City Council Meeting August 5, 2024

MINUTES

City Council

Monday, August 5, 2024 @ 1:00 PM

City Council Chambers, City Hall

PRESENT: Mayor Eric Enriquez, Councilor Cassie McClure, Councilor William Mattiace, Councilor

Becki Graham, Councilor Johana Bencomo, Councilor Becky Corran, and Councilor Yvonne

Flores

ABSENT:

1. OPENING CEREMONIES 1.1 PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE - COUNCILOR MCCLURE. 1.2 PRESENTATION OF CERTIFICATES OF

APPRECIATION/PROCLAMATIONS - COUNCILOR MCCLURE. Councilor McClure recognized the Centennial High School Girls Softball team. 1.3 JOBS OF THE WEEK. Sarah Raney, New Mexico Workforce Connection presented Jobs of the Week. 1.4 PETS OF THE WEEK. Amy Defelix, Animal Services of the Mesilla Valley presented Pets of the Week.

1.5 MESILLA VALLEY REGIONAL DISPATCH AUTHORITY (MVRDA) UPDATE. Jennifer Gorham, MVRDA gave an overhead presentation. 1.6 FY24 - CLC ENTRANCE CONFERENCE PRESENTATION. Josie Trevino, Comptroller introduced the topic.

Chris Garner, Pattillo, Brown & Hill, LLP gave the overhead presentation.

2. CONFLICT OF INTEREST INQUIRY BY MAYOR AS REQUIRED BY LCMC

SECTION 2-27 (E)(2)

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2.1 None.

3. PUBLIC PARTICIPATION 3.1 Dave Madsen, Member of the Public said I am a retired police officer, and I am currently employed and on staff at Red Hawk Golf Course. As most of you are aware on Sunday, February 11th of this year, while most of us were home watching the

Super Bowl we lost a police officer who was shot and killed in the line of duty. He left two children, a wife. I attended his funeral and there were over 500 officers from around the nation that attended. On my staff at Red Hawk, I have 21 men that work for me, 7 of them are retired law enforcement and we got together one day and said we have to do something. So, what we have done, we are doing a golf tournament in

Officer Hernandez name on October 4th and all the proceeds from that tournament will go to his children and wife and I can tell you right now, I haven’t really pushed this the last couple of months but we have got close to $13,000 already donated. Sisbarro is giving us a car for the Par 3 hole in one for nothing. They are also furnishing golf clubs and trips for the other Par 3s. Jeff Banegas of Able Signs is doing all of our advertising for us. Our sponsors for the tournament are the Las Cruces Police

Officer’s Association and Marci Dickerson from Revolution 120. I have a stack of flyers I would like to drop off if you have any questions about it.

Robert Lee Butler, Member of the Public said I am not here to say anything negative about the female council representing Vista Del Sol Retirement Home. My second key to the City of Las Cruces is going directly to the Branigan Museum, it will be safe there. The reason I am here is to tell you all there is going to be another wedding in the beautiful city.

Israel Chavez, Member of the Public said I am an attorney in this community. I have prosecuted cases in this community. I have defended felonies and misdemeanors in this community. I have family who have mental health and substance abuse issues and I grew up here. I don’t think anyone on council can say all of those things and so I hope that you will listen when I say that prosecuting people for having these shopping carts, this idea is not only myopic, it’s just bad. The city has neglected its duties as it relates to the hospital, and I get it, you go to the little board meetings, but you don’t do enough to hold that board accountable. The city has not held the Mesilla Valley

Housing Authority accountable. Up until recently when I helped get my mom on the board and we got some new faces, but the city now wants to do something that punishes the folks who struggle. I want to remind us that we are closer, all of us in this room with the exception of one or two that I don’t know are closer to all of these people that are struggling than the billionaires out there that are taking advantage of our community. Every time a billion-dollar company comes to Las Cruces we roll out the red carpet. What about the services that currently don’t exist? The money that the city is trying to waste in its perhaps misunderstanding of the legal process in trying to develop a parallel system to what already exists. Why wasn’t the city a good partner?

In all of the resources that we needed we had we had a county hospital and the city sold it up the river and I understand that not all of you are on the board except for Mr.

Mattiace but to take this strategy, this route is uncreative. It is not going to solve

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problems. All it is going to do is punish members of my community. I have to go to

Municipal Court right after this to represent somebody who struggles with mental health. I venture that none of you have ever done that before but maybe you should sit in and see how hard it is. Do better, please.

Beverly Hogan, Member of the Public said I am very grateful to all of you for still permitting public participation at the beginning of these meetings. It is however disappointing that you place what I think which are two of the most important items that the majority of the citizens are here today, and I think the Police Chief are concerned about, you placed them at number 9. Most likely all of you have already decided on how you are going to vote on number 9, the agenda that says in 7.3, construction work between 6 p.m. and 7 a.m. for concrete pouring associated with the skate park at 151 North Walnut Street. Is that what the majority of the citizens are here for? I would just ask you to please try to take the pulse of the community, understand that over 500 plus citizens attended the townhall meeting with our

Governor because we are concerned about crime. We are embarrassed and afraid in our own city, and it wasn’t like that in 2015 when I moved here. I just ask you to think about that. It just seems logical to put it in the beginning because many of these people may not be able to wait the whole time.

Donna Stryker, Member of the Public said I just want to remind you of something, and you all signed this, it’s called the Oath of Office. Each one of you is responsible for this oath. I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution and laws of the State of New Mexico and the ordinances of the city of Las Cruces and that

I will faithfully and impartially, let me say that word again because what I am seeing is not impartial, I will faithfully and impartially discharge the duties of the city councilor to the best of my ability. Could you please as councilors, please could you please remember your oath.

Carolyn Clifton, Member of the Public said I am a resident here in las Cruces for 27 years and out of those 27 years the last 10 of it has been a disgrace to this city. I have to use a taser if I have to go anywhere in the city and I am really disappointed with our city council for what they are doing. My district person is District 1, Cassie and I have been a bus driver here for 27 years in this town. I have been a mother to two boys, one a fireman, now a police officer and it is not right to hear my son telling me, oh we can’t do this, and we can’t do that. You city council people have got to step up and do your job.

Mayor Enriquez said just for clarification, in the public participation this is your opportunity. You have two minutes to speak. It is not an open discussion, it is not to get any answers from the Mayor and council. We are not here to debate. We are not here to get into any discussions. This is your time to speak, and we allow you those two minutes for that.

Michael Fraembs, Member of the Public said I want to come up here and talk a little bit about why I have been so passionate about trying to support our Police

Department with everything that I have been through. I thought it would be nice for you to hear what I have gone through. January of 2023, unfortunately I lost a

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teammate and a very good friend from a convicted felon that was breaking into a car and he tried to stop him and unfortunately was shot and killed. Fast forward to

February 2024 which I believe is a catalyst, Officer Hernandez was stabbed brutally and one our teammates once again was a person who shot and killed him. Thank

God nothing happened to him that happened to one of our previous teammates.

Going on the business side of things I have lost over $100,000 in damage, theft, criminal activity since 2020. It is hard running a business and we devote our time. It is very hard to see where our community has gone and where it is going. A lot of times we blame what has happened up at the State, that we don’t have the ability to change here in Las Cruces but today we do, and I hope to see you all vote for a change later today. Lastly, just this last week we have lost so many people that want to build homes with us that decided not to move here to Las Cruces. I sent an email regarding that somebody told me that they didn’t want to move to Las Cruces because of the crime and violence and lastly, I want to publicly thank Mr. Mattiace. You responded to my email and actually called and had a 30-minute conversation with me, it was much appreciated, thank you sir.

Troy Tudor, Member of the Public said I am a pastor here in town. I just want to let you know how crime has impacted the church up on Highway 70 off of Sonoma

Ranch. We have been broken into about 6 times now. Tens of thousands of dollars in loss and damage. Our vehicles have been vandalized, they have stolen the catalytic converters twice off of our vans. They punch holes in our gas tanks and drain the gas out. They broke into my off campus office twice and I am just talking about in the last couple of years, the last few months really and so even up on Sonoma Ranch where you think it would be not so bad, crime is really bad and so you guys really do need to support the police and uphold the law and our city.

Susan Cabello, Member of the Public said I am Executive Director of Downtown Las

Cruces Partnership. In a slightly different tone, I would like to say thank you, especially to Councilor Corran. My interns spoke in front of you at our last city council meeting. They were so excited. They did such a good job. That day Councilor Corran emailed one of my interns and asked if she would be on the Parks & Rec Board. She could not contain her excitement and enthusiasm. She probably made like four calls in a row telling people that she was going to get this opportunity to participate with the city. Also, Chris Faivre called me and said that if she can’t work with the Parks & Rec

Board, if that just isn’t going to work for her, I will find a place for her to be able to work for the city in some capacity. So, I really want to thank you guys for listening to them, responding to them, for staff for doing the same thing and to our audience who were so abundantly kind and receptive to them when they spoke. I told them that no one has ever taken my comment and made other comments about it. They also told me that they were really excited that the Mayor gave them a thumbs up and said good job.

Jim Hurst, Member of the Public said Thursday, May 2nd this year was National Day of Prayer. At noon that day an assembly was held in front of this building next to the main entrance near the flag poles. It was a religious service. It was a sectarian event put on by conservative Evangelical Christians who have a history of homophobic pronouncements. In attendance were the Mayor, the Police Chief, the Chair of the

Republican Party of Dona Ana County, the Chair of the CCIA, and about 30 to 40

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others. The Mayor was in a suit and the Police Chief was in his full uniform addressing the meeting. After the meeting I made several inquiries. Did the meeting have a permit? Who issued it? Who was it issued to? Was the Mayor speaking as the

Mayor or in private capacity? Was the Police Chief speaking in private capacity or public capacity? After several inquiries I was told it was a private meeting, the Mayor and the Police Chief were speaking in their own private capacity, no permit was issued, no record was kept, no documents are available about this meeting. This appears to be a dishonest answer. It was not really a private meeting. We can’t call it a private meeting if members of the general public are welcomed to attend. An honest answer would have been that city officials have allowed a religious service on City

Hall grounds, and they don’t need anyone’s approval to do so. I suspect that the

Mayor labeled it a private meeting because he knows the issues of separation of church and state that this event involves. I have yet to find out what the rules were for either private or public of religious meetings in City Hall grounds and I have the impression that there are none.

Juan Garcia, Member of the Public said the Governor’s recent townhall was an eye opener. Even she the State Democratic Party’s leader faced stunning backlash from her own party for daring to speak the truth about our officials’ blatant disregard for public safety. Make no mistake this transcends party lines. The real culprit is the progressive stranglehold on our state so suffocating that they will turn on their own.

The same officials that attempted to silence the Governor also turned a deaf ear to the victims we brought forward. It took the tragic murder of a police officer to bring us to a vote. Two councilors had the audacity to label the Governor’s visit a distraction in their manifesto. A distraction from what? The progressives own failure to engage with the very people they are supposed to represent. The Governor’s call for action is suddenly “right winged” because it challenges their failed policies. The Governor’s warnings about the dangers of enabling homelessness have fallen on willfully deaf ears. “We are gathering evidence that the homeless are being sent here, potentially for drug trafficking, or worse”. Does the Desert Hope ring any bells? “With permissive homelessness you cannot be held accountable, can engage in retail theft, panhandling”. Does this too sound familiar? We are seeing it every day. The progressive upside-down priority is to coddle criminals over citizens. Today you have a chance to change that, approve these ordinances and take a real step towards reclaiming our city’s safety and anything less is a dereliction of duty.

Paul Bryce, Member of the Public said I came up here to set the record straight because a lot of things have been being said about Desert Hope. I live at Desert

Hope, and I have been there since day one. In fact, three years ago today was the move in day. We have been through some rough times, we sure have but it has gotten so much better now. I invite anybody here at 10 o’clock to walk through there and they will be completely safe. I know that there has been a lot of things said negatively about it, but it is not current anymore and it is kind of unfair to keep jabbing at Desert Hope and who lives there. Everybody needs a chance and that is what I was given at the beginning of Desert Hope and because they got a chance, not everybody kept their chance and that is how we end up with the reputation that we have now. I really wish people would look into it a little more. Look into it today. See that it is not the same as it was before.

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Yoli Diaz, Member of the Public said I am here on a respectable basis. Almost two months ago MMC’s CEO John Harris said many things including these kinds of irresponsible dispersions that are being passed in this community. There is no truth to these, none whatsoever. CEO John Harris remarks equate to him calling me a liar, calling the patients who spoke up a liar, calling Gretchen Morgenson a liar, and the complete investigative team of NBC a liar. I can tell you that I know for a fact that

Memorial Medical Center has denied health care services. So, I want you to equate that what I am saying is that CEO John Harris is a liar. Yes, I stand before you, on record, on video, and public saying that John Harris is a liar. I publicly came before city/county commissioners with many disclosed record requests that are very disgusting. Documents show that in 2015 and 2016 Memorial Medical Center deleted the services of outpatient oncology and chemo services and outpatient dialysis from their indigent care policy that was renamed CHAP. If you had listened to the

DAC/BOCC meeting held on June 11th you would have heard Commissioner Manny

Sanchez repeatedly and repeatedly asking Memorial Medical Center, why is cancer singled out? Why cancer needs a separate contract? Why cancer needs a separate contract versus the existing contract? This led to CFO Laura Thomas stating to my understanding is that in 2016, I wasn’t there, there was a decision made to remove the cancer indigent care out of the lease agreement and so that was removed out.

The MMC CFO confirms the atrocity of cancer care removal from Memorial Medical

Center indigent care policy. CEO John Harris states that they do not deny or delay care, an atrocious lie. CEO John Harris states that they deliver care to all their neighbors regardless of ability to pay. A blatant lie. CEO John Harris says that he works in close contact with the city and county, did any of you know that he deleted cancer and dialysis from the MMC Indigent Policy?

Danielle Dollar, Member of the Public said I am a Global Economic Investment

Manager. I moved here in 2012. In 2012 we did not have the issues that we are presenting now with public safety not only with business but with also our children. I am also a current basketball coach. Since we have moved here, we have had multiple instances where not only in our sports community of finding Narcan on the baseball fields but also recently at the Farmer’s Market my eight-year-old had a metal dumb bell bar thrown at his head. So, all I ask is for investment within the community. That we take these ordinances very seriously and also complaints by the community are not disregarded as brainwashing and also ludicrous by City Councilor District 5. It is very, very important for investments that come into this community that we are heard.

Sarah Smith, Member of the Public said I am speaking for a community member that could not attend today and she just sent me her comments that she wanted me to read to you. “Mr. Mayor and Council my name is Marisol Diaz, and I am a resident of

District 3. Have much to say about the crime in our city but today I want to speak to you about how disappointed I am in the behavior of a few city representatives that is unbecoming of a representative. Using social media to express negative feelings about the citizens you represent is distasteful and shows your inability to represent this city. You should be ashamed to say you feel your constituents are “easily manipulated” and calling them “rage farmers”. If you do not like the people you represent, step aside and allow someone who has pride for the people of this city to represent them. Do better, we deserve it. Thank you.”

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Pattie Hartman, Member of the Public said I am a resident. When I first came to Las

Cruces in 2016, I had a horrible experience with the mental health system that violated my rights and pretty much terrified me and has had lasting effects. The first thing I noticed here though in this town was how many people were being killed by our

Police Department. I came and spoke about it at city council several times and nothing was ever done. I am actually going to give a compliment to Chief Story to say that I have more trust in the Police Department now than I ever did in the past and I thank you for your sincerity.

George Pearson, Member of the Public said I am President of the Alameda Depot

Neighborhood Association. This past Saturday we had our quarterly meeting. I would like to share some of the topics and concerns that were discussed at the meeting. We continue to monitor the condition of the WIA Building that is adjacent to Pioneer

Woman’s Park. We haven’t heard about any actions of conditions of the building and want to be informed about the status of the building. We did hear that the Historic

Preservation officer position is currently vacant. We hope that this job vacancy will be addressed in short order. We also have concerns about traffic safety in our neighborhood. We understand that La Academia de Dolores Huerta is moving to the

Alma de Arte campus. This will increase traffic in the neighborhood. There are no four way stops on the perimeter of the campus. This is a safety issue and promotes faster speeds especially for vehicles that are cutting through neighborhood on streets that are next to the campus without any stops. Please let’s add four way stops now instead of as a response to a serious injury or fatal crash likely to involve a student from one of the schools on the campus. I also want to announce that our neighborhood association has created a logo. We hope the logo will become a place making identifier. We will be looking for help from the city on the how the logo can be used at gateway locations and in other ways to identify the neighborhood. Our next quarterly meeting is Saturday November 2nd at 11 o'clock at J Paul Taylor Academy.

Mr. Mayor the neighborhood has asked if you would attend so I am inviting you to that meeting and with my remaining time I am going to switch to my role as Vice President of VeloCruces and ask that City Council adopt Vision Zero as policy so that we can create a city with zero traffic fatalities.

4. READ CLOSED MEETING STATEMENT 4.1 READ JULY 15, 2024 CLOSED MEETING STATEMENT INTO THE

RECORD. The Las Cruces City Council met in Closed Session and only discussed those limited items as stated in the posted notice to discuss pending litigation regarding:

1.To discuss threatening ligation regarding parking Lot 8 (Griggs & Water), which is closed pursuant to NMSA 1978, Section 10-15-1H(7).

2.To discuss pending litigation regarding Michael Hays v. City of Las Cruces, Cause

No. D-307-2023-2167, which is closed pursuant to NMSA 1978, Section 10-15-1H(7).

5. ACCEPTANCE OF AGENDA Councilor Becky Corran moved, seconded by Councilor Johana Bencomo, to

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accept the agenda as presented with the removal of items 7.1 and 7.5 in their entirety and removal of 7.4 for discussion.

RESULT: Carried

MOVER: Councilor Becky Corran

SECONDER: Councilor Johana Bencomo

AYES: Mayor Eric Enriquez, Councilor Cassie McClure, Councilor William Mattiace,

Councilor Becki Graham, Councilor Johana Bencomo, Councilor Becky

Corran, and Councilor Yvonne Flores

6. CITY COUNCIL MINUTES 6.1 REGULAR CITY COUNCIL MEETING OF JULY 1, 2024. 6.2 WORK SESSION OF JULY 8, 2024.

7. RESOLUTION(S) AND/OR ORDINANCE(S) FOR CONSENT AGENDA 7.1 RESOLUTION NO. 25-012: A RESOLUTION TO AUTHORIZE AN ANNUAL

NOT-TO-EXCEED AMOUNT OF $2,000,000 PER VENDOR FOR

TEMPORARY EMPLOYMENT SERVICES, SUBJECT TO APPROVED

BUDGET APPROPRIATIONS (PROCUREMENT NO. 23-24-047). 7.2 RESOLUTION NO. 25-013: A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE CITY OF

LAS CRUCES (CITY) TO ACCEPT GRANT AWARDS FOR VARIOUS CITY

DEPARTMENTS THROUGH AN AMENDMENT TO THE CITY’S ADOPTED

FY2025 BUDGET AND FY2025 CIP. 7.3 RESOLUTION NO. 25-014: A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING A VARIANCE

TO SECTION 19-131 OF THE LAS CRUCES MUNICIPAL CODE, 1997, AS

AMENDED, ALLOWING CONSTRUCTION WORK BETWEEN THE HOURS

OF 6:00 P.M. AND 7:00 A.M. FOR CONCRETE POURING ASSOCIATED

WITH THE RENOVATION OF THE EXISTING SKATEPARK AT 151 N.

