[Music]
good morning
you are now live thank you adrian
good morning everyone it's uh thursday
may 27th at 9 02 a.m
we'll start this uh meeting of the board
of the board of directors meeting for
the animal service center of the messiah
valley
uh mr thacker would you mind calling the
role i'd be honored too sir
chair sanchez president vice chair tessa
stube
here board member gondola
here board member flores
[Music]
board member flores
she's waiting on you counselor
hi i'm sorry i was thank you clint i'm
here
board member ellen's
you're on mute commissioner
oh yeah he's waving says he's here uh
commissioner you should be able to just
hold the space bar down and talk and
then let go
that might be a shortcut yeah
so and then uh board member julio
i don't see where she's at i don't i
don't see her on uh
on the on the panelist list here
okay roll call taken looks like we have
a quorum sir
okay very good um and uh
just for uh the record ex official
members uh
enriquez and ward uh are also
uh present at least i believe they at
least i think believe they are there
okay
yes sir no problem
okay um we're on item number two are
there any changes to the agenda
mr thacker not from the ascmv sir
okay well then uh can i get a motion to
approve the agenda
i have a motion from vice chair uh big
stewie
second by flores the second by councilor
flores thank you
there any questions of issues
not seeing any so uh clint will you call
the roll
bill um mr chair sanchez
yes christ chair tessa stewart
yes board member gandra
yes board member flores yes
board member ellens yes
thank you all right we have an agenda
all right moving on item number three uh
approval of the minutes from the regular
ascmv board meeting held on
april 22nd 2021 can i get a motion
in a second sun moved by photos
moved by councillor flores
seconded by commissioner allen's
um is there any is it if there's any
questions or issues identified with the
minutes uh any discussion
okay it's all quiet
then uh then clint will you call the
roll on the approval of the minutes from
april 22nd i'd love to uh mr chair
sanchez
yes vice chair tessa study yes
a board member gonda yes board member
flores
yes board member ellens yes
minutes are approved uh we're on
agenda item now for a uh
the coalition for uh pets and people and
safe haven
ms gilbert good morning
good morning uh trisha cullen is here
with us
this morning with um safe haven animal
sanctuary and she's going to present
slides first i think i need adrian to
um she says
she signed on so if you could
get uh video up
so we could see her yes i see her
uh listed as an attendee yeah
okay
and then after trisha i'll follow with
the coalition
report with the rest of the groups okay
um adrian is it possible to add trisha
quillen from an attendee to a panelist
yes let me let me get that thank you we
want to thank trisha for coming and
uh introducing everyone to safe haven
oh this is this is great and i think
it'll be good to be able to see the uh
the people behind uh all the all these
activities that have been going on in
the community so
yes thank you ms gordon are you there
i believe so i'm trying to do you have
audio
yes we hear you okay you probably don't
want to see my
ugly mug anyway so we'll just stick to
the slide
all right so can everyone hear me okay
yes yes okay this meeting is being
recorded
okay hold on a second give me all these
warnings about being recorded
that's not the first time all right
let's see here
all righty is it are we ready to roll
yes ma'am okay great thanks so much
hopefully you guys are seeing the
we need to go to slide one um i'm not
sure how you guys are seeing that it's
popped up a different one the first
slide if you're seeing it
um on your screen is called humble
beginnings um
i'm hoping you guys will see that i know
i did originally
but um there we go there you go
there you go definitely humble
beginnings as you can see
um first i want to thank you guys gene
in particular for inviting us
um to participate in the presentation
this morning um
i am tricia quillen i'm the community
resource coordinator for safe haven
animal sanctuary also known as shaz
every year in special rescue but
this year is a milestone that marks 25
years of saving lives of
otherwise homeless dogs and cats in
jonathan county
and the las cruces area in this first
slide humble beginnings
you'll see nearly three acres of donated
land
resources and many hours a volunteer
contribution
laid the foundation from the very
beginning
this is a representation of how the
eagle road parcel looked in the
beginning
a safe place for cats and dogs alike and
lots of room to work with and walk the
dogs
take note of the first covered pins as
well as the first
restored location uh each title there
as you see them um and then if you go to
slide two
um shows um you'll see our logo there at
the top
um please note the updated logo which
symbolizes the many changes we've made
over the last five years
in our 25 years of existence of course
that's what that represents
and we'll continue to make a focus on
the future here you see the view
as you enter the sanctuary that first
pick that beautiful
sky that backs up against the organs
um and uh there's much vegetation it's
regularly maintained
and nurtured by volunteers a great shot
of the state of the art
kennels that are used
medical observation safe latches gates
and feeding slots make it easier on
staff
volunteers and the dogs as well the
catering you see at the top right
as large with an open area to bird watch
for them
but it is totally enclosed like a huge
patio
we're currently in the planning phase
for a major rehabilitation
to the cattery and of course you see
that through
our current storage at the bottom um
as many of you know it does take revenue
and a lot of it
to sustain and be effective in the
rescue world
in a normal year it costs safety even
240 000
to run the sanctuary our thrift store is
a huge asset
and enables us to provide high quality
medical care and support to the animals
residing
at the sanctuary despite many challenges
through the coveted roller coaster the
store is doing well
while our revenues continue to be down
and we're not yet able to operate at
full capacity
we hope that will change soon as public
restrictions loosen we have amazing
shoppers
donors staff and volunteers who work
diligently
to further the cause and provide great
service to the community
by way of affordable items like clothing
household items
especially this time of year 25 years
and going strong
in this final slide you can see that the
sanctuary is a tranquil
well-shaded property it includes a very
large dog part
an established walking path a newly
renovated visitor center
a very large well organized and weather
tight storage building
and a large well-equipped weather
appropriate enclosures for the animals
men so grateful to the many donors we
share in the magic of providing for
these dogs and cats
through their monitoring supply
donations even during covet
individuals schools and businesses
stepped up
to get involved our dedicated supporters
have made all the difference
in keeping our heads above water during
the pandemic
our team is proud to be a full service
adoption agency
wherein we conduct home visits follow-up
visits and more
to ensure each dog and cat finds their
forever
perfect home every dog or cat is spayed
or neutered
up to date on vaccinations tested for
disease and heartworm
and on heartworm preventative in the
case of the
our website and facebook page stays
current
and is very helpful to the community in
a variety of ways
our adoption application has a simple
fill-in form on the website as is our
volunteer application
however there are other options for
those who are not able to complete
the applications online additional
services to the community
include low-cost spay neuter clinics
which offer vaccinations and
microchipping
two times per year in which over 300
canadian pets are spayed neutered spayed
or neutered and received vaccinations
and microchips
many incoming calls seven days a week
wherein we provide
coaching resources solutions
and guidance as it relates to adoption
surrendering pets lost and found dogs
and cats
vaccinations and spay and neuter
resources to name a few
by far the most time consuming calls are
good samaritans who find a dog or cat
and have no idea what to do
second on the incoming call list are
dogging cat honestly
many do not have a tag on them plus a
microchip
we have
mr chair i can't hear her
you know i don't know if uh we lost
the connection there with miss quill and
i still see her online but i don't hear
her either
miss colin are you there nope
okay she just dropped off there
we'll give her a quick uh minute to see
if she'll
she's able to rejoin
okay miss misspelling i see you back on
can you hear us
oh he says sorry for a second there
we'll move on to the next item just give
her another we'll give it to
one more minute
mr chair this is uh even flores
yes counselor uh while we're waiting for
her in the event she doesn't reappear
um i can't uh may i um
just give the number for the animal
sanctuary
safe haven i have a telephone number for
them
um sure we can i'm sure we can get the
the phone number okay see i see miss
pulling on again
on mute i received a text
from tricia and she said that
she's not sure what happened but it
seemed to kick her
it kicked her out of the meeting and she
can't
rejoin and you guys just haven't yes we
can
i don't know i have no idea where
it kicked me off or if it did
i i know you were saying that you i
think we just had started covering the
the second number two you were talking
on uh
on the items on the list you were at
number two okay
i don't know what time you have i can
zoom through it or i can just answer any
questions that you guys might have
it's up to you uh i think depending if
you didn't have much more you can finish
up or i know there was already a couple
of we already had a i know one question
okay go ahead and give me the one
question and then i'll i'll be as quick
as i can
okay uh councillor flotus go ahead oh i
didn't have a question uh mr chair what
i had was
uh the telephone number for safe haven
oh okay
okay i miss interpret i thought you were
asking for the telephone number oh no no
no no i have it
and i just said in the event uh trisha
doesn't come back
i'm more than happy to show you oh okay
okay
okay i'll zoom through it and give you
some highlights if that's okay
so you said i was in the mellow slide
too is that correct
uh i believe you were yes about the
latches and all that about
okay so let me go on to slide three um
i think you had just you know just
gotten into slide three you just got
into slide three and we're talking on
um yeah i think you were just that
you're just into slide three when we
lost you
and slide three seems to
oh it seems like we lost her again
it's the slide it's getting in the way
um
no i'm just kidding um yeah we lot looks
like yeah we lost her again
so i guess that this i mean if um
for now we can you know
uh gene i don't know we can we can uh
you know
i don't know if there's additional items
we wanted to to give an update on or if
it was just gonna be
with i can go in i can go ahead and do
the
coalition report now if you want and
she says it looks like it it kicked her
off again and she'll try to come back on
quickly if she can and if she can we can
certainly interrupt
the um coalition uh report but
let's go ahead and now and move into
that okay
thank you uh and this is the may report
and here is the listing of
of organizations uh safe haven of course
isn't included here because
trisha is here uh here's the work of the
coalition
for april and may and it includes a zoo
meeting of
of the community report
conversation session with clint and
rickon and myself
held an in-person meeting with chris's
cool cats
and we've also been in a couple of
meetings
on uh tnr and implementation of the
ordinance when that goes in into effect
okay next slide please
i'm almost home is animal rescue is
based in el paso when they serve
las cruces they pull from our center and
here
blossom is pictured clint has the
numbers
for the center stats in the center stats
for count on animals pulled by i'm
almost home
uh animal rescue i reached out to their
director
diane avery for their intake numbers and
i
the information i learned was that they
have about
200 puppies in their care right now
and i don't have information on any of
the other categories
okay next slide please
excuse me um this is the dog park
coalition
in our dog park uh kevin armstrong
is the director of the park and he says
that
mid-march through mid-november are the
months with the best weather when the
park gets the most
