[Music]
good afternoon everyone welcome to our
tid board meeting today is monday
october 25th 2021.
if you please join me in the pledge of
allegiance
those of you who are joining us to watch
the work session of the las cruces city
council
that will be taking place here after we
have our
tid board meeting so the city council
can also double up as the tax increment
development district which is what we're
doing here today
and if you're viewing and you happen to
see commissioner shannon reynolds up
here he did not
jump ship he is an ex-official member
from dona ana county
who will be
participating although he is not allowed
to vote so
so with that we
have couple items i have one item here
and that is the approval of the july 26
tid board meeting minutes so i'll need a
motion and a second please
so moved
okay is there a second
second okay motion made by board member
beta stewie second by board member ben
como
christine
this is on the motion to approve the
minutes from the july 26 to 2021 ted
board meeting board member aveda stevie
yes
board member vasquez is absent board
member ben como
yes
board member sorg is absent board member
flores is absent board member gondara
yes and chair yes
okay so we have three discussion items
and we have chris faber
who will be bringing us the financial
update first so chris
good afternoon mr chairman members of
the tidboard chris faber economic
development
so yeah i have three three items to go
over today um the first one is just the
financial update of the tid
secondly just a quick update on current
tid projects and then lastly a
discussion
about the plaza shade structure and and
direction moving forward
so
this is just a recap of where we ended
last fiscal year with the tid
the month-to-month breakdown
and i put that in there as just a
reminder
and then show you that for this year to
revenues are up substantially
on talking with the economic development
department dr baetis it's it's across
the board increases in gross receipts
tax are being reflected and you can see
those numbers here in the tid so we're
we're off to a really great start this
first quarter um collections are up over
seven hundred thousand dollars so
and this is just uh the year to date
that i put up every meeting just showing
the year to date so you can see where we
finished fiscal year 21 and where we are
already
year year-to-date in fiscal year 22 so
already well on our way to those numbers
from last year
these are the numbers for the three
different accounts within
funds within the tid
2815 revenue and operations about 4.6
fund 4270 capital projects unrestricted
just a little over 1 million and fund
restricted bond projects
a little over half a million dollars so
it's in
really good financial shape
just a real quick update on some current
tid projects we've talked about these a
few times before but compost redesigned
study
they will be wrapping that up sometime
later this fall
that was uh burton moles and corbin was
brought on by public works to take a
look and see how to make
campo street
um
fit into the downtown more along the
lines with church water and of course
mainstream so they're looking at various
aspects there and we should be getting
that information finalized back in the
fall there were stakeholder meetings
january april and then again august of
this past year
so next steps finalize the report
hopefully do a presentation to
this tit board here in january with
those findings
um design work to follow uh six to eight
months and roughly ten percent of the
construction costs which are estimated
to be about 3 million dollars and if you
remember at the july 10 meeting that was
one of the items that you approved was
money
out of one of the
4271 for the design
so public works can get that moving as
soon as possible
parking lot 7 just as a reminder that's
the parking lot right behind the rio
grande theater
the first half of that project is
complete
the second half which will be
resurfacing the rest of the lot demoing
the current restrooms and installing the
new restrooms will take part later this
year
once the prefabricated restroom facility
is received and can be installed so
first half done second half will be done
later this year
and so the last item did you have any
questions at to this point before we get
into a discussion about plaza
shade no it didn't look like okay
so we we spoke about plaza shade back at
the july meeting it was it was table for
a few different reasons so
uh i went back and pulled together some
background information and thought we
could do a recap of where everything
stands to date
and then try and get some direction
moving forward so we can work with
public works and other departments to
bring something back to you at the next
meeting if you choose to
make this a tid funded project so
several different design options were
considered i believe several were
discussed at previous work sessions and
in in the past
i spoke with mandy gus at length about
the some of the things that happened
before i was
here at economic development and it was
noted that some of the most important
design criteria that the consultants
were looking at were no additional polls
in the middle of the plaza
maintain sight lines to the
stage from all points on the plaza
protect the sundial artwork in the
middle
and be able to accommodate sight lines
and open spaces for the holiday events
like the the
christmas tree that parks and rec puts
up all the holiday decorations and then
of course the chili drop that dlcp does
for new year's
it was of note that the sufa data which
collects cell phone data
on the plaza in certain areas downtown
indicated that it didn't really show
