[Music]
thank you
good afternoon everybody on zoom and the
public
welcome to our meeting our special
meeting it's august 27
2020. um i'm pleased if you would stand
and join me in the pledge of allegiance
i 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
okay next on the agenda is the conflict
of interest statement
um is there any member of city council
city managers staff
have a known conflict of interest
on any item on the agenda none
none man pretend
none for me concert sword
city manager okay cnn
mayor pro tem yes yeah
there's a delay in every command i give
my phone or even the computer too
things are slow so we have to be patient
thank you
i'll be patient i have patience thank
you counselor store for the reminder
okay i just want to let you know i'm on
uh oh good okay man
we've just begun
resolutions and ordinances 2.1 thank you
mayor
oh but i'll let you run the medium
airport okay
i said i'll go ahead and let you run the
meeting okay okay i didn't hear that
part
sorry point one resolution
number 21-03
resolution approving an adjusted
quarterly financial report to the new
mexico department of finance
and administration for the period ending
june 30th 2020
um mr moosh
well good afternoon mayor pro our mayor
and mayor pro kim and council we greatly
appreciate you
um helping us out and having this
special meeting this is going to be a
tag
team along with our finance
director ms terry gehart i'm going to
bring the share my screen
and bring up the presentation and she is
going to be
starting the presentation
do we have a motion to approve the uh
resolution
i was just going to ask if there was a
motion in a second
well i'll do it well thank you do we
have
to approve the resolution
made the motion to have a second a
second
a beta study thank you um second
is made by um counselor beta suvi
okay leanne thank you i'm going to turn
it over to
miss terry gehart she will start us off
terry thank you very much mayor mayor
pro tem and the counselors
we're talking about our dfa quarterly
report for the period ending
june 30th 2020.
can we advance the slide
in new mexico the new mexico state law
requires mandates
that the department of finance and
administration for the state
uh requires periodic financial reports
from local
public entities the city of las cruces
files quarterly financial reports with
the dfa
local government division
leanne
leanne will you advance this thank you
the dfa utilizes these reports to
determine
compliance with our approved budget and
to determine if we have stayed within
budget the fourth quarter report
indicates that we have met
these criteria now leanne is going to
take on the balance
of this presentation
mayor and mayor pro tem there are
requirements
dfa does require us to send them
along with this report as a resolution
attached to it it's the only time
that we actually have to attach a
resolution
for a quarterly report like this it's
always done
at the end of the period we did do this
just uh to let you know
if you're thinking didn't we already do
this we did
we did it back in july however
we had some issues and we'll get into
that in a few minutes
but dfa has given us an extended
deadline for submission
uh for tomorrow and that is why we've
asked for this special
um council meeting for today
so what is um so what the reason that
we're actually
adjusting we're not adjusting the city's
report
we're adjusting the reporting system in
dfa okay dfa requires that
um and i apologize for all the many
dates in here okay
but just sort of see if you can
visualize this
um dfa requires that the fourth
quarter financials for fy 2020
that was last fiscal year we're in
fiscal year 21 right now
they require that the fourth quarter
reporting
ending balance okay on
june the 30th matches our
fy 2021 beginning balances
okay and the fourth quarter report
and our budget balances these are all
unaudited projections we use
projections as you know when we
end the fiscal year we actually
close the year several times throughout
july because we're
still paying bills we're still
processing
uh we may have services or as
you know we may have items that come in
we need to pay those bills because they
need to show
in the current year that these bills
come in so
you know we're evolving we're always
constantly going
this last quarter report that we did for
you
we actually ran the port report and sent
it to dfa
of course with the resolution but it was
run on july the 10th
again that was unaudited projections our
beginning balances for our fy
20 those are all projections we do our
budget as you know we're getting ready
to start fy 2022
so all of those are the best projections
that we can
we're always very very close i have to
tell you
that but dfa in their reporting system
they require that the ending
balance matches the beginning
of fy21 so what finance had to do was
they had to go in there
and adjust dfa's
report for the fourth quarter to match
the budget's fy 2021 beginning
budget balances okay
so with that i'm going to turn it back
over to
miss gehart and then we'll have
questions after that
on the preliminary results they have not
changed from
the report as of july 10th uh revenue
for the general fund is 117 million
expenditures are 97 million all
other funds are 260 million and the
expenditures are 241 million
and your options are
to approve deny a mender table
and mayor mayor putin there was one
thing that i meant to
add to the adjusted dfr
report i will let you know that we did
budget and finance had a conversation
with the
donny quintana who is the dfa
director we had a very nice conversation
with him
he understands that this is um
not the best reporting system for dfa
he realizes that there are some
issues with their reporting system he's
sort of new to dfa
he came in uh when you know of course
with the new governor
he has asked us along with the city of
albuquerque
to be part of a work group to
help them to with this system
to actually i think they're actually
even considering
purchasing a new system that will work
for cities
just like the city of las cruces the
city of albuquerque the city of santa fe
actually i think poor mr quintana that
day was going down a list
of talking to a lot of different cities
that were having the same exact issues
that we were so i just want you to know
this is not
um typically when we had this issue in
the past we could write a letter to dfa
we would you know inform council that
they didn't match
uh but this year they have become a lot
more stricter in this
he said i realized that the system is
fallible
uh it's not the best system in the world
but it is what it is
and so we promised that we would be
taking this adjustment to council
so that way they would approve our final
budget for fy 2021.
