City Commission - Regular Meeting

Tuesday, August 25th, 2026, at 6.32 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.

Thank you. We're going to have the implication by Commissioner Robinson and the Pledge of Allegiance by Commissioner Tapley.

Eternal Heavenly Father, look down on us. Please be in our presence. We invoke your name. We invoke your wisdom. We invoke your grace. Lord, during this heat spell, we ask you to bless all those city workers who have to work outside to endure the heat and to bless them to stay safe. For those who don't have a home or a shelter, Lord, we ask you also to bless them. And then, Lord, bless those who have to make decisions for this city, not just for today or this year, but for many, many years. Give us the wisdom, give us the understanding, and give us the patience so that we make the best decisions possible. If you do this, Lord, we'll give you the honor, the glory, and the praise, and we'll do it in your son's holy name. Amen.

Please follow your assignment pledge.

Can I get a motion for the approval of the agenda?

So moved. Second.

Okay, so it's been moved by Commissioner Burnett and second by Commissioner Hernandez. And we're ready for the vote. And the vote passes 7-0. Next on the agenda is the presentation. It's the Labor Union Appreciation Week proclamation. And I will be reading it. Do I need to come down there and hand it to you? Okay.

Thank you, ma'am.

The City of Alamogordo Executive Office, whereas hard-working people across the City of Alamogordo, prove that our community is filled with creative, dynamic, dedicated, talented workers in many career fields and specialties. And whereas the right to organize and collectively bargain is a fundamental American value since it began in 1970, 1794 organized labor has raised living standards and built our middle class. It is the reason we have child labor laws, 40 hour work weeks, weekends, overtime paid vacation, the minimum wage sickly parental leave OSHA, Employment, non-discrimination, pensions, social security, health care, and so much more. And whereas the opportunities many Americans enjoy today exist because their parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents fought for these basic rights and values. Their toil wove the fabric of our society. The values and principles upheld by the countless honorable laborers of the past and present and their labor unions continue to fuel the growth of our economy and a strong middle class. And whereas today there is a vigorous fight to protect these rights and values, and during this Labor Union Appreciation Week, we affirm that collective bargaining is a cornerstone of the American economy and society. Public employees, including educators, healthcare workers, social workers, postal workers, ambulance drivers, clerks, police and correctional officers, firefighters, utility maintenance workers, construction workers, and others, as well as those in private industries, including electricians, plumbers, auto workers, carpenters, and others, are the foundation that makes the American dream a reality from sea to shining sea. Now, therefore, I, Sharon McDonald, Mayor of the City of Alamogordo, New Mexico, do hereby proclaim the week of September 6th through the 12th, 2026, as Labor Union Appreciation Week in Alamogordo and call upon all residents to observe this week with appropriate program ceremonies and activities that acknowledge the tremendous contribution of working Americans and their families in the prosperity and quality of life enjoyed by us all. Next on the agenda is public comments. Tonight we have three people. The first person on the list is Tamara Hanson and she's going to speak about the union.

Good evening, Madam Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, Commissioners, City employees and the public. As you heard before, I'm Tamara Hanson. I'm the president of the AFSCME Local 3818. And I just wanted to thank you, Madam Mayor, for acknowledging the contributions of labor unions and their members, which they've made to our country. Citizens working together, not kings, established this country and its principles, defended it, and created its prosperity. AFSCME Local 3818 along with the employees in APD and AFD proudly continue the work of the many union members who came before us and we are dedicated to defending the rights and dignity of those who labor in the service of the city the dedication and hard work of our city employees is sometimes taken for granted so i'd like to take this opportunity to thank each of them for their service to alamogordo without you the city would cease functioning And one final thing I'm proud to introduce to you, Mr Thaddeus Gilmore, our most recently appointed union steward. He's going to help us do a lot of good things for the city and its employees. Thank you again. Thank you.

Next on the agenda is Russell Davis, and he's going to be talking about earth day, 2027.

Good evening, everyone. My name is Russell Davis. I'm here to talk about the 2027 Earth Day celebration at the Alameda Park Zoo, which is next year, April. I'm talking about this now because the zoo recently posted the event date on the Facebook page, and because there's four new people this year, the new city manager, Robert Stockwell, the Interims Park and Recreation Director, Heather Casebolt, tourism specialist, Caitlin Hansen, and Colonel Michael Mullen at the Holloman Air Force Base. Some backstory. This past April, four months ago, the Earth Day at the zoo was the same day as the base's air show. I came before this commission back in February to point out that having both events on the same day was unfair to the city, unfair to the base, unfair to people who attended either event, and unfair to the vendors at Earth Day. Moving forward, I'm glad to see the zoo announcing next year's event as soon as they had planned it this month. Hopefully, the zoo keeps in contact with the base about future date conflicts, even though the next air show isn't until 2028. And I just want to remind everyone that Earth Day at the zoo isn't like other zoo events or like Fourth Friday concerts. It's the only time Otero and Lincoln County come together to celebrate the Earth and the environment. Thank you for your time. Thank you.

And last on the list is Charles Burris, and he's going to be talking about golf and revenue. Just state your name and you have three minutes.

I know. Charles Burris, resident here. an ordinance, 1666, that was in effect back prior to the pandemic. And as a result, it's called, according to the state of New Mexico, the lodgers tax, a 5% tax that can be levied against hotels and Airbnbs for people who stay less than 30 days in our town. Prior to the pandemic, the city was getting about $250,000 a year from this tax. It was used, I guess, to build a civic center and an advertising firm in Santa Fe, New Mexico. My proposal is that the golf course, the management firm that may eventually get hired here, that kind of money with more hotels and airbnbs we had prior to the pandemic could spin off a tremendous amount of money for this town number one number two it would create tourism is what it's supposed to do and with that money you could afford to have the management firm of the golf course almost covered in their fees whatever they may be i'm not familiar with that in addition The thing that's going across this country right now is pickleball. It's a state, national league thing. It is growing. There's a discount furniture store over on White Sands. With this money, we could probably at least lease it, but buy it and make a great pickleball place for the old, the young, the middle-aged, you people could have a place of entertainment to go to. In addition, I heard at one point in time that maybe we're going to have an aquatic center. This would go a long way in getting builders to build an aquatic center like they have in Las Cruces, but only 2 thirds the size. It doesn't have to be as large as theirs, but it's a fun place for young, old, and everyone. And the second note that I have 39 seconds for is just a silly suggestion. Over in Washington Park, we got a lot of room. What about a merry-go-round for young families with children and older adults like us who would enjoy that old-time fashion in an area that we have plenty of room for? This money could go to pay for that also. The ordinance is 1666 and it was repealed Valentine's Day 2022 because it was causing too much of a hardship supposedly on the hotels. Now we've got twice as many hotels and probably that many more Airbnbs. I think it'd be a plus for the city to draw in people. And from the sales tax, you might even be able to cover most of the cost of these new appropriations. That's all. Thank you. All right. I have a copy of this.

Just give it to the clerk, the city clerk. Next on the agenda is the city manager's report.

Mayor, members of the commission, tonight I've got a couple of things I want to bring up that are important. Can we bring that picture up? This is a picture of a property that raises Several concerns for us. Many of the members of the commission have already been made aware of this particular property amongst others with similar situation. But if you look at that, the picture is being taken from across the street. looking at that property. This house where the picture is being taken from has had four offers to purchase the house, all of which were ultimately withdrawn because the potential owners said, I love the house, but I can't get up every morning and look at that. And so there are given our current ordinances, there are things that we can do and we have already taken some steps to eliminate some of the problems there. But what we face is the reality of this property owner. If you show him this picture, he will say there's absolutely nothing wrong with his property. Most of the rest of us look at it and can think of lots of things that are wrong. And so what I'd like the Chief Kunihiro and Josh to talk about are what kinds of things we are able to do in these kinds of situations and what we cannot do. And maybe suggest some things that we need to do to modify our codes to give us a few more tools so that we can go in and deal with situations like this, because this is not the only one in Alamogordo. We have them in almost every neighborhood, the varying rate or lesser degrees. But it is a issue that comes up over and over, and we need to figure out how best to deal with it. The obvious violations there, I'll let Josh bring them to your attention. And then we have a discussion about maybe some tools that we need. And then I'd like to turn it over to them to report on the Tinsley trailer park to bring us all up to date on where that is since the fire and what we can expect to have happened down there. So Chief, go ahead.

Good evening, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem and Commission. David Cunaheiro for the record. as mr stockwell was discussing this picture has obviously come across all of our plates at some point recently um and in the in the recent past so i'll speak specifically from the police department's perspective um you guys should know that code enforcement falls under us so code really deals specifically with certain ordinances and where they don't have the authority then generally the police department will come in if we have the proper authority so for this picture specifically the three vehicles on the left side that are essentially parked in the alleyway just just to let you know we've we've got ordinances against parking in alleyways and things of that nature like mr stockwell said um we have taken steps to move forward with that again the the property owner or the resident there's choices to continue to park there or not, and as often as we go back, we have the ability to cite. I'll turn it over to Josh to discuss the other things with this property, but also some of our restrictions or limitations to what we can actually enforce.

Good evening, Madam Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, Commissioners. Hi, I'm Josh Seitz, the Code Enforcement Manager. So in this picture, and this is a little older of a picture, there are two things that we can enforce out of all of this that you see. One of them is outdoor automotive storage for the transmission sitting behind the older car just to the left of the telephone pole. and then all of the outdoor storage there to the right of the rv with the wood and some of the other boxes that are there and those have been enforced and he is in the process of cleaning a lot of that up those have specifically been moved as from my understanding from one of my code enforcement officers other than that the uh the truck bed that's a trailer the small two-door pickup the rv the green car older model car are are not things they look as if they're operable from our standpoint they don't have flat tires we can't really see if the license plate on the the two-door pickup is expired the license plate if I my memory serves me correct from my code enforcement officer the license plate on that older model vehicle was The view of it was covered. It was covered, so we couldn't tell whether it was registered or not. So other than just the basic outdoor storage and outdoor automotive storage for the transmission that was sitting there, that was about all we could enforce to clean that up at this point in time. But you still remove that, and it still is not appeasing to the eye.

So let me just discuss some of the thoughts on what we could do.

So in speaking with Mr. Stockwell and Chief Kunihiro and doing some research, there are some other communities that have things that address this potential parking and and yards and things like that and other communities that we have researched and rvs as well we do get code enforcement does get calls on rvs and yards all the time so there are avenues and tools that we could use or could implement but it would take of course y'all to allow us to implement that

And what would some of those things that we would need to approve in order for you to implement ordinances, stronger ordinances, stronger wording and ordinances and enacting different ordinances?

For instance, in the city of Albuquerque, there is ordinances pertaining to how many square feet of parking space you can have on a lot, depending upon lot size and things of that nature that could happen.

how would the the square footage in parking how would that affect like me i have three vehicles at my house um two in the driveway one in the street i mean how would that ordinance how would we structure that to where i mean they're all operable vehicles we drive them from time to time they're all registered all insured so how would we structure that to allow Somebody has more than one vehicle to park it there, but you know I have one just down the street from me very similar to this There's a Cadillac on jack stands in the front door coke machines on a trailer trash everywhere I just been biting my tongue because it's like you know it's their property, but I Understand the intent and if y'all research back. I think it was 2012 or 2013 We did address The parking of RVs, we have an ordinance on that. Remember, we discussed it in length as far as parking RVs in the front yard or on the property. There was some criteria in the ordinance on that.

So there's nothing in the ordinance right now. The only thing in ordinance is that it can't be hooked up to utilities or occupied. So in a zone that doesn't allow for the occupancy of RVs. Oh, they could be talking about parking on streets as well. RVs on streets, but there's nothing on parking it in your front yard.

So we do get maybe it was discussed and never passed back then because we had a very lengthy, I mean, two or three different meetings and it was all pertaining to the wood streets out there with with RVs being parked in the front yard or on the side of the house or I could have swore we passed that, though. But and then didn't we do something with like the inoperative vehicles maybe a year or two ago? No, I remember we discussed it, but I don't remember where we went from there.

It never gained traction. It was discussed. But if I remember right, it was manager Holden who was in office at the or in the position at the time and it never gained traction. Mayor Pro Tem to go back to your original question on how we would go about enforcing that. For instance, the city of Albuquerque does 400 square feet. So you have 400 square feet of parking availability on your residence. And so that's an option. That's just an example of something that I've seen with doing very limited research today on what we could do. Of course, doing extended research and then consulting with the proper people to get an ordinance in front of you would be where we would go if that was what was desired.

So the 20 by 20 area, so basically a two car driveway?

Or a 10 by 40. Get you four cars, roughly.