WALNUT. 7.4 COUNCIL BILL NO. 25-004; ORDINANCE NO. 3075: AN ORDINANCE

APPROVING A ZONE CHANGE FROM R-4 (MULTI-DWELLING HIGH

DENSITY AND LIMITED RETAIL AND OFFICE) TO C-3 (COMMERCIAL

HIGH INTENSITY) FOR PROPERTY LOCATED AT 3250 NORTHRISE

DRIVE. SUBMITTED BY JOHN HECK, PROPERTY OWNER. Larry Nichols, Director Community Development gave the overhead presentation.

Councilor Flores asked this is an appeal by the owner of this parcel of land, is that correct?

Larry Nichols said no ma’am, it is not an appeal. It is an application for rezoning.

Councilor Flores asked who is the applicant? Who has applied for this change in zoning?

Larry Nichols said the applicant is John Heck, the property owner.

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Councilor Flores said everything that you have noted is definitely not in the applicant’s favor. Seems like the planning commission made a good decision in that. There is nothing indicating that it is doing anything, and it seems that it would be unnecessary to change the zoning. I was just curious as to who the applicant was.

Larry Nichols said basically what the Planning and Zoning Commission after their discussion and findings determined that the rezoning would not be a necessary action because it continues to address the residential component that is probably more needed for that area than the furthering of reasonable high density commercial.

Councilor Corran asked if we had Realize today would this parcel be zoned to do any of those thing?

Tim Pitts, Deputy Director Community Development said we are just how getting the map, the zoning map prepared for the new Realize Las Cruces Land Development

Code. So, we have not yet processed this property, but I believe this is going to come in as probably an NH-2 suburban. So that is a relatively high density of residential, but it will also allow for some types of commercial. So, this is probably what this is going to come in at. We may make a decision to bump it up a little to an NH-3 but what we feel the applicant in this case is asking for is regional commercial and it is staff’s opinion on this that that’s a very high level of development for an area that currently as Larry has talked about, there is acres of land going back to the arroyo that are available for development but don’t have proper road. What the Planning and Zoning

Commission really wanted to do was to develop this property in conjunction with all of those in the back so that there could be an orderly development of the land and we think the NH-2 place type the neighborhood suburban would be the appropriate level probably.

Councilor Corran asked if I remember correctly when we had this discussion about this property before all of those are owned by different people, every one of those little parcels is owned by different folks, right?

Tim Pitts said that is correct.

Councilor Corran said my sense is that this would be permissible in a future version of zoning where we allow people to make the highest and best use of land given all of the conditions that might be there. It feels like this restrictive saying that we are going to try to push it towards residential zoning when it was also mentioned that like definitely within that capacity there are probably issues related to building housing on any of these parcels but including this one but what I am thinking about is this is an example of where we are trying to force something into a box that should not actually be a box I guess is the metaphor that I would use and in this case we are taking it from one box and putting it in another box theoretically if we approve this versus saying like the box is there, is that true?

Tim Pitts said I think that is not a bad analogy. I think we could work with that. I think that what you are getting at is that right now the residential is a little restrictive to just residential, but NH-2 is not as restrictive to just residential. You can do some other

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things, but it would be things that would be suitable for that style of that neighborhood development rather than just going from Larry mentioning a big box store. If someone put a Cosco here it would be. That is the thought when you start thinking regional commercial is that level of building.

JoAnn Grey Lackey, Member of the Public said I have been a long-time resident of this city. My husband Gerald Lackey passed away a year ago. I believe we are the owners of that acreage, 16 acres and I have been mourning my husband. We have a trustee handling the estate, everything has not been resolved. I have not received any information about it because someone else is handling it, but I am very concerned, and I want to take some time to review this before any decision is made on this. This wasn’t the reason I was here, and I am glad that I am here because this does affect my family. So, I urge you to give us more time to study this because I have not heard anything about this yet and I would like to take that time and I apologize for not being aware of this but when you are grieving, and you have a lot of things to take care of it is hard to do. The reason I was here was because I am tired of all the crime, tired of all the not being able to go anywhere, not being able to do anything. All the safety issues that our whole community is concerned about, and I have a heart for people with mental illness and drug abuse and all that sort of thing and I do feel like we need to put more money into those programs. I am very happy with what the police are doing. This is our community and it use to be a beautiful community where we can go places and do things. I want my kids to develop that land and do something worthwhile for the community.

Mayor Enriquez asked Mrs. Lackey again for clarification you are the property owner of this?

JoAnn Grey Lackey said yes.

Mayor Enriquez asked this 3250 Northrise?

JoAnn Grey Lackey said some of the acres. We have 16 acres, and I was looking at it. It is right next to the Northrise, the Village of Northrise. We go down to the arroyo.

Tim Pitts said this property that says R-4, this property is Mr. Heck’s property, and their property is behind it. They have an easement that takes them out. So if they try to develop the land they are going to have to use this easement and that is what P&Z was talking about. We are happy that you are here because we will get in contact with you and see if we can work something out with Mr. Heck. If we can come up with something quality, we would have a better plan here.

Councilor Flores asked in terms of especially in light of what Mrs. Lackey just said and what Dr. Pitts just said it seems that we are at a point where a decision would not be indicated? So, what would be the procedural, would it be to table it, or would it be to vote no on it?

Christine Rivera, City Clerk said that is up to you. You can table it to a date specific so we can bring it back so they can contact the other property owner and get in

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communication with them or you can just vote no on it, it’s your decision.

Larry Nichols said you can vote this down and they can come back with a new proposal that was less speculative. That would be another option for you to consider. Councilor Becky Corran moved, seconded by Councilor Becki Graham, to

Approve Ordinance No. 3075.

RESULT: DEFEATED.

SECONDER: Councilor Becki Graham

AYES:

NAYS: Mayor Eric Enriquez, Councilor Cassie McClure, Councilor William Mattiace,

Corran, and Councilor Yvonne Flores 7.5 COUNCIL BILL NO. 25-005; ORDINANCE NO. 3076: AN ORDINANCE

APPROVING A ZONE CHANGE FROM C-2 (COMMERCIAL MEDIUM

INTENSITY) TO C-3C (COMMERCIAL HIGH INTENSITY - CONDITIONAL)

FOR PROPERTY LOCATED AT 2999 BATAAN MEMORIAL WEST.

SUBMITTED BY CHRIS SVEUM - ATWELL, LLC ON BEHALF OF YESWAY,

INC.

8. RESOLUTION(S) AND/OR ORDINANCE(S) FOR DISCUSSION 8.1 RESOLUTION NO. 25-015: A RESOLUTION APPROVING A $4M HOUSING

TRUST FUND LOAN AGREEMENT AND LAND USE RESTRICTION

AGREEMENTS WITH PEACHTREE CANYON APARTMENTS LLLP FOR AN

AFFORDABLE HOUSING PROJECT, INCLUDING REQUESTING WAIVERS

OF ALL PERMIT FEES AND IMPACT FEES FOR PARKS AND PUBLIC

SAFETY FOR THE PROJECT. Jan Lauterbach, Housing Development Specialist gave the overhead presentation.

Councilor Flores asked can you go back to slide 4? That permanent loan, that $9,656,236.00 who is responsible for paying it back?

Jan Lauterbach said the project is responsible. The project owners. That loan is the

CRBT, stands for Cedar Rapids Bank and Trust they are the permanent lender and the owners of the property are responsible for paying that loan back.

Councilor Flores asked is there any fiscal responsibility on the part of the city in this project?

Jan Lauterbach said we do have a loan with them on our funds with the Housing Trust

Funds will be a loan so they will be paying this back for those funds. The ARPA Funds are granted.

Councilor Flores asked how much would the amount from the city?

Jan Lauterbach said the city’s Housing Trust Fund amount is up to $4 million. It is a

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residual receipts loan, meaning that it is based on net income. They owe us a payment and it’s based on an annual basis and at the end of the 20 years, it’s a 20- year balloon for all pay back.

Councilor Flores aske the payback is by whom?

Jan Lauterbach said by the owners.

Councilor Corran said it sounds like there a couple of innovative things that are happening in this particular development as I understand them. First of all the true waiving of the Impact Fees which is something I hope we can keep having these conversations about as we talk about Park Impact Fees and how to balance Park

Impact Fees with private developers and their own instillation of multifamily houses but I think this might be the first time this sort of comes up in this context and then the second part is that I know this is a different type of low income housing loan model that we, this is the first time that we have successfully gotten this type. I am hoping that you can tell folks that this is new and different from what we have been able to do in the past.

Jan Lauterbach said it is not exactly new. We have done this residual receipts loan with our previous two multifamily projects which would be the Three Sister’s

Apartment Complex and Pedrena Apartments. We did this same residual receipts loan out of the Housing Trust Fund.

Natalie Green, Housing and Neighborhood Revitalization Administrator said we will note that this is a 4% low-income housing tax credit. We typically go after the competitive 9%. So, it is a little bit different in that this is part of the noncompetitive bond set asides at the state level. We do do impact fee waivers, however council typically budgets for those impact fee waivers, and we spend up to that dollar amount and so you are correct in saying that this is first and that we are going above and beyond the budget that the council typically sets aside for us for impact fee waivers and asking for those true waivers. We are very happy with this project that it does have less layers. The less funding sources and the more robust funding sources the better. Our last project, the Pedrena Apartments where you also saw this cheeseburger had 14 layers of capital stack and that can get very complex but it’s a fun challenge for staff.

Councilor Bencomo asked where are they in the planning phase?

Jan Lauterbach said they are very close. We are looking at closing all the financial pieces. Of course, the developers always want to close before they are ready, but we are looking at middle September closing for the financial pieces. The plans have already been submitted. We are going through those, and we should start building hopefully before the end of the year.

Councilor Bencomo aske the apartments that consist of 144 rent restricted units, that includes both phases, right?

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Jan Lauterbach said that is just first phase. The second phase will have an additional

144 units.

Councilor Bencomo said I think because Natalie what you just mentioned regarding that this is the first time going beyond a certain waiver, I do feel like it is important that we have a conversation about an equitable structure regarding apartments, multifamily dwellings whether its affordable housing or fair market apartments that we begin to talk really what an equitable structure looks like for waiving fees. Ultimately it has to come from somewhere and someone has to pay for it and I think it is important we talk about that. I know that we have a big Park Impact Fee conversation coming soon but I think as I am reading this, and I know this is sort of the first time we are doing this I am more obviously setting some precedence here and so I think it is important Natalie that we have some conversations. This would be a good opportunity for a Housing PRC moment, Mayor I think maybe activating a smaller group of folks to talk about how we approach the issues of Park Impact Fees especially as they relate to multifamily housing.

Danielle Dollar, Member of the Public asked what is the economic plan for funding

Monte Vista Elementary and Mesa Middle School that is already overcrowded?

Natalie Green said as part of the funding sources we do have to do an environmental assessment specifically for the federal fund and part of that is a Social Justice

Assessment and so we do coordinate with the schools as they work on their redistricting plans. We notify them to where are projects are going in, so we have an open conversation with the school systems about where these projects are going.

Typically, these projects are not new folks. It’s people who are already residing within our school systems within the city who are maybe just doubled up couch surfing families or living in motels in different apartment complexes, but we do coordinate with the schools to understand that impact to them.

Beth Bardwell, Member of the Public said I would just like to say on behalf of the

League of Women Voters that we do support impact fees being waived for affordable housing here in Las Cruces. Park Impact Fees are currently a fixed fee which has a disproportionate impact on both smaller housing and multifamily housing in that we believe that it is in the best interest of the city to increase affordable housing throughout the city. There is a need for about 5,000 affordable housing apartments in this city currently.

Councilor Mattiace asked I would just like to know what the philosophy would be in the future if private developers and home builders can bring affordable rents and affordable cost in their apartments would the impact fees be waived for them as well?

Jan Lauterbach said the impact waiver fee is not just an automatic waiver for anyone.

There is a process that goes from the State Affordable Housing the act and then the city’s affordable housing ordinance you have to be a qualified grantee, number one that is an application that we process here and then it is also submitted to the

Mortgage Finance Authority in Albuquerque for concurrence of that qualified grantee status, and then they have to show that it is definitely affordable housing. We know

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what our affordable housing are, the developers out there have a little bit of a different view of what affordable housing is but we can only truly waive it for affordable housing and then it depends on the amount of funding that we have or don’t have and how the process works as far as who we can waive fees for.

Councilor Mattiace asked can you go back to the chart to show the cost of the rent?

So, a one bedroom, am I reading this correct is $795?

Jan Lauterbach said that is correct.

Councilor Mattiace asked so for a two bedroom and three bedroom it goes to $1,101 as high? And that’s affordable?

Jan Lauterbach said that is the tax credit for the rent limits that have been set by the

New Mexico Mortgage Finance Authority. A little bit of comparison for a one-bedroom current fair market rate right now is $881 so about $100 less per month.

Councilor Mattiace said with that said they had to pay the impact fees most likely. In other words, you are using a market comparison probably for a private developer let’s say the apartments Eddie Binns develops or anyone else, the impact fees are not waived for that development and so that could cost. That could be where the cost are raised in monthly rent correct?

Jan Lauterbach said the rents cannot go any higher than this. That is the rent amount, and they cannot pay for any additional fees or anything like that. The tenants cannot, the owners are assessed the fees.

Councilor Mattiace asked I think it is Cedar Rapids, the developer?

Jan Lauterbach said that is the lender. Our developer is the partnership, Peachtree

Canyon Apartments is a partnership between Thomas Development Group and New

Mexico Community Housing Development Corporation.

Councilor Becky Corran moved, seconded by Councilor Johana Bencomo, to

Approve Resolution No. 25-015.

Corran, and Councilor Yvonne Flores 8.2 RESOLUTION NO. 25-016: A RESOLUTION APPROVING AN EXCEPTION

TO THE HOME REHABILITATION HANDBOOK FOR THE RESIDENCE

LOCATED ON CALICO DR. Isaias Amaya, Housing Development Specialist gave the overhead presentation.

Councilor Flores asked can you go back to that first slide? Can you explain to me

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what debt to income ratios and what this handbook is all about?

Isaias Amaya said the Home Rehabilitation Handbook, when we are doing the processing of a application the income to debt ratio says how much money they make versus how much money they owe. The handbook, the Home Rehabilitation

Handbook only allows to 45%. If it is 45% the Home Rehab Advisory Committee can approve the project but if it is over that then we need to come in front of City Council to get an exception for that.

Councilor Flores asked so the anticipated project cost is $50,000 so if we voted yes on this what would the owner be responsible for?

Natalie Green, Housing and Neighborhood Revitalization Administrator said this program is funded by our Community Development Block Grant, our federal fund so it is specifically set aside for low-income homeowners to go through the home rehabilitation process and so the homeowner has applied. The issue is that their debt to income ratio is higher than what is typically allowed by our policies and procedures which is why we are bringing this exception forward. Should council choose to not approve the exception our process with the homeowner would terminate and they would not be provided any program benefits. Staff felt that it was important enough given the homeowner’s fixed income and their status of a person with disabilities to bring this project forward and request the exception above the administrative process that is allowed through the Homeowners Rehab Committee.

Councilor Flores asked is there a bottom dollar to the city?

Natalie Green said there is not. The city will protect our investment in the home through a mortgage so we do file a lien against the home and as long as the homeowner remains in the home and meets the terms and conditions outlined in that mortgage it will be forgiven over a period of time. Should they pass away or sell their home or no longer meet those requirements then our loan would come due and we would return all of those funds back to the city and then we would return all of those funds back to the city and then we would, they essentially become program income and we do additional projects but this is part of our Entitlement Funds from the federal government that we get every year specific for this program.

Councilor Flores asked so that is what the handbook says?

Natalie Green said correct.

Donna Stryker, Member of the Public said what is the residual income because I know about the ratios.

Natalie Green said so the reason that the debt to income ratio is so high is because she is on

Social Security and so that is her only source of income and then the debt is the mortgage on her house. So, she has no other outstanding debt other than the mortgage and her fixed income. Councilor Johana Bencomo moved, seconded by Councilor Becky Corran, to

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Approve Resolution No. 25-016.

MOVER: Councilor Johana Bencomo

SECONDER: Councilor Becky Corran

Corran, and Councilor Yvonne Flores 8.3 COUNCIL BILL NO. 24-022; ORDINANCE NO. 3064: AN ORDINANCE

AUTHORIZING THE EXECUTION AND DELIVERY OF A LOAN AND

SUBSIDY AGREEMENT (“LOAN AGREEMENT”) BY AND BETWEEN THE

CITY OF LAS CRUCES, NEW MEXICO (“GOVERNMENTAL UNIT”) AND

THE NEW MEXICO FINANCE AUTHORITY (“FINANCE AUTHORITY”), IN

THE TOTAL AMOUNT OF FIFTEEN MILLION THREE HUNDRED

THOUSAND DOLLARS ($15,300,000), EVIDENCING A SPECIAL LIMITED

OBLIGATION OF THE GOVERNMENTAL UNIT TO PAY A MAXIMUM

REPAYABLE PRINCIPAL AMOUNT OF NO MORE THAN TWELVE

MILLION TWO HUNDRED EIGHTY THOUSAND NINE HUNDRED FORTY-

NINE DOLLARS ($12,280,949), TOGETHER WITH INTEREST, AND

ADMINISTRATIVE FEES THEREON, AND TO ACCEPT A LOAN SUBSIDY

OF NO MORE THAN THREE MILLION NINETEEN THOUSAND FIFTY-ONE

DOLLARS ($3,019,051), FOR THE PURPOSE OF FINANCING THE COSTS

OF A NEW WELL, ASSOCIATED IMPROVEMENTS OF THE WELL

INCLUDING CONNECTING TO THE JOINT UTILITY SYSTEM OF THE

GOVERNMENTAL UNIT, AND REHABILITATION OF WATER STORAGE

TANKS; PROVIDING FOR THE PLEDGE AND PAYMENT OF THE

PRINCIPAL, ADMINISTRATIVE FEES AND INTEREST DUE UNDER THE

LOAN AGREEMENT SOLELY FROM THE NET REVENUES OF THE JOINT

UTILITY SYSTEM OF THE GOVERNMENTAL UNIT; SETTING AN

INTEREST RATE FOR THE LOAN; APPROVING THE FORM OF AND

OTHER DETAILS CONCERNING THE LOAN AGREEMENT; RATIFYING

ACTIONS HERETOFORE TAKEN; REPEALING ALL ACTION

INCONSISTENT WITH THIS ORDINANCE; AND AUTHORIZING THE

TAKING OF OTHER ACTIONS IN CONNECTION WITH THE EXECUTION

AND DELIVERY OF THE LOAN AGREEMENT. Erika Jaquez, Treasurer gave the overhead presentation.

Councilor Flores asked can you go back to page 4, the loan details? Do you know at this point what the interest rate not to exceed .250%, but what does that add up to when to due date for payment May 1, 2046?

Erika Jaquez said yes that is correct. So, they can spend up to $15.3 million, so after the completion of the projects we will know what the exact amount is and then they will start the repayment. The last principal payment cannot be after May 1, 2046. So, the loan will be structured in a way to have the last payment on that date. The interest rate cannot exceed that .25% which is a great advantage for the city to get these projects at a low interest cost.

Councilor Flores asked how much would that amount to by the year 2046? That is 22

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years from now.

Erika Jaquez said I do not know that at this time but at the closing date of the loan we would have a good estimate of what those amounts would be, and we can provide those numbers to you at that point in time. Councilor Johana Bencomo moved, seconded by Councilor Becky Corran, to

Approve Ordinance No. 3064.

Corran, and Councilor Yvonne Flores 8.4 COUNCIL BILL NO. 25-006; ORDINANCE NO. 3077: AN ORDINANCE

REPEALING AND REPLACING CHAPTER 19, SECTION 19-6. -

POSSESSION, DELIVERY, MANUFACTURE, OR DELIVERY OF DRUG

PARAPHERNALIA OF THE LAS CRUCES MUNICIPAL CODE (LCMC), 1997

AS AMENDED. Jeremy Story, Police Chief gave the overhead presentation.

