Council - Regular Meeting

your life well good afternoon everyone welcome to the city council meeting today is monday june 1st 2026. it's approximately 1 p.m i'm mayor eric andricus before we start i want to mention that we have the american sign language up in front as interpreters available they're here at every city council meeting We'll start with a moment of silence for the brave men and women of the United States Armed Forces as they protect our interests around the globe, as well as the courageous men and women of the Las Cruces Police Department and the Las Cruces Fire Department as they keep our city safe 24-7, 365. Councilor Bencomo, if you'll lead us in the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. We'll start with the presentations by Councilor Bencomo.

Hello, everyone. First up, we have a very special presentation to the Mayfield Champs softball team. If you all want to come join me up here. Yeah. Hey, ladies. I'm so excited to be the one to give you this recognition. I love women's sports, and I'm a huge supporter of women's sports, so I'm so excited to be amongst champions. The 2026 Varsity Mayfield Softball Team won the Southern New Mexico Softball Invitational for the second consecutive year. This team won the District 3A, 5A Championship and the 2026 New Mexico Class 5A State Championship. They set a new state record for hitting 98 home runs on the season, including a 5A state record for runs scored in the state championship game when they defeated rival Las Cruces High School 20 to 2. The Lady Trojans finished with a school record. They finished with a school record of 29 wins, becoming the first Mayfield High School softball team to win a state championship.

One more round of applause.

Coach, do you want to say a few words?

Okay, on behalf of the Mayfield Lady Trojans and Mayfield High School, we would like to thank the community for all the support that we've had throughout the season. These ladies, they worked really hard to obtain this state championship, our first ever at Mayfield High School, and we are very proud to represent the city and the state as the 5A state champions. Thank you very much.

Ladies, anyone want to say anything? Are you sure? Well, I wore the wrong colors today. I'm so sorry. So we're going to take a picture now. Come on, one more round of applause for them. Thank you so much for joining us, champions. Thanks, Mayor. As you can see, Mayor wore exactly the right colors today, so he did good. Okay, now we have a proclamation for National Automotive Service Professionals Week presented to Mercedes Tamayako. And if we can have all of you come down. I see lots of you in the audience. I know I want you all to come down. While they're making their way, I know a couple of you softball players are daughters of a couple of our Las Cruces family, yes? Couple folks who, yes? Can you raise your hand, who you are? Yes, hi! Couple of our parents work for the city, so we're very proud of them. Don't be shy, come on down. I know it's hard to follow the softball champs, but. We want to celebrate you all as well. Okay, and the proclamation reads as follows. Whereas the city services team plays an essential role in maintaining the safety, reliability, and readiness of the vehicles that support our organization's daily operations, and whereas our technicians, service writers, parts specialists, and support staff demonstrate exceptional skill in diagnostics, maintenance, and repair across a diverse fleet that includes light duty vehicles, electric, hybrid, and conventional heavy equipment, emergency response units, and specialized machinery. And whereas the work of fleet service professionals ensure that our employees can perform their duties effectively, our operations remain uninterrupted and our community receives dependable service. And whereas the rapid evolution of automotive and equipment technology requires continuous learning, adaptability, and professional excellence, qualities consistently demonstrated by our fleet services team. And whereas National Automotive Service Professionals Week provides an opportunity to acknowledge the dedication, craftsmanship, and behind-the-scenes contributions of the individuals who keep our fleet safe, efficient, and mission-ready. Now, therefore, we, the Mayor and City Council of Las Cruces, New Mexico, do hereby proclaim the week of June 8th through June 14th, 2026 as National Automotive Service Professionals Week. and extend our sincere appreciation for their expertise, professionalism, and unwavering commitment to supporting our organization. This proclamation is issued with gratitude and respect for the outstanding service provided by Fleet Services. Thank you so much.

mayor city council mercedes tomaco administrator fleet services on behalf of the dedicated teams across our fleet services transit department and solid waste division thank you for this proclamation recognizing national automotive service professionals week we are honored to accept it on behalf of the many dedicated individuals who keep our city moving literally and figuratively across fleet services, the transit department, and the solid waste division, we are fortunate to have teams of highly skilled technicians, service riders, parts specialists, and administrative staff who work tirelessly behind the scenes. Their work is often invisible to the public, but its impact is felt every single day. Our fleet services team ensures that every vehicle, from police units to public work equipment, is safe, reliable, and ready to serve. Our transit technicians and support staff keep buses on the road so our community can get to work, to school, and essential services. Our solid waste divisions, maintenance crews make sure that collection vehicles operate dependably, supporting one of the most essential services a city provides. These professionals are problem solvers, innovators, and guardians of public safety. They work in demanding conditions, often at odd hours, and they do it with pride, precision, and deep commitment to serve our community. This proclamation is more than recognition. It is a reminder of the value of their expertise, their dedication, and their teamwork. we are grateful for the opportunity to shine a light on the people who keep our operations running and our community supported on behalf of all our automotive service professionals thank you for this honor and for acknowledging the essential work they do every day

And that's it for today. Thank you all so much.

Next on the agenda we have the departmental highlights will have community development come up first.

good afternoon mayor city council Chris favor community development director for the record so I just thought I'd take a few minutes today to update everybody on the progress with the short-term rental ordinance that was adopted in December I know there were some questions when we adopted it to get an update before it goes into enforcement in July so I thought I would present a little bit of information today. So real quick, recapping what exactly is a short-term rental, dwelling rented out without the intent of becoming a residence, typically listed on a third-party website like Airbnb, Booking.com, Expedia, those types of websites, and it excludes hotels, motels, and B&Bs. so since we adopted the ordinance in december staff has been working both community development staff and the staff of visit las cruces to compile all of the properties that have been listed as a short-term rental through the end of 2025 there were 624 and through the first few months of 2026 there's been an additional 101 properties And so we've had about 122 register with Visit Las Cruces, about 72 register to get their business registration, and then only about 35 who have done both. So we have a lot of follow-up to do. Staff initially sent out letters to all of the property owners, and now we're following up via phone calls and emails to get people in compliance. So part of that outreach, we have done some social media initially when it was adopted and then communications is now going forward with another round of outreach since we have about a month left until the ordinance does go into effect from the enforcement side of things. There is a dedicated website, excuse me, webpage on the website for short-term rentals and then communications again added short-term rentals back to the hot topics on the homepage. As I stated before, we initially sent out letters to all of the property owners and now it's just a matter of doing that follow-up to make sure that they receive those letters and that if they're still continuing as a short-term rental that they follow the process to get up to speed and in compliance. so next steps obviously still reaching out making sure that everybody is in compliance and then working with visit las cruces on their registration process to indicate whether or not they have a business registration before and if they don't then they can redirect them back to community development staff so that we can get that done first and then they can proceed to register with visit las cruces That way we don't see some only doing one and not doing both parts of what's required. I did check with code. So far we haven't had any major incidents or anything reported specific to short-term rentals. And then as we move closer to July and ready for enforcement, we'll coordinate with them on how we handle those types of enforcement issues and concerns moving forward. So that's just a quick update. I stand for any questions if you have any.

Thank you for the update, Chris. Appreciate it.

Thank you, Mayor.

Next, we have Visit Las Cruces.

Good afternoon, Mayor and City Council. I'm Liz Vega, Event Manager with Visit Las Cruces. We have a couple of updates for our America 250 initiatives for the rest of this year. Some of our upcoming events, this week we have an article that's gonna be appearing in the Las Cruces Bulletin, and that covers some of the highlighted events from the city and county, and also has a special shout out for the Brannigan Cultural Center's exhibit on the land of the people. On June 24th and 25th, we're hosting the New Mexico Hospitality Association's Governor's Conference on Tourism. Another milestone this year is that Route 66 is hearing 100, and we are gonna have the traveling exhibit here for that conference. and then ongoing on our website we're going to have a 250-year las cruces timeline so you have a little snippet of what it's going to look like we have a lot of really cool milestones We're also going to be participating in the Great American State Fair. So every state is going to be represented. We have a 30 by 30 space, and the New Mexico Tourism Department is taking the lead on that. It's a collaboration between a lot of different state departments, as listed there. And Visit Las Cruces is going to have our New Mexico booth staffed July 6 to the 10th. It's an opportunity for us to connect with thousands of visitors nationally and internationally. And then, of course, our 4th of July festivities. I wanted to point out that the Dona Ana County is having some events at the fairgrounds starting on Tuesday, June 30th through Thursday, July 2nd. Live music, vendors, and they're also going to have a nightly drone show. And this is, of course, free admission. And then the city of Las Cruces, our Parks and Recreation Department, having our city electric light parade on July 3. We're actually going to have a float that we're putting together. It's a 20-foot float. And I brought a couple of little examples of what you're going to see. Imagine this 12 feet. And then we're going to actually repurpose our float and paint it a rainbow for the Pride parade in October. And then we're hoping to have the float as well on Saturday, July 4th at Cisborough Park at NMSU for the celebration concert there as well. And of course, 945 is when the fireworks start on the 4th. And with that, I'll stand for any questions.

