City Council Meeting June 1, 2026

MINUTES

City Council

Monday, June 1, 2026 @ 1:00 PM

City Council Chambers, City Hall

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

Councilor Michael Harris, City Councilor Johana Bencomo, City Councilor Becky Corran, and Mayor Pro Tem John Munoz

ABSENT:

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

APPRECIATION/PROCLAMATIONS - COUNCILOR BENCOMO. Councilor Bencomo recognized the Mayfield High School Softball Team for their win in the Southern New Mexico Softball Invitational.

Councilor Bencomo presented Mercedes Tomayko and the Fleet Service Team with a proclamation for National Automotive Service Professionals Week. 1.3 DEPARTMENTAL HIGHLIGHTS. Chris Faivre, Community Development Director gave the overhead presentation.

Liz Vega, Event Manager gave the overhead presentation. 1.4 PETS OF THE WEEK. Amelia Corrales, Animal Services Center of the Mesilla Valley presented Pets of the

Week.

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

SECTION 2-27 (E)(2) 2.1 None.

3. PUBLIC PARTICIPATION 3.1 Lynn Moorer, Member of the Public said the dearth of professionalism, competence and honesty with respect to Utilities Director and her staff regarding compliance with the federal Lead and Copper Rule is negatively affecting thousands of people in Las

Cruces who drink water from any of the city’s five water systems. Lead in drinking water is a clear hazard. There is no safe level. It is especially dangerous for children, including unborn children and seniors. This matters. When our City Finance Director recently discovered significantly incorrect budgeting numbers she brought it to the

City Manager and the City Council and publicly recommended large budget adjustments to address the problems. Instead of equivalent professionalism and honesty we have a Utilities Director who facilitates and/or turns a blind eye to countless falsehoods and inaccuracies and the coverup or modification of inconvenient data. As we have delineated at previous numerous meetings these dishonorable actions include allowing or facilitating falsified inspection reports regarding galvanized piping, falsified consumer confidence reports regarding exceedances in lead levels, failures to prioritize disadvantaged properties as promised, falsely categorizing hundreds of high value properties as disadvantaged and leaving huge sections of the city consisting primarily of mobile home communities off the inventory. Comparing Utilities’ staff to public agencies in other states and regions I have observed Las Cruces Utilities’ staff and a City Councilor seemed to have inordinately large chips on their shoulders about the city having to comply with the federal rule. Several give the impression that being required to comply is an unfair burden even though every other water system in the country must also comply.

Utilities personnel use an inadequate inspection technique then claim we don’t have a lead pipe problem. I have also observed an unhealthily close relationship within the

Utilities Department and with city management. Other people including a Utilities’ board commissioner, have observed it too. They have noted among other things that

Utilities Director has an Assistant City Manager who acts as her protector and hand holder. The chip on the shoulder is especially evident at Utilities board meetings which have many staffers present. In contrast city Fire, Police, and Public Works

Department personnel do not exhibit these kinds of unprofessional traits or complain about the work they must do. Indeed, their behavior has been professional and good natured. These factors support our call for an independent honest engineer fully conversant with the federal rule with management experience and with no connection to New Mexico to do thorough analysis and evaluation of the City’s compliance with the Lead and Copper Rule and as necessary recommend any adjustments including changes to staffing. We think the city could truly benefit from this evaluation.

Liz Rodriguez-Johnson, Member of the Public said we are serious about expecting

Utilities personnel to inspect water pipes at disadvantaged properties consistent with the promise they made to the New Mexico Finance Authority in order to receive $15 million for inspection and removal of lead and galvanized piping in compliance with the federal Lead and Copper Rule. This action is necessary not only to keep its promise to the authority and to the public but to demonstrate that it did not intend to commit fraud by promising to do something important to receive a big chunk of money without actually intending to do that important thing. Handouts A and B are two more

lists of properties with estimated values of less than $100,000 and $200,000 respectively. These follow lists 1 through 5 in both of these categories provided since

February. According to responses to IPRA requests the department has inspected only 3, 3 of the 208 low value properties on the first four sets of lists. We again urge

Utilities personnel to get to work inspecting these fully disadvantaged properties in order to show at a minimum that the department does not intend to act fraudulently.

We are also serious about expecting Utilities personnel to include all properties within the inventory and on the map and then inspect each of these as well. This includes every mobile home within the five water systems for which a department has the responsibility. Handout C is the seventh map segment we provided since February that shows a mobile home community without water hookups and not found in the city’s inventory. This mobile home community in the vicinity of South Main Street has approximately 180 mobile homes without water hookups on the map. At this point the total number of mobile homes in the city without water hookups on the map which have been left out of the inventory total several thousand. Each of these ignored mobile homes are no doubt valued at less than $200,000 and rightfully can be regarded as disadvantaged in addition to those included on the 6 sets of lists that we have provided. We find it exceptionally unfair that the Utilities Director allows or directs that all of these clearly disadvantaged properties and people who live in them being ignored and not served properly as compared to the wealthier properties and the well-off people who live in them. Moreover, the explicit terms of the funding agreement with the state requires that each of these disadvantaged properties be prioritized and served before the wealthier properties are served. This means that absent an overriding reason Utilities’ personnel should not inspect properties whose estimated value exceeds $300,000 until all the properties valued at less than $200,000 include all mobile homes are inspected.

Jack Eakman, Member of the Public said I had the privilege and honor of sitting on that dais myself but not at the same term as any of you. My wife and I chose Las

Cruces as our last best place. This is a wonderful community, and I am here today to speak about the financial situation at the city right now. I was a Hospital Administrator.

