Work Session Meeting October 15, 2024

MINUTES

Work Session

Tuesday, October 15, 2024 @ 1:00 PM

City Council Chambers, City Hall

PRESENT: Councilor Johana Bencomo, Councilor Yvonne Flores, Councilor Becki Graham, Councilor

Becky Corran, Councilor Cassie McClure, and Councilor William Mattiace

ABSENT: Mayor Eric Enriquez

1. JOBS OF THE WEEK 1.1 Sarah Raney, New Mexico Workforce Connection presented Jobs of the Week.

2. PETS OF THE WEEK 2.1 Carol Nielson, Animal Services Center of the Mesilla Valley presented Pets of the

Week.

3. AGENDA ITEM 3.1 SUSTAINABILITY GREENHOUSE GAS INVENTORY UPDATE Rachel Meier, Lotus Engineering and Sustainability gave the overhead presentation.

Natalie Cross, Lotus Engineering and Sustainability continued the overhead presentation.

Rachel Meier continued the overhead presentation.

Lisa Larocque, Sustainability Officer continued the overhead presentation.

Councilor Corran said I am hoping we will get a text of this or a link on the city’s page to the report findings. I am not sure if it will be this or if there is an official written

report, but I would really appreciate that to reference to people when they ask. A lot of residents ask, what are we doing and what can we do? And I think that would be really helpful to refer them to. So, I am hoping we can get that and then also you mentioned the drive and EV thing. When is that again?

Lisa Larocque said next Saturday.

Mayor Pro Tem Bencomo said I really appreciated this presentation. I felt like I was back in a classroom, and I appreciate learning from experts on such important issues.

On the first part of your presentation on page 8, you had the different cities and at the very bottom it said the New Mexico per capita emissions and then the US, the discrepancy was pretty large. I was wondering if you can speak to that? Do you know the United States and the state of New Mexico?

Lisa Larocque said I will start out explaining that the state of New Mexico is largely influenced by oil and gas which represents 50% of its emissions and I am going to leave it to Rachel and Natalie to answer the US question.

Rachel Meier said as Lisa mentioned the state of New Mexico is largely made up of oil and gas into emissions. All of that largely happening on the eastern half of the state. That also plays why Las Cruces emissions are smaller. Las Cruces does not have oil and gas emissions included in the inventory since there is not oil and gas development in the community. Also, because there are not large industries, bases, or large airports, large industry. That tends to bring the overall emissions down which is for better for worse. In the United States I think it is just when you spread it over 333 million people it tends to bring down emissions per capita. That includes any emission in the countries so agricultural, really big industrial processes, all the oil and gas development. I think that is just I think what happens when you have a larger population to divide it by. You see New Mexico is just over 2 million people, that is not a lot to divide the whole state’s worth of emissions by so that tends to inflate that value at the bottom.

Mayor Pro Tem Bencomo asked do you have information on where the United States lands globally in terms of these numbers compared to industrialized countries?

Rachel Meier said I think we had showed this in a different presentation. I think global emissions are closer to 3 or 4 emissions per capita. So even less than the city of Las

Cruces and then a lot less than the United States or the state of New Mexico. When you take a look at the whole global look at emissions, and you have more of that divide with more of the developed countries and lesser developed countries just divided by about 8 billion people brings that down a whole lot. It is definitely a lot less.

Mayor Pro Tem Bencomo said I think individuals can do their best and cities and municipalities can do their best and it is not until constructive industry that we are not actually going to see progress in terms of reversing the impacts of climate change which is a little bit sad but I feel really proud to have a Sustainability Office in the city of Las Cruces and for so many of our departments to be looking towards the future and to do the best that we can for our residents so I appreciate that.

3.2 SUSTAINABILITY'S PLUGGED IN FOR GOOD COMMUNITY INITIATIVE Lisa Larocque, Sustainability Officer gave the overhead presentation.

Anisa Sanchez, Co Op continued the overhead presentation.

Charlie Mahady, Sustainability Specialist continued the overhead presentation.

Jenny Hernandez, Sustainability Specialist continued the overhead presentation.

Lisa Larocque continued the overhead presentation.