Sounds good. Thank you, Liz. Appreciate it. Next we have Pets of the Week, Amelia.

Good afternoon, Mayor, City Council. I am Amelia Corrales for Pets of the Week. So this week we have Goober. He is a goofy, lovable, high-energy boy. His name kind of says it all for him. He has attended multiple off-site events. So come by, check out our off-site events. But he is an amazing, fun-loving, adoptable boy who is just looking for his forever home. Our second dog of the week is Trinity. This sweet girl has been waiting far too long for her family to call her own. She's full of love, personality, and energy. She would thrive with an active family ready to help her channel her energy into walks, playtime, tug-of-war, all those lovely things that dogs enjoy. So these are just two of our highlighted pets of the week, but of course, please come down visit the shelter. We have tons of adoptable dogs and cats. Some of our long-term residents, you have Dauber there and Francesca. Francesca's in foster, which is amazing. So just a shout out to our foster parents. But if anybody's interested in fostering, gets the animals out of the shelter for a little while into a home, acclimated to a home instead of the kennels, that would be super amazing. Ebony and Playa are also two of our other long-term residents that we have. events so this sunday june seventh at the field of dreams we have our quarterly um vax clinic we try to do three of these a year and so june seventh is our next one from eight to twelve it is a little earlier normally it's nine to one but because of summertime and the heat um make sure if you are coming to our vax clinic please bring water for not only yourself but your animals um when you're there we hope to get all of the animals that show up um through the line as quickly as we possibly can. On June 6th, we'll be at Petco. On June 20th, we'll be at the Village Hardware and Hatch. June 27th, we'll be at PetSmart. And then on June 30th, we are attending a Cars, Coffee, and Canines event on Main Street. Adopt, don't shop. Just a call to action. Choose adoption. Choose compaction. Choose to save a life. Right now, animals in our shelter are waiting for someone to believe in them. When you adopt, you're not just getting a pet, you're giving a homeless animal a second chance at love, safety, and a forever family. If you're not ready to adopt, as I had mentioned previously, you can make a huge impact by fostering. gives those animals a break from the shelter, helps them heal, and opens space for us to save even more lives. Just to call, you know, be the reason tails keep wagging. Be the reason shy animals learn to trust again. Be the reason a life is saved. So I just encourage everyone, adopt, don't shop. Come by the shelter. We're really nice over there, I promise. We would love to help you find your animal, dog or cat. And then for more information, you can always visit our website at ASCMV.org, our Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube. And then I put up there the foster information. If you're interested in fostering, we would really love to have you. So you can email our foster coordinator at foster at ASCMV.org. And thank you so much again for having us up here.

Thank you, Emilio. Next is a conflict of interest. Does any member of the city council, city manager, any member of the city staff have any known conflict of interest with any item on the agenda?

None.

None. No.

Next is public participation. We'll allow up to three minutes, no pending litigation or items on non-consent. Please state your name before you speak and Katrina will assist you to the podium.

mayor mayor pro tem folks here today those watching online i'm lynn moorer the dearth of professionalism competence and honesty with respect to the utilities director and her staff regarding compliance with the federal lead and copper rule is negatively affecting thousands of people in Las Cruces who drink water from any of the city's five water systems. Lead in drinking water is a clear hazard. There's no safe level. It's especially dangerous for children, including unborn children and seniors. This matters. When our city finance director recently discovered significantly incorrect budgeting numbers, she brought it to the city manager and the city council and publicly recommended large budget adjustments to address the problems. Instead of equivalent professionalism and honesty, we have a utilities director who facilitates and or turns a blind eye to countless falsehoods and inaccuracies and the cover-up or modification of inconvenient data. As we've delineated at numerous previous meetings, these dishonorable actions include allowing or facilitating falsified inspection reports regarding galvanized piping, falsified consumer confidence reports regarding exceedances and lead levels, failure to prioritize disadvantaged properties as promised, falsely categorizing hundreds of high-value properties as disadvantaged, and leaving huge sections of the city consisting primarily of mobile home communities off the inventory. Comparing utility staff to public agencies in other states and regions, I've observed Las Cruces utility staff and a city councilor seem to have inordinately large chips on their shoulders about the city having to comply with the federal rule. Several give the impression that being required to comply is an unfair burden, even though every other water system in the country must also comply. Utilities personnel use an inadequate inspection technique, then claim, we don't have a lead pipe problem. I've also observed an unhealthily close relationship within the utilities department and with city management. Other people, including a utilities board commissioner, have observed it too. They've noted, among other things, that the utilities director has an assistant city manager who acts as her protector and hand holder. The chip on the shoulders is especially evident at utilities board meetings which have many staffers present. In contrast, city, fire, police, and public works department personnel do not exhibit these kinds of unprofessional traits or complain about the work they must do. Indeed, their behavior has been professional and good-natured. These factors support our call for an independent, honest engineer fully conversant with the federal rule, with management experience, and with no connection to New Mexico, to do thorough analysis and evaluation of the city's compliance with the lead and copper rule and as necessary recommend any adjustments including changes to staffing we think the city could truly benefit from this evaluation thank you for this opportunity to speak

Mayor, City Council, I'm Liz Rodriguez-Johnson. We're serious about expecting utilities personnel to inspect water pipes at disadvantaged properties consistent with the promise they made to the New Mexico Finance Authority in order to receive $15 million for inspection and removal of lead and galvanized piping in compliance with the federal lead and copper rule. This action is necessary not only to keep IT'S PROMISED TO THE AUTHORITY AND TO THE PUBLIC, BUT TO DEMONSTRATE THAT IT DID NOT INTEND TO COMMIT FRAUD BY PROMISING TO DO SOMETHING IMPORTANT TO RECEIVE A BIG CHUNK OF MONEY WITHOUT ACTUALLY INTENDING TO DO THAT IMPORTANT THING. are two more lists of properties with estimated values of less than $100,000 and $200,000 respectively. These follow lists one through five in both of these categories provided since February. According to responses to IPRA requests, the department has inspected only three, three of the 208 low value properties on the first four sets of lists. We again urge utilities personnel to get to work inspecting these fully disadvantaged properties in order to show at a minimum that the department does not intend to act fraudulently. We're also serious about expecting utilities personnel to include all properties within the inventory and on the map, and then inspect each of these as well. This includes every mobile home within the five water systems for which the department has responsibility. Handout C. is the seventh map segment we've provided since February that shows a mobile home community without water hookups and not found in the city's inventory. This mobile home community in the vicinity of South Main Street has approximately 180 mobile homes without water hookups on the map. At this point, the total number of mobile homes in the city without water hookups on the map, which have been left out of the inventory, total several thousand. Each of these ignored mobile homes are no doubt valued at less than $200,000 and rightfully can be regarded as disadvantaged, in addition to those included on the six sets of lists we provided. We find it exceptionally unfair that the utilities director allows or directs that all of these clearly disadvantaged properties and people who live in them be ignored and not served properly as compared to the wealthier properties and the well-off people who live in them. Moreover, the explicit terms of the funding agreement with the state requires that each of these disadvantaged properties be prioritized and served before the wealthier properties are served. This means absent an overriding reason utilities personnel should not inspect properties whose estimated value exceeds $300,000 until all the properties valued at less than $200,000 include all mobile homes are inspected. Thank you.

