City Council Meeting May 18, 2026

MINUTES

City Council

Monday, May 18, 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 HARRIS. City Councilor Becky Corran moved, seconded by Mayor Pro Tem John Munoz, to allow Councilor Bencomo to participate via Zoom.

RESULT: Carried

MOVER: City Councilor Becky Corran

SECONDER: Mayor Pro Tem John Munoz

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

Mattiace, City Councilor Michael Harris, City Councilor Becky Corran, and

Mayor Pro Tem John Munoz

ABSENT: City Councilor Johana Bencomo 1.2 PRESENTATION OF CERTIFICATES OF

APPRECIATION/PROCLAMATIONS - COUNCILOR HARRIS. Councilor Harris presented Public Works with a proclamation for National Public

Works Week. 1.3 DEPARTMENTAL HIGHLIGHTS. Jake Gutierrez, Parks and Recreation Administrator gave the overhead presentation.

Rochelle Miller-Hernandez, Destination Management Director 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 Michael Hayes, Member of the Public said I live in Las Cruces. Four weeks ago, I spoke before City Council to ask Police Chief Jeremy Story two questions which I and then my Councilor had asked him and to which he did not respond. Why did he request the city to seek $500,000 in state funds to purchase SWAT vehicles? And why five of them? As I waited for a response the Mayor inserted to say that the period for civic comment was not the time for discussion of issues. Turning to his left he assured me that the City Clerk had heard my questions and would get back to me.

She did not. The Mayor knew that the City Clerk would not because not getting back to some citizens is part of her job. He knew that he had not complied with my

Inspection of Public Records Act request for records about a secret council committee on public safety. Her violation of the law cost the city $150,000 in legal fees and settlement costs. With the likely concurrence of the City Attorney and the City

Manager she did not comply with the Mayor’s false assurance to me. If the Mayor had wanted to get answers to my two questions, he would have turned to his right and asked Chief Story to answer them after the council meeting, but he did not want me to get those answers. Two weeks later I got answers because of the efforts of others.

Directed to answer my questions, Chief Story replied not to me, who he liabled behind my back but to his two addressees neither of whom believe he is liable. He informed me that the SWAT vehicles are not military style vehicle but merely Ford 150s with emergency lights and decals to support State Police in critical situations in Southern

New Mexico. This answer is unremarkable. So, the question is why did Chief Story refuse to answer my two questions and why did the Mayor and City Clerk shield him from answering them? The obvious answer is that these officials resent my questions, my successful lawsuit to get answers and my public criticisms. In abusing their office, they show among much else contempt for transparency and accountability in matters of public concern. Las Cruces deserves better leadership.

Liz Rodriguez-Johnson, Member of the Public said we continue our efforts to stand up for the disadvantaged in our community. We have brought to your attention on many occasions the fact that the city made a commitment to prioritize disadvantaged properties when inspecting and replacing lead and galvanized piping that conveys drinking water throughout the city. This commitment was made by the New Mexico

Finance Authority in order to receive $15 million in funding and for which the city must repay only a quarter. Unfortunately, the evidence continues to grow that Las Cruces

Utilities is not in fact prioritizing disadvantaged properties. As explained at the April

20th meeting, only 20% of city inspections so far are for disadvantaged properties.

This is unjust. This is dishonest. It looks like fraud. It smells like fraud. This needs to be rectified. Handouts A and B are the fifth set of lists that we have provided

identifying genuinely disadvantaged properties with estimated values of less than $200,000. Like the previous 4 sets of lists, we again ask Utilities to inspect these disadvantaged properties immediately. Handout C is yet another example of a mobile home community that has been left out of the inventory that should also be inspected now. We have asked city management and the Utilities Department numerous times to demonstrate that fraud is not intended by doing the right thing. Getting back to focusing on properties less than $200,000 estimated value. This is necessary to remediate the clear evidence that lower value properties are not currently being prioritized. However, at this point there is no evidence of progress, instead 80% of properties inspected are not disadvantaged. Now we ask for a clear demonstration that the city does not intend fraud. The first way this can be done is to immediately inspect 50 properties we have included on the 5 sets of lists of properties with estimated values of less than $200,000. We have done the work in looking up their estimated values. Of course, each inspection needs to be fully documented. The second way is for the city to immediately inspect 50 properties that Las Cruces

Utilities classify as disadvantaged which are estimated to be valued at less than $200,000. In this case the city needs to do the work in looking up their estimated values. Inspection of 50 properties can easily be accomplished in one week’s time.

We ask that the city demonstrate that it does not intend to defraud by immediately carrying out the 50 inspections of disadvantaged properties. Then all disadvantaged properties in the city should be inspected before even one more non disadvantaged property is inspected absent an overriding reason.

Lynn Moorer, Member of the Public said we citizens are dealing with the Utilities

Department and city management that again and again failed to do the right thing.

They failed to comply with the Lead and Copper Rule, and they failed to behave like decent people. They are certainly not like ducks hard at work paddling their feet under the water rather unfortunately they are supine on the shore chewing gum, laughing and making snarky comments. Councilor Mattiace asked former Assistant Utilities

Director Carl Clark during a meeting February 17th what specific properties were being sampled for lead. Mr. Clark said he would check addresses and suggested that new sampling was underway. IPRA request responses reveal that in reality no sampling at all was carried out in 2025 and because they sample only once every three years as shown at the last meeting in Handout 1 they won’t be sampling the largest water system, the Las Cruces Municipal Water System in 2026 either. Adding to this significant shortcoming is the fact that Las Cruces Utilities is not sampling the tap of anyone with galvanized or unknown piping who requests it. Even though the federal Lead and Copper Rule requires it they are not. Unfortunately, the director has never displayed the courtesy to tell people who requested sampling why the department won’t do it. Management has not prioritized disadvantaged properties despite its explicit commitment to do so. Consider this, a taxpayer owns a property on

North Mesquite Street in the oldest part of the city that is most likely to have lead pipes. It is valued at less than $100,000. She has asked to have her tap sampled but the city has never responded to her request. She cleans house for a property owner who lives on Arrowhead Road. A property valued at almost $600,000 built in 1987 after the lead ban. She is aware that Las Cruces Utilities has tested the drinking water at this property four times. Every third year since 2015. She wonders why city management considers her property not important enough to sample and why the

Director doesn’t have the courtesy to tell her why. Here is more examples of the city’s

not doing right by its citizens. Failure to resample drinking water of a disadvantaged property owner whose lead was 89 parts per billion. The action level is 15. Failure to report lead levels truthfully in the Annual Consumer Confidence Reports, failure to include all mobile homes in the city’s inventory much less inspect them, for 18 months answering virtually none of the public questions. These failures unfortunately demonstrate again and again a lack of honesty and common decency.

Rigo Salazar, Member of the Public said I am a resident of District 1 and General

Manager of Striking Image, a 36-year-old cleaning company based in Las Cruces,

New Mexico that service residents in every district in our city including members of our esteemed city council. I am here today because I believe Las Cruces is facing a threat that is rapidly approaching. A threat that I believe many in our country are actually sleepwalking into. Since late February the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed.

Twenty percent of the world’s daily oil supply has been cut off. The strategic petroleum reserve is being drawn down faster than at any point in our history and just this past week officials in California, the state most dependent on Middle Eastern crude announce that they had 4 to 6 weeks of gasoline and diesel supply left. Analyst at Chevron and JP Morgan have identified June and July as the window when critical shortages start reaching American consumers directly. That is not far away. Now Las

Cruces produces some of its own energy and we are not California, but we are a city where most people have no real alternative to a car. When the stations in El Paso start running dry people will drive here and when the panic buying begins and it will begin stations can go from full to empty in a matter of hours. I am asking this council to act now while there is still time to do so calmly and strategically rather than in the middle of a crisis. Specifically, I am asking for three things. First, fuel purchase limits.

Cap transactions at 10 to 15 gallons. It cost nothing to implement and is the single most effective tool against panic driven dry outs. It worked in the 1979 oil crisis, and it will work now. Second, a priority fueling plan for essential workers, our firefighters, nurses, grocery workers, need to be able to get to work even if lines start forming.

That framework should be in place before we need it not scrambled together after the fact. Third, expand Roadrunner Transit now and advertise it heavily. I believe public transit will become increasingly necessary as the world adapts to a new status quo. I have left a brief summary with the City Clerk that outline these requests and a few more but more importantly with the data behind them. I understand that there are many demands on the City Council but the cities that got through past the energy crisis and without chaos are the ones that planned early. We have a window. A shrinking window and I am asking Las Cruces to use it.

Pamela Court, Member of the Public said I currently serve as President of the School

Board of Las Cruces Public Schools and I also serve on the Community Schools

Partnership Board, and I have done so for the last six years. As you are prioritizing budget items I would insist that you continue to fund our community schools as you have in the past. Las Cruces Public Schools has a joint partnership agreement with you, the City of Las Cruces that establishes a framework to combine resources, budgets, and personnel to transform our now 8 campuses into neighborhood hubs.

Together we integrate academic supports, healthcare services, food banks and family outreach directly into those 8 school buildings. Because of our mutual agreement we are able to tackle non-academic barriers in learning such as poverty, food insecurity and health needs just to name a few so that our students and families can succeed.

Without these supports, students cannot learn. As Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs explains if we don’t satisfy foundational basic needs, then we cannot fulfill higher level growth needs which basically means if you are hungry or frightened there is no way that you can learn. Without the funding provided by city our 8 Community Schools will not be able to provide the services necessary for our students and our families to thrive. The money the city spends on Community School is an investment in our youth which means it is an investment in our city and it is one of the most valuable investments you will ever make.

Fred Huff, Member of the Public said at the first of this year there were 11 illegal homeless encampments in the Burn Lake area. While the park rangers were being trained around mid-January, they discovered these illegal encampments and started getting them removed. The last encampment was removed around February 7th.