Gauge Burnett, Member of the Public said I have lived in Las Cruces for about three years. I would like to point out that it is utterly inappropriate to any way criminalize or penalize people for carrying or exchanging harm reduction supplies for any reason.

The use of testing strips, the exchange of clean needles, the exchange of clean sharp skin containers among people who use drugs is a necessary step in order to prevent overdoses and in order to prevent the transmission of blood born illnesses such as

Hepatitis C and HIV/AIDS. I would urge to consider only passing legislation that reduces the penalties to zero for the possession and exchange of these necessary materials.

Pattie Hartman, Member of the Public asked so is the proposed amendment strictly to match the state statutes and there is nothing new or additional to that?

Chief Jeremy Story said it is to match. There is nothing added to it other than we are reducing the penalty of what the state has in state statute. This is the state statute and if you compare it, it is essentially word for word minus those two differences.

Adam Nighice, Member of the Public said I wanted to ask how the new statute will affect the possession of paraphernalia for cannabis use as a disabled Veteran it is a medicine for a lot of us.

Chief Jeremy Story said it specifically states here as well as in the ordinance that it is for violation of the Controlled Substance Act and because the legislature has decriminalized marijuana if it is legal under state statute it would not be considered paraphernalia that is in violation of the Controlled Substance Act. Councilor Becki Graham moved, seconded by Councilor Johana Bencomo, to

Approve Ordinance No. 3077.

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MOVER: Councilor Becki Graham

Corran, and Councilor Yvonne Flores 8.5 COUNCIL BILL NO. 25-007; ORDINANCE NO. 3078: AN ORDINANCE

AMENDING CHAPTER 21, SECTION 21-62. - PROHIBITED

SOLICITATIONS AND 21-63. - STANDING OR LOITERING ON OR NEAR

STREET OR HIGHWAY, OF THE LAS CRUCES MUNICIPAL CODE (LCMC)

1997 AS AMENDED. Jeremy Story, Police Chief introduced the topic.

Brad Douglas, City Attorney continued the presentation.

Chief Jeremy Story continued the presentation.

Brad Douglas continued the presentation.

Councilor Flores asked can you go back to page 17? In Subsection C shall be unlawful for any person to stand or loiter on any highway included in the interstate system. We don’t have any jurisdiction over interstate, that is federal, isn’t it?

Brad Douglas said so within the city limits of Las Cruces, the Las Cruces Police

Department would have jurisdiction for traffic related matters and even some on ramps and off ramps of the interstate highway system, jurisdiction would still apply.

Councilor Flores asked is there a certain measurement for that?

Brad Douglas said my interpretation of paragraph C is that would only include people actually standing on the on ramp, on the off ramp, on the portion of the roadway that is normally used for motorists. They can still stand on the side of the roadway and engage in whatever activity they would like.

Councilor Corran asked jaywalking already not legal in the city of Las Cruces, correct?

Brad Douglas said correct.

Councilor Corran asked and also assault already criminal?

Brad Douglas said also correct.

Councilor Corran asked so these are making these a little bit more clear for folks to understand who is not allowed to do those things or help me understand because it

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sounds like we are making up new crimes for things that already are criminalized?

Brad Douglas said I think what these ordinances do with regard to median safety for example jaywalking for instance would not necessarily apply if someone were to use a designated crosswalk and then if they were standing on a raised concrete barrier median with traffic flowing in opposite directions, so say that median was 12 inches wide and that is not farfetched, we have those in the city.

Councilor Corran said sometimes they are called pedestrian refuges.

Brad Douglas said I have never heard that before Councilor. What we are trying to avoid is those very thin slices of concrete. Any person standing on those when there is vehicular traffic moving in both directions. With regard to the assault question. Yes currently assault is certainly illegal pursuant to state law and city code but with regard to the aggressive solicitation which I believe is what you would be referring to, 21-61 does layout a definition of aggressive solicitation however there may be some behavior that could be classified as assault or maybe could not be classified as assault but could be classified as aggressive solicitation for example let’s say I am with my daughter and we are asking people if they want to buy Girl Scout cookies.

Let’s say that I receive a negative response. Let’s say that I continue following that person in a public area repeatedly asking over and over and over again and I haven’t threatened violence, but it could still potentially fall under aggressive solicitation scheme.

Councilor Corran asked what if that person was asking for you to sign a petition for someone to be elected to office?

Brad Douglas said we don’t want to make any kind of distinction based on content.

What we are really trying to look at through these ordinances is the behavior and so whether it be political speech, whether it be someone soliciting funds for their church,

Girl Scout cookies, literally anything. If that person were to repeatedly and aggressively ask the solicitee for response, they receive a response in the negative and let’s say they follow that person and they just repeatedly keep asking, well then yes in that instance the solicitor could be guilty of aggressive solicitation regardless of content of the speech.

Councilor Bencomo asked what is the penalty for this?

Brad Douglas said since it is in the Las Cruces Municipal Court the maximum possible penalty would be the same as any other petty misdemeanor so it would be a maximum of 90 days of incarceration and/or a $500 fine however I would like to point out that in our Municipal Court due to recent changes from both the State Legislature and the New Mexico Supreme Court we have been empowered, the Municipal Court has been empowered for financial obligation of any kind to be able to divert that financial obligation into community service and the definition of community service has been expanded in recent years here in New Mexico to include treatment if someone were to need treatment for a substance use disorder or if they needed help with their mental health that would satisfy any community service obligation that they

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would incur.

Councilor Bencomo asked if someone is soliciting on a median and they are fined, and I have some questions about the mechanics of enforcement, and they are fined and for whatever reason they cannot do any form of community service they will be fined $500 and/or spend up to 90 days in jail?

Brad Douglas said not necessarily is my answer to that so even on a petty misdemeanor on any charge other than those that have mandatory minimums which this would not have a mandatory minimum, but our judges are still allowed to spend or defer jail time and/or fines.

Councilor Bencomo asked it is a possibility? Because this is through the criminal justice system?

Brad Douglas said correct. It is theoretically possible.

Councilor Bencomo asked I assume this will happen when a driver calls 911 and informs 911 dispatchers that there is a person that is breaking this law, or an officer sees it themselves and then pulls over and stops traffic to cite the person?

Chief Jeremy Story said it would be similar to any other violation in Municipal Code so the officer could either witness it themselves or it could be based on a call from a citizen. It would be enforced with a criminal citation which is essentially a piece of paper that cites them into Municipal Court primarily.

Councilor Bencomo said I think this ordinance reads like an ordinance that is placing the blame on the victim for their own suffering. The Federal Highway Administration recommends that enforcement countermeasures for pedestrians’ safety focus on drivers and road design. So, drivers, distracted drivers, intoxicated drivers, speeders, then this other report that I actually learned about by tuning into the special session, it’s called Dangerous by Design and actually Brad or Chief would you mind going back to page 14? This report called Dangerous by Design states that, “as in previous years we have found that not everyone lives and walks with the same risk. Black and

Native Americans, older adults and people walking in low-income communities die at higher rates and face higher levels of risk compared to all Americans. Our nations streets are dangerous by design. Designed primarily to move cars quickly at the expense of keeping everyone safe. Unfortunately, this crisis will continue to get worse until those in power finally make safety for everyone who uses our roads a top priority”. This isn’t making safety a top priority. This is making punishment a top priority. I don’t believe this is evidence based and during my council comments later

Mayor I will be asking that you put Vision Zero on the work agenda so that we can actually focus on keeping pedestrians safe.

Councilor McClure asked I do have some questions about the 30 mile per hour, can you specify where that came from?

Chief Jeremy Story said several other cities including Albuquerque’s new ordinance

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model at that so that we can have it narrowly tailored to the areas where we are seeing injury, crashes, and fatalities. So, we typically don’t see the same amount of injury crashes in areas that are less than 30 miles per hour. So, to focus it again and narrowly tailor it as much as possible to where we are seeing the injuries and deaths,

30 miles per hour and greater is where we are seeing them.

Councilor McClure said I am confused about the gentleman with the thumbs up. I thought Lohman was 35 so how would that be legal?

Chief Jeremy Story said this median is four feet or more. So, on medians that are greater than four feet in diameter it would still be legal and the thinking there again and the City Attorney already referenced case Evans v Sandy City where the Tenth

Circuit has already said that the municipality can regulate and keep people from those narrow slices of pavement because it is more dangerous on a two foot median than a

15 foot median. There is more area that if a vehicle starts to go over a median or if that person has to lean out or step out there is a lot more room essentially, there is wiggle room to actually walk around and stay away from the vehicles.

Councilor McClure asked is this a petty misdemeanor or is this a full misdemeanor, just a curiosity?

Chief Jeremy Story said it would be a petty misdemeanor. All codes that are at

Municipal Court, the highest it can be is a petty misdemeanor.

Councilor McClure asked the last one we were trying to do this for penalty assessment, why would this not fall under that as well?

Brad Douglas said I think the thought process here would be that drug paraphernalia has been decriminalized on the state level we were simply trying to do that here locally to make sure that it matches the state statute. There are relatively few penalty assessment misdemeanors throughout the state. It is actually very rare. With regard to solicitation or any petty misdemeanor in the Las Cruces Municipal Court. I will speak for myself, and this might be unpopular, but I prefer to have more of a range of punishments to deal with, now I will say this, if anyone is ever interested, please come down to our municipal court. See the work that we do. This is not lip service. We really do try to take a holistic approach with regard to defendants charged with any sort of crime. It is not a one size fits all. It’s not everybody goes to jail. I can tell you that there is no mass incarceration coming out of the Las Cruces Municipal Court and what we had hoped to accomplish if these ordinances pass today is to really connect with people who may be in need. Maybe not everyone is but to take an individual approach to those persons who come before the Municipal Court and they are on the docket for let’s say solicitation, prohibited solicitation, aggressive solicitation. More often than not there may be persons in the court that day who could benefit from some sort of diversion from some sort of pretrial intervention in working with our navigators at the

Las Cruces Municipal Court. I would like to thank City Council for funding those positions. It is early but anecdotally I think we are making progress in the Municipal

Court with hooking people up into services that are benefitting them, and we are doing that on an individual basis approach. Not an everybody needs services, but some

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people do.

Councilor Corran said to the Chief’s point it does sound like the miles per hour is something to consider. It seems like an alternative based on the evidence of pedestrians would be to change the speed limit in those areas. That seems like something that would actually really benefit a lot of folks who might be at risk. I would ask that when we consider Vision Zero that we look at all of the things that structurally might be leading to pedestrian deaths but to your point Brad, I think it is important to note that any interface with the criminal justice system reduces a person’s likelihood of getting housing, reduces their likelihood of getting a job in the future, any interface, tickets, going to jail, Municipal Court referring to services that again I think are not really built out as you might suggest but that interaction there is plenty of evidence to show that specific thing referring people particularly poor people to the criminal legal system results in them not being able to get the services that were required or that we would hope for as far as positive interventions for them so I think we have to real about that evidence here. It is not just going to jail. It’s a ticket, it’s interface with the criminal justice system and it reduces the outcome we want. I think that evidence is really clear and so I think and sort of suggesting that they are afraid that people are going to go to jail and that it is a little bit short of what my critique of this is because there is a lot of evidence that shows that.

Councilor Flores said there is a question about assault, a battery can be established but an assault is very subjective. Wouldn’t there have to be an eyewitness even if there was a battery? I just want to know how you would enforce that part of the code?

Chief Jeremy Story said for the aggressive panhandling we are getting focused on the assault when there is several other elements that it fits that we are seeing throughout

Las Cruces right now. It is like any other crime. The officer has to establish probable cause. Sometimes that is because they witnessed it and it is very easy. Sometimes we have independent eyewitnesses. Sometimes we have video and often times we have a combination of a bunch of different facts that we put together to get us to probable cause to take enforcement action. On aggressive solicitation in general I just want to make it clear that it involves things outside assault or battery which are already crimes which was pointed out but also involves things like blocking people from getting in or out of their vehicle or blocking people from getting in or out of the store and these are things that I hear and witness myself every single day that are happening in our businesses, our gas stations, and across the city.

Councilor Flores said I think there is an element of subjectivity. This isn’t directed to either one of you, but I am just saying. You can’t measure assault. Someone could look petrified and the person standing in front of them may be asking for directions to the courthouse. But the person that is being asked is going to possibly react, overreact and maybe cause a scene which I am just looking at the worst case scenario and then people who are going to be subject to and I think that in a perfect world the modifications are good if not excellent but we don’t live in a perfect world and we have people who will be criminalized, prosecuted or whatever for someone’s perception and a police officer doesn’t stand at every median. How is that weighed?

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Brad Douglas said the standard that Chief Story’s officers would be using when investigating these types of alleged crimes, let’s say it was aggressive solicitation or assault for that matter. Let’s go with the assault example, the officer or officers would be tasked with finding out whether or not a reasonable person would have and I know that is subjective language like you stated but whether a reasonable person would have been in fear that they were about to receive a battery and certainly and I am going to go ahead and make a prediction and not every one of these would rise to that level of probable cause but it would have to be a case by case examination, an investigation. Officers would have to speak with any parties that witnessed the incident. They would have to do their fact gathering. I believe that Chief Story, I am not going to speak for him, but I believe that there will be some additional training for these boots on the ground officers if these ordinances were to pass.

Chief Jeremy Story said yes of course there would be additional training to make sure that we have a unified consistent response and I wanted to point out that officers have been applying the reasonable person’s standards long before I have been a police officer in things like assault. They are used to gauging the totality, the circumstances and evaluating and implying reasonable person’s standards to determine if they have probable cause for whichever crime that is.

Councilor Mattiace asked are these ordinances going to help you and support you in the making this city safer?

Chief Jeremy Story said I believe they would otherwise I would not be here today.

Councilor Mattiace said the reason I say that is because I want it to be obvious because a lot of other things going on with the unhoused and with people in our community and we are not mentioning them. In other words, I see individuals urinating in parks. I see people that are unhoused throwing trash on the ground and littering.

There is a whole bunch of ordinances that are being violated and yet we just allow it to continue. These services that we are providing the assessment on the captivity of these people and finding out who they are, will this help them get to those services?

Rather than we are just saying get on the medians, beg for money, panhandle, it’s legal on the wider areas when more than four feet which is kind of good for me because in the older districts the medians are narrow but in District 6 they are wide so there will be a lot of movement to the wider, to the bigger areas. Is this really going to make them safer and will there be an education and outreach program? Can we spend a lot of money on supporting your department, the Fire Department, with the

LIGHT Program, can we just find a lot of funds instead of in other areas that actually can get the services to these people so that they don’t have to be panhandling?

Chief Jeremy Story said there are a couple of good points that I want to respond with.

One, any effort to enforce this would it pass would be in tiered implementation.

Meaning there would be education first. There would be an effort to plug people into services before taking enforcement action. Essentially, we are trying to gain voluntary compliance first and that is true for a number of things that we already confront and a number of criminal offenses we already confront but this again for realistic expectations. This is just one tool. Now when I look at those 17 pedestrian fatalities

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that we have seen over the past four years, most of them were people doing behavior that would be expressly prohibited under this ordinance. I had people that we stepping off a median and being struck. I have people that were stepping off the sidewalk and being struck. I have people that were walking from the sidewalk to the median and being struck and so I believe it would make them safer. The behavior that we are seeing that is killing pedestrians is the same behavior that will no longer be allowed under this ordinance.

Councilor Bencomo said I think that there is one piece of this that I agree with and it is that it is narrowly tailored. Narrowly tailored to fine poor people so it is $500 fine potentially and currently under Section 1-11, Court Cost and Collection, there is an additional piece in here that I am trying to get us to remove but we haven’t yet and it says, “persons who are brought before the Municipal Court due to the issuance of a bench warrant for failure to pay fines and have not received amnesty through a program approved by the city council shall be assessed in addition to any fine or other sentence in addition to the fees listed in Subsection A 1-3 and the following fee, a warrant fee for $100”. So, this is creating a debtor’s court. I know that you want to believe that this ordinance and the next one will make us safer but fining poor people does not make us safer. Sending poor people to jail simply because they are poor does not inherently make us safer.

Mayor Enriquez asked you mentioned the Municipal Courts and we know we have invested in that, and we put some resources and I know it is not full blown and it is not completely in full operation, but we have seen some results, do you have any data on that?

Brad Douglas said I believe that Municipal Court will be making a presentation to you all before the end of the year. Right now because we are only about a month in and so most of the information I have is anecdotal at this point but one number that sticks out in my head is in the last month 52 people and it could be greater than this by now but the last information I had was our court navigators and by the way I really do mean it, thank you very much for funding that, 52 people have been directed into services. Whether it be for substance use disorders, their mental health needs, connecting them with a food pantry, helping them get a bicycle if they had transportation issues. Those are the types of things that are happening in our Las

Cruces Municipal Court. It is very early but I am very optimistic, kind of look forward to the Judge’s presentation on that whenever we have more and better numbers.

Mayor Enriquez said thank you Brad and Chief for bring these ordinances forward to make our community safer. I think between the Municipal Court and these ordinances

I think that we are headed in the right direction to be safer.

Councilor Bencomo said Santa Fe recently passed something similar. They postponed for six months so that they could do education, but they also reduced the fine to $25. Is that something that we are able to do?

Brad Douglas said that would be something that would be within your purview. Yes, I believe it would require an amendment but that is certainly within your purview to do

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that.

Beth Bardwell, Member of the Public asked let’s say I am homeless, and I am panhandling which is a constitutionally protected right, I am on the sidewalk, the car has stopped and that is who I solicited from and the individual goes to hand me some money, if I step into the roadway am I in violation of these ordinances?

Chief Jeremy Story said so under the ordinance it would be anything that caused the person performing the activity enter onto the travel portion of the street or highway where the posted speed limit is 30 miles per hour or greater. Ultimately if they are stepping into the lanes of traffic, it technically would be a violation under this ordinance.

Tim Jenkins, Member of the Public said I would just like to make it very clear that it is very sad that we have to bring race, color, and ethnicity into every single discussion here. This is not in any way shape or form that we are trying to criminalize any poor people or send them to jail. We are simply trying to make our city a safer city and I personally the last two weeks have almost run over four people that have stepped off the sidewalk. We are trying to make our city a safer city not anyway criminalize that and that is all Chief Story has said since day one. We are not trying to criminalize poor people in any way, shape or form.

Axle Hail, Member of the Public said I am a Las Cruces native. I have lived here my whole life. Let it be known that I would be vehemently opposed to any legislation that works to criminalize or further victimize our unhoused community and our public safety issue with the streets is an issue of car centric architecture and planning. There are places in Las Cruces where for a quarter mile there is not a proper crosswalk, and these ordinances are only proven to further criminalize and victimize our unhoused community and the city’s efforts and funds should be going into affordable housing programs and harm reduction programs and accessible work programs. Things to truly solve this problem rather than further criminalizing them and sending them through the court system on a cycle where they can’t pay fines and then get bench warrants for fines they can only further not pay and as it is as somebody who works regularly with homeless people through my retail job and through community service that I do. What we are doing right now isn’t working. They are arresting them and then and then they are back out two days later because we don’t have the capacity. So, adding more policies to just arrest them and then release them will do nothing for public safety or community so I ask that you oppose this legislation.

Lucas Herndon, Member of the Public said I am a resident of District 2. I have lived in

Dona Ana County my whole life, and this is a story of unintended consequences. In

2002, this council including my current City Councilor Mr. Mattiace passed an ordinance banning people from being on medians. The unintended consequence was that it moved a lot of people who sold newspapers, the Las Cruce Sun-News which I worked for at the time off of those medians where they were selling papers. One of those people who sold that, his name was Dale Fairfield. Two years later I worked at

Mountain Mudd Expresso which was located on Valley by Caliches there was a drive thru coffee hut. I got to know Dale over the last two years that I worked there. When I

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met him, he was unhoused. He lived in the detached sleeper unit of a semi-trailer.

