e
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[Music]
you're on good afternoon welcome to the
work session uh today is Monday August
26th uh 2024 it's approximately 1M I'm
mayor hriz uh we will start with a
moment of
silence uh if you please stand for the
brave men and women of the United States
armed forces as they protect our
interests around the globe as well as
the courageous men and women of the Las
cruus Police Department Cruz's fire
department as they keep our city safe
247365 please 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
okay we'll first start with jobs of the
week Sarah
rainy good afternoon my name is Sarah
Rainey I am the one stop coordinator for
the southwest region of the New Mexico
workforce for jobs of the week we have a
Transit operator for the city of Las
cruus starting at 1951 an hour it's a
continuous posting at this time we also
have an urban planner um that one starts
at 53,000 a year and the posting closes
on September 2nd we have mechanic
Automotive generator C there's two
positions actually listed for white s
Missile Range um that posting closes in
February from what it was listed so have
a little bit of time we have a
multicultural digital marketing manager
for American Red Cross the posting
starts at 75,000 and closes on September
13th we also have a store manager for
the Sunglass Hut in msia Valley Mall
that pos position starts at 31,000 and
the posting closes on the 13th we have
an hbac installer helper for four FMI
LLC the posting closes on September 14th
and I just wanted wanted to bring to
light um and invite everyone to our one
Community career fair we're going to be
hosting it on September 10th at the
donana community college East Mesa
campus um this will be from 9:30 to 1
for the public from 9 to 9:30 is veteran
priorities so again you know like I've
said before we give veteran priorities
so they can come in and have the
assistance with our services that we're
going to be offering the resume
workshops um and whatnot this community
fair or career fair sorry is going is
going to focus on Child Care Health Care
hospitality and then the trades so if
anybody's interested in those areas
please come see us check it out we'll
have it posted on our website of course
at employ nm.com and then any employers
that are interested in joining us at
that career fair can also check out the
registration on there thank
you thank you
Sarah next is pets of the week
me hello everyone my name is Amy def
Felix I am one of the rescue
coordinators for the Animal Services
Center of the msio valley I pick and
present the pets of the week every week
I'm go ahead and start off with our cat
of the week who is Lyra her number is
23676 and she says I'm a bit shy but
that doesn't mean I don't want to Liv at
home I like my own space and appreciate
Quiet Moments you won't find me causing
rugus I'm more the type to find a Cozy
Corner and watch the world go by but
don't mistake my Independence for
aloofness I'm just taking my time to get
to know you and when I do I promise to
be a loyal and comforting
companion and then our dog of the week
this week is Sally her number is
7889 and she says I've been at the asmv
for almost a year now I've adjusted to
the boisterous kennel life just fine but
I'm always wishing for an easygoing
forever home instead I enjoy my time in
play GES with the other dogs but I can
be a little particular when it comes to
long-term dog room I'd like to meet any
candidates before sealing the deal and
then adoption events going on this week
we will have offside adoptions at Little
Toad Creek we'll be there Saturday from
11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and in case you
need the address that is 1119 North Main
Street and other events going on we are
still we're in the middle of
participating in the National clear of
the shelters event um that's going to go
on until September 10th all of our
adoptions are only $50 so we highly
encourage you to stop by meet some of
the lovely cats and dogs waiting for the
forever homes um at a at a reduced
special
price and all of our online internet
links our general website is ascmv org
we have our Facebook Instagram and Tik
Tok where we'll post some special
highlights and events and um just kind
of the goings on at the Animal Services
Center we have a YouTube and then
Spotify and app podcast is where we
upload episodes of our podcast Tales
from the P
side um I would like to mention I have a
cooworker who's been following me the
shadowing me the past couple weeks her
name is Carol um she is our new digital
content specialist so I believe the next
time time we meet at city council she
will be taking over P the week from now
and so this might be the last time you
see me it's been a pleasure to present
for you all but thank
you thank you Amy we appreciate all that
you've done and we welcome what did you
say her name was
again is she Carol Carol okay thank
you next is the agenda items 3.1 City
strategic plan report and we've got Mark
and
Shan good afternoon Mr Mayor uh city
council my name is Ranna bnet the city
Innovation strategy
administrator so today uh we have before
you the city strategic plan report uh a
few uh work sessions ago you might
recall we did a presentation on invisio
um as a platform that the city is now
using to manage its plans and to report
on um some of those plans so today is
going to be the first time that we're
actually presenting a report out through
envisio um and of course there's many
ways to to slice this data pie if you
will um but hopefully today we're going
to walk you through a couple of ways uh
that we found uh might be useful for you
all to uh take a look at how we're
progressing on the city strategic plan
implementation so with that um I also
want to mention that this is part of our
uh enhancement for the planning process
itself uh so normally uh we plan Vision
we collect the data upfront uh which
includes the public uh engagement and
public input um focus group sessions
whatnot and then we set the strategies
to write an actual plan um and then in
the in in in the process of implementing
the plan we find a lot of changes um
there are also the usual you know
constraints um and then that step which
was critical but missing to a certain
extent in our past plan evaluations was
really the monitoring and tracking and
reporting of the plan itself uh so
hopefully today we're going to um start
that process for just
um creating more datadriven um
decision-making process for you all as
policy makers and just hopefully we
present some uh useful
data uh this is also of course setting
you up for your update to the um City
council's uh City strategic Plan update
uh which which should follow shortly so
with that I'm going to hand over to Mr
Mark Miller he is is our uh lead
planner uh good afternoon mayor city
council uh Mark Miller lead planner um
so I'm going to start out with just
giving a a quick quick overview of the
city strategic plan um as sh mentioned
we did actually discuss this in the last
work session that we came and presented
to you all um so the city strategic plan
um is really a tool for implementation
of the comprehensive plan where the
comprehensive plan has a 25-year
planning Horizon the city strategic plan
has a 5-year planning Horizon um our
current uh plan was adopted in
2021 um and is really the the the city
council's goal for that planning
Horizon um so we've we've discussed this
before a bit um but I really want to
make a point of what is the connection
between Elevate Los cruus our
comprehensive plan and the current city
strategic
plan um so Elevate Los cruus the
comprehensive plan was adopted in 2020
um it has three themes and 46 goals
there's there's more in the
comprehensive plan than just that but
for our purposes today that's that's the
important
aspect um the city strategic plan
adopted in 2021 um has six themes and 45
goals
when the city strategic plan was adopted
what city council effectively did at
that time was
[Music]
IC planning process defined an
additional nine Council goals so you can
see that here on this side of the uh V
diagram those additional nine Council
goals so whenever we think about
implementation when we think about
reporting on the city strategic plan how
are we to go about that with 36 goals
from Elevate and nine city council goals
what we did you see here on the left
which just popped up is that within
Elevate loss crues you have 58 actions
um we've talked about those uh um
previously so they are all nested under
those 46 goals so effectively we have
396 actions that we can pull right into
the umbrella of the city strategic plan
and use those to really get at those
goals for implementation and also for
reporting
purposes um I just want to really make
sure that this connection is is clear
because it is is rather important for
the reporting
all right so digging into the actual
reporting um as mentioned uh last work
session we talked about the invisio uh
platform it's our new plan management
tool it's intended to increase
transparency and accountability um
through dashboards like the city
strategic plan public dashboard um that
was published some months ago um also
has a a slle of reports um internally
that are automated and it really
streamlines that process we also have
analytics available to us an entire
module um of course we used invisia for
for this process um but I want to give
you a little bit of an idea of of what
our what our thinking was what our
process was trying to put this report
together for um city
council
um this was a real key partnership
between the planning program
comprehensive and strategic planning um
and the performance manag agement
program um so we actually leverag the
analytics module for a lot of the
presentation you'll see um we did an
extensive review of the data is what we
call it which is the the progress
percentages and the statuses that City
staff provided that that you all have
seen on um that that public
dashboard so we looked at it and kind of
cut it up in a lot of different ways to
see what is the most meaningful way to
look at the overall plan progress
um and if you go to the public dashboard
which which we'll take another look at
here in a moment um you can look at the
themes you can look at each goal you can
look at each action um but we also
wanted to kind of bring um some
perspectiv some some analysis that you
really can't get at through the public
dashboard and it takes um it takes quite
a bit of work on the back end to get
there oh and I'm going to go ahead and
just sh this
okay all right so throughout I'm going
to be kind of hopping back and forth in
between the the
presentation um
and this analytics dashboard that we put
together with uh with Performance
Management
okay so also some considerations before
getting into the actual um uh