Councilor Mattiace asked how do we get in touch with you? In my district we walk around the neighborhoods, meet different people that have different issues. How do I get them to get in touch with you? This is a great program, and this is all grant funded?

Lisa Larocque said yes.

Councilor Mattiace asked there is no city funding coming into this program or just city technical staff?

Lisa Larocque said yes this is grant funded. Primarily especially for all of the work that is being done in the community we are really facilitating these partnerships. It is kind of an informal collaborative because there is workforce people there. There is community organizations. There is technical experts, so all of the money for the grants is going out to them. There are still some challenges that we are going to meet.

Our staff time is definitely from the city, and we are looking at alternative ways of finding gap funding that we are trying to do creatively and hopefully we will be working with LCU to be able to do that so I think that we are all partners in this but definitely for this effort and the scaling it is grants.

Councilor Mattiace said I totally support the staff funding, but I think what is important is we have heard a lot from people that are in homes that are 30,40,50 years old, they are on fixed incomes that sometimes they become candidates for being unhoused or losing their homes and looking for shelter. The program is such a significant benefit to keep people in their houses and it is affordable and its safe and I like the word happy.

If they can stay in their happy home then they will not result being on our streets, in

Community of Hope, or other shelters. I think your program is fantastic.

Lisa Larocque said the stage that we are in right now is called the planning stage. We are doing that till February or March of next year where we are trying to identify different residents who would be interested in a retro fit for their home which will start with describing what the program is like and getting their input and make sure they are comfortable with how and can help influence how the program is comfortable for them and makes them feel safe with the program and then in the spring, early spring we will be starting the audits at the health monitoring for at least 30 homes as part of our pilot. It depends on what our response rate is and then from there we will start

retro fitting those houses in early summer and then we will cycle. Each interation will hopefully grow bigger and bigger as word of mouth goes about, and our funding continues, and we learn our hard knock lessons and refine our process but that is how we are approaching it. At this juncture we are just identifying homes so if you and there are certain criteria for the rebates that are out and that the homes are 80% of the average median income to be able to qualify for up to $17,000 in rebates so that is just the federal rebates which is why we feel that this is the wonderful way to harness all of the rebates from state and federal and utilities to bundle them and really take a huge slice out of what the cost would normally be for them.

3.3 LAS CRUCES FIRE DEPARTMENT MASTER PLAN INPUT Jason Smith, Fire Chief gave the overhead presentation.

Councilor McClure said I am really happy that you guys did enter in that partnership with the other organizations, but I guess what my question to you is what burden would it be to be the leader because I think we can be the leader, but would that be hard on the staff that you have right now?

Chief Jason Smith said yes, we have to take that into consideration if we plan. If direction is, we want you to be the leader, we have to do an analysis and think about what kind of resources does that take? Do we need another Chief Officer? Can we do it with a Management Analyst? Do our current resources allow us to reach that goal? I think that is one of the neat things about the master plan is we can start working that direction. We can do an assessment now and we know that is going to be a goal seven years from now, ten years from now so we can build up for that. Put those estimates of what those financial cost may be into the plan.

Councilor McClure said I would say ya, definitely be that leader but that long term affect would be good to consider.

Councilor Mattiace said I have the similar concern. What happens with the City of Las

Cruces is that we are so like the bank and so if you can manage it, control it, and similar to MVRDA will be a partnership, Mesilla, Dona Ana County. Is that what you are looking at and you will be a regional partnership? How far south are you looking at to create a regional force?

Chief Jason Smith said I think that is the question that I am really posing to you all.

What do you envision us doing? How far do you feel that we should have a reach?

That is really the question that we want to get to is what is this council’s direction. In seven years, you want to look back and say the Fire Department is now a leader or involved with all of these organizations or we do automatic aid as far as Sunland Park.

Automatic aid is where a 911 call comes in, we go automatically. We are dispatched and then we are responding or is it just you want us to be a regional partner in healthcare where we work with our hospitals. So that is kind of the question to you all is your input.

Councilor Mattiace said we could be very selfish and just say within city boundaries

period, or we could extend our kindness and our resources to let’s say the county.

