Work Session Meeting April 27, 2026

MINUTES

Work Session

Monday, April 27, 2026

Immediately following TIDD Board Meeting

City Council Chambers, City Hall

PRESENT: City Councilor Johana Bencomo, City Councilor Becky Corran, Mayor Eric Enriquez, City

Councilor Cassie McClure, City Councilor William Mattiace, Mayor Pro Tem John Munoz, and City Councilor Michael Harris

ABSENT:

1. AGENDA ITEM 1.1 NMSU COLLEGE OF HEALTH, EDUCATION AND SOCIAL

TRANSFORMATION. Dr. Rick Marlatt, MFA Associate Dean gave the overhead presentation.

Councilor Harris asked what would you say are the main barriers, you graduate a bunch of teachers, what are the main things keeping them from staying in the region, in Las Cruces, in New Mexico in general?

Dr. Rick Marlatt said I think some of the challenges have evolved. When I first came to NMSU in 2017 we would perennially lose our graduates to Arizona, Texas, Utah,

Colorado who offered higher salaries. That has changed and as you can see, specifically in our region in the south we are experiencing fewer and fewer teacher vacancies every year, so we know that more of our graduates are staying in New

Mexico which is great. The pay is one part of it, a significant component of it I would say but we have really leaned into and benefitted from strong support from the state in terms of being able to pay our student teachers and teacher residents during either their final semester or their final full year in the program. As a graduate of a teacher preparation program myself, any amount of money was more than I got paid when I did my student teaching. We really want to support our students at NMSU are resilient, gritty. They know how to persevere. Many of them are raising families of their own. Many of them are the bread winners in their family. Many of them have responsibilities that us as faculty we serve a large number of first generation students,

a large number of English learning students, students who don’t necessarily always have had the opportunity to be in the know on how the academy works and how the job pathways work and so really leaning into supporting students from beginning to end in that regard. So along with being able to pay students for their final practicum stage which is a huge retention piece being able to retain those students. We also are able to lean into more kind of intensive mentoring making sure that we have really outstanding teachers and we have so many with whom we partner in the state making sure that our students are learning from them, they are observing them, they are interacting with them, they are collaborating with them, interacting with students, many diverse students and understanding that New Mexico is a special place and making sure that they know that we want them to stay and there are incentives for them to do so. We have been able to partner with the state, I have a few different partnerships and collaborations that we have through the Indian Education Division of the Public Ed Department. We have a couple of grants what we work with that focus on recruiting and retaining Native American teachers, social workers, and school counselors. Our faculty do a great job of making sure that we have good relationships with legislators, good relationships with strong supporters who are advocates for our program and so it is a real partnership and making sure that when they cross the stage that we have that personal relationship and we are with them you know sort of beyond commencement ceremonies and making sure that the mentorship stays alive and well so it is always a work in progress but we are making really strong gains and we are proud of that.

Councilor Harris said beyond salaries which as city council we can’t help with of course, not that you are asking us to. Are there things that we can think about as we are talking about projects in the community, partnerships with the public schools, things that the city can do to make this an attractive place for your students to stay and beyond teachers, nurses, obviously everybody in the college?

Dr. Rick Marlatt said starting point is this right? The opportunity to come before you and hear what the concerns are and hear the opportunities. We have a number of programs in the college like public health comes to mind, social work comes to mind that are not necessarily tied to a specific entity or agency. We place students in schools obviously, obviously hospitals but a number of community serving agencies on the mental health side, behavioral health side or just in general public service. We have a lot of programs. We are excited to think about innnovatiely how can we tailor our internships, and our apprenticeships to meet the needs of the community. I think understanding potentially what some of those needs are and how our students could help move programs forward, support programs, assist with any of the work that is happening and we obviously know there is tremendous work happening in the city and so I think that would be a great place to start is tying up those, connecting those opportunities with maybe some of the needs that the city may be having.

Councilor McClure asked I just want to shout out the fact that you are also part of the

Community Schools with us and I think these are the steps in terms of collaboration where do we look to overcome that town and gown barrier which is what we talk a lot about with NMSU being sort of an entity to itself, the city in being an entity and how can we overcome that but I think when we talk about when I had spoken to you about doing this presentation what does it look like? And I think these sort of small steps

where we can say, hey what needs do we have, right? We use Crimson Research all the time, I don’t know if it gets the shout out that it does to a large degree so things like this I am just very thankful that you guys, you came to present specifically on that because I had heard to the positive news about keeping teachers, keeping social workers and what that might look like for our community especially since there is such a need for it, so thank you very much.

