[Music]
okay welcome to part two of our meetings
today is monday january 24th 2022 it's
approximately 1 17 p.m
we're going to have the work session of
las cruces city council
first item on the agenda is pet of the
week and jennifer martinez from our
communications office will introduce our
pets
good afternoon mayor and council i am
jennifer martinez with the city's
communications office
and i would like to introduce you to our
two pets of the week beginning with a
cutie cat named kali
collie was dropped off at the shelter
with her babies a few months ago and now
they all have gone to nice homes but
this sweetie is now looking for a home
of her own she is very mellow and
looking forward to hanging out on the
couch and being a lap cat
now if our dog of the week looks
familiar we find our dog
there we go
that is because she was our pet of the
week last week and the animal services
center wanted to give her another shot
of exposure so again she is a playful
girl who loves going on an adventure she
gets along great with both humans and
other dogs so she's hoping for an
adventure buddy to play and love her
forever
you can make ali or nala by making an
appointment to the animal services
center by calling three eight two zero
zero one eight and if you'd like to meet
one of the ascm b's pets you can always
visit the farmer's market again it runs
nine to noon on saturday near the north
end of downtown thank you okay thank you
thank you jennifer
next can be our jobs of the week and i
see dr francisco payanda's coming
forward
good afternoon mr mayor members of the
city council
for this week's jobs of the week
let's see
we're going to be having an economic
development coordinator this is with the
economic development department for the
city of las cruces and it's paying
between 60 880 to a range of 87 000
annually this position will be closing
on january the 28th we also have a
seasonal warehouse clerk and this is
with all them spices and the salary was
not advertised for this one but this
position will be closing on february the
18th
of this year roofer and roofing
technician this is with rich top
construction llc this position is going
to be paying between 11 55 and this is
going to be closing on march the 18th of
this year we also have a landscaper for
gna landscaping and there's two
positions available for that paying
between 12 to 14 an hour depending on
the experience and this is going to be
closing on february the 12th there's
also a position available for direct
support professional and this is with
tresco and this position paying between
11 50 to 13 an hour again depending on
the experience and both sorry this
position closes on um march the 14th of
this year as a reminder to city council
and members of the public we're going to
be conducting a couple of events in
partnership with new mexico workforce
connections and new mexico workforce
solutions initially we're going to be
having a hiring during the pandemic
workshop and this is going to be this
thursday at 5 00 pm and city council
chambers and basically about strategies
about how to hire during the pandemic
and then we're also going to be having a
job fair this one is going to be at the
las cruces convention center on february
the 10th at 3 p.m and we invite both
employers and job seekers to go to and
play
employ
employees.com
and advertise those positions in there
for a full list of jobs internships and
volunteer opportunities please visit
www.employeenm.com
and also
forward slash governmentjobs.com
forward slash las cruces and for more
information regarding any of the
information which was presented the new
mexico workforce connections offices at
226 south alameda boulevard and their
phone number is 524-6250
thank you mr mayor
thank you dr payadis we appreciate that
next item on the agenda is our covet 19
update
and assistant city manager eric
henriquez will be presenting
we're getting a money's worth out of him
today he's uh acting city manager and
also assistant manager yeah
yes sir
good afternoon mayor and council
eric enriquez assistant city manager to
provide you with the covet update for
this week
so again the case numbers continue to
rise we're seeing about 700 per day here
in dona ana county
but the vaccinations still continue to
progress in a positive manner not as
fast as we want but what we're seeing
for our boostered
adult population is now at 38 percent
that is up from 36 last week so steadily
every week it's growing about two
percent we're also seeing the youth
start to to increase uh they started a
little later but
starting to move up in the vaccinations
with the increase of course we've seen
more
of the
cases but new hospital admin
admissions have remained flat and so
have the total bids for covet patients
that's a good sign again
it relates to those that are vaccinated
not needing
hospitalization serious illness or even
death
so
but the icu beds we have seen increa an
increase because of longer stays there
and has increased to 2.3 percent
the female vaccination bus will be here
this week and we'll be conducting
vaccinations from tuesday through sunday
at young park
they will accept both appointments and
walk-ups
for patients
pmg contracted by the
dona ana county department of health
continues to vaccinate on mondays and
tuesdays at the farm and rent and
they're there on wednesdays at the
county government center and working
with them to see if we can get a city
location as well
testing
the pcr testing at the field of dreams
will be another option for residents in
las cruces to get tested and that's
expected to start later this week
the state has provided free home test
kits we're receiving about forty six
thousand the city will distribute uh to
the zip codes there eight eight zero
zero one five seven and twelve
uh we're working on those details with
our volunteer coordinators and we may
have locations that we will
through communications let people know
where they can go pick them up in these
areas as well
also i just want to add for the future
starting next month i'll also be
providing some i uh updates on asylum
refugees
right now the enunciation the numbers
are very low so not much activity but we
are going to have meetings with economic
development workforce
other
opportunities transit that the city can
help with those
afghan resettlement and i'll be
providing updates next month as those
occur
that's it mayor stanford any questions
thank you eric
questions
councillor flotus thank you mr mayor and
thank you assistant city manager
enriquez
um is there a um
a place
that people can go to to get you online
to get current information regarding
covid in terms of services you know
anything that's updated where people in
our community just go
to a website
yeah there are there are several um
that that we can provide we'll get with
communications and get those out more
frequent i i believe i've seen them in
the newsletters as well
for certain districts for the counselors
but we'll make a better effort at
getting those
online
information out as well
great and then yeah so you're going to
send it out to jamie rickman and carla
walton so they could include it in our
district newsletters
yes
thank you so much thank you mr enriquez
and thank you mr mayor
thank you anyone else
okay thank you eric we appreciate that
so the first item on the agenda is item
4.1 which is the progress report on
realized las cruces
and i see catherine harrison rogers
going to kick this off
mayor members of city council
as you all know last spring we kicked
off a project to rewrite our development
codes
today we have our consultants here
frieza nichols
to go ahead and talk about where we are
where we've been and where we're going
i'd like to introduce we have don
warwick as well as erica
craycraft and a couple of other
consultants here to answer any questions
and i'll go ahead and turn it over to
them
good afternoon mayor and council again
my name is erica craycraft with frieza
nichols
and as catherine mentioned we are
joining you today to share an update on
the development code update process
again the introductions to our team my
name is erica craycraft i'm an urban
planner and the project manager for the
code update process also joining me
today is our assistant project manager
dawn warwick
and karen perez who is a local engineer
we have two sub consultants on our team
fred lopez with quantum engineering from
el paso freda is here with us today and
local attorney dana kyle
our agenda for today is to give a quick
reminder of the code update process look
at some highlights from the first two
sections that we have been working
through with city staff that's general
provisions and the subdivision
regulations
then lastly some discussion and if you
have any questions
the overall purpose again though is just
to provide a status update on our
progress to date
so starting
with the project scope just as a
reminder all of the sections that you
see listed here are the sections of the
development code that we will be taking
a look at through this process
and on the left side in the blue box you
see major review these are the sections
that we're anticipating pretty
significant revisions to so that's
zoning subdivision design standards
drainage and flood control and the signs
our overall process is a three-phased
approach and this is planned for about a
24-month period
phase one was the first six months of
the process and we've called that the
diagnostic evaluation
during that time we
extensively reviewed the plans that you
have in place today such as the elevate
las cruces comprehensive plan as well as
some others
also engaged in
interviews with a number of folks who
use the the code regularly namely city
staff also
planning and zoning commissioners city
councilors and also local home builders
engineers surveyors all the folks who
are involved in the development process
and got their initial input and
also just our own professional review of
the codes and that culminated in the
diagnostic report memo that if you
recall back in august we brought that
and presented to you the draft memo that
was sort of the game plan for moving
forward so that was really the first
phase
identifying all the issues and proposing
some preliminary solutions
and so as i mentioned during that first
phase we really relied heavily on your
elevate las cruces plan the active
transportation plan parks master plan
neighborhood plans you have a really
strong planning foundation
so we wanted to be sure that we're using
all of that important input that you got
through really extensive public
engagement
during that time
so we've pulled forward a lot of those
recommendations that were included in
those plans and those come into the
development code to be implemented
as i mentioned during that first phase
we did a
significant number of code user
interviews you see the list of folks
here this was back in may and i think
all of you have participated in in these
interviews at this time
and just for
looking ahead into phase three we're
going to be circling back with all of
these folks whenever there is a complete
draft for them to be reviewing
we'll come back to meet with them and
make sure that we hit the mark on the
draft if there's any revisions that we
will need to be making
and then also we wanted to open up input
to the community in addition to the
input that they provided through the
elevate process we wanted to have an
option where folks could just get onto
the website realize las cruces dot com
and have an open comment forum if there
was anything that anyone wanted to share
that is still available now
and encourage anyone to go on to the
website and share their thoughts
so currently we are in phase two of the
process this is about a 12 month long
process and we're about a third of the
way through it during
at this time
and what we're doing in this process is
working really closely with city staff
so the consultant team
is taking the recommendations that we
had established in the diagnostic report
putting together a draft document
and working with city staff to really
refine
that
refine that draft so it will be ready
eventually for public review
and then looking ahead at phase three
this is about again another six-month
process where there'll be a complete
code that is available for review and
for additional comment we'll have that
time to make any refinements or
adjustments that we may need to make at
that time
so as i mentioned during phase two
we are preparing draft sections
we as in the the consultant team and we
provide those to city staff for their
review and on the right side of the
screen you can see a list of
really five main sections of the code so
we're reviewing
the
the code in
sections we aren't drafting the entire
document and giving it to city staff
we're just doing it
one one chapter at a time so you see the
chapters on the right side
so our workflow is we provide that
chapter to city staff and they provide
their comments we make revisions on
that chapter and then continue that
process until it's in a in a shape
that's ready to
share and collect some additional input
on and once it is ready for additional
comment that's something that we will
bring to you
for counsel and for pnc and also public
comment and circling back again with all
of those code users
so the first two chapters that we have
been looking at is general provisions
and subdivision regulations the next
three
sections there that are sort of grayed
out we'll be reviewing those with with
you all later but wanted to give you a
preview at what we have been looking at
in the first two chapters
so the first of those general provisions
this one is really a
housekeeping section of the code this is
establishing outlining the the title of
how it will be referred to
some universal procedures like how the
the steps that you go through to amend
the code in the future or
how annexation proceedings are occurring
a lot of this refers back to
state law
so just making sure that we're in
compliance with state law about some of
our general procedures and outlining the
approval and appeal entities this is in
the form of a table
in the current code it's pretty
confusing if you're trying to figure out
who's approving what and how do you
appeal a decision
so this section seeks to really clarify
who approves what
and
also within this section
it identifies the effective date and
sometimes that is the date that the code
is adopted it goes into effect right at
that time and one thing one of the
things that we have recommended here is
that you select
an effective date that is six months
after the adoption and that allows for a
transition period
where during that six months an
applicant could opt to
develop under the existing at that time
the old regulations or they can opt to
use the new code
and what that does is help
us and city staff to identify if there's
anything that doesn't work as smoothly
as we expected there's a six month time
where
you know if there's a particular process
that isn't working right you can always
go back and use the existing code
for what we've proposed is a is a six
month period to help with that
transition
another thing we have looked at is the
review timelines for
reviewing applications
so the current code specifies for
subdivision plats whenever a plot is
submitted the city staff has eight hours
to review and decide if it's a complete
application
and then the applicant has eight hours
to provide any missing information
and that is an unusually tight timeline
and not often followed just because it's
not a reasonable
amount of time to say provide missing
information
also the code doesn't currently address
what the review timelines are for
zoning applications this is only
specific to plots so one thing that we
have recommended in the general
provision so it would apply not just to
plaques but to site plans and everything
that city staff would have up to 10 days
to determine if your application is
complete
and then the applicant has up to 45 days
to provide any of that missing
information if they forgot to submit
their drainage plan for example they
would have some additional time to
complete the application
before they have to resubmit pay another
application fee for example
next consolidating repeat sections there
were a lot of sections in the current
code that
repeat throughout
the ordinance making it
a lot longer than it needs to be and
then also
if you make a change in one area you
might miss making the same change in
other areas so
we did consolidate some of those
sections mainly the appeals and the
notification section into general
provisions
and just wanted to point that out in
case you're reviewing some of the other
sections and you notice that
the
notification section is missing it
wasn't removed it was just moved to
general provisions so it would be a
consolidated section
next looking at the subdivision
regulations it includes four sections as
well
again general provisions specific to
subdivision regulations it's again more
of the housekeeping
plat and plan types so what are they
when is each one required and what's the
process for them
adequate public facilities refers to
installing the required public
infrastructure and then subdivision
procedures which is the the process for
planning and requesting waivers and
things like that
so we have proposed a new plot type
called a minor planning process and what
this would do
is if a if an applicant
is wanting to plot a property but they
aren't installing any public
infrastructure this would let them
bypass the need for a preliminary plat
since there's no infrastructure that
will be installed so they would be able
to skip directly to the final plat and
the point of this is just to streamline
the process for both applicants and for
city staff and for pnc
next looking at the public hearings this
is really seeking out getting an
alignment with state law
state laws specifically allows an
applicant to waive a public hearing
that's
required for a plat
your current
code does require the public hearing
so we recommended adding the option for
the applicant to waive the public
hearing if they would like to
in accordance with state law but note
that this is
specifically just for preliminary and
final plots this does not apply to
master plan so a public hearing would
still be required for a master plan
similarly state law also requires that
the city has to take action to either
approve or disprove
a plot within 35 days so if you
table it for example that doesn't meet
the the requirement you have to approve
or disprove so if action is not taken
within 35 days it's automatically
approved
so we recommend
removing the current requirement that
says that the applicant has to be
present at that meeting
because say if the applicant does not
come
you would be denying the plat
but that's not based on anything that's
in the plan it meets all the subdivision
requirements and so it should be
approved
but if you table it for example
then it would be automatically approved
in the 35 day timeline so
again that's one that we we would
propose changing in accordance with
state law for preliminary and final
plots but not for the master plan so you
would still require the applicant to be
present for a master plan
next is performance security
this is
generally whenever a final plot is
approved before the construction is
installed so if the developer is allowed
to file the final plot and sell lots but
they never get around to installing the
infrastructure and then the city is left
with the responsibility to do that so
the city requires
usually a bond from a developer to fund
the cost of those improvements
in the event they
go under or they leave the project for
some reason
if the city has to be the one to go in
and install the water waste water lines
for example
and
the current code specifically says that
a performance security is required
in the amount of the cost to cover the
improvements but it doesn't specifically
say whether it's
100 or 110 120 percent because the city
also this the city is generally not a
developer there are additional costs
that would go with you all having to
install the infrastructure
so for that reason we recommend doing at
least the extra 10 percent
uh to cover that cost in the event the
city does have to
call the bond and install the
infrastructure
also substantial completion is something
that we had talked about quite a bit
during the diagnostic report there was
an existing policy in place but it had
not been codified so that was something
that we included
in the working draft of the subdivision
regulations and what this policy does is
it allows
applicants to
request a building permit so they can
start building homes in their
subdivision before all of the
improvements are completed
and to allow this it would require dual
approval in our in our current draft we
proposed dual approval from both the
public works and the community
development directors to
allow them to
pull building permits
but it does not allow certificates of
occupancy so the houses could be built
but no one can actually move into the
subdivision until all of the
infrastructure is complete
so that wraps up my my presentation i
did have some frequently asked questions
that we've been hearing circulating if
you wouldn't mind i'd like to
to run through those first
um so one question is why aren't all of
the code users and all of the
stakeholders involved throughout this
phase two
middle part that we're in here as we're
drafting it
and as i mentioned that we're really
using the plans that the city has
adopted recently
as the foundation that's the adopted
city policy and that's what
is our foundation to get started
also
we're working very closely with city
staff and they're very knowledgeable and
involved in the process and they know a
lot of the local issues local practices
and priorities they have been extremely
helpful as we work through this process
also we're following a very typical
standard process this isn't something
that's
an unusual way to handle a code update
also on our our team don morick led a
similar effort for the city of tulsa and
fred lopez for el paso
if you have any questions
about how that process went i'm sure
that they would be happy to respond as
well
and then also
it's not that we don't want any
additional input from the code users and
the stakeholders
they were certainly involved in phase
one but their involvement is really
critical in phase three once there is a
draft for them to respond to we
definitely want them to be involved
next why is this process different than
the elevate comprehensive plan process
so comprehensive plans
in general are more visionary long-range
documents and they have a more extensive
public outreach program where the entire
community is involved in setting the
policy and codes are a little different
in that they are
regulatory technical documents they
aren't establishing a vision or anything
they're really implementing the vision
that was established by the plan
and again the the public in general and
the specific code users are involved in
this process uh they were in phase one
and will be again certainly during phase
three
also why aren't there draft documents
available yet
we're still we're still drafting them to
put it shortly it's a 12-month process
that we're going through just to draft
all of the documents so there isn't
necessarily
a lot of content that is ready to be
reviewed just yet as i mentioned city
staff is playing a really important role
in helping us sort of knock off the
rough edges on the initial drafts before
they're ready to look at and we we have
some rough drafts that we're working
through
but we also don't want to ask anyone to
start reviewing
a
500 page document that we're expecting
to to change again before it's ready to
be reviewed
so in in respect of people's time and
effort we certainly want input but we
want that input to be focused really on
a document that we feel is ready
for someone to spend their time on and
that said we do plan to share first
drafts soon
of the general provisions section and
the subdivision regulations the two
sections that i generally cover today
we're working with city staff on
wrapping up some
remaining open points on
both of those chapters and those will be
available on the website
and lastly when can others provide input
so others being anyone other than city
staff so be sure to stay tuned for the
phase three process that will happen
mainly in november whenever there is a
complete draft that is ready for input
in the meantime
if there is any input that any of the
code users or public in general anyone
else wants to provide the virtual open
house is still live at realize las
cruces dot com and that is available for
any open-ended input feel free to go to
the website and share that with us
and we also heard a little confusion
about whether
there are some stakeholder meetings
happening
during the process and then not meeting
with others
we do have a meeting scheduled tomorrow
with some of the code users as just a
follow-up and providing information
about the process it's not intended to
be collecting any input but so through
the remainder of phase two
we don't have any stakeholder code user
meetings planned to collect any input
really just joining those meetings to
provide some clarification about the
process
so
that concludes my presentation if you
have any comments or questions i would
be happy to take those thank you thank
you eric i'm going to ask council if
they have any questions and then i'm
going to i'm going to allow
some members of the public to
state some of their concerns
so we have councilor flotus
thank you mr mayor and uh thank you so
much um
miss crayers
or
miss crayercraft i'm sorry my sloppy
handwriting
um
i
have a ton of questions so please be
patient okay um
so
there there was one slide it doesn't
really matter which page it was on and
there was an explanation as to how this
differs from elevate las cruces
so yeah would necessarily
be somewhat different because it's
codification
but
is there any
is there any specific
reference you can make
it would have been really good for us to
see
where um
the specifics of elevate lascarusas have
been codified
because everything that we do everything
that we're codifying has to be
persistent consistent with
with elevate las cruces so in the next
presentation which i hope is sooner than
the timeline you've given us
we can get that because i think it's
crucial
to be monitoring
the adherence to elevate lascosis
so
the other is
the there's
uh now you are working solely with staff
and i believe you indicated that there
have been no other stakeholder meetings
is that correct and did you say that
right now that's correct with the the
consulting team has not had any other
meetings with stakeholder or input
groups other than tomorrow we do have
one scheduled with some of the
code users
the folks who we interviewed back in
may can you define code users please
uh sure that was the the list of the
two columns so that's local home
builders local developers
the
mpo
surveyors
i can go back to the full list okay no
that's fine i think
i could have stopped you at builders
um so thank you
but so
you are meeting with them tomorrow and
um what exactly is the purpose of that
meeting and um i certainly hadn't heard
about it and i don't know if the
community has heard about it
and um you know this this is very
information that i know that
is crucial to some of our districts
specifically district 5 and district 6
which has seen
an exponential growth and
and some of these areas that you covered
are troubling to me thus far
and i don't know
how detailed
your presentation will be
once the codes
are
written and i would appreciate
not just a slew of codification
of the codes that are
will be presented to us
but to have a
frequent presentation so that we have
people who are very interested in the
development of our city
to be able to speak up and be and be
participating and not have a meeting you
know just maybe during those phases you
know those three phases i mean
not just
not just during
upon the you know we reach like right
now there are three phases and
we already have um
march through september 21 and i see
david coming mr we're coming and then
phase two will be september 21 through
september 22.