nitty-gritty of this um in the reporting
you'll find that we we are addressing
the Elevate Los cruus goals and the city
council goals uh separately we're kind
of separating those out and looking at
them as two separate items um we can
elaborate that on that further um U if
city council would would like but I
think it'll kind of become clear as we
work through the presentation
um in terms of margins of of error
um you'll see percentages on the goals
the themes um and some other items um
those
percentages uh were provided by City
staff program managers subject matter
experts project leads Deputy directors
directors across the
organization um what we're doing here is
kind of quantifying quality ative data
right so sometimes um any given action
might be tied to a project timeline or
existing funding but more often than not
uh we're looking at the the subject
matter experts saying we're about 60% of
the way through this we're about 15% of
the way through
this with that comes some margin of
error um where a 1% difference is that
truly
meaningful um that's that's debatable
when we're we're quantifying qualitative
data
right um another area I want to
highlight is that the plan structure
itself you may see you received um two
uh two reports provided to you uh
previous to the work session via email
um you may see slight differences
between some of those figures and what
you'll see in today's presentation
that's due to the structure of the plan
uh what what I was just talking about
with Elevate Los cruus and the city
strategic plan plan in the backend
trying to do these do this data
crunching um it it complicates things a
little bit in the back end so you may
end up with a a half a percent or a 1%
or a 2% difference generally they're
pretty consistent
though
um like I said there's there's 36 goals
from Elevate Las cruus uh and Elevate
Los crusis is a 25e plan so the majority
of the goals in our city strategic plan
um are are long range goals so expect to
see lower progress percentages than you
may have expected coming into
this a really key
Point throughout when we when we look at
the the Elevate Las cruus actions is
that one project could be one action or
it could be 10 actions or it could be
20 um open space planning is a good
example of this where if we consider
open space planning as one initiative
one effort um there's you know upwards
of 10 15 20 depending on where you draw
that line uh actions that are associated
with that that are a part of that
project it's everything from a royal
preservation to the conservation of
historical and cultural significant
lands um throughout the city um a really
key project for uh this reporting is the
impact of realiz loss cruus the Land
Development code update into the data
when we're going through throughout the
reporting um so uh there is 96
Associated actions uh within our 396
total actions we're going to talk about
today those uh those 96 actions were
recommended to be
75% um as provided by the department and
that's that's indicative of how far into
the process
um in terms of phasing of that project
uh they are right
so when and if uh the realized L cruus
Land Development code update is adopted
by city council that would trigger a
review from planning staff to assess
more specifically what is the percentage
completion of each one of these actions
right so you may see variability in the
future in terms of this grouping of the
data set
um so so throughout you'll see that that
we're we're removing those realize L
cruus actions from some of our
visualizations from some of our
observations in order to get at the rest
of the recommendations that aren't tied
to this one project um I think that that
generally covers it and I think you'll
kind of see as we're going along what
that impact is on the numbers and why it
becomes necessary in order to see the
rest of the effort efforts related to
this plan why we have to pull that one
project
out
okay so we can start off with just
overall big picture of the
plan so of course we have our city
strategic plan public
dashboard we have our
overall um overview of progress
percentage so how how much completion
are we are we seeing and we're at 34%
currently for the entire city strategic
plan we look at our statuses as a
reminder we have on track some
disruption major
disruption um completed is another key
one
here we have a little over
77.5% um of the the overall plan is on
track uh we could also come down and
look at each theme and look at the
different percentages but I just went
ahead and put it on a
uh on a
slide for you so we have um uh our
highest is 40% with uh Capital
Improvement infrastructure and Community
Prosperity the two highest progress
percentage for themes um and then going
on down to our lowest with education and
Community Services being at
177% um it's also worth noting the
majority of each of these themes is on
track in terms of status
now like I said we're going to take a
look at the council goals first and then
we'll deal with the 36 uh goals from
elev Los
crusis um and just a a reminder uh in
terms of the city council goals that was
one of the reports that was sent to you
previously um and that provides the more
detailed narrative um status update
issues identified that that language
directly from City staff who are who are
um uh responsible for those city council
goals or have the most related work to
those city council
goals so overall we're at 29% total
progress um it's important to note that
there is some significant overlap with
Elevate Los cruus actions and so this is
why we kind of separated it out there's
actually three of these Council goals
that are that are almost the same
verbatim wording and so it's kind of
duplicative to to really look at them uh
together just math wise um in terms of
status we have two goals that have some
disruption and seven that are on track
the remainder of
them um our highest progress percentages
is uh the goal that's related to a plan
to improve payment condition index at
85%
completion um however that one is marked
as some disruption due to uh budget
constraints uh the next one is continue
to support mobile Integrated Health uh
multi-disciplinary mental health team as
well as critical incident response uh
this a lot of progress has been done on
this goal in the last few years we're at
70% for that Council goal the lowest
progress percentages you'll see is uh
the goal related to building a local
wealth component uh within Economic
Development efforts uh lighting
improvements geared towards Public
Safety as well as the establishment of a
behavioral health district um
regionally that one is our other goal
that is marked as some disruption we
also have two ongoing um they say
actions here but that's because there's
there's some overlap with the Elevate uh
Las cruus actions um these are two
Council goals that as staff
recommendation a progress percentage was
not um provided and that's due to the
rationale being there that
um there's not really an end there's not
really a completion to assessing uh the
the right communication methods to reach
underrepresented groups um and that we
continually improve transparency and
communication tools and Implement
those oh one other point I wanted to
make on on the city council goals before
we move on um is that if you look at the
substance of these goals um just just
for your consideration and looking at
the the percentages is also the um one
the overlap with other Elevate actions
and goals and so that related progress
percent percentage how one effort is
going to kind of be reflected in another
um but also that the scale the scope of
these goals are not necessarily equal
right so one goal actually may deal with
multiple multiple departments where
another one is really more centralized
in to one Department's efforts um just
just a quick note on
that okay all right so the the Elevate
loss Cruis goals we're going to look at
those from the perspective of different
topics so if you actually look in the
Elevate Los cruus work program is what
it's called that's where all of our
goals and actions are located in the
comprehensive plan um there was also a
series of topics provided um all of the
goals are situated under these topics
they're mutually exclusive there's no
goal that's shared in another topic um
however we do have to acknowledge
um you know in in planning everything is
related to everything else um all of
these topics all of these goals are
inter interrelated there's dependencies
between them um and the comprehensive
plan and by default the city strategic
plan recognizes that that connection
between all of these
so with that I'm going to go ahead and
hop over
into um one thing that I I didn't
mention in my previous slide that I
wanted to to mention uh to you all city
council before um talking about the
actual graphs and and the numbers of it
um is that you'll see um in a little bit
of this we kind of wanted to strike a
balance between really getting into the
weeds of of what we're seeing in the
data and also providing that meaningful
big picture view um so suffice to say
this first graph um gets into the weeds
a little
bit so I'll just kind of Orient first um
we can see here all of the topics are
listed on the left
side each of the topics has a progress
percentage assigned to it um these
percentages is the average of the goals
that are situated ated under them
right if you see a little red
triangle or a green that's a goal that
is an
outlier of that overall topic
percentage and then these orange um
circles uh just represent where the
goals lie within that
topic so kind of a key thing to note
just first off is that each topic does
not have the same amount of goals across
the board some may have four or five
some may have
one I'm going to go ahead and just take
you through some of the the kind of high
level observations of of what we're
seeing here so you can see here with
Public Safety we're at 28% progress
completion but if we look at the goals
we actually have two
outliers so while it says
28% we actually have one that's that's
far lower somewhere a little over 10% I
think it's it's around 14 15% um and one
that's far far higher amounting to that
28% but that's not true of all of them
if we come a little further down we have
for example neighborhoods so
neighborhood topic we're at 2% but
there's only one goal actually situated
under that topic so the topic um
percentage and the goal percentage are
the same
percentage similar situation here in
land use so if we look at land use as a
topic
um there's only actually one goal within
that topic however the overall
percentage is at
49% and and that goal by the way is
balanced growth uh um growing in a
sustainable way reflective of the
development patterns recommended in
Elevate Los
cruus but then in some of these we see
relatively consistent um goals so we