use and early morning 9 00 am
to sun and sun's the early morning hours
and then sunset time till closing are
the most popular
and of course the dog park hours are the
same as other city park hours
opening at five in the morning and
closing at 11 p.m
kevin said counting attendance at the
park is difficult
because uh the turret the 20 to
30 dog maximum at a time could represent
over 45 people and with most people
staying less than an hour it's there's a
steady
turnover making for kind of a fluid
situation with
comings and goings uh kevin notes that
the park gets
a hundred about 145 visitors a day
and easily and that would translate into
more than
forty thousand a year as a realistic
s s estimate excuse me
okay next slide please
the las cruces pet network helps with
return to owner rehoming animals
such as the two pictured here in recent
announcements
and through networking by a distribution
to a large
email list of animal advocates
last year over 80 emails were sent out
about animals in need
at the frequency of the distribution for
the pet network has declined and gone
down
considerably and this is due to
facebook pages that are really popular
and have a lot of following
and those are facebook pages like animal
friends of las cruces
lost to found and other other pages
like that okay next slide please
new mexico forever homes animal rescue
is based in alamogordo and they assist
animals
in southern new mexico i reached out to
jamie jones the las
cruces representative for uh forever
homes animal rescue and she
reported transport of 49 dogs in one
cat for april this is ground ground
largely ground transport none were from
the center
during the month of april but that is
atypical because
forever homes animal rescue usually does
pull animals
every month from the center and of
course those would be in the daily stats
that clint posts on the asc and the
facebook page you can find the
rescue partners listed with the number
of
animals that are pulled
okay next slide please
spay neuter action program issued 637
spay neuter vouchers for january the 1st
through
may 12th and that's an increase of 81
vouchers since their april report
the a breakdown of voucher numbers for
dogs and cats
in incorporated and unincorporated areas
is in board members
packets
okay and next slide please
uh cruises cool cats uh coalition
chair rick hahn and myself met early in
the month with
chris's cool cats director and
co-directors
selena cardosa and joseph cardosa to
learn more about
this which is a relatively new
non-profit
and ways that we can help them and
um we learned that chris at schoolcats
has over a hundred cats
in their program which would include
their sanctuary their category
and those that are in foster homes in
addition to
their um sanctuary and category they
also
assist private individuals like uh you
see the little kittens in
in this uh in in one of the pictures
here and
and that's a person they they're
currently
assisting to help find placement and of
course bay and neuter of all of the uh
cats okay next slide please
in addition to providing the services
that
i mentioned for chris's cool cats they
do
help feral cats through tnr
and here you see a picture of one night
they uh
trapped four which is a lot in one
evening and then you see them being
transported
for uh to the clinic for a spay neuter
okay next slide please
bark house arranged transport for about
dogs including moms and pups for two
flights in may
and pictured here is javier hulian who's
the chief
pilot with pet rescue pilots helping
to load dogs for one of the flights i
reached out to kelly barker
of bark house director and learned that
during the
last 10 months their work with the
county
has included transporting over 300
mama dogs and pups and court holds
and they arranged four flights
and they've done multiple ground
transports
okay next slide please
shepherds beyond borders lisa westbrook
is the las cruces representative and ron
camus is the
el paso representative and they're an
important rescue partner for us
they recently trans uh pulled
15 uh shepherds for transport
from our uh from the uh center
to the uh east coast and pictured left
is animal services center staff person
paul richardson and pictured right is
the center's veterinarian dr hadden
dispensing medicine for one of the dogs
before a transport
and next slide please
and pictured here is one of the center's
dogs
named pink settled in his new home
following transport it's always nice to
see the follow-ups on
the animals that get transported and
many of them
have homes waiting for them immediately
as soon as they
arrive at their destination
so that's pretty amazing okay well i
want to ask if there are any uh
questions or uh input
hey any questions for ms gilbert
i'm not seeing any hands up so okay and
i just wanted to really quickly just say
that
as you can probably tell by the
presentation today that i
am making more more of a concerted
effort
i guess i could say to provide more
stats that took uh
to accompany the slides and i've been
asked by
representatives of groups when i'm
asking them
for the stats and information
that they're wondering uh the reason and
how the board
would use the data
um i i see counselor photos as her hand
up and so does counselor stewie i don't
know if
uh and then i know for for at least i'll
speak really quickly and i and
uh before i go to the comments here but
i know having the
information i know helps at least when
the board gives us a different
perspective
as to what's going on within the
community even outside of
um the animal service center so if
there's things that
um the organizations are seeing that
um that might be able to enlighten us
and you know maybe even
provide us with some possible things we
can do as a board here with the animal
service center i think it's always good
to
have or at least provide us as much
information as we can so i appreciate it
so um i'll move uh counselor flood is i
saw your hand up first and then we'll go
to
vice chair bait this too i was just
wondering it could be appropriate for me
to announce the telephone numbers
foreign
sure should i go it's up to you mr chair
oh absolutely go ahead counselor please
so
the um the store
safe haven store is located on al paseo
their telephone number is 575-541-4942
and the sanctuary is
situated on is located
on eagle road which is about eight miles
from the center of las cruces
uh near going out towards baylor canyon
and um their address is area code
five seven five eight zero five
five three three eight
thank you thank you gene thank you
council photos
vice chair a bit stewie
thank you chair and thank you gene i
believe uh commissioner sanchez answered
most of that but
uh for your question that you know
seeing these items
uh really helps us especially since we
did make policy changes
on the types of animals that we were
accepting into the center
and so i really wanted to see what type
of stresses that caused within the
rescue community too
were you guys having to rescue
a whole lot more was that putting too
much of a strain do we have to relook at
policies
that's part of that reason and as we
move forward thinking are we going to
stay with some of these policies
is it sustainable in our community um
that's why i think it's so
uh important to have this type of
information and then
moving forward if the coalition has
you know policy work that they want to
do we've just
focused a lot on the trap neuter release
but what else are you guys seeing and
talking about
and then if there are those you know we
got a lot of comments
about uh you know changes about dog
parks
uh but that's something that we never
really heard from the coalition so if
there are questions
or concerns coming up from the community
like that
that would be i think very important for
us to know and because
we we can work with that type of policy
we work on funding those types of things
and so that's kind of the information
that i think would be very beneficial
coming from the coalition and
if you're a group it's just easier to be
able to have
that information coming all together and
so
thank you chairman thank you dean
[Music]
yeah we are going to be uh meeting with
kevin armstrong in the near future
that's something we plan
and um we really weren't able to help
him too much
with uh on the uh changes because
some of the things that already were it
was basically past
past tense so some of the things had
already gone
into effect but we do work with
the dog park and we've um we do events
there
we've done uh some out you know tabling
and outreach and
there was a wellness clinic there with
microchipping and things like that and
the coalition was
was there
okay thing that the counselor photos
they still have your hand up did you
have another question or
okay
okay okay um
all right well miss gilbert thank you so
much and i appreciate you
for inviting ms quillin on so we could
see uh
you know get a little more uh under
understanding of the organization for
uh safe haven so thank you so much thank
you
okay uh we're on to agenda item 4b
the city and county acl reports um
i don't know who wants to if no matter
who goes first i see mary lou i know
you're i see you on i see gino so
uh mary lou why don't you go ahead and
kick us off then and then we'll move
over to the city okay
i'll go ahead and start mine let me
start my screen share here
can you all see that has it started
has started sharing it yet yes we see
when we see the
the slide i don't know yet in slideshow
mode but okay
i can see the slides yeah
okay so for april of
of 20 um 21 and
um let me go back to the beginning
um this is our first slide
um so this is our report for april um
2021. uh mary i married award with donna
county animal controlling codes
um i'll start with our reported
straights for the month
of of april we had 274
reported stray animals for that month we
picked up 164
straight animals out of those 164
45 were cats and 119 were dogs
in addition to those we also picked up
14 sick or injured animals and those
were
evenly divided up into seven cats and
seven dogs
um we had separately to that
36 owner surrender animals which were 10
cats and 26 dogs
if you look at the comparison chart for
the four-year comparison chart on the
reported strays
the 274 this year compared to last year
we had 240
and then but if you look at 219 i mean 2
2019 to 2018 it's still a lot less
compared to those years
but i think 2020 um
of course we were full-blown covet 19
restrictions at that time
so the reported strays was a lot less
because
people were a lot less out in the out at
that time in march
i mean in april we were already in
quarantine at that time
so not lot less bodies out on the road
so you could see um now that we're
out and about more we're probably going
to start seeing more reported strays
starting to ignite again
um also very excuse me
very yes sir
do you know any of the reasons why we
had so many owner returns
um i'm going to go over that and that'll
be one of the slides that we'll go over
here in just a few
okay thank you also
um on these um
reported strays we are still seeing a
decline
on strays compared to years prior and i
think that still has a lot to do with
our spay and neuter program
of the county and the whole the whole
partnership of everyone that is out
spain and neutering these animals
so we are still seeing a lot of decline
as well as
as a whole
so if you look at our four-year return
into owner in the field comparison
last month we returned 27 animals out
into the field
compared to if you look the year before
the years before which was um
a lot less than that that was um
in april of last year was 19 so
you can kind of compare those numbers
and see
the big difference there we do have a
lot less officers on the field still
compared to years before we're still six
officers out in the field right now
we are in the position right are
actually
currently um we have three
positions that are open that we are
trying to fill
and once we get those boots on the
ground that will allow for more
officers out in the field so when they
find more strays
hopefully we can get more animals back
out to
their owners back out into the field so
hopefully those numbers will go up as
well
in addition to those animals picked up
we have the owner surrenders that i have
the dogs and the cats
the sick are injured which i reported we
did not have any welfare holds
or cruelty holds we had six shelter
quarantines
and then i did leave this geo districts
in here for
clarification in case we had to go back
to that for
um for reference
and then these are the broken down um
stray animals that were picked up by dis
geo districts so
district 1 we had 11 2 35
3 21 4 was 34
5 was 24 6 was 2 and district 7 was 37.