um and i don't remember the last time
you were here on miss carey craft but
it was some time ago it was a quite a
few months ago
when was it
august august yeah and here we are yeah
in january for me
it seems like a long time when you're
thinking about codifying re-codifying
the entire development code
and
and i will tell you
and i and please forgive me for this but
um
but i it has come to my attention that
there have been meetings uh with
developers and i don't know if it was
your organization or another
organization perhaps it's been our own
department
but i find it disturbing that there
aren't open meetings regarding that it
makes me very happy though that you have
proposed that all of these be open
meetings
the one tomorrow is disturbing to me
only because it sounds like it's not
including the entire community it's the
people who are quote stakeholders and i
think in your words but i think that
the real stakeholders are also the
entire community in the way we're
affected
and
and quite frankly there have been many
instances where um
with all due respect to and i see mr
moscato here
with all due respect john there have
been times when developers don't
come come through with
some of the things that they're supposed
to do and i have
specifically nambae arc in mind and
other probably cases so
i i would like to see this uh mr mayor
or uh
the powers that be mr nichols i would i
would like more frequent
uh presentations on this because this is
all that's pretty much second nature to
you you you know you eat and breathe
this and have for many many years and
all of us come from different diverse
backgrounds and yet we're supposed to
make decisions that
affect people's lives and the quality of
life because a development
or codification in one area necessarily
impacts and affects other people the
entire community so um
so
um
so there's other you know there's every
you know like slide 19 slide 20 you know
effective dates
the update on general provisions uh
all of that is just
such a chock full of things and again
with all due respect this is your
profession so you see it need it and
breathe it you know every day we don't
and so we need this we need to see this
with more frequency and um
and and i want it to be so that and and
you know like for example
um
the substantial
the substantial completions portion
that is very troubling to me and even
though and i think that would slide 29
um because it says that the
the uh
the structure can't be occupied until
there's a
complete complete uh
[Music]
complete completion
so substantial completion
um
doesn't ring right with me
and if if uh
if our department and developers or
you know the the community development
department says well this is standard
procedure this is what we do well then i
need to know we need to know what that
really means
and and is there any wiggle room to not
have substantial uh
a completion and still have occupancy
because things like that happen all the
time i'm not saying that it has happened
here i'm just saying that when you have
language like substantial
performance or completion um that's
that's really well it's it's a code and
it's legal so
it's very arbitrary so we need to know
exactly what that means and there's also
a provision there about
the
the costs where did i write that down
the cost shifting over to the city i
believe and
let me see
uh
is that the performance security
the 110 percent uh slide 28 performance
security
well that was
and the slide 29
yeah that one yeah yeah here it is thank
you yes slide 28.
um
we recommend specifying 110 of the
improvements cost to cover the city's
administrative costs
by whom by the city
so um
to answer this specific question the
performance security is covering the
cost excuse me erica can you talk closer
to the mic please
sorry this is better
okay
performance security is referring
specifically to the infrastructure that
a developer would typically be
responsible for installing so say the
water lines in a community and so if i'm
a developer and i
am planning my subdivision and i want to
go ahead and file my final plot so i can
start selling lots
so then the lots get sold and people
want to eventually move in to the
subdivision but if i as the developer
go out of business or i've lost interest
in this subdivision for some reason
i just leave
and then the city is stuck with all
these property owners who are upset that
they don't have water lines installed so
they say
you know city we expect you to provide
these services and it becomes the city's
responsibility to install the water if
the developer leaves so typically what
happens is
if a developer wants to file a final
plat so they can sell lots before
everything is done
the city requires them to post some type
of a bond that says
if i don't finish the infrastructure
that i'm required to install here's a
bond for
that same amount of money
and that allows the city to cash in that
bond if the city has to come out and
install the water lines for example
and so right now then the city already
requires this that's already a typical
practice
the proposed change here is that the
current code says
that the amount of the bond should just
cover the cost of improvements and it's
not very clear
what exactly that is so if my
improvements are going to cost a million
dollars
well
as a developer
a million dollars in
improvements to me
versus the city having to be the ones
to figure out how to build all these
water lines and do all this
infrastructure that's not usually what
the city does the city incurs extra
costs so it's going to cost the city
more than a million dollars to install
all of that it's going to cost them 1.1
million dollars because the city is not
a developer
so what we've proposed including in this
one specifically
is stating that it's 110
of the cost of installing all that
infrastructure
would it be possible miss craycroft to
um
to have a language that's specific to
that and and
as we go along
i would would i would be very helpful to
me
would be to
have the current code as it appears and
language as you would like it to appear
because
at the end of the day
if this is what we're going to be
getting to vote on eventually
we really don't know what the final
code's going to look like until it's
printed you know we voted yes oh yes it
looks good yada yada and then blah blah
and then at the end of the day
we really don't know what we did because
we didn't see the line through and the
and the uh substitute language or
additional language so would that be um
something that you could do miss
craycroft or mr nichols and ms harrison
rogers and mr weir
if we could get that
i would really appreciate it
oh yes i believe so whenever we have
been working with city staff we start
with the current draft or excuse me the
current code
and as we go through each round of
drafts we have been tracking changes
with red lines
but we
have accepted it at each round so we
don't have one necessarily that's from
the original code but i think that's
something that we could make if it would
be beneficial
to see the
the old code current code as red lines
yes it wouldn't be beneficial it's
really essential it's really necessary
otherwise we don't know what we're going
to be doing at the end of the day and
we need a clear explanation as to what
it substitutes and why
you know just like any other legislation
that that would be
worked on
so we we need to see that specifically
and
now at
a slide 20
there's an effective date and you
recommend six months for transitional
adjustments
and
review of timelines
maybe that was the next one but
is this a
the six months of transitional period
where applicants could develop under
either code
is that something that is usually done
in in
when you change codes developments
there's not an effective date of maybe
you know
you know shorter than that
sure
we typically recommend six months but it
can be effective on the day that you
adopt it it can be three months it could
be a year if you want it i think
this is just our recommendation for it
to be
six months but that's an easy change if
that is
an
adjustment that should be made well it's
going to be about a year i think at the
rate we're going right now it's going
about a year and a half before the code
is adopted
it's based in 2023 we're in 2022 anyway
yeah by the from the time you start to
time we finish
and um
i mean
i i think that for
developments in progress they'd be
covered by the date that they started
but
um
but maybe someone in uh community
development can explain to me if this is
a standard procedure and why it's done
it says right here allows time for any
necessary amendments for issues
identified during practical use well
they're covered under the initial uh
contract or begin date aren't they mr
weir um mayor and councillor flores
kind of i think one way to look at that
is a transition period so that
the community can realize that the code
is changing and they can start making if
somebody is
has already purchased land and wants to
develop it they they know that there's a
time period to get ready
uh the other thing that takes place is
that we're proposing that the entire
city
have a new zoning map
and so there may be some properties that
that zoning
is changing that six month period gives
them an opportunity to identify
this is a drastic change from my
land uses that i had currently and what
you're proposing now
so basically gives us time to to catch
those type of things to transition also
all of our application processes to
inform
the community at large the design
professionals that actually prepare the
the plants and zone changes so that
they're aware of
this change is taking place and they can
plan accordingly yeah so i recognize
that it's a notice issue and i think
that a notice issue is is definitely
something that has to be entertained but
six months i mean
from what i've seen and
since i've
my experience has been my
my perception what i've seen
is that
builders are on top owners landowners
developers are on top of it and
and that's why mr moscato is here and
probably other people so they're well
aware so i
you know i
six months i don't know is that what
other jurisdictions do what other
municipalities do
i would like to maybe see something
that's less than that and that would
give everybody ample time to scramble
around and figure out what to do with
their plats or their plots or their
acreage their land
mayor and councillor flores i think
that's something that that can be worked
out through the process you know we we
have until uh november to try to make a
recommendation on that so if your
preferences
that we move forward we can address that
great thank you mr weir and miss
craycraft you also i think it was slide
20 or one right after that uh the review
of timelines and uh current um
is so many hours to or days to repla
that there's
the eight hours to
replat the
application these are just my scribbly
notes i'm having problems reading them
but
um apparently uh from eight hours
you want to expand it to ten days for
completion and 45 days from the date of
the application that's a drastic change
can you explain mr weir it seems like
you're
getting ready to answer that one too
why why why i mean that is really
drastic from eight hours to you know 45
days that's a month and a half mayor and
counselor flores
we don't follow currently followed eight
hour practice you know what
the eight hours
we don't follow that practice when
applications come in
excuse me dave can you talk a little bit
closer to my completion
the reality is
we take all applications in and we
process them out and so
it becomes an efficiency type of issue
with the 10 days it allows us to make
sure that all of the information is
correct
one of the criticisms we've had in
development reviews
is that we accept whatever takes place
and then we'll have four or five
different reviews that take place
the the desire is that we get all the
information up front and that 10 days
gives us the opportunity to get that
information and then it sets a specific
timeline as to what
um the application
that within 45 days
they'll submit all that information
it'll be a clean review and we can and
get things approved more efficiently
what happens now is we we take the
information often times
there will be additional information
needed
or
it'll be incomplete or some of the
reviewing staff feels like we're kind of
doing quality control for some of the
design professionals
and so this is really an attempt to
address that
and to make it more efficient for the
city the developers and then so that we
can have more affordable development
for the communities at large well the 10
days seem to make sense in terms of the
department's review of the application
but then you're allowing
45 days for the
application to come up to a standard or
to answer the questions that came up in
your 10-day review the application this
would not be
us making comments it's just that all
the information we need
that they're saying we meet city
standards
so that they get that turn around in a
you know two or three days we would then
start the applications review so the 45
days is really
on the the applicant and so if they
don't meet that we would consider it an
incomplete or uh
we wouldn't even accept it as an
application they'd have to start over so
mr weir does that mean that you have
taken up to uh those two instead of
taking ten hours you've taken up to ten
hours at one point and then up to 45
hours after that i mean 45 days after
that is that why is that what this
change is based on
they're kind of apples and oranges we
currently don't have this type of
process
in reality
we have
a zone change or a subdivision plot they
they submit that i want to subdivide
this they say that i've provided all of
the information
to the city that i meet your standards
we process that out to our reviewing
department so
that means public works parks and
recreation utilities community
development
police and fire also have an opportunity
to look at development as takes place
and so
if there's incomplete information those
departments note you did not provide
this do not provide this you've not
tried this
it comes back to us and then we send it
back out and say
none of the
departments have reviewed this you
haven't provided enough information to
show that you meet standards
so you need to address these items
what this new process is trying to do is
saying
we're having 10 days to make sure that
all the information is correctly
submitted
and then if there's any deficiencies we
send it back to them and say your
application has not started
you had
you left out some information so instead
of
sending it out to all those departments
um and doing their technical reviews
we're saying there's an incompleteness
and that's what the 10 days is for so 45
days is for 45 days is on
the applicant themselves
so they're they're saying for for this
so that they submit this we get them
back and said these are the you need to
provide a drainage plan or you need to
do a traffic study
and we're not going to send that out for
technical review until you provide that
information so the applicant then has 45
days to get that information together
and and then submit it for the technical
review and approval
and so that's really on their standard
so
one thing it can be an incentive for
them to get all that information up
front because they want to get these
projects approved as quickly as possible
and let's say
they don't want to re
want to have to pay additional fees or
application reviews so it's
it's kind of a
carrot and stick
for
the city and the applicants
well it's still kind of baffling to me
that from eight hours to a 55 day you
know that's almost two months it just
seems so extreme that it just doesn't it
in my
you know world it's just like wow
so it's it's like a long time and then i
wonder how long it's going to
delay moving forward a better
analogy is it's gone from a one day that
staff has to review these
uh so one business day
two to ten
days 45 days mr weir
then there's business
that 45 days is not
on
city staff that's the applicant to
resubmit that
comes may i try to use an example no no
i
and see if he can because i understand
where you're coming from because that's
a little confusing myself so if i may
yes so so david let me just ask you this
so developer comes in let's say it's a
small plot it's nothing huge he's got
everything he or she's got everything
put together
they give it to the city because keep in
mind now the city council spent six
seven hundred thousand dollars on nasa
to get make sure that the when the
contractors when the developers bring it
in that everything's
moving fast
so there used to be a time
that the city had to respond to you
this is excluding this the to the to the
developer is that still there
um
the time to respond let's say they bring
it to they bring you the plans a long
time ago they used to bring like five
sets of plans right and they had to go
to all these different places
and they had to sign off on a certain
amount of time is that certain amount of
time still there on this that is still
in in the in the code that we have so
many days to review those when we do our
technical and how many days are those i
believe it's currently eight days and
five days depending depending on which
review it is is that changing at all
um i believe that it is being proposed
to change um but i said this is an
application process
what the 45 days is we have seen plats
and applications get submitted
and then they go through the first
review and then six months nine months a
year later do they come back with the
second review this kind of puts on an
onus on the applicant is i really intend
to go forward with this the 10 days
allow us to from a city's perspective to
say yes this application is complete
and then yet now we still need these
items you have you as the applicant or
proposing this project has 45 days to
bring that application
to the minimum requirements to get your
approval
and if you don't respond in that five 45
days we deem the project
uh to be failed or default it's it's
similar to a building permit
where if you don't call an inspection in
within 90 days
the building permit is deemed
invalid or not
not on the books anymore and and that
makes sense but can we circle back to
this eight and five that you said might
be changing
are you is it changing to be quicker or
is it changing to be longer because you
would think with the investment that
we've given to community development it
would be quicker
is it going to be less than eight and
five is it gonna be like
five and three i
uh admitted ignorance on what is being
proposed
but it's much
what's being proposed is much more
cleaner of what the city's
expectations for reviews are and what
the expectations are in the client uh
on the return of the reviews i think
catherine might have a better feel for
that
mr mayor members of city council the
eight and five days that you're speaking
of those actually have to do uh with our
permitting
as opposed to say zoning applications or
subdivision applications so for example
construction uh drawings
may be associated with a subdivision but
the permit for those construction
drawings there's a certain uh review
time frame in which to review those
technical documents those are somewhat
separated they're not exactly part of
this process that is uh those are these
are applications having to do with
building permits this particular project
while they're all
related um this is zoning subdivision
special use permits they're separate and
distinct
does does that explain things it does
catherine if i make counselor but it
doesn't sound good because it sounds
like you're going to make it longer you
know i want to i think this council is
expecting to be faster we hear this all
the time from contractors from business
owners from people wanting to do
business city that we're not business
friendly and we we invest a lot of money
to hopefully get this thing quicker and
faster and and
if you can't tell us that this is going
to be quicker
you know what that that we're not i
don't want us to go backwards why did we
spend all this money to
so i thought we're going to get it
faster
we used to have
if several years ago before probably
predates all of you we used to have a
24-hour turnaround on a one-stop shop on
a permitting on certain simple permits
we wanted to send a message to
businesses
that we do support them and we
appreciate them but
you know
time is money and these developers when
they're spending millions of dollars
that interest accumulates every day
and i don't i don't think it's fair for
us to if if we have the tools and that's
why we did this investment to
to expect it to be longer i i just don't
think that i don't think that was the
intent of counsel when they passed this
if i could point out one thing that i
know that erica had mentioned i think
maybe maybe it was glossed over a little
bit there are no timelines um in the
zoning section of the code this
establishes timelines um
so for example if somebody came in and
submitted a
special use permit for example
there's there's actually nothing in the
code right now that tells the applicant
or staff how long
we are supposed to spend reviewing it
for completeness and then ultimately how
long it takes to get it to planning and
zoning uh for a recommendation
this actually establishes um some review
timelines
and i i do think that's a good thing
because right now they don't excuse me
excuse me catherine i i heard you insert
zoning i'm talking about permitting and
maybe we're not on the permitting part
but since we're on discussing and i
think this is where i'll admit i'm like
counselor florida's i'm a little
confused too with you know the eight
days eight hours to 45 days this all
sounds good and i can almost assure you
that if a developer was going to take 45
days either they're sitting on a lot of
cash or or they're just sell financing
it themselves and they don't really care
i mean but that's good 45 days you
should be able to get it done
but we'll go i'll stop here i'll turn it
back to counselor flotus but i'd like to
revisit that because i i think from the
nods from the heads from the ones that
are nodding i think council wants to see
it quicker instead of later
to get these plans approved from when a
contractor developer brings their things
to to the city sure if i could mr mayor
councillor flores members of city
council we're not talking about building
permits that's an entirely separate um
process and that's actually what we're
not discussing today i just want to
reiterate those those are separate
distinct we're not touching those at
this juncture
i i think that we understand that part
very well thank you thank you so much
and but um mr weir you started to um you
you
i believe okay
so you've explained it i understand it
but the part that's missing
is that either in the presentation with
all due respect or
in the um
perhaps there's a plan to write it
but i would i would and and this is
something that our city attorney can
definitely address
but it would be
very helpful to us
in terms of reviewing the proposed
codification
to specifically state in that section
and i don't know how it's going to be
numbered or anything like that we we
don't have that in front of us but
if it's it would say specifically
that it's a new
uh a new
code altogether it's not replacing a
code it's creating a code and to let us
know that
and then
and be good also
to explain
you know what it would do as i said
earlier
and again it's just that all of you are
very knowledgeable and those are your
fields that's those are your professions
that you're training that's your trade
and ours isn't
and yet we make the final decision so we
want things to be fair and equitable all
around
so
mayor and council flores
one of the things that we included in
this project was
an implementation manual that was in
that phase three
and i think that will be
very informative
for
the community as the the city as an
organization the departments that that
deal with these things it'll be
something that can be used as reference
by the city council
and it's also something that we can
provide to the development community in
the in the the community at large and so
that
that kind of provides some of that
ladder that shows how we go from our
existing development codes to these ones
that are adopted
but
our practice as a city has always been
to to
show red lines of amendments that
they've taken place of existing
ordinances
but typically that's a section of an
ordinance you know you're changing one
or two
we're talking
as
ms craig craft said
500.
