City Commission - Regular Meeting

called this meeting to order on july 14 2026 at 6 30 p.m will the clerk please call the roll

Mayor Sharon McDonald. Here. Mayor Pro Tem Josh Reardon.

Here.

Commissioner Baxter Petillo.

Here.

Commissioner Stephen Burnett.

Here.

Commissioner Warren Robinson.

Here.

Commissioner Al Hernandez.

Here.

Commissioner Mark Tapley.

Here.

Madam Mayor, we have a quorum.

Okay, tonight we will have Pastor Kelly Sin of Berean Independent Baptist Church during the invocation, and then Commissioner Burnett will do the pledge.

Father, we do love you. And Lord, it is a privilege that we have to live in a country to where these things are possible, to where we can speak about things that are best for our communities and make decisions on our own. And Lord, this evening, we ask your blessing on this meeting. Would you give everyone involved tonight wisdom? Lord, I pray, Father, that, as always, uh we would have what's best for our community in our hearts and lord uh you just lord i just pray that you'll just give wisdom and help us and all of these things uh you make a way where there needs to be a way made. And we'll be careful to thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.

Amen. Join us in a 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.

Do I have a motion for the approval of the agenda?

So moved. I'll second that, but we need to remove item seven from the agenda. Staff is pulling it.

Oh, okay. I thought it was. I think it's item seven. Yes, it is. Okay.

The amend is motion to pull item seven.

Okay. We're going to pull item number seven. Which is consider an act upon ordinance 1724 for adoption and final publication and ordinance repealing chapter 22 subdivision requirement of the code of ordinance in of the city of El Magordo, New Mexico and adopting updated subdivision regulation in chapter 20 land development code and this will be moved to the next meeting.

I believe so. Yes.

Okay, so it has been motioned by Commissioner Robinson and second by Mayor Pro Tem Reardon. And the vote passes seven zero. Next on the agenda is public comment the first one on the list is Wendy and

if you'll just state your name and you have three minutes uh to state your okay your item so thank you mayor mayor pro tem commissioners and those online as well as those here for letting me share some wonderful news for our community um I'm representing 100% Otero as well as our community. Sandra Davis, myself, Nadia Sykes, and Tom Furman, he's with Sacramento Foundations, attended about a month and a half ago a housing conference put on by Bernalee leo county and there were 10 counties represented the speaker of the house came and coached us on how to write a bill properly that would be more likely to pass for legislature this bill is for housing the 10 counties including ours represented decided on some some priorities of course we don't all have the same priorities so we narrowed it down to seven priorities and now you have the opportunity to use your voice not just the mayor mayor pro tem commissioners but everybody's sitting back here everyone online your friends your family everyone within our county um you can complete a survey it's on the site is n m housingplan.org and that survey tells you a little bit about the bill if you're doing the survey on your phone you scroll down to the bottom and you'll see a place to do the survey if you have a story about housing there's a place to do that if you're completing the survey on your computer you scroll to the bottom the surveys the bottom left telling your story is the next one over And you might say, well, what does this entail? Wendy, I know I've heard you talk about unhoused people before. We are not just talking about unhoused people. We are talking about the vacant homes in our community. We are talking about the areas in our community that need a little bit of a facelift. per se, and you can do this with your name attached. You can do this anonymously, but you have the right to speak out for our county and prioritize what you want in this bill that will be going to Santa Fe for our community and for housing. If you have questions about the bill, the email is pretty much the same. housingplan at gmail.com. There's two gentlemen, Noah and Will, and they've been pretty good about getting people's questions answered in 24 hours. Again, this can bring money into our community. The more people that do the surveys, the more Otero County is represented, then the more the legislatures are going to say, hey, they need money to assist in their community for housing. So thank you.

Thank you. Next on the agenda is Kim Great White Owl Murillo.

