City Council - Regular Meeting

welcome everyone today is august 3rd 2026 the 15th meeting of the 27th council will come to order all counselors are present this evening with councillor lewis joining us via zoom next we are on a moment of silence followed by the pledge followed by a moment of silence followed by the pledge sorry in spanish and in english Please join us in the pledge.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

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OK, well, welcome back, everyone. Vice President Champagne.

Thank you, Madam President. Civic Parking Civic Plaza parking passes provided for members of the public. You can obtain your parking passes from council staff at the table near the chamber entrance. Members of the public city staff and the media have the ability to view this meeting in person. and on live streams through four different platforms gov tv on comcast channel 16 the gov tv website youtube and zoob webinar the live streams can also be accessed from most smartphones tablets or computers also this meeting is closed captioned so you may enable the closed captioning services on your television or device at this time The video recording of this and all past council meetings will remain available for viewing at any time at the City Council's website. Council staff is available via telephone if members of the public need assistance finding the videos online. Please call 768 area code 505-768-3100 for assistance during normal business hours Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. The council will take a break at approximately 7 p.m. this evening if needed. In regard to decorum in the chambers, we want tonight's proceedings As always, to be as civil and respectful as possible. Please do not make any personal attacks and please no applause, snapping or other outbursts during the meeting. The president will provide one warning to anyone causing this disruption upon a second or continued disruption that individual will be asked to leave the chambers and if necessary, security will be asked to escort that person out of the chambers. Such removal from the city council chambers will be effective for the remainder of that meeting. If the continued disruption occur, the president may recess the meeting until order is restored and, if necessary, may clear the chambers of persons participating in that disturbance. This meeting and all other meetings will go a lot smoother if we are respectful of one another. Tonight, council staff has received over 70 public comment sign-ups for the meeting. Pursuant to the council rules of procedure, public comment will be reduced from two minutes to one minute to allow everyone time to speak. Please begin editing your comments to fit within this time frame now. Councillors, do we have any questions for the admin? Councillor Graham.

Thank you, Mr. Vice President. My questions are for our legal city attorney. Ms. Keefe, in the past several months, the council, through our council, have reached out to the city attorney's office for updates on different matters in which this council has been involved. Answers to these questions were delayed for months. And when our council reached out again, you responded that if councilors have questions, they should reach out to me directly. This isn't really how we've done things. Council has staff that is used to act on our behalf and help us to do our jobs. When our staff or our council reaches out, we expect that the city attorney understands that this request is coming from us and responds appropriately, professionally, and in a timely manner. Based on this, I have several questions. Why is there pushback to counsel questions about pending litigation? And if our decisions give rise to litigation, we deserve to know how these cases are proceeding.

Council President, Council Grout, in the past, up until this year, when councillors have had questions, they have approached me directly. So this was new, and I have concerns about this procedure. I do think it is better if I am able to engage with councillors directly. In order to facilitate communication between council and legal I had asked to set up these monthly zooms which were set up Some time ago. I don't remember exactly how long They those were no longer scheduled, and that was not at my request. I think there's been a perception that that was not at my request. In fact, my perception was that they were canceled. So I would be happy to continue communication with council. I would very much want to continue communication with council and provide updates. I was hoping to provide more of a written update during the break, and so I do apologize for the delay. It is my intent to continue communication with council, but I think that as has happened in the four and a half, the first four years that I've been here, I think that communication should be between my department and council and counselors.

Okay. How do you process requests for information from the council or council staff?

So, again, in the four and a half years that I've been here, we get calls for counselors to work on ordinances, we get calls for updates, and those are, if they come directly to me, I determine whether I'm going to respond or whether I'm going to have someone on my staff respond, and then I try to get back to them.

Do you have, I think we need a real clear path forward and it needs to be very timely, can we set up a process so that that does happen?

Council President, Councilor Gerold, that's exactly what I would like. That is what I tried to do previously, and I do think there needs to be a clear process, and including communications in both directions.

Okay, thank you.

Councilor Buck. Thank you, Madam President. This is for Director Sanchez, Senior Affairs. Thank you, Director. As you know, we've had a lot of folks calling and emailing about food prices going up at the senior centers. And I know during the budget season we talked about a lot of the a la carte menu items were going to be taken off kind of to mitigate costs, which we understood. But we thought we had covered it. No other prices were going to be increased. And so if you could kind of explain to all of us, because I know it's not just District 2 that's hearing this. Thank you.

Madam President, Councillor Baca, thank you for this opportunity. So I just would like to take a moment to give you a little bit of perspective and taking a step back on our breakfast program in general. Certainly our pricing on our breakfast program has not been adjusted in more than 20 years. So certainly that is a significant amount of time When we began, we did a fiscal analysis almost two years ago, always keeping affordability at the forefront for our seniors. We did deep dive into this program, how it was operating and functioning with many a la carte items. I believe it's over 12 a la carte different items that we used to offer. The new menu prices are now as low as a dollar to our most costly specialty meal of huevos rancheros at $5, which is offered twice a week. Even with these modest adjustments, the department is still subsidizing about a third of the cost for every meal prepared. So no one could deny our meals still remain the most affordable anywhere. all geared to safeguard those resources for our seniors. Additionally, we are, just to give you an update, working on a qualifying program for those seniors that may truly be in need and have financial hardship, so that way we can also fully subsidize that meal for them. So that's just the overall update on the program, and most recently on Friday, from the feedback that we learned over the last three weeks, we did send out a revised menu that also has already received very positive feedback.

Anybody else? I'm good. Thank you.

Councillor Rogers.

Thank you, Mr. Vice President. My questions are for several directors, and I would love for all of you to come at the same time. Director from Solid Waste, Mr. Gallegos. Transit, Ms. Keener. Cone Enforcement, either Alan Varela or Jeremy Kaiser, whoever would like to come up. GSD, I believe that's Mr. Duran. Parks and Rec, Mr. Simon. Thank you. So I have several questions and I want to do an exploration of who's responsible for what in our community when it comes to cleanliness and litter. And so I will ask Mr. Cornelius to put up some pictures for me. And this is because I've been studying our litter ordinance. And I often reach out to different departments based on things that need to be cleaned in my district. And I just wanna run through some pictures and see who is responsible for this in our neighborhood. Who would be responsible for clean, what would we do about that?

Actually Solid Waste would pick that up if it was a large item pickup.

Thank you. And then community members would just call 311 if they see that, and then you would go and pick up that mattress?

Correct.

Awesome. Is there a process for community members to do that ahead of time before they put it on? This is also education for the community, not just us to learn about how we do this. So bear with me, folks, while we go through this fun exercise today.

Madam President, Councilor Rogers, yes, they would call 311 the night before their pickup to let us know they have a large item pickup.

Got it, thank you Mr. Gallegos. Next one, this is Louisiana going towards Gibson. We have installed some barricades for bike lanes, but they are trashed, as you can see. Who would pick that trash up and fix that? Transit. Madam Chair, no.

Madam Chair, Councillor Rogers, that's going to be DMD.

This is exactly why we're going through this exercise today, folks.

I'll throw her under the bus.

Thank you. This is exactly what I was hoping for.

Madam President, Councillor Rogers, yes. So that would be, if any constituent has concerns about things that are improperly barricaded, I recommend a 3-1-1, and we'll send someone out immediately. As far as the repairs that are needed to the bicycle infrastructure, that would also be my department. That's my traffic engineering division. Again, 3-1-1 is the fastest way to get to it. Unfortunately, as Councillor Feeblecorn knows, the faster we put up bike infrastructure, the faster drivers hit it. And so you have to bear with us. We're actually looking right now at some more Albuquerque driver-safe infrastructure. Bicycle infrastructure to find out what works here because sometimes things that work in other cities don't work here So we're all we are working on standard specifications But yes, tell us at 3 1 1 and we will send folks out and again the barricading in particular We try to get folks out same day.

Thank you so much So this would also require someone to let us know that it's in this in this condition I would say from looking at this condition and hopefully saved a biker and But maybe we to your point make look for something that's a little more durable. So your department isn't running around fixing this because this does for my district come. It adds to the disrepair that quite frankly I am sick of living in straight up and so that's why we're going through this exercise today. Thank you next picture Mr Cornelius. Alright, how about this trash day? Who's in charge of this after trash pickup?

Madam President, Council Rogers, this came from an individual's trash can? Yes.

The individual that... After trash day, so the trash... I watched the trash, and I was out in my hood, you know, just seeing how it goes. I'm always out in my hood. And saw them dump it, but then there was some stuff left over that just accidentally fell out. But in this case, who fixes that?

Actually, we rely on the residents to pick up some of the trash that has blown out of their trash can if it was during the time it dumped.

Got it. So public, this happens at your trash bin. It is your responsibility to sweep that up and put it back in the trash bin.

Correct. Our drivers are only allowed to pick up the trash cans from the trash bin.

Great, they're not getting out of their cars or their trucks and sweeping this up, right? Okay, that helps me a lot. Next picture, Mr. Cornelius. What about this one? This is between a parking lot and a Pizza Hut on Central and Wyoming that is now closed. Who's responsible for that?

Councillor I'm sorry madam president councillor Rogers onto that that is a code enforcement Response so for those ones dealing with the we'd have to annotate which property that Pizza hut when I call you about so if it's on the Pizza Hut Then it would fall under Pizza Hut Responsibility cleanup Thank You madam president now Pizza Hut's gone because it's closed so in that case you just tell them and leave it like that until they come and do it and So, Council Rogers, there's the process that we hold the property owners accountable, whether they do it or not, and then that is through the civil process. So we do follow the due process in order to do it. If the property owner is unwilling or unable to do it, there's other measures that we employ to get the items cleaned up.

Thank you, Madam President. So we would leave it like this while you go through your six-to-year-month process. Who cleans it in the meantime?

So, Madam President, Council Rogers, for that one, yeah. uh... so we issue that the clean up so the due process entails it's a two-week notification we allow the property owner time to have to make the corrections before we go in and institute anything to relate in the property for uh... services thank you very present so you would hire someone to clean it up or would you call solid waste and then we charge them or how's that So, Council Rogers, for that portion for the cleaning lane, we initiate procedures through solid waste to do the clean. The solid waste will initiate the clean, get it scheduled for the cleanup, and then we will bill the property owner for the services rendered.

Got it. And about how long does that take, you think?

That one? Director?

We do, Madam President, Councillor Rogers, we don't have a backlog on the cleaning leads. We try to get to them within that week if we could, but most of the time it might take another week before that because we do have some scheduled out.

So this one is on your list, I hope, because I've been calling about this one for quite some time.

I would have to go back and look at the records. I really couldn't tell you.

Thank you. Next picture, Mr. Cornelius. There's so many in my district. I'm sorry. I'm timing myself so I can stay under the 10 minutes, hopefully. But there's so much in my district that's in disrepair, and I have so many questions. Next one, Mr. Cornelius. hopefully I think okay yes this one this is good so this one says a litter litter cruise at work I only see these trucks on the highways can you tell me if we have any trucks like this for the neighborhoods

Madam President, Council Rogers, yes, that is a highway truck. We do have crews that go through the major thoroughfares of the city only, unless there is a clean and lean that's been employed by the planning department.

Thank you. And how often do those just general neighborhood litter crews, because I've never seen one in District 6 in that kind of truck, but... How often, is that a predictable, like I know for trash, I put it out on Monday and you come and get it. Is there a predictable schedule for that, for the neighborhood cleanup?

Madam President, Council Rogers, roughly takes about four to five weeks for them to cycle in their districts where we have districts through the medians to come back and touch another median.

And it's just median, so not other parts of the neighborhood.

Correct. Medians and streetscapes. Some of the streetscapes.

Medians and streetscapes. That's great. I'm working on the litter organs. This is also research. Median. So your department, it's only median and streetscapes. Okay. Thank you. And then, oh, yes, Mr. Whelan.

Madam President, Council Rogers, that's part of our Clean Cities crew, but we also deploy up to eight trucks throughout districts. Your district is almost every day where they do go through the streets and pick up litter remove feces and anything and if there's been what we would consider illegal dumping where if somebody had an encampment but then left and they leave all the trash behind well I see the encampment cleanup people trust me so they also do they also do the cleanup of things that are left behind when they're going through I was in your district just today and I saw Tennessee where people had left one of the trucks that usually does that the leader cleanup was there and they stopped and picked it up now but it was clean at that moment within an hour or two there could be more

And thank you, Madam President. I think the point is, there's one more video I want to show, because this one's a doozy. This one's a real doozy. And I think, Garrett, it's the video of the shoes. My pet peeve in my district is shoes on the power lines. That is a pet peeve of mine. I think I've interacted with every department except maybe transit. This one is more towards transit and our construction site at the International District Library. And I think that's a mix between transit and parks, if I'm not mistaken. But that bus stop is always in disrepair. And I think I know who's responsible for the transit ones. But when it comes to our construction site and the litter that's around that gate, who does that? Is it the general contractor? Is it...

Madam President, Council Rogers, are you referring to a city project?

That is a city project, the ID Library Park next to the ID Library. And again, it's the fencing that's encompassing. Sometimes it's inside the fencing, sometimes it's outside the fencing.

Well, I won't speak for them, but I'm pretty sure it's going to have to be the contractor who has the permit for that facility.

If it's inside the gates. If it's outside the gates, then what? Who does that?

I think it would depend.

That's a good question. I guess we would need a little bit more specific on the location. Because if it was out on the sidewalk into the street, then we would probably be reliable for it. Both. All of the above. But at the same time, it would still need the contractor to address their location.

Thank you, Madam President. And then last video to drive home, hopefully, the point that we need to work on our litter ordinance. Because sometimes it's like we don't know who does it. And I am sick of living in filth in my neighborhoods. I am done. I have to pay for my own, while Garrett's getting that last video, I have to use my council set asides to pay a contractor, Red Shovel, to clean the safe route to school for Wilson and Whittier schools because we as a team haven't been able to get this together. So I will be reaching out to you with a draft of our litter ordinance and how we can make this better because I am done living in filth in my district. And it's not just unsheltered people, y'all, I watched People in Benz's throwing stuff out of their car. I watched grandmas do it. I watched kids do it. I watched unsheltered people do it. We don't even have enough officers for 911 calls in my district. So I know we're not proactively policing littering. And I am just over it. So roll that beautiful shoe footage, Garrett, for me. OK, well, I'll send it to you. It's beautiful. There's about 50 shoes on the power line. I've reached out to code enforcement. I've reached out to PNM. I've reached out to everybody. And this is an indicator, people. It's not a joke. These are indicators of where people can get drugs. right they and i want them down everywhere in my district i don't want to see them i want us to have a proactive way to get them down whether we have to partner with whoever line they belong to we should be able to figure this out as a city and so i will be working inviting all of you to a meeting to discuss my changes to our litter ordinance before i drop it so we can work as a team to fix this once and for all because i am done living in filth thank you madam president

Councillor Tejas.

