Commissioners Court - Regular Meeting

Bye. you Thank you. Bye.

Hola, El Paso! June marked the official start of summer and El Paso County was hot with activities all month long and just in time for a huge 4th of July celebration. We all know this time of the year can be very hot for our county residents. In June, the county opened their cooling centers for residents to seek relief from the heat. The centers are located at the Agua Dulce, Fabens, Canutillo, and La Fe, Montana Vista community centers. They are open every day from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Residents have a place to cool off in an air-conditioned space, drink water, and enjoy some indoor activities while they stay out of the desert sun. The county's park bond projects are making progress from one end of the county to the other. On the eastern part of the county, work is almost complete at Agua Dulce Park as finishing touches are being put in place. Residents will have new amenities to look forward to including a new paved walking path. Then, on the western part of the county, work continues at Westway Park with repairs to the rock walls, walking trail installation, and new lighting is being put in place. The county is committed to completing all voter-approved bond projects on time and on budget. Pascata de Parque is El Paso's gem, and during our third park bond meeting, residents received an update on feedback that was gathered during the first two meetings, including survey results, key themes, and community priorities that have helped to shape the project. Residents had the chance to review draft concepts regarding park improvements and learn about the anticipated benefits for park users and the surrounding community. In July, the community is encouraged to participate in weekly informational sessions regarding the park's duck pond. These sessions will be held every Wednesday in July at 6 p.m. at the Escada de Parque Pavilion. If you have an interest in what happens to the duck pond, you don't want to miss one of these meetings. The county kicked off their budget information sessions in June. The county is encouraging residents to take an active role in shaping the county's fiscal year 2027 budget by attending one of several community budget outreach sessions scheduled throughout the county. These meetings provide an opportunity for community members to share priorities, voice concerns, and offer input on services and programs that impact their neighborhoods. Feedback gathered during these outreach sessions will help county leadership better understand community needs and ensure that budget decisions reflect the priorities of El Paso County residents. El Paso County, in partnership with the El Paso Zoo and the Botanical Gardens, unveiled its newest AI-powered tourist kiosk. The kiosk is the newest addition to El Paso County's tourist kiosk program, an initiative designed to connect residents and visitors with attractions, cultural destinations, outdoor activities, and historical sites throughout El Paso County. The El Paso Zoo installation marks the first tourist kiosk partnership between El Paso County and a local attraction. The kiosk features a bilingual AI-powered interface with touch and voice navigation, helping visitors discover local attractions, museums, outdoor activities, the mission trail, and nearby points of interest. Come check it out! Our nation is 250 years old and El Paso County is ready for the celebration. The County, in partnership with Fort Bliss and the 1st Armored Division, hosted a patriotic and festive event at Azcárate Park to include military vehicles on display, a band performance by the 1st Armored Division Band, picnic party, food trucks, swimming at the pool, and of course an awesome fireworks display for residents to take in. The county even commemorated our nation's 250th birthday with a customized coin that were distributed at the park. In partnership with the county's historical commission, the coin design celebrates the 250 years of our nation's endurance and freedom. In the Montana Vista area, our County Public Works team initiated a campaign to clean up the area from fireworks debris. The County established trash drop-off zones and even made trash bags available to residents to use for post-firework celebration. The El Paso County Sheriff's and Emergency Services Districts were out in full force to ensure residents had a safe and happy 4th of July. Thanks for watching this month's Packed County Connects. Stay tuned and make sure to stay cool and stay connected with El Paso County.

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Live from El Paso County, Texas, the Veterans Capital of the USA. From inside the Alicia Chacon Commissioner's Courtroom of the Enrique Moreno County Courthouse, you are watching the El Paso County Commissioner's Court Meeting.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Today is Monday, July 13th, 2026. Commissioner's Court is meeting in regular open session. Would you please rise and join us for the Pledge of Allegiance?

Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic

Next, we'll receive an invocation from Chaplain at Old Glory Memorial and Former Veteran of the Year, Debo Wakefield.

Welcome, Debo, our Veteran of the Year. Good morning. Thank you for being here.

Happy, faithful, miraculous Monday. As the sun rises on this beautiful, faithful Monday, let's thank God for carrying this safely through another week. What a blessing it is to wake up knowing his mercy is new every morning and his faithfulness never fails. I'm praying today brings you peace, renewed strength, and confidence as you walk with the Lord. May he guide your steps, open the right doors, and remind you that he is with you wherever this day leads you. Walk into this day with a grateful heart, trusting the one who has been faithful every step of the way. May your heart be filled with joy, your home with his peace, and your life with his blessing. Have a blessed and faithful day.

Thank you, Debo. Just a quick, Debo, I just wanted to, I heard some rumblings about that you wanted to slow down. I think that's like saying that the hurricane's going to slow down before it hits the shore. November, Judge, November. I hope you reconsider that because you've done such an amazing job.

Thank you.

Okay, so whatever you're doing, we're putting up candles bigger than yours, okay? Thank you. We'll manage to defeat you on that one. Thank you.

Thank you, Debo.

This morning we're joined by ASL interpreters James Garcia, Celina Saloom, and Katia Garcia.

judge do you have some uh yeah thank you thank you so much um we want to on behalf of myself and our commissioners we want to welcome you to commissioner's court i'm always saying that we're very privileged when you're here because we deal with so many interesting and and things that are going to impact your life so we always welcome you my hope is that you come here accidentally because you're here for a resolution but you decide to come back when we have business because it's a it's it's very and very good for the community. As more people are aware of our challenges and what we do, the better we are. But also, we have some great resolutions here today, as you'll see, so very privileged. Like I said, it's always on behalf of our commissioners. I'm not sure, I know Commissioner Coronado might be traveling, and I'm not sure of Commissioner Butler, but I'm sure she'll be joining us later today. So once again, we have great resolutions. find out about El Paso through some amazing individuals and organizations. So thank you for being here. Hoping that you have just an amazing Monday and a great week. Thank you.

Item number four is composed of items 4A through 4AK. We have a couple of items that we'd like to ask for the court's permission. Item number 4F, we would like to postpone for two weeks per the county attorney's office. That item is postponed from July 6th, 2026. grant the professional service exemption under Texas local government code section 262.024A4, and approve and authorize the county judge to sign the amended expert agreement for Sahu in the matter styled Western Refining Company LLC, Marathon Oil Refinery, county attorney case number 000424AA. Funding is available in general fund, general administrative, professional services, legal commissions. We would also like to request a correction to item number 4L for the county attorney's office. This item should read approve and authorize the county judge to sign the memorandum of understanding between the county of El Paso on behalf of the El Paso County Domestic Relations Office and the 65th District Family Court and the Center Against Sexual and Family Violence for training for family violence informed services from the date of signature through the duration of the term of OVW grant number OOVW2026-172608, contract number 20260487. We also have a correction to read in for item number 4M, per the county judge's office. This item should read, pursuant to Texas local government code section 381.004, approve and ratify the $200 for the service of lighting the star on the mountain from the El Paso Chamber of Commerce in honor of Sun City Pride for the statutory public purpose of stimulating business and commercial activity in the county, specifically in support of the county's strategic goal of county resident engagement and outreach strategies. FUNDS ARE AVAILABLE IN GENERAL FUND, COUNTY JUDGE, PUBLIC PURPOSE, OPERATIONS, EXPENSES, GENERAL. ARE THERE ANY OTHER ITEMS MEMBERS OF THE COURT OR PUBLIC WOULD LIKE TO PULL FOR INDIVIDUAL DISCUSSION?

IF NOT, THEN I'LL MOVE TO APPROVE. OKAY.

WE HAVE A MOTION TO APPROVE FROM JUDGE SAN MANIEGO AND A SECOND FROM COMMISSIONER OLGUIN. THE VOTING IS OPEN. Aye. Thank you, Commissioner Stout. Commissioner Butler and Commissioner Coronado are absent. The motion carries. Item number 5A from resolutions. approve and adopt a resolution recognizing El Paso's historic boxing legacy and the El Paso County Coliseum as a historic home of championship boxing and celebrating the generations of fighters and organizations whose dedication has established El Paso as one of America's premier boxing cities.

Tony, Tree, and Marshall, thank you so much for being here. We've been talking so much about boxing and how much of it, we're always talking about history, but there's different categories of history. And one of them is just incredible legacies and boxers that came out of El Paso. So this resolution really highlights some of the individuals, but also that importance of boxing and bringing boxing together. One of my biggest bonding with my dad was his love for boxing and come even here at the Liberty Hall, there'd be boxing here and it was just pretty crazy. But people did everything that they could even in the small venues, it didn't matter. People love boxing and if you wanted to sort of get that feeling about this region, it'd be through boxing. Juarez just, sometimes I think they outdid us in attendance in some of the boxing matches. So something very important for myself, my family, and for the community. So very honored to read this resolution into the record. Whereas the County of El Paso has long been recognized as one of America's great boxing communities, producing world champions, Olympic caliber athletes, respected trainers, and generations of amateur and professional boxers whose determination and perseverance have inspired our region. Whereas for more than six decades, the historic El Paso County Coliseum has served as one of the Texas' premier boxing venues, hosting countless championship bouts and showcasing many of the sport's greatest champions and future Hall of Famers, including George Foreman, Salvador Sanchez, Eric Morales, Sugar Shane Mosley, and Floyd Mayweather Jr., while becoming thousands of passionate boxing fans from across the border and beyond. Whereas on July 27, 2024, King's promotion reached a historic milestone by promoting its first championship boxing event at the El Paso County Coliseum, where hometown Stephanie Hahn defeated Miranda Reyes to capture the WB Intercontinental Lightweight Championship. where stephanie hunt continued to elevate el paso into the international boxing stage by capturing the wba lightweight world champion with a dominant victory over hannah turlap before successfully defending her title against former world champion and ufc hall of famer holly holm in front of a sold-out crowd during the historic esp and nationally televised the most valuable promotions event And whereas El Paso continues to produce outstanding boxing talent, including professional contenders Jorge Tovar Jr., Victor Aranda, Nayeli Bikini, How would you say that? Bikini. Rodriguez and many other local fighters who proudly represent our community inside and out the ring while carrying forward the city's rich boxing tradition. And whereas on July 18th, 2026, Ring Wars 23 will mark the eighth professional boxing event promoted by King's Promotion and Warriors Edge Boxing at the Coliseum, continuing to showcase elite local and regional talent, while providing opportunities for El Paso fighters to compete on the city's most historic stages. Whereas El Paso Sports Commission has demonstrated an unwavering commitment to growing sports by partnering with local promoters, gyms, coaches, amateur organizations, and community leaders to create opportunities for athletes of all ages. Whereas through partnerships and organizations such as Warriors Edge Boxing, King's Promotion, and numerous local boxing clubs, the El Paso Sports Commission has helped support grassroots boxing initiatives. Now, therefore, it be resolved that the El Paso County Judge and Commissioner's Court hereby recognize and celebrate El Paso's historic boxing legacy and commend King's Promotion, Warriors Edge Boxing, most valuable promotions, the El Paso County Coliseum, the El Paso Sports Commission, local boxing gyms, coaches, officials, volunteers, amateur organizations, and the generation of fighters whose dedication has established El Paso as one of America's premier boxing cities. Signed this 13th day of July, 2026.

We have a motion to approve from Judge Samaniego and a second from Commissioner Stout. The voting is open. Commissioner Butler and Coronado are absent. Motion carries. Thank you.

You want to go first?

Commissioners, thank you for allowing me to be up here in the front. Thank you. Good morning to everybody. My name is Luis Trevino, also known as Tree. Been in the boxing world for over 17 years as an amateur coach, helped promote fights in El Paso. But also, you mentioned the grassroots, Judge, and it's true, man. There's a process At Warrior's Edge, we start from the bottom. We have a program called the At-Risk Youth Program. So a lot of times, we help a lot of these people get to these levels. I'm not saying that that was their case here when you get introduced to the pro fighters right now. But we have a lot of kids in our community that need a lot of help. And through the sport of boxing, it helps them tremendously achieve their goals. Maybe they don't become pro fighters, but they become something in our world, in our society. They become somebody that they weren't. And through boxing, it gives them a lot of doors open for them. So I'm honored to be part of King's promotion. I'm honored to be part of the El Paso Sports Commission. The Coliseum has allowed us to be in there and continue to have shows here in El Paso. And with that said, I'll turn it over to Mr. Marshall Kaufman from Kings Promotion that has highlighted with us to bring back boxing to El Paso. Thank you.

And Tria, I wanted to highlight that about bringing these kids into, you know, they could go elsewhere. Some of the environments are not conducive for them to be successful. But once you get in the gym and once you get into that kind of the spirit of discipline and being an athlete, everything changes. I was very fortunate. I was director of the San Juan Recreation Center. And as you know, that was the place that all the kids started. But I got to see When they're outside of the boxing ring and they're not, you know, they're sort of getting in trouble. And as soon as they get into that ring, I don't know, it's like magic. It changes for them. And so continue to do that for these young people. I also worked as a probation officer, so I got to see how they can take off in different directions. So this idea of grassroots, there's a lot of kids out there waiting. for someone like you or your organization to work with them.

Yes, Judge, and you know what? I'm not just saying Warrior's Edge Boxing. We got Rodriguez Combat Sports 2, Bloodline Academy. There's a lot of gyms now that supplement or they work well with the rec centers like Armijo Carolina, where that's really where everybody started, right? Like, we're talking about Junior Vicencio, Golden Glove, Andy Perez, Golden Glove, Jorge Tovar, Golden Glove, Nayeli Rodriguez. That's where they started in these local gyms, man, so... I want to thank you, Judge, for allowing me to speak on their behalf. And thank you so much, man. And enjoy boxing. July 18th, County Coliseum.

Keep doing that, Tree. Thank you. Marshal, thank you for coming back to El Paso and putting us on the map like you do every single time you're here.

I truly appreciate that and I couldn't do it without Louis Trevino's help and also the local boxers as well and the County Coliseum. It takes a group effort. It takes a team. It takes a village to raise a child. OK, and it's the same as what tree was talking about with the children. OK, it gives them hope when they come into the gym and they put on a pair of boxing gloves and they hit a bag and they walk out of there. They feel like a different person. It's like Clark Kent going into the phone booth and coming out like Superman. It really is. It makes a huge difference in their lives. And I'm sure Tovar will tell you about that in his own personal speech as well. But, you know, it's done wonders for so many young adults, men and women both. You mentioned how we did what we did for Stephanie Hahn. Stephanie was 4-0 when I came into El Paso. But I came to El Paso because of George Tovar, because I signed him. And I thought, let me come to El Paso and see what El Paso is really about. And it's like a second home to me. It really has become that. Thank you. And it's been great. County Coliseum, Tony's been awesome to work with. Of course, I can't do it without Tree. I mean, Tree's my right-hand man. And so it makes everything work well together. So I thank you. I thank you for recognizing what we've done. and the hard work that goes into it. People don't see all the little things behind the scene, but there is a lot of hard work, and we want to keep continuing to bring great boxing events back to El Paso and the County Coliseum and continue to rise on another take it to another level over and over again. Yeah. All right. So thank you.

And the key word there is televised. I mean, you're getting we're getting so much exposure, got a lot of calls from different people that, you know, about seeing the fight from other parts of the country. And so You know, the motto to know is to love us. So they get a peek at who we are and then they're interested in El Paso. And then eventually, like in your case, you come you come back and and start loving who we are and helping us with.

We do it with one person at a time. Changing lives is what it's all about.

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Marshall. Tony.

I love this gentleman. What a fighter. Jorge Tovar. Treviño mentioned about the youth and motivating those kids. You mentioned San Juan. I actually started in Armijo, which is Segundo Barrio. I'm born and raised here in El Paso, so I know what it requires to be. I was one of those kids too that I needed an outlet, and now to where I'm at, I'm just proud to represent my city and at the same time give back to the community because Me growing up, I remember I always wanted to look for that guidance or a role model, right? Some type of role model here in the city. And, you know, El Paso is a small city. We're not really well recognized. So for me to be where I'm at right now and represent El Paso and give back to the community is just a blessing because I know what I needed growing up and now I'm that person giving back to the community. And with Tree, with Marshall and the El Paso Commissioner, we have a tremendous team and I believe God above all things and we just need the support from the city. So July 18, you do not want to miss this fight. I'll be happy to give a great show for the people.

Thank you too. I love the fact that, you know, you're such a gentleman and we're very fortunate. You're a gentleman, you're a boxer and you're articulate. Um, I know you're going to be a great role model for El Paso and whatever we could do to continue to promote El Paso is a great venue for, for boxing. So thank you for what you do for this community tour. Thank you. Welcome.

Hello, good morning, everyone. I'm Nayeli Lavikina Rodriguez, and I'm just thankful to be a part of this. You know, boxing, the boxing community here is like growing a lot. And like as George was saying, for me, George is a big... Role model for me, you know, he's helped me out in most of my camps. Every time I fight, he always has an advice for me. And I'm just thankful for the boxing community. I'm thankful for Marshall, Revinio, my team, you know, and being a part of this era where boxing is growing, you know, and you definitely don't want to miss July 18th, Ring Wars 23. George Suvar will be the main event. I'll be co-main event fighting for the WIBA world title. And I'm just very blessed and honored to be here.

What part of El Paso are you from? Where did you grow up?

In the east side.

East side.

Yes, I went to Eastlake High School. I also did wrestling. And right now I'm currently an official for the amateur boxing. So I do give back to the boxing community. I referee, judge fights. And now I'm a commentator for MMA. So I'm very well involved in the combat community. Hopefully to be a boxing commentator. That's the goal too.

Well, thank you. Thank you for being part of El Paso and showing us off. Thank you.

Thank you.

Tony.

Tony Rodriguez with the El Paso Sports Commission. No, when I got here in June of 2022, one of the things that was told to me by admin is that you guys all wanted a combat, more combat sports as kind of calcium. And that's what Janet and I worked hard at doing and doing that and bringing. So the first person we called was Tree. I mean nothing gets done without Tree that we have boxing when you reached out to Marshall and we did boxing at the lake. We also do and that'll be back I promise we're working on that. But it's also like you said mentioned to the amateur boxing we're also working with Champ Camp boxing with Dwayne Bonds and so they do their events there at the at the judging arena there at the Coliseum property. So it's working with these local organizations to bring boxing. And so, and like you mentioned too, the one thing, it's not just boxing that's, you're having a show, right, like a house show. This is boxing that's being televised. It's showing El Paso, it's showcasing El Paso. This one's gonna be on Box Azteca America. The next one we have in August is gonna be in DAZN. The one we just had was on ESPN. So we're bringing events that's not only just boxing, but it's showing the community of El Paso. And we're going to continue to do that. So it's great to be working with Marshall and his team, as well as Tree. And come Saturday, it's going to be a great fight night. We just had a great fight night MMA on this past Saturday. So now we're doing boxing again this coming Saturday. So thank you all.

Thank you, Tony, for your commitment. Thanks to Charlie Clark's sidekick, Bobby. I think I was on ESPN like 10 times. He puts on such a great show, and I happen to be right next to him, so I got some of that opportunity. So you want to also introduce yourself back here? Yeah, come on.

Good morning. I am Bobbie Kaufman, Marshall's wife, and it is a privilege to be here and we all just thank you so very much.

Well, thank you. The better half, right Marshall?

Yes, the better half.

No, well, thank you, all of you. I appreciate what's going on. I just hope the community understands how important it is. We've got to get as many people out there because, you know, this Saturday, we've got to get a lot of people coming to the Coliseum, whatever it is that we could do. But that's what drives the situation forward. We've got to keep that traction going. It's hard when you have like Stephanie Hahn, right? And then you have another one. But they're all equally great, and it's going to be amazing to watch this young man and Aranda be there as well, and this young lady. I mean, it's just a great place, a great venue, and we're always looking for an opportunity to unite us. And El Paso's been very good, a role model to be unity and a community that stays together. And I hope boxing is another sort of a building block to help us show the rest of the world how El Paso does things. So once again, thank you. Best of luck to all of you and hope to see you this Saturday. So thank you.

Item number 5B, approve and adopt a resolution recognizing the 20 year anniversary of the restoration of the Plaza Theater and inviting the community to attend the 19th year Plaza Classic Film Festival, July 16th through the 26th, 2026. Commissioner Stone.