Councilor Mattiace asked are you familiar with the LIGHT program of Las Cruces Fire

Department?

Dr. Rick Marlatt said I am not familiar with the LIGHT program.

Councilor Mattiace said I was just going to maybe have them connect with you as well as Chief Story because we have gone to social workers not only on the outreaching when we have calls and I think LCPD could connect with you maybe provide some employment if they qualify as well as the LIGHT program which is becoming a really good program.

Councilor Bencomo said that is a great point Councilor Mattiace, and I know that our

LIGHT team and our MIH team are both very well connected with the School of Social

Work already, if they haven’t done internship placements in the past, I know that they were looking into doing them in the future. I am an alumni of the Social Work

Program, my stepdaughter is about to be a freshman at NMSU in the School of Social

Work and so I try to stay in pretty close contact with the School of Social Work and I know those to programs do as well and so hopefully you can have the opportunity to meet them because I think they are pretty incredible. You could say marketing for the

School of Social Work as really incredible products of our education.

Councilor Munoz asked I would like to know on average how many nurses you are graduating a year? That number is so important. I read that by 2030 we will have a shortage of probably 3,000 to 4,000 nurses in the state of New Mexico which is probably the most severe gap in our country, so we want to make sure that they feel part of the community, that they feel spoiled here. I don’t know if it is inviting them to a picnic or to be on our kickball team or something to that effect. I know that we have nurses at my company, my workplace and during Nurses Week, which is coming up,

May 4th they are certainly welcome to come here as we read a proclamation, but we tend to spoil our nurses, barbeque, Italian, sundays throughout the week. So again, what do we do and you don’t have to answer that right now but how do we engage more with you and your program? But on average could you tell me how many nurses we are graduating a year?

Dr. Rick Marlatt said I want to say that if there is a barbeque and if there is a kickball game HEST will be there and it will be nice to have some nurses on hand for a kickball game, I think. So, with our accrediting criteria and the current capacity of our faculty in the program we were able to admit 64 nurses in each cohort. So, the number of graduates across the stage for the BSN is going to fluctuate from term to term but I can tell you that they are our largest graduating program each semester.

The pinning ceremony that we have each semester, we are in all of the Corbette

ballrooms now, which is exciting and so just seeing the numbers is robust. This last

December I want to say that we graduated 25 in the DMP, the Doctorate of Nursing

Practice alone, which far exceeded. That was NMSU’s largest graduating class of doctoral students and graduate students across the board, 64 on the accredited criteria that we have for our current capacity, always looking for opportunities to increase that capacity and serve the state. Going back to Councilor McClure’s notion about Community Schools, we are really trying to be innovative. Our accrediting bodies, especially in nursing, are flexible enough with us to ensure that we can give opportunities like for Community Schools who maybe has an opportunity to shadow with the school nurse or to work in the clinic at La Clinica de Familia and a couple of the schools for example. Those opportunities are there and so we want to make sure that all of our students know that there is those traditional pathways and traditional clinical experiences but there is so much more out there for a robust and all- encompassing education and that is what universities should be about and so we are looking forward to that but would love to continue looking for opportunities there. I know that the traveling nurse occupation is pretty popular. My niece is a perfect example of that. As a young person I think just being able to hit the road and have that flexible schedule is enticing but so is Las Cruces and so is our communities and our hospitals here so lots of work to do. Some good things happening but more to come.

Councilor Mattiace asked can you expand more on the expansion of the clinic and what it will offer and the services are offered to just the students?

