Plan Commission - workshop

Good morning, Ms. Prine. I believe we're ready to go.

Good morning, Mayor, and good morning, everyone. This is a work session of the El Paso City Council for Monday, August 31st, 2026. It is 9.02 a.m. Mayor Johnson is present and presiding in council chambers along with Mayor Pro Tem Chavez, Representative Maldonado Rocha, Representative Nino, Alternate Mayor Pro Tem Fierro, and Representative Limon. Representative Boya-Trejo has requested to be excused from today's meeting. Mayor, we have a quorum.

Okay. Representative Chavez, would you lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance, please?

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.

OK, Mr. Brian, I believe that takes us to item number one.

I item one is presentation and discussion by the Concord group on a 2026 report on market rate rental affordable rental and for sale market analysis for the El Paso Texas metropolitan statistical area as prepared for housing opportunity management enterprises call.

Good morning.

thank you very much for allowing me to be here as you know I work for the Housing Authority CEO I'm Jerry Sishan our representing home and wanted to have a chance to bring to you some information we have recently partnered with the Concord Group they are the one of the national leaders in market analysis so as we move forward we use them a lot for our analysis to help us determine where we're going to build, what we're going to build, the type of housing we're going to build, trends within El Paso. I know that you all have had a recent housing study. A lot of that was focusing on single family homes. A lot of this is focusing on multifamily. I really want to show you the number of units, what's happening, and why with the demographics. Tim Cornwall is the principal on this. He's going to be actually providing the presentation. I know you probably have this presentation in your book. It's like 90 pages. He's going to manipulate it and bring it back and forth so you can see exactly what he's saying and why. There's a lot of information in here, as you know. The rents in El Paso have gone up almost 7% in the last 12 months. It's hitting our people really, really hard. And we really want to explain to you exactly what's happening and why and what you can expect to have happen in the multifamily market over the next five and 10 years. So with that, I'd like to turn it over to Tim Cornwell from the Concord Group. Thank you.

Thank you, Jerry.

