okay
oh
[Music]
okay good afternoon everyone welcome to
our city council meeting today is
tuesday september 6
2022. it's approximately 1 p.m before we
have our pledge of allegiance i'm going
to ask you to please rise for a brief
moment of silence as we reflect back on
the brave men and women the united
states armed forces as they protect our
interests around the globe as well as
the courageous men and women of las
cruces police department and the las
cruces fire department as they keep our
city safe 24 7 365.
councilor graham if you join me in the
pledge please
i pledge allegiance to the flag of the
united states of america
and to the republic for which it stands
one nation under god
indivisible with liberty and justice for
all
thank you
okay so as we always start off with our
pets of the week jennifer martinez from
our communications office will introduce
them
good afternoon mayor council i'm
jennifer martinez with the city's
communications office
and today i am going to introduce you to
another two pets of the week
let's start with our cat of the week
uh stripe it up this girl is a little
shy and hoping that someone is willing
to let her
let her out of her shell at her own pace
so when she is comfortable and safe
she'll prove how much love she has to
give
if you come down to the shelter and
spend a little time with her she will
completely melt your heart and show you
what kind of companion she can be
and then we're going to check out this
pretty girl rhonda
rhonda looks a little stocky and tough
but she is a big teddy bear she has met
all kinds of people even young kiddos
and she just gets along with everyone
some of the things you'll want to know
about rhonda though she's not a big fan
of cats and she does need a little bit
of training so she does not pull you on
the leash you can meet either of these
two by calling over to the ascmv that
phone number is 382-0018
there is a weekend event going on that
takes place from 11 a.m to 2 p.m this
saturday september 10th at petco thank
you mayor
thank you jennifer
okay next is going to be our jobs of the
week and looks like chris faber from
economic development will be presenting
those
good afternoon everyone mayor council i
am chris faber with economic development
and we have four jobs for you this week
beginning with the city of las cruces
traffic signal technician senior that
job is open until filled and pays 21
dollars an hour
sun belt rentals has a yard associate
available paying 12 to 20 dollars per
hour depending on experience and that
position is open until november 17th
first national bank of texas has
bilingual personal bank tellers in a
part-time position
that pays 14 to 18 per hour depending on
experience and with closes on november
17th
tmc design has electrical engineering 2
and that pays between 30 to 53 an hour
depending on experience
and that closes on november 18th
as always you can find a full list of
jobs internships and volunteer
opportunities at
the city's website las cruces dot org
soon to be las cruces dot gov
employee newmexico.com or
governmentjobs.com
career las cruces
and as always new mexico workforce
connections their phone number is
575-524-6250
their offices are located at 226 south
alameda their website is employ
newmexico.com and moving forward they
will be presenting jobs of the week at
the council meeting starting the next
meeting
thank you all right thank you chris
it looks like counselor beta has a
proclamation
thank you mayor
um do we have uh mr
bill childress in the autonomics
come on down thank you
we have our proclamation for monuments
to main street month
thank you
whereas public lands ensure the
ecological beauty of our community and
provide a place for our children and
adults to connect with nature
and recreate our doors
and whereas public lands provide a space
for active communities that aid in the
preservation of chronic diseases
provide therapeutic recreation services
for individuals with disabilities and
also improve the mental and emotional
health of all citizens
and whereas public lands are vitally
important to establishing and
maintaining the quality of life in our
communities ensuring the health of all
citizens and contributing to the
economic and environmental well-being of
our communities
and whereas local public lands increase
a community's economic prosperity
through increased tourism and the
attraction and retention of businesses
and whereas the city of las cruces
recognizes the benefits derived from
public lands recreation resources
now therefore we the mayor and city
council of the city of las cruces new
mexico do hereby proclaim the month of
september 2022 as monuments to main
street month and urge the citizens of
las cruces new mexico to join in
recognizing the crucial roles public
lands play in our city signed by mayor
ken miyagashima and attested by
christine rivera our city clerk
thank you so much
[Applause]
i really do appreciate this uh this
honor and this proclamation
i've been here since uh 2008 and have
had the privilege of managing
along with some really good staff in the
las cruces district about 5.4 million
public land acres in the southwest part
of new mexico
and while i've i've been here we've
we've had
the the honor and privilege also to
manage two national monuments the
prehistoric trackways national monument
which is a little over 5 000 acres and
the proclamation
monument established in 2014 for the
oregon mountain desert peaks national
monument
this community this council
and this county has always been
extremely supportive of the blm mission
and in support of our national monument
and we just really appreciate uh the the
city recognizing uh this month as the
monument
month of september of course we have
monument to main street that's kicked
off and we'll be having events
throughout the city but also on our
public lands along with a public lands
day where volunteers can come out and
help us do a project or two
get on our facebook page if you need any
information on that but it's just uh
it's been a real honor to to have this
community support the bureau like they
do and just appreciate it thank you very
much
thank you
thank you mr childress we appreciate you
as well
okay i think that's it for that so now
i'm going to go to the conference of
interest statement this is where i'll
ask if any member of the city council
city manager or any member of city staff
has any known conflict of interest on
any item on the agenda
no
none graham john corn
mayor i need to disclose the conflict of
interest
yes counselor i will need to recuse
myself from item number 8.3
my
pnc appointee is a
owner of the establishment
that is i'm sorry can you repeat i
couldn't quite hear you which numbers is
it 8.3 8.3
you're you're wanting to recuse yourself
yes okay um
one of the owners of the establishment
in question is my appointee for the
planning and zoning committee for my
district
okay all right
so
i think if you recall our new rules when
you abstain
you need
you know it's in the rules you need to
exit i'm well aware yeah i'll just go to
your office or something okay or
wherever but okay good
okay so next we're gonna go to public
participation this is where members of
the public can speak to council for up
to
a total of seven minutes
three minutes public participation four
minutes if you have items that you want
to talk about on the agenda
but keep in mind you only hit two times
so
now if you are here to talk about
something that's on the agenda we ask
that you wait until it comes to the
agenda and then you speak about it
typically public participation is for
non-agenda items
although if you have to leave
please let us know and then you want to
say your your thoughts about a
particular item and then you're welcome
to exit
so i usually start on my left
and i usually start on the first row oh
let me just also say i'm sure some of
you have emailed counsel on some of
these items especially the the appeal
keep in mind that although the city
council is the executive branch we're
also the legislative branch and in this
case we'll be acting in quasi-judicial
manner so we couldn't communicate with
you or that would
be called ex-parte communication so
that's why you probably didn't get any
hopefully you didn't get any responses
like you there for or against something
so that's the reason why they couldn't
answer your your concerns
so anyways get back to participation i
usually start on my left and looks like
i'll start with the second row is anyone
on second row wishes to speak
third row looks like that's the county
manager i see us oh yes yes ma'am in the
blue if you want to come forward please
just state your name
and share with us what you
would like to talk about
hello my name is tracy cerino and i had
emailed
you guys this morning or late last night
about
proposed construction on the corner of
settlers pass and rinconata
and i believe it was
it's supposed to be a storage unit
facility
and
i wanted to know well first i wanted to
go on record as
i guess like lodging a complaint against
it i don't know
what the process is here but
i i think my first concern was as a
resident of that area along settlers
pass
i don't know if we're supposed to be
notified that it's commercially zoned
and that a property is going to be built
i've lived there for six years and it
was undisturbed until recently so i i
didn't even know it was proposed that
there would be a storage facility there
thank you for for those comments miss
sereno a lot of times uh when the
when the neighborhood is is uh plotted
or or the approved as far as different
zoning it's been zoned that and it's a
lot of times the developers leave it
untouched for years and then they they
decide to go ahead and build as long as
they conform to what the original zoning
is allowed then they they don't really
need to
have what they have a
public hearing or anything it's only
when they choose to change the zoning
usually either up or down you know make
it higher density or something change it
around do they have to have a public
hearing so that's probably why you
didn't receive any type of notification
yeah unfortunately when you purchase a
piece of property and you see that it's
vacant it's really incumbent upon the
homeowner to kind of look and see what
exactly are these other areas owned
right um
so thank you for that um so i guess my
other concern is years ago many years
ago i lived in another state and i lived
in
an apartment building that was down the
street from a storage facility and maybe
it's just my
my experience with that storage facility
at the time there had been some
teenagers that i guess got into their
parents storage unit and would go in
there and drink beer and smoke pot and
just kind of be a nuisance to the
neighborhood so i'm
probably sure that's not going to play
out here but just in case
i guess my my opposition is noise
pollution light pollution at night and
just also the storm water runoff how
this development may affect that as well
please keep in mind that the city is
pretty pretty strict on those items that
you mentioned okay and i know especially
for the stormwater they require that
they have their own ponding before they
even give what they call a certificate
of you know basically okay the building
to move forward with the building permit
and then they have so many final
inspections so it's pretty pretty uh
stringent okay and you're welcome to see
the process or i know you emailed me
i'll be more than happy to
email you back with some information so
you can find out a little bit more about
how the process works certainly that'll
be great thank you you're welcome
okay so that was the second row
anyone else on the second row i know we
had a few people come in
rick are you good
just need to state your name please
hello uh my name is rick renau this is
kind of
impromptu i want to talk about uh
the guaranteed basic income again
and i just don't
did you need did you need to leave
because that's going to be yeah yes i do
oh yeah okay and i thank you for letting
me uh make my comments now i appreciate
that
uh you know when the first came came up
it's just um
i agree with liz ortega's
remark that she made here
a couple months ago she's a
retired teacher las cruces public
schools
and she says it's just against every
thing she's ever taught
her students
in all her years of teaching
giving people money for nothing
i think you should pull that off the
agenda
it's not needed here it's not in line
with the values of our community
this is the john f kennedy
democrat town
asks ask not what your country
can do for you
but ask what you can do for your country
is guaranteed
basic income in line with
being a john f kennedy democrat
how many of you all counselors
consider yourselves john f kennedy
democrats
or the mayor
i see the mayor
so anyway thank you
thank you rick okay so that was the
second row anyone on the third row
fourth row
fifth row
sixth
seventh
eighth
last anyone on my left
okay so i'm going to start with my right
looks like
it's all staff
second row as well
or third row as well third fourth row
fifth
yes sir if you want to come forward just
state your name please
hi good afternoon
mayor and city council members uh i'm
pastor gene pettit with upcycle
ministries
i am also a veteran and i would like to
say thank you for starting off with the
pledge of allegiance
because we are supposed to be one nation
under god
as gatekeepers
and people that sit in the city seats of
power position and authority
either by elected or placed there
you have a daunting task ahead of you to
make decisions
not just in this day but in days to come
why did i say that's a daunting task
because you deal with minds bodies and
souls
and decisions that you guys make
i've looked over some of the agenda
and i've seen agendas that have already
come to pass
and things that are happening and things
that are not good in our city
things that we have to deal with in a
ministry
and i say that you deal with minds
bodies and physical things that are
going on
because i also have to deal with that i
deal with people's souls
i deal with their physical character i
deal with their minds
that's a daunting task as a pastor
i have to answer to a higher authority
there is no other way out of this
so i would ask that you would take the
time to consider what you're doing and
the decisions you're going to make today
and in the days to come some of your
predecessors already made decisions
and i say by gatekeepers you guys said
in this authority you make decisions
that affect this community
good and bad
what you sow in and good things will you
will reap in good things what you sow in
bad will be reaped in bad things
crime addictions
things of the mind
people that are out on the streets
sanctuary city where people can come and
just hang out
those are bad things
yes we want people to come we want them
to be productive members of our society
we want things to happen in a good
fashion
one of the agendas that's on there is
the
cannabis do you want to put that in your
school systems
to allow that why not just have the
lunchroom and the bag of dope and
everything else with it
i grew up in the 70s i can tell you what
that's about and what happens to people
out i have brothers that are going on
now
and some of them are not with the lord
because there is a heaven there is a
hell there is a place that we're going
to go our souls
some of my friend friends that i grew up
in high school that hung out that did
this cannabis and things of drugs and
alcohol
they're no longer here
because they continued on that
destructive path
please think about what you're about to
do
so i want to speak a little bit while i
still have a couple seconds about
morality
because that's what it is it is based on
morality and where does true morality
come from it comes from the word of god
so i want to leave you with the couple
seconds that i have left on this with
one last thing before i get turned off
here
and this comes from the book of
deuteronomy
but this is the word of the god that
says
the word is very nigh unto thee
and in thy mouth and in thy heart that
thou mayest do it
see today i have set before you this day
life
and death both good and evil
thank you and in that i command this day
the lord thy god
think about what you're doing
and walk with the word of god yes sir
thank you very much
okay so that was the fourth row anyone
else on the fourth row fifth row
sixth row
seventh row
eighth
okay you're the last row so yes ma'am if
you want to come forward just state your
name
and
you've got three minutes
you may have come in late i was going to
ask if you wanted to talk about an issue
that's on the agenda if you could wait
until that item appears unless you have
to leave
you're welcome to see your comments
good afternoon
i'm pat pugh the owner of amco
transmissions for 54 years
we have a
lawless community anymore it's not just
homeless and it's not just
drugs it's completely lawless i have
in a drawer at the shop a stack this
high of
of
do not trespass
of people that we have called the police
on from west picacho
this week we had an especially
horrifying one because there was a guy
out by the back fence masturbating 10 30
11 o'clock in the morning
and the guys and my mechanics saw it
and they were too ashamed to come and
tell me that that's what was happening
they just said there's a guy doing drugs
so
we need some help so i called the police
your police are wonderful they came
they talked to the guy but they said
they couldn't arrest him because they
didn't
witness
this
perverted behavior
and they and the policemen asked me to
come to the city commission
and ask for a law i mean perversion
cannot cannot prevail in our city
lawlessness can't we have a boxing gym
right behind us and macarthur school is
very close
now how did we become a town of
lawlessness
i i've been here since 1950 this is not
acceptable
will you please do something will you ch
what has to be changed
what i would need to do is check with
our city attorney to see if there is an
actual ordinance pertaining to that if
not then that's something there that we
the city council could pass and make
that uh unlawful why is an indecent
exposure
i would agree with that but again that's
something there we we would have our
legal department look at to see what
would give
our law enforcement officers the
greatest amount of flexibility to do
what they need to do but i agree with
you that's something there that should
not be we need help yes ma'am we've had
meetings with uh with
commissioners uh in our neighborhood but
it's to not
the the answer is to
for people to be arrested and serve time
and and to obey the law i know indecent
exposure is not a questionable thing
yes ma'am thank you yes ma'am we will
get back with you on that
there was someone else i think in the
last yes if you please come forward just
state your name
afternoon i'm joy goldbaum presiding
municipal las cruces judge
and i am really disturbed and
disappointed
at how invested the city seems to be in
interfering with both the fairness and
integrity of the municipal courts
i am asking you to
revoke
or rescind resolution 23
17. appointing carrie ryan as a
municipal judge at the time you made
that decision you cited his good manners
and yes judges should be polite to the
people that come in front of them
however you were not aware i do not
believe that in june of this year our
court of appeals cited that same person
for judicial misconduct so extreme that
a conviction was not only thrown out it
was
barred from retrial and i do want to
make that court case
judge can you leave that with the clerk
please the city clerk yes
well if you can leave all of them with
them please i'd appreciate it
mr mayor you contacted me some months
ago
to
pressure me to
hold
people who were charged with property
crimes on high bonds before they their
cases were heard and i pushed back and
told you that would contravene the new
mexico
constitution
to which the response of the city was to
appoint someone who would point
set unaffordable bonds
on indigent defendants for non-violent
crimes
and i have a citation for that that mr
ryan did on the fourth day he sat on my
court last month
okay
so that's in addition to not having an
active law license
the city has
a policy and procedure in place
for getting
vacancies filled and i am familiar with
it personally because i went through
that process
eight years ago by sending in a resume
being interviewed by a panel the process
was transparent and it took about three
months and that is not what happened
here and i think the specific intent
was the result
that you have warrants to arrest people
for property crimes and hold them on
bonds when they're homeless and yes i
will give you copies of this as well
again i strongly urge this body to
rescind that resolution
thank you
okay thank you anyone else on the last
row
okay anyone that hasn't spoke that may
have come in late that wanted to speak
before we go to our next item on the
agenda
okay so that ends
public participation
i have a closed meeting statement i need
to read
law school city council met in closed
session at 11 30 a.m august 22nd 2022
following members were in attendance
counselors flores koran bin komo graham
abeda and myself kimby yagashima staff
present was eric enriquez a city
assistant city manager barbara deleon
chief administrative officer miguel
dominguez chief of las cruces police
department jennifer vega city attorney
ikani tamopeo assistant city manager
luis robles outside city attorney the
meeting adjourned at 12 20 p.m and for
the record las cruces city council made
in closed session and discussed those
limited items as stated in the posted
notice the purpose of this closed
meeting was to discuss the pending
litigation regarding joel a melendez
versus city las cruces
e-t-a-l-c-i-v hyphen 21 hyphen zero zero
zero six one rb
forward slash cg which is closed
pursuant to nmsa in 1978 section 10-15-1
h number seven
okay with that
now we're going to the agenda i'll need
a motion and a second to accept the
agenda as presented mr mayor yes i'd
like to request removal of item 8.4 from
the agenda in its entirety
removed 8.4
and i'll second a beta
motion by
councillor graham
seconded by counselor beta
to remove in its entirety
i like
pull 7.2
and you want to remove 7.2
okay so
let's go to the
first
motion of to
remove from the its entirety
8.4 so it's counselor graham motion
second by counselor beta
mayor we can do it as acceptance of the
agenda if they want to amend to accept
the agenda with removal of item 7.2 for
discussion and 8.4 in its entirety we
can do it like that okay good
do i need to say the whole thing
well i will i can move to approve the
agenda is that what you mean yes i think
well i think christine wants us a motion
to approve the agenda with item 8.4
being removed it's in entirety that's
what i think she's asking and for
removal of 7.2 for discussion
okay so i moved to
accept the agenda with the seven point
two coming off the consent moving to
discussion and eight point four being
removed entirely from the agenda
okay is there a second oh second okay so
motion made by council koran second by
councillor beta
okay christine
this is on the motion to remove item 7.2
for discussion and to remove
item 8.4 in its entirety from the agenda
as presented counselor abeda yes
councillor graham yes
counselor ben como yes
councillor koran yes
councillor flores yes counselor gandera
yes mayor yes
okay so we're gonna go to 7.2 council
bill number
23-003 ordinance number three zero zero
nine
need a motion in a second
second by flores
motion made by mayor pro tem gandala
signed by
and did you want a full presentation for
7.2
yes okay
so elizabeth peters will be discussing
good afternoon mayor and city council i
am in front of you today to discuss the
leader for the electronic caregiver
um so the objective of leta is
assists expanding or relocating
businesses that stimulate economic
growth have significant community impact
and support increase wages and provide
job creation and promote significant new
private and capital private investment
the use of lita funds to purchase lease
construct improve or acquire land
buildings or infrastructure
uh public work improvements essential to
the location or expansion and then on
it's on a reimbursement basis
a little bit of background about
electronic caregiver it is a privately
held digital health technology and
services company
um they recently acquired their the land
or the bus the building they are
currently leasing which is 506 south
main street now we know it as the
electronic caregiver like
tower
they have been operating since 2009 and
they currently have 274
uh employees
electronic caregiver the purpose of this
project is because they are hiring to
fulfill three major contracts to provide
enrollment and health coaching services
to 87 000 patients they expect to have
770 new employee employees by 2026 and
they are going to be investing over 17
million dollars
in this for this leader the new mexico
economic development department will
contribute one million dollars the city
will be contributing to 235 000 and we
will be the fiscal agent for the project
and then they are being asked to have
all 770 full-time employees by december
31st 2026.
