on
me. I think about fire station 9
specifically, which is a very clear
example. We use geo bond funding. We had
a number when we started four years in.
um that number was different and I know
that there were changes both to change
the what it was going to look like to to
make make it more in budget and the cost
of the things that were happening but
the slower we do things the worse that
the steeper that becomes I think that
graph and so I'm I would love something
included with this related to our
dillydally tax that we might be
incurring as a city please
and I I leave that totally to you
dilly the Delhi tax please.
Yes. Uh Mayor uh councelor Kuran, thank
you. That is part of the conversations
that we have. Uh we need to initiate
with departments given the large uh need
for future funding. We need to
strategize and we need to prioritize and
make the hard decision as to what
projects get funded versus which was
not. So that implies what happens to a
project if it does not get the funding
as it initially planned. So, we we'll
include that in our conversations.
Thank you,
Councelor Harris.
Um, thank you and and yes, I appreciate
all the the forward thinking that goes
into our capital improvements. Um, I
agree that it would be nice to know like
if we don't get this project done now,
okay, in the next 5 years when we do
actually get it done, it's going to cost
twice as much. And so, maybe we need to
go ahead and get it done. Um the the
other the other comments um I have are
kind of related. So I mean I like
looking at this slide seeing half a
billion dollars in FY2028
that is it's a statement. I don't know
if it's a helpful number. And what I
what I mean by that is like we have so
many projects um that just saying we
have a billion dollars worth of projects
is like completely overwhelming and
nobody can plan for that because
everybody knows that we're not going to
fund a billion and a half dollars worth
of projects.
Um and so you know it it's good to know
that we have all this stuff and kind of
this is our end goal. Um but I wonder
what
and and also this is me coming in new.
I'm I'm new to the council and new to
CIP of course. Um but like would it be
more helpful for us as a council to give
directions that are more genericized?
Like you had the categories in the CIP
plan and so instead of like having
our nitpicky political fights, which
obviously is our job to nitpick and
pick, you know, politically nice topics.
Um, but like if we just said we want to
put
$10 million towards road improvements
this year and every year from a variety
of funding sources. I don't know what
that looks like procedurally. Um, and
$10 million is just a number I came up
with. I'm sure that doesn't even touch
the road improvement budget, but you
know, I'm just spitballing numbers. um
you know would would that kind of maybe
categorization level direction be more
helpful and then staff can be trusted to
say okay council decided that of the
that we have this big pot of GRT money
for instance and we want to fix and 60%
of it goes to infrastructure
improvements and that's the only number
we say we say here's 60% we have a vague
idea of projects but like we're not
holding you to those necess necessarily
do what needs to be done and then staff
would go and do what needs to be done.
Um
I don't know. I'm open to feedback on on
that suggestion or or or more details on
what the process actually is. Maybe
maybe I'm right and that's what it what
you already do. So
Okay. Uh Mayor Counselor Harry's
there are tradeoffs in how a capital
improvements program is managed. If we
have just programs or
just just generalized programs, there is
flexibility in how funds are are spent.
But then the trade up is given that we
have limited funding. If we spell out
the projects, we communicate to the
community why and how those limited
fundings have been able to spend and
into what project. As we mentioned, we
have about 311 projects. So making that
decision as to what gets funded, it's
critical and it's not simple. So it's
it's just tradeoffs, one thing for the
other. What we want to do is make sure
that we have a reason as to how our uh
limited funding is used across the board
in different capital projects. These are
projects that are significant, they're
visible, and they're expensive. So we
want to make sure we're transparent as
to how those capital funds are invested
or spent. But like mentioned there there
are trade-offs as to how much can we
provide in flexibility, how much can we
probably alleviate in some of the
operations versus what is the end
result.
But we can continue the conversation as
to finding ways. So we have engaged in
conversations with department as to
understanding the needs for the future
years understanding additional
strategies as to how can we uh
prioritize and be strategic about the
projects that get funded.
Okay, I appreciate it. Thanks.
Councelor Beno, do you have anything?
