City Council Meeting June 16, 2025

MINUTES

City Council

Monday, June 16, 2025 @ 1:00 PM

City Council Chambers, City Hall

PRESENT: Mayor Eric Enriquez, Councilor William Mattiace, Councilor Becki Graham, Councilor

Johana Bencomo, Councilor Becky Corran, and Councilor Yvonne Flores

ABSENT: Councilor Cassie McClure

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

APPRECIATION/PROCLAMATIONS - COUNCILOR GRAHAM. Councilor Corran presented the Solid Waste Section with a proclamation for National

Waste & Recycling Workers Week.

Councilor Corran presented Dr. Bobbie Green with a proclamation for Juneteenth.

Mayor Enriquez presented the Centennial High School Softball Team with a

Certificate of Excellence.

1.3 JOBS OF THE WEEK. Sarah Raney, Americas Job Centers of New Mexico presented Jobs of the Week. 1.4 PETS OF THE WEEK. Carol Nielson, Animal Services Center of the Mesilla Valley presented Pets of the

Week.

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

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

3. PUBLIC PARTICIPATION 3.1 Jesse Yoder, Member of the Public said I wanted to talk to you about having longer bus services. After 4 pm. on Saturdays the buses do not run, and I think that we need to extend that and then on Sunday there is no bus service. I have talked to, oh gosh probably 150 people about having bus services run longer hours on Saturday and on

Sunday. Things don’t stop after 4 p.m. Like on Saturday people need to ride the buses to go to church, out to dinner you know. I think that it would be a good thing if there could be more hours, more bus services on weekends and like I said people need to get out on Sundays. People need to just have stuff to do. I believe that the city was supposed to vote on having longer bus services before Covid and they never did. I just hope that you all can do something.

Lynn Moorer, Member of the Public said it is dangerous when public officials make false statements regarding public health. I will correct the record today with documented facts related to the Lead and Copper Rule. During a radio show on

November 27th, last year Councilor Corran falsely asserted that someone with a house built after the 70’s need not worry about lead pipes. In fact, lead pipes were not banned until 1986 so hundreds of houses in Las Cruces built between 1980 and 1986 likely have lead pipes. Handout 1 is a summary of the 1986 law. On February 5th of this year Mayor Pro Tem Bencomo falsely asserted in an email that the federal government sprang the rule on us with little guidance and zero financial support.

Apparently these three false statements were made as justification for why the city shouldn’t have to comply with the rule. The email is Handout 2. In fact, the rule was in the works for many years. A rule promulgated in 2021 laid the groundwork for the

2024 rule. Handout 3, lays this out. EPA provided much guidance during 2024 and before Handout 4 is the first page of guidance document published in 2022. Handout

5, an EPA press release dated October 8, 2024, notes that $2.6 billion is available for drinking water infrastructure funding through the Federal Bipartisan Infrastructure

Law. On June 4th of this year Councilor Corran again provided false insertions to a radio station that aired them. She falsely claimed that the city has eight years to comply with the rule, 159 inspections have been conducted, and the city is in full compliance with the rule. As Handout 5 makes clear lead pipes are to be replaced within ten years not eight. The validity of the city’s inspections is doubtful because local license plumbers regard the city’s technique as inadequate. Nor do numerous other large cities in the southwest rely upon the technique the city uses and one cannot reasonably claim that the city is in full compliance with the rule in light of the copious false or misleading notations in the city’s inventory and when half the city’s properties are missing. Facts from the city’s inventory were provided to you in handouts 1 and 2 at the May 19th meeting. Another non-compliance, the city has not offered to sample the tap for lead for any consumer who requests it. Handout 3 spells out the requirements the city is violating. At the townhall Las Cruces Utilities Director

Adrienne Widmer did not offer to sample the tap of a meeting attendee who requested it. Also, Las Cruces Utilities has refused to help property owners who have asked about financial assistance for replacement of lead pipes. Deputy Director of

Regulatory Compliance Steve Perez falsely told the caller that financing is not available despite the city’s letter stating that financial assistance is available. This

letter is Handout 6. Handout 7 is an EPA advisory stating that failure to comply with the rule may result in federal enforcement. I urge the city to bring in an independent engineer with management experience to compile the facts about the city’s compliance before EPA takes enforcement action against the city.

Liz Rodriguez-Johnson, Member of the Public said it has been four weeks since the

Mayor, the council and the City Manager were given copies of detailed lists of significant problems in the online Lead and Copper Rule inventory. This is an inventory EPA requires to be posted online. These problems appear to render the inventory significantly out of compliance with the rule. Today I am going to give everyone an update regarding the extent in which Las Cruces Utility has corrected these problems. Handout 1 was provided to you at the May 19th meeting and documents 453 properties out of 702 sampled. They have no indication of any service line at all. That is 65% of the properties that don’t show up on the map. Out of the 453 properties missing from the inventory, a grand total of one is now listed on the inventory, nor has Las Cruces Utilities provided any explanation as to why more than half of the city’s properties have been left out of the inventory. Handout 2 also provided to you May 19th listed deficiencies related to 81 properties that do appear on the inventory that feature false or misleading characterizations about the piping, or they characterize piping as non-lead without any foundation whatsoever. Recent reviews of these 81 properties on the city’s online inventory now reveals the following,

60% have no changes whatsoever. Very few of the most egregious mistakes have been fixed. These are the clear falsehoods related to the installation date in relation to the lead ban in 1986. Some listings just removed the dates so now the date is blank.

Some merely change the labeling for the entire service line without fixing obvious inaccuracies regarding to a portion of the line. Just putting a new name on it doesn’t fix the underlying problems. There is no evidence that Las Cruces Utility has changed this inadequate inspection technique. Notation of visual inspection at the meter pit seems to indicate that the same flawed technique continues to be used. Some of these visual inspections at the meter pit are now appearing in the record as having been conducted months before they appeared on the inventory map. For example, the record of a property on Hillsdale Street on March 22nd showed no fuel verification.

It now says visual inspection occurred last December. There is no evidence that any line has been visually inspected in at least two locations as required. The bottom line is that a few records were treated but none was fully rectified. Every single listing sampled still contains false and/or misleading information. This means that property owners who consult the inventory are still likely to encounter false, misleading, or missing information.

Kathe Stark, Member of the Public said on April 7th you passed a new animal ordinance and before the passage the city council asked questions as to how the public was going to be educated about the new ordinance. Outside of one article in the Sun News I haven’t seen any efforts to do so. The new ordinance hasn’t been codified so when we get questions or concerns we can’t point them to the ordinance.

We are pointing them to a very cumbersome and difficult to navigate council action form. I can’t direct them to the Animal Control webpage because it is not current either. In August it will be four years when I started coming to the council to point out the deficits in the Animal Control webpage. You continue to say that pets need to be licensed in Las Cruces and that went away in 2021. You can do better. The ordinance

states that a separate resolution will come forward with fees and penalties and we have recommended that the city follow the county schedule. We have not heard of any forward movement. Shades of the 2021 community cat ordinance which required a separate resolution, the deadline for that resolution was extended and that was never completed. The previous animal ordinance had an intact animal permit requirement that was never implemented. We have discussed options of how that could be done looking at what other municipalities have implemented. We haven’t heard anything. I know of three packs of dogs intact, very aggressive, terrorizing people and animals in our community. They’re a public safety threat, and it is just a matter of time before somebody gets hurt. I understand that one additional animal control position has been allocated in the next budget cycle and that is appreciated. I believe if memory serves me right that is the first staffing increase since 2009, despite the growth in population in this community. A couple of days ago, two women came to my house in a panic asking what they could do about an injured dog that they had taken into their laundry room, and I said okay, let’s call animal control, get the animal checked for chip, maybe it has a home, and we can get it back. They said they had already done that, and that animal control was three hours out. Your animal control officers are working their tail off, but they are severely stretched. I am not going to be able to stay for the rest of the meeting, but I will go home and after my appointments and live stream to see what your comments are. My bottom line is what is your plan?

Armando Sarabia, Member of the Public said I am here today not just as a lifelong resident of Las Cruces but as someone who remembers the sound of professional baseball filling the summer air at Apodaca Park. Back in 2010, our city had a team called the Las Cruces Vaqueros. They played in powder blue and gave this community a season full of joy, local pride and something to rally around. People came out, stands were filled on weekends, families made memories. It was something real and then it disappeared. I have to ask since the Vaqueros folded, has any minor league professional organization or league approached the city about baseball returning and if not why haven’t we? Why do we let professional baseball vanish from

Las Cruces without trying again or anything? Recently I had a conversation again with

Holly McWaters, the former General Manager of the Vaqueros, she told me that despite the league’s instability and early doubts the team turned out to be more successful than anyone expected. That there is something about the city and what could be possible if we were willing to explore new ideas. I am not here to ask for money or promises I am just simply going to ask this, if possible, could I be placed on a future agenda to speak about a new concept for professional baseball that could begin right here in Las Cruces. It is a concept rooted in community, opportunity, and long-term vision.

Albert, Member of the Public said we are witnessing right now the consequence of a long-standing campaign to launch an attack. For years we have been witness in this campaign that aims to dehumanize and demonize immigrants. What is dangerous about this is that when you strip people from their culture and their past and their history and their dignity then they become this blank canvas and on that blank canvas you can project all of your fears and everything that affects you in life, the ways your government and their safety nets are not protecting you. Everyone here has struggled. Life has gotten harder throughout the months. Groceries are more expensive. It is hard to have access to healthcare, to education, to affordable housing.

Yet we are here as citizens pointing fingers at who is that is taking these things from us and at the same time there is a group of people who are only getting richer and richer and richer and spending money on bombing people overseas and jailing people here, $120 million has been spent on riots in California. Obviously, we are not okay with this as people from here. There is a lot of immigrants in our community, and it is important for us to stand up and show that we are going to be there to claim this space as a safe space for people no matter where you are from. To understand also who originally belongs from here, whose land this was and who really we are taken out of here. We are targeting democratic cities, it is so blatantly obvious that it is a political agenda that is trying to criminalize people and when we have peaceful gatherings to express our support for these communities that are being targeted and we are met with three snipers on rooftops I think it should be pretty obvious how incredibly scary that is at this time. When the police deputies in Florida saying that they are ready to kill people, kill them graveyard dead for protestors, there is a statement out saying that these snipers were sent out to protect us because there were police that were aware of intent to be violent, direct threats and I just wonder, I don’t understand if that was true, if you saw this peaceful event and there was an intent of violence why not communicate that with us? Wouldn’t that be a better way to make us safe? To make us aware of this threat? Because where I was standing the only threat was three snipers and the only intent to violence was aiming down the scope at us.