Thank you, Judge. Thank you, Commissioners. Good morning, everybody. Very proud to be able to read this resolution into the record. We're recognizing more than just a historic building with this resolution. We're also celebrating a place that has really been at the heart of our community for the past 20 years since its restoration. I think for many of us, the Plaza Theater is where we've shared really unforgettable moments, whether it was attending a concert, watching a Broadway performance, simply admiring one of the most beautiful theaters in the United States. It's become a place that memories are made across generations. It also represents what our community can accomplish when people come together around a common purpose. The effort to save and restore this landmark ensured that future generations could experience not only its beauty, but everything it contributes to our county today. Its impact is far beyond the stage. It has helped strengthen downtown El Paso by bringing visitors to our local businesses, restaurants, and hotels. It continues to serve as an important economic and cultural driver for this region. I'd also like to recognize, of course, the El Paso Community Foundation for its continued stewardship of the plaza, as well as Destination El Paso and El Paso Live for the management of the venue. Through free public tours and year-round programming, thousands of residents and visitors have been able to appreciate the theater's history, architecture, and significance. And this week, starting Thursday, the Plaza Classic Film Festival returns for its 19th year. running through July 26th. And I know we're all very eager to hear more about that from our guests. Congratulations on 20 years of bringing arts, culture, and community together at the Plaza Theater. With that, I'll read the resolution, then we can hear from our distinguished guests. The resolution states, whereas the Plaza Theater first opened its doors on September 12, 1930, and remains one of only a few atmospheric theaters still operating in the United States, and whereas the theater was designed in a Spanish colonial revival style to create the illusion of a Spanish hacienda, complete with the garden setting, drifting clouds, and twinkling stars overhead, exemplifying the unique characteristics of atmospheric theater. And of course, the Plaza Theater is home to the historic Weiler Mighty Wurlitzer pipe organ, original to the theater and the only remaining Balaban III organ of its kind, featuring 1,914 pipes, and the ability to reproduce the sound of a 50-piece orchestra, making it one of only a few theater pipe organs worldwide that remain in their original auditoriums. And whereas the Plaza Theater is listed on the National Register of Historic Places with national significance and stands as one of El Paso's most treasured architectural and cultural landmarks, and whereas through the leadership and vision of the El Paso Community Foundation and the generosity of countless supporters, a community-wide effort to save the Plaza Theater from demolition in 1987, and whereas in 2002, the El Paso Community Foundation and the City of El Paso partnered to restore the plaza to its original and successfully reopened on March 17, 2006. And of course, since its reopening in 2006, the Plaza Theater has become a local icon and global contender, raking Texas' highest grossing theater of its size in 2025 and billboard recognition of one of the top 25 theaters worldwide in 2025. And now, therefore, be it resolved that the El Paso County Judge and Commissioner's Court recognize the 20-year anniversary of the restoration of the Plaza Theater and invite the community to attend the 19th year Plaza Classic Film Festival, July 16 through 26, 2026, signed this 13th day of July, 2026, the Honorable County Commissioner's Court.

We have a motion to approve from Commissioner Stout, a second from Commissioner Alguin. The voting is open. Thank you. Commissioner Butler and Coronado are absent. The motion carries. Thank you.

Thank you all for joining us. Good morning.

Thank you for voting yes.

It was a really, really tough decision, you know.

I'm Catherine Berg with the El Paso Community Foundation, and it was interesting back in 2006 when the community foundation, the city of El Paso, went together to restore the theater. There was the restoration historical aspect of it, but then we also needed to put together a movie house into a multi-purpose arena, so to speak. And I do want to say that the Plaza Theater for some reasons can be an arena. The whole idea of it was that Lion King was the biggest production that kept On I-10, they were in Dallas, would pass El Paso and go to Las Vegas, Las Vegas and Los Angeles. But we were always bypassed because we didn't have a venue that was big enough. So we were able to do that with the city of El Paso. And walking over here this morning, I look up and through the downtown management district, we've got these banners all over El Paso that have the Plaza Classic Film Festival. And we have Sam Neill's face up there right now because we're doing Jurassic Park. And I think many of us read the news this morning and yesterday that he had just passed away. So it's really nice to be able to see on this big screen these actors that we've known and these people that we've known all of our lives. And it's not just on a little tiny square that we see on our computer or maybe a little bit bigger square on our TV, but in real life. And so it's so nice to do that. I'm a little emotional about this. Sorry about that. Brooke, come up here and save me, please. But anyway, thank you so much for this. And really, Destination El Paso and El Paso Live has been able to keep everything going. And I'll shut up before I start crying.

Well, just to carry what Catherine shared is the Lion King will return in this coming season. So in its 20th year of the plaza being reopened and restored, will welcome again the Lion King, which is what the spec was used for in 2002, 2006 in its reopening. So excited to have that. For the record, Brooke Underwood, president and CEO of Destination El Paso, and one of the many keepers and stewards of our beautiful Plaza Theater, along with my partners, Good morning and thank you for taking the time to recognize this landmark. On behalf of Destination El Paso, it's our honor to celebrate the Plaza Theater's most recent and remarkable achievements in 2025. As Commissioner Stout read, it's the number one highest grossing theater of its size in Texas and it's number 22 in the world, according to Billboard magazine. And with the mid-year Billboard numbers as well, we're in the top 30. We continue to maintain that position. This recognition not only speaks to the success of the extraordinary venue, but to the strength of El Paso as a destination for arts, cultural, and world-class entertainment. It's often one of the first venues that we showcase because it tells the story of who we are, a city that values history while also delivering unforgettable experiences. Nearly a century after its opening in 1930, the plaza remains one of the few atmospheric theaters still operating in the US offering visitors an awesome experience as they walk in. Today, the plaza generates over 6.5 million in gross revenue and welcomes approximately 78 performances each year, which draws over 100,000 guests to the theater. And that's in Broadway productions and concerts, comedy shows, recitals, films, and community events. But beyond entertainment, the plaza generates tourism. It supports local businesses, fills hotel rooms, and contributes to the economic vitality of downtown El Paso. And the success would not be possible without the vision and the partnership of the El Paso Community Foundation, to which I personally as a citizen am grateful. The city of El Paso, of course, and our dedicated venue staff and everyone that's invested in preserving this incredible landmark. It was the place where my husband and I first had our first date and where he would, a month and a half later, propose on the marquee. So it also holds meanings and it helps tell our stories as citizens of El Paso, not just the stewards and the landlords of the building. Here's to many more years of welcoming the world to El Paso's iconic stages. Thank you.

Thank you. What a great partnership. And first of all, congratulations. We're so proud of having you as our next CEO because I think you really, really understand what we need. The last show that I went there was The Exorcist, right? And I still have scars from the lady next to me. I thought she was going to kill me before the movie was over. You know, it's such a great place. You know that when we try to get Paul Anderson, the producer of One Battle After the Other, we did a video with a backdrop of the plaza because we knew that what could we show quickly that he would understand who we are and something as magnificent as that. And I still think that's what we were able to get that semi-premier kind of thing that we did, but it was beautiful. It brought them here, and people just love the fact that it was at the Plaza Theater. So we're very proud of both of you. This partnership is amazing, and it's one of those real iconic places that will forever be part of who we are. So thank you both. Great partnership. We appreciate that. Commissioner Stout.

I just want to thank you all so much, of course, to the Community Foundation and the continued work that's done there to make sure that people are able to visit and enjoy downtown. One of the main anchors of downtown revitalization, of course, was the Plaza Theater. I myself also have many great memories. I've been to Beach Boys concert there, I've been to Enrique Bumburi, to all the film festivals, to The Lion King, to Wicked, just so many great shows, great entertainment acts. And also my congratulations to you, Brooke, for the new gig. Looking forward to the great things that you're gonna be doing. at the helm of the organization. But really, thank you all very much for keeping this alive, and I hope everybody takes the opportunity to come and participate in the film festival this year. What a tragedy that we just lost Mr. Neal recently, and I'm glad that we're able to pay a great tribute to him here in El Paso, highlighting the Jurassic Park movies. We'll go ahead and take a picture with the resolution. Thank you.

You.

Item number three is public comment. We do have three speakers this morning. I'd like to get started with Mr. Mike Barnes. I'd just like to remind all speakers this morning that public comment is limited to five minutes per person. Everybody will be timed.

Thank you. Good news. Our veteran of the year, James Green, is home. He has been released from constant medical care. And it's a true testament that God does answer prayers. Also, I want to give a special thanks, oh Lord, to Debo Wakefield for honorably carrying that torch. As we have veterans who spend more time walking in the shadows than standing with a friend, Debo constantly provided delight for those in need, making a difference in our community.

And I just wanted to first say thank you, Debo, for that.

Thank you. The reason I'm here today, I'm sorry, my name is Mike Barnes. I'm a junior ranch hand on an alpaca farm, but also a humbled veteran in El Paso County. Today I want to take a moment and recognize a man whose service to our nation and to the County of El Paso has never been about recognition. It has always been about serving others. Sergeant Major Retired Reggie Maynard devoted more than 30 years to the United States Army, leading soldiers, developing future military leaders, and continuing his commitment to excellence long after hanging up his uniform. His dedication did not end with retirement. It simply found a new way to serve. As a member of the El Paso County Veterans Advisory Board, Reggie brought thoughtful leadership, integrity, and genuine passion for improving lives of veterans and their families. He worked to identify gaps in services, strengthen partnerships throughout our community, ensured that the voices of veterans were heard. His professionalism and commitment have made a lasting impact on the board and the veterans we are privileged to serve. His service extends well beyond the Veteran Advisory Board. Reggie continues to strengthen our community as an advisor to the El Paso County Sheriff's Advisory Board, a leader in his church, and a respected leader in the Montana Vista community, along through many volunteer efforts supporting veterans, youth, and families across El Paso County. Service has never been a position for him. It's been a way of life. While appointments to advisory boards naturally change over time, the contributions made by dedicated public servants remain. On behalf of the Veteran Advisory Board, I want to sincerely thank Reggie for his unwavering commitment, his leadership, and the countless hours he has invested in making our community stronger. At the same time, I want to warmly welcome his successor to the Veterans Advisory Board. We look forward to working together, building up on a strong foundation already established, and continuing our shared mission of serving more than 60,000 veterans who call El Paso home. Reggie, thank you for your extraordinary service, your friendship, and your continued leadership. Your legacy is measured not by the position you held, but by the lives you touched. El Paso County is better because of you. Now, at this time, I'd like to yield my remaining one minute and 30 seconds to the one and only Reggie Maynard.

Thank you, Reggie. Thank you, Mike.

Thank you, Judge.

Welcome, Reggie. Good morning. Good morning.

Commissioners, Judge, it has been an honor for me to be installed in the position as a federal advisory for Precinct 2. Commissioner Stout, thank you very much. And as Mr. Barnes said, service is really a thing that is embedded in me because I am what they call a service leader. Being on the Veterans Advisory Board gave me another outlook to look at and see how our veterans need to be taken care of. It was an honor and still is an honor for me to be a part of that because just because I stepped back or been released from that position, my servitude to this community to this county, to this city has not ended and will not end as long as God has me on this earth. I will be here to support the Veteran Advisory Board, the city of El Paso, this community, and most of all, our veterans. Our veterans are the breath of this city and it's our responsibility to continue to take care of them. And as long as I'm allowed to, As long as I'm permitted to, as long as I have breath in my life, in my body, I will continue to be here for our veterans. Again, Commissioner Stout, thank you for allowing me to represent Precinct 2. It was truly an honor. It was an honor for the board to accept me and allow me to stand in this position. And it has made a great impact in my life and how I look at things and how I see veterans. especially our homeless veterans and how we need more than ever to take care of them. And I will stand by these individuals who embraced me, who loved on me, kept me straight when I needed to be kept straight. I will continue to stand by them and I thank them for allowing me to be a part of the team and allowing me Do what you allow me to do because without that liberty, I couldn't do it again. Thank you very much. It has been an honor. It has been a privilege and I will always, always remember those things that I was allowed to do. Thank you.

Reggie, there is no doubt that you will continue. I know your passion, your excitement about everything. I mean, I got to talk to a little bit there at Carl Robinson's. But thank you. Thank you for what you do. And not only what you've done, I have great expectations that you're still going to be a big part of the Veterans Capital of the USA. So thank you, Reggie, for everything you've done. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Mr. Pedro Serra.

Welcome, Pedro. Good morning, Judge. Good morning, Commissioners. Good morning, Board members. My name is Pedro Serra. I wasn't expected to get all the publicity from the boxing right now from them. I wasn't expecting all this. So I'm going to just stick to boxing today. As a boxer, coach, referee, and judge at the same time, I've been doing a lot of I've been working with my community. I opened up the first recreation center in Socorro, and the city of Socorro is helping me out. And I'm also in the process of doing fights in Socorro and San Isidro. I've spoken to Mayor Rudy Cruz. I've spoken to Miguel Chacon, the mayor for San Isidro. I'm here to support the boxing community, especially the kids who will become pro in the future. So that's our main goal right now, to give the opportunity to young kids to go pro and stay out of drugs and gangs. So that's the main issue here. So I'm doing real good. I just had a phone call yesterday from Victor. Gary Victorson, sorry. Gary Victorson, he's the guy who I fought in Vegas two years ago. And I promised him that if he ever won a championship, because he's been trying for about five, six years, and he hadn't won. So he finally went to Chicago and won the Golden Globes Masters division out there. And I promised that if he ever won, that I was going to do something big. And I've spoken to four champions in the same weight division, 178 pounds. And we want to do a big thing, a big thing. The tournament we want to do is this. We're going to do all masters for one belt. Everyone won a belt in a different tournament. So we want to create one champion Make four fights and become one champion. So we're going to try to do it in El Paso. And hopefully, if it happens, it's going to be big. And I want to do it in Socorro, San Isidro, see where it happens. So maybe on the 6th of September, I was invited to see if we can do it. amateur fights there. So hopefully in the future, I'm working slowly, but moving forward. So thank you. Thank you, Judge. And maybe you guys can help me out with a little bit of support for my team. I opened a GoFundMe pitch setup and I opened a small little page out there to see if you guys want to help out the community. And anybody who wants to donate or help out, you're welcome. So you can contact me at 915-540-0026. And Spout Boxing is back in Socorro again. It's the oldest team in history active. It's never been closed and I own it. So it's been around for about 35 years. George Hernandez was the founder of the Spell Boxing, George Hamza Hernandez. So people from Socorro, stick with Socorro. So thank you, sir. Thank you very much.

Pedro, thank you for being such a great ambassador for El Paso. I know you've done all different from the boxing to the judging to the referee, but we thank you because we're really fighting for this community to be the capital of boxing and amateur boxing. I think if that happens, you're going to have a lot to do with it. Thank you, Pedro.

Thank you very much. Thank you.

Thank you, Pedro.

Excuse me.

Our next speaker is Elizabeth Crawford, who submitted her public comment. I'll read that for her. Her comment begins, Good morning, Judge Samaniego and commissioners. Sadly, the statistics have come out from the Gutmaker Institute indicating that New Mexico was the number one state for abortion in our nation in 2025. And sadly, we know that many New Mexico abortion clients are young ladies from Texas, many from El Paso. Proverbs 24 in the Bible tells us, if you forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death and those that are ready to be slain, if you say, behold, we knew it not, does not he that ponders the heart consider it? And he that keeps your soul, does not he know it? And shall not he render to every man according to his works? For two years, I had the privilege of serving in Belém, Brazil and witnessing firsthand the plight of the throwaway kids, the street children. The horrific reality was that periodically the Brazilian police found it necessary in their way of thinking to clean up the streets, which included gunning down the young children who begged and slept there. It was Brazil's way of discarding the unwanted children conceived in a culture of nearly unrestrained sexual promiscuity. Yet another way of discarding the unwanted children is the clandestine abortion industry, the undercover back alley abortions. Thiago da Silva, a star soccer player from Brazil, also became a statistic of the abortion cartel when his mom in a favela slum of Rio de Janeiro in desperation turned towards the option of abortion. By God's mercy, her dad dissuaded her from having an abortion. Thiago da Silva's life was spared, thank the Lord. The soccer star player for Portugal in this year's World Cup, Cristiano Ronaldo, has a story that he survived abortion attempts by his mom. By God's grace, he lived. He reports that they periodically have conversations about the fact that he is the one who now supports his family. The one who was slated for abortion because he was feared to be a financial burden on his family is now the main provider for the family. Cristiano Ronaldo's mom said in a documentary, He is that child that I wanted to abort. God didn't want that to happen. And I was blessed because of that. We never know who a baby saved from abortion may grow up to be. Life is a gift from the Lord. Physical life is a gift. Spiritual life is a gift. Romans 6.23 tells us, For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal. Life through Jesus Christ our Lord. As we watch our state that neighbors us to the north expand abortion exponentially, and as we watch New Mexico cities descend further and further into crime, drugs, and prostitution, may that serve as a warning to El Paso of the dangerous consequences of choices made on issues of morality. Thank you, and I hope you have a very good day. End of public comment.

Thank you.

This completes public comment. Judge?

Thank you, Cesar.

Moving on to item number 7A, Board Appointments. Approve the appointment of Commissioner Stout's nominee, Diane M. Vega, to the El Paso County Veterans Advisory Board for the unexpired two-year term ending November 30th, 2027.

Good morning, Judge and Commissioners. Michelle Cochran of County Administration. Ms. Vega is Commissioner Stout's appointee to the Veterans Advisory Board. She has met all of the requirements necessary under our policy and state statute to be appointed to this unexpired term. And unfortunately, she was unable to join us this morning due to prior commitments that she had.

Judge, Commissioners, first of all, I do want to take the opportunity to thank Mr. Maynor for his service to Precinct 2 on the Veterans Advisory Board. Of course, he's a leader in this community, 30 years of service and much more here in El Paso. Thank you very much, Mr. Maynor, for being involved. And I know that you'll continue to stay involved, as you've said. I wanted to appoint Dee because my time is short and I believe in giving people a chance to be involved. I think that her experience and advocacy for veterans will serve her well as she steps into the new leadership position. She served as a vice president for Repatriate Our Patriots, a group committed to the compassionate repatriation of deported veterans and supporting their reintegration into society here in the United States while actively working to prevent future deportations. She's worked with records outreach with which we're all familiar. And I know that the current members of the VAB and our staff will greet her warmly, help shore the ropes and take advantage of her leadership skills and community hearts. She did send something that she wanted me to read on her behalf since she was not able to be present this morning. She said that she appreciates the opportunity to serve this community as a veterans capital of the US. El Paso is all of us. It serves its members, its veterans, and their families. And to be that capital, we must have that commitment to service. Where there are gaps, we must fill them. And she said she's eager to start working with the VAB members to learn more about what's going on and how to work with members and staff to elevate our work here in the veterans capital. WITH THAT, I'LL GO AHEAD AND MAKE THE MOTION TO APPROVE THE APPOINTMENT OF DIANE.

YOU CAN SWITCH ME, PLEASE. THE OTHER WAY.

YEAH. WE HAVE A MOTION TO APPROVE FROM COMMISSIONER STOUT AND A SECOND FROM JUDGE SAMANIEGO. THE VOTING IS OPEN. COMMISSIONER BUTLER AND CORONADO ARE ABSENT. MOTION CARRIES.

THANK YOU, COMMISSIONER.

THANK YOU, JUDGE COMMISSIONERS.

Item number 8A from County Administration. Receive a presentation and discuss and take appropriate action regarding the regulation for federal financial assistance proposed revisions by the Office of Management and Budget and approve comment submissions on behalf of El Paso County.

Buenos dias, good morning, Judge and Commissioners. Elisa Tamayo, Governmental Affairs Manager. We have an update today on the federal side on some comments that are due today. So if we could pull up some PowerPoint, that'd be great.

Thank you.

So just about a month and a half ago, on May 29th, the Office of Management and Budget, the OMB, and about 41 other federal agencies proposed what is a sweeping rewrite of federal grants guidance that would do several things. In short, it would completely reshape how the federal government manages and awards all grants and financial assistance. So that is everything from contracts to co-op agreements, grants, basically, AFFECTING ALL OF THE DISCRETIONARY FUNDING IN A SIGNIFICANT WAY. THE PROPOSED RULE IN PARTS IMPLEMENTS AN EXECUTIVE ORDER IMPROVING OVERSIGHT OF FEDERAL GRANT MAKING AND THE ADMINISTRATION'S GOAL IS TO IMPLEMENT THIS BY OCTOBER 1ST OF THIS YEAR. We have our subject matter experts that will go over the most important changes that this 2 CFR subtitle B changing on rules is proposing. But as they will propose, I mean, in general, the OMB proposes revising 2 CFR for reasons including to improve transparency, accountability, and oversight for use of federal taxpayer dollars to clarify the status of the OMB's policies and requirements set forth in this 2 CFR regulatory text in the OMB regulation, and then three, to reduce the recipient burden. However, as we have been analyzing and paying close attention to what this is doing, it would do quite the opposite. Instead of reducing the burden for recipients like El Paso County, it would be a significant challenge and a lot of uncertainty as to what we would be able to qualify for and so on on federal grants. So I'll pass it on on the next slide to Michael, I believe he's here.