So, driving by my house, when you first pulled that picture up, I was like, wow, that kind of looks like my house. Except I don't have all the trash. But I've got five trailers. They're all registered and licensed. My motorhome. I've got two Bobcat skid steer loaders. I've got the parts of that. Now, IF YOU GUYS WENT TO WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT, I WOULDN'T HAVE A PROBLEM BECAUSE I HAVE MULTIPLE LOTS RIGHT THERE. ONLY PROBLEM I'D HAVE IS I'D HAVE TO PUT CAMERAS EVERYWHERE BECAUSE I'D HAVE TO JUST DISTRIBUTE MY VEHICLES. THE ONLY ISSUE I HAVE WITH ADDING ADDITIONAL ORDINANCES IS WE HAVE ORDINANCES ON THE BOOKS RIGHT NOW THAT WE DON'T ENFORCE. For instance, right next to Lieutenant Brown's house, there's a vehicle, a four-wheel drive vehicle that's sitting on blocks that's been there probably five or six years. I get a notice that's 15 days, and I've got 15 days to take care of it. That's how I understand it, or it's going to be taken care of by the city and then billed back to me. So my only issue with adding ordinances is I think we need to enforce the ones that we have currently. I brought to you guys attention the house over on Ohio. That was a month ago. That's more than 15 days. It's still exactly the same. Trees still over the sidewalk. I've seen people having to walk around. I just, I mean I understand this and I understand the lady's frustration and I think we need to enforce what we have to make sure it works like the parking in the alley, the dilapidated or the broke down cars and stuff like that. But I think we really need to enforce what we already have on the books.

So I, cause commissioner Hernandez, I can understand that. So what, basically what this stemmed from was kind of some, some communication, um, that, that came to us. And so we were just kind of presenting like this specific case example is, although it's may not look appealing to the eye, we have cited and we are taking measures to correct. ordinance that they violate however it might not meet everyone's standards so what we're just suggesting are there there are there's an opportunity if you guys want to we can amend or update ordinances to to strong to have a stronger ordinance if we want if we so desire for this and with those ordinance being forced i mean that's what that's i get it goes back to my my comment is

you know, the truck next to Lieutenant Brown's house. I mean, again, it's been there on blocks. There's an ordinance against that. And the reason I mentioned that one is because it's right next to one of the lieutenant's house. Not that he's going to call it in or nothing, but I mean, to me, it's like, you know, it's right next door where we can see it.

Sure. So yes, we, I guess at times ordinances are enforced and not enforced depending on different fact patterns and circumstances. So.

Yeah. And I get that. And that's, That brings up my concern, is that is this going to be used as a tool for the city, or is it going to be used as a tool to harass?

Commissioner Hernandez, for your example about the vehicle next to Lieutenant Brown, no one has gone all the way to court, and that's all we can do is make it go all the way to court. We can't tow that vehicle. So we take him to court, he gets guilty or not guilty, and take him back to court, guilty or not guilty. It's a vicious cycle we play with a lot of property owners in town.

So what you're telling me is an ordinance is no good?

No. I mean, we're doing everything we can by law. We give him his warning. We bring him to court. The court process happens. And whether he fixes it or doesn't is up to him. If he wants to keep paying the fines in municipal court, then he can keep paying the fines in municipal court if found guilty. But it has been enforced.

So maybe we need to look at that. the fines in municipal court.

At some point, it's out of our hands, right? So, like, one, I don't have authority over the legal office. Two, definitely not over the judge. So even if convicted in court, the judge operates to his own drum and gets to do what he wants.

Well, I understand that. But when we get a city attorney, the city attorney would work for us. And we would encourage the city attorney to push the maximum fine, the $500 or the 90 days in jail, because that's the maximum fine we can give. Not $25, not $50. I mean, he's got to help us enforce these ordinances or, again, they're no good.

Sure. I agree with you that the prosecution, the attorney can be directed by the city manager or whatever they see fit. But, again, pass that outside of my department's control for sure.

I have a question about the situation. Have we determined where the alley begins and the property line for that private homeowner ends?

Yeah, we were able to we were able to pull up the city GIS map and figure it out.

You smile. I asked because I went through something similar with the county where they wanted to have property lines recovered for Very similar situation where you had vehicles parked in the right-of-way. So just for the benefit of everybody's understanding, when you have a subdivision plot filed and it's approved by the city, all of that property dedicated as streets and alleys falls to the benefit of the public, and so therefore it is city property. But just to me, from hearing all the factors, it seems as though You could have an issue with anything that your neighbor has in their yard. It could be reasonable, it could be unreasonable. To me, if you want to boil it down to facts, I think that determining where your right-of-way exists and recovering the property lines would be the first step. And then I don't know that we have, I haven't seen an ordinance for encroachment onto city property. So to me, it's a safety issue with the alley, just the way I see it, that you have cars blocking the alley. You can't really do much as far as the aesthetics or the items in somebody's property, provided they're abiding by setback regulations and provided they're abiding by proper zoning regulations for working on vehicles as a garage in their yard or running a lawn service company out of their home. So you're walk in a difficult line, I think, with that. But I think that what's more concrete and what's more attainable would be to recover the alleyway property line. And then you could, I believe, once an ordinance is properly enacted for we reserve the right to issue citations for structures and vehicles existing in our property. What do you guys think?

Well, just to tell you what has happened is, again, this is an older picture. Shortly after the communication was received, officers went out that evening and were able to determine what the resources they have that the vehicles, in fact, violated parking and alleyways ordinance. So they've cited it. I don't believe it's been adjudicated at this point in time. So I think there are some avenues. But again, we're always open to some direction if you think we can strengthen our ordinances.

So as far as the trucks parked in the alleyway, what are you allowed to do as the code enforcement or police officer?

So we can issue a citation and or we can tow it out of the alleyway. So, of course, we want to get compliance, so we don't want to just tow everyone's vehicle and send it to the impound yard, right? So I believe this one was just a citation was issued.

Don't we have an ordinance on the books currently to like and I think it's 72 hours vehicle parked on the street. If it doesn't move, you guys can go mark the tires and if it doesn't move, I believe it's 72 hours.

I know that's specific to the RV ordinance that maybe you're alluding to earlier. But yeah, we have an abandoned vehicle.

um ordinance okay that if it appears um well like like the i'm going to use the one down the street from me for instance there's a chevy malibu it's been sitting there probably a better part of six months has not moved um if you all like in the past what they would do is go and mark the tires with paint and if it didn't and then the way around it would be just take it out of gear push it forward six or eight inches and then put it back in gear but

it would at least I know there's something on the books pertaining to that which other unless these unless these are daily drivers you know so so the only difference is difference between parking on the road versus entering the property right exactly so Josh mentioned kind of we couldn't see license plates to see if they're registered and things of that nature we cannot or should not start to walk around the property. Now, if we're going to the front door, normally there's a sidewalk, there's some kind of normal walkway that they would allow a mailman or someone to go up to. We can take that path, but we should not be wandering around properties trying to figure out, you know, trying to look at a license plate at this point. So again, we are restricted.

I'd like to see some, maybe have Manager Stockwell bring an item back to us basically for discussion and kick some ideas around of what we can and can't do to strengthen this up. This is an eyesore. Like I say, it's not so much the RV or the vehicles, it's all the other stuff, the trash and everything that's kind of mixed in. But maybe bring something back in the next couple of weeks or months for us to look at and see what we can and can't do.

So we're already planning to bring to the commission some amendments to the zoning ordinances that will address a few of these things. And we will add a few more into that so that we can discuss them in a context of where they will lie in the ordinances. But I think one of the values of the conversation tonight is to recognize that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And that while some of us might see a problem, others don't. And that's the challenge that faces both the commission and then the staff is how do we deal with the complaints? Because the complaints continue to come in. And in one sense, we can say, okay, we can enforce this one, but we don't because it just goes on everywhere and we can't possibly enforce all of it. And so what we use the ordinances for in most cases is to respond to complaints. Because if we were to drive down any given street in Alamogordo, we can find violations of the code, of our municipal code. We don't do that. We respond to complaints. And then we need a tool that when we have that complaint, how are we gonna deal with it? The challenge with that is then that it appears sometimes that we're showing favoritism, or we're ignoring problems in one area in favor of problems in another. BECAUSE WE HAVE LIMITED RESOURCES. AND SO THE CHALLENGE BOTH TO THE COMMISSION AND THE PUBLIC IS TO RECOGNIZE THAT THERE IS NOT A SIMPLE SOLUTION TO SOMEBODY WHO WANTS TO MAINTAIN THEIR PROPERTY IN THIS MANNER. BECAUSE ONE, EVEN AMONGST THE COMMISSIONERS THERE'S A DEBATE WHETHER SOME OF THAT STUFF IS A PROBLEM AT ALL. HOW MANY VEHICLES SHOULD SOMEBODY BE ALLOWED TO HAVE ON A SINGLE FAMILY RESIDENTIAL PROPERTY? IS THERE A LIMIT? Some would say, yes, there needs to be a limit. Others would say, no, there doesn't need to be a limit. And so that's the challenge that we face is where do we find something that becomes both fair and enforceable? And so we will be bringing some of those things to you so we could move on to the. The discussion bring us up to date on the trade apart situation.

If I may real quick, I would encourage staff to reach out to RV Nichols, the county attorney and Sheriff David Black about the issues that they have pursued in the similar fashion. Because I think that is something worth considering going forward is how the city can protect their holdings and their property and the right of ways that belong to them. you can't encroach upon the government. And I would just encourage you guys to reach out to them and ask what they've dealt with and what they've been through on that because it is complex.

I think I would also like to add, I know we're looking at one specific property, but there have been several complaints that have been sent in for review. And some of them pertain to safety issues is like, you know, like when you're at a stop sign and you can't see the traffic that is coming in as you're inching out to see the traffic like You can see the traffic coming from the south, but you can't see the traffic coming from the north. So would it be something to look through the complaints so we're not just viewing one issue and to get them all together to all the complaints? I'm not looking for anything else, but get the complaints that have been already established. and then have those reviewed. And instead of, like I said, just doing one, we could do more than one. And then if we have some other situations that have been resolved or can be resolved, then we do it all at one. At least the ones we have, we try to take care of those.

Sure. And again, I would hope that as complaints come in, we're taking care of them. We're trying to resolve them. So if you have specific properties that are going Um, unresolved, I need to know about it, please.

Okay.

Can I ask you if staff has any recommendations on what we have in front of us here? As far as if it would help you guys with ordinances.

So, I think I think as Mr Stockwell said, we have some. rewrites in a draft form that we want to send to him first prior and let him decide what comes forward or not. So I think we have some ideas right now. So it looks like we have maybe a little direction as to Mayor Pro Tem, are you asking for maybe some language, how we can improve what we're talking about, which would be probably outdoor storage specifically?

Yeah, I mean, as far as outdoor storage goes, I already thought that our ordinance kind of. Addressed certain parts of this right here because and it did, you know, you have the if you have like in your backyard. If you have an 8 foot fence, you can store it in your backyard. But if I remember right, it's been a minute since I've read it. But you know, like like this here, you know the RV and the truck sitting in the driveway, but the truck bed trailer and and then you know the the Ford LTD or whatever that is over there. you know, the wheelbarrow and all that. I mean, if that was placed in the backyard where it wasn't visible, I don't think anybody would have a problem with it.

And that's what, some of that has already been fixed, or at one point it was fixed. And so some of the places where we're unable to touch

I have a similar situation to this in my district over there across from Rutt Circle. I don't remember, I think, is it Catalina? I think it's Catalina or Lovers Lane, one of those. And y'all may have, it's been a little while since I've driven by there. The gentleman had probably 20 or 25 cars. Yes, right on the corner there, he had a bunch of cars. And I think you guys have addressed most of that.

I've spoken with Mr. Kicklider about that.

And I think he's moved some of them. I don't know if he's moved them all. He moves them from property to property. It's better than it was.

And your other issue on Dexter is being addressed.

Yeah, I noticed they bought him some blue tarps so they could cover it.

So just something that I know happened a few years back when I was on the commission last time is we had a similar situation like this. And what the homeowner did is went up and erected something that looked worse to cover it. And I mean, he met the ordinance, but it made it look worse. They took old roofs, tin roofs and just and it wasn't the fence wasn't even straight. I mean, it was all over the place and it's still there. And so, I mean, then you don't know what's back there in it. And like I said, in this case, it would look really bad. So we need to make sure that whatever you guys have is, you know, and again, I mean, Enforcing the ordinances that we have I think is is a big thing you know working with our city attorney if we ever get one to.

Push that you know my next question would be are blocked alleys or right of ways an issue for emergency services for the city is that worth protecting.

Which is why I believe the parking in alleyways, we have the right, like I said earlier, we can tow a vehicle. So of course, we won't find out unless it's called in most of the time. We don't often drive down alleyways as a normal patrol. But if we don't run into it, we would anticipate someone calling on it, right? Because the last thing you want is a fire truck to go down having to hit the rear of a residence on a fire, and they can't get through the alleyway, right? And so we do what we have to do there, but I mean, it's going to take a while to get a tow truck there. So, yes, we need to protect our alleyways and the right of ways.

