Work Session Meeting April 13, 2026

MINUTES

Work Session

Monday, April 13, 2026 @ 1:00 PM

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. READ CLOSED MEETING STATEMENT 1.1 The Las Cruces City Council met in closed session and only discussed those limited items as stated in the posted notice:

1. To discuss bargaining strategy preliminary to collective bargaining negotiations between the policy making body and a bargaining unit, which is closed pursuant to

NMSA 1978, Section 10-15-1H(5).

2. To discuss pending litigation regarding Brandon Barron, et. al.,v. City of Las

Cruces, et. al., D-307-cv-2023-02217, which is closed pursuant to NMSA 1978,

Section 10-15-1H(5).

3. To discuss items brought by Housing, Parks and Recreation, and Public Works, for the purchase, acquisition or disposal of real property or water rights by the public body, which is closed pursuant to the NMSA 1978, Section 10-15-1H(8).

4. To discuss pending or threatened litigation regarding 828 Productions, LLC v. the

City of Las Cruces D-307-cv-2026-00658, which is closed pursuant to NMSA 1978,

Section 10-15-1H(7).

5. To discuss City of Las Cruces v. Alameda Land Investment Corporation, Cause No.

D-307-2025-2028, which is closed pursuant to NMSA 1978, Section 10-15-1H(7).

2. AGENDA ITEM 2.1 MUNICIPAL COURT UPDATE. Anthony Filosa, Municipal Court Judge I gave the overhead presentation.

Councilor Corran said I just want to thank you for sending in all the data that you all sent last week, thank you for that. I didn’t completely understand the Public Defender question or what you said about Public Defender. You said you support it leaving the budget and going to the City Attorney’s Office, I am guessing? Can you talk a little bit more about what you meant when you said that?

Judge Anthony Filosa said it is currently under our budget. It has been there for a long time. It is variable in that we don’t know how many cases are going to be filed. We don’t know how many folks are going to request an attorney. We don’t know how many folks are going to be determined to be indigent that get an appointed attorney that we have. So, it is hard for us to budget. I just personally feel that it shouldn’t be the court’s responsibility to make sure that we have recruit Defense Attorneys to take the cases in the Municipal Court and worry about budgeting or moving things around based off the need of the indigent counsels. So, I would support moving it away from the Municipal Court budget and housed somewhere else within the city budget. That is just my request.

Brad Douglas, City Attorney said currently it is my understanding the agreement for a full-time Public Defender will come before the governing body in June. I wouldn’t necessarily have a problem with it, well I would have a problem with it being housed in the City Attorney’s Office because I don’t want there to be that perceived conflict of interest and so our City Clerk has graciously offered to house that agreement within her department. So that is where that one and any subsequent agreements will reside.

Councilor Corran said thank you and then they would be kind of an independent operator I understand. Independent of Municipal Court hierarchy and the prosecuting hierarchy that the City Attorney’s Office.

Councilor Bencomo asked right now you do have a budget and out of that you pay these private attorneys who sort of take on this role? Is that correct?

Judge Anthony Filosa said that is correct.

Councilor Bencomo said yes, we were over here whispering that it would make no sense for this person to be under Brad’s office. I think that would be a pretty big conflict of interest, so thank you so much City Clerk. That is really important and I hope that works with your speaking and saying that this is what makes the most sense. Late last year Councilor Corran and I worked on updating our welcoming city resolution and I learned a lot through that process working with the City Attorney’s

Office about what we can tell you to do and what not to do, which is nothing. We can’t tell you to do anything and it was a really good learning process but I am glad to hear

that you talk about one of the pieces that we had talked about in the welcoming city resolution was the opportunity for remote accessibilities and so you are offering that to folks if an attorney asks because someone maybe is afraid because of their immigration status or whatever you are able to provide that for them?

Judge Anthony Filosa said yes, we do provide remote. Essentially all traffic cases.

Someone could receive a traffic ticket or citation and come to the or contact the

Municipal Court and request a telephonic arraignment. We facilitate that and then all hearings on the traffic cases are handled remotely and then any other types of cases generally require a request to the court for remote appearances and then that would be up to myself or Judge DeRossit, which ever Judge is hearing the case will determine whether or not it is appropriate for remote appearance.

Councilor Bencomo said in terms of the SOS Court, I just really want to thank you for being open to that suggestion from us a couple of years ago. I feel really strongly about providing alternatives to detention. By no means do I have the expectation that this program is to be perfect right out the gate but I just really appreciate your court’s willingness to be open to that and I know that sometimes things are tricky between this governing body and the court but I want to hear from you and your Case Manager on what is working and what is not working and how can we be supportive, I really care about that and so whatever we can do to help you make improvements and those kinds of things and I think that is really important for us to hear from you and I welcome that.

Judge Anthony Filosa said we greatly appreciate the support that the council has given to the Municipal Court in the last couple of years. None of the things I have talked about would not have been possible but for you all, this governing body listening to some of the ideas that I had and supporting those so thank you.

Councilor Bencomo asked around the TIDD, I am wondering Chris if you can answer this, just curious for things like some of the more capital needs that the Judge mentioned up here like vehicle? Is that something the TIDD could help cover?

Chris Faivre, Director Community Development asked can you say the last part again, you said capital?

Councilor Bencomo asked Judge will you go back to your needs slide? So, for example the vehicle for Municipal Court or technology improvements, like those kinds of more, you know they are not programmatic they are like these tangible things? Can we have discussion about TIDD funds being able to cover some of these things?

Chris Faivre said yes, I think that we can definitely have a discussion and if you like I can include that in a future TIDD board meeting. I believe April 27th will be the next one, if you like I can put that on the agenda and then we could discuss.

Councilor Bencomo said I think that would be important just given the court’s location and there is funds in the TIDD that could go a long way to supporting the court. I would appreciate that.

Councilor Mattiace asked can I get an idea of where your revenue streams come from? Do you have a breakdown?

Judge Anthony Filosa said I believe it all comes from the general fund.

Councilor Mattiace said 100% from the general fund. I bring that up because you have quite a lot of needs here and now the vacancies that are empty, that is already budgeted. You are just having difficulty filling them? When will they be filled?

Judge Anthony Filosa said we are in the process of filling those vacancies. They are relatively recent vacancies. What we have kind of experienced over my last couple of years at the Municipal Court is we bring folks in at the Court Clerk position, entry level, we train them, development them, invest in them, we get them to where they need and they either potentially move on to a different city department or to the State

Courthouse, which offers a little bit better pay. So, we are constantly and we are trying to figure out ways internally to retain folks, but we are constantly in a training/development type phase, so we are trying to fill those immediately.

Councilor Mattiace asked you have two judges and in how many years have we had just two judges going from let’s say ten years ago? Was it two judges then?

Judge Anthony Filosa said I am not sure exactly.

Councilor Mattiace said it seems to me that a 114,000 population and looking at your case numbers. Do you go home at night?

Judge Anthony Filosa said we go home at night, but we are there early. We handle our court hearings start up at 7:30 in the morning. So, we are there early.

Councilor Mattiace said my feeling is not only some of the capital infrastructure needs, technology needs, and the remote does a good job but I think with the population today I would suggest that maybe this council would consider actually another judge.

That is the way I feel with your presentation so thank you very much for it.

Councilor Corran asked when you say there is no alternate judge, does that mean we should update our code to add an alternate judge in that? I see this reference and if so, I know that you probably don’t like to tell us what to do but if you are now is your time and we are happy to hear it and we will follow up in doing so.

