City Council Meeting May 19, 2025 MINUTES City Council Monday, May 19, 2025 @ 1:00 PM City Council Chambers, City Hall PRESENT: Mayor Eric Enriquez, Councilor Cassie McClure, Councilor William Mattiace, Councilor Becki Graham, Councilor Johana Bencomo, Councilor Becky Corran, and Councilor Yvonne Flores ABSENT: 1. OPENING CEREMONIES 1.1 PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE - COUNCILOR FLORES. 1.2 PRESENTATION OF CERTIFICATES OF APPRECIATION/PROCLAMATIONS - COUNCILOR FLORES. Councilor Bencomo presented Debbie McAllen with a proclamation for the 110th Anniversary of Progress Club of Las Cruces. Councilor Bencomo presented the Public Works Department with a proclamation for National Public Works Week. Councilor McClure presented Dr. Jerry Wallace and Caitlin Beesley with a proclamation for Historic Preservation Month. Councilor Bencomo presented Jenna Torres-Hanway with a proclamation for Mental Health Awareness Month. 1.3 JOBS OF THE WEEK. Giselle Palomares, Americas Job Centers 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 Lynn Moorer, Member of the Public said key problems are evident regarding the city’s implementation of the new Lead and Copper Rule. The service line inventory of piping the city is required to post online has huge gaps. More than half the properties have no indication of any service lines whatsoever. Handout one documents a sampling of the gaps found regarding 702 properties. You can also see it looking on the online map. Zoom in on the houses west on the northern part of Triviz Drive for example and see the dozens of houses that show no water hookups at all. For the properties that are listed a large number feature false or misleading characterizations about the piping or characterize piping as non-lead without any foundation whatsoever. Handout two spells out examples of these efficiencies for 81 properties. For instance, the fourth property listed on page one records that Las Cruces Utilities has designated the entire service line as non-lead claiming that the installation date for the city owned part was after 1986 lead ban even though it notes that the piping was installed in 1968, eighteen years before the lead ban. This is clearly a false designation. Another deficiency is the city’s habit of asserting that a service line is non-lead without any basis whatsoever. Look at the last property on page two as an example. Another deficiency is that Las Cruces Utilities characterizes an entire service line as non-lead even though a portion of it is unknown. Look at the first property on page seven. EPA guidance sets out an easy to understand chart. How a water system is supposed to characterize a service line if part of it is unknown. The link to that EPA guidance is in the footnote. Service line inventories are the foundation in which water systems take action to address lead service lines according to EPA. They are key to getting lead lines replaced and protecting public health. While the inventory may be a living document that will be updated the rule does not allow false information to be listed in the inventory at any time. We are concerned for all of the Las Cruces folks who trying to do the right thing look up their property online to see what the inventory says about their piping. At least half of them won’t be able to find their property on the map. Another quarter or so of them are provided false or misleading information about their property. These deficiencies mean that the city can be found to be out of compliance with the rule and liable for civil penalties. Moreover, it calls into question the veracity and competence of Las Cruces Utilities personnel working on this and everything they have told us related to the city’s pipes. I urge you to study this well researched fact- based information and consider thoughtfully. Check the rule and EPA guidance. Look up at least two properties from each handout. This is evidence of a serious problem. You can’t just waive off all this data as some kind of anomaly. These are some of the reasons we need an independent engineer with management experience to assess this city’s compliance with the new rule. Lucas Herndon, Member of the Public said I am a resident in District 2. I wish that I could come and talk to you about the police not murdering people in our city but since the last time I was here they have murdered another person in our city. This time they are too busy doing parades in Washington DC to even inform the public about it and to quote the Police Chief, “The timing is just terrible. Due to the unfortunate timing of this incident and with many of our department members traveling to Washington DC for National Police Week, we will delay having a news conference until after our return.” If a member of the general public committed murder and told the prosecutor or the judge that it was an inopportune time for them to go to court because they had a parade to go to, they had to ship their motorcycles across the country, I am pretty sure that the legal system in place would tell them that it was an insufficient reason for them not to do their due diligence. So, I would like to know. I would like accountability from the city why the cops are allowed to murder somebody and then not tell us about it for two weeks because they are busy at a parade. I don’t know. Maybe it was totally justified. Maybe this man you know shot a machine gun at a cop and tried to murder them. We don’t know because the cops won’t tell us. Given the history of what cops have done in this city, given the record payouts that the city council on behalf of the taxpayers have had to pay out to the victims of cop violence, I am not inclined to believe that. I am inclined to believe probably the worst and until somebody tells me otherwise you are going to have a hard time convincing me otherwise. So, I think there needs to be accountability on this one and future ones and past ones but on this one in particular. Trent Scribner, Member of the Public said I am here because today I was lucky to be able to get off of work. I am here at 1 p.m. on a Monday, I am just happy to see you. I understand that we are probably going to be here for quite some time unless you guys decide to switch the agenda around a little bit because we know what everybody is here for today. I am here because I believe these public forums are important because times are tough, and I think that they are getting more and more important as we move forward, and I am not the only one who feels that way clearly. I am here because I believe that the young working people in Las Cruces are criminally underrepresented here in the city and in cities all over the country. I am sure that the council is aware of this. I am sure that you guys talk about youth engagement and engaging with the city as a whole a lot and so what I want to ask you is to change the times for these meetings to lie outside of working hours. You just heard from someone today who can’t stay for the whole day. I know a lot of people who I tried to get out here who can’t come because it is at 1 p.m. on a Tuesday and that is a small cohort of people who can show up at that time. I believe that the young working people of this city are going to have to live with the consequences of whatever happens or doesn’t happen here for a long time. We are going to be around and so we have the right to be represented. We have the right to be accessible to us as accessible as possible whether they really show up or not the option should be available to them. I understand that there is some onus on the city workers and I respect the hell out of you guys for doing it. I am asking you to stay a couple of hours late so that we can maybe show up. Jim Hoerst, Member of the Public said I am here to say why separation of church and state is so important. Separation of church and state is important because of democracy is important. There is no democracy without freedom and there is no freedom without religious freedom. Our founders recognize that a democratic republic could not work without freedom and freedom required the freedom to think for yourself thus the freedom of religion. The founders also knew from experience of the reformation that governments were often tempted to exploit religion for political ends. So, they wanted the American government be neutral on religious issues, that is why they forbid our government from passing any law establishing religion. Unfortunately, the US is not always followed that restriction such as to addition of Under God in our Pledge of Allegiance that in 1952. America is different religiously now than we were at our founding. Our religions are no longer tolerated or promoted amongst slavery as they once did. For the most part our religion, recognize the equality of women to men. Most importantly belief in God is no longer nearly as universal as it was at our founding. Nones, that is people with no religious affiliation are now according to Pew Research 30% of our population. It appears that Trump is taking aim at Nones because it pleases his base of Evangelical Christians. His vow to make America religious again and to make America pray again is a direct affront to the conscience of Nones in their decision to live without religion. Telling Nones to be religious is similar to telling Baptists to be Catholic. I have no desire to follow the spiritual advice of Donald J Trump, and I don’t think it would be beneficial for our country to do so. I ask this council to be vigilant in preserving religious liberty in the separation of church and state. Donna Stryker, Member of the Public said there is something called innocent before proven guilty. I have been reading the public participation for about a year. The disrespectful, degrading, threatening, and slanderous remarks all strictly prohibited are simply ignored. If you don’t like it I guess. I mentioned before and I will remind us again as the public, this council is not required under the state constitution to listen to public comment and I personally really, really appreciate Mayor, council, Mayor Pro Tem, all of you that you continue to allow us to come before you. I have interacted with almost all of you and although we don’t always agree I have to say that the staff that I have worked with, the City Manager, the Mayor, the Police Chief, the Fire Chief, many of the councilors, although we don’t always see eye to eye, I understand that. We all have different beliefs, but can we just be respectful. This public comment is important, and I like it and I love it and I hope we can continue it but I have not had emails not returned even when we don’t agree and I cannot tell you how much I appreciate that. We don’t have to agree Becky Corran reminded me of that last meeting and I appreciate again and again. Becky, I don’t think you know how often I think about you. I just read all the minutes from the Work Session, I hope that you all as public input behind me listen and read what the councilors say. I was surprised and pleasantly surprised when I read many of the councilor’s comments from the last Work Session about the budget. I don’t agree with you all the time. I know that and you know that, but I will tell you that I do respect you and I think that the job that you do is extremely difficult, but it is extremely difficult as a person in the public to listen to the citizenry, be disrespectful, and degrading and threatening. That is very difficult for me, and I am terrified and concerned that our council and our Mayor will be forced by a few to ruin it for all of us and I sure hope that doesn’t happen. Tim Jenkins, Member of the Public said number one, I would like to apologize for the rhetoric and the behavior against our Police Department. They leave their families, they leave their wives and their children at home and fight for us every single day. We back them and we fight for them, and we pray for them, and we hope the best for them and their whole entire department. Number two, I would like to bring to your attention, I don’t know if you guys are aware of fact that yesterday over 1,250 people from Las Cruces were deployed out of this country in harm’s way. We had a ceremony on Thursday at Mayfield for the families and for the wives and for the children as a sendoff, as a God bless you and a thank you and I want to thank Bill Mattiace for showing up and for being there. It meant so much to me and to my girlfriend and my three best friends that are gone for 10 months. I just wanted to bring it to your guy’s attention that we keep them in our thoughts and our prayers as they fight for us and for our freedom. 