What has attracted these trespassers to the Burn Lake area so much? One reason I discovered is when I asked some of them why they came here they said that the

Community of Hope had sent them over to the area but I believe the biggest reason is that unmaintained or abandoned properties are where the homeless people target to set up their abodes because they know that these areas are not being watched. We have seen numerous abandoned buildings getting burned because these trespassers have broken into them and have set fires inside and it is the same story with properties like Burn Lake. If it appears abandoned they will gravitate there. The trees and the brush provide shade, shelter and anchor points for the illegal encampments they build. In the Burn Lake bed they have altered the soil and landscape and have left major impacts within the lakebed. Since these trespassers build illegal campfires the risk of a major fire in the lakebed would be very high. They had started a fire in the lakebed several years ago 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. If the wind had been blowing off the north that day it would have blown across I-10 and caused a major accident over the freeway. The reason all of these encampments have flourished so well is for the last five years or so Parks and Rec and Public Works could not agree on who was in charge of maintaining that area. We now have a new Public Works department head, Mr. Kyle Arend and he has got it figured out and he looks like he is there to get things done. On May 4th city crews started a maintenance project over there and the results have been absolutely amazing and have far exceeded any expectations I had on what the city can do to maintain the Burn Lake area. The trees, brush, and grass has been removed or mowed and the altered landscapes have been bulldozed back to what they are supposed to be. So, a big thank you for making a huge difference in Burn Lake to Public Works Department. Thank you so much, great job.

Juan Garcia, Member of the Public said thanks Councilor Mattiace for bringing up

RVC, Ranked Choice Voting up for discussion and possibly leading to a repeal of this ordinance designed to often disenfranchise voters in our municipal election. RCV negatively impacts voting due to its complexity in understanding the process of the ballot itself. And on the subject of repealing ordinances let’s not forget the repressive tax that came from banning single use bags. Albuquerque scrapped theirs but Las

Cruces clings on to it in the name of “making Las Cruces beautiful” and ridding the city of ugly trash. Fast forward from 2022 and now we have some scenic piles of garbage, bonus feces and trash decorating your every corner plus the city has

pocketed hundreds of thousands since then. The Mayor kept his cool when he was attacked and even cursed in these chambers all because he stood by his faith and backed a pro-life event. Meanwhile we have a councilor who throws a tizz when someone points out problems in our district or turns her back on a citizen during public comment just because she doesn’t like what she hears. I won’t say its childish behavior, let’s just call it unprofessional. And in closing according to the FBI there were 90,178 assaults on officers in 2025, and 53 officers lost their lives to felonious acts. Police FOPs say nonstop hate and dehumanization of the officers makes attacks on cops feel normal even expected. It is just not talk anymore Look at the shootings and assaults meanwhile the head of the Las Cruces anti-police group and its crew keep pushing venom like, “LCPD killed a person in the act of being a person”.

Neverminded the felon had over a pound of meth, 500 fentanyl pills, 28 grams of fentanyl powder, 28 prior arrests and drew a gun. Otherwise, I guess you could say he was an upright citizen. Another gem, more training for the police leads to help kill us better. That is not protest that is irresponsible speech. Stuff like this puts every cop at risk. There are people out there who are unstable or just itching for an excuse to go off. It is only going to get uglier. In my opinion I think the Las Cruces anti-police group won’t let up until another cop gets killed.

Robert Williams, Member of the Public said I am from District 4. I was actually here to talk to Johana Bencomo, but I am here representing a small community school named

Riaces Del Saber and what I wanted to do is I wanted to ask one of you all we are looking for somebody to come say some kind words. First of all, I am the Secretary of the Concilio de Padres of the school, and we are looking for somebody to come talk to our students that are graduating from kindergarten and fifth grade on May 29th. I was going to ask Johana Bencomo. I am trying to get a hold of her, but I have not gotten a chance to do so and I showed up to the office but if there is anyone of you all that can spare maybe 20 minutes of your time please. If you could reach out to either me, I can leave my card or Lucia. Like I say the 29th is the graduation and it would be really nice for the kids. I was very fortunate as soon as I became the Secretary of the council I was really blown away by the student council there which is K to fifth grade, how they put their agenda together. They have an actual agenda with a chairperson all the way down to the secretary and they really do like a really good job. It is very very professional, and they raise their own money and so I would like to shed a little light on recognition for them and if one of you all could do that, I would really appreciate that okay.

Lonnie Montgomery, Member of the Public said I am a follower of Jesus Christ and I haven’t been here in a long time. I am also a person who prays so I am going to pray.

Lord God send your blessing on this council that they may have better discernment and wisdom and that they could make wiser decisions. In Jesus holy name I pray. The last time I was here a fellow man here pointed out that our forefathers were Deis, some of them. No, all of them were Deists. Deists come from Dio which comes from

God which they believe in God, meaning Jehovah, Yahweh, the Great I am and I am a teacher so in this thing here I can preach what I want to but in the riff raff as a teacher I think would dable in history and civics and science and that but I will skip that today and so we will go on to state things and different things like that but Martin

Luther King once said, “I have a dream that my little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but of their content of

their character”. And what have you done in the 21st century? We have promoted

CRT, Critical Race Theory, where the teachers tell the children of color that you are a victim and the light skinned people you are an oppressor. Was this Mr. King’s dream?

I think not. And that is just one thing that is going on in our schools and in the high schools we are supplying books so the students can and I quote a librarian there, “can explore sexuality”. They can learn that it is enjoyable and it is the way to do it. If you want to have sex with your young sister, that is okay if it feels good. How about your young brother? That is okay too. There is also a law that teachers don’t have to inform parents that their son wants to be a woman, that they don’t have to tell them that their son will be given drugs to help him turn into a woman and even have his genitals removed without the parents’ consent. So that is going on time after time and then in

Santa Fe I think they finally passed a law that they are going to teach reading this year. I like this public forum because you can say anything. There is one young man that comes in here and says there is so many police and I have got the statistics but didn’t give them but he can sure use the F word and there is these young ladies here and they bring in the lead thing every time and they put it up here and it goes there and it goes over to the next part and it is like the city council doesn’t give a rodents posterior about having lead in the lead of the water of the people of Las Cruces.

Connie Chapman, Member of the Public said and these remarks are in response to the misleading exaggerated, disrespectful and hateful comments expressed at the end of public participation during the May 4th council meeting. A man proudly commented as if he was some super citizen hero that he had personally “all by myself” called LCPD 127 times in the first 123 days of this year. He stated that 119 calls pertained to issues within District 4 and that he had made them in an attempt to make the community safer for all. He questioned what Councilor Bencomo was doing in her own community to make it safer. The real question is why did he orchestrate the circumstances that lead to those calls? Calls that potentially put people in harm’s way. What was his motive? The vast majority of those 119 calls centered around people seeking shade from a building near the Community of Hope campus which happens to be located in District 4. Let me repeat, he targeted people seeking shade, people waiting for the Community of Hope to open, waiting for a ride to a medical or legal appointment or just maybe they were there simply to eat their lunch in the shade. He decided all by himself that those folks were a nuisance or a potential hazard or a threat and needed to be removed so he proceeded to create the circumstances leading to his 119 calls. What a misuse of our public resources and for the record as a resident of District 4 living near the Community of Hope I have no concerns around my safety from the folks on that campus but I do feel unsafe in a community with a man who would manufacture conditions and then call the police on people seeking shade and then place the blame at the feet of someone else. He ended his comments by saying that he will stand in support of law enforcement against the evil found within our city council chambers. The only evil found here in these chambers is his level of disdain and lack of compassion for his fellow human beings. That is truly evil.

Yoli Diaz, Member of the Public said today I sent over 80 people an email titled,

Urgent escalation and request immediate intervention alleged barriers to cancer care access to uninsured and indigent residents. Described in the email essentially says that Memorial Medical Center did it again. On Friday, May 15th I was informed of a

resident diagnosed with cancer who reportedly was unable to obtain an appointment through the Memorial Medical Center Cancer Center due to uninsured status. This resident reports that she was also not financially screened by Memorial Medical

Center nor Memorial Medical Center Cancer Center after being referred to Memorial

Medical Center Cancer Center by a Memorial Medical Center physician. Thus, unfortunately the usual problem I have complained about is the people, the vulnerable sick people who are not able to get through the Memorial Medical Center door to receive needed treatment at all. My efforts have not been complaints towards care, just those who are not provided the opportunity to receive needed care. I appreciate the work of both City of Las Cruces’ Anthony Turner and Dona Ana County

Commissioner Gloria Gameros in their immense dedication of time to consider all residents in Dona Ana County and their work towards improving the local health care system. I am not surprised with Memorial Medical Center’s action of not providing this resident an appointment. It is the same old problem that I began my advocacy with in year 2021. However, what does surprise me is that Memorial Medical Center C Suite including CEO Dennis Knox continuing to allow these barriers to access to cancer care the most vulnerable in our county while they are being investigated by the New

Mexico Department of Justice and the City of Las Cruces and Dona Ana County lawsuit. One might think that they would show some very real concern and prove that they are serving the most vulnerable as they should. Most often I do not provide personal comments but today I will. I am asking you to try and imagine what you would feel if you were a child again an underaged child and your mother was diagnosed with cancer and she was not able to access an appointment for cancer treatment. Do you think that you would fear that your mother would die? What if the tables were turned. You are the mother or father and you were diagnosed with cancer, would you feel the fear of dying and your child left without you? I want you to put yourself in the position of residents in this position and try to feel those fearful feelings and demount healthcare access to all residents in our community at Memorial

Medical Center.

Fred Miller, Member of the Public said I would just like to request that we keep

Ranked Choice Voting. There are potential benefits to Ranked Choice Voting. The complaint that it is too complicated is specious because you don’t have to rank all the options that you only care about one candidate, just put a 1 next to that one. It doesn't have to be more complicated than that. No more for people who don’t like Ranked

Choice Voting, they don’t have to treat it as ranked choice, they can just pick one candidate as they would otherwise.

