[Music]
you're
on yeah good afternoon Welcome to our
work session again Monday January 22nd
it is approximately 1:16 p.m. and so
we'll go ahead and start our meeting the
first thing we have is pets of the week
first it's
okay
we'll get you in a
minute let me adjust this all righty
hello everyone my name is Amy def Felix
with the Animal Services Center of the
missia valley and I'll present the pets
of the week always start with our cat of
the week and this week his name is Percy
his number is
71304 and he says I like to be the life
of the party and the center of attention
I'm very outgoing and friendly I might
be better as the only cat in the home as
I am a bit of a particular boy when
while I do love attention I don't like
to be babied so please don't hold or
carry me for too long I just want to be
respected loved and revered as the king
I
am and then we have our dog of the week
her name is Jackie and her number is
62207 and she says initially I can be a
little shy but all I need are some sweet
words and gentle reassurance and then
I'll show you my soft and loving side
I've gotten used to being on a leash
thanks to some lovely volunteers who
spent time with me so now I'm just
waiting on my forever family to take
over helping me build confidence and
watching me Blossom and we do have one
adoption event um this Saturday January
27th we we will be at Staples um that's
2260 East lman Avenue we'll be there
from 10:00 a.m. to 1: p.m. I believe we
will only be having um adoptable dogs I
don't think we have mobile banks for
cats but um definitely stop by see some
of the lovely dogs we'll have available
for adoption and then of course I like
to I'm going to try and share all of our
links um every week as well our our main
websites ascmv
[Music]
ororgani so our next episode's coming
out soon so stay tuned for that um but
that is all that I have thank
you thank
you okay so next on the agenda we have
the American Rescue plan act update uh
Liam
Beasley
good afternoon Mar andrias and City
councilors I'm Liam Beasley and I work
here in the accounting department and me
and a few other city employees are going
to give you all an update on the
American Rescue plan act or arpa funds
that the city has
received so starting with just a little
bit of background the arpa was a was
signed into law in 2021 and it was a
federal stimulus package of 1.9
trillion it went out to over 30,000
state and local governments and of that
it's about 350 billion that went to
State and local
governments it's designed to provide
direct relief to Americans to respond to
the negative economic and public health
impacts from the pandemic and the city's
portion is that we received two tranches
of about $12.4 million
each and the city's using these to focus
on different categories or Focus areas
in order to help the
community and there are two deadlines
related to arpa that we're going to keep
in mind the obligation deadline is
December 31st 2024 and that just simply
means we need to have all of our arpa
funds under contract with either a
community organization or another
contractor to carry out the projects by
that
deadline the spending deadline was dece
or will be December 31st 2026 so we have
two years from the obligation deadline
to actually spend all of the
funds these are the focus areas or
categories that the city is using arpa
for we have public health and safety
negative economic impacts through visit
Los cruus premium pay for city employees
Water and Sewer projects other capital
projects and then supporting Community
organizations and so now I'll give a
brief overview of the financials
as mentioned previously the city
received about $24.8 million from the
federal government and as of December
31st 2023 we spent a little under 8
million the unspent balance is 16.8
million and so we spent about 32% of the
total and then on December 31st the
unliquidated
obligations were 10.2 million and that
just simply means that uh we have
outstanding contracts and purch purchas
orders that will be paid out for various
contractors and Community
organizations and so the balance that
hasn't been either spent or obligated is
about 6.6
million and so 73% of the total has been
either spent or
obligated now I'll go into some of the
individual
categories and further on in the
presentation we'll have uh various
employees from the city come up and give
you more details about that and also if
you want uh further financial
information like a more detailed
breakdown you should all have been
provided a hand out which has that
information so with the public health
category they had a $2 million
allocation of the total and as of
December 31st they were 77% spent and
obligated and the balance left is
459,000
visit Las Cruses had an allocation of 1
million spent and obligated at
87% with a balance of
133,000 the premium pay category had an
allocation of
98.5 th000 and that's been fully spent
and that was uh paid out to city
employees in October of
2021 Water and Sewer projects was 3.5
million which has been 37% spent in
obligated with a balance of 2.2
million and then the capital projects
category had a $6.9 million allocation
and it's been 98% spent and obligated
with a balance of1
160,000 now I'll cover some of the
community
organizations starting with the boys and
girls club their contract is just under
1.4 million they're fully spent and
obligated Catholic Charities was a
contract of 550,000 fully obligated as
well Community Action Agency was a $1.7
million contract
also fully spent and obligated and then
the same thing with cruus creatives
which was a $1 million
contract Hardin losos with 350,000 for
their contract and then lift fund we've
actually mostly paid out out of their $1
million contract we've paid 950,000 and
the remaining 50,000 will be paid
out then with the m valy Community of
Hope their contract was
300,000 again which is fully
obligated and then moving on we have the
msia valley public housing authority
with a contract of 306,000 which is
fully
obligated then we have the New Mexico
Housing and Community Development
Corporation which was a 2 million
allocation and it's showing 0% because
the contract is still going is being
finalized
so and then we have the workforce
programs which are going to Total to
940,000
and those contracts are also in progress
and there will be details on those
further on in the slide as
well and then the storefront repair
grant program this is to help small
businesses the allocation was 400,000
and it was spent and obligated at
21% and the balance is
318,000
the administrative category helps the
city cover some of their costs related
to administering these contracts that's
478,000 it was spent in OB at at 10% and
the balance is 430,000
and then the totals for all the
community organizations were an
allocation of 10.4 million spent spent
an obligation of
65% and the balance is 3.7
million and now I'll turn it over to
Chief Smith who will discuss some of his
projects
and good afternoon mayor members of city
council fire chief Jason Smith for the
record I just to cover some of the
things that we're doing uh with your
fire department out of our training and
