[Music]
you are live
okay good morning everybody welcome to
our special
uh meeting of las vegas city council
today is friday
october 30th 2020 it's approximately 9
00 a.m
before we begin if you please join me in
the pledge of allegiance
the flag of the united states of america
and the
republic for which it stands our nation
under god
see here now we just have um
we have a conflict of interest statement
i need to ask
so just want to ask if there's any
member of the city
council city manager staff or number of
uh
that has any conflict of interest on any
item on the agenda
none yes
who said oh someone said something okay
so the first item is resolution
21-067 need a motion in a second please
move to approve second candera emotion
made by
councillor vasquez second by mayor pro
tem gandera and let's see
who's going to be discussing maybe legal
i presume
is jennifer here
okay um
well if not i'll go ahead and take it so
basically what i did a few days ago as
you all know
was in response to the increase in
in covet cases and i had earlier that
that morning had discussions with the
mayor of el paso and the county judge of
el paso
as well as the consul general and um
representatives of
mayor cavada of wadis
and so you know one of the things that
that we were discussing as if is if we
could
somehow have everyone wear a mask that
would be the ideal situation
um you know we recognize that that's not
possible
and so the next best thing is in my
opinion was how do i focus
on on mask wearing um outside
and so i'm sure many of you have
received different reports throughout
the
the months about how people at
whether it's a skate park or whether
it's at the farmer's market
although there's a good amount of
compliance it's not
a hundred percent it's not uh you know
and i and i feel i feel that
some of those venues if we focus on it
we could have
near 100 theoretically we should have
just like city hall when we uh and i
appreciate your support
when when we required that anyone
entering city hall has to have a mask if
you don't have a mask
you know we have one available and if
you don't have one then you can't come
in and so what i wanted to do was put a
do a seven day
friction on
indoor recreational facilities and i
guess i was thinking more of say
myrshite
center uh the aquatic center we haven't
had any
situations there and and i don't know if
if
if the chlorine helps i have no idea but
we've never had any problems there at
the
at the rec at the aquatic center and so
what this resolution will do is
is take us about four more days and then
it expires
in essence is what it does and then we
could reevaluate it then
i know there's going to be another
discussion
i know there's going to be another
message another message there will be
another
part of the meeting um after this
and so that's kind of where the district
health officer in las cruces
is on the phone please leave a message
at the tone or enter another
805. yeah i believe that's david dolan
if he can mute himself oh is that david
okay so kind of that's where we're at so
open up to the open up the floor if you
guys have any questions basically all
this does is uh
extend it for four more days because
mine can only last for
three days mr mayor yes councillor
flores
yes um i for some reason i i don't i
have
sound but that's about it um i thought
your
proclamation was to have a um
that it would be in effect until further
notice from the governor
or further director from the governor
did i read that
no it always starts off like that that
that's what that's why
we first did this resolution given me
this authority and then
uh basically now if the governor ends
the
the emergency order then this
automatically ends
well i see i thought that it would be
this particular one would run
to through the end but okay oh no four
more days
uh counselor vasquez and councillor ben
cuomo
uh thank you mayor um yeah i'm glad to
see you're having conversations with
some of the city leaders here
in our surrounding communities um i saw
yesterday that um el paso county judge
uh samaniego i believe is trying to
um or has essentially ordered a shutdown
of all non-essential businesses for
two weeks and he's in a little bit of a
legal fight with the
state of texas with the attorney
general's office and their
governor and
i know we've thought about the
connectivity in the past between our two
communities
um really our entire borderland
community here and
when we had more strict measures in
place in las cruces
i know i think folks where saying
they're good they're going to go down to
a passive right to shop or to do the
things that they can't do in new mexico
and so um i just i don't know if you've
had conversations or
given thought to the opposite happening
in that if el paso is completely shut
down and we remain
open um that we're going to get a lot of
el paso folks coming to las cruces
which uh during any other time i'm sure
we would welcome their visit and their
grt
dollars but um is that something that
you've discussed with
um city leaders from el paso or from
juarez um
it's just that the the difference in
policies over the next two weeks and
what that
means for las cruces right now that's a
good point you bring up and so
in thinking about it we we did discuss
it in fact i think
it actually during that conversation um
it was discussed that many of the
residents coming from
wadis and they're crossing into the
bridge
not all of them are wearing masks and
and i asked mayor margo
is that a requirement that they have to
have it in el paso and he says yes and
you know i i'm not one to try to tell
them what to do i just
suggested i said well i wonder if it'd
be good if if you have your
your codes your people there right as
they're coming off the bridge and these
you know there's a mask
that's all that's where it was left so i
guess what i'm trying to say is
um and and if you think about it if if
if we had influx of people
and of course this is going to be for
non-essential services of course
um but if they were here and they were
all wearing masks
i think that's that's the whole key
really when you get right down to it
when you step back from everything if
everyone wore a mask
um i think that's that's where it all
all
started i think and i'm sure you all
have seen the reports i think it's just
the months that have gone on and people
are just they're
maybe they're thinking okay uh vaccines
around the corner
it's time you know they're letting the
foot off their get off the gas i
i don't know but interestingly it's
throughout the whole united states it's
not just
us now granted this our area is
experiencing huge spikes
but i i think the just general mood
of of the public is that you know
things are good and they
they get together and next thing you
know the spread takes off again and so i
think it's just a matter of
really cracking down on on wearing a
mask
yeah thank you mayor um uh you know to
speak personally for that
um situation on the border um i have
crossed
um the border walking several times from
juarez to el paso
um and you cannot cross the border
without wearing a mask
cbp will not let you even be inspected
or show any type of identification
without a mask
um so um and right now currently mexican
nationals are not allowed
in the united states you have to be a
u.s citizen to be able to cross the
border as a pedestrian
so there's not even any way that any
mexican national with a tourist visa can
even get across the border with a mask
or not
so i just want to make sure we clear up
those comments because
i think it puts undue blame on mexican
people who can't even legally cross over
right now
at all because of the trump
administration's directive to shut down
the border
so these are all u.s citizens that are
flowing back and forth between the
between the poor um i know this because
my family can't cross over mexican
nationals and
um and that that ban has been extended
till the end of the year
um so those those are just two quick
things to clear up i think
the problem we're having is just with a
lot of our own folks here domestically
that are like you said refusing to wear
a mask for political reasons or
um you know just whatever type of code
fatigue folks might be having
um which you know it's unfortunate
because we're seeing the highest numbers
that we have right i mean i think we
were taking this
even as a government at least paying a
lot more attention to it when we had
lower numbers
and talking about other measures that we
could take um
that i know seemed pretty drastic to the
public but now that we're seeing the
highest numbers
ever you know i think we with that
our decision should be reflective of
that and so i want to thank you for for
your emergency
proclamation mayor um but also really
start thinking about
what you said in terms of the mask
wearing is what type of enforcement
power do we have and how aggressive can
we be
because at some point um
you know every every life that we can
save
as our hospitals are getting overfilled
people are getting i think flown out of
el paso now because the hospitals there
are are to the max are just packed to
the to the brim
um and there was a letter i think from
healthcare professionals even just
urging people to stay home from el paso
and and so we're in really dire straits
here and i think
if we were ever just to consider the
option of stepping up
police enforcement like real enforcement
not just you know warnings i'm talking
like you know
like let's let's maybe put some teeth on
this i think now is the time
as you mentioned it's out of control
everywhere and so i don't know if you
thought about anything within your
proclamation um or extension of
proclamation that
that might have a directive for lcpd to
actually
conduct some routine daily enforcement
or how we could make sure that we do
that maybe not through this proclamation
but
through consensus working with our city
manager um
so yeah mayor any any thoughts on that
just in terms of the at least
no that's a good point in fact i did um
now and keep in mind and i know
jennifer's
uh has her hand up and i'll defer to her
in just second but
it's my understanding that i can't
deviate on this
on this proclamation it's either up or
up or down
but say the next one but say the next
one let's say
i was thinking of you know depending on
and this is a good form to discuss is
maybe going to 250
of citation and and us really doing this
i mean i know we talked about that in
the beginning about not wanting to cite
them
but you know when you when you weigh the
risk
i really don't want the curfew is like
the last thing
the last thing but if you if we you know
i think it's kind of progressive
we move into in that direction okay okay
this doesn't work what what i just did
okay now do we step it up and do we
increase the fine and do we actually go
out and find them
and and let people know we're serious
you we need you to put a mask on i do
not want to do a curfew
here please don't force us into this
shutdown we don't want that i don't want
that
and and i don't think anyone wants that
but because because it's really all
about the
wearing the mask it's like please you
know for those that aren't wearing it
for the for the benefit of of our of our
rest of our families or our the
business is everybody you know just wear
a mask it's my mask
it's just that simple i mean i know it's
hard but
we're it's almost like you're running a
a mile
race and it's you know four laps around
the track and you've run three and
you've done pretty good it's like i'm
just gonna walk
and so you're almost there we're almost
there don't do that
just keep it going just do it yeah
that's kind of where i'm looking if i
could defer to jennifer on that one
question
i like i said i think i can't change
this i think it has to be
either yes or no on this and then maybe
the next one i can do
jennifer did you you had your hand up um
thank you mayor
i'm sorry earlier my audio wasn't
working but
you're correct if you want to change the
fine it would have to be
through another proclamation or another
resolution
however i just want to clarify that the
extension of this proclamation
the extra four days would only be for
the facility closures everything else
remains in effect so the requirement
that people wear their mask in
businesses all of that remains in effect
um as to the earlier proclamations oh
okay good
yeah okay well yeah that the i always
just wanted that seven day
on the in our own facilities uh
that that's what i was looking at so i
appreciate that clarification
okay thank you mayor um and thank you
jennifer uh
yeah you know i would i would absolutely
support that and i think uh really have
to look at that
in the next week or you know sooner than
later i i think
it's unfortunate but we we really do
have to make this
consequential for people not to wear
masks and similarly for businesses i
know
different stores have different policies
about what they do when
somebody enters their store without a
mask and refuses to wear a mask
there are some stores whose policy it is
to let that person continue
shopping um without you know
essentially kicking that person out or
taking measures to enforce the mask
wearing because
they fear that it would disrupt um
rightfully so
um and could be a dangerous situation
for other customers
but i think that's when that business
has to step up and perhaps
hire a security officer or some type of
professional who is actually
can handle a situation like that but i
think that's also incumbent upon
letting our police department know and
giving them direction
to take these calls seriously when they
do have reports of somebody that's not
wearing a mask or refusing to wear a
mask and is
you know i think that should be a
priority for us and we should be
thinking about that the same way as
we're
saving lives in in other situations um
i i don't know how true this is like
anything else that's on the internet
it's you know always be skeptical of it
but i am hearing more and more that
um that the police aren't responding to
these calls or that they're simply
saying we don't enforce that call the
state police
um it's their job to do this and you
know obviously that's not probably the
kind of
service we want to provide our
constituents is just to pass the buck to
another law enforcement agency
when we have the resources to enforce um
some some of those things and so
um you know i think a combination of
those things
uh at businesses um really maybe
directing business or even increasing
fines for businesses
that you know encourages them to to step
up and i'm mostly talking about the big
box
kind of type of businesses here um and
then the personal fines as well for
folks who who who are entering these
businesses and refusing to wear masks
for political reasons you know they're
being
they're putting other people in danger
it's not just about their own personal
freedom and so
um in a future proclamation i i would
absolutely support doing something like
that so
i appreciate you yeah thank you mayor
that's all my comments for now
counselor thank you counselor ben cuomo
thank you mayor
um yes i'm i'm very glad we're having
this conversation today
though i worry that um
that the current proclamation frankly
doesn't have enough urgency to the kind
to match the kind of numbers that we're
seeing
um yesterday you know 11 new mexicans
died
as the single largest number since may
in one day
and um you know i'm watching el paso
and i'm watching el paso take a pretty
serious stand
because they have to right not because
they want to but
i'm watching them take pretty seriously
probably unpopular decisions
um for the protection of pessimists and
it's unfortunate right that those who
refuse
to believe that this is a serious virus
those who
refuse to believe that masks can help
curb the spread
are the ultimately the ones who
um frankly
have landed us in this situation and so
um it's unfortunate that
i i think our our br our sister city is
having to take some of these steps
but as i'm watching them step up i'm
wondering what we're doing and i'm
wondering what work
as a city what we're prepared to do in
as we're watching these you know 200
numbers a day
and i'm personally really concerned
about the health
of this community and um
i'm nervous that if we say today i think
we should take
more serious measures particularly
around enforcement that
i want to know when we're going to have
that conversation i want to know when
we're actually going to vote on that
because i don't want this to be two
weeks from now when things are terrible
and we're saying i wish we would have
done this two weeks ago i personally
don't want to
get to that point um and i would love to
hear
from our interim chief around
enforcement because i've also heard
we cannot just allow the state police to
be the only ones
um responsible for enforcing some of
these
um requirements and you're right mayor i
curfew would be well actually i don't
think that's the last
another shutdown is absolutely the last
thing we want to see
a curfew is pretty darn close to that
and
you know for me as i as i
read and i research about what is
leading to this surge
it is um it is people not following the
large groups requirement of more than
five more than ten people
that is number one and then it spreads
the second is restaurants
and i just want to make really clear
that
um for folks who want to continue to
have
um non-essential business open we have
to follow it with enforcement like this
isn't just a
honor system at this point because the
honor system hasn't worked
so for me today i'd like to know um
if it's not this proclamation when can
we see
a proclamation that includes tough
reinforcement
measures on the table
oh well i'll do i know jennifer wanted
to say something and i'll defer to the
chief in just a moment counselor but
what i'm doing is i'm listening to your
comments and and frankly
um that's kind of where i'm going to go
with that or i'm going to
take that all into consideration the
the way i understand it and jennifer
correct can correct me
it would be something like you said it
would take two weeks if the council
wanted to do it i think i'm allowed to
do it more
a lot quicker but again i'm
you know every day i mean i'm watching
i'm listening and seeing what exactly it
could be the cause i'm
trying to find out and i'm interested to
see how it's going to work there in el
paso
i mean if i don't know where the flow is
and i'm glad
councillor vazquez clarified that
interestingly you would think
in in that and you have you have the
the mayor of uh uh of cavada and his
staff
and the consul general on one side and
then you have el paso on the other and
no one ever mentioned that that those
are just american citizens
crossing in uh you know why didn't they
say that i would have liked to have
heard that
um but anyways i am watching we
can i can't probably get too much into
discussion because it's not on the
on the um on the agenda it's just just
my proclamation is but i am
you know obviously i'm taking note of
what you all have to say
yeah mary i appreciate that because i
don't think we have two weeks
you know like i don't think that's an
option on the table
every day i watch it believe me i'm yeah
um let me let jennifer chime in a little
bit on
on some of the things that my
proclamation had intended if you recall
i had asked
25 000 to be pulled out to be used to
accomplish that whether we hire
uh more security use that for over time
whatever may be the case jennifer you
want to
talk a little bit about that um mayor in
your
thank you mayor and council in your
proclamation
what what is stated is that we can
utilize
the resources necessary there's not an
actual dollar amount it's the any
resources so we can
we can do that right now as far as
enforcement goes i will speak to
mr pealey about this there are many
options
one of the options is to proceed on
nuisance abatement
we it as part of your proclamation it
makes it an ordinance and so the
violation
of the mask wearing in the business
would be an ordinance violation and we
could proceed
um with code enforcement in that way of
course i would have to
coordinate and talk to chief dominguez
and mr peely about that option and that
would be a
that's a civil option that um part of
that is a civil option
okay okay is uh chief dominguez on the
on the call mayor can i say i'm sorry
look for it for the place i raised my
hand i can't find the oh okay
no problem uh mayor and council
and i just wanted to make a comment as
well uh
you know i was gonna say i don't know if
we need a proclamation to
to increase our enforcement and before
chief jumps on
um that's the direction we want to go
it's just
pulling them in and saying uh we need to
enforce
we need to we need to tighten that up
and
and uh so it's just direction it's from
the city manager
i mean i'm sure uh interim chief
dominguez would
be happy to oblige i mean uh i can
understand maybe the confusion or maybe
the hazard you know being hesitant we
should be hesitant right
uh but when we're having these numbers
uh this is this is a time we increase
enforcement but
it is a it is a time where for everyone
in the country that's just it's a
difficult thing i know we all know but
as far as waiting for a proclamation to
to increase enforcement
uh i don't know if we need to and if you
know i'll meet with jennifer i
appreciate jennifer bringing up some
some options we have but that can be
done immediately
in fact we we can we could just say
that from a pub in a public meeting that
direction is going to come to
to our police that we're going to
increase
uh enforcement and we're going to
actually find i know we've talked about
it but we're going to do it i'm going to
i'll say that in a public meeting coming
from
the city manager um and i'm sure the
the police it's not a difficult i mean
it's not an easy thing to do but i mean
if that's the direction we want to go
i'm sure the police department will
will oblige to that so
yeah no i appreciate that i think and
jennifer correct me
and this was this preceded your time um
i think the maximum fine we put was
either 75
or 100 and i think what i was talking in
conversation with counselor vasquez
is that we wanted to bump at 250. i
think i would have to do the
proclamation for that
to bump that up but i'll defer to
jennifer i thought it was 75
or 100 it wasn't anything huge because
at that time you know it wasn't
i was uh i emailed someone the other day
and i i remember doing a video and and i
was saying about hey
don't don't go to el paso they just had
30 cases
con confirmed 30. uh the other day they
had 1450.