500 pages of documents and so we'll
provide that
but one of the other charges that we put
into this contract
was that we would try to simplify it
for better or worse the city used to to
write a lot of things in the round so
that each each
like a zone change or special use permit
or pud
or subdivision that if whatever type of
application was being submitted we wrote
here's your development process
here's your required information and so
what
is being put together now is putting all
those administrative things in one
chapter
and so
there will need to be some
cross-referencing but
i just want to make you aware of that as
as we bring these forward that
um
these are going to be big documents and
they'll more than likely be organized
differently than they are today with the
the new draft that
that comes forward but they will be made
available to us as a city council
yes
and and we're going to make them
available on the website for everybody
to look at
as because
one of our major concerns was that it is
such a large document we wanted to to
provide those in sections so that people
could see
before they're all zipped together as
one
at the end so um
and just kind of get back to the process
we're basically coming back to the
council on quarterly basis to show
we also get
monthly project reports we'll provide
those at the council we started to do
that to see
where we're at what the entire schedule
the project is
so that you can see what's available
we have that on the website also we're
building out
interested party lists so that was
drafts come available and we'll post
those on the website
we'll do a
a notification to those people so they
know that it's now available and they
can go looking forward
um
so far excuse me for interrupting you
but in so far as notification to
people
does that include
the communities that are being impacted
now for example
all the development going towards
redhawk
you know the undeveloped roads there and
and all the tracks going up there and
and i don't understand how fire trucks
and traffic can go in those unfinished
turnarounds or turnabouts or whatever
roundabouts
all that sort of stuff is all of that
taken into account too when
when you're doing this mayor castle
florida it is um
we're
using lists of people that participated
in other planning efforts and and
building uh those contacts so they'll
have that available and so if they
participated in a previous project
uh from the land use planning uh
we'll
we'll provide that the
plan zoning commission has also provided
interested parties that they they feel
is appropriate
one other thing i just wanted to to note
is
the the users that were contacted
that was as a part of that first phase
the diagnostic
they weren't asked to comment on
anything that's been drafted they were
asked to look at our current codes and
identify issues and so all that was
included in to the
diagnostic report and so
excuse me mr uh weir
the the word code users and um and quote
other stakeholders unquote
please define those
code users are who they're people code
users are anyone that uses the zoning
code the subdivision code such as design
standards
builders developers builders developers
real estate attorneys surveyors civil
engineers
individual property owners
uh non-profits are those stakeholders or
are those code users those those are
potentially code users okay and then who
are the stakeholders mr weir
stakeholders
maybe a better term would be interested
parties people that are
interested parties people that are
interested in following this this
process and and that could be
anyone that that lives or works in the
the city of las cruces
okay and notices are going out to
everybody in the city
through different media
through different media yeah not
individual invitations are going out to
anybody it's um
we
we have done um social media blasts and
these efforts we we post it uh on our
web page
um we make announcements at the planet
zoning commission meetings we have these
work sessions with you city council um
and
and so it's it's that combined effort
for notice that public engagement that
the city does yeah thank you mr weir and
then um ms craycroft you indicated that
there'd be public input i believe it was
public input and that's not going to be
until november or that was november of
2021 or is that november of 2022 where
is the public going to you know and i'm
talking about um what's it called
charrettes so sort of like a charrette
thing or
uh like the many zoom meetings that we
had regarding the east loman
development area there
so
input
will be when
and it will it be for everybody in the
city to know and be able to attend i'll
i'll start and turn it over to easter
beer but so yes we started the
community-wide input back in may with
the virtual open house we had intended
to have an in-person open house but
given the pandemic situation we did not
have the in-person event
but the upside of not doing
say a one day or a couple of day event
by doing the online version it's still
active so uh all the way since may and
we plan to keep that website active it's
realizelasscrewsys.com and there's
open-ended input that anyone can get on
and share their input you can log on and
see previous comments that other people
have submitted
comment on those like or dislike
and so that will continue to be live for
any member of the community who would
like to share their input once we have a
draft document that is in the form for
anyone to review and respond to will
have hopefully an in-person open house
event that happens in the fall
yes excuse me i believe that was
november is that what you said so we're
going to go all these months
working with other groups
stakeholders
and the community at large is
sort of like if they get online and
dig around and see what's going on mayor
and council flores that's where we were
building out this list of interested
parties so that as we get just various
chapters completed
we can make them aware that it is
available for them to look at and and
we'll
as soon as we complete these two
sections we're working on now
we'll announce that there's now a
working draft available and if you
wanted to see that contact the committee
development department or go to that web
page
and we can answer those questions so
that's going to happen
throughout this 12-month period that
we're working on now developing those
codes so
those people that are
interested in seeing how this progress
uh anybody whether they're
uh involved in land development or if
they're in uh neighborhood organizing or
if they're they just
were part of elevate las cruces
the same information will be available
to everyone and it
we will post that on the web page except
we always are as staff we have a planner
of the day
or we have our info contact information
available how we'll answer questions and
allow them to provide input and then as
ms craig croft said the web page also
has a virtual open house where if they
want to exchange ideas or let other
people see that they can comment and
leave those on the web page great thank
you mr weir and what i would uh request
is that to have publications in our
local newspapers with the bulletin or
the sun news
and
and have maps of the different uh areas
that uh are owned you know undeveloped
land that is now privately owned you
don't have to
publicize well i guess it's public
record right as to who owns the land
around the city
but it'd be really helpful to see that
because
um because believe me i mean my
constituents are
i mean you know like you move in and see
the beautiful mountains and all of a
sudden you don't want anybody else to
develop and
you know just everybody wants a
beautiful view of the oregon mountains
and since i'm here no more development
type of thing so in all fairness to um
constituents and just everybody
everybody in in the city and in every
just everybody who who loves this part
of the world as we do
um it'd be fair to do that and so that's
my big ask in addition to all the
questions i've asked
and um and um would that be possible mr
weir or
um
city manager
that that is something that we'll do
i think that's the the balancing act
what we're working on now is all those
procedural things yes it doesn't tie to
a specific parcel of property when we
get to the zoning map
i agree with you that that's going to be
very important people are going to want
to see what zoning is going to be on on
their property and we have every
intentions uh
we will have to do that for this to be a
successful project right well existing
i'm sorry no and i was just saying
that's where we're balancing is uh
how do we right now there's no spatial
element to it it's
it's application deadline reviews
a lot of of process oriented type yeah i
understand yeah yeah i totally totally
understand that part but i'm just
throwing that in because i might not
have the opportunity and uh we all have
so many other um you know
issues to to take care of
and that sort of stuff and i thought
that this would be the appropriate place
to bring that up
so um
well thank you very much miss craycroft
and thank you mr weir and ms harrison
rogers thank you very very much and
thank you mr mayor councillor after the
council has their questions i'm going to
actually i've been i've been asked by
six or seven members of
various users code users and
stakeholders that are outside of what
you saw to speak uh maybe three minutes
each
and they can share with us their
comments so that in the little mini part
could be
some additional input but what i was
going to ask at the conclusion and i'll
just say it now is that for
frees and nichols to give us a monthly
report of what they've done what has
changed and what they're what they're
proposing so that we're kind of a little
bit we don't have to
have to digest it all at one time so it
could be
something monthly that we could have
at a council meeting and that would be
something to be really helpful i think
so let me turn back to my colleagues
counselor ben cuomo has a question
thanks mayor
hi thank you for your presentation i
just have a couple questions
in terms of the issues that mayor
rose earlier
regarding timeline and making this have
you gotten public input from code users
on that specific issue yet
thinking back on the
code user meetings that we did back in
may i don't remember excuse me erica can
you talk to that mike sorry
thinking back on the the code user
interviews that we did back in may i
don't remember identifying anyone
identifying that as a comment
specifically i think that was something
that came out of our review of the
existing documents was
eight hours doesn't seem like nearly
enough time and it's not what other
cities are doing to review that how
is that working and the response was no
it is not working for city staff
and then also
noticing that this is a requirement for
planning but there is no requirement in
place for zoning related applications so
that i think came from our
recommendations okay so i think partly
may or what i would also like to see is
some of that feedback that you're rece
in your presentations to us what are
community members saying what are code
users saying okay i would like to see
some of that information as well and
then um just as the conversation was
going i i
honestly can't believe i hadn't thought
to ask this before but
i'm curious
about beyond public stakeholder meetings
meetings with code users
are you
i'm imagining the staff is but are you
sort of being and forgive the word i
can't think of a better word but
lobbied by
folks outside of these public meetings
and if so how are you navigating that so
that the process remains
fair and equitable and not
the interest of one group doesn't
outweigh frankly the interest of the
community
um great great question the only
meeting that we have participated or
will participate in as consultants is
the one scheduled for tomorrow that is
targeted toward that list of the code
users the books that we met with back in
may is a check in with them to let them
know
here's our process that we're working
through here's the next steps and here's
how you can be involved either through
the website or in november
we are not asking for any
input or feedback from them at that
meeting it's just purely q a about about
the process
okay and i imagine then you're doing
that outside of those meetings if people
if groups are reaching out to you
with suggestions or hey
we think this is a good idea you're
saying
there's a very
public process in which you can provide
that input
the parallel to that i would say again
is the the website that has a lot of
this information available and also the
information that
we plan to present tomorrow at that code
user meeting
is basically exactly the same
presentation that you all saw in august
that was a presentation of the
diagnostic report and so our
presentation is
this is the tentative game plan that was
given the the green light for getting
started by the planning and zoning
commission and city council back in
august this is what we're using to guide
the plan update
it's a finalized document we're not
really asking for any input
on that that's our game plan moving
forward things can change through the
code update
process but that's our starting point
okay
thank you i appreciate it thank you
mayor
mayor pro tem thank you
and then counselor graham i'm sorry
thank you mayor thank you um so much um
mr krupp i miss craig and
staff i appreciate that um
you know i i had
some concerns about the timelines i
think we often hear
we're on business unfriendly it takes a
bit
to move through the process at community
development i think council before
[Music]
one of the priorities was to develop
this one-stop shop and and time frames
to be shortened drastically as a result
of that and so this you know i agree
with this in particular
um this particular slide i i i'm very
concerned that we would move from eight
hours to 10 days
with a 45 day completion or
time frame if you will it gives me great
pause and and i just want you to know
that it's it's very concerning and i
really want to hear from the development
community related to that so mayor i'm
not sure if these folks
are specific going to come up and and
are a part of the development community
or any any any cohort that has anything
to do with this the other thing is i
would recommend that we consistently and
constantly week after week send out
numerous
reminders press releases related to this
i think this is important and one cohort
that i feel
gets
i wouldn't say forgotten but i don't
hear from the real estate community and
this is where i think there is
definitely um
a barrier or gap that we don't hear
often enough and probably who is
mostly responsible for giving out
information that might not be accurate
in terms of like we'll never there'll
never be development up on on a
particular
area and so i'm not sure um
the kind of communication we are having
for with each of these cohorts but i
think it needs to be
robust
and regular
and i hope that
you know this this um
particular meeting
has been made available or given right
to them i think that's very important if
it hasn't then we should hold other
public meetings regularly to get input
especially related to some of the
suggestions that you're making currently
i also agree that this certainly isn't
in my wheelhouse i've been very open and
transparent about that you guys get to
see this all the time it's like it's in
your blood like social work isn't mine
um and so i these you know when you
present these things and you talk about
things like cross connection control
i that honestly with all due respect
that doesn't make any sense to me
and so
defining those those things would be
helpful to me at every time that you
come up
and you present these and i would really
love finally to see the red line version
those are all important
because i i don't know what those codes
say and
i want to be able to to learn as we go
frankly
and but to make you know the best
decision for everybody involved so if if
you could do that
at each time that you come up and
present that would be
extremely helpful thank you mayor thank
you
thank you
if i could respond to one part of that
um catherine correct me if i'm wrong but
i think that we invited several realtors
to participate in the initial
uh code user interviews i was looking to
see if they were on this list and i
think that they did not attend
um the
opportunity for input so yeah you can
only do so much right can you force them
to come to these meetings yes i i agree
thank you thank you before i get to
councillor graham mayor pro tem would
you present is a great idea and i don't
know if you you may or may not be aware
item 4.2 is going to have to be pulled
from the agenda so after the six or
seven people make their three-minute
presentation i'll open it up to members
of the public for two minutes each
whoever's out there that hasn't spoke so
they can provide us some additional
comment
so
okay counselor graham
thank you mayor thank you for this
presentation just a quick request on the
redline document or track changes that
we're talking about if you could just
throw a margin comment in for changes
and let us know the justification or
what's behind it that would be really
useful and i think also the definitions
to which mayor pro tem
uh referred i think that would be
helpful too to those of us who are
learning on our feet thank you thank you
did you have a something else i do mayor
i'm sorry i meant to say that we also
have had some transition with new
counselors and
pnz folks and so probably
reaching out to each of them
individually to ask for you know to meet
up with them to have that discussion as
some of us had with you would be would
be helpful um
too i think yes thank you we actually
did that
at the end of december with the two new
counselors and hope to do the same with
the new pnc commissioner thank you
okay so um sometime
last year probably late last year i had
some members of the building industry
come to me and ask if they could meet
with
myself and the city manager and some
staff and to find out what realized las
cruces is
so i did facilitate that
the frieza nichols was not there it was
strictly with uh ifo and his team
and the members of the building industry
and so
in the last
i don't know a month various other
stakeholders
wanted to be included and i said well
let's just use this meeting as an
opportunity
they were fine with that there's about
six or seven of them that are out there
but i said three minutes each and they
said that's fine i know mr david lynch
from aarp
is going to
let's kick it off or start it off and
our
our good friend mayor potem emeritus
sharon thomas could not be here today
so
dave is
pinch hitting for her thank you mr mayor
and council for listening to us
we'll need you to speak right into the
mic please because it's kind of my name
is dave lynch i'm a volunteer with aarp
currently the aarp new mexico state
president
as well as the president of the local
chapter
and community presence group i'd like to
give now since sherry regrets that she
wasn't here her husband is having an
operation this afternoon
but this is her introduction to the
presentation
more than 10 years ago senator jeff
steinborn and county commissioner karen
perez started a group to study the
comprehensive plans of las cruces and
dona ana county
several from that group later ran for
office including me
so during my years on the console and
planning in the zoning commission land
development design
standards etc have been at the top of my
interest
i also was a chair of the advisory
committee that worked with a consultant
to write the new comprehensive plan
elevate las cruces
i'm very interested in the
implementation of las cru
elevate las cruces and i know other
people in the community who are also
interested in the implementation
of elevate las cruces
so i've asked this group to respond to
the presentation today
you already have the comments i
submitted on your diagnostic report
i have several other people who are here
today who would like to share their
comment
their comments they represent the
bicycling community the safe routes to
schools program aarp
lwv affordable housing committee a green
builder realtor and an nmsu geography
department professor who supports
complete streets again thank you for
allowing us to present and our first
presenter is george pearson
who will be representing the las cruces
bicycle community
thank you mr lynch
george i just need you to state your
name even though he
recognized you i'm george pearson i'm
chair of the mpo bicycle pedestrian and
facilities advisory committee and also
the vice president of velo cruises a
bicycle advocacy organization
the work you're hearing about today is
very effective and it will affect
virtually
every citizen of las cruces
it's important that the existing plans
be referenced especially the active
transportation plan
should be a big influence on shaping the
codes
we must work towards a complete and safe
city
for
all bicyclists and pedestrians
connecting facilities is also very
important
something in looking at the diagnostic
code review that i noticed
there's not really any mention of
bicycle parking we need to add required
bicycle parking so that
bicyclists can go to destinations shop
safely
spend their money safely have their
bicycle there when they leave and go
home again
i didn't see anything specific about
intersection design
we need to make sure that we are
designing intersections as safely as
possible because intersections are where
conflicts happen
thank you
thank you george
eddie you're going to have to hold off
for a bit
good afternoon mayor city council and
members of the public i'm ashley curry i
am the safe roots to school coordinator
for las cruces public schools i also
serve as the vice chair for the mpos
bpac and i'm also on their technical
advisory committee i served as a
stakeholder on behalf of las cruces
public schools and safe routes to school
for elevate las cruces and i was also
quite involved with the development of
the active transportation plan
the goal of the safe routes to school
program is to encourage students to walk
and bike safely to school
and las cruces public schools standards
for busing if you're one mile from an
elementary school one and a half miles
from a middle school or two miles from a
high school those are the standards for
busing versus walking and biking so if
you live two miles from a high school
you're eligible for busing there is
hazardous busting in case you live on a
major street for some exceptions
so for example a one mile radius around
an elementary school should be walkable
and bikeable and safe for those students
who are attending of course the goal of
the safe routes to school program
encouraging kids to walk back to school
not only benefits the students own
health mental and physical and i'll add
i just spoke with a pediatrician this
morning that said that diabetes type 2
diabetes has doubled in las cruces since
the pandemic started so it's it's
important that we talk to the issues of
our children's health mental health is
also hugely affected by students being
able to actively transport themselves so
it's important that we and so again it's
important for the students it's also
important for our community when kids
walking back to school we can reduce
traffic we can reduce
congestion road rage all of those kinds
of things around the schools and in
order for children to be able to safely
walk in back to school we need to have
safe infrastructure we work with
enforcement they do a great job but
there's only so much that they can do if
we don't have good safe infrastructure
in place
we do parent surveys we've been doing
them for a dozen years parents indicate
that one of their number one reasons for
not allowing students to walk and back
to school is their safety and so their
safety around
the infrastructure in place
so i'm particularly interested in these
municipal codes and roadway design and
how it benefits our most vulnerable
users that's our children
so i appreciate everything that's been
mentioned so far in the code updates
increasing sidewalk widths creating
buffers and numerous other improvements
but i'm really disappointed to see that
there was no mention of schools
i don't know if i was if i just missed
it but there was no mentions of school
school sightings designs and codes
around schools specifically we have 45
schools and 24 000 students and yet no
mention in these codes in relation to
school so i'd really like to see that
change i'm here to help in any way i can
and i appreciate you taking my comments
thank you
thank you ashley and under the code user
interviews they did have this las cruces
public schools
i don't know if they
sent anyone but that says that they
interviewed them i did see that and i'm
not sure who they sent but i'll find
that out but again just in the codes um
in the codes themselves i didn't see
anything specifically referencing
schools
thank you okay thank you
again my name is david lynch
we as aarp have been working with the
city for three years now toward entry to
the world health organization and aarp's
age friendly and livable communities it
is a fact that by 2035 the number of
adults older than 65 will be greater
than the number of children under 18.
that said an age-friendly community
looks for what is best for all ages
we start eight we start aging when we
were born
that is why aarp staff and volunteers
are working to engage communities share
expertise and deliver resources to the
country through the aarp network of age
friendly states and communities
the network includes as of today 619
communities in the united states
on december 21st 2021 a resolution was
passed by city council to join the
network
the resolution and letter from the mayor
was submitted and we were accepted into
the network in march of 2021
jamie rickman director of the quality of
life department is our lead from the
city
our first step is to build an action
plan based on community input
we the city aarp and nmsu is now working
on a survey to help build the action
plan
this survey will obtain input from
special groups such as cafe
electronic caregiver and camp hope
from in-person meetings with five to six
citizens from each of the six consular
districts
and from the larger community through
electronic survey
the survey will look at questions
derived from the eight domains of
livability i'd quickly like to go
through those eight domains first one is
outdoor spaces places where all ages can
enjoy the outdoors and exercise
transportation complete street concepts
public transportation within walking
distance helping citizens to get out of
the car
and on their bikes or walking
the network is a resource and tool to
help implement the active transportation
plan
housing affordable housing adus housing
for those in camp hope housing to allow
older citizens to live in their home or
apartment as long as they want
we need codes for adus container
storefronts housing etc
social participation having
opportunities to socialize in the
availability of accessible affordable
and fun social activities
respect and social inclusion
opportunities for young and old to learn
work and enjoy time together and feel
good about themselves
work in civic engagement opportunities
to work for pay
like farmer's market opportunities to
volunteer of which there are unlimited
opportunities
communication information
making important civic information
available to everyone to innovative
practices
community and health services doctors
and hospitals
this survey will help us to understand
what our community feels are the
priority domains and help us build an
action plan
i'm sorry
okay good uh who's your next speaker i
know
our next speaker is beth bardwell the
chair of the league of women voters
affordable housing committee
good afternoon mayor council members and
staff my name is beth bardwell and i'm
chair of the league of women voters
affordable housing committee
and i want to thank you for the
opportunity to provide comments today on
behalf of the league of women voters of
southern new mexico
first i would like to speak to the
current barriers to affordable and
attainable housing that can be addressed
in realized las cruces
we agree with the colt consultants
diagnostic report
and their assessment that increasing
missing middle and accessory dwelling
utens units would be on
would be a step in the right direction
but there are other barriers to
affordable and attainable housing that
should be addressed in the current
zoning subdivision and design standards
such as parking minimums restrictions on
density lot size and housing types and
restrictions on compatible use of
commercial and residential activities
as we said in our previous comments to
you
regarding the east loma development
our vision for a complete neighborhood
includes
attractive mixed income housing
including entry-level missing middle
affordable and multi-family integrated
throughout a development
energy efficient zero carbon sustainable
buildings and commercial services and
neighborhood level entrepreneurial
activities together
the second thing i'd like to speak to
is community engagement which councilor
flores has raised
community engagement in realized las
cruces is critical because it touches on
almost every aspect of our daily lives
right from land use and development to
transportation to housing
to
water to parks to recreation and city
services and i think all of you would be
one of the first to agree with me that
those who are affected by a decision
have a right to be involved in that
decision making process
and the ultimate code user
is the city residence
right
we are the ultimate code user and so
[Music]
you know i think the city's practice of
community engagement falls short of our
aspirations
and i appreciate the city staff and
consultants are hosting a public
stakeholder meeting tomorrow
on realized las cruces but more
community engagement is needed
we submit two recommendations to you
today
one is to consider creation of a citizen
advisory group on realize las cruces and
you have heard from many of the
community civic organizations today they
would be good choices for such a
committee and second we would recommend
that the city create a new policy review
committee
to ensure that community engagement is
integrated into all city activities not
just realized las cruces thank you
thank you
our next presenter is renee frank an
echo broker and supporter of green
building technology
well this is not renee i know that
i am not renee frank she was unable to
be here today because of a personal
situation i will see that her comments
are forwarded to council and the mayor
thank you
yeah
i i just got that radio's not going to
be here i'm sorry sir i didn't get your
name or the reason but
if you want mr mayor my name is
christopher brown i'm a faculty member
at new mexico state university i was
just jumping into that flow to let you
know why miss frank couldn't be here
thank you very much for the chance to
speak to you all and share my ideas
i'm sorry sir i apologize um if you want
to take
if you want to take one of your mask off
because i think the double mask is
really making it hard to hear you
well i'm sorry
yeah that's as hot as it goes
thank you very much mr mayor is that
better
a little bit you want the mascot if you
if you want to do one mask let's find it
thank you very much for the opportunity
to speak to you today and share my ideas
can you stay church can you state your
name one more time please christopher
brown from the faculty member at new
mexico state university
and a long time bicyclist and bike
advocate with a strong interest and
active and multi-modal transportation i
would like to thank the consultant team
and staff for the excellent work they
did on the code diagnostic in which they
made some very good recommendations
concerning active and multimodal
transportation i speak to these points
now
as noted on page 20 of the document two
specific ideas embedded in elevate las
cruces will advance these goals point
number one