Even with the trash man going through, like, being in the construction trade, sometimes we park in the alleys, and the trash men, they're not polite about it. They blow their horn until you come move your vehicle. So, I mean.

We do get those calls. We'll pass them on to the public service agents.

If I could clarify one thing, even though we do not currently have a city attorney on staff, we do have a prosecutor and so there are all the cases that need to go before the municipal court are going to the municipal court and the city has an attorney on contract who does the prosecution so nothing is awaiting nothing is going without action while we go through the process of finding a city attorney

And if we do move towards stronger ordinances to protect the city right away, I do suggest having methods in place to be sure of your standing ahead of time, getting it surveyed, not by me, but having that done will save a lot of secondhand embarrassment afterwards. So that's my two cents. Thank you.

All right.

Do you want an update on Tinsley Trailer Park, 1620 North White Sands or 215 16th Street? Both addresses are good for Tinsley Trailer Park now. Tinsley trailer park this is the layout what you see here is basically our city map of it there's a screenshot of it the trailer park as it is or was Tensley Trailer Park was condemned in September of 23. Condemnation came from violations regarding the operated structures and sewer lines were the main causes. There were some secondary outdoor automotive storage, weeds, things like that that came in that violation letters too. But all violations pertaining to the condemnation have been corrected as of today, whether that's by the property owners demolishing a couple of structures or the devastation from the fire that occurred. Um, and this is yours. Yeah.

So again, some additional communication came in with some concerns for the crime and the amount of criminal activity happening in this area. So about a week ago is when we received, uh, the, the, uh, correspondence. And so at that point I ran the numbers from August 1st to August 18th and we'd only had four medical calls in that area. Um, one of them was an overdose death. So, um, there is, there are allegations of a drive by shooting that would have occurred if something like that occurred. We never got called and we never had a response to it. So I don't know about a drive by shooting. Um, and so some just some additional numbers for you pulling numbers from June and July. We've responded to this area 27 times. which is comes out to about half a call a day for two months if you want to break it down so um and i didn't see any um any major calls not that that's not a concern for the residents around there. I'm certainly not diminishing the fact that they think or feel that criminal activities is happening. I can also add to that our narcotics task force has also been in the area and has done over 20 cases, warrants, whatever you want to call them, in that area as well, right? So we know things are happening. We cannot bell reform kind of made it difficult for us to keep, um, people who keep offending in jail. So we struggle with that. So, you know, well, while it might seem like we're not doing anything, a lot of times we can arrest someone and there'll be out before the end of shift or by tomorrow morning. And so I assure you, at least based on the numbers, it, uh, it appears that we are present in the area and there are also things that aren't happening that are all right. There's, there are things that are not being reported that might be happening.

would it be possible those trailer and i think we mentioned that those aren't ours but those trailers like down at walgreens and there's one at walgreens and one somewhere else but would it be possible to set one of those out somewhere over in that area and just to monitor it and see because it records 24 hours a day doesn't it it does but that that tinsley is private property well if you set it in the in the city right away i guess uh or get permission right there is there or get permission from one of the other, like maybe the corner lot there off of 16th and White Sands to set it behind their building or something.

That's a possibility.

You know what I mean? Just to kind of record and see what's really going on over there. I mean, I know the area is kind of run down.

What happens is flashing trailer lights go there. They do their activity somewhere else. But, yes, it is possible.

It will move to a place where the cameras can't see. That's just a thought on it.

So the point of this was kind of two-pronged here, is one, I'm not sure I'm seeing the same level of criminal activity in the area that maybe the neighbor is. But certainly not discounting that. And that Josh is fixing to bring before you all to, would it be uncondemned? Is that the term he's going to bring? So the Tinsley management or ownership are fixing the issues that we've cited them for.

I can also say I do have contact with Mr. Simkin, Mike Simkin, who is one of the owners. There's three siblings that owned it, one passed. There is court process in the process right now for probate. And as soon as that is done, there is a possibility of a resolution for that trailer park that will satisfy, I think, all parties involved and the community.

Hey, Josh, one quick question. That area is fenced off right now, correct?

The area surrounding where the one burnt building at 1640 White Sands was an old thrift store, that's still fenced off, but not where they have already picked up all the pieces of the burnt trailers and buildings on Tinsley's Trailer Park on their property.

So Tinsley's been cleaned up for that fire.

Yes. But who's responsible for cleaning up the... The property owner of that. So we've tried making contact with him. We tried mailing him a letter, a certified letter. It came back. We noticed the the realtor sign that's actually for the lot next door. So we're trying, but ultimately I'm probably going to end up bringing a resolution to condemn that so we can clean it, then Bill and more lean it. Lean the property. Thanks.

You know, this is just kind of maybe a dumb question, but did Otero County Grant get permission when they went in and knocked it down?

I have no idea. I wasn't there.

I just saw a video on Facebook about it. And I mean, it came down very, very easily with their video excavator. But I was just wondering, it didn't look like it was that damaged from the fire, but he just hit it with his excavator and the whole building collapsed.

If I remember correctly, I believe Chief Ramirez was coordinating a lot of that. So that would be a question for Chief Ramirez.

It was Otero County that brought it in and did it.

I do know that. But I wasn't there, so I wasn't. to who, what, when, where, how. Okay. Do they have future plans to clean it up, I guess you would say? That is definitely in the pipeline. It's cleaning it up. That is definitely in the pipeline. And the resolutions that are presented are very much so. And A resolution that will make everybody happy. So what that is, is very tight lipped. Not a whole lot of information given, but there is some information that there are looking at resolutions that's going to satisfy everybody.

Josh, give us the timeline. Three months, six months. What do you think?

It's in probate court. So as long as that could be bound over to district court. So it's in the court process. And however long that takes, I don't know. It could take years. It could take a while. Thanks.

Are you? Any other questions? Yes.

Keep us updated.

Thank you.

One last thing, Mayor. Commission's aware that we started first part of July on a transportation master plan that had been budgeted and a contract awarded for roughly $3.8 million to pursue the transportation master plan. The community development director and myself have been working with looking at the scope of that work and are in the process of negotiating with the company that is doing that work to scale that back by approximately $2 million. We feel like we can accomplish the most important things that are necessary with transportation master plan for considerably less than was originally budgeted, and we'll hopefully have those final figures worked out in the next week or so, and then we'll be able to proceed there. So I just want to report to you that we are reexamining that and looking toward being able to reallocate some of that money to street repairs instead of the consulting work that was originally planned with it.

I'm sorry, I didn't hear the project that you mentioned. I'm sorry, I didn't I didn't hear the project that she transportation master plan.

And that's all I have for tonight. Unless there's questions, the commission.

Okay, next on the agenda is remarks and inquiries by the City Commission.

Got one quick one. This is for City Manager Stockwell. Out there by the convenience center on Lavelle Road, I don't know how much of that's ours, but the weeds on either side of the road are getting four and five feet high. So whenever you have that, you can have them address that. Looks like they addressed it with a backhoe right in front of the convenience center, but on either side of it, on both sides of the road.

I'll have them check on that. Okay, thank you. Thank you.

I saw mention that City Development Board of Utilities assisted Tularosa with their recent issues. Would you guys mind speaking to that?

It was not us. It was the Air Force Base who chose to allow Tularosa to draw some water to fill their raw water reservoir. It was not proper. should not have been done in that manner and so we have clarified that situation with the air force going forward to recognize the limitations on using the water coming out of the bonito line they've recognized that and going forward because there are some some sphere limitations on what we're allowed to do with that water and dave can address that in more detail if you'd like

Good evening. I'm Dave Nunley for the record, and yeah, I can ask or address any questions. He did touch on that that was Holloman Air Force Base that Tularosa approached for water. They provided domestic water off the base, and then they moved them to the Benito and allowed them to virtually use an unmetered tap to provide water for their wild water reservoir. But I got wind of it pretty quick and put a stop to it. So yeah, it's a water right goes a long way back and we have to protect that water right as the city of Alamogordo. It is a shared water right with Holloman. They can do whatever they want, but there's certain ways to draw that water out of that line.

So thank you for clarifying.

Anyone else?

Just wanted to ask into an update on recruitment for a city attorney.

So I interviewed an applicant for the city attorney's position and have determined not to offer the position. We are going to try one more time. We'll do a one month recruitment to see if we can generate additional applicants. If that does not result in adequate applicants, then we will be coming back to the commission with a recommendation that the city contract out its legal services to a firm for comprehensive services. In between now and then, we have contracts in place for each of the various legal needs that we have, our labor, our water rights, general litigation, and personnel. And so we are adequately served at this point. It's frustrating not to have somebody in-house, but I think it's worth one more try to see if we can find So we could have a full-time city attorney on staff. But if we simply cannot attract somebody to town, then we will have to bring in legal services on a contract basis.

Is there anything that the commission can do at this time to assist with that?

Pray.

I do want to say I appreciate your going back to the table with the transportation master planning for renegotiation. So thank you.

If there are no other comments at this time, I do have some comments as a city, as a mayor, but I'm going to wait until the next meeting and bring those up. The next that we have, is there anything that needs to be pulled from the consent agenda? If not, I need a motion.

Move to approve.

Do I have a second?

I'll second.

Okay, so it's been motioned by Commissioner Robinson and it has been seconded by Mayor Pro Tem Reardon. And so now we go for our vote. And it passes 7-0. Next on the agenda is new business and it's number item number six. Consider an act upon resolution 2026-31 declaring 1221 Cuba Avenue to be so ruined, damaged and dilapidated that it is a menace to public comfort, health, peace and safety and ordering its abatement. We have Chief Kunihiro and the code enforcement manager Josh sides.

Good evening again, Madam Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem Commissioners. I bring before you a resolution to declare one I'm sorry 1221 Cuba to be dilapidated and pass resolution on that. Cuba is a structure that I have gone through my steps with as far as search warrants attempting to contact the property owner. It is located on the corner of 13th and Cuba. it has been dilapidated for quite a while this started in 24 and trying and trying and trying to get a hold of the property owner and was able to at one point and then lost contact with him 26 i mailed another request to inspect in june of this year another letter asking his consent to inspect and it went nowhere so i applied for an administrative search warrant which was granted and i conducted my administrative search and then i mailed my violation letter to the property owner the same day i did the search on june 17th The conditions of the property are pretty deplorable. Not so much on the outside, and a lot of these pictures are just outside. I do have some footage of the inside that was taken, so we'll go through some of these pictures. But there's cracking and everything in the exterior, and a lot of it has to do with the roof. The roof holds to the sky. Same thing on the secondary structure, the accessory structure in the backyard. The roof is terrible and has daylight coming through pretty much all over the place on it. open broken windows, allowing elements to go inside and have its way with the interior of the structure.

Yeah. Right now.

Yeah.

Yeah, so for the record on this, I use a template. I did not change the address on this one. It is 1221 Cuba.

Also in your resolution on your first whereas you've got 311 Virginia. You need to address that. It looked like this gentleman owns another structure four or five houses down from this one that's in a very similar. I remember the day that the lady from the little daycare on the corner Somehow or another backed her van all the way around and into the front of that and was sitting inside. That one's been that way since I was in high school 30 years ago.

And the property owner I did find out recently is deceased, and I've used all the tools available to me to try to find next of kin there, and I can't find the next of kin. I got you.

So these may be just nobody knows who owns them. He's still the owner of record, though deceased.

And he owns, as far as I'm aware, five properties in the town, and there's pretty much all are dilapidated at this point. Same condition.

So how do you guys come about listing these properties? Are they ranked? Are they rated? Is it by complaints?

I do have a ranking system, 3-2-1, 1 being the lowest level, 3 being the highest level, which includes structure fires, would be your 3 rank. And then your moderate rank, which this would be a moderate rank, moderate to severe, rank 2. But this one comes from the neighbor calling and complaining quite a bit. He's called a couple times, just to the south of this structure. Yeah.

The reason I ask is because I just did a quick drive around today just because I know they're there. 504 New York, 311 New York, 400 New York, 101 Texas, 102 Maryland. The first three that I mentioned, 311 New York, I've been trying to get that one done for probably 10 years. This was dated 2024. That one, half the structure is burnt. IT'S AN ADOBE HOUSE. IT'S CRUMBLING, IT'S FALLING. 504 NEW YORK, HALF OF THE ROOF IS GONE. I GOT A PICTURE OF THAT ONE. 400, SAME THING, YOU CAN SEE THROUGH THE ROOF. 101 TEXAS, SAME THING, IT'S BOARDED UP, BUT YOU CAN SEE THROUGH THE ROOF. 102 MARYLAND, DRIVING DOWN FIRST STREET, HALF THE ROOF'S GONE. From just looking at them, not inspecting them, but just looking at them. I mean, this one, you can still see the whole roof on it. The backyard, you can't really see unless you go around the side. But these, you can actually see from the street what I'm saying. And so my concern is that if we're ranking them,

Where are these at? 311 is already condemned and scheduled to be demoed. The property owner is supposed to demo that, 311 and 313. I believe it's next month, but I don't quite remember off the top of my head. It's in my report. But those are scheduled to be demoed by the property owner. New York's, the New York one I think is on my list. I can't, there's 151 properties on my dilapidated structures list and some Form of dilapidation, so it's very possible those I know 102 Maryland's on my list and the property owner runs that car Yeah, they all shop.

