two minutes mayor
okay
[Music]
you're on good afternoon everybody
welcome to
work session of las cruces city council
today is monday september 14
2020 approximately 1 pm
before we begin if you please join me in
the 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
right okay and now we're going to start
off with our pet of the week and
jennifer martinez from our
communications office will
introduce him or her yeah
are you able to see elena no not yet
okay
odds are it's a pit bull
she is a kitty okay let's see
we had pit bulls five weeks in a row
um okay
there we go doing this several weeks in
a row and somehow i forget to
hit share screen but i think i'm on
track now okay
you're able to see her now yes wonderful
okay well good afternoon mayor and
council i am jennifer martinez with the
city's communications office and today i
would like to introduce you to
elena you can take summer everywhere you
go
when you adopt elena her warm attentive
personality will allow to make
memories that will last forever she is
sure to shower you with hugs and kisses
and adoration and all she needs in
return
is love attention and a forever home
you can meet elena at the animal service
center of the messiah valley the hours
of operation
are monday through friday noon to 6 pm
and on saturday and sunday noon to 5 pm
of course you will need to call to make
an appointment the number is there on
the bottom of your screen
3820018 if you're looking for off-site
adoption events they are still canceled
until further notice
but if you are looking to adopt you can
go on to the animal service website at
ascmv.org
adoptions the cost will be twenty five
dollars you can look online for a pet
that you might be interested in and then
call and make an appointment to actually
go see that
pet again the number three eight two
zero zero one eight
today a reminder about being a
responsible pet owner we ask you select
a pet that's suited to your home and
lifestyle you keep only the type and
number of pets for which you can provide
appropriate food water shelter health
care and companionship
commit to the relationship for the life
of your pets and also to remember to
provide them with id tags in case they
do
get lost well the community's been
working very hard to follow covid's safe
practices and because
the conditions are improving parks and
rec is able to open up
additional parks right now playgrounds
restrooms and water fountains do remain
closed but if you look at each
district that is listed the first item
there are parks that have been open for
at least a month and then everything
past that first park
was opened as of tuesday of last week um
guests are still asked to wear masks to
stay socially distant
and gather in groups of 10 people or
less
and if you'd like to see more about what
parks um
are open and what will be opening or
have opened and what some other
restrictions are you can go to
lost dash cruises dot org slash covet 19
parks schedule and you can see all of
the information listed on that website
thank you so much mayor have a great
afternoon thank you jennifer
and now we're going to go to the jobs of
the week and darlene lopez will
our workforce solutions will tell us a
little bit about those
mr mayor is actually going to be
francisco
every time i call you you give it to
darlene i
no problem today is me yeah okay
[Music]
good afternoon council uh for today's
jobs of the week we're gonna have
first of all here the city of las cruces
is currently hiring an engineering
technician
this position is open until filled the
second
position that we have available for
today is the field service technician
they're still looking for someone at the
mayor hertz computer consulting open
until field
one program specialist and one finance
manager at the south central council of
governments open until field
one registered nurse and one custodian
with tresco as well as where they're
looking for
facilities invade vehicle maintenance
with south central regional transit
district
open intel field for a full list of jobs
and energy and internships and volunteer
opportunities please visit
employeenm.com or you can visit
www.governmentjobs.com
forward slash careers forward slash las
cruces
again the information for new mexico
workforce connection the phone number is
575-524-6250
they're located at 226 south alameda
boulevard in las cruces new mexico
and again that webpage for those
employers that want to post
jobs and those job seekers that want to
seek for employment
employeenm.com thank you mr mayor
thank you dr payadis appreciate that
okay now we're going to get to the
agenda we have three items three items
on the agenda
three point one is the minimum wage
adjust adjustment
and um leanne demush will discuss this
and i'll just turn it over to leanne
well good afternoon mayor
counselors let me share my screen
okay do we have the full screen yes
great okay thank you mayor i want to
bring up my participants so that way i
can see later on
okay today we are bringing the minimum
wage adjustment
just to give a little bit of background
especially for the newer
counselors counselor ben coma and
counselor stevie
um the minimum wage ordinance is part of
the
municipal code that is chapter 14 under
human rights
it was um actually we changed the
um this particular code it was exactly
this day oct september 14th
approximately five years ago
that we put in for a new uh
ordinance for this code and what it did
was was it implemented
um a phased increases of wages per hour
and tipped wages at 40 percent of the
minimum wage
and as you can see they went into effect
in 2015
uh the minimum wage was uh this was a
fixed amount in the ordinance and it was
eight dollars and forty cents
and then phasing it in again for 2017
now this uh also just backtrack a little
bit i apologize for this
these all go into effect on january 1
of 2015 and then again january 1
of 2017 so it went from 8 40 to 9
20 and then in 2019
it phased into being 10
and 10 cents but
then the ordinance also says that
beginning january 1
of 2020 and on every january 1st
of each year thereafter the minimum wage
provided under the ordinance shall be
adjusted by
the increase of the cost of living
and then the increase of the cost of
living is to be calculated
based on the percentage increase using
the cpi the consumer price index for
august
which by the way just came out on friday
september the 11th this is why we're
bringing this to you today because we
just got that information
from the labor department
so what we do is we take just to give
you an idea of the calculation
we take the current cpi for august of
mine minus the uh cpi for
august of 2019 get that difference and
we get a percent
increase um and for
2021 that percent increase
is going to be one percent
so here we have in january 1 of 2020
when we calculated the
consumer price index the cpi we had an
increase that went from 1010 to 1025 and
that's where we are currently at
is the 1025. now also in 2019
the state adopted a new minimum wage
as well a new statute and they
implemented
a minimum wage of nine dollars per hour
but since the city was at 10 and 25
cents
we we were able to keep with our
ordinance because we were higher
at that time than the state so now we're
moving in
in a few months as you know we're moving
into calendar year
2021. so on january 1st
calculating the cost of living with the
cpi
for august our ordinance adjustment for
our minimum wage would be
ten dollars and forty cents uh
the state is going from nine dollars per
hour
to ten dollars and fifty cents so what
that means is
is that the city will need to adopt the
minimum wage
for the state because it is higher
now you also notice in that uh row
i also talked about the hibs institute
just to let
councillor bencomo and councillor stuvi
know back in 2018
and again in 2019 we
had contacted and had worked with
it's under ut tyler they're called the
hibbs
institute and one of the things that the
hibbs
institute did for us because the council
was very interested
in knowing what the impact analysis
would be to the city's minimum wage
ordinance on the people and these
increases that we're having on the
minimum wage as well
i do want to let you know that those two
documents are on the city website if
you'd like to view them
if you're unable to find them i can send
them to you directly
so moving forward for january 1st just
to give you an idea of how this moves on
with the city and
also with the state minimum wage january
of 2021 the state will go from ten
dollars and fifty cents to eleven
dollars and fifty cents per hour
of course our ordinance will be based on
the cost of living or the cpi for
august of course we do not have that
number the hibs institute
what their uh forecast was that we would
go
to 10 and 65 cents
and then in january 1 of 2023 the state
goes from 10
11 50 to 12 per hour and
our ordinance of course will be adjusted
by
the cost of living as well and whatever
is higher the
state or the city we will adopt now as
far as the tipped
employees the city ordinance states that
we
will uh the employers have to pay 40
of the minimum wage uh the four dollars
and 20 cents that you see right there
that starts on january 1
of 2021 using the state minimum wage
which is the 10.50
currently the minimum wage for tip
employees is four dollars and
ten cents however the state
tipped employees currently right now
even though it says january 1 of 2021
it will not change tipped employees
per the state are paid two dollars and
35 cents
and it will not change per their statute
until january 1 of 2023 and it will go
from 235
to 3 dollars per hour
now we wanted to look at uh the
potential effects of adopting the state
minimum wage
um of course the biggest one is the
tipped workers
they will experience lower wages so if
if you
if you totally want the state minimum
wage we would have to go down to the
state
fixed rate which is two dollars and 35
cents
where the city if we kept with our
ordinance
the city would be forty percent of the
minimum wage which would be four dollars
and twenty cents
now one of the other effects is that the
state
that does have a fixed rate uh
schedule it allows us for better
planning it allows us for better
budgeting because we know exactly what
it's going to be
it's not going to be based on the
consumer price index you know the growth
rate
just for um knowledge just to let you
know
that uh if we if we
used let's say a two percent cpi growth
rate
it would take the city approximately
nine
years for our minimum wage ordinance to
actually suppress the state minimum wage
so for discussion uh we put two
alignment items up here
uh of course there's much more
discussion if you'd like you know
whatever you would like to
discuss after this the two items that we
wanted to
make sure that you understood was that
you can repeal
our local ordinance and utilize the
state minimum wage
law or we can continue with our local
ordinance
and every year on an annual basis we can
look
at the hourly rate comparison and bring
that to you of course every year to
council
and we can look at what the difference
is between the state and the city
and adopt the higher we also if we
continue with our local ordinance we can
continue applying
the tipped wage formula on the hourly
rate
either use the state or you know
whichever one is higher our local
minimum wage
and with that i want you i wanted to let
you know that i do
have uh dr pius on the line as well
he just talked a while ago he helps me a
lot with the minimum wage as well
and we have joe richards which is our hr
director if you have any questions
going towards hr and of course as always
we have our assistant city managers to
help us out as well
and with that i will turn it over for
any questions or discussion
mayor you're muted oh
sorry about that counselor sorg and then
we have counselor florence
okay thank you mr mayor and thank you uh
leanne demussia for that uh
impression impression of a
presentation um
so just to clarify this
last year the minimum wage uh the city
ordinance minimum wage
was uh 10 10
and because of the increase in uh
cip um
it was raised to 10 25 this year is that
correct
mayor councillor sorex so in january 1
of 2019
we adopted the minimum wage was
let me go back to this slide in 2019 the
minimum wage was 10
and 10 cents and then using for the
first time
january 1 of 2020 using the cost of
living or the cpi
it went from 10 10 to 25.
okay good i just that was a little
confusing to me
um i believe
i correct me if i'm wrong i believe our
ordinance says that
the cost of living uh increase each year
cannot exceed three percent
is that correct
mayor councillor sorg that is a really
great question sir
however i went through the ordinance
recently
and there is nowhere in the actual code
that's uh for the human rights
chapter 14 that talks about the maximum
being three percent
that is something that maybe uh it was
in one
of the past ordinances
and it was part of the actual bed of the
ordinance as a whereas
but it was never actually written into
the municipal code
and it probably if by guidance of the
council the mayor and the council
if that is something that we need to um
include into that municipal code we need
to add that sir
that's funny because i distinctly
remember seeing
that it was up to a maximum of three
percent somewhere
okay that's fine um
now i don't understand you know the
state of new mexico
the the the government in our state
um has so much control over the local
governments the municipalities and even
the counties
um and it seems to me kind of strange
that if the state government
uh passes the minimum wage that is
higher
than the local minimum wage why that
wouldn't
be um
the law why wouldn't that be the case
where
you would have to follow the state law
before you would follow a city or
local government can anyone on staff
explain
that to me why because it you know they
control everything else we do
um why wouldn't this be in in that same
year
it does yeah mayor councillor soaring
actually in the presentation sir
and i apologize if it was i was a little
confusing
um per our ordinance our minimum wage
would be 10 dollars and 40 cents however
since the state is higher which is 10.50
censor
we have to adopt the state okay
okay that's what i thought okay
i apologize but if we need a new
ordinance to do that
mayor councillor sword my understanding
is that we do not
i can ask our attorney
uh jennifer vega brown if she would like
to comment on that but my
in other words in other words take some
action by the council
you can sir we can actually on one of
the slides here
um you can actually repeal our whole
ordinance yeah
i know right but if if we were in
agreement with the state law
or the state uh minimum wage we wouldn't
have to take any action would we
mayor councillor sorg i believe not
but okay
all right then thank you uh that's all i
have for now my
mayor we'll see how the discussion goes
okay uh counselor flores and councilman
cuomo
thank you mr mayor and thank you mr
moosh and dr payadis
um so i um
i have questions about the tipped
employees
and slide four i think is where
let's see let me get rid of this
so um so the state
fixed is at 235 the city
is 420 and
um
[Music]
so oh can you explain uh bullet point
number the third bullet point at page
four
um using the two percent cpi growth rate
it will take approximately nine years
and so forth can you explain that please
and
sure didn't hear that so far as
what we what do we have to do or does
that just fall
[Music]
so mayor council flores it was just for
knowledge we were looking at you know
potential effects of adopting
you know if you adopt the state minimum
wage
one of the things that francisco and i
were looking at is
as you can see the minimum wage it it
the phases of the minimum wage are
rather
intense i should maybe use the word
intense
because they jump you know right here
you've got a whole dollar
and so one of the things that francisco
and i were looking at is
if we continue using the consumer price
index the cost of living
our cost of living uh for like the one
for fiscal well for january 1st of 2021
the difference was one percent so if
every year
we increase our cost of living by only
one percent
it's going to take the city going in
these very small
phases it will take the city quite a
while to get to 12
per hour that's that's all we were
trying to say ma'am
but um so i don't know if jennifer's on
the line
uh but uh but leon doesn't that mean
that we
don't have to do anything it's just an
automatic thing that happens because of
the state
legislation correct i mean it's
basically the same question
counselor sorg is asking but i don't
i so you just wanted us to see how long
it would take to catch up
yes ma'am that was it okay but in fact
we don't have to pass any legislation
any local ordinance
no ma'am you do not okay thank you mr
moosh thank you very much
thank you mr mayor welcome looks like we
have councilor bin cuomo
thank you mr mayor thanks so much for
that presentation leanne
um yes i have a couple questions i'm
maybe we'll be laboring this but i'm
unclear about
the purpose or intention of repealing
the local ordinance and
what would that do
because yeah go ahead go ahead mayor
councillor ben cuomo
um one of the reasons that we just put
that in there was that if
if you just wanted to adopt straight to
the state
we could do so it would clean up our own
ordinance it would clean up you know the
the chapter that we have in our
municipal code
and just stayed in there that were fully
adopting
the state if you do want to adopt the
state
fully and redo the ordinance then what
will happen is
is the state fixed rate for the tipped
would go into effect right so
consequently that would mean
tipped folks who work on tipped wages
they would see a decrease in wages uh
mayor councillor bin como that is
correct
yeah currently at 4 10 it would go from
10 to 2 35 but starting january 1st it
would go
from 4 20 to yeah 2 35.
