looks like we're good go ahead
awesome okay
welcome everyone today is thursday
september 17th
it is 10 02 a.m
and we we're all here today for our
regularly scheduled
um las cruces economic recovery board ad
hoc meeting
um so i'm going to go ahead and
call this meeting to order um
with that being said is there any
conflict of interest from any of our
board members today please do raise your
hand in the chat
and we will call on you and go over that
at this point in time
okay as i'm seeing no conflict of
interest no hands going up we're going
to go ahead and go on to
um the acceptance of the agenda
and just so you all know we do have
quorum right now so we are good to go on
that um
so acceptance of the agenda uh if
there's any discussion or questions at
this time
[Music]
as i'm seeing no questions on the agenda
as presented
if i can get a motion to approve the
agenda as presented to us today
this is michael harris i'll motion to
accept the agenda
i'm sorry i have a question did um
i thought i heard that maybe the public
transportation
was not going to be something we could
discuss today
that is correct um i mean we can
definitely discuss it it's just that we
do not have
um our presenters on this call today so
we will not be able to
get the factual information uh so we
have a choice
that we can either um amend the agenda
to
table that item until they can join us
at a different date
or we can talk about it during the
discussion
and move to table during the discussion
item itself
so we have those two options if you want
to talk about it we can talk about it if
you don't want to talk about it all and
wait
you guys can imagine
[Music]
uh yes grisalda
yes mr chair and we reached out to our
staff
members and the expert in on this topic
and they will be available to join us
next thursday so if the desire of the
committees to table it for
discussion until next thursday
they will be available for for their
input
at that point perfect
okay so it looks like they will be able
to join us next thursday
so we can either what i would suggest is
that we
move to accept the agenda and then we
table it till next thursday during the
discussion item ms montgomery have your
hand raised
um i was going in motion to or i was
actually going to second
michael harris's motion to accept the
agenda but
i guess we can table that for next
thursday
the transportation
so and then
okay so right now mr harris did you make
a motion did you complete your motion
or not uh
i will
i can complete my motion to accept the
agenda and then we can discuss whether
we want to table that later as you
suggested i think that's a fine
suggestion
okay so we have a motion on the table
miss montgomery did you second or can
you re-second please
i resecond thank you
okay any discussion on the motion to
accept the agenda as it is
please use your hand raise function if
you do and we'll call on you and go from
there
as i am seeing none can i please get a
roll call vote on the acceptance of the
agenda as presented today
yes mr chair miss demi moore
absent mr george miller
yes miss sharon thomas
yeah all right yes
miss veronica archuleta
yes miss ron fitz herbert
yes means mr
mr doug cohen
yes mrs gringold
yes mr lynn martinez
mr lee martinez absent
miss darlene lopez yes
uh mr chair yes
motion passes okay
we have accepted the agenda as is and
we'll work on
the transportation issue later on during
the meeting um with that we did
next on the agenda is the approval of
the minutes from
our september 10th meeting those were
emailed
out to you all um if there's any
questions concerns or comments on those
minutes we can hear those now if not
we need a motion to accept the minutes
as presented
this is michael harris i'll uh motion to
accept the minutes
perfect we have a motion on the floor to
accept the minutes as is do we have a
second
george miller a second thank you mr
miller we have a motion in a second on
the floor for mr miller to accept the
minutes as
any discussion on those minutes
as i am seeing none can i please get a
roll call vote on the acceptance of the
minutes from the september 10th meeting
yes mr miss david moore
absent mr sherry thomas yes
miss brook montgomery
yes ms veronica archuleta
yes mr ron fitzherbert
yes mr doug cohen
abstain
miss susan greenwald yes
miss jolene martinez
miss jolene martinez absent
miss darlene lopez yes
mr chair yes
motion passes wonderful
motion passes um mr fitzherbert let me
say i loved
your las cruces safe promise background
on your screen that was pretty cool
thank you
like that
okay so we accepted the minutes from the
september 10th meeting
and moving on to our discussion we got
that done in 10 minutes congratulations
it's great um okay so we are going to be
discussing the
city of las cruces business registration
fee
schedule we have mr timothy pitts on
with us
that can answer any questions that we
have i know that we got the link
uh to those that fee schedule um
during the last meeting i hope that you
all had a good chance to look over those
and to see um if anything makes sense to
you
uh i know that we kind of talked about
um
waiving the business registration fee
or maybe we can do a reduced business
registration fee
um but i want to hear from the board as
what you think a
good and equitable
process is on the business registration
and
fees so if you guys want to raise your
hand
we will call on you and go through those
and then we have
griselda who can answer some questions
as well as mr pitts and we can go forth
and figure this out
mr harris um
yeah i apologize my internet connection
is not working well enough for video at
the moment
um but i have a
[Music]
a procedural concern i guess
about what whatever
so were we to suggest waiving a fee or
reducing a fee
um all of the businesses in town kind of
like it's not like all of these
registrations are due on january 1st and
so everyone's fees are due
at various points throughout the year
and so
it seems like there would be a lot of
overhead and perhaps confusion
about um you know let's say that
hypothetically we suggested that the
business registration fee
of 35 was waived well actually that one
probably can't be
i think we heard the state law but your
your fee is waived for the next year
um but let's say that
council decides that but then somebody
had
just registered their business and just
paid 35 bucks
so you know is that for the next six
months is that for the next calendar
year
is that for the businesses next renewal
cycle
um and then you know that's an extra
if it's seems like the businesses next
renewal cycle is reasonable
but then um you know they have to
the city staff would have to track that
and
also the business themselves would have
to track that and remember that hey next
year you know
in 360 days i have to
get 35 bucks off um
and uh anyway with my personal
experience with the business
registration renewal system
uh the having to track an extra thing i
guess
and that overhead would be a concern to
me
um so i'd be interested to hear uh
staff's thoughts on that
um but it seems like a lot of overhead
thanks
okay thank you for your comments um ms
martinez you do have your hand raised
i'm thinking that you're going to answer
that question and then we'll go to miss
montgomery
mr chair um um mr harris thank you for
that question
so based on the discussion that we had
with our legal team
the recommendation was tied to what you