advanced CPR allocation of 300,000
roughly we're looking at doing some
Advanced EMT training with donana
Community College uh this year we're
going to be sending 16 firefighters uh
through their class to get their AMT
we'll be sending eight this semester and
then eight in the all that should use
about 880,000 of the 330,000 remaining
in that fund we're also looking at
Contracting Services for continuing
education uh our paramedics require 60
hours every two years uh to renew their
license and we're looking at bringing in
a new company to provide in-person
training as well as a cadaver lab that
will utilize the rest of the 330,000 for
PPE and equipment we have roughly about
70,000 remaining we're going to use that
to purchase additional ventilators as
well as well as CPR compression devices
we use the striker Lucas device what
these two devices allow us to do
ventilators we can take over
ventilations for somebody who's in
respiratory distress or compromise and
then for CPR the compression device
actually allows us to continue CPR
compressions while we transport somebody
to the hospital uh the remaining uh
funds that we have are 46,000 for
Construction and design that'll all go
uh towards the mih building that we're
looking at constructing next to the new
Fire Station 3
that's all of the uh updates for fire
and now I believe uh DC Mullen from PD
will be
up good afternoon mayor council Sean
Mullen Lo crues Police Department for
the record um first line item for the
Department was smart technology and we
were allocated
$200,000 with this funds we purchased
four units these are surveillance
trailers and they are solar powered they
have a 360° camera angle and with a call
down feature and what this allows us to
do is uh deploy these throughout the
city in different areas uh based on
either crime data uh residential
requests and it also allows us to have a
stop Gap in security for businesses
affected by crime and one of the ways we
do that is by placing the trailer at an
affected business while we have a
community outreach or another law
enforcement uh partner go out and look
over the business and offer any uh
security upgrades that may be needed
whether it be increased lighting bars on
windows a security system things of that
nature but it gives a little bit of a
security in the interim it also allows
us to place them around the city where
um residents fill there are needed as
well as uh Department statistics this is
100% spent for this
item next uh we're police victim and our
crime victim and Community Advocate
Vehicles we purchase four Electric
hondai konas uh collectively these four
vehicles have just under 4,000 mies
traveled within the city on them um they
are used to transport victims uh police
department members to um Community
functions and events um out of this
money
$1,260 remained and it was approved to
be transferred for first responder PPE
kits and the last item was
Communications for the Department which
was $40,000 this money was used to
purchase 2011 lines for the police
department uh and provide uh every
officer with a cell phone to be use for
work purposes we're able to communicate
with citizens uh through these phones as
well as access departmental tools uh
albe it um excuse me uh Microsoft Word
Excel uh things of that nature but also
our evidence.com application so we can
download videos from our body warn
cameras access them and also uh review
links that are sent to us from citizens
uh in the
field and that is all the items I I
have okay this is going to take a while
just kidding good afternoon mayor mayor
protown counselors relle Miller
Hernandez for the
record I'm here to talk about visit L
Cruis so the visit l C program was
awarded $1 million in arpa funding to
address the sign significant negative
impact of Tourism travel and
Hospitality
um in fact the final rule specifically
identifies this industry as dis
disproportionately
affected the funds have been used uh
with the intent to generate spending in
these local businesses in this uh
industry and this not only includes
hotels restaurants uh but also
businesses such as special event rentals
attractions tour companies uh pet
boarding Services all types of
businesses that were affected by the
stop in travel and
tourism visit Los crues has
strategically allocated the funds for
immediate short-term and long-term
recovery projects um evidence of the
impact can be seen in Lodgers tax
revenue recovery they have returned to
or surpassed pre pandemic levels
um those numbers were in fy19 prior to
the pandemic we had uh larger tracks
revenue of about 2.2 million uh in 20
fy20 it was 1.8 but it was trending to
be 2.3 million in fy21 it was 1.7
22 uh we saw 3 million due to the Surge
and travel across the country uh
throughout the world actually and then
FY 23 ended with 2.7 million
and this year is trending to be the same
or slightly above there is an important
thing to note that though during the
pandemic loger tax had to cover the
shortfall of approximately
$500,000 for um the operations and bond
debt for the convention center since it
was not bringing in any business and
none of the convention center fee uh was
being collected at the
hotels so examples of the immediate and
short-term projects um include the
following but it is also important
another thing to note is that local
advertising um is usually kept at a
minimal because Lodgers tax statutes
require that we Market outside of the
area because the ultimate goal is to
bring visitors to our city but because
arpa funds was to be utilized to help
these type of businesses we were able to
spend it here
locally um local advertising includes
radio digital broadcast commercial
commer social media Internet ads search
engine marketing and Highway Billboards
uh we also have a video at the El Paso
Airport and a static ad in the luggage
area at the airport for about 18 months
we had the three-way banners that you
would see on lman and Amador and those
were designed to um entice people to
stay and at least eat and Shop here
while they were here in town again
spending money in in those
businesses we had a vent revitalization
of vents as you know are a key
contributor to visitor and local
spending um the events were required to
spend any supporting funds in those
effective businesses so for example they
had to spend the funds at hotels maybe
for the lodging for the entertainers or
catering for events or those type of
businesses
um Restaurant Week was encouraged was
launched to encourage spending in local
eateries wineries breweries
and then you will see here shortly next
month um the Sunseeker Trails pass which
is going to be
promoting not not only our outdoor
recreation but spending in restaurants
and
Retail um we
also when businesses started to return
We hosted a bis sprin event with
Arrowhead Park to um help businesses in
this these industries think of other
ways outside of the norm to generate
business
business and we've
also hosted several social media
influencers um which has generated a PR
value of nearly
$400,000 and uh has also enticed people
to visit businesses restaurants and so