Yes, good morning, commissioners. Michael Llamas, first assistant county auditor. I'm going to be presenting the next few slides to explain a little bit about what CFR 200 is and what the proposed changes would do to the county. So on this first slide, you can see that the Federal Uniform Guidance found at 2 CFR 200, also referred to as Uniform Grants Guidance or UGG, was established in 2014 to consolidate federal grants management and combine circulars with directives on federal government spending into a single comprehensive framework. The federal uniform guidance outlines how the federal government expects federal funds to be managed and expended. In other words, if you have a grant, you have to follow CFR 200. The uniform guidance was updated in October 2020 and October 2024. However, this proposed rule currently under consideration is one of the most significant rewrites of the UGG. In fact, they're moving over from calling it the UGG to the UGR, or the Uniform Grants Regulation. On this flow chart, you can see the grants management process. Under the framework of 2 CFR 200, Congress first appropriates federal funds and establishes the legislative intent for their use. Federal agencies then organize these requirements by issuing regulations and defining how recipients must document, administer, and report the use of funds back to the agency. To ensure accountability, the Office of Management and Budget, OMB, provides overarching grant guidelines and compliance standards which auditors use to evaluate whether entities are managing federal awards in accordance with the established rules. As previously stated, this proposed rewrite of 2 CFR 200 represents the most significant overhaul of federal grant administration since the original inception. Here we have a short list of the potential impacts of the proposed changes, and I will provide more details on the following slides. So now moving on to the meat of the proposed changes. These changes can be subdivided into four broad categories. First, we have three administrative changes. The first one being the proposal turning uniform guidance into mandatory regulation, as I said earlier. So what does this mean? Under the current environment, granting agencies have flexibility in how they implement and interpret CFR 200, oftentimes allowing grantees some leeway during the audit process. However, under the proposal, OMB rules automatically would apply government-wide, agencies would no longer separately adopt changes, and noncompliance is enforceable. This means there's less flexibility for the county and more direct federal control and grants. And I know there's a lot of information, so if you have any questions in between, just please let me know. Moving on to the second change under administrative changes, and very importantly, this rewrite allows for the discretionary termination of grant awards. Federal agencies could terminate discretionary awards and even require repayment if they are not achieving program goals, they are not supporting agency priorities, or simply they are no longer in the federal government's interest. Additionally, all grants would now include a temporary suspension provision of up to 90 days if the suspension is in the agency's interest, and it's very important here that they don't clarify what the agency's interest is. It should be noted that currently, many grant awards do contain termination and suspension language, but this is for termination for cause, meaning that the grantee failed to meet program goals or comply with the terms of the award. If these changes move forward, grants could be terminated merely due to a change in the federal government's political philosophy. Also to note, further under the proposed changes, agencies would not be required to provide objection, hearing, or appeal rights for discretionary terminations, only terminations based on noncompliance. This would mean that our only recourse if we had a discretionary termination would be to go through the judicial system. Third, under administrative changes, we have the new appointment of senior level political appointees into the granting process. These appointees would conduct pre-issuance reviews and use their independent judgment when evaluating grant proposals. These reviews would be separate from scientific peer reviews and would introduce a new layer of political review into the award process, potentially increasing unpredictability in the award timing and outcomes. Furthermore, appointees would now implement new executive orders such as the prohibition of DEI and gender ideology into grant requirements during their review. I wanted to note that explicitly listed on the proposed changes on the regulations, there are new prohibitions on funding racial preferences or other forms of racial discrimination by the recipient, including activities where race or intentional proxies for race will be used as a selection criteria for employment or program participation. There's also the denial by the recipient of the sex binary in humans for the notion that sex is chosen or immutable characteristic. There's also illegal immigration or simply any other activities that compromise the public safety or promote anti-American values. Do you have any questions on these three administrative changes? Now I'll move over to the next section for pre-award rules where we have two changes here. First off, a largely uncontroversial change to the NOFO posting requirements that we are in support of or in agreement of. Agencies would now be required to post NOFOs and accept applications through Grants.gov. They would also have to provide executive summaries with key eligibility information and dates on Grants.gov. Additionally, these changes would mandate plain language requirements, meaning agencies must write announcements clearly to help applicants understand requirements without any legal jargon. Lastly, these changes would integrate pre-application statements of interest to pre-screen applicants in certain situations. This would mean that agencies could review these statements of interest and give a green light to competitive concepts and would save less qualified applicants months of wasted administrative work. However, next up, we have another controversial change, which is the addition of pre-award risk reviews. These include new merit reviews for factors related to the President's national priorities, such as the previously stated unlawful DEI. These changes would shift risk reviews from purely checking financial health to deeply evaluating an applicant's public footprint, organizational ties, and integrity history. Agencies would also now review memberships, institutional affiliations, and publicly accessible data of the recipient organization, and funding would be restricted if affiliations linked back to foreign adversaries, entities owned or controlled by countries of concern, or groups that violate federal law, compromise national security, or advocate against the U.S. government. Any questions on pre-award risk reviews or pre-award rules? Sorry. If not, I can move on to the next section for grant administration or post-award rules. Leading, we have new subrecipient monitoring requirements, which transfers several strict enforcement burdens directly on over to pass-through entities. These would include new requirements on E-Verify and immigration vetting, which Ana will expand on further in a later slide. Simply put, if the proposed changes move forward, the county would now be at risk of award termination based on subrecipient actions. Furthermore, the county would have to ensure subrecipient activities do not cause reputational harm to the recipient or federal agencies. However, we still have some questions on the implementation of this change, such as what does OMB define as reputational harm? Could it just be anything that the federal government does not agree with? Next up, there are new documentation requirements. The proposed change requires that recipients justify each payment request and link it with specific milestones or activities. Again, there are questions related to the implementation of this change, such as if there will be limits to the justifications required, how much longer will payments take if these justifications must be reviewed by the federal government, and how are recipients expected to implement these changes on October 1st if the federal agencies are not ready by then? The third change in this section relates to new cost restrictions on advertising and public relations, conferences, membership, subscriptions, professional activity costs, and the general cost of government outside of grant activities. As with the last change, we still have several unanswered questions. For example, what is the delineation between grant activities and just general government activity? Or will there be further guidance providing on these new cost restrictions on specific grant programs? Are there any questions on this section? If not, I can move over to the last section. This last section relates to audits and compliance supplement updates. Under the new regulations, there will no longer be an annual compliance supplement. These supplements are important because they serve as guides for auditors when conducting their annual single audits for grants, and internally, we use it to ensure we have continuing compliance with grant requirements. However, on the other side, even without these annual updates, federal agencies can still issue new internal policy memos, cost restrictions, or executive mandates mid-year. If the OMB does not release these updated compliance supplements to translate those mandates into clear steps, the county might spend funds incorrectly without even knowing it. And this section, I think. Budget? Thank you.

Hi, Carmen. Welcome.

Hello. Good morning. Carmen Arrieta-Canela, Budget and Finance Department. So my piece is really to talk about what the concerns are from El Paso County from a financial perspective. We administer or we currently have $72 million of federal programs across 87 programs that we manage. So the proposed rule would significantly impact us. The proposed rule, as Michael indicated, it would grant the federal agencies broad new discretionary authority to terminate grant awards, including the authority subject to senior political appointee approval. Of course, this provision creates severe fiscal uncertainty for the county. So we have 66 positions that we currently fund with federal funds or federal pass-through, approximately $4.7 million in personnel costs. As you know, county budgets are planned and adopted way in months in advance before the fiscal year begins and we're already working, as you know, on our fiscal year 27, our revenue projections and also our service commitments. are made way before the anticipated federal funding. So there's a lot of planning that's involved in order for us to be able to even begin to implement a program during the granting period. The prospect of the award termination suspension or suspension of up to 90 days at any point based on shifting federal policy priorities, it really creates an untenable level of fiscal risk. Also, another layer of risk is many of these programs are multi-years, so it's not just the one year that's impacted, it could be multiple years that are impacted. We only have a limited amount of funds that we can transfer to, one of them being the general fund. And this is no other funds are available, but even that causes pressure on the general fund if we were to get, for example, $72 million of these programs that would have to shift over to the general fund. We just cannot. We would not be able to support that. But the impact on our communities and families. is also great. Eliminating these programs would more than likely create a immediate service termination of those programs. So it would certainly impact our community and our families if these funds were suspended or terminated. significant impacts on our staff, so resulting potentially in layoffs or reduction in force if we're not able to shift those positions over to the general fund or another source. And it also could have an impact on our recruiting or our hiring as we may not be able to hire individuals into our grant programs if they were to believe that there would be a risk of their position going away. So there is an impact on that as well. And finally, I think overall it is an increase in our administrative burden and it could potentially affect us on, it could extend the award timelines. It could even deter us from applying, counties from applying because of the additional administrative burden and could potentially impact us in in that way as well where we would just not seek out federal funding because of the risk associated. So those are just some of the impacts from a fiscal perspective that I would offer you today. And unless there's any questions, I think I'm going to turn it over to Anna.

Good morning, Anna Schumacher, Assistant County Attorney. I also wanted to highlight some issues that I have seen that are antithetical to our county values or ways that we have previously used some of the funding because I think it's important for us to know that we wouldn't be able to use funding like that going forward. To recap all of the issues, you all may recall about a year and a half ago in February, January, the concern was that there were these executive orders that were trying to halt this grant funding. There were several legal challenges at the time. They ultimately hadn't followed the process. And so that was halted at the time, right? And it gave us some reprieve. Fast forward a year and a half, and this is where we're at now, where they are doing some of the things that the court said you have to do first. And so we do think that they are essentially in reasons that I'll explain in a little bit, really targeting many avenues to make sure that they actually are successful this time around. So one of the things that the new rules would prohibit is disparate impact analyses, right? So let's say that we wanted to do a study with some grant funding with regards to colonias or with regards to individuals that live around a port of entry. Oh, thank you so much, Michael. Then we wouldn't be able to do those studies anymore. The other thing is that we would be prohibited, this is pure government overreach, from basically, for both our recipients, which would be ourselves, or sub-recipients, from discriminating on the basis of viewpoint, content, or subject matter, a speech including events on the public entity's property, meaning this courthouse, irrespective of whether we're using federal funds. So like this is true government overreach and it's almost ironic because we have said whenever there are no grant funds in play that it shouldn't muzzle someone from their viewpoint in terms of how they are making their speech known. And so again, ironic on that front. So it really potentially inhibit even things we could do here on our county facilities. The other thing is that it would prohibit use of federal funds for bilateral or multilateral collaborations with covered foreign countries. So that term foreign countries isn't really used. But as you all know, our economic development department with ARPA funds, one of the things we really wanted to do was promote our thorny port of entry. And so we found that based on the existing two CFR provisions, there were things we could do. So that very likely is now off the table going forward with federal grants. Additionally, it prohibits funding for promoting, encouraging, or facilitating DEI or gender ideology. So again, that term is very broad. We've said this like a year and a half ago too, right? What does encouraging mean? Is that a resolution? Is that flying a flag? What does that entail? And could we potentially lose federal funds or have them claw back funds for something that we see as innocuous that we have always done on the basis of encouraging something? The other thing that I think is very significant is we would be requiring grant recipients or subrecipients to verify that all individuals working under a federal award are authorized to work in the U.S. And if someone is identified to not meet that requirement, we have to report them to the pass-through entity or the agency that's administering this. So what does that mean, right? Does that mean DACA individuals we have to report potentially? Does that mean, for example, we are notifying TIDM if they are the pass-through entity that we've identified someone as not clearing through E-Verify? The reason this is much more problematic is that in Mullen v. Doe, which was a recent Supreme Court case, right, Essentially, in that instance, it cleared the way or the court actually allowed the Trump administration to more easily remove temporary protected status for individuals. So that didn't create a pathway for citizenship. It means there was some crisis in your home country that allowed you to be here lawfully and to work. And so now with that case, right, it is very clear that this administration, once a country is up for renewal, they're just eliminating everyone. every country on that TPS list. So that means, for example, if you had run someone through E-Verify two months before this country was no longer eligible, then you potentially now are in violation, right, of the grant terms. So you're constantly potentially having to run those E-Verify checks which is untenable, right? That you are imposing that not just on ourselves, but our grantees and our contractors. So the risk of someone missing someone is very high, and the amount of grants that we're taking is considerable. So is that something that would basically be held against us? the other thing that mr lamas went over as we were going over our powerpoint is that this would very likely have a chilling effect on who would want to contract with us going forward whether that be grantees or contractors right because they don't want to have to basically denounce individuals that may be working for them right AND SO THAT IS ALSO PROBLEMATIC. WE WOULD LIKELY HAVE TO LIST THAT IN OUR RFPs AND ALSO IN OUR GRANT APPLICATION CONTRACTS, RIGHT, TO PUT PEOPLE ON NOTICE THAT THAT IS A NEW REQUIREMENT. SO THESE ARE JUST A FEW OF THE THINGS THAT I WANTED TO HIGHLIGHT THAT I THINK WOULD BE OF CONCERN TO THE COURT BASED ON OUR PAST ACTIONS. AND IF THERE ARE NO QUESTIONS, I'LL TURN IT BACK OVER TO MR. MAYU. THANK YOU. THANK YOU, ANA.

THANK YOU, ANA. SO AS YOU CAN SEE, THE CHANGES ARE EXTREMELY CONCERNING. And that's why we wanted to submit our public comments. We drafted the El Paso County letter based on the NACO template with numbers and data from our auditors and budget departments, as well as County attorneys. And so you can see that attached to the backup and we included all the signatures. If approved, we would like to also send a copy of our comments and do some outreach with our congressional delegation So with Congresswoman Escobar and our senators, Cornyn and Cruz. And with that, I don't know if you have any questions. You would like me to read the letter. It's quite lengthy, but it is in the backup. And we have a proposed motion on the next slide as well.

OK, thank you, Alicia.

Thank you.

I'm sorry to interject. Elisa, Carmen was checking with you if the backup letter is the most current version or what?

Go ahead. I think it is. It should be. Our agenda team helped me to attach or replace the item. So it has all the signatures of the commissioner's court. And then on the motion, I think we would say, yes, it is.

Okay. Perfect. Thank you. That was my last question. Thank you, Elisa.

Perfect. So I would suggest to discuss and take a proper action to authorize your signatures and submission of the attached written comments to be submitted in response to the public comment period by the Office of Management and Budget on behalf of El Paso County and to share a copy with the El Paso congressional delegation.

Thank you. Make that motion.

Thank you, Commissioner. Second.

I DO WANT TO POINT OUT, YOU KNOW, THIS IS ONE OF THE MAIN REASONS WHY I THINK IT'S SO IMPORTANT THAT WE'RE INVOLVED IN NACO.

BECAUSE THEY REALLY DO HELP kind of navigate these waters and keep us abreast of these issues that are obviously of utmost important for us. After the presentation we just received from our staff, the amount of money that we would be losing out on, our values that we espouse and hold so dearly being infringed upon by the federal government, and just the disgusting and ridiculous attacks on on. Anti discrimination and DEI and and and other things. It's just it's unconscionable and we need to. You know, use whatever avenue we have to to try and speak out and and keep this this from happening. So thank you all. Thank you Commissioner.

You're welcome, thank you all. Commissioner Stout, thank you. Motion carries.

Thank you. And I think I have your signatures on file, but if not, I will be reaching out to your offices so we can submit the comments by end of day. The deadline is at midnight and then we'll share those with our congressional delegation. Thank you.

Thank you, Lisa.

Item number nine, a auditor. pursuant to Texas local government code section 114.023, 114.024, 114.026. Receive the attached presentation and the interim financial report for the month ended May, 2026. Good, Michael.

Hello again, commissioners. Michael Almas, first assistant county auditor. Good morning. Today's presentation is on the May, 2026 interim financial report. This executive summary shows information about revenues and expenses for the current year. Please note that throughout the presentation, amounts have been rounded to thousands. On this slide, you can see our condensed financial report for the month of May 2026, which was published in a local Sunday newspaper. And whenever I say this, it's because it's required by statute. Our first section is revenues. This slide presents all revenue collected by the county by fund type. A focus throughout this presentation emphasizes the general fund, which is the main operating fund of the county. During the current month, the general fund collected approximately $16.8 million. Total year-to-date property taxes collected as of May 2026 increased by 39.8 million compared to FY25. IN THE GENERAL FUND PROPERTY TAXES INCREASED BY 27.9 MILLION IN TOTAL. HERE TODAY GENERAL FUND REVENUES COMPARED TO THE SAME PERIOD LAST FISCAL YEAR ARE SHOWN ON THIS TABLE. Total revenue collections have increased compared to the same period in prior year's collections. The top areas increasing are property taxes as previously discussed, charges for services which show an increase of $7.3 million, and this is mainly due to an increase in federal prisoner revenue, However, we also have increases in county tax collection fees of $185,000, Coliseum food fees of $105,000, and JP admin fees of $145.4,000. We also have increases in intergovernmental, which show an increase of $1.5 million, but this is mainly due to OLS reimbursements that were received earlier this year compared to last fiscal year. So as we get closer to the end of the fiscal year, we expect that difference to decrease or disappear. Our top areas decreasing in revenue are sales and use tax. However, this decrease, as previously stated in past presentations, is due to a change in accounting period where the November amount for sales tax collections is now being reported in prior year. Month-to-date amount for May increased $1.1 million over prior year, and year-to-date collections from December to May are still up 10.6% from last year. Another area of decrease is interest, where we saw a decrease of $1.6 million due to lower balances and decreasing rates. However, just for your information, current estimates from the Fed say that interest rates are expected to stay the same or even increase as we go further in the year. This next slide shows an overview of actual revenue compared to budget. So far this year general fund has collected eighty seven point eight of total budgeted revenues with their largest revenue collections being property taxes at ninety eight point seven percent of the budget sales and use tax at fifty five point nine percent of the budget. And I just wanted to take a little bit of time to to indicate why we're so low in sales tax again it's because. SALES TAXES ARE REPORTED TWO MONTHS IN THE REAR. SO RIGHT NOW, WE'RE REPORTING FOR MAY. WE'RE ACTUALLY REPORTING COLLECTIONS FOR MARCH. SO WE'LL END THE FISCAL YEAR WITH ABOUT TWO MONTHS STILL LEFT TO BE REPORTED. SO WE'RE STILL IN LINE WITH PRIOR YEAR. JUST WANTED TO NOTE THAT. FOR CHARGES FOR SERVICES, WE'VE COLLECTED 103.8% OF THE BUDGET. INTERGOVERNMENTAL, 112. AND INTEREST, WE'RE STILL LAGGING THERE WITH 59.9% OF THE BUDGET. On this next chart, you can see here today taxes comprised about 89.5% of total revenues received, with property taxes being 77% of that. This slide illustrates trends in total revenues and the county's two largest revenue sources, property taxes and sales taxes. The bar groupings display actual versus remaining amount to be collected for property and sales tax by year, which provides a clear view of performance relative to our productions. As a percentage of budget, the current year's general fund total revenue collections has increased 11% compared to last year. And to give you some prior year information, for FY24, we were at 87.3%. For FY25, we are at 86.5%. And for FY26, we're at 87.8%. So we're still in line with prior year performance. This next slide shows the total sales and use tax received by month, as well as the month-to-month percent change. Please note that sales tax receipts for the current month are applicable to sales tax from two months ago. So, for example, the payment received from the comptroller in May will be applicable to March sales. On May 10, 2026, the county received its fifth sales and use tax payment for fiscal year 2026 related to March 2026 sales for a total of $7.6 million or an increase of $1 million or 16% when compared to March. A year to date increase of 4.1 million or 10.6%. And again, for your information, I know last month we were anticipating the collections for sales taxes on due to the BTS concert. They came in and they just showed an increase of $329,000 or 5.7% when compared to May 2025. This slide highlights the top four industry categories contributing to our sales tax revenues. First off, we have retail trade, which showed the strongest dollar growth and it posted an increase of $435,000. Next up, we have manufacturing, which saw a significant increase of $105,000. Wholesale trade also saw an increase of $105,000. And accommodation and food services showed an increase of $100.6,000. So overall increases in all major categories. Do you have any questions on the revenue portion? Now I'll move over to expenditures. This slide shows all expenditures for the county by fund type for the month of May. The general fund recorded total expenditures of $38.9 million and a year-to-date total of $256.8 million. The following slides will give you a detailed breakdown on expenditures. This chart provides an overview of the county's general fund budget, breaking expenditures down by the function of government. 56.3% of the budget has been expended, and of that, public safety accounted for 43.6%, general government accounted for 27.2%, admin of justice 23.2%, and all other functions made up that remaining 6%. Total general fund expenditures by function are shown on this slide. The percentage of year expired is 66.7%, and the percentage of budget expended is 56.3%. Last year, we were at 56.6%, so still within past performance. For general government, we've expended 69.8 million, admin of justice 59.5, public safety 112.1 million, and all other functions have expended $15.4 million. On this next slide, you can see general fund expenditures as of May, which show an increase in comparison to prior year of 0.5%. Personal and operating expenditures increased, while capital outlay and transfers out decreased. For personnel, we showed an increase of $4.7 million, and this is primarily due to public safety. And again, this is mainly due to salaries and overtimes at both jails. General government did also show an increase of $570,000, and this is primarily due to IT salaries, an increase due to ARPA salary transfers that happened last year. This was offset by a decrease in admin of just as of $550,000. For operating expenses, we also saw an increase of $949,000, primarily due to general government, which increased $4.1 million. This was mainly due to county elections showing an increase of $2.1 million, an increase in settlements of $1.3 million, travel expenditure increases of $310,000, and a CAD contract increase of $350,000. Public safety did show a decrease in operating expenditures of $1.5 million, and this was due to jail medical services, which decreased at both jails by $1.2 million. As stated earlier, transfers out decreased by $4.2 million, and capital outlays decreased by $204.9 thousand. This slide shows us general fund changes by government function in comparison with the same period previous year. The top areas of change are general government, which increased by 0.6%, admin of justice, which decreased by 2.5%, public safety, which increased by 2.4%, and public works, which increased by 51%. Are there any questions on expenditures? If not, we can finish off with fund balance. For FY26, the projected fund balance is based on projected revenues of $437 million and projected expenditures of $427.3 million. Combined with the updated FY25 fund balance, this results in a projected FY26 fund balance of $115.6 million. Federal prisoner revenue projections are currently 15.1 based on actuals and an average of 275 for the remaining months. Revenue changes from last month include a decrease of 415,000 for federal prisoner revenues and 283 for interest earned based on trends this year. EXPENDITURES, AS PREVIOUSLY STATED, ARE PROJECTED AT $427.3 MILLION. THIS REFLECTS THE DECREASE FROM LAST MONTH OF $1.5 MILLION BASED ON TRENDS AND EXPENDITURES WITH ADJUSTMENTS RECOMMENDED BY THE BUDGET AND FINANCE DEPARTMENT. THIS CONSISTS OF A $1 MILLION REDUCTION IN OPERATING EXPENSE, $204,000 REDUCTION IN TRANSFERS OUT FOR GRANT MATCH FUNDING AND 203 FOR PERSONNEL EXPENSES. For your information, years after FY26 are based on a 2% increase in property values and expense increases of 5%. Given the uncertainty on future variables, we should not place significant reliance on trends beyond 2026 and 2027. As revenue streams may shift, there could be future legislative action that could affect the county operations. The county auditor will continue to work with the budget and finance department to identify significant expenditures that may impact reserves, and we will collaborate on revenue projections, which will be assessed throughout FY26. And here we see the table of contents for the full interim report, which is posted online. Any questions?

