[Music]
You're live.
Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to our
work session today. Today is Monday,
March 24th, 2025. It's approximately 1
p.m. Mayor Eric Enriquez. And if you
could all join me, I'd like to stand in
a moment of silence for what took place
this past Friday at our young park. For
our victims, the families, the loved
ones, and especially
uh for our community.
Have 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.
We'll start out with our jobs of the
week, Sarah
Rainey. Come up, Sarah.
Yes, sir. Thank you.
Thank you, mayor and council. My name is
Sarah Rainey. I'm the onestop operator
or onetop coordinator for the Southwest
Region of America's Job Center New
Mexico. For our jobs of the week, we
have a public educator for the city of
Los Cusus starting at 21.95 an hour.
That posting closes on the 28th of
April. We also have a police services
specialist for the city. Um, that
posting starts at 1676 an hour and the
posting closes on the 7th. We have a
financial programs manager at Messia
Messia Valley Community of Hope. Sorry
about that. And that posting closes on
the 18th. We have a sewing machine
operator for Manpower Las Cusus. That
posting closes on the 16th of April. An
emergency management coordinator at OEM
for Donana County. Um the position
starts at 55,000 and the posting closes
on the
2nd. We have an economic development
director also for the county post. The
posting starts at $140,000 a year. There
is a hiring incentive as well listed on
the job description and that posting
closes on the 2nd. Just a quick
reminder, this week is our annual mocket
till you rocket. That is the event where
the juniors and seniors of Los Cusus
come and learn about interview skills,
resume and whatnot. they get their head
shots done and learn all about the
employers that are here in Donana County
for them. We also have the heroes hiring
heroes employment event. We invite
everybody out. It is going to be ver
veteran focus but everyone is invited to
attend. All the employers will be there
ready to talk to you and see what kind
of opportunities we
have. Thank you very much.
Thank you sir. Again what what are the
times on the 25th and the 26th? So, the
market is
actually that one starts at 9:00. The
heroes hiring heroes starts at
11:00 and goes till
2 and that both of them are at the
convention center.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you, sir.
Next, we have pets of the week. Cara
Good afternoon. I'm Carol Nelson,
digital content specialist for the
Animal Services Center of the Messia
Valley. Um, as a reminder, cat and dog
of the week are always available at no
cost the week that they are promoted.
And for any animal who is in a foster
home, please contact the center uh to
meet to arrange a meet and greet
beforehand. Um, and good news, our dog
of the week has already been adopted, so
we've been having some good success
lately. So, it was Erso, a fun dog to
have around, but we're super super happy
to see him go to a home. He was actually
abandoned at a fire station um about 7
months ago. Uh came in with his sister.
His sister got adopted before him, but
we're super excited for him. and no cat
of the week because our cat intakes
continue to be low and most of our
adoptable animals are currently going to
rescue. Um we do want to highlight our
long-term residents. Um just as a
reminder, they're $25 if they've been at
the center 3 months or more. Dora has
been at the center for 140 days. Uh
Alice 293 and did want to highlight
Dora, we are currently seeing a
behavioral regression. Um, and so we
would really love all of the support to
kind of get a family in that would be
willing to work with her and adopt her.
Um, because unfortunately the longer
they stay and the longer they regress,
it doesn't often times mean a good
outcome for them. Um, but we do also
have Luna and Tony. Luna's been there
283 days, Tony 276 days. So, we'd love
to see our long-term residents get out
of the center. Um, and then this weekend
we have our Pets Smart Pals. Um, I got
the dates wrong. It's the 28th and the
29th. Um, we're going to be there, um,
because it's our big promotion with
PetSmart, uh, where we work in
conjunction. So, the more adoptions we
get, PetSmart actually gives us a little
bit of extra
funding. And as always, for more
information, feel free to follow us on
social media or visit our
website. Thank you for the time today.
All right. Thank you, Carol.
Okay. Next, I will go ahead and read a
closed uh meeting statement. We city
council met in close session uh today,
March 24th at
10:07 a.m. Councelor Graham Mccclure
Flores Bencomo and myself were present.
Uh Councelor Karan came in at 11:04.
Outside uh council we had Luis Robless
and Bonnie Dwit. Uh also from the city
we had Bill Ham, Bill Ham, Elizabeth
Teters, JC Borego,
Econopa, Brad Douglas, Chief Story,
Christine
Ria. The closed meeting discussion was
limited to the items as stated in the
notice. uh discussion the purpose
acquisition or disposal of real property
or water rights regarding 302 South Main
Street, Los Cusus, New Mexico, which is
closed pursuant to NMSA1 1978 section
1015-1H8 and to discuss pending or
threatening litigation regarding estate
of Presley a versus officer Brad
Lunsford case number
223 which is closed pursuant to
NMSA1978 section
1015-1H7 and we adjourned at
12:27
p.m. Next, we'll start our work session
with u agenda item 3.1 fiscal year
2020 526 budget review.
Good afternoon. My name is Jacqueline
Rubalava, budget and grant
administrator. I'm bringing I'm bringing
forth a proposed fiscal year 2025 2026
budget with this budget. A little
backstory on the budget process. Um
moving forward with the Adelante
Concarinho initiative. The city manager
has also incorporated three eyes. The
three eyes are improve, innovate, and
image. With the formulation of the
budget process, we were trying to
incorporate all of these um initiatives
into it. And so with that, a new budget
method was
created. We refer to it as a base budget
method. Base standing for balanced,
accountable, sustainable, and efficient.