Judge Anthony Filosa said that specific reference to the Municipal Code talks about an alternate judge being used in situations when neither the full time judges are available or on leave, we are incapacitated, absent and I think it states the Municipal

Judge Conference so I am just like I indicated Judge DeRossit and I are there all the time for the most part and we stagger our time off so the court is generally there is one of us there but in a situation where we both have to recuse off of a case for whatever reason there would be no alternate judge to hear that case and so that specific ordinance deals with that sort of situation. So, I have no position on it. That

hasn’t come up yet and we stagger our time off so generally the court is able to function.

Councilor Corran said I just wanted to make sure that I didn’t miss, if you were requesting something of us that I was missing. I appreciate you clarifying. It is just a matter of finding that person and that is something you all do internally, right?

Appointing the alternate judge? I don’t think that is something that we have ever done.

Judge Anthony Filosa said I believe under the ordinance it says the Mayor with the advice and consent of the Council would make that appointment. So, it is not the

Municipal Court’s appointment to make.

Councilor Bencomo said just to follow up on that. In the past since I have been here, I know that there used to be several alternate judges and so I don’t know what happened to those, if people just retire or whatever but if we need to appoint them I don’t know maybe we work with the City Clerk to put that out. I know that we appoint, we also appoint Municipal Judge I and II until you have to go to an election. That is the only caveat here is there is a difference between alternate judges, and I don’t know if we wanted or by the City Charter, we would need to create a whole new third position full time because then there is elections involved and things like that. The alternate judges, those don’t go through elections they are just appointed there to fill in any vacancies. I just wanted to add that little bit of context. Mayor and Christine, if we can go and recruit people, I think that we can do that.

Councilor Munoz said thank you Judge Filosa for your service and your patience and your staff’s patience with the working conditions that you are in currently. Couple of questions on your numbers, thanks for sharing numbers, thanks for sharing the overall numbers. We are aware of the increase with the misdemeanors and that is concerning. There are some positive trends I see the weddings. I like that. It shows that more people are in love and getting together so please continue that good work.

So, when I look at animal services complaints and control there is a considerable drop from year after year after year there is a drop and this might be more of question for law enforcement, but I want to see if you have a perspective on that? Same thing for codes? Codes for example started 591 and then ended up last year at about 265 or something to that effect. Do you have perspective or any insights on that other than law enforcement?

Judge Anthony Filosa said I apologize but I don’t. We just handle, we don’t know why cases are being filed or why they aren’t. We just handle the cases as they come in.

Councilor Mattiace said on the idea of alternate judges because full time, it is complicated elections and budget. What does an alternate judge earn? Is there a set amount of money that is put out by the Clerk’s Office when we apply for an alternate judge or do you do it?

Judge Anthony Filosa said I believe it is in the ordinance and I looked at it this morning before coming over here. I believe it says by resolution passed by the council. As to their pay I know that there was one because there was use of alternate

judges recently and those were able to pay them.

Councilor Mattiace said the reason I bring that up may be that we are not attracting.

Maybe we don’t have 7/8 alternate judges just waiting to jump in and help because maybe we need to look at that compensation. If it is 5 years old, 10 years old, costs have increased and maybe it would be more attractive if maybe the compensation was greater. It is just an idea.

Mayor Enriquez said this is a great presentation so that we can address some of those things as we discuss the alternative judge and the technology, the vehicles, see how we can generate some resources there for you, some funding and the Public

Defender sounds like it is already in the works and is going to be done and of course we don’t want to lose sight of the long term, the building. We know that is a huge issue we are always looking at it and see what we can do and get it in our capital outlay to get you a new home because the second floor is not really where it should be but I am glad that you and your staff were able to do the best with it and as you said the numbers even increased. So, I just want to thank you for all that you do and for providing justice for our community. 2.2 FISCAL YEAR 2026-2027 BUDGET REVIEW & PUBLIC HEARING. Lesley Doyle, Finance Director gave the overhead presentation.

Councilor Harris said on slide 9 you said longevity for employees. Can you define what that is?

Lesley Doyle said I can’t speak specifically, I don’t know if HR is here. I do know that we have policy that says that if you have been here for so long then you would get an increase.

Councilor Harris said on slide 14. I just wanted to say I am happy to see this line go down. On slide 15, on the fleet, I was wondering how many of these, it looks like we have one Hybrid vehicle. Are we having serious conversations about electric/hybrid vehicles, whether we need giant F250s and stuff? I know this is all departments and they have their own needs but looking towards operating expenses which half of what we are talking about. How are we looking at our fleet and the operating sustainability of it?

Lesley Doyle said I would have to get some information from Mercedes, I am not entirely sure how she is approaching that.

Councilor Harris said 27, on our options. So, I just wanted to clarify that when we are saying vacancy savings, that means we are not talking about laying people off who already work here? These are positions that are budgeted but they are vacant, nobody is currently in them, and we will just decide that they will not be filled?

Lesley Doyle said that is correct.

Councilor Harris said I guess my thoughts on this is that on our final options and these

are my thoughts is if we just cut operations then it seems that we will have more people with less to do because their tools have been cut. Likewise, if we just cut one or the other seems like we are solving the situation for next year, but we are kicking everything down the road a little bit and not really setting us up for to be in a sustainable place. It does seem like positions are vacant, things are still getting done with those vacant positions obviously it is not ideal and then when it comes to insurance increases and general wage increases and stuff, I completely understand cost of living is going up too and obviously it is for each department to decide what their own internal needs are but a question that I have been asking myself or lots of people are asking is would I rather have 2% more money next year or an extra hand?

You know to work beside me. I think to me it seems like we probably need to do both things from just a financial sustainability perspective. So those are my thoughts.

Councilor Corran said I appreciate you flushing this out more and I know you won’t name some of the things but I would say that you know insurance prices as a function of our investments in our personnel are enormously volatile and frankly infuriating expense if I can just name something that is a variable that you don’t control that is dramatically affecting this and will keep affecting us. So, I am going to name a villain in that understanding of what those things are and I have no regrets about increasing our staff salaries or our contributions to insurance. I just know that is something that we are now experiencing the consequences of. So, I just want to be clear from my perspective I think I can be convinced to any of the more conservative versions of this that are presented because I also am discomfited by that red and green graph. If you just want to put that up that can lord over us. All of these still include 2% increase for staff, class and comp, whatever sort of outlined in that plan and potential CBA discussions. Those are all kind of still part of whatever we decide here those three things are on the table period. Is that my understanding of these three proposals or four proposals?

Lesley Doyle said yes, they are all on the table with whatever direction you give us to go.

Councilor Corran said I just wanted to say that I am really glad that we are still including salary increase even if it is negligible in the scheme of how expensive things are. I just really want to say that whatever we decide I am sure we will keep having this discussion going but I would really like to say that I want that to stay, and I want to be part of this conversation. I think Councilor Harris is right, it is sort of a hypothetical, but it is not exactly a hypothetical. It is like a real thing that we have to figure out moving forward and so for me that is a really important variable that I appreciate you including in this and maintaining as part of not putting that thing that we are trying to do to invest in the human beings that work here, not putting that on the table is something that is not necessarily negotiable so thank you and I just curious to hear what other folks thoughts are in this conversation going forward but I want to speak to that 2%, keeping it.

Councilor Munoz said you mentioned or I saw some overtime reporting on our expenditures. One of the things I would like to look at and I get the not filling positions and having vacancies, but I also want to make sure that in this grand scheme of

things we are actually netting a win out of this. If we don’t fill positions and we increase the overtime or keep the overtime as is I don’t think we are going to move the needle forward, right? Mathematically and also, it goes to work life balance, right?