Thank you, Mr. Vice President. I have a few questions for the admin, for Director Sandoval. And I don't know if Director Martinez is here. Are you filling in tonight?

Madam president and councilors I didn't hear you. I apologize.

Sorry sir. Are you feeling in for director Martinez or did I not. CFO. Oh sorry. Man I need to clean my glasses. Sorry. Six year old fingerprints all over. Hi, good evening. I have a couple of questions for you. Thank you so much. I wanted to talk to you a little bit about the OMB's proposed rule overhaul of the uniform guidance at the federal level. For those individuals who might not know what's going on, the federal OMB has proposed some rule changes to the uniform guidance for federal award recipients. And in short, essentially, we're waiting for what the OMB is going to do with regard to our uniform guidance and our federal grants. The guidance that's being proposed would make the guidance binding, it would add political pre-issuance review of grants, eliminate fixed prize awards, expand agencies' ability to terminate awards at any time. And this was all at a very compressed time period. I think all of us were a little scrambling when this came out because it was basically, when was it published? The end of May, and they gave us maybe a 45-day window to kind of provide our comments. I KNOW WE PROVIDED COUNCIL COMMENTS ON OUR END. THANK YOU FOR SHARING YOUR COMMENTS AS WELL. MY CONCERN IS GIVEN THE RULE, WE EXPECT IT TO BE FINALIZED BY OCTOBER 1ST, AND WE HAVE QUITE A FEW DISCRETIONARY FEDERAL GRANTS THAT COULD BE AFFECTED IF THIS RULE GOES INTO EFFECT EITHER IN WHOLE OR IN PART. and so i'm especially concerned about the potential discretionary termination without appeal that puts about from what i was able to identify about 26.7 million dollars in federal grants at risk of disappearing mid-year with zero notice requirement or no appeal and i'm curious what you're um doing at the moment um Does the city have a stabilization plan or a model scenario where if an active federal grant is terminated or delayed, and what was reserve or contingency funding would cover that gap for these FY27 programs?

Council President and Councilor Tejas, like you said, we had a very short window to respond. I'm also a member of one of the committees for GFOA. OMB received over 500,000 comments. So the response that we gave and along, we had a separate one with GFOA, is to extend the period for implementation just to change policies, procedures, and get us prepared Just saying it's October 1st, 2026, that's just not enough time. So that would be the best thing, not just for us, for any other affected grant recipient.

Sure, thank you. Thank you, Ms. Sandoval. I understand that would be the best thing, but I don't anticipate that it's actually gonna happen given the direction of the federal government right now and what this OMB director has done when it comes down to CFPB rules and regulations that they have cut. Again, this was pretty much caught me off guard because they just updated rules to uniform guidance. And they generally don't do that unless in every five years. So for them to do it just a year later, You know, is surprising and I I have been in contact with the local government division and to ask if they are providing any sort of guidance to local governments, governments, municipalities before October 1st. i anticipate that some type of final rule will likely be published on october 1st and so again my question here is do we have any sort of plans for stabilizing the federal awards that we get here i mean these are going to be block grants these are going to be discretionary grants These are formula grants. The majority of these grants are going to hit HHH pretty hard and that just means that we're going to lose services if these discretionary grants are And again, these can be pulled for any reason based off of the rules. So my question again is, are you developing or do you have a plan to develop any sort of stabilization, federal funding stabilization plan for these grants that may be affected?

Madam Chair and Councillor Tejas, I think There has been ongoing conversations, frankly, since this administration has been in office because there have been concerns over time related to different grants. And so there have been questions posed to all the departments. about their funding and what would be their contingency plans so i think this is just another part of those ongoing conversations that we've been having thank you cfo um so does that mean you are you are putting together a stabilization plan Madam Chair, Councillor Tejas, I guess without knowing what you mean by stabilization plan, I think what I'm saying is that we have had ongoing conversations with the departments about if they lost federal funding, what would be their plan to ensure that they would be able to continue services.

Thank you, Madam CFO. So are you leaving it up to the department to come up with a contingency plan for their federal awards? Are you providing guidance as the tone at the top for these directors and their fiscal officers in each department? I'm just trying to understand if the city can provide sort of department by department inventory of what federal discretionary awards that the city administers. what that total amount might be, what the funding agency is, what the award period is, if we're up for renewal or continuation, what these awards are, how many are discretionary. I think we need to have an idea of what it looks like what our picture looks like for the awards that we get that fund our work. I know we have several programs in HHH in particular that are 100% funded by federal awards. And so if that award gets is disappears midyear with zero notice and no appeal. What are we going to do about that? And again, I've I've personally identified with the help of our awesome team, 26.7 million at risk right now. So I you know what's the plan are we doing anything to say OK if this happens let's say worst case scenario October 1st these proposed rules by OMB go into effect. on October 1st. And now these federal agencies that provide us these awards, whether they're direct awards, whether they're pass-through grants or federal awards, whether we have subrecipients monitoring that we have to deal with, what happens when those get pulled? What is our contingency plan? What is our continuity plan? What are we going to do if we lose, at minimum, $27 million?

Madam Chair, Councillor Tejas, as I said when this administration came into office we did an inventory of all of our federal grants in collaboration with the departments. We're not leaving it up to the departments but they themselves are the experts as to what funding they're receiving and what that funding is being used for and so I mean we're happy to go back and pinpoint these ones as they relate to this most recent transaction, but this is something that we have been looking at and talking about for quite some time, even before I was CFO. These conversations were happening.

That's great to hear. Thank you so much. I would respectfully request, Madam President, if possible, I would like to, I have some more questions I can send over to you. that you can kind of review so we know sort of what reserve funds we have. I'm wondering what reserve funds we have, any sort of bridge financing, what type of reallocation authority we might have to sustain these services if a major grant is suspended or pulled without notice. And Madam President, respectfully, I would love to add, you know, requests that we include a presentation from your office, from you, about what type of stabilization programs we have so we can know, you know, just what's going to happen if there's a sudden loss of this federal discretionary funding? Because, you know, this is potentially has... the impact to affect transit, housing vouchers, behavioral health contracts, aviation grants. And so I think we need to be prepared to backfill these if, again, worst case scenario, that happens on October 1st. And we don't know. We don't know what the OMB is going to do. We don't know what the federal government is going to do. because we don't know what they're going to do, it's even more imperative that we have a stabilization continuity plan. So, yeah, I'm happy to send that information, questions to you, and I would love to have a presentation from you all.

Council President and Councillor Tejas, we submit a comprehensive grant report to Council. We also prepare the SIFA for the audit every year, and that's audited, so. Yes, we'd be happy to.

Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you so much.

Could you hold off for one second, ladies? Councillor Rogers, with just a quick follow-up question.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Vice President. I do have a follow-up. I just also wanted to see if we could collaborate as a team, as the City of Albuquerque, because I think the administration is sending one set of comments. We're sending another set of comments. And so far that I've seen, haven't been differing, but there's some very specific points and pages that we want to highlight based on expertise from some of our colleagues. And I think it would be really good if we all could get on the same page and that we're saying the same things to our congressional delegation. Because I think we're all, I'm sending them information, I know Tiz, I know Peabocorn's sending them information. And I think it would just be good for the city of Albuquerque as a whole, one Albuquerque spirit that we're communicating these important things. And I think having a list and all the audits are good, but I think what Councillor Tejas is asking for is a contingency plan Should, same as I asked for when this administration took office, not mayor, but the federal administration, on what are our grants? What is the list? And you all were able to pull that together. But should we lose funding, what is our plan as together as the appropriating body and the executing of that budget how do we work together as a team to replace that funding should we lose it and I think for me that's the most important thing especially that we have some officers on federal funding for their positions like we need to have a plan um and so I just wanted to echo that thank you thank you Council Rogers Madam President I just have one question um and it's for the CAO because I know it's past 5 30 right now uh is there any plans on the we haven't received

quarter two quarter three or quarter four of the litigation reports um is there any plans I know we've sent several emails uh are there any plan to send those eventually uh Madam President and I'm sorry I'm quarter of 25.

Madam President Councilor champagne I would ask City Attorney to respond uh those reports come directly from the city attorney's office

Um, we, we do have the reports up to date and they're ready to circulate into DocuSign or yeah, just circulate. So they're, they're ready. They're done.

They're ready for second, and I'm sorry, I corrected, I said 26. I meant 26, not 25. So quarter two, three, and four of 26.

Yes, up to, and I'm about to get the next quarter, I think next week, but so the three quarters, and I'm sorry, I don't, I'm not sure I can think through the quarters right now, but yeah, I'm up to date through the quarters, and then I will get another one next week, but so whatever that most recent quarter is, is done and ready to send it to DocuSign.

OK, Madam President, so there so they'll be released in before next Council meeting on the yes, I yes, I think once they go into DocuSign is just days.

Madam President, Councilor Champagne, we would send them down in the next time that we send down legislation, which would be. Next Tuesday.

I believe next Tuesday. OK, duly noted the Council grout.

Thank you. I just wanted to follow up. How come we haven't gotten the quarter to the ones before?

Council President, Councilor Gerold, we have been trying to work on a new system for getting those out, and it's just there have been some staffing changes in my office, and we've been trying to get a new system, and I think we now have it set. So those have been delayed as a result.

Perfect. Madam President.

Thank you, Vice President Champagne. We are now on item 15, other business. Executive session pursuant to NMSA 1978, section 1015.1, discussion of limited personnel matter pertaining to the Inspector General investigation of our city attorney. We need a roll call vote to go into the special session.

Councillor Baca?

Yes.

Councillor Passant?

Yes.

Vice President Champagne? Yes. Councillor Feeblecorn? Yes. Councillor Grout? Yes. Councillor Lewis?

Yes.

Councillor Rogers? Yes. Councillor Tejas? Yes. President Pena?

Yes. Passes unanimously. We'll now go into executive session.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Welcome. We are back.

I affirm that the matters discussed in executive session were limited to those specified in the motion for closure. So now we are on item three, proclamations and presentations, and this will be Vice President Champagne.

Thank you, Madam President. Council Feeblecorn.

Thank you, Mr. Vice President. We have a presentation tonight on our move-in mentor program that Councilor Besson has been the lead on, and I've been supportive. And it would be from Ms. Cara Unale, Director of Housing and Self-Sufficiency, and Ms. Laura Fisher-Gallegos, Chief Advancement Officer. from Catholic Charities, if they could come on down. And we've asked them to just give a quick update on the program that Council funded and how incredibly successful it's been in its first couple of months. Go ahead.

Hello, good evening, Councilors. My name is Kara Unali, and I'm the Director of Housing and Self-Sufficiency at Catholic Charities. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. I'm here to share the impact of two city-funded initiatives made possible through your support the Housing Stability Center, and our Move-In Mentor Program. I'd especially like to thank Councilors Brooke Besson and Tammy Fiebelkorn, Carmichael Consultants, and everyone who helped bring these programs to life. Your investments are making a very meaningful difference. Between January and June 2026, Catholic Charities received $600,000 in city funding to launch these programs. Half of that funding, $300,000, was provided as direct financial assistance to households that were in crisis. During that time, we received 807 applications for assistance and helped 238 households with past due rent, move-in costs, and utility assistance. More than two-thirds of those households were served, including children, and 129 families were facing a financial crisis caused by a medical emergency. These are families who were one expected event away from homelessness. This year, we've expanded beyond financial assistance by adding tenant and landlord education and officially launching our move-in mentor program. Many people don't need long-term case management. They simply need someone to help them overcome barriers like poor credit, criminal background, technology challenges, or navigating the rental process. Our team has worked one-on-one with clients while partnering with landlords and property managers across Albuquerque to help people access housing. Through this work, we also identified dozens of seniors at Gateway West who had been priced out of their housing. For someone living on a fixed income, a significant rent increase can effectively become an eviction notice. In response, we've dedicated $25,000 to help Gateway West seniors transition into stable, permanent housing. One point that is very important to mention today is homelessness does cost our community far more than housing our community does. Research estimates that a person experiencing chronic homelessness costs taxpayers between $50,000 and $75,000 each year through emergency medical care, law enforcement, and other crisis services. Once that person is placed in supportive housing, the annual cost drops to approximately $12,800. That's a savings of at least $37,000 per person every single year. Housing isn't just a compassionate choice, it's a fiscally responsible choice. We've already seen the impact of our move-in mentor program. We've helped people with full-time jobs who simply couldn't secure housing because of barriers beyond their control. They didn't need years of assistance. They just needed someone to advocate for them, connect them with landlords, and help them navigate this very complicated system. The families we serve are working, they're raising children, they're recovering from medical crises, and doing everything they can to remain self-sufficient. And sometimes the difference between stability and homelessness isn't motivation, it's opportunity. Your investment creates that opportunity. It keeps families together, strengthens our neighborhoods, reduce public cost, and helps ensure more Albuquerque residents have a safe, stable place to call home. So today, we're here to just ask for your continued support to expand this program so we can prevent homelessness before it happens. This is a preventative measure. Remove barriers to housing and help families achieve that lasting stability. Thank you for your partnership, your leadership, and your continued commitment to making housing stability a reality for our community. We do have this. We wanted to potentially show you folks. I don't know where we do that at. You have it right there? Okay. And if you have any questions, okay, there we go. We would love to answer them for you.

Council people.

Thank you, Mr. Vice President, and thank you for being here and giving us this update. I think this is an incredible program that with very little money in the grand scheme of our really large budget here in the city of Albuquerque has done a lot of good. And I just want to thank Councillor Bassan. She was the one that led this from the beginning and really pushed to make sure it happened. And I just think it's a great program. I'll just tell the public if you want to learn more about it. Our next District 7 Connection Zoom meeting, we will be having a presentation with the Q&A. So if you're not signed up for that, go to the city's website and sign up for your District 7 newsletter and come join us for a longer, more detailed presentation the first Friday of the month. Thank you. Absolutely. Thank you.

Madam President, we do have a second presentation tonight from Ms. Keene. Councillor Bassan, I apologize. You are second in that presentation. My apologies.

Vice President, so I would love to hear from Council person because I think Catholic Charities as Council people corn stated. I think they do remarkable work and they really have never really come to the state of Albuquerque to to get funded in a way that we really should. I have personal experience and I just think you guys have done an amazing job over there. So thank you and Council person. I'd love to hear from you.

Madam President, Mr. Vice President, I was going to ask if they can make sure that we get a copy of the flyer so that we can distribute that and put it on our website so that people can go and get that information, please. And it's been a pleasure to be able to come up with this. Thank you. And to work with everyone.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Vice President. I do have the flyer and I will send it to all of you right now.

And president we do have a second presentation tonight from this Christine Warner the city economist and she will provide an update to the cannabis and gross receipts tax.

