[Music] i'm gonna wait till the midnight around i'm gonna [Music] yes i am i'm gonna [Music] that really [Music] so welcome yes here are we on okay good afternoon everyone welcome to the work session of las cruces city council today is monday october 2 2021 it's approximately 1 pm if you please join me in the pledge of allegiance please okay thank you so we have four items on the agenda and councilor bincomo asked if we could have a acknowledgement this morning before we begin so councilman cuomo turn it over to you thank you so much mayor thank you and to our city clerk for making this happen today i want to quickly introduce diego medina a member of the pito manso tiwa pueblo who's going to give us a land acknowledgement today in honor of state and federally recognized indigenous peoples day diego if you you're welcome to either see whichever one either this one or this one you can speak in okay just need to state your name please even though we i think it's off let's let's if someone will give us about two seconds and then they'll turn the microphone on no no no because it's got to be picked up on the recorder that's you wanna i saw someone go inside there you wanna just you wanna use that mr microphone there that's on the okay hello hello there we go all right take a minute as it always does thank you so much mayor and council for inviting me to be here today on indigenous people's day um oh yeah see him excuse me diego can you state your name please yes my name is diego medina thank you so much for having me here um i'm a member of the pyro monster tribe and i represent you know the original people of las cruces new mexico and so i'm happy to be here to give this acknowledgement and to tell a little bit about our history and our presence here and the importance of acknowledging you know the founders of our city and what that means for our cultural ethos and who we are as people as a community so i'm grateful to be up here speaking purell words here in city hall i'm not sure if that's ever been done before but it's happening now so thank you all so we're in a pretty significant place you know a couple weeks back we found out about the findings that you know white sands how significant that was and how impactful that was you know that there's been presence here um for close to 25 000 years so it's it's also a little bit ironic that here in you know less than an hour away from las cruces that that finding was made public and yet you know our communities here have the least recognition and our community has been you know the last to be recognized federally and so it's important to put that into perspective and think about how long our ancestors have been in the messiah valley and this greater area around the sierra de los monsos and paso de la norte and how important is moving forward to acknowledge that history so here in the messiah valley you know the turtle river of course once snaked completely through before it was channeled and straightened and the dam was built and it was a very lush valley where so many different communities built homesteads and rancherias and pueblos and it's a history that's not often talked about so our monso ancestors you know were the first community here in this area prior to the pueblo revolt who made this area their home and stewarded it and cared for it spiritually ecologically through their kinship practices and cultural practices and then come the pueblo revolt in 1680 we have the aftermath of that which led to a mass exodus of pirro and tiwa people from northern and central new mexico coming down to the messier valley and paso del norte area and many pueblo communities were established leading to the ultimately pasadena being you know the most indigenous place in this part of the world outside of mexico city and we had our socorro seneca isleta pueblos down there we had guadalupe pueblo and so many other communities that established the original framework for what would become the culture and the values of our area down here and you know moving into the present um after um centuries of living in the pueblos of pasadena our tribal members were the first to petition for land in the original town side of las cruces in the late 1830s and early 1840s and so our tribal families established the what they call that escape the historic district i don't think our ancestors were converted as a historic district it is you know as is the barrio that the that all of our families lived in and carried on our cultural practices and kinship connections in that area for what would become the city of las cruces so we established the city of las cruces and invited in all of our community members to participate in taking care of this land with us and so it's important to acknowledge the historical changes that have taken place over time and those historical changes have led to a lot of erasure a lot of displacement of our tribal people despite all that you know the piro people the tua people the monsoon people are all still here with us in us as us um carrying on the cultural practices and the ancestral traditions that were um you know given to us by the great ancestors and so i'm thankful to say that here in the city of las cruces we acknowledge the peril monster tiwa people as being the original people of this land we acknowledge that our monster ancestors were the first people here in this valley and we acknowledge all the ancestors that came before us all the way back to those footsteps and white sands and probably before that and we've been here this entire