I got used to budgets in hundreds of millions of dollars and so I was able to work through those items and I brought that to city council with me. Let me share with the audited financial records shows plainly and without alarm. When I served on this council, we worked hard to build a financial cushion that protected this city through difficult times. The unassigned general fund balance was healthy above 40% of annual expenditures. Today it sits at 25.6% and your own finance director told you that without a course correction that balance will be exhausted by 2029. I want to be precise about what drove us here because precision matters and because some of the most common assumptions I hear from my friends and neighbors are wrong. This is not an affordable housing problem. The city’s housing investments were largely funded through voter approved bonds, federal ARPA dollars and the Telshor Fund, not the general fund. Those were community needs met with largely appropriate funding sources. What this is fundamentally is a personnel cost problem compounding quietly year after year, budget after budget. Each successive council approve wage increases and new positions at growth rates of 5% to 8% annually while the gross receipts taxes were raising at 2% to 2 ½ % annually and so that has nothing to do but spread. Every one of those decisions was individually justifiable, taken together without a multi-year financial model to show where the trajectory led they created a

structural gap that is now impossible to ignore. The Telshor Fund created from the lease of the Memorial Medical Center to serve the city and county’s most vulnerable residents in perpetuity has drawn down from 42.9 million to approximately 14 million.

Fred Huff, Member of the Public said I have spoken several times recently about wanting to thank the Public Works Department for doing a great fantastic job of cleaning up the Burn Lake area. If any of you haven’t seen it, drive by on the freeway and take a look at it. It is amazing and as I have mentioned before at the start of the year there was 11 illegal encampments in that area and my main concern about that, the illegal encampments is they are basically uncivilized. They don’t know how to use fire and several years ago there was basically a colony down in the bottom of the lakebed that it had been there quite a while. It was allowed to flourish, and they set the lakebed on fire, and we had to evacuate our house for several hours and we did not know if we were going to have a house to return to because of the fire in the Burn

Lake bed because the lack of maintenance and lack of enforcement on trespassing.

So at least getting all of this foliage and brush and grass out of the lake bottom has been tremendous. I am sure that there is some people that are offended by all the trees being gone as I look at my before and after pictures it is stark difference but we can go to sleep at night not worrying about the lakebed catching on fire or the city having a problem with the lakebed catching on fire and smoke blowing across the freeway and causing a major accident because that would be a huge liability to the city so that has been taken care of and I really want to thank the Public Works, they have gone well beyond. Before they started the project I was picking on them in some of the emails accusing them of grooming the Esslinger Pond, that is a little drain pond just above Burn Lake where the flood waters come in and settles and then it goes into

Burn Lake and I accused them of grooming that like a country club and now Burn

Lake is being groomed like a country club and I am really thrilled about it. Again, I want to thank them for doing that.

Eddie Thomas, Member of the Public said I would like to address the elephant in the room and talk about crime in the city and the disparaging remarks made towards

Chief Story and the Las Cruces Police Department. Basic fact, you need law enforcement in any modern-day society. That is just an inescapable reality of life.

There are bad people in this world and there seems to be a disproportionate amount in this lawless border town we call home. The things I know about police is that you always need more of them, you need to train them well and you need to pay them well. A police force is only as good as you train them. You won’t get topnotch grade A performance from a poorly trained police force. You need to pay them a commensurate and competitive wage to attract them and keep them. It takes a special kind of courageous person to be a police officer. They navigate dangerous situations and have to make split second and sometimes life altering decisions and their actions are often criticized and held to a higher degree. They have to be right

100% of the time. Often a weapon or firearm is involved yet our expectation is that they use measured and appropriate force when dealing with the less savory of our society. The policeman however is exposed to all manner of violence. They have got to be ready for anything at any time all the time. Even off duty as the case often is like when the Walmart bicycle thief pulled a gun on the officer and shot at him when he gave chase or the hammer wielding maniac at Chili’s or the cartel drug dealer that also pulled a gun in front of McDonald’s. I could go on and on. I am glad when the bad

guys are taken out. It means that police are doing their job. There are three tenants of a law-abiding society. Legislative, which is the body that produces the laws. Judicial, which is the body that applies the law and law enforcement, which as the name implies enforces the law. I think it is clear to everybody here that the first two are not working. That means the law enforcement part of that equation has to work double time to keep the peace. That is why we have a high recidivism rate. Career criminals commit 80% percent of the crime, check me on that Chief Story. I like it when I see police in the community. If I see one at a restaurant I will offer to buy him lunch.

Libraries and parks are nice, but nobody is going to feel safe going to one and just for the record police are not being trained to kill us. Contrary to what certain delusional anti-police activists say they are being trained to protect us so please give it a rest. I would ask you Mayor Enriquez to channel your previous profession of fireman and put out the fire once and for all that is crime in Las Cruces.

Lucas Herndon, Member of the Public said I am here today as a concerned resident who believes in transparent accountable government especially when it comes to armed agents of the state like the police. I am here because the New Mexico

Foundation for Open Government has exposed something deeply troubling. For years this city operated a secret committee that made decisions about police policy behind closed doors without public input, without public notice, and without public accountability. Let me quote directly from FOGs findings. “The Select Committee did not make presentations or submissions of facts or evidence yet evidently engaged in activities such as drafting ordinances, request for bids on police auditing services, and acted as a gate keeper vetting policies suggestions in drawing parameters for public discussions on matters involving police uses of force, mental health assessments for officers, law enforcement gun safety and more.” This committee wasn’t just discussing issues they were drafting ordinances. They were vetting policy suggestions. They were drawing parameters for public discussion about police use of force. They did it all in the dark. Meanwhile during those same years Las Cruces police officers were involved in multiple shootings that include but are not limited to Jonathan Strickland who was shot 12 times in 2021 during a car chase that in court documents was called against procedure but ultimately those cops were exonerated, Presley Eze, killed in

2022. His killer convicted for manslaughter, Teresa Gomez killed in 2023 and $20 million paid to her family by the city in a settlement and Amelia Baca, a 75-year-old grandmother with dementia killed in 2022, as of yet no charges filed. Where was public oversight when these incidents were being reviewed behind closed doors in secret meetings without the community’s voice. This isn’t just about procedure. This is about trust. When residents ask for police accountability, when families demand answers after a shooting, when advocates call for change and accountability, we deserve to know the policy decisions aren’t being made in an unelected group operating in the shadows. The Department of Justice may have issued a disposition letter, but FOG has presented new evidence that demands action and even the city has acknowledged that they consider repealing the ordinance to bolster public trust in transparency and accountability so today I am calling on the city council to do exactly that. Repeal the Select Committee ordinance. End the ability for any future committee to conduct public business outside public view. Commit to open meetings, public notice and genuine community participation in all matters of so-called public safety and let’s be clear here that public safety has nothing to do with violence workers like the police. Public safety is about public housing, it is investment in public

infrastructure, and it is substantive commitments to young people. Las Cruces deserves better than just secret committees making public policy. Our community deserves transparency. Our families deserve accountability and our city council has the power to deliver both starting today.