I do have a quick presentation for you. Counselors this is the major to report. So for May, growth slowed quite a bit from the past several months. But it was still 3.2%. And that brings the cumulative growth to 5% for the year for FY26. So we've just got one more month left in the fiscal year. Construction seemed to contribute the most to the slower growth this month. It declined 17.5%. Retail was 0.3% decline, so essentially flat to slightly negative. On the upside, professional services grew 10.6%. Other services, 9.3%. Healthcare, 21.7%. All did quite well. Manufacturing as well grew 16.7%. And I guess I can go ahead and I can speak more to that, but I'll go ahead and move to cannabis. There we go. So cannabis dropped a little bit from last month's 33.7% growth, but it was still quite strong at 16%. And the assumption there are hopefully TRD is still doing the compliance efforts. And so hopefully that'll continue to stay a little bit stronger than it had been. So cumulative growth is 6.5% for the year. And just briefly, it's hard to believe it's the quarterly report time for UNM Bieber, so that'll be this Friday. I did get some of their data ahead of time. and looked it over just to see if there were any changes expected for FY27. Employment was supposed to grow the tiniest little bit more than the previous quarter's projection, but almost negligible. And housing permits and those sorts of things kind of remained the same as well. So no significant changes from the last quarter. So I can stand for questions.

Councillor Rogers.

Thank you, Madam President. I love these presentations every month. Do you get access to the market presentations that we get as a city as a part of our TIDs? I sit on the TID board for South Campus and for South Campus and Mesa del Sol. Thank you. There's three of them and State Fair.

It's not really a TID, but we call it that.

Do you get access to those market reports that we get as a part of that? I know Muirhead's there a lot of the time, but just wondering if you get access to those.

Yeah, Madam President, Councillor Rogers, I actually attend some of those TID meetings. I usually hang out in the background, but I don't believe I get those reports, and I would love to see them.

Thank you, and the reason I ask is because I think there's some amazing information that we share during those meetings that I think would be good for overall public, not to the tid, about all of the different things that make up this report that i think would be good to maybe incorporate into ours i learn a ton about what's happening in the market and that really affects city government um so i will be happy to share those with you and maybe there's some stuff we can incorporate and then i would love to get a copy of the bieber report i don't know where to find those and i'm sure i could if i spent some time i probably could but if you would help me by sending me those i would love to read those and learn more about that and then last question i have is as we you know do a bunch of tax abatements and different things irbs and different things like that does your department track or anyone on your team track that year over year so we know we have had all we have given all these tax breaks to all these people that'll affect our GRT at some point so that we maybe say maybe we don't need to do any more of those for a little while so that we're not inadvertently Losing grt because we're just we don't have a cumulative running total What that is gonna how that affects grt for the city. So do you all do anything like that?

Madam president councillor Rogers. There's a there's something called the Gatsby 77 that I have to complete every year and that's literally looking at the IRBs, the MRAs, and looking at the tax revenue that is lost, essentially. So there's a report for it annually. And I think this month or next, I have to start that over again. So perhaps you'd like to see that report.

That would be super helpful for us, especially as we're voting on these things. Like, hey, this might be the implication. I'm just worried that at some point, if we keep doing all that, we're going to affect our GRT and what we have to be able to spend as a city. So just wondering how that affects it.

Thank you, Madam President.

Madam President.

Vice President Champagne, do you have a follow-up question?

Yes, sorry. You had mentioned that cannabis was at 33% and it dropped a little bit, and you indicated 16, so it dropped half, went from 33 to 16. Okay. Just wanted to clarify that number. Okay. Thank you, Madam President.

Thank you. And then I'll just ask a question. Do you have an average of our GRT increase over the past 10 years? Do you track that in terms of percentages? I mean, has the GRT been an average of 5% increase every year or do you know that off the top of your head?

Yeah, Madam President, you know, that would be easy to come up with. It's just that certain things like COVID, certain things like the uh... introduction of local gross receipts tax on internet sales those were significant changes that would throw that average off it would skew it uh... but that kind of information i could easily provide that if you wanted an average over the past ten years or something sure sure and then you can kind of remove

you know, the COVID time. I mean, you can include it in there, but maybe you go 10 years without that and 10 years with COVID. I'm just trying to see, you know, in terms of city gross receipts and, you know, this is really our main source of revenue that we use to, you know, provide all the services, pay our employees and do everything that we need to do as a city. And I think sometimes we're challenged with that. We have, you know, Bernalillo County, it's, you know, they're doing amazing work over there. But they also have their GRT, but plus they have the property tax, right? And the property tax goes up 4% on average a year. So that on top of the GRT, to me, looking at budgets over the years, and I've talked with the county manager about this, It looks as though our budget has become stagnant, yet we provide services not only here in the city of Albuquerque, but for the unincorporated area, as they do too, but then also for like Rio Rancho, for surrounding communities, and there's a real drain on our budget without the ability to have access to additional services. additional revenue. So I think it's like a larger conversation that we have to have. Obviously, I put forward the GRT once again, but I think it's a larger conversation that we have to have on how we best use our resources, just like when people come in to go to the Gateway or to, you know, those are things that or Real Rancho coming into Albuquerque driving on the, you know, and we're having to repave the roads and this and that. I mean, those are just good partners, good relationships that we need to figure out how we help with that, even with our water treatment. Obviously, that's, you know, that's an issue for the Water Authority, but Intel, you know, we're... cleaning that water and that's another you know a burden that we have as a city and we're the largest city in this in the state of New Mexico and we really have to keep up to be able to provide you know some really good services and you know pave our streets and and put street lighting and and we're just really I think each city council district kind of similar to Council Rogers questions. We really need to figure out a way to invest. More in our in our city. So thank you, Madam President.

I'll try to put together some sort of helpful report in that regard.

Yes, thank you so much. OK, we are now on item 5, the Journal. I move approval of the June 15th Journal. There's a motion to second by committee. The whole chair grout. Madam Clerk.

Councilor Baca?

Yes.

Councilor Bassan? Yes. Vice President Champagne?

Yes.

Councilor Favelcorn? Yes. Councilor Grout? Yes. Councilor Lewis?

Yes.

Councilor Rogers? Yes. Councilor Taiz? Yes. President Pena?

Yes.

Passes unanimously.

Thank you, we're now on communications and introductions, which is item six. Are there any changes to the letter of introduction? I have one, EC-195. I move the rules be suspended for the purpose of placing EC-195 on tonight's agenda for action. EC-195 is authorizing for a social services agreement with New Mexico Veterans Integration Centers utilizing opioid settlement fund appropriations as outlined in the City Council Resolution R25-128. I make a motion. Second. There's a motion and a second by Councillor Rogers, and we need two-thirds vote on this. So, Madam Clerk.

Councillor Baca?

Yes.

Councillor Masson? Yes. Vice President Champagne?

Yes.

Councillor Favelcourt? Yes. Councillor Grout? Yes. Councillor Lewis?

Yes.

Councillor Rogers? Yes. Councillor Tejas?

Yes.

President Pena?

Yes.

Passes unanimously.

Thank you. EC-196, I move that the rules be suspended for the purpose of placing EC-196 on tonight's agenda for action. EC-196 is the approval requested to increase funding for FY27 substance abuse treatment voucher contract with Albuquerque Behavior Health.

Second.

There's a motion to second by Committee of the Whole Chair Grout. This also requires a two-thirds vote. Madam Clerk.

Councillor Baca?

Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Thank you. EC197, I move that the rules be suspended for the purpose of placing EC197 on tonight's agenda for action. EC197 is the approval requested to increase funding for FY27 substance abuse treatment voucher contract with Engender Incorporated. And this does not require... Yes, it does require two-thirds vote. Second. There's a motion to second by Committee of the Whole, Chair Grout. Madam Clerk.

Councilor Baca?

Yes.

Councilor Persaud? Yes. Vice President Champaign?

Yes.

Councilor Favela-Corn? Yes. Councilor Grout? Yes. Councilor Lewis?

Yes.

Councilor Rogers? Yes. Councilor Tejas? Yes. President Pena?

Yes.

Passes unanimously.

So we are now Councilor Baca with our 54, and this one only requires five votes. Councilor Baca?

Thank you, Madam President. R54, I make a motion to amend the letter of introduction for the purpose of placing R54 on the August 17th Council agenda. Instead of placing it on tonight's agenda for action, R54 is a resolution authorizing the execution and delivery of a water project fund grant agreement buy-in between the New Mexico Finance Authority and the City of Albuquerque in the total amount of $6,100,060,000.

Second. There is a motion and two seconds, but I'll take this second by Councillor Rogers, Madam Clerk.

Councillor Baca? Yes. Councillor Besson?

Yes.

Vice President Champagne? Yes. Councillor Papelkorn? Yes. Councillor Grout? Yes. Councillor Lewis?

Yes.

Councillor Rogers? Yes. Councillor Tejas? Yes. President Pena?

Yes.

Passes unanimously.

Thank you. Councillor Baca, by request, R56.

Thank you, Madam President. R56. I move that the rules be suspended for the purpose of placing R56 on tonight's agenda for action. R56 is amending the adopted capital implementation program of the City of Albuquerque by supplementing current grant appropriations and approving new projects. I move to pass.

Second. There's a motion and a second by Councillor Grout. This one will require two-thirds vote. Madam Clerk.

Councillor Baca. Yes. Councillor Besson. Yes. Vice President Champagne. Yes. Councillor Favelcourt.

Yes.

Councillor Grout. Yes. Councillor Lewis.

Yes.

Councilor Rogers? Yes. Councilor Taez? Yes. President Pena?

Yes.

Passes unanimously.

Thank you. Councilor Peacockhorn, R57, and this one will require a two-thirds vote.

Thank you, Madam President. I move that the rules be suspended for the purpose of placing R57 on tonight's agenda for action. R57 is dedicated state capital outlay funds to specific projects and phases and requiring council approval of scope changes. Second.

There's a motion to second by Vice President Champagne. Madam Clerk.

Councilor Baca? Yes. Councilor Basan?

Yes.

Vice President Champagne? Yes. Councilor Papelkorn? Yes. Councilor Grout? Yes. Councilor Lewis?

Yes.

Councilor Rogers? Yes. Councilor Tays? Yes. President Pena?

Yes.

Passes unanimously. Madam President.

Thank you. I move approval of the letter of introduction.

Point of order. Yes. OK. Thank you. I request that the president determine whether the introduction of R58 is out of order based on its violation of section 38 of Robert's rule of order, which prohibits improper repetitive motions. As a reminder, in Robert's rules, it does state that no motions can be renewed during the same session in which it has already been before the assembly. and that the same or substantially similar questions cannot be brought up a second time during the same session. The session for this council is two years long. We are now on the 15th meeting of the 27th council.

CHRISTIE WOODARD- And Councilor Papelkorn, what bill are you referring to, the ordinance?

CHRISTIE WOODARD- It is R58.

CHRISTIE WOODARD- Which we don't have in front of us.

That is the gross receipts tax bill that has been voted down three times already this calendar year. And so I would say that this is substantially the same what is being proposed tonight. And I do not believe it qualifies under the rules that we have for council. Yeah, I got it.

Yeah, we're just shuffling papers around. Thank you so much. We got this.

So I think I will defer to the city attorney. I will actually go through some of, let me find some other, since this was not on the agenda. So I think this is the second time with the GRT. It's not the third time, correct?

Well, Madam President, I can answer that question for you. We voted down O2616, which was back earlier this year. And then we also voted down R2643, which was recent. And then there was a motion to reconsider that failure. And that also was voted down by this council. So I believe a 0.4875% gross receipts tax has now been voted down three times by this council in this calendar year.

Yes, so according, so working with our attorneys, it really has to have some change to it in order for it to be a different bill. And this one is pretty substantially different. So 02657 is structurally different approach designed with a stronger taxpayer protections, employee guarantees, which the last one did not have. long-term fiscal responsibility. Unlike past proposals, this ordinance establishes clear boundaries on how funds are allocated, spent, and sustained. Balance allocation, we shifted the revenue from a 50-50 split, which we added more for operations, and 47 for capital projects. are permanent operations versus temporary capital, while operational funding remains permanent to support ongoing services. The capital portion automatically sunsets after 21 years. We didn't have that before. So with the capital, if it were to pass and go to the taxpayers, which I think is paramount here, I feel that the fact that the bill hasn't passed so many times is really unfair to the taxpayers because we're not asking this council to decide whether that money should be appropriated. We're asking the taxpayers. I have confidence in taxpayers to make the right decision, and if they decide not to pass it, then that's what their decision is. We get people coming here all the time saying, hey, let us make decisions. This is a decision for the taxpayer, not for us. I'm just proposing that we put it on the ballot. And then protecting the wages for employees, we have it specific in there for employees. to outline in here that they would be part of this bill. It's not here or there or maybe or maybe not. And I think this really guarantees protections for our employees. And then the other strong language in here is that it's just a supplement not just a plant so that some of the services as you know may not necessarily this administration but it could be this administration or other ministrations that they can use it to supplant some current operations that the city of Albuquerque has this actually this actually protects from doing that so it ensures that this is this new money goes to new services in new operations for the city of Albuquerque. So and then Miss Keefe, I don't know if you can answer the question further.

Thank you, Madam President. I don't construe the Council to operate in sessions. The Robert's Rules of Order has a specific definition of what a session is. It's a short series of meetings designed to address a limited set of topics. In contrast, the New Mexico legislature operates in sessions, and bills die at the end of the session. We don't have a session like that where bills die immediately. We have a calendar from January to December, but if a bill is pending, it carries over to the next January. And that's true whether it's this council or the next council. And there's no reference to session in council's rules. When the calendar is passed, that is not referred to as a session or as part of a session. And so I don't think the rule cited is applicable.

Madam president, may I respond to that? Council people coin. That is very interesting because we have been working under this rule for the entire time I've been on Council and I have specifically not reintroduced bills for the mandatory two year wait period. And so if we are going to hear this bill tonight, I look forward to reintroducing ranked choice voting immediately and also my full renter's bill of rights immediately. And I will continue to keep those on the dais as long as I possibly can because now I am being told that there are no rules that say that we do not repeat bills immediately upon their failure. Thank you.

Thank you. Council people corn and I think it does state that the bill has to be differ. So if you introduce it, I think it has to be. It has to differ somewhat.

Madam President, the bill that's in front of us tonight is substantially the same as the bill that we voted down twice already. I did a line by line word by word analysis. changing 5050 to 4753 and adding one three paragraph. New paragraph in three sentence paragraph in their strategic editing really does not create a new question, so this will be the 4th time that the citizens of Albuquerque have had this voted down by this Council tonight. So I would just. I was asking for a ruling by the. President to determine if this was in violation of Roberts rule of orders.

Before I go to you, Vice President Champagne, I would say that it is not.

So thank you, Madam President. I'd like to move that the Council appeal the president's decision.