If we are overworking the current employees we have with missing vacancies, that is also concerning for quality and quality of life as well. So, I am assuming that departments then are looking at their scheduling. They are looking at their overtime and managing that as well.

Lesley Doyle said yes that is actually something that they have been looking at for quite some time. It is not just new to this budget but something that we have asked them to look at for quite a while now.

Councilor Munoz said the other piece that you touched on here is I want to look at touching reserves. I know that cities have ratings. I am curious to see what our rating is and maybe just explain it and share that with everybody else and why the rating is so important to a municipality and what it does for us long term?

Lesley Doyle said essentially the rating is just like a credit score like any individual would get and the better the rating the less it cost to incur debt. You are going to pay a lower interest rate, the better rating that you have.

Councilor Munoz said I appreciate all the work. I know that there is a lot of moving parts here and you are helping us squeeze water from the turnup or crock or whatever that is, so thank you.

Councilor Bencomo said this is important. I think you should keep this up here, but I appreciated the big context you provided in terms of how did we get here and if you could go to those slides for a little bit because for me it just feels really important.

These couple of slides to me show that we got here because we made a serious investment in our greatest asset, which is our people with salary increases, with 80/20 insurance split. You know when I first came on this was one of the things Fire and the

Blue-Collar Union talked about most was this 80/20. Like how little they were taking home after insurance benefits, right? We made that investment in our people and to me that feels like something that is really important. You know that also that $15 minimum wage, some people were making $12 an hour like that is not appropriate for a city like us to be paying poverty wages like that and like all of these things to me feel, it’s like this super hard place to be in then, right? Because then you create that other graph, right? As we keep forward, obviously it is not sustainable. But I did want to point that out. To me it feels like these are sort of the things that come with living in capitals. What I did also want to add though for me obviously in the options you provided that there is really only one options which is for both and the only request that I have, actually I have a question before I say anything on the vacancy savings, does that include adding the benefits, that is like salaries and benefits projected?

Lesley Doyle said yes, that is true. What I would say is that the jobs or the vacancies that are vacant when we pulled this in January is going to look a little bit different now because there are jobs that have been filled and things like that but ultimately the 7.8 million would be our goal.

Councilor Bencomo said what I was going to say about the operating, I just want to make sure it is consistent across all departments. You know there was part at the

Budget Retreat there was a presentation made about going back to fiscal year 2025.

Some departments were excluded from that, some weren’t. I just think that moving forward it has to be consistent amongst all departments because I don’t think, I believe us as elected, as administrators we should not be placing a hierarchy on departments, right? Like which department is more important? At the end of the day this city, it’s a puzzle and it only functions if every piece is there and so I just think that is my request as we move forward and I know this is an easy place to be but I am just so glad that we have really competent staff that we have really great finance folks and that can make this happen. I just have one last question before I forget. Slide 17, I think. Off the top of your head do you have the portions for the other entities here and if you don’t that is okay, I think in the future I would like to see that be shown for us.

Lesley Doyle asked what other entities?

Councilor Bencomo said this is the Las Cruces portion for these three. I am assuming that the county has a portion?

Lesley Doyle said for Animal Services it is the same. We split it. For MVRDA it is slightly lower than us. I can get you that information, but I don’t have it.

Councilor Bencomo said just because it is a little bit of a conversation we had last week when it came to the driving track in terms of like who put in what and I think

Councilor Corran I think actually mentioned a little bit of the tension there so I think we have patterns here that we have already established and I just think it is important to show what they have historically looked like. My last request is that we haven’t had a specific time allocated to talk about Telshor Fund. That would just be my request if that could happen. I guess the Telshor Fund doesn’t necessarily have to have the deadline that the budget does, but I do think we should have a specific conversation about Telshor.

Councilor Mattiace asked how long have you been doing this with the City of Las

Cruces? Is it a year yet?

Lesley Doyle said it is just over a year that I have been with the city,

Councilor Mattiace said it is a very difficult position, and Ikani I want to thank you for being so tough. I appreciate option 4 because I don’t think there is any other course really to go down and I am glad on the personnel. What I am worried about is not 27,

28, but like 2029. What will the city do with a zero Telshor Fund? I think it was just brought up. What happens when that Telshor Fund zeros out? You are preparing for increases in the insurance. You are preparing probably for increases in PERA and when the Telshor Fund is zero there is quite a lot of departments that will not be able to tap income, but they still need to get those services and those employees paid. Are we preparing for 2029 or are we just going to worry about 2027?

Lesley Doyle said I am worried about all of it. That said we looked, we modeled out to

28 and as far as the Telshor Fund, we don’t actually pay any salaries from the

Telshor.

Councilor Mattiace said I know you don’t pay salaries but what I am saying is when you know you have 4 or 5 million for your department from an entity then you are going to provide the project because you know that you are going to have $5 or $6 million available to you and when that goes away will there be a curtailment in preparing those projects? Where do you find that money?

Lesley Doyle said I don’t know when Telshor is expected to go away.

Councilor Mattiace asked what is the balance in it now?

Lesley Doyle said it is about $44 million.

Councilor Mattiace asked what was the balance in it let’s say 5 years ago?

Lesley Doyle said I can tell you in 22 that it was $33 million. So, we have had some interest.

Councilor Mattiace asked and then 5 years ago?

Lesley Doyle said I only have in front of me till 22 but I can get you that information.

Councilor Mattiace said I remember seeing figures of 64 and higher. That is my thought. Option 4 is my call.

Councilor Corran said I did have a question, and it was related to the Telshor Fund also and I agree. I think we just need to have a separate conversation about that but the $600,000. was that listed as new. Is that different from the usual $600,000 that is the kind of the interest-based grants that we issue or not?

Lesley Doyle said that is the same.

Councilor Corran said I am in for doubling it. I would be all about that but I didn’t think that was part of what you were representing. That was my only question and I think it is one the next one. I just wanted to check in and make sure. That one or all of these are the same as last budget year? I know one is. That is the one we talk about the most.

Lesley Doyle said they are all the same.

Mayor Enriquez said difficult presentation. Thank you, I appreciate knowing how we got here. I think there was, but I didn’t see it, maybe I missed it on the $15 an hour minimum wage. Was that included? Yea, that was another thing that took place. I remember the class and comp, the insurance pick up and the $15 minimum wage. It

is always tough when you see the expenditures greater than the revenues, but we have to do something. We have to make some adjustments, and I would be also in favor of the vacancies and the operating costs but like everything else there is always exceptions. There is always exceptions. That is the starting point. That is what we have to look at. That is what we have to address if it is a vacancy. Clearly if it is not needed, if it hasn’t been then we shouldn’t be moving forward with that at this time and then looking at the operating cost. I think looking back one of the things that we learned during Covid was some of the things that how were we going to conduct business and what was vital to the community, what was absolutely needed, and what wasn’t and I think we need to go back and review some of those things as an organization and say what can we do? What can we do different? How can we reduce costs? How can we do things that we can manage and still get ahead? But again, like

I said, there is always an exception to the rules so if that vacancy has been vacant and is needed then that is going to be the City Manager and the directors’ calls to see what those exceptions are and the same way with cutting back on the operating costs.

So that is where I am at at this point, definitely looking at the cutbacks but there are exceptions to the rules.

Lesley Doyle asked I am to understand that the next step for us is to work with the departments to look at those vacancies and the $8 million cuts and do you want us to come back to you one more time before budget for a Work Session? What is the direction there?

