Plan Commission - Regular Meeting

Oh yes. What's going on? Thank you.

Go click go. Goodbye. Hi, how are you?

Well, good morning everyone. We are going to get started. Miss Prime. Good morning, Mayor and good morning everyone. This is a work session of the El Paso City Council for Monday, May 11th, 2026. It is 9:04 a.m. Mayor Johnson is present and presiding in council chambers along with Mayor Prom Chavez, Representative Aedto, Representative Oette Trejo, Representative Nino, Alternate Mayor Prom Fiero, Representative Lemon, Representative Canales, and Representative Maldonado Rocha will be arriving later this morning. Mayor, we have a quorum.

Okay. Represent Canales, would you lead us in the pledge, please? I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay, Miss Fry. Yes. That brings us to item number one, and this is presentation and discussion by the El Paso Central Appraisal District's Executive Director and Chief Appraiser, Diana Kilgore, on the city of El Paso's 2026 preliminary values and protest period. Good morning.

Good morning, Mayor. Good morning, council members. Thank you for having us this morning. Um, we'll try to keep this short. We know you have a busy schedule. Uh, but we do want to get going and give you an idea of what's going on in El Paso city limits and within the county for for this year. Yeah. Thank you for taking the time to to come do this for us today. Oh, you bet. Um, first of all, my name Dina Kilgore, executive director, chief appraiser for the El Paso Central Appraisal District and David Stone is our deputy chief for the El Paso Central Appraisal District. So, we'll both kind of be team team teaching here as we get started. I'm hoping this is on

this one here. Yes.

Down. Okay. Gotcha. All right. For those of you that are new, um appraisal district all throughout the state of Texas are mandated by a statute to appraise at Mass Appraisal. So, with Mass Appraisal, we're looking at a universe of properties, not just a single. And a lot of property owners say, "Well, why aren't you getting more information to my house than somebody else's?" Well, because we are mass appraisal. So, we did look at and reviewed all of the properties again in for uh for 26 2026 to see what the market is doing. We are seeing a bit of a stabilization in the market uh this year. We're not seeing those big double digit percentage increases overall. I think uh for the city of El Paso was about a 7% increase was was our average. Advantages of mass appraisal is we we we can afford it. If we did a single property appraisal, it would take multiple years and millions of dollars uh to be able to do that and we'd have to turn right around and do it again. So, uh, with that kind of information, you can see why mass appraisal is the way assessment offices, not only in El Paso County, but in the state and in the country, appraise at mass appraisal. Um, the disadvantages of mass appraisal, of course, are the fact that we don't know the particulars about a property. So, that's why I thank you for having us here so we can discuss protesting and how to protest and deadlines uh before that final deadline uh hits us. uh annual tax calendar. This is important uh because there are deadlines for property owners. Number one, put in your exemption. If you've got if it is your homestead, get that homestead exemption in our office. Come down, file. Uh bring us your your electric bill, something that shows your address on there and your identification. Um you're entitled to that. Don't pay somebody to do that for you. Um uh property owners are entitled to have their homestead exemptions. We want to make sure they have them on their exemptions. I'm going

to turn it over a little bit, let David talk about some numbers, and then I'll come back and talk about protesting and what property owners need to know. Good morning, David.

Good morning, David Stone, uh, deputy chief appraiser. Um, these are our actual preliminary numbers as of April 30th, 2026. Overall, the city taxable value is going up from 56.8 billion to 60.9 billion. So, it's about a $3 billion increase. I want to caution uh council that these are preliminary numbers. The taxpayers have not had a chance to protest their values. The values will always go down between the prelim the preliminary numbers to the certified number. So, this is just like our first look and uh uh don't get too excited. Uh it's going to go down some. Uh as far as residential property, uh we went up from 35.7 billion to 38.2. On commercial property, we went up from 10.2 to or yeah to 115. On multif family, we went up from 3.2 billion to 3.9 billion. On uh business personal property, we went down 3.4 billion to 2.6 billion. The reason for that is the Texas legislature enacted a new business personal property exemption. All business personal property at each location gets a $125,000 exemption off of their property value. So, as you can see, um, that caused a significant decrease in the business personal property value, almost a billion dollars. So, uh, that's new and that's ongoing from now on. So, you you'll see this hit this one time and you should probably remain pretty stable

after the this year. We shouldn't see large decreases in the future. this it's like a oneshot thing because this is a brand new exemption. Uh all other property we went up from 4.1 billion to 4.5 billion. I know it's hard to see on these graphs. There's a little tiny gray bar on each one of them. That's the new construction. We do not have very much new construction that we're picking up this year anywhere in the county. Here's another uh pie chart that's showing basically the percentage that each of the various property types contributes to the taxable value. Uh as you can see the majority is provided by the residential single family homes at 38 billion. Uh the next biggest group is the commercial is 11.5 billion and then we have the other three uh groups that have a less of an impact on the overall value. Basically the residential property makes up 63% of the tax role and commercial property makes up 37% of the tax role. Um this chart is showing our our appraise appraisal level on the various areas of the city. Um what that is is we take the appraised value that the appraisal district appraises at and divide the sales price of the property. So if we're at one, that means we're we're appraising exactly at market value, which is what we're supposed to do. If we're below one, that means that we're appraising at less than market value. And if we're above one, that means we're appraising at more than uh market value. Now, the the standards

from the controllers's office state that we should be between 95% and 105% of market value. And in all areas of of the city, we are within the the acceptable guidelines from the controllers's office. Now, I expect these uh ratios to come down a little bit. If you'll notice, most of the areas of the city or the county are above one. That means they're slightly overappraised. Um I I expect after we go through the equalization phase and the property owners have a chance to protest that those ratios will come down a little bit. So we're hoping that when we end up the the season in July, we'll be at uh at market value. And that's important for us because this is a property value study this year from the controllers's office where they check our values and make sure we're at market value. and that affects school district funding if we're below market value. So, we we try to stay as close to one as we can get. This next uh graph shows a history of the average home value for the city of El Paso going back the last 10 years. Um the blue line is the market value and the reddish line is the taxable value. So, as far as taxable value goes, we've gone from about 124,299 10 years ago to 240,733. So, we we haven't quite doubled, but as you can see, the graph took a a steep

increase starting in 2021 because of COVID. we all over the state, we saw the real estate market took off during COVID for whatever reason. And uh now we're starting to see it level out. If you look at our 2025 to 2026 slope, it's a lot uh shallower than it was from 2020 to 2025. So, we're we're starting to level out again now. We're getting kind of back to normal. Uh, and we're seeing that across the state. Um, every year, every two years, the comprollers's office does a property value study to make sure that we're appraising property at 100% of market value. The the chief uh reason for this is school district funding. So over the last three property value studies, we were at 96% in 2020, 98% in 2022, and 100% in 2024. Um, on the off years, the comprollers's office does a a MAP study, which is a methods and assistance study to make sure that we're following the law and admin administering appraisal values according to the property tax code. Um, every year since we've started getting our our MAP study, we've been been at 100% in all categories. Okay, thank you, David. So, let's get into the protest process. One of the first things I'd like to bring up is the fact that some property owners values may have gone up slightly or stayed the same, but their taxable portion went up. And that is a lot of questions we're seeing. Well, wait a minute, why did my

tax part go up? And that's because of that 10% cap. uh legislation several legislations ago passed that uh section where a property owner will pay no more than 10% of what they paid the year before no matter what the market happens. Well, as the market starts to stabilize, you're catching up to that cap. Um but it will go up 10% every year until you hit market. One of the things legislation is looking at doing um we, you know, they're already starting to talk about what they want to do next year is lower that cap instead of a 10% to a 5%. Well, that's great. It'll only go up 5%, but how long will it take to get to market? So, every year you're going to see an increase in what uh what you pay as a as a homeowner. Um so, that is a lot of what are the questions that we are receiving um when when folks are filing their protest. May 15th, guys. May 15th is the deadline or 30 days from the date of their notice, whichever is the later date. So May 15th, we've have it all over the news. We were on 7 Extra yesterday. Uh so we're, you know, telling everybody May 15th. And what we tell folks, go ahead and file the protest. If you decide not to continue with it, that's fine. There's no penalty for not showing up. Just don't show up to your hearing. But meet that deadline. Then you can do your research. People need to bring in evidence. We need to see hard copies because you have to leave your evidence. Don't bring your phone in. You know, we don't want people bringing their phone because we can't touch their phone. Um, so they have to bring in the evidence. The ARB needs to see that. The appraisal review board, which is made up of citizens from all of y'all's uh areas. Um, so we need to see your evidence. What's wrong with specifically with your property? So, that's one of the things that we tried to to tell folks. And I know, um, city representatives, y'all have been having your representative meetings. I'm sorry I was not invited. I would have loved to come and speak uh Mr. Oavdo. Thank you so much Dr. Oavdo uh for having us at yours. We really appreciate that. U

because we want to get the information out there. We've been doing this for a long time. Everybody knows, you know, uh we all have property taxes that we have to pay. We know the valuation process, but we have new homeowners. So, it's really important that we we tell them what they need to know and what they need to bring. One of the nice things about that we do in ours is you can meet with an appraiser one-on-one. We recommend that because I think it's very important that property owners get to know the staff that are doing the work. Um, they can meet with us one-on-one. It's confidential at that point. We can visit with them. If they disagree with the appraiser, then great. You go to the appraisal review board and you have another hearing there with the appraisal review board. We've made it a lot simpler. Um, we did this before it was required by legislation. So, we were ahead of the game by having virtual uh hearings or over the phone hearings or in person. You can file um there's a QR code on your notice. You just click on it. You can go online. You can go to our portal and you can file a protest. So, there's many ways you can come into our office and file. We have kiosk where you don't even have to talk to somebody. You go up to the kiosk and fill in the information. It automatically sends that protest uh into the system and and schedules you a hearing. Um, this is very, excuse me, this is very hard to to read, but it is something that we like to put in here for you if you've gotten the presentation with your backup. And that shows for for 2025 the breakdown of the number of protests that were filed by the different categories and what was heard formally and informally uh at the appraisal district. So, I'm not going to go over all of that, but you do have that information. I think it's it's important for you to see how busy we are uh during the summer and we're expecting probably around the same about 46 to 48,000 protests. A lot of it is because of the cap. Um I think we'll see less in personal property because of that exemption that's on there now, but we do

want people to come in. There are after they have their protest and they go to an appraiser and disagree, they go to the appraisal review board and whether they agree or disagree with the appraisal review board, they'll receive a board order and then they can go further. They can go through arbitration or through district court, but those all cost a little bit of money. Uh, and there are a lot of organizations that will will take advantage of that and go ahead and file for arbitration even if they think they got what they wanted at the AB uh hearing. tips for filing a protest. These are really good information. Uh, make sure you're looking apples to apples. When we talk to property appraisers, they say, "Well, my neighbor, well, did your neighbor not add an addition? Does your neighbor not have a pool? Have you upgraded your home to refrigerated air from eight from just the swamp coolers? There are differences even in the same neighborhoods. I don't know if y'all have driven uh down Edgemir lately across from Burgess, but you can see where they've taken the older homes with a carport and torn them down and built bigger homes. So, those are things that are individually that we can your characteristics that we can look at. Again, we're mass appraisal. We use a we appraise a universe of properties. We look at a neighborhood. So, your individual problems we're we won't be aware of. We do not go inside. Um so, you will need to bring pictures. Prior to COVID, if we were invited inside, we would. But because of COVID and because of the nature of people's attitudes or safety first when it comes to our employees, so we don't let them go inside. Um, make sure you have all your exemptions. That's very important. As a city of El Paso, you allow exemptions. You have passed through resolution for exemptions for homeowners. So, that's one of the first things we'll tell them, check it out. Go to our website, epcad.org. You can go to the property search. You can put in your address and it'll pop up and you can see what exemptions you

have. There's a multitude of exemptions for senior citizens, disabled veterans, um spouses, where their spouse has passed away uh due to u military duty or um peace officer, something like that. There's all kinds of exemptions out there. Um request our information. Our information is out there. A lot of people don't realize they can once they follow that protest, they can request the information. Now, I'm not going to give them if they're in Logan Heights, they're not going to get the information for Chapperel Park. They'll get the information for Logan Heights because that's what we used in setting up the values for Logan Heights. Um, bring your closing statements if you just uh purchased your property. Closing statements, appraisals. A lot of folks are getting refinancing. You know, when the finance when the interest rates were going down, they were getting refinancing. That's great information because they had to hire the the finance company had to hire a MAI appraiser. And so that appraisal is very good information. And pictures, we tell people pictures, pictures, pictures. What's the old um the old saying? A picture says more than a thousand words. So that is very, very important for us. Um CMA, a market analysis. We do a market analysis based on the data that we have. As some of y'all will remember, Texas is a non-disclosure state. We are Texans. We don't like anybody to know any of our business and so we don't tell anybody anything which is really kind of harmful for appraisals because we don't have that access but we are mandated under statute to be at market value every single year. So that's why you'll see reappraisals every year. So um a lot of times you can go to a realtor and ask for a CMA as a homeowner. So when your constituents are asking you what can they do? This is the type of information they can do. And of course, uh, uh, equity, are they really the same as the rest of their neighbors? And I'm going to go on through that. You guys have that. Um, I think this is interesting. A lot of times, um, city representatives

will ask us what happens after a property owner files a lawsuit, after they go to the ARB and they decide they want to file a lawsuit. We have between 2011 and 2025 about uh 2256 accounts that are under lawsuit. Right now the value of 3 billion 3.7 billion is only about 5% of the appraisal role but property owners are entitled. It's one of the rights that they have is to be able to file a lawsuit. And unfortunately our responsibility is to go through with that lawsuit. So um you will see that number staying pretty pretty close to the same. people will file uh suits every year and that that's what they're entitled to do. Everything that we do at the appraisal district is set by statute. It's set by state legislation. It's set by property tax code and then uh overseen by the controller in the two reviews that they do, the value study and the maps review. So if anybody wants any changes, we got to go to our legislator to see what they can do. Um this is very interesting. Uh Mr. Stone brought this up. This is that House Bill Nine. I believe we spoke with city council when it was first being talked about um be right before um the legislation met. Um the loss for the city of El Paso, like David said, is right under 1 billion. It's 920 million. Um this is the first year for the exemption. Now, after this, it will pretty much stay at that loss. Uh but it won't be such a big hit. you'll be able to know every year um that exemption of 125,000 for all personal property. And to explain that a little bit, every McDonald's gets 125,000. So every McDonald's, every 7-Eleven, every Circle K, every individual business will get that. where it will be combined will be in a situation like at Costco where you have the gas station

and the store and maybe they have the gas station under another corporate u entity but it's all part of Costco they will only receive one they won't receive two they'll receive one but that that is still a big hit for all of the entities and this is everywhere this is schools this is municipalities this is county it's uh across the board another thing that y'all need to be aware of in 2026. This is our election year for three of our board of directors. So, that is something that we'll be dealing with this year. If you all remember legislation that was changed a couple of years ago, um that was in May to get the three elected on. We're now part of the November election process. I believe y'all have some uh city council members that may be running. I know maybe some commissioners. There's other municipalities that will have um folks on the ballot in November. Well, we're going to be there also. We've already been visiting with the election administrator, Miss Lisa Weise, to uh get all the information that we need on our board meeting next week. There'll be an order uh for the board to approve to order the election for us, just like y'all have to do and commit uh with a contract with the uh elections administration there for the county. So that uh and that will happen every two years. Um just like just like y'all. So um other than that uh we're here to answer any questions. Mainly we wanted to get that information out about protesting and the deadlines.