Second. There's a motion in the second. Madam Clerk.

Councilor Baca.

Yes.

Councilor Hassan? No. Vice President Champagne?

Yes.

Councilor Piepelkorn? Yes. Councilor Grout? Yes. Councilor Lewis?

Yes.

Councilor Rogers? Yes. Councilor Tejas? Yes. President Pena?

No.

It passes on the 7 vote.

So formalities, how would you? Yeah, so what's the process now for formalities? And before we go to that, I just want to say that we have, this is really, I expected this to be kind of dead in the water. I've already talked to some of the union folks and let them know that it's probably dead in the water, right? But I wanted to make sure. to try to bring this back as a last-ditch effort. As you know, I'm going to rehash some of what Councillor Besson said at one point, is that, you know, we have a budget. I kind of described just now about the budget that we have with our GRT. The truth of the matter is, is our GRT does not grow by that much, and we are held hostage by, and I lack of a better word saying hostage, but We base our entire budget, most of our entire budget, on the GRT. And when we talk about flexibility and when we talk about services that the community wants and needs and You know, the trash picked up, all the pictures that Councillor Rogers just showed minutes ago. All those things require staff needed to be able to do those things, right? And then when you look at our budget, you hear that we don't have enough staff. We have vacancies. We're not paying our staff adequately. They're going to other municipalities. They're leaving the city. Before, many years ago, working for the city of Albuquerque was... I mean, that's how you, when you're in poverty or when you're a working class, that's how you got out, by getting a job that provided benefits and security. And government has not been that way, and we haven't done a good job of doing that, you know. I mentioned this last time is that I've been on council for you know for 12 years and of those 12 years our city employees have not been able to receive in a significant way a major wage increase to really even keep up with cost of living and so when we ask ourselves why aren't these things happening in the way we would like to see them help happen in our community It's going to continue, because if we do nothing, we have the same. If we do something, and not us as a council doing it, this vote right now really took the ability away from you, the voters, to make the decision whether we should do this or not. Thank you. So for Melody's.

Madam President, in consulting with our clerk of the council, the letter of introduction will be amended to remove that bill from the letter, and then it will be reflected in the journal that the vote was taken to take that off.

Okay. Thank you so much. So then we can proceed. Okay. Madam Clerk.

Okay, and this is approval of the letter of introduction. Did I get a second?

Yes.

Councilor Baca?

Did you get the person? It was, yeah.

Councilor Baca?

Yes.

Councilor Basag?

Sorry, can you repeat what we're voting on? I was asked to finish it. Thank you, yes.

Vice President Champagne?

Yes.

Councilor Babelkorn? Yes. Councilor Grout? Yes. Councilor Lewis?

Yes.

Councilor Rogers? Yes. Councilor Chavez? Yes. President Pena?

No.

Passed unanimously.

Thank you. No, no, no.

Yeah, no. 1. 8-1. Got it?

So we are now on item seven, reports of committee. There are none. Deferrals and withdrawals. Councillors, are there any deferrals or withdrawals at this time? Committee, the whole chair, Grout.

Thank you, Madam President. I'd like to pull EC 26160. Yeah, on the consent agenda.

And then did you want to read it off? Oh, sure.

I'm sorry. BC160 is approval of the agreement with HomeWise Incorporated to utilize housing and neighborhood economic development funds in the amount of $2,835,000 to administer a home owner rehabilitation program. Okay, so now...

No, we don't need a second. So thank you, though, Councillor Rogers. So with that, for the individuals on tonight's consent agenda who are being appointed to serve on a Board of Commission, thank you for your willingness to serve. I move approval of the consent agenda. I'll take it now. Councillor Rogers. There's a motion and a second by Councillor Rogers. Madam Clerk.

Councillor Baca.

Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

program. I think it's wonderful. But I have a few questions. First of all, it took, this RFP went out two, three years ago. Three years ago. And it's just now coming to council. Can someone explain a little bit

Madam President, Councillor Grout, Director Ramirez is here and can speak with our new Deputy Director for Housing, Jordan Borrella, to speak to this specific contract and RFP.

Thank you, Madam President, Councilor Grouch. The timing related to the HomeWise contract, it did take quite some time. As I understand it from staff, the RFP was initially submitted in September of 2023. Some of the issues really pertain to the RFP review committee as far as the timing was concerned. This program is funded through our fund which requires two members to be on the ad hoc committee and as I understand that it was very difficult getting two members to go through the entire review process as a matter of fact a few of those members had to change a couple of times which really stalled the award.

Okay, thank you. I'm looking at a map of the pockets of poverty. Can that be expanded at all? Because it's all very concentrated. And I know that there are other areas in our city that could benefit from this. How can we make that change?

Yes, Madam President, Councillor Grout. To go back to the sort of history of the Hernandez program, that program was initially funded through an urban development action grant that was provided by HUD. At the time, that grant, and I believe it was awarded in the 80s, was... provided for economic development activities, the loan proceeds were then provided for the Hanan program. As I understand it, one of the requirements of the federal grant was that the loan proceeds be used in the pocket of poverty, which is why the ordinance was set up this way. In terms of whether that map can be readdressed at this point in time, that is a question that was brought to my attention today, but that is something that we are going to have to research to determine if those requirements are now removed to make that change.

Thank you. I personally would like to defer this EC a couple weeks and work on it to see what we can do if we need to make changes to the ordinance because I do believe that there is more, a broader area that could benefit from this. It's a great program. I'm all for it. I think the RFP went out three years ago, August 21st, so that's three years. So I don't think two weeks is going to to hurt just to get a few more questions answered and possibly broaden the scope of where this would take us.

Councilor Brown, I do believe Councilor Rogers has a few questions. Your motion to defer and questions over with Councilor Tejas, can it wait for the questions first? Yes, it can.

Perfect.

Councilor Rogers.

Thank you, Mr. Vice President. Thank you for being here. I have a lot of questions. I was very vocal about the last round of home renovation money that Homewise got. They were responsible for doing it in low income areas, communities of color. They brought us data. They helped nobody in the low income bracket. And the data was shoddy on who they actually helped. But it was clear it wasn't anyone in the low income bracket, which is what also the grant requires. So what are we putting in place this time if we're going to give them more money? Last time it was $3 million. I was a city employee working in equity and inclusion at the time that that was given out. It took them three years to get that money out and only because I became a city councilor and I asked for what happened to this money. We found out that that time they still hadn't spent it all. We're going to reward them with 2.8 more million dollars when they kept this in their accounts. generating interest while thousands of people in Albuquerque, especially seniors who could not afford home renovations, were not helped. So what is the department gonna do to make sure if we agree to give them 2.8 more million dollars, which I am not, I don't think we should. What is the contingency plan to make sure they do what we expect with the money and quickly, and it doesn't take three years to get this money out?

Yes. Madam President, Council Rogers, you know, within HHH and community development, we do have a compliance team. And when it comes to these types of programs and the inevitable grantees and awardees of those programs, HHH reserves the right to audit all those files to determine that anybody who received that funding income qualified and lived in the designated areas associated with the program.

Madam President, I hate to cut you off, but those contingency plans didn't work with the last $3 million you gave them. I know that you're new to the city, so this is not, you shouldn't be speaking to this. Let's switch places with Director Ramirez, if you would please. Director Ramirez. Police, you know you and I have gone round and round about Homewise in this particular program. Your contingency plan did not work last time. So what are we gonna do differently this time to make sure? And where is it in the contract?

Correct. Madam President, Council Rogers, the initial award of this funding and our partnership with HomeWise has to have been done with the compliance issues that required us for that funding and the applications. Now, did we work hand in hand with HomeWise, and I do believe they're here tonight as well, was to be able to make sure that that compliance was there, the structure was there, and that there was the ability to get that money out to the individuals that qualify for that particular program. Now, as this funding comes to you all for approval and we move forward in that, those contingencies are still going to be in place with HomeWise to make sure that that compliance happens and that the individuals who are served meet not only the areas of the pocket of poverty, but also the applications in that overview. So.

Sounds like, Madam President, sounds like the same answer. What is different this time?

Well, Madam President, it has Rogers. I don't understand in regards to what you would like to see different other than I mean, I'm hearing you're saying that the compliance wasn't there, but I don't believe that was the your department audit them, correct? The compliance for the previous funding allocation. Yes, the monitoring did happen.

Yes, thank you. And I heard from your previous director. There was some issues with that, correct? With how quickly they got the money out and who were they expected to help? We saw the data. We can run the tape out.

The stand-up program, yes. Thank you.

So it was an issue. And now I'm asking, as the steward of this money, your responsibility as the director and the department is to make sure who we give it to does the right thing with the dollars. So if you can't speak to that, then who from HomeWise can? Who's here from HomeWise? If our department, thank you, Madam President, if our department can't even tell me how we're going to make sure, then I'd like to hear from the provider directly. Because just for the public, I've been doing this with HomeWise for almost six years now. First as a city employee, now as a counselor. And so let's get to the bottom of it. Sir, tell me your name. Yes, hey there.

Carl Davis.

Hi, Mr. Davis. How long have you been with HomeWise? Seven years. Seven years. Awesome. Can you please tell me how we're going to make sure that this money gets to the people that it's intended to get to? Because it did not happen the last round.

I think we have to take a minute, because in the last round, I believe it did get to the people it was intended to. The average income of our recipients was $26,000 a year, and everyone was below 80% AMI.

Madam President, that is not the data that we actually displayed publicly from your company.

That is the data we provided ahead of this meeting.

ahead of this meeting, right? But what was presented to this council publicly, it did not show that. And I'm happy to send that to you so you can familiarize yourself with what we saw before. And I know we have to move on. We have a lot of things. I don't want to belabor the point because we're going to defer this anyways so that we can get together and get on the same page. Because we have people who are suffering. We have an insurance crisis in this country where insurance companies are leaving homeowners with the bag, holding the bag, who have holes in their roofs, who have... Not working plumbing, which Homewise, thank you for helping one of our constituents. I was able to call you and hold your feet to the fire to help someone in my district who was a senior who needed your help. You guys went above and beyond to help, right? But that was because the counselor called, not, right? So I just want us to work together as a team to make sure that the people who need this help get the help that they deserve. And that is extremely important. Back to Director Ramirez. How many respondents did we have for this RFP?

Just one. One. Madam President, Councilor Rogers, one.

And that's, thank you, Madam President, that's exactly the excuse you gave me last time, right? Which means your department did not do any recruitment. So can you tell me about your recruitment process for this?

Madam President, Councillor Rogers, well, understanding that the agencies that we've spoken to to encourage to apply, of course, the bandwidth capacity within the city, and they did not respond in or apply. So we had those conversations with them, encouraging them to submit their applications, and in the end, we had the one respondent who fully did it.

Correct. And guess what? I tried to recruit. They didn't want to do business with your department. That is the feedback I got from the five companies I begged to respond to this RFP. They did not want to do business with the city of Albuquerque. We got to do better. We have to do better. And I'm going to continue, continue to say this to HHH, health, housing, and homelessness. That is your charge, not ACS's. And you have millions of dollars at your fingertips. We saw the amazing outcomes from 380,000 from Councillor Besson's, did you see that data? $380 million, I can't even get that data from your department to show impact and outcomes. My district, I am done. I think that's the theme for today. I am done living like this. I am done, done, done. So we've got to get better. Thank you, Madam President. one more thing sorry thank you madam president to answer um councillor grout's question about pockets of poverty that is tied to our opportunity zones that we just went through as a city that thank goodness thank you to secretary rob black for giving me and the city of albuquerque an extension because we almost missed that deadline councillor grout to actually identify new opportunity zones That is how this map is taken care of through our census and opportunity zones. And thank goodness I know all about the census and how this works and was able to flag it and go to myself and get an extension from the state of Albuquerque or state of New Mexico because Albuquerque missed the deadline. And thank goodness we got that extension and we worked as a team with economic development to make sure we put in opportunity zones so that these pockets of poverty can be extended to those other areas that need them. That's the process. And we almost missed the boat. Thank you, Madam President.

Councilor Tis. Thank you, Madam President. Hello, Director. Hello, Deputy. Welcome to this circus of chaos. I don't know. I wanted to actually visit the pockets of poverty matter here, okay? Because it... from from our ordinance that's it doesn't come from opportunity zones actually it it it was written into our city's ordinance and i don't know if you know this so if you do please indulge me for a minute because maybe other people people don't but um it was written into our our city's code of ordinances back in 1987. uh... because we wanted to make sure that we were in compliance with the UDAG right for and so that's what you're following correct so the UDAG no longer exists it was terminated at the federal level okay so and these funds as far as i could find haven't been included in the SIFA for years so it's not listed as an active federal award and so Are you treating these loan repayments in that project fund as a permanent condition that was tied to those specific parameters of pockets of poverty?

Madam President, Councillor Tejas, no, not in relation to tying it to the original grant agreements, but in relation to tying it to the language in the ordinance that was tied to the original grant agreement.

Right, right, right, right. Okay. So then we need to do some work on the council. So our job now, we're going to have to update that ordinance and amend it because We can't just unilaterally extend it outside of the pockets of poverty, which is an 11-mile area. How long have those funds been sitting in Fund 277?

Madam President, Councillor Tejas, I don't know exactly, but quite some time. It's a very old fund.

It's like 40 years. Yeah. Those funds have been sitting in that fund for 40 years. And it's all been based off of these pockets of poverty. under a definition that hasn't existed since 1988. And so we need to, but we can't actually do that until we have answers to a couple of things. And it requires us to know if there is a permanent condition in that original UDAG requirement that tied it to the loan repayments so while we can amend that ordinance we can't until we know that so and and you know i had a good conversation uh... with miss montoya from your office earlier today she did send me some really good information but i'm really glad that uh... counselor grout pulled this because we definitely need to defer this until we can know what those original grant parameters were uh... because we We just you know, we can either there's two things that can happen here. We're just stuck, you know, within this 11 mile restriction that was created in 1987, or we can expand it to other POVERTY THAT EXISTS IN OUR CITY THAT REALLY, REALLY NEED THIS MONEY. AND THAT REALLY, YOU KNOW, TO NICOLE OR COUNCILOR ROGERS, WE'RE SO UNPROFESSIONAL OVER HERE, BUT TO COUNCILOR ROGERS POINT, RIGHT, IS TO EXTEND THESE this opportunity. When I was in school, when I was 14, 15 years old, my family benefited from a rehabilitation program by the city. Now, this was in Las Cruces, but it made a huge difference. I mean, we were literally sleeping on our concrete floors in our house. So we had to shove napkins in our . the corners of our houses, door jams, because it would get cold. So these type of programs are just so incredibly important. And they make such a huge difference that we should not be restricting them to certain zones when that poverty exists throughout the city. And so I do need to what we I think I mean before we can do anything though We have to find out if there is any sort of permanent condition that is tied to those loan repayments you know it may be worth um requesting our ipas to expand our scope and just test that and see if they can find that information um for us um uh ms senneville that might be an option because this is going to go pretty far back into sifa um items because i don't think it's been on our well i haven't seen it since the FY24 ACFER and I think it came up in maybe 2008, but the historical documents aren't very, you know, there for us. So, but yeah, I would appreciate if we can find that information out because otherwise we're unfortunately stuck with that 11 mile area for this particular money. Yeah. Okay.