Lucas Herndon, Member of the Public said cutting operations based on the graphics that were presented today effects Parks & Rec and I believe it was Utilities the most which I find disparaging to this community that has repeatedly and loudly called for more investment in these community assets. I also couldn’t help but notice that there is a line item at one point in one of the early slides that listed liability payments at $6.5 million and judging from the history and record of the Police Department of this city I imagine that a good amount of money comes from liability based on the times that they have committed crimes and cities had to pay for those crimes and it is worth noting that $6.5 million is only about a half a million dollars different than the proposal to freeze hiring. So, the city is at a position where we have to choose as to whether we hire for our budgeted staff allotments for all of our departments or paying for the crimes of our cops. Something to consider on decisions moving forward.

Juan Garcia, Member of the Public said listening to the budget discussion and I would love to hear of how we can increase our revenues perhaps in a “more welcoming new business ordinance” would help. At the last council meeting it was full of smiles, distractions and dog whistles. Who doesn’t love parks and rec centers? I am all for green spaces. I have nothing against parks. I have spent plenty of time with my son and am a fan of the library but per the city page Las Cruces has 90 parks ranging from small neighborhoods, pocket parks to larger destination spaces. There is 1,500 acres of park land, over 100 acres of athletic fields and 37 miles of multi-purpose trails. Could we use more parks, maybe? Rec centers, sure. Could we do a better job keeping them safe and maintained, definitely. So why the sudden shift in tactics from the Las Cruces anti-police group? They have gone from calling police murderers, even though I just heard it again here to cheering for more rec facilities. In my opinion attacking and trying to defund the police was too blatant so now they are pushing a

“noble cause”, to move money away from public safety. Some of the council are using the same playbook. Public safety ends up with less funding meanwhile the city’s crime problem keeps growing. The anti-police crowd still gets what they want. We can’t afford to decrease our funds for public safety. Look around you. Why aren’t new businesses coming to Las Cruces? Why are we trying to push away new businesses?

Because they don’t want it here because in part the crime problem.

Jovanny Hernandez, Member of the Public said first I would like to recall that I don’t think there is a city in the United States that has ever reduced its police budget ever.

So that is not a concern. I don’t think this council will do that. The police budget will remain the same and probably grow as it is one to do. That being said, remembering some of the comments made earlier, I would like to remind us all of some of the things that our police get up to in particular with an individual whose name Tony Valenzuela.

On February 29,2020, Las Cruces Police stopped a vehicle with two women sitting in the front and Tony Valenzuela sitting in the back. The cops made Tony get out of the vehicle and Tony ran. Like so many people in the United States LCPD hunted him for a parole violation. He had experienced much police brutality in his lifetime. Officer

Christopher Smelser chased after Tony, tased him and put him in a vascular choke hold until he passed out and died. All in the matter of less than three minutes. You can hear Officer Smelser telling Tony I am going to f-ing choke you out bro, while choking him to death in a few seconds later saying to the onlooking cops, ya he is out, after you can hear Tony snoring and taking his last breaths. Smelser and his partner handcuffed Tony’s dead body and left him on the ground for 12 hours. Tony’s sister

Valerie found out that her brother was brutally murdered by LCPD through a friend who happened to walk by the scene a few hours later. When Valerie called LCPD, they refused to give her any information. Enraged that her brother was killed by police, Valerie began protesting for justice for Tony. Judge Driggers who put a gag order on Valerie, meaning that if she continued protesting and putting her brother’s name in the public eye, she would face consequences. He sided that Smelser was afraid for his life during this trial after he killed somebody. During this trial Judge

Driggers dismissed Smelser’s murder charge citing there wasn’t enough evidence even though there is obvious body cam footage of Smelser killing Tony. Smelser was then given $225,000 by the City of Las Cruces to settle that Tort Claim.

Fred Huff, Member of the Public asked the big question in my mind is what is the city supposed to do for us as government? In my mind they should be providing public safety, good streets, good infrastructure, and things to make our quality of life correct.

I am sorry but I don’t think it is your job, the city’s job to provide entertainment. Mr.

Herndon and his group, they got the Organ Peaks National Monument, that is thousands of acres that people can go out there in our public lands and entertain themselves. We don’t need more parks. You have heard how many parks and trails

Mr. Garcia just mentioned. It’s astounding and when I saw these budget figures at

Parks & Recreation was right up there with the police and Public Works, it is like why?

You should be focusing on the quality of life. Most of these streets I drive down it’s like how many centuries ago were these things paved? This is what we need to improve our city and in fact Burn Lake which you all know I am called the Burn Lake guy. I mean the restrooms over there, the nice big expensive restrooms they are gated shut because they can’t be maintained. Why do we need more parks when we can’t even take care of the ones we have. So, let’s focus on public safety and infrastructure and

making a good quality of life. It is not your job to entertain us.

Councilor Bencomo said I don’t need another Work Session. Personally, I feel that

Lesley and the team has laid out a path forward for the budget but that is just my suggestion. Remind us the deadline, when do we have to have it approved by?

Lesley Doyle said we are adopting on May 18th. The last day of April. We have to get it the designer and available for public. .

Mayor Enriquez said I believe the budget gets approved in May. I would be in agreement too. I think we can move forward from here.

Councilor Munoz asked point of clarification, that is option 4 that we are talking about?

Yes. I just wanted to make sure we are all on the same page. I think we are all kind of in agreement and have consensus. 2.3 CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS PROGRAM (CIP) FY27 REVIEW AND PUBLIC

HEARING. Cynthia Alamillo, CIP Manager gave the overhead presentation.

Councilor Harris asked am I right in saying that roughly a quarter of CIP is for streets, street related projects sounds like over the next five years?

Cynthia Alamillo said for the next fiscal year, here we have the breakdown. Right now, the highest number of projects is in Public Works. Right now, it is street reconstruction. It is also a few traffic calming issues, like the HAWK system. We also have, Facilities recently joined Public Works so that has been also part of that. On the hand you see that the other department that has the higher volume of projects is

Utilities and Parks & Rec but then when you look at the value of those it is kind of proportionate. You can have smaller projects because some of them can be, Public

Works also has the chip seal program which is an annual one, so it is a smaller one.

But when we go to the other end with the street reconstructions will be more significant.

Councilor Harris asked on slide 9, Resiliency, what is that between Non-Profit and

Parks?

Cynthia Alamillo said Resiliency is a category where we want to identify and recognize projects that can help us once they are implemented, they can be sustainable by themselves. So, for example, let me quickly note one project. Right now, Resiliency does not have a lot of projects. So, for example, we have the fleet electric vehicle chargers that will help us in the long term. We also have a couple of drainage infrastructure improvement projects, and we also added the South Fork

Moreno Water Retention Pond.

Councilor Harris said that segue is kind of where I was going that when we are thinking about these CIP projects what I want to make sure we are thinking about is the next 5 years like when we build a capital thing it costs money now and it also

costs money forever. So especially when we are talking about widening Lohman.

Unless we are talking about widening it to add a dedicated bus lane or something in it.

We are adding $1 million a mile per lane for any street in maintenance and those are recurring costs that we just have to keep paying. We do need to think carefully as we develop about not just mindlessly doing the old model that cities have always done and Las Cruces is definitely one of them, well we have more development over here so we just need to add another lane to the road or whatever because those decisions are very expensive. As we put infrastructure on the ground and in the ground it cost money forever. I just want to make sure that we are thinking about that and I appreciate the Resiliency projects a lot. 2.4 NATURAL GAS INFRASTRUCTURE IN NEW AND EXISTING

DEVELOPMENT. Chris Faivre, Community Development Director gave the overhead presentation.