forth so we also have long-term impact
projects um again we try to think
outside the box and what we could just
not only do immediately for our
businesses in this these industri
indries but also what would benefit them
for several years to come so Visos Cruis
as you know as we've mentioned before uh
launched a new website with our new
branding and since our launch compared
comparing year-to-year data um we've
seen 100% increase in engaged website
visitors so they basically are visitors
that are engaging like not just visiting
the homepage but exploring within has
doubled and there has been significant
ific increases to uh the hotel
restaurant and things to do Pages as
well we have our new visitors guide
which we spoke about last month um was
redesigned to focus on Leisure
conventions outdoor wreck and sports
travel Travelers needs um and our
Spanish version is currently I'm happy
to announce at the printer so we will
have that here shortly and it'll be
available in person and
digitally um the convention
center let's see we have the new large
Marquee on the corner that I'm sure
several of you have seen uh has updated
technology it not only highlights what's
happening at the center but it also H
highlights what's happening throughout
the city and then we also uh installed
visual assets um of uh photos enticing
you to go experience our Cuisine our
culture um other attractions that we
have often your convention traveler will
just stay in the convention center and
their hotel um we've heard a lot of
great comments of I went to that
restaurant because I saw this in the
center um and I'm also happy to announce
or excited to announce that we are in
the design phrase of an iconic Las
crusis sign that will also be by the
center on the union side um basically
it's each individual letter of L cruus
um it will be approximately six feet
tall and it it's already a little
elevated so it'll be really tall when
it's done and then it'll light up we'll
be able to change the colors and stuff
and you see that in a lot of cities and
I'm really proud that we're going to
have one in ours as well and that'll
bring business not only to the center
but to the university
Corridor um many of you have seen the
conamore mural that again has attracted
visitors to Los cruus in the downtown
area and the downtown businesses and we
see people there almost every day taking
photos either during the day or even at
night with lights set up and their
cameras and and we see a lot of posts on
that we did a video series we're
reaching the end of that but we've
highlighted um like place for space the
Rio Grand Theater the river and the
story behind The River Why it's empty
part of the year um but what it does for
our community uh murals of L crues
huntings uh the pero Mano tiwa and
several other topics and you can view
these on our YouTube channel because as
you know in today's marketing you have
to have that visual asset or those
visual assets it's key to get visitors
to your city and your
businesses and then finally as mentioned
uh visit L cruus we are proud to say we
spent or incumbered 87% of our arer
spending our funding and the remaining
133,000 in funds will be used uh
partially for the construction of the
sign I just mentioned and continued
advertising on broadcast and build board
boards thank
you mayor council Chris faor for the
record um I'll talk to you a little bit
about the storefront repair grant
program and then jump into some of the
community nonprofit grants uh so last
year we allocated
$400,000 um in unused arpa funds at that
time time for this program um and it was
to assist businesses who were having
issues with vandalism things of that
nature um sort of as a result of some of
the effects of the pandemic um and some
eligible expenses were broken windows
doors locks or just general vandalism
graffiti that type of thing there's
several requirements for this business
but but basically you need to be within
the city limits and you had to be in
business as of May 11th 2023 and we set
that date because that was the last date
of the federal um Public Health
Emergency for covid so as long as you
were in business as of that dat you
could qualify for potential funding of
the $400,000 we'll probably get to about
uh around $200,000 this year so we'll
probably be looking for a third party to
help us with the remaining balance so we
can keep this program going through 2026
because it's it's very popular we've had
quite a few um applicants um and and I
think about 86 six different businesses
have been
funded uh the community grants the local
nonprofits so I go through a quick uh
update on each one of these little
description and we do have uh
representatives from these organizations
in the audience if you have questions at
the end so the boys and girls club um
the this money was used for their
Capital campaign uh project and that was
to buy the purchase of the old video for
El um on elao the the Allen theater is
building there and that'll be the home
of the boys and girls club uh moving
forward the Catholic Charities were
providing direct rent utility and
medical assistance to low-income
families in Los crusis with the target
audience of about 500 um uh over the
life of this
program Community Action Agency
implemented the family Prosperity
program and this was giving 150 Los
cruus families about $500 uh for 18
months with the goal to demonstrate the
positive effects of a cash transfer
program on their family
well-being The Community of Hope uh
instituted the landord landlord risk
mitigation fund and this was to assist
landlords who offer housing to low
income or individuals experiencing
homelessness uh their goal was to
provide assistance to about a 100
individuals or families struggling to
find housing uh during this
time crusis creatives uh the learning
loss recovery program this was uh
educational in school and after school
project based programs uh intended to
address learning loss that uh children
suffered during the pandemic currently
they are in 41 schools in the district
serving approximately 15,000 students
through June 25 um C school
year Hardin deos nios was providing
therapeutic support related to emotional
trauma uh they were doing emo learning
support in a classroom setting and they
were looking to uh serve about 200
individuals or families for this project
as
well lift fund so they did right
Revitalize uh small businesses this was
direct financial assistance to Los
crusis businesses so 45 businesses
received Grant Awards between $10,000
and
$25,000 um and they gave um priority to
business as relle had stated before and
the rest accommodation service industry
or those who had not received prior uh
funding either through PPE or other
covid based relief
programs and I will turn this over to
Irene po to talk about the workforce
programs good afternoon mayor city
council a b with economic
development
so the following Workforce Development
projects were recently approved by
Council on December 4th we are working
right now with the finance department to
finalize all agreements with partners
and we hope to have those agreements in
place within the next three weeks so
