your life.
Well, good afternoon. Welcome to the
work session. Today is Monday, October
27th. It's approximately 1 p.m. I am
Mayor Eric Enriquez. We will start if
you all stand and join me in a moment of
silence for the brave men and women of
the United States Armed Forces and for
our local police department and Los
Cusus Fire Department to keep our city
safe 247 365.
If you join me in the pledge. I pledge
allegiance to the flag of the United
States of America and to the republic
for which it stands. One nation under
God, indivisible, with liberty and
justice for all.
First item on the agenda is pets of the
week. I see Carol
Good afternoon. I'm Carol Nelson,
digital content specialist with the
Animal Services Center of the Messia
Valley. This week, our dog of the week
is Krishna 800622.
I'm a big boy weighing in at around 75
pounds of pure love and excitement. I
haven't had many human friends who could
teach or play with me yet, so I'm still
figuring out how to have fun, but treats
and balls are my absolute favorites. I'm
eager to learn, and after about 10
minutes of focused training, I start to
settle down and really enjoy relaxing.
When I do relax, there is nothing better
than getting all the pets I can
together. We can create a bond full of
love, fun, and plenty of adventure.
And our cat of the week, we're happy to
share, has already been adopted, Maize.
So, we're super happy for Maze was the
sweetest cat. So, she's going to make a
great companion. And as always, we like
to highlight our long-term residents. We
just invite the community, anytime you
do come into the shelter, please look at
our longerterm residents. Uh they are
great companions, but the longer they
stay at the shelter, it's harder for
them to thrive. Cosette has been with us
now 293 days. Cookies and Cream 283
days, Dexter 278 days, and Finn 268
days. So, all really good options. I've
spent time with all of them. They're all
really great. So, come visit them, adopt
them. And this Saturday, we're going to
be at Petco from 9 to 1. So, definitely
come on out. Uh it's a great time to
socialize, get your pet supplies, and
bring a friend who is wanting to adopt.
So, and we just we did want to share we
had great success uh with the
vaccination clinic. So, thank you to
everyone who got the information out
there and to everyone who came out and
supported us.
Thank you. I I just Sorry. Really really
quick.
Oh, go ahead.
I made this promise in my newsletter,
but if anyone takes cookies and cream, I
will make you your own cookies and cream
ice cream with whatever whatever flavor
you want. In addition to them being low
cost, I will hand make you your own ice
cream from scratch.
Tell Yes. When you promote them, tell
them I will make it from scratch for
you. So,
ice cream.
Ice cream. Homemade ice cream.
Delicious. Thank you.
Thank you.
Jan with housing. Yeah, I don't see her.
Okay. So, the first uh item on the
agenda is 2.1 presentation of
architectural design for the Thomas
Renegan Memorial Library renovation and
expansion.
Good afternoon, mayor and city council.
I am Sarah Booth. I'm the library deputy
director. I'm excited to introduce our
speakers today, Joseph Fimmeler and
Ruben Contrarus with Death Peak
Architects and De Brad Waters with
Providence Architecture.
Over the past year, the architects have
been working on the design for the
Branigan Library renovation and
expansion project. This design has been
developed with the input of staff,
library stakeholders, and quality of
life administration. The architects have
taken the spirit and personality of the
current building and have made it even
better. We are all thrilled with the
progress of the design and can't wait
for you to see it. I will now turn this
over to Joseph Thimler.
Um, thank you everybody. My name is
Joseph Femler with Desert Peak
Architects. I'm here with uh Ruben
Conferes who is the project architect
and Brad Waters who is our um library
consultant and also an architect. Let's
see.
Um so we were brought on board earlier
this year and I wanted to kind of give
you a little bit overview of the of the
timeline. Um Brad has been working with
the city since 2023 on a master plan
master plan for what to do with um the
existing Brandan Library. Um and he did
a lot of work, a lot of community
involvement, a lot of sharetses, um a
lot of reaching out to um peers and
staff and um peers across the nation
about library design as well. His him is
very well verssed in it. Um so one of
the some of the goals of the master plan
were to address the future the current
and future um needs the space needs of
the building itself. Um to modernize the
building which was built I believe in
1984 as a one-story building. Um so
modernizing it will improve the Rigan
Library quite a bit as well as make it
um a lot more efficient. um increase the
accessibility and inclusion of um of
programs across the library um as well
as uh support the operational
sustainability um with appropriate
staffing, budgeting, and funding
strategies. Um which is to say um what
we're trying to do is make the the
building a lot more efficient. Um as you
know, the building has multiple levels.
It's slightly recessed below grade. Um,
so one of the things we've been talking
about and RA Brad has been helping us
understand more and more is that the
building may be getting bigger, but it's
getting more efficient as it becomes
more open and more easily to easy to
staff.
Um, I'm going to turn this over to uh
Ruben for a second.
I'd like to give you a brief explanation
of how we've arrived at our current
design. I started off with observation
of the existing building. uh we realized
that there was a special character to
the existing building. Uh it was
initially designed as a park above a
library and eventually they built out
the second floor edition. Uh initially
that park was envisioned as an
occupiable space. Of course to enter the
space now you need to descend into the
earth. Uh it is partially submerged as a
building and that's part of the special
nature of it is how you actually
experience the existing structure. So we
wanted to maintain that with the new
design to some degree. We wanted to uh
have a close tie and close relationship
to the earth uh while respecting what
was already there. Uh we saw the library
as a a vessel for knowledge within the
earth. A space where people could gather
and and participate in rituals of
knowledge. And from those observations,
we developed this concept statement. Uh,
the Brandan Library is a vessel where
earth and sky merge to accommodate the
retention of information and to intrigue
and invite the community to share in
rituals of knowledge.
From this concept statement, we've
developed our architectural design.
We've taken certain words from this
concept statement and we've recognized
how those words can be translated into
forms of architecture. So we've looked
at certain things like earth and sky and
related those words with formal pieces
of architecture. For example, uh the
earth, you know, that could be
represented represented through things
like carving and revealing various
openings within a form. And then sky can
be uh an experiential feature within the
design. uh it can illuminate and
formally it can reveal certain objects
to intrigue and invite. We wanted to
make sure that the building itself had a
prominent presence for the community.
Right now the entrance is somewhat
hidden. Of course, you had to kind of go
around a a band and then descend down a
ramp and it can't be seen where to enter
this the facility. So, uh, from feedback
from the community, one of the biggest
things we were hearing was that they
wanted an entrance that was more
prominent, and we wanted to make sure
that whatever we did with the building,
it gave it more of a civic presence,
something that was easily seen from both
Main Street and from Picacho Avenue. Um,
so
to intrigue and invite, that was
something that was really important to
us. We wanted to make sure that the
design itself uh drew people in and um
was well known as a community space. We
wanted to be prominent in form and we
also wanted it to be experientially
interesting uh through things like
introduction of contrast of light. Um in
these images you see in front of you,
there's a few
items that we were drawn to that we felt
like had a close relationship to this
concept. Uh the cenotees in Mexico has
this play between the earth and the sky
as well as the introduction of light. Uh
also the antelope canyon here. This kind
of slit was reminiscent of the way that
you currently enter the space and also
had a this sense of mystery. So we
wanted to incorporate these things in
the design as well.
Um so part of the master planning
process was to develop um a strategy to
tackle this building. Um and what we
came up with or what Brad and the the
team came up with at the time was a
phased approach. Um so the first part of
the construction would be the new
construction that you see in the green
top left hand corner. Um so phase one
would consist of a new uh face to the
Brandan Library. So, the new
construction would only be 6,641
square ft, but the renovation would be
over 33,000. Um, and that includes the
second floor. Um, one of the strategies
that we kind of went back and forth and
talked about was how are we going to do
all this work um to that building as
it's being occupied. Um, so the plan is
to not to to completely vacate the
building. Um and as you notice on the
one of the other bullet points is that a
lease cost and moving cost is included
in the opinion of probable cost for
phase one which is 19.8 million. Um so
as I mentioned vacating the whole
building addressing mechanical,
electrical, plumbing issues that have
been there since you know 1984. Um, we
talked about in the master planning as
well as early on in the programming
phase, you know, maybe only doing the
addition in the bottom floor, but the
mechanical units are on the roof. A lot
of the infrastructure is tied in
throughout the building. So, as we
talked about it more and more, there's a
lot of efficiency to do as much work as
possible in this phase one when the
building is vacated. We did leave a
certain portion of the second floor as
part of phase two. Um, and that's just a
matter of, you know, we can't do it all
at once. Let's try to leave a little bit
um for phase two. Um, so that um we can
not take off too much uh too much in
phase one. Um so the anticipated start
date is uh 2027. Um currently we're in
design development. We've been on board
for um a little over eight months now
doing schematic design, doing the
renderings that you see in front of you
today. Um we're working towards in
design development now where we're
starting to bring on engineers uh
mechanical engineers structural
engineers and um figure out how to make
this a reality. Uh the construction
document phase will take all of next
year 2026. So um by the end of 2026 is
when we'll be have a complete shovel
ready packet for bidding um uh ready for
2027.
Um, the current building is slightly
recessed. One of our plans is to bring
up one of the internal floors, but we
can't bring up the whole building. So,
there will be a new entry plaza that is
slightly recessed about a um a foot 4 in
um with an accessible sloping sidewalk
down to it. Um we are adding a few other
things to the site such as ADA parking,
um a bus parking and drop off. There's
also room for the the bookmobile in the
back. Um, and revising some elements of
the parking lot, but leaving the site
mostly intact. Um, let's see.
Um, phase two of construction is
slightly less renovation area. As I
mentioned, um, the new construction,
this will be a majority of the new
construction. And I'll just flip forward
for a second um to show you the plan in
the top right hand corner. The green
area is that new construction which
we're expanding to the north. Um I know
you all are familiar with the Brandan
Library. So where the amphitheater is
and the space between the building and
Picacho, that's where all this building
is going to happen. Um and as you know
this the site slopes up slopes up to the
east. So the children's area which we're
placing in that farthest east portion
will be um more or less uh below grade.
So if you think back to the concept
we're kind of we're in this building
where we're coming out below grade.
We're reaching out to the community and
I hope you see some of the concept ideas
in our images later. Um so again if the
anticipated construction date for this
portion was not is not known yet u but
the opinion of probable cost is 14.5
million u which includes again
technology moving lease um project soft
costs and 15% contingency.
Um let's see.
So it does say so what we're doing is in
phase one would be completed the atrium
gallery that I mentioned um would be
completed and the staff would move back
into the space. So this area in green
would happen during when the building is
occupied. So there would be a fully
functioning um library system with all
the programs that we've laid out in the
programming phase in phase one. So,
it's, you know, it's not ideal, but it's
it's has all the spaces we need. And as
we expand into phase two, that's why it
says, um, expand the children's services
area because we do have a children's
services area in phase one, but it'll
grow. Um, and there'll be uh an addition
of study rooms, a new staff break room,
and the third story, which we're calling
the Oregon room, um, with the views to
the Oregon Mountains, which you'll see
at the end, which we've overlapped with
the boardroom program space to save a
little bit of square footage there. Um,
so we'll kind of me and Ruben will kind
of work back and forth talking through
some of these images.
Yeah. So what you see in front of you is
basically this idea behind that street
presence that phase one would bring to
the library. This would be the new
this would be that new sunken plaza
coming down. Uh so this is looking
obviously towards the Oregon mountains.
Uh what you see is the double height
space is is going to be that new lobby
space and then a entry vestibule in the
lower space that would also accommodate
a cafe area.
This is another view of that same space
uh kind of just a little bit more
forward. Uh so again you can kind of see
obviously we're giving this building a
whole new face. Uh we want to make sure
it's prominent. We want to give it a
presence as a civic structure and uh
also create a number of outdoor spaces.
So again, that cafe on the interior
would bleed out and uh provide an
outdoor seating area for the cafe as
well. We'd have tiered seating and uh
some landscape renovations as well. Uh
so we foresee this as being a nice
activated shaded occupied space.