Dylan Davis, Member of the Public said I am speaking today as a concerned resident and participant in the peaceful protest that took place in our community on Friday evening. I am here to express deep alarm and outrage at the extreme and inappropriate police response that occurred at this demonstration. During our protest,

Chief Story I am talking to you so I would appreciate it that you would get off your phone and listen, thank you. During our protest at which we passed out slices of watermelon and painted a mural of a butterfly law enforcement did deploy snipers and pointed riffles and tactical crossbows at us for the entire duration of the event. This happened in broad daylight, in a public space and in front of community members exercising their First Amendment Rights. Let me be clear, there were children at this event. There were children with guns pointed at them for three hours. Families, parents, and elders, at no point was there a threat posed that would warrant this kind of militarized intimidation. When one of us respectfully approached and asked one of the officers what they were doing and why there were multiple snipers he responded with “Fuck off, go away”. The officer who is sworn to protect and serve the community told us to go away while they were pointing snipers at children. What happened Friday was nothing more than a show of force meant to send a message. There was no intent to protect us and let’s be honest, we all know that this would never happen at a white led protest or parade which would proven to be true at Saturday’s protest led by white organizers which was met with zero shows of force or police threats. This was a targeted repression of community organizers, activists, and anyone who dares to challenge the atrocities the state is committing everyday while they are kidnapping human beings off of our streets. Pointing rifles and tactical crossbows at peaceful residents, some of them children is not public safety. So, I am not here to ask for an apology I am here to demand answers. Who authorized this deployment? Why were there snipers pointed at children and what steps will be taken to make sure that this disgusting abuse of power never happens again? And if law enforcement cannot

differentiate between an armed threat and a peaceful protest then we are not safe in their hands, and I want to make it clear that the people will not be intimidated, and we will not forget.

Katherine Key Tello, Member of the Public said for the sake of transparency I want to share that I work at Branigan Library. I am not here as a representative of Branigan but as a citizen of Las Cruces speaking to my own experiences, this statement is my own. On June 13, 2025, Branigan received a phone call from a 915 number stating that the Las Cruces Police Department would be using the building as a site after hours to respond to impending violence. Minutes later an officer showed up and expected roof access. This officer set up a rifle with a scope on an upper floor of the library. I witnessed myself this officer watching citizens of Las Cruces through the scope of this rifle. In the end no violence occurred, thankfully. This haste and extreme reaction is common but unacceptable. City Councilor Bencomo or Mayor Pro Tem

Bencomo has rightfully acknowledged the poor optics of this choice in her statement that this decision to “point sniper rifles at peaceful protestors, families, children and concerned citizens sent a message that peaceful decent is seen as a threat.” Police

Chief Story did say that their sharp shooters were present to protect to protestors but standing there in the grass watching a three-year-old girl play with a puppy witnessing those men watching us through their scopes I felt only the violence of their presence. I urge anyone who can do something about this to take action. It should be unacceptable that the reaction to a comment as an officer pointing a deadly weapon at Las Crucens and children and if the police are truly there to protect us as Chief

Story says they should be with us not stationed at a distance on what is supposed to be a safe building waiting for a moment to strike. This incident contributed deeply to misinformation and has convinced community members that the library called the police leading them to believe the library condones violence. This incident directly interferes with protests convincing citizens that peaceful protesting may get them shot. It affects community perception. Already I have witnessed individuals who have reported fear of coming to the library because they don’t know what will be waiting.

Our country is in a deep state of division and with officers excited to render their civilian’s graveyard dead do not contribute more deeply than you already have to the depths of that divide. Please do something, please look internally and address this.

Quinten Key Tello, Member of the Public said I want to echo Katherine’s sentiments. I was there on Friday as well. I felt a very palpable sense of ease among the crowd of genuine fear among some. Some left that crowd because of that fear and it seems that the opposite of encouraging the right to protest that I imagine most people here uphold. On Saturday the police presence was noticeably different. On Friday there were officers in plain clothes hidden in shadows holding guns. Saturday they were in the open on bikes and even helped someone in the crowd who had succumbed to some kind of heat related injury. This is what I expect from the department, support, outreach, community, solidarity, not hostility, not fear and even the positive aspects of their presence on Saturday was marred somewhat by the memory of the men in the shadows with the guns. I just want to urge prudence and consideration when making these kinds of decisions because it is integral to the sense of community that I believe this council has been and is trying to cultivate for this city.

Patty Hartman, Member of the Public said overall I have noticed this for so long, what

we don’t have are any kind of standards or values or anything whatsoever. I am really kind of tired of hearing people praise themselves, authorities, all this stuff. The only evidence that I see is the statistics that say we failed at everything, and I am just fed up with that. Public Works, maybe they should hire people with experience and not just put road close signs in the middle of road without any kind of warning. They detour you, you make a turn and then where are you? You are lost in some neighborhood. I called Public Works twice. The one I complained about the first time, it wasn’t fixed even the second time. It’s just ridiculous. Shouldn’t people know how to do their jobs here? And I am not just talking about labor jobs. I am talking about all of you guys too. I don’t know what you think your roll is. Mayor, I wrote to you as soon as you got into office, a long email, you are just one of many that doesn’t bother responding. I am just really fed up with this city of like you just do whatever you want.

There is no accountability from anybody in power whatsoever. How about the cooling stations? Well, I called this morning, what kind of cooling stations do we have? Gee, I don’t think we have any. And as I sat here in the meeting today at 12:15 now there is something on the news, oh now we have cooling stations all of a sudden. I am just fed up with this Mickey Mouse way that everything is done here. You make up your own words. Public participation, this is not public participation. This is a comment.

Participation is an interaction, and we don’t have that, and I am just really disappointed in our city and I am fed up.

Michael Harris, Member of the Public said a few meetings ago we passed a proclamation that said that Las Cruces is in support of Dark Skies and that we love to help out our nature and our people have nice access to that. But as I was walking in today, I noticed that the lights in front of City Hall which are pointed straight up, not only are they pointed straight up they are the decorative ones, red, white, and blue ones, but also they are on right now in the afternoon so. Someone might want to look into that.

Trent Scribner, Member of the Public said I want to start by saying that militarization of the police does not make us safe. I want to start by saying that this is a national problem. This is not just here that we have seen the police becoming increasingly more militarized and this is contributed to the feelings that the general public has about them and this is why people said earlier contributed to that divide. As we speak right now the federal government is partnering with private companies like Palentir to build data bases on American citizens to spy on American citizens and the new

Patriot Act. The relevance of this is if we are going to have police presence at protests pointing guns at peaceful protestors well in advance before anything is happened and these same police are going to have access to every American’s data I can’t trust the police force. I can’t trust that. It is government overreach. Right now, ICE is invading our communities, and they are with unprecedented force, with unprecedented impunity they are breaking into houses, man and they are kicking down doors at the churches and maybe I am exaggerating a little bit but barely and we all know someone in there who has been taken and basically disappeared. Fifty New Mexicans have been disappeared by ICE. The relevance of this to local law enforcement is that who is going to enforce the unjust laws that are coming, and I want to know that I can trust my Police Department not to take up the gun against me when they are asked. If

I have a second longer, I want to say thank you to the brave working men and women of the city for keeping the roads clean and all that and please change the meeting

time because this is very early for me.

Spencer Taylor, Member of the Public said I am former 15-year professor at New

Mexico State University and currently a second year Master Social Work student in town and I have a little bit of a show and tell here today. I have in front of me a book called Yes, She Can. This is a collection of essays from women who worked in the

Obama Administration. On page 29, it starts a chapter titled, Policy Assistant for

Immigration and Rural Affairs Office Domestic Policy Council, page 25, June 27,

2013. This is authored by Andrea Flores who I was fortunate enough when I was working with the Sun News to go cover when she came down to talk about this chapter and what she was writing about. Andrea Flores, about 25 years ago when she was at Sierra Middle School, go Falcons, was pulled over and questioned for no other crime other than for driving while Latina and they asked her about her citizenship status. She is a birth citizen and so this was 25 years ago, and due process was a little bit more intact than it is today, so she was able to kind of figure this out, get through it, maintain citizenship, maintain her status here. She went on to campaign for

Harvard Student Body President. She worked in the Obama Administration and the

Biden Administration on Immigration Policy, and she is a friend that I recall from middle school and high school days and I think this is a great example of how if we protect our citizens and if we protect people around us we have no idea what comes out of Las Cruces. What type of productivity comes out of Las Cruces, right? I really admire all the work that Andrea has been doing. She is on CNN, she is on Democracy

Now, she is talking about Las Cruces in very positive ways but also this way of distinction she encountered was a big problem, right? So, what does this have to do with right now? Well, here we are 25 years later we have this unhinged, lawless federal government that is coming after people, right? The only line of defense against this is smaller government, state government, city government, etc. right? We need policy. Functional, practical policy from you all that can help defend people from this

ICE terrorizing that is going on in our communities and Andrea is a great example of all the things she did but you’re privileged with protections by virtue of all the things you are going to go on to do, right? You are privileged with protection by virtue that you are a human being. We need to see human beings in our community and protect these human beings. ICE is not welcome here, immigrants are welcome here, immigrants are wanted. Please give us some policy that reflects that.

Lindley Hornsby, Member of the Public said I am a resident of District 4. I walked here today and I couldn’t help but find myself looking at the roof for the Fire Department

Station, the balcony of the Library because the last time that I walked through the park that I walked through to get here I saw snipers on those roofs and I have been at that park dozens of times in my time living here and never seen such a thing at a community event where we are spending time with elders, children, college students with a shared belief that and a demand to have ICE outside of our communities. To keep our community members safe and to suddenly be hanging out with a six-year- old doing like finger paints and see a sniper. That was very scary. That didn’t make us feel safe. So, I just want to iterate to the council that when you send police presence not everyone feels safe by that. In fact, a lot of folks feel very scared by that which I think that we all should know given the current context of what we are seeing with the militarized police force in this country, but I just want to remind you all it is scary, police hurt people. I say that, as someone, my grandfather was a police officer, and I

know this to be true. So when you are making these decisions about putting snipers on roofs I want to remind you how unfair that is that you are taking away or attempting to take away the joy that folks are having in community at a demonstration by scaring the shit out of us and look nothing bad happened because nothing bad was going to happen and as someone else said earlier the police are here to protect us then stand with us. Don’t point guns at us.

Jovanni Hernandez, Member of the Public said I am a resident of Las Cruces and I would like to share a few things. I live here in Las Cruces and I have lived here for quite some time and I have had many firsts here. I finished school here. I think I fell in love for the first time here, also had my first real heartbreak as many of us have had. I have hung out by the river when it is dry and when it is flowing. I have enjoyed many of our city facilities. Meerscheidt, the skate park, the Aquatic Center and also the libraries and that is really cool. I have had some of the best times I have ever had here in the city enjoying those facilities. In fact one of my favorite places that I kind of thought was kind of a sanctuary, a quiet place was the second story of the Branigan

Memorial Library in what they call the Creators Room. There is like model ship in there, there is painting supplies, there is old maps and stuff like that, a whole bunch of really cool things and to be honest I didn’t really think that a whole bunch of people really knew about it. There I spent time doing work and homework with my partner, the love of my life where I got to see her in the beautiful light in in the afternoon that comes in window there that overlooks the park. On Friday last week I was there at that park protesting against racist, xenophobic, ICE, immigration and custom enforcement from the federal government, kidnapping people in our communities and

I look over and I see a sniper. A man from Las Cruces Police Department with a riffle pointing at us. We seen them over there on the Fire Department roof also and that is not okay. Extremism by law enforcement against people of color, against organizers in this community is not something that I was really expecting. Some of these folks that came before me said it best the same kind of threat of violence and that is what this is was not replicated on Saturday at an organized protest with mostly white organizers, white leadership, white participants, a whole lot of snowbirds we know them all. Instead, it was directed at one where there was finger painting, there was a pinata and there was peaceful protest. Standards if we have them and if they are subject to change mean nothing. I want to know what the city council is going to be doing about that? What the city council has to say about that? What the city council has to say about things like automatic license plate readers, that ICE is getting access to all over the country and whether or not the police department will cave to the federal Trump Administration by signing a 287G Agreement like so many counties in

New Mexico have done already?