The county is huge. It goes pretty far south, and it has many cities down there that can’t even afford fire fighters there. Some of them are volunteers and even like

Talavera I think has just come on board with paid staff. Then you have Picacho. I think you have to give us your analysis of your funding and your capabilities before we can restrict you. I hate to restrict you. You are a great Chief, and we have a fantastic

Fire Department, and we could probably extend our arm quite a distance and still succeed but I think you have to tell us if that is a good decision, a good call. For now, I would say that we are pretty much taking care of quite a lot calls. When you see

26,000 and maybe possibly 28,000 calls and your staff has shown 183 and it might be

220 but it still short what the other cities are handling and are those other cities regional leaders?

Chief Jason Smith said I would have to go back and look at those individual cities to see what their level of involvement is. You look at Colorado, they are pretty much a regional resource where all of these different districts and cities. They respond within each other. They are close enough to where they share resources much the wat that you look at the Phoenix area where you have Phoenix Fire, the major section of it but the outlying cities respond automatically back and forth across boundary lines as if the boundary lines don’t exist at all.

Councilor Mattiace said that is good information that it is happening, and that it is being sustained and they are doing a good job with that said I support whatever decision you have if that expansion can be obtained and we still have good resources, and you can still recruit fire fighters. I think it is a very good plan.

Councilor Graham said I am really uncomfortable making decisions from up here that affect the daily lives of just not even your employees but the whole community but thinking now toward your employees so I think my socratic methoding to this every question that you ask me, I would just question back how does this effect the people who are going to answer the calls at 3 in the morning and I think too, correct me if I am wrong 77 square miles. Is that current in Las Cruces more or less? So, we are already covering a really large area with a high needs population and while again I think fire’s answer is always we will make it work and you do but I want to know how you want to make it work and how that trickles down to boots on the ground before I really weigh in.

Councilor Flores asked you get emergency calls from other municipalities in the area to help out at times, right?

Chief Jason Smith said that is correct. At times we get calls to help our neighbors out.

Councilor Flores asked somehow what I gather from what you are saying is that you want to structure it and make sure that, I don’t know what it is exactly what the purpose would be to have this structure because it seems to me do you feel overburdened by the resources that you have now and providing the services that are needed?

Chief Jason Smith said that brings up an important part and Councilor Graham’s point of how does it impact the troops on the ground? Our crews do feel busy. They are busy majority of the time in responding to calls and if they are not there, they are training. So, with that being said there is also this culture that we have within our department of wanting to do more. Wanting to help our regional neighbors not just the community of Organ or going into Mesilla to help out with the structure fire but when we had kind of the call for service for assisting Ruidoso during their wildfire and their flooding there was no shortage of people that we have within the department that are saying I am available, and I want to go. So, it is kind of that economy that we have.

One that yes, we are a busy system, our firefighters are busy, but they still want to help and then when we look at things like the Comprehensive Plan, one of the goals is to become a regional partner but there is no specifics as to what that means. Does it mean that we go that every time that there is a wildfire in New Mexico? We have a team ready to go. Do we want that level of involvement? Or do we want to help basically the 3,700 square miles of Dona Ana County or do we take a very narrow focus and we will collaborate, we will have meetings with our regional partners but we will stay within our 77 square miles? That is the input and the direction that I am looking for is how do we develop a master plan? How do we start setting these longer-term objectives if we don’t have this big goal better defined for us because I would at the time make the call of can we handle to do this? With the hurricanes

Milton and Helene coming through Florida and the panhandle and the Gulf. Talking to

City Manager Ikani if we get called for our swift water team are you comfortable sending us, yes, we can do that. FEMA reimbursement, we have people who are trained. We are willing to go. That is extending us halfway across the country. My question for this is what do you want us to have as a regional goal?

Councilor Flores said I understand that you want some direction, but it seems to me based on what you just said that when there is a call, when there is a need you do respond. Why would you need us to tell you what to do or to allow you just to be known as the city that would help you out when you are in dire straits.

Chief Jason Smith said that is because there are other things that are involved. If we want to do more and council’s directions is that we want, you to be more involved. We want you continue to do these things. There is other programs and other expenses that could occur because of that level of involvement. Right now, we are not trained for wildfire firefighting. If that is a goal of council for us to be involved in that, that takes planning and that takes funding and there is an impact in those areas to the community, to our city government so before we go marching down a path it takes us to things that require extra finances and extra funding, we want to make sure it is the direction of council.