Adrienne Widmer, Utilities Director continued the overhead presentation.

Jenny Hernander, Sustainability Officer continued the overhead presentation.

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

Councilor Harris said first I want to emphasize the point that these asks are not to discontinue the gas utility in the foreseeable future, right?

Chris Faivre said correct.

Councilor Harris said as was mentioned in the slide infrastructure that we put in the ground today has a 40/50-year life span. We are going to have a gas utility for 50 years. Nothing massive is going to change there probably. The main thing that we are here to talk about is whether for new development we want to continue to force developers to put in natural gas extensions into their development even though people who are buying the houses and as in this case represented by the developer who might think I can sell all these houses and people will want to buy them if they are all electric. So even when the market has spoken the code says that we must add natural gas lines that we have to maintain eventually, right? So, I am correct that that is what we are asking. We are talking about maybe going and either providing waivers which I understand we have done in the past to developers who don’t want to put in gas or directing you all to maybe amend the code?

Chris Faivre said that is correct.

Councilor Harris said I think it is pretty much a no brainer at this point in history that it does not make sense to extend natural gas infrastructure beyond what we already got. We have a pretty vast system. It works pretty well. The people who maintain it do an excellent job at maintaining it. We have to fight outside people who damage it, which is another item I will bring up later. They have done an excellent job keeping everybody safe in those regards. The technological tide has turned, and it just doesn’t

make economic sense to build a new house with gas utilities. At this point it is a personal choice. If you really want a gas stove, I like my gas stove, it’s fun to cook on but I pay an enormous premium in utility cost to have that luxury. Everybody has a little handout that I prepared a little late last night. I try to run these numbers to kind of remind myself of this and what I did last night was kind of look at the cost of water heating in particular because that is the only thing that you use gas for year-round.

This year’s heating season was incredibly short. Next year’s is going to shorter.

Maybe we won’t ever have a heating season after that. We are at this point in technology worldwide where the cheapest and most accessible frankly way to build a new place is to do it with electric utilities with electric appliances. Maybe if the upfront cost is a little higher but the upfront cost of the latest in gas appliances is even higher.

The latest houses that were built, one that a family member just moved into they have condensing in gas water heaters in them, which is the latest and greatest technology.

The developer I think did a great job. Since they have gas, they put in what would be the most and highest end and least expensive to run appliances in there and they are less than half as efficient. They are four times less efficient to run than an equivalently priced electric water heater that uses all modern technology. I think the tide has turned. Developers are starting to see that this is not an economically useful thing to put in. It is very expensive to add the lines, that passes cost on to homeowners. If the cost to run a gas line into the new development per house is 3,000 bucks or 4,000 or

5,000 or whatever it is, you can just take that and put it into the slightly higher upfront cost of the electric appliances and then you are done forever. It is also worth noting that the industrial uses, we do have a new tenant in the Industrial Park who is using gas which is fine, it is not a new gas line. That is using infrastructure we already have leveraging the investments we have already made. Fine for an industrial use. I think based on what they are doing they would have a really hard time doing that job with electric furnaces, but any residence has a really easy time heating and cooking and heating water with electricity. So that is kind of my thought in a nut shell and part of when I was running these numbers and using my own electric bills and gas bills one thing that I noticed and I was actually, I knew this vaguely but when I actually did it I was quite surprised at how much the cost of the gas infrastructure actually dominates the cost since you’re not heating year round here or even for a very long season the majority of the cost of my gas service is paying to keep the pipes in the ground maintained. It is the access fee, it’s what you pay. The usage cost are really coming down. If we were having this conversation 20 years ago it would be completely different, but the technology is there and I think this is the path forward.

Councilor Mattiace said I am going to start out with maybe all this AI information that I gathered and I will just go to why I think we probably have to have a gas, electric or all the energy sources. But I found out that traditional sources of electricity for example to provide the electric power your energy loss using natural gas, electricity generated is only 44%, using coal, again electricity generated 32% and using nuclear energy generated 33%. So again, if the electric company uses quite and wastes a lot of energy to buy that electric source whether it is to homes or a company in the

Industrial Park. My other discussion, maybe Adrienne, could answer this. How much of the Enterprise Fund actually supports the general fund? Do we have a number on that?

Adrienne Widmer said I can’t tell you specifically what gas itself is paying. I know in

the franchise fees it is almost $400,000. Last year it was $400,000. So as the utility grows the franchise fees will go up. If the business dwindles, then obviously the franchise fees will go down. In a mix with that there is other fees like for instance gas pays taxes and PILT as well.

Councilor Mattiace said Natalie, I appreciate your page 15. It seems like natural gas is more reliable and consistent compared to electric utilities. What I am trying to get at is when we build these homes, I would like to see the City of Las Cruces the residents have a choice. I would like to see those lines available, so if they choose electricity fine or if they choose solar, nitrogen cells or natural gas. That is what I would like to see that the Enterprise Fund, our utility enterprise, has all the components that they have right now, gas, water, wastewater, and trash. So, I would not like to see that if we just discontinue laying lines in every subdivision that we build in the future we know what the outcome of a business is when it doesn’t grow. If it doesn’t grow it dies.

I would like to see that be available.

Councilor Corran said I just want to bring up a couple of things, first from the district where the all electric homes are selling like hotcakes. There are many market-based things that we could talk about but I don’t think those are necessarily something that we should discuss. Although of course electricity would win in all of those domains as well but I think my understanding when I joined council there were a number of discussions about whether or not we were going to new electric gas lines and whether we would take on debt related to those, that new infrastructure and it was really clear consensus a number of times on council that that is the way we were going is not to require new electric gas lines and in fact to emphasize choice of folks who are developing areas to be able to not put down gas infrastructure and my sense is that I still the consensus of council I just think if we need to bring a resolution forward to make that really clear, that consensus has existed for my five years on council and several years before that but I don’t know that it is necessary that we have new ordinances related to this that we need to vote on or we just need to reup that is not the intention of us and the energy transition plan is under way but the transition is away from gas, right? That is implied in the energy transition plan that we have been working on for some time. So, I think that is part of this conversation and I will be happy when that comes forward and we have more formal things but, in the meantime, I understand the consensus of council throughout the past however many years as we don’t want to require our natural gas lines especially for new developments, so new infrastructure. Just as a note, just gas rehab and unfunded CIP years 2.8 million per year is gas rehab so this would add however much that would add to that proportionally over time we can imagine the degradation of the assets that are not being used as only increasing so I just hope we can either move forward just so that everyone is clear that requirement I think we understand that requirement to be something that developers don’t have to add gas lines but I am happy to bring it forward to a resolution to. I would be happy to be seeing that as a resolution and I think it would be a good step, that part of the energy transition plan doesn’t have to be debated any further.

