Council - workshop

If you'd join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. And I remember to wear my pin. Oh, there you go. My commemorative pin. And then my dad was a postal carrier, right?

What is this thing?

Proclamation for hunger. Who's doing the proclamation?

Huh? Who's doing the proclamation? Okay. I didn't even know there was one. Me neither.

Me neither. First item on the agenda is a proclamation for Hunger Action Month, and Councilor Karan will deliver that.

Team, please, if you have brought other folks, come on up. Do you have other folks? Come on down. Thank you. Come join. Hey, Marco. Good to see you. The City of Las Cruces Proclamation, whereas Feeding America, the largest charity working to end hunger in the United States, has declared the month of September 2026 as Hunger Action Month, an event that brings people across the country together to increase awareness that hunger and poverty are issues of serious concern in the United States. And whereas individuals and families who experience food insecurities must make difficult choices, whether to buy healthy food or pay for housing, utilities, transportation, or medical care. And whereas the residents of Las Cruces and the rest of our region suffer from poverty, hunger, and food insecurity at a rate of 22%, significantly higher than the rest of the state, 16.4%, and over twice that of the rest of the nation, 10.6%. And whereas over one-third of those affected by poverty are children. Food insecurity is closely tied to children's ability to thrive and succeed, with inadequate food and childhood linked to significant health problems in adulthood and to impairing academic development, health, and their success as adults. Whereas Casa de Peregrinos, CDP, the food pantry for Las Cruces and Dona Ana County, has been providing food to the hungry since 2014,

This is 2026, but what should it say?

Since 1979. Since 1979, and serves almost one out of every five residents of Dona Ana County, providing a monthly basket of over 125 pounds of food each month, including good sources of protein, staples, fruits, and vegetables in season. And, whereas CDP services have been proven to improve lives, allowing clients to purchase other necessities, save money, pay other bills, miss fewer meals, and worry less about food. And, whereas CDP provides a return on investment of nearly 17 to 1, as each dollar invested provides $17 of food for a family. And whereas the city of Las Cruces has partnered with Casa de Peregrinos emergency food program since 1985 to provide emergency food resources for low income families and is committed to raising awareness of hunger needs to build a future where no child goes hungry and to pursuing opportunities within our local food systems to promote food access and food security. Now, therefore, we, the Mayor and City Council of Las Cruces, New Mexico, do hereby proclaim the month of September as Hunger Action Month in Las Cruces, New Mexico, and urge our citizens during this month to act against hunger by donating, advocating, volunteering, and raising awareness to hunger in our community. And I'll turn it over to Lorenzo, but I just want to say that I will be participating in the Hunger Strike this week starting on Thursday morning. So thank you for giving me that opportunity to participate and raise money and awareness in my own world. So thank you. Thank you.

First of all, I want to thank the city of Las Cruces mayor, city councilors, for your unwavering support of our mission over the years. I think the partnership has certainly been fruitful and we've been able to serve a lot of families right here in Las Cruces. And 38% of those are children, in fact. And that is something that we really want to put at the forefront of our mission, is making sure that these kids have something to eat all the time. I see a lot of our partners out there, LCPS, FYI, the Las Cruces PAL program, and our biggest partner over there, Natalie Green, thank you so much for all you do for us. I'd actually like to introduce my staff real quick. I've got Marco Alvera, he is my development director. Kristin Munoz, who is our brand new social worker. We've never had one at Casa Perinos. This is our first time we've ever had one, so we're excited about that. And Melissa Dupre, who is our volunteer coordinator. We'd love to take this picture with this proclamation, but I'd really like to invite all the counselors that have been supporting us all these years to come take the picture with us, because I think it's important that we show this collaboration, and Mayor, of course, yourself as well. Thank you again. Oh, I got to tell you what I told Joseph. It's a barber. Oh, man.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay so next on the agenda item 2.1 youth council presentation Mandy Leatherwood.