Before 2002, he had made enough money selling newspapers to rent an apartment and this city council through their policy caused him to be homeless. I spent the next five Thanksgivings and Christmas taking Dale leftovers at his little encampment and sharing the extras that I had for my own table. I lost track of him after that. In 2012, I received a letter from the State letting me know that he had passed away and made me the executor of his estate which included a TV and a hide a bed and that was it.

These people are human beings, and they have lives, and the policies here have real consequences for real people.

Daniel Williams, Member of the Public said I am a policy advocate at the American

Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico, and we oppose this ordinance. Our position is that this ordinance at best be fully repealed as opposed to amended. You received a letter from one of our attorneys on June 5th outlining our significant constitutional concerns. We do not believe the constitutional issues with the existing ordinance are remedied through the proposed amendments. Further we share many of the concerns, but the council has already articulated as to the ways in which these ordinances while perhaps not intended to do so would meaningfully result in the criminalization of poverty and homelessness in Las Cruces. One piece of evidence that I would like to share with you is that nationally the data suggests that law enforcement of pedestrian safety measures such as jaywalking results massively disproportionately in the criminalization of people of color and poor people. Many of those lead to uses of force. Many of those lead to warrant checks that further entrap people in the criminal legal system. The Department of Transportation advocates for three areas to improve pedestrian safety none of which are criminalization of people in handling our solicitation. Safer and more frequent crossings improve visibility and reduce speed. This ordinance does nothing to address those areas which will meaningfully improve pedestrians’ safety in Las Cruces. For these reasons and many other reasons that you have already heard and will continue to hear the ACLU opposes this ordinance and asks you to vote no.

Liz Rodriguez Johnson, Member of the Public said I have many concerns with these ordinances. Chief among them is that fining someone who is asking for change $500, wow. I mean that is just like cruel at best and inhumane at worst and then imposing police records on people who may someday try to apply for affordable housing and can’t because they now have a police record and I think it is wonderful that the navigators are making progress. I really do but the reality is a lot of these people have serious mental health issues and substance abuse issues and are the resources there even if the navigators want them to have it, are the resources there to handle that? If they are not, then what you are doing is solving the problem by incarcerating people.

Dana Hopkins, Member of the Public said I want to point out that I got up and stood in the aisle because it takes me a while to walk and I am a pedestrian. I am pedestrian and I am housed. I am blessed to have among my circle of friends and people I care about people who are not housed as well as people who are housed. I am hearing a lot of conversations from our friends from the Coalition for Conservatives about safety and about crime and what is it? Is this about crime? Is this about criminalizing homeless people or is about keeping people safe? Because if it is about keeping people safe many of you probably see me walking all over the place all the time.

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Sometimes with my dogs. Sometimes without them and it is not safe, and I do follow the law and I noticed in the demonstration up here about where someone can stand. I noticed that gentleman is well dressed, he appears to be able bodied, and he appears to be middle aged or younger. So, he does look like me and I am not safe on these streets. I do walk. I get around by walking or I am in somebody else’s car observing how other people drive so if we have something to deal with here it is to deal with our drivers. It is to deal with safety for those of us who walk and if we are talking about crime why don’t we be honest about it and say we are trying to criminalize our houseless population rather than support the folks who are working so hard to provide services for them. Criminalizing folks isn’t solving their problem. It is just cruel. There are no good consequences to forcing that person into the court system that has been explained repeatedly by the folks up here in the council. If that is no joke, they get a harder time getting a job. They can’t afford to pay that fine. It is even harder for them to become housed. Meanwhile I am out there walking the street, and nobody cares about the drivers. I think this is poorly thought out and I hope you all can do better.

Nicole Martinez, Member of the Public said I am the Director of the Mesilla Valley

Community of Hope. When the ACLU informed the City of Las Cruces they were violating the First Amendments right to freedom of speech by not allowing people to solicit for help, the city took action and reached out to Community of Hope to start a new program that would reduce the number of people panhandling on the street. That program is called Mano y Mano, and it is thriving today. Unhoused and precariously housed people can sign up for daily programs and go out and clean up the city including your city parks. In addition to two vans, we now have two Hot Spot trucks that go out and address unsanctioned encampments. On any given day at least 28 people, men and women who might otherwise be panhandling are working to clean up our streets. We had over 3,000 participants last year. We have programs that are working but on days when they don’t get selected for Mano y Mano, they might be flying a sign, to use their own words. When people are forced to the streets to ask for help it is because many of them are hungry, some are attempting to make ends meet with what they are given, and some are not able to make livable wages and plainly cannot survive on disability benefits alone. I heard this ordinance is to make it safer people but why aren’t we talking about street infrastructure, better lighting, better medians, driver safety? Why isn’t this meeting about the lack of services, treatment options and affordable housing that is forcing people to the streets? Why is everything that we are hearing today focused on the people with the least resources? We are talking fines and jail and let’s target the people with the least amount of power and hide them. I sure wish that we didn’t have to see people asking for money but then again, I wish people had enough to eat and a decent apartment with an affordable rent. Did you know that for every person we house someone that is on the fridges becomes homeless because they can’t afford rent and everything that comes along with it and since nobody is required to give money then the issue is that we don’t want to see people in poverty asking for help and so let’s find a way to deal with it than petty fines and ultimately resulting in people staying unhoused for much, much longer.

I know that we can do better than this and we can use solutions like Mano y Mano and our outreach teams, please vote no today.

Vic Villalobos, Member of the Public said I think you are going to hear a lot of people’s opinions today. We are going to hear a lot of why you think this, why you think that.

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First, I want to be clear that personally I am not asking you to not do all of those things. I think we need the court systems. I think we need ways to help these people. I think we can reduce the speed limits in some areas but at the end of the day we are talking about trust, and you know that I think about what Mike said and I am going to keep it together, when my friend Mitch died, and he was murdered last year by someone who was repeatedly in and out of jail and confrontations with police. If it had been up to me and I had it in my power, I would have brought down the wrath of God to destroy that person and make them no longer part of this earth. When Chief Story had the same thing happen to him, he had that power that I didn’t have and yet he was able to keep it together, he kept his force together because I guarantee you there was that force that wanted to take vengeance for their person but instead Chief Story was able to bring his force together, he brought this community together and he is asking for a baby step. Literally, and you know what? If it doesn’t work it is within your power that if he goes rogue and suddenly goes on this huge spree of arresting all these people in medians that you don’t like change it back. It is truly within your power to do anything you guys want and all we are asking you guys is to have the same trust in this man right here that I do, that we do, that he is doing to do the right thing. You know he is. He has been doing the right thing since he became Chief and even after.

The loss of that officer, he continued, and continues to do the right thing, support him.

Michael Fraembs, Member of the Public said piggy backing off of what Vic said we have had some unfortunate circumstances here in Las Cruces. I hate what I have seen the city become. I personally lost a good friend, teammate, same with Vic and it is just a reoccurring occurrence. This man here is here to support us. When we spoke with you earlier in January you all committed to help Chief Story. Today is the day to act on that promise. This man needs our help. We have all had issues with legislation with New Mexico. Our hands are tied we can’t do this, we can’t do that. Today we have a chance to make change for the positive. It is extremely heartbreaking for my wife, when she goes to grocery store, to go to Sprouts to get food for our family, if I am not available, she has to call her nephew to meet her in the parking lot because she is terrified of the aggressive solicitation. Yes, it’s private property but they are right outside on that corner at McDonalds. All of your constituents are terrified of what is happening in this city. This man is trying to make a change. We are trying to make a change. We are counting on you to help make a change for us. Yes, these people who are soliciting, they are people. I don’t want to us to lose our humanity, but we need some changes. What is happening right now is not working and it is not going to work. We need to come up with smarter ideas of how we can help these people. This is the first baby step to start helping make change and I am looking directly at you Ms.

Bencomo and I think your heart is where you have a good heart and good intentions on this but listen to us too. We have a voice. We need you guys. It is not left or right.

We need to work together, and I really hope you consider voting for change today, please.

Pattie Hartman, Member of the Public said I feel really assaulted by what is happening in here today and I am not in anyone’s camp or bandwagon. This is ridiculous what I see and Councilor Bencomo shame on you and many of the others pretending to care about somebody. When I brought up the need for peers on the

Mobile Crisis Team you rolled your eyes, what now? These are important issues.

There are principles of why we need to have peers on things. That is how people

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recover. To continue with this top down, outdated mental health system that abuses people’s power and treats people like me when I admit that I have a mental health condition as you don’t know anything, you don’t know anything. I resent the fact that we are redefining treatment as community services. I think it is a corruption of the word and I see a lot of that here. If you really want to say that you care about these things trust me. Do you know how many people get arrested and charged with assault every day that I have looked into and that’s not justified. Nobody cares about that.

You are focusing all of your attention on a pretty reasonable change to the statute. I don’t need to know why he brought it up this time. The fact of what is being proposed is reasonable.

Harry Murray, Member of the Public said I have been a resident of this city for 46 years and it is no longer the safe community that it was when I moved here many years ago. City management cannot continue to take no action in this effort.

Something has to be done or it is only going to get worse. It is already getting worse. I hope that you will support the ordinances that Chief Story has worked so hard to bring us here today to do and I believe it will be a start in improving the public safety in our community and getting help for them with mental issues is a necessary step to for making Las Cruces safer again. To not take action where we are going to be failure for the management of our city, and I have to thank Chief Story for all of the efforts he has done and bringing all of this to us today to be voted on for without his effort we would not be here talking about this.

Shannon Murray, Member of the Public said I just have a different perspective of how this could help others. I went to Albertsons on North Main and then I was driving to

Lowes and there was a gentleman in the street. He was not on a sidewalk or anything. He was walking down the line, and I was getting ready to turn and he was tapping on the window and wanted some money. He went on down the line. Went to

Lowes, came back driving back and see the gentleman sitting in the dirt and he had it over his head and somebody did give him money, a couple of cars behind me.

Orange vehicle gave him some money and he went and bought his drugs, Fentanyl I believe is when they cover their heads and are smoking their Fentanyl. Something like this could have helped that person if there was that interaction with law enforcement to be able to say, hey why don’t we get you into a treatment program instead of a fine or incarceration. That sounds pretty good to me to get that poor man out of his addicted lifestyle.

Lillian Lohman, Member of the Public said the root cause of the ordinance that you brought up here is the lack of resources and accessible housing. To solve this we have to ask ourselves, why do people solicit? Why are people panhandling? The solution to this public safety issue that you are so worried about is providing more accessible and affordable housing and health care so people don’t have to solicit. To solve this public safety issue that you have brought up you need to decrease the speed limits, increase safety for bike lanes. Create accessible smooth wide sidewalks for people who are walking and create a safe place for people to exist in public so that we don’t have to worry about the traffic issues that we are bringing up here. There is data that shows that majority of fatalities happen not with people who are soliciting but with other citizens that are just using the sidewalks crossing on bicycles so this solution that you are looking for is not to criminalize solicitation or panhandling or

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existing in these public spaces. It is to create a safer space for all of your citizens, so I am asking today, I appeal to your humanity and you serve all of Las Cruces and I ask that you vote no today.

Gwen Stacy, Member of the Public said I am just a Friends of the Neighborhood advocate, and I am here to speak against this bill because I feel like the ordinance doesn’t really make sense and it doesn’t really seem to have much of a functional purpose in what it is intending to do. I would say that if it is in the interest of public safety it doesn’t make sense in that regard because if you actually look at the map of the roadways where the most incidents occur a lot of those places such as the intersections of Lohman and Amador where they join in is an area by definition has a section that is larger than 30 feet and has some of the most accidents. Another subsection is the parts that I can think of on one of the highways leading up to the

Telshor intersection. There is another larger area that was also a road where it is very prone to accidents. I feel it is counterintuitive to say we are going to push people away from the smaller median areas when the large medians exist because they are high traffic, high crash incident areas. So, I feel that is counterintuitive. Another thing that I find counterintuitive if it’s about pedestrian safety or about issues regarding people solicitation. All it does is push them into neighborhoods. It pushes them towards public parks so I don’t think even a lot of people who are right wing or conservative would get what they want from this bill either. I feel that there would be alarm bells ringing because the people that might be doing solicitation and panhandling will just be directed towards other public areas which people would be very uncomfortable seeing this in. I don’t see who this bill serves. I don’t see its purpose. I don’t see how it can be a bipartisan supported bill so I think you should heavily reconsider a lot of the provisions or just repeal it entirely.

Nancy McMillan, Member of the Public said I have been a resident of Las Cruces for

35 years, recently retired from the university and I live in District 2. I encourage you to vote no I think we all agree clearly that there is a problem with homelessness and poverty in Las Cruces and we all agree that there aren’t enough services, so I ask you to use tax dollars to increase those services. I volunteer at the Community of Hope, and I just want to draw your attention to last year they housed 945 people and you’re thinking, oh drop in the bucket but 945 people that is more than one a day, it’s more than two a day. It is one every 9 hours and a quarter hour the Community of Hope moves someone from homelessness into stable housing. So, let’s increase that. Let’s take the money that is going to be spent on the shopping cart issues that is coming up next and this issue and move that into increased services and affordable housing, all those things that we know work. We know that we can help people move from homelessness into stable housing. We have models in Las Cruces and experts in Las

Cruces that are making that happen every single day of the year and so let’s really solve this not just put a band-aid on it that might make it look better.

Joseph Cervantes, Member of the Public said I have had the pleasure of working with many of you all. I wanted to take a moment because I know these issues before you hopefully illustrated to you and everyone in the audience here that the Legislature grapples with these issues just as you are grappling with them today. These are complicated issues so any suggestions that we in the Legislature where I serve in the

Senate, my colleague Senator Hamblen is here today as well to that we take these

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lightly is something you are seeing the full picture of. I hope I can add a little bit of information and then I want to invite you to my townhall which will be September the

19th at the Farm and Ranch. We are really going to dig into what the Legislation was and why it didn’t pass and whether legislation made quick work of this. Some information for you I hope and for all of the years that I have been in the legislature which has been 24 it is common to say that the crime problems are because Santa Fe ties our hand, or it is Santa Fe’s fault. Or you get pulled up to a press conference and the Governor says we need more laws. Let me help you to understand the issue real simply because I have seen Las Cruces change. I have been here my whole life. I am a business owner. We use Mano y Mano, thank you Councilor Bencomo to make that happen. We have security guards at our Starbucks. We deal with all these crime issues. Let me help illustrate something. There are two cities in Southern New Mexico that are the safest of the five cities in the state of New Mexico. There two cities in

Southern New Mexico have the same state laws that you in Las Cruces do. These two cities I am happy to represent in my district. These two cities are Sunland Park and Anthony. Sunland Park and Anthony are two of the five safest cities in the state of

New Mexico. They are on the border so don’t be misled by those who tell you that this is a border proximity, don’t let people mislead you that it is a matter of race or ethnicity. It is none of those things. Why is Sunland Park and Anthony safer than Las

Cruces, statistically by far? Ask that question and realize that they are operating under the same state laws that everyone else is in this state. There are harder questions and easy answers and of course I would love to have much more time. I am not going to take position on these bills, that is a difficult issue for you. I just ask that you not create the appearance of doing something, really do something.

Donna Stryker, Member of the Public said today you have the opportunity to show the citizens of Las Cruces what the desires are about the city. I am hearing a lot about homeless and unhoused, but I think the population of Las Cruces is larger than that population and it doesn’t appear that our desires and wants matter. It is always about race, color, creed, sex, and the citizens and the business owners don’t seem to be heard. A yes vote for the two ordinances will show that you are willing to listen to the majority of the citizens and try something to address the out of control crime, the verbal and physical assaults, the homeless, and the non-homeless that are perpetrating on innocent citizens, innocent citizens. That is also an issue. Why aren’t innocent citizens besides innocent homeless being considered. I guess I don’t count.

A no vote will tell the citizens that you won’t listen to innocent citizens for businesses or private people in the stories of property damage, physical assault, verbal harassment, human waste cleanup, Fentanyl cleanup, drug cleanup, needles, and the endless, endless litany of fear to go to a public park alone or with my grandchildren.

The state of New Mexico has now been rated by two independent polls as the number one dangerous state in the United States. How satisfying that we are 50th in education, 46th in drunk driving, worst state to raise a family. When Officer

Hernandez was murdered this council stated that they supported the Police Chief and the police and public safety and if you really meant that you will vote yes on these ordinances and if you vote no then it is obvious that you do not mean that and that

Officer Hernandez tragic death is inconsequential to you.

Mary Martinez White, Member of the Public said I am here before you today as a private citizen and not representing any organization I am affiliated with. I want to start

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by acknowledging the folks in the audience who say that they want safety. Indeed, there is problems out there because of homelessness, because of mental health issues but I also want to acknowledge the Police Chief who is doing the best that he can with the resources that he has and we can’t rely on our police to solve or jail our way out of this. I want to take a step back and take us back to one of the root causes.

How did this get started? Back in 1981, Ronald Reagan stopped federal funding to huge mental health institutions, and he did the right thing because they were frighteningly, horribly inhumane, human warehouses. We don’t need more big box houses or institutions. I think that this ordinance while it is not intended to jail folks who are homeless that is the end result. There are probably about 1,500 people in

Las Cruces who are the cause of what is called the revolving door cycle of jail, to prison, to streets, back to jail. Many of them have two specific issues. Number one, they have an undiagnosed mental health disorder. Number two, they are drinking and drugging to self sooth an undiagnosed mental health disorder. These folks are very treatable. So instead of sending a police officer to the corner why not send a case worker to try to get folks into the places where they can actually get help, but the question is, do we have the resources? We do not. While the money stopped in 1981, we still do not have the resources that we need in order to meet that specific need.

Let’s stop taking a look at symptoms and let’s get down to causes.

Olivia Kirkpatrick, Member of the Public said I have lived in Las Cruces all my life and

I am a proud member of our multi-cultural and diverse community. My parents, Gilbert and Marylou Perez instilled in me a strong sense of community, community service, and the importance of giving a hand up just as we were once given. Why can’t we look at these ordinances as a way to channel people for the services you all are working to implement and those that are already in place. They can work together.

This is a start, and we need to start somewhere. We shouldn’t be afraid to go shopping or to go to work, to recreate in our city. the city I grew up in. I know

Councilor Bencomo knows this fear because she experienced it when she got a voicemail threat. There is a large majority of us that see people in crisis. Not everyone sees them as subhuman. I see someone’s child out there. That could be my child and

I thank God it’s not because my hands would be tied with getting them real help.

Some of them made choices that put them in the position or through no fault of their own. Some have been put there through prescription drug abuse by their doctor.

Some just have mental illness that is beyond their control. No matter the reason these people need help, and they cannot get that help if we don’t do something together to get them tied into that help. You work for us, and I am asking you to work with us.

Please pass these ordinances and let’s start working to making Las Cruces beautiful for all of us.

Michaela Lara Cadena, Member of the Public said I am honored to be a State

Representative of New Mexico’s House District 33. I am showing up in Santa Fe to represent our Southern New Mexico values and specifically the westside of the valley.