yeah i i i personally that doesn't sit
well with me
and then my other question leon was what
happens in 2024
so then so the the city the state
everyone is
at 12 and then does our adjustments
apply to the 12
or no does that make sense with my
question my question
yes council uh mayor council ben como so
what happens in january of 2024
is i'm going to make an assumption here
especially towards the state
because they only took their statute to
right making an assumption right here
that in january one
of 2024 they would just remain at 12
if we keep our ordinance we continue
looking at the cpi
we continue seeing what that um increase
would be for the cost of living
and that was one of the reasons why
francisco and i put in here
for the effects was just letting you
know that if we keep our own ordinance
we would probably it would take us nine
years to get to that twelve dollars
right right um okay
um those are all
my questions i think um
i mean so far right now i have not heard
anything
that would make me feel like repealing
is a good idea
um but i'm glad we're having this
conversation i also
um yeah no that's helpful that's it for
me mr mayor thank you
okay it looks like we have jennifer vega
brown and barbara deleon both
want to speak i don't know
barbara did you have something you
wanted to add that jennifer wasn't going
to add um
yes uh just briefly thank you mayor and
council ben como
to your question with respect to uh the
impact
of adopting the state ordinance i also
wanted to note that
um besides the impact on the tipped
workers
the impact of knowing
what the hourly rate will be
well in advance of the calculation that
we have to do for cpi in this time
frame would help businesses be able to
plan for
and budget for an increase one of the
concerns that's come
up in the past about how our ordinance
is written is since we wait for the
august cpi to come out as leanne said it
doesn't get released until september
we do the calculation and then send out
all the notifications in october
for a january implementation that's not
a lot of time for businesses to be able
to plan
for and react and set aside funds etc
for that increase and so that that's one
of the things that the state because i
do have a fixed table for the hourly
rate the
businesses would know well in advance
what it would be uh
in each subsequent january time period
so i just wanted to make
that note thank you barbara i appreciate
that for sure i totally
get that piece of matter of convenience
i think it's a big deal
and you know um
rent groceries those things don't have a
fixed rate right and those things
continue to go up and so
um i think we should be mindful of that
as well
thank you and jennifer vega brown do you
have something you want to say
yes mayor thank you mayor councillor ben
cuomo
just so that you are aware you don't
have to adopt the entire state
statute you could adopt the state
statute
in in parts so if you wanted to keep the
higher tipped rate you could still have
your
um the city ordinance that would
maintain the higher tipped rate
if you wanted to be with consistent with
the state and everything else you could
do that so
it's not an all or nothing you can do
whatever portion of that you'd like
okay thank you jennifer so let me just
chime in real quick before i get to
counselors update this duvet
and sort um
you know we don't have we don't have the
business owners here you typically in in
work sessions
but i will tell you this i i researched
because i do know that the restaurant
people
was were able to come to a um
an agreement with with the governor's
office
on the minimum wage and what i what i
couldn't understand
was where why was it that they were okay
at the state but there was concerns here
with ours locally
and and what i was going to say let me
just throw this out to jennifer
barbara i'm pretty sure that if we were
to let's just say
go with the state for a year
and then we could always go back and
implement
this uh the city's portion of the
minimum wage
for tip workers and let me just tell you
why because i found out that the reason
why that
the restaurant workers especially the
restaurant association
agreed to the first one is because of
that 235
and so if i'm if i'm not mistaken
even if you had a person with terrible
whatever and didn't get very many
uh wages i mean the tips they're still
guaranteed
the 10.50 an hour no matter what
even at that state rate and i was going
to ask
and just for council to consider
especially with
covid right now i mean restaurants are
literally on life support
and and for them if if we could
drop to the state rate at 10
50 an hour and with this fixed rate at
i think it would be extremely welcomed
and and
and then after about a year after
hopefully the vaccine comes through
and things start returning returning
back to a little bit of normalcy
then go back to the city increase the
minimum wage that is something that i
think we could do
isn't that correct jennifer or barbara
yes mayor this is jennifer yes that's
correct
so again i just wanted to throw that out
there
and i'm going to turn now to uh
counselor beta stevia and counselor
sword
thank you mayor um actually uh and thank
you
leanne um a couple of the questions i
had were answered by jennifer
um just a minute ago but i did want to
ask how long
have we had um the tipped wages with the
minimum wage of 420.
mayor councillor stevie i went back and
looked at the original
ordinance that we had and it started
with that original ordinance back in
2015.
okay so they've been at this and and i
will say you know um
i'm i look at the the different
restaurant groups that they have trying
to support as we
think a lot of us that can have been
trying to eat out a little bit more
often helping
one of the comments that i i often see
on those are make sure to tip your
your server your helper we're seeing
that you know
it's still a bit of a problem with that
i'd be hesitant to drop that
by two dollars i know as a server i
worked as a server for
a very very long time and you do not see
a check coming in at 235 or uc
cents and that's it and so you're very
very violent
on their tips which have gone down um
based upon everything from um just
hours number of hours number of people
you can serve those types of deals so to
even
drop that i i'm just hesitant
and i would love to to see and hear from
um servers right now what is it looking
like
during this time of covid what types of
tips are they receiving what does that
look like for them so um
that's i think a conversation that we
should look into
uh with that counselor if i may
interrupt
and and just for clarification from
barbara or jennifer
so and this is one thing that i wasn't
aware of until recently
so let's say you do have a server and
let's say they do great
they do great work and and maybe they
get um
i know this might be a lot but let's
just say hypothetically they get ten
dollars a
um a a family or whatever and let's say
they do three of them so that's 30 bucks
they still get that
420 an hour even though they're way
above the minimum wage
okay so that's the difference between
that versus the state
so even under the state they still get
the 235 an hour even though their wages
are well above
minimum wage above the 1050. see i
didn't realize that i thought
that this 420 an hour was like their
minimum wage minimum wage even
and if they got you know three dollars
or four dollars in tips well that's what
they got but no
it's it's that they get that 420
regardless
and that's what i was trying to get at
if if
council was to for this one year only
drop to the state fixed rate at 235
they're still guaranteed the minimum
wage you know restaurants are doing
everything they can to stay open
and and this is a small bit of a relief
that i think council could could show to
those restaurant owners that's all i'm
trying to get
so i just wanted to clarify because i
don't know if you knew that i i didn't
know that they still got the 420 an hour
that's all i was trying to do so i think
we need to make sure that it's a relief
that when we make these it's also a
relief for the workers too i
like i said i'm just hesitant if it's
going to drop their wages as well i mean
they're reliant
on that and it is with you know i know
that
both parties the restaurant owners rely
on the workers and vice versa
but if
i just think that that is a a
conversation that needs to be had or
there needs to be some sort of guarantee
that those workers will at least be able
to maintain
um uh than the regular minimum wage then
at least
well no they do get the minimum wage
yeah
i mean but i'm i'm just saying uh uh
counselor is is
i think this is gonna if things are
gonna get really serious here in the
next two months
there's no relief coming in from
congress
and and at least in fact that our
finance committee we discussed this at
least
we knew the last two months that's why
our gross receipts tax from the state
have been pretty okay it's actually been
pretty good
but the next two months is what we're
really gonna see because now there's no
relief
now you've got i mean it's gonna be it's
gonna get
really difficult and and okay
what if we do it for six months
and and just to see because i really
think that
business owners are gonna weigh whether
or not it's even worth staying in open
staying open now you've got an employee
who has no job
you know what i'm trying to get at so
anyways those are my my thoughts and and
and um i don't mean to cut you off but
barbara has her hand up
barbara deleon yes thank you mayor and
counselor abita stevie i just wanted to
clarify something counselor beta stevie
you asked how long
the tipped wage rate had been at 420
and i just want to clarify that that is
the rate that we uh will be going to in
january 2021.
it has not been at that rate since the
inception of the ordinance it has been
said
40 of whatever
yes so i just wanted to make that
clarification
okay thank you and
the base it's just the 40 we don't have
like a base rate like they do in the
state
yes we do but our rate is calculated
every year based on the cpi and so
that's why there's a variation it's not
a fixed rate
as as a statute
okay thank you barbara and you know just
if we were to uh marry if we were to
continue that conversation
further um changing those rates i think
we just need to be very
um specific in
our our language um
to make sure that that the workers are
protected as well
um that's
i think that's all my comments for now
but thank you well
i mean they would they would be
guaranteed at least 10.50 an hour
which i think when this was first passed
that was the whole that was the whole
um basis behind it you know
um but again that's just something to
think about i mean
we could make it effective on july 1 it
goes to the
4 20 an hour i just think that
or or june 1st you know of 2021 you know
i just think that this
is just a small opportunity
to help our uh our restaurant worker
owners and and everybody really this is
a team effort it's a team suffering
i mean the owners are suffering everyone
it's very difficult for them
uh and and just to add on to this at
this time
is no different than when we when when
council delayed
uh adding the increasing the water rates
or trash rates you know i mean it just
wasn't a good time
it's what's you know it's it's not a
good time now
that's all uh sword
and then council and mayor tim gunder
yeah thank you mr mayor
um um
there's three things going on here you
have the basic minimum wage
that's pretty easy to understand you
have this cpi
which adds another layer of
understanding to this whole
uh wage in income wage
minimum wage the tip employees
um and uh
let me explain what i was told one time
and nobody's corrected me and i said i'm
wrong
and that is that a restaurant owner pays
the uh waiter or the server uh
a basic amount well we're proposing it
to be 420
um tomorrow next year
um and it's been going up because the
minimum wage has been going up because
it's a percentage of the minimum wage
well
what happens is that that's what the
restaurant owner pays
the servers but the servers get tips
and those tips if they don't reach the
full minimum wage
of uh and in the case of next year what
was it four
uh 10 50 10 15 40
or 10 40 whatever um then the
restaurant owner has to make up the
difference so that
waiter west server gets the full minimum
wage
but as as the mayor says more often than
not
the the um the uh
server does get enough tips to get us to
push them
up to that minimum wage or more so
they always should begin now does that
mean that all
restaurant owners are good and do that
no
of course there's some cheaters and um
of course that's what we would like to
correct
but anyway getting back to the to the
next part this
the cpi um i just like to ask if
okay if we don't do nothing and we allow
the the state to
dictate our minimum wage in las cruces
um we still have that cpi would that go
into effect on the state minimum wage
too in the future
not this coming year but your your
beyond
no just stays on ours
okay so if we wanted the cpi we would
have to modify
our minimum wage ordinance to add that
to it if we wanted to have that
as part of it
correct yes okay that's what i was
wondering
um oh let me put my glasses on i might
have missed something
no that covers it i think that'll be it
mayor thank you thank you uh let's see
next is mayor portem gander
thank you mayor thank you leanne for the
presentation and the thoughtful and
considerate remarks and questions of
counsel
um i
i understand it's very difficult for
everybody but i have a hard time
believing
that it's not more difficult for workers
especially tip workers um
especially when it depends on okay
what is what are they getting currently
three something two something two
twenty leanne do your council gonna
they're getting 14. as far as
forty percent they're getting forty
percent of the ten times
which is 410 currently 4
410 yes ma'am okay
okay so
420 no they're getting 410 an hour right
now
plus 410 plus their tips plus their tips
that and that has to equal the current
minimum wage
no they get 14 hours
they get 410 an hour and they they
doesn't know it doesn't have to equal i
mean if they get more then they get to
keep more
no mayor they do not get 10 25
in addition to the 410. i think
if they were to make twenty dollars an
hour say in tips they still get the 410
an hour
so they end about making 24 dollars an
hour
and 20 cents if there is the average 20
an hour in tips let's just say
hypothetically they still get the 420 an
hour too
probably more than some of the business
owners are making probably netting right
now because they're they're they're it's
difficult it's very difficult right now
i'm just saying it's
difficult for those low wage earners as
well
24 an hour is higher than any
maybe only one one of my employees i
paid i paid 25
an hour that's 24 20 is pretty good
pretty good wage
you guys have no idea what it takes to
run a business
dude you don't to my knowledge very few
of you have been in business for
yourselves
it's hard hard to make that payroll
and it's very difficult well good the
ones are raising your hand i hope to get
your support on this because i think
they need it this is the time they need
us
six months is not gonna hurt it's got
you know this
i'm telling you these next two months
are gonna be very very difficult
we don't they they have nothing nobody
has anything even the business owners
that the ppp is gone they
uh eidl loan they're they're done that's
everything's done it's it's it's
you know it's just a challenge
some airport time i don't mean to cut
you off i'm sure you still did cut me
off mayor i thought it was rude and
disrespectful because i'm trying to
apologize
i understand this and trying to hear
what you have to say and respectfully
i'm i'm trying to understand where
you're coming from
i understand the frustration and the
um how overwhelmed everybody is
not just the businesses the workers too
and i want you to acknowledge that this
is difficult for the workers as well
and i don't feel there's that kind of
acknowledgement and i didn't know
why you argued the point with me i'm not
i'm not arguing with you
i agree i agree um
and so i i think
that i would like to to either a work
group
with workers and business owners
to to that would be my recommendation is
put a work group together
and and honestly i'm not sure how many
business owners wouldn't overpower
workers um concerns i think they need to
be separate
um because i've heard over the past how
difficult
it can be to talk about this i mean
we've been right in the middle of it
and people are hateful rude
disrespectful
um and in fact workers feel
um very voiceless that they don't have a
voice in
this and i just want to make sure that
um we are doing what we need to do to
help
everybody out um and maybe we need to
um write our our federal delegation
to assist our businesses and pushing
um to have the ppe and other other
assistants maybe that's another
recommendation
that's all thank you no i think your
suggestion about
a work session whether it's business
owners separately and employees
separately i think it's a great idea
i honestly i don't think the we can try
but