Dr. Rick Marlatt said we have a number of clinics in the college and one of the nice things is as we review kind of the workforce, the academic piece then the community outreach is it is kind of as a great platform for all of those things to interact and so in for example our Papen-Aprendamos Autism Diagnostic Center, that is one of two autism diagnostic clinics in the state of New Mexico. I believe when we first started accepting clients the waitlist was 18 months for families in this state to have their child to be seen. We have cut down on that waitlist tremendously. Clients are currently seen in the communications studies building, but when we do open up in O’Donnell we are going to have more space. They will be right next door to the Speech and

Hearing Center which has been around for a long time. I think 60/65 years but a lot of those diagnoses and those clinical interactions are shared among us clients and so having them all together is going to be really really amazing. The autism diagnostics center has 18 and under client that we serve, as well as over 18, adults. I just joined the ADC team for their presentation. They did a training for the Gadsden Independent

School District last week and I want to say they just served a client, he was 77 and that was their eldest client to date and so really trying to be broad and have as large a capacity as possible to serve students and families and children and adults and they do come from all over the state to have our services and one more piece there is our graduate students in the program get to actually do their practicum and apprenticeship with faculty in those spaces. So, learning how to interact with clients and learning how to apply their professional programs into actions is great.

Councilor Mattiace said the reason I brought it up was again make you aware that we have a Telshor Fund and it is basically a fund from Memorial Medical Center that goes towards health needs so next time there is applications or maybe this council

could see with wisdom and their heart, I think that would be a great thing. I think that clinic would be wonderful to help because it serves so many hundreds and probably a thousand people in an annual time so that would be really getting a lot bang for the buck.

Mayor Enriquez said I appreciate you coming today and as you have heard I think we are all looking at seeing how as a city we can be a better partner with NMSU and I personally just want to thank you for your engagement, your involvement. You mentioned Comminy Schools and then this weekend we were with the civic bees of the panel middle school students always looking to foster and help the youth. I am happy to say that here in the City of Las Cruces we do have a Public Health

Coordinator now and has been working as you mentioned the partnership on the homeless, mental health, substance abuse survey and strategic plan, working with

NMSU and that is Anthony Turner, he is right behind you. I don’t know if you have met him personally, but he is a good contact to have. That is what we want to see how we can be better partners and better with public health in the community whether it is the

LIGHT program, MIH, whether it is our case managers, with Senior Programs, our case managers over at the court system. All of those Anthony has direct contact with all of that so that we can make sure that we streamline it and be better partners with

NMSU when it comes to health. 1.2 2026 LEGISLATIVE UPDATE. Christine Rivera, City Clerk gave the overhead presentation.

Councilor Corran said I know that there have been some other things coming in that are sort of through state agencies appropriations. Like I know that the Animal

Services Center, we approved the grant for this a little while ago, got a grant related to some rehabbing of the building, a capital grant through I am not sure but Public Works got that grant. Again, I am not completely clear on, but I think we have gotten a bunch of other things that are sort of like the grant for the Amador. I don’t know if there is a similar way that we can add those to the total. Those cats would be even happier, right? I say for the future if there are any other things that are just on your radar that you know that are coming through as much as I really appreciate our legislators and what they do and I know that the other side of the house in Santa Fe is really trying to support the City of Las Cruces not to say that one is that one is better than the other just that I think those other funds are really appreciated as well so if you could and I know that this is adding to your work load but I know you see these things come through and in the future next time we can maybe add some of those other things if you know that they are coming in or if you know they are a part of it but I do want to thank you for keeping track of this, keeping us really well informed while we were in

Santa Fe. I felt like we were really able to answer a lot of questions and be supported from your sort of legislative affairs hat. So, I really appreciate you helping us along the way so thank you.

Councilor Munoz said I wanted to say thank you to Christine, the department heads, staff, and everyone who was there with us coordinating. I think that there is so many competing priorities and voices in Santa Fe and with our legislators that being coordinated and organized I think has made a huge impact so thank you all.

Councilor Mattiace asked I just wanted to know like on the WIA Building, $900,000 is allocated for all the work that is there, how fast do those projects move? I have like two years left. I bring this up because the ladies, Ms. Jurado, will be calling Annette to meet with you Ikani. That group just wants to see how fast the progress will be.

Ikani Taumoepeau, City Manager said the speed in which we can move, we have

Public Works, we have David Sedillo in the room as well and so this is a building that has been suffering for years and so we hear you loud and clear and we are going to do everything that we can. I appreciate the Mayor bringing this up that we do have to wait until we receive the funds, that is always a challenge. It is not an excuse though.