so you know what i mean so back then it
was a little bit different time you know
we were
hesitant about finding anybody but you
know
i i what i don't want to do is i don't
want to
i don't want to put this forth to
everybody
when there's just certain bad actors
that aren't aren't
wearing a mask you know and they're put
we're having to punish everybody
for these and so we'll just go after
those that's the way i look at it but
i appreciate that evil really do uh
jennifer
do you remember the price uh the the fee
the fine on on
when we passed uh this what the what the
amount was
uh marion council i was just trying to
embarrass i was looking up
the previous proclamation i believe it
was 50
for an individual and i think it was
different for the business
i'll verify that and get back to you i
think you yeah it was pretty small and i
think the maximum for the business
i think it was something like that 50
per if if we find
you know three employ three customers
shopping
then the business gets fined you know up
to five hundred dollars max
well um yeah we
we may want to increase that so
okay um chief dominguez are you
are you available
do you have anything you'd like to say
good morning mayor and and everyone else
uh
i i'll assure you that uh the lcpd is
is taking this seriously uh we've
educated all our officers and we
we do not defer to other other agencies
i know there's been a couple of
complaints but
we've only been unable to uh uh
look uh we've looked into them and we've
been unable to uh
to find who who it was that they were
complaining about
and and and the like that being said
we've taken a proactive approach
we have teams going out to the
businesses going
into uh the larger box stores and
and checking for uh compliance we're
doing it as a proactive uh approach i i
will say that if we do start citing
everybody that we see without mass
it's it's going to be a daunting task
for for our entire force
uh we had the issues with the skate park
for example
uh we show up as soon as we show up
everybody puts a mask on they they
they produce one or we we supply them
but as soon as we drive off we hear
complaints that you know they took their
masks right off and
and and that's the problem um we can do
it it's just like uh
another like speeding for example if
we're around people don't speed but the
minute we
we're not in the area they speed uh so
uh it's in we we can do it
we can do it as a as a uh no tolerance
uh deal but it is a daunting task and
it's gonna expose our officers as well
to more contacts as well
and i will point out that our officers
and some of our personnel here
have also tested positive so uh you know
it's a dangerous
it's a dangerous thing but we are taking
it seriously okay
all right thank you thank you chief okay
so
um can i just think here sure
thank you yeah sorry i wanted to add a
couple more things but that's okay
and then i will just say right chief
that i think i hear you like it's
it's tough when someone doesn't want to
take personal responsibility like that's
tough right
and i will say to your uh
speeding analogy i haven't sped since
last time i got a 250
ticket so i will just leave that on the
table
because i did get a ticket that was very
expensive
and um you had been going pretty fast
mayor it was an issue and you know what
i got cited and trust me
that is something i took very seriously
in my life i was like i have a problem
and i should probably
stop driving like that um
my point though is that if we're not in
for if we're just
telling people hey please wear your mask
and aren't following up with enforcement
then people will just continue to
do their same behavior um i
i also want to add um in terms i don't
at this point
oh sorry go ahead mayor hey counselor
and this let me tell you something and
this is good because remember if we go
back a few months
it was a council was a little bit
hesitant to do this so
i'm glad to see that you know we
recognize the importance of it and
and it's good to hear you you know
supporting i wasn't i wasn't hesitant
a few months ago so i just want to point
that out um
um i also am curious i i was trying to
look for
the most recent public health orders
what is
do we um jennifer mayor
what is the current capacity for
some of the big box stores um for how
many customers they can have
inside
that's a good point i i don't know if
it's
i don't know i couldn't tell you i
didn't even know that they put that
i knew they had the limitation on
restaurants um
well if we don't i think it's something
frankly that we should look at
because you know what some someone no
yes uh let uh i'm gonna turn off my
audio and video and i'll look up the
current public health order and pull it
up on my screen
when we get i think it's 25 but let me
get back with the council
thank you okay that was david donald on
speaking thank you david and um
no that's a good point yes counselor
flores yes um forgive me for
interrupting or barging in like this but
as i i sent you that text saying that i
have no
uh video i i just have the audio
so thank you mr mayor yeah i i know that
walgreens
um has a 40 40 people
are only allowed at a time and that's a
walgreens on
lowmen and roadrunner
parkway so stores are aware
of what the capacities are and it's i
think it's per square feet but i guess
david will get that information
but i do i also along with council
bencomo i want to go on the record as
saying that in fact
i think we were still meeting in
chambers when i proposed that we have
a curfew and
that wasn't really appreciated or
people didn't feel uh fellow counselors
didn't feel it was necessary
um and i proposed that we have a 500
fine and people didn't like that and i
was saying we could be
civil uh not criminal liability
but um i don't know how i would play out
uh the way things are going right now i
know that in some countries
um and this is based on you know this
is just based on what i've seen and
heard
um is that um
police are actually enforcing and they
have cameras on people
and then they broadcast it um so and
apparently it's
a little i don't know what's going to
get us out of the
the surge we're in right now it's just
uh apparently it was the
um it was a labor day weekend that
really set this off
so that's all i want to add
at this time but uh i do think that um
i hope we get those numbers from david
soon and then the clarification from
attorney vega brown
but um it seems that we definitely need
to put some teeth in this
and we need to do something that is a
little bit more proactive
thank you mr mayor okay well back to
councilman cuomo then we have a
council beta stevie and the mayor pro
tem so councilman
mr mayor yes david david dahlon for the
record i'm prepared to share my screen
with the language from the current
public health order please
if you don't mind councilman cuomo no
please
uh mr mayor david dahlon for the record
i'll read this
this is from the public health order
issued um
last week by interim department of
health secretary
billy j mart jimenez and it relates to
essential businesses which includes
grocery stores
and it reads uh for the record item two
he hereby directs item two essential
businesses
may open but must comply with the
pertinent covet safe practices
sections of the alternate together in
new mexico covets a practices for
individuals and employees
and any identified occupancy
restrictions essential businesses
identified as a retail space must be
closed by 10 pm
and remain closed until at least 4 a.m
the retail space
may not exceed 25 of the maximum
occupancy of any enclosed space on any
on the businesses premises as determined
by the relevant fire marshal or fire
department
further any identified essential
business identified as a retail space
may not allow a person who is without a
mask or metal
layer clothing cloth face covering to
enter the premises
except for the person's possession
of a written exemption from a health
care provider and then also
item three the close contact businesses
list 25 maximum occupancy and i can
tell you that i am aware that the city's
farm marshal
has provided updated maximum occupancy
limits and new signs are being held
are posted at the doors related to this
covid response
food and drink you'll see further down
is also 25 occupancy in the
enclosed space thank you very much
thank you thanks let me clarify
something david so you're telling me
in fact you answered one of my my
thoughts or questions so
you're telling me like let's just use a
hypothetical
acme store has uh you know they have 100
occupancy
and and you're saying that we already
know that it's 100 and we already put
25 you know only 25 people can be here
and it's posted at the front door
uh yes sir mayor i'm aware of
several businesses and i believe the
fire department has gone through
and provided those occupancy limits
those occupancy limits are established
by the building and fire code that's why
it's issued by the fire department
right the prevention services and then
they take
25 percent of that occupancy that's
excellent
that gives us a big hand a step up on
on and getting back to to efo uh efo
that
there there you go i i don't need a
proclamation if you direct
your team to to make sure that's at 25
that'll be a huge help because i know
i've passed by
some bigger box stores and i'm just
counting the
the cars and it's more than 25 of their
spaces are occupied i mean
i don't know it could be there could be
25 people in there but there's a lot of
cars out there
so if we can if we can
work on that as well as well as what
what else we've done i think
that's a huge start okay
yeah thanks so much david i i that's
exactly right mayor i mean this i feel
like this tells us sort of everything
and
and the way that we should move forward
enforcing some of these things i
i i absolutely get that we don't want to
i want to make sure that
does lcpd and the fire department do
they have the right equipment do they
have the right ppe
um in order to um start
doubling down on enforcement and then um
that that's my last question i just feel
like
um we have to absolutely start taking
this with
considerably more urgency if we want to
get off this
list if we want to get off this pretty
terrible
list thanks mayor okay
um counselor
beta stevie thank you mayor
and thank you to my colleagues for their
questions and comments
um you know during this time we've seen
a lot of fluctuations and we've and i
think this is another time that we are
going to
have to make those adaptations to strike
that balance
between health care um that mental
physical health economic health and they
all tie in together
i'm very uh concerned uh with
enforcement a lot of my questions were
answered
however i did get a call from a local
business in my district
um that has had some issues with um
gatherings near their area on its
private property
um the owners of the property have
called said that there was gatherings
um happening on that property and when
they did call
our local um enforcement um
they did not have anybody show up to
get these people off of the property and
to stop that gathering and it was well
more than
five i mean it was huge and so
and there the same group is intending to
gather again on the same private
property where the
property owners the that hold it um
don't want them on and so i think that's
also
something that we have to look at is
just making sure that we're looking out
for those
large gatherings as well because in
these groups
they're not asking why they're in these
groups as well it's very large
gatherings
and then i have a local business that is
doing everything that they can to
protect themselves
their staff and their customers and
then they're even being harassed by
these people that are doing that and
it's very
um very troublesome and very worrisome
and i want to make sure that we are
staying consistent
with that enforcement as well um you
know we're asking a lot from these
businesses as well
we want to make sure that they stay open
um and they're doing the right thing for
themselves their customers and for the
community
and so i hope that you know if others
don't intend on doing that that we can
work on those enforcement
um directives and to look at
gatherings um i think clarification
might be needed for myself um
from either jennifer with the emergency
proclamation um that you have it
it talks a little bit about enforcement
but given that we have
the state um directives
we can still work off that for our
enforcement
correct i i think so counselor beta
stewie but
you know i think uh you just gave me
some food for thought so let's just say
we
there's a business that that has told a
customer hey
i need you to wear your mask and they
say no i'm not going to well then i need
you to leave
no i'm not going to um if if
i think then what i may have to do is
issue another proclamation and now we
find individuals
before we didn't then we left that off
the state right now
that's the state's rule that you have to
wear a mask anywhere you go
and and only the state is usually the
one who who
who does that but if we if we go and and
pass something like that or if i go and
do that
now it can be both business and
individual for
the not the ones who who don't want to
conform because i know that i i've been
i've heard i don't know but i've heard
i've been told that that some
individuals that go into stores they
just say well i'm not going to wear a
mask and so okay well
then you know we don't want to have to
deal with something i mean we don't want
them to
you know we don't want to have to find
them but i mean again i'm doing
everything i can to
to so that so that we don't unfairly
uh hurt those that are
that are conforming that are doing their
best that are doing what they need to be
doing that are being responsible
okay and and you've got these uh others
that are being irresponsible
and and just you know just like anything
else we don't want to
do something that that that that's over
over uh
reaching for a few bad actors or some
actors who aren't taking care of
business who aren't doing what they're
supposed to do
so i i i think that that's the case so
to re
phrase that jennifer um if we wanted to
if we wanted the city codes police
whomever
you know to find someone individually
for not wearing a mask in a store
probably best would be for me to put a
proclamation through is that
is that your understanding or or not
questions
i'm sorry i'm having network problems so
i can't look things up on my computer
right now but
the way that this proclamation is
drafted we have we can enforce now
we can force the governor's uh rule we
can enforce the governor's rule and we
also incorporated
the mandate of the original proclamation
that is still in effect so a violation
of the
an emergency proclamation is an
ordinance violation
okay so what would be the fine for the
individual
still the 50 or so correct
because it would normally be what a
petty misdemeanor would be but we
in your original proclamation you did um
you you'd put a limit on that so it
would be 50 unless we change that
unless i change it okay thank you for
that clarification counselor beta stewie
was there anything else
um yes just one more and it's just the
fact that when we
do have these actors it's not just one
person
um that they affect it's not just
themselves and i think that is a message
that perhaps
unfortunately needs to be said at this
point that
when you can be potentially an
asymptomatic carrier
when you can um
be sick at some point and when you go
out into these spaces to others
you're possibly violating the health and
safety
of others and that is something that
i i'm not i guess i just don't
understand why people are not taking
that as seriously as they can
because it's not just themselves that
they are affecting
and at this point we have we're getting
very close to tipping the scales past
point of no return past the point of
dire emergency um and we have to start
taking
that responsibility um on ourselves
that we we could possibly be
asymptomatic carriers
um we have so much community spread now
that it's very hard um i think
to really truly tell where you're going
to get it you could get it at a store
from co-workers there's lots of
different places
that you could become infected and so
at this point we all have to take this
very very seriously
and very responsibly um if we're going
to try to keep
our systems moving and that's economic
that is with our physical mental health
you know
it all works together and so we have to
look at each of these pieces and
i do fully support your proclamation
um i think we're at the point that we
have to really
as uh counselor ben cuomo said put some
teeth behind
this enforcement because we need to we
need to try
to prevent from having these
decisions and and possibly affecting
others
thank you thank you mayor pro tem
thanks mayor um thank you to my
colleagues
um i really appreciate mayor you putting
forth the emergency proclamation i think
that's really important and
i i feel like we need to strongly step
up enforcement
i am in favor of providing the funding
necessary not only to our law
enforcement to but to security guards to
assist
um i'm appreciative of the proactive
approach
that law enforcement and fire have taken
you know to figure out the 25 um
and um you know give the
the capacity from there
i i continue to be concerned about
community spread when you think about
places like the animal services center
and those essential
programs that the city runs i think we
need to have some stronger
um provisions in place to include
temperature checks um um
and and rapid testing
you know to these entities that this
that the city is