4. READ CLOSED MEETING STATEMENT 4.1 READ MAY 19, 2025 CLOSED MEETING STATEMENT INTO THE RECORD. The Las Cruces City Council met in closed session and only discussed those limited items as stated in the posted notice: 1. To discuss pending litigation regarding Anthony Spade v. City of Las Cruces Et al., D-307-cv-2023-0066, which is closed pursuant to NMSA 1978, Section 10-15-1H(7). 2. To discuss pending litigation regarding Darlene Oakes v. City of Las Cruces, Et al., D-307-cv-2024-00894, which is pursuant to NMSA 1978, Section 10-15-1H(7). 5. ACCEPTANCE OF AGENDA Councilor Becky Corran moved, seconded by Councilor Becki Graham, to accept the agenda as presented. RESULT: Carried MOVER: Councilor Becky Corran SECONDER: Councilor Becki Graham AYES: Mayor Eric Enriquez, Councilor Cassie McClure, Councilor William Mattiace, Councilor Becki Graham, Councilor Johana Bencomo, Councilor Becky Corran, and Councilor Yvonne Flores 6. CITY COUNCIL MINUTES 6.1 REGULAR CITY COUNCIL MEETING OF APRIL 21, 2025. 6.2 WORK SESSION OF APRIL 28, 2025. 7. RESOLUTION(S) AND/OR ORDINANCE(S) FOR CONSENT AGENDA 7.1 RESOLUTION NO. 25-133: A RESOLUTION TO AWARD PROFESSIONAL SERVICE AGREEMENTS FOR MATERIALS TESTING SERVICES ON AN AS-NEEDED BASIS TO ADVANCED TESTING & MATERIALS, INC. OF LAS CRUCES, NM; DESIGN TECHNOLOGIES OF FAIRACRES, NM; AND WSP USA ENVIRONMENT & INFRASTRUCTURE, INC. OF LAS CRUCES, NM, IN AN ANNUAL NOT-TO-EXCEED AMOUNT OF $1,000,000 PER FIRM FOR A TERM OF FIVE (5) YEARS, SUBJECT TO APPROVED BUDGET APPROPRIATIONS (PROCUREMENT NO. 24-25-046). 7.2 RESOLUTION NO. 25-134: A RESOLUTION TO AWARD CONTRACTS FOR AUTOMOTIVE BATTERIES ON AN AS-NEEDED BASIS TO A5 AUTO SUPPLY DBA NAPA AUTO PARTS, CONTINENTAL BATTERY COMPANY, EMP POWER, LLC DBA BATTERIES PLUS, NOVAK INC. DBA INTERSTATE BATTERY OF LAS CRUCES, O'REILLY AUTOMOTIVE STORES, INC. DBA O'REILLY AUTO PARTS, RJ BORDER INTERNATIONAL, AND USD INC. IN AN AMOUNT NOT TO EXCEED $55,000 PER VENDOR ANNUALLY, FOR A TERM OF FIVE (5) YEARS THROUGH APRIL 30, 2030, SUBJECT TO APPROVED BUDGET APPROPRIATIONS (PROCUREMENT NO. 24-25-047). 7.3 RESOLUTION NO. 25-135: A RESOLUTION REPEALING RESOLUTION 25- 118, IN ITS ENTIRETY, AND REPLACING WITH THE VACATION OF AN UNNAMED 60-FOOT-WIDE RIGHT-OF-WAY, LOCATED AT THE SOUTHWEST INTERSECTION OF MAIN STREET AND SAMARITAN AVENUE, WHICH IS ASSOCIATED WITH A FINAL PLAT KNOWN AS ROYAL CROSSING SUBDIVISION PHASE 1A. 7.4 RESOLUTION NO. 25-136: A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING AN UPDATE TO THE VEHICLE ACQUISITION PROGRAM. 8. RESOLUTION(S) AND/OR ORDINANCE(S) FOR DISCUSSION 8.1 RESOLUTION NO. 25-137: A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE CITY OF LAS CRUCES (CITY) TO ACCEPT VARIOUS BUDGET ADJUSTMENTS FOR VARIOUS CITY DEPARTMENTS THROUGH AN AMENDMENT TO THE CITY’S ADOPTED FISCAL YEAR (FY) 2024-25 BUDGET. Vanessa Perez, Budget Analyst gave the overhead presentation. Councilor Becky Corran moved, seconded by Councilor Becki Graham, to Approve Resolution No. 25-137. Corran, and Councilor Yvonne Flores 8.2 RESOLUTION NO. 25-138: A RESOLUTION AMENDING THE FY2025-2030 CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS PROGRAM. Cynthia Alamillo, CIP Manager gave the overhead presentation. Dominic Soucy, Battalion Fire Chief continued the overhead presentation. Councilor Flores asked why did the Fire Department wait so long to address this issue? The other is mold. Has it been tested for mold because it looks like there is a lot of damage there? BC Dominic Soucy said we have been putting in work orders for this issue for a while. I took over facilities for the Fire Department about 8 months ago roughly so that is kind of when I got knowledge of this. So, I don’t have a perfect history but kind of through the grapevine if you will people who have been stationed at this station will talk about the roof being a problem. I believe it has been a problem for multiple years, it just has not been addressed. So, to say why we waited this long I don’t really know but I think that over the last eight months to a year have put a lot more focus on our own facilities and have moved these issues to the front of the line basically. Councilor Flores said it is really concerning to me because you did say that the firefighters were displaced or has interfered with your ability to conduct business that you have to, so it is really concerning to me and I hope that in the future these situations are nipped in the bud as they say. BC Dominic Soucy said to address the mold issue. As far as the roof goes we have not tested the areas of the roof for mold but we recently had bathroom construction project that we had a water leak and there was mold found in that bathroom of Station No. 4 and they have abated that mold so that was tested and an abatement company came out, pretty much took out the entire bathroom, men’s and women’s and because there was mold found they retested it recently. It has been good so now we are working on basically bathroom remodel. Currently the membership at Station 4 is using an exterior trailer for showers and bathrooms. Councilor Corran said I just want to thank you for thinking about this but I don’t know if the public necessarily thinks about the ways that city facilities exist but fire stations, people are sleeping in them and living in them and carrying on with their daily functions and I don’t know if folks necessarily realize how we sort of prioritize things within the facility system but certainly where people are living day to day I think should be of a high priority for us and so I am glad we are working on this. I hope that we can continue to elevate issues especially related to dorms for the Fire Department. It is a very different functional space than much of the city inventory and I think it is important for the public to realize you know that we have city buildings that folks are sleeping in as part of their job so in case you didn’t notice, know that is why fire stations are a little bit different in this conversation so I just want to remind folks and just say we appreciate you all for doing that and I would like us to definitely prioritize those facilities as much as we possibly can for that reason specifically. Councilor Mattiace asked do you have a schedule now? Like when you have a roof, let’s say this roof is going to be guaranteed it should last what 20 years, 10 years? And then do you have a work order maintenance scheduling set for these fire stations and other facilities get upgraded and the work orders are not ignored because it just costs you more money when you go a longer period of time in fixing stuff. BC Dominic Soucy said we have been working on some processes to kind of ensure that we pay closer attention to these roofs on our end. We have hired more people and some logistic specialists that are helping us out and then and I just had a meeting with facilities and talked about say every two months inspection of the roof kind of on our side and also putting in a work order to go up and take a look at the roof for the next year. So right now, we don’t really have any process in place to even go take a look at the roof. I think this is what caused that problem in the first place is neglect and then we get to the point where it is leaking and that leak just gets worse and worse. With these flat roofs we want to make sure that debris and things don’t collect up there which is probably the culprit for most of these things. So, we are working on a system to get our logistics specialist to put in a work order every two months. First of the month of that two-month period for the next year to get kind of an idea of what our roofs look like and then going forward we will maybe adjust the interval as necessary. So that is kind of the plan going forward. Councilor Becky Corran moved, seconded by Councilor Johana Bencomo, to Approve Resolution No. 25-138. SECONDER: Councilor Johana Bencomo Corran, and Councilor Yvonne Flores 8.3 RESOLUTION NO. 25-139: A RESOLUTION ADOPTING THE MUNICIPAL ADOPTED BUDGET FOR FISCAL YEAR 2025-2026 FOR THE CITY OF LAS CRUCES, NEW MEXICO ON MAY 19, 2025. Jacqueline Rubalcava, Budget & Grant Administrator gave the overhead presentation. Mercedes Tomayko, Management Analyst continued the overhead presentation. Jacqueline Rubalcava continued the overhead presentation. Councilor Bencomo said I have a question and maybe a small amendment. It was brought to my attention, and it wasn’t in the proposed budget necessarily, but it was brought to my attention that MVEDA did receive an increase in their budget. Honestly, on principle I want to make an amendment that we reduce that back to their budget from last year. Honestly mostly because a couple of things, one I know I didn’t miss any budget conversations and I don’t remember having a public conversation about that increase and two you know the City Manager asked every department to go back to zero based budgeting and get tight on their budgets and many were asked to make cuts on their budgets and so I just on the matter of principle I think I want to see that. Do you have those numbers in front of you? I think there was a $25,000 increase. Jacqueline Rubalcava said yes. There was an increase by $25,000 to $275,000. Councilor Bencomo asked from $250,000? Jacqueline Rubalcava said yes. Councilor Bencomo said I want to make that amendment today and request that we have a Work Session with this. We used to have Work Sessions with MVEDA, Film Las Cruces which I think they had also requested an increase, I am not sure. Did that happen? Jacqueline Rubalcava said I don’t have that one off the top of my head. Councilor Bencomo said I don’t think so and then the third one was Downtown Las Cruces Partnership. Those were the three that have usually come to Work Session together. We put some non-profits through the ringer when it comes to getting increases and I just right now at this moment I am not comfortable moving forward with that increase in the budget so before I do. Can I make an amendment now? Councilor Flores asked when you get a request say from MVEDA for an increase, how does that travel through this maze of government? Does it go to the City Manager? Does it always come to City Council? Jacqueline Rubalcava said a request like this would have come through the department and then it would have been verified by Budget. Councilor Flores asked the department would be in MVEDA’s case? Jacqueline Rubalcava said I believe Economic Development. It is based off of different factors that we will look at for this year’s budget because we did look at the based budgeting method. It did require to look at contracts, to look at the historical of that to see what the actuals are actually reflecting, what they will need in the budget. So, it was analyzed by one of my analysts here in budget and then it would have continued through the budget approval process to go up to the City Manager. Councilor Flores said the reason I am asking is because when there is a contract there has to be performance. If you don’t have performance from the party that says it is going to do something there has been a breach and unless I missed something in the eight years almost that I have been on city council, I have not seen anything