Thank you. Thank you, mr. Martin Just a couple questions related to this. This is the home ways that does the rehabilitation for the houses, right? Am I correct? Madam president, I just want to double check That's what I assumed it was. I just want to say, you know sometimes, you know hearing some of the concerns I do I think there should probably you know, look at you know, we should always be revisiting, you know, just like we should revisit fees, we should revisit whether we should have, you know, tax increase, you know, for revenue, we should revisit whether, you know, how we fund some of our social service grants. I think all those things are important. I'll just say that I think my opinion differs a little, you know, so I just don't want the public to think that everybody on the council, and I'm just speaking for myself, but it came across as though everybody on the council feels this way. I just want you all to know that just a few short years ago, and I'm not sure who was on council then, maybe Councillor Besson and maybe Councillor Lewis, But we were using most of this money, and correct me if I'm wrong, we were using most of this money for affordable housing. And we were stockpiling affordable housing dollars, and we were not being able to get many of those affordable housing dollars out the door. And I did an amendment one year. And I think Council Feeblecorn was here. And I did an amendment one year to actually take out that $3 million for housing rehabilitation. I think Councillor Baca later renamed it a name, gave it a name. And so just a few short years ago, whether HomeWise is the only recipient who responded or not, we were not doing home rehabilitation in our city. So we have so many seniors and houses are dilapidated, yet we take votes here to those houses that eventually, because they don't have the resources to be able to rehabilitate their houses. And then we vote here on this dais to condemn that house, knock that house down. I have on principle, I mean, I don't, you know, it's something that's needed to be done, but on principle, I've never voted for those because I said I won't vote for those until we have a program that helps with housing rehabilitation. And just carving out that $3 million, which I think that, you know, we should give this money to HomeWise and then we should carve out another $6, $7 million to do this because Our housing stock, if we're talking about housing first and keeping people in their houses, we need to help the viejitos in the neighborhood and the people who can't afford to make those necessary repairs. And so I've met with HomeWise. I've talked to them about what they've done with the resources. And unfortunately, the resources don't go as far as we would like. I know they ended up helping like 60 homeowners, but... 62? 58, 60, 58. So I know it was about 58 for the $3 million. So I would hope that our department can look at how we get the best bang for the dollar in terms of $2.8 million for 60 homes, even though there's all kinds of costs that we don't realize associated with it. I mean, they have to do the administrative costs, their utility costs, everything gets partially factored into this. But unless we bring these things back in-house like we used to have, the housing, which I'm for those kinds of things. But as far as I know, HomeWise has done a decent job. I think you guys have to do the checks and balances to make sure. to for that but I really think that this is just a drop in the bucket if in in reality 2.8 million dollars can only help 60 homes we got to do better right 68 homes we're all wrong 68 homes. So but just to say that, I mean, I will, you know, I'm not going to vote for the deferral. But I do think that when we're talking about some of these things, even budgetary, how we need these things and how we need housing rehabilitation and we need it in more pockets of poverty. And as you can see, the frustration from some councillors here. talking about they want it in their area as well. This is a new program that just started a few years ago, and the demand out there is so high that we're a little bit behind the eight ball. So I hope that when we talk about budget that we do that. And when we're talking about affordable housing dollars, I know it helps the bigger cause, but putting everything just into affordable housing doesn't address our vecinos and our neighbors in our community. So with that, I will go to Councillor Grout for her main motion.

I would like to defer it for two weeks so we can have a little bit more offline conversation, kind of get a plan to move forward. I think it's a great program. I'm all for it.

But I have some questions. Second. So there's a motion in second for a two week deferral. Madam Clerk.

Councilor Baca.

Yes.

Councilor Passan. No. Vice President Champagne.

Yes.

Councilor Favelcorn. Yes. Councilor Grout. Yes. Councilor Lewis.

Yes.

Councilor Rogers. Yes. Councilor Tejas.

Yes.

President Pena.

No.

Passes on a 7-2 vote.

Thank you. So we are now on announcements, which is item 9. Councillor Lewis?

Yeah, one second. There'll be a Finance Government Operations Committee meeting on Monday, August 10th at 5 p.m. in the City Council Committee Room, 9th Floor, Suite 9003 of the City of Albuquerque Government Center.

Councillor Besson. Madam President, there will be an Intergovernmental Legislative Relations Committee meeting on Wednesday, August 5th at 3 p.m. via Zoom video conference, and there will be a Land Use Planning Zoning Committee meeting on Wednesday, August 12th at 5 p.m. in the Vincent Ygriego Chamber's basement level of the Albuquerque Government Centre, and this will be a hybrid meeting.

Thank you, Councillor Besson, for those two announcements. So it is now 7.05ish. Well, let me see, because that clock is different.

Just one more announcement.

Oh, yes. I apologize. Yes. Councillor Rogers.

Thank you, Madam President. I just wanted to announce we have National Night Out tomorrow. across the city if you just google cabq national night out you can find one at a park or somewhere near you i think we have over 40 events across the entire city me and bucko is compete for who has more i think he beat me by one district six has seven different events that you can join us at and they're in all the council districts. So you can go on the website, look up one, and I encourage everybody to come out. This is about engaging in a different way with our neighbors, with each other, our neighborhood associations, city leaders, all of us, I'm sure, are making the rounds. I know directors all get assigned ones that they have to go to. It's really one of my favorite times to really just humanize each other to each other. Like, we're all in this boat of Albuquerque together, and National Night Out is really a good time for us to just break bread together. I'm hosting one at Daniel Webster Park on Copper in Wyoming. We got Taco Tuesday happening. We got Rockin' Rob and DJ spinning the ones and twos. It's really a great time. So I would just encourage everyone to come on out, find one near you, and let's just fellowship together. Thank you, Madam President.

Thank you, Councillor Rogers. So now it is probably 7.08, and we are going to take a dinner break, and we'll be returning at 7.40. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

. . . . Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. ¶¶ MUSIC PLAYS Thank you. Thank you. uh Thank you. Thank you.

Okay everyone, we are back in session. We are now on item 10, financial instruments. This is Councillor Baca by request, 038. Councillor Baca.

Thank you, Madam President. 038, authorizing the issuance and sale of the City of Albuquerque, New Mexico taxable industrial revenue bond, Dreamcatcher Sawmill Hotel Project Series 2026 in the maximum principal amount of $40,520,267 to provide funds to acquire, construct, equip, and improve the Dreamcatcher Sawmill Hotel, a dual-branded Hampton Inn and Home 2 suites with an anticipated 135 guest rooms. I guess we could open up to public comment.

Was that a motion councillor? Yeah, you need to make a motion No, unless you want to have discussion you can do a deferral, okay Well, let's move to move to pass to start second there's a motion in the second by councillor feeble corn for a do pass of Oh 38 Councillor Baca to open.

Thank you, Madam President. So I think I'd like to start with public comment on this one. I mean, everybody's been waiting, so we have quite a few people.

Okay. Would you call our first speaker, Garrett?

Thank you, Madam President. Our first speaker is Senator Debbie O'Malley, followed by Dr. Lisa Christopherson.

Chair I do have a handout just so you can get a sense of the You know, it's a very primitive Drawing but it's at least it gives you a sense of especially when we're talking about this project What we're talking about what we're talking about. So good evening madam president counselors. My name is Debbie O'Malley and I Serve as advisor to the board of directors of the sawmill community land trust first I do want to say that I appreciate the that you all have taken our concerns into consideration regarding the IRB for a hotel in the Sawmill District. I did get a call from the developer on, I believe it was Thursday, and I met with him that afternoon. It was a virtual meeting, and this is what transpired. Mr. Depeche said he wants to move forward with five stories because that is the model he has based his financial pro forma on. And that any change to that model will require that he re-evaluate whether that project would be financially feasible. Well, yeah, that's what happens when you do development. And in particular, we do a private development and you're asking for tax subsidies. A pro forma is not a static thing. You have to revise it because of market changes. That argument could also be made that feasibility is largely based on a number of units. We are not suggesting that he reduce the number of rooms. We're just suggesting that the height standards listed in MXM be followed. Mr. Depeche also stated that he would not put any windows on the east side of his five-story hotel so the people could not look into people's yards since the hotel would be next to single-family housing. Obviously, that would look pretty weird, especially, I guess he doesn't plan to have any rooms on that sign, and it may not be permitted anyway when it comes to approval of design. That was an odd sort of comment. He also stated he was approved for a variance of a building for 60 feet. Assuming this is true, and I'm assuming it is, he would have a variance for up to 60 feet. This variance is not a requirement that it built to 60 feet. This council still has the right to require that the height be lower for approval of an IRB. This is an IRB, not a zoning request. If it is the council's wish to approve this IRB, we ask that at the very least the amendments for height to restrict the height and the traffic for exit and for to exit and enter this development be supported. Thank you so much.

Dr. Lisa Christopherson, followed by Michael Silva.

Hello. It's been a while. Thank you so very much. My name's Lisa Christopherson. I'm here on behalf of New Mexico's Stronger Together Coalition as the founder. Speaking to 02638, we recognize that we are in need of businesses and hotels and places for people to stay when they come and visit what we have been looking at, and particularly for myself individually, I very much appreciate the patience that we have had, and not ram-roading through things, taking the time, listening to community, because the reality is, sure, you can make a hotel, you can force one to be there, that doesn't mean community's gonna accept it. That doesn't mean community will partner. So I would encourage us to go at the pace of the community that lives there. Okay. That doesn't mean can't get a hotel. I'm just asking, and thank you so very much. And thank you to the developers for listening and partnering with community. Our goal going forward, we don't have to be at odds over tax subsidies, although I'm with you, like let's find out how much we've given and how much we're behind, but we can do this together. Okay. So community is not opposed to development. Just include us please.

Michael Silva, followed by Austin Schull. Austin Schull, followed by Pete Casetas.

Hi, everybody. Sorry, this is the first time I've ever done any formal speaking, so bear with me. My name is Austin Scholl. I'm a New Mexico native, born and raised in the North Valley. I went to St. Pius, played football at UNM, and now I have a small business in the village of Los Ranchos. I wanted to kind of get off the sidelines and be proactive in voicing my opinions in the community. We're in support, I'm in support, of the new hotel in the Sawmill District. Excuse me. After looking into a night for a special occasion in some of the closer hotels in that area, it ranges from up to Chaco 477, and I think it's Hotel Albuquerque at 285, and it's just not doable for someone like me. I think a nice, new, locally staffed, mid-range price hotel and walking distance of so many local amenities, the restaurants, the old town, the galleries, the museums, and of course Sawmill, I think it's really much needed. I think it would help with traffic, obviously, you know, more walking and people like that. I think that's all I have. Hopefully that's enough, but I think it would be a great addition to the town. Thank you so much for your time.

Pete Casetas, followed by Haley Todd, or Todd Haley.

Hello, council. My name is Pete Cassettis. I'm the manager of Plaza Don Luis, and I own Outpost 1706 Taproom, and I actually live in Old Town. I retired from the state police in 2019 as the chief, so I know a little bit about crime, what goes on in that area. I think I do support this development. I believe it's difficult for new construction projects in Old Town, and this is as close as we're going to get. I do not believe this brand will lessen anything that's going on in the area, quite frankly. The developers decided not to include a bar or restaurant, which is great, because where are those folks going to go that are staying there? They're going to come to Old Town. They're going to go to Sawmill. They're going to visit the local establishments. I think it offers an affordable place for the average tourist to stay when they come to downtown and Old Town, which is great for that community. It creates some great jobs, too. And as for the IRB, I feel it should be extended to anyone wishing to develop as it has been for other entities, so I fully support it. Thank you.

Haley Todd, followed by Pinar Bahadir.

Hello, Madam President and counselors. My name is Haley Todd, and I'm here to express my support for the Industrial Revenue Bond. My first point is that this hotel will benefit Albuquerque as a whole. A nationally branded hotel is highly sought after market, strengthens Albuquerque's ability to compete with cities such as Houston and Phoenix when bidding for large conventions and citywide events. Meeting planners consider many factors when selecting destinations, including the availability of recognized hotel brands and loyalty programs. We want to become a part of this community and create meaningful long-term careers for local residents. Sun Capital Hotels has a leadership development program that is available to every employee, not just a select few. An employee's current position does not determine how they can advance. A person can begin in housekeeping, maintenance, or the front desk, and develop into a supervisor, department head, or general manager. For these reasons, I respectfully ask you to support this IRB and thank you for your consideration.

Pinar Bahadir, followed by Aaron Rodgers.

Good evening, everybody. My name is Pinar Bahadir. I'm the general manager of Hyatt Place Albuquerque Uptown. I've spent over 17 years in the hospitality industry, and I'm here tonight in support of approving the IRB for this project. I understand the concerns about traffic, architecture, bringing a Hilton brand into Old Town, but it's important to remember that while the flag may be Hilton, the hotel will be locally owned, locally operated, and will create local jobs while generating tax revenue that stays in our community. Most importantly, hotels don't just serve tourists. They serve neighbors. Every year, families are displaced because of house fires, flooding, burst pipes, mold, and other emergencies. Most homeowners insurance policies include coverage for temporary hotel stays when a home is no longer safe for them, allowing families to stay close to their communities. Throughout my career, I personally seen families stay with us for weeks and even months while they put their lives back together. Having quality, affordable hotels nearby means our own residents have a safe place to go during some of the most difficult times in their lives. These hotels will also provide an affordable option for local families hosting out-of-town visitors. Thank you. Your time is up. Thank you.

Erin Rogers followed by Bernice Guerrero.

Madam President, Councilors, thank you for having us here tonight. Sun Capital Hotels changed the path of my career by believing in me and giving me the opportunity to become a general manager of a new dual brand hotel. They saw the skills I already had, invested in my potential, and trusted me to take the challenge to help me grow in ways I never imagined. Through this opportunity, I learned how to solve new construction and pre-opening challenges, train and develop employees, and set up new business for long-term success. Most importantly, I was able to help others by hiring a local team, building strong company culture, and developing future leaders with Sun Capital Hotels. This experience showed me that Sun Capital Hotels truly invests in people, promotes from within and prepares team members for successful leadership opportunities. I am grateful for the trust they placed in me because not only it changed my career, it gave me the chance to help shape careers for others. Thank you.

Berenice Guerrero followed by Robert Avalos.