Councilor Flores said it’s a budgetary item as well. Are you saying Chief that you want a budget that would allow you to train firefighters in like the Ruidoso fire to handle that? I think I would like to see specifics as to what you want to do and what you would do say with the other fire departments, the regional fire departments, what it would cost for the training? You would probably need more firefighters on your staff and there are just so many unknowns. I think it is a wonderful idea and I think that we should be there for any travesty, any emergency and I want to thank you and the firefighters who do that. It sounds like a good idea in the abstract but in terms of

implementing it we would need more, I would need more information. It sounds to me as if you want us to tell you what to do and I have no idea and well ya, go ahead help

Santa Teresa, go out to Chaparral, go to Ruidoso. What do I know? I think it is a wonderful idea and I hope that we come up with something tangible and then we can go from there.

Mayor Pro Tem Bencomo asked I am wondering if you can just for the sake of the discussion today maybe clarify for us what it is that you are looking for because just from what I am hearing from some of my colleagues, from what I understand you saying is that right now you are looking for feedback for council members to be thought partners with you and the entire rest of the Fire Department as you think of this big picture master plan. You are not necessarily asking us to make fast and hard decisions today about budgeting, about staffing, you are asking us to engage in a thoughtful conversation with you about big picture planning for the future of the Fire

Department, correct? It is not like whatever we say today, that’s it, that is the decision we are moving forward but you are just looking for. We have our feet on the ground in our districts. What are we hearing? What are the things that we are seeing as folks who live in this community and represent our districts. Is that sort of what I am hearing you and howyou want us to engage today?

Chief Jason Smith said that is correct. It is the big picture. It is what do you get the sense of your communities that you serve, the direction that we should go. It is not an ask for funding. It is not an ask for a specific program. It is so you can have your input as part of this master plan and partner with us and most importantly with our firefighters who are really the biggest contributors of their vision seven to ten years from now. It is nothing immediate. It is not a decision of a go, no go. It is a big picture, aspirations.

Mayor Pro Tem Bencomo said as you move forward in this presentation I just want to encourage my colleagues to think of that way. Think about an aspirational vision of the Fire Department. You are not here today to make specific decisions about the Fire

Department, but I think the Chief is asking us to engage, to be thought partners in what this really big thinking, aspirational thinking can look like for the department and I think that is what would be most helpful to you. In terms of this question specifically for me Chief I think as I heard you say through your presentation that you wear as a badge of honor that you have these calls and that this team is responding to crisis in our community with what you have and I think for me the goal would be to for sure increase your staff and to increase salaries so that we can be a competitor in the region for sure but in addition to that as a regional partner I think for me I would love it for folks in not just in Dona Ana County but surrounding smaller communities to always say we can always call the Fire Department and they will always answer our call. Whether they have capacity is one thing or another but I would love to be the kind of Fire Department where people say the Mayor of Ruidoso for example can always say I can always count on Las Cruces Fire Department to answer the phone and I don’t necessarily think the goal for us is to be trained in firefighting out in woods, whatever you said earlier. I don’t necessarily think that is the goal as that is not the primary environment that we have in Las Cruces but the fact that you have firefighters that are willing to say ya I want to go help our neighbors, I think that is really beautiful and I would love to continue cultivating that in whatever that looks like.

Chief Jason Smith said I apologize to council if not clear in setting the expectation of what we are looking for.

Councilor Flores asked you are asking us, but have you gone to the rank and file?

What does the union say?

Chief Jason Smith said we have had sixteen meetings with our staff. We try to hit all of our employees, including our 40-hour prevention MIH and LIGHT teams. We have invited everybody to participate in the same type of master plan activity that we are doing today where we talked about our strengths and opportunities and aspirations, the results we want to achieve as a department. So, we have had those discussions.

Just this month we have had a meeting with our labor management team where we went over some of the early results and asked if they wanted additional input and we are waiting to hear back from them if they want us to attend a union meeting or not.

We have already had discussions with 99%/98% of our rank and file members on this topic.

Councilor Flores asked they are aware of this topic?

Chief Jason Smith said yes.