So we always aim for our budget to be
balanced. So that means revenues and
expenditures will match accountable. The
city manager's direction and vision for
this budget process was that we be
responsible and we have allocate a
justifications for all
allocations and with budget you always
want to have long-term financial
stability. So this process also
streamlines operations for better budget
management. And so going a little
further into what the base budget method
is, it was created um incorporating
different budgeting methods. So it does
take elements of different budgeting
methods and we formulated a process that
would work for the city best. And so um
the city manager wanted to incorporate
elements of zerobased budgeting. And so
we the departments did have to do more
um more analysis of their budgets to
really understand why we were budgeting
and what we really needed. And so to
help the departments, we created three
different phases. So phase one of the
budget process was anything that the
city was currently contractually or
legally required to keep paying. And
these had to be tied to any certain
obligations that we already had. And
then phase two would be continuing
operations at the current service level.
Current service level means that you're
not going to be increasing the service
level that's currently provided. It's
what we would need to maintain at the
level that it is. And phase three, which
are new budget requests, these also
include one-time non-recurring
items. For phase one, to elaborate a
little bit, um again, it was anything
that the city was contractually or
legally obligated to pay. The
departments did need to show
documentation for those obligations. So,
we looked at any contract terms,
purchase orders, um anything that showed
the requirement was there. Um this
included sometimes job
descriptions. These were to cover any
essential costs. So we included items
such as building rentals, bank fees,
other core operational
expenses. Um and this was to be used to
serve as a baseline funding level from
which any new requests for additional
resources would be need to be justified.
So anything on top of phase one was also
justified.
going into phase two. This these were
operating costs necessary to maintain
the current level of service and these
also included any sort of community
services that were currently offered.
For example, the senior program meals.
So those were incorporated into phase 2
as the as the current service level.
This also included vehicle acquisition
fund vehicle replacements. The only
vehicles that were included in phase 2
were those associated with the VAF or
vehicle acquisition fund um
replacements going into phase three.
Phase three included any new budgetary
requests. So anything that this the
departments were not currently doing or
increase the service level. So for
example, if they offered a current
service to increase that the increased
amount would be in phase three. One-time
non-recurring items were also in phase
three. These included new vehicles, any
major or minor equipment and
travel and new personnel and reclasses
were also included in phase
three. As we started um through the the
budget retreat that was held in
December, we we spoke about the Telshore
fund and we also brought that last year
in the budget process. So, we wanted to
highlight again the Talshore fund and
just quickly explain again what the
Talshore fund um uses are. It is a
restricted fund and it should be used to
support the continued physical, mental,
developmental, emotional, and social
well-being, safety, and housing needs of
city of Los Cru's residents and to
improve the lives of sick, indigent, or
low-income people of the city of Los
Cruus. So the talshore fund we did have
some items budgeted from there last year
and so this is why we wanted to um
provide the the definition of talshore
fund and its
uses. So now we'll go into um these are
the items that were budgeted in FY25. So
in this table we're showing the FY25
budget and what the departments have
estimated that they will be carrying
over into FY26.
Um, we did want to say that these items
are just estimates at this point and so
they are subject to change, but this was
the department's best um, estimate on
what they would be carrying
forward. All of these were new requests
for FY25.
And this second slide is also a
continuation of the items that were
budgeted in 25 with their estimated
carryover for
FY26. So anything that has zero on it,
the departments are estimating that they
will fully spend in FY25 and there will
be no need for a
carryover. This is the last slide
including the items that were budgeted.
You'll notice there's an additional
asterisk for FY24 carryovers. It's
notated under the description with two
asterisks. So the total for FY25
budgeted out of the Telshore fund was
approximately 28 million and we are
estimating a carryover into FY26 of
approximately 22
million from the budget retreat that we
did we held a little earlier this year.
um or in the budgeting process. And so
it was held in December of last year.
There were some overarching council
themes that were identified once the
counselor spoke. And so we did put these
um into a quick little um in no
particular order, just this is not an
exhaustive list, but just to to give the
some of the themes that we talked about
at that time. So some of the themes that
council identified were thriving
community and businesses, social
infrastructure, healthc care and
outreach, infrastructure, affordable
housing, youth programs and services,
and public safety. So these were some of
the items that were identified as
priorities from council.
in order to attempt to incorporate those
into the budget. Um the city manager did
meet with the department directors and
did we they they were trying to work
through um how they could incorporate
those priorities with what the
department was already working on or
trying to work on for the following
fiscal year requests. And so this table
shows some of the council priorities.
Again, not not an exhaustive list, but
some of the highlighted items that we um
pulled out from the tide both with the
council themes that we saw and these
were department requests. So, all of
these will show that they are FY26
department requests and it'll give a
priority description. These are not
items that have been funded. They had
just been requested at this point. Um,
city management is still going to
through the process of approving
requests. So, these are just ones that
have been submitted. Um but there has
been no determination on the amount or
whether they will be funded. Um but
these did tie to um we incorporated the
city strategic planning on there and the
priority um description was the
request. So we saw like Spanish
translation captioning, mobile
integrated healthc care, traffic
management, street safety, sidewalk
safety, neighborhood traffic
safety, recreational activities,
community of hope improvements, pal
boxing, afterchool programs, health
coordinator, and library support. Some
of these they were also put in as a
description, so there might be multiple
requests that could tie into that. Um
the city management is currently going
through the the budget program did
receive about $29 million of requests
for phase three just phase three alone
that had been submitted. So from the 29
million about 5 million of those have
been identified um as items that would
fall under the council priorities that
were discussed at the budget retreat.
Again those have not been approved. It's
just what they're current what we're
currently working towards.
We did want to put a slide in here about
the GRT increase. This was the 325% that
was approved by voters. This does take
effect on July 1st,
2025. And the use of that fund would be
to help support public safety, parks,
streets, and other critical
infrastructure.