some additional incentives information
this has been a really unique project
because
electronic caregiver knew that they were
going to grow but it was going to have
to happen in phases they weren't ready
to
purchase the facility or didn't know if
they were actually going to so in phase
one
jtip was offered along with up to 135
000 dollars in wage plus and then also
the closing grant through mavida offered
a hundred thousand dollars so this
project is part of phase two so this is
the lead offer there's probably more j
tip and wage plus on top of it
i added this slide it's a little
different from
the ones i normally do
because i know the question often comes
up if there's going to be opportunity
for growth within a business
what you normally don't see is in the
lead application businesses offer a pay
scale for every job and we normally just
do the lower of the the beginning wage
but
this slide basically just shows that
this is the there are minimum maximum
pay for every job and it does range
i'm going into a little more detail so
electronic caregiver expect is expected
to have 325 jobs in the first three
years
and again
it's the the pay ranges
and here is another breakdown of how it
ranges so a majority of the jobs are at
16 an hour 20 an hour and 28 an hour
and then this is the full five-year
breakdown of how many jobs each year
that they're planning on
hiring and by the end of five years the
average salary is going to be over 53
000 a year
and with that i stand for questions and
these are your
regular council options just so you know
we do have a representative from the new
mexico economic development department
as well as mcdavin's here from evita and
representatives from electronic
caregiver
okay thank you elizabeth mayor pro tem
thank you mayor thank you elizabeth for
the presentation really exciting 700
plus
jobs
um in the making
el paso electric is
a great business i i wanted to ask on
that slide eight
the closing grant
is that closing grants specific to the
the money from el paso electric that
then
determines right for specific things
such as this
mayor mayor pro tem yes that is um it's
new mexico economic development
grant and uh
and it's administered by movida yes okay
okay that's good to know and then
how are the wages um determined and is
that comparable in other
other cities with similar um
programming
i'm going to see if
mark francis would mind coming up
mayor council this is mr mark francis
from electronic caregiver
yeah thank you we're thrilled to be here
and thanks for the opportunity to you
know speak before you and this wonderful
opportunity for support from the city to
help us
build a business here in las vegas
can you state your name please sure mark
francis with electronic caregiver thank
you
yeah uh the question about wages yeah so
we look to benchmark the wages
competitively both city-wide
regional-wise and then nationalize
because some of the recruitment we'll be
doing is national however 95 percent of
our fork forces here in las cruces and
the goal here is to build our our job
base and our economic base here locally
great thank you um and what sort of um
work have you been doing in conjunction
with dacc and new mexico state
university uh in relation to that
workforce sure we're doing quite a lot
so the majority of
workers at ecg i would say are new
mexico state graduates
we do a lot of work from internships to
career pathways that are both with
donate community college and with new
mexico state
we've actually just launched a
telehealth
pathways curriculum
with nmsu on demand which is going to
as we build it out we'll reach down to
high schools and go all the way ideally
through bcom burrell college of
osteopathic medicine and provide
training opportunities for telehealth
and then career pathways for telehealth
jobs as well for both our current
employees to upskill themselves and move
to higher wage jobs but more importantly
so that as we recruit we're recruiting
from this local community and creating
those job opportunities here for local
residents thank you thank you for that i
i don't i'm glad that you're here i
don't know that
many people in the audience in our
community really understand
what's how significant
you being here is for our community and
and after this and reading everything in
great detail i'm really excited about
the opportunity especially that you'll
be doing
the training and moving it into high
schools and middle schools just really
giving our students opportunity
and then the last question i have is
what is your geographical reach in terms
of the service area for right the
services that you're providing
sure
we work and provide services to
healthcare organizations and patients
across the united states so although
we're las cruces based our reach is
nationwide we have established an ecg
europe and we do if we look out two
three four or five years we'd imagine
we're bringing services over to europe
and then also over to asia as well but
everything's from our base here in las
cruces new mexico thank you i really
appreciate again
your social conscience not too long ago
i had mr munoz call me and ask very
specifically about some issues related
to domestic violence
um and we were able to to really work
through that and it was just for him
some of the first times that he's had to
deal with something like that so i
really appreciate the all the the
support that you provided
um to the people um that were that were
um
experiencing you know really hard times
so it makes me feel like not only you're
just not an employer right you it's
family and so um thank you so much for
being here i appreciate all that you do
oh it's our pleasure
thank you that those are all my
questions ma'am any other question from
council
members of the public i will tell you
congratulations on i think you were
ranked 968 out of the top 5 000 inc
magazine i'm looking forward to
electronic caregiver being in las cruces
first a fortune 500 company i think you
will on your way and many times we hear
people saying what are you all doing
what's council doing to help keep our
grads here in las cruces and and i know
that in this small way we help you
because i know you hire a lot of new
mexico state university not only
engineers but other
that graduate from there so we
appreciate that as well so thanks for
all that you do and you're in our
community oh it's a wonderful community
partnership we're really excited yes sir
thank you
okay so there's nothing further
christine
this is on the motion to approve
ordinance three zero zero nine counselor
beta yes
counselor graham yes counselor ben como
yes
counselor quran yes
counselor flores yeah
counselor gandalf yes mayor yes
okay 8.1 resolution
two 23-026
move to approve second okay motion made
by councilor graham seconded by
councilman cuomo
and rocio gamboa will be presenting
good afternoon mayor and council
members rocio gamboa budget analyst
today i'm bringing before your
resolution to accept two authorized
grants and two state operating grants
public works
whoops sorry
public works department has been awarded
a reauthorized grant for improvements to
amador
hotel in the amount of two hundred
thousand dollars from the new mexico
department of finance and administration
las cruces international airport has
been awarded a reauthorized grant
for
airport and improvements in the amount
of 632
890 from new mexico department of
finance and administration
these two reauthorized grants are
funding from the 2022 legislative
session to reauthorize the 2019
capital outlay appropriation for the
downtown parking garage
and to the amador hotel improvements
the agreement calls for funds to be used
to plan design
construct
construct furnish equip and install
improvements included related
to infrastructure to amador hotel in las
cruces and las cruces international
airport the funding will repair in 2024
quality of life has been awarded a grant
from the 2020 state obligation bond
election for library services and
improvements
granting agency is the new mexico
cultural affairs department library
division in the amount of 228
828 dollars and nine cents
the funds can be used for equipment
library furniture fixtures and
supplemental library resource
acquisitions
information technology projects and for
the purchase and installation of
broadband internet equipment and
infrastructure
the reversion date of these funds is
june 30th 2024
quality of life
senior programs has been awarded a grant
in the amount of one million seventy one
thousand three hundred and one dollars
and forty five cents from the non-metro
area agency on aging
with a cash match of six hundred and
eighty four thousand 545 dollars for a
total amount of
one million seven hundred fifty five
thousand eight hundred forty six dollars
and forty five cents
the funding will be used to support the
following services
food food purchases congregate and home
delivered meals respite care homemaker
services and grandparents raising
children
all funds must be expanded by june
thirtieth of twenty twenty three
this is it for today here are your
council options i will stand for
questions along with amy john johnson
basford from grants we also have david
sadillo from public works andy hume from
airport
rebecca rebecca slaughter from quality
of life available to assist
okay thank you rocio
questions from council
councilor flores i just want to thank
you rocio for your presentation i want
to thank the people who made it possible
as well andy and david and amy and i
think i'm leaving one person out
is that the three rebecca oh rebecca yes
so thank you all i know it's hard to
draft grants you know when we hear that
we're receiving money we think oh
wonderful but
it takes a lot of work it's you know
putting in the right commas and dotting
your eyes and crossing your teeth so
thank you for the good news rasil
thank you mayor
members of the public have any questions
i've seen none christine
this is on the motion to approve
resolution 23-026
counselor beta yes
councilor graham yes
cancer bank homo yes cancer korean yes
cancer floating yes
counsel yes mayor yes
okay next is 8.2 resolution 23-027
move to approve graham second aveda
motion made by
councillor graham and second by
counselor beethoven
chris favor will be discussing
good afternoon everyone again chris
faber with economic development
we're going to be going over the
recommendations for arpa funding
i've put together a brief presentation
for you since i know some of this
information has been presented before
and then stand for questions after
so some real basic background
the city was allocated almost 25 million
dollars in arpa funding through the
treasury
we received the first allotment in may
of last year and the second tranche this
past may each one roughly 12 000 or 12
million dollars excuse me
um and 10.4 of that was set aside for
community and economic development
initiatives
so part of that program there was 21
applications that were received for a
total ask of 26 million dollars
a quick overview of the timeline in
february of this year the process was
tabled by city council and later
cancelled by city manager
in april a revised eligibility and
evaluation process was approved by
council
in may
applications were reviewed by the
eligibility committee and in july they
were reviewed by the scoring committee
so a brief recap of what the eligible
uses were
programs or services that support small
business or non-profit organizations
programs are services that speed the
recovery of impacted industries such as
travel and tourism
programs are services that help
households to address the negative
economic impacts of covid19
and programs that either facilitate
certain health or social services
address housing insecurity or address
the mitigation and impact of covid19
so the revised evaluation process so the
evaluation committee was a brand new
committee it was made up of barbara de
leon david sedillo and catherine
harrison rogers
and that committee was selected for
specific reasons related to their
expertise in project management finance
design construction and planning
they reviewed the original 21
applications except it was actually 20
because one of them had withdrawn the
donaion arts council had withdrawn
before we started the process
after the initial review
10 applicants were deemed eligible
all 10 who are all applicants who were
not deemed eligible were given an
opportunity to appeal
from those that were given an
opportunity to appeal
six
applicants did
one of those was approved and
11 applications were forwarded to the
scoring committee for review um and and
on this this round of
eligibility it had to be a unanimous
recommendation from the committee
without getting too much into the weeds
some of the
reasons for
things applications not being eligible
they did not respond to the appeal
there was issues regarding the
clarification of target populations
target populations did not qualify under
arpa guidelines
did not clarify how the proposed
services would impact an eligible target
population or the proposed project but
did not meet arpa guidelines
the scoring committee was a group uh
separate from the eligibility committee
it consisted of city manager ifo pili
assistant city manager eric enriquez
senior management analyst amber vaughn
public works deputy director tony
trevino
deputy finance director alfredo pacheco
and business development administrator
irene potter
a real quick overview of the scoring
matrix some of the categories were
project justification it met city
priorities such as the strategic plan
elevate las cruces or the 2021 through
2025 consolidated plan
impact to the community
budget
duplication
feasibility and timeline
organization capacity
and clarity of proposal
so here's the first six it's on two
slides the first six of the
applicants that were recommended for
funding
so new mexico housing and community
development corporation their peachtree
affordable housing project was
recommended for two million dollars in
funding
community action agency of southern new
mexico's guaranteed basic income project
recommended for 1.7 million
boys and girls club of las cruces for a
new facility 1.3 million
community foundation of southern new
mexico on behalf of bitwise one million
crucifers creatives economic educational
recovery and renewal via a community
mark maker space one million
lift funds revitalize las cruces small
businesses one million
catholic charities of southern new
mexico covet 19 recovery fund five 500
jardin de los ninos flourishing families
infant mental health program 350 000
messiah valley public housing
authorities oak street apartment
rehabilitation project a little over 300
messiah valley community of hopes hope
housing risk mitigation fund
at 300 000 for a total of just over 9.5
million
there's only one
application that was
eligible but not recommended for funding
and that was the crosstown flats housing
project and there were two specific
reasons one
that project still required additional
competitive funds so it wasn't a
guarantee that this project would happen
even with arpa funding and because of
that there was some question about the
timeline being being able to be
completed
under the arpa guidelines so that was
that was why that one didn't recommend
for funding
so what are the next steps
so
grant's department is in the process of
working with hr to hire a contract
position that'll oversee the contracts
for arpa so the development of the
agreements
the keeping up with the process
negotiating and developing those
agreements
and then of course there'll be council
action required for each of those given
the dollar amount of those agreements
so these are your options two things i
want to point out
if you want to you know amend any of
these for modifications to the proposed
funding and then i made a small typo on
number seven on number seven it was an
eight instead of a zero should be zero
zero zero instead of eight hundred so at
a minimum we'll have to make a small
amendment to adjust that so
and i will stand for questions
i can i
regardless of what's happening it sounds
like the amendment has to happen so i
move to amend number seven
um
to include to decrease it by eight
hundred dollars
you made a motion to a man so that's by
quran second by counselor beta
christine
this is on the motion to amend
resolution 23-027
to amend the
seventh that statement to decrease it by
eight hundred dollars
um counselor abeda yes
councilor graham yes councillor bancomo
yes councillor quran yes
councillor flores yes councillor ganda
yes mayor yes
okay so we're back on the main motion
any questions on items
so chris
do me a favor and tell me again i can't
seem to find it here on a little bit
more of a paragraph for the cruces
creatives
what exactly
chris yeah chris is creative what
exactly do they do i know it says
partial funding for learning loss
program right so i believe that program
is to work with school children through
the
las cruces public schools for certain
creative activities addressing learning
loss which is one of those items that
was eligible under our guidelines yeah
okay
okay and i will say this although i
can't
make a motion but i had discussed this a
while back
i'd come back from a mayor's conference
in dc
mayor weber was a speaker santa fe was
one of the first cities to
instigate the guaranteed basic income
but two things
one that came from a non-profit and this
of course is coming from arpa
and the thing that i like this it says
right here the goal of the santa fe
mayor's gbm
mayors for guaranteed basic income
basically is that they had required
to provide a stable income for
themselves and families the funding will
be target 100 young parents enrolled in
a certificate or degree program and at
that of course the santa fe community
college
if that's something there the council
would want to implement
i said that if we made that with
donaiana community college so that the
applicants
would have to be enrolled
i would be supportive of this
i i would think that we're going to vote
on these individually
so if that's something there that
you would find your way to see
i just i know i brought this in the past
mr mayor so it is one resolution you can
amend if you want to make changes to
anything specific but it would be one
vote for the whole yeah i would i would
like to
have it broken into the point
point where we can vote uh individually
i think if that's the case i'm gonna
have to vote no on the whole thing which
i don't really want to do
because there are some that i don't want
to vote
and
but we could if council sees fit to at
least break it down individually and
vote each one so you could have
a record vote as to
you know if you're for against a
particular item
yes council corrine i i actually would
like to call the question
for the for the original motion on the
floor
you're not going to allow for public
input
public input is separate from calling
the question i think no once the
question's called and voted on then it's
over
is public input excluded from calling
the question
yes
once i call the question then it's done
no discussion
okay
so
i don't call the question
okay so um
yes mayor pro tem thank you mayor thank
you chris for
the presentation lots of great um
proposals
even those
conceptually that were ineligible there
are some great ideas that i think will
help
you know
our disabled population our businesses
um
i think there just needs to be some work
on that um
you know to be able to come back and
negotiate some of those i'm not with
arpa funding but maybe some other
funding
chris you have a few of these
that are
eligible that you are recommending that
will be providing assistance
not only to residents but businesses
what sort of
parameters do you have for folks that
um
you know are unduplicated clients or
duplicated clients you know from going
from program to program um how are you
dealing with that
mr mayor mayor pro tem i i think at this
point there really hasn't been anything
specific for that point that would be
something that we would work out
with the applicants during contract
negotiation time if there were
stipulations that we needed to put on
there
but through this point of the process
there hasn't been a real opportunity to
address anything like this this was
mostly eligibility versus and then
funding so that would sort of be a next
level component to the process so are
you all thinking about how you would you
want to distribute the funding in the
best way i mean i know you're saying
this is the amount of money for each
right
organization but are you getting in the
weeds very specific about how that's
going to happen and then how are the the
organizations that will be getting
funding how are they going to
communicate with each other and secondly
your last what are the what is the
evaluation of the um
piece for the city to
to evaluate right the programming that's
occurring so that we can answer to the
funding and i know this the federal
government wants us to do that right
mayor mayor pro tem i believe amy with
grants is going to address some of that
thank you
good afternoon mayor council amy johnson
basford grants manager for the city
the next step will come under
the division of the grants
administration office under finance
department and what we will do is work
with chris
and his team those that evaluated them
and determine what the deliverables are
for each of the organizations because
they each have a different kind of
program they're going to be providing
what those deliverables will be time
frames for those develops as well as
evaluation criteria that we will need to
have provided to us for our quarterly
reporting to the federal government
it's quite extensive when we do
sub-recipients the reporting that is
required under this particular funding
which is why we're hiring a contract
person to help with that
they will be the person who has contact
with the agencies all the time on a
regular basis i would imagine monthly if
not more often as they get started i
would imagine it's much more often
to get them up and running
get the contract negotiated get it back
to council and then get them actually
per you know providing the services um
and through that start-up point we'll
have a lot of conversations as it moves
through the years because they do have
this
once we've made the contract for the
whole amount
that is considered obligated so they
have until 2026 december 31st of 2026 to
utilize the funds and so we will be
monitoring their spending
it is on a reimbursable basis so they
will have to submit to us their
activities in order to be reimbursed for
the activities
it's an activity-based contract so it's
not that they have to build anything or
you know it's not like a construction
project where we have to have the part
of the project built they'll be doing it
on whatever we set up in the agreement
as their deliverables and then they can
request reimbursement so
we have a lot of things still to work
out with each of the agencies depending
on what they proposed and what their
goals are and but we will be holding
them accountable to the goals and
objectives they put into their
applications
and developing monitoring based on that
amy i have that
answer it does it does answer i really
appreciate i think it's important that
we know
obviously they have deliverables that
they've promised in the
application or the proposal if you will
but we also have to overall so many of
the of those
um proposals were around reducing
poverty um
and you know increasing workforce and
and
those kinds of things so
while you're here and i don't know if
it's you or chris or both
um specifically um speak to me about
those entities that we will
be funding related to businesses can you
talk a little bit about those two
programs so those are not um 100 because
i was not involved in the evaluation
this time around i'm not 100
um clear on what they proposed this time
but again it will
um assume that they will have some
eligibility criteria for the businesses
to meet in order to be a participant in
their program
and so those will be considered as part
of their agreement that scope of work on
how they will determine which businesses
will be benefited by their funding and
then how they will monitor those
businesses or provide the services with
its an education program if it's a