All right, good evening, mayor and council. I'm Mandy Leatherwood, the communications director, and we're gonna talk about developing a youth council for the city of Las Cruces. This is an item that was brought up by many of our city councilors at our budget retreat. and just overall we've been told we want to do more youth engagement and so this is one way we're going to move forward before i start i would like to give a shout out to katrina gorina she's our community engagement manager unfortunately she was already scheduled to be out of town today but she actually put a lot of this preparation together and as we launch it she will be the one to implement it so i want to make sure to give her the credit where it's deserved All right, so as we started looking at opportunities to create a youth council, we wanted to build on some of the existing student programs that we already are doing. And so for starters, under community engagement, we have developing youth leaders, which is a program where we open up to students during the fall break. We already have over 30 applications for that coming up in October. um get to know your local government is something that we do in the spring with the league of women voters where we've had students come in learn about different departments and give some feedback on different issues we have both our quality of life and parks and rec department who have a lot of youth engagement and programming And then I also wanted to mention our partnership with the Las Cruces Public Schools. Katrina actually worked with Melanie Stewart, who unfortunately also out of town today. And so she actually has two different programs, the Student Advisory Council and the Student Success Academy, which we've talked about as opportunities for recruitment and ways to partner with our youth council. So we'll talk more about that in a little bit. So what are the purposes of a youth council? We want to amplify student voices. We want to provide feedback to city leadership. We also want to provide or develop future civic leaders, increase our youth engagement, connect students with the municipal government, and really create that pipeline of future community leaders so one day maybe those kids will be standing here presenting and sitting on the dais. So what do youth councils look like? I want to give a thank you to Sergio, our policy analyst. He did some research and pulled over 40 municipalities that have youth councils, and we wanted to find some similarities. They serve as official advisories. Most of them meet monthly. There's often a leadership curriculum portion. They do community service projects, give some recommendations. They learn how our local government works, and then they meet and interact with elected officials. Many of them have approximately 15 members and they are usually high school grades that serve one year terms. Again, monthly meetings. There is an annual application process and they are appointed by mayor and council. So with those common structures, we wanted to propose what this could look like in Las Cruces. And we'd like to talk about doing a membership of 14. That would be two appointees each. I have several questions I'm gonna ask you at the end. One of them is this, we can either do that as two from each city council district, or we can do two per person at large. And so that's a question I'm gonna ask if you have a preference. The meeting schedule, we would look at doing monthly meetings, approximately 1.5 to two hours, and with that format would include some sort of leadership lesson, a city department presentation, discussion of the issues or challenges or items in those departments, and then take that feedback and bring it back to council. And so there's a couple ways that we would look forward to doing that. Number one, we would want to include probably one counselor at each of these so that they can interact with the students. But we would also want to schedule a work session where the students can come back and make presentation to counsel so that you can hear directly from them. That agenda and leadership component, what does that look like? From a government perspective, we want to learn how government works because if the students are educated, they can understand the issues and they can give feedback. They want to understand our budget process and how city council works, so that would be part of it. leadership public speaking we know public speaking ethics teamwork conflict resolution are all skills that you need in leadership and so that would be something we would want to do an activity to help them develop and then career exploration we know in city departments there's public service careers and we if they understand the operations they may understand what opportunities are here for them in our community We'd like to talk about some community engagement and public service. A lot of the youth councils have 20 to 40 hours of volunteer hours. Some possible projects would be like park cleanups. We would work with probably Keep Las Cruces Beautiful, food drives, our partners with Casa de Peregrinos. Thank you so much, Lorenzo, for being here today. But we could work with him. So maybe some environmental projects and several of our previous projects I talked about that get to know your local government. We've learned from sustainability and students have shown a lot of interest there. Or senior programs, we would leave that up to the council to determine where they found interest and where they wanted to make that impact. So we would collaborate with our existing student organizations, connect the school to city hall, build on some proven leadership programs. We want to give students a meaningful role in the local government and then create that lasting pipeline. So the next step would be how would we recruit students for this youth council, which I think is key. I mentioned the Las Cruces Public Schools. We really want students from a variety of backgrounds. The Student Advisory Council is something that already exists where students are participating in things like the school board meetings. They may be interested. There's also a Student Success Academy. That is an academy that is built for students who have been given in schools or given suspension and they're learning how to refocus on growth and some academic opportunities. We would look at students who have participated in City of Las Cruces programs, that's like parks and rec, that's quality of life, that's some of our other activities. With the school district and other high schools, we would want to send that out. We'd want to work also with the charter schools and look at those types of opportunities. We would want to do a recruitment process. I mentioned that I have some questions that we'd like feedback from you. These are some opportunities we have already talked about working with the city clerk to make sure that we can make a process that makes sense. But we would do an application, maybe a short essay, a recommendation letter, and this is really the question for council. What is important for you when you want to see from students when you're considering who should be on this council so that we can build that into the application process? Would that be parent approval? Would that be school verification? So that's some of the feedback we're asking from council today. And so our next steps again would be build that application process with the city clerk so that we can get those applicants in, we can share those with council, and then they can be appointed. We would like to launch the inaugural youth council full year for next school year. So that is 2027 to 2028. However, I realize that's a long ways away. And so my other question for council today is what we would probably ask is if you'd be interested in doing a short program, a pilot program, which would be January to June for next year so that we can go ahead, get this launched, get it started, and then build that out and make sure we aren't waiting to hear that youth voice impact. Okay, and with that, I'll open it up for discussion. I will remind you, the question was for appointees. Is it, would you prefer to do two per district or two at large for everyone? What information is most valuable for you in the application process? Would you be interested in launching with a pilot and are there other areas of recruitment with partners we have not touched on? And with that, I'll stand for questions and discussion.