Councilor Flores asked you have not met with them face to face?

Chief Jason Smith said we have met with them. We have met with everybody face to face as well as the union leadership. Within our comprehensive plan it is about developing a strong and educated workforce that supports our local and regional economy, and I really feel that this connects with us because we also have our own workforce to take care of and provide for as well as setting us apart as Mayor Pro

Tem said how do we recruit? We have to separate ourselves. We want to be that leader when it comes to employment. So, the question for council is, what is your vision for us supporting our workforce when it comes to our facilities, our station, our existing stations, kind of our legacy stations, the ones who have been around since the sixties and our newest ones. What do you see for our apparatus, staffing numbers and training? Again, this is that long term visionary seven to ten years out.

Councilor McClure asked have you had consideration of wellness integration? I know it is an inherently dangerous job and long effects of some of the carcinogens that you have access to. So, things like that where you are supporting them through that, making it very clear that you are concerned about their long-term health as well.

Councilor Mattiace said I think I understand better that it is a visionary support and you just need to set goals that this is the best Fire Department in the state of New

Mexico, maybe in the southwest and that would be my vision and so anything that I can do to support that vision I will do it and I understand the facilities, staffing and training is necessary to attract recruits. So, if you don’t have an excellent apparatus and staff and training and good equipment you are not going to be getting the best of the best in recruiting. I totally support that vision.

Mayor Pro Tem Bencomo said I strongly support Councilor McClure’s comments on sort of wellness, and you know last week at Courts, Corrections and Justice’s

Committee Chief Story and Sheriff Stewart presented and something really interesting that Sheriff Stewart was talking about in terms of how they recruit. She said they really started looking at different kinds of models of work life balance and I thought that was real interesting and I think for both the Police Department and Fire Department and really looking at because I always say this to people I work with that over working is not a badge of honor. Like over working, no one is giving out awards for the most overworked, the most burnt-out person and I don’t want us to have that kind of attitude either. I want us to cultivate a spirit of why you should have a tenure here and why you should stay here and cultivate the kind of work life balance which I know is hard for a Fire Department that keeps very odd hours. Very odd in terms of compared to everybody else and so I think for me that is something that I would strongly suggest but otherwise Chief in terms of this I think the way we operate is already really important and that you and leadership team have always come to us and said we need a new station. Like I think we have worked really well in terms of you expressing the kinds of needs that you have and then the council responding to that in the best way that we can I think we have a really good process for that already.

Chief Jason Smith said the next question talks about community pride through neighborhood events. We know that the Fire Department is very important in creating that safe community that we can lend to the feeling of a community. Whether that is something at the new Station 9 and what we are doing with public art, having that station able to receive the public for tours. We definitely want to be involved with the community so the question for council is how do you envision LCFD in being a community partner in or helping us establish us in a community identity through our

Fire Department?

Councilor Corran said you mentioned our up and coming fire station so I know that in my district it means a lot to folks but you all show up and to me and I know at PRIDE you know there were dogs, there were the usual suspects that you would see at

PRIDE but people really felt like it was a real event when the fire truck came through and I have to tell you I know that might be a controversial position but I would say representative of the way that you all show up and every event that I go to, every community event that I have you all are there as partners and so I think how we support those efforts is really I feel that you all integral to our community identity. I think folks most associate with LCFD as folks in our community who are doing good all the time, so you have really earned that reputation. I would put this back to say how can we support that in your efforts. That is show that we appreciate the ways that you all show up and I think that is sort of where we are in my perspective. You all are showing up extraordinarily well in the community. I think sentiment reflects that and so

I think it is on us to think about the ways that we can support that in your planning.

Mayor Pro Tem Bencomo said I think sometimes the community sort of looks at city staff as a whole, like out there. We live somewhere else, but we live here too, like we are in these neighborhoods and these communities to. I think remembering as we try to create this community pride that firefighters are your neighbors. They literally live right next to you. Some of their kids go to your schools with your kids and just

remembering that they are very much part of our community.