No, thank you.
Okay, thanks Cynthia Christine.
This is on the motion to approve
resolution 26-143.
Councelor McClur,
yes.
Councelor Matise,
yes.
Councelor Harris,
yes.
Councelor Ben Como,
yes.
Councelor Karan,
yes.
Councelor Munoz,
yes.
Mayor,
yes.
Okay, next is board appointments and
there are none.
So then we have the notice of proposed
ordinance. There are two council bill
number 26-022
ordinance number 3114.
Bring it forward please.
The other one is council bill number
26-023
ordinance number 3115.
bring forward.
Next, we have city council member board
reports and comments. Council Mccclure,
I don't have too much just to thank
everyone for your support of community
schools. I think it's very important and
I'm just glad you all helped along with
that as well. Thank you,
Councelor Matise.
No comments today. Thank you, councelor
Harris.
Uh, thank you, Mayor. I have two
comments. Um,
actually three. Uh, so one which I think
was brought up in public comment um as
one of the counselors who was
questioning how we awarded those um
public health service funds. Um, I
appreciate the suggestion to kind of
change that model. Um, so I I agree with
the allocation. Um, I guess what
concerned me is the words that were
being used in how those grants were
processed. And I think, um, Nicole's
comments earlier
sounded interesting and I'd be open to
to a work session or something to
approach that further. Um, other thing
is, uh, this was, um, I had this in my
notes, but also councelor Beno mentioned
it. I would be interested in a work
session or departmental highlight on uh
risk management and our liability risk
and things that are being done to reduce
those things. I know that that is
something that is being worked on and a
lot of the you know we we have to pay
this $67 million um to those to those
things in this budget. Um and a lot of
that is because of stuff that happened
in the past and we have new programs
that ought to be reducing that um on the
PD side, on the HR side, just across
across the board and I think it would be
very interesting for us and the public
to kind of learn more about that. Um
likewise uh it was mentioned that public
works having a hard time responding to
uh copper theft and I understand that we
might be looking at or staff has been
looking at ways to discourage that uh
more and so I'd be interested in in
taking that up at a future council
meeting as well. Uh that's all I have
mayor. Thank you.
Thank you councelor Beno. Thanks, Mayor.
Um, yeah, thanks M, uh, Councelor
Harris. I I agree with both of those um
all of your suggestions actually,
including um, looking at that process
for the awards and definitely for the
liability risk. Uh, I just have one um,
comment I want to make today. I last
week I got a very interesting email from
um a very passionate 10-year-old in our
community, resident of Los Cusus, who
wanted to express her concern regarding
the number of chickens allowed in the
city. And she's advocating for us to
raise that to at least 10 chickens. Um
and honestly, in this economy, I think
that's um a really valid suggestion. And
I am wondering if this is an
administrative ask. I'm wondering if the
number that currently um that currently
exists in the code was
um you know if it came up because of
certain health reasons or if if it was
an arbitrary number. Um I think it's a
very valid request from this young lady
and um would love to for us to have that
conversation and whether it can happen
um or not. I of course have invited her
to come to public comment. So hopefully
we'll see her once um school is out for
the summer.
That's it. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you. Uh counselor Korean.
Thank you. I I
on this chicken question. I I I I
genuinely do not remember how we came up
with that number, but I don't think it
was a public health related I I just can
speak to I don't think it was a public
health related thing. And I don't think
it was related to a particularly robust
research process. I I can say I don't I
didn't do any research in understanding
what the best number of urban chickens
might be, but I do know we have very
explicit other restrictions on noisy um
roosters. But chickens I I don't know.
But I I I will attest that I don't think
that's a particularly um
wellressearched part of the ordinance.
So, I would I would be happy to help in
figuring out how to change that um part
of the ordinance
as well. [clears throat]
I I actually also had um a really
interesting conversation with someone
because a pot-bellied pig arrived at the
shelter and we weren't clear. We weren't
sure if a pot-bi pig was something that
people could have or not in the city.
Yes, they can. Brad's shaking his head.