much of a drop off in attendance
on the hotter days so that was that was
at least good information to know
from a sustainability standpoint we
talked about this at the july meeting
but the community solar option appears
to be the best option moving forward to
have solar power at the plaza versus
doing panels there itself
some of those reasons are
well the annual cost is about forty five
hundred dollars um and and the main
thing is metal structure with solar
panels on top could actually create
what's called the heat oven so it could
actually add
increase the temperature in that
particular area
and incorporating the
solar panels into the shade structure
could
increase cost and limit some of the
design possibilities so going with the
community solar when that program
becomes online is the best option for
solar power at the plaza
so i'm just going to recap the three
different
designs that were presented at the
august 2020 meeting and just to refresh
everybody's memory so
the first one was the translucent panel
and you can see the little rendering on
the screen up here
during the
the public input period that public
works conducted prior to receiving these
renderings it was the second most
popular option about 35 percent of the
people surveyed liked this design option
sight lines are not an issue with this
particular option
and of the three that they presented it
was the least expensive of the options
the retractive canvas
this was the most popular
slightly above the the previous
translucent design about 45 percent of
those
survey like that option
the big problem with this design is that
the cabling that runs across the plaza
to hold up the canvas would
it definitely interfere with some of the
holiday events chili drop
tree etc so
it was the second most popular
or excuse me second most expensive
option and then again the canvas is more
susceptible to weather wind
heat that type of thing
and the one we discussed at the july
meeting which seemed to be favored by
council last fall was the decorative
medal
on the feasibility study conducted by
the public it was the least popular of
the of the options
and it it could have implications with
the christmas tree and the chili drop
and sight line issues
um
as well and and it was
the most expensive and these prices have
been sort of adjusted to deal with some
of the price increases that we're seeing
across the city so
i put together some
next step recommendations to give the
tidboard a little direction as to how i
think we could move forward so
i know there's been discussion with acd
and the downtown las cruces partnership
about
some concerns they have so my
recommendation would be to get all the
city departments together
along with many other stakeholders like
the ocp and arts and cultural district
to meet with the consultants
discuss some of their concerns with the
design
and see if they can come up with some
options that
that works for our for all the different
parties involved and and incorporates
the art element that i i believe
everyone is is interested in seeing
from a funding standpoint i believe some
of this you'll be addressing at the work
session today but
there's potentially funds that could be
available
if there's reauthorization and
of some of the state funds that were set
aside for the parking garage
so that discussion will be at the work
session um
and if that's the direction the board
chooses to go and if the total cost of
the project would be greater than
the funds that you would have available
um from from the state funds you could
always look to the tid for the balance
of those funds and what we could do then
is
come back with the resolution in january
for the board to
to make that to final decision
construction if we if this is the way we
go could begin in early 2023
and that seems like a long way off but
as amy will talk about it at the work
session some of those funds if they are
reappropriated for the shade won't be
available till the fall of next year
and then this would sort of allow us to
continue doing the holiday events
and then start with some sort of
construction
in early 2023
estimated costs you know these are the
right this is the range of the of the
options i presented 750 000 to 1.3 um it
could vary if they come up with a
different design but but that's
currently what we're looking at
an estimated completion time for the for
the construction would be about six
months if we go this route we could do a
lot of the design work in advance so
that when the remainder of the funds
come available for construction that we
could just move right into that phase as
well
that concludes my presentation
before i get to
questions let me just
remind council that
excuse me if you recall
senator
mary kay papen
had uh recent had gotten a million
dollars for the
parking garage
and then she had suggested after she
left office that if senator kerry hamlet
would be willing to reauthorize that
million for
the shade structure which i did reach
out to her and she did agree to do that
and i think
staff will be
bringing forward a resolution to give to
to larry perhaps or
even the senator so that during this
next legislative
session
or i think they can do that
right now without necessarily
legislative section i don't know larry
can talk about that but i just want you
all to remember that
but i was going to ask chris
i i want to
i want to say it was at least four years
ago if not longer
staff had presented
to city council a different set of plans
for shade
a little bit less costly and a little
bit easier to maneuver than these
because these were these are permanent i
mean the other ones were
were