development of capacity if it's
you know increased employment
how they will how that organization that
has received the funding will monitor
those businesses that are participants
um and i i hope that that one goes
really well because those are exciting
programs uh from what i recall from the
first round of applications yes thank
you amy chris do you want anything to
add i guess really there are some um
proposals for businesses specifically um
some are um
the bitwise and the lift
fund
and i'd like for you to talk a little
more specifically because i think people
in the audience are really concerned
about whether we are using this funding
also for businesses for economic growth
retention you know recruitment of of
workers and and i i'd like for you to
speak specifically to that sure mr mayor
mayor pro tem so
specifically the lift fund program would
operate similar
a grant program to businesses that were
impacted by kovitz similar to what we
did with the cares grant last year so
again more details to come as we work
through that process but i think high
level with that program is that they
would base need or
potential grant funding on level of like
um sales loss during covet and there'd
be a tiered system for that particular
amount of money and so they'd work
through that that grant process based on
you know where you qualified in that
process obviously businesses that were
shut down
full stop would you know potentially
have lost more money than those places
that were allowed to remain open so
that's just real high level on that
program and as we get into the contract
negotiations we can flesh out the
details i believe bitwise is more
specific to job training and and that
type of thing i know they're moving full
you know ahead with the program here in
las cruces this would complement them
and work towards some of those uh job
training skills and and things that help
people that maybe lost their job and
their job isn't available now post covid
so i believe that's how they're moving
in that direction with that funding so
again work out some of those details
when we do have a contract in place with
them so chris once you have the contract
in place it'll come back to council for
approval right yeah mayor mayor pro tem
yeah given the dollar amount on these
agreements all of them will have to come
back to council for approval and at that
time we can share
specific details yeah right now it's
it's very high level program concepts
and then we'll we'll work through and
when do you expect that to be coming
back to council mr mayor mayor pro tem
hopefully soon i know i spoke with amy
right before i came up here they're
finalizing the process through hr to get
that position listed so as soon as we
get it listed
she can start interview shortly
thereafter i would hope we could have
someone on board within the next few
months to start this process because
there will be a lot to do to get this
program off the ground from the contract
development and negotiations and things
of that nature thank you chris thank you
mayor those are all my questions
councilman como thanks mayor thanks
chris and you may have just answered my
question i can't ask specifics right now
about any of the specif the projects
mr mayor counselor ben como you can
try and i if i have some information
i'll share it
tell me i may not i may not know the
answer but i you know i can certainly
try okay
um
the lyft fund um is a really exciting
proposal
um i just had a couple questions
regarding
um some i was still unclear about some
of those they talk about two different
options
are you recommending
one or the other or is that not
something that's been figured out yet
uh mr mayor councilman como i i don't
think they've figured out the details
yet we've had some conversations with
them because they're one of our partners
in working through some of their other
programs so i think they've probably
learned some things through some of the
other stuff they've done and they may
during contract negotiations fine-tune
specifically what they'll be using this
for yeah okay
they'll figure by the time that comes
back to us they will have that
formalized and then the last thing on
this particular project for me was
um that it was i had a texas address
out of state i that raised a little bit
of a red flag for me is that something
the committee discussed i'm just curious
about
that yeah mr mayor councilman como yeah
that's something we'll we'll look into i
know they
i know they have local offices here so
i'm not sure what was on the application
versus how that'll be finalized but yeah
we'll we're aware of that and we'll work
work through those details okay okay
um i will look forward to i imagine
they'll be here
when we've
formalized that and i can ask them more
questions directly and then my other
question was more high level there was
two projects two proposals that's
changed eligibility um
there was a fyi proposal that
back
the first round was eligible and this
time it was not and then cruz's
creatives i think
the other way around can you talk about
what went into that chris sure mayor
councillor ben como i can i can't speak
to what happened the first time because
i wasn't involved in the process i can
only speak to what we did this time
and on the spreadsheet that i have here
that i provided you i sort of outlined
the specific reasons as to why the fyi
project was not
deemed eligible this time the difference
in the this process from last time was
that there was an appeal process
so after the committee met and made
their comments um we did offer an
opportunity for them to come back and
clarify some of those questions
those questions specific to that one
let's see here
specific about disproportionately
impacted targets but it didn't seem like
that criteria had been clarified in the
proposal so
i think part of that was was issues
related to
something that was potentially being
proposed but not lining up with what was
uh allowed under arpa guidelines
um and so
after you know after the appeal process
went through the committee didn't feel
like they had specifically addressed
those questions enough to say that it
was eligible
this time okay thanks chris
um i would love to mayor would love to
hear from viola as well they she also
sent us a report i think that'd be
really important
um but then just lastly before i i've i
turned the mic over i just wanted to
thank all of the organizations the
original 21-22 for
their patients i mean we are about a
year later at this point um
you know i i ran a non-profit before i
know how difficult it is to fundraise
and and
that these
um proposals take time they take a lot
of time a lot of energy and so i just
want to thank them for their patience
and and
um
you know for their willingness to go
through this process with us and i'm
really glad we're here i'm excited to
support incredible organizations doing
incredible work for
the most
excluded in our community and to me it's
been
it's been shameful that we've been
sitting on millions of dollars that was
that were allocated by the federal
government to specifically
support those who were mostly impacted
by covet and a year later here we are
just now getting ready to distribute
these funds and so
um i'm i'm very glad that we're here and
i just want to express my gratitude to
all of the nonprofits whether they made
it to this finalist or not
for for all of their work in the
community thanks mayor thank you
councillor flotus thank you mayor and
thank you chris for your presentation
it's definitely good news and um
but in so far as the question that the
mayor has about the guaranteed basic
income
and the community action agency
did
did you in any way um or do you know of
because you you weren't involved in the
in the selection process at all
is that cursed mayor council photos no i
was not on either of the committees now
okay but in so far as a gbi
that is going to probably be a one-time
allocation of funds for
different recipients we don't know what
the details are
and i think the mayor
i i don't know if alan webber and mayor
weber and santa fe
was referring to arpa funds being used
as
you know to put strings not strings but
conditions
on the use of those funds for each
agency
i i don't know it's a different i think
it's a different program altogether but
these are arpa funds and arpa funds have
their own designated rules to follow
so
once you you start getting the contracts
out and once you start looking at how
they're going to implement this
is it outside of the possibility that
the possibility of possibilities
to
require that there be a certain
condition attached to the receipt of
those funds such as attending
dacc
or anything like that is that feasible
or
would that be a contractual issue
and because i i don't think it should be
a conditional issue
in my humble opinion i don't i i mean i
wouldn't say
well i'm not going to vote for i'm going
to turn everything down because it's not
going to be used for that purpose
so do you know anything about that or
can
you or we the city
as the
distributor of arpa funds
put that kind of condition on
the distribution of funds
mr mayor councillor flood is i don't
know if that's i don't know the answer
to that question that's something we
would have to look into i don't know if
that's formidable within arpa i don't
know if it is there isn't
that's probably something we'd have to
get some legal clarification on as we
develop the contract with the
organization i just don't have that
information right now
thank you chris and thank you amy and
thank you elizabeth
thank you mayor
anybody any other council member
okay i think you wanted to hear from
viola councillor como who is viola here
she's not here today
okay bottom line is she reviewed all the
um
organizations and everyone it came out
good
they were all acceptable so that was a
nutshell is what viola had to say so
now i'm going to turn to members of the
public who wish to speak on this item
you please raise your hand if you're
here to speak on behalf
so i've got just keep keep it up also so
i can see how many people because that
determines how much time so we've got
one two
three four
anyone over here five just five of you
six
okay so um let's just do it two minutes
here and two minutes on the next one so
i'll
leave it with you so i'm going to start
with this
oh you're in the same row okay third row
yes sir you come forward just state your
name please
i i i need you i need to come forward to
talk on the mic because i can't hear you
i i i know i need you to talk on the mic
i'm sorry i i need you to state your
name and i apologize but you have to do
it that way please i apologize for the
unrelated question but
can you can you stay william biermann
you pulled two items off the agenda and
you only refer to them by number
and you seem to be out of agendas so i
have no way of knowing what those two
items are
and whether i should stay or leave
okay well the item that we removed off
the agenda completely was item 8.4
council bill number 23004
which is the noise ordinance so that's
gone that's all i need to know okay
all right so
there was a
gentleman here yes sir come forward to
state your name
good afternoon brian cavanaugh ceo fyi
plus
uh good afternoon mr mayor members of
city council
i'll keep this brief
at first
our application was deemed eligible and
it was recommended for funding
through the entire first round the
population we proposed to serve
brought no concern
and no question
by the evaluation committee
the current evaluation committee
deemed our proposal ineligible
for consideration because and i quote
the target audiences you identified
did not fit that criteria
the criteria referred to were those
disproportionately impacted by the
pandemic
to be deemed ineligible because the
population does not fit the criteria of
the very population we otherwise serve
day in and day out pandemic or not
simply doesn't align with all of our
public private
collaborative efforts and initiatives we
have worked on and engaged in in
partnership over the years
to serve our community
through various challenges
i personally do not understand how the
determination was made
by the evaluation committee
however i do understand how important it
is to distribute
the funding before all opportunity is
lost to do so with those recommended for
funding
i simply ask the city to do their best
to support each and every awarded
applicant
throughout the entirety of each project
as there is a lot of work for all of us
to get to thank you
thank you brian
okay so that was uh
third row anyone i think there's someone
else and they're in the fifth row sixth
row yes
sarah
thank you my name is sarah smith
thank you for taking comment on this
there are two projects that were listed
in the arpa funds that i'm concerned
about and i just wanted to bring up the
concerns here in front of the council
the first one is the three hundred
thousand dollars to the messiah valley
community of hope for housing relief
mitigation funds
so i read through the whole document
these funds would be covering expenses
related to helping landlords stay
willing to rent to people with
unfavorable qualifications or rental
histories such as homeless people
this includes paying for property
damages
as well as paying rents itself i'm
concerned that this type of assistance
would not actually be helping people in
the long run
i've requested more information about
what qualifications or limitations would
be imposed on people in order to receive
this assistance such as whether there's
any verification that the person is not
having a drug abuse problem but i've not
been able to get any of that information
we have already seen at the desert hope
homeless project
that what was originally intended to
help people was actually creating a
dangerous situation for instance daryl
who lived at the desert hope project
himself reported he was facing threats
of violence and drugs right outside his
door there we also know that the people
living nearby
were experiencing people breaking into
their homes drugs being sold nearby
dirty needles being left in their yards
prostitution happening right outside
their front doors i've talked to people
in the neighborhood recently and they're
still seeing all of those problems there
right now
i'm concerned that by paying people's
property damages and rent this project
will be enabling people to continue
living in ways that harm their own
health as well as the health of the
community
the other project that i'm concerned
about is the guaranteed basic income
project which is 1.7 million dollars
this project is supposed to provide five
hundred dollars monthly for 150 families
for 18 months
was that it yeah that's two minutes oh
you're only about four total i presume
you're going to talk about the appeal
um can i do one minute here and then
just do a one minute comment for my
other one
okay thank
you the families that receive these
funds are likely going to become
dependent on them if you're receiving
every month for a year and a half you're
going to get used to having that money
this seems like a really slippery slope
i don't know where this is going to
leave those families afterwards we don't
have money to continue giving them 500
every month so
it seems that some of these projects
have very high intentions but i'm not
sure whether they actually will benefit
the community in the long run
i really like the idea of potentially
breaking this into separate projects
that get voted on individually because
they're very different projects
and it seems to make sense to allow
people to assess each one individually
instead of voting on this all as one big
lump so thank you for your consideration
thank you sarah
okay anyone let's see that was about the
fifth or sixth row anyone further back i
think yes sir come forward
i just need you to state your name
if you could please refrain from i think
you're running for office because
technically we don't allow that at city
hall just just state your name please
absolutely mayor well my name is jacob
rodriguez i'm presiding over the
local politics and crime committee via
ccia and so
i was looking over everything and
the main thing i saw is that
yes we do need a lot of economic relief
i'm a small business owner and
a lot of people have been hit really
hard and this is specifically with the
guaranteed basic income i still haven't
seen any accountability whatsoever that
the harm the lockdowns has done to our
community into our state i mean you go
right next door to arizona you go next
door to texas
south dakota florida they're all
enjoying a surplus of money okay and
they have a lot less crime and they
attribute a lot of that to not giving in
to if not closing at all south dakota
didn't close one day at all and they
didn't close one business okay when we
lost somewhere around 30 to 40
of restaurants so
furthermore getting into the guaranteed
basic income my main issue was that
we're doing the same thing and expecting
different results and one of the main
things is how we determine who got those
funds
it says right away non-citizens are
getting the funds meanwhile we have
local residents who are willing to work
we have veterans here that need the
assistance why are we not favoring local
residents and citizens before anyone
else this seems like we can open the
floodgates for for transients people who
aren't going to actually appreciate and
utilize the money to boost our economy
so again i'd like to reiterate what
sarah said that i think things should be
broken down i think should be voted on
separately because um there's still no
accountability for the harm that's been
i don't know whose fault i don't know if
it was a city council as a whole in the
mayor or it was economic developer but
it's very clear we have direct evidence
that the states who lock down the lease
are enjoying a surplus more robust
economies better education because we
know now that distance learning is
horrendous for children so the only the
only path to recovery is to accept
the mistakes that we've made and
implement a plan to fix those mistakes
and to make sure it never happens again
i don't see any of that here in all this
800 pages i read through most of it and
i don't think that we're going to get
anywhere positive unless we admit that
we've made some mistakes and that we
look at what's been successful in our
neighbors and states around the country
and start to implement that here
together as a community
thank you all for listening
okay thank you very much
anyone else i think there was one more
back back in to my left
no one else on my left
okay how about over here to the right i
thought someone yes yes ma'am come
forward just state your name please
good afternoon
mayor mayor pro tem counselors i'm don
hummer i'm the ceo with the community
action agency of southern new mexico uh
caa is a 57 year old nonprofit that
provides resources to people facing
adversity
to help increase our resiliency and
overall family well-being
we submitted the las cruces family
prosperity demonstration project or the
guaranteed basic income
project almost a year ago
i wasn't quite sure where i was going to
go with these because i hear a lot of a
lot of questions from from the
counselors and from the mayor regarding
our project but i think it's probably
more important for me to counter some of
the negative things
that have been said about crafts
cash transfer programs
not only today but in the future we've
been listening this to for a year and
this is the first time i've had an
opportunity to speak towards it
first i want to start with our value
system
when people come to us for help or as
some say with their hand out
we don't push it away
we don't ignore it we don't judge the
hand or tell the hand that it is
unworthy
we hold and uplift the hand
we look beyond the hand we look at the
person
to the family to the situation that led
them to need our help
we look at the single unemployed dad
whose daughter is 10 who has been
diligently looking for work but can't
find anything where he lives and cannot
move because his support system is in
hatch
the widow
with seven children who works in the
fields and
recently lost her husband
the 20 year old's single mother with a
five-year-old daughter five years old at
20 years old who's working up to 70
hours a week and still falls under our
income guidelines for this project
because her work is seasonal and she
doesn't receive
overtime
these are the people we serve
and our work excuse me don't your two
minutes are up did you were you wanted
to speak on the appeal if not you can
have the full four minutes
i'll t how about i'll do the same thing
and i'll just take i'll just finish my
last last 30 seconds to a minute or so
thank you for that mr mayor
and our work we try to form and change
the systems that are serving these
families
our project is a tool and a toolbox that
is supported by your local poverty
experts
the organizations and its leaders many
who are here today are saying that
low-income households need money they
need money that isn't attached to
conditions
money that is controlled
by the family
and not by the people who have never
walked in those family shoes
the last thing i'm going to mention is
that key findings from other similar
projects have found little evidence very
little evidence that cash transfer
decreases the motivation to work
most families keep their jobs and spend
the extra money on groceries utilities
and other basic needs those who may work
fewer hours use that time to invest in
education and job training and caring
for their children
thank you for time and i do look forward
to considering to continue in this
discussion thank you
thank you
okay anyone else on my right
no one
okay so excuse me just for uh
clarification purposes if council
chooses but of course you would need to
this question could be split up and
voted on individually but then at the
end voted on with that how
you know with those particular amounts
um in
as presented
so if there's no motion to split it up
then okay
we'll just call for the question and let
me just before we do excuse me before we
do i just want to tell you that
there are a lot i'm really impressed
with a lot that has been presented and i
would love to be able to
tell you that i support
90 of them
unfortunately i'm gonna have to vote no
because there are there's one or two
that i i really
would
i can't i can't support and that's why i
wanted to have it broken up individually
to vote uh per project so with that when
you hear my no vote please know that
that doesn't mean that
i was against all of them
unfortunately you won't know which one
but you know it's just it's just not
i would hope that um that we would be
allowed to vote on it individually which
is the impression that i was given in
the past but nonetheless we'll move
forward and with that i'll call the
question christine
okay
so i'm going down each one
or the main motion
no no you're calling a yes sir yes or no
vote
okay so this is on the motion
to
approve resolution
23-027 as amended
counselor beta yes
counselor graham yes
counselor ben como yes
counselor karen yes
counselor flotus yes
counselor
yes mayor no
okay
thank you next we're going to go to the
appeal process that's item 8.3
resolution 23-028
move to approve
second bancomo okay motion made by
counselor graham second by councilman
cuomo
so just a couple ground rules here
this is an appeal i think there was
someone who asked why
did the city council bring this forward
city council did not bring this forward
this was brought forward by the
applicant it was heard at the planning
and zoning it was not denied and so they
had that process to take it up to city
council
and so that's how it got here i will
tell you that
you all have some of you have one man to
speak
most of you have if you haven't spoke on
the first item you will have four
minutes to speak
however those who are making
presentations
to council
not the general public well this is a as
i mentioned in the beginning is the
quasi-judicial setting therefore you're
going to have to
be sworn in under penalty of perjury the
comments that you make and christine
will do that
as as the presenters the ones who
actually speak on this particular issue
not members of the public you can
we hope that you try to be truthful you
know but you're not held to under that