Charles Foot, Member of the Public said this morning I met with my radiation oncologist at Memorial Medical Center, Dr. Call and I am three years cancer free. It was a long and arduous journey. It started out in Silver City being diagnosed by the

National Science Institute and then being sent to El Paso, big tumor removed. Came right back. Then sent to Colorado Springs, UC Health and they treated me for about a month and said we are not getting anywhere and you have about three or four months to live. We came back to Las Cruces I got signed up with the hospice program and the death with dignity program but before we left Colorado Springs, we did ask one of the members of that team to at least see if they could find me some palliative care and fortunately, they did. One day the phone rang and I got a call from Memorial

Medical Center, Dr. Call said come see me. Went and visited with him, CT scan, he

said I think I can treat you. It took a year. Quad shots and lots of radiation and then chemotherapy after that but here I stand here today three years cancer free, and I would not be here if it were not for Memorial Medical Center. I hear that there is some grousing going on and there is lawsuits but I would urge you to go sit down in a room and share your differences and work something out. All lawsuits do is cost people money and I think the last thing that this community can afford is if a Memorial

Medical group decided it is no fun doing business anymore, let’s move on and we have nothing. So please if you can pick up the phone, go knock on a door and sit down with them and talk. I think there is a great group over there and I am happy to be here.

Leticia Magallanes, Member of the Public said I am here speaking today for a woman in our community who was diagnosed on May 5, 2026, with breast cancer while also facing another painfully reality she is undocumented and uninsured. No person should have to beg for cancer treatment because of their immigration status or because they cannot afford insurance. Cancer does not ask for papers. Cancer does not care about citizenship. It only cares whether treatment is given on time. The patient was referred to Memorial Medical Oncology in Las Cruces seeking medical help during one of the most frightening moments of her life. Instead of feeling protected and cared for she felt dismissed, afraid and concerned about whether she would receive the treatment needed to survive. Hospitals exist to heal people. Medical ethics require compassion, dignity and equal treatment for every human being who walks through the doors with a patient with breast cancer. When a patient with breast cancer is denied access to the oncology services because of lack of insurance or documentation it raises serious moral and public health concerns to our entire community. We understand hospitals face financial pressures. We understand systems are complicated but there are financial assistance programs, charities, care obligations, patient navigators, emergency protections that are supposed to help vulnerable especially those facing life threatening illnesses like cancer. Undocumented residents are part of our communities, they work here, raise families here, pay taxes here, worship here and contribute to New Mexico every day. They deserve humane medical care. We are asking for a fair review of this patient’s case, access to charity care screening and financial assistance, transparent communication from MMC and MMC Oncology, protection of vulnerable cancer patients regardless of immigration status, accountability when medically necessary care is delayed or denied. Breast cancer already brings fear, pain and uncertainty and emotional trauma. No patient should also carry the burden of feeling invincible or unwanted while seeking lifesaving care.

Health care is not only a business issue, it is a human issue. Today I ask that our health care institution, elected leaders, and community members to stand on the side of dignity, compassion, and equal access to care.

Jim Wilcox, Member of the Public said today I speak to you as the bicycle representative of on the Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee. The City of Las

Cruces is reapplying for a bicycle friendly designation from the League of American

Bicyclists. Establishing Vision Zero goals works towards raising our status from a bronze level to silver level. Unfortunately, after five years we are only hoping to retain our bronze status. In fact, three quarters of our achievements have been from non- profits not from the city such as Safe Routes to School, Everybody Rides with Grace and the Hub Bicycle Repair. Becoming a safe place to bike is good for business. If

you doubt me, please consider what my assistant says. Hey Google, what are the reasons corporations consider whether a city provides safe bicycle facilities when deciding where they will locate? Corporations prioritize safe bicycle facilities during relocation primarily to attract and retain top talent. Particularly younger professionals who value active transit and a strong work life balance, dedicated to infrastructure also supports corporate sustainability goals, reduces the need for expensive parking structures and fosters a healthier more productive workforce with lower healthcare cost. So, some of these are things that corporations look for, and I would say that given this I would expect our business development department to be actively pursuing safe bicycle facilities including Vision Zero goals to attract businesses and improve our economy. Proclamations that Las Cruces is bike-friendly are appreciated but they don’t mean anything to businesses. Results are what matters. Biking is good for business. Don’t leave money on the table and I have left you a written statement of that Google statement.

Diane Starbuck, Member of the Public said I wish to address the issue of reserving the flagpole space. Apparently at least three groups tried to reserve the flagpole in front of City Hall on May 7th. All three of these groups were told different things at different times during the past year they had the flagpole. They didn’t have the flagpole. The city is working on a procedure. The procedure is not available. None of this is fair to anybody. Then I guess in an effort to be fair word comes down that groups need to take turns. Is there any type of written record over the years of who has used the flagpole? How is turn taking to be determined? My issue should not be who or did not get the flagpole but about the process. If there is a procedure for reserving the flagpole it seems to be a mystery. There needs to be a clear public and fair and equitable standard operating procedure for reserving this space. The lack of

SOPs continues to be a city problem. We all remember the hiring of the City Manager and how painful that was to resolve. At that time, I spoke to the City Attorney, Mr.

Douglas, and he agreed that SOPs come in handy. That is the gist, not Mr. Douglas’ actual words. So here is another example of when an SOP would have come in handy. A simple fix would be to say that nobody can use the flagpole. This is not a reflection on any city employee but points to a lack of leadership. I know the city has more pressing issues to deal with other than who is using the flagpole area but instances like these under mind faith and trust in our government. The city government needs to be accountable and transparent. I know you can do better.

Leslie Woods, Member of the Public said congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. You may recognize these words as the beginning of the Bill of Rights. One of our founding fathers, James Madison begins his statement of

American rights by forbidding our Congress from making any religious law or any law establishing a federal religious institution thus establishing a wall of separation between church and state. The First Amendment was violated in 1952 when

Congress declared an annual National Day of Prayer on the first Thursday in May.

According to the First Amendment our government has no right to tell us what our beliefs of a God ought to be or what it ought not to be. Our government has no right to declare the existence or the malevolence of a God any more than to affirm the right to divinity of Christ or the inspiration of the Bible by the Christian God. In 1952 when

Congress passed the current National Day of Prayer resolution, affiliation with a religion and a belief in a God was nearly universal. Mr. Mayor, this is no longer the

case. Today somewhere between a quarter and a third of Americans identify as

Nones. We declare no religious faith and identify with no religious institution. We do not share the sentiments or declarations made in the typical National Day of Prayer resolutions. Unlike the religious we consider the many contributions of the United

States of America to be the advancement of humanity to be work of enlightened men and women. Not the intervention of supernatural beings. Given that the National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional, is not representative of the opinion of all the citizens of the city, we ask you city, councilors for resolutions forbidding National Day of Prayer and any other religious service or ceremony using the grounds of Las Cruces City

Hall. Yes, we are here again and will continue to bring these issues to you until a resolution is made, do better.

Jim Hoerst, Member of the Public said yesterday at our nation’s capital there was a

National Prayer Jubilee. The speakers included the three most powerful men in our government, President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and the Speaker of the House Michael Johnson. The prayer by Michael Johnson included so many falsehoods and distortions of Christianity, Western European history and American history that requires a response from me this afternoon. Speaker Johnson asserted that the idea that all men are born equal and free is a biblical principle and that its inclusion in the Declaration of Independence was due to Christian influence. Mr.

Mayor, that assertion is false. If it were true, the American Revolution would have been unnecessary. I defy any Christian to show me any verse in the Bible that says explicitly that all men are born equal and free. Instead, we find the New Testament verses that say slaves submit to your masters, which implies that the God of the Bible wield some men to be masters and some men to be slaves. Another principle we find in the Bible is the divine right of kings. Romans 13, the idea that secular authorities are ordained by the God of the Bible and men are commanded to submit to them and that anyone who opposes the secular authorities opposes God. In contrast the

Declaration of Independence declares the governments are instituted by men and that men have the right to abolish any government that doesn’t protect their natural rights.

Mr. Mayor you can’t have a Bible that both defends slavery and declares all are created equal and free. Mr. Mayor religious groups are prone to distorting history in ways that put them in the best possible light. This distortion of history is an insult to the intelligence and to the legacy of more enlightened founding fathers like Jefferson,

Madison, Monroe, Franklin and diminishes America’s unique place in history. Mr.

Mayor, please preserve the separation of church and state in this city and base the governance of this city on reason and not religion.

Donna Stryker, Member of the Public said we are supposed to maintain a respectful tone when addressing the city, that doesn’t happen every month, every week, every meeting. There is definitely disrespectful, degrading, threatening or slanderous remarks and they are supposed to be strictly prohibited. I spoke last week with several people to say that they are fearful to come to council because they don’t feel safe. The reason they don’t feel safe is because of the disrespectful, degrading, threatening and slanderous remarks. The intent of public comment is to allow everyday citizens and impacted communities to directly inform government decision making, in train transparency and accountability. It provides law makers with diverse perspectives, highlights and unforeseen impacts and helps agencies craft fair regulation. It is to inform and educate. It allows the public to provide local or technical

information that policy makers may not be aware of. It helps government bodies spot unintended negative impact or proposed rules or projects that may have a negative impact on a committee. It also establishes an official documented record but when there are disrespectful, degrading, and downright threatening remarks so much so that a city person cannot come here or feel safe because they feel threatened by people not necessarily up there but back there, that concerns me as a citizen and I feel bad for them and I just thought it might be good to understand what is public comment really supposed to accomplish. Is it personal? Is it private? Look at me, it shouldn’t be. That is not what it is supposed to be. At least I don’t think this is what it is. Maybe you guys can answer that for me.

Tim Jenkins, Member of the Public said I would ask that we all take a moment to consider and to reflect on National Police Week that just passed us. As an honor and a respect and a thank you to all the men and women who selflessly serve our community day and night. God bless and protect them from this day forward. I stand before you this day as a member of our community that is sick and tired of seeing our police officers blamed for problems they didn’t create. Every time crime rises, every time another repeat offender is back on the streets the first reaction is often to question the police that the truth is officers can only do their job if the rest of system does theirs. Our officers arrest the same offenders again and again only to watch them to be released in the community within days and sometimes within hours. Many of these are repeat offenders with long histories of violence, theft, drug crimes and assaults and every time they are released without meaningful accountability it puts the public and our officers at a greater risk. We ask police officers to run towards danger.