thank you leanne and terry are much
appreciated
is there any questions
looking through the long list of
participants i don't see any questions
i have one question um when you say
adjusted um what does that
entail or more specifically to this
particular
experience terry in the end what did you
have to adjust
paying out the bill i mean tell me what
that process was like
leanne i think you can explain that
better what what was in
in the adjustments
you're unmute leanne
[Music]
hello
leanne she's trying
she's trying to we all have to apologize
um so what they so what happens is in
their reporting system
um we report our actuals um
our actual revenues we report our
actual expenditures um
there is a column in there that is
called receivables
and payables so what they were asking us
to do was they were asking us
you know debits think of it as debits
and credits as well but receive
they call them receivables and payables
so what they were asking
us to do was to go into these
receivables and payables
to make the adjustment to
so that way we could we could see what
our projected final balance was
in the quarter four put that adjustment
in
as a receivable or a payable so that way
the
the bottom number matches our beginning
balance
for the budget
and this is only in their mayor
mayor putin
thank you leanne okay let's see
oh um or counselor beta stevie sorry
thank you mayor pro tem um i had a quick
question about delivery since
there is it looks like a close deadline
for tomorrow
what is that method of delivery to make
sure that it arrives
at the appropriate time um
mayor mayor pro tem councillor steve
great question
their reporting system is open to us
they've
recently opened it so we could make
these adjustments
um once this uh once this resolution is
approved
all we have to do is we've already made
these changes
in their reporting system we take uh
we'll be actually taking this resolution
needs to be signed by the mayor and then
tomorrow we will just
upload it into their system it's a scam
okay fantastic thank you
thank you counselor bait this to be um i
don't believe i see
any other questions okay
um christine please call the role
this is on a motion to approve
resolution 21-037
counselor beta stevie yes
counselor vasquez yes
ben cuomo yes
counselor sorek yes
councillor flores is absent councilor
gandala
yes mayor yes
okay next on the agenda agenda is 2.2
resolution number
21-038 a resolution authorizing the city
of las cruces
city to upset a budget adjustment for
emergency assistance for the
impact from coven 19 to various programs
from the telstra facility fund
for a million four hundred thousand
through
an amendment to the city's adopted
fiscal year
2020 budget may i get a motion
and a second so moved
second motion made by um counselor ben
como in second by
councillor vasquez up on the cue natalie
green
good afternoon mr mayor mayor ganda city
councilors and city staff natalie green
for the record with community
development
the resolution before you is the
approval of a budget adjustment
which will cover emergency assistance
for
covid relief
just a little background the council has
won
covet is out there right the state of
new mexico
declared a public health emergency in
early march since then our council has
been very responsive to the needs of the
community
and has approved three funding
resolutions totaling
just just under 1.9 million
in various resolutions and those
resolutions provided funding for
direct financial assistance to the
community housing supportive services
food and nutrition assistance we did
some masks
and ppe distributions
uh utility assistance and some economic
development initiatives
and we all recognized that kobit
continues to pose a threat to the health
safety and well-being
of the community and there's an
additional need to provide
expanded supportive services the actual
budget adjustment will be a transfer
from the telstra facility fund
to the health care services fund in the
amount of 1.4 million
and again that'll provide some for some
critical services
as a result of copied across the las
cruces community
the first uh allocation is going to be
to some of our community partners we are
review
uh renewing a couple of initiatives that
council
previously funded and also funding some
new initiatives
the first is going to be fyi they're
going to do some
expanded food initiatives and a harm
reduction initiative
casa is going to continue to support our
victims of domestic violence with
housing and emergency shelter
as you know we've seen an increase in
the need for those services
in light of kovid and that also goes the
same for la pinon
um the sexual assault
supportive service provider in our
community casa de peregrinos is
uh going to be providing some food
assistance
community of hope will continue to
provide some rapid rehousing homeless
prevention morgan
mortgage and housing assistance staff is
looking to develop an rfp for a homeless
outreach coordinator and that will be
funded
through that we recognize that as
the financial impacts of covid hit our
community more and more people
are at risk of homelessness and we just
need
an agency that can can help us with that
caa will continue to do their thriving
families which is a direct financial
assistance program
and that helps cover things like
mortgage and rent utilities car payments
on those financial needs that many of
our families and our community are faced
with
we're looking in terms of new
programming
to partner with the boys and girls club
currently they have a
one to five ratio and in their current
facility
they can only serve 25 children so we're
looking to
for a new facility or or sorry not a new
facility but we're looking to expand
into either a city facility or another
community facility
and hire additional staff so we can help
those families that have
uh households that need to return to
work
and need assistance with either school
time or child care and that also goes
for the child care assistance program
that we'll be partnering with caa that's
a pilot program it is new programming
the idea is to help households who
need to return to work with child care
assistance
and that'll that'll help some of our
local daycares
catholic charities will continue their
coven 19 relief anti-poverty fund again
that's direct financial assistance to
families
if they need help with housing um rent
utilities food so they they're doing
that
we've also added what we're calling a
non-profit reserve
we couldn't identify all the projects
that council wants to fund so we are
going to do a small rfp
for small projects through smaller
agencies that aren't a regular
partners so that would be something like
loaves and fishes or other initiatives
that council was interested in funding
again that's going to be subject to
an rfp process and they'll have to
conform with the requirements
of of the city
internally we are going to increase the
utilities assistance fund
in the amount of 150 000
and then quality of life we're going to
support many of their mascot and
community events and then we're also
going to
do ppe for city employees and
some rapid covid tests and again that
totals 1.4 million
um you have your standard council
options i have some more detailed slides
if council has some questions on
particular programs
but i'll stand for questions thank you
natalie
much appreciated i see um counselor at
bethesduvidi has a question
and counselor bincomo
yes thank you um and thank you natalie
for this
um i do have a couple items that i would
like to see more in depth
the first one being with fyi
with the meals and food initiatives
and what does that program look like
this time around
so it is going to be not only the
mayor's meals where we do food
distribution across the
community but we're also looking to do
the meal voucher program
and that that is a program we funded
last
time it would be an expanded rfp to our
local
uh restaurants will ensure that they are
within
uh city limits and that they're locally
owned and operated
and their harm reduction initiatives are
to assist some high risk individuals who
have been deeply affected by the
pandemic
we've seen an increase in hiv and hep c
and drug use so it would be supporting
additional testing
possible syringe exchange and acute
detox and i forgot to mention that many
of the agencies are in the audience if
if my answers aren't sufficient they're
able to provide more information
thank you very much um with the rfp with
the local restaurants i know
um we had talked about um
and i don't know how this process works
but we want to make sure that we're
reaching as many of our restaurants as
possible
and the potential that some were able to
receive stuff in the first round
but making sure that we expand enough so
that
kind of everybody gets a chance to to
have that help
and so we'll will those that received an
rfp in the first round be able to
receive an rfp
in the second
mr mayor councillor bait this duvet that
direction
could come from council if we don't want
to fund
agencies that have already got it we can
select
new recipients i also have some ideas on
how we can outreach more
through our business registration we
keep track of all the restaurants that
register within the city
when it was advertised last time i
believe it was advertised
through facebook and it did get about
sixteen thousand views
so we can also provide when that rfp
goes out to
city council if they would like to share
at large with their own
email distribution list as well that's
great um
personally i do think it would be
wonderful to be able to help a new set
of
uh restaurants in our community to try
to expand
that help to other um of those local
businesses that are
that are working really hard to try to
remain open
um the second portion
um with catholic charities uh you talked
about
um it also helping with utilities
will their help be directed more towards
like
um utilities like towards el paso