Chris Candelaria, Member of the Public said I am a Las Cruces resident. I am here to present an argument regarding Upper Griggs Water Tank following my recent Op Ed in the Sun News. The decision to restore the tank as is, keeping the image of Juan de

Onate is a major step back for the city. While some argue that this is about persevering the landmark the truth is that public funds are being used to rebroadcast the image of a man defined by violence. Onate’s historical record is well documented.

He was convicted of cruelty by the Spanish crown, directly as a result of his order of the 1599 Acoma Massacre. While some defenders argue that this is a response to the thirteen deaths of his soldiers, history shows those men were there to extort traps of essential winter food and supplies. Onate’s retaliation was a slaughter of 800 men, women, and children following by the amputations and enslavement of the people.

Cruelties that shocked even sixteenth century standards. These actions established a brutal system that eventually led to the Piro and Tigua to flee to the south to this valley as refugees making this a deeply relevant local issue. As a former student of

Onate High School, I remember wearing that name as a badge of pride unaware of the horror it represented. The community acknowledges failure by renaming it. The choice is made to uphold the principle that symbols carry weight. To be clear this objection is not an attempt to sanitize history nor is it comparable to past debates like secularizing the city’s logos. This is different. There is a massive commonsense boundary between preserving local heritage and publicly depicting a convicted mass murderer. Treating this mural like a museum artifact is short sided and has actually been redesigned more than once. The city owned billboard has a prominent placement and makes what we display there even more important. Artist Tony

Pennock explained that the mural illustrates Onate leading the 300 families that traveled the El Camino Real but with respect to Pennock this was a historical fiction as there is almost 100 years separating the two accounts. There is no need to look statewide for stories to celebrate. A great example is of the first settlers of this area which followed the Mexican American war. A local tribe guided them, shared food and knowledge needed to thrive in this valley. This story is best summarized by how the tribe first greeted the settlers with the words Manchos y Amigos, meaning peaceful and friends by the native Manso people whose very name comes from this welcoming gesture. What better location to display a powerful, entirely local greeting of peace and cooperation to all of those who visit and travel along I-25. Since the repaint funding has yet to happen let’s take this opportunity to choose a design reflecting our local heritage, natural beauty and shared identity like the other tank murals by the talented Tony Pennock.

Juan Gomez, Member of the Public said we have a problem in our city parks. We have been battling these homeless people and people that stay there every night, and nothing seems to be done about it, but I am trying to let you guys know that it is a problem and see if it could be addressed. They leave trash and they urinate and they do whatever they do there, and our children play at the park. They recently found like a couple of syringes and a bunch of foil stuff that they burn, and police have gone there and they took care of a house, but the problem seems to be going on because

they would go and bring stuff and trade for drugs. They would do them there at the park. Sometimes they get in the way because the children go every Friday, they meet there and then they go to Valley View walking and for them to find stuff like that, it is not right. Let’s see if you guys can do something about it.

Dr. Alfred L’Altrelli, Member of the Public said I am the Chief Pharmacy Officer at

Memorial Medical Center and I am a more recent member of the Las Cruces community. I am here to talk about over the last several months on some of the work that we have been doing where we have seen the toll of the opioid crisis directly in our area as well as surrounding areas and as a pharmacist I have seen a disproportionate amount of pharmacist involvement in taking accountability for helping our community members. I know that some of our biggest gaps are related to access to reversal agents opioid disposal as well as our ER pharmacy services and in the past 6 months at Memorial Medical Center we have actually implemented several programs to help with that including 24/7 access to Narcan vending machines so that bystanders can have access to it and can become life savers. Additionally, we have redeveloped our medication take back program so that we can reduce the number of accidental ingestions of toxic pharmaceuticals as well as reducing overdoses before the first medication is ever taken. We have additionally expanded our clinical pharmacy services related to toxicology approaches for our patients that we will be see in the emergency department. Why I am here today is because I am respectfully asking for support on how we can partner, grow and enhance these types of programs and make sure the community members have access to the resources that we put in place, I am happy to provide contact information after this meeting and I thank you all for your support.

Tim Jenkins, Member of the Public said I would like to address the crisis in our city right now. Many residents are frustrated and rightfully so. Over the last three years this state has spent over $500 million addressing homelessness. Yet the conditions in our community continue to deteriorate. At some point this council must stop measuring success by the amount of money spent and start measuring success by actual results. We were promised solutions. Instead, we see more encampments, more public drug use, more crime and more disorder in areas that families once enjoyed. Taxpayers are founding programs year after year, but we are not seeing a return on our investment. We continue to hear this described primarily as a housing crisis but what many of us are witnessing every day is a mental health crisis and addiction crisis that to many leaders are not willing to confront honestly. Housing alone will never solve the severe mental illness in our community. If we refuse to address these realities, we will continue spending hundreds of millions of dollars while conditions continue to worsen. The situation in our parks is a perfect example. The city alone has added 47 acres of parks and spent thousands and thousands of dollars on brand new equipment at Valley View Park. Those instruments were made for our children and for our families. Yet mothers and fathers couldn’t even take their children there because of all needles and drugs and drug paraphernalia and the blood smeared all over the brand-new equipment Memorial Day weekend. This is 100% unacceptable. No parent should have to inspect a playground for biohazards before allowing their child to play. No family should feel unsafe in a public park that our tax dollars pay for. Compassion and accountability are not opposite. We can care about those struggling with addiction and mental illness while also demanding safe parks,

clean streets and responsible stewardship of our tax dollars. I urge this council to focus on outcomes not spending tools. The question is how much money has been allocated? The question is whether our streets are safer, our parks are cleaner, and fewer people are suffering on the streets than they were three years ago? If the answer is no, then it is high time we change our course of direction here.

Jim Hoerst, Member of the Public said homelessness is not a local problem.