i don't think there's appetite for
congress to
help out any more than what they've done
to my knowledge but we can try it
doesn't hurt to try
uh counselor ben cuomo thanks mayor
i am
my immigrant parents are business owners
their livelihood depends on their small
business so
um i i get that tensions are high and i
get that
it has been such a scary year and it's
not even over yet
but there is no reason to get personal
and like i'm really disappointed in your
reaction mayor like this it's i think
it's irresponsible to
to try to flare up a narrative that
doesn't need to exist when
you said it at the beginning this is a
team effort we got to figure out how to
support
each other and low wage workers are also
on life support
very much and you know i think we can
let's find solutions and ways to support
our small business community that isn't
on the backs of workers
i definitely think we should talk about
how we're going to figure out
grants we have done so much more than
the federal government the federal
government abandoned our communities
and this city has stepped up and i think
we can continue to step up
without throwing anybody under the bus
small businesses
or low-wage workers so i think we just
need to be um
responsible we need to have uh
wider conversations with a lot of folks
and i agree with mayor partem i think
a lot of workers often don't speak up
for fear of retaliation for fear that
they'll be fired
um and those are really really real and
i think we need to
take those things into consideration and
really figure out
how to support a small business that
doesn't mean taking wages away from
low-wage workers and the fact that some
servers are making
perhaps maybe 24 an hour great why would
we want to take that away from them i
don't
i don't want to take a living wage away
from someone who's
living comfortably off that wage right
the fact that
it is not a sign of a healthy economy
when a worker is making more on
unemployment than by the regular
job that is not a healthy sign of an
economy and we should fight against that
at all costs so
um i i am absolutely happy to have a com
a
bigger conversation about how we
actually support both small business and
workers
but i i just don't believe that
lowering wages is helpful for anybody
okay thank you no i again i'm glad to
hear that you're willing to
support that work group i think that
would be great
all i'm suggesting is we're the business
owners in for a tough time
um and this is an opportunity to help
whether it's a six-month relief this is
this is yet would be yet another way to
to help out i under i understand where
you all are coming from but i'm just
saying that this is a
you know if the economy we weren't
suffering through covenant 19 yeah okay
i understand that
but we this is what our reality is
and and you drive by the restaurants i
mean
i drive by certain ones i mean i don't
know how they're still up and standing
they've got a mortgage everything that
they've got they had to
i don't know they're probably on credit
cards i have no idea what they're doing
but you know it's it's if you had the
the the same um well never mind
uh councillor flotus
uh thank you mayor um yeah this is a
tough one
and i you know totally um understand
your point of view
and uh totally understand what uh mayor
pro tem has said
um all that notwithstanding what you're
proposing is something that would go
into effect in january
and would last for six months is that
what i'm understanding or would it go
into effect immediately
no january six months okay january and
then you're saying six months
yeah because just just to reiterate
because that's what the restaurant
association people
um the state won they they negotiated
this
this 235 an hour and see i didn't
realize that i i
you know i'd see the 420 but then i when
i
when i reached out to um secretary
mccamley he explained it to me
because i i didn't understand how the
restaurant associations
in in santa fe when that law was passed
got their support and why our
restaurant people were against them well
okay or against ours and well
there's the difference it's two dollars
it's almost two dollars an hour or more
wait a minute we right now are paying
410 or 10. excuse me i keep saying 420
yes
410 i i cross that out and here here we
go again
4 10. so you're talking about
a dollar and 65 cents or 75 cents
bringing it uh 85.85
okay 1.85 um
[Music]
and that would be for six months
and it would be a definite um
begin time and stop time but by the same
token
see this is our practice we're probably
at the end of the year now yeah we're at
the end of the year
but um with with kova the way it is i
just don't see
how it's um i don't think it's going to
change in six months
and and i think that i i think we've had
so much upheaval already between
businesses
and employees that somehow i i
i'd rather um leave it the way it is now
because yeah we're higher
we're higher than this than the state
minimum wage for uh
for servers for tipped workers
um but it seems to me that we'd be
better off just leaving it as
is um and council the reason why i said
six months is
hopefully hopefully november december
january that vaccine will be out i can
tell you this much
until that vaccine comes out i haven't
gone inside inside a restaurant
i mean we'll get stuff to go but
i'm not going inside you know that's why
i would rather go outside
and and and hopefully by then uh
you know maybe say a third are
vaccinated maybe now they'll start
picking things to start picking up
that's all i'm trying to suggest is just
you know yeah
yeah and then and then looking at the
time of year it's been easy for peop
some people i
i too have not uh i ate at an outdoor
restaurant in belgree but that was about
it
um i haven't eaten at all even a four
month would probably
help to go to april first you know
something just to get over that
wintertime uh yeah work that's exactly
yeah that's what i was thinking i was
thinking that it'll be the winter months
since there's going to be less of a
chance of people eating outdoors
because of the cold weather
[Music]
it's it's still a tough call and now on
the other hand
um i know that when this this whole
thing was being kicked around that
uh before kobit and and i asked uh
servers i asked how they felt about um
the minimum wage and how they you know
how what they preferred would they
prefer to go at the minimum wage hourly
or would they
like to stay the way they are because
there was a discussion in that regard as
well
and they hands down said no
we want to stay as tip workers because
we make a lot more money that way
um but that that scenario has changed
because we don't have as many people
eating out so
i don't know it's a real toss-up for me
i'm not sure it's going to help to have
anybody
to have a work session and have people
speak
um on behalf of their interests and one
of the
problems that i foresee is that horrible
um almost
hate that spews from the business
community and there's no other word i
could think of
but it just spews and it's so um
and it isn't a question not being
sympathetic to businesses
especially in this era of covid and how
much they are suffering
um but somehow reopening
that conversation at this time i just i
don't
i almost don't want to be a part of it
anyway
those are my thoughts i still don't know
how i would go on this but
anyway thank you mr mayor well
councillor flows thank you for that i
mean
typically if this was
open forum i would think that i would
have
um both sides at at
uh at our council chambers to and you
know me i probably
opened up to at least listen to them so
what counselors uh bin como and gandala
are suggesting i don't have a problem
with
i mean i mean it doesn't hurt to at
least hear what they have to say
both business owners separately i like
it separate you know that way they don't
pit one against the other
i don't have a problem with that i think
that's actually something that we
probably
owe it to both sides to hear
to just hear exactly
so you want to at least
let's try to schedule something soon and
just hold off on this as to which
direction to go
after we had a chance at least listen to
the
both sides mayor pro-tem
and leanne uh leanne you you had some
yes mayor i just wanted to remind uh the
mayor and council
that actually in the ordinance it states
that we have to advertise the minimum
wage by october the 15th on our website
so i just want to there's a timeline in
here as well sir so i just wanted to
let you know about that you can't
advertise both
just in case
if you're advertising it you can just
say council can consider either one but
i don't know that's probably a
legal question yeah i i'm unsure
mayor i can um ask our city attorney
jennifer
vega brown to maybe weigh in on that or
barbara as well
but i think we could probably get this
done before the 15th
i think so i don't think it'd be that
difficult
mayor pro tem thank you mayor
um yeah i i think there needs to be
varied ways that we're going to get this
information
i know that we're used to having these
open farms
and council chambers but i believe that
staff is ready to start allowing
folks to come into these zoom meetings
pretty well protected right so we could
do
um something organized with the business
community and then something organized
with
um the the
the workers but also an opportunity to
do a survey of sorts
um it doesn't have to be you know zoom
like but also
in addition having a survey um
that that with open-ended questions that
could get
a folks talking about what this would
look like
um moving forward um again i'm not in
opposition of
of the possibility of prolonging this
i i think we need we all we all um
should consider some of this but i i
deeply believe that we should
listen to um you know the folks that are
most affected and
and again i i i feel like it's our
workers and
and our business community thanks mayor
um how about
the 23rd i know i can probably do
something
in the morning or i could probably do
something uh
the 22nd in the evening
of september let me just have a net
check with you all schedules
which member uh i said either
the evening of the 22nd or the morning
of the 23rd
which month of this month okay
september
okay i'll just get with the net and
we'll see what what you all have
okay uh leanne anything else
no mayor counselor so as far as moving
forward we will just wait until after
the possible meeting on the 22nd the
23rd
yes please okay
mr mayor yes counselor can i just
request something from staff
that they present this in a
very understandable way uh
what the situation is with uh
tipped wages um because i don't think
this presentation really made it very
clear
uh what uh how you you explained it
quite a bit and i think
the rest of us got in but i'd like to
see it
written out in a slide
you mean like like some examples about
the
regardless of as long as your wages i
mean as long as your tips
exceed the minimum wage you get to keep
whatever wages you get plus the plus the
minimum plus the hourly weight
wage but if you should get less than the
employer is required to
hit a certain level so you basically
want some um
some pictures some something to show
well
yeah but i just what i could have it
explained yeah no i got you
anybody could understand it like i'm
telling you what
i didn't realize that until i i had to
find out what was it that caused them to
support it at that level
statewide and why they weren't not
supportive of the cities
yeah there's a big difference oh yeah
it's huge
okay thank you appreciate it
all right so next item is going to be
the
anti-donation open meetings act and
ethics jennifer vega brown city attorney
is going to be discussing
thank you mayor can you see my screen
yes
okay okay
so today we're going to talk about some
issues that a lot of elected officials
and appointing officials have to deal
with
almost on a daily basis i want you to
be aware that our planning and zoning
commission
is in attendance today our members of
our
oversight committee are in attendance
and all the chairs of the boards and
commissions were also asked
to log in today so that they could have
this information
this is a series of informational
um presentations that the legal
department will provide to all of our
elected and appointed officials
and it's only meant to be an overview we
can certainly
go in in more depth later in smaller
groups
but um
today that's what we're we're just going
to do an overview
so anytime we talk about the
the obligation to act or the prohibition
against certain acts i want to begin
with
oh jennifer we can't hear you looks like
you cut out
oh can you hear me i can hear you now
okay it says that my internet connection
is unstable i'm in my office but
we'll just see how this goes if rob
needs to take over that's okay too
okay um so we'll begin with our
constitutional authority the city
derives its homeworld authority from
article 10
of the new mexico constitution the
constitution allows that a municipality
which adopts a charter
may exercise all legislative powers and
perform all functions
not expressly denied by general law or
charter
and the purpose of that section is to
provide for maximum
local self-government
the statutory authority is found in
chapter 3
of the new mexico statutes annotated
chapter 3
governs all municipalities and there are
many sections of that chapter
i would encourage you to cruise that
section
uh mostly that what we're concerned with
right now
are chapter 3-15-1 which is the
municipal charter act
that gives us the city the authority to
have a charter and to be um
self-government
and then we have our charter so we have
the
new mexico constitution state statute
and then our charter authority
and our charter allows us to
be a municipal corporation we are a body
corporate and public
and we may exercise all legislative
powers and perform all functions not
expressly denied by general law
or charter and again it restates what
the
new mexico constitution states is that
the purpose of the charter is to provide
for maximum self-government
and then finally we have our municipal
code
section 1-4 is where we exercise
our homeworld powers and that section
states
that this code is an exercise of the
homeworld powers grounded by article 10
section 6 of the state constitution
and section 1.0 of the city charter so
with all of that
that is where the city council gets its
authority to act
so some of the most common laws and
issues affecting elected and appointed
officials
are the new mexico open meetings act
otherwise known as the oma
the anti-donation clause of the new
mexico constitution
that's something that we often discuss
and talk about
and then there are some ethical
considerations such as conflicts of
interest and ex-parte communications
and then we'll also go over some of the
city of las cruces ethics ordinance
so we'll begin with the open meetings
act
the open meetings act is also known as
the sunshine law
this is found in state statute 10-15-1
the sun sunshine laws require that
public businesses
business be conducted in full public
view that actions of public bodies be
taken
openly and that deliberations of public
bodies be open to the public
all meetings of a quorum of members of
any board
commission administrative adjudicatory
body or other policy making body
are declared to be public meetings open
to the public unless the law
specifically allows an exception open
meetings are required when
formulating public policy developing
personnel rules regulations or
ordinances
and discussion of public business
this also means taking any action within
the authority of any board or commission
the oma requires that boards committees
and other bodies
um that make recommendations to the
public body must also comply with the
oma
so for example our policy review
committees
those are required to comply and we do
comply with oma for all of our
policy review committees the oma
prohibits members of the public body
from conferring privately during
meetings
by passing notes sending emails or texts
or other means
[Music]
members of the public are generally
permitted to record or videotape
proceedings the oma does not require the
public body to allow members of the
public to speak at its
meetings this is probably one of the
most
confusing to the public the the chair
of meet of the meeting
has within their discretion to allow
public comment
so public comment is not something that
is required by the oma
that is something that's come up quite a
bit during our cove
situation with all of our zoom meetings
the notice requirements under the oma
include
an agenda with a list of specific items
of business to be discussed or
information on how the public can obtain
an agenda
that's very important it has to list the
specific items to be discussed it cannot
be
general items and except in an emergency
we have to publicize 72 hours in advance
notice of the agenda and it has to be
posted on the public body's
website and only the items on the posted
agenda are permitted
to be discussed at the public meeting
currently our city clerk
is in charge of this very important
responsibility and
publishes notices for all of our
boards and commissions which i believe
correct me if i'm wrong christine is
about 30.
