yes
[Music]
okay good afternoon everybody sorry for
the late start today is monday
october 26 2020 approximately 1 10 pm
before we get the meeting started on the
tit board i'm going to ask for a
pledge of allegiance please
pledge allegiance to the flag of the
united states of america
and to the republic for which it stands
one nation
under god indivisible with liberty and
justice for all
all right so we've got uh first item is
the
action item approval of the minutes this
is the tit board
we'll have our work session immediately
following this first item is going to be
action 2.1 approval of the minutes from
may 11 2020.
tit board
motion made by board member flores
second by
vice chair gandra any questions
see none christine
this is on the motion to approve the
minutes from the may 11
2020 tidborn meeting board member beta
stevie
yes board member vasquez
yes board member ben cuomo
yes board member so work
yes board member flores
yes board member gandara
yes chair yes
okay we have three discussion items the
first one being the financial update
and mr josh sofil will
discuss
yes uh good afternoon uh mr mayor
members of the board
my name is josh saffel on behalf of the
finance department of state of las
cruces
i'd like to present the unaudited
financial statements for
uh the quarter ended september 30th
so of course the the tid is made up of
three different funds so we're going to
look at each fund separately
uh starting with the tid
operations we see that in cash and
investments we have three million seven
hundred and eight thousand seven hundred
fifteen dollars
uh receivables are thirty two thousand
eight hundred and thirty five dollars
and the due from state and county is 32
671.
so we had total assets in this fund of
three million seven hundred and seventy
four thousand
two hundred and twenty one dollars and
there was uh
an amount in restricted fund balance in
the same amount of the three million
seven hundred and seventy four thousand
looking at the budget to actual uh there
was total revenues
in that fund for this period of 3 623
no expenditures but there was a transfer
out
of a hundred and eighty seven thousand
five hundred dollars
so this left a net change to the income
of negative one hundred eighty three
thousand eight hundred and seventy seven
dollars
the next fund is the tid projects fund
uh here we see
cash and investments in that fund of
nine hundred and seventy one thousand
seven hundred and forty dollars which
also happens to be the total assets
and the same amount as a restricted fund
balance
looking at the actual expenditures for
kid projects we had total revenues of
total expenditures of 2213.
so the net change in fund balance for
the period was a negative
and sixty eight 1568
finally is our tid street bond project
fund
uh here we see cash investments in this
fund of five hundred and six thousand
twenty seven dollars and a restricted
fund balance in the same amount of five
hundred and six
thousand looking at the activity there
was total revenue of three hundred and
eighty seven dollars
no expenditures which left a positive
net change in the fund balance of this
fund
of three hundred and eighty seven
dollars uh
that will conclude the presentation of
the financial statements are there any
questions
no that looks like josh thank you thank
you
okay i have a
the negative number on the on the
operations
josh the negative 183 000
can you go back to that slide i'm sorry
i didn't put the slide number
yes give me just a second i'll try and
get back there
there
um
yes the negative 183 is that where it
the negative 183 would be the the change
to fund balance which is caused by that
transfer out of 187
000 uh which is reduced by the total
revenue of 3623
so that transfer out was to where josh
i do not have that information in front
of me i would have to get back with you
on that i'm sorry
yeah interested to know the transfer out
and this is where um
total revenues tell me what that all
what what would that
consist of specific to the tid
uh there are two uh there are three
areas that are highlighted taxes rental
income and investment income
so the rental income is 600 i'm not
exactly sure
uh what's generating that but apparently
um the tid is renting out something
and so they're receiving income for that
rental and then investment income so
because you have that much money in the
bank
um we're receiving it's generating
income uh
just by being in the bank okay
okay does anybody on staff know where
that
transfer of the hundred and eighty seven
five hundred thousand
went to
leanne looks like lee andy mush
as uh yes mayor
um and uh counselor gandala
the uh if you remember i wanna say
probably about a year and a half ago
um many many years ago there was a
transfer or
not actually transfer but when the tid
began
there was money that was borrowed from
the general fund
right we brought a resolution to council
to pay that
half of that back over five years
this transfer out is uh the
the first quarter transfers
for that transfer of paying back the
general fund
got it okay okay
you did thank you leanne i was just a
little concerned so
the negative balance should we be
concerned is this where like
revenues the g where the grt is being
um that transfer um
mayor council governor that transfer was
actually budgeted
i'd have to look at why there's a the
net
change one of the reasons that there is
a net change is that if you look at your
total revenues
they're so small right now because of
the neighborhood
and as you know you know what this
is the area this is your district so the
area
the downtown area they've closed
during or they've partially opened up
you know to 25 some of them have access
to outside you know because there's food
in there there's schools
there's um you know some churches in
there
so a lot of the businesses for the
downtown so we have not been receiving
any revenue on the tid i want to say
probably for the last
maybe six seven months since covet has
started
and the reason for that is because
there's a baseline
remember there's a baseline for the tid
so
none of the revenues for the grt are
meeting that baseline
counselor so we're not getting anything
above that baseline right now
but i will tell you the last
distribution that we just recently got
just a few days ago we got a really nice
distribution so i'm thinking that
because the governor is letting up
up some of the constraints for that area
we'll start seeing the tid revenue come
in again
okay okay i'm that's what i needed to
know leon thank you so much
for your explanation and thank you josh
for your presentation that's it mayor
thank you
dr martinez you have something you'd
like to say
good afternoon mayor uh board and uh
vice chair we're actually in the updates
uh section we have a summary for fiscal
year 19 and 20.