Betsy, any comments from your perspective?

Yes, sir, I think Michael thoroughly overviewed where we are.

Thank you, Betsy. Thank you, commissioners.

Thank you.

Judge, we'd like to skip over item 10A and take this up after the lunch break, with your permission. Item number 11A from Public Works. approve and authorize the county judge to sign the supplemental contract between owner and contractor between El Paso County and ExerPlay Incorporated to install shelters in multiple county parks identified as by board proposal tabulation number 78125, Parks and Recreation Equipment, Products and Installation Services. Funding in the amount of $2,186,397.87 is available in CPBD 24, Issue B, Prop A, Park Improvement. Contract number 20260453.

Good morning, Judge, Commissioners, Norma Rivera-Palacios, the Public Works Department. The item before you this morning is the contract between the county and Exerplay for the installation of shelters that also includes benches, grills, and trash receptacles. I do want to mention that if we're not able to secure additional funds for park bathrooms, a portion of this budget will be used to construct bathrooms at Ruben Estrella Park and forego the shelters, just for your information.

The shelters at Ruben Estrella? Just at Ruben Estrella, yes, ma'am. Those would be the ones foregone, not the other parks? Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am.

Any other questions I can answer for the court?

We have a motion to approve from Judge Samaniego and a second from Commissioner Holguin. The voting is open. Thank you.

And just as you all are voting on that and that item's moving, we are working to try to identify that funding for bathrooms for all of our parks that don't have bathrooms. We're working through right now, one of the items you proved earlier, we'll be bringing back in a few weeks. You proved the sweeping the funds to our unallocated. We're working to bring that back to allocate. And one of the priorities we know are the bathrooms.

Thank you, Betsy.

Commissioner Butler and Coronado are absent. The motion carries.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Item number 11B. Discuss and take appropriate action regarding regional transportation planning and funding and the county's input on the El Paso Metropolitan Planning Organization's upcoming transportation policy board meeting agenda. At the request of the Public Works, or excuse me, the Planning and Development Department, they'd like to have this item deleted. Motion, we have a motion from Judge Samaniego. Why are we deleting it?

There's no meeting this month. Okay, they're canceling? Yeah, the meeting was canceled.

We have a motion from Judge Samaniego and a second from Commissioner Olguin. The voting is open. Commissioner Butler and Coronado are absent. Motion carries. Item number 12A, grant applications. Item 12A, grant award. approve and authorize the county judge to sign the subrecipient agreement and federal grant recipient certification with the Texas A&M Forest Service, accepting the fiscal year 26 El Paso County Parks Shade Coverage Project Grant on behalf of the Parks and Recreation Department from June 5th, 2026 to June 4th, 2027 in the amount of $20,000. A county match is required in the amount of $20,013.51. A total of $10,013.51 will be covered by in-kind volunteer hours and $10,000 in cash match that will be covered by the requesting department and will be available in general fund, county parks, operations expenses, general. Contract number 20260474.

Good morning, Judge, Commissioners. Lizette Saltero with the Budget and Finance Department, the grant division. This morning, we would like to request your approval to accept the FY26 Texas A&M Community First grant in the amount of $20,000 and a match of $20,013.51. The project period started on June 5th, 2026, and it will end June 4th, 2027. And to provide you with more information on the project, Mr. Timothy Fulton, our parks and recreation director.

Good morning, Judge and Commissioners. Tim Fulton, Director of Parks and Recreation. I want to give you a little background about the grant. This is the second year we've been offered a grant by Texas A&M Forestry. I'm excited about it. I know our community is. I would like to add a little bit of a side story here. There's a book out called Light Eaters. It's by Zoe Zangler. I believe I pronounced that correctly. But the term light eater simply means plants, including trees, eat light as a source of nutrient. They produce their own food. No living creature could exist without our plants. And I remember in my lifetime, being called a tree hugger was an insult. So I want to offer this up. In addition to all the environmental and economic benefits trees provide us, they also provide us a mental benefit. Zoe Zenglinger in her book, points out all the research has been done over the years and it's kind of been on the off side of what we call real science, but it shows that trees, plants, definitely can communicate. We don't know how they do it, they don't have a central nervous system like most animals, but plants are very unique that way. So, We're encouraging our community to come out and plant these trees. We're encouraging our community to build a relationship with these trees. We want these trees to be around for the rest of our lives and hopefully our grandchildren's lives. So our plan is to plant the trees in Horizon Hills. We'll be planting about 13 trees there. Estrella Park will have 37. Gallegos Park will have 37. Tornillo Trail will also have 37. 13 Trees Milagro Park, which is under construction, but we're planning to plant an additional 13 trees there, and Escarate will be planting 37 trees. So we'll be hitting pretty much every area within the county. As Lisette pointed out, we'll be using our volunteer hours as a match. We also will be working closely with our volunteer coordinator as well as I want to reach out to your staff to coordinate the plantings. We have not set exact dates for the plantings, but generally we like to do those in the cooler month, which, you know, usually October up until about April. There's some flexibility there, but we do want to encourage our commissioners judge and anybody else from the county to come out, volunteer, and Commissioner Le Guin, I know in particular, you had some really good work out there on Tornillo Trail. We will be using our tree auger to make that digging a little bit easier. We also will be having our irrigation lines installed prior to the actual tree plantings to ensure those trees get a healthy start. Again, I think this is a tremendous opportunity for El Paso County to build our urban forest, to connect our community in a meaningful way. Are there any questions for me? Thank you.

We have a motion to approve from Commissioner Holguin, a second from Judge Samaniego. Voting is open. Commissioner Butler and Coronado are absent. Motion carries.

Thank you, Tim.

Item number 12B, discuss and take appropriate action regarding the DOJ FY2026 Bridging Immigration-Related Deficits Experienced Nationwide Biden Program and consideration of the Notice of Funding Opportunity Application on behalf of El Paso County.

Good morning. Once again, Carmen Aretha Candelaria, Budget and Finance Department. Judge Simoniego, Commissioners, I'm here to present an opportunity for a grant that has been brought to our attention under the Department of Justice, and it's called Bridging Immigration-Related Deficits Experienced Nationwide, otherwise known as the Biden Program. This Biden program was authorized under one big beautiful act, Bill Act, to support these statutory purposes. These are the excerpts directly from the grant document. And so these are the activities that are allowed under this grant. First is locating and apprehending aliens who've committed a crime under federal, state, or local law in addition to being unlawfully present in the United States. The collection and analysis of law enforcement investigative information within the United States to counter gang or criminal activity. To investigate or prosecute crimes committed by aliens within the United States and B, drug and human trafficking crimes committed within the U.S. Court operations related to the prosecution of crimes committed by aliens and then also B, drug and human trafficking crimes. the temporary detention of these individuals and then transporting aliens within the United States to locations related to the apprehension, detention, and prosecution. And then number seven, to vehicle maintenance, logistics, transportation, and other support provided to law enforcement agencies by a state agency to enhance the ability to locate and apprehend these individuals who have committed crimes under federal, state, or local law in addition to being unlawfully present in the United States. Again, this is directly from the notice of grant award. There are multiple rounds and we believe that making it to the first round will have the most advantageous opportunity to be able to be qualified for the funding. So that is due July 17th. There is a second round deadline of August 21st and then the third round deadline is September 24th. We are an eligible applicant so we would be directly applying for these grants. And there's some caveats here related to these type of grants. And these are the reasons that we brought it forward is because I know that the court had a concern in the past about applying for these type of grants. So they must have established or commit to entering into and fully participating in a 287 partnership. And I understand that the Sheriff's Office is working on that. the applicants have to fully participate or commit to participating in the Homeland Security Task Force or Department of Justice in enforcement efforts. So the goal, which the Sheriff's Office also does that? Yes, ma'am.

Yes, correct.

Thank you. So the goal is to increase our capacity to carry out location, apprehension, detention, investigation, prosecution, and other enforcement activities related to criminal illegal aliens and drug and or human trafficking perpetrators. These are some of the objectives of some of this grant and we have been working with the Sheriff's Office and I understand Sergeant Sanchez is online as well to help us frame what the activities would mean Obviously, we would have to have a certain statistics that we would have to then provide as well in addition to the expenditures for this program that we would qualify under, so we would have to have a specific statistics that we would have to provide to the government in order to be able to draw down these funds. Again, this is something that we wanted to bring forward. We have a very tight timeline to get us to the 17th so that we could apply for this grant. Again, this is an opportunity that has come forward. and we would like to be able to get your thoughts on that. Please note the Sheriff's Office already enforces the applicable statement laws regardless of immigration status. We already do this work. However, again, we just wanted to bring it forward and get your thoughts on the application.

So are we thinking that these funds would help offset some of the expenses that we expect we might incur related to SB4? Is that what we're thinking for when DPS is bringing folks to the jail that they're apprehending?

Commissioner Melissa Carrillo with County Operations. So when looking at the various granting opportunities that come before the county, the idea with this particular grant is forward facing. And so the eligibility is up to about $3 billion for all qualifying governments within the nation. And so when you ask the question of what do we think this could be used for, there's three categories. There's one for hiring of officials going forward to do the type of work that was presented in the slides. The second is for technology and equipment used in that line of work. And the third is for the construction of temporary detention facilities or the expansion of existing detention facilities. And so the idea possibly, depending on the court's direction, is that we could possibly look at using it, of course, for any futuristic transport, cost of court services, or even housing for this category of arrestees and inmates, or depending on the court's interest, the possible construction or expansion of our own jail facilities to be used well into the future.

And Commissioner, I think you said three million, but I think it's- Three billion. Three billion. Three billion. Three billion. And so this is an opportunity if the court, you all know that one of our challenges have been housing detainees and one of the discussions that we had when we had a discussion about the detention camps and you know they said if counties had more room to house there would be less dependent on these outside facilities and Contractors to do the housing. We already are housing right now approximately 300 Individuals the majority of which are immigration related charges so if the court one of the options would be to look at and we know that we have issues with our downtown facility and efficiency and the limited bed space. So we wanted to give the court an opportunity to say, is this a type of grant you all would want us to look into? Yes, some of the existing cost of housing individuals, But is it something you'd want us to look into consider submitting a grant for either a complete jail remodel so that we would have efficient space and space available or an addition like out at the jail annex for additional space? Are those anything the court is interested in us pursuing for this purpose or not?

Ruben, do you want to add to this conversation, please?

Good morning. Good morning, County Judge, Commissioners. I was asked to be on this meeting in case there were any questions regarding the particular notice of funding. I've reviewed the notice of funding, and I guess the main question that was presented to me was whether or not the county would be In other words, forced to enforce immigration law enforcement. However, I want to clarify that an application or a grant award have not been presented to me, so it's really hard for me to make that analysis. However, as the presentation already clarified, the focus of the funding is on what the label A CRIMINAL ILLEGAL ILLEGAL ALIEN WHICH THEY DEFINE AS SOMEONE THAT'S IN THE UH IN THE UNITED STATES UNLAWFULLY AND COMMITS ON A STATE OR LOCAL OFFICE HOWEVER AGAIN I WANT TO CLARIFY THAT AN APPLICATION OR A GRAND AWARD HAVE NOT BEEN PRESENTED TO OUR OFFICE THAT'S SORT OF MY CONCERN IS THAT

Obviously if it's something that we're already doing and we could it could help us my concern is that we're encouraging This activities which we know have created deaths and a lot of problems and how do we How are we able to mitigate that the balance between? we don't want this to be an encouragement and to go out there and seek these individuals. On the other hand, if it's something that we're doing that we require the money to help us offset certain things, but I'm not sure how we get to that decision.

uh uh as the presentation also already informed uh part of the eligibility uh requirements is that the for example in this particular case the sheriff's office uh participate in the 287 agreement and uh you might be aware they've already submitted the uh at least the intent to participate in the agreement I don't know if you remember, but my colleague, Carlos Madrid, presented the options that agreement entails, and the Sheriff's Office chose to participate in the installation of federal ones. And then the other component to be eligible for this rep is the participating, what's called the HSTF, the Homeless Security Task Force, or some other DOJ component. And the Sheriff's Office is already working with the HSTF. There's a lot of different tasks. One of them, however, the Sheriff's Office, as far as I know, is only participating in one that's called for a detection of narcotics. The other one is the smuggling of narcotics. So it's very, at least on the Sheriff's Office, their involvement is very defined. And again, I haven't identified, I'm not saying there isn't, but I haven't identified any particular enforcement of seeking out aliens that are almost fully present in the United States. Really what the sheriff's office is doing is the duty that they're already doing, which is they see an offense being committed, then they're going to do their law enforcement duty.

Okay. Commissioner, again, how do you feel?

So I think I have the same concerns that you do, Judge, and that was the reason for my question. If we're going to try to get the county reimbursed for actions that other state agencies like DPS, who does, we know, want to enforce federal immigration law, if that's the goal is to try to get reimbursed for our costs for individuals that are going to be brought to our jail by most likely DPS, then to me that's very different than applying for this grant if we are saying we want the county to expand its enforcement and start going after these individuals, which I would not be in agreement with at all. So that's why I was asking that question, is if we'd be applying for these funds as a way to reimburse the county for expenses we expect to incur as a result of DPS and SB4, Because if the answer is no, actually, we'd be applying for this grant to increase the county's enforcement and get involved with immigration enforcement to try to detain more of these individuals that are outlined in the grant, then I would not be in agreement with that at all. They're two very different things to me, so that's what I'm trying to understand.

I can answer a question.

Oh, please, thank you.

Yes, I'm Sergeant Sanchez with the Oahu County Sheriff's Office. And just like Stone Garden or any of the other operations that we do that border immigration, we don't enforce immigration. We don't. We never have. We're not going to. Our view in this is that we're going to use this for the jails so that we can expand, you know, whatever is going to be incoming, unit personnel, things like that. But our goal is to focus on the criminal matter, which is the state laws. Outside of that, the immigration part, that's for others to handle. But that's not something that we are going to be primarily focused on. If they happen to be illegal because of criminal activity, then that's when the jail comes in, detainers and all that stuff comes into play. But we ourselves are not going to go out looking for illegal immigrants because they did nothing wrong as far as the state is concerned. So we're looking for the state criminal acts first before we even look at immigration.

Yeah, and I, and I understand that. That's the way that we've always done it. We've never, the county has specifically not sought to enforce immigration laws. I mean, we, we sued the state of Texas for that. So I understand that, but to me it almost sounds like this grant, that's exactly what it wants us to do in order to get these funds, is to participate in more enforcement activity. So, so that's what I want to make sure that we are not going to do in order to get these funds.

Yeah, what would be favorable is what the sergeant has said, that if there's things that we can't control and end up coming into our jail because of that, then we would be foolish not to have that kind of money. to be able to fund that. But as long as we're not the ones creating the enforcement and all that, and it looks like the sergeant is saying that there's going to be things where they're going to end up in our jail, independent of what we think or not. And then that's where we need the funding to be able to provide, you know, expand the jail or whatever it is that we need to do.

And Judge?

This is a great opportunity.

It is a great opportunity for us to address some of those issues. I want to be clear, we've never approached this from the perspective of the county taking on anything other than the court has already discussed regarding the 287 , which is the cooperating while someone is incarcerated with the federal government. I do think because this is pretty significant, what we're discussing is a potential use of this funding, the utilizing the funding to consider constructing space to hold individuals. I don't know exactly how detailed each round must be in the submission, but I do think this would behoove us to bring back to the court with some options and examples of how much and what it would actually provide for us. between now and round two, because we have some estimated cost of what it would cost us to construct additional space. It's a little bit outdated, but we can age those estimates to give us an idea of what type of grant amounts we'd be talking about. And then what type of amounts would we be talking about if we're looking at just paying for not constructing space, but just paying for cost of housing, cost of operations? for future detainees. So I don't know if by the July 17th deadline if we can submit a more general grant notification to this opportunity not specifying everything, but I do believe because we don't have all five members of the court here today that if we're gonna propose to the court including some construction funding, that you may want all members of the court to be here for that, if we bring that as an option.

I think so, and I think it's going to have to be accompanied by a very strong marketing of letting the community know. Because somebody from the outside sees this, and it's almost like we're encouraging enforcement. And also the commitment that when we do that, that they come back and say, well, you guys committed. to this grant and to the enforcement components. I don't know how we're going to be able to...

Right, and the grant does not say... Well, that's what we need to let legal look at. We need to bring back to the court exactly what does it say and what would the money amounts be for different options. If we just do this, this is how much.

I'd like to see that legal, if you could help us to make sure we're protected, that we're not committing ourselves to...