that programs can begin spring of
2024 with a completion date uh on or
before December
2026 the first project that was approved
is the transitional job training program
we will be working with doniana
Community College through their career
in life skills academy the project was
awarded
$240,000 and this is a three-year
project to support individuals at or
below the poverty level as well as those
experiencing housing insecurity to help
build skills and knowledge with the goal
of re-entering the workforce um just to
clarify I know this is listed as a
three-year project but it will consist
of six cohorts the first two cohorts
will take place spring and fall of 2024
the the second will take place spring
and fall of 2025 and the final two in
the spring and fall of 2026 so we'll
meet that deadline on on or before
December 2026 if there's questions the
second project that was approved was the
uh child care provider program we will
be working with engage on this project
their project was awarded $300,000 and
this is a two-year
project the first cohort will begin
spring of
2026 and the second fall
ex me the second of 2025 spring of
2025 the third project that was approved
is the apprenticeship program we'll be
working with Southern New Mexico
Independent Electrical Contractors the
project was awarded $200,000 and this is
a two-year project this project will
begin fall of 2024 and complete uh fall
of 2025 excuse me 26 the next project
that was approved is a
pre-apprenticeship program we'll be
working with New Mexico Workforce
Solutions department on this project
project the project is awarded $100,000
and this is a 2-year project project
will begin fall of 2024 and complete
fall of 20126 and the final project that
was awarded funding was the
manufacturing training program we'll be
working with the msia valley economic
development Alliance this project is
awarded $100,000 and this is a one-year
project the project will begin training
20 excuse me fall of
good afternoon Mr Mayor Natalie Green uh
house revitalization administrator for
the housing and Neighborhood Services
section um the two housing projects are
are both under contract the first
project is the Oak Street Apartments
it's a permanent support of housing for
Veterans uh it received match funding
from the Community Development block
grant uh program and so they have
finalized their bid selection and they
have ative of construction start date in
February and they'll be doing rehab in
place for those veterans uh the second
project is the pach tree Canyon uh
Apartments phase one it is a 4%
low-income housing tax credit project uh
they are working to close on all of
their financing they do go to the State
Board of Finance in March um and then
they will uh will be closing on those
144 units and so um again those are all
obligated and we will meet the
expenditure deadlines and so I will turn
it over for utilities for water and
sewer
projects hello mayor Commissioners um
counselors I apologize I'm Carl Clark
I'm the assistant utilities director but
um I'm here to talk about the arpa
fundings that uh we received for the uh
septic replacement projects is really
what it is uh we received approximately
$1.3 million for this effort and uh we
spent uh
$78,000 right now up to date uh on
Switching people over from their septics
and tying on to Municipal
sewer um we have approximately 591 th000
left over uh we started off with an
initial mailing of 155 residents because
we have approximately 326 residents that
can convert over but uh we didn't want
to uh send a mailing out to everybody
and not have enough funding for that so
we initiated 155 residents uh it was
really based on a matrix that we uh put
together where uh we asked questions
such as uh impacts with covid on the
household um uh we we reached out to the
local moderate income um we also looked
at our uh 2008 uh septic tank replace
replacement uh uh master plan where it
indicates the priority level of getting
these uh septics replaced so if they
were a high priority and a top priority
they they receive additional points in
that Matrix the top priorities are well
U septics that are within a th000 ft of
our domestic Wells or Municipal Wells I
should should
say um with the 155 mailings we had
about 60 respond um we've already
converted approximately 50 three of
those so we moved through them quickly
uh we actually only got started in April
so um we have seven that are pending uh
the plumbers have already received the
request to move forward with those so
those should get completed quickly um
and then we're uh adding some more
mailings because we can do approximately
38 more residents um we're averaging
about 13,300 each household to convert
them over uh some are higher they've
gone all the way up to about 20,000
depending on the Landscaping we have to
deal with if we have to replace concrete
Etc so I stand for any questions you may
have um I did put some more uh slides in
there um where it shows where we've
completed projects and where we have
pending the green shows completed in
District 2 and the uh yellow is pending
so our plumbers will be out there
shortly um here's Alam Estates um we
have uh four that are green uh we don't
have any pending in that area but uh
that's a low to moderate income area
plus it's within a th000 ft of City well
so we'll be looking at that one closer
and then finally uh there's a large
portion we did over here in h and Acres
subdivision development that was one of
our Matrix uh items as well was uh
ordinance uh 2970 that was passed back
in 2021 that required households to
connect to sewer if there's sewer put
into the roadway um that ordinance
doesn't have any any fines or penalties
but it's still an ordinance that's in
place so they they moved up the list uh
by it's these last two streets uh I I
can't even see them right now on this
little computer but it's the last two
streets to the east there U that and you
can see the majority of those people
have connected to the system already uh
with this arpa funding so um I stand for
any questions you may have if not I'll
move on thank
you good afternoon mayor councel David
CIO Public Works director and I'll be
going over some capital projects that
included arpa funding there's a couple
types of arpa funding that were
allocated for capital projects one was
for Revenue lost and the other is part
of that utilities f funding that you saw
the 3.5 2.2 million will be
allocated so with that the 2.2 million
was allocated and we're using it for
casalinda Acres reconstruction project
we have the the design which will be
complete this month we're anticipating
being in construction in the spring of
this year 2024 with an estimated
completion of the same time around
spring and next year
2025 of that 2.2 million we've spent
just a little over $10,000 for
geotechnical services on the project
design once that project is awarded the
remaining 2.19 million will be
encumbered for the
project our next project is the 2018 go
bonds this project allocated $413
million that was spread over the
projects in in the four questions those
projects that receive this funding were