so we're you're going to be able to see
the the summary numbers of revenue into
the tip
shortly oh okay thank you
josh thank you for that so next we're
going to have um
the ted projects update by miss liz vega
[Music]
nice to meet you go ahead doctor going
to this
oh are you going to do the update
actually um before we go into the
updates i like to highlight some
uh internal strategic uh changes for the
department mr mayor
and so and also i'd like to introduce
our
staff working right now in downtown
which is a tip
area and so starting fiscal year
this fiscal year we made some
changes to separate the
destination downtown from business
development that uh previously was
managed by uh mandy gus and so to
allocate
better resources to to this program
we separated it and currently this vega
is our interim destination downtown
program
another change was that we have the rio
grande theater now
within destination downtown and chris
fever is here
representing that and then we have a new
hire
who is our newest economic development
coordinator
her name is sarin parra and i wanted you
all to meet the team
in destination downtown who are rocking
and
rolling uh downtown so with that mr
mayor i will pass it on to elise for the
actual presentation
thank you okay before we get to liz
leanne did you have another comment or
did you just forget to put your hand
down
the end emotion oh sorry mayor i forgot
to put my hand down okay okay great
okay thanks dr martinez so now we're
going to hear from liz vega
on the ted projects update yes good
afternoon
mr chair and board members this is the
tid project update for this tidbord
meeting
and as alluded to by dr martinez we are
going to start it off with
a recap of the tid revenue by fiscal
year
um this is trying to give you a picture
of
the variability actually of the tid
over the past two to two and a half
years
you can see that in fy 2019 we had some
very strong numbers coming in as revenue
and um in fy 2020 and 21 it has tapered
off
um this is this is due to some
construction projects especially
the two-way conversion being completed
so just something to
to keep note of and as mentioned by
leanne
previously you can see that in august
and september
we didn't have any revenue coming in
because we did not meet that baseline
one of the projects that's being funded
through the tid is the parking lot 7
bathroom renovation and some landscaping
being done
parking lot 7 is the parking lot that's
behind
the rio grande theater we have a total
budget for that
of 490 thousand dollars currently we
have 100
of the construction drawings completed
this does also include
a new parking lot sign so it'll be
branded as parking lot 7
and there will be a relocation of the
bench so currently we have a bench
that's in that area that we are going to
relocate to the north end of maine
um the timeline for this project we are
anticipating breaking ground
in december of 2020 currently we're
going through the bid
process for this project with an
estimated completion date of march 2021
next project that we have here is the
campo street redesign
this is also tid funded and the total
budget for this project
is four hundred thousand dollars uh we
recently had the kickoff
meeting with moles and corbin and
associates they will be the consultants
for this project
the project manager from public works is
natasha billy and we have been
identifying the stakeholders in the area
business owners as well as the arts and
cultural district
the downtown las cruces partnership and
others
and we are making sure that there is
continuity with other projects
um currently we also have a study for
lighting and wayfinding signage in the
arts and cultural districts so we're
making sure that this project lines up
with that one as well
some of the scope of this redesign
project includes
taking into account account the cultural
impact of the area
as a lot of you know this is the
original town site for las cruces
we want to make sure that is included in
this project
we'll also be looking at architecture
and landscaping
updating the lighting to better
match downtown main street as well as
what's going to be going into the
mesquite district
we'll also be looking at traffic control
and ada compliance
with the sidewalks and the streets and
everything like that
another project that's in the works that
the tit is funding
is the online permitting through asella
acella is the software that community
development uses for
business licenses and things like that
we're going to be using it for renting
of downtown public spaces
this will be all online which will be
very beneficial to those peoples who are
renting the spaces we're currently going
through
a user testing phase and that should be
complete by the end of this month
we anticipate a go live date for
mid-november
and we'll have plenty of education
online tutorials and things like that
but i did also want to remind the board
that downtown permanente is currently on
hold through the end of 2020 because of
the coba 19 pandemic
and to finish on a very positive note we
have the holiday lights that will be
going up
in the downtown area this is also going
to be
funded through the tid it is estimated
budget of 18 thousand dollars
currently we're working on a service
agreement through purchasing
this includes decorations all along main
street
this is in lieu of the plaza decorations
that we unfortunately won't be able to
do because of the pandemic this year
they're just high touch point areas and
promote gatherings so instead we're
going to put
all of the trees on main street we're
going to light them up
with with christmas lights and these
would be lit
starting saturday december 5th and go
through
january 6th
and with that i will stand for any
questions
thanks liz
okay a question uh from councilman i
mean uh board member ben como and then
vice chair
kandara thank you chair um and thank you
so much liz for that presentation
um honestly i have two questions i'm
going to start with the most important
one first
are we not having a big christmas tree
in the middle of the plaza this year
mr chair board member vancomo i
unfortunately
we've had a lot of discussion internally
about this
and because a couple of reasons one
biggest being the
the health pandemic um where we don't
want to encourage
any sort of gathering but the other is
because the
plaza is currently being utilized every
saturday for the farmers market
for social distancing reasons so having
less decorations will allow them to
continue operating
safely but i would like to open it up to
um i believe the parks and recreation
director is here to answer some more
questions on the decorations
for downtown thanks liz i mean i
that makes me sad of course but i also
get it and i know it's tough decisions
and
and i thank you all for for making those
decisions
um i i did want to ask though in all
seriousness
you said 18 000 for decorations does
that include like that just seems high
does that include like the electric bill
like what is
what is entailed in the 18 000
great question uh mr chair board member
ben como so the 18000
includes all of the lights it also
includes installation of those lights