Good evening, President and Councillors. My name is Bernice Guerrero. I've been in the Sun Capitals. I'm the executive housekeeper there. Throughout my career, I assist to the leadership development program that Sun Capital provides. I have experienced significant personal and professional growth. As I have developed, I also remain committed to supporting the growth of success to supporting the growth and success to others by encouraging opportunities advancements. I believe this new project represents an exceptional opportunity not only for the company's continual expansion but also for the professional development for our employees. It would create new careers that strength our workforce and provide meaningful employment opportunities for members of our community. Thank you.

Robert Avalos, followed by Adrian Perez.

Hello, Madam President and fellow council members. My name is Robert Avalos. I am the general manager of the Fairfield Inn and Suites Albuquerque North. I actually grew up near Central Avenue, near Old Town. I love and proud to call Albuquerque home. I have worked in hospitality for 18 years, starting in housekeeping and working my way up through the ranks. Before joining Sun Capital Hotels, I held several leadership positions and Sun Capital gave me the opportunity to continue growing in my current role as a general manager. Sun Capital believes in investing in people and promoting from within through leadership training and the opportunity to attend Marriott conferences. I was given the tools to grow professionally and personally. Today, I have the privilege of paying that forward. I mentor and develop employees, and I am proud to say that two of my associates completed the leadership programs and managed departments of their own, started from breakfast and now are front office manager and executive housekeepers. As a general manager, I have built strong relationship with local businesses, especially restaurants, and I hope that you guys support this IRB.

Adrian Perez, followed by Consuela Aveda.

Madam President, counselors, spoken on behalf of this before, and I'm asking for you to protect the Sawmill District. How I thought I could express my thoughts in a one minute session in front of you is best illustrated by a KOAT Channel 7 investigation that was done June 13th of this year. And the headline reads, Albuquerque hotels deny booking to local residents. Two Hilton Inn Expresses located in Albuquerque, which is one managed by them, have policies prohibiting local residents from booking rooms, with one citing concerns about unsavory activities. I can't read the whole article to you, but what I'm asking you to do is protect the Sawmill District. A limited service hotel in the most culturally sensitive district in our city that we have worked so hard for the last 25 years to curate something special in that district with Old Town, with Sawmill, does not need this. Thank you very much for your consideration.

Consuelo Abeyta, followed by Viola Martinez.

Good afternoon. Evening actually already. So my name is Consuelo and I am a general manager for Sun Capital Hotels. I support this IRB because Sun Capitals is one of the most caring companies I have ever worked for. Not only do they care about their team members, but they care about our beautiful city. We volunteer in our community, purchase school supplies for our team members' children. We purchase turkeys and hams for our team members over the holidays. And those are just a few things that we do. I worked at a hotel previously owned by Sun Capital that was sold to a different owner. When the sale occurred, Depeche gave me the option to stay with the purchasing company or move to another hotel within the Sun Capital family. At the time I chose to stay at the hotel, I quickly realized that my home was with Sun Capital. I reached out to Dipesh and he welcomed me back as a general manager of a Hilton hotel. So Hilton is not only a huge brand, but Sun Capital is a local company who takes pride and is proud to be a part of the city of Albuquerque. Thank you.

Viola Martinez, followed by David Stryker.

Good evening, Madam Chair and city councillors. My name is Viola Martinez, and I am president of the Sawmill Land Trust. At the last meeting, we all spoke about the fact that the traffic is becoming a worse problem in the Sawmill District, and that this five-story hotel would increase traffic along 18th Street. The developer said at that time the traffic would be less than that of an office building and that he did not have to get a traffic study. Maybe not for an IRB, but likely for a building permit. The fact is 18th Street is not an arterial street that can carry a lot of vehicle traffic. It is a street where pedestrian traffic, bicycle traffic is paramount. For these reasons, we ask our councillors to move amendments forward for traffic and height as a condition of approval for this IRP. It is important that we get it right at this area, that we consider the adjacent land use, mass design of buildings, and neighborhood character. Thank you so much for your attention.

David Stryker, followed by Orlando Alvidrez.

I don't know if your camera can focus on this, sorry. Can you focus on that? uh there we go okay my name is david striker i'm president of the sawmill area neighborhood association and we are not opposed to development we think the idea of a hotel there is great i like the idea of a mid-priced hotel what the area association is against is five stories three stories would be good four stories in five stories is the sort of thing that gets a neighborhood association very irritated And I just think the council needs to take that into account. If you look at this map, which was part of the packet you all got originally, you'll see the red dot there is where the hotel is. What you'll note is they cut On this proposal, all the neighborhood away. All you have here is the industrial stuff. You have the apartments up in this area, but the rest of it is not where folks live most of the time. Where the folks live is to the east of that, and that will be impacted by a five-story building. And I think that's a bit of a metaphor for some of the procedure that has gone on for this is... worried about grt and so forth but you know do need to worry about the neighbors and for this reason we are opposed to a five-story building we are not opposed to a hotel thank you orlando alvidrez followed by sean chavez on zoom

Good evening, Madam President and Councillors. My name is Orlando Alvidrez and I'm the Executive Director at the Sawmill Community Land Trust. I attended the meeting the communication consultant had at the Johnny Tapia Center and I and only two other people attended. As we mentioned at the last meeting, the Sawmill Land Trust is gearing up to plan the development of the remaining parcels it controls one of which is across the street from the proposed hotel. Our planning efforts include a traffic study, and we appreciate our councilor's support for the effort. Our developments that exceed two stories comply with the MXM, none of which exceed the maximum height called out in this zone, three stories, and that is because our development abuts a single-family subdivision. We are asking that other developers in the growing area consider the effort that height and traffic have on the existing community. This proposed hotel abuts an older single-family neighborhood. What is being proposed is a five-story box. How is that respectful to the existing neighborhood? Please consider the conditions that are called out in the amendments by Councillor Baca to require that Hike comply with MXM and that any vehicular traffic proposed the hotel enter and exit through Belmont Connection through 12th Street. Thank you.

Sean Chavez, followed by Jasper Riddle. Garrett, one second. Oh, I'm sorry, ma'am.

Mr. Coulodon. Madam President, Councilors, I'd just like to make you all aware that the site plan and building permit stage of this proposed development is going to be considered quasi-judicial, and so commentary on that aspect, like design and zoning for the property, should be limited, and that will be up for further discussion as this progresses. Thank you.

Sean Chavez, followed by Jasper Riddle.

Yes. Good evening. Can everyone hear me?

We hear you very well.

Thank you. Good evening. My name is Sean Chavez. I was born and raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico. And as someone who owns a small local business in the North Valley, I care about our local community and its growth. I believe this hotel project by Sun Capital will greatly benefit Albuquerque, Sawmill, and the Old Town area by supporting existing businesses, replacing daytime office traffic with vibrant weekend activity and providing affordable lodging. There are tons of community and economic benefits. It'll boost local shops in the area as guests will walk to nearby spots like Sawmill Market, restaurants and museums, because this hotel in particular will not have an on-site bar or restaurant. I see tremendous opportunity for local growth as this project will replace the 25,000 square foot empty office building, encouraging evening and weekend tourism activity. It fills a need for a quality mid-scale hotel that costs less than the local luxury options. This hotel will be affordable and community-based. The architecture of this project will match the existing theme of Sawmill and in turn make it a great companion hotel to the area. It will create jobs and revenue by generating construction jobs, permanent hospitality work, and opportunity for local workforce. As someone who has lived in Albuquerque their entire life, I understand the want and the need for this project. It's local, affordable, job-generating, and encourages positive traffic to the Sawmill and Old Town area. Thank you very much.

Jasper Riddle, followed by Shane Evans.

Good evening, Councilors. My name is Jasper Riddle, and I'm the owner of Noisy Water Winery in Plaza Don Luis. I support the Sawmill Hotel project because I've seen firsthand how tourism strengthens local business. Every additional overnight visitor creates opportunities not just for one business, but for restaurants, breweries, wineries, museums, shops, and attractions of the area. I especially like this hotel is designed to compliment the neighborhood rather than compete with it. Without its own restaurant and bar, guests will naturally explore Old Town and Sawmill, supporting the businesses that have already invested in those communities. Projects like this create jobs, generate tax revenue, encourage private investment, and help Albuquerque continue to grow as a destination. I believe this is a thoughtful redevelopment that will benefit the surrounding neighborhood and our local economy, and I respectfully ask for your support. Thank you.

Shane Evans, followed by Douglas Wright.

My name is Shane Evans. I'm the owner of Red Mesa Electric out of Gallup, New Mexico. And over the past eight to 10 years, our company has had contract work in Albuquerque, which has required us to house our employees. We'll have a hotel, seven to ten rooms per week over the last several years. I believe that this hotel will be a tremendous benefit to have a dual brown hotel that's built in an area like the Old Town and the Sawmill District, not only for employees like mine to stay, but also for the business travelers, your leisure travelers. they'll be able to enjoy the historic downtown, the newer restaurants, the breweries, entertainment. All of this would be within walking distance of where this hotel is going to be. And it would be great for... the owners of the businesses in that area also. I also have had the opportunity to work with Sun Capital Hotels and like the employees have said, he also treats the people that he works with the same way. So please support this IRB, thank you.

Douglas Wright, followed by Ray Strom.

Good evening, everyone. My name is Douglas Wright. I'm a contractor. I live in Phoenix, Arizona. I do work almost all of my work in New Mexico. I normally stay at Sun Capital Hotels. Over the years, they're a great operator, always clean and friendly. I'm also a Diamond member at Hilton, and I usually stay at Hilton Products. This product in the Sawmill area would be great for me and my business. I do most of my meetings there. as I do not have a full-time office there, at local establishments, restaurants, Starbucks, you know, any kind of coffee shop, and this would be a great avenue to just stay, walk, and I'm usually there for about five days per week, two or three times a month. Thank you for your time.

Ray Strom, followed by Diana Peru.

Good afternoon or good evening. Thank you for this opportunity. My name is Ray Strom. I've been a citizen of Albuquerque for 30 years. I want to give you a little bit of background to give you some context on my comments. I've served as a risk manager and an insurance broker for over 48 years. I have walked thousands of properties and looked at many projects with an eye towards risk management, safety, commitment, the capability of the developer. I have also been working with Sun Capital and the leadership team for the last 15 years, and I've been privileged to watch this leadership team work so hard. I have worked and walked all of the properties owned by Sun Capital in the state of New Mexico and tell you without exception, they meet and exceed the standards for life safety, public safety, and fire prevention. They work hard. I've watched them and witnessed them invest millions of dollars into their property to ensure that the property continues not only to be safe, but to be aesthetically correct for the areas. Proof of that concept is what they've done in the I-25 corridor and as well as Uptown. So I am in support of this project. I am confident that Sun Capital will deliver on their promise to give you a quality product that's safer to public and benefits to our economy. Thank you for your time today.

Diana Peru, followed by Johnny Mangu. Diana, you'll have to accept promotion to panelist.

Can you hear me?

We can hear you, thank you.

Hello, my name is Diana Peru and I am joining you from Las Cruces. I am an employee of Sun Capital Hotels as their general manager at the Holiday Inn Express North for more than 10 years now. I have witnessed the growth of the company and excited with all the projects that are in the pipeline. In my journey with Sun Capital Hotels, they have given me the opportunity to focus on my leadership growth. I have been a mentor for the company's future leaders in a program that they developed to invest and promote within. In addition, I have also been approached by the city of Las Cruces to be part of the lodgers tax committee. I am the chair of the leadership program with the greater chamber to develop skills and educate participants on all the local dynamics in Las Cruces. With the support of Sun Capital Hotels, there are numerous volunteer hours company-wide in our local communities at Food Bank and support local events. With every new hotel development, our company just doesn't grow. It impacts local economy. Thank you.

Johnny Mangu followed by Steve Chavez.

My name is Madam President and counselors. My name is Johnny Mangu. I'm an Old Town business owner and property owner of Old Town Shopping Plaza. Old Town needs more visitors that are spending more money. We do not need an existing office space that may be vacant most of the time. I believe approving this IRB is an investment in our community and the future that will pay dividends in the community and benefit Old Town businesses and residents for many years in the future. If you don't invest in Old Town and our community will not grow. You had talked earlier about increasing gross receipts to support our city budget. Approving this IRB generates more revenue for Old Town and more gross receipts. It generates more jobs for our city. I hope you'll vote yes on this IRB. Thank you.

Steve Chavez, followed by Adam Silverman.

Good evening, Madam President and members of the City Council. My name is Steve Chavez with SC3 Development. I apologize for not being there in person this evening, but I'm out traveling today. I am in support of the IRBs for the hotel proposed in the Sawmill District. I feel that in today's world of trying to find an affordability, that is important that we work together to support this type of development. Depeche and his team do quality work, and I will vouch for his group as professional operators and developers. How can we give IRBs to one large developer in the area and not to a developer who will provide the affordability we need? Sometimes competition is good, and I support Depeche and what he's doing in that district. Thank you.

Adam Silverman.

Yes. Hi, Madam President and council members, Adam Silverman. My company is Geltmore LLC. I'm also a downtowner. Echoing a lot of the comments we heard tonight. I'm sorry I had to leave early. I have a commitment in the morning early, but diversity of affordable lodging, connections to our rail trail, increases in gross receipts tax. All those things happen when we have new development, and especially with lodging development, because those are people from out of town that come and want to spend their money in our community. And I think we all have a reason to vote for this financial instrument because of those things. And so I'd like to urge you that this is something that will be good for our community. This will actually be something good for the rail trail, which we've already allotted money for. And I would really like to see Sun Mountain finish this hotel and get rid of an office building that is really out of date and shouldn't have any place in the sawmill. So thank you. And I appreciate all of your service to the community.

Thank you, Madam Chair. That takes care of Zoom. Is there a, sorry, Pauline Chavez here that would like to speak?

Pauline Chavez? Here she comes.

Good evening, Madam President and councillors. My name is Pauline Baca. I spoke at the last council meeting. I'm a member of the Community Land Trust. I was born and raised in the neighborhood. At the last meeting, after hearing our testimony, you asked the developers to reach out to the community. I have not heard from the community, neither have my neighbors. It's my understanding that they contacted our executive director, Orlando, and that meeting was with him and one other person. I don't know who their communication person is, but they did not do an outreach to our neighborhood. It's my understanding that Councilor Baca has a couple of amendments that require conditions for approval of the IRB. They are very important, important concerns. They deal with traffic and height. While we still feel that this project does not deserve taxpayers' subsidies, we know there are some counselors who believe it does. And I hope that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Madam President, that concludes our list of sign-ups for this matter. Thank you.

Councilor Baca, 038.