Good afternoon. My name is Jack Ekman. I say hi to the mayor and city councilors. I had the privilege and honor of sitting on that dais myself, but not at the same time as any of you. My wife and I chose Las Cruces as our last best place. This is a wonderful community, and I'm here today to speak about the financial situation at the city right now. I was a hospital administrator. I got used to budgets in the hundreds of millions of dollars and so I was able to work through those items and I brought that to city council with me. Let me share what the audited financial record shows plainly and without alarm. When I served on this council, we worked hard to build a financial cushion that protected this city through difficult times. The unassigned general fund balance was healthy, above 40% of annual expenditures. Today it sits at 25.6%, and your own finance director has told you that without a course correction, that balance will be exhausted by 2029. I want to be precise about what drove us here because precision matters and because some of the most common assumptions I hear from my friends and neighbors are just wrong. This is not an affordable housing problem. THE CITY'S HOUSING INVESTMENTS WERE LARGELY FUNDED THROUGH VOTER APPROVED BONDS, FEDERAL ARPA DOLLARS, AND THE TELSHORE FUND, NOT THE GENERAL FUND. THOSE WERE COMMUNITY NEEDS MET WITH LARGELY APPROPRIATE FUNDING SOURCES. WHAT THIS IS FUNDAMENTALLY IS A PERSONNEL COST PROBLEM. compounding quietly year after year, budget after budget. Each successive council approved wage increases at due positions at growth rates of 5% to 8% annually, while the gross receipts taxes were rising at 2% to 2.5% annually. And so that has nothing to do but spread. Every one of those decisions was individually justifiable. Taken together without a multi-year financial model to show where the trajectory led, they created a structural gap that is now impossible to ignore. The Telshore Fund created from the lease of the Memorial Medical Center to serve the city and county's most vulnerable residents in perpetuity has drawn down from 42.9 million to approximately 14 million. And I can't believe that was three minutes. That was three minutes.

That was three minutes. Thank you.

My name is Fred Huff. I've spoken several times recently about wanting to thank the Public Works Department for doing a great, fantastic job of cleaning up the Burn Lake area. If any of you haven't seen it, drive by on the freeway and take a look at it. It is amazing. And as I've mentioned before, the start of the year, there was 11 illegal encampments in that area. And my main concern about that, the illegal encampments, is they're basically uncivilized. They don't know how to use fire. And several years ago, there was basically a colony down in the bottom of the lake bed that had been there quite a while. It was allowed to flourish and they set the lake bed on fire. And we had to evacuate our house for several hours and we did not know if we were gonna have a house to return to because of the fire in the burned lake bed because of lack of maintenance and lack of enforcement on trespassing. So at least getting all of this foliage and brush and grass out of the lake bottom has been tremendous. i i'm sure that there are some people that are offended by all the trees being gone as i look at my before and after pictures it's like it is stark difference but we can go to sleep at night not worrying about the lake bed catching on fire or the city having a problem with the lake bed catching on fire and smoke blowing across the freeway and causing a major accident, because that would be a huge liability to the city. So that's been taken care of. And I really want to thank the Public Works. They've gone well beyond. Before they started the project, I was picking on them in some of the emails, accusing them of grooming the Esslinger Pond. That's a little drain pond just above Burn Lake. where the floodwaters comes in and settles, and then it goes into Burn Lake, and I accuse them of grooming that like a country club, and now Burn Lake is being groomed like a country club, and I'm really thrilled about it, and again, I wanna thank them for doing that. And I don't know when they're gonna stop. They're still doing it today.

Good afternoon, Mayor, City Council. My name is Eddie Thomas. I would like to address the elephant in the room and talk about crime in this city and the disparaging remarks made toward Chief Story and the Las Cruces Police Department. Basic fact. You need law enforcement in any modern day society. That's just an inescapable reality of life. There are bad people in this world and there seems to be a disproportionate amount in this lawless border town we call home. The things I know about police is that you always need more of them, you need to train them well, and you need to pay them well. A police force is only as good as you train them. You won't get top notch grade A performance from a poorly trained police force. You need to pay them a commensurate and competitive wage to attract them and keep them. It takes a special kind of courageous person to be a police officer. They navigate dangerous situations and have to make split-second and sometimes life-altering decisions and their actions are often criticized and held to a higher degree. They have to be right 100% of the time. Often a weapon or a firearm is involved, yet our expectation is that they use measured and appropriate force when dealing with the less savory of our society. The policeman, however, is exposed to all manner of violence. They got to be ready for anything, at any time, all the time. Even off-duty, as the case often is, like when the Walmart bicycle thief pulled a gun on an officer and shot at him when he gave chase, or the hammer-wielding maniac at Chili's, or the cartel drug dealer that also pulled a gun in front of McDonald's. I could go on and on. I'm glad when the bad guys are taken out. It means the police are doing their job. There are three tenets of a law-abiding society. Legislative, which is the body that produces the laws. Judicial, which is the body that applies the law. And law enforcement, which as the name implies, enforces the law. I think it's clear to everybody here that the first two are not working. That means the law enforcement part of that equation has to work double time to keep the peace. That's why we have the high recidivism rate. Career criminals commit 80% of the crime. Check me on that, Chief Story. I like it when I see police in the community. If I see one at a restaurant, I'll offer to buy him lunch. Libraries and parks are nice, but nobody is going to feel safe going to one. And just for the record, police are not being trained to kill us. Contrary to what certain delusional anti-police activists say, They're being trained to protect us. So please give it a rest. I would ask you, Mayor Enriquez, to channel your previous profession of fireman and put out the fire once and for all that is crime in Las Cruces. Thank you.

good afternoon mayor city council my name is lucas herndon i'm here today as a concerned resident who believes in transparent accountable government especially when it comes to armed agents of the state like the police i'm here because the new mexico foundation for open government has exposed something deeply troubling for years this city operated a secret committee that made decisions about police policy behind closed doors without public input without public notice and without public accountability let me quote directly from fog's findings The Select Committee did not make presentations or submissions of facts or evidence, yet evidently engaged in activities such as drafting ordinances, requests for bids on police auditing services, and acted as a gatekeeper, vetting policy suggestions and drawing parameters for public discussions on matters involving police use of force, mental health assessments for officers, law enforcement, gun safety, and more. This committee wasn't just discussing issues. They were drafting ordinances. They were vetting policy suggestions. They were drawing parameters for public discussions about police use of force. They did it all in the dark. Meanwhile, during those same years, Las Cruces police officers were involved in multiple shootings that include but are not limited to Jonathan Strickland, who was shot 12 times in 2021 during a car chase, that in court documents was called against procedure, but ultimately those cops were exonerated, Presley Etse, killed in 2022, his killer convicted for manslaughter. Teresa Gomez, killed in 2023, and $20 million paid to her family by the city in a settlement. And Amelia Baca, a 75-year-old grandmother with dementia, killed in 2022. As of yet, no charges filed. Where was public oversight when these incidents were being reviewed? Behind closed doors, in secret meetings, without the community's voice. This isn't just about procedure, this is about trust. When residents ask for police accountability, when families demand answers after a shooting, when advocates call for change and accountability, we deserve to know that policy decisions aren't being made in an unelected group operating in the shadows. The Department of Justice may have issued a disposition letter, but FOG has presented new evidence that demands action. And even the city has acknowledged it may consider repealing the ordinance to bolster public trust in transparency and accountability. So today, I'm calling on the city council to do exactly that. repeal the select committee ordinance, end the ability for any future committee to conduct public business outside public view, commit to open meetings, public notice, and genuine community participation on all matters of so-called public safety. And let's be clear here, public safety has nothing to do with violence workers like the police. Public safety is public housing, it's investment in public infrastructure, and it's substantive commitments to young people. Las Cruces deserves better than secret committees making public policy. Our community deserves transparency. Our families deserve accountability. And our city council has the power to deliver both starting today. Thank you.