electric
um or will they be um
offering assistance for city staff too
since i don't want
there necessarily to be like a
duplication if we're able to assist in
different ways but just making sure that
we're
communicating well between all those
different places
mr mayor councillor bait this duvet we
will notify the agency so they are aware
that
the city already has a utility
assistance program
so that way they can assist in the other
areas i'd have to defer to utilities i
don't know if members of the public can
get assistance more than once but that's
maybe where catholic charities would
step in is to provide additional
assistance as necessary but we will
ensure that there's not a duplication
okay great and um if somebody
from utilities would be able to answer
if um
if a person comes back a second time
will they be able to get assistance
since some of these
those that are they're facing this you
know it's not necessarily going away so
i suspect that they might have to have
assistance for more than one month
mr chairman councillors i i will have uh
mr stephen valdez is the
manager of our billing he's been doing a
very good job in uh
managing this assistance program so
stephen can you explain and answer the
question from the council please
yes hi uh good afternoon dr
mayor pro team counselors yes absolutely
if
uh if a customer comes in uh first time
to get assistance and we
evaluate the account and they're asking
for an assistance a second time
we do not turn them away we evaluate the
account without whatever
if it would be medical if it would be
anything regarding
i lost a job anything that helps the
customer get back on track
we will definitely assist them a second
time but it has to be evaluated
to be sure what the what the reasoning
for the second assistance would be
fantastic thank you miss trivaldos
thank you thank you natalie
um my next uh question is about the
rapid testing um and then
are we purchasing those tests are we
purchasing to have
the rapid tests are we working with the
doh i'd just like to have a little bit
more explanation on that portion
mr mayor councillor break the stewie
natalie green again for the record
it we are going to um
utilize an existing contract we have uh
with with the contractor already and so
i believe city
funding would help pay for those tests
but i'm going to defer to barbara
because she's more familiar with the
proposal that was
shared with the city
very good barbara de leon interim
assistant city manager for the record
and with respect to the rapid testing
we're very excited that this
um opportunity was brought to us by our
partner
workmed who currently helps us with
our workers comp and drug testing some
other
uh return to work testing that's that's
required
and they indicated to us that they had
the capability
of doing rapid tests not only for
um the active virus but also for
antibodies
and um as natalie noted in her slide
we'll be able to uh have results within
two hours
of a test this is particularly critical
for our first responders and critical
infrastructure workers because
the current cdc guidance is such that if
they are exposed
um they may not have to or be able to
isolate depending on the nature of the
work that they're doing so it's even
more important
that we know as quickly as possible
whether they
are coveted positive
so we're going to prioritize the test
for
these categories of employees but they
will be available to
all employees again through our work med
vendor we have a current contract with
work med
so we can immediately um start the
rapid testing and then you're going to
see a re
a new contract for work med come to you
on september 8th
because the current contract is expiring
at the end of september so we don't want
to have a
loss in the continuity of those services
so you'll be seeing that come forward
as as well but yes we will be we do have
an existing contract we can use
we're putting sops in place um so that
we can deploy this
and as soon as the budget is approved
we'll be able to
um start that process
thank you barbara um and then i assume
by approving
um the funding for this um obviously
then there would be no cost
associated um to the employee who has to
get
tested um yes
uh mayor pro
for the record there is a cost for the
test the city will be bearing the cost
and then this is an eligible expense for
reimbursement
as well we're both from both fema and
the cares grant
so we're going to be tracking it very
carefully um so that we can
get reimbursed for these expenditures
but there will not be a cost that will
be borne
by the employee fantastic thank you
and i just wanted to say i know it's
something that i've talked with
um uh interim manager uh
david maestas about but i'm very happy
to see um
the child care assistance on here i know
that it's been
um very hard for parents um
to balance everything and having kids
home and it's
some days it feels unmanageable and it
is very much so for a lot of these
families that are trying to work
um teach their kids and they don't have
the resources
to be able to pay for child care or
nannies or
private schools that is very difficult
or they have medically factual children
that can't be put
in those types of situations so i'm very
glad that we're going to see
um the help here um is there
a certain way that we're going to um
kind of uh let uh the public know about
this assistance
that what type of outreach are we going
to do for this one
mr mayor councillor bethesda we will
work with community action agency to
advertise
with the public we have not worked out
the specific logistics of
how that's going to work again all of
these
allocations will require additional
contract amendments so
as we work through those contracts we'll
sort of work out the the nuances and
those finer
details but we'll keep council apprised
of
of when those initiatives roll out so
again that way
you can advertise and then we can do
some advertising on our end
thank you natalie and thank you to all
of the city staff for working
um to put these initiatives together
and thank you mayor pro time thank you
councillor avedas to the council ben
cuomo
thank you mayor pro tem um and yes
thanks to
councillor stevie those were great
questions a couple of my ass as well
um and thanks to all the um
community organizations here with us
today thanks for
i know you're very busy right now so
thanks for
joining us um and thanks natalie for
that presentation
um yeah so i also actually want to
um sort of second and agree with
uh counselor rebeca stevie regarding um
the restaurant through the fyi program
through the meals program
i i would personally like to see this
second round
of those vouchers be um that we partner
with
a new set of restaurants um and so i
appreciate that
also the new guidelines natalie in terms
of
um city limits um i think there was one
other
one i think you know making sure
those continue but then yes i'd like to
see a whole new set of restaurants and
then
just to be diligent in terms of like you
know restaurants that have
more than one location that those still
count as one restaurant and not two
separate restaurants
um i think that you know i i think it
covers
more ground for what we're intending to
do which is support
um some local businesses um
so i don't know does that need to ha
does that need to have some sort of
official amendment or is it just
direction
counselor ben cuomo this is uh this is
ken so
yes we're going to need a an amendment
to that and
as to what you what it is that you would
like to do and
um amendment to you know the motion to
to change the the lineup i guess you
could say
mayor i i saw natalie shaking her head
oh what'd she say mr mayor councillor
ben como
so the resolution before you is just an
approval of the budget adjustment
to fund these activities so um we won't
need
an official amendment but staff did take
notation and we'll work that and
ensure it's in the contract with the
agency when we provide the funding oh
great
good great thank you both um and then
just for my own clarification
so um natalie you mentioned that up to
now the city had um provided about 1.9
million dollars in funds from the
telstra fund right
is that what you said uh mr mayor
councillor ben como
it's 1.8 from the telstra fund but
council may remember that they provided
an additional allocation to economic
development initiatives out of the
general fund
so all together it would be about just
under 1.9
okay and then this new set of funds is
coming
from the recent application to the state
from
cares funding
mr mayor councillor bencomo natalie
green again for the record
i don't know if amy basford or city
manager's office
uh is on the line i believe that they
applied
uh to the state cares act to be
reimbursed i'm not sure
um the city will bear the cost if it's
not
reimbursed i believe okay um may i
pretend my sadly and
raise her hand or david yeah david did
so david thank you david maestas interim
city manager
counselor ben cuomo uh i will defer to
leanne afterwards if she has anything to
add
we do have staff from the grants office
in the meeting aaron sharat
who's been looking and working on our
cares act potentials
this funding the authorization that
council will approve today will be
funding from the telstra fund
however everything that is reimbursable
we will
reach out for and we will try to get
every funding
availability from the state that we can
get and from the federal government
and if we do get money that reimburses
what's been approved here
as well as previous authorizations from
the telstra fund
then we will reimburse the telstra fund
wonderful thank you for that
clarification david i appreciate it
you're welcome thank you um and then
natalie can you go to the slide with all
the organizations listed
i think you had one like that
uh mr mayor councillor ben como the i
don't know if it was this one this one
is all
the agencies that we previously provided