We ask them to stop violent people, break up domestic disputes, respond to overdoses and to confront armed criminals. Then when they do their job and make arrests too often the same system turns around and sends the same offenders right back out into our community. This only creates frustration in our community, burnout in law enforcement and danger for everyone. Supporting police means more than just saying thank you during ceremonies. It means creating a justice system that actually backs them up. Accountability matters. Consequences matter. Public safety matters.

Our officer’s safety and wellbeing matters. I am not saying every person belongs in jail forever, rehabilitation matters as well. The repeat violent offenders who continue to threaten the public should not keep getting endless chances while officers and citizens have to pay the price. If we truly want safer neighborhoods and streets, we need honest conversation about where the system is failing and not keep blaming our officers. We need leaders willing to stop treating police officers like they are the root cause of every problem in society. Our officers deserve support. Our residents deserve safety and our community deserves a just system that protects law abiding citizens instead of repeat offenders over and over again.

George Pearson, Member of the Public said I am Vice President of VeloCruces, a local bicyclist and pedestrian advocacy organization. I would like to thank you for the recent Work Session on Vision Zero and traffic safety. The presentation gave a good explanation on Vision Zero and the idea that the only acceptable number of traffic deaths is zero. The importance of using the safe systems approach was explained where we understand that people make mistakes and the built environment needs to anticipate these mistakes to reduce the severity of crashes. Using proven safety counter measures we can create a safer environment for all modes of transportation.

The presentation talked about the Safety Action Plan that is underway and funded by the Safe Streets for All grant but once again it seems that we are waiting for some future action before we implement any meaningful traffic safety solutions. Five years ago, we adopted the active transportation plan but for the most part we have been waiting on finding an Active Transportation Coordinator. Now we are waiting for the

Safety Action Plan. At the Work Session we heard how in 2019 Albuquerque committed to Vision Zero by 2040, showing progress with the 7% decrease of fatal crashes in 2025. El Paso adopted a Vision Zero goal in 2022 and is showing results with about a 15% decrease of fatal crashes in 2024 and almost 25% decrease in

2025. Do we have to wait for the Safety Action Plan to make any progress? Why can’t we start now with the low hanging fruit? Let’s pass the Vision Zero resolution and join the Vision Zero network. Let’s change the default speed limit for unmarked roads from

30 miles an hour to 25 miles per hour. Let’s evaluate speed limits that they are consistent according to roadway function not changing along the same segment of road and no higher than 35 miles an hour on any city surface street. We should do a crash analysis studio treatment for fatal crashes, not to determine blame but to prevent future similar crashes. Let’s update city ordinances to reflect changes in state law for the idle and stop, we have talked about speed safety cameras, but we have not moved forward on any implementation. When we address safety issues for vulnerable road users, we make the road safer for all users. Please let’s not kick the can down the road waiting for the Safety Action Plan. We are already years behind

Albuquerque and El Paso. Let’s start immediately and prevent future fatal serious injury crashes now.

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

Community of Hope. First, I want to say thank you for funding the Health Related

Services Fund for all of the agencies that applied. I am speaking today to offer context on this process. I have been through many cycles, and I have seen the process shift from competitive to at times an inequitable ranking of partners. The process requires a letter of intent to apply and when you get the thumbs up for that and then you can submit a full grant from there and then after a few months, we show up over the course of two days. We are required to make an evening presentation to the committee members and our peers. We then get publicly ranked with the discretion of the committee members. It is shall we say humbling. It is also rare. We certainly don’t do this for HUD or our federal granters. When awards get smaller and the process is highly competitive it is our clients who suffer. I know that Community of Hope depends on the amounts given to fund a unique program that doesn’t have access to many funding sources and if we were to change that I wonder which agencies would get more and which client programs would be crushed by the changes. Many of the agencies are already working on shoestring budgets pieced together by various funding sources. All of our agencies are connected, and I speak for myself when I say that I feel happy when everyone gets funded at an equitable amount. They are all doing amazing work. I pause if Casa de Peregrinos doesn’t get funded. What happens to our client food allotments? We need a stable equitable funding model.

The clients served by agencies like ours and our partners depend on consistent reliable sources and not a lottery of which committee members show up to rank us. In fact, we have seen declining participation from the committee itself and only three members present at the last several competitions. I know it can’t be easy for the committee members to decide when there are so many agencies doing important

work for vulnerable residents of Las Cruces. I am grateful to the members who are making the effort to support this funding. I urge the council to move away from competitive grant cycles for these essential services and toward a partnership model.

We will still uphold rigorous monthly and annual compliance and reporting, submit the grant applications but we must stop treating basic health and hunger needs as a competition. If you are not just going to add us a budget line item, we should be, at the very least please do away with the presentations and consider funding all agencies at a higher level. Let’s face it. We know that the issues we are addressing for constituents are not going away. Hunger, health care, diabetes, domestic violence, homelessness, helping people with disabilities and cancer. Let’s fund our partners at the levels needed to keep our community healthy. I would love to discuss this further with any of you interested in making some of these positive changes for the Health

Related Public Services Fund.

Alberto Del Campo, Member of the Public said I am an organizer with the New Mexico

Dream Team here in the community of Las Cruces. There is an evident disregard for working families in Las Cruces. Just by the recent comments made before there is an evident through line going from preparing for a shortage of fuel crisis, utilities impact on household value of under $200,000 and the city’s failure to respond to water testing request from low-income households. To asking for support for students as they continue their studies emphasizing how lack of access to food and how poor housing conditions impact their performance. This is what we mean when we talk about community health and safety. It means providing your constituents with the resources they need to thrive. A lot of the concerns brought up in the earlier portions of public comments exposed to painful violent reality of the failure to identify what makes our community safe. Our priorities when assessing city funding are wrong. The slogan of defund the police is seen a room splitting violent statement. The reality as presented by the police department is that crime has risen even while funding for the police continues to grow higher and higher. Listen to the request made of you by the constituents in this room who have highlighted the total disregard for working class families’ health and safety in this city and recon with the fact that as you continue to pour funds into the police you are also taking on the violent act of defunding our communities. This community is strong and resilient. Many initiatives here are volunteer led and have to be direct material impact and the days of everyday people who live here. This is a strong community even without government funding so please stop defunding our community.

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

MOVER: City Councilor Michael Harris

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 WORK SESSION OF APRIL 13, 2026. 5.2 REGULAR CITY COUNCIL MEETING OF APRIL 20, 2026.

6. RESOLUTION(S) AND/OR ORDINANCE(S) FOR CONSENT AGENDA 6.1 RESOLUTION NO. 26-140: A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE CITY OF

LAS CRUCES TO ENTER INTO AN EXISTING CONTRACT PURCHASE

AGREEMENT FOR MATERIALS TESTING SERVICES ON AN AS-NEEDED

BASIS WITH GEO-TEST, INC. OF LAS CRUCES, NEW MEXICO, IN AN

ANNUAL NOT-TO-EXCEED AMOUNT OF $300,000, SUBJECT TO ANNUAL

BUDGET APPROPRIATIONS (PROCUREMENT NO. 25-26-106). 6.2 RESOLUTION NO. 26-141: A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE CITY OF

LAS CRUCES TO ENTER INTO A PROFESSIONAL SERVICES

AGREEMENT FOR INDEPENDENT LEGAL SERVICES WITH MARK

GEMOETS DBA THE LAW OFFICE OF MARK GEMOETS IN AN AMOUNT

NOT TO EXCEED $140,000 ANNUALLY, SUBJECT TO APPROVED

BUDGET APPROPRIATIONS (PROCUREMENT NO. 25-26-104).

7. RESOLUTION(S) AND/OR ORDINANCE(S) FOR DISCUSSION 7.1 RESOLUTION NO. 26-142: A RESOLUTION ADOPTING THE MUNICIPAL

BUDGET FOR FISCAL YEAR 2026-2027 FOR THE CITY OF LAS CRUCES,

NEW MEXICO ON MAY 18, 2026. Lesley Doyle, Finance Director gave the overhead presentation.

Carol Brey, Quality of Life Director continued the overhead presentation.

Steven Bingham, Parks & Rec Director continued the overhead presentation.

Kyle Arend, Interim Public Works Director continued the overhead presentation.

Ikani Taumoepeau, City Manager said I appreciate the opportunity to share appreciation for staff and especially to Lesley and the Budget Team for doing this with under-resourced staff. We didn’t rehire positions and so Lesley not only being Finance

Director she acted as a role of Budget Manager and that is something that we don’t plan on filling because of the budget reduction so there are impacts happening but kudos as well to all of the staff 1,800 employees trickling down from the department heads allowing them to look at their required reductions and they having the direction to work with their staff and I appreciate mine and several managers and staff who are listening online here today, everyone took part in these budget reductions. I would love Lesley if you could go to slide 15? This is probably my favorite slide here because it shows a bit of the picture of what is happening here. There is a lot happening here and I just wanted to point out to council and to those online and we have a lot of staff paying attention as well. We have two times that the lines intersect and whenever the red is above the green that means we are out of balance and we have to work towards a balance. So, it intersects at 19, FY20 and it also intersects at

FY23/24. I want to bring to everyone’s attention and remind everyone that what has

happened here because in FY27 we have red and green going in separate ways and if we don’t bring them back and bring these lines back we are going to be in trouble and it is not sustainable so thank you to council during Work Session last time giving us the direction to start bringing these lines together so that the green can at least balance. It is our goal as staff to always balance the budget. One thing that maybe missed is why is green above the red in FY21 and this is something that you all may remember but destination-based taxing occurred during this time. This is why revenue spiked. Revenue spiked during this time. Essentially whenever you make an online purchase the local municipality can now get part of the GRT didn’t exist before

21. This is why we have a spike and because of this spike we were able to do things that the city had never done before. This is when three things occurred and so because we have additional revenue with city we are not trying to make a profit so council worked closely with staff to start raising the quality of life for employees and I would like to remind the public what happened. We raised the floor so that nowhere full-time positions exist in the City that you will get paid less than $15 an hour for a full-time position. So that is one that happened. Number two we raised the premiums so the employer right now covers 82% of the premiums and an employee only covers

18, which before that was 60/40. Third there was a class and comp which essentially is an analysis that looks at all the different positions in the city and we do our best to get all employees to where they need to be closer to market. It is not perfect. It is always a challenge to get everybody there but all of that cost money. All of that is great and staff and council if you would defend that because that is what makes us become the employer of choice and be that employer of choice and also treat our number one asset as they should but there is a cost to that and as you can see the red line continues to grow and in the next line Lesley as we see because of what you have done and the decision you made at Work Session and for all the work that staff has done we see the lines coming together. This is what I appreciate and hopefully this is where we continue to go so that the lines will intersect and we can balance the budget. Again, I just want to say thank you to all the staff. We could not have done this without you and there are impacts and thank you to those department heads that shared with those impacts are and we are asking staff to do a lot, 47 additional acres and not hiring additional staff can be tough but I appreciate that because the staff that

I have seen, that I have heard from are working with this challenge as an opportunity to reset, to reimagine the a level service that we can do for our community and for our departments and I want to thank staff and I want to thank you as council.