so you could see where the hot areas
were which would be 2 and 7
where we would need to concentrate on
our our
resources and in you know patrolling and
enforcement would be i would say in
those two districts
um for last month
so back into the owner releases this is
where we had the
the higher numbers this month we've
never had this many owner releases
and so seven of those were for
aggressive animals
um five of them they just couldn't
afford them um
two of them they were injured and they
didn't want to take any have any part of
it
two of them the dog was just too sick um
two of them were
ferals feral animals um
one they just didn't want the dog they
didn't like dogs
and then seven seven of them they just
couldn't keep 17 of them excuse me
they just couldn't keep them they
wouldn't give any other reason why they
just
said they just can't keep the dogs and
those were their reasons why
um these have been dogs that were
adopted during the pandemic
and once the crisis was over they
decided
to return them they weren't adopted they
were in someone's
someone owned those they were all owned
animals at some point by someone
so they had owner released them at some
point to the animal control officer
during this month for these reasons
but what i meant to say was with these
dogs that they
originally got from the from shelter
and then returned them i could i could
not
i don't think these were original from
the shelter no i couldn't answer where
these originally came from
these are just dogs from within the
county
and for that i'll stand for any
questions
uh thank you chair i think uh
commissioner ellens does bring up a
point for maybe us to
to look at um that now that
things are opening back up people are
ready to go on vacations get out of the
house
all that type of thing um i am curious
if we're gonna
see these larger numbers um of people
that
uh whether they got the animal a lot of
people got animals from different places
or had them and stayed home and now if
we're going to see that push
that people are returning them because
it doesn't fit their their lifestyle
anymore and so um that does
cause me a little bit to have some
concern if we're going to see these
increased numbers
um but thank you very much uh mary lou
for
the information and welcome commissioner
ellens for your comments
you're welcome
okay uh miss gilbert i'll have to hold
you to a public comment if you don't
mind
are there any other questions from the
board
okay thank you mary lou thank you
gina yes sir good morning
uh chair members of the board my name is
gino jimenez i am the animal control
supervisor for the city of las cruces
i will begin my screen share right now
there we go is it visible to everybody
yes sir
all right so what i will present to you
today sir members of the board is my
report for
april 2021 for that month we had a total
of 500 reported strays
256 of them were goa meaning the officer
did not
make contact with that dog or that
animal
we were able to apprehend 234
213 were impounded at the animal service
center
89 were dogs and 124 were cats
we were successful in returning 31
animals back to their registered owners
before they even crossed the threshold
of the animal service center
we were unsuccessful in returning 21
that had some sort of identification on
them
so that gave us a total of 52
identifiable
stray animals
in my next slide you will see that this
is my three year
stray animal call comparison again we
did 500 for this month
and you know like the comments that were
made by mary lou
and by um counselor alekta stewie
we did take a dramatic increase last
month
i cannot tell you why but if you look
at 2019
those numbers are very very similar so i
think
that as a comment was made earlier now
that restrictions
are being uh lifted a little bit more
people are
becoming more free and more um
willing wanting to be out though
that number really matches our
pre-covered
uh numbers so i
hope that we don't go back to the 2019
1817 years but the trend right there
seems like we're going to
but we will see time will tell on that
one
here is our three year field rto
comparison
we're still within that 30
30 um numbers of a total of 134 for the
year
but you can see that our our numbers are
pretty consistent
over the last three years
this next slide is the reason for owner
releasing animals
and just like mary lou mentioned also um
we did see a spike in owner releasing
this last month i can't tell you why
um i know that we had put some
restrictions early on
uh during covid to only uh
intake animals that were sick or injured
or that were a threat to the families or
the public
safety and now that that has been lifted
we're i think we're going to see more of
this and unfortunately
we're going to see more of this so going
over my list
um we had four dogs that were turned
over because the owner could no longer
care for them we had
five dogs that were acting aggressive
two that the landlord would not allow on
his property
one dog for a sick dog for parvo
one cat acting aggressively apparently
this cat
continually scratched or
was threatening the minor child
in the home and then sick six
dogs were turned over different owners
because the owners could not
keep the dogs confined even though the
officers gave them some sort of remedies
to or recommendations i should say to
keep the animals at home these dog
owners still chose to own or relinquish
them
next slide is the reasons that we were
unable to filled rto
15 were because there was no contact by
phone or at the residence four the
animal had a microchip but the chip was
not registered
one um the microchip information was not
current that could be
anywhere from somebody giving the dog
away
and the microchip information was never
updated
and then one uh we had a cat that was
the microchip was registered to a mobile
home community
so it never really gave a space or lot
number
of an actual owner as we all know
community cats is coming up but yet it
hasn't been approved yet
so we had no choice but to take that cat
to the animal service center
this is a screenshot of my stray map and
i will go to that one
can everybody see my map
yes sir okay so as
for my report um this is
a screenshot of
our straight calls for the month of
april again
the blue squares represent dogs
the orange squares represent cats
and the i guess red dots represent
anything other than a cat or a dog
um for this month you know if you
if you zoom out you can see that the
entire city is covered
so there really is not a hot spot per se
within the city um i believe that
our car calls for strays are equally
distributed
throughout every council district um if
there is a particular spot that any of
the board members would like me
to zoom in on please say so now and i
will zoom in on that
spot um again this map
is available on the clc web page
if you go to the search engine in google
um animal
it will um break it down
and you'll be able to find the map
with that mr chair i will stand for any
questions
okay are there any questions for uh vino
not seeing any hands up thank you sir
appreciate the update sir you're welcome
all right uh we're moving on to
agenda item 4c shelters statistics and
activities
mr thacker either i am yes sir
okay
do you see my report yes sir
okay
so the current account the animal center
is 418 that is a far cry from the 192
we were at last year but again all of
last year
was really a uh
you know kovid so the numbers are
honestly the numbers where we would like
to be but not with what brought us there
and i i concur with you as you see this
report i concur with
[Music]
with the other ones that have happened
with gino and mary lou that the numbers
are continuing to climb and that's a big
issue
for us because we have gone more
from the capacity that we can hold yeah
we've had 600 plus animals here before
we've gone away from that more to a
amount of care
and the capacity for care that we have
and we're at that limit we have so
we we need to find and work with people
and work with others
all you can do to get that number down
uh
the anywhere it's only going to get
worse as we continue with the summer
months
because there's that silly trend that we
have where it goes up in the summertime
hey clint yes sir
you've been transporting a lot of
animals out of state
um that's why this number surprises me
yes sir yeah i mean hundreds are going
out
um every other week um
so that that's really the worry is
yeah we have some great partners but
they're gonna fill up pretty soon just
like
all the others are and our number will
continue to increase
and unfortunately we would have to start
euthanizing
in order to keep that number for the
quality of care
down we wouldn't be euthanizing healthy
adoptable animals to begin with but we
would first start off with
you know those that have issues
medically not responding to treatment
then it goes down to behavior issues
and then it would go into the adoptable
healthy animals
it's not something we want to do and
we'll continue to look at options but
yeah we're sending animals out like
crazy and we're still in these high
numbers
what's our maximum capacity
well again i i have a hard time saying
uh a number
because uh we're there right now in the
400s i'd say we're there
and we've been through this before you
know a mom with six puppies that's seven
dogs and that can be in somebody's
office or in one kennel
or else you can have one large dog in
there so a number is really hard
to get out again we go out more of
capacity care
and we're there i mean we have uh
four um of the veterinarian technician
type
individuals that are doing um
administering
whatever the vet wants them to do for
each animal for the soviet
so it's it's an issue that number
can answer your question sir
unfortunately yes
so our intake uh hold on clint i see uh
mayor pro tem gandala has a question yes
oh you're on mute ma'am
you should know that already um thank
you
um chair sanchez and um commissioner
ellens i really appreciate the
the information so clint i'm hoping that
as you present that you're
you're letting us know sort of where the
increases are
right like you just mentioned pregnant
pregnant
mamas and the pups that are coming in
how are they coming in um like what just
what
what is um those
increases i'm not asking specifically
well where are they where are they
coming from owner really and you tell us
those things
but i i really feel like to
conservatives do these
um comments to gene and others
we need to get to the bottom of what's
happening and then steer
our policies and or educational
opportunities
to to that so um you know at one time
um
you know we heard that pregnant pregnant
mamas and puppies are
were an issue
and and and maybe and it was at the
center but not enough to maybe
provide the necessary funding if you
will right to
assist in some of these other some of
these other
strategies so i i i'm
i i i just it's a comment more than
anything but i'd like to hear more
specifically
right what those issues are from your
perspective
what trends you're seeing and then
and and honestly maybe we need to talk
about this at a task force meeting
um i know that that um
generally initially that task force was
put together for lots of different
reasons right but
one of them was to engage in
relationship build and
talk obviously about the ordinance but
these are the kinds of things that
the task force should be talking about
and bringing back
to the larger board and and so
and of course you know gene and and rick
and those folks that belong to
the larger coalition those are things
that are really
important and and and and i i'm i'm
really liking sort of the
the coming up with a a format that these
agencies
are helping you know the advocacy groups
come up with to report back so that we
understand
very specifically from the board's
perspective
what's happening in our community not
only in our center but in our community
and being a a huge player in
um in in coming up with proactive ways
to address these issues because at the
end of the day
the center is the catch-all right for
all of it
and and and so clan i i i hope that when
you're
talking to us about that that that we're
hearing very specific
about what those you know what those
issues are and how the board
can can help with um policy
changes if you will okay thank you chair
i
i don't know that there's a probably
there's a couple of questions in there
and i don't know if you wanna
you want to answer some of those things
but i just want us to be mindful as
we're
throwing out this data and now that
we're seeing
you know the increase is of of people
the willingness for people to come out
the center being more open
we have to work on those things
yeah absolutely and i i concur with you
ma'am uh
the the largest issues we have right now
are owner surrenders
and increasing strays both of those has
jumped up considerably
this past month the strain take
our animals honestly that i believe
what i would like the policy change to
see is to go back to what we were doing
in kova times and that's only bring in
the animals that need to come in
just because an animal is not running
loose does not mean that it has to come
into the center
and that i mean that was presented to
the board by billy garrett a long time
ago when i before i first came on
and it was voted down to the commission
uh the accounting commission
and then i was like oh i don't know
about that that's kind of weird
but but things are changing and if we
and i know that mary lou and gino have
different thoughts of that as well but
we're the center and i i think that
would be
the answer for us is that those the type
of
intakes would have changed that would be
helpful
so that would be my answer to your
question of what policies and things to
change
yeah i appreciate that clint and i think
that's really helpful
and something that maybe the executive
um
you know should talk about um
