[Music]
okay good afternoon everybody welcome to
our work session of las cruces city
council today is monday february 22nd
2021 it's approximately 1 pm you can
please join me in the pledge of
allegiance please
pledge allegiance flag the united states
of america and to the republic for which
it stands one nation under god
indivisible with liberty and justice for
all
okay
now we're going to get to pets pet of
the week and i believe jennifer martinez
from our communications office
will be introducing them
i sure will thank you mayor good
afternoon mayor and council i am
jennifer martinez with the city's
communications office and today i would
like to introduce you
starting off with our dog of the week
penguin
penguin is ready to
make your household happy he loves to
have his ears rubbed his fur brushed and
loves to cuddle on the sofa and he also
gets along well with all different kinds
of creatures big or small young or old
and then we have smooches and just like
smooch is his name smooches loves to
give kisses he would be perfectly
content to be your new best friend he
really can't wait to show you his
playful personality if you're interested
in either of these animals you can go to
the ascmv website that's asmb.org
adoptions the cost is 25 dollars to
adopt go ahead and look for their animal
numbers call and make an appointment
three eight two zero zero one eight
if you were looking for the farmer's
market um
site where they had the pets in the past
they're still taking a little break
canceled until further notice
what the animal service center is
looking for is for volunteers right now
if you are interested in dog walking cat
caretaking any of the adoption events
once they're back up and running to full
potential
outreach programs photography assistants
foster families and more you can contact
the volunteer coordinator to find out
how you can get involved that i get
number again is 3820018
and mary thank you for your time have a
great afternoon okay thanks jennifer
okay so now we're going to go to jobs of
the week and i i see
cindy
quinlan
are you going to be presenting cindy
hello good afternoon yes i am
okay
so this week's jobs of the weeks uh
first we have logistics specialist with
our city of las cruces this position
will be closing on february 24th of 2021
the next we have is a certified
medication aid with chesco incorporated
and this position closes 418
of
2021 next we have a housing voucher
program uh specialist with the messiah
valley public housing authority this
position will be closing on march 10th
of 2021
and we have a customer service
representative
representative with la clinica de
familia this position closes march 10-21
and there is a front desk clerk needed
at the ramada palms de las cruces there
are three positions available and this
position closes on march 17th of 2021
and for a full list of our jobs
internships and volunteer opportunities
you can visit us at
employee.com or
governmentjobs.com careers slash las
dot at
cruces
also for our local new mexico workforce
connections you can reach us at
524-6250 and we are located at 226 south
alameda boulevard
our webpage is also at
employeenewmexico.com
thank you so much and have a wonderful
afternoon
okay thank you cindy
and so now we're going to go to our cova
19 update and i believe assistant
manager eric enriquez will be making
that presentation
yes good afternoon mayor and council
thank you for the opportunity to share
our our report mandy gus will be sharing
the screen for me
just to give an update of what's going
on this one will be brief uh just a few
slides uh we'll give a status report
that's the next slide
yeah currently who is eligible for the
vaccination we're still in the 1b that's
75 and older and any of those 16 years
of age and above that have any chronic
illness
again one of the ways that you can
register is vaccinen.org
and other uh
health organizations websites that we
have listed and shown available we are
looking at promoting the vaccinen.org
it's throughout new mexico to stay
consistent with
doh
what we have locally now is a number
that who can i contact if i have any
questions with the registration or
what's going on and where the sites and
all uh oem has put up a a number that's
local and that's area code 575
a reminder that there are multiple
vaccination sites and we do have a slide
at the end of the presentation kind of
get a visual where those sites are
a status report uh
currently
um
we have about 23 000
individuals that have been uh partially
vaccinated uh in dona ana county that's
about 13 so it is gradually improving a
little bit uh fully at six point seven
percent that's the the two dosage
dosages that were received last week uh
or administered
was at the sites convention centers nmsu
and dona community college for the first
time last week were about 2600. they're
anticipating to hopefully do about 3 600
vaccinations this week again there's a
reduction and there's also some delays
due to the to the bad weather that we're
experiencing
um
oem continues to do the operations and
planning for this uh doh is pretty much
in charge of all the vaccination sites
working with other partners such as nmsu
college of burrell
las cruces fire department the city of
las cruces all together
upcoming vaccination events that we'll
have is
the seniors program
thank you to
quality of life seniors program and lynn
gallagher they've been in contact with
the senior and aging
department for new mexico and i believe
three thousand dosages will be
given to the seniors program which one
thousand of those will come
to
dona ana county
so we will have two events on march 6th
will be one and the other one will be
march 27th or 28th in which even a
dialogue transportation will be
provided for those that need
transportation we are also partnering up
with la clinico this will be the first
time la clinico de familia will be
pretty much being the provider of that
location and it will be at nmsu as a
drive-through so those are some of the
upcoming events other than the ones that
are already scheduled
covet 19 campaigns we will continue with
the red to green campaign
we'll find out wednesday if we still
remain in the yellow
registration campaigns
right now uh the state of new mexico we
have about 640 000 registrants that's uh
a third of our new mexico population so
we want to be prepared in donating
county so we have some teams already
setting up some uh campaign for
registering events uh maybe at walmart
uh we're creating flyers that will go in
the utility bills we'll also have some
bus reps so we as a city we're doing
everything we can to promote the
campaigns to register at
vaccinen.org so that we're ready for
that dosage when it when it gets here
other resources and needs that we're
addressing we still have the vaccine
task force uh we've had two meetings we
are now gathering all the resources
we're trying to put them together with
oem and that is is really working well
that's uh one of the quality of life
with the senior programs all of these
efforts coming together as leaders in
this community coming together to
provide resources and we will continue
as that moves along
the next slide has uh
kind of what um
oem like
the schedule of events that are taking
place uh
in dona ana county during the week
monday now we have the dacc uh tuesday
is vacant and then we have at the
convention set
convention center on wednesday and
thursday and then the nmsu drive-through
there's also the guests and independent
school that is also
putting on a pod site on wednesdays so
that's our covet update um
we'll stand for any questions if there
is any at this time here thank you
thanks uh
assistant manager enriquez
looks like counselor sword
and counselor vasquez have questions
counselor sword
thank you mr mayor and thank you uh
assistant city manager enriquez uh i
appreciate these reports a lot
um
there's course one big question that
just about everybody that knows anything
about vaccines is asking
and why is that the distribution across
the state so uneven
uh it goes all the way for at the moment
the latest report from doh goes all the
way from nine percent in one county all
the way up to 42 percent uh vaccinated
in in the county that has the most
can we find out why there is so much
um unevenness on inequity should we call
it in in the state
mayor counselor sword yes that's a
question on everyone's mind and we are
continuing to to ask the doh i asked for
numbers this week to see what was
actually requested and what was received
and unable to get that information so we
are constantly uh asking we have doh
on the vaccine task force and we
uh have them give an update and give
those numbers as well uh just some of
the things that we just haven't been
able to obtain but that is the goal is
to keep pushing be ready when it comes
and then continue to to be a voice and
ask why we are not receiving those
you're absolutely correct and we are
trying uh through the vaccine task force
we have like i said members of the
community that that are leaders that are
asking the same questions as well so we
are continuing to push and i can see
there is an increase i think bernalillo
is now at 18
uh partially vaccinated where we're 13
now so we're we're we're climbing a
little bit uh the numbers are
starting to look a little bit more of
that equity that we're looking for
yeah i might thank you so much i
appreciate your efforts a lot um
but i can't help but notice i haven't
checked it every week
the the list of counties and their
percentage of being vaccinated but i see
these numbers changing up and down
uh as the weeks go on i'm just curious
and why
uh a number would go down the population
stays the same in each
county i assume maybe there's people
moving around but
uh that's i'm just making an observation
it's not a question and i don't expect
any remar um reply back that's that's
just an observation i'm making thank you
very much mr henry thank you mayor mayor
mayor and counselor if i if i may one of
the things that we have pending is uh
the application from the las cruces fire
department to be a provider because that
way we want to request and that way we
know exactly what we're requesting and
what we're receiving so hopefully that
we're granted that
providership so we can have a little bit
more control on that
yeah thank you
yes sir
remember council resort south of berlin
anything south of the land yeah just
write it off
uh councillor vasquez huh
i'm just i'm just messing with you yeah
i know but uh but it's probably true i
don't know where torrance county is but
uh that's the one at nine percent
i think they're just barely selling
albuquerque
okay
okay so councillor vasquez
uh thank you mayor so much for um yeah
getting this on the agenda um thank um
thank you city manager enriquez
assistant city manager enriquez um and
counselor beta stewie for your
leadership and bringing us these updates
as well um i had some similar questions
to um counselor storm as far as the
latest response we may have gotten from
the administration or department of
health regarding our concerns
that i know have been shared including
by
county commissions here manny sanchez as
well
i just wanted to suggest something here
because um
it continues to be troubling to me that
we are not getting timely responses or
data or information and the response we
got from the department of health to me
was a non-response about why we're not
getting equitable
vaccine distributions
they did not speak specifically to
donate county in the response that i
believe has been given but any number of
factors that could apply to any number
of locations and counties as to why
they're not getting their vaccines
so just a thought here since we are in
an open meeting
is that i'd love to maybe get a letter
together that we might be able to send
as a body
and perhaps the dona ana county
commission can join us on this letter
perhaps we can co-sign a letter
that asks some very specific questions
and perhaps make some very specific
recommendations
um chief enriquez or i'm sorry assistant
city manager enriquez uh you mentioned
getting approval rights like fast
tracking the approval for the las cruces
fire department to become a provider
might be one of those requests um and
the county may have some additional
requests as as to how we could speed up
and and increase the equity of vaccine
distributions um
so that's something i'd like to throw
out there um i don't know that we do a
whole lot of joint letters like this i
mean certainly we could do a resolution
but i think it would be more powerful to
have the county commission also join us
in in a in a joint letter like this uh
because you know we got to make some
noise on this and and i know we already
have and so um i'll just put that out
there see if council thinks it's a good
idea mayor um and and i'll stop there
i'm sure counselor beta stevie and
others have some more information on
this um but i did just want to throw
that out there for now because um
we got to get these vaccines down here i
mean we got to do everything we can so
well good idea counselor vasquez i have
no problem with that but i have to
caution you on a letter
uh that's actually how the rolling poll
was discovered
it was a letter that was signed by by
the city council in 2003.
and uh judge robles said hey this is
he coined the term rolling poll
so i think it needs to be done in a
resolution and i i don't see why in the
resolution we can't have a letter
attached to that but i think it has to
be done in the public
okay well no problem we'll let's uh
hopefully if council is in agreement and
and you as well here we can get that in
the schedule
absolutely
counselor bait the
stewie uh thank you mayor and thank you
mr enriquez for uh this report as well
um
to answer uh council vasquez's question
we did talk about in our task force
about crafting a letter as well
we had it directed more with the task
force itself since we have
agents from the city county
and our private partners as well
from nmsu the hospital systems
and then listing the resources um
and innovative solutions that we've come
up with
to help address any concerns that the
state has
had as we know we are hearing a bit of
conflicting messaging on the reasons why
we have not received an equitable
distribution of the vaccine and one of
the um i think the wonderful things
about the task force is it's been able
to have
this really open dialogue so that we can
talk to each other and come up with
solutions and creative um ideas uh with
any of those issues that the state have
might has said that we have with getting
that equitable uh distribution and so
i'm happy to help work if um with a
resolution if we want to have um
uh one to come from uh
the city and the county um with that in
mind um
one of the other items that was shown to
us uh during our task force meeting
it did the numbers were from 214 so it's
not
quite current
but they did talk about doses requested
versus doses allocated of both the
moderna and
pfizer and then
our local doh has also estimated um how
many doses it would take to address the
equity issues that we're having and so
at the task force for us to keep up with
these running totals as well and that
way we're able to show those real-time
numbers uh as much as possible and so
that's something that i am very thankful
that our local dh is doing and would
like to continue to see and hopefully
that will be um more information we'll
be able to show with the council as a
full and the public um and so i
i'm hopeful that we'll be able to do
that and then keep pushing as much as we
can with all of our voices um to show
the state that we are in fact very ready
willing and
um trying to be
as
creative and solution-minded as possible
for any issues they
appear to be
a problem here in las cruces for getting
that equitable um
distribution
so thank you mayor
thank you
let's see
mayor pro tem
thanks mayor um first off i wanted to
thank mr endriquez and staff last week
we got a very detailed
um
update from each of the departments
and i was very pleased with that and
then special thanks to counselor
abeitastuvia i know she's working um
really hard with mr andriquez and ifo um
and others to
um
you know put
sort of a thoughtful agenda and ensure
that we're um
asking the right questions and i can
assure council that we've hit it pretty
hard in terms of
this is the way we feel this is um you
know the unequity inequity excuse me um
and we are getting some conflicting
messages but what we are now
receiving um and we're just in our
second meeting
is um and i believe we've committed to
meeting every two weeks conservatives
duvi um
and
doh has provided us
a powerpoint and so on that powerpoint
and um counselor abeitastruvi alluded to
that is of 2 to 14 21.
from the moderna
dona county requested 9 100
vaccines we were allocated to 2700
from the pfizer dose requested 5580
the doses allocated were 4 875.
total is
7575 dose is ordered this week estimated
in 8 800
address equity um issues they're also
looking at an equity scoring uh score
um and really trying to determine
what what that is um
i think the beauty of meeting together
as we have ever both our public and
private partners and any barriers or
gaps that we're seeing we're all working
together we'll be coming up with a
resource list
um that i think will be
really important because as you know one
of the doctors from doh said well if you
if you don't you know typically what we
find those that are receiving vaccines
if you have a good relationship with the
hospitals well i i believe we do
i think what we're hearing and continue
to hear consistently is that there just
isn't the vaccines available
the state is ordering them from the feds
the feds you know are are giving only so
many um and with the weather the extreme
weather conditions we saw last week um
that has really curtailed um the
distribution or excuse me the delivery
of the vaccine so i want to um give you
my commitment that um you know we're
asking pretty tough questions
um i love the idea of a resolution and a
letter um combining it it seems like the
most effective way and
coordinating and collaborating with the
county commission i think will be um
really helpful
um the answer for counselor sorek for
why there's a decrease
in the percentages it's probably because
they're not getting what and giving out
the vaccines
um as they were in the past so
um
i appreciate the comments and um
please know that counselor bait this
doofy and i
that sit on the task force and and
counselor flores um you know are really
holding people's feet to the fire and
when there is a gap or a barrier or
there's some conflict we're addressing
that too so thank you mayor
thank you
and
counselor flotus
thank you mayor
and
thank you so much
assistant city manager enriquez for your
presentation
um you indicated that um
our city uh fire department has applied
to be a provider
um we learned at our meeting last week
that
nmsu i think it was stephen lopez who um
who shared that information
that uh or whoever but that nmsu is a
provider but has yet to hear from
anybody
about actually distributing so
um and yes as both uh
a chair a beta stewie and um
and uh mayor potem gandara um everyone
was asking questions uh people from
different entities weren't able to
answer the questions because they too
are
at a loss as to the lack of information
regarding
distribution availability
and um
that that sort of you know those sorts
of issues and concerns
but yes um
i think everybody is working very hard i
know where i support a letter of course
and a resolution as the mayor uh
suggested um
but the good thing about this task force
and and you know we nobody has
definitive answers but the one thing we
can say
is that here in southern new mexico here
in the jonah ana county area
uh we're definitely joining forces um we
know
you know we know what the score is we
know
you know who's on you know just
who's who and who's doing what
so
uh there is definitely a concerted
effort i do want to point out
i do want to thank
mr anthinkis again for his efforts
they've been
wonderful insofar as letting us know
what's going on we do have
we are going to have a migrant
divergence uh a
arrival of
uh migrants who
through a divergence a thing that you
know that the federal government is
doing
and um and uh sister city assistant city
manager andrikis is also working on that
and um so we definitely have to roll up
our sleeves and figure out
um how to get you know the vaccines
we're going to need uh for everyone so
um
and so i know we all get emails from our
constituents and we all have questions
about everything related to covid
and um suffice to say that
this task force is really
doggedly working on
getting answers
and and getting and
[Music]
getting answers
uh finding solutions and delivering to
to people
and um
and i want to thank uh
tessa who uh counselor beta stewbe
who's the chair of our health committee
and um chairs a task force
for her excellent command of the
information she has on this on this
topic
uh thank you all thank you mr mayor
thank you
counselor ben como
thank you mayor and yes thank you so
much acm enriquez for the presentation
um in the task force for everything
they've been doing thus far
um you know i just wanted to point out
as often as i often do that in equity
even if we're talking geographic in
terms of southern new mexico um that
inequity isn't even greater when it
comes to language access and when it
comes to people in rural communities and
um you know i don't see las cruces as
siloed off from the rest of doiana
county and so i want to make sure that
um whether it is a letter or a
resolution that it is a joint effort and
that in it it specifically mentions
language access and ensuring that
information is provided in spanish as
well and whatever other languages
are needed in our community i imagine
spanish
is the largest um
i mean just looking even looking at the
department of health website there is
very little actually there's no
information in spanish there are no
graphics in spanish about how to get
registered i know their entire website
um can be transformed into spanish but
um additionally for people who aren't
totally tech savvy
um they might not understand that the
the registration process is too if you
register and then you get a code and
then you have to go back right and so
um i just feel like that information
hasn't actually been provided to people
in spanish and then i'm personally
hearing even from state officials
frankly stereotypes about
immigrant communities and
spanish-speaking communities and how
they don't want to get the vaccine and
i'm like well you haven't provided
enough information for people to want to
even sign up so i think there's
definitely an information gap in
people's desired language um so for me
that that would be important and if it's
not
if a resolution is just going to take
longer perhaps may i suggest it's a
letter from the mayor from the chair of
the commission from the mayor of anthony
the mayor of
um sunland park the mayor of hatch right
that sort of gets out there more quickly
because i think this issue
um you know is urgent and we want to
make sure that people are vaccinated um
and you know so we can get to a
healthier place so i i know i don't have
to say that i just think it's important
that we also acknowledge how much
how little information there is in
spanish
thanks here
okay thanks uh hopefully some of you
just didn't put your hand down because i
look like a whole slate of people put
their hands up but we probably you know
one more quick comment mayor what's up
kelsey i think we should be
thinking for the future because as you
know a lot of people aren't going to get
registered on the internet
um for various reasons and um and once
we get to the point we have a next
vaccines to do it
there needs to be a plan to
contact those people that are aren't on
the registration
uh and that might be a month or two away
but
i think we should be planning or
thinking about it at least thank you
yeah counselor i think that's what the
tax the vaccine task force will be doing
they'll be reaching out to others having
people primarily medical more medical
people in the field and
spanish and english
that's what really the task force is is
i would imagine they'd be doing
mayor
yes
i don't want to belabor but i think i
have two important points that i try to
look for the email quickly as i was
speaking um but um dr erickson did um
in an in a group email speak to
statistic relevance or significance and
i just like to read what his finding um
was
is that there appears and i quote to be
no significant correlation between
vaccination rates and income the
correlation coefficient is negative
point two which is not statistically
significant
looking at the covalent vaccination map
at mexico doh website i see no obvious
regional pattern looking at the
vaccination rate and doing an accounting
that this is not statistically different
from the overall state rate and
importantly it's higher than the
national rate estonia vaccines rates is
like slightly lower than the statewide
average and much less than some counties
this is not indicative of any particular
extreme problem but rather the natural
outcome of unanticipated events
affecting distribution that results in
normal distribution of vaccines
vaccination rates across the counties
that said people are not statistics and
he just asked that we work together to
try to come up right with a um a good um
strategy moving forward and i think
that's what we're doing and secondly um
to counselor bincomo and councillor
sorg's
comments and points i i especially
appreciate that
um
and and with the tech the
you know not being tech savvy enough to
navigate to change you know from english
to spanish um the department of health
is working with promoters community
health workers there's that local number
please please use that number refer
people to that if there are folks that
are having issues um these promotors
will assist folks in registering
um and and and kind of working through
any sort of issues that might be
encountered as as we move forward so
thanks mayor
uh before i go on i just want to just
tell you briefly i had a
phone call this morning with the
homeland secretary bianca ortiz-wortham
from the state of new mexico and
councilor flores she tells me that
if plans go as planned that president
biden was going to be releasing two to
three hundred
allowing two to three hundred per day um
asylum seekers and if that's the case
then
most likely we won't see any here
that's that's what um she called let me
know
okay so let's move on with the agenda
we've got three items first one is the
marketing initiatives for the industrial
park
and
um
this is
alicia
viegas will be presenting
i hope
did i say that right
you sure did mayor thank you good
afternoon mayor and city council my name
is felicia villegas i'm with economic
development
and thank you for the opportunity to
present to you today
i'll just share my screen
okay today i'll be discussing the
marketing initiatives
that staff has been working for for the
industrial park
to give a little background industrial
park has been prioritized in this in the
strategic plan it also ties to the
economic development strategic plan and
elevate las cruces priorities and
objectives to stimulate business
development in the area
staff partnered with a consultant to
conduct a market study last year
and it was recognized early on that the
park is a very important but
underutilized economic development asset
to for las cruces
recommendations from this study
prioritized several actions necessary
for las cruces to reach its full
potential at and around the park and
airport
it identified three targeted industries
for the park which are aerospace
aviation and defense
advanced manufacturing
and value-added ag products
so the overall goal for the park is to
generate new investment attract new
companies to locate there and assist