it's about 42 jennifer thank you
43 welcome
um we're required by the oma to keep
meeting minutes the board commission or
other policy making body
shall keep written minutes of all
meetings at a minimum
the minutes must include the date time
and place of the meeting
the names of members in attendance and
those absent the substance of the
proposals considered
a record of any decisions and votes
taken that show how each member voted
the minutes are subject to public
inspection
and the draft minutes must be prepared
within 10 working days after the meeting
and shall be approved
amended or disapproved at the next
meeting where a form is present
and as you know that you approve the
meeting minutes from your previous
meeting at your
at every meeting
the oma's requirement for public meeting
applies to
any discussion of public business among
the forum of a public body's members
a quorum may exist even when the members
are not physically present together
at the same time and place this is
something that
i know the city council is always aware
of
you speak of it many times and what i'm
talking about is the rolling quorum
the attorney general gives the following
example in their
compliance guidance which is also
available online
if three members of a five-member board
discuss business in a series of phone
calls or email conversations
that discussion is a meeting of a quora
i think we've all
talked about this previously also um as
it relates to
our policy review committees you also
have to be very careful
that outside of those meetings you are
aware of who you're talking to
and who has um
commented on the subject at hand
rolling quorums are a violation because
they are not properly noticed
public meetings
this is a quote from one of the guiding
cases in this area the public business
is the
public business is the public's business
the people have the right to know
freedom of information about public
records and proceedings is their just
heritage
citizens must have the legal right to
investigate
the conduct of their affairs
another case that
governs this area is from guterres
versus city of albuquerque
this is from 1981. the arizona supreme
court examining a statute quite similar
in language to our section 1051
stated that the intent of the
legislature was to open the conduct of
the business of government
to the scrutiny of the public and to ban
decision making in secret
a meeting held in the spirit of this
enunciated policy
is a valid need
we're going to jump right into
anti-donation unless anybody has any
questions about the oma
right now um anti-donation
is one of those things that is
difficult in new mexico there's no
bright line rule
there's a lot of gray area we have some
attorney general opinions
and other opinions but i think as
everybody knows
we wish that the legislature would be
more
definitive in how it's defined
the new mexico constitution strictly
prohibits donations to individuals by
governmental entities
the provision provides impertinent parts
neither the state nor county school
district or municipality
except as otherwise provided for in the
constitution
shall directly or indirectly lend or
pledge its credit or make any donation
to or in aid of any person association
or public or private corporation
this does include non-profit
the law makes it clear that there are
limitations on how public
funds and assets can be used
the uses provided for in the
constitution are for
the care and maintenance of sick and
indigent persons
establishing a veterans scholarship
program
a loan program for students of the
healing arts
providing land buildings or facility
infrastructures to support new or
expanding
businesses these are very clearly
statutorily defined
and providing for affordable housing
[Music]
in a case that governs this area son of
the
trujillo the constitution makes no
distinction as between donations
whether they be for a good cause or a
questionable one
it prohibits them all
only donations made for public purposes
are permissible such as
expenditures for public purposes on
public property
the sick and indigent exception does not
permit the state or local government to
make donations to private or non-profit
organizations
that are used for the organization's
operating expenses
that language is straight out of an ag
opinion
some examples that are shared through
the ag's
website are the new mexico supreme court
held that it is unconstitutional
legislation that authorized
counties and municipalities to provide
financial aid to a non-profit
corporation
formed to promote a statewide
celebration
and no contributions to an american
legion memorial
were allowed a county could not
contribute 500
to an american legion war memorial
erected on county
property
the city charter also addresses this
the city of las cruces except as
otherwise provided in the new mexico
constitution
shall not directly or indirectly
lend or pledge its credit or make any
donation
to or in aid of any person association
or public or private corporation nothing
herein shall be construed to prohibit
the city from making provision for the
care and maintenance
of sick and indigent persons
i think we've discussed quite a bit
our ability to assist in in that
particular area
and our use of public funds for that
particular area
and we've always the city council has
always been very careful about making
sure that
um it is for the sick and indigent and
it doesn't have to be both it can be the
sick
or indigent
[Music]
so we'll go on to some ethical
considerations and these are just
a few of the issues that have come up
um or that always come up
just basic questions that we're
generally always asked
a conflict of interest so that term is
used
has been used before in government
when does a conflict of interest exist
and what exactly
is a conflict of interest um the
definition
is that it exists when a person is
involved in multiple interests
financial or otherwise and serving one
interest
could involve working against the other
a conflict of interest may exist when a
personal interest or organizational
interest
might adversely affect a duty to make a
decision
in the best interest of a third party
so a conflict of of interest doesn't
just extend to a financial conflict it
can extend
um into decision-making that are
non-financial
a public official shall treat their
government position as a
public trust the public official shall
use the powers and resources
of public office only to advance the
public interest
and not to obtain personal benefits or
pursue
private interests public officials
they'll conduct themselves in a manner
that justifies the confidence placed in
them by the people and maintain the
integrity
and ethically discharge the high
responsibilities of public service
those those words are taken from your
draft
rules of procedure every all the city
council
over the past year has had the
opportunity to review
and they're also used from the model
rules
um and from state language their state
statute that also
further define conflicts of interest so
those will be incorporated in
your rules or procedure that will
hopefully be passed by resolution within
the next month or so
what do you do when there is an
unidentified conflict of interest
um full disclosure of a real or
potential conflict of interest shall be
a guiding principle
for determining appropriate conduct
reasonable efforts shall be made to
avoid undue influence
and abuse of office in public service
so it's not if there is an actual
real conflict it's up to the
individual if they believe they have a
conflict to disclose it which
which has happened from time to time you
always have to
remember that conflicts can be waived it
may be that one particular
board member or council member might
believe they could have a conflict
and once that it's disclosed the
rest of the membership may not believe
that there's a conflict so conflicts or
potential conflicts can always be waived
as long as they're disclosed
that's the most important part
another area that some there has been a
bit of some confusion and we get some
questions
fairly regularly are regarding ex parte
communications
what is an ex parte communication it is
a direct
or indirect communication with a party
or their representative
outside the presence of the other
parties
about a pending matter that deals with
substantive matters
or issues on the merits of the
proceedings
it includes attachments to written
communication or documents
shown in connection with a presentation
that deals with matters or issues on the
merits of the proceedings
and it does but it does not include
communications regarding the status of a
pending matter
or providing administrative information
so anytime
you are going to have to make a decision
or vote on anything whether it be
something that's pending before for
example before the pnz
that could potentially come to the city
council or it's
on any potential legislation that you
have to determine
any kind of communication that you have
regarding that could be considered an
ex-parte communication
but it doesn't include if somebody calls
you up as a as a
city counselor and says um counselor can
you please tell me what my next steps
are
at a p and z you can tell them
what what the administrative information
is you can tell them well you need to
call
um larry nichols for example or you need
to call
you can call the city manager and you're
gonna you need to have a hearing there
but that's what you need to do next as
long as you're not talking about the
substance of
what's going to be determined just the
process that's completely acceptable
okay so now we're going to go into the
city's ethics ordinance so
rob cabello is going to take over that
part of the presentation
mayor council this is robert cabello uh
an assistant attorney with the city
can you all hear me yes good okay
so the ethics ordinance which is uh in
our la
the municipal code is section 2.1
or 2-1-2-15
and the purpose of it is to establish or
create
an enforceable objective standard with
which to
uh create you know a certain uh
an ethics standard for all public
officials
it applies to the governing body so the
council the mayor
city manager members of commissions of
boards
so uh you know the utilities board the
pnc board
and it establishes a due process
procedure for investigation of
complaints
uh one thing you might notice is that it
doesn't mention employees
and that's because employees and many of
you may already know this
are their standards of ethics are guided
by their personnel manual
under section 600 of the personnel
manual there's a bunch of
work rules and they're under section 611
there's an ethics policy
that me i would say not mirrors but say
parallels a lot of the same
requirements for public officials
now under 2.4 there is a
section which upon the declaration of
candidacy
an election an appointment of elected
officials they have to provide of course
their name
phone number and address but also things
like their professional
license their business license their
occupation they have to provide
information on the membership of any
city boards committees commissions
whether they're a director of a private
or public corporation
including non-profits they have to talk
about
they have to disclose the nature of
their financial interests in any
business and that
business is defined as also non-profits
on to the next slide
uh next page um
so under 2.4 there's also and this is
really important
2.4 d the ordinance prohibits
a retaliation against any public
official for
filing the complaint of an ethics
violation and
retaliation in this case with is very
similar to does for um
public employees have a official
complaint that
another official has violated the ethics
policy
they cannot be removed dismissed from
their position just for the fact that
they
made a complaint
now under the ethics ordinance again it
enumerates specifically the things that
are
prohibited certain behavior so accepting
or soliciting private benefits or gifts
with some exception uh
it's allowed to have uh receive a small
non-pecuniary sort of a gift
so like a gift of cookies or something
um an award from a non-pro any sort of
organization
since because they're awarding a public
official for their positions they've
taken
being a champion of this cause or that
cause or interest
personal representation it's forbidden
to be
to be a personal representative of a
business or organization or an interest
that goes before
the governing body and so if
you can't for example be if you're an
attorney and you're also a counselor
you can't be representing a business
that has a contract going before city
council that should
make a little bit simple um example
now disclosure of confidential
information obviously
any public official would be learn all
kinds of
confidential information about employees
about contracts and
various things that they come into their
just
by the nature of their position you know
they're forbidden to disclose that
because
it could harm the actual city or
actually um
personnel individuals now use of city
services that
obviously this is a very general term
obviously
public officials can use city services
but they can't use their position
to get services from the city that no
other
that other people that are not officials
can't get for example um
obviously there are lots of city streets
and maybe i think all of us benefit from
them
however we can't a public official
couldn't get say
the public works department to you know
make a pool for their backyard or
something of that nature or
pave a dirt road in front of their house
that kind of thing
i lost you robert what is prohibited
sort of
robert we lost you for about two seconds
oh
i'm sorry let me just go so
there obviously jennifer has already
provided a really good explanation of
what
conflict of interest is but financial
interests
that are prohibited would be a sort of
buying into a financial interest
in not disclosing it of that essentially
a vendor that has a big contract going
before the city and if the
the vendor gets awarded the contract
obviously they're going to make a
large amount of profit and the
the official has not disclosed the fact
that they have now of an interest
in this business and in this contract
that's
what's also forbidden is abuse of
position
now abusive position is kind of
overlaps number of these other thing
concerns but it's essentially using your
position
to get a benefit either for yourself or
somebody that
somebody whatever something in that
you're in your family
to basically get a benefit that a person
not in your position could could get so
for example
if how about real simple getting a
giving a traffic ticket and saying well
you know i'm a counselor i i really
don't
need to get a traffic ticket that sort
of thing
that's a real simple example but it
actually works
um interference with administration or
by the administration so
two different things so the
administration in this case it's
referring
to the city manager now the city manager
can't interfere with the debate
or discussions that
the counselors have and the mayor has
regarding certain policies
and likewise the city council and the
mayor can't
get involved that's in the
administration of city business such as
personnel matters
those types of things next slide
okay again part of this big process was
to
for this ordinance is to have an
enumerated process so
if there is a complaint of a violation
there's an established process the
person that is being the target
of the complaint has their due process
rights be able to respond
so the investigation the process begins
when the complaint is filed with a city
clerk
the city clerk will confidentially will
still refer to it to the external review
council
the the review external review council
will evaluate it and if there's no merit
it
will make a written statement that it's
basically dismissed and the reason why
it's dismissed
if not um the store review council will
actually inform the com the target of
the complaint
of the nature of the complaint giving
them a chance to respond
and part of their due process rights now
the formal procedure will actually start
when there is initiation of a
specification of charges and that's
capitalized because that's
really important that's essentially like
a how like a criminal case begins with
an indictment or a summons
it it'll enumerate specifically the
types of things that the public official
is alleged to have
violated in the ordinance
and at that point the respondent the the
target of the complaint will
have an opportunity to respond to the
specification of charges
within about 30 days after the answer is
um
been been filed there'll be an actual
hearing
and the nature of the hearing will be an
adversarial process meaning it'll
look similar to a criminal trial
they'll be sworn witnesses the external
review council will be the prosecutor
the board and chair shall be act as the
judge
um or members may ask questions as
witnesses
and they'll be able there'll be a cross
of witnesses meaning to be
cross-examined and after
about 10 days of the hearing the parties
will that have an opportunity to
file findings and conclusions meaning
mean statements as to based on the
evidence that was provided in the
hearing
why they should be prevailed and
eventually the board shall submit their
own findings
and conclusions in the 30 to 60 days
from that point there'll be an
appointment from the board
for a hearing panel meaning not just
after the um
after that hearing there'll be a hearing
panel appointed
to review the findings and conclusions
of the actual ethics board
from there there could actually be other
steps where there's actually
allowed to have brief like legal written
arguments
or oral arguments or both be made
and after those things are done the
submission of briefs
and oral arguments if they're there they
will actually come with a final opinion
any there's only three things that
could happen the dismissal of the
charges or the complaint
there'll be a public recommend reprimand
or suspension
and from there actually there's even a
further process because this process
could be reviewed
also by the governing body if there's an
appeal
move on from there
okay so hotline uh this is these are the
numbers uh obviously there's one for
employees and one for public of you know
the public to call if somebody suspects
some sort of uh fraud or some sort of
unethical behavior
they can call it in and stay anonymous
if they feel like
they feel they're concerned about
retaliation of any sort
um those are the numbers again it's for
public employees
it's for the public it's for anybody
next slide
next slide oh next light
uh next slide thank you so um
i think the interest we're trying to do
some more follow-up training with ipra
the inspection of public records act
and kind of how it's important what
becomes a public record and what's not
um the elements of due process because a
number of certain
uh number public officials are
in their capacity as uh on the boards
and in the governing body they will act
as a quasi-judicial
body and people need to have their due
process rights afforded
and so we will go over those rights in a
different uh presentation
later and obviously you can always
contact jennifer
uh the city attorney if you have any
questions about this or anything
other legal questions
questions go through jennifer all right
robert can you go back to
the slide with um back more
one more one more one more
one more that right there
so at the very bottom it says
interference
with or by administration so um
just to clarify so a council member
is allowed to contact a staff member
as long as city manager
and is aware of it
not just an assistant manager but the
city manager
needs the because you know if you're
talking with the
acm copy the manager if you're talking
with the staff
director you copy the manager is that
correct
um mayor uh council that is my interest
that's correct
um i'll just clarify the interference
um with administration really has to do
it's not
it's it's really important that you
recogni that you realize that
you can call city staff to get
information
and to talk about um certain issues that
are
occurring the the administ interference
with administration
happens when there's when somebody if
somebody were to begin directing
staff to do certain things i think
that's
kind of a fine line and i'll let the
city manager jump in
but i think there's a it's really
important that you understand you can
talk to city staff and
ask questions and get information that's
an important
aspect of it it's just the directing of
city staff oh no i understand that but i
i think
in fairness since we have a new city
manager i think in fairness
uh to to city managers the office of
city manager
anytime a council member speaks to
a staff member they need to be the
manager needs to be notified
um or even you know preferably email so
there's a there's so there's a
there's a some type of um
you know some type of uh record
paper trail i i i don't know
why a council member needs to call
directly
to a director i i would think that
it's sufficient to use an email
and or go through the manager and
consequently the same vice versa
it would be highly unusual for accounts
for a director to contact a council
member
send them an email but always copy the
manager is that correct
mayor and council i'll defer to the city
manager for how um
he desires for that to occur but yes
that's been my experience in the past
okay and
and for sure and and definitely not have