funding
to it does not include the new agencies
that we're providing funding
okay oh that's okay so i just want to
make sure that
um just to reiterate i just want to make
sure that
these agencies and some of the new ones
from the second round
um that all of these are
these funds will be available for
undocumented folks as well
there is no necessarily social security
requirement to
to get any of these funds
counselor uh i don't believe that that's
allowable i don't think that was the
case the first time and
i don't i think that some of these
um the amounts that went out like for
example from the
community foundation there were some
private donors and
i think that's what they were using to
give those that were undocumented
i don't believe we're allowed to to do
this i'll let natalie jump in but
that was my understanding mr mayor
councillor ben cuomo the city has a
directive on serving
non-national citizens and we can serve
undocumented individuals when it is in
the interest to protect
uh life and safety so many of these
initiatives fall within that exception
um especially the food the sexual
assault services our domestic violence
services so they
they can be served by many of these
agencies
and then if they're not necessarily
served with with our funding they are
still served by the agencies with their
own funding
okay thank you natalie for that i
appreciate that
um i was also very happy to see this so
many the new child
care options available i've had several
calls about
um some of that i'm curious about um
i think you mentioned too right the boys
and girls club and then community action
agency
um i know of of course all the limits
but what's the
capacity for each of those to be like
how
approximately how many kids will they be
able to
um to see how many families will be able
to
be served through some of these child
care funds
uh mr mayor councillor ben cuomo we are
still working that out
a lot of it depends um in boys and girls
club case is
if we can find another facility we're
also awaiting
uh the governor's directive today to see
if she will allow them
to increase their ratios because right
now they're at a one to five ratio so
for every staff member they can only
serve
five children and they have to be at
like separate ends of the building
with caa again it's going to depend on
we did an average cost of daycare cost
so we haven't
worked out how many can be assisted we
think it's
uh if we do six weeks of assistance
it'll be about 100 households if we do
12 weeks of assistance it's uh 50
households
okay again on an average of of what day
care costs
were i don't know if they're still about
um 125 a week
okay yeah that's that's so tough to hear
right i
i feel for so many families that don't
don't have a lot of options right now
so i'm glad that this is you know that
we're doing this i hope
that we can support these organizations
and expanding as much as possible
in terms of the building for boys and
girls club is that
is the city looking for the building and
then the city will
lease rent out what how does that work
um mr mayor councillor ben como i'm
going to defer to david don since i saw
him turn on his camera
but before i do boys and girls club is
still evaluating it
it would it would be easier to provide
one of our own buildings since those are
in
in our control they have approached the
schools but the schools were hesitant um
to offer up their gymnasium because if
it's
if it's safe for boys and girls club
then shouldn't it be safe for
children who are going to school so um
they're really hesitant about what that
message would be
but again i'll defer to mr dalahan
mr mayor councillor ben como that's
still to be
figured out we are waiting on the
revised public health order because that
also affects
city facilities and city programs parks
and rec
has start restarted some of their
programs but again because the public
health orders are limited on
size so we're we're going to have to
work together with both parks and rec
and the public schools and and with boys
and girls club as to find the right
place
um we have city needs already in place
that still serve the community
on a regular basis that we're looking at
i just had a discussion this morning
with
parks direct director sonia delgado
about trying to get into the schools
the schools have taken the position that
this
state the governor's public health order
has essentially prohibited them from
allowing people in the building so
they're not allowing us into the
building we are evaluating
other mechanisms for us as well to
expand our programs
including the potential for child care
licensing i need to discuss that with
city management
so those are all things we're going to
have to figure out um as to where and
what we can do
um the schools would be the ideal
situation but
we'll we'll cross that bridge when we
get there but we'll have to work all
these out
everybody's in the same boat we're
trying to figure out how many people we
can serve to the maximum potential
and still comply with the gathering
requirements the spacing and
and staffing requirements um more to
come sorry okay
here i look forward to those updates on
that
um in terms of child care for city staff
specifically i've noticed that a lot of
city staffers
are i think they're still home david i
think you're home natalie
maybe you as well i'm not sure uh no
jesus
um i'm curious about the support that
city staff
across all departments are getting in
terms of
child care and you know what that looks
like
some mr mayor if i may we're still
um working on that i i'm not in a child
care situation i don't have children at
home other than the fur babies
um as they can disrupt the meeting
but um we're trying to accommodate staff
as much as possible we have extended to
them
the federal requirements of extended
fem fmla or no emergency fmla extension
we still have staff who are working on
that for both uh
who are under that pr protection for
both
child care and school care for their
children
some of the staff are doing remote work
and that
so they're they're splitting time so we
are still
um we're obligated to accommodate them
and we are still doing so um i'm not
aware we i think we'd have to survey
those
staff persons that are having child care
situations i know
natalie and i were in a discussion the
other day and she was coming in late
because of getting school started and so
forth before she made it into the office
and doing some homeschooling activities
so each person and household situation
is unique and we're we're trying to be
as accommodating as possible
that doesn't mean that there aren't
holes that we couldn't try to fill
but i i can't speak that would be
an assumption on my part and purely
anecdotal
okay thanks david and maybe this is from
mr myses
i would personally love to see some sort
of survey
be done and so that we can understand
how city staff are
um are handling some of the
their child care needs as well um
and so you know we can talk that off
offline
for sure but i think that that's
something to me as we're having this
conversation
um as much as we can do to support city
staff
in this situation particularly around
child care i think we should
explore those options um
uh let's see the question the i had
another question about the non-profit
reserves
natalie was is that 75 000 total
or is 75 000 per rfp
uh mr mayor councillor ben cuomo it
would be total so we're looking to do
some
small grants probably about
10 000 10 to 15 000.
again uh every grant that we give to an
outside agency does present
uh an administrative burden to staff
because it requires the same contracting
as a
200 000 contract
[Music]
so uh we're we're still working to flush
that out those agencies uh
will have to demonstrate their fiscal
and organizational capacity to meet
um our insurance requirements our audit
requirements
and and be able to uh survive on
reimbursement
so again we don't pay those funds up
front they they expend the funds
and then bill us okay
okay mayor and councilman i would offer
if we
we saw a a brilliant proposal to serve a
need
that exceeded that we could always
because 75 000 is our
co the city manager's contracting limit
we could always bring that contract
to city council for approval and at the
same time
address any funding shortfall that we
may have
that that's not our our desire we it
does take time to move
money out the door and and as natalie
said the administrative
components and getting it under contract
but
that is an option to us depending on
what is proposed or submitted within the
from the community and if we feel like
there's a great need and it's
addressing a great need then we can we
have options available to us
and we can and we can get it to council
in relatively short order
no that makes sense i i think this is a
really great idea i mean
not all organizations have the capacity
their right to get
the kind of funds that perhaps fyi or
caa are able
to get and then distribute out um you
know i'm thinking of
uh fishes and loaves loaves and fishes
you know what i mean and then like el
calvario some of those organizations
that are
that have smaller capacity that could
but that are having just as much of an
impact right so that's really good
my last question is around um i know
last round
we partnered with the schools for to
provide
um wi-fi and like internet services
particularly for kids or households that
that were low-income
have we revisited that conversation um
do the schools still need that support i
mean you know
i definitely fear for the students that
um you know that there's going to be an
even wider educational gap
at the end of covid with low-income kids
low-income families who don't
necessarily have access to good internet
potentially more than one computer
i think the schools are trying to give
out some technology right but
what's the have we had have we gone back
to lcps and had a conversation with them