the East Mesa Public wreck complex the
walking jogging trails unath Park the
annual Services Center which did include
the two dog parks as part of the
construction and sports park and sports
courts and improvements currently right
now that funding of 4.1 we've spent
77% or
$3.16
million the remaining 965 th000 is
encumbered and allocated to the
continuation of the improvements at the
East Mesa Public wreck
complex the other projects have been
completed with arpa
funding our next project is the transit
Maintenance building project this is
located adjacent to utilities off of
Motel
Boulevard the project is under
construction arpa funds were allocated
in the amount of $ 2.76
million of that we've only spent
1% but again These funds have been
encumbered and will be in expended with
the project as we go through to
completion which that estimated
completion date is October of this year
2024 lastly we do have the mobile
Integrated Health Unit project we
received
$365,000 for architectural and
Engineering Services for the design that
design is currently in progress we're
approximately 30% so we're about 29%
spent on the arpa funding the remainder
is obligated and encumbered for the
design and we will have that design
completed this year in
2024 as you can see these projects that
do have arpa funding will be expended by
the date of December 31st 2026 for
capital projects and now I'll turn the
presentation back over to Mr Liam
Beasley Liam Beasley again for the
record um so to conclude the presid
presentation I just want to briefly
discuss a tool the city uses called
opengov This is a transparency tool used
by various local governments and it's
integrated on the city's public website
which is Los cr.gov it's available to
you all as well as members of the public
and it provides an overview of arpa as
well as up-to-date financial information
for how the city is spending the money
and this does communicate directly with
our accounting system so it is updated
on a daily
basis and in order to give a
demonstration I'm just going to go to
the public website and show you where
you can find
it so here's the main page of lis.gov on
the top bar if you go to government and
then underneath there's a section called
transparency and accountability and
within that one of the options is
arpa and so clicking on that will take
you to the main arpa page
and at the top we have that background
information that we've covered and then
the first graph you're going to see is
going to be all of the project
categories combined into
one and so for this we have the amended
budget as well as the actual spending
for each fiscal year that we've had the
arpa funds and open goov breaks it down
into different categories such as the
operating projects the capital projects
as well as Personnel spending
and the graphs are interactive so if
somebody wanted to take a more detailed
look at the capital category for
instance they could click on that and
then it would give them a further
breakdown of that
spending and then you can always reset
the graphs with the reset button on
top underneath there we have some useful
links that members of the public might
be interested in such as the resolutions
related arpa that have been
approved and then the latter half of the
p AG is going to be a breakdown of each
of those different Focus areas so
starting with the public health response
you have the background list of projects
and then a graph specific just to that
category then the projects continue down
the
page and the nonprofits and Community
organizations are going to be towards
the bottom and in this section if you
click on here it'll be a link to a
different
page which will list all of the
different organizations that we're
working with and you can click onto any
one of those and it'll give you uh
background information specific to that
as well as a graph for their financials
as well so we just wanted to make you
aware that there is this tool if you
ever wanted to check on the spending or
direct members of the public to
this and so with that we can stand for
any questions thank you
all right thank you Liam uh any
questions uh councilor
gr thank you uh mayor thank you so much
everyone um two basic questions I'm
looking at the 459,000 and change that
remains unobligated for public health
and safety what are our options there
are
we what can we do with that so the broad
category is just responding to um any
negative Public Health uh impact from
the pandemic and so for that amount I'm
going to take a look at the uh detailed
page for the
remainder um most of the balance is
coming from the uh police and fire CPR
and EMT training and I don't okay right
so it's not that's not remaining it's
just we don't we don't that's not that
we still have to play with it's just
it's been obligated and has not yet been
spent so it's been allocated meaning
we've decided what we're going to do
with it but we just haven't had um a
contract been approved and gone through
the process yet for that okay great
thank you and then um sorry very oddly
specific question and I don't know if
this is for you Chief Smith um boys and
girls club um and thank you too
Community Partners for being in the
audience today um I'm not sure of the
extent of the fire damage because we're
talking about that's the building
correct video 4 um how has fire damage
or damages from fighting that fire
changed to the scheme
for yeah please please do come down or
chief I don't know if you want to weigh
in on this I just don't know how much
damage there actually
was good afternoon mayor and councel and
welcome to all of the the new counselors
my first time here with you guys um my
name's Ashley Chava CEO with the boys
and girls club for the record uh it's
funny we get so many questions about the
fire we are grateful the fire was
contained to one theater um actually
when the fire happened the Allens were
still under ownership of the building
and so they were able to file an
insurance claim um it was contained to
one theater of course most of the
buildings brick and cement however the
theater seats are cloth so the seats are
really what caught fire um it did cause
caus some damage to um it's my
understanding to like some of the
electrical and stuff like that but most
of this stuff is stuff we're going to
have to gut out and replace anyways so
we're we're fortunate um honestly what
ended up happening is they did some of
the demolition for us that we're going
to end up having to do um the Allen
family went in and kind of gutted that
theater um and then as a result of that
they also found out that of course there
was ASB bestus throughout the building
so they were able to have the the whole
building abated for us which was also
kind of a blessing for us in Disguise
because um that's something we didn't
end up having to pay for and so um happy
to say we officially closed on the
building last week and it is now ours
and um the Allen Family really worked
with us to get that price down as much
as they could and because of the arper
funds that's really what made it
possible for us to be able to pay for
the building and not um have to take out