Yeah, so and then again like I believe it's probably 202 New York It's probably gonna be the address where the city condemned the house tore it down It looks worse now than it did then I mean, the weeds are, I mean, nobody's managing that. The biggest concern I have with doing these is that, again, the process. We do this part, but what about the rest of it, the second part? You know, making sure that they're taken care of, making sure that they're kept up.

So some of what I've found in taking over code in 2023 was that some of the properties, once demoed, were staying in the property owner's name, and there's a few of those. So we go back to, you got to cut the weeds on your property, or we'll do it for you. And I know there's one... There's a lot in the 300 block of New York, right down the two house, two lots south of 311, 313, that we will send them. That's what I'm talking about. We'll send them a letter, and they don't cut it, so we end up cutting it and then billing them, and then it gets leaned. I know we've cut that one multiple times. We usually cut that one a couple times a year.

1501 Ohio, I believe it's 1501 Ohio. corner of 15th and Ohio. That one, we tore it down recently. It's got a big O for sale sign on it. So I know it hasn't been, you know, I don't know.

I'm pretty sure they haven't been billed for it. I've submitted all that paperwork. So if the lien's not on that property, that is, I don't deal with liens. That would be our legal department. So there should be a lien on that property.

I guess part of my concern here is that AS AN ORGANIZATION, I MEAN, WE SHOULD BE A LITTLE BIT MORE UP ON WHAT'S HAPPENING BETWEEN THE DIFFERENT DEPARTMENTS. I KNOW IT'S NOT YOUR RESPONSIBILITY ONCE IT LEADS THAT, BUT I THINK SOME FOLLOW-THROUGH WOULD HELP. ESPECIALLY LIKE IN OUR CASES, MY CASE WHERE I LIVE, WE'RE TURNING DOWN QUITE A FEW HOUSES AND IT JUST LOOKS WORSE NOW THAN IT DID BEFORE THE HOUSE WAS THERE. I JUST THINK WE NEED A LOT MORE FOLLOW-THROUGH, ESPECIALLY LIKE ON THIS ONE. IT'S A QUARTER LOT. SAME THING WITH ONE ON OHIO. WHEN THE STRUCTURE WAS THERE, IT WASN'T. THE STRUCTURE LOOKED UGLY, BUT THE LOT WASN'T THAT BAD. NOW IT'S FULL OF WEEDS AND CONTINUES TO BE FULL OF WEEDS.

I know that we have had a number of houses put before code enforcement and one of the things that I do remember is that I know in District 5 there were quite a few but you were looking at the entire city and trying to cover um, things in every, in each district. So it didn't seem like, you know, we were just, I'm not saying favoring District five, but, um, you know, we've had, I think the complaint has been a while and then of course money is an issue. So I understand that. So, um, sometimes I think even though we keep up with it, I think we kind of get off on another matter. We like, like tonight we had a property shown and we go down that trail. So, um, I don't we, I mean each year you give us a dollar amount right for what we have for demolition, what we can. So, um, maybe we could get something, um, I guess at your leisure or whenever you can to tell us how much money we have in that and that fund so we can see how much can be taken, at least used to do the demolition. And otherwise, maybe, I don't know about updates, but I think I've counted the houses and it's more than 100. And I know we don't have money for 100 houses. for sure. And and I'm I'm using a very small number because I still have all the houses on a video that I did. So, um, we have a lot and I know we can't cover them all. So, I mean, I I'm not trying to make excuses, but, um, I mean, I had to realize that and I'm I'm trying to be patient and hopefully we can, you know, have a direction or at least a meter where we go around the list and see what can be done. So we're not frustrated every single year about what we're not doing.

Sure.

Can I ask, just for education purposes, I know it's difficult to nail down, but to abate and condemn and demolish a property, assuming there's no probate and everything goes reasonably according to schedule and plan, can you give us an estimate of price and timeline for that?

I would say average demolition is about $40,000.

About 40,000, roughly. All said and done, start to finish, and timeline can be widely bearable.

It could be. So with the timeline, so identify a dilapidated structure. I have to, by law, mail them or try to make contact with them face-to-face, over the phone. I have to try to make contact and ask for their consent to inspect their property. Once I do that, if they deny consent or I can't get ahold of them, then I can apply for an administrative search warrant and then I can conduct my inspection, mail them a letter. The letter gives them 30 days to do one of two things, either correct all the violations or contact me with a plan of how you're going to correct all the violations. If you contact me with a plan of how you're going to do it, you get up to two years to fix that. And that's by code by international property maintenance code. If you don't, Then after 30 days, at 31 days, I could go back by and go, yep, nothing's fixed. It's still the same state it was 30 days ago. And then I can draft the resolution, bring it in front of you by law then, by state law and city ordinance. Once the resolution is passed, the property owner has 10 days to commence demolition. If they do not commence demolition within the 10 days time at day 11, I can contact a contractor to give me a quote and demolish it. So it varies depending upon if they've contacted, If they've started work, if they've stopped work, it depends. There's a lot of factors to it. In this case, it would be pretty quick. I mean, once resolutions pass and I have to mail the resolution and post it on the property, I'll post it on the property. I know the mail is not going to go through because I know he's deceased and I have no next of kin that I can contact or mail anything to. So it's going to go pretty quick. And then in 10 days time, contact the contractor, give me a quote, and get a task order. ready to go and signed and then just have them mobilize.

Then what happens? So once the property is demolished and you put a lien on the property?

I file the paperwork. Once the contractor bills me, then I submit that invoice to be paid. We pay the invoice. I submit the invoice, the report, and any photographs that I have on that in conjunction with the report to our accounts receivable. Accounts receivable generates the invoice, mails it to the property owner. There's a timeline in which the property owner has to pay. I don't know what timeline that is off the top of my head. If it's not paid, then that whole packet gets transferred over to the legal department for the lien filing.

And the reason I ask that, so like on this property, if you say it's going to be around $40,000, you might get $40,000 for that lot. Somebody might, okay? If not, then does the city try to take it over? and sell it, or how does that work? Because again, my concern is, like where I live, most of those houses, it's going to take $20,000 to $40,000 to tear one down, when that lot is only worth maybe $15,000 or $20,000. So there's no way that that lot is ever going to be sold. NOW WE'RE GOING TO START HAVING A BUNCH OF EMPTY LOTS. AGAIN, WE NEED TO WORK AS A COMMUNITY AND FIND OUT WHAT'S THAT PLAN? HOW DO WE WORK THAT? HOW DO WE CONTINUE SO THAT WE JUST DON'T HAVE A LOT OF EMPTY SPACES? ROCKWOOD IS NEVER GOING TO GET BUILT. IT'S GOING TO BE AN EMPTY LOT.

If I could address that, Commissioner, we're examining some proposals that we've received to enter into a joint partnership to obtain private financing that would help make that process much more streamlined. Once a lien is filed and then we exercise the lien, meaning we go to force the payment, once we get initial title of the property, the owner still has one year to recover the property. And so we then find ourselves having to wait a year, well, during the time when they can redeem the property. And so it's a lengthy process. And so we're examining the possibility of a public private partnership where we can go in and write down some of these costs so that we can put these properties on the market at a value of which somebody could go in and build a new home or a duplex on the property and make it possible. Or where we can combine in areas where we have already have ownership of several lots on a block to make them available in packages by writing down the cost using private money, because there is a limitation what we can do with public funds. And so we're looking at a possibility of something that will make a big difference in being able to address some of these issues. So that'll be hopefully coming to the Commission soon, you know, to be able to talk about that more as we get the details worked out on that.

That sounds encouraging because that's one of the biggest concerns that I have is, you know, how the properties are used and how they're, you know, how they're built back. THIS LOT, FOR INSTANCE, IS NOT TOO CONCERNING BECAUSE IT'S A GOOD SIZED LOT. BUT LIKE A LOT OF THE LOTS WHERE I'M AT, IT'S ANYWHERE FROM 40 TO 50 FEET WIDE, 150 FEET POSSIBLY DEEP, MAYBE 75 FEET DEEP. THERE'S NOT A WHOLE LOT YOU CAN PUT IN THERE. AND, YOU KNOW, A LOT OF PEOPLE HAVE BEEN, LET'S DO MODULARS AND MOBILE HOMES. YOU KNOW, CHIEF OF MAYORS WILL PROBABLY TELL YOU THAT'S NOT A REALLY GOOD IDEA. IT'S CHEAPER, ABSOLUTELY, BUT IT'S NOT A GOOD IDEA, YOU KNOW. If they can't manage a stick built house or you know whatever. A mobile home is not going to last anywhere near as long and we're going to be right back in the same boat in 20 years. Or somebody is. I probably won't be.

Let me ask you the House on Michigan behind the Flickender Center. How long have we been dealing with that one?

It's been since 23 as well. In fact, I just emailed the property owner today. I spoke with him yesterday. He has a potential buyer for it and set up a timeline of you've had potential buyers. Yeah. um you've had potential buyers and so it's time to sell it or fix it and so i gave him a timeline of of october 1st he's got to have it sold by october 1st if it's not then we're going to move forward with demolition i've just had a few phone calls on that house in particular so

with manager Stockwell mentioned you know public private partnership one like this you know I'm in this industry the house still has good bones and and could be rehabilitated I don't know if that's something you know you know it's been that way for 20 or 30 years so I really don't have a problem with resolution tonight to move forward but I would like to see some kind of a proposal or a public-private partnership to where we, if we have structures like this, where we look at rehabilitating rather than tearing down. There's one just down the street, I think it's on 15th and Cuba that we've torn down and I get a text message or a phone call from the gentleman that lives next door. Same thing, the weeds are four and five feet high. I probably get them about every two to three months because we're not maintaining. Two or three meetings ago, when we had the write-off list, we had three or four different to the tune of $248,000 that we got past you guys. You did your portion of it. When it got over to legal, it never got liens filed. It never got foreclosed. So we're writing off $250,000. And when we could obtain those properties, we could foreclose those liens and then try to recoup a little bit of money on them.

well not in the lot at 15 we need to clarify one thing we're writing down the debt we still own the property and we still have the lien okay so have we foreclosed the liens and we've already taken the property so they're they're different issues okay on those three that were on the write-off list the other night right yeah okay so we still have the ability to go in ultimately and do something creative with the property and then come up with the right proposal. Sorry, I was mistaken.

That property was donated to the city.

Yeah, I kind of agree with Commissioner Hernandez on this. There's one on Dewey around the corner from me, same thing. The property owner signed it over to us, if I'm not mistaken. We've torn it down. The slab is still there. The one on Tejas is the same way up there. It needed to come down. It was a pigeon house.

But it's more almost more of an eyesore now than it was before I just sent my contractor to that one as well But 15th in Cuba is that city property and that ultimately falls on me We need to be they need to get my contractor out there more regularly to take care of those weeds. Okay, so This is a my body cam footage of the interior of this residence I

That's the one he said had good bones. It's still fixable.

It's, you know, it's not burnt. This house is not burning or anything, is it? No. It's just been that way for...

The roof is the main problem there, so it's caused pretty much all the ceiling to collapse.

I think the main reason this one's being addressed is the neighbor to the south.

That house has been that way for 30 years.

It's been that way for a long time.

Has there been any illegal activity inside the house, or have there been calls for it?

I can let him speak on the activity. I'm sure he'll want to speak on that. As far as what the neighbor says is, yes, there's been people in and out of that house all the time. She hears fights all the time. Not only that, but foxes and skunks and all the other animals that like to go into houses like this.

You don't. I just didn't know if anybody's taking up shelter inside or squatters, no squatters or anything.

You know, OK, I did not anticipate that question this evening from you, so I'm not prepared.

Basically, he's using it as a storage facility for just junk.

These cars look just like that driving down the road.

And I think that that is so many places in Alamogordo where the building or the house is left and it's just for storage.

That's a good bones. I mean, it looks pretty solid as far as the wooden stuff is concerned.

There was only a few areas that I saw with wood rot or something that may trigger a, hey, I might want to look into that for a mold inspection. But really, like you've said, it's got good bones. It just needs a little TLC.

But if it was so easy just to renovate, don't you think that... I think it's just a catch-22. It's been so many things that could be done, but nobody wants to take it on. And so it's just left.

The problem with a lot of these structures is the people that own them don't want to let go.