have a topic for example Public Health
up here you have three goals but all of
them are really around
the same
percentages they're relatively
consistent we have the same with
Community form and character so this is
actually our
highest this is actually our highest
topic with the goals ranging from
Context sensitive Street design um to
other other characteristics of the built
environment um all four of these goals
are all very high percentage here
right but this is where it becomes
important
for us to set aside the realized loss
cruus actions for a moment so where land
use was our highest topic now we see
that it's actually at 6% if we set aside
the realize L crusis development code
actions um it actually becomes one of
our lowest um in terms of progress and
has the least amount of actions now
though similarly Community form and
character where I said it was it's
pretty
consistent the goals are all relatively
similar to each
other in terms of percentage now we
actually have quite a few outliers where
two of our goals have dropped to near
zero and a few are still you know up
here right it's a lot easier to see
this if we just look at it side by side
so we can see Community forum and
character at
66% with realize is the the kind of dark
blue and then green green is without the
realized L Cruis actions so we see the
community forming character drops from
66 to 20 Economic Development stays
pretty much consistent 41 to
40% um there's some some drops in some
other topics like historic preservation
drops a bit housing drops a bit uh you
see land use Drops pretty significantly
and uh natural resources in open space
drops uh pretty significantly as well
so if we want to look at progress of the
city strategic plan um and kind of want
to set
aside those recommendations that are
really centered on development code
updates then this is a bit more
representative of our of our true
progress and so we can see here um that
our our progress percentage with
realized like I was saying um our top
three is community form character land
use and housing but without realize it
becomes Economic Development housing and
Public
Safety um given that kind of idea of
unveiling the other progress by taking
this project out I think that this these
top three is probably a bit more
representative of what is the the bulk
of the progress that we're seeing in the
plan um other than realiz of
course now if we look at the the lowest
three topics in terms of progress
percentage um we have education arts and
culture and neighborhoods um at 16 14
and then
2% um and then if we take realiz out of
the the equation we end up with land use
as our lowest followed by natural
resource open space and then
neighborhoods so neighborhoods uh
remains are are kind of lowest
Topic in terms of um which of these is
Maybe a little bit more meaningful uh
given that there is work being done
there is progress being completed on the
realize loss cruus project I would say
that this may be a little more
meaningful in terms of overall um
progress and what our lowest um progress
percentage is is education arts and
culture and neighborhoods but it's worth
mentioning that all three of these
topics only have one goal associated
with them and if you look at the total
number of actions there's actually far
less actions so if there's not
significant amount of progress on those
specific actions then you're going to
see that these topics overall aren't
moving forward as much as others right
just some some considerations
there okay so I want to go ahead and dig
into the the actions
specifically so
after the city strategic plan was
adopted um City staff uh worked through
a few different processes to kind of get
a handle on how do we implement this
plan right we kind of mentioned this
before in terms of
operationalizing um the plan one key
thing that that staff um did uh planning
and implementation led a prioritization
process across the organization and so
all 508 actions from Elevate Los cruus
were prioritized by City staff um what
we used is is What's called the
Eisenhower Matrix um it's really used a
little bit more for for task management
but it still it works for our purposes
here um it's a it's a cross referencing
of uh urgency and importance so you see
here Priority One being your most urgent
and your most important priority two
being more urgent maybe a little less
important and and we use that
terminology very specifically you'll see
is AR Matrix saying not important um
this is in reference to all of the
actions in our comprehensive plan um so
I I don't think that there's really any
not important actions that are adopted
into our standing policy but we can say
this is a little less important
currently right or a little less urgent
so priority three is important less
urgent and priority four is less
important less urgent so staff went
through the process of um uh categor
categorizing these with a tool that was
provided to them and you see the
resulting number of actions in each and
now we can actually show how much
percentage of each one so we have 45%
completion for the priority 1 actions 33
for priority 2 which has a total of
47 sorry uh 28% in priority 3 with 99
actions and then 18% progress on our our
lowest priority actions and there's 67
in
there this again is is one of those
figures that we do need to kind of take
realize loss Cruis out of the equation
for a
moment and you'll see that the majority
the vast majority of the realized L
crues actions are priority One actions
so when you take that out the total
number decreases pretty significantly
along with the
percentage so we see here these are just
the figures with realiz pulled out of
it and we can see that where previously
priority 1 was our most progress
percentage now it's dropped a little bit
but this will be a
little easier to see the
relationship if we just look at it
here so the same data here's our
priority numbers one two three and four
the
left here I'll just make this pig real
quick this uh visualization includes
realize with 46% progress in in Priority
One however if you compare
over to without realiz L Cruis because
keep in mind the realize actions are 75%
progress um we see that Priority One
Drops to
28% so no longer do we see the most
progress in Priority One um but I I
would just advise interpret these two
with care because there is progress on
that one project that's not being
captured here so this is more
representative
of all of the actions within the city
strategic plan uh that aren't associated
with realize L Cruis and what we see is
that priority 2 actually does have a
little bit more progress percentage it's
at
32% was 28 for number one um that 4%
difference um that's not a very uh
significant difference between the two
um but you
we could look at this internally further
and see are we getting more progress on
our twos than maybe we would like and
need more focus on the ones so this is
kind of a demonstration of what
internally we're using this for is to
try to assist staff in thinking about
resources and Staffing and what are our
priority actions and what can be kind of
pushed a little bit further into the
future
okay so staying staying on the actual
actions we also have the
statuses so I'm going to go ahead
and do this
here okay so the total number of actions
is here on the left and then we have our
priorities 1 2 3 4 and then we have our
statuses
so you notice that the most actions is
in number one uh uh just as was
mentioned just now by that in the in the
presentation those
quadrants um there's a few different
observations that we can make uh on this
distribution of of on status versus
disrupted versus
completed so first off for Priority One
we see that we have the most on track
actions of any of the other
priorities and I can just do this
we see that in terms of
completed we again have the most number
of actions completed uh within the
priority One
category and then on the flip side if we
look at some
disruption or major disruptions we see
that by ratio we have the least in
Priority One so you have 10 that are
some disruption with two that are uh
major disruptions in the priority
one but if you look at priority 4 we
have 11 and
seven and so we actually have far more
disruption going more towards the less
prioritized actions so these are all
kind of uh relationships that we we'
kind of like to see trends that we'd
like to see in terms of
prioritization um another key one is
just status pending um that I'll just
take this out it just it just means that
there's not something entered in
currently there's a few of the 396 that
there's not information uh in the system
for right
now now if we look at that exact
same
distribution without the realized loss
cruus actions put into it because
remember those 96 actions approximately
are all um noted as on track currently
right so if we take those out we still
see generally the same relation Ship by
ratio we have the most on track in
Priority One like as a percentage of the
total Priority One um
actions we still see less disruption
than our other um priorities we still
see more
completed in our higher priority versus
our
less um and upcoming we still have more
upcoming actions in our lower priority
as opposed to our higher priority
okay so we were just kind of talking
about status for a little while there um
we're going to Zone in on disrupted
actions specifically um but I want to
make sure that uh how this was
communicated to staff is also
communicated to city council
um through the invisio process uh the
implementation of the the invisio
software um and this kind of new way of
reporting um which allows us to to do
breakdowns like what you've just seen um
we we really try to make it clear that
disruptions are expected especially when
you have so many recommendations that
we're dealing with or adopted policy
rather that we're dealing with um and
also disruptions one quarter
an action might be disrupted but the
next quarter it might be on track you
can even still have progress moving
forward and the action is still a little
disrupted um the sum disruption and
major disruption is based on are you
hitting those key points where you think
that the project will will be complete
when uh when you anticipated originally
right um is your timeline pushing
forward or
back um the only other thing I want to
say about that is is
uh in also in many cases you just saw
with the prioritization um just because
an action is is currently disrupted that
doesn't mean that it has to be addressed
immediately it may not rise to that
level of urgency that level of
importance um as compared to the rest of
the the actions and as compared to um
the available Staffing and resources
that that City staff have available at
that time
um so first off we have some disruption
this is a minor Block in the action uh
we have 38 actions and those two Council