come from MVEDA. So how does any department because these are just numbers that you were given by a given department, right? Jacqueline Rubalcava said correct. We are given the numbers, and we are giving any contract information or historicals that we see in our system. Councilor Flores asked when you get the historicals or you get the contract information what is it you are looking for? Are you looking for performance by that party? Jacqueline Rubalcava said we don’t look at performance in budget. We look at the contract amount. So, if there is a contract in place for a certain amount or if there are actuals that back that up or depending on the department request, we don’t make final approval it will go head up to the City Manager so there are different considerations taken when looking at budget. Elizabeth Teeters, Economic Development Director said I just wanted to talk in reference to how we come up with or how we allow our partners to propose more funds. So first off, we do have our partner updates every year after the fiscal year so it is happening in August for all of our partners during our Work Session. In addition, so we have had MVEDA, Film Las Cruces and DLCP, Downtown Las Cruces Partnership all come to us this year and ask for additional funds, but we try to hold all of our partners at the same level and both Film Las Cruces and DLCP came to us just a few months ago and by then the budget process was almost over. So, we told them let’s talk about it. Let’s try again in the fall and we can propose again. Now with MVEDA they came to us in the fall this past year and so we started talking about it and they wanted an additional $100,000. So, we talked to them, we put it into the budget and as it got through the process $25,000 came out of it and their proposed reason for the additional funds is because of the inflationary pressures and the cost increase and they put together a sheet. Tradeshow costs are going up 7%, car rentals are 30%, lodging and air is 25%. That is how much the cost has come up but the money hasn’t, there hasn’t been additional funds and in addition they have added four new programs in the past few years. So that is what the justification for the increase funds were but just so you know we do try to work with all of our partners but when it comes that close to budget and that being approved you know we try to just tell them, let’s try next year. It is not that we don’t want to it is just adding in extra funds at the last minute we didn’t think was fair to the budget team. Councilor Flores said I don’t think it is fair to the city to be giving increases where they are not merited. In my humble opinion in this is that is not merited. So, my question to you Ms. Teeters with all due respect what is it that you look at in terms of, is it meritorious increases? Is it I feel sorry for you? Are they incentive increases? What is the increase based on? Elizabeth Teeters said as I was saying it is the cost of inflation mostly. MVEDA travels a lot on behalf of the City of Las Cruces and the County and so their travel cost are going up significantly but they are expected to do the level of work at the same amount. That was their justification to us. Councilor Flores said it is their justification, Ms. Teeters but if I were looking at this I would look at how much of that travel was attributed to work that they were doing for us and I have shared this before. The last meeting I went to for MVEDA, I used to go monthly to the monthly meetings, and I stopped going a little bit over a year ago maybe like 17 months ago when the MVEDA person said that he had been to Taiwan with the Governor. So I asked from the floor what is it you brought to Las Cruces? Since the monthly meetings were being held, I have not been to any since then here in Las Cruces. The answer was well yada, yada, blah, blah. In other words, nothing. So, I just want to communicate that with you as a concern and in your assessment, your department to see what it is that we are getting you know. Contracts are you give and you take. We have not taken anything in many years so if we could keep an eye on that I would really appreciate it and this is not a directive to you, I am not your boss. Those are just questions that I have to ask and maybe one day I will have an answer. Ikani Taumoepeau, City Manager said I want to share my appreciation to Economic Development and Finance for facilitating that. MVEDA did come in to meet with us as Elizabeth shared. There was discussions happening and it is a recommendation that I made that should have been presented to you in the Work Session but that was missed in the PowerPoint, so I apologize on that. That is something that we try to, that I strive to be transparent on that. That wasn’t in the PowerPoint so I never want you guessing on what is happening, but I hear you loud and clear. This is the discussion that we are hoping for, for guidance and direction but I try to get it right on the recommendations and I apologize this one I missed. So lesson learned, we will definitely communicate in the future and do as best as we can to be transparent. Councilor Mattiace asked can I ask you to bring up page 9, 10,11? And I think there were specific amounts I think again from the Telshor Fund and I tried to add them up, not that you move fast it is that I am slow but when I was adding it it was approximately anywhere from $15 million to $17 million and I just want to say on a public record that I was really happy to hear Ms. Green in the Bulletin that the money will be repaid. In other words, the Telshor Fund will be made whole from those funds. Did I read that correct in the Las Cruces Bulletin? Natalie Green, Housing & Neighborhood Revitalization Administrator said most of these which were funded last year are loans. Peachtree Canyon Phase I & Phase II and Three Sisters and Pedrena are loans so those will have a repayment with interest back to the city and so our goal is to make the Telshor Fund whole. Not all of these are loans. For example, the Mano y Mano program is a reoccurring expense. There is no return on investment. There is always a return on investment but not a financial return on investment and then the Amador Crossing in that case there is a possibility for repayment. Obviously, that is city funding for city project and there is not debt service on that project so it will generate revenues but how much revenues we won’t know until it actually starts operating. We have those projections, and then there is the possibility repayment. In the case of Pedrena, we did not expend any of the $2 million because we got a state grant that covered the entirety of the city’s contribution to that project. So, while we still have a loan and we will get interest on that loan back, we used the state’s funding and so in some other cases we are trying to do that as well. We will let the state pay instead of the city and then make money off of it. Councilor Johana Bencomo moved, seconded by Councilor Becky Corran, to amend the MVEDA funding back to $250,000. MOVER: Councilor Johana Bencomo SECONDER: Councilor Becky Corran AYES: Councilor Cassie McClure, Councilor Becki Graham, Councilor Johana Bencomo, Councilor Becky Corran, and Councilor Yvonne Flores NAYS: Mayor Eric Enriquez and Councilor William Mattiace Councilor Becky Corran moved, seconded by Councilor Becki Graham, to Approve Resolution No. 25-139 as amended. Corran, and Councilor Yvonne Flores 8.4 RESOLUTION NO. 25-140: A RESOLUTION APPROVING THE CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS PROGRAM (CIP) FOR FISCAL YEAR 2026 THROUGH FISCAL YEAR 2031. Cynthia Alamillo, CIP Manager gave the overhead presentation. Councilor Becki Graham moved, seconded by Councilor Johana Bencomo, to Approve Resolution No. 25-140. MOVER: Councilor Becki Graham Corran, and Councilor Yvonne Flores 8.5 RESOLUTION NO. 25-141: A RESOLUTION APPROVING THE DEACCESSION OF TWO PUBLIC ART WORKS. Ceci Vasconcellos, Public Art Coordinator gave the overhead presentation. Councilor Becki Graham moved, seconded by Councilor Becky Corran, to Approve Resolution No. 25-141. Corran, and Councilor Yvonne Flores 8.6 RESOLUTION NO. 25-142: A RESOLUTION DETERMINING THE SUFFICIENCY OF THE PETITION REGARDING ORDINANCE NO. 3090, ALSO KNOWN AS REALIZE LAS CRUCES. Christine Rivera, City Clerk gave the overhead presentation. Councilor Bencomo asked in voting no that would mean Realize becomes the law? Christine Rivera said that would mean that Realize would go back into effect. Councilor Bencomo asked just to clarify one more time, the required number of signatures necessary to move forward with either repealing Realize or putting it on the ballot was 3,240 and at no point was that met? Christine Rivera said that is correct. Sarah Smith Member of the Public said what you are voting on today is whether the city will uphold the people’s fundamental right to petition government as enshrined in our state and federal constitutions. I am here today to present to you the petition to put Realize Las Cruces the ordinance in which you recently enacted on the ballot in the next election. The petition was signed by 4,671 Las Cruces residents. From the beginning the city has made the petition process as difficult as possible. We were not allowed to collect signatures electronically. We were not allowed to use an electronic copy of the 400-page ordinance. So instead, all volunteers were required to carry bulky printed copies of the ordinance which was over 30,000 pages to be printed at a cost of over $1,000. We were required to collect 3,240 signatures. We collected over 4,600 yet about 1,200 of those signatures have now been thrown out without due process. Let me explain. The City Charter gives a thirty-day deadline for the initial round of signature collection. The city burned up a week of this time because it took four days for me receive the petition from the clerk and then there was another three- day delay because the City Attorneys provided false information about who was allowed to collect signatures. I was not able to train volunteers until I knew who was allowed to collect signatures. Attorney Becker finally acknowledged the error and said in an email to me that I should, “please pardon the error for which the City Attorney’s Office bears responsibility”. In fairness I requested that we be given that week of time back for collecting signatures but the City Attorneys refused even though the city was at complete fault for delaying the petition and giving false information simply because it did not know its own process. Nearly 800 of the signatures that are being thrown out were collected during that extra week we should have been given in the first place. With regards to at least 400 other signatures that are being thrown out without due process, we tried to follow your rules, but the city would not give clear instructions. The City Charter allows for an amendment process so additional signatures may be submitted. The Charter does not specify that signature collection must cease once the first batch of petitions is turned in. Furthermore, the instructions provided to me by the City Clerk did not specify that we were not allowed to continue collecting signatures. For clarity we asked the City Attorneys, but they refused to answer this question even though they knew we were continuing to collect signatures. Instead, they let us continue to collect signatures only later to throw them out because of a reinterpretation of the Charter. So, we collected another 400 signatures during that time which the City Clerk has now thrown out based solely on the dates those signatures were collected. Of the remaining 3,400 signatures the City Clerk has chosen unjustly validate hundreds of signatures of registered voters. For instance, some people had a hard time writing due to being elderly or having shaky hands. In those instances, they signed the petition and