Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you.

Today is Monday, August 3rd, 2026. It's approximately 1 p.m. I'm Mayor Eric Enriquez. Before we start, I want to mention that we have the ASL, American Sign Language, up in the front for interpreters. Thank you for being here. And we will 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 and Fire Department that protect our city 24-7, 365. Councilor McClure, 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.

Okay, so there are no presentations or proclamations today. We'll start with departmental highlights, utilities.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Councilors. My name is Dominique Rodriguez, Assistant Utilities Director. I'm here to do a department highlight for utilities and also to talk about some misinformation and to provide some facts. Dona Ana Mutual Domestic Water Consumers Association received a drinking water violation. A media story inadvertently showed a picture of the City of Las Cruces City Hall, which has since been removed. Dona Ana water and the Las Cruces utilities water system are not the same and therefore the violation does not affect Las Cruces utility customers. This map shows the different water systems in and around the city of Las Cruces city limits. additionally regarding the lead and copper ruling and inventory accuracy this is a living data set that is being reviewed and updated internally the deadline to update the inventory data to the public is november 2027. And finally, the timelines for notification. In 2024, customers were notified that had unknown service line material. During this time, there were no galvanized requiring replacement service lines, and as such, no notifications were required. Per NMED, annual notices were completed by the deadline of December 31, 2025. Fair Acres Elementary was initially reported that the service line was galvanized. The service line was reinspected, to be sure of this, and was actually found to be steel. And that is the end of my presentation.

All right, thank you, Ebony, appreciate it.

Thank you.

Next we have Pets of the Week.

Good afternoon, Mayor, members of council, and city leadership. My name is Tanya Conway. I am the management analyst for the Animal Services Center of the Mesilla Valley. We appreciate your time and your continued support for our shelter programs and community initiatives. Today I'm excited to share an update on our participation of Clear the Shelters 2026. It's a nationwide effort dedicated to helping shelter animals find loving permanent homes. Throughout the whole month of August, we are offering free adoptions for families to welcome pets into their homes. Clear the Shelters is more than a month of free adoptions. It's a community-wide commitment to creating second chances for animals in need. It raises awareness about responsible pet ownership, highlights the lifesaving work done every day in our shelter, and brings residents together around a compassionate cause. Together, our community can help more pets find forever homes. I like to highlight a few of our wonderful animals that are looking for homes. We have dogs like Stormy, Lily, Cookies and Cream, and Luca. Each have their own personalities and their own stories. And then for our cats, we have Percy, Baby Spice, Peter, and Nola. They're all waiting for someone to give them a loving place to call home. We are focusing on our long-term residents. We have Francesca with 360 days, Ebony, 347, Playa for 346, and last, Buddy, who's been there for 293 days. In addition to the free adoptions at the shelter, these are community events that we will do for the month of August. We'll be at Petco on August 8th. We will have a blood drive on August 15th. We'll be at PetSmart August 22nd, Tractor Supply on the 29th, and every Wednesday we will be at the Farmer's Market. For anyone interested in adopting, fostering, or learning more, our website is ASCMB.org, and all our social media platforms there are listed. You could go to any of these to provide up-to-date information and profiles of our adoptable pets. Thank you.

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

No.

None. None.

No. So next we go into public participation. Katrina will escort you to the podium. We'll allow up to three minutes, no pending litigation or items on the non-consent.

Mayor, City Council, I'm Liz Rodriguez Johnson. There's no safe level of lead in a human body. The Mayo Clinic says even small amounts of lead can cause serious health problems. Children younger than age six are especially vulnerable to lead poisoning, which can severely affect how a child's body grows and brain develops. According to EPA's Office of Water, lead in drinking water irreparably harms the health of children and adults and disproportionately impacts lower-income communities and communities of color. When lead enters your body it accumulates over time resulting in damage to the brain, nervous system, kidneys, and red blood cells leading to anemia. Once in the body lead is distributed to organs including the brain, kidney, liver, and bones. Lead stored in bone may be released into the blood during pregnancy and expose the fetus. Lead poisoning can be hard to detect. Even people who seem healthy can have high blood levels of lead. Symptoms usually don't appear until the amount of lead detected in the blood has climbed to a dangerous level. Symptoms of lead poisoning in children include developmental delay, learning difficulties, irritability, loss of appetite, weight loss, sluggishness and fatigue, abdominal pain, vomiting, constipation, hearing loss, and seizures. Low levels of exposure to lead can interfere with thought processes and lower children's IQ and cause attention and behavioral problems, including hyperactivity, all of which affect lifetime learning. Children with serious lead-related neurological impacts are less likely to graduate from high school and are more prone to delinquency, teen pregnancy, violent crime, and incarceration. Pregnant women are a special risk. The lead they absorb crosses the placenta and enters the fetus. Babies exposed to lead before birth might be born early, have lower birth weight, and are slow to growth. Lead can also be transmitted through breast milk. Although children are primarily at risk, lead poisoning is also dangerous for adults. Symptoms in adults include high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, kidney impairment, immune and nervous system dysfunction, joint and muscle pain, difficulties with memory, concentration, headaches, abdominal pain, mood disorders, reduced sperm count and abnormal sperm, miscarriages, stillbirth, or premature birth. Researchers who analyzed EPA data reported a correlation between a community's racial composition, bad water, and inadequate response to violations. Wealthier white communities, which can afford to pay for pipe removal, are more likely to benefit from lead pipe removal programs than our low-income communities of color. These are the facts. It's also an appalling fact that we don't have a utilities department in Las Cruces that's doing an even halfway, halfway decent job of protecting us from letting our drinking water

Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, folks here today, those watching online, I'm Lynn Maurer. Experts agree that the only way to know if lead is in your drinking water is to have the water tested. As I reported to you last meeting, lab reports for properties that have been tested in the University Estates water system say plainly that several properties have lead that is above EPA's action level. The evidence is clear. If you question the reliability of the lab reports, take it up with the New Mexico State Lab, which ran the samples. It's your choice if you ask to be lied to and ask for assurance that the lab reports don't say what they clearly do say. But you're doing a serious disservice to your constituents when you choose to be in denial. You're betraying the testimony. trust of anyone who voted for you if you choose to turn a blind eye to the indisputable evidence that lead levels are higher than EPA's action level. The point of sampling drinking water is to find out what contaminants, if any, are present in the water, and if so, whether there are levels that EPA designates as dangerous to public health. If they are, EPA prescribes steps that must be taken to address the high lead levels. Things can be done to address the problem if it's acknowledged. Simply because the city hasn't yet been named as defendant in a massive lawsuit for millions of dollars of damages for its knowingly allowing the city's drinking water to become and remain contaminated with lead does not mean that everything's fine. The mayor's statement on the record at the last meeting that there's no problem with lead in our drinking water because no one has been hospitalized or died in the past 18 months is incredibly revealing about what kind of person occupies the mayor's seat. It's unspeakably callous and colossally ignorant. This statement could be very useful for plaintiffs in any lawsuit against the city. This statement would not paint a favorable picture of Las Cruces City government. regardless of other evidence on the record it will discourage the judge or jury from finding in the city's favor and the multi-million dollar lawsuit brought against it for damages for knowingly harming water drinkers in las cruces how does the mayor know that no one has been hospitalized or died in the past eighteen months from drinking city water does he receive a daily report who would have enough information to complete a credible report Medical studies show that lead poisoning and the negative effects of lead tend to build up over time. It is rare that a cause of death is unequivocally tied to lead poisoning. The fact is the mayor doesn't actually know the extent to which Las Cruces water drinkers are suffering negative health effects because of drinking lead. And the fact that he made that assertion is thoroughly disingenuous and beneath contempt. I've heard from many, many folks since last meeting who agree. We all think Las Cruces water drinkers deserve much better from city government. We especially need a competent director of utilities with integrity unlike the one we currently have. Thank you for this opportunity to speak.

mayor and counselors i'm charlotte lipson could you speak directly into the microphone thank you okay charlotte lipson i was surprised that the uh deputy utilities director did not mention this public notice that i received in the mail this morning it says It's headlined, Important Information About Your Drinking Water, Monitoring Requirements Not Met for Las Cruces Municipal Water System. Our water system violated drinking water requirements over the past year. Even though this was not an emergency, as our customers, you have a right to know what happened and what we did to correct these situations. During... During November 2025 we failed to conduct required source water monitoring within the designated time frame following a total coliform positive sample and therefore cannot be sure of the quality of our drinking water during that time. Hopefully everybody will be receiving this in their mail in the next few days and can study it. I'd like to congratulate and commend Lynn Maurer and Liz Rodriguez-Johnson for calling attention to water issues. Thank you.

