[Music]
thank you
okay excuse me okay good afternoon
everyone Welcome to our city council
work session today is September 11
2023 2023 before we have our Pledge of
Allegiance I'm going to ask you to
please rise for a brief moment of
silence as this is the 22nd year since 9
11 where over 3000 innocent people
passed away as well as the many First
Responders from New York and the
surrounding areas lost their lives
destroy me in the pledge I pledge
allegiance
the United States of America and to the
Republic for which it stands one nation
under God individuals with liberty and
justice for all thank you
okay so now we're going to have our pets
of the week
I believe Amy the Felix are you there
yes I am here
let me go ahead and share my screen
already
there we go
he's ready for it to pop up on the um
screen up there okay awesome so hello
everyone my name is Amy De Felix I am
one of the rescue coordinators for the
Animal Services Center the Messiah
Valley I'm also the one that picks the
pets of the week and presents them every
week
um so we'll start off as always with our
cat of the week
um his name is Big Boy
his number is 66692 and he says three of
my brothers and I got brought to the
afcmv through no fault of our own I am a
little shy at first but it just takes me
a little bit to get confident and then
I'm giving your hand headbutts and I'm
wanting to explore new places I'm a
quiet boy my prayer is quite loud and
comforting do you have room in your home
and heart for me
and then of course we also have a dog of
the week our dog of the week this week
is Murdoch his name his number sorry is
60282 and he says I'm another long-term
resident at the asuv and I'm way overdue
from my forever home I'm a super sweet
boy who gets along with both people and
other dogs I love playtime and going on
walks I'm also very affectionate and
interesting I just need my forever human
to adopt me and then we can spend all of
our time together going on walks car
rides and exploring the world
and then we have a couple of adoption
events this week this weekend we are
participating in Best Friends Animal
societies they have a national adoption
weekend that will be running from Friday
the 15th to Sunday the 17th and um I
didn't put it down here but for our
participation all of our adoptions are
only going to be 50 so every single
adoption is 50 so definitely
um a great deal
um and we encourage you all to show up
um we also have we'll have adoptions at
the adjuster Community Affair that's
going to be taking a place at Young Park
this Saturday the 16th we will be there
from 10 a.m to 1 pm
um and then I'd like to continue uh
going uh talking about disease
prevention like I have the past couple
of uh work sessions that we've been
speaking out
um this one will be about feline pen
leukopenia
um it's also known as feline distemper
and Feline parvovirus um that's kind of
interchangeable for the same the same
disease I mean it's a viral infection it
lowers white blood cell production you
can tell that in the name like a leuko
is for white blood cells Pina is like a
low count and a pen is means everywhere
so it's like the whole body
um there's a decrease in white blood
cells and of course that leads to like
immune system issues and everything like
that
um prior to the vaccine development for
panicopenia it was one of the leading
causes of death in cats just in general
so um thankfully that has been decreased
since the creation of the vaccine
unvaccinated kittens are the most at
risk for infection and they are also the
most severely affected when they are
infected
um adult cats
might have a bigger chance at recovery
or at least um won't be as severely
impacted but kittens definitely
um they seem to get hit the hardest and
have the highest um I guess
mortality rate when they are infected
the virus is widespread in the
environment
um so that a lot of medical places
especially online like medical like
websites say that basically only you can
consider any can in the environment to
be exposed because it's kind of
everywhere and then it lives in the
environment for an incredibly long time
and after infection cats can ship the
virus for up to six weeks even if they
are looking and feeling and appearing
healthy and they look like they've
completely recovered from the virus they
can still be shedding it and potentially
infecting other cats
um so that that in and of itself is also
an issue symptoms in general
um reasons why they kind of call it like
feline parvo well it's called feline
parvo because it is a strain of
Parvovirus or felines now they call it
feeling distemper
um I'm assuming mostly because of the
symptoms so it's like lethargy
listlessness loss of appetite which also
goes along with vomiting and diarrhea
and a fever uh so it's like
similar-ish symptoms to like canine
parvo especially the bonding diarrhea
loss of appetite
um
but definitely like lethargy and fever
as well
diagnosis and treatment
veterinarian diagnosis a veterinarian
would have to diagnose obviously through
like cynical presentation the history of
exposure and then lab testing
um it can mimic symptoms of other common
feline diseases so they usually resort
to either asking kind of the history
like where your cat has been what it
might have been exposed to what you
might have been exposed to that you
might have brought to your cat
um and then also lab testing to confirm
it's kind of like the most um
more accurate ways to make sure that
it's feline Like Pat Luke versus
something else and of course treatment
like with most viral diseases
um there isn't a medicine that will cure
it so with primarily supportive care so
like controlling the vomiting and
diarrhea giving them fluids to combat
the dehydration
some you might also put the cats on like
antibiotics to prevent like secondary
bacterial infection and other the
antibiotics won't kill the virus
um but having a lower immune system in
general can expose their body to
bacteria as well that can cause
infection so that's what antibiotics
would be used for so pen leukopenia
prevention of course as with most things
uh vaccination is the best way to
prevent infection and disease like I
mentioned earlier pan leukopenia was
once a leading cause of death and cats
um it's now less commonly diagnosed you
can think that that for the vaccine more
cats being routinely vaccinated
um
helps the animal the individual animal
in general
um becomes stronger and able to by lock
the infection to prevent like the
outbreak of disease but also kind of
like the herd immunity as well
um in general
it makes panicopenia just way less
common which is something we are
thankful for
um but again that is everything
definitely keep your pet totally unsafe
take them routine annual vaccines uh
make sure they're the healthiest they
can possibly be thank you
okay thanks thanks Amy okay next is the
jobs of the week
and I believe Sarah Rainey from the new
New Mexico workforce connection is here
yes sir thank you so much for having me
let me share my screen
all right for the jobs of the week
we have
we have a senior office assistant for
the City Las Cruces that that one pays
15.57 an hour or it starts at 15 57 an
hour and closes on 9.25
um also for the city we have a police
cadet that one starts at twenty dollars
an hour closes on December 31st they
have a few positions open on the police
cadet as well let's sit the next one we
have is that White Sands Missile Range
that one is the sensor systems engineer
the pay starts at sixty thousand eight
dollars a year and the position the that
post closes on twelve one
we have a position
um direct support staff with Casa de
Esperanza they actually have 10
positions their pay was not listed so it
depends on the experience that position
position posting closes on the 5th of
October sorry
um an auto replace replenishment
merchandiser sorry y'all
for the Coca-Cola Southwest beverages
that position starts at 26 000 and could
range up to forty seven thousand dollars
a year that that posting actually closes
today so today at five get your
applications in if you're interested in
that one
the next one is the lead rotational
program associate for the American Red
Cross
um that one pays up to 22 dollars an
hour and the position the posting closes
on 10-1 they did have several positions
posted for the American Red Cross as
well
as always you can reach us at 2226
Alameda Boulevard
um at also on by phone
524-6250 or go on our website employee
name.com thank you everyone we
appreciate it and have a good day okay
thank you Sarah
okay so we have one item on the agenda
that's item 3.1 the opioid settlement
and cannabis Revenue excuse me those are
two separate things actually but not one
item on the agenda and so Barbara
bencomo will start this off Barbara
thank you mayor Barbara bencomo for the
record chief administrative officer and
I'm just
kind of scoot around here and look for
the PowerPoint
there we go
and Mary you're absolutely right these
are two different items I will be
facilitating the discussion on the
opioid settlement we have quite a bit of
information to share with you today and
we have a a couple of outside presenters
as well as members of the opioid
advisory Council here today wanted to
ask if we could just hold questions to
the end of the presentation all of our
slides are numbered so hopefully if you
have questions about particular slides
we'd be happy to go back to them and
address any issues or concerns that you
have through the presentation but with
that I'll go ahead and get started and
here are just some of the questions that
we'd like to answer for you or pose with
respect to the information we're going
to be providing today how do we get here
what funds will we receive what is this
crisis look like in our community what
will we do about it how will we do it
and when will it happen so generally
that's the those are the guiding
questions that we have in providing the
information to you today an overview of
the agenda and the presenters first we
will have our outside Council Luis
Robles presenting the litigation and an
overview of the settlements our police
chief and fire chief will speak about
the public safety impacts in our
community we'll have vital strategies
our external partner talk about the
implementation approach and principles
for the use of funds Jamie Michael
director of Health and Human Services
for the county and I will talk about the
timeline and the opioid settlement
advisory Council
and then we're going to talk about
considerations for how these
expenditures might be spent we have some
guidance from the state and we have lots
of options for you to consider for
future expenditures and then finally
we're going to talk about how we're
going to be reporting on both the
amounts of the settlement that we are
receiving and then once expenditures are
determined we'll be reporting on how
those funds are spent and what impacts
are going to have in our community
so this is the agenda for our session
today without further Ado I'm going to
go ahead and turn it over to Mr Luis
Robles
My Hope Is that in my presentation I
will be able to provide you some
information that you already know excuse
me I'm sorry for interrupting and I know
Barbara introduced you but I just need
you to state your name
apologize apologize jumped into far too
quickly my name is Luis Robles and I'm a
contract attorney with the city and it's
more particularly to this matter our
Consortium of law firms were hired to
represent the city in the opioids
litigation and that's what brings me
here today
now of course I presented certain
information to some of you over the
course of time and it's my hope not just
simply rehash what we already know but
also present you some additional
information that I think you'll find
instructive and helpful in understanding
what the entire County and all the
entities that are receiving opioid
settlement money what they're actually
looking at and that's why I'm presenting
the three emblems that I am presenting
now as an overview of the litigation
I've said this and now and I'll
I appreciate it now more than I did when
I started this case five years ago this
is the biggest and most complicated case
in the history of the United States and
it's it's still going it's still going
although New Mexico is exiting out of it
and in the course of that litigation the
lawyers who worked on behalf of New
Mexico and all the governmental entities
have collected approximately a billion
dollars it is the largest recovery that
the state has had in any litigation
larger than the tobacco settlement and
certainly as we're moving into 2003
again the most complicated case in the
history of the United States we're all
settling in and and
finishing up all the steps that are
necessary to settle all the various
lawsuits that have been brought by all
the New Mexico entities including the
state of New Mexico
now we have a case that was brought
against the manufacturers against the
Distributors of the opioids medications
as well as the retail pharmacies and one
of the
manufacturers it's Johnson and Johnson
and Jensen
and when you look at the settlement
amounts that were given to the county to
the city in the Sunland Park you know
you have these amounts that are here I'm
not going to read them for the sake of
for the sake of time and you know
knowing that time's limited but also to
say that I prepared a memorandum in
which I have identified the specific
numbers and more information that this
public than in this public meeting that
I have to actually present so that
information will be readily available to
you but just to sort of give you a sense
that Johnson and Johnson is one of the
few manufacturers that actually survived
Beyond bankruptcy Purdue Pharma
malincrot Endo pharmaceutical we're all
in bankruptcy and we'll receive money
from them as their chapter 11 cases go
forward but that's sometime years down
the road and in fact the Purdue Pharma
bankruptcy is now before the United
States Supreme Court
there are the three big Distributors
settlements and that's one of the first
matters that I brought to your attention
and again Amerisource Spurgeon Cardinal
Health and McKesson all Fortune 50
companies
and they have
um you know for the city of Las Cruces
purposes you know settled for an
approximate amount about two million
dollars and when you look at the
payments those payments will be made in
17 different payments that will start it
should have started already and again
there's some questions about that
because I'm not involved in this very
complicated system by which the money is
distributed to the all the governmental
entities in the United States and that
should last a 2038.