same regard
okay so with that david ware is going to
be kicking this off
good afternoon mayor and city council
david we're at the community department
and the resolution you have before you
is an appeal of a planning and zoning
commission decision
just to give you some
background and the current conditions of
the property
the site is located at
227 south main street is currently
occupied by a pharmacy
the property is a zone for that type of
use it's in our downtown overlay on the
main street section
and
the property has been there for quite
some time
one of the issues that you'll consider
today is it is located adjacent to
a school facility
they share a property line and so this
is just a zoning map the triangle in
orange is the actual site
and
as you can see this is main street so
basically all
buildings that are front that are
regulated by the zoning district of the
downtown main street
zoning category
uh an aerial you can see again the site
you can see that it shares a property
line and the buildings
of the new america school and the
pharmacy are adjacent to one another
this is an appeal of the planning zoning
commission decision
if you recall when the cannabis
regulations were adopted there was
buffers that were established that that
there needed to be a requirement of 300
feet from schools and also day cares
and
this was something that was in the state
statute that communities could create
buffers but they could be no larger than
300 feet so you went to the maximum that
was allowed
by the the state statute
also you
when the
local ordinance was adopted there was
requirements for schools
and that was primarily the pre-k through
12 so your traditional
elementary and secondary schools but
they were excluded any adult schools
trade schools were exempted
and in this particular case new
america's school is a qualifying it is
meets that definition of a pre-k through
schooling facility
the applicant themselves
they currently are a pharmacy
and they also
do work with cbd projects and the
request was submitted so that they could
go into the recreational business and
work with products of thc
just to go over
the criteria for granting a variance the
plan zoning commission
does have the
final authority of granting
variances to the zoning code and then
any decision that they make can be
appealed to city council and so that's
what took place today and why it's there
there are three criteria they use one is
that there's a physical hardship on the
property
the second is that
there is some type of economic
development benefit on a city-wide or
neighborhood basis and they can also
consider monetary not in and of itself
but if it's a contributing factor to a
hardship
on a particular case
the applicants themselves
their justification for granting the
variance was that it did have an
economic benefit to the community and
that the hardship
did have some monetary basis not only
the investment they'd already made into
the property but the potential to
[Music]
i guess reduce the ability to
expand on that particular site for the
community
in their appeal and i believe that
they'll have an opportunity to present
they can go more into their figures
but they showed what they had
invested into the site um what the
number of people that they have hired
and also
what they've already invested into this
site and provided
in economic development for the
community
this is just a site plan that they
provided to the city
showing how the space would be divided
there would is a retail component there
is the traditional pharmacy
there's the manufacturing with the
cannabis and there's also the proposed
site for sale of cannabis products
again this is just a picture of the
existing site
this
building is the pharmacy and what
farm troop proposes to expand
and this larger building is the new
americas high school excuse me numerical
school
and again just some other photos of the
existing site and its conditions
in regards to the appeal today
the city did send out notices to um all
affected parties per our code
today we've received one
comment
from
new america's school that we're
concerned about the variance
in regards to the planning and zoning
commission
again notice requirements were met it
was a public hearing conducted per the
plans on commission and zoning codes
requirements
there was at that meeting input in
opposition to this variance
again some of the topics that they
covered was impact to students
impacts of school operations and just as
general
vicinity
close to these two businesses
but there was also
several people that spoke at the meeting
in support of it talking about
everything from the benefits that having
this product is provides to the
community
the number of people that be hired and
the skills they have and also
just the professionalism of the
potential use and operation
the planning zoning well excuse me when
staff did their review their initial
response was denial
and they based that on a
few items
one of those was there was no real
physical hardship
from the particular site
the other was that
the um
the ordinance on cannabis and the buffer
is relatively new and there was a robust
discussion when that was chosen
that there
in this particular case there's
a request to eliminate the entire buffer
basically
the
use would be adjacent to the school
just to provide some additional
information the way that staff
interprets that the
the site that's being buffered from we
consider the entire parcel
the use we consider just the building
and the distances that take place
the reason we do that is we know that
all that these operations take place
within a building
but the other uses can utilize their
entire property for the activities that
that they have
um in our analysis it was also noted
that elevate las cruces does have
policies that would support the
expanding of a new and and
developing business
but then there are more detailed
policies that talk about
compatibility uses and impacts they have
to one another
and so
again this slide just gets into some of
the reasoning that staff
used in making that recommendation
the planning and zoning commission after
a hearing staff presentation hearing the
applicant's presentation and public
comment
recommended denial
and they based their decision on
the staff report and the findings that
were provided with it and so basically
those previous slides that information
is what they used to make their decision
[Music]
as you can see
it was a unanimous vote
with that i'll stand for questions and
when you get to your
your options we have those listed out
for you
you david so was the
was there going to be members of either
the applicant going to speak or did they
did they bring someone that they wanted
to speak on behalf
yes and they have provided a powerpoint
which i believe they would like to
present so right now this is your
questions that we have for david if
anyone has questions for david
so just to sum it up what you're what
you're saying is
the request is to
to basically in essence eliminate the
300-foot buffer because i mean they
share a wall so it's literally
there
mayor and city council are correct
basically
the way that we interpret that buffer
and how we measure it due to the fact
that they share a property line and both
of their buildings abut each other
it
would eliminate all
distancing
from that use and the adjacent
properties used okay
all right so we're going to go ahead and
hear from the applicant or their
representative
and so we need them to come forward and
christine will read the
the oath i guess
i'm so sorry mr mayor can i ask one
quick question
before we move on yourself and david
just to clarify this is
only for this case we are not when you
say removing the buffer this is not a
policy change this is not an ordinance
change this is this case only
yes yes this is this case only but keep
in mind we do this time we set a
precedent understood thank you mayor if
i if you
i was going to agree with you uh but i
don't know if you um established
precedent because each variance has its
own unique conditions and its unique
property so you need to consider those
on those site-specific facts
thank you thank you
hi
my name is trey howard
so christine
do you swear or affirm that the
testimony you are about to give is the
truth and nothing but the truth under
penalty of law
absolutely thank you thank you
i'd like to start out by thanking all
the council members
for this time and the ability to present
for you all today um
i'd like to take um sorry about this but
approximately 10 minutes to go through
our powerpoint presentation for you guys
so you can see here um a little bit of
background about the variants merci
valley pharmacy and farm true are two
separate companies here in las cruces
that are owned and operated by the same
diverse group of core partners
the remodel at mercia valley pharmacy
and farm true began in the year 2020
at 227 south main street and was
completed in august 2021
bringing the total remodel cost of the
two businesses in the building to nearly
half a million dollars
it's very important to me that you guys
know
we
we love being part of downtown like we
love being part of the downtown
community it's been amazing but we
didn't choose to be next to a school
we um
we actually
were granted opportunity to take over
and remodel this building
and honestly before that we were just
three local pharmacists working for
corporations with a dream of independent
pharmacy and if it were not for this
building being granted to us under the
situations we were in
we would not be able to provide the care
that we do to the community right now
the building made a large difference for
our business
the brand new 800 square foot hemp
manufacturing lab currently supports the
production of pharmacist formulated cbd
and hemp products
that are distributed to multiple health
facilities throughout new mexico like
veterinarians chiropractors other
pharmacies are selling these products
they're awesome
messiah valley pharmacy has three
pharmacists on staff and we dispense
over six thousand prescriptions monthly
include including over 200 controlled
substances that are regulated by the dea
we've been retailing our pharmacist
formulated products since 2019 downtown
it all started in the back of a truck
with a tent
and now we have our location at 227.
we all know regardless of how you feel
of cannabis it's been a great economic
driver that's been endorsed by the
downtown las cruces partnership
in their mission to revitalize the
downtown area
our pharmacists and founders are among
some of the top cannabis pharmacists in
the country
dr joaquin acosta sits on the board of
directors for the international society
of cannabis pharmacists
not only that but he is one of two
first-generation latino business owners
in this business
jeffrey stewart
has developed the very first cannabis
crash course for pharmacists and
pharmacy technicians which is a
certified continuing education
registered here in the u.s to help
educate other health care providers
and then me myself actually during my
time at the unm college of pharmacy i
was a member and a presenter for
generation rx
which is an outreach program a drug
awareness program
that helps educate high school students
on the dangers of drug abuse and misuse
in the community
and
personally i would love to work with new
america school on any educational
benefits they see for their students
when it comes to cannabis or
prescription drugs
let's move on these are just some nice
pictures
but it shows a little bit about our lab
that we have already operating
some key points here about the variance
you know healthcare professionals
leading the community
in this adjustment to legalized cannabis
is critical to be safe
farmtrue has invested so much time and
effort into our current location at 227
that
with our current pharmacy and our hemp
manufacturing operations
allowing the company a variance would
immediately springboard the downtown
economy with the infrastructure that
we've already worked so hard to
establish
farmtrue is on the brink of delivering
truly innovative pharmacy services in
downtown las cruces
and with the variants we could become
the first pharmacist formulated cannabis
company in the country with a mission to
provide more progressive and inclusive
pharmacy experiences
this is just the proposed site layout
the main thing to take away here you can
see that the area proposed for the
dispensary is located as far as we could
possibly put it from the school
down there in the corner
this is just an aerial view that shows
you where the front entrance of the
school is and where the drop-off
location is and it also shows you that
though the planning and zoning committee
tried to call it a zero percent buffer
um
i think we all know that's impossible
we're not opening a dispensary at the
new america school
in fact from the front door of the new
america school to the front door of our
proposed dispensary is approximately 240
250 feet depending how you walk
so and that's been measured multiple
times
this is just another
slide a different aerial angle
and
even just now there's been talk about us
sharing a wall
i don't know really i guess what that
means but we do not share a wall there
are two walls and yes they are butted up
against each other i understand
but
you definitely have to crack through two
walls to get into that baby so
and there's another one because third
time's the charm so
this shows you when you walk inside uh
the front end area of our pharmacy and
we just wanted to mark in the back or
for you all the top right corner you can
see that
the area proposed for the dispensary
is
it's very inconspicuous inconspicuously
tucked away in the back you know we are
not out here trying to flaunt it or
anything we are trying to use this as
natural medicine for our patients and
provide more options to them at the
current pharmacy so we've got it way
back there in the back corner
not just that but as you enter you would
have to walk down this hall where at the
end of it we would have our proposed id
and age verification station
so that anyone entering would have to be
checked before they can even enter the
dispensary or view any cannabis products
i know you guys are all too familiar
with the codes but i just wanted to read
some of the language here that the
cannabis establishment shall comply with
all state new mexico regulatory and
licensing requirements
the cannabis retailers shall be located
300 feet from a school or daycare
with the exception of commercial schools
schools of higher learning and those
serving 18 years of age or older
and a little bit about new america
school which is a non-traditional
charter school located in the commercial
district of downtown that does serve
students that are 18 years of age or
older
in fact
based on some of the statements made by
superintendent porter
to the sun news
recently
we can postulate that approximately half
or nearly half of those students are but
are adults
above the age of 18 18 or older
not just that but also at the recent
planning and zoning committee we
attended uh miss katnack one of the
teachers from new america school stated
that she herself has multiple students
years 23 years of age
in her classes
once again just reiterate the front door
at the school to the front door of our
dispensary would be approximately 250
feet not a zero foot buffer
the liquor license is within walking
distance too they just threw that in
there
so some key safety priorities that we
have obviously assure that only adults
21 and older can enter this dispensary
and not just that you can walk in and
then you get checked we actually have a
verification station outside within the
pharmacy building to make sure that only
the right people are getting exposed to
this stuff once they enter our
our farm true dispensary
the
residents
may not carry cannabis products in the
retail area or exit with the cannabis
products and remain in the pharmacy it
must be your final stop before you leave
the facility
and of course any manufacturing or
compounding areas are limited to staff
only
so
the other thing is we have 20 cameras
throughout our facility covering the
parking lot area that are under 24 7
monitoring and alarm
and one of the
you know concerns that the school
brought up at the planning and zoning
committee was that there might be
nefarious activity in the parking lot
related to the cannabis and their
students
and you know
we did take that to heart we've actually
recently installed additional cameras
outside so that we have a full view
of all the areas surrounding farm true
and messiah valley pharmacy outside
all the facility windows are barred we
have rolling down locking gates
that separate pharmacy proper front end
in the dispensary
and honestly as a state and federally
licensed pharmacy
we can assure safe and effective use of
this controlled substance
so
um after we noticed that this was
becoming quite a talking point within
the community and we saw that um there
were mixed emotions about it we decided
to put out a public survey um just
asking people questions about how they
feel about the dispensary at this
location specifically
and health care professionals suspensing
medical cannabis
so of the 154 uh collected responses
i'll just run through these real quick
you can see that 92
stated cannabis should be best described
as a medicine
not as a drug
91 percent stated that they are in
support of recreational cannabis and 100
of the 154 surveys stated they support
medical cannabis use
100 said that they were in support of
cannas being sold by messiah valley
pharmacy
or farm true
at that location
and 100 stated that they were in support
of it being sold on the premises even
though it is located next to the new
america school
percent of the recipients we got said
that they were
not in favor of a different dispensary
next to a school that is not run by
pharmacists or health care professionals
58 stated that
58 stated that they were not aware there
is already another dispensary that has
been approved within the 300-foot buffer
of this school
and was granted variance
86 of them stated that they were aware
there is a restaurant selling alcohol
and beer
within the radius of the school
and i just thought it was interesting
that about half of these people do not
use cannabis recreationally or
medicinally
some of our economic contributions to
the downtown area so far you can see
we've created six full-time jobs one
part-time employee we use five local las
cruces contractors not only that but as
i mentioned earlier we have developed
one of the first cannabis related ces
and presented it to over 500 healthcare
professionals including the new mexico
pharmacist association
to this day it's growing every single
day but we've had over 12 thousand
encounters with patients and customers
downtown and messier valley pharmacy
the potential for spurring economic
development
um
i hope is obvious you know the cannabis
industry is booming here
and uh these are just some of the jobs
based on other uh
participants in the industry that we can
see us creating for downtown
not to mention of course all the sales
and use tax that would go in if we were
able to participate in the program
so with that i will say thank you guys
so much for the time if you have any
questions i will do my best to answer
them
thank you guys so much
okay i think we have a couple questions
councilman cuomo thanks mayor thank you
so much for being here for your
presentation
um your pharmacy has become very popular
in the short time that you've been open
and i think that's a testament to your
work and your credibility in the
community
you know you mentioned early on around
the 200 control substances that you have
and i know i got some
emails from folks um right you um
provide
and have control substances such as
fentanyl xanax oxycodone amphetamines
etc as any pharmacy does generally
what um what kind of safety precautions
and measurements do you already take
given that you
haven't sell these kinds of
um
medicines in your business already
thank you for the question ma'am so
basically we are certified and licensed
by the drug enforcement agency of the
united states we have to meet strict
requirements on how those drugs are
locked up and secured within our
facility
so right now for example they are all
located in a special safe to control all
of the controlled substances this is
within the pharmacy proper which is
layered back within that building
through multiple walls and not only that
but we do have the rolling down locking
gates
for whenever
the pharmacy is closed or not in
operation that would protect from any
breaking in not only that but we do have
motion sensors cameras mounted on every
aisle of the pharmacy
and a 24 7 alarm and monitoring service
in place that ties directly to local law
enforcement
wow thank you
um
how long have you been open
um actually our one-year anniversary was
august 30th of this year that the
pharmacy has been up and running
congratulations i'm curious in the one
year did you hear from the school or any
other folks around their concerns of you
selling such control substances right
next to the school uh no not at all no
one seemed concerned about controlled
substances until it dealt with cannabis
okay
um thank you i look forward to oh
actually no i it's so funny when you
we're talking about your present your
gen
generation rx
um i
i would love to see a partnership with
whether it's the city or whoever
particularly the school on ways that you
can and provide that kind of information
for
area schools perhaps community schools i
think that'd be an excellent partnership
well you guys can tell i'm a little
rusty so i need to get back out there if
we could make that happen it'd be great
thank you thanks mayor
anyone else
okay is there any members of the public
who wish to speak on this issue just
raise your hand
so let's see how many i've got
i've got uh 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
16 18 20.
okay so for those of you who wish to
speak up to four minutes you could may
do so i think a couple of you have one
minute each so if you want to start
making your way down
just come to the podium state your name
and share with us if you're for or
against get an idea of what it is you're
talking about so i usually start on the
closer rows
so
you guys want to just looks like
kind of come as you will then
let me just
and i think this is yours
good afternoon mr mayor
and ladies of the council i'm margarita
porter do i need to be sworn in
no you don't okay i'm margarita porter
and i'm the superintendent of new
america school here in las cruces um i
do have a short presentation um just
with information about our school and
about where we are in in the process
um of with um
asking you to please uphold the ruling
of your planning and zoning commission
and the recommendation of your staff
so our request again is to maintain the
300 foot distance variance because we do
have
a school and a day care
zero feet between
the pharmacy and new america school
okay
currently we have 175 students and this
was as of august 29th
we are a free public school that is
funded by the public ed department
we opened in 2012 and
in 2021 we opened the new beginnings
child care center which is licensed by
ececd
we can serve up to 12 children under the
age of 24 months
and
i do want to clarify
his presentation because he does have
some misinformation
new america has currently two programs
um
students between the ages of 14 and 18
attend between 8 45 and 4 30.
students over 18
that are
non-traditional that means they've had a
break in their
high school education they attend from 5
30 to 7 15.
our daytime students once again we have
117 students 18 and under
our evening program has 58 students over
18.
so
that is one clarification that needs to
be made
in 2017 the law was changed to where new
america school could no longer serve
students over 21.
so be prior to 2027 we did we did have a
thriving adult population but since then
we don't have
any
i think if we have one or two students
they're either 23 or 24 so it's very
very minimal one or two students
the newbie the new beginnings child care
center is once again authorized and
right now we currently have five infants
that we are serving but we can serve up
to 12.