And this is um this is all taking place
on the north side of the building. So,
we're taking advantage of the north
light using um nice big windows to let
light in. Um the lobby gallery um is the
main entryway so that could be used as a
gallery space at times. Um it's all, you
know, it's the front space of the
building. Um as you'll see later, the we
wanted to make sure that the second
floor is inviting to the public.
Part of what you see in this image is
the idea behind this connection to the
earth. Uh this the materiality that
we're showing on this front facade is uh
kind of reminiscent of the layers and
the strata of of the earth. Uh when you
cut into it, uh we're also planning to
create this sense of emergence out of
the earth. Uh as you'll see in the next
image, uh the whole roof line basically
emerges from uh Campo all the way over
to this new entry space.
So um the working from left to right,
you see the left area, that'll be the
children's area. Um as I mentioned, it's
kind of as it goes towards Compo, it's
submerged into the ground. that idea of
that KA space that um um intimate space
for learning and then ex um expanding
out towards the west um with the lobby
gallery space and then behind it you see
the Oregon room which as you'll see
later will have a great view of the
Oregon mountains.
Here's just a closeup of that entry
plaza, the main entry. Uh you can see we
want to make sure you can see deep into
the space from the from the entry. We
want to make sure that the entrance is
it's much more prominent and visible to
the uh public and again that kind of
outdoor seating space as well.
Once you enter the space uh this would
be after the phase 2 renovation would be
complete. Uh this ties back closely to
our concept of of creating this
connection between the earth and sky. Uh
this canyon is what we perceive as this
lobby feeling like we wanted to have
kind of earthn tones. We wanted to have
ample daylight. We wanted to have this
sense of mystery because at if if you
look at the very end of that corridor,
there's this curved aspect to it where
you can't quite see the very end of it.
So at of course at the end of it is the
children's space program and we want to
make sure that uh it creates this sense
of intrigue for those children. Uh on
the left hand side here you can see the
cafe space I mentioned earlier. Uh right
from the entry, you get a clear view
deep into the existing library space
where the stacks are and you have a much
more prominent idea of how to access
that second story. Uh right when you
land on those stairs, you'll have access
to some public restrooms and a nice
public seating area that overlooks the
lobby as well.
This is the concept for the Oregon room,
which we see as a multi-functioning
space. This would be that thirdstory
space that has a clear view of the
Oregon mountains. This space is
conceived as being used as a space for
gathering, a space for um conferences
and also we are planning to put in a
small uh demonstration kitchen. There's
a connection between the interior and
the exterior for this space where on the
exterior balcony we plan to to provide a
rooftop garden space that could be used
as a teaching tool in combination with
that uh demonstration kitchen as well.
So now we're looking at the existing
space that currently holds the library
stacks. Uh where we're actually viewing
that space from is from a new loft area
where we will have a number of meeting
spaces. Um and also what where you can
kind of see within this image is uh the
incorporation of natural light. Right
now that space because it is so deeply
submerged in the earth. There's very
limited if any natural light coming into
the space. So, uh, we plan to open up
the roof to include some, uh, tiered
skylights that would also house, uh,
some of the solar panels on the roof as
well.
Again, this is kind of looking down from
the second story onto that main lobby
space, another uh, conceived reading
space. Also looking at the introduction
of natural light through the use of uh,
skylights here as well.
And this is our concept for the
children's area. This would be again
this is space two. Uh this this would be
the expanded area. We want it to be a
colorful space. We want to be playful.
Uh we wanted to have this sense of
mystery uh and and intrigue. We also
wanted to incorporate natural elements
like like wood uh things that would help
younger children develop and uh acquaint
themselves with with these types of
materials.
And then a separate teen space as well
kind of at the back of the existing
lobby space. Uh we conceived that back
wall as being uh presented with a nice
mural and uh just creating this larger
space for the teens to occupy.
This is a view of the adult services
area. Um it this is pretty much the
existing space and the existing columns.
Now you can see the mural for the teen
area in the back there.
This is an aerial view of phase one and
phase two. A completed design
and that's it.
Thank you Sarah Booth. Um library deputy
director. I would like to thank um our
presenters and um now we stand for
questions.
Thank you, Sarah, and everyone else for
your presentation. Do we have any
questions from Council Mccclure?
I'm not sure if it's any questions
particularly, but I I love the concept.
I think it's great. I was thinking about
when I was um a kiddo in Utah and some
of those designs of walking into what
felt like a cathedral of knowledge,
right? I think that is something would
be a great blessing for our not to be
sort of cheesy about it, blessing for
our community. So, I really appreciate
your work on this.
Uh, Council Matise.
Yeah. Again, I just want to express I'm
very happy with the the architectural
design, but you know, the Oregon
Mountains has always been a great asset
for me coming from New York City and
landing in Los Cusus, and I love the
aerial view of those organ mountains.
You've you've taken a a great part of
Los Cusus, why many people come here and
accented it. Thank you very much. good
job with earth and sky,
council floers.
Thank you. Thank you for the
presentation. Um I I I too support this
endeavor. Um it's going to be a few
years before I think a lot of children
who are not even born yet uh will be the
beneficiaries of of this uh this
project. Um,
and what I I like so much about it is
that it's going to create a space for uh
teens and it'll be a good u if they
when kids are little, they go to the
library and they look forward to it.
They love their little bag, they get
their little books um and they feel like
they're really big time and that stays
with them uh through uh through the
years. I know that's how my I I I did
that with my children and to this day
they're avid readers and uh you know
they were it was a very very good
environment. So I want to thank you all
for um as I said it's going to be at
least what another decade before it's
really
so probably six feet under but thank you
very much. It was just the presentation
was beautiful and and uh and thank you
for this endeavor. Thank you. Thank you,
Mayor.
Anyone else? We're good. Now, I just
want to say great great uh design.
I've always said long overdue and uh
looking forward to it. What What is the
space again when we talk the total
square footage of the library? What What
is it and what will some of this new
space I I must have missed the numbers.
Um the total square footage is uh 60,000
uh square feet and a little bit more. Um
what kind of spaces are in there? Um
there's going to be the adult services
area.
Well, no, not exactly the space. Just
talking about area, what kind of total
area are we looking at in the library?
Uh total uh end is 60,000 square feet.
Okay. [snorts] Thank you.
Thank you everybody. Um, mayor, city
council, um, Sarah Booth, library,
deputy director. We have about 45,000
right now, don't we? I think, yeah, we
have 45,000. So, the expansion will be
up to 60. Okay.
All right. Thank you.
Was there anyone from the public, anyone
from the library association that wanted
to say anything at this point or
Yeah, come on up.
Thank you, Mr. Mayor, Council. My name
is Maryanne Hendrickson. I'm a friend of
the library.
And
excuse me, just a few things I wanted to
say. I think you already know how great
libraries are. There's spaces for
innovation and productivity. They're
places to gather in person. You don't
have to spend penny, but you're welcome.
Um, we have computers, internet. We're
adding a library of things. People can
get jobs, connections with others, they
can do research. It's amazing the things
you can do at the library. Um the return
on investment when you put a dollar into
a library, communities get 7 to8 back
into the community. It's the return on
investment for public libraries.
Um, and this is essentially a regional
library because there are no other
libraries in the county. We serve over
200,000 residents of Donana County and
Los Cruises. Um, so this this expansion
and update is quite overdue as you all
have mentioned. Um, a lot has changed
since we built the original library,
including population, the type of
population, the things we want to do,
the things we are doing, and this is, as
you said, long overdue, and I'm
extremely grateful that y'all are doing
this. So, from my heart, thank you very
much.
Thank you.
See no one no one else. We'll go to
agenda item 2.2 the ARPA subreient
funding and
problematic
status update.
That problematic problematic.
[laughter]
There's a problem.
Yes. Go ahead, Gabby.
Thank you. Uh, mayor, counselors, city
staff, and community members. My name is
Gabriella Pratz. I'm the city's grant
manager and I am here to introduce to
you uh Brian Craft. He is our grant
development and compliance specialist
who is leading our ARPA implementation.
So this is the first time before council
for Brian. So
be nice.
We will try.
I know.
Thank you.
Uh, good afternoon, mayor, council
members, city staff, and the public. My
name is Brian Craft, and I am the grant
development and compliance specialist
leading the implementation of the
American Rescue Plan Act projects
awarded to the local community partners.
The Los Cusa city manager has requested
a status update regarding the American
Rescue Plan Act subreient grantees,
which brings us here today.
The American Rescue Plan Act, also known
as ARPA, is a federal stimulus package
which aims to provide direct relief to
Americans from the CO9 virus and its
economic impacts. The city has received
approximately $24.9 million in two
tanches, of which approximately 9.5
million has been subgranted to community
partners within the city.
All ARPA funds needed to be completely
encumbered as of December 31st, 2024,
which has occurred. These funds will
need to be fully spent by September
30th, 2026.
All organizations are currently on track
to expend these funds fully by the
deadline.
The ARPA subreient grantees have been
divided into three subgroups for
management within the city of Los Cusus.
The community grants is administered by
the grant administration program in the
finance department. The housing grants
are administered by the housing and
neighborhood services. And our workforce
grants are administered by the economic
development department.
There are seven subreient grantees
within the initial ARPA community grants
as outlined here. Lyft fund notice noted
here as the sixth has completed its
project and fully expended its funds as
of November 21st, 2023 and will not be
presenting today. We will have
approximately 10 organiza organizations
presenting today. So, please hold all
questions until all presentations have
finished. Thank you. Our first presenter
our first presenter today will be from
the Boys and Girls Club of Los Cusus.
Their initial award was $1,388,800
with funds remaining as of October 15th
of $241,29.
Their scope of work was to pay for
acquisition, preliminary engineering,
design, and a portion of construction
costs for a new state-of-the-art
facility, which will triple the capacity
to 250 Las Cusus youth served daily. Uh,
presenting today is Ashley Akavia, our
chief executive officer of Boys and
Girls Club of Los Cusus.
Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. Um,
first of all, thank you guys for uh the
ARPA funds. As you all know, the ARPA
funds allowed us to purchase video 4,
pay all cash for for the facility so
that we wouldn't have to take out a
mortgage while we're raising the funds
to get the renovations done. So, um, we
appreciate that.
Let's see.
So, where we're at today, um, we're
really exciting. I'm I'm You guys are
actually the first one to hear this.
When I did this slide, we had raised 6.2
million to date, but as of a meeting I
had this morning, we've raised 6.5
million to date. We got a $300,000
commitment this morning. So, um, the
campaign is moving along finally. I
think we had to get over that halfway
bump. So, we got a $1.5 million gift
from New Cinda, which most of you
probably saw. That pushed us over the
halfway bump, and we've had an exciting
couple of months to get to where we are.
Our goal is truly to get to 7.5 million
by the end of the year. Um, so that we
can break ground. We do have a um the
building design's complete. Actually, I
was looking at the Branagan Library uh
design and admiring it because it it
kind of uh resembles our design, the
same architects. Um but our design's
done. We've had a permit waiting here.
So, um we are ready to break ground, but
we got to do it responsibly. So, um we
need to raise about another million um
in order to get there. So, the the goal
is to go out to bid soon. That way, as
soon as we get to that 7.5 million,
we'll be in a position to to break
ground in early 2026. So, um
most of you are pretty familiar with who
we are, but we have served 1300 youth
annually. This was um last year's
numbers. We do have uh seven satellite
sites throughout the city. Um 66% of the
youth we serve do report extremely low
to moderate household income levels. Um
one of the most important things that we
do as you can imagine is serve meals. So
every day after school kids are getting
fed a fullc course supper and a snack
later in the day and then during summer
and on those full days they're getting a
breakfast, a lunch and a snack. Um over
11,000 meals served last year alone. And
then I think another really important
thing that we do that a lot of people
don't realize is serve teenagers. And um
so we're we hold teen twice a month.
