Work Session Meeting May 12, 2025 MINUTES Work Session Monday, May 12, 2025 @ 1:00 PM City Council Chambers, City Hall PRESENT: Councilor Johana Bencomo, Councilor Becki Graham, Councilor Becky Corran, Mayor Eric Enriquez, and Councilor Cassie McClure ABSENT: Councilor Yvonne Flores and Councilor William Mattiace 1. PETS OF THE WEEK 1.1 None. 2. AGENDA ITEM 2.1 VISIT LAS CRUCES UPDATE. Rochelle Miller-Hernandez, Director of Destination Management gave the overhead presentation. Albert Herrera, Senior Sales Manager continued the overhead presentation. Liz Vega, Event Manager continued the overhead presentation. Lorena Lozano, Manager of Marketing continued the overhead presentation. Rochelle Miller-Hernandez continued the overhead presentation. Councilor Corran said I have sent a few conferences y’all’s way and you guys have really helped a whole bunch of different folks that are thinking of coming to Las Cruces, I got my new swag and people are already into it, so I’ll be stopping by again to pick up more. They have really cool t-shirts and stuff if you haven’t seen them lately, great swag, new bunch of swag available. I just really want to express my gratitude because I’ve heard so many good things, and so many positive sort of interactions that folks have had with your office. I feel like it is putting Las Cruces on the radar. I’ve seen those ads at El Paso Airport and I feel super proud of us representing, so thank you for all that you do and for thinking forward and putting the best of Las Cruces out there in the world. Mayor Enriquez said I just wanted to comment the same thing, my gratitude, thank you for all the work that you do, you know the third annual Mira, Las Cruces and already at a value of $3.8 million that’s amazing! That’s awesome, bringing back the Balloon Rally after 17 years and bringing that back, and continuing The Whole Enchilada Softball Tournament, what is it, like 17 states come in, over 300, 400 teams come in, it puts us on the map. You do a great job in promoting, but I do have to say to Albert, thank you, as well as all the staff. What I was most amazed at when I was able to welcome the Americas’ Walking Club was how long you had been working on bringing this conference to Las Cruces, give us that year again? Since 2018, it just goes to show the dedication, the commitment, the hard work that you all put into Visit Las Cruces. You make us proud, and we are very proud of you all. 2.2 NEW MEXICO LEGISLATIVE UPDATE. Barbara Bencomo, Chief Administrative Officer gave the overhead presentation. Larry Horan, City Lobbyist continued the overhead presentation. Barbara Bencomo continued the overhead presentation. Councilor Bencomo said thank you for always answering our call when we say hey, we are coming up can you help us please? Honestly you make it very easy coming up there, I always feel really successful and just really good leaving Santa Fe after spending a day with you. So, thank you very much. Then, of course, thank you to our legislatures, those that are here today but all of your colleagues obviously and your continued investment in Las Cruces. I do just want to note that in previous years we’ve received a lot more money for housing and I think this year I do want to note, for the public especially, that it’s not that our legislators are not interested in housing, it’s that I think for a lot of us we were very excited about the prospect and the potential of those $10 million in the budget that many of us of course then went out and asked legislators to go out and fund other projects, right? They obviously did and they came through as they always do and so it’s not that they don’t care about that, I think that it’s we all just had a bit of a different hope for that outcome. Thank you so much Larry for ensuring that we were able to meet with the Secretary of Workforce Development and really continue to work with our housing team Natalie to make sure that all of our housing projects are at the top of the list and that the state understands that we’re ready. If they give us $10 million, we will spend $10 million dollars. For legislators here, if you talk to Secretary Nair, tell her we are ready and to give us money. So, thank you for that, and then of course I’m really excited for the investment in mobile integrated health center and LIGHT projects. I sent out a lot of texts myself, specifically for that project, and so I’m excited for that to come to fruition. And really my last question, Larry, the animal advocates here locally have been reaching out to us a lot about how that potential investment could work. Do you have any sort of idea on how that will roll out and on how the city can stay on top of receiving some of those funds? Larry Horan said I don’t know specifics on that, I will make some inquiries and get back to you, just to find out. I’m not sure what that grant