great uh good to see everyone and thanks for the time uh this morning allowing us to talk to you so hopefully you all can see my screen i'm going to go through sort of our you know conclusions and findings as it relates to where this market is and where it's ultimately going to i really believe that death by powerpoint is not the best way forward so i invite anyone to interrupt and ask questions and you know challenge us as we go through these data I think it is an extremely striking time as it relates to some of the demographic substitution effects that we're seeing and what it means for our housing markets, right? So as we think about what this presentation does, it's really all about where we have been for sure, but more importantly, what's coming next. So let me make sure that everything's working. I think you can see, yep, you can see my screen changing. so where we have to start as we think about the executive summary of some of our major findings is these you know demographic realities right so when we look at the city of el paso as we as we go through kind of the existing demographics about 670 000 people living in 257 000 households What we find extremely interesting is if you look at the growth that's projected by a variety of third party syndicated demographers, the sources that we buy and pay for as we look at sort of where this market ultimately is moving, we're seeing a net growth from a population perspective for the next five years of only one tenth of 1%. right, extremely flat growth. But when we start to look at the distribution of households, when we look at how that population is organizing themselves into households, right, the 257,000 households that exist now are gonna be something like 265 by the time we get to 2031, which is a growth rate of seven tenths of 1%, right? So what that means is, is although the population growth isn't huge, we actually have people that are organizing themselves into smaller households, fewer children, right? More single person households having a lot to do with the income distribution that we're going to spend a lot of time in the next number of pages talking about. But what happens is, by the way, when you look at that income distribution, The net new growth every calendar year in overall households is about 1700 net new. But that's made up of 2900, almost 3000 every year that are up over $100,000 of household income balanced against a loss, displacement or combination of households of some 1300 every year under 100 grand. Right. So this is a place where we have a $63,000 median income and an $86,000 average household income. But what's happening is we're seeing significantly different outcomes at the top end of the income scale and at the bottom end of the income scale. Now, this is not all good news, people making more money, right? There are three different contributing factors at least, right? So I mentioned them. The first is you absolutely do see some wage pressure, right? If you're making $95,000 as a household and each of you get a raise, right? Maybe you're able to kind of sneak over into that higher end category. Secondly, and importantly, we're moving our society both from preference and necessity to double income households, right? So when you take two unrelated single adults and put them together, A lot of times we're seeing growth at the top end and a displacement at the lower end of the income scale. And then, yes, absolutely, we are seeing real displacement gentrification. Jerry also mentioned earlier the significant year over year rent growth. This is a situation that pushes people out of existing housing, and it is in a situation where we actually trade incomes, right? So if we think about what happens on a income by income basis right through 2031 within the city, you're seeing net loss and displacement under $75,000 and all of the growth. In fact, it's true to say more than all the growth is happening at the top end of the income scale. And so I want to show you what this does to the median income and to the average income, right? When you look at where we are now, again, about $63,000, Just from that movement, the substitution effect, the movement itself of who's being added and subtracted, the combination of households so people can actually afford to live here, right? The reality is we take our $63,000 median income to over 70 by the time we're in 2031. That is a 2.2% compounded growth every single calendar year. okay and then we want to talk about the the disruption the changes the significant impact on the rental market specifically and this is really quite striking right so if we look at the last four years right these income changes the substitution effect the have and have nots or or k-shaped outcomes if you will they're really changing the dynamics of what's happening in this place so if you look at those last four years five years excuse me unfortunately it's got a little bit of a lag in it because it's the u.s census bureau and they don't publish things super fast but when you look at 2019 to 2024 there's been in the city about a three percent increase in the number of renter households okay but in the same exact period there has been a loss of the lower income renter households up to about $50,000 of overall household income. And then let's look at these numbers, a 75% increase in the number of renter households between 75 and $100,000, a 40% increase in the number of renter households between 100 and $150,000 of household income and a 100% increase. That's a doubling of the number of renter households up over $150,000 of household income. Right. This is eye popping change in the distribution of who are and what our renters are and what it means in a housing market where we really have struggled to build new product. Right. Let's put the nominal numbers to it. It's more it's more like eight thousand plus households that have been added to this market earning seventy five thousand dollars. Right. As it relates to these last five years. And then there's another piece of this, right? which is if you look at the changing dynamics here, when you go through this group of people that becomes the new addressable market, those that are over $75,000 of household income, it turns out that almost three quarters of them are spending less than 20% of their income on housing. So we have a super interesting question going on. at that high end, number one, the vast majority that are spending, frankly, a relatively low percentage of their income on housing. But then when you look at the amount of people that are increasingly cost burdened, right, number one, it's a very deep part of the population based on these lower income renters that already exist. And number two, even those that are over $75,000 of household income, are seeing an eight times growth in the number of people that have real material housing burden, right? So when we look at this on a go forward basis, there is real significant change in the nature of who and what is a renter in this market and what that means, you know, as we look forward for the next number of years. On the next page, we talk a little bit about job growth. So a couple of things. First off, we know government jobs, Fort Bliss, the penetration of sort of all of these, what we call very stable employment sectors. And when you look at the last number of years, from 2020 to 2025, we've actually seen relatively robust job growth, about 2.7% per year. okay so we contrast that then with the supply side of the equation and this is a little tough because as we look at sort of what we're seeing within you know the larger context we're actually doing two different things with this exhibit the first is we're looking at the red and the blue bars and those are graphed on the left left axis this is actually residential building permits okay for the city of El Paso, and then the remaining county. Okay. That's all graphed over here. And you can see what's interesting is that peak year 2005 before the GFC. And then it's been a sort of a slow and natural decline since then in terms of overall housing production and new starts. And we contrast that with this dash line, the dash line being the residential building permits that we're seeing in the US as a whole. Instead of graphing it nominally, now we're doing it in thousands. So of course, these are millions of permits per year. But what that allows us to do is sort of compare and contrast the different cycle timing. And if you notice, the US had that early GFC peak and decline in that great financial crisis. and then recovery thereafter so that you saw significant supply constructed really across the board in 2021 and 2022 following up COVID. And that didn't happen in El Paso. So this market is not sharing in the supply deliveries that are really pretty clear in so many of our housing markets around the United States. Right. And in fact, when you look at what's happening, this is directly impacting the market dynamics and the market rents that are out there today. So first things first. Right. When you look at sort of what has happened over these last number of years, we've seen a 32% growth in market rents since 2019. Okay. We have Um, we have, uh, 96% stabilized occupancy. Okay. And we've seen Jerry said 7% certain projects absolutely have seen 7% net effective rent growth in the last year. But when we look at the cumulative competitive set, right, we've seen a disruption of concessions and, you know, we have a significant. uh increase in overall rents to the tune of five percent on a same store sales perspective these are big changes and when you look at what's happening right that has to do with the significant additional carrying capacity of the addressable market what we see in that you know, demographic and socioeconomic substitution that I've spent some time talking about already today, right? Again, to reiterate, a 100% increase in the number of renter households in a five-year period alone, over $150,000 of household income. Okay, so now we talk about what's next, right? We've done and there's a technical appendix. That's the 100 page document that I know that the home team has shared with everyone around every single project that we can identify that's planned and proposed in the market area, right? That's sort of being pursued by the development community in terms of market rate rental. And when you compare that overall supply versus the demand side, our calcs around job growth, household information, the buy versus rent decision, the question really around what it takes to be a renter versus a buyer, how that's going to work over the next number of years. These are the way the supply and demand curves ultimately look. Right. So the darker blue is the pipeline delivery deliveries known and expected through 2030. It's only 540 units of market rate pipeline. And when you look at the actual annual need, right, about 1,300 units a year, we're in a situation where we are some 5,600 units short in terms of the supply versus demand through 2030. Right. And we live in a market economy. Right. And when we have this level of disruption and we have this level of underbuilding, the most affluent people win in a market economy. Right. How they win is they pay more money, thereby continually displacing the lower income population. And that's why we've seen this significant change, as I was talking about earlier, in the composition and the nature of rentership. Right. It turns out that market rate housing is affordable housing. Right. Because, again, as you think about what happens if you fail to deliver market rate housing commensurate with the demand side. Right. The bid goes up. The most affluent people can pay the freight and it continues to ongoingly displace the lower income population. Right. Um, we also, by the way, looked at affordable rental and what we mean by that as it relates to the different AMI tranches and the income limits and max rents for family of four and then two bedrooms. Right. Basically we have very, very low, you know, very typical turnover level vacancies. You know, when we look at the existing marketplace, we've delivered zero units. Right. in both 2025 and 2026, only 44 units in 2024, right? And because we're seeing this significant change in median income, right? We've seen a real movement in the affordable rents. Right, so this is a crucible for these key you know household types right you're seeing market rate movement and affordable movement, because of the distribution of the incomes and what that does, as I talked about in terms of the changing median income right. And like so many housing markets, I mean, we do 900 of these assignments every calendar year in every corner of the United States. Like so many markets, we have significant shortfall going forward as it relates to the supply and demand for affordable as well, right? It's so difficult to deliver these units commensurate with what the need is, especially as the need is growing because of the increasing market rents. right and so as we go through that you're something like 2 000 units short right in terms of the future supply relative to what is ultimately needed We also, by the way, as part of this context, did some forensics around the for sale housing market, right? And I think this one is really striking, right? So you can see, I mean, the title is the title is the title. The entry level home really has disappeared, right? So when we look at this specifically, the price tranches under $200,000, right? Whereas that was the vast majority of the market pre-COVID, it's only 17% now, right? Right. So we've seen that starter home really become much more rare. In fact, when you look at the gap between renting versus owning, right, we are not quite at the peak, but very, very close to the, you know, record discount. Right. In terms of what it costs to be a renter versus an owner. Put another way or put inversely, the cost when you look at home price appreciation, right, lack of supply deliveries and really importantly, increasing interest rates, right? Which have completely changed the affordability game. It is forcing more affluent people to be renters. It is keeping more affluent people in the rental market. And that's part of that significant change of the higher income renters that we've seen over the last five years, right? And so when you look at this, right, we've pretty clearly laid out some winners and losers, right? I mean, it says it right here. El Paso effectively is building less than a third of the homes that it needs, right? When that happens, right, higher income households win the units that exist, they can out-compete. Right. So you can see some of those key trends. Right. 64% increase the number of renter households are earning $75,000 plus in the last five years, 100% a full doubling in that highest income tranche. Right. We're losing those that are at the lower end of the income scale. And by the way, we have very, very tight vacancies. So we have a situation where that significant under supply, by the way, 5,600 units of market rate rental, 2,100 units of affordable rental, and then significant for sale supply gaps as well, continue to drive this sort of price appreciation from scarcity that's coming for the next number of years. And by the way, like, I want to be very clear, like our demand side math is not massive, robust, you know, significant growth in the demand side. The real constraint here Okay, the real constraint is real challenges on the supply side of the equation. So if you look into the data appendix, the larger document, all of the you know, what I very lovingly call the dorkitude of what we do, okay, for a living, when you go through some of these exhibits here, right, this number right here, the kind of pipe, the potential pipeline, this is the rental one, the potential

Jerry, do you have a way of getting a hold of him? I think he's froze.