Thank you, Mandy. Councillor Harris?

Did Councillor Curran want to go first? Okay. All right. Thanks. And thanks for that initial those thoughts. So some immediate things that stood out to me are on slide 12, the things that we would maybe want for the application process. I I don't know about parent approval. I think that there's probably a lot of parents who feel overwhelmed about activities that their kids are doing. Obviously, parents should approve of them doing stuff in some way. But having to get a letter from your parent that says, yes, this is cool, that seems like an extra step that might be a little difficult for some. But I also wanted to add that along those same lines, Maybe we should think about how we can facilitate transportation, like within this program. I'm sure Parks and Rec has thoughts for the kids that participate in their program. Not that the city necessarily has to provide it, but at least be thinking about how we can make sure that kids have access to these things. I guess on the other questions real quick so that we can keep discussing, I am pro a pilot, maybe even breaking it up into two sessions per year so that more students can participate. And then my thoughts on appointees are two per district. That way we get a good geographical balance of people too. So that's all for now.

Thank you. Thank you. Councilor Carr?

Thank you, Mandy, for presenting. I guess I want to put some context into, I think I was among the people that talked about really thinking about how we talk about youth, spurring a change in how we do things with youth in partnership. And since then I have learned a lot and also a number of things have come more into focus. So I guess I have two sort of, one, values thing that I think I really want to make sure is part of this understanding. And then the other part really relates directly to when we talked about this, even the staff that you have in your office are actually more in number. The people that are doing these things. I'm curious. This feels like it is creating something new, adding on to everyone's workload in a context where I think people are being asked to do more with fewer staff, as I know you are doing. So I'm curious if some of those other things that you mentioned that this is being taken from are sort of going to fade away. I would not want us to be... creating a new edifice, and I'll get more into what that means in this context, but that then also creates a bunch of extra work that is straining you further from being able to do other things. So can you talk a little bit about that?

Sure, I'd be happy to. Creating this youth council would be a new program, and we would not discontinue the youth programs we already have in place. We have talked about in the fall, we have, it used to be called Know Your City, we are now doing the FAQs live. We haven't had as much response to that program in the last two years, and so if we see that there's not a lot of interest in that, we may pull that program so we can focus more on launching the youth. So we are looking at prioritizing, but right now that priority does not include getting rid of any of the existing youth programs.