by the company they will also be put on
timers
which is a great thing to save
electricity so they'll be put on at a
certain time and then and then shut off
in the middle of the night
and they also include so we're initially
purchasing the lights
and um that's that's a cost of about
three thousand dollars and we'll have
those lights to use in years to come
all right so it's kind of a little bit
of an investment up front but then we'll
be able to utilize it
great thanks liz thanks thanks jim
yeah thank you liz um vice chair gandera
thanks liz um thanks mayor thank you liz
for the presentation very exciting just
some backstory
um um board member ben como
um it has been a big deal
these lights are big deal and they were
like why is it only on the main you know
there in the by the plaza why doesn't it
go up and down
the entire street and you can imagine i
got so
much um
feedback about hey all of us along
the entire main street is important we
want to see those lights and so
for at least a couple of years i've been
advocating for these lights so i'm i
mean i don't know if you saw me but i
was so excited to see
that we are finally going to get the
lights up and down main street
i think that will be beautiful and as
obviously
um not the best substitute for the
beautiful tree and the tree lighting
ceremony but i completely understand
that so i i'm
thrilled that we're able to do this
um i think it'll make the business
community there
extremely happy and proud and
the folks who um in the
the historic districts that come and
frequent it
they will be very happy to hear this um
liz my questions are around the combo
redesign
you had made mention the study on that
the ac dsm
is doing a study on the lights and the
wave finding i wanted to see where are
we at with this
i'm very concerned about that funding
that has been allocated
obviously by um legislators um
and and and i want to make sure that
we're utilizing that
um funding quickly um
absolutely uh mr chair vice chair canada
we are actually running these projects
concurrently um
so they did have a kickoff meeting for
the arts and cultural district
wayfinding and lighting study
a couple of weeks ago um so they're very
much
in the same uh time frame of finishing
around january of next year
i do want to put your your worries aside
that we have been working
through our grants office to ensure that
we have
been encumbering as much funds as
possible especially in that capital
outlay
in order to not get it taken away
good thank you thank you
um and the study on the lights
in general i know that um david maestas
was working on that prior to him
becoming our interim city manager
wanted to see very specifically um
i know we were doing a whole study on
lighting for the
comp for all of the city
but i haven't heard kind of where we're
at
i i hear different things that it's
completed that we're still working
specific to the lighting is that
separate and apart from the
lighting study that has been conducted
or had
been conducted um maybe about a year ago
mr chair and vice chair canada yes
that's that's a separate
uh project and potentially we can ask
public works to get an update
to you about that project okay okay so
that now is the light you're working on
the lighting studies specific to the
mesquite
and compo area when will that be
complete
for uh mr chair and vice chair gandalf
for
for these specific projects for the um
compost street redesign as well as
the arts and cultural district mesquite
street uh lighting studies those will be
complete in january
along and it's a it's a package project
so not only the lighting
but also signage and all of that
specific to these areas
good list so january of 2021
yes correct and then when once we get
that study back
when will we start to rip you know
ramp up to the actual um
redo the actual work on campo
mr chair vice chair gandala once we get
those studies
back in january we're hoping to they're
going to have design estimates
for the different infrastructure that
could potentially be included in those
areas
and then we'll look at the budget that
remains in
compost street redesign but also the
budget that remains
in the capital appropriation for the
arts and cultural district
and start to to make those purchases so
it'll be
soon after the uh the studies are
completed and we can
identify the budget for that so that's
um shortly thereafter so the spring you
think or
i would guess the spring yes okay okay
and so
there you're completely redoing campo
infrastructure right um
curb gutter sidewalk that whole entire
street
yes mr chair vice chair ghana
that is on yes that is a part of this
entire redesign
okay and i see mayor if i can tony's
hand is up
yes don't yeah sure tony trevino
yes sir thank you mayor thank you mary
um you are correct the uh because uh
compile
reconstruction is going to include the
roadway sidewalk
curb and gutter and drainage
improvements what we're gonna
the approach we're gonna take is having
the consultant
um do a phase one study which is kind of
there's a lot of stuff that's being
requested for this roadway
um bike lanes uh walking past
uh benches and some decorated features
through the throughout this road
so we're gonna see what we have
available for the right of way that we
have and what we can do is we're gonna
come up with about three different
scenarios
bring them to the stakeholders and also
to city council and see which way they'd
want to
move forward with um to go back to your
question on the
wayfinding and lighting in the arts and
cultural district
the biggest thing that they're studying
now is available right away for some of
these areas to place these lights on
so i would like to say that we get
starting construction right away however
depending on any acquisitions we're
going to do for right away
that kind of all the construction and
the design of it though so this is going
to give us kind of
a heads-up direction and what we got to
do to uh
work toward that and make sure we do it
in a feasible um
productive way so we don't kind of
backtrack also
yeah thank you thank you tony for that
sorry yeah
i know and one of the things also that
once we get these plans we're going to
have some
public input meetings with the
stakeholders the arts and cultural
districts and
thank god we have this here to help us
create all those meetings so
i appreciate that was my next question
thank you for including that in your
in your remarks thank you mayor i'm that
will complete my questions sure uh board
member vasquez
thank you mayor um and um thank you liz
and thank you dr martinez
um yeah so it sounds like we have a
great um
team lined up for destination downtown
um
i just have one a couple quick questions
on that um
and that's regarding the rio grande
theater um i guess during
the the shutdown because of covid
um wondering you know if you could just
maybe briefly describe
what what staff assigned to the rio
grande theater have been doing or if
there's been
any type of preparation for when the
theater reopens or
just kind of the status of our the rio
grande theater at this point and
considering we probably haven't been
able to to book
really any um any shows