Axl Hail, Member of the Public said I too was a peaceful protestor on Friday’s demonstration where sniper riffles were aimed at us. I would like to remind the council that Las Cruces Police Department has paid over $22 million in wrongful death lawsuits since 2022. In a statement Chief Story made to the Albuquerque Journal about said snipers, he said that the officers weren’t intended to be visible. That we weren’t supposed to see them. So that we did see them was that a sign of these officers’ incompetence? That we do not have properly trained police officers on our force that is even more of a threat to our safety. Let’s say hypothetically that like Chief

Story claims that those officers were there for our protection which mind you I don’t

believe. That was not communicated to any of the demonstrators in any meaningful way by any law enforcement or official so that reads to us as a thinly veiled threat of state violence, is how that reads. We do not trust the Las Cruces Police Department with their track record and then to see Chief Story and our police representatives here looking down their nose at us with disrespect as we speak is atrocious and Mayor

Enriquez for you to interrupt Jovanni Hernandez after his three minutes were up as you let others speak once their time was up is uncalled for. When they were speaking about the copper and lead pipe ordinances you let her finish. He just had a couple more words to get out in that sentence and you interrupted him, uncalled for Mayor

Enriquez. I call for a better city council, for our police force to take accountability for their actions. The militarization of this is uncalled for. I have lived my entire life in Las

Cruces community and very few times have I seen it come together in such a beautiful way as I did at Friday’s demonstration. For these people to gather in what they believe in and the strength that we see in our community and the love we hold for each other and then to feel that fear is uncalled for and it frankly gives me such disdain for our city council for our representatives that we are supposed to trust with our lives, with our public safety, no. Do better city council.

Rose, Member of the Public said I live in District 2 and I am also here to talk about the protest that occurred this past weekend on Friday and Saturday and the stark difference between how those two were handled by law enforcement. The protest on

Friday was in response to the ongoing ICE raids and the disappearance of families and the course of action that was found by the law enforcement is really disturbing.

Seeing three snipers that were pointed at kids and elders and you may argue that this was to protect those people but it really was just to intimidate and scare people for exercising their right for free speech against a fascist regime and in contrast the No

Kings Protest which was in response to Donald Trump’s birthday, that was organized by 50501 Indivisible which they partner with law enforcement and with their actions how law enforcement treated was just, just having bikes patrolling the place and well you might think that is how it is supposed to be done. The right to protest is part of how this country was built based off of movements that didn’t require permission and the true way to keep us safe is not by militarization and enforcement it is by creating policies that protect those vulnerable such as 22-059, a resolution in support of a pathway to citizenship for immigrant families and a Resolution 18-075, city of Las

Cruces being a diverse welcoming community and friendly city to all immigrants. I just want accountability to be made. We have got to do better.

Bea, Member of the Public said I am from District 2 and I am here to speak on the happenings that happened during the protests that occurred this weekend. To start I have been a part of all sorts of protest throughout the span of a decade in New

Mexico, especially Las Cruces for women’s rights, gun reform, and LGBTQ rights to mention a few and even when there was a cop presence I have not until 2024 experienced it quite to this degree but what happened on Friday during a peaceful protest in solidarity with California with their fight to keep families together against ICE brutality our country is no stranger to police brutality especially during POC centric protests but to see not one but two visible snipers during a peaceful protest was shocking ,especially in a city like Las Cruces. The individuals that organized aren’t overwhelming in numbers just in comparison to the other protests we are seeing nationwide. These were excessive measures that were utilized by individuals used by

the Las Cruces Police Department to instill fear in peaceful protest for organizing for immigrant POC liberation, especially after speaking on Juneteenth on the atrocities of the shooting that occurred here so soon. What we need is gun reform. What we need is police reform. It is interesting to see the difference between the police presence on

Saturday versus Friday. The immigrant population is a large percentage of what makes New Mexico so enchanting. New Mexico and NMSU alone specifically is a melting pot of culture but what I urge from you council members is to strengthen our existing policies with Resolution 22-059, a support of pathway to citizenship for New

Mexico families as well as Resolution 18-075, supporting a diverse and welcoming community and friendly city to all immigrants. Lastly as someone who is hosting a drag show in solidarity in what my brothers and sisters facilitating at that protest and at a market right after it is sad to see how those individuals were wielding guns that would coat that which was said to be otherwise a beautiful event and make it an experience of fear for those who weren’t able to attend. Fearmongering will not stop individuals’ right to protest and speak freely for those who are most disenfranchised.

Sarai Guerrero, Member of the Public said I will be reading statement from someone who was unable to be here today. “Dear Las Cruces, city Mayor Enriquez, and City

Council members. My name is Rene Beltran, I am unable to appear before you today for public comment because of a scheduling conflict. However, I feel strongly about this issue and want to go on record in protest of the actions of LCPD on 6/13/2025. To be clear I do not currently reside in Las Cruces city limits, but I have been a proud Las

Cruces resident since 1994. Living many years within city limits and still own a home within District 4 in Las Cruces and have adult children living there. I shop, work, and recreate and exercise my constitutional right to protest within the city of Las Cruces.

As such I want to register my disgust and frankly fear of seeing the Las Cruces Police

Department snipers posted proximal to Albert Johnson Park on Friday evening at

6/13/2025. During the peaceful protest denouncing the actions of ICE in Los Angeles and similar actions elsewhere in the world such as in Gaza. Seeing snipers with rifles trained on peaceful gathering of folks including many families and children is dismaying. If there was in fact a credible threat, why did the LCPD inform this gathering and protect them through information. I do not trust or believe the Las

Cruces police when they say that they were supposedly responding to a credible threat. Instead, I perceive this as an act of escalation and intimidation. I raised three children in Las Cruces throughout my parenting I exercised my constitutional rights to protest and express my viewpoint and have often had my children with me at all ages and stages in their growth. I am proud to have taught them a way to engage in our democratic system. I applaud the parents and caretakers as well as the principal individuals that set up publicly at events such as Friday just to stand for their viewpoints. I see such family and individual interactions in the photos of Friday evenings peaceful event with young people, children and families and I see how

LCPD chose to respond. As a parent and community member I am appalled. I ask that you hold LCPD accountable for this decision. That you hold yourselves accountable for your role in supporting this Police Chief and his politization of public safety and that you be answerable to the families that were threatened and made to feel unsafe. Respectfully, Rene Beltran”.

Liz Bennett, Member of the Public said I want to share a few thoughts but starting with gratitude for efforts that have been made in the areas that will continue to make our

community stronger and promote the wellness that we long for and all want and deserve so I am grateful for all of the people who take care of our parks. I visit

Apodaca Park regularly and walk my dogs there and deeply appreciate the big, beautiful shade trees and the cool grass and I think of the people who show up there everyday and make sure that it is a nice beautiful place for us to have in the community. I am thankful for the affordable housing that I see going up on Three

Crosses and on El Paseo. It looks beautiful and I love how quickly it is coming to fruition and knowing that our community can find comfort and safety there soon. A few meetings ago you presented your budget, and I was very grateful that you included six youth specialists in your budget, and I am very grateful that you are making an effort to include young people in meaningful professional opportunities to be part of a conversation. I can see where we are investing in what works and I just want to share a few recommendations around those things as well. One that we continue to protect our trees and that is going to be really important in the future. When you are hiring young people in these positions that you consider hiring actually young people who have lived experience in the areas that you are looking to impact and lastly I am grateful for our right to peacefully assemble to raise our voices against the abuses of human rights and injustice that we see taking place in our community and across the country and whenever I have been involved in and supported these peaceful gatherings we always prioritize safety. We have conversations about safety. We provide sunscreen and water and snacks, and we even designate someone as a police liaison. Someone who is willing, ready and able to interact with law enforcement if the need arises and I would consider a credible threat against a protest a legitimate and pressing need to communicate with law enforcement. However, there was no attempt to communicate with anyone on site on Friday and so that is another one of my recommendations is that we invest in liaisons in the practice of communication, the practice of partnership and relationship if we really want to keep each other safe.

Lucas Herndon, Member of the Public said I am a resident of District 2. On Friday evening I attended a peaceful protest at Albert Johnson Park along with hundreds of fellow community members. We gathered to show solidarity with our fellow citizens in

Los Angeles as well as other communities across the country including our own which have been under increased brutalization by federal agents, the police and now active- duty military. This event was independent from other organized demonstrations that were scheduled for the following day, Saturday during which millions of Americans turned out to oppose the oppressive regime currently in place in our country. I mentioned this because the Chief told the Albuquerque Journal that “there were multiple comments that made them aware of directly threatened or inferred violence on the planned protest”. To my knowledge the event on Friday was not overly planned and what threats I have seen in my official capacity as a New Mexico political insider and expert were directed at the Saturday events, please bear this in mind. At our event on Friday members of Las Cruces Police Department were seen occupying elevated positions overlooking the demonstrators at the park armed with high powered rifles with scopes. These officers were documented by multiple attendees including myself with their weapon’s barrels pointed at our peaceful gathering. When I say “their weapon’s barrels were pointed at” I am being specific with that terminology because at the event people used words like aiming at and as a certified firearms training instructor myself, certified by the United States Concealed Carry Association

and registered with the State of New Mexico, I do appreciate the difference between, “aiming weapon” and having my weapon’s barrel pointed at something. However, to untrained folks these subtle differences make little difference and the feeling of having guns pointed at them made the entire crowd feel very uneasy. No uneasy is not the right word. It scared people. People were scared. There were kids and elders at the event. I shouldn’t have to rationalize what kind of citizens were there but for the sake of emphasis hundreds of innocent people felt scared because of what they perceived as snipers were aiming their weapons at them for simply gathering specifically to call out the brutal way militarized federal troops and police have been treating us across the country for years. Chief Story said, “the officers should have not been visible with their riffles, but they were there to keep those exercising their First Amendment Right safe.” The officers weren’t just visible they were endangering people down range of their weapons. The key principle of firearm safety, always treat firearms as if they were loaded, control your muzzle at all times, always keep your finger outside the trigger guard until you are ready to fire, be aware of your target and what is beyond if that is hard to remember you can remember the acronym, ACAB. I find it highly suspect that the police responded to our gathering with sharp shooters on overwatch using potential threats as a justification but on Saturday I saw no such activity. I saw officers calmly riding their bikes around the park. If the threats were made around

Saturdays protest, why didn’t they come out and overwatch that then? Why didn’t

LCPD attempt to make contact with organizers on Friday to make us aware of these so-called threats? They can’t be overstated that the reason is that LCPD viewed us as threats for organizing in solidarity with others who oppose state sanctioned violence from any uniformed representative of the state but in the end they just proved our point.