Well, and I say that because I believe in the context of respecting your work and knowing that we're already asking you to do more things with less. with fewer resources, so thank you for giving some context to that. Then I guess the other part is sort of philosophical to me, the idea that I think when we were thinking about this and when we were talking about youth engagement, a lot of it had to do with youth who were on the margins of everything. That is, perhaps on the margins at school, perhaps not in school, perhaps interfacing with the criminal justice system. And so I think in my mind that was more what I was imagining the context that we needed because those are the kinds of conversations that I feel like we were having in that context. And so I think I don't know that I necessarily see and feel how this model doesn't sort of replicate a lot of things that are already super engaged students that are participating in things. And so I think for me that feels a little Not quite what I was hoping this would come from this conversation. Not that I'm, I know it's a lot of work and a lot of thought that's gone into it. I just want to give that context. For me, that's where I'm really looking for us to have the most robust conversations and thoughtful. policy making. So that's my overarching sort of feeling about this. To some of the more specific questions, I'm ambivalent on all of them except I don't think an essay helps anyone and I think it biases people and I don't know who would read it. I don't, I mean, if we were going to have some kind, I think we should break down barriers to joining this rather than, adding kind of random ones that, trust me, no one wants to be reading essays. No one wants to be writing essays. No one wants this. I think. I don't know. I'm speaking as a teacher who's reading lots of essays right now. But I think that that adds a barrier. And it's sort of a narrow version of what I think I would hope if people are participating. If we did include something like how people sort of legitimize their place there, which I don't, again, think is necessarily a a great way to increase engagement, but I think I would ask that it be much more broad than something like an essay. So art projects, music, other things that might be broadening the application. So I am ambivalent about all the other things, but I do... I think that your workload should be a variable that is considered among those things. Everything else I defer to my colleagues, including the council thing, except it will be very hard for us to come up. We struggle to fill committees almost always. We're behind and don't have enough people on our committees. I think that we would need a formal mechanism for however sorting through this and recruiting. I don't think we have shown, sorry guys, I don't think we've shown that we're the best recruiters to boards and committees as city councilors. So I would ask that whatever the decision is about that, that we use a formal kind of process that can help us all do a better job of finding people to participate. So that's it for now, thank you.

Counselor, just to your point about getting different backgrounds and students, that was key to us too. And I'm speaking for a conversation I wasn't a part of, but when Katrina first reached out to Melanie at the school district, they said, oh, we have a student advisory council. We said, that's great, but we want, like, those are the kids that are already highly involved. What are some other opportunities? And that's where that Success Academy idea came from. I think I mentioned Parks and Rec working with the Youth Development and Diversion Program. There are some areas where we realize, and from council we did hear, we want to see a variety of backgrounds represented in this council, so that would be part of our recruitment process. But thank you for reiterating that request.

Councillor McClure.

Thank you. And thank you for the work that you've taken on this. I know it's a lot, and it's a huge ask. To help maybe with Councilor Caran's suggestion, too, is broadening kind of what those trusted adults look like that do that recommendation, that see the people who might not want to join this necessarily, but they know they have the gumption to do it. I'm thinking a librarian who can make that recommendation. And I also agree, a short essay, nobody needs to. Let's break that barrier. But even things where 4-H, for example, they might never see themselves interacting with the government in any sort of meaningful way. How can we get them there, right? Those trusted partners, for them to at least make that approach, that we don't have to do it specifically. I my focus really is to to get ideas from the ground so I would also suggest that there is a one-on-one structure much like we meet with the city manager that there is a component of yes you want to learn to public speak but sitting at the table with somebody too is as a learned approach as well and what that looks like and sharing our experiences and coming to meetings with us is something that I would like to see as well I would like to see per district as well. And let's start this as soon as possible. If you wanted to do a two version, like Council Harris said, I think that would be also two per year. That might be a little bit more. If you can manage it. Again, I also understand that constraint. But very much finding those trusted mentors that already exist for them that may know who might be best suited for this.

Thank you. Councilor Matisse?

Mandy, I think it's a great idea, really, young leaders and bringing them into the city government. I think that lodge would be smarter, be easier for you instead of targeting just for the district and seeing if there's two from district two. On the other item, I think the value, I think if they have transportation available, and some of the values that they need to have is punctuality, and when they start the program, hopefully they'll finish the program. And then I think the pilot program would be a good idea. It would give you some experience so when you go full board next in 27, 28, you'll have some idea what the challenges are. How many applicants did you say you had already?

Not for the Youth Council. I was speaking about our fall break program, Developing Youth Leaders. Okay. We have just over 30 applications right now. Okay, and then when you get applications,

How do you decide, you know, because you have a number 14, right, that you want to...