He's frozen on our side.

We'll give him a minute, Ms. Prine, then we'll move to the next item.

For the record, Representatives Acevedo and Canales arrived at 9.04 and 9.06, respectively.

He's not answering at this point, I apologize. No worries.

All right, Jerry, we'll move to the, there we go.

Is he back? Tim? Tim, are you here?

I apologize. No worries, what we'll do is we'll give him, there he is. Tim, are you back?

We're unable to hear him on our side.

We'll come back to this one, Jerry, when he gets it fixed. We'll come back to this, Ms. Pryor.

Okay, so we'll move to our... Can you guys hear me?

Yes. Yes. I can. Hello, Ken. Everybody, can you hear me? Yes, sir.

We can now. We lost you for a bit.

Yeah, no, I'm sorry. My connection failed. I really only have one more thing to say, so we're almost there. So... all i was saying is this is all about the supply side right when we look at the actual deliverability of the units going forward in terms of what we expect in terms of near-term pipeline as a share of current renters we're expecting a five-year construction and delivery of about three-tenths of one percent of the total inventory that exists in el paso today The normal number when we do this all over the United States is about 6%, okay? So even with what we would call a new normal demand side, not a super robust household formation in migration, job creation driven engine, this is a supply constraint issue, right? So there's a call to action here, which is all supply is helpful as it relates to gentrification, pricing out effects, all of those things that are really problematic that we're seeing from an affordability perspective moving forward, okay? So with that, I'm happy to take any questions or comments. But that's the larger deliverable.

Thank you, Tim. Questions for Tim? Jerry, you want to add anything?

So I would. So as you know, we've of stabilize 6 500 public housing units we've been able to increase the number of affordable housing units in this town you just we're just not building enough if you look at overall the supply demand you have to look at it from not just you know single-family homes market rate and then affordable units we're short by 21 times with the national averages in actual production And so the families that would traditionally have a place to live, the $600, $700 families, what's happening now is you're seeing them being pushed down into the Oscar Felix odd couple type of arrangement where people are now getting roommates that would normally not have to. And the massive increase in the families making $150,000 or more, which is up 100%, is putting so much pressure in the market that the families that we're dealing with that are outside the public housing. Because not only do we have 30% or lower AMI units, which are $40,000 or less for a family of four, all the way up to 80% of AMI, which is your working class families. The overall effect on some of these families is a 7% increase in 12 months onto their rents. The pressure that's happening at the lower level is you're actually starting to see people leave El Paso and move to Anthony, move to Las Cruces, move to other areas, out to Socorro, because the cost burden now is greater than 50% over what they would normally pay within rent in order to make it. So we're doing everything we can here at the Housing Authority. We're doing a lot. Obviously, we've got... 300 units that we're putting in right across the medical school we've got three more projects to with the tax credits with the support that you've given us that we're gonna add to it all in that's in the next five years because it takes about four years to come out of the ground and finish that's only 450 units Even with us hitting our stride, doing everything we can, unfortunately, the overall effect is the fact that we're just going to continue to decrease the number of units, even though the demand is increasing. And it's a disposition that's striking because you're saying, well, how is this happening if the actual number of people moving to El Paso is decreasing? Our population is not increasing. It's supposed to decrease to 5,000 to 6,000 people over the next five to seven years. So how would that happen? Well, that's exactly what's going on. The traditional Hispanic family that all lived together under one roof until they moved out is changing. You have less people staying in one household, and those families are now making more money, and they're cannibalizing the existing stock. People can't afford to buy houses anymore because the cost of buying a house is an $80,000 down payment. So your housing, even though you have houses on the market, aren't selling. So things are kind of stagnant right now. I'm not saying that they're not selling at all. I'm just saying that they're stagnant. And those families that would traditionally have been moving into houses and buying them are now actually renting, putting additional pressures on the market. So this is the information that we're seeing on our side. This is what's happening to our families. Our families that are, a lot of them are extremely low or low income families, even moderate income families, are having this massive pressure to live in El Paso. A lot of times often paying more than 50% of their gross revenues into rent, which means they're gonna be in a cycle of poverty indefinitely, because there's just no way, according to all the studies, that you can ever get out of poverty if you're paying more than 50% of your money that you go earn a year into rent. So anyway, I just wanted to let you all know that this is what we're seeing in the multifamily market. I know that you had a housing study that was presented to you recently, and I just wanted to show you what was happening within the multifamily side, because this is what we're dealing with from the housing authority. So I'm open to any questions and anything you have.

Jerry, this is alarming, actually. So with the number of units, we're short by 2030. And, you know, you said it's on the supply side. How do we get there? What do we need to do?

So Tim's still on. The thing is, you can't encourage enough building. I mean, you just don't have enough of everything. And so anything you all can do in order to facilitate that, I think, is necessary. I mean, tax credits, at least from my side, for the affordable housing side, that's 80 units, 120 units a year. That's all you get. And that's if you maximize every single dollar possible. The multifamily starts are just not happening.

It's cost, right? I mean, everything you do from a cost and timing perspective is the way forward, right? And I mean that on purpose. Like, you know, when we talk about affordable housing and our families at risk and everything else, like all housing is affordable housing is a really important concept, right? So when you look at the market rate housing that is delivered and is proposed, that does help you know, some of those families that will or could or might be displaced. Right. Because if you don't deliver those units, then those people with higher incomes that are part of the market will go looking for the next best. And that continues to push downhill until, you know, someone loses. Right. And so thinking about it as all housing is is affordable housing is really important as well.

The cost of money has gone up. Just in the last six months, I was trying to do some construction deals. The cost of money has gone up 80 basis points. $100 million in construction, that's $1.2 million in just an interest that you're paying a year. The cost for construction itself has never decreased since the pandemic. You're still paying astronomical amounts when it comes to construction. And so those two things together are really limiting how much we can build and what we can do.

Yep, it's difficult. Representative Kanellis.

Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, thanks, Tim. And thank you, Jerry, for bringing Tim to us. I think this is a great supplement to the housing needs assessment and the reports that we've been receiving that the city has commissioned on our end. For anyone... the public who's interested uh tim gave an excellent presentation but there are 84 slides in the backup with a lot more in-depth information um i know i have a significant amount of constituents who will be really interested to dive into the report um and and have a better understanding of of the situation we're facing we almost exactly a year ago considered some reforms to our zoning code, to parking requirements, to loosen requirements on construction of ADUs, for example, things that reduce the per unit cost of construction. And we did not pass those. And so I think as we hear now from our own commission study, from this one as well, we need to start to consider options like that because like you just said, Jerry, anything that we can do to encourage production will be invaluable to starting to address this because the gap is huge and will continue to get bigger if we don't take additional steps. I don't know that I have any questions. Tim, I started reading through the slides in depth. I've not made it all the way through because it's pretty high density of information. So I'm really grateful that you were willing to share this to the council today. I think it's a huge benefit for us to open our eyes to the reality that we're facing that people will continue to be priced out unless we can, well, not even just priced out. There will be no options for them. to rent or to buy. It's across the entire market, but there will be no options for them unless we take additional steps. So thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Mayor. Tim, thank you for presenting this. I know that you had a different presentation with a lot of the same information with the larger backup documents. So I think it was your last slide on the backup for us. It's slide 41, where you're kind of looking at Central El Paso, Northwest El Paso, Northeast El Paso, et cetera. I kind of wanted to understand a little bit more on, like, for example, in central El Paso, there are zero that are approved, zero that are under construction, the same in northeast El Paso. But then there are 293 that are stalled and 120 that are pending. So what is making them stall and what is also making them pending?

Yeah, so yes, and you, by the way, the difference in slides is just a little executive summary of the same data. So I just wanted to show it to you that way, make it a little bit more user friendly versus the 99 pages. But the units in the pipeline, I mean, look, the reality is it's cost and financing realities, right? So projects that might have been, you know, conceptualized three, four or five years that haven't gotten their entitlements yet when you go back to do a financial model. And the cost side has exploded even far more than these increasing rents. Right. And, you know, the return requirements to your variety of capital partners are now much higher because of spreads to, you know, treasuries and all the kind of financial dynamics. around a real estate deal, you can't continue to pursue that project, right? So when we go through that entire, and by the way, I'll share that screen, right? When you go through that entire census of plan to propose inventory, I think it's really important to say that of the 2,800 known rental units in the city that are on the books, the majority of them haven't had any real action, okay? in terms of the development community in the last number of months and maybe years, right? Because of the cost changes and the real challenges in financing, you know, multifamily at the moment. Right. So this is a roll up of every one of the projects that we can identify within that larger market area. Right. And then we go and look at what steps are those developers taking to pursue their projects. Right. And that like allows us to better game out when if they actually deliver, which is why you see. potential inventory of new projects get significantly constrained down to deliveries that are really for lack of a better term de minimis right yeah thank you thank you for that I will continue reviewing all this but this one really stood out to me appreciate it representative thank you mayor I'm not sure

It doesn't have a page number, but maybe exhibit 3E, the employment, the major employers of the city of El Paso. I'm looking at this both at the top level and then others, it says other major employers, 1,000 to 3,000. And I look through this list, and I do not find the Isleta Independent School District that employs between 5,000 and 6,000 people. And it's not listed on this chart. And I'm not sure where it came from. Oh, economic development. Yes. We'll take a look. Thank you. Because I do believe they're a major employer in this city. Thank you. For sure.

All right. Any other questions for either Jerry or Tim on this particular item? We have public comment?

Yes, Mayor. We have Ms. Osmond. Thank you, Tim. Ms. Osmond, star six, please, to unmute your telephone. Go ahead, ma'am. Your microphone is ready. You have three minutes.

You know, I felt compelled to speak on this item specifically because you all use reports such as this, and your department heads will use reports such as this to push various policies, various grants forward. And it's always geared towards real estate heavy. It's geared towards building versus bringing actual higher income jobs into the community. The same thing that the director of the Kelly Center let you know that our city has failed our community to do and has kept our residents with the highest population and poverty in Texas, right? So I'm looking at this and part of this information I feel is very skewed because as somebody who almost became a CPA and instead went into the legal field. I'm looking at these numbers. And the first thing that pops up to me is you have the income of the household, but it does not break down as to how many people in that household for that income, okay? It truly doesn't. I mean, they're speculating that it's, you know, one to two top runners. But we have a multi-generational household based in El Paso. So you can have the parents and two kids living there. You've got families here who have 20, 30, 40-year-old children. I know somebody who's a 70-year-old living with his 90-year-old mother. in town, okay? So the amount of income per household is so misleading, to say the least, okay? And then you have the increase of rent. Yet nowhere here does it talk about the fact that minimum wage is $7.25, well below what a living wage would be, which is the minimum around $15. So rent here per this is 1,000 to 2,000. Most people can't afford to move out of their parents' house to do that. I know several people that way. So y'all are pushing, let's build more. But at no point are you all even ever addressing the higher wage, the permanent jobs, not these temporary construction jobs.

Thank you, Ms. Hausman. You've reached the three minutes, ma'am. Thank you. The next speaker is Ms. Turner. Good morning, Ms. Turner.

Good morning, Ms. Turner. Good morning, Mayor Council.

One thing I didn't hear anything about is housing for those who are disabled like myself. You have nothing. Four years ago, I told them not to hook up my swamp cooler every year because I can't afford it. This year, I cut off half the apartment because I can't afford to cool the whole house or heat the whole house. When they put me in this chair, which was about 14 years ago, 12 or 14 years ago, no uh the manager put in a ramp so i could access my apartment they fired the management company fired her i would love seven percent increase in rent because mine goes up ten percent or more then i get all the fees for the swimming pool uh the gym the laundry room just being on a property so it gets expensive and my property doesn't pay taxes. Doesn't pay taxes. So, you know, 10%? Yeah, that's what it went up this year, 10%. My utilities, what, 50, 60%? That was just the electric. I can't afford to live here anymore. You know, it's getting difficult. it's getting just darn right difficult. So, a lot of people like myself who need some specialized things, we can't do anything. You know, I could, my kitchen could be different, my bathroom could be different, but, you know, it's not my home, it's just an apartment. And when you live in an apartment, you're treated like a fifth-class citizen. So I don't know what you all are going to do. But like I said, it's five, seven percent increases in rent. I'd be happy for that because I'm sick and tired of these ten percent increases and all the other things that go with it. Plus, I have to pay for the privilege of paying for my rent. I can't write a check anymore. I have to go to Walmart and go through a process giving somebody else my social security, my private information, so they can send and pay the management company the rent. This is just wrong. I mean, if you can't take my check, then you shouldn't be managing the property. Somebody needs to start looking into this. I'm paying all this rent, and hey, nobody's putting any money into the complex.