is responsible for um because
those are folks that have to be right
essential they're essential to the to
making
our city uh continue you know the
infrastructure and whatnot
to run and so i i want to be able to
give
the tools and the supplies necessary to
sure
ensure that that um is taking place um
you know i'm i'm really concerned i
i don't think we the lot a lockdown
is of concern for all of us
but i agree that we need to take
personal responsibility and i i'm not
sure
that um you know i think as
conserving um abethas duvey has
indicated
there is community spread so you think
of one and six people are
are are you know are affecting sick so
what what do we do um i know mary you've
you want the curfew to be um
you know the last possible option but
i'm really concerned i'm seeing a lot of
things on social media about halloween
and people coming together and
kid having kid parties and those things
because
you know of maybe halloween being
canceled and i just don't think that's
the thing to do
um i i'm also hearing um
as entities or agencies that are having
positive tests and whatnot you know it's
because people are social gathering
right they're gathering in their homes
families
not wearing math and i i think
that um a curfew is probably in order
i don't believe that just
with your emergency proclamation
increased
enforcement um is is going to do it
we just don't have enough people i it's
clear to me
when you talk to people so is it within
you know i'm asking i asked david
dalahan
because we're on this list right and i'm
asking what what
happened i don't want to know the
details who the person is the employee
but they're gathering in homes
or outside having parties
more than 10 people sometimes more than
five people
now and so i just think we need to have
some stronger
some stronger provision strategies
moving forward
i'm particularly concerned with the
holidays coming
mayor um so i appreciate i just wanted
to weigh
in um and on that
and to in to um
start from the city's functions
temperature checking i think that's an
important thing
because what you're hearing is people
are coming um
you know kind of allergy symptoms
and um you know i i
maybe more education needs to occur as
well
in terms of what to look for and that
you shouldn't come
to work sick but at the same token
we need to have more testing
[Music]
because so many folks are asymptomatic
and not
um and i guess mayor i need to have
those numbers
to be able to make educated decision
about how to move forward and so i i
know that we're going to talk about that
later
um i don't know if it's um
and and i'm i know you're incorporating
everything that we're saying really
taking to heart what we're we're saying
and
again i'd like to know what the
department of health is
doing what kind of how many tests we're
giving out daily
you know um they're what's difficult
is when people feel sick they want to
get tested immediately
and that's not happening as quickly as
we want it
and the results aren't coming back as
quickly as we wanted as well so we could
get people back
into the workforce and so i think all
those things if we're going to
make these sort of provisions that we
need to have
all the tools in place to make sure that
that we're helping as many people as we
can
quickly and efficiently so thank you
mayor yeah um efo has something that i
know counselor florida said that we
probably need to do a vote and then
we'll go back and discuss
the covet stuff and i'll you know i'll
still be taking notes
uh ifo you had something yeah thank you
mayor and council and i know we're going
to discuss
you know some of the issues that were
brought up uh
here in the meeting my comment has to do
back with law enforcement
uh like i mentioned i'm gonna give
direction to our
our police uh to to turn up the heat
there
um i know they've been taking it
seriously but as far as siding
if that's what we want to do that that's
that's the brush we're gonna move in but
i do want to
to stay publicly and maybe you know we
should all recognize
uh when you when we all start getting
the calls
um we are going to be putting our police
force in a precarious situation
right i mean uh in order for people to
when we give them when we cite them
uh they have to sign the citation and if
they refuse to sign the citation
typically you get arrested and so
um right and then there's also the
possibility of use of four
i mean there's all kinds of things that
can occur
uh that that are going to come from from
sighting people
um but i mean we're at we're at a point
now and i'm hearing the council loud and
clear about
wanting to to enforce and i i you know
i'll pull in my
uh interim chief dominguez and we can
talk about talk about it and
i mean it's uh there's no discussion to
be had
from what i'm understanding but as far
as uh
what's going to come uh just be prepared
i just want everybody to be prepared for
that
um because i think that's going to be
inevitable you're going to have people
that are
going to refuse to sign um we could talk
about how we
we defuse some of that and and um but
but that's the teeth that that's the
process is you give them the citation
if they refuse to sign the citation you
you arrest them
and so you're gonna get uh backlash for
arresting somebody for
or having for not wearing a mask and so
we just need to be prepared
for for all that you know everything
else that comes with that
and and recognize that we we are going
to be putting our police
force in a precarious situation but
again uh that's that's the direction
we're going to go
all right thank you uh councilor flores
yes uh mr mayor thank you so much for
your
emergency proclamation and i'll reserve
further comments on kovid
after we vote on it okay thank you i
appreciate it
okay with that uh christine
[Music]
this is on the motion to approve
resolution 21-067
counselor beta stevie
yes council gandera yes
mayor yes okay
so thank you for that and so next we're
going to go to covet update
and i'm going to see who's going to kick
that one off
i i know ifo has his hand up but i think
he maybe you forgot to put that down
or are you going to kick this one off uh
yeah sorry merid
forgot to put it down that's okay um
either uh david dalahan or um
mr mayor yes councillor flores yes so i
reserve my comments
yeah thank you so um i
um you know i'm happy to
very happy to hear that uh mayor pro tem
uh believes we should have some sort of
a uh curfew
or a lockdown i think that's understood
i felt strongly before that
um before this horrible
and i i think we need i personally
believe we should have a
uh a curfew um and the curfew
wouldn't be the lockdown i mean the
mayor has already said stay at home as
much as you possibly can
uh the curfew would uh be something you
know like
from a certain hour in the evening till
you know a certain hour and
early morning so that's that's what i
propose in so far as
taking um steps and measures that
uh keep people um make people aware of
the fact that you just can't be out
uh whatever it don't it'll be a check on
it'll be a check on behavior
as far as the mask wearing goes i know
that when i put on a mask as i leave my
car to go into a store
all of a sudden i'm more conscientious
about
keeping my hands clean keeping on my
distance from other
customers in the store so i think that
that's very important
i had another comment i didn't write it
down so i'll reserve that for later
thank you mr mayor
okay uh anyone else
mr mayor yes david david dawn for the
record members
city council the city staff does not
have a formal presentation
today however there are several people
that have joined us on the
line for the conversation and i would
encourage us to stop
to start the discussion we have
representatives from
new mexico department of health
including don sanchez the regional
direct southwest regional director
dr marciniak who is the southwest uh the
regional
medical director for new mexico
department of health and dr
celina torres who is the state acting
epidemiologist from department of health
we have amanda bowen
from the office of emergency management
and then we have uh
fire chief um eric enriquez police chief
miguel dominguez and most of the
department directors are
online we're available for questions and
discussion
um but i would i would start with your
questions that are directed toward
department of health and maybe don
sanchez may have some opening comments
to
questions that we had shared with them
earlier in the week when this meeting
was called
yeah i think that's a great idea i know
counselor beta stevie has a
question real quick um
thank you mayor i actually i put my hand
up i was gonna say i think it'd be great
to get
kind of an update from each department
first to kind of see where everybody is
standing
at the moment um and to hear
what they have to say and then we can um
proceed with some uh questions for their
questions and i know like i said i know
that i
had quite a few questions that i've sent
to you beforehand
um and so i'd love to hear from each
department first
and then um and then work towards uh
questions okay i think that's a good
idea
uh good morning everyone this is celina
torres uh
infectious disease epidemiologist from
the department of health um
i think don and i can give a good um
update for the department of health
um it's no surprise to everyone that our
numbers continue to rise
um are um are effective which is you
know the number of
people that one person can spread the
infection to
uh also continues to go up in in all
regions of the state
um uh let's see what else can i tell you
we
we are just very busy uh you know with
all of our cases and unfortunately
because of the surge
in the case counts that just extends the
time that we are able to reach
an individual to inform them of their
results give them isolation instructions
and collect their exposed contacts
and then also gives you know extends the
time that we reach out to the exposed
contacts and give them
instructions to quarantine so as you can
imagine we are busy busy busy
and just trying to stay on top of as
much as possible as we can
don do you want to give some regional
updates
yes good morning mayor city council uh
sure dr torres i can give some
some regional updates and some i think a
few answers to
counselors to these questions also one
that counselor gander just mentioned
um i just wanted to say too so
so as far as testing in in the county
and in uh well
for the county in las cruces too for the
county we're averaging about 475 tests a
day
and that's between department of health
and some other
entities or fqhcs i will also say that
pathology consultants is hitting about
a day they've done up to 550 so we're
we're we're testing monday through
saturday
here in las cruces at our office and
pathology consultants is monday through
friday
so it's been we've had definitely
increases in testing since the beginning
of october in all honesty it was pretty
quiet a little white
a little ways back before labor day and
then it's just increased so we're
we are definitely testing quite a bit we
are also
um looking at the surge capacity
a couple things coming up is the federal
health and human services department is
going to be sending some contract
medical staff
into the state of new mexico with ten
thousand test kits
uh for doing a county we're gonna get
two thousand of those so over
a two week period of time i'm not sure
the time the timeline might be actually
starting next week
and they're getting the supplies ready
to go but there's going to be a surge
for just
increasing the the testing um
so that will happen throughout the
county probably a lot
of big events here scheduled for las
cruces
there will be you know there's an online
registration uh
the piece about that too is the
the samples are gonna be sent to a lab
outside the state
for a quick response to um the other
thing is the state is definitely looking
to
outside labs to increase our lab
capacity as dr torres said
our you know our lab is overwhelmed
pretty much right now working with sld
and tri
core and the state is looking for other
avenues to to be able to have
lab capacity to increase the number of
the do it to turn around to have the
results turnaround time a lot shorter
um a quick update too we do have the
nmsu
lab so the nmsu lab is is run by
tri-core and they do have uh
the panther the rapid response machine
there they are
their capacity is about 500 tests a day
they're just kind of streamlining their
process we're working with them on that
they are also taking the labs from the
aggie health center so they're working
with nmsu population plus others within
the tri-core
family so to speak we're working with
them to be able to also
access our sld requisition our
application online so that we can really
utilize that lab here locally for
quicker turnaround time
so there's some bugs just to work out as
they get up and running but they've been
up and running
uh probably early early octobers when
they
um they started taking samples and
releasing those samples
so we're definitely aware of the need to
increase testing
we're also aware of the need to
hopefully get those results back i think
we do want to encourage anyone who is
symptomatic that goes for a test
while you're waiting your results to be
able to isolate you know to find ways if
you can telework
or what have you that you're able to
isolate that way
there are also going to be additional
national guard members coming into the
state
and we've requested some additional
teams for our region
we would just you know requested one for
for basically out of las cruces
so we're hopeful that that will happen
and they've been extended i'm pretty
sure through the end of the year so we
continue to have that support and i'm
sure into next year as well
we as well are working with the bcom
medical students
and even some of the nmsu nursing
students have come through our kova
testing line to learn
of the process so we're as well trying
to just expand
the knowledge and access for folks to be
able to provide the test
uh all again a partnership with trying
to not overwhelm the lab
find find ways though to get the results
back quicker so those are some things
that we're focusing on here
not only in las cruces but also you know
throughout the county
nope okay
mr mayor yes counselor um well i have
counselor beta stevie and then mayor
protem but yes councillor flores
well i'll i'll wait my turn yeah i i
yeah
just text me like you're doing and i'll
put you in the queue because i
can't see yeah so we have council there
it is there it is
okay thank you and then counselor amir
potem ganda so counselor beta stewart
thank you mayor thank you dr torres and
thank you um
don as well for that update um i know
last time we we chatted um over the
summer
we had talked about how that test
processing was going to be so important
down here
and at the time council was told that
by i think it was in july 1st that
nmsu could possibly be ready to do
um kind of community testing um and so
now we're
we are in our october um now
and i know that your department is
feeling that strain and stress as well
um is what state what other state
resources
um can be brought to dona
ana to help with that and are there
other avenues
for test processing that this state can
um
bring down here fairly quickly to help
accommodate this surge especially
since we know that el paso is just
increasing and we are now
a hot spot just like and
um that quadrant was um when this first
happened
so don i i can answer a little bit of
that and then maybe you can supplement
um you know so one of the things that
some sites have done
is stand up rapid testing uh so that it
doesn't need to go out to reference
laboratories
and there's you know pros and cons to
that the pro
obviously is that you know it doesn't
need to be sent out you can do it
quickly and have a result but
unfortunately we're seeing more and more
data and studies come out and even in
cases that we see
at the department of health there's a
you know false positivity that happens
and then we have to you know supplement
or confirm with the pcr which is the
send out
test as well so you know so as we
continue to
get more data on those rapid tests we
can um
dissem you know stand them up more
appropriately
um there really are to be used for
individuals that are symptomatic
so i know the concern in your community
is to get you know a good handle on
these asymptomatic
individuals that are you know walking
around the community and potentially
exposing others so
pcr is still the gold standard for that
group you know
section of the population um i don't
i'm not aware of whether nmsu is
um you know working towards expanding
their capacity
uh that's one option and then i think
you know partnering with
outside entities outside of the state
however that that does create a lag
right because the specimens need to be
shipped and then we need to get the
results back
and and uh so so there are complexities
but you know we still continue across
the state
to test uh you know 10 to
almost 10 000 a day which you know if
you look at new mexico and how it ranks
with the united states
we're like fifth in the country in the
amount of testing that we do which is
really just remarkable considering you
know our little state
and how how we stood things up pretty
quickly
but um don did you want to add anything
to that
uh mr mayor counselors uh dr torres i
think i think you're right the state is
absolutely looking at
options for rapid testing but like dr
torres said there's been some
questionable uh the little validity with
them in the fact that they have
as we've done some tests on them they're