Thank you, Judge. So I agree with Mr. Nevada is that the way that the grant is currently written, as many things under this administration are written, are very broad. And so one of the things we would really need to see is re-evaluate this if we do get the grant award, no matter what. I think that's the number one thing we would have to do. But to answer some of the questions, and that maybe because we are building out, it does halt some of the things that are concerning in the grant. Like for example, transport criminal illegal aliens. So does that mean you're here unlawfully and therefore that's a criminal activity? But if we're building out a center, right, then we're less likely to be transporting people. would be a concern. It also increases investigations and prosecutions of crimes committed by people unlawfully present. So one of the concerns there initially would be like, oh, well potentially we're going into certain areas to find crime committed by a particular group of people. But again, if we're building out a facility, then potentially we're not right conducting or using funding for employees to conduct these investigations. But the other thing to also highlight is that we would be required, the judge would be required to sign a certification. And one of the elements of that certification is that they carefully have reviewed and have received legal advice with regards to 8 USC 1373 and section 1644. And so one of those provisions means that we cannot withhold information from immigration officials. Presumably, if we already have individuals in our jails that have committed a crime, then we wouldn't withhold that information otherwise. But that is something that is also there. And then we also, there's no local government that can be prohibited from sending basically immigration status. So we couldn't impose a rule, right, that would allow us to withhold information with regards to those individuals in our custody if we do do a build-up. So those are just some of the things within the grant terms themselves. But again, I agree with Mr. Navarro's right that we would need to reevaluate the grant award and that the things that make us eligible for this grant are already on the basis of things we are doing and have accepted grant awards to continue to do. Thank you.

So my question with regards to building a facility or adding onto a current facility, I mean, would that facility be restricted to housing individuals who fall within the grant? Is that the type of facility or expansion we're talking about? I guess that's what I'm trying to understand. Is the funding, obviously they want it tied to the apprehension and prosecution and detention of this particular group of people. So is that what the facility, if we do expand, is that what that would be for? I mean, is that gonna be limited to that? And that, I mean, that really does concern me, because we're just encouraging more enforcement if we're building a new facility that now needs to be filled. And then are we gonna get reimbursed for those costs? Or is it gonna be like OLS, where we had to bear, the county had to bear all of those costs until we started receiving some of these small reimbursement amounts but nowhere near to offset what our expenses were so if all of a sudden we have a new facility and there's i don't know hundreds of people that fall under this category are there who's paying for that detention does this grant also pay for that detention or is that something the county's going to have to bear those are good points commissioner we have to bring those back that is what i think we need to bring back in the options of the different amounts and what what it obligates us to do

Yeah, we need to vet that one pretty good.

And commissioners, before we get off this item, just one more thing. There is a separate grant that local governments are not eligible to apply for, state governments are. And our government affairs team is working with our lobbyists and state delegation. And that one is separated apart for reimbursement purposes alone. So in conjunction with our community services and criminal justice support team with Joel Bishop, we are working on those numbers to see if we can continue pursuing reimbursement for past funds that we have yet to be reimbursed. This is separate and apart looking forward. But like Betsy said, we'll work on the analysis and bring some additional information forward.

Thank you. Thank you, Melissa.

Okay. So there's three different deadlines to apply. The court is basically saying we're not ready to give you that go-ahead yet. Okay. So there's nothing to approve right now? We won't get in on the first application deadline. We would get in on the second application deadline.

And we can only apply one application, so it is better to step back, give us a little bit more time. I mean, this is a really tight timeline to apply for this, and there's a lot of information that needs to go. It's prudent to just take a step back and have us evaluate it, and then we'll.

Thank you. Okay. Ruben, Georgian, thank you.

So no action at this time?

No.

Thank you. Item number 13A, budget and finance. Approve budget amendment number 34A to the El Paso County's 2025-2026 operating budget. This budgetary amendment is to transfer appropriations within the Sheriff's Office Support Services Division in the amount of $23,428. within the general fund to cover the cost of purchasing a tire balancer and brake lathe. This budgetary amendment will not increase or decrease the County of El Paso's 2025-2026 overall operating budget of $668,391,678.97.

Again, Carmen Arieta Candelaria, Budget and Finance Department. Judge Domingo, members of the Court, this is a budget amendment for the Sheriff's Office. This is just transfer appropriation within the Support Services Division, really an object code transfer. from um opposite expense general to the correct line item for this appropriate for this expense of the tire balancer and the brake brake lathe of 23 428 so it's just a transfer between one object code to the other and we do recommend approval for this budget amendment we have a motion to approve from commissioner olguin a second from judge samaniego the voting is open

Commissioner Butler and Coronado are absent. Motion carries.

Thank you, Coleman.

We have an item from executive session that we need to take action on first. Item number 14B, pursuant to Texas government code section 551.0725, discuss contract negotiations regarding the county's interlocal agreement with UTEP regarding the Build Back Better program.

Judge Commissioner Eric Rosales-Negaglione, Assistant County Attorney. We're asking for item 14B to be taken into executive session pursuant to Texas Government Code section 551.0725. The county is currently in negotiations with the University of Texas at El Paso, UTEP, for the Aerospace and Defense Innovation Network for Manufacturers through the Build Back Better grant. The county is now considering UTEP's request to amend the intralocal. Information to be discussed includes issues involving business and information related to the contract negotiations. The court must be free to discuss those issues without undermining the county's position. Assistant County Attorney Anna Schumacher determined that deliberation in an open meeting concerning the issues would have a detrimental effect on the position of the court in negotiations. We're asking that the court unanimously vote that deliberations in an open meeting would have that detrimental effect, that all deliberations take place in closed session, and we'd further request that the Commissioner's Court direct the County Administration Commissioner's Court reporters to ensure all proceedings in closed session be recorded. A copy of the legal memo has been provided to the County Administration Commissioner's Court reporters. to be made a part of the official court records. If the court agrees, I would need a motion and a second recorded vote at this time, please.

We have a motion from Commissioner Stout, a second from Commissioner Olguin. The voting is open. Commissioner Butler and Coronado are absent. Motion carries. Judge, would you like to go into executive session or would you like to do afternoon break now?

Just go to lunch, I guess, or?

Yes, sir. And then when we come back from lunch, we'll have the item that was to be taken after lunch and then executive session.

I think unless you're thinking we could, no? No, I think it's going to require some. No, we'll take a lunch break now. Be back at 1. Okay. Okay.

Commissioner's Court will recess till 1 p.m. It is 1152 a.m.

Hola, El Paso! June marked the official start of summer and El Paso County was hot with activities all month long and just in time for a huge 4th of July celebration. We all know this time of the year can be very hot for our county residents. In June, the county opened their cooling centers for residents to seek relief from the heat. The centers are located at the Agua Dulce, Fabens, Canutillo, and La Fe, Montana Vista community centers. They are open every day from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Residents have a place to cool off in an air-conditioned space, drink water, and enjoy some indoor activities while they stay out of the desert sun. The county's park bond projects are making progress from one end of the county to the other. On the eastern part of the county, work is almost complete at Agua Dulce Park as finishing touches are being put in place. Residents will have new amenities to look forward to including a new paved walking path. Then, on the western part of the county, work continues at Westway Park with repairs to the rock walls, walking trail installation, and new lighting is being put in place. The county is committed to completing all voter-approved bond projects on time and on budget. Azcárate Park is El Paso's gem, and during our third park bond meeting, residents received an update on feedback that was gathered during the first two meetings, including survey results, key themes, and community priorities that have helped to shape the project. Residents had the chance to review draft concepts regarding park improvements and learn about the anticipated benefits for park users and the surrounding community. In July, the community is encouraged to participate in weekly informational sessions regarding the park's duck pond. These sessions will be held every Wednesday in July at 6 p.m. at the Escada de Parque Pavilion. If you have an interest in what happens to the duck pond, you don't want to miss one of these meetings. The county kicked off their budget information sessions in June. The county is encouraging residents to take an active role in shaping the county's fiscal year 2027 budget by attending one of several community budget outreach sessions scheduled throughout the county. These meetings provide an opportunity for community members to share priorities, voice concerns, and offer input on services and programs that impact their neighborhoods. Feedback gathered during these outreach sessions will help county leadership better understand community needs and ensure that budget decisions reflect the priorities of El Paso County residents. El Paso County, in partnership with the El Paso Zoo and the Botanical Gardens, unveiled its newest AI-powered tourist kiosk. The kiosk is the newest addition to El Paso County's tourist kiosk program, an initiative designed to connect residents and visitors with attractions, cultural destinations, outdoor activities, and historical sites throughout El Paso County. The El Paso Zoo installation marks the first tourist kiosk partnership between El Paso County and a local attraction. The kiosk features a bilingual AI-powered interface with touch and voice navigation, helping visitors discover local attractions, museums, outdoor activities, the mission trail, and nearby points of interest. Come check it out! Our nation is 250 years old, and El Paso County is ready for the celebration. The County, in partnership with Fort Bliss and the 1st Armored Division, hosted a patriotic and festive event at Azcárate Park to include military vehicles on display, a band performance by the 1st Armored Division Band, picnic party, food trucks, swimming at the pool, and of course an awesome fireworks display for residents to take in. The county even commemorated our nation's 250th birthday with a customized coin that were distributed at the park. In partnership with the county's historical commission, the coin design celebrates the 250 years of our nation's endurance and freedom. In the Montana Vista area, our County Public Works team initiated a campaign to clean up the area from fireworks debris. The County established trash drop-off zones and even made trash bags available to residents to use for post-firework celebration. The El Paso County Sheriff's and Emergency Services Districts were out in full force to ensure residents had a safe and happy 4th of July. Thanks for watching this month's Packed County Connects. Stay tuned and make sure to stay cool and stay connected with El Paso County.

Thank you.

Hola, El Paso! June marked the official start of summer and El Paso County was hot with activities all month long and just in time for a huge 4th of July celebration. We all know this time of the year can be very hot for our county residents. In June, the county opened their cooling centers for residents to seek relief from the heat. The centers are located at the Agua Dulce, Fabens, Canutillo, and La Fe, Montana Vista community centers. They are open every day from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Residents have a place to cool off in an air-conditioned space, drink water, and enjoy some indoor activities while they stay out of the desert sun. The county's park bond projects are making progress from one end of the county to the other. On the eastern part of the county, work is almost complete at Agua Dulce Park as finishing touches are being put in place. Residents will have new amenities to look forward to including a new paved walking path. Then, on the western part of the county, work continues at Westway Park with repairs to the rock walls, walking trail installation, and new lighting is being put in place. The county is committed to completing all voter-approved bond projects on time and on budget. Azcárate Park is El Paso's gem, and during our third park bond meeting, residents received an update on feedback that was gathered during the first two meetings including survey results, key themes, and community priorities that have helped to shape the project. Residents had the chance to review draft concepts regarding park improvements and learn about the anticipated benefits for park users and the surrounding community. In July, the community is encouraged to participate in weekly informational sessions regarding the park's duck pond. These sessions will be held every Wednesday in July at 6 p.m. at the Escada de Parque Pavilion. If you have an interest in what happens to the duck pond, you don't want to miss one of these meetings. The county kicked off their budget information sessions in June. The county is encouraging residents to take an active role in shaping the county's fiscal year 2027 budget by attending one of several community budget outreach sessions scheduled throughout the county. These meetings provide an opportunity for community members to share priorities, voice concerns, and offer input on services and programs that impact their neighborhoods. Feedback gathered during these outreach sessions will help county leadership better understand community needs and ensure that budget decisions reflect the priorities of El Paso County residents. El Paso County, in partnership with the El Paso Zoo and the Botanical Gardens, unveiled its newest AI powered tourist kiosk. The kiosk is the newest addition to El Paso County's tourist kiosk program, an initiative designed to connect residents and visitors with attractions, cultural destinations, outdoor activities, and historical sites throughout El Paso County. The El Paso Zoo installation marks the first tourist kiosk partnership between El Paso County and a local attraction. The kiosk features a bilingual AI-powered interface with touch and voice navigation, helping visitors discover local attractions, museums, outdoor activities, the mission trail, and nearby points of interest. Come check it out! Our nation is 250 years old, and El Paso County is ready for the celebration. The County, in partnership with Fort Bliss and the 1st Armored Division, hosted a patriotic and festive event at Azcárate Park to include military vehicles on display, a band performance by the 1st Armored Division Band, picnic party, food trucks, swimming at the pool, and of course an awesome fireworks display for residents to take in. The county even commemorated our nation's 250th birthday with a customized coin that were distributed at the park. In partnership with the county's historical commission, the coin design celebrates the 250 years of our nation's endurance and freedom. In the Montana Vista area, our County Public Works team initiated a campaign to clean up the area from fireworks debris. The County established trash drop-off zones and even made trash bags available to residents to use for post-firework celebration. The El Paso County Sheriff's and Emergency Services Districts were out in full force to ensure residents had a safe and happy 4th of July. Thanks for watching this month's Packed County Connects. Stay tuned and make sure to stay cool and stay connected with El Paso County. Hola, El Paso! June marked the official start of summer and El Paso County was hot with activities all month long and just in time for a huge 4th of July celebration. We all know this time of the year can be very hot for our county residents. In June, the county opened their cooling centers for residents to seek relief from the heat. The centers are located at the Agua Dulce, Fabens, Canutillo, and La Fe, Montana Vista community centers. They are open every day from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Residents have a place to cool off in an air-conditioned space, drink water, and enjoy some indoor activities while they stay out of the desert sun. The county's park bond projects are making progress from one end of the county to the other. On the eastern part of the county, work is almost complete at Agua Dulce Park as finishing touches are being put in place. Residents will have new amenities to look forward to including a new paved walking path. Then, on the western part of the county, work continues at Westway Park with repairs to the rock walls, walking trail installation, and new lighting is being put in place. The county is committed to completing all voter-approved bond projects on time and on budget. Azcárate Park is El Paso's gem, and during our third park bond meeting, residents received an update on feedback that was gathered during the first two meetings, including survey results, key themes, and community priorities that have helped to shape the project. Residents had the chance to review draft concepts regarding park improvements and learn about the anticipated benefits for park users and the surrounding community. In July, the community is encouraged to participate in weekly informational sessions regarding the park's duck pond. These sessions will be held every Wednesday in July at 6 p.m. at the Escada de Park Pavilion. If you have an interest in what happens to the duck pond, you don't want to miss one of these meetings. The county kicked off their budget information sessions in June. The county is encouraging residents to take an active role in shaping the county's fiscal year 2027 budget by attending one of several community budget outreach sessions scheduled throughout the county. These meetings provide an opportunity for community members to share priorities, voice concerns, and offer input on services and programs that impact their neighborhoods. Feedback gathered during these outreach sessions will help county leadership better understand community needs and ensure that budget decisions reflect the priorities of El Paso County residents. El Paso County, in partnership with the El Paso Zoo and the Botanical Gardens, unveiled its newest AI powered tourist kiosk. The kiosk is the newest addition to El Paso County's tourist kiosk program, an initiative designed to connect residents and visitors with attractions, cultural destinations, outdoor activities, and historical sites throughout El Paso County. The El Paso Zoo installation marks the first tourist kiosk partnership between El Paso County and a local attraction. The kiosk features a bilingual AI-powered interface with touch and voice navigation, helping visitors discover local attractions, museums, outdoor activities, the mission trail, and nearby points of interest. Come check it out! Our nation is 250 years old, and El Paso County is ready for the celebration. The County, in partnership with Fort Bliss and the 1st Armored Division, hosted a patriotic and festive event at Azcárate Park to include military vehicles on display, a band performance by the 1st Armored Division Band, picnic party, food trucks, swimming at the pool, and of course an awesome fireworks display for residents to take in. The county even commemorated our nation's 250th birthday with a customized coin that were distributed at the park. In partnership with the county's historical commission, the coin design celebrates the 250 years of our nation's endurance and freedom. In the Montana Vista area, our County Public Works team initiated a campaign to clean up the area from fireworks debris. The County established trash drop-off zones and even made trash bags available to residents to use for post-firework celebration. The El Paso County Sheriff's and Emergency Services Districts were out in full force to ensure residents had a safe and happy 4th of July. Thanks for watching this month's Packed County Connects. Stay tuned and make sure to stay cool and stay connected with El Paso County.

Thank you. you

Hola El Paso, June marked the official start of summer and El Paso County was hot with activities all month long and just in time for a huge 4th of July celebration. We all know this time of the year can be very hot for our county residents. In June, the county opened their cooling centers for residents to seek relief from the heat. The centers are located at the Agua Dulce, Fabens, Canutillo, and La Fe, Montana Vista community centers. They are open every day from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Residents have a place to cool off in an air-conditioned space, drink water, and enjoy some indoor activities while they stay out of the desert sun. The county's park bond projects are making progress from one end of the county to the other. On the eastern part of the county, work is almost complete at Agua Dulce Park as finishing touches are being put in place. Residents will have new amenities to look forward to including a new paved walking path. Then, on the western part of the county, work continues at Westway Park with repairs to the rock walls, walking trail installation, and new lighting is being put in place. The county is committed to completing all voter-approved bond projects on time and on budget. Azcárate Park is El Paso's gem, and during our third park bond meeting, residents received an update on feedback that was gathered during the first two meetings including survey results, key themes, and community priorities that have helped to shape the project. Residents had the chance to review draft concepts regarding park improvements and learn about the anticipated benefits for park users and the surrounding community. In July, the community is encouraged to participate in weekly informational sessions regarding the park's duck pond. These sessions will be held every Wednesday in July at 6 p.m. at the Escada de Park Pavilion. If you have an interest in what happens to the duck pond, you don't want to miss one of these meetings. The county kicked off their budget information sessions in June. The county is encouraging residents to take an active role in shaping the county's fiscal year 2027 budget by attending one of several community budget outreach sessions scheduled throughout the county. These meetings provide an opportunity for community members to share priorities, voice concerns, and offer input on services and programs that impact their neighborhoods. Feedback gathered during these outreach sessions will help county leadership better understand community needs and ensure that budget decisions reflect the priorities of El Paso County residents. El Paso County, in partnership with the El Paso Zoo and the Botanical Gardens, unveiled its newest AI-powered tourist kiosk. The kiosk is the newest addition to El Paso County's tourist kiosk program, an initiative designed to connect residents and visitors with attractions, cultural destinations, outdoor activities, and historical sites throughout El Paso County. The El Paso Zoo installation marks the first tourist kiosk partnership between El Paso County and a local attraction. The kiosk features a bilingual AI-powered interface with touch and voice navigation, helping visitors discover local attractions, museums, outdoor activities, the mission trail, and nearby points of interest. Come check it out! Our nation is 250 years old, and El Paso County is ready for the celebration. The County, in partnership with Fort Bliss and the 1st Armored Division, hosted a patriotic and festive event at Azcárate Park to include military vehicles on display, a band performance by the 1st Armored Division Band, picnic party, food trucks, swimming at the pool, and of course an awesome fireworks display for residents to take in. The county even commemorated our nation's 250th birthday with a customized coin that were distributed at the park. In partnership with the county's historical commission, the coin design celebrates the 250 years of our nation's endurance and freedom. In the Montana Vista area, our County Public Works team initiated a campaign to clean up the area from fireworks debris. The County established trash drop-off zones and even made trash bags available to residents to use for post-firework celebration. The El Paso County Sheriff's and Emergency Services Districts were out in full force to ensure residents had a safe and happy 4th of July. Thanks for watching this month's Packed County Connects. Stay tuned and make sure to stay cool and stay connected with El Paso County.

Bye. Thank you.

