Council - workshop

Your life. Well, good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to our work session. Today is Monday, July 13th, 2026. It's approximately 1 p.m. We're good? Okay. If you all rise and join me 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. The first thing on our agenda is to read a close meeting statement. Las Cruces City Council met in a closed meeting this morning, July 13, 2026, at approximately 10.32 a.m. The following were in attendance. Councilor Harris, Councilor McClure, Mayor Pro Tem Munoz, Mayor Enriquez, Councilor Caran, City Manager Icani Tamupeyao, City Clerk Christine Rivera, Utilities Director Adrian Whitmer, Assistant City Manager Sonia Delgado, City Attorney Brad Douglas, Attorney Henry Becker. We also had outside counsel from Brad Springer and Chris DeFilippo. Also in the meeting from Public Works were Vanessa Romero, David Cedillo, Interim ACM of Public Works, Acting Director Kyle Ardren, and through teams was Deputy Chief of Police Eric Urenda. The items that we discussed were a pending litigation regarding Klein Charles Maynard versus Lorenzo Tovar in the city of Las Cruces. We also discussed the pending or threatening litigation regarding Brandon Barron versus the city of Las Cruces, which is closed pursuant to New Mexico State Statute 1978. We also discussed pending litigation regarding the City of Las Cruces, Dona Ana County versus Apollo Global Management, LifePoint Health, and Memorial Medical Center. Also in discussion was to discuss the purchase, acquisition, or disposal of real property or water rights by the public body, which is closed pursuant to NMSU, NMSU, I'm sorry, New Mexico State Statute 1978. And the meeting adjourned at 12.31 p.m. So now the first item on agenda, 2.1, Las Cruces Sister Cities Yearly Update. And Karina, you gonna get it started?

Good afternoon, mayor and city council. My name's Katrina Godinez, the community outreach manager for the city. I'm also the city's liaison to the sister cities, our sister cities foundation. Today our sister cities will be talking about their yearly update from FY25 to July 25 to June 26. And we'll have our president of Sister Cities, Elaine McKinney, giving the presentation. Elaine has been with Sister Cities for over 30 years, so she has a lot of experience working with our Sister Cities. Thank you.

Mr. Mayor, city councilors, Mr. City Manager, thank you for inviting me to give you an update on Las Cruces Sister Cities Foundation. On behalf of the board of directors and members of our sister cities, I would like to thank you for your support of our organization and the city's sister cities program. We appreciate the opportunity to share how citizen diplomacy and international friendships have benefited our citizens here in Las Cruces. I'd also like to introduce and recognize members of the Sister Cities organization who are present, if you would please stand. I would like to point out Ron Barunda, who is our vice president of the Sister Cities organization. Tim Chappell, who is chair of the Lerdo Sister Cities Committee. Our chair of the Nienberg Committee is not able to be here. But I wanted to recognize these people because they have contributed and dedicated many volunteer hours to the support of our organization and to Sister Cities. And we are grateful for their support. Thank you. I would like to begin my presentation today to give you an overview of Sister Cities and also the Las Cruces Sister Cities program, and then I will talk more about the accomplishments of our organization this past year. Sister Cities was suggested by President Dwight Eisenhower after World War II. He felt that this would help to encourage peace and understanding and international relationships between people. As a result of this, Sister Cities International, a not-for-profit, nonpartisan organization, was established in 1956.