Karen Quevedo, Member of the Public said I live in District 2. My grandmother Alicia

Montono was born in El Paso in 1934. My great-grandparents had traveled from

Coahuila, Mexico to cross this border. There was no ICE. There was no militarized police force to attack them, to kill them. My family’s long exhausting journey was rewarded by finding a home in Texas over 90 years ago. And I know there is some in this room and throughout this country who would have preferred a different result but this is the story of how I got to be here and I am proud of it. This is the story of tens of thousands of people and families all unique and bound together at the same time. My family made their way from segregated Texas to Las Cruces, New Mexico back to

Texas and eventually to Los Angeles where my dad was born and met my mom in college. I was born ten miles north of Downtown LA but once I found my way back to the borderlands 15 years ago, I knew I was home. The Department of Homeland

Security was established in 2002 and has nothing to do with home. ICE was established a year later and both are violent and unnecessary arms of the state. DHS and ICE are not inevitable, they are not required for life, or wellbeing, they destroy life and wellbeing. Just as one horrifying example I will remind everyone that in December of 2018, two toddlers were killed by ICE, just within weeks of each other. A seven- year-old and a nine year old were killed and I do say killed in ICE custody. At least 52 people have been killed in ICE custody since then. Twelve people were killed just last year alone in ICE custody. So, whether you want to say these killings were due to neglect or cruelty or indifference it is still state sanctioned killing of human beings. So when the people of Las Cruces rose up to defend themselves against the increasing terror and violence of ICE and were met with even more violence I was called to

gather with my community in Las Cruces on Friday to say ICE out of LA, ICE out of

Las Cruces, ICE out of the United States and the cops responded by putting sniper riffles at us, at families, and children gathered at the park with music and art. The supposed threats online that the cops used and continue to use as their excuse were in response to threats against Saturday’s protest. We know this. The threats were on a blog post about Saturday. It was about Saturday’s No Kings rally yet the snipers showed up Friday. So, thanks but no thanks with that lie. I will just end to reassure everyone that no amount of grotesque state sanctioned hate and violence will ever keep us from gathering, keep us from building a world without ICE and without cops.

We know it is possible, and it is worth fighting for it and when I say abolish ICE, I mean abolish borders and I mean abolish cops.

Allison Wallace, Member of the Public said I am a resident of District 4 and I also attended the demonstration on Friday in solidarity with a lot of these individuals but I have something else that I wanted to mention. Because quite a few years ago I remember one of the first political actions I was involved in that involved quite a few young people like we see here today was about a skate park. I know that a lot of people are very excited about the city investing in more opportunities for people to come together, more community spaces that are easily accessible to people of all ages and families and so I wanted to say thank you to the city for making sure that the money from the state went into finally redoing that skate park. I believe it was 2017 was the original petition that I remember being a part of. It was quite a while ago and so to see that pretty much completed now is awesome. Please continue to invest in our city. I do love this city and I have been living here for 15 years and I want to see it continue to grow and I want to see it continue to see it retain people and retain families and make it a little more enticing for people to live. We have a lot of good things going for us. Especially the beautiful Organ Mountains and if we can keep it up we can make our city even better.

Gwen Stacy, Member of the Public said I would like to speak about the events that happened on the protest on Friday. Especially in the sense that after learning and seeing the actual posted rifles as well as hearing about a potential that there was just cops in the library I had to leave because I am person that for various reasons can’t afford to get arrested. Even off hand I would say that the reasons that they give do not sound like they were meant to protect us because that means to ignore the greater context of the national situation in terms of ICE protest. I would say clearly, they were expecting us to become a riot based on unfounded speculation in comparison to what is currently happening in LA even though those are completely different circumstances in a different city, and I felt terrible leaving early that day because I went around waiting for my friends to die. That is how it felt and I also just want to point out that ICE is doing is blatantly illegal and unconstitutional because they have been documented as deporting and then handweaving it they have deported US citizens and they say we don’t know where they are anymore. We should all be united and opposing them having a massive overreach of power and that they are very much akin to something like a Schutzstaffel or SS or a secret police and to Jeremy Story and all police I oppose this. If the federal government starts doing something like say making it being illegal to be transgender will they actually protect their communities?

Or will they be like so many at the Norvic Trials saying that they were just following orders.

Richard Barela, Member of the Public said I tried to get this video shown because it is very disturbing. On my way back from Young Park at the Music in the Park I was prompted to look in a certain direction on my way to where I reside in my tent. As I was going in the tree there was a dead pigeon. I would like the opportunity for Police

Chief Story to see this video while I describe it to the city council. Would that be okay?

Mayor Enriquez said no, not at this time. The video has to be properly vetted to the

City Clerk. We can schedule a time and you can show the video at another time.

Richard Barela said let me start by quoting the preamble of the New Mexico

Constitution. “We the people of New Mexico grateful to almighty God for the blessings of liberty to secure the advantages of a state government do ordain and establish constitution.” That is the state constitution which recognizes which is basically legislative intent, recognizes almighty God. So, I say as an agent to almighty God you have a king already, New Mexico does and so does the United States endowed by our creator. I wanted to show a video of attack, basically a warning, a death threat.

As I said I came up the tree while at a certain spot at Young Park and this is during the Music in the Park, right by the children’s playground on the west side. I look over there because I was going to pick it up and throw it away. I see some paper over there and I also see it is being held down by a cinder block brick. I go over there and take the cinder block brick off, the paper started flying, there was paper plates and a paper on there and a piece of cardboard. I removed that cardboard, and underneath was a headless rooster with magots coming out of its body. It is all right here on video but you all don’t want to see that because you all practice that stuff and I am tired of these death threats against me, aided by your Police Department over here. It is not going to work what you all did to Jesus Christ. I am his agent here. I have tried to contact the United States government, the United Nations, you, this city council, whether it was Miyagishima or you. I tried to bring this embassy of peace from almighty God and you don’t want peace. You want Armageddon. This isn’t the only headless crow is along that path that I take at Young Park to return to my tent where I reside. It is not the first time I have seen that kind of threat and also I have been handed oranges in church.

Fred Miller, Member of the Public said I am a resident of District 4, and I just wanted to address the notion that no one should have seen those swat snipers. That is not comforting. Local police service seems to me like it should be public service. If they are trying to keep it secret, then they’re not supposed to be secret service. It doesn’t help to think that they might be there still or in other places, other times in town. Are they surveilling us without our awareness? Are they operating in secret that no one should have seen them? That bothers me.

Jan Thompson, Member of the Public said I am an old white woman but I attended both the Friday and Saturday demonstrations and the difference was significant. The difference in the way the police handled themselves and interacted or didn’t interact with the demonstrators. It appeared very clearly to me to be a case of ageism. I believe that there is a bias that young people are undisciplined and are prone to violence because the difference was just stark and I hope that everybody involved in

the decisions as to how the police would behave at the demonstrations will look at themselves and ask was this ageism?

Jim Hoerst, Member of the Public said there's something happening here. But what it is ain't exactly clear. There's a man with a gun over there. Telling me I got to beware. I think it's time we stop. Children, what's that sound? Everybody look, what's going down? There's battle lines being drawn. Nobody's right if everybody's wrong. Young people speaking their minds. Getting so much resistance from behind. It's time we stop. What sound? Everybody look, what's going down? What a field day for the heat.

A thousand people in the streets. Singing songs and carrying signs. Mostly say,

Hooray for our side. It’s time we stop. What’s that sound? Everybody look what’s going down.

Jessica Jimenez, Member of the Public said I am honored to say that I am from Dona

Ana and my family has been there for many generations. Growing up I went to Dona

Ana Elementary and some of the first things I learned was the Pledge of Allegiance,

Character Counts, and how to be aware of others in the room. I remember starting to learn the Pledge of Allegiance and not understanding why we were doing it but understanding that it was something of significance and I knew it was important that I learned the words and lived by them because during this pledge I placed my hand over something that was very important in my body, my heart. Something that I was using before I could remember. Something I used before I went to school to learn everything I did for my body so I knew it was important. Next thing I learned was

Character Counts. Character Counts if we don’t remember are the six pillars and they are like core ethic values. They are identified by the non-partisan secular group of youth development expertise in 1992. They are just core values that transcend culture, religion, and socioeconomic differences which means everybody can do it. It’s trustworthiness, where they teach us, it is important to be honest and say what you say your doing and keep your promises. It’s respect, be accepting of differences, be courteous of others, deal peacefully with disagreements, be considerate of other feelings. Responsibility, do what you are supposed to do, be self-disciplined, think before you act, be accountable for your words, actions, and attitudes. Fairness, play by the rules, take turns, share, be open minded, listen to others, don’t take advantage of others. Caring, be kind, be compassionate, express gratitude, forgive others, and six, last one is citizenship, do your share to make your home, school, and community better, cooperate, stay informed, vote, make choices that protect the safety and rights of others and protect the environment. As a former Dona Ana Elementary School

Character Counts Award recipient in the second grade I took it very seriously and I still do to this day. With learning these two very separate things it showed me how to mesh them together so that I could be aware of everybody in the room. I wanted to make sure that I showed up in the best light and I could be the best person for everyone because it helps everybody’s mental health, their physical health, and their emotional wellbeing. I also learned quickly that if I gave in to let others hurt me so much and that I in turn hurt others that we would become divisible, but I know that every morning when I said one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all I meant that. So, I continued to work on my character because Character Counts. I think it is important that if we are teaching kids about these different characters that count and how to be one nation that it is important that we don’t just walk the walk that we talk the talk, we do it all because as humans we are the only ones that can talk to each other and help each other. What is happening right now in the world are not the

core values that we learned as children. I don’t know most of you but I look around the room and I know that you are all deserving of a beautiful life. You deserve life without having to prove that you are worthy. You are already worthy because you simply exist which is a miracle in itself. You deserve the life of peace, happiness, and fun and I want that for you and I want that for everyone and I hope that we can take the steps needed to make sure that our character really counts so that we can stay indivisible and have liberty and justice for all.

4. ACCEPTANCE OF AGENDA Councilor Becki Graham moved, seconded by Councilor Yvonne Flores, to accept the agenda as presented.

RESULT: Carried

MOVER: Councilor Becki Graham

SECONDER: Councilor Yvonne Flores

AYES: Mayor Eric Enriquez, Councilor William Mattiace, Councilor Becki Graham,

Councilor Becky Corran, and Councilor Yvonne Flores

ABSENT: Councilor Cassie McClure and Councilor Johana Bencomo

5. CITY COUNCIL MINUTES 5.1 REGULAR CITY COUNCIL MEETING OF MAY 19, 2025.

6. RESOLUTION(S) AND/OR ORDINANCE(S) FOR CONSENT AGENDA

7. RESOLUTION(S) AND/OR ORDINANCE(S) FOR DISCUSSION 7.1 RESOLUTION NO. 25-150: A RESOLUTION TO ENTER INTO A PURCHASE

AGREEMENT IN AN ANNUAL NOT-TO-EXCEED AMOUNT OF $200,000

FOR WORK UNIFORMS, SHOES AND RELATED ITEMS WITH BAZAAR

UNIFORMS AND MEN'S STORE, LLC OF EL PASO, TEXAS FOR A TERM

THROUGH OCTOBER 31, 2029, SUBJECT TO APPROVED BUDGET

APPROPRIATIONS (PROCUREMENT NO. 24-25-078). Enedelia Vitolas, Buyer gave the overhead presentation. Councilor Becky Corran moved, seconded by Councilor Becki Graham, to

Approve Resolution No. 25-150.