Very good. Thank you for the uh presentation. Quick question. And we got several questions here, but on page uh number nine. I don't have page numbers. Can you tell me what that one's about? I don't have It's It's the one that talks about the residents making up 63% of the Oh, yes. taxes. That one?

Yep. Yes. So we normally talk 7030 you know that the residents are paying 70% of the the taxes commercial base is paying 30%. This one's showing 6337. Are we making progress towards moving taxes from the residents over to the commercial base? For our numbers we've always been in the in the not always but last several years we've been in the 60 percentile range. Um, so that's kind of standard for us. I'm not sure what numbers u y'all are using, but um this is pretty standard for us. Okay. Is is that number Robert? Oh, go ahead. Oh, Robert, I'm sorry.

So, one of the things you're going to see, mayor, as they covered is that loss of that business personal property tax exemption that impact. So, that's going to essentially reduce the commercial base. And so, that's about a billion dollars loss of commercial property values that the city will not collect in this coming fiscal year. So, as we've been working very hard to increase the commercial side and to take the burden off the residential side, what was approved by the state and then ultimately approved by the voters this past November was essentially providing more property tax relief for commercial which means again lowering the commercial tax base for the city because it's capping the personal property the business per correct but it's providing essentially a tax relief. It's providing an exemption which is lowering their property taxes. Okay. So, that's a billion dollars.

Yes, sir. Okay. And then um on page 11, which and you talked about this last night on ABC7 Extra, you talked about COVID and then we were kind of, you know, staying steady and then CO hit and then it went up and now you're seeing it stabilize again. Yes, sir. So, what Go ahead. Oh, no. I You talked about that last night. So, what caused that again and why are we seeing

It's really strange. is not just here in El Paso County but throughout the state and even throughout the country when COVID hit uh we were seeing increases prior to that of you know three four 5% maybe very stable nothing really big well COVID hit and in 2021 we started seeing a crazy market that's the only way I can explain it homes were selling overnight there were bidding wars they were selling for thousands more tens of thousands more than what the listing price was and that was happening quite often we had a lot less inventory of new homes. I mean at one point I think we had one day's worth of new inventory um at that time. So the in 2021 22 23 we were seeing we were still seeing that. We started start started seeing that kind of leveling off last year and then this year we're seeing it quite a bit. We now have about 3.8 months of of new inventory as of January 1 of new homes. So you see from a day's worth to 3.8 eight months and we want to be about six months. So, we are seeing that which is great. One thing about El Paso is I think we've always kind of followed the trend. So, we are seeing San Antonio and Fort Worth u value big value drops. Uh we're not seeing value drops in Austin or or Dallas. We're seeing more of a stabilization and that's what we're seeing here. um your home values, your average home values, I believe, um David has a slide up there, um is not that much higher than what it was, um last year.

257 average this year to 252 last year. Now, that's that's off of the appraised value. That's not u like the realators will have a different number because they have MLS. Yeah, they're showing 265, right? Yeah. Ours is going to be just based on on our values. Okay. Okay. And then the last thing you you did a really good job answering, you know, I don't have kids in school, but why am I paying taxes? And you answered that last night. Can you answer that again?

Sure, I'll be happy to. Uh it's part and parcel of being uh property ownership in the United States in the state of Texas. Um it's all part it's like using the community college, uh the hospital, uh school districts, uh the city and the county. Those are all taxing entities, water districts that as homeowners or property owners, real estate owners, uh are part of what we are responsible for. Um so whether you have kids in school or not, but I always say, but don't you want to don't you want a child that's very educated when you have to go to the doctor, the dentist, or your accountant, you know, you want them to have that really good primary background. So yeah, it's worth it.

Yeah. Well, thank you for for answering that. Okay, we got some more questions. Representative Tjo. Thank you, mayor. You asked one of the questions that I had. Very good. Uh, on page nine, I mean, I'm I'm sorry. On page eight, and you have it break broken down here, you have the dark blue is other. What is other? Oh, other would be Is this the slide you're talking about? No, it's on page eight. That one. Oh, one more. One more. Sorry, going the wrong direction. That one right there. Yes. Okay. Other is going to be like agricultural.

Um, when we're talking about other properties, agricultural properties, uh builder's inventory uh for homes are going to be under the other category. Okay, thank you. And then uh page 10 and you look at the 2025 uh value appraisal label in the different areas of town. Oops. that one. Yes. Okay. And and you look at the different areas. Northeast. What does that cover? Like where does that start?

The the northeast area market area is um from oh gosh 54. Um when you've got the central that's going to be more of your I'm trying to think of the school districts that are that are more covered like Rusk. Um that's going to be Fred Wilson boundary. Yeah, Fred Wilson. Yeah. Okay. All the way out. Northeast goes all the way out. Now, these numbers um being that the statute states appraisal districts must be between 95 and 105% where within the um confidence level at the beginning of the hearings. Um but we'll see what happens after the hearings.

Okay. How is it how there's there's some changes here for so for example from the west side to northeast. Why is there such a difference from the having sales information mostly being able to get the data? Um, a lot of times the the like Northeast for example, uh, they're great about coming in and protesting. Um, so we have more data from them than we will say on the west side. Got it. Got it. Okay. And then slide 14, the protest. And so how does the how do the residents receive the information on the protest? Do you all provide any information on that? Oh yes. Okay.

Definitely. When the notice of value goes out, um our postage is very expensive because when our notice of value goes out, there's a lot of um extra flyers inside there, extra documentation. It'll tell them how to protest. Uh if they want to protest online through the online portal, there's instructions there. uh it tells them what to bring in uh when they receive their their appointment letter. Again, there's a information in there about the best things to bring in in the way of evidence. So, there's a lot of information that goes out in the mailing for the notices and in the mailing for the appointment date. Okay. And that's also where you can find the QR code.

Yes, ma'am. On your on your notice, there's a little bitty QR code on the on the very front page that you can click on to. Do you have the information there for seniors and veterans as well? Oh yes. All the exemption information is on there. Okay. Are you able to share the QR code with if I would love to have a copy so I can send it in my newsletter. We we'll send it to you. I I don't have it with me. Okay. I didn't bring No. Yeah. Not right now, but it would be something great to share.

Yeah, we can we can definitely send that. Um and it is I believe it's on our website, too, isn't it? you know, you can go to the website to to our property search screen and there's a button um I think it it's property services and if you click on that it'll take you to a screen that explains how to file a protest and a button that you can click and it'll take you right to filing the protest. Okay, there's a lot of uh information on our website. We we've got a lot of links that you can go to that will help you help you file and plus just come on to our office. We have a taxpayer leaison officer and we have other employees that will uh help walk you through the process. Do you all work with any nonprofits to help seniors?

We go out all the time to speak to different organiz neighborhood organizations. Uh the veterans uh we deal with them quite a bit. Okay. Uh in explaining their their different types of exemptions that they have and working with them. Yes, ma'am. Okay. Thank you, Representative Leb. Thank you. Thank you for being here and and a couple of my questions were already answered. I just want to um reflect on page two. Did I get this correctly that there was an approximate 7% appraisal increase? Did you say that or did I

Oh, yes. We're seeing uh across the board countywide uh we're seeing about a 4% plus or minus but in the city limits um because you do have the larger properties we're seeing about a 7%. Okay. So that's the average. That's the average across the board. Okay. Some are higher, some are a lot less, you know, some are we did do a reevaluation of all of the um million-doll homes. Um so that's probably where you're going to see your biggest increase in uh the city limits. And and so after years of of the work that you have done, on average, what percentage of protests are successful? Oh, I'd say about 70%. 72% something like that.

Okay. Um we in the informal process, I believe last year we were about 73%. Um you can see on there is a slide there. What page? Um I'm not sure what page. Go ahead, David. Is that it? Okay. Yeah. This is a slide that shows in 2025. Um, it will show you commercial, business, personal property, and residential. And it'll show you what was filed and the value, not just the numbers, but the value. So, your percentage number-wise and value-wise are different. And I'm giving you number-wise, not value wise.

Thank you. Page uh 10. Going back to that page, uh, Representative Tjo asked a question about that. Um, A and B, the west side. One more or back. We'll go back. I'm not sure where you're at. Right there. I think we're right about there. And it shows um the appraisal level. My question is, is this after protests or No, this is before the protest. Okay. Okay. You just forgot to um because Okay. I I Yeah. forgot to change it. 20. It's 2026.

No, that that's correct. Basically, what this is showing is we we looked at what our values were for 2025. David, would you mind getting to the mic? Thank you.

I'm sorry. Um what what this chart basically shows is we had our appraised values for 2025. Then all during 2025 we collected sales which happened after we set the values. So basically we're trying to check and see are we still accurate or do we need to change values in our system. So um I believe these these uh ratios are after we already did updates for the values going into 2026. But um basically we're checking to see how did we how are we comparing to Alaska? Are we still at market value or do we need to adjust? And and this is what we did here. And part of the problem like because you you can see, you know, it's obvious there's a discrepancy between market area A and B and the rest of the county. Um the problem with that is we're doing mass appraisal. So we have to we have to build cost tables for the properties on the west side have to be the same as properties on the east side. Now, on the west side, maybe the properties are selling for for more than a similarly constructed property on the east side, and we can adjust for that. But it it's um because it's mass appraisal, it's hard to target just one area of the county and say, "Okay, we're going to raise your value more than everybody else." Because then you get into questions of equal and uniform. because that's one of the things that a property owner can can question is why are you raising me so high compared to somebody else. So because it's mass appraisal, it's hard to get very, you know, microtargeted in certain areas of the county. And it just so happened that after we applied all the adjustments

that we were going to make equally, it turns out that the west side is still a little bit undervalued. And that's probably something that we're going to have to look at again next year.

And let me remind we're not undervalued or overvalued. We can be between 95 and 105. So we're we're on confidence level from the state. And um Representative Leone, yes, this is what we utilize when we're going into the next year. So this is the information we're utilizing going into 2026 so that after the hearings, we can compare where we were at the beginning of the hearing process and where we ended up. And then that helps us know what we need to fix for 2027. We we work multiple years.

And I think I certainly am going to hold on to this document to review next year because that's a big difference right there. It's five percentage points of that. Let me go up to the next one, page 14. And I know it's we're running a little bit out of time on my time. Um upload evidence. What is evidence?

Evidence is I have a foundation problem. I need pictures or estimates from a a a contractor what it would cost to fix it. Um my roof totally came off and I've had to replace it and it caused a lot of damage. Um so pictures remember January one is our assessment date. So if you uh have a roof that blows off on February, well that's going to be for the next year. evidence is what it would cost to u contractors. Uh with the internet now it's really a lot easier to be able to go on to the internet and ask um what is it? Hey Siri, what does it cost to uh repair plumbing in a bathroom? You know, so that type of thing, what type of damage and what it has to be is okay, does the damage uh affect your market value? Is it something that will affect your market? And a lot of it um I talk about older neighborhoods. So maybe the market is at 300,000 for homes in that neighborhood that have been upgraded and you still have shag carpet and avocado appliances. That's one of my favorite go-tos. Well, you're going to have to upgrade that a little bit to get the $300,000 average market sale. So that's the kind of information we need to know because we don't know that. And so evidence really is about deficiencies within the bit the home

deficiencies in the home or market market evidence. You know, you've talked to realtor and you have a market analysis that was done. You have a closing statement. You have an appraisal that was done. That's evidence. Anything. Think about it as, okay, I'm going to go in and I want to convince somebody that they're wrong and I'm right. What do I need to have to convince them? Okay, thank you. And my final one is on page 17 and this question is, is the value of a property public information? Yes, it is. It is.

Anybody can go to our website uh epcad.org. Uh you can go up to the top right under property search. You can click on that and you can put in an address and it will take you to that property record and it'll take you to that value. Now, until the notices go out, you may not see the current years, but once the notice goes out, which majority of the notices are out, they are all out. Um, you'll be able to see the current year. Now, we're still working some industrial properties. So, if you were to look up, um, say for an example, like the refinery, those are numbers that are still being worked on. Um, you would only get to see 2025 value, but once all of the notices are out, then you'll see the 2026. And of course once the hearings are over you'll see the updated numbers.

Very good. And anybody can have access. Thank you for all the responses. I really appreciate your time. Thank you representative. Represent Canalis.

Thank you mayor. And I'll add I think you have other wonderful information on the website as well. Um I think I I we frequently use your GIS layer in our office. It provides a lot of information that's helpful. um and ro value history and deed history and all kinds of things on your website. So, uh we appreciate that you have that as a as a uh good reference for the public. Um as I have done I think the last few years. I'm going to hit you with a few rapid fire questions if you don't mind. Some of it is a little bit redundant from your presentation, but I think it's important for people to hear it uh as simple as possible sometimes. Um so I'll start here. Does the city of El Paso or any of the taxing entities that you serve, and you serve many, uh, determine the method by which you appraise property?

I always like that question. Uh, no, they do not. Um, by statute, we have regulations that we have to follow under state law under the property tax code. a U taxing entity. But the most that they can do is they can b bring to our attention some new development that's going in so that we can be aware of it. So we can watch for that. Um at during the protest season, a taxing entity like a city or a school can protest the the value the entire value that we sent um and go through that process. but to tell us how to appraise or what to appraise or to make adjustments um that's against the law and uh not going to do that.

How and in at your time at the uh at the appraisal district has the city of El Paso ever protested the the value on our roles? I'm going to take the fifth on that one. Sure. I'm not going to answer that one. Um who who does oversee your appraisal process?

The state controller. Um we follow legislation. The state controller is basically our auditor. uh they run the uh property value study and they run the methods and procedures review and they are the ones that uh will oversee if you were to call as a citizen the state controller and ask a question they probably will not answer it if it has to deal with your value specifically um they'll tell you to go to the appraisal district and let them talk to you or talk to an attorney um the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation they are over all of of our appraisers, we are all licensed and have to have education courses and exams that have to be passed. So, they are also an overseer of appraisal districts.

Okay. You mentioned that Texas is a non-disclosure state. What does that mean? And does it make your job harder? And I guess then are all states like that or are appraisers in other states uh are they given access to more information?

Um, yes, they are. And they wonder how we can do it. A non-disclosure state means that the sale price or the purchase price is not disclosed. Decades ago, it used to be part of the deed. You would have a stamp on the deed and it would tell you how much the property because there was a state sales tax uh for properties. Well, there's not anymore. So, uh that went away. So, it is a a non-disclosure. So, a commercial property does not have to tell us how much they're purchasing it for or selling it for. Um, and that makes it very difficult for us because we have to be at market value. If we're not at market value and we do not pass the value study, um, then the state gets involved and they do an audit and school districts can lose funding if appraisal districts are not at that market value. When I meet with uh international or um association of assessing officers um I've been on their board and I've been on committees and when uh we talk about this they're amazed that we can do what we do without the information because majority of the states here in the United States have disclosure they have information um that they can work on. I think it's amazing in I believe it's Florida um when you sign when you fill out a rendition on your business personal property you or your commercial property you attach your your three years worth of IRS filings. So um they they they tip their hats to us here in Texas for doing what we do without the information being available.

So you have to determine within 5% either way and essentially you do it with math, right? We do, we talk to a lot of people, builders, developers, uh, financial corporations, mortgage companies. We send out questions to buyers and sellers every time there's a transaction. It's really funny. Sometimes we'll get two different numbers, uh, because what a buyer thinks of what they paid for and what a seller thinks they got, sometimes they're a little bit different. So, um, but that's all part of the the research that we have to do. Okay. You mentioned, uh, that you well, you have to appraise at market value. You're required to by law. You mentioned that there are potential consequences if you don't school district funding. Can you explain that pretty briefly?