It's open to all community teens. And
the goal is to give them a safe space
where they're supervised. Um and I I
always like to highlight a new
partnership this year ever since the
tragic events at Young Park. uh security
concepts has been kind enough to provide
security for us free of charge for every
teen night so that um we can ensure that
the teens participating in those
programs are safe and secure. So um
thank you. That's where we are. We're
we're headed there. It's been an
exciting time um and we are always
looking for more support from the city
if possible. So um I think we have to
wait for questions till the end. Okay.
Thank you. Our
second presenter will be from Catholic
Charities of Southern New Mexico. Their
initial award was $550,000.
Uh funds remaining as of October 15th is
$331,420.
Their scope of work is to provide direct
assistance and behavioral health and
medical health care services to
qualified Los Cusus residents.
Presenting today will be Kenneth Thoron,
executive director, and Stephanie
Martinez, director of community health
and wellness. Thank you.
Good afternoon, mayor and council. Um
my name is Stephanie Martinez. Um and
well, since the beginning of this
wonderful um fund, uh we've been able to
focus on helping families facing
eviction or housing instability um due
to the pandemic. Um, so we've been able
to provide rental assistance, utility
assistance, as well we as well as we've
been able to expand our access um have
access to free mental health counseling.
Um, just helping residents who still
have the lingering effects of the
pandemic, stress or anything um, anxiety
or anything financially. Most of it is
because of the financial rising costs of
after the pandemic. So, um, other than
that, beyond this, uh, fund, we've been
able to secure more, um, partners with
schools. We've been able to get out
there. Uh, we've, uh, straightened our
partnerships with landlords, so they
know that we are here to assist. So, a
lot of them are able to bring, um, or
send their tenants over and we are able
to assist them with with that fund. Um,
we've also made partnerships with
community organizations, um, and were
able to work together to identify any
who are at risk or still um, dealing
with long-term recovery of the of the
pandemic. Um,
as well as one of the Sorry, I didn't
move the slides. I'm a little nervous.
So, um, one of the success stories that
we that we are always highlighting in
our office is, uh, a local event venue,
um, owner in Los Cusus where when the
public gatherings were banned in 2020,
she lost everything overnight. like she
had to return all her money back to all
her clients and she found herself almost
like not able to sustain her mortgage
and her house and basic living expenses.
So through our fund uh or the ARPA fund
uh we were able to provide that
assistance and now she's able to
maintain that stability and uh continues
to serve the community in different ways
while it maintain it takes a while for
her to rebuild her business but um she's
still doing great and these are the type
of stories that we like to hear every
time we are able to help with our ARPA
funds. So, thank you to all of you for
uh your continued partnership and trust
with us with this fund. Thank you.
Our next presenters will be the
Community Action Agency of Southern New
Mexico. The initial award was
$1,700,000.
Funds remaining as of October 15th is
$78,327.
scope of workers for the Los Cusus
Family Prosperity Demonstration Project
and aims to lift 150 Las Cusus families
disproportionately affected by the
pandemic out of poverty through direct
cash assistance for 18 months.
Presenting today will be Don Hmer, Chief
Executive Officer.
Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor, Council. I'm
Don Hummer, CEO of Community Action
Agency of Southern New Mexico. Brian
said I have three minutes, so he's going
to do a loud [clears throat] when I'm
getting close. Right. Um I think we have
been updated. We are our remaining funds
as of uh the 15th is 58 about 58,000. So
obviously we're well on our way to
complete the project.
So, for our project, we had um 150
households in what we call our active
group that received payments of $500 a
month unrestricted for 18 months. And
then we also had a comparison group of
around 100 to 150 families each month.
We were actually pretty surprised how a
lot of those families stayed involved
even though they were just receiving a
small amount of money to complete
surveys so that we would have good data.
Um, so we had 300 family, 300 households
in total and the first payment went out
in March of 2024 and our last payment
just went out in August of 2025.
I'm just going to look at my notes
because I can't Oh, it's in front of me.
See, my eyes are everywhere. Everywhere
today. So part of one of the things that
we're finding with our guaranteeing
basic income, we just call it a cash
transfer project. We we find just
there's a lot of folks that just don't
really understand it and how they work,
how it works. There's a lot of kind of
confusion about, oh, you're giving
people money and they're going to do
this and they're going to do that. Um,
and so we were lucky enough to partner
with the Crimson Research. Dr. Banner is
here as well, um, with any data
questions. We are still working on our
data report. Hopefully that'll be out
early next year. Um but what we are
finding is that one of the most
important I think statistics of this
report is that almost 73% of these
dollars were spent locally and rapidly.
So that's extremely important. So that's
here. But we know that families are
spending this money on food, on housing,
on utilities, on really important things
that they need because families know how
to make the decisions that are best for
their families. Um we have a lot of
statistics. I certainly can touch on
some of those. But I think what I want
to do is just touch on some of our
success stories because we don't have
one, we don't have two, we have
hundreds. And that is what's so cool
about doing these projects like this is
that there's success no matter what it
is. But we have a lot of really big
successes. So I'm going to just talk
about Lena just for a moment. She is a
single mom, has two children, 12 and
four. And she has talked to us about how
her household, just her household
environment as a whole has improved in
so many ways. It's increasing food
security. Her family feels like they are
able to pay their rent, their utilities,
just their improved mental health, less
stress. Her family just feels more
united. her children were able to enroll
in soccer and in cheer, which is
something that we all know is so
important, especially for our children
and completing high school. We have all
these statistics around children being
involved in in good ways. She was also
able to um save money. She opened a
savings account. She'd never had a
savings account. She saved money and is
now in the process of working with us
with our financial literacy program. She
wants to save for a house. um and she
was able to purchase um an inexpensive
mobile home that moved them out of just
a really bad place. So that's just one
of our stories, but we have so many. Am
I good on time, Brian? One more minute.
I'm sharing more then. Here we go. So we
have um Nora who was a mother um and
she's caring for three children but also
for her grandmother. And she she was
unemployed when the payments started
happening. But as the payments started
coming in, she was able to get, you
know, the car fixed. She's able to do
these things that she needed to do to
become employed. And so, um, she was
able, she's employed now in the recovery
fields. I don't know what that means,
but that's what she's in. And also, um,
she used her income to be able to
purchase the home that she was renting
from her landlord.
Brian said, "That's enough." Thank you
so much.
Our next presenters will be Cru's
Creatives. Their initial award was $1
million. Funds remaining as of October
15th is $151,149.
Uh scope of work was to address learning
losses caused by the pandemic. Uh they
will scale up two existing
evidence-based educational programs for
K through2 students in Los Cusus, each
of which focuses on projectbased
learning to improve academic life and
well-being outcomes. Presenting today
will be Sandy Smith, co-director of
operations.
Yeah. Awesome. I am Sandy Smith,
co-director of operations. And you will
notice of our goal to reach 15,000
students. We are over budget, meaning we
actually met the 20,675
and we still have a quarter to go. So,
we will be able to exceed our goal,
which is super exciting. We have met
that goal of connecting with students
through our after-school programs,
through our camps, classes, and family
outreach, and through our in-class
projectbased learning. You will notice
down in that that lower box where things
are highlighted in yellow that we're
connected with 360 56 teachers across 41
schools in Los Cusus. And that based on
the surveys that we're getting back,
we've got some really good grades. We
are increasing student engagement,
building social emotional skills,
increasing student awareness of academic
and career opportunities and increasing
the students understanding of how those
academic skills can be used in the real
world and letting students practice
critical thinking, problem solving and
working in a team. I have right here a
bag of things which I'm going to hand to
Christine.
This is the project that Eri worked on.
Who's Er, you say? I'm so glad you
asked. Er is there in the black shirt.
On the corner, you can see the teal
arrow reaching toward her. Er is one of
the participants of our program. She has
been in 25 different events. Right there
next to Eerie in the pale white shirt
with her leg forward. And the yellow is
Ixley, her little sister. Eddie and
Nixley have been in the building so much
because of the funds that we were able
to uh make use of through ARPA. Thank
you so much for trusting us. And these
pieces that are coming around is part of
Eddie's internship work because we had
the structure um that ARPA could help us
with. We were able to host interns for
the last couple of summers. So, Idi
Spanish speaking skills. Um, we're able
Okay, we got to back up just a second.
We had seven interns this last summer.
This is Eddie's second summer. The
project that's coming through. Go ahead
and reach in. Just grab one out. Yep. In
fact,
not only does she have this skill for
herself, but she also was able to
translate the seven other interns um
projects. So, she is now a permanent
part of what Cru's Creatives can offer
to the community. I want you all who
have a cup and a ball, go ahead and try
it. See, can you get it back in because
we are very much projectbased learning
and very much about getting hands-on. I
wanted you guys to have a moment to
practice it. One of the cool things
about Edi's time with us is that she has
become proficient with many tools in the
maker space, especially those in the
textile room, which is why you see those
t-shirts. Those t-shirts were designed
and sewn by the girls in classes that
were made possible through ARPA. And
that cool kid with a quilt block on his
fronti
actually helped him make that block
during our youth quilting project. And
then that final picture is the whole
cash that we were able to take over to
Elhardin de los ninos. Um, Erdi has
built relationships with um the peers
around her, but also the adult members
of the space, including the senior
members, the retired citizens, our
seniors, who are also connected with our
quilting program. And now can use every
tool in the in the um textile room. That
girl is sharp. She's also um now at NMSU
studying for creative writing. It has
been an honor, a privilege to work with
these kids, to work with teachers, to do
these projects,
and we would love the city's support. If
you guys have ways and access that can
help us teach our now highly trained
staff, keep our highly trained staff of
teachers, we would love to hear about
opportunities to continue to find
funding.
Mayor, I have a question. Mayor, I have
a question.
At the very end of everybody
No.
Thank you, Sandy. Our next presenter
will be Harin de los Ninos. Uh their
initial award was $350,000 with funds
remaining of $160,137.
Scope of work was to provide direct
therapy services and social emotional
learning support to advance the health,
safety, and well-being of unhoused and
abused, neglected children while
stabilizing the family. Presenting today
will be be Michelle Adams, chief
executive officer.
Good afternoon, mayor, city councilors,
and city staff.
Michelle Adamus for the record. Um,
first I'd like to say thank you for
[clears throat] the opportunity to
utilize the ARPA funds to help support
Harleen's mission. Uh when we first
received this award, I will say that we
were right in the middle or at the
beginning stage of um expansion of our
um behavioral health services or
actually at the moment that we received
the funds, we had just become a
trauma-informed care center and this led
us to be able to uh to accomplish all
the other um things that we have done in
the last couple of years. So I want to
start by saying that this has really
helped to stabilize many of our families
and has helped us to be able to provide
a very um a very important service that
for many of our families they would not
have um accessed elsewhere.
So our target population was initially
200 homeless near homeless neglected
abused children and youth. Um over the
first uh over the two years we actually
served um each year over 400.
So our year 1 outcomes we had
approximately 487
um services that were provided and then
in year two about 475.
And so for us, we we really feel like we
were able to even provide more than we
expected we would be able to from the
initial um grant proposal
through throughout this um process. This
also helped us to um develop our
framework
a framework should I say that actually
now is guiding the entire organization's
mission. And so uh for many people they
see Hardin de los Nos as the first and
foremost we're a child care center which
which that is true but the reality is
that Hardin has so many other services
and our this particular funding has
really allowed us to create the
different pillars that help to make um
our organization much stronger in
providing uh trauma-informed care and
focusing on breaking this cycle of
generational poverty and trauma. So the
goals in the framework were to stabilize
the family to quickly minimize the ill
effects of homelessness on children and
youth. But along the way, we also were
able to develop our um holistic,
preventative, trauma-informed, and
responsive approach to supporting the
well-being of children and families by
lessening the barriers that are
experienced through the generational
poverty and homelessness near
homelessness and trauma. And so we call
it HP TIFF. That's what kind of guides
that's guiding all of the work that
we're doing
through this. We provide uh social
emotional learning support to the
children in the classroom setting. We
have um probably the highest needs of
children that
um
really are
referred to us with such high trauma and
such I mean some of the needs are really
it's it's hard to even describe some of
the things that our families have
experienced.