Good afternoon. My name is Michael Maskitha. Last month, this republic celebrated its 250th year of independence as a nation under God. So I thought it fitting to take this opportunity to refute the claims of a gentleman who spoke on the wall of separation between church and state in April to celebrate the so-called National Day of Reason, wherein he said, our founders identified religion as a threat to liberty. Nothing could be further from the truth. At least 50 of the 55 men who attended the Constitutional Convention in 1787 were men of Christian faith. This doesn't even include Benjamin Franklin, who was a deist. However, I'll need to save this discussion for another time. I'd like to focus on the misinterpretation of the meaning of the wall of separation between church and state. Most Americans think that this clause is in the US Constitution or the Declaration of Independence. It is not. Let me just read it. Congress shall make no law representing an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof or abridging the freedom of speech or the press or the right of people to peacefully to assemble and to petition the government for any redress of grievances. Let me first say I don't believe it's by any coincidence that the first clause of the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights pertains to religion of freedom. It's not about freedom from religion. So often context is in everything, such as it is in this case. This term or phrase was first used by one of our founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson, in a personal letter written on January 1st in 1802, in which he was replying to a group of Baptists who is Danbury, Connecticut. By the way, Thomas Jefferson was not involved in writing the U.S. Constitution, although he was the author of the Declaration of Independence. He, at the time, was chilling on a beach in the Bahamas. Just kidding. Okay, actually, during that time, he was serving as the U.S. Minister to France from 1785 to 1789. And... I'm running out of time, so let me just get this part at least. In 18... nine years after the ratification of the first amendment some states had state sponsored churches that were supported by taxes in connecticut the state sponsored denomination was the congressional church of danbury baptist association that didn't want their tax dollars going to the congressional church so every year they petitioned redirect their taxes to support the baptist church eventually they got tired of the hassle and they asked the newly president jefferson for support I'd like to ask for a few more seconds, if I may. Thank you. On January 1st, 1802, Jefferson replied to the Danbury Baptist, in part, I contemplate with sovereign reverence the act of the whole American people which declared that their legislators should make no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state. And since then, many... Well, it was not until 1947 that the Supreme Court invoked this clause, in which a series of US Supreme Court decisions basically removed prayer and the Ten Commandments from our public schools. And we've seen what that has resulted in. I wish I had more time, but save for another time. Thank you.

One moment while I set up my props here. Thank you, Mayor. Unlike the county where the chair started the clock right away. Thank you. This is Derek Pacheco for the record. I realize something that has been stewing for a minute, and that is that Councilor Bencomo is the most dangerous person in Las Cruces. She's an oppressor. She absolutely will not give the time of day to important conversation. She avoids it. So let me start off with some props. These are 3 and 1 half inch floppy diskettes, OK? This is how long I've been into tech, Counselor Harris. This one here is a Polaroid PolarView LCD panel disk for Macintosh. I got this from the Mesquite School District. where I was brought in to the elementary school as a teenager to help train the teachers there, because they got mounds of technology, including these touchscreen adapters for their Apple products, that they were never trained on. Sound familiar? Sounds like Project Jupiter. Let's give all these kids a bunch of tech, satisfy the news, and then move on, because we don't really care about the kids. Here's a piece of software I wrote. It's called SimpleMac. I wrote it when I was a teenager. Councilor Bencomo, I would appreciate your eye contact, actually, instead of looking at your phone, thanks. And Ms. Curran, if you'd stop shaking your head, that'd be a little bit more respectful. I wrote a new software, because I've been a developer for a while. I'll just address the public instead. You can all go to my newest project. It's called borderlandmail.com, borderlandmail.com. It's a government transparency tool that I built over the course of three days using cloud code, using the latest sole build of ChatGPT that's on limited release and importing each and every one of your mailboxes and phone records and all your conversations that you try to keep secret, your secret select meeting stuff, it's all in there. So government transparency starts today and I'm a proud advocate of that. Moving right along, I brought some rainwater that I collected personally, not off my roof, but without interruption. And I used this. This is a pH meter. The rainwater here is close to 10 pH. That is too alkaline for plants and for fish. We have a big problem in our hands. It starts with community conversation. It starts with conversation about mass surveillance and flock. It starts with conversation about water. And everything else will fall into place. But I urge you to do better, Councilor Bencomo, because you're not fooling anyone. You've already heard from the audience. You're hearing it from me now. Do better. Thank you.

Good morning, Councilor Bancomo, Becky, Mr. Mayor. Wow, I get to talk about separation of church and state again. Contrary to the previous remarks, the phrase separation of church and state was common in the American political dialogue. It was started by a man named Roger Williams, Roger Williams thought that the state corrupted the church, and I don't know why I'm getting that echo. Roger Williams thought that the state corrupted the church, and the church corrupted the state, and that they should be separate. And if you bother to read Roger Williams' sermons, and he gave many of them, Roger Williams referred to a hedge around the vineyard. The vineyard was the church. The hedge was a wall. And so Roger Williams thought that God put a wall, a hedge, around the vineyard, the church. And that when the state or the church violated that wall, it was violating the will of God and damaging the church. Roger Williams was also unique in that he bought land from the Indians, or the Native Americans, excuse me. And he advocated dealing with them justly and like Christians. Most Americans didn't have that point of view. Nonetheless, Jefferson and Monroe and many other of our founders. And they're called our founders because like any movement, we had leaders. And our leaders were the radicals. They were the Jeffersons and the Franklins and the Monroes. They didn't think like everybody else. Everybody else was gonna build an England and America. Jefferson was gonna build America in America. He was led, his close friend, Thomas Paine, talked about starting the world anew. And that's what we did in America. And part of that starting the world anew was putting religion in its place, giving it no political power, no office, No recognition by the government. That's what separation of church means. You cannot establish religion in America by the government. That's what separation of state and church means, and we're the first country to do it. It's what's unique about us. Keep it that way.

Good afternoon, Mayor, City Council, Chief of Police, Tim Jenkins here. Today I am not here to criticize or ask for change. Today I am here simply to express my sincere gratitude. Last week's town hall meeting was a reminder of what good government should look like. Every one of you took time out of your busy schedule to come together, listen to the concerns of your constituents, answer difficult questions, and engage in meaningful conversation with the people you were elected to serve. Whether everyone agreed or disagreed on every issue is not what mattered most. What mattered was your willingness to show up, to listen and to be present for this community. Public service is often a thankless job. It requires long hours, difficult decisions and the willingness to stand in the middle of passionate disagreements. So today, I simply want to say thank you for your time, your dedication, and your continued commitment to the people of Las Cruces. I would like to extend my deepest appreciation to the men and women of the Las Cruces Police Department. Every day they put on the uniform knowing they may be called into dangerous and unprecedented situations. Yet they continue to answer the call with professionalism, courage, and compassion. While most of us are heading away from danger, they are running towards it to protect complete strangers. This week our police department reached an incredible milestone by earning CALEA accreditation after more than three years of tireless work and dedication. This is not simply another certificate to hang on a wall. It represents thousands of hours of training, public improvements, accountability, and a commitment to meeting the highest professional standards in law enforcement. It reflects a department that continually strives to improve and better serve the people of our community. To Chief Jeremy Story, the command staff, every officer, dispatcher, civilian employee, and support staff, please know that your hard work has not gone unnoticed. This accreditation is something our entire community can be proud of, and each of you has earned our respect and appreciation. In a world where criticism often speaks louder than gratitude, I believe it is equally important to recognize excellence when we see it. So today, I simply say thank you to our city council for your service to this community and to the Las Cruces Police Department for your unwavering dedication, sacrifice, and commitment to keeping our city safe. May we continue working together to make Las Cruces safer for all. Thank you and God bless.

Mr. Mayor, with your permission, this is Brother Eddie Lucero, and he's going to yield his three minutes, if you would. I have under five minutes to say what I have to say. With your permission, sir. I was said I could take his time.

Yeah, if he can speak as well, you can. Well, it's all in right here.

Go ahead.

Yes, sir. I would love to yield my time to my brother Tom to say what he has to say.

Yeah, unfortunately, we can't do that, but you can speak. You can both share your three minutes.

No, go ahead and sit down. You all right? Oh, thank you. This is under four minutes. You know, with everything going on,

Sir, could you state your name?

My name is Thomas Stevens. Thank you. Brother Tommy, . I was born in Philly. I was raised in the southern borderland. And my German ancestry assimilated in World War II and World War I to the American liberty that I'm going to speak about today.

Revelation chapter 1 verse 3 blessed is he that readeth and he that heareth the words of this prophecy and keep those things which are written therein for the time is at hand Thank you, Mr. Mayor, City Council, for your oath of office of the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights. I thank the Supreme Judge of the world for our founding principles and his inalienable rights to every person on the planet, but especially to my country, the United States of America. Thank you, Las Cruces Police Department, for laying down your lives for the protection of the citizens of our city, even though many hate you for it. You are just like my Lord Jesus Christ. Greater love hath no man than this, than a man lay down his life for his friends. I love my city, Las Cruces. We are at the crossroads. I love the symbol of the three crosses. I love the cross in the center the best. The word of God speaking through the Isaiah prophet, Isaiah 53, 12. poured out his soul into death and he was numbered with the transgressors and he bear the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors the powers that be the city have removed the center cross of jesus christ without the cross of the christ in the center all that is left are the transgressors lost in darkness and the condemnation of their sin waiting on judgment. The current symbol of the son of Egypt surrounding the two crosses of the transgressors is blatant rebellion and apostasy of the blood of Christ and the power of his resurrection. Without the center cross of the Lord Jesus Christ in the middle, there is no blessed hope. The current symbol on the outside of the city defies Christ Jesus of my Bible. On the mountain side in Juarez are these words, la Biblia es verdad, meaning, Leila, meaning the Bible is truth. Read it. I took that Mexican's advice and encourage you to do the same. From 2008 to 2013, I worked at the city. This is when our city patch said character counts on the patch and still had the cross of Christ in the center of the two crosses. Solidarity is defined as having the same cause and purpose. Finally, in conclusion to all that have ears to hear in this room, uh, Let me say that the Apostle Peter, the Saint Peter, in 2 Peter 2, Brother Peter referred to Noah as a preacher of righteousness. To the center cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, Noah preached with liberty to those on the other outside of the ark of salvation. Noah preached, we're not judging you. Judgment's coming. It's going to rain. The door of faith in Christ Jesus, the ark of God's salvation, is still open to all men, not just some. Until it's not. Come, get on board. The invitation's the same as it ever was. Revelation 22, 17. And the spirit, the bride say, come. And let him that heareth say, come. And he that thirst, come. And whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely. Just like Eddie did. November 25th. He trusted the same Jesus. November 25th. 2025, he trusted the same Lord and Savior Jesus Christ I did in 1979, and it showed up on the doorstep. Hallelujah. The powers must be true to the founding principles of liberty provided by our Constitution and Bill of Rights. They are given by the Supreme Judge of the world in our Declaration of Independence in 1776 and ratified in our Constitution and Bill of Rights in the year of our Lord. Amen, 1787. Say his name. Say Jesus Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ, our Lord. He is the cross in the center. My prayer. Our Father, which art in heaven, I thank thee that I can only call you my Father. Blood of Jesus and the power of his resurrection in one mediator between God and man, I pray your born-again, blood-washed remnant church in this world today that would be salt and light and shine for the honor and glory, the cross and the center. In the mighty name of the Lord Jesus Christ, the King of kings, we praise you in Jesus' name. Be lifted up. Amen. Praise the Lord. Thank you. May I approach?