with expansions
this should further
diversify the regional
economy and create high quality jobs
for implementation the goal was divided
into four segments which are
number one target pursue development
offering the best return on investment
place which is to prioritize
improvements at the park and airport
market which is to manage brand and sell
the park and airport
and challenge overcome
the real and perceived obstacles to
development
today we're going to dive into the
marketing aspect
so the first item is to get serious
about development
to do this it was recommended to appoint
a full-time city point person for the
park
i was appointed as this person this last
december and i have the assistance of
our business development section which
further connects with business owners
having a city point person allows
businesses and other staff to have a
go-to person who is knowledgeable on the
specifics related to the park such as
available sites infrastructure and
incentives
next is to clarify city policy on
property pricing and lease rates
the airport has already completed their
lease rate analysis and appraisals are
in progress for the available industrial
park land in order to update the sales
prices
next is to develop a formula for
awarding incentives
for example x amount of dollars per job
created or retained x amount of dollars
per job at a certain percentage of above
median
or x amount of dollars per for specific
industries locating to the park or
airport
this is something currently being
implemented through land purchase
agreements on a case-by-case basis
next is to fast-track projects through
city departments
staff will work closely with community
development to ensure a fast track and
hassle free permitting
some of the programs that i will speak
to shortly will also help in this effort
waiving plan reviews and construction
permit fees is an option that can be
considered and further reviewed as an
incentive for development on city owned
crop
property
the next item is to build something to
sell
getting a flex space complex on the
market was one of the recommendation
recommendations however it was
determined that it is not feasible for
the city itself to build it
trending practices for parks lacking
available building space
is for them to have a certified
site and build ready program
this can also be referred to as
investment ready or business ready sites
the reason for this type of program is
simple
the location
decision process demands available sites
and those sites need to be ready for
development
companies looking to build new
facilities want sites that are ready to
go and that are relatively re risk free
so the certified site program consists
of a thorough evaluation of the property
to determine if it will meet a certain
minimum criteria
this criteria includes aspects of
readiness and adequacy of property
availability
property developability
zoning transportation and utilities
if the property appears to meet the
minimum criteria it moves forward to the
certification phase
if not an assessment of the property and
recommendations for improvement
will be provided
staff will be working with public works
utilities community development and
other departments to review and discuss
the minimum criteria required for this
program
the second
portion of this business ready program
is to have build ready plans
items such as concept and site building
plan layouts
uh conceptional 3d
views of the site development and
proposed buildings
and development and construction cost
analysis and other estimates
so next
to secure funding a funding stream for
improvements
it was recommended that given the
majority of the park and airport is city
owned
and that they are the best sites for the
targeted industries identified
and because these targets would create
the jobs
needed to attract and retain the desired
workforce the improvements recommended
could merit funding through the the
general fund
other options could be
explored would be the feasibility of a
tid
or pre-approving a qualified opportunity
fund to attract a developer to construct
there's also the new mexico fund it
program that is another option to
explore
so next we need to utilize our best
marketing practices
staff has
created a dedicated web page for the
park to include an interactive web map
and available incentive programs
business development coordinates with
movida on a regular basis and staff
works together to
provide the most and complete
information regarding
available sites utilities and incentives
for prospects
and although uh not high tech installing
for sale and lease signage
indicates activity and may generate
prospects
staff will also be working with our
communications and community engagement
departments to promote the park through
all other available platforms
next is to establish a team of champions
staff is leveraging upon our business
development efforts such as our business
retention expansion program
there's also one-on-one city manager
meetings with tenants
public input provided through the market
street report and the master plan update
and recent lita projects for expansion
we also need to expect our partners to
advance this strategy
engaging and coordinating with movida
and
new mexico economic development
department and other economic
development partners
are will ensure that we're sharing the
same goal
and being broker friendly our our
network of local brokers are part of our
team
we now have a comprehensive uh
contact list of commercial brokers for
providing an
input and updates and other
communication regarding the park and
airport
so there is a need to make las cruces
known for ease in doing business
to do this we need to eliminate
administrative barriers that impede
industrial development
this all this ties to all the strategies
we've discussed today and we'll briefly
go over some of the implementations to
date
um here's just a small effort we we put
together a workflow for purchasing as an
uh helpful guide for purchasing city
owned property
and so for our implementation summary we
have the one-on-one meetings between the
tenants and city manager
our business retention and expansion
program headed by our business
development section
adoption of the lru landscape master
plan which is to be expanded to the
industrial park
the industrial park master plan updates
update is in progress
soon to have some work sessions and a
public input meeting
we've also been coordinating with
community development on our internal
processes
marketing initiatives are in progress
and we've had presentations to the edprc
here's just a picture of our interactive
web map
on the on the city's website for ease in
identifying the available property out
at the west mesa
additional information of the property
can be also accessed through this map
such as subdivision plats and recent
aerial photography
and
i would like now to briefly turn it over
to mandy gus to discuss her efforts in
the marketing implementation
thank you silly thank you mayor and
council my name is mandy gus with the
communications office and just wanted to
give you some highlights of the
marketing initiatives we've taken up to
this point and the ones we have planned
for the near future
the first one is we've done some
business highlights we contracted with
mcclure publications they also work with
our utilities group
and we've had some initial conversations
with the sun news and the las cruces
bulletin so that we can get stories
written about the businesses that are
already in the industrial park and why
that's a good place to do business
the second item is a strategic marketing
plan
what we need is an overall strategy for
the park so that we can promote it
locally but also regionally and
nationally as a good place to do
business
one of the things that's really
important for that is that we work with
our partners like mavida
who's already doing some of that work
and that our messaging is consistent
with our partners that we're saying the
same thing so whoever is hat carrying
that conversation
the businesses are always hearing the
same message
so part of that strategic marketing plan
will include identifying our target
markets and our audience
we know through the market street report
some of the key areas and key audiences
and so how do we start to reach them and
then the other part of that strategic
marketing plan is to understand our
identity and brand
the importance of keeping it simple so
we know who we are
what we stand for and then connecting
what we do
at the industrial park to the city and
the economic development brands and
actually as of friday we had a
conversation
with communications and economic
development and we will be going out
requesting quotes for um a partner to
help us come up with a strategic
marketing plan that hopefully we can
implement as soon as the new fiscal year
begins
so thank you and back to you silly
thank you mandy
so lastly it was recommended to rebrand
the park and with that came the
consideration of a name change
some of the observations taken into
account were
uh stakeholders expressed that the
park's distance is far from developed
from other development in las cruces
and it has hindered its growth there's a
perception that the park is separate
from the city
also the word mesa could be mistaken for
the city in arizona as it's the biggest
place named mesa in the united states
along the same concept in albuquerque
there are several places with the name
west mesa and them including high school
open space aquatic center and the
infamous west mesa serial killer murders
on the other hand the biggest place
named las cruces in the united states is
our city in new mexico
that said when marketing the park to
state and national firms most of them
will have no knowledge of the west mesa
industrial park and that may be
confusing
so
the recommendations is to use las cruces
in the name to capitalize on the greater
recognition that exists for las cruces
rather than west mesa
doing this also increases citizens
ownership
it also
ties it close closer to the airport
where we're naming in las cruces
international airport
next steps would be to name change the
name
of an industrial park
and initiate branding
with the creation of the logo
after receiving input from owners
stakeholders local broker community and
city staff the following options were
presented to the edprc committee for a
vote
after discussion and input from
ex-officio members
the committee voted on a combination of
the first two options and chose las
cruces innovation and industrial park
for the logo design staff wanted a
stand-alone logo that not only worked as
a tool to help unify the businesses
currently in the park but also as a
recruiting tool
looking for
for businesses looking to expand or
relocate
a symbol that shows the unity of these
diverse businesses coming together in
one cohesive park
so it has multiple components that form
one symbol
here are the three options presented as
you can see they are similar with
different configurations and colors the
symbol gives the appearance of
industrial buildings at the park
and it incorporates a native plant for
the
natural landscape of the park it adds an
organic element to soften the strictly
industrial look
and since the plant is looming it hence
the idea of life and new growth
staff also chose this color scheme and
branding so it aligns with the airport
branding
after discussion and consideration the
edprc committee voted on option three as
the new logo
[Music]
and with that we asked council for
guidance to move forward on the proposed
branding initiatives and open it up for
discussion
thank you
okay so thanks and we've got councillor
vasquez and councilman cuomo
thank you mayor uh thank you felicia for
that presentation um and mandy as well
um
yes i think it's exciting to to be
experiencing some different changes to
our economic development tools that we
have here in our city
in particular i know
the industrial park has just had a lot
of challenges um in terms of the
recruitment of
of long-term um businesses tenants um uh
and i think what i've heard in the past
is definitely that um
that there's the spec building piece of
the of the equation right i think i've
heard that also in the industrial park
in santa teresa that oftentimes
companies are really just wanting to
come in um and not necessarily invest in
a whole new build out for a
manufacturing facility or assembly or
whatever it might be because of the
prohibitive costs associated with that
especially if you are um like many
businesses i'm sure uncertain of their
economic future so they're just looking
for
warehouse space right that they can
repurpose into whatever or office space
that they can repurpose um and they they
can sign a lease rather than have to um
then build out an entire new facility
that they may not be able to pay for
later on um so i guess the question on
on
on that and and if this is um if uh
celica if you if you don't have some of
these answers that's totally fine i'm
just um maybe somebody on staff does but
um i would say what what are the
have there been conversations around
either the city or a private developer
investing in spec space at the
industrial park to date
thank you
councillor vasquez for the question
i know prior to
last year's efforts that there was
discussion
i think that
the
where we were at at the time
we didn't have all the answers and
um i believe that uh there's that lack
of the unknowns at the at the park as
far as uh infrastructure
that um developers don't seem to just
want to jump in and do something so i
think that
by having this
certified site program
promoted um i think we would have a
better turnout you know as far as the
developers interest
um
like i said it it it gives um
it answers some of those uh
unknowns and it's less risky for them
uh
to be able to provide those answers for
them ahead of time
thank you so that that makes sense and i
i think what part of what i'm thinking
of in terms of some of the industrial
parks i have seen that are successful um
especially down in the border region and
santa teresa are they all have kind of a
niche right the industrial park serves a
certain industry or a certain sector um
and and so it becomes attractive for
those businesses because they they are
confident that a business that has
similar services is already set up there
and is being successful and so
you know for santa teresa it's all about
the near shoring right all the logistics
the transportation the light assembly of
products that have already been
manufactured in mexico
they kind of get finished off or get
shipped out of santa teresa or get
stored there
and so that's that you know so any
business that's doing business with
mexico finds an advantage of being
in santa teresa for all those reasons uh
for us i know we have you know the
cheese factory we have um we used to
have real magnet wire we have um i think
alaska structures is in the region as
well in that general vicinity and so um
it's kind of a
some different businesses right so um is
there any thought um to
uh and i think this is important with
the conversation around rebranding
is to developing a niche for our
industrial park so that we can say like
we serve or we specialize in like these
types of industries um uh
that would attract and and maybe even
help us build out that infrastructure
that serves that particular sector um
and maybe uh it becomes more attractive
to those businesses um and i see dr
martinez here has her uh her hand up and
so i'll lip
can like
yes good afternoon mayor and city
council um council member vasquez thank
you for that question
um as uh celicia mentioned we've been in
a discovery process for almost two years
now
um we are at a at a point in which uh we
see the next steps possible
and the the branding opportunity as to
go after those niche opportunities you
mentioned in our uh in the um additional
pieces to the report that celicia
referenced to
also talked about the targeted
industries as niche industries
the top three are advanced manufacturing
and that links to
the possibilities we have in aviation on
manual systems and in general aviation
just for the nature of being next to the
airport which was part of the original
thinking when we created the industrial
park adjacent to the airport the second
one is
value-added agriculture which would tie
to the cheese factory but other
opportunities we have for our region as
we know
the the chile industry
onions uh pecans all of those are very
important for our region and for the
most part right now we we produce the
raw materials and export those so how do
we build
from from that and gaining value
as an opportunity for additional growth
for our city and also leveraging on the
assets that we have such as the
university and the research
done there so we're in conversations
with nmsu
and and we hope that that's that's a
a real potential error for us to grow
and the third one is um
let's see uh advanced manufacturing
um so it ties to the advanced
manufacturing ties to the uh defense
also
that we have as an opportunity um being
next to white sands missile range and
and other
um military opportunities we have in the
area
and so
we are preparing uh for for big wins and
leverage upon the momentum that we
create
um at this point i i believe these steps
that we're taking right now is to
um to help us have the tools that we can
utilize for for to build on that
excitement and so um
we also the master plan update in the
nostra park is giving us a lot of
answers on in terms of infrastructure
we're working closely with our utilities
department and
our director there has been very
supportive uh to let us know if there is
a
company for us to reach out to them and
for us to figure out a solution together
and so all of those pieces are coming
together for us to
really go full force on opportunities as
well
um and and really be very vocalized in
recruitment efforts
thank you dr martinez um
yeah i think thank you for letting me in
on some of that insight of the the work
that's taken place
um i should probably read that report
and learn a little bit more about the
discovery process uh you know i think
this is when we talk about bringing jobs
right and the opportunity to have
high or good paying jobs um i think this
the industrial park is certainly a big
piece of that and i know ifos probably
squared in on on this as well with his
economic development background and so
um you know i think part of the
correct me if i'm wrong but part of the
reason that
different businesses set up in
industrial parks is they have shared
services
so that they can that infrastructure
that felicia was mentioning um is
attracts businesses right because they
don't have to worry about putting in
a certain type of let's say electrical
conduit or
broadband or
um i think what would be great for our
case would be like
what about clean energy right if what if
we had a solar field big enough to power
you know these spec buildings and so
these businesses could do business here
and then say hey we are actually a
hundred percent solar powered you know i
would choose i would if i was going to
el paso or las cruces and i had an
option of saying i'm 100 solar powered
you know that might be a reason to go to
the las cruces industrial park rather
than somebody else
so just another quick question dr
martinez in terms of the infrastructure
piece of things are there thoughts
around like you know recycling water or
clean energy development or
um you know some other type of
environmentally or eco-friendly type of
infrastructure that we could put in that
would be attractive to businesses
councilor vazquez thank you for for
those questions uh currently we don't
have any
anything specific related to renewable
energy
um
the the results from this uh state
legislative session will be of great
importance if if the virtual metering
it's an option then that would open up a
lot of different opportunities for us
in in the work that we have done in the
recent years
has involved um setting the airport in
that direction already so
um
how can we build on on what we have
accomplished at the airport such as um
having solar panels to use for the
tenants already there um
there was also an upgrade to led lights
uh that that really sends another
message
um
i i believe uh mr andy hume is is
present with us and there uh there are
additional elements that are being done
at the airport such as um av charges
that will be
there as well and as part of the
update to the master plan actually there
is a piece that the consultants are
recommending for us to
include as part of the the growth
as more tenants are located in the
industrial park
so a lot of things are
happening and definitely the renewable
or the
um earthly friendly approaches would be
something that could differentiate us
from from other
cities
and specifically from
industrial growth as well
thank you dr martinez um yeah i'm just
thinking about that innovative
innovation part of it right innovation
and industrial park if i was gonna be a
tenant for sure i'd be like well what's
the innovative part what what what is
innovative about this park versus
another park and so i think that's a um
perhaps a good option to explore but i'm
sure you you
you have been looking at a variety of
different options and so thank you um
the other thing too is just around i
guess the strategy of targeting um
tenants i think
um
oftentimes it's harder to it's harder to
attract those big tenants you know i
think we've seen we've seen it here
where we've we're always searching for
that you know a hundred job crea like
person job creator 200 person you know
fill big boxes and phil
and so i guess
just another thought around the spec
space part of things is if you could
fill the industrial park with 20
companies each with 10 employees or 15
employees you know to me that's just as
successful as bringing in you know one
or two big um employers
and so i think the spec space would
really help in in doing that right to be
able to bring in um somebody again with
those assets that they they would be
proud to to be in the industrial park
might come with some incentives um but
but also they feel um again not tied
down to have to do a brand new build out
uh because we know often if those build
outs leave and their purpose built then
there's going to be really hard to
market them to another company if it's
already if it's been purpose built in
the future so
other than that i i thank you cilicia
thank you dr martinez um i think
definitely
look forward to seeing both the branding
effort going with something to promote
in addition to just the new marketing
plan i think we need some real um real
infrastructure in the ground a real plan
um that i know you guys are working on
so thank you i'm excited for this thank
you mayor
thanks counselor
uh let's see who's next
councilman cuomo
thank you mayor um yes thank you so much
felicia for that presentation i'm glad
to hear that you are the point person if
i already knew that and forgot i deeply
apologize
my brain is mush these days so um i'm
glad to see that we do have that point
person
um thank you so much for all the updates
this is really incredible the last
conversation i think i had um with maybe
the principal investigator i'm not
really sure but i think it was back in
september so i feel like there's a lot
of things that have changed um and i
really appreciate that
um i wanted to ask in terms of
rebranding um
i i think part of that was also like
actual physical some physical rebranding
right and beautification efforts i'm
curious
um if you have any updates on on that
end
thank you councillor benkoma
um yes we one of the top five action
items is to improve the entrances and
and landscaping so we're we're uh gonna
be we're we'll we're working with um the
consultant
that andy hume had for the airport will
be tying that together
as well so that is a up and coming and
one of the priorities
that's great thank you so much i that's
really good to hear i think that was one
of the biggest things i had heard from
other stakeholders just in terms of how
it looked um so that's really good
um another
thing that i had heard in those past
conversations was about they're not
being which i think the map that you
showed us is definitely um part of this
but people were saying that there wasn't
a clear path to get business status it
was very unclear about um buying and
leasing um do you feel like that has
sort of been remediated with the map
that you showed us and
um some of the other tools
um yes we were definitely targeting um
those efforts with the map and also a
easy to um view
workflow as to where you know because
the first question is how do how do i
put an offer in on this land so um just
having that internal workflow process
and something work that'll guide them
what's the next step what's the next
step so um i think we've accomplished
that in those two items
okay great and so now for a business
company
that was interested in potentially
leasing buying property out there they
would know to come to you right because
i knew before it was sort of maybe they
go to mavita maybe they go
on their own but now it's sort of been
made clear that they come to you as the
point person
that is correct and we also do work with
movita because they do get leads that we
don't get directly um so elizabeth and i
um work very closely together uh to to
work on on a game plan for what's next
because sometimes they might be looking
at incentives and that's why they go
through um movida and and elizabeth for
lita projects so
um that makes sense yeah
um the other issue
um that had been raised was the issue of
broadband and they're not being
broadband access out there is that
um something in the works
it is um
counselor ben como we
our master plan consultants have reached
out to
centurylink and we have uh new
information
where it the the
the perception
might have seemed worse than what it was
we've found that there are vaults out
there um
and every tenant is within about i think
1800 feet from a vault so there is um
access to broadband out there and it
just it's just a matter of you know what
is still needed to get everybody on to
broadband and so those conversations and
discussions are moving forward
good good good because i you know
people had voiced that as a huge barrier
so i'm glad to hear you say that maybe
it wasn't that big of a barrier but then
even the barriers that did exist are
getting work done
um
i had in my notes from that meeting as
well a couple things that i
they're not my notes aren't very clear
so forgive me um but i want to ask
anyway because i think they were
important um there was an is there was
talking about the road between the park
and um santa teresa is that um part of
these conversations is that um i'm not
sure i know that we had talked about it
briefly in our mpo but i know that was a
huge sort of factor right to get more
traffic to the industrial park the las
cruces industrial and innovation park
um and so i'm curious um celicia if you
have any updates on that
uh counselor ben como i i'm not chris
elda might have more information i don't
think we've had recent discussions on
that um but looking at some of the the
minimum requirements that i've gotten
for the for the site um certified site
i did get if if we want to market the
industrial park as rail served the
industrial park must be served or be
able to be served within 12 months by
rail so that's just something that we
need to
have you know looking forward i you know
and maybe something that we can bring up
in future discussions
mayor mr mayor city council councilor
um celicia is correct
we have had brief conversations on this
topic however because of the large level
of investment that this will require
that hasn't been
um
brought to
action items
it has been discussed with our npo
and
i i feel that
um
from where we started like three years
ago
we needed to have a lot of um late work
to get us to where we are now