Thank you, Madam President. So I think, I mean, there's obviously clear support for this project within the community. Simultaneously, there's not support for this project. I think, you know, if this was uptown area, not uptown, I'm sorry, journal area. UM WE DID APPROVE ONE WITHOUT EVEN WE DIDN'T EVEN TALK ABOUT THAT RIGHT UM BUT DOWNTOWN AND OLD TOWN AND SAWMILL ARE DIFFERENT THEY DO REQUIRE A LITTLE BIT MORE WORK A LITTLE BIT MORE TIME FOR EVERYBODY TO SIT DOWN AND GO THROUGH IT I THINK WE HEARD THAT THE DESIGN TEAM MET WITH THE LAND TRUST BUT NOT THE DEVELOPER AND I THINK THE THE LAND TRUST REALLY WANTED TO MEET WITH THE DEVELOPER DIRECTLY I THINK THAT'S IMPORTANT Also, there was mention of a couple amendments that I was going to introduce, and I'm not going to introduce those because our council advised me against that. So that changes things a little bit, I think. I think that's important. I did meet with both groups to kind of see where they were and what had happened, and there's still a lot of confusion there. So with that I would I would like to move deferral for time for the groups the developer and the land trust Directly to sit in I can sit in with folks if I'm I don't know if council let me do that our council Yeah, so I'd like to move deferral to the 17th am I able to sit with them I

Council president councillor Baca. Yes on the development period.

Yeah, okay Okay, and I think we can hopefully hash out something there at least at least there won't be Any discussion of he said she said or we haven't heard or that's always a difficult thing I really I know everybody you does a good faith effort to reach out That doesn't mean everybody hears and we can always do better with that.

So so that's what comes from president So there's a motion in a second by vice president champagne for a do deferral to August 17 Madam Clerk.

Councilor Baca.

Yes.

Councilor Besson. No. Vice President Champagne.

Yes.

Councilor Papelkorn. Yes. Councilor Grout. No. Councilor Lewis.

Yes.

Councilor Rogers. Yes. Councilor Tejas. Yes. President Pena.

Yes.

Passes on the 7-2 vote.

Thank you. We are now on to item 11, which is appeals. There are none. Item 12, general public comments. Members of the public can provide live public comments to the council in person or virtually if they have signed up for public comment per the instructions published on the agenda and our website Friday. Here are the public comment ground rules. If you can exit quietly, please. Thank you so much. Excuse me. Each participant has one minute to present. Comments are also to be addressed to the councillors only through the council president. Any disruptive conduct will result in removal from the meeting. And there is a one minute time limit, and the bell will ring to indicate your time is up. Mr. Cornelius, please call the name of the first speaker.

Thank you, Madam President. Our first speaker is Jackson Simpkins, followed by Matthew Hernandez.

Madam President, Mr. Vice President, and members of the council, my name is Jackson Simpkins. I'm a senior at Eldorado High School, and I've been in the involvement program for four years. I'm here today to share how youth vaping has personally impacted my life and my community. Nicotine and tobacco products are still used in school campuses almost every day, especially in restrooms. More specifically, they're used in the handicapped stalls of restrooms, which there are often only one of. At times, I've had to leave my campus and push my wheelchair over a mile just to use a restroom that doesn't have nicotine products being used in it or is destroyed as a result of them. which not only impacts my education, but it impacts my safety. One reason that many students are still vaping is because of appealing flavors. According to the 2025 National Youth Tobacco Survey, 1.45 million youth in the United States currently vape, and 91% of them use flavored products. We need to continue working to prevent nicotine addiction and protect students from the impacts of these products. I hope you will support efforts that keep youth safe and create healthier communities for everyone. I'm happy to talk to anyone about this at the end of the meeting. Thank you for your time and your consideration.

Matthew Hernandez, followed by Letz Otvo.

Good evening, Madam President, Mr. Vice President, and members of the council. My name is Matthew Hernandez. I am a sophomore at El Dorado High School, and I've been with the Evolvement Program for two years. Like my fellow Evolvers shared, I have seen how vaping affects students and communities. One way we can help prevent youth nicotine addiction is by restricting flavored vapes, making them less appealing and reducing the chances that youth will start using them. While current preemption laws mean these policies must be passed at the state or federal level, support from local leaders like you can help build momentum for meaningful change. We hope you will consider supporting efforts to protect New Mexico's youth from nicotine addiction. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Let's also followed by Brick Genesee.

Overhead please.

Yeah.

Mr. Griego contacted police and advised he was pepper sprayed by the female and had his phone stolen.

All right. Hey, man. How are you guys doing? Who? This girl. I ain't talking to them. Did I say anything to them? I'm not recording them. I was recording that kid. I'm recording you, by the way. Okay? You okay?

Yeah, we're okay for sure. You! Excuse me, bro. My bad. What's up?

Oh, also, some guy hit his phone out of his hand, and I went to go pick it up. Motherfucker tackled me and pulled my hair. So there's also that, but he didn't do nothing. Like Summer says, bitch still fucking pretty. Yeah, so your guys' favorite, what's his name, content creator, whatever the fuck, go show him some more love because he said he's going to post a little clip. So y'all go see it. Also, we don't have his phone. I picked that shit up after he tackled me and they were beating his ass. I picked that shit up and broke that shit, bitch. Nobody has your fucking phone, you bunk-ass bitch.

Frick Jonasy, followed by Francesco Artis.

Over here. So just to be clear, I want to make sure that the narrative is clear because the narrative that was attempted to be painted by video that the police released, in my opinion, is not the actual thing that happened. Narrative is easy to paint, but when it comes to a person's life, I believe this young man personally was defending himself. He was attacked multiple times while he was downtown. He was just a TikToker, just somebody filming his interaction with a, interactions with the public. And just to be sure on that, wanted to make sure to include in this video that you guys can actually see of his types of interactions after Harris shot him.

This is the real guy. Thank you, your time is up.

Just to be clear, he defended himself.

Thank you.

Make sure that narrates it.

Francesco Artis, followed by Tad Niemiecki.

Overhead, please. I propose an additional option for some of our unhoused neighbors who have lost their way. Picture our public libraries and transit system currently being used as homeless shelters but without all the bells and whistles. Quickly convert an empty storefront in each quadrant into a bare bones heating and cooling center and bonus four new public restrooms for people who need them the most. And maybe if ACS likes the idea, make each one into a substation. The city has arrested more homeless in this past year than the last eight years combined, which is the most inhumane and expensive option, making unhoused approximately half of our current prison population. Compass is short for compassion.

Thank you. Tad Numinski, followed by Joseph Ford.

Would you give me an overhead? Thank you. I won't have time. Excuse me. I won't have time to get to this issue tonight. So... So anyway, APD cops used to write tickets. I'm speaking about public safety. Now what they doing? They operating from the inside through the cameras. Private contractor, and what kind job they do. I got by the boss. They finally went after me and we will go to the court. I get this bastard because that's the way it was written, this citation to me that's also against constitutional and also against APD policy, thank you.

Joseph Foer, followed by Denise Foer. Denise Foer, followed by Justin Rogers. Justin Rogers, followed by Janet Sayers.

I'll be using the overhead and also I have handouts for each counselor wants to Take this right. I'm including one for councillor Lewis, but he'll just have to watch all the videos. Okay All right, good evening Thank You madam president members of the council here. I am here as promised with report cards. I This is a group project. We tracked over 150 votes from January through June and picked 32 key voting items. We asked people to read them and say which are the most important and if they wanted a yes or no. Then weighing them by importance, we looked at all the council votes to give you a score. I want to say no AI was used in this process. This is just the voice of the people, what we wanted to see you all do. So there are six main categories of priorities on the front side of this, from immigrant rights, which is rated an 8.2 out of 10, down to taxes, only a 2.2 out of 10, and just a list of some votes. So if you're curious where these came from, these are some of the 32 votes we considered, not all. On the other side, same page, is letter grades. I was pretty generous with these, but this is for you to know that people are watching, and I just wanted to say, yeah, please take this into consideration. And two counselors are getting extra credit for putting in a participatory budgeting process, so the rest of you can also get some credit for that. That's not reflected here, but I wanted to say, PD and districts six and one coming soon.

Janet Sayers, followed by Dr. Lisa Christopherson. Lisa Christopherson, followed by Thomas Abita.

Sorry. Welcome back city councilors and to the public. My name is Lisa Christopherson. I live in Albuquerque District 3 as founder of, we've already been through that. We have a partnership with over 52 state groups and organizations and I'm here making public comment as an individual with the understanding that I share similar opinions and concerns with many in our community. I love that some of you care about us and that doesn't mean we always agree. We don't have to always agree in order to be community. But I have to tell you that I was so invigorated and exciting that we have people advocating for us with passion because it really has felt like we have not had a voice. that people who had money or position, and I'm just being honest, it just felt like you guys don't care, and only a few of you did, and we were very desperate. So for a month, we have gone back to community. That's why you're seeing. We're gonna come to you all with what we would like Albuquerque to look like. We are asking you all to please partner with us so we can have an Albuquerque that all of us love and are proud of. And right now, we don't feel like you care.

Thomas Abeyta, followed by Grace Dukes.

So last time I came and spoke at City Council, police force was used to remove me from the podium because I broke a rule that I believe to be constitutionally wrong, which is that I cannot ask direct questions of city councillors. So after police force was used against me, I went to my representative, Councillor Rogers, and I asked, would you still be willing to hear questions for me as you have in the past here in City Council? Rogers said yes. So here I am to do what I did last time, which got me forcibly removed. Can I ask you a question, Councillor Rogers?

Ask your comments through the chair. If Councillor Rogers would like to have a direct question to her, she can make a motion to override the rules.

Well, I'd like to ask the question to Councillor Rogers, who's here in the room with us. So yeah, I'd like to ask her directly.

So you have to ask your question through the chair.

I would like to ask my question again to my representative, who has expressed their willing. Are you willing to hear it, Councillor Rogers? Thank you. Your time is up.

Madam President, I think as long as he follows the rule and asks the question of the chair, I'm willing to hear it. And we talked about that in our meeting, that you still have to follow the rule of the council and ask your question through the chair. So if you make a motion.

Procedurally, I think that's correct. Is that correct?

Madam Chair, if he speaks through you and the Councillor wishes to answer the question, that would be fine. People have done that in the past. Okay.

But the rule does say that...

They have to speak through the Chair. I think it should be clear my question is not for the Chair. My question is for my representative whom I voted for.

And I do not want... Mr. Arbeta, we understand... what you're trying to do, but there are procedural things that we have as a council, and so I'm telling you that if she wishes to answer your question, she could. The rule is that she would have to make a motion, but I guess we have set precedence that we have not done that, so if she says you can ask her a direct question, and she's indicated that you can, you can.

In that case, so if I could ask a quick direct question to you, Councillor Rogers.

Madam President, I believe that the speaker's time is up.

Okay, but I mean, most of my time was spent listening to them debate. My comment was not her speaking to me. My comment is a question. May I ask you a question, Rogers?

So your time is up. I'm sorry.

Councillor Rogers, would you mind making a motion to suspend the rules to allow me to ask you this question?

Thank you, Madam Chair. I would like you to ask your question through the chair, and then I'd be happy to answer it through our council rules. I have to, as a member of this body, I honour our rules, which we talked about when we met. that you can absolutely ask me any questions, but it must be through the chair. And then I ask to be recognized. That's the process. And the chair can choose to recognize me or not. And if I wish to push the issue, then I'd have to challenge the role of the chair. And then we would have to take a vote. But to avoid all of that, all you have to do is say, Madam Chair, ask your question of me. I can ask her to answer. I'm sure she would oblige.

And then we can move on. And then I'm going to go back to... It's not public. It's not discussion. It's public comment. So she does not have to answer your question.

Understood.

And your time is up. So I don't know. Councillor Rogers, do you want to allow for more time?

Thank you, Madam President. As long as we follow the rules to the chair. And I'm happy to answer any questions that are directed to her.

Okay. We'll allow one minute on the timer.

Well, on that note, Madam Chair, would you please ask my representative, Councillor Rogers, why it is that I have to avoid my constitutional right to ask questions of my representatives here in this city council chamber. And I have to direct my questions through you. And why is it that when I failed to do so, police force is used to remove me from the building and it is dangerously used to prohibit my free speech, my ability as a journalist to ask you direct questions when you might not be able to get away from them. I understand you don't have an obligation to answer them, but it would be nice to know why I was removed forcibly with police force last time I was here, what we can do to stop that from ever happening again, and why Dan Lewis is protected from questions he doesn't want to answer.

Madam President, I would advise that we not answer questions that could be a matter of litigation.

Thank you. So, Council Rogers. Thank you, Madam Chair. Because this is wrapped up in active litigation, I would agree with our legal counsel. And we've talked about this offline. So, I think I would have to defer to my legal counsel's advice. It's disappointing. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Grace Dukes, followed by Jonah Bearden.

Madam President, welcome back from your taxpayer-funded seven-week vacation. I hope you enjoyed it because we did not. Burkina has suffered in the heat and suffered in the jail for the crime of sitting down on the sidewalk. Our every move was tracked by flock cameras that were and still are being used by ICE to snatch your constituents off of the streets for the crime of wanting a better life. Yet silence from this dais. Silence while we are in crisis. So you have an opportunity, Madam President. Now that we're back from your break, you can correct the course like you did earlier tonight. You can start voting to help us, to stop the sweeps, take down the flock cameras, to give us a lifeline, to stop treating us as if the working class burkinos that keep the city running are second class citizens. And we are tired of sitting down and being polite while you and the billionaires extract from us, like we're a sacrifice zone you can make an easy buck off of. So when we stand up, you sic the police force on us. You have an opportunity to help us build the city we want, but you have to vote like it if you want to help us, Pena. Thank you.

Have to vote like it.

Jonah Bearden, followed by Erica Hartwick Brown.

Madam President and city councilors, my name is Jonah Bearden. I live in District 7 and attend UNM. My studies and conversations with my community have taught me about a couple of concerning themes in today's agenda. 038 sells a potential tool for restitution and systemic reform over our housing market to a large corporation. I cite this loss of potential. Community land trusts with proper developers are models for good. O35, our minimum wage increase is not matching up well with inflation graphs. Why not increase fees for garbage as well? Lack of creative problem solving, in my opinion. We're all scared about increasing rates. Please don't make it worse. 039, what is your evidence for the community health concern to need these stricter than already strict zoning laws? Shaky reasoning for zoning laws, well, we know the historical implications that normally carries. Prop 2 and Res 30 seem to me theatrics, but I believe we are capable of more progressive policies to help us tackle this brutal affordability crisis Stop the sweeps over transient neighbors who have as many rights as me and you. Special thanks to Councilors Rogers and Feeblecorn. I spend most of my time in y'all's districts, and I see improvements every day.

Erica Hartwick-Brown, followed by Mervyn Tilden.