Ms. Lamont, Representative Lowell.

Thank you, Mayor. So, Dionne, where are we on this? I know we've had a report done in-house, and we've got this, and we know those projections, and they're pretty... pretty close. Is there a strategy or something that we're planning to do for the future?

Yes, ma'am. So probably in late October, November, we'll be bringing back the entire housing strategy along with the comprehensive plan. The team is currently wrapping up some community meetings to allow people to see the last few phases of the plan. I think they finished last week or so. So we're preparing to have that come back and council will have an opportunity to develop the, adopt the entire strategy along with some of the policy implications that we have listed there.

And I'm happy to comment that the El Paso Housing Housing Finance Corporation applied and received something like $25 million for first-time home buyers, which is great, but if we don't have the homes, or affordable homes, then it's very difficult for them to obtain it. We just did about 25 million before, going off for another 25 million, so I think it's a way to ease into and sort of take control of this tremendous need that we have. Thank you, ma'am.

Thank you, council, and thank you, Jerry, and thank you, Tim, for the presentation. Ms. Bryan?

That brings us to item two, and this is discussion in action on a resolution to adopt amendments to the city of El Paso state legislative agenda for the 90th Texas legislative session pursuant to city council direction and staff recommendations.

Is there a motion to approve this item?

So moved.

Second. OK, good morning.