a loan while we're raising the money to
do the the
renovations okay great so overall not
that we're advocating for fire to be
used as a demolition technique but
absolutely not okay great so good good
to know thank you so much thank you
thanks Ashley thank you
mayor mayor proam thank you um thank you
everyone for the presentation I was
reading this morning
um from the economic policy Institute
that
across the country so many arpa funds
have not been spent or obligated like
56% of local governments have not
obligated their arpa funding which is
just honestly a travesty and so I just
really want to commend our staff and
Community for um really making sure that
we did this or due diligence and that
the dollars are impacting the people in
our community um as they were intended
to so thank you everyone um yeah so for
the $6.6 million that are on un
obligated does not mean they're not
allocated they are allocated they're
just not obligated right so it doesn't
so just for public Clarity it doesn't
mean that this is still money that could
be used for something else we have
actually said this money is going to be
spent for specific projects uh mayor
proen Ben Como yes that's uh correct so
it's we've decided what to do with it
however we just don't currently have it
under contract with a a vendor that's
right so for example for the workforce
programs obviously we saw a hiccup there
right that's why we have not um
obligated those funds but once those
Agreements are done like Miss padra said
in the next few weeks then they will
that will officially be an obligated
money yes that's correct okay um given
that there are there is a risk of
clawbacks from the federal government do
we foresee that $6.6 million being
completely obligated by the end of the
year yes we do the Departments are aware
of the deadline and um we meet period
periodically and I give people updates
on the financials that way if we're
coming up against that deadline we at
least are we have some advanced warning
we have some awareness that if different
decisions need to be made they they can
okay thank you I just it's not just some
you know whatever deadline right like
there could be pretty serious um
consequences for not obligating those
funds okay I have some specific
questions Natalie I can start with you I
because on
the PowerPoint we had the
um msia Valley PHA that's one of the
housing projects yes uh Mr Mayor mayor
yes that is a housing project and it is
obligated it is obligated okay um oh
yeah no you want I that one is obligated
okay so the 2 million for the Housing
Community yes the tree uh it's a New
Mexico Community Development Corporation
they are working on the Peach Street
Canyon apartments in the East Mesa off
horata and Peach Street Road and so it
is under contract we just haven't
executed a purchase order um Council may
remember we are also um allocating an
additional $4 million for phase one and
so we wanted to align those projects or
the funding to to close all at once okay
you're basically seeing it as obligated
though because that is just like full
force moving forward it's under contract
so thank you it's obligated thank you
Natalie those are my questions question
for you thank you um and then for Chris
on the
storefront um you said something about a
third party I just wondered if you could
expand on that I'm I'm wondering if you
feel like
so the allocation for the storefront
program that only gets obligated once it
goes to a business Mr Mayor mayor proem
yes so just having the resolution for
the program doesn't make it obligated I
see so we have to whatever monies we
have left over in that program if we
want to continue it which I believe we
do and I I would recommend it we will
need to find a third party to help us
facilitate the balance of those funds
through the you know the remainder of
the time or till the funds are expired
because the way it works we do you know
we do a purchase or a a request for
check each time a business requests
funds there isn't one blanket po that
covers the entire amount so that one's a
little bit different uh that sort of
came up in our discussion on this on
this uh presentation the other day so
we'll be working with with Finance to to
find a vendor that can help us do that
efficiently and and you know effectively
so we can keep that program moving yes
yeah absolutely okay thank you Chris I
just you said that and I wanted to make
sure I was clear on what you meant I
appreciate that I think those
are all my questions I did just want to
tell utilities just a huge shout out
because I think you're doing really
incredible work um having hooked up
53 homes already so thank you very much
thank
you yeah thank you um also with
utilities on that sort connection uh
calll I did have a question for
you yes mayor so so the question when
you when you uh do the sord connection
what happens to the what's the process
on the existing septic tank yeah um once
they're connected they're required to uh
actually it's part of our contract we're
going to abandon the septic tank so
they'll collapse the tank they'll
collapse the lid and then back fill it
with sand compact it and cover it up so
it can't be used again yeah all right
thank you
you thank you any members of the public
that would like to come up and speak on
the American Rescue plan
act yes
sir yes come on up and state your
name yeah and we'll give you three
minutes uh Richard
Bella uh I'm just uh curious about the
economic I'm sorry what was your name
Richard Bella okay thank you I'm curious
on the economic impact impact of these
uh septic tanks that are no longer in
use it's just a simple question
curiosity thank
you yes Mr Clark could come
on yes see he wanted to know the
environmental impact of the septics that
are no longer in new so it takes away
the um uh removing the septics uh helps
remove nitrates from possibly reaching
our groundwater that's the reason we
have a top priority in our septic
replacement plan within a th000 ft of a
municipal well so we don't want nitrates
to leech down to the water table and
then we start pulling it through the
well at that point we would have to
probably shut off the well and go drill
somewhere else and at a million dollars
a well it's very expensive for the city
so we take that very seriously about how
close these septics are to our uh our
our water
wells the question I think
so any other members come on out man
please state your
name so I'm Sandy Smith from cruus
creatives and I just thought you guys
would like a little tiny bit of show and
tell about some of what we're doing what
I have here is a jar of algae algae was
grown in the bucket so the kids actually
get to make their own little pH
photobioreactor and grow the algae and
then we turn the algae into to pigment
or it becomes fertilizer or lots of
other kinds of things so so much fun
then I'm going to show you these things
and I'm going to let you pass it around
because they're really cooler if you
touch them what we've got right here is
bile leather meaning that this is
actually grown from the scobby of
Kombucha and um we've put it in the
laser cutter so it's got the little