any city employee
contact a council member
without the manager's uh knowledge
yes again mayor and council i will defer
to the city manager for that
okay well let me go to the council
members here and
i'll let um and if ethel wants to jump
in later here he can
we have uh councillors of beta stewie
ben como flores and ganderas so
counselor beta studio thank you mayor um
along the lines and uh thank you robert
and thank you jennifer for this
presentation i'm
actually very um happy to see this and
glad that we are doing this review um
along the lines of what mayor was
talking about um
obviously we also on different boards
and prcs
um during my on my prc i have to
interact with staff um and it
is there is a bit of direction that has
to go on with there so i just want to
make sure
that um it's clear and everything like
um i have to direct
for an agenda to be made and sent out
and
any types of communications that have to
go through to
allow items to be on the agenda um so i
just want to
check in to make sure that those types
of communications
technically could be directing
um with staff but it is appropriate i
would say
for the board to make sure as the chair
i need to make sure that things get
on the agenda that we are coordinating
appropriately with staffing
i've been copying
the upper management that was
when i was introduced to the board that
was assigned with it
but i'm just going to check in to make
sure that that
those are still appropriate measures
that can be taken
mayor and council this is jennifer
beggar brown your city attorney i'll
defer to the city manager on that
um i certainly want to make sure that
his wishes for that process
are those expectations are clear
okay
thank you um
i'm sorry counselor beta stevie can you
repeat what your question was
yes um i was saying that as
my position as a
chair of different prcs i do interact
with staff
with that in mind technically would be
i would be directing say there's items
on the agenda
and presentations that have to be um
called forth
when i request for those to be on there
that is a direction and so i just want
to be clear that that is considered
appropriate items that can be done and
is not prohibited
yeah i mean when you're what you're
requesting is information to be
to be done now if you're telling them to
do something and get it done and make
that a policy of the council then you've
overstepped your bounds
okay so for example we
have to we're going to have a new policy
that might come up
they need to look and get that a
presentation
to the prc um
me requesting for that to be on our
agenda and shown
is that overstepping no not at all
because that's that's information that
eventually gets to the policy makers
which is the council
and then we will you know but if you
were to unilaterally
bypass that and and you know which
would be difficult to do because i'm
sure staff would say hey you know we
can't do that
having staff do that in your role as a
as a chairperson
that that's that's totally acceptable
okay
just making sure thank you um
with um i believe it was with our
conflicts of
interest um around page 27
or psi 27 and 28 i'm really glad
uh to see these items on here i i feel
like i'm an over sharer
when it comes to conflicts of interest
um but that's because
of that not only real but potential and
i do think that there's
it's really big to have that disclosure
um
out there uh for me
um i know that we have it uh
as public officials but i'm assuming and
staff has the same
requirements for um conflicts of
interest
is that correct jennifer for disclosure
yes mayor and council is jennifer vega
brown yes this the um
city staff has to follow our our own
ethics code and yes we would have to
disclose any potential conflicts of
interest
okay um whenever we have
and for me it's been one anytime an item
comes up
and it's at my spouse's
workplace it has to deal with that i've
always disclosed
um is that something that we also i mean
is that that might be an over
uh share perhaps but for me it's a
potential i want to make sure that
council can win if they feel that
that's appropriate or not um do we have
the same type of
requirements then that are along that
line with staffing if we have close
connections because it is a small
community and
we are going to you know
uh have issues pop up from time to time
i think
um mayor and council
yes the the personnel rules are very
clear
on potential conflicts of interest i
think
if in doubt just disclose um if there's
any
question just disclose it i think that's
a very good rule to go by
more often than not and what i've seen
this particular city council seem to be
very conservative
in your desire to disclose potential
conflicts and i don't think
um of the several that i've seen
potential conflicts disclose i don't
think there's
been an actual conflict but i think it's
always
better safe than sorry for city staff we
didn't go
through the process or ethics review of
city staff
there is an internal review for that
there's an ethics committee
and so complaints are reviewed and that
it's kind of the same
internal administrative process where
there's a committee that reviews
and a committee that will open on
whether or not a policy has been
violated
but they're pretty much the same it's
not as
broad as an elected or appointed
official
i think it's a little more clear it's a
little more clear and it's a financial
conflict or there's
a possibility for nepotism or
um contracting things like that they're
they're a little more specific but yes
they should
and employees are expected to disclose
okay thank you and my final question
is who sits on the external review
council
[Music]
mayor and council that's defined
in the ordinance and i've not seen
that ordinance utilized since in the
three years that three and a half years
that i've been here
so um i'll have to make sure that
there's
there is a committee but i'm not really
sure how that committee
would function as far as the appointment
um it hasn't been utilized
if it were to be utilized we were very
fortunate now because we have an
oversight committee
um in place so that that's very helpful
to us
um but this we have not received an
outside sworn ethical complaint since
i've been here
i don't i'm not aware of one um i have
to somebody who's been here a lot and i
have would have to
chime into that but i'm not aware of one
okay thank you very much jennifer and
thank you mayor
mr mayor yes uh david yes
this is david allen for the record can i
uh hopefully address counselor beta
stevie's
information because i i was here when an
ethics complaint was filed against
a board member so the complaint goes to
the city clerk's office
it was a sworn notarized complaint it
was turned over from the city clerk's
office that's kept confidential this is
the to the city attorney the city's
attorney hired
outside counsel at that time the reason
it was listed as external council
because
the city attorney
also works for the council so that the
city council so that's why
an outside council was hired if the
complaint had come to fruition
the ordinance is very specific as i seem
to recall
that the city clerk
[Music]
randomly selects five board members from
the other city boards to serve as that
board review committee
as the ethics enforcement committee if
it were to get to that point
in the complaint that i'm aware of it
was filed
the outside external council opined that
it was not
a conflict of interest and so it didn't
go anywhere
at the time so i hope that helps but as
city attorney vega brown referenced it's
been quite a few years since i mean i
was in four
jobs for it was
previous positions four times removed
for me when that uh
complaint was fought thank you
thank you david and there was another
one
filed in two thousand and three
got away with that one uh counselor
florida's
oh you didn't council photos you didn't
have your request you had your hand up
well i
i did have my hand up but i had the same
questions that
um and concerns that counselor
at beta stevie had so thank you thank
you
mayor pro yeah mayor pro tem
thank you jennifer um for the
presentation and robert
i appreciate this i'm really um looking
forward
um to um
to really delving in
um on this and this was a really good
reminder for us
um um so i'm appreciative
um jennifer does this
conflict of interest pertain
to um board members like pnz
and parks and rec and
all the other boards that we
have to include on our policy review
committees
um yes mayor and council this is
jennifer vega brown
yes it it applies to all boards
commissions
appointed um committees it applies to
everybody
okay and i i had um the same kind of
questions
that um consort made this to be as
so good job counselor bait this duty
that's it
[Music]
thank you uh councilman cuomo thanks
mayor um and thanks so much jennifer
um and um robert
this was really good i feel like i've
gotten obviously as a new counselor
pieces of this here and there
from from you actually jennifer um
and then from the city manager's office
of course and then um
you know counselor beta stevie and i
went to a training early on with the new
mexico
municipal league but i have to say that
this was significantly
better and more in-depth and so um i
think
i think it would be very good practice
to start doing this
every january after an election i think
feels really important um for this
information to
to just be known early on i don't mind
hearing it over and over
um especially not in my first year so i
really appreciate it
um i'm really curious going back back to
anti-donation
i i'm curious about i feel like we've
been talking about it so much and i've
never asked in terms of
this the sick piece because you know
jennifer you said
sick or and or indigent in what
circumstance
would the city provide aid assistance
relief to
um someone who's sick or
i guess i've never really thought fully
in depth about what
that means for the city the sick piece
um can i jump in on that real quick
jennifer
here so councilman cuomo that's a good
question
and if you recall in fact i think it was
in today's paper
uh la grande fiesta this was one where
we it was my opinion and i think
you know you know this was when we
waived a fee for them to use the
downtown
plaza because if you stop think about it
care only helps those with cancer so
they're all sick
they can't give it to no one else is
that they just don't give it to anyone
and so
that is a hundred percent i mean
everyone who gets a recipient
to my knowledge i mean that's what they
that's what they have in their charter
uh is sick and that's why i've told
others that hey if you give
you know if that's what you do okay but
this is the first of its kind
and um my best wishes go out to you
and her and her family
so sorry to interrupt jennifer
absolutely thanks mayor
mayor and council thank you and
counselor ben coleman was actually your
comments about
um that you needed more in depth that's
why we put this together
so i'm i'm glad that you liked it and
i'm glad we'll continue to add more to
it
we could have had 100 slides very easily
but
we'll just try to break it up into
different presentations
and print these out for you so that you
can
add them to that notebook that you have
um did you have anything to add on the
sick piece jennifer
um thank you so um there are different
different things right now for example
the funding that is being provided
because of cobit
so currently the city is providing some
of that funding as a result of copiod
um i think there barbara de leon can
speak probably more specifically to this
but that would be
that would be an example of the sick
part of that
um it's a it's a result of a pandemic
and we
are trying to provide care for um
in that in that arena
um i think i'm trying to think of some
of the mental health
support that the city has provided that
would be
another example of the sick portion of
that
um i can't think of anything else
um as far as the sick portion goes it's
mostly been in the realm of mental
health care
would we be able to provide something we
hadn't we haven't discussed in
in our conversations with cobait relief
packages is
support for families who've lost someone
due to coped like funeral expenses
is that possible
um mayor and council i that
that's probably a bit of a stretch we
can look into it but
because it's not providing direct care
to
somebody who is sick or indigent and the
indigent part of it also has to be
clearly defined on what
what constitutes integency we've
normally gone by what the state statutes
provide
there it's clearly defined especially in
the statute
that provides for public defenders we
use that definition quite often okay
thank you
what about in terms of natural disasters
marion council um it just depends on how
that would be affected i mean there
are many ways that that could be
affected
we have used that this exception
for anti-donation um i'm trying to think
when
went for the um asylum seekers
had to do with their safety and health
and well-being
so there are ways um that it'll fit
under that exception we just have to
take it on a case-by-case basis and
it's very fact specific okay
that's really helpful to understand um
moving on to a different topic and i
think i also want more clarification in
terms of direction
i feel like sometimes i might have
probably definitely have given direction
during a public meeting
is that overstepping
i mayor and council i will defer to the
city manager on that
it's really it has to do with how the
city manager sees
that portion of it i mean he's your
employee and certainly has to establish
what the expectations are
and we'll we'll follow we'll follow his
lead
and certainly comply with whatever his
expectations may be
okay yeah and i guess these are all um
perhaps even
in some context new conversations right
because we have a new city manager
so um um
i have been more intentional about you
know being specific towards
like david could you help me or whatever
right get this information
um i just want to make sure um people
feel
respected by me
counselor he phones on looks like he's
on
did you want to restate your question
again to him yeah
in terms of um direction
during a public meeting whether a work
session or a city a regular city council
meeting
um how what you know um
if what would be the what are you
thinking in terms of
um how counselors should operate in that
scenario with staff
thank you mayor councillors you know i
don't have a problem
uh counselor with with you uh giving
direction you know i'm in the media it's
in a public meeting
we're all uh we're all together and
you know we're all hearing that
direction and so i don't have any
any problem with that i'm your employee
and and
within that meeting i'm i'm i'm also
there to hear that
direction okay great i have a list of
things for jennifer no i'm just kidding
um thank you ifo my last question is
around
robert you actually brought up some
stuff around the election
and and um under the ethics piece and i
wondered
about um election law or election policy
that's local
um specific to las cruces certainly when
i was running i felt like
it was lacks i didn't necessarily think
there was
um yeah like it was
somewhat lacks and so i'm curious about
revisiting some of that
if las cruces has ever revisited
election law
um and if that's a conversation
we potentially should have mary and
council if i may just jump in real quick
before
rob addresses this um just to just to
for some clarification counselor ben
cuomo
um i mean i know you were kind of joking
you have a list of things for me but i'm
i'm not like other um directors right
directly to city council so you may give
me whatever list you
want and i'm happy to do that because as
you are
my client and that's a different type of
responsibility yes thank you jennifer
mayor uh council councilor ben como
yes so um obviously
we can revisit local election of law
um we did this the city council did
address
some changes because of changes in the
legislature on the local election act
obviously we've changed
we know we know what we have a different
type of runoff we have an automatic
runoff
now we made changes to our charter we
actually put those up to the public
um most of the i think uh like six out
of the seven changes
we're actually done we propose we're
actually approved by
the public so uh maybe not
and i'm not sure what what questions
when you what election local election
stuff has been can you consider lacks
but
certainly we have made some changes i
think it was in 2018
i could be wrong about that year but i
did
i did make some of the a number of those
ordinances
and resolutions for that
yeah um i'll have to i remember thinking
of this early on after
after the election but in terms of like
the filing
of paperwork in terms of
folks who turn it in on time and folks
who don't and
you know like sometimes i wonder like if
we're gonna have a rule what is it there
for if there are no
consequences that's not word and perhaps
a harsh word
but i'm just curious about the follow-up
of a rule that is in place
mayor uh councillor ben como uh
i understand it i i will look into uh
i guess whatever laws that we have
some of it is may be affected by also
the administrative process of the county
because they now
have a big part of what we do right as
far as our
elections now um so i'll look into that
and i'll get with
the city the city clerk and uh
go from there great thank you so much
robert i appreciate it and that was my
last question mayor thanks everyone
uh councilman cuomo if i could just
share with you what a wise council
member once shared with me years ago on
how to deal with the city manager
he told me he says if it doesn't involve
money it should be okay like for example
let's say you have a
constituent who they didn't get their
garbage can picked up
okay you know asked tell the city
manager hey you think you get that done
but if it involves money like say
purchasing a vehicle for
some department and you're trying to
tell them to do that then
then you're probably not you know it's
it
i think that that's probably and it's
been a pretty good rule of thumb
you know if it involves purchasing
something then really council needs to
get into it as a whole
because if they go and buy another
vehicle because you told them to
you know i mean that's and that makes
sense you know and i've always kind of
used that rule of thumb
and it seems to work um and then um
and if it's something there that you do
think that you really need to have it
purchased
and and management is saying no then
bring it to us and we'll put on the
agenda and
let the council decide that's why you
know a few few weeks back i brought that
other
situation on the 50 000 check you know i
this i've never seen right and i i can't
tell them just pay that check
so just put it on the council and let
you guys decide what you want to do with
it
okay great anybody else
okay is that it jennifer and robert
for this thank you that is it for us
thank you
okay all right the next one is the water
and wastewater impact fees
uh joe jose provencio from utilities
we'll be discussing
good afternoon mayor city council and
walsh i'll be
talking on behalf of mr provencio
interim utilities director we will be
discussing
the developmental impact fee study that
was completed as well as the allocation
of those fees so if you'll give me one
moment
i'm going to share my screen
as you know the developmental impact fee
study has been completed by tishler bice
that means the recommendations have
already considered all the
infrastructure needs as well as the
impact to the systems
and the financial demand of those impact
fees so you are going to see some rate
changes
on the development impact fee itself
but i do want to stress that this study
is complete
what it is is what it is it's all
pursuant to state law as well as our
local
ordinance and these are the fees that
our board the las cruces utilities board
will
implement we are presenting today
because one
it is beneficial for the council to
understand how these fees
are used as well as what they are and
two
it is up to the council on how the fees
are allocated because that is done
pursuant to
council resolution so the fees itself
will give a brief presentation and uh ms
dominique
rodriguez on behalf of las cruces
utilities will start that and introduce
our consultant
and then we'll turn it over to uh acm
david dalahan to explain the allocation
portion so i will turn it over to
dominique one moment
my counselors my name is dominic
rodriguez i'm the rate and economic
analysis manager for utilities
and i will be giving the uh beginning
part of this presentation
so the first slide is the impact fee
overview
uh the impact fee is a one-time payment
for growth related infrastructure this
cannot be used for operations
maintenance
or replacement
slide is cut off a little bit okay it is
not a tax but a land use
regulation
three requirements must be met one is
need growth is creating
a demand for system expansion two
benefit infrastructure gets built in a
timely manner
manner uh that expands capacity and
contributes to system redundancy
proportionate new development pays its
fair share
the historical timeline of the impact
fees
is december 19 1983 a resolution was
passed
where council adopts the initial
development impact fees or also known as
diff
on june 19 1993 excuse me ordinance was
passed where council adopted and
established the procedures
for the assessment of water wastewater
and park development impact fees
pursuant to the new mexico development
fee act of 1993.