Chief Jason Smith said this one deals directly with ensuring high quality fire and EMS services. So how do we want the public to experience higher level of service in times of emergency. So, what will visiting our stations look like? What will our response be like for the community? Again, this isn’t like that visionary thing. It is more of like a feeling that you want the public to have when we show up in their time of need and then also what should the public expect when it is not a life threat or property threat public service call? What is appropriate for them to experience in those calls because

I will tell you like some of the public input we received so far is there is a difference in the publics expectations when somebody is having a heart attack versus when somebody is having a minor emergency that is not a life threat. The response times that they want to experience are different, but discretion is to council is what feelings do you want the pubic to have when they interact with us so that we can better describe what high quality fire and emergency medical services and what that means to us?

Councilor McClure said I think we encounter people on the worst days of their lives and sometimes that resounding calmness in that storm is probably the best thing you can offer. I have not heard anything that is contrary to that that when we do have interactions in that way that’s what we get from LCFD so I think that calmness but then yes that then transitioning into customer service almost in that next step of we might not have the answer but we have the resources to get you connected to whatever that is which is what I feel is what the Fire Department does to a large degree is that connector. So that is hard but going back to Councilor Corran too with that idea of how can we enable that for you in the best ways possible. That is on us then too. Keep doing what you are doing essentially but that idea that is the strength that you have much like the identity question where you are firmly entrenched in the community already. What does that look like again yes, we are neighbors to some of you but what does it look like when you guys engage? Do you guys feel the same kind of comradery from the community? Is there a way we can encourage that from you guys as well too.

Chief Jason Smith said within the comprehensive plan it talks about support for Fire

Mobile Integrated Health Program and the Crisis Intervention Team so really in ten years, seven years from now what do you want our teams to look like?

Councilor Graham said I think that we see this with fire, we see this with police and dealing with what I will just globally call social crisis is an increasingly large part of your work and I think that acknowledging that from the highest level down is important so when I am thinking about a ten year vision on MIH and LIGHT envisioning that as a separate, maybe not a separate but a unique recruiting process that we are looking toward again thinking about regional partnerships. We have an amazing school of social work. Mayor Pro Tem is an alumni of that. How are we making connections to bring what we need in crisis intervention and use it to shore up emergency response. I think we have done an incredible job of shifting roles in the last few years but how do we build the workforce we need to deal with the reality of what we are doing.

Councilor McClure said I very much agree that it should be a larger component of what you do because that will be the need. Kind of what like Councilor Graham said too it is going to have to be sort of almost not independent but a huge focus because we see that it works problematically that with success you are going to need that growth and I think in ten years what that is going to look like and how that is going to integrate with PD that would be something to consider then too.

Mayor Pro Tem Bencomo said I think for me immediately I thought oh we must grow

LIGHT and MIH and then I thought, wait a minute. I don’t think necessarily that is the goal. We want less crisis. We want to have less people in crisis in our community and so I am wondering as we vision this how we have a better balance between proactive approaches versus the more reactive approaches. I am not necessarily saying reactive is bad because what the Fire Department has done really well is identify a problem and then build something around it, like MIH. We identified that there was high utilizers of the 911 system that didn’t actually need this level of care but a different kind of level of care and you have responded and created something really amazing around that which is MIH. We identified that we wanted to create a different type of response out of the 911 system that didn’t just burden the Police Department when it came to people in crisis and we created LIGHT and so those kinds of responses are brilliant and I think we also have to have a better plan on how to be proactive in order to ensure that there are less people experiencing this kind of crisis and I don’t think that is the only responsibility of the Fire Department. I think that is very much a community stakeholder effort.

Chief Jason Smith said thank you for the feedback on that. If there is anything specific in the master plan that you want to see us address we definitely want to bring to you goals and objectives that are unique and that fit our community and our department but if there is any issue you want us to address or any point you want us to investigate, we would love to hear what those thoughts maybe before I close things up.

Councilor Graham asked is there is working document that we can look at?

Chief Jason Smith said there is a working document, 17/18 pages. We also have another Work Session scheduled in November to bring you a draft with the feedback, with some goals and objectives. I just want to make sure that we are hitting everything that council wants to see.

Councilor Graham asked whatever is existing can that be shared through Christine and to us?