I didn’t expect to speak on this bill today, but I am mostly here as a listener and learner. So, like you I can hear what is happening in our community and try to better understand how we approach safety in a holistic way. I did want to share just one comment though. Earlier today in the presentation it surprised me to hear reference to a bill that I sponsored along with Chief Justice of New Mexico Supreme Court

Shannon Bacon and eventually passed into law and that bill was to eliminate post-

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conviction fees in New Mexico. Yes, and while we were doing that, and fees are different than fines. Fines are intended to be a punitive punishment for a crime that someone was convicted of, but fees were the stack on that we use to operate in many ways and willfully fund New Mexico’s criminal legal system and other resources that families needed. While we are eliminating fees, yes in fact we expanded the list of community service options because that is what New Mexicans deserve but mostly the intent of that bill was to realize, recognize, and acknowledge that these financial barriers placed on people who simply never have or simply never will have the resources to pay them don’t make any sense and don’t improve public safety for any of us. Among other things it hasn’t been shared today if someone ends up in jail whether or not we like the idea of it we as taxpayers are paying for it because they didn’t have the money to pay a fine.

Juan Garcia, Member of the Public said crime in Las Cruces has been rising over the last few years, citizens, legislators included know this. We have been here for the last two years but here we are. Speaking as a Hispanic and a product of poverty, poorer than dirt. I worked my way out of it, and I find it very condescending to believe, “poor people are incapable of living outside the criminal system”. If anyone, white, black, blue, yellow, whatever color you happen to be is concerned with getting in trouble with the law, think before they act. Remember accountability, responsibility, and consequences, this applies to all of us and please don’t forget the victims.

Wade Roberts, Member of the Public said I have not had any problems with incursions with your homeless or the mentally ill that walk the streets. Where I have had more of a problem is with your professionals. Right here just down the road at

Magistrate Court. I have almost clocked Judge Martin along with a couple of lawyers that he was visiting with because they were not paying attention. They were just standing there and just stepped off into the street. I have a problem on University with students. I have almost hit a doctor over here on Telshor. I was only doing 20. You have a charge to redact a law. This is not against the homeless. Please let’s have some consideration for public safety and driving. I have a perfectly clean record in driving. I have been a CDL holder for over 40 years. I think you need to stand up and support our Police Chief.

Kent Simpson, Member of the Public said I am a resident of Las Cruces. I was actually born in old Memorial Hospital on Alameda. To me this ordinance is about nothing but public safety. It says nothing to say you can’t panhandle. It doesn’t say you can’t waive a sign proclaiming whatever deity you have is the greatest. It doesn’t say please don’t have a carwash and advertise that you are going to have $5 because it is going to go some kid’s funeral or for somebody’s family member. This is purely about don’t do this where it is dangerous. That’s it. It’s really simple. I encourage this council to vote for this ordinance.

Kevin Cardoza, Member of the Public said I am speaking on behalf of Las Cruces

Association of Realtors. One thing that I would like to point out is that while we understand that these ordinances do not fix every problem and are not perfect it is a small step in the right direction, and this is something that not just the real estate industry but also the citizens have been asking for a very long time. So, I would ask

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that you support this ordinance as well as the following ordinance. Unfortunately, I won’t be here when that comes up, but I really ask you to consider voting in favor of both ordinances and Police Chief, we want to thank you for your leadership and everything that you are doing. We keep your folks in our thoughts and prayers everyday whenever you go out there and try and keep our public safe. Mayor and members of City Council thank you very much for the leadership that you have provided to navigate this issue whether you are voting for or against this ordinance we really appreciate your public service. So once again we ask you to consider this ordinance and the following ordinance.

Lucy Silva, Member of the Public said I am a new member of the Las Cruces community. I moved here recently from Albuquerque when I could not find a safe affordable place to live. I downsized and am paying more to live in a smaller space here. My apartment has been broken into once and when the landlord put up new security lights those were also knocked down. I live in the historical district close to downtown. I could have walked here today except for the heat. I have a lot of mixed feelings about this. I am a pedestrian. I like walking along here in the Historical District the sidewalks are not safe for me. They were built by the WBA. The streets are not safe. When I attended my neighborhood meeting people complained about a four-way stop, not being allowed, would it be possible to have speed bumps in my neighborhood. The drivers are a problem with speeding in the neighborhood. I have personally called the police more than once about what I have considered dangerous things and then hours later called them again and they have not been resolved. At my neighborhood meeting I was scared by people in my neighborhood talking about drug houses in the neighborhood. I am not sure that these possible ordinances are going to bring any of that to a conclusion.

Jerry Silva, Member of the Public said I do have a business here in town. I was raised and born here. I love Las Cruces. I do have a heart for the homeless people, anybody in need. There is not one person that goes to the store that asks for food that I do not help. I serve at El Caldito. I try to help anyway I can. I do believe this is a start. It might not be perfect, but I do support Chief Story. I think he is awesome. I think he has been working very, very hard and I do believe that we should give him the best support we possibly can. As you can tell it is very undivided here, we are divided excuse me, but we can’t please everybody. We have to have a start and not doing nothing is not going to help. Do I believe, Johana you had mentioned $25, that is perfect or something. It doesn’t have to be $500. Can we work together? Like I said, I run a store. I have been doing this forever. When I bring my managers together, we get together to resolve an issue. We can’t be stuck on this issue we have to work together. So, I do ask you all please let’s start, let’s give this a try.

Lisa Parrot, Member of the Public said I am a resident of District 6. I fully support and trust Chief Story’s knowledge, experience, and judgement, and it is apparent to me that he cares for all people who call Las Cruces home. The current ordinances enable human trafficking and how much of the money do the people on the street corners actually get to keep. I have personally witnessed two incidents of human trafficking.

One was a Cadillac Escalade at the Walton and Lohman intersection where the hatchback was opened by the driver from Arizona and the man on the corner reached in to get ice water. The second one was the same intersection turning on to the

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Walgreen’s side. I was waiting for the light to turn, and I saw this service vehicle where it had been painted over in front of me and I was thinking to myself, I wonder how many people can be in there? And sure enough before the light changed a man gets out, the service truck pulls on and the man makes his way to the street corner.

Please give Chief Story the tools he needs to help his department and him help these poor individuals we are all concerned about.

Don’t keep these people under a self-destructive state by allowing them to continue the way things are now with no treatment and help.

Lucinda Lujan Duran, Member of the Public said I am a lifelong resident of Las

Cruces, and it saddens me to the core to see what our city has been becoming. Four years ago, I didn’t need to lock my doors, now I do. Now I have to make sure that all of my belongings are on the inside because they will walk off within minutes. I want to tell you a story of what I saw last week. I was at Tractor Supply. There was an individual banging on all the windows. The staff came out and kind of pushed him off the lot. He went out towards Sonic Drive-in. I kept looking at it and at that same time, it was 4 o’clock, was a Mayfield High School student walking home. Little skinny kid with a backpack, that individual followed him to the intersection and was yelling at him and I could just see that boy probably 15 years old terrified. When I left, I had to go to

SaveMart. So, it was a few minutes later, he was continuing on, oh there is that young man and again another individual on the side with a shopping cart. You could tell he was completely under the influence of something, he was standing in mud, he was wailing his hands and he picked up mud and threw it at the boy. My heart broke, I wanted to pull over and put that boy in the car, but I knew I would probably scare him more than anything. So, I just slowed down and made sure he got home safely. He lived in the trailer park, a low income, across the street from SaveMart. Who is going to protect the children? Who are going to protect the innocent?

Liz Coil, Member of the Public said to be clear I really actually like the revisions to the ordinance. I think that they are very reasonable. They help to pinpoint it a little bit, but

I am not 100% convinced that panhandlers or solicitors of any kind are the safety problem that we are saying they are. I wonder if we know how many of your traffic stats had occurred with a panhandling incident as well?

Chief Jeremy Story said just to be clear this ordinance doesn’t make mention to panhandling or solicitation at all, 21-63. This applies to anybody who is on areas of the roadway that would be prohibited but none of the fatalities are directly related to panhandling, but they are related to behavior that would be considered prohibited by the ordinance.

Liz Coil said my next thing is that I would from my personal experience walking in Las

Cruces no drivers know to stop for pedestrians. So, I would say that maybe we should add something about that in there. The one solicitation that is a danger that I can think of are the ones who stand out there to honk at that intersection.

Adam Nighice, Member of the Public said I am the person you want to pass this ordinance against. I have been in the street panhandling, and I have a substance abuse problem. I am also a United States Marine that is in danger of homelessness

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and receiving help from Community of Hope. I swore an oath to the Constitution, so did you. I want you all to remember that.

Rudy Cabasos, Member of the Public said my family we have been here for the last eight years and my parents are a lot wiser than I am, age wise you know. They like getting out and going shopping and what not but my mom outright refuses to drive our streets because she has almost hit two people who as we are talking about stepped off the median in the center of the roadway. She tells me, I am not going to go to

Walmart, go for me. I am talking about the Walmart on Avenida de Mesilla. We take the route between Motel, Amador and Valley. I have had experiences of my own when I go to hang out with my friends. My brother lives on the east side of town. It doesn’t matter what time of day, night or day I have almost hit two people as well who just happened to be in the middle of the roadway. Perhaps they stepped off the median, either side, middle or sidewalk so I am speaking because it is like Chief Story said it’s a safety problem and it is a safety issue for people who are driving, and it is also a safety issue for people who happen to be in the sidewalks or in the medians or in the roadway. So, I ask that you highly consider voting yes on this measure and the rest of the measures as I am a proud resident of Las Cruces and I really want to see everything stay well and not get any worse frankly.

Austin Lykes, Member of the Public said the most compelling idea about these ordinances is public safety and that seem to be what everybody really cares about, myself included. I just think that the case made for this has not made a case that criminalization of these behaviors is what will lead to increased public safety. I think as it has been pointed out a critique of the way that our city is designed in specific places that suggest that yeah change is needed and I think that we all agree that change is needed but there are some things that are worse than doing nothing and things like this that are not evidence backed, things like this that will result in more interactions between police and folks who are just the most vulnerable in our community it will increasingly make them more vulnerable as we have seen again and again. So, while I think many of us would advocate for making medians like the one that is shown upon screen safer, I don’t think it makes sense to do this type of thing so the case for safety has not been made through these kind of criminalization efforts.

That doesn’t make any sense to me. I think we keep hearing that call for safety. We can get behind that without getting behind this kind of criminalization that doesn’t serve the broader community in the way that more safety would serve the broader community but instead just kind targets the most vulnerable people in our community.

Instead I encourage everybody to redirect their efforts in making the community more walkable, more safer for pedestrians instead of targeting the most vulnerable population.

Doreen White, Member of the Public said there is a lot of things I want to say.

Grisham is trying to get something that every time they approach a Veteran, she stamps stupid on them. When you go to a VA clinic no matter whether you have a mental health problem or not, they encourage you to go see a psychologist, so you are stamped with those visits. Now I have been on both ends of Cruces. All the way from Colorado to El Paso and I have never, and I am driving, a negative encounter with a homeless person and I am reluctant to stand back and have you automatically assume that they have drug issues, mental health issues because that is not fair and

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some of these people like, I will give you an example. I make $63,000 a year and I have been evicted 3 times. I have had my stuff thrown in the trash and while I am up here trying to protect my rights, they are violating them. There is that education barrier with the court system and there is a guy named Story, he made the Constitution of the

United States legible so anybody that lived here as a citizen or a victim of a crime in the United States could read that and understand that and get the education they need to pursue. So, these evictions, it is like this, I lost so much stuff and sometimes these people and anyone in this audience at a blink their life could change like that.

As far as the pedestrians it is the driver’s responsibility to yield to a pedestrian.

Tanika Sosa Gonzales, Member of the Public said I am a behavioral health nurse here in Las Cruces. I wasn’t going to speak today because I originally, I didn’t really think that I had anything of influence to add or anything of importance to add but I will share that as part of my career as a Board-Certified Psychiatric Nurse in 2012 I had the privilege of being the first nurse in the Detention Center under the Bravo

Settlement. So, this concept is not foreign to me and the people behind the concept are not foreign to me either. I also come from a family of law enforcement officers, so I feel this discussion very deeply and I also significantly understand having worked in the system and continuing to work with people who are systems involved the consequences that occur with each touch of the criminal justice system. I think the thing that is the most important to me today to elevate is that it is very hurtful to me as a Hispanic and Indigenous woman to hear people that are in my community say that race is not a factor, that poverty is not a factor, that gender is not a factor because the reality is and the data proves that it is a factor. It’s real and whether or not we choose to sit and feel structural injustice does not make it disappear and so we have to talk about it because no matter what you decide today there are going to be unintended consequences and that is what I think as a care provider, as a mother, as a Hispanic

Indigenous woman, that is what I am stealing myself for is whatever those consequences will be and I want for you to consider that and I want for every intersection when you hear that it doesn’t exist to ready yourself for the facts and truths so that you know that it does because we cannot have this dialogue without talking about deeply rooted injustice and in the true colonial system that we are existing in.

Fred Huff, Member of the Public said I heard a lot today about inhumaneness of these ordinances. To me the inhumaneness or being inhumane is doing nothing and allowing these people to continue to spiral down the hole of mental illness and drug abuse in such like that. As you all well know I live over by Burn Lake and I see this day in and day out of what these people are doing and the suffering that they go through. I am also going to tell you another story. On the night of the Electric Light

Parade, we were up at the Albertson’s parking lot up on North Main and we saw this lady, boy she looked pathetic. She was pushing a grocery cart which looked like all of her earthly belongings basically pushing around soliciting throughout the parking lot and since we were hanging out there for a while just kind of watched her. Well, it came quitting time, she pushed her cart over to a nicer SUV than I own, Texas plates, beautiful SUV, unloaded all of her belongings into that nice SUV, Texas plates I mentioned, gets in and drives off. Another lady did the same thing. So, I am not convinced that all solicitation is people that are really homeless and in need of this. I support this ordinance and I hope you all vote for it.

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Carrie Hamblen, Member of the Public said I come to you today in my capacity as

State Senator for District 38. I am here today to ask you to reconsider the ordinances before you and before I get into the reasons why I am asking you to reconsider I do want to commend the Las Cruces Police Department for the 14 arrests over a week ago where officers from New Mexico State Police and LCPD conducted a retail theft operation. I feel this was an effective use of taxpayer money to address the issues that the three ordinances that are before you today are an attempt to address but what is before you today is really an effort to go for the low hanging fruit instead of the real criminals that the coordinated plan I just mentioned and effectively caught. It is easy for those of us who have homes, have jobs, aren’t hiding from a violent spouse or partner, aren’t dealing with debilitating mental illness or addiction issues, aren’t disabled and aren’t able to work or have that one catastrophic event that can lead anyone of us to lose our homes and to have no other option then to struggle on the streets. If we haven’t experienced any of that, it is easy for folks to say that people just need to pick themselves up by the bootstraps and just get to work. I would like my taxes to go to effectively arresting the drug dealer that lives down my street. One who has been charged with several crimes and it took LCPD three different attempts to arrest him when they finally found him home, he was out on the streets the next day. I would like my taxes to go to catching actual criminals who broke into a locally owned business are that they provided the police with clear photos of the guys who broke into their building and as well as ongoing location information of the GPS data from the stolen Apple headphones. The business owners waited two and half hours for officers to arrive but finally gave up and went home. It took three weeks for a detective to call these businesspeople back. I would rather my taxes go to real police work like the arrest of the 12-year-old and the 15-year-old who stole 30 guns from a local gun store. Several of those weapons were found in their home. Those are the crimes that are tarnishing our city and are frustrating our business owners. I encourage you to focus more on real solutions and not trying to hide the homeless because that is what this is doing. This is trying to erase those communities and my colleague Senator

Cervantes and Representative Lara Cadena, there are legitimate reasons why we decided to vote against that. It is because they were illegal and irresponsible.

Pamela Angel, Member of the Public said I am the CEO of Amador Health Center and

I just want to do a shoutout to my outreach workers. This week is National Community

Health Center Week and today they were out doing outreach in their mobile unit in the streets of Las Cruces. Maribel Vasquez is a certified medical assistant and a certified community health worker. Maritza Mejia is a social worker and also a certified health worker. What I want to say briefly because I think I will speak again tonight is that there are a lot of laws already on the books that aren’t being enforced. I spoke at the

Public Summit last winter that Chief Story led and thank you for your work and at that summit he showed statistics that people arrested 10, 20, 40, 50 times over and over again. People are not facing the consequences for their actions for the laws that are in the books. Laws like public urination, assault, vandalism, battery, etcetera. So that is like Senator Hamblen said, that is where the focus should be. Also, I would like to state that it has been wonderful to be able to receive funding to expand our facilities.

Thank you, Senator Hamblen, Senator Cervantes, Representative Lara Cadena.

However, there is no funding for services. As an agency that serves people with mental illness and also substance use and on the campus of the Mesilla Valley

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Community of Hope. We get almost no city dollars for services. We can build buildings but to staff them is very difficult.

Sarah Smith, Member of the Public said thank you for your service, these long meetings are brutal. Please vote yes on these ordinances and to the legislators who are here today I really wish you had engaged in the special session when you had a chance to push for changes to some of those laws that you are complaining about right now. I know that I am not the only mother that has been followed in parking lots by people demanding money me and my children. It has gotten to the point where I won’t even go to certain stores at night anymore because I fear for our safety. As far as the pedestrian safety ordinance as described by Chief Story we have seen a large increase in pedestrian fatalities in Las Cruces in the last few years and the state of

New Mexico has the highest rate of pedestrian fatalities in the nation. Santa Fe and

Albuquerque have already passed similar ordinances recently. Although the ACLU is here trying to say that this ordinance violates the First Amendment that argument has already been tried and failed in the case Evans vs. Sandy City in Utah. That ordinance was similar to ours and the court ruled in favor of the city to uphold the ordinance. The Supreme Court of the United States denied the petition to review that ruling. Just this weekend I witnessed a woman standing on the median at Solano and

Main. She was drugged out to the point where she looked like she could barely stand.

That median is narrow. The intersection is very busy. She had her dog with her. It was a very dangerous situation for her that could have easily resulted in her or her dog being runover. This ordinance is a commonsense measure to protect people, all the people of Las Cruces and prevent fatalities, please vote yes.

Vee Quevedo, Member of the Public said I live in District 1. I oppose this ordinance.

By 2015 at ages 79 and 80 my grandparents have run out of money. They had social security, but it wasn’t enough to keep a roof over their head. My grandfather was too proud to take up my uncle’s offer to live with him and didn’t take me up with my offer to live with me and they both worked their whole lives except to trade off to raise their kids and so that someone was home to raise my brother and sister and I. May 26,

2020 just a few weeks after becoming housed again my grandfather died of Covid.

The talk in this room today has been really ugly and really hurtful and makes broad generalizations about a very large diverse community of folks who end up in circumstances for very different reasons and there is no really good story or bad story or like this person deserves respect or that person deserves respect. They are all people. It has been brought up several times that they are all people just like us. We all deserve the same amount of safety. This is just one story out of hundreds in our city and in our policies the Mayor Enriquez and Chief Story are supporting are some of the worst that the policy has to offer. These policies serve only to abandon our relatives and neighbors to the violence of policing and jailing. I have heard a lot of talk about safety. None of these ordinances are about safety. This is about criminalization and only ordinances have been called holistic. They are not holistic. They have been called something new. We have to try something new. Locking up people we don’t understand and don’t want to see, we don’t want to look at, we don’t want to do the real work and support love and respect. That is an old and lazy and dangerous policy.

Prioritizing the comfort of the privileged over the collective wellbeing and community care has never been the answer. I ask you to oppose these ordinances today.

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Councilor Becki Graham moved, seconded by Councilor Cassie McClure, to

Approve Ordinance No. 3078.

SECONDER: Councilor Cassie McClure

AYES: Mayor Eric Enriquez, Councilor Cassie McClure, Councilor William Mattiace, and Councilor Becki Graham

NAYS: Councilor Johana Bencomo, Councilor Becky Corran, and Councilor Yvonne

Flores 8.6 COUNCIL BILL NO. 25-008; ORDINANCE NO. 3079: AN ORDINANCE

ADDING CHAPTER 18, ARTICLE III - SHOPPING CART CONTAINMENT

AND RETRIEVAL, TO THE LAS CRUCES MUNICIPAL CODE (LCMC), 1997

AS AMENDED. Jeremy Story, Police Chief gave the overhead presentation

Brad Douglas, City Attorney continued the overhead presentation.