this is the view from our school in
toward the pharmacy and it was already
shown
so there are four windows that are
currently
classrooms that students can just look
out and see
toward the pharmacy
we are concerned that students will be
distracted that they will just be
watching they will be seeing who's go
who goes in and out the parking lot and
so forth so we're we're concerned about
that um and so we just want to know that
our students are safe
this is um our child care playground and
that wall that you see there that is
what we share with with the pharmacy
these are the views from our the two
first floor
classrooms and so you can see that it's
where they had shown previous pictures
that the pharmacy entrance you can see
who can go in and out of there and so
we're just concerned that um that our
students will be distracted once again
and they can see who can
who goes in and who and who exits the
pharmacy and that's from the upstairs
that's the upstairs view
other things that i would like to
mention is that we were
established when my brother's place was
already there
and they were already serviced serving
liquor
we the governing board voted to open at
this location because it allowed
students to use
the bus route to
attend new america school it was central
it was centralized and it was had more
accessibility for our community
we do serve an at-risk or at promise
population
we are at 100 free and reduced lunch so
we do have students who
need our services and need free
breakfast and free lunch
the requirement is the 300 foot
distance
in in february we were here um also
asking for the variance not to be
not for the variants to be maintained
when there was another
thc cannabis dispensary being proposed
at casa de la banza
so we were here also
requesting that that variance be
maintained but it was
approved so once again i'm we're trying
to maintain that safety of our our
school community
um we're not opposed to messiah valley
pharmacy we're actually very um glad
that they're there that's a great asset
to our community um dr
joaquin dr acosta and i have a great
relationship um they actually presented
to our school board before they started
their business and they want their
requested our support when we took it to
the board for a vote
the board voted not to support the thc
in cannabis sales so the pharmacy did
have a choice they did know that we were
opposed to the business not the pharmacy
but farm true is what we were opposed to
and so they did know that
and once again other things that we're
worried about just traffic
just more vagrance
just
in and out of that community
um just this afternoon um we had um
a regret in our um
in our property and they were you know
causing trouble for our students while
they were at lunch and so just bringing
more um community
um
people into our our little campus it's
just worrisome for us it's just adding
more um
more worry for our community and i don't
want families to be distracted or
worried about or choosing not choosing
new america school because they are
located next to a cannabis dispensary
we lost a lot of students due to the
pandemic and i don't want this to be one
more issue that parents choose not to
choose not to go to new america school
we have always been committed to
maintaining the highest education
environment for all of our students
especially because they are at risk
so once again i am asking
mr mayor and the city council women to
please consider
upholding the recommendation by your
staff thank you so much
mrs before you leave yeah i didn't
realize you had a presentation so i
asked evo to remove the timer but i
would also ask if christine would pass
tents put you under oath
no of course yeah
okay
do you swear or affirm that the
testimony you're about to give is the
truth and nothing but the truth under
penalty of law yes i do
well that that what you gave me okay so
now are you open for questions from
absolutely
is there any questions the council may
have
council macomb thank you um thank you so
much for being here for your
presentation i guess similar line of
questioning for you in terms of
uh the sub the control substances that
the pharmacy are how are you
differentiating
thc and those highly controlled
substances that pose a larger threat to
the health of children um you know
through their parents medicine cabinet
and such i'm curious about how your
so if i may so last year
vaping has become an issue
and so we probably had six false alarms
because students are bringing
vapes with thc and nicotine onto our
campus
and so we we are struggling to keep
those products off of our campus
we haven't had
we haven't seen um
other controlled substances on our
campus
um thc and
nicotine but that's not what we're
talking about we're talking about thc so
vapes and um
cannabis is the students are
bringing it onto our campus they're
smoking it before they come onto our
campus so that's more easily accessed
versus
the controlled substance um it's
recreational now and and so we're just
worried we had a 15 year old
just last week we um
it's like you cannot smoke this on
campus well my mom bought it for me
right so it's more easily accessed by
parents and they're sharing it with
their children um and so we just want to
add one more layer of protection and
safety for our students were you having
some of these issues before april 1st
this year
um so
we we have
we have okay so um so right now i think
we're at a 10
suspension rate right now in these four
weeks that we've been in school because
of and it's all because they're under
the influence
what kind of substance use
education do you provide at new america
so
this week we are going to have the
effects of vaping and the effects of thc
um i know that they mentioned them
partnering with us they have never
reached out to us i reached out to them
last presentation
because they had mentioned that someone
from new america school was harassing
them and i went to specifically to dr
agusta and i said please tell me who's
been doing that and it was not true um
he
he said it wasn't true what was
presented
because once again if that was happening
i was going to um to talk to the person
and see what's what's happening because
that that is not
what we
represent at new america school um i've
never um
i've never heard from them but so this
week actually on
on friday we are going to spend
an entire morning just learning about
the effects of thc and vaping
suicide prevention and so a lot of
social emotional learning is going to
happen this friday what kind of mental
health support do you have for students
yeah so we have a social worker that we
um that we contract with she is on our
campus 30 hours a week
and so she's there and we have
collaborations with la vida project we
have collaborations with
several other agencies that come and
support our students and teach us
teach the um the staff how to
learn you know how to intervene if a
student is having a heart day or an
issue okay thank you thank you
anyone else
okay thank you very much thank you
okay next speaker
just need to state your name please
i'm danny hartman
mr mayor thank you i'd like to thank
each and every one of you for your
position i know it's tough
uh
wish you had a button that you could
just push and make everything good and
go away and
these decisions are hard but i'm here on
the medical side of it i'm one of the
rift rafts that i'll be purchasing there
if it goes through it
i've
lived here a couple of years now
i have a health issues i've lived with a
history of epilepsy
i've had neck surgery replaced three
discs in my neck i need some more work
done i need work done on my back i've
had a knee replaced i'm worn out
i'm 63 years old two years ago i had
been up here talking against this but
here here we are and it's a different
time we're in different times we've got
to think outside the box here
i don't like to take a pill i i'm
you know i hurt all the time
all right i put them for a medical card
they sent me a medical card okay now
what i do
i have no idea i haven't i haven't been
around this stuff i'm not educated on
this
so one day i was having prescription
filled with him i heard him talking
about it i said hey
tell me a little bit about this educate
me on this tell me what i need to do
well
he sat down with me and he
counseled me and he and i told him my
problems he said well that he had
studied up on it this is what you need
this is what you need to try
we can eliminate the pain and i had read
up on it but i didn't know what to go
ask for
i had been into a different shop
they want to sell me something well i
can't just take any kind of medicine
with my history you know i i those
seizures you got to be careful on what
medications you take so by educating me
and helping me with that
i have now got relief from pain that
i've had for 50 years
50 years i want each one each one of you
to think about
a muscle cramp in your leg
and how bad that feels and you're set
there and how long it takes to get out i
get those in my neck
i have to get my wife over there and i
was having to get her to massage it we
put whole hot we have a cold roller we
put on my neck to get relief on that
when they explained how this worked for
me
and educated me on this problem i was
able to
get a jail i put it on that spot and it
instantly goes away
will tell me that we don't need to be
educated on this we're we're old school
you know we're older
i'm i'd be the first one to say i don't
want this around a school
but let's work together let's think
outside the box they're talking about
education here that's an excellent idea
let's be the first ones to start an
education program let's just not take it
to this school let's take it to every
school in the city let's have the state
calling us saying what can we do what
are you all doing here you know if they
want to get something these students
they can go down here on the corner and
get about anything you want to get and
it's uncontrolled you don't know what
you're taking down here
if uh
with what's coming across now different
colors different stuff
nowadays if a child wants to try
something one time can kill that kid
let's get somebody with the expertise
the knowledge that can help let's go
talk to these kids since somebody knows
what they're doing over to educate these
kids let's tell the parents hey you find
drugs in your kid's house bring them to
us we'll identify we'll help you with
that situation most kids are not gonna
you know as a parent well my kids don't
do that my kid you had heard that
the pastor earlier he was something i
grew up in the 70s i'm still here you
know why because i said no i don't i
don't want to use it i don't want to try
but let's think outside the box and
let's
look at this and educate these kids and
these parents
thank you very much i appreciate it
thank you thank you mr hartman
just need you to state your name please
yes thank you
it's ruth clark
we have spent millions of dollars
in the downtown mall
we wanted
to make it the center of las cruces
we wanted to make it family oriented
and we've done we've done that
it's already been approved that uh
cannabis and i'm sorry i call it
marijuana i'm a hippie from the 60s
and um
it's at the end of the block that same
block
and i know because i own businesses and
properties in the downtown mall
it hasn't opened yet
we don't even know the repercussions
of what we've done by approving that
all i can tell you is this
the marijuana today
is not the marijuana of yesteryear it's
very strong it's very different and i
know that
one of the biggest concerns i have is
you have no meters parking meters in the
downtown mall
you have
no
parking garage in the downtown mall it
was proposed years ago to go in that
state parking lot that the school of
americas is on that parking lot right
there across from the federal building
that never took place so let me tell you
what the possibility is
people can go and buy marijuana or
cannabis
and if you think they're going to buy it
and go home and smoke it at home
that's not going to be very realistic
some people are not going to go home
they're going to go and they're going to
smoke it in their cars in their parking
lots or around the corner or wherever
and
what's going to happen they're going to
pass out possibly pass out sleep in
their cars go and do their business
and oh they're going to go to
somewhere private to do it it could
happen anytime and it's my understanding
and i could be wrong that these
distributions distributing centers can
be opened 24 7. there's no time
allowance
i've been in the downtown mall all hours
of the night and
it's safe now
i won't feel safe going down there
all i can tell you is this
there were students from the school
smoking marijuana or cannabis on my
property
i didn't report it to the school and i
let it go and thinking oh well
it's it's gonna be okay
but it wasn't okay this there was a
church calvary church that reported them
and it stopped
so
they the pharmacy chose that building
they chose that building at that
location they did
it
it's
everybody's choice when they buy
properties or where they're located etc
you can't tell me
at my age
that
these young kids aren't going to get
adults to go in there buy marijuana for
them they did that they do that with
alcohol
and
don't tell me that
if they're ripped we're going to have a
problem
later on who knows hopefully not that
they're going to drive
and if they drive heaven help us then so
i please don't approve this you've
already approved one or so the other one
and so and that other one is right
across from the big event center where
they have you have
all kinds of events
so
i think two in the same block is a
little too much and i support you please
do not
approve this
we have no idea what's going to happen
in the future down there in the mall and
i have the power to move and leave las
cruces i've been here for over 40 some
odd years but some people can't they
don't have the money to do so but i'll
tell you it's going to get
we don't know what we're going to
encounter thank you ms clark
these two ladies here
mayor can i ask a really quick follow-up
question excuse me you want to ask a
question of miss clark no about
something that she mentioned
related to the downtown the other
approval for the
for the dispensary okay would you want
the question to be answered by david
david if he can
just really quickly what's the status of
the project for the prior approval that
we
granted
mayor and councillor coran
chris favor with the downtown and
economic department just told me that
that facility is not going to go forward
and the property has been leased to
another business
and so
if a year expires that variance goes
away
and
that
there's
to be succinct there's no intent to have
a dispensary at that site thank you i
just wanted to clarify that point thanks
mayor while david's up here can i ask
one more question david or um chris
do you know how many liquor licenses are
downtown
mayor and councilman cuomo i do not know
the exact number but we the planning and
zoning commission did ask us to put a
graphic together
showing the locations of um
liquor establishments in the downtown
area
so
even though the
size of the font is small the blue
lettering
are the establishments that sell
alcohol
and then the
peach area is the 300 feet from new
america's and also central elementary
thank you so i see one two three about
five
thank you
okay all right thank you david i'm sorry
ma'am please come forward
state your name and
four minutes up to four minutes
good afternoon mr mayor and council
people
can you bring that down a little bit
there you go yes thank you okay
my name is janet collins
um
as i had stated when i came
before the planning and zoning committee
i don't have children at that school
so it's more about
our future
because children are our future our
future
you know it's come and gone almost
but um the last time i was here we went
before the planning and zoning committee
and this was regarding that variance and
they were turned down
at that point
and
i saw some other businesses that had
applied for a special use permit to
allow cannabis
establishments but within the 300-foot
buffer
if this business is granted this
variance as it was stated by
a
planning and zoning committee member
we will be going down a slippery slope
because you say this is like a one-time
thing it's not going to affect everybody
but then everybody's going to come on
board and say hey you did it to them you
do it for us
you know and it'll go on and on so what
are they going to open up next time what
type of pharmacy what type of
cannabis are they going to be selling
is it going to be next to a daycare next
to a church
next to
an elementary school
we need to protect our kids
there's only so much the schools the
teachers can do there's only so much
parents can do if you know you you're in
a position where you can say
yes
or no
and you have to
like pick your battles
you know this whole thing is a war
but
this battle
it's going to be
up to you whether we win or lose it
i know
the 300 foot buffer
i looked it up today again and all
states they're different
some are over a thousand feet some less
than a thousand new mexico is down at a
thousand
then it showed cases where it went from
a thousand to six hundred to three 300
and now they can't abide by 300 feet
you know they can pretty up the pictures
they can pretty up whatever they're
presenting but the fact is they made the
choice to be next to a school
in um
in july july 9th of 2020 there was a
case here in new mexico and it was state
versus jensen
it was in the court of appeals of new
mexico
cannabis was distributed within a
drug-free zone because the greater
the greater penalties involving minors
rather than adults there was sufficient
evidence to convict for child abuse
now if you start handing down
um
like where
there doesn't have to be a buffer
it's
there isn't going to be anybody held
accountable
you know i was nervous to come and make
the you know speak up and everything but
you know what
and
i'm gonna bring it up god's in control
he already knows are we gonna win or are
we gonna lose but you know what the
battle belongs to him so you think
you're making choices you're in control
you're not
he's in control
so whatever happens he's going to use it
for his good
thank you
thank you miss collins
good afternoon my name is dr roberta
stathas
i'm a educator it's a phd not a medical
professional
i serve as the
vice president of the governing council
of the new america school
and i am here to urge you to deny the
appeal
and
my
i'm particularly concerned about the
distance to the school i'm not here to
talk
about cannabis at all
i want you to understand that the
students at new america school are very
vulnerable population
they are very disadvantaged economically
as
ms porter pointed out we're on free
breakfast and free lunch for all of our
students
i arrived here today at one o'clock it's
now after three almost 3 30. it's very
expensive for people to come and talk
with you i've taken it'll be about three
hours out of my work day
that's money that i'm not earning
and i want you to think about all the
parents
all the families of the students at new
america school who cannot afford to be
here
and have their voices heard
so i'd like to bring up um
another survey a study that was done by
the cs mott children's hospital
c.s mott is associated with the
university of michigan
it's a very reputable
organization
and they released the mott
poll report in
february of 2019
and in this national study
national survey they found that about 75
percent of parents do not want marijuana
dispensaries near schools including high
schools
50 percent of the respondents were very
concerned about people who were impaired
being in the vicinity of of a school
not only driving but just loitering and
walking around
and and a huge percentage of them
supported the idea of a limitation
that should be placed on the location of
a dispensary with regard to the school
thank you very much
okay these two young ladies here to my
right
let's just state your name please hi
my name is bena castro
good afternoon mayor and councilwoman
today i'm going to just follow up a
couple points that have been put
made by farm true and just follow up
some education um that people have
missed education on so today i'm going
to point out how minors would meet a
great challenge trying to access
cannabis at a dispensary i myself
my name is bene castro i'm 23 years old
i was raised here in las cruces so i'm a
resident of this area and i'm very
familiar with growing up around the
schools here
but as we plan to bring not just our
cannabis products around the area we
will bring education
and break stigmas
about this plant because it's not it's
not
talked about enough around
so
ultimately all of our education begins
at home with our parents as all
education does whether it be
controlled substances or whether it be
cannabis or gun control
but as a dispensary manager we have
standard operating procedures
that all employees must follow and these
entail that a person under the age of 21
is not allowed to purchase or even be in
our sales floor
unless they are qualified medical
patient by the state we do have those
cases
from time to time where there is a child
under the age of 18 but they do have to
be alongside their caregiver
um
um all of their information whenever
we're verifying an id all of this
information has to get entered into a
state system that is also our our
payment system so we track all sales we
track all ages this system also has
pop-ups where you verify the age of the
person like while you're making the sale
so there's multiple steps multiple
verifications multiple things in place
to ensure that no nothing is being sold
to someone under the age
we've also
identification is taken very seriously
we also don't take any identification
that looks like it's worn out you can't
tell the expiration date the name the
date of birth anything like that
everything's taken very seriously
and we only accept government-issued
identification so it can be a military
id it can be a state id anything like
that like a license
and if i uh we're all fighting against
the same thing every person that has
come up here they're all fighting to get
cannabis out of children's hands and to
do that we all have to combat the black
market that is our biggest struggle
right now not the dispensaries the
dispensaries are going through every
step to ensure that children don't get
cannabis
our issue is the same thing we're all
fighting against
the black market
um all of the black market products like
the gentleman that spoke first
they're all unsafe they're unregulated
and they're untested so the black market
is the biggest issue in all reality
not the dispensaries dispensaries have
to go through extensive state testing
and things like that
and further education is just the
biggest point for our children
[Music]
thank you
yes
hi good afternoon
my name is lorraine sanchez i am a local
independent family nurse practitioner i
am currently certified with the state of
new mexico for electronic certification
for medicinal cannabis based on the new
mexico state approved conditions i am
here to speak in support of
mercia valley pharmacy accounting zoning
appeal to provide a pharmacist operated
medicinal cannabis cannabis dispensary
in downtown
the focus of this zoning appeal should
be for the las cruces community patients
to have a safe and reputable resource or
avenue in this new and ever-changing
climate of legal cannabis messiah valley
pharmacy is poised to provide that very
education with added safety regarding
medicinal cannabis for both cbd and thc
in direct care
of chronic conditions for patients in
our community
if patients are provided the vital and
necessary time to learn and understand
cannabis their condition and cannabis
role in living with their chronic
condition they're able to make an
informed consented decision to to decide
their personal risk versus benefit of
medicinal cannabis to manage their
chronic disease
messiah valley pharmacist as a cannabis
dispensary is the ideal meld of fda
federal and state regulations to provide
the patient
the safest method to consume cannabis
now another benefit locally is a
pharmacy
a local pharmacist created cannabis
product would provide local health care
providers that have not taken continuing
education time to be able to make an
informed recommendation for their
patients
can refer them to messiah valley to have
those recommendations and that
very vital needed service
filled by literally the experts
for perspective or to put it in more
perspective a pharmacy certified product
would consist of certified ingredients
tested for purity expiration tested for
potency tested for ingredients that
could provide optimal absorption and
we don't want our new mexicans for
medicinal use buying their cbd and thc
from a gas station half of the things
that are put into these products and not
regulated are extremely bad atmosphere
valley pharmacy is going to be able to
provide that full spectrum care that
nowhere else in this state nowhere else
probably in this country can provide