um i believe if we are able to increase
the demand from overall tenants we will
address issues of
building space and developers being
interested in investing there and then
as we have an increased demand then we
can explore this this other larger
investments and so um i i feel that it's
a building
block process and and we are excited to
be here
um
but but we have a long way to go uh in
terms of opportunities and possibilities
so we'll we'll keep that in mind and
definitely um railroad may be an
opportunity in the future
but we also have to
evaluate the cost versus the return
given given the nearby industrial park
in santa teresa with those capabilities
great thank you for that update dr
martinez um and since you're on or maybe
or um celicia i had a note here about
the state land office is there issues
still regarding
land out there and
um
or partnerships with the state land
office in the city
um mr mayor council member um
[Music]
councillor ben como i'm not aware of
specific issues um i matched with the um
the state land maybe a year and a half
ago when mr steve burke came on board
and i know that they have been in
conversations with community development
in other items but i'm not aware of
specific issues
that we may have
that need to be resolved if you have
additional information we'll appreciate
it to follow up on them
no you know what i just had this um in
that discussion i had a little note
about the state land office and i wasn't
sure about what maybe you thought you
would enlighten me but that's okay don't
worry about it and then we have i mean
many of our parcels are neighbor to the
state office as well as blm but i'm not
aware of a specific item
[Music]
or issue or issue correct
okay that's good
um honestly lastly um the last comment i
had actually was very similar to
counselor vasquez's point on
green infrastructure or even green
manufacturing
that i think could really be
a huge industry as the state even
invests in a green economy more and more
um so i think for me i'd also love to
make a push for
that industry to be included in the
advanced manufacturing portion of your
targeted industries because
um i mean i really think um that that
you know the industrial park is just a
huge potential and i think that kind of
manufacturing um would bring a lot of
really great quality jobs to to our
community so um i'll just do it one last
push for that myself as well and thank
you both very much
before i get to councillor abate to
study council bring home years ago i'd
say probably eight years ago
state commissioner ray powell and i we
had an agreement that anytime we did any
state land
the city did anything or worked in
unison with the state land office and it
could have been confused for that
because i know there may have been some
land out in that area but to my
knowledge there isn't
uh counselor rebate to study
thank you mayor and thank you so much
for the presentation um
i think most of my questions actually
got answered by counselor ben cuomo but
i just wanted to circle back real fast
on the conversation on
the relationship with mavida and if
they've been able to
really help
secure
businesses to this area and how that
relationship works because you did say
also that there was a little bit
of
back and forth on
where people should go to and that type
of issue so if i could just have a
little bit enlightenment on that thanks
thank you counselor beta stewbe um yes
um
[Music]
elizabeth teters and and i
work closely together with um davin
and
we do have
she has regular meetings with and
includes me in on any type of
questions they might have
regarding
infrastructure or
time
that the time it takes to
process
just the whole processing of everything
that's usually what the questions come
about
is if they're purchasing city land how
long does it take from start to finish
um because that's something that you
know time you know time to market is is
very crucial
um so
i i also want to um
to let you know that this um certified
site
program that we've been talking about i
i spoke to a
as a site selector and i'm sure
mr davin lopez could probably attest to
this but he he told
me that straight out sometimes when he
there he's looking for his clients
and there's not
uh a park that doesn't have that doesn't
have these certified sites they don't
even look at them
they they just move on to the next one
so i think that this is a
big part
of how to get um these site selectors to
look at las cruces
be it just being able to market that in
itself is going to tremendously help
but yes
being able to share the same
vision
with movida and all of our economic
development partners
is one of our goals
moving forward so that way there isn't
any confusion
okay great thank you i appreciate that
sorry for the background noise if you
can hear that
um
so with that in mind um
there
has there been any direct um businesses
that have joined this site because of
the recommendation or the assistance of
media to this specific uh industrial
park
thank you for the question um yes and
and although new to this whole um
process um
in speaking to our land uh manager bill
hamm
he he mentioned that
um this is the most interest that we've
had in the west mesa industrial park
ever since he's been
employed at the city so
movida's efforts have been a big
a big help and just coordinating with
our city and being more involved i think
has
has brought attention to the industrial
park
thank you and dr martinez i see you're
on it
yes good afternoon again
mayor
members of the council dr martinez you
kind of fade in and out i don't know if
you maybe can speak closer to the
microphone i'm gonna turn off my video
mayor um i'm having some uh internet
connections
can you hear me better now yes
absolutely okay um counselor beta stewie
um actually um to expand on on what's
lisa mentioned
a couple of years ago we actually um
in in our contract agreement with novida
we made the industrial park a priority
area
last year we emphasized that and during
the last months we have really worked
closely with them
to to ensure that we are
coordinating efforts in terms of the
information sharing but also the the
incentives
the workforce pieces to all of this and
as you
as you voted last
week on a resolution that that would be
our first win
at the industrial park with an expansion
of a current business that we have as a
tenant
in the works we have uh maybe three or
four additional projects that will be
coming to you
um hopefully they're all we have
submitted proposals and they're all
they all are located in uh in the
industrial park
and so hopefully we can bring all of
those to you
um to build upon this this momentum as
well um last year we actually worked on
a with a commercial broker
that um for a business to relocate there
and so that that land uh sale has taken
place
and in the business um
it's it's starting to uh start
construction and so it's um
it's it takes economic development it's
an effort of many partners working
together towards the same vision and so
that's why it's alicia um
um has highlighted for all of us to work
towards that one one vision one mission
so um we look forward to bringing to
council many more uh successes from from
those coordinated efforts
thank you for that dr martinez thank you
so yeah that's all the questions i have
here
counselor sword did you have uh another
question
oh more so comments mr mayor um
i i apologize if i missed
um the presentation as far as uh sectors
or areas in which we want to focus
our um
marketing
for the las cruces
innovation industrial park
um
two of our aerospace we keep getting uh
aerospace uh inquiries on the industrial
park by way of movida um excellent
sector to to to locate there
um and also renewable energy that
um counselor bencomo commented on one of
the six
businesses that are very interested in
moving here
deals with solar products so yes it's
going to be
a big thing about renewable energy out
there too of course we have already the
big solar array that generates
electricity now
and um
and uh so there's gonna be future ones
there
um
i'm very interested in what these
uh
what the formula for incentives is going
to end up being once you get that done i
appreciate taking a look at that if you
could send it to me
um
and then i got a question
on that is
what is a bolt
dealing with
internet service
what is it volt volt
olt i think it's the way i understood it
isn't that a name of a company
that
works with um
they do a lot of work with apple
iphones and ipads
used to be there in the
in the old um
first national bank building i don't
know what you call it now you know the
um
electronic caregiver building
volt used to be in there
well i miss
mentioned that as being connected to
uh the internet for us a location out
there at the
las cruces industrial park
thank you counselor serg um
you know um i
don't have
you know
the knowledge of how
um century league
connects
but from what my understanding is
um
every so every so often they need to
have this vault and this is where they
connect
to for enter for the broadband
um and i can get you more information on
that um i didn't correctly
too now that's okay i'm getting the
picture now and starting to make sense
it looks like a junction box where
uh there's several
connections to come together to go on to
a bigger
i believe you're correct
yeah
um yeah we got to remember not to call
it the west mesa park anymore
it's the las cruces innovation in
industrial park so try really hard to
remember
um
i i think uh we need to um
address the place up to let's keep in
mind we need to
um make it look prettier a little better
landscaping here and there we did make a
big step to start with here two years
ago i think it was it was brought to my
attention by one of the businesses out
there that
x2 and stat they said it didn't look
very nice and so we did make a little a
good step but we need to improve on it
some more so that's a good part of what
we're doing there too of course thank
you very much mayor and thank you all
for presentation and all the
informations
looks like ifo has his hand up people do
you want to say something
thank you mayor
uh yeah i don't really want to take away
from the presentation uh i really
appreciate our
our economic development department
felicia and dr martinez and team
uh for everything they're doing to to
push push this part forward and
and accomplish our objectives
i just want to make a statement because
i want to take any opportunity i can
mayor council just to be honest i
i really want to to make it known
how much of a jam this park is this
industrial park is now there's a lot of
things we talked about that need
improvement
but i can tell you right now we're it's
good enough for us to be competitive and
so what we're waiting on is is this name
change so that as soon as the the names
change
we can go out and start marketing what
we do have now
as we're doing that we we certainly
have a lot to do as far as
uh building
you know the aesthetics out there and
doing some things
to make it more attractive
but i just want to say that
you know coming from an outsider coming
in
we're we have a gem and we should be
getting big companies we should be going
after these companies that are landing
elsewhere in the region
when we talk about infrastructure i want
to make it known we have infrastructure
there
so we have power we have the utilities
there we have
we have land even from the broadband
perspective you know yeah the vaults are
just points of connection that you can
pull from
uh but we we have it out there even when
we're talking about green and renewable
energy
i've recruited companies that have their
main in their mission statement
uh
they they focus and promote green and
renewable energy
they're not necessarily looking at big
solar fields out there because they can
they can buy renewable energy on the
grid
and so
you know things that that would even go
further is maybe incentive incentivizing
putting in policy that incentivizes
these companies to come
but we have everything it it everything
we re we need right now
to be competitive and so we're all
trapping at the bit to get this name
change done
so that we can go out i think to me i
didn't really matter what the name was
as long as we're set on it and we're not
going to change it a few months down the
road
so as soon as as soon as we get this
name change done
the goal is to make the world know who
what this what mark is
and and who we are and so
uh this logo this name change big step
uh it's a big step forward so that we
can go and and tout again what we have
now
of course there's there's a plan in
place there's a master plan in place i
appreciate our economic development
department pushing forward and trying to
uh trying to better we talked about flex
space as well
when you're going after a certain size
of company flex space is important
um
[Music]
and and that's certainly certainly
something we can put in there we
certainly have the land to do it
uh and then and then the other the other
comment was um you know focusing in on a
specific sector
what's
what's really neat about about this park
and even the city of las cruces we have
so many sectors that we can go after now
if we don't focus in that could be a
challenge because there's so many
opportunities
uh from aerospace to
added value agriculture to
film
uh i mean there's just
there's just so much opportunities to go
after and so right now it's kind of hard
to to
you know maybe limit ourselves
because there is the opportunity out
there to go out and go out after these
uh
all these different the best of all
these sectors but
um again my foremost mayor and council
just really wanted to
to make sure that's known to everybody
that what we have right now like we
don't have to wait right now
we should be very competitive we have
enough to compete right now
thank you
thanks evil uh before i get to
councillor vasquez i just wanted to
share just give you a little bit of
insight that i know that you're still
getting all kinds of information
learning all so many things about las
cruces and and the county um but so let
me just give you some timelines so
movida
was started in 1993
by uh mayor ruben smith you know that
guy who sometimes comes and gives us a
hard time once in a while
and and then um the industrial park that
was actually his brainchild he did that
in 96 or 97.
and things were doing pretty good in
fact when mevita would always
fine you know when they came across
businesses that was the that's how ray
ray magnet and and the cheese fact
company and and alaska structures and
all those started working pretty good
but then
but then when they uh opened up the pete
domenici freeway which helped really
expand the santa teresa border opening
everything kind of dried up so you i
think you you're right to think of
different sectors that we probably can
focus on such as aerospace because we're
not going to compete with santa teresa
there's just no way they have that
border crossing there they have the rail
there now they even have the jet uh
you can fly in your planes and get it
you know um past and then onward so that
it's pretty tough to beat in fact it's
the number one port in the entire state
eats out bernalillo so
uh one one one food for thought is years
ago there was a company called staumen
farms
and mr stalman was very innovative he
thought of having provided he actually
had houses for his employees they could
actually live there
now i'm not saying we build houses but i
think if there's any conversation that
you or your team has
i mean there's enough room over there
for housing and you know can imagine if
they had that and they could do that for
their employees and you know
that's a that's a nice benefit to have
that they could they could really
factor in there so i just don't know if
all the utilities there i think they are
i don't know if delilah
is on the call but she probably is but i
would think that might be the case so i
just want to throw that out there
so that kind of give you
some background as to why it's so
difficult because of that border
crossing in santa teresa it's just so
difficult you know for them to
to choose there over here but if you
start focusing on aerospace and airport
and and the um
the uh darn it with the thing yeah the
space um
space port uh then i think that's really
the way to go
yes i i don't know if you remember but
we discussed a while back maybe several
years now uh there is a little
subdivision there located on the west
mesa that is uh just
closer i
on the
uh north side of i-10 but it's uh
towards the city
um we talked about having sewer put in
there and so forth i remember it was
discussion i don't think it was ever
developed though but it's it's in the
plan
good good we're talking about housing
yeah
okay so we've got council vasquez and
council bencomo
thank you mayor thank you for yeah this
great discussion on the potential for
the park
uh potential is the right word you know
i think we definitely want to develop it
we have plenty of land um we're in a
very unique situation in that sense um
that gives us some real competitive
um opportunities
the one thing i wanted to add is on the
value added agriculture products and i
didn't know i didn't think about this
before but
i'm pretty sure after i get off the
council i'm gonna i'm gonna invest in
the park and i'm gonna start a cannabis
business at the industrial park uh right
because
um if you're looking for you know these
companies that uh mayor i know you'd
appreciate having them a little bit
further away from the city um but
they're looking for the space right
they're looking for this warehouse space
again i mentioned this before but a
bunch of our
i think forty percent of the total
revenue for the state is going to come
from texas for this thing and so
what better way than actually have those
products grown here um and and
distributed around the state and so um i
know
i know the uh some of the concern around
the growing of of recreational cannabis
is the water issues right it's a pretty
water intensive crop um and so you know
if we can actually find a solution or
even build in the infrastructure for
things like the recycling of this water
um
and have some type of system that would
make it super attractive for these
investors to come in and um local
businesses to also come in and
participate um that might be a place
where uh where we could also attract
that industry and if it does and this
bill passes yeah in the next couple
weeks uh you know probably won't be you
know until july uh to the next fiscal
year where this is legal and it gives us
time to start setting up
some opportunities and even talking to
potential investors now for the park
there so thank you mayor
i support uh cbd products
now smoking dope that's another story
okay counselor in como
thank you
mayor um
totally support that council vasquez i
think that's a great idea
um
additionally mayor i think the idea of
housing is honestly i haven't thought
about that either i think that's
excellent i mean del cerro practically
you know was formed by stamen right and
and i mean i think that's an excellent
idea the only other issue the only
and pretty giant issue would be
transportation but i think that that
could also be a huge possibility i think
councilor flores even mentioned that
last week when we were talking to the
cheese factory um i mean i would even
love to see some sort of like park and
ride or some sort of system that um
allows people to get up there to go to
work they don't have to drive they can
just someone else can drive them
um and if there's even some sort of
housing development
that would be incredibly important some
sort of um
free public transportation that can get
people in and back from the city in a
timely manner so i i mean i think again
um i'm excited to have ifo on board with
us as we talk about the this development
as we talk about the um las cruces
um industrial innovation park did i say
that right cbc is it the other way
around innovation and infrastructure
um but i honestly i think this this
this idea is a huge possibility and i'm
not you know and even with the the idea
of the road that connects the industrial
park to santa teresa i'm not even
talking about competing with santa
teresa i don't even think that we would
want to do that right it's such a huge
port of entry for the southern border
region
but really just connectivity and
partnership i think it would be such a
good opportunity
very good so um
celicia did you need us to what did you
need from from this was this more of an
update did you need for us we don't have
to vote on that name do we i mean it's
already
you know do you need us to concur on
that name
or you're going to be bringing this to
council for or
something um no counselor we i just
wanted to update and and just get your
you know guidance to just move forward
with with the efforts i see it okay
great
ifo did you have something you have your
hand up
you just forget to put it down i'm sorry
man i just forgot okay i thought this
was the first it was going to talk two
times man in the next in 10 minutes
i'm just kidding i'm just messing with
you okay
all right very good so that's it uh
celicia
that's all thank you great well good job
i like it very good information
and uh congratulations to um dr martinez
and her team
uh for and ifo for moving this forward
because um yeah the west the uh that
park over there has been stagnant for a
while so
i'm sure those people want some
neighbors out there
okay so next we're gonna go to the las
cruces economic update
uh it's eager he got one moment
okay
this is a silly question but you work
for the city
i do i do yeah okay nice to make your
acquaintance
yeah i started here in october and i've
loved it so far
all right can you see my screen
oh make it a hundred thousand a year
working at home that's probably pretty
cool pretty cool gig
yes we can
okay
all right
this is kyle eager from the las cruces
economic development department
i'm excited to present
the 2020 quarter four economic update
in this economic update we'll cover the
following indicators
las cruces unemployment rate
total employment
the number of new snap cases
the number of new business registrations
median listing price
number of new construction permits
and industry specific employment
our first indicator is the unemployment
rate
so the unemployment rate is the
proportion of the labor force
that can't find work
now the labor force
consists of those that are looking for a
job
and those that have a job so it doesn't
include those that cannot find work
so for example the labor force does not
include children and the elderly
it also doesn't
include a group called discouraged
workers
now discouraged workers are working age
adults
that can't find work
this graph compares the unemployment
rate
for 2020 and 2019
by month
and we see that
the beginning of 2020 the unemployment
rate was comparable to how it was in
2019.
then starting in march the unemployment
rate
began to rise due to the copen 19
restrictions
and then it shot up in in april to 12.3
percent
in may in june it declined somewhat as
those restrictions were relaxed
but then again due to the
the july 13th restrictions the
unemployment rate shot up to 13.6
then from
july to november the unemployment rate
has dropped
and then as
the most recent data which is december
2020 stands at 7.7 percent
so the the two
takeaways from this graph are
one
the unemployment rate has been higher in
every month in 2020
compared to 2019
and two that the unemployment rate has
been extremely volatile
where we've observed
large month-to-month swings in the
unemployment rate
largely due to the copa 19 restrictions
so as as mentioned before the
unemployment rate
is the percent of the labor force
they can't find work
an
implication of that
is that changes in the unemployment rate
could result from more people leaving
the labor market
and it might not necessarily signal an
improvement
in labor market conditions
that's why
as is conventional
it's important to look at total
employment as well
so this graph compares the number of
employed individuals for the city of las
cruces for the years
2020 and 2019
and these numbers
over each bar represent the number of
employed individuals and thousands
so we see that
from january to march the number of
employed individuals was actually higher
in 2020 than it was in 2019
then due to the covet restrictions we
see a sharp decline in april
a slight recovery in may
in june
and then
due to the july 13th restrictions
another
decline
uh in july and august
in september
it was a good month for employment we
gained a lot of jobs
but since
september a total employment for the
city of las cruces has been stagnant
so
the main takeaway from this
is that
you know since april
total employment in 2020
has been lower than it was in in 2019.
another important indicator is the
number of new snap cases
so the reason why this is an important
indicator is that
in order to qualify for snap
your income has to fall below a certain
level
so an increase in the number of snap
cases signals that income has gone down
so this data
is available on the county level not on
the city level
so this graph compares the total number
of snap cases
for between 2020 and 2019 by month
and so the pattern follows the pattern
and employ for total employment somewhat
um from january to march
the number of
snap cases was comparable in 2020 to how
it was in 2019
then in april the number of cases
rose considerably
and then from april to
august
it's been rising
and if you recall from the previous
graph
uh september was a good month in terms
of employment growth
and that corresponds to a decline in the
number of snap cases for september
2020.
and then
october and november is it has the
number of new snap cases has increased
and uh november
uh 2020 is the most recent month we have
data on
another important indicator is the
number of new business registrations
this is an important indicator because
new
business formation is associated with
new job creation
so this graph compares the number of new
business registrations for
2020 and 2019 by month
so the year started out strong in
january february and march
with the number of new business
registrations in 2020 exceeding the
number in 2019.
however in in april through
april through june
that's when
you know just the amount of uncertainty
about the future market
the number of new business registrations
declined considerably compared to the
previous year
um and then overall from august to
december the general pattern has been
a fewer number of business registrations
compared to the previous year
so the key takeaway from this graph is
that the year started out strong and
then
cope it happened
what is
fascinating is that despite the weak
labor market
in las cruces
real estate prices in las cruces msa
have been increasing since 2019
and so this graph compares
the median listing price for las cruces
msa as long as
along with el paso
and albuquerque
and the reason why
we're comparing ourselves to el paso and
albuquerque
is we're trying i'm trying to show that
you know
these
these trends in uh
uh median listing price they're not
unique to
las cruces they're
part of a larger regional regional trend
and so again since 2019
the median listing price has increased
and as we would expect that this
increase in
in real estate prices
uh corresponds to
like a booming construction
so this graph compares the number of new
construction permits
both residential and commercial
for 2020 and 2019
by month
and we see that for virtually every
month
the number of new construction permits
in 2020
has exceeded the number in 2019.
so our last indicator is
industry specific employment for the
city of las cruces
now as you're aware cobia 19 has
adversely impacted some industries more
than others
and we have industry
employment data for the city
however the bureau of labor statistics
releases that data with a considerable
lag
so the most recent
data we have is quarter 3
2020.