Yeah, if you can give it to the city clerk.

God bless you all. I am praying for you.

Next, I will read a closed statement. Closed meeting statement. The Las Cruces City Council met in closed meeting today, August 3rd. 2026 at approximately 10.01 AM. We had four items. Present for all four items were myself, Mayor Hendriquez, Councilor Bencomo, Councilor McClure, Councilor Munoz, Mayor Pro Tem Munoz, Councilor Harris, Councilor Curran, City Manager Ikani Tamupeyo, City Attorney Brad Douglas, City Clerk Christine Rivera. Item number one was to discuss pending or threatening litigation regarding Brandon Barron versus the City of Las Cruces. Also present were Chief Story, Chris DeFilippo, and Allen Dahl. Item number two, to discuss pending or threatened litigation regarding Francesca Clifton versus City of Las Cruces. Also present for that were outside counsel, Caitlin Gonzalez. Item number three to discuss pending or threatening litigation regarding Gabriel Padilla versus City of Las Cruces was outside counsel, Brad Springer. Item number four was to discuss pending or threatened litigation regarding City of Las Cruces and Dona Ana County versus the Lofts at Alameda, LLC, American Linen Supply of New Mexico, Ross and Leasing Limited Liability, and Chisholms Village Plaza, LLC. Outside Council and members of Dona Ana County were present for that one. Jessica Farrell, Brian DeLaso, David Wiemers. Also from the city were Dominique Rodriguez, utilities, Steven Perez from utilities, utilities director Adrian Wimmer, assistant city manager Sonia Delgado. From the county, James Van Cleve, Darwin Harris, Alonzo Maestas, Interim County Attorney. Also outside counsel was Damian Winter. And from Dunyana County, Steven Lopez, Lucio Ytrell, and Steven Lopez. Now I'll have acceptance of agenda.

Move to accept the agenda. 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 Crayon? Yes. Councillor Munoz? Yes. Mayor?

Yes. So first on the agenda is item 8.1, resolution number 27-020. Move to approve. Second.

Good afternoon, Mayor, Councilors, City Staff, Virginia Varela, Fire 2, Financial Services Department. And before you today is a resolution authorizing the City to enter into a lease agreement for property located at 1670 South Valley Drive. The City of Las Cruces Fire Department had a need for a training facility to increase training effectiveness and allow personnel the resources and environment to learn and train for real-life situations. Through coordination with the Real Estate Services Program, a facility at 1670 South Valley Drive was identified and was determined to meet the needs of the fire department. The Las Cruces Municipal Code does allow the city to enter into agreement without competition for rental of real property. In July of 2021, the city entered into a lease agreement for five years. The initial term for the first year of the agreement was $120,000 annually, and it increased incrementally to $180,000 for the last two years of the agreement. This lease renewal did allow us two five-year options to renew. The city of Las Cruces does wish to execute a new renewal lease agreement for a five-year term. The first year of the agreement beginning July 1st, 2026 through June 30th, 2027 will be for $192,000 annually. Years two and three will be for $216,000 annually. And then years four and five will be for $240,000 annually. before your options, and I will stand for any questions.

Thank you, Virginia. Any questions, Council? Councillor Harris?

Thanks. I just have a couple quick questions. One is, what's the approximate square footage of that facility? Just to remind everyone.

Mayor, Councillor Harris, the square footage is approximately 22,000 square feet, and it is on approximately five acres of land.

All right, and so I guess for that price, that size, this seems like a reasonable rate compared to the rest of the market. So for improvements-wise, are there any improvements that need to be done to the facility for the next five years? Is the landlord gonna take care of those? Are we gonna take care of those?

Mayor, Councillor, I will need to defer to the Fire Department on any potential improvements for the facility.

Good afternoon Mayor, City Council, Tibor Kocsis, Deputy Chief of Las Cruces Fire. So between the two leases there were some improvements done by the landlord. In closing one of the bay areas and providing us a little bit more square footage with the warehouse or the shop. Outside of that there are some other things that we'd like to do but in being mindful of the budget and everything we didn't want to increase the rent to that so Yeah, some of that is temperature control, increased temperature control in the shop area.

Okay, so what's the, I mean, is that something we're going to forego or?

We're dealing with it in a temporary situation. Understanding that this is a lease and limiting some of the funds that we can use to improve the building, we're going to be utilizing some temporary measures.

Okay, sounds good. That's understood. And then, so this is the first of the two five-year extension options?

This is our first renewal option, correct.

And I guess the general hope is that maybe in five years we might be out of there into a new training facility?

Maybe. That is correct. There are some options kicking around on trying to explore different avenues. Yes, sir.

All right, thanks. That's all for me, Mayor.

Councilman Chief.

I'm optimistic like Chief Daniels. Let's say you get a new facility, our own. What's the end of the lease provision? I mean, let's say you go out in three years or four years. If some big money comes down and we start our own training facility, is there an end of lease? I mean, do we have to pay the whole five years if we leave early?

Mayor, Councillor Matisse, there is a termination clause that is in the lease. I would have to go back into the lease to pull up the actual termination clause to see if there are any early ends of lease penalties to be able to answer that question, but we can provide that at a later time once we're able to pull up that specific clause.

Yeah, you could just share it with us on an email. Thank you.

Yes, sir.

Okay, so I know that it has plenty of acreage, you know, the size, the area, but as far as the facility itself, is it adequate for the academies and for the continuing training and education for the firefighters?

Mayor, City Council, Tibor Coaches. Adequate's kind of a subjective term. There's ideal situations. Having the academy located in one spot, providing them with showers and facilities so that after PT they can go and get ready for the day, and then being able to PT and then drill in the central location, limiting the back and forth from the training facility out to the training tower located by the airport would be an ideal situation for the fire department.

Right, because I know at one time there was maybe an option to purchase that site. Is that still part of the negotiating with the owners or are we looking at just the five year of leasing?

Mayor there has been discussion about purchasing the property not necessarily for the training facility aspect Locating the training facility out by the airport would be an ideal situation But for a logistics component a hub and then possibly running an ambulance Company out of that location is what we're looking at. So as far as the facility goes having an A location in the city makes it better for logistics. Being able to bring the apparatus there for regular PMs or any kind of work the fleet needs to do. Our location of their medication supplies, our medications, and all of the EMS equipment, our bunker gear, Our uniforms are all located in the central location. That makes it more feasible and better location logistically. So actually, we're looking at separating the two, moving the training facility out by the training tower and keeping that facility, if possible, as a logistics station.

OK, thanks. And remind me, how is this all funded?

Mayor, everything is funded through the general fund.

Okay, thanks. Christine?

This is on the motion to approve resolution 27-020. Councillor McClure? Yes. Councillor Matisse? Yes. Councillor Harris? Yes. Councillor Bencomo? Yes. Councillor Curran? Yes. Councillor Munoz? Yes. Mayor?

Yes. Next is item 8.2, resolution number 27-021.

Move to approve.

Second.

Good afternoon, Mayor, City Council. My name is Cynthia Alamillo, Capital Improvements Program, and today we only have a handful of CAP amendments to bring in additional funding for some projects, but we're gonna be highlighting the two main projects today. We first have Apodaca Park Aquatic Playground and Recreation Trail. This is a significant project right now. The amendment for CIP will be reflecting 5.2 million for this specific project. But to talk about the details of it, I would like to pass it on to Katherine Harrison-Rogers from Parks and Rec so we can learn more about this project.

good afternoon mayor members of city council catherine harrison rogers for the record uh... this particular project we've been designing and we've been collecting funding uh... for years we're really excited about the opportunity to be able to start construction on this this fall we're currently under negotiations uh... with a contractor to revise uh... the the scope of this particular project so that we can start building a portion of it until we collect our capital outlay funds that were approved by the legislature this year. We're getting an additional $3 million, hopefully sometime this fall. And this particular amendment to the CIP is to allow us to start construction, essentially. It will include both that walking trail as well as the aquatic playground, some improvements and showers to the bathrooms. We are also proposing some improvements to the parking lot as well as some really nice playgrounds at two separate locations, one for smaller children, one for older children. as well as some gathering spaces including a really lovely pavilion and some other areas. So if you have any other questions, I'd be happy to answer those.

Oh, pictures, yeah, sorry.

Sorry about that, I was just talking away and not moving these. So of course here's Apodaca Park. The area in question is here, that's where the aquatic playground will be. And then of course that lovely trail will go all the way around. And we've been negotiating with the developer of the Royal Crossing subdivision to ultimately have a connection that will ultimately lead to the outfall channel. So it'll be a really nice trail system. Here's some renderings just generally showing you the location of that aquatic playground, those improvements of course to the existing parking. And again, just some really lovely renderings so you can see the type of aquatic play that we're talking about. It's not exactly a splash pad. It's more naturalistic than that. It'll be really beautiful and a lot of fun for both adults and kids. And again, some natural play for some of the older playground. And I'll go ahead and turn it over to Cynthia.