Sister Cities International, as a member organization,

is set up for individual states, cities, and counties who are wishing to partner with international communities. As a result, the network of sister cities unites tens of thousands citizen diplomats. Over 2,000 cities and partnerships, cities, counties, and states within the U.S. And, excuse me, over 500 cities and counties with over 2,000 partnerships around the world in 140 countries. So it is extensive. These partnerships are formal agreements between the cities, counties, and states and their international partners. And Las Cruces is a member of Sister Cities International. Our first Sister City was Lerdo, Mexico, which we formed an official relationship in 1989. There had been many trips and communications back to 1982. Lerdo, I hope you can see it on your map in front of you, is located just south and east of Chihuahua. It's in the state of Durango. It's in a tri-city area of Lerdo, Gomez Palacio, and Torreon, which is about a little over a million in population. It's about a 10 hour drive from Las Cruces to Lerdo, so it's quite a commitment when we decide to make a trip down there. Our second city, partner city was named Berg, Germany. And we formed that relationship. We actually did that here in Las Cruces in 1993. It was a wonderful occasion. We were out at Aggie Memorial Stadium in front of probably a crowd of 20,000 celebrating that partnership's beginning. And you can see that Nienburg is south and east of Bremen, a little bit north and west of Hannover in the northern part of Germany. It's about a 12 to 15 hour flight from El Paso over there, plus a little bit of time either by rail or by car to get to Nienburg. Both of our sister cities began as the result of student exchanges. Each partnership is more than 30 years old. We signed formal agreements between ourselves and our partner cities and began that relationship and it was recognized and is continued to be recognized by Sister Cities International. We also, in 1992, established the Las Cruces Sister Cities Foundation. It's an incorporated organization that's nonpartisan and is a 501 organization. It was established to facilitate the sister cities' relationships, so we work very closely with the sister cities and with our own city here, Las Cruces. So I'd like to tell you about some of the accomplishments that we have had in the 2025-26 year. It's been an extremely busy year for us. We have updated our bylaws. We have established an extensive standing rules with policies and directions on how to conduct our business. We have renewed the memorandum of understanding with the city of Las Cruces and we have established a service agreement. We have reestablished our communications with the city liaison and Katrina, we thank her for the help and assistance she has been to us in communicating with the different areas within the city. we have created a new website the other one was uh... outdated and if you're familiar with creating websites it is very time consuming very involved and we're not complete yet we're still working on improving it however this website gives both our members as well as anyone interested in Sister Cities a way to go out and do that search and see what we're about and then to join us in the member organization if they so choose. We have updated brochures and other documentations and initiated many activities around the community. We've had visits with our sister cities. In June 2025, we sent a delegation to Nienberg, Germany, our sister city, for celebrating their 1,000th anniversary as a city. Is that amazing or what? We were delighted that Mayor Enriquez, Councilor McClure, our city liaison, Katrina Gordonis, were able to join that group and participate in the activities there in Nienberg to help them in the celebration. They got an opportunity to really communicate and learn about the community and the people. It was quite a celebration and part of the job that they had to do, and I wasn't there to help, sorry, Mayor, but they planted a tree as a gift from Las Cruces to Nienberg, in honor of their 1000th anniversary. So it was quite a gathering over there. In November 2025, we sent a delegation to Lerdo to celebrate their 131st anniversary as a city. and to renew our uh relationship with them because covet and things going on it's been it's been really difficult for us to to get that uh communication going and working together but we sent a delegation of five and it included counselor mcclure we had um Dr. Jorge Martinez Rios, who is the director of the Las Cruces Symphony, go down also. And our gift to the city and the citizens down there was a musical program that Dr. Martinez and a colleague conducted while they were there. We also were able to sign a renewal of a friendship with Lerdo. Although the proposed visit from Neenberg in 2026 in October of this year has been canceled, we're looking forward to having a visit from a delegation in 2027. We do have a small delegation that is planning to come to Las Cruces probably in August, late August, to work on a horticultural project. And I'll tell you more about that in just a minute. But we're looking forward to having a group from Lerdo here in November. You'll hear about it as we get plans more formalized. As far as education and what we have done, we've been very, very busy. One of our members, Greg Smith, who was a former counselor, put together a couple of presentations for us on the architecture. He presented the architecture in Nienberg, which you can imagine the German architecture is quite different than here. And then the second presentation was on the architecture in Lerdo, which is similar, but there are differences there too. But again, to educate the members and the community regarding our sister cities. We were involved in a couple of events, National Night Out. and Wheels United where we met with many citizens and got an opportunity to explain or introduce about sister cities here in Las Cruces. We've had seven membership drives. We've done five presentations to civic and community organizations. We've done a presentation on the local radio station, and we want to do more. And I would ask you, as people who are representing our community and involved in our community, are there organizations that you know of that would like to learn more about sister cities? all you have to do is to let me know or one of the board members know and we'll be happy to go and visit with them and do a presentation and educate i want to talk about some of our planned and ongoing initiatives student exchanges were the basis for both of these relationships and we want to expand and in some cases to continue some of these that have over time not been able to be kept active. We do have an exchange program that we're working with the German program at NMSU to partner some of their students with students in Ningberg who are interested in learning English. We have had an interest from both of our sister cities that would be interested in doing a pen friend exchange in elementary school. Although the students in high school don't have German programs now, we know that there's international programs and people who might be interested in those. And we would like to promote that idea and help to introduce our high school students to other students, both in Mexico and in Germany. We've been looking at art projects. between the city and our sister cities, perhaps bringing members from those communities here for a local project. You may be hearing more about that as the year goes on. The Ag Exchange that I've mentioned with Lerdo, very interested in this Ag Exchange program between the County Extension Office, the City of Las Cruces, And Laer, though, we're looking at a new tree that's called the yellow horn. You may not be familiar with this. It's not common here. But the yellow horn does have some strong values of water conservation. It uses and survives on six inches of water annually. Isn't that amazing? And it has a lot of medicinal as well as commercial opportunities for economic. We're considering other programs coming up. I'd like to share with you a few of those. We want to get our link well established on the website between Las Cruces sister cities and the city of Las Cruces. We would like to refresh and perhaps expand the signage around the community that talks and shows the community that we do have sister cities. That's been very important as far as educating and raising the curiosity of the community about sister cities. We would like to set up and get established a plaque for some marble that has been donated several years ago to the city of Las Cruces from Lerdo, and it's now being used in one of our public art exhibits. So we hope to get that done coming up. We're also working and hopefully we'll be able to set up a sister cities Christmas tree in the lobby here at City Hall to again promote sister cities maybe having some special ornaments from each of our sister cities. So we're working on that. We've got a lot of things that we're working for toward. We want to consider and there's an ongoing consideration of viable and beneficial relationships between Las Cruces and other countries and communities. It's a long process to go through, but we are open to that. We hope to pursue more of that in the coming year. As far as the leadership goes, our bylaws require the leadership, the board of directors, to meet at least four times a year. As I said, there's been lots to do and lots going on, and they have met 11 out of the 12 months this past year. We've had six board and committee members who have attended leadership training with Sister Cities International in Fort Worth, Texas, and also in Phoenix, Arizona. We're working to train our members to take leadership positions and to take on some of the events, the presentations, and the activities of Sister Cities. The report would not be complete without a financial report and I have to tell you that sister cities is on a. Calendar year financial reporting basis so I've included and started from January one of twenty twenty six you can see our our balance of access at that time our revenue and expenses for this six months. And then we've had an increase of approximately $5,000. So we're ready to invest and work toward the community and educating the community. So we have a lot of things in mind. In summary, I would like to say that we're working very closely with our partner cities We're in communication via Zoom. We're attending some of their meetings. They're attending some of ours. We're communicating the planning that's going on. So we are in constant contact with them probably at least once a month and often in more cases than that where we've been in touch with people in those communities. We're raising awareness and educating both our members and the community. about sister cities. We're facilitating exchanges between our sister cities and we're continuing to be financially responsible and stable. I would like to thank you again for the opportunity to speak with you today. And I appreciate, we appreciate the support that you have given to the sister cities program. And at this time, I would like to answer any questions that you may have or hear any comments that you might have about sister cities.

All right, thank you, Elaine. Councilor McClure. Thank you, Mayor.

Thanks, Elaine. The only thing I would supplement is I know you focused on student exchanges, but when we were in Lardo, there was also teachers who were interested in doing exchanges. So having consideration of what trades can we kind of pull back and forth across various borders, various oceans, would be something also to consider. And then they come back as ambassadors to their students and gives that a little bit reassurance to parents there, to parents here, what that looks like, and gives them new ideas then for their teaching and their trades that they could bring back. So, just a supplement, but thank you.

