Work Session Meeting September 8, 2025

MINUTES

Work Session

Monday, September 8, 2025 @ 1:00 PM

City Council Chambers, City Hall

PRESENT: Councilor Johana Bencomo, Councilor Yvonne Flores, Councilor Becki Graham, Councilor

Becky Corran, Councilor Cassie McClure, and Councilor William Mattiace

ABSENT: Mayor Eric Enriquez

1. JOBS OF THE WEEK 1.1 Sarah Raney, Americas Job Centers of New Mexico presented Jobs of the Week.

2. PETS OF THE WEEK 2.1 Carol Nielson, Animal Services Center of the Mesilla Valley presented Pets of the

Week.

3. AGENDA ITEM 3.1 COMMUNITY OF HOPE ALLIANCE AGENCY UPDATES Natalie Green, Housing and Neighborhood Revitalization Administrator gave the overhead presentation.

Cariel Apodaca, Deputy Director Mesilla Valley Community of Hope continued the overhead presentation.

Michelle Adames, Jardin de Los Ninos continued the overhead presentation.

Ron Fitzherbert, Amador House Center continued the overhead presentation.

Steve Chavira, El Caldito continued the overhead presentation.

Lorenzo Alba, Casa de Peregrinos continued the overhead presentation.

Natalie Green continued the overhead presentation.

Councilor Graham said as we face these devastating federal cuts and as our community is going to find itself in more need than ever, obviously I am hoping that the state is going to step in but you know again that is just a hope, so we have had some illusions to upcoming needs or gap needs. I guess I just wanted to be sure that we are going to communicate consistently for how we best keep everyone afloat during a really unprecedentedly terrible time for federal funding. Natalie if you want to speak to that in general, that would be great?

Natalie Green said we will be working closely with our staff person, Christine, assigned to legislative priorities. We did see the announcement for the Special

Session which will address some of those cuts. Of course, we will continue to be advocates at the state level for some of those fundings and meeting the need. So, we will just monitor and be as proactive as we can through our lobbying efforts in Santa

Fe.

Mayor Pro Tem Bencomo said first of all I want to say that the entire campus,

Community of Hope, is in the heart of District 4 but of course it is city wide. Right?

You provide services not just city wide but county wide but I do have to say that anyone who is lucky enough to represent the area where you all are with this campus it should be a requirement that they be an advocate and an extension of your PR team and I tried to do that as much as possible and just talk you up wherever possible and frankly I think all of us should be doing that because you make magic happen every single day with the resources that you have. When I think about people truly doing salt of the earth work it is all of you on that campus. I know often the burden and criticisms are heavy and so I just want to take a brief moment to say that we see you and that we need you and thank you. There is often really big misconceptions about the organizations on the Community of Hope campus being sort of an extension of the city, that their budgets are all City of Las Cruces and that is not true, right? I know each of you have incredibly diverse budgets and I am wondering about what percentage of your budgets come from the City of Las Cruces? If you have that information, if you don’t that is okay. I think Lorenzo said 22%.

Natalie Green said generally less than 10% for each of them.

Mayor Pro Tem Bencomo said each of the four organizations their entire budget individually less than 10%, you rely on any city funding.

Natalie Green said the most consistent funding source we have for them is our health related public service program and that is about $30,000, sometimes less and sometimes more. One year it was 28, one year 27, this year it is 33. We do have another funding source that we do work with some of the agencies. It is our

Community Development block grant program but it can’t be for any duplication of existing programing, so it has to fund a very separate project and so even adding that

in it is still below the 10%.

Lorenzo Alba said like this year we are slated to receive about $42,000/$43,000 maybe $45,000 from you and our budget is $1.9 million and so that should put some perspective on that and everyone’s respective budgets on how we operate. We do a lot of grant writing. We have a grant team, and we write hundreds of grants every year to try and see how we can try to make ends meet. Individual donors for us are our biggest asset. There is families that have been donating to Casa de Peregrinos since its inception. We have some donors that have been generationally donating families.

They just keep up, mom and dad started donating in the 1970’s and all of a sudden they are still donating, and the grandkids are still donating to us so that is the majority of where the funding comes from and yeah, there is a big misconception about even the people we serve. Our campus serves everybody. It is in a very specific area of town, and I think everyone had that misconception but for Casa de Peregrinos most of the people that we serve are low income families. It is just not just the unhoused, the unhoused are part of the people we serve. We are here for everybody. As my colleague Steve Chavira we are here for everybody.