there was the trial that the state of
New Mexico held against five retail
pharmacies Albertsons CVS pharmacy
Kroger which in New Mexico is Smith's
and Walmart
now uh
I've talked to you all uh about these
particular litigations you know
Albertsons CVS Pharmacy they settled
before court I should say right on the
courthouse steps the week of before the
trial we went to trial against Kroger
Walmart and uh Walgreens which we'll
talk about soon and our settlements were
far in excess of what the national
settlements are and so you have a sense
here from these numbers what it is that
was paid out
once Walmart
you know we presented the case against
Walmart they very quickly came to the to
the table and they settled with us I
think that they settled is four times
the amount that they're paying
nationally Kroger's same thing we were
the first state to force Kroger in the
settlement after we presented the case
against them at trial the trial that we
had in Santa Fe and this settlement is a
result of that
and then there was Walgreens who you
know basically was there to fight us
every step of the way through that eight
week trial but in the end they finally
settled with the state of New Mexico and
in doing so settled with the city and
the county now you may wonder how well
did this uh did the state of New Mexico
do our settlement is 10 times the amount
of the national settlement so what we
did at trial was
well well we forced Walgreens to Pony up
more money than they had anywhere in the
country and that's reflected in the
amounts that are being distributed it is
a series of 15 payments over the course
of about
15 years
and then there are some remaining
manufacturers they had really small
market shares in New Mexico and thus a
very modest settlements that were given
in comparison to the others so you see
the numbers there for both allergen and
Teva some very large pharmaceutical
concerns and we also have some other
manufacturers that are remaining and
they had tiny market shares and that's
reflected in the very small settlement
amounts the national settlements that
the state of New Mexico entered into as
well as the city had approved
now when you look at the total
settlement amounts and this is the
aggravate of what has come in remember
there's still Purdue Pharma malincroft
and Endo pharmacies that are in
bankruptcy and it will be years before
that you'll see some of that money and
there is there are billions of dollars
to be had from Purdue Pharma so it's not
it's just a question of when so we have
doniana County receiving approximately
14.4 million dollars the city of Las
Cruces receiving 9.8 million dollars in
Sunland Park receiving 700 000 Plus
and so the county as I see it not Dona
Ana County The Entity but the three
entities that are receiving opioids
settlement they're receiving 25 million
dollars
now again all of these numbers again are
our best estimates because
when you read and when you read these
600 paid settlement agreements they're
contingent on the entire country doing
their little piece and there's so many
uh sweeteners and disincentives in these
agreements that we can never say with
certainty at this point how much money
we'll receive but that is what our team
has put together as the amount which the
three entities the city the county and
Sunland Park will receive over the
course of time
now remember the
and also the the consent judgments that
we have entered into with all of the
manufacturers the Distributors as well
as the retail pharmacies
all these monies can be used for is
opioid remediation and that is to
provide the treatment the services you
know develop the strategies and the
infrastructure necessary to treat those
who have the opioid use disorder
and again it can be used for many
different reasons and you know there
will be others here subject matter
experts who will provide you with that
information but it's for me to say that
the consent judgments and settlement
agreements all contemplate
governmental entities working together
to solve the problem and one of the
things that I had the benefit of seeing
in trying the case is what our experts
had to say
what is happening in other communities
and everyone is working together
and I think it makes a certain amount of
sense when you think about the economies
of scale
by joining forces the county the city
and Sunland Park can avoid redundancy
and certainly by avoiding redundancy the
three entities can provide more services
and more benefits to their citizens than
they could collect you know by
themselves
and there is one of many things I've
learned in this very
life-changing litigation for me and it's
a statement that's often associated with
a 12-step program I can't stay sober but
we can
and it has struck me that that says more
about sobriety and how to attain it than
anything I had ever come across and and
believe me they were expert after expert
after expert and that is that it is the
community working with the person who
suffers from opioid uh use disorder and
giving them the opportunity to make that
positive change and only in working
together can these settlement monies be
maximized
so though that's what I'd like to
present to you and that is we have an
opportunity there's 25 million dollars
to think about how that opportunity
might be used
and then thus I'll pass my
thank you Mr Robles
okay
thank you so much Mr Robles and I'm glad
that
um he brought up the coordination and
the collaboration because certainly
that's definitely what we're talking
about today not only our partnership
with the county but also with the state
of New Mexico because
um as part of the settlements the local
entities received 55 percent of the
distribution but the state receives 45
percent so the state is also receiving
quite a bit of funds and we want to make
sure as well that we're coordinating the
use of those funds to avoid duplication
and other issues that Mr Robles talked
about so thank you so much for that so
the next part of our presentation
concerns the impacts that we've seen in
our own Community particularly in public
safety and so I've asked Chief story and
chief Smith to illustrate what what
they're seeing in our community so I'm
going to first turn it over to Chief
story
good afternoon mayor Pro teming Council
Jeremy story interim police chief for
the record
just a little bit of reason I don't want
to spend a lot of time because there's
several presentations that have to
happen but I just want to paint a
picture of how I feel the opioid crisis
has affected Las Cruces specifically
from a public safety perspective
a lot of the issues that people come up
here and talk about during Council
public comment
increase crime the quality of life
issues have a direct link going back to
the opioid crisis and the actions of the
manufacturers the Distributors and the
retail pharmacies
those actions that cause the settlements
also cause a lot of the issues we faced
today in Las Cruces
some of those issues including our
current fentanyl crisis which you know I
don't believe would be here had it not
been for the opioid crisis that that
brought us here today
just an anecdotal story I think that
really illustrates kind of where we are
overdoses Chief Smith will talk more
about that with data but just on Friday
as I was coming to work doing my workout
listening to the radio for about two
hours there's two overdose calls
dispatch one of them had two people
involved
during the day with meetings and
everything I'm not listening to the
radio but on my way home there's an
additional call dispatched where it was
actually dispatched as an unintended
death Fire gets their Administration
naloxone is actually an overdose case
and luckily they're able to bring them
back but in a short period of time in
one day that I'm listening to the radio
there's three overdose calls involving
four people
um I think it's important to understand
for everyone involved that this affects
people from all walks of life from all
corners of our community it is not
reserved for people that are more
susceptible to it or from a different
socioeconomic background I have seen
people from literally all walks of life
and nobody goes into it thinking they're
going to be an opioid addict or heroin
addict or fennel addict that's not a
decision they make that's where they
find themselves
and a couple slides to illustrate some
of that point here in Las Cruces
specifically these numbers are from
Metro narcotics so a disclaimer here is
that these do not include numbers from
DEA seizures in donana county or from
border patrol checkpoint seizures this
is our local Metro narcotics agency
seizures
you'll notice from 2013 to 2017 there's
no fentanyl seizures that's prior to us
having that issue here
when I started in 2007 I didn't see
heroin for probably three to four years
like at all not a single time and that's
because that's as it was building in Las
Cruces with prescription painkillers the
availability but as that started to fade
or tolerance increased you started
seeing more and more heroin and then it
just exploded where that became the only
way to sustain that addiction was
through the use of heroin so we saw
black tar heroin
really emerge 2014 where we started
seeing decent quantities
the next slide as we go into 2018
you'll see that heroin continues but we
start to see Fentanyl and so the first
time we have seizures and fentanyls in
2018 with just under a thousand pills
that starts to increase our highest
heroin seizure was in 2019 along with a
lot of pills as well
I believe that's around 260 pounds of
heroin seized
but you can see that the numbers of
fentanyl seizures have exploded and year
to date through August we're at almost
50 000 pills and we do not have a heroin
seizure here today it just tells you
that fentanyl is basically taken over
because it's cheap it's available it's
easier to consume for a number of
reasons but certainly a problem that we
are facing here in Las Cruces and
directly goes back and ties in with what
we're talking about today with the
settlements and that is all I have today
thank you
well good afternoon mayor members of
city council fire chief Jason Smith so
I'm going to talk a little bit about the
fire
the fire portion of response to opioid
crisis that we've been experiencing
time
so the chart you see right here is the
annual number of doses of Narcan we
administer within the fire department
per 1000 population in the city from
2008 to 2022.
so in 2022 we had just over 240
doses of Narcan that we gave that's to
individual patients while on scene you
can go back to the 2010 census we were
at 0.5 so over a 400 percent increase
and the number of times we're having to
administer Narcan as a life-saving
measure while on scene
and
I want to put that into context of what
that response looks like from multiple
angles
right now when we get these calls A lot
of times we're responding to a CPR or a
possible death and we're sending two
response units that's either two fire
engines or a fire engine in one of our
fire trucks that's anywhere up to eight
people an ambulance for transport that's
10 and a battalion chief is 11. so we're
putting 11 people on this call to help
render Aid and behind all that response
there's an individual who's not
breathing maybe they don't have a pulse
they are in the middle of an overdose
crisis and they are connected to other
people other family members people who
know them friends in the community
they're friends that see them and you
know participate in whatever activities
and they're the ones calling
it's a huge impact over 200 times a year
now and this year right now we're on
track for over 265 medications doses of
Narcan that we're going to give it's a
huge impact it's trauma to our community
it's trauma to our responders one of the
first medications the first medication I
ever gave is a brand new EMT basic was
Narcan on a possible overdose call and
that did revive the person and bring
back respirations
so you can see by the chart that it has
become a huge issue and a burden on our
responders and our community and it does
not show any sign of slowing down
so with that I think I'll turn over
slides
foreign
thank you so much Chief story and chief
Smith for giving us that that picture of
what's going on in our community and of
course that is from the public safety
perspective we also have treatment
providers and we also have youth
Advocates and we also have public health
officials who are seeing the impacts as
well and that's what we're going to be
talking about as we roll into this next
phase of the presentation about how
we're going to get the information that
we need to really use these funds for
the for the in the best interest of our
community and so with that I'm going to
introduce Kate Bolton to you she is from
vital strategies one of our partners to
talk about how we'll be implementing the
approach and what what the
implementation is based upon so Kate
thank you Barbara welcome Kate
good afternoon my name is Kate Bolton
I'm a senior legal technical advisor
with the vital strategies overdose
prevention program
I was to be joined by my colleagues
Danette and Julie but they ran into some
flight
complications so it'll just be me today
but hopefully we can
um cover what they would have so just a
bit of context about vital strategies
the organization we're a global Public
Health Organization focused on
promoting a strong Public Health System
vital strategies is the lead partner and
the Bloomberg overdose prevention
initiative so this is an initiative that
got underway initially in 2018
at that time it was only the states of
Michigan and Pennsylvania but we have
since expanded to five additional States
including New Mexico
and so we will be working in the state
of New Mexico through September 2026
so we are somewhat early in in this
phase of the initiative but have some
exciting work underway including in the
in the county in the city here
so we bring a sort of diverse uh you
know set of strategies to our
implementation approach it includes
partnering with governments and
community-based organizations
providing technical assistance and grant
funding of course
uh we focus on modeling and scaling
policies and best practice
we support the creation of Tools around
a different subject area related to
overdose prevention and we have a
fantastic media team that supports the
development of earned media campaigns
so in terms of some of the work that
we're doing here in Dona Ana County and
the city of Las Cruces we will be
providing technical assistance on the
use of opioid settlement funds A needs
assessment and supporting the work of
the advisory Council we will be offering
funding for strategic planning a
position to actually really focus on
that planning role which will be a
person sitting within the county for an
initial two year period
we will also partner with the county
around
the you know completion of A needs
assessment and a community survey so
these are all
um
sort of strategies I'll talk about in a
few minutes that can support
evidence-based use of the funds and use
of the funds in a way that is responsive
to community needs
so I won't belabor the next few slides
because I think you heard a lot of this
from Mr Robles in the earlier portion of
the presentation but I'll just briefly
mention the allocation agreement between
the state and its localities that was
from March 2022 initially but in
addendum in 2023 expanded the
applicability of that agreement which
initially had applied only to the the
big three distributors in Jansen and so
the addendum functions to make that
agreement and its terms more broadly
applicable
and so as you heard the allocation
between the state and localities is 45
to the state and 55 percent to
participating local governments
this is done on a regional basis at the
local level and this is laid out and
kind of fine detail in the allocation
agreement which
is is quite complicated uh and
um where there is not an intra-regional
agreement to govern how that money is
distributed within a given region then
exhibit G of the national settlement uh
controls
so settlement funds both at the state
and local level here in New Mexico have
to go toward opioid related expenditures
and these are defined in alignment with
exhibit e of the national settlements
importantly funds from the local
government share can't go towards
reimbursement of expenditures that
occurred prior to the applicable
settlement
and so
um
I don't think I need to highlight
anymore here other than the annual audit
as sort of a means of ensuring that
settlement funds are are going to their
intended and authorized purposes
this is the legislation that created the
sort of structure and mechanism for the
use of the state's 45 share so at the
state level there is a restricted fund
and a Recovery Fund and these are funds
that are allocated by the legislature
and this slide just outlines a few
examples of Appropriations from opioid
settlement funds this this past year and
the types of strategies that we're
seeing at the state level
and so mostly what I wanted to focus on
was uh principles for the use of the
settlement funds and you know these are
important and we're driven by in part
you know widespread fears about misuse