not quite as permanent and i was just
curious if you had access to those
and if that was even a possibility to
bring forward so that council can see
those and they can see
what was looked upon
say six years ago versus now
yeah mr chair i did check in on that and
i wasn't able to track down any of the
previous designs but i did i did ask um
and how i really was able to locate was
information regarding the criteria that
was given to the consultants
okay
no problem so i'm going to now open up
for questions did you have a question
airport
time i think he's
asking for uh chris thank you for your
presentation i do have a question a
couple of comments mayor thank you
um thanks chris for um your presentation
i think what's most important is chris
and staff are asking for direction
moving forward with the options that
were given
chris i i
i just want to
be clear that i think it's important to
involve our arts and cultural district i
think that was one of the sticking
points from their perspective they
didn't feel
as involved
as they felt they should and whatever we
pick it i would love to see
it look like an art
installation of some sort
and i've always been a huge support of
the solar panel kind of option
i've also mentioned to you in our
monthly meetings that
i like the way the city of albuquerque
has put their shade structure it's not
um
you know consistently covered overall
but there's some elements that look like
art but also
they're sort of spread out so that if
people want shade they can get to that
you know
specific spot and with chairs and and
such um
so as far as going back to the
the three
um
ideas
for me i think it's important to bring
back the consultant i thought they were
actually
very well suited to assist
us moving forward
i don't recall the name of the of the
consultants per se but they had a pretty
sophisticated way of of
entertaining
ideas and and grading if you will or
taking surveys on the spot i think would
be
would be important i'm sorry that i
don't see anybody from the acd here
presently
um but i
am i right
i don't see him in the
in the
audience but i i think whatever we do
again the acd should be a part of a part
of that conversation thank you mayor
thank you councilman cuomo thank you
mayor and thank you chris for the
presentation
i
yes i actually really appreciate you
lifting up some of the next some of the
next steps that need to happen i feel
like last time we were in this meeting
we did have several organizations
advocates people who were directly
impacted who helped the plaza in
downtown flourish raise some concerns
about this idea of
shade and and people feeling honestly um
i wouldn't want to say scared but people
feeling like this was going to have a
huge impact on some of the holiday
things you mentioned
um and so i and i take that very
seriously because i love the plaza i
think the plaza is
we were just at an event um a couple
days ago very well attended and really
incredible and i feel like it's such a
great place and i would hate to
do something that could impact that
i'm still very uncomfortable with the
price tag for shade
1.3 million dollars to me is very high
for shade
and mayor the last time we had this
conversation
i think um you were gone for that but
part of what
i had recommended was that we weighed
out this
surge in cost crisis right
public works did say like we don't
expect them to go down anytime soon but
maybe six months a year
i don't necessarily think that's i mean
we've lived in a sunny place this whole
time one more year of sunshine
won't hurt anybody and but i just feel
like this is a really big price tag
on shade and
um i think
i think we should wait one more year i i
really do and i feel like
um
i would certainly like to hear more
input from some of these organizations
that you've put on here chris i think
that's really important
um
and i was going to say something else
but i oh yes question the data how old
is this data from the public
mr chair board member ben cuomo i
believe it was it was definitely
pre-code but i feel like it was early
2019 that they conducted that but public
works might have an exact date that's
just what i was able to pull from the
files yeah okay 2019 is not too bad it's
not too old and i know that from what
i've heard is that from mayor mayor
partement a lot of people have talked
about this to them at least right and so
i i think that's also an important
consideration to make can you go back to
the the picture of sort of the final
potential recommendation see what i
worry about with this is that then
you're going to have
we're going to have an event at the
plaza where there's speakers up the
front
and then just like four groups of people
sort of uh
congregating in four different areas as
opposed to like sort of in the middle
and the center
as some you know as someone who has led
rallies or any of these events it
doesn't feel good to have not have an
audience in front of you um when that's
the entire intent of an event
those are just some of my thoughts again
my biggest
my two biggest considerations are price
tag
and have we really worked enough with
organizations that do the most on the
plaza to be able to make a final
decision thanks mayor
thank you for that just a couple things
counselor actually
former counselor greg smith representing
the arts council asked if the
much like what you said
if these other organizations could help
design i think it's a foregone they want
shade i mean they understand that they
need it
and i was able to google
a an old article
it was dated january 2nd 2018
where it says uh
well it actually says city funds shade
structures kiosks for plaza welcome
signs for interstate but we really