and so this table shows employment
for each industry for 2020 for 29 for
2019 and then the year to date change
as well as the year-to-date percentage
change
and as we would expect the industry that
has been the hardest hit
has been accommodations and food
services
uh with nearly a 1500
job decline from the previous year
another industry that's been hit hard is
health care and social assistance
and as i've investigated
what industries
composed that compose healthcare and
social assistance
a lot of that employment is
a decline in
a daycare employment
you'll you probably also
notice that administrative and support
services have seen a
large decline in employment
however as i've
i've kind of dived into the data deeper
the reason for that is
um call centers are classified under
that industry so call centers are
classified under administrative and
support services
and
the city lost
i believe two large
call centers this last year
so that that isn't necessarily
uh cobit related
but all in all the
um in in terms of
total employment we're
about
7.56 percent less than we were
in the previous year
so the key takeaways from this economic
update is that
employment conditions are significantly
worse off in 2020 verse 2019
and accommodations and food services
have seen have been impacted the most by
these copen 19 shutdowns
despite this you know real the real
estate market has been strong since 2019
and i um i welcome your questions
you kyle
see who has uh that was actually pretty
interesting a lot of data you gave us
and um
um
glad to see some of the numbers starting
to improve
uh counselor flotus and councillor baker
stewie
thank you mayor and thank you mr eager
so um
do you draw any assumptions based on the
information that you have
mayor ken castro flores
um
i i'm not sure i understand the question
okay
she wants you to be an economist
yeah because i'm not an economist
otherwise i could do a lot now uh
seriously um
[Music]
for example um
you
just go back to this to the slide you
had just a second ago
um
or let's see i think it's slide
eight
okay maybe seven the one on in
employment
so
and and even in and even the one on
housing okay so you you have all this
data and
i believe you were saying that
all the indicators or all of the
measurements are due to cobit
is is that necessarily a correct
deduction or assumption
i mean if it's an assumptions and
assumption but so
you're just showing the data and we're
supposed to say oh okay it's because of
coving
okay oh councilman flores so are you
asking
like how
how confident am i that the decline in
employment is due to cobit
as opposed to some other reason
or other factors
well
i believe as an economist that's what
you would that's how you would word it
right
so
yeah so i mean these
these changes in employment or excuse me
councillor flores i had to respond to
your question uh these changes in
employment correspond with
the changes in
copit restrictions
and
uh they're matched on the national level
um as well as i had pointed out that
uh in
in
in july the july 13th
uh restrictions
so if you look at any
county in las cruces you'll see
kind of that same any county in new
mexico excuse me if you look at any
county in new mexico you'll see that
same pattern
where
you'll
we see an initial decline in in april
and then another decline in in july
so these numbers on on slide 4
say take
say july
or
yeah there's like about
that's about a six percent uh difference
5.5 percent difference
is that um i think that right um
is that a significant
measurement uh
how many jobs does that represent
you don't know that i mean these are
just stats uh statistics
counselor flores you want to know how
many jaws is that you're talking
so i
i just
you know i want to know
the this is from the bureau of labor
statistics and this is our local area
unemployment statistics so we're
comparing two years uh 20 uh 2020 to
and i wonder what i wonder what 2018 and
2017 look like to see if we have a clear
picture
i mean
i i think we're all assuming that i
think that the biggest factor
here might be covent i don't know i just
want to weed all of that out
but it looks like that can't be done you
just take the numbers and and then you
do whatever you want with those but what
about um
the one question i've always wanted to
have an answer to and i probably would
never get it
is
um what who
who reports the data
and how does bls collect this
information regarding unemployment and i
would um
and vis-a-vis your statement
that um
the percentage of the labor force that
can't find work
or
how does a bls know that they can't find
work and then you also mention those who
won't have given up on finding work
yeah yeah i'm gonna dr martinez wants to
jump in but i'll tell you this much
council floyd is i don't know how i was
lucky that i get sent a questionnaire
every few months and i have to report
how many employees i have if i've added
more if i've taken more and i think that
they probably take that uh survey from
other businesses and they compile it
anyways but i'm going to let dr
is that a survey from the bls
yes
okay well thank you for sharing that
that that helps me understand it a
little bit more thank you
dr martinez did you have your hand up
for a reason
yes sir um
mr mayor council members and counselor
flores so the purpose of this
presentation is to provide you with a
regular update on what the economic
indicators are for the city um we did
this uh every quarter uh and then we had
some transitions within the team and
that stopped so today's presentation is
the first person to intro presentation
on that economic outlook that we will
come back to you every quarter
and um
mr kyle uh eager is our new economist so
going back to your to your question
about employment and unemployment um
kyle if you go to uh slide number three
please
you know i was just joking i didn't know
he was an economist so that's pretty
good yeah he's he's our economist and my
apologies for not highlighting that
prior to his presentation
um so this is part of a regular update
you will receive every quarter
so um counselor flores as as you can see
um from from this slide
um there is a direct correlation between
the public health orders and the level
of unemployment that you see um in in
2020 data
the big take away from this data and the
unimp and the employment
data
is that um
the numbers that we have at the
beginning of 2020
um where
for the first time i believe uh
francisco may correct me on this one
for the first time we had higher numbers
in
um or lower numbers in unemployment that
we did in
uh from the great recession so we were
at the verge of growing beyond
2008 numbers and then the public health
orders came about and and that took us
back to really high numbers of
unemployment so um in july we were in
the double digit unemployment which that
represented
13.6 percent which is
really high number for our city as you
can see we started the year at 5.3 and
that's very close to full employment
which means that whoever wants to find a
job can look for a job um
and so francisco you have additional
comments on that
thank you very much mr mayor councillor
flores just to to continue the the
response on your question counselor
the data that we had had in terms of of
the unemployment rate was actually
pretty good for
2018 and the best we had was for 2019 so
we were we were actually in a very in a
really really good shape starting 2020
and then that's when the pandemic hit so
so that then we started experiencing
those increases in the unemployment rate
or drops in employment right the
converse of that uh starting the public
health orders and and i mean that that
there's there's a logic right behind it
right that as people started uh
containing themselves within their homes
and leaving their jobs so we could
contain the pandemic uh people were laid
off and stuff like that and people were
actually in some instances just staying
off work say avoiding getting into
impossible contact with other
individuals so the to answer your
question counselor flores the answer is
is yes we we have seen the overall
effects since 2018 and 2019 and the
numbers were good and the main reason
for seeing these high spikes in
unemployment is precisely because of
cobit uh there they made it i mean the
tendency just indicates that overall
thank you very much
and thank you dr payatis and thank you
dr martinez thank you mr eager and and
thank you mayor
you know one thing that that i like
is um
is when you look at july you know other
than that blip in august it's slowly
making its way up
we're at 41.8
um
thousands and that represents when you
go to the beginning of 2020 that
represents uh six percent so we're at 94
94 percent of where we were in january
of 2020 and 95.3 percent of where we
were in the same time january of 2019.
so that's actually shows you the
resiliency of
the workforce in the city and the
businesses so that's uh really good i
think
uh looks like we have are you done
pastor flores yes thank you mayor thank
you thank you thank you all you're done
grilling uh kyle on his first
presentation
i think this is kyle's second
presentation oh really your second well
to the city council maybe i was gone
yeah i presented with relation to the
airport
yes
oh so you're familiar with her with her
grilling
okay
counselor beta stevie
uh vasquez and bencomo please
thank you mayor and thank you kyle um
mayor actually i wanted to expand upon
the point you just brought up
um with sort of the resiliency of las
cruces
um do we have any numbers um in
comparison on what either the state or
national trends are with that
reduction of employment um we had about
i think you had said
one of your last slides it was a
7.6 or 5 6 percent and if that was in
uh
comparative to those national trends if
we were about in line
um
yeah thank you
and so and then it do we have any with
this state as well if how we're doing in
comparison with the state
uh mayor ken
councillor of beta stupa
um mr b
um
we don't have
i we do have that on the state it's not
in this presentation um i'd be happy to
look that up for you and and send it to
you
that'd be great thank you
um and then the only other question i
had was in relation to if you could pull
up the
one of your last slides that had the
industries
listed thank you
with
regards to
different types of sales obviously with
retail sales we're seeing a lot of
trends going downward because the
closure of
the walk-in type stores that type of
stuff
i'm wondering
how this will play out and this may or
may not be a question that we can be
answered but
um for those that have shifted their
model to more online sales
or work from home type um
bills if they're still considered part
of the retail trade or are they going to
start
or if it would be under
let's see um
more of like wholesale type items
um the wholesale trade or if they would
still stay under retail when they start
um cutting out that sort of retail
section and just going straight from
so i'm not sure if that's an indicator
of anything that we've seen
a counselor beta stupa um let me look
into that
i i believe that
online retailers are still classified
under retail
let me double check on that and i i
um i can give you a definite answer on
that
great thank you
my
indicator i think it's still under
retail but i'm just checking
um to make sure um the only other thing
i know a lot of these indicators are
that growth that we're seeing in
um
like the construction
but i do find it very interesting um
thank you
thank you mayor
councillor uh beat the stevie
unemployment in new mexico last figures
i see is 8.2 percent and in the us 6.3
percent
for a nation thank you mayor so we're
doing better than this state as a whole
thank you
counselor vasquez
thank you mayor um thank you mr eager
for your presentation
um uh thanks for actually leaving it
here on this slide here for a second um
so i know as we as we were
uh trying to target some of the folks
that have been recently
unemployed or who have or the small
businesses that have had you know
obviously issues with um
uh the restrictions included with uh the
koba pandemic and how that impacted
their business
really lets us see here which which
business sectors have been have been
impacted the most
um
and so i'm wondering uh mr eager or or
dr martinez do you know if our business
registrations that come through the city
are they coded with the same type of um
i guess industry from the bls
industry list from the bls
so do we have essentially a list of
licensed cities or licensed businesses
in the city that match up to these uh
same sectors
mr mayor council members
council member vasquez
yes um council member vasquez uh in the
when we when the city switched to a
cella
we actually were able to incorporate a
self-reporting
industry code
so we do have that um
if if you would like additional detail
on that we could also
include in our included in our follow-up
thank you dr martinez and i think the
reason i am asking here is that
you know as we are
distributing information about some of
the financial assistance that's
available to businesses or city programs
um uh it would be great to to make sure
that the industries that have been most
impacted that those businesses um that
perhaps we focus a little bit more on
getting them that information
i know we often send emails
but we've talked about phone calls
before
right to make sure that people were
getting the information as it pertains
to some of the business assistance
that's out there and so that might be a
good way to start knowing that these
certain sectors have been really
impacted by covid and so um
you know since we can match them up to
these sectors uh dr martinez it might
might be good just to to make sure that
these folks in particular who we know
are losing jobs and perhaps going out of
business or in danger uh that they're
getting as much communication from the
city as possible
um
yes mr mayor council member vasquez uh
that is a great point and an opportunity
for for me to give a shout out a big
shout out to the new mexico department
of tourism
because of their link to the the
to those two industries that have been
most impacted which is restaurants and
hotels
um they have been very intentional about
building a strategy to reach out to both
of these
type of businesses
we have coordinated with them
our staff from visit las cruces has also
been very intentional about reaching out
to restaurants and hotels as well
at the individual level but also through
like the hotel uh the hospitality
association the restaurant association
and so those those have been efforts
that have taken place
we
we have also started as a
week and a half the phone calls from our
team
reaching out to small businesses and and
bringing awareness to the
second round of ppp
loans and and other resources uh
including the small business development
center west and the resources that they
offer so um this is something in the
works and definitely um
some additional opportunities we have to
uh to address some of the challenges
that these two industries are facing
including from the workforce perspective
how do we help
displaced workers to
get connected to training opportunities
for them to find different
options for employment so
it's it's quite a bit of
a challenge here but we are we are
keeping those items in mind as we craft
solutions for recovery but we appreciate
those
comments from council thank you mr mayor
thank you dr martinez um
yeah i'm glad to hear that you're
getting some more support from the state
for that particular industry um that's
really good to hear or not have been
as you can clearly tell impacted
disproportionately here
another question on the markers
themselves uh mr eager uh
do you know so i'm just thinking you
know one way to measure our local
economy is certainly through through
this variety of statistics and and
especially
uh yeah i like that we're looking at
snap numbers right i like um that we're
looking at some other indicators but
besides just the unemployment rate um to
get a sense of how people are doing and
so i don't know is there any type of
statistic
regarding um like per capita household
income
um or you know that we can get
more than just on a on a maybe a
bi-annual basis um because i'm just i'm
trying to wrap my hand around like just
how many
how many local families are building
wealth how many are losing wealth you
know how many folks are losing their
homes in addition to also buying new
homes um is there anything that
signifies like per capita household
income on a regular basis
a counselor at vasquez
um
the most recent data is 2019 data from
the american community survey five-year
estimates
i mean it did show growth between
uh
2018 and 2019.
i guess up-to-date data on on earnings
um you know i can i can look into that
to see if it
if i think there might be but it
it comes out with a considerable lag
still
um but yeah the most recent data is is
2019 that i i have access to
um but
um i'll i can definitely you know
investigate more to see if i can find
something an indicator that's more up to
date
thank you mr eager um uh dr martinez i
think you have your hand raised there as
yes mr mayor and
[Music]
vasquez um that as our economist
highlighted that's one of the the
negative items in terms of this very
important indicators the reason why we
included snap cases is because it would
capture the opposite so the less snap
cases
the the
more wealth or less dependency on on
public assistance will be
um and so
that that part of the reason why we have
this indicator is because of the
challenge to get a medium household
income that is up to date but um
we are this is this is a live document
and we are working on on better
indicators as we go
i'm sure our economies will will find
something to
complement this this indicator uh to
bring um
for our next presentation
thank you so much dr martinez and yeah
if that information is available i think
you're right the snap is kind of the
reverse of that and so that's a really
good indicator as well
but but
yeah any other
data
that would represent that that local
wealth
metric would be i think really good to
have as well if it's available um lastly
i just have a
comment or a question i'm not sure if we
can answer this but i so i know the
median prices for homes have been going
up here for some time we see
construction is clearly up um
uh you know i think we from that chart i
think we went from 212 we had 212 000 to
242 000
for the medium
median listing price in less than two
years which is a pretty that's a huge
jump at least the way i see it in terms
of affordability for
um for las cruces and so um
i know that sometimes when the economy
gets bad
people
move to places where it's cheaper to
live right they want to get rid of some
of their excess financial obligations or
lower their cost of living and so we end
up being a very attractive choice for
retirees here in las cruces to come and
um perhaps buy a bigger home or or just
you know to um to retire just in general
um so i'm also just wondering if
do our housing um
uh the the i guess the buying of new
homes
does it ever specify if the person
buying a home is local or if they're
from out of town
uh counselor baskets
i don't know if i have access to that
data
okay um i
i in the american community survey
their five-year estimates they for the
county but not the city
they have the proportion of new move-ins
that are from
out-of-state versus
from abroad or from within the county or
from within the state
um so we can get a sense of where
kind of new movements are coming from
but in terms of i guess specific
houses i don't know if that data is
collected
um but
i'm willing to look into investigate
that to see if if that data is available
is that is that answer well
yeah i think thank you mr eager and i
think um i absolutely welcome everyone
and anyone who wants to come and live in
this beautiful city but i think it would
just be good to know that if our prices
are being
if our median listing prices are being
bumped up are they still affordable to
local folks um and how many more of our
local folks are also buying
or what percentage of the new market is
actually represents people here buying
homes versus people moving here um so
thank you guys
uh yes i can help answer that question
for you
uh
a very question to the metro verdi area
it was about 50 50 50 people moving from
outside the city and fifty percent and
mo that are within the city buying those
houses there
thank you councillor sword and i think
larry nichols also has his hand up there
uh
yes uh thank you consider the mayor
and councilor vasquez larry nichols
community development
you know we've tracked that very closely
here this last year in particular
because we had a situation where the
construction activity was
was uh
on on a very uh aggressive and improving
um
you know we built more houses here
single-family dwellings last year during
the con
pandemic
than we have in about 14 years 15 years
and so i i was asking the developers and
the contractors
who are buying these homes
because we hear about you know the
price of houses going up and uh how are
we getting folks to qualify
for that and and the answer was was this
on twofold one a lot of the buyers that
are i have the number at about 60 to 65
percent
coming from outside of las cruces
according to the builders
uh and then i have
the reason for for being able to qualify
to buy at home
is that the interest rate has been
as low for mortgages than it has been
for
a number of years so they're able to
qualify now where in the past
that has been a challenge
so um those are a couple of factors that
have
influenced the
reason for construction to still
maintain its
its um
positive state on the on the economic uh
picture
we uh we saw on the chart there
from from kyle that there was only a
loss of a few
jobs on construction
that was because the governor and the
public health order
did not uh shut that business that
sector down they declared an essential
operation
so they were that sector was able to
continue and if you look at all the all
the factors on this chart
that kylo is showing you the four that
are green arrows
they are pretty much ones that were not
required to shut down
as for the restaurants and the others
i think that had a big play to do with
those numbers right there
thank you so much for that larry i
really appreciate that and you looking
into that i i just i think that that's
just the point i wanted to make to let's
continue to watch that data um you know
interest rates go up medium prices go up
um then then it could be uh an issue if
we um you know if our
average new home is not available to
local folks with a different income um
than than folks moving from out of town
perhaps with retirement incomes or or um
have just had the opportunity to build
more wealth in their lives so um thank
you those are all my comments and
questions i appreciate it again mr eager
thank you mayor
thank you
elsa bincomo
thanks mayor um thank you so much
kyle for the presentation i also thought
it was um i'm glad that we're doing
these i think it's very informative
um i just have a couple questions
um
in a similar thread actually with the
snap
um
slide i'm really glad you included this
i actually
had a question
more long-term thinking
i wondered if i was surprised to see how
close these two are regardless of cobit
or not so i'm wondering if these are
snap cases are
even like in 2019 are these how do they
compare to the county to the state
nationally
a counselor at the como
um
so
in the the las cruces economic outlook
the actual report that will be released
soon i actually have a
graph that shows compares us with the
united states
and
we're considerably higher than the
united states
uh so the indicator that will be
included in that report is
uh receiving government assistance which
will is the per it's the will be the
percent of the population that receives
um
you know tanf snap
uh supplementary income uh multiple
forms of government assistance
and by that metric we were considerably
higher than
the rest of the united states
yeah i thought you might say that i mean
i think for me this is a huge you know
similar to what council vasquez was
saying just in terms of wealth and who's
um acquiring it right now and who is not
and how much wider is the wealth and
income gap getting during and because of
kobe but honestly
i feel like this has been an issue that
has
sort of plagued the city for a long time
and so i just wanted to ask in terms of
of these numbers and if they were high
or not and i i was assuming that you
were going to say that so i really
appreciate that i mean i think this is
why i also just keep pushing how are we
thinking about
anti-poverty efforts um you know and so
i'm excited for the conversation we're
about to have next but
um i think it's important that we keep
this
sort of snapchat in mind as we as we as
we look into our budget priorities for
the next year and upcoming years
um and then my other last question
um kyle can you
again
sort of talk about the difference
between
unemployment and disadvan and
discouraged workers i wasn't i guess i
hadn't really heard that in
um and i think maybe councilor flores
was trying to get to that point as well
but okay
yeah i'll be happy to account uh
counselor bacon i'll be happy to explain
that again it does it is a little
confusing
so the unemployment rate
is the proportion of the
labor force that can't find a job
so it's not the proportion of the
population
that can't find a job so the labor force
it consists of those that have a job
and those that are looking for work
so if you're not looking for work
then you're not included in the labor
force
so we wouldn't expect to include
for example children
or the elderly in the labor force
and then
there's a group called discouraged
workers which is not included in the
labor force those are
working age adults
that
are not looking for a job
and
this
this data is collected from you know
survey data where the census asks people
do you have a job
and then they ask them well are you
looking for a job
and that's how the labor force is
determined
uh is through those is through that
those surveys
that's why although the unemployment
rate is an important indicator of how
the labor market's doing we also look at
just total employment number of employed
people
uh does that answer your question
yeah it does what an interesting name
though right because that could be
a lot of reasons right a discouraged
worker could mean
i
hit the lottery and i don't want to go
back to work ever
it could be
i married rich and i don't want to go
back like it's a lot of things that
isn't necessarily discouraged worker