of the funds or squandering of the funds
like we observed with the tobacco
settlements and wanting to guard against
that
and the value of principles is also that
you know they they are broadly
applicable and can be adapted to
different jurisdictions contexts and
needs so these principles that I'll be
talking about were developed by Johns
Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public
Health which is a partner of vital
strategies in the overdose prevention
work and I'll be spending just a moment
on each of these so I won't list them
here but I'll just emphasize that there
are a range of tools on the JHU website
available to support implementation of
these principles
so you know principle one may seem
obvious but it is important to
underscore we want the settlement funds
to be used in a way that saves lives and
so some of the big picture ways of doing
this include establishing a dedicated
fund which in New Mexico
localities are required to have a sort
of segregated pot of money so that's
already happening really but also the
importance of
supplementing rather than supplanting
other existing government Investments
and so you don't want to use the
settlement funds to uh you know fund
programs or activities that had been
receiving Government funding already
and as you heard we're really receiving
this money over the Long Haul so with
the distributor settlement it's 18 years
and so there's a real opportunity for
kind of long-term vision and planning
around the use of the funds
using evidence to guide spending is
principle two so this is important
because we want to fund programs and
strategies that we know will work so
this can include both you know enabling
and promoting the things that work but
also getting rid of potential barriers
that may be preventing the scale up of
evidence-based strategies and programs
and an important part of this is
ensuring that there's adequate data
capacity
to use evidence and to assess the impact
of programs
at the principles specifically call out
youth prevention because it's so
essential as we know
that youth in many places including New
Mexico are seeing the same dramatic
increases in overdose that we've seen
nationally so this principle emphasizes
the need for evidence-based youth
programs
avoiding programs that we know do not
have the impact that we want and
assessing programs to ensure that
they're having the desired outcomes of
preventing youth substance involvement
and youth overdose
of racial Equity lens is essential to
this work especially since we've seen
you know majorly disproportionate
impacts on communities of color in terms
of uh the harms of the overdose crisis
and so you know this principle calls for
investment in those communities
and you know expanding diversion
opportunities because we know that the
sort of criminal legal or punishment
approach to substance use disorder and
addiction you know has not turned the
tide and so I'm really kind of moving
away from that lens to a public health
approach
and involving community and reducing
stigma throughout the process
and finally
the importance of a fair and transparent
process so this involves ensuring that
you're you know hearing diverse voices
in terms of allocating the funds
ensuring representation of the community
including communities that have been
disproportionately harmed and you know
conducting some kind of needs assessment
to determine
you know where investment is needed you
know communities are different have
different needs so
you know what are the treatment gaps uh
you know what
um what are the communities where
naloxone isn't getting to where it needs
to go or
um what specific population such as
pregnant and parenting people uh need
better access so you know needs
assessment can really answer those key
questions to guide investment
um
and uh want to just applaud the
um advisory Council here because as far
as we know it's among the first or the
first in the state here and so it's so
essential and reflected in the
principles that this kind of structure
is in place
the National Academy of State Health
policy outlines the different approaches
to sort of advisory structures some of
which actually have the power to
allocate or appropriate monies as
opposed to a strictly advisory function
along with you know the different kinds
of membership requirements that we see
in these kinds of bodies and the kinds
of expertise that are represented
uh you know and um
I don't think I need to belabor here the
importance of public participation
because we've we've talked about it and
and these processes are in motion here
uh a range of other resources
um that I encourage uh
the county and the city to check her out
in case they are helpful uh including
opioidsettlementtracker.com and vital
strategies uh guides on each State's
approach to opioid settlement funding
and thank you so much
thank you Kate I believe yeah yes okay
thank you Miss Bolton for providing that
important information and next up I want
to introduce Jamie Michael director of
Health and Human Services at the county
and before she comes up here
that's okay come on up I'd like to thank
her for reaching out to the city to
embark on this coordinated effort in
addressing the needs of the city and
also in in working with the state and
really bridging our different levels of
government so that we make sure that we
employ These funds in our community for
Maximum Impact so thank you so much
Jamie with that alternate over to her
thank you Jamie Michael County's Health
and Human Services Department and
Barbara it's been a pleasure working
with you so I'm glad we're able to to do
this together
um a timeline here in front of you it
shows the activities that we have
started and where we plan on going and a
general timeline just to manage your
expectations about this process so we
did start off by identifying people to
serve on our advisory Council again it's
advisory so they're they're going to
serve in that capacity and that's in
progress we've had two meetings
The Advisory Council membership has come
together twice we're still looking at
any gaps we have in that membership we
have contracted with New Mexico State
University or we're working with New
Mexico State University and Crimson
research there to conduct the needs
assessment and then eventually to do all
of the evaluation work with us so that
is in progress
the next step is to do more public
Outreach to gain input from community
members so we can really understand the
issue looking at numbers and looking at
what is happening in our communities so
we're looking at starting that this
month and that will be a lengthy process
because we really want to spend the time
to understand and hear different voices
throughout the the county and once we
have that information then The Advisory
Group will come back together we'll
prioritize we'll research and we'll go
through a process to make
recommendations to both city council and
County Commission and we're hoping those
recommendations are available for both
bodies in April and from there we'd like
to have a joint implementation plan and
then begin allocating funds to implement
that plan and continuous monitoring and
Reporting and like you've heard we're
hoping that goes on for the full 18
years so we're really looking at setting
up policies and plans and infrastructure
to go for several decades forward as we
continue to address this issue
The Advisory Council that we established
as Kate said we looked at the guiding
principles
what type of advisory Council what does
the membership look like and we wanted
to look at our local assets we already
had organizations and individuals
working on this issue so we wanted to
take a look at those local assets bring
them into partnership with us and take
advantage of the expertise that we have
in our community and also diversity we
wanted to make sure there was Geographic
and other types of diversity on our
Council
just for to be realistic and to manage
the group we're trying to keep it fairly
small so we're looking at 10 to 15
members of The Advisory Group and again
the public input that we're looking at
getting is going to go far beyond the
The Advisory Group but we need kind of a
steering committee that Barbara and I
can touch base with and can help us
Implement all of this work I'm very
pleased that it is supported by both the
city and the county I'm glad we're not
duplicating efforts and that we're
sharing this learning and this planning
opportunity and the advisory capacity we
wanted to make sure that the city
council and County Commissioners were
making final decisions on how the money
is allocated so this membership this
advisory Council their advisory only
and we have several members of our
advisory Council here today so based on
the best practices we are looking for
people the kind of the the sectors and
the diversity that we want to see in the
advisory Council includes people with
lived or living experience so we do have
one of our certified peer support
workers um
on the the council we have public health
professionals in our community we have
people that work with some of the youth
we also have treatment providers
we have
folks that work in recovery and other
social support services and then we
looked at some of the other stakeholders
in our community again we didn't want to
reinvent the wheels so some of the
people here represent coalitions or
committees that are already working on
the issue and we asked them to join the
the council to represent the 25 people
that are already on their committee so
we do have some of the members here
today I'm going to go ahead and call out
everyone's name but all the members that
are here today Barbara and I would like
them to come up and introduce themselves
so Robert I think is at a training so he
wasn't be wasn't able to be here but
Gabriella Vasquez with New Mexico
Department of Health
um we have a representative for Joe
tamaka Enrique Mata Amy himmelwright
with Las Cruces Public Schools Ray
Stewart
Athena Huckabee and again Athena's
representative of two different
organizations and committees in our
community Melissa ontiveros
Sylvia Chavez
and Miguel Ramirez so I'm going to let
each of them briefly introduce
themselves
good afternoon my name is Gabriella
Vazquez I am the manager for the
Suboxone program here at Department of
Health here on Lowman
we provide services in the southwest
region here locally in Las Cruces Otero
County Luna County Sierra County and
we're trying to provide services also in
Grant County
hello my name is Liz Olivares I am
standing in for Joe tamaka at New Mexico
State University I am with Crimson
research and have been working as
program manager there for eight years
and we will be leading the needs
assessment services for the opioids
settlement funding
hi my name is Athena Huckabee I know
many of you a pleasure to be here today
I am um the community outreach manager
for the state of New Mexico for a
treatment Clinic called ideal option
that provides treatment resources for
people with opiate use disorder as well
as other substance use disorders notably
regarding my position on the this
advisory Council I'm the chair of the
opioid 360 committee which is a group
it's a subcommittee of the the wellness
Institute which is our health Council
the opioid 360 committee convenes people
doing harm reduction people doing
treatment and also people engaged in
prevention and Recovery work here in the
county so it convenes all of those
groups together so in my participation
I'm bringing you know the knowledge and
expertise of that whole group notably
Gabriella Vasquez is my co-chair of that
group as well
good afternoon my name is Miguel Ramirez
and I'm one of the community health
workers as well part of this Council my
place in this Council would be providing
serving as a liaison between the
promoters and the community as well
since I am a part of the southern New
Mexico promoteric community so
pretty much we see we hear from them
what they see in the community
especially out in the rural areas so
I'll be provided that serving those
liaison between the council and the
promotera committee
just want to thank them and all the
council members for agreeing to share
their knowledge and expertise in this
very important effort
all right so next up in the presentation
just wanted to talk kind of future
looking with respect to the expenditures
that will be made from the settlements
that we received
um you know we've heard they're going to
happen over many years we are starting
to receive the funds and we're going to
hear a little bit about that later but
the question will then come back to the
council as to how we're going to want to
expend those funds of course we're going
to be as we said coordinating with the
state and county in order to leverage
the impact of our expenditures we are
going to be subject to an annual audit
we do have quarterly reporting with the
state to ensure that the expenditures
are in line with the guidance and
restrictions
as far as how much will be spent on an
annual basis there are many options
we're going to talk about some of those
here in just a sec including one that
essentially establishes a trust to be
able to spend funds over a longer period
of time as as we've discussed previously
um so we mentioned this earlier with the
vital strategies uh presentation but
State bill
um 527 was passed this year that
established uh the opioid settlement
restricted fund those that's the fund in
which the state is receiving all of the
distributions that they are getting from
settlements and they are apportioning
five percent of the average of the
year-end market value of that fund to be
spent on an annual basis through what
they're calling the opioid crisis
Recovery Fund they're so they're
receiving funds into the restricted fund
and they will be spending them from The
Recovery Fund in the amount of about
five percent of the annual market value
what does that look like
if we were to apply that to the amount
of money that we are expecting to
receive and Mr Robles noted that it's
9.8 million dollars over the over the
settlement terms that means at any given
year we would be holding on to an amount
of funds and spending a smaller
proportion of those funds the orange
line
would be essentially what would be spent
on an annual basis and so you're looking
in the hundreds of thousands of dollars
versus the fund growing to millions of
dollars this is analogous to what the
state is doing this is how the state is
setting up
um management of their 45 percent of
what they're receiving again this is not
necessarily what we're recommending to
do we're just showing you what this
would look like if we took a similar
approach to what the state is is doing
um for purposes of this discussion as I
mentioned there are many scenarios in
how we might expend these funds we've
just listed a few here for your cons
consideration you can certainly use all
the funds as they come in and we noted
the 9.8 million dollars it's estimated
we could spend some proportion of that
as I mentioned the state is spending
five percent of the market value of what
they're receiving you you could
determine for example that you'd want to
spend 6 percent of whatever you receive
every year that's just another option to
consider you could decide you want to
spend that plus whatever you make in
investing those funds that's scenario
three here or you could invest a hundred
percent of funds
early on and plan to spend them at a
later date these are all just just
things to consider for the for the
future expenditure of these funds we did
have one chart to just illustrate one of
these options this would be scenario two
if we decided to spend 60 percent of
what we receive in a given year for the
fund and reserve the rest of it for
Investments this is just example again
the Orange Line would be what would be
spent on an annual basis and the green
line would indicate what the fund would
grow to
again this is just something to to kind
of plant a seed for for thinking about
how you would like to spend these funds
in the future a couple of options
related to what the state is doing and
what you might want to do in the future
so the last part of our presentation
we're going to talk about reporting and
I'm going to introduce Jessica Pena she
is our Senior Management analyst in the
city manager's office to talk about the
reporting that we're planning for our
website I'll just say before she comes
up here you've heard from vital
strategies and others the importance of
a very transparent process both in how
we make recommendations that will come
forward to you for expending the funds
and how we report
on how those funds are spent it's so
important there are some communities
around the U.S who are not as
transparent in what is going on and
there's a lot of consternation behind
that so we definitely don't want to take
that path we want to be as transparent
as possible so with that I'll turn it
over to Jessica so she can explain what
we're planning to do for reporting
good afternoon Jessica Pena Senior
Management analyst with City manager's
office
we have developed a brand new page under
the transparency and accountability
section under the city's website similar