Yes. Uh property value study is done uh every other year uh for all counties uh in the state of Texas. Uh during the value study, they will send a field representative that will do their own um appraisals. They'll do their own field work. They're supposed to be doing a random sampling of all types of property within the c within the county. um they will stratify those that information and come up with what they feel is is the right values. If we feel that is incorrect that it was below the 95% then as appraisal district and we have done this we can file a protest with the state and take our information in to get that adjusted and we've been really lucky. There's been only one time that we've actually had to go all the way to a hearing at the controller. It's because they didn't believe our farmers had to pay so much for water. We're in a very aid area and the field appraiser was new here and didn't understand that. Um, but we've been really good about about keeping that up. Um, we can we can protest that. If for whatever reason, and it has happened in other counties, we're just very lucky here. they don't get their numbers up, then they get into what they call a grace period, which gives them a year to get their numbers back up between 95 and 105%. If they fail again, then they'll bring somebody else in, kind of like the TEA will send somebody on the schools. They'll do the same thing with appraisal districts, but then they start removing funding um that state funding from the school districts that are affected by that. So the schools could get less uh per student, less state funding. Um they're already having issues. So you know this is very very important that we stay uh within that what they call the confidence level. Now we were really hoping uh during the last uh census that we would hit a certain level because if

you're over a uh billion in uh no million a million sorry we're billions in dollars and millions and this gets kind of confusing. If you're over a million in population, then we have 10%. You can be 90 to 110% at at market, but we didn't quite hit that number. So, we do have to be between 95 and 105. Hope that answered your question, Representative Canal. Yes. Yes. Um, and then if a property owner is not sure if they are uh receiving all the exemptions that they qualify for, where should they go for help?

Uh, 5801 Trobridge. uh come down to our office, we'll pull up their record, show them what they have, explain what what they, you know, may qualify for. They can give us a call. Um somebody will talk to them. They can go online. All of the exemptions are listed online. The applications are online. They can go to the property search and see what their code is uh as to what exemptions they're getting. They can look in their notice. Your notice of value will show each entity that allows an exemption. and it'll show a different value um under each entity that allows that exemption. So your hospital will be at your market value unless you're veteran um but your other entities may be a little bit less. So you can see you are getting your exemption. So there's multiple ways uh to determine if you're getting that.

So they can go in person to your office, they can go uh online and they can do it by phone. Yeah. Uh lots of options. I'll add they can feel free to my constituents at least can feel free to come to me. I'm always happy to help check people's

exemptions. You know, thank you, Representative Canales. Anytime that a constituent notifies one of y'all, um just if you will send us the information, send us an email. Your office staff has done it before. uh they'll send us an email and then if you'll give us that information, we will contact directly with that property owner um so that you're not caught in the middle of something that you're not allowed to be involved with. We're very uh we're very cautious about property owners information. We just don't give that out. I mean, it's online. You can look up the property, but when we're dealing with somebody about an issue, uh that's kind of between us and them to till we get it going. uh but we will definitely give you a followup as to uh that we spoke to that person and what we've been able to do. So please, you know, uh never hesitate to to send that pe send that uh constituent our way.

Yeah, you've been very helpful in the past with our constituents when we've reached out. So thank you. That's all my questions. Thank you so much for coming to present to us this year and every year. I think it's uh good for the public to understand the process um and to understand what's available to them in terms of exemptions, uh protest options, things like that. Uh I know that the time is short, so uh hopefully they they can take something away from this. Well, there's a lot that's available. Um a lot of exemptions, a lot of information, uh links to, you know, all the different entities to the controllers's office. So, our website has a lot of information. We want people to utilize it. All right. Thank you again. Thank you. Thank you, Representative. Um, as

thank you, mayor. It's always great to see both of you. I appreciate all the information that you always have. Even if it's 70 slides, like at my community meeting, it is always really good information to digest for constituents. And there's just so many questions around the work that you do, right? Um, one one thing that has kind of come up with constituents is that there have been some properties that are going above market rate. um whether it's in bidding wars and there's a lot of properties that are hot and people really want those. So I kind of wanted to understand a little bit more on how that is affecting values going up.

Okay. Um it depends on if it that's the norm. Now if it is a a unique individual instance, we're not allowed to sales chase. So we're not going to use that one sale. Uh again, you know, whatever information we can get here in Texas. Um but we'll look at everything that's going on and we'll try to get rid of the outliers. I always tell everybody if you were in in uh college math, you have your bail curve and you have those outliers on the low end and the high end and we'll try to get rid of those and look what the median is and try to come up with something. So somebody may say, "Well, that home's a lot bigger, but how come it's not appraised even more?" Well, to be equal in the process, we have to make adjustments either up or down. Um, so one sale in an area is not going to make that difference. Just like um say the electric company puts up a bunch of power lines and everybody comes in and goes, "You need to lower my value because of these power lines." Well, let's wait and see if it affects the market. If it does, then we will. If it doesn't, then we're not going to make any adjustments. So, um, that is one of the things it it it is kind of hard because we have to be equal. We have to be at market, but we also have to be equal. So sometimes we're not quite at market so that we can treat everybody the same.

Do you do you keep track of any of the data where you kind of said, "Okay, yeah, this is kind of a trend in this neighborhood and Okay.

Yeah, we do. We'll we'll look at uh every year." That's why uh some years um this year we looked at everything, but there's some areas that we didn't really adjust because we didn't have um a prepoundonderance of evidence or preponderance of information to be able to change it from what we were last year. So we do that's why I was making a comment. We worked multiple years at one time. We go back and see what had happened and and see the trend. Um, again, January one is our assessment date, but we will look at activity six months before and six months after. Well, not quite six months because we have to send notices out in in April, but we will look to see u we talk to realtors. You know, we're reading all kinds of articles of what what's happening in El Paso County so that we can try to follow that.

I' I'd love to see we're not perfect, but we try. U I I would love to see that that data if you could share it um if it's available or something just to kind of understand those trends because it is something that has come up throughout and I could think of a few neighborhoods but that's just me anecdotally not backed up by data so I I I would really appreciate that if if you if you could share it um but understand if you can sure

and and I guess the other thing that I wanted to ask you specific to that is do you track where um these people are coming from if they're coming from California specifically because I've seen that over and over again. I haven't met anybody that is like, "Hey, I moved to El Paso from California." I So I and I keep seeing that discourse and so I wanted to see if you No. So we don't we don't track um things like that. I think probably Chamber of Commerce or the Board of Realtors, something like that would would track that information, but we don't.

Okay, perfect. And then the last thing that I had for you is there are quite a few constituents that I've talked to that are so disillusioned with protesting. they've gone the last three, four years and their values continue to go up or they go and protest and nothing comes down or they're um just kind of seeing that, you know, the the issues persist at their homes and they don't understand why their value keeps going up. So,

there are people that are telling me that they're not going to protest, that they're that they're over it. I'm encouraging them to do it and you and I'm telling them that you encourage them to do it. So what can you say to that?

Every year stands alone unfortunately uh with the advalor tax process here in in Texas every year stands alone. So we have to look at each year individual. So if a property owner comes in say two years ago and said I have all of this damage. Well the next year um we're going to assume that it got fixed. Um it's a new year. Um so you'll have to bring that information in again. Um, so what we do is we we'll try to work with them, but we we can't really carry over. Now, if you go before the appraisal review board or you come uh to an informal and we don't have any new evidence to change it the next year, we probably aren't. But if we have new evidence or the market has changed and that's the big issue the last several years is the market. The market continued to increase now and not just the market but the cap. A lot of people will come in and say, "Hey, why am I paying more this year? I went to the board last year." Well, but you've got that 10% cap. So, and I'm gonna I'm I'm a hands person, so I'm going to do this. So, here's your market value, and here's your cap, and you got it lowered to here, but your cap's still down here. So, you're not seeing So, your cap goes up 10%. Well, you're still here. You got it lowered last year, but your cap hadn't hit that. So, every year it's going to go up 10%. And that is one thing that we try to really explain. uh to the property owners here, the homesteaded, this is on your homestead. Uh is because of that you may see changes every year. Your tax, you know, your assessed value is going up every year because that cap goes up 10% until you hit the market. With a stable market, which is what we're starting to see now, that'll be good because they'll be able to catch up to that. So then there actually will be, you know, with unless something, you know, market goes crazy again, uh you might not see any increase. But until that cap catches up, you're going to see that 10% uh jump. And that's something that we try to explain. It's very confusing to a lot of people.

And and you foresee that not stopping anytime soon in years to come? No, I think we had Do you remember how many we had this year that reached it?

We had about 48,000 single family homes that their market value did not increase over last year, but their appraised value increased because they were capped. We had probably I think another uh 20some thousand that they did not have any increase at all. So the market is leveling out. But but the problem is when you when you get that cap, yeah, you get your value lowered that year and maybe for a couple years afterwards, but that cap is going to keep ratcheting up. It doesn't get rid of the increase. It just delays when you're going to see the effect of it. So, we have a lot of people um like I said, 48,000 that their market value did not change this year, but their appraised value went up because their cap is still ratcheting up 10% every year until they equalize to the market value.

That's probably what they're seeing. Um Dr. Oavdo in when they're talking about you what I go in every year and I get it lowered. Well, they might have gotten the market lowered, but the cap is not affected. And the cap is not something that can be protested. It is what it is by state statute. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you, Representative Chavez. Thank you, mayor, and thank you for the presentation. Um, on slide six, um, I was making a comparison between residential and commercial. It seems to me from from this slide that residential values went up 7%, commercial values went up 13%. Can commercial properties also protest their their values? Okay.

Yes. Um I'm wondering what the process is for something like that only because last council meeting the council uh we took a vote on something regarding a company in my district who had purchased some property and when they purchased the property they were under the understanding that the property was worth a a certain amount of money. They purchased it. they received their appraisal value and it came back almost 300% higher than when they purchased the property.

Um there was a huge discrepancy there. So how how does that process work? Um so things like that don't don't occur and people don't get surprised by the property value after they've purchased a property.

Well, number one, come in and tell us. um trying to get uh commercial information is, you know, pulling teeth from a rhino. I mean, it's just ridic it's ridiculously hard to do. Um the the process for uh commercial property owners is the same as as all property owners. File a protest, bring in the information. Commercial properties normally will hire a representative that will represent thousands of commercial properties. With the appraisal process, we have to look at cost, market, and income. And businesses, uh, real estate, we'll look at income. What are the rents? What are the expenses? And we set up income tables. Majority of our commercial properties are appraised under the income approach. What are the rents? What are the expenses? Standard rents, standard expenses. If something is different in a property, then they need to file a protest and come in. Um every I will tell you probably majority of our protests if you were to look at residential commercial we have a percentage of residential that will file maybe um 50 something% commercial will be almost 100%. They do file protests. They hire attorneys that hire uh agents. You saw the the lawsuits that 2200 lawsuits. I'm going to tell you 99% of those are commercial. um they do u agents will will represent them for a fee and take them through the entire process. So when a commercial property owner comes in and says, "Well, I didn't pay for that." Well, give me the sale and we'll be happy. Come in, file a protest. Bring that sale in here. Come in and talk to us. If we've had no information in the past, then what we've had to do is set a value based on what standard rents are, what standard expenses are, what management that we're seeing like an apartment complex. Um, are you a a low-inccome apartment

complex? Are you high-end? We have tables uh set up for that. We'll look at the basic cost approach using Marshall and Swift. What are what is the um developers here? you know, uh, expenses, uh, for lumber and materials, that type of thing. And then, uh, again, what the income, even if they, um, are brand new, we'll look at what, okay, this is a apartment complex, they're going to be asking X amount of rents. We need to be equal with the other apartment complexes. Um, and that's where we lose a lot of value during the hearings is you get one complex that will come in and under the statutes they have what they call the downward spiral effect and they'll get an apartment complex adjusted and then everybody else will come in and go, "Well, you got this one adjusted." We'll say, "Well, there's specific problems with that one." but they use that on an equity and it's called a downward spiral and all of your values end up going uh down below what is as market and hurts us on the value study. So um for anybody that is looking at developing we've we have worked with um the border borderlex uh on on talking with some of the companies that are coming in but uh we really would like for them to visit with us. We'd be happy to tell them what the values are and how we came up with it. can't change it until the next year because again January one and then protest season once the notices go out uh we do not change those values other than through the uh protest process but yeah tell them come in

I'm just wondering I'm just wondering if there is um just a bigger discrepancy between the actual uh market value and the appraised value on the commercial side versus the residential and if there's some money that is being left on the table because of that discrepancy. I I would say yes. Throughout the state of Texas, not just here in El Paso County, but throughout the state of Texas, property owners, commercial property owners have um better resources. They can hire an agent. Agent will file thousands and thousands of of protests. Um they can then after they go before and they don't come through informal, they go right to the formal hearings. After the formal hearing, um even if they got a bit of a change, they will file a lawsuit. 2200 lawsuits, guys, you know, so they can file a lawsuit uh and they will I cannot go to court on 2,200 lawsuits. Um so we end up going through mediation with a mediator and and come up with with a number um because it costs, you know, it's taxpayer dollars. My my legal budget's only so much. So you can imagine 22 lawsuits. So in the state of Texas, that is part of the business plan uh for for commercial property. So, if you want to ask, is there a discrepancy? I'm going to be first to say in all the years I've been here, yes, there is. Uh, and now with business personal property, that 125,000, it was meant to help the smaller MPA type um um businesses like your nails, your beauty shops, your small retail, your small markets. it was meant to to really help them uh with markets being the way they are and and with the tariffs and the issues that they're dealing with. Um unfortunately, you can see 920 uh million dollars in value that y'all are going to lose. Um every McDonald's, every fast food, um did they really need to have that kind of a

deduction uh or exemption? I don't know. legislation um determine that and we just follow what the legislators tell us to do. So yes, uh Representative Chavez, there is a discrepion. I wish I could uh tell you there isn't. That's it's something to think about and strategize to the legislators. Thank you, Representative Nino.

Thank you, mayor, and thank you, Miss Kore, and for all of you being here today to give us this presentation. There's been a lot of great questions asked today. Um during one of my community meetings and this has been a question that often pops up is if an individual does not have an exemption on their home, what is a process for them to one ensure that they do have an exemption and also are they able to track back a year or two um in regards of not having such as a homestead exemption or any other exceptions?

Uh yeah, your exemptions you're allowed current year plus two years back. So, if property owner came in this year and filed in an exemption, then they could go back two only two years. Um, so just come to our office if you're not sure or give us a call. I always tell everybody it's my responsibility as a homeowner to make sure I've got everything right. I'm going to get in the car and I'm going to drive to the appraisal district and I'm going to talk to somebody so that I'm comfortable with the fact that I do have it. Um, get on the website, uh, pull up your property and see if your exemption is on there. It'll it'll show up on there. Um, so that's another way to check if you don't want to come in. But I think it is our responsibility to make sure we've got the exemptions that we're entitled to. A lot of veterans uh think that if they're not 100% they don't get some kind of a a discount. Well, they do even if they're 10% or 30%. There is an exemption that is allowed for for veterans. And as their percentage changes, they need to let us know. We're not going to know. Uh so they they need to let us know. Uh we try to keep track of home homesteads when people sign so that if we know that they turn 65, we'll try to put that on in advance. But um it's best to to come on in and and make sure you've got that exemption. It does make a big difference to have that exemption because the over 65 of the homestead is not just for the different municipalities. It's for your schools

and it's a big exemption. 140,000 exemption for a homestead. 200,000 for an over 65 or disabled. Um so it it's good to come in and and see do you have it? Check your notice. It'll have on there it'll say um HS or OV. Um there'll be some some coding on there and then you can look under where the values for the different entities are broken down. You can see where you're you're getting that exemption. Um there's disability if you're disabled and unable to work. So there's a bunch of different go to our website. It's all explained there. They can read about it and they can determine if if they qualify for something. I think that was that was it. Yes. Yeah.