incorporate bicycle and pedestrian
facility design recommendations
from the active transportation plan into
revised street design requirements
point to
apply principles of complete streets
calm streets and active roadsides to
create thoroughfares that are bicycle
and pedestrian friendly
these ideas are also consistent with
portions of the city's active
transportation plan
point number one update the city's
design standards in the land development
code
to reflect national best practices
and to improve the consistency quality
and application of pedestrian and
bicycle facility design
item number two
street design guidance should be applied
in appropriate contexts and with
consideration for existing conditions
and constraints
all while prioritizing safety for
pedestrians and bicyclists the most
vulnerable users of our roads
these ideas are all part of the concept
of complete streets a concept that was
endorsed by united states senate bill
s-425 the complete streets act of
2021. these ideas are also supported by
the national association of home
builders
and the national association of realtors
as residents to the land development
coder i advanced i strongly advocate
that staff include these concepts in the
revision both elevate las cruces and the
city's active transportation plan
advance these ideas and they should be
included in the land development code
revisions lastly i ask council to pass
the complete streets ordinance that will
come to you in february thank you for
your time
and in advance for your support of these
ideas
thank you mr brown
again we thank you mr mayor and council
for listening to us we also
want to thank the consultants for their
work and for listening to our responses
thank you okay good so we've taken care
of the
the five or six or so people who wanted
to speak
so what i'm going to do is i'm going to
go ahead and
just out of curiosity how many members
of the public who haven't who've already
who haven't spoken yet would like to say
a comment or two
i've got one two three four just
all right so just just you four so let
me just get this young man here and then
i'll get the three of you over here so
good come forward please state your name
and give you a couple minutes two
minutes please and
you know i thought that was you
yeah hello
i'm like mr mayor
members of the council everybody present
my name is jorge quirk
can you talk right into the microwave
yes hi this is this mic is true yeah i
know yeah
anyway i'm a still resident and i was
listening to the conversation and
i'm going to tell you a couple of ideas
i'm sorry but can you bring that mic
down to you because it's kind of picking
there
okay so what i want to tell you is that
there is a massive global conversation
going on right now about transportation
and we are realizing that we have for
decades most american cities have
invested most of the resources
in car culture infrastructure and we
realize that it's making us miserable it
yes
you know jorge
if you want to remove your mask because
i can't hear what you okay yeah and then
my accent doesn't help
so essentially we've spent most of the
resources of space and funds of the
cities in car infrastructure and is
making us miserable you look at the big
cities and they are horrible right they
have uh this incentive of increasing
investment in car
infrastructure which incentivizes people
to buy more cars and increase traffic
which increases the incentive to invest
in more lanes and it's just
unbelievable
we uh just to give you a couple of
numbers that i found out
essentially
uh we have millions of cars in the
country but we have eight
parking spots for every vehicle in the
country
according to fast company
and um
let me see one other thing
um
this is very expensive
uh these are eight
parking spots that remain empty we are
destroying our beautiful ancestral land
to put asphalt because it's empty most
of the time
electric cars are not going to solve the
issue what's going to solve the issue is
sustainable transportation that is
easy for pedestrians and bicyclists like
they're doing everywhere in every other
developed city
country
we'll give you 30 more seconds since we
kind of interrupted you a lot
thank you for that
um and so
what i would like to ask this body
is that you make sure to prioritize
pedestrian dignity to make sure that
every development and every code
respects the dignity of the citizens to
make sure that citizens of las cruces
are able to transport themselves from
every corner to every other corner by
foot and by bicycle and not by car this
incentivize the investment of more car
lanes and more parking spaces and more
spaces for vehicles and less for the
city let's return the land to the people
okay gotcha thank you
all right now we've got three on this
side and mr bins eddie benz you want to
come forward you got state your name
please in two minutes
get rid of that so you can hear me first
of all good afternoon thank you i don't
have a written speech folks i just talk
off the top of my head sometimes
eddie i need you to state your name
please i've been involved in building in
las cruces for the last 60 some odd
years
we built thousands of homes and
developed thousands of lots excuse me
can't complain too bad what's here
because we have people coming to las
cruces to enjoy our type of climate and
they are leaving austin
albuquerque tucson and other cities to
come to a small town
but when they get here they say hey this
is what we did in austin or texas why
don't we do it here
well they couldn't wait to get away from
it but that they come here trying to
tell us how to do it and make it so
a lot of things we've had in the past i
think have been very positive
and one thing i'd like for you guys to
remember your ladies also is that when
developers get up and make presentations
it's not for our benefit it is for the
consumer that will be buying a house
next month who's not here to open his
mouth
for the last 60 years about every 12
months about every 12 years we have a
new
plan that comes in
and the new plan says it's going to make
life easier it's going to save us money
and it's going to do a good job and all
it did was increase prices
right now when you put a shovel in the
ground you're generally invested
somewhere six to eight thousand dollars
before you even start pouring any
concrete so that these regulations that
are being generated are extremely
loading up and making it difficult for
affordable housing as well as raising
the price of our other products
unfortunately the current program that's
going on i'm disappointed in
catherine called me earlier on and i
give her credit for contacting me asking
me if i'd be glad to meet with the
people and i told her i'd be glad to
because there are probably 10 to 12
primary developers in las cruces
who will have to live bulk with this
problem and not problem but these
challenges they're being generated
and there are some major changes that
i've read in here that are going to cost
a lot of money make it more difficult
slow down production and such as that
and that's why we have accounts have
tried to question
what's going on so that we could try to
clean it up make it as simple as
possible
time wasted is money wasted
and it's one of those things that has
been evacuated we'd like to move this
thing on as rapidly as possible
i know my two minutes is up yeah i'm
just getting started yeah and i'll shut
up and sit down
that was eddie ben speaking so thank you
very much i appreciate that thank you
and there was a couple other people yes
yes please
i just need you to state your name
please
sure can you hear me my name is francis
escola and i live in an area part of
town that's been adversely affected by
the presence of the indigent facilities
along amador
and every time my neighbor and i who
have come to the city or in different
areas of the city to for help
we have felt unheard
and
counselor flores today when she spoke
about being inclusive about planning
from the get-go
is the first time i have heard anybody
say that i lived in a city i'm from here
but i lived in a city and participated
in a long-term planning process that
went well
but it included people from the very
beginning
and
we are already adversely affected by
planning that what didn't include us
and we want to be included in the
planning
before
it's presented to us is this is what
we're going to do
and
i just want to say that
so for the indigent facilities along
amador it affects people in that whole
area it has already affected us and we
need to be heard and our thoughts and
our wishes for our quality of life need
to be included
this is not a time to go into
particulars but i'm hoping based on what
this counselor has said that there will
be a chance
thank you
thank you very much
good afternoon my name is eva moreno
and i'm a retired school teacher i'm
sorry ma'am can you state your name one
more time please eva moreno eva moreno
okay
and recently we've been a victim of
our vehicle being stolen
and then we recovered it
and then
on a saturday and by tuesday
we had to call 9-1-1 because we had
people
in our
property
so my concern mayor and council people
is i'm very happy to see
that we know you're planning on
developing
in a positive way
but you also need to consider
there is a population of people
that
are
being adversely affected
by
crime
and i was told i called and i was told
to speak to
police officers and i have i don't want
to be a part of complaining i want to be
an advocate to help our community
the
neighborhood watch person
that was supposed to train me
sent me an email saying that he was
going to be out until december of 2022
so now i'm speaking to someone else to
see where i can get
help with that because i think because
our police department is working as hard
as they can
and they told me we need help
you know we need eyes and so therefore i
think
this problem this issue needs to be
addressed at some point
you know i'm very happy to see
development but there is already a
development that exists that needs to be
also considered
thank you for your time
ms moreno yes yeah let me give you my
card if you can email me information and
so we can have someone contact you about
who your new neighborhood
watch coordinator could be please
yeah thank you
okay so does that pretty much take care
of everyone who's had a chance to speak
okay
and uh dave or catherine that so that
pretty much concludes our presentation
on on the update
oh i'm sorry larry
good afternoon mayor city council larry
nicholas community development director
i would like to just add a couple of
closing comments uh to the presentation
today
the
it was brought up about the time and i i
was listening to it very carefully that
that slide involved
a lot of discussion
and we mentioned mr weir mentioned that
the eight hours on each side
wasn't adequate
it wasn't being used i recognized that
when i first came to work here
but we need to set some parameters for
that
this code was the last
reviewed
and put into use in 2003
many things have changed since that time
and so we need to hire our consultants
we need to avail ourselves of our
director of planning
senior planner
15 years of experience 22 years of
experience in planning
i myself have an equal number of years
in order to bring this code up to
our modern practices that involve our
elevate
uh comprehensive plan this is a way to
merge the
the aspirational and visionary plan with
the codified code plans
to improve our design standards
but the time element mr mayor i'm more
aware of that than probably anybody in
the city
we issued 9 700 permits last year
i think i had
seven or eight complaints that those
permits were not reviewed and issued
in timely fashion
so my i guess my
comment is
we are responding to the citizens
requests for timely reviews timely
permit issues and that goes not only to
building permits
but to our planning
planning zoning commission our
subdivisions approvals
our difficulty is this
we are meeting
the city review times
not the eight hours but we're admitting
less than 10 days
our over-the-counter permits are still
in effect 24 hours
on many
same day same hour
some of the
building permits like the hospital
example
getting that permit issued and reviewed
yes that's a very complicated project it
does take more than
the seven to ten days
but i just wanted to assure council
that we're very aware and cognizant
of time is money
and community development department
along with the other reviewing
departments
which are public works utilities fire
department park and recreation there's
eight agencies that review plans
that come in on an application
we need to get and we are very cognizant
of having those reviews done timely
our consultant is a very accomplished
consultant
uh the item that was brought to you
today was to
make you aware of how far along we are
in the process we're about a third of
the way
we'll continue to
make progress we'll continue to involve
the stakeholders
and the interested groups that have a
very direct usage of this the code users
we are all about transparency
and we'll continue to to do that for you
mr mayor and members of the city council
thank you for letting me make these
last closing comments
and we'll keep you informed
as we make progress
one last thing we talked about doing red
lines and having the code as it is now
and the code that's being changed
we do this with building codes every
three years
and the way we do that is we
mark in the margin
with a black line that this part of the
code
had been revised
if the code had not been revised then
there is no there's no notation so maybe
we can employ something of that nature
to help identify
the changes that were made to the 2003
land use code thank you mr mayor for
these comments
larry thank you very much for that
clarification and i apologize i i was uh
i didn't realize it was on the zoning
until later
the assistant manager passed me a note i
was just focused on that i was just uh
yeah that 45 days just threw me for a
loop
but i do have a quick question i forgot
to ask if you can answer dave or
catherine it's under substantial
completion says does not allow for
issuance of certificates of occupancy
does that mean that we're doing away
with the temporary co as well or is that
still going to be available
mr mayor
larry nicholas have come into
development
the temporary certificate of occupancy
is a very useful mechanism to get people
into their businesses or into their
homes
we primarily use it for businesses
not very much for residential
that will be continued to be used
because a temporary certificate of
occupancy
means that there's only a few very minor
items remaining
for that project to be safely used
or occupied
what would be an example of a minor item
maybe a piece of a door trim or
something of that nature that
they had to order in and didn't come in
on time
we'll continue to use
tcos temporary certificates of
occupancies
we always condition those we
we state what it is that is needed and
30 days
for use
to get to the certificate of occupancy
it's very useful and we need to continue
with it
i appreciate that thanks
okay yeah i was going to blame counselor
florida's for me and that error but you
know when she gets talking then she gets
me riled up and next thing you know so
okay well thank you very much we
appreciate that
if there's nothing further we're going
to go ahead and move on to the item
as i mentioned 4.2 has had been has to
be removed as presenter is not available
item 4.3 the homelessness discussion
looks like natalie green will be kicking
that off
good afternoon mr mayor members of
council natalie green for the record um
i did have christine pass out
some packets the packets that were
passed out earlier were passed out a
little prematurely so this should have
also been included
the discussion item before you is
around people experiencing homelessness
in our community
before i get started i wanted to cover
just some high level definitions that
way you guys can understand the full
continuum of what we're talking about
today's presentation is primarily going
to focus on category 1 which is
people who you
are are more visible in our community so
it's people who are living in a place
that's not meant for human habitation
that could be the streets their car an
emergency shelter a transitional housing
program
or
hotels
there's additional
categories that are also defined by hud
one is imminent risk of homelessness so
someone who's going to lose their
primary residence within 14 days who has
no other resources to obtain permanent
housing
there's homelessness under federal st
other federal statutes that's primarily
unaccompanied youth under the age of 25
and we do have some programming and
partners that that work on that
particular segment and then any
individual who's fleeing
domestic violence or attempting to flee
domestic violence
for the sake of the presentation i also
want to cover chronically homeless
individuals again those are people who
are living in a place not meant for
human habitation or in an emergency
shelter for a continuous period of one
year or four separate occasions that
add up to one year
and have a disabling condition that's
expected to impede their ability to be
housed independently
and then the school uses this definition
it's not traditionally used in our
programming but it's doubled up it's
people who are sharing housing with
other persons
um so like couch surfing
uh
multiple household sharing housing
as part of your handouts i gave you the
new mexico coalition to end homelessness
point in time count it is the 2021 count
its account that's conducted every year
uh or i'm sorry it's conducted by
annually starting in 2022 it will be
conducted annually
and it starts next week so as part of
continuum of care funding and there's
two continuum of cares in the state of
new mexico one is albuquerque and then
everybody else which we call the balance
of state
and so as part of this count i'm going
to go through some of the data so i just
wanted you to know that it's really
reflective of trends in our state in our
community so while it has actual numbers
it's really to assess the trend
when we're trying to count individuals
who are experiencing homelessness
there's always a margin of error you're
not going to find everyone
covid presents some challenges
and it does not include families who are
doubled up because again they don't
necessarily meet
hud's definition
of homelessness and so this is really
specifically for continuum of care
programs
um just overall between 2009 and 2021
the trend has remained
pretty consistent we saw it drop in 2021
that could be for a number of factors
one of it
could be a hesitancy to encounter
individuals during the pandemic
the other
reason could be
because there was an increase in hotel
vouchers or housing vouchers and so
finding people
during that period of time could be
difficult
and just for reference uh every state in
the nation does the point and count
during the same 10-day period
for unsheltered individuals
the the data shows that they're
primarily new mexico residents so these
are
again people who meet that literal
definition of homelessness someone
out on the street that you're seeing in
the community they report that they most
of them or 51 of them meet that
definition of chronically homeless which
is homeless for over a year
and have a disabling condition
they've self-reported 39 percent of them
that they have severe mental illness 70
percent report that they have substance
use disorders
and then this year uh 21
reported that it's their first time
experiencing homelessness
only 12 percent
uh attributed that to covid
and then eight percent attributed that
to domestic violence in terms of
demographics 71 percent were male and 83
percent were over the age of 18.
the balance of state i wanted to show
you the chart so again you have uh there
was 905
households counted what you'll notice is
a little bit different the other charts
go on persons
but again you have a significant number
of individuals who are accessing
emergency shelter
who are either in transitional housing
or unsheltered
and
the balance of state unsheltered
individuals again you saw that drop but
it's it's likely due to covet or those
hotel vouchers
people accessing emergency shelter
only nine percent report that they're
chronically homeless
most of those people utilizing emergency
shelter that were counted have our
households with children
only 20 percent are reporting uh severe
mental illness and 40 are
reporting substance abuse and then you
had a significant number of um or a
larger number reporting uh fleeing
domestic violence and that's likely
because we have
shelters that are very specific to
domestic violence
and again those trends were
pretty standard across the board from
2011 to 2021.
transitional housing
you see a decrease in the utilization of
transitional housing that's likely
because many of the coc programs have
have stopped they no longer use the term
transitional housing what they use is
rapid re-housing models or permanent
supportive housing so you're seeing a
disinvestment in transitional housing
programs but they still exist
and then as you can see in a county by
county
percentage dona ana county is the
highest utilizer or at least was the
highest counted for transitional housing
in the latest point in time count
overarching
policy it's housing so if people are
experiencing housing insecurity
or homelessness in our community the
answer is housing first
so again i i've included
maslow's hierarchy of need we can't
attempt to work on any of the other
issues around
homelessness
if we don't start with housing first so
the best practice or the best model is
to first house them and then provide
intensive supportive services
for
those particular clients
and i included the continuum and i
apologize it's really hard to see but
again people will enter and exit the
continuum
all throughout their entire lives
whether they're people experiencing
homelessness whether they're seniors who
experience
the loss of a partner and move from a
single family home or downsize to
rental housing so every person
regardless of their housing status
falls somewhere along this continuum
challenges and complexities of course
there's program limitations we have a
limited supply of vouchers
different funding sources have different
eligibility requirements
a different eligibility documentations
when we're talking about persons who are
unhoused they have limited access to
birth certificates ids
some programs do require evidence of
citizenship or legal residency
we are experiencing a number of units
shortages so even if we have
the financial means to provide a housing
voucher can we find a unit that takes
that voucher at the voucher fair market
rent
we have
at least within the last year it's the
first time that we have a significant
amount of resources dedicated to housing
but we can't find
units to place people in and i'll cover
this in a different slide we also have
limited supportive services so when
we're talking about sheltering
those people in category one again they
reported a significant number of severe
mental illness and substance abuse we do
not have a comprehensive
support system in the las cruces area
and that includes for people who are
housed as well you know there's a whole
host of people who need mental health
and substance abuse services
um some other limitations are case law
so there's been some
cases out of the ninth and tenth
circuit courts you can google those the
one all site in particular is the 10th
because that covers the new mexico
there's been some
case around
allowing people
again people have civil rights so
panhandling has been treated like a
first amendment case so people have the
right to
be out on public on public property
and then people have personal autonomy
they have the right to access services
or not access services
i did include a copy of the new mexico
coalition to end homelessnesses their
white paper on how we address
homelessness
it was a research brief that was
provided to
the state of new mexico
legislators in the governor's office it
recommends a two-pronged approach the
first
is rapid re-housing
rapid re-housing can address uh it's
generally for families and households
that don't need that intensive case
support
right it's just a
housing voucher or rental assistance for
a period of time and that assistance
decreases as they stabilize
so you
it's it's people who are primarily lower
income who
are maybe getting evicted and need that
rental assistance for six months while
they figure stuff out
a permanent supportive housing
development was the
other recommendation
that is the type of housing that we need
to address people who are unsheltered in
our community
it ties
intensive supportive services with
housing
and that white paper recommended to the
state of new mexico
won a 48 million dollar one-time capital
investment to build
affordable car housing across the state
and then additional investments for that
rapid rehousing program
and so i know that it's a significant
investment but i will tell you the state
of new mexico's budget is last year was
7.4 billion dollars and this year it's
about 8.4 billion so there are
a significant amount of resources to
address homelessness statewide
we know through various research and
this is out of denver that the cost of
doing nothing is not nothing so if we
don't do anything today there is still a
cost to our residents there's a cost in
emergency room shelters there's the cost
i'm sorry emergency room intakes
emergency shelter
police fire
so when we build supportive housing we
have the ability to reduce that cost
in terms of existing resources of course
the city of las cruces has funding from
the housing and urban development
we both get cdbg home i have a whole
slide on home arpa
we've had some nsp houses that we
dedicated to non-profit service
providers to provide transitional
housing
we also utilize our general fund for
both affordable housing development
including permanent supportive housing
the hud continuum of care passes funding
to some of our partners
la casa community of hope and abode are
recipients of those funding
there's also some c esg money that comes
through mfa
the messiah valley public housing
authority
has housing vouchers they're not
necessarily exclusive to people
experiencing homelessness but it's
people who are low income and have
housing insecurity
new mexico mfa has a number and
behavioral health
services division has the linkages
program there's some funding for housing
development there's some funding for
supportive services
and then the state also has like a
housing trust fund and some other things
around permanent supportive housing
american rescue plan act funds there's a
number of
different federal departments that are
allocating arpa funds one of them was
hud and again i'll cover that in a
different slide
and then the city
has
through partnership with community hope
camp hope
and while it's not an emergency shelter
it definitely fills that sort of
transitional need for people
experiencing homelessness
we have a number of partners if i listed
them all
that print would be very very small i
want to primarily list
the community hope campus
which is community hope jardin amador
hell casa de peregrinos
the gospel rescue mission is a privately
run emergency shelter and i have a slide
on them la casa
the messiah valley public housing
authority families and youth innovation
plus
catholic charities community action
agency the new mexico coalition to end
homelessness
hud has some
stuff around homelessness staff has been
meeting with their federal delegation
around homelessness and housing issues
those occur some of them are weekly some
of them are monthly
mfa has started a housing new mexico
advisory committee their purpose is to
address the full housing continuum
including homelessness
dona ana county is is doing e-wrap
funding emergency rental assistance
funding of course there's some work
happening out of resiliency leaders
that recognizes that
economic mobility and addressing poverty
is a holistic approach you can't just
address food insecurity you have to do
food insecurity housing security mental
health
it's a full continuum
and then of course there's a number of
other ngos and churches that are also
addressing pieces of that housing
continuum
the gospel rescue mission is across the
street from the messiah valley community
hope campus they have a
shelter capacity of about 120 beds
they offer food clothing
chapel services they are also working on
an expansion
of
some sort of building project
my hope was that they would be in the
audience today i'm not sure if they're
here
my friend's place emergency shelter so
council was had
the foresight to partner with
families in youth
innovation plus and they provided
funding to help get the youth shelter up
and running it has a capacity of 16 beds
they average about 200 bed nights per
month and in 2021 they provided 271 bed
nights to individuals aged between 12
and 17 and they did report that three
individuals exceeded 90 days in the
emergency shelter
the operating costs sit around just
under 700 000 and
staff also reports that the
youth that they are serving experience
the high needs of mental health and
behavioral support
and
in addition to their emergency
supportive shelter
they also have a permanent supportive
housing program and a transitional
housing program
and they are also in the audience
available for questions
la casa emergency shelter they have a
capacity of 90 they restrict their
eligibility to people who are fleeing
domestic violence
in the last year they served
approximately 304 persons and provided
almost
10 000 bed nights and they are open
365 days out of the year 24 7
and they
the average cost operating cost sits
around 2 million
and they have a number of housing
programs again they
have several neighborhood
stabilization program homes tbra and
continuum of care
and
and the tbra is funded through the city
and the nsp homes were also funded
through city
i'm going to turn over the next couple
of slides to messiah validity community
hope so they can cover some of their
services and programs
good afternoon nicole martinez director
of messiah valley community of hope mr
mayor members of the council thank you
for the opportunity to discuss issues
surrounding homelessness
while we continue to provide a variety
of services at community of hope i
really wanted to highlight some of the
things that we've been doing
for at least the last 10 years just to
give a snapshot and really quickly i did
want to mention that i do have several
of the community of hope staff here in
the audience today if you just raise
your hands quickly
some of our
champions at community of hope we have
about 25 strong so small representation
but very mighty
here today
so we do have the abode program we
actually started that program in 2008
it's it's our sister non-profit so we
actually
operate two non-profits in a boat is
primarily uh to run two group homes that
house chronically homeless men
we have 15 men total living in those
homes
each house also has a resident manager
that also has lived experience
and that's permanent supportive housing
model
it's also funded through
hud multifamily as well at hud continuum
of care and the new mexico mortgage
finance authority
we started camp hope in 2011 it had been
in operation about two weeks
when i became director
um so
six years before becoming the director i
was the housing programs manager
and so
really sort of my tendency started right
after camp hope after two weeks after
i'd been going is when i
jumped on board and we decided very
quickly that we needed to have that type
of an emergency shelter close to
services at community of hope
and we continue to operate that today i
believe we have about 44 people sleeping
in our our backyard in tents right now
we also have sue's house and that's one
of the nsp programs that natalie talked
about
it's a home that houses four chronically
homeless women
and it's been at full capacity since we
started that in about 2013.