Good evening Madam President and counselors. My name is Erica Hartwick-Brown. I am owner operator of Carver Family Farm, New Mexico's first licensed vertically integrated cannabis micro business. My business is located in District 4 and I live in District 7. I'm speaking here to please ask you to vote no on 02639. The ordinance works against small businesses' accessibility to real estate options and against medical patients having access to cannabis medicine via dispensaries. I understand that we have many dispensaries in Albuquerque, but do not see how disallowing new cannabis businesses to open in previously allowed designated areas is fair when there are no other businesses that are singled out in this manner. Without actual data, to the contrary, this ordinance is based on moral prejudice. Furthermore, there is no data that indicates that having a cannabis retail and nicotine retail location near to one another creates a negative outcome as related to the goals of the ABC comp plan fostering communities to live, work, learn, shop, and play together. Thank you.

Mervyn Tilden, followed by Antonia Gehring.

good evening uh madam president counselors uh my name is mervin tilden uh i want to talk about something that i really feel uh is missing from the course of any discussions that i've ever heard uh since i've been here in albuquerque uh for the past seven six years and that is uh the creation of a memorandum of understanding with the navajo nation regarding the injuries, deaths, and the killings of Native Americans, particularly with my tribe, the Navajo Nation, I would encourage this council and even the mayor to begin to look into dialogue with the Navajo Nation. There are concerns that I have. 12 years ago, two Navajos were killed. Here, there was an MOU that was established with the Navajo Nation on May 30th of last year, 2025. I was ran down, pinned under, and injured quite severely, requiring surgery on my knee and on my metatarsals. The employee with the solid waste management was using a city of Albuquerque vehicle. This has to end. MOU with the Navajo Nation would spell this out in detail. I urge you to reach out to the Navajo Nation. Thank you.

Antonia Gehring, followed by Marceline Costner. Marceline Costner, followed by Bryant Johnson.

102, 100, 100, 98, 97, 98, 97. That is the predicted high temps for the next week here in Albuquerque. The summer has seen a drastic increase in heat advisory warnings, yet does the city have designated cooling stations? No. Do we have shade at every one of our bus stops that many have to endure waiting for a long time for their bus? No. Where are people to go? Where are people to go? To prison? To the prison, sorry, shelter in the desert? The shelter with single-digit caseworkers? Shelter where getting out of your bed can get you kicked out? The shelter where being difficult can land you a permanent ban? It seems as though the city is giving folks three options. Jail, a jail wearing the mask of a shelter, or death. The censure will continue to rise in our and will continue to harm and kill people in our city. I suggest counselors and the public alike get familiar with the urban heat island effect and we do something about this. We can do hard things. We can take care of each other. We can do these things. We can balance running a city with caring and not letting people die on our streets. This is something that's really important and we can't just put it to the side.

Thank you.

Bryant Johnson followed by Mark Reynolds on Zoom.

Madam President, I was here a year ago to the month last year. You guys gave me a proclamation making August 15th Humankind Day. That's the day where we pause to be kind. So I'm here a year later. I did my part. I have a cultural celebration weekend coming up August 14th. I invited all you guys. and some of the community as well to a black tie gala. That's where we break bread. You guys have an opportunity to sit with your constituents, not as politicians, but as people, so they can get to know you, so you can avoid some of the stuff like this where they actually know you as people with families, and you can just sit down with your constituents and break bread without it being any type of re-election cycle or anything like that. You show up because you want to. I emailed you guys. I gave you guys also a... Invitations, if you need them. Again, I'll send them to you. One of the events is, like I said, August 14th is the Humankind Day Gala. August 15th, I went out in Rock Park from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. We got a cultural celebration. August 16th, I got an art battle. I got a license. It's a global event, but I'm bringing it here. We'll be doing an art battle. I mean, 12 artists, three 20-minute rounds. The crowd choose the winner. Then at night, we auction off all the artists. One of the events in Council of Baca's area. I got people asking me, am I going to have security just to come to the area? They ask me, why did I do it?

I'm trying to bring... Sir, your time is up. Oh, I'm sorry.

I hope to see you guys there.

Mark Reynolds, followed by Benjamin Bean.

Good evening, Madam President and members of the council. My name is Mark Reynolds, 71 years young, a veteran and a resident of Albuquerque since 1960. I've been serving as a volunteer member of the Department of Senior Affairs Advisory Council for over a year. During this time, I have learned much about the work of the department and dedicated staff that cares for our growing senior population. I'm also been an active voice for the council. The department works to manage the demand for programs and services that keep our adults healthy and independent and connected. This includes providing feedback during the evaluation of many services the department delivers, including the recent breakfast alignment at the senior and multigenerational centers. I can tell you the department was very transparent and its evaluation included various public meetings and listening sessions. Based on the feedback from the public and as a council member, I PROVIDED DIRECT INPUT TO THE SUPPORT AND NEEDED ALIGNMENT OF THE BREAKFAST TO KEEP THIS UNIQUE CITY PROGRAM SUSTAINABLE WHICH INCLUDED THE RECENTLY REVISED MENU THAT WAS POSTED ON FRIDAY. FURTHER, I WOULD WANT TO MAKE SURE YOU KNOW THE DEPARTMENT DOES AN INCREDIBLE AMOUNT OF WORK AS A LIFELINE FOR THE HOMEBOUND SENIORS AND THOSE WHO LIMIT ACCESS TO FAMILY SUPPORT, TRANSPORTATION AND OTHER SERVICES. I'LL SKIP TO THE BOTTOM. The department realignment of the breakfast program has been operational the same way for over 20 years and was done for the betterment of the maintainery sources to keep the program going and a real need and growth should be focused on the other supportive services many do not see. Thank you for your time and hearing my perspective on the continued support of the senior advisory committee.

Benjamin Bean followed by Joe Cardillo.

Good evening Madam Chair, counselors. Tonight, I'd like to ask you to please stop the mass surveillance in our city through drones and flock cameras. It is my belief that this is unwarranted surveillance. Normally, police require a warrant to spy on you, but not with flock cameras. That information is shared without any such warrant. Some of the reasons you should not use Flock. They have poor security. They threaten white hackers who report their security vulnerabilities. They share video with virtually any law enforcement organization throughout the country, regardless of your privacy settings. They have overconfident AI that flags innocent people as dangerous persons of interest. They're extremely expensive. It's another company that likes to move fast and break things, and I don't know if we want to trust that. with our data. They say that they're all about safety, but who are they keeping us safe from? And really, it's a question about a trade-off between freedom and safety. Please take down the flocking cameras.

Joe Cardillo.

Good evening, Madam President. Good evening, Councilors. I had a chance over the summer break to rewatch all of the Council meetings from this year, which admittedly at moments had me questioning my life choices. But I wanted to offer just a quick set of observations and some recommendations on a few things. The first item is in regards to agendas, specifically just not packing them. That's something I think this council leadership should really consider. When we have 1 a.m. meetings, I certainly noticed a few people nodding off. It does make it hard to do the people's business, and it does get a bit confusing at 12 or 1 in the morning. I think just keeping the agendas really more modestly sized going forward is a good idea. I also noticed unequal public comment at times where some folks would go over by 15 seconds, but some people would go over by a minute or two minutes. I think being more consistent doesn't it's something that could definitely be solvable and then in terms of access uh you know i think althea atherton who's a good transit advocate mentioned it at the last meeting but uh things like food child care access and again not going over time and ending up at 1am and is a good practice to make the the council more accessible to regular folks and i think that's something this council could easily do and take some steps towards so make those recommendations and thank you for your time thank you madam president that concludes general public comments

Thank you so much, Mr. Cornelius. Councillor Tayes is doing a personal privilege.

Thank you, Madam President. I just wanted to make a quick clarification to some folks regarding the flock safety. I have been looking into this issue, and I want to let you all know that we have not AT THIS POINT, FOUND ANY SORT OF DIRECT CONTRACTS OR PURCHASE ORDERS WITH FLOCK SAFETY. IT'S MY UNDERSTANDING THAT APD CURRENTLY UTILIZES VIGILANT SOLUTIONS FOR THE AUTOMATIC LICENSE PLATE READERS AND WE ARE DEFINITELY DOING OUR VIGILANCE AND DUE DILIGENCE TO UNDERSTAND HOW DATA IS STORED, WHAT DATA RESTRICTIONS ARE IN PLACE, AND WHAT THAT SORT OF LOOKS LIKE. SO JUST SO THE PUBLIC IS AWARE OF WHAT THAT KIND OF LOOKS LIKE. WE DON'T AT THIS POINT THAT I KNOW OF FROM WHAT WE HAVE BEEN ABLE TO LOOK INTO HAVE ANY CONTRACTS WITH FLOCK SAFETY.

SO THANK YOU, MADAM PRESIDENT.

Vice president champagne I believe a CAO single Madam president councillor and champagne councillor Taya's city of Albuquerque does not have any flock cameras or flock pen contracts. I

Thank you, Madam CAO. So we are now on to approvals. EC 195, Authorization for Social Service Agreement with New Mexico Veterans Integration Centers Utilizing Opioid Settlement Fund Appropriations as outlined in City Council Resolution 12528. And we have a few of these contracts coming up. So I move approval. So there's a second by committee the whole chair grout and she has a couple of questions But if we can have the staff come up and yeah, thank you so much I can't

Thank you, Madam President. Thank you for being here, Director. I am pleased to see this contract, but my question, can you tell us what the Veterans Integration Center, I know it's for services for 1.5 million. Endorphin Power Company is getting 6.9 plus million dollars. What are we getting for that?

Madam President, Councilor Grout, for Endorphin Power Company, we are going to receive its construction. They are going to be doing work on their campus. And so it will be able to expand their capacity to provide services on their campus.

Okay, expand their campus. Will you tell me where their campus is? I think I know where it is, but I want you.

It's, Madam President's Council Grout, it's on Zuni. Yep. Near the CARES campus.

Uh-huh, that's what I thought. Can, Madam President, what are the, is it housing or is it work... Workshop space. What is it?

Madam president counselor ground? So friend orphan power company They are renovating one of the existing the original buildings and so they're gonna be able to build out additional case management spaces as Well as provide additional education and group spaces That's in a nutshell. That seems like not much for seven million dollars, but Do that when are they going to start this? Madam President, Councilor Graut, so the contract negotiations with Endorphin Power Company and Serenity Mesa are still ongoing. These are a little bit more complicated contracts due to the intricacies of the anti-donation in the piece, but both Serenity Mesa and Endorphin Power Company are ready to start within the timeframes of the parameters, the RFP, that were laid out in the LGCC strategic plan.

Okay, fine, thank you. Madam President, question for Serenity Mesa. I love this program. like so much and I love everything that they do there and I support them 100%. What are we getting for $1.5 million?

Madam President, Councillor Grout, they are expanding their, not their actual site, but they're renovating and upgrading the housing piece that's offsite, not on Condorshire.

Okay, so it's like the transitional housing.

Yes, Madam President, Councillor Grout, yes.

Very good. And are they ready to go?

Madam President, Councillor Brown, the same answer as the Endorphin Power Company. Yes, they'll be ready as soon as we get the contract executed. Thank you.

Thank you, Nancy. Thank you. Any additional questions? Councillor Rogers? And we have one person signed up to speak.

Thank you, Madam President. Hi, Emma. Just a question. This was part of the RFP for the opioid settlement dollars, correct?

Madam President, Councillor Brown, or I'm sorry, Councillor Rogers, this was part of the grant process as part of the opioid dollars, yes. Correct.

Thank you so much, Madam President. So one of the things as the chair of the LGCC that helped put this plan together was that we wanted to prioritize orgs who weren't already getting funding. And I saw from the RFP that we actually gave extra points to folks who already had city contracts. Can you tell me why we went against what we were intending? Not that these programs aren't worthy. I'm just wondering. We really talked a lot about not the same old people getting the funding over and over and over and over again and not opening it up to new providers. And we talked about that a lot. So when I read that in the RFP, I was a little taken aback. So can you tell me about why we did that?

Madam President, Councilor Rogers, that is a really good question. And I would like to do a little bit of research and have an answer for you tomorrow, because I want to give you a well-thought-out answer. I know that our capacity building, we did prioritize agencies who have not historically had contracts. But I want to make sure that I answer your question correctly.

Thank you, Madam President. I would appreciate that. I think Endorphin Power Company, I think, is one who's a newer provider with the city, been doing a lot of work with the county. And so I see that with Endorphin Power Company. But I'm a little disappointed to see that they're not going to expand housing. They do a really great job about housing with substance abuse, not just building some rooms. I would hope that they would be expanding the housing with the services that they provide already. And so I would love just a little, I read through the contract and everything, but I think that was my biggest question is not expanding housing for that big amount of dollars. um so just would love some more information about about that for this amount of funding that we're not expanding housing transitional housing with substance abuse care which they're great at i would like to see them do more with this money thank you madam thank you vice president thank you madam president a good segue from that into my only really question and i just wanted to understand a little better how is the amount awarded determined um and i say this because each one are seem to be

two seem to be low but there's a lot um well yeah double than what the other two are combined um madam president counselor champagne um they were awarded based on some of the parameters that we put in the rfp so one of the parameters that we placed in the rfp was A project could not exceed $7.5 million, which was part of the LGC and the City Council approved strategic plan. Also, we capped the services at 15%. We interpreted the 15% of the operating to also include services. And so that's why you see New Mexico VIC at $1.5 million, because that's 15% of the $10 million. And also, it's based on what they actually ask for. So we prioritize in accordance to the score and then based on what the agencies had asked for in their proposals.

Thank you, Madam President.

Thank you.

Any other questions? No? We'll go to our public commenter.

Thank you, Madam President. Lisa Christopherson to speak.

hello hello thank you sorry I was kind of unprepared because I was distracted a little ADHD so sorry one second

Okay.

All right. So thank you to everyone who has been working on our very nuanced, layered, onion-type projects. So we have a proposal, maybe, if you all are interested, in the next six, the remainder of the year. Some of the very difficult... Ideas right so sidewalk ordinance and moratorium on sweeps the need for mistents all of that We in our group have started talking about like the pros and cons because it's not always clear cut and dry Yes, this is a good thing. No, it's not because there's always good and bad and bad and we seem to be right getting into these division and these conflicts and arguing and fighting as community and as friends and families and maybe what if we took away i really appreciate the deferment like what if we had more time right because from the time it's on the committee stuff and the time it gets onto this agenda I mean, how have we as community had opportunity to talk about some of these things so that we're here fighting over it or we're sitting next to people that really might be in agreement if we had more information. So how can we develop something in between? It's on committee before it gets to here. And some of us, maybe we can help communicate.

Thank you. Final speaker. Yes, Madam President.

Okay, thank you. Seeing no other discussion, I would urge your support for R25128. Madam Clerk.

I believe we were on EC195. Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, you are right. Councillor Baca?

Yes.

Councillor Passan?

Yes.

Vice President Champagne?

Yes.

Councillor Favelcorn? Yes. Councillor Grout? Yes. Councillor Lewis?

Yes.

Councillor Rogers? Yes. Councillor Tejas?