time praying for the land taking care of it singing songs for the land and caring for our community and welcoming all of you in to be part of our community as well so um i'd like to close this by saying that you know las cruces is a city proudly shared by so many diverse people who come from all over the world and we're all here to be stewards of this place and so it's important to recognize that the paramounts of teal tribe pueblo san juan de guadalupe we're here where you know the original people of this land that are happy to share it with you all and we ask that we continue to you know acknowledge our history and the importance of our presence here and how we're going to continue to be here caring for this land and we'd like to you know thank the city for acknowledging us here and acknowledging that we're the original peoples of this slide diego thank you very much for that i know i saw a presentation that you gave a while back and you answered a lot of questions that i've often wondered and it was incredible so again thank you and thank you counselor bencomo for suggestion and and making it happen so it's great okay so now we move on we have pets of the week and i believe clint thacker are you here oh you're gonna okay good thank you mayor clint is out today it looks like we found a permanent replacement well thank you marin council for the record i am tessa at veda stevie and i'll be giving our pets of the week right here we have agate she is a one-year-old female about her i like my name implies i am a precious tordy gem i might sometimes be a little skittish at first but after a little introduction i'm very quickly buzzing my tail and asking you for pets i'll be the perfect affectionate companion and our dog of the week is dusty dusty is two years old i'm a very friendly super playful gal i can be best friends with all types of humans but i play a little too rough with cats and small dogs so dogs my size are preferred types of animal friends there's going to be an event this saturday the 16th from 11 a.m to 2 p.m at petsmart that's located at 22 east loman avenue and the hours of operation for the animal service center is monday through friday noon to 6 pm and saturday and sunday noon to 5 pm thank you all right great job getting the hang of this next we have our jobs of the week is looks like elizabeth theaters we'll be giving that presentation so thanks elizabeth good afternoon mayor and city council my name is elizabeth teters and i am filling in for a job to tell you guys the jobs of the week first off the city of las cruces has a school crossing guard supervisor position that closes on october 19th abc paint and body has an auto body repair technician that closes on november 4th bumblebee learning center has a system administrator that closes on october 31st the cairacon international has 10 positions that are spanish interpreters that closes on 10 29 and then the discover discovery child development has an after-school teacher and baby attendant that closes on november 4th this wednesday and thursday from 9 00 to 11 a.m at the las cruces workforce center is an employer recruitment event and here is the contact information for new mexico workforce connections mr mayor yes yes councilman like to make a comment sure can you go back to page one so um there's a sing-on bonus of a thousand dollars yes for the spanish interpreters to they have to sing oh uh mayor councillor it's a sign up to make it more difficult thank you thank you very much okay so that's content information anything else no okay great thank you elizabeth great job okay so the one item on the agenda is going to be the certified local government program and looks like mr larry nichols director of community development is going to start it off or maybe make the presentation yes good afternoon mayor city council city manager i'm larry nichols community development director we have this afternoon a presentation with the certified local government program who's with this state historic office it encourages preservation of cultural resources through various historic best practices and preservation the city of las clauses currently meets the eligibility requirements for the certified local government status and the benefits of those of that status include technical assistance participation and nominating the properties for the national register of historical places and access to grants through the historic preservation fund for this introduction i will yield the floor to dr troy aidsworth for the presentation to counsel see if i can hit that f5 here like that's not thanks larry okay good afternoon mr mayor members of city council city manager and all gaster are present today the thank you dr director nichols for the introduction as mentioned we're going to go over a certified local government program we have a dozen slides to look at and very briefly if you're unfamiliar with the certified local government program basically what a clg is is a municipal political entity that engages in historic preservation efforts and its program has been certified by the state and by the department of the interior it dates back to 1966 with the introduction of the national historic preservation act itself which expanded federal involvement in nationwide preservation activity and was amended 14 years later in order to very much strengthen the efforts by localizing efforts and providing a funding structure in order to go beyond encouragement to actual funding for undertakings of a preservation nature so a town a village