Homelessness is a national problem. The homeless people come here because of our climate. They come here because they know we have compassion. Most communities deal with homelessness by a night in a motel and a bus ticket. They usually end up in

Albuquerque or here. They form their own communities, their own economies and they live here off the land as it were. It is a national problem. We should get national funds to deal with it. If other communities are going to send their homeless people away there is really only three options with a homeless person. You kill them, you move them, or you house them. That is it, you have to do one of the three. Most jurisdictions thankfully don’t kill them so that means they are going to move them because they are not going to spend the money to house them. So, Las Cruces ought to pressing for state and national aid to deal with homelessness unless it is a crime for cities to move homeless people on to the better climates and the more generous cities. That is the southwest, that is where we live. That is why it is a problem.

Juan Garcia, Member of the Public said I was not going to speak today but after listening to that gentleman come up here and speak about the parks it just bugs me.

Three of you, two of you on this council, have been hearing the same thing for at least four years, maybe more that I have been coming here. This gentleman that just spoke about the drugs, the crime in the parks and what have you done about it? I look outside when I got here and I noticed that that mound of trash encampment, garbage, whatever it is right across the street from your building that you work at is still there. It has actually gotten bigger. I don’t see humans there. Of course I don’t drive by every day. But there is no doubt in my mind that every one of you that when you drive home, when you drive to work, when you drive wherever you go you see the same trash and garbage that we all see but collectively you don’t want to do anything about it. It is not about the homeless, some people are down on their time, I got it. I just got a text right now. The Little Ceasars, the McDonald’s on Main Street is filled with garbage. People walk by there, people see this. You see this but do you really care enough to make change and fix the problem? I think the answer is pretty evident. You don’t because for the 4 or 5 years that I have been standing here talking about this subject very little has changed.

4. ACCEPTANCE OF AGENDA City Councilor Michael Harris moved, seconded by Mayor Pro Tem John Munoz, to accept the agenda as presented.

RESULT: Carried

MOVER: City Councilor Michael Harris

SECONDER: Mayor Pro Tem John Munoz

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

Mattiace, City Councilor Michael Harris, City Councilor Johana Bencomo, City

Councilor Becky Corran, and Mayor Pro Tem John Munoz

5. CITY COUNCIL MINUTES 5.1 REGULAR CITY COUNCIL MEETING OF MAY 4, 2026.

6. RESOLUTION(S) AND/OR ORDINANCE(S) FOR CONSENT AGENDA 6.1 RESOLUTION NO. 26-144: A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING AN ANNUAL

SPENDING LIMIT FOR OCCUPATIONAL MEDICAL SERVICES WITH

WORKMED, INC. OF LAS CRUCES, NEW MEXICO IN AN AMOUNT NOT

TO EXCEED $300,000 PLUS APPLICABLE TAXES ANNUALLY, SUBJECT

TO APPROVED BUDGET APPROPRIATIONS (PROCUREMENT NO. 25-26-

005). 6.2 RESOLUTION NO. 26-145: A RESOLUTION TO AWARD A SERVICES

AGREEMENT FOR MULTIFUNCTION COPIER AND MANAGED PRINT

SERVICES ON AN AS-NEEDED BASIS TO DOCUMENT SOLUTIONS, INC.

OF LAS CRUCES, NEW MEXICO, IN AN AMOUNT NOT TO EXCEED $300,000 ANNUALLY, PLUS APPLICABLE TAXES, SUBJECT TO

APPROVED BUDGET APPROPRIATIONS, FOR A PERIOD OF FIVE (5)

YEARS (PROCUREMENT NO. 25-26-087). 6.3 RESOLUTION NO. 26-146: A RESOLUTION TO AWARD SERVICE

AGREEMENTS FOR MUSIC AND EVENT MANAGEMENT SERVICES ON

AN AS-NEEDED BASIS TO MELROSE & ASSOCIATES, LLC OF

ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO AND DEGY CONSULTING SERVICES,

LLC OF DELRAY BEACH, FLORIDA, IN A COMBINED AMOUNT NOT TO

EXCEED $300,000 ANNUALLY, PLUS APPLICABLE TAXES, SUBJECT TO

YEARS (PROCUREMENT NO. 25-26-040).

7. RESOLUTION(S) AND/OR ORDINANCE(S) FOR DISCUSSION 7.1 PUBLIC HEARING REQUIRED. RESOLUTION NO. 26-147: A

RESOLUTION APPROVING THE REQUEST FOR A RESTAURANT A –

BEER AND WINE LIQUOR LICENSE, NO. BLA-0000014916, WITH ON

PREMISES CONSUMPTION AND WITH PATIO SERVICE TO NY PIZZA

SLICE HOUSE, LLC., D/B/A NYP SLICE HOUSE, LLC., LOCATED AT 3290

RINCONADA BOULEVARD, LAS CRUCES, NM 88011. Public hearing began at 1:59 p.m. There was no one for or against. The public hearing ended at 2:00 p.m.

Adam Ochoa, Senior Urban Planner gave the overhead presentation.

Councilor Mattiace asked can you go back to slide 2? I noticed when the Alcoholic

Beverage Control, they approved it April 17th and then the time that it took between

April 17th and today, is there quite a process that the city has to go through, is that why all of May?

Adam Ochoa said there is a process. There are set deadlines that we have to meet

not only from the state statute standpoint, from city standpoint as well. Regulations where we have to advertise a minimum of not only 15 days before a meeting, 30 days before the meeting as well and typically they give us a 45-day time frame to get that done is what the state gives us. In this case we needed an extension since the 45 days would have put us on I believe it was on Saturday. So, I don’t think you all wanted to come in on Saturday. So, we got an extension to today. That is essentially the process. It is timing and then just meeting set goals for advertising and notice.

Mayor Pro Tem John Munoz moved, seconded by City Councilor Michael Harris, to Approve Resolution NO. 26-147.

MOVER: Mayor Pro Tem John Munoz

SECONDER: City Councilor Michael Harris

Councilor Becky Corran, and Mayor Pro Tem John Munoz 7.2 RESOLUTION NO. 26-148: 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

FY2026 BUDGET. Gaby Prats, Grants Manager gave the overhead presentation.

Councilor Corran said I just want to throw some appreciation to whoever made the

Wi-Fi go out today as we consider voting on a broadband upgrade, brilliant.