wondering if we should expect kind of a
revenue projection that would
that would show us again in the in the
red on that for next year
mr chair uh board member vasquez chris
favor with the rubio grand theater yeah
so unfortunately because of the
public health order we have been shut
down since the middle of march
which means no programming of any kind
so right now
myself and some of the staff here at the
theater was mostly
contract uh tech help is
helping to facilitate the small business
continuity covid grant
program so there's a team of us about 10
between
the theater and visit las cruces staff
who are
accepting the applications looking over
the information and processing those so
we've got the team working
all day long to get this program moving
but unfortunately
the theater yeah at this time and for
the near future does not appear to be
um open
okay thank you chris um and so so so i
mean i guess we can we can expect
in general that will be in the in the
red on that um or because of decreased
maintenance costs will
you know what are we thinking budget
wise for the for the rio grande theater
i guess
um in terms of projections for this
fiscal year so mr chair
uh board member vasquez right now the
only funds that are being
spent really are just the staff who's
helping to process
um the grant applications um
and then when we're not doing that we're
helping economic development with other
projects as well so there's i mean other
than
literally keeping the lights on and
stuff at the theater
um there's really no other expenses i i
went ahead and cancelled all the
the the pan per the planned programming
we had for the upcoming year so there's
nothing that we're
that we're having to pay for we're sort
of just in a holding pattern right now
oh thank you chris um yeah unfortunate
to hear that but i
you know look forward to a strong
comeback uh when we're able to
to get the theater up and running um
considering how much work i know
you and other staff have put into that
so so that's good thank you for that
update
um the um the other
question uh is actually around our
public private partnership
with max bauer at the amador i don't
think we've gotten an update on that in
quite some time
and i know that at some point we were
pre-coveted experiencing some
perhaps some some lease agreement issues
related to payment
of um uh you know funds there to
continue to occupy
occupy that space um and
have not heard if that was resolved or
if there's a new contract or agreement
in place but
a general status update on the on the
amador um
property next to cvb would be great to
see where we're at on that
if dr martinez or someone else can
comment on that
yes mr chair um board member
vasquez
so a couple of items um the rio grande
theater although it's within destination
downtown program
is fully funded by general fund and so
that that that's a clarification that i
want to make
with respect to our public-private
partnership with amador hospitality
last year no earlier this year
we implemented an amendment that
allowed for a different pay schedule um
which has um that was then later
impacted
for the current situation but then we
we're on track
on on meeting the amendment um
to that contract
great thank you dr martinez that's great
to hear i'm glad to hear that uh
it was growing a little fearful there at
the beginning of this year when
um just thinking about what what the
future was of that property considering
how hard everyone worked
to make it happen so i'm glad to hear
that um
on campus street i'm also excited um i
know that that
we talk about some of the side streets
in downtown being connectors to downtown
but also
certainly for campo a lot of um you know
potential
new retail activity along campo is is
excellent to
uh to continue to foster through this
redevelopment um and streetscape work
that that would that
is coming so that's exciting um
i do have one quick question about the
courthouse uh the federal courthouse i
know they've been undergoing
construction um seems like they're doing
a lot of
i don't know if it's structural or
facade work but it seems like
that construction has been going on for
for quite some time and so
uh wondering if just related to that
campo redevelopment if you've had any
delays because of the courthouse or
um any updates on the courthouse
construction itself
i don't think that they have the street
closed off anymore but i don't drive
there too too often
anymore so just a general update on that
it would be good
okay well do you you want that later or
you want that
now uh if we have any information now
in terms of how long we're expected to
see construction on the courthouse um i
don't know if we're in the know on that
um but like i said it's been it's been
under construction for like two years
or at least some remodeling so i'm just
wondering what if there's if anyone on
staff knows
when that project is expected to end or
if not that's okay i'm happy to
to get an update uh via email at
different times well it looks like david
sedillo
put his hand up david
good afternoon mr chair board member
vasquez david sedillo interim public
works director
the federal courthouse building project
they were going through
some updates to the building they were
re-roofing the building itself
and then working on re-stuccoing the
entire
structure or the outside portion of it
they did once they had their lane
closures on compost they asked
for an extension of that and we let them
know at that point in time
uh that we would not support the lane
closure
and since then they have moved their
fencing off of campo and opened it up to
full access so at this point in time
right now
that has not had any bearing on on campo
and the design portion of it so that
project is separate it's
by the federal government uh the only
thing that
they are doing at this point in time
right now are making improvements to
the building itself which by the time we
should be up and running with kample
we we should either be
meeting on the latter part of the of
their schedule what they had
given us about a year ago and we haven't
had an update from that but
it seems like they haven't had any
delays
so it looks like we start we may
encounter a little bit of overlap
but it shouldn't have major impacts to
the project
okay great thank you david um and then
my last
comment here is just um around the
lights downtown
um yeah what a great idea to have them
extend all the way through
and i was just thinking in consideration
of not having
our annual christmas tree at the plaza
um
uh i don't i think that there's still a
place down near mesia i want to say
um where you can do the drive the
drive-by
light show that has some theme music
like on an am radio station
that i think a lot of people like to
visit i know there's maybe a couple of
those things you can do in el paso
i don't know if our lights are all going
to be sequenced or not or if we have the
capability
to do that but um in terms of a socially
distanced christmas celebration
um you know i just was just thinking man
it'd be cool to drive by through main
street
and have you know have be able to tune
into an am radio station with you know