anyway that's just an interesting
um
yeah
i canceled coma yeah that's that is true
and that's why we always look at the
unemployment rate in conjunction with
other metrics
so it might be incorrect just to over
emphasize the unemployment rate
while not looking at total employment
thank you kyle for that um additional
context i appreciate it
okay mayor pro tem
yeah thank you mayor thank you to my
colleagues very thoughtful questions
thank you kyle
um
i'm always in awe of our economist right
just how much you know and you can
explain and um it's it's amazing so
thank you and welcome i know this is
your second time
um presenting to us um you know kyle
i i would really like to see
you know because we're all we all sit in
policy review
um committees we're trying to influence
policy right and all of it and you know
that we're trying to reduce poverty that
is really one of um mr p lee's um
priorities and and you know how do we do
that so
one of the things that generally i'm i'm
concerned about is
digging into these numbers a little
further
gender ethnicity race
i don't think you have that and i would
really like to see that because i think
it's important
for us to know that and understand it
and and although i understand the
numbers are dynamic they're changing
um but i think it's important and it
really you know goes to what cancer
vasquez and
um
we're suggesting right um building um
individual wealth what does that look
like i think it's important that i know
that
our 16 18 year olds are out there in
this workforce or or
and then um honestly
race right our er
um
and our latinos to take are taking
longer right to recoup recover from this
and i want to know that and i want to
see from which industries and then it
helps us to then
um
really form good policy uh
like council flores and i consider
flores councillor disorganized citizen
economic
um piercy
and um i i want to be able to reflect
back on this and and see it and so i
don't see those numbers and
um i want it to be meaningful to you and
to us and then i'd like to see some
recommendations from you as our
economist um you know publicly what are
you
what are you recommending it with these
numbers and
certain things to to look at
would be helpful to me
counselor
gundara
yeah i mean thank you for your input
i'll definitely consider that for for uh
future economic updates
and and i totally know that this could
get really big
and go down a rabbit hole and of course
i don't want to see that but but maybe
i'm recommending that you come to our
economic prc we have a recovery board
that's always looking for different
ideas and ways right but but i think
it's important that we understand this
data
and who it who it comprises of and then
lastly on the snap benefits please
remember that
like or any other
tanf the
those kinds of incomes have work
requirements right or you need to go to
school and so i think it's really
important to see the demographics
ethnicities right is it single parents
single mamas
what is their um
what is their
latino caucasian
all those are are really important to
understand as we are forming policy
moving forward so i i know this could
get to be a large presentation and maybe
it needs to be
um
um for us um but i i want to see that
and i want to see
those numbers specifically to our
latinos and how difficult this recovery
is for them and what
you and the economic development
department the recovery board is doing
or committee is doing to help
um you know mitigate those things so
thank you mayor
[Music]
all right well i think that takes care
of it so um very good
kyle good presentation and um
yeah you made it through so that's good
yeah they get they get easier every time
all right so that pretty much concludes
our information so this is good stuff i
appreciate it very much
and now it looks like we're going to
move to item 4.3 the fiscal year 2021
2022 council priorities
and who's going to lead us off on that
one
mayor uh i'll i'll be leading this off
oh okay great
thank you thank you mayor and council uh
first off i appreciate the opportunity
to get another sort of another work
session on
uh a discussion on on our budget
priorities
we've had i know there's concerns have
been expressed about uh you know the
just the council's
ability to to provide more input
especially when it comes to
the cip and you know as we go through
this budget process
and so as a budget team we
decided to add a little bit more
discussion
uh
so last fall
leanne and david met with each counselor
and i know you all remember
going through and providing your
priorities
that totaled to about 26 items
and about 45 million dollars
and and uh i know the council
hasn't had an opportunity
uh now we've met with you individually
but not had an opportunity to discuss
this and you know if you were maybe you
had to ask me what an ideal outcome
would be from this is
this discussion is maybe get a top 10
uh
and then we that sets the direction then
we move on and and that's included in
the budget and and we've gotten your
your input on that but um if not we can
always come back with the survey
but this is an opportunity for the
council to
to discuss see what others have provided
others meaning
counselors only
what your colleagues have
have given us as priorities and then
uh give us feedback and input so that we
can take this back as we're moving
through this budget process
uh this is going to be
you know we're hoping to make this a
part of the budget from here on now
part of the budget process that the
council
provides that direction for priorities
and
[Music]
capital projects
and so
we'll have
leanne and david now review those
they'll make presentations now they've
they've done a great job of putting
the fact sheets together
uh with each of these priorities and so
they're going to go over that and then
again
mayor if we can
either yourself facilitate this
discussion as far as uh if we wanted to
come up if we're able to come up with
the top ten or whatever uh if not like i
said we could come back and
and uh
shoot a survey over to the council
just so that we have something one thing
i did want to mention i know it's a
little difficult to have a conversation
like this without maybe an understanding
of what the pot is
and so at this point we don't have that
because we're still going through the
process inputting some of the fixed cost
uh operating budget and then whatever
shakes out from that up you know that
operating budget that
helps us to maintain those service
levels
um
we don't have that fund balance
in that calculation to know exactly
what that part is but
we should have that in the i think it's
the march
22nd
meeting
but hopefully we can get these
priorities and then
another ideal situation is
we have enough money to fund
fund your top priorities right i mean if
we had 45 million dollars we'd be able
to fund all 26 but
um
so so that's how it's gonna that's what
we're proposing the process to go like
today
uh mayor and council and so i'll just
start the time over to
julian and david to go over those
priorities
okay before we do if let me let me uh
looks like counselor i don't know if
counselor florida forgot to put her hand
down maybe but councilman cuomo uh
usually is pretty good about it yeah see
she dropped it okay councilman como you
have a quick question i do it pretty
quick actually hopefully i wondered if
um these were also then sort of overlaid
with the strategic planning conversation
that we just had and i wonder if
um they could be sort of compared and
perhaps we can get closer to that
smaller list that way
yeah for sure
counselor i believe uh leanne and david
will speak to that but i think on the
fact sheet or or in the presentation
they
show how it's related to the strategic
plan or not
uh
and so but they'll go over that
okay
well good afternoon mayor council for
the record my name is leanne demush i'm
your chief budget officer and i
apologize i have a little bit of a
tickler in my throat so please excuse me
uh can you see my presentation
yes
yes okay let me see if i can
is it full
force it isn't is it no
oh
f5 f5
thank you sir
not quite sure that
is it function f5 counselor
it's the f5 at the top of your keyboard
i'm gonna try this one more time sir
maybe it doesn't work with zoom
you try sharing my screen one more time
wait you were okay before leanne
we could see the slide
yeah
she wanted to get the full screen
instead of the of the entire
well you know
bigger a little bit larger
larger than life now do you see it
no but you sure a lot of icons on your
on your computer
okay i'm gonna get this i apologize
that was a skeletal desktop leanne
let's try this
now is it working
now it's working
okay great thank you so much
so as our city manager mr pilly
explained to you um we sent out to you
the priority sheets
uh that public works and budget put
together along with a lot of staff and
we thank them very much for
working with us on these priority
fact sheets
they were sent to you as a pdf and so
what david and i are going to do is go
through these uh before i
okay here han
before i move forward i want to go over
because david will be giving uh the
first
half of the slides and i'll be giving
the second half of the slides
i wanted to give you a budget timeline
as mr peeley just mentioned uh we will
be meeting back with you at a work
session on march the 22nd however
david and i and staff will be meeting
with you uh having individual meetings
these meetings should already be on your
calendar and at that time we can
we'll be going over the budget going
over the cip getting some more of your
input
uh you know this is something that has
been directed from you and we're trying
to meet those needs from the from the
council so we have actually put in a lot
more meeting dates and as you can see um
from this calendar and then april the
26th we will have our public hearing we
typically do that the mayor will lead it
um it is usually the right before the
work session on the the that day
um it will be a full presentation for
the budget and for the cip
and then we will be bringing to you uh
two resolutions in may may 24th to adopt
uh the budget and also to adopt the cip
so there's our timeline for our budget
right now
and with that i'm going to turn on this
over to
mr sedillo and he's going to go over the
first half of the um
the fact sheets so david
thank you leanne and good afternoon
mayor and council david seville public
works director and as leanne had stated
i will be going over some of those
projects that were requested by council
in the meetings that we had
so we'll go ahead and begin the first
one that we have is the pavement
condition index
and the supporting counselors for those
were mayor pro tem gandra abe tastuvi
and bencomo
the estimated cost is three million
dollars
as is
as noted in
councillor bingo's question
prior to you will see that it does show
where it aligns with elevate las cruces
and the strategic themes from from the
bharajit
priority retreat that we had
so
moving on this would be an increase of
three million dollars per year for the
to the program's annual budgeted 4.2
now that we have for the pavement
maintenance this will help decrease the
backlog of our red streets to 5.2
percent and increase our pci to 68.
now some of those special conditions
that
we'll look for is streets are selected
based on their pci or their pavement
condition index
and that addresses the appropriate
surface treatment to prolong the life of
that
so if we remain at current levels
with the funding that we currently have
by 2031
we will increase our red streets or our
backlog
from about nine percent to 34 percent
and decrease our pci from about 66 to
48.
uh the next
project that was requested is la casa
expansion
the supporting counselors mayor pro tem
gandra the estimated cost is 6.2 million
dollars
now this is to plan design and construct
a standalone building this will provide
an additional twenty thousand square
feet to the already twenty four thousand
square feet on site that la casa
utilizes
now this increasing capacity would help
la casa extend their services
to the families that they serve because
they have reached the capacity of their
existing facility
so some of those considerations that we
need to take a look at is the site is
landlocked and unfortunately we can't
expand into young park be due to the
commitment with the federal land and
water conservation
fund
now
however we do have the ability to go
vertical
now that property is zoned an r4 so that
gives us the ability to build up to
about 60 feet or approximately four to
five stories
the other consideration is if we
expanded outward uh that may affect the
ability to collect on-site ponding
thank you lynn
the next request we have is for la casa
maintenance
this was brought forward by mayor pro
tem gandra now the estimated cost is
thirty one thousand five hundred dollars
per year
so
this would help the city in its
maintenance responsibilities of the
facilities this includes hvac equipment
exterior doors
flooring
large appliances such as the boiler
built-in freezer built-in refrigerator
exterior painting the parking lot on the
roof
now historically maintenance has been on
a work been done on a work order basis
which averages out to approximately
sixty two hundred dollars per year
uh some of the considerations is per the
agreement with la casa they are
responsible for a large part or a
majority of the maintenance on site
these mainly include a lot of the things
that are on the interior of the building
such as the alarm system the general
custodial cleaning services interior
windows doors fixtures
carpet venting those types of items that
are listed it also includes
kitchen and laundry equipment as well as
landscaping except for the irrigation
the city does maintain that
the next request we have is for the
women's improvement association building
or facility
this is supported by mayor pro tem
gandra the estimated cost
is 160 000
now this is to plan and design and
construct exterior improvements to that
facility this would include improvements
to the adobe stucco and vegas
so currently right now
the
we do have funding available this fiscal
year to do the roof replacement so but
those monies do not include any other
repairs as noted
some of the considerations that we will
be looking at or have to consider
are any improvements to the exterior
building will need to be reviewed and
approved by the new mexico historic
preservation division through the design
process
however i do want to note we are doing
the
maintenance improvements to the roof
that did not need approval because we
are replacing with the same materials
and color
so that does not need to go through the
approval process
next we have the arts and cultural
district
this supporting counselor is mayor pro
tem gandra the estimated cost is fifteen
thousand dollars
this is for renovations to the stucco at
las esperanzas park in the arts and
cultural district
unfortunately this was not
this was not able to be completed this
fiscal year due to lack of funding
however
facilities maintenance did complete two
other stucco renovations
to these parks
those being at jardin de mesquite and
entrada del sol
and those were completed last year in
june
and in november
next we have the amador hotel uh
supporting counselors mayor pro tem
gangada we have an estimated cost of 8.8
million uh before i move into this we
did receive increments improvements
between 500 000 to a million dollars
based on some of the phasing as we move
forward
so this is to complete the restoration
of the amador hotel to its 1930 like era
condition
and also decide its use once that has
been completed
so as noted the amount needed to
complete the desired restoration
will
depend
on the site findings after the interior
selection
demolition is completed and that will be
completed this summer
so
special considerations for this project
are again the level of restoration based
on what we find from
that selective demolition that may also
affect some of the time frames to
complete the restoration
and lastly we will have to have the
final approval of that historic
structures report which will be
completed after
the selective demolition which will be
submitted to
new mexico historic preservation
district for final approval as mentioned
next one we have is the septic
remediation
a supporting counselor for this is
floris
the estimated cost is 4.4 million now
this does cover three top priority
projects at this point in time
those are the alameda acres subdivision
estados serranos and brittany estates
sewer extension along with hacienda
acres phase three
now this funding is needed for plan
design and construction to replace these
septic projects
or the removal of the septic tanks in
these areas
so some special considerations as we
move forward with this project
are
basically it's the protection of our
aquifers or our ground water quality
due to those household wastes as they
leach through the soils
so as part of that we have some priority
areas
that we look at that the city looks at
in utilities and those are identifying
areas that are within a hundred feet
from a city well
and also any residential lots that are
under a half acre in size
and with that i will go ahead and pass
it over to miss leanne demush who will
continue on these projects from council
thank you
thanks david
thanks david for the record uh leanne
demers chief budget officer so i'm going
to start with lizzy
lizzy is
a 1936 fire engine she is over at the
fleet shop right now
this is uh supported by council uh by
mayor pro tem gandera um has an
estimated cost of 65 000
the request has been made to possibly
find a replacement for lizzie
and at one time lizzie was over i want
to say in klein park uh but for safety
reason lizzie was removed from the park
and has been over at fleet since then uh
we have made extensive
um tries to maybe renovate lizzie but it
is extremely cost costly
um so one of the things that counselor
floors in our our meetings priority
meetings uh talk to us about a possible
replacement and i have located one on a
website
um it is in excellent condition and
even runs
slowly
but it does run um it's in really great
shape they want about fifty nine
thousand dollars and i'm sure we would
have to pay tax and um not quite sure
we'd have a title
but uh we would probably have to uh
bring it down here from uh where it is
located
moving on uh we also had from a
supporting counselor from mayor pro tem
gandara
i did not put an estimated cost in here
because i'm unsure at this time
but we did she what did make a request
for us to assist engage lost engage new
mexico sorry with the mobile children's
museum
if you'll remember we did receive uh
state legislative appropriation money
for a children's museum
engage on new mexico is working with
quality of life
to put together an rfp
to
develop a phase one which is a
feasibility study and a site location
all of this information by the way is in
your your sheets
um but right now it is my understanding
that engage has purchased an rv type
unit they're having this rv rent evaded
to a mobile children's museum and they
are using and constructing exhibits for
this unit
the next one is the senior center
kitchen uh this was mostly for equipment
of course this was uh mayor pro tem
gandalas uh she supported this the
estimated cost that we have is a hundred
and forty thousand four 400
from quality of life the request was
made to assist the senior programs with
their kitchen
as you know the senior programs has four
commercial grade kitchens uh they supply
food to the senior centers
and this estimated cost will be used to
purchase the commercial grade equipment
for these kitchens
i wanted to let you know that we do have
or the senior programs does receive
every other year a general obligation
bond from the state however and this can
be used for capital investments however
in the past few years they have been
using this bond money to purchase
vehicles and other type of capital
improvements so this bond is typically
used for other critical capital
infrastructure needs for senior programs
moving on we have the guaranteed basic
income and this was supported by
councillor bincoma
i do not have an estimated cost in there
um the guaranteed basic income if you're
not sure what this is it's also called
universal basic income and dr i mean a
counselor been common has a lot of
information on this and she has shared
this with myself and also with city
manager pili and i've actually even
reached out to a couple of the
organizations
to get a little bit more information on
how it is funded
this is a program that uh citizens in
the city would receive a set amount of
money on a regular basis and they can
use this money for any purpose for
anything i would say there's no strings
attached i think counselor bencomo would
agree with me on that um
we are i've talked with our city
attorney uh jennifer bega brown it's it
is probably we are unable to use funds
from the city due to the anti-donation
um most cities that i talked to a very
few had uh their pilot program for the
guaranteed basic income
was used from mostly donations and
grants from foundations
the programs are run through other
organizations some of them from like 501
c 3's
if the council would like to use telstra
funds
it would be recommended uh that staff
reach out to the state attorney general
for an opinion on the funds for this
pilot program
uh if we want to use city funds and of
course i can
after for discussion if you'd like
our city attorney to weigh in on this i
would
she can do that as well
the next one is the airport operations
staffing needs and this came from
supporting counselor from councillor
flores
we put in an estimated cost i did reach
out to our
airport administrator mr andy hume and
by the way he is on zoom if you have any
questions
currently the airport has five full-time
employees they have an administrator
they have an administrative assistant
senior technician and two
technicians after discussion with mr
hume um he does have an open technician
position and for fy 2022 he is going to
be requesting and would like to reclass
one of his um positions that he has open
to be an airport operations
manager and then going on
we have a social worker this was
supported by
mayor pro tem gondara
i have an estimated cost in there about
500 000
the request was made to budget a social
worker to deal with the homeless
community and i did reach out to
miss natalie green and she's on the zoom
as well
we estimated the cost would be uh we
would be contracting with community of
hope on this and so discussing with
with community of hope uh we hope that
they would community of hope would hire
a homeless outreach coordinator and so
the funding would come from the telstra
fund for this
and that during this pilot program uh we
would be searching out with community of
hope to research for grants and possibly
foundation funding for this program to
continue
the next
priority was
the public wi-fi in city parks
this came about from
councillors mayor pro tem gandana and
also from counselor beta stewie we have
an estimated cost of about 250 000
the request was made and as you'll see
there's a lot more information about
this on your fact sheets
but the request was made to look and see
to determine if we could have public
wi-fi
be installed in other city parks
and i used one of them in counselor
stevie's area which we would be gomez
part
uh i worked with it to look at what we
could estimate the cost to be for wi-fi
and the gomes gomez part and also we
could probably include fringer in that
as well
now this cost does not include design
and um
the one major issue and of course our
i.t director is
and zoom along with robert de plaine
also who could explain this much better
than me but it's my understanding that
if there is no microwave connection
available uh then they would need to
actually install fiber and it would have
to come from the closest uh existing
city location so on average you would
say that um the cost to get fiber uh
from one city location to another uh to
the park would probably have an average
cost of about seven hundred thousand
dollars per mile
uh we do have a close existing um
why uh
microwave connection to gomez park and
that's why the estimated cost would only
be two hundred and fifty thousand
dollars
moving on the um next priority was the
mobile integrated health program
uh this was supporting counselor was
counselor beta stevie there was an
estimated cost of 535
472 dollars
the request was made to uh to fund the
fire department with additional support
for this program
and the estimated cost is additional
staff and operational needs
currently this program is
uh has been very active it is funded
through the fire department they are
meeting their current strategic results
but from what the fire department has
told me is that they are not meeting the
full program demands
so to meet those program demands they
are actually going to make a request in
their fy 2022 budget to hire
approximately three to four additional
full-time employees
these would include administrative
support emt practitioners and a social
worker and additional vehicles may also
be needed and so the funding for this
program would be from the general fund
they already have part of the um
mobile integrated health program budget
budgeted in the fire department so their
total operating needs would be 730 000
the next one is the mobile crisis unit
this is was a supportive counselor was
counselor ben como
i have an estimated cost here of about
250 000
the request was made to establish a
mobile crisis unit
as you know currently police and fire do
have to respond to numerous mental and
behavioral calls
the city does want to address these
frequent callers of the 911 system
responders need uh subject matter
experts to assist them reducing these uh
crisis situations
and so we put in an estimated cost uh to
include a vendor to assist us in a pilot
program so the special considerations is
that the city uh currently does have an
rfq
that's a request for quote to hire a
vendor to assist fire and police with
these high utilizers of mental behavior
the first rfq was not successful and
fire police are actually in the process
of rewriting the rfq and they hope to
meet the intent of selecting
an appropriate vendor and then their
hope is after the pilot program is
complete that the uh city the city um
excuse me there the city will establish
a civilian team
and utilize the public safety as needed
moving on we have the office of
emergency management oem
this was a supporting counselor was
counselor aveda stuve
we put an estimated cost of 38 100.