that people who deal with drugs
substances controlled or not this is
what they've studied to do chemically
they can tell
a patient teach them about their
condition and say hey
you have epilepsy well if you're taking
this epileptic medication it has this
other indication or
interaction to where you have to take
this less amount of cbd so it does not
interfere with your seizure medication
now that is a benefit that i know
because i've taken the time to vest and
learn but many providers i mean we are
dealing with
all kinds of stresses in the world and
to be able to refer a patient who needs
it to the education and a reputable
source is second to none
unlike i said a pharmacist can fill the
gap in the limits of a medical provider
to certify and recommend a strain and
dosing they can make educated and
continued dosing recommendations for
multi-symptom recommendations
for patients needing assistance right
now you can ask pick up any medication
that your provider prescribes to you and
they a pharmacist dispensing has to take
the time to counsel you on that
medication so that you know what it's
for what side effects to look for and
what other interactions are possible
no other medicinal dispensary no other
pharmacy no other medical provider will
be able to provide that type of service
to allow for the safety of cannabis for
our patients and i know this is about
safeguards and being next to a school
but
they are working hard to lead the way to
preserve the community pharmacy and the
pharmacist role in the heart of our
downtown where it's most needed
thank you
let's jump into the to my left and then
to you sarah okay
just need to state your name please
yes my name is jay wisner
and i'm a retired juvenile probation
officer i retired here as chief about
seven years ago
i have some peer-reviewed studies here
that talk about what the best and
brightest minds in our country say i am
a church pastor but i'm not here
with the information regarding that i'm
here with these studies now i i
my apologies for not getting these two
you earlier i didn't get noticed till
this morning our church building is
right next door to the school i've got
notice on the other
three is the three here two hearings
we've had
and um i was able to mail these out to
everybody last time i didn't get noticed
until today so you can give them to the
clerk and then she can have them too yes
and i'm going to briefly just talk about
what each of these
so
i went down this morning and put those
together kind of quickly and
i hope they
i mean i know you're going to make your
decision today right and i don't know
what relevance these will have regarding
that ones from health and human services
about cannabis legalization and the
impact on youth we i know it's already
legalized but we're talking about having
it with an adjoining wall to the school
and maybe three walls thick but it's
still one wall between them it's
so also this signage of
an influence on youth
of the signage for legalized marijuana
sales
now this is and and the difference is is
that it's recreational nobody needs a
prescription to go on and buy this like
they would any other controlled
substance in that store
right
and
so the other thing as an advocate for
this school i have placed youth there
who were on probation who were at risk
many of which who were already drug
seeking that kind of stuff and so and i
got to tell you for the the use the
youth that we served it was a challenge
to work with them and keep them clean
and
i got to tell you this this school does
an incredible job as somebody who's
placed
several kids there
several at-risk youth
who were
not easy to work with who were not easy
to
keep away from drug using
another one has to do with cannabis use
and mental health issues
what cannabis does what thc does is it
supplants the use of serotonin in your
mind in your brain as you're using and
so what happens when you're not high you
want more right you you get kind of down
and out
it's a real drag you want some more that
kind of thing
they know that through these studies
that's a
well that's the pmc labs
does marijuana cause use of other drugs
i know there's arguments against that
but you can't find a heroin addict a
cocaine a meth addict that didn't start
with this stuff so it depends on what
side of the horse you're looking at
right
and so
with that and i would just ask you
if you had a child a grandchild
would you want to place that child or
grandchild in a school that is right
next to a location
that sells marijuana recreationally
that's all i have to say
i appreciate your time thank you very
much for that information thank you
thank you
sarah before you come here i'm going to
ask david to clarify something
so david earlier we had a few members of
the community who spoke it sounded like
primarily for medicinal use of marijuana
is this an applicant
to selling would want to sell both
medicinal and general retail sales or
because it's my understanding that
medicinal does not require a buffer only
when it's done for recreational is that
correct
mayor prior to
the state
implementing the
recreational requirement the city did
not have any buffer we treated medical
dispensaries the same as a pharmacy
um
believe that okay that's all i needed to
hear okay so thank you all right i'm
sorry about that sarah
thank you my name is sarah smith
many community members are already
concerned about the potential negative
impacts for children's health and
well-being with marijuana having been
legalized here in las cruces now it
sounds like this
pharmacy has great qualifications
they're doing their things right that's
not what's in question here it is the
proximity to the school that's the main
thing that have people has people
concerned
the city council promised when it
legalized marijuana the precautions
would be taken to make sure that
marijuana was not being sold near
schools here in las cruces
the city ordinance calls for the
300-foot distance
it would be a breach of trust for the
city council to approve
that this pharmacy could be selling
marijuana when it is directly next to a
school
i believe that we must put the health
and well-being of our communities
children over the potential economic
benefits of this pharmacy being able to
sell cannabis please vote against this
thank you sarah so you remembered you
only had one minute so
okay
who's next
yes sir just need to state your name
please
hello my name is josh mccurdy i'm the
director of cultivation of high horse
cannabis
i would just like to talk to you know
i've heard a lot of miseducation and
stuff my grandmother actually i was in
the medical program since 2013 and so
was my grandmother it gave her a lot of
relief and uh and amazing things i think
alcohol is the gateway drug i think like
the gentleman said all the heroin users
cocaine and stuff i think alcohol would
probably be the first first thing that
they use not cannabis right they're
actually even having uh there's
different studies in the nation to have
reefer rehab actually pulling people out
of heroin addiction and stuff using
cannabis oil and for everybody i grew up
in the dare world and everything like
that and all the miseducation
it's funny that cannabis actually
naturally works with our body in an
endocannabinoid system so you know
everybody that thinks it's the devil's
lettuce and it doesn't do anything is
going to make you just sit there in your
car
definitely google endocannabinoid system
and cannabis together and you'll be
amazed how that works and what that does
for your body
what it helps with just even the older
population like i said my grandmother
she was able to use it for 10 years and
being a grandson to watch your
grandmother have greater quality of life
it was uh was amazing so uh i i just
wish y'all would not discriminate
against this
the pharmacy or cannabis in any type and
let you know other grant grandkids have
more quality of life with their
grandparents thank you
okay who's next
[Music]
if there's more speakers if you want to
kind of come down to the front that
would be great i'd appreciate there's
some seats here open
good afternoon my name is bonnie moore
um
i'm going to read off my phone here you
don't mind
this is such a liberal and vibrant city
we live in
of all the places i chose to relocate
some 20 months ago i chose well
a bedroom community only 50 miles of
where my parents were raised
i have enjoyed immensely introducing my
children
to the arts bookstores
restaurants
farmers markets and cultural activities
in the downtown area
prior to moving i found macia valley
pharmacy online of all places
i hadn't even left texas yet
and i met joaquin called him
familiarized myself
and after moving here
found that he was able to do things for
me that nobody else could do
and he's a small mom-and-pop shop for
all intents and purposes
been with walgreens 25 years
and
it was at a personalized service i
received there
i was on
opioids for about 15 years pain
management prescribed opioids
upon moving here and you have to
understand there was a big influx of
people like me from other states
when legalization happened
and it's kind of a
a beautiful thing for people like me
like the other gentleman that came up
here i i suffered in pain
and the only thing that they were
throwing at me
was opiates
and it was killing me very slowly
you know the bible says in genesis 1 29
to consume what's put on the earth
literally it says that
and it saved my life
it's made me a better parent
and i know i'm taking this way out of
context
and i quit reading what i have down
but that's because i'm speaking from the
heart
and i get a service there that i'm not
going to get anywhere else
of all places for me to go and get help
it makes
a lot more sense
for me to go to an actual
2018 unm graduate from pharmaceutical
school
then for me to go talk to somebody that
maybe did it online
i don't know six-hour 12-hour course
and then went and got a job at a
dispensary locally
makes a lot more sense
i've gone to dispensaries and gotten
really sick before
it just makes
there's a holistic approach about this
is somebody who suffers daily on pain
i i don't i don't and i understand
there's a precedent that needs to be set
here and i understand it's scary
and i've i've seen how close the school
is
but it's a nominal footage guys it's
nominal
um
and i don't know if you are
measuring it diagonally
i don't know if you're measuring it from
the front of the school around the side
i think all that needs to be looked at
and i think you need to think about
when i go into a dispensary they ask for
my id regardless
if i am recreational or medicinal
and there's also doors that slam shut
after three people are in there
you can't get in the door
and the way they've got their pharmacy
set up
it's not even in the main part of the
pharmacy
so i think
i just blew everything out that i had
already typed but
i'm speaking from my heart and i think
they know what they're doing and i think
you need to take that into
consideration thank you
thank you
this young man yes sir
hello my name is zachary flores
i'm sorry is that created with last
night flores
um
yeah so everyone knows that cannabis is
like a gateway drug and you're gonna be
using and abusing uh
you know crystal meth and
adderall and i don't know xanax or
whatever so
um
i mean if there's anyone that i trust to
distribute cannabis it's also the same
people i trust to distribute outer rolex
annex fentanyl and all those other other
really
hard drugs right i come here today as a
father and a soldier a local business
owner and a real estate professional in
support of this variance being granted
the key word being variance you do not
have to grant every single variance that
is proposed but given the objective
facts of this particular circumstances
that pharmacy already has protections in
place to prevent anyone not
legally able to purchase prescription
medication and drugs
as a father of two young daughters i
have no problem bringing my daughters
into the store knowing full well that
there will be no one there to give them
access to
xanax adderall or even ibuprofen they're
not going to give them freaking
ibuprofen right so
i wouldn't have an issue that wouldn't
change if there was cannabis behind the
locked door
on the other side of the store
i'm sure you've already heard from very
emotionally charged arguments on both
sides right
um being you know in in projection of
this
but i think the
but i think that
it's detrimental to
that it's detrimental to the youth but
the argument here is allowing local
business that has already invested
heavily in the downtown market
some in accordance to elevating
las cruces right i like i like that too
because it really does bring
more things to downtown
more more foot traffic more more
incentive to be there
and
it's being hindered and progress has
been de-incentivized um by by the school
holding holding all of this up right so
i don't think that there's a detriment
that this this door is going to have on
the the education of these these
teenagers and
young adults right
so um
granting those
variants doesn't necessarily set a
precedence that cannabis business can
set up school right up right next to any
shop right cannabis cannabis business is
also a pharmacist or a doctor
sorry excuse me granting this variance
doesn't necessarily set up precedence
that any cannabis business can set up
shop right next to a school unless
that school that cannabis is also a
pharmacist or you know a doctor or
something right so
in someone that has spent years
investing in themselves um
learning about controlled substances and
how to how to
deliver them i i think that we get past
all of this emotionally charged
arguments that the school is is a
preschool kindergarten or even a middle
school but it's a high school on a
remedial one
that those are looking to get a diploma
after returning back into the public
education system even still
if this was a daycare
i don't think that
a
two-year-old three-year-old is going to
walk into this pharmacy and and and buy
cannabis
anywhere you go right so i don't see the
detriment
and then
you know there's there's a lot of
praise that was given to electronic
character governor about
retaining nmsu graduates well we have
three nmsu and unm graduates that
decided to stay in new mexico and and
further our business not only that to
the downtown market
they didn't go to denver they didn't go
to seattle they didn't go to california
they stayed here and they're fighting to
do what they did and they have invested
a lot of money so i please grant it
thank you
let me lower the mic quite a few ways
here all right my name is nicole jordan
hello mayor and city council i have
worked with both cbd and thc and in my
three years of experience i have come
across many patients that use this
medication because they cannot handle
the side effects anymore they don't want
to continue taking higher dosage of
their medication so why are we going to
make someone feel guilty about their
form of alternative medication that they
choose and why are we going to restrict
the access for these people that
are at highly regulated it's a highly
regulated product at a licensed
establishment that it has all these
state regulations
so if the concern about higher foot
traffic in the area for the school that
is located on main street the heart of
downtown
was that that issue was brought up so
it's already a thriving area with many
businesses one of those including a
liquor store so why is it that foot
traffic is a concern
now when true farm is brought up i can't
imagine an enclosed campus was ever the
goal for a school located on main street
the resolution lies within better
security on the campus and proper
educational programs
as opposed to instilling fear about the
plant because the cannabis plant is what
we're talking about today not meth not
heroin as it has been compared to today
and many many other times before when
making this argument
it's a matter it's not a matter of war
rather a matter of properly educating
our new generations and clearly we need
to educate our older generations as well
we cannot keep being afraid of the plant
because if we are if mom's afraid if
grandma's afraid then the child is going
to be afraid and what are they going to
do they're either going to grow up
scared or they're going to go behind
their backs and purchase in the black
market and i think the black market is
what we actually need to fight and by
having these established regulations and
uh businesses we really really lower the
chances of the black market becoming a
problem with our younger youth
so
we cannot keep this taboo rather educate
and thank you for your time
thank you
who's next
how you doing my name is david hill i'm
a combat veteran also got law
enforcement background i'm now the
cultivation lead for high horse cannabis
i
just you know i moved down here from
colorado to you know pursue
you know this this industry closer to
home
i have five kids that have been open
about my use with them
coming from colorado
they kind of openly market
you know cannabis there's more
dispensaries and there are mcdonald's
and gas stations
so you know i had no choice but to be
open with them about my use and what the
medicine you know is
i haven't had any use i have teenagers i
have a high school or a sophomore in
high school
to you know a third grader right now and
i haven't had any problems with them
you know trying to you know dip into
that stash or anything like that you
know because they're well educated and
with some of the stigmas and the perce
of perception that i've seen here today
i feel like you know education is really
the biggest disconnect from
the both sides so
just given my experience with all that i
you know i would like to you know vote
for i don't see why adding another
medication to a place that always serves
you know
controlled substances which i feel like
are more dangerous
you know than cannabis
i don't i don't see what you know the
problem would be there it's just adding
another medication to a place who you
know already has been operating
in such a manner
thank you thank you
who's next
good afternoon mayor council my name is
colton morris and i am the director of
retail operations for high horse
cannabis
the special use permit process was put
into place for entities like this and i
believe this is a good situation and a
good example of where and how one
qualifies
morphine hydrocodone fentanyl these are
all products sold at pharmacies like
this one and all across the city
substances that are far more dangerous
than cannabis
nobody is ever concerned about a new
pharmacy popping up and coming up with
these types of controlled substances
where where were the school
superintendent or the public concerned
about when when this pharmacy was coming
prior to cannabis while it was loading
up with controlled prescribed opiates
cannabis is medicine
whether you use it for medical reasons
or recreational you benefit from the
medical properties the plant has
a pharmacy who dispenses potentially
deadly substances like hydrocodone
morphine and fentanyl is more than well
equipped to sell cannabis
denying them is like telling a liquor
store they can't sell water
the vapes the kids are bringing into
these schools and cannabis these kids
are smoking on the street are most
likely products the students are getting
from the black market
hindering licensed stores only makes the
black market thrive
no dispensary that cares about their
license or their well-being or their
livelihood will be selling
cannabis to clients under 21 or patients
under the age of 18 without the proper
caregiver
this pharmacy is licensed and regulated
by the dea
something that to my knowledge no other
licensed cannabis licensed entity in the
state has or country
my advocacy started after watching my
mother take her last breath after
fighting cancer for four years
my advocacy was really fueled after
losing my wife to cancer and
repercussions that she suffered from
chemo and radiation
denying this entity the right to sell
cannabis is denying patients like my
late mother and wife
a one stop shop for their medicine
because we know cancer patients can have
rows of medicine
as a recovering addict with the 12 years
clean next month studies show that
cannabis is not a gateway drug
that is the alcohol in our cabinets
but yet it is an exit drug
those stuck on harder far worse
substances are using cannabis to pull
away from these harder substance it is
an exit drug
on a last note let us not forget about
patent
number 6630507
it is a patent that the govern the us
government holds on cannabis as a
neuroprotectant and an antioxidant
a substance that protects the brain and
acts as an antioxidant which is a method
of treating disease caused by oxidative
oxidative stress
education is key and education starts at
home
how is it that we're able to keep beer
liquor and wine that are in our cabinets
and our fridges away from our kids
it's education
i say
let them have their license and let them
sell this medicine thank you
okay
next
i ended up coming and sitting in front
of somebody and
now i'm taking his turn
thank you mr mayor and counselors my
name is scott craling and i am the
director of public engagement for high
risk cannabis company you've heard from
several of my colleagues and
i want to echo everything that they said
and echo what i've heard from the
stories of people who've shown the
courage to stand up here and talk about
their personal experiences with cannabis
because it's not easy
it's not easy because just a short time
ago we were all kind of hiding in the
shadows and and afraid to talk about it
and people still are very afraid to talk
about it and so i'm glad that this
meeting is happening i'm glad we're
having this conversation today and what
i want to contribute to it is i'm a
cannabis user i use cannabis daily
and i found over the course of my life
that cannabis
treats the depression and anxiety that i
struggle with better than the pills that
i was given when i was a kid or the
alcohol that i shifted to later in my
adult years and now i i know what my
treatment is and it took me four years
to navigate this world and figure it out
and had to discipline myself and try
different try different things and
different products and different strains
and and it was a challenge and i wanted
to give up a lot
and i can't help but think that in the
future um people aren't gonna have to go
through that process because uh entities
like this are gonna exist uh where we
can turn to for good adequate you know
informed information on on what we're
talking about here um and so
the the other thing i wanted to
contribute to the conversation is that i
have two kids
my daughter is 15 my son's 11. um about
four years ago five years ago when i
first got my medical card my wife and i
had to talk about what what how how is
this going to work in our household and
with our kids and we decided that the
best course was an honest conversation
and we sat down my daughter who was 11
at the time and we told her what i was
doing and we told her what it was we
showed it to her we showed her the
products and the most important message
that we wanted to get across to her was
that i wasn't doing anything wrong
what i was doing was prescribed to mine
by doctor and it's okay and there's no
reason to hide from it
i feel like that is the best approach to
talking to our young people about
cannabis
and so in this instance we're talking
about
a barrier that was put in place
because i think because of fear of what
cannabis is going to be like in this new
world
as cannabis becomes a legitimate
industry and i think that you know the
the
the the low-hanging fruit is to say
let's just hide it let's just put it
away from the schools let's not let the
kids have access or let's not have kids
kids have access to the information
um and that's i think the wrong approach
kids can see through that kids know
what's going on especially high school
kids and you know what as i've talked to
my daughter about drug use and cannabis
i can tell you she's and i i think my
kid's exceptional um but she's no
interest in it
uh the conversations talking to her
about it explaining to what's going on
explaining the medical value of what it
is that i do
is totally demystified and like not even
made it cool to her she's not interested
at all and so i know that that's my kid
and everyone has different children and
different environments and different
opportunities to have those
conversations with parents
but i think that the approach is an
honest conversation with our youth about
what we're doing here and and not fear
we we have nothing to fear here this is
a new exciting industry it's changing a
lot of people's lives it's changing mind
you've heard better stories i don't get
into the details of mine
and we have nothing to fear here this is
good this is good for our community so
thank you
thank you next speaker
good afternoon again ladies and
gentlemen city council mayor um i know i
have i think two minutes left right
um i'll make it two minutes two i'll
make it quick as i can and i know it's