we also operationally
ended veterans homelessness
mr mayor you may remember
giving that press release and i went
into labor that evening so it's very
exciting for us
we were 10th in the nation to do that
doesn't mean that we ended veteran
homelessness but it means that we got
our veteran numbers so low that we can
house any of our homeless veterans
within 30 days and we have a really
robust robust system to do that
with the help of mayor pro tem gandara
we started the manuimano day labor
program
we have 20 people that go out who are
either homeless or precariously housed
they do landscaping
litter removal all types of things with
the park and rec department to help to
beautify las cruces city properties
at the end of the day the workday
the workers come back to community of
hope they get connected to services they
get paid
and they get fed as well
we
have also taken on several different
types of hud-funded grants
community housing connection is the
acronym on there
the city of las cruces operated one of
those grants in partnership with us once
hud decided that it didn't have to be
run by a governmental entity they
decided to transfer it to community of
hope and we have been operating it since
then we also took
community housing connection grants from
other communities who were unable to
utilize the funds in their community
so we had three of those i also applied
to hud for an another permanent
supportive housing program for
the chc grant and so we now have
essentially two but they they were four
at one time
we also began operating the tenant-based
rental assistance program from the city
of las cruces in the last few years and
that's really helped with our
county grant partnership to serve people
who are experiencing homelessness that
are
justice involved
and who are also accessing emergency
room services on a repeated basis so now
we have streamlined housing for people
in those programs
as well as some of our our veterans
that's another source of funding that we
use for longer term housing for our our
homeless veterans
we have also
obtained
legislative monies for capital
improvements on the campus
at our building right now
really noisy outside my office we're
getting our solar carport which is
really amazing for community of hope
help us
obviously to become more sustainable and
uh
ease up on our electric bills
we also redid all of the flooring inc in
the community of hope building
but is the
one who looks over the the lease
agreement with the city of las cruces
also assists the other agencies on the
campus with all of their capital outlay
projects they all have to go through
community of hope and hopefully they'll
have an opportunity to present to you
all of the
improvements that they've made to their
buildings on the community of hope
campus to make it much safer and more
accessible for a lot of people
we also in the last couple of years
added an additional 52 housing vouchers
for the linkages program
and that is funded through the new
mexico mortgage finance authority and
behavioral health services division it's
helping people with
serious mental illness who are
experiencing homelessness with accessing
services coupled with housing
we also had a grant that was through hud
that was to operate our shelter and
provide supportive services
but because hud has moved away from
funding shelters we converted that grant
to a coordinated entry grant which is
really important for our state but also
for the city of las cruces there are
only two coordinated entry grantees in
the state of new mexico one of which is
community of hope the other is the new
mexico coalition and homelessness and so
they do the coordinated entry for every
person trying to access housing through
the state of new mexico um as i'm sure
you can imagine that's a lot of agencies
trying to utilize that service but for
us it's very streamlined having that
in-house
and so much so that we really wanted to
expand those services to surrounding
counties and so i have staff that
we're implementing that and trying to
train people to bring coordinated entry
uh
to to really help
people in the southwest region that are
more rural areas to and help end their
homelessness
the people in their communities to end
homelessness
we also partner with the city of las
cruces to have an outreach coordinator
so that's been within the last year to
have somebody whose primary goal is to
be out on the streets working with
people who are experiencing homelessness
work with
business partners on doing outreach
we
during the pandemic have had some hard
times kicking that off and trying to
figure out how to navigate that
and so we we do have somebody who is uh
finally with community of hope and
implementing that service
we also added um
desert hope apartments
we partnered with city of las cruces the
messiah valley public housing authority
to develop 40 units of permanent
supportive housing we opened
the complex in august and we were at
full capacity in october thereby ending
homelessness for 40 people in las cruces
on that day i have a staff person on
site at desert hope who provides
supportive services we also have a
partnership with casa de peregrinos they
have a food pantry on site there at
desert hope apartments and amador health
center sends staff over to do quarterly
or more often screenings with the
residents there at camp hope or sorry
desert hope
we also recently received
a significant amount of funding to end
family homelessness and so we have just
kicked off
the start of that we have already been
housing many families in our community
sheltering and then also accessing
housing services referrals and
supportive services for families we
really
hope to make a huge dent in family
homelessness in dona ana county with
that funding
we're also
working with the city of las cruces and
consultants on a 10-year master plan
at which time i'm sure we will discuss
much more in depth with the council
but so far it's progressing we we
definitely
feel
confident that the plan
has some really great improvements for
the campus as a whole and we're excited
to see those go forward and continue to
work with the city of las cruces
for those improvements
and we continue to operate camp hope
overall
for the time that we have been
implementing camp hope we've served
1584 people that would have otherwise
been out on the streets
sleeping in ditches sleeping along main
street so we have been able to really
shelter a lot of people
and keep them close to services
and then quickly transition them into
housing
during covid we have also consulted with
countless communities who are interested
in
starting their own safe outdoor spaces
because our numbers for covid
have been very very low because of the
implementation of camp hope so it served
as a model throughout the nation
and quickly i wanted to just talk a
little bit more about the manuimano
program
so we've served
more than 1400 people since we started
the program
just last year 568 unique encounters
people are going out
quite a few times
it's
5040 at least with those
568 people
on average we turn away 39 people from
the program
and again you know they're going out to
do day labor they get paid and that
connection to services and and serve
lunch
we do do a survey with those who are
going out
into the field and when they come back
the survey is collected
most say that they are spending their
funds on rent or something that's
rent-related
putting it into savings or using it for
their cell phones
76 of the people who have gone out
on monoi mono that we've been able to
track have received housing it's just
been a really exciting
program we know that it's been a huge
benefit to the people that are
able to access that service
our two supervisors who oversee the
program also have lived experience and
it's just been life-changing for them
too
and that will conclude my portion of the
presentation and obviously i will be
mayor's left first row for questions
after thank you
natalie green for the record again i do
want to cover
home arpa fundings so last
probably about six months ago we were
notified that we are the recipient of
1.7 million dollars and it is uh awarded
from the housing and urban development
program through our home
[Music]
we have to do a home arp allocation plan
before we can start utilizing that
funding so we are gearing up our
contract amendment with our consultant
so we can start doing those stakeholder
consultations identifying the gaps and
the priorities for the use of the
funding it can only be used for serving
those qualified
individuals as defined by
hud so those categories one through four
i like to tell people it's too much
money and not enough money at the same
time because we can only use it for
either acquiring rehabbing or
constructing affordable rental housing
so 1.7 is not enough to do that
the other option is to use it for
tenant-based rental assistance so we
have a significant
and that's why i like to say it's almost
too much we have the ability to house
people experiencing homeless in our
community
with this funding
but can i find the units and the
landlords who are going to take those
individuals at the voucher amount
that's going to pass housing quality
standards
so we have to figure out a way
to work on that programming and staff
does have some recommendations
the other option is to look at
purchasing or using the funding
to help
purchase a non-congregate shelter
a lot of communities who have much more
money than we are are using it to
purchase hotels
the caveat to that is we can use it for
the acquisition or the development but
you can't use it for any of the
operating costs and it's a 10-year
commitment before that housing type can
be converted to some other
use
i'm going to turn this portion of the
presentation to officer climack so i
just wanted to
give the police department an
opportunity to also present on what
they're seeing in our community so let
him come up
good afternoon mr mayor city council
thank you for including the police
department in this discussion
i'm officer brian klamack with the
community outreach unit our unit
in addition to community outreach
efforts
target chronic threats in the community
and one of the
problems is the
behaviors that surround homelessness
every day we have numerous calls for
service to deal with
different items that
are associated with the homeless problem
while
homelessness itself isn't unlawful and
not illegal
we also have a responsibility to the
the public the safety of everyone in the
community
that said we're not going to police
or arrest our way out of homelessness so
what we do is we take a partnership
approach working with the community hope
and the gospel and other entities to
address the issue
where is the problem
el paseo corridor
is in much better shape than it was a
couple of years ago
when we
initiated a focused patrol effort
two years ago there was a lot of camps
along the corridor
as you know there's a lot of closed
businesses
boarded up storefronts
and this tends to attract a criminal
element and it also can provide shelter
for people who are experiencing
homelessness
much better shape today we've displaced
the camps we still have
issues there but we have made it we have
improved the safety of the area
north main albertsons
west amador along the ditch banks near
the shelters is a popular
area burn lake is another area that
we've made improvements on
we've had a community
outreach event there
that dealt with the trash that
accumulated over many many years
we've displaced the camps we've plugged
some people into services with the help
of community hope
and it's much safer place
we also currently have a
project at the med park complex
we had a meeting with the city manager a
while back and
we were able to improve the condition
over there received an email just last
week saying that the
condition is much more improved
it was a place where
there's poorly lighted
and homeless people could find shelter
there at night and also cause problems
but
we've been able to fix that condition
or at least improve it uh
with
a camera that we've posted we also
conduct
daily patrols especially on bike
we've set up a email network
communication network with all the
business over the owners over there so
they can communicate directly with me
if they're experiencing any further
problems
i've also walked the property with
mr nichols
about getting improving the lighting
situation over there
the downtown plaza is
there's two people that i can think of
that
like to call that their home
the problem with the downtown plaza is
much more visible than a lot of other
places so they tend to stick out more
but we are working with the
community hope to plug them into
services
telshor and loman also seeing some
problems with
the
panhandling
but with the exception of the north main
albertsons
and the telstra and loman we have active
projects addressing all of these issues
here
and these
problems usually come to our attention
either by a personal contact with me and
a citizen sometimes they come through
the mayor's office or city councilor
what is the threat what is the problem
trespassing
littering drinking in public are two
victimless crimes so to speak
vandalism we have a gentleman that likes
to
throw rocks through windows
burglary breaking and entering
shoplifting
and what we now call prohibited
solicitations
which was formerly the panhandling
ordinance
how do we attack the problem
the crisis triage center
is a place where we can take individuals
who are in crisis
and who
are not violent they're not pending any
criminal charges but who are typically
homeless and experiencing some type of
crisis it's a
very useful tool for us
the community hope
our unsung heroes that we partner with
many of whom will actually come to a
scene
if i if i have someone that
needs assistance they will actually come
out
and come to a scene to help out
we are a police agency and enforcement
action
is uh not always
the right course of action to take but
we
we are responsible to arrest site as
appropriate
just a quick statement on probable cause
and having a victim of an offense
i do tend to get
i'll refer to the downtown mall
where i get pictures and
complaints of people sleeping
in a storefront
to keep warm or for shelter
but i don't have anyone that is an
actual victim i don't have a responsible
party for that business it's a it's
someone else reporting the problem to me
i understand this doesn't look great
especially in the downtown mall area
but without someone willing to pursue
charges for trespassing there's not much
i can do
and that said we need to be mindful
about
moving people on
and if we're not enforcing any crime
because it could escalate into a use of
force situation
which is which is creates all sorts of
other problems
protective custody
if a person
we encounter on the street is a suicidal
homicidal or so intoxicated they can't
even walk we're responsible to take them
into protective custody
take them to a hospital emergency room
where they are referred to
mental health services from there
the gospel
gospel rescue mission was mentioned it's
also a wonderful resource for us
and finally
obstacles from
my
perspective
some people just prefer to be
on the street
it might not make sense and i don't
understand everything there is about
mental illness but most
i can think of probably two dozen people
that i've known over the last two years
who prefer to be on the streets
or their addiction or
substance abuse problems prevents them
from getting services
because of their behavior
they're a threat or a safety issue for
the service providers providers
also to some extent immediate trail
release
they will
typical crime the petty misdemeanors and
misdemeanors they'll end up right back
out onto the street
so it's really not a long-term solution
and just finally i'll re-emphasize that
the police department takes this
integrative approach
we work with the shelters
and other agencies as a partnership
and not solely a police and heavy
enforcement model
thank you
thank you officer
again natalie green for the record
so in terms of recommendations from
staff to council
we have a number of them some are
long-term some are more immediate the
first is to continue to expand the
housing continuum
council has
recognized the importance of affordable
housing for the full continuum and i'll
explain that continuum in the next slide
the expansion of campus and
of the campus and
complementary resources
and again i have another slide on that
one
a possible expansion of the monoi mono
program and that would be part of a
larger conversation with parks and rec
since they're the primary department on
that
but
staff's
thought in conjunction with community of
hope is that we find a way to do like a
spot truck or response truck that can
address maybe those immediate areas of
of litter versus
what our monumental vans do right now
they have a particular route and they
help parks and rec with long-term park
cleanups
i've included in your packet a house
america proclamation and sign-on letter
so there's mayors all across the nation
that are are doing a sign-on with the
department of housing and urban
development
the thought is for communities to
establish a goal for the creation of
rapid rehousing vouchers and the
creation of permanent supportive housing
staff has researched and evaluated a
landlord voucher incentive program and a
risk mitigation fund to help expand
the available use of landlords who will
accept
vouchers
i did include an mra assessment and an
incentive program again many of the
areas that officer kleimeck mentioned
have significant disinvestment
so can we do
a designation of a metropolitan
redevelopment area which means you
designate it
and blight and then as a city we can
provide
public partnership investment in those
areas it's how we did the downtown
again
over the last several years so then we
can assist some of those
business owners who are experiencing
issues in their areas
we could do a revision of the infill
policy
and i think this leads to your previous
discussion we want to increase the
missing middle housing supply
that's generally in your infill area we
have a significant amount of compression
in our housing continuum
and council's heard me say this before
we're the compressed accordion right so
we need to stretch out the accordion um
not only in
in government investment but in the
private side if we can help private
developers stretch out that accordion
then we can address
the full housing continuum because it's
not local government that's going to
solve the housing crisis it's in
partnership with
private development as well
as you go into
this latest legislative session and a
lot of the things that are happening at
the state and national level
um it's time to lobby for additional
mental health and substance abuse uh
substance use treatments i'm not so
there's there's opportunities there
many of the build back better and the
arpa funding is that's coming down is
specific to
these populations and these type of
services
and then we need to seek additional
state and federal resources for again
capital investment in affordable housing
potential capital investment in the
campus and their services
and then there's some need for expanded
support for a number of responding
departments
police codes fire the housing section
parks and rec and quality of life
again this is the housing continuum when
we talk about housing it's it's it's a
full spread
today's is really only focusing on the
first half of that right it's addressing
people experiencing homelessness
helping
develop capacity in both transitional
and supportive housing
and then
again when i talk about spreading out
that accordion
uh
when we can
build uh additional housing uh both
private and public then you ha it's it's
a supply and demand issue right there's
there's no supply right now
uh i did want to remind council that we
did get a private land donation this was
desert hope nicole mentioned the 40
units that we
developed for permanent supportive
housing in partnership with the housing
authority
there was a
family who donated the three surrounding
parcels
so
and that donation happened last month so
we can move forward with some
pre-development
to start planning additional units
and i'll be happy to forward this to you
councillor gander i see you're taking
pictures and it's also in your packet i
gave you guys this presentation
so staff is already working on that we
exec we executed a pre-development
agreement with the developer which is
the public housing authority to start
planning that our goal is to get
started on the next phase within the
next year
i did want to
address the amador corridor again
council was very thoughtful when they
purchased the brewers oral parcel it's
adjacent to the campus it allows for
expansion of the existing services
to include that permanent supportive
housing it also
allows us to address some of the other
items on the campus
staff has been
working with those campus recipients and
the consultant to master plan this area
i have a teaser for you
so it would include potential
50 to 80 units of permanent supportive
housing that's on the most north end
can you
right here
again
uh the projected full build out of the
total campus renovant uh
renovations not just the housing
is about 30 million which would include
expanded child care services so a
potential um
expansion or renovation of jardin de los
ninos to expand capacity they have like
a two-year waiting list for
children who are
homeless or near homeless to get those
supportive services
it would also include a new kitchen
incubator and soup kitchen council has
already allocated the funding for number
four
which is the casa de peregrinos food
bank renovation
and then
if these other components come into
place it gives us the ability to expand
not only the health center and include
some of those mental health and
substance abuse services
and then the expanded day shelter
and there's some opportunities in the
media area for potential acquisition
and then partnership with families
and youth
innovations plus
and this is uh el crucero
so now
staff will stand for questions you have
many of our community partners in the
audience you also have codes and police
so
okay thank you natalie mayor protem
thank you thank you mayor thank you
natalie for your presentation i just
want to give thoughtful recognition
gratitude to all the nonprofits that are
out there
and we can do this without you this is a
really a near and dear issue to me and i
know it is to the public and
people are always asking well what is
council doing you know we're focusing on
our bag you know removal of bags and and
i can assure people in the public and
those that are listening
that we are multifaceted we can do many
things and we have and this
is just a small segment of the work that
staff and this council has done related
to trying to eradicate homelessness so
with that
natalie i'm interested in
hearing from you currently what is our
housing stock what is our need
and does it include all the
things you spoke of low income
affordable housing those kinds of things
i think that that would be
some important data as we factor in what
to do next
um mr mayor mayor pro tem gandhara our
our shortage in affordable housing
rental units is somewhere around 4 500.