program is going to be or the process, so once they get the appropriation they’ll have to set up exactly how that grant works and then I’ll take the opportunity and I should have mentioned it before, when I was here before you in the Fall, you asked as a body how can we be effective in advocating and be more effective with the legislature and I think that what we saw this session was we saw good participation from you as a governing body, also the City Manager and assistant city managers they came up a couple of different times. Our legislators every time we ask can we come see you, they all said yes, without exception and I think what we’re seeing, and we’ve seen more active participation in the last couple of years, especially related to housing, Chief Story was there a lot working on public safety. We saw different levels of engagement from you as a body and staff, and I think that that’s what I think you’re seeing, that that does bear fruit and they will speak for themselves, but I know the legislators always appreciate it when you take the effort to go up and see them. It’s always a pleasure having you there and getting to walk around, and I’m glad to know you feel you’re successful because sometimes people leave the capital wanting to pull their head out or bang their head into a wall, but it does bear fruit, and so going forward I would urge you as a body and also as staff to continue that kind of proactive approach. Councilor Bencomo said and then lastly, I do just want to say a very special thank you for legislators for supporting that behavioral health package. I know it’s not necessarily something as a body we took a stand on, but that investment is tremendous so, thank you, it’s historic and so important. Councilor Graham said thanks to our incredible animal advocate community I was forwarded some information recently and it looks like the DFA, the New Mexico Department of Finance Administration has sent around what they are calling animal welfare needs assessment survey so that seems to be the first step in seeing how they might create a grant criteria and funding priorities and I’ve shared this along with our amazing grant team here at the City and they will collaborate obviously with the Animal Services Center here locally it looks like we have at least a first step happening. Actually, I will ask a question, sorry, probably something I should already know, but when we are generously given beyond what we’ve asked for, specifically with MIH building and I believe our Real Time Crime Center also certainly in the MIH building there is a big disparity we got like an extra $3 million so how does that work? Larry Horan said for those projects, I will look to Barbara on the MIH building, but I do know from the Real Time Crime Center, the way we scale the project was to try to achieve a phase of funding, so like on the Real Time Crime Center, that money will be spent, we’ll just be able to use it quicker than we thought we would have to rather than going back for more. In MIH I’m not sure if that’s probably the same answer. Barbara Bencomo said I asked Chief Daniels to be prepared for this question because I thought it might come up. Obviously for us we are looking at, as Larry said, how we scoped the project, what were the words that we used in the proposal that we made to the state for how we would spend the funds and we tend to either want to make the language broad enough that we could still use it for additional items or additional scopes of the project but I do want to turn it over to Chief Daniels, he wants to add something specific to the MIH building. Michael Daniels, Fire Chief said I just wanted to follow up on that. So, we will be able to utilize the funding, one of the things that is the FF&E, the furnishings for it we were getting that completed, we were going to have to likely come back and ask for additional funding to get it fully furnished, this will allow us to do that and it also relieves a very big concern with the recent executive order because $3 million have been congressionally given to us for that, so this may further help us if we end up having to lose that funding. So, thank you to everybody, it really relieved some stress on our end. Mayor Enriquez said again Barbara, Larry, thank you very much for our legislators, thank you for all your hard work, your challenging work, your good service work, we really appreciate all that you do and try to make not only Las Cruces, but the state better so we thank you for that, thank you very much. 3. ADJOURNMENT 3.1 Councilor Johana Bencomo moved, seconded by Councilor Becky Corran, to adjourn at 2:14 p.m. RESULT: Carried MOVER: Councilor Johana Bencomo SECONDER: Councilor Becky Corran AYES: Councilor Johana Bencomo, Councilor Becki Graham, Councilor Becky Corran, Mayor Eric Enriquez, and Councilor Cassie McClure Mayor City Clerk