Don't want to let go. Yeah.

I'm going to fix it for me. And it's like that car right there in the video. I'm going to restore that one day. Well, one day never comes.

I tried to buy that car 45 years ago. It's sitting in the exact same spot.

Yeah. And that's the problem. There's people, builders, investors, house flippers, that would be more than willing to buy that piece of property and flip it and renovate it and flip it. They just redid one over on the corner of Indian Wells in Florida. And they currently, they did a really nice job on it. It's listed. It's for sale. But it was in a similar condition as this house right here when they started. I just would like to see some kind of a policy or a procedure that we go through that meets a certain criteria that we look at rehabbing it versus tearing it down. Because this will be a vacant lot for the rest of our lives. Nobody will ever buy it.

Are you a taker on that, to rehab it?

I'm not allowed to buy on that and rehab it because it would be a conflict of interest.

No, if it wasn't a restriction, would you take it on?

Yeah, if we could get it for the right price.

There's you know, I I think we we've been looking at the the for about six or seven years and we still have the same number of houses still sitting and there have been no takers and some of the houses are vacant and they are not only not. I mean, you can say that they're not for sale, but I have not seen any takers. Every time I talk to a contractor, about rehabbing and doing some of the work because some of the houses can be sold and they are looking for. In fact, every time I talk to somebody that says, we're looking for the city to buy it, and I said, it's just kind of frustrating. And I said, we sit here, and when you don't see the movement with the houses that are vacant, I'm just saying that there has to be some other way to do this. I said because it's not just people not wanting to sell. We know those, we can identify those houses. But there are houses that have been left and nobody's done anything with it either. And it's not even just houses, it's actually lots. Because when I first got on the commission, there was a vacant lot that was going to be, um, renovated and they were going to have about six to 10 houses or, um, some type of park there and nothing's been done. And that's been over six years.

COVID had a lot to do with that too.

The problem is when you take over an abandoned lot and you have four, five, six houses that are around it, the property values aren't very high. You can't go in there and build a $200,000 house in a market. that it's only, they weren't, they were going to build and I get that, but that's, that's some of the problem is that you can't go and build a house that's worth more than what the actual appraisal of the property price yourself within what's around you. And it happens all over the place regardless.

And so the houses that we're looking at to tear down, um, you're not going to spend, um, that kind of money to, to build them. And, uh, I, I was approached by one person and the lots, um, what the lots were going to end up being about $60,000, but, um, they were going to build a house that was going to be about $250,000, but they wanted the neighborhood. They said they wanted to move back in the neighborhood. So there are so many different things. And, and, you know, I said, we're talking tonight and, you know, I appreciate the conversations, But I really think there has to be something a little bit more definite and a little bit more intentional. I suppose we say one thing one time and then it switches. And so I'm just looking at, I said, you know, houses can be built for less than $150,000 and they can be built practically anywhere.

No, they can't. Yeah.

Well, I'm just saying that I have been told and this is a contractor who said it could be so. And I think he's reliable. So, I mean, that's just my take on it.

So my understanding that you want us to explore.

I think manager Stockwell was mentioning, you know, public private partnership and then, you know, Just like the one up on, there was a Dewey or Snow over there, the one on the other section of Dewey over here. Those lots will remain vacant forever. The one on Tejas, because it's not profitable. Like we just mentioned, you price yourself out of the neighborhood. It's going to cost you $300,000, $400,000 to build a house in that neighborhood with today's pricing. Well, you're never going to get your investment back out of that house. So nobody's going to, in their right mind, unless they just absolutely want to live there. It's not going to go spend that kind of money to build a home in that neighborhood. Rockwood would probably be the only exception because it's a nicer neighborhood. But like, say, Taya's up here, you're not going to go spend $300,000 to build a home when the homes are only selling for $180,000 to $200,000.

Understood.

Yeah, and so I understand the public-private potential relationship there. Yes. Specifically, you mentioned rehab versus maybe dilapidation. Are you wanting us to figure out maybe or come up, bring forth ideas that are instead of bringing a resolution, a proposed resolution for dilapidations, maybe it's rehab instead of dilapidation? If I could.

hopefully refocus. We're talking about a concept that really needs some examination. It does. I think the current process that we have, this house needs to be demolished. And we need to move forward with that. There are others that need to be demolished. The real solution in this particular area of town that we're talking about is putting together as much as possible adjoining lots so that we don't have a 50 foot wide lot. so that we can in fact have places where structures could be built to take their place. We don't want to bring in manufactured homes. We don't want motor homes. We don't want any of those. We don't want tiny homes. We want to be able to go back to those neighborhoods and put together enough parcels of property so that housing that could be built in those areas. And so if what we end up doing is writing down the value of the lot, to a point where it is possible to construct a decent house in the place of those that are being down. That's the goal. But we're not going to solve that tonight. It's going to have to come through a joint effort that we bring forward to the commission while we continue to do the job of enforcement that we still have before us.

All right, are there any more questions? If not, we're going to ask for a motion on item number six.

Move to approve the vote.

For the second? I'll second. We've had a motion from Commissioner Robinson. It's been seconded by Commissioner Burnett. We'll go for the vote. And it passes 7-0.

Before we move on to the next item, Evelyn, I have a question for you. You might be able to answer it. What is the average?

sell that we do we make from when we auction off a piece of property just sort of just I just want to it can go it can be anywhere from $1,500 to maybe 5,000 I mean we because of doing the auction on the courthouse steps you know usually we have one bidder two bidders it's It doesn't even come close to recouping any of our funds.

And I think that's where the issue comes in is you're allowed, you can buy these lots for fairly cheap, well, not fairly, for dirt cheap, honestly. But nobody's going to come in and then build a $250,000 house in that particular lot. It's just not going to happen because they're not going to be able to recoup what they put into that lot. And if you bought a lot in that particular area for $60,000 and now you're at $300,000 plus for a house in that particular area, people aren't going to do it.

Just like I said.

And if that gentleman is allowed to come in and build a house for $150,000, then more power to him.

Item number seven, consider and possible action regarding implementing security improvement at Bonita Reservoir. And it's going to be Evelyn.

Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, Commissioners, so I have a presentation for you today to talk about Benito Reservoir. We have, I'll get my PowerPoint up here and we'll launch into that. This is a joint effort in between myself, Manager Stockwell, Dave Nunley, our Utilities Director, and we're going to take it easy on Heather, our Interim Parks and Recreation Director. This is her first Commission meeting. Tonight we're going to talk about the Benito Reservoir update and discussion. The first part of this presentation is a lot of background in history. I think as staff we tend to assume that everybody knows what Benito Reservoir has been through and the history of it, especially in the most recent history. But I think it's important for us to get this information to the Commission. While most of you know the broad strokes, you might not know all of the details and all of the history. And it's also good for us to go ahead and get some of those details out into the public to see, like I said, what the reservoir has gone through, recent history and its background. So Bonito Reservoir construction began in 1929 and the reservoir was completed and filled in 1931. I think the next fact is really interesting and very relevant because a major storm happened in September of 1941 and resulted in a record flood and sediment going into the reservoir. So this leads forward into what we're gonna be talking about in slides that are later on the presentation. This is not a one time occurrence. This is not something that happened. It's not the 100 year flood. It's not the 50 year flood. This is an occurrence that happens over and over in the bonito reservoir history. So construction began in 1942 to raise the dam to help alleviate some of the issues and the work was completed in the reservoir was filled in 1943. Going back a little bit on this one, the other thing I want to kind of talk about is not on the slide, but the area around Benito Reservoir has seen multiple forest fires throughout the years, including 1939, 1941, 1945, 1948, 1950, 1952. All of those burned anywhere from, 80 acres, 12 acres, 3490 acres. So again, it's not a if another forest fire or another flood happens, it's when another forest fire, another flood happens because of course they built the dam in the low area. of the canyon, because they're pretty smart. They know what's going on. So that's where you want to build your reservoir. So the El Paso Rock Island Railroad operated the reservoir for 23 years. If you've ever been to Pasteur in New Mexico, which is north of where the reservoir is, that's where the water was pushed to. It just shows you the incredible power that is in Benito Reservoir that it was able to produce enough head to push the water up north of where it is to be able to handle the railroad traffic. The city of Alamogordo and the Department of Defense purchased the reservoir in 1954. We installed a pipeline and the water has been flowing to Alamogordo. And Alamogordo and Holloman Air Force Base has jointly operated the reservoir for the past 72 years. Now we, as the city of Alamogordo, have the majority of the responsibility towards maintaining the reservoir. The DOD shares the pipeline with us, but we are the main and sole caretakers of Bonita Reservoir. We did in 1963 sign a formal fire protection agreement with the Forest Service. Everyone who's been on this commission for many years knows how well that's going sometimes. Sometimes it goes great, sometimes it goes really poorly. But we do have that official agreement. So the pipeline. Veneto Reservoir is 40 miles away as the crow flies, but it takes an 88 mile pipeline for us to bring water to Alamogordo. So as you can see from that top arrow, that's where the reservoir is. The pipeline runs pretty much down Highway 54, runs through the mountains, then down Highway 54, bringing the water into the water production plant at La Luz. So fast forwarding through the history of the reservoir and all the different things that have affected it. The one that is most current in our minds is the 2012 Little Bear fire. So these are just a couple of pictures that were provided. As you can see, that was a very massive fire. If you've been up there, you understand the devastation, how hot it burns and how bad it scorched the earth and really sterilized. You turn and you look at those mountains that are on the other side of the reservoir and there's still, there's no trees, there's some scrub brush and everything, but it really burned hot and it burned fast. So while that was devastating, it burned 85% of the Bonino watershed. But it did not burn the West Lake campground, but its access and viability was compromised. So while the campground was not touched, the roads, everything leading up to it were. And then, of course, the watershed that's behind it. So that happens. Now the monsoons start. June 22, 2012, we had the first major storm event. The storm pushes a massive debris flow of soil, ash, rock, and downed timber into the reservoir and plugs the outlet works of the dam. This is just June, so as we know, there are more storm events that are going to come. So as you can see already, this is a lot of debris, a lot of devastation already into the reservoir. The next major event was July 5, 2012. That pushed a lot more debris and sediment into Bonita Reservoir, and it also decimated the access and the infrastructure to the campground. So this is really where all the septic tanks are filled in with sand. All of the buildings, everything is impacted. The structures that are there are impacted and the access, as you can see in that top corner photo, um, has to be rebuilt multiple times. This also is the time where it changed the shape of rotter maker Canyon that went from a very small flow to becoming a major, um, through way for debris and for water. So this is the lake or the reservoir after the little bear fire and the storm incidences that came. So we had it surveyed multiple times with the geotech landing that anywhere between 539,000 and 661 cubic yards of sediment are now in the reservoir. FEMA agreed to pay for the removal. They went kind of in the middle and said they would take out 581,000 cubic. And they would also do the soil testing to eliminate concerns about hazardous waste. So for everyone who had heard all of the urban myths about the gold and the church and the various other things, just a lot of sediment. So this is probably my favorite picture of the entire presentation because this is the dam. And so this is during the removal of the sediment. So as you can see, over to the left is the intake tower. And you can now notice this line to this line That's 30 feet. So you can see that the sediment came all the way up to that line. This line here in between the two, that's 40 feet. So we're talking about 40 to 48 feet of sediment that was up against the dam structure. And then of course you can see that over at the intake tower, this is where the flush pipe is. Obviously, it's not going to give us the ability to do what we need to do. in the reservoir so I think this is a very incredibly telling picture of just how much sediment was in there and especially you can see down towards the bottom there is a dump truck there's an excavator and so you can just see kind of the perspective of how large those pieces of equipment are versus the amount of sediment and the size of the dam so very devastating to the reservoir

I was listening, but can you tell me again, when was this?

This is in 2012 was when the storm events were. When do you think this picture was taken?

This picture was taken during 2017, 2018.

I was thinking about the, I know this is the picture before that. That's 2012, that's how it looked.

This is, yeah, so this is, this is 20, this picture is probably taken in 2014.

That picture was probably taken, it is probably about 2013, 2014 during the initial draining when we can really assess how much debris we had into it.

So this is, this is what it looked like. 15 years ago.

How long did it take to clean it up?

In total? 12 years. Yeah, I was going to say with the delay, the bureaucracy, everything that went into it, the 12-year process, the actual construction plus the permanent...

And where did we get the water from in that time?

We had to change our complete management of our water system and increase our pumping significantly, which everybody in the city has noticed because the hardness has increased quite a bit over the last 14 years. And our surface supply, which is the Alamo and the Alalus Fresnel system.

We also redrilled the pranker wells and rehabbed another well, right?

Yeah. And that was when we really finished up the lawsuit over the snake tank well field and put in the initial facility.

Thank you. And what was the difference between the cleanup in 41, 43, and this one that took 10 years? Was it just FEMA? Okay, all right.