And so within our classroom settings,
not only are educators um trained to
provide the support, but we have
clinicians that are actually working
side by side providing consultation,
helping to support with referrals,
helping to ensure that not only are the
children being served in the classroom
setting, but the whole family is being
served in the um clinic in our pediatric
clinic. And so we provide all of those
services on site.
One of the things that um we are
constantly looking at is how we can
continue to grow, continue to stay um
current with best practices and our
staff have maintained the um infant
mental health endorsement and that's
what helps us to remain as the first and
only trauma-informed care center in the
state of New Mexico with a minimum of 30
hours of trauma informed and
relationship building training annually.
So consistently our our our staff are
receiving that training and the ARPA
funding allowed us to continue to
provide that type of training. Staff
have implemented the conscious
discipline program and so this program
really looks at helping the adults as
well as the children but really we're
looking at the adults we're treating for
secondary um trauma. So we know that as
we work with the families that are
experiencing trauma and the children,
our staff also need to look at how they
can support, we can be supported. And so
conscious discipline really does help us
to meet that need. We fulfilled um the
requirements to become a designated
behavioral health agency.
With the designation, it really does
help us to create more sustainability
for our organization. Um, we do know
that currently because of the the
funding and because Medicaid is probably
going to be cut for many of our families
at this time, the behavioral health
agency does help us to remain current
with everything that we're doing. We
also realize that it's not going to be
the only way that we can create
sustainability because we won't be able
to unfortunately
you know bring in the revenue at this
you know to really support continue to
support the program fully. So we're
looking at other ways as well to
continue that within the um the clinic.
We've established a role of uh this ARPA
funding has helped us to actually define
the role of the clinical manager and
that's an independent uh licensed
clinician who can then supervise all of
the other clinicians which not only
benefits Hardine but also the entire
community because we have interns coming
from different universities who are
actually on-site training and our
clinician is working with them but
they're also going out into the build
after they graduate and they're able to
work through some of the things that
they may not have been ex exposed to um
you know in other settings.
Um we also have been able to
uh establish through our BHA we have the
outpatient services. So those are
behavioral health therapy for children,
youth and the caregivers. And then the
comprehensive community support services
which um really does help to link the
families to all of the support systems
across um our community and this funding
has really helped us to actually um
establish those positions so that we can
then continue to grow and build
capacity. The other thing that um we've
been able to accomplish is through the
social emotional learning we've been
able to support development um
development of interpersonal skills,
self-awareness, self-management and
responsible decision making. And then we
do have staff who were trained in EMDR,
which is eye movement desensitation
reprocessing, which is a very um very
specific um type of therapy that I think
our families are really going to receive
something that they most likely wouldn't
be able to receive elsewhere. And so
with this um our families have also been
able to receive um
direct therapy um in the clinic,
parenting education, family engagement,
effective communication, relationship
building, maintaining cons consistent
schedule and then communicating their
needs for additional services.
Um this has been a great partnership for
us with um another nonprofit which is
FYI plus which has h helped us to grow
our own capacity through the support of
the clinicians and the training um that
we were able to receive to then
establish our own clinical manager who
will um fall under our organization and
be able to then supervise other
clinicians down the road. So I'll stand
for questions at the end. I know um
there's a lot more I could share but um
I do want you to know that we are very
grateful for the support that we have
received and it has really helped us to
build capacity within our organization
and to look at growing our services um
to specialize in trauma-informed care.
Thank you.
Our next presenters will be from the
Messia Valley Community of Hope. Uh
their initial award was 300,000. As of
10:15, they have $98,890
left. Their scope of work was to support
Msia Valley Community of Hope's effort
as a homeless assistance provider to
recruit and retain landlords to work
with and house clients presenting
potential challenges to remaining
housed. Presenting today will be Nicole
Martinez, executive director.
Good afternoon, mayor, members of the
council. Nicole Martinez with the Valley
Community of Hope. Nice to meet you,
Brian.
Uh, we noticed that during the pandemic,
we saw a lot of uh, rents getting raised
by our landlords. We also saw some
disruptions that were happening with our
clients as we saw services being
retracted, agencies shut down, mental
health, substance use needs not being
met as easily as we all tried to
navigate what you're supposed to do
during a a pandemic. And so we wanted to
mitigate what we saw happening and the
huge gap in affordable housing uh and
and people disrupting in their units.
And so we launched the landlord risk
mitigation program. And that program was
specifically brought about uh some other
areas. We modeled it after several other
states that had implemented something
like this. And we were first in in New
Mexico to try this. Um, and some of the
things that we thought would help to
keep people in their apartments and also
to attract landlords to work with
voucher holders like Community of Hope
are things like uh helping to pay for
extraordinary damages in excess of a
security deposit, extraordinary cleaning
and pest pest infestation, delinquent
rent up to two months, rents over fair
market rent because again we just saw
rent go over fair market which is the
cap of what we can pay with our
vouchers. Uh other costs required to
recruit and or retain landlords. We have
a risk mitigation claim form that
landlords can submit. The cap was
$3,000, but not every client needed uh
to utilize the full $3,000.
These are the goals that we had for our
landlord risk mitigation program. Uh we
were hoping that we would bring in each
year that this existed, three new
landlords, that 25 people uh in the
first year would exit to permanent
housing, that 10 landlords um would be
affordable housing partners, assist at
least 100 individuals experiencing
homelessness, and that 75 people would
exit to permanent housing. And as you
can see, we were able to do that uh and
in excess of what we thought we might be
able to accomplish.
some of the benefits of implementing
this program. We saw that we were able
to get people into units a lot more
quickly. We could also help uh pass
inspections in units. Uh so, for
example, we had one uh landlord that uh
didn't have a refrigerator in the unit,
so it failed inspection. And so, we were
able to get that refrigerator in there
quickly. It was going to take them a few
months to get that with their purchase
orders and things like that. So, we got
that in there, passed the inspection,
moved the clients in as quickly as
possible. We've also seen clients
staying in the unit. So oftentimes if
that client is facing eviction, which we
know is really traumatic, especially on
children, um that our landlords would
either not evict that client or if it
did have to result in an eviction, they
would promise to then take another one
of our clients into that unit. Uh
overall, we had 28 landlords that
utilized the program and 102 housed
clients that benefited from this. Um
we're really grateful for this funding.
it was so successful in keeping people
in their units and in working with
landlords and new landlords that the
state has picked up this program. So,
we'll be coming to ask you for for more
funding for this once it it ends. Um,
and also the the state has also been
offering this statewide now uh this
landlord incentive uh risk mitigation
program. So, thank you for your support
in this project.
Our
next group of subgrants will be the ARPA
housing grants. Uh Natalie Green from
Housing and Neighborhood Services will
be speaking to both the Messia Valley
Public Housing Authority and the New
Mexico Housing and Community
Development. Thanks, Natalie.
Good afternoon, Mayor and Council.
Natalie Green for the record. Uh the
first project is the Oak Street Veteran
Apartments. Uh this was an award of
about 300,000. We matched it with our
community development block grants. The
scope of the project was to do a
moderate rehabilitation of both the
interior and exterior of the Oak Street
Apartments. This is a collaboration
between both the public housing
authority and the Messia Valley
Community to house our veterans
experiencing homelessness in the city of
Los Cusus. Um the project is complete.
They did a comprehensive renovation of
both interior and exterior. So they got
new kitchens, new bathrooms, new
floorings. Um they improved uh some of
the HVAC systems, new roofs, stairs, um
and and again it's 22 units. And then it
also included some parking and painting
and doors.
Uh the success or impact is that we had
improved living conditions for our
veterans experiencing homelessness. It
also helps the city maintain its
functional zero. Um that was a
designation that we received in
collaboration with the Messia Valley
Community Hope in 2011
15 sorry 15 and and that means that we
can um essentially if an eligible
veteran becomes homelessness homeless in
the city of Los Cusus we can usually
house them within 30 days or less. Um,
21 out of the 22 units are leased up as
of when I prepared this presentation and
I believe the final one should already
be leased up. I should have checked
before I came today, but I forgot.
Um, the second project that we're
managing is the Peach Tree Canyon
Apartments phase one. They received uh
$2 million
for that project and that's the
construction of 144 units um through the
low-income housing tax credit project.
And this was part of the capital stack.
Um it is under construction. They're
about just under 60% complete. Um we're
hoping to actually start some
pre-leasasing activities uh by the end
of the year with some occupancy in the
first set of buildings hopefully in the
spring. Um the buildings have already
gotten sheetrocked um stucco. Um this
project was uh identified as the state
as a successful project. So they
actually gave us some additional funds
um which I will cover more in the next
presentation when I share coupons.
And with that I'll pass it on to
economic development to share about the
workforce grants.
Our next group of grants will be the
ARPA workforce grants. There are five
entities within the workforce grants. Uh
four will be presenting today. The
department of workforce solutions whose
agreement was finalized on 721 will not
be presenting today. Our first group
presenting will be Msia Valley Economic
Development of Alliance with an initial
award of $100,000.
All of these groups that are presenting
today, their funds have been fully
dispersed. Uh their scope of work was
funds will assist employers in
upskilling their workforce to meet the
increased use of advanced manufacturing
processes that were the result of
pandemic related supply chain
disruptions. Uh presenting today will be
Jessica Lyn Robles, director of business
development.
Thank you.
Good morning, Mayor Enriquez, city
councilors, and staff. Um, I'm going to
largely read. It helps with the
threeminut restriction, otherwise I take
too many conversational liberties. Um,
but thank you uh for the opportunity to
speak here today and for the opportunity
to impact our community with MVita's
Automate Up program,
which is designed to upscale our
existing and future workforce with in
demand industry certifications. In
today's presentation, we're going to
address um our progress with 100,000
funding that we received and from city
ARPA. To this date, we have expended and
committed the amount of $59,33
leaving just over 4,000 in in funding.
Uh this funding has gone to existing
employers, students, and individuals uh
and providing them with the funding for
required industry certifications.
And in case you weren't aware, uh the
automated program was developed on the
recommendation
uh from our advanced manufacturing
preparedness study that we completed uh
through manpower analytics. So we took
the recommendation and created a program
to help increase the required amount of
industry certifications needed for
advanced manufacturing and that industry
attraction.
As the work in progress with the
funding, we have some really exciting
commitments nearing completion and in
the works. Uh, one of the city's largest
employers, Electronic Caregiver, uh,
they
are nearing this month actually to have
earned the 45 individual telealth
coaching certificates for their
employees. In addition, by the end of
the year, we anticipate the completion
of 26 AWS certifications for their
technology teams.
Um, this funding also helped with our
existing student pipeline. Uh, Los
Montanas Charter High School, now
Cindereo, uh, Charter High School, uh,
supporting them in certifying over 22 of
their students this year. Um on the
horizon, our builder's performance
institute uh DACC is now certified in
authorizing certifying any energy
auditors and we will have certified 20
energy auditors which is an identified
need just for this region and city
alone. So we have that funding going out
hopefully by the end of this year. And
then one project that we're really
excited about is our summer spring boot
camps. This is providing this
opportunity to address an industry
that's been hard to find achievable
certifications for. Uh, and we figure a
boot camp is the best way to present it
to the students and hopefully get those
numbers to meet uh, an industry that is
in need of the industry certifications.
This funding has provided us with
opportunity to work with existing
employers in addition to that student
pipeline. Uh, as I mentioned, Cindereo
Charter High School, which was
previously Los Montanas, but also the
bridge of Southern New Mexico and DACC.
With this funding, Automate Up has been
able to prepare the workforce and help
them enter the existing employment
opportunities provided by our already
existing employers within our region,
which is really key. Um,
of the 103 certifications we've already
committed,
71 of those address already existing
city of Lost Cruises workforce and 32
are City of Lost Cruises students and
that is consistent with the
certifications varying over 11 different
identified in- demand industry
certifications. So that's a really large
number uh for the number of
certifications that we have shows that a
really good variety. We have a really
good reach of different industries and
required certifications.