goals that was mentioned earlier um that
are currently noted as some disruption
um some of the typical issues that are
cited um are things like just delays in
in some process associated with it uh
some sort of review maybe or some sort
of city process um lack of Staffing to
to address it um um with the time
frame intended initially um lack of
resources generally maybe it's maybe
it's expertise maybe it's Consultants
maybe it's um other
resources and then we have our major
disruption uh actions we have 10 of
these this is where there's a major
Block in the action um the typical issue
CED with these is really more about
feasibility maybe there was a a study or
an assessment completed and and that
particular action has been deemed to not
be feasible in the near term so it's
marked as a major disruption again lack
of Staffing um and another another kind
of commonality amongst a lot of the
actions we're seeing or a few of them uh
that we're seeing with major disruption
um is when there's a discontinued
program or initiative of some sort so
maybe there was uh like a regional
program of some sort um but it's it
really actually doesn't exist anymore
so how are we to address the intent of
that action that's something that we'd
have to review and and think about as
staff um okay so moving on to completed
and high progress
actions uh this is just a few examples
but we have 15 um uh actions across 11
different goals that are currently
complete um we have um things like
upgrading to real-time passenger
software there was a couple of different
um softwares that were implemented that
Aid residents and pl planning their
trips um for
Transit uh we have uh property
maintenance code that ordinance was
adopted um back in November of uh 2023
adopting the international property
maintenance code um in terms of a plan
for providing shelter there is the
emergency shelter plan kept at OEM
um and then also obviously CL 411
construct the capital projects um
related to previous go Bond cycle again
that's all been completed so they
they're actions similar to this that we
have uh currently completed but there's
15 of them
currently um and then on to actually our
last item um for you
all progress percentage that's halfway
so so actions that are halfway complete
or more
um there's like we said 396 total
actions in the city strategic plan uh
154 of those are either 50% or more
complete if you look at the pi graph um
what that's showing is of those 154
actions how much is attributable to the
realiz Los cruus project and how much is
attributable to anything other than
realiz crusis and what we find is a
little over half is attributable to the
realiz L cruus project um and 44% which
is about 67 68 actions um total that are
actually over 50% complete
currently so that's a a pretty sizable
chunk of the total
actions um so with that I'll hand it
back over to
sh thank you
Mark tranna BNA for the record
so um what we presented today uh is a
culmination of several months if not
years um of effort in trying to build
out an implementation work program for
the city's comprehensive plan and the
city's strategic plan so I do want to
give credit not just to the staff that
really LED this effort um but also all
of the department staff that have been
so great to work with and have provided
so much Insight um it's a culture change
um so things have not been easy um but I
I really want to just throw out that
appreciation for everybody who has
embraced this process um so along that
line we will be continuing to report and
track um
progress um and to really just identify
a meaning meaningful way to look at this
data um um this evaluation phase uh I
referred to earlier which you know kind
of follows the reporting um is critical
to then really identify what's working
and what's not uh that should be done
sort of uh collectively uh
holistically uh and then our goal is to
really be able to present to to Mayor
city council and to City management um
the the results that really um inform
your update uh to the city strategic
plan
um and so a couple of things that we
will be looking at as the general
alignment of this uh midterm plan uh the
city strategic plan with our overall
growth plan uh through Elevate and also
other plans that we have such as the
Department business plans for example
they're meant to be more focused on
resourcing and allocations uh and so
identifying those relationships and
really
creating uh a bit more practicality in
how we're going to approach this midterm
plan if you will um and frankly just um
hopefully focusing a little bit more uh
on immediate actions and things that we
really want to and can see accomplished
within a shorter time frame uh while the
longer goals are all admirable and of
course we should have them and never
forget them uh we I think it might be
beneficial for um getting things done in
general uh to maybe just identify things
that can done within a 2 to 5e Horizon
and sort of set those up front um so
that's just something to keep in mind uh
and then a forest staff will also come
back with a report on Elevate loss crues
uh were uh a little bit different from
the current update that you just
saw Elevate actually has a a baseline
performance report that was provided to
city council a few years ago uh and so
there was some preliminary benchmarking
that was done and the metrics are there
so today it was more you know
qualitative information
updates uh progress percentages uh but
we can also go down the path of more
metrics in terms of say U net trees
added to the city or uh total bicycle
miles that were added in a certain time
period um so so you know just a little
bit more of quantifiable
uh measures if you will uh and so that
is also something that we can consider
for future reporting um and just again
go hand inand with the city's strategic
plan so with that um I will pause right
here I know this was a lot of
information we threw your way and so we
appreciate the the attention we're here
for any
questions well thank you Shan thank you
thank you
Mark uh any questions uh councelor Kent
thank you I just wanted to say thank you
so much both of you for for this
presentation all of you for this
presentation um I really I I also really
appreciate the efforts of all the staff
who I know I know
translating qualitative things into
numbers is not an easy task and and I
realize that at some level this is all
just for us because some of us are here
for the graphs and the ven diagrams
thank you I love a ven or two you know
if you however many you can work in Mark
I'm here for it um uh but I think also
it's really important for the public to
know I think uh I know a lot of
departments really you know this is not
the kind of necessarily the kind of
reporting that you think about doing but
but when folks say like what are you
doing it's not always completely
apparent and this is really translating
something that what like making what our
city government
does translated to a public and and
consumable place um and so I just really
want to thank you and all the the folks
who have contributed to putting data
into the system um um and it it really
does help us understand where we are and
what we're doing and what we should
invest our advocacy or time or or
efforts into so thank you um I really
appreciate it and I look forward to all
the future presentations that you all do
thanks thank you uh councelor
Flores thank you Mr Miller and Miss uh m
b I have it written down B
um thank you so much um all of this
really fascinates me because um graphs
and and percentages are like a mystery
to me so I'm listening and looking and
this and that but it is um your your
reporting was uh very comprehensible to
me so I appreciate that
um but
um I I would like to see or hear in the
future
um how or why the how and why of
prioritizing certain
projects um is it monetary is it
something that is a you know a pie in
the sky dream that the city council had
and you just want to appease us and be
be polite and kind um and and that would
be helpful for me so I hope um hope I'm
still around for that um
so yeah because there's 96 Associated
actions required um which requires
Council
approval
so the ones you're working on now have
had that Council approval is that
correct or is it forthcoming
projects um Mr Mayor counselor Flores I
believe you're referencing um the 96
actions that are associated with the
land code correct um so yes those are uh
looked at as actions that will come into
effect upon adoption by the city council
so there is a huge assumption on on our
part just
to uh to simplify things a little bit I
suppose um but the rest um of the
actions don't necessarily go through
City counil adoption really the policies
um and and the goals are what you've
adopted for us and then it's our job to
start implementing them with tasks and
projects um so I don't know if that kind
of gets to a little bit of of the
question that you have um or are you
asking no that that answers my question
thank you so then my question on that is
um can you in any way uh see how long or
project how long it would be
um when those 96 goals would be uh
implemented or uh come to fruition or
met whatever word uh applies mayor City
councelor uh I'll just say two things
and then I will differ to the department
that is actually running that project
for you um and and while they approach
um I'm just going to maybe frame it by
uh again uh just referencing back to
that evaluation phase so um 100% of
everything that the city Strat plan or
listed out as actions um that are
associated with that particular document
uh may or may not be completed through
that document and so there's still that
piece uh left uh to evaluate uh upon
adoption so there's a little bit of
a an uncertainty there because of course
it's the will of the public and and the
city council um to make amendments or
change or you know whatever you want me
to do um and then with that I will just
hand over to uh Mr Larry Nichols uh to
answer the rest of your question thank
you Miss B
has good afternoon mayor city council uh
councelor
Flores you heard reference several times
to the presentation today the real
realized Los cruus and how it relates to
the Elevate comprehensive
plan the realized Los cruus
land use ordinance that we're using now
is a 2001 version so here we are
2024 that's 20 some years of uh waiting
for things to be updated and brought
into uh use for our new technology our
new strategy for the developing
Community uh we have been working with
realiz Los crues now we about 2 and a
half years uh we had they um hired a
consultant to help us with that and then
we also formed a ad hoc Committee of 13
to 15 different U developers real estate
agents uh interested associations in the
community uh that review has gone
through some 30 or 40 meetings we now in
the process of doing the having the