Gaby Prats said hopefully the new systems will prevent that from happening in the future. City Councilor Becky Corran moved, seconded by City Councilor Michael

Harris, to Approve Resolution No. 26-148.

MOVER: City Councilor Becky Corran

Councilor Becky Corran, and Mayor Pro Tem John Munoz 7.3 RESOLUTION NO. 26-149: A RESOLUTION AMENDING THE FY2026-2031

CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS PROGRAM. Cynthia Alamillo, CIP Manager, gave the overhead presentation.

Mayor Enriquez asked can you go back to that last one? Academy roof rehabilitation, what facility is that exactly? Which building?

Jeremy Story, Police Chief said the double-wide on Hermosa. So, $360,000 to replace the roof of a double-wide. That also includes the MAT room, that is relatively small metal building.

Councilor Harris asked can we explain why it cost $360,000 to replace the roof of a double-wide instead of buying two brand new ones?

Chief Jeremy Story said I can’t explain the number because I am not involved in that process. It goes through Facilities, but the roof does need to be replaced. We still utilize that facility until we have something new but it is kind of a shocking number considering the value of the building itself.

Councilor Harris said I guess if anything I guess I would entertain a motion to not do that until we have a good number because that sounds a little, I would present that as an option.

Jimmy Moreno, Assistant Director Public Works said at this point these are very rough numbers and in fact that is why we put a line item for general roof projects because as we look into these projects including the Castaneda Building, once we start looking at it we are looking at different options, as far as overlays, cheaper options as well. So, there is going to be quite a bit of shifting because this is deferred maintenance and there is a lot of unknowns for each of these projects. There is a lot of unknowns but if the amount of cost exceeds what that building is worth in terms of overall costs or what its usage is we will pivot and shift those funds elsewhere as well.

Councilor Harris asked does that require to come back to council in saying hey we are going to change things up we are only going to need $100,000 or we are just going to replace the building for $360,000?

Jimmy Moreno said yes, however we can go ahead and because we have the options with the additional program amount that is in there we can pivot internally and then

Cynthia can come back in a later date to adjust those amounts as we get better amounts.

Councilor Harris said I am just a little uncomfortable. It seems like we have a line item in here that is for general, do we have a line item in here for general roof replacement and why do we have a separate item for the Academy and a separate item for the

Casteneda Building when it sounds like we are just going to pivot and do what is best? Like why aren’t those rolled into the general one?

Cynthia Alamillo said that is one of the challenges and that is one of the roles of the

CIP. We want to make sure that the use of infrastructure funds that we know that is limited we can communicate how they are going to be spent. So here what we decided was that we have the option for those smaller projects where we have the citywide preservation and rehabilitation roof projects for those smaller projects that will be really challenging to quantify and to really spell out but for those significant projects that we want the community to know that we are working on those because those are a need we do spell them out which are those two projects that we have for the roofs.

Castaneda Building roof and the Police Academy roof. So we work with estimates the best that we can as Jimmy mentioned one of our challenges with deferred maintenance is that we might get a few surprises as we start working with the project but we also want to make sure that we estimate and we communicate out of the

limited funding only two projects we can do out of the many that we have pending. So, as we have more funding we can identify more projects to complete but we also have the flexibility of the citywide so that we can address maintenance issues versus major projects like a rehabilitation or a reroof.

Councilor Harris said I get that, but I am personally deeply uncomfortable with allocating that much money as Chief said to reroof a double-wide. I completely understand that it needs to be reroofed and I am in favor if that is how much it cost to reroof it I would much rather we buy a new one and just have a completely new facility because it is a double-wide. That seems absurd. So, is there an action we would take to indicate that to you like do I make a motion to change this plan? I might be the only one who is concerned up here.

Mayor Enriquez said I think I am feeling the same thing. I am in favor of approving what has been presented with the exception of this one and looking for further investigation. I realize that several years back that transit facility that was operating in a mobile home that the roof caved in and they replaced it with a new one which was a lot less than replacing the roof. Ideally, I would like to see a new training facility. That is the whole goal but in the meantime can we make an amendment to approve with the exception the Las Cruces Police Academy roof rehabilitation to be further investigated?

City Councilor Michael Harris moved, seconded by Mayor Pro Tem John Munoz, to amend Resolution No. 26-149 to remove LCPD Academy roof rehabilitation.

Councilor Becky Corran, and Mayor Pro Tem John Munoz City Councilor Becky Corran moved, seconded by Mayor Pro Tem John Munoz, to Approve Resolution No. 26-149 as amended.

Councilor Becky Corran, and Mayor Pro Tem John Munoz 7.4 COUNCIL BILL NO. 26-022; ORDINANCE NO. 3114: AN ORDINANCE

AMENDING SECTION 2-1313 - APPRAISALS OF THE LAS CRUCES

MUNICIPAL CODE. Celina Morales, Deputy Director Economic Development gave the overhead presentation.

Councilor Corran said thank you for highlighting those things in our process that lead to us spending extra money and there is negligible difference between the things. I also just wanted to clarify that if there is something that dramatically changes over the course of time while we are in these conversations my understanding is that staff

could also identify the need for an additional appraisal if there is some kind of catastrophic or change in either the market or the conditions of the property. Staff at any time could also just say that we think that this appraisal might need updating and I want to make sure that is there just in case.

Celina Morales said yes, that is correct. That is the plan. This is mostly also if we are just in the middle of negotiations, it always takes more than six months so if there is any time someone is uncomfortable or not sure about the market conditions then we will just order a new appraisal.

Councilor Corran said great I just wanted to make sure that was still there in the process.

Councilor Munoz said I appreciate you and your team looking at this. This is quite a bit of just a comment, it saves time, it saves costs and I would encourage you to continue to look through your processes to make the entire experience a little bit more user friendly and so I appreciate your work on this. City Councilor Becky Corran moved, seconded by Mayor Pro Tem John Munoz, to Approve Ordinance No. 3114.

8. BOARD APPOINTMENTS 8.1 COUNCILOR MCCLURE APPOINTS CECILIA EVANS DE NORGERA TO

THE SENIOR PROGRAMS ADVISORY BOARD. 8.2 RAYMOND MADSON City Councilor Becky Corran moved, seconded by Mayor Pro Tem John Munoz, to appoint Raymond Madson to the Senior Programs Advisory Board.