Mayor Pro Tem Bencomo said I just wanted to underscore that piece that I do think it is important for us to publicly talk about given sometimes the stories that get spun and so thank you all for being incredibly healthy organizations and non-profits. Natalie, on the lease I am curious if you are evaluating the rent value if the rent value increases will the services in lieu amount also increase?

Natalie Green said yes, if the rent value increases the agencies are responsible for ensuring their services in lieu are at least that dollar amount and that is to comply with the anti-donation clause of the Constitution.

Councilor Flores said I appreciate all the work that you do. I particularly have a soft heart for Jardin de Los Ninos. My question and I am almost afraid to ask. Should there be federal cuts which have been definitely, they are underway do you have any alternative funding or are you anticipating any cuts from the federal government?

Natalie Green said many of the agencies do receive federal funds and I am sure that they are monitoring those as closely as we are. We do have our federal impact committee here at the city and we are tracking those. This last session for FY26 we did think that much of that housing program which was going to get cut which would have immediately made well over 1,000 families homeless, so we are tracking that very closely. FY26 thankfully the Senate was able to fund most of the housing programs. There is still some back and forth on reconciliation. Amador Health does get Medicaid reimbursement. They do have some HRSA funding which is federally funded. Casa de Peregrinos is definitely impacted by some of the federal cuts as we see people in our community where their benefits gets cut they pursue other avenues to get food. We have seen a lot cuts to like Feeding America which trickles down to a lot of our lower pantries and then, El Caldito, no federal funds but what they rely a lot is through donations of food and gleaning from some of our grocery stores. So, when we see less food in our grocery stores then they have less to work with when we are trying to feed some of our community members.

Councilor Flores asked is there any funding from foundations such as Gates, the

Gates Foundation because I think a lot of wonderful organizations that we have here, represented here today, are going to be impacted? You know just preparing for that final slap in the face to humanity. So, is there any funding from private organizations?

Natalie Green said I will defer to our non-profits. I do believe some of them do get foundation funding from different areas and it funds other pieces of their operations. I will give a shout out to the CDR funding, which is one of the most flexible funding and it covers some of the things that other grants typically wouldn’t and that lets them to be able to broaden their service profile.

Michelle Adames said in fiscal year 25, Jardin had approximately 15% of our funding was federal funds and in this current fiscal year we are only relying on maybe 5% because we know we cannot rely on federal funds, but what I know is that about

100% of our families are going to be impacted by their SNAP benefits, Medicaid. As a behavioral health agency, the biggest perk to becoming a behavioral health agency is being able to bill Medicaid. As an organization we are still moving forward with our current model which is going after funding to support services through foundations and so that is one of the other things about the agencies on the campus is that we are very resourceful. We go after funding even just our roof project, going after the funding just to fund that project was important and we did have all the support from

Natalie and her team and all of you supported us but writing those grants to be able to get some of that funding and that takes the time and effort from our organizations and the other challenges that we are all relying on foundations right now. So foundations are having to get really creative and trying to figure out how they can make the biggest impact and so something that they might have funded about a year ago that was like a start up project or some Seed money they may not be as interested in because right now in crisis just trying to fill the gaps where that federal funding is being cut but you know meeting with one of my leadership team members and seeing the numbers, 100% of our families will be impacted. We will see the SNAP and the

Medicaid hit them so if that gives a good representation. It is hard to plan at this point because we don’t know what we are able to plan for. I don’t think any of us are planning further than a month out maybe three months at best.

Councilor Flores asked it is a case of hope for the best but expect the worse?

Michelle Adames said and then leveraging our funds trying to work in collaboration with other organizations and with all of our partners to see how we can access funding together because we are more likely to able to receive that funding if we go in as a collaborative.

Councilor Mattiace said I just want to ask if I could get type of report, I know we have two powerful Senators, and I know Martin Heinrich. What can we do as a collaborative effort as city council to have our Senators because I remember that you brought up about me being Mayor and I can remember asking Pete Dominici and Bingaman for quite a lot of money for Community of Hope in 2003/2004/2005/2006 and they came through with millions of dollars. It would be good to see some kind of report the

Senators have been earmarking for the Community of Hope in the last ten years because we have this new thing about the administration but both of them have been there very long and so maybe as a collaborative effort we could get together with both

Senators and tell them the need that we have because it is quite obvious that you are all doing a great job and I support you all but the City of Las Cruces can come up with hundreds of thousands but only those Senators can come up with millions so maybe we can work together as a team and go after the millions.

Mayor Pro Tem Bencomo said I can answer a little bit of that as well. The City of Las

Cruces has two federal lobbyist and they were here last month. Hopefully everyone got a chance to meet with them and express the needs that we have for our city. I think just to be honest and to have a real clear picture of the federal landscape. Our two Senators are two Democratic Senators which are in the minority of both the

Senate and Congress and so I think they can do as much as they can and not always can go very far. I think our federal lobbyists will be here again if you want to meet with them.