a tribal entity a county or a city in the state in any of the states or territories are eligible to become a certified local government if they meet five different criteria let's take inventory of what the city of las cruces is currently doing first does the city have a preservation ordinance that it enforces and the answer of course is yes dating back very recently to december of 2019 when the municipal code was amended to include historic preservation districts that's section 40 of the municipal code furthermore the city also has established a qualified and adequate historic preservation review commission those are two of the first elements that are necessary but you also must maintain a system to inventory and survey eligible and designated historic properties our gis staff in community development already is undertaking that responsibility public participation must be provided for and our search our excuse me historic preservation commission meetings are open to the public and as you can see behind us today some of the folks and i would like for those who are here specifically for this item if you would please acknowledge by raising your hand a few folks from the commission and from the community are present today in support public partition participation is a is an extremely important part of the effectiveness of the overall program currently the city of las cruces does not meet their fifth requirement and for one reason only it's not applied to be a part of this program that's the only reason but to satisfactorily perform these responsible responsibilities is a task that staff is prepared to do five responsibilities only as we have just gone through and it summarizes with an annual report to the state of new mexico's historic preservation division on that year's preservation activity so it's really a minimal amount of effort for a maximum amount of return the benefits are of key importance here there are primarily three of them technical assistance provided to staff and commission members from the state historic preservation office in order to be more efficient and more effective with preservation activities also involving involving the community in the nomination process for properties that would be eligible for listing on the national register of historic places and lastly and this is the crucial point access to funds through certified local government grants that are limited only to designated historic certified local governments within the state of new mexico we have a nice round number which demonstrates what it would cost to apply to participate as a certified local government and what it would cost on an annual basis those two numbers equal one another as you can see in 1977 federal government authorized the establishment of the national historic preservation fund by allocating one hundred and fifty dollar 150 million dollars per year from offshore petroleum extraction and not taxpayer dollars in order to have a sum of money to be divvied up to all 50 states and territories for historic preservation work over the last two years the state of new mexico and you'll see this in a subsequent slide in has received its allocation in 2020 it was in excess of 881 000 the way the clg program is structured from that total amount 10 is set aside specifically for certified local governments to apply for grants throughout that year so 88 000 more than 88 000 was available to certified local governments here in new mexico in 2020 only clgs can apply for those funds not not every community town county tribal government so it's it's very small and as you can see there are only nine certified local governments in new mexico the city of albuquerque columbus counties of lincoln and los alamos deming las vegas santa clara taos and santa fe these funds are dedicated exclusively for certified local governments so if you are a grant writer what this means is rather than having almost an unlimited pool of applicants for a clg grant it would be limited only to the nine or perhaps 10 clgs statewide an application packet is a very an application packet is a very modest but important document containing these seven different items two of the items are required to be signed by the chief elected official county manager mayor tribal governor whatever the elected official title is a list of the commissioners a copy of the ordinance a copy of a preservation plan if applicable resumes of staff and a list and a map of designated historic properties and districts and and that's that is a complete packet to send to the to the office up in santa fe despite the public health condition in 2021 the state office received in excess of 930 thousand dollars from the united states congress out of that money out of the 93 000 available to clgs the village of santa clara received two grants in the amount of total amount of sixty thousand dollars santa fe a twenty five thousand dollar grant and our neighbor in columbus new mexico 7 500 grant for designing a web page at the present to reiterate the city of las cruces is already eligible on four of the five criteria the one thing is an application for a certified local government would apply for what would permit the application for grants otherwise denied to the community the benefits are many the cost is non-existent and for the next steps community development department staff in the historic preservation commission will continue ongoing preservation efforts staff is prepared to draft a letter in support of the application and lastly staff is prepared to accept