about
what kind of support they need from us
uh mr mayor councillor bin come on i'm
gonna defer to
i believe alfredo or barbara
when we last spoke with the schools we
were waiting
we executed the contract and we were
providing the funding
in fy 2021 because i believe comcast was
giving
free internet until the end of september
so
i will defer to them
thank you now thank you natalie um yes
mayor ameritem and counselor bencoma
barbara deleon for the record
so the contract that we just executed
with the school
actually goes through october of
of 2020 so it was a contract for july
through
october um and we can definitely revisit
with them i know that the needs are
evolving
and we certainly need to stay in touch
to to understand what additional support
they may need
but we yeah we just entered into a july
through october
contract but we will uh we will make
outreach
thank you barbara um and that's it thank
you so much mayor ameritem
i think david had a comment david
oh no i guess not okay
okay david interim city manager uh i was
in discussions with dr karen trujillo
recently too and the main area of focus
that we had in that discussion here
recently was their
resource officers uh so that is another
area where the city is working with them
uh to assist at this time because if any
of you read in the newspaper it's been
difficult for the school board
and the surrounding communities with
respect to
not school not being in session but
still needing to have resource officers
available so
we did work with them on that to help
assist with the situation
thank you okay thank you
counselor sword thank you mr mayor um
and thank you all that have been
presented here and
uh also i want to show my agreement with
the
counselors of beta stevie and come on
um they are asking many of the same
questions
i would like to ask and plus many more
and it's good to have two experts in
this field here
on our council to
uh help us understand all these things
issue
that was mentioned that we have new
restaurants in this
this go around um but i wanted to ask
if anybody on staff or on the council
knows whether or not
el paso electric has uh uh
utility payment assistance to its uh
to its uh customers
mayor councillor sorg they do have it's
not with el paso electric but it is
liheap
and that helps cover um electric bill
i don't know if lynn since you work for
the department of health might know
more about that i believe it's run
through them
mr mayor counselor sorg it's
it's a lie heap and it's administered
through the department of human services
for the state of new mexico
i don't believe they have a specific
program in new mexico i have seen
advertisement in their texas program
that they have a direct program for
assistance in el paso
okay thank you but in new mexico there
it's incumbent on
state agency assistance
counselor serge was that it
comes from are you finished
gotcha got you okay and then uh question
no no no why would i be finished
um i have one more question and that is
the rapid test that you were talking
about
i wondered if uh uh that is a saliva
test
natalie
let me review my notes and if barbara
knows the answers maybe she can jump in
before i
do
mayor mayor pro tem and counselor sorry
i'm reviewing the same
uh documentation that was provided to me
by our
risk manager um carl conley
but i i do not know if it's a saliva
test cancer sorgh
so i will have to follow up with that um
okay
i'm assuming that it is not but i don't
know that for sure
okay because i know that the saliva test
is very fast
it's within an hour or two you can get
the results that's why
you said that good question yes so i'll
get that information for
for you okay thank you thank you very
much and then the last comment all i
want to do is
make is that i'm glad aaron sharad is
working on this
i know he'll do a good job
congratulations that he is uh
part of our staff and and uh doing this
work
thank you mayor mayor pro in the whole
council
okay and next we go to mayor pro 10
thanks mayor um thanks natalie and again
um everybody else that has spoken um
comes from bingo moon counselors to be
had excellent questions
um and feedback um
basically i wanted to
ask about um
the child care um assistance
i'm assuming that's going to go through
caa
but um is
is i i want to encourage
um the linkages made
through the success partnership engaged
you know they're doing
some remarkable work with
early ed and kind of child care
assistance i'm a little
concerned that we are already
um stressing a system
that that really for a decade or so
doesn't have
the the necessary programming
in terms of the quantity we've we've
always been lacking in that
so um i i know that laurie martinez and
and i i think i saw don on the line i'm
sure that they they know each other and
have had
lots of conversations and so just wanted
to
to to make mention and i'm certainly
with
the idea of the survey for the
for the city but also um
before staff i think it's so important
and i love
and often have advocated for um the
possibilities of offering child care
assistance in our office right in the
main
office um you know re-remodeling a place
at
city hall that people can bring their
kiddos to
um you know lots of surveying and data
that shows
you know productivity just increases um
quite a bit so i i i'm with counselor
bingo mo on the
idea of surveying our our um staff i
think it's
really important that we do that um
i wanted to ask specifically um about
um also
the from fyi the harm reduction
services will those be um with
um for adults as well and
also what i'll stop there so they can
someone can answer that
mr mayor i'm gonna defer to
fyi i believe it is
miss fiero she can answer more specific
questions
well i think brian cavanaugh is here
also but
good afternoon this is uh jolene
martinez i'm the ceo from families and
youth incorporated ms fierro is out on
leave today so i'm here to speak in her
place
to answer that question um
all our syringe services and prevention
services are for adults
and so i believe we have
maybe one or two children that come and
seek
needle exchange services and we don't
turn them away but generally involve
their adult parents um for consent in
that exchange but all our harm reduction
services are offered to adults
can i uh interrupt real quick looks like
jennifer raised her hand jennifer vega
brown did you have something you needed
to add
jennifer
thank you mayor and council i'm sorry to
interrupt i just wanted to
i just got an answer from carl about the
um rapid test
it is a a blood test it's just a small
pinprick and it's a blood test not a
saliva test
okay thanks sorry about that julian
thank you miss martinez i appreciate
that clarification
i also know um that you've been working
on
um some a program
or project as um everything is move
is moving into using um you know
telehealth virtual
that many of our adult clients or
citizens don't have the opportunity in
their
home because of technology or spacing
to be able to have a one-on-one with a
counselor
again i'm deeply concerned about the
ability
or an ability for all of us to provide
um
consistent um counseling services
is there um anything that you're doing
since i have you on the line it doesn't
seem like it's part of this
particular initiative that that we might
be able to help you with
moving forward
thank you mayor mayor pro tem candidate
for the question
right now what we're doing is adapting
pretty much every service that we
deliver in the organization and
transforming it not just for current
covet adaptations but
the anticipation of the long lasting
impacts that it will have on the
behavioral health and mental health
system
we are looking at some basic
infrastructural changes and equipment
technology adaptations
but certainly for the sustainability of
those things could use any support
that we might be able to garner from the
council or from the city
but we certainly are planning for it as
much as we can
and looking to expand our services and
our especially our service identity
historically we've been known as a child
and youth serving organization and we
really want to
continue to expand the community's
knowledge on the adult services that we
provide
and all the different continuum services
that we provide so thank you for the
question airport tim
thank you thank you appreciate that
again
everybody knows that one of my focus
has been on um behavioral health uh
and is i continue to all of us right as
we
respond to um this coveted pandemic
it continues to be something of a
concern there's
um you know our suicide rates are up um
there are um i i don't have to remind
you the violence that
we have had in the last month or two
with very young people
and being victims and or
[Music]
you know perpetrating violence
um that's we all
have a huge role in responsive to play a
huge role in responsibility
in that and i want to make sure
especially now
via covid that we're providing the
necessary
um resources to these um
our community partners to make sure that
um
people know and again i um thank you
concer
about the stupid for um i think outreach
is going to be
so important um and especially using the
plot this
social media platforms as well and so
you know when you have everything um
sort of situated in terms of the kinds
of services that would really like us to
partner with our pio to get
not only our social media
platforms but radio um and and print
um i think being able to say just how
many
you know this this the kind of response
counsel has had
the the numbers of folks that we have
actually
touched and helped um it is
is no easy thing and and so i want to
make sure that the
staff city is getting um you know the
the kudos that that that that i think is
so
very important um lastly natalie i
haven't heard too much about
um donaiana communities united
um and sort of i don't see them on this
round of
um but the last time i asked they were
sort of gearing up