Hi. Good afternoon, Mayor and Councillors. My name is Chris Candelaria and I'm a Las Cruces resident. I'm here to present an argument regarding the Upper Griggs water tank following my recent op-ed in the Sun News. The decision to restore the tank as is, keeping the image of Juan de Oñate, is a major step back for the city. While some argue this is about preserving a landmark, the truth is public funds are being used to rebroadcast the image of a man defined by violence. Oñate's historical record is well documented. He was convicted of cruelty by the Spanish Crown directly as a result of his order of the 1599 Acoma Massacre. While some defenders argue this is a response to the 13 deaths of his soldiers, history shows those men were there to extort the tribe's essential winter food and supplies. Oñata's retaliation was the slaughter of 800 men, women, and children, followed by the amputations and enslavement of the people. Cruelties that shocked even 16th century standards. These actions established a brutal system that eventually led to the Piro and Tiwa to flee to the south to this valley as refugees, making this a deeply relevant local issue. As a former student of Aniate High School, I remember wearing that name as a badge of pride, unaware of the horror it represented. The community acknowledged this failure by renaming it. The choice was made to uphold the principle that symbols carry weight. To be clear, this objection is not an attempt to sanitize history, nor is it comparable to past debates like secularizing the city's logos. this is different there's a massive common sense boundary between preserving local his heritage and publicly depicting a convicted mass murderer treating this mural like a museum artifact is short-sighted as it has actually been redesigned more than once the city-owned billboard has a prominent placement that makes what we display there even more important artist tony pennick explain that the mural illustrates Oñate leading the 300 families that traveled to El Camino Real. But with respect to Pennick, this is a historical fiction, as there is almost 100 years separating the two accounts. There is no need to look statewide for stories to celebrate. A great example is of the first settlers of this area, which followed the Mexican-American War. A local tribe guided them, shared food, and the knowledge needed to thrive in this valley. This story is best summarized by how the tribe first greeted the settlers with the words, , meaning peaceful and friends, by the native people, whose very name today comes from this welcoming gesture. What better location to display a powerful, entirely local, greeting of peace and cooperation to all those who visit and travel along I-25. Since the repaint funding is yet to happen, let's take this opportunity to choose a design reflecting our local heritage, natural beauty, and shared identity like the other tank murals by the talented Tony Penick. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Mayor, City Council. This is the first time I come up here, but we have a problem in our city and our city parks.

Sir, can you state your name?

Oh, I'm sorry, Juan Gomez. And we've been battling these homeless people and people that stay there every night. And nothing seems to be done about it. But trying to let you guys know that it is a problem and see if it could be addressed. They leave trash and they urinate and do whatever they do there. And our children play at the park. It's the Royal Park. They recently found a couple of syringes and a bunch of foil stuff that they burn. And police have gone there, and they took care of a house, but the problem seems to be going on. Because they would go and bring stuff, and I guess they would trade for drugs, and they would do them there at the park. And sometimes they get in the way because the children go every Friday, they meet there, and then they go to Valley View walking. And for them to find stuff like that is not right. And what else? Yep, that seems to be our problem there. Let's see if you guys could do something about it. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Mayor, city council members, and the community of Las Cruces. My name is Dr. Alfred Latrelli. I am chief pharmacy officer at Memorial Medical Center, and I am a more recent member of the Las Cruces community. I'm here to talk about, over the past several months, some of the work that we've been doing, where we have seen the toll of the opioid crisis directly in our area, as well as surrounding areas. And as a pharmacist, I've seen a disproportionate amount of pharmacist involvement in taking accountability for helping our community members. I know that some of our biggest gaps are related to access to reversal agents, opioid disposal, as well as our ER pharmacy services. And from the past six months at Memorial Medical Center, we have actually implemented several programs to help with that, including 24-7 access to a Narcan vending machine so that bystanders can have access to it and become lifesavers. Additionally, we have redeveloped our medication take-back program so that we can reduce the number of accidental ingestion of toxic pharmaceuticals, as well as reducing overdoses before the first medication is ever taken. uh we additionally have expanded our clinical pharmacy services related to toxicology approaches for our patients that we see in the emergency department what i'm here today is i'm respectfully asking for support and how we can partner grow and enhance these types of programs and make sure that community members have access to the resources that we put in place i'm happy to provide contact information after this meeting and i thank you all for your support

Tim Jenkins here. I would like to address the crisis in our city right now. Many residents are frustrated, and rightfully so. Over the last three years, this state has spent over $500 million addressing homelessness, yet the conditions in our community continue to deteriorate. At some point, this council must stop measuring success by the amount of money spent and start measuring success by actual results. We were promised solutions. Instead, we see more encampments, more public drug use, more crime, and more disorder in areas that families once enjoyed. Taxpayers are funding programs year after year, but we are not seeing a return on our investment. We continue to hear this described primarily as a housing crisis, but what many of us are witnessing every day is a mental health crisis and addiction crisis that too many leaders are not willing to confront honestly. Housing alone will never solve the severe mental illness in our community. If we refuse to address these realities, we will continue spending hundreds of millions of dollars while conditions continue to worsen. The situation in our parks is a perfect example. The city alone has added 47 acres of parks and spent thousands and thousands of dollars on brand new equipment at Valley View Park. Those instruments were made for our children and for our families. Yet mothers and fathers couldn't even take their children there because of all the needles and drugs and drug paraphernalia and the blood smeared all over the brand new equipment Memorial Day weekend. This is 100% unacceptable. No parent should have to inspect a playground for biohazards before allowing their child to play. No family should feel unsafe in a public park that our tax dollars paid for. Compassion and accountability are not opposite. We can care about those struggling with addiction and mental illness while also demanding safe parks, clean streets, and responsible stewardship of our tax dollars. I urge this council to focus on outcomes, not spending tools. The question is how much money has been allocated. The question is whether our streets are safer, our parks are cleaner, and fewer people are suffering on the streets than they were three years ago. If the answer is no, then it is high time we change our course of direction here. Thank you.

My name is Jim Hurst. Good afternoon. Homelessness is not a local problem. Homelessness is a national problem. The homeless people come here because of our climate. They come here because they know we have compassion. Most communities deal with homelessness by a night in a motel and a bus ticket. They usually end up in Albuquerque or here. They form their own communities, their own economies, and they live here off the land, as it were. It's a national problem. We should get national funds to deal with it. if other communities are going to send their homeless people away, there's really only three options with a homeless person. You kill them, you move them, or you house them. That's it. You have to do one of the three. Most jurisdictions thankfully don't kill them, so that means they're going to move them because they're not gonna spend the money to house them. So Las Cruces ought to be pressing for state and national aid to deal with homelessness unless it's a crime for cities to move homeless people on to the better climates and the more generous cities. That's the Southwest. That's where we live. That's why it's a problem. Thank you very much.

Mayor, Council, Juan Garcia. I was not gonna speak today, but after listening to that gentleman come up here and speak about the parks, it just bugs me. Three of you, two of you on this council have been hearing the same thing for at least four years, maybe more, that I've been coming here. this gentleman that just spoke about the drugs, the crime in the parks, and what have you done about it? I look outside when I got here, and I noticed that that mound of trash, encampment, garbage, whatever it is, right across the street from your building that you work at is still there. It's still there. It's actually gotten bigger. I don't see humans there. Of course, I don't drive by every day. But there's no doubt in my mind that every one of you, when you drive home, when you drive to work, when you drive wherever you go, you see the same trash and garbage that we all see. But collectively, you don't want to do anything about it. It's not about the homeless. Some people are down on their time. I got it. I just got a text right now. The Little Caesars, the McDonald's on Main Street is filled with garbage. People walk by there. People see this. You see this. But do you really care enough to make change and fix the problem? I think the answer is pretty evident. You don't. Because for the four or five years that I've been standing here talking about this subject, very little has changed. Thank you.

Next is the acceptance of agenda.

Move to accept. Second.

This is on the motion to accept the agenda as presented. Councillor McClure? Yes. Councillor Matisse?

Yes.

Councillor Harris? Yes. Councillor Bencomo? Yes. Councillor Curran? Yes. Councillor Munoz? Yes. Mayor?

Yes. First up is a public hearing required 7.1 resolution number 26 dash one 47. Take that back. The public hearing is now open. I'm sorry, the public hearing is now open. It is 1.59 p.m. Is there anyone here for or against the issuance of the liquor license?

No?

Okay, the public hearing is now closed. It's 2 p.m. Now we need a motion and a second to move forward.

Move to approve. Second.

Go ahead, Adam. Thank you, Mayor. Adam Ochoa, Community Development, just for the record. Before you is a proposed liquor license for what is known as NYP Slice House LLC, which will be located at 3290 Rinconada Boulevard. So person to person to state in Mexico statute application has been submitted for approval of what is known as a restaurant a beer and wine liquor license with on premise consumption and with patio service for the NYP Slice House alcoholic the ABC did some preliminary approval to the city on April 17th of this year. REQUEST FOR EXTENSION FOR THE HEARING WAS REQUESTED BY STAFF AND APPROVED BY THE STATE OF MEXICO JUST SO WE COULD GET IT TO THIS MEETING HERE TODAY ALL REVIEWING STAFF RELEASED ON NO ISSUES WITH THE PROPOSED APPLICATION ESSENTIALLY THIS IS JUST A NEW LOCATION OF NYP THEY ARE MOVING BASICALLY TWO LOTS DOWN THE STREET ON RICO NALA SO THAT'S ESSENTIALLY WHAT WE'RE REVIEWING HERE SHOWN HERE THAT LOCATION FOR THE NYP SLICE HOUSE And with that, your option today, council, is one, to vote yes and approve the proposed liquor license, or two, to recommend denial for the liquor license. The ABC will be notified of the vote, and the application will continue through the process with them. And I stand for questions.