MOVER: Councilor Becky Corran

SECONDER: Councilor Becki Graham

Councilor Johana Bencomo, Councilor Becky Corran, and Councilor Yvonne

Flores

ABSENT: Councilor Cassie McClure 7.2 RESOLUTION NO. 25-151: A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING AN

AMENDMENT TO A PROFESSIONAL SERVICES AGREEMENT (PSA) 20-

21-050 STATE LOBBYING SERVICES WITH LAWRENCE J. HORAN, LTD.

INCREASING THE ANNUAL NOT-TO-EXCEED TOTAL TO $120,000

THROUGH NOVEMBER 4, 2026, PLUS APPLICABLE TAX, SUBJECT TO

APPROVED BUDGET APPROPRIATIONS (PROCUREMENT NO. 20-21-

050). Ginger Barela, Buyer II gave the overhead presentation.

Councilor Flores asked you gave us a little bit of the history in terms of the increments he has received to date and I would like to know why we are looking at another increase at this point and the report when required who establishes when required? Is it our in-house auditor? Is it city council? Is it the City Manager? Anybody can say I would like an update? And the other is the plus applicable tax subject to approve by appropriations?

Ginger Barela said we are requesting to increase the contract amount to $120,000.

That does not include gross receipts tax. So that $120,000, any gross receipts tax would be on top of that. We kind of keep it generalized because gross receipts tax can change throughout the contract years and then of course with each year all city departments have to go through the appropriate budgeting process to request budget in their accounts to pay for specific services. So, the increase today is because due to the longer legislative sessions there were additional fees incurred that went over our current $100,000 that we would be responsible for. As far as the reporting, I will need to defer to the Office of the City Manager.

Councilor Flores asked you are saying it is retro-active because more expenses were incurred in this past session? Or is it expected to be prospective and how?

Ginger Barela said with the current invoicing that we have for the remainder months we are doing projections to show that it is going to go over the $100,000 because of the longer legislation.

Councilor Flores asked is it just for the next session that is going to be longer or are all the sessions going to be longer now?

Sonya Delgaldo, Assistant City Manager said we work very closely with Mr. Horan and in this last session was a longer session and he has been more involved with helping us make connections, set up meetings, and get additional information which was extremely helpful this last session. So, moving forward I am guessing we are going to be doing this same type of thing. It was very successful.

Councilor Flores said thank you so much for that update or that insight, but you know there have been times, and this is with all due respect to the powers that be here at

City Hall and to Mr. Horan where in my estimation somehow there was a lack of performance on his part. You know when you have a contract you have performance, you have the language that defines performance, and I know that we had a meeting with him and we let them know or I let them know that I would like to see more of a positive outcome in his lobbying for us. There has been two prior updates in the last two years I think or what ever it was. I don’t know, I am not sure of that. What is it at right now?

Ginger Barela said currently we are set to $100,000 annually plus gross receipts tax.

Councilor Flores asked does this mean that every time there is going to be a longer session we are going to come back and hear that we are going to give an increase to

Mr. Horan?

Ginger Barela said this increase is increasing anticipating what it would be for the longer legislations.

Councilor Flores said we have had longer legislations before. So, my question is are we going to have them in the future and you are saying there are short term sessions and there are long term sessions? I guess I am just worried about this going up every time there is a longer session because we have short sessions every other session.

Ginger Barela said this projected amount is what has been set to cover long legislation. So, for any further ones we wouldn’t come back for an increase unless we increase the amount of services that we were requesting from him outside of what we are currently requesting.

Councilor Flores asked the services that will be performed by him or are supposed to be performed by him are the same though just a longer session?

Ginger Barela said it’s the quantity.

Councilor Graham said so I work here and I also work at NMSU which has me in the center of the two biggest bureaucracies in Las Cruces and one of the great things about the city is if I am taking advantage of a city service I don’t have to go through what I do at NMSU but where I have to submit an index number before I can even call a person or email a person so I can say I am personally guilty of some of the extra billing for Larry Horan at all. In the last session because I was a lot more involved in this legislative session and I really took advantage of Larry’s expertise in a way that the city perhaps couldn’t have predicted before. So am I correct in that since we are not held to this you have to submit an increment of fifteen minutes, that is how it goes sometimes at NMSU to take advantage of a contract? Is this part of why we may have to raise this because you can’t necessarily predict how much that we on council might use the service?

Sonya Delgado said I am going to say probably so but I would have to check on that but I know that in this last year as I got more involved with the legislative session we did call on Mr. Horan numerous times for discussion and even for some direction and making those connections with Santa Fe and so they were very crucial.

Councilor Graham said I agree. I would say that I understand the justification for this request and just speaking personally because Larry was like in the old days we would just say on speed-dial but I guess we don’t say that anymore, but I talk to him all the time.

Councilor Mattiace asked is Larry Horan in Las Cruces today? Is he available?

Ginger Barela said he is not available today.

Councilor Mattiace said I was just going to suggest an amendment to where if the city has a lobbyist and it is planning a 60 day pay the $120,000 and if it is a 30 day pay the $100,000. Can you do that?

Ginger Barela said the $120,000 that we are setting isn’t a guarantee it is just a limit on how much we can spend with him. So, on the shorter sessions we would spend the appropriate amount which has been within that $100,000 cap but on the longer ones or when there is greater need or more interaction with him we are just moving the capping limit on how much we can spend with him on any given year.

Councilor Mattiace asked in other words if you go to the sixty day you might exceed the $100,000?

Ginger Barela said yes.

Councilor Corran said I just also wanted to own that I abuse Larry’s services more than is acceptable. So just also with Councilor Graham in terms of calling him when I have random questions that probably aren’t even his job to answer but I do want to also sort of speak to I think in the last year city staff, city council have been more, I had never attended an interim committee prior to this last year. I had never set up a separate meeting when legislators are visiting City Hall unrelated to our capital outlay request until the last year. I just also want to speak to from where I sit which is not seeing everything, but I think the city has asked for more or looked for more engagement with the legislature in the last 18 months or so than we have historically.

I do think it has been productive in terms of both capital outlay and contributing to things and so I think city staff are also engaging with interim committees more so I just want to sort of put in there that not only probably personally also would have to charge or have some of that taken off of my salary but I think that we have been engaging a lot more with the legislature than I have experienced in my other years here on council. I just want to say one I really deeply appreciate that connection and I feel that it has been very meaningful and to own that I myself probably contribute to this dynamic of spending more money.

Councilor Flores asked the caption that we have here is that the annual, the increase, the annual increases not to exceed the total to $120,000 through November 4, 2026?

So, is it just for the next session?

Ginger Barela said that is when the term of the current contract ends. So, after

November 4, 2026, then we would enter into a negotiation for a new contract and then bring that before council for review and approval.

Councilor Flores asked has Mr. Horan asked for an increase for his services?

Ginger Barela said I don’t have any information in front of me right now regarding increases to his hourly rates, but I can get that information and provide it.

Councilor Bencomo said I just wanted to add to some of what my colleagues are saying. I also call Larry quite a bit during the session, outside of the session. I also just from what I hear from legislators and other folks at the round house Larry is a great lobbyist for the City of Las Cruces and I am very grateful for his services.

Ultimately, I think there is lots of discussions we can have about lobbying and the make up of the legislature and all of these things that are out of the control of the city council and so I want to make sure that when we are not there present every day for

60 days or every day for 30 days or during special legislative sessions I know that someone will be there speaking on our behalf and so I think that this contract is important and I think that our relationship with Larry important and the relationships that he carries for the City of Las Cruces and in the round house but Sonya I must admit that I probably add to the tally of that invoice.

Councilor Flores asked does Mr. Horan tender a billing sheet to the city for his services or is this how this increase is being justified? Does he do that?

Ginger Barela said yes. We get billed monthly by Mr. Horan. So, with the invoices that we have to date in projecting out what we need to continue for the rest of the fiscal year that is how we came up to our projection on what would be needed for the remainder of the contract.

Councilor Flores asked did you personally review those sheets?

Ginger Barela said we do not review the invoicing, that is done by the end user group so that would be done by the Office of the City Manager.

Councilor Flores asked does the City Manager’s Office know whether Mr. Horan bills on an hourly basis?

Sonya Delgado said yes, he does bill. I don’t know if it is monthly, however Barbara

Bencomo may be able to help us with that question.

Councilor Flores said by that I mean attorneys, I know that we can be on the phone for one minute and we bill in increments of six tenths of an hour. So, I just want to know how he bills? Because this only going to be through the 26 which is next year and then every year it comes back with more and more.

Barbara Bencomo, Chief Administrative Officer said just a few points of information.

The contract that was negotiated that we spoke about took the not exceed $100,000 overlooked the fact that there would be a long session coming up this year, 60 days session versus a 30-day session of the legislature and therefore the fees associated with that long recession with 60 days took us over the $100,000 amount. The invoices that are received on a monthly basis are not on a 15-minute increment or even an hourly increment. They are itemized lists of what was accomplished during that month for the monthly contractual amount that we pay Mr. Horan. Mr. Horan has not asked for an increase but we discovered that through the billing for the 60 day session that we were short a few, I think it was under $3,000 that we were short that we were going to go over the $100,000 level but we just decided for prudence to set it at

$120,000 depending on any other services that we might require through the 2026 time frame of the contract. So, there has not been an increase requested by Mr.

Horan. It was that we set the not to exceed amount somewhat short at $100,000 during the last contracted negotiations.

Councilor Flores said it seems to me that the billing is somewhat not uniform. You look at it and you determine that a certain thing that he did has a certain value. So, does he bill on an hourly basis or is it a substantiative outcome basis?

Barbara Bencomo said he does not bill on an hourly basis. There is a monthly contractual amount that we pay him and then he itemizes all the meetings he had, all the legislation he has drafted, all the advocacy activities that he has done on our behalf, but they are not itemized in any kind of hourly increments. It is really a list of the accomplishments during the month on our behalf as our legislative lobbyist.

Councilor Flores said I am asking all these questions because I am just wondering what/how it’s quantified and how it’s done. Maybe because of the way I billed it’s so different and it’s very foreign to me.

Lynn Moorer, Member of the Public said in my experience working with legislators and lobbyists many attributes are needed to represent the interest of the client adequately.

In this case the city. The chief attribute is the competence and work ethic capable of drafting legislative bills that adequately address the city’s needs in any particular area.