Chief Jason Smith said Christine is saying yes. What I am taking from council is that to develop more of the goals and objectives, the finances around those, what they could do for forward projecting. We definitely want to make sure it matches the exercise we have already done for Elevate Las Cruces because we did some forecasting of different models of expansion but also balanced things with our boots on the ground. What our employees are saying, what their goals and objectives might be.

3.4 GO BOND QUARTERLY UPDATE David Sedillo, Public Works Director gave the overhead presentation.

Natalie Green, Housing and Neighborhood Revitalization Administrator continued the overhead presentation.

Councilor Flores said I did receive a call from County Commissioner Chaparro, and she was very concerned about the roads that lead to that. Apparently, there are roads leading to that housing area that aren’t paved. Did you see that? Did you experience that?

Natalie Green said the unpaved road is on the county side. All the roads on the city side are paved up to this property.

Councilor Flores said I told her I did not know. I don’t have a map at home to look at but okay, so the onus is on the county to make sure that the roads are developed to access the housing? How is it that a housing area would be built, and the roads not being taken care of, and I know the onus is on the county on this one but just generally speaking? I am thinking about emergency vehicles, access in terms of your car hitting those bumps and whatever. Is that something that is taken into account?

Natalie Green said I believe Community Development is in the audience so they can speak to their development process but as part of the permitting review they do evaluate all of those factors and depending on the size of the development they do require a traffic impact analysis. It would have evaluated that as part of the permitting.

Councilor Flores asked so we did it, they didn’t?

Tim Pitts, Deputy Director Community Development said yes, we did do the analysis on this. There are actually two proper accesses on fully built out roads to this property and along Peachtree and Jornada. There are two fully built out roads that have access so for public safety reasons we can get fire engines, ambulances, and so on to this site from two separate locations and so even if something were to cut off those it would be available. The county access isn’t necessary to us. It is just on the edge of the city, and it is full access.

Councilor Flores asked there is a county road that isn’t paved that leads to that development?

Natalie Green said it is a road that leads away from the development. So, it is the extension of Peachtree to Mesa Grande. So, from Sonoma Ranch, Peachtree to

Jornada intersection is paved and also is Jornada Road. What is not paved is the

Peachtree portion in the county area that extends to Mesa Grande and that is not paved.

Councilor Flores asked in terms of just planning around a new development there isn’t any assessment as to the ingress, all the potential ingress/egress to that development?

David Sedillo said yes as Mr. Tim Pitts had mentioned there was an analysis done for that for the ingress and egress of those vehicles.

Councilor Flores asked in seeing that the access to those apartments is part of the county’s responsibility, do the governments ever exchange any information or concerns about that sort of thing where the road was not developed?

David Sedillo said the city has had discussions with the county regarding Peachtree.

We have talked about those in the past and partnering with them. We can look at possibly getting other types of funding to partner and build out that infrastructure at that location since it does border the limits of both the county and the city. That is still an ongoing process and that is something that we will be looking at in partnering not only with the county but having other discussions with NMDOT, MPO to look at what are those regional benefits for the system, the region and the community as a whole.

Councilor Flores said that would be great. I know that some of our roads that we have south of I-70, some of those homes the only access to those homes is through easements that the city has and it is something that I have been trying to somehow wave a magic wand because some people are not able to access their homes because of that so I will be speaking to our City Attorney about easements. I am just concerned about mud and people sinking. There are people who do sink into mud in that area.

Tim Pitts said the MPO does have a future transportation corridor through there.

Peachtree Hills is expected to get developed at some point in time. It is eligible for funding as David said. We are working on that. We do work with our county counterparts a lot. The one that we were more worried about was the flooding on the county side of Jornada. There is actually some flooding issues over there is not quite to the point of a flood plain but it is something that some of the neighbors have so we did work and make sure that the drainage operates properly with our neighbors in the county. So, we do work very closely with them.

4. ADJOURNMENT 4.1 Councilor Yvonne Flores moved, seconded by Councilor Becky Corran, to adjourn at 3:17 p.m.

RESULT: Carried

MOVER: Councilor Yvonne Flores

SECONDER: Councilor Becky Corran

AYES: Councilor Johana Bencomo, Councilor Yvonne Flores, Councilor Becki

Graham, Councilor Becky Corran, Councilor Cassie McClure, and Councilor

William Mattiace

Mayor

City Clerk