Council Member Matisse.

Could you go back, I don't know, for slide three, or maybe two? I noticed when the alcoholic beverage control, they approved it April 17th, and then the time that it took between April 17th and today, is there quite a process that the city has to go through? all of May and.

Councillor Ortiz Mayor there is a process there are set deadlines that we need to meet not only from a state statute standpoint from a city standpoint as well regulations where we have to advertise the minimum of not only 15 days before a meeting but 30 days before the meeting as well and typically they give us a 45 day time frame to get that done is what the state gives us in this case we needed an extension since the 45 days would have put us on Believe it was Saturday. So I don't think y'all wanted to come in Saturdays. We've got an extension to today That's essentially the processor. It's it's a timing and then just meeting set goals for advertisement and notice, sir Okay, I'll drink to that No, thank you Adam Christine

This is on the motion to approve Resolution 26-147. Councillor McClure? Yes. Councillor Matisse?

Yes.

Councillor Harris? Yes. Councillor Bencomo? Yes. Councillor Curran? Yes. Councillor Munoz? Yes. Mayor?

Yes. Next is item 7.2, resolution number 26-148. Move to approve. Second.

Good afternoon, Mayor, councilors, city staff, community members. My name is Gabriela Prats. I'm the city's grant manager. And before you is a resolution to approve a budget adjustment for two grants being awarded to the fire department as well as IT. The first is the fiscal year 24 new firefighter equipment reimbursement grant. The New Mexico Department of Finance and Administration awarded $29,870 or so dollars to reimburse the cost of certain equipment required for new firefighters. We will reimburse these $29,000 plus for six firefighters that were hired from Academy 37 and 38. The second grant is made to the Information Technology Department from the New Mexico Office of Broadband Access and Expansion in the amount of a little more than $1.4 million. This is to construct, expand, and replace core high-speed broadband infrastructure used to provide services across city facilities. This is a great opportunity for us to upgrade, and IT will be upgrading pretty much all systems. Here are your council options, and I stand for questions. Councillor Curran.

Thank you, I'm sorry, you sound like you're. I'm getting over bronchitis. Okay. This is just, I just wanna throw some appreciation to whoever made the Wi-Fi go out today as we consider voting on a broadband upgrade. Brilliant, brilliant political scheming there on whoever's part that was that had the Wi-Fi go out today. So congratulations, good job, good job.

I don't know. But hopefully the new systems will prevent that from happening in the future.

Seeing no other, Christine.

This is on the motion to approve resolution 26-148. Councilor McClure? Yes. Councilor Matisse? Yes. Councilor Harris? Yes. Councilor Bancomo? Yes. Councilor Caran? Yes. Councilor Munoz? Yes. Mayor?

Yes. Next is item 7.3, resolution number 26-149. Move to approve. Second.

Okay, good afternoon, Mayor, City Council. My name is Cynthia Lamillo, Capital Improvements Program Manager, and today I have a few amendments for your review and approval. There are three type of amendments or adjustments that are bringing you forward, and this is because we are either adjusting or allocating funding to specific capital infrastructure projects. There are three type of amendments. The first one is those that reflect available funds, given the project progress. We have an amendment for a new grant funding, which is the item that you just recently approved. And then we are presenting the projects for the previously approved URT funds. We have three street projects that we are reallocating some of the funding. So the project of Melendrez and South Main, we're reducing the funds, but those funds will be reallocated to the Telstra Spruce Intersection Improvement. All three projects are moving forward, but Public Works is prioritizing the Telstra Spruce Intersection Improvement so they can complete that. The second is a second type of amendment, which is to reflect the new grant funding that you previously approved. This is for the broadband access project, and we're putting the funds into CAP in this cycle. Third type of amendments, these are the ones that will reflect the projects that we'll receive in the recently approved GRT funds for the pay-as-you-go. Just as a comment, the pay-as-you-go funds are those that remain from the first batch of GRT funds. We first have surveillance and access controls. This will be tentatively for the Frank O'Brien Center, and we're allocating 15,000. We have deferred maintenance projects for 90,000. This will be for various small maintenance projects that need to be completed. 150,000 for park restroom repair and rehabilitation projects across the city. 360,000 for the completion and continuation of the park drinking fountains throughout the city. We're allocating $60,000 for the Valley View Park Heskey Garden Lighting Replacement Project, $540,000, $100,000 in various projects related to citywide preservation and rehabilitation of roof projects. And these are small projects that could be anything from overlay to treatment to extend the life of roofs. $725,000 for various facilities and for maintenance projects. And this could be a various list of projects that Public Works has identified in order to keep up with the deferred projects. Lastly, we have $510,000 for downtown parking lots three and four, which are the ones next to the plaza downtown. We also have 200,000 for citywide parking lot rehabilitation projects. And again, this could be, will be addressing small projects throughout various city parking lots. 80,000 for the Frank O'Brien Center Parking Lot Rehabilitation. 600,000 for the Mackville Parking Lot. 1.5 for the Castaneda Building Re-Roof Rehabilitation. This is a project that has been on the CAP for quite some time now. 110 for the security security and fire alarm projects we're tentatively looking at camp hope and the municipal court to upgrade the fire alarm and then we have 360 for the academy roof rehabilitation so with that we have your council um council standard options for this set of amendments for the cip

Thank you, Cynthia. Do you have any questions?

Cynthia, can you go back to that last one?

When it was the academy roof rehabilitation, what facility is that exactly? Which building?

I don't have the address. I wonder if Chief can help me with this? Yes.

Mayor, it's Jeremy Stewart, Police Chief. It's the double Y on Hermosa. So 360,000 to replace the roof of a double-wide, which I was just talking to the fire chief about.

Yeah, we're working on that building. It's 300 Hermosa, isn't it?

Yes, 300 North Hermosa. I think it also includes the mat room, but that's a relatively small metal building.

Okay, thank you. Thanks. Thank you.

Mayor, can I follow up on your question? Go ahead, Councilor Harris. Thank you. Yeah, so can we explain why it costs $360,000 to replace the roof of a double-wide instead of buying two brand-new ones?

Mayor, councilors, I don't I can't explain the number because we're not involved in that process to go through facilities, but the roof does need to be replaced. We still utilize that facility until we have something new. But I mean, that is kind of a shocking number considering the value of the building itself.

Yeah, I guess. if anything i mean i would entertain a motion to not do that until we have a good number because that sounds a little all right i would i would present that as an option go ahead jim

Mayor Council, Jimmy Moreno, Assistant Director of Public Works. At this point, these are very rough numbers, and in fact, that's why we put a line item for general roof projects, because as we look into these projects, including the Castaneda building, once we start looking at it, We're looking at different options as far as overlays, cheaper options as well. So there's going to be quite a bit of shifting because this is deferred maintenance and there's a lot of unknowns for each of these projects. There's a lot of unknowns, but if the amount of cost exceeds what that building is worth in terms of overall cost or what its usage is we will pivot and and shift those funds elsewhere as well and does that require coming back to Council and saying hey we're gonna change things up we only need a hundred grand or we're just going to replace the building for 360 grand I mean Mayor Councillor Harris uh yes however we could go ahead and because we have the options with the additional program amount that's in there we can we can pivot internally and then Cynthia could come back at a later date to to adjust those those amounts as we get better amounts okay I guess I'm still a little uncomfortable it seems like we have a line item in here that is for general

Do we have a line item in here for general roof replacement? And why do we have a separate item for the Academy and a separate item for the Castaneda building when it sounds like we're just going to pivot and do whatever's best? Why aren't those rolled into the general one?

Yes, Mayor, Councillor Harris, Cynthia Lemillo, that is one of the challenges and that is one of the roles of the CAP. We want to make sure that the use of infrastructure funds that we know that is limited, we can communicate how they're going to be spent. So here what we decided was we have the option for those smaller projects where we have the citywide preservation and rehabilitation roof projects for those smaller projects that really it will be challenging to quantify and to really spell out but for those significant projects that we want to the community to know that we're working on those because there are needs We do spell them out, which are those two projects that we have for the roofs. Castaneda building roof and the police academy roof. So we work with estimates the best that we can. As Jimmy mentioned, one of our challenges with deferred maintenance is that we might get a few surprises as we start working with the project. But we also want to make sure a good job that we estimate and that we communicate, you know, out of the limited funding, only two projects we can do out of the many that we have pending. So as we have more funding, we can identify more projects to complete, but we also have the flexibility of that citywide, so we can address maintenance issues versus major projects like a rehabilitation or a re-roof.