I was surprised that the lobbyist presentation and comments early this year. There didn’t seem to be any bill he had drafted on behalf of the city that he was working to have adopted. The priorities outlined were very general and the key positions on any particular issue were not identifiable. For example, a priority related to IPRA was mentioned but one couldn’t glean from his comments what the cities priorities regarding IPRA were specifically. The gist of his report was that he basically just waits around to see what other parties, the Governor, the legislators or lobbyists, come up with and then relax to them. I know no other municipality of Las Cruces’s size or larger that is satisfied with such a hands off laid back approach in its lobbying efforts with the state’s legislature. This approach almost invariably leads to nothing or nothing much being accomplished on the city’s behalf during a legislative session and because New Mexico’s legislative sessions are so short the limited time available must be used to its fullest potential and a proactive approach needs to drive representation of the city’s interest. With very specific goals that need to be proactively drafted that is the foundation of the city’s lobbyist efforts. It is hard to see how the city is receiving sufficient value for its money in the proposed $120,000 contract it is considering for this lobbyist if there aren’t very specific goals including drafted legislation. Therefore, I recommend that the list of services spelled out in the contract at Exhibit A include a provision for working with city representatives in drafting for legislative bills and then work for their adoption and before any decision is made regarding this contract serious consideration needs to be given to whether this lobbyist has the necessary skills and experience to draft legislative bills.

Councilor Bencomo said I just wanted to add that Larry Horan essentially carried the essential services legislation that was successful this last legislative session. I know

that it had very late nights. I know that Senator Hamblen and Larry worked very close together to get that passed, to get passed with tremendous success across the legislature and get that signed in so there are, thank you for expressing your opinion but I wholeheartedly disagree that it has been unsuccessful. It has actually been quite the opposite including every single year having received more and more money in capital outlay funds. I just wanted to clarify a couple of things. Councilor Becky Corran moved, seconded by Councilor Johana Bencomo, to

Approve Resolution No. 25-151.

SECONDER: Councilor Johana Bencomo

AYES: Mayor Eric Enriquez, Councilor Becki Graham, Councilor Johana Bencomo, and Councilor Becky Corran

NAYS: Councilor William Mattiace and Councilor Yvonne Flores

ABSENT: Councilor Cassie McClure 7.3 RESOLUTION NO. 25-152: A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE WRITE-

OFF OF UNCOLLECTABLE UTILITY, GENERAL BILLING, ACCOUNTS

RECEIVABLE BAD CHECKS, AND LIBRARY ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE

FROM THE FISCAL YEAR 2019 IN THE AMOUNT OF $281,255.63. Laura Holguin, Assistant Director Finance gave the overhead presentation.

Councilor Corran said I think these are presented in different ways and I appreciate and understand what is happening here. I want to know who the $94,000 person is. It is interesting that other folks’ individual names and addresses are included but in this one it doesn’t it uses a rather opaque reference and that is the biggest one and you said it has been around since 2011? It sounds like someone we should make a note of and consider not doing business with. I think we make people pay their utility bills when they come to get service again. I would love for us to know here if we can who that entity is. I suspect it is a corporation, most of the biggest debts are companies I would like to point out. I am just kind of curious if you would be willing to share?

Laura Holguin said I had staff do some research and what we discovered is that accounts receivables for the bad checks for the $94,000 that you are speaking to goes back to June 30, 2011, and the city had used a vendor in the past called E-

Check Inc., who was to assist with the collection of returned checks. The amount has been carried forward each fiscal year so my understanding is that whenever the city received any returned checks whether for closed accounts, no account, insufficient funds, it was going into this accounts receivables for bad checks and we had a collection company was assisting for it and that is balance that has been sitting there and been carrying forward each fiscal year.

Councilor Corran asked it is a collection company?

Laura Holguin said from my understanding what we see in Munis it is listed as E-

Check because that information was sent to this collection company.

Councilor Corran asked it is possible that this is a summary of a whole bunch of other

collections that went into that? Thank you for doing the research, it was weird to see this here among these things and I just hope that we can always make note when someone is doing bad business and I will say there are a bunch of LLCs, I noticed, nuisance abatement, unpaid bills so would again ask that as we have these in our books that we make sure that we look at what kind of contracts we set up in the future and I was just worried it was someone we were still doing business with that was holding this amount of bad checks.

Councilor Flores asked what is the advantage of writing this off? Does the city get a tax benefit out of it? All of this money is outstanding, and I guess it is costing more to try to recover that money or why would you want to get rid of that debt?

Laura Holguin said so the write off is only removing it form our financial statement. So right now we are reducing our accounts receivable that we report on our financial statement by writing off this amount but the municipal constitution does not allow us to extinguish this debt. So, if somebody who has been written off on the debt, the debt that we write off, if they were to come in for instance possibly open a new utility account the utility customer service could see that and could collect on the debt at that time.

Councilor Flores asked they are basically blacklisted? They won’t be able to open a new account unless they pay, is that correct?

Estela Sauceda, Deputy Director Business Services said if somebody had a delinquent balance came back to pay they are not blacklisted. We certainly want to help them out with signing them up for services but yes, they would be made to pay the balance and in some cases we have made payment plans even for the outstanding delinquent balance.

Councilor Flores asked is there some kind of advantages to the city? It would seem like there would be some kind of a balance or some kind of method that would benefit the city other than to just shrug it off and if that entity comes back and they are able to pay it at a later date? What if they never come back?

Estela Sauceda said I believe it is to just not carry the old balances on our current financials. Again, because we are not extinguishing the debt it is collectable. We are just not showing it current on our financial statements.

Councilor Johana Bencomo moved, seconded by Councilor Becky Corran, to

Approve Resolution No. 25-152.

MOVER: Councilor Johana Bencomo

SECONDER: Councilor Becky Corran

ABSENT: Councilor Cassie McClure 7.4 RESOLUTION NO. 25-153: A RESOLUTION ADOPTING A RETENTION

AND DESTRUCTION POLICY FOR LAS CRUCES POLICE DEPARTMENT

VIDEO, AND AUTHORIZING DESTRUCTION OF ALL VIDEO THAT HAS

MET RETENTION. Christine Rivera, City Clerk gave the overhead presentation.

Councilor Flores asked what if some evidence comes up after 3 years, whatever the date, I guess almost like an expungement? It’s almost pretending it never happened, but what if evidence comes up later? There is no way of storing this? Isn’t there a better way to store it and preserve it, especially with some cases?

Christine Rivera said it is taking up a lot of room. I believe there are many terabits of data and in order for us to keep maintaining it we would have to buy an additional server which cost additional money.

Jeremy Story, Police Chief said we are the only Police Department in the state that retains video indefinitely, that I am aware of. The state law requires retention of non- evidentiary video for 120 days. That is it. We keep every video we have ever recorded, going back almost 15 years with our original body cameras. So that is created one a storage issue and also creates an IPRA issue on a staff that is already overburdened and so right now if it is evidentiary it is still retained. Once it is put into a case in evidence.com, which is a system that we use it is retain those videos, technically indefinitely even if it is purged from the main system. It kind of protects it but right now we have the bulk of our videos aren’t tied to a specific case either criminal or civil and it has lived there forever taking up space and taking up staff time when it gets IPRA twenty years down the road. Just for comparison, Albuquerque is

13 months for non-evidentiary, Alamogordo is 120 days. They have it tiered as 1,2,3 years after that depending on what the video is. So, we took a fairly conservative approach at three years which ensures that if anything comes up within the time span for civil process that the video is still there and for criminal.

Councilor Flores asked is it for any level of crime that was committed or at least investigated, irrespective of statutes of limitation?

Chief Jeremy Story said if something is adjudicated and let’s say we get a conviction there is still the potential for an appeal so that evidence is retained until it is completely all appeals have played out or time has elapsed. If there is something where there is an acquittal, then the time would start because there is not going to be an appeal on an acquittal. So, it depends on what it is and it depends on what process or what part of the adjudication process the evidence is in.

Councilor Flores asked what if it is an open case?

Chief Jeremy Story said it will still be there.

Councilor Flores asked like ad infinitum?

Chief Jeremy Story said as long as the case is still open. If we have a cold case for

instance, say a murder from twenty years ago, we have body camera we would keep that indefinitely.

Councilor Bencomo asked non-evidentiary video meaning any video you have from a traffic stop? Like they paid their ticket, whatever, maybe that is evidentiary? Will you explain non-evidentiary a little bit more?

Chief Jeremy Story said the reality is we record every interaction that we have with citizens. So, there is tons of interactions that don’t result in any type of criminal action or civil action and so a traffic stop where they give a warning is an example. We talk to somebody at the Farmer’s Market, at this point there is probably hundreds of thousands of hours of video that is just sitting there from these types of interactions, and it is creating issues for everyone including the Clerk’s Office.

Councilor Bencomo asked evidentiary, the retention that you are recommending is three years? You came to that conclusion for that number just based on what other departments in state are doing?

Chief Jeremy Story said I am not aware of anyone else doing three years. People usually file a notice of tort within one year and have three years to actually file that actual tort, so we are keeping video, that entire period in case something pops up in that three years.

Councilor Bencomo said at first, I was a little bit taken back by this. I understand the rational though. I have been reading articles about the hundreds of emails that you may have in your inbox and how that is bad for our servers that are holding all of those on water and electricity. I do appreciate that there was some thoughtfulness behind that. I think I have just concerns around the automatic part and what are like the checks and balances to ensure the proper things are being, once something is deleted it is gone forever, right? So, what are the checks and balances to make sure that the things that need to be secured are still secured?

Christine Rivera said they will still need to work with my office to follow all of the records management standards and so we still have forms where we keep track of everything that is destroyed. We have those policies in place so they will still have to work with us regarding that. As far as deleting stuff before they delete it, review everything before it is deleted to make sure that it has met that retention period.

Councilor Bencomo asked is there any chance the OIR folks were consulted?

Christine Rivera said no but I believe they only do closed cases, correct?

Chief Jeremy Story said that would be outside the contract. I am not opposed to that but that would be technically outside the contract.

Councilor Corran said I think that this is an attempt to get at something that is much bigger problem. This is like a tiny step in the direction, right? My understanding is that there is also is that it is very difficult to index this information and so to review any

request for information individual people have to watch videos and it’s extraordinarily time consuming and full of information that we don’t want. So everyone has to, it has to be deeply redacted, it has to be very carefully curated and there is a lot of sensitive information as well which I think every year that technology changes ahead of us and the longer we keep stuff sitting around just like our old emails that we have, a three letter password for we are putting ourselves at risk I think having additional data we sort of just that is dated that could be used for potentially bad purposes I suspect. So for me I think about data security as well as where the information can go and in worse situations and it sounds like you have really thought through what the evidentiary requirements are so to me I feel like I think about the data that exists sort as Mayor Pro Tem mentioned and I know that it is expensive both in terms of actually keeping track of the data and to the potential risk it presents to have all of that and increasingly dated versions of what exists which is I think how technology goes. So, I just wanted to sort of clarify also that there is a bigger problem here that this is indicating, right? Related to how we collect and manage bodycam video. What many public information requests that come in are often and I think I have experienced this in my own kind of creepy stalker situations. Many are not related to actual events other than just stalking people not to say that is a universal thing, but it happens. I have a keen awareness of the vulnerabilities that we have and the problems we are creating by having more data all the time and so I appreciate you trying to take a small bite out of what I think is a big ever-growing problem.