Now, one thing I need I'm sorry, Representative Nino, but I I would like to press this. We can go back two years to grant it. If you have an exemption that is not yours, say you lived with your parents and your parents passed away and you stayed and you never bothered to get it changed and we find out, I can back assess for five years. that's stated in the statutes and we have to do that. So, I always tell everybody, don't think you're getting away with something because it will catch up. Yeah. No, thank you for that. I just wanted to inform residents that if they don't have an exemption, and they should um that they could always go back again the two years. So, thank you for that. Hey, it's our we're we're entitled to have that exemption. So, let's get it.

Well, thank you very much for the presentation and the great information. We appreciate you guys doing this every year. Oh, thank you so much for having us. Okay, thank you guys. All right, Miss Brian, that brings us to item number two, and this is discussion and update on the sister cities agreement between the city of El Paso, state of Texas, and the city of Huades, state of Chihuahua, and the United Mexican States. Good morning.

Hi, good morning. Kim Davis here. Um, I want to start by thanking the opportunity to present um to all of you. Um, oh, this is not the right Yes. I'm sorry if you wouldn't mind it pulling up the the other presentation. This is for item four. Thank you. We're on item two, the sister cities agreement.

Yes. Thank you. Would you share the presentation with us? Yeah, because our backup has this presentation.

Is there a different presentation? Yes. Item two is for the update on the sister cities agreement with Suarez. This is the policy agenda that should be on board. Yeah. if you could send it to us. I think we're having some IT problems. So, I hate to do this to you guys, but we're going to move to item number three, then we'll come back to you guys when we get loaded up.

All right. Thank you. All right. Thank you guys. Thank you, mayor. Item three is a presentation by the Opportunity Center for the Homeless about the welcome center, which provides initial stabilization to support triage and refer to an appropriate community provider, as well as services, including immediate access to necessities, short-term shelter, meals, access to showers, and laundry. This item was placed by Representative Canales. Representative Canal, you want to speak now or Okay.

Yeah, just very quickly. Thank you, Mayor. Um I uh think it's important that the council hears about the welcome center. Um it's a program that has been funded by ARPA for several years and I think has uh really been transformational in the way that people access uh the the services that they need um for housing, shelter, behavioral care, other things that they might need. And so um I I wasn't sure about uh the general familiarity of the council and frankly the public uh with the welcome center program. And so I I invited uh Mr. Martin uh from the opportunity center for the homeless uh I know there are other uh other folks here partners uh from Amistad and from United Way who have joined us today as well uh to be able to answer any questions. And uh I think uh with that we can let you take it away, Mr. Martin, and uh deliver your excellent presentation.

Good morning.

Good morning. Thank you very much. And before we get started, I do want to acknowledge and follow up with what Representative K has. To my right, we've got Bill Irvin, who is an employee of the opportunity center, if he'll raise his hand. Uh he is actually the program lead as it relates to the welcome center. So when we get to questions, he may be able to answer some directly. With United Way, I've got Juliana UAS who is their newly chief operations officer. Okay. Newly promoted into that. And along with Betto and Joelle, both with the resiliency center. And then last but by no means least, I wanted to acknowledge Claudia Taylor with Ammy Stud as we work through this. Before we get into the presentation, I do want to set the context. What we've seen in our community in El Paso is we've seen a significant increase in the unhoused population within our community. And I do apologize for the dated information, but the last normal year that we've had as a community has been 2019, just prior to COVID setting in. And then once COVID lightened up a little bit, we had the migrant influx. Both of which have impacted us for the last four to four and a half years. But to put this into perspective, the opportunity center for the homeless being one of the largest providers within the community.

Mr. Martin, give me one quick second. Mr. P, we have a presentation on this one. Yes. It can you please bring up the presentation for item three? Okay, there we go. Now we're My apologies.

No, no worries. But in 2019, the opportunity center to put this into perspective, we worked with 1,499 unique individuals, almost 1,500 if you give me the luxury of rounding up at this point. This past year, that number was 3,472. We have seen 111% increase in the unhoused population served by one entity. That's also further illustrated when you look at the results that were recently released by the El Paso Coalition for the Homeless through what they call the longitudinal study analysis, which is a annual report that is given to HUD. They had close to 2,800 unique individuals. However, their data does not include that of the Opportunity Center. During the same time frame for a single year, our numbers were 3,400. So, if you combine the two, that's going to put you roughly in about the 5200 range. If I'm doing the math correctly within my head, I will recognize that there is overlap between the two data collection systems and an educated guess about 20%. So, we're looking at numbers that have significantly increased over the last five years. Now, what's happened within the past couple of years, actually three years, in July of 2022, the El Paso Helps initiative was put into place through the efforts of the Department of Community and Human Development. This is a city-backed initiative. It includes three funded partners that are represented here today, each of which will will speak on their own as we work through it. But I wanted to focus on the fact that with the El Paso Helps initiative, we have become community infrastructure. And that's really the key word that I want to focus on during this presentation. It is a coordinated

homelessness response system summarizing and giving us demonstrated results and system impacts and it outlines why sustaining and enhancing this effort going forward through a public private partnership is essential. So today we're here to inform policy discussion and partner engagement. If you go I think I guess it's under my control. There we go. As I mentioned, El Paso helps operates as a form of public infrastructure, not because we have labeled it as such, but because of how it functions. The system integrates prevention, street outreach, shelter stabilization, housing placement, and medical and behavioral health response into a single coordinated system. Just like other infrastructure systems within our community, whether it be public safety, emergency response, or public health, El Paso Helps addresses a predictable and recurring community condition. Unsheltered homelessness is not random, nor is it fleeting. It concentrates typically in specific corridors or in specific areas. It recurs among individuals with long-term instability and directly affects emergency services, hospitals, public spaces, and neighborhoods if left unmanaged. And I found it of interest that the previous presentation by the central appraisal district recognized that it also affects the evaluation of property. So therefore, an effective response requires that we have standing capacity as a community through coordination and readiness rather than just one-time interventions. Today, I've already introduced to you some of the key individuals, but El Paso helps brings together very complimentary roles that functions as a single system,

a systemic response. Soon you will hear from United Way of El Paso County, which provides upstream prevention and housing stabilization, preventing households from entering homelessness. You will then hear from Amy Stad who conducts street outreach and housing placement, engaging individuals experiencing an unsheltered homelessness and navigating them toward shelter or housing. And then finally, I will step back up to talk a little bit about the welcome center. The welcome center being a program of the opportunity center which operates as the front door stabilization and triage hub providing safety assessment shelter access and placement coordination. So individually these functions reduce homelessness at distinct stages. Collectively they form a durable response that protects downstream systems from crisis overloads. With that, I'd like to introduce Claudia Taylor with Ammystad and let her speak just briefly with regard to and I apologize. I already got myself into trouble. I would like to introduce Bethto with the United Way of Al Paso County. Then Claudia with Ammy Scott. I got it backwards there. So, let me get the United Way folks to come up.

Good morning, Beto.

Thank you, Mayor Johnson. Thank you uh city reps um for allowing me to be here. Uh to highlight two specific things. Uh the first one is how the United Way's mission and the services we provide align with El Paso helps to uh to create a more resilient uh community with a humane face that takes into consideration the needs of all those people who are less fortunate than us. uh at the center the center for resiliency what we do is we provide uh homelessness prevention services through resiliency navigation services. It is a preventive approach that empowers people to tackle any challenges or for or unforeseen situations that they may encounter uh by connecting them with uh resources within the community but also by um educating them and uh making sure that we drive a lasting uh uh a lasting change. Uh as John mentioned, we provide uh this stabilization services that are trauma informed and that are culturally sensitive. Uh we provide also short-term uh targeted rental assistance to ensure that people or households who are at risk of homelessness are able to remain housed. Uh and throughout the um the past six years we have been around in response to COVID and then we evolved into more a homelessness prevention and basic needs uh service. Uh we have been able to actually uh disperse over $3 million to ensure that people remain housed. uh and we have served like over uh 1,900 households uh which also has a really long lasting impact not just socially and individually for the families but also it represents savings for the community at large uh by not having to address in a responsive manner to uh to these uh these individuals and we have also served uh and stabilized 4,862 individuals. uh the majority of these

households never enter a shelter or cris the crisis system thanks to the navigation model which creates a personalized and individualized uh care plan for each household and each individual of that household. Uh and that's how we collaborate with El Paso helps and uh and what we do also aligns with the uh welcome center in a way that uh it is a great community um community um hub not just a point of entry for people who need services. Uh but also it provides us on the preventing ed the perfect space to serve the community in uh in an environment that is safe in an environment that is culturally sensitive. Their staff is so knowledgeable and so willing to work with external partners that uh we really don't know like who could like what we would do without uh their collaboration because they truly serve the most uh the most underserved and the people who need who have the the most severe and dire needs. Uh and they channel them to us. They they refer them to us and u they're an integral part of this infrastructure that John is talking about. They uh they're a very key essential piece in how not just uh we work but El Paso helps as a whole serves the community in an effective and sensitive way. Uh from getting referrals to even uh offering peer support services during the the most recent uh city um outreach search that we did last year uh last month I'm sorry. we were able to provide peer support groups there uh to ensure that we we create like this like um this hub and this sense of safety for everyone. Uh so um I can only say that I hope like John like well I know John will talk more about it and how important the services offered by the welcome center are and how they ensure that all the services that are provided to the homeless are provided in a way that is accessible which is so important uh

reliable culturally sensitive and u and um and providing a safe space. Thank you so much for your attention and if you have any questions I'll be happy to answer them. Thank you, Bethto.

Good morning, Claudia. Before I break this, there we go. Good morning.

Thank you so much. Good morning. Um, I appreciate the opportunity to be here and uh for allowing me to speak. Um, as a member of the EP helps initiative, AMISTAD serves as the primary street outreach and engagement partner, which means that we are actively boots on the ground out there dealing with some of the most vulnerable population here in our town. We do work primarily with the chronically homeless which if you uh are not familiar with the term it means that we are working with individuals who have experienced homelessness for 12 consecutive months or within the last three years have experienced four or more episodes of homelessness that have totaled up more than a year. Um, this makes it a little bit more challenging to get them connected to services, especially shelter and/or housing because they have been through just about every program out there and have not been able to succeed at it. Each time that these individuals go through these programs, it makes it a little more difficult and more difficult the next goound. Um we have been able to successfully engage um 1,355 clients through street outreach and out of those clients we were able to house 221 into permanent housing. The welcome center was an integral part of this especially within the last two years. We have been able to work more collaboratively with other agencies that serve the same population which has been a huge uh change for uh our our uh clients. Normally when we approach the clients we have mental health that approaches them and ask them to do certain things. We have housing providers such as ourselves that approach them and ask them to do certain things. and it becomes very very overwhelming for the client. The welcome center serving as a point of uh contact like as a hub for these individuals has

allowed us to all meet there and work collaboratively so that we're not competing with each other to provide these services and to make sure that our clients are successful in meeting their goals whether it's mental health, housing, whatever it is that they are choosing to prioritize. We have also had a lot of uh success in engaging a lot of the individuals that are out there for longer periods of time because the welcome center is the only shelter in town that is able to receive individuals at any time of day or night. Am I has the only 247 street outreach team um in in town I think also in Texas and possibly in the nation. Um we have had a lot of people ask our uh department of community and human development in some of the presentations that they have done out of state in other cities. They are very interested in the model. This model only works if we are able to take our clients somewhere after hours. Without the welcome center receiving them, there is absolutely no other shelter that receives past 5:00, sometimes 3:00 in the afternoon, and definitely not on the weekends. When it comes to the population that we serve, the chronically homeless, it is crucial that we get them where they need to go in the moment that they are ready. If they say yes now, if we hesitate 5 10 minutes, they might change their mind and it might be another week, another month before we can get them to the point where they're ready again. We have also been very successful in bringing in more individuals to services because in the last year uh we had a uh couple of events where we went out into the community and we actively brought people together into the welcome center. They served as a hub where we had um medical facilities and we had mental health

providers. We even had animal services present there. Most of our clients do not engage and do not want to go to shelter because they have companions. They have pets that help with safety and with their mental health. The welcome center has opened up space for them to bring their animals. And during these events, we actually had uh animal services there to help vaccinate, to help chip their animals, so they were more willing to come and engage. More recently in April, we had another outreach event and it was even more successful. We had people actually coming to us asking to go to the welcome center um so that they could get the resources. So it is becoming a uh more successful event each time that we do it and we do have more uh agencies becoming involved so that we can collaborate and provide a tighter safety net for the most uh vulnerable population in our in our city. And it has been, again, I cannot state how crucial it has been that we are able to do this at the welcome center because they are able to provide us that 24-hour access for our clients. So, um, I thank you again for this opportunity and if you have any questions, I will be glad to answer them.

Okay. Thank you.

I want to talk a little bit about the welcome center. The Welcome Center is a bit unique. Yes, it is an emergency shelter, but it also does so much more. We purposely left the Opportunity C Center's name off of the Welcome Center because the Opportunity Center opens or operates an open door shelter, which means we are working with the drug addicts, the alcoholics, the mentally frail, the elderly. And so, the welcome center has become essentially what the name implies, a point of welcome. It is a front door stabilization and triage hub. Triage is the key. We use the term navigation more so than we do case management as we work through that. So it is that point of acute homelessness and entry and crisis access as we work through it. And you just heard United Way and Ammyad talk about their numbers. And if you go to the next slide, you can see a general idea of what we've done within the welcome center. And I want to caution you, these are not unique. We have created a system. So there is overlap between the numbers as we work through it. But since we opened, which was in August of 2022 in our case, we have served just under 3,000 unique individuals. Of those, 562 have been placed into housing through our partnerships. But also important, we've been able to make permanent placements into emergency shelters. transitional housing programs and specialized shelters. An example of a specialized shelter would be the center against sexual and family violence. Just to put that into perspective, we've also had 134 direct referrals for medical and behavioral health services. Now, the numbers that I provided you along with Ammyad and United Way are aggregated numbers since the beginning of the initiative. But let me put this into perspective on an annual basis.