Councilor Flores asked I didn’t see the transition from corporate liability or responsibility and the person who has a shopping cart? Do you know exactly when you transitioned the responsibility for the owner?

Chief Jeremy Story said a lot of this is centered around the business because there is a lot of requirements for what they have to submit and abide by. So, these are the prohibitions that are applicable to the business owner right here and then it talks about enforcement to the business owners, that is also for the business and then it goes to other prohibitions, and this would apply to any person in the city and then it talks about some exceptions and then enforcements specific to the other prohibitions,

Councilor Flores said it seems to me that the business owner should be the one that maybe has to register with the city, Walmart, Target, Albertsons, you know these big corporations that have bookoo money, a lot of money and a lot of resources. It seems to me that it should be mandated that they have it and if not, they have taken the precautions that were listed in terms of chaining it, having the pole go up, you can’t take anything out, and definitely tagging their carts. I don’t understand how they are doing that. How anyone could take the carts? Some of these carts sometimes just roll off and they are down the street. I think we have all seen that and that creates a hazard especially on Lohman. I still stand by my assessment that yes it is theft but in order to commit crime you have to have a mental capacity to make that decision and if someone has mental health issues it is going to be very hard for anyone in that position where you don’t have a home, you don’t have anything except maybe you know whatever stuff you put in a cart. That alone would negate the necessary steps to make a decision to make it intentional, so theft does require an intentional act. So, if people are so desperate and so demented and I don’t mean that in a critical manner just objectively how can we criminalize that and so I think the onus, this ordinance should be entirely on the business owner, and they should all tag their carts and just somehow keep them on their property if they own their business. I think that it would

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be a good ordinance, but it is really hard for me to criminalize someone who is down and out. I can’t imagine being out in the street and the only thing I have is crap that I find literally and figuratively that I put in a shopping cart and feel like that is the extent of my home. Your little movable home. I do appreciate the effort. I think it is written very well but I still believe that someone who lives that way isn’t mentally capable of making a decision. As opposed to big theft that big businesses come in.

Councilor Graham said I wanted to wait to kind of just share my thoughts in between the two ordinances because I think what I am going to say speaks to the spirit of my decision on both of them and that is that I do not see this as an either-or situation. I have only been in this seat for two and half years but in that time, I have very consistently supported what we are opposing as root cause solutions. That is affordable housing, voted on that a little earlier today. That is continuing to support our incredible community partners who are offering those services and resources,

Community of Hope specifically. I am in awe of what you do and I also acknowledge that so many of your best successes are not visible to the public and I just want to speak to that and honor that to say that I will continue to support root cause solutions that do address structural inequity because I recognize that as a reality too and I feel like it was a great coincidence that MVRDA had a presentation this morning with something like 350,000 calls for service in the last year and that speaks to a fragile system where 911 becomes a safety net for things that it shouldn’t have to be the safety net for but unfortunately that is the system that we are functioning in right now and I am all in to build better holistic more robust systems but in the moment I feel that a segment of our 911 responders who have become responsible for a community challenge have come to council and have requested changes that they believe will make them more effective at their jobs and I want to honor that as well but these are pieces of much bigger solutions in which we all have a stake and other than that to say these have not been an easy decisions and I have pretty much been living on caffeine and Pepto-Bismol for the past few months.

Councilor Corran said you mentioned the idea of a con x and a program would be running to keep people’s things, so I am wondering, and this is a secondary component to this, you also mentioned doing significant outreach things while I have also heard that the Police Department is under resourced. First of all, I would like to know the budget for this for it seems it has an implication of staff and fiscal involvement? I think that is something that is important to know if we are going to dividing up resources that I would argue instead of investing in real solutions that we are hiring a staff member to shepherd people’s stuff that we took away. I think that seems a little bit misusing resources frankly, but I would like to know how many of those resources we are going to divert from that, and I guess that is part of the bigger question which is the city will find an alternate location I think that also means an alternate organization that will do this?

Chief Jeremy Story said not necessarily. So, to be clear this is not just for storing people’s property that was in a shopping cart. This is to proactively give them a resource to store things that are important to them so that they don’t have to carry it day to day, and it is safe. When I say we I mean the city, but it doesn't necessarily have to be the Police Department. We would basically find a place where we have staff that is already there. If someone has taken property and it is there for 6 months,

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it is not like they are back and forth everyday so the time commitment we will have to see what that is, but I don’t see a significant time commitment from a staff member.

They would probably be certain days of the week and certain hours that are available to either deposit or withdraw property. As far as cost? A 40-foot shipping container is approximately $5,000 and so that is a onetime investment, shelving is another couple of thousand dollars but then you have something that will hopefully last for years after as a resource for people who are homeless.

Councilor Corran said okay, maybe no staff commitment but taking them from wherever else they are and investing in the physical resources of the space of where ever it is. So that is the approximate budget. It sounds like the punishment for stores that don’t comply, and I assume not submitting a plan or not doing the things that they say they are going to do a plan or not submitting we don’t want to do this plan which are the three options, is that correct for stores?

Brad Douglas said that is correct. Also, we would be attempting to curtail stores that have repeated and excessive offsite shopping carts within a requisite time period. You see that escalating penalty structure for business owners not necessarily individuals.

Councilor Corran said this is looking to make folks accountable for being accessories to theft as it were suggested in the ordinance, and I am curious you know we have heard a lot about violence and the things that happen. Is there a similar model that looks at when people leave their guns unattended in their cars? How are people who support that subsequent violent crime then sort of followed up with? If we are talking about people who are supporting crimes. What are the types of enforcement that we use on people who contribute arms by leaving their weapons in their cars without locks or at home where their kids can get them? What typically do we do to enforce that negligence?

Brad Douglas said if you are speaking with regard to the State of New Mexico it is my understanding although I have not looked closely, I will be honest, that those persons would be held liable under a negligence theory as you had correctly stated.

Councilor Corran asked couldn’t we similarly add an ordinance if prevention is sort of the goal here? Wouldn’t it be helpful if we added an ordinance that made it extra problematic to leave guns unattended at home and follow up on that? Do you understand my parallel thinking here? It seems like as a city we are holding people more accountable for letting carts out of their view than letting guns out of their view.

To be clear that is what this ordinance is suggesting.

Brad Douglas said I appreciate the thought certainly if there is legislation you would like to discuss I would certainly be more than happy to do that with you. We had some

State Legislators here just a moment ago, but Councilor I would be glad to meet with you offline for sure.

Councilor Corran said I would love to hear about the accountability for folks who are accessories to the many violent crimes that we are hearing in our community about.

My last question is really related to the idea that this is about sort of intervening with

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folks, and I would again argue that these interventions are harmful, not positive, but I would actually propose that we amend this by cutting Section 18-49 B, so I formally move to eliminate all of Part B under 18-49.

Councilor Bencomo said I hope that you know I am not advocating for lawlessness. I do however want us to zoom out a little bit from the tragedy that is a stolen shopping cart and look at the bigger picture of what we are trying to address which is issues with our unhoused population. Right, that is really big issue. So, it is not that I am advocating for someone to not be held accountable for stealing something. It is that I am saying that this intervention on this specific act is targeting someone who is unhoused thusly making it harder for them. Now they are in justice involved and harder for them to then be housed or have a job in the future. That is what I am asking for in this matter. I am someone who believes deeply in restorative justice and restorative justice one of the tenants is accountability and that is not advocating that people just go free willingly because they are unhoused. I would just like us to zoom out and look at the intent and the impact and I think the intent that you brought here, you stated it well. I think the impact is a lot different and what we are hoping to do and in fact it is making harder for those of us who are really committed to addressing our homelessness issues. Both of these ordinances are doing a bit of that. I do want to follow up slightly on what Councilor Corran was talking about. It feels like these days every week our City Manager texts us about some sort of tragic gun violence incident. Whether it is from tragic homicides to guns being stolen from a gun store to two schools just in the last week being on lockdown because kids took guns to school.

So these to me feel like heavy statistics around violent crime and so I think in the last couple of weeks I think you have also gotten some feedback on response times and how some of those things need to get better and you also provided feedback that we are under staffed and so I guess can you help me understand where this kind of enforcement then fits into the broader work that you are trying to do to address some of this crime that is having a very serious impact on our community?

Chief Jeremy Story said unfortunately there are no shortage of challenges in Las

Cruces right now especially as it relates to crime. Everything is related to everything else. Everything is kind of interwoven together and there is several distinct major issues I could point to but then they all interact with each other at some level and so we can’t just focus on just the violent crime. We need to and we are with a lot of our projects like the one we started today but when we talk about staffing, we are short on officers, not officer positions but officers. It is difficult filling them. So, when we talk about enforcement of this ordinance, we are talking about using our operations to enforce it anyways. That is where I don’t use existing officers that are on the streets.

We tailor and create this operation to deal with it. So, I am not taking officers away from 911 response to deal with this. Two separate things. Same thing has to be done with a lot of the other operations that we are doing. We are targeting a lot of things right now all at once including violent crime, retail theft which unfortunately is connected to this too and when the Senator mentioned that it was a good thing that operation we did last week. The reality is many of those people are the same people that we are talking about right here. There isn’t a separation, not all of them. I don’t know the exact number but some of those people are also going to be people that we are talking about with this ordinance and so there is this carry over with everything and so we have to have a very holistic and well-rounded approach when we are trying

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to tackle everything because it is going to take all of those different responses to even move the needle.

Councilor Bencomo said unfortunately I don’t think these are holistic or well-rounded and the reason say that is because I don’t think these were created with service providers at the table, with advocates at the table, right? And maybe you invited them and they didn’t want to come but I do want to note that when we are talking about a holistic well rounded enforcement approach we want to have those folks at the table and you even noted on here, we don’t know yet if Community of Hope will be able to fill that capacity but we will figure it out and so we are putting a little bit the horse before the cart. I feel like this is where my sort of disappointment is coming from for some of these, but I just have a couple of comments I additionally wanted to make.

Somebody pointed out to me this ProPublica article that came out not too long ago and it’s titled, Albuquerque is throwing out the belongings of homeless people violating city policy. On a recent morning Christian Smith ran an errand leaving a shopping cart carrying everything she owned near the Albuquerque, New Mexico underpass where she had been sleeping. When she returned the cart was nowhere to be found. Most of the belongings such as clothing, blankets, that could be easily replaced in time, but she panicked when she realized her dentures, acquired after months of dental appointments were also gone. Without them Smith believed it would be more difficult to find a job prolonging her time sleeping on the street. She is quoted in here, “it’s hard to eat, it’s hard to talk, I sound like a little kid” said the 42- year-old native New Mexican. As a result of these actions thousands of homeless people have lost personal property according to the interviews with community advocates, service providers and those who have had their possessions discarded.

Some said their belongings have been taken by city crews multiple times. They described losing medication, birth certificates, identification cards, cell phones, chargers, tools, clothing, car title, dog kennel, treasured family photos, and ashes of loved ones. Somebody said it is equivalent to having your house burned down multiple times a year. Just over and over again you are losing everything and starting from scratch every time. I fear this is about what we are about to face should this pass and I think we have to be clear that these ordinances are not really about helping they are more about making poor people less visible because if it wasn’t about criminalizing and it was about getting people into resources then we wouldn’t be using the criminal justice system to address it. I have gotten a lot of comments in recent weeks through emails and even a little here today about what I should care for, that I should care less about some groups of folks or simply that I don’t care enough but I feel like I am being asked to care for the one group of folks at the expense of another.

The truth is I practice my empathy muscle with intention, so I have enough capacity in me to care about many people and many issues. Me disagreeing with these policy proposals doesn’t mean that I care less for you. It just means that I am really clear that fining poor people who have a shopping cart or fining poor people who are standing on the street asking for money will not make us safer. It does not address the very real experience of crime and violence that many of us are experiencing. We must be bold and look at solutions that don’t just rely on the carceral system.

Punishing the homeless isn’t justice, jail isn’t care. And for folks who say we are doing nothing or that I am doing nothing. I am going to get on my soap box a little bit and share some of the things that I have led on and that I have passed. The creation of

Outreach Court in Municipal Court, I brought that idea to Las Cruces. This budget

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cycle I ensured that we received funding for it. Several months ago, I proposed the idea to take an already funded case manager position that was for Housing

Department to be transferred to Municipal Court to move that process along faster. I led on the process to hire a second Municipal Judge so that we could do that more quickly and support Municipal Court and just to be clear I brought Outreach Court as a means to divert people who were stuck in the loop of the criminal justice system. I didn’t bring this with the intention of creating new laws to funnel new people through the criminal justice system. I have led on ensuring that we grow Mano y Mano and the

Community Outreach Team. I supported the Real Time Crime Center which I do not believe is a baby step. I believe it is a huge step. I will absolutely be engaging with the legislature and the Governor’s Office on a fully baked and actually thought-out competency legislation that must include money for infrastructure and must include behavioral health service providers at the table because by the way it did not. We have made historic investments since I have been on the council for housing. Almost

900 units will be coming alive in the next year. I led and fought to ensure that West

Picacho was included in our Revitalization Plan. I helped create the Crisis Intervention

Team that now lives under the Fire Department. That is tremendously successful and has incredible folks working at it. I will also be engaging in the Drug Policy Alliance to ensure that we find solutions to the very real Fentanyl crisis that we are facing. We may not agree but I do work hard, and I do care deeply and I will continue to do so.

Mayor Enriquez said Chief Story I do agree with you when you talk about image because there is a huge image, and a shopping cart theft is a theft and then it goes to shoplifting and then it goes to wherever else. I agree with Bencomo with the Outreach

Municipal Court, and I also agree with all the text messages we get with all the things that are taking place and more and more it creates text messages from juveniles and that is something that is just increasing and to me that goes back to the image. It is like if all juveniles see is that people can get away with anything then they will do the same and what is our future going to look like? So, this isn’t the answer completely but it is a start so I thank you for pushing these forward and we will see where we end up.

George Pearson, Member of the Public said speaking for myself, I appreciate

Councilor Bencomo’s comments, and I am sort of supportive of this but I think I would be supportive with the amendment and so hopefully you will entertain the amendment and pass it with that.

Mark Svachco, Member of the Public said in 2014, 58% of the people in New Mexico voted to amend Article 7 Section 1 of the Constitution of New Mexico to allow idiots to vote. If you pass this ordinance, you will have those people to thank. Let me get this straight. Currently if a thief steals a $250 shopping cart and is caught with it there is no consequence for that theft. The shopkeeper is out $250, the cops see it. They have probable cause, the cart is miles away from the store whose name is clearly marked on the cart, and they do nothing to enforce the current law so your solution is to pass another law? Now as to the currently proposed ordinance, by the way all this holistic stuff you are mentioning is not in the ordinance. You can do it now without this ordinance. If a thief steals a shopping cart from business A and packs it full of property and like my councilor Becky Corran, the Councilor that represents my district, then business A is out a $250 shopping cart, is breaking the law and is subject to a

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$500 fine. The thief well we all now nothing happens to him other than he was able to carry around his stuff a little easier and the Councilor is also breaking the law because that is in Chapter 18Article 3, Section 18-49, item 6. The Councilor is also breaking the law if she is a property owner and is subject to $100 to $500 fine. By the way I voted yes on that 2014 proposal amendment that allowed idiots to vote in New

Mexico. I would like to ask the council to ask the Police Chief how many people with stolen shopping carts has the LCPD cited in the last 12 months? You stated that crime was important. All crime is important, that is a crime.

Cat Sanchez, Member of the Public said Las Cruces resident, District 2. I am Policy

Director of Both Futures a statewide organization working on policy research and organizing impacting black and Indigenous women and people of color in New

Mexico. I am here in opposition to this proposed ordinance which can be summarized by the following out of sight, out of mind. Because we don’t want to see how we, we the government, communities, individuals, myself included have failed some of the most vulnerable of people. We can all agree that the fires and subsequent flooding in

Otero County have shown us all that we are all one life event away from having to grab whatever possessions we can survive on and depend on our fellow New

Mexicans and government for helping resources and this is what some folks are experiencing houselessness are doing. They are carrying their possessions for their survival and asking and begging New Mexicans for help and let’s be real. One tragedy is more palatable than the other. Taking a shopping cart is technically already stealing so the ordinance is about extra criminalization of people who already and visibly have nothing. Let’s just ordinance or Municipal Court people out of our conscience or as mentioned earlier let’s put them in captivity. Some suggestions, first since the police already have a program for turning in arguably more dangerous items like firearms, allow folks with shopping carts to turn them in for rolling carts without the need for an ordinance. Second, work with Community of Hope and other organizations with long term housing solutions in the city and the county and third and least bureaucratic like

Council Member Bencomo said let’s exercise our empathy muscles. We have more empathy for a show that has multiple seasons about hoarding then we do for those in our own community.

Liz Bennett, Member of the Public said I am a public health social worker, resident of

Las Cruces, and I am not embarrassed or afraid to live here. I oppose this ordinance.

The cost of living, aka the price you must pay to live in our capitalist system has increased dramatically over the past few years with excruciating heights in the prices of food and shelter largely due to known instances of price gauging by major corporations. According to the Associate Press average rents in New Mexico have risen about 70% since 2017, versus a 15% increase in incomes. Not to mention the growing number of climate change related disasters like the fires and floods in

Ruidoso also compromise access to housing and resources. These concerns are not unique to our community and are not going away anytime soon. Given our current trajectory as a society homelessness is only going to become more of an issue even if you eliminate all of the shopping carts and all of the medians. Research describes the five top causes of homelessness being lack of affordable housing, lack of livable wage, medical debt, domestic violence and untreated mental illness. Criminalizing the public existence of unhoused people struggling to navigate these complex issues is costly, ineffective, and immoral. Research also suggest that Americans react to

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evidence of visible poverty with higher rates of negativity than to any other marginalized trait including race, gender, and exposure to evidence of human struggle or desperation commonly provokes fear, disgust, and anger from those who witness it. Another pilar in our capitalist society. It is not within the power of the City Council to single handily solve the class divide, prevent homelessness, addiction, poverty, or trauma but it is in our power as a community to respond skillfully with evidence based long term strategies that offer support, infrastructure, and integration to the members of our community who need it most. I understand that the council has taken steps in that direction with the guaranteed basic income, affordable housing, and Project

LIGHT and I support you to continue to do so. And if you want to band something you can band algorithmic software like Real Page used by corporate landlords to artificially inflate rent rates.

Community safety and blight requires funding human needs not enacting inhumane and violent policies. Our neighbor surviving homelessness, hunger, poverty, addiction, mental health diagnosis deserve and I should not have to say this the same safety and respect that everyone else does. A person that has to put all of that has to put all of their belongings into a cart who cannot afford a meal or even water are not the enemy here and they can’t afford to pay hundreds of dollars in fines. Unpaid fines result for those who don’t know in bench warrants and bench warrants give the cops the right to arrest that person. Putting someone behind bars is not a solution. Being unhoused is not a crime and everyone in this room conflating every single bad thing that has ever happened to them and every crime ever committed in this city with individuals pushing carts or standing on medians are not just attached from reality but also from their own humanity. Increasing LCPD interactions with our most vulnerable neighbors will only increase the already high incidences of deadly use of force as of the horrifying and heartbreaking cases of Amelia Baca and Teresa Gomez. New

Mexico is the third highest rate of cops killing civilians in the country. We don’t need to invest in more killing. It is truly terrifying to watch the most powerful uncomfortable people in our city championing policies that only punish and scapegoat our most vulnerable community members, our friends, and our families. You have the power to fund real solutions. You can fund housing, human services, a county hospital and I beg you to do so instead of banging the drum of hate and dehumanization and misinformation that the well off and well-funded minority of Las Crucens want to bully you into supporting. Please oppose this ordinance today.