That's a very good idea, counselor. I think that that we've had some communications but we haven't solidified anything but i think that's that's an excellent idea for a great start to introduce them to the our community here and to uh likewise maybe send a group down to lerdo thank you very much counselor correct

Thank you so much for the presentation. And as Tim Chappell knows, I hosted a bunch of students from Lerdo when we did this student exchange through DACC. And I still am in touch with a bunch of those folks, many of whom have traveled. Some of them live in the States now. Some of them live in different parts of Mexico. But it's great to be in touch with those students. 12 years later from that we initially met as part of that exchange, which was great. So I just want to say, you know, count me in for the hosting of students if that's where you are or whatever kinds of things that you all need in that. and supporting that relationship. It was a great experience at the time, and I really appreciate you all carrying the torch forward. I did have one city that I would say, if you all are thinking about other places, a place called Guadas in Ancash, Peru. It's at the base of a very large mountain range, very much like here, 115,000 people. diverse population, long history, super interesting relationship with water. So not that you necessarily need, I'm sure you have a million places to consider, but when you were talking and said like, oh, we're thinking of other places, that place that I have been connected to in the past came to mind as a very close match to Las Cruces in terms of those things. So thank you again, and we appreciate your your commitment.

You're quite welcome and I'll be happy to give you a card so you can send me information on that city. We are looking definitely for cities that are going to be beneficial for Las Cruces and it always involves a little time of courting. to get to know one another and to see what we have to offer them and what their community has to offer us. So we're looking for that strong link between communities. And I would say that Councilor Karan's information there regarding her relationship with the the people that she has hosted and been involved with really demonstrates what happens as we interact and become friends and we get to know their culture they get to know ours we share things back and forth so it's it's really important that brings a oneness to our communities. Although we may not agree on different things, we can acknowledge and respect one another. That's what helps our international relationships. Thank you very much.

Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you, Mayor.

Elaine, thank you, your board, your volunteers, for all the work that you are doing. Definitely important as folks from these sister cities would say . Another city to consider would be Pozo Majore. Italy will get I'll get your information be great as you expand to look at the city's beautiful little city near Beach with a wonderful view and structures that are over 9,000 years old and as I tell the public works guys they also have streets that are 3,000 years old with no potholes we can learn a lot there No potholes. Well, I don't know. They're still standing, kind of.

Is there anyone else? No.

Thanks again Elaine for the presentation the update I look forward to the Expansion the growth that sister cities can do and provide looking forward to the Christmas tree decoration Katrina's already mentioned that to me and we can do a lot of things and You're right. It's the relationship. It's the education. It's the art. It's the culture and There's so much that we can learn from each other. And I'll throw this one to the fire department. We at one time talked about having LERDO fire members maybe attend one of our academies, and we could host them and give them some training from this area. I was fortunate in Niemburg to go to the police department there to their academy, and the things that they do over there, it's a three-year program. and a lot to learn and things that we can learn from them as well. Absolutely. So looking forward to it. Thank you.

Thank you again. Thank you so much.

Next on the agenda is the Tail Shore Facility Fund, Leslie Doyle.

Good afternoon, Mayor, City Council, City staff. My name is Leslie Doyle. And along with my team, Cynthia Alamillo and Natalie Green, we are here today to present on the Telshore Fund. Telshore Facility Fund or Telshore Fund.

Thank you. That's why she's the best team member.

So first I want to talk a little bit about the history. While this is not an inclusive list, because there's been a lot of resolutions for the Telshore Fund, this is a list that has really been impactful in regards to the investments. So Resolution 05-128 established the Telshore Fund in 2024. And this used one-time lease proceeds from Memorial Medical Center. We had a total amount that we received of $28.5 million. In 2004, we received $24.4 million of that. And then in 2019, we received the remaining escrow funding. In 2005, Ordinance 2244 authorized long-term investments with the New Mexico State Investment Council. And then in 2007, resolution 07-378 approved for the funds to be invested in the investment council. 40% of the Oh, and then, I'm sorry, 40% of the 10 million was then allocated to be managed by the city and the remaining 14.4 was invested in the State Investment Council. Large cap equity, 30%, small to mid cap equity, 20%, and then international equity, 10%. Resolution 08112 lifted the moratorium on the use of the funds for health-related services for a three-year period. And at the time, we were allocating an amount not to exceed $300,000 with a combination of Telstra Fund, General Fund, and any other appropriate funding sources. And then in 2013, a resolution was approved, 14-105, that adopted an application and guide so that you could apply for this funding. And then annual resolutions to set nonprofit funding priorities throughout the years. So as I mentioned earlier, there was a city managed investments of 40% that were managed in the Treasury Department. You can see the rate of return that we received for those funds. I would note that as of 2025, those funds that were managed by the city were fully expended. And then the 60% that is still currently within the New Mexico State Investment Council, you can see the rate of investment that we have on those funds as well. Then I did also want to show The expenditures for the Tel Shore Fund, you can see it was flat early on, and then as of 23, it did begin to increase. The budgeted expenditures of 13.7 million are not actual, but they are projected and approved budget at this time. And then we also have cash investment inflows and outflows. And I understand that this is a lot of information. So there are two areas that I do want to highlight for you. The first is investment income and capital appreciation. You can see from fiscal year 20 to 26, there is a change of $1.4 million. to 9.3 million that we increased. I will note that in fiscal 22, there was a significant decrease, which was right in the middle of COVID. So not to be, you know, that's not too surprising, but did wanna note that that did occur. Additionally, the investment balance as of fiscal 20 was 40.9 million, and now it is 53.5 million. Before I turn it over to Cynthia for her part of the presentation, I do want to note that there is a slide at the end that we are going to be requesting some direction from council on how we move forward with this investment. I want to be able to provide the full picture of everything before we have the discussion. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Cynthia. Thank you.