mentioned about the overhead
that the fee was not eliminated but
reduced to have a small
fee let's say from 35 to 5
so that would cover some of that
overhead that you mentioned
on the administrative side what we could
do is have
because these fees are tied to an
ordinance
we will have to adjust that ordinance
going back to council for
an included sunset clause to it
and to make sure that it's an equitable
approach
the recommendation would be to do a full
365 days
in which all of the businesses would
have the opportunity to
not um to have the adjusted fee
so whenever the
business registration or the business
renewal
uh is scheduled for the individual
businesses
during those three 265 days they would
be
eligible for it and so if we do
starting um let's say
january 1st of 2021
for that to go all the way to december
31st of 2021
and cover um that that full
year but also to to make it less
of a burden to staff processing and make
sure that during that period
is is the period of the different fee
or the wave fee to to minimize
some of those tracking
concerns you mentioned dr petes do you
have
additional thoughts on that
uh thank you uh mr chair uh yeah i
i think um uh it it would not be
if if we do it in a consistent manner
we do it with a uh a date and a sunset
clause and so on
it would not be a problem if we wanted
to say for the for the year of 2020
and we would go back to january and
issue refunds
for the past eight months of
business registrations or if we did it
from
you know october 1st to october 1st of
next year
and we just didn't charge it we could as
long as it's consistent like that it is
not a difficult
thing for us to manage if it's going to
be something where it is specific to
specific types of businesses
uh that becomes a very difficult because
i can just change the fee schedule in
the software
and say this is what you charge and and
then it's it's consistent it's when it's
inconsistent
that uh mr harris's concern becomes
it becomes a big concern for me because
now my staff need to evaluate
uh keep track of things put records in
and so on so i i would prefer just from
an
administrative perspective a very
consistent
straightforward from this state to this
state we are not charging
these fees or we're charging less or
whatever it is that you
feel is the appropriate um decision
uh it's a it's a it's a relatively easy
process for us
because it just means we charge a
different amount for that time
awesome thank you um so i think those
two questions
have been answered um ms montgomery used
to still have your hand raised if you
want to go ahead
um broke my record my
internet is shaky so i heard most of
what everybody said
i had um question i think probably both
um i just want to clarify last week's
numbers
um i believe it was approximately 186 or
000 that the city um
receives for the registration various
fees
and that's number that i had last week
is that correct and then well i'll just
keep i'll say my mouth and then you can
tell
correct me if i'm wrong um about half of
that went to business registration not
like
alcohol liquor licenses and other fees
and then i looked up online and it looks
like a quarter of home businesses so i
divided
186 by half and got 93 000 and then i
divided by four to get a quarter
and i got 23 250 this is approximation
of revenue to the city for home business
registrations and i just wanted to
clarify that
information um i think it would help us
to know if it is 23 000
that we're potentially lowering um
everybody has that answer
mr chair i i if i may i'll
say i think your numbers sound about
right to me and i have not gone through
and done a a full um uh audit
of where all of those goes but that
that's about right
um generally speaking although i would
say that
home businesses are probably closer to
50 to 60
of the of the registrations we have um
um so i
i would say you would probably be
talking about
somewhere in the order of of 90 to 100
thousand dollars if you applied it to
every business
if you applied it only to home home
based businesses
then it would be uh about 60
of that so let's say 55 60 000 something
like that
and and that's those are estimates i can
always give you
more uh realistic numbers if uh
if you if you wanna uh if you wanna i
can do an audit on on
everything we charge and and find that
out
okay perfect um
miss martinez go ahead ma'am
mr chair um one item that was discussed
during last
meeting and i believe vice chair brought
it up for the discussion and it
and it is something that we internally
have to make sure that we
um that we ensure is equitable
uh treatment for all businesses so
the the one item that covers
all businesses is the business
registration
uh i believe if dr uh pitts
can confirm this but the rest of the
fees are sector specific
and if we uh waive those
by sector then it will not be open to
all businesses and and therefore
equitable treatment from our perspective
would be an issue
so with that being said when we were
going
through those um fees and i went through
them the other day as well
um there's a lot of fees that are sector
specific
so to operate a christmas tree lot it
was 50
per 60 days or 90 days so
my question is is everyone pays a
business registration fee
they get their business license one per
once per year they have to renew
and then they have other fees associated
or is a
food truck fee different than a business
fee
um if you can just kind of explain that
for me i think i already know everyone
needs a business license
and then there's other fees under that
um if you can just let us know for sure
that way we can make an informed
decision on what we want to
exactly go forth and do with this
committee
go ahead mr pets thank you yes i i thank
you mr chair
uh i um
um the like if you're a food truck
no you only pay the uh food truck
fee unless you also have a place of
business
so the the business registration fee is
per
location so if you're a place with seven
locations you have seven
business registrations because it's tied
to your tied to your location
uh business food trucks do not have a
location
and so they're they're a separate entity
um
uh okay so yeah there's
there's some of these that are different
the christmas trees per event
is a you know and that's a recovery for
for
uh inspections that we do if the fire
department goes out and inspects
when they when they set up and make sure
they're not doing something unsafe
and so on and the same is true of uh
of some of the uh
you know the carnival circus or manager
i like some of our terms
they they seem a little dated to me but
i don't know when the last time someone
ran a menagerie in las cruces but
uh i just looking down the list yeah
they they each have their own
character and do not necessarily in some
cases
it's so if it's a tent sale and you're
doing it out in your parking lot
that is you would have your business
registration of the
of the business and then you'd also be
paying for the the tent sale
um and again depending on how that that
worked so it's it may not be
completely the case that everybody pays
the 35
and um and
uh and then
these are all these other things are all
in addition that's that's not always the
case
okay so that's a new challenge um
so then mr pitts and then we'll go to
miss montgomery and then
i think mrs greenwald after that so mr
pitts with that being said
to make this equitable and fair for