The latest projected revenue for FY26
that we have is approximately $10
million for that GRT increase. There are
currently no um expenses budgeted to
that to that increase. We just wanted to
highlight the projected
revenue. the next steps. So the next
steps for the budget process, we have
another um work session which is also a
work session hearing that is on April
14th and then we are bringing forward
the resolution to city council for
adoption on May
19th. And I'll stand for any
questions. Any questions? Any council?
Mayor Proton. Uh, thank you so much. I
just have one quick question on page
10 there. I just had a question about
the I assume this first one with the
community of hope homeless outreach is
the uh homeless outreach teams they
have. Is there a reason for a zero
um an estimated need for zero next year?
So this was just based off of not any
new requests that the departments have
submitted, but this was just strictly
based off the amount that they were
funded for in FY2 in FY25. And so the
budget in 25 there was
$75,000 set aside for homeless outreach.
This isn't saying that in in 26 she
doesn't they don't have a request for
funding. It's just from that funding
that was into FY25, they're not
expecting to carry over anything because
they will fully spend it in 25. Okay.
Okay. I just wanted to make sure I
understood that, but then also take the
moment to say that I think it's
incredibly important that we continue to
prioritize this program and ensure that
there is that it stays on the budget for
future funding because it's an
incredibly important program. Okay. Yes.
Perfect. Yes. Yes. This doesn't tie it
to any request for
FY26. Council
Matis in reading uh page 10 and then I
think page
nine. Flip back to
nine. And then um where's the uh amount
that was allocated toward police? I I
think it was just a million.
There's the real time crime center. The
1.1 million
And this was FY25 budget. Correct. So if
you go back to page 10 and go back to
page
nine, in other words, almost uh am I
adding that all up right about 16
million was for housing and that came
all from the Telshore fund.
If I remember correctly, it was closer
to 19 million. I don't have the exact
numbers broken down, but we can get
those. That's okay. It's just uh 14
million 19 million. It's in that
category and then 1 million for public
safety. Uh the reason I bring this up is
I like to see the priority on public
safety. I would really like to uh
actually push that for the for the next
uh budget. That's all I'm going to say.
Thanks.
Okay. Thank you. Uh I was just going to
ask Jack, you um you mentioned the
proposed
GRT and you mentioned also uh the
Telshore fund. There's also proceeds
like the cannabis proceed funding. Is is
that um is that being talked about? Do
we know what kind of uh projected
revenues we're going to have there to be
able to budget?
Yes. So, we do have that projected. I
don't have that off the top of my head.
Um but we we do have it budgeted um in
the budget. We just didn't include all
revenue sources here. For the following
work session, though, we can have all
all funding sources for the revenue. At
that point, we'll be further along with
the process and have all revenues and
then request included. Okay. Thanks. Of
course, mayor. if I may. Yes. Um, on
April 14th, we'll have more of a a say
in in in the in the new budget. Correct.
Yes. So, on April 14th, we hope that
we'll have more information on there. We
will have um more of a breakdown of the
requests that have already been
submitted um and anything that we have
for approval from the city manager at
that time. Um, this was just more of a a
preliminary just to kind of explain what
we're working through, um, and how the
process was laid out. I'd like to share
two items with the council now so they
could at least think about it u before
the 14th. Uh number one, I found out
that five or six months ago and and
because of what happened Friday, mainly
with uh young people, the Los Cruus
public schools, and I mentioned it to
Miss Ben Como, the Los Cruus public
schools discontinued their therapy
program. They actually had so social
workers and therapists in the school and
they for some reason it it they ran out
of funds. So, I'd like to see maybe
application of our Telshore funds to
help the Los Cusus public schools bring
that therapy program back to the high
schools. And then the second item I'd
like to see is there's been a lot of
um not mismanagement, but I'll call this
surprise management like MMC, the
ambulance service, the leases.
I'd like to see us maybe hire possibly a
compliance
officer, someone that goes through all
the contracts and and keeps us a breast
of of whether or not we're we're getting
the reports when we're supposed to and
then maybe we don't have a a
a closed meeting surprises. So, if if I
could just get that out there for the
rest of the council to possibly
consider. And thank you. Thank you,
colleagues. Bye-bye.
Thank you, counselor. Anyone knows?
Okay. Thanks. Thank you.
Next is item
3.2, capital improvement program, uh,
FY26 review. and Cynthia Amigo.
Okay. Good afternoon, Mayor, City
Council. My name is Cynthia Almo, CIP
manager with planning and
implementation, and today I'm here to
review the fiscal year 26 capital
improvements program.
Recently on March 5th, we had the CAP
council retreat where we outlined the
connection uh between the capital
improvement plan and the city charter.
The city charter states that we need to
prepare and submit the capital
improvements program and tie the
establishment of a relationship between
the capital improvement plan and the
city's comprehensive plan. At the
retreat, we also had a interactive
budget activity where we uh encouraged
and highlighted the difficult dis uh
discussions that happen when we have to
select capital improvement investment
and when we have to prioritize multiple
community priorities. At that retreat,
we also had the opportunity to hear a
presentation from Joe Minikott Minikosi
uh from Urban 3 where we listened to
different case studies on how cities are
diff are implementing different or
various uh strategies to develop local
uh infrastructure and
developments. At that same retreat um it
was mentioned that CIP has an optimistic
outlook for this coming year. We know
that capital improvement projects are
time consuming. Sometimes they span over
multiple years and sometimes we get
delays are
unexpected. Because of that, CIP is
committed to h to always be in this
continual improvement mode where we try
to enhance collaboration and
transparency and we develop innovative
thinkings as we move forward in our
projects. With that, the capital
improvement program also go that goes by
CIP. We briefly mentioned that is
required by city charter but it also
prioritizes capital needs and identify
potential funding sources. As we know um
most municipalities have limited funding
sources but that outweighs our
infrastructure needs.