Hi, good morning. Y'all hear me okay? Yes. All right. So shifting gears to our preparations for the upcoming legislative session. We're going to present here amendments to the state legislative agenda for the upcoming session. I'm taking this one because I'm going to manage the state lobbyist contract, which is going to city council tomorrow. So I say that to say that a lot of the legwork for what went into this presentation was done also by Cesar Ortiz, who's back here. So if you have questions for either of us, we're happy to present it. So going to the next slide. I don't I don't have a keyboard up here just OK. Yes, so the action for today's is simple. It is just for us to review amendments to the legislative agenda and to seek your approval for said amendments. As we review the amendments for today, this is also meant to illustrate where we are in our preparations for the 90th legislative session. So really to sync up on where we are in the legislative session and the actions that we've taken to move forward on directives from yourselves. So just to really ground ourselves in our agenda, the state legislative agenda, it's really the most crucial tool that we use to advocate and push for the city's interest in the upcoming legislative session. So you will recall that earlier this year, we had our legislative agenda for the state session adopted in February, but that really was intended to not be the first exposure or work around our state advocacy. So it is a document, but it's also a framework that kind of guides our ongoing advocacy at the state level. And that's just to say it is an organic document that we're bringing today for additional amendments. And just to kind of take a step back and say that strategic and legislative affairs, we are working to implement the agenda. So that's taking actions to translate the priorities and ensure that the city's interests are safeguarded. But along with that, what does this exactly mean? The agenda that we presented earlier this year was shared with our delegation. We've had ongoing conversations with our delegation and we have expressed to them that we are going to bring these amendments forward. So the conversations that have been ongoing since our agenda was adopted are certainly reflected to them. In addition, the agendas, you know, we use it as a department to advance the priorities of the city. And by extension, tomorrow we're going to bring forward a state lobbyist award for your all's review and for council's approval. So this is really to queue up our preparations for the lobbyist. We want to ensure that our agenda is really synced up to date, and that as we kick off this contract per year approval, that they have a most recent version of our agenda to serve as a roadmap for their advocacy. So just to get into these amendments, excuse me, what I'm gonna be presenting to you today are amendments that were developed by us per city council direction. So they're a reflection of council directives. These amendments are going to contribute additional priorities to our state legislative agenda. These priorities are really, topics of conversation and issues that have come to the forefront since we first adopted our agenda earlier this year so it's just to say the broader efforts that the city is taking on such issues are going to be incorporated into our agenda just to kind of reinforce the city's efforts and activities on key issues. And, you know, when it comes down to it, this is adding to our priorities, but the principles really remain the same. In keeping with what other cities are doing through, for example, the Texas Municipal League, the city really works to ensure that we protect our financial resources and aren't stripped of our ability to self-govern and determine what our, you know, shape our local policies. Um, and that for example, includes advocating against unfunded mandates. And in addition, as we look to potential resources that can come down at the state level to El Paso, our agenda really ensures for instance, through writers that we can maximize the state resources that are coming down to the city. So just looking here, this is kind of a general picture or high level summary of the agenda, the amendments. that are gonna be put forward for you all today. So as I mentioned, the issues reflect areas of focus for the past several months. For example, a data center policy framework. We have amendments to driving while intoxicated to support programs to address folks who are inebriated and make sure we reduce collisions and et cetera. I'll get into it. but also translating the data center conversation into utility, basically rate payer protections for increased utility costs, and also work that we're doing around behavioral health. What you're about to see is the language that we are incorporating into our agenda. So each of the next slides is really just really stating the language for you all, we did submit the amended agenda as backup. So you can see the red lines and kind of where they fall into our agenda. So just to get into this, the first one is regarding basically legislation and standards for data center development moving forward that could potentially come to our region. So I just want to note specifically what this language does for our agenda. The first piece is that it incorporates the recommendation to coordinate with TML on priorities related to data center basically protections from the potential impacts of data centers. So with this amendment, we are working with TML on this issue. We just came back from a TML policy summit where we listened to and contributed to conversations around data centers. They're establishing a subcommittee to address data center development, and we have put forward our names to ensure that we're part of this committee. The additional thing that this amendment does is it also incorporates our data center policy framework. So when this item came forward, it was April of this year. Our data center policy framework was approved, I believe, in July of this year. So what it does is it doesn't just simply add a line to our agenda saying, Okay, we're gonna address the impacts of data centers. It integrates an entire policy that has been crafted by the city to safeguard or basically put guardrails or you know, just preparations for a potential data center coming again. So that, in particular, when it comes to land use, we have entire policy wording around that. And it's just to say everything we have in our policy framework is fleshed out on us independently, but we refer to it as part of our amendments. Agenda, rather. So one other thing about this is, of course, the data center discussion surrounds incentives that are put forward for data centers. One topic of conversation that arose was about the sales tax exemption. So, you know, council put this forward and we heard you. We are incorporating this as an issue for our agenda. We essentially, when it comes to potential incentives in the future or sales tax exemptions, we have put forward language to require clear, measurable public benefits of potential incentives transparency considerations for the environment and accountability and at the same time ensuring so this is at the state level but also ensuring that we're not preempted in our ability to establish or regulate how we do our incentives for data center development in the future So that is the first one. I'm doing these based on chronological order. And if you look at the slide about the amendments, there was one per month. So we've had a few come up. So this one came up in May. And that one is to support legislation, funding, and partnerships that prevent impaired driving. So that could be reducing traffic crashes, injuries and fatalities. So it's really to promote programs that offer education, potentially push forward roadway safety improvements and access to alternative modes of transportation to really get at the issue of DWI incidents here in El Paso. So we heard you and we've also added this as a priority for our agenda. So I mentioned that the data center policy framework was approved in July. The action around that was in April. And since then, we've had an additional directive from city council to amend our agenda to include language that will basically ask that we can protect our rate payers from the utility costs that could potentially arise from data center development. So that's really just to say for both small businesses and residents that we focus on legislation that can ensure that the utility costs And impacts associated with data centers do not impact our region. Specifically, we want to ensure that all of the kind of protections that are coming out of the governor's office and from our agencies don't just apply to communities that are plugged into the ERCOT grid and that these protections extend to El Paso Electric and to our region to just be sure that those protections don't exclude the city or the region of El Paso. And along with, so beyond that, we have an additional amendment that we put in here, which is the action was to support state funding for a community-based behavioral health facility here in El Paso. The way that we're amending our agenda is in addition to supporting that particular facility more broadly addressing behavioral health concerns here in El Paso. So it's whether it's crisis services, for example. And this really ties as well to TML's stated priorities around public safety as well and how we can kind of integrate our focus on behavioral health with broader enforcement and support impacted communities. So that is an additional item we've added. Okay, so those are the four I do want to say, as I mentioned, our agenda is not just simply a document every single item that we are including in our agenda is really meant to drive our advocacy so just to say that. We have taken implementation actions in anticipation of today's Council meeting. We've collaborated with our partner with departments and partner agencies so for example the DWI item that we added the amendment for the El Paso Police Department is also going to present I believe tomorrow on the on a DWI framework so the amendments that we put forward really complement broader initiatives in the city and ensure it's translated in our advocacy Um, we have also engaged our delegation. So I mentioned that these amendments were going to come forward to our delegation. We've been communicating about that with them. Uh, we also just recently came back from the Texas municipal municipal leagues policy summit. So that is where they are. They established their legislative priorities for the upcoming session. And we were there and recommended actually an amendment to their policy or, sorry, their priorities toward data center regulation. We requested that they incorporate ratepayer protections their agenda so that is to ensure that we continue to be considered in addition to ERCOT communities so that was actually last week and we're working with our stakeholders we I I failed to mention the city attorney's office they have reviewed the amendments that are coming before you and they really support the when we have these amendments, they support how we kind of bring these forward and support or oppose statements for legislation coming up. And we also, we're delivering these amendments for your adoption today, so thank you for considering, really for pushing these. We're coming back to kind of reflect what you've asked of us. So our actions moving forward is once this agenda has been revised, we're formally submitting it to our delegation, although they are familiar with the issues coming up. We're going to advance these items through bill drafting and budget requests and testimony. So right now, in terms of where we are in the legislative process, November is going to be pre-filing and of course we also have the elections coming up so we're preparing to review the bills that are filed we have already put forward legislation ourselves through for example supporting project financing zones and that El Paso be eligible for that so we have already put forward legislation we are also are going to deploy our we have our policy analysts but we also have the lobbyists that is coming tomorrow for your approval They are going to, we are actively reviewing the implications of what the November election can do for the feasibility of our legislation and upcoming bills that would come through. And we are also, we've been reaching out, for example, we had a meeting with PUCT and ERCOT pertaining to our climate initiatives and our ratepayer protections. But once the lobbyists are, as we come or bring forward the lobbyists for your approval, that is only going to reinforce our efforts because these meetings we've been able to secure, but that's just to say the lobbyists will already have these existing relations, or we anticipate they have these existing relationships so that we could really more thoughtfully end real time and in person have continued conversations with agencies and committee heads regarding ratepayer protections in particular. So With that, these amendments, they will also kind of serve, this is really a reflection of conversations we've been having. So that's just to say these amendments are also a reflection of what could potentially come up for our next legislative agenda. We bring these amendments to you, and we're very happy to entertain feedback for the next legislative agenda development. And just to ensure that the process is very proactive, but also kind of up to speed with the present moment. So with that, there are amendments that we're also anticipating in advance of this session. So the one that's put forward here by District 6 is to include advocacy, basically to safeguard against the general impacts of utilities on ratepayers. So that is part of an ongoing conversation, and we will also prepare to include that in our agenda. So I think with that we're happy to answer any questions that you have.

Very good. I think these amendments are great and the one that I'm, you know, they're all good, but the anti-DWI and traffic safety advocacy that me and Representative Nino has been champion. I know I'll be going to Austin with Sober Streets to advocate and to talk about some of this with to Senator Blanco. So a lot of good work you guys are doing and this is good. Representative Nino.

Thank you, Mayor. And I want to thank the whole SLEI team for all their hard work and also collaborating with our offices on any ideas that we always have. And I was proud to sponsor all of these items on the amendments or co-sponsor. And I also want to thank Council for supporting these amendments and moving forward. I think we're all really working hard to enhance our community, make our community better. And we're addressing a lot of the priorities that members of our community have shared with us. one quick question so is there a deadline as to I know this is like a living document so constantly you know we might have different ideas that we want to advocate at the state level specifically because there might be certain limitations or jurisdictions that the city of El Paso has and that's why it's important for us to advocate at the state level to even possibly give us more authority to advocate for our past ones even further is there a deadline as to when staff would recommend to not amend the legislative agenda any further just because I know that you know bills are going to be started to be drafted and essentially I believe like that the timeline could be around November but I just wanted to ask staff as to what the possibility is should you know any council member want to bring any further amendments when staff would recommend to have some sort of deadline for that?