That's a little over 1,200 individuals per year that are served through prevention-based services such as Ammystat. 361 individuals per year through outreach and navigation. And in the case of the welcome center, that's 818. And so that's actually annualized returns. These figures re reflect system outputs, not individual or program outputs, but system outputs. And as I mentioned to you, they're not additive in that nature because there is overlap between the two. But what you're going to find is that there is a significant cost savings to the community. We here in El Paso pride ourselves on being a very resilient city. We tackle what's in front of us at that time. And so to a great extent, we're reactive. And what El Paso helps re represents is a proactive approach to get in front of that particular situation as we work through it. And to give you an idea, when we started this initiative about three years ago, okay, we would meet every other week, we'd have about 10 people at the table. If you go to a meeting today, that number is approaching 70 to 80. This has built up over the years. Yes, there are three funded partners that are underneath that initiative, but this is just a list of some of the other partners that are involved and the list keeps growing and in fact this is not a complete list as we work through it. This particular slide sort of shows you that uh development, but I do want to talk a little bit about some of our system partners that are unfunded. the Department of Veterans Affairs. Claudia alluded to the fact that back in July, in fact it was July 29th, 30th, and 31st, we did what was referred to as a VA search. Okay? It was the Department of Veterans

Affairs that was mandated for them for all homeless veterans within our community. But it was the VA that says if we're going to go to the trouble to hit the streets, we're going to do everybody. And the numbers were simply astounding. Most recently through the El Paso Police Department, we were asked to do what we refer to as the April Outreach Initiative. And I notice that Chief Pacillus is sitting over here in the corner over here. I have to acknowledge the police department. But what I want to emphasize with PD as well as the fire department at this point is we're working together, which is very unique. I've been working with the homeless for a little over 20 years, different organizations, the majority of which have been with the opportunity center. I've never seen this level of cooperation between city departments, and I'd be remiss in not referring to, and I always get the name wrong, the communitydriven innovation department, if I got that correctly. I got it right over there. Okay, as we work through it, as well as again, I'm going to mention the Department of Community and Human Development. The results have just simply been incredible. And that's one reason why I indicate that we need to look at our homelessness response as a community as public infrastructure. And just to put this into perspective, when we talk about public infrastructure, we have communities that we're all very familiar with that are already doing this. San Antonio, Houston, Austin, Albuquerque, Santa Fe, they all recognize the benefits of taking a proactive approach on the front end. They all do it a little bit differently. And as Claudia had mentioned, we have developed a model, a model by which other communities are now looking to us because one thing we haven't mentioned, which is really underneath the city umbrella, is what we refer to as the El

Paso helps portal. where individuals can reach out directly and talk to a live person as they pick it up and they run through it. Can I quantify the cost savings to the community? No. Because we're simply not tracking that as a community at this point. But I can tell you that with other communities, we're seeing savings in the millions of dollars by simply taking a proactive approach. because you need to recognize that our hospitals are impacted on a daily basis. In fact, one of the things that we're doing under Al Paso helps at this point is looking at medical discharges within the community. We at the opportunity center get 100 to 120 referrals every single month from our local hospitals and our behavioral health institutions. At the top of the list is El Paso Behavioral, formerly known as UBH because I think many of us can't get over the fact that they're no longer UBH at this point. UMC, the Providence campuses, the tenant network, all of these individuals are impacted. And to put this into perspective, just recently we had a discharge from Las Palmas who had been in the hospital for 34 days. Total hospital bill 437,000 and change. stage three cancer. The man is in his 80s. These are the people that were here. And so we need to recognize that homelessness is not episodic. We need to continue to move forward as we work through them because our hospitals do absorb a significant amount of uncompensated care. Our police and fire services respond repeatedly to noncriminal cases when stabilization pathways are limited. So we need to take on the idea of a

public private partnership because this is infrastructure. It's infrastructure within a community. And I'm not going to read the slides to you, but I think the information is there and you can glean from it. But why is these partnerships essential? I talk a little bit about federal funding. We as a community do rely on federal funding and we understand why. But even now with what's happening at the federal level, there's questions as to what the future is going to look like. We're looking at significant changes within the COC funding streams, the continuum of care, and I do apologize for the acronyms. We're looking at potential changes with ESG funding, which is the emergency solutions grant. And the predominant thing that's under discussion at this point is the absence of funding for rapid rehousing or permanent supportive housing if you want to refer to it as such. So we need to have a response that is not inherently episodic. We need to look at something that goes forward. We also need to recognize that there needs to be shared investment in this. I've had a lot of discussions, for example, with the downtown management district as to what we can do and do better as we work through it. But thanks to you, the city council and the mayor, albeit a previous group, not all of you, but some of you in that respect, I do apologize. And okay, the reality is we're doing something that is just simply incredible. Is it to where it needs to be yet? Not yet. But we need to continue to enhance it. We need to take those steps. I mentioned to you that dramatic increase that we've seen just over a 5-year period, which if you put it into numbers, that's 111% increase. We've all driven down the streets. We've

seen the large number of encampments. We see them growing in certain areas. We've identified even more that we were unaware of through the two outreach initiatives that we talked about. And as I mentioned to you, there are other communities that are taking this approach. I've always heard a lot of discussion about the Haven for Hope in San Antonio. Well, to be honest with you, that concept is already here. It's through the El Paso Helps initiative. And so, we need to look at what needs to be done going forward. This is just a summary slide of all the numbers that you just recently heard. Again, aggregated results. But I'd like to close at this point. We didn't want to take up too much time because we'd like to answer any questions that you might have. But I think these two statements really sort of synthesize what we're talking about. Homelessness is continuous. Our response must be as well. There was a lot of discussion in previous years about getting to effective zero. In other words, developing a system by which those that come in are placed just as rapidly as they come in the door because you will never end homelessness. It will always be there. And the other thing I'd like to say, and I've said it differently before, and in fact I've said it in front of this body, that no one entity is the extra expert, but collectively we are the experts. And so you're seeing a level of collaboration today that when I started working with the Salvation Army 20 years ago was non-existent. You had a lot of great providers doing great work, but they were working in a silo mentality. With El Paso helps, what you're seeing is those providers coming together. And with that, I'll close and we'll answer any questions that you might have.

Thank you, John. Uh, Representative Canales. Thank you, mayor. Um, yeah, again, I think it's very evident from hearing from yourself and the other presenters how vital a piece of the the overall system the welcome center is in particular, not to mention all the other uh services that uh are provided, like you said, by the collective group of experts um that the the city works with. Uh but, you know, you all are the ones uh out providing the services more directly. Um I wanted to make the council aware uh as I mentioned towards the beginning of the presentation uh the welcome center uh to this point has been sustained by an allocation from uh ARPA the American Rescue Plan Act. So the recovery funds from the CO9 pandemic um that that funding is ceasing and so um as I understand things now and uh perhaps you can elaborate a little bit more Mr. Martin, uh, the rescue that the, um, welcome center to this point, uh, does not have an identified funding source moving forward. Is that is that correct?

That is a correct statement. The ARPA funds that we've been able to utilize and we've used a little bit of CDBG funds over the last few years as we've worked through it, but those ARPA funds are going to sunset at the end of August of this year. And other parts of El Paso helps remain funded, right? I know the city has allocated a portion of of home ARP uh funding for uh El Paso helps. Uh it's not funded in its entirety and the rescue. I apologize. The welcome center is the uh the portion that remains the the largest chunk unfunded. That is a correct statement and yes, you are correct in what you're saying, but I will defer to either Nicole or Adella if you'd like to get more detail on that. Nicole was ready to jump in. I I I

I saw her jump. She's just doing my job today, which is fine with me. Good morning. Good morning, everyone. Nico Rodriguez, uh director of community human development. Um the council approved a plan for home ARP funds that uh that essentially funded the rest of the services. However, transition uh I'm sorry, emergency shelter is not a a um eligible expense under ARPA. I mean, HomeArt. So we'll we are trying to identify a future funding source. In the meantime, it does not have a a funding source at this time. And what is the amount of the the gap in funding that we have for Welcome Center?

It it's approximately anywhere from 5 to $800,000 per year. Um that that number ranges we've we've done anything everything that we've do is on a reimbursement basis. their their reimbursements that they send to the city range anywhere from 50,000 to 70,000 per month. Okay. And that's based on a few years of actuals going back to when we started with to 2022. Yes. Okay. Um again, I I just uh want to emphasize uh 2900 individuals and families served. It's uh quite a lot of people

um that that would have very different outcomes uh that as you explained cost us uh even more money on the back end um through medical care through other interventions. Um I in my opinion it's worth the investment up front. And to expand on Nicole's answer, when it ranges from 50 to 70,000 a month, two months out of the year are three paycheck months. And that's where the variation comes from. Okay. And I think the next three paycheck month is going to be July. Okay. Right. And so that's the reason for the variation because the costs are fairly consistent from month to month. Okay.

Okay. Yeah. Um I certainly hope that we're able to find the the resources to sustain the program. Um, I think it's been uh very very beneficial to our community and um, of course I can't guarantee it to you, but uh, it's it's my hope that that uh, through the development of our budget we're able to find, uh, something available for for the sustainment of the program. Thanks. Thank you, Mayor Representative Chavez.

Thank you, mayor, and thank you, John, for the presentation. I want to take a moment to uh recognize Commander Lopez from the Westside Regional Command Center who I know has been um spearheading the effort of HART. Um uh and I know it's been very successful. I had the opportunity to be at both events at the Westside Regional Command Center last year and uh this year as well. Um and so I want to also commend Project Amistad for all of the work that they're doing. I know that I've been in contact with them directly regarding some very specific cases on on the west side and they've been always very helpful, very um accessible and uh willing to step up any time of day, any day of the week. So, I think that's a great benefit to our community. Um and Denise also who's sitting in the back because I know she's worked really really hard on this and and I want to thank her specifically for for her efforts regarding heart. Um, if any of you ever have the chance, I know I did. I jumped in a patrol car one day and thank you to Chief Basillas and his his entire department for the work that they do. Um, I was able to to ride along uh District 1 one morning and and see the pocket areas of of where the unhoused are actually uh living and the challenges that our police department faces with with that. So, um I know we've had a a lot of public events lately. We just had a big concert recently here and we had another one last year. And something that people tell me when they come visit El Paso, we just had a delegation from Chihuahua here last week. Something that people can identify when they visit El Paso is is the fact that they don't see a big issue with unhoused individuals in our community. And many times when we visit other cities, it's it's apparent that there are these issues in other cities and and sometimes we don't know why we don't have the issue. But I think from

your presentation today and with the heart initiative and the work that 30 agencies are collaborating on, I think it's apparent why we don't have the unhoused issue in El Paso as big as in other communities. when we talk about tourism, economic development, um, attracting companies to establish themselves here, I think that's a big component of it. Um, and I I don't know if you want to speak to that about why this initiative is so successful and how it really benefits other areas for other reasons as well. Well, before I respond to your question, I would like to commend Chief Basillus and his crew as well. To see the El Paso Police Department take a humanitarian approach to working with the unhoused is just simply incredible. And I know that's very different from other communities. When I talk to my colleagues in other communities as well, it's just simply outstanding. So, I'd like to commend him and his crew or team, whatever the appropriate term might be at this point. Okay. As we work through that, essentially what you're seeing in direct answer to your question as we sort of work through that is collaboration is the key rather than having individual providers work within what I used to refer to as that silo mentality. Working together with one another and I mentioned to you that triage component as it relates to the welcome center. Triage is a little bit different than say case management. And that's why we refer to our staff as navigators because they get them to the priest. And one of the most obvious examples I can get you, male or female, if they're a victim of domestic violence, typically our outlet is going to be people such as the center against sexual and family violence. We're looking at La Posada. We're also looking at the YW.CA. All of which are partners within this initiative. And so it's that level of collaboration that has made a difference. And that's why I'm so c proud to call El Paso home. I was born and raised here, but like most kids, I

left town after high school and then ended up coming back. So, I guess I don't have a brain when we used to refer to the brain drain as we sort of go through that. But the reality of it is collaboration is the key. We need to look at systemic responses. And there's other groups that I didn't mention when I talk about partners, but for example, academia. We've got UTEP and Texas Tech highly involved in this initiative. And for example, there is a group of third-year medical students through Texas Tech that provide a clinic with the appropriate supervision every other week at the welcome center. And just recently, they focused on wound care. But we're not simply looking at we're looking at the drivers. I mentioned to you the number of referrals that we get on a monthly basis. what we're concerned with and what we're approaching right now when it comes to medical referrals such as UMC or any of the private hospitals within the community. We're only seeing a 50% engagement rate, which means 50% are out on the streets. When it comes to behavioral health, we're looking at about a one-third engagement rate. El Paso Behavioral, Rio Vista Behavioral, the list goes on at this point. And so we're working with those institutions to say what can we do better so that we can I hate to use the word capture but engagement to engage more individuals upon discharge. Does that mean that we look at a warm handoff within the institutions themselves to ensure that they're coming through? And I would invite each and every one of you to join us at one of our meetings. I think you will be wonderfully surprised. We meet the first and third Thursday of every month. currently on the top floor of the Blue Flame Building, which is the 17th floor. And so our next meeting will not be this Thursday, but the following Thursday. And I don't have a calendar in front of me, but it starts at 8:30 in the morning. And I would ask you just to step in and listen. And I think you're going to be amazed at the level of collaboration and the direction that

we're going. And I hope I answered your question. No, I think I think it's great, John. And I just wanted to point out the fact that it really takes all of these a agencies coming together collaborating to uh think of how to approach this issue. And I think everyone has done an excellent job. I've seen many volunteers at the times I've been at the Westside Regional Command Center. So there's a lot of people in our community that are willing to step up and we should show our appreciation for them. And I I think that the work uh is great and the results are there. So I appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other questions? John uh Claudia Beetto and the entire team. Thank you. And collaboration is the key. You know, like you said, the chief, the hospitals, the schools, it goes on and on and on, which makes this a really good example for the rest of the state and the rest of the country. So, keep up the great work, guys. Thank you. Well, thank you. And I speak on behalf of the team that's here, and it truly is a team. We thank you for the opportunity to give you sort of an update on what we're doing with the El Paso Alps initiative. If you have any questions, reach out to us independently and we'll be more than happy. I think I'm in your office later this week. Okay. So, we'll go forward from there. Okay. Thank you, John.

Thank you. Thank you guys. All right, Miss Prime. Yes, sir. Would you like to return to item two? Yes. Thank you. Item two is discussion and update on the sister cities agreement between the city of El Paso, state of Texas and the city of Hua, state of Chihuahua of the United Mexican States.

Good morning. Hello again Davis from economic and international development department. So today I'm going to be presenting the sister cities agreement with Suarez and I'm going to walk you through the presentation summary. So we're going to have our overview which are going to be our strategic focus areas, our objectives, what are going to be our collaborative areas, how it's going to perfectly align with international policy agenda and finalize with our next steps. So first of all we would like to start with respectfully request the approval of the updated of sister cities agreement. This agreement will formalize the existing relationship that we already have with Huades to provide a structured framework um to advance priority across priorities across the region and I'm going to walk you through a little bit of the history behind of this program. So this was first created in 1956 by President Asen Howard with a primary purpose of creating peace and diplomacy between people to people across nation. This idea was born from the people-to-people initiative and later become sister cities international. So what it's gonna do it will give formal communication channel between um both city governments. It will give for framework coordination on regional priorities and what is going to be matter for us. So it will facilitate institutional collaboration between El Paso and Suarez. uh some some point that I want to um point out is that it will continue beyond leadership and what another uh good fact about this program is that it will not implicate any financial obligations. So this is going to be verily good fade between both cities. We wanted to focus on a foundation of our existing partnership from 2005. We

hold a agreement and this agreement will focus on promoting economic activity and cross- sector engagement and we wanted to keep that um that focus from 2005 to to today our region has evolved tremendously. So we wanted to take advantage of that greater opportunity and we saw um the sorry we saw this opportunity to better reflect today's reality necessities. So what are going to be our strategic focus areas today? We're going to give more focus on tourism, education and sustainability now that we have the great team of um climate in in the city. Climate has been one of our greatest partnership to develop this updated in this um in this agreement. Today um the city holds eight city um eight cities agreements which is six with Mexico and two overseas which is Ketro Sakatekasara to Huarez and Chihuahua. Chihuahua has been the only one expired by now but we're going to uh work forward into with that one. The other two it's from Espa Ada Israel. So we wanted to focus on three objectives. Um three hold reaffirm the reaffirm the strength um sister cities relationship that we already have with with Su Huarees establish the framework on for sustained bancial cooperation. And the third one we wanted to base our third objective to align into one of the main pillars of the strategic plan which is quality of life. What are going to be our collaborative areas on this updated agreement? So we have economic and trade cooperation. This one will fall will fall perfectly in um FDI. This is one of the main focus

of our international policy agenda which Adriana is going to talk to to you a little bit later. Our institutional co coordination and I'm going to talk a little bit more in the following slides. Community and cultural engagement will fall perfectly into culture and education and regional sustainability as I was explaining a little bit before um how are we um working um aside with the climate with the climate team and this update is going to be perfectly aligned with our sister cities agreement intern I'm sorry international policy agenda one of the main focus of this policy agenda is to strengthen relationships with Mexico and how we're doing to for implementation. So we had designated teams from both sides of the border and we have came along of international suffers committee. This committee it's um monthly reunions with different stakeholders. So we have municipality from Huarees. We have um city departments such as FTC68. We have um international bridges destination El Paso. And I wanted to give an a perfect example um of how the outcomes of this international committee has um h we have built. So as Miss Chavez was saying we the last week we have a designated group from Chihuahua that came on to Biridos. they were they left a maze to looking out of the AMD and the um innovation factory. Uh a couple of of investors came. So these reunions have helped build us relationship with municipalities from Huarees from Chiagua. Um these investors left with consider with the consideration of the later on probably invest in our city and this is just um an outcome of our our relationships in about from this com um community

and one of our one of another strategy is to continue bational partnerships and strategic communications and I'm going to walk you through the to the finalized with the next steps. So on June the 3, we're going to have the formal the formalization and the signing with Mr. with Mayor Johnson and Mayor Quuer and we wanted to continue to continue uh leading these meetings and finalized um we are talking with it to better have an international portion of our current economic development department um website in which we wanted to launch um all of the programs that we're working on and to better reflect and have um more transparent communication with all the stakeholders and the residents and um I'm so sorry I'm very nervous service, but um if you have any questions, please let me know. Um thank you again for for the for your time.