Councilor Becky Corran, and Mayor Pro Tem John Munoz 8.3 WILLIAM JESSE MORLAN City Councilor Becky Corran moved, seconded by Mayor Pro Tem John Munoz, to appoint William Jesse Morlan to the ADA Advisory Committee.

8.4 ELIZA ANNE KRETZMANN Mayor Pro Tem John Munoz moved, seconded by City Councilor Becky Corran, to appoint Eliza Anne Kretzmann to the City Art Board.

SECONDER: City Councilor Becky Corran

9. 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). 9.1 None.

10. CITY COUNCIL MEMBER BOARD REPORTS AND COMMENT 10.1 COUNCILOR MCCLURE I feel like in my district in specific the reports of crazy traffic has spiraled in pretty heavily lately. I myself had to dodge someone the other day. So, I was seeing in my rearview mirror and let them go do whatever it is. I try to give grace and think they are pregnant lady heading to the hospital but maybe not all of them. So, I was hoping that in the next couple of months given that we funded the GRT for some traffic calming.

What would that look like? I was hoping they could share some of the projects that might be helpful immediately. I was getting help from PD and getting information in and about a specific area on Spitz and strangely enough I have lived experiences seeing speeding and they said actually in the majority of that area they are driving ten miles an hour below the speed limit. So that kind of information of sort of what do different areas look like and how can we do that? And then also that officer had a good conversation about roundabouts, what that can look like but also future development. Part of it is going to be if we do what we do with Engler and Elks is going to become even more dramatic then it is right now so I would like to see if we can talk a little bit about what those projects could look like so that we can carry that back into our districts and say hey some of these things might happen and make an actual difference.

The other thing I had was I think it is a good time to talk about what public art looks like in Las Cruces in various ways. I know there is always a component of funding for things like that but I applaud people coming up and asking a question of if we have a chance to make a change what that could look like for things like wells.

Lastly, as much as I still love meetings, you would be surprised after all of these, but I don’t like secret ones. So, I would also like to say that we should probably repeal the

Select Committee Ordinance so if anybody else is down for that. Let’s see if we can do that.

10.2 COUNCILOR MATTIACE I just have a few things to repeat from comments from people who live in my district.

There seems to be a lot of loose dogs so if maybe a suggestion maybe we could do it on the utility bills or wherever that you need to keep your dog on a leash. I must get four or five calls a week and I think we had one dog. We had an incident of a loose dog bit a child so if we could do that maybe through PSA notices and educate the public that the dogs need to be on leashes.

I am getting complaints mainly on Espina, some other streets that when somebody occupies a place whether they are building their own tent or panhandling and all. It would be nice to get that trash removed. I don’t know if City Manager can help with that maybe if I report the trash I will gladly do that and maybe we could remove it as quickly as possible so that it does look like our city is being trashed out. Is there fines for trashing? There is also political signs. You know everything is about lawlessness and obeying the law. There is political signs all over in city rights-of-way. I don’t want to offend any candidates and I really don’t care but they need to put their signs on private property and not on city like Spruce and Triviz. That is a city right-of-way. I don’t know if that ordinance still holds? The City Clerk might know that or the county, somebody can enforce that the political signs to be removed from city property.

On crosswalks, maybe the PSA, maybe again with the utility bills we have these crosswalks but it seems like no one is using them and then maybe we can do an education of a PSA again if you are going to cross on Missouri, if you are going to cross on busy streets like University Avenue and I have two ladies, they crossed mainly by the highway where you enter and exit from the highway on University

Avenue and they should be using crosswalks and back to traffic calming. Councilor

McClure, if we could get some calming done on McDowell Road I would appreciate it.

It looks like people are really speeding down McDowell so that is the comments from the people that put us here even if it wasn’t a lot of votes, I am still going to listen to them.

10.3 COUNCILOR HARRIS Since Councilor Mattiace brought it up. I witnessed Mano y Mano crew last week cleaning up trash at a site and they did it very professionally and so I just wanted to echo that that is a great program. It gives people a job to do and it really helps clean up and beautify our city and they did a great job. I would also be in favor of repealing the Select Committee ordinance and studying that. That stuff happened long before my time for sure, but I am also committed to transparency on this council and government in general.

Traffic calming, I also would love to see a presentation from Public Works about things that they have planned, thoughts that they have and have a discussion amongst ourselves about what low-cost rapid traffic calming projects can look like. I think we have got a lot of studies and stuff that have kind of sat on the shelf and with this GRT maybe we can move some of that forward.

Finally, before I get to my relatively long thing, board appointments. We just did some

board appointments and there are some District 3 slots available on various boards so if you live in District 3 and if you are interested in being on a board let me know and I can check with Christine and get an updated list and hopefully we can fill some of those seats.

So finally, I got a lot of questions recently in the last couple of months about Flock and surveillance stuff. So, I have some updates to share and many thanks to Brad and

Chief Story for answering my questions and being very transparent about stuff. So, in no particular order some updates. Our Legal Department is attempting to work with

Flock to change our contract to eliminate provisions for some things that we found objectionable. And I have talked about these in previous meetings. Emergency sharing with other agencies, training of their own algorithms, and review of our data and use in sales demos and stuff like that by Flock’s own employees. We definitely do not want that happening with our data as it has in other cities. We have gotten some other questions about what kinds of cameras and stuff we are operating. City operates a few different kinds. We have two different models from Flock. We have the

Condor, which is a fixed camera. It looks in one direction, fixed focal length and it does do a live feed. We have 22 total cameras. Most of them are Flock branded ones although they do have some of the city’s own cameras and these all go into the Real

Time Crime Center. So, the city does own some cameras, Flock has some cameras,

Real Time Crime Center has access to all of these cameras and Flock is a vendor that helps make the Real Time Crime Center run. We do have LPR cameras. These are the ones that most everybody is most familiar with. They sit on the streets and look over the streets. They can identify cars based on license plates, based on color, make, model of the car and we just approved some money in the capital improvement plan for security and surveillance of city buildings and public spaces. These are not necessarily integrated into the RTC, they are not Flock cameras these are the city’s own system and LCPD does have access to them, but they do have to log in separately to these systems to see it and the data is not shared.