and and again that we talk more
specifically at the task force
you know related to these issues i think
it's important i know consortius to be
has
has flirted with the idea of coming up
with a format when we
when we give you know get these
presentations from the
our local um advocacy groups that that
we have
some form and organization to the
presentation but that
they're helping us right there they're
giving us information
um so that so and so that that
information is consistent and
and sometimes i don't i don't see that
and it's not it's not gene's fault
right it's just um you know what people
are giving her
um and so if we could agree on what that
format should look like
moving forward but more specifically
addressing what
what are those issues out there and and
and really
talking about that particular
thing about about um should we just be
picking up stray animals sure we don't
want strangles but at the end of the day
we keep
moving we keep um
i think not holding our
pet owners responsible right
responsible for being they need to be
more responsible
and so what are those how do we
how do we do that with information
awareness campaigns
with stricter ordinances i'm not sure
i'm just putting all those things out
there
um and you see the trend you see what
the national
right what all those um what each center
and
cities are doing and um counties are
doing to help combat those
issues we just continue to have a big
issue in this
county and i feel like like um
like we we're not holding people
responsible
uh when they have pet you know pets
so i'll get off my soap blocks and
turn it on i'll support you on the
soapbox it's funny because
we always talk about pet owner
responsibility
and then the center has created some
specific ones that push the
responsibility back like owner
surrenders
when people come we're not a dumping
ground we don't want to be that
we want you to take responsibility of
your pet and
try to find another place for you to
take your pet try to find a rescue or
try to find somebody to adopt
try to find somebody to buy it whatever
it is
and then we get pushed back from i'm
meeting today with a rescue group that
doesn't agree with our policy the way we
do it
so i'm going to meet with them and talk
to them about it
i have people emailing mr sanchez saying
that the policy that we have of not
accepting
owner surrender animals is causing major
issues
and it's not that we're not accepting
them we want the owner
to try first and then once they said
they've done everything
then we'll take it it's just it's it's
the frustration on
the ascm side is when people preach and
say pet ownership but then we don't get
support
from some of the organizations most do
they do support us 100 and we're
thankful for that
yeah i just feel like we perpetuate that
we're pushing the
the center to be the catch-all um
and and that's not what as you've said
before
the mission right it we have to continue
to push our our citizenry that choose
right they make a choice
to have pets and with that comes huge
responsibility
in my mind and so how how do we work
together
and i'm willing to hear the other
advocacy groups um
um concerned about about what has
happened and
i hear a lot that it leads to
abandonment you know so many dogs or
cats are being dumped or just left and
and i understand that piece too but
but how do we move back because all of
us says
taxpayers are right are
putting the bill for irresponsible pet
ownership
and i'm not saying everybody is
irresponsible
but we here are the numbers right here
thank you um chair sanchez thank you
mayor pro tem
okay we'll go to councillor florida's
then uh vice chair of
the student go ahead uh councillor
flores thank you mr chair
and uh thank you uh clint
for your report so um
i'm for edification purposes would you
please explain to me what you do with a
stray that
you don't want to have you don't want
strays but what do you do
with dogs that are just out there
what is the alternative you leave them
alone
i mean if they're not doing anything if
if you just run
or driving down the road and you see a
stray and it's not doing anything
and right now in our current situation
you'd have to leave that animal alone
if it's actively causing a nuisance then
it would be picked up but
if it's just not running around then i
don't see the reason why you should come
into a facility that
we have known diseases here we're
overpopulated
and potentially it's going to go right
back out right back to its owner
if it's still in the field so
that's my understanding okay
yeah i mean i i just in these last two
weeks i've come across
two strays and uh both of them when i
went after them
they went right back home they went to
their homes one even
i could see how he got out
he just went over they got on the fence
jumped on the
on the rock fence and and walked out
so yeah that that probably works but
so insofar as
educating um pet owners
um is that something because the only
task force that i participated in was
the animal
ordinance task force but there was the
animal task force
were solutions presented at that time
have we not followed up
and billy garrett's recommendations that
you're aware of
uh clint uh i'm not um
are those simple are they can they be
implemented
i mean is there really a solution um
to the animal shelter population
well i for one i think the animal
ordinance task force and the animal task
force are one of the same we were just
taking on that
animal ordinance at the time um and
as far as billy garrett's idea i don't
know the specifics about it
i just know that he presented to the
board to impound i'm sorry
presented to the commission to only
impound the animals that had to come in
and that was before my time here i mean
i think i had accepted the position
and um i was just waiting you know
to come on uh when i read that in one of
the reports so
[Music]
i don't know the specifics behind us to
say whether it's possible or not but it
serves something to think about
to lower the numbers and it's only a
temporary thing right like i said we
we got to keep in mind the big picture
here the big picture is is to get in the
new center
and then we need to get some
veterinarians do some remodeling
very little remodeling on our existing
center to get it ready for spay neuter
center
hopefully in five years we're going to
see a huge drastic change
in our population i was just having this
conversation yesterday with dr hatton
about what we need to do and what what
can happen
and one of it is is having the budget
where we can
hire a large amount of people for
education for
all these things but if i'm going to
change my mission that much
i need to have the backing for both the
city and the county to
to be able to do that change in mission
and do it successfully because
we're talking a big alter altering
because my mission currently is
isn't to educate the community on pet
ownership my current mission is to house
animals
um a healthy place and get them back to
the owners
and get a good live release rate for us
so
so clint when um a stray is brought in
and efforts are made to um
to uh find the family that owns them the
owner
are they still considered a stray a
pickup
do they count in that stray population
of
uh data yes yeah anytime an animal comes
in without it's just running around
loose without an
owner it's considered a stray animal
and then at the time that the aco finds
the animal
do they have the capacity to
check to see if they do they check to
see if there's a microchip or a
tag on them or some identification on
them as to ownership
you have to talk to animal control about
that i i believe they do their best on
it but i know with limiting calls or
limiting personnel
sometimes that slips through and that's
another one is let's get some more
officers so they have time to do that
yeah i was just going to say we need to
really uh
increase our our workforce in that
regard and that's something clint
that i would recommend to you
to bring to our city council
because we really we really need to work
on some budget items or reallocation
line reallocations or whatever those
budget people do
because i think that there is some money
out there
for creating new positions or failing
the positions that do exist i'm speaking
only for the city
um and um i think
i think we need a workforce but
but you clint uh just i think i believe
you said that
your focus isn't to educate the
community
um did i hear that not my focus that's
my mission
the mission of the ascmv is to not take
on the educational portion of the entire
community of doniana it just never has
been
okay so
yeah but it's something that the
animal task force could work on
yeah absolutely and it's something
integral in
in a good program is having that
education
piece i mean that's 100 absolutely okay
okay
for that good i
okay thank you so much uh clint for all
your efforts and
and thank you tessa and um and cassandra
for your
for your input on this uh very pressing
issue
thank you mr chair and board member
flores i don't know if you want me to go
to the
to the city council or not because i'll
give them an earful of what
what aco needs and what we need and you
probably
might not like it very much well you
know what
um if they don't like it you know they
can lump it
i mean you know i mean without due
respect to my city counselors and to
administration uh we have to do a job
you know and we need all the information
we need we need to make sure that
everybody has
the same information not just three of
us on on this board
but to hear um you know to hear what
what the challenges are
and uh all we you know all we know right
now is that
i mean all that's been reported not all
that's been reported but right now the
big focus is oh there's a new
you know there's a there's a new shelter
coming in you know as if that's going to
be the end-all and the cure-all
and um so yeah we we need to hear
uh we we as a council and and
because at council meetings clint a lot
if not
all administrative heads um are in
in on those meetings and they need to
know that there's a big need
um in this you know with the shelter in
our animal world
as a whole so thank you clint for all
your efforts thank you so much
thank you mr chair
thank you councillor flores thanks for
bit chairman
and then uh we'll go to marylou after
that
thank you i'm happy to defer to mary lou
if she had another comment
uh regarding the other questions
sure um i was just going to answer the
question
in regards to um what billy garrett was
working towards
what he was trying to do was pass
a resolution through this the county
commission
in regards to allowing animals to run at
large
it didn't pass the county um commission
did not pass it um mainly
um i think they they voted against it
because
some of the verbiage um and then this is
in my opinion
was contradicting the
state statute in regards to the verbiage
and now the state statutes cl states on
animals running at large it says each
municipality in each
county shall make provisions by
ordinance for the seizure and
dispositions of dogs and cats running at
large
and not kept or cleaned by any person or
persons
premise is provided however that the
ordinance does not conflict with the
provisions of this chapter
so that's what they were referring to
and that's why i believe the commission
didn't approve it
because it used the word shall and not
may
make provisions so that was one of the
one of the con um the
the words that they were they were
looking at
um in that resolution that didn't pass
that was several years ago that we were
talking about
so that was one of the issues and i
think that is probably going to be some
of the
issues going forward and i think if you
wanted to get more of a professional
opinion i would get with albuquerque
maybe get with the attorney general's
office in albuquerque to get what their
professional opinion is on that
to make sure we're not violating any of
the state statutes
and going forward with this if anybody
is looking for
going forward to changing this up um
that's just my opinion
so thank you
an advice sir thank you um
and thank you mary lou for for those
comments
one question uh clint uh with the
advocacy group that you're going to be
meeting with
shortly are they part of the coalition
as well
uh the meeting i have today yes yes they
are
okay so i think going back just to to
clarify
see that's the type of information that
i think
we on the board should be knowing about
what the coalition wants to see if
they're having this direct
problem that they're going to claim to
go see that's probably something that we
should know about and that's why we've
been asking for some of the
the information on what types of numbers
we're seeing here is that
if there are problems or if there are
policy changes
that's what we can work with and that's
why i think part of the board
should be getting those informations and
i absolutely appreciate
um i appreciate the stories i appreciate
um the numbers and that sort of thing
but if there are challenges that's
something that
is good to know i mean the good and the
bad and so
that's why i kind of have been pushing
for just a little bit of a change of
what we're hearing on here
and that way we can all be informed at
the same time
and make kind of a cohesive decision
and we're not siloing communication
thank you chair
thank you madam vice chair councilor
flores
uh did you have an additional question
i i i wanted to um
just comment a little bit uh i have a
comment in the question
on that state statute that mary jo read
i think that sometimes uh
state statutes aren't correctly read
by um i i'm not saying that the
commission
uh didn't understand it i'm just saying
that sometimes
because a stat did say for animals not
claimed
and um it really
yeah it it anyway so that i did i don't
want to get into
into that too much i just want to say
that she's absolutely correct if we want
to address this