edging on it and then I played with some
of the the stitching on it this is what
it looks like when it just grows this is
what it looks like when we add some um
peni dye which peni is a traditional
Ukrainian Easter egg D sort of situation
so we're playing with what that looks
like then we also have melium grown so
you can actually grow mushrooms into
styrofoam and if you happen to be
working with a school during D deos muos
you can grow it into the Halloween um
skulls and just kind of get a feel for
what they can do and then the students
got to paint those up but when you're
done with any of this it just gets
thrown into the garden it composts the
manufacturing is like totally Earth
friendly anybody want to
touch
yeah all right thank
you is there anyone El from the
public okay thank you seeing none we'll
move to the next item uh the
sustainability quarterly update um
Lisa don't hog the goods
mayor
hello mayor
Council City management staff and
everyone else who's still here my name
is Lisa Lorac I'm the sustainability
officer for the city of Las Cruses I'm
here for a sustainability quarterly
report although this is a quarterly
report instead of talking about one
topic I'm going to present what we have
accomplished over the past 12 years and
where we're
headed so to make sure that we're all on
the same page I want to Define
sustainability sustainability tries to
navigate in a Sweet Spot Not only where
we don't contribute to the shortfalls of
society like food or health or income
but we try to address them and we don't
want to tax the ecological balance um
locally or globally such as water
quantity or climate change but we want
to make sure our actions maintain an
equilibrium
and sustainability isn't about one topic
like recycling or solar energy it's
about systems like Energy Water climate
so it's Equitable and fits into Nature's
patterns now and for the
future so in 2011 the council created
the sustainability office and we spent
several years defining the dimensions of
sustainability through two
sustainability action plans and a star
National rating system we also tried to
understand the impacts of environmental
and climate change and I'll talk more
about those in the upcoming slides and
we utilize Three Financial
strategies uh to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions those included and um El Paso
electrics rebate program to install
Citywide LED street
lights to use an energy performance
contract with facilities and Las crusis
utilities to borrow against Energy
savings for energy efficient
upgrades and a power a purchase power
agreement to buy solar at a cheaper
price from a third part party lowering
our uh El Paso Electric
bills and now we're up to 25% of our
Municipal energy coming from
solar so Council also passed the plastic
bag ordinance to selectively regulate
sustainable behavior and we're going to
be launching a new campaign in the first
uh half of this year but through all of
this what we found out during this
decade is despite our good intentions
our longstanding policies and
practices um continue to accelerate
environmental impacts and
marginalization making it to influence
sustainability and changes and so some
of our thought leaders throughout the
country believe that we skirted some of
the tough questions so in this decade so
before I go into this decade I wanted to
catch up on just a few highlights from
the sustainability action plan and we uh
had that plan for three years from 2013
to 2016 and the city um adopted its plan
with 2 six goals measuring basic
incremental change we also spent almost
half a
year doing a comprehensive National
assessment with over 500 outcomes and
actions in eight topic areas throughout
the city not just in the city government
and the blue diamonds indicate where L
cruus was positioned nationally with
others using the star rating in all but
health and safety we fell in the first
and second lowest quartiles so we had a
lot of work to
do the city teamed up with the
University of Arizona and NMSU and many
stakeholders to examine what extreme
weather events um had shut down the
region uh historically and then worked
with
climatologists to see how these patterns
would change over time with climate
change
and this this is not fun but I'm going
to tell you the results so by 2050
climatologists predict that our summers
will include five to six weeks over 100
degrees and three additional weeks over
105 by the end of the century our
summers will extend to almost four
months all with temperatures over a 100
and six of those weeks will be over 105
we'll be
Phoenix and we need to learn from them
now climate modeling shows us that the
second half of this Century we'll see
record droughts with a possibility of
losing 40 to 50% of our water flows by
the end of the century drought decreases
infiltration that's the ability for
water to soak into the ground which
means when there are heavy rains and
they are predicted to be heavy rains we
can expect flash floods
dust and fire will increase with the
Heat and the drought and exacerbate
problems for those with existing heart
and lung diseases so it's just not me
ranting the planet planet is
complaining so in
202 um in this next decade we developed
a climate action plan that
uh that illustrate no I'm sorry in TW um
I missed my place um in this decade
we're intentionally using data to shape
policies and hopefully practices we have
tried to raise the consciousness of
energy transition with a power up Expo
and conf and training that we had in
January
2023 and most of our work is now
dedicated to Affordable and resilient
retrofits that I'll talk more about in
future slides
in 2019 we gathered the previous year's
data to understand our climate footprint
and saw that 50% of our emissions are
due to in town
driving almost 40% are from commercial
and residential buildings and solid
waste contributes
7% we developed a climate action plan
that
Illustrated that our goals um our goals
and we see that the most impressive
results will come from EV adoption
that's the second to the last
column and the SEC the second biggest
impact will come from increasing solar
adoption by everyone the third biggest
impact is decarbonizing or removing the
use of fossil fuels and in our buildings
and notably the fourth biggest impact is
using active Transportation walking or
riding a
bike I have included the Departments and
organizations that are and need to
continue to Champion these
goals um above each column this is not
just sustainability's
work I shared this slide with you last
summer to illustrate how impervious
surfaces concrete and a asphalt absorb
heat and radiate it out day and
night we can see easily there is a
disparity with who is and who isn't
impacted by Urban
heat and as a consequence we've coupled
this data with the active Transportation
plan to identify priority areas where
heat will impact pedestrian and
bicyclists highlighted inequities to
advance resilience and recommend that
realized codes include additions of
trees green infrastructure and cool
surfaces to mitigate these
effects and using both an anonymized
that's a hard word Los cruus utilities