The impact really is about community and
that wouldn't be achieved without
properly fostering the correct
partnerships within the community. And
these important partnerships allowed us
the ability to identify the existing
resources using certifications that are
here or certifications that are
leveraged and unified used
leveraged and utilized by our existing
employers or educational systems.
and then to identify what those
opportunities are. Also, finding
certifications that weren't meeting the
in- demand skill set and and without
some of these key partnerships as you
see there, we wouldn't have had the
successes that we've had thus far in the
program. Thank you.
Moving right along, our next presenters
will be the Southern New Mexico
Independent Electrical Contractors.
Their initial award was $200,000 and
this award has also been fully
dispersed. Their scope of work was to
help and support the federally
recognized electrical apprenticeship
program to address learning loss as a
result of the pandemic as well as
supporting a mobile lab trailer for
outreach events. Presenting today will
be Gentry Roberts, executive director.
Good afternoon. Thank you so much again.
My name is Gentry Roberts. Um Mr. Mayor,
council, and staff, thank you so much
for having us here today. like Jessica
Lynn, I'm going to go ahead and read
off. We've got a whole lot uh going on.
This these dollars have been um immense
in in growing our chapter. Uh for those
that don't know, IEC Southern New Mexico
is one of over 50 chapters nationwide
supporting the growth of the independent
uh merit shop electrical contractors uh
through workforce development and
apprenticeship. Um we are the other
four-year program training electrical
apprentices in residential, commercial,
and industrial sectors. IEC currently
trains 20,000 electrical apprentices
nationwide. IEC Southern New Mexico
currently has approximately 110
apprentices registered in our program.
Um we currently have about 200
individuals that have submitted interest
in the apprenticeship program itself.
And so with that, I am pleased to share
that IEC Southern New Mexico has strate
strategically used approximately 84,000
of our $200,000 allocation uh to
directly address the critical skilled
trades labor shortage facing our
industry. A major highlight is the uh
mobilization of our IEC mobile lab truck
and trailer. This mobile classroom will
allow us to bring electrical and
construct construction training directly
to students, workforce development
opportunities and job sites in Donana
County. It is in its developmental
stages and will be equipped with custom
lab boards and tools. Uh it provides the
same quality hands-on experience as our
main training center right where people
work, live, and educate. We also
launched our new worker program built to
introduce individuals to the trades.
This program is a 40-hour course. We've
currently have 34 individuals that have
comp completed this program. Uh it
includes softskll training um to include
communication, teamwork and
professionalism, basic tool and material
identification and usage, safety
instruction and job site awareness,
workplace safety courses such as OSHA 10
CPR and forklift certification. These
credentials increase employability and
strengthen safety standards for both
workers and employers across our county.
We have modernized some training labs
and expanded our lab capacity through
new service panel installations. Our
students to uh for our students to be
able to wire and test uh circuits for
hands-on. Um, we've built mobile lab
boards that demonstrate three and
four-way uh switch circuits, helping
students visualize and uh complete live
circuit exercises.
As we continue to address the workforce
need, these investments respond directly
to the unprecedented workforce shortage.
Uh, IEC National currently reported that
90% of construction is done by
independent contractors. Associated
Builders and Contractors
um say that the construction industry
must attract 439,000
new workers in 2025 and half a million
in 2026.
Um National Construction Education
Research Project says that 500,000
skilled workers are needed each year and
we are currently facing about 41% of the
current construction workforce to retire
in 2031.
Locally, these national numbers
translate to real opportunities and real
urgency for training programs like ours.
By using the ARPA funds, we've expanded
access to modernize facilities, build
transferable skills, and IC New Mexico
is preparing new workers for immediate
employment, strengthening safety and
quality standards, helping close skilled
trades gaps that threaten local and
regional growth. together. We're not
building careers, but we're helping
sustain an entire construction industry
pipeline for the coming decade.
Um, ARPA Investment is delivering
long-term value, equipping Los Cusus
with skills to keep projects moving,
families working in our community
growing. So, we appreciate it. Thank you
so much.
Our
next group will be Engaged New Mexico
with an initial initial award, excuse
me, of $300,000, again fully dispersed.
Other scope of work was to support a
two-year accelerator program for
registered home providers who will gain
valuable support and training to
increase their credential levels and
expand their businesses with the goal of
transitioning to a licensed three-star
plus home provider. Presenting today
will be Lori Martinez, executive
director.
Good afternoon, mayor, members of the
council. My name is Lori Martinez. Um we
are doing this program called Reaching
for the Stars in an attempt to increase
the number of um homebased licensed
providers in Los Cusus.
Um we received the funds in December of
2024. Um I also want to make note that
we're doing this project in partnership
with some local community partners. Um,
and two of them are here today. Um,
Daisy Lra with Full Circle and Ombberto
with West.
Um, also the Small Business Development
Center at Donana Community College. And
so with this program,
uh we are providing 10
currently registered homebased providers
in Los Cusus with um childcare
mentorship and also um small business
support so that they can get the
supports that they need. They're also
receiving a grant and um the goal is to
get them to license three star status
uh by July of 2026 which will allow them
to serve more children and um our state
uses a star system and so five is the
highest number of stars. Um so the
higher the stars you the higher number
of stars the higher quality of child
care that you are providing. And so it
provides um what we're trying to do is
increase the number of licensed
homebased providers
um and also helping provide them a
sustainable business model um so that we
um we don't want to lose our homebased
providers in Donana County. Historically
we have relied on homebased childcare
providers at a higher rate than the rest
of the state. During the pandemic we
lost a lot of homebased childcare
providers which was part of the impetus
for this program. And so, um, this is a
a pilot, but many of you have probably
heard recently about the universal
childare announcement for New Mexico.
Um, our state early childhood department
has a goal of increasing registered
homebased providers by 1,000. Um,
increasing the number of new licensed
homes by 120. And so, all of our
candidates would fall into that category
and um, increasing the number of centers
um, by 55.
As of September um of this year, we have
10 who have been provisionally admitted.
Um they've all completed an orientation.
They are all currently pursuing or will
be pursuing their child development
certificate or equivalent. They have
begun their business support and
training with um full circle the small
business development center and West um
and will continue moving through the
program. So, they have to do a number of
things that involve their home
environments, making sure that they're
meeting all of the new state
regulations, some of which are changing
as we speak because of the new universal
child care announcement.
Um, I would like to point out that um in
recent years because our state has made
such significant investments into child
care, we are finally seeing some
stabilization. So there was a there was
a national um study done a few years ago
that said that in the in the nation it
cost us 122 billion annually in economic
cost. In New Mexico that was estimated
at 586 million. What we've seen in um
recent years at least from 2023 to 2024
that in Donana County the number of our
childcare providers actually has doubled
almost doubled not quite um and in the
state has increased by about 59%.
And so that suggests that the recent um
wage increases, the um investments into
our childare providers
uh education and training and that a
number of these public investments are
starting to make a difference.
Oh, I did forget the I apologize. I um
had a quote on here
from a provider who we asked what
interested you in reaching for the stars
and what made you decide to apply and
wanted to make sure that you all got a
chance to see that. Um this is someone
who is likely to um be at a five-star
level actually by the time she finishes.
um that they're offering us the
opportunity to become a licensed home
daycare, which was something that was
already on my mind, but it was just a
little difficult because since I didn't
have a lot of information for where to
get everything I needed because they
would send me to a place and send me
back because it wasn't the correct
place. And I do want to point that out
because as we as we go through these um
there are a lot of regulations as you
can imagine when children are involved.
And so, um, there are a lot of back and
forth that a person has to do, not only
getting all the right permits, but also,
um, many, many, many, um, regulations
from our New Mexico administrative code
that they have to follow. And so that I
think points to why um the importance of
this project and showing that when our
providers get not only the business
support that they need but also the
childcare mentorship as our um providers
are actually going out to their homes
and guiding them um that they it
provides a more uh sustainable business
model. Thank you for your time.
Our last presentation today will be from
Dona Anna Community College with an
initial award of $240,000 and again
funds have been fully dispersed. scope
of work was to support a four to six
week job training program for those at
or below the poverty level including
those experiencing housing insecurity.
Presenting today will be Mary Olrich,
executive director, and Kay Liy, senior
program specialist.
Hey, good afternoon, Mr. Mayor, Council.
Uh my name is Kay Lily and I'm a senior
program specialist at the DACC workforce
and community engagement division.
Um let me there we go. Uh we have been
providing what we call the personal and
career discovery program to the target
population. So far we have done six
cohorts. Uh I just started the seventh
cohort. Our goal for the project was to
graduate 150 people and we're just
halfway there. Uh when we looked at the
outcomes, almost 40% of those completing
the program have already continued
training and education. 25% are working
and 67% are living in more stable
housing. The learners have shown
consistent development of
self-awareness, self-confidence, and
planning for their future. According to
the pre and post self assessments that
we administer,
um the we are providing you with some
materials that profile some of the
students that we have. Uh but I wanted
to give you an idea of what a cohort or
a class looks like of the personal and
career discovery program. This past
Friday, we just started a new cohort. We
had 34 community members joining this
time. While we typically uh limit the
the enrollment to 15, we had so many
people from the community waiting for
the program that we decided to uh expand
and get everybody in before the end of
the year so that they didn't have to
wait until 2026.
Uh this cohort includes uh one young man
who was just released from prison the
previous day, another young man who had
walked into the workforce center on
Thursday just having been released a
week before. There were several women in
active recovery from addiction, a single
father, two people with disabilities,
four men from the halfway house, an
immigrant, and a gentleman living at
Tent City. The age span of these class
members is from early 20s to about 60.
Uh we've also had people as young as uh
16, folks with autism, cerebopal palsy,
down syndrome. So you can see that it's
a very diverse uh group of people that
gather together to reclaim their
identities, reshape their narratives,
and determine their own futures that
include how they're going to contribute
to the workforce. Uh and in the process,
they build community with each other.
Good afternoon, Mariel Rick. Um, I'm I'm
here to just kind of wrap up this
session. I'll move to the next slide or
wrap up this slide. Um, as you heard Kay
talk about, we've been reaching some of
the most marginalized community members.
We've taken a look at a zip code
analysis of our students and 70% of our
learners are coming from the two most
distressed zip codes from the distressed
community z um community zip code
website I think is what it's called. Um
they so we're really reaching our target
population there of helping people who
need the most help. Um, we've also been
able to strengthen some partnerships
through this program. We've have a local
group now, uh, Community of Hope, um,
the Halfway House, Zia Recovery, and
America's Job Center, as well as the
South, uh, Southern New Mexico
Correctional Facility. We're going to
run a cohort for them in the spring. And
another uh group that we've just started
to connect with is Angels with Broken
Wings. And so this is forming a very
strong partnership of referrals and
support systems for for our community
members in this program.
We are also developing with some other
funding through Kellogg Foundation.
We're developing a facilitator's guide
and training with a consultant and we
are training three facilitators right
now. So, we're really looking to expand
the program and um see how we can reach
more people
because this this program is really
actually becoming a cornerstone of our
workforce development that we're doing
at DACC. this is a uh becoming a an
important piece in their journey to find
out where they want to go, what
additional training they want to do and
what next steps they need to take. Um
for our next steps, we are building out
a re-entry program with additional
services. The personal and career
discovery class will be a cornerstone of
that program as well. And as I
mentioned, we're fac finalizing our
facilitator training and to expand and
we are also creating some DACCCled
social enterprises for work readiness
training for our trainees. Um, we have a
couple of publications that have been
profiled our students. So, I have those
here. I don't know if I should pass them
out or just leave them there.
I can. All right. Thank you very much.
Thank you everyone for hanging with us
through this process. Uh to close this
out, I just wanted to address the fact
that the US Treasury has not currently
provided any information as far as what
requirements will be for close out of
the ARPA funds. The Department of
Finance here continues to monitor this
and we will uh proceed accordingly once
we have received instruction. I also
wanted to take at this time uh a moment
to thank the wonderful group of people
behind me. Uh without them I don't know
what to do what to say with this
wonderful community coming together. Uh
in the three and a half months I've been
working with them. I'm absolutely
floored by what they've managed to
accomplish. So thank you everyone. Um at
this time we stand for questions.