It is something that they do their best and once we receive it, I don’t believe we have the funds in hand and it is something that typically we wait until summer to receive or in fall and then we move but none the less that is preparations that at this time we can start working with contractors start working with project management team. I do want to give kudos to Jimmy and the project management staff. They do everything that they can to expedite it. I just wanted to let that be known to you and if anything that we can do Councilor Mattiace and council we can keep you posted as well not only to

WIA progress but to all the other various projects and we can come at Work Session and keep you posted often on that.

Councilor Mattiace said the reason I bring up the WIA it has been quite a number of years that it has been neglected and depreciating so I was just thinking the longer we wait and Mr. Moreno knows this, David knows it. The longer we wait sometimes it just gets more expensive to fix and that is the only reason I bring it to the surface as a priority for me.

Councilor Harris said I have a couple of questions on the policy things that went through. SB96, does that preempt any of the city zoning?

Chris Faivre, Community Development Director said it does, a few little areas of the code will have to tweak but there were very few things. Most of the code was already aligned there and really what it says is you have to treat home based daycares as if they were residential and all residential zones, so no additional regulations or restrictions because of it. So, when we come back with an update of the code, we will include a few of those things to align with the state and then we have some information to put out to the public as well.

Councilor Harris said that is kind of what I thought reading it as well. We are largely alignment. SB58, I guess similar question. That is an extra tool in our toolbelt or is that restricting us in some way?

Christine Rivera said my understanding is that it won’t impact us because it is property tax and that goes through the county.

Councilor Bencomo said thank you so much Christine for the presentation, for planning our trip up there and of course helping us connect with our legislators.

Obviously we had a very successful time up there. Every year seems to be more successful I think as the state prepares for different changes and perhaps we might

see it different outcome in the next years, hopefully not but you know but those fears are there for sure that everyone is having budget issues. I have said this before. I do think we do need to just a little bit of a better job at letting our legislators know where the updates of the projects are from the past, obviously past projects, these projects. I think there is a lot of conversations happening at the legislature about capital outlay dollars that go out and never get spent. I don’t think that is our problem. I don’t think

Las Cruces has that problem. I think we do a very good job of that and I think we also can do better at really putting out there like this is the update of all of our projects because again, our staff does an incredible job at that. So again, I just wanted to lift that up. I wanted to echo Councilor Corran’s you know making sure that we account for every single dollar that we put out there. Like last year for example we got our capital outlay dollars but then a few months later an additional $11 million for affordable housing projects. I think this year was similar, right? Like just last week we voted on a grant for the housing department got and so I think all of those dollars really do and should be put on our big check. Thank you so much to our legislators who continue to invest in our community and trust us to get projects done.

Mayor Enriquez said I just wanted to get back to what Councilor Mattiace had brought up with the WIA Building, I know also that Sreedevi who works with Public Works has been and has agreed to do a presentation for that group and give them an update of the design, the remodel and everything to keep them up to date and I throw that out to

Public Works that any of those projects that we can go out to partners or the public and share where those designs are until we get the funds and what direction we are going and just to keep people posted and updated. I am really pleased about the WIA

Building because of what we are doing as a council and what Community

Development is doing with the NAT Program. If we are looking for buildings in the city and holding owners accountable for buildings that are ruined and dilapidated, we have to take a look at ourselves first and that is why I am glad legislation, the legislators all pitched in and helped us with even more so that we can start revitalizing some of our buildings as a city so that is a good thing. And Christine, I just want to say that this was your first rodeo and the first time that you were in charge of the legislation project, the outlay and everything and you did a tremendous job and it is evident by the monies, the funding and everything that we have received so thank you for coordinating everything and doing a great job on your first go around so we expect more next year. There is a question on GRO funds and allocations, and I know we are looking at afterschool programs and we have helped the schools before and we want to make sure that we continue. Is there anything there?

Christine Rivera said the $180,000 that we received for the afterschool hours will be for afterschool programming with the Parks & Rec Department and that will be in combination with the Las Cruces Public Schools. So that one is exactly what you are asking for. 1.3 INTERNAL METROPOLITAN REDEVLOPMENT AREA COMMITTEE

UPDATE Blairre Flores, Economic Development Coordinator gave the overhead presentation.

Councilor McClure said I liked that you talked about working with the county. I still think that and maybe not necessarily policies for just the city working with the public

but also the city but also the county working with more private entities. I am thinking specifically of the Boys and Girls Club for the El Paseo area, how can we help them. I know that came up with Commissioner Schaljo-Hernandez, how can we see if we can supplement their building of their new facility that would probably be a great catalyst for that area and I think they might need a little bit of help and what that would like for the city and the county to be working together would be something. I would like to see that too.