we have to get a clear reading uh
understanding on what that statute means
i don't think it's prohibited with what
in my humble opinion as an attorney
and um and this is only my opinion
that based on what mary jo read it seems
like the commission
to me the commission could have adopted
that because it wouldn't be in violation
but then again
there has to be a very clear writing
and uh understanding of the statute the
second
question i have clint what time is that
meeting at and can we attend
i can we attend
ken uh not as board members but as uh
well yeah no uh it's after
four o'clock today is when i'm meeting
with with the representative
is uh how many people are you meeting
with clint because i i
it's counselor one beta stevie oh you're
meeting with one person
oh okay yeah does that one person just
feel more comfortable meeting with
one on one is that what it is i never
considered meeting with a
counselor or board member so okay
they first want to come with me and talk
to me about it okay
well can you just keep us in the loop
then as to what's going on
okay great thank you clint thank you mr
chair
thank you councillor flores uh do you
know i i'll
go to you and then uh to vice chairman
thank you uh mr chairman i i realize
that this is
clint's report and you know i don't want
to
add any more of my information on there
but since the topics were
were brought up um mary lou was
absolutely right on reading that statute
um when it was proposed by commissioner
garrett
you know what was it six years ago seven
years ago something like that
we did take it to city legal and legal
decided that it was best at that time
not to try to implement that into our
ordinance at that time because of course
you know we're trying to
have each ordinance city county
ordinance mirror each other
um so when it was proposed at the county
level we took it up to city legal
and it was determined at that time that
it was not at the best time
to do that um the second part
is since it was brought up and we're
talking about the educational
factors that animal control can provide
right now with the staffing levels that
i have
my officers are going call to call to
call to call
um right now we are averaging about 1300
calls a month
um i have one vacancy
and i have one officer on fmla come
next month i will lose another officer
who has served the city
for 27 coming up on 28 years he has been
an animal control officer and he will
have the distinction of being
the only aco to the only person to start
as an aco
and complete his career 27 years later
and retire as an aco
so that that shows his commitment to the
profession and to the community
however if we look at the expansion of
las cruces
um especially in district five which is
councillor sorg's district
that metro verde area is blowing up
however my manpower has not increased
and you know if you take the national
study that shows that for every
household
you can correct me on this i believe
it's 2.4 animals
per household um
so if you increase it by 1 000
households in that metro verde area how
many animals
are going to be housed there now and
does my manpower
equal the amount of service the demand
for service
that the citizens are calling for so
we're doing the best that we can with
what we have
i do see the need for extra officers
obviously with the county you know being
as short-handed as they are and with
myself
does that help clint absolutely because
i believe that
if i have more officers in the field
then my officers can spend more time
field rtoing or making those
contacts in the community before they
they cross his threshold
and by doing that it's going to reduce
the number of animals that
he has to care for so it's it's hand in
hand
um i help you you help me kind of thing
those are just comments miss uh chairman
i
just since it was brought up i thought i
would give you my comments
my opinion no thank you gino
okay uh advice sharp stevie
thank you and thank you gino for that um
for those that may not know we did have
a public safety work session
um this last week and
we did address the need for vacancies i
think across
the board it there has to be with the
growth and there was a strong desire
um just this is my personal opinion
across the board
um to make sure that we are
growing correctly and compensating
correctly
for the size of our city and so there
was a lot of
um i think support to to look to see
what those steps are
and we are waiting back right now from
our chief
um of police who is going to be bringing
recommendations back to council
i think there has been um a lot of
conversations going on about that
and support within the council um and
then
looking back you know as we look to make
um connections with these different
groups i absolutely fully understand how
you know groups um and i'm not
suggesting that council always be at
these items
uh to visit with you know the different
agencies i recognize that they're gonna
want to
to talk with clint um by himself and
that is
good and appropriate on a lot of ways um
the one thing i
am suggesting is that we get report outs
of those concerns and so that we're not
minimizing the concerns that are coming
from these agencies
and so as long as we're making sure that
we have that communication
then we should be doing okay and we're
not getting just
the more of the happy stories about it
but we're
looking at ways that we can help assist
with these problems
and that way it's not always falling
onto clint either to come up with all
the solutions and always be the person
for those answers thank you chair
okay all right we have uh i see council
photos you have your hand up and then
um i'll add a couple of my comments
after that and then we'll allow clint to
finish this up
yes thank you thank you mr chair and
thank you so much
uh tessa uh vice chair tessa for
um beta suvi
uh for making it clear that we it isn't
as if we have to sit in on all those
meetings
um but that we do need those reports to
have that connection
and that continuity um and i just want
to thank clint
um and geno and mary jo
for mary lou excuse me for all of their
work
in connection with our little animals
it's a tough job thank you so much uh mr
you counselor flores and i just want to
and
clint one of the things i know we we've
from what i've been able to and this
kind of takes it
back i think to one of the things we had
started with the beginning of the
conversation with
um discussion around
or the input around how we're trying to
push animal responsibility
and that first step by the asmv is
generally to
uh ask the owner to
you know reevaluate take a look identify
some of the rescues
and the practices i think from what i've
been able to understand is that
the acmv isn't didn't just make this up
this is a general practice
that is done really across across the
nation for those that are trying to
achieve a no kill status
um and you can correct me if i'm wrong
or i'm speaking totally incorrectly so
um but you know on top of the fact that
we see the numbers where we're at
um you know we're you know i think
i i support what you're you know what
you're saying unless there's a real you
know something we're missing or at least
something that
uh that we haven't identified and i know
you said you're meeting with
uh the local groups to understand a
little more but
um you know it'd be interesting to see
you know what what it is or if there's
something that that
um i know you'll take the appropriate
response there um
and then the other thing you know if
they're if there's something with the
city in the county that we need to take
a look at re-explore i think as we've
been discussing i think
um you know i think it's definitely
worth worth taking a look at
and and seeing you know how with whether
it's to revert back to
uh prior pandemic policy or during the
pandemic policy
or um looking at at what was previously
done you know i don't know
i mean it's there there's i think
there's there's no reason why we
shouldn't take a look at it and maybe
think outside the box a little bit that
we can do so that way we can hopefully
achieve um what we need to and reduce
the
the burden that's being placed on the
animal service center so
um all right clint uh if you're still
you're still with us yeah and continue
on
all right
so our returns in 2021 for the month of
april were three dogs and two cats
we looked into the adoption date of
these because we want to see if they're
coming from a long time ago
like earlier last year or recently and
all of these are april
adoptions except for one was from march
so they're all very recent
here's our outcomes uh live release rate
83.3 percent
so just a little bit higher than it was
in 2020
reclaimed and again the numbers are the
percentages is what i like to focus on
for that reclaims we're at 14.8 so about
the same as
in 2020. and keep in mind the awesome
job
our staff is doing because we have twice
as many
animals coming in as we did in april
and we still had a higher live release
rate these higher numbers so
we're thankful for them working so hard
on the
uh this slide is showing the reasons for
euthanasia
um the behavior feral for the cats this
is still the number one reason
and next for us is the aggressive dogs
or behavior for aggressive
our visitors for the month of april and
higher higher than it's been unless i
guess people are getting out
uh we're still doing appointments we are
still
um requiring them to get you know make
an appointment with the
animal they want to see specifically is
working so well
for that and i think the next slide will
show it that we had a total of 138
adoptions and 99 72 percent of those
were kept
and half of that ended up being a
finalized adoption
uh so we would love to see
uh those higher high numbers and higher
going up i think 72
is the highest that we've had
[Music]
website views went down a little bit 34
[Music]
facebook views went down looks like the
lowest that it's ever been
uh since august of 2020 so we're at
uh 2009 for that
which is odd because we've done so much
more
in april and in may well this wasn't may
this is
april but we've done so many more
present or more things
on facebook would be seen like our jobs
our fun posts out of the week on
[Music]
we'll keep an eye on it
[Music]
and ziggy and sarah connor are our pets
of the week
uh steel point domestic short hair and
our looks like a medium breed mix
so regardless of the week i i have to
i have to admit that sarah connor was
quite the uh
was pretty popular it seemed like during
the uh
county commission meeting on on tuesday
so just curious who comes up who get who
gets to come up with the names
our coworkers do our staff and we've had
to
reign them in just a little bit every
now and then
on some of their names but they they get
quite adventurous we've had
sarah connor obviously some hollywood
names going in there
but also we've had herb gardens
sprouting up
places with cilantro and basil and
all these other fun names and mountain
mountain ranges
and everything you can think of
oh well like i said it provides uh
it's always fun to to see some of the
names that they come up with whenever we
have the pet when we're highlighting the
pets of the week so
thank you for to the staff for their
creativity
uh counselor flores you still your hand
is up did you have a question
okay so sorry no thank you
all right um i know we had a good
healthy discussion here during clint's
presentation but wanted to find out if
there was any other questions for clint
before we
move on all right i think uh
i'll take silence and no hands up is a
good thing so we'll move on thank you
clint
all right uh we're on to committee
reports
uh finance committee mr enriquez
are you there yes sir good morning uh
chair
and board members staff of eric enriquez
assistant city manager
city of las cruces we did have a finance
committee meeting
on may 20th
it went well the animal service center
appears to be doing a good
financially and in good standings and at
this time
joshua saffield from finance will be
providing that finance report thanks
josh
all right good morning miss seffel
yes uh good morning uh mr chair members
of the board my name is josh zaffel
and on behalf of the finance department
of the city of las cruces i would like
to present the
unaudited financials as of april 30th
2021.
uh hopefully my screen will show up here
in a minute
there we go hopefully everyone
yes sir we can see it thank you all
right uh
so starting off we have our statement of
net position
um in the general fund we're showing
total cash
of 937 thousand nine hundred thirty
seven thousand three hundred and forty
seven dollars
receivables of five thousand fifteen
dollars
giving us total assets of nine hundred
forty two thousand three hundred and
sixty two dollars
we had liabilities of sixty four
thousand three hundred and one dollars
um an amount of revenue collected in
advance of fifty five thousand five
hundred and one dollars
which left us an unassigned fund balance
of eight hundred
twenty two thousand five hundred and six
dollars in the general
fund looking at the capital projects
fund we had cash
of twenty nine thousand seven hundred
and ninety eight dollars
and a restricted fund balance in the
same amount of twenty nine thousand
seven hundred and ninety eight dollars
we also had capital assets net of their
accumulated depreciation
of 188 797 dollars
and an equal unassigned fund balance of
188 797 dollars looking at our change in
net position in all funds
total revenues for the period were two
million seven hundred and sixty seven
thousand
eight hundred and eighty six dollars
total expenditures were
two million one hundred and seventeen
thousand seventy four dollars
which let which left us a positive net
change to our fund balance
of six hundred and fifty thousand eight
hundred and twelve dollars
uh the capital projects fund had no
revenue but did have total expenditures
uh year-to-date of 1767.