and i haven't heard much about what
they've been able to
do um i think it's important to make
mention of that
and then um with the the partnership
we've had
with cruz's creatives um sort of
what they've been able to do around mass
you could just give us a brief rundown
of those two
uh mr mayor mayor pro temp gandada um
so it's been a while since i've talked
to both agencies i did not
include them in this round of funding
because they still had existing funding
so
until they exhaust those funds
we staff didn't feel there was a need to
provide additional funding
i will follow up with them and and get
you something within the next couple
days
um that'll be great thank you doc you
did have last i checked with them
um about 20 to 30 matches and
um it's been uh
it's been a successful pilot program for
them
yeah that i i know they're they
it's such a remarkable resource that is
sort of a hidden treasure and
i i think being able to highlight what
they've been able to do
especially during covet again i continue
to be
concerned about um people in isolation
especially our elderly um that don't
quite meet
some of the guidelines for our senior
services
um and and um so
i i know i said lastly but uh finally
um i i do want to ask about any
particular funding related to economic
recovery
um i i know that i've been in several
meetings
with economic policy review committee
but
and our economic recovery board
and and i know that they're doing some
really awesome things
like helping businesses pivot to be more
e-commerce
and and um or getting you know get
getting sort of the technical assistance
giving out technical assistance to these
um small businesses that need to get
more web you know a web design a web
page
those kinds of things i i didn't see
anything here and i don't want to forget
about our our small businesses not just
only for the rfp
for the local restaurants um for meals
and such but
i if there is a a space here to be able
to
highlight um you know maybe giving
additional funding
to assist and that i think is is
so important i believe that was a
partnership that was occurring with
the city and arrowhead
mr mayor mayor uh pro tem gundam
generally those type of initiatives are
not going to come out of the telstra
fund
because it goes into the health care
fund and it's tied to that specific
definition
that was adopted by council so economic
development
funds that comply with the anti-donation
would be funded out of the general fund
council did do a small allocation and i
believe francisco is on the line or
maybe griselda could give an update on
that
i also want to note uh and aaron may be
able to provide more information
but they did apply to the state cares
act to do
business sba small business assistance
and they could provide more information
on that so i will defer to either of
them if you would like more information
thank you very much natalie jess just as
a very quick update of some of the
initiatives that the department has been
undertaking and and i think that the
the program that you're referring to
is a partnership that we did with um
with the arrowhead center to create
an a business accelerator that would be
dedicated completely at businesses in
las cruces
uh called the disprint and yes they are
currently in the search for the second
cohort of businesses um the first cohort
was completely full
the second cohort is right now and in
the portions of going after
uh some of those businesses that will
benefit and again this is
complete mentorship to going to finding
your your
marketing strategy knowing how who to
speak to who to
book a complete mentorship for business
development as well as some component
and the extra three weeks that this
course lasts
for going in e-commerce another thing
that we were mentioning and and we are
in the process currently working through
um
through our administrative process to
engage in another agreement
also with the arrowhead center so that
businesses can be assisted
for their social media especially right
now madame protem
you know that the businesses have been
struggling or they have to be pivoting
so that they can capture some of the
customers that they could not previously
capture
some of the discussions that we have
with some of the partners specifically
with the green chamber of commerce among
some of the other partners
is that some of these businesses have no
idea
how to approach that specific market so
what we are planning to do and and we're
dedicating some funds to that
is to helping assisting 72 businesses
so that some students can be trained so
that they can assist some of these
uh businesses in in of course having the
backing of the arrowhead center
so that they train them in the proper
manner so that they teach them all they
have to do with
how to sending their product uh through
to facebook how to connect to customers
through facebook or through instagram
and just
some of the other uh ways in which they
can approach to this
the fundings that we had are for 72
businesses that's that's another one of
the approach
another one of the things that we worked
oh is the uh the live fund
which was the one that natalie was
referring to and they are currently
right now already teaching some of the
courses that are very very helpful just
as a very quick example
in one of the meetings that they had in
one of the earlier meetings
was the top five people you have to
speak with immediately as a business
owner
as soon as the pandemic started you have
to have contacted your landlord you have
to have contacted
uh your banker you have to have
contacted and and they ask questions how
many of you have contacted these five
people
some of the businesses did not even knew
that they could contact their landlord
to see if they could schedule some
payments or something like that
so we are assisting businesses in
providing lots of this information
uh of course there's always room for
improvement and any any any funding will
be very welcome
to continue some of these efforts and
assisting them so so those are just some
of the things that we have been working
on
along with all the other stuff the
e-blasts
connecting them to to some other funding
sources
uh another item and i think natalie
mentioned upon this
is that we are applying for uh the cares
act for the for the business continuity
grant
and we're still pending on on receiving
the news from the state
let's cross our fingers that there's
good news and and into the requests that
we had
but that's that's some of the
information that we have for right now
uh madam mayor for tim
thank you um dr payates i appreciate
that
just really exciting thank you for all
your work um
i do want us to encourage council
um and administration um our city
manager working with jennifer vega brown
um i know that we're worried about this
entire donation
and i of course we need to and i'm all
for her
making sure we're following that and not
breaking that um
but many of these businesses could fall
under um
you know um low income find themselves
um near homeless um
and and so they they they could qualify
for some of these other other services
so
what what i i just want to encourage um
dr bayatas
making sure that um our business
um you know through our business
registrations that they're aware
of these um these
particular nonprofits that could help
provide um
the the services both of course in
english and in spanish i think that is
is really important but i i i think when
we talk about
not mixing you know the telstra program
with the businesses um
i think i think we could look at this in
a in a different way
and help these folks because they are
individually citizens of our community
that are struggling um some
have put all their it's their livelihood
right they put all of their
resources in and i now have found
themselves in in a real predicament
just losing their their their livelihood
their business
their home you know those kinds of
things so um
i i know that we have to worry about the
anti-donation but i
i think there is a way that we could um
you know really look at this telstra
fund to assist them
um on an individual basis and so
i appreciate it um i'm dr bayatas
and and um thank you natalie for all
your work and for everybody on the call
thank you mayor pro tem see if i'm on
yeah
and let's see who's next counselor beta
stevie
thank you mayor um i had kind of a
follow-up question but it
uh counselor mayor pro-tem gandra
touched upon it
um with us being able to track
um kind of the first round of money that
we gave
um i know that at the city and with our
community partners
we've been working on large scale um
and if we have um
a member from even like casa de
peregrinos
the amount of meals and food they've
been able to deliver
with this type of funding that we've
been given
um and i'd love to be able to see um
even like a one pager that we can use
for transparency to show the community
um this is how this money has been spent
these are
this is the quantity of people that
we've been able to reach
because i think that's really important
and even here um
at the city too with our quality of life
department
our senior meals are and that type of
programming i just know that we're
working in very large quantities and i'd
love to be able to
show something with that
good idea
so you'd like to have that as a future
document
yes i think that'd be nice to have and
if we do have
if there is anybody on the call today
that could give us a couple of those
numbers just for us to know
um now and for anybody listening i think
that'd be
a good idea as well
um no takers
so let's just look for a future document
then
i i i can chime in if you wouldn't mind
this is ken for
cathy charities and so i wanted to for
the record
of the mayor and uh councillor beta
stouby i wanted to thank the council for
their generosity in
in helping these agencies our agencies
to support
the people that are affected by the
pandemic we were able to support