Jim Hoerst, Member of the Public said I realize how complicated this problem is.

Police video is two things. It is evidence and it is historical data. Who knows who is going to be researching what. Mayor Enriquez may be President some day and people may want to research his past and police video might be helpful. Who knows, it is history, and you are throwing away history and it shouldn’t be that hard to store digital data. It shouldn’t be that hard to index it with AI. So, we should hang on to it because you shouldn’t throw something away that might be valuable. Second, I don’t trust the police with evidence. I know they keep it. Their trash can should never be emptied. We should always know what they threw away. So, consider those two things.

Fred Miller, Member of the Public said I am a resident of District 4. The flip side of this a lot of people are concerned about police departments holding on to data that they never should have had in the first place. This is just random videos of traffic stops or potentially, there was a time when we had cameras on streetlights and stuff like that.

A lot of that is stuff that they should be getting rid of. They should be destroying, they shouldn’t be allowed to hold on to for indefinitely. So, there is two sides to that.

Bobbie Green, Member of the Public said I am the President of the Dona Ana County

NAACP as you know. I have been an IS Professor for the past 25 plus years so I am very aware of how you can digitize, and archive data and you can move it to a facility that doesn’t require a lot of expense, and you can keep that video and restore that video if needed for who knows what. You should be concerned with spoliation which is the destruction of the evidence that might be needed later on and that could incur some legal issues for the City of Las Cruces. So, keep that in mind as you are making your decision because the other thing is who makes the decisions about when case, we don’t know how long cases are going to be open, we don’t know based on appeals

and all kinds of issues that may occur this could expose the city to some legal issues.

Richard Barela, Member of the Public said I am opposed to this resolution. Quite recently, Saturday as a matter of fact there is a non-evidence police video that culminates in me being trespassed from the Aquatic Regional Center forever. While I have no other place to take a shower now as a homeless person except the

Community of Hope and this council is well aware of the troubles or they will be aware of the troubles I have had with that organization. I was born and raised here okay. I left in 1988, and I come back in 2013 and all of a sudden, I am foreigner and unwelcome in my own hometown and I can’t get services or nothing. My family goes way back, a lot farther than yours, all of yours here and I can’t get anything for other reasons that will likely be sealed in court.

Councilor Bencomo said I just want to make sure that we reiterate this that we are talking that a case that is not closed that data is not going to be deleted. For a case that is closed in New Mexico how long do you have to appeal a closed case?

Brad Douglas, City Attorney said Dr. Green brings up something that we have definitely considered with this. We will reiterate something that Chief said and something that worries me for some municipalities in that their retention schedule is to retain these things for 120 days. That is frightening to me for them. So, under the New

Mexico Tort Claims Act, generally have a two year statute of limitation and there is a

90 day period where you have to put the municipality on notice that you are going to sue. I get those tort claim notices and they usually whether they do or not usually they contain a notice of preservation and we immediately preserve all of that whether they file suit or not we will go ahead and preserve that. Under the New Mexico Civil Rights

Act there is actually a three-year statute of limitations but there is no notice requirement so that three-year period would protect the city from like a spoliation claim for instance and then under 1983 generally there is a two year statute of limitations. So, the way I understand this is that would be a three-year period from the time that a case is closed. It is not just three years and then we are done. So, I think that does sway some of the concerns mentioned with regard to spoliation but those municipalities with not my problem, not your problem but the ones that have 120-day preservation period, I am nervous for them. I am not as concerned about this measure.

Councilor Bencomo asked you are talking about 120 days on evidentiary videos?

Brad Douglas said I believe that is what state law requires. So that is the bare minimum, but my understanding is that for this it would be three years for all videos and then with regard to other cases and criminal cases pending civil cases, three years from the date that those cases are closed meaning that all appellant remedies have been exhausted so on and so forth.

Councilor Becky Corran moved, seconded by Councilor Becki Graham, to

Approve Resolution No. 25-153.

ABSENT: Councilor Cassie McClure 7.5 COUNCIL BILL NO. 25-021; ORDINANCE NO. 3092: AN ORDINANCE

APPROVING VARIOUS ZONE CHANGES TO CORRESPOND TO THE

SONOMA RANCH NORTH MASTER PLAN AMENDMENT #4. THE MASTER

PLANNED AREA AFFECTED BY THE PROPOSED ZONE CHANGE

ENCOMPASSES APPROXIMATELY 5.75 ACRES AND IS LOCATED ON

THE EAST SIDE OF SONOMA RANCH BOULEVARD AND SOUTH OF ITS

INTERSECTION WITH NORTHRISE DRIVE. SUBMITTED BY SOUDER

MILLER AND ASSOCIATES, ON BEHALF OF SIERRA NORTE

DEVELOPMENT INC., PROPERTY OWNER (CASE 24ZO0500089). Sara Gonzales, Senior Urban Planner gave the overhead presentation.

Councilor Flores asked the modifications/changes that you went through they are in sync with our planning in our master plans in terms of what we want to see in the community?

Sara Gonzales said yes as you continue to see whenever you find arterial roadways that is where you are going to have your higher intensities that are going to be your larger big box stores. You will see that along Sonoma Ranch and then you want those buffering. So if you had high traffic coming in if this was a designated park area there are always those concerns of safety if someone were to veer off the road or into those parks and so this commercial development would actually essentially actually block that area so that we would protect that residents of those using the park so you want to keep compatibility in the sense that whenever you are looking at zone changes coming forward is what is the need of the community, what is the needs of the area, how has it changed and grown and to see if it is compatible with those existing land uses to the north and south. Councilor Becki Graham moved, seconded by Councilor Becky Corran, to

Approve Ordinance No. 3092.

8. BOARD APPOINTMENTS 8.1 None.

9. NOTICE OF PROPOSED ORDINANCE(S)

1) There will be no public discussion.

2) A Councilor may ask staff for clarification on the proposed ordinance(s). 9.1 None.

10. CITY COUNCIL MEMBER BOARD REPORTS AND COMMENT 10.1 COUNCILOR MATTIACE None. 10.2 COUNCILOR GRAHAM I just wanted to thank everyone for coming out to PAL Boxing to our fight Saturday before last especially thank you to colleagues on the dais who came and got to see a whole other side of me. I wasn’t fighting but I acted like I was. Christine, Mayor, Mayor

Pro Tem, Councilor McClure is not here and just kind of shouting out as a follow on to the great stuff we are doing. We have four fighters in Las Vegas right now representing for Junior Olympics, so go get what is ours. 10.3 COUNCILOR CORRAN I do want to follow up on some of the things that were mentioned during public comment. The animal ordinance, I think both the animal ordinance and related to fireworks I think are things that folks are looking for sort of ongoing conversations about definitely more communication I think on our part in terms of animals roaming free and the sort of ongoing. The fireworks thing I will just say that is the single biggest thing that people in my district write to me about. People have a lot of angst, other than roads and stuff but when it comes to fireworks season folks really hate that we allow any kind of fireworks. Again the state law dictates what kinds of fireworks we allow in the city but I do want to just sort of say we are coming up on time where people are shooting off fireworks, animals are being scared and released into spaces putting an additional burden on Animal Control, putting an additional burden on the

Fire Department who sort of get called in these context to address it so I am just putting this public communication out there. Please do not use backyard fireworks period. I don’t know what else to say beyond just because it is legal doesn’t mean you should do it. To that question I would like to hear more about our animal control conversations and how that is going. I think ASCMV has been having less frequent meetings so I think that is part of where the conversation used to happen so I would like to hear a little bit about what our animal control sort of updates are or see what the communication plan is going forward related to our passage of that ordinance and

I really appreciate the city continuing funding spay and neuter as part of those efforts but I also sort of prepared a statement related to some of the things that have been happening that I think have been weighing heavily on us, weighing heavily on people in the audience and so for me I feel like if we can’t talk about this now when will we?

So, it has been a few weeks of violence, families being ripped apart by federal agents, political assassinations, and we have also seen resistance, non-violent protest.

People pushing back against this cruelty and authoritarianism fearlessly protesting including thousands of people in Las Cruces this past weekend. To be in this position and be present as I strive to be means that I have born witness to normalization of harassment threats and violence in our community. We all want to feel safe and I am committed to understanding what real safety looks like in supporting that for all of Las

Cruces residents but it isn’t lost on me that so much of this violence is happening during June, our Pride Month when we commemorate the Stone Wall uprising of riotous rejection of state oppression led by queer and trans people of color. When queer and trans folks like me come out as we do many times throughout our lives we are choosing to live as ourselves in the face of hate and systemic oppression. Most fundamentally we choose to live, and I feel like that is under threat in a myriad of ways and recent context on a national level especially. No one should have to face hate, oppression and murder because of their gender identity, party affiliation, immigration status, race, or political stances. So in the spirit of June, Stone Wall and the face of cruel attacks, proximate and distal, literal and existential I offer a commitment to stand up to police and be in community and resist violence and share my gratitude to all those who stand with us in these extraordinary times as many folks have done here today, over the weekend, all the time in our community. So, I feel like it is a moment, and we have to rise to it. 10.4 COUNCILOR FLORES This past week/weekend has been hard on all of us irrespective of our priorities or how we might live our lives. I was watching MSNBC and their coverage of what happened in Los Angeles and it was very painful. I think I have shared before the experience I had starting as a first grader in El Paso and frankly you could just cut racism with a knife. This was in 1952/1953 and as soon as I was able to move to

California and it felt like heaven compared to the over racism in Texas and when I got my passport, I started carrying it with me all the time. If I take nothing else, I take my house keys, my passport and a credit card. Sometimes it was so painful I would just get up and take my little doggie for a walk but it just seemed so unreal and during the

60’s when we were out there marching against the war in Vietnam and all those demonstrations somehow in comparison to what I saw, what was televised it just seemed worse to be watching all of that hate. To be watching the President of this country do what he did and of course still wrangled in the courts but anyway it was very personal, it was very painful, and I was glad I wasn’t in Los Angeles. I have a house there that isn’t very far from where those activities were taking place. One brother served at the Thirty-Eighth Parallel in Korea and there was action there, another brother served in Vietnam and was severely wounded and so I demonstrated a lot against war in Vietnam, but I don’t think I would have gone to a demonstration in

Los Angeles just out of fear. A passport wouldn’t have help. It certainly didn’t help

Senator Alex Padilla. I feel like we are in a state of siege for those of us who are not white. I feel somehow that we are sitting ducks and it is frightening and my heart goes out to and it almost sounds trivial but my heart goes out to all of those of us who have been marginalized in this setting, people who are of color and I also want to thank my colleague Councilor Corran for bringing to light the animosity, the hate, the lack of understanding for people who identify, that don’t identify as straight. I have shared before that my younger son is gay and he has been a victim twice, not once, of hate and had to be hospitalized. This is all very personal. I think all of here in this room, I think we have a community here, a lot of people in the room right now are people who come here quite often. It is always good to see Fred, and Michael and even you Lynn.