Kimberly, one quick question for you. Uh how often do you guys meet? One one once per month. Once per month and it's well attended and Oh yeah. So we have it it started one year ago from I believe five uh participants and now we have over 30.

Wow. And each time we have more and some and some. Um I think we have we had done a really good marketing job from uh um you know word to word. And as I was saying these meetings had gave us the great opportunity to meet with the stakeholders and primary see what can we uh help and vice versa. Um and yeah, we uh we actually were thinking to have the meetings um uh by monthly, but they were like, "No, please let us let us continue to be like some something constantly." And we have one uh one month in person and one and one month hybrid. Very good. And no one knew you were nervous. You did a good job.

Thank you so much, Representative Lemon. Thank you, Mayor. and and Kimberly, this is this is her first presentation and nothing could go worse than the wrong time, the wrong presentation, but mayor was very good and gracious to kind of step, you know, move them. Thank you very much. I I know you're nervous, but we won't bite.

Thank you. This is a wonderful uh move as our country closes more and more uh and sides away from international cooperation with other countries. It is wonderful to see that our city moves in the opposite direction. um had the chance to meet a few of our visitors from Suda de Chihuahua and it it was really such a warm friendly feeling from them. They want to learn from the city. They want to participate and it was good that we were able to to host them and also to share. Uh, I made a commitment that I certainly do want to go on my own expense to the gastronomia event that's happening. Those are the kinds of activities that are so good that we can all participate in. It's only four hours if you drive to Chihuahua, certainly much much less if you fly. But thank you for bringing this to us. It's it's um it's a great step in the right direction.

Thank you.

Thank you, Kimberly. Let me I'm sorry to interrupt you. Actually, one of the um one of the meetings that we held these these past three three days was when with destination El Paso and we were talking about how can we help promote tourism in both sides of the border and that's how our friends from Chihuahua invited us to um Anto uh Culinaria and I think this is very important because we we're promoting collaboration and we're we're trying to promote how can we help each other because at the end of the Today we are like a bational um bational um bational citizen bational community and at the end of the day whatever we do will reflect on the on the others we we we breathe the same air at the uh you know so we are here to help

represent Nino Kimberly congratulations on your first presentation to the council um during my briefing I had a question about um kind of you touched on it a little bit about the climate. Yes.

I wanted to see what collaboration we're looking in regards we just recently adopted our climate action plan and also what further conversations we're having with our sister city when it comes to you know aligning efforts of what we're trying to advocate for. So actually one of our stakeholders is from strategic and legislative um affairs and one of the main reasons we try to hold these uh this meeting is it's collaboration. So climate team um we have been in talks with the climate team on on the Huarees municipality. Um they we were trying to see if we can collaborate with campaigns you know how our um our climate team has give designated time to be planting threes

and I think this this this is a great opportunity on to see how how can we um in conjunction collaborate. So this is like an exchange ideas um and actually as I was saying is SLA's part of our committee and if you want to add them up a little bit more.

Oh sure one of the things that we have coming up is is awad is presenting their own international policy agenda and we know that it's one of the items that they're going to consider there as well. So one of the things that we have going forward is deciding how both agendas are going to fit together in that regard. how we can share campaigns, how we can support one another, and and what Kevin says is very true. We are fortunate to be able to work with Fernando and all of his team at strategic and legislative affairs that will be helping us guide that project work and determine those initiatives and priorities together.

Great. No, that's exciting. I mean, we live in the same climate, same environment. So, this is great to know. Um, one last question. Is there interaction with our border relations committee in regards of all of these conversations as well? are they involved in the process?

Well, now we are getting ready to really kind of pick up steam with that group again. We're working closely with a Amy to be able to kind of revamp. So, since it's been a while since we've had that group together, it's an opportunity for us to really start fresh, determine a new mission, a vision, an objective that we want to accomplish, and now guided with all of this exciting work that's coming up, it's a new opportunity for us to engage. And then it will be up to that group to determine what they want to prioritize within the areas that we're looking at. Okay, great. That's good to know. That's exciting. All right, no further questions. Represent Tjo. Thank you, Mayor.

I think I answered my questions. I was looking at your your PowerPoint here on what changed. Kimberly, by the way, very good presentation. Uh, and what changed? uh tourism, education, sustainability and and prior to that was what

we already had um one of the main focus from the 2005 was um culture, it was tourism as well. But we want to what we decided to give like a better emphasis on this time is to um better reflects the the reality and and necessities of the B national region now. So better say didn't change. We just wanted to give it a better focus and emphasis. So from for example on culture on 2005 it didn't give any um designated space for for education. So now we wanted to be culture and education. We wanted to give um a better uh focus now that we have designated teams social climate social destination. El Paso tourism was a prior before, but now you know how the region has evolved. We wanted to be able to um reach that evolution and being able to uh move forward um at the pair of of that evolution. So you better say um it didn't change but we wanted to um giving a better um emphasis on those on those areas. Sustainability wasn't before. Um if you look into the both agreements, the language didn't change much. We wanted just to um adapt to to uh to a better language and to also um align with our policy agenda.

Got it. Okay. And with education, what are what are the ideas there or what are you is it that you're looking to push forward with education?

Actually, one of the main stakeholders of our committee, it's um a nonprofit organization from Huarees. they um want their main focus is to scholarships and um push forward students and we this is not something probably right in the right in the loop but we wanted to we we have been talking to probably long in the run um have exchange exchange students help them as much as we can um keep going I would add that part of the changes that we've had is in the way that we can approach projects. The original agreement in 2005 had us do one project a year. So it was a little bit limiting in what we were allowed to do. So now we can go with different initiatives at the same time. And part of the push that we have for education is going to be matching with our targeted industries for economic development. So knowing that we have partners on both sides of the border that can work together towards advanced manufacturing towards aerospace. So all of these areas is an opportunity for us to connect a little bit better. We know that there are a lot of students that cross the border every day that go to UT. So a lot of that is already in line. It just lets us explore that opportunity a little bit more and design more initiatives around education and the needs that our community has.

Very good. Okay. And then with tourism, are you looking is the regional marketing of tourism or what would change there? Yes, ma'am. So that was one of the requests that Su Huarees has. They're very interested in having a cross promotion of tourism and cultural events on both sides and potentially hosting some together in the future. So, this will allow us the opportunity to explore what those opportunities can be and to speak with their tourism team that's inside the economic development department and our work with destination at Paso so we can design some of those together. Very good. Thank you both. Thank you, ma'am. Representative Basto.

Thank you, mayor. Um, you're doing great, Kimberly. It's okay. um you'll get used to it. But overall, I um am really happy with where we're heading with this and what we kind of talked about when in the briefing is how can we make this a really big deal, right? Because a lot of what we have seen, not just here, but in in other places, sister cities um are are really exciting at the beginning and you sign them and then you're just a sister city. But I I really um appreciate the intent behind what you're kind of doing here, specifically slide 9 with economic and trade cooperation, institutional coordination, community cultural engagement, regional sustainability. Um that that is really great and I would really at at some point love to see what this looks like more than just a PowerPoint slide on how um you're going after these different things. you're you're having different meetings. You said there's about 30 people that are attending, but even for feedback that we can provide, right? Um would would be great. This this specific sister cities agreement with Sod Huarees can really position us as a border community that we are and really show the collaboration that I don't think we're really seeing in in other border communities. So we could be the first. Um I always go back to the San Antonio Montter um sister city agreement. You know, San Antonio being the gateway to Mexico even though they're 200 miles away from the border. We are literally the gateway to Mexico. So there are a lot of opportunities here to really cement that with Sudatuarees. Um, you know, the San Antonio Montter partnership has art

involved and you could see that they are sister cities with um with the the Lanto de laist that they have in San Antonio and in Montter and they really illustrate that. So, how can we bring art into it? How can we celebrate culture? How can we celebrate food? How can we do language? How can we come together to do an event on both sides of the border at the same time? Th those are things that I think people will really go to. I think other other work is important, right? Um in terms of promoting tourism, but if the community can see that both cities are coming together during a week of events and people are going to both sides of the border, that's really great. Um, every time that I bring somebody to El Paso, I always make sure that is included. So, I I make them bring their passport and tell them that we're going to go across the border for one of the days and kind of take them through the tour cuz for me it's it's really one community and um that that's really great. One question that I wanted to ask you is how are you going to measure success? Have you developed KPIs? Are you doing that soon or um how how is that process going to work?

Now that we're going to be able to start by initiatives, there are a few different ways that we can measure it and and it'll depend on the area that we look at. So if we look at education, we can look at how many students are going to be engaging with UTIP more. We're thinking about starting a new student organization with all of our sister cities. So we'll have a chapter of students on each side that will be able to engage with each other a little bit more. We started looking into the MAC and what we can do with them in terms of creating programs with our sister cities and that those were one of the priorities that we have now with Chihuahua going forward. They want to be able to bring artists to teach classes to bring food and to have that kind of engagement. So as we develop those initiatives we'd be happy to come back and tell you what they are and how we'd like to measure them and how you can participate in them more. So, we have more opportunities now than we ever have.

Okay, that's great. And um last week we were at the destination El Paso lunchon and they unveiled something that was really cool, the El Paso made campaign. I I was a really big fan of what what they're doing there and and that works really well. I loved every single thing that they kind of highlighted in in El Paso. So I'm hoping that we can answer that question on what is the brand of El Paso Cuades that we are doing that as one community. Um you know I I have some um a letter that uh a constituent sent me her husband used to be on council many years ago and I the stationary that she sent me the letter on was El Paso, Texas, the international city. So what what are we as a border community? I I hope we could really answer that through the sister cities and and overall um Destination El Paso has really done a great job in in many different areas. One thing that um they they've done in the last year or two is kind of taken delegations to Ketaro, other places in Mexico. And I think this is also an opportunity to kind of line up those efforts to kind of say, okay, um, we have the sister cities agreement or we're doing this with Chihuahua. How can we both come together to reach different goals and and outcomes? Um, so I'm hoping that Destination El Paso has a big voice in everything that you're doing with with this.

More on that momentarily. Okay. Well, that's great. um really excited about this and I'm hoping that we could get more sister cities there. There's some ideas that I have, but also hoping that we could have them come here for a week. We could go over there further uh for a week, right? Aquatus is super easy. We could go there all the time, but others that are further away, I I'm really excited about the potential that you have with what you're doing with sister cities overall. Very good presentation. Um I noticed it said action. Do we need to have action on this? In the beginning it said action. Is that

No, actually right now it's just um um update. So in June the 3 is going to be the actual um action and voting. Right now it was just an update and it was precisely doing in this way so we can exchange um ideas and suggestions from you. Uh but it's not going to be until June the 3. Okay, that's Yeah, I know. The the presentation said discussion and action. If you go to the first slide, requested action, approval to the update. Yeah, it's going to be until the third. It was just like No, go to go to the very first slide number one.

Yes. So, the approval for the updated content. So just to make sure that you agree with the content that we've discussed today, then on June 3rd when we have that bational city council meeting, we'll have the option. Go down one more. Let me just make sure my eyes are

request. Okay, very good. Just making sure. But this is great. So um thank you guys for for putting in the work on this. Uh very good presentation, Kimberly. And I think this is really good when you have council alignment on both sides of the borders. that are behind this. And I can tell you that um uh Mayor Cruz Pettisar and Mayor Bonia, all of us are are in alignment. Your councils are in alignment. So this is very very good. So thank you guys for putting this together. We look forward to June the 3 and moving forward. But uh great job, great presentation. Thank you for the support. God bless.

Yeah. Thank you guys. Okay, Miss Brian. Good job. Yes. That brings us to item four and this is discussion and action on revisions to the international policy agenda and updates on implementation. Got it. Is there a motion to approve this item? All right. Okay. Good morning.

Good morning and council. I'm Adriana Plesio with international you know what I'm I'm stuck on the international part from the last presentation. Economic and international development. And today I'm going to tell you about the updates to our international policy agenda. And all of this lines up for our bational council meeting that's coming up on June 3rd. And know we've given you a little bit of an update of what that agenda is going to look like. But part of the exciting conversation that we're having today is that we know that Su Huarees will approve and implement their very first international policy agenda ever, much like we did in April 14th of last year. So today we'll go over the objective of the agenda, a brief overview, how our programs link at the agenda level in in our work with strategic and legislative affairs, and we'll go a little bit into detail on that international affairs committee meeting that Kim was telling you about earlier and then some additions to the policy. So the the bones of the policy are going to be the same. We have those three priorities that we had last year. So, we're looking to establish those relations with the three orders of government in Mexico, improving border infrastructure and facilitating FDI. The way that we're going to channel that is going to shift a little bit. At the time, we really wanted to make sure that we had everything right with our neighbors first before we expanded. We feel that we've been able to achieve that and it's moving forward as we were discussing earlier. So, now it's an opportunity to look a little bit more widely. So these we decided to add four kind of new key initiatives. One of them is around USMCA and keeping a close eye on what those developments might be like. We'll know more in July, but it's important to start talking about that now and coordinating with their neighbors to the north as well so we can keep each other informed and we can make decisions together as those changes emerge. So, we are looking a little bit outside

of that US Mexico corridor, but never forgetting our neighbors and the ones that started all of this process with us. And then we're adding a couple of new ones. So, we're adding a tourism and sustainability to align as well with the new sister cities agreement and making sure that we have that alignment and projects throughout in all of our engagements. Here is one of my favorite slides. So this is where we have the alignment with all of the policies that the city has with between economic development and strategic and legislative affairs. You approved last year our first federal policy agenda I believe as well. And in looking at them and in talking with Caesar, we noticed that there was a lot in common. So we decided to take the step to elevate the international policy agenda to the same level and have all three of them work closely together. So we have more overlapping than before. You'll notice that this one is a little bit busier than it used to be, but this is this is a very positive thing. It shows that alignment more as we develop new engagements. So now working closer together with the department of state, with the US commercial service, working closer with international bridges and finding more ways to advance a ports of entry, grants, incentives, and responses like the the tariff tracker that we've had and all of these things that involve all of these three areas at the same time. So, like Kim mentioned earlier, we did start the international affairs committee meeting in February of last year, and this was to start working on that international agenda and how we could get all of the departments in the city that work with Mexico in any capacity in the same room to talk about any issues that we have, projects, how we can support one another, questions that maybe each other could ask. And this has started to evolve. So like Kim mentioned, yes, it was a group that started with city departments. It now includes other city programs and it includes stakeholders