everyone
is there a way to do a credit based
program where
you apply a 30 credit to
every um every fee associated to a
business
instead of a five dollar or two dollar
business registration fee is there any
way to do
a discounted rate for everyone
and that way you just do a credit based
system so everyone has a 30
credit um if you're a
farmer carnival boxing wrestling martial
arts
performer i mean how does that work to
make it equitable if that's going to be
a concern for the city attorney
if that makes sense thank you mr chair
yes i i agree i think that might be a
it sounds to me a better a better way
is just to credit everybody's account by
thirty dollars or thirty five dollars it
might be a more
uh fair-handed way of of
doing that because yeah i i think
i don't see any reason why we can't do
that um
again the legal department will have to
weigh in but they had some good ideas on
how we could
how we could do this so without getting
into the morbid details of how
city finance works i i think that a
credit would be
and and a fair way of handling it
okay and is there a fair and concise way
to make sure that new business owners
and new business register
registration individuals have access to
that credit
as well for that year if we did it a
year time
as long as it's as long as it's defined
in a code
and or in a uh ordinance or resolution
and i think we could do a
credit by resolution i don't think we
would need an ordinance
as long as it were done
where it is easy to understand what it
is we're applying it to
i can code that into the software to
make sure that it it
applies that for that period of time
perfect okay so that answers all my
questions
miss montgomery go ahead
montgomery for the record um thank you
actually those were
quite a few of my questions as well um
i wanted to bring up i spoke with a lady
um
from the cooperative catalyst of new
mexico her name is sandra
mcardle and she um
she helps different businesses
come come together to form cooperatives
um
sometimes there are food cooperatives i
um i'm working alongside her because i
work with
native americans and on tribal lands and
we have like community guardians that we
work with
when i was talking to her it made me
think of our board um
and maybe some potentials for
cooperatives here
and they register as businesses um
usually just lca they can be s corpse um
generally they're
not nonprofits actually but there's
different ways they can register a
business um
i just wanted to kind of put that out
there it could be something
that we do moving forward um you know in
terms of reopening the economy the
people are going to be home more
and they register the home business but
they come together as a cooperative
they could do things like virtual
learning centers
where they work together kind of like
the food co-ops um you know that we have
but with maybe children education
and food security um those are the main
topics sometimes art
art in museums forum cooperatives so i
just
i thought that might be something that
we could look at in terms of the fees if
we were to
encourage removing um some of the fees
more people could register a new
business
from home and maybe form businesses
together
in this fashion
and one more clarifying question we're
not talking about liquor licenses or
anything like that just the registration
fees and those various
specialties right okay thank
yeah i i think that uh like liquor
licenses and such like that as a regular
regulatory license i believe correct me
if i'm wrong and then like a business
fee would be a registration fee or
something like that but with that 30
dollar
credit if we did something like that
that could go to
whatever it's on their account they just
deduct 30
from their check type thing um
i think that's what it is but i think
like liquor license is a regulatory fee
which is different than a license fee
um miss greenwald you're up
thank you mr chair um i
had suggested last week that maybe a
solution um that is reasonable hopefully
may be permissible i don't know an
equitable would be to
instead of waiving fees to set up some
kind
of small grant program where businesses
in need could apply um to have their
fees
covered by the city like set five ten
thousand dollars
aside for that program kind of like a
scholarship
thank you for your comment i appreciate
that
uh mr harris thanks this is michael
harris for the record
um so i i do like the idea of
a credit i think that uh sounds pretty
simple
and sounds like it addresses my concern
over overhead and everyone also shares
that concern
um so uh
i have uh one question and then i also
wanted to
address um make a note about something
brooke said
um i guess i would
i am wary and it
so i'd like to hear from staff like is
there a concern that if we did issue
if we did suggest that this 30 credit is
issued
um does that take
a meaningful chunk out of
somebody's budget at the city and
perhaps negatively impact either
other programs that the city has running
or
um or you know staffing levels or
something so
it i want to i think we should
help people but you know not at the
expense of
other things that might be more helpful
um so that that's a question i think for
uh
for dr pitts and then uh just real quick
uh brooke you mentioned cooperatives
and um the economic development
department is having a
webinar or something on cooperatives
next week
so that might be something we could pass
out
some more info about that anyway um i'll
let
dr clinton answer my question thanks
mr pence go ahead thank you mr chair uh
thank you mr
um uh harris uh yeah
uh i i don't have a
particular concern about uh about that
fee it's as long as city council is
fully aware
of of what they're doing and and that
that that's
that feed the the revenue from fe goes
to the general fund it's city council
money
and it they choose to allocate it back
to us
or not back to us depending on their uh
on their desires
we are very well aware and we have been
spending a lot of time in the past
couple of years
trying to show the costs of doing
uh business registration building
permitting
uh and so on versus the the cost versus
the revenues and and
making sure that we're doing that but
but i think city council would be well
aware
of that this is a uh this is an
incentive program
uh and not a
they they would know so i don't feel
like we're going to lose
this we're going to lose the revenue and
therefore we're not going to have enough
money to do
xyz i think i think
in fact i think it would be a good thing
for city council to have to grapple with
the issue of how do we actually do
meaningful help to businesses
uh without just saying well we're just
not going to charge a fee
i i think it's a i think it's a good uh
i think it's a good challenge for them
to
to to discuss um
you know because that's what they're
dealing with over the past eight months
anyway
is is that issue is how do we get money
out of our accounts and get them to
places where it helps people
and so i think that's this would fit
right along in there but no the none of
the fees
are going into a revenue account that is
then used to spend
on something else our budget is
separated
in that regard awesome thank you mr
pitts
um and along with that too and then
we'll go to mrs montgomery and then mr
cohen
um just kind of my personal take on this
is one city council is working on the
budget for 2021.