Natalie Green said our federal lobbyists does have a standing meeting with alliance agencies together as a group, so they do share those priorities with those legislators. I am also happy to report that Senator Ben Ray Lujan was here three weeks ago and so he was able to tour Casa de Peregrinos, see the Construction of Amador Crossing and then have a round table with food providers. We have also had Senator Heinrich.

He has done round tables at Mesilla Valley Community of Hope, so they are very active with the organizations, and they did fund quite a bit of congressional directed spending. The challenge is that the continuing resolution swiped almost all of those funding requests and so there is a couple that moved forward that we are watching in

FY26 but the big ones did not pass senate appropriations so there is some additional advocacy and work that we could be doing collaboratively.

Lorenzo Alba said I just want to add also that especially Ben Ray Lujan, he has made a concerted effort to stay in touch with us about everything that is going on on the campus and with Casa de Peregrinos. Senator Heinrich’s office on a local level is always in communication with us about what is going on. We do make visits out there to Washington also and ask him and let him know what is going on. Not only within our organizations but also with the campus and in our community so that they know what the basic need is and what the needs of our community is whether it is operational dollars or infrastructure dollars, what we are working with the city and what we are working with the county on, we inform them very well that this is an annual trip for some of us and now this year we were very blessed that a couple of folks from Economic Development from the city go and it did pay dividends because we were able to get Ben Ray Lujan to commit to $8 million for the kitchens and as

Mayor Pro Tem stated it didn’t make it across the finish line and as Natalie stated as well it didn’t make across the finish line but that is the second year that he has tried to do that. I also serve on the Farm Bill Committee for Senator Ben Ray Lujan and for

Congressman Gabe Vasquez so just try to also keep them also from the grass roots level knowing what is going on here. We do make those efforts, and we are not going to give up asking them for money because you are right, the city can only do so much and as I told Ben Ray Lujan on his visit here the only way to get anything done is on a federal level. The city can help us as much as they can, the county can help us as

much as they can, the state might be able to help for a few years but for it to be an ongoing thing it has to be done on a federal level and I think both of our current

Senators are willing to work across the aisle and that is something that they have been trying to and I have been trying to stay in touch with them about that and it has worked to do some points but not in all of them but I think the fact that they are making the effort is really important for us to all note so I am pretty happy about that.

Mayor Pro Tem Bencomo said the July report that our federal lobbyist provided has a great graph on the earmarks, the millions of dollars in earmark request that we have made for Fire Department, Police Department, Mesilla Valley Community of Hope, many things.

Cariel Apodaca said I just want to add that we do write our own grants to the Senators every year and both Senator Heinrich and Lujan have given us millions of dollars.

They have committed those to our renovations. They helped us with the solar panels.

We also got some battery banks for those solar panels from the senators.

Additionally, they have given a substantial amount of money to Amador Crossing, which is obviously a partnership so I just wanted to add from our perspective that they have given pretty generously in the past and we do write to them.

Steve Chavira said Lorenzo talked about the advocacy trip that we went on to DC and yeah we got in front of some great people. We got some great conversations that happened and the key though as we talk about our supporters and we talk about the people who advocate for us at the grassroots level there is a lot of things that have to happen from the top on down, but the key also is that advocacy that you can do. You all speak glowingly about the Community of Hope and the things that go on and we love that but you all know people that we don’t know. You all know people that have the influence through your efforts that you can help take that message out.

Remember that hunger does not recognize a single holiday. Hunger does not recognize a political party, but hunger is prevalent everywhere you go. Not all of my clients have mental issues or drug issues but every single one of my clients is hungry.

So, when we are talking about the issues that are at hand we need to be all advocates for this community and for our efforts that we are trying to put out there because I will use ourselves as an example and I praise the work that Lorenzo and

Dr. Adames have done by extending their reach out there. I can only serve the people who come to my campus but if I get more money, if I get more advocacy, if I get more capacity to increase, I can take food to people. I can serve more people. There are many people in this community who don’t come to the Community of Hope that are hungry, that need help. We have got to get to them. So, it is all about advocacy and all about you all using your influence with the people you know who will take your cell phone call but not answer the cell phone call when I call but we work together to meet the demand.