from the three orders of government in Mexico. And now we have a request from Chihuahua to be a part of that group as well. Now that the policy agenda is working and is moving forward, we've decided to find a new project for us to work together. And we've decided this year to start a new um process in determining what our regional value proposition really is, what makes us different, what makes our community special and separate from the rest of what you see in the border. So we are working together from both sides to determine what this is. We want to make sure that it's data oriented, that we have evidence to move forward. And our audience right now is the private sector so we can articulate that together. As we know when the private sector when when anyone really looks at El Paso they look up to Auarees as well. So it's an opportunity to take ownership of that story and and of that narrative. So that is what we're doing now together every month. And once we are ready and we have confidence in what that value proposition is, we'll come here together as a group and tell you about that new mission. So here are the proposed amendments to the agenda itself. We have the current site and the proposed changes. You'll notice that in the current one in the 2025, it's still very su Huades oriented. So, it's an opportunity for us to expand the language and make it a little bit more inclusive to make sure that we have room for Chihuahua, for other markets, for other countries that we haven't explored too much with before. We know that the interest is there and we've gotten communications for markets as far as Pakistan. So, now is the opportunity to make that movement. So you'll see in red what those changes are and you'll see that trend. So we're moving from just programs with suarees to include other a global regions, other international state governments, foreign national governments in our work with intergovernmental relationship with

strategic and legislative affairs. In terms of infrastructure, our priorities are the same, but now we're keeping in mind those changes that we're seeing like USMCA, how we can work with that to strengthen our foreign trade zone. In terms of FDI, it we're still moving strong there, but we want to make sure that our transition assistance program has the word international in it. We want to make sure that when people look at our website, they look at our programs, that they know that there is something specifically designed for them, that we have all of this in mind as the international city that we truly are. and now expanding the program work. So it's not just departments, but this is a way for us to work closer with destination El Paso and have them be a part of our conversations and the initiatives that we move forward now in implementation. This is the same that we're seeing with strengthening our international partnerships. We're looking at other global capitals, other partners that we might be able to engage in. And we're not we're not leaving behind Huarees or anyone in our immediate neighbors, but perhaps now working together with them to be able to look at other areas. So one of them is a Windsor in Canada to start talking about USMCA and how that interaction on both borders for them to know about Su Aluarees and how they operate, how we interact and they have a similar dynamic with Detroit. So, how can all of these cities come together and prepare for changes and learn from one another? So, these are those four main initiatives that we're adding and and you might see in your backup. This was part of appendix B where we have all of our major initiatives and big goals that we want to achieve. One of them is strongly around USMCA. Um there's going to be a little bit before we know what happened with the public comment, but we did submit letters and we were a part of that conversation. But it's our ability to be able to track that information and to share that with our partners and make better informed

decisions not just at the government level but to be able to support the private sector as well. Strategic and international engagements just allows us to look a little bit beyond the US Mexico relationship and find new opportunities for alignment. And this at the same time helps us look at other opportunities for sister cities engagements because we won't just have the policy side but the cultural component as well where we can engage like Kim was saying on the government side but also personto person and we can get to know each other at a deeper level that way what our communities mean to us who we are and how we portray ourselves to the rest of the world. And here we have that part of alignment with sustainability and resilience. We do want to make sure that we have that alignment with the climate action plan that that becomes a part of our conversations going forward and that we can find other partners that have similar initiatives so we can grow and learn from one another and hopefully potentiate what is already happening. And then on the tourism side to be able to have that cross promotion with Sua Huarees that's going to be our first stop because this was at their request that we add this language. But the hope is to be able to move in this direction with other communities as well like we were talking about with Chihuahua. We have Sakatkas that is reaching out as well and wanting to strengthen and renew that relationship. So the world is looking in our direction and it's a moment for us to be able to make the most of that and kind of channel our work forward and those are all of the updates that we're making. So that's kind of the trend that we're following and this one is coming to a vote. So we hope that so we have the the action to approve and adopt the updates to the city of El Paso international policy agenda for 2026.

Very good. Representative Chavez. Thank you, mayor, and thank you, Adriana, for this wonderful presentation. Just a quick question from something you just said. So, on slide 15 when you talked about um tourism and then specifically mentioning Suya Huarees because they requested it. Um I know that you're going to start conversations with the city of Chihuahua as well. So, if they were to request something similar, would we come back and amend uh this again at that time or

Yes, ma'am. Part of the conversations we're having with them is that now they'll have their own international policy agenda as well. So we'll be developing those both documents at the same time. The sister cities agreement working with that policy agenda. So hopefully we'll be able to come back quite regularly with that kind of advance and change so we can keep you updated on what's going on and be able to adapt to what we're seeing on partnerships. Okay. So every time we go into an agreement with a sister city potentially we'll we're going to amend the international agenda. Is that what I'm understanding?

Not not every single time. Only when we have um any actions that are kind of stepping away from this. So what you guys would be approving if if we approve the agenda the way that is it is now, it just gives us the the space to be able to work on all of these things. But if anything were to change substantially in the language of it, we would come back. Okay. Just because it mentions Huades, but it doesn't mention any of the any of the other sister cities specifically for bational tourism. So, I'm just wondering if we should keep it more open to include any sister city agreement or you want to specifically mention

Well, we could make it more open to include any community that that we choose to work with like we have in the rest of the document. But, um in kind of imitating the spirit of what we had last year in making sure that we have everything right with our neighbors first was the intent behind this part of the language. But if we want to make that change later on, we certainly can. And this is going to be a document that continues to evolve with the work that we all do together,

right? And I think it's because Visit El Paso already does engagement in in those sister cities. Um they have boots on the ground and are very active in in all of the events that they have going on in those cities. So it just seems natural for us to probably promote tourism through our agenda as well. Just a suggestion. I'm just letting you know. If not, we can probably come back and amend it again if necessary. Thank you, represent Nino.

Thank you, mayor, and thank you, Adena. Congratulations on all your work on this. During my briefing, I did have a simple question or a question that I wanted to follow up on. I was doing a lot of comparisons between the 2025 international policy agenda, the actual document that we adopted versus what's being presented in front of us today. And on uh the actual document on page three where it says foreign direct investment FDI program, I noticed that the one business one-stop shop is not included within that um bullet point. Is is there I know that we briefly talked about it, but is there a reason as to why that was not included on this amendment?

Oh, no. The the businesses one-stop shop is a part of everything that we do and and they're a part of our international assistance transition program as well. it it might have been something in the formatting but they are absolutely a part of everything that we do and we are very grateful to have their expertise.

Okay. Yeah. No, and I think it's important to highlight that that it's not included on the actual policy that we are going to be essentially adopting but I think it will be extremely important to ensure that it's included on the foreign direct investment program and include the businesses one-stop shop on there because again I always do the comparisons between the documents that we adopted in 2025 to the new document that's being presented to us. Thank you for for observing that and we'll absolutely make the change. I do have that here in my slides but I will make sure that the document reflects it and highlights it in the way that it deserves to be. Okay, perfect. Thank you repres.

Thank you mayor. Um Adriana I'm just kind of thinking through on sorry I lost my window that I had open um on the on the appendix in terms of where we're at with um bational tourism. or just um you know kind of mentioning Sia Huarees, is there a way that the sister cities initiative can be more prominent in the international agenda where it's its own section and maybe there's not necessarily that update to small language here but it's just already overall there and then it gets updated in that way. Do you see that?

Well, we would need to go through a similar process but just to update the the sister cities agreement. So right now the language of it is pretty ample. So we have a lot of kind of opportunity to explore what it is that we want to do and how we want to pursue that initiative in particular. So we if you wanted to be more specific about the approach that's something that that we could do. So when we have those conversations with our sister city once the the signature is complete then we can kind of come together and develop strategy on how we want to implement that. But but right now the the language I would think is sufficiently open that we can explore that together.

Okay. Yeah. I'm I'm just thinking through on how serious we're getting about sister cities that it really deserves almost like its own tab or own section within the policy agenda and all that work could live there in a in a really nice way. So, just kind of throwing that out there where we're not getting stuck on some of this language because if it's already such a big deal there, then we don't need to be doing it for every city.

Okay. Oh, we can definitely explore that because that's one of the reasons that we were thinking about adding a section to our website so we could increase transparency that way and so both communities can see what's going on and what it is that we want to move forward. So your recommendation would be to add a sister cities section to the policy agenda. Yeah, because right now it's kind of it it fits within the international agenda that we have, but I think it should be its own section within the whole agenda. Okay, that's something that that we can definitely explore and I'll bring that up to legal and make sure that that's that that's something that we can do within the agenda process. Thank you so much. No, thank you represent Lemon.

Thank you, mayor. Thank Thank you, Ariana. always so polished. You do a great presentations. Aliana, on um slide 10 on the implementation actions and the proposed not necessarily to be included here, but food for thought in the future. I've had this conversation with Miss Mack um about the the incredible need that we have through animal services for veterinarians. And given the fact that there is a veterary school in Sudat Huades and how can we bridge that divide between the two um at some point in time later on like to sit with you. I've already had some conversations with a colleague on the Huarees um council Fernanda and of course Juan Asto um Miss Mack that we might be able to pursue that and see how we could make that um an interface to provide the necessary um extra veterinarians that we need in our city. So hopefully we could do that in the future. But just food for thought.

Absolutely. Yes. Thank you very much. I I took the liberty of bringing that up with Chihuahua when they were here and they have a veterinary school as well. So maybe that's another avenue that we can have to to solve that issue that would help us. Thank you, Mayor. All right. Any other questions for Adriana on this particular item? Okay, Miss Prime. Yes, sir. The motion was made by Representative Lemon, seconded by Representative Chavez. Thank you. to approve the agenda on item number four. On that motion, call for the vote,

Representative Lemon. Thank you. in the voting session and that motion passes unanimously. Adriana, thank you so much. Thank you all. Good job. Thank you, sir. Good job, Kim. Item number five. Item five is discussion and action approving phase two of the shade canopy program. Everyone's excited about this one. Is there a motion to approve? Second. Second. All right. Pablo. Good morning, Mayor. Morning, city council man. Uh members, Pablo Cavayto, Parks and Recreation for the record. Okay,

this is going to be a quick and short presentation. So uh again, requested action today, it's to approve the roll out of phase two of the shade canopy program funded by the 2022 community progress bond. looks weird on on the presentation but uh the park uh selection criteria of course we do equitable distribution of shade structures across the districts. We look into community feedback identifying playground shades as a constituent priority. We analyze we utilize our GIS analysis identifying gaps in existing shade canopy coverage. We also focus on elevated consideration for parks with documented community requests. We look into the park usage and visitation levels of each site. We look into the existing availability of shade amenities throughout the city. And finally, we look into the playground equipment age and projected life cycle needs. Phase one, just to give you a little bit of history, uh back on November 8th of 2022, uh phase one was approved by city council, uh with a total budget allocated through the community progress bond of $5 million. And thanks to our great job that planning and parks planning and development team is doing negotiating uh quotes and with vendors and contractors. The total expenses for phase one were only three. That's why we came up with a second phase with the additional funds. As you can see on on

the list here, uh we were pending just on Blackish Hester uh park installation, but uh last Friday I got the great news that the whole phase is completed. So phase one, it's totally completed now. Here's some images from phase one. You can see Veterans Park right next to Inca Park. followed by Hattis Family Park and Officer David Ortiz Park, just to name a couple of them. Now, for phase two, again, we have a $2 million budget funding source community progress bond 2022 and parks is recommending the following. Pacific Park for district 1, Merry Webb Park for district two, Riverside Park for district three, Arlington Park for district 4, Rainbow Vista Park for district 5, Lomolinda Park for district 6, Sla Park for district 7, and Tula Park for district 8. If approved today, the anticipation schedule uh completed some of them by winter 2026, ending the entire phase 2 completion for winter 2027. With that said, that concludes my presentation and I'm open to any comments, feedback, or questions.

I think you have some very happy council members. Representative Lemon. Yes, definitely. Very, very happy. Uh Pablo, this is for new shade canopy construction. What about canopy constructions that are missing right now? And I'm thinking specifically of Travis White Park that hasn't had a canopy for a long, long time. Are there funds to replace those canopies? The the cover over the playground? Uh we don't have additional funds right now, ma'am, but that's something we can look into with our resources or other funding strings that we can cover for.

And I think there's there's I think every district that you go through, you're going to find um somewhere where the wind has either knocked it down or something that has happened. And I'm curious about that. I do want to commend you. This is this is great news and the team that was able to squeeze out additional um resources uh for for our community, but most important of all that you look at equity and you're very good about looking at the district, the city very very well. Thank you, ma'am. Gracias, represent Chavez.

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Pablo. It's been great working with you and the team. Um, I'm I'm very happy with the park that you've selected for district one. I went out there on my field focus Friday and looked at it and um I think it's it's going to be great. Um, when was phase one approved and completed? When was that? It was approved on November 8, 2022. Completed just uh last week, the whole phase 2022. And that was so right now we're approving for $2 million, right, for one canopy per each district. And in phase one was a total of $3 million. Yes, ma'am. And

it was allocated $5 million for the entire program, but thanks to the efficiency, we came up with additional budget. Well, the same budget, but uh with better pricing. And how was the distribution decided back then?

Same thing, ma'am. We look into the criteria and then we prioritize a playground for each district. Back then we had a couple of venues that are sports venues like Diamond Fields uh that needed shade and parks looking into those venues as multi-d district since they're utilized by all of the district through our leagues and tournaments. So that is why like in phase one I was looking at the list on slide four if we could pull that up but it says that there was I think um canopies for the bleachers

right and there was I think one for districts one Inca Park but then there seems to be um some districts that have multiple um I guess amenities that were completed at that time for them.

Yes, ma'am. We're looking at uh Veterans Park, uh Diamond Fields, Fable Fields, uh Marty Robbins, and Capistrano Park. Uh those, like I said, are sports complexes that are utilized by all of the districts through our leagues and they were missing and needed of shade. So, we recommend back then on 2022 to put them on the list and we got it approved. But but I think all districts have sports centers, right? All districts uh not all of them have complexes like this, but those were the ones that were missing shade. Okay.

At this point, we just have one more uh to cover and that's Eastwood Park. And and I know and I know there's a huge need in our community. Um, and I just want to point out that in district 1, I have 52 parks and 71% of those parks with playgrounds do not have canopies. I get requests all the time um, regarding canopy. So, I I know that during phase one, the distribution was not perhaps as equal as maybe it could have been. Um, and I'm I'm just uh pointing something out that's uh a need in in my district and hopefully in the future we can get um equal distributions as is in phase two. Thank you.

And I and I totally understand, ma'am. Another perfect example for that. It's like for instance uh you and District 5 are the only ones that have uh Westside Sports Complex and East Side Sports Complex. So every time we do a big investment like last year at the Westside Sports Complex, we consider that to be a multiple district investment because it is utilized by everyone. So it's just we're being equitable as much as we can. Thank you, PA.

So shade shade canopies was number one in our 2011 um surveys and it's number one in our most recent surveys. Um Pablo and I were having a conversation. I think we have 95 playgrounds that still don't have shade covering. Um the sports community very much were advocating for um the sports facilities as a part of that discussion. We had several neighborhood associations come in and really talk about that. And so I think as we were preparing for the 2022 that really they were looking at those as two separate buckets um of funding. But um we were really happy with the team. We actually had this list and we didn't want to show it publicly because we didn't know if we had enough money. So, I'm really happy they were able to come back and bring it back and get this done for the community.