All right. Thank you Brian.
Thank you
and good job for your first one. Great.
We got through it. you well almost
[laughter]
councelor Flores
I have a question for um the presenter
from uh cru's creative
hi Sandy Smith
yeah hi thank you so much for your
presentation um I was just wondering u
if there's um hard deos or uh community
of hope Nicole indicated that um there
are people who are being job trained,
but you but what I wanted to ask was
whether you still have programs for
adults. I know when it started out
several years ago,
there were programs for adults and and
there's a lot of uh uh usable like a lot
of uh what's the word? uh not crafts but
actual skills that produce uh can
produce an income. Do you still have
that?
So, Cru's Creatives is still a maker
space that's open to the community,
meaning that members are able to come in
and use the tools that are there.
Membership can happen either through an
actual paid monthly membership or
through volunteer hours. In terms of our
ability to offer extensive
um training for adults specifically
related to job skills, we have not
secured funding to be able to do that.
We did actually have a little bit of a
conversation about whether or not there
was a partnership that could be
developed and it's something that we're
interested in pursuing further. It's
just a question of funding. With the
ARPA funds coming to a close and those
being so focused on the youth, we are
actually looking at how do we stay alive
as an organization in terms of what we
can offer the community. And we are
trying to find the ways that we can find
partnerships or additional grant
opportunities or contracts or whatever
it takes to keep our staff that know so
much. like we've accumulated some really
amazing people who have deep skills who
could be useful in that kind of
partnership. We've just got to find the
funding for it.
Oh, that
does that answer the question?
Minor detail. You just have to find the
money.
Yeah. And you know, so if y'all check
your pocket for lint, whatever.
Yeah. I just wanted to Well, I'm sure
Nicole's well aware of all the
opportunities for the people that they
service, but I just wanted to
So, that that quilt donation that we
dropped off when um we took that over,
we did have start having some
conversations about what what could
potentially be useful there.
Yeah. Yeah.
Oh, actually, you know what? I'm
realizing I may be talking um I was
speaking to El Hardin in terms you said
yes but I just realized Nicole raise
your hand
okay we have not had conversations I'm
thinking of an earlier presenter
Hardin and Cruisto started talking about
some potential training for the um
parents of their kids so if you want to
have more conversation with me I'd love
Okay. Oh, well, at least there's a
conversation going on and maybe there'll
be some fruition. It'll materialize one
day soon. Thank you so much for your
work and your comments. Thank you.
Yeah, Councilman.
Uh this might be a question more for
staff, but I know that there was sort of
discussions on being able to aid uh the
Boys and Girls Club with um some
additional funding that the county might
be willing to do a match. And I was
wondering if there's any update on that.
Uh counselor, I'm not part of those
conversations. I do apologize.
No, at this time I don't think there's
any updates,
but I I know that was one that we've
talked about because they fall in our
MAS and and different things like that.
So, there's some options and those
discussions will come in the future, I
believe.
Anyone else?
Then I'm going to get one more in. Uh
the family prosperity, is there a is a
way for that to continue? Are we looking
at some just beyond ARPA? I'm curious.
Thank you for the question, counselor.
Where there's a will, there's a way. Don
Hummer, for the record. Um, right now
we're looking at a variety of different
ways. I've talked to, I think, several
of you regarding looking at just some of
the options that the city may have to
just help us to continue it. I keep
telling everyone that when we do a
program like this, even one family is
better than zero family. So, whatever we
can kind of hodge podge pull together,
which is what we did to start this
program to begin with. And and so, right
now, we are looking at potentially
cannabis uh tax revenue. We are in
discussions with DACC. Hopefully, maybe
they can help us identify some funding
to help with some of their students. Um
we are obviously always looking at at
the state level. Um these types of
programs work when there is a public and
a private partnership. So we're
certainly still looking at um private
donations, foundations, and a lot of
other things. So currently we do not
have the funding.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for the
question.
Council,
hi Don. How are you?
I'm good. Thank you.
I love your energy.
Thank you. You're welcome. And I love
the work you do. Everybody who presented
today, you're all they're miracles. I
mean, they really are. You're changing
people's lives and all that. So, now I
forgot what I was going to ask you.
Thank you for the compliments, though.
We we you know what? I I will speak um
on behalf of my colleagues. We need
that. Like, we need that because we are
just so tired right now. Our hearts and
our souls and our minds and our bodies
are so tired. So, yes, thank you for
saying that.
Yeah. Um so um I I really I forgot I was
so busy you know just thanking you for
your presentation and everybody who
presented every organization who is here
has made life at least a little bit
better and uh for many and probably uh
life courses have changed as well.
I believe that to be true. Thank you for
that. Yeah. And uh and I think the
people who are benefiting the most are
the children who um can have that hope.
But but thank you everybody. And I'll
probably call you at midnight. Okay.
Of course. That is not a problem.
Thank you. Thank you.
Yes. Thank you.
And again to everyone else, thank you.
Thank you for this update, for the
status update, everything. Uh it's
tremendous. It's it shows what
improvement can be done with just a
little bit of a increase in funding from
economic development, child care, health
care, mental, uh, education, housing,
workforce. You know, it all came
together as a community. You're
absolutely right, right, Brian, that
couldn't do it without the members that
are behind you. Uh, tremendous kudos to
our community and what you've done with
that. And we'll continue to look in the
future. um this is a great update so
when we start doing our strategic
planning we can look at some of these
things that have taken place in our
community and how we can move forward
with it and and that's what I'd like to
do. I do have one question for Michelle
with uh you know and it was mentioned
earlier about the universal uh the free
universal child care uh that that that
is going to come next week. So how is
that going to affect you and if there is
any effect or any benefits for you?
Sure. Um Michelle Adamis for the record
for Hardin de los Ninos we serve
families who fall in the extremely low
um to moderate low um levels. So for our
families, one of the biggest challenges
is when a family faces homelessness,
it takes our team approximately 3 to 6
months just to help support them when
they've um for example fled domestic
violence and left everything behind,
birth certificates, social security
cards, any records. It takes our team
and I have my wonderful director of
family services Alma Keterside with me
and her team actually spends quite a bit
of time helping the families just to
gather all those documents. So for us, I
think one of the biggest ways that we're
going to benefit from the universal
child care is that the um amount of
documentation that's going to go into
just getting um families qualified is
it's going to help us to be able to um
maybe circumvent some of that time. But
the reality is that we're still going to
face some challenges. I think because of
the um the families that we serve, they
don't necessarily have um you know,
there was a survey that the ECCD sent us
to see if um how many families would who
are paying would now qualify. And
because we serve um extremely low um
poverty level families, the reality is
that we're going to continue as as
normal operations. But we also recognize
that there's really not a whole lot of
space to take on new um we're at full
capacity in our um center. Uh I know
that on the campus we do have a master
plan in place where Harleen is expected
to um grow, possibly double in size, but
that'll be down the road. Um at that
point, I sure hope that they'll still
have universal child care. Um that
that's going to be a benefit for
families because I do know that it's
going to benefit families. I just don't
know that. I'm not too sure um that as
an organization we're going to be able
to help support because we've already
we're at full capacity.
I hope that answers your question.
Yeah, it does. Thank you. Thank you for
that.
Thank you.
All right. Well, thank you, Brian. We
appreciate it.
Thank you for your time today.
Next is item 2.3, improve Los Cusus
Community Improvements Bond Update,
Sarah Gonzalez.
Good afternoon, City Council. Sarah
Gonzalez with Community Development. Um
before you is the update for the
community improvement bonds which is
regarding the GRT funding in which we
had approved last year in November.
So we did bring this forth for a work
session in August and where we basically
put together or compiled a list of city
council's recommendations or
considerations for projects to move
forward with GRT funding. From that we
took that to the public in September and
October to get a feel essentially for
what the public wanted to see as part of
the GRT funding to be used. So today
we'll provide that update and what our
next steps are to be moving forward.
Here's the long list of projects in
which we brought to the public to get a
feel for what their four priorities
would be based on each type of either
project from maintenance to parks,
utilities, or to any of the improvement
projects we'd like to see. As you can
see on the top, we did get a lot of
support for the Branigan Library phase 1
remodel and renovation. and a lot of
their supporters did come out to see
that that project move forward. Some of
that can be considered as possibly a geo
bond project for next year as we'll be
in a new geo bond cycle. And so that may
be a opportunity for us since that is
one of our projects that are shovel
ready. The other um projects that came
out and basically were presented as a
higher category would be the new
recreation center. Consideration was
though where would that new recreation
center go? And so there were still some
questions that generated with the public
as far as us getting their responses and
their input. Um we also did see areas of
where you want to see maintenance. So
this would be our existing facilities,
whether they'd be recreational
facilities, trail systems, any of our
remodels for police and fire. Um one of
the higher ones that we will get to as
we go and separate some of these slides
would be the new facility that's
possibly located for police and fire
station number one.
When you break these down further and we
look at just our top 15 projects, you
can see, of course, you start with a lot
of the recreational facilities, your
Brandan Library, your recreation center,
um some of the utility facilities that
we want to see improved, as well as
parks, um housing opportunities to
actually work into phase two and three
of Po Verdees. We also see um police and
fire and road maintenance coming in.
We've separated all these out to kind of
go through each category to get a better
understanding of where the priorities
are listed and where they're labeled.
So, when we start looking at maintenance
projects, your top three are going to be
the WIA rehab road maintenance, which a
lot of people basically off of the East
Mesa was in support for road
maintenance. They're still off of either
dirt roads, maybe in septic, don't have
paved, don't have full utilities. Um, we
also see ADA compliance and those are
going to be in our existing facilities.
And so improvements need to be made in
order to become ADA compliant.
When you're looking at public
facilities, they're broken down into the
primary three, which would be Branigan
Libraries renovations. Um, we also did
see a lot of support for the East Side
Senior Center. We know that that's going
to be a building that will need
purchasing as well as renovation here in
the near future. We also see the
railroad museum. That is one of the
city's historic buildings as it was
constructed and that's why the railroad
was a basically coming into town. And so
that's another building that did receive
support from our public.
When you move into parks, you start to
see that there is the new recreation
center that comes up top on the list.
Once again, those are those questions of
where is that park going to be located?
It will be on the west side of town or
is it going to be on east side of town?
Then you move into legacy improvements.
This is going to be all of our parks
that are existing improvements to either
playground equipment within these parks.
Maybe it's a full renovation of the
park. It could be restrooms, it could be
facilities, it could be trail systems
leading to those parks.
When you're looking at public safety, we
did we did see a lot of support as far
as providing our police and fire with
the appropriate vehicles and maintenance
to maintain those as they're getting new
cadets graduating from theirmies. They
are looking to improve and make sure
that there are vehicles and maintenance
for those vehicles to keep them on the
road. Um the other section we did see um
was the new police and fire station one.
We know that the fire department does
need remodeling within their existing
facility based on its age. However,
there was support actually for the new
police and fire station to actually make
it more feasible and actually a larger
space in order to raise it up and
actually hold more cadets.
When you're looking through utilities,
you start to see that there is a
proposed new wastewater treatment
facility off Highway 70 in East Mesa.
And then you move towards um essentially
water well number 23 which is near
Kohl's where they would just want to do
some renovations and remodeling for
those
infrastructure projects were very
limited as far as we have road
maintenance separated from the
infrastructure projects. These would be
two new ones. So when you look at these
there is still support for both. The
Angler and Del Rey connection would help
relieve some of the traffic that is
currently coming off of Metro's
development in Sonoma Ranch. And so that
connection would provide us another
outlet for the public to actually get to
highway 70 or even to possibly that
connection if NMD dot comes through with
the Del Rey interchange. Then you have
the South Fork Moreno drainage. A lot of
the flooding within that area takes
place and so there is consideration to
put in either more coverts actually
create better royals kind of divert that
water and change that out.
Um lastly we only had one housing
project that was listed within there but
this would just be the continuation.