For the developing youth leaders, we actually have a cap at 30, but we have two programs going, so they're not full yet, and those are first come, first serve.

Okay, so there won't be anyone not considered for the program. They're not going to offend anybody.

Not at this point, yeah. What we'll do when we hit the top, and part of that is transportation. Parks and Rec is graciously helping us transport those kids, and so we have a cap at 30. When we hit that, we'll close the application.

Yeah. And my idea there is always make room. Mm-hm. If you have a young person wanting to participate in the program, somehow make room for them. Mm-hm. Okay, thank you.

Councillor Vancoma.

Thanks so much Mandy for your presentation and of course we'll have to thank Katrina when we see her. Speaking of staff though, will it be your team to include Katrina who would be the leads of this moving forward?

Mayor, Councillor Bencomo, yes, that would be the plan. Katrina would be the lead and she will work with all of the other departments to create those monthly meetings and those would be focused on different departments each time. Okay. Departments or programs.

Okay. I don't know Katrina's background, but I would encourage that if this moves forward, that she also gets some support in terms of capacity, in terms of training. I think we think it's a lot easier to engage youth than it actually is, and I think it's incredibly challenging and meaningful task, but I do think it's harder than we think it is, and so equipping staff with some tools in order to do that well, I think will be important. Similarly to Councillor Corrin, I think, since this has been brought up earlier this year, my concerns have always been that something like this will prioritize already engaged youth. And frankly for me, what's important in this conversation is that we really think about how we've been talking about youth in the last year and a half, in the last two years especially. And I personally found it very problematic the way that we talk about young people in this chamber and to legislators. And it has often been framed as those kids. And I'm really nervous that this Council will maybe do something similar and it's gonna be a group of young people that are gonna talk about their peers in those kids, not us. And I really want to avoid that. And I think the best way to do that is to work with are advocates who do this work already of engaging youth who quote unquote are at risk. I think for me what's important here is that we are meaningfully engaging young people who are in the margins of many things and that we understand that we work harder at understanding what drives a young person to violence, to drugs, to dropping out of school. Whatever those circumstances are, that's the work that I want us to be doing. Yes, I also want to hear from young people about that there's nothing to do here and what they would want us to invest in. I also think those are important conversations. And I just... I'm so hungry and I desire just like deeper conversations about how we got here with young people. And I know that's a big task for this and for you and Katrina, but I guess that's a task for all of us actually, especially if we move forward with this and there are to each council gets two appointees. I know, for example, that my strategy will be to go to the teacher at Mayfield or the Sendero School. I will be very focused on engaging historically marginalized youth. And I don't know how we formalize that in the process. I know that was a lot, so you don't have to answer that, Mandy. That is actually food for thought for my colleagues because I think we really have to turn the page about how we talk about young people. I think I've said this before. At one of my community meetings, somebody said, If I was a young person and I heard how our leaders talk about young people, I wouldn't want to stay here either. And to me, that is a page we really have to turn. And I think this has a lot of potential. I just want to make sure that in the process, yes, we lower the barriers to entry, that we have to provide transportation, actually. I think requiring for someone to join to have transportation is going to immediately put out a lot of kids that shouldn't be and so for me the transportation thing is critically important and then like I said before equipping staff who will be leading this with the necessary tools to be able to do meaningful engagement work is important to me and perhaps one of instead of an essay which I agree I think that is not something you want to do either is perhaps engaging teachers or trusted adults to recommend certain folks. Otherwise, I think that's it for me. I just really wanted to name those thoughts and concerns that I have for this moving forward.

Mayor Poteau.

Thank you, Mayor. Mayor, Councilors, Mandy and Katrina and the rest of the team, thank you very much for your work on this. On page two, can you go to page two? Who's that tall guy in the middle? Is that a Millfield Trojan or Bulldog? The one with the jacket, who is that?

The mayor.