and EP and El Paso electrics data
utility data along with demographic data
we were able to understand the dis dis
parities between non low and moderate
income and low and moderate income
residents so those over
150% federal poverty level and those
above or those above and those below and
the an energy burden in this uh refers
to the percent of income you pay on your
utilities greater than 6% is considered
energy burden and it's not surprising
given the differences in the incomes
between the these two groups and knowing
the conditions of older homes built with
lax building codes of the 1970s and
before the low and moderate
communities um spend 14% of their income
on utilities compared with 3% of the of
those from wealthier Neighbors half of
the low and moderate income Community is
without air conditioning and relies on
evaporative coolers or fans climate
models predict that during the summer
50 days or more evaporative coolers
won't be able to function effectively
given the high temperatures and Monsoon
humidity putting residents In Harm's Way
the
sustainability office and many Community
Partners
um applied for the buildings up
award that that gives us 5 years of
funding technical assistance and 40
other projects around the country that
we can learn from our project is called
plugged in for good and community
members are the leaders that drive the
uh energy transition using Market based
retrofits not social service programs
and will develop a clean energy High
Road Workforce that
includes uh Workforce with living wage
advancement training and wraparound
Services all of this is with the goal of
helping to dismantle the systemic
inequities bringing positive scalable
impacts to many
communities this year is dedicated to
the design of the
program the United Nations offers this
graph to show the trajectory of
sustainability you've heard about the
structural obstacles of policies and
practices during the
2010s and now how change is accelerating
to the point where it will soon seem
inevitable we're at a turning point the
international and federal leaders know
that we have to move towards social and
economic sustainability within a stable
Earth system if we are to continue as a
species much of the work will be at a
city and Community level and our work
needs to look at systems and find that
sweet spot where people and the planet
are at an
equilibrium work needs to shift from
single
projects to scalable replicable
replicable
Transformations and we need to manage
plan uh climate and environmental risk
and reduce disparities as an upstream
strategy not as a reaction when it
happens we need to accelerate the
transformation to clean except
accessible Mobility systems that signal
and prepare that it's time for a change
we need to catalyze the construction and
retrofit of healthy resilient zeroc
carbon homes like what we're doing with
plugged in for good and we need to
accelerate an equitable transition to
clean and resilient energy sources and
determine what equipment and vehicles we
need to use to support this anytime that
we put any anything that's dependent on
fossil fuels will only delay the
transition that we need to make and
lastly we need to invest in ecosystem
regeneration and access by preserving
open spaces and using natural systems
like aoos and processes like green
infrastructure to support it we're
heading towards a transformation and it
requires your leadership and all hands
on deck and not just a sustainability so
I uh stand for questions and comments
thank you very
much thank you Lisa any
questions I just have one comment I
really like that graft where driving an
electric car helps and I have an
electric car good for
you thank you thank you Council MC
in a perfect world what would you
recommend for us to do
first well mayor councilor McClair
thanks for the question um
I what I that's a that's a great
question what I really think would be
helpful is something that I already
think that's starting to occur and um
I'm going to give a shout out to uh
planning and
Innovation they are using a set of
criteria that actually looks at the
holistic view of these issues and and
how they Advance both Elevate and uh
from a physical layout as well as
sustainability from a
more uh actionable a a point of view so
I if I if you're asking what the city
should do first I think the city
should take the plans that it has and
create Milestones that are achievable in
certain intervals and
not not push it down the road that's
what I think needs to happen and I think
that it's difficult because we're at a a
Crossroads where these things are just
taking place but the persistence that's
that to do that would
really accelerate our change thank
you uh Lisa are you able to give us at
all an update on the community solar
project that was submitted to the
PRC for this from the
city yes uh sorry mayor and um protm
mayor protm uh I haven't been up here in
a while um yes
so there were only six projects that
were allowed within the El Paso Electric
district and those uh and although we
applied we did not we were not
selected um
and
um there
were probably
whatever
models there was I think there was like
six to nine organizations that were
selected for many many projects so I
think that there was a idea of what was
a good fit According to
some whoever was EV the group that was
evaluating
it right now we're we're in a everyone's
in a stalled motion because of the
rulings um that are taking place as to
how much we should deduct from uh how
much credit we should give on these
bills and how much the um utilities are
allowed to take back um charge for for
their management of it
and I'm concerned that we have not found
a sweet spot where we are going to help
help the 50% of the people 20,000 people
in the state who could really benefit
from a lower rate and the needs for
renewable energy that exist I'm sorry
for the long answer but I didn't get to
talk at the um
PRC that's really unfortunate to hear
Lisa do you feel like there's a pathway
forward for some kind of project like
that for us in the future
[Music]
I'm I'm speaking for um Adrian but I
will say that I'm very heartened by the
energy transition plan RFP that we
submitted uh and we'll hope to get some
very knowledgeable folks to guide us in
this process I think there's many ways
forward and um Community solar is one uh
allowing um Community Choice where we
all generate where the city could
generate energy and the transmission and
distribution would come there is another
thing that's been put forward by the
legislature so I think there's yes the
answer is yes okay and since you brought
the energy transition up you submitted
feedback you had input and feedback on
that RFP then yes okay thank you
Lisa one else okay thank you Lisa I
appreciate it is there any members of
the public that would like to speak on
sustainability all right thank
you so we'll take a motion to
adjourn so move
Corin second
McLure
this is on the motion to adjourn the
work session councelor McClure yes
councelor
matis yes councelor Graham yes councelor
cran yes councelor flotes is absent
councelor bomo yes and mayor
yes thank you
all