the request was made to examine the oem
program with the intent of the city to
have their own oem program
this estimated cost here is only for the
first year transition
i did talk to staff emergency services
and also assistant city manager enriquez
and we believe that it's not really
feasible right now to separate from the
county especially during the pandemic
they wanted me to especially note that
in this
but if the city did have its own
oem and we could create a good
organizational structure that ensures
management and the day-to-day operations
the first year these costs would be them
absorbing some they would absorb some of
the operational cost
but in the future years there would be
more additional
funding needed
possibly for a location of to house
the oem and also some oem positions
being that we reclass some of the fire
department or that we
ask for new positions
the next priority is the el paseo and
solano corridor we added these together
the supporting counselors here were
counselor vasquez and also counselor ben
cuomo
we put an estimated cost of about three
hundred thousand dollars and of course
uh community development is on uh zoom
and can um help me with some of this if
you have additional questions
but the request was made to continue the
process of re
investing in the el paseo and solano
corridor as you know
um you know this has been talked about
at multiple work sessions and council
meetings this is one of the oldest
commercial areas in the city and there's
a lot of interest in rejuvenating this
area area for new growth and
reinvestment
and um
so this estimated cost that we have in
here is
the possibility of contracting to assist
and providing some technical assistance
and professional services to businesses
in the in the corridor um there is a
city ad hoc uh committee and i think
actually they met last week
that was formed by the community
development uh department uh they are
focusing on this area and i think
several of the counselors are probably
on this committee um they are
approximately 30 through their review of
the existing committee and they'll be
working to make um recommendations for
reinvestment improvements in this
corridor um we also anticipate that this
committee will review
the financial reinvestment opportunities
be they at tid an mra a bad um an
infrastructure development zone uh
things like that
and then the next one is the
uh west picacho area and this came
supported by councillor bin como
and she requested to that we you know do
something similar to what we're doing in
the el paseo and solano corridors and
that to include the west uh picacho
area which i think we were talking from
valley to maine uh in developing and
reinvesting in this area i think there
are some several artists she mentioned
in this area that are very interested in
building up this area
so currently the city as you know is
focusing on el paseo and solano i did
talk to community development and so
they believe that as the successful
strategies are identified in the el paso
and solano corridors that we can take
these successful strategies and move
them straight into the west picacho area
as well
um the next priority which was uh
sponsored by council mayor pro tem
gandala
is affordable housing and the affordable
housing trust now i put in there an
estimated cost of 4 million
the request was made by the councillor
to increase our affordable housing our
affordable housing trust in the city
she asked if we could identify if a
general obligation bond can be used for
funding for affordable housing
i think actually last week i was talking
with natalie green
somebody from albuquerque came down to
give a presentation on how albuquerque
is using
their general obligation bond for
affordable housing so it is possible
we asked this estimated cost of course
is at council discretion uh whether they
choose to place this affordable housing
as an part of the next go bond questions
uh but of course we are still looking at
possible continued financial support for
the um affordable housing trust and if
the residents you know if this does go
as a go bond and the residents see fit
then hopefully it will be accepted as a
go bond
so our next priority oh no that is the
end of all of our priorities
um i'm going to now turn it over to for
discussion for the
uh for the mayor i also mayor wanted to
point out that um you know if the
it's however the discussion goes we do
have the capability where david and i
can put together a possible survey that
we can send out to the counselors to
rank their pa as mr peely mentioned
hopefully your top 10 so we can come
back to you with the finalized projects
but with that sir i will turn it over to
you
and i'm going to leave up the uh
powerpoint sir just in case anybody has
any questions
uh looks like we have quite a few
questions before we get going here so
let me um let them kind of say their
piece and then we'll we'll start
we'll move forward with that uh starting
with mayor protam then counselor beta
stevie stork flores and ben cuomo
thank you mayor thank you leanne and
david i appreciate
the time that we spend together um
discussing this and the the the list
here
um
you know one of the things that i
um
right off the bat want to prioritize and
i think you can tell from what our
discussions were is our street
maintenance projects i mean i'm
really happy that we have the payment
management program but i i think about
certain streets in my district that are
being updated and i think oh my goodness
there's worse condition and how does
that and i know um ifo and i have been
talking a lot about that and he sort of
posed that question i know we have the
indexing and the scoring and that
happens regularly but um
i i want to make sure that i know what
the need is i travel all over the city
um
i i think um i
i want to
reevaluate that payment management
program because i'm not sure that it's
working to the the benefit of
our poorer communities frankly
and um
you know i i
so that's one one piece so i definitely
think we need to put more money in there
and if you can go back to the slide that
talks about that and what
the
it'll help me sort of streamline my
questions um
so
you talked about the
the
backlog and the increasing the pci to 68
what is our pci now what does that mean
and i i've heard you
explain like gold
bronze um status that kind of gold
silver bronze um i think that would be
helpful for council to hear
and what that means they're just numbers
to us we don't we don't see those things
like you do so
if you would explain that further that
would be helpful
thank you mayor
mayor pro tem gandhara david sadio
public works director and thank you for
the question uh the pci or the payment
condition index
is tied to a score uh based on our
consultant when they come through in the
evaluate
through different methods and they give
each street a score
now based on that we have a color code
that goes from green to red
and as you transition through those
levels
you go through the rainbow not the
rainbow of colors but you transition
from a green
down in through kind of towards like a
yellow moving down in towards a red
portion of it
so
that's how those numbers work
we can supply a copy of that for you for
review
and that will indicate based on those
scorn levels what those are it'll also
provide what
typical treatments are best used for
those so we will get a copy out to
everyone moving there
now to address your other question or
your first item regarding the pavement
uh
system that we currently use in
reevaluating it we also have to
recognize that we have to coordinate
and
work closely with our utilities as well
because although we may have
some streets that fall into that red
category
there may not be enough money
to improve the infrastructure underneath
the roadway so that's why in your fact
sheet
you can see listed that it's important
as we move through this program that our
utility infrastructure replacement also
matches
our roadway replacements as well because
one thing we don't want to do
is go and replace and spend all this
money on improving the roadway and then
come back a few years later just to tear
it up and and improve say the water
sewer gas
we'd like to do those all at one time so
that's how we try to balance and when
you say you know well this street looked
worse
it
it possibly could be
uh but we can't do those improvements
until we have the full reconstruction
amount to be able to do those and that's
what we're trying to do now
david i i appreciate that but
to not know that at the time and to get
the slew of complaints that i get that
all of us get regularly
in terms of our streets and our
maintenance it would be really helpful
um you know i have the link i refer
people to the link i look um
you know periodically
um and and we should know what those are
so that we can explain thoroughly to
folks that you know you've been passed
up because really
you know there needs to be more work on
underneath right all changing up the the
and so
what would that look like i mean that's
a lot that's a quite a bit of funding
and at the rate we go it might not
happen for years and years meanwhile the
street gets worse and worse so
i i think i i appreciate the explanation
but i also think um
we probably need to know
those streets that you're looking at
underground work right as well
um and then i'd like to know what those
red the backlog bread streets are
but i i i didn't get my question
answered in terms of the
in totality
where are where is the standard where
are we are we at a gold silver bronze
and what
what would that
give us um the numbers when you explain
them like that it's difficult for people
to understand
correct and to answer that question we
don't categorize
between say a gold silver
or bronze standard we're basing it off
of the existing pavement condition index
and
so as far as that scale goes
we will provide that uh to each each
counselor that way you have those maps
again because we can update them when
when we get these numbers from our
consultant so we will
share that with each counselor and then
provide description on what those are
we'll also provide a map that actually
shows each street's condition by color
that'll make it a lot easier to identify
what those pci scores are and that'll
help
give
a total
view of what the condition of the
pavement is throughout the city
okay dude thank you david i i i mean
i've been here for two terms now uh term
and a half maybe um and it has been
identified at one point years ago when i
first started in that way and maybe that
was back with david maestas i don't want
to argue i just
i just don't think people understand
numbers that way i mean you all are so
it would be nice to have a different way
of identifying
what
aside from the numbers what that what
that looks like and i guess i'm
recommending that there would be a gold
silver and bronze standard because
people understand that better than a 68
as opposed to 100 score night whatever
that the beginning and the ending right
or the top score could be
um
and then secondly um in terms of my
requests for
la casa the wiaa building
places like animal services center those
are buildings that we own that we should
be maintaining that i've asked and and i
think
as these and this stuff comes to us on
council i ask about what's our process
what sort of conversations are we having
with the bc
about about updates and
where are we as
as
facilities in understanding what each of
those
buildings
you know what it's worth what it
what it um
cost to maintain and if there's any
issues or concerns what that would
cost in terms of
of um
of an amount so when i brought up la
casa i knew that they were kind of
busting at the seams
um i i didn't quite i i
maybe it was misunders i i misunderstood
or maybe i didn't explain it thoroughly
i i didn't want us to go out and have
you know a new building that wasn't
it was to expand what there is and i
think you did a really good job of the
special considerations understanding
that the site is unlocked
um that the only kind of improvement
could possibly be vertically up but
it's to the point about
um
how we're mainly maintaining managing
our facilities that we own i
and i've asked um several times for a
facilities kind of management plan so we
understand as council
um
what you know what is what is um
what is going to take for these
buildings that we own
um and that goes for the wob a building
at least two years now that building is
is deteriorating it belongs right in our
historic persevere it's some you know a
beloved building it's something that um
for me is um and i'm glad that we have
the money set aside to do the roof but
the exterior really needs major
improvements and so i'm again advocating
um for that and then
um
i i wanted to
ask about the mobile crisis unit it's
something that i've prioritized that
been working with efo i want to make
sure that
that
that's said publicly
i think that's
super important and i'm a bit confused
about
um
how that and the mobile integrated
health program and why it wouldn't be
integrated because the way it was
presented to council was presented in
such a way
that was
um you know tied into the mobile
integrated program
and so i i just want to make sure that i
know they have an existing program i
know that it's different
in terms of the the need and what
they're doing
and maybe it's not but i i want to
caution us that we are working together
and i see that fire and police are
working together on this
but i also want to make it very clear
that the rfq or the rfp that went out
um
in my mind it it
it wasn't that it wasn't successful
i know that
according to efo
and the discussions that i've had with
him we wanted to improve that and be
able to
leverage medicaid dollars
um you know
upon the development of that mobile
crisis unit um and then lastly
about that
i want to make sure
that um
that we
that that that that mobile in the mobile
crisis unit is a staff with social
workers and
um subject matter experts that it
includes an emt very similar to the star
program and or the cahoots program
i know that a lot of the dialogue and i
haven't been in those conversations in
months now
that
um
you know i know that our police officers
or our cit team wanted to be a part of
that and i just want to make sure that
that wasn't what i was envisioning and i
want to be clear
that in order i think for this to work
and be successful that it it has to be
very prescriptive
and not include
our our law enforcement officers in in
that in that project
um would you go on to the next slide
just wanted to make sure
thank you for that mayor
pro tem
uh leanne and i are both taking notes on
on these items for our ones as well too
yeah um
you know mayor i don't know how you want
us to address i know that
we're talking about opportunities
like telstra funding when we get um the
the
the lowman properties up and running and
and getting those all leased out that
some of that money could be used for
that i don't know how
how in terms of a time frame we have
that
how you want us to consider funding
sources those kinds of things
um i would also agree with the with a
council request
related to the al paseo corridor
and the the picacho one being able to
work towards um
building up um our business is there
and to include maybe an additional art
in acd and i don't know
if that's possible
um and what it's going to take but i i
really love that that that idea and i
want to support that as much as possible
um but i know we spoke of different
funding sources so mayor are you wanting
us to
to consider
um like
or at least
verbalizing that we think the telstra
fund would be a great avenue
to pursue or how do you want us to do
that
well thanks mayor pro tem well let me i
was just going to make a suggestion i
think today's exercise is probably
something that the rest of the council
is saying well gosh you know what i
probably should have thrown a few more
projects in here so what what i was
going to suggest is one i don't think we
can get it done today but what i was
going to suggest
is that if staff can
bring to us what they spend on road
maintenance
and park maintenance okay so
and and specifically in each of you
all's district okay
and and then um and then public
buildings like what you just mentioned
about la casa
uh you know i think that probably
uh and then that'll be a separate
category and then the last one would be
maybe like a personal project of yours
maybe one
maybe two and then we come back in a
work session and you you provide that
here uh the staff will give you what
amounts that they've spent in the past
and then let you all have that
discussion with your constituents and
then you bring back to staff what roads
you want to have paid and this is the
money that you would be used
you know like if if they have a
500 000 in your district okay well this
is where it's going to go or a million
dollars in your district okay well this
is where
we're it's gonna you know where you want
to put it based on your meetings that
you have with your residents and then
bring it back and and kind of go from
there kind of empowering you all to have
that that opportunity to to you know put
the money where
literally where your mouth is you know
what i mean
where they want to put it and this is
where i want to put it and this is where
it needs to be i appreciate
the direction mayor i did do that prior
to me meeting with i had several
constituent meetings with associations
and people i put it on facebook people
knew that i was meeting with budget i
wanted to make sure that i understood
from their perspective right where
they'd like to see this and it's
everything that i spoke to
um is is what i
and and things that have been left over
from year after year right like lizzie
right that's a very beloved uh um piece
of culture
in our park at kline park that people
ask um you know
pretty regularly about where is it
um what can we do to
to um
you know save it or find another one
that that kind of thing
um and so i i've done that already
i just want to i just know there's
various funding sites and we've talked a
lot about like for example the telstra
fund
planning that out
looking at ways to benefit right
affordable housing
things of that of that nature that i see
could very easily
from this priority list
we could we we could look at that
telstra fund and say this is what we're
gonna do um you know using that we
haven't quite gotten to that point
um and then and then lastly
um the wi-fi that's a
that's a really important thing for me
broadband
um
it
it it can mean the difference for an
underprivileged kid or person right to
have access
like i've seen so many times um you know
before covet where kids are sitting out
you know
later evening hours
because they're getting you know they
don't have access
um to that in their in their home
but i've also wanted to look at it in
terms of a of a business opportunity or
an incentive if you will
and
i did mention the the wi-fi at the plaza
but extending it downtown i think that's
a really very important aspect but mayor
i've i've had several meetings with
larger groups and
thankfully
the success partnership has really taken
on the idea of broadband and you know
wi-fi
we've had some great conversations with
the speaker and i'm asking that council
that
we look at um
do it from the state they have a great
presentation and they've and i'm not
sure if our it communicates with them if
we're coordinating and collaborating
because they have a great presentation
that shows where we're limited in the
city and in the county um but city
specifically so i want to make sure that
that that we're not throwing money at
things and although i think it's super
important that but that we're
coordinating collaborating with others
to include the county
other organizations that that have this
is a priority um and and i i'm all for
expanding this the wi-fi and broadband
capability but i think we need to be
very strategic and i'd like to see um
the city communicate with do it from the
state and bring um that organism in and
and and really plan out if it's done i'd
like to hear of it if it's not it's
something that i think before we we
spend a lot of money because those are
big that's a big ticket item if there
isn't fiber
or excuse me microwave um
i think is what they've they've is the
terminology that it would be very costly
to do that and so again i just want to
make sure that we're hitting those
points in our city that do have
limitations
moving forward and maybe you know
recommend a a
um
a work session specific to that
um
as as well and okay i took some notes
let me just make sure that i
um and again you know i think counselor
i think
affordable housing is important to all
of us
and we want to make sure that that that
gets funded and i'd like to see that um
in our budget this go around but looking
at again the different funding sources
moving forward
mayor there's some real um
movement and energy around the using the
storage um containers
to get some temporary housing up
i know i'm really looking forward we had
a great presentation from a housing
policy review committee natalie is
working so hard with her staff and
everybody else
to bring all these um great
opportunities and we have some private
public partners ngos that are really
interested in that and i think um in
lieu of the email i received today from
counselor ben bencomo
and one of the officers related to the
homeless population you know our local
our local law enforcement is really
struggling trying to keep up and manage
that and i think the social workers that
have been identified
to work as a as a coordinator
is it should happen it's something i've
been working on for some time
um and i think it i think it needs to to
happen
so um i i guess that's it i hope i i
answered or gave as much feedback as you
were expecting
um moving forward mary thank you yeah
thank you mayor potem i i uh let me
listen to the rest of the council but i
i'm gonna i'm gonna
venture to say that they're probably
gonna want to throw some more things on
here and i think we probably need to
have a work session where we can kind of
in all fairness to the others to because
i don't think you know there's a few of
them that didn't have anything i don't
think council florida said anything i
don't think councilor sword did
you know they may want to say hey you
know what i want this i want to spend
some money so i think what we need to do
is probably have a
circle back with a work session still
use these but basically expand it and
then break it down into things that are
are realistically we can do
and remember we can do this every year
it doesn't have to be all done in one
year i mean we can we can slowly plan on
that i mean like for example we've been
wanting to have a senior kitchen there
off of our mijo or a compost tree one of
those that we really need to have for
our elderly so we can start uh preparing
their meals because just getting to the
point where the east side center is just
getting it's just it's old you know and
that's six seven million dollars we
planned that
when oscar butler was a county
commissioner that's a long time ago you
know and that's the plan for that and so
you know do we just sidestep these
things that we had in place and and put
all these in front i don't know that's
something that of course council would
would have to make that recommendation
but let me listen to the rest here and
see what their thought process is if we
want to you know come back but i have to
just say that if we're gonna if we're
gonna do this
you either have to send it directly to
efo so that he can have staff get an
idea of how much it's gonna cost or we
just have work sessions on this we can
you know slowly bring together um
projects that you all have and then see
how we can kind of prioritize prioritize
them and and based on cost and and the
fact whether or not we can really get it
realistically done
so let me go to um
who's next counselor bait the student
uh thank you mayor um one of the things
i've been doing as we've been listening
um because i know
this could be a very long conversation
and filled conversation that's really
necessary um i have prioritized a list
just hearing from items here but one
thing i would like to add is that i
didn't see um
a couple of priorities that came through
in our packets i just didn't see them on
here
there was a request i also put in for
um in part at park improvement um within
my district and so i think i don't know
about others but i did put in a couple
others that haven't made it to this
slides that we see here today so
hopefully that will be something we can
add on to the conversation later on as
well
and just to clarify david this is back
when
staff met with counselors individually
and asked them what they would like to
see and um you know some okay i just
want to clarify that so
everyone's shaking their head and i
believe that that's the case
you know one thing i'd like to address
first before i go on with my list is
that with the oem
um and i do this because
we are seeing um i think we've seen
during this pandemic that
there can be
siloing of communication between
departments between county
between county and oem between city and
oem and we're all supposed to be working
together and during this time
the city does not have any sort of
direct oversight over this department
that is
largely in control of resources of when
we're in a crisis
in those moments
and i think there can be some
complications with that so my inquiry um
within that was to look at
does the oem suit the purpose that we
need in those moments of crisis
and that is just a conversation to
happen um and between many uh between
the city between county commissioners
um and then from there is to look at
um and this is more what i think the
objective is is to make sure that we
have some sort of oversight when it
comes down to it i don't necessarily
think that we need to break away but i
do think we need to have oversight as
well um because i'm
haven't been fully um
satisfied with the communication that
we've been given
especially when we had our first covet
reports there was a lot of hesitation
and backlash for us even asking
questions during that time
and the
further i went in asking more in-depth
questions um there were some issues and
frankly the very first question i ever
asked of the oem manager was a false
question he answered falsely and i
corrected it on the spot and so that
doesn't give me confidence when we're in
those moments of crises that things are
being handled well and as the second
largest city
in new mexico we need to make sure that
we have all the resources at our
disposal and so that is the the purpose
that i have with that um do i think it
needs to be on this top ten list no
because i think it needs to be an
oversight question
um and that we need to be pursuing that
um pretty aggressively because as we can
see
not only is covit now a issue that we're
going to have to be looking at long term
but we have um issues with
immigration in migration and we're going
to have other challenges and other
issues that come up and so we need to be
able to be confident
that our voice as las cruces is
being put out there as powerful as it
can be and that we are getting the
resources that we need
when we need it
um in our task force we're still doing
things like resource listing that should
already be done
those types of things should already be
easily accessible from
those types of management systems um and
so that's why i think that we need to
really look in depth with those items
with the oem
so that's
that's on that conversation and it it's
a it's a harsh critique and i recognize
it is but it is something that i think
really warrants those extra
conversations yeah yeah counselor let me
just share something with you real quick
and and i can't understand where you're
coming from
uh the oem model has been around since
i've been in office since 1993. and and
basically how it goes is it falls under
the state
the state provides 50 of the funding
county 25 and the city 25 and as long as
i've known it's always it's always been
resting in the county because it is
technically a subdivision of the state
and so you see that model throughout all
the 33 counties
however
i'm not i would suggest that we bring in
our state reps and state senators and
voice those concerns so that we can have
a little bit more oversight because in
the past it's always fallen to the state
and then because like i said the
county's a political subdivision of the
state uh that's usually why it rests
with them if you notice
years ago or a while back when colin
combs would make a comment he would be
wearing a shirt that said don't yana
county because it's always been with the
county forever like i said since i've
been there since 19 well since i got
elected in 1993. so i i think what you
you're bringing touching on is a good
point and i think that's something there
we need to bring in let's bring in old
senator steinborn you know he likes to
he likes to work with us and the city
that you know anytime we can reach out
to them and in fact like for example uh
the lady who i spoke with today the