a lot of this data was pre-pandemic and
pre-sort of this housing boom we're
having
in single family we estimated there was
around 5 000
and then
we know that within the next 10 years
you have a number of housing over 10
housing units
that are going to reach a significant
age that need rehab and renovation
and many of those units are are
affordable to the families that are
occupying them but they have limited
resources to access those financial
means so i didn't include
home rehabilitation on this continuum it
should be added
so staff staff is working on a number of
things
we've diversified i think there was a
strong
proponent to do only single-family
housing development and that's what
we've done for the last 10 years
desert hope was the first time we did
multi-family in well over 11 years
staff has a number of projects
around
each of these sort of continuum areas
permanent supportive housing
[Music]
some family housing of course we're
looking at some workforce affordable
housing near the el paseo corridor
we've met with the developer last week
around senior housing and i'm really
excited to bring that to your guys's
attention and then we've also
of course several weeks ago you approved
a potential loan for
a development off the walnut area that's
just for four families
so
staff's goal is my goal or at least my
goal is to get you 500 units in in three
years and that's
uh i'm going to try
hi uh what is it hell or high water to
get those done so you'll be you'll be
hearing from me a lot i'll be asking for
a lot but um
that is included in several of our ass
so
thank you natalie i really appreciate
that um so
in our housing
and just for the public we have a
housing policy review committee that
meets once a month to talk about all
these issues counselor bencomo is chair
of that and both counselor
flores and i sit on that as well and so
again this is really important natalie
you made reference to four housing
air housing projects that are in the
queue
and you may we have mentioned a couple
but can you
reiterate for the public and for council
what those are and what the estimated
cost of that is and if you have funding
for each of those and if it's a phase
one phase two what is what is
the amounts that we really need to
well to understand what they are because
we're going into budget right retreat at
the end of this week and i want to make
sure that we're funding and funding
appropriately
mr mayor mayor pro tem councillor
gandera we have i want to say six or
seven in the queue some of them are
single-family some of them are
multi-family
and again it's it's serving different
popul populations each of them are
financed a little bit differently and
they have different um
items i would love to give a number but
if i was it's going to be really high
just because of the uh
the housing market is is volatile right
now construction costs are crazy go big
or go home natalie right that's what we
say all the time i know it's going to be
high but i really need i'm not i'm not
going to hold you to it i'm like well
natalie said on friday but but this is
really for the public to understand that
the city of las cruces is doing
everything that they can to address this
issue
and frankly i get
emails mostly on facebook not even
really emails that we're not doing
anything to address this issue and and
there's a few people out there most of
you that are out here are non-profits
that work in the industry not too many
of the naysayers um out there um in the
public they might be listening but but
this is frustrating to me because you
know we get banged up pretty good on
facebook and the social media platforms
that we're not working towards this and
i can assure everybody that we are
and working as as fast as we can but 500
units in three years
that isn't going to meet the demand that
we have
uh mr mayor may report if i was to give
a number i would say 25 million spread
out over the next four to five years and
again most of those are going to be
loans they don't have to be
grants
uh anything that's affordable rental
housing
would primarily be a loan where it gets
expensive is that permanent supportive
housing because you
in order to set your rents it's base or
it's based on your operating costs and
your permanent debt without getting too
crazy so if you want to rent to
individuals who have no income or
limited sorts of incomes you have to
reduce that permanent financing and
heavily subsidize the units
to be able to take those low rents
unless you have
vouchers and the only voucher holder in
las cruces is the messiah valley public
housing authority
which they did provide for desert hope
that's one of the reasons that property
is able to cash flow because they
provided
vouchers that covers the rent on behalf
of those
people experiencing chronic
homelessness and then community hope is
able to provide other sources of funding
to cover that rent so that property will
cash flow and cover the operating class
but
i am presenting at your budget retreat
so i'll give you a full
i'll have a number for you at that time
okay
thank you natalie no pressure no
pressure um natalie you made mention all
the various vouchers and the grants and
stuff of that that nature have we ever
considered very specifically going for
large grants
specific to because you made mention the
substance right the addiction
um and and the behavioral health so
and i'm a firm believer you gotta you
gotta house somebody first before you
work on these other issues and so
for me um as as we're hearing officer
climate talk about sort of the
encounters that we're having with our
homeless population right so many of
them have addiction and mental health
issues probably some of the major
violence is another big
issue for so many of them that frankly
get them
kicked out of community of hope
have we talked seriously with our grant
team
about
some of these big samsa grants these
federal grants that could help sort of
build on that particular that behavioral
health and substance abuse
with the housing
mr mayor mayor amador health couldn't be
here but they are a recipient of the
samsa grant and of course we support
them not only with
public service funding but
with
space
facility again i think when we talk
about funding
[Music]
it really starts with the campus it's
the jewel of our city it's a nationally
recognized model you have states and
cities coming to las cruces just to look
at the campus and how it runs
and what it looks like so i think we
have an opportunity especially with the
buildback better and the other
infrastructure stuff
to capitalize on that campus
and it's almost like a domino there's
little pieces that have to fall into
place but once it's done it's it's going
to be even better and we
do regularly meet with
our grants
person to evaluate those grants a lot of
it's subject to staff capacity
as you know myself and my staff already
manage a
very intensive grant which is our cdbg
and home programs
that in itself are
are full-time jobs but
we are having our annual meeting with
the grants team
i think it's next week or two weeks from
now to look at some of those much larger
grants
we're evaluating a choice neighborhood
grant for the al paseo area to help with
that
investment specifically with paseos
vedles and some of our other
partners in the media area so
staff is actively looking for those
funding and resources
thank you natalie i appreciate that i
just think it's important that we
diversify as much as we can and tap into
those federal dollars um
thankful to the amador right that has
been able to to do that and and and
so i i just know that i see
quite a few grants available from
federal government that could could
assist us and i know i often feel like
we're strapped or the city strapped in
terms of staffing and ftes in order to
make some of this happen and i think
like you said so many things have to
fall in place but that's also a piece of
that um i want to go into some of the
the
presentation that officer clement did
related to
case law or you you've mentioned
the ninth and tenth circuit and so i'm
i'm really this is addre to our um
our attorney um i think it's important
that the public is aware of why it's
just not that simple to pick people up
that are panhandling and or um you know
sleeping on the the sidewalk and such
and and i i find i think it's important
so
jennifer
will you please help us explain this and
reminding us what we have to be very
mindful of
thank you mayor and council my name is
jennifer vega i'm the city attorney
without getting into specifics and of
course i don't want to provide any legal
advice
on the record i will generally talk
about two very important cases one in
particular
and that would be
martin versus city of boise and there
was also another case that
the name is escaping me right now
same city of boise they were both out of
the ninth circuit one of them was denied
cert at the united states supreme court
so we're kind of stuck with what the
ninth circuit determined
and there was in those cases
a city was
arresting and citing individuals for
sleeping in public
spaces the challenge that was received
was an eighth amendment challenge
although there's very there's some very
technical things that happened in
procedurally um it was remanded back
there was a circuit with the united
states supreme court denied cert but
then it was remanded back and then
there's some it gets a little
complicated but essentially
um
the court basically said that unless a
city has adequate and sufficient
housing available or beds available
you cannot relocate but they didn't
define what adequate and sufficient
means
and so that means that there has to be
an equal number of beds available for an
equal number of homeless people
that's a very difficult thing to count
how do you even achieve that but also it
means other things as well it means that
individuals cannot be turned away for
any reason and that even religious re it
cannot be incongruous with religious
beliefs it cannot be
limited as to disability or
family status or things like that so
it's not it's not very easy just to move
people
from
from a public place you have to have a
place to take them
i will say that the city of las cruces
was
recognized at least in a couple of
research articles that i found with
another city in the united states
for having a successful
program to relocate individuals so the
city of las cruces i think is doing very
well but we do have to be very careful
about
criminalizing homelessness because of
that constitutional challenge
i don't know what would happen in the
10th circuit i don't know if it would be
challenged further
i think a lot of jurisdictions are just
as confused because we're really not
left with a whole lot of guidance from
the ninth circuit but that's something
to keep in mind it isn't something that
is very easily dealt with
i think the city is moving in a very
good direction
and as long as we proceed with caution i
think it would be okay
thank you for that um
jennifer i appreciate that so with that
said natalie and in the area that you
spoke of
for the brewer oil is where we we've
recently purchased i know that we spoke
of mayor and you've made mention of this
related to
the possibility of of of adding a place
there where
our homeless population could be
directed where are we at with that or
have there been discussions and and what
would that mean
um in terms of of camp hope and
would community hope help us um navigate
that and and
as as a option
for our
our homeless
mr mayor murray pro temp
staff would have to evaluate that
again there's
we're about to start construction on the
horse and hound property so i'd have
some safety concerns um and again as as
jennifer mentioned
we cannot necessarily relocate people
they have
autonomy personal autonomy
relocation gets a little bit sketchy so
while we can
recommend or notify people about the
campus and its resources
i haven't asked nicole but i'll be happy
to purchase additional
business cards that have the map of the
campus and
provide those both to the council and
community members
who request it so we can hand some of
those business cards out
and then we can look at what it would
look like to potentially do another
encampment but
i'd like to defer to nicole a little bit
because
again we have
a sanctioned encampment so
my guess is that the people who are not
necessarily accessing services um know
about the campus and are choosing not to
but i just want to confirm if i can put
her on the spot
sorry she hung out close because she
knew there would be questions yes hi ned
hi
nicole martinez uh
uh mr mayor mayor pro tem gandara uh
yeah this isn't a discussion that we've
had in depth
i have heard that it has
come up as an option
it's definitely something i would want
to have more in-depth discussions about
especially as we've been discussing the
master plan and utilizing that property
for housing so that's my understanding
part of that parcel or that parcel was
purchased using housing trust fund money
so there has to be housing there and
then looking at other expansion
opportunities and other ways so
ultimately what it would also come down
to is capacity issues for community of
hope to bring on
another encampment and one that is
working with people with
likely
severe
mental health issues or substance use
issues and while we work with the
population in general
it would just take a lot more planning
and a lot more supportive services
wrapped around that type of
a service so
i understand
that there's still a huge need for
helping our folks on the streets that
aren't accessed in service as a
community of hope but again it would
just take a lot more planning
and partnership to to consider something
like that
thank you nicole um just can you
describe
um for us um camp hope
um
sort of rules governing body um those
things that are um essential right to
making it
um what it is today trying to be as safe
as right as we can as we house our
homeless there can you talk a little bit
about that sure mayor mayor protem
canada
when we started camp hope
it was
because we knew that there was a need um
you know this wasn't an initiative that
came from anywhere else we weren't given
a bunch of money and said go come up
with something new and neat we just said
we need to do something
we have a lot of people sleeping on our
property
that wasn't legal at the time and so
this was
uh you know former director pamela angel
decided to approach the city with some
of the people who had been sleeping
outside and
and said could we start a tent city
could do something just through the
winter and then again as i became the
director we immediately saw how
how helpful that was to keep people
close to us and
shelter and because it didn't come with
any funding hud our federal government
nor our state nor city government fund
tent cities
um so we've had to come up with really
innovative ways to do fundraising to
keep camp hope and to keep operating it
and
and we've been dedicated to doing that
we know it would be a huge disservice to
not only our community but most
importantly our clients that were
serving there if we did decide to
disband it
therefore we continue to operate it and
we have done it in a model where we have
i do have
one staff who is dedicated to working at
camp hopes jeanette christensen here in
the audience today
while i do have our camp coordinator
here
she meets with people does an intake she
works with other referring agencies to
try to transition people in there she
goes over rules with them the rules are
made
in conjunction with the clients who are
staying there
they have weekly meetings about the
goings-on at camp hope what's working
what's not working but we have other
staff that have constant eyes on the
camp as well so let's say jeanette
brings in john to the camp then she
talks to john if she finds out how long
he's been homeless let's say he has a
disability then to her she knows that
this client is eligible for permanent
supportive housing could go into rapid
rehousing as well but permanent
supportive housing would probably be a
better option so then she knows which
staff to go talk to about that she
refers
that client then to our housing case
worker in the permanent support of
housing they begin to meet and so she's
you know that staff person will then be
going to the camp to meet with that
person
it's also right behind my building i you
know venture out there occasionally as
well
but most of the time camp hope is
governed by the residents themselves
there is an elected camp manager who is
a resident um that
the
clients who are staying there elect that
person and then community of hope staff
approves or disapproves whoever
wants that lovely position um and they
help to
bring
new residents in they help to
do incident reports they do requisition
you know
anything we're low on tents we need
tarps
so they're there to help manage the camp
for us until we are ultimately able to
house them as well and then train
somebody new
into that position
we don't have staff at camp hope on the
weekends or after hours so in those
cases it's completely autonomous and
self-governing
and our commitment has been as long as
camp hope continues to meet the need
and the residents make it work then they
have our commitment that we'll continue
to operate it
thank you nicole how many um what is the
capacity there
we can have up to 50 people we have 45
tent pad sites and when we originally
designed it was because we had several
couples and so we had you know two
people in attendance we and we really
only had space for the 45 tent pet sites
and then up to six vehicles
we have found that because of the way
that we work camp hope that keeping it
capped somewhere between 35 and 40 has
sort of been the magic number for us
right now we do have 44 so we're a
little over that number and during covid
when
our partner shelter shut down we
expanded to 50 immediately just to bring
more people
not into close contact but
into shelter during the time when they
couldn't access it anywhere else so we
can have up to 50 but it just turns into
sort of
how much is our resident manager
camp manager able to to take on and
residents coexist with
thank you so much nicole very helpful
thank you um we've talked a lot about
adults and i'm interested in hearing
about children and youth and i know we
have fyi plus here
really um would like the public at one
time years ago even before pre-covet
they've identified like 700 plus
children right
are near homeless and are homeless and
so i want to hear from those folks that
work specifically with our youth
and
to address that and our waiting list and
what you're seeing
from that particular cohort
hello
um mr mayor mayor protein my name is
jennica bustamante and i am the housing
manager for fyi's housing programs
um and i think that what we see a lot
i'm gonna we have three
we have two different um operational
programs right now one of them um being
my friend's place and that
has been operational now for a little
bit over three years
we have experienced some barriers just
related to covid
and related to high behavioral needs
and mental health needs of our young
people
but somehow we've managed to
continue its operation and offer shelter
services to young people really from all
over the state they're not just
from dona ana county
we see young people
from
taos santa fe albuquerque bernalillo
roswell
and
we
are trying our best
to just keep it
providing that service to them that they
really need
because of our covet impact we have been
we have had to lessen our numbers
and so we've lessened our numbers but
the
amount of young people in our state that
are needing
shelter services remains the same
if not just a little bit
higher
and so through that process we were able
to advocate for another program which is
our transitional
living program for young adults
which
targets young people between the ages of
16 and a half to 23
which was very helpful in
in closing the gap
to some of those services because what
we also see
is young people who are
17 and a half 18 either aging out of
foster care
or just turning 18 in general
are experiencing a lack of support in
the housing sector
there's not
many places that
they can seek for
housing just like a regular lease
agreement
and so this program was developed really
from that need
we have the capacity currently right now
for up to 10
young people in that program and we're
working through some other things to be
able to expand with our on-site model
which will be able to have
a maximum of 12 young people in the
program
which would make our total around
20.
and so right now we have um six people
young people in the program um and more
than half of those people
uh or young people are
parents and so when we have young
parents
we save we we put them in a home that is
for them and their children so they
don't have any um other roommates and
that lowers our ability to offer more
spaces to more people in need
and so those are some of the challenges
and barriers that we experience
with our young people
i don't know do you have any other
questions
no thank you unless others jolene do you
have anything else to add
i know i've basically taken over but
this is super important to me and
mr mayor councillor pro tem gandara
my name is jolene martinez i'm the chief
operations officer for families and
youth innovations plus
one of the things natalie mentioned
around adding behavioral and mental
health supports to these housing
programs one of the things that's really
challenging in new mexico is that
tenancy support
is not on the medicaid waiver in new
mexico so any services that you would
provide to someone who has mental or
behavioral health issues
anything to help them support their
housing maintain it find new housing
find employment
any life skills life capacity building
none of that is billable to medicaid or
in many other states it is and that's
how many states operate permanent
supportive housing programs so even for
our permanent supportive housing program
even though we are a behavioral health
agency
we provide that service really through a
grant a case management grant because
we're not able to build that service
through medicaid and that is an issue
for any future
permanent supportive housing program in
new mexico because really a majority of
new mexicans up to 90 percent who
consume behavioral health services are
medicaid participants
so that's a real
institutional challenge for us is
getting the right behavioral health and
mental health supports
funded reimbursed and
billed so that's that's a challenge as
you guys think about moving forward i
agree with natalie and
us making a strategic effort to ask for
that to be added to the medicaid waiver
i believe the state makes those
additions once every two years
and so to be something that we should
really come together as a community and
advocate for we've asked for it multiple
times
and really they haven't done the data or
collected
the information necessary to support
that kind of addition to the waiver
thank you miss martinez maybe we can do
a resolution mayor that helps support
that
here for the city of las cruces now to
the legislature thank you thank you that
concludes my
line of questioning
okay thank you councilor bin cuomo
thank you
thank you marin thank you mayor pretend
for those great questions yes this issue
is
i think incredibly important to
[Music]
um
to everyone on this council and
you know i just think it's really
important for the public to understand
that and i honestly couldn't be more
grateful for you natalie and for
everyone you brought here today the
presentation that you've um
given us and certainly from nicole
martinez and mr officer climic fyi and
literally everybody i think it's um
incredibly important that we have public
discussions like this and as nicole
always tells me you know for every
person that you see experiencing
homelessness you don't see the 10 other
people who are housing
and i just i feel like it's such an
important conversation to be having
and you know when i talk about
when i talk about
building budgets that reflect the
challenges of our community which i talk
about often and building
budgets that are like moral documents
that tell our community this is what we
value and this is what we invest in
this is what i mean
and even you're asked here for you know
expanding support
for the responding department at the
city
and ensuring that there's adequate
staffing to me that feels
that is part of those budget
conversations and
you know we have a state
um
a great
land-grant permanent fund that has
billions of dollars
and we have a teleshore fund that is
millions of dollars that frankly i don't
think we use strategically or enough of
in
ways that make really meaningful impacts
in our community especially when it
comes
to these kinds of issues especially when
it comes to people who are already
experiencing homelessness but certainly
for families who are on the verge and
you all advocates know better than
anybody
what little it takes for someone to end
up in a place of experiencing
homelessness and so
um
you know i
only want to get on that so bugs for a
little bit but i just because the budget
retreat is next week
to me you know i i harp on this all the
time about how are we building budgets
that reflect the challenges of our
community and this to me is one of those
biggest challenges
that i think we should be investing
significant amounts of money on
natalie speaking of funding where do you
see
the
biggest funding opportunities to be
right i mentioned the trailshore fund
i think you mentioned of course the
state housing trust
i know there's many advocates who are
hoping that the go bonds are a vehicle
for some of this investment
where do you see some of that
some of those other funding
opportunities because natalie when you
say
my goal is 500 units in three years i
want to say well then our goal needs to
be how are we going to help you fund it
so i'm curious if you can tell us
more about funding opportunities
so can i just say yes yes to all of
those
mr mayor councillor benkomo
the telstra fund is definitely a
potential source it does allow us to use
the funding for affordable housing
the state
arpa right now the state of new mexico
got arpa and the city got arpa
again that also focuses primarily or it
calls out capital investment in
particular for
disproportionately advantaged
members of our community and affordable
housing
the state is there are several bills at
the state level to allocate a
significant
amount of those arpa state dollars
to
the housing trust fund
so when i'm asking for the 25 million
i'm really only asking for leveraging
funding
because that 25 million will leverage
another 100 million investment in our
city
when we
did desert hope the city provided seven
hundred thousand dollars and that was
the six million dollar investment in our
community
the geo bond certainly is i'll make a
pitch for marijuana revenue if it ever
comes
but staff staff is willing to be as
creative as council is in financing
these developments and partnering with
our developers
were working to build their capacity
for a very long time we had maybe two
developers again we're in talks with
three others so
i'm hoping to get
at least six affordable housing
developers in las cruces and i just want
to emphasize that the affordable housing
developers are a little bit different
than
your regular for-profit developers under
the new mexico anti-donation staff can
only work
and the city can only provide investment
for
developers whose mission is affordable
housing and who's a designated qualified
grantee
again some of those mras provide some
opportunity to do some investment with
with not just non-profits
metropolitan redevelopment areas are
also an exception to the anti-donation
so so staff really is considering
a multi-pronged approach
and i think i've shared this before i
never just put all my eggs in one basket
i always have a backup plan so
beyond this plan i have other plans too
that's a great list natalie thank you
and i honestly yes i fully support
having a conversation about
the tax revenue that will come from
cannabis sales so
i really appreciate that um because you
brought up developers natalie i also
wanted to ask you about
capacity challenges so we could build
build build
on the other side of that do you find
that there are capacity issues in terms
of who then is running those facilities
and and supporting people like desert
hope has you know very clear supportive
environment and and um so yeah capacity
challenges
uh mr mayor councillor ben como there
are some potential for capacity
challenges
staff is
working with a number of nonprofits in
fact one of the developers actually
asked for a particular list of
nonprofits to partner with in their
latest senior development so my hope is
to
make those connections to help
help build those supportive services
right if the developer can set aside a
portion of their operating
expense or not their operating expenses
but the revenue from the rents
to help build in those supportive
services on the front end
we want to explore those
uh
that process and make sure that uh
we're not overwhelming
our nonprofits but they're also able to
potentially get some revenue to help
support those things especially in in
light of what jolene mentioned how it's
not billable to medicaid yeah
absolutely thank you for that
i actually did have a question for
officer kleimek as well
um
thank you officer climack i haven't seen
you in such a long time it's great to
see you
you mentioned um
protective custody
and i this may not belong here but
because you brought it up i wanted to
ask you in terms of are you not taking
is the triage center not an option for
folks who
um especially homeless folks who you're
picking up
to take to you then
put in protective custody to take them
to the triage center
if they are suicidal which is
mr mayor and counselor
if they are suicidal or so heavily
intoxicated that they can't care for
themselves those are the two scenarios
where we have to take them by state law
to protective custody which means they
go to a emergency room
and
then they go from there to
be committed mental health services or
whatever
by comparison
the
triage center
is someone who is homeless