That's the mayor. It's the oldest, oldest kid we've had in developing youth leaders. Seems like he just graduated high school four years ago. Okay, so On track, I would like to look at how we recruit and look at emerging students. And by that, I mean we'll have the student council, young adults, and other students who want to be involved and who are engaged. But I also want to look at the recruitment piece. on students that are emerging. I remember as the chamber president, we recognized middle school students who were emerging students and had never been recognized before. I remember years later, a couple approached me and said, Mr. Munoz, How are you? And so, hey, you know, I'm doing great, doing great. Hey, how's your son doing? And they said, wow, you know, please call me John. I said, John, you know, our son is in medical school. He remembers the certificate you gave him. I said, well, that's a certificate he earned. He says he hung that up in his wall. That was the only time he was recognized. That was the only award he got. That was the only time that his peers and other people clapped for him. And you don't realize the impact that one has or you have on people around you. And so I want to join my voice and the rest of the counselors. I would say, let's look at who is interested and not necessarily, these are good qualifiers, writing a letter, essay. Those are good, I understand those pieces. What I would like to do is open it up And I would consider also if you have, if the number is 14 or 18, I don't remember the number you said. If we have 500 students that are interested, maybe we increase that number and open it up a little bit more. I've been fortunate to be invited to some schools and talk, and the students, they're engaged. They have a bunch of questions. They want to have conversations, and I think they're hungry for involvement and to be heard. I think about, we mentioned that people, young adults, students, they're jumping over fences of fields we have locked up because they wanna play. They wanna practice, they wanna play. We don't have enough fields. Steven and his team are doing the best that they can to maintain those fields, and those fields are getting used. And students wanna be more participative. So I would say, my piece would be let's let's open it up um and and we look at some some districts may or may not get their two or three or four or five but other districts may get more um and i'm okay with just bringing in as many people into the tent as possible thank you thank you mayor

Councilor Harris. Thanks. So a couple thoughts building on that discussion. I think that getting a trusted adults recommendation is probably not a bad recruitment approach either because they know their kids and who might be appropriate for the program given the goals. And to the program and the goals, I guess are we wanting to to educate or engage or both and I think one of the things that we wanted out of this program is the engagement and the feedback rather than you know this being an adult led we're going to teach you about the city program not that that's not valuable you know I'm personally was very happy that people in the city took me and taught me about the city. Because it helps advance that engagement. But I don't think we want this to become that. And then likewise, as a very type A, highly engaged child, people like me probably will find a way to get involved somehow. And so that's, you know, I think we do want to reach out to others who might not get themselves involved and make sure that we are engaging those kids as well. So I got things.

Thank you. All right. Well, thank you, Mandy. Yeah, I think it's a tremendous opportunity. So it's a great opportunity for our youth and our community. I would be all for a pilot program. What I can relate this to is like the mayor's top team. And we have a lot of associations, organizations that also help out. We've got KRWG, we've got the Kiwanis, we've got Optimist Club, we've got the Moose Lodge, all being members and helping out. What they do is they screen the students, they do an essay, and then they do an interview, and they select. And one of the criteria is, you know, how they're doing in school, but what adversity had they already seen in their young life, and how did they overcome? And that's one of the things they do. So that's just something that goes on. What I'm looking for is really that mentorship, that leadership, and that critical thinking that goes beyond to help our youth. And I would say I would be happy with two from each district and the larger mine, right? Yes. Okay. And what I'd say is, I would say council, let's get to work. Karen said it, councilor Karen said like we don't do a very good job of maybe recruiting for other board appointees and things. I would say this would help to get involved and be part of that final interview or criteria that needs to be done for the council to select and build that relationship. What I see with the mayor's top team is building that relationship with these students, and there's 24 of them, and what usually ends up is it's a great resume builder. It's not that we did a lot of things. We did a few projects, a few planting of trees, a few cleanups, fundraisers. But at the end, when it's all said and done, they put it on their resume, and they say that they were members of the mayor's top team. I think it's great for the future. And my work is the letters of recommendation that come later. Mayor, could you write a letter of recommendation? Because I've gotten to know them personally. And I think that would be great for each member of council to be able to have that relationship when later on they get through college or wherever they go and they seek employment to have that kind of letter of reference from an individual that's gotten to know them I think is huge for our community. So that's what I would like to see. I know we have some people in the audience, especially the superintendent, Ignacio Reese. I know he's in the audience today. And if you're okay, I think at this point we can ask him to come up and share a few words and maybe give some suggestions on how we select the students. And I know there's some charter schools as well, but this is one avenue you can speak to some of the things and maybe help us out with how we proceed. Thank you.