Currently we are meeting with everyone
to do po veres phase one through the
housing um authority or through
Natalie's group and housing and
development. And so this would just be
exchanging essentially more funding to
where we can go ahead and start phase
two and three.
So what we have essentially with the
next steps for city council essentially
the bond would be approved in January
and then the sale for this would come
through in February for the sale of
these bonds that would be coming in from
finance and treasury. During that time,
staff is requesting for us to further
take the projects in which we've
identified now that we've had city
council and the public's input to
further scope them and understand and
identify what that funding will mean.
And so during that time frame, we would
present these in early February,
basically at the budget or CIP retreat.
We want to basically put these into the
CIP budget so that way we have an
understanding of how these are going to
be approved on a yearly basis. We also
know that that ties in with any of our
other funding sources that may be
available. So that way if we do find
that some of these projects may be done
through a different funding source,
whether it is through CIP, whether it is
um capital outlay project and some other
form where we can get funding, we can
start to outline what funding we may
still need.
The way that the bonding process will
work is there will be essentially a
first read in December of 2025 with
adoption in 2026. Then the bonds will go
out for sale in February of 2026 and
city council will then be provided an
update in March. Once we close in March
of 2026, that will basically mean the
funds are available for us to go ahead
and use to support these these bonds or
these projects. This is why we would say
to hold off in adopting any of the
projects as we can further scope and get
them ready for basically the CIP budget.
That's where we'll see another work
session take place and actually come
back with the real funding, the real
numbers and a fuller scope to understand
what we are dealing with on these
projects. I think the one thing we all
gained from understanding what the
public saw as well as city council is a
lot of these projects have a lot of
funding associated with them. They are
not inexpensive projects to actually
accomplish. And so having a better
understanding with a fuller scope to
know where we need to move forward takes
our first steps in the next um physical
year.
and then I stand for any questions.
Thank you, sir. Uh, Council Roers,
thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Sarah,
for your presentation. that last comment
you made that um there are certain the
funding part about uh certain projects
uh are prioritized or
mayor councelor Flores I believe you're
going towards if we have the so we would
be using the GRT funding for the
projects that we had listed the way that
we can actually tackle a lot more of
these is if there's other funding
sources that are also available and
for those same GRTs
exactly so some of these we could be
using at the same time
for the for that particular project or
focus on others that don't have any
funding.
So to kind of give you an example, if we
were to go back and take the number one
priority that we received was the
Brandan Library. If we were to go and
say, let's put that on the GEO bond for
next year as our bond cycle, that would
eliminate it from having to go through
the GRT process. So we've eliminated a
project to actually put into a project
list. will have a different funding
source if it were to go in November and
be approved only because it'll give it a
different option. So, we don't have to
use GRT funding. That means now we go to
something else on that list and we kind
of go through just to see where those
projects lay out based on the funding
sources we have.
Okay?
If we're able to get any funding from
the state, if we're able to get any
capital outlay, all of those funding
sources play into tackling this list
that staff put together to say these are
a lot of the priorities now that we've
heard from the public. So my next
question is how do you do it? I mean so
there's a lot of it's it's like a chess
game. So
mayor and councelor Flores that would be
correct. Yes. It's when we heard from
the public I think a lot of it was to
rely on maintenance, rely on the
existing infrastructure, rely on the
existing buildings and focus on
redevelopment of these sites that people
are currently using and going to right
now. When you take these numbers and
look at them, even with it being, you
know, 100 people or so, the 100 people
who showed up to say that this is what
mattered were those existing facilities.
They wanted safer living spaces for our
police and fire departments if they were
living in conditions that needed to be,
you know, safer. They wanted areas where
maintenance and recreation and play were
going to be improved because they wanted
to see their area grow in the areas that
they're in as opposed to just creating
some of the new projects that are coming
in. Newer projects always take
additional funding, but that doesn't
mean that we can't work towards
designing them and then reaching out to
the state for that funding. A lot of
times the department doesn't have the
funding to actually design some of these
projects. So, we have to work towards
let's get them the design, which is
generally 8% of a total value and then
be able to take that to legislation and
say, "Hey, we have the design. Can we
get funding?" Sometimes that is an
opportunity.
It It's probably a good way to go too
because there's already something in the
whatever in the works. Thank you so
much. Thank you, Sarah. Thank you,
mayor.
Thank you, Council Troy.
Thank you, Sarah. Thank you for this
presentation and the input. I know the
residents in my district were very
excited to be given the stickers and
apply them as they did. Um, there are a
couple things that I just want sort of
to follow up on a little bit of what
councelor Flores was saying and what you
were saying, but first, you at the thing
you told me if we just had a big check,
what would it be for all of these
projects? Can you just share that
because it's actually not that big.
Shockingly, if we just said we're going
to do everything, what would it be?
Mayor and councelor Karen, the number
would be about 180 million.
Now, you have to subtract that from all
the road improvements because we've all
learned, I just learned based on this
meeting, that one mile of a local
roadway is $9 million. That is very
difficult when you start looking at
those numbers. But you take all those
other projects and yes, we're at about
$180 million. But that's where we have
to look at what we have today. Every
year that we increase, we change that
number by even if you give it a 10%
contingency, that's where we're at. But
yes, it is not as bad as we think they
could be.
Yeah. I mean, it's not billion with a B.
That see that that was that was I
thought that was
that's all the other projects.
Um [laughter]
um so I guess one of the things that I
wanted to ask was related to the timing
and the bond sale seeking and the
unknown variables, right? there that's
bas all of those things that you
mentioned state funding um the geo bond
etc those are all completely unknown um
do we have to and I say we you know we
as a city we as a council we as an
entity that's seeking money what
what level of detail and specificity do
we have if we go for the bond sale in on
the shorter term in terms of the things
that it will be including versus the
longer term um how much flexibility or
inflexibility is there in that process
in terms of the timing because I know
the bond decision I think is like next
August right that's is next July would
be when the geo bond the geo bond
decision-m happens and that's a slightly
asynchronous from this timeline so I'm
just curious if you can talk about what
how specific do we have to be in the
short term um versus the medium-term
versus the geo bond conversation time.
Um, like if we said, "Oh, we'll wait and
put the library on the geo bond." And
then the geo bond didn't pass and then
the library wasn't part of this initial
bond, getting this initial bond. That
would be right. That would be a bad
series of events. So, can you talk a
little bit more about that,
Mayor and Councelor Karen? I think the
part we have to be mindful would be is
every two years we're bonding 20
million. So when we're looking at the
funding necessary even just for the
Branigan library if it were not to be
approved then we would be looking at
that for two bond cycles because every
year we're we're increasing it but we're
only getting 20 million for the two
years that would take the full amount to
basically fund the one project. Um and
so I think even if we look at short term
I think we have to come up with a
solution or an option that's going to
give us flexibility whether it becomes
you know we have maintenance projects
and we want to tackle a piece of some of
these but no we want to get them
completed so we put so much funding into
each bucket essentially um or maybe we
say if this doesn't go through this
becomes our priority and then have the
backups that go with them right so
necessarily maybe you don't use the
funding right off saying we sell the
bond we're going to use the funding
right now no we wait to see what happens
through the geo bond cycle. If it
doesn't work and then we say that is our
priority, then we move that up to the
top. I think that's where this has to be
moved to next year so we can have
further discussions of understanding
where we prioritize, how many projects
we want to put into that list, where do
we want to set the bar for each year as
this is something new that's coming on
board for the city. So we don't want to
set this something out for 20 years. You
probably want to do something within the
first four. what can we tackle and
accomplish within four years and still
be immunable to if all of these happen.
Okay, let's come back and bring in
something else. We can always do that
through the budget cycle through CIP and
say, "Hey, these all got tackled through
legislative funds. Let's come in with
some more projects." So, I think we'd be
looking at four years.
So, thank you. That is very helpful. So,
but when we if we go to say we're going
up for the bond, do we have to say how
how much do we have to have or do we
just give them like this big list and
say like it might be any of these? We'll
see. uh when you send in the information
for the bond I guess is in fe I think
that was like fe before February that we
have to do that. So, I guess that's what
I'm do. Do do we have to make a very
short-term decision is sort of what I'm
asking you right now. Um or not,
mayor and council, um Laura is going to
come up here and assist me.
Hi, Mayor Council Cran. Um Laura Hogen
for the record. Um the question that
would be proposed on the bond ordinance
can be very broad. So you can say for
public facilities,
public infrastructure to include
roadways, it's not going to be narrow
scoped to a specific project. So that
way there's some flexibility within the
funding to be able to apply it to those
projects that are needed.
Thank you. That's what I was curious
about because the geo bond is very much
more specific and narrow. So, I just
wanted to get clarity around this type
of other bond that that this is. So,
that helps. Thank you so much.
Thank you,
Councilman Cler.
This this feels like a little bit of a
strange question, but how much do you
sort of balance projects based on sort
of all kinds of different factors? I'm
thinking of Yay. I'm I'm a library
supporter, but a lot of people are. And
so that kind of comes a little bit more
naturally that that's going to grow and
people are going to be interested in it.
But I think of South Fork Marino where
it's only a couple of people who are
interested, but that area kind of got
swallowed by the city and to to sell
that to folks is is a hard one. That
said, at one of the meetings I had a
young who was like, "No, I I definitely
understand detention ponds." And I was
like, "Wow, I love that. That makes that
way easier." So, how do you kind of
balance like for example that area
hasn't seen improvements for at least 20
years from what I'm gathering asking
some of former counselors, legislators
to say, hey, now it's time to do this to
kind of balance what we can do in the
time that we have. That that's seems
like a very philosophical question. So,
roll with it as you can.
Mayor and councelor McLar. I think the
way that one staff is going to have to
approach this is to see if there is
additional funding sources to start with
just because I know within that project,
you know, it came in at a project scope
of about $15 million, which is a lot
when you're looking at some of these
projects are going to tie in and be
multiple years that we're going to have
to tackle them based on the GRT funding
availability. So I think first it would
be what other opportunities do we have
for funding and then second going in and
saying all of these are priorities. I
think we'd get the same concern from
anybody living off East Mesa who's been
tied to a septic tank and I think we
have to be cognizant of where those
areas are knowing that we annex them in
in ' 87. We need to do these
improvements. We need to make these
modifications. And so whether it's we
start doing some of those funding
projects and see where we can take bits
and pieces and start accomplishing more
to make headway, not necessarily maybe
doing all of the improvements at once,
but at least putting dents into them.
That's where I think staff is going to
have to get together in order to
prioritize what some of those needs are,
knowing that the impacts are becoming
greater.
Appreciate that. Thank you.
Okay. Okay. Thank you, Sarah. No, I
totally agree with the timeline that
you've uh presented that you know
because you know you think about the
pavement management index and there's
already projects that are in line there
and once we the staff kind of absorbs
all the data from the input from the
residents it can start looking at what
projects are duplicated or would be
removed so that that way we have that
funding available and the initial
question I believe was public safety,
critical infrastructure and parks. Is
that correct? So, you know, letting
staff come back in the budget retreat
with what the residents have provided
and then looking at the basic question
and outlining it and making decisions
and and I think at that time in in
February, we can pretty much then
identify what we want for the geo bond
because that'll that'll have to be in
the spring because then it
will be next November.
Mayor, that is correct. Yes, we would be
taking that for a vote in November. So,
yes, we'd be identifying early on which
ones would actually be going for the
bond.
Okay. All right. Okay. Well, thank you.
I know there was uh an individual from
the library that wanted to have a few
minutes. Come on up.