then the volunteers filled in their address and printed name. All of these were thrown out. As it has been decided that people who have palsy are not allowed to sign a petition. In some instances, it was assumed that handwriting was that of a volunteer instead of the petition signer when there was no evidence of that. Again, those signatures were thrown out. Beth Bousqut, Member of the Public said of the remaining 3,400 signatures the City Clerk has chosen to unjustly invalidate hundreds of signatures of registered voters. For instance, some people had a hard time writing due to being elderly or having shaky hands. In those instances, they signed the petition, and the volunteers filled in their address information and printed name. These were all thrown out as the Clerk has decided that have had a hard time writing are not allowed to sign petitions. In some instances, she assumed the handwriting was that of a volunteer and not the petition signer even though there is no evidence to support these assumptions. Again, those signatures were all thrown out. The Clerk also threw out many signatures when people signed with their nickname even though the petition did not clearly state that the name had to match the voter registration exactly. For example she threw out signatures for when people wrote Tim instead of Timothy, Bill instead of William, Gilbert instead of Gilberto. In each case the voter can still clearly be identified in the voter roll by the remaining information provided but the Clerk still invalidated those signatures and disenfranchised those voters. It is not clear why many of the other signatures were disqualified either and no information from the City Clerk’s Office was provided why they were disqualified. Overall, we are talking about 1,500 people who are clearly listed on voter rolls. Yet the Clerk has invalidated their signatures. They would be allowed to vote at the polls, yet their signatures were not counted as valid on the petition. These determinations are arbitrary and capricious, and the council should overturn the Clerk’s decision, issue clear instructions for validation of signatures and require recertification including all of the signatures discussed today. If the city officials had known in their own process, it is quite possible we could have met the signature goal in this city’s eyes but because it deployed a process that was unknown to both its staff and the public, we have now landed in different places with regard to what signatures should be counted. Despite each of the roadblocks we still collected well over the required number of signatures. Dan Parrott, Member of the Public said overall the city staff have not been able to provide basic information about the petition process, have been unduly burdensome on petitioners and have not been consistent with constitutional due process, principles by unreasonably restricting the signatures that were counted as valid. Despite each of the roadblocks we still collected well over the required number of signatures from residents of Las Cruces through tireless effort by volunteers who sacrificed their time, finances, weekends, family time, and more in order to collect enough signatures. The city’s actions to constantly change the rules on us during the process amounts to the city not acted in good faith to uphold our right to petition. I understand that it has been a decade since the last referendum petition, so this was a new process for the City Clerk and the Attorneys. What I would ask for myself is that this go forward and allow the citizens to decide Realize Las Cruces. Joe Blust, Member of the Public said I would like to mention this again as I did when I first spoke that I am not a classist. I carried this ordinance and explained each person who wanted to sign the petition, that 400 page plus ordinance was already passed in February 18th by the City Council, six to one. The majority of people wanted to know why such a sweeping zoning change wasn’t brought to a city-wide vote. I couldn’t answer that, and I still can’t answer that. One resident got very angry with me and called me a liar for five minutes and said that the council would not do such a thing. Another resident was shocked to hear his name had been rejected. This resident was the retired Fire Chief. He said that just two days prior to me coming to his house to reclaim his signature he had spoken to a member of the council and expressed deep concerns as to how this zoning change had been handled. He told me that something of this magnitude should have been taken to a city-wide vote. Everyone that signed thanked me for taking the time out of my life to collect signatures so that this zoning ordinance could be taken to a city-wide vote. There were people who wanted to sign twice if I ran across somebody who had already signed. I told them they could not do that. People who were outside the city limits were also telling friends and family to sign. I implore the council to allow this zoning ordinance to be taken to a city-wide vote. Fred Huff, Member of the Public said two elections ago I volunteered to observe the counting of the mail in ballots at the county building on Lakeside Drive. In observing the counting of the mail in ballots I was shocked that there was no vetting of the signatures of these ballots. If it had as much as an X on the signature line, it was to be accepted. This tells me that the County Clerk had no concerns about the integrity of our elections by letting these ballots be accepted without verifying each signature and making sure that the ballot was legitimate. I felt that this violated my right as a voter. Fast forward to the Realize Las Cruces petition process where the City Clerk worked overtime to find any reason to reject signatures. This appears to be discrimination to me by throwing out the ones as Ms. Smith mentioned about the people of the elderly or the other people that had to be helped get their signature signed. The pattern I am seeing is that our local Clerks establish rules to get the outcomes that they want, and I don’t think that this is what we want as Americans. Mary Jo Birch, Member of the Public said I knocked on 800 doors and I can tell you that most people had no idea about Realize Las Cruces. Absolutely no idea. Especially the elderly, they didn’t know. Apparently, your method of communication was through social media. I don’t get on social media and I am elderly too. So that in itself was really unfair. The second thing is I did find people who were in favor in this and they wanted a little grocery store in their neighborhood. I could see a large grocery store that was less than a half a mile from where they live. I said why don’t you just walk to that grocery store? And they said it was no longer safe to walk in Las Cruces. The density is another issue that people have a really hard time with. We do not have the infrastructure basically to support all the traffic that will come from some of these projects. A lot of my voters that were disenfranchised were the Chris’ who put Chris instead of Christopher, Oswald who failed to put the O on the end of his name, Rosa who put her name when it should have been Rosita. The democracy is not here. I mean really it needs to be voted upon. In addition, why don’t we innovate? Why don’t we build an affordable house out of what we have out in the desert now? We have tons of rocks, tons of sand and put the juvenile delinquents out there with their parents. They can get to know each other better while they are working on building an affordable house. Plant bamboo, we don’t need wood, and we can build the base out of rock. Jim Hoerst, Member of the Public said this matter belongs before a court. I have no idea what representations are being made and no way to judge their veracity. They are not made under oath, they are not sworn, they are not cross examined. So, it is hard to accept any of this as evidence. Most of these people are good citizens and if their arguments are valid they should hold up in court. Paula Groves, Member of the Public said I signed the petition and participated in the circulation of the petition. I would like to bring your attention to the Las Cruces Municipal Code, Part 1, Article 8, Section 8.04(a) where we outline the procedure after filing this petition. However, this Municipal Code does not outline a basis for determining validity of signatures on one of these petitions. So, the Municipal Code is lacking here. However, the City Clerk used a process to invalidate signatures. That process is not made public in the Municipal Code anywhere. So how can we know as citizens that the validation process was correct? Allowing invalidation of signatures based on whatever reasoning is not included in Article 8, the petition provided by the City Clerk did not state that the name needed to match the voter registration exactly. It stated printed name and signature, and it requires that signers be a qualified voter of the city of Las Cruces, New Mexico. So, I implore you to reconsider the validation of these signatures. Sylvia Yancy, Member of the Public said I am from District 2. I want to emphasize the fact that even with the ample time to gather signatures to oppose Realize Las Cruces that it is clear that there were not enough valid signatures provided, and that the public majority has shown support for this ordinance. Providing the opportunity to have local neighborhood markets, parks and cafes in single family home areas will foster more community among neighbors. This will also be a great step towards moving away from a car centric society, something that we desperately need. I want to quote something that one of my friends wanted to say but they had to go back to work. She said, “I ask that this council vote no on Resolution No. 25-142. I am in full support of Realize Las Cruces just as a majority of this city council has been since February. Those opposed were given more than enough time to collect enough signatures than what the statute allowed for and we ought to just move forward and allow this city to grow”. Lucas Herndon, Member of the Public said I am a resident of District 2. I too am in support of Realize Las Cruces as I was in February, as I was during the planning process last year and so I would encourage the city council to vote no and uphold what is clearly not enough valid signatures. I am also a voter registration agent for the county and I am also a county officiant so if anybody is looking to get married hit me up and you have to write your name right. It is just a thing you know. The thing that I just have to be amused by slightly is the hypocrisy of a number of people here who in other times and other places have called for stricter controls about who can vote, how you have to vote, what you might have to show when you show up to vote, where you can vote, what country you were born in originally if you can vote, all of a sudden want a lot of leeway when it comes to who gets to sign their petition. That is just kind of funny. They were given ample time. They were given an extension of that time, they were communicated with and they didn’t reach the number and you know it happens. So please verify that by voting no. Sarai Guerrero, Member of the Public said I live in District 1. I hope that you all vote no. Like it was previously mentioned you should be putting your government name when you are signing on petitions. You know not shortened names, not only your middle names or what you go by, your name and I really hope that you guys vote no on this because I heard someone say that it is a half mile to the nearest supermarket. Sure, it is a half mile to the nearest supermarket but without sidewalks, without maybe bike lanes because maybe this person maybe does not drive or without uncracked roads, or uncracked sidewalks or whatever how can you get there safely? How can you get there back safely? And I think Realize