rapid tests but they've also provided um
some false negatives and so that
that requires a pcr test the lab test on
top of that
so there we definitely are looking at
ways to
increase you know have that rapid test
available but the ones that i guess
we've been looking at right now there's
still some
questionable validity around that so i
think the state continues to look for
what would be a viable option
to turn that to turn that time around
quicker
thank you dr torres and thank you don um
i'm glad you brought that up about the
rapid testing we heard any a
subcommittee um the other day
a statement that about 42
of those rapid tests were the false
negatives
um and that um i know for the schools
and john you can correct me if i
misheard but
they required a different type of test
to be
allowed to be seen as a true negative is
that correct
um counselors do they i understand and
decorators can fill in but you would
need to do a pcr test to be a
confirmatory for the rapid test if it
comes back as a false negative
okay and um with that in mind as far as
um i think it's wonderful that we're
seeing uh
it's 10 000 tests in new mexico per day
with that um having only 475
for kind of public usage for dona ana
county
if pathology consultants does three to
five hundred a day
yes we do have um other private entities
that can do the rapid responses
but those um usually have costs
associated with it
um and so the a person that is
feeling sick um and
doesn't have those types of resources um
i i know
often it's around a hundred dollars i've
been hearing
um to have these private places
um test uh that's not gonna be very
accessible for the public
and those types of numbers for our
community size
really really need to increase um and i
think we've said that before
and so i'm glad to hear that we're we're
getting extra
tests down here um but if we are a hot
spot
and if we are seeing this type of things
i
would even suggest that perhaps
resources are
allocated appropriately to accommodate
those types of
um surges from the state level down here
to make sure that we are
able to help test and trace and and
take a hold in control of this community
spread
um i'm i'm just very concerned about
that right now
um and um i think we're seeing
in el paso it looks to be the trend that
their percentage of
asymptomatic population is going down
so that we're seeing more people that
are sick
i don't know is that a trend that we're
also seeing here in new mexico in
dona ana county
yeah so we um i agree with you about the
concern of the testing and
you know one thing that we do do we look
at the data
and i'm sorry we're interrupting but do
you mind stating your name when you
uh oh yes i'm sorry the person taking
the notes they don't watch the video
yes sorry um selena torres department of
health uh
thank you councillor steve for that
comment you're absolutely right it's
concerning when areas are hot spots you
know to get the resources there as
quickly as possible
and we do at the department of health
look at the data and try to identify
you know sort of what we term hot spots
to see if we can direct more testing or
resources in that area
it's not a perfect science um but but we
do keep an eye on that as much as we can
and i stand corrected we're actually
seventh in the nation for testing but
still pretty good
um and then um your comment about
symptomatic uh individuals so
you know the the data currently is looks
uh the same i don't have it at a county
level maybe as we're talking
i can dig a little deeper um but it
still seems like what
we see uh you know what we've been
seeing throughout the
the pandemic i believe it's about 40 to
of the cases are symptomatic but let me
let me dig in the background while we're
talking and see if i can get a better
a better estimate of that for you and
and i would anticipate that as we begin
with you know into the flu season
that we're going to see more symptomatic
individuals that may not have gone
out and and been tested um and now are
get going out and being tested and then
presenting with symptoms that may or may
not be um
covet related
thank you i appreciate that um
i have more questions but i think
they're each for different departments
so i'm going to
stop right here thank you mayor okay
thank you um
we have mirror pro tem and then
counselor flotus
thank you mayor thank you dr torres and
for
um being here with us today and for um
your the information thus far and for
counselor peter stevie's questions
she's asked a lot of the questions that
i wanted to ask um
but just for the public say could you
tell us what the spread rate is what our
case counts are
what um hot spots or particular zip
codes
that you're concerned about in dona ana
county
um
absolutely this is selena thoreau's
department of health let me go ahead and
pull up my
file here um so
you know in the last week dona ana
county had uh 798 new cases
and when we look at what we call the um
our effective or you know infection rate
um for this week it is 1.19
as i mentioned it has gone up for most
regions in the state
unfortunately
and then what was the other data point
you wanted to know
um zip codes that you might be
concerned about in the county that we
need to be
aware of or specific to las cruces
i i guess to me this is really important
for the public to know and i know
there's a dashboard and we refer
people over to it all the time but for
the public to know
what zip codes are most concerned i'm dr
torres i know you're keeping an eye on
that as most
public health people are but but
and i also want to know about for every
one person how many people are they
affecting
or affecting right okay
okay selena this is selena torres so um
so for every one person
we have 1.19 persons being uh
infected so it's still hovering around
one with which which is um
you know higher than we would want i
believe in august we dipped pretty low
down especially for the southwest region
um and let's see and then i also wanted
to
you know another figure that's pretty
important is percent positivity so
you know this allows us to estimate the
percentage of people that are being
tested how many are testing positive and
for the southwest region this has
continued to rise
since the uh middle of september and so
it's now at 10.8 percent positivity
uh and this state is around 10 percent
as well
so um you know so that that's pretty
high and and
um reaching you know over ten percent i
think our goal is less than five percent
is what we
had hoped and were at you know sort of
uh
in august um as far as zip codes go you
know it's a little tricky i
i i really appreciate people keeping an
eye on their zip codes and seeing what's
going on but
as we all know especially in your
community people um there's a lot of
movement even into el paso back from el
paso
so and the zip codes that we report on
is the
is the residence that's reported to us
uh with the laboratory result in what
the person identifies as their
place of residence i don't have an exact
handle on which
zip code is the hot spot currently in in
las cruces
but i will say that it should be taken
with a grain of salt because there's a
lot of movement and people
move around and potentially you know
they they could live in las cruces but
then work in el paso then come back so
so i think the the message is that i
think um
counselors as duvet said this which is
it it's it's community-wide
at this point it's all over the place
unfortunately
right may protem and dr torres
you know i uh thanks to commissioner
reynolds i actually have these zip codes
here
i don't know where he got them from but
he hasn't broken down let's see garfield
hatch rincon in salem
15. las cruces 8801
37. white sands
i presume white sands missile range one
las cruces eight eight zero zero five
twenty three uh las cruces eight eight
zero zero seven
eighteen santa teresa southern park
nine las cruces eight eight zero one one
twenty three las cruces eight eight zero
one two which is the east mesa
thirty-two
anthony barino 24
um la mesa four
sunderland park 22 and
chaparral 27. so i think this was uh
maybe a couple days ago
yeah thank you mayor it looks like it's
kind of spread out
yeah it's before it was remember how it
was a lot of concentration in the south
valley and now it's
everywhere for sure um
thank you for that mayor i appreciate it
i think
it would be helpful if someone at the
city would be tracking these
and giving us weekly updates
moving forward also
my my next question is about what are
you hearing when the
contact tracers are out and you know
with with folks where are is
most of the the you know where are they
saying they've
been um and is it typically you know
indoor
restaurants um large gatherings
um are they are they giving you any
indication
of where that's coming from yes this is
selena torres again and
and they um they are so that's part of
our case investigation process that we
ask where individuals have been in the
14 days before they got sick and then
um you know from the time they got sick
until we reached them and and
gatherings um continue to be um
the you know the biggest thing that
people are reporting
um i'm just looking at the you know
comparison
in gatherings of the different regions
of this state and you know similar to
case counts uh the southwest region kind
of attracts
slight you know second place from uh
metro so
metro tends to be the highest because
there's higher population density and
then
and then the southwest region cases are
the ones that report
more often that they were involved in
gatherings
um you know in the time before they they
were sick
or you know while they were sick
unfortunately and
um i i just found the data related to
symptomatic cases and
and um uh it actually has gone up
significantly
um since the summer and so we're looking
now at about
over 80 percent of our cases reporting
symptoms when we reach them and and
conduct the investigation
so you know as we would expect we're
we're sort of a large
uh community with with our sister city
and state and and so
you would expect that that it looks
similar
thank you dr torres i think that is so
so helpful and will help
guide me as i continue probably to
um advocate for a um
a uh curfew i i just don't see it if
you're
if you're saying that we're like that's
where most people are
are you know admitting or you know
just saying right this is where i'm what
i'm doing and where i'm at and they're
not wearing their masks
i mean i think when you go to family
members house you gotta wear your mask
and be cognizant of the fact that you
know
when you go out to stores and whatever
and you bring
thing whatever it is that you're doing
with your family members
visiting um giving you know providing
groceries whatever the situation
it doesn't give you the pass to not wear
your mask you should wear your mask and
wash your hands and not social gather
um can you i understand that
don you're you're changing your times
and testing you're changing a little bit
did you
can you repeat who is
um actually providing
tests um do we have an
idea and i'm thinking um
there has to be someone here from
emergency management
like how who are they how many tests do
they get
how many tests are they providing on a
daily basis i think would be important
i heard on monday an individual i
received several
calls in texas and from facebook an
individual trying to
get tested and meanwhile this individual
20 something year old
working can go back to work until they
get tested went to
several places and the places that i had
referred to
like amador and others didn't have
testing or supplies right
so i just want to make sure that that
as a city mayor that we're offering as
many
as the resources to ensure that folks
can get the testing
and get it rapidly back and i don't mean
by using a rapid test
but getting it quickly back so that they
can go back to work
i think our businesses are trying to be
responsible
um
but um you know there's some there's
some gaps in barriers
so sorry i went off there but i'm
looking for a list
publicly that you could say that are
providing
um testing dawn and specifically to
department of health what are your
hours this is don sanchez thank you
councillor gandra
mayor for for the las cruces public
health office
so we test monday through friday in the
morning from
it's going to be starting on monday with
the time change 7 30 to 10
and then on tuesdays and thursdays from
3 to 5
and then on saturdays from eight to ten
i will tell you pathology consultants as
well uh
tests monday through friday from about
nine to twelve
um depending on their supplies it might
get limited again they're trying to to
cap it about 300 just with supplies
you know they did over 550 on one day
though too so
um they're available we're also working
with la clinica
de familia they are doing testing in the
southern part of the county and then
also on mondays they're here in
at their central medical um on alameda
so they provide testing there too um
[Music]
you know those are and then as far as
i'm not you know i can get more
information to you counselor gondra
about other
private entities i think we are these
are the ones that are doing just anyone
the asymptomatic or symptomatic coming
to these these specific entities
but i can definitely get you more
information if there's you know i don't
know if our
our cvs is doing it here or other places
are doing those
here in this community i'm not quite
sure yeah i understand that cbs
is doing them here don i guess what i'm
saying
is is that the powers that be that
should be
responsible knowing then who the
entities are that are testing if they
per need a
if it's private if they need insurance
how much i mean
i really believe there needs to be a
list that is updated
keep current and that that
um that it that is being asked
of some entity to compile and keep
updated and
it be placed on our covet our covet
website
um to me that's really important because
we have folks that are running around
town trying to find testing and i just
think it's
not the best system that
folks are running around it's already
stressful enough
and running around trying to get a test
is
is i don't think what we um subscribe to
here
we you know because that means that
they're they're they're
i don't know how if they're going into a
facility
if it's um if it's on a
drive you know through type of situation
but
we have to think if if there
you know one person is affecting six or
so folks
um that's that's problematic so i i just
want to make sure that we have
we have information so that we can refer
to
and then it's current and constantly if
it's changing that it keeps it's kept up
to date
um let me
oh someone mentioned that the
aggie um the lab at that lab at nmsu is
up and running
and
don or selena are the numbers that you
gave to us
are they are are they
um included in that
or or is that is that
separate does that sense
yes councilor gandra this is don um some
of the numbers
that i gave you are included in that
from the aggie health center we've been
working really closely with the aggie
health and wellness center and just the
sports
medicine at nmsu to help them assisting
with testing
so we we their numbers are included with
us
i think the tri-core lab lord does the
tri-core lab at nmsu does an additional
i don't know maybe about 100 or so not
not i think where we thought it would be
from some of their other assisted living
facilities or what have you that are
part of the tri-core
entity or subscribe to tri core lab
so their their capacity i think is is is
greater than it is
i'm sorry
it's greater than it is i think that's
why we're trying to work with them to
work out some streamline of their system
and their way you register for them
that's a little bit cumbersome just to
make it easier to access that
yes we're definitely working with them i
did want to mention
and i appreciate your comments about
having just a list in in all honesty a
lot of this is just based on the
available resources we have
you know especially with our staff the
department of health we also
charge between flu shots and then the
clovid vaccine is a whole nother thing
that's going to be on our shoulders come
probably
end of november early december you know
we're going to continue to try and
maintain the kova testing
to the best of our ability um we we do
also
um you know we're focusing too on the
southern part can i just want to mention
this real quickly because there have
been outside of las cruces you know the
higher numbers are going to be in sunlin
chaparral anthony so today we're
actually in summit park doing a big
testing with lieutenant
uh lieutenant governor howie morales
uh scheduled some testing for southern
park and anthony so that's also going on
but we're very conscious
of wanting to do more testing in the
south the clinica does
great testing in the south and they've
been at capacity over capacity every day
that they do testing down there for the
past couple of weeks so we're really
working with our partners to get as much
testing out there as we can but it's so
dependent on the
the capacity resources that we have
along with the the test kits but we
haven't had an issue with our test kits
coming in we're pretty
we're pretty stable with with those
numbers there
as far as any insurance issues with
folks being charged for testing that you
know that should not be happening
um in the office of insurance
superintendent for the state there's a
number for people to call if they do get
a bill for testing they can call that
number
and that should get rectified rescinded
what have you so i can provide that
number too so there shouldn't be issues
with that
i mean you know entities are