Councilor Corran said this is very powerful and very painful to those of us who are not wanting to reduce services at all. I really appreciate you working on this, bringing it up so that we can have a facility in understanding this graph and also considering all of the departments contributions as they have gone along so thank you to the city staff who I know worked on coming up with a plan to do this in the best way possible in which is still extremely painful and I don’t think any of us wants this to be a persistent approach in how we offer city services so I appreciate all the staff who have thought about this and continue to think about being really economical with your efforts and I hope that this is an investment in the future as much as it can be for our future sustainability. I just want to appreciate you and folks who have been contributing to this and also acknowledge that it is not without pain on the part of the staff, on the part of the folks who are going to feel the impact and the part of us as decision makers so I want to acknowledge that. I do have some worries about the future. We got this

explainer on oil prices. We know that electricity prices are going to be changing in a direction that is going to affect us very dramatically probably and we know that water will become probably more costly in the immediate near future or so. We have been able to preserve our staff. We haven’t been able to preserve our services at the same level. I am curious, I guess I would just like to speak to the two committees that are formed I hope that they can also do some future casting for those types of things that are going to increase at a rate just like this when health insurance increases at a rate that we have no control over but have to continue to respond to. Those are three variables that I can think of in the next three years that we are going to have to have dramatic changes so I am hoping that the committees that are working on this can consider those things as well as variables. The staffing things I really appreciate that we have kept staff in place and continue to plan to give staff a small increase in wages but as we consider staff, community service impacts, I hope that we can also add those externalities to this. I think health insurance, whatever our projections are we should probably increase the way that we are calculating that. I think that is also true of our basic utility and considering the use of natural resources in particular that we will be having to pay a premium for. So, I hope we can do a little bit of conservative estimations in the future and that will be part of those two committees while they are talking about that. That is also to say that I hope that in the future we can have more conversations about what this looks like. If you can extrapolate the graph a little bit for us? And I hope that maybe mid-year we can have a little bit of a discussion about what this is looking like in terms of our impact, in terms of our budgeting for the next year when we start the budget conversation. I would love to see this graph with some of those additional projections in the future so that would be my hope and I do really appreciate you including me having a meltdown last week of not being able to read a bunch of graphs so Lesley herself was helping me in that context so I really want to appreciate you and all the staff that have put their work into that and those are my requests at this time and acknowledgement that this is painful.

Councilor McClure said I also want to thank you and your staff. This is squeezing blood out of a rock, and I know this is hard and it is hard choices that we have to make but I guess we are the nitpickers so I am going to pick one nit, and I do think that we need re-fund the Community Schools. I have only been a part of it for 6 months, but what I have seen there is speaking directly to some of the needs that people are asking for is how do we actually reengage with our larger community? We are asking teachers to do so much, and this is our moment to step up and be a part of that village, and I think $60,000 is really a little bit more of a squeeze we can do. For those who don’t know this is an ask sort of for Community Schools’ coordinators. So, what they do is basically, that is the person who realizes that a kindergartener is not coming to school wearing the same clothes every day. And someone else is hungry and we can leverage our resources in very actionable ways with these coordinators. I would also like to say that the caveat as much as the afternoons for the library is going to be hard because that chest club is really great and I have a bunch of kids that are loving it. I know other people are going to see some of these issues and it is probably going to get me kicked out of the book club if I say may be we can squeeze maybe just a little bit more for things like the library where we will see just an explosive growth because of some other choices we made but when we are talking about our youth I do think that we need to fight for them a little bit more. That is what the community is asking for and so I am going to have that ask too that we look at that

a little bit more. Like what Steven said earlier to as preserving the core and when we are making sacrifices, I think our families all will sacrifice. You know what, I am not going to have Netflix, but my kids are going to get shoes. If we are at that level right now that is where we need to be. I think that too is specifically what Councilor Corran said, that is a legitimate ask for our future. This is investment. This is also so that we can look at longtime like, we are following these Community Schools from elementary to how did they end up in high school? If we cut it now, we are not going to be able to do that. I do not want to pull more out for Quality of Life. If this has to be a Telshor

Fund ask I will make that request. I hope my other councilors would be willing to say that $60,000 is something that we can do right now.

Councilor Harris asked on slide 27, speaking of the Telshor Fund, maybe not 27, 26 if we are paying NAT out of the Telshor Fund, if NAT then turns around and sells a property not that we are getting a huge amount off of those things does that go back into the Telshor Fund?

Lesley Doyle said yes, If the cost of abating property is paid from Telshor then any sales would also go back to Telshor.

Councilor Harris asked on 29, Fleet, obviously this was before my time why is Fleet zero in 25/26 and it is new in 27?

Lesley Doyle said this is because in prior years Fleet was actually considered an internal service center and this would be the first year that we would have moved it to

General Fund so there was actually no General Fund expenditures related to fleet in prior years.

Councilor Harris asked we still spent money on it, it just came out of other parts?

Lesley Doyle said that is correct.

Councilor Harris said of course, and I think as with everybody else I greatly appreciate slide 21 that shows our debt going down into the future and I fully support continuing that trend. So, my other comments are also about quality of life. I really appreciate the thinking of consolidating services to the digital services to the stuff people will use more. I had some initial concerns about that but then I talked with Sarah about it and that seems like it is on the right track, and I am also concerned about the Community

Schools’ funding. I do understand though that we probably have other funding methods. I want to continue funding Community Schools, but I also think that there are other funding sources that we can use for that that are going to come up later in the summer maybe the Telshor Fund is an option. I think we might have some discretionary Opioid Settlement Funds that will be coming up for discussion in the future as well and some of those programs align with what the Community Schools coordinators are trying to do anyway so those might be interesting ways to continue those programs. My last comment is on the food. While I am perfectly happy to forgo lunches for city council meetings and events I think that we do need to fund food for our teen programs and kids because that is why you show up and it is probably not that much money if we need to scrounge somewhere to come up with $10,000 from

the $5 million that we are still structurally deficit, I don’t think that is a huge ask but that is a really important thing.

Councilor Bencomo said thank you so much Lesley for your team and City Manager’s team and all the directors for getting us here. It is obviously incredibly difficult to sit in this position and have to hear the kinds of cuts that we are having to make, especially in Quality of Life. Not going to lie, I think those, not that some matter more than others, but I think there is just that some cuts that have a very direct impact on people’s lives. I am sitting here thinking about the backdrop that this is happening in, right? We are watching the State of New Mexico have fairly healthy budget with like historic high reserves where we are watching some federal volitivity happening. I know that every day some people in our communities, like every day Las Crucens are having to make very similar kind of decisions in our household every single day and so none of this feels good and none of it feels right and I think for everyone every time we ask can we save this I know that something else is going to get cut. So, I think those are just important considerations as we move forward and think about the stakeholders involved. I am curious about what was that conversation like with the

Superintendent or LCPS around Community Schools and the crossing guards. I am curious if you can provide any sense of where they are at?

Lesley Doyle said that conversation happened with the City Manager and the

Superintendent so I will defer to him to speak to that.

Ikani Taumoepeau said I talked with Ignacio and I told him we would hold it for one more year on paying about $330,000 for crossing guards. I think it is important for context to share that we are one of the few cities that pay for crossing guards in the state so it has come to our attention as we are looking at anything and everything from all departments that was one of the things that we looked at on why we are paying that. Obviously not of the reason of importance as we know that education is important, it is just we noticed a pattern that we are one of the few that are paying that. So we agreed with Ignacio that we would pay it one more year and they needed time to figure it out since they are funded from PED and the state that they would figure it out and we will take that off our books if that would be our recommendation to council to take this off our books so that we can have more capacity for our internal departments.

Councilor Bencomo said thank you for having those conversations. I think cultivating those relationships is important for our moments like this where you are going to have hard conversations so I appreciate that. I also am thinking about why I am so adamant about the new GRT fund being more diversified and not one project being overly funded versus the many priorities that we have in our community, right? Parks,

Public Works, you heard it from them about getting and making these difficult cuts and yet we are also trying to make those pots smaller with the GRT funding. To me that doesn’t make sense, right? I think this is one of the reasons why I want the public so badly to understand that running a city is deeply complex. It is not just one department. It is not just two departments that must be fully funded. It is every single department does incredibly valuable work that touches the lives of people and we just have to remember that. I mean I would ask for the public to have some grace around

this to try to understand the position we find ourselves in given the insane frankly increase in health care cost and those kinds of things that are really out of our control but you also don’t have to. You can be as frustrated especially if your life will be impacted. You know I certainly want to hear from folks and continue to have conversations so that the city can manage these better. The last thing I will say is that one of the biggest concerns that I have is that I don’t think as a city as a whole we take our liability risk seriously. I don’t think this is something that we are willing to face and talk about and make some changes to and I think it is going to continue to be a really big crutch, and I hope that changes. It hasn’t since I have been here and I get a lot of push back when I talk about it but I certainly hope that being in this position helps us better look at how much of our liability risk is a pretty serious crutch here. So again, I just want to thank all the staff, all the directors, and budget staff for sure. I am sure it hasn’t been easy. I am sure it has been lots of sleepless nights, so I really appreciate you getting us here.