some sequence lights along the way and
you know you could have a socially
distanced you know attraction downtown
that
um people could do in their cars but um
i don't know if our
lights have the capability to do that
but just thinking about a fun way to
keep those christmas spirits up and if
that's possible or not
it's been done before it comes to us
because we can do it again
ep has to be involved
that was right go remember sorek who uh
made those comments i'm sorry board
member vasquez you still have uh
yeah just wondering if that's if that's
something that staff has thought about
or something we want to consider
if the lights that we bought have the
capability to do that kind of thing
uh mr chair and board member vasquez uh
currently the
lights that we're having gonna be having
installed do not have that capability
for this year
um but we can look with the contractor
to see if that's a possibility
going forward since they do have timers
and things like that
and we can look at some other options i
did also want to let you know that
staff is working on a virtual
celebration to kind of
launch the the lights going downtown and
do some fun programming with that as
well
and i know every year we put together
kind of a list of things to do in the
area
so we'll make sure that we include all
of those drive-by lighting
options for you great thank you liz
thank you so much
and thank you mayor those are all my
questions and comments
board member flores
thank you mr mayor and just uh
working off of what um gabe uh board
member vasquez just
uh said you know there's there are
different parts in the city
like uh pioneer park uh the residents
there put out illuminatis
and it just prompts me to think that
maybe there can be
a connection and as gabe said or board
member vazquez said
um i know griffith park in los angeles
does that
um where you just do a drive you just
sit in your car and there's a station
you can
tune into and there's christmas music
playing the whole time
and so you still get that christmas uh
festivity type feeling going um
and it's probably going to be very
popular this year because of cobia
but i wonder if the city would have that
capacity to do that to
you know provide maps of different uh
places in the city such as pioneer park
and
then now we'll have main street but
um just putting that out there for um
people to think about i i just i i don't
see it
it being difficult to have
radio music have a look maybe k-tell or
something
or krwg cooperate in
just having christmas music or holiday
music playing
while people tour the different
areas in the city that provide that
beauty
well thank you mr mayor like sonia
delgado
director of parks wants a comment
uh good afternoon mr chair members of
the board sony delgado director parks
and recreation i just want to let you
know
that our team is getting together
tomorrow as a matter of fact
to talk about some ideas or maybe some
things we might be able to do to create
a drive-by area
somewhere we're not exactly sure i think
but we've got the whole team uh thinking
about that so
more to come and if not we'll definitely
assist liz and whatever she needs done
at downtown and um
we can see what we can do about helping
create a map of some sort
thank you okay
i think that's uh that's it okay liz
now you have future tid priorities
mr chair and board that's going to be me
and liz is going to help
with the technical side chris favor with
economic development i don't have the
ability to get the presentation
up so liz is going to help me out here
okay so following up on liz's
presentation about current projects we
put together
a few options for some future priorities
of the tid
and we've got a few things here and then
it's open for discussion at the end so
the first option here is the church
water street redesigns and this would be
um about four hundred thousand dollars
per street
and the idea would be to bring them up
into
consistency from a visual standpoint
from an aesthetic standpoint with
what's proposed for campo street and
currently what
main street looks like and that would
involve the amenities such as
bikes bench bike racks benches
and landscape updates as well so that
would be for both church
and water street go ahead liz
next the next project is
the plaza shade structure and
um you know there was a work session
presented on
august 24th where we talked about this
currently there is about a hundred and
forty thousand dollars remaining
in destination downtown program
for the shade structure the options that
were presented at the work session were
approximately a million dollars
and that was not with any solar
component
with solar component we are looking at
estimates
potentially of a million and a half to
possibly two million dollars and that
again does not include
the potential art element that was
discussed
i do want to point out at this time that
if this is a priority
given the amount of funds left in the
tid
this could considerably drain the
remaining funds it could
take possibly 90 percent or more of
those funds so just keep that in mind
as we're prioritizing for the next year
if in fact this was a pro a program that
you wanted to move forwards with
we would be looking at additional public
input sessions
there was one right before covid uh
sometime in march where we had about
20 people show up to an in-person
meeting
so we would need to do additional public
sessions for that
and then of course identify the the tid
funds
for this particular project
another potential option would be
security cameras
on main street this would be funded
obviously through the tid
and there's been a lot of increased
business along an activity along main
street so this would be a business
friendly project to
help keep some eyes on activity on main
street
it would involve working with the police
department i.t
public works facility and of course the
economic development department
currently there is about a hundred
thousand dollars identified in capital
funding for smart technologies
and this project could fit under that
heading
and so right now we are looking into the
scope of the project
for details timeline estimates costs all
those types of things so if that's
something we're interested in
we could bring that back at a later date
and this last option is a program that's
actually in its very early developmental
stages
already in the economic development
department and that's the business
incubator
incubator program this program would
align with elevate las cruces
the economic development strategic plan
the mra plan
and it would call for the use of the
retail space at 135
east griggs which is the north side of
the munich building
and it would provide low risk low cost
space for small businesses
and it would also provide some training
opportunities with some of our local
partners
in the community like arrowhead and west
and things of that nature
and the costs would be to
facilitate operation and technical
support and
bringing this to the tid would would
allow tid and the economic development
department to
continue some continuity between efforts
of
both departments so those are
some proposed future projects and i
would like at this time to