Councilor Mattiace asked have you worked with Catrina, maybe on notifying the associations like Crescent Drive on El Paseo? If those associations have been notified that the plan is online and I believe the other one is the Heritage Farms and I think there is three or four that go down El Paseo. So, if we can communicate with them and when they call me, I will say hey, Catrina and Ms. Flores took care of it.

Blairre Flores said yes, that has been a lot of our work right now, is connecting resources and collaborating and we have collected the data on the Neighborhood

Watch Programs and making sure that every department is involved because a lot of the recommendations, the entire plan has every department in it so having this conversation so yes we have that data. They are included in our outreach for MRAs.

Councilor Corran said it is super exciting to see this moving, and I know this is a lot of your effort so thank you for doing that. I am wondering if you can talk a little bit about the community benefit framework for the tax exemption that you mentioned. I in particular hope that we can emphasize locally owned businesses and businesses that employ people and give them insurance, those are two things that I feel like we should always prioritize in terms of our economic development strategies and so I hope that we can, I don’t know what is in the community benefit model but I hope that those can be things that weigh heavily in the understanding of who gets the tax abatements.

Blairre Flores said yes, we want to make sure that all of our, we are touching all of our bases and so again it is in development, but the focus definitely is to make sure that with that big ask of that incentive that it is in alignment with what the city initiatives are. So that will go to every department that is part of the MRA committee, and we are going to ask for feedback and that of course will come to Work Session for you all, for you to see what that final matrix will look like. But yes, definitely we are taking that into consideration.

Councilor Munoz said thank you for putting this together and thank you for the resource guide, I think that is brilliant and very much needed. In your feedback gathering sessions and thank you so much for doing your outreach what were a couple of needs, obstacles or just feedback in general that you got from some of the businesses in the MRA?

Blairre Flores said every area is extremely different. El Paseo I heard a lot of the small businesses concerned about safety. Public safety, and it makes sense knowing the area and the stratified policing that Chief Story has shared with us that is in alignment with what the survey showed. Picacho MRA, we heard a lot about the concerns of the

motels. So that was a big focus and obviously supporting the vacant property of the

Tashiro property. I can tell you already that Apodaca is very very different. The number one complaint has been illegal dumping in the area because of the undeveloped alleyways and so I have already started my research on that and trying to understand where the issues lie and I have already reached out to Utilities and I have learned a lot about trash cans and the pickup schedule and that is also in the

MRA Resource Guide for that reason. So, it is already very different. But again, being prepared for that I have already started looking into some of those. So far Apodaca, the alleyways and illegal dumping.

Mayor Enriquez said the Apodaca and Lift Up area, you partnering with the county and all just something that has been brought to my attention is on Hernandez Street, the Public Schools have the facilities area that they have had there for years and now they are building their new one and almost finalized on Tashiro Road so that is a building that may become vacant and that is something that maybe the schools would like to partner up in that Lift Up area for something that could be for youth or educational or vocational areas. So that is something to approach in that area. We might have some infrastructure there that may act as a catalyst for that Lift Up area.

Blairre Flores said we worked very closely with Las Cruces Public Schools on all of the MRAs, and they were really kind enough to open their facilities for the Picacho there so they are definitely on our stakeholder list so we will connect with them and then just to add about the county. Dona Ana County has never worked with MRAs, so it is definitely a learning curve. So, we have spoken to other counties on how they handle MRAs and we have been in the talks of meeting with county leadership to talk about MRAs and we have been talking about TIFFs but I think the general concept of

MRAs is something we plan on connecting and exploring together.

2. ADJOURNMENT 2.1 City Councilor Michael Harris moved, seconded by City Councilor Becky

Corran, to adjourn at 2:26 p.m.

RESULT: Carried

MOVER: City Councilor Michael Harris

SECONDER: City Councilor Becky Corran

AYES: City Councilor Johana Bencomo, City Councilor Becky Corran, Mayor Eric

Enriquez, City Councilor Cassie McClure, City Councilor William Mattiace,

Mayor Pro Tem John Munoz, and City Councilor Michael Harris

Mayor

City Clerk