Um but uh
great conversations and it's only
because well in that case it's a bummer
because the pig ended up at the shelter
but um I really appreciate your the
person that reached out to you uh
councelor Bencomo to that to that idea
of animals. the the shelter had on last
Thursday of last week 62 animals came in
and so in one day um and uh about 40
kittens and 22 dogs or something like
that something appalling. Um and so I
just want to reaffirm what Amelia
mentioned earlier that you can save a
life. I I have a whole bunch of supplies
to help someone if they want to foster
including like a little backpack if you
want to carry the kittens around with
you. um
but the shelter is being inundated with
kitten season and a combination of other
factors that that they're experiencing.
So I do want to speak to the power of
fostering and how um important it is in
at this moment. Uh and then last I want
to just call out that Thursday we'll be
having the ribbon cutting or
uh grand sort of discussion at the Peach
Tree grand opening although I think
people have been living there for uh
several weeks if not a month or so now.
Um that's 144 units coming online for
people in district 5 near a middle
school and an elementary school. Um and
the the apartments are amazing. I think
they're um almost all leased or
pre-leasased and then the second phase
will be coming up pretty soon. So, I'm
very excited about that uh grand opening
and to welcome those folks to their new
neighborhood and and to our
neighborhood. So, um that's it. Thank
you.
Thank you, Mayor Prom.
Mayor counselors, uh thank you very much
for your time. Uh as we move forward, I
um would like to encourage my colleagues
to consider the youth council that um
that we've been talking about and
pushing that forward. I go back to the
the Picacho uh elementary students.
they uh had uh you know right after that
I was I was meeting the economic
development team and it's a team we
should definitely support to to bring in
revenues with a company that's that was
coming in their investor their
leadership a very innovative idea and
will create um a good number of jobs
here in Los Cusus but um I was I thought
I was a little delay I was I was late
but um I I I couldn't get away didn't
want to get away uh from the students
that were so um interactive been and
engaged. You know, they talked to me
about water usage and recycling and and
um safety. These are these are
elementary kids who were so intelligent.
Um and I wanted to thank also u Chief
Daniels for sending some firefighters
there. They spent some time with us, ate
most of the pizza. U but they uh great
um great patient and great with the kids
and um I appreciated that. And you know,
and I and I think about today, you know,
we we talked about the budget. Um, and I
will tell you that there's a stat 44 to
45% of couples break up um or divorce
because of finances. And so I don't want
to see a divorce, but I want us to have
an honest, you know, direct
conversation, which I think we did. It
was a difficult conversation, but we'll
work through it together. This is our
opportunity to really be creative, to
talk to each other, to not just survive,
but to thrive to this because when we
think about this, it's really about our
future. It's about our youth. It's about
the kids and what type of community
we're going to leave them. Thank you,
Mayor.
Thank you, Mayor Prom.
So, a couple of things and you know,
we've all talked about the youth and we
talk about the community schools and
things. So, I just wanted to say thank
you to our police department. One of the
things that has been gone for years in
our schools is a DARE program. And on
Friday was the first graduating class at
Connley Elementary for the DARE program,
helping students make good choices to
eliminate drug and alcohol from their
lives. And this is a great program and
we're going to continue it and keep
moving forward. And that's why I say the
partnerships with the school are so
vital to our community.
And also for our youth, I just want to
thank the Mayfield High School football
booster club that brought back the Gus
Smacker again this past weekend. And
there was over 200 teams, a lot of youth
competing and having fun uh on the on
the courts and it's a good thing. And
with that, thank you again, police,
fire, public works for providing
services and helping with that event. uh
again brings brings activities to our
community, brings some GRT uh to our
community and just gives an opportunity
as Mayor Prom said so that our community
can thrive and that's what we want to
do. The budget, the cuts, it is
difficult, it is tough, it is
challenging. We got to see how we can
reduce and get better and be a high
performance organization is what we're
looking for to serve our residents in
this community. So again, I thank you
all for for that task that's very
difficult and challenging, but like
everything else, we'll get through it.