Thank you, Mr. Mayor, city council
members, um, and members of the city
staff. I'm Linda Stlair. I'm the
president of the Friends of the Branigan
Memorial Library. So, you can guess that
I would like you to give all of your
money to us, except I actually kind of
wouldn't. I really appreciated the um
priority meetings that you had for all
the different communities and was
extraordinarily impressed with the staff
and everyone answering questions of the
people who were there about the
different projects and it would be
impossible to walk away from that
without feeling like all of these things
are so incredibly important. So, I
really um commend you all and your your
staff in particular about having to try
and figure out how to balance these
things and um councelor Mccclure's
question about you know the library is
really important to a lot of people but
if we have a you know environmental
spill because the sewer lines go that's
more catastrophic potentially. So, while
I think that the library is really
important and I'm sure it is critical
that we get it funded, the friends of
the library will continue our work as
well to try and come up with additional
funding both through petitioning you and
petitioning at the state level and our
own fundraising activities. But I just
wanted to thank you for starting this
process off by passing the master plan
for the library a year ago. And I think
the amount of work done by the
architects and the planners and the
library staff to make sure that we have
something that can truly be a heartbeat
um for our community is really
important. We have an amazing library
staff who has done a lot to keep that um
beating heart of our community working
despite the fact that we've had so much
growth in the community relative to the
number of people that we were serving
when it was first built. So while I hope
that we can make a progress in less than
10 years on your timeline, councelor
Flores, um I do commend you all for
working very hard to balance these
things. Thank you very much.
All right. Thank you.
So, that was it. Sir,
you wanted to make some comments. Okay,
I'll let a couple of you come up.
We'll give you a couple of minutes.
Thank you very much, Mayor and City
Council. My name is Lucas H. Hearnen.
I'm a resident of District 2, and I want
to echo uh the um the statements just
made about the staff and conducting the
the surveys, the open meetings. It was
really well done. Um I felt very
involved in my community and I I just
wanted to commend the the all the staff
that took part and and council for
putting that on. Um, and I do just want
to I have a couple questions and
comments, I suppose. Um, first question
is I do have some I'm curious about the
funding. You mentioned that something
about 180 million. Our estimates based
on the numbers that were on all the
boards for all the projects puts the
total at close to half a billion dollars
for everything. So maybe we're not
understanding, but as presented at the
presentations, this would be half a
billion dollars worth of funding we
would need for all of these projects. So
just if I could get clarity there,
that'd be wonderful. Um, two, I I just
want to flag because we did we handc
counted all of the votes at every single
meeting. Uh, we took pictures so we
have, you know, we keep a record
ourselves. Our numbers thankfully match
what the city has presented which is
wonderful to see. Um, but one quick
thing is that when you went through your
project, your xaxis
changes wildly. Um so when you say
support for certain projects um yes
that's true on your x-axis but if you
keep the x-axis at 60 uh there is it's
very clear what the community does and
does not support. Um so I just want to
flag that for you all as you're making
decisions. Please keep in mind as the
data is being presented to you what that
axis
looks like. Um and when we talk about
overall support um just for instance uh
you know the public public funding for
public works um is vastly uh vastly more
supported than um for instance funding
more infrastructure for the police as as
an example. Um the nothing nothing with
nothing related to the police had was in
the top eight and if you actually use
the ranking system that the city
provided with one through four they drop
out of the top 10. So, just keep that in
mind. Thank you,
Sarah. Did you want to address the
dollar value,
mayor and city council? Based on the
numbers that were provided during the
public meetings, um we did have to
adjust those numbers based on re- roofs
we had started out with were around
$300,000 that went to 9 million. Um, so
the numbers are still within the 180
what what we would attempt to tackle, I
would say. So necessarily if you had all
the re-roofs there, we're not going to
accomplish every re- roof within those
projects. We had listed some of them as
locations. And so those priorities would
change. And so if we go and add in every
building with every facility, that's
where we'd be looking at those higher
numbers. Um, when we first brought these
forward to council, we did have a
limited number of either public
facilities parking lots or any of the
improvements that were there. As we
further scoped them um per request um
after city council, we did get better
numbers that were going to identify
those. And so they're still within those
range based on the projects that we
actually list and want to actually
accomplish.
I'm sorry, mayor, can I ask a clarifying
question? Yes. Thanks. Go ahead. Sarah,
I think you said in your presentation
though that maybe the disparity we're
looking at is the 180 million we took
out anything road
related. Was was that what you said? And
I'm wondering if that's the disparity.
If we put roads into this, then we would
be looking at that half a bill.
Mayor and council, we'd probably be
looking at a lot more. Um we did not
include that as part of those numbers as
those came in right after city council
um when our meeting took place and
that's where um councelor Beno had
mentioned to add in where is this dent
for the road infrastructure. Um our
numbers increased only in the sense of
the increase in either re- roof
projects. We had a limited number that
we put on there. We rescoped those and
increased the amount that would be
necessary. Any of our parking or paving
projects that were going to be
necessary. um we did not include
essentially the municipal court as that
was going to be a new building that
would essentially have to be taken place
as opposed to a remodel. So some of
those factors were modified and changed.
Cool. Thanks.
Thank you, sir. Did you want to speak?
Thank you, mayor, city council. My name
is Harren Cavo. Um, I had to bring my
computer up because I have spreadsheets.
Um, the clarifying uh point on the
budget is very helpful. Thank you.
Because all we did literally was just
add up every single number provided in
the community meetings um to get the
close to um well, it's more than half a
billion um total. And you're right, the
roads wasn't included whatsoever. So, we
were figuring that was a low estimate.
Um
but yeah, the the the way staff is um
choosing projects. Um I would just
really love some more clarity on um we
weren't sure obviously how everything
was going to be weighted. There were
votes one through four. So if we look at
votes by weight that is including first
place votes counting for four points um
through third place vote um
sorry first place counting for four,
second place counting for three etc. um
we can see the top 10 projects don't con
don't include any police funding
whatsoever. So if you look across city
um six city um meetings um we get
Brandon Library, we get the rec center,
we get we uh we get the the WIA center,
the new wastewater treatment, water well
23, sewer force main replacement on
highway 292, the legacy park
replacements, east side senior center
purchase, pio veres phase one and two um
and the medical transport unit funding.
So that's the top 10 if you look just
again votes by weight across all the
meetings. Um and then if you look at
just the first place ranking again we
have wea we have Brandan Library we have
rec center pes sewer force main uh
replacement road maintenance new
wastewater treatment again top eight
don't include any police budget
whatsoever increase. So, the fact that
it's now broken down into categories
that include one just specifically for
cops is a little bit odd um to me and
I'm just a little bit concerned and
would love some clarity around that. Um
and if anybody would like to meet with
me and look at spreadsheets uh on the
city council, I would love to do that.
Thanks.
Thanks, Sarah. Anything else to add?
Mayor and city council. Just to clarify
as to why the public safety was
separated out, we did separate them all
out based on the project types of where
GRT was approved. So we did have where
it was maintenance projects, parks,
public safety, which included fire and
police, and then you would have any
critical infrastructure improvements.
And so that's why they were separated
out into those categories.
Okay. Thank you, sir.
All right. That wraps that one up. We'll
go to item 2.4, for the geo bond
quarterly update. Kyle
Good afternoon, council. Uh, for the
record, my name is Kyle Arin, your
interim public works director, and we're
here to give you an update on the GO
bond from 2022. This is, I think, the
eighth or ninth update. Uh, so we'll
keep this pretty brief. Um, as you've
heard most of this material several
times before,
it's stuck.
There we go.
As you may recall, the 2022 GO bond
included these projects, uh, which
Natalie and I will provide you a brief
update.
Uh, fire station 9 includes $9.8 million
of GO bond. The construction contract is
for 11.2 million with approximately half
expended to date. Uh, remaining funds
will be utilized to purchase uh,
furnishings and equipment.
As you can see from the photos, the
shell of the building is taking shape,
and anyone driving by the site can begin
to see how it will look once complete.
Overall, construction is approximately
55% complete with an estimated
completion date of June 2026.
and you can see what the rendering of
the final building will look like.
The next project is the park
improvements of which uh La Lordono Park
is uh the recipient. Um presently under
construction. The current construction
contract is for a little over a million
dollars for the restroom, shade
structures, and the bench. Remaining
funds will be used on the playground
equipment.
The new shade structures and benches are
nearly complete. Um the restroom is
about 50% complete and the project
completion is expected by the end of
this year. It'll be pretty tight. Still
quite a bit of work to do.
Uh the third question is for the East
Mesa. Originally was written as public
rec complex but now we refer to it as
East Mesa Sports Complex. And I think we
have a couple other names for it as
well. So, sorry for the uh confusion on
that.
This provided $4.9 million with an
additional $4 million of additional
funding to the project for a new
playground, restrooms, additional
lighting, and basketball courts. Couple
miscellaneous other small items.
As you can see from the photos, the
playground was just recently completed.
um work on the new restroom and
basketball courts are 20% complete and
we are aiming for completion at or just
after the beginning of the of the new
year.
With that, I'll turn it over to Natalie.
Hello everyone. Natalie Green again for
the record. Um I have a video to show.
So, uh Peach Tree Canyon phase one and
phase two, it is still under
construction. Uh, Peach Tree Canyon
phase one again is just under 60%
complete. Um, they have started
sheetrocking and stuckling most of the
buildings and uh, kudos to Chuck and
Public Works who does uh, all of my
drone videos. And then um, I want to
celebrate that Peach Tree Canyon Phase 2
actually broke ground a couple weeks
ago. So, they're working on some of the
underground infrastructure and it should
appear momentarily. Sorry, it's the
longest of the videos. Um
maybe I'll fast forward. Oh, there you
can start to see uh phase two um taking
shape on the back side of that.
Uh Amodore Crossing is uh also under uh
construction just for reference point.
We're not actually using Goons on Amador
Crossing, but I'd like to update you
guys on the process. Um we are prepping
for footings in the foundation. Many of
the walls you can see are pre-framed,
ready to go up once foundation is
poured. Um, we're currently evaluating
some of our internet service providers
and we have selected um some of the
flooring and cabinetry. Um,
Arcadia phase
4 is a single family subdivision in
Metro Verde that is also under
construction. It was funded by the state
of New Mexico, so it's not funded by um
Go Bonds, but again, you're getting an
update anyways since I'm up here. Um the
dirt work is complete. Uh installation
uh of sewer infrastructure is also
underway, and then we are currently
working with the affordable housing
committee um to identify which of the
land bank properties will go to which
nonprofits. Um so we're working on that
disposition process and we'll bring that
recommendation to council.
uh upcoming uh because uh the state
funded many of our projects, I forgot to
mention that they also funded uh the
entirety of Peach Tree phase one. So, we
have some substantial um cost savings to
the city. So, we'll be um returning some
of that tailshore fund back to where it
came from. Um but upcoming projects with
some of our go bonds or state funds um
is Skylark subdivision that will be uh
breaking ground November 9th. They
should actually get their notice to
proceed by the end of the week. Um, they
wanted groundbreaking on Halloween, but
I didn't think us with shovels and
costumes would be that entertaining.
Well, it might be entertaining, but as
appropriate as at uh for the press
releases, uh, Royal Crossing Pre-Commit
will be coming forward. They are
applying to the 9% uh, low-income
housing tax credit round um, at MFA's
competition in um, the new year. And
then I did want to announce that we are
working on an upcoming affordable
housing plan in collaboration with that
county. That survey is live and can be
found um on the city's website at
loscus.gov/conplan.
And that survey will be live till
December 12th. And that includes both
housing needs in the city of Los Cusus
and in Donana County. And we'll continue
to do some um additional outreach with
that. And with that, uh Kyle and I will
stand for questions.
All right. Thanks, Natalie. Thanks,
Kyle. Any questions? Anyone?
Good update. Uh, Kyle, I do have a
question. Just um
on on on fire station 9. Who Who's the
project manager? Who's leading that one?
Uh, that's going to be Chuck, I believe.
Chuck's doing
that was Armando, but Arando's moving to
another position, and we got a new guy
coming on board.
Okay. All right,
good. I think we're good. We'll look for
a motion to adjourn.
So move.
Second, Graham.
This is on the motion to adjourn the
meeting. Councelor Mccclur,
yes.
Councelor Matise,
yes.
Councelor Graham,
yes.
Councelor Karan,
yes.
Councelor Fletus,
yes. Councelor Bencomo is absent and
mayor.
Yes.