This process also informs the selection
of legislative priorities by aligning
our projects with the those priorities
of the
legislation. And most of all, it
functions as a tool to help communicate
to the public the current city
infrastructure investments along with
those that are coming in the pipeline.
So all of the projects are coming in the
future
years. The capital improvement program
produces the CIP document which is a
document that spans for six years. The
first year is funded um projects and
then it has five consecutive years that
are identified as unfunded needs. This
is with the intent to help the city plan
and outline all of our funding needs.
The CIP document is guided by city
council adopted plans including the
comprehensive plan and the city
strategic plan, but we have others such
as the active transportation
plan. The CIP relies on several funding
sources which includes and it's not
limited to grants, capital outlay,
bonds, and loans. And lastly, the
document is approved by council and is
amendment amended as needed throughout
the year to make sure it's aligned with
the changing priorities and changing
funding
sources. The preliminary CIP for this
coming year has a total of
299 91 projects. Majority of them, the
130 are considered future projects.
Those are projects that we have
identified but they don't have any uh
funding source tied to it. We had 114
carryover projects. Those are projects
that currently have some sort of funding
source to it. But more than likely
they're large projects that need to be
completed w within more than one fiscal
year. We have 44 annual pro projects.
These are projects are uh smaller in
scale and that they need to be funded
year by year and three newly funded
which are projects that just uh received
funding for the first
time. For the preliminary uh funding
sources, our largest uh funding source
currently it's grants. Uh we have 39
projects under grants right now. The
second category is other. Here we have
merged several
utilities funding sources that way uh
that's why it's it's a large amount but
there are several accounts majority of
them under uh utilities and some other
under uh developer contributions.
Next we have taxes we have 26 million
bonds 25 million loans 22 tax
incremental development district 16 and
the smaller funding sources are the
Telshare fund park impact fees
wastewater impact fees and water impact
fees with the CIP uh document we
categorize projects by categories to
help us understand the nature of those
projects. This table which we have two
slides for identifies the department's
request for this fiscal year and the
total request for the five outer years.
Uh we have active
transportation, airport, attainable and
affordable housing, city operational
facilities and these are facilities like
uh an office remodel or a city hall
expansion. The public facilities will be
on the next screen. Equipment and it
nonprofit
projects park improvements and parks
new. This is the second slide with the
categories and the unfunded needs.
Public facilities. This is the one that
will be all of our recreation center,
senior centers, public safety, public
transit, resiliency projects. Those are
are helping the community be more
resilient such as uh electric vehicles
and the chargers, street news, new
streets improvements, utilities and
other. The other is a single project
from parks and wreck which is the master
plan update. So because it tackles
several categories, we placed it under
other and it's a one-time cost. That's
why you will see a zero in the outer
year for department
requests. This is a graph that compares
last CIP with this CIP. And the main
intent is to showcase how the trend
resembles as last year. The spike that
you see is the current uh fiscal year
where departments are asking for funds
and as you see for the outer five years
is dropped down as project gets
completed or there's less need for
fundings. So then the projects continue
to move forward.
We know that the CIP the location is
also an important factor. And in this
next slide, I know it's not the best to
see, but we want to showcase the
location of our capital
projects. The dots will resemble
specific project locations such as a
roof replacement and the lines indicate
streets or trail projects. As we can
see, majority of the projects are
located downtown and we have a few of
them at the airport and on the
industrial
park. Next, we would like to highlight
two newly funded projects. Again, these
are projects that are receiving funding
for the first time. This is from the
communication department. It's for their
access channel. They're needing 1281,000
and they have received that full amount
from the uh Comcast franchise agreement.
The city has an agreement with Comcast
as they provide uh cable for our
community and part of that agreement is
stipulated that a small portion will be
set aside for the purchase of equipment.
So that fund has been collecting um
money and now communications department
is ready to procure the equipment to
replace existing one so they can
continue with the uh government access
channel. The second is a street project.
This is for Alama Boulevard between
South Maine to West Las Cruis's Avenue.
This will be a TID funded project and
for this coming year they will be
receiving 750 with the rest coming on in
the outer years from TID. And this will
be a full reconstruction of the street
that will include all utilities and uh
street improvements such as sidewalks uh
gutter uh everything related to a street
reconstru reconstruction.
Next we I want to highlight two recently
completed capital improvement projects.
The first one is the Mona's atrium
project uh the museum of natural and uh
science and this project was was stirred
initiated in 2022 October 22. So um it
has been completed and this was the
renovation of the sales area
improvements and the atrium entrance as
well. So we're very happy for uh the
museum that has finalized this
project. The second project that it's
about to be completed is the Branagan
cultural center renovation. This was for
exterior repairs including the VAS that
you see some stuckco and painting and
this uh project is about to be
completed. It's believed that uh only a
punch items list are pending but it
should be about to be completed. And
really quick I will share that this
project started in
2021. So it took a couple of years but
it's also towards the finish
line. Then the next steps for the CIP we
will release the CIP document on March
21 31st. We will have a upcoming work
session in public hearing in April 14.
And then on May 19, the regular city
council to present the CIP for adoption.
And for that, uh, we have, um, city
staff here. You have specific questions
on some of the projects mentioned today.
All right. Thank you, Cynthia. Any
questions? None. Any questions? All
right. Thank you, Senator. Thank
you. Next is item 3.3, the airport
master
plan. Andy
Hume. I don't see Andy. See what
Where's
the next is the airport master plan uh
with Andy
Hume. Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor and
members of council.