Las Cruces will kind of help with that problem in a way that people ain’t realizing because they are so used to their cars and like I wish I could afford a car but that is a different conversation, right? I really hope that you all vote no because I really, really think that this will be really good for the city because it will allow children to go outside and maybe go to a park, maybe get a little bit closer to their friends and hangout at a café. Maybe they can go buy sodas at the little supermarket down the street and go back to their house and watch movies. I don’t know. Albert, Member of the Public said I am a resident of Las Cruces. In February 18th this council voted in favor of Realize Las Cruces Development Code. This initiative seeks to implement the years of zoning and building ordinances that help modernize the city’s development code for the first time in nearly 25 years. I wasn’t able to make it in person because I was at work but I do consider the discourse that takes place here very important. I am happy to be able to join you all today to personally state my support for this initiative. This new code facilitates the development of the diverse housing types allowing the city to provide more affordable and accessible housing options for residents. By promoting mixed use developments in revitalizing underutilized areas, I believe this new code supports economic growth in the creation of vibrant walkable neighborhoods. I fully believe this ordinance will be beneficial development of our city as a whole. Additionally, I think the members of our community who will benefit the most don’t usually have the privilege to have their voices represented in these meetings. I am aware that a lot of food service workers, medical staff, mothers, teacher, students, or people who are unhoused, or simple too caught up in a cycle of living paycheck to paycheck do not get the opportunity that we have here to engage directly with our local government. This city council’s approval of Realize Las Cruces Development Code on February 18, 2025, marked a significant step towards modernizing the city zoning and building ordinances. Reconsidering this vote would undermine the extensive planning, community engagement, and strategic vision that informed its development. I believe maintaining the current course will ensure that Las Cruces will continue to evolve in a manner that benefits all residents and not just a few can make it to a city council meeting at 1 p.m. on a Monday. Jay Choate, Member of the Public said I am a resident of District 5, and I don’t know if anyone has actually had to go and register to vote or like to fill out government documents but typically, they don’t let you do short hand. Typically, you have to fill out the documents accurately and have accurate information. I would just like to know generally with Realize itself if you look at larger cities that have a lot of these older codes that heavily incentivize R1 zoning or just single family housing zoning being the primary method of housing people, if you look at some of these cities that have kept them for decades and decades and they sprawl out and become these large metropolitan areas they end up in a debt trap because they don’t have enough revenue to really maintain their infrastructure which means that you have to raise the cost on the people that live in the city so either you raise taxes or you start going into debt because you didn’t profit out, twenty years from now all of our infrastructure is going to need to be fixed again and then they have to work with that and at the end of the day every city has to deal with that. I also generally believe it is better to make it so our communities have more walkable environments. Have it safer for younger kids, teenagers, even people well into their 30’s and 40’s and adulthood, just engaging in the community and actually showing up to places like cafes, like small supermarkets, engaging with each other instead of all being piled into homes and then going to their car, go off to work because it is twenty minutes away and then go back home and then they go back in their house. Or they have to forced in engaging with each other academic environments, religious environments. They are forced to go into an environment to engage with people for certain reasons instead of just being there to relax and with our current zoning system before Realize that was incentivizing that so with Realize if we can diversify how people can engage with each other, make more access to more affordable housing and make it so it is more renewable and sustainable for the city in long term. I think ultimately, we should support the initiative so I hope you will vote no on this. David Lemont Mooney, Member of the Public said I am a resident of Las Cruces, and I am currently missing work and pay to be here to comment. The worst thing about this city is that it is designed for cars instead of humans. When Realize Las Cruces was passed in February it gave me a rare slice of real hope for the future. I respect the small but very vocal groups effort to oppose this. I have worked on petitions before, and I will just say I expect a 100% validation rate is absolutely ridiculous. What is obvious from the lack of valid signatures is that the vast majority of us in this community want human beings prioritized in our urban design. Steve Coletti, Member of the Public said many of you have expressed concerns in the past about the state of our democracy. We are here today to exercise one of those elements, a redress of grievances. Per City Code we launched our petition drive to have Realize Las Cruces ordinance placed on the ballot. We were able to collect over 4,600 signatures in that effort. For comparison I would like to throw out another number, 6,322. That is the grand total of all votes to put the six councilors on this dais to get you elected at your last election. Six different organized campaigns were only able to collect 6,322 votes but our rag tagged, grass roots effort with very limited and regulated time was able to collect 4,600 signatures. That should speak volumes to the opposition to this ordinance. So the decision before you today is simple. Are you truly a supporter of the democratic process or is that just a talking point when it hits your purpose? Are you willing to support the process and honor the spirit of the law or thwart that process by rigidly applying the law, letter of the law in the administrative hurdles the city placed. Today the ball is in your court. I hope that you will listen to the citizens of Las Cruces and hold this ordinance up to the light of day on the ballot. One last note while today is not a debate to the context of Realize, my hope is that through this process we will end up with most of the ordinance. It is almost a good ordinance. It just needs a few tweaks so that it can serve all of Las Cruces. Beth Bardwell, Member of the Public said I am speaking today on my own behalf. I would ask you to vote no and support the city’s well thought out reforms to the city’s development and zoning codes and for following the rule of law governing petitions for referendums. I believe the City Charter language is clear and following the rules of law are the foundation of democracy and protects against arbitrariness in government action. I think these development and zoning code reforms are even more important given that the federal government is on track to pass a highly regressive budget with major cuts in programs that benefit lower income Americans and while the federal government is turning a blind eye to lower income Americans I believe these reforms will help us build a city that is more compassionate and lead the city in a better place for all residents. Ruth Jaure, Member of the Public said I want to bring attention to those previous young no’s. They are articulate, they are our future, and they are correct. This city needs to be a walking city. Realize Las Cruces will bring us to the next generation, and they are speaking that. Realize Las Cruces went through vetting. It has been in the making for four years. I have attended public meetings. I have attended TAE, Technical Advisory Committee meetings, I have attended your meetings, I have read articles in the newspaper. Why come to this party so late and demand democracy? I encourage you to vote no, no, no. Mary Wasson, Member of the Public said in answer to her question why come to the party so late, as one of the previous speakers mentioned most residents as we collected signatures had absolutely no idea about what had just happened after this got passed. So today I would just ask you to consider whether or not you endorse this as you consider the standards by which you judge. The standards for voting are much easier than just signing a petition. Signing this petition was very strict. Many people were rejected by the City Clerk. My neighbor across the street, Jim L Willis, living at 4400 La Cienaga, was rejected because his voter card said Jimmy, Jimmy L on La Cienaga. It was a reasonable match. He should have been accepted. My friend Christine was rejected because she is recovering from a stroke, could not sign for herself, well she signed her own signature, she needed help with the print. She was rejected. Again, the standards were stricter than just trying to obtain a ballot. If you look on the voter registration card there is a block ten that allows a person to have assistance to specify who assisted. So, I would just ask you today to just consider seriously are you really allowing all people to voice their opinion. Michael Harris, Member of the Public said I am a resident/business owner in the city. From a policy perspective to me this sounds relatively cut and dry as far as the city is concerned. Vote no, the signatures were not collected, they were invalid. I think maybe there is some technicalities and if those technicalities have merit and are worked out by the courts later, so be it but for now it seems fairly cut and dry. And then I would also add to remind you all of this and also everyone in the audience that there is plenty of ways to change this ordinance in the future. The ordinance itself has a one-year review period. I noticed that in it which was quite clear so in a year, you all are supposed to come back to it and review it every year, make changes and that is the opportunity for the democratic process to proceed. Everyone here who has problems with it, myself included can come back and talk to you all in the intervening time and at that time make some changes. And also, if there really are 4,600, that many people and they decide in November that they don’t like what this council did they can move you out and that is democracy, right? We voted you in, you made a choice, we should stick with it. As for the actual contents of the ordinance I have been talking to many people, I myself, friends, family, business colleagues, fellow business owners and the more that I look at it, it’s fine. As it is it is pretty good. There is a phased in implementation period I believe for the next 11 months or so both zoning rules are kind of in play and there is potential for redress and it does also address a lot of the sky is falling narratives are specifically is against that. Tim Jenkins, Member of the Public said the answer is that we did not come late and demand democracy. Democracy is of the people, by the people, and for the people. That is the Constitution of the United States of America, and we tried in every way possible to follow every single rule and the fact that you guys did not have your things together between the first signatures and the second signatures, we sent emails, we called, we sent text and asked. We are still gathering signatures, is that okay? We cannot answer that question, that was the answer that we got. So, we continued to collect signatures because you couldn’t answer the