draft trying to get it completed by
October so that we can uh codify y the
language in the adoption and bring it to
your um to the council's uh we're going
to have a pnz workshop uh I think in
about another month and then you will
have a workshop as well um in the next
month or I think it's next month or so
and then the spring of 25 about March
February or March we'll be bringing it
to city council uh for your
consideration for
adoption so those are the dates of
progress
but uh you know we U we mentioned about
progress through the presentation today
uh we have been meeting uh every single
month we've been making progress on the
uh the updating of of the land use code
which is realized L
Cruis thank you m thank you Mr Nichols
and I have another question either for
Miss basmat or Mr Miller um so on page
16 um
there was a there was a u what was it a
category for lack of a better word uh
for underrepresented groups and I think
there hadn't been any progress or
outcomes or that would be page 16 on
the on the monitor mayor city council um
are you referring to uh councilor Flores
are you referring to the report that was
provided to you or I'm referring to your
presentation oh I'm sorry okay
behavioral let's see it was
um
it there was maybe no there was uh
communication transparency maybe it
wasn't well at any rate uh there was a
um there was a statement on one of those
pages about oh it was the lowest
progress
um regarding the UN under represented
group and I don't remember what the goal
was but um are they so under represented
that they're that they're invisible or
what does that mean um councilor far I
think I can clarify um when we were
talking when I was talking about the
underrepresented groups here so the full
um Council
goal the full Council goal is identify
appropriate communication methods to
reach underrepresented groups
um the reason there is no progress shown
is not because there is 0% progress it
is because instead of assigning a
progress percentage to it because that
would imply that there was a time when
this goal would be complete ah I see and
so staff recommended uh not to include
this as a um goal that can be complete
at a certain point and rather say this
is an ongoing goal and that we are
always going to be trying to improve and
identify uh additional appropriate
communication methods to reach those
underrepresented groups and
um and how would you go about that I
mean if they're under represented groups
is there a survey do you go by the
census how exactly is that uh so there
was some narrative provided in the
report but I would defer to oh to Mandy
oh thank you
Mandy mayor councelor Flores to answer
your question there were several uh
groups that were specifically identified
uh I don't know if that was an elevator
the council goals it was um those in
poverty we had seniors and um those with
disabilities and so we have made ongoing
efforts to identify where um certain
underrepresented groups are getting
their information we made
several um I think was noted in some of
the things that we've done for Progress
are things like um reaching out to
Spanish
speakers uh and for ADA compliance
making sure everything on our website is
ADA Compliant that we're providing close
captioning not only in English but also
in Spanish and we've work expanding to
allow for other languages and so there's
multiple ways that we're addressing that
the reason that it's an ongoing action
is we know that there will be continued
Improvement um like Mark said there's
not an end goal yay we've reached
everyone we always need to improve the
way that we reach all groups yeah I
think yeah it seems to me that there
would be some uh underprivileged uh
groups in that
categorization and by under privilege I
mean people who wouldn't have access to
even know that this information is being
gathered and and um so that that's my
concern there I don't know what you
probably don't have an answer because I
think it's something you're always
working on but thank you so much Mandy
thank you Mark thank you so much
sanna thank you any other
questions nothing else uh Mark I do have
one um
I know you had um in the in the
presentation and I apologize if I missed
it but it was a building local wealth as
one of the categories or actions like
can you can you define that can you
better Define that how how that uh uh
building local wealth is
defined um so the the full coun sorry
mayor um the full Council goal is
establish a building local wealth
component within the city's Economic
Development uh Department
um I would I would defer to Economic
Development to assist in in answering
that question for
me good after good afternoon mayor and
city council my name is Elizabeth ters
economic development director
um so the build
local wealth is um because of anti
donations and how hard it is to get
certain programs in place and processes
in place you know it's just taking us a
little longer to get going on that um
but you know we are making progress
we're getting the mras in place um we're
working our industrial park and
everything so it's it's moving along
it's just moving along a little
slower yeah and I guess that was my
question is not so much like uh what is
um building local wealth like specific
and it's more General and that's what I
was looking what is a like that category
how is it
defined
okay Mr Mayor
shanth um so building local wealth is is
a fairly uh new approach uh uh few years
ago uh the strong towns um philosophy uh
kind of pushed that into our repertoire
in terms of planning um where we're
looking not just at attracting big
businesses um but really trying to grow
uh wealth within our community so uh the
the intent behind that goal was really
geared towards um empowering people who
already
um own or could own uh for example
property in Las Cruses and could develop
uh their own little U plot of land in
ways that could build their own wealth
um and then the cumulative effort or or
or the effect is really building local
wealth altogether as a city uh so that's
the general sort of um background behind
it if that's
where yeah that's what I was just
looking for something in general and and
and I understand the economic
development aspect of it all but I was I
was just wondering if there was more
like you know getting out of poverty
would be you know being an entrepreneur
and and doing those things so I guess it
all ties in that's what I was that's
what I was getting at so thank you AB
thanks for that anyone else okay no well
thanks for the presentation and U we'll
move now to item
3.2 the six semiannual police audit
report presented by the oir group uh um
Biola will in introduce thank you
hey good afternoon Mr mayor council I'm
Viola P City auditor and with us today
we have the oir group our contracted
police Auditors they're here today to
present their sixth semiannual police
audit report and to begin the
presentation I'd like to introduce
members of the oir group we have Teresa
magula and Steven Conley
hello and good afternoon Council Mr
Mayor really appreciate the opportunity
to be with you again today this is the
sixth time that we are here um I am
Teresa magula with oir group and I have
my colleague Steve Conley um and we are
really pleased to be with
you
um we are independent police practice
experts and you've seen this slide
before um we have over 20 years of
collective experience doing this type of
work overseeing police departments um in
California West Coast um and we have
nearly four years being here with your
Council and with your city um we met
with Mr city manager this morning and he
asked kind of the million-dollar
question which was where are we four
years into this and what does the
department look like what changes have
occurred since the start of our
contract
and really the high level overview is
that your department has established
what to us are very strong internal
review mechanisms um in the past four
years we've seen a development of the
department establishing procedures and
policies that have raised them to the
level of other jurisdictions and best
practices
Nationwide and to be more explicit when
we started we were talking to you all
about sort of loow hanging fruit kind of
fixes to the process things like did you
classify a complaint case appropriately
were you handling it in the formal and
serious manner that we would come to
expect um as best practices
Nationwide and over time we've gotten to
the point where we are now fairly
granular in how we are providing our
recommendations we've made nearly over a
hundred recommendations to your
department um and we have seen that the
department has grown as a result of
those but certainly our coming into your
city um had an impact um but the
Department's own measures of
accountability and their commitment to
holding their own Personnel accountable
has certainly shown through as well and
so we have seen in particular in the
past two years the department hold its
people accountable more frequently we
are seeing an increase in the amount of
internal investigations that are being
generated matters that perhaps
previously were being handled informally
are now being formalized and handled um
through the internal affairs
system matters that we were not seeing
um as a course of our scope of work um
for example critical incidents officer
involved shootings the department is now
committed and has generated Internal
Affairs investigations into those types
of incidents so that they become part of
our scope and we can provide our
feedback and recommendations regarding
those types of
incidents and the department has also
done a whole host of training of policy
changes they've brought in a police
practice expert that is Raising that
Department's level of compliance um with
its legal standards
we've seen the department commit to
certification through the Kalia process
in the past few years and all of those
things um are are items that the
department has self- selected so
certainly our presence perhaps has
influenced um but I don't want to take
the credit for that because they were
very internally generated um and it
speaks volumes to where your department
is today versus where it was four years
ago so just as a reminder of the scope
of work that we are tasked with um we
look at the cases that were closed by
the Los Cruses Police Department from
January 1st through June 30th of 24 for
this particular audit cycle so we take a
six-month chunk of those cases and we
review those we review two types of
complaints the complaints that are
internally generated by the department
formal
investigations and the complaints that
are generated by members of the public
so a member of the public expresses his
or her dissatisfaction with an encounter
with the police department those are
submitted to the department and
investigated and we see those when those