our capital asset fund of course does
not have revenue
but we did recognize depreciation
expense
on the capital equipment of thirty five
thousand one hundred and ninety two
dollars
looking at our budget to actual for our
change in that position
the total revenue of two million seven
hundred and sixty seven thousand
is eighty three point two percent of
budget
uh for expenditures the two million one
hundred and seventeen thousand
is sixty two point eight percent of
budget so our budget parameter for this
period is uh eighty three
point three three percent so our total
revenues did
drop below the percentage by 0.1 percent
and our expenditures are still well
under that at 62.8 percent
in total
looking at the graph of our monthly
expenditures
we see what looks like probably for the
second time this year the monthly
expenditures actually exceeded the
monthly revenue
which is basically on trend
as a percent of total expenditures of
course our total expenditures were the
two million 117
thousand uh 74 dollars 73 percent of
that was personnel expenses fifteen
percent was
uh in services six percent in supplies
and then two percent in repairs and
maintenance and insurance
one percent in capital and then one
percent was made up by other expenses
i see that yes
what did services comprise
services is basically made up of any
kind of professional service
so any anything that comes in that would
require a service
also i believe things such as telephone
usage
things like that make up the services
well okay thank you
and uh that will conclude presentation
unless there any other questions
then we've got ziggy and sarah connor
again
all right uh i don't is there any other
questions for uh
mr seffel
all right i'm not seeing any hanza
all right sir thank you
okay um we
will move on to the executive committee
update which um
myself uh vice chair victor stevie and
mr thanker were uh in attendance for we
held it on may 12th
um really the um
it wasn't a long meeting the big uh item
that we discussed was our action item
that we have here for uh
that we'll have for consideration here a
little bit but the 150 000
dollar grant that was awarded to the
ascmv that's going to be uh
providing some additional equipment
that'll be for
for the service or for the animal
service center i think it'll be exciting
but it was just that and then i know we
had discussed previously
which was from the budget we approved at
the last meeting
um the additional amounts that were
going to be coming from or have
been proposed to come from the county
the 200 000
um and so that was there was a question
around that and just as a quick update
uh that was adopted as part of the
additional amounts that was requested
was adopted as part of the county's
preliminary
budget that was approved here this past
tuesday on the 25th so
um that's all i had noted or at least
written down from the meeting
um and unless uh i don't know if clint
or
the vice chair have anything to add but
uh or if i missed anything
okay just want to make sure uh but uh
that was it so we're if there's no quota
there's any questions
thanks not seeing any so we'll move on
to the facilities committee
mayor proton gander
oh sorry i see uh mr enriquez you have
your hand up
yes sir chair uh um yeah excuse me i
just spoke to
uh tony trevino i know he's coming up
next with some updates
he didn't get an invite if i could get
adrian uh guzman to send
tony an invite so he can
present the the facilities update that
he has
okay started in a row thank you no
problem
okay mayor pro 10 yes thank you we met
earlier
in the month it seems like eons ago
um and i was frantically looking for my
notebook that i wrote all the notes in
and i'm so glad that clint is on the
life
because usually when we do meet we um
update on everything happening in the
center all the
you know the important issues that have
have been um concerns
um in in in the past i do want to say
that
we've had some issues with facilities um
and um you know
a leak if i remember correctly a leak
that
that and and clink can go into greater
detail
and and i hope that he has some updates
today because i've seen some
emails to our facilities i'm eric that
you're now on the line here i'd i'd like
to for it to be addressed we're having
um some issues with that and and um
kind of kind of okay what's going to
happen
how much is it going to cost um i asked
clint to write a very specific email
that i
i did see um related to that
if we don't take care of that it'll
it'll cause
a larger issue i also think that
um you know in terms of who's going to
pay for it kind of thing
it's a significant amount but um i i
told that we we need to act on that
and really encourage um you know
facilities to
um to either make a decision get out
there get out there quickly
and determine what the next steps are
for that
we have our ribbon cutting virtual
ribbon cutting event today
at tube um very excited about
about that um and
i don't know if if tony is on the line
yet i don't see him
yet um so that he can give us an update
but clint will you sort of
help us um explain a little further
about
where we're at today related to some of
those issues
all right thank you um bernice i know
you're listening can you please reach
out to tony and find out if
oh tony's here he just raised his hand
great all right um
to update uh yes we had some issues with
our drains
uh coming out of one of our kennels
where the pipe was actually broken
we don't know if it was broken by the
individuals who came out and snaked it
to clean it out or if it was an
old break then and the snake just found
it so
regardless we were going back and forth
with facilities about
one who's going to be paying for for it
as this is a city facility um
and then we also going back and forth
about
when it's going to be paid and so on and
so with it being an emergency situation
we just went ahead and processed it
as we were going to do it and we can
figure it out on the back end
when that time comes uh
so but it was fixed they had to dig down
fairly deep to the p-trap
down in the ground and we got it all all
completed and we're running well
we are having some issues with hvac uh
and
but those again have been addressed
through the proper channels of the munis
system
and getting it in that and we even got a
reply back saying that i'll have
somebody come out and take a look at it
so things are things are looking up
things are looking good
for for those um clint we also talked
about the vacancies and sort of
where things are at with the new
veterinarian position i want to say that
it
has been posted and you had someone i
think in mind
where are we at at this point in time
uh that has been a very very difficult
position to fill
we have had it on for i believe over a
month
bernice will correct me if i'm wrong but
we've changed it actually to be a
continuous recruitment
because we're not getting any interest
at all um we get a lot of hits on it i
think there i mean over a thousand
some odd hits but no applicants
so we are i talked with dr haddon
yesterday and we're talking about
doing it so it looks typing something up
and posting it at different places so it
looks more attractive and then referring
it or linking
linking it to the actual city
the city registration or the the
application
because we want to point out a lot of
the bonuses that we have bonuses like
we'll pay for your license we'll pay for
your continuing education
we'll pay you know those types of things
that veterinarians usually have to have
and do we can help out with
and we also might have to increase the
pay to get somebody down here
for that um so is there like a national
veterinarian association or something
that you
have reached out to oh yeah we posted
yeah we posted on the american
veterinarian
association we also posted on the
shelter
veterinarian association we posted on
the national animal care and control
association we posted on the animal
administrative welfare
association and then we also
[Music]
reached out to some of the ag cities or
the ag
colleges and looked into those so it's
not for a lack of trying
yeah we have there are some other
options um dr hatton is going to be
reaching out
to some schools that have a veterinary
program where they need an internship
because we thought maybe we could do
like a smaller paid internship
and have these individuals be working
under dr hadden
as a mentor i mean we're you know
looking at everything and this isn't
this is the same problem
all across the country in i'm part of a
facebook group of directors
of animal shelters and they all say the
same thing that veterinarians are so
hard to get let me rephrase that a
surgical veterinarian that can do a lot
of surgeries
is hard to get um we can get
and maybe that's the case because in our
application of states we'd like them to
do a certain number of surgeries
a day like or expect this many or focus
on surgery and some of them don't like
surgery some of them like to do more of
the clinical work
so we're working on that some of the
other vacancies we have
the animal caregivers vacancies
and the front office vacancies those
jobs are continuous postings but they
just
they close quote-unquote close meaning
we'll take a look at the applications
just yesterday and then on tuesday the
volunteer coordinator closed
and so did the grant writer no i'm sorry
the
volunteer adoption specialist
and then the grant writer uh we're
hopefully be doing interviews tomorrow
next week
for the grant writer so things are
continuing to look up
um our hang up has been with city
human resources after
the high or after the interviews are
done
is when we start to lose people because
the communication
seems to break down in that time where
you know people need to do drug testing
they need to do paperwork
um that for some reason it falls through
the crack
and people are being contacted we lost
three people
in our last in our last
recruitment period for the volunteer
coordinator position
and also the
adoption specialist position so
they they went out and got other jobs
because it was just taking too long
yeah i i appreciate that clint giving me
the feedback i know
miss enriquez is on the line and i like
for him to be able to
take that back to ifo and hr i think
each individual
counselor will have those conversations
with the person that we're responsible
for
for which is our city manager ethopilian
i
i have my individual meeting with him
and i'll make sure that i
that i bring that up and it's something
that i have brought up
consistently as we are struggling right
to
to but that so to go back to your the
comment about
the possibility of raising pay for the
veterinarian
is it pretty low or is it comparable
to others and what do you think that
might need to
look like i believe it's comparable um
it's
i want to say 109 right now it's in the
range
of 109 000. um
[Music]
so i i think it needs to be a little bit
higher
to get somebody to move down here
because this isn't a position where
we're
you know looking at a couple days here
or there this is it'll be a full-time
position to
to come down and to live so
we're not talking about a huge increase
but we're talking about a little bit
more just to gain the attention
maybe of some people okay
okay good to know good to know thank you
clint
that's all um mr chair
okay and then uh i see mr trevino is on
right now
yes sir thank you board member sanchez
um
am i ready to present the animal service
ceremony valley construction update
please great let me share my screen
that go through oh
all right let's start you're starting
now yeah okay
well thank you everybody um i appreciate
the opportunity to present the animal
service center uh geo bond project
that is has constantly gone that i
mentioned today
um we have the groundbreaking so let me
get started
so again just a brief uh background
i've mentioned this before but the geo
bond was approved back in 2018
for 35.6 million that had four
questions involved in it question number
two
was the animal service center which was
9.8 million which consisted of the
um the entire planning design and
construction of the project
so that was the entire gamut of the
project from
which will be from cradle to grave let's
move this photo over here
um in january of 21
uh zack had a meeting which
selected the the contractor
based on performance and there's been
several questions
on how this contractor has been selected
whether it was price
or based on performance so the process
we've been going through is a
sac evaluation which has
past performance and experience as the
highest growing criteria to select
this contractor for this project um
we did not want to go with the lowest
bid um due to just the importance of
this project
and the time frame that we're
constrained to to get this project
opened up to the public
by the end of 2022 for our go bond cycle
we did have a precon a pre-construction
meeting on
april on may 19th and the start date
is scheduled for may 24th which was
three days ago
um they're starting out there to
mobilize and
do some prep work as well as we've had a
meeting yesterday on the field with
el paso electric to relocation those
overhead lines that
transverse this this side in an
east-west direction to kind of follow
around the property lines
on the east side and the north side to
allow for construction of this site
just kind of due to the terrain there's
a huge hill right there in the middle
that's been making this kind of
difficult since utilities there so
um also with this animal service center
for just as close as it was
in relation to the animal service and it
was the dog parks we also included
some funding for the dog parks to be
part of this project since one was
at the site
due northwest of the building
and then also we have another dog park
heather lake
so just due to the ease and the um
just the simplicity of the project we
included those two parks as part of this
one
um here's just a current status of where
we're at and this is similar to
what we share with city council where we
do our quarterly updates
um as we are on schedule
we had the negotiation with opacity
electric and construction starting in
mid-may
so as you can see this we're on schedule
and this
is a the construction timeline ending
in july of 2022
is a conservative estimate put on by the
city of las cruces us and ecm however
talking with the contractor they think
it can be done a lot sooner however
we have our our buffer and our safety
net to show
uh that this still can be done and will
be done before the end of 2022.