open it up for questions and discussion
and i will be available for questions as
needed
okay thank you chris uh looks like we
have vice chair gandala and
board member flores
thank you chris i appreciate
all of that um from my perspective
um i i would love to see um
first and foremost if i had to
prioritize
well the cameras
and updating church and water for sure
but i wanted to ask more questions
around the incubator program
um which was slide five
right um chris
would that be similar to a
facility that i'm not sure dr martinez
you've been but i i
was i participated in that
uh um tour of um in juarez
where it was it's so amazing right that
they had
computers and space for conference rooms
just the technology there to build you
know to help people
convene you know meetings but also
all the other technical pieces that
many people do not have at their
fingertips
would that be the such facility
that we're looking at
mr chair martinez
board member gandara so this is
a a project that we started discussing
about a month ago so it's in a very
early stage
um we the the ultimate goal would be
to provide space for entrepreneurs to
launch their business and also have a
space for them to have retail
uh a storefront basically um
i believe the the building or the
program that you are talking about in
qatas is a tech hub
and um and that's an amazing space
um in in my ideal world
that's where we would get eventually
what what we're looking to have
at this point is to have a pilot program
to first
ensure that we have the demand and
people are interested
um we would also look at having
allocated spots for creative sector
type of businesses and for for that to
also be linked to
the arts and cultural district goals and
outcomes
and um we still
have to determine the space that we
would actually have available
for for entrepreneurs but ideally
uh we could have also the technical
assistance similar to what they do in
tech hub
where they can have access to
full assistance financial assistance
it would be close enough to go to city
hall for their registrations and
and so forth and so on uh but also
leveraging upon the work that we're
already doing with our partners in main
street
the um downtown las cruces partnership
and and also west sbdc
our head center so
to answer your question the the ultimate
goal in my mind would be to have such
space as
tech hub we we would just launch it as a
pilot program
uh initially and and then um
explore for their options from there
wow yes i would have i thank you for
that dr martinez i
was um highly impressed with that tech
hub it's exciting
what is you know the ability right in a
shared space to be able to
to do but i also like that spin on the
storefront
option um griselda i think that is
really
important and really would give some
[Music]
you know just just a a space for folks
that
normally you know can't afford to but
the ability to do that i hear that often
how how expensive a storefront is
and and not quite ready to make that
jump right from
being a um
[Music]
in-home business if you will to to to
that
and that would help i think and so
um i i really love that idea i think
it's excellent and to
you know start off as an as a pilot
would be excellent how are we
um managing anti-donation how is this
different
so um mr chair madam
vice chair so this would be
within the metropolitan red development
area
and the metropolitan the mra
allows for fair value
to to provide assistance to businesses
versus
fair market value any other place
outside an mri so the value here
would be to be able to support
entrepreneurship to be able to catalyze
more businesses downtown and increase
grt
but also hopefully these
startups or entrepreneurs will be able
to move
into other spaces as they continue to
grow
so the value to the community and to
um to the to the city would be
all of those um which allow for us to
be able to provide this type of
assistance
yeah i i appreciate that that mra i
think is an
important aspect for sure um and
you know dr martinez please don't forget
um i'm really interested in
in um raising people up and out of
poverty so if a percentage of folks
from you know and we could identify
several people you know and and you know
that i've been
trying to get that accelerator time
banking program off the ground
specific with you know women at um
her dean um that
that might that might meet you know
a particular guideline in terms of
assisting folks right
that um to become more um
you know just helping those folks that
are have limited income
that are that are poverty-stricken so
i i really love to explore this um for
sure so my priorities is absolutely this
the business incubator program um the
um the from the aesthetic perspective
as chris uh identified the church and
water and then the
the um the security the security
cameras i think are really important um
specifically to that area
often i get a lot of concern right
and i think having that one particular
um huge camera if you will
at the plaza has been a deterrent for a
lot of
a lot of things but it can't capture all
up and down north and south right
of that area and and please because i
didn't mention the
the shade structure i just don't i think
it's going to take us a little bit
right to to to capture that money that
funding
um and and you know i'm hearing from
some folks that
they felt there was an adequate um
representation at that
meeting last year um moving forward
and and i know some some dynamics with
the acd
um you know because i mentioned that i
got a little bit of flack i'll say that
publicly about mentioning
could we use money from the ecd to do
this without asking the acd first and
i don't i don't want that to be um
an issue i think there needs to be some
planning related to this
and who knows um maybe
there it will be some capital outlay
funding moving forward
um and we should definitely ask um i saw
larry iran on
on the call and and so um
i think i just don't think we're ready
for something like that
would i like for there to be an art
element to that the shade structure
actually
absolutely but i also would like um
there to be um solar panels i think
it just behooves us to to move in that
direction
um the other last comment i'll make is
um i wanted to see
i didn't see this um is
their opportunity um
to to find the
funding um for broadband up and down
main street i think that is an important
piece
important element to this um
this play and i think as council
that was what i meant when we talked
about broadband not just in the plaza
but broadband
up and down main street as an
opportunity
to to garner more businesses down in
that area
area so i didn't see it chris
in the in your list but i think that
would be a nice opportunity
and really what i thought council then
was meaning
when we said brow ben in the downtown
area was brown bend
not at the not just at the plaza but in
the downtown
up and down main street so thank you
mayor
thank you board member flores uh dr
martinez you have any more comments or
forget to put your hand down okay uh
board member flotus
i thank you chairmanship um
so um i have a question and i don't know
to whom um who maybe mr dolahan or maybe