Okay, I get that, but... I'm personally deeply uncomfortable with allocating that much money to, as the Chief said, re-roof a double-wide. I completely understand that it needs to be re-roofed and I'm in favor. If that's how much it costs to re-roof it, I would much rather we buy a new one and just have a completely new facility because it's a double-wide. That seems absurd. I don't know, is there an action we would take to indicate that to you? Like do I make a motion to change this plan? If that's even a thing, I don't know, I might be the only one who's concerned up here.

No, Councillor Harris, I think I'm feeling the same thing. I'm in favor of approving what's been presented with the exception of this one and looking for further investigation. I realize that several years back, the transit facility that was operating in a mobile home, the roof caved in, and they replaced it with a new one, which was a lot less than replacing the roof. I mean, ideally, I'd like to see a new training facility. That's the whole goal. But in the meantime, it's like... Can we make an amendment to approve with the exception of the Las Cruces Police Academy roof rehabilitation to be further investigated? Would that work?

Okay, I'll make a motion to approve this with the amendment that we remove the LCPD Academy roof rehabilitation.

Second, I'll second that.

This is on the motion to amend Resolution 26-149 to remove the LCPD Academy Roof Rehabilitation. Councillor McClure? Yes. Councillor Matisse? Yes. Councillor Harris? Yes. Councillor Bencomo? Yes. Councillor Curran? Yes. Councillor Munoz?

Yes.

Mayor?

Yes.

Yeah, say no other questions.

This is on the motion to approve Resolution 26-149 as amended. Councillor McClure? Yes. Councillor Matisse? Yes. Councillor Harris? Yes. Councillor Bencomo? Yes. Councillor Curran? Yes. Councillor Munoz?

Yes.

Mayor?

Yes.

Thank you, Cynthia. Thank you.

Next is item 7.4, council bill number 26-022, ordinance number 3114. Move to approve.

Second.

Good afternoon, Mayor, City Council, staff. Selina Morales, Deputy Director for Economic Development. Today I'm proposing an ordinance amendment to section 2-1313 related to appraisal requirements for real estate transactions. The purpose is to amend Section 2-1313 of the Las Cruces Municipal Code, which will extend allowable appraisal timeframe from six months to 12 months, which will improve flexibility in real estate transactions. Property negotiations can often take six months or longer based on existing appraisals, so requiring you in midway can create unnecessary delays and additional costs. In the current code, appraisals are valid for six months. New appraisals require even in stable markets, and this can create delays, additional costs, and extend ongoing negotiations. The proposed code is to use appraisals valid for up to 12 months, which allows the use of existing appraisals, and this will improve transaction timing and efficiency. Why the change? Market conditions often remain stable beyond six months. Redundant appraisals increase transaction costs. Updating appraisals has caused delays in acquisition and sale transactions already in progress. And this provides staff, council, additional administrative flexibility, which supports more efficient real estate processes citywide. The same standards within the ordinance stay the same. City council and staff may still obtain updated appraisals at any time. And qualified appraisals licensed in the state of New Mexico will still be required. So the impact of streamlined real estate transactions, reduced redundant appraisal expenses, improved administrative efficiency, greater flexibility while maintaining valuation standards. So the recommendation is the approval of this ordinance to amend section 2-13-13. Just to give you kind of an idea of appraisals and their costs. So for a vacant parcel, it costs around $3,500. For commercial, I'm going to use Shook as an example because we just did that appraisal. That one was $4,200, and the Big Chili Inn was about $5,200. Also, the time frame to get those vacant land takes about three weeks after a PO has been issued, and for commercial, it's five to eight weeks. So for SHUC, we just got it today, that took eight weeks. So it really extends that time frame and the amount of money if we have to keep using them, updating them after six months. So here are your standard council options, and I stand for questions.

Councilor Cray?

Thank you, and I appreciate you all bringing this forward and highlighting those things that exist in our process right now that lead to us spending extra money. And there's negligible difference between the things. And I also just wanted to clarify that If there is something that dramatically changes over the course of time while we're in these conversations, my understanding is that staff could also just identify the need for an additional appraisal if there's some kind of catastrophic or really marked

change in either the market or the conditions of the property staff at any time could also just say we think that this appraisal might need updating and i just want to make sure that that's there just in case yes that is correct so that is a plan this is mostly also if we're just in the middle of negotiations it always takes more than six months so if there's any time someone's uncomfortable or we're not sure about the marking conditions then we'll just order a new appraisal okay great thank you i just wanted to make sure that that was still there in the in the process so um thank you

mayor selena i appreciate you and your team looking at this this is quite a bit of a just a comment it saves time it saves cost and i would encourage you to continue to look through your processes to make the entire experience a little bit more user friendly and so i appreciate your your work on this thank you thank you mayor pro tem

Christine. This is on the motion to approve ordinance 3114. Councillor McClure? Yes. Councillor Matisse? Yes. Councillor Harris? Yes. Councillor Bencomo? Yes. Councillor Curran? Yes. Councillor Munoz? Yes. Mayor?

Yes. Next is the board appointments, and this one will be read into the record. Councilor McClure appoints Cecilia Evans de Noriega to the Senior Programs Advisory Board. The next ones will require a motion and a second. Raymond Madsen, new appointment to the Senior Programs Advisory Board.

Move to approve.

Second.

This is on the motion to appoint Raymond Madsen to the Senior Programs Advisory Board. Councilor McClure? Yes. Councilor Matisse? Yes. Councilor Harris? Yes. Councilor Bencomo? Yes. Councilor Caran? Yes. Councilor Munoz? Yes. And Mayor?

Yes. The next one is William Jesse Morang, new appointment to the ADA Advisory Committee.

Move to approve.

Second.

This is on the motion to appoint William Jesse Moran to the ADA Advisory Committee. Councillor McClure. Yes. Councillor Matisse. Yes. Councillor Harris. Yes. Councillor Bencomo. Yes. Councillor Curran. Yes. Councillor Munoz. Yes. Mayor.

Yes. The next one is Eliza Ann Kurtzman, new appointment to the City Art Board.

Move to approve.

Second.

This is on the motion to appoint the lines that and Kretzmann to the city art board. Councilor McClure. Yes, come to me to see it. Come to Harris. Yes, come to become a yes, come to crime. Yes, come to me news. Yes, and there.

Yes. Next is the notice of proposed ordinances and there are none so we'll go to the City Council member board reports and comments Councilman for.

Yeah, just a couple of things. I feel like in my district in specific, the reports of crazy traffic has spiraled in pretty heavily lately. I myself had to dodge someone the other day, seeing them in my rearview mirror and let them go do whatever it is. I try to give grace and think. they are a pregnant lady heading to the hospital. But maybe not all of them. So I was hoping that we could, in the next couple months, given that we have funded the GRT for some traffic calming, what could that look like? I was hoping that they could share some of the projects that might be helpful immediately. I was getting help from PD in getting information about a specific area on Spitz. Strangely enough, you know, I've had lived experience of seeing speeding and they said well, you know actually in The majority of that area they're driving 10 miles an hour below the speed limit. I was like, no, I can't believe it So that kind of information of sort of what what is different areas look like? How can we do that? And then I also that officer had a good conversation about roundabouts what that can look like but also future development part of it is gonna be you know, if If we do what we do with Engler and Elks is gonna become even more dramatic than it is right now. So I'd like to see if we can talk a little bit about what those projects could look like so that we can carry that back into our districts and say, hey, some of these things might happen, it might make an actual difference. The other thing I had was, I think it's a good time to talk about what public art looks like in Las Cruces in various ways. I know there's always a component of funding for things like that, but I applaud people coming out and asking the question of, if we have a chance to make a change, what that could look like for things like wells. lastly as much as I still love meetings you'd be surprised that I still do after all these but I don't like secret men's so I would also like to say that we should probably repeal the select committee ordinance so anybody else is down for that see if we can do that thank you thank you council Matisse