uh the construction cost here below
is um 7.743 or
7 743 778.
in addition with other fees
miscellaneous costs ff
and that is where the 9.8 million
dollars was originally voted for
budgeted for this project um
like i had mentioned before due to the
our current situation we've been just
seeing a huge increase in material and
labor on all these projects so
this is one of the slides that i shared
the last
board meeting but just wanted to kind of
share this again
so everybody's aware of what the cost is
and some of the substitutions and
i do want to give um a lot of crazy
praise and credit to
shaddevi who is a city architect for
working with the
with the contractor to get this project
within budget as well as
clint he was very open to some of these
changes and everything to get this
project going
and not being delayed anymore so
just here some of the resonance forward
to be a sealed concrete instead
aluminum base boards to be rubber
baseboards some lighting fixtures and
cabinets and
the uh cmu which is cinder block walls
and we're going to switch those over to
some metal studs
some other items that were kind of
deleted was the
smt cleaning system which i know clint
was really
bummed out to see this leaving but we
are working on some other
hopefully some other funding to get most
of these deletions back in the project
uh some of the metal soffit for the dog
pods race planter
uh this lowered main building height by
six feet to match the west wing i'll
show you
a kind of an elevation review here
shortly to kind of
what this was i know there's been some
questions is this the main lobby here
that was a little order what part of
this
i'll be able to show a rendering here
soon everybody's aware of that
uh the laundry linen shelving and then
the reduction of
the sally port to just one sally port
entrance not two
and the dog candles and cages and again
i also want to
reiterate we are looking at other
options to get this
all these items back into the project so
we can have a complete full project and
make
mr thacker happy um
so with all that um value engineering
we've been doing
again it was 1.178 million in reduction
um some of the budget was transferred
from materials testing additional
surveys
and so some of the stuff that original
spreadsheet that i shared of those
additional fees
we're able to pull some of those uh
funding
monies together to get this project
going
so here's an elevation view um you can
see here
that middle uh kind of entryway it's
still elevated
to add that um perspective of the
high-end
lobby area and just kind of on the right
side where it says animal service center
from
valley kind of blurry but it's rendering
that block right there in the block to
the very far right
was two different levels in elevation um
for the vowel engineering that is just
all one level now so
that created some cost reductions in the
structural aspect of the building
a lot of the structural but other than
that the whole front facade
is the same and then you can see on the
very far right we only have one cellular
bay this is
similar to what you've seen before the
floor plan hasn't changed
but on the very bottom far right you can
see only one sally port not
the two um so this is the same that has
not changed
in any of the areas
in the site plan again just to kind of
show situation to the dog park in the
back you see on the top
left hand corner is where the dog park's
going and the sally port
where that second half of the sally
porter was removed
we're adding some parking there in the
meantime however there is still room to
add that
second bay in the future as we're just
using it as parking for now
and the access is still there so that is
the new uh
revised site plan based on the value
engineering
so the dog parks uh here's where
um where we had to do some
adjustments also based on just the
material and the cost of construction
for this area
so as you can see the original budget
was eight hundred thousand
um based on the final budget and the fi
and the value engineering
we had to increase the product that
construction cost to
eight hundred eighty seven thousand six
650.
um and below those are the fees the
contingencies that we have
in place with this project also um
how we got that additional 800 or
additional 87 000 was
this was part of the overall question
for the parks and sports course
improvements
which was a similar which was a
different question from the animal
service center
but that question had we have some
contingency money left over from our
ongoing projects with
sports courts improvements so we're able
to move somebody over
within the same question to add it to
the dog parks to proceed with
construction
and on top is the schedule where it's
the same schedule as we have
with the animal service center facility
so the schedule will be the same for
both dog parks
and the facility
um just similar to what
i provided for the facility this is the
value engineering
kind of results in what took place for
the parks so there's a
redesign in the irrigation system just
that was more based on the material for
piping that we're going to be using
we did delete the public restroom at the
reed penalty park
i know there's been some questions on
this this wasn't part of the
initial scope question amenities that
had to be installed there
however we did have some some public
meetings
and the public restaurant was highly
sought after by the public so we
designed it we made an effort and that
was the original intent
to place a public aggression patrick
park unfortunately cost coming up we had
to remove it
however similar to the animal service
center we are looking for funding to get
this place back
into the project so all if all the
infrastructure
the utilities and pipe will be installed
with this project once you get funding
for the actual facility
that will that can't be put in there
we had to substitute some of the shade
structures which was metal before
to some tensile fabric which isn't
preferred due to kind of maintenance
cost and the longevity of the fabric
however again the price of metal has
skyrocketed over the past couple months
but
this is one of the areas we're also
looking we have time to change
that shade to metal in the future fun
comes available
uh we just swapped out some of the
manufacturers for the drinking pounds
we are still going to provide them but
just a different manufacturer
allowed for some cost reduction
again for the site furniture we're just
going to substitute with a different
vendor to kind of go with those costs
and the unfortunate the decorative
concrete
this is going to be kind of flat
concrete and we're not going to have a
pretty picture stamped in the concrete
but
that'll be hard to install later on in
the future
just due to the concrete already being
set
so here's a areola of the dog park at
burn lake
it's the same dog park nothing has
changed again just
with some same things that we reduced
all was
the irrigation some of the stem concrete
and the
uh shade structure material there was no
restroom
set or planned to be here due to there
already being a restroom
located at burma lake so this one was
just
minor revisions that occurred at this
site
uh the rim gonada park this is a revised
layout
and again here the dog park i mean the
restroom has been removed um however the
the area the the um
the area is still there to place it back
in the future where it was time to go
so that is all that's changed here and
just
the decorative concrete and the shade
structure material
so other than that it's the same
um so that is that one
and that is my last slide so i am open
for any questions or discussions for
any one of the projects
mr chair mr allen
in one of your earlier slides you have
16.9 million
allocated to parks
which struck me as a lot of money for
parks
but it's really closer to one point
x million so what what does that 16.9
represent
board member allen's with this is 16.9
has
had several um
projects involved with that 16.9 million
that was an improvement to several
sports courts
and facilities throughout the city a new
east mesa
recreational complex um
the dog parks and you need that parks
there are several different projects
associated with that question
so it wasn't limited to just the new
construction
of the facility no sir
there are several other items i just
took that portion of that question and
included it with the animal services
center
did they go bond
cover more than just the construction of
the new facility then
you repeat your question sir
did the bond allow for construction of
other facilities in addition to the
animal center
yes so the question that
two i believe that was for the animal
service center was strictly for the
animal service
only there was another question that was
for fire station number three
and which is a totally different budget
totally different question
that um accommodated for the
construction of that fire station
so those are the only two buildings and
facilities that were part of a geobot
so where was the permission to
improve these other park locations
the position the permission
and the gold bond um process several
parks were called out
within the question and were identified
as part of the whole process for the geo
bond
so each one of these individual parks um
amador i these are all identified in the
geo bond process
that okay thank you
yes sir counselor flotus
uh thank you uh mr chair and thank you
so much
uh tony uh trevino for your uh
presentation um
[Music]
you know with some of the um materials
and
there were modifications in all of the
gold bond projects i i believe we had a
total of four
and uh is that correct yeah we had four
yeah and they were uh those were the
ones that were voted on by the
residents of the voters of the city of
las cruces
and what you did today was make a
presentation
on um
on the animal service center and that
was
one question and then the dog parks fall
under the category of parks in general
and so but thank you so much for
including that uh the dog parks
um but as far as um
you know some of the things that had to
be like the
um the shade structure at one of the dog
parks i believe it was or it doesn't
really
yeah uh it went from being
a metal to being a certain cloth
that one that one in particular tony
was that at a was that the dog park
at hermosa
or rinconada or herzer anyway you you
mentioned a shade structure of sorts
and instead of being metal because of
the rising costs
uh it was substituted for uh
some sort of a cloth or other material
that is less expensive is there any way
that um we can go back
and at a later time and
modify the materials change those
materials as originally
um planned
or is that not possible because it's uh
go bond money or
or is it possible to take that out of
another budget
you know remember florida's um this one
this is
the plan that's why i put those
substitutions we have we definitely have
time to
revamp those and put metal and that is
our goal to find that additional funding
to swap those
um this our fabric shades to the metal
so we'll have the same uh support same
structure
there um this is just to kind of get the
project going
and that shade structure is one of the
last things on the
agenda on the schedule to be assault so
we definitely have time for that
oh great so there is some room for
finding
funding from other sources that would
not be
uh violating the gold bond money because
well yeah because the gold bond money
is being used exclusively for the
projects that people voted on
but we can still modify those things
with other funding
thank you so much tony thank you thank
you mr chair
thank you councillor flores is there any
other questions for mr trevino
okay mr stacker
thank you sir i also want to point out
really quick that a lot of the things
that
at the center that we had to value
engineer out
a lot of them are being plumbed for
i should say so uh stubbed out it's
called so
purchase of those things can be done
later like the cleaning system tony
talked about
stubbed out so we can just purchase the
system
uh the digester we talked about stubbed
out
so we just can go in there and just
purchase the system only
so we're grateful that that is still
included in it
okay thank you
thank you for the update that's good to
know and at least then like you're
saying
there might be a future investment there
okay
councilor flotus uh it's your hand up
again i just wanted to make sure i don't
okay all right we're very good thank you
mr turner for the update
okay thank you all i appreciate the
opportunity
thank you tony all right we're on to
agenda item number five action items
five a's resolution
2021-05 to accept
the 150 000 carol petrie foundation
general operating support grant
mr stacker
oh thank you very much isn't this
exciting this is great
so we were awarded the ascmv was awarded
the uh carol petrie
general operating support grant it's for