Thank you, Catherine Cynthia Lemillo. Our second project that we want to highlight today is for the Mesilla Valley Community of Hope. This is for the day shelter re-roofing. So recently a new grant was approved for 500,000 and I would like to pass it on to Natalie Green to give us details on this specific project.

Uh, good afternoon, Mr. Mayor Natalie green for the record. Uh, so this is funding from housing New Mexico as part of their housing innovation fund. They are funding a roof of the day shelter. That is the main facility where we operate. Uh, can you hope out of the project is currently at ninety five percent design. they have been experiencing some leak issues especially with monsoon season and this is the newly renovated portion of the building so we want to make sure that we repair the roof so we're protecting our renovation investment both on the city side and legislators side the roof is about just under 20 years old and it was designed in such a way that it's not draining like it should and there's some debris there's also some changes to the windows the windows are leaking this is the resource room future project will need to be some of the stucco repair I don't think we'll have the budget to do that this time and they'll also be getting a new ladder access and new skylights and then we did go to Housing New Mexico we requested more funding they gave us the max of their current award until we get actual bids and then once we get actual bids we can go back to the board for Housing New Mexico and they'll evaluate whether they'll fund the remaining portion with that I'll turn it over to Cynthia for your final council options

Thank you, Natalie. So yes, with that, you have your council options for the CAP amendment.

Thank you, Cynthia. Councillor Harris.

Thank you. So first off, I would like to say that I appreciate the inclusion of the pictures. I think when we're looking at these capital improvement projects, it's very helpful for us to actually be able to see what's going on and kind of see what we're up against that we need to fix. I think this is a good thing. I think all these projects sound great. I would ask, because I brought up overspending on another roof project before, so the $800,000 to fix this roof is a lot of money to fix a roof. So about how big is it, out of curiosity?

Mr. Mayor, Councillor Harris, it's about 13,000 square feet.

Okay, so it still feels like a lot, but I guess my question is more, maybe this is a city manager question, other department's question, is when we actually go out to bid, are we expecting people to bid that amount? Are we expecting them to bid more? And how do those bids compare to similar commercial jobs? If I were just... If Community of Hope were on their own, like they had raised some money, and they had their own purchasing and everything to go out and fix their own roof, would it be? I understand it's our building. This is a hypothetical question. But are we paying a government premium is what I'm trying to get at.

jimmy moreno with public works mayor councillor harris so typically when we have beginning estimates at this time it includes there is a premium for it being government work because of the prevailing wages, all the additional items, standards and everything else, codes that we put on these buildings. But these costs also include contingency costs. They're always on the higher estimate because we don't want to have to come back. Or if we're applying for grant money, we don't want to have be short on that grant. So it typically includes everything on the higher end and especially unknowns as well. So a lot of times we the cost for the roof is usually typically a lot less because once we get in there, we determine that a lot of the. the base doesn't need to be replaced, and so we'll go ahead and do that at the time of construction. So typically they're always on the high end, but we always try to get the best bang for our buck with city dollars. Okay, noted. That's all I have, thanks.

Mayor McTown.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Cynthia, for putting this together. Natalie, question. How old is the roof, you said, was that 20 years? I just wanted to make sure I got that correctly.

It's under 20 years. Don't hold me to it. I want to say it was built in 2002, but I'll have to go back and double check.

Gotcha, okay. And then, what is the markup for the contingency cost? Is that a 10%, 5% or?

Mr. Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, it depends on the project type. It's typically 10%, although I've seen in roadway projects that are a little more volatile, it's closer to 20, but if I got it wrong, Jimmy will correct me. But I believe the contingency requirements live within our procurement code and the maximum contingency is 20%.

Jimmy Moreno, again, with Public Works. Mayor, Councilor Munoz. Yes, it can range from either up to zero to 20%. Our procurement code limits at 20%, and that's usually for higher risk at the 20%, and typically most projects is five to 10%.

Okay, thank you, Jimmy. Appreciate that. I mean, it does seem high. I do also want, without talking out of, I also think that it's important to take care of our equipment and our facilities within a timely manner. I'm not a fan of deferred maintenance. I think you pay now or you really pay a whole lot more later if you don't take care and properly maintain a building. So appreciate the work that's going on to this and curious to see what the final numbers are with the repair of the roof. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Natalie.

Okay, thanks. Christine?

This is on the motion to approve resolution 27-021. Councillor McClure? Yes. Councillor Matisse? Yes. Councillor Harris? Yes. Councillor Bencomo? Yes. Councillor Crayon? Yes. Councillor Munoz? Yes. Mayor?

Yes. Next is item 8.3, resolution number 27-022. We have to do 8.3 first. Move to approve.

Second.

And now we'll take a motion and a second to vote to suspend the rules to listen to items 8.3 through 8.7 concurrently. So moved.

Second.

This is on the motion to suspend the rules to listen to items 8.3 to 8.7 concurrently. Councillor McClure. Yes. Councillor Matisse.

Yes.

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

Yes. Go ahead.

Good afternoon, mayor, councilors, city staff. My name is Caitlin Beasley. I'm the historic preservation specialist with the city of Las Cruces and the community development department. And I'm bringing before you today the five nominations we have for the city's register of cultural properties. These properties were all nominated earlier this year and were recommended by the historic preservation committee at their May 20th, 2026 meeting. They're coming before you to finalize that process. I'll also note that this is the first instance that the City Council is being asked to vote on the Cultural Properties Register, so thank you for inviting me here and hearing these nominations. The nominations this year are the Rio Grande Theater, the Branigan Cultural Center, the Railroad Museum, the Clarabelle Williams Property, and the Phillips Chapel CME Church. Most of this information is information you're already familiar with. It's old information. And I'm not just saying that because they're old buildings. The first one that we'll address is the Rio Grande Theater. Most of you know where this is. It's at 211 North Main Street. Again, it was recommended by the Historic Preservation Committee. Most of these buildings are already listed on some historic register, either the national or the state register. We can go over that in detail if there are any questions. This building also retains sufficient historic integrity for it to be listed on our city register. The nomination, I'll also add, was completed by Jordan Gladstone, who was our community development department intern last year. The Rio Grande Theater turns 100 this year. It was built in 1926, opening in July 1926, from a design by Otto H. Thormann of the architecture firm Thormann and Fraser out of El Paso. The building has an Italian Renaissance Revival façade. It is primarily adobe and concrete. There was a significant restoration project between 1998 and 2007 that led to the building being utilized today. It is, of course, owned and operated by the city of Las Cruces. It's also one of the only operating Adobe theaters in the US, and it is a rare example of a two-story Adobe building. The property owners at the time were businessmen C.T. Seal and B.J. Dine. They purchased a building and demolished it in order to make the Adobe Theater, so I think that represents the sort of cycle that comes with building construction, that sort of thing that we're wanting to capture with our historic documentation. Also, interestingly, Thorman and Fraser, the architecture firm, dissolved shortly after the project was finalized, and there's a really funny letter from Thorman requesting that the building owners pay their full debts to close out. That was from 1927, I believe. The building was donated to the Dona Ana Arts Council in 1998 by the granddaughters of C.T. Seal, the original owners. The building, of course, did not look the way it does today or the way it did historically. There was a significant restoration project that involved removing a false aluminum front, removing a non-historic marquee, and the installation of a couple of different character-defining features of the building. That project, again, was between 1998 and 2007. The building opened in 2005 while work was continuing on the exterior. A lot of that work that continued between 2005 and 2007 was the restoration of the historic ceramic tiles that were undertaken by a local ceramicist and educator, Glenn Schwager, who was formerly with the Dona Ana Community College. 75% of the tiles had to be replaced, so this was a significant process for him. Again, the project, the building opened in 2005. As part of their celebration, the Dona Ana Arts Council wrote in their celebration booklet, in 1998, it was just going to be a weekend project. Please don't fault us for our slightly inflated optimism. The glow of this wonderful gift and the dreams of what could be blinded us temporarily. thanks to them and their efforts we have this wonderful building and I just like to let everybody know that they are showing Top Gun I believe next week on the 11th so everyone go see Top Gun the second building that we're going to be nominating is the Branigan Cultural Center Its location is 501 North Main Street. It is listed on the national and state registers. It retains sufficient integrity, and this nomination was produced by another community development intern, Kenneth Podicecki. The building opened in 1935. It was designed by another El Paso architect, Percy McGee. The style is Pueblo Revival. It was also the first dedicated library in Las Cruces and the only privately funded library constructed in New Mexico during the Great Depression. The library itself moved later and the city operated or opened the cultural center, which is now the city's, it was the city's first municipally run museum that opened in 1981. And I just wanted to include this map from 1927. This is the Sanborn Map Company. They produced fire insurance maps at the time. I am guilty frequently of spelling Branigan with two Ns, but I have never called it the Barnigan Memorial Library or community, so I wanted to include that. A little bit about the building's history that I think most people may not be aware of. It won an award from the American Library Association in 1939, shortly after it opened. It's been receiving some recognition for a while just for its unique architecture and its unique place-based history. An unaired TV pilot was filmed at the Branigan. The Branigan was transformed into the county office building for a made-up county named Calhoun for the TV pilot, which was Calhoun County Agent. And that starred Jackie Cooper, who some of you may be familiar with him. He was a little kid in the Our Gang or Little Rascals TV show. The other person that I want to highlight as part of this is James E. Richardson Jr. He was the first director of the Branigan Cultural Center from 1981, when it opened until his death in 1986. He's a local artist. Some of his collections are still in the museum's collections today. The next nominated property is the Railroad Museum. This is located at 351 North Mesilla Street. It is listed in the national and state registers. However, I will note that it is not listed individually. It is captured as part of the Alameda Depot Historic District. And so writing the nomination had to be done completely from scratch. The nomination was written by former HPC and current subcommittee member Judy Berryman. And the building retains sufficient historic integrity to be nominated. The building was built in 1910. It replaced an earlier railroad depot that I have a photo of that we'll see on the next slides. This is a stock design, a stock floor plan from the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad Company. They chose to design it in the Spanish Mission revival style that they believed was more practical and spoke more to the history of New Mexico. The building operated as a railroad depot until 1988. Passenger service operated until 1968. The city purchased the building in 1992 and turned it into a museum in 2004. On the left you can see a photo of the original depot. This was constructed in 1881 and it was replaced by our new depot after President Taft came through town and community members were very distressed at how old their depot looked so they built a new building. um the next year teddy roosevelt came through and visited and that photo of is of him standing on the caboose of one of the trains that he came through town talking about statehood this was a year before new mexico was added to the union I want to highlight that while there are notable people who, of course, are involved with all of these buildings, David Lundy and Kyle McGrogan, different individuals with the Railroad Museum currently, have shared an important fact that this was also the community's depot. This was where people left for trips. A lot of people, this was where they left to go serve their time or serve their country. during wartime, during World War II, during World War I. We have a notable instance of people in the community today remembering when their parents' bodies were brought back to the depot after dying during wartime. This is a photo then and now of what is now Las Cruces Avenue but was originally Depot Street. This kind of represents how influential the Depot was and its construction was to the community. This was the first street that was paved in Las Cruces. It's also very wide to accommodate all of the traffic that was coming to and from the Depot from downtown. And it's interesting, you can see a lot of the same buildings today. The building on the two-story building on the right in both photos, that's the Branigan House that is standing today.