question. And then come to find out after all of that every single one of those signatures got thrown out because you guys couldn’t do your job and you guys couldn’t give us the right answer. We are not fighting for anything except for people to have this vote. The people of Las Cruces that is all we are asking. Why are you guys so scared to have the people vote? Is it because we wasted over a million dollars on this? Why is it so hard that the people can’t vote on this? That is all we are asking. I don’t understand. We did collect the right amount of signatures and they were thrown out because of your mistake. Let’s make that clear. Dominic Bowtell, Member of the Public said I mostly came to watch as I was looking for what the answers were going to be on this Realize Las Cruces event. I myself am a 21-year resident of Las Cruces. I am also directly related in the real estate business. I also have children growing up in this community. I am in full support of Realize Las Cruces. I don’t think everyone understand what is involved with planning, zoning, and development, nor the things that are involved with the funds or where they come from. The way people and businesses decide where they are going to go and how they are going to develop. I think that it is very important that this city make some positive progress into the future. William Moreland, Member of the Public said I am part of District 7, and I would like to say that even though I was one of those people that didn’t know what Realize Las Cruces was until somewhat recently I am in full support of voting no today because Las Cruces by in all is one of the best cities I have lived in in terms of accessibility but there are some issues and if Realize Las Cruces is going to help fix those issues, I am all for it. So, thank you for trying to help modernize Las Cruces. Trent Scribner, Member of the Public said I was here to speak on Realize when you guys voted on it initially. To the people who this came as a surprise I kind of want to say I remember being asked about this. The city sent out a thing asking people saying hey we are going to be doing zoning changes what do you want to see from that. That was either a couple of months or a year before it went up to vote here on the council I remember. So, it is not a shock, it is just that people don’t follow zoning laws. I get it, it’s boring. I talk to people about it on a regular basis now and all my friends are bored with me. But everyone who I talk to about it, everybody who I know, who I have spoken to about it personally is cool with it. Everybody is really excited about it. It’s the landed element in the town that is worried about that it may lower their property values or there may be like poor people in their neighborhood, God forbid. And that is not going to be a problem because if you want to stop poverty, if you don’t care to look at the poor people, which I know a lot of you fellows don’t then we need cheaper housing and eliminating single family zoning lowers housing cost when used in conjunction with a bunch of other things. Realize Las Cruces is an important first step. That is what it is, a first step. We just need to be allowed to take it. We don’t have time. There is a wave of poverty coming to Las Cruces. We have to do something now. We have to start building houses yesterday and it would be nice, a coffee shop in the neighborhood and all of that. Don’t be scared and you didn’t get the signatures. Fred Miller, Member of the Public said on the question of these petitions the signatures I would certainly not have signed those petitions myself. In the past any petition I have signed for anything to go on a ballot I have always been told the name on the petition needs to match the name on my voter registration. That just stands to reason so the biggest complaint about the invalidation of the signatures seems to be the names don’t match the voter registration names, that sounds appropriate to me. Larry Sedillo, Member of the Public said I do not live in the city of Las Cruces. I live in the county, but I have been helping the people that want to make a change, and I am going to tell you the truth today. You need to listen to what we are trying to tell you, and everybody here has the right to speak their own mind no matter what it is and that is why we live in America. You have the right to make decisions. I believe in God, and he puts me first in everything I do, and I go through his guides. So, all of us have here the same interest to improve Las Cruces. Not to make Cruces bad or whatever else. If you are not putting one side against the other, then you are not being positive. You are not thinking about everybody. This is for everybody. One of the reasons that we want to stay the same, we do want to make changes. I hit a lot of houses. A lot of people told me they never told me about this. Social media is good, but it doesn’t reach everyone. We have to change the way we have to contact people. The other thing to, if you put an apartment complex in front of where you bought your house because you decided to live in Sonoma or wherever and you can’t see the mountains no more it changes who you are. Everybody here decided to live in a certain place in this town. If something happens there that changes your view that you really appreciate of why you live in that house or that suburb or whatever it is going to affect your life. That is what we are talking about. We are talking about decision to live where you want to live. In the past these contractors could have built a lot of places you are talking about, a little store, whatever. They didn’t do it. They had the opportunity to do it. Now you want to make a change for yourself. Did this come from you? Or somebody from the east coast or the west coast? Who made you decide that this was the best for Las Cruces? We need to investigate every aspect of it before we make a final decision. Let the people of Las Cruces decide. If they want it, they will vote for it. If they don’t want it, they won’t vote for it but we need to consider everyone. Lisa Parrott, Member of the Public said I am a resident of District 6. I had different things to say but by the time I got here I think I need to change it a little bit. What we are considering today, you all have already passed Realize Las Cruces. That is not what is being discussed today. What is being discussed today is did we do a good job of getting a petition of signatures to you correctly and did we follow the process that we were given. I have been doing petitions since 2000. I co-chaired the successful Las Cruces Public Schools recall, so we got a lot of signatures. I have never seen a petition that did not say printed name as registered. The first time I laid eyes on this one I noticed that, and I thought okay, is this an oversight or what? It left you confused as to what you needed to do. Talking to people if you are on their front porch and you say well, I need to look up your address to make sure that I matches voter rolls they would think you’re crazy. I would ask them anyway but hey you are on their front porch you know they live there you know. It should have been very clear that this is your required to have your printed name as registered and that would cut a lot of this process. I collected from Santa Fe, I was in Santa Fe until March 22 working the Legislative Session. Even the Sunday before you voted on the 18th, I sent you all an email asking you if you would consider some of the buildings that could be rehabbed into affordable housing downtown. When I got back from two months of being gone, I collected 23 signatures before the 17th of April and 66 after and this was up until the very deadline. I was still out knocking doors till the last day that we were doing this. These people didn’t know about this. They have a right to know about this. We made a good faith effort to do what we needed to do, and we would like you to vote have the Clerk continue to authorize these signatures to be checked out. Councilor Bencomo said after the big lie of 2020, I am not shocked by what I am hearing here today. I lost so the process must have been unfair, and I just want to first and foremost thank Christine and the Attorney’s Office for your integrity in upholding this process. For reviewing every single signature even though it was clear, even in the first round that they did not have enough signatures and I am just not surprised by the kind of narrative that you are trying to create now regarding the lack of integrity. When the petitioners, when you lied, you broke the rules, you didn’t carry the petition around with you, you manipulated people, you exploited people’s worst fears about their neighbors. And so for you to come here and talk about the integrity of the Clerk’s process is wild and I am not even going to rehash the importance of Realize and it was over a four year process and as a resident you get invited to participate whether it is through mail or social media and you look at it and throw it away, not to be corny but politics is not a spectator sport. You also have to take some responsibility around how you engage. You have to do some engagement in your community as well and the incredible thing about Realize was not east coast or west coast people was the number of people who gave their time over four years. Developers, folks in advocacy organizations, residents in general gave their time to volunteer committees, to give their expertise as developers, their expertise as realtors in this process. And I know now that you are trying to frame it as if we didn’t do our due diligence. That is not true. That is inherently a lie. And then you went out into the community, and you lied some more and I have this flyer in front of me where you talked about these are the bad things of Realize, apartment complexes. So, you can’t say that you are not against affordable housing and multifamily housing when you literally are. That is literally the core of this petition. This flyer then says gas stations will be allowed in neighborhoods with a special use permit. That is a lie. SUPs for gas stations yes, only on collector and higher usage roadways not on local streets. And then you said housing cost will increase because housing developers will be required to pay full cost to build parks in neighborhoods. I know and unless you had developers who were helping you collect petitions, but the developers were not against Realize. They were at the table every step of the way and in fact we just had a Work Session about Park Impact Fees. That is so manipulative and so out of context to say guess what house prices are already high and have nothing to do with Park Impact Fees or Realize. I now live in an NH-13, I’m sad someone just left, I know Mr. Jenkins put everybody’s address on the internet and said that we all lived-in single-family homes, neighborhoods. I actually live in an NH-3 neighborhood now. Up the block from me is a gas station. Across the street from that gas station is a mobile home park, up the block from that mobile home park is a multi-family housing development is being built. The house just right next to me went on sale for $240,000. I bought my house in 2019 for $140,000. Realize is not making houses expensive. What Realize will do is help create a greater diverse city of housing that we so desperately need and so if you are against that and you signed this petition because you are inherently against multi-family housing and a diverse of housing going up in good neighborhoods with good parks then I would ask you to reflect on where your segregationist tendencies come from. Councilor Corran said I can attest to the number of folks who were calling me and saying someone came my door and told me things that I know aren’t true, they menaced me by suggesting that my neighborhood would become devalued with potentially diverse people. I know folks were put off by