Good afternoon mayor City Council, my name is Cynthia let me you and the capital improvements program manager and following Leslie's presentation, I want to give you a quick update on the most recent tell sure capital allocations, these are the allocations that were authorized in the fiscal year of 2025. We first start with Legacy Parks. This is the first time that the Department of Parks and Rec introduced to us the concept of Legacy Parks. We want to be mindful and in a way recognize all of those city parks that have been the oldest and that we recognize that they need some maintenance. The emphasis for this first round was Apodaca and Yonge Park. and they got an allocation of $2.5 million. Out of that, we have expended about $1.4 in multiple projects. For Young Park, there were some canopies that were replaced, but some of those expenditures were also allocated to the Young Master Plan. I'm going to come back for the Apodaca project. Then we also had an allocation of 1.9 for playground replacements and park construction. And here's where we had the ability to complete multiple projects. The remainder of this two set of allocation, which adds up to 2 million, will be fully allocated to the Apodaca Park aquatic playground and multi-use path. This is a very comprehensive project and some of the upcoming expenditures will be the demolition of the existing pool and then the placement of a new aquatic playground. This project also has a grant and this funding will help close out that project to ensure that it's fully funded, but there might be a small gap later on. Some of the projects that have been completed with the Telstra funds includes a Pioneer Women's Park Playground. From these two pictures you can see the before and after. We next have the Gus Velakis Park Playground, another playground that needed playground replacement. Then we have East Mesa Rec Center Park Playground. So as you see, Parks and Rec had the ability to replace several park playgrounds that were needed. They also did general projects. For example, for the Ron Gala T-ball field, they improved eight dugouts. As you can see for the first picture, you can see how it's damaged, and you see the replace or an improved dugout. There were eight dugouts at Ron Gala and also eight at the Mack field. They also replace and improve the steps or the seating area at the Fork Hills Park. This is right next to the basketball court. So now you can see that there's a safe area where anybody could just go and take a break while they're playing or just enjoy the park. The other set of projects that received TelShare capital allocations in 25 was facility maintenance projects. 1.1 was allocated, and we have a balance of about 400,000. These projects included the park water fountains, which are still in progress. the Mesilla Valley Community of Hope restrooms, and this is a very important project because the restroom and the shower improvement increase their capacity of 20 showers daily to 40 showers, creating a huge help for the campus. And then they also had general facilities that could be smaller projects. The remaining that they have right now will continue to be allocated to the water and fountains to ensure that project gets completed. Another set of projects that received TELSHER funding is the Police Real-Time Crime Center, specifically the Intel and Crime Lab. This project is almost done. The department is just working on the final punch list items, which are those little remaining items, and they will use the remaining balance to pay any invoice that's pending. We have the fire station nine, where two million was given to complete a gap funding. This project is 95% completion, but you will hear more details once we have the goal bond presentation. Lastly, we have 400,000 given to Creek's Walnut Well, and this was just a one-time monitoring well that will just help utilities get more details on the condition of the water and other elements. This is a picture of the improved real-time crime center. This is a picture of the new fire station line, but again, you will see more recent pictures at the Go Bond presentation. So we now pass it to Natalie Green for additional information on past expenditures.

Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor, members of council, Natalie Green for the record. So in addition to health-related public services, there was a number of projects funded over the years. Prior to FY22, we purchased 1101 West Amador. That's the expansion of the Community Hope Campus, where Amador Crossing is currently being built. We also purchased the horse and hound property, which now houses Casa de Peregrinos and the future El Caldito soup kitchen. And a portion of those funds were also used to renovate the horse and hound into the new food pantry. We also partnered with La Pinon and entered into a lease to purchase agreement for their building. So we pre-purchased their building and are leasing them back to them until they can pay us off. There was also the closure of the emergency shelter, so the city worked with FYI to reopen the emergency use shelter and funded that initiative. It is a now self-sustaining project, so they just needed that initial gap fund to get going. We also piloted the Mono a Mono program and started that program. And then prior to FY22, the only affordable housing investment we had was $577,000, and that was a partnership with the Mesilla Valley Public Housing Authority. Other substantial allocations was for the humanitarian crisis. And so the city was recognized as one of the 13 real life heroes. We provided funding for that crisis during the asylum seekers coming to the Las Cruces area. And then during COVID, we allocated approximately 3.8 million in various resolutions. And that was in partnership with both city programming and then many of our nonprofit partners to stabilize the community and have some rapid response. In 2023 was really the start where we see other departments getting funded. So we had some allocations to the fire department, the transit, some lift up initiatives and the police athletic league, the Pell boxing. And those were about 3.1. More recent allocations, specifically to Housing and Neighborhood Services. So we are funding the SOS program in partnership with Municipal Corps, and then we have some annual allocations for the continuation of Mano a Mano, our street outreach program, and this is the first year that we're funding security services out of the Telshore Fund for both Community Hope and the Amador Crossing. We have used the Telstra fund pretty extensively to make pre commitments for affordable housing projects. Those pre commitments have resulted in either match funding or reimbursement funding from the state of New Mexico. So only 11.4 million has actually come out of the Telshore Fund for affordable housing projects. Everything else is either reimbursed or the state provided those funds. So we have a pretty good return on investment. So it's about a 15 to one return on investment. So that 11.4 has generated 170 million in outside investment from either equity investors or other funding sources to build those projects. So we have 568 new units in multifamily. And then we have about 114 single family units, 478 multifamily units in pre-development. And then I'll talk about it in my GO bond presentation, but we have, for the first time, some renovation projects for affordable housing. And so the three projects funded out of the Telshore Fund is Three Sisters, Peachtree Phase II, and Amador Crossing. And then the health-related public services has been funded since fiscal year 2009. That was when the moratorium was first lifted and this program was created. And so annually, this project has been funded by various councils. It started at 300,000 per year. And then in fiscal year 19, it was adjusted to 400,000. And then in fiscal year 23, it was bumped up to 600,000. It is a competitive selection process conducted by the Health and Human Services Advisory Committee through the council adopted application and policy guide. This is a graph, I apologize, I recognize it's a little bit busy, but just to show in the blue bars is the amount of funds that were requested, in the gray bar is the amount of funds awarded, and then the trend lines are the I'm sorry, that's the lines. And the bars are the number of applications we received or the value of applications we received. So early on we were getting 30 applications per year. It's dropped off over the years. And we've been able to fund about 50% of the applications that we're getting. You'll note in FY21 was when we went up to the 600,000 at the next cycle cuz we were getting significantly higher requests than what we were awarding. As a community impact, so we funded 17 organizations this fiscal year. Those collective organizations served approximately 228,000 people. And some of that is duplicated or unduplicated depending on the agency. So amazing return on investment for service for our community. Some high level impact that those organizations, I didn't get to put all 17, so I only did a few. But El Caldito served over 153,000 meals. That's both breakfast and lunch to members of our community. This year, Community Action Agency expanded their services 150% for their family emergency program, so they served 940 people this year. La Opinion is... With Telstra funds served 344 survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault. Part of their building purchase also allowed for the expansion of other forensic exams. So they're able to do forensic exams for child abuse cases and domestic violence cases. So that improves the conviction rate for those services. Boys and Girls Club has been saving families approximately a million dollars a year in childcare expenses and so they're a very high impact youth development program. This year Community Hope through their SOAR which is their expedited social security program served 155 people and so by allowing, helping a person access those social security programs there's a return on investment of almost $12,000 back into the local economy especially if they get housed and are covering their rent and then this year roadrunner food bank is serving about 656 households a month and that includes 1100 children per month with food services and then many of the agencies also sent me other goals and objectives but i i know they're in the audience so they can speak to their programs as well if i miss them Some recommendations or considerations around the HRPS program. One, we want to evaluate the HRPS committee. Again, there's only three members on that committee. It usually requires seven, so in order for it to be a robust selection process, then we really need a full committee. And for them to evaluate and score those applications. This year is the first year we're recommending moving to two year service agreements. So our service agreements, because we fund this every two years, we'll do a one year service agreement with an option for renewal. So that'll eliminate the need to come to rewrite service agreements every year. We also want to work with the committee over the next year to review the application and guide. There was a request from one of the agencies to consider electronic submissions, so we may look at that again. Also evaluate the award amounts, so adjusting those minimums and maximums. Considering changing the presentation format, so all non-profits have to present to that committee. So as part of that evaluation, figure out if those presentations are still valuable to that committee or figure out a different format for that. And then from the nonprofits, I did hear the desire to maintain those equitable distributions. I know there was some commentary about each agency as part of HRPS getting the same dollar amount. So their feedback is they wanted to keep that. I will now pass it back to Leslie to start us off with our discussion.