to what we've done with the arpa funds
it starts off with a brief overview of
the opioid epidemic and we follow that
with a section of an explanation of the
opioid settlement funds in our
participation in the litigation
um as well as listing the estimated
payments
the city of Las Cruces will receive
we also have a chart a visual displaying
the revenue that we've received as of
June of 2023
as we start making expenses I mean as we
start having expenses then we'll also
modify the chart to show the expenses on
there
following that we list the use of the
funds and the allowable uses from the
distribute distributor settlement and as
well as the possible uses for the city
after that we provide an explanation of
or an overview of the settlement
advisory Council it explains the purpose
and the composition of council
and we end with a list of resources such
as the principles for the use of the
funds from Johns Hopkins and the
national opioids settlement website
once we start having expenditures then
we'll also be providing any data with
how those funds are being spent and
where the people being served
thank you
thank you so much Jessica as she
mentioned we have kind of a similar
reporting process for our erpa funds and
certainly for the community grants that
we have from those funds and again we'll
be reporting on not just the financials
the quantitative data associated with
those expenditures but also the
qualitative data what the impacts and
outcomes are as well as the
organizations receiving the data and the
intended uses for them so we really want
to have a robust reporting structure and
as Jessica mentioned this is on our
website so that anybody could access it
at any time and it will be available
so with that I'd like to open up the
floor for any questions for myself or
any of the presenters thank you very
much for your time and attention
mayor Pro tem and councilor Ben Cuomo
thank you mayor thank you Barbara so
much for the presentation and working
with Jamie to bring the council together
I have some questions about the advisory
Council or advisory Council and who else
might sit on there because I still see
some gaps as it relates to Public Safety
criminal justice
and I I think it very important to have
someone sitting on that that has that
perspective moving forward is there any
um
decisions or dialogue about that
so I'd like to bring Jamie up here as
well to comment but I know that when we
indicated on the timeline with respect
to the advisory Council that is
certainly in progress because we are
looking at where there might be some
gaps we know that there's one uh pending
appointment that we've requested from
dacc there's been some input to have
some youth represented as well so I
think we are definitely open to you know
where are the um what are the gaps that
we need to fill we have 10 to 15 slots
that we were looking for and I think we
have 10 filled currently right now so we
definitely have some room but I'll let
Jamie add to that
Janie Michael County's Health and Human
Services Department
my thought process behind that was that
most of the public safety folks are
either County Employees or city
employees and so we would include
employees of both governments in the
process as needed so I didn't want to
fill the slots with our Detention Center
Director our fire chiefs our police
chief or or Sheriff's Department
although because they are employees of
the local government they will
participate in the advisory Council but
the the members on the council we were
looking to the community outside of
government employees to fill those
positions I think the one area where we
may look outside of that but still
connected to Public Safety is the court
system exactly yeah I'm thinking Some
people in there that are are working
with folks particularly in the Detention
Center or even outside of like district
courts some of the programming that you
know individuals that I met at your
opioid you know date you had something
at Farm and Ranch I think would you know
people I've I've never met that have a
lot of expertise in that so I would I
would ask that that we reach out and and
and then make it open are you going to
have like Vice
um chair Vice chair secretary those
kinds of things with the city and county
providing technical assistance or how is
that going to roll out
point the
um county has an employee a committee
coordinator so that position is
providing the administrative support and
with funding from vital strategies we
are going to be able to hire a
coordinator so it will be an employee
that provides the administrative support
kind of the backbone Organization for
this Council and when we posed the
question about chair and co-chair to the
council members they decided not to set
up a hierarchy within their membership
that they would all be kind of equal
members of the council and again because
it's small enough there really is no
need to apply some of the formal Roberts
Rules of Order to the group at this
point as we progress and they start
dealing with more complex issues they
may may change their mind but they did
decide to just keep everyone as a
council member because we have employees
doing the
the notifications taking notes and all
of the follow-up and again we tried to
follow the makeup or the the recommended
structure so we really were looking for
people with lived and living experience
public health professionals people that
work with youth treatment providers
recovery and other social support
service organizations and then other
stakeholders that might be unique to our
community and we don't want to overfill
it with one sector or another especially
some of our local providers because you
know a year from now they may be
receiving money and competing for some
of the funds so we're trying to balance
out the the membership on the advisory
Council I can appreciate that so
the county hired vital strategies and so
that would be a county function and how
would the city provide input to the
hiring of coordinators and and such what
I want to make sure that we're all
aligned and that we get equal
participation and feedback
so the vital strategies is an
independent non-profit that was funded
by Bloomberg so they're using those
funds to help
hired this the staff person so they are
giving us they're they're giving the
county like a grant for us to hire a
full-time coordinator and my intent is
that will post the position like we do
every other County position but I would
ask Barbara to sit on the interview
panel with me and this person's job
would be to work with the advisory
council with Crimson research with vital
strategies and other technical support
folks to work on the implementation plan
and then eventually maybe work on the
the action plan and the operational plan
around whatever is funded
okay so are we
um
then working I noticed that you have
Melissa on the veros through lc3
representative I know that lc3 has done
a tremendous amount of of
different research studies needs
assessments through Community what is
and maybe is it crimson's colors that's
working with them yes
I'm trying to remember if they're the
ones no they're not okay it's somebody
else I NMSU I think that's providing
that that type of Direction so I'm just
worried you mentioned you mentioned
duplication I'm worried about that
because there's already a group of a
strong group that's doing a lot of the
kind of work related to mental health
maybe it's specific maybe it's not as
specific to opioid use and um
so I want to make sure that there is uh
you know just a coordinated effort as
you know with the wellness Institute and
the various Collective groups that are
out there working on any given group and
then I want to ask about how is the city
and county
elected officials working to address
policies how we would like to because I
think all of us here have input about
how to use that funding and and I would
recommend some sort of joint
um
I don't know a joint Board of sorts or
an opportunity to meet jointly to
discuss this at earnest
thank you so Barbara bencomo again for
the record uh with respect to the
um
the needs assessment I just wanted to
mention that the discussion we've had uh
today has really uh focused on in part
making sure that we have an inventory of
data assets that's going to feed this
needs assessment and that includes work
done by other entities anything that we
we've been able to provide data from our
fire department and police department
but many of the other organizations and
entities have also provided data that
Crimson research can then use at the
needs assessment so we definitely want
to uh instead of you know duplicating
efforts make use of any research that's
already been completed or any data
that's already existing in the community
in order to inform that that needs
assessment so just wanted to to mention
that and then I don't know if you want
to speak to the second
okay I appreciate that I I know I I
could probably ask a ton more questions
but I'm going to give the floor to my
colleagues and then I'll just say lastly
um I I think it important to fold in our
cannabis industry in in some way
um it's an uh an important sector that I
think would be very useful to this group
although different I'm sure we're not
thinking in those lines but I also know
that we through our health policy Review
Committee spoke of of you know opiate
use and cannabis use and just the number
of things that are happening with our
youth that I think they would be a great
um
you know a great member right to provide
a lot of input to this group and so with
that I'll turn it back over to Mayor
thank you thank you mayor Pro tem
counselor Ben Como and councilor Koran
thanks mayor and thanks everyone for the
presentation I just want to thank Mr
attorney Robles and then our two Chief
story and Smith for
setting the table for really what's at
stake here and I just wanted to lift up
what you've Chief Smith said because I
thought it was really powerful about
this being a trauma to our community
even a trauma to First Responders so
um I hope that was important Chief thank
you
um yeah so I just have a couple
questions I'm just going to go down the
list from the presentation
um a name sorry I forgot the name from
vital
strategies
I just have a couple questions for you
if you don't mind
hello Kate Bolton uh with vital
strategies thank you Kate on I you
didn't have page numbers but when you
talked about principle number two you
talked about removing policies that
could be a potential could be potential
barriers I wondered if you could give
examples to
if you had already identified some of
those if or if you have exam and if
they're not local if you have examples
of what those have been
yeah so I don't have um specific local
examples in mind but uh two I can offer
just from my own experience would be uh
you know regulation of addiction
providers that exceeds kind of what the
federal floor is around for instance
uh treatment with methadone or
buprenorphine the two sort of gold
standard medications for the treatment
of opioid use disorders so
a state may have a
you know additional
um sort of licensure hurdles or clinical
requirements imposed
you know not by a medical board but by
other kinds of entities that can impact
access to care in a negative way and
then another
um
example that comes to mind is is the
ways in which states and localities can
inhibit the operation of harm reduction
programs and so you know that that
really varies dramatically from place to
place but that can be anything from
you know limits on
operating hours or the need for
kind of multiple approvals from
different layers of
of government or other uh entities so
um but I think you know it's part of A
needs assessment
um or it can be part of A needs
assessment to sort of do that
that Landscaping of the policy
environment both in terms of
facilitators and barriers and then kind
of identifying a plan
at that level as well
that's super helpful thank you so much
Kate I I just really do want to
appreciate your presentation and coming
in with these kinds of principles
particularly number two and number four
were really critical for me and I'm
really glad that these this is sort of
bare minimum we're saying right like
this is the floor for what what we need
to achieve moving forward and so I I
really really appreciate the the key
focus on some of these things like you
know not adding barriers to harm
reduction programs and then as you said
in principle two
um with a specific lens on racial equity
and and really equity in general to make
sure that we're impacting those who have
been disproportionately impacted by this
so those are my only questions for you
but I did just want to
specifically say thank you for those two
pieces that you that vital strategy is
bringing in yeah thank you for the
opportunity to discuss the principles
and then so this may be for Barbara or
Jamie the rest of my questions
um community outreach
I'm wondering if you've started talking
about within the council already around
community outreach specifically for
directly impacted families and how that
will be prioritized and best achieved
thank you counselor so Barbara bencomo
for the record so much to discuss in
that area we have just barely touched
upon it because again the initially just
developing the council making sure we
have the right folks coming forward and
then working on the needs assessment but
we have started to talk about all the
different ways that we would like to
conduct
input and
who we want to make sure that we include
and how we want to do it so it's still
so much to determine that's definitely
something that the council and our and
others will help to form and certainly
utilize the needs assessment as part of
that uh formation I think you may have
noticed on the timeline that the input
overlaps with the development of
recommendations because as we are
receiving input we might be modifying
you know we could be going back and
forth between a couple of steps for a
while so that we could modify maybe dig
dip deeper some of the issues that we're
seeing come forward in input that would
uh maybe cause us to Pivot and how we're
and how we're going out to the community
to get the important information we need
and I do want to give Jamie the
opportunity to respond as well
thank you Jamie Michael County's Health
and Human Services Department a couple
examples of things that have been talked
about and recommended by members of The
Advisory Council are direct Street
Outreach
key informant interviews and that might
be where we talk to a group of police
officers a group of EMTs people in the
jail or judges so those are those key
informant interviews and Street outreach
are ways of really connecting with
people who are most impacted and
probably have the most to contribute to
finding Solutions and finding services
that would be beneficial in addition to
surveys and focus groups and town halls
and and those types of more traditional
public input Gathering that's great
thank you I'm glad that's already been
part of the conversation there there was
this organizing principle that I that I
learned while I was Community organizing
that said the the further you are from
the issue the easier it is to
philosophize about it and so I think
it's important that I mean this this
council is incredibly impressive and
they're clearly folks with like Direct
on the ground experience and it's just
so critical to have those voices from
people who have lost loved ones to
opioid use right and those kinds of
things so I wanted to make sure I asked
about that Sunland Park are they part of
the this
project I don't know what to call it I'm
sorry
this effort this great collaboration yes
our County manager has reached out to
the county manager in Sunland Park to
see if they are interested as well
um in being part of the the same
planning effort we're not sure if
they've already decided how to spend
their their funds
um but we we should know and again so we
would want somebody specifically on the
advisory Council that represents that
Community as well so more to come on
that okay thank you I mean I think they
have an incredible perspective I mean
we're all border communities right but I
think Sunland Park particularly would
have a very interesting perspective so I
hope they do that on page 50 I think you
you sort of clarified it at the end for
me but so the proposal on I forgot the
number HB something or other
um
I thought it was 52 so see
oh well I was close
um so you this is the current proposal
out there or did this past already so
Barbara bencom for the record that is
correct this past okay this past
legislative session so this is the
template or the road map that the state
is going to utilize HB 527 set up the
structure for the funds and then under
the
um General bill for expenditures they
actually outline what they're going to
spend things on and for the coming year
out of that five percent that they're
setting aside but they didn't this
didn't mandate what municipalities had
to do right okay this is solely for the
state that is correct okay great well
I'm just going to put my two cents out
there already I don't love this so I
just wanted to for Council Members I
don't love HB 527.