Well, for this one, I think I might defer to Omar on this. I know, or actually,

Good morning, Council. Ian Vogel with Strategic and Legislative Affairs. I don't want to give you a hard and fast rule of thumb because things change as we've seen. I would say we want to try to get most of our major changes to our agenda done before the end of the year so that we can, because I guess the way to think about it is this. every change is a is a change that we then need to communicate to our delegation and and the more changes that we have to communicate when they're under the deluge of new bills is going to make it harder to get that point across so i would view the agenda as like hard and fast philosophical this is where the city stands What we're going to be bringing to you over the course of the session are actual bills to react to. So you don't need to do a wholesale change to how the city reacts to a whole set of bills. We just react to the individual bill in front of us.

Does that make sense? Yeah. I just wanted to make sure because again, the conversations are always changing and evolving and there might be different ideas that even just residents share. and at the end of the day, we're all trying to navigate how do we advocate for our community even further. So thank you guys for all your hard work and thank you council as well for all your support. Absolutely. Thank you.

Representative Limon.

Thank you, Mayor. Alejandra, as you met with TML and you're listening to other priorities from other cities, can you give us like three other priorities other than the ones that we have?

Absolutely, actually says I've prepared I hate to You prepared a really great summary, but that's just to say We had data center protections. We had oversight of municipal utility districts. We had concerns about preemption overall Trying to think of the others that arose those are the three that surface to the top, okay Issues like homelessness Oh, I'm so sorry, CDBG funding, yes, affordable housing.

Affordable housing, so that kind of ties in together. Yes. How would we, what would be the process for us to include that as one of our priorities? What would we need to do, bring it to council?

We do have affordable housing, and please, Ian, go ahead.

So we have a very sort of, I would say, basic support for affordable housing. If we want to add more teeth to that, that is absolutely something that you can bring up to council.

Okay. That's the process, too.

Thank you. Representative Kanellis.

Thank you, Mayor. I have maybe similar questions. I had planned to bring forward an additional area of support. I don't know what the correct venue is for that at this point now that we'll approve this and submit it to the delegation. Is that something that's welcome today? That may be a question for Ms. Neiman as well. I don't know if we would be able to consider additional amendments today. If you'd rather us place them on a future council meeting agenda and go through that process. I don't know what's preferred.

I think I might just stay up now. Staff recommendation would be if you could give us at least a week heads up, we can at least do research. And that way, if it comes before council, we can give you a general sense of because the conversations are starting to happen, particularly around affordable housing. So we would love to be able to give you any additional context we have based on our conversations with other cities.

Sure, yeah, this is unrelated to affordable housing.

Okay, so yeah, just in general, I would say if you have any questions for council, or for council, sorry, for staff, if you could give us at least a week's notice, we could certainly do research before you bring it forward, but-

Sounds good. I have it ready. So again, could offer it today, could wait.

So the language as posted is discussion in action to adopt amendments. So any amendments that the council has today that you want staff to research, you can propose them today. And they can come back and research and tell you what moving forward that would look like. But it's permitted today. You could propose amendments or additions to the agenda as it stands today.

Okay. In that case, uh, I will do so. Um, so I moved to amend the main motion to include an additional, um, an additional item. Uh, and that reads support statewide policies and legislation that enhance support for people with disabilities, bolster long-term services and supports LTSS, improve employment and economic opportunities and strengthen physical accessibility infrastructure.

Okay, there's a motion and a second. Okay.

Discussion on the amendment? And Ms. Prine's sending that amendment to you so you can provide to the council.

Any discussion on this amendment? Okay, Ms. Prine.

I just forwarded to Council and it reads, support statewide policies and legislation that enhance support for people with disabilities, bolster long-term services and supports, LTSS, improve employment and economic opportunities, and strengthen physical accessibility infrastructure. Would you like me to call for that?

Yes, ma'am, there's no discussion.

The motion was made by Representative Canales, seconded by Representative Limon, and this is to amend the main motion to include support statewide policies and legislation that enhance support for people with disabilities, bolster long-term services and supports LTSS, improve employment and economic opportunities, and strengthen physical accessibility infrastructure. On that amendment, call for the vote. in the voting session and that motion passes unanimously.

All right representative Chavez.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Alejandra, Ian, Omar, and the entire slate team. I have a question regarding letters of support or opposition. I think last time we had a legislative session, we offered some of those. And I was wondering what the process was going to be like for those letters specifically. How do we decide what kind of letters we send and if council could also get an update on when those letters are sent out as well?

Yeah, absolutely. Our agenda is really serves that purpose is to guide our efforts and supports for legislation coming up. So that's just to say we are actively tracking what is coming out. If there are items where we could be proactive ourselves and we can put forward our support or oppose statements. But let's say that there's something impacting our partners and we believe that it could have a secondary impact to the city. then we'll certainly flag that to our partners and ensure that that's addressed. Even if it not necessarily be directly related to city programming, it certainly matters that we work closely with our partners. And so and of course, I should mention, it's important that I mentioned our city attorney's office because they play such a key role in reviewing very much real time. And we're planning to do this like very quickly. So right now, we are just preparing our systems and our team to be queued up and kind of have like a quick reaction and be nimble to how we prepare our letters of support opposition, but also our letters of support to partners as well.

Thank you. And I think this question is more for Ms. Mack. Ms. Mack, as bills start to get introduced for the next legislative session, if there's any bills that come forward that you think would adversely affect us as a municipality, would you bring those forward to council so we could review them and then amend the legislative agenda again?

So you'll see a lot more updates as we become active. The team will be coming along with the lobbyists to let you know where we are landing with things, to get input from council as things are moving very quickly. We'll also be sending weekly or biweekly updates to you all in terms of what's happening in the various committees. And so you'll have a lot of opportunity to help us understand what direction you'd like to move in.

Yeah and I think it's great. I know that I've worked with the slate team in numerous occasions and so I would like to continue that collaboration. Thank you so much. I appreciate all the work that's been put into this.

Representative Lima.

Thank you mayor. I'm not as quick and nimble as Representative Canales is with his wording today, but I would like to meet with you to discuss a priority that centers on homelessness and affordable housing and why reinvent the wheel. Let's see what other cities are doing. Let's see how we can focus on that.

Absolutely. I'm happy to discuss also or talk through the language that we currently have around supporting housing and homelessness, which, by the way, we also link it with our federal advocacy because so much of the funding comes at the federal level. So I'm happy to have that. I look forward to it. Yeah.

And Representative Limon, I'll be traveling to Oakland to meet with Mayor Barbara Lee to look at how they do homelessness. And I'll bring some of that back to you as well. Oakland, California, to address it. Yeah, and I'll bring that back to the team as well.