cases are
closed what are we looking for so we
want to make sure that those cases are
complete objective and thorough
essentially we want to make sure that
the department is looking at the case
and the complaint and the related
allegations holistically and it's coming
to the appr appropriate findings based
on the evidence and we certainly want to
make sure that any outcome that's coming
out of these is appropriate in some
cases the outcome will be disciplinary
in nature so the officer or non-sworn
employee will face some form of formal
discipline in other cases and we have
seen this increase over our time here
the action that's taken is a remedial
training for example or a counseling
session with a supervisor these things
that don't rise to the level of formal
discipline but are corrective actions
for the officer him or herself and we
have also seen some of these cases
result in training department wide so
some cases that suggest that there are
some training needs across the board and
we have seen the department commit to
those types of training bulletins
sessions with the legal advisor or
sessions during their biannual training
sessions and of course we report on Key
demographics um which are always
interesting at least to me we've had a
lot of numbers um in the past hour uh so
we're going to give you a few more
because why not I'm going to turn it
over to Steve and he's going to provide
some high level demographics for
y'all thank you Teresa good afternoon Mr
Mayor and and members of the council
Steve connley of O group and it's it's
very nice to be back with with with all
of you again and as I was just going
through our draft slides our Vin diagram
game could use some work clearly so we
will we will make a note of that and and
be ready for you the next time we visit
so uh just to give you a a a high
overview of some of the particulars from
this six-month window of cases that we
looked at I want to take a little bit of
a step back and talk about the process
uh more generally the meat and potatoes
of the work that we do in Las cruus and
I know this is familiar to many of you
but for for um newer members of of the
council or the public the The Lion Share
of the work that we do is to review
completed cases as Teresa mentioned and
we're looking at them from a variety of
perspectives the cases are done so we're
not going to go back in and undo
outcomes in a particular way but there
are two really important elements to to
our piece of it in terms of the whole
independent audit and and public
transparency and accountability piece
one is the the individual scrutiny and
again the increased transparency that
the discipline process is getting uh one
of the very unique features of our work
in Los crusis compared to other other uh
relationships that we have in other
jurisdictions is at the back of every
semiannual report you get individual
case memos from all of the work that
we've done and that that gives the
public a real window into the kinds of
things that that people are complaining
about or that officers are getting in
trouble about and and the nature and
thoroughness of the Department's
response so I think that transparency
piece is is key and then the second
element we we're trying to bring some
value added when possible beyond just
kind of of um monitoring and making sure
the department is is addressing these
things internally in a in an appropriate
fashion we're looking at it from our
outside perspective and with our
experience from other places and as
Teresa said occasionally making
recommendations to the department about
ways to to uh enhance their processes
either within the investigative Arena
itself or just in terms of some of the
subject matter uh officer performance
issues that that the cases themselves um
might might suggest could use a little
bit more attention and as Teresa said
the the Department's responsiveness to
that has been very gratifying you'll
notice that uh in terms of of how the
process works we will complete a draft
of the case we submit it to the city and
and then at the end of every one of our
individual case investigation memos
there is a management response from the
department and the chief is very much
engaged in that process himself he will
oftentimes call us after reviewing the
original draft he'll have questions
he'll have clarification occasionally a
little scratchy push back which we think
is great uh because he has a a
perspective and he has Illustrated
things for us or explain things to us
about the department and his vision of
things that have have changed our minds
about specific aspects of specific
reports so that that Dynamic I think is
a is a constructive one so that level of
Engagement and and kind of the desire on
the Department's part to not view our
presence as a nuisance to to put up with
but instead an opportunity to to pick
our brains and to bounce ideas off of us
and to potentially make alterations to
the department for the better uh is
certainly a gratifying part of of our
work work here and the last thing I say
before I and I promise I really am going
to get to these slides before uh before
much longer the last thing I would want
to say is as far as the public is
concerned and and again some of the
basic core questions that we get about
discipline process and some of the other
places that we work number one is is the
department Cooperative do they do they
go along with the program in terms of
providing us with what we need to do our
jobs or are they resistant
obstructionist in any way and I'm very
pleased to say that really since the
beginning of our time here uh the the
police department has been exceptionally
um collaborative and Cooperative with us
as a partner they always provide us with
all the information that we need and if
we have a question or concern or
specific desire for followup they are
extremely responsive to us so we
certainly have no complaints in that
Arena and then again are they listening
to us and are they are they receptive to
the things that we have to say I think
the answer to that question as I said
before is also yes that doesn't mean
they agree with us 100% of the time but
certainly the receptivity the the
careful consideration of our ideas is is
always happening so to get into the
weeds a little bit of this this latest
six month batch of cases two internally
generated cases as Teresa said that's an
important distinction again A lot of
times the public questions whether the
police are willing to take initiative
and and open investigations and hold
their own people accountable these
internally generated investigations are
things that wouldn't be pursued in terms
of accountability but for the
Department's own Department manage
Management's willingness to first of all
identify potential problems and then
pursue them in this formal way uh and
you can see some of the specifics about
the the cases that were involved here
one of them was a traffic collision
investigation that the initially
responding officers did not they were
they were inclined towards wanting to
just um find a shortcut basically to
resolve the situation and and another
officer and a supervisor came along and
made sure that there was a much more
thorough and appropriate investigation
into what happened and so the the two
original responding officers were
investigated and there was some
accountability in connection with that
the other case had to do with with uh
civilian employees who were in an
employment you know workplace related
dispute with each other and again that's
another category of thing that we'll
take a look
at in terms of the six external cases
these were citizen complaints that that
that the department uh ended up doing
formal investigations on and again there
were specific things that the individual
members of the public brought to the
Department's attention in terms of
specific issues with the ways they had
been treated but importantly and I think
this is again a sign of the progress
that Teresa was talking about the
department will take a look at something
once something comes on its radar screen
and they begin the investigation if they
identify additional issues in terms of
Officer performance officer shortcomings
that the complaintant didn't even know
about or or wasn't taking issue with the
department will go ahead and add that to
the investigation and and follow up on
it as well which again we think is a
good sign of of the commitment to a
holistic and thorough review one of
those uh external cases related to a use
of force that the member of the public
was complaining about and so again we
able to get a a a window into the Force
review process that we don't always get
to see but it was very helpful in this
case and we thought the department had
done a good job of handling it total
allegations so in terms of each
individual case the department can and
often does frame multiple allegations uh
in in the context of the same incident
or same allegation so one case might
have two or three officers who are
involved and the misconduct that issue
May implicate three or four different
policy sections so that's why you end up
with um generally a lot more allegations
in the course of an individual marking
period than than spec separate
investigations themselves and you can
see from from the findings here of the
allegations the vast majority of them
were sustained by the department
exonerated means that the behavior may
have in fact occurred but the department
found that it was consistent with
expectations even if the member of the
public was unhappy with it in one way or
another the unfounded cases means that
the allegations were disproven
conclusively by the evidence and that
last category is the evidence was
inconclusive we there wasn't enough
there to to uh exculpate the officer
completely from from any allegation but
also not enough conclusive evidence to
find that the officer had in fact
engaged in
misconduct and in terms of Officer
demographics just a little breakdown of
of the the category there were 12
different employees implicated in these
cases eight of them were sworn members
of the department they were police
officers and four of the employees
involved and I think it was in three
separate cases were were civilian
employees and again the department also
uh engages engages in its discipline
process to to address those issues as
well and and the civilians certainly
play an important role in the
functioning of the
agency uh in terms of the discipline
that resulted that the the consequences
are made available to us they range from
verbal reprimand to suspension to
termination uh and in in a couple of the
cases and obviously that is the most
severe consequence we will oftentimes
talk about the with the Department about
its decision- making and they will take
a look at a variety of factors in