unfortunately i think that there's some
charge
that it does happen but there is a way
to get those
those costs um removed as far as i
understand i just wanted to mention that
but we can definitely give keep you
updated on what the schedule is we are
also trying to find an
indoor testing location because as the
weather gets bad i mean we had snow here
in las cruces
this past week we had we couldn't test
outside that day so we are looking at
you letting some pod sites possibly do
some indoor
testing as the weather gets cooler so
any assistance in that area
would be helpful we're working with oem
with amanda bone colon with the pod
sites that we have to potentially have
other avenues for for for testing
which could be larger groups as well
sure thank you don for that i appreciate
it
i'm wondering um with that if our
convention center could be that
site um mayor i don't know
how what kind of discussions i've been
had but i
i think that's i i appreciate hearing
that
um and and um and you know don we're
here
whatever whatever you need um i i've
often have felt like i
as we're as we're seeing these high
numbers of
you know diagnosed tests um diagnoses
which means that we need more contract
you know tracers and it also means that
you know we won't get the results as
rapidly
right and and i love what you said if
people are feeling sick they've been
tested they have to quarantine
isolate themselves until they they hear
that so
if the city can help in any way um
you know evo um with staff um that
gets um trained on that to be able to
help
moving forward i think that's something
we really need to we really need to do
so those are all the questions at this
point mayor for me thank you
okay we have counselor flores and then
council been cuomo
council forest
you answer for this okay well um i'll go
to counselor bin como and i'll come back
to counselor flotus
el sabine komo thanks mayor thanks so
much don and dr
torres for your presentation i really
appreciate you being with us today
um you know mayor the more i listen to
what don
and dr torres are saying the more i
it's clear to me that the system is
feeling a significant amount of pressure
already in terms of testing in terms of
capacity in terms of who can do it i
mean
i mean i think it's incredible that la
clinica is stepping up
and they're they're at a max capacity as
well
i don't think you know i think it's
really incumbent
upon us as leaders of the city to
to really take leadership in this moment
and not wait till the state
you know says we should do something
else i really think
you know the more and more um
i am wanting to side with mayor pro tem
about um the necessity for curfew
earlier than later i i do i would love
to hear though from don
and dr torres about how they're feeling
in terms of how
like what are your um thoughts
around curfews and
and those kinds of um you know added
measures
from your point of view talk about me
you're talking to don
i'm talking to don or dr torres oh okay
um uh counselor ben coma this is selena
torres yeah i can comment you know i was
just
uh as you guys were talking about masks
as the council was talking about masks
and i know i'm preaching to the choir
here on this but
you know evidence is starting to come
out that yes in fact masks do work
and it's interesting you know study we
we just were
informed of a study where within a
household you can reduce transmission by
almost 80 percent if everyone is wearing
a mask
um you know and then uh there's no
documented transmission on airplanes if
everyone wears a mask
so i think i really applaud your efforts
in
in you know trying to push the mask
usage and proper mask usage
um yes i think is is extremely important
um i was also trying to look for some
evidence for
for curfews um i i didn't quite i think
that's still coming out
but what i will say is that you know it
the
the more we can um reduce the strain on
our
resources the better it is so it you
know having a curfew
allows let's say law enforcement to be
able to
to just do the things they need to do
with regular law enforcement versus
having to still go out and
monitor for for mass usage and and those
types of things and
and the you know the the recommendations
for curfews are based on
evidence uh you know suggesting that
limiting people's you know interactions
in in the late night hours could
potentially
stop the spread so um you know i
definitely think it's
it's a good idea um i understand that
there's you know lots of consequences
surrounding it
right i mean how do you figure out if
somebody's going home from work or
versus coming home from a restaurant or
a family gathering or
you know there's a lot of
infrastructural things that need to be
taken to account but
but i think you know reducing the strain
on the already strained
systems is is you know should be
sort of the goal here um and and kind of
putting the
the responsibility on the community to
help out as much as they can
absolutely thank you so much for that dr
torres i really appreciate it you know
for me
since the beginning of this i've said
that i wanted to make decisions based on
on evidence and and and on
recommendations from the medical experts
at the end of the day
you're the front line on this and i
think it's important that we listen to
what you're saying particularly because
you're the ones that are feeling
that strain uh and so you know mayor
again i i whatever we do i think we have
to do it with some of these things in
mind that dr torres and don are saying
in terms of
um the the pressure on the system i'm
curious
don or dr torres i you know i don't i
don't necessarily think we're anywhere
close to
how you know having to open up a
separate location
as a makeshift hospital like el paso did
counselor flores your mic is on
um you know i don't think we're anywhere
near right having to do
makeshift hospital like el paso just did
with their convention center
um what it what are your thoughts on
that in terms of where donaina county is
in relations to hospital capacity
um this is selena torres i i would defer
i think we have some oem folks on the
line if i'm not mistaken
that can speak better to hospital
capacity
hello this is amanda bowen with the
office of emergency management
um we have an entire structure that
tracks
multiple points of the covid response
one of those is our
health care coalition uh and community
uh tracking her name is jackie saldana
and she
does a regional track of hospital
data to look at hospital capacities for
icus ventilations
the er med surg all of those types of
things
i can't speak specifically to her data
because i'm not responsible for that
area i can definitely get that
information to you so you can look at
what our capacities look like
but there is some growing concern we've
had recent phone calls with
hot v hospitals in our area to discuss
so the las cruces hospitals are really
the hub
for many of the surrounding county
hospitals
so looking at as each of the hospitals
has started to
increase in their capac their usage and
decrease in their available resources
we've looked at what some available
options are
it looks like some of the lower level
medical cases are being stacked up
within the hospitals right now
so we're looking at relieving that by
expanding some of our
isolation locations those are very
uh people who maybe just need a little
bit of oxygen but they need a little bit
of oversight from nursing staff
so our medical reserve corps and our
isolation locations are
expanding with the state's assistance to
be able to provide that extra care
outside of the hospital setting
to then open up some more availability
for the hospitals
so it wouldn't be to the level of what
el paso is doing we don't feel like
we're there yet
but there are constant communications
back and forth with all of the area
hospitals
um and back with the state so that we
can get the support that's needed
um because we know that our resources
here are limited to be able to provide
that kind of medical support
so thanks amanda do you
i amanda i thought i saw recently an
article about a nursing staff shortage
can you speak about that yes um i think
um this is my things that i've heard
um not necessarily factual based but it
seems like
just across the country there's a
shortage to
nursing staff and medical staff i know
in our area
if you talk with our department of
health personnel who's
conducting the testing they're going to
tell you that they're reaching to every
corner to try to find people to help
them augment their testing
i believe the same is true with the
hospital staff so any of the medical
entities are feeling the pressure both
as they're
experiencing covet outbreaks in their
staff or
they're needing to test their personnel
as their you know many of the people who
work in the medical field
have multiple positions in different
facilities and so some of them are
having to
narrow that in as facility rules are
changing
so there is a concern that we don't
necessarily have as many
medical personnel as we need but again
that's another reach back to the state
and uh we're getting some support
through national guard and other
resources to help us in that manner
right now we're doing okay but it's it's
always something we're keeping an eye on
i mean hearing it from you know folks at
hospitals and staff
sounds pretty factual to me
yes ma'am i feel um like i can't give
you you know a percentage of
deficit that we're at i can just tell
you that in those conversations
it's very much a conversation that's
happening
and what will be the role of the
national guard do we have national guard
in las cruces during the county already
don you want to take that one sir sure
counselor um cuomo
this is don sanchez department of health
yes we've had national guard
indonesia county for oh gosh
probably since april we've had and they
have been helping with
that they send medics and they have
supports to have so they actually help
with the covet testing
uh paperwork they help with transporting
specimens
i mean they have been like a god send in
so many guys yes i remember that now
yes thank you and so you expect that
we'll get additional
national guard staff yes councillor
vancouver don sanchez we've been told
that the state of new mexico is supposed
to get 100
additional national guard staff so we're
trying to put our requests in
you know for our region too to have some
down in our area and specifically
medical stuff
yes medical medics and then usually
support staff is what comes
okay great well thanks so much to all of
you for for all of this information i
again i just want to make sure that
we're
have a really clear and key focus on how
strained the system is already
for um you know a city or size
specifically because we do have to take
into consideration
that we are a hub for a lot of the rural
communities around us and i think that
that can that will increase um the
pressure on the system
so i think it's important that we you
know we keep all of that in mind
okay thank you um como and and before i
get to counselor flores which i think
she's back on now
uh video and audio um and i'm gonna say
this with all due respect and i just
want you to just think about this and
then
we can we can talk about later so i want
you to look at two scenarios
five individuals at eight o'clock in the
evening talking
not social distancing and five though
and then five
other individuals at one o'clock in the
morning with
masks and talking
which one would you rather have and i'll
come back to you later on
okay because that because think about it
what i'm saying is
usually these curfews are nine or ten
o'clock so
um what would you because the other one
falls under the curfew
that's why i'm i'm trying to focus on
mask enforcement
because if we go and do it the other way
they're if they're not doing a mask
right now they're probably gonna do it
at their home
or in their backyard you know so that's
why i don't want to anyways
i'll get to i'll come back later uh
councilor flores
well thank you mr mayor and as far as
the
mask wearing at home or any activity at
home
um you know i i did you know i
i think it'd be difficult to enforce
anything right at home
and i think that's your point um and you
know there's a fourth amendment
um you'd have to have a search warrant
and have you know otherwise there'd be a
fourth amendment violation
but um now sir i thought i heard one of
the council members talk about
parties in the backyard and i'm like yes
it was it was outdoors it was outdoors
but um
but masks are
um so i i too had a question about the
um national guard um and
because uh i don't know it was uh ms
sanchez or dr
torres who said that um they would be
coming uh
to the southern part of the state later
but as it turns out based on
council bencomo's question um they have
been here
so um one of my questions and this is
something that was brought up early on
especially by
counselor uh beta stevie who has been
stressing
uh for since march early march has been
stressing the need to
look ahead and and and look at
uh how we're going to accommodate
because early on i know
in in march when i was talking to my
cousins in el paso we cut off our
monthly gatherings
and um they said well let's get together
in april for
you know for or may for lupita's
birthday
and i said no no this is going to be
around for about two years
it's clear it's clear and this was way
back
not it seems like way back now uh early
march
so um so my question to
uh to the state of new mexico and to our
local department of health and it's
it's it's not personal per se to dr
sanchez or excuse me dr torres or
sanchez but has a state and the local
department or
are you working together or cohesively
in terms of looking forward at this
point since we're already at that
forward point which was projected
even though there was a slump you know
and people said oh and but
you know a lot of people have been
saying there's going to be a surge
as soon as the cooler weather came in
but it really came in right in the
middle of a hot spell that we had
um and the other question and so are you
looking for example i know i had
emails we all we've all had emails from
our constituents suggesting that the
um that the convention center be
um prepped and ready to be used as a
hospital
um and now mayor pro tem said this could
be
another facility for purposes of the
covid crisis so
has has a state been looking at that and
now i
one of you mentioned that uh we're
looking at other places or whatever
other states i don't know i my notes are
really scribbly here but
so every other state around us is going
to be doing the same thing
so are we really prepared for this huge
surge of
people who will will need
hospitalization who will need all the
uh the ventilators uh this that and the
other and then we have this shortage of
of nursing that's at least that's what
our people are saying so
so those two questions i go hand in hand
go hand in hand
what are you looking at prospectively
you're taking a lot of
input from us but we're not really at
the forefront of this we're in the
middle of it
but we're not in the position you are in
terms of
um resource gathering i and i
hear repeatedly we don't have the
resources to to do this that and the
other
while there have been some sort of
resources otherwise
we're all going to perish um
so in terms of uh what is it that the
state and the
in the county uh what are you doing in
so far is looking at this prospectively
and um what are the
what is what is our real situation here
prospectively speaking has that been
what that thank you mr mayor
okay well i i i'm not too sure if i saw
a question in there but let me just jump
in real quick on something
a little bit uh similar so
don let me ask you this if
hypothetically we had a
place for for testing um
would the state be willing to come down
or
or can you know can someone some of our
employees there at the city administer
these type of tests
and if we were to buy them in bulk
how much would they cost
i don't know if you can answer that mr
mayor this is dawn yes thank you
thank you for your question um
i appreciate you offering the resource i
think that would be something we could
have a conversation around
i mean we are just you know we are state
employees we're state employees here
um with the department of health for all
state employees working in our specific
counties
we could definitely um have a
conversation i mean with the testing
it's pretty much
um needing to be from my in my
understanding well not necessarily i
guess i was going to say as far as the
test kits that i have right now it's
pretty much
um you know clinical folks being able to
administer those tests that's why it's
so critical to have
you know nurses someone licensed to be
able to that's kind of
one of the caveats that we have now with
some of these rapid response type
equipment you don't have to have i think
a medical person for that
but we're not quite at that point okay
let me tell you what i'm thinking
is is perhaps the clients of
of some of our food banks
that i would think that they would meet
the certain they possibly would meet the
certain income levels that we could then
use money from our telstra fund to pay
for these tests
and then we can just deal with that a
lot quicker
um and then they can you know they they
could be on site
uh while they're if they choose to while
they pick up some food and
and and then get tested so that's where
i was going with that so i'll just let
you
you know uh think about that and then
perhaps we can
circle back either later during the
meeting or
or perhaps on another another time here
this coming week
mr mayor i did have a question out there