Hola, El Paso! June marked the official start of summer and El Paso County was hot with activities all month long and just in time for a huge 4th of July celebration. We all know this time of the year can be very hot for our county residents. In June, the county opened their cooling centers for residents to seek relief from the heat. The centers are located at the Agua Dulce, Fabens, Canutillo, and La Fe, Montana Vista community centers. They are open every day from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Residents have a place to cool off in an air-conditioned space, drink water, and enjoy some indoor activities while they stay out of the desert sun. The county's park bond projects are making progress from one end of the county to the other. On the eastern part of the county, work is almost complete at Agua Dulce Park as finishing touches are being put in place. Residents will have new amenities to look forward to including a new paved walking path. Then, on the western part of the county, work continues at Westway Park with repairs to the rock walls, walking trail installation, and new lighting is being put in place. The county is committed to completing all voter approved bond projects on time and on budget. Azcárate Park is El Paso's gem, and during our third park bond meeting, residents received an update on feedback that was gathered during the first two meetings including survey results, key themes, and community priorities that have helped to shape the project. Residents had the chance to review draft concepts regarding park improvements and learn about the anticipated benefits for park users and the surrounding community. In July, the community is encouraged to participate in weekly informational sessions regarding the park's duck pond. These sessions will be held every Wednesday in July at 6 p.m. at the Escada de Parque Pavilion. If you have an interest in what happens to the duck pond, you don't want to miss one of these meetings. The county kicked off their budget information sessions in June. The county is encouraging residents to take an active role in shaping the county's fiscal year 2027 budget by attending one of several community budget outreach sessions scheduled throughout the county. These meetings provide an opportunity for community members to share priorities, voice concerns, and offer input on services and programs that impact their neighborhoods. Feedback gathered during these outreach sessions will help county leadership better understand community needs and ensure that budget decisions reflect the priorities of El Paso County residents. El Paso County, in partnership with the El Paso Zoo and the Botanical Gardens, unveiled its newest AI-powered tourist kiosk. The kiosk is the newest addition to El Paso County's tourist kiosk program, an initiative designed to connect residents and visitors with attractions, cultural destinations, outdoor activities, and historical sites throughout El Paso County. The El Paso Zoo installation marks the first tourist kiosk partnership between El Paso County and a local attraction. The kiosk features a bilingual AI-powered interface with touch and voice navigation, helping visitors discover local attractions, museums, outdoor activities, the mission trail, and nearby points of interest. Come check it out! Our nation is 250 years old, and El Paso County is ready for the celebration. The County, in partnership with Fort Bliss and the 1st Armored Division, hosted a patriotic and festive event at Azcárate Park to include military vehicles on display, a band performance by the 1st Armored Division Band, picnic party, food trucks, swimming at the pool, and of course an awesome fireworks display for residents to take in. The county even commemorated our nation's 250th birthday with a customized coin that were distributed at the park. In partnership with the county's historical commission, the coin design celebrates the 250 years of our nation's endurance and freedom. In the Montana Vista area, our County Public Works team initiated a campaign to clean up the area from fireworks debris. The County established trash drop-off zones and even made trash bags available to residents to use for post-firework celebration. The El Paso County Sheriff's and Emergency Services Districts were out in full force to ensure residents had a safe and happy 4th of July. Thanks for watching this month's Packed County Connects. Stay tuned and make sure to stay cool and stay connected with El Paso County.

Bye. Thank you.

Hola, El Paso! June marked the official start of summer and El Paso County was hot with activities all month long and just in time for a huge 4th of July celebration. We all know this time of the year can be very hot for our county residents. In June, the county opened their cooling centers for residents to seek relief from the heat. The centers are located at the Agua Dulce, Fabens, Canutillo, and La Fe, Montana Vista community centers. They are open every day from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Residents have a place to cool off in an air-conditioned space, drink water, and enjoy some indoor activities while they stay out of the desert sun. The county's park bond projects are making progress from one end of the county to the other. On the eastern part of the county, work is almost complete at Agua Dulce Park as finishing touches are being put in place. Residents will have new amenities to look forward to including a new paved walking path. Then, on the western part of the county, work continues at Westway Park with repairs to the rock walls, walking trail installation, and new lighting is being put in place. The county is committed to completing all voter-approved bond projects on time and on budget. Azcárate Park is El Paso's gem, and during our third park bond meeting, residents received an update on feedback that was gathered during the first two meetings, including survey results, key themes, and community priorities that have helped to shape the project. Residents had the chance to review draft concepts regarding park improvements and learn about the anticipated benefits for park users and the surrounding community. In July, the community is encouraged to participate in weekly informational sessions regarding the park's duck pond. These sessions will be held every Wednesday in July at 6 p.m. at the Escada de Parque Pavilion. If you have an interest in what happens to the duck pond, you don't want to miss one of these meetings. The county kicked off their budget information sessions in June. The county is encouraging residents to take an active role in shaping the county's fiscal year 2027 budget by attending one of several community budget outreach sessions scheduled throughout the county. These meetings provide an opportunity for community members to share priorities, voice concerns, and offer input on services and programs that impact their neighborhoods. Feedback gathered during these outreach sessions will help county leadership better understand community needs and ensure that budget decisions reflect the priorities of El Paso County residents. El Paso County, in partnership with the El Paso Zoo and the Botanical Gardens, unveiled its newest AI-powered tourist kiosk. The kiosk is the newest addition to El Paso County's tourist kiosk program, an initiative designed to connect residents and visitors with attractions, cultural destinations, outdoor activities, and historical sites throughout El Paso County. The El Paso Zoo installation marks the first tourist kiosk partnership between El Paso County and a local attraction. The kiosk features a bilingual AI-powered interface with touch and voice navigation, helping visitors discover local attractions, museums, outdoor activities, the mission trail, and nearby points of interest. Come check it out! Our nation is 250 years old, and El Paso County is ready for the celebration. The County, in partnership with Fort Bliss and the 1st Armored Division, hosted a patriotic and festive event at Azcárate Park to include military vehicles on display, a band performance by the 1st Armored Division Band, picnic party, food trucks, swimming at the pool, and of course an awesome fireworks display for residents to take in. The county even commemorated our nation's 250th birthday with a customized coin that were distributed at the park. In partnership with the county's historical commission, the coin design celebrates the 250 years of our nation's endurance and freedom. In the Montana Vista area, our County Public Works team initiated a campaign to clean up the area from fireworks debris. The County established trash drop-off zones and even made trash bags available to residents to use for post-firework celebration. The El Paso County Sheriff's and Emergency Services Districts were out in full force to ensure residents had a safe and happy 4th of July. Thanks for watching this month's Packed County Connects. Stay tuned and make sure to stay cool and stay connected with El Paso County.

Thank you. Thank you.

Hola, El Paso! June marked the official start of summer and El Paso County was hot with activities all month long and just in time for a huge 4th of July celebration. We all know this time of the year can be very hot for our county residents. In June, the county opened their cooling centers for residents to seek relief from the heat. The centers are located at the Agua Dulce, Fabens, Canutillo, and La Fe, Montana Vista community centers. They are open every day from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Residents have a place to cool off in an air-conditioned space, drink water, and enjoy some indoor activities while they stay out of the desert sun. The county's park bond projects are making progress from one end of the county to the other. On the eastern part of the county, work is almost complete at Agua Dulce Park as finishing touches are being put in place. Residents will have new amenities to look forward to including a new paved walking path. Then, on the western part of the county, work continues at Westway Park with repairs to the rock walls, walking trail installation, and new lighting is being put in place. The county is committed to completing all voter-approved bond projects on time and on budget. Azcárate Park is El Paso's gem, and during our third park bond meeting, residents received an update on feedback that was gathered during the first two meetings, including survey results, key themes, and community priorities that have helped to shape the project. Residents had the chance to review draft concepts regarding park improvements and learn about the anticipated benefits for park users and the surrounding community. In July, the community is encouraged to participate in weekly informational sessions regarding the park's duck pond. These sessions will be held every Wednesday in July at 6 p.m. at the Escada de Park Pavilion. If you have an interest in what happens to the duck pond, you don't want to miss one of these meetings. The county kicked off their budget information sessions in June. The county is encouraging residents to take an active role in shaping the county's fiscal year 2027 budget by attending one of several community budget outreach sessions scheduled throughout the county. These meetings provide an opportunity for community members to share priorities, voice concerns, and offer input on services and programs that impact their neighborhoods. Feedback gathered during these outreach sessions will help county leadership better understand community needs and ensure that budget decisions reflect the priorities of El Paso County residents. El Paso County, in partnership with the El Paso Zoo and the Botanical Gardens, unveiled its newest AI-powered tourist kiosk. The kiosk is the newest addition to El Paso County's tourist kiosk program, an initiative designed to connect residents and visitors with attractions, cultural destinations, outdoor activities, and historical sites throughout El Paso County. The El Paso Zoo installation marks the first tourist kiosk partnership between El Paso County and a local attraction. The kiosk features a bilingual AI-powered interface with touch and voice navigation, helping visitors discover local attractions, museums, outdoor activities, the mission trail, and nearby points of interest. Come check it out! Our nation is 250 years old, and El Paso County is ready for the celebration. The County, in partnership with Fort Bliss and the 1st Armored Division, hosted a patriotic and festive event at Azcárate Park to include military vehicles on display, a band performance by the 1st Armored Division Band, picnic party, food trucks, swimming at the pool, and of course an awesome fireworks display for residents to take in. The County even commemorated our nation's 250th birthday with a customized coin that were distributed at the park. In partnership with the County's Historical Commission, the coin design celebrates the 250 years of our nation's endurance and freedom. In the Montana Vista area, our County Public Works team initiated a campaign to clean up the area from fireworks debris. The County established trash drop-off zones and even made trash bags available to residents to use for post-firework celebration. The El Paso County sheriffs and emergency services districts were out in full force to ensure residents had a safe and happy 4th of July. Go ahead.

Commissioner's Court has reconvened into regular open session. It is 1 0 7 PM. We were on item number 10, a litigation justice and law enforcement receive a presentation from the center for effective public policy regarding their justice system analysis and recommendations.

Excuse me. Yes. don't want to take out the county administrator good afternoon judge commissioners um joel bishop with county administration this is going to be an overview a presentation overview of the project we started over a year ago with the partnership with the Center for Effective Public Policy to evaluate the county's front end justice system processes and basically a light legal analysis that they provided as well. They also co-funded the project with us, which minimized the cost to the county, which was great. They've been great partners. The focus here was to focus on constitutional and statutory requirements governing probable cause determinations, bail decisions, and summons issuances, things like that, attorney presence, access to case materials, the sequencing of arrests, bookings, hearings, and our processes in the jail, operational safeguards, interagency coordination, and the systems that are currently in place. and discovery practices, direct observation of individuals moving through the process and other such things. They were able to be on site several times last year and look at the processes. They've had many, many meetings. They presented to our Justice Leadership Council already on what they've observed with their recommendations and what they call opportunities for enhancements in our systems processes. I wanted to just briefly introduce the two consultants that were with CEPP on this. They are very well known in the justice field nationally. They do a tremendous amount of work and they're doing work across the United States and other justice systems helping them problem solve similar situations. Matt Alsdorf was a Yale Law School graduate. He's the Associate Director of the Center for Effective Public Policy and the Co-Director of Advancing Pretrial Policy and Research, where he advises courts and criminal justice systems nationwide on constitutional pretrial practices. First appearance hearings, bail, and system modernization. As a former Vice President of Criminal Justice Arnold Ventures, he directed a national criminal justice portfolio focused on evidence-based reform. Mr. Alsdorf is also a former litigator and has taught criminal procedure at Fordham University School of Law, served as a visiting lecturer at Yale Law School, and taught constitutional law at Yale College. He's widely recognized as a national authority on pretrial justice and has provided training and technical assistance to judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and policy makers across the country. So he really worked on this project with CEPP and one of their consulting groups. to really analyze some of our challenges that we asked them to. Unfortunately, Matt could not be here today, so Ms. Tara Blair is going to present for CEPP today. She is a senior manager with CEPP and a nationally recognized expert in pretrial services, court operations, and criminal justice systems improvement. I've been familiar with with Tara and I've known her for many years. She is truly an expert in the field. She's won some of the top level awards in the field for her work and we are very privileged to have her as part of this project. She served. Before joining CEPP, she served for more than 26 years with the Kentucky Administrative Office of the Courts, including the executive officer for the Department of Pretrial Services, where she led one of the nation's largest statewide pretrial programs. And throughout her career, she has developed statewide policies, risk assessment practices, data management systems, and many other programs. She provides technical assistance across the country to various jurisdictions, and she's really been a great help on this. We really appreciate her. And so she's gonna provide an overview now for the court. And with that, I'll go ahead and turn it over to Ms. Blair. Thank you for being with us today, Ms. Blair.

Welcome, Terrell. We appreciate you being here.

Thank you. Do I need to share my screen for the slides or do you all have that up?

We have it here. We have it. We can just ask us to advance the slide, please.

Okay, you can go ahead and advance. Well, thank you. It's a pleasure to be here with you all today and to present some of our findings in this report. So once again, thank you. I wanted to start by just, you know, revisiting the purpose of this analysis, and this narrative came directly from the statement of work, and that's to conduct a comprehensive front-end analysis of El Paso's pretrial justice system to evaluate operational efficiency and provide review of current practices. THE GOAL IS TO PRODUCE ACTIONABLE INSIGHTS AND RECOMMENDATIONS THAT STRENGTHEN EFFICIENCY OF DEFENDANT AND CASE PROCESSING, UPHOLD DUE PROCESS PROTECTIONS, REDUCE UNNECESSARY ATTENTION, SUPPORT ALTERNATIVES TO INCARCERATION WHILE REASONABLY AND APPROPRIATELY DRIVE SYSTEM-WIDE IMPROVEMENTS AND PROVIDE ANALYSIS OF CURRENT PRACTICES. NEXT SLIDE, PLEASE.

JUST EXCUSE ME, TARA, REAL QUICK. BETSY, DID WE INVITE ANYONE, LIKE THE SHERIFF OR ANYBODY?

We have presented this, Judge, to the different organizations throughout the process. Okay. So this final, so we've presented through JLCC and different, to different groups that this does impact. So this is the final public presentation for the court and.

Just want to know if the sheriff was online or anybody else online or?

I don't know if they're online today, Judge, but they did receive, all of the stakeholders involved, including the sheriff, received a copy, and we received feedback from them, made sure it was incorporated from whoever provided feedback. We already presented to them previously, so I'm not sure if any of their representatives are online.

Yes, Judge, and this is the exact same presentation that we made to the board, so they've already seen the exact slides. So, moving on, so our philosophy is that all stakeholders share a commitment to a pretrial system, right, that follows the law, including the rights of the defendants. that adheres to the best practices in the field, of course enhances community safety and well-being, promotes equity, and makes the best, most efficient use of limited resources. And sort of the goal of this project was to identify those opportunities specifically for El Paso to improve its pretrial system in ways that advance these principles. Next slide, please. So some of the opportunities for improvement, you know, in the pre-trial phase, we like to advance these principles, meaning to avoid unnecessary delays and making those critical decisions and that those decisions are consistent with the law and with the best available information about arrest, booking, pre-trial, release detention, release conditions and charging. We think that decisions should be intentional and should be made at each touch point during the process and that the jail should be reserved for those who need to be there. And I will say that in the work that I've done in El Paso, El Paso already does a really good job of managing the jail population. So part of this work was to make the process more efficient. to help with that jail population, knowing that El Paso already does a really good job at managing their jail population. It's more of helping the very front end of the system become more efficient with the finite resources that the county has. Next slide, please. So again, this approach we feel provides benefits across multi-jurisdictions, I mean, multi-stakeholder disciplines. Of course, law enforcement time and resources, jail occupancy and budget, also weighing those rights of those going through the system, court, prosecution, and defense resources, and of course, public safety. Next slide, please. So what the process included, as Joel had already mentioned, that we did make three site visits last year in June, September, and November. Then we had, it says multiple, but we had numerous follow-up conversations with stakeholders to continue to get that input and feedback. So every step of the way, we engaged with those stakeholders. We had group conversations, plus we had individual conversations, but we wanted to make sure that everybody had a voice and that they were heard. and they had the opportunity to give feedback. We also reviewed the available data. My colleague, Matt, who's not with us today, who is an attorney by training, he did a review of the Texas law. But as a disclaimer, everything that we have in the report and these opportunities do not constitute a legal opinion. These are just a legal analysis that Mr. Outsource did. And then we also reviewed selective practices in other Texas jurisdictions, just so we could get a handle on how things were going throughout your state. Next slide, please. So overall, this is just the executive summary, and I'm going to go through each one of the recommendations and the opportunities one by one, but I wanted to give you the big picture first. And again, I also want to recognize El Paso as already being a leader, not only in the state of Texas, but throughout the nation. You already implemented 24-7 magistration. You have the dedicated 48-hour bond hearings. You're already using validated pretrial risk assessments. You have structured pretrial services. And from what we've seen, and that's unlike other jurisdictions, I really feel like the stakeholders there in El Paso, they really share that unified goal. of not only maintaining that appropriate jail population, but also promoting public safety. So I do want to do a shout out to all the amazing work that you already do. But even being a model, of course, for Texas, I also want to commend you all for taking that next step and saying, even though we're doing all of these great things, how can we make it more efficient and more effective? So we balance the report with two different sections. One are recommendations, are things that we are recommending be implemented, and then the others are opportunities, would be more of like a best practice and an opportunity for improvement. So I'm going to go through each one of these, but the first one was expanding the use of DIMS, implementing remote case processing, restructuring booking and custody transfer, strengthening those 15-17 hearings and having more of an adversarial participation. Some of the opportunities that we saw was maybe even having an on-site prosecutorial review at jail intake during those peak times, improving the overnight den staffing and compensation for those lawyers who volunteer to work those night shifts, Accelerated case filing, charges filed quickly and as quickly as possible, even before a first appearance if possible. And then also to expand on the use of citations and summons to cut down on the number of custodial arrest people entering the jail. Next slide, please. So we're going to go into each one of these with more detail. So the first recommendation was to expand the use of DIMS to 100% of eligible cases. And we use that word eligible cases because not all cases are appropriate for DIMS. A lot of your high-level cases, your serious cases that involve an investigation, the Prosecutors are already working with law enforcement, so those wouldn't be really appropriate for DIMS. So we're talking about those cases that are eligible for DIMS. And based on the data that we had at the time that we did this analysis, a little bit more than 40% was currently using DIMS. 30% of those cases that went through DIMMs were declined. And at the time, the average jail emissions were 59 a day. So I give you that data just in context to see the kind of numbers that we're dealing with and why do we think universal DIM screening matters. Well, one, it prevents legally insufficient cases from entering the jail, right? So if you have a DIM screening at the scene or from the substation and the prosecutor deems that that's not a case that can be prosecuted, then those individuals can be released from the scene or from the substation and not even have to come to the jail. It also reduces unnecessary transports, bookings, and detentions. As we know, The city and the county pay a lot of money for transports. I mean, public safety is very important, but we also spend a lot of money on transporting people, booking people, and detaining people for very short periods of time when El Paso already has a high release rate. We think it also promotes consistency and fairness in charging decisions, and that it also creates those opportunities to expand on citations or summonses or even diversion programs. What we expect the impact to be, and I know when we presented this at the last board meeting, you know, it was mentioned that, you know, DIMS is not the panacea, right? It's not going to fix all the problems. And we understand that. And you're not going to see a vast reduction in jail emissions. But we really feel that the increased use of DIMS, that early screening of cases, that you would see a measurably reduction in jail emissions. We also feel like it would improve prosecutorial efficiency, right? That's fewer later cases that are dismissed. And it also would reduce indigent defense costs from decline cases because another best practice that El Paso has is that they have assigned public defenders to represent people at that 48-hour hearing. So again, if there's going to be an early screening, then that's less cases that the public defender's office has to represent at that 48-hour hearing. And then lastly, it would shift the system towards more intentional data-informed gatekeeping. So again, screening cases early, quickly, can reduce all of the unnecessary detention, and we feel it could save county money in the long run.

Next slide, please. Can I ask a question before you move on to the next slide? Yes. So do we have any ideas as to why only 40% or less than 40% of eligible cases are using DIMS? Do we know what's causing that?

At this point, I believe, and I may refer to Joel, but in our experience, it feels like DIMS is discretionary and it's optional. It's not a mandatory required thing for law enforcement to utilize.

Yeah, and I think if the district attorney were here in the JLCC meeting, they audited it recently, and they feel like there was, in their recent audit, there was a higher utilization than that. So we don't, the magistrates report a lower use, and there's just, it's hard to know for sure. It was encouraging to hear the DA say that they, in the week they audited, a couple of months ago, or last month, that there was more utilization. But a lot of it is the, you know, most of this is with the EPPD and their use of DIMS. I know our Sheriff's Office does use it 100% of eligible cases. The question is do the police, in their recent audit, they felt like it had improved. But as Tara's pointing out, this is one of the biggest opportunities is to make sure we maximize that investment that the county is using. And we did meet, as part of this process, we did meet with the police. And I think they had, we met extensively with them. I was with the consultants as we met with their leadership teams and even some of their line staff. They had some legitimate concerns about dims and even wait times. That's where some of the recommendations on uh, turning compensation and making sure we're fully staffed at the busy times was important. So, um, we really heard them out and I think they did, you know, I think the police has, they have a perspective that needs to be considered. But, um, but overall I think everybody wants to make sure we maximize that dims use. Because it's a big investment, and as Tara's pointing out, that can really cut off some cases from ever coming into the jail that are just going to be dismissed or declined anyway. I don't know if that makes sense.