I'm also asking for two extra minutes because of reasonable accommodations. Good evening, my name is Kim Maria or Kim Great White Al Maria. I moved back to Alamogordo after a 40 year hiatus and returned because I believe restorative justice and that of New Mexico and our city is at a tipping point. I've lived here since November 25 and began engaging in civic engagement in January 26. From that month, I spoke publicly in support of hiring Dr. Hernandez as our permanent city manager. On June 23rd, I witnessed a difficult but a necessary turning point, a night I will call the truth moment. For months, people asked this commission to follow the public will. The pressure came together when Commissioner Paratano's remarks opened a protocol breach and a long-held practice came to light. We learned that a contract many of us thought would go to Dr. Hernandez never offered to her. Instead, that very draft was redlined and repurposed for Robert Stockwell. Email shows terms in place before Stockwell June 15th interview. We heard that Commissioner Raskin, from that moment he picked up the phone, intended to work with Mr. Stockwell, stating he re-erected a 2012 contract. As as nothing happened in that 14 years, I have also saw retaliation in real time. A constituent who spoke truth about the hiring process was added to an uncollectible list and the public humiliation. The commission stood silent in that moment and it felt complacent. I do not come here in flame. I come to seek reconciliation. Restorative justice asks for truth, accountability, and amends. I ask this commission tonight to begin reversing the retaliation, forgiving the alleged uncollected funds assessed against the citizen who spoke up, and formally apologize. I ask any commissioner who repeatedly places personal will above public trust should consider stepping aside so the city can heal. Mr. Stockwell. With your years of municipal experience, will you commit to a full openness about your role, explain why you bypassed the process, and make amends to this community? I will submit a longer comment for public record to the city commissioner after my speaking. Thank you for your time. Thank you.

Next on the list is Johnny Powell.

Good evening. I'm Johnny Powell, President and CEO of the International Space Hall of Fame Foundation. And I come before you this evening to just announce, after a little bit of a struggle that we had with the fireworks show at the museum this year, we were able to get that successfully pulled off. And I just wanted to come here and thank the city for the wonderful job that they did with the fireworks. As you know, we segue that in with a membership event, and our membership just totally loved their front row seat. It was a very, very good job, very well done, and I just want to come here and I wanted to personally come in and thank you guys for that, and I'll give you back my other two minutes.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. You're welcome.

Next on the agenda is Susan Payne, and she is going to be speaking on business matter.

Good evening. Susan Payne so apparently I was here at the last meeting apparently after I left I started receiving phone calls and text messages asking me if I own owed a water bill or if I owed a bill to the city of Alamogordo I was pretty stunned because I had no clue what anyone was talking about but after about the fifth one I decided to check for myself and lo and behold I was on the write-off list Commissioner Reardon knows that because he made it a point to emphasize that three or four times that he had my phone number that I needed to get in here and pay my bill. Well, Commissioner Reardon, as soon as I found out about it, and by the way, I still don't understand how I owed the money, but in good faith, I wrote a check for $537 because I pay my bills. Now, I found that incredibly hypocritical because if we want to go back to 2021, 2021 when you sat in a meeting at the civic center because we were all still under the covet mandate and you sat in a meeting at the civic center walking into that meeting knowing that you owed the taxpayers sixteen hundred dollars for a water line that you ordered and you knew when you walked in there and you sat there While your fellow commissioners were put in the awkward position of having to decide whether to write it off, well, it was COVID. And so if everybody wants to know why we did it, it's because it was COVID. Nobody wanted to be there, and everybody was under pressure. So I'm challenging you, Commissioner Reardon, don't stiff the taxpayers. Pull out your checkbook like I did and pay your bill. you going to do that are you going to pay your bill because you made darn sure that you tried to embarrass me in front of everybody sir that was for insurance charges that i still don't understand how i owed because i paid everything before 2022 and i paid everything up until i left on december 31st 2025 i was told i did not owe any more charges but in good faith blindly wrote a check for 537 dollars because i didn't want to owe this city money and by the way you know what they told me you can make payments there's no dang way i'm going to owe this city any money and make payments so just so you know i came in here like you asked me to and pay my bill now i'm challenging you don't stiff the taxpayers as a sitting commissioner and a mayor pro temp pull out your checkbook and pay your bill

Next on the agenda is Jerry Martinez, and he is going to be speaking on transparency.

Good evening, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, and Councilman. I've been out of town on business and actually did a funeral in Phoenix. So I've been out of town, but I've been hearing some very disturbing news about retaliation, such as the one that former Mayor Payne just said and talked about. I really think that we really need to pray that there is no more non-transparency in this commission. And I think we know which are the commissioners that are being non-compliant, so to speak. It's a shame that there has to be retaliation against the former mayor. She's a good mayor. She was a good mayor. And, you know, I'm going to have to say this again. I hate doing this, but shame, shame, shame on you guys. Let's get this city getting going where it should be, not fighting against the citizens themselves or former mayors. It's not right, gentlemen. It's not. What we need to do is stick to the business of running the city and helping the mayor and these other two outstanding commissioners. When you guys block everything that they're trying to do, guess what? We're noticing. We're noticing. And I'm just so disgusted with the corruption and all the craziness that's going on. Please, I beg of you. As I always mention, in God we trust. It's right in back of you guys right here. God's watching everything you guys are doing. So please, please, let us all get along, work together, and move the city along. There's a thing that I'm involved with, it's called First Nations Second Chance, and it's a great program that's coming into the city to help the unhoused as well. And thank you, Wendy, for 100%. I saw you guys on TV, you and Nadia, good friends. And so there's people out here that are doing something, that are trying to take action to make this community better. You all have the power to help, just like we helped Pastor Torres. And thank you for doing that. We need help out here. Us pastors and churches cannot take full care of what's going on in the city. The city needs to do some things as well to help. And First Nations Second Chance is a program I think that will help not only the unhoused, but veterans, domestic violence victims, and children, abused children. I think it's a good program. We're putting it as a spiritual program. We're working with the tribe as well. 20 seconds. Thank you, Mayor. So things like this is what we need to do, gentlemen, to move along, to improve the city. I beg of you, and as a godly man, I ask of you, please do the right thing. Thank you.