and then this is the timeline that we uh
went through for this current study
on february 6 2019 we entered into
contract
with tishler bice on october 17
2019 we presented the draft report to
the capital improvements advisory
committee or
ciac on december 19th we went back to
the ciac
and they approved the final water and
wastewater impact fee update
we also presented the final report to
the las cruces utilities board on
january 9
2020 and we do have with us
julie herlin she's with tishler vice and
she will go through the next couple of
slides
great uh thank you dominique uh it's
good to be with you
uh mayor and council counselors next
slide please
okay uh what you're looking at here is
the updated proposed
change in the water component the water
development
impact fee uh this the um
sell the the amount highlighted in the
green
and green on this slide uh indicates the
updated
uh proposed water fee of 2125 and this
is um a a one-time
fee paid uh at the time of
uh of the new development uh hooking
into uh the water system
the 2125 dollars is a
uh is the the base fee for a
standard uh single family detached unit
uh using a meter size of either 5 8
or three quarters inch meter
this reflects a decrease from the 2013
impact fee study um and the reasons for
this is that the storage costs per
gallon are
somewhat lower uh than the 2019 impact
fee study update
uh the the current uh water development
impact fee
rate for a single family unit is shown
here on this slide in the gray shaded
cell
next slide please
this fee then is uh is then
calibrated to meter sizes um
and that again is assessed at the time
of
um planning and collected at time of
building permit
um and it is scaled to uh
the the base meter size of a 5 8 and a 5
8 or three-quarter inch
uh meter at that 21 excuse me 2 125
and then uh based on usage uh scaled
upward
for uh by meter size next slide please
and turning now to the wastewater
portion
of the development impact fee uh this is
a
similar a similar figure to the water
but this reflects the wastewater
capacity
uh charges uh excuse me the development
impact fee
again scaled to a standard
meter size for a single family detached
unit so the
amount shown in green is the proposed
updated wastewater development impact
fee of 2726 dollars per unit
um and this reflects an increase over
the current rate shown in gray
and this uh and the reason for this is
an increased cost factors for the
components included in the fees
as well as an addition of an additional
component of support facilities that are
included in this
um in this fee update next slide please
and then again taking that uh the the
base
um base development impact fee for waste
water
and scaling it uh upward to capacity for
wastewater usage or collection
uh the fee schedule is shown in the last
three
columns here on this slide by meter
size
mr mayor thank you julie counselors
before we get into allocation history
are there any questions regarding the
development of the fee itself
it looked like great thank you
mr mayor in that case we'll turn it over
to acm dalahan
mr mayor members city council good
afternoon dude
for just a second dave i apologize to
the mayor pro tem uh put her hand up i
don't know if she had a question of for
delilah
i i do mayor sorry i'm having trouble
with my
um my pad
there my touchpad um so sorry
um thank you delilah and company um for
the presentation
um i read with interest as i'm staying
you know
longer on council um i'm getting
more attuned to um certain things but i
i read the the report um that was done
by
is that julie yes the
consultant and um i wanted to
ask um um sort of the breakdown
of of um the cost right the cup
like 50 to the developer 28
to the resident prospective resident and
then 22 to the base
can you go back to that explain what
um the base okay
uh mr mayor tim the
actual base cost is the fee that julie
has presented and then the breakdown the
30 um this is what david's going to
explain now
and how but that was developed by
resolution through the council
and so david will give you that history
here for discussion by council
but the government is a one-time fee
and the examples julie gave were for a
single family house
house essentially that 21 100
and so that is the one-time base fee
yes okay okay and then i'll wait to hear
his explanation and then i'll ask the
other questions thank you thank you
thank you mr mayor council
david again for the record um
the i'm going to give you the history
and potential options for council's
consideration going forward on the
what we call the allocation of the
impact fees
so first this was adopted by resolution
in 1995 and june 30th of that year
it was a couple of years after the new
impact fee ordinance went in place in
1993.
the council had previously rescinded a
previous development impact fees
and adopted new charges pursuant to the
new act
for parks water and wastewater service
we now have impact fees for
public safety that was done in the 2000s
specific to water and wastewater
residential
only it splits the development impact
fee between the developers
the people that are building the house
the rate base
that's everybody else who pays in for
the city utilities that's who that is
everybody who has a water bill or a
wastewater bill
collectively are known as the rate base
and then the
end customers that's how that is split
and that's been the direction
from a city council resolution in 1995.
delilah if you could move to the next
stream um some more
information about the fees it is
assessed at
the time of planning of the law that's
when the subdivision
or the individual law is created
for that's it's an assessment um
that's when it is assessed it is however
collected
for commercial accounts for a commercial
business at the time they get their
building permit
that is established in state law
it can the fee is no longer is assessed
no
earlier than the time of planning and it
can't be any collected any
earlier than the time it is permitted it
can be collected
after the time of permitting but it
can't be collected before
for commercial accounts it's collected
100 percent
from the developer at the time of
getting their building permit
their plans have been submitted
completely approved and they're ready to
start construction
we have it through the one-stop shop in
coordination with utilities
they give us the fee amount and that
they they write that check then
as for single-family residential
accounts
the allocation is where that comes in a
portion is collected at the time of
permitting
that's the developer's portion and the
remainder when a new residential account
is set up
for the utility services at the
individual lot
a portion gets charged to the rate base
and then the remaining portion at the
time they set up their new account
is done to the end user that's the
person that's going to live or own the
home
and pay the utility bill when utilities
gets that information
it's proof of ownership or a copy of
their id is required
and then they also have the payment plan
option is available to the residential
customers
we charge interest for that and it's
over a five-year period of time
next slide please
so this is how the fee is split and has
been done that way for set
for single-family development since the
1995 resolut
resolution for water and wastewater both
fifty percent goes to the builder that's
at the time of building permit
the end user customer or the end use
customer the occupant
and who's going to be paying the bill
for water pays 28 percent
and for waste water the customer pays
20 for water
it's 22 percent to the rate base and 30
percent
to for wastewater
new development utilizes the increased
capacity
in extending and enhancing the system
system-wide fire flow that's your fire
hydrants and fire protection system
improves system redundancy and service
availability throughout the service area
the city has built in with its water
system
primarily that if we have a water outage
due to a main break somewhere in the
city
we have redundancy built in that the
city
wells are cross-connected we have a well
filled both in the east mesa and the
west mesa
and wells inside the interior portion of
the city
that are all cross-connected that helps
to ensure
water outages are to a minimum and that
we have redundancy in the system for
both fire protection
and everyday water usage next slide
please
[Music]
so this is to give you a little bit of
history on the residential
impact fees how they're divided up
between
fiscal years 2015 and the current fiscal
year 2020 that just
ended for single-family residential only
we had 2361 customers
who paid their impact fees in full
without a payment plan
that means when the end user came into
city hall to sign up for their utilities
they paid their portion either the 20
or the 28 of their impact fees
outright we have 4 700
plus almost 4 800 customers who are used
the payment plan over the five-year
period to pay
their portion of the development impact
fees
also during this five-year period
2500 plus customers that were previously
on a
payment plan paid off the remaining
balance
through when the fact that their
property was sold or a title transfer
occurred we have a system in place that
if anyone who signs up for a payment
plan
if they sell their house within the
five-year period when they go to sell or
transfer the title
they have to pay off any remaining
balance of the impact fee that was due
on that
plan and then we also have almost 3 000
customers
that are currently paying impact fees
within that payment plan system
these pla you'll you'll notice these
numbers vary across the five-year period
prior to 2015 we had people who were on
payment plans before
and we put other people on payment plans
now who've come through
who've recently gotten permits or have
started their service
so that's a little bit of the history of
the five-year
plan and we can always come back to this
slide
if you need it next slide please
so allocation options you can continue
with the current
um resolution uh the current allocation
established by the 1995 resolution
that's again on your left-hand side
um and you could also do other things
you could rescind and replace the
resolution that would be different from
the 95 resolution
that allocates all of the development
impact fee to the builder developer at
the time of the permit
that movie means the whole thing has to
be
paid by the developer when they secure
their permit
that's the twenty one hundred dollars
and the twenty seven hundred dollars
um you could allocate it differently
between the end user
i.e the homeowner and the developer
builder that would still authorize the
continuation
of the use of the can
of the payment plan system that we have
in in place
if you split it between the developer
builder
and the homeowner um staff is aware that
there were previous concerns expressed
by some members of the council
about the allocation and that's why we
presented these
options to you so with that mr
mayor and members of council i think
that was our last slide and i'll stand
for questions and we're ready for
discussion
thanks david can you just share with us
what concerns you were hearing from
council
on the current plan uh mr mayor
previously when we had had a discussion
on development impact fees
and i think it was in parks um counselor
floor and it was
over a year ago councillor flores
expressed concerns
about um a percentage of the allocation
being attributed to the rate base
um so um that was where i was concerned
um i don't want to speak for council
florist but the concern was that
why isn't the end user or the developer
builder paying for
all of the impact fee because they're
the ones that are causing
the need for the impact fee and the
impact on the system
to accommodate the growth in the new
development
okay thank you can you go back to the
slide i think where you had the current
and then the the other one right there
please
no right there okay so just declare no
13 sorry um right um
no the 1 13 i think slide 13
you went the wrong way you're going the
wrong way delilah
there you go right there okay
sensitive mayor oh no problem so just to
clarify this
if if let's say you're having a house
purchased or built uh the developer
or builder usually pays half of the
impact fees
and then um the house is completed
and then when the person is
finishing you know the house is done
they have to get a few things they have
to go through the city that's when they
pay
their portion of the impact fee yes sir
mayor that's when they
uh that's when they sign up for sir
final service
in their name after the house is
completed and that's the end
use customer portion for both water and
wastewater
correct and then what you were what you
were almost uh
giving the option to counsel is for the
developer
to pay that full amount up front
when they're starting to do the starting
to do the
the house yes sir mr mayor that's the
full
portion that's the first bullet on the
right hand side what
the options that staff were presenting
or i presented i should say
is that we would not charge anything to
the rate base
it would either go 100 to the builder or
would be some form of split
between the builder and the end use
customer but that's the way it is right
now
isn't it no sir it is not a portion of
it
goes to the rate base everybody who has
a utility bill
pays a portion of the water and
wastewater impact fees
for um new development okay but but i
mean the
the end the end user the customer when
they go
pay the city bill do they don't they
pay uh the remaining fifty percent
and then you're just saying they're only
paying the twenty percent
you're paying either the twenty eight
okay so i think what you need to do
in my opinion is let council know how
much we're talking about because
i can i can tell you that i think
right now it's it's it's been working
if you change that amount um
not only are you going to have the the
customer
really upset when they try to pay that
bill to get their clearance or
certificate of occupancy or whatever it
is they got to get
um because that i didn't real i thought
they were paying already 50. if you're
you're saying going up another 30
so the customer pays that that's going
to be really
challenging if you're suggesting that
the builder pay 100
and charge to the customer or or however
they do it
you know now you're you're gonna they're
gonna finance that into their home and
that's gonna really
uh cause the um
you know the cost to be if you were to
spread it out over 30 years
so just out of curiosity i mean either
way you're you're
they're they're getting this
this the impact fees are being paid 100
why change it now other than other than
this
what you're talking about here what
what's you know what's the
what's the rush to do that or what's the
reason it's just staff being responsive
to a
previously expressed concern the portion
to the rate base
also is um to the rate base it's it's
everyone else who
who's paying for it who didn't
necessarily cause
it to have to be charged um
older development in in their monthly
bill
pays it every month because it's a
portion of their bill
it's a portion of the rate for water and
wastewater
um it is i will tell you this it is an
administrative uh
workload uh for staff on every one of
these
uh every time a new permit is pulled and
we split it between the rate base the
end customer
and the builder i will also tell you
mayor that um
the homeowner ends up
paying for this uh 50 50
plus 28 and 50 plus 20.