94 families the average uh
assistance was about 662 dollars per
family
we uh have many clients who what we call
our mixed status families
and so many of them are ineligible to
receive
federal stimulus checks um to receive
anything
uh unemployment benefits or any of the
benefits related to the cares act so
much the money that we gave away
really was impactful we gave a large sum
of money
to individuals that were in need of food
assistance what we were finding is
um as the food prices prices rose here
in las cruces many families were
traveling to el paso
to find cheaper sources of food but
unfortunately they were getting sick
and coming back into our communities so
we were providing a lot of
assistance to families that had the
virus that were getting the virus
we also provided a lot of support to
migrant families
that were working in the fields
particularly they were very concerned
about going back into the fields because
of the virus so we were able to provide
some protective gear for them
um and so there was a whole gamut of
folks that we helped
a lot of what we did is uh rent and
mortgage assistance
and some of these people were desperate
because they weren't receiving any
federal stimulus money
or anything so the money that we got
that you allotted to us
i believe made a great impact for all
members of the community so i wanted to
say thank you so much
thank you ken i appreciate that
okay um but i'm sure uh counselor beta
stevie i'm sure staff can put something
together in the next few weeks and
be able to send that out thank you yeah
okay councilor vasquez
thank you mayor uh thank you to my
fellow counselors for their wonderful
questions
uh just a couple things on my end uh
first i i think uh completely agree with
um having a new round of participants
in our food assistance program from our
local small business
uh restaurant community participating
this go-around and however we can make
sure that that happens
i think we absolutely should i did want
to throw
in another addition um
i know that the cat i think some of the
conditions were locally owned and within
city limits
but i talked about this before and i
think you know i really think we should
exclude franchises from this particular
relief fund
as i mentioned prior you know the cost
of entry
to a typical franchise for fast food
or you know national restaurant
is is anywhere between you know 600 000
to a million dollars
and and so although those are locally
those many of those are locally owned
i prefer to focus these funds on the
folks who may not have
uh the resources for the cost of entry
for a franchise and so
i would like to exclude also franchises
locally owned franchises from this
particular
round of funding because uh the folks
that are really struggling are those mom
and pop
stops that are trying to make things
work and
and probably didn't have the ability or
the resources to even uh
add patio dining or some of the other um
investments that that it required for
some of these businesses to stay afloat
during cobit and so
i would like to see that um
uh the and i would like to i would like
a follow-up on that as well
um just to make sure that we are we're
all in line uh and perhaps that can come
from
from fyi whenever they come up with
their
their outreach plan or the conditions to
which they distribute
these meal vouchers it would be great to
get an email with that document or with
that plan
just to make sure that that we're all on
the same page if this is the direction
that council wants to move in
um secondly i think
absolutely support the idea of a staff
survey um
you know with as many employees as the
city has i think we're kind of like a
little microcosm of
the workforce at large in the city
and so understanding what the issues are
within our own staff
whether it's child care uh whether it's
loss of income
um you know from a from a from a family
standpoint from a spouse or another
head of household or another person in
the house or any number of issues
related to covet health care costs
i think a survey of our staff that lets
us know what some of the issues are
related to being able to get back to
work will tell us about well tell us a
lot
about the the city at large in terms of
what the needs are in addition to what
what staff
um what our staff's needs are so i would
love to see that survey as well
perhaps presented at a future work
session or something similar
lastly i just want to thank want to
thank staff for
for you know being on their toes on this
i know this is obviously another
curveball that we've been throwing and
so
i'm very proud of the work that the
city's been able to do to get us to to
where we are
uh in lieu of not receiving the federal
funding that some of the bigger cities
have received
i think we've done a pretty good job um
of
of responding to the needs in our
community once again
uh but would also like to see the the
data and the metrics that counselor bait
the stubby mentioned as well
um you know to justify um not
necessarily to justify but just to make
sure that we're on the right track in
terms of where we're
where we're allocating funds uh it would
have been great to get an update from
all of the previous
funds that were used uh and have perhaps
organizations present
on how the funds were used how many
people were served the type of impact it
had in our community
um i think this would have been the
right meeting to have to have that
information
present um so that that we could have
made you know a better decision or a
more informed decision
when it comes to re-upping um some of
this help that we're providing
in the community um i don't doubt that
that the
respective organizations and our
community partners are doing their job
but
uh just seeing seeing seeing what the
impact is i think
um just you know would have would have
just uh
been a good thing to have today and it
might have actually let us know
you know where more and more resources
are needed um
if certain funds got exhausted faster
than others you know for example we
could have
we could have said hey you know let's uh
let's make sure we budget more for this
or for that
so something i look forward to seeing as
well as council rebate to still be
mentioned perhaps in a document
that comes to the council later
and i think that's all for me mayor
thank you okay thank you counselor mayor
portem you have a
comment
yes mayor thank you um i i appreciate
country vasquez saying that i
again i'm i am i i think
um data's really important i'm i'm
worried that
um we've lost a in the sense of
um community foundation not um
not just unable to write didn't have the
capacity
um with the funding to piggyback on the
funding that they were receiving from
the community
and so i i'm a bit challenged because
i think that money was used wisely
and they had i think a great system but
um
i'm wondering who is picking up
that that sort of
um service in terms of case managing
right managing
people that are coming in that need you
know rent relief mortgage relief
um um
or or whatever or whatever else and
i'm not sure if if there's been a
discussion i i know i had a
discussion with the community foundation
um miss winters and they're just not on
it um
you know they just don't have the
capacity to move forward so
um i i i would like to
to see an entity um sort of pick that up
and along
those same lines um i i think there's
many of businesses that are struggling
to
fill out forms um apply for karezak
they they they get they get uh and and
so
i've often have felt um if we could
partner with
some of these organizations maybe the
chain i don't i don't know
but that could help um sort of
help people um you know fill out those
forms that can get sometimes
really um difficult to do and maybe we'd
see
smaller businesses be able to get some
of the much needed funding
so um again just worried about a
central location and some organization
helping
manage um and each of i think the
nonprofits are doing
you know what they do specifically um
maybe for for their clients and maybe
other clients um but i i'm not sure if
there's an entity similar to that
natalie that
help um sort of um
you know streamline some of this funding
as well
thanks man nathan do you want to respond
mr mayor protege uh we did
double uh catholic charities allocation
to account
for um community foundation not being
able to
um assist us this time and uh caa also
helps fill that
with their thriving families program
good that's good that's good i'm happy
to hear that
natalie i guess the rfp for these mini
grants
what is your time frame how quickly can
we get that out
um i think again time is of essence so
do you have an idea of what that time
frame will look like for
that particular area
uh mr mayor mayor purcham canada not at
this time
um again we were just trying to get the
resolution passed
uh first and then we'll start working on
that development process
um we'll probably manage it similar to
our other rfps and those do not
take a substantial amount of time
so it could be anywhere from a couple
weeks to maybe a month
thank you thank you okay
um counselor vasquez did you have
another question or did you just forget
to put your hand down
uh yes ma'am just forgot to put my hand
down i'll do it now thank you
all right no problem okay well great
well i guess was mentioned by council
vasquez i want to just take a moment
thank staff for their
very thorough this was a very good list
that you put together and
uh really comprehensive and we really
appreciate it very much
okay so if there's nothing further
christine
this is on the motion to approve
resolution 21-038
councillor beta stevie yes
councillor vasquez yes
ben cuomo yes counselor sore
yes counselor flores is absent
counselor gandara yes mayor
yes okay before we adjourn
uh got some bittersweet news for you all
i'm i'm sure you all heard that
close to almost after 31 years uh
this individual this has decided to