My name is Andy Hume and I have the
privilege of serving as your director
for the Los Cusus International
Airport. Before you today is a
presentation of the uh newly completed
airport master plan. And I look forward
to sharing with you uh a little bit of a
uh introduction or reintroduction of the
airport. It's been a little while since
I've uh presented in front of you. Uh so
be able to share a little bit of what
we've been up to and then I'll share a
little bit about our planning process
and uh hopefully uh excite you about
excuse me excite you about the vision
that we have uh for the future of our
airport. So I've had the privilege of
serving as airport manager since uh 2018
and uh we've been really busy since
2018. I'm not going to read through all
of uh the items here, but as you know,
uh we've had passenger air service now
for a few years. Uh we've been very
aggressive in getting funding for a
multitude of projects uh that we've been
working on. And um and as we've been
when I when I first got there, we had uh
adopted this uh body had adopted the
2017 action plan. And uh in it was a
5-year plan. And about 3 years into it,
we had accomplished just about the
majority of that plan. And so as uh as
with any plan, you don't want to finish
a plan uh before you start working on
the next one because you end up with a a
gap in time. So what we started doing
was we started looking at funding to
update that master plan. and we were
able to secure funding from New Mexico
DOT for our next master plan. Um, now it
took us a little longer than anticipated
to complete that master plan. Uh, but
that is what I'm here to share with you
today, the results of that master
planning process.
So, as with any planning process, and I
know that we we just uh have gone
through um planning processes with
Elevate and with other master planning
processes, other community plans as with
any planning process. Um having a robust
public input process is absolutely
essential and we did so with uh with our
airport master planning process. We made
sure that we reached out to uh a wide
variety of key stakeholders. We had uh
we like to host uh openhouse style
meetings. So we're open for a a
considerable length of time. Typically
we do two to four hour blocks of time so
that folks uh can come at their leisure.
we're available for them to come to us
and just come in, ask questions, walk
around to various uh information boards,
um and just not be rushed through a
process. Um so we like to do an open we
like to do openhouse style meetings. Uh
we had a coordinating committee that met
on a monthly basis. Uh it involved
individuals from our airport advisory
board also key stakeholders from uh
various groups on the airfield or or who
have uh who work with the airfield and
then of course our advisory board had
specific work sessions dedicated to
going over various chapters of uh the
airport master plan and vetting the
process. So it was a very robust uh
public involvement process and with
every process we went through and made
sure that we linked it back to Elevate
as we've been working through as we work
through the process and we also had the
opportunity to link it to the Los Cusus
Innovation and Industrial Park plan.
that plan had had been adopted a little
bit ahead of uh the airport master plan
and so we were able to make sure that we
linked it directly to the industrial
park plan. So yes, there is a fence that
separates the two properties. That's
it's needed, but that's all that
separates these two properties. We made
sure that these two plans are made to
work together.
So, this is a quick uh workflow that
shows how the FAA wants the master
planning process to
work.
Um, I'll I'll I'm not going to read
through the entire workflow process.
However, there are two uh you'll notice
there are two uh rectangles that are of
a different
color. That's important.
the overall master planning process. The
FAA does not approve the overall
process. They give us the process to
follow, but they don't approve it. When
the master plan is done, they look at it
and say, "Yep, looks
good." However, the
forecast and the airport layout plan are
actually the two parts of the master
plan that must get FAA approval. And
believe me, we went back and forth with
the FAA quite a bit during this process
to get their approval.
Um, they challenged our numbers. We went
back and said here we reverified and uh
that actually took a lot of time in the
process to make sure that we uh we you
know back went back and forth with them
quite a bit on this process.
Now, as a planner, and I' I've had the
privilege of being a planner with this
organization for over 20 years, there's
one part that the FAA does not have in
this process, and it usually fits right
up above
here before we start with our inventory,
and that's a vision. Why are we doing
all this stuff? How do we have a master
plan that is focused if you don't have a
vision
first? So that's actually what we
started
with. And so before we went into all of
that workflow that the FAA wants us to
do, we started with and we crafted a
vision. And I'm just going to read this.
Los Cusus International Airport is a
thriving, well-connected aviation and
commercial aerospace gateway to the city
of Los Cusus, the region and beyond,
providing access and economic
opportunity. Now, you might be reading
this and thinking to yourself or the
folks watching this might be thinking to
themselves, is it really? because we
stated this as is right in the
affirmative
present. But that's what a vision is. We
think big and we think in the current
time because if you don't think in those
terms, you don't have that current
uh vision. You don't have that current
image in your mind of where you want to
be. So every time I look out my window
at the airfield, I don't see a couple
thousand acres of mosquite and brush, I
see this. This is what I look for when I
see our airport. So that's how we craft
our vision. That's what we look for. And
yes, it is ambitious, but that's how we
see our airport. That's what our
coordinating committee, that's what our
stakeholders envisioned our airport and
that's what we have as the focus of our
master
plan. As a support for our master plan,
we developed these eight guiding
principles. Now, these I'm not going to
read, but these are eight guiding
principles that are woven
throughout the master plan and are the
basis for creating our facility needs,
creating our
CIP, creating all of the other aspects,
all of the other uh ideas for building
relationships that exist throughout the
rest of the master plan.
Now on to our facility ideas and these
are yes just as ambitious as our
vision. We talk about runway extensions
primarily for runways
1230 which I don't know if I can let me
see if I can get the pointer here. No.