very intoxicated new to town whatever
their condition is it's very cold out
hot or whatever we can take them there
there's no criminal charges pending for
them they're in crisis but they're not
harm to themselves they're not violent
so it's not a safety concern for the
staff at the at the triage center okay
okay just in conversations with them and
perhaps i may be speaking out of turn
and i think this is why i think it's
important that we invite them for a work
session like this as well
is it is my understanding that you know
they would take some of those
individuals and that if you know you
take some folks to the er
they might be there for a couple hours
and then back on the street right and
the triage center even though it's
voluntary as well just has a really
different environment than an er
right now it's like the last place you
want to be
um but i think the triage centers just
has a really different
environment but i also want to make sure
that yes
that they are in
they have the capacity to
take in folks who are elevated yeah
that's a great point i talked to them i
called them before didn't in preparation
for the meeting today and they will try
to either
plug them into services directly or
refer them to services so you're right
they do go above and way above and
beyond what an emergency room will do
when they are dealing with all kinds of
other things so you're absolutely right
thank you officer clement i appreciate
that
um those are my only questions i guess i
just will say that i definitely
absolutely support staying very far away
from
the criminalizing of homelessness i
don't think those are long-term
solutions that will work for anybody
and frankly you know our
the detention center currently is the
largest provider of mental health
services and that is just completely
shameful
and i will also just say that natalie
mentioned several initiatives in her
presentation that we are actively
discussing in the housing policy review
committee and just the other day i
talked about to some staff about
including in the infill
policy revision in our transportation
sustainability
and
infrastructure did i say infrastructure
tsi prc as well
um and so just for the public to know
and for advocates here to know that a
lot of these
pieces that we talked about here today
are actively being discussed but they're
not simple they're not simple because we
could have very severe consequences for
people's lives and we want to take the
time to build out good policy that makes
sense
and that
and that we speak to experts about it so
i just wanted to say that that many of
these pieces are being discussed and
hopefully will come to the entire
council soon thanks again natalie and
thanks for everyone who came here today
thank you councilman councillor fotus i
thank you mr mayor and thank you natalie
and thank you nicole and and uh
and my bestie uh josie martinez jolene
martinez
um
anyway i um
i that bezos
money fund that you received it how much
was it
i mean there was something on the screen
that showed that bezos made a
contribution and how much was it
mr mayor councillor flores i'm going to
defer to call on that since they were
the direct recipient of that funding oh
they were the resi
did you submit uh for the uh
did you apply for that
and the coaster mayor councillor flores
i received an invitation
unsolicited to apply for this grant
um it's through the basis foundation and
is to assist specifically homeless
families
and so when they asked if i would like
to apply i said of course we applied
and 32 agencies across the nation were
awarded 2.5 well
they were all fluctuating but up to 2.5
million
and how much did you receive two point
five you received two for 2.5 million is
it renewable or and
no it is not renewable it's a four-year
grant it was transferred
unsurprisingly i'm sure through stock
so there was a bit of a drop and that
ended up being 2.3 million dollars
in cash to community of hope for the
next four years so it's allocated over a
four year period yes and um
and how was i'm just curious how did you
use that money how did you
we just received the money in the last
several months
and so
we started uh interviewing process to
bring somebody on board to specifically
operate this grant but in the meantime
my staff were not patient enough so
they've already been housing families
knowing that the funding was coming
through
and so we've we've been actively engaged
in utilizing the funds
for at least the last month okay
so this is just uh a windfall it came
out of nowhere and it's not something
that can be relied upon in the future
unless
yeah it was just a windfall
yes our our hope is that we utilize this
funding so well with our partners uh in
our community that we get our numbers as
low as we did when we were working with
veteran homelessness uh so that
as we do have families experiencing
homelessness if the numbers are low
enough that they can be absorbed into
existing community of hope grants fyi
housing opportunities and any other
partnerships that are
willing to work with us in the next few
years
great and then
and then nicole
as far as
health services are there any do you
work in conjunction with providers like
because i imagine
um if if there wasn't mental illness
before
uh becoming homeless there probably is
manifestation just out of frustration or
whatever where you're hitting a wall all
the time
where
mental health issues do surface so
do you work closely with any
organizations where referrals are made
or are there any conditions that attach
to people being residents there in
regards to behavioral health
mr mayor councillor flores we do partner
with a lot of behavioral health service
providers especially amador health
center who sits right on our campus they
have
on-site therapy we also have a grant
from behavioral health services division
to provide our own mental health therapy
on-site for veterans any veterans
experiencing homelessness or who we've
transitioned to housing
no stipulations with those grants but we
also have another grant the linkages
grant and that is provided through new
mexico mortgage finance authority and
bhsd where we are the housing
administrator and we have to be
partnering with mental health providers
so client has to have severe mental
health issues so they're accessing
services at two
so far
qualified agencies to work under that
grant which is la clinica de familia and
amador health center and so that grant
does have stipulations that they have to
be receiving the mental health services
in order to access the housing
but we're as flexible as we can be with
that grant and trying to make sure that
people are getting the services they
need and
for their behavioral health right and
then thank you for that and
that's great
and do you track uh outcomes
mayor councillor flores we do track
outcomes it depends on what the which
grant it is and what we need to be
tracking but we absolutely do which for
many of our grants is the only reason we
continue to have the grants at renewal
time because we meet the benchmarks that
are required
the outcomes that we need to prove
and i know this is uh
a difficult assessment i'm sure but
do you see do you personally anecdotally
speaking see
successful outcomes for your residents
or your clients as you call them
mr mayor councillor flores
this week mark's 16 years i've been at
community of hope and i can tell you i
wouldn't be there if i didn't see
successes that would be pretty tragic
but absolutely on a daily basis to see
not only
successes with the residents that we are
serving and all the clients uh coming in
but also the just the the huge successes
in the wins for the the staff who work
so hard to make sure that those sex
successes are uh happening great and
then that's something that i think would
be good for our community because
we as city councillors i don't think any
one of us and mayor and i'm sure
departments too directly
we receive
emails of frustration from residents who
don't understand
and
they don't understand homelessness and
and and mental health issues and
and think you know it's just something
either you can turn your back on
or you know just
push people
those people
you know just to the outskirts of the
city
which is terrible a terrible way to you
know look at the situation so hearing
what you've just said would be i think
really helpful for people to understand
how hard you're working and
and everybody in this room
who works and cares about
homelessness and people
[Music]
so
[Music]
we have to look at the telshur fund
we really have to look at
how much of that i think that we can
probably
look at mental health more than anything
because the purpose of the telstra fund
if i
recall correctly
should be used for health issues
and
it looks like natalie said that it's
used for housing
and i'm not
sure
that it's really i don't know mr mayor
you're the one that's most familiar i
think with the telstra fund or perhaps
our city attorney vega brown but
isn't the telstra fund used exclusively
for health issues or health related
issues
so
if i may so counselor when
in 2004 when the city and county leased
the hospital
to life point
they gave us each
20 million a piece and the public was
really concerned because there was no
there was no
um
any type of
how can i say any type of
requirements or to it was totally
unencumbered
and so we pledged to them that we would
use it for health care related needs and
so we've been able to parlay that into
as councilor bin cuomo says i don't know
you know of course it's public
information but i don't like to just say
it out loud because there's people who
are listening and they try to sue us all
the time so it's we've been pretty
fortunate in in bringing that money out
quite a bit
i i just wanted to clarify that so far
however i will say this
um
we earn anywhere from 68 return and it's
a little concerning and so
lately what the city has done
is go out to help those who do want to
use because a lot of times they can uh
and a company can find 90 percent grants
to do affordable housing but they can't
come up with that 10 percent so we've
been
lending them to 10 at a very low
interest rate let's say three percent
return which is which is good
because that starts moving away some of
our monies that because it's
theoretically in the market so something
was to happen we could lose it but this
way here not only do we get a even
though it may be half of what we're
making right now but it's it's it's
guaranteed
plus we're able to help
these non-profits
specifically the housing authority or
any of the other tier they'll sell
get off the ground and provide that more
affordable housing so if we start going
into the corpus and just start spending
that without getting a return we'll lose
it soon pretty quick and mayor if i can
just
add counselor flores that the issue of
homelessness is absolutely public health
concern
i i don't i don't disagree with that i
think that that's what we have to
address openly for people to understand
because i'm getting questions about the
use of the funds on the telstra fund and
so
so i i agree with that 100 percent
because as i said
if you did if you didn't have any mental
health issues before you were homeless
i mean and i always think about the time
you know i
got sick of my roommates in college and
had to sleep on couches you know for
about a month we found before i could
afford to get a place and
now and and that's why i'm not see
that's what i want you to understand
natalie you have to understand that and
benito but um seriously mr mayor
councillor flores um i will read the
definition for the health-related public
services
just to clear that up and then i did
want to note uh leanne's already
mentioned this but she is planning a
strategic plan around the use of the
telstra fund um so i won't steal her
thunder but just for clarification
the
telstra fund is to be used to support
the continued physical mental
developmental emotional and social
well-being safety and housing needs of
city of las cruces residents and to
improve the lives of sick indigent or
low-income people in the city of las
cruces
so public services and housing are both
eligible uses great thank you so much
natalie and i'm glad that's on the
record
but
so i also
wanted to know whether
i don't know if nicole would know this
better than you do but um the veterans
doesn't the veterans administration
contribute to
anything related to veterans or how is
are you tapping is it possible or
absolutely mr mayor councillor flores we
do have a grant that's from the va
it's called supportive services for
veteran families um and so we are able
to use that utilize that funding to
provide supportive services i have a
program manager i have a healthcare
navigator
and somebody who does
social security disability benefits with
our veterans through that grant it also
assists with operations for community of
hope
transportation
as well as some short-term limited
rental assistance
and also some shallow subsidies for
veterans so we definitely are tapping
into the va which has been very helpful
we we've been utilizing those funds
since
2014.
wow that's great thank you so much
natalie and thank you very much nicole
thank you mr mayor mayor council flores
i do want to bring up um the oak street
departments it's a partnership between
the messi valley community hope in the
messiah valley public housing authority
and
city staff has allocated cdbg funding
for the renovation
of that facility
okay we have a counselor betastuvi
thank you mayor thank you natalie thank
you officer clements and thank you to
our community partners for being here
today and for all the work that you've
done with our community i think we've
had a very robust conversation today so
i'll be very quick with my question but
i just wanted to touch upon actually our
previous work session item as we look at
realized less crucis and i'm not sure if
you've participated in given comments on
different areas that we also need to
address within our land code as we look
at these types of projects as well
mr mayor councillor stevie realize las
cruces has been very proactive about
including affordable housing and housing
staff and the entire process so
we have been very
vocal about some of the needs
we do do an affordable housing plan
that looks specifically at zoning and
land use and density and so they've
incorporated all of those suggestions
out of that affordable housing plan
again staff will continue to
advocate for
accessory dwelling units
or casitas or even monthly that missing
middle housing type
that in itself uh even without subsidy
uh
is generally affordable to families so
and realized las cruces has included
that and and they're aware of those so
they're doing an excellent job okay
thank you very much and thank you mayor
okay so let me ask you
first let me just say natalie i think
you did a fantastic job great
presentation
um but i probably need to ask a couple
questions of nicole
so nicole
the plan that's been laid out is
excellent i'm very impressed with it and
i know that you know your heart's and
you know that's why you do such a great
job
and i think i'm just going to guess that
we're talking probably 80 percent of the
people that that are homeless and
want to try to help themselves and and
get out of that
i want to talk about maybe the other
portion i want to talk and i'm going to
have to ask the officers also some
questions
the ones that
and i think well let me just back up
when you
receive
when they come into
your office or camp hope do you do you
ask them where they come from
mr mayor we do ask where they come from
on the intake
form and
what would you say is um you know are
they a lot of them from here a lot of
them from other cities
things of that nature i mean can you
give me just a just a it doesn't have to
be
extremely accurate just a ballpark of
you know they come from other cities in
new mexico do they come from
phoenix
tucson you know i don't know
it's not like that we do have people
that come from other communities and
other states
i'd say that the majority of the people
that we serve are people that reside in
las cruces
we have many people that have been here
for quite some time that are accessing
services but we also have
first-time people experiencing
homelessness that are finally coming
into community of hope and accessing
services
and
the data
nationally suggests that people who are
experiencing homelessness are
experiencing it in the communities and
where they are so we don't see a lot of
people that are
necessarily
you know
googling where to to go we do but while
we see that uh
the internet is so much more accessible
it makes sense that we would have more
people researching and looking for
places that are more inclusive for
people experiencing homelessness
but we are
we're
limited capacity so as we get
people that ask us you know if do you
have room at camp hope we're coming from
here from there then we say you really
should look at the services in your own
community
do what you can because we likely don't
have room at camp hope our housing
can sometimes take a long time to get
into if you're low on the waiting list
for that public housing authority list
is is also uh can be lengthy um to
access that so
i wouldn't say you know there has been a
lot of fear or
that communities experience that you
know if you build it they will come that
was something that uh we had a lot of
pushback like with camp hope but again
we're at 44 people um and the people
that we serve yes while we're along
major transportation highway veins we do
have people that come to las cruces but
many of them either move on
or or decide to get services somewhere
else but we try to divert as many people
as we can but a lot of them are actually
from here
okay so um as you know back in september
i along with one of the with kvia
visited some homeless people i i was
able to talk to about five of them
well one of them took off but i was able
to talk to
you know of the remaining five four of
them
and three of them
had some really issues that i thought
could be
addressed and i'm not gonna you know you
know their names i know their names they
gave me all their information
uh two of them
really had problems or situations with
social security social security office i
mean they they were legitimate they we
had the conversation
and then one just needed a an id from
the state
so i contacted lieutenant governor
regarding the state and he said we could
try to work some type of a of a task
force if we needed to
and so my question is and you recall
those people who the information um
if if they were to be
interviewed today i don't know if
they're still out there
would they say that they've been helped
absolutely mr mayor
they've got their social security
whatever it is that they were looking
for they because you know one of them
he says he goes i can't leave because i
have all my stuff here and i can't move
it little did he know that you can't the
social security office right now isn't
open you have to have an appointment
so they've been addressed mr mayor we
have very close contact with social
security in fact our telstra
health related public services grant is
to assist people experiencing
homelessness with applying for social
security disability
because along with that comes health
care provisions for them as well as
income and so we do have streamlined
access to social security
but also you know our caseworkers are
very well versed in helping people with
get with getting ids birth certificates
accessing social security and my staff
have
informed me and kept me updated as to
the progress that they have made with
the clients
again those are three out of you know
the 100 that we are talking to and doing
case management with on a daily basis
but because i know you're particularly
interested in those three yes please
know that we have made contact with them
that we have addressed all the issues
that they've had and have helped them
make progress with those issues that's
great news
i do i have one other that i'd like to
address and i think councilor flores was
touching on it a little bit and i'd like
to kind of expand on it if i may so when
you have camp hope and you have 2011 to
2021 looks like you you've helped a
total of 1584 people 1 584 correct
if i just take that by 10 that's a 158
on average
so of that 158
how many have transitioned back to
[Music]
you know
to different you know back to maybe
their old life or or close to it or
what percent would you say
we do track if people are exiting when
we can sometimes people just leave and
so we don't know we so we don't have a
perfect picture of the data of when
people just leave can't hope but when we
can if we know it's somebody that's
transitioning into our housing programs
and we're collecting that data
or if we are collecting if they have
self-resolved
and i believe that that information is
on our website i don't have that
particular data memorized i can get that
to you but we have several clients that
do transition out and i know that that
also alludes to perhaps a picture of
success
but i would also just like to suggest
that we think that success is keeping
people uh safe and secure and close to
services
as opposed to you know the two people
that we are reminded on an almost daily
basis are sleeping in our downtown plaza
so i know that i would i would assume
that
we would think that on an average 150
people sleeping at camp hope
is a benefit to the community and to the
clients who are there
we'd love to see all of them transition
into their own apartments either on
their own or through
programs be it through community of hope
or again you know clinica or fyi
or the housing authority
and unfortunately it's not 100 of people
that transition into housing
that's one measure of success though
and don't get me wrong i mean that one
of the reasons why i'm asking is what
other ways can we help so that they do
transition
you know it's it's it's one thing to
help them
even if it's a short fix but another is
to get them
uh moving in in their um previous
direction
and and granted you know these i think
are people who want to be helped i know
there are some that aren't that don't
okay so so you don't have a percentage
approximately just
15 20. i don't have a percentage okay oh
yeah if you can get back to me that
would be great well those are the only
questions i had for you so now i'm going
to ask one of the officers thank you
nicole
so officer um
as i was mentioning
you know i'm going to talk about
probably that what i think is around 20
who
um
you know maybe they are okay with that
lifestyle but what's not okay is
when they come into a business they
harass the employee the employee tells
calls the police
then they leave right
and then and then after the police leave
then they come back again
and then i've i have pictures i have
videos of homeless people who are
breaking windows like you mentioned
going inside doing all kinds of things
totally disrespecting problems now
that's not right
now i agree i don't want to see us
arrest someone just because they're
homeless
but that's one thing but the but the one
person those the homeless people who who
have total disregard for another
person's property that's not right
they
you know to to damage that sometimes try
to start little fires or do whatever
they're trying to do
what can the public do what can they
expect the police department to do about
that
mr mayor every
individual is a different has a
different story a different
different condition that puts them
in the homeless situation
substance abuse mental illness so forth
and
our contacts especially the officers
that are working with the homeless is
more than just taking enforcement action
get your stuff and move on we actually i
asked them where are you from how long
have you been on the street why are you
on the street so it's almost like an
interview and and people are
surprisingly very open
some don't want to talk to me and tell
me to to beat it but most people are
actually open and we're unwilling to
talk about what gets them onto the
street
i guess i should have asked you a
specific question if the if the business
owner has the information the pictures
the video of the perpetrator and you
guys can see them is that enough for you
to take them in or do whatever you need
to do yes we can we'd conduct an
investigation like we would for anything
um
download the video take a look at it
interview witnesses
and take enforcement action if that's
the right way to go and again i'll point
out if that we need to have someone
that's willing to pursue charges we our
police agency and we have to balance
um
their the responsibility for the
homeless and the
the citizen the business owner homeowner
whatever
so um
we would conduct an investigation like
any other thing and take enforcement
action as appropriate yeah
and please the questions i'm going to
ask you
not
you know i i think i can't thank you and
and your brothers and sisters and the
las cruces police department and the
lost crucified department for all that
you do for our community as i tell the
chief often i couldn't do your job
not even just for a few hours i'd be
watching the clock ready to you know but
i have a question for you
is it
unlawful for a person to ride a bike on
the sidewalk
no
it's not right an electric bike you
cannot ride on the sidewalk but you can
ride
a
human-powered bicycle on site okay so
let's take the electric bike
you know my the first time i ever saw
anyone spend the night
in the street
was in 1995 in washington dc and i was
just recently there and i still see them
but i never see them on the sidewalk i
never see a tent
and maybe they're falling a different
circuit
but
you know what do i tell i don't know
we'll probably talk to our city attorney
here what do i tell someone who
is you uses a motorized scooter or to go
to work which i know a few
and they can't get past unless they have
to go through the street because
someone's sleeping on the sidewalk
there is a an ordinance for obstructing
movement on a sidewalk and you could
cite them or just try to get voluntary
compliance yeah yeah that's that's
that's what we need to do i'm sorry but
we're having too much of that
and and that's not right because that's
that affects people who are either
trying to walk maybe they're on a walker
they're on a on a
motorized scooter
and i mean yes it's unfortunate
but if they want to move to the private
property and if the person wants to let
them okay well what can we do
but i don't think that we should
continue to allow people to sleep on the
sidewalk
i don't think that's right
and i also think it's safe and i think
it impedes someone be able to
to
go to their destination
i mean what
why does the homeless person have more
rights than the person who's just trying
to go through the sidewalk
mr mayor the issue that i've received a
lot lately has been in the downtown mall
area where the person is actually
sleeping
in a
doorway
of a business that's
closed or unoccupied and not actually on
the sidewalk
so i go back to the discussion earlier
where i would need to have a responsible
party to say hey this is my business
this is my property i want you to
issue a trespass warning take
enforcement action or just get them on
their way whatever
but um yes they
i don't i haven't seen where they're
actually impeding traffic on a sidewalk
yeah i know i've seen a few on solano
and like i keep waiting for
and they've eventually just moved
um i just figured okay i'm sure someone
would go the next day and then the next
day turns the next day and you know
but
so let me ask you this
let's say a business um can they be
proactive and just say okay i'm at one
two three four main street here and i'm
giving you
uh express authority to
when you see someone trespassing on my
property just to remove them yes
okay good and if it's an open
field or yard or something it helps to
post a no trespassing sign but yes you
can do that yeah
well that's the only questions i have of
you thank you and i appreciate it again
thank you for all that you do for our
community
so
jennifer when you when you talked about
the
the um
you cited those cases and talked about
adequate and sufficient housing
was it
so you're saying that that
if we provide them
a place for them to i mean they're not
sleeping in a house to begin with
and are is are you interpreting that the
court is saying
that we have to provide them some type
of housing even though they're not in
housing right now
uh mayor and council
it's a complicated issue
there are certain things that have to be
considered um there are a lot of
jurisdictions that are struggling with
this because of the way that it can be
interpreted it which is
left up to
um
further litigation but
one of the issues is that you can't
you have to consider whether a person
has available housing and if they are
rejecting that housing but how do you
determine if they're rejecting available
housing you don't know that but you
can't count that you don't have to count
that
in part of your numbers of available
beds another consideration that some
courts have found is that the housing
has to be available is it a 24-hour
period or is it just overnight period if
it's 24-hour period there are a lot of
um shelters that are not open for 24
hours so does that count as an available
housing if they're not open for 24 hours
that's another thing that is left up to
interpretation and we have to determine
how to best navigate that
so there
there are many many things that have to
be considered what is
certain is that there is a progeny of
cases that have determined that certain
things that are considered to be
punishment for homelessness
cannot be
cited
people cannot be
arrested for those things that can
include several things it can include
sleeping in public places it can include
urinating in public it can include
public intoxication these are things
that are determined to be
you're punishing somebody for the
condition of homelessness and we have to
be very careful in how we treat that and
how we
um treat people it's not just a matter
of having an available bed because now
we have to now we have to think okay if
it's an available bed how do we make it
available if there are any rules
for for example if a person is has a