Councilor Bencomo said I would have to say that I am pretty disappointed that we are having this conversation to be very frank. I think the consensus has existed for some time and the energy transition plan which while many folks freak out about it because

it is potentially implying that we are getting rid of natural gas lines. That is not true whatsoever, and I think what is disappointing to me about is that we are in a time frame where that is almost ready to be finished and I would love to see what that will yield. What kind of information that will yield for the health, safety for not only our gas utility line as a business but for the health and safety for our community particularly low income people and we can talk about markets, we can talk about that, you know and I am not going to talk about because I think this particular slide actually is missing all kinds of information. Like for example the large disparities in health outcomes in low-income neighborhoods because of natural gas. Also, the consistency I would argue is not actually real. A few years ago people in our community had insane gas bills because a pipeline broke in Eastern New Mexico and that increased the pressure to the natural gas lines we had. Not to mention Storm Uri. All of these things that I don’t actually believe make natural gas reliable or consistent. I also find it odd that we are talking new subdivisions. If a new subdivision is all electric and you are someone who is trying to go buy a house you have a choice not to buy that home, just like you have a choice not to buy that home because it is not near a park whatever reason but it doesn’t seem like a lot of people are not buying those homes. It seems like a lot of people are buying those homes which they had a choice to whether they bought it or not given that they were all electric homes. So, I also know that our gas on all of our line items and Adrienne correct me if I am wrong all of our utility line items are budgeted to maximum capacity, right? So, we have to on any given day we have to make sure that we can provide that natural gas that water, whatever to the peak level, correct?

Adrienne Widmer said it depends. So yes and no. We have someone, Mario Puentes, our Gas System Analyst and he looks at what the future is going to look like, and he orders gas for that, which has a completely different graph dimension which is opposite of water so in the winter it is high and in the summer, it is low and so that has been consistent. When there are weird things that happen that you brought up Uri or the line break those particular things it does make it a little temporarily more expensive but the demand itself is very reasonable and that is why we hedge a certain amount within the system that we say we are going to buy it whether we are going to use it or not.

Councilor Bencomo said since I have been on the Utilities that has been my understanding, that we plan for peak level usage on any of the line items so the more we build the more we will have to live up to that peak. Meanwhile though as the market says gas is dwindling. More people who can afford it are moving off of gas utilities and toward electric and if we continue to build towards and budget towards meeting that peak of the gas utilities the less people that are off of it, the people who cannot afford to get off of gas utilities will have to bear the burden of the cost of maintaining gas utility. We know those things to be true and fact. I also love my gas stove. I have talked about this forever. But the reality is that we are moving towards, this isn’t about today. This isn’t about just today, this is about the future, the future generation 10, 20, 30, 50 years from now and what is the kind of infrastructure that we are leaving them and what are we building towards and I think to me this is a matter of responsibility not just whether someone has an option or not to hookup to electric or gas and if developers are saying it is worth it to build all electric subdivisions I think that we need to make sure that we continue to respect that.

Mayor Enriquez said why we are here is because in the past there was consensus. I won’t say that I totally agree with that in moving forward so coming to this is because there is a lot of questions and concerns, a lot of builders is it gas, is it electric and we are not clear and what we want is the clarity. I am in favor of the first one, in changing the code and leave it up to the developer. They can decide whether they want gas or they want electricity, whatever they decide and that is it. When it comes to the extension honestly I would look at saying we need to serve our customers that want gas and to extend those lines but at the same time earlier we just had our presentation with looking at the option of vacancies and operations and so if that is something that we don’t want to go into the direction of extending the gas then that is something maybe we should sell it off to private. There has been a private company that has been interested for two years now and why we are here today is because what I heard was Utilities was the board had hired a consultant and the consultant was going to come and give us the pros and cons to gas and electric or what direction we should go and here we are months later and no results from that. I don’t even know where that consultant presentation is at. So that is why we need to have that clarity is like how are we going to move that forward and I would be in favor of having the option and I bring another option to the table if we aren’t going to extend the gas that could cut down on some of our operating cost and we just sell it and let a private handle the gas. That is what I would be looking at.

Chris Faivre said so if we are having a discussion about potentially changing the language of the code I would point out a couple of things, one under the language here it says if applicable to the development which I think gives us some latitude to determine which developments some of these standards would apply to. The other thing I did want to bring up was there is a connection between the adequate public facilities and some of the new zoning that came through with Realize. So specifically, if you are zoning in the NH-3 which is a more higher density and also has larger commercial capacity. If you eliminate say the gas into NH-3 areas and potentially you could limit some of the commercial development that may depend on that gas utility for their operations. So, if we are going to have that discussion then I would say that maybe we have that discussion as it relates to NH-1 where it is primarily just going to be single family homes. There is still some commercial development that can go in there as well. Maybe not as impactful but the larger you get with NH-2, NH-3 you are going to see your larger commercial development and not having that option could be an issue so if you are going in and zoning new areas saying all NH-2 or NH-3, those decisions of the infrastructure could eventually have impacts on the commercial development that could happen down the road so I would say maybe we look at limiting specifically where we are wanting to have limitations on natural gas only specifically to some of those higher NH-2 and NH-3 zonings.

Mayor Enriquez said that is a good point because one of those also for us is our

Industrial Park in that area. We have an abundance of gas, and we are limited electricity, so we have got to work that out as well but giving the developers that option in certain areas for sure.

Councilor Harris said that is what I was going to say. I think the consensus is that we want to give developers the choice and not force people to put in stuff that they don’t

want to or that they don’t think that the markets not going to bear. I agree.

John Moscato, Member of the Public said five years ago the Metro Verde development came forward with an amendment to their concept plan and one of the major public benefits in that document was going all electric for development in that remaining 1,000+ acres. Since then, there has been more than 1,000 home sites developed, hundreds of homes all electric. None of those home buyers have been disenfranchised. That is a silly comment. They have chosen to buy all electric homes.

They had options throughout the city. Thousands of homes are sold every year. All of these homebuyers have the opportunity to choose all electric or a home with natural gas. They chose all electric. I think that is a path forward for the city that is reasonable, so people have a choice. As the code this section, notwithstanding with

Mr. Faivre said about the development code substantial completion, substantial completion refers to completing the permitted construction drawings for that for that particular development if the construction drawings don’t include gas and substantial completion does not pertain to gas. That is very clear from the wording of the code itself. There is also a section in 34.4 B, which specifically discusses adequate public improvements required, and you can look at that list that includes water, wastewater roadways, streets, everything. No mention of gas whatsoever in the particular section that pertains to adequate public improvements required. That was passed by this council less than a year ago. Why would you change that now? Also, this council recently approved the technical manuals. In the technical manual under utility improvements, utility improvements, it says specifically gas, if the subdivider desires to install a natural gas system within the subdivision the system must meet or exceed city specifications. If the developer chooses. So why would this council even consider taking a step backward and do exactly the opposite of what has been the successful pattern of development and homebuilding and then you have the issue of affordability.

You know there was a slide that said well it is higher infrastructure. It is much higher infrastructure cost. You are looking at $3/$4/$5,000 per home because of installing natural gas. That increases prices significant number of home buyers out of the market. It makes home affordability more difficult. It makes home attainability more difficult. We have an upcoming development called Mesa Vista which we will be bringing forward to council in the near future. We have been working with the land office to meet an affordable attainable housing commitment. That commitment is going to be much more difficult to achieve with increased development costs, increased housing costs because it is not just the developer, it is the developer passes it along to the homebuilder, the homebuilder passes it on the homebuyer. So, it is across the board and increases and I don’t see why council would take a step backward at this point, especially given that fact that I think that if you read the code correctly you will understand that there really doesn’t need to be any change in code.

You simply need to follow the code as it is written.

Brad Douglas, City Attorney said I think I would say that I agree and disagree with Mr.