Also, relatively recent development at the request of LCPD Representative Vasquez office reached out and said, “Hey we have got an opportunity for a Department of

Justice earmark in the upcoming funding bill, what do you want?” And so, the city requested a gunshot detection system and asked for $500,000 to fund it and both

Representative Vasquez and Senator Lujan put it into their earmark request so it has been submitted from both sides and it is similar to a request that was funded for

Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office by Vasquez. It is money if and when it actually gets approved through Congress then there would be a process to go out to bid on it and actually decide where they are actually be put. Gunshot detection systems, I should add in most cases Flock spoils it for everybody. They are looking for a very specific type of acoustic signature that is just a pressure shockwave from a gunshot. So, like shot spotter you have probably heard of. That is what that technology is looking for.

Flock of course makes their own gunshot detection system and naturally last year they were like hey we are going to roll out a software update and now we can detect human voices which is maybe not great. So, I do want to make sure we have good policies and oversight into if we install systems to do one thing that they don’t start doing another thing later because of a software update or hey we already have microphones that were installed for a specific purpose but now they can do something else. That is not great and it doesn’t do good things for trust.

Also wanted to remind everyone that the state did pass some limitations on LPRs specifically. SB40 goes into effect on July 1st and there is various restrictions like data sharing. Restricts LPR users from selling or providing data to non-law enforcement agencies and it institutes some reporting requirements on LEAs, law enforcement agencies that use these technologies have to report to the state.

Another question I got was do some of the private people who have Flock cameras on private property share their data with LCPD? Lowes does, Home Depot does not and as private companies they both have to comply with SB40. I don’t personally know if other private Flock deployments but those are certainly visible and people ask about them. So that is my update on Flock because that is one of my issues that I have been tracking and again appreciate Legal and PD for their relative transparency and helping us understand what is going on. 10.4 COUNCILOR BENCOMO Thanks Councilor Harris, also appreciate your expertise on this so I think it is very good that you are asking all of these questions. Somebody recently said that the only safe data is the data that is not collected. I felt like I resonated with that.

Just a couple of echoes. I also would love to have a conversation about traffic calming. The strategy regarding that given that is one of the main issues in District 4 as well and I have felt very similar to you Councilor McClure about a particular road that gets a traffic study and it is actually under the limit and so it just feels like it is a little funny but it also feels like there is also a disconnect between what residents are telling us and the concerns that they are seeing and then like the data collection.

Obviously, the data collection is important and we should trust that and we should also listen to the lived experiences of people in those particular neighborhoods that happen to have a lot of speeders. As a long time and very public critic of the Public

Safety Select Committee when it was in place I would also would love to see that repealed.

Sometimes I debate on you know on how much to respond to public comments because it feels like facts won’t penetrate opinions, but I do think it is important to talk about the very serious approach the city has taken to issues of homelessness, to issues of addiction and I also wish we had them. I also wish we had a magic wand and that we lived in a utopia where everybody’s needs were met and there were no people struggling and the reality is that we have taken a very serious approach in this city and an approach that has been very diverse actually. It has been a housing approach, it has been frankly a law enforcement approach. The majority of last council criminalized acts of certain unhouse folks. We have done the Real Time Crime

Center, Park Rangers, the Opioid Advisory Committee is finally putting out those dollars, and I think often it feels like sometimes it is a very disingenuous conversation being had. I think that if we came to the conversation with honesty and a desire to actually make a difference we would acknowledge all of the different ways that the city has been attempting to address this issue and will continue to. The state has provided the city $11 million that got deployed immediately and I think things have been neglected like prevention to homelessness and ensuring that people aren’t being evicted out of their homes. I think it is also quite convenient to forget or not recognize

that in the last year life has gotten very expensive for many people. Rent has gone up.

Utilities have gone up. Groceries have gone up and wages have not. So I think it is important to recognize that to an addition to all of those things additional barriers have been put in place for people to be able to access for example care for their addiction because they are losing Medicaid or those kinds of programs are getting harder and harder for people to keep so I want us to have a genuine conversation, continue to have a genuine conversation about this because there are in fact a lot of people actually working to address this issue and it is disingenuous to assert otherwise. The gentleman who came here I did not catch the park that he said but you know and hopefully I am sure Natalie is listening and we can help deploy Mano y Mano to the park that folks are talking about because we do have resources in place whether people know about them or not is a different story and that is up to us to get out that information so that people are aware of it but there is a very serious strategy to address the issues that we have in our community and I just want to make sure to uplift those up once again.

Also, Happy Pride. There is a lot of organizations in our community that are working to protect and celebrate the lives of queer and trans Las Crucens and I just want to lift those up and support them in June and in October in New Mexico Pride but also year round like Equality New Mexico, the Trans/Queer Block Party, the Singing Out Las

Cruces, Transgender Resource Center of New Mexico, Southern New Mexico Pride,

PFLAG of Las Cruces, many great opportunities to support our trans and queer community.

10.5 COUNCILOR CORRAN I am bummed that I didn’t get to go first in Pride month. May we all remember that

Pride was a Riot, the first one. Happy Pride to everyone who is out there rioting right now. I have a very specific ask actually that I have to look back to my colleagues too.

The State Land Office has asked the City of Las Cruces to support them in a BLM related land swap with a letter. This is not the land swaps that have garnered a lot of attention. This is really BLM State Land Office direct swap that is not within the city limits but part of their package they would like to have the support of the city council of

Las Cruces so I am hoping that we can have that on the next June agenda for consideration of a resolution supporting that State Land Office BLM thing and I ask all of you to see if there is a majority of councilors who might consider supporting that and putting that on the agenda for next time. So that is my first ask.

Mayor Enriquez said Christine would request a thumbs up.