um having this in front of them
they will know that yes there's going to
be a reduction in revenue brought in by
licensure fees of x amount of dollars
and they can
work that into the budget since they're
working on the budget right now and then
two the city of las cruces got a lot of
money and cares act fees
and cares act monies to go towards
things like this and if this is one
incentive that helps
small business at home business
nonprofit businesses anything like that
then i think it's in our purview as well
as our
kind of what we're here as a board to do
to make that good faith effort to show
that we're doing something and that the
city of las cruces is being
small business friendly um so that's my
personal view
is that i've been on this board i've
gotten a lot of phone calls people
saying you know yeah
las cruces is really hard to do um to
start your small business and stuff like
that so i think this is a great
way to show that las cruces is being
very small business friendly
and very um business forward so that's
my personal view
um we're going to go ahead and go
through the miss mongol garment and then
miss
mr cohen and then i am going to ask that
we make a motion to
bring this forth to the city council
to get the ball moving because we can
put forth a million ideas
the city council in the end has
the power to put them into action to get
legal's advice to get city staff's
advice
and to go forth but we make the
recommendation
and we can put in there 365 days a 30
credit we can put that in there and they
can take off whatever they want they can
send it back
to us um they can do what they want but
us putting forth
a million ideas is better than not
putting forth any ideas right now
um so miss montgomery go ahead mr cohen
we're gonna go next after that okay
um thank you chris brooke montgomery for
the record um
actually i wanted to bring up um when i
was looking at the forms late fees
uh for business uh registration only
and so there's every year if you don't
do it
in time so i guess the 365 calendar year
is there any way we could equitably
remove the late fee if they don't
paid in time or i guess if we remove
the fee there i don't know i don't know
if anybody has any late fees but i just
wanted to bring that up
and then um and then back to michael
harris on the webinar it'd be great to
hear about that
when i talked to um
sandra we were talking about having
maybe a virtual conference
so um a lot of the
the information we were putting forth
were for the native american business
owners that i work with but we could
maybe include
las cruces and um we could discuss that
further
thank you thank you for that mr
cohen
thank you mr chair i i've got a couple
of questions um
uh one of them is uh the um
you uh mr chair you brought up the cares
act funding uh
and in fact so i wanted to ask staff if
they know
specifically would some of the funding
that the city received from cares act
in fact help replace any revenue
into the city coffers um
if if we were to move this and and i
realized the city
um can adjust their budget um
accordingly if not but uh
it'd be helpful to know if if they can
just you utilize some of the karzak
funding
then my second question is um
could some of the funding that that
we're talking about um if in fact it can
be replaced
um help to staff um the building and
zoning area there seems to be a backlog
of being able to get permits issued
on projects and so looking at the
economy
and then reading some information just
the other day
seeing that while construction in las
cruces
is going well it's one of the stronger
sectors it's still being slowed down
because of the covid some of that is
supply
um availability but also i know for a
fact some of it is
permits are taking twice as long to get
issued
so is that a staff issue and and could
there be
additional staff added if that funding
is available um through the through the
cares act
ms martinez do you have your hand raised
if you can i don't know if you can
answer that or not
mr chair i will answer the part of the
care sect and i will defer to dr petes
for the second
question martinez for the record
so the cd um i believe i
mentioned briefly the process that took
place
uh from the cares act specific to las
cruces
from the federal government the funds
were made available
in two ways the first one was directly
to
municipalities that were 500 000
in population or larger the funds went
directly to
those municipalities for every other
municipality
smaller than that what happened is the
funds went to
the state in this instance to the
department of finance and administration
for new mexico
for for us um about
a month ago we received the the notice
that the
application for the city to apply
and any other municipality to apply for
these funds
was received and so we went through a
basically a grant application
with the state then
after that maybe two weeks after that we
received the notice
that the city had been awarded two
different batches of money
one that it was it's a reimbursement of
covet related expenses since the
beginning of of this
situation we have been tracking all
expenses related to covet maybe
ppe um salary expenses that were
linked to providing services to this
losses are not an eligible expense so
it's actual
expenses incurred so that's one of the
the funds received the other uh
pocket of money received is for the
small business continuity grant
um that is something that we're still
working through to
understand the process that we need to
follow
um we we submitted an application and
justify
why we needed these funds we received
5.4 million dollars
and the form of that disbursement is
going to be
grants to businesses after they apply
however we are uncertain of when
that actual money is going to get to
businesses because of the steps
required by dfa and so
the city got reimbursement of expenses
incurred
and funding for that will go to
businesses
in the form of grants
and the second question i will defer to
dr pitts for
for his input thank you dr
martinez thank you mr chair uh regarding
permits uh
and and the timing on it uh
there is uh there there is some delay
in in permit issuance uh and it's it is
largely a staffing issue
um but mostly because we have i don't
know why
it is but our the staff that that
handles
permits is uh also the staff that tends
to have
five to ten year old children and uh
they all are trying to take their kids
to you know handle their kids school
and so it's it's really been a challenge
for us
in in trying to keep keep up with
issuing uh issuing permits uh we are not
very far behind but we are
definitely slower and then uh in
addition over the past
eight months we've seen a about 25
20 to 25 rise in the number of permits
being applied for
so uh construction uh for
uh during the the pandemic has been
uh very high i i attribute it to
the lower interest rates and uh with the
lower interest rates people are
wanting to do projects and wanting to uh
build houses and buy houses and so on so
there there's a kind of a perfect storm
uh in terms of whether
using um uh cares act money or
or money from somewhere else to increase
staffing
uh we have a
our staff require a lot of training to
to be able to understand the codes that
they are uh
uh they're applying it uh so we have
just hired
uh two new people and it just when we
hire someone new
it actually lowers our productivity
because we have to do a lot of training
with those people
uh so for a period of time we lower our
productivity and then
uh after uh about a couple of months
then
they they start catching up and so on
but it would not
it would be i think it would be a very
difficult thing for us to to add
more staff at this point i don't think
we have the capacity to train them
in a way that would actually help us and
uh
uh what i really could use is is to get
my people back to work and not having to
teach their children
that that would be the thing that would
that would have the most bang for
uh for the buck thank you
thank you mr pitts
okay so
montgomery you're gonna help me out with
this i think there is
two two
things that we can bring forward um i
didn't even think of
the late fees that can be assessed to
these accounts
um so what i would really like to see
this board do
and put it forth and if it comes back to
us with some questions or suggestions
or some better ideas so be it it gives
us something to do as a board
um i would like to see two things happen
today