determining what the appropriate
disciplinary consequence is and there
are some different circumstances that
will affect that this middle um bullet
point in this slide I think is an
important one to to go to one of the
points Teresa was making which is again
we have always seen the discipline
process as as an opportunity not just
for accountability but to look beyond
the bottom line of of guilty not guilty
versus well okay maybe there was no
policy violation here but did our review
of this you know give us a uh some
insight into an officer performance
issue or a training issue or an
equipment deficiency that that could
potentially make the department better
and we have certainly seen an increase
in our time here of the department being
proactive about saying okay this is not
sustained this is unfounded but we're
going to go ahead and and provide
training and similarly if if the if the
uh policy violation is sustained we're
going to give a consequence to this
officer but maybe as importantly for the
officer's future performance we're going
to make sure that they get the specific
relevant training to address whatever
shortcoming that the investigation
revealed and again uh I think we had two
different cases in which uh officers
were were separated from the Department
one is civilian and and one a sworn
officer and and um there was one officer
who had two cases from this particular
period and then lastly one of the things
that the city has asked us for and and
um I think the idea behind it is an
important one they've asked us for
demographics about complainants and in
an effort to see is is there anything
statistically significant that might
suggest a bias uh on on the part of the
department in terms of their enforcement
or their ways of Engagement with
different racial or ethnic groups and it
has been pretty consistent across the
board we actually um it occurs to me we
have enough numbers now that maybe we
could do a cumulative review uh but for
the individual audit periods where we we
come to talk to you we have never seen a
statistically significant deviation or
or Spike or strange Trend as far as the
demographics of the of the complainants
themselves and I'm going to turn it back
over to Teresa to talk about litigation
which is another uh element of of our
scope of work within the city Teresa
take it
away yeah as Steve mentioned we we have
also within our scope of work reviewing
any cases uh that resulted from
litigation so claims against the city um
that involved the Los Cruses Police
Department we received four of those in
this particular reporting period these
involved 13 employees that number is
skewed higher than what we might be used
to seeing um in large part because one
of these was a critical incident a
critical incident is um an officer
involved shooting um for example this
one was an officer involved shooting
that also included the deployment of a
canine that litigation is closed it has
been settled but the police department
is still conducting its internal
investigation they're nearly wrapping
that up um and so as a result in your
packet of memos you'll see a very brief
case summary but we wanted to hold our
official review of that case until until
we see the Department's internal
investigation um certainly litigation
can inform that um but we want to hold
until we have the full scope of that
investigation and the Department's
outcomes two of these cases involved
uses of a taser device um and these were
formally reviewed by the Force review
Cadre or Internal Affairs the Force
review Cadre I've spoken to you all
about before it's a team that the
department has put together of experts
in use of force and in training um that
are really looking at these incidents
very closely um and doing a deep dive
into how the force was used and if it
was reasonable necessary and
proportional um we have seen those
reviews now several times we find them
to be um very complete and very
thorough
in one of these cases we really saw the
importance of having multiple levels of
internal review which the department has
one of these cases was reviewed
initially by a supervisor and that
supervisor saw that there was some
concern with the use of the
taser that case was elevated to through
the chain of command um to review
whether the use of the taser was
reasonable and after a number of reviews
was determined it was okay it met all
the legal thresholds the claim was filed
and then the Force review Cadre decided
to take a look they were directed to
look at this case and appropriately
found that the use of the taser was
unreasonable and so this speaks of
course to that idea that first it's
important to get it right the first time
um but that the department is committed
to continual review of cases until they
do get the right outcome um so kind of
both sides of the coin one the
unfortunate circumstance um that it was
missed in the first time around but the
positive outcome that it was
appropriately remediated um on the back
end part of the challenge with
litigation is that the incidents
occurred several years ago so in that
case that I'm talking about that was a
taser deployment in 2020 and so four
years ago it's hard to uh take a look
today and say that that's where the
department is and in fact they've made a
lot of improvements around the use of
the Tas since that time so in the
interim time period we might make some
commentary about that particular um
incident that led to the litigation or
to the claim um but they have made
remarkable changes in the interim time
frame and you'll see that in the report
um in particular with respect to uses of
the taser the department has their
police practice legal adviser um who is
providing a lot of training around the
legal uses of the device
we have seen um the department review
and in fact just this morning got an
updated version of their policy with
respect to tasers um we will certainly
be reporting out on that policy and the
updates and we have seen a lot of
training happen with respect to use of
the taser and so since 2020 we've seen a
lot of development um in the use of that
device so while litigation of course has
its value um in helping to
inform cases and reviews and internal
accountability um it also has occurred
you know sometime in the past and it's
difficult to make um determinations of
where the department is today based on
that
litigation uh finally we had a case that
alleged an unlawful use of force and
arrest um that was dismissed um that it
was unfounded um and the video evidence
did not support the claims that were
being made in that case
um as I said kind of at the top of the
presentation the department has been
extremely receptive to our
recommendations I mentioned there's been
over a hundred of them in the past four
years and the department has created
some very strong internal mechanisms for
review so when we first started IIA was
um staffed um perhaps insufficiently due
to Staffing concerns and challenges now
it is fully staffed with experienced
personnel that have been to IA school
that have a lot of background in
investigations we are seeing that the
velocity of the case timelines is um
much faster than it used to be they have
completed um almost every case um there
is no backlog at present so as a case
comes in it is being investigated closed
and sent to us I'm in a very timely way
that's really important there are a lot
of agencies that drag their feet a bit
with the internal investigation process
and the department has really caught up
with that respect as I mentioned the
Force review Cadre is providing these
more holistic evaluations their
evaluations are also action items so
once they have reviewed a case if
there's any um questions around the
reasonableness of the force it is
directed to Internal Affairs for a
formal investigation and potential
disciplinary outcomes so that connection
is certainly been made and is one that
we feel is going to improve prove the
way that officers are using force in the
field and of course I've mentioned a few
times this police legal adviser um we
have certainly seen a lot of the
material that he has produced for the
Department we find it to be very user
friendly um there are bulletins for
example that they're putting up in um
break rooms and bathrooms to just
carefully remind officers of what they
can and can't do and we find those to be
very useful there is a whole host of
things that we are requiring our
officers to know um and it's helpful to
have those friendly reminders I know I
certainly can use friendly reminders all
of the
time and as I said we have seen these
refinements in the investigation process
so early on we were saying things like
make sure you interview officers full
stop make sure you locate all your
Witnesses and interview them full stop
now we're getting really granular so
when you are interviewing an officer can
you be creative if an if you suspect
that an officer may not be truthful in
his or her statements what kind of
interview techniques could you use to
help encourage that officer to be
truthful during his or her Internal
Affairs
investigation we are also seeing
supervisors um conduct more
comprehensive investigations than in the
past and certainly if an issue is rising
to the level of needing a formal
investigation the department is doing
so and as Steve mentioned there's a
whole host of allegations that are now
being identified that are beyond the
initial complaint that comes in so the
department is looking at things like was
the report that the officer issued
comprehensive and up to standards did
the officer turn on his or her body warn
camera tag the evidence save the
evidence to his or her name really
detailed nuances that we're looking at
and expecting the department to fulfill
on and they're doing so and when they
don't holding the officer
accountable with respect to
policy as I mentioned we had some
concerns around the use of the taser
device the department has made a lot of
constructive changes around how it's
using the taser device and the training
and policy for use of that device and
we're seeing as I mentioned and a
continued focus on making sure that
those uses are
appropriate one of the categories that
really was important to me early on was
the response to civil standby calls um
so a civil standby is when a member of
your public is requesting that an
officer come to the location to
literally stand by on the off chance
that that encounter should escalate to
something that requires police
intervention really early on when we
came in we saw a host of cases that
suggested to us that officers were not
quite clear about what they were meant
to do on these calls and it was it is a
tricky situation right you have parties
that are usually at odds with each other
and the tension in those situations is
high and so some officers were