000. the largest grants we've ever
received we're so grateful to be working
uh with the carol petrie foundation they
do amazing work they helped us out last
year
and again this year some the main things
we're gonna be using this
for is we want to fully equip our
drive-through clinics they are
incredibly successful
vaccinating and microchipping the
animals of
dona county so we want to have at least
four in a year
and this grant's going to help us do
that we are going to be purchasing
everything including a cargo a covered
cargo trailer
to put everything in so we can just
ready for a
we're ready for an event we can just
hook it up and go to the site
unload and load it back up we're talking
everything
generators awnings cooling fans
battery packs everything we need for
an event like this including the
vaccines syringes microchips
so we're with this grant we might even
be looking at doing
uh some low-cost vaccine amounts too
which will get more people out there and
that's very encouraging
we are also looking at purchasing a
digital x-ray machine
and also a table a lot of people don't
know but they're sold differently or
separately a digital x-ray machine and
the x-ray table
so we are excited for that edition
we are working with a company called
idexx
idex is the foremost in company in the
world when it comes to
veterinarian supplies and other supplies
for
testing for machines etc so we're
excited to be working with them we're
shelters they're giving us some special
pricing because of what we do
so hopefully that'll be in place soon
there are some things we need to do
before that and that's like it needs its
own dedicated wiring
so we're working on getting that through
as well
uh we are and then with the remaining
uh we're looking at purchasing some
kennel supplies uh just some
some things that you know needs to be
done
just upkeep cleaning updated cleaning
some storage areas
just to keep the center looking nice and
pack up some things
another reason for this is with our
impound area of the new construction the
impound area is going to be going away
because they're going to be basically
tearing out our impound lot
area so we have to reroute how we're
doing
our impounds with animal control so
we're thinking of
most likely going back behind the
building and then coming back around
we don't know exactly how it's going to
work yet but we know we need room
so consolidating a lot of the sheds and
things in the back area
will be good and get room for that so
we're excited for it so i'll be going
into our fund the 74 40
150 000 and your board options are yes
no to amanda the table
okay thank you mr thacker are there any
uh questions on uh this item
okay uh can i get a motion and a second
to
accept the uh grant and to make the
necessary budget adjustment
i'll say uh mr allen's i'll take that as
a second
of course okay
uh
sorry i do believe we do have to do a
roll call vault
yeah correct i just wanted to make sure
i had the motion in a second first and
then
um i was going to ask mr stacker was did
you receive any public input on this
item
no i did not okay
okay if there's no other uh comments or
questions
we'll uh would you call the role yes i
will
uh chair sanchez yes vice chair
adventist to me
yes uh board member gonda
yes board member flores
yes board member allens
yes thank you motion passes sir thank
you mr thacker
and uh congratulations and thank you for
uh that's an amazing award
all right item number six
public input or general public input
let me look really quick again at my
email and see if nothing came through
all right while you're while you're
doing that uh miss gilbert uh is there
with her hand up and thank you for being
patient miss gilbert
i might am my i have a couple questions
one is for
mary lou um you know being short three
officers
i'm wondering um how you're
responding to calls i mean obviously you
must have to prioritize is there um
i don't use the word protocol but a
certain standard for that
um thank you genie
we have been short three officers for
over a year
um this is the the
the process we have been going through
for quite some time we do have those
positions
post well actually they just closed so
they were posted for quite some time
and um we've been trying to fill those
positions
um of course like i said they just
closed
so we're waiting to see if we can get
them all filled
i'm hoping cross your fingers we can get
all three of them filled
and then we can get those officers
trained and up back out in the field
and then we'll be full again so that's
the goal
um to have all of those positions
full it'll be it'll be a long time
coming
um we have not been completely full for
for quite some time
and so yeah we have been you know
because of kovid
that's of course one of the way one of
the issues
and then we've been short-handed so a
lot of times we
will we'll prioritize our calls because
we're only
going to um first of all respond to the
priorities first
and then as time and officers
can allow then we'll go to the calls um
after that thank you
yes yes it is thank you you're welcome
and then my other question is for gina
excuse me
um on the owner relinquish
you know when people are um
wanting to relinquish animals to you
um do you have
um literature showing what some of the
resources are
and talking to people about them the
um what people can do to um
what are some alternatives and
do you feel you have enough maybe maybe
i already know the answer that question
there's
there's not enough resources but uh what
are our viable resources that you can
um offer or
suggest to uh people
uh mr chair ginny thank you for that
question um
right now we don't have any literature
that we are handing out
to people that are wanting to own a
relinquish however the officers are
doing
their best to advise them of the other
rescue groups that are available to them
so that the animals aren't going
exclusively to the animal service center
so for instance for example if somebody
simply
wants to relinquish an animal because
they can no longer care for it
if it's a financial issue where we or
they feel that they can't afford it they
can't afford the food
uh something like that one of our
resources that we send them to is
hss m if we had some literature
with every um agency
that's out there rescue agency and what
they can provide
we would definitely hand that out so
that would be
an easier um
resource or material for the the citizen
to have
that way it would have a list of
agencies the service that they provide
and a phone number for them to contact
okay absolutely i i would appreciate any
kind of um well we'll talk to the
coalition about that and see i know
we've been working on our volunteer
guide
and which is a listing of all the local
animal groups
and what their services are and i think
that would be that would be helpful
sure and right now and when you when you
say agencies
gino um you know i'm referring more to
his groups and rescues but are you
thinking of
um are you using that term kind of
loosely agencies or are there
some others that i'm not uh thinking of
that could be
included no and thank you for correcting
me
i should have said groups uh that's what
i was referring
to okay thank you you're welcome because
right now what we're doing the officers
are saying is basically
call the animal service center and they
will then
direct you in the right direction but
with some sort of literature
we could hand it out right then while
we're
having contact with that citizen okay
thank you
you're welcome
thank you miss gilbert uh clint was
there any other
public input that you received via email
no sir okay all right we're on to uh
chair and board comments any comments
from the board
mr chairman mr allen
[Music]
is there will there come a time
when we will start to meet again in
person i know that the south central
regional transit is considering doing
that
this is a very clumsy
way to proceed as you can tell we lost
one of our participants
earlier today and that's not an unusual
thing
how does the board feel about that
hi we
we meet as a county commission in person
but we have throughout the epidemic
we're properly spaced world war masks
and frankly there's enough room in the
city world chambers
to properly space one another even at a
time when we don't need the masks
anymore
advice chair beat the stupid thank you
um
commissioner ellens there is work being
done right now
on the dyess um with lighting i believe
that we are scheduled to be
able to go back in i think it's about a
month i will defer to
mr enriquez on that timing but the
reason why we can't attend right now
is because they are doing work on the
area
yes mister yes mr karen
uh commissioner ellis yeah there is some
lighting that's going on in our chambers
currently
our next uh city council work session
will be scheduled july 12th
so we're looking at sometime in july
that we can we can start
uh having meetings in person in our
chambers
so that we can spread out appropriately
and and still
have safe practices going on but it'll
be july when we'd be available
well what is the board's consensus if
any
well i don't and
go ahead counselor flores uh thank you
uh
mr chair uh commissioner allen's um
i i don't think that the board can
decide uh at this point
um that that we can meet at the
at city hall as mr enriquez pointed out
uh the target date is july 12th but i
just heard
um yesterday or the day before
that the um the work that's being done
uh there's been some delays so hopefully
it will be july 12th that was a targeted
date
to start meeting openly it isn't a covet
issue it's just a question of
unavailable
unavailability and i think that
we will be keeping our meetings at the
at city hall
at this point that's that that last
comment is
just my just to comment on my
personal comment preference thank you
sorry
sorry about sorry about that council
photos
did you still want to add i see your
aren't your hands still up
oh uh yes thank you uh this is something
um perhaps uh a comm commissioner
sanchez we can put on
our executive committee to make sure
that we as an as
an action item for the future to be able
to return recognizing
health and safety for individuals and if
there's any concerns brought up by
board members and then i would just ask
please recognize as well
there are still certain demographics of
people that cannot get
their shot yet and we um
some of us do have uh
at-risk individuals in their household
so please i just say
informed consent and please i'm hoping
that everybody is just very honest
um with that as we start to transition
back in
thank you thank you i'm thinking about
advice chair and i agree and i think i
know there's been we've already had
started having uh discussions
commissioner allen's
with about meeting in person and then
this was uh
the the delay in terms of that had been
at least in
in uh i think we it was during the
discuss during the executive committee
so we'll
um you know we'll again put it as as
the vice as vice chair had suggested
we'll have it as part of our discussion
with the executive committee next
um but based off of the timing for the
the city uh
council chambers uh i guess right now
we'll be
targeting our july meeting uh to be back
in person but the june meeting i guess
will be
here via via zoom uh the zoom venue so
but i think you know we can have a
little more discussion again uh maybe
that's just an agenda item we can put
um for june just to make sure
everybody's on the same page at least
understands you know what the protocol
will be
um when we do meet in person in july
is there any other uh comments from our
board members
yeah i have a question uh clint with the
ceremony this afternoon where do we park
wherever you can find it's the best i
can tell you we're going to have
employees
um kind of squish up where they're
parking but
yeah parking is going to be at a premium
so if you want to come a little bit
early i would
i would suggest that how long do you
suggest this is going to last
depends on how long um sheriff sanchez
talks
that'll be a couple hours
i'm expecting half hour 45 minutes
something like that i
i've never done a groundbreaking before
so we'll see
okay depending on on what the uh
the mercury reading is i'll uh i might
go a little faster than
that so all right
very good um we are
now at uh german can i get a motion to
adjourn
i hear a man of vice chair
had a motion i heard commissioner
allen's i'll take that as a second
so can i get a roll call
uh can i just do it all in favor or does
it need to be a
individual roll call i think it's an
individual roll call okay
uh chair sanchez yes
the vice chair aventus stewie yes
board member gandala yes board member
flores
yes board member helens
yes looks like we're all right
what is 11 28 a.m we are adjourned thank
you all for attending and uh
i'll have a safe memorial day weekend
everybody thank you you too
you as well
you