for
miss sanchez or for dr torres regarding
prospectively i mean where are we going
um with this
is there is there a plan i mean bringing
in the
national guard another hundred or so to
help
out um you know what about the
facilities
have has there been any thought put into
that
once people get tested and they're
positive i mean i think our hospitals
are
near capacity el paso is at capacity
they're going to start shipping them
over here
um what what and are they talking to
other
is the state in communication with other
states or or the federal government as
to how
to move on this that's my question i'd
like you to answer
okay yes before one quick thing uh david
david do you have an update or remember
the facility
that we used during the um with the
asylum seekers the
the old armory is that of still
available
um mr mayor i haven't had any specific
discussions
uh sorry dave donald record i haven't
had any specific discussions
um i don't think any of us have uh as i
understand it it's not being used by the
owner
but i could have staff make outreach to
them we have a relationship with that
owner
um so i'll send staff an email to see if
they can get an answer today
i will point out that the convention
center is is shut down and we do own the
building
um and and it it's the parking lot is
ours as well so that's
something to keep in mind um
those are probably the two best options
available for us
but let me make outreach to real estate
staff right now
and i'll see if i can get an answer back
to you uh this morning if not
if not during the meeting we can send an
email to you later
thank you okay great and getting back
with counselor flotus's question
to dr torres or or don yes
so my my question mr mayor and
dr torres and miss sanchez is is are you
talking to other municipalities
about um prospective
at least going to be doing from las
cruces you've heard that now from mr
donahue
and the mayor that we uh we own the
convention center it's closed down
now so that might be available the
armory
where we house the and provided services
for the
um asylum seekers might be available
are you having those types of
conversations with other
places in the in the uh in the state of
new mexico
thank you councilor flores uh this is
selena torres i
am going to defer this to amanda from
oem uh
it seems to me that you know the
information that they collect is then
provided to the governor's office and
other
coordinating entities within state
government that then decide how
you know how we expand our capacity so
amanda do you have any
anything uh for this question
i'll do my best to answer that and then
uh interim chief chris bean is one of
our
unified area commanders he may be able
to answer this a little bit better than
i
uh but in looking at facilities right
now we're focusing on
isolation of those people who are not
able to uh
who are either probable or positive that
are looking for shelter so maybe they
can't isolate within their homes
they can't um because they would
compromise their family's
health um or they don't have a home um
they are first responders and need to be
away from
whatever their situation is the focus
really is on
assisting those people and so there has
been some look into those types of
facilities right now those are
being done within hotels um
chief christine do you have any other
information that would be pertinent to
this
good morning mayor councillors
eric crispin interim fire chief donate
county
in regards to what amanda was saying on
the flip side we know that the
the hospitals which operates uh
independently
uh have also uh mentioned that they are
having discussions uh around the same
parameters
um while we're focusing on protecting
first responders and those that
that we want to safeguard um for for
their families
um uh while we determine if they are in
fact
covet positive uh awaiting test results
uh
the hospitals uh have mentioned that
their uh
discussing uh what what do they do with
patients who
um who might just need to be sent home
with just oxygen supplemental oxygen
and so so they want to determine if
there's any facilities
uh that are willing to do uh some sort
of home health care
and provide those visits obviously when
a when a patient
uh uh is in recovery from
from covid uh and is in need of
supplemental oxygen uh it's it's evident
that
that uh a health care provider uh
provide um
uh assistance either uh uh visits
um treatments whether it be increasing
supplemental oxygen or or regulating
that
maintaining um
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their
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daily medication intake so on and so
forth and so so the hospitals are doing
that on that side and
as amanda mentioned we are we're
focusing on on our
our first responder groups so that we
can continue to support
uh the residents um
throughout who are are in need of of uh
first responder treatment uh
through the 911 system and or other
means
okay thank you uh chief
um councilor flotus was there anything
else
you still haven't gotten you well
basically what you want to know is
what's the state's plan
to help us here to reduce the
the spread if any well and and the
question too and i
i i think that ms miss torres
or maybe dr torres said that
um that as far as the capacity goes that
and maybe communication is from the one
department and then to another
department
and to me it sounds like the bureau of
bureaus it almost sounds like you know
a horrible comedy here where um
it's like the right hand doesn't know
what the left hand is doing i don't mean
to insult anybody or anything like that
but in this
moment of crisis which is right in the
middle of a horrible crisis where
anyone can just drop dead you know just
anyone
and it just seems to me that the state
would have
implemented some sort of a plan a
cohesive plan
and since we are meeting uh we had been
meeting
early on on a weekly basis for a couple
of months i think or more
uh and getting these updates and that's
updates and we can read about them and i
don't mean to be facetious or anything
but
you know that some of these updates are
are posted and
updated um on websites but
i just would like to see if there's been
any communication between the
departments
or if there's been now communication
between other states that are affected
because we're all affected now and for a
while there we were there
like a little island unto ourselves
where we
didn't have this impact and now we do we
have high numbers and
it seems to me that because of the
forecast way back when that this was
going to be around for a long long time
and research about this time of the year
that there'd be more planning there'd be
more communication
more conversation uh again so i guess
the answer is no
since it hasn't been answered mr mayor i
would then conclude that there hasn't
been any communication
at the state level between departments
and that they haven't been communicated
with other
municipalities i mean i'd like to know
if maybe they've had this conversation
with santa fe or with albuquerque
yeah they doing what are we doing
cohesively here
so uh councillor flores uh i think one
of the
the points is that you know we're a
centralized department of health so we
uh are in contact with all the regions
all the time because we it's centralized
in santa fe and then we have our
regional
um offices throughout the state um and
then you know a lot of the data that we
present to you
is from multiple agencies so rapid
response to
um let's say a business that's an
entirely different bureau within the
department of health
uh surge capacity and hospital
monitoring which
amanda presented on that's an entirely
different bureau so
there is interaction and within the
bureaus within the state
um and you know as a department of
health we've had a pandemic plan
even before the pandemic it's a
requirement of a department of health to
have that
however this is unprecedented on many
many levels
so i think that um you know there's a
lot of communication in the background
that maybe
is not completely transparent to
everyone but
there are lots of coordinating uh things
happening
and you know unfortunately uh
it may seem like we're not as much ahead
of the game as we can be in may and
maybe that is the situation but
but there's a lot of peace moving pieces
and changing
you know over time so i mean i think if
you really want to understand the bigger
picture that
that would require perhaps reaching out
to the governor's office to see how
these things are happening
how we're coordinating with other states
you know the
the the roles that say john and myself
play within the department of health
are part of cobit response but they're
not the entire part of it
uh there's a lot of things happening so
i think that um
you know if you want the bigger picture
that that that's where i would go you
know we
we interact with public education
department uh
long term in aging you know all those
agencies are involved in some way or
another but
i can understand the frustration and the
you know the concern
but i don't think that don or myself or
anyone else representing state
government on this call
could give you the big picture that you
you you want
so we'd have to reach out to the
governor okay thank you thank you dr
torres
mr mayor can i make a comment to the
council
just don't this is don son just i just
want to mention too i mean
in any in any emergency the response is
local so we
we work very closely you know with oem
with their meetings that they have with
all of our
law enforcement first responders what
have you as dr torres pointed out too we
are working with ped
in a public education department we were
just work with aging and long-term
services
working with environment department very
closely to make sure that we
are all playing the role that we've been
assigned in this like
dr torres as well mentioned on kind of
unprecedented pandemic
so we are definitely collaborating
across departments to make sure that
we're playing our different parts that
we have for us for public health
department of health our main job is the
testing our objective is the testing
and obviously following up with the
results so that's kind of what our main
task is
environment department are the ones who
are doing all the rapid response and the
enforcement we also partner with them
when there's a need for testing for
those specific entities so it is
it is like a puzzle putting together all
the different pieces from all the
different departments that play a role
in this
one thing i did want to mention too i
don't i think i brushed over very
briefly but
the state as well had to submit a covid
vaccine plan to the cdc
uh mid october so there is plans in
place you know a lot of logistics have
to work out about that but there's the
expectation or the intent of having the
first coveted vaccine coming into the
state probably end of november early
december and that is earmarked for our
health care providers first responders
in that in that realm so that's going to
be a whole another activity coming on
um to hopefully mitigate this whole
pandemic that we're in
i think right now the the most important
thing are those public health orders
what you all are doing with the mask
is perfect the social distancing if
you're sick stay home
just those specific behaviors are
important just kind of keep reinforcing
as we're going through this together so
i just want to make those few comments
thank you mr mayor thank you don okay so
ifo
you there
ifo i'm your mayor okay so let's let's
let's do this from what i can
tell and if you need me to do emergency
ordinance but i i think
this is well within your purview so okay
we've got the mask
we've got the the ordinance i think i
think we need to really
step up our psas as well as how
important is the word mask and i think
uh
communications office can deal with that
um
if you can get your team the one that we
assembled with the eoc the emergency
operations command to work
and make sure the hospitals are good
that they've got enough beds
uh and then i think david is going to be
checking on the armory
and then also convention center see if
that will be our backup in case
something was to happen
and then third uh you know we've got the
money if we have to pull it out uh from
the telstra fund if it exceeds your
authority
let me know and then we'll do that the
emergency proclamation for that for
at least testing of those of our
residents who
fall under that certain income level
that we can abide by the anti-donation
clause
and and so at least that's a you know i
think we've got a few things covered
that way the mass
what happens if the hospitals get over
over
capacity as well as money for testing to
for those that
for those that you know don't have
access to it but we can do it this way
while they're getting their their foods
hopefully they'll be amenable to them
good
for sure all right great okay counselor
voters i mean that's a start
yeah it is yeah okay thank you thank you
mr mayor i
you know i just want to say that um
um well thank you that's all i want to
say thank you
uh counselor bait to stubby yes thank
you mayor
um i do have uh quite a few questions
for our oem um department um
during this time obviously i think we
have so many agencies as
um dr torres uh said working together
and working in different areas and
having to come together and that's where
the oem becomes
very uh instrumental on making sure that
we have that
local information and then um they're
receiving
state information and we're making sure
that that communication is distributed
properly accurately and that we're
advocating as hard for our local
communities at these state levels
to make sure we get what we need down
here in our community
especially during these moments of
stress and strain um with that in mind
um with the department it looked like
we've had a large focus
on making sure that we're taking care of
our first responders
um and and rightfully so and making sure
that we keep those systems in place
can you talk to me um beyond just the
medical
items what what are our
local partners hospitals
um you know the the nursing homes care
facilities
what specific things are they asking for
now
and what stresses and strains are they
seeing now that they have been asking
for through the oem
this is amanda bowen with office of
emergency management uh
i'll answer um i'm going to kind of take
a long way to get there hopefully it
doesn't take me a long time to get there
but
we do have a unified command structure
that we work within and it has entities
working within it
from many different entities from the
city police department the county
department
there is the county health and human
services and there is also some
coordination pieces
back with our state agencies through the
department of health
two different sections within our chart
are
tied back to doh for some really good
coordination
on between state and local governments
plus we have um weekly meetings with
all of the municipalities and
jurisdictions within our purview
to be able to distribute that
information that you're talking about
um so part of our structure is to reach
out to vulnerable populations ensuring
that they have the access that they need
um the to information to testing and
provide those needs back to our
structure so that we're addressing those
on a regular basis
um they've done a lot of coordination
with groups like the community of hope
um and different entities um different
businesses entities that have a specific
need that are referred to us
so if you are aware of any kind of
specific need we're happy to reach out
in that direction and
ensure those are addressed um they've
done things like provide
just basic information setting up
testing providing masks that kind of
stuff
um we do have a first responder group
that we coordinate with to ensure
resources
are fully available in every entity that
we're
representing and our healthcare
coalition response addresses the
areas that you just spoke to which is
those skilled nursing facilities and
long-term care facilities
they've been collecting data from those
facilities to
be able to track the number of coveted
positive patients or if an outbreak is
occurring and we as the unified
structure have provided
guidance to those kinds of facilities in
being able to mitigate infection control
and providing fit testing for ppe to
ensure that their staff has what they
need and knows how to wear it properly
and so we've been really working with a
lot of those entities
right now what we're hearing most of the
skilled nursing facilities in our area
have been hit
by what we're calling um kind of a
response unit that goes in and provides
that education to
uh the their staff most of our um
most of our long-term care facilities
here have have received that kind of
education
um we're in tied with the state
um what they call esf6 which provides us
notifications if
we need some additional help we maybe
there's a facility we're not aware of
that
doesn't have that education and so we're
still going out and providing education
to those facilities
as far as the hospitals they seem to
have a different need and and like i
said we have a weekly calls with the
hospitals
to ensure that um we're responding to
the needs that they have
right now they've expressed as chief
christine said
uh a need for some
care for those people who have a very
low acuity they maybe are just on
oxygen and need very minimal care so
we're working
as a team with the hospitals with the
state and with our local partners to
try to address that in tying with home
health agencies tying with