i would like to see a motion made to
give um
new and current business owners or new
and current business licenses a 30
credit through the city of las cruces to
go forth on
licensure fees for their business
registration just a 30
credit straightforward so on a 35
business registration fee
they are really only paying five dollars
which is a lot less
um i think that is something that the
city can put forward to show good faith
effort
two miss montgomery your idea is great i
think we also oh with the first one i
think we need to put a one-year
date on it whether it's from november
1st to november 1st or december 1st of
december 1st
i don't really mind you we can put forth
a one-year
time frame in the city or in the city
council can decide those dates
um i think that with the business late
fees i think
a lot of businesses are struggling i
know credit card companies are giving
you
no late fees for three months or
whatever it is i think the city of las
cruces should do the same on business
registration fees i think we should put
a
hold on all late fees assessed for one
year
um so that way we are not compounding
hurt on any business whether you're at
home a big business little business
whatever it is
um because a lot of people are not
getting uh funding
or grants or anything like that and the
process is really hard
and a lot of people don't have time to
apply for a grant you know
applying for the pvp loan was a huge
challenge it was a lot of time so i
don't think we need to put that on any
business owner home person daycare
worker anything like that i don't think
we need to do that
so i would like to see two motions made
today that we bring this forth to a vote
at the next meeting to bring it forth to
city council
one 35 credit and two no late fees for a
year for
licensure fees thoughts
miss montgomery i told you you're
helping me out with this what
are your thoughts it's rick martin write
the record i saw michael harris raise
his head right when i was mistaken i
thought oh okay
i did not see that i apologize oh
um i'll let i'll i'll pass to michael
harris and then we can come back to me
okay perfect mr harris okay um michael
harris for the record
um i think those are great and
if you were making that motion i would i
would make it or second it
whichever you you need i'm the chair i
need someone to be
confused okay um brooke montgomery for
the record i'm going to set forth two
motions
to vote next board meeting the first one
is that we would
credit business registration fees equity
equitably across the board for 30
dollars um
for 365 days preferably maybe
november 1st 2020 to november 1st 2021
and also if we can wave late fees
for the calendar year as well
okay so we have two emotions on the
board
one the thirty dollar fee uh the 30
credit and to the no lead fees for 365
days
uh this is michael harris i'll second
both of those motions
thank you mr harris okay so we have a
motion in a second on the board
um for 30 credit
and no late fees for one year any
discussion
from the board members before we do a
roll call vote on this
miss martinez yes ma'am mr chair can
can we get further clarification on the
not late fee
is not late fee related to the business
renewal correct
um yeah yeah i was thinking of the 10
late fee for business renewal so if they
have a if they do not renew in time
but yet renew with the 35 30 credit
that they would waive the 10 lead
thank you mr
pitts yes sir well thank you mr chair
just to clarify for for the record
uh we're talking about section 16 172 of
the
municipal code that says late
registration or renewal penalty and it's
the ten dollar fee there that's
just just maybe we can put that into the
motion or into
the minutes so that we are clear of what
exactly your
i think that's what you're talking about
so i'm just making that clear yeah
yeah that is correct yeah so
what we will do is so in the minutes if
we can just state
that when we're referring to the late
registration fee we're
referring to section 16-172 in the
municipal code
um with that also being said when i do
put forth
the letter to the city manager to bring
this forward to the city council
i will reference that uh
that section in my memo and that way
there's no confusion whatsoever
and i will also with that being said i
will also reference
um section 16
oh where's it at section 16
uh dash 170 which are business fees
that are related to a registration fee
so
i will reference both of those sections
when i put forth that memo
is there any other comments questions
concerns or discussion
about these motions that we have on the
floor at the moment
as i'm seeing none what i would really
like is if we can um do a roll call vote
on the first motion
which is um the 30 credit
to all businesses for registration fees
yes mr chair uh ms debbie moore
absent mr mr michael harris
yes i'm sorry um
miss burke montgomery was the one to
move the motion correct
that is correct second by mr harris
yes ma'am thank you
uh mr george miller
yes miss sharon thomas
yes ms veronica archuleta
yes mr
ron fitzherbert yes
mr doug cohen yes
ms susan gringo no
ms jolene martinez
absent miss darlene lopez
yes
mr chair yes
uh motion passes
for the first action item motion passes
cool and now a roll call though please
on the waiving of the whit late fee for
365 days
yes mr chair um
miss debbie moore absent
mr mr michael harris
no
mr george miller
yes
thomas yes
miss brook montgomery
yes miss veronica
yes mr
ron fitzherbert no
mr doug cohen yes
ms susan greenwald no
miss jolene martinez
absent miss darling lopez
yes
we have on mr chair
enthusiastically yes
mr chair we have one two three four
five six seven yeses motion passes
both of our motions pass everyone we
will be putting this forward to a vote
at the next meeting
both most are both items
to be brought forth um to the city
council and i am very very excited
uh so with that being said we are going
to move on
the agenda to city of las cruces public
transportation fees
miss thomas i know that this was um one
of your discussions that you led
and i know that we are unable to get any
city staff from transportation on today
um
so if someone can please make a motion
what if you guys want to discuss this a
little bit further we can
most definitely but if not if we can
just make a motion to table this until
the next meeting where they have
confirmed that they'll be able to
join us
miss thomas um yes i think that's a good
idea to
wait until the next meeting because um
i know that michael um bartholomew
couldn't come he had another meeting and
i talked to
um david armijo this morning he couldn't
come either so
they need more time i think to be
prepared
okay perfect so we have a motion on the
floor um to table this until thursday
of next week miss martinez yes ma'am mr
um for clarification purposes given the
purpose of
the recovery board for city-specific
the staff uh invited to
the present on this topic is within city
of las cruces
um and so i just wanted to clarify that
and that would be for road runner uh
within quality of life and the
transportation section
okay perfect um and with that being said
i know in the past that we have
we can always make a recommendation that
we send a letter to the county
um giving a recommendation of what we're
doing as a city as well
so we can um definitely look at that
so i do have a motion i just need a
second to table listen to books meeting
george miller for the record second
thank you mr miller
we do have a motion in the second to
table the las cruces uh city of oscar's
public transportation fee until thursday
of next week
uh can i get a roll call vote please
yes mr chair i had something to say
oh discussion yes miss sharon thomas
yeah
so uh the county's not
not responsible for the uh
trans rural transportation that's a
three county
entity and it's its own governmental
um it's it's it's um
put in place by state legislation so
it's its own governmental entity
so you want them to come and talk too
it's fine but it's not the county
okay i understand thank you i appreciate
that clarification
with that being said can we please oh mr
cohen
yes i i i'd like uh maybe a
clarification of what is exactly
it is that we are going to talk about
with the transportation
um i thought we covered that several
weeks ago
um and so what is it that
what type of action would we be
considering
looking at the um looking at this
information
what it us gathering this and from what
what would we be able to do with that um