the responsibilities of maintaining its status as a clg in the state of new mexico by promoting our city through an annual report and being eligible to apply for clg grant monies so with this information and with these comments this concludes this work session presentation thank you so dr ainsworth um will you take questions from council yes sir okay councilor flotus thank you mr mayor and thank you dr ainsworth would you please go back to the page where you listed the five qualifications yeah and you said that las cluses already has a b c d but doesn't have e which is perform the tasks so what are those tasks why haven't they been performed or what what qualifies performing a task yes counselor councillor flores the only reason the city of las cruces does not meet all five point e here requires us to be a certified local government that's all it is that's a catch 22. it is a catch-22 but it's it i'm not sure why but it maintains eligibility because you can maintain or lose certified local government status for example if you do not provide annual reporting if you misuse federal monies if you if you um avoid your historic preservation ordinance so in other words if if a community is certified into this program it's not in perpetuity it can be removed so uh contingent upon playing by the rules eligibility is maintained okay so if a letter an application was submitted with a cover letter from the mayor in our case our municipality the highest elected official is the mayor then that would be processed by the state of new mexico or the federal government councillor flores by both the recommendation would be made to approve in santa fe and would be that recommendation would be forwarded to the department of the interior who would have unquestionably approve it unless there was some untoward reason not to and then how is that money allocated that 884 000 plus that was allocated there are two excuse me about 10 entities in the state of new mexico so there was about an eighty thousand dollar allocation to each how what determined the allocation was just an even split it's a it's an open grant application commensary floors it requires any of the clgs to actually apply so in speaking with carla mcwilliams who is the manager of this program in santa fe she has made it clear that not every community applies each year and so they may only have a couple of of applications so therefore depending on which applications are submitted will depend on how many funds are going to be used what is the need those funds are available does everyone take advantage of them who can and and it doesn't happen every year so does the doi set a some certain like 884 000 every year or does that change and then if there's only two municipalities or two municipal entities um applying does that mean that if there was 884 then each one would get uh 400 000 plus or how how does that work because it and i'm not in any way i think it's wonderful i think it's great if we would do it um but what is the certainty of receiving those grants and then how is it how is it determined i mean how much is allocated okay to your first question counselor flores the funding value per year will fluctuate you know so you in our in the very small example in 2020 in excess of and eighty one thousand dollars in the current calendar year in excess of nine hundred and thirty thousand dollars um what next year's funding will be is is unknown at this time however from the total amount the state of new mexico receives and this is for their operating budget so this 930 thousand dollars for this year of that total sum is allocated for certified local government exclusively so depending on the number of grant applications that are submitted and received by the state uh in whatever amount that they dedicate an award for various opportunities the state of new mexico wants those funds to be used in their entirety they don't want to leave leftover money so the way that uh of course if the village of santa clara is asking for two grants for sixty thousand dollars um and as you can see santa fe and columbus these were the only three who applied in 2021 i feel very confident that if the city of las cruces we're a certified local government that we have a number of eligible projects to apply for on on a very short order and i do feel confident that adding this city to the certified local government list i believe we would have a very strong chance with strong applications to be awarded funds okay so the village of santa clara for example received a total of sixty thousand dollars was that all they applied for i'm just trying to gauge how much we would ask for is sky's the limit and then would it be parceled out or would they hold back i mean what is the state of new mexico doing with the remaining funds that were allocated they can't uh commissioner flores they the state can reprogram that money for other clg programs they can they can do that but they can't reprogram it just for any of their regular business activities if that makes sense well yes or no what exactly where does that money go and who can access it do other municipalities then does that roll over into the excuse me the 2022 allocation actually it does it those funds are available for the state to use but only for certified local governments right okay so so if that was all that was used in 2021 because we're coming pretty close to the end of the year um there's a big pot sitting there there's a 60 70 close to 70 000 i mean ovary close to 90 100 000 close to nine hundred thousand over eight