Councilor Munoz said I would like to look at slide 28 or 6 to talk about franchise fees and cannabis. Before I do we look at these numbers, we look at projections. We want to balance the books, and I appreciate all of the hard work that has gone into this. The bottom line is that when we finish talking about this the bottom line is people, it is the people who are out there working for the city trying to do the best job that they can and have to work through this. Working faster, working more efficient, optimizing. That is appreciated. It is also the citizens who and the residents who pay their taxes and expect services as well and so I know this has been a very difficult exercise. It has been a very difficult ask and it is totally appreciated. Especially as frustrating as the

Community School funding. Last couple of weeks I spent some time with some schools. I went to Mayfield High and spent some time with some students there.

Some artists, up and coming artists. They were so passionate about the work they did, and they explained different techniques that they use and how long it took to come up with their pieces and how excited they are about furthering their education in their craft. I spent some time with Picacho, East Picacho Elementary School, young elementary kids that are so curious, so innocent. They are so engaging. I could not leave without taking a slice of pizza because they forced me to eat some. I don’t know if it was Peter Piper or Little Caesars but no they were like eat with us, eat with us.

The questions they asked, they asked me, what exactly is a Mayor Pro whatever that is Pro Tem? What is that? So, I explained a little bit. One young student raises his hand, I know what that is. It is like a substitute teacher. Well maybe it is. Then I topped it off with Alma De Arte. They invited me to their Mariachi Conference. It was amazing. Sold out crowd. Probably a couple of hundred students learning Mariachi music. Mariachi music is not simply a few folks at a restaurant walking around singing but actual historical and cultural music where the original composers learn from the master composers in Europe and traded back and forth where Europeans learned from folks in Meso America and also vice versa where the conductors and the composers in Mexico learned their music and so these students for a few days learned how to read music, learned how to play together, learned how to play with different students in our area. It was just extraordinary. The disappointing piece was that the director told me that he had to turn away hundreds of students because there was just not enough room and we have been talking about engaging our youth, our young adults and helping them grow. So particularly frustrating I understand. Let’s get to slide 6, slide 28. Cannabis seems like there is a significant amount of monies going

into the state coffers but not flowing down to municipalities or maybe that is just my perception that it seems to be getting a bigger cut of the excess tax. Do you feel that maybe that might change or things will balance out in the future where we may see an increase there as far as revenue coming in?

Lesley Doyle said I don’t. I see it continuing to be flat if not decreasing.

Councilor Munoz said that is disappointing. As far as franchise tax. Are there any other opportunities to grow that or do you see anywhere we could optimize that in the future as well?

Lesley Doyle said there are a lot of different areas that touch franchise fees.

Kyle Arend said I don’t have a lot of information on the franchise fees other than it effects a lot of infrastructure often.

Ikani Taumoepeau said it is true what staff has said that various departments touch this and work with this. Right now, we receive about 1.5 million from EP in franchise fees and that is something that is being discussed and whether an increase of franchise fees can come back. We can do that, we brought it to a Work Session, to council to see if we could bump that. I think that it is about 2% looking for an additional percentage to total 3% and with that additional percentage they talked about energy efficiency for LMI community, low to moderate income community. In addition to that broadband, every time that they are looking at our easements we charge them a tax as well as a franchise fee, sorry not a tax but a franchise fee to connect. That is not voting well for us, but we also receive franchise fees from our own Utilities as well. So there is a combination of things but if you are asking me I would love to see what we are looking in as we are looking at franchise fee agreements with boardbands so that every time that they are touching our roads and getting into our easements that we can charge them and ensure that we are charging them a linear fee and we are looking to ensure that we are charging them market rate on that so we can look into that.

Councilor Munoz said that is what I want us to do. The two committees that

Christopher and Mandy are leading, and the teams and stakeholders look at opportunities to optimize to be more efficient, to increase revenue within a positive way. I also want to ensure that from at least my perspective as you are looking at services and something is super critical and you are seeing the effects on that and the community and your employees. I want to hear that feedback, that pushback. We won’t or at least speaking for myself I am not going to take that as we are not a team player but someone who is saying wait a minute, we have cut in certain places and we have tightened up and I get it and in this area after we have reviewed it for a while and we have tried to make this work it is not working and from what I understand the committees will come back and keep an eye on that and provide some feedback on that piece and provide other feedback perhaps on how we can get some additional revenue that we may be leaving on the table. What I will say is that with those committees and with employees I have had an opportunity for the city to work and spend some time with the city family and tell you that the folks are hardy people. They

work hard and I appreciate that and again as we work through this together. We will get to the other side. We will get to the side where it is going to involve communication, it is going to involve creativity and anyway that we can be supportive please let me know.

Councilor Mattiace asked can you bring up the slides for the committees you created,

I guess? With the City Manager’s permission and possibly yours could I spend some time with these committees and give some suggestions? I have some suggestions and I would like to look at each particular department and then look at its impact and how many people it is reaching. I am really upset with the Quality of Life and the sacrifice that Carol has to make and again with Parks. So, would that be okay? And to actually sit with them and find out how they are doing it. How they are doing the assessing and looking at the revenue and then on their diligence. When we give money out whether it is hundreds or thousands, to make with Parks. So, would that be okay and to actually sit with them and find out how they are doing and how they are doing the assessing and how they are looking at the revenue? And then on their diligence, their due diligence. When we give money out whether it is hundreds or thousands or millions of dollars, do we have their financials and what they do with the money and do we get that? Do you get all the information back that they are doing

IRS revenue, state and they are properly spending the money. Is there accountability on some of the millions that we give it out to whether it is nonprofits or different departments, or it is developer. I would like to look through all of that because it seems like there are millions of dollars that have come into the city of Las Cruces and

I realize the debt retirement is enormously high for a city this size. Is it not?

Lesley Doyle said I believe that it is, yes.

Councilor Mattiace said if they would value my experience. I have been around a few years.

Councilor Corran said Councilor Mattiace you don’t even attend closed sessions.

Ikani Taumoepeau said to answer your question on the opportunity to meet with staff and the two committees, the Realignment Committee and the Revenue Efficiencies, I would afford that opportunity to be offered to you or any of the council members that would like to meet with them. As they are coming up if you wanted to share your thoughts you could share, absolutely you could share your thought, but I would ask that that opportunity comes to you, all councilors if you would like that that is afforded to you.

Councilor Mattiace said thank you, I wanted to make sure it was proper and it met all the legal stages of approval. Thank you for that statement and I promise I won’t take a lot of their time up.

Councilor Harris said I have one other comment just to kind of piggyback on what

Councilor Munoz was saying about franchise fees and stuff. Something else that I would like to make sure we are looking at when studying that is making sure we are reimbursed for damage to public right-of-way and structures. Whenever you bore a

hole through the sidewalk or through the street or gas has to come out and has to locate for utilities and they have to dig a pothole. It might seem like a small little patch the size of a piece of paper or something, but you are still cutting into the roadway and that decreases a lifetime significantly and so like Kyle was talking about we are having to prioritize pavement fixing and things. So, we need to make sure that we are being compensated for the decrease lifetime of some of our infrastructure that is being caused and I understand that we might not have an existing fee structure for that. So, since that was mentioned and it just popped into my mind I just wanted to mention it.

Lesley Doyle said I do know that is something that we are working on a process for that so that is something that is on the radar.

Mayor Enriquez said again like it has been said over and over. It is very difficult and very challenging so thank you to all the staff, City Manager and everyone. It is difficult when you have to cut so I thank everyone for that and the efforts and the attempts. I share with Councilor McClure as well that I think the Community Schools have been something that has been moving forward in a direction that we like the relationship and partnership with schools to not lose opportunities with their facilities and after school programs and things like that. So, I definitely want to see if that can be looked at and the onus is really on this continuous strategy, strategizing team that is going to have to look at that like monthly. I mean stay on it, see what our revenues are, see what our expenditures are and if it comes to again if we have to go into the Telshor

Fund for things like that I would advocate for it as well so that we don’t lose out on services and opportunities for our community. I wouldn’t say that we do that immediately because that is an impact right now in quality of life and for the partnership and what we want with the Community Schools. I want them to continue, and I know there is other impacts elsewhere that other departments are going to feel and so if we continue to work and see what this Revenue and Efficiencies

Realignment Committees and see where we are at and where those impacts are.

Again, Bencomo mentioned the GRT and we have that deferred maintenance and that is what a lot of that is for, that if we have some of those maintenance and issues that come up. We can always look at that for addressing some of those issues so those pockets, the opioid, the Telshor Fund, or even some of the GRT for critical infrastructure on things and then again mid year really start addressing those issues and see where we can really start to come back and really advocate for funding for different areas where they are being impacted the most. That is where I am at with that. I really feel strongly as McClure, I think everyone else here with the Community

Schools and see what we can do to start looking at that closely and not lose any ground.

Councilor Harris asked since there is interest in preserving the Community Schools funding is that something that we need to do something about? Make a formal motion to do that?

Mayor Enriquez said I believe it will still be continuing, it is just been reduced. So that is something with this I believe with this realignment committee to focus and look at and see how we continue. We don’t want to lose any positions, or anything based on

that dollar amount but see how we can continue to move forward as if it was there and then if we need to add to it later then we can bring it forward. Will that work or are we looking at?

Lesley Doyle said I think the best approach would be to continue with the budget that we have as it resides in Quality of Life and then the additional 60,000 we could budget from Telshor if everyone could be in agreement with that.