Sure. So we're addressing some of the concerns that PD brought up that they believe results in a lower DIMS usage for them. We're addressing those?

I believe so, and I think, you know, I don't want to speak for our district attorney, but I know he was hearing the concerns, and he agreed that they needed, in fact, I think they added staffing to certain times to try to address that, and maybe that's why we've seen a more recent increase in the use of DIMS. But I know that he understands, he's heard the perspective as well. And I think our magistrates kind of have their pulse, their finger on the pulse of this issue, and it's important to keep in touch with them. And Judge Acosta was also part of the conversations. But, yeah, one of the recommendations I think Tara will get to is making sure that there's an ongoing focus. Like, you know, even they've agreed to have an internal work group to focus on the topic of DIMS to make sure the use is maximized. Okay. Did I cover everything there, Tara? Yes, thank you. Okay.

Thank you.

So the next recommendation is implementing remote case processing where feasible because currently the way that it's set up is the probable cost determinations and the CJC interviews are conducted in person at the jail 24-7, which is a great process. Having that 24-7 process is a very best practice. That's a good thing. But it also requires physical transport before those key decisions can be made. And, you know, El Paso, a couple slides later, I'll show you, El Paso is already releasing a high percentage of individuals. So we're just trying to expedite and be more efficient in people that we know are already going to get out because they can be safely released. So, again, implementing this remote case processing, it could, for law enforcement, reduce time waiting at the jail. And I do know that they have officers now stationed there in shifts. So a lot of the arresting officers are not having to wait as long. So they are able to return to parole quickly. But again, this would... Save time for those officers that are stationed at the jail, and you may not even need them stationed at the jail. If you implemented this process, we feel that there wouldn't be any additional staff needed for individuals. This is a faster release determination, shorter custody again, avoids unnecessary detention. And then for the overall system. we feel like having this remote case processing can lower booking and medical costs, it's less intake burden on the jail staff, and it's a powerful early intervention tool. And when we talk about remote processing, of remote processing. So a lot of times that probable calls review that the magistrates do, they could be doing that remotely while the individual's at the substation, right? So that, and if there's not probable calls found, then that person can be released immediately and not even have to be transported. We could also implement, you know, CJC, they're already doing some remote interviews. But if you expand it on that to do additional remote interviews, that will help with that backlog because what you find is when there's multiple people transported down to the jail at one point, CJC gets behind because there's massive amounts of people. So if you could do that throughout the night, throughout the day and throughout the night remotely, that cuts down on some of that backlog at the jail.

Would that require investment in technology? What would we need to do to be able to do the remote case processing?

There is some investment to make sure it works at the substations. There's already some test cases going on working with one of the substations to try to get the process going. It is important, and I know the DA or the sheriff has, he prefers the remote processing, if we can, from the CJC, so that's something where one of the changes we're trying to make with the, even with the remodel that's happening, we're talking about dedicated virtual places where they can take the defendants, and we can have those not only remote from the jail and intake, but remote from the substations. So they're in a place that can do that. So there may be a need for a little bit of investment, but it will have a big return.

Okay.

So the next recommendation, recommendation number three is, and this I think you're already working on with the jail remodel, but it's just restructuring that booking and custody transfer process. Because at the time that we did the report, the median jail arrival to booking time was 8.42 hours. And again, some of that's because the backlog, like the bus would come and multiple, they bring 20 people at once and there would be that clog with CJC trying to do the work. So again, you know, our recommendation is to restructure that process the current process is that 1517 is held before booking and then medical screening occurs after that hearing but law enforcement retains custody throughout that process right so that means that the officers are tied up for eight plus hours on average And we're calling this, it's almost like a de facto detention of the police officers. Understanding now that El Paso PD does have staff that are assigned to the jail to wait with the defendants. But again, I think if the process has changed, you may not need that extra step because the arresting officer then could make the transfer. So what we're proposing is that immediately that medical screening comes first. So as soon as they arrive, they're medically screened. and then if they're cleared then the custody at that point transfers to the sheriff immediately so that way the officer is relieved and can return back to parole we're also recommending that the sheriff's office create like a case shell in the system at that time of custody that's going to help you all track the true amount of time that it takes to get through this process and that allows for other stakeholders to have access to that information and then with the transports We're also recommending more frequent, smaller volume transports to avoid that backlog and that clogging of people.

How long does the medical screening usually take? Like for your first proposal medical screening upon arrival, like what are we thinking that time period is going to be?

I think it's 10 or 15 minutes. It doesn't take very long. They're just making sure they're able to be, they don't need to turn them away. One of the problems is if they take an individual who's not medically cleared to come into the jail and then they have to call the officer back after they've left. So it is important that that screen gets done before the officers leave.

They'd only have to stay for 10, 15 minutes as opposed to the eight hours.

Right. The medical screen of a body scan needs to be done as well. There's a few things that could be done at the front end while the officer is still there, but then for us to receive the defendant and allow the officer to leave is the primary goal. I think Tara might mention this, but Dr. Fabello had the same recommendation when we looked at this six, seven years ago, really saying we need to do an earlier, we need to take custody earlier as a county or the sheriff's office and then let the officers go. I know it's more complex than that. It's easier said than done, but that is definitely a recommendation we're going to try to implement. It was part of the reason why we did the remodel. The county invested in the remodel to modernize the flow. to fit our processes from a jail that was built 43 years ago. So.

Thank you. Thank you, Joel. So and then lastly, the recommendation is to strengthen the initial appearance hearings under Article 1517. And as I was alluding to before, El Paso already releases a high percentage of individuals very quickly. So the data that we had available at the time showed that more than half of the people that were booked into the jail were released. And they were released either by posting a monetary bond or by getting a PR or recognizance release. So that's a very high number. So knowing that that many people were going to be released that quickly, that's why we feel like changing these processes and implementing the other policies, that number would probably get lower because those people would not even come to the jail. Knowing they're going to be released immediately, if we can get them released either by citation or by probable cause or by releasing from the substation because one of the things that we're recommending is that those magistrates they still have the discretion to release people from at that point when they're making that probable cause determination they can they have the authority as long as it's not an SB9 case, they can release that person from the substation and prevent all of that work at the jail. So we also know with the data that 89% of people are released within 72 hours of booking. So again, this is a very high number. So El Paso is not holding individuals in jail very long. So anything that you all can do as a county to To expedite that or not even have those people enter the jail, I think will go a long way because you all have very high release rates already. So it says that all of the processes that you all have already done have been very efficient and very effective. I can tell you in the work that I do across the country, there are very few jurisdictions that have release rates that high. Most of them are substantially lower, and they have severe jail population issues. So again, I want to congratulate El Paso just on all the work you've done up until today to have these amazing outcomes. So with the proposed structure, we're proposing a single first appearance with both prosecutor and defense present with all of the information they need to advocate. We would suggest that this hearing be held within 24 to 48 hours of booking. And we would also propose that as many charges as possible be filed by the prosecutor before that hearing. And then as I said earlier, there's a lot of people that the magistrates are releasing really quickly. We would not want to change that. We would not want individuals to have to stay in jail even if it's a matter of two hours, three hours, four hours. We would not want that to stop. So magistrates would still retain that discretion to hold a hearing earlier like they do now in the magistration and release people quickly. And why do we feel like this matters? Having a defined charge and not a preliminary arrest narrative is going to help the court and the magistrates make decisions. It's going to help the defense counsel to be able to respond to specific allegations. Release conditions can be tailored to the actual charge. And what we know, the research is defendants with counsel are more likely to be released. And again, given El Paso's high release rates, Even if you could increase it by 2%, you're going to save county resources, county jail resources. So anything you can do more efficiently is only going to be beneficial for everyone. Next slide. So along with Recommendation 4, we wanted to share with you a resource. And actually, my colleague Matt, who's not with us today, actually helped develop this resource. We have a paper on our website that has basically information on what a meaningful first appearance looks like. And we're also, later on this month, is Matt and I and probably another colleague from CPP, we're going to offer judicial officers, prosecutors, and defenders to attend some virtual trainings on best practices for first appearance and pretrial in general. Next slide. Those were our recommendations, and now I wanted to briefly talk about the opportunities that we see that we think would be good for enhancement. The first one is prosecutorial review at the jail. If there was a dedicated prosecutor at the jail during high volume booking, We feel like that could have a lot of impact, be able to get people through faster. I know other counties in Texas have this. There are some counties outside of Texas and states that have this as well, where they actually have a prosecutor stationed in the jail 24-7. But here it may be just during those high volume periods. Again, Joel already mentioned this, but attracting, it's really hard to get experienced prosecutors that want to work on these overnight shifts, right? Weekends, holidays, overnight. But in order to attract more experience, we would think an opportunity would have some type of tier compensation tied to experience and elevated qualification. And then those that work on the night shift are paid like a shift differential and just really staffing. But I think as Joel had already mentioned, you know, talking to the prosecutor, they had already beefed up the staffing during those peak times. So so that's a good thing. Number three, we think, you know, just trying to accelerate those case filings. file as many charges as possible. Some of the data that we received from the prosecutor's office, this was back late last year, was that about 30% of the 25,000 cases filed in 2025 were later declined or dismissed. So, you know, that's 30% that if you could do that quicker I think it would go a long way. And it's hard. I mean, prosecutors are understaffed. I get it. They want to make sure that they're making the best decisions with case filing. So anything they could do to beef up the front end I think would be beneficial for all. And then lastly is expanding the use of citations and summons and rule of arrest. If they had the DIMS at the beginning, it could be that the prosecutor's like, I don't think you should arrest, but maybe we'll just issue a citation and give me the paperwork and we can work it out later. The magistrates have full authority to issue summonses versus arrest warrants. Again, this would be appropriate for those lower level offenses. We're not suggesting that on these serious felonies that they be cited, but again, have some kind of triage system where the lower level offenses, you could do a citation and that prevents all of that booking process from happening. They're still charged, they're still going to have to come to court, but they're not having to be arrested. And again, this is going to save money for transport, booking, medical screening, housing, and returning police officers to the streets faster. Next slide. So this is probably hard to see. I don't know how it looks on your screen, but this was a flow chart that we developed just basically a visualization of what the proposed changes would look like. So starting from the left would be the law enforcement contact. and what would happen at each point. So if you see the green, well it's not green, like the turquoise, I'm pointing at my screen like y'all can see me. You see the circles that have, those were opportunities for people to be released. So the very middle, like hot pink color, is the transport to jail. So before someone gets to jail, there could be four different spots where someone could be released. One, the DA could say, we don't think we can prosecute this. We're going to decline to file charges, and they're released from the scene. They could be transported to the substation. If there was remote probable cause by the magistrate, the magistrate could say, you know what? I'm going to go ahead and do an expedited PR because this is a low-level offense. Or it could be they didn't want to do it then, CJC does their remote interview. Again, there's remote magistration, and then the magistrate could again have another opportunity to release someone from the substation after getting that additional information from CJC. Once they're transported to the jail, of course, that's where we're recommending that the jail take custody immediately. And then as the chart goes through, it goes all the way until the scheduled first appearance and the scheduled adversarial 15-17 hearing. So again, this is just a visual of the recommendations that I went through. So I'm going to pause here and see if anyone has any questions thus far. Okay. Okay, we'll go back to the slides. Next slide, please. So again, overall, we look at this from sort of like an integrated system impact, so not taking each silo, but we really feel like these four recommendations create a really good front-end model. So you've got the universal DIM screening that only legally sufficient cases enter the jail system, the remote processing for faster decisions, the streamlined booking, And then those structured hearings. So we feel that by looking at all four of these recommendations together, that you all will see reduced unnecessary jail emissions, shortened detention time, increased patrol availability, of course, without added staffing, improved screening accuracy, enhanced procedural justice, and then also reducing jail costs while preserving public safety. Next slide. And lastly, as I said before, I really feel like, and again, I work all over the country in systems, small, large, medium-sized, I really feel that El Paso is well-positioned to lead this next phase. You all have a collaborative culture. In everything I've seen, there's strong cross-agency dialogue. Everybody gets together. They problem-solve together. You have a lot of commissions and groups. Again, just very collaborative, and that's so important when you're dealing with change. Also, El Paso has amazing data capacity. You all have, I mean, the dashboard, from dashboards to reports, you all have amazing data capacity so that you could track and see if things improved. And lastly, you're innovative. Again, you've had a history of adopting modernized practices, evidence-based reforms. I mean, I have utmost respect for El Paso County. Like if there's anywhere that I want to work, it would be there because you all do. You care about the people in your community. You care about public safety, but you also care about efficiency, collaboration, and innovation. So again, I think implementing these recommendations will obviously... strength in public safety and support from the community. So I think that's all I have. Is there any other questions?

Betsy, anyone else that might... I mean, it's very complimentary. We thank you, Tara, for a lot of effort has been going in the right direction. Obviously, Joel has let this exceptionally. He hasn't let it go, ever lets it go. So we thank, Joel, thank you for that.

I have just one more question about recommendation number four, the strengthening initial appearance hearings. So right now we have the 48-hour bond hearing, but the recommendation is really to move that up and hold the initial appearance hearing within 24 hours, what would be the staffing? Would we have to increase staffing to be able to do that or not?

That's definitely debated. There's one view that says, well, we're already doing it. You do it earlier. You do it earlier. You create these DACAs. You do it instead of having these two separate an advisement hearing without any attorneys present. You would just have them rotating earlier. I think Judge Acosta would say that may result in some people not being released as quickly because of the ones that they release right away when they see the magistrate, even though they don't have attorneys present. And then, you know, some would say, yeah, it's going to take more staffing to make that happen, but I'm one who thinks we may already have the staffing we need. We just need to figure out a way. And so that's part of the where the devil's in the details is implementing this in a way that everybody can agree on. So that's where these implementation at the JLCC That was one of the ones where we said we need a work group to focus on what it would take to implement this recommendation, and so we're getting there. We're getting these work groups going, and hopefully we will find a way. But that's going to be one. Not everybody agrees on that, and some people do believe it will take more staffing, but we need to evaluate it more carefully and see if we can make it happen.

Thank you. And we can evaluate the cost of that staffing versus the jail nights it would take by continuing to do them separately. Because even one jail night with the number of people that get booked in per month may be enough to offset some staffing. It just depends once the analysis is complete.

Yeah. First of all, I want to thank you all for the work and for the presentation. I think this really reinforces kind of the arguments that we've been trying to make over the last number of years, right? Since we, I think, began down this road back in like 2014, 2015. and restructured things to create the Criminal Justice Coordination Department to do the 24-hour magistration, all the things that we've implemented in it. I think it'll hopefully help us when we're trying to engage individuals that may be reluctant or may not understand or may, you know, just having kind of a, you know, the... prestige of of this organization backing up you know the the the argument and and and you know putting forth also these recommendations because this isn't really um to me it's not it's it's not um like this is the first time we've talked about this or or seen this or or tried to but thought that this was something that we needed to do right but i think this really helps us reinforce But kind of along the lines of what Commissioner O'Gean was asking, I think we really need to look at how we get from now where we are to where we implement these recommendations and really map that out. I know it's difficult, and as Ms. Blair said, for the most part, we do have good collaboration, and that's not always the easiest part, right? That's usually the hardest part, is just trying to get everybody on the same page, because you have different commissioners in office and you have different city council in office and you have different police chiefs and different sheriffs. And so when things change and administrations change, more individuals will come in and the focus may become something different. So how do we institutionalize and make sure that these recommendations are actually brought to fruition and we're successful with what we're trying to do here.

Yeah, it's a great question, Tara. Maybe you want to, I know you've presented on the science of implementation before. It is a whole field and it's hard. I mean, the hardest part, you can get, a lot of times we get reports and recommendations and they kind of go on the shelf because it's too hard to implement and nobody, and we don't want to do that. And it was hard with, Dr. Fabello came in in 2019 and And I would say we probably implemented 60 or 70% of his recommendations, but one that we didn't do is one now, here we are six, seven years later, and we're getting another group saying the same thing. We need to do what he said we should do on that front end. So we don't want to let that happen again. And the other thing Tara pointed out that was very important was that everybody wants the system to work well. I mean, people, you know, and there is that collaboration. We're, like, all on the same page, but we argue over processes, and that's where a lot of the disagreements come in. When you get really down to the detail, and that's where implementation can be hard. But to institutionalize it, to your question, I mean, one is first implementing it and making sure there's success in the implementation. And that's really the hardest part. If we can see that, like with the 48-hour bond hearings, we remember when we went to implement that, there was some resistance. And there was some argument. There was some debate about it. But once we did it, even those who resisted came back and said, you know, this was a pretty good idea. This is working well. And that has helped us sustain that culture. But this is another step. It's just hard to get to the point implementing so but we're gonna we're definitely gonna try to get an A for effort when it comes to implementing this and understanding there may be things that obstacles we didn't foresee even as far as we've come so far but that's where we'll try to get the work groups and report back to the court on how it's going and Joel if I can follow up and that's really something that either I know like with dr. Favella like like there was a report like I mean he really

drilled into us like you have this report and with the implementation steps and you have to keep visiting it and you have to keep checking and seeing who's where on it and you have to stay on it and it has to be a group committee. I do think the work that the court is undertaking, your justice system meetings you want to have, The continuing attention and focus has to come from all of us, not just Joel, right? Not just one member. I will continue to ask Joel every time we meet, like, where are we? Where are we? We need the court to stay engaged, as you all have been, on those meetings with the judiciary system and not just one, the JLCC continuing to bring everybody to the table and talk about what the challenges are. It's really critical to make this kind of shift and these kind of long-term sustainable changes.

Yeah, I think we just need to continue to hammer and hammer and hammer and hammer because we're always dealing with budget constraints. We're always dealing with lack of resources. And really, this is where we spend the largest PART OF OUR RESOURCES IS IN THE JAIL AND THESE PROCESSES. WE'VE BEEN OVER THE LAST COUPLE OF YEARS TRYING TO KEEP FROM HAVING TO RAISE TAXES AND TRYING TO BE MORE EFFICIENT AND WE'RE GETTING TO A POINT WHERE WE'RE LIKE SAYING CUT, CUT, CUT, CUT, CUT. but then there's these uh recommendations that could keep us from having to cut cut cut cut you know we could we could implement these recommendations and you know have and we wouldn't have to worry about the political expediency of cut cut cut cut cut and let's not raise taxes And we could actually make systemic change as well that's not only going to reduce the burden on our budget and our taxpayers' pocketbooks, but also society and just the dangers of introducing people into the community. criminal justice system in the first place, right? I mean, we've talked a lot about decarceration, trying to reduce our jail population and decarcerate instead of incarcerate. And I know it's harder and harder these days as the state and federal government continue to PUSH TOWARDS MORE INCARCERATION BECAUSE, YOU KNOW, AND IT'S BEING ALSO PRIVATIZED MORE AND MORE. BUT I THINK THAT, YOU KNOW, IF WE'RE REALLY SERIOUS ABOUT TRYING TO REDUCE BURDEN ON TAXPAYERS, Whether you're the DA or whether you're the county commissioner's court, I know that or whether you're the sheriff or whether you're a judge. We need to impress upon those other elected officials and those other individuals that have a role to play in this, that this is really how we go about doing that instead of just trying to reduce services.

So for the recommendation on looking at DIMS staffing and compensation for those difficult shifts, so I know that that's something that the DA had brought up as well as a need. Is that something that we can try to include in our 2027 budget?

We could set aside funding for HR to look at the ways to do that. That is something we could do. Okay. Yes, ma'am.