You haven't dealt with a disaster until FEMA shows up.

Okay, all right. Thank you.

To be fair, FEMA did, I mean, they paid $20 million to rehab the reservoir. So I mean, this obviously, as you can see from the sheer magnitude of this project, there was no way that without FEMA that the city could have funded this rehab. So while it's a lot of bureaucracy and it's a lot of hoops to jump through, it was 100% necessary or we would probably still not have the reservoir at this point. It was a significant lift. Okay. So again, my favorite one, all our measurements on it. Did I miss anything?

Okay.

So these are additional pictures of the debris and sediment removal project. So as you can see, because of the delays and all the time it took, that nature does tend to reclaim. So you can see, especially in the bottom corner picture there, that the grass had started to grow on the sediments, and it had started to turn back into a canyon floor. But you can see as progress was being made and the dam was being more exposed that we were able to reclaim the reservoir. They were not able to take all of the sediment out that was deposited into the reservoir. There is still, especially on the one side, you can still see remnants of it because, like I said on the earlier slide, they agreed to a finite amount. So we hit 581,000 cubic feet, cubic yards. That was it for the FEMA worksheet. But the reservoir being drained presented the opportunity to complete some long needed improvements. And several of those improvements that were made was replacing and extending the catwalk that was located at the dam valve gallery house. So you can see from the picture on the left to the picture on the right, the significant change there, the significant improvement of access and safety. replacing all the valves and the piping inside of the damn valve gallery. I believe the what was replaced was original, correct?

The intake one that was original 1943 stamp valve. I still have it actually got that relocated out there. So those all were replaced.

We also replaced the existing valve on the intake structure and added three additional intake ports at various levels to improve the water quality and installed a catwalk for operator and maintenance access, thus saving time and improving safety. As you can see on the left, there's the old intake tower. Operators would take a boat out to the intake tower. And because it's a reservoir, it's not a motorized boat. So operators would take a rowboat out to the intake tower, hook on, climb the intake tower, go up there to do their maintenance and their checks and everything. That blows my mind. The on your job description was be able to use a rowboat. And it's not close. It's a pretty good row, so it was a definite improvement to have the catwalk to be able to walk out to the intake structure. And then, of course, replacing the concrete on the top and the downstream of the dam, also refacing the dam above the wake wall and installing new perimeter security fencing. So for most of you who have been out to the dam, been on the dam, you can see that there's a huge difference in between the way it looks now versus this photo here. And this photo was, what, probably 2017? Yeah. Yeah. 2015, 2016. so it is relatively current that the dam was in that shape and then the refacing took place and then that's where we are now so after all of this tile tribulation working with fema bringing the money in moving the dirt and getting it all out During this time, the campground and fishing area sat idle with little to no maintenance and it became a favorite area for native wildlife. Um, there was a point in time that you went up to the Westlake campground area and you could just see, I mean, the elk, they tore down everything, um, because they, they just had free reign. Um, they still have pretty good free reign, but they're now too. So the project is completed. The bypass is removed and Lake began to fill again. Water was received that law loose for the first time in 12 years. New Mexico Game and Fish stock the lake with fish on 524 2024. It was scheduled to open. Then we have May 2024. We have the Bluetooth fire. So this fire actually did impact areas within the campground and burned more than 7,500 acres, including areas within that campground. And it's scary how eerily familiar the photos are from the 2012 to the 2024. The commission declared an emergency on May 31st of 2024. Many of you were involved in that. The Utilities Department, King Industries, the Natural Resources Conservation Service, along with MP Chavez Construction mobilized within three days. It was amazing, especially considered NRCS is a federal service, but this is their emergency money that has very tight restrictions about mobilization and how quickly the construction. So all of these pictures here are of MP Chavez construction, their heavy equipment, and they started moving debris, like I said, within 10 days. Their construction began on 6-3 of 2024. That construction was to install 25 debris retention basins. We did that with two separate NRCS allocations. They originally came to us with the first set of money through King Industries. Once they saw what the plan was and the mobilization, they came and had some additional money. Of course, this was before the salt fires started in Rio Doso and really devastated the Rio Doso area. So we were just a little bit before all of those fires and flooding happened. Yeah, go ahead.

I'm sorry. No, go ahead. I haven't been up there for like two years. So is this because I remember more trees and more greenery. So do we have less trees and less greenery up there at this point?

Um so I have more current pictures that will um we'll get to of course these are the 2024 so this was right after the fire and so a lot of the greenery in the trees have been burned at that point. Um obviously now a lot of that has come back. There's still obvious signs of the fire from two years ago. Um but luckily the Bluetooth fire did not burn like the little bear fire. It didn't scorch the earth. It didn't sterilize anything. So there's a lot of a lot of regrowth. so this is a map of the rough areas of where the retention ponds are these are not geolocated but this gives you a good idea of the two canyons that they head up the kraut canyon and littleton canyon and then there is um the large one that's right there at kind of the mouth of where those two canyons tend together we often refer to it as the duck pond And then there is the two other large ones, the one that is directly behind where the cofferdam was, and then the one that's over in the old campground parking lot. So this gives you idea of of where we were able to mitigate the flood risk prior to the monsoons coming in 2024. We were lucky the 2024 and 2025 monsoon seasons were not particularly strong the 2026 one has been substantially stronger than those and we have definitely seen a lot of use out of those retention basins so for example um the photo on my left is of this retention basin on july 5th of 2025 so that was a saturday And then from July 5th to July 9th, there was a significant rainstorm. This was the rainstorm that unfortunately took the lives of some people in Rio. So smashed a lot of vehicles. Um and so when we went up to see, you know that we were able to come see. So pretty good proof of concept. As you can see the change just in four days from a major rain event, the retention basin begins to fill in. It catches all of that debris that if it was not in the retention basin would be in the lake. This particular particular photo is of the parking lot basin. And so right behind where I'm standing where I take the photos is the hill that that goes down into the reservoir.

I'd like to add that this, prior to this event, this was about 13 feet deep right there. This is a secondary, or the primary basin, the secondary is up above it, but that was about 13 feet deep.

So as I said, the monsoon season for 2026 has definitely been much more strong than what we saw in 2024 and 2025. So these are photos taken throughout July and August of 2026. As you can see, the retention basins are doing what they're supposed to. They are catching the debris. The one in the top middle is the duck pond. and then the one all the way to my right that has the bar screen so that is the Rio Benito that's the intake into the reservoir and so as you can see the bar screen does a lot of really good work keeping the debris out of the reservoir the photo that is down in the bottom corner is where the old culvert is for what leads into what we call the duck pond. And then we'll look at some photos on my other PowerPoint that kind of shows the other side of that. And then the one on the bottom corner to my left is over by the old coffer dam. So all of these different retention basins are doing what they're supposed to. They're catching the debris that even two years after the Bluetooth fire is still coming down the mountain, coming down the canyons, when when it rains so the utilities department under emergency procurement is working with mp chavez construction to remove post-fire debris and sediment that has been retained in the associated retention basins so again these are additional pictures and i had to have this presentation uploaded by noon last tuesday and so i have another quick slideshow i'll show you after this we went up last week and took additional pictures because over that weekend there was large rain events both upstream and at the reservoir and so we have even more updated pictures to show you just how much these retention basins really affect keeping debris out of the lake And did you want to go ahead and give them an update about where MP is?

Well, MP currently up there in the campground area, the area that she spoke of earlier, Rademacher Canyon, which used to be just a low water crossing that was heavily wooded, is now about 70 foot wide. It wasn't impacted so much by the Bluetooth fire, but it was impacted by Little Bear, and it's still, there's a lot of energy that comes out that canyon at least two to three times a year. So they're going to be starting in that area to try to get that open, as well as the sedimentation pond that's located on the west side of the reservoir, the old parking lot area. They're going to start there and try to let the adept pond evaporate a little bit more before they take a long arm and really start to get into that to create more room for any more potential debris flows. then they'll start working their way up kraut and littleton area kraut we've seen some of them which she has i believe pictures in the next thing uh some of them are completely full to the brim now with the sand and debris due to flows coming out of the kraut littleton area and so like i said on this side we are constantly exploring long-term solutions for permanent improvements to these basins because obviously

They were built on an emergency basis. We want them to keep working. They're doing a fantastic job. But there are erosion concerns. And again, like we said, this is not a if this happens again. This is a when it happens again. It's happened through the entire life of the reservoir. And as we all know, forest fires are not decreasing in amount and size. And so it's just a matter of time before this area has another event that impacts the reservoir. This picture pay special attention to the picture on the bottom right hand corner, my right hand corner because I'm going to show you kind of another view of this picture on the other side and it lands a little bit differently. Okay, so are there any questions at all about the history of Bonita Reservoir, where it stands now in terms of quality, in terms of what the retention basins are doing, and what we're doing to make sure that those retention basins are maintained and in good working order?

Is there a routine maintenance schedule on these retention ponds, or is it just something that we just do in an emergency situation?

Currently, we do monitor them continuously. Over the last two seasons, we haven't seen an impact like we're having this year. So we have not really needed to get in there mitigate or remove any debris because it's all been minimal when I say minimal we're looking at a minus the one debris pond which we did excavate back out most of it's just about 18 inches we are currently exploring long-term alternatives funding sources etc to be able to implement erosion control, also maybe in certain areas, do concrete blankets on the walls to protect them, reseeding, get them reshaped to where we, when I say we, utility staff can get down there, especially in the duck pond. Right now, part of this project that we've got is putting a permanent road down to the duck pond so we can take our 12-inch pumps down there. That way, when we do have an event, we can go down there and at least decrease the amount of water in there to make room for the next season if it happens that season. We can control that flow through pumping and put that into the reservoir, but we're keeping the debris and the silt in account.

Because that is something I want to point out, is you look at some of these photos, especially the ones in the top left-hand corner, and you think, like, that just looks like all mud. But it's not. Usually it's a layer of mud on the top, but then like you throw a rock in it and it's very clear like it's water. So they look incredibly full and incredibly gnarly, especially right after the event. And in about 48 hours, and the evaporation starts to take effect and it starts to, to really decrease and so the pictures can be especially the pictures and videos can be a little bit misleading because it does just look like complete and total sludge where a lot of it is is water that one right there is about 14 inches of floating

Basically burnt pine needles About 14 inches of floating and that one's got about 18 inches of debris settling But there is quite a bit of wooded Debris that we need to get out of the way before it becomes a real nuisance trying to remove the fine I Was going to ask when you talked about the erosion, you know trying to maintain walls, I mean

Is it, I mean, when is a lot of the erosion taking place? Just in the rainy season, or does it happen in the winter months when the snow is on the ground?

Well, if we received enough snow to really amount to something over the last few years, I could speak to that. But most of it is during the heavier rains. There's different measures that we can put into place, Gabion baskets, wire gabion baskets, again, concrete blankets, different things that we're going to end up having engineers come in and take a real look at it.

Gabion baskets are those wire things with rocks.

I guess I was looking at the fact that when the growth of the trees and the greenery comes back, that doesn't really protect the

It does help. The problem is that some of this area is so bald, there is nothing really to hold the water back. So you've got miles and miles of tributaries that all lead into one canyon. By the time it gets to that one canyon heading towards the lake, that's a lot of energy, a lot of force coming at it. These definitely are slowing that down and catching a lot of the debris. But by the time it gets to the duck pond,

What would you guess is the percentage of Alamogordo's water supply that Benito makes up?

You know, the percentage historically was anywhere from 15 to 22% annually. However, I need to note that that annual was always in the summer when we absolutely needed it. I'd also like to point out that that is the city's absolute best water source, the highest quality. it's under 200 tds and now that we're starting to try to get a blend we're hoping to see over the next uh providing we can maintain getting water from the reservoir seeing a decrease in our grains per gallon and our hardness so hopefully instead of doing changes on the cooler pads twice a year on the big ones start getting back to the old days of doing it once a year

15 to 22%, you said? Yeah.

Again, that's over the entire year, but we take that during primarily three to four months. At that point, we can usually get about 2,200 gallons a minute, which means that's also a lot less pumping that I'm having to do, so it's a lot less cost. Because right now, pumping, it's all energy. This is gravity feed all the way down to the reservoir, at which point then we filtrate it in the plants and then send it to the system. Thank you.

Well, this is something that I heard today in the northern part of the state. I just want to know, they said they're doing like 130 miles of piping up there in the Albuquerque, Rio Rancho. Area is, I mean, I'm just wondering how they can get that much money to run a pipe that far. Is it because there's more people up there?

I'm not familiar with the project, so I don't know if it was a planned project or if it's an emergency project due to the current condition of the Rio Grande. So I can't really speak on that one.