uh maybe some suggestions yeah so the
point of that discussion and correct me
mr thomas if i'm wrong will be
to waive fees for an extended period of
time
um and to see what their so we need them
to present and tell us what their plan
is
as far as fees go because they haven't
really put a set date
on when they will be reintroducing fees
into their schedule plan
what we will be doing is taking that
information and then making a
recommendation to city council
of whether or not we believe it is an
appropriate action item to waive those
fees for an extended amount of time
is that correct thomas that's what we're
kind of doing
uh yes it is um the
council doesn't really have that
authority to tell the
south central regional transit district
what to do but
but we can suggest that it come to their
board meetings
perfect so it's just uh
an actionable favor item i guess
any other further discussion on tabling
this until next week
as i'm saying none um can i just get a
roll call vote on the table please
yeah yes mr chair miss debbie moore
absent mr mr michael harris
yes miss brook montgomery
yes is veronica archuleta
yes ron fitz herbert
mr ron phys herbert i'm sorry yes
mr doug cohen
no miss
susan greenwald yes
miss jonin
[Music]
absent miss arlene lopez
yes mr chair
yes motion passes mr chair
thank you so much so emotion does pass
we did table this and we will bring it
up at the next
meeting when we can talk to them more um
with that being said we are done with
our discussion items for the day and we
are on to future discussion topics
so we do have now two future discussion
topics one being
the two motions and the vote on uh
bringing it forward to the city council
for the fee schedule
the second well i guess the third so
we'll have a 1a
and a 1b and then our second will be the
transportation fees in that presentation
um miss montgomery you do have your hand
raised
go ahead please
uh brook montgomery for the record i uh
three topics got brought up today that i
thought we could
discuss further one is um
the cares grants and
for small how that goes to small
business maybe getting some more
information
when um when we're able to
on how that works and if that can be
some form of
grant or scholarship or and i guess that
is what um ms martinez had said
but just learning a little bit more
about it and seeing how we can help
um get that out there and dispersed
maybe and make recommendations once we
get no more information
that'd be the first one the second one
was
um just if we can discuss the permits
and construction again and get some more
information if we are having a increase
in construction business um i definitely
want to make sure that that's supported
um and then the third one that i was
brought up was the cooperative catalyst
i'd like to discuss that again and
um see if it's something that would help
the um
las cruces
okay great great ideas and those were
mentioned so i'm glad that they're
mentioned again miss martinez you have
your hand raised
mr chairman martinez for the record um
actually
um the acceptance of the
grant by the city will be presented
on monday um september 21st so this
coming monday
and there will be um it is for
discussion so it would be more
appropriate
if if you're interested uh to join
during that streaming or we can send
the link so you can get the the full
information on that city council is
actually
acting upon it on on this um
so given the mission of this board
to provide recommendations to the
council that's already happening
okay so that meeting will be presented
monday so if you guys
all of you ladies and gentlemen have a
chance to hop on that meeting
um to watch uh that would be very
beneficial
so miss montgomery with that being said
i think we should
um that's going to be presented monday
thursday we have the vote and i think
the following meeting we should
definitely look into that um and have a
huge discussion
about it because i know you know i have
looked at
those grant processes and everything and
they are pretty complicated
and the forgiveness part has not exactly
been the best
and most transparent process not with
the city but just in general
um so i definitely think there needs to
be a lot of clarification on that so
let's
um tune in on monday and then go from
there
i think is a good idea and we can
discuss that on thursday and future
discussion
items um mrs martinez did
here's all the do you have another
comment yes go ahead
um i i agree with your recommend
with your comment about the complexity
of the process
we actually had a training yesterday
with the
department of finance who is the
finance the fiscal agent and actually
the guidelines are going to be
are being provided by them and outside a
lot of that it's outside cities control
because we are a grantee
so we will um that information will also
be presented on monday
as well okay with that also being said
um griselda while you're on so is there
i mean your department is going to be
flooded with questions
um is there how are you guys going to be
able to
handle that influx of calls because it's
going to be
very very crazy and stressful um is
there anything that we can do as a board
to kind of assist or make a
recommendation
for the economic development department
to be able to handle that
influx mr chair uh
martinez for the record uh we're we're
up until yesterday we were we were still
learning of the requirements um to all
municipalities by dfa
and we're we're figuring out the
logistics
part of the funds cover administrative
costs
so there is already funding that we can
channel that
in in that direction um and
at this point i don't believe that there
is
um
miss martinez i think you froze
um
[Music]
okay i caught most of that but miss
martinez you
did cut in and out i don't know if it
was just me or
noticed that my apology mr chair uh my
internet is
it's it's joining the rest of of the
comments
um if you could um let me know where i
stopped
the where it cut off so i can repeat it
uh you the last thing that i personally
heard was you were talking about the
the requirements and that you were
learning more about um
the requirements and then you just kind
of cut out
[Music]
my apology i'm gonna stay um off video
um so we're we are uh aiming at
fully sourcing um to ensure that we
process applications and answer
questions
uh as as fast as possible
within the constraints required from
us by dfa uh and that's i believe that's
going to be the the bigger
um delay that we're still working to
to aim at streamlining it uh as much as
possible
wonderful thank you um with that being
said there's a lot of hands raised i'm
not a hundred percent sure who did it
first um as there's no countdown clock
uh we're gonna go
i have mr harris is right here so go
ahead mr harris
all right thanks uh this is michael
harris for the record
ma the topic that i was wondering if we
should bring up
is probably the elephant in the room
which is the
minimum wage and the suggestion at the
last work session
of changing it specifically for
a short period of time for the purposes
of
relief to small businesses and if it
seems appropriate
maybe we as a board should provide a
recommendation to the city on that
obviously that could turn into a really
big discussion topic
um but it might be something we could
consider and it would need to be
something that we do relatively
quickly my understanding is they have a
very short timeline
to make a decision there
um ms martinez i know you have your hand
raised to speak to that
um and as far as that goes as well i
believe they're gonna have a work
session
um where they will be talking about that
so i don't know we're definitely not
going to
beat that work session where they're
going to be making a decision
um so that i think that's kind of
already a done deal as far as it goes
with the meeting on monday miss martinez
go ahead though if you have
a further comment on that yes mr chair
you are correct
uh city council is already addressing
that discussion item on tuesday
the 22nd of september is going to be
two two sections of the work session
one covering employees and one
covering employers um so
if if if the board wants to provide
input
uh i would encourage contacting um
city council and mayor with your opinion
on that matter
city council is already acting upon that
based on the discussion from last monday
okay perfect so with that being said i
think the best thing
to do is if you have a personal
recommendation that you put forward that