hundred thousand uh well uh councillor flores uh keep in mind that the total amount received for the state for all of their nine programs and thirty thousand three hundred sixty two dollars this year from that amount ten percent is for the certified local governments to apply for grant monies so that would be ninety three 000 oh i see so what does the state do with the rest of the money okay that's for that's for facilities infrastructure staff equipment uh public outreach whatever programs all their other programs that they have oh i see i see okay great thank you i apologize if that was not clear um it's clear now okay thank you very much dr ainsworth thank you mr mayor thank you anyone else counselor vasquez thank you mayor thank you dr ainsworth for this presentation just a question here regarding the selection of projects you mentioned there'd be several projects the city could apply for should we be eligible to apply for them with this designation who who would decide what projects are the city would prioritize for funding good afternoon councilor vazquez that's a very good question with input from staff with input from the historic preservation commission from the public from what needs does the city the community have it would be easy to put together a list of of eligible projects if if i may they can be bricks and mortar think about city-owned buildings such as the rio grande theater or the brannigan memorial the former brannigan memorial library the frank papen center in macia park or the women's improvement association building here on the east side of pioneer park walking tours would be an eligible type of program an educational program to for outreach to members of the home builders association or local realtors about the responsibilities of listing a home in the musquite historic district or or the the barrios indios alameda depot macia park the whole purpose would be public outreach bricks and mortar education and in my view what would be crucial is to have a pool of proposals ready to go each year to apply because we could we could make multiple applications depending upon funding we could certainly do that the village of santa clara put in two separate proposals and both were awarded so the array of possibilities is wide and the input is community driven staff driven the commission vested parties who have an interest in what we can do to improve las cruces thank you so much and i'm just trying to think of the process here in terms of the actual decision makers on this so you initiate a public input process after the designation uh is successful and then you identify properties and you would ask folks for comments on those properties or would you ask the community to also submit their own potential projects for for fun uh councillor vazquez that's uh that is a good approach and we haven't worked out on all that detail however it is my opinion that a public outreach input is a lot more effective than just a simple staff approach to identify i think it's important to know what the community is interested in and begin from that point in prioritizing projects so it's it it's not fully developed as a as an approach yet but certainly we're immediately to codify it and figure it out thank you thank you and i think that's important dr thank you um and so the designation is approved by the new mexico historic preservation division is that correct that's the entity that would approve the application that is correct yes sir okay and then ultimately the applications for projects for grants on each on any given grant cycle those would be made through by staff without prior approval by council is that right the proposals would be would be prepared and you know based upon what the what do we want to do and then we put together a proposal mail it to the shippo's office in santa fe and it is a competitive uh review process but again it would be only limited to the nine or ten certified local governments in the state those are the only ones who can apply for these funds sure thank you um again just trying to get a better understanding of the process and who ultimately has the decision-making power in terms of prioritizing the projects to apply for with the limited funds and it sounds like staff is uh would have the the the authority to submit grants based on the the process that takes place for the public input and and other recommendations from perhaps members of the community is that right yes councillor vazquez that would be a correct assessment okay thank you well um no i i fully support this i don't see why we shouldn't do this it's another avenue for us to get funding in the door for historic preservation programs i definitely would just recommend that we do develop a system through which there is equitable decision-making and prioritizing of projects with a particular focus on the community input oftentimes you know we have different projects that we that we select and then ask for support for but it'd be great to also solicit the input of the community before those projects are even put on a list for them to choose from so i think that's an important part of this process moving forward um and thank you for for spearheading this i appreciate it thank you thank you counselor thank you councillor counselor ben cuomo thank you mayor thank you dr ainsworth i really appreciate your presentation um just have a couple follow-up questions so has the city of las cruces taken advantage of these grants in the past uh councilor bin como no we have not okay thank you i was just curious