hadn't and at that time the cost was 750
and one of the counselors was concerned
because it was remember i told you it
wasn't quite permanent and you can kind
of take off different portions if you
want three-fourths of it you have
three-fourths you want the whole thing
do half or a quarter
and so
i guess what i'm trying to say is
in fact they were supposed to get me a
resolution from from those three
organizations a letter of support saying
they need shame we need shame we just do
it's it's it was promised when we first
built this plaza and we've every year we
found some reason not to fund it and um
we've got we've got a state senator who
who
is willing to reauthorize the amount and
if we turn her down it just makes us
i mean that's
you know i just don't think that's the
smart thing to do
i i mean it's
it's going to be used one way or the
other and i think i mean it's hot it's
hot there it's just really hot and
that's why i really have to circle back
to the
what that that uh presentation in 2018 i
guess it was 2018. i thought it was
longer
so it must have been january 2nd because
we don't meet on the first so
i'll ask adrian if he can pull that
january 2nd meeting and see if they can
send me the video and i'll look through
it and it'll have the name of the
company who who did the shade
any other questions
commissioner you have any comments in
the shade do you like shade or you like
being out there in the hot sun 110
degrees burning
go ahead
thank you mr mayor
you know i like shade and i like sun as
well what i what i do i i
what is it with that chair everyone who
sits there it's like i can never get you
know either for or against it
i'm just joking
messing with you
do you want me are you saying you want
me to take a position yeah are you four
shade or are you against shade well i'm
for shade
i'm four shade uh i don't i'm looking at
the three designs this is actually i
didn't get a chance to look at them
before i was out of town the last
meeting looking at the three plans that
you have
i'm not particularly fond of any of them
that's just my position okay
but as far as the costs go i think
i think i do agree that if we have the
money and we have a plan that we can all
live with we should probably think
seriously about trying to find something
thank you mr mayor thank you
commissioner yeah i agree i'm really not
fond of the these three either that's
why i circle back to the other one
because that one i thought
i don't know if you recall maybe you
just came on board uh
councillor flores it was 2018 you were
elected into 17 yeah so this would have
been one of your first meetings second
second or third work work session
what
if it
thank you mr mayor um
i i don't uh i do recall being at the
charette
uh when it was presented by the
architects
and i i too do not remember but so i
don't know if it was 20 january 2018
because i remember i was
it was probably 2018 when we saw the
presentation at any rate
um
one and everybody everybody participated
in it was
sro it was literally sro there were so
many people from community there and we
used up uh rooms 2007 a and b and
um and everybody participated they had
this electronic thing where you could
just vote
so and you just reported chris that um
and maybe you did last time too
that uh
well no your point today that the three
that we finalized were not the ones that
the council liked weren't the ones that
the public liked am i correct in
understanding that
uh mr chair board uh remember flores um
yeah the the number one from the public
was
you know retractive canvas
but has its issues because of the
weather around here and you don't have a
picture for that it's right there oh is
that it yeah
if you look you can see the difference
between the ones on the plaza so that
would have canvas that stretched out
across cables that went across but that
obviously has
issues with the cables
the translucent one was the second most
popular based on the data i had and that
would be more
off to the sides of the plaza
and then the decorative metal one was
the one that
had the lowest amount of
public support
but you know what what we could do is we
could you know
take all this data and all the input and
get back with the consultants and kind
of see if they have some other options
that
take into
style that we're kind of looking for
maybe it's not complete shade on the on
the plaza and just see if they can come
up with something
maybe there's a more affordable option
we can have them look at as well well
that
well there's
excuse me two concerns i have number one
if the public
for those who attended and as i said it
was definitely sro
you may remember that do you remember
that chris
i was not i was not there at that time
no oh my god
that um
yeah so yeah it was a large group of
people
and a lot of people so what happens to
how they uh
selected their preferable design i'm
just saying that as a matter of
practice i mean why have these
charrettes and then not follow
the uh
the lead of what you know follow what
the people voted on
and if it's a practical matter of some
sort well practical insofar as expense
is a factor
but
but if it's um
you know like the the some of the
designs that we we sought those three
designs we saw today
uh one is too expensive one doesn't
really give a lot of shade
um and then as uh counselor bencomo
pointed out one of the designs actually
separates people
so maybe we should go back to the
drawing board but i definitely
agree with
the mayor that this is money that has
been allocated and
it looks like senator hamblin is willing
to pick up the ball or pick up the
whatever the next step
to assure that that funding comes to the