intervening in a way that was escalating
tension others were standing by uh
without taking appropriate Intervention
when it was
necessary we recommended and the
department really took it to heart that
they retrain officers on this particular
type of call and so they issued a
training bulletin it was part of the
training sessions that they had on
domestic disputes uh really started to
uh give officers the tools they needed
to know how to respond and just in this
past period we saw two cases involving
civil stand standbys both we saw the
officers really improve in the way that
they were responding to the call so
while the complaintants were
dissatisfied with the outcome the
outcomes were largely aligned with the
Department's policies on how an officer
should respond um in one of these cases
the complainant was requesting that the
partner be arrested because the
complainant did not want the partner on
the property um the officer came in
offered the uh information needed for a
restraining order if that was
necessary advised that the parties speak
to the court around disputes around uh
the furniture that each wanted to keep
or give and so rather than stepping in
and escalating and arresting someone and
creating a whole host of concerns the
officer really stood by the book um and
responded in the way that uh was
appropriate for their policy
the last category that we've seen um
which is very commendable to the Las
cruus Police Department is that there is
a continued focus on the officer's duty
to
intervene this is not an easy ask for
officers at times it is an officer
intervening on his or her peer sometimes
on his or her Superior officer it is a
requirement these days of law
enforcement that officers do that um but
it is certainly a heavy lift
to ask um of officers and we are seeing
the department Foster a culture that
really is focused on holding your peer
officers and superiors accountable and
we saw that in two different cases in
this period Alone um one was the
incident that Steve mentioned regarding
a traffic collision where some officers
who arrived first wanted to take a few
shortcuts and a third officer who
arrived said I don't think so let me
call a supervisor
in that supervisor intervened at that
point as well in some cases we're seeing
an officer him or herself identify that
he or she is becoming too heated or too
engaged and intervening in his or her
own behavior so one was a domestic
standby call where the officer felt that
his continued presence was escalating
took a stand back called an officer to
help and that officer was able to more
effectively deescalate the situation as
I said
this is not easy and the department is
really focused on fostering that culture
here and I think we have a few cases
coming um in the next few months which
you'll see in the next cycle where
officers have intervened and reported
potential misconduct and that is very
commendable the newest component of our
scope of work is community outreach and
so uh we are really excited to be
hosting our first listening session upon
completion of this council meeting right
here in council chambers um this is
something that we are grateful that
Council agreed to uh put into our scope
of work um and we are hopeful that we
will have great engagement from your
community it is a session that is
designed to hear the community's
perspective so we may you know just
provide some overview of our role and
who we are but overall ultimately the
goal is to hear your community the
interactions that they have with their
Police Department any concerns or
challenges any positives any
commendations um and to begin that
engagement in Earnest with your
community um it is something that we do
regularly with other jurisdictions and
we're really excited to start that
process here so our first session
happens right here in council chambers
any member of the public is welcome to
join any member of the public is also
welcome to reach out to us directly we
have our website there and we have an
email address info@ group.com if for any
reason you can't attend today but you
wish to communicate with us um we are
available at that email address for
comments questions um anything the
public might wish to engage with us on
and that is our presentation I will open
it to questions or comments and thank
you for your
attention oh thank you Teresa and thank
you Steve uh Council any
questions
yes Council
Flores well I had to really think how
I'm going to ask this
question um so I have to preface it by
saying that I respect uh our chief story
very much and um but how is it that how
do you find out about the cases that are
problematic who reports to you who
reports it to you is it a self-reporting
uh
system uh I mean because it isn't as if
you're here and talk to the community or
Johnny on the spot when something
happens so that's uh yeah I'd like to
know thank you Mr Mayor and council
member Flores thanks for that question
um so we received cases um in from
directly from the Department the way
that the process works for the
Department is that any member of the
public who has a complaint whether that
be on the scene of a particular incident
or after the fact has access to be able
to communicate that complaint to the
supervisor um on that particular watch
so the member of the public can submit a
form an actual paper form to do so um
you can submit a complaint on the city
website you can call directly um to the
police department and speak to a
supervisor who may who will take your
complaint um the other way is to call
the city's Anonymous hotline so there is
the city's hotline that will also take
complaints against members of the Los
cruus Police Department so those are the
Avenues that a member of the public
could potentially take if he or she had
what they perceived to be a negative
encounter that requires um
um that action from the police
department another means of course is to
email us directly if that is something
um that the member of the public feels
more comfortable doing um so we will
forward those complaints um to the
police department in those
cases the other category that we review
are those complaints that are internally
generated so that would be something
that either the chief or his Command
Staff or supervisor determine is an
issue that needs to be investigated
formally because it involves potential
misconduct those cases also come to us
um and so we review both categories and
those are the mechanisms by which those
categories are
initiated has there been a rise in um
you been with us for about what four
years now um has there been a rise in uh
reports that you receive about
misconduct or disciplinary problems or
anything of that
sort thank you again Mr Mayor and and
council member Flores so I I think the
information Teresa provided was helpful
I I'm wondering if you were almost
expressing like how do we know we're
getting everything that that that
actually is being raised you are a mind
reader well it's easy to be the guy
standing over on the side right instead
of at the podium so I think and and and
I I as I said I have to preface it by uh
saying that I have the utmost respect
for Chief story and um and uh officers
that I've met uh but yes that is my
question I'm asking it uh for
transparency sake and to let our public
know and our fellow employees uh our
city uh people uh population whatever uh
here hear how the information gets to
you so I think it is a very fair
question but I would say a couple things
that are are checks and balances there
one is as Teresa said the public is
aware when it's made a complaint it's
aware of the different mechanisms that
are in existence and and theoretically
you know that there is accountability
there in terms of somebody having the
opportunity to make sure that any issue
they have raised has been processed
appropriately and second the in terms of
the things that the police department is
presenting to us obviously we are
dependent on them and their trans
transparency and their cooperation with
the process but we've had no reason to
believe that they have held things back
and in fact they have shared things with
us that that obviously don't reflect
particularly well on the department so
we don't think they're trying to massage
or or uh or or um censor material in any
way and the last thing I would say is I
don't think there are any guarantees if
there were going to be a big conspiracy
but again we have had a very positive
impression of the department and I think
from a checks and balances perspective
the the the having something like that
come to light a year later two years
later like wow this thing should have
been given to the independent auditor
and it wasn't and it looked like they
were hiding information from him that is
would obviously be a a very negative
consequence in an of itself so we have
not had that experience in any of the
agencies that that we have worked with
and all of the indications that we get
in Los Cruses are that the process is
legitimate and working the way it's
supposed to thank you um Miss uh B yeah
Biola uh does provide us with the
reports that you submit to to the city
and uh and they seem somewhat thorough I
mean what do I know if they're thorough
or not but they appear to be thorough um
and uh some of those cases I think are
based on people who call
in um have some concerns some of them
are kind of um well I I won't judge it
but yeah they're it's interesting to see
that so
um is everything submitted to U Miss
P so miss perea actually gets a broader
we everything that we have hands on is
going to go to miss perea for for her
review and to the city attorney's office
as well to be clear and as Teresa said
at the beginning there are actually
other categories of of complaint that
are less of less severity that that are
not part of our scope of work and so we
don't see those but yeah other City
officials there is transparency in terms
of those things and the chief actually
provided us with some information today
about some of the cases some aggregate
data on the cases that we don't have uh
exposure to because they are at a lower
level and below our scope great but you
do review some and uh well you review
everything it's sent to you and then you
have a uh an opinion on that everything
that's sent to us gets the same process
and yeah we scrutinize them all pretty
carefully great thank you very much
thank you Mr
Mayor thank you
counselor no other questions all right
well thank you thank you for your
presentation and good luck with the
public uh presentation later thank
you okay that concludes our work session
I'll need a motion to adjourn
so move by Flores seconded
Corin this is on the motion to adjourn
the work session councelor McClair yes
councelor matis yes councelor Graham yes
councelor cran yes councelor flet yes
councelor bomo is absent and mayor
yes
for
e for