Thank you, Natalie. So as promised, we have the opportunity now to look at the future outlook and investment strategy for the TelShore Fund. All of our TelShore Fund is currently held in investments at the New Mexico State Investment Council. And I would point you to the chart that has an investment balance in fiscal year 26 of $53 million. It is important to note that we started with 24 million as an initial investment. And then all of the things that both Cynthia and Natalie have talked about, and that we have been able to impact the community with, and we still have a significant investment. So I think it's important to note that. But what we need from council is guidance on what to do with the investment because it is not liquid so we don't have the cash that we need so should we withdraw the entirety of the investment and invest it locally here at the city or sell investments as needed and then as the expenses occur we can you know sell the investment to get the cash in order to do that Because there is such a good rate of return, you saw earlier, we've been really hesitant to sell that because the rate of return is really good. I do want to keep that in mind as part of the discussion. Additionally, it is a large investment. I am not a financial advisor and would like perhaps the opportunity to consult with a financial advisor to help them look at the allocations that we currently have, as well as any changes that we might be able to make that we could increase our return on investment even more. And then also from council, what is the future spending plan so that we do know how we can invest? What that future investment strategy depends on how council intends to expand the fund. So that's the guidance that we need from council at this point is how to move forward.

All right, thank you Leslie. Councilor Curran.

Thank you, as always, for your presentation, Cynthia and Natalie, too. Just at a very basic level, if I remember the last time we had this conversation, the State Investment Council only promises a 2% return or something, don't they? I don't know what they, or if they suggest, I know it's like 2,000 investments and it's a... It's a very complicated thing. But my sense from before when we were talking about this, which was not one of the double digit return years, was that they were really bullish in how much investments in the State Investment Council would bring in and it's obviously over performing like all investments, most investments at this moment are. I'm wondering, I don't think that that's gonna be a forever, I know that you're not, you just said you're not a financial advisor. I don't think 10% is a reasonable return to expect on any investment in any market except this exact moment. So I'm curious if you think what is the definite amount of return on investment that we could expect for whatever we keep in the State Investment Council, and then to me that's a very important variable in whether or not we leave things there or not. My tendency, it's produced a lot of money, is to leave as much as we can and to make liquid only the things that we need as they go along, but I'm curious if you can talk a little bit about that. Because obviously our return on investment when we had the money wasn't as good. But the market was also different, et cetera, et cetera, so can you talk a little bit about that, speculatively, please?

Yes, Mayor, Councilor Caran, I would agree that 10% is not something that is probably sustainable over a long period of time. As far as what the State Investment Council guarantees, I'm not familiar with that. I've never heard of them guaranteeing a certain rate of return, so I'm gonna have to do a little bit of research to see if that is in fact the case. But I guess just to put a finer point on what you said, 10% is not something that I would expect year over year for multiple years. But we also did do better with this investment than we did internally.

So thank you. I know it's a lot of speculation, but I appreciate your insight, and it's sort of what I guess I imagine. I shouldn't have said guarantee. I don't mean that. I think we just talked about what can we expect under all conditions overall. And I'm wondering if you can go back to that graph really quickly. Sorry. So yes, for me, this This is just a wild return on investment slide that I do think we should hire a financial advisor to help us with, frankly, because this is not real or very hard to establish something or expect something. But I guess I would say my recommendation would be, one, that we take out what we need and keep the money with the State Investment Council. while we're still figuring out what to do with the rest and i also would say i i do acknowledge that holding like holding onto a rate of return like this, we're a city entity, we're here to help people, we're not here to make money. So I think for me, fundamentally, that's one of the things that I think is really important in this, but I do think we should balance those two things by keeping some money in investments and spending it as the liquidity goes on. So thank you, and again, I support hiring a financial advisor. If we're going to take it all out and give it to the city, I would hope we would hire someone from the State Investment Council, I guess, to help us. figure out what to do with it but i it seems like this is a pretty good place to keep our money thank you councilman

Thanks, Mayor. I guess I'm gonna supplement a little bit what Councilor Caran said and maybe kind of highlight where I think on money. It's one of those sort of lucid things in my life. What are we saving for? And I think one of those questions too is when you talk to lay people and they say, oh, we have billions of dollars in our coffers in the state and we're saving it for a rainy day. And people feel like it's raining. So I am also of the mindset of, yeah, get a financial advisor, because I like people who do this for a living. It's not going to last forever like this, right? Can we leverage for things where it is actually raining? I'm thinking of we have a heat wave. The library is a cooling station. Can we pay for what we're saving in those hours for the Sunday library through this. Things that are actual immediate needs. I would say, too, if we have projects like the MRA, and we can supplement, say, the Boys and Girls Club, too, to see that we build that catalyst there that people see a future that they want to live in. That's where I'm always focusing on. These couple of things where we're making things happen now is kind of where I've always been focused on as well. But I also am not a financial person. So I want to say that we are doing this in a responsible way. We do need to have more people on that committee, like Natalie said as well, to have sort of those robust conversations, right? Because need sometimes does change. And focus might change. sometimes and I think that is that's a hard conversation to have and we should have those with people who are invested in that and have the background to have that conversation and know a little bit more than perhaps some of us on council my I'll speak for myself and not counsel at that point so thank you council members um thanks mayor and Leslie and Natalie for the presentation um