city
um
is there any projection as to um
or is there any change in the estimated
cost
uh from the original because things
change a lot from 2018 or 2019 whenever
that was yeah so uh
have they gone higher than what you
presented today
mr chair board member florida so all
these prices on here i did adjust
for the current prices so
this final one here the
the decorative metal was actually a
little under a million dollars when they
presented to you last august
working with public works
and going with the 30 cost estimate
that's where the 1.3 million comes from
so so that's been adjusted
okay so anyway my question remains what
do we do with public input and
it's true we're the final determinants
here but
um or determinators whatever but um
i don't know it just seems to me
that's that's a big factor
um
do you have do you have the design that
the public voted for the number one
design
mr chair board member flores so the one
that ranked the highest was the
retractable canvas option
oh the one that is susceptible to the
yeah because it would in order for
something like this to work you'd
probably need to add extra pillars in
the middle and that was something that
was one of the do not do's that we gave
to the consultant so
this option here would if you went with
the cabling the cabling would be
across the plaza
and that would interfere with
tree and
chili drop and all that sort of stuff so
okay thank you so much mr favor thank
you mr mayor
thank
you have another comment
mr yes sir if you don't mind
he said that this uh
popular
version is actually the
canvas is retractable and leaving the
cables
is it possible to make the canvas
disconnectable
so that when we want to retract it we
disconnected from the west side and
retracted back to the east side
thereby allowing us to continue with the
chili drop in the christmas tree
mr chair uh board member reynolds that's
something we could certainly ask the
consultants i don't know if that was
asked of them at the time or if that's
possible
you're basically suggesting that the
cabling as well as the canvas all
retracts so that when it's not in use
there's
nothing over the plastic so and we could
certainly see if that's an option i i
don't know if it is or not but can't
hurt to ask
i would uh i would think it's
i would think it wouldn't add a lot to
the expense of what we were looking at
and would yet allow us to
roll it up when it's going to be windy
roll it up for other events and then
pull it out when we want it
the other the other option would be to
make the poles retractable bring it all
down and then cover it with some surface
below the below the other surface
just
drop it into the ground throw a plate
over it
make it a normal surface and then push
it back up but that's
hasn't even been looked at yet so i
would think this is
this is a pretty good option for what
we're looking at
the retractable
put the cables away along with the
canvas my recommendation
thank you mr mayor thank you thank you
commission
okay anyone else
sorry anyone else
okay so
[Music]
you're going to need a little bit of
direction from us so i think really
chris i think the majority would like to
move forward we need to get this
resolution from the senator
and
perhaps
i don't know it didn't seem like the
council was too enthusiastic with these
options
and whether or not we want to go back to
look at something that might be or the
suggestion the commissioner had see if
that's even viable and if not then
perhaps maybe
look at something different is that what
i'm hearing
see this is what happened in 2018.
that's why it didn't because it never
really got approved back then
there was this discussion and then
certain council members didn't want it
because it was going to cover the whole
amount
we could have bought half we could about
the fours
i just said i suggested just buy all of
it and then put what we need
this really isn't a very difficult
thing to figure out here
i just feel we need to move forward yeah
i agree i think what we'll do
is if it's okay with you we'll reach out
to these uh these three the downtown
partnership the cultural
district and
and um
the arts council wanted to be a part of
it too correct and so let's put together
an ad hoc committee and let them come
together if you all want to appoint
someone to this
we'll do that come up with some designs
that might be beneficial to the to some
of the events that we have whether it's
a chili drop whether it's the christmas
tree
and just see what other options are out
there perhaps we could find something a
little bit cheaper
okay the difference will we'll put some
furniture a new furniture in council for
como's office
okay i'm just kidding okay so
we'll just do that then well i think
we're going to move forward chris but
maybe not with this particular
set
but but if you could find out on whether
it's retractable or not
i just took it for granted that that had
already been looked into but if you
haven't that would be good
we'll do mr chair
okay anything else before we close
okay thanks thanks chris
so if there's excuse me if there's
nothing further
and entertain a motion to
adjourn as a tit board
motion to adjourn
second by flores motion made by board
member bencomo second by board member
flotus that we adjourn christine
this is on the motion to adjourn the tit
board meeting board member beta stevie
yes
board member vasquez is absent board
member ben cuomo yes
board member sorg is absent board member
flores
yes board member gandera
yes chair
yes
okay it's 1 35 pm we are now
adjourned as the board tit board and
just need a minute or two to switch over
to the
city council work session
you