Pamela Angel, Member of the Public said I am the CEO of Amador Health Center. So,

I have worked at the Mesilla Valley Community of Hope now for 24 years and I was at

Mesilla Valley Community of Hope for 10 years and at the Amador Health Center for

12 plus. So, I really know the people that come there, that go there. For those 24 years we have been trying to get a police presence on the campus to help deter crime. To help stop people from doing drugs on the parking lot coming into the campus and we have never been able to get that interest there. I live a mile from

Community of Hope, and I am very happy to say in the 24 years that I have owned my home in that area that I have not had any crime, any theft, anything. I know that is not like a lot of other people in the city. Also, I know that if I were to leave my lawnmower out in the front yard that it would be stolen so holding the owners of the shopping carts accountable is a great first step. I think your amendment that you proposed

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again I think that is a great first step in this process. I don’t totally oppose the whole ordinance. You should hold the business owners of the shopping carts accountable too. I think it is very hard to see if somebody has stole the shopping cart or picked it up. As a smaller measure I was going to suggest doing away with B2, that just the simple possession of a shopping cart be not implemented at this time. You can always come around and do it, but I think working with the homeless providers and finding some mechanisms to help strengthen us so that we can address the issues that people face in our community would be terrific so please hold off and Mano y

Mano is a great job.

Alberto Campo, Member of Public said I am a resident of Las Cruces. Today I am here to speak from the heart about our community and the way we treat our most vulnerable members. In Las Cruces many people live paycheck to paycheck. The line between having a roof over our heads and being on the streets is thinner than we might like to admit. Many of us could easily find ourselves in a position of needing help yet we are discussing measures that criminalize those already in desperate situations. These people are our neighbors, our friends, our family. They have stories, dreams, and the same inherent worth as anyone else. By treating homelessness as a crime, we strip away their dignity and humanity. We are essentially saying that their struggle is an eyesore not a call for help. What is most disheartening is the lack of meaningful action to address the real issues. Instead of investing in solutions that offer support in a pathway out of homelessness we are choosing to punish those who are already suffering. This is not leadership it is failure to recognize our shared humanity and responsibility that we have to one another. Instead of punishment we should be offering compassion. Instead of pushing people further into margins we should be extending a hand to lift them up by providing access to healthcare, affordable housing, and support systems. We can integrate these individuals back into our society. The CCIA, “the problem is not the shopping carts it is the people pushing them, another added cost to our business community”. To that I say the problem isn’t the people who are struggling. It is the lack of support they receive under a failing system. We should not be running this city as a business, and it is time to do better. I urge you all to choose to see the humanity in every person and be a city that leads itself with compassion over criminalization and community over convenience.

Maritza Mejia, Member of the Public said I work for Amador Health Center. I am part of the outreach team and I work very closely with this population because we take street medicine. I oppose. I would like for you guys to rethink this decision because our population that we work with I also vote for solutions and not criminalizing. I feel that if we had more funds or more services for substance use for mental health this problem wouldn’t exist because if we could get them treated, they wouldn’t be out in the street and they wouldn’t be having this issue. I also feel that because they are homeless of course they are going to have their belongings with them. If we could have more affordable housing or other resources for them we would solve that issue. I also feel that I love the idea of the storage if we can still do that. That’s fantastic because if this is avoiding for people to get to places it would be great for them to have somewhere free to put their belongings until they get housed. So that is a great idea but as for the meantime I don’t think that it is fair for to them to get criminalized for the police to spend time on punishing them for having a cart.

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Fred Huff, Member of the Public said as you all well know I live over in the Burn Lake area and for the last several years I have been watching quite a few shopping carts go through that area and I think you all are aware that last year I came and talked about the encampments that were set up there at Burn Lake and while they were there I saw a lot of strange stuff in these shopping carts and a lot of it was stolen, stolen goods and I asked these people, I said they are stolen goods what do you do with them? Our fence is over at Coach Light Inn, we take them over there and sell them and so it was basically a constant convoy behind our house of these shopping carts full of stolen goods. Well, several months ago the Police Department did something about that at the Coach Light Inn. Guess what happened to the convoy behind our house? It went away. So, I think a lot of people are missing the real point of what Chief Story is trying to do here. These and I am going to use the word abandoned shopping carts because that is what I have talked about whenever I have talked about this issue. These abandoned shopping carts that are just out there nobody is using them, they are sitting on the side of the street maybe a good gust of wind is going to blow it out in the street and cause an accident. These are the types of shopping carts that are the issue. It has been a real concern to me. That is litter and it is showing that we are condoning crime of the theft of these shopping carts. So, we need to put a stop to that. I encourage you. Support Chief Story on this and let’s start bringing some solutions to this litter and this issue.

Tanika Sosa Gonzales, Member of the Public said when I am not busy being a mom or a nurse or a small business owner who understands the responsibility of being responsible for the things that I own as a small business owner I also volunteer my time for the Board President for Disability Rights New Mexico and while I don’t speak on behalf of Disability Rights of New Mexico I have spent the last 13 years working in protection and advocacy. My thoughts around the treatment portion, I am going to make the assumption if past is prologue that we could be moving forward with this today and so if that is the case I want to elevate the discussion around things that could be holistic. The concept of treatment and counseling makes the assumption that everybody had that is in this situation may need those things and so I would say that it would be helpful to broaden maybe the scope to case management because people may choose not to have treatment and they may choose not to have counseling but they may choose to have some include case management services and to think about who is in charge of treatment or if you go with treatment and counseling who makes that treatment plan and how is it adhered to elevating and voice and choice because there are many different ways to get well. The other part of this is in my work as someone who has done acute care I have often had people come to me with their belongings and I cannot tell you how many times I have had to take belongings home to be laundered and I would think that if past is prologue and moving forward with these things when you are storing peoples’ belongings their clothing is part of dignity I believe they should have the option to have their clothing laundered and have the option to have a shower and a haircut and all the things that preserve basic human dignity and so it can’t be an unfunded mandate. So, I just want to elevate those things. It sounds like if you are moving in the same direction that we should talk about doing it in a way that is constructive and also, I just want to recognize that Mayor Pro

Tem that when Chief Story mentioned that he was at an outreach event. I was there with my team they were excited to be there. Mayor Pro Tem you were there and, in the arena, so the voice of the people in the arena are the ones that we should be

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listening to today not the ones in the cheap seats.

Kyle Schumacher, Member of the Public said I have relayed my many negative experiences to many of you over the past several weeks so today I thought I would tell a good story instead and one that really closely parallels this conversation. I think like most folks here I am mentally, physically, and emotionally exhausted by dealing with this day in and day out. I do really resent the allegations that myself and other individuals here are seeking to criminalize homelessness. I think that if my actions don’t speak louder than my words here, I don’t know what will. Many of you are aware that in this immediate aftermath we were able to set up funding for animals belonging to the homeless population to work on spay and neuter efforts and also to provide general veterinary care. A lot of people that are here in this audience helped with that.

People that are coming down on both sides of the street on this issue. I am going to tell one story about one case. I met an unhoused gentleman about 8 weeks ago with his dog. This dog had unfortunately been runover by a car. She had a soft tissue injury and a very small fracture which really is very easy to fix. The stipulation from day one in dealing with these projects is that I will only work with clients that come through their case worker or social worker. This is both that my donors are assured that the money stays local and that I know that these individuals have the opportunity to be plugged into services and this is exactly what happened. Over the course of 8 weeks of working with this gentleman we were able to get him into his disability benefits. We were able to get him plugged into services and I can say in 8 weeks I saw such a great transformation in both him and the dog. Long story short, I released the dog from care last week. She is doing great. He is so much better off, and I can’t think that this doesn’t parallel with exactly with what Chief Story is proposing that is an alternative to incarceration or fines that we have opportunities for community service and treatment.

Vic Villalobos, Member of the Public said again this isn’t about criminalizing. This isn’t about criminalizing homeless, or you know, I don’t know what. You are hearing all kinds of different sides of the story but actually Councilor Flores you said something, and it really appealed to me when you said it and that is that you have these folks with the shopping cart and in their mind, they have everything they have in that cart.

Everything that is now their possession and they are as you said out of all the people, we deal with they are probably the most mentally unstable because they are in such a critical state but what happens that instead of Chief Story’s officers getting to make that first interaction, what if it is my niece? What if it’s you? What if it is me that makes that interaction and we know when people get put into a corner, they can become violent. They can become unruly. You don’t know what they are going to do and honestly you don’t want me, I don’t want you, I don’t want my niece having to be that first interaction. That first interaction needs to be a trained officer who is not looking to put them in prison, not putting them in jail. He wants to go, hey you have got a dog let’s see if Dr. Kyle can help, right? They are truly trying to find that solution and not trying to say like everyone is like a criminal again. I feel like that is what we keep hearing over and over again. Again, we are not the bad people. We are trying to compromise. To find solutions to what we have, and this guy has got them. He really does have them, or I would not be here and the last thing I want to say is I do completely agree that we have to have laws for guns, but I will remind you that it was a civilian with a gun in his car that went to the aid of that officer and stopped that

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threat and tried to save the officers. So, keep that in mind when you are thinking about guns.

Austin Lykes, Member of the Public said I thought I might address just two ideas that we are bouncing around. The idea that theft is theft and the idea that this is not a question about either or between structural violence or sort of criminalization. Theft is theft I feel feels like the strong tough thing to say and yet I think we would all agree that it is a really dark philosophy that looks at someone who has stolen food to eat and sagely utters theft is theft. We make distinction between theft all the time. That is no more clear than it is in the fact that this proposal for an ordinance exists at all. If theft is just theft, then we have all the tools already with the existing ordinances to take care of this but no additional kind consent to further criminalize this is what is being asked. It is not being asked to treat theft as theft, it is asking for additional structural stuff to further criminalize a crime of specific people, vulnerable people commit. So, the idea then that we can do both further criminalization and combating structural violence is to me is silly in this way because this is the very stuff of structural violence. This is what it is. Please look for other ways to address these issues outside of further criminalization. It is extremely clear to me that the motivator behind this is the problem that is cited that this creates an appearance issue for Las

Cruces and ya I agree that a lot of this stuff is pretty ugly to see out there. We don’t get to just sweep it away. We don’t get to just pretend that it is not there or to try and hide it and jail our way out of this or to criminalize our way out of this. Those types of solutions don’t work. Please look for other solutions to this.

Lisa Parrot, Member of the Public said I am a resident of District 6. I stood before you during the Work Session on this ordinance and asked a question. If a homeless person steals a shopping cart we are to look the other way but if I steal the same shopping cart I should be arrested simply because I have a home. The day my husband was talking with the manager of Best Buy when a man pushed a 65” color

TV out the door with a shopping cart without paying. Should my husband have turned around and gotten him one? The manager told my husband that if he had done anything to have followed the man to get the TV back he would immediately been fired. Everyone who rightfully purchases items and pays for them deserves not to have to pay for what someone else steals nor should business owners be forced to take the loss. I am not saying being homeless is a crime, we are saying being criminal is a crime. Please support Chief Story’s well thought out proposed ordinance.

Liz Coil, Member of the Public said I am speaking on behalf of Yvette Gutierrez. She is the community outreach liaison down at Community of Hope and she says this. I am opposed to this ordinance because it is redundant. After speaking with some of our clients who are being affected by this ordinance already because we are having some interactions where the police are coming down to our clients and helping them get rid of their carts. Most of them had actually had really good experiences. However, many of them have also lost a lot of their stuff. One of them was a guy in a wheelchair. You know he didn’t have any other good options. This ordinance will create more obstacles for our clients when it comes to getting housed because of course any interaction with our criminal system does decrease your ability to get housed or get a job. Right now, it is warm. It is really nice to think about carrying all your stuff in a backpack. By the time it gets cold you will need three blankets, one for

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under you and two to wrap around to keep from freezing by touching the ground.

Those guys can’t even get on the bus right now because it is too many bags. So, if they can’t really get their groceries they can’t have any wheeled object. I agree that we should have an option for them to carry stuff. Sorry I got distracted and stopped reading, she says that this ordinance is meant to reduce our blight problem by hiding it. Those grocery carts that go down to the Walmart bus stop are usually left there and they don’t have enough employees to go and get them. Thank you.

Miguel Palacios, Member of the Public said I am one of the supervisors for the, well I work for the Mesilla Valley Community of Hope. I am one of the supervisors for the

Mano y Mano Program. I take these people to work every day and I get to know them little by little working with them. All I am asking for by council members and members of the community is to see the other side of the point of the homeless community and not only what the media shows and not only see them a statistic number in your computers but as a human being as well. Some of the people have lost everything and all they have is what is in their cars and tents and for them to get fined on top of that for violation of an ordinance I think it is stepping down on them more than what they already are and instead of criminalizing them for possession for a shopping cart I think if we can find an alternative solution like donations for a portable plastic box car or something that they can put their stuff in. Because all they have, I have seen people carrying ashes of their relatives and the last thing they have there is losing them over and over again, but we have to do our job.

Juan Garcia, Member of the Public said I keep hearing the term “the most vulnerable”, referring to the homeless. the interesting part of is that the truly most vulnerable are the unborn in the womb waiting to be dissected. Why is it the same who defend the homeless and call them most vulnerable but turn away from the unborn. Political hypocrisy is what I call it. We need to think of the victims. They can be Walmart or the taco truck in a parking lot. Until we stop enabling crime our society won’t survive. Look at Walmart, Lowes and the many small businesses, they look like prisons. This is not right. I personally don’t believe or agree that those small businesses should be spending more money to protect themselves because we as customers end up paying for it, but this is a step in the right direction so please support this ordinance.

Lindsey Davis, Member of the Public said I am a long time resident of Las Cruces. I am also a social worker in this community. Today I want to express my opposition to the proposed shopping cart ordinance. Instead of addressing the causes and conditions that lead to people pushing their belongings down the street in a shopping cart this ordinance criminalizes acts of desperation and exacerbates the impact of untreated mental health and substance use problems in our community. As someone who lives downtown there is rarely a day that I don’t see an abandoned shopping cart outside my house or on my way to work. I am not saying we don’t have a problem.

We absolutely do. I am saying that handing out petty misdemeanors and making business owners responsible for shopping cart retrieval is not a pathway to treatment and housing and that is what this population needs. As taxpayers we either pay now or we pay later. It is way cheaper to house and to treat someone then to incarcerate them. Not to mention raise their kids in foster care. It is also cheaper to pay social service professionals such as myself and many people in this room through targeted outreach and crisis response services compared to paying law enforcement to babysit

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shopping carts when they can be out fighting real crime. Support for these ordinances means valuing literal shopping carts over the people pushing them. Shopping cart theft is not a gateway crime. It is an act of desperation. Secondly it is not just about service availability which we heard a little bit about earlier, it is about accessibility.

Routine medical behavioral health services are not accessible to this community. We need specialized services and outreach. Lastly criminal justice system involvement should not be a prerequisite for treatment or services. Let law enforcement do law enforcement. Let social service professionals do social services.

Micaela Lara Cadena, Member of the Public said among other things I am a State

Representative, but I am also a parent. I am a soccer coach. I am a voter. I am someone who is raised by this community and does my best to raise my children here today. I am so grateful that Las Cruces still has a vibrant local media scene and I listen to public radio and read our local paper every day and I am grateful for the journalists that are here. When I first read about this proposal in the Sun News, and I had to read it a couple of times to see if I was missing something. My kids and I talk about what is happening in our lives and in this community every day and when I work to explain to them what this proposal was all about, my children who are about to be

13 and 17 turned to me and said wait I don’t get it. How does taking away shopping carts change someone’s life? How does taking away shopping carts mean that they won’t be homeless anymore? Or is the language we use, unhoused? And I didn’t get it either. I spent the summer in Santa Fe in advance of a Special Legislative Session and like Councilor Bencomo here I showed up because I care a lot. I ran for office because I care a lot but what we have seen play out these last several months, mostly in the media is political propaganda. We aren’t having honest conversations about families and their struggles. We aren’t sitting down to speak respectively to each other about solutions that might make sense. For better or worse I got to hear from our

Chief here and I appreciate your service in press conferences next to the Governor after never having an invitation to be in conversation with you all about the solutions and insight and future we all deserve. So, thank you and I stand in opposition to this ordinance.

Quinn Cooper, Member of the Public said I introduced myself to the council last year. I had my truck stolen and I was really aggravated about it. The person who stole my truck was caught and let out a week later. Burglaries every month before that and after and so it was a very frustrating situation. I have actually been the victim of petty theft three times since that has happened. So, I appreciate if anybody has a reason to be frustrated with the property crime here in Las Cruces, I have that right to be frustrated and I hear that in the audience as well. And I did go to coffee with the cops.

I met a lot of officers. I realize that they share our frustrations if anybody is trying to approach this in a compassionate manner its officers on the force and you guys don’t get enough credit for that. That being said the safety public issues that have been cited as a reason, justification for this you are already getting with what you just passed. There is no real health argument with this one and what I see this is kind of the implication is that people here pushing everything they have to their name in 100- degree weather here in Las Cruces and we are just going to come shake them down for whatever reason. I don’t know if that is justifiable reason to stop somebody to create a stop. It seems that it will create more junk in the pipeline. You guys have a lot. I understand that and you guys are frustrated, and this is what I see in this. I see

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frustration but I don’t see an approach that will take care of anything. My background, my degree is in Nutrition and I kind of think if I were to make an equivalency it is trying to take like epinephrin so that you can eat peanuts. That is what this proposal looks like to me.

Michael Fraembs, Member of the Public said first I wanted to sincerely thank

Councilor McClure, Mattiace, Graham, and Mayor. Thank you for listening to us. You have no idea the impact that has made on me. I am very grateful for that and this scenario, handout or a hand up? I am a big fan of a hand up. We need to help people.

How do you help them? They need a sense of self-worth, and I would like to talk proactively right now. Yes, we have a lot of unhoused people on the streets. As we spoke before, how many people are that one event away from being homeless themselves? I am a home builder. I am in construction. One house that we build takes approximately 200 working days. On average, 5 employees, 8 hours a day for one house. I hope you all got my email that I sent this last week. I have constantly gotten comments from clients refusing to move to Las Cruces because of our issues here.

This ordinance is going to help clean up our streets. Yes, these are people, but we have a responsibility for those people who are working hard, they have a sense of self wealth and compassion of what they do. If we lose out on these future people moving out of Las Cruces, we are going to lose jobs. It is going to create more unhoused people. Let’s think proactively and work together and you council members. This is super important and this ordinance that may seem petty, but it is not. When Chief

Story first started speaking about this, I had no idea the impact it really had. You all have a huge opportunity to make a big impact on our community.

Gwen Stacey, Member of the Public said I am a resident of Las Cruces and I oppose this bill on the grounds that it seems like it is a very confused bill. It is trying to do way too many things at once. It is simultaneously trying to place a new onus on just the ownership of a shopping cart. That’s confusing. I thought we lived in a country under the presumption of innocent until proven guilty and a large problem that we have in our community is that these are abandoned shopping carts and trying to make that distinction between stolen ones and abandoned ones you need probable cause. So, I think you should be basing laws off of that instead. Also, it is trying to place that in conjunction with a bill that also that includes a lot of provisions for small businesses, and it also has a lot of provisions around storage for stuff and a lot of it just feels like a

PR stunt to say hey we are not actually antagonizing the homeless or the unhoused populations of Las Cruces. Look at all this cool stuff we are doing like keep their stuff in a warehouse for 90 days expecting them to magically get housing and just throw it all away eventually. I feel like this bill is a waste of time. I feel like it is an insult to my intelligence. It is also based on fallacious reasoning that theft is theft and if we just make one small exception everything is going to devolve into chaos and that is just not true. That is not how logic works, and we can easily make distinctions. It is also why there is a difference between self-defense and murder because we can make clear distinctions and we can make exceptions based on legal jurisprudence that doesn’t involve devolving in mere chaos.