It was, as someone who's relatively new and has been vaguely aware of the Telshore Fund for a long time, this was all very enlightening. I guess I also agree that State Investment Council seems to have had a pretty good return. That is obviously a lot to continue to expect forever, but we've got it right now, and I say we write it as long as possible. So I think keeping it here, selling it as needed to have liquidity to pay out the contracts that we've got, I think that's the course now, and that seems like a reasonable course for the future. I'm not sure that we could do better as a city. I guess the state already has financial advisors and people whose sole job it is to keep this fund going for all the municipalities. So hiring our own people and trying to do this in-house what might not be as disastrous as when i try to pick my own stocks uh... but it seems like we're getting we're getting decent rates here uh... as for spending priorities uh... I worry, I too worry about what's gonna happen when this money is gone. And so we started with 24, we've got 30 right now, so we're doing pretty good. But I also don't want us to get into a situation where we spend it all and then organizations that have come to rely on a yearly distribution of $600,000 of that money don't have it anymore. At the same time, if we could spend it all on some magic wand and then solve all of the problems, and then we don't need that in the future, that would be great, but I don't think that's the case. So that's what I want to be careful on. Drawing it down is you know, maybe not drawing it down for operational type expenses but Keeping in mind that there are projects that can leverage a lot more money like what Natalie was presenting on if we can Use it as matching funds You know we can get a 60% return on investment if we use it as matching funds, you know if you want to think of it that way So See if I had any other specific questions. I guess another just concern that I'll throw out and I hope that the NSIC is thinking about it is and also is related to us managing it ourselves. There's some pretty unstable forces in the current Market right now, and I just want to make sure that we're not exposed to that as much as possible I know some of the exposure is being forced by forces beyond our control. So those are my thoughts for now.

Thanks Matisse did you counsel Matisse Natalie head is the corpus. How close are we to go getting into the corpus the original amount of

Mayor, Councilor Matisse, the corpus was about $28 million, and if we expend all of our 27 budgeted expenditures, our ending balance would be $30 million, so give or take $2 million before we begin to utilize the corpus.

I agree with Councilor Harris. I like to see that at least not... you know touched and of course we could make more money and still do all the good deeds that we're doing and I realized miss green has some even payments coming back to the tell short fund from some loans so it looks positive that there it could go to 35 maybe 40,000 And I'd like to see that happen. I think it's good that the the city has a another reserve just besides the two twelfths and then you could guarantee the six hundred thousand a year to the nonprofits and and that would be for perpetual. That's the way it was designed. It was designed that it just wouldn't be expended totally, and then you don't have 600,000. It could go maybe to a million in a couple of years if interest rates and return of investments are good, but I would like to see that bundle preserved, and then all the good deeds come out of the interest. rather than than the corpus and if there's even a little extra you know that's just smart investment on on our part so that would be that would be my direction thank you thank you mayor counselors thank you

for putting the presentation together, Leslie. My thought as we look into this is definitely we do need subject matter experts and we look towards you and other experts that we have around the state. At the point in time that we're in today, I think Councilor, McClure mentioned this rainy day fund. We talked about the rainy day fund from the state level. And it's some day, rainy day. There's no some day on the calendar. I know that when my son was little, we would say, oh, let's save this cookie for a rainy day. And it's like, oh, mom and dad, it never rains in Las Cruces. We're kind of at a juncture position right now where people have food insecurity. People need food. We're stressed out about affordability. And so as we look at some of these projects, I'd like to hear and see a needs analysis of the organizations we're supporting to see where the needs are. If I look at, I think it was page 19 or 26, We're funding half of what people, what organizations are asking for. If we invest anemically, we'll probably get anemic results. And that's not what we want to do to be effective and to govern effectively and to help people out effectively. So, I would say let's look at, with our subject matter experts, what we can do. Let's look at the organizations and the folks that we're supporting and prioritize where we can see some positive impact. And that rainy day, I mean, it's here. It's here. As a state, we are doing well financially. If we wait to spend that money in the future, you know, that $3, $10 billion will be less in the future, if that makes sense, because of inflation and just cost of goods that will continue to increase year over year. So I would suggest that we do that and see where we can prioritize and see where we can most effectively spend our resources. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you. Councilor Goren.

Sorry, this is just a quick follow-up on that conversation. I think that the time that we talked about this prior was when we talked about the 300 and then the 400 and then the 600, which I think I was on council at that time. I wasn't there for the other two conversations, but that was the interest-based amount that came from the corpus at that time, roughly. I think that's what we made that decision based on. I'm not 1,000% sure, but... my memory of our conversation about that was that the interest was outperforming what we had been awarding, and so we were sort of amassing a lot of money, $53 million at some point in time. And so I'm just curious if that's still reflective, sort of to Mayor Pro Tem Munoz's question, if that's still reflective of the amount of sort of expected interest profits. It sounds like it's a little bit less than what we would expect and if that's something else that we should reconsider as part of the conversation is what, in addition to your contracts, which I also hope we can do with the agencies and reduce the administrative burdens for the small amount of money that we're actually giving each organization. I would wonder if it's possible to expand that amount to something else. So that would, I guess, is a question sort of for future consideration or if you know better. I'd love to hear it.

Mayor, Councilor Crenn, I guess for clarification, do you mean just interest or do you also mean the appreciation of the investment?