not gonna be a popular opinion but i was
in the minute i'm in the medical
cannabis industry uh i've certified
about five thousand patients excuse me
did you state your name for the record
my name is zeke rodriguez excuse me on
that
and i've certified over 5000 patients
since 2016 working with the medical
doctors nurse practitioners and
unfortunately i'm pretty disappointed
today to hear that the education isn't
up to par to what we know about cannabis
these days thc there is something called
thc toxicity where if you have too much
in your body you can become very uh
angry mood disorders sleep disorders
other types of psychosis it does
exacerbate schizophrenia as well and the
main thing is is that people think that
it's a band-aid you know thc you smoke
tissue you do thc and you heal
everything when since we've known since
the 40s that thc does cause psychosis
and short-term memory which could lead
to other cognitive dysfunction what you
got to do is use the entourage effect
where you're utilizing cbd along with
thc which mitigates psychoactive effects
and also enhances the anti-inflammatory
properties i haven't heard about
anything about that today
so my office was across the street from
right across the hall from the busiest
dispenser in the state of new mexico we
dealt with fender benders road rage
crime
break-ins vagrants regularly
and
yeah i do agree alcohol is way more of a
gateway drug than cannabis absolutely
but considering the type of traffic that
i witnessed as a business owner
and the lack of education on utilizing
cbd with the auto charge effect and
mitigating the negative side effects thc
um i just think it's too offensive and
uh it it's just too much exposure
because it's a federal mandate 300 feet
federally backed that's a controlled
substance act uh mandate now the states
can go from 300 feet to a thousand feet
but this is a federally backed thing so
i would consider i would ask the city
council to consider the federal
ramifications of going through with this
and that would open the businesses up to
federal intervention the exposure
federal intervention
with the city and the business so
there's a lot more going on here than i
think is uh
really being considered
and uh therefore
please consider what i said thank you
for listening
thank you
hello mayor city council my name is
robert ludon i am a business owner
father and
one of the founders of the southwest
cannabis trade association um here in
the southern part of the state
i wanted to speak about i represent a
very large amount of businesses and
don't i'm not here speaking for all of
them but they all are members of the
southwest cannabis trade association one
of the things that we do as an
association and partnership with the
state is educate businesses on how to
ensure that they're meeting all of the
standards that are set out by the state
to ensure that the things we talked
about today don't happen where children
aren't able to enter into these
businesses
and make purchases of controlled
substances it sounds i know personally
dr acosta i have a daughter as i
mentioned who has epilepsy i didn't tell
you that but she does have epilepsy she
had for 10 years now
and for almost six years actually dr
iqbal here locally
was her doctor and has absolutely and
not speaking illidan but has absolutely
no knowledge of cannabis and how it is
able to treat epilepsy there are very
few individuals who actually have that
level of expertise and my daughter was
on six different medications and
actually did have
a brain surgery that was a failure she
still had her seizures after that
situation that went you know that
invasive procedure that she had
actually partnering with doctors and
pharmacists like dr acosta
is actually what led to her being now
two and a half years seizure free um so
as an advocate obviously with the
southwest cannabis trade association i
also speak as a father and a you know a
business owner in the in the city of las
cruces
so there are i understand different
things that we need to take into
consideration here and different things
that we need to look at as it pertains
to children but i think in these in
these situations where we look at
exceptions and that's exactly what this
is i think this is one of the best
examples to be given for an exception
can be made we have educated individuals
actually three educated individuals that
were educated in our state i hope that
our education system we all feel
supportive of it because those
individuals are now going to be in our
in our community we feel strongly about
what they do and what they represent so
i think that we should all take that
into consideration as we look at how we
move this forward
i just want to say thank you all for
your time and your consideration in this
matter i know that many more instances
are going to be coming or many more
circumstances are coming ahead of you
when we need to make the right decision
i am not in support of every cannabis
business opening everywhere but i think
in certain circumstances it doesn't be
taken with some of the regulations that
would have been put in place that these
types of variances are given thank you
for your time and i hope you'll have a
great day thank you
okay thank you
okay i think that pretty much does it
right oh yes
hi my name is erica valdez can you hear
me okay eric
valdez
hi
um i keep hearing the terms like
slippery slopes where's the line
personally i think the line is where we
want progress to cease i'm chronically
ill i'm disabled and i've benefited from
cbd along with pharmaceuticals but
because of the cbd i've been able to
wean off of a lot of my narcotics
there is so
from where i was with my illness to
where i am now
night and day
literally night and day
i used to live in a dark room from
severe chronic migraine
i couldn't even look at screens without
excruciating pain so from cbd alone i've
seen the difference and i will be one of
the
one of the patrons as the
gentleman's folk earlier when dr acosta
started selling thc
when it comes to chronic illness and
chronic pain
you're willing to try anything and
everything to find what works because a
lot a lot of the time
i don't want to speak ill but sometimes
doctors fail they're human and it's it's
it's a human error and there's a lot of
things that we don't know about
you know certain diseases still things
are still being studied but we have seen
as the gentleman before me has spoken
with his daughter what cbd alone has
done and i know we're talking about the
variance here
and how close it is to the
school but when we use terms like
protect our children
to me it kind of alienates the children
who
are like me
you know who are born with disabilities
and chronic illness and who are forced
to seek treatments
that other kids may not know about they
may not see because again it is tucked
away in hospitals and rooms of their own
where they're not allowed to play with
other kids maybe for safety maybe
they're not able to
so when we speak about education
it's not just education alone it's why
we need education because when those
children become adults they may be like
me
who
want to seek
alternative and holistic care
because yes while
my pharmaceutical meds help me
there are a lot of side effects that
come with that so
when we speak about education i think
kids are part of that conversation too
because if those kids are lucky enough
to grow up maybe they don't have to go
through all the things that i went
through and i'm sure like all the other
people who have spoken before me who
also have their own illnesses and
disabilities
they don't have to struggle
coming forward after us
and
i just think knowledge is power
education is so important and who better
to educate the community than someone
who knows the chemicals and the
chemistry
of cannabis than a pharmacy
and especially dr agusa and the team so
thank you for your time
okay thank you um erica
i said no thank you erica thank you
my name is al banegas
wow that's that's loud too
thank you for the opportunity to speak
on behalf of messiah valley pharmacy
messiah valley pharmacy listen to that
name
it's a local business
they're trying to build up this local
community that's what your job is
they're not walgreens they're not cvs
they're local entrepreneurs
our local boys are trying to build the
business here i am their customer
yes i use thc also for my chronic pain
and it would be very convenient for me
just to walk in and get my prescriptions
and says hey i need some cbd and i need
some thc today too from my pain
this is what you're up against
people like me
all these other people that have
you know medical conditions that we
we rely on this thc now
i was introduced to thc in 1969 in high
school i'm 72 years old i lived here all
my life
i've seen drugs all my life
i didn't turn into a druggie
i served this city right here for 25
plus years too by the way
i'm proud of it and i thank the city for
that
so don't
go against
our local people that are trying to
build up the city thank you
thank you
good afternoon my name is reuben angela
i'm the ruben was last name aguilar
eckler
i'm the ceo for a high horse cannabis
company i am also the director of
operations for buen salud in outpatient
mental health facility um over the
course of the last year we've done over
7 000 patient applications for the
medical cannabis evaluation and since
2016 we've done over 25 000 applications
across the state of new mexico
at one point
we were responsible
for children under the age of 18
getting medical cards in the state of
new mexico we worked with the state
after they had concerns about the number
of applications that we had and we
worked with doctors um getting
recommendations for this for the program
in it so one of the big things that i
want to talk about on the two
the two pieces of the variants that
we're looking at um the health and
safety that's a big thing a lot of
people say you know protect the children
but they're not telling you what we're
trying to protect them against you know
one of the biggest things that we need
is education if you go to the department
of health medical cannabis website it
actually encourages parents
and patients to talk to their kids about
cannabis and that's where we need to
start
you know
the other piece is the economic
development i mean we're trying to
rebuild
downtown you know what better way than
having a pharmacy that's going to be the
leader
in in the entire country
as far as the
consultations that they could offer
i mean right now education is the worst
thing
with the cannabis program and how they
did the cannabis program
one of the bad things is that they loop
the medical in with the recreational
if it was a medical dispensary that we
were talking about we wouldn't be having
this conversation
and one of the big things and one of the
sad things is a lot of people talk about
you know how people are going to use
running a retail
operation outside of chaparral new
mexico
we've now served over 1500 customers
and one of the things we haven't
experienced yet was someone smoking in
the parking lot i mean i think that's
someone's biggest concern is you know
someone's going to smoke in the parking
lot you know someone's going to eat you
know an edible
of what they're doing um i haven't seen
you know
anywhere in the news where people are
getting their oxycontin in and taking it
in the parking lot and then having a
wreck right after
um so we just we have to be real with
ourselves and be real with what we're
doing these variances are put in place
so that we can make educated decisions
on what's good and what's bad
not just passing any variance or not
setting any precedence if there was one
variance that we should pass
for this it should be the pharmacy
because like i said they're gonna offer
something um that no one else in the in
the country is doing right now um one of
the other big things too and i don't you
know they didn't mention it but i see it
you know if we do deny them this
opportunity then we will have less
access to products
across the state or in our dispensaries
one of my things as a medical patient i
like one-to-one medications so that's
one part thc one part cbd if you go into
a dispensary right now you'll see zero
products
that have that when it comes to flower
when it comes to tinctures
and you know the only place you do see
that inedible and so what we need to do
is we need to start bringing out this
education encouraging our local people
and
stepping forward to do that one of the
big things that we've done here in the
downtown is partnered with amador live
and sponsoring
events that they're hosting for the next
three months
and that was a big thing is you know
what can we do to give back to our
community what can we do to educate and
so that's you know what i leave you guys
with is i hope you guys make the right
decision and allowing the pharmacy to
show everyone not to be scared and not
to be afraid thank you for your time
okay thank you
i think is that it
all right so um did you have some
closing remarks that you wanted to make
yes mr mayor
and just state your name one more time
and you you do realize you're still
under oath
trey howard
so um
i'd like to thank everybody for coming
out and showing their support
it's a beautiful thing
uh just to address a few of the comments
that were made by the public
so
one thing i saw you know i noticed that
the young lady from new america school
had a presentation she went through that
was nice
i do still see ranges of ages
i do not see a percent of adults that
attend your school
as far as the harassment thing you're
referring to and our misinformation i'm
not sure what that is but i digress
it is unfortunate that i have more faith
in your students than you do
that is what i will say about that
to the doctor that sits on the board of
the school
you may have surveys from somewhere i've
never heard of
a survey
but we have 154 surveys from local las
cruces community members in support of
this mission that we have
and
we've also got very many that were sent
into each individual counselor's file
that was presented by the city today
counselor submissions and outreach and
letters from patients participants and
the community in support of this project
i do just want to close i've said it
once before and i will say it one more
time
to the members of the council
we are pharmacists
we are drug professionals
we are the ones that take care of your
mothers
we're the ones that take care of your
children
and yourselves
we are not here to put anyone in danger
we do not want to see cannabis in the
wrong hands as much as anyone else out
here
and we'll do everything in our power to
create a safe friendly
healing environment downtown at messi
valley pharmacy
even in regards to cannabis
so i thank you guys so much for the time
and the opportunity again
we have one we have a question from
councillor bincomo of course no mayor i
just had some comments
okay that's okay thank you trey for your
presentation thank you mayor and thank
you
um i also just wanted to make a couple
comments given a couple of the things
that were mentioned here here today
as a social worker i want to tell you
that the gateway to any substance use or
abuse is actually trauma
trauma that goes untreated
trauma and pain that goes unseen
and
in fact when you step back even further
often when
that pain trauma whatever it is is
treated
um often what has worked best for people
is cannabis what has been able to give
people a thriving life after whether
it's physical pain or emotional pain has
been cannabis so i just wanted to point
that out that it's actually trauma
that's the gateway to any abuse
i think if we continue and somebody said
it brilliantly and i just want to echo
it
that if we continue
to make it harder for the legal
industry to be successful the black
market will continue to thrive and that
is actually what we are all up against
um
also what i've noticed here today is
i knew this was true but i did today
just clicked so well how much we have
normalized alcohol in our society and in
our community given that the
many of the people that came here and
spoke today for concern for children for
concern for our community
there are five liquor licenses in this
area with patios open patios
that have
open access to the sale and consumption
of liquor which is actually incredibly
dangerous to not just children but
adults particularly when we are driving
behind the wheel which happens all of
the time in new mexico
as we move forward i would love to
continue hearing from lcpd about any of
the data points that we are getting in
terms of
you know dui solely off of cannabis and
and some of the education that
the city will be doing with the
community
but i just wanted to name those couple
of those things that i noticed from this
conversation because
and i also just to the school directly i
my vote here today does not signify that
i don't deeply care about the services
you provide to our community i
absolutely do i think new america
las montanes charter schools are
actually some of the most powerful
schools here in our community because
they are serving a population of kids
that i have experienced stigma that have
experience being marginalized and
they're some of the places that i love
going to the most because i relate to
those kids so much and so i don't want
you to think that i don't care about
your school i absolutely do i
i just also deeply care about the
conversation we've had here today and if
there was any variants to be granted i
am not scared of any president because
this is a pharmacy
this is a pharmacy right and we see them
all of the time and i want to support
particularly local businesses helping
our
downtown thrive right we have a lot of
places downtown where we have a tid that
are non-profits that are churches that
are schools right
and those are important and good
and not always in support of the mission
of a tid for example and so i want to
make sure that we are in support of all
of those and i really do hope and
encourage both of you to sit down
together after this and
and really try to work through some of
the issues that have come up and and
hopefully that you can have about a
better collaboration moving forward
thanks mayor
okay anyone else
okay
christine so
a
yes vote
means that uh you support reversing the
denial a no vote means
you would rather
keep the denial as is okay
all right
this is on the motion to approve
resolution 23-028
counselor beta is
absent she recused herself counselor
graham yes
counselor bencomo yes
counselor karen yes
counselor flotus yes
counselor gandala yes mayor yes
okay thank you
if you all could uh
kind of keep it down we still have a few
more things we have to take care of so
next we're going to go to board
appointments
let's see parks and recreation advisory
board
parks recreation advisory board
articelli dais district 3 appointment
okay
the
next is the parks and rec advisory board
fred rash it's a new appointment i'm
going to need a motion in a second
so moved graham second gandhara
okay motion made by councillor graham
seconded by mayor pro tem condor
christine
this is on the motion to appoint fred
rash to the parks and rec board um
counselor beta yes councilor graham yes
counselor bancomo
yes
councillor koran yes counselor flores
yes councillor candidate yes mayor yes
okay next is notice of proposed
ordinances
there appears to be none
so next we have is city council member
board reports and comment
i really don't have anything
other than
the aggies started their new season and
um i thought they did pretty good of
course they were playing a pretty tough
team the other day
and um
i didn't realize how many national
titles
was
minnesota has won they look like they've
won at least
10 or 15 of them just some pretty course
it goes way back way back then
uh again that's it that's all i have
mayor pro tem
thank you mayor um
yeah i
i meet once a month with chris faber um
around the downtown and all the various
things that are going on and there's a
ton of them um so i thought i would take
the opportunity to
speak to those just to give you a heads
up
the acd finally received the 900
thousand dollar capital outlay from new
mexico main street it's enough money to
complete
the entire lighting project that we had
initiated initially
we're really excited about
about that and the gateway markers
coming in and out of out of
the
arts and cultural district
there
will need to still be a lot of work with
public works understanding the
right-of-way and approval of the
right-of-way for those um licenses you
know in the in that area there's a lot
of narrow streets
and so that's going to make it difficult
and at one point
have asked before private owners and
they've not given us the approval for
that so
um i asked chris and to work with david
to really do a um
substantial education about what it
means to have these lights in this area
not only
for beautification purposes but safety
you know they've experienced
some crime in the area they're concerned
about that and so i think that
that will be
really exciting to see um
that kind of come to fruition they
talked about
dave excuse me chris talked about the
plaza shade structure and there will be
a proposal coming in to put mature trees
um in the downtown and that will come
probably in october i'm looking at chris
and his nodding yes see i do i do
write and pay attention um in october so
look to so look to that
[Music]
i will not speak to that other thing
around
the possibility of housing downtown
that's sort of in the making
and we're just waiting for some
appraisals and stuff and once that comes
i think we can move on so we'll be
looking at
more housing
in the area
parking lot 7
is being worked on
the restrooms if you remember right
behind rio grande
um
it's been sort of at a standstill
there's some
things
going on there um i think like unknown
piping and things that have never
we don't have an idea of what where
they're at so staff is really having to
look at that and as you know in the
original downside much of the the
infrastructure hasn't been changed since
well
forever ever
so they're working on that um
and a time frame
um i do want to say that i had a
conversation with ifo i was approached
by scott scalan who is
a lobbyist i guess for
indigo a company
that provides an actual
general command center a platform for
communication with constituents cynthia
was also a part of the of the
conversation
i
am very interested in it as all of us
know when we began
we were sort of beginning from scratch
unless you were
lucky enough to
be given a constituent list with emails
and phone numbers and addresses um and
so i i thought this would be a really
good way of maintaining our list
in a assistive my systemized organized
fashion
but not only that it helps to
communicate outreach case work you'll be
able to do mass email responses
newsletters you'll be able to and track
it
i don't know about you i'm flagging
everything and making sure that we're
getting follow-up and whatnot that
becomes pretty overwhelming for me
and so i'm very interested and so i
promised evil that i would talk to you
publicly about it and hopefully mayor to
get your nod
and council's nod to move forward
i have some preliminary information that
they shared with me
that i'm happy to send to christine
and and so i'm really excited
about that
now did i say that it's been a while but
we had a ribbon cutting for our mural
out in
[Music]
the tree streets area and it was
phenomenal and so beautiful if you
haven't seen it please go by the corner
of mulberry and solano
we also had last thursday a follow-up
meeting with the tree streets area
thank you to cynthia and staff that she
had there
we had a lot of follow-up related to
codes
you know areas
of crime we talked we have at least
three people very interested in starting
neighborhood watch programs something
that
hadn't happened since i started even
though we've tried and so really excited
about
lift up las cruces
there's still a lot of excitement around
that
thank you ifo for agreeing to clean up
the area i don't know i saw
a big trash bin was that from you guys
from the city out on on juniper
yeah so
um really
just not yes evil yes and take the
credit
no but
yeah so um we're having some problems
with the legal dumping on that juniper
alley um
let's see
north um juniper
with
tires there's several um
shopping carts
um lots of weeds obviously lots of weeds
everywhere because of the rain but
again
efo people are talking about when's the
next block party so cynthia and i spoke
of maybe in october doing a fall sort of
in conjunction with washington
elementary booker t washington
elementary has their
um
kind of halloween festival and costume
party event costume event
a contest and i always get invited so if
if that's something that could happen
i'd really love to and i'll just say
that i've been
talking to ifo about sort of where is
our next lift up
neighborhood
and
getting ready to look at that providing
survey maybe a mural
in a location i can't tell you how much
that mural has brought the community
together and and so
um i think that's really all i had my
daughter got married we had a great um