secretary
bianca ortiz wortham she oversees that
so we need to have a
sit down with her and perhaps share with
her
these type of comments
thank you uh thank you i think that's a
great idea and as you pointed out that
we give county gives 25 we give 25
we're giving equal there and so we need
to be able to have it um that program be
utilized just as much for us as it is
for county and we need to be able to to
be confident in
that sort of um
there there are resource procures they
are our managers and and those are
really um important areas for us and
we've seen in a crisis how that can make
or break a county and so i i think
that's a conversation that i'm happy to
have um in the future
i also met they're also mandated to take
care of the
of the space of them that's why it's
over that's why it's housed in that
building on solano
it's like they're also mandated to take
care of the district judges unfunded
mandates they call them
good good points i appreciate that thank
you
was there anything else um did you want
to maybe look at coming back with a
special work session with some different
requests so that you can rival that of
mayor putnam
well thank you like i said i had a
couple more quests that made it into the
packet but didn't make it on to the
presentation so i'm happy to have that
um if we're going fast here so that
there's direction i did a little
resource list of items that i found to
be of importance and those that other
counselors brought up um obviously i am
in support of our wi-fi in the parks
the el paso corridor um this active tank
system
um and then of course pavement
management is one of my top
items
i think
cities are judged um on roads
parks and litter
and those three items can make or break
a city um just on visual appeal and so i
think page
management is a
big component of that and so i'd
definitely like to see that um funded to
i want to say its full potential
but i know that we need to do it
incriminately
i also
want to say there's three programs which
i think working together could be very
helpful
and that is of fully funding that mobile
health program um
uh the social worker for uh housing that
mirror pro tem uh
had on and then i do see a crisis a
mobile crisis unit as a slightly
different item um but i think it's just
as important to have the two
distinctions um for me a mobile uh the
integrated mobile health program sees
kind of chronic uh people in distress
whereas for the mobile crisis unit um i
see that as if you were to get a call
from
uh our 911 center and there's a person
in an active crisis then the mobile
crisis unit uh would respond to those
types of items and that
there's models and i think it's in
austin um had it where it is a social
worker and
a officer that attend together for these
types of items um and so i'm happy to
bring forth more information for mr p
lee as well on that type of unit but i
see them as two different ones but uh
the three of those items working
together i think could really change our
community in a very big way um and so if
i had to pick those are my top and i'll
uh
i'll
turn it over
counselor wi-fi el paseo
payment management social worker and
what was that what was the other one the
mobile health uh integrated program and
the mobile crisis unit
and then
the septic tank
issue and i tried to pick up items from
other counselors as well or other
districts
and my own
okay i i will tell you this that um
before the pavement management system
okay
uh once in a while and this is predates
everyone even maybe even counselors
stored
once in a while we would switch out
a street or two
but let me tell you something it got
really political and if there's you're
gonna you're you're gonna you're gonna
make one street happy and you're gonna
make the other one mad
and when we went to this it kept a lot
of that out of there i just want you to
say it i'm telling you that my
complaints went down
tremendously but
anyway i just i just share that with you
thank you i think it's a great program
and i i'd like to
um
give it more money so he can give it
more okay i thought you wanted to take
it over and decide which one it's the
oh no no no i just want to give it more
money because i think you have a lot of
work to do
okay okay okay
okay
council thank you um counselor sword
caught me a little off guard mayor
uh thank you um
let me start by asking if you could go
to the slide that has the chandler tank
park in it
i missed the number on it
did you
go too fast
i remember seeing it but maybe
mayor this is um this is leanne demerish
chief budget officer david is it
am i missing it or is it it was one of
the priorities
yes leanne it was one of the priorities
it was
right after klein park
okay i don't see it in the slide
presentation david
klein park wasn't on there i don't
believe and i didn't remember seeing it
on this list
i know it was
i know it was uh one of the um
david it was one of the uh priority
sheets
there was a
document that was sent to the council
here last week
and it was my only project
i'm just so surprised it didn't put in
the presentation i only had one
and i apologize you took it away from me
darn it
i counsel i apologize counselor uh david
put this together and i guess he and i
both must have
actually none of the parks are in here
unless did we combine them on
yeah
leanne this is counselor flores uh yes
there were as counselor beta stewie
stated and
gil's counselor sorg has stated there
were some slides of pages that were
missing from my packet
so um the whole thing's very confusing
to me anyway so i'm just here for the
ride
well that let me talk about chandler
tank okay like i said it i'm in the list
that was sent out last week i was a
little surprised but
it's the only one that had my name on it
and except for um counselor ben como and
con counselor uh vedas duve the rest of
you know the history of the chandler
tank
project
and um this is something that the people
there really want it's a park it was
always meant to be a park
um
it does have a little conflict in the
fact that it's flood control too but we
have flood control uh
uh structures in the city that also work
as a park too
and so this can be done of course and
and staff knows this um they haven't
refused to do it they just have to get
the right kind of park in there
so the thing is is this has been what
three and a half years now since it
started and we haven't really gotten
very far on it at all and that's the
main reason why i put it in the list
here
um
i believe according to the document we
got sent
um i'm looking at it now
it it says it's uh to plan design
construct furnish equip
et cetera et cetera the
chandler tank in las cruces
but um not limited to new neighborhood
park in conjunction with the existing
storm water management facility with
walkways and trails native vegetation
restoration because that was all ripped
away by
by the former administration in the city
but also landscaping and irrigation
system playground equipment picnic area
etc
um
those are all possibilities maybe it
won't be having all that but uh this is
something i would put on my number one
priority
um if i was to choose one project of
everything in the city that would be
numero uno
and uh so i
i also want to bring up to the council
something that just came up to me just
in the last month
uh it was talked about
i will say
eight nine ten years ago
but because the development never
materialized
um it's kind of put it put on the back
burner or on the back shelf
um this is a development on the north
elks drive
this is actually two developments i'm
talking about here one
is that um tierra del sol
rose garcia has this neighborhood there
a subdivision that contains
workforce
housing um especially for agriculture as
that's what she calls it and so there's
single families homes there there's
multi-family uh apartments there
and um it's
getting pretty full it's pretty well
built out now
um
a very nice little neighborhood
and uh there's another 24 acres that is
not
developed it's still uh virgin land so
to speak um and she wants to start
developing that
too but we need a park
in that area so and also this 24 acres
has a fairly significant arroyo going
through the corner of it and she wants
to have some kind of park that involves
that arroyo too is open space
so
she's looking for the city to buy that
piece of land for
uh open space park whatever uh fits best
and so that is something i want to put
on the list too we haven't done the
numbers yet completely but the
indication that they gave is they're
going willing to sell this land for a
really
uh
um
a very good price i'll say just that way
for a very good price
and so that is another one i want to get
on the list
and i got one more part too but i'll
save that for next month
mr mayor thank you
yeah kelsey councillor i i wonder if
what you're talking about is what uh
leanne sent out in
late january it said pre-budget retreat
and i'm looking at it right here and it
says under parks and rec it says east
mesa public rec center medium
landscaping burn lake gallagher park
klein park chandler tank park vape and
center splash pad
and i wonder if that's what you were
referring to no no this is a document uh
annette sent us
to supplement our uh
okay session today okay
christine
okay
i get the two of mixed up and that
christine
they're both i'm sure they shouldn't be
like you're not nice but they're not the
same i know i'm just kidding
mr mayor i think uh miss dillian would
like to say
something okay sure barbara
thank you mayor yes barbara deleon chief
of staff for the record um yes just
conferring with david and leanne we have
parks that are listed on the
prioritization summary that was sent to
you all
last week that weren't included on this
in the presentation but they are part of
the 45 million dollars that evo
mentioned were raised as priorities by
the counselors and so we apologize for
for the oversight of those parks in the
presentation but they are included in
your packet
with the information pertinent to each
one of those items similar to what you
see here in terms of the costs
alignment with strategic plans elevate
etc thank you
mr mayor if i could add one more thing
um
this pavement management uh index the
pmi
or pms
um
and is is something that uh has worked
very well in the last few years since we
started using it and um like counselor
uh bencomo or was it yeah i think it was
bencomo said let's put some more money
into it well that's what we were going
to do when we passed the 3 8 percent
grt home wire home home
hold harmless grt
and um that was supposed to be 67 60
some percent of the hold harmless grt
i know that's been shaved off and sent
to other projects and other items in the
city budget um i'm all for
putting more money at the harmless grt
into the pms
city projects or city streets i should
say
okay
thanks councillor
uh councillor
flores
thank you mr mayor so um
thank you for explaining ms dillion that
and i think leanne had mentioned it too
that the parks were out but i i have
a fundamental question
um
we received our packages and uh the east
mesa rec center uh medians
uh septic tank remediation and full-time
employee from the airport
those were
i was a supporting counselor on those
but all of those are funded so
why are we talking about according to
what i have in front of me
those are funded items
especially the east mesa
rec center that was the go bond so why
are we talking
about
funded and chandler park also indicates
that it was funded so
why are we talking about um
parceling out uh what is it i think uh
ipho said it was 10 million dollars that
we need we would need 45 million dollars
to do all everything we need to do
um
so i i need an answer for that i'm i'm
dazed and confused
the mayor uh councillor flores mayor if
i can answer that sure
david also
might want to chime in so counselor uh
when we sit down with um all of the
all of the counselors and the mayor
um as you know mr sedillo and i and our
staff we took lots of notes um since
these issues were brought up during
those uh priority meetings and yes we do
realize
uh but at the time like for instance the
airport at the time um we were not sure
uh you know you you were uh as a
supporting counselor you were saying
that you wanted to see more staff you
know to help the airport administrator
out with
you know support additional
human resources support
and so at that time we did not we did
not know that he was going to ask for
this in his budget
we did not know that he was going to
reclass so pretty much what we're also
doing at this time is giving you an
update uh to your request as well so
that way you you understand that we did
look into it that we did find that there
you know uh that especially like let's
say i'll use the airport as an example
uh we did reach out to the airport they
they knew you know because you are on
the airport advisory committee and so i
did talk to mr andy hume so we just sort
of wanted to update you because it is
something that you addressed with us and
we wanted to make sure that you knew
that we were looking into it and getting
an answer back to you
but no that isn't my that's not why now
i'm more dazed and confused with with
what you said mr moosh but thank you
anyway uh no no no
um
the
i mean i i think
you know i mean we're all sitting here
uh you know i i think that it's almost
like we're on santa's uh
you know
lap asking for everything under the sun
knowing there's really no santa claus so
you know so thank you for the
explanation but
i'm not asking
what i'm saying
is that safe look i'm looking at
chandler tank park i'm looking at that
page
um
supporting counselor gil sword and then
you go down to is this project currently
funded the answer is yes
the allocation is five thousand
five hundred thousand one dollar
so
and then and then the other items here
that we covered
um the if the full-time airport is
funded in fact you know someone's
already being hired and the position's
been re-named or whatever
and um so my question is um
[Music]
why are funded programs here
if they're already funded the money's
already there or is that just a fiction
that money is there
and we know
i know well that the east mesa even
though it's not part of the presentation
that was that's been uh that's been
taken care of by the go bond and that's
why i'm dazed and confused do i have
that totally wrong
and and why are we you know sitting here
discussing how many of these little
items in our package we're going to
parcel away
or you know
pair away at so can you explain that mr
moosh or whoever the powers that be
mayor councillor flores i'll try to take
another stab at this and i apologize if
i'm not explaining this thoroughly um
for me i'm going to use the example of
the the best one for me is the mobile
integrated health program the mobile
integrated health program is budgeted um
it has a budget i want to say of a
hundred and something thousand dollars
uh they are meeting their strategic
goals however
in order to meet the demand
they will need an additional which is
what is it shows is the estimated cost
they will need an additional 500 000
so the total project is actually 700. so
the estimated amount that you see
on these forms is above and beyond what
it's already currently budgeted for
and and i hope i said that i i i hope
that correctly and understandable i
don't know if dave might want to uh add
on to that yeah yeah yes yes mr moosh i
totally understand that part
but what about the east mesa rec center
and what about the medians that have
been allocated for about 10 million
years since you know they first went up
when this when those medians first went
up i think all of that was taken care of
and i know
that i really i i really didn't ask for
that um and the reason is because
um my prior i mean yes i might i might
have asked a question as to why haven't
the medians on lowman and roadrunner uh
parkway been taken care of
and sonia delgado has very uh
you know very
aptly very
carefully explained to me
that money for the road for the median
in front of on road runner parkway in
front of veterans park has been
allocated but somehow you know they're
still working on it
and so these things that um
that appear here are are confusing to
totally confusing to me
because um i mean it throws in a little
sentence on the the part of the medians
on loman and uh roadwater parkway
that fifty thousand dollars was
allocated have for those and that once
there's a design then funding
you know
funding sources will be whatever looked
into
but frankly um it's not a priority of
mine
yet to see you know because it is a
health and safety thing when you get
those big winds and then we get those
big rocks on lowmen and when there's a
big rain and then i don't know who or
which you know brain trust went out
thinking that if they just move the you
know they just sort of put a little um
you know a little what do you call it
just move the dirt around when it rains
it just won't you know flush into um
flush into the rest of the uh street
um you know i don't i don't know where
that came from brainchild so um
so no there it's not a priority of mine
would i like to see it done yes but
would i like to see other uh you know
like roads
you know uh are certainly a priority i
think that's number one one of the
highest priorities for for all of us i'd
rather see chandler tank taken care of
but we kind of look at our own districts
and understandably that's what you're
looking at but i just want to understand
like the septic tank remediation thing i
mean i've been talking about that since
i was on council and then david maestas
explained well it's something that's
been in process you know and and then
as i said the the medians have also been
in process since before way before i was
on city council
so um
are these of concern to me because
they're in my district absolutely but um
so you're saying that the wreck the um
if you i know we're not discussing it
today so why aren't we discussing parks
and why were we given that in the
package you see why i'm basing confused
mr mayor
yes david
if i may clarify
thank you
uh mayor councillor flores uh david
cedillo public works
so to address your question on the east
mesa public wreck based on the meetings
that we had back in november i believe
that you're wanting to see
phase two
of the master plan
move ahead to completion and utilize a
second go bond to
make sure that those improvements are
done
uh so that's
that's from the notes that we had based
on the meanings that that we had so just
wanted to clarify all we're presenting
are those items that were discussed in
the meetings
uh yes some of them do have some funding
but those were
projects initiatives priorities that
everyone brought forth during those
meetings
okay mr cedillo thank you thank you very
much so okay i'm on that page east mesa
public recreation center estimated cost
10 million dollars
is this project currently funded yes
budget amount 11 thousand so we need one
million three hundred and sixty seven
uh thousand six hundred and forty three
dollars
more we need one million dollars more to
to get all that so the gold bond
really didn't do it i mean the gold bond
didn't bring in additional money
i mean to bring the complete uh
you know to complete the the uh the
development there right
so
what do we do when we underestimate or
we because it seems to me that
if we voted on uh you know and and and
the estimated cost is 10 million
but the budget well the budget amount
excuse me the budget amount exceeds the
estimated expense
so why are we why are we voting on a
priority if the money is already there
see why i'm confused
yes ma'am i can see the confusion there
the budgeted amount that we have
currently in this fiscal year is for
that phase one of the master plan
so if you recall when we brought an
update last month or the go bond
projects
the east mesa improvements the
improvements at the recreation
park are only for those for phase one so
they only included a certain amount of
amenities
so but as part of that we had a platform
so the budget that we currently have
one
that we're currently designing and going
to be going out to bid
phase two is going to be the completion
of that master plan and that's what the
10 million dollars is
is a for is to complete that phase two
so yes under the original go bond
which was approved back in 2019 that was
only covers phase one
doesn't it
and if we're going to have another go
bound mr cevillo
why do we want to
i mean
we have i think mr peeley said we have
10 million dollars
to take care of the 45 million dollars i
mean you know to take care of projects
that would really cost 45 million and if
this is going to go back for a go bond
go bond monies
why would we have this item
on today you know on today's agenda i
mean why
why take a million dollars
say we had
you know the majority of the city
councillors you know when we vote on
this if we're or whatever
if we um
you know if there's four
i don't know i i don't know how you're
gonna do i guess are we gonna vote on
this eventually
yes ma'am and counselor flores
we've been taking some notes and and
that's a good point to make um obviously
like ifo said we're bringing this fourth
uh this is the first to go around as
we're doing this that's probably
something that we need to take a look at
at our next go round of the screen
thank you mr sadio and i want to make it
perfectly clear that
i want to represent my
my constituents in a very fair manner
and i think it's true i i think uh a few
uh my colleagues already voiced that
rhodes is a big deal in our city and i
agree with uh councillor abeda stooby
who says that
you know that curbside appeal of a city
you know the the visual appeal of a city
has you know roads have a lot to do with
that and i i don't know if i would
prioritize
um
i you know i i don't know if i would
prioritize
um
you know
medians
for
uh some of the things that have come up
because of because of covid
and you know having uh
you know some uh anyway funding the fire
department or to have more services
so anyway i um
i want to thank you mr city you and
thank you mr moosh and thank you mayor
and and thank you councillor looks like
ifo wanted to make a couple comments
thank you mayor
and uh counselor flores i think i
understand
maybe the confusion as well
uh so so we're we're throwing out all
the budget priorities that we
we thought were given uh within those
meetings
so we're not really talking about
funding source right now and i think
that's where the confusion comes from is
that
you know all of these have different
sources of funds that we're going to
pull from like for example
uh we can we can
resolve some of this
intel sure fund or we can
uh we'll present this in our next one
but we're just talking about priorities
that the council has brought up
um and yeah there are some that that
should be already funded and spoken for
and therefore
uh
you know should remain on the list but i
think uninhibited by by any funding
source i mean our job that's our job to
take what you give us and go find the
source of those funds and if we can't we
come back and let you know about it but
um i think that's where the confusion is
because we're not having a discussion of
of where these funds are coming from at
this point
we're just we just want to know that the
the priorities
are what they are what we think they are
and i think again this this is a result
of
maybe in the past we've had processes
that
where we come up with our own cip
uh you know staff has a has a pretty
complicated system that we put together
and then we come to council and
you know i know those concerns
from council saying that you know we we
haven't had any input on where these
priorities are or or how these projects
came about
and so this is this is really a priority
setting
meeting for us just another step
in the budget process that we want to
continue to include if we had all day
with the budget meeting
uh this would have been included in the
budget budget process as well so
these projects we throw up what these
priorities are some have been talked
about for years some some are just new
some
were misunderstanding and so we want to
get clarification so we can narrow down
all the projects
and then we come back and say listen we
have this amount of money
uh
for example the east mesa park is
already going to be funded by the go
bond so we don't have to say you know
what uh we're going to cut it because we
don't have money for it well we have a
solution for that one
uh and so we'll move down to the next on
that list
uh you know of priorities but i i
totally i can see the confusion there
but that i don't know if that maybe
helps a little bit more counselor
no i'm just more dazed and confused at
this point and i'll tell you why mr
pealey with all due respect you said you
know
it's like you know you're offering us
one candy bar and and seven of us have
to uh divide it you know one little you
know a little snickers bar
and
um and and it's kind of like you know
um
we have to divide it and then we all
think well we're just gonna go for
you know what's good for me here
and i don't like working that way and i
don't like um you know you did say my
notes say
um that we have to have a top 10
and that there's 10 uh 45 million
dollars
right
that have to be spent and that we have
to narrow it down to the
to the you know to the top 10 and i
don't know if you put a dollar amount on
there
i recall you said 10 million but my
notes don't say that
so i i'm just um i don't know what we're
supposed to be doing here today except
um
talking about how important our
priorities are and um and i think that
some of our priorities are
universally throughout i mean i it
doesn't really matter what council
district you're in i think we all care
about very similar things um
so
um
you know i
so i i just i don't know maybe mr mayor
maybe
you know
someone can clarify where we go from
here for me please because
and then the uh yeah like the yeah
yeah
i think this i don't know why the parks
are on our packet but we're going to
discuss county council what i think we
should do honestly is basically start
over make sure everybody has this list
and then just put it on another work
session and then that way there when we
just and and not having so many other
things maybe just this be on a one or
two item work session day and
then maybe our next works i'm going to
check with
annette to see what our next work
session how busy it is maybe we can move
a couple items out so we can get this
thing going here so the staff can see
where
priorities need to need the line
um
i i have to tell you something i i don't
yeah i think that's probably what we
should maybe do
that way there we all start off we have
this list
uh some may have received it maybe some
overlooked it i don't know but
i think i think it'd be best to do that
that way everybody's on
on uh equal footing and
so we're behind a couple weeks not not a
problem
and and mr mayor um so what do we do at
the end say you know at the meeting that
we're going to have to as a continued uh
continuance of what we're having today
um
what do we do at the end of the meeting
do we vote do we
well i'm just gonna i'm just gonna
suggest that we not that we just have
this and
and well let me talk to the other let's
let the others talk here but i think we
should probably just circle back and and
and
and maybe have a
just move this to another work session
item
probably the best thing to do thank you
mr mayor
councillor uh bincomo and then councilor
vasquez
thank you mayor um yes i'd love an
opportunity to provide some feedback
myself i will say that the things that
are listed on here that have sort of my
name as counselor who supports this
i that list was very intentional i went
into those meetings with staff with
leanne
david maestas david cedillo like those
meetings were very intentional for me i
had a couple constituent meetings before
that meeting i wanted to gather as much
information for my constituents as
possible and that's how i came up with
the list that i came up with for those
budget priorities so i
yes i feel i assume that the rest of the
council was giving was given that same
opportunity so
um you know i'm sort of assuming that we
are all on the same page um at least
when it came to these meetings
um i will say that i wanted to thank
staff for these fact sheets i thought
they were wonderful i was also um i was
also like hey well we didn't talk about
parks but that makes sense i appreciate
barbara's
context around that um
i would like to maybe co-sign a list of
my priorities given the
uh presentation that we just had
um
because i think they to me were the ones
that spoke the loudest to me they were
the ones that sort of said these will
change
and improve quality of life for
residents in our community certainly in
district 4 but all over the city
um the pavement management
system i i think it's a great system
i've talked to david cedillo and his
staff about it a lot
um they could probably give me a job of
public works after how much i talked to
them about this
um no just kidding of course but i i
think that system is
really well thought out what i keep