Joel, you said something on the culture. It's just like you get used to a chaotic system. You also get used to being efficient, getting back to work on time. Coordination between the city and the county. And I think that's where I feel that once they experience this efficiency, and that's why we can't back off of it. Because right now, I don't think we're enjoying, like we're seeing where we wanna go. But the individuals like the police that's gonna be there for eight hours, he might still not be experiencing the impact that all these things have. So it's got to be sustainable. You know, that if you're not doing eight hours and all of a sudden you're doing six, then that six is sustainable. And then pretty soon people feel good and they take it like it feels good that you're able to do what you need to do, do your job better, you're more efficient. But that's where it really, right now, I think we're at that pivotal point. I think a better relationship with the city because it's really difficult when you're working with two government entities, right? Because there's certain things we want and certain things they want. And so until we have that collaboration and that we both feel like we're both gaining from it. And sometimes I feel like they don't think they're gaining, and we feel good about what we're doing, but then the city doesn't feel that they're gaining from these changes. But I really feel that we're right there. I mean, at that point, you just have to keep things going until everybody feels like. I mean, at the end of the day, people feel better about being in an efficient job, that you feel good about. It's sustainable. It's predictable that you're going to feel better. You're going to do the right things. And I feel like I've never seen that much. We haven't advanced that much to where we're right there. And going back to Commissioner Stout, if we don't institutionalize that efficiency, then somebody else can come change it because there's somebody else coming in. But it's really difficult to change when the culture has become efficient and consistency, then there's not a lot of dependency on the elected official as much as it is on them. And that's what I'd like to see, just where they feel the efficiency we want, I want them to feel that, that sense of efficiency.

Yeah, it needs to be real. I mean, it needs to be substantive.

I think we need to put a dollar sign on it, right? I think the next step is to really, so look at that, okay, so we're, you know, only using DIMMs 40% of the time. And, you know, is there a way to quantify that? like in dollars and cents, how much we are actually costing taxpayers and how much, you know, I mean, and talk to the city and say, look, you all, this is how much your actions and not using DIMS. I mean, obviously we want to try to have the best relationship as possible, but at the same time, we're, This body is the one that's being looked at when it comes to how much the jail is costing. Mm-hmm. Not the city. But if the issue is the sheriff is almost 100% using DIMS with cases that are eligible for DIMS and the police department is not, we should quantify that and say, look, this is what the city is costing us too because they're not using this program. And not to try to... create a bad blood, but to be real and say, this is what a true partnership looks like. A good partnership is when you all actually care also about what's costing taxpayers when it comes to public safety on the county's end as well. Because at the end of the day, we all get blamed for each other's tax rates and issues when it comes to taxing.

Yeah, and I know, I mean, there's some very simple things that when the DA told me that what someone gets paid for being on DIMS at night is not an incentive for them, right? It's like I'm not going to sleep all night and then tomorrow I have to go to work and it's only going to give me this amount of money. But it's what going back to Commissioner Stout is we have to tell the city, hey, you need to cover a little bit more of this expense because it's not an incentive for someone to work through the night. I think it's what, $300 or something? $375. I'm sorry? Yeah, like somewhere around 350, something like that. And so he knows that that hasn't been, you know, it's not something people really look after. They'd rather not do that and not make the 350 than to do that. So there's certain glitches.

Yeah, you need experienced lawyers, too. I mean, for DIMs, it's not a starting position. It's not where you can put a new attorney. These people have to understand the trials, prosecution, what does the office really want to prosecute, and they understand we have to have experienced lawyers, so we've got to incentivize experienced lawyers on that. It's the same with the public defenders. At the front end, it's not a place to put new lawyers. You really do need that experience there because this point in the pretrial process is a pivotal point. And whether somebody remains incarcerated or not is very important. And one of the things we know too, Judge, you often point out, we've seen in our own jail the outcomes of those who sit in jail for one week, two weeks, three weeks. That is, we do see much higher recidivism in the same person than if they were released earlier on.

They have their own data that proves that.

We have lots of data on that. The other thing we have seen and another big improvement that we've seen is our jail population has gotten higher risk, higher stakes crimes are mostly what's populating the jail over time. That kind of was a positive byproduct of some of the reform, but it makes the jail harder to manage for the sheriff's office because they are dealing with with less low risk people in the jail and more high risk people in the jail. But that's what you want to see. Our jail should be used for the people that really need to be there. And we shouldn't have people, we really need to try to avoid having the lower risk, lower nonviolent people sitting in there longer than they need to. And so that's still where this is going. And with that, Tara, I didn't know if you wanted, you've heard quite a bit of discussion here. Did you want to have any other comments or anything from your perspective and what you've seen?

Not really. I just want to again commend everyone for the work that you've done and your willingness to take on something new. I just appreciate the collaboration and I really enjoyed working with you all over the past year.

Likewise, Tara.

Thank you. Thank you very much, Tara. You've been, I can't compliment her enough and Matt and the CEPP for partnering with us on this. It's been a big help. So thank you for all the work you've done.

Well, thank you. We appreciate you. Thank you. Thank you.

Have a great rest of your day. Just to clarify, so the medical screening upon arrival, that's something that we're already undertaking and is going to be facilitated with the upgrades to the first floor booking, right?

Yeah, well, you know, the intent of the remodel was, and just as a quick 30-second overview of that, there was... HOK, a consultant group, presented us options for the future of the jail. It was rebuild the jail, tear that down, and build a new processing center in the parking lot. There's other things that they were recommending. This was a compromise with the last administration where let's remodel the jail and make it more efficient so that it's set up to be efficient in the processes of how they've evolved. And a lot of these aren't just El Paso's reforms. These are legal changes. These are law changes that happened that forced us to do things that we didn't have to do 10 or 15 years ago. There's litigation that's changed things and whatnot. So with that came a focus on this, like the front end. And so the jail remodel's supposed to, the theory behind it, and it was a big investment, is it's supposed to allow all of this to happen naturally. And we're very close. We're hoping that it does. I've been told by, as we've done tours, that that is going to happen. You get that medical screen quickly, that body scan. They take custody, officers can go. So that's the plan. We are doing that. That is the plan. One of the challenges, too, and what ties into one of the recommendations was they do these twice-a-day transports and big buses where you're bringing in 20 or 30 people at a time, and that can really jam things up. So we hope that the city can adapt that to bring them in a more staggered process, and that would keep people from out of... sitting in substations for 10 or 12 hours before they're ever even brought to the jail um that i think that's something that needs to improve it as well yeah well we know the biggest concern for the city is the amount of time that officers have to spend so anything that we can do to reduce that i think is going to incentivize them to cooperate more wouldn't agree more thank you commissioner thank you good questions

At this time, Commissioner's Court will recess into executive session to discuss items 14A through 14C, pursuant to Texas Government Code Section 551.071 and 551.0725. Commissioner's Court will reconvene to take official action. It is 2.06 p.m.

Hola, El Paso! June marked the official start of summer and El Paso County was hot with activities all month long and just in time for a huge 4th of July celebration. We all know this time of the year can be very hot for our county residents. In June, the county opened their cooling centers for residents to seek relief from the heat. The centers are located at the Agua Dulce, Fabens, Canutillo, and La Fe, Montana Vista community centers. They are open every day from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Residents have a place to cool off in an air-conditioned space, drink water, and enjoy some indoor activities while they stay out of the desert sun. The county's park bond projects are making progress from one end of the county to the other. On the eastern part of the county, work is almost complete at Agua Dulce Park as finishing touches are being put in place. Residents will have new amenities to look forward to including a new paved walking path. Then, on the western part of the county, work continues at Westway Park with repairs to the rock walls, walking trail installation, and new lighting is being put in place. The county is committed to completing all voter-approved bond projects on time and on budget. Azcárate Park is El Paso's gem, and during our third park bond meeting, residents received an update on feedback that was gathered during the first two meetings, including survey results, key themes, and community priorities that have helped to shape the project. Residents had the chance to review draft concepts regarding park improvements and learn about the anticipated benefits for park users and the surrounding community. In July, the community is encouraged to participate in weekly informational sessions regarding the park's duck pond. These sessions will be held every Wednesday in July at 6 p.m. at the Escada de Parque Pavilion. If you have an interest in what happens to the duck pond, you don't want to miss one of these meetings. The county kicked off their budget information sessions in June. The county is encouraging residents to take an active role in shaping the county's fiscal year 2027 budget by attending one of several community budget outreach sessions scheduled throughout the county. These meetings provide an opportunity for community members to share priorities, voice concerns, and offer input on services and programs that impact their neighborhoods. Feedback gathered during these outreach sessions will help county leadership better understand community needs and ensure that budget decisions reflect the priorities of El Paso County residents. El Paso County, in partnership with the El Paso Zoo and the Botanical Gardens, unveiled its newest AI-powered tourist kiosk. The kiosk is the newest addition to El Paso County's tourist kiosk program, an initiative designed to connect residents and visitors with attractions, cultural destinations, outdoor activities, and historical sites throughout El Paso County. The El Paso Zoo installation marks the first tourist kiosk partnership between El Paso County and a local attraction. The kiosk features a bilingual AI-powered interface with touch and voice navigation, helping visitors discover local attractions, museums, outdoor activities, the mission trail, and nearby points of interest. Come check it out! Our nation is 250 years old, and El Paso County is ready for the celebration. The County, in partnership with Fort Bliss and the 1st Armored Division, hosted a patriotic and festive event at Azcárate Park to include military vehicles on display, a band performance by the 1st Armored Division Band, picnic party, food trucks, swimming at the pool, and of course an awesome fireworks display for residents to take in. The county even commemorated our nation's 250th birthday with a customized coin that were distributed at the park. In partnership with the county's historical commission, the coin design celebrates the 250 years of our nation's endurance and freedom. In the Montana Vista area, our County Public Works team initiated a campaign to clean up the area from fireworks debris. The County established trash drop-off zones and even made trash bags available to residents to use for post-firework celebration. The El Paso County Sheriff's and Emergency Services Districts were out in full force to ensure residents had a safe and happy 4th of July. Thanks for watching this month's Packed County Connects. Stay tuned and make sure to stay cool and stay connected with El Paso County.

Bye. you

Hola, El Paso! June marked the official start of summer and El Paso County was hot with activities all month long and just in time for a huge 4th of July celebration. We all know this time of the year can be very hot for our county residents. In June, the county opened their cooling centers for residents to seek relief from the heat. The centers are located at the Agua Dulce, Fabens, Canutillo, and La Fe, Montana Vista community centers. They are open every day from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Residents have a place to cool off in an air-conditioned space, drink water, and enjoy some indoor activities while they stay out of the desert sun. The county's park bond projects are making progress from one end of the county to the other. On the eastern part of the county, work is almost complete at Agua Dulce Park as finishing touches are being put in place. Residents will have new amenities to look forward to including a new paved walking path. Then, on the western part of the county, work continues at Westway Park with repairs to the rock walls, walking trail installation, and new lighting is being put in place. The county is committed to completing all voter-approved bond projects on time and on budget. Pascata de Parque is El Paso's gem, and during our third park bond meeting, residents received an update on feedback that was gathered during the first two meetings, including survey results, key themes, and community priorities that have helped to shape the project. Residents had the chance to review draft concepts regarding park improvements and learn about the anticipated benefits for park users and the surrounding community. In July, the community is encouraged to participate in weekly informational sessions regarding the park's duck pond. These sessions will be held every Wednesday in July at 6 p.m. at the Escada de Park Pavilion. If you have an interest in what happens to the duck pond, you don't want to miss one of these meetings. The county kicked off their budget information sessions in June. The county is encouraging residents to take an active role in shaping the county's fiscal year 2027 budget by attending one of several community budget outreach sessions scheduled throughout the county. These meetings provide an opportunity for community members to share priorities, voice concerns, and offer input on services and programs that impact their neighborhoods. Feedback gathered during these outreach sessions will help county leadership better understand community needs and ensure that budget decisions reflect the priorities of El Paso County residents. El Paso County, in partnership with the El Paso Zoo and the Botanical Gardens, unveiled its newest AI powered tourist kiosk. The kiosk is the newest addition to El Paso County's tourist kiosk program, an initiative designed to connect residents and visitors with attractions, cultural destinations, outdoor activities, and historical sites throughout El Paso County. The El Paso Zoo installation marks the first tourist kiosk partnership between El Paso County and a local attraction. The kiosk features a bilingual AI-powered interface with touch and voice navigation, helping visitors discover local attractions, museums, outdoor activities, the mission trail, and nearby points of interest. Come check it out! Our nation is 250 years old and El Paso County is ready for the celebration. The County, in partnership with Fort Bliss and the 1st Armored Division, hosted a patriotic and festive event at Azcárate Park to include military vehicles on display, a band performance by the 1st Armored Division Band, picnic party, food trucks, swimming at the pool, and of course an awesome fireworks display for residents to take in. The County even commemorated our nation's 250th birthday with a customized coin that were distributed at the park. In partnership with the County's Historical Commission, the coin design celebrates the 250 years of our nation's endurance and freedom. In the Montana Vista area, our County Public Works team initiated a campaign to clean up the area from fireworks debris. The County established trash drop-off zones and even made trash bags available to residents to use for post-firework celebration. The El Paso County Sheriff's and Emergency Services Districts were out in full force to ensure residents had a safe and happy 4th of July. Thanks for watching this month's Packed County Connects. Stay tuned and make sure to stay cool and stay connected with El Paso County.

Bye. Thank you.

Hola, El Paso! June marked the official start of summer and El Paso County was hot with activities all month long and just in time for a huge 4th of July celebration. We all know this time of the year can be very hot for our county residents. In June, the county opened their cooling centers for residents to seek relief from the heat. The centers are located at the Agua Dulce, Fabens, Canutillo, and Lafayette-Montana Vista Community Centers. They are open every day from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Residents have a place to cool off in an air conditioned space, drink water, and enjoy some indoor activities while they stay out of the desert sun. The county's park bond projects are making progress from one end of the county to the other. On the eastern part of the county, work is almost complete at Agua Dulce Park as finishing touches are being put in place. Residents will have new amenities to look forward to including a new paved walking path. Then, on the western part of the county, work continues at Westway Park with repairs to the rock walls, walking trail installation, and new lighting is being put in place. The county is committed to completing all voter approved bond projects on time and on budget. Azcárate Park is El Paso's gem, and during our third park bond meeting, residents received an update on feedback that was gathered during the first two meetings, including survey results, key themes, and community priorities that have helped to shape the project. Residents had the chance to review draft concepts regarding park improvements and learn about the anticipated benefits for park users and the surrounding community. In July, the community is encouraged to participate in weekly informational sessions regarding the park's duck pond. These sessions will be held every Wednesday in July at 6 p.m. at the Escada de Park Pavilion. If you have an interest in what happens to the duck pond, you don't want to miss one of these meetings. The county kicked off their budget information sessions in June. The county is encouraging residents to take an active role in shaping the county's fiscal year 2027 budget by attending one of several community budget outreach sessions scheduled throughout the county. These meetings provide an opportunity for community members to share priorities, voice concerns, and offer input on services and programs that impact their neighborhoods. Feedback gathered during these outreach sessions will help county leadership better understand community needs and ensure that budget decisions reflect the priorities of El Paso County residents. El Paso County, in partnership with the El Paso Zoo and the Botanical Gardens, unveiled its newest AI-powered tourist kiosk. The kiosk is the newest addition to El Paso County's tourist kiosk program, an initiative designed to connect residents and visitors with attractions, cultural destinations, outdoor activities, and historical sites throughout El Paso County. The El Paso Zoo installation marks the first tourist kiosk partnership between El Paso County and a local attraction. The kiosk features a bilingual AI-powered interface with touch and voice navigation, helping visitors discover local attractions, museums, outdoor activities, the mission trail, and nearby points of interest. Come check it out! Our nation is 250 years old and El Paso County is ready for the celebration. The County, in partnership with Fort Bliss and the 1st Armored Division, hosted a patriotic and festive event at Azcárate Park to include military vehicles on display, a band performance by the 1st Armored Division Band, picnic party, food trucks, swimming at the pool, and of course an awesome fireworks display for residents to take in. The county even commemorated our nation's 250th birthday with a customized coin that were distributed at the park. In partnership with the county's historical commission, the coin design celebrates the 250 years of our nation's endurance and freedom. In the Montana Vista area, our County Public Works team initiated a campaign to clean up the area from fireworks debris. The County established trash drop-off zones and even made trash bags available to residents to use for post-firework celebration. The El Paso County Sheriff's and Emergency Services Districts were out in full force to ensure residents had a safe and happy 4th of July. Thanks for watching this month's Packed County Connects. Stay tuned and make sure to stay cool and stay connected with El Paso County.

Thank you. Thank you.

Hola, El Paso! June marked the official start of summer and El Paso County was hot with activities all month long and just in time for a huge 4th of July celebration. We all know this time of the year can be very hot for our county residents. In June, the county opened their cooling centers for residents to seek relief from the heat. The centers are located at the Agua Dulce, Fabens, Canutillo, and La Fe, Montana Vista community centers. They are open every day from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Residents have a place to cool off in an air-conditioned space, drink water, and enjoy some indoor activities while they stay out of the desert sun. The county's park bond projects are making progress from one end of the county to the other. On the eastern part of the county, work is almost complete at Agua Dulce Park as finishing touches are being put in place. Residents will have new amenities to look forward to including a new paved walking path. Then, on the western part of the county, work continues at Westway Park with repairs to the rock walls, walking trail installation, and new lighting is being put in place. The county is committed to completing all voter-approved bond projects on time and on budget. Azcárate Park is El Paso's gem, and during our third park bond meeting, residents received an update on feedback that was gathered during the first two meetings including survey results, key themes, and community priorities that have helped to shape the project. Residents had the chance to review draft concepts regarding park improvements and learn about the anticipated benefits for park users and the surrounding community. In July, the community is encouraged to participate in weekly informational sessions regarding the park's duck pond. These sessions will be held every Wednesday in July at 6 p.m. at the Escada de Park Pavilion. If you have an interest in what happens to the duck pond, you don't want to miss one of these meetings. The county kicked off their budget information sessions in June. The county is encouraging residents to take an active role in shaping the county's fiscal year 2027 budget by attending one of several community budget outreach sessions scheduled throughout the county. These meetings provide an opportunity for community members to share priorities, voice concerns, and offer input on services and programs that impact their neighborhoods. Feedback gathered during these outreach sessions will help county leadership better understand community needs and ensure that budget decisions reflect the priorities of El Paso County residents. El Paso County, in partnership with the El Paso Zoo and the Botanical Gardens, unveiled its newest AI-powered tourist kiosk. The kiosk is the newest addition to El Paso County's tourist kiosk program, an initiative designed to connect residents and visitors with attractions, cultural destinations, outdoor activities, and historical sites throughout El Paso County. The El Paso Zoo installation marks the first tourist kiosk partnership between El Paso County and a local attraction. The kiosk features a bilingual AI-powered interface with touch and voice navigation, helping visitors discover local attractions, museums, outdoor activities, the mission trail, and nearby points of interest. Come check it out! Our nation is 250 years old, and El Paso County is ready for the celebration. The County, in partnership with Fort Bliss and the 1st Armored Division, hosted a patriotic and festive event at Azcárate Park to include military vehicles on display, a band performance by the 1st Armored Division Band, picnic party, food trucks, swimming at the pool, and of course an awesome fireworks display for residents to take in. The county even commemorated our nation's 250th birthday with a customized coin that were distributed at the park. In partnership with the county's historical commission, the coin design celebrates the 250 years of our nation's endurance and freedom. In the Montana Vista area, our County Public Works team initiated a campaign to clean up the area from fireworks debris. The County established trash drop-off zones and even made trash bags available to residents to use for post-firework celebration. The El Paso County Sheriff's and Emergency Services Districts were out in full force to ensure residents had a safe and happy 4th of July. Thanks for watching this month's Packed County Connects. Stay tuned and make sure to stay cool and stay connected with El Paso County.

Hey.

Go ahead. Commissioner's Court has reconvened into regular open session. It is 2.52 p.m. We're on item number 15A, discuss and take appropriate action regarding litigation styled Feliciano Castañon v. El Paso County, Texas, cause number 2002, excuse me, cause number 2025DCV1894, county attorney case number 006525LD.

The motion, Court, would be to approve the terms of the settlement as discussed in Executive Session.

We have a motion from Judge Samaniego, a second from Commissioner Holguin. The voting is open. Commissioner Butler and Commissioner Coronado are absent. Motion carries. And this completes all the items on our agenda, Judge.

Thank you, Cesar. Translators back there, thank you. Production team, thank you. Everybody have a great week. Is there life after the week after Thanksgiving? I mean, 4th of July? No, but we won't be back until the 27th, right, Betsy?

Yes, sir.

So we'll see you then.

This concludes today's meeting at 2.54 p.m.