Moscato’s reading and interpretation of the code as currently written because portions of Chapter 37, in which I see that you have reviewed carefully refer to natural gas utilities. Whereas other portions of the code refer to and I should have brought my reading glasses, essential public improvements and services and then there is an earlier reference to a different part of the code, there is a referral to Chapter 38 which is not helpful because it simply refers you back to Chapter 37. So what I think what i

would recommend at this time is subject to change is to simply to clean up that code and make it consistent and easier to understand because I am not embarrassed to say that I am the third attorney in my office that reviewed the code and we did read what you read and so for consistency’s sake, for clarity’s sake I think I would recommend modification of the code to be consistent.

Don Kurtz, Member of the Public said I live on Missouri Avenue and just on the point of confusion that you are talking about. If the confusion is resolved, I think what I hear the council saying is that it needs to be resolved in terms of giving developers the right to choose which they use. If we didn’t and I ask this question of AI just today,

ChatGPT, we would be the only city in the country that they could find that had that kind of rule that would require natural gas. It simply isn’t the way this is handled throughout the country. Councilor Mattiace mentioned the importance of the contribution of utilities to the general fund. That cannot be the reason that we keep our utilities going and make people use gas is because it helps the general fund, which will just go directly to that. This idea of reliability and I just want to mention this, it is a misconception. People imagine that if the electricity goes out, they will still be sitting with their furnace and everything, no because the electricity runs the furnace the HVAC system, etcetera. So, it really is not a backup. It is like belt and suspenders, and the suspenders cost you hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars and don’t even work, right? So once the electricity goes down the gas is essentially gone too unless you are talking about huddling around the oven. I think the final thing I would like to say is the councilors and the Mayor I would hesitate to put my confidence in the energy transition planning that is being done in Utilities right now because there is a lot of difficulty in that plan and it is explicitly not addressed the problem of diminishing gas. It has addressed everything, but that and I think you need to pay real attention to that and at any rate I would not put my faith in that and I would use your own good judgement.

Rico Gonzales, Member of the Public said I am with El Paso Electric. Just a couple of points of clarification on what was stated. We have not had a controlled outage in decades or blackout or a brownout. We are in Texas and in New Mexico, either one or two in most reliable utilities. We work both well with Adrienne and Jenny in terms of the context of this conversation today. Programs that are moving forward in our current rate case we have new rate design programs for low-income credits for electricity. We have a large load credit or large load tariff that would allow for if a large load came into the city that it would be paid for by that large load. We have a plan to phase in any rate increases if we see them. We also have a whole house rate for EV owners meaning that if they have an EV, they get a discounted rate on the off-peak times. We have time abuse rates. In terms of economic development, we do have plans for building a new 345 KV line from Afton to Airport Sub and anytime we want to get going on building that arroyo to Airport I will be the first one buying the t-shirt and knocking on the doors. Inside of our integrated resource plan we have some very innovative demand side resource programs that are already in Texas. It is a little bit easier to do stuff in Texas but we are bringing them here to New Mexico and then our advance meters allow for us to on earlier to outages, turning on and off energy and allows I think very important conversations in that people have with their own electric use. To the line losses I am going to check on that, but we are right now at over 70% carbon free energy in Las Cruces you are using every single time you flip on a light. It

is over 70% clean energy. That is from nuclear and from renewable and as we grow these all electric homes we really do at El Paso Electric want to start diversifying how people are using energy, their own relationships with energy, moving people over to non-peak hours, getting off the peak and with that I just want to say thank you for the time.

Leslie Graham, Member of the Public said I am the General Manager for Zia Natural

Gas, and I just wanted to come and speak in favor of natural gas. We have a vested interest throughout the state to make sure the people understand what a great product this is to use. It is truly really the most efficient to burn energy in your home.

You do receive significant line losses burning natural gas in power plants. I was amazed just listening just a few months ago about the Project Jupiter presentation.

We are going to have to bring on several natural gas power plants just to power that project. Why not use natural gas in the home. You have to burn three times as much in the power plant versus what you have to burn in the home in order to get the same amount of energy use. It is also a cheap option, and it is there. We don’t have rolling blackouts. We have natural gas there, it’s always there. I also want to point out that it was an interesting comment that we get feedback at Zia Natural Gas about developers being frustrated because they can’t get natural gas within their subdivisions, so they are going to electric because they are struggling to get it hooked up. I work well with the city and the city has done a great job and so I know that they are working hard, and I know that they are also frustrated trying to figure out how to expand natural gas into different subdivisions and so I do want to say that.

Developers are getting fairly frustrated in turning to all electric in order to get their projects finished and so it may not always be that that is what people want, that is just what they are getting. Finally, I do believe as a citizen that people should have that choice and so I do want to continue to encourage you to fund, to look at, and to work with natural gas.

Councilor Corran said I just want to clarify that I think that we have talked about consensus and we have it or not to Brad’s point, clarifying the code to make it optional so that people building new arterials and new developments have the option to not extend gas lines to that area, I would just ask unless you have a sense of the consensus I just want to make sure that we are clear on the majority of council’s sort of orientation here and so I am hoping that we can clarify as Brad suggested then bring it forward as a new resolution to make sure that the code allows the option.

Councilor Harris said that is my thought and I will add that I agree. Sounds like from

Mr. Moscato’s point of view the code does say that and does give the option but there sounds like there is some ambiguity in the wording and so we want to make sure that that ambiguity is resolved.

Mayor Enriquez asked I think we are clear on the code but as far as extending or was the second question is what are we going to do with that? That really is the question for I believe this council.

Adrienne Widmer said one of the reasons that has been brought up because our service area if you go back to the very first of the, that one here. That is our service

area. That is way bigger than the city of Las Cruces and so we have had people that are just north of town off of El Camino Real requesting natural gas and so essentially we have told each one of those if you want natural gas then you all need to get together and you need to give us some money. That is a low to moderate income area. It is outside of the city limits. Right now, they are on propane which is extremely expensive. In addition to that I think that is where we get a little confused because our service area is so large when it comes to extensions. It is up to whoever wants the extension to go ahead and pay that bill and we do have some. They come in and they say they want the natural gas, and we will take a look at it and we will tell them how much it will cost, and we will also go ahead and extend that line. They say okay and we will extend the line so just to make that as a clarification that we are a regional provider not just the city of Las Cruces provider.

Councilor Harris said thank you for that clarification. As far as I am concerned if someone wants to pay the cost that it costs, they could get it. It doesn’t compute to me that anyone would actually do that outside of a large industrial user because if they are going to pay enormous expense to get a natural gas line extended to their location depending on how far it is they could just get the latest and greatest fanciest electric heat pumps and never worry about it again. I am not opposed to if someone wants to pay the full cost that is fine, but I don’t think it is appropriate for the city to subsidize that in any way or go into debt for it or expect existing rate payers to subsidize it either.

Councilor Mattiace said I think you have the same circumstances if I am not mistaken.

You have a few users that are just paying for the installation and the natural gas even in Talavera. I don’t know how many people, but it is a small number but they have made the choice that they want natural gas and you provided the service.

Adrienne Widmer said yes, people in the Talavera area have reached out and they are requesting natural gas, and we tell them how much it is going to cost to extend the line to their property, and they have installed it and then we provide the service.

Councilor Mattiace asked you provide natural gas? I mean you distribute the natural gas to Picacho Hills as well, correct? That is our gas and you make some pennies on providing that, right?

Adrienne Widmer said actually we have an agreement with Zia Natural Gas, and they have areas that we transport their gas to them, and we charge them for that. We do not sell them the gas we transport it.