Lucas Herndon, Member of the Public said I would like to say out loud that it is disheartening to sit through this presentation and watch a presentation about services being cut after we have spent almost full year talking about how to spend the GRT money to the benefit of this community and then to look through the budget as being drafted here and voted on apparently with out a slide or a presentation from the Chief about what the cops are giving up. Where is the slide? Where is the slide about where they are not getting a racetrack? Where is the slide about where they are not getting their new vehicles that get 20 miles to the gallon speaking to the point earlier about fuel crisis. How is this city going to come to the voters and ask us to vote on a bond for the library which I very much support, library folks don’t come for me. I am here for the library, but when you are asking us to fund this new library with cut services what is the point? It has been said many times in different ways that a budget is a moral document and the morals of this city council moving this budget as approved today on the backs of workers with a 1% raise meanwhile the cops continue to get their raises every year, year after year. They get their new toys, they get their new racetrack, they get their new cars with not a blink from anybody on this council, shameful.

Sierra Alminster, Member of the Public said I would like to echo the disappointment. I know everyone is disappointed in seeing these cuts to quality of life and ya again I would also like to echo the fact that it is just disappointing that if you look at the police budget, the funds that are going to the police, the GRT money that is going to the police I feel like it doesn’t reflect the economic situation that we are in right now but if you look at any other area in life in Las Cruces it very clearly reflects the economic crisis we are in right now. I have heard it brought up you know, this was brought up in the public comments that we are calling the police the root cause. I am not calling the police the root cause I am saying that we should be funding to fix the root causes of crime and unsafe communities which is not having quality of life for the community members. When I look up the type of funding that the police department receives, when I hear numbers like 1,750,000/1,964,000 or specifically 450,000 secured by

Heinrich for camera trailers, drones, automatic license plate readers, auto activated car and body cameras. I find it hard to believe the sob story of why the police need such a huge portion of our GRT money. This feels a lot like the GRT meeting of trying to figure out where to put these tiny amounts of money, making cuts here for that and again just the aspect of that we are not saying, we are saying to fund the community and it is really tragic to not see that reflected of all aspects, of all departments and that the community are the ones that are having to take the biggest hit for this.

Linda St. Clair, Member of the Public said I am the President of the Friends of

Thomas Branigan Memorial Library. As you know from my emails, I care a lot about strategic budgeting, and I was very pleased to see the creation of two committees to

start looking at things a little bit more strategically in terms of trying to get more alignment and increased efficiency. I do think those are important and of course you know I am disappointed in any cuts that are made to the library but I do want you to know that the Friends of the Library will be working very closely with Carol Brey and

Sarah Booth to try and make up as best we can some of the cuts that have been made so that the library is able to meet the needs and the expectations of the community, Councilors Mattiace and Harris, we have money for food. That will be done. Not a problem. If anybody on the council would like to suggest other areas where they would like to see cuts not made, Councilor McClure, evening hours. Come and talk to the Friends of the Library because that is what we are here for. That what

Friends are for is to try and help and make up when there are problems. I am really pleased to be able to do that to the extent that we can. We just had a book sale last weekend, I don’t recall seeing any of you there spending money, you should have been. It was a great sale. We made $1,645, goes into your food budget. But finally I want to thank all the members of the council and the staff for answering my myriad of questions and listening to my ideas and so some of them which are not fun to listen to and some of them are not as well baked as others are but there will be lots more questions going forward so I hope that you will continue to be patient with me. City Councilor Cassie McClure moved, seconded by City Councilor Michael

Harris, to amend Resolution No. 26-142 to add 60,000 to the Community

Schools from the Telshor Fund.

MOVER: City Councilor Cassie McClure

SECONDER: City Councilor Michael Harris

Councilor Becky Corran, and Mayor Pro Tem John Munoz City Councilor Becky Corran moved, seconded by City Councilor Michael

Harris, to Approve Resolution No. 26-142 as amended.

Councilor Becky Corran, and Mayor Pro Tem John Munoz 7.2 RESOLUTION NO. 26-143: A RESOLUTION APPROVING THE CAPITAL

IMPROVEMENTS PROGRAM (CIP) FOR FISCAL YEAR 2027 THROUGH

FISCAL YEAR 2032. Cynthia Alamillo, CIP Manager gave the overhead presentation.

Councilor Corran said I really appreciate the weight of all of the unfunded projects and also the process that we use to determine how we are going to fund things, the updates that come and some things that have no funding whatsoever and I think streets is the place where I have seen this the most. I was wondering and I know you are pretty nerdy, affectionately I say, I know you really like data and are always thinking about this and I appreciate the way that you think about that but I was wondering if you might be able to at some point when we are doing CIP updates or something in the next however long, forever, there could be some kind of cost, some

kind of rough number that is included with this about our delay cost that is, we put it off on average each project costs 10%, 12% more and I understand that is effected by a lot of externalities and I am not saying for every project. I just mean generally. I think it would be helpful for us to understand what it means when we say yes we are going to do this at this time, no we are not going to do it for three years, no we are never going to do that we just put it in the outer years and hope for the best money raining down from somewhere that there is a building cost to that but sometimes we do a plan and it is and that is the amount that we go with even though and the next year it is totally different from that so I am just hoping maybe you could include a little bit of not getting stuff done costs to help motivate us to think really critically about this. And again, it is just a mild request, but I think that weighs heavily on me and I think about

Fire Station 9, specifically, which is a very clear example that we used GO Bond funding. We had a number when we started four years ago and a few years in that number was different and I know that there were changes both to change what it was going to look like to make it more in budget and the cost of the things that were happening but the slower we do things the worse that the steeper that becomes I think that graph and so I would love something included with this related to our dilly dally tax that we might be incurring as a city.

Cynthia Alamillo said that is part of the conversations that we need to initiate with departments given the large need for future funding we need to strategize and we needprioritize and make the hard decisions as to what projects get funded versus which ones not. So that implies what happens to a project if it does not get the funding as initially planned. So, it will include that in our conversations.

Councilor Harris said I appreciate the forward thinking that goes into our capital improvements. I agree that it would be nice to know if we don’t get those projects done now, okay in the next five years and when we do actually get it done it is going to cost twice as much and so maybe we need to go ahead and get it done. The other comments I have are kind of related. Looking at this slide. Seeing half a billion dollars for FY2028, that is a statement, I don’t know if it is a helpful number and what I mean by that is that we have so many projects that just saying that we have a billion dollars’ worth of projects and is completely overwhelming and nobody can plan for that because everybody knows that we are not going to fund them for a billion and half dollars’ worth of projects. So, it is good to know that we have all of this stuff and kind of this is our end goal, but I wonder what and also this is me coming in new, I am new to council, new to CIP of course. Would it be more helpful for us as a council to give directions that are more genericized? You have the categories in CIP plan like instead of having our nitpicky political fights which obviously is our job is to nitpick and pick politically nice topics, but like if we just said we want to put $10 million towards road improvements this year and every year from a variety of funding sources. I don’t know what that looks like procedurally and $10 million is just a number I came up with, I am sure that doesn’t even touch the road improvement budget. With that kind of maybe categorization level direction be more helpful and staff can be trusted to say, okay, council decided that since we have this big pot of GRT money for instance, and we want to fix and 60% of it goes to infrastructure improvements and that is the only number we say. Here is 60% we have vague idea projects like we are not holding you to those necessarily do what need to be done and then staff would go in and do what needs to be done. I am open to feedback on that suggestion or more details on what

the process actually is and maybe I am right and that is what you already do so.

Cynthia Alamillo said there are tradeoffs in how the capital improvements program is managed. If we have just programs or just generalized programs there is flexibility on how funds are spent but then the tradeoff is given that we have limited funding. If we spell out the projects, we communicate to the community why and how those limited fundings have been able to spend and to what project. As we mentioned we have about 311 projects and so making that decision as to what gets funded, it is critical and it is not simple. So, it is just tradeoffs. One thing for the other. What we want to do is make sure that we have a reason as to how our limited funding is used across the boards in different capital projects. These are projects that are significant, they are visible, and they are expensive, so we want to make sure we are transparent as to how those capital funds are invested or spent. But like mentioned there are tradeoffs as to how much can we providing flexibility how much can we probably alleviate some of the operations versus what is the end result, but we can continue the conversation as to finding ways. So, we have engaged in conversations with departments to understanding the needs for the future for years, understanding additional strategies as to how can we prioritize and be strategic about the projects that get funded. City Councilor Cassie McClure moved, seconded by City Councilor Michael

Harris, to Approve Resolution No. 26-143.

8. BOARD APPOINTMENTS 8.1 None.

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 COUNCIL BILL NO. 26-022; ORDINANCE NO. 3114: AN ORDINANCE

AMENDING SECTION 2-1313 - APPRAISALS OF THE LAS CRUCES

MUNICIPAL CODE. Council agreed to bring it forward. 9.2 COUNCIL BILL NO. 26-023; ORDINANCE NO. 3115: AN ORDINANCE

AUTHORIZING THE EXECUTION AND DELIVERY OF A WATER PROJECT

FUND SUBORDINATE LIEN LOAN/GRANT AGREEMENT BY AND

BETWEEN THE NEW MEXICO FINANCE AUTHORITY (“NMFA”) AND THE

CITY OF LAS CRUCES (THE “BORROWER/GRANTEE”), IN THE TOTAL

AMOUNT OF $1,969,331, INCLUDING A GRANT IN THE AMOUNT OF $1,772,398, AND A LOAN IN THE AMOUNT OF $196,933 EVIDENCING AN

OBLIGATION OF THE BORROWER/GRANTEE TO UTILIZE THE

LOAN/GRANT AMOUNT SOLELY FOR THE PURPOSE OF FINANCING

THE COSTS OF DESIGNING, CONSTRUCTING AND REPAIRING LAS

ALTURAS DEL SOL WATER STORAGE TANK AND BOOSTER STATION,

AND SOLELY IN THE MANNER DESCRIBED IN THE LOAN/GRANT

AGREEMENT; PROVIDING FOR THE SUPER SUBORDINATE LIEN

PLEDGE AND PAYMENT OF THE LOAN AMOUNT AND AN

ADMINISTRATIVE FEE SOLELY FROM THE NET SYSTEM REVENUES OF

THE JOINT WATER, WASTEWATER, AND GAS UTILITY SYSTEM OF THE

BORROWER/GRANTEE; CERTIFYING THAT THE LOAN/GRANT AMOUNT,

TOGETHER WITH OTHER FUNDS AVAILABLE TO THE

BORROWER/GRANTEE, IS SUFFICIENT TO COMPLETE THE PROJECT;

APPROVING THE FORM OF AND OTHER DETAILS CONCERNING THE

LOAN/GRANT 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/GRANT AGREEMENT. Council agreed to bring it forward.