It is good to see people who care enough to be out. I am rambling somewhat because

I think there aren’t any words to express, I think all of us are feeling very, I don’t know what the word is. I hope things get better. 10.5 COUNCILOR BENCOMO

I did want to congratulate Councilor Graham on the Becki Graham Invitational at the

PAL. Honestly, not only because I don’t like boxing that much, but I was almost having more fun watching her watch the boxing matches and watching kids come up to her and hug her, coaches, and parents. It was really beautiful, and it just reminded me that those are the kinds of diversion programs for youth that we should be highlighting, uplifting and most importantly investing in. So, thank you for your years of work lobbying for PAL and the literal blood, sweat, tears that have produced that. So, thank you very much Councilor Graham.

I also wanted to let you all know that the South Solid Central Waste Authority has a new Executive Director. After several great interviews we have selected one candidate, his name is Jose Gallegos. His first day will be later in mid-July. One of the things that we will ask him to do is for sure is to come and introduce himself but we at the Board of Directors, which Councilor Graham serves on with me are very excited to have him on board after obviously after we lost Patrick Peck. He retired and we needed to find a new Executive Director for a very important position, and we did and we are very happy and excited for his leadership.

Also, I am working with Catrina in our Community Engagement Office because I have heard folks loud and clear around their desire to have city council meetings start later and you know I have talked to people about this. How no one has really figured out the right time and I am not you know going to advocate that we necessarily change what has been working for us for a long time but what I will do is make myself more accessible and so for the month of July and this will be out, and we will send it out soon. I will be having after hours office hours right here in City Hall every Tuesday in

July except for July 8th from 5 to 6 if folks want to come chat with me, if they want to come express concerns, if they want to ask questions, if they want to talk to me about ideas. If it works perhaps, we will think of making it a version of it that is more permanent and sustainable but for now that is how I am holding after hours office hours.

Lastly, I just want to say a couple of things. I would like to start off by saying Happy

Father’s Day to our colleagues up here on the dais, down there and members of our community. My dad crossed borders for me and my family. Decades ago, he crossed the desert to come to this country for as cliche as it sounds for a better life for myself and for my siblings. My mom and I and my brother would soon follow, and it has been over 25 years that we have been in this country. Often sometimes feeling like we are still guests here. I have been doing the work of organizing around immigrant rights for a very long time. I have been to many protests. I have seen many iterations of ICE raids and Border Patrol raids in our beautiful border community. Nothing quite like what we have seen in the last few months though. The last few months federal agents have been masked. They have been violently snatching people from their homes, from their work sites, from their vehicles, from the street, undocumented and citizens alike, it has been violent. Watching it has been awful and traumatizing and that is what protestors across the country, thousands, thousands of protestors across the country have been speaking up and standing up for their neighbors in many beautiful different ways and sometimes in the media you see this tiny version of what is happening. I have seen from protestors that I know. I have seen little abuelitas singing in the street. I have seen people giving water and snacks. I have seen people

dancing. I have seen incredible demonstrations of love, compassion, and solidarity and I saw that here over the weekend even though I was gone and I have been to many protest in Las Cruces and from what I hear I missed possibly one of the biggest ones and that was hard for me to be away during that time. I think what made it even harder was information was trickling in about snipers and even as I think about it today feels somewhat dystopian because people have been protesting the violent response that we have seen from a federal law enforcement agency and for us to show up that way. It was hard to tell people that I didn’t know. It was hard to tell people and try to figure out information. It has been hard to hear, you should be grateful they were there in case something bad happened. Which you know two things can be true at the same time. I can be deeply grateful for a Police Department,

Fire Department that are prepared to handle tragedies like the one we just saw at

Young Park but I fear it is intent versus impact situation but the intent was one thing and the impact was protestors protesting a violent authoritarian government weaponizing the military and ICE agents against people and then we showed up that way and that was hard. I have expressed my disappointment, but I won’t stay there.

Obviously I think what I would much rather do is not then work with the City

Manager’s Office, with both our Chiefs around a protocol for protestors because I don’t imagine with what we saw with this last weekend will be the last and I know that there are general orders for undocumented foreign nationals and I will continue working with our attorney and the city, Police Chief around improving those, strengthening those and making sure that they align with the welcoming city resolution but I would love to see general orders on protests and how we navigate respectfully honoring people’s First Amendment right to assembly and that is my commitment.

That is what is what I would like to do. I would like to turn something that wasn’t intended to be intimidating but it ultimately turned out that way into something that we can say we can be proud of and that is my commitment so I want to say thank you to people who are standing up for each other, for their neighbors, especially those most vulnerable in this moment even though the list of vulnerable folks under this administration continue to grow. Thank you to all of you and I also stand with you. 10.6 MAYOR ENRIQUEZ I just want to add to that on the protest. We don’t deny anyone the right to assemble and to speak. No different than the protest that formed on Saturday, no different than the public participation that takes place today, but I can tell you that on Saturday a permit was pulled. The permittee did get with the Chief, did address the issues that were going to take place and relayed some of the information of threats that were even being disclosed at that time to protestors. So, I showed up because we had received some broken windows here at City Hall and that was the night before but even then I was glad there was a peaceful protest. I am glad that Police was here,

Fire was here. We had an incident where an individual fell, and he was treated and so everyone was here for the safety of all residents in Las Cruces. I have a different perspective and a different view when it comes to public safety and I understand large gatherings and crowd control can be very difficult and so you have to have a vantage point and that vantage point is our aerial sites where you can see properly and see what is going on and address any issues in a rapid fashion. So, it may have come across that it looked intimidating but I know Chief and his staff were here to protect and serve and to make sure all residents were safe. That is what I know of. I came, I actually went to the Police Department, I met with Chief Story and some of his staff

and those were all the issues were making sure that our community was safe and that is what they did. I know Friday there was no permit that was pulled so when you don’t have that permittee giving information of what to expect it becomes a little bit more chaotic, but I really appreciate them pulling a permit on Saturday and getting that clearness. I am not sure that anybody that attended today was the individual that pulled the permit, but it was pulled and communication was with the Chief.

Jeremy Story, Police Chief said I just want to clarify what I made comments to the

Albuquerque Journal. When I said that officers should not have been visible with the rifles, I didn’t mean they shouldn’t of been visible. I mean they shouldn’t have been visible with the rifles. Had they been standing there without the riffles we would probably be having a different conversation and so one thing that does help is as

Mayor eluded to is when, a permit is not required obviously to exercise your First

Amendment Right but when a permit is pulled and we have a specific organizer we make contact, we work out a lot of stuff ahead of time which for Saturday which had and I am not sure what the official estimate was, I was there for Saturday 700 to

1,000. It was a lot of people. With that organizer we already had good communication.

We had contact between my lieutenant running it and her and so if there was any issues we could deal with it right away. So, it is a huge advantage for us and I believe for the protestors so that we can keep them safe and make sure everything is good.

We didn’t have that Friday. We didn’t have specific organizer or permit so we didn’t have anybody to contact. The perception was that it was ageism or racism and that is why the response on Saturday was different. I just want to say again that because we had a different relationship with the organizer that allowed us to have a slightly different response and a lot of people who spoke and not all of them are people who despise us and probably will regardless of what we do and our intention was to be there to protect them primarily and respond to any threats that should arise. The comments that were made online were directed potentially to Saturday but for us to make that assumption that Friday was free and clear I think would have been foolish and so those comments were pretty overt. Some of them were pretty overt comments of violence towards the protestors. Ironically some of the same people that made these comments are ones who said that Young Park was our fault because we should have been there to prevent it. We are kind of in the catch 22 situation. Our goal is to be there to prevent violence so that people can exercise their First Amendment Rights which is part of our foundation of our country and who we are to be able to do that.

Granted I will end where I started that the officers should not have been present with their rifles in the way that they were because it obviously creates a lot of issues that weren’t necessary and a lot of division is not necessary and so we will continue to protect people. Even people that dehumanize police officers and say all cops are bastards. We will be there for them when they call, and we will still respond and still protect them regardless of their views.

11. CITY MANAGER REPORT 11.1 SONYA DELGADO, ASSISTANT CITY MANAGER For Communications, the Communications Office won seven Telly Awards. The Telly

Awards are nationally recognized awards, and they earned several bronze and silver awards and one gold. Gold is only earned by the top three percent of entries. Adrian,

Nate, and Cherish are incredibly talented and skilled individuals and we are very lucky and proud to have them on the city’s team. So, congratulations to Communications.

For Parks & Recreation, they have been having a lot of extended program hours for our teens this summer and we do have quite a list to share. Trying to give our teens opportunities to connect, learn, and have fun. Tuesdays and Thursdays from 5 p.m. to

9 p.m. at Sierra and Lynn Middle Schools, Wednesdays from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m., A

Fielder Memorial Safe Haven, on Fridays from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. Meershchiedt

Recreation Center. Saturdays from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. at the Las Cruces Natatorium.

For the natatorium those are Saturday Teen Splashes, and they are all Saturdays in

June as well as July 12th and 28th and it is $1 per participant. Activities vary by location and for more information check out Las Cruces Parks & Rec social media accounts.

On Make Music Day come celebrate with us at Amador Live on Saturday, June 21 from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m., featuring live music from Austin Jimmy Murphy and Frank Zona.

Movies in the Park, our free outdoor movie series continues at Amador Live on June

28th with Mufasa, The Lion King. Doors open at 7 p.m. and the movie begins at dusk.

Perfect for a family night out and I have actually also missed June 14th, which is with

Wicked, which is a great movie. So, hopefully you can take family out and have a great time.

For Quality of Life, Senator Ben Ray Lujan’s round table discussion at Munson Senior

Center on Tuesday, May 27th covered many important topics regarding the impact on

Seniors with potential cuts in federal government programs. The program received excellent coverage on social media via Facebook X and Yahoo News. It was also covered online via New Mexico Source and in print via both the Albuquerque Journal and the West Virginia News. We are so grateful for the attention to this important topic.

The Abuse in Later Life Awareness Health Fair is scheduled for June 6th from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Munson Center. Representative from local agencies included Adult

Protective Services, New Mexico Department of Health, and area law enforcement.

Quality of Life public art successfully implemented the community mural event that took place on Saturday, May 31st. The design was developed by Muralist Jesus Cimi

Alvarado from El Paso. More than 50 people turned out to help paint the mural on the parking lot wall and Moonlight at the Museums was also a success on Saturday evening. Last Saturday evening with 267 adults visiting the museums which featured an opportunity to visit the exhibits and enjoy adult beverages and food truck offerings for the public.

12. ADJOURNMENT 12.1 Councilor Yvonne Flores moved, seconded by Councilor Johana Bencomo, to

Adjourn the meeting at 4:21 p.m.

MOVER: Councilor Yvonne Flores

AYES: Mayor Eric Enriquez, Councilor Becki Graham, Councilor Johana Bencomo,

ABSENT: Councilor Cassie McClure and Councilor William Mattiace

Mayor

City Clerk