sunday um
um wedding ceremony in santa fe it was
beautiful and so i'm still on a on a
natural height from that
um
and so i'll turn it back to you mayor so
mayor
that's great great news on everything
the
just to clarify what was it
when you said you wanted to move it
forward
what you're talking about sounds great
but move what forward like a work
session on it or or was it was it within
eve was authority to purchase
on his own i think it's within his
authority they they quoted about 25 000
um but i i didn't want to move without
at least giving you some information
and and and letting you know that this
is a possibility for constituent
services i know that there will be a
second more detailed meeting with the
individuals and cynthia
to sort of help
guide us
um but i
if you would like a work session i don't
think that would be a problem either
you know anytime you have a instrument i
think we had something similar to this
years ago i don't know what happened to
it
but anytime we can have the opportunity
to convey message messages and out to
the public
instantly i think is a great thing so
i'm okay with it i just wasn't too sure
what direction you're saying if it's
within his authority i think maybe it
was just more of a courtesy that
courtesy to all our council members um
but i i know cynthia had some wonderful
very thoughtful
comments and questions
that um i i i think we all just wanted
to make sure that council was was for it
okay
and we have something also called nixle
i think i don't know what happened to
that but we've had different ones maybe
they were very costly but this one if
you're saying it's within this authority
i'm okay with that okay thank you mayor
thank you flores
i'm here to
say i'm very glad to be alive i had
covid
and it was horrible
and
and i really
worried about not making it i'm
asthmatic i have
autoimmune disease
and
i'm in that age group where
you start thinking about where you're
going to be buried
um so
you know i just want to say that i'm
really really happy to be here um it was
really a horrible experience and i
i think we're a mask for the rest of my
life i mean it's just that horrible so
have a great life thank you
please please get in touch with us
before your funeral so that we can come
bring you soup and stuff please
um
i'm glad that you're here
uh
really quickly i want to give a couple
shout outs to city staff uh last week i
attended the
um 10th anniversary of the griggs walnut
superfund site and also got to see
the site renamed for pascual rodriguez
so that was a really exciting and he was
there and it was really fun to see um
everyone who works really hard to keep
our water clean and think and interface
with the epa and and the county and all
of those folks so thank you delilah and
folks from
from utilities that was a really great
experience and i was thrilled to be
there i didn't see any of my students
come even though i encouraged them to
but i think they might have had a little
bit of a hard time finding it actually
[Laughter]
so i haven't heard that they were lost
in wandering but
i also want to note what happened
we had a tsi prc meeting this morning
where we heard some updates on federal
funding some new opportunities that are
going to be coming through some and we
heard from
senator heinrich's office in particular
about some of the things that they can
help support us with especially when
we apply for federal grants and maybe
don't quite match with what they're
looking for ways that we might in the
future change that up and and think
about that differently
so i really appreciate um sylvia hulola
from
uyola
from
from senator heinrich's office joining
us at the trci prc meeting this morning
and also hearing about some of the
um
things that we are that we are working
on in terms of federal grants and and
those that we have received already we
also talked about operationalizing
equity and and the ways that we think
about things and that that relates to
the federal conversation about justice
40 as their as one of their
qualifications for for things that might
be
opportunities for funding and las cruces
qualifies in a number of ways for a lot
of additional funding from that and then
lastly i do think that there will be a
very brief update at that in addition to
some other things at our next tsi prc
about the upcoming community solar grant
and
um i'm not exactly sure what that will
look like but i do think that we're
we're in the process of putting out a
thing and you'll probably hear about
this at a work session in a future date
but just as a heads up
community solar is on the agenda for the
tsi prc for october 4th at 8 30 in in
the
second floor conference rooms the last
item i have the a few items from at the
as the animal services center and or
related to animal ordinances so i'm
going to put this in your i'm going to
put a bug in y'all's ear but the animal
services center probably will not the
the opening might be pushed to january
because of apparently cat cages
that are very hard to come by at the
moment and sort of like the locks on the
doors it seems like there's a national
rush on cat cages i can't imagine the
marketing for that but but january is
probably the asmv full opening
of that project and then i want to put
it all in in y'all's ear i do think that
we have an opportunity to look at some
of our animal ordinances and i met with
some folks
in addition to hearing what's happening
at the asmv and other conversations that
we've had related to tnr and all of
those things and related to some
community conversations that have been
happening i think we have an opportunity
to look at some of our animal ordinances
and so i'm really grateful to the
community folks who have been working on
that finding best practices talking to
other cities that are like ours and
identifying some places where we could
strengthen our animal ordinances so
that's a long conversation and it's a
lot of things but i would like to put it
on y'all's radar as something that i
think
comprehensively we could revisit and and
make a difference in our community so
just just putting it out there in the
initial conversation and and we'll start
that with the acos and the asmv and
keep going from there so that's all i
have for today thank you councilmember
thank you mayor um
i have a few items on my list today um
first and foremost i just really really
want to thank staff for the arpa
situation process for a year
this
round of staff that last round of stuff
i'm just really deeply grateful to you
all for getting it across the finish
line close almost we're almost there so
i just really wanted to express my
gratitude to all of you i want to
introduce you all to sydney cruz wave
sydney
sydney's getting her masters in social
work here at msu and she'll be
interning with me for the whole year so
i get to bring her to the dark side of
macro social work and i think i already
did right sydney you're sold you're good
yeah
um so i'm really excited to have her
sleep you see her room in the hallways
and she's she's with me
um
and she's also helping me and cynthia
with a huge undertaking on west picacho
i've talked about this for a long time
but it's definitely one of my top
priorities um
as the counselor for district four and
is an area that is definitely really
blighted and i've been talking to ifo
about and all of you about the
opportunity for an mra
miss pugh who came to public comment
today we've um we've had about three
meetings with small business owners down
west picacho they're working with
officer glenn fun establishing a small
business watch
and on september 13th we have invited
motel owners and managers to come to a
meeting with us and several staff to
really talk about
codes and safety concerns and how to
better maintain their
their establishments and what do they
need from the city as well for
force
to feel supported as they house
not you know they've become long-term
housing for a lot of people who are low
income and so i'm really excited about
all of that which will lead to lots of
things i hope but one of the biggest
things is on october 28th we will have a
cleanup and then october 29th we're
going to have a health and wellness fair
um somewhere down on west picacho maybe
the peddler's pavilion maybe one of the
motels um where we're we've just invited
us several organizations hopefully
burrell college will also be there mayor
protem i'm so glad you've done work with
them because that's what you know made
me think of inviting them to provide
um health and wellness services to
people who might not know about them so
i'm really really excited i'll keep you
all posted and you can
invite folks as well
i met with macarthur
the community
schools folks there last week and um
speaking of mental health they're they
say the biggest need right now the
biggest thing they're seeing at
macarthur in fact i met with alameda and
they said the same same thing was mental
health needs for the children um and the
lack of services that we sadly have and
so i don't you know i think as we think
about the legislative session i think
this needs to be one of our top
priorities i don't know how we talk
about it if there's not a legislation
attached to it but the reality is
that
we
have inadequate mental health services
for people deeply deeply struggling
whether it's children and families or on
house people who
you know have nowhere else to go and are
living out their trauma in parking lots
and in people's small businesses and
jail is just not going to be the answer
for a lot of those folks in fact jail
will make things worse for so many
people and so
um i don't
i'm just sort of
word vomiting this because i don't know
where else to take it i feel very i feel
frustrated i feel
um like i don't know the pathway forward
i just know that we need to be having
this conversation um it just seems to be
the biggest block and the biggest
barrier
currently in our community
um
the last thing i wanted to mention which
sort of ties into all of this because
we've been having so many sort of
conversations about not even
conversations so many comments have been
made about bail reform
recently and
i there was some
i was pointed to some data and some
articles that i highly encourage you all
to look to
and i wanted to just to read a piece of
it because
ultimately my ask is that i would love
to bring in some experts in this for a
work session that can really talk to us
about some of these conversations the
impact on local communities what we can
better do to
to reduce crime
but still not increase our detention
population
anyway this article is entitled
pre-trial detention plans cast a wide
net
and one of the pieces in here it says
the researchers found that a recent
legislative that recent legislative
proposals to change bill reform would
jail at least 20 additional defendants
to prevent one
person from being arrested for a violent
felony or
pre-trial so 20
um
[Music]
not guilty defendants would be jailed
for one person being detained when
someone is detained in jail
pre-trial there are a lot of
consequences to them to their families
they can lose their jobs housing custody
of their kids and so on we don't often
hear those costs as much as we hear
about terrible cases where someone is
released and does something awful
i just think it's worth having a public
conversation because these
issues do keep coming up and i would
love to work with legal with ifo
mayor and finding a couple folks that
could come talk to us here and that's so
the public can also ask questions and we
can come up with solutions that are
meaningful and that ultimately won't put
more people in jail that don't need to
be in jail and in fact need other types
of services
thank you
thank you counselor yeah i have no
problem in having a work session if you
want to bring people here to discuss um
bail reform
council graham
thank
you um
well that's so empty in here now
i feel like we had like a giant
thanksgiving and now it's just like the
immediate family again
wow
um
so
again big thanks to lynn middle school
who had me out a few weeks ago to speak
to students especially to community
schools coordinator johnny rivera
it turns out that the fashion and pop
culture touch points of my girlfriend my
girlhood are kind of circling around
again so like
granted that makes me like on a 30-year
behind lag but but still felt good and i
had a great time out there and being
around the energy of the kids was great
um big thanks to city staff
who were in attendance at district 3
cleanup day at valley view park and at
young park i had the very cathartic
experience of just taking a trash bag
and going and picking up trash that
man i need more tangible accomplishments
like that in my life it turns out
counselor abeyta and i spoke at white
sands missile range last week for
women's equality day and we got to do a
kind of like quasi-vip tour with some
really rad videos declassified i assure
you but with explosions and stuff it was
really cool um special thanks to
sergeant first class norville for
reaching out and leading us through a
really great day
and then two fridays ago
i think was when yeah the 988 lifeline
launch event kind of started off my day
mayor pro tem was there
counselor bencomo sydney um
it it was really inspiring to see
just the force and the passion behind
getting this off the ground and
i don't know why i never made the
connection of having that simple
three-digit number that you can call for
mental and emotional issues as well as a
physical emergency
and then counselor karen and i finished
off that day attending and making just
brief remarks at a community education
event on hospice
so it was it was a really interesting
way
to look at how the continuum of care is
evolving in the state and in our
community and it was just a it was a
very contemplative day for me
and finally
i know because she wasn't gonna she
wouldn't have told so i'm gonna i'm
gonna tell on her i'll be turning it
over via mayor of course to
president-elect of the new mexico
municipal league councilor tessa abata
thank you thank you very much um
yes uh this last week i was at our 65th
annual municipal league
um and so was
our wonderful city clerk christine
rivera so we attended different
workshops i know she attended one on
ipra requests and management which
i know is very well needed
i attended one on
city and county
government relations and how to build up
good policies together which i think is
very interesting and something that i
would love to see us work on with our
own county and other smaller
municipalities
previously a couple fridays ago i was
able to attend the ribbon cutting for
duncan on valley
um
really wonderful there was a line out
the door people waiting for free coffee
and
they are up and running
uh councillor koran already gave a
wonderful speech that
for whismur when we were able to go
there graham
graham sorry i'm looking at karen
so we were able to do that and then um
counselor graham and karan and i
attended
the ics training at the office of
emergency management
just looking at our roles as counselors
during emergencies and the roles of city
management so we were able to
kind of pick up on one area
that i think we are going to look at in
our psc but that's just
who is
officially designated as in charge for
the city
there's one tiny little
i think wording that has begun so
evo will get with you
on that
and then there's going to be a district
2 cleanup september 17th
and i think that's all i have for now so
thank you mayor
thank you
city manager's report
thank you mary just a couple of
items
this is from uh
connie this is uh in regards to american
shakeout great american shakeout and
we've been talking about it for some
time
october 20th is the the drill is
scheduled for october 20th
and also the emergency mass notification
system was released last week
and just as a reminder this notification
system is to allow administration to
send out immediate alerts to
employee cell phones and personal emails
regarding emergencies
weather hazards active shooter drills
etc
we've approximately 300 staff already
signed up within the last week
and then on the 20th for the great
american shakeout also uh
clc facilities will be
initiating evacuation drills
this should last about 10 to 15 minutes
around
uh
on again on the 20th of october at 10 20
a.m
debriefing will be led by chief smith
following drill
with participating
departments
also we appreciate the council
participating in ics 422
department heads and deputy directors
will be tasked with taking ics 100
before
the 10 october 20th
and then just as a
heads up with our legislative
meetings we've we're starting to
schedule those with our legislators in
preparation
for the october 20th work session so
we've got about a month before we come
back to with the work session
our federal lobbyists will be here at
that time and we'll have a presentation
from our federal lobbyists and then
following we'll talk about our capital
outlay
process and presentation so that's
scheduled for the 10th of october
um and then just finally just uh
with lift up uh
again we we don't want to
lose any momentum i appreciate airport
10 bringing that up we're going to
[Music]
our next step is having a meeting with
staff to look at all the projects
that we have waiting to roll out uh the
survey should be we should get the
results find our results from a survey
here pretty soon
and again
the step of waiting for the survey to
come back to help us dictate our
strategy
again we'll be able to move forward once
that's
once that's up and running and then at
this time we
we do want to use the same criteria
overlaying overlaying that uh an area
with the highest concentration of
poverty also with with crime
and uh start identifying the other sites
now
and so that as we we move forward we're
not
dropping off from one area and then
moving to the next we're expanding and
we'll continue to expand until we
to recover all the city that uh
you know all the needs of the city so we
will be coming we'll you'll see some
ramp up
even even more than we have had with
projects and again um
you know identifying some some sites in
the future
and i think that's all mayor there was
something that somebody asked me
it's embarrassing i can't even read my
own handwriting on the notes but if
there's something that i missed from one
of the counselors
i think that's all unless you have
something you know i have that have that
there so indigo um i thank you for
bringing up mayor protem
um barbara sent me a text and reminded
me of the process i think a good next
step would be to run it through our our
technology committee so that we can know
how it integrates security
and that's the typical process
for any software that we have just so
that
it coordinates and
it's uh
compliant with our like i said our
security and our
uh integration process so once we
once we
do that
um i guess in the meantime we can have a
presentation scheduled for other members
of the council
with this group and cynthia can
as well aware she can coordinate that as
we move forward
i think that's all mayor tank oh
this is one so um
just
just a heads up there's nothing to
report on our asylum seekers
at this point but just so you know i've
been i've been asked by different
counselors uh
you know if we're aware of it you know
things that are going on just so you
know eric
is aware and he's been in contact with
uh
with the groups and so
uh
we'll let you know
um there was there were some close calls
this week this past couple weeks where
we thought we had to be ready for some
things but
i guess
i don't know if there's anything else to
to say about that eric but
just so you know we we do have our eyes
on it we do have connection there
and uh you know hopefully we don't
miss anything and bring any surprises
we'll be well aware as we
as we need to so eric you have any
yes uh thank you for and mayor and
council yeah i provided an email from
cary with the bsc some of the updates
and things were going one of the things
they were concerned was
department of homeland security was
going to be issuing some street releases
that did not take place due to the
efforts of el paso the city of el paso
and ruben garcia working together and
setting up emergency shelters this past
weekend so we'll keep you informed as
as we get the updates thank
you
thank you man
thank you phone and eric
and i i don't know if you if you're
aware of eric but if you recall we were
on a phone call with the chief of the
border patrol
and
el paso
there was there's a lot of
people in dallas
and a few other bigger cities that would
want to have the
immigrants over there and so it was
determined it was in the best interest
because as you can if you're not aware
of el paso has lost a major hub for
because they're having a hard time
finding volunteers you know if you
recall we had we have a hard time and we
had to actually hire people
and so it made more sense
to have buses ready after they release
them they get on a bus there in el paso
and they just take them right to dallas
instead of having to come here or go to
el paso stay for 24 hours and turn
around and put them on a bus or a plane
and then they take off if if if they're
willing to go right from when
immigration allows them into the u.s
onto a bus
it seemed like it was cheaper and was
more it was more efficient and then you
don't have to worry about getting
reimbursed for however long it takes and
find volunteers people to help
and so that's why
you might be seeing that in el paso and
i had mentioned to them i'm good with
that too because it's it's like i said
it's difficult trying to find those
volunteers and the places to right now i
don't think the
that armory i don't know if we ever
moved on that as far as trying to
purchase it but
you know just it's just very difficult
to try to find different avenues for
them to be and you know we're still
having to pay our fair share but it's
just a turnaround time they get off the
they get
released into the us and they're on a
bus they're in dallas
they have sponsors there and sometimes
if they want to go no i think what
governor abbott is doing he's taken
further he's just sending them all the
way to washington now that's something
that that
maybe there were certain cities in texas
that's having them go even further
but if just as a reminder for councillor
koran and graham
in the in the past a lot of times when
we would send them we would keep them
here for 36 hours and they ended up
going to major cities anyways because
that's where their sponsors are they
wanted to go back east
and some to california and los angeles
and such
yes i have a question for mr uh for efo
ifo you said that they're asylum seekers
they actually are getting their
appointments and
and uh they have families to go to
already
are they really asylum seekers i mean
are they certifiably
asylum seekers the way it was three
years ago
yes mayor and councillor flores yeah
that's what's taking place right now
that we're receiving here on broad road
the border servant corp is the one
that's handling all those and they have
made a trip down
to south texas to see how that process
is working so they're actually making
the travel arrangements before they even
receive them so that it's it's a minimal
stay we're trying to do less than 24
hours stay for these individuals and
that's how they're expediting them a lot
faster mayor we were on that call where
we talked about dallas they are sending
the buses to albuquerque right now the
big dilemma is the airlines we were
talked about charter flights as well but
there's there's few pilots and and and
that's what kind of
delayed that process so so there are
some migrants that are coming from
mexico and those were those emergency
shelters but the asylum are coming here
to cruises and then the travel
arrangements are being made to their uh
destination and what countries are they
coming from do you know
what they're seeing most of right now is
venezuela
venezuelans
and the last thing and i've been trying
to figure out how to work this nice
of course we don't want to see you go
but when is your last day in delilah
september 23rd okay so we still have
another meeting
so
okay good all right i mean not that
that's a bad thing i mean i just wanted
to be able to to tell you tell you
goodbye
okay well if there's nothing further
entertaining motion to adjourn
second grammar
who made the motion
cuomo and who made the second
program
okay well she made like amsterdam second
by council graham that we adjourn
let me just tell you something
i don't i know you don't think i listen
to you counselor bingo but i do and you
changed my mind the last minute when you
said the precedent is because of the
pharmacy that's the only reason i
changed so that's it so no more
president no more it can't it can't be
so i'm going to be voting no unless it's
a pharmacy okay there you go so
christine
this is on the motion to adjourn the
regular meeting counselor beta yes
councillor graham yes counselor bencomo
yes caltran
yes i don't know how to follow ben komo
now
cancer flores yes cancer gandara yes and
mayor yes okay it's 4 58 pm we're
adjourned thank you
you