Thank you. Next on the agenda is the city manager's report.

Well, members of the commission, I have a total of 14 days on the job. And I'm able to successfully find myself to the restroom and back to my office. And what I have found as I have been having the opportunity to meet with many of the city employees and the directors is that we have lots of good folks. who are dedicated to making our community better. And what I'm receiving as we attend these meetings is a strong understanding of the city's various operations that we're involved in, a myriad of things that go on. Our staff is well-informed. They understand their roles. And my job is simply to help them to do the work that they've all signed up to do. and I'm finding them to be very responsive in that process. And so I think things look very good for us going forward and that we are going to accomplish the task that the commission as a whole sets us out to do, and you're going to rely on us to be responsive to those things. I'd like to report that something I had nothing to do with last year, that the city built several retention ponds surrounding Bonita Lake, and we've had some rain, and this last weekend there was a heavy runoff, and the retention ponds worked perfectly. There was no mud into the lake, no debris from the fires, no ash that made it into the lake. And so that was one project that has paid off in big dividends. And I congratulate our public utilities department, public works department for the work that they did in bringing that forward. That's our good dependable water supply and it's important that that the citizens know we're doing everything possible to make sure that it is a reliable source going forward. So I congratulate our staff in getting that in place so that hopefully as we make it through this monsoon season, which we are hoping for rain, but not too much, that the lake stays clean and we're able to go forward in dealing with that. And the second thing is I wanted to clarify, not only for the commission, but for the public that all of the correspondence that you receive from city staff, whether it's emails or documents that are passed along to you, those are all open to you to share with whomever you want to share them with. We encourage you as you have conversations with the citizens and you have May have those those things with you, or you can point them to what it is there to simply just share those. We are not sharing anything that should be kept confidential. We this is information that that all the citizens. Can access and if we can make it simpler for them to get that by just talking to you or or asking for a copy. If you happen to have one and we encourage you to do that. so that we're as open as possible. The few things that we do need to keep confidential will be handled as they should be in that process, and that's a small number of things. My counsel to the staff has been if we have to err on the side of releasing too much or too little, that we should always err on the side of releasing too much. Because better that we do that than we somehow accidentally keep something that should not have been or should have not been confidential. So that's my commend you and to the community that we will be as open as possible. I encourage the citizens to take advantage of the various Facebook pages that the city operates on a daily basis as a source of good information and to simply ask all of us if there's more information that is needed there. And so I encourage that openness on the part of our directors and employees. And if there's any questions about that, I'd be happy to answer them.