10. CITY COUNCIL MEMBER BOARD REPORTS AND COMMENT 10.1 COUNCILOR MCCLURE I just want to thank everyone for your support in Community Schools. I think it is very important and I am just glad you all helped with that along as well.

10.2 COUNCILOR MATTIACE None. 10.3 COUNCILOR HARRIS I have two comments, actually three. One which was brought up in public comment as one of the councilors who was questioning how we awarded those Public Health

Service Funds I appreciate the suggestion to kind of change that model. So, I agree with the allocation. What concern me was the words that were being used in how those grants were processed and I think Nicole’s comments earlier sounded interesting and I would be open to a Work Session or something to approach that further. Other thing is I had this in my notes but also Councilor Bencomo mentioned it,

I would be interested in a Work Session or departmental highlight on risk management and our liability risk and things that are being done to reduce those things. I know that is something that is being worked on and we have to pay this $6/$7 million to those things in this budget and a lot of that is because of stuff that happened in the past and we have new programs that ought to be reducing that. On the PD side, on the HR side, just across the board and I think this would be very interesting for us and the public to kind of learn more about that.

Likewise, it was mentioned that Public Works was having a hard time responding to copper theft and I understand that we might be looking at or staff has been looking at ways to discourage that more and so I would be interested in taking that up at a future

council meeting as well. 10.4 COUNCILOR BENCOMO Thank you Councilor Harris, I agree with both of those. All of your suggestions actually including looking at that process for the awards and definitely for the liability risk. I just have one comment that I want to make today. Last week I got a very interesting email from a very passionate 10-year-old in our community, resident of Las

Cruces who wanted to express her concern regarding the number of chickens allowed in the city and she is advocating for us to raise that to at least 10 chickens. Honestly, in this economy I think that is a really valid suggestion and I am wondering if this is an administrative ask? I am wondering if the number that currently exists in the code, if it came up because of certain health reasons or if there was an arbitrary number. I think it is a very valid request from this young lady and would love for us to have that conversation and whether it can happen at or not. I of course invited her to come to public comment so hopefully we will see her once school is out for the summer.

10.5 COUNCILOR CORRAN On this chicken question I genuinely do not remember how we came up with that number, but I don’t remember that it was a public health related. I don’t think it was a public health related and I don’t think it was related to a particularly robust research process. I can say that I didn’t do any research in understanding what the best number of what urban chickens might be but I do know that we have very explicit other restrictions on noisy roosters but chickens, I don’t know but I will attest that I don’t think that is a particularly well researched part of the ordinance so I would help in figuring out how to change that part of the ordinance as well. I actually also had a really interesting conversation with someone because a potbelly pig arrived at the shelter and we weren’t clear, we weren’t sure if a potbelly pig was something that people could have or not in the city. Yes, they can, Brad is shaking his head but great conversations and in that case it is a bummer because the pig ended up in the shelter but I really appreciate the person that reached out to you Councilor Bencomo. To that idea of animals the shelter had on Thursday of last week 62 animals came in on one day and about 40 kittens, 22 dogs, or something like that. And so, I just want to reaffirm what Amelia mentioned earlier that you can save a life. I have a whole bunch of supplies to help someone if they want to foster, including a little backpack if you want to carry the kittens around with you, but the shelter is being inundated with kitten season and a combination of other factors that they are experiencing. So, I do want to speak to the power of fostering and how important it is at this moment.

Last, I want to just call out, Thursday we will be having the ribbon cutting or grand sort of discussion at the Peachtree grand opening although people have been living there for several weeks if not a month or so now. That is 144 units coming online for people in District 5 near a middle school and elementary school and the apartments are amazing and I think they are almost all leased or pre-leased. Then the second phase will be coming up pretty soon, so I am very excited about that grand opening and to welcome those folks to their new neighborhood and to our neighborhood 10.6 COUNCILOR MUNOZ As move forward I would like to encourage my colleagues to consider the Youth

Council that we have been talking about in pushing that forward. If I go back to the

Picacho elementary students, right after that I was meeting the Economic

Development team, it is a team we should definitely support to bring in revenues with a company that was coming in, investors, there is leadership, a very innovative idea and will create a good number of jobs here in Las Cruces but I thought it was a little late but I couldn’t get away, I couldn’t get away from the students that were interactive and engaged and they talked to me about water usage and recycling and safety.

These are elementary kids who are so intelligent and I wanted to thank also Chief

Daniels for sending some firefighters there. They spent some time with them, ate most of the pizza but they had great patience and great time with the kids, and I appreciated that and I think about today. We talked about the budget, and I will tell you that there is a stat of 44%/45% of couples break up or divorce because of finances. I don’t want to see a divorce, but I want us to have honest direct conversations which I think we did. It was a difficult conversation, but we will work through it together. This is our opportunity to really be creative, to talk to each other, to not just survive but to thrive through this because when we think about this it is really about our future. It is about our youth, it is about the kids and what type of community we are going to leave them. 10.7 MAYOR ENRIQUEZ We have all talked about the youth and we all talked about the Community Schools and things, so I just wanted to say thank you to our Police Department. One of the things that has been gone for years in our schools is the DARE Program and on

Friday was the first graduating class at Conlee elementary for the DARE Program.

Helping students make good choices to eliminate drug and alcohol from their lives and this is a great program and we are going to continue it and keep moving forward and that is why I said that the partnerships with the school are so vital to our community and also for our youth. I just want to thank the Mayfield High School

Football Booster Club that brought back the Gus Macker again this past weekend and there was over 200 teams, a lot of youth competing and having fun on the courts and it is a good thing. With that, thank you again Police, Fire, Public Works for providing services and helping with that event. Again, brings activities to our community, brings

GRT to our community and just gives an opportunity as Mayor Pro Tem said so that our community can thrive and that is what we want to do. The budget, the cuts it is difficult. It is tough. It is challenging. We have got to see how we can reduce and be better and be high performance organization is what we are looking for to serve our residents in this community and so again I thank you all for that task that has been very difficult and challenging but like everything else we will get through it. We will get through it and we will thrive.

11. CITY MANAGER REPORT 11.1 IKANI TAUMOEPEAU I wanted to share one thing, and it might be a bit longer than normal. I did want to be a bit more personal today if I may. Last week at city council I appreciated some of you who knew Jonathan Delgado and shared some words. I did not personally know him, and it has been my goal to try to get to know the person he was. So, I would like to share a few thoughts if I may. Some of you may have noticed that I am wearing a pin.

This is a pin that I got from his vigil. It is of him and in life many of us have lost loved

ones and it is so easy at times to move forward and so I have been trying not too far forward before taking the time to really understand who this gentleman was. Jonathan

Anselmo Delgado-Naegele tragically passed away on May 3rd. But since that time, I have made an effort to learn more about Jonathan, his work, his life, his relationships and the impact he had on so many people. Two Fridays ago, I made a surprise visit to our museum’s staff to check in with them, connect with them and to visit Jonathan’s office. I am grateful to staff members like Brian who took the time to walk me around and introduce me to everyone and to Garland Courts and the entire team who made time for me that day. My heart continues to go out to all of our Las Cruces museum staff including Mina Stafford who was here earlier, Shelly Richard and everyone who worked alongside Jonathan. Last week I had the blessing of attending Jonathan’s vigil at the historic Railroad Museum. When I arrived, I could not find parking. I parked a few blocks away and when I walked towards the museum, I noticed that there were several events happening at the same time. At first, I thought there must have been some poor planning or competing events in the same space but when I arrived, I quickly realized something much more meaningful. Those were not competing events, they were organizations and people Jonathan had worked with that support, that he empowered and advocated for. In many ways the full parking lot and the busy museums were a reflection of Jonathan’s life. Full of people, purpose and full of community. I had only planned to stay for a few minutes at the vigil, check in with staff and quietly leave. I even stood next to the exit door thinking that would make slipping away easier but then the floor opened to people to share their stories about Jonathan and I found myself unable to leave. Story after story was shared about his kindness, his passion, his charisma, his courage and his ability to bring people together. As I stood there listening all I could think about is the regret I felt that I had not had the opportunity to know this amazing individual while he was still with us. Jonathan was only 28 but his impact was far beyond his years. He was an educator, an organizer, a curator and a bridge builder. Through his work with Las Cruces Museums, his service to young people, his relationships with community members and his deep love for Las

Cruces. He showed what public service can look like when it is rooted and purposed in heart. I also had the opportunity to attend his funeral this past weekend, and my heart and prayers go out to his parents Mr. Anselmo Delgado-Martinez and Ms.

Kathryn Naegele-Delgado, to his family, to his best friend Dom, to his girlfriend Lilly, and to all his friends who were truly like family to him. Jonathan’s life is a testament to the kind of extraordinary people we have working for the City of Las Cruces, people who serve quietly, who poor themselves into the work, who build community, who make a difference in ways that we may not fully understand until we stop and listen.

May Jonathan rest in peace and may his family, friends, co-workers and all who loved him be comforted by the incredible legacy he leaves behind.

12. ADJOURNMENT 12.1 City Councilor Michael Harris moved, seconded by City Councilor Becky

Corran, to adjourned at 4:36 p.m.

SECONDER: City Councilor Becky Corran

Mayor

City Clerk