retire i don't know why but
i know he loves his job and he's done a
fantastic job for us here at the
city las cruces and that's none other
than dr
jorge garcia director of utilities
so dr garcia this is your last official
meeting although
um we may have one more time to
say say farewell but this is the the
official meeting and i think many of the
council members would like to say
something and
i just want to tell you thanks for all
the years that that we've worked
together
and you you've just been a a
fantastic director uh
i i have to share something with council
after robert retired and
and um before we embarked on our
on our um journey for our city manager
i reached out to dr garcia because i
knew he could run the city easily and
um and he probably knew it too but he
loved utilities and he says you know i
really would like that opportunity but
utilities is his baby and
he just wanted to just to do that and so
he's done such a fantastic job i'm sure
you all know that
uh has taken our our utility department
from where it was
back when he started to what it is today
probably he sought after advice
throughout the state they always
recognize him
pretty general calls for him everybody
calls for him so dr garcia thank you
very much for
your years of service to the city we
can't thank you enough for
all the things that you've done you've
you've you've expanded our water system
you've got it to the point where our
fire department is ranked
uh uh iso number one which is only 98
almost 100 fire stations of all the fire
stations the united states only 100 of
them
have that ranking and a lot of it is
because of our water system or water
pressure
you you've developed that water
reclamation plant that
saves million gallons of fresh drinking
water a day
a day and um you know just just on and
on and on the list is just
we'd be here till you know three o'clock
but uh
anyways i just want to tell you thank
you thank you for all your service
um thank you mayor pro tem would you
like to say something
i would thank you mayor thank you dr
garcia for all your years of service
um i have learned an immense amount from
you and your staff you run
a great great work um
department um i wish you well um
and don't be a stranger thank you yeah
exactly
also sword yes thank you mr mayor
um and i also want to add my thanks
to uh dr garcia um
i uh he's
just like you said he's he's uh an
awesome
uh person in the first place and and he
runs this utilities
uh first class um we in the council uh
commissioners board of commissioners of
the utilities
gave him a nice uh proclamation with all
of a signing on it too
and it was um i've never seen one like
that given to anyone else in the city
before
um so um he's special he's very special
no doubt thank you mayor yeah you know
while you mention it before i get to
councillor ben como while you mention it
years ago it was city council used to
just do the
the rate increases on water and gas and
such and dr garcia brought i remember
when he brought that proposal
i don't know how many years ago 10 15
years ago to
to develop a commission and those who
were talking about a counselor a
commission made up of two or three
members of the public
granted you know they wanted to have a
little bit of a certain type of
knowledge i mean it didn't have to be
elect
didn't have utilities knowledge but you
know and that allowed
people from the public not elected
officials just people from the public to
sit on this commission
to to hear why the city needed to do
increases and so that
he was really the pioneer in allowing
public input because this was real
public input you
you take it from the public and they sit
on this board
and they they challenge whether or not
the city needs to go forward with any
rate increases and when
and when you got them involved i mean
they could easily say no we don't
believe that but
no they decided to move forward and i
think that's a really a great way to
involve the public and let them know
that hey we have nothing
to hide here this is why these rate
increases need to be done
uh counselor ben cuomo thank you mayor
yes dr garcia oh my gosh what can i say
i mean i've only been here eight months
but i feel so incredibly honored to
have served on the utilities board
um and continue to because it allowed me
to work with you closer
i think my role on the utilities board
is probably one of my favorite roles as
a city councilor
and i think a big part of that is for
sure i don't think i know
but part of that is you and the team
that you've built um
i mean dr garcia you're just completely
brilliant and
i i think this is a huge loss to us
but i'm very confident in in the team
that you have i think
your leadership um the fact that
you know you show a passion and love for
your job and so does your team i think
that
that really um that that comes through
because of your leadership and i'm very
excited to
um see what comes next for you and i'm
excited to continue serving on the
utilities board but
um me gracias portolo and i wish you the
best of luck i don't think
dr garcia understands spanish so did you
want to
no i'm just kidding just joking uh
councillor vasquez
council vasquez
okay well we'll go to counselor beta
stevie and then come back to council
vasquez if he's
counselor beta stevie thank you mayor
thank you dr garcia for all the work and
care
and heart that you put into this
community and into our city
um yes i know we only got to be
introduced a while ago
but i was so impressed with
you with your team with the quality and
care
of service that you want that you
delivered to our community
and you i guess i'm gonna just echo what
everybody else said but you are
uh brilliant um you have a great heart
and i'm very
excited that you get to take some time
for yourself now
hopefully but i i have a feeling that
people are still going to be calling you
up for a while asking for advice and all
sorts of things
so um congratulations
um and you will be missed thank you
mayor
councillor vasquez are you there
hello okay well you may have stepped out
so
all right well i know he thinks the
world of you
also dr garcia and uh we appreciate it
again so
all right if there's nothing further
entertain a motion to answer
yes oh i'm sorry i thought you just had
your hand
could i last sport i just remembered it
um i remember forget that the first year
or two i was on the council
and the commission both um i remember
asking him what a bolson is i never
heard the word bolson before
and um i know what waterwell is and i
had my own montana
but uh he sat me down and for about an
hour or two he explained how
wells work in las cruces how water
bolson
is and he went in great detail i'll
never forget that
uh it was awesome how much he could
explain it to me
and understand it very easily
so there you go very good
uh councillor ben como do you have a
another card
before we end i mean i'd love to hear
from dr garcia is that possible
oh yeah sure putting you on the spot
there
yeah mayor and council thank you thank
you for the kind comments
um i want to thank you for the continued
support for our utility services you
know our
300 employees need the support of both
the utility board and
in the city council an example is today
you approved additional funding for the
utility assistance program
through a different funding source and
you also approve the
rate reviews and the rate changes in
solid waste so that we can continue to
do our job
i think it's critical for both the
utility board and the council to
understand that we don't get any tax
money so
our job is to make sure that our rates
cover all of our expenses and
and so thank you for this utility
assistance program because
that allows us to be on schedule on our
rate reviews and we finish solid waste
you
approve that july 20th so that's an
example of the support we need to
continue
this healthy utility enterprise funds so
uh our utility leadership is strong with
ms walsh
assistant uh director walsh and uh the
deputy director so
i'm very confident that they will
continue to deliver the quality services
so
so i'm very comfortable with leaving at
this stage
and uh uh you're right i will probably
come and visit uh the utility and check
on things once in a while
thank you okay sounds good hey man
oh oh you're back tell us yep
i was having some issues there uh yeah i
also just want to give my gratitude to
dr garcia
uh coming on board on the council and
getting on the utilities commission was
a
it's a steep learning curve uh to really
understand uh
just how a public owned utility works
and what all goes into maintaining it
and delivering quality service but
dr garcia is one of the most prepared uh
people
uh and prepares his staff so well uh
anticipates questions and
um you know just does an excellent job
of of onboarding
uh counselors and i'm sure it's i'm sure
i was probably like the
20th or 30th i don't know how many
counselors you've had to onboard dr
garcia but
i want to thank you for that and for the
wonderful tours but
more than anything for for really
showing me and i'm sure others what an
enterprise fund
looks like when it's run well and how a
city could run
a utility including natural gas which
not a lot of cities have
and so thank you i also bid you farewell
and just want to remind you dr garcia
that you did create that
citizen board of utility commissioners
and so
i'm just saying it might be nice to
someday see you as the chair on that in
your retirement so
um that might be a good way for you to
come back
thank you wow he's already got here i
got your future planned out there for
you doctor
thank you thank you thank you mayor
all right if there's nothing further
entertain a motion to adjourn
second a better student a motion made by
councillor ben cuomo second by
councillor bae testuvi that we adjourn
all those favors signify by saying aye
aye
those opposed we're adjourned it's 2 43
pm okay thank you very much