Donna Stryker, Member of the Public said I have tried to reach across the aisle. I did go to a meeting and everything we said was shot down and it was about housing, and we tried to reach across the aisle, and we were shot down. We were told no and no

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and no but I don’t want to hear about, we need to reach across the aisle. We tried to reach across the aisle and talk about something before it was even an issue and we were told no. I am tired of being told that I am criminalizing homelessness. I see your t-shirts. That is not impartial. You are supposed to be impartial. That is part of your oath. I support Jeremy Story. I support the Chief of Police. I support our Police and I think it is a step and if it doesn’t work change it but you never willing to try anything that isn’t your way. It’s your way or the highway and I don’t appreciate that. You don’t have my back, but I have yours.

Tim Jenkins, Member of the Public said I am actually outraged and appalled by comments of certain members of City Council stating that she believes that we are making up these statistics and that we don’t leave our houses and that we are brainwashed. How is it possible that we are the ones who are brainwashed when I have personally stood before you every single Monday since we lost Officer

Hernandez and presented pictures and videos and countless amounts of evidence before you all to clearly show that we are in a world of trouble here in Las Cruces.

How is it that we are the ones that are brainwashed when our officers are pulling dead bodies out of the dumpsters this weekend at the Dona Ana Apartments? How is it that we are the ones that are brainwashed when I am witnessing homeless people taking showers in the restaurant at the Los Compas Restaurant this weekend? How is it that we are the ones that are brainwashed when I personally witness 18 homeless people within a three mile stretch of Lohman, 14 of them having shopping carts full of stuff in a three-mile stretch, 18 of them total with a naked woman running up the street next to the bowling alley? How is it possible that certain members of City Council refuse to help support us in making Las Cruces a safer city for our families and for our children? If certain members of the City Council cannot find in in their hearts to fight for us, we the people, then we ask that you please remove yourself from City Council because you refuse to the do the job that we were elected to do but as for me and my family we support the Chief of Police in every effort that he has done to make this place a safer city.

Mary Sanchez, Member of the Public said I am with Mesilla Valley Community of

Hope. I am here to voice my opposition to this ordinance. I have sat through many

City Council sessions where business owners yelled at this council and law enforcement to do something about their repeatedly broken windows, the needles in the park, feces in their store fronts. I heard the constant cry for LCPD, do something, do your job and from that we have an ordinance for businesses to retrieve their shopping carts and median issues. Retrieving shopping carts will not repair or stop windows being broken. The ordinance says it won’t take carts from people, but I have a hard time believing that since this is already a regular practice of LCPD. A few weeks ago, they did just that. They took a woman’s documents and belongings and never gave them back. They stole her belongings. Are we really fighting stealing with stealing? Was this the best use of anyone’s time? Figuring out what a person’s value to items should be and then deciding the person should go to court and get ordered to services. Would you want me to come into your house and decide what was trash and what was not? Ordinance says that business owner cannot confiscate but officers can and do. It has also been presented to council that these ordinances are about perception. Less carts seen means less crime perceived. Less eyesores in our community. However, it is crucial to understand that for those using carts it is not

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about flaunting a crime but about survival at their lowest point. Pushing these carts through streets and gravel under constant public scrutiny is not comfortable. It is dehumanizing. Eliminating the carts does not eliminate homelessness. One argument suggested these measures will channel people toward services, yet services already exist ordinance or not. Having services hasn’t stopped people from using carts. So just because somebody needs to store their belongings you are assuming they all need mental health and substance use treatment. You must know that is not true.

This is flawed and it is a mistake.

Nicole Martinez, Member of the Public said I am with Community of Hope. I was really hopeful that we would have more time since we were one of the partners that were listed, and Chief gave me that respect to have time to talk to him so it is unfortunate.

We really can’t have these conversations without having more housing which we just don’t have enough of. If a person had a house, we would not have to be talking about a person’s stuff in shopping carts and there are other cities that we could emulate that have programs that they have people that within their departments that go up and clean up shopping carts just like Mano y Mano does now. I suggest that we continue using Mano y Mano not 100% of the time but we would keep doing that to help our city so that businesses aren’t getting fined for this, and I do have some serious concerns about enforcement because this is all left up to the discretion of a judge and officers where it says in that ordinance, they may impose that. So, what if they refuse the community service option or if they start and they don’t fulfill it? Will they get fined? Will they go to jail? How does this actually play out? Who is tracking that and how can you prove that somebody actually stole the cart? Like we talked about earlier maybe they did just go grocery shopping and they didn’t have car and they left that cart at the bus stop and then somebody who is unhoused found that cart and put their belongings in it and now the business and/or that person could get fined. That logic just doesn’t make sense here. Should this pass you are leaving this open for interpretation and I feel really sorry for the city department that has to enforce this and actually look over the plan because there are more important things like housing and serving the nonprofits that are trying to help and be part of these solutions. Again, we are talking about people with the least amount of power and resources and several times in preparation for this I have heard take pictures of them, get personal. How personal do you think it was for every person that had their picture posted on

Facebook? Here is where social services best practices become troubled by law enforcement methods. I have heard that we can couple this with compassion, but I have not seen that in this. Is this what the city means by Cariño? That we join the less than 1% of cities that have a plan like this, and officers have been confiscating stuff and they tell our clients, walk away, walk away. I am asking you walk away from this plan.

Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico and also as you know we have serious concerns about this proposed ordinance. All of which have been raised both from the dais and public comment tonight. I think one of the things that is most troubling to me broadly is the suggestion that this ordinance is a tool to get people access to services. At the

ACLU and personally we are strongly in support of getting people who need services the services that they need. I think the question comes in the use of the criminal legal system as the mechanism to deliver those services. Like Nicole just said it is certainly

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not a guarantee from the way the ordinance is written that this will lead to the provision of services. It is also not a certainty that we need the criminal legal system to be the mechanism by which people get services. The criminal legal system is inherently ill suited to be the mechanism by which people access the services that they need. If it is our desire to help people get access to case management, to help people get access to behavioral health treatment, to get alternative means to store and transport their belongings those are things we can do without relying on police and the criminal courts to achieve those goals. So, I urge you to oppose this ordinance and to think about ways to provide those services without reliance on the criminal legal system.

Beth Bardwell, Member of the Public said I have lived here for 30 years and I have experienced property crime in this town but not one was committed by a homeless person. I shop downtown including Albertsons and Walgreens and sometimes I feel like I live in an alternate reality when I come to these city council meetings because I just want to say that I have never felt threatened by a homeless person. We are not talking about theft. We are talking about a homeless person who uses a shopping cart to store their belongings and I find it ironic that we fill our single-family homes with so much stuff. Many of us have to have storage units, we have so much stuff and yet we take so much community time and resources to criticize and make it a crime for homeless people who put their minimal belongings in a shopping cart. Blows my mind. We are not talking about voluntary treatment. We are talking about ordering treatment or else you may face a fine and incarceration. Where is the evidence that coerced treatment is effective? Where are the mental health councilors that say coerced treatment is effective here today? They are not and in a criminal ordinance this shopping cart ordinance is not connected to housing, nor can it be realistically because there are 3,000 people in line today in Las Cruces for a housing voucher. We have a housing shortage and I want to emphasize for all of you that the current

Realize Las Cruces revision to the land development code, the way they revised on

June 10th significantly limit where you can build multi-family housing in this town. So, on the one hand you are criminalizing but on the other you are saying we are not going to build more multi-family housing. I stand in opposition to this ordinance.

Christopher Brown, Member of the Public said I am a resident of Las Cruces and a member of the Community of Hope Board. I would like to make three major issues before I ask you to reject this ordinance. The first concern is impact on business owners. The ordinance will require businesses to develop a shopping cart plan which is incredibly convoluted and complicated or hire security people they can’t afford to keep the shopping carts or do both. The second, what is the impact on our unhoused population? The most vulnerable people in our community hold their possessions in a shopping cart. They put their companion animals in their shopping cart to keep them safe and we are now going to pass an ordinance that criminalizes that, incarceration, fine, coerced court order treatment that they may not need. Do we really want to put that kind of burden on the Police Department? At the town hall the Governor had

Chief Story said we are trying to solve this problem. I don’t have enough resources, I don’t have enough officers so let’s put more work on them. The last thing I would like to talk about is to break the argument that homelessness and our criminal justice crisis in this town are linked. Violent crime, property crime are predominately not driven by people that keep their stuff in carts and protect their animals. I call on you to

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reject this ordinance and to work together to advance efforts to build more housing and to serve the needs of our unhoused population.

Stella Sosa Gonzales, Member of the Public said I just wanted to say that unhoused people are people too and if you can’t help them, please don’t hurt them.

Patricia Jimenez, Member of the Public said I used to be a member of the community.

I was pushed out of the community. I am here to speak regarding the cart ordinance that Chief Story has proposed, and I feel that a lot of us have been victims of crime and also as far as people thinking that we are criminalizing the carts we not. Some of the cart issues were related to crime but some of the people are mentally, unfortunately they need some type of rehabilitation and I agree with that, and I think that this is not a matter of criminalizing those people. It is a matter of getting them rehabilitated instead of enabling them like some people in the community are doing.

Sarah Smith, Member of the Public said although some people and organizations are concerned that this ordinance will criminalize homelessness and target the most vulnerable in the community that is not the case and fails to look at the bigger picture.

It is already illegal to steal shopping carts and to be in possession of stolen property.

Many of the most vulnerable in our community cannot take steps to get themselves into a better situation. Their mental health problems and drug addiction have trapped them into a cycle of self-destruction. Housing, food, clothing and services are being provided in an effort to help those living on the streets, yet it is clear that overall these strategies are not working. Without accountability, without some mechanism to ensure people engage in rehabilitation and treatment, nothing will change as they continue their drug use and ruin. This ordinance has to potential to finally help the people living on the streets instead of enabling them to continue destroying their own lives and the safety of the families of Las Cruces. Rather than just imposing jail time or fines that cannot be paid like the existing laws that are already in effect, this new ordinance will provide a better alternative because it increases our ability to get people into treatment for drug addiction and mental health illnesses. Instead of waiting and hoping that people will get the help they need, this ordinance provides a direct pathway to treatment as a form of community service. I think of 34-year-old Heather

Croom as an example of someone who may be able to be helped by these ordinances. From looking at public records, Heather is a repeat offender with over 75 arrests mostly related to trespassing. I have seen Heather wandering the streets of

Las Cruces. She clearly needs help. I can only imagine what the criminal element does to her on the streets at night given the serious inability to care for herself. She desperately needs help in the form of treatment in a safe place. I hope that you will have the courage to try something new and vote yes so that repeat offenders like

Heather will finally get the treatment that they need.

Chief Jeremy Story said a few things that came up during public comment. One, the case management that was brought up. It was a good point. It is provided through

SOS in general, not just specifically related to this but if someone just needs help getting a driver’s license or ID card, getting reenrolled in Medicaid. That is all part of what they are doing there. Another point when it comes to interactions with officers and those who are homeless there are tens and thousands of interactions already.

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We talk about the fear of increasing them not decrease them. the goal is to decrease them. Our officers know people in the streets by name, all of them because we are the ones left to deal with them and interact with them over and over. The vast majority of those are not enforcement actions or negative experiences per se but we are the ones that are already having all these interactions. I also want to say that I have met with most the people here. I have met with Nicole many times. I have met with Daniel and ACLU many times. I have never turned down an invitation to meet with anybody.

We have had good conversations. We obviously do not agree on everything. We find common ground where we can, and we have disagreement on the other issues, but I have talked about these issues with a lot of people. I can only compromise so much. I feel like I have been extremely reasonable, but a lot of people want either all or nothing. All harm reduction or no harm reduction. The reality is it has to be a balanced approach and this council has invested in the root cause solutions. They have invested in affordable housing and many of those issues, but they do take time and I am not arguing against that. We have to continue that and most the people in this room would say we need to invest in affordable housing. We need to invest in additional services for mental health treatment, substance use but we also can’t wait

25 years for those things to materialize before we do something else. It has to be a balanced approach where we address it from both sides of the coin.

Councilor Graham asked understanding that we are going to have an amendment proposed can either of you or both of you comment on what that would mean functionally, I forget the section number?

Chief Jeremy Story said in my opinion if you alter the ordinance as it exists you basically make it ineffective. Look at the other cities that have an ordinance, the ones that do not have both sides of the coin again, both sides of the approach, the balanced approach are not successful in mitigating the issue. So, I think that if you amend it and take that out it doesn’t accomplish what we are trying to accomplish.

They are both important.

Councilor Becky Corran moved, seconded by Councilor Johana Bencomo, to remove Section 18-49 B in its entirety.

AYES: Councilor Johana Bencomo and Councilor Becky Corran

Councilor Becki Graham, and Councilor Yvonne Flores Councilor William Mattiace moved, seconded by Councilor Becki Graham, to

Approve Ordinance No. 3079.

MOVER: Councilor William Mattiace

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9. BOARD APPOINTMENTS 9.1 KYLIE JENKINS

Councilor Corran appointed Kylie Jenkins to the Parks & Recreation Advisory Board.

10. NOTICE OF PROPOSED ORDINANCE(S)

1) There will be no public discussion.

2) A Councilor may ask staff for clarification on the proposed ordinance(s). 10.1 COUNCIL BILL NO. 25-009; ORDINANCE NO. 3080: AN ORDINANCE

APPROVING A ZONE CHANGE FROM R-1A (SINGLE-FAMILY MEDIUM

DENSITY) TO R-2C (MULTI-DWELLING LOW DENSITY) FOR PROPERTY

LOCATED AT 2795 N. ROADRUNNER PARKWAY. SUBMITTED BY TAFIQ

HINDASH, AJ CONSTRUCTION, LLC ON BEHALF OF MOHAMED ASWAD,

M.D., PROPERTY OWNER. Council agreed to bring it forward. 10.2 COUNCIL BILL NO. 25-010; ORDINANCE NO. 3081: AN ORDINANCE

APPROVING A ZONE CHANGE FROM A-2 (RURAL AGRICULTURAL, 1981

ZONING CODE) TO C-3 (COMMERCIAL HIGH INTENSITY). THE SUBJECT

PROPERTIES ENCOMPASSING 1.89 ± ACRES IS LOCATED AT 3098 E

UNIVERSITY AVENUE. THE ZONE CHANGE REQUEST SEEKS TO BRING

A PORTION OF THE PROPOSED TRACT OF LAND INTO COMPLIANCE

WITH THE 2001 ZONING CODE, AS AMENDED. Council agreed to bring it forward.

11. CITY COUNCIL MEMBER BOARD REPORTS AND COMMENT 11.1 COUNCILOR MCCLURE I just keeping thinking about someone who had commented earlier that everyone needs a chance. Ultimately my decision was based on the idea that I do think we can give them a chance with some of these ordinances and some of these changes. I agree that LCPD shouldn’t be the one doing this. Ultimately, we should be working toward other options for this, but we work with the imperfect systems that we have, and I am just taking the chance that we are doing things like diversion courts that we can do a lot of things that we practically do. 11.2 COUNCILOR MATTIACE I just want my fellow councilors to know that I will support all the other services when it comes to housing, outreach programs, mental health centers that need to be built here. Behavioral studies, we also need to take care of the unhoused and I think again,

I trust Chief Story. I trust the Police Department and the public safety as well as the

Fire Department, the LIGHT Program. I commend Mano y Mano Program if you can expand that and do more of that but I think this is a positive as Chief Story said a baby step, but it is still a step toward making the city look better, safer. We are not hiding people. We are helping people. 11.3 COUNCILOR GRAHAM

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None. 11.4 COUNCILOR CORRAN I just really quickly want to give folks a reminder that Thursday night sorry, between 5 and 7 at the NMSU campus, Room 225 at Hardman & Jacobs Learning there is a

Healthcare Consolidation Meeting which is all about what happens when healthcare institutions are consolidated or closed or go bankrupt or bankrupted by a private equity. So, I would hope that folks might consider attending those meetings.

To the other discussion I just really want to name the types of rhetoric that are employed at these populist conversations, populism generally sows the seeds for what I think is a really problematic approach to our future and I just want to go on record to suggest that I will always raise red flags when people make populist arguments. I think that we consider things like criminalizing the poor if we don’t see the paths of rhetoric that come after we are in really big trouble so I just want to make an argument that these decisions today I hope they don’t open the door to folks believing that authoritative answers are the best because they aren’t ever and they harm our communities and so I am disappointed but I understand that folks want us to do something and I would just again consider the impacts of populism as a political strategy might have for integrity. 11.5 COUNCILOR FLORES None. 11.6 COUNCILOR BENCOMO I think given the commitment to pedestrian safety that was made here today I hope

Mayor that you add Vision Zero item to the Work Session agenda so that we can get real about pedestrian safety and actually have data driven solutions for pedestrians. I really hope that you add that to a Work Session agenda. Again, I want us to do something around Park Impact Fees and bring a set of stakeholders together to figure that out that is just not at a Work Session but deserves a good working group. I also hope that everyone here today who voted in favor of criminalizing homelessness and poverty that you also publicly talk about the importance of projects like Amador

Crossing. I know that many of the folks who are here today who were wanting these to be passed oppose things like housing and Amador Crossing and I really hope that you all take the time especially you Mayor and Chief Story to talk publicly about why

Amador Crossing is important.

Lastly a commenter said today that sometimes it feels like we live in alternate realities, and I have felt that too. I also am scared for my 16-year-old kid who had to get takeout for here just a few minutes ago. I am scared that a kid is going to walk into her school with gun and shoot up the school. I am scared for our safety because people who oppose me so badly leave voicemails threatening to kill me. I am scared for our safety because on your social media pages people joke about breaking into my house. Those things to me feel deeply scary as well. Especially when a lot of us here are committed to working hard to find solutions even when we disagree, and we are still working hard to find solutions. I just want to lift that up because it was truly disappointing today. 11.7 MAYOR ENRIQUEZ

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We can move forward with that Work Session, and I believe that there is with that

Realize so a section there that will be addressed with the Park Impact Fees or will be moved for another discussion separate. It is going to be addressed. I think we all want the same thing. We want Las Cruces to thrive, and we want Las Cruces to be safe. I think this is the first step today in public safety but in order to really have well-being in our community to come we all need to come and work together to stretch and for the community to come together whether it is the housing, or whether it is or the treatment, things like that in our community to get that sense of wellbeing but I believe this is the first step in public safety and then we move from there.

12. CITY MANAGER REPORT 12.1 IKANI TAUMOEPEAU We have National Night Out. Las Cruces Police Department is inviting the community to celebrate National Night Out this Tuesday, which is tomorrow August 6th from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. downtown.

Since George Pearson made it this far, he deserves response. Sonya has already reached out to J. Paul Taylor Academy to meet and review intersection. We will provide an update once we have more information.

Also, our Facilities team is working on next steps for the WIA Building. Just to make everyone aware there was a roof project that was finally completed last year so kudos to Public Works and Facilities for making that happen. So more to come on that.

This morning around 10 a.m. firefighters from our Fire Department rescued and transported an occupant from a structure fire on Bon Burt Lane. The patient was last reported as stable with severe injuries and expected to be transported to burn center in Lubbock, Texas. The investigation is ongoing. Thank you for your fast action and work to our Fire Fighters and their continued dedication to our community.

13. ADJOURNMENT 13.1 Councilor Yvonne Flores moved, seconded by Councilor Johana Bencomo, to adjourn at 7:33 p.m.

MOVER: Councilor Yvonne Flores

Mayor

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City Clerk

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