Thank you, uh, Miss Mack. And of the 90 some that you just mentioned, 37 are in district one. I'm I'm I'm tracking it. And I know it's a goal for all of the city to have canopies over their playgrounds, especially since we have so much heat in our community and and we want to make sure that we create spaces for families to enjoy. But, um, I think Pablo and the team has done great and like I said, I'm very happy with the selection you've made for district one. Thank you, Pablo. Thank you, ma'am. And Pablo, remind me we have over 300 parks. Yes, sir. Lots of work. Lots and lots of work every day. Well, this is exciting. Thank you. And thank you for being able to squeeze some additional funds out to get the $2 million to do some more shade canopy. So, this is good. Thank you, sir.

All right. Any other questions for Pablo? Okay, Miss Bryant. Yes. The motion was made by Representative Lemon, seconded by Representative Voyer Trejo, and this is to approve phase two on item number five. On that motion, call for the vote. End the voting session. And that motion passes unanimously. Pablo, thank you. Thank you all. Okay, Miss Prime.

Yes, sir. Item six is discussion and action authorizing city manager or designate to submit nominated census tracks within the city of El Paso to the Texas Governor's Economic Development and Tourism Office for consideration for designation as opportunity zones in alignment with the city's strategic planning process. Motion approve. Second. Okay. Good morning. Hi. Good almost afternoon. Um so try to make it quick.

No, take your time. You're good. Uh so um on behalf of strategic and legislative affairs, I'm here to uh share this presentation on new designations for opportunity zones here in our region for the city of El Paso. The opportunity zone program um well first of all, El Paso is positioned to allocate for a new selection of opportunity zones and enhance our pillar of economic mobility. Opportunity zones is a federal program. It is a federal tax incentive that encourages private investment in low low-income communities through reductions of the capital gains tax or um deferrals of this tax. So this uh really reflects the city's growing emphasis on leveraging federal and state level tools to advocate and create lasting funding opportunities that support our community priorities. Um so really going to talk through why this is so important particularly in terms of our economic mobility pillar. So this is this program is among the breath of tools that uh we are leveraging in order to build opportunity and prosperity that reflects El Paso. Opportunity zones uh execute the core strategies of the city's economic mobility pillar. Um this includes supporting individuals, low uh local businesses and key industries for our region in addition to supporting the expansion of housing options and affordability for the city. Um so really truly what we're trying to do here is really increase the suite of vehicles or tools that we have to create growth opportunities here in the city, really strengthen economic mobility and our

local identity to keep families rooted and thriving in El Paso. Now, um, as I stand before you, the opportunity zone program is going to be reauthorized. So, we're preparing for the new round of opportunity zones that will come in 2027, January of 27. Um, opportunity zones uh were first authorized through the uh tax cuts and jobs act of 2017. This program when it was enacted um included the approval of eight census tracts here uh within the El Paso city boundary that were designated. Um just looking uh to this first iteration, we don't have ready readily available data as to what zones received investment in Texas because that was not uh required back then. But now, as the program has been made permanent for this next year, um there are new reporting requirements and we want to be sure that we are positioned to uh select key zones for our city. So, I'm just going to show you here. So, the map that's up here, these are the trackcts, the census tracts that were selected in 2018 as opportunity zones. Um during that time, as I mentioned, there were eight census tracts. And as we prepare for the new round of selections for opportunity zones, we're working to ensure um particularly thanks to u your support in increasing our advocacy as we push uh we're pushing to the governor's office to make the selection of the next round of zones. Really want to be sure that the areas that are recommended um which we'll show shortly here. want to be sure that they reflect the key areas across the city that would benefit from um additional investment. So, I'm going to show you that map. Now, the map that is here

before you is what we're presenting as recommended uh recommended tracts um to be selected as future opportunity zones. Um as I mentioned, uh today's presentation is going to be uh we're seeking your approval of what we've recommended. Um but this does not commit the city resources or funding to specific projects. We are not vouching for a specific project. Rather, as an economic development organization, we put in the recommendation for these zones to be selected. So what does that mean? That means that the census tracts that are on the map here um if they were selected as opportunity zones that will give folks um you know developers really the option to leverage this incentive program within those census uh tracts. Um so you can see here this time around we really opted to select across or recommend across a breadth of the city. Um but as one one key note that I'd like to mention here um is you know uh in our consultation we did find that the census tracts that were eligible um among those census tracts uh D5 actually didn't have um any census tracks that were eligible for this program and I just want to note it here because um you may as you see the census tracks we do have representation across the city save for district five um and we we discuss that further but as you can see here uh you can take a look um and we can discuss that further. So what exactly went into this map? Um we have uh consulted with you all as well on this map. Um but it's very important that this criteria that we present to you all which will be relayed to the governor's office that it really be inclusive and representative of our strategic priorities and it's based on recommendations from our city

departments. Um so first there's the list of eligible tracts. So this is what the IRS released as uh potential zones for nomination or census tracts. Uh this was an interdep departmental assessment. So we uh consulted with economic development, community and human development, planning and inspections, strategic and legislative affairs of course and also our urban and planning and design uh departments. Um and additionally uh running running it through you all and reviewing city council um whether this is reflective of community sentiment or any considerations as we propose these to you all. Um, in addition, we do um also have data that were provided by the city departments and that includes uh places that are really ripe for potential uh future development or reszoning. And we use the El Paso housing needs assessment um as a determining factor criteria for these recommendations. Um from the city's perspective, we are making the recommendations for these zones to be selected. But what role does the city play? Um, as I mentioned, this is really a tool uh within our toolkit of incentives that we can um offer to uh potential developers or projects here. Includes uh for example, tax increment financing. Um city-owned real estate is also a leveraging force for these designations and just the suite of economic development incentive agreements. Okay. Um, briefly on implementation, these investments are re redirected into a qualified opportunity fund. Um, and this is I I think it's worth noting that the actual vehicle for investment through opportunity zones is done on a private basis. So, it is not necessarily through the city, but rather uh could be a corporation, LLC, or public private partnership. And I mentioned that it

could be stackable with city managed incentives. So, I'm going to go into what exactly does this look like on the ground? how did this work in the past or what potential projects can this really be leveraged for? So, um this really brings as I mentioned our economic mobility pillar uh strategy in action. Um so, first just looking at investments that have supported businesses and key industries. Uh there is uh an example here of Cent Centennial Yards uh in Georgia and um this uh project was specifically cited as um an opportunity zone designation really helped attract private investment in this area. So it was a um underuse downtown rail a downtown railard that is being rebuilt into a mixeduse neighborhood that includes housing, offices, retail shops, restaurants, hotels. Um and as uh you see here was paired with a suite of other investment tools to help bring that into into life including for example tax increment financing. Um so you you can see here and it supports the focus area for example of um infill and cross uh cross- sector economic partnerships. Um another one to note here this also supports individuals local businesses and key industries. The investment that we show here was a rehab of an industrial facility in Chicago that was uh repurposed into an advanced manufacturing hub or prototyping facility for hardware and electronics. Um and this example was also a case where there were these um anchored investments. So the opportunity zone was seen as one of the determining factors for this being built in the zone that it was um redeveloped rather. Um now these examples that I have here, this is an example of a direct investment from an opportunity zone that supports um an additional uh strategy in

our economic development pillar which is expanding housing options and affordability. So in Birmingham, Al Alabama, there was a fund created from the opportunity zone program and this went into rehabbing a long vacant building. Um, and this building was turned into rental units, but it included, for example, free rent for folks who were enrolled in a workforce development program. So that's just to say this also has um community benefits not just it for the location because they have to be lowincome census tracts but also for leveraging programs that um can be partnered as as part of this redevelopment. Okay. And another example that we have here is also a rehab of a of a building where there were four historic downtown buildings in Canapapolis uh North Carolina. And they were reactivate reactivated. Um in this case it was a mixeduse complex. Um and it included an anchored u sorry it was anchored by a flagship food hall. So it just comes to show like the potential for what kinds of local businesses and facilities that we can use to bring projects locally into life. Um and this also supports our focus area of infill and efficient land use development. So we have these examples here. Um what we're really looking for today is um an action to um have uh essentially your approval for the nominated census tracks that we put here um on the presentation. Uh and this will be compiled into a regional application to the state governor's office. Um just something that I I really want to note here as well is that this incentive has very um high potential opportunity for investment. I know it's in the name um but folks who invest in this program um they take their entire capital gains they redirect it into the zone. The

folks who are thinking about these capital gains um incentives are making quite an investment and profit. And not to mention, they also have um the folks who would use this also kind of have a philanthropic way of of thinking through their funding. They're they're intentional. And so that would um really really it just has a potential to drive. I've seen investments between 500,000 us typically they range in the millions like um 1 million. There's some that went up to 50 million. So it's just um something as well to note about this. Um so I'll just go into the next steps in the nomination process. Uh right now we're bringing this to you uh to uh you know approve the recommended tracks and so from there um we are going to take this into a regional application. It will be submitted to the Texas office of the governor and then the state is going to put forward their recommendations that will go to the IRS or treasury. So that's just to say um we we've advocated early. We've met regularly with the uh governor's office. We're working with our partners in the county as well who are actually um also touching on this. They're presenting this today at the commissioner's court and from there um we will look for the designations which will take effect in January and we're act it's not mentioned here but we're actively ensuring that we have a say in this process and once the nominations are come come through that we have um that there's there's room and we're um investigating to see if we can dispute or negotiate the potential selections. So, from that, we'll just we'll put this together. This will be the backup in our application to the governor's office. Um, and that's that's what's going to happen next or what we're looking to do next. Um, and with that, I know it's nearing lunch, but I will take I will take any questions or thoughts.

All right. Very good. Represent Nino.

Thank you, Mayor. Oh, sorry, my bad. Thank you, Mayor Alejandra. Thank you so much for your presentation. And I know that we had a deep conversation last week about the opportunity zones and I want to touch base on to you know the presentation itself says El Paso's positions to advocate for a new selection of opportunity zones and enhance our pillar of economic mobility and I started doing a lot of research in regards of you know district 5 was not included in the first round and then now it's not being included in the second round And so at the end of the day, we're we're also not the deciding body when it comes to designating these opportunity zones. Um, but would you be able to share a little bit again of how these areas are determined? I know that we talked about a map that the governor's office, the Texas economic development um has and that's where pretty much the eligible tracks are located. Correct.

Uh yes, that is correct. And then once these tracks are selected, they are in place for 10 years. That's exactly right. They will be in place um until 2037. And when it comes to determining an eligible track, what is can can we revisit in what what is taken into consideration of what would become an eligible track?

So eligible trackcts are on the basis of a low-income community. So what does this mean? It is folks who relative to the annual median income of our city region. Um there's a higher uh share of folks with uh that have a low average lower medium income than our region. So it's relative to ourselves or if they have a greater share of they have more than 20% of folks who live in poverty within our census tracks uh sorry within our region. So that um it's it's actually I also want to mention that it's the same criteria as the new market tax credits um but it is on the basis of income.

No, thank you for that. And you know when we started the budget process last year, staff put together a different demographics of what each district covers, right? and district 5 according to the data that was presented we have an average medium household income of 44,995 and that's the entire district. So then I started to really question of um could there be opportunities of ensuring that we advocate for future opportunity zones that we might miss out on. Right? I mean present the presentation talks about opportunity zones execute core strategies of economic mobility pillar again support individuals local businesses and key industries. It supports expansion of housing options and affordability. Now, um I know that we had a conversation of the actual also resolution that was adopted by the IRS that includes data set limitations. And I'm going to read that really briefly where it says, "While the appendix to this revenue procedure and the information resource provide a list of population census tracks that are eligible for nomination, there may be a population census track that could be eligible for nomination as a Qoz that do not appear on the list. So even though some of the the population tracks are that are being presented might not be eligible based on the current information that is being presented, there could be an opportunity for us to advocate for other opportunity zones that we feel could fit and could be uh designated as such. Um and again I know that I had a lot of different conversations. Now based on the research we started me and my staff started going back and looking at each individual census track in my district and we were able to identify according to the federal finan financial institution examin examination um there could possibly be a census track in district 5 that could be

nominated. Um you know according to the 2025 FFIC geo code census report indicates that census track 0103.58 is has a below poverty line of 20.37 and a track median family income of 102.33 which could potentially make it eligible. Now, um, and I'm I'm giving a brief uh brief uh background because I know this is a conversation that I had with staff and um again, there's always an opportunity to essentially provide data and do an analysis of us advocating for uh potential tracks that are part of our community that we could potentially miss out on. And again, I'm thinking about the tenure aspect of what comes forward, right? So, um, mayor, I would like to make a motion to amend directing the city manager to analyze track 0103.58 located within district 5 to include current data collected at the census track level to determine if track 0103.58 may be nominated should it satisfy the requirements as stated on the IRS official methodology and list of eligible tracks of opportunity zones. uh as it's stated on the revised proclamation 2026-14 and I'm going to send that over to Miss Prime and hopefully I could have your support council to include district 5 a part of the conversation and again we are not the final determining body rather this is giving the opportunity that we don't miss out on opportunity of us advocating with all the data that could be presented uh and making sure that district 5 is not part left out of the conversation. Okay, there's a motion in the second on the amendment. Quick question for you though, uh, Alejandra, when you do that, does it pull away from another area that you've already identified from?

Um, it does not. You know, altogether we can nominate up to 88 census tracks for a reg. Okay. Um, so no, it does not. Okay, perfect. All right. Any further discussion on the amendment?

Okay, Miss Pry. Yes, mayor. The motion was made by Representative Nino, seconded by Mayor Prom Chavez, and this is to amend the direction on item six. And it reads as follows. to direct the city manager to analyze track 0103.58 located within district 5 to include current data collected at the census track level to determine if track 0103.58 may be nominated should it satisfy requirements as stated on the IRS official methodology and list of eligible tracks for oz and then uh revision PC2026-14 report on that motion to amend call for the vote in the voting session and that motion passes unanimously.

Okay, let's take the main one, Miss Fry. Yes, sir. The main motion was made by Mayor uh alternate mayor prompo, seconded by representative Lemore. Okay, call for the vote, please, to approve as amended. On that motion, call for the vote and the voting session. And that motion passes unanimously. Uh, Andrew, good job. Thank you. Thank you. Is there a motion to retire into executive session? Second. There's a motion and a second to retire into executive session. All in favor? I.

Anyone opposed? and the city council of city of El Paso may return to executive session pursuant to section 3.5A of the El Paso city charter in the Texas government code chapter 551 subchapter D to discuss executive session item one Miguel Rodriguez versus city of El Paso cause number 2024 DCB 5578 under 551.071 071 consultation with attorney. It is 12:12 p.m.

Is there a motion to come out of executive session? There's a motion and a second to come out of executive session. All in favor? Anyone opposed? And we're back in session at 12:45 p.m. and we're on EX1. Mayor Potim. Thank you, Miss Pine. Motion made seconded and carried that the city attorney in consultation with the city manager be authorized to reject mediator settlement proposal in the matter of Miguel Lanel Rodriguez versus city of El Paso cause number 2024 DCV5578 and to take all steps necessary including the execution of any required documents in order to effectuate this authority. Second.

There there's a motion and a second. Yes, a motion was made and read to the record by Mayor Prom Chavez, seconded by Representative Gonales on EX1 to reject the settlement. On that motion, call for the vote and the voting session and that motion passes unanimous. Okay. Represent Nino. Mayor, I would like to request a transcript of my comments that I made during item number six. Okay. No objection. Thank you. Move to adjourn. Okay, there's a motion to adjurnn. Second. There's a motion and a second to adjourn the work. Thank you guys. All in favor?

Anyone opposed? And the work session for Monday, May 11th, 2026 is adjourned at 12:46 p.m. Thank you, council.