to your city council member or
all the city council members we're just
not going to make that
cut off time before they make a decision
on tuesday um
next up is going to be ms sharon thomas
go ahead
i just noticed a couple things in the
minutes from the last meeting
one was that debbie moore asked if we
could get more information on the
anti-donation clause and
how that affects the kinds of decisions
we might be making
on this board so um and also
there was some discussion about the
enforcement of grt
you know who who enforces that how does
that work
and those were both debbie's things i
think
and then we talked a lot last time about
the biz sprint program
and so i'd like to know more about that
program
just in case there's something in that
program
that we could ask the city to do to help
support that program there might be
some ideas there
okay perfect um miss montgomery do you
want to answer the
sprint portion of that question
um definitely brooke montgomery for the
record um
you know i think we can bring forth uh
rediscussing the sprint um velocity city
for sprint
and now that we know after or let's say
after monday
we know information on the cares act and
the small business grants
maybe we can include that as one of the
training sessions within a sprint
within the accelerator so we can support
writing these grants and helping
businesses get grants of scholarship
so i would definitely like to discuss
that more
um i can discuss it with my team and
bring some more information
if we have time next week or the week
after
wonderful thank you i appreciate that
and i agree i think we need to
do something with this sprint as well
miss martinez go ahead and
take it away mr chair
on the on the bus branch we are
working with the project manager on on
this
and we are making sure that that we are
assessing the level of demand
uh for the biz sprint what we could do
is
right now the best frame application
it's open
for the second cohort we can email that
to
you all and and request for you to help
us distribute that
the due date for the for the second
cohort
application is due on september 29th
so we have a week in which businesses
can still
apply for this to participate in this
program
um and and we're we're
i think a big part of the decision
making will be
the level of demand that we receive in
this second cohort
um by businesses yeah i think
what i'm interested in learning more
about is is what
what's in the business the people the
businesses that apply
so then what's in that program what kind
of
information do they get or how does it
work
mr chair um miss sherry thomas
we are actually having a work session
so um i do not recall the specific data
within the next
four weeks and we're gonna be presenting
before
council the programs that we have
implemented this far
uh to provide business support and we're
gonna be talking about
the their preliminary results from from
this french and
actually we launched a new program um
to help businesses be prepared for
social media
we're going to be speaking to that as
well uh before council
i can send the date on on when that
presentation
will be for for further
details good
thank you if finally um
broke my commercial record um
i can actually uh talk to the project
manager over the best prince dana
and see if she would like to present
on the biz prince and directly to the
board
and i know there were some changes
primarily our bridge prints
originally they've pivoted with cobig
originally there was customer discovery
interviews um
and some business training on
um value proposition but because of
covid there were changes needed by
the small business owners so i know
um kind of on a general basis that we
looked at the application pool
and based on the questions and the needs
of the businesses
the presenters and speakers were aligned
to coordinate with needs so it can
change with this next application
depending on the pool of applicants so
it's if there's a need for
for example at criselda said we added
three weeks on for bringing your
business online it's something that
we've seen in the city of las cruces and
i've seen across the state
where businesses have been needing to
learn how to for example
make set up trend payment transactions
on their websites or even make websites
um
but that was something that was added
when the businesses apply if they have a
specific need
we reach out to other professionals in
the community to help speak to them
um so if you would like i can reach out
to dana as well and i'm sure she would
be fine
presenting on on the outcomes and
speaking directly with the board to
answer questions
all right with the uh comments in the
discussion on the biz sprint
since miss martinez did say that they
are already kind of
working on that um i think we
should uh see where they
go with that process and then maybe
circle back around
um with that because i remember when we
originally talked about this
more of it was to do with funding than
the program itself
so if we can like help with the funding
i think we can take that
cue from city staff and then go from
there
um i just want to see what they come up
with since they're the ones
dealing with that um next i'm gonna have
miss
uh susan greenwald and then mr cohen
mr chair uh susan green what for the
record uh mr
cowan was in front of me he raised his
hand before me
oh okay uh no worries mr claude go ahead
sorry
thank you ms greenwald uh i uh have uh
i just wanted to maybe reiterate uh it's
been brought up already but
um the idea with the uh construction and
building permits
uh i think that would be very important
to have on our discussion next week
because the reach that construction
projects have
into our economy is is pretty vast
i mean it begins to touch a lot of areas
in our economy
everything on the retail wholesale
labor and so if there's something that
we could do
to help expedite the ability
for these permits to get out in a timely
fashion
i think that would help for instance i
know
specifically of a project somebody has
applied for permitting
normally it would take a week to two
it's uh
they're being told for four weeks
that's a significant delay if we can
help
bring some ideas forward or some kind of
a
resolution to help mitigate that that
would be tremendous i i believe
and then my second one was uh in the
minutes and
uh i had the reason why i had to abstain
from approving the minutes
earlier in the meeting was i had to step
out during the conversation um with the
las cruces public schools last week
and in the minutes it said that they
were going to make a decision
this last tuesday with regards to going
forward
do we have an update on what that what
they decided on tuesday
yes las cruces public schools will be
doing fully virtual until
um next semester so throughout the rest
of the school year
yeah that was that was decided so they
are not going to be meeting in person
until they will re-talk in january
um
so i think there's a lot of good
possible discussion items
um i think we're gonna
have to do some research on the building
permit one
oh mrs greenwald i apologize i raised
lowered your hand go ahead ma'am
i'm sorry that seemed blue um
so guys i don't i was researching this
and maybe
those of you who work more closely with
the social services
and and those kind of non-profits in
town can give me a better answer
but with um all the things that are
going on especially like school not
coming back in session for a semester
women
primarily being primary caregivers of
children and even
the elderly maybe their hours are being
cut back
uh maybe um and unemployment i don't
know maybe they're
finally for that is there a program in
town where
um women who are not in shelters um who
are not in homeless shelters or
are crisis shelters can receive feminine
hygiene products i mean i know that is
that might if they don't have those that
might be um an implant
that might be a reason why they are
maybe not a reason they can't work but
a hardship um and
working in a hardship and affording
those
um as far as that goes i'll kind of
answer that
uh so a couple resources for those
individuals that need
um any kind of feminine hygiene products
and or
any kind of hygiene products have a
couple resources
if they are of the college or high
school age
a lot of public schools have um
pantries where they can go in and pick
up those products nmsu
has the aggie food cupboard but they
also have
hygiene products when it comes to that
whether it's