That's what I don't really remember how we arrived at $600,000, and that's the part that I'm not completely sure of. I think that was just the interest, the expected interest, not the appreciation that's happening at a different rate than we would expect. But I'm not 100% sure of that. I just wanted to clarify where that measure came from. And then the money that we've taken out recently came from us having this conversation, which is it is raining. We have $53 million that we're sitting on. We need to address essential services that we have in the discussion of 26 and 27. But I guess the $600,000

uh question is one that i also would like to know more about um if you can share yes uh mr mayor council corinne so uh the 600 000 increased in uh between fy 21 and fy 22 and if you recall in the presentation at that time we were not using the tel shore fund for any of the other um department or operational programming. So that was the consideration of the council at the time was there is an increase in need for nonprofits. Let's increase the annual allocation, and we're able to fund more nonprofits. Since then, we've seen the tail shore used for capital improvements, some of these allocations, the parks, facility maintenance. So we're seeing that. investment go down and then for affordable housing the 11.4 um so i guess that that would be possibly also part of the discussion is um if i'm hearing counsel correctly we want to see the continuation of the hrps program for non-profits at a possible increase if the interest allows it and also these one-time sort of instrumental significant projects like boys and girls club or capital improvements that is that what i'm hearing from council that's what that's what i'm trying i think i'm saying and i'm sort of hearing and counselor munoz but like i know that i understand that this

FY26 and FY27 is not a sustainable model for how we're spending the money. I think you're trying to convey that to us, and I think we understand that. So in that context, I think understanding what the future plan is What you're wanting us to talk about so yes from my perspective you summed up what I'm what I'm getting at and I do have a desire to Reduce this this that we're doing related to the transfers for big projects If we can or if we can leverage in ways that we can I am here for that but I also think that the nonprofits are Are serving thousands hundreds of thousands of people in that and I think if we have enough money to give them more I would ask that we do And I think that can be a discussion we have with the financial advisor Councilor Matisse

I think, Natalie, if you maintain the corpus, if you keep at least $28 million, then if your investment is getting 8% to 10% a year, can we use that figure, or 7%? What percentage do you want to use?

I would love to use 10%, I'm just not sure that it's realistic.

Isn't it going to go crazy interest rates? No. Okay, what do you want to use? 4%, 2%, 3%?

Mayor, Councilor Matisse, I think a 4% to 5% rate of return is probably more reasonable than what we currently have.

Okay, so let's say 4% on 30 million. You have 1.2 million that you'd be earning. It looks like from what's happened over the last eight to ten years, we've had so many rainy days, we spent almost 22 million. Correct? I mean, that one from the corpus of 28 to 54. And in the last eight, five, seven years, you know, it's been four million here, two million there, a million there, two million another, and now we're down to 30 million. And so we have to be careful of just doing these rainy day ideas again for the next five or six years, and it would just, we'd be down to zero. Because we spent $22 million pretty fast. And so I would like to see the council secure that corpus. By ordinance, by consensus, by something, but don't go below 28 million. And then you guarantee the 600,000 to a million a year for these non-profits. So you could go from 600,000 to a million if you have at least $28 million. But if you have 10 million, or five million, or zero, and you have nothing, you have zilch, you have zero for those non-profits. So that's just my statement.

Thank you Leslie I just want to say I'm in favor of keeping it as it is and then with the contract of a financial advisor or financial expert I would definitely be in favor of that not only to look at this fund But also what is one of our dilemmas that we're facing here at the city is our expenditures and our revenues and I know there's a couple of committees so You can take the time to get a financial advisor. Let's get someone that can also look at that and help our budget overall. So we're deciding whether to spend or not to spend with the Telstra Fund. The other thing is keep it as is, but if a crisis or an emergency, then we can always bring it to council and see how we look at those things. I know we spent a lot of money quick, but it wasn't just a rainy day. It was also over the course of years of things that were neglected and needed to be kept up or redone and it's costly and we know that. But the other thing is future spending plans is I think that's something that is ongoing, but right now we do have our strategic plan in process. So that's a tool that we should be able to use and again, give that information to the financial advisor as time goes on. These are some of the strategic plans that are going on with the city, with the organization, with the community. And we've also got another survey and strategic plan on homelessness, mental health, and substance abuse that's going on. Once those are completed, we get a better idea, a better view of which direction we want to head and where we want to start spending some money for the betterment of the community.

Thank you, Mayor. If I may just make sure that I'm understanding council's direction correctly. We're all in agreement that a financial advisor is the direction we want to go. Additionally, we want to keep the investments to the extent that we can in the state investment council and sell as needed for liquidity. And then finally, we want to make sure that we keep the corpus whole so that we can continue to provide those annual allocations for the non-profits. Did I understand that correctly?

Yes.

Yes, I think we're in agreement with that. Great, thank you. Okay, thank you, Liz. Next on the agenda is the GO bond quarterly update.

Thank you. Good afternoon, mayor and council. For the record, Kyle Arndt with Public Works. We're here to do probably the last remaining update on the 2022 GO bonds. Of course, there were four original questions that were approved by our citizens. New fire station number nine, continued improvements at East Mesa Public Recreational Complex, affordable housing, and park improvements. We won't be presenting in that order. First project, fire station number nine, total project costs for that were a little over $12 million. Just under $10 million of it would go bond funds. Total construction costs a little over $11 million. That project is about 95% complete, and they are racing towards a completion of mid-August next month. Here are some more recent pictures of the improvements there at fire station number nine. They've been working feverishly on the interior to get all the furnishings sorted out. They're also working on the concrete out front for the entrance and exit for the fire station vehicles. And it looks a lot like the rendering that was presented years back. As you can see from the schedule, this project started back in the fall of 2024 with construction. And again, we'll be racing towards completion for next month. Park improvements, just under $2 million. A lot of that went to La Llorona Park improvements. That included a new restroom and some playground infrastructure, ADA improvements as well. Constructing costs $1.67 million. That's approximate. We're still wrapping up a few loose ends. Other than a little bit of dealing with the final permitting, that project is complete. We expect to have the final permit issued for occupancy in the next two weeks and get the restroom open here at the end of July. With some of the remaining funding that was left over from that GO bond, the intent is to use it to buy additional playground equipment for Talbrook Park. And here's some recent pictures of the improvements at La La La Park. We have the new restroom on the bottom left, the shade structures and the play structure. Again, that should be done here in the next couple weeks. East Mesa Public Rec Complex, that had Go Bond, of course, of $4.9 million, paired with lots of other funding as well as SGRT, PIF. That project was completed. You had the ribbon cutting on it back in June. And here is a picture of the new basketball courts. And they still look that blue. They're actually really quite striking when you drive by and take a look at them. I've also been out there several afternoons to look at the playground structure. But I have not been able to go down the slide myself because it's always full of children. Maybe I'll go out there early in the morning so nobody can see me. And with that, I'll hand it over to Natalie.