Councilor Mattiace said that is excellent and that is what an enterprise system is all about and you provide and that is my point today that I am trying to say is that if people want a choice and they need it, if they want to move into a certain area they still are disenfranchised if they went over to Mountain View and basically Mr. Moscato says go get a house somewhere else but not in this area. I would like to see it available 100% for people to choose where they want to live, how they want to live, whether they want a gas oven and they want those mountain views and they want to live in Metro Verde and Metro Vista and that is what I would like to see. I would like to

see government not be so determined on what you cannot have. I think people need the right to have your full service.

Councilor Bencomo said that is what Realize was. That is an important note to make about the importance of Realize. I am curious about extensions right now. What are the requests for extensions?

Adrienne Widmer said that is an excellent choice. If someone comes in and they say that they want to have gas, we are essentially telling them, well you front the money.

Councilor Bencomo asked who is asking? How many requests?

Adrienne Widmer said over the last few years we have had quite a few. I can certainly get those statistics for you.

Councilor Bencomo said I would like to see that. Where the request are coming from?

Are they coming from new subdivisions?

Adrienne Widmer said I think the majority. We have had a few in the new subdivisions that are all electric and I can ask staff if they kept track of that. I don’t know that they are keeping those statistics, but I said that was probably a good thing for us to start counting. I know that we have had some in the all electric areas that they are wondering well why can’t I get natural gas? We have had developers bring that up as well. I can ask staff to come up with a list on statistics on that if you would like.

Councilor Bencomo asked right now if someone submits for a new subdivision and they say I want to build for both, are they able to?

Chris Faivre asked you mean both as in gas and electric? Certainly.

Councilor Bencomo said they can?

Chris Faivre asked to provide both, is that what you are saying?

Councilor Benocmo asked so right now if a new subdivision wants to provide natural gas they are able to?

Councilor Bencomo said people are telling me that developers are having a hard time and I am not sure why that would be if the issue here is communication, then we should get better at that. Communicating people’s options and you know I don’t know maybe we should communicate to realtors about ensuring that when they are selling a home they are telling people that this is the option here that you have consent to choose whether you want to buy that home or not. I think my thing about with extensions and having us you know sort of build out extensions every time someone requests it is if that person isn’t paying for that but then the rest of the customer base

to have to subsidize it. Who paid for the Talavera extensions?

Adrienne Widmer said everybody did. We obtained bonds to actually do that and that was after a majority of that subdivision supposedly wanted it.

Councilor Bencomo said arguably Talavera I wouldn’t consider low to medium income level. So, I think there is serious equities issues when it comes to that that we need to consider in the long term. So ya, I think the extension to me feels a lot more complicated and if there is confusion out there about what new subdivisions that developers can do or not, we need to get clear on that. In fact, I think government forcing developers to provide gas lines is quite the opposite of what my colleague here is saying. So, it seems like we need to just clarify that developers have the option to build whatever kind of energy they want to use and with extension, I think I am personally opposed to that, but it seems that perhaps we need more information to make those decisions. I don’t think those decisions should be made so flippantly I think those are long-term conversations to be having.

Adrienne Widmer said I am thinking there may be a little confusion on the distinction between a developer and a developer. A developer of a subdivision builds all the infrastructure, they sell lots and then a builder comes and builds. It is the builders who have been complaining to us not the actual developer because the developer builds it and then sells the lots and a builder is the one that actually hey, I am selling a lot, do you want to build a house.

Councilor Bencomo asked maybe the code doesn’t apply differently to developers and builders, right?

Chris Faivre said I think what Adrienne is trying to say is once a developer comes in and develops an area and now has gone with let’s say electric only in this example.

When the home builders come in to actually build homes to sell out at that point in time if that infrastructure doesn’t exist there, they are limited to just building an electric home and we have heard that before, so the distinction is between a home builder and the developer who is developing the actual subdivision.

Councilor Harris said to me that disagreement sounds like that is something that is between the builders and developers.

Mayor Enriquez said I believe that was what Mr. Douglas was saying let’s clean it up so that there is no confusion there. So, I think we are all in consensus with that. With the extension I think it is what Adrienne had said if they are willing to pay for it then that is where I am on that, if they want that. I don’t know if we need to go further or bring up more Work Sessions or data. Does anybody know on that consultant is going to come in with a study?

Adrienne Widmer said we are expecting them to be done sometime in July. We will find out what they say and as part of that is they are looking for us to transition off of natural gas into a different business model so that we don’t fire all of our employees or lay them off. We teach them new skills, and they provide some kind of service

whether it is renewable natural gas or solar. That is one of the things that they are looking at, is to come up with different business models to actually take a look at it and how to transition the natural gas and energy line of business into a different business model which would be multiple types of potential energy uses.

Mayor Enriquez said I guess we will see that when it comes at that time and they can present and we will go from there but definitely clean-up for sure.

Chris Faivre said just to clarify a couple of points. I don’t think we would do this via resolution. I think we would just come back with a clean-up of the code so that would be an ordinance. We could potentially do another Work Session if you want to have more conversation about it. My question leaving here would simply be, are we looking at making that option across all residential zoning so NH-1, NH-2, NH-3 or only specific to your lower densities that are going to be primarily single-family homes? So that would be helpful to know so that we can figure out how to make that adjustment into the code.

Mayor Enriquez said I would be in favor of not limiting ourselves with the commercial.

Councilor Harris said thinking about the types of businesses that would be limited coming in there you are really only talking about restaurants.

Chris Faivre said not necessarily. I think there could be a variety of commercial that could probably need to have access to natural gas and other things that may need for within their store so given the way that we updated the zoning and really tried to integrate the commercial and residential into those same zoning types I would be very hesitant to just come out and say something that ten years down the road we may have eliminated the potential for certain types of commercial because we didn’t have that infrastructure installed at the beginning. So if it is a conversation about primarily single family neighborhoods, your NH-1s, that would be fine but I think NH-2 and above starts to be a little limiting when we look at commercial development down the road and as we think back to when Sonoma Ranch was put in and the housing came in first and now we are 25 years on and we are starting to see that commercial really come in you can see a similar situation in some of these other areas where the commercial wouldn’t come in until the residential was there to support it but if the infrastructure is not there to support the commercial I just don’t know what that situation could look like 25 years from now.

Councilor Harris said it is hard to say that in 25 years we probably won’t have restaurants cooking on gas honestly with the way that technology is going but I think the co-change that we are talking about is just to give developers flexibility and if developers are predicting that in this lot people probably won’t ever want gas and they’ll be able to sell the lots on later without that and we shouldn’t limit them. I am in favor of flexibility for developers. I don’t want to limit our commercial choices either, but I don’t see how we would be terribly by just making it flexible.

Councilor Corran said I agree. I think any zoning class should have the option to not have including mixed use and up through to NH-3 so I would say no. I think we already have hundreds of vacant commercial buildings that I am sure have gas so

that is clearly not the variable that makes a difference in whether or not that someone goes into a commercial space from what I can tell so I would think that is not something that would limit commercial development so I would say that in NH-1 through NH-3 from my perspective.

Councilor Bencomo said I agree with that and the last thing I will say on extensions, so yes then someone could pay for it themselves to get extended but the maintenance on that will be on the city for the rest of time, the maintenance cost.

3. ADJOURNMENT 3.1 City Councilor Johana Bencomo moved, seconded by City Councilor Michael

Harris, to adjourn at 4:23 p.m.

RESULT: Carried

MOVER: City Councilor Johana Bencomo

SECONDER: City Councilor Michael Harris

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

Enriquez, and City Councilor Michael Harris

ABSENT: City Councilor Cassie McClure, City Councilor William Mattiace, and Mayor

Pro Tem John Munoz

Mayor

City Clerk