We'll get through it and we will thrive.
So, thank you. And now, uh, city
manager. Thank you, Mayor Enriquez,
Mayor Pot, Munoz, and city councilors,
city manager. And I I wanted to share
one thing, and it might be uh a bit
longer than normal, but I I did want to
uh be a bit more personal today if I
may. last week at at city council. I
appreciated uh some of you who knew
Jonathan Delgado and shared some some
words. Um I did not personally know him
and it's it's been my goal to try to get
to know the person he was. So love to
share a few thoughts u if I may.
Some of you may have noticed I have been
wearing a pin. This is a pin that I got
from his vigil. it's of of him and um in
in life many of us have lost u loved
ones and it's so easy uh at times to to
move forward um and so I have been
trying not to move uh too far forward uh
before taking the time to to really
understand who this gentleman was. Um so
Jonathan Anelmo
Delgado Nigeli uh tragically passed away
on May 3rd. Um but since that time I
have made an effort to learn more about
Jonathan about his work, his life, his
relationships, and the impact he had on
so many people. Two Fridays ago I made a
surprise visit to our museum's staff to
check in with them, connect with them,
and to visit Jonathan's office. I am
grateful to staff members like Brian who
took the time to walk me around and
introduce me to everyone and to Garland
Courts and the entire team who made time
for me that day. My heart continues to
go out to all of our Lasus Museum staff
including Minina Stafford who was here
earlier, Shelley Richard, and everyone
who worked alongside Jonathan.
Last week I had the blessing of
attending Jonathan's vigil at the
historic railroad museum. When I
arrived, I could not find parking. I
parked a few blocks away and as I walked
towards the museum, I noticed that there
were several events happening at the
same time. At first, I thought perhaps
there had been some poor planning or
competing events in the same space. But
when I arrived, I quickly realized
something much more meaningful. Those
were not competing events. They were
organizations and people Jonathan had
worked with that supported that he
empowered and advocated for. In many
ways, the full parking lot and the busy
museums were a reflection of Jonathan's
life, full of people, full of purpose,
and full of community. I had only
planned to stay for a few minutes at the
vigil, check in with staff, and quietly
leave. I even stood next to the exit
door, thinking that that would make
slipping away easier. But then the floor
opened to people to share the stories
about Jonathan. And I found myself
unable to leave. Story after story was
shared about his kindness, his passion,
his charisma, his courage, and his
ability to bring people together. As I
stood there listening, all I could think
about was the regret I felt that I had
not had the opportunity to know this
amazing individual while he was still
with us. Jonathan was only 28, but his
impact was far beyond his years. He was
an educator, an organizer, a curator,
and a bridgeuer. Through his work with
Lascus Museum, his service to young
people, his relationships with community
members, and his deep love for Las
Cusus, he showed what public service can
look like when it's rooted in purpose
and heart. I also had the opportunity to
attend his funeral this past weekend,
and my heart and prayers go out to his
parents, Mr. An Elmo Delgado Martinez,
Miss Katherine Nigeli Delgado, to his
family, to his best friend Dom, to his
girlfriend Lily, and to all his friends
who were truly like family to him.
Jonathan's life is a testament to the
kind of extraordinary people we have
working for the city of Las Cusus.
People who serve quietly, who pour
themselves into their work, who build
community, who make a difference in ways
that we may not fully understand until
we stop and listen. May Jonathan rest in
peace, and may his family, friends,
co-workers, and all who loved him be
comforted by the incredible legacy he
leaves behind. Thank you, Mayor.
Thank you, Econ. We appreciate that and
appreciate you attending and being a
part. So, thank you. With that, I'll
look for a motion to adjurnn.
Move to adjurnn.
Second.
This is on the motion to adjourn the
meeting. Councelor Mccclur,
yes.
Councelor Matise,
yes.
Councelor Harris,
yes.
Councelor Bencoml,
yes.
Councelor Karan,
yes.
Councelor Munoz,
yes.
Mayor,
yes.