our medical reserve corps which is a
volunteer nurse staff
that can help monitor for those smaller
issues the the
less acuity so we can move those people
out of the hospitals
to my understanding those are their
needs at this point
um but they're ever changing and so
we're working to make sure that we're
all communicating together um like i
said not only just our local hospitals
but
regionally to have a bigger picture look
i know our healthcare coalition
representative her name is jackie
saldana she's also
in coordination with el paso frequently
she's weekly a couple times a week on
state calls to really express our needs
back to the state so that they know if
there are any changes or updates that
need to be made
thank you for that um one of the other
items
we touched upon briefly and you
mentioned it was that of staffing and
finding different ways to help provide
that type of support
with that in mind we know texas was able
to
find state money
to help pay for nurses to come
and assist in those hot spot regions do
we have similar types of programs here
in new mexico
um to access other funding to pay for
nurses to come down
beyond that of just activating those
special um
like the reserve cores but do we have
other unique ways of bringing in
staffing
to our area i'm not aware
of any specific i was on a conference
call last week where they were
looking to explore some more of that um
i believe there may have been some at
the northern part of the state
with that first surge that was utilized
but
as of right now i'm not aware of any um
medical group who've made a specific
ask for that that we haven't been able
to fill with our local
um resources but i i've heard little
inklings
talking about it so i i can't answer
specifically
a yes or no don you may be able to
provide a little bit more guidance there
yes um thank you amanda thank you
counselor stubby this is don sanchez
department of health
the the department did receive a federal
grant
the elc grant that was for hiring of
nurses and medical assistants
so we were slated to have um five nurses
and ten medical assistants for our
region i will tell you it's just been a
challenge
um trying to really find find applicants
and folks
um willing to you know just just find
the support for that but we are actively
trying to bring on those positions so
again we we do have a little bit of
resource
we did have some federal dollars coming
to the state to hire that and those are
for nurses in ma statewide
uh so we're still working on that we've
been able to hire one who's going to
help out in our northern part of our
county
but other than that i think as amanda
said trying to fill those gaps as we can
but that's as far as funding
specifically for the medical side
that's all that i'm aware of at least
with the department of health
thank you and you know i know i
recognize that our
our local systems here we are strained
we are stressed we are
getting at our capacity levels here and
that's why i think it's so important
that we advocate as hard as we can
um at the state level and let them know
that we now need assistance and we need
to plan it now
before we get to three weeks in and
we're beyond capacity
and this is why you know we we talked
about
uh what were the needs down here and
i've been very clear
um since the start of this that we
needed testing here
um test processing here um it for the
whole public not just
you know tiny specific groups i think
that's great to be able to
piecemeal that stuff together it helps
assist but it doesn't take care of the
main support
of that we need to have that testing
here because it's part of that process
of getting people
um isolated or getting them um treated
as efficiently as poss possible um
so we need to have that obviously we
need more help with the testing
um capacities here and perhaps it is
time
to really push and talk to the state and
say
we need to have more resources here and
they
we need the help because our systems are
already stressed and
we were able to do it um with other
areas when they felt this strain
we are now getting to these points where
we're
we're going to need the same types of
assistance and i i just think it's very
very important
that we um are very clear with those
uh concerns and and trying to set things
up
um you know it should probably been done
a month ago um we
when we were told in july that the
testing
would test processing would be available
for
everyone here in the community um
in july that should have been done and
if not what we need to make sure that
we're
we're getting these things and um i find
it
uh it it just and i know we need to
to work very efficiently during this
time for all parties
um some of the other questions
that i had sent in um for your
department um
specifically uh was just about
uh other types of considerations
as we are a um hub center i know
that we've received many patients um
especially in the first and i'm going to
call it the first surge
many patients from other um counties and
our areas um with different spokes um
now are we seeing changes in that of um
those that are coming to us are we
seeing more community members now are we
still accepting spokes
um so that's one part of it and then the
second part is
even as a hub center we do not have um
different types of uh
i guess services available here
when we have uh specific types of
traumas
they usually have to get flown out um we
have uh we don't have things like ecmo
machines here
you know that some patients have had to
use or and this is not even just coveted
related but for other things
what are we doing now that areas are
getting strained
and our patients possibly cannot be
transferred out
are we getting that type of medical
equipment here and
the staffing that is appropriate to use
those medical
equipment or what is the plan to make
sure that we still
have those vital services here in more
of a rural community
this is amanda with the office of
emergency management um
my area of responsibility isn't with the
uh
healthcare coalition i apologize i don't
have the specific answers to your
questions
um i will find them out and provide them
back to you
i do know that as far as accepting from
the spoke hospitals we are
accepting uh the more critical patients
at this point but there's been lots of
discussions about
uh when that needs to not be occurring
because of our surge
um so i i will definitely look into
those and find an answer for you i just
don't have the specific
uh information that would provide you
the acceptable answer you're looking for
okay um and that's you know i
i think i've asked these questions um
from oem
before and i did send them out in my
emails before um
uh asking about different types of
numbers so it's
i just find it very concerning there's a
lot of questions that we have
um that and i know it may not be your
department and i understand um
with that in mind with the system of the
oem
can you talk to me about right now who's
um
what's your command structure of the
your top individuals who would have this
information
yes ma'am yes ma'am um so
i believe an email went out to you that
provided you with a copy of our mac
slides
that has a breakdown of the unified
command structure so you're able to see
the full chart
and where each individual sit uh
right now our unified area commanders
are the office of emergency management
emergency management supervisor colin
combs
and the interim chief eric christine
okay um would mr crispin have
any of that type of information
available
[Music]
he may have stepped away i apologize
chief christine are you there
mr mayor uh counselor stewie um
so in regards to information excuse me
chief can you just teach your name
please
oh yes sir i apologize eric crispin
interim fire chief donahana county
thank you i'll go ahead
thank you sir counselor steve can you
be more specific in the information that
you're inquiring to
learn about do you have do you have an
answer to
what the plan is um since we
are a center um that doesn't offer
specific services
um for the community there are certain
events um certain types of traumas
certain machines that we don't provide
here that we usually transfer
outpatients
can you explain right now what that
process is since there is
um different limitations and if there
are any plans
on getting that type of equipment and
personnel to run it
into our community once there are surge
issues
so uh mayor councillor uh stewie
you mentioned the word trauma ma'am um
so
so as i mentioned earlier that the
hospitals are working
there is a partnership between the
current unified area command
group and the hospitals we meet
telephonically or through telecom
weekly to discuss how things are going
and what
problems are or issues they're seeing on
their side
obviously uh they are working to ensure
that
that we have beds available ventilators
available things like that
uh one thing that that is automatic um
and and we really
for a lack of better terms take for
granted is uh
life life comes over everything else and
so
when you mention trauma i'm only as i'm
only assuming that you're talking about
a trauma patient uh we're going to
follow our standard guidelines and
protocols and we're going to
care for this patient and either uh
transport them
to a local facility or we will obtain
authorization to transport them through
to a
level one trauma center uh those
there every facility um is required to
have
a a a number of trauma
beds or or an area set aside for these
types of situations i'm not sure
if that's where you're that's where
you're headed with your question if
that's
that's what you're looking at so where
so the public knows um where
are level one trauma centers
so for us uh well
i believe it's just you and umc in el
paso is
the only one that i'm aware of but yes
sir mayor uh counselors to be
so recognized in this region uh umc is
the
the level one trauma center now
um now uh given the situation
will they always have availability to
accept our trauma patients
uh mayor councillor stevie
i can't answer for the for the trauma
center in el paso
uh they don't follow under our guidance
or our our area command
but my thought is as i mentioned earlier
life comes first and so
it would be it would be in their best
interest to ensure that trauma
facilities are available um as i
mentioned even though we're in the
middle of this pandemic
uh i i can't attest to how many beds are
available or whether or not they have
one or two orthosurgeons or trauma
surgeons
on hand at any given time but
nonetheless it would be in their best
interest to have those facilities
available because emergencies are
continuing to happen
trauma-related emergencies whether we
are in a pandemic or not
absolutely um and so with that in mind
in case there is ever
um any sort of differences since we are
crossing state lines
um there are other considerations at
play
um what is the plan um or is there a
plan
should that trauma center not be
accessible to
us um what is the plan to make sure that
we're still able to get
that level of care for our community
uh mayor counselor stewie so i i'm not
i think we're going off subject but i'm
going to try to answer it and so we can
go back to
to what we're dealing with and that's
the pandemic itself
we have protocols in place man we call
ahead
um uh through through uh radio
communications
uh to advise them that we're inbound
either by air or
by ground transport to a receiving
facility
uh for example if we were to have a
trauma patient now
uh and it's in the best interest of to
get this trauma patient
uh in our case here locally we would
probably go to mountain view because
they have ortho on
on staff they would make the
arrangements to
to communicate with the with the level
one trauma center in our region
uh we would uh uh try and stabilize the
patient
and either prepare to fly them out to
albuquerque to
unm or we would seek other arrangements
elsewhere
as far as related to trauma but as i
mentioned earlier counselor it is
a and i'm not going to speak for the
hospitals that's something that you guys
would have to
to discuss with them um or we could
certainly
work to have that information provided
but
uh it would be in their best interest to
to ensure that the trauma facilities
uh have room to accept uh individuals
who are suffering from trauma
uh even in the middle of a pandemic
thank you as and counselor
if i may interrupt real quick and it is
kind of timely um
ironically you know i communicate with
jacob cintron the ceo of umc
and in the event there was a situation
and and um
i know they'll fly them out to another
hospital could be lubbock or amarillo
so um yeah i just want to just share
with you i didn't want to interrupt
the chief on that go ahead thank you so
these questions are very pertinent
and these are the types of questions
that when we have
staffing shortages during a pandemic
when people
are strained when different hospital
systems are strained
unfortunately these are the types of
questions that now get to get asked
when hospitals do have to look at
patient transfers
and they do need to look at it because
not only are we dealing with the
pandemic
but we also our hub centers for these
types of
area issues too and patients are still
going to come to our hospitals
and then have to be processed in
different types of ways and so these are
the type of questions that are
going to come in with or without a
pandemic and with the pandemic it's only
harder
to look at what's going to happen and so
that's why i want to make sure that
we're having these conversations
together
that we're looking at all these things
that all of us are aware
um at different levels from not only
government
but the different coordinating partners
because we all need to be
looking at these type of questions
because it helps us make good policy
decisions
and then we also have preparation and
planning
because unfortunately these are the
types of decisions that are going to
have to be made in the coming months
and it's going to be very difficult and
the worst type of decisions
that hospitals are going to have to make
is that on patient care and who gets
resources
and who doesn't who is stable enough to
make a transfer
who gets a machine and those are the
types of questions
that we have to be asking ourselves now
to make sure we're as prepared as
possible
because those questions are the hard
questions
and so that's why i'm asking those and i
find them to be very
relevant
[Music]
with that in mind um
i know we talked about what hospitals
are asking about um
and different resources is there
anything that the oem thinks that we
need to be considering
and what message do you have for our
community
[Music]
so this is amanda chief would you like
to take that one
no go ahead ma'am you you uh go ahead
and provide info and then i can follow
up
uh well i was just going to um
say that oem um
is not the only entity that's involved
um
there if you look at our structure
there's entities
that are representative of all of the
jurisdictions that
really play a role in all of this
coordination
and i can assure you that at the
hospital level
and the health care coalition level many
of those conversations are taking place
and are really in depth
um so i know that there are some
specific questions that you have that we
aren't able to answer at this moment
but i can definitely get you the answers
you're looking for and i can assure you
that those conversations are taking
place
um as far as oem is concerned we
really are working within this structure
to ensure that we provide the best
response
so oem is not the ones who are dictating
the
um the response or the direction that
we're taking
it's really coming from that unified
command structure
so i think chief crisping would be best
probably to speak
as far as the unified area commander to
that direction
thank you amanda
mayor councillors eric chris spain
interim fire chief donated county
uh unified area commander uh
i'm gonna go back to what the mayor said
earlier um we need you all to assist us
in being the champions
for encouraging our public to wear mass
exercise social distancing
we have a a component of our
of our unified area command known as the
jic
the joint information center these are
comprised of
public information officers from public
schools from the county from the city
and they're all sending out the same
message and that's the message that our
partners at department of health
continue to preach and continue to
stress and that's
you know wash your hands often utilize
that mask
um practice uh
discipline and ex and exercise that
social distancing
uh you know avoid the the the large
crowd so on and so forth and
and and only only go out um
you know exercise that discipline and
only go out if you have to gather
uh food so uh of food or medications and
things like that
and so so that's where we need uh our
counselors to be champions for us and
assist us
and provide that information because
every day when we have these
these telecom meetings that's the same
message
that we're encouraging our joint
information center to put out
um you know reminding the reminding
folks that
that uh we're not doing this um
um because we want to see this we're
doing this because we're trying to
ensure that that our elderly are safe
and our
our children are safe so on and so forth
and so
uh you know there's there's a
partnership and and
we're all trying to send out the same
message and it all goes back to
to what the mayor mentioned earlier is
please wear your face mask
not for yourself but for others and
please exercise social distancing
uh for yourself and for others uh this
isn't something that
you know we're we're trying to pick on