because the builder passes along those
fees to the end customer
no doubt about it they do every time
i've had a building permit
sure i agree i
i hear you i guess i guess um
i guess what i'm trying to say is you
know i think we need to
i think the best would be for council to
see an example
of the actual amounts because you know
you have the percentages here
but i don't think they actually see what
would it all really cost
and how premier yes
sorry we have it uh outlined on one of
the previous slides for both
water and wastewater and i'll um
go back to the water slide five delilah
slide five this is the proposed charge
currently on each every single family
home
twenty four hundred and twenty dollars
is split 1210
678 and 532
under the new fee it goes from 21.25
that would be split
1063 dollars to the builder
595 to the customer
the end customer and then the rate base
pays 468 dollars
and then you have a similar for
wastewater on slide 7
which is going up from nineteen hundred
dollars to twenty seven hundred dollars
total
and that would go from nine seventy one
to thirteen sixty three for the builder
the end user would pay twenty percent
going from three eighty nine to five
forty five
and then the feet of the rate base would
go from 583 to 818 based on the current
splits mayor
so so the builder
pays you're suggesting that they
pay the full amount at the very
beginning
that is one option that is one option
instead of half
the way they're doing it now that is
correct
that is an option all right just so that
everyone could be clear so when
questions are being asked so we've got
counselor flores gandara ben como and
sword
pastor flores thank you thank you mr
mayor thank you mr mayor and thank you
ms walsh and
miss dominguez and thank you mr dalahan
um
so let me see if i understand i think
the mayor already went through this so
the proposal today for uh
excuse me the discussion today is for a
proposed ordinance
and uh which would mean that
we'd go back we the builder would pay a
hundred percent
and then what so then what happens to
the unused customer and rate base
because i
seems like the rate base would be paying
a lot
um and the end use would uh customer
would be paying a lot
under the allocation allocations
uh page 13 on the left-hand side
so chairman are you proposing
are you proposing is the allocation
option on the right hand side
um so on the left hand side is your
current options
between water and wastewater on the
right hand side
you mean it's a current allocation
it is the current allocation that's by
resolution
from 1995. okay on the right hand side
those are one of two options that 100
of it goes to the builder developer and
they pay for it at the time of permit
or it could be split between the end
user
when they sign up for customer service
the end use
customer or the developer builder which
allows the end use customer portion to
still have a payment plan option
within city procedures so the question i
have is this mr donahue
how um how would the end uh use
customer say the the homeowner
um how
how do they know what the builder has
paid
um well i guess they would know
ab initiate from the very beginning when
they're looking at the possibility of
buying that particular property
they'd see what the developer has paid
and so
they wouldn't be surprised uh when
they um
at the time that they uh present their
occupancy i mean request occupancy or
mr mayor councillor flores we have a
disclosure requirement
i i i know we do when they sign up for a
payment plan and they
go to transfer the property with when
they're on their payment plan
but i believe the developer builder is
obligated to tell them what is left
outstanding on their portion of the
impact fee
uh that's per our ordinance per that
resolution
and and so they'll know what it what's
coming to them
mr mayor councillor flores delilah walsh
interim utilities director if i may
the original assessment as david
mentioned in the history the assessment
takes place
at the time the permit is originally
issued so that's part of the permitting
process and that record would exist
because again
we can start but it's the collection
process that's different
okay thank you miss walsh that makes it
uh
clear so the collection um on
the uh there's two
so there are two options within the um
rescind and replace resolution uh yes
yes and would the resolution be stated
in those two alternative terms or would
the decision
make for one or the other mr mayor where
uh staff would be recommending that it
be one or the other
only not both
[Music]
well can staff make a um
i guess analysis as to which would be
um oh and then the builder developer
say we opted for the developer at the
time of permit
would be up to the builder developer to
then uh get that from the
end use customer um
mr chairman councillor flores as part of
the building permit and before they get
their certificate of occupancy yes
and then when the end customer comes in
to sign up for utility service
to turn their water on at the house
that's when they would be
um on the obligate uh for their portion
oh i see so well wait a minute
if the allocation uh is all
allocation of the of all of the diff
should build a developer at the time of
permit
and then then the then there is no
impact
okay there's no impact the end user
no impact to the end user but then when
they go in to get their certificate of
occupancy
uh they'd have to pay something at that
point or
what mr chairman councillor flores you
need to look at these as
two options this first bullet is one
um if they pay a hundred percent
at the time of the building permit then
uh
nothing is paid by the end user when
they sign up for utilities
this is a second option and it's it's an
either or
situation so at the uh at this option
the builder pays for 50 of it at the
time
of the building permit and then the end
user homeowner comes in
and pays when they sign up for service
after the certificate of occupancy
um and we would uh have the option of
them to do
uh continue their payment plan um
which is just a separate line item on
their monthly utility bill until it's
paid off
it's one or the other how how would uh
option
the first option to allocate all of the
div to the developer
builder developer how is that going to
sit with them
i mean are developers going to be happy
with that i mean they're
pretty much used to other people paying
all right
i don't want to speak for them but i uh
they uh
you had while you were out of office
in september they presented to the to
the council
their concerns them i i'm sure they're
going to not be ecstatic about it
but it's also a fee that i know that
they pass on to their customer who's
buying the home that they're building
they pass it on directly they pass it on
directly
anyway right anyway yes ma'am they do
was that made clear to them since i
missed that meeting
uh we did not discuss uh fee allocations
with the developers during that
september work session
uh august session excuse me
yeah august um mr mayor uh councillor
florida's delilah walsh again
um i just want to the difference what
would happen is that the
upfront development cost changes because
now the developers paying at the time of
a permit
rather than at the time of customer
hookup and so
you're right it's the upfront cost that
increases the total cost eventually does
pass the customer when they buy the home
or
purchase the property however it's just
the upfront cost that's the
differentiation
okay thank you so much miss walsh and
thank you mr donahue
thank you mr mayor yeah councilor flotus
uh you know you bring up a really good
point and i have to tell you that
you know you would think that if that if
we're going to discuss
something such as this we really
really need to hear what the developers
say
the the way you it currently is
counselor florida says
so and i think this is really just
primarily when they have a house
built you know when they when it's a
resale that's another story
but when they have a house built and
then they go to it and the house has
been completed then they need to go
and get with the city and then the city
do they the city has a payment plan do
they not or david or or
if if a customer can't pay it all at one
time
they do have a payment plan over so many
months yes that is current practice mr
mayor we've had that since 1995
right and so council florida's i mean uh
we'll listen to what the rest of the
council says but i think this
is we've already set up the one issue
for
our earlier discussion on the on the
minimum wage i think this
lends itself one of the things that
needs another discussion
i think one of the things that when city
does something
and we don't get a chance to involve the
ones that this is directly
impacting i think we at the very minimum
need to hear what they have to say
mr mayor our intent was not to
not hear from the home builders
association we were presenting council
with options
and we need to move forward with the
impact fees if there is
a preference one way or another from the
council
then we will go through the public input
process in in
in accordance with that before we bring
back any resolution
to to amend uh resolution 95 368.
it was time for us to present the impact
fees which we need to impose
sooner rather than later um this was a
previous request that we brought it
forward
we can we can impose the fee and leave
the current allocation in place
and then monitor that david who
requested it
it was brought up a year ago when uh
there was a question by councillor
flores
um when we discussed the previous impact
fees for parks
and what this is uh mr mayor i'm
i'm just conveying to you what happened
a year ago um that this was
this is when it was brought up and we
need to update the impact fees
we have an obligation to review the
impact fees every five years
and we're within that five year time
frame we're at the end of that time
five year time frame and the fee needs
to be updated
i hear you i just i just still think
that we need to um
i mean i would have been glad to have
allowed 10
10 uh or at the very minimum the home
builders
and certain organizations to kind of
chime in on this but uh and it's not too
late
i mean we need to but we i think it's
important that we do that i mean just
you know this is this directly affects
them
they can share with council exactly uh
the pros and cons of doing something
like this
um mr mayor
mr mayweather's lionel walsh again um i
just want to sort of emphasize what
david just said the implementation of
the impact fees can move forward
and our board will actually do that we
wanted to give council a heads up and
let them know what the impacts are what
the changes were going to be which is
the
decrease in the water impact fees and
increase in the wastewater impact fees
however we can implement those and as
david mentioned bring back the
allocation as
a separate discussion or a separate
resolution with the public hearing
and anything that the council requires
for discussion delilah
please uh help me understand you said
you can move forward with it
you you you're implying you can move
forward with a policy without the
council
support no mr mayor i'm saying we can
implement the changes to the
diff itself in other words implement the
uh decrease in the water impact fees and
the increase in the wastewater impact
fees
through the lost christmas utility board
and leave the allocation as it appears
today
on the left-hand uh side of the slide
and so we would just
uh implement them through the board
through our lcu board
pursuant to resolution 95-368 for
allocation
and then if the council does want
changes to allocation
you all can address that separately or
together however you'd like us to move
forward
um essentially that discussion
is up to the council 100 on how to
allocate
so this has already been cleared this
already has been
discussed with the utilities board yes
sir and it went through the ciac
just like all the other impact fees the
board did not want to implement the new
rates
without answering this question because
as mr dalahan
brought up it did come up during the
rate or the impact fee review for parks
and so we didn't want to bring it to our
board until this was either addressed or
questioned or um notified through the
council
yeah i guess i just i guess i just don't
remember
um the utility board members
briefing council on this and just you
know that's
okay um so if i may mr
mayor miss mister walsh then uh
and mr dalahan then why would if these
could be bifurcated at this point why
were they brought to us as a joint
uh uh potentials for
separate action mr mayor councillor
flores
this had been on the agenda um
in april of this year to present to
council in an earlier work session
but due to issues related to cobit it
was pushed out multiple times
until we could get to this meeting now
that's the only reason why
and and we were still responding to the
earlier comments from the parks um
discussion
last year we we can
proceed along those lines and do nothing
except updating the fee and continue to
split it
and then we'll follow direction from
council on any public input process
and the pros and cons associated with um
splitting up the allocation or doing
away with the allocation
we're just making you aware and
following through on previous requests
and i realized it's
over a year ago but it was requested of
us
so mr mayor at this point procedurally
and mr dalahan
um how would
would direction then go to ms walsh or
mr dollhound or the powers that be
in this regard to this to this question
to this issue to this slide to this
presentation
to proceed uh with the rates
uh adjustments and then we'll deal with
um
allocation options at a later date
or that's yeah hopefully you're going to
be brought to us as a package i mean
there's if there's two different issues
that can be bifurcated
uh and voted upon uh differently because
there's
there they are different issues somehow
um bringing it together
was somewhat confusing to me now it's
totally totally has been
made abundantly clear but
somehow i i think that the rescind and
replace resolution is something that i
think
the city council should address and uh
but somehow you're saying time is of the
essence at this point and
the other issues
at the very next uh council meeting or
what mr mayor i don't want to speak for
miss walsh as to when it would appear on
the
utilities board earliest agenda i'm
assuming october
would be the earliest because they just
had a meeting last week
but it could be november it could be a
future effective date
um i know we're implementing the new
building permit fees in november
on november 1st so we could make it
effective that same date but the board
would need to act on it
and to approve the new fee amount
water water's going down and waste water
is going up but then we can always come
back to
the allocation because
once you once the council acts on it
it it really depends on when any new
permit that comes in is when the permit
is pulled
and depending on the allocation that's
in place at that time
mr mayor excuse me miss walsh but
um so mr mayor and mr dalham
chris just procedurally then so what
we were getting uh previously in the
prior 12
uh slides uh
was entirely on the issue as to rates
resolution mr mayor councillor
um flores up until slide seven
you were getting uh information on the
rates
slides eight through thirteen is on the
allocation
is it the same resolution uh no
it is not uh i don't think so so
it's really um well for me
it's just been a little mind-boggling i
understand it all now
um but the the update and
timeline uh somehow got squished
in my mind and uh somehow i thought it
was the same so we're dealing with
two different items here
okay yes we are thank you mr mayor thank
you
thank you mayor councillor flores thank
you very much for that because you've
exactly hit the nail on the head the
1993 ordinance is the impact fee
application itself
the 2700 to the 2100 and you're
absolutely correct
and then the next half of the
presentation was the new resolution in
1995 for the allocation
so so you've actually clarified that
perfectly
great thank you thank you very much yeah
before i get to
uh mayor pro tem uh gandala i was just
gonna
mention to ifo that um
if there's one thing that i think and i
can't speak for the rest of the council
but i think that
there's been times in the past that it
seems like
council is going to be rushed and i
think sometimes we
need to get a little bit as much lead
time as possible
and to really invite all those effective
stakeholders
so that so so the council can make an
informed decision
and not have not not have to move
forward on something that
that they haven't had a chance to no one
has to have a chance to discuss
and then find out that maybe uh could
have been done a different way
okay uh mira protem and then councilor
bin cuomo
thank you mayor um
[Music]
delilah and others um great presentation
you made
it really succinct and understandable i
appreciated the report i could actually
understand it
um and so i'm totally appreciative of
that
um one of the things throughout the you
know the way you divided it up
water and wastewater there was some
language in there that i wasn't quite
sure
why it was put in that way in terms of
um like um
where where it was relating to apartment
complexes and
water that it should be a certain way
and i got the impression
it wasn't that way um it am i
am i on the right track on that
um and i say that because i wonder
i had a experience and david help
dalahan helped with this when we had to
um individual
landlord was um changing
their water um
from the various plans he and he
we kept saying he was very concerned