dr martinez but there's that one percent
of monies when there's new construction
that is allocated
for public art
does the construction of the plaza
the plaza shade fall into that
distribution of monies i think that
comes on the city council side
board member flores but i'll let david
dalahan uh
respond to that thank you
okay well maybe he's not available yeah
maybe so
does anybody else does anybody else you
know mr chair
yes dr martinez this is priscilla
martinez for the record
um remember flores i believe um
that the component of
art dedicated within um capital is when
it comes from state appropriation
and we currently don't have any funding
from capital appropriation for the
structures that's what i was afraid of
it wouldn't come out of
the monies here but we need uh cip
money if if
if the city council decided to have this
shape structures as a priority for the
state
during capital appropriation request we
could
we would definitely um and and shall we
get any funding from the state that i
believe is five percent
of the funding received needs to be
allocated for um
it's one percent okay it's one percent
and uh
they're they're requesting a two percent
per you know by a
statute change so or an ordinance change
so currently it's only one percent but i
was afraid it wouldn't
uh come from these but it's something we
can plan on
because i and i agree with um
wholeheartedly with uh
counselor uh counselor uh excuse me
uh
that solar panels are very very
important
but art too is very important
and i think that some of the art that i
see that i would love to see throughout
the city
is more of the art that uh really um
reflects our history um
and that that's just my personal thing
and i'm not as
i'm not speaking on behalf of this city
art board in any way but
i just wanted to bring that up um
because i know the city art board is
always looking for
more money just to get that art out
there because i too
i think that that too is essential to
our souls and our spirit thank you very
much uh
chair miyagashima thank you uh dr
martinez
looks like uh board member florida looks
like amy johnson basford
may want to comment on your question
yes thank you mayor um councillor flores
amy johnson bassford grants
administrator i just wanted to clarify
um on state appropriations regarding the
one percent for the art
that is a decision made by the state
whether or not that particular
appropriation will have
a one percent for the art it is
generally for when we are
in the process of constructing a
building
um that that uh one percent is held back
by the state so not every
uh capital outlay um appropriation by
the
state um automatically has that one
percent
uh withheld so just wanted to clarify
that for you
so uh miss uh bassford does that mean
that
a um the shade structure
is not considered quote construction
unquote
you're talking more about a brick and
mortar type of construction because that
is construction
i mean it has to be put up mayor
councillor flores i would
think that that would be one that is
kind of on the margin
um and really how they decide these
things
are generally if it's over a hundred
thousand dollars
and you are actually building a bricks
and mortar project
they will hold the one percent back so
i'm not sure how they would view shade
structures
uh whether those would be actually
considered um
capital building project
right all right thank you thank you so
much for your
uh explanation clarification thank you
uh
let's see board member bencomo thank you
um mr i almost said madam chair thank
you mr chair
i appreciate that um i wondered i i
wanted to comment real quick on the
solar panels as well if you like
i'm pretty certain that we did not get a
full presentation on a solar panel
proposal
at the work session um i would certainly
like to see
what that would look like because i
don't want to make a decision on that
simply on the basis that it's expensive
and we'll deplete our funds i want to
make sure that we have
a solid presentation proposal laid out
and even i would even love to discuss
um yeah perhaps it's pricey but in the
long term what
could the revenues potentially generated
by
the solar panels what they could be used
for could they go back to the tid could
we use them for something
bigger downtown i don't know i think
cities have that have done this
i've put them into like an education
fund whatever right like i think we
could get really creative in a way that
it would actually offset the initial
cost so i would like to see that
proposal before we made any final
decision unless we already did
which i feel like um we did it that's
right
um but i so i would like to see that um
for
for myself and given what i've heard
from some of my colleagues i think that
that
um um that would be great
so that's one thing my other question is
a board member como you want to hear
from tony trevino oh sure
yes his hand up tony do you want to
speak about that
yeah thank you mayor ben cuomo so
the way we approached that public
meeting for the shape structure is we
showed them several different
designs um materials and kind of looks
um and what we said we would take the
three highest voted
concepts and move forward to city
council in the work session so
the um solar panels were um
presented but they were number four in
the list and
the whole intent would be the top three
um so it was discussed
and it was there but we just moved
forward with the top three but
that is something we could certainly go
and relook at because i think there's
some more discussions that should be
held if there's some concerns about the
uh participation and that meeting and so
forth and i think we're kind of had a
little bit of time for that so we can
definitely bring that up and kind of
thanks tony and like i said i would love
that to not just be like
here's an option where they're solar
panels i would love it to be
here's the option and in the long run
this is what the solar panels
could mean for our community right and
one of the things we got to look at is
that is a lot of solar that's going to
be produced there where are we going to
use it at what kind of battery storage
and that's
kind of out of my expertise we're going
to get a lot of stuff to look at how
we're going to utilize a lot of that
power
if we have enough usage there or what
we're going to do with it so that's
definitely something right
yeah i definitely don't have any of
those expertise either but i think those
are good questions
to ask before certainly i can make a
decision
um is this something that we could do a
third party agreement with
or on uh
mayor i don't see or not that'd be
something y'all have to discuss with uh
economic development and how we want to
uh proceed with this and i think uh
get at least the rocket involved too and
see what other options so that's
something we can definitely look at
yeah um board member ben como if we do a
third party agreement
uh basically what that means is we find
someone who who's looking for the
um tax credits and the write-offs and
and then they they'll actually um
provide us the the income to pay for the
debt service of the
of the structure and then that way there