much of what they heard at the door including a series of lies. So, I would say I appreciate the process that we have laid out and also it is possible to do a petition campaign in the time frame that was outlined. I was actually surprised that there were a bunch of extra weeks added on. That seemed really benefit of the doubt to me. I know the last successful petition campaign definitely finished in the first set of petition signatures so that sort of gave me a strong picture of what was happening and all the folks who called me and said I signed up because someone told me something that wasn’t true to get me to sign or people who were saying I didn’t sign but wow I heard a lot of things that were really alarming to me. So, I figured all of those folks once we sort of look at the calculus of the number of folks who have had regrets for signing would also be a pretty big dent in the numbers in the total, but I don’t have to go there for that. I will tell you about one of my residents who wanted to build a car port. He was really excited. He gave inputs in several versions of Realize, over two years he added his inputs. He also does a lot of residential remodeling. He wanted to build a car port and an ADU and he was just waiting for Realize to pass and when it did he was ready to submit his permits to Community Development and he heard that there was a petition campaign and that he would have to wait and in that time, about 60 days that he had to wait for this streamlined process that allows people to do what a they want with their own personal property the cost of the materials due to political factors that he was going to use increased by something like 64% in the days that this petition was being collected. So, I just want to sort of say to the folks who are out there collecting petitions know that there was a cost, right? There was a cost because folks don’t like to be lied to and there was a cost to all the folks who are counting on Realize to really enable them to do what they choose with their property. We hear from those folks too so just so you know what appears on a petition is not the only input that we have had along this process and so I just sort of want to give another gratitude to Mayor Pro Tem for really talking about what is at stake here and I do want to just sort of say that the idea that city council should send everything to a vote, that is known as direct democracy and I think it is fascinating that folks are demanding direct democracy on a 400 page zoning reform and somehow we passed the budget without a single public comment. I thought that is what everyone was here for today because there is something else at stake. There are things that we make decisions about that we are trusted to make decisions about as city council and we are expected to do the homework and we are expected to get public participation and we are expected to have integrity of our words, of our actions and our money and sending everything to the vote, I have no doubt that Realize would pass easily if we did send it to a vote but that is not how we do things. We have a job to do, and it is making policy, deciding the budget, and making Realize happen today. Councilor Graham said I am just going to have one comment on Realize specifically and one on the process but first thank you Christine for your integrity, your expertise, your grace on this I know that you put in a lot of extra work, and I appreciate that. Also, to our Attorneys and those in the Legal Office who were supporting throughout. On Realize specifically this as I mentioned at the February vote is one of the few things that I have kind of seen throughout my tenure as a councilor, took this seat in January of 22. Realize was already happening so it was already well into it and then we ended up with about a four-year process and I saw quarterly updates, we had Work Sessions all of which are advertised far beyond social media. Not to mention 30 plus public meetings again not merely carried out on social media but Realize is what got me interested in zoning in the first place and one of the things that I have found myself doing the most as a city councilor when I look at how big the challenges are for our community, for our country, what can I as local elective really do to have an impact? And as I got into zoning and what I saw over and over is that by making more inclusive zoning I as a local elected can affect so many important community challenges. Having more inclusive zoning and moving away from an exclusionary zoning code is one of the few things where I feel like I can have a tremendous impact and that goes to the second point, and I am kind of echoing Councilor Corran here. This is the essence of representative government. You voted us in and you as Mr. Harris pointed out you will have the opportunity, well you will not have the opportunity to vote me out because you will be done with me at the end of the year anyway because I am not running again but this is representative government and I can speak for myself and several of my colleagues up here and ya we did the homework, we did the reading, most of us did reading way beyond the reading that you would see in the packet and to say that we are somehow overstepping our bounds to make this decision. I disagree wholeheartedly. Councilor Flores said I would like to say that Realize just didn’t happen when it went to a vote or when people became aware of it. As I have said before this is my eighth year on city council but prior to being here on city council I was active with the League of Women Voters and all of that being said especially Sharon Thomas who was District 6 councilor before I was who worked very hard at developing a city that was well planned in terms of being inclusive, in terms of having the right roads, bike lanes, the entire design and my first year on council I was privileged to have been a delegate, I was self-appointed no less because it came out of my own pocket to go to Savannah, Georgia along with then Councilor Gil Sorg and former Councilor Sharon Thomas and what I saw there was amazing and I can’t remember the name of the organization but it is an organization that focuses on how you develop a city to make it livable, enjoyable, inclusive, fun, it was just amazing. I think it was like a three or four day stay there and it was amazing on how it opened my eyes and then before that too I know that there was Elevate Las Cruces that was in process and I remember that as a resident I was aware of it and there were meetings all over the city and then once I was on council I remember and everyone who showed up had the privilege to put a post it on what they wanted to see in their city and I just want to tell all of you here that I don’t remember seeing any of you there maybe Lucas because he is everywhere but other than Lucas and Fred Miller, right. So people were very much engaged and very aware of what the options were and you could put your post it wherever you wanted and there were several and then after I was elected those continued and I would like to say also in my trip to Savannah, Georgia back in 2018, I was just amazed, I was in awe of our Community Development Department and the work that they do and the dedication they have to making this a better world for those of us who live here in Las Cruces. Ya, do I want a gas station built across the street from my house? Well probably not but that is not going to happen. It is kind of like Chicken Little saying the sky is falling, the sky is falling and guess what the sky isn’t falling. And I think there has been a lot of fear mongering which is generated, please forgive me because I am a woman and because I am a minority and I went to a segregated school in the first grade in El Paso, Texas. I can call one when I see one and I think a lot of you, there is something about you don’t want to be too close to people who aren’t like me. Who may socialize with my children or heaven forbid it’s like the boogie man and that is my perspective of what I have receive from a lot of you and all of you who came up without different levels displayed a lot of dislike for your fellow person and I will bet a lot of you are fear mongering church attending, whatever you know. But no seriously you might be but a lot of you that is how you come across. You’re a bunch of Chicken Littles. I also want to thank Christine, and I want you to know Christine is our City Clerk and I will say that she knows a lot more than all of you put together. She was at one point the number one City Clerk in the United States. None of you can claim that and right now she is number one in New Mexico. So, for all of you who have bashed her, for all of you who have bashed the system you know go and beat your heads against the sky and that is all I have to say. Councilor Mattiace said I just want to say thank you to the petitioners. I know it was hard work, and I have always been an elected official that would like the people to vote on it. I did it with gross receipts tax, I did it with the Spaceport when I was Mayor and this decision, this change is so significant, this code change, it’s not just something that we should vote on. It should have been given to the voter because what we have here is two diverse populations. We have people who have homes in the older districts, and we have those that are in the new development and that was an offer. They offered that maybe we could do the new development codes on the new developments and leave the older districts alone and then we had a young man that came up and I really appreciated his comments about tweaking it and amending it. We have a period that we can do that but right now we have 4,500/4,700 voters that were not happy with the decision we made and of course we worked on it for four years and again we had stakeholders come out and I remember someone saying that was about 700 or 800 people that contribute. We had mailers go out and a lot of public knew that this was coming. It is still evident, it still happened and that is what I am concerned with that we had over 4,500 people that didn’t know about it. That affects them. My position is it should have gone to the voters like the city of El Paso. The people are very important, and your voice is important to me and that is why I stand with my decisions. Brad Douglas, City Attorney said just to wrap up the staff portion of the presentation and after listening to some of the citizen’s concerns I had some things that I wanted to present to all of you that will hopefully be helpful to you in determining how you will vote in just a few moments. With regard to the actual final tally, there were 4,671 total. That does not take into account whether they were validated or invalidated. The total number of validated signatures as determined by the City Clerk as is her duty pursuant to our City Charter was 2,547 valid signatures as you all will recall the required number of valid signatures was 3,240. So, with that said I am going to go down a list of notes that I just made earlier during this item. One of our residents mentioned that a there are things that were being said by “both sides” and who knows what is true and what is not true. Everything that I am about to read to you is undoubtedly true. So, with regard to procedural due process, I heard that come up. I do want to communicate with no strings attached to this statement that the City Clerk did communicate reasons for invalidated signatures to the petitioner. I have heard a few times claims made that that did not happen. That absolutely happened and that could be proven in a court of law, for example. With regard to the signatures that were gathered in the interim period, what I will call the interim period. So, between the original petition and the supplementary petition, the petitioner actually acknowledged that the petition and the supplementary petition were separate legal instruments. That happened. The last referendum petition was referenced, and it was about ten years ago and so I did is I went back and I looked at those orders and what I will tell you is that the Third Judicial District Court found that the City Clerk should receive a high level of deference with regard to validating or invalidating signatures. The City Clerk did in fact notify the petitioner that valid signatures would be required to match voter registration rolls. That did occur. And lastly the petitioners were informed that interim signatures would not be counted unless they were cured and one of my attorneys was mentioned here by name today. He actually did inform petitioners that those signatures could be cured and even how to do it and so it is my position here, I am taking no position whatsoever with regard to the merit of petition or not but with regard to due process, due process has issue. Councilor Johana Bencomo moved, seconded by Councilor Becky Corran, to Approve Resolution No. 25-142. RESULT: DEFEATED. AYES: Councilor William Mattiace NAYS: Mayor Eric Enriquez, Councilor Cassie McClure, Councilor Becki Graham, Councilor Johana Bencomo, Councilor Becky Corran, and Councilor Yvonne 9. BOARD APPOINTMENTS 9.1 None. 10. 