Next on the agenda is remarks and inquiries by the City Commission. Okay, if nobody has anything to say, I will go on. I wanted to say thanks to Austin Harris, who rode with me on the float for July 4th. I really appreciated his input for the seats, the benches we have out at the jet or the monument that we have out there. He had come in early in January and he stated that because he has a disability, he said it might be nice for you to have benches and someplace to throw away your trash and so with that, we were able to get the park benches and also the trash cans installed out there. On this past Friday, I threw out my first baseball for one of the leagues and I had to move up so I could reach the plate, but it was successful and the young men that are playing in the American League If they won on Friday, they were going to go on to Albuquerque and then from there to a national, I guess, league. Or not a league, but a championship. So I really thought that would never happen, so I'm grateful for that. Finally, I have on the T-shirt that we are going to be wearing on Saturday, and this is to identify who we are and what we're doing. This is the District 5 annual citywide cleanup. Actually, we have seven dumpsters. We have one on Indian Wells and Scenic. 2201 Puerto Rica Avenue, and that's the Senior Center. 817 North Scenic, New Beginnings Church parking lot. Panorama Boulevard, which is next to the Fairfield Inn. Walker Road and the baseball park. Oregon School, 1500 Oregon Avenue. And on last Friday and Saturday, we had signs up in the past. We've had smaller yard signs, and I think sometimes people didn't recognize what it was. So we have larger signs out this year to indicate that that will be a drop-off place for people to bring their junk so they can actually get rid of it. So we do have an extra dumpster that's going to be at Dudley Community Center and Park and that's at 523 Maryland Avenue, Alma Gorda, New Mexico. Now anybody can use the dumpsters in all of the districts. We do have assignments that will be given out at Dudley Community Center and that will take people to different areas in town to help clean up some of the you know homes or yards that we have and also to pick up trash so one of the things that I found today and maybe the city can help me out with this but I was passing by a house and this lady and I think her name is Arlie she was out hacking down weeds that were taller than she was because she got this in the mail, not in the mail, but as a flyer so we could do her yard. So I just wanted to ask if we are going to take care of weeds outside of her property, or is that something that she has to do because she was under the impression that she had to do it? So I told her I didn't think that was her responsibility. And I wanted to make sure that we can address that for tomorrow so I can let her know because she was outside and in the heat at about 1.30. Trying to get rid of those those weeds so I just wanted to make sure that we got That answered for her. Yes, if you'll just give me that address We'll go by and check out to be sure what it is 918 post And I also would like to thank the Sacramento Mountain Foundation Amy Tilson State Farm Insurance and the City of Alamogordo, especially the Parks and Recreation, and the Chamber of Commerce. For all of the sites, we are giving away a gift bag, and in that gift bag, it contains sunglasses and some other things that might be interesting for people who come to dump their junk. There's a coin in there, and I don't know if, no, he's not in here, but There's a coin that has the, um, the logo for the city of Alamogordo. And I think it's really a nice keepsake. And I am really happy to, uh, to say that each location will have five of the gift bags and they will be able to give those out for the first five people that come and dump their junk. And so with that said, I know there's a lot more going on in the city, but I am very happy for the number of people that we have had to volunteer. Our church, Corinthians Baptist Church, is going to be celebrating 98 years in existence. And there is probably about 11 people that is coming from the church. to help with the cleanup on Saturday. So I'm extremely grateful for that and I just think that they've done a fantastic job. Our pastor, he passed away in December and they are carrying on the tradition to help out in the city. It's not just for the cleanup, but they help out with other things all year long. So I just want to say thank you to them also. And I think that's all I have today. Next, we're going to be dealing with our consent agenda. Are there any items on there that need to be pulled? If not, do we have a motion to approve the consent agenda?

Move to approve.

Do I have a second? Second. It's been moved by Commissioner Robinson and second by Commissioner Burnett, and we're ready for the vote. And the vote passes 7-0. And this is a wonderful item here. Item number eight, consider and act upon resolution 2026-21. Requesting approval of the physical year 2027 rates and fees to document at the Alma Gordo White Sands Regional Airport Troy or and looks like Eileen. Yes, Harris is on the.

Good evening Madam Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, Commissioners and City Manager Stockwell. My name is Eileen Flint. I'm the Community Services Director here for the City of Alamogordo and tonight we bring before you the to consider and act upon resolution 2026-21 requesting approval for the fiscal year 2027 rates and fees document in which we annually review along with the airport advisory board and the airport manager the increase every year for the rates and fees at alm the white sands regional airport to keep up with inflation this is also airport manager troy orr And if you have any questions, we're happy to answer for you.

How many times have we had this on the agenda to raise the rates?

This will be the second time.

Which rates are actually going up? We don't have the before and after. OK. Are the lease rates going up at all?

So right now, the lease rates are going up, and then the commercial landing fees to $0.40.

How much were the lease rates going up?

That is according to the CPI, 2.7%, sir.

And then you said the commercial landing fees?

The landing fees were at 30 cents before, and that's to keep up with, to be concurrent with what the federal government pays.

Was there any feedback from the advisory board?

They reviewed this, sir, in April of 2026.

I'm guessing they're fine with this one considering the backlash we got from the last one.

Yes, sir. They were very involved and they reviewed it and approved.

I was actually at the...

board meeting last week and asked that same question and they were fine with it do we have a motion I'll make a motion to approve item 8 second it's been a motion by Commissioner Burnett and second by Commissioner Robinson ready for the vote And it passes 7-0. If there's nothing else, do I have a motion for adjournment?

So moved.

Second?

Second.

There's been motion by Commissioner Burnett and second by Commissioner Robinson to adjourn. I mean, sorry.

I'm ready. Okay. Rachel, I clicked out already, but yes, for me.

And it passes 7-0. Adjourned.