Oops. Which one? Runway one 123 0 is the
diagonal one here.
and runway 826 which extends east
west. Another project is terminal
renovation and parking
expansion which will require TSA
security requirements. That's
infrastructure that we're going to
need. We definitely need uh taxi lane
and utility
extensions. We've talked about we've
talked about that. We need uh that to
support hangar development. One thing
that I can say uh that was identified in
this process is rehabbing runway uh 523,
formerly 422. Actually, that project's
underway. I'm very happy to report we uh
received some funding from the state
legislature as well as New Mexico DOT
and that project is under design. Um
we're we have a little bit of gap in in
construction funding. Hopefully, we're
we're working with uh the state to fill
that gap, but and hopefully we'll be
able to uh report some good news on that
soon. But, uh that project is underway.
So, we're very happy to see some of our
infrastructure priorities moving
forward.
The other idea really that was worked in
tandem with the Los Cusus International
or the Los Cusus uh uh innovation
industrial park is the idea of uh
developing them as a regional economic
development engine. And this was really
put forward uh as the reason for the
creation of the economic development
department and moving the airport and
the industrial park under the economic
development department in the first
place. And so um what we've seen hope uh
in the last couple of years is uh the
building of some new hangers. And that's
great but we need to see that momentum
get picked up. We need to see um
high-speed internet. We need to see that
type of infrastructure uh improved in
our area to support that. Um continuing
to coordinate with the goals of the
industrial park is are is really
critical. One of the things that we also
heard was providing for additional
fueling options. Um the growth of
electric uh infrastructure is going to
be really critical. Um if if I don't
know if you all have heard of EV tall
the electric vertical and uh takeoff and
landing uh um u aircraft um that the
development of that um aircraft is
really speeding up and so having uh
electric uh capabilities for fueling is
going to be really critical uh moving
forward in the near
future. And one of the things that we
learned particularly during COVID is we
can't have all of our eggs in one
basket. We need to have a diverse
approach to how we operate our airport.
Uh for example, when we when when COVID
was going on, almost all military
activity stopped, particularly
cross-country traffic, which a lot stops
here in Los Cusus.
So when we saw a decline in that, we saw
actually an increase in medical traffic
which actually has continued to this
day. So how do we make sure that we have
uh a good handle on opportunities
uh to improve our diverse uh improve our
diverse uh service at our airport. So we
have identified certainly expanding
passenger air service, making sure that
we continue to support the general
aviation that has kept this airport
going since its inception.
um growing with commercial uh
aerospace, continuing to support NMSU
and their uh UAV UAS programs and then
also continuing to support our our
military and uh and and providing
services that are in uh in their
interests as
well. So that brings me to u wrapping up
with our next steps. So, this is a work
session and so the actions uh there's
there's no action today on the master
plan, but I want to bring it back to you
all for adoption as quickly as possible,
and I'll work with uh the I'll work with
our city clerk and city administration
to to schedule
that. Next though is an update of our
strategic business plan. We've held off
on that in order to get our master plan
done so we can tie that and link that
back uh to our master plan and then we
can work with our planning and imple
implementation team to get that um tied
together uh
appropriately. Then we will continue to
implement our CIPs and I use that plural
for a reason. Actually airport maintains
four
CIPs. So we have obviously you heard
about the city CIP just before this and
we have the state
ICIP but we also maintain CIPs with the
New Mexico Department of Transportation
and the FAA. So all of them have a
different purpose but we all I I work
with each of those agencies to maintain
and implement all four of those
CIPs. And then um I I put this slide in
here and it's not an overstatement at
all that we're going to continue to
aggressively pursue a variety of funding
options. At the outset, I was very I'm
very pleased to report that we've um
brought in a little over $19 million in
funding from outside of the city.
But it's really a drop in the bucket
compared to what we need. If we're
talking about even maint from the
maintenance perspective, but certainly
if we want to implement the items that
we're talking about in our facility
needs, um even $19 million is just a
drop in the bucket for for what we want
to grow our airport. So, we are going to
continue to pursue these funding
opportunities and I think everyone's
seen
a variety of of this slide at at one
point or another. Uh certainly as I hope
everyone maybe has had a chance to enjoy
the flight from here to Albuquerque. If
you haven't, I encourage you to maybe
give that a try. Um, yes, one of these
days, hopefully soon, we'll have service
to Phoenix, perhaps service to DFW. It'd
be great. Those are hopefully in our
future soon. We're working very hard for
that. But ultimately, we want to connect
Los Cusus to New Mexico, the world, and
beyond. And with that, Mr. Chair, I
really appreciate everyone's um
attention, and I will do my best to
address any questions that the uh that
you or the council may have. Thank you.
And we we do have uh the consultant a
representative from the consultant who
worked with us on the project and there
may be others who were involved with the
project here who um here in the
audience. All right. Thank you Andy. Uh
any questions anyone? Councelor K. Thank
you. Thank you Andy and thanks for
sharing all of your I remember talking
about this back in the day on our TSI
committee. So I appreciate seeing the
the product. Um, I know that commercial
air service is a little bit the thing
that everyone it's like the lead in this
that everyone is wondering about, but I
noticed that the master plan sort of
suggests that Dallas is already online
and that Phoenix is coming soon and I
know that those are things that we
weren't able to to do.
Um can you give any sort of summary
about what the what the most significant
barriers are to meeting or I mean now
again the master plan suggests that
these already happened. So I think I I
would be curious to know what the shift
in timeline is and what are the barriers
what among the things that are sort of
part of the CIP or part of other things
that we have to consider in the
budgeting process if that can make a
difference in in that timeline or not.