any one person
we're just trying to ensure that as a
community we stay safe and so
uh this is one of the things that that
we're we're focusing on is making sure
that
that as a unified area command group
that we're sending out that same message
as as often uh as possible
and it's a unified message it's the same
message
and it's supporting the efforts of
department of health and all the other
uh teams and entities that are part of
the the structure itself
thank you i really appreciate that
message and i think that's something
that the public needs to hear
that this this is a matter of public
health and safety this
is not it's not political this is not
um one person with an idea and this is
certainly
not a hoax and that we need to be
working all together
in our community um and abiding by those
health orders so that we can get through
this together
and at the other side of this we have as
many of our residents that are able to
um gather again and and take those
moments
and so i think it's very important that
we make sure to express this unified
message among all departments um so i
thank you very much for that
and since we're here one last time for
don
would you please remind people that it
is flu season there i know that there is
going to be another blue
boo to the flu event um over the weekend
um and so i'm not sure if you have that
information
with you but just to share and we can
encourage anybody to
get a flu shot absolutely counselor
counselor stupid this is don sanchez
thank you i was just gonna mention that
too because we
we do need to be mindful that it's flu
season as well and we don't want to
over over burden our health system any
more than we really
you know need to so there is the big
boot of the flu event happening this
saturday
it will be at memorial medical center
from nine to twelve
it's a drive we just come on up um and
they'll just they'll give your
immunization there in the car
we are also there's another event also
at burrell college
as well on saturday from 9 to 12. so
you're able to come
there too it's free of charge just go
ahead and show up there and then at our
health office too we are providing
flu shots you know on a daily basis too
you just need to if you want to have an
appointment you just go ahead and
register
through the same cova test registration
application that you do for the kova
test but just call our office at any
time we can help you with that as well
thank you very much john and thank you
mayor
thank you counselor any other council
members have any
questions so um
i guess this question is going to i'm
going to ask
well let me just run by my colleagues
here if we could theoretically
send masks to all of our residents in
the city um
be supportive of that yeah so
delilah are you there
so i was thinking yes sir i'm here i
had an unmuted mask okay no no problem
so i was thinking that we used to i i
don't remember the numbers but um
they're probably in the ballpark of
about 33 000
um customers of your utilities
and in that ballpark yeah um and i'm
thinking if we were to
have that database and and send say five
masks
to each of those um households
you know we at least cover i think at
least
one per per household and then some
because there we
also have to consider the possibility
that there are
some of our residents or many of them
may not even have access to a mask
and i think and i'll double check with
jennifer but i think that this would
actually
qualify under the anti-donation clause
that were if we give free mask out
distribute them this way and it would
probably cost us about
um fifty sixty thousand dollars but
it'll be
for the good of the of the public
because now
they their mask and um hopefully could
greatly reduce the spread because if we
could if
hypothetically 20 of our of our citizens
don't
our residents don't have mask and now
we've given them something
it's better than that it's better you
know it's a good start is that something
that we
could have access to your database if
needed
and mayor i'm sorry yes we have
approximately if we look at
uh within city limits only we have
approximately
35 000 to 38 000 customers but we can
search our database and we can outline
city limits
and we do have the information available
okay so mr mayor yes david
would we only want to do that to our
residences
our residential service address not our
commercial
because that makes a difference because
we serve both commercial and residential
properties
well i was looking more i i think
commercial businesses are a lot easier
to have masks
i'm sure there's some that don't i was
just trying mr mario i was just trying
to clarify
that's only to residential properties
yeah that's what i was thinking i mean
if council wants to do both
or if they even want to do it all you
know but um i think it'd be
and and let me just get clarification
from jennifer if that's an allowable
expense
uh but i would think that it hopefully
would jennifer do you want to comment on
whether or not we could do something
like that
um thank you mayor and council i because
it's a public health issue and because
this is addressing
an immediate emergency public health
issue i think it would be
allowable under anti-donation i also
would ask that you consider widening
um to the broader community so there are
a lot of people who will live
in apartments that won't be resident um
they won't have
accounts with um and also other rental
properties so we
probably want to open it up to them as
well good point i like that
so that one is kind of immediate we
could take them to
apartment how compartment complexes and
and um
we need to just really be aggressive and
just do our best to get mask out to
everybody
and i think that would greatly have huge
impacts
on um on compliance to
wearing face masks thank you jennifer
thanks for
that mr mayor mr mayor
i'll go ahead david and then i'll go to
council floors i i did want to remind
you of the community mask up events that
we have
every month in through the quality of
life department
that we they are very successful and we
have them scheduled through november and
december at this point
so we're not doing without so there are
other means to the community as avail
available as well just oh no i think i
think those are great and i want to
thank councillors uh ben como
gandara vita stevie and others that have
done this
to do to help them help that out and
even sheriff
as um stewart but i think
i think i i you know since since
jennifer gave us the green light i think
and i agree
that um why not you know what let's just
do it i mean we need to be aggressive on
this i mean i'm
i'm not saying the staff has to you know
get this turned out by
next week but if they can work on it and
then in in the next week or two
um i mean it's like you just have to
you know we'll have to buy a lot of uh
we'll buy those little envelopes
the reason why i know is because i've
actually done this i've sent out
i've sent out to my to my agents i send
out five masks and then they're in those
little
little small little manila envelopes and
they actually still they're so light uh
they cover
one one poster stamp but i'm sure we can
do a book mail i mean there's just ways
to get it done
and since we have the database we can
produce the labels we can do a lot of
things and
i know we can get it done thank you for
that
uh david mayor pro tem and then
counselor bin como
er thank you so much for that i i i
think that's going to be very helpful
um yesterday i was in a store
um grabbing something really quickly
later in the evening
and someone walked in with her shirt
above her
mouth and nose um and saying do you have
a mask right and i
wished i had you know the bunches that i
do have
um available to give it to her but i
think there are still some folks that
just don't you know she wanted to do
some very quick shopping and she says
i'm not used to wearing a mask so i
think you're right that there
are some folks that don't have access to
it for whatever reason she said i walked
a great distance to get
you know here um and i felt so badly for
her so
i think that's going to take care of a
lot of a lot of folks hopefully
but as we heard from our doh partners
people are mass gathering
and not wearing their mask and
um i think that goes hand in hand i
think we need to
increase like you've indicated um
the the public awareness campaigns
talking to people about the mass
gatherings they
they shouldn't be doing it they should
really adhere to
the governor's the governor's order so i
if we can do anything your emergency
proclamations include no mass gathering
and bump up the the enforcement i think
we're going to be better
the better for it i know you don't want
to do curfews i get that loud and clear
and neither do i
but i i i just don't see um
any other option people and and i i know
you said
do we want the five people with the mass
or you know the different
hours and and whatever um
honestly i think the bottom line is
people just have to
take the personal responsibility and
not gather period and
and if they do like um
interim chief christine said that that
they're using their mass they're
socially distancing washing their hands
on a regular basis so
hopefully with these things you know
people were will um
will um well will listen and abide by
um but the other thing mayor is um i
would really
recommend and i want to request from
staff that when we have these meetings
that we come prepared with the
information
especially when some counselors are
giving out you know questions so that
those are
people are prepared i want to see um map
reports weekly
it's been a very long time since we've
gotten that received anything
um i think that should just be a given
that that is given to us
regularly that we know that these
conversations are being had
we don't sit on those cumber you know
those those weekly or daily meetings
that you have
in the mornings we don't sit we don't
hear
from our folks regularly we really rely
on those
and so like i read those mac reports
thoroughly
um i also don't want to continue to hear
that our partners that are having these
conversations
are being um a barrier to receiving
resources to include
oxygen and those kinds of things we have
to think creatively about
the about these and these things and i i
again i'm hearing from hospitals and
different organizations
that um some of the folks that are
supposed to be providing
you know emergency management services
are are providing more
barriers than they are um assisting and
and i i don't i don't want to have to
say this out loud but
i feel like i have to i feel like i when
i'm
i'm listening to all these questions and
people are answering that i feel that
there's some frustration
about the questions that are being asked
i want people
to understand that we're responsible for
our community a hundred and thousand
plus people
and we haven't met in quite a while so
for for me to feel like there's some
frustration with the the
questions that are being asked or that
there's comments like we're we're
gearing up you know we're very
off subject when a lot of this is
is of great concern um
to all of us and and so also i want the
hospital at these meet these the
hospital representation
at these meetings so we hear from nurses
and doctors firsthand
how overwhelmed that they are this is
the only opportunity that we hear
from them publicly and i'd like to just
make sure that
they're here present and that we're
hearing from them and that
um that we know that these conversations
are being had
again there's some new players to this
meeting
for lots of reasons and i appreciate
everybody that has taken the time
but again i think um please let's all be
patient with one another we're in this
together
we truly all of us care about our
community
and we don't want to see these services
overwhelmed anymore than they are
so thank you mayor thank you mayor potem
forget the council ben cuomo i just want
to
i failed to mention i reached out to um
both ceos of the hospital
mr harris and derek and they both said
they have
they're fine they have beds so i just
wanted to
relay that and they're good to go so
also been como and counselor flotus
thanks mayor and i almost don't want to
go after my what mayor pro-tem said
because that was so wonderful and
beautiful and i think um
thank you for that mayor pro tem i think
we i
you know you're right we have to
remember that the enemy here
is the virus and that that's
um the ultimate goal is to minimize the
spread of it and minimize
the number of new mexicans in las cruces
that
are very negatively impacted by this
virus so i think that's an important
thing to keep in mind
for sure you know i also i um
earlier you know i think we were
we want to have obviously high standards
and we want to ask
for all these things from the state
which i think is important
i keep thinking though what are we
doing what role is the city of las
cruces playing
in ensuring that we're curving it's not
just like i don't think
we can continue to um just sort of
stand behind the state and wait till the
state does this or wait till the state
does that
i think we also have to take more
responsibility and more of a leadership
in the way that we want to curb
the um the surge here in our very own
community nobody knows
our community like we do and so i want
to make sure that we're also
asking ourselves what are we doing in in
in this moment um and you know mayor i
think it i
you know i do i love your idea of
sending masks out i think
at the end of the day we don't know
people situations and why
they may or may not have a mask yet i
also want to note though
that i don't think that's the problem
the problem is the people that
don't want to wear a mask not the people
that don't have one to wear
the majority of the problem are from the
folks who
don't want to wear one who don't believe
that this is serious who continue to
break the rules going into stores or
continue to
gather in groups larger than 10 because
they don't think it's a big deal like
that's where the problem is and i think
that's why i'm pushing so hard
for enforcement and you know mayor you
know i love your hypotheticals
you always bring them and i love them
but i will say mayor that
what's not a hypothetical is the number
of cases we're seeing on a daily basis
come out of dona ana county that's not a
hypothetical
and that's serious and it's only going
to get worse as we head into
flu season so i you know i just want us
to keep asking ourselves what are we
doing
um in in response to the surge so
thank you thank you um councilman cuomo
i appreciate that and um
i'm smiling a little bit because for a
split second now
uh i think you now understand where law
enforcement comes from why they get a
little frustrated with residents you
know when they when
they're when they're breaking the law
it's like you can't be doing that and
and you know what you got to do you know
you got to do the enforcement
anyways thank you for that um council
flores
um thank you mr mayor i
know i everything that uh councillor uh
bencomo or
both have covered my my points
i think that i think it's just empirical
data that
we might have about people who don't
want to wear masks because we haven't
done a survey
but one may deduce that yes it's it's
those who don't want to
but i but i do think it's an excellent
idea um
that we should send those masks out i
know i receive some from my um
my health care provider and uh it's nice
you just throw them in the car and you
have them there
by your door when you come in and come
out so the more the merrier thank you mr
mayor
that's all okay mayor pro tem did you
have another question or did you did you
forget to put your hand down
sir mayor i forgot to put my hand down
okay all right
so uh ifo um if you can start looking at
that you may need for me to do that
emergency proclamation to give you the
money because that this may get kind of
uh
i'm estimating it's around seventy
thousand
to do the mask including the postage the
envelope and the actual mask themselves
and the and the labels or however you do
it so oh
delilah you have a comment
mayor we've got staff uh we'll start
working on our side too to see if we can
do something as
either a bill insert or with a billing
cycle
tag on oh great
oh you mean put the mask in there
yes sir or do a alternate billing cycle
out so we can have it go uh one after
another and take advantage of our bulk
mailing
okay great oh i'm sure you're gonna
charge this right
of course well i i just
want to make sure just you know there's
been a new change of command here i just
want to know if
i i know i know what you have trained me
well yeah
yeah okay okay so
and i think uh okay so ifo yeah if you
need anything you you
work up the prices and because i you
know otherwise it's going to take two
weeks to get that but if
if you need me just let you know about
that and then
as well as the other other issues but i
think we've had a very productive
uh meeting today i appreciate uh
appreciate everyone's comments and um
everyone who joined us and thank you uh
uh amanda
don and dr torres thank you for that and
and chief
eric christine okay
uh i guess if there's nothing further
entertain a motion to adjourn
oh counselors foreign counselor uh floyd
is second by council disorder to adjourn
all those in favor oh that's right
better
chris and you want to call that role
please
yes this is on the motion to adjourn the
special meeting
counselor beta stevie yes
counselor vasquez yes
counselor ben cuomo yes
counselor sork yes
counselor flores yes counselor gandara
yes mayor yes
okay you all see you all later have a
safe weekend
thank you
you