Thank you, Mayor, Council. I just have a few things to repeat from comments from people who live in my district. There seems to be a lot of loose dogs. So maybe a suggestion, maybe we could do it on the utility bills or wherever, that you need to keep your dog on a leash. They seem to be, I must get four or five calls a week, and I think we had one dog, we had an incident that a loose dog bit a child. So if we could do that, maybe through PSA notices and educate the public that the dogs need to be on leashes. I'm getting complaints, mainly on Espina, some other streets, that when somebody occupies a place, whether it be building their own tent or panhandling and all uh it'd be nice to get that trash removed i i don't know if city manager could help with that maybe if if i report the trash i'll gladly do that and maybe we could remove it as quickly as possible so that it doesn't look you know like our city's being trashed out And I don't know, are there fines for trashing? Are there still fines when you trash? No? Maybe. There's also political signs. Everything's about lawlessness and obeying the law. There's political signs all over in city right-of-ways. And I don't want to offend any candidates, and I really don't care. But they need to put their signs on private property and not on a city like Spruce and Trevis. That's a city right away. And I don't know if that ordinance still holds. City clerk might know that, or maybe the county. Somebody can enforce the political signs to be removed from city property. On crosswalks, maybe the PSA, maybe again in the utility bills, we have these crosswalks, but it seems like no one's using them. And so maybe we could do an education PSA again. you know if you're gonna cross on Missouri if you're gonna cross on on busy streets like University today University Avenue we I had a two ladies they crossed in mainly by the highway we enter and exit from the highway on on University Avenue and they should be using crosswalks and back to traffic calming Council McClure, if we could get some calming done on McDowell, McDowell Road, I'd appreciate it. It looks like people are really speeding down McDowell. So that's the comments from the people that put us here. Even if it wasn't a lot of votes, I'm still going to listen to them, thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Harris.

Thanks, Mayor. I have several things. First, since Councillor Matisse brought it up, I witnessed a Mano y Mano crew last week cleaning up trash at a site, and they did it very professionally. And so I just wanted to echo that that's a great program. It gives people a job to do, and it really helps clean up and beautify our city. And and they did a great job I am I would also be in favor of this of repealing the select committee ordinance or studying that that stuff happened Long before my time for sure But you know, I I'm also committed to transparency on this council and in government in general Traffic calming I'm also would love to see a presentation from Public Works about things that they have planned, thoughts that they have, and have a discussion amongst ourselves about what low-cost, rapid traffic calming projects can look like. I think we've got a lot of studies and stuff that have kind of sat on the shelf, and with this GRT, maybe we can move some of that forward. Finally, before I get to my relatively long thing, board appointments. We just did some board appointments, and there are some District 3 slots available on various boards. So if you live in District 3, you're interested in being on a board, let me know. I'll check with Christine and get an updated list, and hopefully we can fill some of those seats. So finally, I've got a lot of questions recently in the last couple months about flock and surveillance stuff. And so I have some updates to share. And many thanks to Brad and Chief Story for answering my questions and being very transparent about stuff. So, in no particular order, some updates. Our legal department is attempting to work with FLOC to change our contract to eliminate provisions for some things that we found objectionable. And I talked about these in previous meetings. Emergency sharing with other agencies. training of their own algorithms, and review of our data and use in sales demos and stuff like that by Phloxone employees. We definitely do not want that happening with our data, as it has in other cities. I've gotten some other questions about what kinds of cameras and stuff we are operating. So Citi operates a few different kinds. We have two different models from Flock. We have the Condor, which is a fixed camera. It looks in one direction, fixed focal length, and it does do a live feed. We have 22 total cameras. Most of them are Flock-branded ones, although they do have some of the city's own cameras, and these all go into the real-time crime center. So, the city does own some cameras, Flock has some cameras, real-time crime center has access to all of these cameras, and Flock is a vendor that helps make the real-time crime center run. We do have LPR cameras. These are the ones that everybody's probably most familiar with. They sit on the streets and look over the streets. They can identify cars based on license plate, based on the color, make, model of the car. And then we also have you know, we just approved some money for in the capital improvement plan for security and surveillance of city buildings and public spaces These are not necessarily integrated into the RTC they're they're not flock cameras these are the city's own system and LCPD does have access to them, but they do have to log in separately to these systems to to see them and and the data is not shared and also relatively recent development at the request of LCPD representative Vasquez office reached out and said hey we've got an opportunity for a Department of Justice earmark in the upcoming funding bill what do you want and so the city requested uh gunshot detection system and asked for five hundred thousand dollars to fund it and both representative vasquez and senator luhan put it into their earmark request so it's been submitted from both sides and it's similar to a request that was funded for the bernalillo county sheriff's office by vasquez and It's money. If and when it actually gets approved through Congress, then there would be a process to go out to bid on it, actually decide where they're going to be put. Gunshot detection systems, I should add, in most cases, of course, Flock spoils it for everybody. They're looking for a very specific type of acoustic signature that's just a pressure shockwave from a gunshot. So like ShotSpotter, you've probably heard of. That's what that technology is looking for. Flock of course makes their own gunshot detection system and naturally last year they were like, hey we're gonna roll out a software update and now it can detect human voices, which is maybe not great. So I do wanna make sure that we have good policies and oversight into if we install systems to do one thing that they don't start doing another thing later because of software update or you know hey we already have microphones that were installed for a very specific purpose but now they can do something else that's not great and it doesn't doesn't do good things for for trust Also wanted to remind everybody that the state did pass some limitations on LPRs specifically. SB 40 goes into effect July 1st, and there's various restrictions on data sharing, restricts LPR users from selling or providing data to non-law enforcement agencies, and it institutes some reporting requirements on LEAs, law enforcement agencies that use these technologies. They have to report to the state. And another question I got was, do some of the private people who have flock cameras on private property share their data with LCPD? Lowe's does, Home Depot does not. And as private companies, they both have to comply with the SB40. I don't personally know of other private flock deployments, but those are certainly visible and people ask about them. So, yeah, that's my update on FLOC, because that's one of my issues that I've been tracking. And again, appreciate legal and PD for their relative transparency and helping us understand what's going on. Thanks, that's all I have, Mayor.

Thank you. Councillor McCormick.

Thanks, Mayor, and thanks to Councillor Harris. I also appreciate your expertise on this, so I think it's very good that you're asking all of these questions. Somebody recently said the only safe data is the data that's not collected, and it resonated with that. Just a couple of echoes. I also would love to have a conversation about traffic calming, the strategy regarding traffic that given that is one of the main issues in district four as well and i have felt very similar to you counselor mcclure about a particular road that gets um a traffic study and they're like it's actually under the limit and up and so it just feels like it it's a little funny but it also feels like there's a disconnect between what you know residents are telling us and the concerns that they're seeing and then like the data collection obviously the data collection is important and we should trust that and we should also listen to the lived experiences of people and in those particular neighborhoods that happen to have a lot of speeders As a long time and very public critic of the Public Safety Select Committee, when it was in place, I also would love to see that repealed. And then I think just other, sometimes I debate on how much to respond to public comment um because sometimes it feels like facts won't penetrate opinions um but i i do think it's important to talk about the very serious approach the city has taken to issues of homelessness to issues of addiction and I mean I also wish we had a magic wand and that we lived in a utopia where everybody's needs were met and there were no people struggling and the reality is that we have taken a very serious approach in this city and an approach that has been very diverse, actually. It has been a housing approach. It has been, frankly, a law enforcement approach. We've also, you know, the majority of last council criminalized acts of certain unhoused folks. We've done, you know, the real-time crime center, park rangers, you know, the opioid advisory committee is, you know, finally putting out those dollars, and I think Often it feels like sometimes it's a very disingenuous conversation being had. And I think if we came to the conversation with honesty and a desire to actually make a difference, we'd acknowledge all of the different ways that the city has been attempting to address this issue and will continue to. The state has provided the city $11 million and that got deployed immediately and I think things have been neglected like prevention to homelessness, ensuring that people aren't being evicted out of their homes. I think it's also quite, sometimes I think it's quite convenient to forget or not recognize that in the last year Life has gotten very expensive for many people. Rent has gone up, utilities have gone up, groceries have gone up, and wages have not. So I think it's important to recognize that in addition to all of those things, additional barriers have been put in place for people to be able to access For example, care for their addiction because they're losing Medicaid or those kinds of programs are getting harder and harder for people to keep. So I want us to have a genuine conversation, continue to have a genuine conversation about this because there are in fact a lot of people actually working to address this issue and it's disingenuous to assert otherwise. I also hope, the gentleman who came here, I did not catch the park that he said, but hopefully, I'm sure Natalie is listening, and we can help deploy Mano y Mano to the park that folks are talking about, because we do have resources in place. Whether people know about them or not is a different story, and that's up to us to give out that information so that people are aware of it. there is a very serious strategy to address the issues that we have in our community, and I just wanna make sure to uplift those once again. Also, happy Pride. Sorry to look at you directly when I say that, but also happy Pride, Councilor Gordon. there's a lot of organizations in our community that are working to protect and celebrate the lives of queer and trans Las Cruces and just want to lift those up you know support them in June in October in southern New Mexico pride but also year-round like equality New Mexico the trans queer block party the Singing out Las Cruces, Transgender Resource Center of New Mexico, Southern New Mexico Pride, PFLAG of Las Cruces, many great opportunities to support our trans and queer community. Thanks.