and um i was briefly looking up uh the website in your site do we have a las cruces-based site where you can find all the historic the currently historic designated buildings a counselor that website is being built so it's in progress but it one of the things as as we noticed the village of columbus is doing that exact project right now and they asked for a very modest amount of money to do so but it's helping promote their heritage tourism and what historic resources they have in town and in the vicinity so it is something dumb that in our department we are vitally interested in capturing everything every facet of our operations as a one-stop shop and historic preservation is one of the links that's right there on that page yeah absolutely it's being built great no i actually was asking you that because i saw that one of these sites was applying for funds to to do just that and i wondered if that could be part of one of the projects moving forward given that i think the need and importance of a site like that council bencomo it's um yes i agree and you know the bricks and mortar projects are highly visible if you if you travel south on water street and you cannot help but look at the ongoing work at the at the amador hotel scaffolding and cement tending to and mortar and mud and water tend to attract people's attention but you also have to build your foundation you have to have the availability of information for in a public format you have to have the infrastructure built so one of the advantages of certified local government status is that there is a multitude of ways that a community can improve its preservation efforts on all these different levels the highly visible projects as well as the more quotidian approaches to providing public outreach and information so you know we have a lot of latitude to work with absolutely thank you so much for your thorough presentation my pleasure thank you anybody else so you would just need us to bring back a resolution of some sort to move forward with this uh mayor miyagashima we are looking for guidance today from from yourself from the commit from the councillors to proceed if it is your desire and staff is prepared to assist with the next steps moving forward if we may no i personally i think it's a great idea and appreciate you all bringing it forward and i just wanted to see if if there was any one of your volunteers out there that wanted to say a couple words if if so just raise their hand and mayor yes councilor flotus thank you mr mayor mr eansworth i think i think what you're asking for today is for the city to move forward of the application which would require a letter from our mayor so and i i i don't think we need a resolution we do have the ordinance in place and so i do we need a resolution [Music] attorney vega brown in order to move forward today mayor and council as long as your input is received i do not believe you need a resolution thank you that that's that's what i thought too so we can move expeditiously on this if the mayor so agrees and um then we then you take re you take care of the rest your department would take care of sending it up to santa fe and then they would review it and send it on to washington to the doi right that is correct councilor flores and yes that's the procedure right there and that is what staff is prepared to to do beginning today great thank you so much dr ainsworth thank you mayor i'm going to have to start calling her e f hutton so so no i'm good with it i'm just whatever you need the letter from or however whatever direction you all want to compose that that'd be fine we have a mayor miyagashima we have a template that was provided by the state so staff will move quickly and provide your office with the with the appropriate documents and then we'll put together the entire packet the application packet just need the the signed letter from your officer okay and if your volunteers want to say a couple words if not we're going to get out of here pretty quick quickest we've ever gotten out i don't know what to do with the rest of the time this is faith hudson and i'm a commissioner on the historic preservation commission and i would just like to say thank you on behalf of everyone um mayor miyagashima for your willingness to sign this the clg is very important for the city thank you thanks faith good to see you and thank you for your your commitment okay well we will be waiting for the letter yes sir and thank you everyone for your time counselors city manager thank you very much thank you dr ainsworth so i believe that's it huh we're done with the meeting so if that's the case then i'll obtain a motion to adjourn so moved by flores second avedas motion made by counselor florida second by councillor beta stewie that we adjourn christine this is on the motion to adjourn the work session counselor beta stevie yes counselor vasquez yes councillor ben cuomo yes counselor somebody's got to turn off their mic oh is it on okay thank you i say yes cancer flores yes cancer gandada is absent mayor yes okay we are adjourned it's 1 45 pm and we do have the agenda setting meeting immediately following this thank you okay this is the agenda setting meeting for our october 18 2021 city council meeting item number one non-consent one non-consent number two non-consent two non-consent number three non-consent three non-consent and number four non-consent for non-consent okay thank you before the day i met you you make me when my show was in the lost and found you came along to claim it i didn't know