Please. Sure. Uh Mr. Mayor, Council Kin,
the the two items that are the biggest
barriers, one is a terminal that will be
able to support the TSA
requirements. Um, particularly for the
larger aircraft to get to DFW. Um, our
current provider does not fly is not
going to be able to fly to DFW.
Uh the second is having what's called an
MRG, a minimum revenue guarantee. Uh in
order to get the service
started, a provider needs to know that
they're going to be able to
um meet their um expenses. And so having
a minimum revenue guarantee provided to
them until they get the their numbers
up, their load factors up to the point
where they're meeting their expenses,
they're they're making money. Um is is
the second requirement. I'd say those
are the two biggest requirements. Our
current runway is long enough to support
regional jets. Uh so that's not really
an issue. and we have the instrument
landing capabilities for those types of
planes. So, that's not really an issue,
but it's the terminal and it's the MRG
that are really the the two main
issues. And I guess I wonder how how
much are the in particular the terminal,
which is I I assume one of the capital
improvements that that maybe is maybe we
just saw. I'm not sure. Um I think there
was about $6 million projected. So, I'm
curious what that looks like. If it's
our existing one, if we have to raise
things, what does what what would those
changes be? Um, Mr. Mayor, Council
Corin, um, one of the design ideas that
we have is taking our existing hanger.
Uh, the city owns a hanger. We can take
that existing hanger, uh, build an
addition onto it. We have a space next
to it that we could build an addition
and utilize basically retrofit that
hanger and the addition to provide
a we would call it a transitional
terminal until we can build a new
facility that would cost it would cost a
lot more. It would be more of a
long-term solution, but we could we
could do that in that $6 million range.
That's really where that cost estimate
came from.
But it would be retrofitting an existing
building that we have.
Thank you. I I just wanted to understand
the context of where where that if that
was an ask and if it was coming through
in this and if we understood the
implications of it or not. I think it's
it's important for the conversation.
Thank you,
Councelor Grant. Thank you. Uh following
on that, Andy, what is the tipping point
for when we would need to upgrade our
firefighting facilities capacity
equipment?
Excellent question. Uh Mr. Mayor,
Councelor Graham, um it would it would
be going to this this type of service
that we were just talking about. Um
right now, um we have what's called an
index A service.
And for the type of aircraft that we
have, the eight-seater aircraft, that's
appropriate. That type that level of
service is appropriate. If we go to the
regional jets that we were just talking
about, we would need to upgrade to index
B, which does require an increase in our
uh service, um an increase in our
equipment, and also it would
uh probably require an increase in uh
probably a need initial
personnel. Yeah,
councelor Matise, Mr. You've done a
great job in the years you've been
there. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Um, on
the uh increased equipment for regional
aircraft, uh what's the control tower
situation? Are you do you have a
full-fledged control tower that would be
needed?
Um, Mr. Mayor, uh, Councelor Matise, uh,
at this point in time, a control tower
is not needed. Um, typically, uh,
control towers are needed once you get
to a certain number of aircraft
operations. If you have regular aircraft
operations that exceed 100,000 per year,
um, that's when you start needing a
control tower. Um, right now we're in
the 35 to 40,000 per year range. So,
we're we're not anywhere close to to
that number of operations per year yet.
Um, we we certainly monitor that
year-over-year, but we're we're not at
the point of needing a control tower at
this point. In in 10 years, uh, what
type of increase to get to 30,000? Where
were we 10 years ago?
Oh. Um, Mr. Mr. Mayor, Council Matis,
I'd have to go back and look at the
numbers. I'm I don't have that off top
of my head. Okay. I can I can get that
information though. Thank you, Andy.
Sure.
Anyone
else? That's great. I just and and I I
want you to know Andy, this is
absolutely not about you or your
leadership or anything that that I'm
that what I'm about to say, but for me,
I I wasn't here when when the initial
sort of parameters for what f the future
of of air traffic will be in Los Cusus.
And I understand that there are a lot of
folks who are really anxious to see
passenger air go to Phoenix and Dallas.
But I have to acknowledge that from my
own
perspective, a really big investment in
the airport for passenger air service
doesn't really feel like it necessarily
reflects what I think some of our values
are or our biggest most pressing needs.
And so I just I just want to say that in
this com in this context, I don't know
what's in the capital plan. And and
again, I I want you to know that it's
not not that I I have any doubt that you
have the ability to make things happen.
I know I know that you do. Um, I just
sort of want to beg a question of of
how what kinds of investments should we
make and what populations is this
serving and and what's the ultimate
impact that we want to make with with
money. And for me, this this
conversation, I don't know know that I
necessarily would and I we did we did
this a little bit in our in our CIP
retreat and it did make me reflect on
what what my values are and my
understanding of what our values are and
I don't know that passenger air service
to Dallas and Phoenix are things that I
would choose to prioritize in a in a
capital improvements process. And so I
just want to say that to be transparent
in this conversation because um it's
pretty ambitious and it it does have
some implications I think for our budget
and what we understand and and so I just
sort of want to own that
that in this conversation.
Thank you, councelor Gran. And also,
Andy, that that's kind of like the
question I have like, you know, mo
moving forward, what kind of investment
are we really looking at? What with this
master plan, looking at the future? What
what kind
of investment funding money are we
looking in over what time
frame? Mr. Mayor. Um, let me
go let me go back to, uh, slide three
here. So, um, up to this point, uh, Mr.
Mayor,
um, there's I'm going to answer this in
two ways. The first is that, um, the
numbers here that I have on this slide
reflect capital and other grants.