Councilor Corran said there are like five-ish thumbs up. So that is formally. I just wanted to make sure that I could get that in the hopper to be considered at the next meeting. I also support, I also considered myself a Select Committee critic and to be frank none of the people on this dais were included in the letter as directly named folks from the Foundation of Open Government but they did give something for us to do and that is repealing the Select Committee part of our charter which I think is in chapter 7 or something like that. I support my colleagues in repealing the Select

Committee as part of our charter. I also support the idea of a traffic calming conversation and frankly Councilor McClure, Elks still remains the most hated street

that is not even in my district anymore or sort of is but I share it with you and I still get calls and it is at the top of my list of places that people complained about but I have my own places that folks are clamoring for traffic calming conversations about and that includes everything from people really want us to giant three foot tall speed bumps on their own personal street but I think that is probably not the entirety of what we might be able to do so to see what all of those things are that we can really meaningfully do to calm the traffic including on Elks so again I want to support you on that particular street.

The last thing, a lot of folks often ask us about capital improvement. Cynthia has been doing a really great job telling everyone what our capital improvements plan looks like.

There is a very complicated, convoluted, ever-changing process to ask for capital outlay from the state. The city navigates that every year, but Representative Rubio and Senator Hamblen will be having a capital outlay project workshop here this

Thursday June 11th from 10 to noon. I say this because a lot of community organizations say things like we would like to be part of a capital outlay conversation and how do we get GRO money. But this is how to get money from the state, and this is really outlining the process that any organization can use or cities or people involved in those spaces to get on the capital outlay lists and go through those processes. Again, that is Thursday, June 11th from 10 to noon here in city council chambers so I hope folks will consider joining that and to the Pride. We don’t have a ton of Pride related things happening. We have somewhat moved our Pride to

October when we will have our parade because it is too hot but there are things happening. I do want to just mention that in Albuquerque this weekend Joanne Ferrari our local elected is getting a Legacy Award from Equality New Mexico so that is a really exciting development and then on June 20th at Klein Park, PFLAG is hosting a dress your pet up for Pride and dress up yourself for Pride event so if you don’t have enough Pride garments right now for your dogs and/or cats I hope that you find some at a local business and prepare for that June 20th at Klein Park when people’s rainbow pets will be taking over so that is one of the fun events that is going to be happening this month.

10.6 COUNCILOR MUNOZ Three feet speed bumps worked in Salt Lake City so don’t knock it till you try it. You need to fact check me on that, maybe it is not true. Speaking of traffic, so I don’t know

Chief Story maybe it is a phenomenon that every councilor talked about that today. I have been getting some calls on Sonoma Springs, loud mufflers, racing 2/3 o’clock in the morning. Maybe it is young adults out of school wanting something to do but definitely something to be aware of and I join my voice in looking at traffic calming just for the safety of everyone involved in this and also not to wake up folks at 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning.

Councilor McClure mentioned how we talk about public art. This one I am not sure we need to research this, but from what I understand there was a Native American on the water tower that was removed years and years ago prior to our coming here. That is part of our legacy, part of our history if that is the case if that art goes back up and it is similar to what it is today, I would like representation from a Native American or

Americans on that water tower.

So, we talked about transparency and that is important. I know that for trust it is important to fix things. We are in a imperfect union, but it matters when it is fixed, how it is fixed and that it is fixed so that I know that we will get to that. With that comes trust. In trust develops through access. One of the things that I would like to do is if there is no objections from my colleagues would really ask the staff to help me with this and City Manager is I would like for us to consider an evening session, maybe twice a year or once a quarter where we have a different cohort or a different set of residents who have access to us who are able to provide public input or who are able to see how city government works. With that another consideration would be that maybe we look at different parts of town for access as well. Is it easy to walk to, drive to, spend a little less money on gas getting to a city council meeting where there is access and I know this is a lift for the staff, you work long hours during the day and asking you to spend another 3 to 4 hours depending on public comment, maybe 5 with us in this city session but I think it would open it up for access and trust with the community so I appreciate my colleagues and City Manager to consider evening sessions maybe once a quarter or maybe a few times or a couple of times a year and then look at different parts of the city.

10.7 MAYOR ENRIQUEZ It has been requested several times. I really don’t have a problem if we meet in the evening. I will get with the Clerk and see what we have to do and see what we can schedule. The other thing is the offsite is one I would ask the City Manager and staff to look at because I know the live streaming and other capabilities it always created problems in the past. So that is something that we will have to look at. I am not opposed to having meeting sessions so that we can look at that.

As far as the Select Committee I am agreement as well, since I took office we have not had the policy review committees, and we have not had any Select Committee meetings. Never was I in favor of those as well. Our job is to repeal it and we will get with the Legal and the City Clerk to make sure that gets repealed. City Manager will go ahead and start scheduling a Work Session for the traffic calming so that we can move forward in that direction.

11. CITY MANAGER REPORT 11.1 IKANI TAUMOEPEAU In addition to what Mayor had mentioned. There was a park complaint. It was Valley

View and I appreciate David getting with the gentleman in the back. It was a PSA on

Facebook. It was a complaint that was forwarded over to Parks & Rec and within an hour our staff was responsive and was able to clean up the complaint and it was a wipe down of certain equipment and tossing and throwing away some of the paraphernalia that was on the ground and so I appreciate staff and the responsiveness in addition to other duties that they are doing at the current time.

Kudos to Mano y Mano. Councilor Mattiace, you had mentioned that if there are areas that need to be cleaned. I do appreciate Mano y Mano. That would be the group that we reach out to Councilor Mattiace and so I just wanted to mention that to council.

Again kudos, I appreciate Natalie working closely with them and to Nicole and to the nonprofit for the campus working with them it is as Councilor Harris mentioned we are blessed to have a group to do the job that, it is difficult for our staff, full-time and part- time staff to do so. Mano y Mano really picks up the workload on that and as Mayor mentioned traffic calming, we will get that done and bring it to you as council. I will get with staff on that and then repealing the ordinance, I appreciate staff to my left they will work and get that done as mentioned.

12. ADJOURNMENT 12.1 Mayor Pro Tem John Munoz moved, seconded by City Councilor Michael Harris, to adjourn at 2:57 p.m.

AYES: Mayor Eric Enriquez, City Councilor Cassie McClure, City Councilor Michael

Harris, City Councilor Johana Bencomo, City Councilor Becky Corran, and

Mayor Pro Tem John Munoz

ABSENT: City Councilor William Mattiace

Mayor

City Clerk