Sorry, Dr. Beasley, can I interrupt really quick? Can you go back to that picture? Is that mistletoe in that same tree?

Yes. Oh, wow, fascinating. I pointed that out in the historic preservation committee meeting, but I wasn't sure anyone would pick up on that.

Nope, thank you for sharing it. Super interesting, and glad the tree survived that, I guess, so thank you. Yeah, no, thank you for mentioning it.

The next property to be nominated is the Clara Bell Williams property. This comprises of two buildings, the original house where Clara Bell Williams and her family lived, and then the duplex that they owned and rented out next door. These properties are still together. They are part of one property. They are currently listed in the state register, not in the national register, and integrity for both properties depends on what historic building, sorry, historic period we are discussing. We'll get into that in a minute when we talk about the history. Of course, the building is most notably known for being the home of Clairvaux Williams, the renowned educator in Las Cruces. It was built between 1925 and 1930 for the Williams family by a local contractor, Ignacio Ogaz. I don't know that much about him. Some of these things are still kind of a mystery, but that's one resource that we have is that Ignacio Ogaas built their house. Their house, the main house, is a craftsman with vernacular influences. It was owned by Williams until she sold it and moved to Chicago in 1974. It was later the home of Arturo and Marcelina Chavez. Arturo has passed away. His wife is still living in the property. Now a little bit about the buildings. Again, they are still there. That's why they're being nominated. The Craftsman House is the one in the upper left-hand corner. The house is still there. There have been a few changes since the period when Claribel Williams lived there. The duplex still looks remarkably similar. These photos were recreated earlier this year. And the duplex, again, one of the notable things about the property is that the retaining wall is different. I think most people know about Claribel Williams, but I'm gonna give you a little bit of a refresher. She was originally from Texas. She graduated from Prairie View A&M University with a teaching certificate. When she moved to Las Cruces, when she moved to New Mexico, later Las Cruces, she taught at the segregated schools here in Las Cruces. We'll get to the Lincoln High School in the next nomination. Many of these children were people who she knew. She finished her teaching degree at NMSU, taking almost a decade to complete it because she took exclusively summer courses. What's most known about Claribel Williams' time at NMSU is that she was forced to sit outside of the classrooms while the classes were being taught. She eventually graduated. She was not allowed to walk during graduation, reportedly because some white students threatened to boycott graduation. And so she was given her diploma afterwards. This is just a little bit about the current property owners, Artura and Marcelina Chavez, who are notable in their own right. Arturo Chavez helped influence the traditional New Mexican cultural culture way of roasting chili he was not a chili grower but he bought chili what people in hatch call a chili broker he was a chili broker he bought chili roasted it and then sold it for consumption here in las cruces and other communities around southern new mexico this was at a time period before restaurants grocery stores were roasting their own chili so he provided that service and that people like him are the reason why we have chili roasting today arturo passed away on november 12 2021 again his wife still lives in the property their daughter alice chavez was the primary person who wrote this nomination with assistance from the hpc vice chair norma charrez-hartel Our final nomination is the Phillips Chapel. This is located at 638 North Tornillo Street. Again, it was recommended by HPC. It is currently listed in the national and the state registers, and it retains sufficient historic integrity. This nomination was produced by a former historic preservation committee member, Faith Hudson. So this building was built in 1911. It's a vernacular style built out of adobe. It's one of the oldest black churches in New Mexico. And it was also used during segregation as the first African American school in Las Cruces. It was known as Lincoln High School. There was a significant restoration project between 2010 and 2014 that was led by students at the Dona Ana Community College and members of the community. Now getting into some of the history about this property, it's primarily, of course, associated with the African-American community in Las Cruces, specifically the Hibbler family, who not only purchased the land that the church would later be built on, but they also brought the first pastor to the community. It is also associated, of course, with the history of school segregation in southern New Mexico. The photo on the left is of a black drama class that put on a production in the church in the 1940s. The next photo is of the Hibbler brothers, Daniel and Cortez. This is them in front of their restaurant here in Las Cruces, the Jitney Cafe. The next photo is of Henry Fielder. Henry was a mechanic at Rio Grande Motors here in town, and he was so successful that he got his photo put in an advertisement in the 1940s. So I wanted to share that. There were so many great photos associated with this building that the family and other members of the African-American community have shared for this nomination that it was difficult choosing just a few of them. But these were the ones that I chose to highlight. And then the last photo is of members of the Hibbler family. Daniel Hibbler, who moved to Las Cruces in 1909, he's sitting at the far right. Behind him are his two grandsons, Alfred and Clarence Fielder. And then his daughter, Gertrude Fielder, is sitting in the middle. She was the first African-American child to be born in Las Cruces. The restoration project that happened between 2010 and 2014 was a significant one. They did adobe stabilization. They restocked the entire exterior. And then the photo at the bottom right is of them installing the National Register plaque, which they purchased and installed in the building in 2014. So this was really representative. And it's a good one to end on for this reason. It's representative of how these buildings have a place in the community and a place in people's hearts that concludes my presentation before you are your options and i stand for questions thank you caitlyn counselor harris

Thanks for that presentation. These are all extremely cool places and a lot of cool history. I have probably a relatively simple question. So when I was at the Railroad Museum earlier this year, we were talking about preventative maintenance and things of that nature. And so I guess the question is, does this historic designation make it more challenging to do things like replace the door?

or replace the roof any comments toward that mayor councillor harris that's an excellent question and it's one i get asked quite frequently for the city-owned buildings it does not impact them at all they're already required to go through design review with the historic preservation committee there are requirements as to what types of materials can be used when we do work like replacing roofs or doing interior work But again, that's part of why my position exists and why the Historic Preservation Committee exists as well. So the process for the city-owned properties, it does not impact them at all. City-owned buildings, all the two city-owned buildings that were nominated this year are already under an overlay ordinance that requires them to go through design review so they are not impacted as well however that may change in the future we may nominate privately owned buildings that would require their owners to go through design review and that is part of why we're acknowledging this building's history part of designating them is is stating to the public that we view these buildings as important and worthy of preservation. And so it's important to maintain some of those material connections that make the building's story apparent to everybody.

Great, thanks.

Councilor Matisse.

Caitlin, would you be willing, you know, the History Club does presentations at Good Samaritan, and I think they're starting it up in late August or September. Would you be willing to give this presentation if I get a hold of you and set it up?

Mayor, Councilor Matisse, I am giving a presentation on local historic buildings to the Dona Ana County Historical Society. I believe that's in November, but I will get back to you. I'd love to talk more about these buildings.

Maybe we can pitch you other places. I mean, it's really great stuff. I'm sure somebody's gonna probably say to me, were you there when Teddy Roosevelt showed up? But it really is good stuff, and I really appreciate your presentation today. Very meaningful, thank you. Councillor McClure.

Just a quick thank you. I know that you guys have worked really hard, you, Caitlin, but also the Historic Preservation Committee that has kind of moved a lot of this forward to kind of show how the city wants to value its history. And I think a lot of people kind of gloss that over, but it is something very fundamental to the core of who we are and where we're going. What does it look like to save these buildings? What does it look like to take care of them? And I really appreciate the hard work that you and the committee have done over the past year. Thank you.

Mayor Pro Tem.

Thank you, Mayor. I can confirm that I've seen pictures of Councilor Matisse and Teddy Roosevelt, or at least somebody that looked like him. I knew it. Dr. Beasley, what's the process, and again, thank you, again, I think, I just want to thank you for preserving our history and our culture, but what is the process? Is this a yearly process or a quarterly process? How do you go about nominating or looking at a specific property?

Mayor, Councillor Munoz, thank you for the question. For now, we're trying to make it more of an annual thing. Part of it is bringing attention in one big historic preservation committee meeting and then at city council as opposed to individually throughout the year. So that's one thing that we're aiming to do moving forward. The process... has been very time consuming. I've participated with nominations to the National Register, and I know that it is a very time consuming process, regardless of what historic register a nomination is going towards. For the local level, I would say, especially for these properties, The amount of information that we have for most of them is staggering, and so part of it is just writing it and putting it together into one document. And of course, we left out things, right? Everybody has a story with all of these buildings, I think, and unfortunately, we couldn't capture everything. But I hope that we did a good enough job.

Thank you. Thank you, Mayor.