about it being
very costly and we said well you can go
into in
it was a trailer a trailer park
and um you know that was
when i started is that we kept saying
you can go individually he didn't want
to
go individually i think right david and
he i realized that this is the way we
actually
um
dulled out payments and those kinds of
things
and so i appreciated coming to a
resolution
that was much cheaper than he was
anticipating but still i guess my
concern
is about i my district district one
is paying for development in solan
in the sonoma ranch area and the west
uh in the east mesa for for
developers is that true is that accurate
mr mayor councillor uh gandra that is
true
because the rate base pays a portion
so every time somebody pays their
monthly utility bill
wherever they live for water or
wastewater
a portion of that rate goes to pay
development impact fees
somewhere else in the community you are
absolutely 100
correct mayor and i don't think that's
right i don't think it's so unfair
because i have a district the original
town site
where there are many issues with water
lines
um some in the older part of town are
connected
to from one house to the other they
don't have single
when you look at some of the water lines
specific
to just the infrastructure they're old
they're outdated i mean
how does that help my district
specifically
yeah no that's a good question mayor pro
tem let me ask delilah
so delilah so let's just say that
you need to replace the water and
wastewater
lines in district one are you going to
take only monies that are derived from
that district or are you going to take
it from
the entire rate base uh
mr mayor uh counselor uh gandra sorry
essentially what happens is the the easy
answer is no
because that uh well i mean the easy
answer is yes actually
because when we do our long-term
infrastructure
i'm sorry yes to what yes that we do
charge everybody
the entire campaign yeah for an area
that needs to be redone
correct okay correct and
think about it and i went back to slide
two because our system
is fully redundant so we are not like a
park or a fire station
where everything stays within that one
region so we actually
just because we pump at a well in your
in one district doesn't mean the water
is being delivered to that same district
has the city i'm sorry has has the city
replaced
all of the water and waste water lines
in in district one
no no and is it is it fair to say that
there's some of the oldest
in the city yes and would eventually
need be replacing
yes and that would be part of our our
cip planning
and when we do our rate review we put
those projects those replacement
projects we identify the biggest need
the
biggest need for infrastructure
replacement and then we apply that
to the entire rate base so even if that
project is just in district one because
that's where the identified need is
it is it is uh spread out to the entire
rate based through the rate review
process
yeah and and if i may for for the
benefit of counselor being
bencomo and betastuvi so years ago
and it's interesting that david dalahan
brought up the
park impact fee years ago they used to
do it
district by district and it got to the
point where the only ones that were
paying the park impact fee
were district five and six and
and um district one didn't have any new
parks
and so uh but then it got to the point
where
the other council the other districts
weren't getting anything
and so now it's spread out around the
whole city
because if you just left it to that
particular district
districts one through four weren't
getting anything it was just five and
six
because that's where the development was
at so then we changed it so that you
know
you kind of so that the whole city
shared in on that instead of just that
particular district
so if we do this then that's exactly
what you're going to do you're going to
actually go back to the way it was
in a roundabout way with with the
with the park fees and it's just going
in and
you know being raised in just the one
one area
instead of it being spread out because
we all uh
benefit newer areas and older areas
it's just that simple and if you start
making it to the point where
you you you have the mindset that that
because your
area doesn't benefit from it they do
benefit because eventually they're going
to have to have
their water and wastewater lines
replaced understand
me yes david i'll clarify
one thing um development impact fees
cannot be
used to pay for maintenance or repair of
older lines
that that's taken out of utility bonds
which are paid by utility impact fees
and i would argue that with the
exception of affordable housing
if a new house goes into a vacant lot
in council district one because we're
talking about counselor
gondor's area right now they have to pay
the water and wastewater impact fees
because
they are impacting the system because it
was not anticipated before
and so therefore they have to pay the
fee
most of the development is occurring in
districts five and six though there is
some that has occurred in district four
and a little bit in district two
but development can occur anywhere and
these fees
apply city-wide um and the reason i
bring up affordable housing is the city
has the exception to the anti-donation
clause
that we can pay for development impact
fees
on behalf of affordable housing which we
have done
in limited situations but
every rape base every ratepayer is on
the hook for replacing water lines
unfortunately we've had to replace water
lines in newer development
in some parts because we have a failure
and that's what happens
that's where we do capital improvement
planning
but somebody has to pay for it yeah but
the the impact fees uh david those go
into
another another um pot of money so to
speak
you're in a separate fund yes sir yeah
and it's and it's used throughout the
city
no it is used where
we can demonstrate it's paying for the
increased
impact uh to the system
um where we need a bigger line because
we had an eight inch line and we now
need a 12 inch line because of growth in
the ease
eastern or western portion of the city
we have to document that it is going for
the benefit of new development i guess
i understand about the park fees i do i
guess i'm speaking specifically to water
and wastewater in my district that i'm
paying for something
a development that's happening at the
it's
you know that area the the east mesa i
don't understand how
it may or if is it appropriate is it
legal i mean how does
larger county communities do albuquerque
and other places
when they're growing leaps and bounds
how is that happen
happening i guess i'm i'm interested in
in knowing that i i
again i have a a a
a problem with it and i
don't know that that percentage should
be as much as it is for the base rate
payer um i i feels it
doesn't feel good to me and i think it
needs to be research done
specifically because it it it doesn't
feel right
no i hear what you're saying uh mayor
potem i think but want to have it done
up front
and not have i guess i guess it would be
if if i was to do any changes myself if
i had my druthers would be
to okay i
probably would be supportive of that but
still allow the payment plan and still
allow
the um person to pay the
the second half like they have been
like like what you saw earlier where you
had several um
many people paying on on a payment plan
and and uh instead of
expecting the the um
contractor or builder to front the cost
up front because i got the impression
that that
was would be um
the city's position utilities position
and i just think that that's a little
bit too much
um yeah and i
i understand and i'm i'm not i'm um
i understand and i guess to your
to your point my questions would be
um like i'm sure this is a recording
nightmare
um and i wondered how many people who
are on a payment plan
are behind how much are they behind
um you know from the perspective of that
end payer the person who purchased the
home
because as mr dalahan suggested the
developer passes on the
the the price or the
total right to the end
user the end buyer so
i i guess when i when i i think about
all those things and i think about
those people who move from one space
place to another
and still owe the city and
i guess do they pay it and how i i
i mr mayor i
i can't speak for utilities on the
number of
people that are behind on their utility
bills as part of this but i will say
this
the impact fee is assessed at the
property level
so if one person moves to another
property elsewhere i don't believe that
impact fee
payment goes with them it stays with the
property and i see delilah shaking her
head yes so i've confirmed
so that would not if somebody was behind
on their development impact fee portion
of their bill and they would move to
another property say an apartment
downtown that portion of the bill would
not follow them
the that that stays with the property it
is property-based
fee and and so the next
occupant would be on the hook for that
portion of their fee
and going back to a comment the mayor
made about
the city staff does not have um
we're fine with either one of the
options that we presented
that would pretty much continue with
the current practice we could split it
between the builder and the rate base
and the end user what we're trying to
get away is from the rate based paying a
portion of the fee
and we can allocate it any way that it
uh the council wants
and we can allocate it differently in
the future you wouldn't prefer it be
paid 100
up front um mr mayor that
that would be the easiest but we already
have the system in place for this would
be the easiest too
i prefer that myself but i don't think
that's realistic
how would that how would that roll out
for the base rate
how you can that does not do i told you
that i
would be supportive of that i just i i
would
prefer the current rate the way we do it
add the base rate in but still allow the
payment plan to take place because
it'll be it'll be a little bit more of a
challenge for a builder
to have to front 100 of the costs
so you know let's say they have ten
thousand dollars to build some houses
and they were going to allocate 2 500
for
their 50 percent that means they can
build four out four
houses as opposed to having to pay it
all off at one time they can
only maybe do two houses
you know something of that nature you
know i'm just using that as an example
no and then
yesterday or counselor gander um
we can continue on with the payment plan
we if if there's this portion that is
committed
to the end user customer we're not take
we're not taking away the
customer payment plan we realize that
that is a
something that is necessary because not
everyone understands it or
is given the disclosure that they should
be
given so if you want to split it between
the builder
and the end user if there's an end user
portion we would continue we would
recommend
continuing the payment plan for the end
user yeah
david so what is the amount to the bait
what is the amount
um average amount ivan why are you
shaking your head no you don't even know
what i'm asking
the base rate amount do you know
yes we can um go to one of our
historical slides at the end
keep going it's the appendix slides
keep going right
so um this is for the water
development fees
um this is how it's split currently
um between the white uh the blue on the
left
is the current fee this is the proposed
fee
and this is how it is split but delilah
would you go ahead a couple more slides
of
historical slide let me show you this
counselor
by year this is by fiscal year
16 17 18 and 19
the rate base
paid two hundred thousand dollars in
um that was their highest year in 18 and
um of the impact fee out of a total
890 000 in the last full fiscal year
that's for water and then there's a
similar slide that we have
for wastewater and that was 400 000
out of a million three as of
fiscal year 19 and it fluctuates by year
so does that have gone like it
what does that mean to the ratepayer the
base rate
like it's a portion of your bill it's
it's in you get every year you put like
so much sense
spread out to the hundreds of thousands
of people we have on water i think it
was 72 000
or something right now 30 we have 35
000 plus customers on um
water and wastewater okay it's split
it is part of the rates and it is split
to every person you are correct
okay okay it is a portion of their bill
when they pay for water and wastewater
and that gets that gets um
factored in yearly depending on the
development
it's factored in when they did the rate
case setting
and it's adjusted every four years
got it okay okay
i'm i'm understanding this more okay
thank you mayor
i i just i feel really strongly about
that base right
i realized that as the growth as we grow
our infrastructure gets better and we
have a certain
[Music]
responsibility as a as a base rate but i
am concerned that
um especially in our historic districts
and our older districts that the
infrastructure needs to
needs to improve and i don't see
a lot of that happening and meanwhile
um and i
change that other than advocating at
capital outlay time right
for cip projects and and the like
thank you mayor thank you councillor
flores
thank you mr mayor and my apologies to
mayor pro tem gandara
i wasn't trying to preempt anything
you might have you asked
but i think that what i understood
is that what we have before us at this
point is to remedy
that concern which was my concern that
brought this whole thing up
um about the rape base and you know the
way
it was about parks but it's about the
distribution
of or the allocations as to who's paying
for
certain things and so the options that
uh
this uh proposed uh resolution gives us
or the options that we can set forth in
a
in a resolution is either to um
it would both would eliminate the um the
rate base
uh which i think is totally unfair and
agree with you mayor pro tem um
so that 22 would be eliminated and it
would become
entirely 50 for the end use customer
which is the
uh consumer the buyer of that property
so
that's that's the only um i think that
if we
fully understand that now uh we can have
a
uh resolution that reflects after i
guess a full meeting
uh with the uh people who are concerned
touched uh
who are affected by the cnu's customers
at this point
are unknown people because they haven't
purchased anything or about to
for those who are about to purchase
perhaps they may be around in town
but it's really the builder and the
builder
would still be responsible for 50
percent and then the end used customer
would be
um how how they ought to pay for it
either on a
uh you know time basis with the
agreement with the city or not is you
know their
their option so that's all i wanted to
do um
just to clarify that because i i think
it is unfair i don't think that
there's any benefit to any other
district except
it isn't as if there's a distribution of
the of these uh
these fees uh to the other parts of the
city
and um so i think that
i mean i hope that our other counselors
agree with us
um maybe they don't i think they would
but
anyway and again my apologies to you a
mayor pro tem i didn't mean any
disrespect just uh
um maybe edie's barking a lot it's her
fault
anyway thanks thank you mr lettuce thank
you
i appreciate that you're welcome thank
you
okay thank you mayor and thank you again
mr donahan miss
delilah okay so was that uh the end of
the presentation
yes mayor it was okay so let's work on
getting
another
round up some of the interested
stakeholders and
but i think the the proposal to move
forward like how you mentioned i guess
is
acceptable and then um and then we'll
come back after listening to what the
stakeholders said but if councils
seem to be supportive of the the
basically the way it is right now
just change the um rate based users uh
to shift to the to the owner
that seems acceptable but let's still
have uh
i think it's important to still at least
have that discussion with them mr what
we'll do is
we'll do a we'll allow utilities vote
proceed with the fee implementation
and then we'll work up a public input
process
um on the options but we'll present the
option of splitting it
between the uh the rate based portion
back to the end customer
okay good enough and then uh and then
as appropriate mayor um if that's
generally supported within the community
um then we can just bring back a new
resolution
yes or do you want another work session
no
i i think after we listen to the uh
stakeholders um
i think it's probably going to be okay
thank you
okay anything else all right well then
entertain a motion to adjourn
second by flores gaining motion made by
mayor pro time gone in a second by
councillor florida said we adjourn
all those in favor signify by saying aye
hi all right
then i'll stay on for the agenda setting
meeting
thank you mr mayor um mean whenever
you're ready christine just let me know
i'm ready when you are give me two
seconds
[Music]
okay
i get a chance to look up this address
2600 silver hawk
silverhawk
where in the world is that
some change
okay
all right i'm ready okay so this is the
agenda setting meeting for the september
21st 2020
uh city council meeting number one one
non-consent
two consent two consent three
non-consent
three non-consent for consent for
consent
five non-consent five non-consent six
consent
six consent seven consent seven consent
eight non-consent eight non-consent nine
non-consent
nine non-consent and consent
um that's okay ten consent sorry i
thought it was a first read
uh 11 on consent 11 consent and 12 non
consent
12 non-consent thank you
hey thank you have a good night yeah you
too thank you
thank you mayor have a good one me too
thank you