substance abuse problem and there's and
the only available spaces are
places that have rules that you cannot
you cannot use illegal substances in
these places
that person has an addiction now you're
eliminating their access so does that
count as having an available bed so
they're just many factors that we would
have to carefully consider in any policy
and any policy implementation we have to
very we have to look at everything very
carefully and try to navigate how best
to serve that population
yeah i hear you jennifer and
i'm not saying that we should
criminalize homelessness i just think
that if we provide them
and i and i
appreciate the hard work and effort
that's been gone into
into
natalie's uh
renditions or drawings
but the fact remains is if we gave
basic shelter that's right next to
all these other services that we provide
which very few cities you i'm sure you
know
very well that very few cities like us
provide the services that we provide
and if we have this i guess what i'm
trying to say is it's it's just it's
it's getting out of hand it really is i
mean just i'm sorry it's amazing if you
guys haven't received your emails which
i'm sure you have to i mean i get we get
them every day
and it's but it's it seems like
and i know covet obviously accelerated
it but i also think it has something to
do with social security because they
just can't get their money i mean just
seems like every
every city has experiences how can it
all of a sudden just happen i think it
and i think the common denominator is
social security
and so i like these plans that we have
for the future we're always going to
have homelessness and we have to be
prepared for it that's what i appreciate
uh community of hope doing but i'm
targeting i'm focusing on the ones
that take advantage and
are doing things and violating
causing criminal damage to property
breaking windows trying to
steal things
that's not right
and
and i mean it's one thing to help
someone who's down and down on their
luck and and try to get them back up
sure we'll help them
all day long
but when you have someone who is so
disrespectful
and
and just does whatever they feel like
doing because they they know that
nothing's going to happen to them that's
just not right
so
um i i strongly think that uh i mean we
you know we settle lawsuits all the time
and you know what i i think that is i
think whatever if we provide them
adequate housing
with these services
i think we
we go toe-to-toe with a 9th or 10th
circuit and tell them this is what we
have and that's what we're doing and
this is our long-term plan and in a
short-term plan this is what we have
it's not safe for someone to sleep in a
in a
royal what happens if
you know we have a
flood or you know a lot of water and
then they drown and then the family sues
us because we let them sleep in an
arroyo so we're
we can't win either way
i just think that it's it's time
that we have to move forward on on on
the on the smaller percentage not the
larger one on the smaller brand you know
we'll help our larger ones percentages
but i'm talking about the ones who are
you know which ones i'm talking about
you guys i know you get the emails mayor
potem and others it's just
we can't just
uh this is gonna take years before we go
there and and then who's to say that the
ones who are causing this
this damage are the same ones i think
it's different i really do i think
they're i think they are
uh here they're doing what they can and
and they're gone
i i saw this one
fella that was always there on um
on the bridge there on lowman near the
the mall and yeah he moved on to el paso
i've seen him over there and he has the
same sign same uh things that he does
and he'll eventually just take off but
that's his thing
what i also don't find what i find
interesting is years ago the sun news
used to have um they used to have
carrier they used to sell newspaper they
used to give jobs to the homeless and
selling newspapers
and then
the city
said you know what you're an independent
contractor you need to get a license or
or sign up for a business license
and you know what it stopped them
so why is it that someone can
play music do all this stuff they're
providing the service and they get
collect money what's it i don't
understand the difference
but
that's just me so
that's my comments if anyone wants to
refute them
mayor i will take that opportunity okay
good
um
i mean i couldn't disagree with you more
honestly i feel like
i'm okay here i'll i would like to ask
you a question
can you walk through
what that would look like
you give somebody a site somebody who
has no home and no income a citation
what happens
i don't want to go down that line of
questioning the only thing that i will
say
is that there is a preponderance of
petty level crime regardless of your
housing status so that's probably a
different conversation and we talk about
criminal enforcement for all kinds of
things and that's one of the reasons i
put expanded support and staff for
responding departments which would
include
police to address vandalism all across
the city regardless of your housing
status
i'm going to defer to management to
if they have anything else to say but i
just want to
thanks and not go there i appreciate
that natalie i think but i do think it's
important that we talk about
the systemic failures in our community
that have led to
increased homelessness or people who
have chronic homelessness and i just i
think it's incredibly important that we
have maintained a level of dignity and
respect towards
people who are experiencing homeless in
our community and mayor no one is
arguing that
um
[Music]
this petty level crime
shouldn't be addressed by anybody
whether it's someone who has a home or
not
nobody here is arguing that and so i
just i i
i hope we don't go down the line that
you're suggesting and
um and start criminalizing homelessness
and instead do many of the
recommendations that were provided here
in front of us today
okay well thank you counselor but
as i mentioned to you i'm not looking to
criminalize homelessness i'm looking to
do something with those who are being
disrespectful and they vandalize
items and things
and nothing happens to them i don't
think that's right
and so that's what i'm focusing on and
not criminalizing homelessness if
they're homeless yeah there are many
services that we can provide
help them will help them all day long
but once they start
you know just pick up a rock
through
businesses glass doors that cost a
thousand dollars a piece and what do you
tell the
the business owner oh well you have
insurance well yeah my deductible is
2500 and it's a thousand bucks
well okay
so what do you tell them just and what
if they do that once a month
that's that's a thousand a month
that's quite a bit
you know i mean so i'm just talking
about those
who are disrespectful
who not i'm not about the ones who are
they're they're they're cold and they're
just trying to find a place warm place
to live hey that's different
that's different
i'm talking about the ones who
who
defecate on your property who break
glass they do everything they could care
less they're trying to start a fire
that's what i'm talking about counselor
please understand the difference
okay so anyone else have any questions
or comments
okay i'm going to open up to the public
i'll give you two minutes each how many
people want to speak
so i've got
two
four
five all right please come forward and
state your name
hello
hi
my name is elizabeth barnes
i'm actually experiencing homelessness
right now
but before i get there on 4.2 you have
prisoner care
and i don't think we went through that
but for the future maybe we can
because i have some questions and
concerns about that
but as for me
i left town about three four months ago
i had been helped by community of hope
they helped me
and it was a six month lease um my
landlord sexually assaulted me and told
them this i just was there last week
and they were gonna do an intake on me
but they said they couldn't find it um
i'm staying at the mercy of friends
back and forth
um a babysit i do whatever i can
i went thursday and um she's like unless
you're not sleeping in your car or at
the shelter
and i try to explain to her i'm like
i'm at the mercy of friends
and so
i just left
again
i'm not completely hopeless
i have income coming and stuff i just
needed a helping hand
i just um
i just want to say it's
not only substance abuse i used to be an
alcoholic
they murdered my brother and so i i lost
a lot uh i'm i have to associate degrees
i was a lab technician at the college
but
um
you know your will for living doesn't
always
you know measure up with a lot of people
with their happy lives and stuff like
that so a lot of people aren't just you
know on drugs we're either mentally uh
incapable of wanting to do things i mean
i'm not going to say i'm a couch potato
either
but i got a lot of uh emotional issues
and i and i see therapy and i hadn't
seen my therapist because i left town
i was with my son
his father died and so we came back to
el paso we're from el paso but i've been
here for at least 20 years already so i
think this is my home and i told him
that i was going to go back to el paso
it didn't work out i want to come back
here because i have a granddaughter that
needs me her mother tried od last month
and i have a daughter that the state
took away from me in 2012 when they
murdered my brother
so i just um
i would like to get housing
i can pay my part but i need help but i
do want to see if i could get an
additional
room for my granddaughters because
that's why i'm here
see if i can help them out i'm no longer
an alcoholic i i wanted to do community
counseling for drug rehab and stuff so
that's what i'm focusing on but i can't
because i'm homeless right now i have
two storages full of my things i just
i community hope told me that my intake
wasn't there and um i had just been
there last year so they made me wait and
so when i was there thursday i just feel
like they pushed me away
because um they said i wasn't staying in
my car but i'm at the mercy of my
friends like for instance last night i
stood at the apartment where i just got
sexually assaulted from because that's
where i get my mailing address it's my
mailing address so i was back and forth
i just think
there's other situations that some of us
aren't really heard
i did
go to the community of
to the shelter domestic violence and
they asked me to leave because of a man
that was there and um and i just felt
like they
i i filed a grievance on death's ears
i'm sure
but i accused him of nepotism and fraud
and i didn't do nothing wrong they just
asked me to leave because there was
amanda and i'm a rape victim and i told
him that he was
following me around in the kitchen but
anyways yeah elizabeth you know um
you're the people you're exactly who we
would like to help and i know you've got
a lot that you have to and we've got a
few other speakers i'm gonna leave you
my card if you can yeah i can can't
promise you everything but i'll do my
best to see what we can do to help
so there was someone else yes ma'am
thank you
hi um isabel torres oh
good evening ladies we're already in the
evening sorry about this
um
i'm talking to you guys about
the homeless people
i had a son
he was killed 2016. excuse me isabel can
you speak a little bit closer to the
microphone please yes sir
i had a son in 2016 he was killed
here
i don't think it's the officer's
responsibility
and the homeless
i have a son that's homeless he's doing
drugs
i don't think it's a responsibility to
take care of these people these people
should be taken care of
by the city
these people that are walking around
pretend i'm homeless because my son is
and he's not all there because of all
the drugs he's done
so he he cannot
choose and pick
what he needs what he's going to do or
anything like that and there's the
confusion there
between
the officials
and i understand people work hard for
their money to preserve their places and
the officers here
i i think that
what's best for these people
is a facility where they can be placed
in cleaned up
mentally looked over
um
come here hope
they don't have mental i've been there
knocking at their door and i've called
them
and uh
about my son to get help to get into the
tent
i i've taken my son you know and
i'm out there exposing myself because i
have two cancers and
i still do it because i know he needs
help
the first place we need to go to
is for the city
to open one of these abandoned buildings
clean it up
put people in there to work
get these individuals an opportunity
you know so they could clear their hands
and then decide if they want to continue
on that path or they just needed a hand
i know my son
it's hard
for people that are on drugs to leave
these drugs it's very difficult
they don't know what they want they're
pulled this way they pulled that way
and it's up to us
as individuals as a humanity a society
to help these individuals that they
cannot help themselves
a senator one day said a representative
about
that triage synonym opened
they couldn't help that little boy
and he's
he didn't have a degree
psychologist psychiatry
and he is giving his opinion
he's never been living with a drug
addict
he's never lost a drug addict
he doesn't know what this
happens to these individuals
it's beyond their control
so we
as a society need to figure out
i think they would be
good for the police department also
because it wouldn't be so much
trouble
you know they waste their time as a kid
i'm sorry for interrupting let me ask
you a question have you reached out to
la clinica the familia have they
yes absolutely
the problem is
is that
these individuals
we
people
police officers can't put them in a
mental institution because they seem
okay
at the moment they seem okay
they don't see the mentality
and we're not authorized
to to make that decision for them
because according to the people that
they're in the capable status mentally
to make their own decisions
but they're not
i've seen my
you know i know
i know how he acts
and it's not him
you know and before i lose another one
i would like to see this city start
helping these individuals
you know because the woman was shot and
killed by the police department 2016.
he died
that was in the back
this one
i don't want to lose yeah isabel i
again i'll be more happy giving you my
card we'll talk a little bit more and
and we'll see what we're going to do
what i really would appreciate though
is
consider consider opening one of these
empty buildings to get these individuals
help
because it's a travesty it's an inhumane
we sit here and
you know i bet a lot of people say if i
had a gun i'd shoot him nobody cares
yeah
we do care
there are people that do care sure of
course
and it's not their phones
because they're not all there
okay well thank you isabel i'm sorry but
we're going to have to
yes there you go
[Music]
there was a i think that was it on my
left right or was there some
one more person
mr mayor city council
my name is richard barrella aka richard
davarzbarella
basically i would like to
provide some insight and
basically beg for a little help
i fall into actually two categories
right now
uh
normally i'm category one chronically
homeless but right now i'm doubling up
this this gentleman
felt pity for me and he's letting me
stay there till february 3rd
but then i have to be out
and to be quite honest
i fear for my life on that day
when i have to go sleep out there on the
street
i generally fear for my life
i don't
i made many enemies in this city let's
just say
and i don't know why
it's not that i
actively
tried to make these people my enemy
but
when they steal everything you've got
including the van that you sleep in
they manipulate it so that the federal
government can can
confiscate it from you
i mean
you you start using harsh language
there was many things i wanted to say
but i'm i'm not good in public speaking
so
uh
the officer uh
once
was pointing out to
or and you your sophomore said you can't
understand why people want to be
homeless
it's not that i want to be homeless
but
since i've
well the reason developed in my life uh
i enjoy being uh
sleeping out with uh my lord and my god
i mean that's just the type of life i
would rather live in a tent
uh i would be happy you know if i could
uh make sure it was secure and i could
keep it warm
and i could keep myself clean
i would be happy
you know i want to live out here with my
god that's that's
and i i don't expect anybody to
understand that
but that's what i want to do you know i
i love waking up with at the sunrise and
seeing the sunrise and talking to him
but uh
you know because of
of my
strong religious convictions
they run counter with a certain segment
of the society here in las cruces
and people don't agree with that
now as far as affordable housing let me
give you one example
i was staying at the gospel rescue
mission
okay and uh
they have i mean you're required to go
to chapel every day
which is fine i mean i'm that's that's
my that's my my line you know
and uh but there was a couple there
uh
and uh you know they they came and they
performed and did gospel music
but uh
and the girl she would she would sing
and she would play the keyboard and she
would uh uh give anecdotes between their
their performance numbers
so
you know when she's talking and when
she's singing i'm looking at her
and uh
for some reason the husband i don't know
i don't know what got into him
but he came back there
to my bed where i was sleeping and
accused me of
looking at his wife
like well yeah she's talking and singing
what am i supposed to do i'm just
you know but he he he made it look like
i was lusting after her or
you know and i've never spoken to her
you know i had never said a word to her
i was just
looking at her because she was talking
and singing
but i got kicked out for that
i got kicked out for that and i couldn't
go back yeah no so i've heard other
instances i mean that's that's
completely unfair
you know and then people uh like to push
buttons they they'll
they'll find a button to push on you
yeah they they're you know what i mean
and i'm already i'm already on the edge
because i'm homeless you know
uh
there was a nurse from new mexico
richard i don't i don't mean to
interrupt you but you're kind of you
know i don't mind a little bit off your
time but uh but i appreciate you coming
here tonight and sharing with us your
your your experiences and i'm sure
if if you're looking to you know further
yourself i'm sure the community of hope
or many many other organizations i could
help you all mr mayor do my best i'll
try to have five jobs in this city and
these people do not want me to work with
them they will create a toxic work
environment to where i mean it's it's
it's i mean it's it's hell yeah getting
up to and going to work yeah and
eventually they'll just they'll just say
well uh these people don't want you
working here because this is the right
way to work stay yeah but so i mean it's
it's completely unfair i got a hard
worker uh i i love everybody i love
people uh i'm a religious person i don't
have a violent bone in my body and it's
killing me
so to have to decide if i if i'm gonna
have to defend my life with violence
from these
whatever they are what satan is
gangsters i don't know i don't know what
the problem is with me
okay richard well thank you again i
appreciate it
i think there's a couple people here yes
oh i'm sorry
my good friend lorenzo
anderson i'm a partner over at the
campus of community hope
i'm the executive director of casa
peregrinos and i just want to let you
know that we collaborate
we're always working with each other to
address this issue
and i just want to touch on one thing to
you guys that's important and it's for
you not to forget
that it's people helping people
this is a humanitarian effort here
this is really about
giving somebody a hand up and it not
everybody wants a hand up immediately
but if we don't
keep trying
we're not going to
know i see my partner here nicole
and her staff here and i got to tell you
it doesn't matter what situation
happens
they're johnny on the spot
even in my nice neighborhood office in
oma ranch i
i had an incident at my house where
somebody was sleeping beside my house
immediately made a phone call they were
there
the woman had gone to some domestic
violence issues and one of her staff
members was there to address it
immediately not
a day later not that night
within about half an hour they were
there
this is the kind of work that we do at
community of hope these are the kind of
partnerships that we have there
i need to remind myself of those things
too once in a while
because yes
there are frustrations that happen just
the way you've been frustrated mayor
i get it
from a business perspective i get their
frustrations
from a neighborhood perspective i get it
but sometimes they just need to hear a
voice that you care
somebody is on your property wanted to
ask him if hey
i don't really want you to be on my
property but hey let me give you
something to eat
let me give you some water maybe you're
thirsty
you know what i have this jacket and
it's a little cold outside
sometimes that communication is really
all we need to do
and i don't ever want any of you to
forget that you know you guys are our
leaders you guys are the ones that are
pushing us forward
but there's a human element to
everything that we do and you need to
make sure that every decision you make
is based on that
you made a commitment to your
constituents yes
but this is about people
these people right here
they're there all the time
without them there would be probably a
lot more graves
being made today
there would be a lot more overdoses
going on today
but i have an idea of how you can help
us
you can help us tell the story of what
happens at community of hope
maybe we don't do a good enough job of
letting the public know what we do there
together
but maybe that's something that you can
help us with because you know what
storytelling is costly
nice little video of what happens on the
campus with its success stories or even
with some of its failures so that we can
actually know
people in the public and actually know
what we do
they like to criticize but they won't
come on the campus to visit us
and see what we do
i know i'm out of time there but
i just wanted to bring that up and
another idea is why don't you just make
us a line item while you're in budget
that would be awesome
we wouldn't have to compete so much for
funding and we could keep these services
going all the time
a line item thank you yeah
thanks lorenzo and i agree with you and
also line item for for community of hope
it's never going to go away
and i just but i just can't
emphasize that or not
we're not i'm not talking about those
that are needing help
talking about those that are that that
deviate and go and purposely destruct
property that's not right
it's just not right
this
lady here
mayor council
um
i just need you to stay tuned
again i'm sorry your name is francis
escola
i'm glad i sat through all this because
what i have seen on pretty much a daily
basis where i live
and been
severely traumatized by is this
percentage of this great work that you
guys do
thank you for what you do
secondly you all talked about the brewer
oil
brewer fuel thing
are you thinking about the property that
where the uh cotton gin used to be
because i've
is i think it's next
talking about well the one that we just
acquired isn't that the one right next
door to the community of hope i mean the
um
oh yeah horse and helm she's talking
about amanda proximo
correct she might be yeah
yes
wait a minute the cotton gin the cotton
okay it's not on the map
okay because this is amador and this is
what is this here it's just a lateral
okay because where are the i was hoping
it wasn't where the cotton gin used to
be because of the roundup experience
that place is kind of useless i would
think for people to live and that was
just going to voice that concern
thank you
well if you go back to my state of the
city address a couple years ago i
addressed it
and i haven't forgotten about it so what
maybe some day here soon it might get
addressed
okay yeah i know i know i know i know
what you're saying i'm being real coy
about it because it's it's real estate
but yeah oh okay yeah okay thank you
was there someone else i thought there
was one more person no
oh yes come on back
max
max bauer the uh ceo of
amador hospitality downtown
uh i hadn't been here in a while sorry
hang on
uh no i i sat through the whole meeting
and listened to what everybody had to
say all the different stakeholders and
it's good to see some of the people that
are involved in a lot of the nonprofits
i haven't seen him in a while
i would just encourage going forward i'm
i see i'm glad every that this is
something that we're all talking about
it it's gonna it's gonna take a little
bit of work
it's gonna take a little bit of time
uh i would just encourage everyone to
look at we probably need to strike a
little bit of a balance here there's
there's no way that we want to
undermine or or negate or
minimize a lot of the good work that is
done there there is a uh
a big difference i think you're probably
pretty close on the percentages there mr
mayor as it relates to people that are
taking advantage uh
breaking the law because that's what
we're dealing with here there's a big
difference between people that we're
saying are disadvantaged that are
homeless that are
down on their luck and people that are
committing crimes it's two separate
groups of people and i i would never
want to see those
lumped together because it devalues
what's being done
on the
on the human rights and on the on the
social services side but i see it every
day you know i'm downtown and and we
have an operation there of course
and we're talking about
a smaller group of people that
just should be becoming increasingly
aggressive
and um continue to
kind of push the limit
um i
it's probably related to enforcement
they know they can get away with it
maybe more than they used to i'm not
sure i don't have the answer to that
i just know that it makes it difficult
to grow a lot of the stuff that we all
value and that we all want to see
happen with that element there and i
don't think you can ever get rid of it i
mean any big city you go to it's
something that you're going to run into
it's just i think
for a city of our size it feels like
it's a little bit out of hand
and that
more work needs to be done on what we
can do
to to make sure that everybody's
represented in that situation
um
i don't really have a whole lot more to
say other than um these are bigger you
know there's there's a lot more that
needs to be talked about here i
i see a lot of opportunities here to
maybe take help solve some of these
bigger problems as it relates to social
services there's so many things that i
see that are not being tapped just by
conversation i see a lot of connections
that
i think will help all of us um but we do
we also can't forget that at the end of
the day we also have to
to do what we can
to make sure that the people that are
investing you know in the businesses and
it's not just the businesses but it's
the customers too we want to make sure
that people feel comfortable coming
downtown
and
we just got to figure out a way to
navigate the two together
and
i look forward to helping where i can
thank you
max i have to tell you i'm impressed you
said it 10 times better than i could
have
uh
exactly right that's why i was trying to
practice it anyway well
thank you for that and uh i appreciate
that and those are
he said it better than i could have ever
and that's what i was trying to get at
anyone else
let's go for like what eight o'clock
what is a six right now
i'm just kidding counselor and so all
right if there's nothing you're done
i have something to say
okay yes i'm here for them thank you
um
you know i appreciate every
my colleagues here
um people who came and spoke i know it
hasn't been easy i mean you saw the face
of homelessness right here today and
they talked very specifically about what
the root causes are and and those are
substance abuse mental health
um and and not enough housing stocks so
so mayor you know this is a very complex
issue i often say to a lot of my
partners max included up there because
we have conversations he sends me
pictures and different things throughout
the day that are that are occurring
but we have to look very compassionately
and deal with this in in that way
i see this as a real economic
development um opportunity um there are
a lot of of things that we can do and as
as
we've given sort of marching orders to
mr pilly about addressing poverty and
this is this is part of it this is part
of it and
honestly to
[Music]
to suggest that
a bigger percentage of our homeless
population is creating these issues i
know i talked to officer klebek and
others and that's just not true
and so
maybe we need data to help support that
i do know that a lot of these folks are
drug dependent
that have violent tendency
and many of them are so
are in crisis already that it affects
this issue so i i really want to
encourage us to be as compassionate as
we can
moving forward developing you know mass
talked about these connecting of dots
and
i'm all ears because this is going to be
this is a community problem this just
isn't the city's problem everybody has
to put forth an effort to address this
and again i think we need to be really
careful that we're not criminalizing our
homeless population because it isn't a
criminal
it's not criminal to be homeless i mean
you heard an individual that said he
prefers to be homeless
and and so i think we need to be very
very careful uh moving forward and so
with that mayor i'll turn it back over
to you
okay if there's nothing further
entertain a motion to adjourn so moved
by flores
second a beta
okay motion made by counselor florida
second by counselor beta stuve that we
adjourn christine
this is on the motion to adjourn the
work session counselor beta stevie yes
councillor graham yes counselor ben como
yes council koran yes cancer flores yes
cancer canada yes mayor
yes okay it's 5 54 pm we're adjourned
thank you very much for everyone's
participation today
you know
you