Okay, Lynn, thank you. Thank you very much for acknowledging and preserving our history here in Las Cruces, this wonderful presentation. Now I think we vote on each one individually. Christine, we'll need a... On 8.3.

This is on the motion to approve resolution 27-022. Councillor McClure? Yes. Councillor Matisse? Yes. Councillor Harris? Yes. Councillor Bencomo? Yes. Councillor Crayon? Yes. Councillor Munoz? Yes. Mayor?

Yes.

And now we need a motion and a second for each of them and vote on each of them individually.

Move to approve 8.427-023.

Second.

This is on the motion to approve resolution 27-023. Councillor McClure? Yes.

I got you. Too many people might have their mics on.

Yes. OK. Councillor Matisse? Yes. Councillor Harris? Yes. Councillor Bencomo? Yes. Councillor Curran? Yes. Councillor Munoz?

Yes.

Mayor?

Yes.

Point of clarification, did we need to move, we had suspended the rules earlier, or we can move forward? Okay, thank you.

But now we need a motion and a second for 8.5. So moved.

Second.

This is on the motion to approve resolution 27-024. Councillor McClure? Yes. Councillor Matisse? Yes. Councillor Harris? Yes. Councillor Bencomo? Yes. Councillor Curran? Yes. Councillor Munoz? Yes. Mayor?

Yes.

Resolution just to approve number 27025. Need a motion. Second.

This is on the motion to approve resolution 27-025. Councillor McClure? Yes. Councillor Matisse? Yes. Councillor Harris? Yes. Councillor Bencomo? Yes. Councillor Curran? Yes. Councillor Munoz? Yes. Mayor?

Yes. Item 8.7, need of motion.

Move to approve.

Second.

This is on the motion to approve resolution 27-026. Councillor McClure? Yes. Councillor Matisse? Yes. Councillor Harris? Yes. Councillor Bencomo? Yes. Councillor Curran? Yes. Councillor Munoz? Yes. Mayor?

Yes. So next we'll move into board appointments. The first one I'll read into the record. Councillor Mayor Pro Tem Munoz appoint to the Metro Narcotics Board. On the next one I'll need a motion and a second and a vote is required for Tanner Guskey, a new appointment to the Historic Preservation Committee.

Move to approve.

Second. This is on the motion to appoint Tanner Guskey to the Historic Preservation 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 Santo Hernandez, a new appointment to the ADA Advisory Committee.

Move to approve.

Second. This is on the motion to appoint Santos Hernandez to the ADA Advisory Committee. Councilor McClure? Yes. Councilor Matisse? Yes. Councilor Harris? Yes. Councilor Bencomo? Yes. Councilor Curran? Yes. Councilor Munoz? Yes. Mayor?

Yes. Next is Jennifer Gates, reappointment to the ASCMV.

Move to approve. Second.

This is on the motion to reappoint Jennifer Gates to the ASCMV. Councillor McClure? Yes. Councillor Matisse? Yes. Councillor Harris? Yes. Councillor Bencomo? Yes. Councillor Curran? Yes. Councillor Munoz? Yes. Mayor?

Yes. Next, we'll move to the notice of proposed ordinances. We have one, it's Council Bill number 27-005, ordinance number 3121, an ordinance approving a zoning map amendment from neighborhood one suburban to commercial retail, Suburban for a property encompassing approximately point nine eight seven acres located at 1240 South Valley Drive bring forward Now we'll go to City Council member board reports and comments councilman clerk

Thank you, Mayor. I have a couple of things that I wanted to bring up. I wanted to give my thanks to the Garrison Command at White Sands Missile Range. Councilor Matisse, Councilor Harris, and myself went out there to kind of talk about what collaboration might look like going forward. There used to be a very strong sort of bond between the city and White Sands Missile Range. In particular, help for their Bataan Memorial Death March. That's kind of, they need volunteers. This is gonna be my first plug for this, but definitely something that they want to do. There might be other opportunities as well, but that's gonna be more of a city-led thing than perhaps even a council-led thing. I also wanted to talk about just briefly my fifth police ride-along. It's been my fourth one that I did with Las Cruces Police. And in particular, going along to witness the nuisance abatement team as they kind of checked out a house to see what was happening there and just recognizing that it's just such a difficult job to kind of make things are sure up to code but also give a lot of grace to the people who are trying to and that's not an easy job and i just very much thank them for doing what they do we saw also a lot of other different things this was uh councilman harris and mayor pretend muñoz and i went in separate vehicles to different locations here in town just to kind of get a sense of it which has been different than what I've done in the past where I ride along with somebody for a couple hours and just encounter what happens. This was a little bit more dedicated to seeing what happens all over town, what they see, especially from a community engagement perspective. It was a police-heavy week because we also had the town hall as well, and I thought that was an interesting... chance to kind of listen to a wide variety of requests. Like, I just sent off an email saying, you know, the dog park lighting is one thing that we're, you know, worried about. But then sort of a more philosophical conversation happened about someone who had just moved here, and they had their car broken into, and this was a couple years ago. And they couldn't leave, and they didn't know anybody in town. So they couldn't leave their car, they couldn't get anywhere. And as much as I always hear, we are a very friendly town, but it takes a long time to establish a network of people that you can trust and rely on. And I think we can be that. So I'd like to kind of, and I'll send that email to Chief Story at some point later this week, to kind of, what does that look like? Can the community advocates reach out if they know, hey, we have a bunch of different other calls? Can we have community advocates basically say, hey, is there anything you need right now? Because it's gonna take our officers a little bit longer to get to you. So things like that made that pretty valuable. I also want to give kudos to, I think, Lieutenant Bradley, who the table next to us was working with someone who, you know, was very in his feels. And then, you know, at the very end he said, you know, I usually walk away from this very agitated, very angry, and I've felt better today. And I just thought that was a win, even if we couldn't solve it in that moment. Lastly, I just want to give a short kudos to utilities, partially because I work more from home in general, and I just want to say that there's a lot of work that happens that we don't see. And the one that I got reminded of is that we had a big, I have a 70-year-old palm tree, and we have fronds that come off all the time. I put them in a little stack, and they came and they took it all away. And better than that, they pulled the whole thing up, and they said, you know what? Oh, there's a couple more fronds. We'll pick them up. They didn't have to. They could have said, well, that's one per go. No, they do that extra effort. And I think there's a lot of conversation about utilities where we don't recognize if it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen for us. And it makes our city less. And it makes our quality of life less. So I want to thank utilities and send my thanks back to you for doing the things that people just don't see. So that's all I have for today. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Matisse.

Thank you, Mayor. I have a few things. I'd like to comment on that town hall meeting as well. It was very informative. It was good for me to hear from constituents. There's still a lot of crap and crime going on. We have had people complaining about their mailboxes and getting ripped off and some vandalism and some aggressive behavior at different places in the city of Las Cruces. But we're addressing it. But I think what was common in their comments was the repeat offenders. Whereas all these folks were very, they knew these people had just done it before, come back out and they do it again. They've done it and they do it again. They just keep coming back, committing the same vandalism, committing the same problems. And maybe Chief Story can get with the council, maybe we can have a work session on this, but these repeat offenders have to be arrested. Somehow it just has to stop. They just can't keep going out to the city and vandalizing and stealing people's mail and things like that. So that was an eye opener, getting comments really from the people that have been victimized. And they are victims and their property is getting damaged. Their trucks are getting stolen. And maybe we could address the repeat offender system. Maybe somebody, Connie or Brad or somebody could sit with me and tell me what's happening in the courts. Why do these people have 15, 20, 30 arrests? That's Or they don't get arrested. They they just get slapped on a hand and they're put back out on the street. So Maybe we maybe we could address that I like to thank some people Jimmy Moreno David Cedillo Sonia Delgado, you know a lot of I'm sorry I email you so often about Fixing this and pothole there and broken that and trees taking down some wires and all but every time I call i just want to say thank you for for really quick response and these neighbors have called me and they're really impressed with how how quick that that you all are fixing things so i just want to say i appreciate you and i'll just keep emailing you um on on the third item it's kind of a sensitive item um you know i've been getting calls about these uh violations that we had, open meeting violations, and of course they were kind of okay by the Justice Department that they were in violations. But when I went through all these public safety, the secret select committee meetings, And I want to thank Christine for being so honest and getting me as much as I can. I couldn't get any discussion, by the way, but when you look at the topics that were discussed by people like Gabe Vasquez, Miyagishima, Gillisorg, we've had some attendees, I believe my And they were attending because of course the mayor put it together and said let's get together and it's not a quorum because it's just two of you. And they discussed things like the liability fund, the DWI and cannabis, the strategic plan for the future, future budget of the city of Las Cruces, body cam changes and Civil Rights Act. They even had Larry Horan come in and speak. They talked about homelessness. I mean, citizen police oversight board. I think even one of the former police chiefs attended it, I believe Dominguez. And none of this was done in a work session. And I just want to say, I want to thank, I just really want to thank our mayor now, Eric, that we got to repeal this, this kind of nonsense. And Chad and everyone, and now we're, transparent and now we're doing everything in work session so if there's any people out there you don't have to keep emailing me or coming up to me saying what are you going to do about those private meetings uh they they were handled they uh they they got a decision from from from state of new mexico that they they weren't totally uh an ipra violation Christine cleaned it up, got it to where it's legal, transparent, and it's all good. And I think with this particular council, as Koran said, most of us did not attend any of these meetings. We're new to this system of transparency, and we'll stay that way. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Councillor Harris.