soaps lotions deodorant um things like
that so that's
those younger individuals and then
um i think la pignion la
also have those and you do not need to
be staying there and or going through
treatment but they do have those where
you can go and pick those
um things up uh so those are two
resources
and then i believe the las cruces gospel
rescue mission does
work with that as well um
and i think camp hope also
which is a non-profit so most of those
three
work non-profits um cater to those kind
of issues and they have those resources
there
um so i would if you know of anyone
looking for that or if you're
watching this those are your four um
nonprofits and entities that you want to
go and check out
i mean there may be some people who are
finding themselves in that situation
newly
um during this maybe
maybe even a way to publicize
the resources that are available
okay yeah and that might actually be a
good thing to add into the las cruces
safe website
um another part of those resources that
we have
access to as a community so i think
i'll um email city staff and see if we
can get those added onto the email
or to the website as well those are good
ideas thank you thank you very much
of course so with that being said we've
had a lot of
good discussion um so we do have those
two oh miss lopez where are we at with
the scholarship
is there any update that we need to be
discussing or are we still kind of going
through that process
um yes we're still going through that
process right now
um i don't think i don't think we'll be
ready for an update
uh by next week so um we'll um
we'll let you we'll let the board know
next week um if we have more
information to be able to present on
thank you so much okay with so that with
that being said
um there is a lot of good things that we
needed to discuss
so we have the two that were revisiting
transportation and the fees the fees
is going to be a vote so a vote and then
a discussion
or a discussion then a vote i apologize
and then we're gonna have the
transportation fees which will be a
discussion
um hopefully those are pretty quickly i
would i think that this
board um
should
okay so cares act is being presented
monday
i don't know if we'll be ready to
have that conversation on thursday um
[Music]
actually i kind of do so let's go ahead
and put
a review and or and it doesn't need to
be a presentation i hope that you all
can
tune in to that meeting monday i will
watch it as well
and i want to be able to have a
discussion on future discussion items
with the cares act um and what the city
is getting
i think that needs to be discussed and i
think that needs to be a focus
as that is money accessible to small
business
and um that will help out a whole lot
so i do want to talk about that um
so that's uh i think those are three
discussion items
so with the um permitting and the
timeline i think that's something that
we need to look at on a personal note
and maybe contact
mr pitts isn't on here right now so we
can't exactly ask him what he needs but
if we can maybe
email him uh mr cowan if you want to
email him and ask him if there's
anything that we can do to assist with
that
i think that's a really good thing so um
i'm not going to put that on as a
discussion item
but i think that should be a future
discussion item if you can get some
answers as what we can do to assist with
that
because what it sounds like is staffing
and i don't think we can necessarily do
anything with staffing um
as far as this board goes i mean we can
maybe make a recommendation to city
council but
it sounds like a staffing issue um
so if you want to email mr pitts i think
that would be really
uh helpful and then ms montgomery
um and mr harris you both brought up um
a co-op or a cooperative for
at-home business people i don't know if
there's any information out there
or if we just need to publicize the fact
that it's
an it's a asset
that we have um to go forth i don't know
if there's any actionable item that we
can do besides just
bringing it to light and publicizing the
fact that it's a thing
if either one of you can help me with
that mr harris
um what i this is michael harris for the
record um
i'll send um the
info notice that i got to um to city
staff and they could
distribute it through our normal list
that meeting is happening
like right before hours next thursday so
i don't know that we would
really have any info to discuss next
week
okay so then that will be um something
that we talk about in the
future uh discussion as well
so right now we have three discus or
three
discussion items i'm gonna limit it to
those three and then we will bring up
um the future mrs greenwald i will email
city staff on the
hygiene products um miss lopez if you
get any new information about that i
would like to hear from it
and then miss thomas i am also going to
email city staff
on um
the issue on
monies with um
the city attorney and see if we can get
some guidance on that to help guide us
in future decision making
since it sounds like that has been a
huge
thing and we're only getting we have to
ask a specific
question to get a specific answer
instead of a very broad
um what is acceptable miss martinez go
ahead
yeah yes mr chair actually um on
last monday's work session
no yeah work session there was a full
presentation
by our attorney um by our
legal team on anti-donation
and ethics um i can send the link
so the board can watch it um
but it's it's um the bottom line is
um the city cannot uh benefit a specific
entity um without having
a return back to the city
uh but i can i can send we can send that
link to
you all so you can watch that that full
session before cancel
that would actually be perfect if you
could forward that out to the entire
board
we can review that and then um under
future discussion items we can just
go over briefly what looks like a
acceptable and non-acceptable uh
anti-donation issue
but i would love to see that video thank
you okay
um so we do have our future discussion
items for next week we do have future
future discussion items for after that
and um it sounds like some of us have
some work to do
uh to come up with some good actionable
items for the following meetings
so with that being said uh is there any
general announcements
um once again miss martinez what time is
the
uh presentation tomorrow for cares act
with the city z
mr chair i i i believe it's in the
morning i don't have the details we can
send an email with that
information so the the board can tune in
perfect okay so we are going to be
getting an
email on the link to the video about
anti-donation
a time for the karzak meeting tomorrow
so we can tune in
and then also resulted in that email if
you'll also let us know the time
for the tuesday meeting where the
special session where they're going to
talk about
uh employee wage and employer
minimum wage that would be helpful so we
can tune in to all those three and
better acquaint ourselves with the
issues
um any other future oh yes go ahead
mr chair just for clarification the the
acceptance of
the funding from cares act is going to
be monday the 21st
but i will ensure to send that
information to you all
okay perfect and then but there is the
special meeting on
minimum wage on tuesday correct correct
so
monday and tuesday are um items
for discussion before council correct
okay thank you i appreciate that
okay so uh any other general
announcements
for anyone
[Music]
yes mr martinez mr chair
in the email i would also include
the detailed information of the two
programs
for business support that businesses can
access
free of cost the best brand being one
and the social media business assistance
being the second one
the the social media business assistance
is going to be an on
rolling basis and that is also
free of cost to businesses and they're
specific
for businesses within city limits
beautiful thank you i appreciate that
that will give us
a lot to do before the next meeting and
i appreciate that
with that being said uh last call for
general announcements
[Music]
as i see none i will entertain a motion
in a second to adjourn the meeting
unless you all want to stick around with
me today yes ms montgomery
brought montgomery for the record i'm
motioning to join the meeting
thank you do i have a second
george miller second yep hey so i have a
motion in a second to join the meeting
we are adjourned everyone
have a great day and tune in monday
tuesday and do your homework thank you
have a great night afternoon whatever it
is