Mayor Pro Tem Benocmo said I think that Lorenzo said it best. This is a timely conversation to be having. The New Mexico State Legislature will be meeting for a

Special Session on October 1st to discuss many of these things and we sort of keep skirting around it and I know our non-profits will not say anything political ever because they follow the law but me as an elected official can and so I will. I do want to

note that the big betrayal bill passed by republican held Congress and Trump will have a serious impact on New Mexicans. Medicaid currently provides health care coverage in New Mexico to 350,453 children, 70,790 older adults, and 11,346 disabled individuals. In New Mexico alone 88,530 residents are estimated to lose

Medicaid coverage which will impact the rest of the choices that we have to make.

The impossible choices they already make become even harder. SNAP cuts roughly

58,180 New Mexicans may lose or see reduced SNAP benefits. In Dona Ana county that is 15,708 households and so the urgency of moment could not be more serious and more than ever we have to work together with Community of Hope folks so thank you again for being here and for the work that you do and thank you Natalie for leading this conversation and for reminding us that we do have an internal federal impact team really taking stock of everything that is happening. 3.2 8TH SEMI-ANNUAL POLICE AUDIT REPORT PRESENTED BY THE OIR

GROUP. Viola Perea, City Auditor introduced the topic.

Stephen Connolly, OIR Group gave the overhead presentation.

Teresa Magula, OIR Group continued the overhead presentation.

Stephen Connolly continued the presentation.

Mayor Pro Tem Bencomo asked the use of AI and it is interesting because after I read your report on it a few weeks later there was a Time article about this very specific thing on police and courts, it’s called Police and Courts are Turning to AI, is this

System Ready for It? It specifically names the system that LCPD uses and it’s a concerning thing and I sent it to both Chief and Ikani and I guess I am wondering though given that it is here, AI is here. People are using it. The article even talks about how it can be helpful in many instances. I am wondering if you all have any sort of standards or oversight mechanisms that we can begin considering that you can present and you don’t have to present today but I guess I am wondering if that is something that you can get us or certainly City Manager as the use of AI grows?

Teresa Magula said the evolution of it is moving almost faster than we can keep up with it. There are absolutely groups that are taking a look at the types of controls and guard rails that should and can be put into place to ensure that the AI is being used in an effective manner and one that still aligns with the basics and the basic needs of the police documents that are being generated by AI and so we can certainly report on that in our next semi-annual. A lot of them are fluid, right? We are kind of building the plane, midflight and so we are really working for that. I think that with respect to draft one in specific some of the things that are coming out both the manufacturer Axon is looking to see how it can implement internal checks and balances more effectively for example one of the very basic functions is that it will through easter eggs into the report that it has generated and it is expecting an officer to capture those in his or her review of the report. So, it will put something that is completely nonsensical and that officer should find it and delete it and that indicates to some level that that officer is reviewing the line level of that report. Another place that the check and balances happen is at the supervisor level. Almost often supervisors are reviewing those police

reports. If that supervisor is seeing a little too much consistency across these reports,

AI has a tendency to that. Keep in mind that it is transcribing off of body worn camera footage and so it is going to give you the same narrative if it sees the same thing because it is going to use the path of least resistance. So, if that supervisor is seeing that there is a little bit to much consistency, looking like a little bit to much cutting and pasting on AI’s point of view, perhaps that supervisor can kick those back to give a little more authenticity of the individual officer’s experience in that incident. But yes, absolutely we can report back on that. It is an issue that we are very mindful of and there is a lot of software coming out. Kind of overnight we are seeing new things coming out that law enforcement can use to its benefit I would say.

Stephen Connolly said the only thing I would add to that because I feel like I have to speak up as the old guy in the group. I have been doing this a long time. I started in this profession in 2001 and back then we absolutely were focused on report writing issues when we had the sense that officers were using a lot of boilerplate language in describing things in exactly the same way and talking about the subjects they were encountering, justifying force with particular phrases that didn’t necessarily seem reflective of the their specific and individual experience of an event but really literally could have been cut and paste if cut and paste was even invented way back then.

Report writing issues are not new. This is fancy new technology but the responsibility is always with the supervisors and the review process and to make sure that the objectives of the report are being satisfied whether it is through catching people who aren’t reading the drafts carefully enough or looking for boilerplate language or cut and paste language or things they don’t seem to be reflective of officers actual experience of a specific event.

4. ADJOURNMENT 4.1 Councilor Yvonne Flores moved, seconded by Councilor Becky Corran, to adjourn at 3:03 p.m.

RESULT: Carried

MOVER: Councilor Yvonne Flores

SECONDER: Councilor Becky Corran

AYES: Councilor Johana Bencomo, Councilor Yvonne Flores, Councilor Becki

Graham, Councilor Becky Corran, Councilor Cassie McClure, and Councilor

William Mattiace

Mayor

City Clerk