Thanks, Mayor. I have a variety of things and maybe no particular order. First thing I want to remind people about is that we are ongoing in the strategic plan public input meetings. The one for District 3 is tomorrow evening at Lynn Middle School. So hope to see you there. Also want to, it's been a busy couple of weeks for meetings and tours and stuff, so I also want to thank the staff at WISMR for inviting us down. Also for taking us through the museum and seeing what they're doing there. That was, we just had a history presentation. That was all quite interesting. LCBD community outreach officers for our ride along. That was also very eye opening and good to see. some of the stuff that we're dealing with. And then also, last week, I went with Councilor Koren to South Central Solid Waste, which, speaking of invisible tasks that get done every day, and if they don't get done, the city would completely fall apart, that's right up there with them. So it was great to see the staff was all extremely proud of the things that they do, extremely knowledgeable. That operation is very professionally run and it was just very, very interesting and great to see what we're doing there. So as a reminder, please keep recyclables in the recycling bin and pay attention to the little sign on top. It causes everybody great strife when there is contamination in those bins. On the police town hall, one of the big issues that actually came up in the District 3 table was traffic. And we have several very high speed roads in there. And everyone kind of comes to these things with different perspectives and different concerns. But that was a common theme at the District 3 table. You know, people are concerned about kids waiting for school buses, crossing Roadrunner to get to the school. And, you know, the officers were very upfront that enforcement doesn't really solve the problem. And that's what people were there at the police department town hall to ask for is more traffic enforcement. And they're like, hey, we can do that. And it affects the people who get tickets and the people who see other people getting tickets. And anyone who wasn't in that area at the time doesn't get affected. And so fundamentally, I think we need to continue to look beyond that and at the structural issues that are in our roads and our built environments. When Public Works is considering new roads or extending roads, maybe we don't need the third lane, or maybe that third lane should be a dedicated bus lane. And just really trying to get on top of this issue at the root. Likewise, there's things that can be done within neighborhoods. One of the neighborhoods in District 3 where people have almost certainly run into a bunch of walls all the time, those walls are now brightly painted with lovely murals that the neighborhood put together to maybe remind you to stop at the stop sign. So there's other interesting things that we can do. you know, instead of just putting this whole burden on the police department. Because we have 587 miles of roads. That was a very specific number. Don't quote me on that. 500 and someone. And officers can't be everywhere all the time. And finally, this came up in the last work session, and it also came up a little bit at the town hall, but the use of surveillance technologies by the police, by other places within the city. I think we have some policies. Our department has been thinking about it. They're working on some transparency measures to make sure that people know what these technologies are, what the cameras really are looking at, what they can and cannot do. And I appreciate those efforts. And I also think that we should be looking forward to Comprehensive, you know city level policies on Just how how the city is going to navigate these new technologies every department Not just police You know everyone who uses these things it's building services. It's economic development. It's parks and rec It's traffic so Yeah, it's it's a big it's a big thing that's all I got thanks mayor

Thank you. Councilor Vancomo.

Thank you, Mayor. Yes, I'm excited to hear a couple of trends come out of the LCPD town hall meeting, which, again, I also want to express my gratitude for the invitation. I especially want to thank Lieutenant Austin and Sergeant Rogers. I think we made a pretty good team. I actually wanted to go through my list of a couple of things folks brought up because I thought it was a great setup to be able to have conversations with folks and for community members to get to know each other. There's faces there that come to everything and there was people there that are like, this is my first one of these ever. And so it was very community building. But folks brought up Someone who is at the senior programs who talks, said that often seniors are complaining about the lack of response from the non-emergency number, which I think is very good kind of feedback to receive. I know that we've had issues with that in the past with 911 and the non-emergency number, but wanted to lift that up as it continues to happen. A neighbor from the Casa Linda said, neighborhood who is requesting more drainage support from all the all the waters and so David I think of that we just yeah thank you I think we just put some of those neighborhoods and on a priority list to often check back in after heavy rains um Folks brought up issues of safety at parks, for example, and it's really interesting when I have conversations with people more in a one-to-one or face-to-face type of conversation. Even though someone might automatically want to go to criminalization, the moment they are sort of provided with alternatives, like increased outreach and peer-to-peer support programs, people are really open to that. And so I found that really interesting. really encouraging a way to have conversations with people that move away from just solely criminalization. We had someone there who is a behavioral health expert, and she was there with Soteria House, who provide mental health services for our community. A woman who asked about ICE enforcement and the kind of, you know, LCPD's role, and so Lieutenant Austin was able to reiterate our city policy. issues of traffic safety and pedestrian safety came up. And I think to your point, Councilor Harris, this is one of the things that a lot, multiple folks brought up as being issues in their neighborhood, in their community. And just general beautification and more traffic safety, and there was also a pretty good conversation about surveillance technology, which I want to get into, but before that I did want to provide just one piece of feedback for LCPD, or really all staff. There were folks in my group that were hard of hearing, and so that sort of setup was difficult for people, and so for us to just be aware of people's that people have different abilities when coming into a space like that. And so it was hard for folks who were hard of hearing to fully engage in the conversation. So just a little piece of feedback for future, the organizing of those meetings. Yeah, the surveillance conversation did have a bit of a moment there. And honestly, I think beyond what we hear here sometimes, I do hear from folks in the community about concerns they have regarding surveillance and flock. And so just to really go off and ditto what Councilor Harris is saying that I think Las Cruces could really have some model legislation that can be holding this conversation responsibly. I understand that even if I, Advocated for us to remove flock that I would probably be in the minority and so if that is not the correct pathway then we must we absolutely must adopt model legislation that helps with people's concerns regarding surveillance. And I think often we can come at it from a point of safety, like what happened at Young Park and those kinds of things. I also hope that we can come to this conversation with the concern that a lot of historically targeted communities might have. Immigrants, people seeking reproductive justice, I don't know, people on the far left terrorist list that now exist. Whatever the case may be, I think there are very legitimate concerns for people to have. um around this and so i do want to encourage us to and i'm glad counselor harris is working on it on model legislation um chief story and lieutenant bradley were able to tell me that they the lcpd is working on launching a public transparency portal for flock which i think is very important i've spoken with the city clerk about our internal audits i know that our welcoming city resolution that we improved in october had a piece about it, had a piece of audits in it and I've asked for us to really look at that and see if there have been requests by either federal law enforcement agencies or out of state law enforcement agencies that have asked for surveillance data from Las Cruces Police Department or the city of Las Cruces as a whole. And so I think those audits are important and that we are transparent with them. So those things are really important to me. And I do think that that conversation we had with OIR last week about if these are here to stay, then we need to be responsible stewards of these technologies. And I do think there are ways That many cities are taking on to to be responsible stewards The last thing I wanted to lift up was that this weekend I attended the Alameda neighborhood Association meeting and one of the things that I promised them I would bring up today was The requesting four-way stops around the J. Paul Taylor Academy School. And the reason I wanted to bring this up during comments today was because I know we're, excuse me, we're headed into a work session on traffic safety. But this is, I had brought this issue up before where it feels like sometimes there's a misconnect between what neighborhoods, residents in neighborhoods are experiencing with traffic, Versus potentially what the data is that is driving public works to make certain decisions I feel like there's a disconnect and we have to figure out a way to better address some of those concerns but I did want to lift up the issues around J Paul Taylor Academy and the Pedestrian safety issues that they they are raising now given the different Configuration of the stop signs there. So thank you very much.

And that is it for me Thank You councillor torrent

Thank you. I think I'll go backwards from, well, I'll go in some order related to this. I also wanna thank LCPD and the team of officers that joined in my group. My group also sort of broke off because it was very hard, a little bit hard to hear in the big room because everyone was so enthusiastically participating, which was a really great dynamic. The biggest thing that came up in my, group again were trapped the number one thing was related to traffic and I think speaking to this idea of one of the things was Sonoma Ranch Boulevard the most one of the top three most discussed roads in my district as far as speed and enforcement and engineering and the ways that we're thinking about this um but i do think i i think that that's coming up in a few weeks and and hopefully you all can can give us a reminder of when the work session is related to traffic calming and and the conversations that we have with communities but i do know that that's a big topic that was a huge topic in the conversation um and thank you to the officers for really talking about the types of enforcement that they've experienced and a similar perspective that we could help with different kinds of interventions as well. So thank you to all the residents that participated in those conversations. I also want to thank the residents and the consultants and the city staff who worked to put on, Mayor Pro Tem Munoz and I shared a strategic planning workshop on Thursday night that was really well attended and people had really interesting and enthusiastic inputs both in the big picture and a lot of them did write a lot of reflective notes that I know the consultants are gonna work on compiling and coming back to, and so participants, just to encourage other people to come to these meetings if you have an opportunity, participants are both asked to sort of think on your feet to, if you have money, how will you spend it, what are your big priorities, but then also reflect on what you wish for in Las Cruces, what you hope for, and there are opportunities to talk to your neighbors, to quietly reflect yourself, to sort of get together with a gang of people if you feel so possessed. And those spaces are really cool to think about talking about how the city can grow in the next two to five years and what we really need to prioritize. And so I hope those of you who didn't whose district meetings haven't occurred yet, I hope that you'll consider going to one of the upcoming ones that I know are happening this week. It was really powerful and the residents were really excited to be participating and I was happy just to be observing and eavesdropping occasionally but not bringing my full boss energy, dangerous boss energy, whatever that is. So thank you to everyone who was involved in both of those town hall meetings and the engagement process that happened. I also do wanna, I'm here with Councilor Harris and Councilor Bencomo on the flock question that did come up in our conversation and it's coming up in many letters from constituents, folks asking what are we doing and I do, I would like for us to be able to have a, I am confident that we are reflecting on this and thinking about how to balance people's privacy and boundaries and safety and addressing new technology. I think we can do this in a way that serves the most people in our city and I think, I hear folks who have been making their voices heard in all of those forums and in other forms that we've been hearing. So I support that ongoing conversation and however we might be able to develop legislation that can help with that. I also appreciate the South Central Solid Waste folks who, the tour was amazing to see both how much work goes into thinking about our trash every day, and then the ways that South Central is really thinking about how to make this better. So a few things that came from this. One is that there will be a new transfer station on the northeast end of town, so they're working on building that as we, the plans are already in, they're working on building that out as we speak, and that will make a huge difference for how much trash has to move to certain places, and I think for, in particular, commercial developers, people who produce a lot of trash as a matter of their jobs, this new location will make a big difference in terms of ease of use and applicability to taking it to wherever its end, end location is, be that recycling or to the landfill, which we also got to check out, which was really... super interesting to see and and here and see the care that carlos gives gives that space uh... and the way that we've we've developed the south central solid waste has i think is i think the model for the the state of new mexico like many uh... sort of things las cruces does well i think this is one of them i heard that folks from they said that folks from albuquerque are frequently coming down to tour the the facilities that we have and uh... So I appreciate their pride of work and ownership of all that goes into that. And yeah, contamination, the number one thing we heard that contaminates recycling bins is actually adult diapers, which is a really interesting... commentary on on what's happening with our recycling. I thought, I know that Brandy is thinking a lot about that and how to reduce that contamination. I think she might actually be visiting people who who put those in the trash bin sometimes. So, so really interesting service that goes completely un unnoticed as it as it functions in such a positive way in our in our community so thank you to those who made that that um tour happen and that's that's all i have for today thank you mayor pro tem thank you mayor