um and then is there my last question is
really just around has there been a
formal signed agreement between the city
and the county yeah or is that are we
not doing that until we're you know
starting to spend
money
um so there has not been a formal signed
agreement at this point it's just a
coordinated effort between the city and
the county agreement uh to take the same
approach to utilize the same resources
to inform the recommendations that will
come to the two bodies again to avoid
the duplication of effort to make sure
we're leveraging expenditures
Etc so at this point there there's not a
plan for that but certainly as we go
through the discernment process if that
if that sounds like something that we
need to Embark upon I don't think that
there would be any uh any reason why we
would not go about doing that okay thank
you Barbara I'm sure you'll keep us
posted on that
um and then you know just a couple last
comments I think I really really want to
thank the members of the committee for
volunteering to do this it's not an easy
task I'm certainly not envious of you
and
you know I I think we're also facing I
mean we have our little context here in
donana County and in New Mexico and then
much bigger contexts in this country
where there is no access to
Affordable Health Care where there is no
real systemic change around How We Do
opioid or enforcement or any of that and
so I feel like we're really facing some
pretty big policy monsters that are out
of our control and so I just really want
to uplift to the work that you'll be
doing here and that I know will have a
huge impact on on the families and First
Responders of our community so thank you
thank you councilor thank you councilor
councilor Korean
thank you and most of my colleagues have
already expressed most of this but thank
you to you Barbara and the team and also
the council for really being willing to
do this and bringing a thoughtful
perspective the public health
perspective which is really how I hope
that we can approach all of this
um the policy question was one that I
had so I I appreciate you talking about
that the last part that I just really
wanted to sort of give input to or or
make the case on which I don't know that
you're asking us to do this but I think
councilor Ben Como sort of alluded to it
this in my mind and I believe I hope
that we can make policies related to
this this is not a rainy day fund the
rainy day is here we're in a deluge
people are dying right now as a result
of this and so I really
you don't want us to do what the state
is doing which is the bare minimum
investment of of this I really hope that
we can front end this funding because
the reality is and this makes me kind of
sad that directly affected families
aren't going to get a piece of this
right and to me that's that's part of
the
the deep sadness is that this is harm
payment for harm that people have
already experienced and we're trying to
translate that into preventive
preventive sort of future harms
um and to me the only way we can do that
is to front load the spending in in ways
that you all sort of alluded to so I'm
just going to make that case now that we
consider only the options that do the
most make the most impact in the very
shortest amount of time
and if education and prevention is a big
part of it that the assumption is that
that will be an investment in that
future so I ask us to invest in the
people not the actual banks that would
hold that money so that's the last of
that's really the only thing that I sort
of wanted to move us toward as we have
this conversation and I hope that we can
take that approach going forward but
please do I hope that as policies come
up that you all can be kind of that
conduit to see if there is anything even
within our Municipal sort of governance
structure which is really a tiny part of
this as you as as you alluded Kate
alluded to it's really many state laws
but if there's anything related to
any of the programs that we that we
interface with that we can support with
through ordinances or other policies
please I hope that though we can get on
that as soon as possible so thank you
thank you yes oh go ahead Jimmy Mr chair
sorry sorry mayor Jamie Michael County's
Health and Human Services Department I
just wanted to add um one thing to that
that's probably
um jumping the gun a little bit but just
as a good Public Health Advocate one
area locally where we could use some
help is the ability to distribute Narcan
in the public schools to young people
it's not allowed right now we've been
Distributing Narcan in the community for
about six years
and we can educate about how to respond
to an overdose but most of the Narcan at
the public schools are locked in the
nurse's office and that defeats the
purpose of somebody being able to take
it home if they live in a home where
there's a possibility of a of an
overdose or if they're with their
friends and they're the first responder
so that is an example of local either
formal or informal policies that are a
barrier to us getting life-saving
medication out into the community so I
just had to say that thank you
Sir Flores thank you Mr chair and thank
you Ms bencomo and Miss Michael
um I I I'm having um
I have a lot of questions about the
advisory Council and uh I don't know
what the present compensation
composition is of the 10 people I think
10 positions have already been filled
you said there'd be between 10 and 15.
so presumably or possibly there are five
more positions and that you deliberately
stayed away from say the fire chief or
the police chief or maybe you know the
sheriff's component
but uh
but my concern is like um you know I'm
kind of you know being a mom you know
kid wants to have a birthday party and
you go great okay yeah I'm having a
party and that's like oh man there's a
lot of work to go into that party
um so you know these are just very
concrete questions if you're going to
have an advisory Council and right now
we don't know who those people are
necessarily we don't maybe you do but we
don't but um I I think I saw some names
but at any rate yeah there were some
names but I didn't see for example Ned
Rubin who's happens to be here who has
been very much involved with
are
our health PRC over the years
um and that's just an example and and
I'm afraid uh that these meetings and
then we don't have Community people on
there and I don't know or maybe you do I
don't know who they are but it seems to
me that these meetings will be held
and their
I'm not sure
how
how feasible is going to be for
everybody to join in whenever the
meetings are held I don't know where
when you know what time is it going to
be during the day when you know all the
employees who are going to be
working on this are going to be able to
attend or is it going to be evening and
they're putting in their overtime or you
know whatever and and then I you know I
just think that it's crucial to have
someone from the fire department and
police department from the Sheriff's
Office people who are dealing with these
issues all the time so
um but you know you had your reasons for
doing that but that's just one of my
concerns
I have other concerns as well but
[Music]
um
yeah so I mean you made it clear that it
was only an advisory but I think one of
my colleagues asked well if it's only
advisory who makes a final decision
and does the county make it do we make
it do we have a jpa with a County on
this
no thank God but I mean I mean it begs
the question who makes the final
decision as to how funds are distributed
so by whom the advisory Council
no thank you for the question counselor
Flores Barbara bencom again for the
record so the names of The Advisory
council members are here on the slide
before you with again some some
um suggestions for and we're taking the
uh suggestions with respect to
additional folks who might serve on the
council so that's that's one point the
meetings currently are scheduled on a
monthly basis they are during the day
that's we've only had two meetings so
that's not to say that we might change
those meetings the participation of the
meeting at the meetings includes staff
members in addition to the county or
sorry in addition to the council members
and so those participants might might
include as Jamie said earlier city and
county staff with respect to Public
Safety as far as who makes the final
decision this council is an advisory
Council their advisory to both the city
council
and to the County Commission so the
outcome of the needs assessment and
discussions prioritization by the
council is to provide a recommendation
to the city council to consider for to
the city council and to the County
Commission to consider how to expend the
funds so that'll be coming forward to
both the city council and the County
Commission in the spring Miss pin Como
that's a little disturbing to me because
so what are you going to do you're going
to put it on what's going to be put on
our agenda for x amount then it's going
to be put on the County's agenda for
their amount and then what
I mean there's no real joint
decision there so I don't
I how is that going to work so we are
receiving funds separately
so the county received their
distribution we receive our distribution
we can't make a decision for what the
county will spend they can't make a
decision for what we will spend but we
certainly want to coordinate the
expenditure so that we don't duplicate
effort and we maximize the impact to our
community as to how that will happen
eventually it's possible that we could
have a joint session of both the city
and the county to determine what would
be an expenditure by both bodies for
example that is not set in place at this
point but it does put the final decision
making at the two government body level
the city council and the County
Commission presumably with coordinated
recommendations for both from The
Advisory Council
wow well
um I guess we'll all get our rosaries
out and start praying I somehow I you
know it sounds really wonderful
but there's a big but and um
and I you know a lot of the people I
think they're wonderful human beings and
all that especially not especially but
because I personally
support her really admire the work that
Athena has been doing she's out there in
the community day in and day out and
she's there 24 7. really
um
I but I
we're not voting on this today thank God
but thank you very much ladies I mean um
Ms Michael and Ms bencomo
okay anyone else before I okay so let me
see if I can just kind of throw out a
couple things and maybe this might have
a little bit of bearing in which it said
counselor Flores and I appreciate you
bringing this to the Forefront so
I'm going to act like I'm talking to
evil because he wasn't here in 1990
three so oh you weren't born then okay
so the the city in the county at that
time formed a joint Powers agreement
called the South Central Solid Waste
Authority
where the purpose of of engaging in and
of course in dealing with our Solid
Waste you know and and so that's worked
out a pretty good partnership so I think
that might be something there we may
want to consider that way there we could
have uh I don't know South Central
Mental Health Association no that's
something there that I know the mere Pro
temment and I have we've discussed
throughout the years but the funding
wasn't there and so if I could Barbara
can you go back to the there was a there
was a slide where it talked about how
much money was going to be coming in all
the way to 2060.
um let me see
wow okay was it on your slide Mr Robles
I don't know why I thought it was a lot
less
and so you think we'll get this in 15
years
I thought there was another slide I was
going off of
there was a it was like a
it was
like a little
graph bar graph and it went all the 20
all the way to 2060. well this is good
because this is more money than what I
had anticipated so what I was
I keep on going a little bit I apologize
mayor maybe that one not sure no this is
the um okay now that was Narcan
administrations sorry about that okay
that's okay but but these are the funds
that are expected over the lifetime of
the settlement okay so I don't know
maybe I was looking at a wrong chart but
anyway so what I was thinking and I
don't know if we can do this
and if we can't maybe this is a call for
some State legislation but if we were to
pull our money together and I was using
400 000 a year as as Debt Service to
bond that so that we can have immediate
impact much like counselor Quran was
talking about and I figured about 12 to
14 million dollars so that way because
we know that it's a fun it's a
settlement I mean it's a it's a stream
of money that we're guaranteed or
supposedly over so many years so if we
could somehow bond that that stream of
income so that we can have access to
well what I thought was going to be 12
14 million if we're going to get this
much we're talking a lot more okay so I
was being real conservative here and
then if we could form that joint Powers
agreement now we can really make some
impact and this is going to be what I
was going to tell ifo so ifo in 2013
the predecessor to this current governor
she literally
um
dismantled our Mental Health
Providers alleging all kinds of things
and it turns out that that they they
weren't doing what she was alleging and
and I remember some people telling me it
was about four or five years later they
said this is where the real impact is
going to be and look at it now and so if
we could have this this joint Powers
agreement and we can have this this
money we could help rebuild that system
because that system was you know it was
doing the best it can it was I think
keeping the community together and then
when that uh that that Governor
destroyed it it really messed things up
and we're dealing with this we're going
to have to deal with the to rebuild this
system and I think this money if we
parlay it right and are able and again I
don't know if we can Bond on it but I
don't see why we couldn't it's a scary
stream of income and and if we can use
this for for programs and the county put
service in we put ours in just like we
did with the South Central Solid Waste
Authority which ironically at that time
I want to say we may have put in a
little bit more than what the county did
and then because this way here they're
putting a little bit more but but this
is a true partnership here we have three
council members three County
Commissioners and they hire whether they
want to hire whoever you know
I won't be around when you guys do this
next year but just something to think
about I think that that would be
something that we can have immediate
impact and especially if we can Bond on
this so okay that's all I had thank you
mayor
foreign
yeah I just I think you know I think
this raises
important questions that I think we need
to figure out certainly I think
there is a question about ultimate
decision making
um when it comes to the two chain two
different chambers having to make votes
on things and I'm sure that or at least
I hope that those are some
considerations being taken certainly by
both you as this both a view of a staff
per institution to to be thinking about
but I do just I think I want to
respectfully disagree with my colleague
just because I think
um this won't be easy just like
attacking
you know opioid use is not easy