Good afternoon again, Mr. Mayor, members of council, Natalie Green for the record. So an update on affordable housing projects. Peachtree Cannon phase one is 99% leased up as of when I did this PowerPoint last week. So I'm pretty sure it would have gotten leased up by this week. And then I just wanted to give an update on the wait list. We have a pretty sizable wait list for housing on the East Mesa, so over 542 applicants across both one, two, and three bedrooms. A peach tree phase two is well under construction. So they're getting ready to open one of the farthest buildings in the next couple of months. And then their goal is to open a building a month thereafter. Our full facility should hopefully be open in early 2027. And so they have put the multi-use path. They are doing a different color scheme in phase two than they did in phase one. Green happens to be my favorite color, so I was pleasantly surprised to see green cabinets. Arcadia phase two, or Arcadia number four is a single family subdivision. It is 100% complete. So we're currently working on a disposition resolution. So you will see that come to council. So it is ready for single family construction. So both Tierra del Sol and Habitat for Humanity are ready to hit the ground running and pull permits and start construction on housing. Skylark's subdivision is working on project closeout. So there's some final details. They're working out with El Paso Electric. As soon as they have that completed, they'll finalize the roadways and those lots will be permit ready. Amador Crossing is moving along. In this picture, you can see the masonry and brickwork going on. They've done the roof. These are some of the sample colors that are the pop-outs from the rendering that council may recall. So they're really working on the exterior weatherproofing, the EFIS system. They've started site grading. The desal lane went in. So you'll start to see some significant progress in these final months. Other projects, Paseos Verdes has hired their contractor, so they're moving forward with their closing. They're telling us end of July, I think August is more realistic, and then they'll start their construction date. We have some other projects in pre-development, so Rural Crossing. I'm hoping to share some news with you soon on that project. Residence on Sonoma near Fire Station 9 is looking to move forward, and that's an additional 90 units. And then we are working with a number of partners. So Paseos Verdes Phase 2 is, again, the Housing Authority and then hopefully with Thomas Development, who did the Padrina property art space, has reached out in there in pre-development for their project. And then I also wanted to give a quick update on the downtown RFQ. So we did get five submissions for that project. The committee interviewed two of those developers and we've selected the winning developer, which is TWG. And so they will be reaching out to hear some of your desires and needs for that parcel. And then they'll be doing a site visit. So we'll be coordinating that with you shortly. And then I'm really excited to talk about a neighborhood, a lift up project in neighborhood one. They are Working. So when we did that neighborhood one, we identified an affordable housing project that was very old and needed quite a bit of improvement and so they have reached out to us and they have asked us to be the bond issuer for that project so it's very similar to an irb so we're working with economic development that four percent bond will will renovate the entirety of the donna parks apartments so for those counselors that have been here a while have known that that has been high traffic, high hotspots for some of our public safety personnel. So we're excited to see that project get a facelift. And then there's another project that's also getting renovation in the city. They were able to do it without any financial commitment from the city. And so you'll see Montana Meadows in District 2 also getting a facelift over the next year or so. So with that, Kyle and I will stand for questions.

Councillor Harris.

Thanks, Mayor, and I think this question is, well, for both of you maybe. So when we're doing like the Arcadia IV and Skylark developments, I know I've mentioned many times a dig once utilities policy. Do we have any leverage to like make sure that all the utilities are put in and we're not gonna dig up new sidewalks during those two since they are kind of city owned?

We are still preparing the Dig 1 policy and we prefer to implement it in many ways possible, but it doesn't actually fully exist just yet. Each utility has their own right to bring in the utilities based on their schedules and their funding abilities.

Okay. be cool if we could do as much as possible to, I mean, they're city-owned parcels, so it seems like an ideal time and a model time to do it. So whatever we can do policy-wise up here, but I don't know how much that is.

Yeah, definitely as far as coordination for these projects, and I think Natalie would agree that we always strive to do that. It's just we're not always able to completely enforce it.

Sure, understand. And then, yeah, I guess my last comment, I'm a huge fan of EFIS, so cool. I'm glad it's going on Amador Crossing, and it's really hot outside, so that's going to be relevant going forward.

Councillor Matisse.

Natalie, could you share some of the, like the two bedroom, one bedrooms and the different housing, what the rent is right now, the rent or leases currently?

Oh, good question. Let me pull it up on my phone, one sec.

I just, you know, I want everyone, I mean, maybe people listening will just jump up and say, great.

The rents are sent annually by the tax credit. Just hold it up. And so they just changed.

Do you know what they are?

Sorry, let me. I have to click through a bunch of folders to get the rental chart. In the meantime, So the rents really vary depending on the funding source. If you guys will recall the cheeseburger. And so if it is a tax credit and they are at 60% AMI, that's the wrong community. For Dona Ana County, Las Cruces area, a one bedroom at 60% AMI is 874 and a two bedroom is at 1050. If they happen to be in a 30% unit, then a one bedroom is 437 and a two bedroom is 525. And then we have some. low home units in some of the projects, which is capped at 50% AMI, and that's a 728 for a one bedroom and an 875 for a two bedroom. And then just to add some extra complication to the cheeseburger, if they happen to have a housing choice voucher, then their rents are typically at the payment standard for the housing authority, and so that's like a 1040, And I can't remember what the one bedroom is, but that just adds an extra. I can send the chart, though.

OK, thanks.

I will add, though, for Peachtree, so our three bedrooms are at 1212, and there is a private development around the corner from there. Their three bedrooms are running about 2200 to 2600, so we are still substantially below the market rate of housing.

Anyone else? Okay. Thank you, Kyle. Thank you, Natal. And that was the last item on the agenda. Motion to adjourn?

Move to adjourn. Second.

This is on the motion to adjourn the work session. Councillor McClure? Yes. Councillor Matisse?

Mayor, there's no public discussion. No public comments.

No.

Okay.

Yes.

Councilor Harris? Yes. Councilor Bencomo is absent. Councilor Curran? Yes. Councilor Munoz? Yes. And Mayor?

Yes.