I also want to say thank you to the police department for the ride along that we took with the counselors. The police department have a very difficult job and I appreciate the care that they took to respect individual liberties and rights and how they interact with Even we saw the interaction with some of the neighborhood residents and the folks were very comfortable in talking to police personnel and very comfortable and obviously they were looking for solutions as well. We also encountered some unhoused individuals and there is a great deal of work to do there as well. I think that we can all agree that this is one of the more significant issues here in our community and working together we should be able to find some good solutions. I've also enjoyed the town hall. It's something to see how different district to district can be. The issues that came up in our focus group with the police town hall were the speedways that we have on Sonoma and at Roadrunner and 70, how fast cars just you know zip through there during the day and also in the evening so obviously it's very dangerous for the folks that are racing their cars down roadrunner but also dangerous for residents who might be walking or jogging or taking their dogs out at that time of the night so um i'm sure the uh the police officers at our table obviously had some very difficult questions and i commend them because they did a good job of of working with and and having a good conversation with the residents as well. On the focus groups, again, Councilor Curran mentioned that I enjoyed those as well and encourage other residents to attend the ones that are coming. Appreciate the staff that that have coordinated those sessions day and night. I know it's extra work to do that during the evening, and I appreciate just the flexibility of the staff. The more input and feedback that we can get, it's important. And obviously feedback sometimes is hard, but it is important. I've been married for 25 years now, on the fifth of this month, and sometimes I get feedback hourly. So it just helps us . it should be and so that that just helps us grow it helps us grow you know and I also attended the business session as well very good good feedback there also one to highlight Chris and his team for some of the work that they're doing that was positive. Obviously, always asking for more, and we'd like to see a continued speedy permit process. But overall, just excellent in the progress that you've made. Also, some of the feedback included more of a presence from economic development and other pieces. I'll share some of that feedback. But that was pretty good. I don't know that we completely have the power to bring a Trader Joe's into the city. If we did, my preference would be to bring back Sunshine Groceries or the Mountain View Co-op. and also no power to bring her to stop or kill. So that's important feedback. The other feedback that I remember also from from the business focus group our focus groups again all focused in on the unhoused but some some areas included things like things for young people to do to recruit businesses for young adults for children ranging from you know what the medians look like to just either nightlife or just amenities for the city. So overall, good feedback. Looking forward to getting a debrief and readout from the staff and then taking some action there as well. But again, overall, very productive the last couple of weeks and looking forward to more feedback from the following sessions that come in this week. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you. I also want to say thank you to Chief Story and the Las Cruces Police Department for hosting the Public Safety Town Hall. But also I want to say thank you to Council. Everyone was there in attendance. It was 100% attendance. I was extremely proud to see you all there and say that It shows that we care and we're here to listen to our residents and try to make Las Cruces a safer place and work alongside with the police department. And I was pleasantly surprised to see the state police also in attendance because I have a son that works in the fire service in northern New Mexico, Rio Riba County. And I went to an event in Chimayo, and I saw like seven or ten state police officers there. And I told Captain White the other night, how is it that I see more presence of state police in northern New Mexico than southern New Mexico? And he shared it's the same everywhere. The recruitment and retention is difficult. It's difficult throughout our state. And there are limited resources as well. But he complimented Las Cruces Police Department, Dona Ana County Sheriff's Department on having such a strong force in law enforcement here in this area that more of the resources go to smaller communities throughout the state. But recruitment, retention is difficult and is a challenge for all law enforcement. So when we talk about flock, we talk about drones, we talk about innovation and technology, it's much needed to fill those gaps and to find those resources. But we do have to do it in a respectful way that ensures the privacy for our residents, but also that officer safety and community safety is what we need. As far as the traffic calming, we are bringing a work session. It'll be August 24th, and that's when the traffic calming work session will take place. I also wanted to share that this weekend I was able to speak at the Pinnacle Institute graduation on Saturday. It was held at the Rio Grande Theater. Our city manager, Ekani Tamapayau, and our public health coordinator, Anthony Turner, were also in attendance. Pinnacle Institute is an institute that provides healthcare certifications from programs ranging from the pharmacy, dental, EKG, coding for billing, but much more provides opportunities for members of our community to get a certification and get a move on maybe a healthcare career. And these are great opportunities that I applaud Dr. Peterson for his vision to give individuals an opportunity, but to make our city healthier. And that was great to be a part of. So just wanted to share that with you. Thank you. And now City Manager.

Thank you Mayor Enriquez, City Council, City Manager, just have a few announcements. Thank you Councilor Micomo for bringing to our attention Casa Linda. There was triage after the last heavy rains and other Areas had to be hit first, but that is on the streets itinerant schedule for this Wednesday to be vacuumed for all standing water. So thank you to Public Works for getting that done to streets. Council, we were here about two weeks ago, and I appreciate the dialogue that happened. Many of you noticed that the strat plan community meetings and listening sessions were planned during the day, and you all encouraged staff to look and pivot and change that so it could happen after work. And so thank you for sharing that I appreciate staff that was able to pivot Thank you to community engagement and to community development for making that happen Mandy Leatherwood and Katrina Godinez and Chris favor Thank you for pivoting and getting those six public meetings set after hours We as mentioned district five and six met in just this past week, but we have five more coming up, and I'd like to read some of those. I do wanna share, if you are the type that is incentivized by great refreshments, a delicious Michelin star meal, this is the place. It almost seemed like we weren't in budget cuts when I saw these refreshments. I literally asked staff, I asked staff, no joke, where's this budget coming from? And I think the response was, you know, this happens only five or six years, so residents have to be treated because they've been waiting five or six years for this plan. It doesn't happen every year. But to that end, council, you will not have any community outreach budget left in your budget after this, so there's a trade-off on that. But I do mean that to thank you to those making it happen. That just speaks to the testament of staff to ensure that everyone feels comfortable and making sure that everyone's well fed, whether it's through knowledge and physically through the meals. So upcoming August 3rd at 6, which is today, at 6 to 7.30, District 1, Roadrunner Room at the Branigan Library. That is today, again, at 6 to 7.30. August 4th, tomorrow, 6 to 7.30, District 3 at Lynn Middle School. August 5th, 6 to 7.30, District 2, Frank O'Brien Papen Center. and then August 6th, 6 p.m. to 7.30, District 4 WIA building. So expect great refreshments and beverages of all types on that. In addition to that, we also have focus groups. Thank you. Many of the counselors mentioned that, and there's three focus groups that are happening that are niched. We had a youth group. We had 25 teenagers, so kudos to youth coming out to speak to the strat plan, also to the businesses, and then we have a community impact meeting later this week as well. In addition to on Saturday, we had farmer's market, we had our strat team out there along with our public health coordinator meeting with the residents and it was a great turnout too. So just wanted to report back to you, council, that staff is doing everything that we can to ensure that everyone hears about this because it's only every five, six years that this occurs. So thank you for your understanding and the dialogue to pivot and thank you to staff on working on that. Additionally, we've had heavy rains, as you know, some on council have already shared. I do want to give kudos to our team at Public Works, Streets, Lucille Sandoval, and Traffic. Sugu, there's, we're, you know, There's always more staff that we need, but our crew, as small as they are, we're out there working late nights, early mornings to ensure that traffic lights and streets are maintained if we have to bring out heavy equipment. So thank you. Your work does not go unnoticed, so thank you for that. Just wanted to say kudos to the team on that. And just wanted to share some last Parks and Rec items. We have sand volleyball, great turnout. Had over 70 high school students participating in our recent evening tournament, so great job to our Rec team. After school program registration remains open for elementary students, kindergarten through fifth grade. At select school sites, parents can register online at lascruces.gov. or by calling our office at 575-541-2550. Movies in the Park. Please head over to Yonge Park this Saturday, August 8th at dusk for a free screening of GOAT. Attendees are encouraged to dress as their favorite athlete or wear their favorite team jersey. Last, Music in the Park. Join us this Sunday, August 9th at Yonge Park starting at 7 p.m. for a live performance by Pizza Bones Trio and Retros with a Z. Bring a lawn chair or blanket and enjoy the evening. That is all, Mayor. Thank you.

Thank you, Connie. With that, 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? Yes. Councillor Harris? Yes. Councillor Bencomo? Yes. Councillor Curran? Yes. Councillor Munoz? Yes. Mayor?

Yes.