and none of those conversations are easy
and
and I mean ultimately I think there's
been a council selected of
Experts of people who understand this
um
this particular issue in and out I mean
we have great elected officials both on
the county and and the city side and we
have varying
expertise I mean really we have one
public health expert from both Chambers
we have a couple social workers but like
we all have very different expertise and
if an advisory Council made up of
serious Public Health experts directly
impacted folks folks who were working in
the community on this issue and they are
saying we have assessed all of these
things these are the best this is how we
would like the money to be spent in the
next 10 years in the next 15 years
they're coming to us with some of these
Solutions and we as elected officials
are saying I don't know I I have another
idea
we're essentially telling experts that
we know better and while I think it's
important that we ask tough questions
and that ultimately we are the ones
liable and responsible that we are and
that we are included in the
conversations and when these challenges
come up I just do want to note that the
task at hand is not easy and will not be
easy and I hope that as much as possible
the politics of it all can be left out
because what is at stake are people's
lives
okay
I'm here Pro tem did you want to you
have a comment yeah thank you um for
that I
you know when was it mayor about three
years ago we start maybe four years ago
we started talking about that behavioral
health district and brought all the
Mayors in
um to have the conversation about
um about this with our Public Safety
folks
um really you know reimagining what our
mental health our Behavioral Health
System is
um and and I don't disagree I don't and
I'm I would never tell the experts on
this Council
you know differently I I think it's
important but I see
um
I mean let's be frank I think in the
past the city and county
you know at different times don't work
well together and and do a lot to keep
keep you know each other and in their
silos and I think it's important when I
started eight years ago I brought Jamie
in and others to talk about how do we
re-examine right
how we we deliver service funding just
funding and can we come together to
deliver funding together particularly
from the city's Telstra fund and the
funding that you're using to distribute
right and and we could never really move
move forward I think this is a golden
opportunity to do so I think we need to
trust each other and there needs to be a
lot of work you know happening on those
ends and I I just want to make sure that
um
that the public per se is really those
most affected by this have the input as
expeditiously as we can and I just want
to be I want us to be thoughtful and
understand that that this money it'll go
quickly
and I want to make sure that the
research and the evaluation component is
a piece of that and something I think we
don't always do very very well in doing
because the public is going to keep Hold
Us responsible right accountable for
what the the money that we're and and
what that outcome was and of course it
has to be around prevention and
intervention and in in my estimate
um
and and I worry about more specifically
our youth I mean literally our kids to
have a hold of this and there's been
some overdoses happening in our middle
schools and that's just the reality of
it so thank you for mentioning about our
our school board that's a policy that we
should be probably speaking
um very um earnestly you know speaking
very much so with them to move the
needle on that but I I just want to make
sure that
um I I may I like the idea of bonding if
we can do that I I think and leveraging
other funding like the telshare fund and
what not to really really benefit and
sustain this overall I I think but if
we're going to think that this there's
going to be some magical result in a
year or two three years it's not going
to happen this is long long term
things just particularly when you have
Chiefs saying the trauma that our
community is experienced seeing the
trauma that the our our public our
Public Safety individuals are
experiencing particularly when I I mean
I was I saw PBS
um
um documentary yesterday very specific
to opioid use it was
very enlightening and one that we should
really be showing regularly if we can
get our hands on it with our krwg
partners because they spoke very clearly
about how opioids and Fentanyl are are
just plaguing right their their
community and and so I think this is
where we're at and again I just want us
to
think very thoughtfully and bring
everybody in and use sort of the
Community Partners that aren't even
listed here like I'm thinking Cafe and
I'm thinking communities United that
know how to get people to the table and
they're trusted individuals right and
and and that's all I'll say but I I
would never I just want to be clear with
councilor bin Como I would never say no
I don't I don't think I work with all
these people on a daily basis and I
would never never say that about them
and I want to make sure that we're as
inclusive as we can be and that it's in
the language that people understand it
as well and that you have evening
meetings I think would be super helpful
thank you
okay
thank you
all right thank you so much we
appreciate your attention and your
support for this coordinated effort
thank you mayor
okay so next we're going to also now
hear about the Cannabis Revenue
good afternoon mayor city council Larry
Nicholas Community Development we have
another
presentation here regarding the Cannabis
allotment and the industry
thank you
and I'll
turn this over to the assistant study
manager
good afternoon miyaga shiman city
council can you hear me
yes how you doing
I'm doing well
sorry sorry I couldn't joined the fun
there in person I
um had to come out here for a visit and
and I just the The Show Must Go On This
is an important topic and uh I was able
to uh the team was able to compile the
what I think is a solid presentation uh
for for your knowledge and information
and and we'll be going over some some
good updates that I think are are
helpful for our discussion and we'll be
looking forward to recommendations of
cannabis revenues and and where you all
would like to appropriate
this time
so as uh Larry will be my hands to today
um sorry sorry mayor go ahead
okay I'm sorry did you say something
Connie yeah I apologize I'm I'm out here
on the farm and um
I don't know if the the chickens running
internet around here but if if I break
up please please let me know
um but uh assistant city manager
or for the presentation for for record
Larry will be my hands for the first few
slides uh and he'll be navigating until
his his time uh for Community
Development so Larry we will go to slide
two
yes you're on slide too sir perfect
thank you
so the agenda for today
we will review if there's been any State
updates as it pertains to cannabis then
we will review impacts to Public Safety
after which I'll transition to the
Community Development Department and
Larry Nichols who will give a update to
the Cannabis industry and then Economic
Development will touch on the metrics
and Outreach to specific businesses
and then after which Sergio Ruiz will
run a comparative Revenue allocation and
present on that who is our policy
analyst and then we will end with the
telshore fund and cannabis excise tax
slides were prepared by our city
treasurer Eric Hawkins but I will be
presenting on those slides
next slide Larry please
slide three
yes thank you
so last time we presented in a work
session to you Miriam shiman city
council
um this this
was as it pertained to the revenue
allocations that was in a work session
back in March
if you can remember we through several
ideas out uh potential recommendations
of where cannabis revenues could be
spent that's the one where uh fire chief
Smith uh made a recommendation since
there would be
uh increase in fire inspections
there may be a need for an additional
fire inspector with equipment and
training in addition to that PD at the
time with DC Danes presented that there
may be a need for an additional Dre
and have additional a ride training
which came out to about twenty thousand
dollars and we have an update of of
where Chief story would like to go with
his recommendation if asked but I can
share more in the next slide but anyways
in that work session
we threw several ideas not only from
supporting departments that would be
impacted but also throughout the
a proposed idea for for funds to go into
the Telstra funds and at that time we
left the meeting uh with the idea to
to wait and let's see what the state
does so that we didn't duplicate efforts
if the state was going to appropriate
funds into mental health we didn't want
to go in that realm and perhaps uh wise
and put it for staff and Council to
spend those funds in other places to
make stretch those dollars further at
this time what you have in front of you
today we do have an update our policy
analyst Sergio Ruiz was able to
research that there was a house bill 315
that was sponsored by State Rep Andrea
Romero and Javier Martinez that was not
approved but the purpose of this would
have been to allocate cannabis revenues
for the community reinvestment Grant
fund and the substance use disorder
prevention and treatment fund so that's
an update that we didn't have at the
time of work session uh in March so now
there's still pending updates from the
state
um and the reason why we're also
presenting in front of you be this
presentation is as these funds are right
now on the sideline Council may have the
desire to utilize them and so we really
want to get in front of you if that is
the desire so that we can talk about
potential ideas uh next slide Larry
please
slide four is up
thank you
so this is uh talking with Chief story
there may be a question
as elected officials that you're getting
from the constituents or you have
yourself what are the impacts to Public
Safety in talking with Chief story
he he shared an intentional strategy
since the pass of and the legalization
of recreational cannabis in our
community
there is a training called a ride which
is the advanced roadside impaired
driving enforcement that he has a goal
for all officers Patrol and traffic
officers to be trained and so that has
been a an increase
that he has been strategically moving
with his with his staff to get them to
get them trained on this just last last
week they hosted a training where 20
officers including other officers in the
region
attended a ride training last week again
in the goal to work towards 100 of
Patrol and traffic officers
and in completing a right training so
what a ride is is essentially what it
says in front of you it it really allows
the officers to to be
strict to to understand how to observe
identify and articulate signs of
impairment
These Are the officers that would
identify that uh Dre which is a drug
recognition expert is needed right now
on staff we have two Dres on staff which
Chief story thinks that's sufficient if
you could remember back in the work
session DC Danes mentioned that a
potential impact would be an addition
the need for an additional Dre would
which would uh put us at three Dres but
in in talking with Chief story he helped
me understand
um in working with his staff that he
feels that three Dres may may be too
much right now talking with his his drug
his drug recognition staff they said the
the funds would be better utilized if it
was put on a right training and so what
a-ride officers trained officers would
do is they would obviously recognize
everything we shared
um
but we would still need a Dre expert to
to prosecute but this gives us really
the backing and the support and the
knowledge we need as as officers and as
as staff to become
to have the Comfort level where
um where we need to be uh when it comes
to impaired driving
so next up Larry if you could move to
the next slide please
slides fires up heat mapping
thank you
the purpose of this map is
this is a mechanism a tool that PD
wanted to show all of you as as Council
and the mayor that there is a mechanism
they are working with our GIS rgis staff
to create some type of tool that
visualizes
calls for service citations and clusters
yellow are high concentrated areas of
call for service and citations red and
gray are lower areas in the dots you
have
dispensaries and so I I just wanted to
make it clear there is no correlation to
where the dispensaries are located
they're not causing the Clusters but
what what this is showing U.S council is
that there is a mechanism
um that PD is working with GIS to try to
build some type of visual context and
and help us as we're moving together in
this new normal we're a recreational
Cannabis is legal in trying to make
sense of the data the statistics to see
how we can learn from this the Clusters
that you see typically there are major
retail areas the side of Travis and so
the yellow areas will most likely be the
Walmarts the Walgreens the CBS is
typically where
um some some areas
of problems may occur
or our police
and with that I will turn over the time
to Larry to give us an update on the
Cannabis industry
yes once again mayor of city council
city manager Larry Nichols with the
Community Development Department I'll be
speaking about what has happened with
the state authorization for the
legalized cannabis on what impact it had
on the city of Las Cruces how we began
to use bring businesses into existence
for their their operation
the New Mexico
Regulation and Licensing Division
established a cannabis control division
which would oversee the licensing and
regulation for the entire state
the city of Las Cruces
oversees what we call land use which is
zoning business registrations and the
building codes to include the fire code
as well
so that occurred on September the 1st of
21. they created the regulatory advisory
committee the state did and the Cannabis
control division begin to process
permits for cannabis producers micro
businesses and licensed medical cannabis
facilities city of Las Cruces began
business registrations processing for
cannabis mostly for producers or micro
businesses and licensed Medical
cannabis facilities January the first
cannabis control division issued server
permits to those various uh
Commodities the city of Las Cruces began
the acceptance and processing of
business registrations for all cannabis
businesses in Las Cruces and on April
1st the retail businesses make-man
operation
that was kind of about a year from the
time it was
legislatively approved to we began to
see businesses come into existence
the Las Cruces development chronology
21 again the New Mexico state legislator
legalized recreational cannabis and then
21 Las Cruces criteria for a week began
to set up the Criterion for establishing
these businesses
and then between the 21 of September 7th
was the first business license
registration that we issued here in Las
Cruces
and then a period from 2021 to 2023
we held weekly meetings with small
business workshops we call them but they
were primarily uh populated by the
Cannabis industry that wanted to know
what they could do and how could they
get into business and how can they begin
to do sales
and 2021 we had seven business
registrations issued uh 22 we had 33.