talking about though and i mentioned
this at a retreat a few weeks ago is
that
um there i i feel like there is not
necessarily a set plan for how to um
actually invest in roads that need full
to be fully
um
redone again and so for me it kept much
like counselor beta stewie said i'd like
to give this
program in public works more money to do
more of that work more of the work to
improve more of our roads particularly
those
81 mile of road
in the city that need come to be
completely redone so for me that's huge
housing affordable housing is also huge
as the chair of the housing prc um this
for me continues to be one of the top
priorities
um i've talked to ifo at length about
the crisis unit that i fully believe
needs to be staffed um by
practitioners by social workers people
who are trained in crisis intervention
and it should and i personally believe
it should be a non-law enforcement unit
and
absolutely want to co-sign the social
worker
um and the additional funds to the
mobile integrated health unit
um of course the el paseo i'm also
absolutely willing to um you know not
include my sort of west picacho priority
this year because i do think the el
paseo solano
project will
lay a pathway for how we can reinvest in
some of these other corridors that have
been neglected
um so i'm okay with that and then you
know to me something like the septic
project could dramatically change
people's quality of life and certainly
the wi-fi the public wi-fi so
um let me make sure i got it all um yeah
so those are sort of my um top
priorities that i think we should move
forward with
i'm excited for the potential of the
housing um
like the go bonds for housing
um a couple other things that we're
working on
and discussing in the housing prc but
for me these are the most important i
will say that i have
um potentially one big concern
um with amador hotel being one of the
items on here with the largest price
tags um just given what i just said in
terms of and we all know this is
important you know we had a work session
on this i'm not saying it is not
important i just feel like given the re
the economic update we just received
given where
um many of our residents are and what i
think will significantly improve
people's quality of life
those funds those public dollars should
be used very carefully and very
strategically and i'm not
necessarily sure that eight million
dollars
for the amador hotel is the best use of
funds
when um you know i really think that
i mean i can't like
what could eight million dollars do for
road maintenance you know so i in terms
of
context i think is important that we
um
approach some of these numbers so anyway
i actually don't have a lot more to say
mayor i
i guess i'm sort of
not necessarily ready to start over i
feel like i you know my list of things
were very intentionally thought out
um and i feel like this list that i just
named
um
to me feels like a really great and then
you know you said perhaps we can come
back with more items
but i'm hearing um city manager pili say
that we need to shrink our list so i'm
just curious about
um
that
no no i appreciate that counselor and
and let me let me just ask uh whether
zefo or leanne and okay so i've got this
list that totals 45 million dollars
um
now where exactly are we going to get
that 45 million dollars from
mayor this is ifo are you
just wondering if you're at evo he's not
asking me so
i'm just getting around here
no no i'm serious
where are we going to get the 45 million
from well that's what i'm saying is we
don't we don't have 45 million dollars
and we're just giving you a total of
what all these will come up come up to
if we did all of them this year
but um in fact we're going to bring that
amount of what we do have
on the 22nd meeting
but yeah we we don't have 45 million
dollars to fund all of this okay so how
much do we have that that we can have
that operate you know without touching
the telstra fund right now
to to operate um
you know to be able to do projects
maybe some of these
do you have a general idea
you know not not really and that's where
that's why i said on the 22nd when we're
done with inputting all the fixed costs
and going through with the department
heads you know if we stop meeting all
the personnel those things that will
maintain service levels
uh this
fund balance will be calculated into
that amount that we have available and
we'll get a better understanding of what
that fund balance would be here in the
next couple weeks and so maybe maybe
that discussion will be better
had once we have that pop but
um
i hear you and let me just tell you
reason why you don't see my name on on
these i tell staff i said listen yeah
i've got three things that i want to
accomplish
one was east loman which we have you
know uh second was amateur proximal and
the other one would say opencl corridor
those three whatever these counselors
want you know it's my district too you
know so it doesn't that's why i'm okay
i'm okay with whatever they want however
and i can understand where counselor
florist is coming from
you know uh and i think this is where i
think we this is why i said we probably
need to just hit the reset and and and
we you know because when you when we
have this thing presented like this
um i think we should have an idea a band
of money that we can use
that without having to go bond for
anything to borrow anything any money
you know x amount of dollars here and
then we'll figure out what projects fit
in that and then if we want to then
maybe do a different a smaller bond to
cover some other things and we'll add to
it and then the other one would be the
last one is if we are successful with
the bond issue
i mean we've gotta we've got to show the
public that that we know how to take
care of of bond money and we've got to
make this thing work and and because if
we don't make it work
you know i don't know if you knew this
evil but when we had when we this bond
passed a couple years ago that was the
first time in 50 years 5-0 the aggies uh
won the the sun bowl in 1960 okay
and and that it's been a long time since
then since uh we've actually been able
to fund a uh
geo bond so we have to we you know we
have to start doing it right before we i
think in my opinion start you know
figuring out what we're gonna you know
spend money on because some of these and
i have to agree i mean and and i'm sure
uh our friends at the amador aren't
gonna like it but 8.5 million is a lot
of money that's a lot of money and and
you know there's a lot of uh priority
i'd rather use that money for our senior
kitchen before we go and put it in in
the amador so
i think that's why
and i can understand where counselor
florida's coming from i mean we we have
this list and we prioritize it it's like
okay well let's go spend the money now
we don't even know we're going to get
that money how we're going to spend it
what what cuts are we going to do to our
budget to make some of this thing work
because we're going to you know we may
have to get some things some funds you
know we don't have
we don't have a magic tree we're going
gonna pull that money off off and so
we're gonna have to i think take this
list uh although i you know
okay
um and and but i think it's best that
we come back with our in in the work
session and have a list of monies that
we can spend which
may be maybe tight i don't know
okay so i think that's what you're
trying to get at is that what you're
trying to get at counselor florida's you
know why we have this if we can't even
spend it yet
yes thank you mr man that's what i
figured okay so let me go to counselor
basket oh councilman cuomo are you
finished i mean i was but can i just add
something to that point i guess i also
want to make sure that we're so we're
clearly saying as counselors these
things are a need in our community right
like these things are not things that
are happening and there are things that
we need
and so you know i
for me i think
not that our budget doesn't do good
things right but like budgets are moral
documents they're telling our community
this is what we care about this is what
we want to invest in this is you know
this is our vision for the city and i
feel like some of these items are
urgent i think some of them are
definitely more long-term don't get me
wrong i think some of like the housing
isn't gonna
magically happen in a year right like
i'm very aware that some of these things
are a lot more long-term but there are
some things that i think
you know should be prioritized as
happening sooner than quicker i mean
later sooner than later is what i meant
to say um and so i guess mayor i
i don't know necessarily what you mean
by let's restart but it you know for me
if i came back to another meeting i
would come back with very similar
um priorities because
they're not things that i came up with
on my own they're things that i very you
know intentionally thought about and i
feel like some of my colleagues did as
well but that's the last i'll say thank
you okay
councillor vasquez
thank you mayor um
yeah thanks for this good discussion and
this new process right i think
um this is kind of a hybrid of what we
used to do with cip projects which were
just capital improvement and then we
would pick the top 10
um out of council priorities but
i don't think we've done this before
with budget priorities and that's
probably a change in management because
i know
our last city manager developed a list
of
budget priorities that we had that he
would update us on or staff would update
us on periodically
but we didn't necessarily narrow those
priorities down at a council meeting um
because some of those were you know non
non-capital projects
um
uh regardless i think this is a good
exercise um i sim you know i think every
year i probably have had two to three
priorities and then there's a lot of
overlapping priorities that um i mean in
fact almost everything on this list are
things that i would support right in
terms of should we be investing in this
um
and so
um i'm not um gonna go down the list of
things i fully support because i support
a lot of these things and so i
um it's hard for me to narrow him down
with the exception of a couple that that
i think could be definitely better
better spent um in particular the amador
um
that's a really large investment
um but you know for me the el paseo
solano corridor and the vmware dam park
have been um priorities for me the last
three years two to three years and so
i want to continue to work on those and
i want to continue to make progress on
those and leave those in a good place
what i would have loved to talk more
about is like how the budget came to be
for that project three hundred thousand
dollars for a consultant or contractor
to do something um i wasn't very
specific i would didn't fully understand
what that would mean
um
regard so to me that investment could be
actually much larger
in terms of what kind of infrastructure
we want to set up to actually get these
projects done
and so
that's a discussion i'd like to have but
you know this makes me think about kind
of like the um capital outlay projects
right the legislature
decides on and every representative gets
a certain amount that they can put their
name on depending on their budget um
it sounds to me like this might be
something we're kind of trying to
emulate or do here which is fine
if that's a way we want to go in terms
of building equity into district
um investment
and so
yeah i think the process um just for me
if it could just be a little bit clearer
maybe a little bit more helpful um i
don't think my priorities would change i
think in my district um
the el paseo solano corridor and vmware
dam would still continue to be the
priorities for for my district
um and so uh so that won't change but i
think for for everything else right how
do we collectively decide on other
projects that are not just district
based and
and should be prioritized and so um i
think having a number attached to what
we have available to to kind of
prioritize would be good um and then
having some more clarity as well around
you know if if we are going to go to a
system of like hey we each get a certain
amount of dollars to for capital
projects in our district um then then
that might be a solution um uh mayor to
what you're saying about um you know you
know folks making sure that that we're
all doing right by our constituents um
but in general like you said i support
um almost all of these and so
uh i just want to hammer home on on el
paseo solano because
the development of that i know i am
confident is going to bring tons more of
reinvestment needs in that district
including sidewalks including
streetscapes including gateways
including
um you know incentives that we are going
to have to put in our budget to attract
new businesses um including affordable
housing and so i'm really passionate
about leaving that in a good place the
el paseo solano corridor um and would
love to also just discuss more with
staff what they're thinking about in
terms of that three hundred thousand
dollar budget um for a consultant to do
some amount of work um and then lastly
the vmware dam park
man that is city bit that is probably i
think around the same time as chandler
park
conversation started
i have been advocating just for the
development and the early development of
vmware dam park it stands to be the
largest urban open space in the city um
if we if we leave it with native
vegetation and natural walking trails
this has been the plan the whole time
it is not in you know a new part of town
it's essentially redeveloping
a part of town that's easily accessible
by various modes of transportation and
is already being used like a city park
um so i've talked with david dalahan at
length when he was still here about just
add like taking some liability for what
people are already doing there which is
running with their dogs walking those
trails
and that might mean adding some lighting
and some paths
while we continue to develop that park
and so i'd love to see a budget number
attached to that as well because again
it is city property the engineers have
cleared it for recreational use
um
and i just want to see that that move
forward because i think it's a
low-hanging fruit and just has so much
opportunity for our residents so
uh with that thank you mayor um i'll
defer to what what council wants to do
next but perhaps having a clear picture
of the budget and like how much we need
to prioritize would be a good start um
and i wouldn't mind bringing these
projects all back and and for me i just
want to add via more damn so thank you
man
okay thanks for that clarification
because i looked at that four times i
couldn't find the vmware damn on there
uh that you know so so like for example
if or leanne so like what counselor vos
is talking about that would come from
our our flood control money so that that
really wouldn't be any monies you know
that i think that we would use here and
you know and then like the
affordable housing trust you know we can
we can have that um
you know we needed to that
could could potentially be tapped from
from uh the telstra fund
you know council vasquez i i know i said
about diving up different portions per
district
i i misspoke i i was looking i was
thinking of something else i didn't
wasn't thinking about this particular
document i apologize for that so
scratch that you know these were these
must have been projects that um as staff
has heard council talk about in the last
few years and they they brought them
back is that what these are efo
so
so mayor this is exactly
i mean this isn't something the staff
just put in from what they've heard in
the past i mean this
this was from the meetings specifically
the meetings in november that they had
with each individual individual
counselor
and then they put that we put that list
together
and
then one thing i wanted to mention uh
you know this is this is really from the
feedback i got from from several of the
counselors
about not being involved in the budget
process enough
and so this this meeting obviously
didn't exist in our previous budget
process what without this meeting what
happens we come back to you
with uh next we come back to you with
the draft budget a 500 something page
document
that you're supposed to look at and
approve and and uh
and so there's a there's
as we talked it internally and and
getting feedback from counselors
uh we need this discussion we need to
understand priorities uh believe it or
not i actually
i mean
what i wanted to accomplish i i think
there's a lot of that that's that's
happened today in spite of the confusion
because uh part of it is just a
discussion on these priorities like each
one of the counselors have given us
individually
uh but hearing from everybody as they
talk through it that's actually been
helpful it's been helpful today
uh even in the midst of of confusion
about these priorities
uh we we've added another
uh meeting
to this process just so that we could
have more participation from council
i've heard about the cip since i've come
here from several of the counselors that
they've had they haven't had any input
that staff comes up with this formula
and then we come with our with our
budget priorities and the council's left
out
of of that that process and so this is
an attempt
to
to include
council and not even include but get
directions straight from council as
opposed to the other way around when it
comes to these budget priorities
and then we go back we go back and look
on how we can fund it one thing i wanted
to mention with the amador hotel since
it was brought up several times this is
an example of things that we could do
i actually met with uh with the amador
hotel organization with heather and her
team
uh i mentioned to them that an 8 million
dollar price tag
uh isn't going to i can tell you right
now without even talking to the council
that that's going to take up a lot of
money and it's probably not going to be
prioritized
and uh
she mentioned
well
she didn't think it was 8 million it's
going to be 5 million but i thought you
know 5 million as well is going to be a
hard number to swallow
so she said to break down earlier today
that it wasn't in the presentation but i
want to let the council know
about
phases so she sent a breakdown about
rather than a 5 million price tag
if there's any opportunity there there's
a half a million dollar ask that gets us
closer and closer to our goal right so
one we know that it's it's made the
priority list
uh and if it's 500 000 does that change
the the where it lies on the priority
right so so that's one example
but just getting the priorities out on
the table coming up with the top ten
we're not asking you to approve anything
right now i you know use the candy bar
example not asking you to split that
candy bar up just give us a prior i mean
just give us priority we're not even
talking numbers right now
as far as what we have available
but i can tell you it's not 45 million
we don't have 45 million dollars
but uh it has been helpful i think this
discussion today thus far has been
helpful i think it's been helpful to my
staff to hear
straight from from some of the
counselors mouths
and also even support for that from
other counselors so
again this was just a this is just in
response to
to complain maybe i would go far to say
complaints from from counselors that
they haven't been involved that like
they should be
okay but again i i think it's important
that we know how much money we can spend
without having to cut services
because there's because
i would venture to say that we have
more than just a few
few million dollars to spend unless we
start cutting
i mean it's just that simple we don't
run that
that uh
that
much money i mean to cover
a fraction of this stuff you know and
that's why i think that maybe counselor
flotus was getting a little frustrated
like why we have all this stuff here we
can't even uh pay for it yet and i don't
know we're gonna pay for it i mean these
are really some pie in the sky numbers
here and that's
some big stuff i mean our whole
operating budget is
twice this
twice this you know and and this is half
of it right here and it's like there's
no way we're gonna do this but okay
let's see
all right well then you're going to have
staff bring back uh
some
monies and
um
i just have to tell council just be
prepared because you're you're this list
is going to be
you know a fraction
unless you start cutting what do we cut
do we cut services do we cut cut out
library services do we cut out all kinds
of stuff i mean to make this stuff work
to budget
you know
we may have a little bit of money
uh in in the budget i mean as far as
reserves we were at one time going to
three tenths we don't need to be at
three tens two ten says i mean two times
is good we were getting close to three
times maybe we take a little money from
there you know um but it's just gonna
have to be
uh
really
a team effort and and counselor sword we
cannot use our reserves our reserves are
there for a reason okay because i know
you you want to spend everything you
know we can't do that we got to keep
that that's how we we get such low uh
rates and keep our city running uh
strong
now
i'm for the three tenths though at the
last tenth well that's a tough one we
don't we now i'm good with the two two
times you know three times is it's a lot
of money and i mean yeah that's nice but
you know that way there we help get some
of these things off the ground
but um
it
yeah yeah let me just make sure
counselor vasquez is done you're
finished counselor
uh yes thank you mayor okay all right
yeah thank you i i really appreciate the
the dialogue the thoughtful conversation
i felt a bit stingy but i've always been
a fierce advocate and i came very
prepared not only today but in the past
at these conversations and i think i
prefaced it that many of the priorities
that i have outlined have been things
that have have been left in the past on
the table or have been funded partially
and needed to have
more reconsideration and i want to
remind council
that those three facilities that i
mentioned are facilities that the city
owns that frankly we don't do a good job
maintaining
um it's similar to what was occurring at
the animal services center where this
the the center was going downhill we had
to replace we had to find at least i
don't know was it 175 to 200 plus
thousand dollars to replace that hvac
system
because our staff and the animals were
living in conditions that probably
shouldn't be and so
i i bring this up because it's an
important issue that
pay now or pay later right if we don't
continue to manage those those
facilities
in the way that in my mind we should be
um and um so i i don't want people to
think i agree that this budget is a
moral document
um and that that
do i agree 8 million dollars for the
amador but please remember
that that is very historically
significant to las cruces
um the first latino hispanic um founding
fathers of of las cruces and if you
don't know the history i'd encourage you
um to
um to to read
um because it is really important
they've been working and i'm glad you
feel thank you for bringing up i know
you had a meeting and and um
miss pollard did send me that um
attachment and i had forgotten to to
make mention of it um
and so
um i realized
500 000 to what you know
but i but i also need to to say to we
have to be very clear that we're going
to continue in our coveted response to
that is going to be probably the most
important aspect moving forward and i do
think it's important that there is
funding sources so i know mayor you
don't want to maybe
put aside telstra funding or
bonding cycles i think it's important
that we understand that those that
funding could be available and how are
we going to prioritize that funding
um to include um
the current funding that we have through
the city of las cruces so i i appreciate
that i just wanted to say that um
again i don't want to seem like i'm
stingy and i don't care about the people
i think people know i do
um and
and
um we have to really look at the basics
um here especially moving forward thanks
mayor
okay so then you're just going to bring
back some of this information ifo with
with staffs
bringing back some some numbers as to
what council what they think that can be
spent
maybe kind of break it down into a
couple of bands okay this is what we can
spend within our budget
um and and then if we move a little bit
more this is what we may have to do some
some reductions of and then also what we
would need to borrow i mean to get some
of these done
that's the way i look at it i mean
i mean i i i will
well okay we'll just like for example
this septic tank remediation
did in the past we used to get funding
half of some a lot of the funding from
the legislature
you know we put in for that
did we get anything from them is this is
this money to to help um well we can't
help them because that's an
anti-donation clause what you know like
for example
you know we can we can try to get that
from the state you know stuff like this
these are things that we can target that
that we should you know that that in the
past we've been able to get from the
state
um so
okay so you're going to bring that
information back in another council
meeting i mean another work session
that's correct mayor
and like i mentioned before we we will
figure out the funding source and
uh present that as well
and today we have to present to you a
budget that reflects your priorities
and this is
that's really what we want to know is
if these priorities are your priorities
and again if we could get it narrowed
down a little bit that's fine if not we
can send a survey or we can try and put
together a budget right now
uh that reflects your priorities based
off our conversation that we've just had
but we feel like it's you know it's
going to be our responsibility to come
up with these
funding sources and we'll we'll tell you
if we can we'll come to you and let you
know that we don't have the money for
for these but again like i mentioned the
amador hotel we said listen we can't
come up with 8 million but if we get
them get the 500 000 for year one is
that something you consider
uh you know other examples if we we
can't do the sewer i mean we're gonna we
already have a plan for the sewer to get
legislative monies and then we check
that off the list or we we're going to
fund this through go bonds and we just
you know
of course we we want to go down that
full 26 and have solutions for all of
that that's that's uh
that's where the skill comes in but i
think
for for right now and again believe it
or not like i said mayor and council i
i i've gotten some value today from from
the conversations that we've had even
even uh just the council expressing but
yeah that's what it is mayor we'll be
back with uh maybe what we've we've
collected from this meeting
um we are one thing we did add was to
add
more
opportunity if the council wants to have
opportunity with our budget committee
one-on-one to to get more detail on some
of these
some of these fact sheets and and see if
that see if we can
massage it a little bit but
uh
that will all happen
the goal was to have all this
collaboration happening
so that when we present you with this
draft document that's 600 pages
that you don't come back and say listen
i have no i'm going to have to pass
something i had no hand in or no
participation in
uh you know this is your document we
want you to watch you feel comfortable
with it so at the end of the day that's
what we're trying to accomplish
okay
now sorry you had did you have another
question i just wanted to point out you
you you gave
you provided us a good point here just a
second ago before mr pealey was talking
um
i just looked up the amador hotel as an
example of how complicated this can be
we already have a million and a half
dollars budgeted for the amador hotel
that's there for them to use
and so this eight million you know might
be stretched out another five ten years
or maybe not so long um
and so
this is everybody needs to understand
what's where the money is and how much
it is and so on so mr pealey did a good
job of of telling us that i just wanted
to point that out
okay good
all right well if there's nothing
further then entertain a motion to
adjourn
move to adjourn
i'll second it
promotion made by councillor bin cohn
second by counselor sword and christine
will you call the rule please
this is on the motion to adjourn the
work session counselor beta stevie
yes
concert vasquez yes
counselor bencomo
yes
counselor serg
yes
concert floridas
yes
councilor ganda yes
mayor yes
and i'll stay on to do the agenda
setting
so whenever you're ready just let me
know
bye bye everybody okay see you later
later gator
i'm
ready okay so this agenda setting
meeting for our march 1 2021 city
council meeting number one non-consent
one non-consent
two consent
two consent three non-consent
three non-consent for consent
for consent
five consent
five consents six consent
six consent
seven non-consent
seven non-consent eight non-consent
eight non-consents nine non-consent
nine non-consent and ten non-consent
ten non-consent
thank you have a good night
you