Well, I guess the reason why I was asking is because it seems like, you know, sometimes we're struggling, um, here and not for the water, but just struggling with the pipe lines. So, um,

I mean, that's everywhere. And I sat in on several of them over the last year, like the Water Trust Board meeting, where they're approving the Water Trust Board money, Drinking Water State Revolving Fund money, and everybody is doing pipeline projects, working on pipeline projects. We're working on pipeline projects. We have a lot of pipeline projects that are going to be coming out here because everybody's infrastructure is changing just the same. And so, you know, depending on how Albuquerque did it, they could be debt financing it, which is most likely what they're doing. There's probably, and this is complete speculation, they're probably doing a mixture of water trust boards, drinking water revolving,

But we're set on Bonita Lake. I mean, we don't need anything else for Bonita Lake at this time as far as piping is concerned to make sure the water gets here and it gets here in a safe state.

For Bonita Lake, yes. The conveyance system is currently in good operable condition. There's a few areas that still remain the original installation that was put in in 54 through 56 but it's a very very small there's a few here in town from la luz that goes down to the about scenic is still original and then through carrizozo up to uh and part way up 380 up to new mexico what is that seven is still original the rest of it has been replaced actually up through nogal is still original sorry The city of Alamogordo replaced everything from the lake all the way down to Nogal, and the Department of Defense in early 2001 to 2003 replaced everything essentially from Carrizozo all the way to La Luz.

To La Luz, right, okay.

That being said, it also sat idle for 12 years, so bringing it back online has really taxed a lot of hours. We've got over 198 airbags on that line that sat idle, so I'd probably say 40% of those dry rotted in terms of the grommets in the gaskets, so we had a substantial amount of leaks. About three weeks ago was the first time we finally achieved 1,000 gallons a minute, and we've increased it up to 1,200 gallons a minute right now. Our goal is to get it up to this, during the month of September, to get it up to the max 2,200 GPM. for testing purposes. Obviously, we start delivering water to Holloman come October 2. Historically, we served Holloman water during October 15 through about April 15. And we're hoping to restore that this year. In terms of other pipelines, we've got many needs. And that's up to the commission. We've got to continue to look forward 50 years. We don't need to worry about today. We're in pretty good shape compared to a lot of places here in the desert southwest. We're in okay shape for today. But 50 years from now, we've still got to make the decisions today to make sure we stay abreast of the water wolves for tomorrow. capitalizing getting the pipeline from the snake tank all the way into town to where that can become a source in the event that we lose any of our Lalu's Fresnel system, which we do get historically about 80% of our water from. We start losing any of that to fire, we want to have backups. We don't want to just turn to pumping because eventually pumps go down and we're out of water. I hate to bring the grim news, but we've got to continue to plan, plan, plan.

Thank you.

Yeah.

There we go. Okay, so in May of 2024, the city entered into an opening aid agreement with New Mexico Game and Fish to allow fishing access to be restored to Bonita Reservoir. It was set to resume on May 25th. As we already know, the Bluetooth fire broke out The Bluetooth fire delayed this opening until August 30th of 2024.

A little bit of a delay.

It's, um, Tim keep telling me our internet is coming up against its thing, so buy more internet. Um, So while the reservoir was opened, very little improvements were made to the access. So we kind of put the cart before the horse. We entered into the open gate agreement. We opened everything up and said, come to the reservoir and fish. But these are current pictures of the state of the infrastructure that is available to the public to be on. Now the staircase in the middle that is obviously in very bad shape. It does have a chain across it that says no access. But as we all know, that doesn't mean anything, including one of the visits that Heather made. That chain was already taken down and people were going up and down it. So as you can see, there's some access that's in a little bit better shape, but there's some access that is in So this is the ADA ramp that leads down to the fishing area access. As you can see, it's in okay shape, but it definitely could use improvements. There are tripping hazards and insufficient infrastructure throughout the entire area. Okay. The campground has not been improved since 2012, and the infrastructure is not viable. So this picture that's in the front there, that is of the old bathroom structure that was there. And it's a little hard to see. It comes off better on my computer than it does here. But it's still pink with the slurry that was dropped from the Bluetooth fire. During the time... During the time that the reservoir was down for the rehab, there was not any financial planning that was done. So the fund balance that is in fund 88, which is the campground fund for FY 27, it began with a cash amount 424,288. The other situation that we've talked a little bit about here is Rademacher Canyon. There is definitely a situation there. So the debris flows in Rademacher Canyon would also have to be addressed before the campground could be opened as the current situation poses huge safety risk. So this canyon runs right through the middle of where the campground was and the access. And so as Dave was talking about, this used to be relatively small, but now you can see this is very, very large. Um, all of the logs and debris that are there were from a rain event from 2026. So this was something that had recently happened right before we went up to took pictures again on my other power point. I'll show you. But there is, there was a rain event after that and you can see that this particular area is running extremely hard, extremely fast. So clearly the current fund balance is not sufficient to address these concerns, but could cover the cost of securing the reservoir and possible telemetry for monitoring that security. The current open gate agreement is also unacceptable as it mandates access to areas which cannot safely be accessed under the current conditions. So the area that is highlighted in orange, this is a direct screenshot from the current open gate agreement. Um, and as you can see, it goes from dam to dam and it goes all the way over. This is what we are agreeing to that we would, we would allow access to the public. And so you can see that we are saying that we agree to allow access to the public all the way over to the spillway and then all the way over to the other side of the dam. So the area, it kind of comes around and then it's a little bit broken there and then it starts. All of that area that restarts there is what used to be the West Lake Campground. So everything I've shown you in terms of the Rottamaker Canyon runoff and the unimprovements, so that's on that side. Then on the other side is where the fishing areas that are have tripping hazards and other issues are located. So this is definitely an issue because allowing access so close to the dam puts the city in violation of the rule set by the Dam Safety Bureau. I was told of a social media post recently that gives a really cool trail that you can walk and you can go all the way down and go to the spillway. That's huge. That's a huge issue. The spillway is part of the dam structure, which is all authorized and regulated by the Dam Safety Bureau. So the purpose of the Bonita Reservoir is to provide a safe, reliable and quality water source for the citizens of Alamogordo for Holloman Air Force Base. So with this purpose in mind, staff is currently making the following recommendations. We're recommending the cessation of the open gate agreement, closing the reservoir to all recreational activities, allocate the remaining balance and fund 88 to securing the reservoir and securing the reservoir with a fence that meets our current security standards while also continuing the efforts to make degree mitigation solutions permanent. So to give you a visual representation of those recommendations, So here's the lake. The white line is an example is is a description of where we're proposing running the fence. So from dam to dam. So what this would do is this would make Benito Reservoir a secured reservoir in the same vein as we secure our reservoirs now and reservoirs are secured all over the country.

So no, no more efficient, no more fishing.

Okay, and then I'm open for questions. Obviously, Director Nunley, Interim Director Caseball are here. That's our proposal.

Yeah, I have a question.

And city managers talk well, of course.

So you're telling me that every reservoir in the United States has a fence around it?

It does not.

Okay.

I know I 100% can say that not every reservoir has a sensor on it. Oh, I'm sorry. Real quick, Rachel, if you'll pull up the other PowerPoint that I have.

How many miles of fence are you looking at building?

I know we multiplied it.

Just here's my thought on this. We have the money to build a fence. We don't have the money to do the improvements. And that's probably a million dollars worth of fence.

So that is part of the conversation, no question. The improvements that would need to be done, there's different levels of improvements. Obviously, there's improvements to the fishing access. There's improvements to the campground. The improvements to the campground would be very, very significant. The improvements to the fishing access would be a little bit different. And really quick, before we get a little bit further, I did want to show you, So this is the area, we've mentioned the duck pond, so the duck pond is across the road from this area. This is what is basically the unimproved parking lot. So the area to my right is part of the retention basins and part of our debris flow mitigation. But as you can see, that debris flow mitigation is still needed further in. And so this is definitely something that we look to the future to improve to just increase overall the debris flow mitigation here. These are the pictures. So in between the pictures that were on the presentation, these all came from two rain events that happened within the five days in between when I posted those. So here's one of the retention basins further up the canyon that is filled with debris. This one is completely filled. So this one is about a six foot deep retention basin. And as you can see, there is a little kind of Canyon that runs off to the side. It all came down in there and is completely filled in with sediment. So this is obviously one that MP is going to be focusing on getting this cleaned out and clearing the debris. And then this is just another picture of the duck ponds. And as you can see, you know, the debris that it is catching. This is the one I told you earlier to keep in mind that other picture. This is that canyon. As you can see in the leak in between when I put the presentation together versus when we went up there to review, another rain had come through. There are several different debris basins that are here and they are all completely filled with water and the different debris. And as you can see, like there's the sign on the side, there's actually a road over to the side that was not passable at this point due to the rain and the debris flow. And then this is Rottamaker Canyon. So as you can see, there was with the other rain events, it made it again a fundamental change. This this canyon is changing every time there's a rain event that is coming through it. The culverts that are placed under the road here, they are completely full there. They're, you know, just not there. Um, and so this is one of the ones that MP will be working on as well. And then this is just, we saw this earlier, here's the bar screen and how it looks after an event. And then utility production, the workers go up there very diligent. They go up there at least once a week. And one of the things that they do is they clear the debris off of the bar screen. So I think I have an after photo here. So there's the after photo of once they clean all the debris off the bar screen so that the water can continue to flow into the reservoir. And then here's just another view of one of the unimproved staircases that is accessible at this point. That's the view looking up it, and this is the view looking down it.

So if you actually fence it off, then no more improvements to the park at all for a while?

Pardon? Once it's fenced off, it's never going to get fixed. It's just going to stay a reservoir.

Mayor, if I could interject at this point. The presentation of the staff, I think, is important to recognize. I mean, clear back into the 90s when I was first involved with Bonita Lake. The campground and the fishing were a recreational facility that benefited the citizens of Alamogordo who would never exceeded 10% of the usage of those facilities. And it was subsidized continually all the time that that was going on. The revenue generated never covered all of the costs of maintaining the campground and providing fish access. As a result of the fires and the flooding that have occurred over the years, we have been able with a lot of assistance to put the lake back in the condition that it wasn't in in the early 90s, because it already was close to 50% silted at that point. So it actually returns the reservoir to the reason it was originally built, and that's to collect water. that ultimately comes in to the city of Alamogordo for the purpose of our of our water system maintaining it in any form as a recreational facility will be will be at a cost to the taxpayers and utility payers in Alamogordo to provide recreational facilities for people who don't live in Alamogordo and will compromise the ability to properly maintain all of these facilities in place when you look at the retention basins that were built they don't add to the recreational opportunities there they're there for the purpose stopping debris from getting into the lake and when you remember earlier this summer we had a complaint from the bait shop in in near Bonita Lake because the the retention ponds had junk in a minute was a problem well the retention lot ponds worked exactly like they should they're not built to make an aesthetic improvement to the area they are built to maintain the ability for the reservoir to provide pure water to the citizens of alamogordo that's why the reservoir was purchased in the 50s why it's been maintained why the department of defense has continued to help put money into it for a source of water not as a recreation facility the answer one of the earlier questions reservoirs that in the united states that are maintained for the purpose of water facilities are routinely fenced and access is restricted principally for the reason to make sure that the water is of the highest quality and that the access is maintained solely for that purpose and so our recommendation from the staff is based upon our responsibility to bring to you the best way to make sure that our water system functions and that our citizens can depend on it as being dependable not to provide a recreation facility for folks up in Lincoln County and people from Texas who love to come over and fish in that lake. And so the resources that we have, the roughly $460,000, would go a long ways toward securing the lake, putting in the fencing, having funds available so that we can do cleanup when necessary. And then from that point on, when that money's gone, all of the money to do maintenance up there is going to come from our utility payers, the water and sewer rates that we collect. That's where the money will come from. If we were to try and maintain it as a recreation facility, it would come from the water and sewer systems of the city. Because there's no way we can fund recreation 40 miles away out of our general fund for our parks and recreation facilities. And so we recommend the action that is, I'm sure, uncomfortable, but yet at the same time will fulfill the reason for us owning the reservoir to begin with. as a source of dependable and pure water. I have a question.

Very excellent explanation. What about the malefacts? The people who go up there and break the rules who go up and fish anyways, go up and use the area when they shouldn't. Are we liable for injury? Are we liable for anyone who gets hurt up there?

So Dave, do you want to talk about the tech standard of the standard of what the fence would be?

I think his question was, if we allow access, are we responsible?

People who do that are breaking our rules, doing that when we say no, it's not safe to do this. What's our liability?

Well, our liability, I mean. If we have posted, then our liability decreases. I'm not an attorney, so I'm not going to give you an illegal opinion on what our negligence is if we don't repair things or if we have signs posted and we don't. I can't give you any response to that.

Is there going to be supervision? Will there be monitoring?