and then in 2023 we've had 27. those
total numbers come to 67
businesses that we have now here in in
Las Cruces
we have 127 applications
but we have 67 have been issued the
others are information pending
they also have a few that have withdrawn
about 16 have withdrawn applications
the basis for that was there's more
involved in going into business than and
what one might think and that was one of
the main reasons for that those
withdrawals
here's a map for you by zoning District
the dots the Green Dot show cannabis
locations the ones that are you know are
issued now
um one of the reasons you see it's kind
of in the center part of town
and
is that most of the businesses that have
begun have been seeking out established
buildings we have not had a single
building permit issued for a new
facility
so they find a business that is vacant
and they do tenant improvements to
establish their business operation
and that's why you see the concentration
of them being the central part of town
because that's where most of our
established vacant buildings were
and then cannabis business types
obviously cannabis retail is a
predominant one we have the the 41
businesses there and then we have the
other categories manufacturing carrier
producer micro business and business
types that's the 67 that I mentioned to
you a few moments ago
and with that concludes my presentation
and I yield to metrics and Outreach
thanks Larry good day my name is Monica
Torres Economist with economic
development and I will be going over
some metrics and Outreach
being a new industry there's always
challenges and a stiff learning curve
among the main challenges is the
availability of data
here we have five metrics for which we
have data available
however we continue to research other
metrics and data sources that we could
use
uh particularly those Associated to
health mental health in the social
effects
on regards to what Outreach it is Staff
the directly visited with 31 local
cannabis businesses
businesses were very appreciative of the
city support and expressed that the 300
foot barrier is very helpful
that concludes my presentation I'm going
to turn it over to
it's pretty fast
good afternoon mayor city council secret
Rodriguez policy analyst for the record
I will be uh talking about a comparative
approach to how their municipalities are
allocating revenue from the Cannabis
access Texas taxes
the first city that I will be presenting
is Denver Colorado
so Denver Colorado allocates its kind of
its tax revenue primarily into its
general fund to pay for City Services
and then it uses its special retail
sales tax from its cannabis sales
and it's used for three key areas which
will include regulation education and
enforcement
has generated a total of 42.6 million
dollars from Cannabis revenues uh 7.6 of
that which was appropriate for
regulation education enforcement and
then 28.1 million of that was
appropriated for housing homelessness
serve and homeless and services youth
violence prevention and Crisis
Intervention
here's a graph that I that I have here
looking at this graph we can see how
this housing and small business
assistance are dissing it as a priority
allocations for Denver's cannabis tax
revenue and at the bottom you can see
that uh Enforcement Education and
regulation are under the three key uh
fund priorities that Denver has
this next slide demonstrates how the
series cannabis general fund
Appropriations are distributed among the
different city services
we can see here the children's
Affairs office is at the top of the of
their funding allocations
and the children's Affairs office is
mainly youth or at risk prevention
programs for youth
libraries and museums
secondly under on the on the graph you
can see notice that police enforcement
is on the on their second top of the
list and then the third type of list
allocation would be the Cannabis office
which is the one that provides a
licenses and permits for cannabis
retailers
the next city in the presentation is the
city of Portland Oregon
the city of Portland Oregon generated
approximately 9.3 million dollars from
the tax revenue from Canada sales in the
in 2022 and their primary revenues are
allocated to drug and alcohol treatment
Public Safety Investments and support
from neighborhood small businesses
and this graph right here demonstrates
the percentage breakdown of the three
main cannabis revenue allocations for
the city of Portland as you can see uh
within this graph 32 percent of the
funding is going or allocated to
transportation and safety
six percent of edu to education and
treatment programs are the largest
allocation of 62 percent is going
towards small business and Community
Support
the following three examples are some of
the programs funded by the Cannabis tax
revenues in Portland Oregon one of them
being the street infrastructure
housing programs and Community programs
and with that I will
send it back to ikani for Telstra fund
thank you Sergio
again
assistant city manager with a record
I just wanted to reverse
back a little bit to Dr Torres the
reason Dr Torres
that that was shared there and I know
she was quick but there's a lot of work
that Dr Torres uh has has done in in
researching and beginning her research
if you could remember back last year
um and when we first brought this up it
was important to to to you all on the
diocese uh to have evaluation it was
also important to us as staff we have
had some trans transition there uh in
that position and and we wanted to make
sure that Dr Torres was tracking uh the
evaluation of the impacts on the city of
Las Cruces there are cannabis impacts
that and data being done on a federal
level which she could find today but we
gave her a challenge to to do what she
can to find any of the impacts and
evaluated criteria that touches on Las
Cruces so just we we just wanted to make
it known that things are are being
tracked but if
um and if any of you mayor miyagashima
or city council have any ideas in the
Academia world uh where we can look
she's looking we're trying to track it
so that we can have a better perspective
of evaluation since recreational
Cannabis has been legalized so I just
wanted to touch on that
social fund and Exxon is taxed this
these slides were prepared and Larry if
you could go to the next slide please
this was prepared by our city treasurer
Erica Hawkins we appreciate her
preparation this again may look familiar
because we presented it a few
presentations ago when it came on this
topic this is to share and highlight the
type of projects that were eligible to
be to be expended in the Telstra funding
next slide Larry
again this is 20 2020 2021 and 2022. I
want to go through each one this is just
as a reference to share the type of
projects that came through the one more
Slidell area or 2023
thank you
and and this is an updated slide last
time we presented we didn't have 23
2023 numbers uh an expended projects so
these are the type of projects that
that were expended here like slideller
please
so what we have
here in front of you is the breakdown of
the Telstra fund
uh starting from the top we have the
April market value which essentially
shares the state investment Council of
30 million and the regular Investments
of 5 million and we have liquid cash
balance of
about 800 000 all that total totals out
to 36.9 million so this is the April
market value
below that is the main market value at
36.9
in June the market value is 38.6 million
and July was about 40 million
below that is a chart that shares what I
believe to be the current budget
available in this year what was proposed
and so it just shows the available
budget left and actual expenses was
actually expended so this is just to
create a picture of how healthy our
Telstra fund is and one of the ideas the
reason why we shared in our previous
recommendation at at work session
earlier this year into the finance
committee was as funds are expended this
might be a prudent
accrued funding funding mechanism to
help supplement these expended funds by
putting cannabis revenues in the Telstra
and as you are all very familiar with
and staff as well that uh the Telstra
funds in order for it to be eligible to
be used in the Telstra funds it has to
support the physical mental
developmental emotional or social
continued well-being safety Improvement
to the lives of sick Indigent or low low
income people
and so there's a wide array of different
types of eligible projects and so again
this is the reason why we wanted to come
in front of you today was to see we
didn't have to get down so narrow and
focused but if Council wanted to use
that if this was a priority and we
wanted a
use these These funds as it's been on
the sideline and we wanted to use it for
a purpose
and if these are the priorities to help
the sick indigen low-income people it
would be an easy recommendation uh to
make but before we get there we'll do
one more one more slide alert
so this is the
this is the excise tax cannabis excise
tax right now there's a so stay
polls about 12 total we get four percent
of that
the reason why 87 000 is is low in 22
2022 because that's when businesses
first started we have a full year of
2023 averaging about eight hundred and
fifty thousand dollars
and uh right now fy24 just started our
fiscal year uh this this does have a bit
of a lag
um
but we are on Trend to uh to be close to
the area of where we were in 23 on this
136 came FY 24.
with all that to say on the next slide
Larry's the recommendations and and back
to the recommendation
um if
if Council needed more time or wanted to
uh to take more time you are more than
welcome to take some time we as staff
wanted to bring this in front of you
today just to see if you're ready uh to
have a discussion that we could bring to
city council one other potential
recommendations could be everything to
the telshore all
um all annual 800 000 dollars that come
into could be in the tel Shore spent on
the the eligible groups which would be
sick Indigent and and low income
if there's a hybrid approach another
recommendation could be maybe take some
of the recommendations that staff
brought in a previous work session where
it was potential fire inspector look at
uh Chief store if he has any uh requests
Economic Development had a few projects
you could bring that back as part of a
hybrid approach and I don't see that
being more than
inspection for an inspector equipment
and training last time Chief Smith
brought that it was about 155k
um
and so I would say you know DC DC Danes
brought the Dre an additional Dre which
was about 17 000 in training but Chief
story just updated update updated me
today and doesn't think that we need a
Dre but there may be another impact that
may need that out but I don't see that
being
um being much more than that so we could
safely say that may be a recommendation
of not more than 250 or 200k from the
general fund if it's just those
those three departments that are being
impacted again economic development is
in there for for business development
trainings for businesses to get them up
to speed as well
but again the recommendations could be a
hybrid approach to the next slide Larry
please
and what that leads us to questions to q
a turn over the time uh to you mayor
miyakashima City Council
thank you Connie
Council Quran
um I I had a couple of quick questions
thank you for the presentation Iconia
and Larry and Monica and everyone who
came up said here
um
uh
some of the
uh initial things that had been proposed
as part of the hybrid approach were one
time
expenses I think and some were ongoing
expenses and so I'm curious about
whatever we might propose a com like
sort of commit to
is that malleable in the future can we
shift so so that's just one question
that I'm I would be curious about is if
we can then shift things
um in the future to less
sort of long-term
expenses if they're a one-time
expenditures
um
so that's one question that I have akani
I guess
perfect uh would you like me to answer
that right now if you can I because in
part I have a secondary sort of
follow-up to that
um
so yes please Perfect
um I will bring up Larry if you could
go to slide
34.
this will be Chiefs
um
I'm sorry 34 34.
yes please
so this is a back pocket slide that we
had just in case this question came up
and I'll have Chief Smith chief chief
Smith if you're there if you can speak
to this it does show that there's a one
inspector education and our equipment
and training perhaps you can speak to
the ongoing expense versus the one time
on this as an example
so good afternoon fire chief Jason Smith
for the record so when fire was looking
at the impact of providing prevention
and business registration inspections
for the industry we we plan on needing
one additional inspector and that's
really what we've seen in time demand
and what we'll need ongoing to inspect
these occupancies as Larry had mentioned
a lot of these are are infill taking old
buildings that maybe aren't necessarily
for the purpose of retail or production
and changing them into those areas so
they take a little bit more detail as
far as the review
ongoing expense is the salary and
benefits for these positions things like
the vehicle or training those are maybe
not only one time but mostly one-time
Capital Investments for a position so
they need a vehicle to to drive in we
purchase them a vehicle one time at last
five to ten years and then we replace it
thank you
so I
a secondary question that I have to that
if
um so that would sort of change the
amount that would be hybridized in that
and I was actually going to ask a sort
of follow-up question about this hybrid
model because I do think that the
Telstra fund we fund a lot of excellent
Community projects that seem very
parallel to the ones that said yo
highlighted from other cities but I
believe that part of this legislation
was really to address
expungement of people who have
outstanding records and I was at which I
think should be a very short-term need
or or opportunity and I would say folks
if there were someone in the community
working on expungement cases and I think
there are tens of thousands of these in
the state so probably thousands in in
our city I would ask that we
enable space because our Telstra fund
Grant process wouldn't allow that
because it's not addressing any of the
particularly key areas for so for
possibly a few years that we include an
expungement component in a hybrid
funding model that both supports the
fire departments and potentially the
police department's offers and a brief
expungement
grant funding to help folks process
their paperwork who have outstanding
charges that may be still are presented
and preventing them from sort of having
that experiencing the full
part of the legalization that was that
was intended I think so that would be my
ask yes kind of legal assistance to make
sure that those expungements actually
happen but that would be a very short
term
process I would think so I just ask if
we consider that that we potentially
include that as one of the things that
we might diversify divert from the
Telstra fund as part of a hybrid model
so
okay anyone else
councilman Como
thanks mayor thanks iconi and Larry and
everybody
um yes you're still on do you know of
anybody doing that kind of work actually
I'm I am very curious about that
I do not it's a great point it is in the
background in the state in the
background of why this this was there
um and and created this was the
trade-off that was made when it was uh
approved into having that so not not
that I am aware but I can definitely ask
the network in the state to see what
they find
yeah that'd be great and so then I guess
if you know I think we should probably
make a decision pretty quickly right on
on this and so I mean it doesn't have
there's no urgency necessarily but uh I
do think that as I'm assuming a staff
here planning on bringing back to this
for a formal resolution sometimes huni
Connie
yes that's correct counselor we're just
looking for direction this is the type
of
Direction deliberation that we we
appreciate as staff we can bring options
as well this is something
even if it's some type of Direction in
three places we can bring options of
three places where you want to go we can
look into expungement if there's another
work session you would like we can
always do that again so it's it's really
no rush as you mentioned uh we're really
at the behest of council we just want to
make sure we're we're here and present
for your actions okay thank you well I
would really second that uh Council
corin's what she just raised about
expungement and the responsibility of
the city in in working with folks
alongside that and funding that and so
if you know if you all can look into
that and bring back some proposals that
would be great and then really the I I
think I I think funding an additional
inspector in the fire department and
those additional Capital 110 Capital
um
pieces I think I think that's important
and critical and I do think we should
include that but otherwise I'm really to
sort of the the idea that
um
the more flexible this money can be the
better and that that should that's in
the telshore fund and I think if we for
in the meantime can think about a very
specific project like the one cancer
corn brought up I would support that but
otherwise I mean for the public right
the Telstra fund does not have its own
Revenue stream correct
yes beside the investment Council it
does not have a revenue stream correct
that is consistently funding it no it's
just the income that we get the interest
of the Corpus correct right so it's not
like any other funds it's not even like
our Housing Trust Fund that now sort of
has a funding stream which is the sale
of property right those kinds of things
the Telstra fund doesn't really have
that except for invest the investment
piece and so I think
um
sort of using the Cannabis excise tax to
go into that I think would be a great
addition to the telshore fund and
increase our ability to support as many
community members as possible but I so I
just wanted to say that and um that I'm
I'm in support of of doing that but I'm
also in support of looking at
um the expungement piece
okay
oh yes mayor Pro Tem
thank you mayor thanks to staff for your
presentation all the work that you've
done on this thus far
um I'm thinking looking thank you
counselor correct for bringing this up I
think it gets lost in in it and I think
that was really one of the main reasons
why we did what we did
from from a state's perspective and
something we shouldn't lose sight of so
I'm thinking legal aid our partners at
ACLU maybe they have some ideas or some
suggestions about how or if there's even
a program that exists to to do this
um also if you recall three of my
colleagues through the health policy
Review Committee meant specific to the