Councilor Cray.

Thank you. I am bummed that I didn't get to go first in Pride Month. It feels like, no, I'm just kidding. No, thank you. I appreciate it. I feel you looking at me. And I would add to that, may we all remember the Pride was a riot, yeah? The first one. And so happy Pride to everyone who's out there rioting right now. I have a few comments. have a very specific ask actually that I have to look back to my colleagues to the state land office has asked that the city of Las Cruces support them and a BLM related land swap with a letter this is not the land swaps that have gotten a lot of garnered a lot of attention this is really a BLM state land office direct swap that is not within the city limits but part of their package they would like to have the support of the city council of las cruces so i'm hoping that we can have that on the next june agenda for consideration a resolution supporting that state land office blm thing and i ask all of you to see if there is a majority of counselors who might consider supporting that putting that on the agenda for a lot for next time so that's my first ask and then i have other things to say but i have to officially say look down and i don't know

Yeah, Christine would request, or we would request a thumbs up.

Thumbs up. For what? The state land office.

Okay, thanks.

There were like five, five-ish, six-ish thumbs ups.

So that's formally, I just wanted to make sure that we could get that in the hopper to be considered at the next meeting. I also support, I also considered myself a select committee critic, and to be frank, none of the people on this dais were included in the letter as directly named folks. from the foundation of open government and I think, but I do think they did give them something for us to do and that's repealing the select committee part of our charter, which is I think in chapter seven or something like that. I already have, I support my colleagues in getting, repealing the select committee part of our charter. I also support the idea of a traffic calming conversation. And frankly, Councilor McClure, Elks is the single, still remains the most hated street that's not even in my district anymore, or sort of is. But I share it with you and I still get calls and it's still at the top of my list of places that people complain about. But I have my own places that folks are clamoring for traffic calming conversations about. And that includes everything from people really want us to put giant three foot tall speed bumps on their own personal street. But I think that's probably not the entirety of what we might be able to do. So I'm hoping we can have a conversation to see what all of those things are that we can really meaningfully do to calm the traffic, including on Elks. So I, again, want to support you for that particular street. And then the last thing that I just wanted to mention, a lot of folks often ask us about capital improvements. Cynthia has been doing a really good job of telling everyone what our capital improvements plan looks like. But there is a really complicated, convoluted, ever-changing process to ask for capital outlay from the state. The city navigates that every year, but Representative Rubio and Senator Hamblin will be having a capital outlay project workshop here this Thursday, June 11th from 10 to noon. And I say this because a lot of community organizations say things like we would like to be part of a capital outlay conversation, how do we get GRO money, which is the new name for I think junior, I don't know, it's had 20 names. But this is how to get money from the state and this is really outlining the process that any organization can use or cities or people involved in those spaces to get on the capital outlay lists and go through those processes. So again, that's Thursday, June 11th from 10 to noon here in city council chambers. So I hope folks will consider joining that. And to the Pride, we don't have a ton of Pride related things happening. We've somewhat moved our Pride to October when we'll have our parade because it's too hot. But there are things happening. I do wanna just mention that in in albuquerque this weekend joanne ferrari one of our local electives is getting a legacy award from equality new mexico so that's a really exciting um development and then june 20th at klein park p flag is hosting a dress your pet up for pride and dress up yourself for pride event so if you don't have uh enough pride garments right now for your dogs and or cats i hope that you find some at a local business and prepare for that june 20th at klein park when people's uh rainbow pets will be taking over so that's one of the fun events that's going to be happening here this month so thanks again for the pride shout out and i will see you there at the park for sure i have a lot of pet related apparel to

Thank you. Mayor Pro Tem.

Thank you, Mayor. Three feet speed bumps worked in Salt Lake City, so don't knock it until you try it. You need to fact check me on that. Maybe it's not true. But speaking of traffic, so I don't know, Chief Story, maybe it's a phenomenon. It seems like every councilor talked about that. today uh i've been getting some calls on sonoma springs uh loud mufflers racing two three o'clock in the morning so maybe it's young adults out of school wanting something to do but uh definitely something to be aware of and uh join my voice in in looking at uh traffic calming just for the safety of everyone involved and also um not to wake up folks at two or three o'clock in the morning um Councilor McClure mentioned how we talked about public arts. Again, this one, I'm not sure, I need to research this, but from what I understand, there was a Native American in the Water Tower that was removed years and years ago prior to our coming here. That's part of our legacy, part of our history. If that's the case, as that art goes back up and it's similar to what it is today, I would like representation from a Native American or Americans on that water tower. So we talked about transparency, and I think that's important. I know that for trust, it's important to fix things. We are in perfect union, but it matters how it's fixed, when it's fixed, and that it is fixed. So I know that we will get to that. With that, comes trust uh and trust develops through access one of the things that i would like to do if there's no objections um from my colleagues in um would really you know ask the staff to help me with this and the city manager is i would like for us to consider evening session or an evening session maybe twice a year or once a quarter where we have a different cohort or different set of of residents who have access to us who are able to provide public input or who are able to see how city government works with that another consideration would be that that maybe we look at different parts of town for access as well you know is it easier to walk to drive through spend a little you know a little less money on gas getting to a City Council meeting where there is there is access in I know this is a lift for the staff. You work long hours during the day and asking you to spend another three, four hours, depending on public comment, maybe five, with us in the city session, but I think it would, open this up for access and trust with the community so i'd appreciate my colleagues and city manager to consider evening sessions maybe once a quarter maybe a few times or a couple times a year and then look at different parts of the city thank you mayor thank you mayor pro temp um

Yeah, I know it's been requested several times. I really don't have a problem. If we meet in the evening, I'll get with the clerk and see what we have to do and see what we can schedule. The other thing is the off-site is one that I would ask the city manager and staff to look at because I know of the live streaming and other capabilities that always created problems in the past. So that's something that we'll have to look at, but I'm not opposed to having meeting sessions so we can look at that. as far as a select committee i'm in agreement as well since i took office we have not had the policy review committees and we have not had any select committee meetings so never was i in favor of those as well so our job is to repeal it and we'll get with the legal and the city clerk to make sure that gets repealed and uh city manager will go ahead and start scheduling a work session for the traffic calming so we can move forward in that direction

And that's all I have, City Manager. Thank you, Mayor Enriquez, Mayor Patem, Munoz, and City Councilors. Just a few announcements. In addition to what Mayor had mentioned, there was a park complaint. It was Valley View, and I appreciate David getting with the gentleman in the back. It was a PSA on Facebook. It was a complaint that was forwarded over to Parks and Rec and within an hour our staff was responsive and was able to clean up the complaint and it was a wipe down of certain equipment and tossing and throwing away some of the paraphernalia that was on the ground. So I appreciate staff and their responsiveness in addition to other duties that they're doing at the current time. Kudos to mano mano council Matisse you had mentioned that if there are Areas that that need to be cleaned. I do appreciate mano mano That would be the group we reach out to council Matisse and so I just wanted to mention that to to counsel again kudos appreciate Natalie working closely with them and and to Nicole and and to the the nonprofit and for the campus working with them that it is a as as counselor Harris mentioned We're blessed to have a group to to do the job that It's difficult for staff and full-time part-time staff to do so one a model really picks up the workload on that And as Mayor mentioned, traffic calming, we will get that done and bring it to you as council. I'll get with staff on that and then repealing the ordinance. I appreciate staff to my left. They'll work and get that done as mentioned. So thank you all. That's it, Mayor.

All right. Thank you, Connie. So I'll look for a motion to adjourn.

Move to adjourn. Second.

This is on the motion to adjourn the meeting. Councillor McClure? Yes. Councillor Matisse? Is absent. Councillor Harris? Yes. Councillor Bencomo? Yes. Councillor Crayon? Yes. Councillor Munoz? Yes. Mayor?

Yes.