Formerly lived in Oakland, so that's, anyway.

Yeah. Okay, any other questions on this particular item? Okay, we have public comment, Ms. Bryant.

Yes, we have Ms. Osmond. Ms. Osmond, star six, please, to unmute your microphone. Go ahead, ma'am, you have three minutes.

Now, every time y'all hire lobbyists, I always wonder. We already have a legislative team that was put together. Y'all send out. They have a travel schedule as well. But most of the people, I guess the question should be, how many of the 150 House members, Texas House members, are these lobbyists going to meet with? do we know that how many of the 31 senate state senate members are they going to meet with or are they solely meeting with those that govern our same area we have four if you don't know and we have blanco three of the four are local as well as Blanco. So I don't know why our mayor would have to travel to Austin to meet with Blanco when Cesar Blanco has an office a few blocks away from City Hall, other than to waste tax dollars. And for Mr. Nino, if you are unaware, the Texas State Legislature only meets every two years on odd number years, okay? So since 2027 is coming up, odd number year, that's your deadline. You need to have whatever you want them to work on ready so that when the legislature is in session and not being forced to work on whatever Abbott is pushing through, Which is usually what happens if you don't keep up with it. That's your deadline. Why somebody in any political office who is dealing with state and federal matters does not know that perhaps should not be in a local office. The bare minimum you should be doing is just some small, small political government research on how government works. But again, we're paying lobbyists, tax dollars to go speak on matters where these same people are here, unless they are because she stated, well, you know, they have these connections and then she pulled that back. Well, they might have these connections. Do they or do they not? That is something that should be apparent before you give them a contract. Again. You really nearly hand out tax dollars while raising our cap.

Thank you miss us and you've reached the 3 minutes. Thank you mayor that concludes public comment.

OK this prime call for the vote please.

Yes to the motion was made by representative him on second if I represented to me you and this is to adopt the amendments to the city of El Paso state legislative agenda for the 90th Texas legislative session on that motion call for the book. in the voting session, and that motion passes unanimously.

Okay, Ms. Brown, we have comment on EX2 and EX3. Do we take that now or after?

Before the vote.

Okay, all right.

Is there a motion to retire into executive session?

So moved. Second.

There's a motion and a second to retire into executive session. All in favor? Aye. Anyone opposed? And the City Council of the City of El Paso may retire into executive session pursuant to Section 3.5 of the El Paso City Charter and the Texas Government Code, Chapter 551, Subchapter D. To discuss any of the following, Executive Session Item 1, Joseph Pickett v. City of El Paso, cause number 2024, DCV 5250, under 551.071. Executive Session Item 2, the State of Texas v. City of McAllen et al., cause number 24-1060 and 03-22-00524-CV, under 551.071. Executive session item three, application of El Paso Electric Company to amend its certificate of convenience and necessity for a 366 megawatt natural gas generation facility, PUC number 59076, HQ number utility dash 74, under 551.071, executive session item four. Discussion on economic development opportunities in El Paso, Texas. HQ number 25-5205 under 551.087. Executive session item 5, discussion on economic development opportunities in El Paso, Texas. HQ number 26-ECON-1245 under 551.087. And executive session item 6, legal consultation regarding employment evaluation and duties for city council appointed employees, city manager, and city attorney. HQ number 23-1161 under 551.071 and 551.074. These matters are taken into executive session under 551.071 consultation with attorney 551.074 personnel matters and 551.087 deliberation regarding economic development negotiations. It is 1021 a.m. The City Council is now in recess and will return to executive session at 2 o'clock.

Okay, miss Brian believer ready.

Is there a motion to come out of executive session. There's a motion in the second to come out of executive session all in favor. It anyone opposed and the work session is back in session at 4.45 PM where an ex one mere protein. No action. Thank you the X 2. No action. Thank you the X 3.

Just one second, Ms. Prine.

EX3 is motion made, seconded and carried that the city attorney in consultation with the city manager be authorized to send a counter offer in the El Paso Electric Company to amend its certificate of convenience and necessity for a 366 megawatt natural gas generation facility under the Texas Public Utility Commission docket number 59076 and matter number HIQ utility dash 74 and to take all steps necessary, including the execution of any required documents in order to effectuate this authority.

Okay, Ms. Bryant, we have a motion. Is there a second? All right, Ms. Bryant, hearing no second.

There is no second on EX3.

Okay, EX4?

Explore motion made seconded and carried that the economic and international development department continue economic development negotiations on the project associated with HQ number 25 dash 5205 pursuant to City Council's guidance and instructions.

Okay, there's a motion is there a second second. Okay, this prime. There's a group represent us about.

thank you mayor just wanted to say for the record on this one that i'm voting against it because a lot of city time has been spent on this over the years there's been a lot of back and forth and i really hope that whatever vote this go whatever uh result out of this vote um we we get to a little bit more clear instruction as to what's going to happen with this particular project So I'm not supporting it today, but I'm not against it. It's just more, I wanna know if this is actually going to be real, because I think a lot of the credibility has been tainted over the last few years for me.

Okay, Ms. Pryor.

There's a motion made and written to the record by Mayor Pro Tem Chavez, seconded by alternate Mayor Pro Tem Fierro on EX4. On that motion, call for the vote. And the voting session. And that motion passes 5 to 2. Representatives Chavez, Maldonado-Rocha, Nino, Piero, Canales voting aye. Representatives Acevedo and Limon voting nay. The motion does carry.

OK. Let's take EX5.

Ex 5.

Motion made seconded and carried that the economic and international development department continue economic development negotiations on the project associated with HQ number 26 dash econ dash 1245 pursuant to City Council's guidance and instructions.

OK. This prime call for the vote.

There's a motion made and run into the record by mayor Pro Tem Chavez seconded by alternate mayor Pro Tem Piero and this is on ex 5 on that motion call for the vote. in the voting session. And that motion passes six to one. Representative Limon voting nay, the remainder of council voting aye. The motion does carry.

Okay, EX6, Ms. Prime.

EX6. No action. Thank you.

Move to adjournment. Okay, there's a motion to adjourn.

Representative Acevedo. Sorry, I know we need to adjourn. Just Ms. Neiman, what happens with the EX3? So that's it. OK, thank you.

There's a motion to adjourn. Is there a second?

There's a motion and a second to adjourn the work session. All in favor?

Aye.

Anyone opposed? And the work session for Monday, August 31, 2026 is adjourned at 4.49 PM. Thank you, council.