So this includes the rural air service
enhancement grant
um in the under under the state
grant and of course the FAA grants. So
here
uh this is all these are all funds that
are coming from sources outside of the
city and the $1 million is are the the
match the matches that the city has come
up with. Now this is since
2018. The other source of funding are
the operational funds, personnel and
operations. Um, and so uh I don't have
the numbers off the top of my head uh
year-over-year. Um, and I can work with
finance to get those, but those are the
funds uh above
the revenue that the city or that the
airport generates from leases and other
fees um that this that the city provides
um to operate the airport. And I I don't
again I don't have those numbers with
me, but I can get those from
finance. So there's there's really
there's there's two one one is our are
our numbers these numbers here which
really reflect capital and and other
grants and then there's the personnel
operating
right but I guess my my question is
really moving forward what's it going to
cost
um well the I would refer to the the CIP
um I mean when if if we want to move
ahead with runway extension projects
um you know, runway extension projects
are going to run into
the tens of millions of dollars.
Um but again, we would seek grants for
those. Uh we would work with the state
legislature uh for funding on those. Um
the new runway down in Santa Teresa, I
believe, cost $40 million.
Um but the state legislature provided
most if not all of the money for that
project.
Um we are working on a we're going to be
replacing our automated weather system
and our rotating beacon. I I believe
it's going to be in the neighborhood of
650 million or
$650,000. the FAA is providing a um 90%
of the funding for that and then you
know the city is only only has to
provide 5% of a match for that. So you
know again those those funding sources
are are out there uh through the FAA and
through the state legislature.
um the city generally has to come up
with you know 5% 10% for
matches and I work with uh planning and
implementation to make sure that uh
those items are prioritized in the city
CIP.
All right. Thanks Andy. Yes sir.
Councelor Matise. Uh and I think that
was a good mention. Maybe Chris could
help us too on the economic uh
development cooperation in Santa Teresa
on the $40 million investment. You know,
being there 8 and a half years at the
border authority, I watched the Santa
Teresa airport grow and they had the
same vision that you
had and they brought a lot of jobs, you
know, like Dell Computers, a lot of the
aircraft land there that go Dell
computers and they employ close to
10,000 people. So there's a lot of
employment that comes from building an
airport and linking it with an
industrial park. I I think that's a
great a great vision. And if a 5% is
only our
investment, I think that's really a very
inexpensive investment for the numbers
that you'll get back. Maybe Chris could
uh actually uh add to the economic
development component of the industrial
park and an airport. You probably have a
lot of experience with that.
Did you want to say a few words?
Thank you. Thank you, mayor.
I think he'll let Elizabeth, our
economic development director. Chris is
now the director of community
development.
I'm sorry, Chris. I I should read my
emails.
Uh good afternoon, mayor, city council.
Uh Elizabeth Teters, economic
development director. as the mayor was
saying. Um, so yeah, I I think when it
comes to the industrial park, Andy and I
have the same the same scope that we
need the infrastructure and that's in
his that's in his plan as well as mine.
Um, but we are working on the
collaboration with the airport. So,
we've been focusing on the south side of
the in industrial park. So, south of I
10, but we're now starting to work on
replatting the north side. And what
that's going to be a collaboration with
the airport to figure out what kind of
businesses we can attract that need
airport access or could potentially get
it in the future. So that's the next
phase that we're entering into with the
industrial park.
Thank you and congratulations on your
new position.
Councelor Footus. Uh thank you mayor and
thank you Andy for your presentation.
And I think it was very thorough and um
and councelor Matis's questions and
comments are are helpful in so far as
letting um council members and the city
know that it's really it's
a it's a gold mine, a potential gold
mine. And um and you've brought it up to
standard. you I've seen you go through
all the hoops and you know uh sit
down, walk, run, don't run and uh and
bringing the airport um up to at to be
at least an intrastate and um and your
work with the federal government and
getting uh funds for for the airport.
It's you've come the airport has come a
long way because of you and um and I see
it as an economic uh uh development uh
issue because it it opens up there's the
u industrial innovative area there and
uh and we can bring in a lot of
businesses there. I know that there was
one business that wanted to come in, but
well that was years ago during co but um
at any rate I want to thank you for um
it not
only getting these end results but all
the battles you've had to fight and I
know that Senator Souls um has been very
supportive of of our efforts and I want
to thank him
too.
Um, please thank the the senator for me
and um and I think that you've had a lot
of success with the um the funds from
the state legislature. Not just the
legislature, but the uh what is it? The
uh I don't know there's an economic
development department or tourist
department or something. But I just I
want to thank you because um yes, we we
need a lot of we need a lot of money in
other areas without a doubt. But this is
this is a gold mine and this is
something that we should prioritize
um and support you. I certainly support
you to um continue with your quest.
You've been very successful. Um you have
your um I see some members of the
advisory committee here and um and
they're very uh difficult to deal with.
I know. I'm just kidding. Just kidding.
They don't have a sense of humor. Um, at
any rate, um, I just want to thank you,
Andy, for all your work. I know what
you've been through and, uh, and the
airport, uh, has a different feel to it.
And, uh, I I think that, uh, we'll
probably be hopefully be
operating intrastate and then connecting
us to the rest of the world. I
personally um have to drive to El Paso
airport several times a year and every
time I drive there I think golly you
know I should be driving to our airport
in Lasus connecting me to where I want
to go and I and I think that's going to
come sooner than later and again thank
you Andy. Thank you.
All right. Thank you. I think all that's
all the questions Andy. Thanks.
That's all our items. I'll look for a
motion to adjurnn. So moved. Second.
This is on the motion to adjourn the
meeting. Councelor McClur, yes.
Councelor Matise, yes. Councelor Graham,
yes. Councelor Karan, yes. Councelor
Fletus, yes. Councelor Bencoml, yes. And
mayor, yes.