Cannabis and youth and youth um
use and related to density and one of
the things that the schools brought up
was the the
the use of
not just cannabis and and really that
wasn't the issue was tobacco and and and
vaping and vaping how how rampant it's
running in in
um the schools and so I would really
like to see some prevention
an intervention some money's going to
prevention and intervention and more
specifically to our community in the
schools
projects I think that is really where we
should focus a lot of our our attention
is increasing the number of schools that
we can that can become community in
schools I'm not sure if we have
identified additional funding for the
the next for the budget cycle that we're
in
um I I don't believe so if someone could
maybe
I know we have 50 000 I thought that we
have identified in the past year that I
would assume is
um for the next for this fiscal year but
I would really like to see that and more
specifically around prevention and
intervention and then we talked about
um
again and I mentioned this earlier the
research that I think typically doesn't
doesn't go into
funding doesn't necessarily go into the
research and evaluation and then I'll
ask Larry
remind me again or what slide specific
to Economic Development was asking for a
portion and what specifically
am I did I hear that yes mayor pretend
you're you're right Larry um I can
directors not a dollar amount there's
more bullet points but if you go to it's
a back pocket slide on slide 36 resix
and so these
if economic Chris or Irene wanted to
speak to it
yes
good afternoon mayor city council Irene
para Economic Development so when we had
first presented some areas that we were
thinking about in terms of potential
growth and supporting the business
Community these are some things that we
had talked about
conducting a market analysis analysis
where we're identifying the needs Trends
barriers and opportunities for growth
this past May our business development
team conducted a survey of our
businesses our cannabis businesses here
in the city of Las Cruces of the 62
licensed we had about 31 reply which is
a pretty good initial uh turnaround for
this the assessment they were asked
questions ranging from the support that
they've received from the city to issues
with their employment and training
initially businesses have said they've
been pleased with the support they've
received from the city about 68 percent
of the businesses expressed an interest
in hiring additional staff and about 48
percent expressed an interest in the
need for additional training training
some areas that they mentioned
specifically included customer service
product knowledge Bud tending Point of
Sales Training as well as robbery and
less excuse me loss prevention so we're
starting to get an idea of where those
needs are with those businesses but
something also to take into
consideration is with this new industry
becomes new occupation so you've got
things like master and Junior Growers
you have extraction extraction
technicians who have bug tenders and so
with these new occupations is going to
be some specialized training that
they're going to require and so looking
at what other areas are doing in terms
of training there are about three
schools within the state of New Mexico
right now that are actually providing
kind of a specific training they're all
right now currently in Northern New
Mexico but we are hoping to work with
our local educational Partners to start
to develop some of those trainings down
here some of the areas that they're
looking at Agriculture and Horticulture
specifically to cannabis
um the business of cannabis so just
running a business and what that entails
in terms of the laws and regulations
risk management scale
operations as well as health and
medicine so if you're specializing in
medicinal there are certain areas within
your business that you should be taking
into consideration in terms of best
practices as well as compliance and risk
management so those are the some of the
general areas that programs and
certificate programs are being developed
within the state of New Mexico that we
hope to establish here in this
particular area we really hope to serve
as the bridge between the educational
institutions and the businesses to
really try and tailor those programs to
best suit our businesses here in the
city of Las Cruces but we're also
considering retail data and I'll let
Chris Faber speak on that specifically
good afternoon mayor and Council Chris
Faber with economic development just a
couple other things that in Economic
Development we had been discussing
recently we had updated our leader plan
to include include the ability to do
retail data a portion of this fund could
be set aside to do specific retail
leader for the Cannabis industry
and I wouldn't be doing my job if I
didn't get up here make a plug for
putting money towards the local the mras
that we're working on too so those are
all within the infill area and could use
money to sort of jump start some of
those programs as well thank you
I really appreciate that that it so did
have you come up with a dollar amount or
it
mayor mayor Pro tem no specifically no
but you know we could add it to the list
of recommendations and kind of look and
see what would be an adequate amount for
doing stuff specific to cannabis I like
that Chris it Irene I think that would
be helpful and then if I recall from
past presentations if I remember
correctly there was still a gap in the
lab did we fit did we the I think people
had to take their product up to get
tested if you will is and do we have a
lab here specifically and mayor mayor
Pro temno not as yeah we spoke to
someone with the industry knowledge
about that last week and it's it's still
a need but uh it's a pretty expensive
operation to set up and I think that's
probably the main hurdle at this point
in time but it's something we're keeping
our eyes peeled for and hope that that
comes our way as well what is the cost
I don't know specifically I know the
equipment is very expensive and I think
that's that's one of the main hurdles is
uh you know the cost of the equipment to
set up the lab but we can certainly try
and get more information for that as
well I would love for to get you know
additional information I think that
would be helpful and would Lita be
something that could but that this
particular
area benefit from I don't know mayor
mayor Pro tem I don't know if maybe Leta
yes I know there was some discussions
for Leta the retail leader maybe not but
I think initially there was a a lead a
project to do a lab on Southern New
Mexico
thank you I think those are all my
questions thank you mayor
thank you so
a while back we in our finance committee
councilor Flores you remember
in our finance committee we had a little
presentation and I thought that we had
discussed about bringing to council that
we would at the very least keep this the
Cannabis money separate in a different
fund
so but then also during that there were
some suggestions that we threw that we
discussed
and I guess the most recent meeting no
it was a couple meetings back it was a
few meetings no you were there and uh I
was just wondering if they had if they
had
given us given the those ideas that we'd
come up with some of the suggestions but
it I don't see Leanne here so
I didn't know if you remembered some of
them
oh oh she is back there oh
so Leanne I was just wondering if you
happen to have some of those old notes
from that previous meeting that um
when we had discussed what we might
consider doing with the Cannabis money
so mayor council land Demers for the
record Finance director I could go back
and look at the minutes because you know
we do keep minutes however I do want to
point out we do keep the we have an
object code that's just for the Cannabis
so at any time we can go in there and
know exactly how much revenue is coming
so I do want you to know it may not be
like in a special Revenue fund it's
going straight into the general fund but
it is accessible at any time so but I'll
I'll grab those notes out and pass them
on to
um to Mr to akani and pass that on to
him sir yeah okay and and the if I
remember correctly I thought a lot of it
was going to go towards
substance abuse but if we if we move
forward or if the council moves forward
on what was discussed previous
that might not be as important as it was
because you know I'm trying to get at
Council Florida it's not uh
I think I know what you're trying to get
at but it's really hard to remember okay
I'm doing my
trying to communicate with Leanne
um I I don't recall yeah telepathically
I you know I don't recall what I had for
breakfast so maybe we'll get so I'm very
sorry but um but my question would be
um
you say that the funds that come in go
into the general fund yes ma'am mayor
councilman they are going into the
general fund and then they um there were
required to do that we're required for
it to go into or is there a special okay
could it be designated as a certain fund
So So currently uh councilor Flores
these
um the sex size tax that comes in
because it's a excise tax on the
Cannabis is unrestricted so that is why
it's going into the general fund so that
means that it can pretty much be used
for anything just like Chief Smith was
talking about having a
firefighter for you know coming in and
and doing all the extra
um
sorry Chief I'm like losing my brain
right now
um you know going yes going in there and
and needing that extra funds to to do
the review for permits and so that
particular person because that funding
is going into the general fund could
actually pay for that uh fire that fire
staff so
so right now that's where they're going
into if uh Council decides that they
want to designate the Cannabis excise
tax for something that they want to
attach to either an ordinance or to a
resolution then that funding could
become a special revenue and we can do
that through resolution or through
Ordnance
can I can look into that and talk to our
auditor and also to check on the
language of that that would be great
because then we would know exactly what
we have because all of these funds are
actually growing
presumably
yes counselor they are growing yes yes
so we want to make sure we keep tabs on
our growth and then we can
right and that's that's one of the
things that we in finance will look into
and let you know uh we'll get with Mr
pillion also with Miss bencomo and look
at the language to see if we can bring
that the council as a special Revenue
along with hopefully at the same time
maybe even showing what you'd like to
expend it towards as well too
Connie has I mean um ifo has a comment
and thank you mayor council just I just
want to to clarify so it as Leanne
mentioned she's corrected according to
the general fund but I want to make sure
that everyone knows that it is in its
online item and that we have a full
accounting as she stated and the whole
the whole goal for our discussion really
is to
to get feedback and identify which area
if it's going to go tough Shore then we
have that fund obviously set up but if
if we have a specific purpose
I would like to identify that before we
do a special Revenue so that special
Revenue can be
identified
in the you know as we do that with
Revelation resolution so when we bring
that forward we have something that it's
going to be going to
when we identify this special Revenue
fund it has to be identified as
for specific purpose
and I think that's what we need to
to discuss or that's what we're
discussing now but at this point we do
have a separate accounting for it so
even um
but it's going into
Mr chair
yeah
yeah it is gaining yeah people yeah so
any monies that the city has
whether it's in general fund or the
Telstra fund earns some interest some
earns more some earns a little bit but
we have no money just sitting there like
under the mattress and just not getting
any interest
be a pretty big mattress but Mr peely so
um
you're saying that
[Music]
um
if we were to just identify the
um
separate the money and just have that
growth identified well we don't really
need to isolate that money the the
income from no we don't need to right
from Cannabis sales or anything like
that because right now I think what what
econi presented
um was the revenue that it brought in
right but we don't know how much it's
grown
do we have that information
mayor council Flores we can find that
information out for you the city
treasurer could could extraculate that
and give you that number and the other
thing I'm thinking
um Ms demoosh and and Mr uh pili is that
perhaps we can get it in a
maybe an aggressive fund to try that out
and well not not aggressive you know and
just but one that has been proven to be
aggressive and and true
you know and not just you know
speculative but
consistently so mayor councilor Flores
as you know we've hired a vendor through
RBC to look at
um the risk factors of of how you would
like to
um
use the telshore fund and how you know
if you how you want to invest it what
kind of risk taker you are I think his I
apologize I know his first name is Mike
but he will be here I want to say
October 25th yes to present his findings
on that so that may be also something
with this particular fund for cannabis
that you might want to just you know
maybe include or use part of that to see
what you know what how you as a council
would like to invest those funds so that
could be I mean he's going to look at
how you would like to invest but it
could apply to any any of the funds
so okay and then if we were to isolate
it and have its own whatever little for
lack of a better word Department not
department but line item I don't know
what it's called a fund a fund oh yes
that's the word
um then we could use those funds uh for
for different purposes
currently mayor and counselor Flores
currently that fun those those the
Cannabis excise tax has no restrictions
it's unrestricted so yes ma'am you could
use it for anything great thank you so
much Mr Bush thank you Mr Mayor and
thank you Mr peely
you're welcome uh councilor bin Como
thanks mayor thanks Leanne
um
they close
I wondered if you could somebody could
go back to the graph where it showed the
revenues
2022 2023
uh let's see which I don't remember what
number it was I'm sorry
slide 27
by the way 27.
yes
this one customer called no
excise tax the next one try 28.
yes this one are these not the numbers
that have been coming in to us from
these Leanne I believe these are all our
excise tax that we've collected today on
this land can you confirm that I can
confirm that mayor councilor Ben Como it
is exactly what we've collected through
the excise tax and uh just like Mr Tommy
mentioned earlier they are lacked so
it's right it's exactly just like our
GRT has a two-month lag and so Leanne
you just said something about
we could get you those numbers or not
are those not these numbers so are you
talking about mayor councilor Ben Como I
I think what council Flores was
referring to was the additional that
could be the uh Investments that we make
using these funds okay and so I guess I
just also wanted to point out that it's
not a whole lot of money right like it's
not
I mean it's a good amount but it's not a
whole lot of money and so for me I think
what I would rather do than instead of
diluting it to where it makes very
little impact ensure that we are using
it in a way that makes the most impact
kind of like the conversation we had
with arpa in that we didn't want to do
11 million dollars in tiny little grants
that wouldn't go and very far but
instead bigger grants that could push
programs further and so I don't want to
slice it up in all these tiny ways that
it ends up not making a real impact on
anybody it could make a big impact on
the Telstra fund certainly or it could
make a big impact on operational costs
or exp or like racial Justice uh efforts
though I will say that Chris really
piqued my interest when you talked about
really
um like putting some gas behind the mras
and what that could look like at the
beginning so if if Economic Development
has thought that through I would love to
hear what that is and if not Chris I
would love it if you all
um
could think it through and then bring
that back to us because I actually find
that really interesting
mayor councilman come on we don't have
any exact numbers but we can certainly
work on stuff like that because we've
been kind of playing around with some of
this just on you know on separate issues
for sure thank you but again I wouldn't
like it to be these five different
things right I think it should be
um
what and I've already said it started to
repeat it but it's like what can make
the biggest impact now and then of
course you know if a few years down the
line we need to reassess then we need to
reassess the mras will only need to be
kick-started one time right and so
um I feel like that's a consideration
but I um I see Elizabeth
good afternoon mayor city council
um councilor Ben Cuomo yeah that's
basically what I was going to say is
that we're planning on with the mras
Elizabeth Peters for the record
um we're planning on with the MREs
applying for the tax increment but we
will need that Kickstart so any funds
that we can put directly into the areas
to help get projects going would help
bring in the tax to give us the
increment and that would have to say
just anecdotal anecdotally that El Paseo
South Solano West Picacho have seen a
ton of those
retail that Chief was talking about in
terms of taking over old old abandoned
buildings the you know specific cannabis
has even just when you think about West
Picacho the MRA line I can think of
several cannabis retailers that exist in
there and El Paseo as well so I feel
like this would be
really directly correlated as well so
anyway that's just I I really was peaked
by that so I would love to see
my interest was peaked by that so I
would love to see more information and
then just reiterate that we shouldn't
splice this 10 million ways and then it
doesn't make an impact
okay
in the comments
all right does that uh
is that it Connie Larry
yes that is it thank you shiman city
council for your time
okay so um is there anyone here members
of the public want to say a few words
give you two minutes
okay saying none
Christine I mean I need a motion a
second to to adjourn
so moved Graham
second by councilman Como
Christine this is on the motion to
adjourn the work session councilor beta
is absent councilor Graham yes councilor
Ben komal yes counselor Korean yes
counselor Flores no yes councilor
Gandara yes mayor yes okay where
adjourned is 3 45 pm thank you
this is the agenda setting meeting for
our September 18 2023 city council
meeting number one on consent one
non-consent two non-consent two
non-consens three consent three consents
four non-consent four non-consent