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). 10.1 None. 11. CITY COUNCIL MEMBER BOARD REPORTS AND COMMENT 11.1 COUNCILOR MCCLURE None. 11.2 COUNCILOR MATTIACE None. 11.3 COUNCILOR GRAHAM None. 11.4 COUNCILOR CORRAN I want to give a very quick shoutout to Naomi Morningstar Cruz, who was Miss Las Cruces 2025, who had an event. Probably the coolest event I have ever been to in the city of Las Cruces, Fashion for Hearts. I firmly believed that it was a fashion show for dogs would be wearing outfits but actually it was human models and there was a runway and they each had dogs from the Animal Services Center to get adopted and so it was a fundraiser for ASCMV and I just want to give Naomi a real shoutout for organizing that on behalf of the animals at the ASCMV and also really just see ways that we can support her in doing similar things in the future because it was a really cool event and I will just give a little story. There were models that took the dogs down the runway and there were spectators on the side as they are on runway shows and one of the dogs, Jessica just ran up to this gentleman unruly not staying on the runway, she just ran off the runway and that guy ended up adopting her. So literally she ran to her new future. The one other item I wanted to add was the Highland Park Neighborhood Park opening at 10 a.m. on Friday which is on Emerald Street in District 5. There will be stuff to do, things to play on this Friday at 10 a.m. so I hope that folks will join me there. 11.5 COUNCILOR FLORES I just want to thank those of you who stayed through the meetings and see exactly what happens and I would also if there is anybody in District 6 who would like to sit here, please feel free to fill out a petition and run for city council. I just want to let you know if you have any friends, neighbors, relatives, dogs, cats who would love to sit up here you are more than welcome to run. Again, it is good that we have these forums, I call them forums they are meetings but there is nothing in the books that says that there has to be public comment. There is just nothing and most municipalities don’t allow it. So, I really want to laud the city for its practice of allowing people to speak up and be heard and we heard a lot today. 11.6 COUNCILOR BENCOMO The presentation today around the CIP amendment on the status of the fire station, that is just deeply concerning to me. I think obviously we made a great plan to obviously District 4 has benefited from GO bonds for a new fire station because the quality of the old fire station was really pretty bad. We have made plans for new fire stations. I think that we just have to pay more attention to the current fire stations that don’t have necessarily a plan to be completely renovated. As Councilor Corran said these aren’t just buildings that people come to from 8 to 5. People live there half the week. I know that obviously the GRT increase people voted on it because for a big reason was public safety, that is public safety, and I want to make sure that we keep that at the very top of the list because that was deeply concerning to me. Lastly, I did get some questions regarding the delayed press conference around the officer involved shooting. While I have expressed this to the acting City Manager, and we will talk with City Manager now that he is back about it as well. I do just have some concerns regarding for the lack of a better word, succession planning around when the Chief of Police is gone and who can do that in a timely manner. Not only for the respect of the situation but we know that misinformation and disinformation runs rampant when people don’t have facts and for that I think it is important that we have a much better plan in place for when whether it is the Fire Chief, the Police Chief, whoever is gone that those kinds of things be handled in a more immediate fashion. 11.7 MAYOR ENRIQUEZ I will mention that great event that took place with the Gus Macker. The Gus Macker did come back in town this weekend and it was a great event, 206. So shoutout to Mayfield Football Team that brought it back for this weekend. So, it was a great event for our community. Also I just have to share maybe on the Council and Board Member Reports maybe not reporting as much but I do have to say that with MVEDA and some of the things that we are doing, I know that we see a lot of things in Santa Teresa but there is some carry over now and we have a cold storage unit that is going to open up and finally got a permit on the Industrial Park. We have some other developers coming and looking at warehouses there. We have got a delegation coming in actually tomorrow night to visit with Las Cruces that MVEDA brought in. I know I leave that with Economic Development and their budget and what they do but I do have to share as being on the board of MVEDA we are starting to see some action. We are starting to see some things there. I just want to mention being a resident from Las Cruces the majority of my life what we want is better for Las Cruces. I think we are all here on the dais and have the same agenda to better Las Cruces to do for the people. I believe Realize is going to do that. It is going to be a change for the better and if not, we can amend it and the thing that we have to hold up here is the honesty and integrity and I believe the process was valid and we followed our Charter and we followed the state statute. So, honesty and integrity and the betterment of Las Cruces that is what we are all here for. I do have to say that there is one thing is try to remain calm and not get angry. There was a comment today that I do take offense to and that is accusing our law officers, our peace officers, our police officers of committing murder. I have been through a police academy myself and we are trained to stop the action and that is the bottom line. 12. CITY MANAGER REPORT 12.1 IKANI TAUMOEPEAU Mayor thank you for bringing up the Gus Macker. Mayor Enriquez, if you weren’t there, he had the opportunity of opening up and there was the shot to open up the games and it took him about twenty shots but no comment to make it. We are grateful for the football team, Mayfield bringing back the Gus Macker. There is about 200 plus teams. Obviously, I have heard great things about the Gus Macker before my time. Apparently, we have had one of the biggest Gus Macker tournaments out here for years and years ago so to bring that tradition back is great, there was a lot of kids there and I believe Assistant City Manager JC’s son for their age group got second place. So, congratulations to them but just bringing a lot of people, a lot of food, a lot of vendors out is great and so kudos to the football team taking the risk. It is something that is risky to make a profit so them coming back with the support. Hopefully they made the profit. We appreciate public safety being there present, Fire and PD representing as well. Again, thank you to the football team at Mayfield. This is a three-year contract to my understanding so this is one of three years so our hope is that it will continue to grow with the support of the community so thank you so much. I would like to acknowledge that our Fire Department Chief, as we know Chief Daniels vacated the Deputy Chief position as he is now our Fire Chief and so we had an interim role, Tibor Kocsis has been our interim since that time and they went through a very competitive selection process and Tibor is officially the Deputy Chief of Fire so I just wanted to make that announcement so that council is aware and make sure public is aware of that as well. He is 17 years with Las Cruces Fire Department, and he has been Battalion Chief since 2021. Parks & Recreation, thank you Councilor Corran for announcing the grand opening ribbon cutting of Highland Park if you all can make it as she mentioned at 10 a.m. on Friday, May 23rd at 4651 Emerald Street and there will be games, activities and fun stuff. Additionally get ready for a night of smooth grooves and downtown vibes Mayor’s Jazz Fest is back and it is bringing the rhythm to the Plaza de Las Cruces. Whether you are a long-time jazz lover or just looking for a fun night out this free concert is a perfect way to kick off the summer. This years line up will feature Las Cruces High School Jazz Orchestra, local student talent bringing big sound, Hillary Smith and Chill House, the powerhouse vocals and high energy jazz, soul, and funk. Grab your lawn chairs, bring your friends and family and enjoy live music under the stars on Sunday, May 25th at 7 p.m., food trucks and vendors will be there. Quality of Life, Border Regional Library Association, the board voted to hold this year’s fall conference in Las Cruces, something that hasn’t happened in several years. This relatively small association represents librarians in El Paso, Las Cruces, and Juarez in the surrounding area. We expect about 100 to 150 to attend the conference on November 14th, 15th. There has been meetings with library staff and Visit Las Cruces to see what staff can do and the team can do to support this event. We are grateful for Carol Brey, Sarah Booth, and library staff and Visit Las Cruces for making that happen. Congratulations to Las Cruces public libraries and especially library programs Manager Shuly Serrano for winning the GECU VITA 2025 Site of the Year. This is no surprise given the record-breaking number of tax returns that were completed by volunteers at the record breaking 500 at the Branigan Library so kudos to the team. Maintenance and repair of public art piece Tree of Knowledge is complete. Artist Andrew Nagam cleaned and repainted the sculpture, he also replaced the apple that went missing recently. The apple was provided by Jeffy Brewer, the artist that made the sculpture. Jeffy saw the photo we posted on the restored sculpture and sent an email saying thank you for facilitating the refresh, it looks amazing. Please pass along a thanks to the artist that did the work, great job. And then as mentioned by Councilor Flores giving recognition to our City Clerk who was number one in the universe and also number one in the state and in our hearts, Christine Rivera if you did not know has been recognized as part of the 2025 Municipal Clerk’s Honor Roll joining a distinguished group of over 300 honorees being recognized nationwide. Last but not least I wanted to recognize the promotion of one of our employees, her name is Celina Morales. She has been officially selected, and we can officially announce her as the Deputy Director of Economic Development. 13. ADJOURNMENT 13.1 Councilor Becki Graham moved, seconded by Councilor Johana Bencomo, to adjourn at 4:31 p.m. Mayor City Clerk