Well, so there's not currently supervision. So obviously supervision requires staff. And so staff is a reoccurring expense You know the proposal of the fence would and like I said I'll let Dave talk to to what his standards are for fencing around his reservoirs But currently right now we rely on either Lincoln County or Game and Fish, depending on who is patrolling at that time to do anything. We have had significant issues with trash. We've had significant issues. We have porta potties up there now. We have issues with those being vandalized. And like I said, we've had significant issues with trash and that sort of for years, for a very, very long time.

How many incidents over the last, I know the last 12 years we really haven't had any, but when Bonita was up and running before, how many incidents of injuries or any of that have we had up there when the campground was even up and running?

I don't know that.

I don't think we've had any lawsuits or any major injuries.

You know, it hasn't been open since 2012. I personally didn't come to finance till 2016. And so in housing, we didn't know a lot about the lake. So we would have to look at the tort claims and the lawsuit records.

I don't remember any. I mean, all the way back to 2009. I just... You know given given the area that this is an attraction. You know you have grindstone up there. You have alto You have you have this one. You have the little lake over it at the end It's a tourist attraction. I understand you know it's it's for water Supply down the world, but you know the same argument right now is going on in the state of New Mexico with elephant Butte and It originally started out as a reservoir to supply water further downstream for the farmers down that way. It eventually turned into a recreational facility that is the entire economy of that city over there. and now they're trying to Change that or you know try to do away with some of the recreational side of it So I I have a little bit of issue with that. I I don't think we should close it to recreational use I mean if the campgrounds not in in order and usable, let's close the campground. But as far as fencing that off, I can't support that.

I do want to point out, as a tourist attraction, it is a tourist attraction that we do not benefit from. We do not get the grocery seats taxed from. We do not get the lodger's tax from.

We don't get lodger's tax from anything anyway. That's true. That is a quick question. Speaking of lodger's tax, if we were to re-implement that, could that money be used for this? No.

So we researched that very heavily last year, and it took us a long time to get an answer. And when we finally did get an answer, the answer was no. did they give a reason because it is in a different county even though it is many owned property it resides in a different county it's in a different county okay it took us a long time we had to go through multiple departments to get that answer but it's ridiculous a question on the compliance with the dam safety bureau uh that is the state agency is that correct that is correct and do we undergo any audits or inspections for that annually

Every year we have to, because that's considered a high-hazard dam. So every spring, me or one of my staff members meet. We crawl all over the dam. We get evaluations on the condition of the spillway, condition of the dam, condition of the outlet works, condition of the perimeter fencing. Right now we're getting strikes against us because of the spillway and security, primarily from the well, being able to access the spillway freely.

Any ideas on the eventualities of that? What do you mean? If you get certain amounts of...

If we get certain amounts prior before us doing the permanent improvements, there was often threats of them lowering our ability to maximize our storage in there. So the capacity. because it is a high-hazard dam. We have made most of those improvements. Well, we made all of the improvements on the downstream side, but we've got its continuous maintenance. It has to do with the upkeep has to happen. We've got some things that we've got to address, one being security, two being the outlet works or the spillway.

And then as far as the proposal for the fencing, do we have an idea roughly about what that amount of fencing around the entire project would cost? I did quick calculations the other day.

I figured it would be in between $600,000 and $700,000 at current prices.

What type of fencing are we going with?

That would be an eight-foot fence with a one-foot barb. And to answer your question from earlier, if it was secured and it was posted at that point, it would be considered a tampering with a public water system which carries a federal offense.

So as far as the plan for funding that with us having just south of

500k for that what would the plan look like to use this funding and eventually more funding to meet that mark that you're estimating yeah because it would be a water production facility then it could be used the fund 81 money which is the water sewer operational fund would be used to fund the rest of it as a water production facility since it would not be considered money being used for recreation

So the hope would be to combine both funds and then go for bid for building that fence. And you're looking for an idea of timeline of how long to accomplish that.

Question. I think that project would actually be fairly easy put together because we already have the standard. It would just take some surveying up there, obviously, of where the fence line's going to run to make sure that where the placement is can sustain a fence long-term, and then figure out the permanent route. I think at that point it would go out to bid, and it would almost be immediate construction. Barring there is no issues with delivery of materials.

Does staff foresee any cons with fencing of the reservoir?

From the water side, no. Some of them probably They probably enjoy having the facility up there too. I'm not gonna say that a lot of people don't, but I don't see any cons. It's continuous maintenance just like we do any of our reservoirs.

And that is something, so right now there is continuing expense at the reservoir, having to deal with the trash situation, having to deal with the port-a-potty situation, having to deal with, sometimes we do have to bring a contractor up there to deal with vandalism or or different issues so right now that is just continuous money out with with no reparation back so at some point in time that that money is going to run out of that fund if we continue to leave it open and could i ask for clarification on the request for this item as far as what we're asking to do here at this time So what we're asking at this point in time is for commission to approve the five things that were on the PowerPoint. So the cessation of the opening gate agreement, the cessation of recreational activities, the installation of a perimeter fence, and the continuation of trying to make the basis permanent is kind of an additional one on there. There's obviously nothing specifically to vote on that for this evening.

And does anybody by chance have an idea of the annual visitation to this area?

So we haven't we haven't pulled any visitation numbers. They did a survey. Three years ago, because it was right before the fire broke out, they did a survey. And of that, they got 1,079 responses to the survey. Of that, 62% of the people who responded were not from Alamaro. So I can't tell you visitation numbers without, I'm not sure our placer software covers that area. We would have to look and see.

It's possible we have no idea, is that right?

How often the area is visited by... Yeah, I mean, we don't have any sort of counters in place. I mean, we would have to try and do it off of the cell phone tracking software that we have.

I know every time I've been up there, that road's fairly busy in and out.

When was it originally put in place as a recreation area? Do you know? I mean, because I've seen pictures of the atomic bomb.

the girls in the lake so that would have been relatively early because it you know they they built it they refilled it in the early 40s relatively early in its history at that point.

Yeah, it would have been owned by the railroad.

I think it's unlikely that the railroad had it as an official recreation, but again, that was, you know, that was in the 50s. We actually, our ordinance back to that time, and we still have an ordinance about that you can't bathe in the reservoir. So, you know, reservoirs were very much more open at that point in time.

So we don't really have a date of, like, when it was

Unless, I don't know, Bob, do you have any idea?

I don't think the city even acquired it, what, until the mid-50s? 54.

Yeah, that's when we acquired it in 1954.

Do we have any idea what it would cost just to maintain the fence annually?

So, you know, the initial maintenance on the fence would be low because obviously when it's new, the maintenance is... minor um the there would be additional maintenance obviously as it got older like i said water production that's one of their facilities they maintain it for you know by agreement with us in the dod so they go up there at least weekly if not more than weekly depending on what is what is going on so obviously that would be a large part of their thing would be you know riding the fence making sure that it's staying in the condition that it is. With anything, it's upkeep. As long as we stay on top of the upkeep, then it keeps the expenses. Fire, other natural disasters aside, because obviously that's going to impact anything that gets decided up there.

How many additional staff is this going to require?

Should require none. I currently send people up on a weekly basis. I currently have a project right now that we're upgrading the watch and warn system, and through that we're installing some telemetry on the actual dam so we can monitor the seepage as well as the outfall or the flow from the reservoir. With that said, we're putting in a few cameras up there too that staff will be able to monitor. But that's only on the dam structure.

In that area, our fencing around our reservoirs down here, you don't have any wildlife per se down this way. Up there, you're going to have elk and deer that are probably going to tear that fence up considerably numerous times.

I would agree, but we installed this same fencing. When we changed our spec, we went to a much higher grade of wire mesh we also went with our much higher gauge we also went with a much higher gauge on the on our post and our cement specs and everything we just installed it um it's been seven years up at marucci And it hasn't been touched. And prior to that, it was torn down probably every week we were up there fencing. Since we started going with the higher fence, with the standard of the eight foot with the one foot bar, it intimidates the elk just like most of your field fencing does around some of the farms up in the areas that sell around 10 foot. I mean, we've seen that as proof at Maroochee.

Not saying it won't happen.

But again, that's why I have staff patrol at me. We're going to have more likely any damage is going to be vandalism from cuts. And that's what we experience down here around tanks occasionally. But my guys go out there, and you can never tell because they just weave pieces back in. It is time consuming.

Would you guys care to furnish just a short list of the foreseen benefits if we fence this?

You want them now? The foreseen benefits are obviously security. Security is number one. Security of the dam, security of the reservoir, everything like that. Additionally,

Yeah, I look at also keeping it open right now. It's a potential for liability, you know, for people getting injured, people parking in that unimproved parking area, which is going to flooding because that's by design now because we've blocked off the 10 foot culverts with mafia blocks intended to keep that rapid flow from not going under the roadway and backing up and then having to

well we control the rate that it gets into the duck pond if that were to flood during the day i mean that could be loss of cars loss of travel trailers whatever people want to park in that area the other part of it too is maintaining the wilderness area so while the campground was vacant and not it really has returned back to a very flourishing nature area and it it's hard to be on the one side of the lake and see all the trash and see all the garbage and see just the way people treat the area and then you get to the other side which is less and it's you know it's really nice all the wildlife are still there everything is growing everything and so um there is definitely habitat things that that would be helped by limiting the amount of public intrusion

I'd like to see some numbers of usage up there. I don't know how we would go about doing that, but I'd like to see, you know, I don't. Like say every time I've been up there, it's probably been. Four or five months ago. We take a drive every now and then went up in there We used to camp back up past the past the the the lake area there, you know Past the city's portion of it after you go around the curve and go go up it's all for service or BLM back up in there, but I just would like to see some numbers of users

Like I said, probably the best I'm going to be able to get is off of the Placer software that we use to track the cell phones is what we do. We track people's cell phones? Oh, yeah. So there's a software that is owned by most entities that do tourism that tracks cell phones and how cell phones move throughout your community. And so that's how we track how many people come through for tourism programs and stuff like that. So that would be, I think, our most likely means. I have not seen it for the reservoir, so I can't guarantee you exactly if it's going to give us good readings or not, but we can definitely pull it.

But you said most of the people that responded to the other survey were from Lincoln County and not necessarily from Lincoln County.

The first question on that survey was, are you an Alamogordo, New Mexico resident and over the age of 18 and 62% said no.

And so if I could clarify, this is primarily a foresight measure and not a reactionary measure to some infraction or foreseen liability exposure.

I would like to see a list of incidents that we've had over the last, you know, we've owned it since 54, so the last 60, 70 years.

So I'm probably not going to be able to get you 60 years worth of data.

Obviously you can't, but you could probably go back 20 fairly easy. I don't remember there being any tort claims, any incidents up there. I mean, I understand securing it because of the water source and, you know, given everything that's going on in the world today, water is probably going to become a precious commodity. It is flying this weird looking thing around the Tularosa Basin. And I think that's what they're looking for is water. but uh and remember it does supply water to a major airport space is holloman uh been factored into this equation have they been in the discussion they have not been in the discussion okay so they're not a part of it they're this is a city thing this isn't really holloman

Right, because we have the operational responsibility to the resort.

We've owned it for the better part of 70 years, and it's never been secure. We've never really had any problems.

All it takes is once.

That's true, but all it takes is once somebody running a red light and T-boning me on the way out of here and getting killed. I'm just saying it only takes once.

I'd like to offer a motion that we move on to number seven. Move to approve. Discussion is over.

Can you clarify what you would be approving?

Item number seven. Consider.

You got five different things that need to be approved.

Yeah, you got the sensation of the open gate agreement, closing of the reservoir.

I don't have a problem with the debris mitigation portion of it. I have an issue with doing away with the agreement and the recreational part of it. Okay.

I go with the recommendation of all five to secure it and then further planning and getting numbers and tracking cell phones and all that later down the road.

Well, it would be pointless to do any of that if we just approve it tonight.

That's my motion. Yeah, he has a motion. Do we have a second?

I think the motion dies.

I'd make a motion to table this item for the next meeting.

Y'all can bring back some additional info by next meeting.

Let's not give us till next meeting. Let's give us till the 22nd because we have a short deadline on the next meeting. We'd have to have everything on the agenda for the next meeting by Friday.

So the 22nd of September?

Yes, I believe that's the second meeting in September.

Does that work for you? I would make a motion to table this for the meeting of September 22nd, is that what you said?

It's the, yeah, no, it's the 22nd. Second meeting in September. It's the 22nd.

My second in September.

And we're still looking at the five items, right? Tabling those. Okay.

I'll second.

All right. We're up for the vote. Or no, we don't need a vote because I don't see. Yeah, we need a vote. We need a vote for the table.

Motion to table it.

And it passes.

Make a motion to adjourn.

I'm going to say, do I have a motion for the adjournment? Second. Do I have a second? Second. So it's been motioned by Mayor Pro Tem Reardon and second by Commissioner Tapley. I got it right, right? You did. It's done. Take a vote.

Take a vote. You have a vote still?

We need a vote real quick.

Yes. I'm on aye, Rachel. I close that argument.