we can pretty much do it for free
then they the the savings that we get uh
from electric costs will be what we use
to pay for the
for the debt service so interesting yeah
yeah we can take a look at those
yeah i'd be very interested in that for
sure thank you mayor
uh chair um and then i have another
question i
i wanted can someone just further
discuss
the security cameras i have some
concerns
about that what were your concerns
um i don't i
so there is no evidence that says
surveillance actually decreases crime
i'm concerned about what it could
potentially mean for
like who who's monitoring the cameras is
it going back to lcpd
like are there going to be new policies
in place to ensure there's no
racial profiling like there's i feel
like there's
steps that should be taken um
or that i would at least like to see in
terms of what the security cameras
downtown will mean
yeah um uh board member bencomo i know i
pushed a lot for this um
we were getting a lot of reports from a
lot of the patrons
specifically a lot of the women that
were feeling a little bit intimidated
because it was dark and
they were a little scared so these
cameras really were meant to
just to be able to it's hopefully not a
crime takes place but really there's
just more to
let people know hey you know what um
there's there's cameras out here so
hopefully that deters crime i don't
think it was being
going to be used for any profiling
there's really more to let the patrons
know in the downtown because it was
getting to the point there where it was
getting pretty packed and
and there were certain areas that they
had to walk it was pretty dark
and it's the city just needed to do
something even from a liability
standpoint they needed to make sure it
was safer
yeah i mean i just i guess i'm curious
about other
security measures that can be taken
before security camera like as a woman
walking downtown i see a security camera
it doesn't necessarily make me feel
safer i think lighting makes me feel
safer i think
um like those kinds of things and so i
just
i like i said mayor i don't actually
think there's strong evidence that says
surveillance reduces crime
well i guess we'll let chief talk about
that i i know that if
uh you know someone was to get mugged or
get their their their wallet or purse
stolen and there's cameras there and
they could
you know i think they'll think twice
after about two
or three different times that this is
not the place to be doing the mugging
because um
they have your picture but i don't know
yeah i just want to make sure we're
responsible with whatever yeah sure yeah
no i
i i think they've got a lot of other
things going on and you know
i don't think they're gonna be sitting
there watching the camera but though
it'll be available if needed
uh like the footage and then that's
probably only for so long too because
i think it'd only save for two or three
weeks and then maybe it has to be reused
i i don't know i'm just guessing because
the storage is really the
this expensive part of it okay
thanks mayor let's see i think we have
um well let's see
board member of florida did you still
have your hand up or was that you just
forgot to put it down
okay uh board member vice chair gandera
yes mayor thank you i you know i
appreciate remember bri
flores bringing up the idea of the one
percent um
we early on when i first got elected
and they were building the amador we had
talked about
later when it was already upright that
why haven't we considered putting a one
percent
so it doesn't it doesn't mean that it
prevents us
from as a council saying yes and when we
do something like that specifically
in the tid that we would direct one
percent for art
and so that's a conversation that we
should we should
have i'd love to see our
um hopefully soon hired
policy analyst look into that and bring
something forward to council
related to this because i know this
council in particular is
priorities around art right so and
ensuring that we have more of that
around our in our neighborhoods and our
districts
um and particularly in downtown
the other thing to the the the com the
concerns of around um
board member bencomo and the security um
just being the representative for
downtown
and knowing what i know about the things
that have happened there
um related to property crime um
unfortunately um um
the the numbers of people that we were
seeing in the downtown
uh you know specific to the amador rad
um ice you know now that ice box there
um you know lighting was a big issue so
we made a concerted
effort to put temporary lighting
specifically parking lot seven
um under david maestas and when he was
at public works
and so now parking lot 7 is being worked
on not only bathrooms but the lighting
and then lighting in that entire area
because there
were other identified spaces the
lighting there
um when i scared scaraba right laskina
excuse me
um in that parking lot you know it would
that's
um specific to the print shop there
right um that people women and others
were identifying
spit you know corners that were dark it
was and and you know people are leaving
the bars one o'clock two three in the
morning right so we wanted to make sure
so i i
wanted to address that i also know
there's been high
crime in that area until we started
making
some concerted efforts in terms of
um getting you know law enforcement to i
mean this was the businesses
asking us for these specific things
right lighting
security cameras those kinds of things
and again i agree with you that we want
to make sure that we're all accountable
that we're not using that to profile
people but i can tell you that
huge numbers were in the downtown and it
was scary it was starting to become
a bit scary with people over drinking
the things that were happening there i
mean almost
on a weekly basis i was getting um
lots of feedback about what was
happening and and so i agree
but i just wanted you to know that that
there was a concerted effort about
putting temporary lighting
and really trying to address that from a
different perspective
so thank you mayor
okay um chris was that it
was there anything more no mr chair
that's it just wanted to give you an
opportunity to discuss
okay great um i believe that's it then
we'll take some of that information you
told us and we'll communicate
that to a management team and may move
forward
on another agenda if you need us to
prove something
good sounds good mr chair okay
all right if there's nothing further
entertain motion to adjourn and then
don't don't cancel we're going to still
use this and then switch to our
our work session
same link yeah just you know yeah don't
cancel don't don't
click off just um just wait for us to
switch over
start recording okay so it was a motion
member florida's
and correct i'll second it
and second by board member sword
okay that we adjourn uh christine will
you call the rule please
this is on the motion to adjourn the ted
board meeting
board member duvey yes
board member vasquez yes
board member ben cuomo yes
board member serg yes
board member flores yes
board member gandara yes
chair yes okay we're adjourn is 2 20 pm
adrian are you gonna
just wait we're just going to wait 30
seconds or