Well, good evening, everyone. Thank you for the opportunity, City Councilors, Mayor, Mr. Tomopeo. Appreciate the opportunity this afternoon. And really, just a little bit, you know, at LCPS, we have a long history of believing that decisions about young people are stronger when young people have a voice in them. Our Student Advisory Council is one example of that commitment. Currently, we have 22 students from across our district that meet monthly to discuss issues that matter. that matter to them, that provide feedback to our district leadership, help us better understand the student experience, and also as members of the Student Advisory Council, as you I'm sure well know, that they also sit alongside our Board of Education as non-voting members, really bringing that student perspective directly into the conversation that's taking place at the highest level of our district. We've also learned that when we create meaningful opportunities for students to speak and when adults are willing to genuinely listen, our organizations and our community are better because of it. So again, we're excited about the opportunity to partner with the city on this youth council. this proposal does not have to really duplicate you know the student leadership work already happening in our schools and i think that's already been mentioned but it can really build upon giving students another avenue to engage you know with their community understand local government develop as leaders and also have a meaningful voice in the future of las cruces so one of the things as the mayor pointed out And I think many of you talked about this, that as this work moves forward, I want to encourage us to be intentional about whose voices are represented. We hope this council, and I hope this council, reflects on the diversity of young people who call Las Cruces home, including students whose experiences are represented in our Martinez-Yazi case that we have that, again, in regards to supporting who have historically had fewer opportunities to be a part of that conversation. And that group includes our emergent bilingual students, our economically disadvantaged, our special ed kiddos, as well as our Native American student demographics. So just to keep that in mind. And I'll close with this, is that we should not only hear from students who already know how to find their way to the table, we should make sure we are creating a table where many different experiences, backgrounds, schools, and perspectives are represented. So again, I'm excited, we're excited to partner with you on this. We can certainly, we have not only our student advisory council that I mentioned, we have our international welcome centers, students and our best buddies from our special ed area. Our connection center that we just opened up where our success Academy is located Our junior leadership that was mentioned right we're doing a great job there also our site-based student council so we do have Several groups that we can support to pull from obviously also with our charter partners and then other organizations across the city So again, I appreciate the opportunity looking forward to the partnership in any way that we can support and I stand for any questions.

I

Thank you, Superintendent Reese. Does anyone have any questions? Thank you.

I don't have any questions. Superintendent, I just wanted to thank you for lifting up the diversity piece. And I do hope that through this process, we do make a commitment to diversity of basically just whatever you wrote. Give that to Mandy.

I will. Thank you.

Thank you. But in all seriousness, thank you for that.

Absolutely.

Mayor Pro Tem.

thank you superintendent for spending some time with us today um one of the things that you talked about also is very much appreciated and and hopefully we're doing that as well as listening to the voice of the students we're talking about programs for them because of them uh and you know eventually somewhere along the line based on the feedback you've captured and mandy some of the feedback you've captured i'd like to hear what their thoughts were you know we we might think don't know an essay is good or not good they might think it's a good thing or or maybe not needed i don't know but i would definitely would love to to hear from from students and young adults here and by the way thank you for spending some time with this and everyone who's here today at our evening session thank you for for coming here and spending a little time with this and hope to hear your voice as well thank you superintendent thank you mayor thank you

And really quick, if I, Mayor Pro Tem, you brought up some good points, and really that student voice, and again, as we're looking at recruiting or attracting kiddos, we also, and a lot of this has been brought up, to just be careful that, you know, that again, we're not excluding kiddos, again, as we think through this process, because, you know, we do the same, whether it's our junior leadership, our advisory council and even our student councils. One of the things that, you know, one of my call to actions to our administration, our principals, et cetera, is that every student needs to have a voice. And how do we do that? How do we create environments so that every student has a voice and then we are, but it's up to us as leaders to create those environments for them and the opportunities, transportation was mentioned, you know, those type of things to keep those things in mind. So thank you again for the thinking around this.

Thank you, thank you, Superintendent Reece. Is there anyone else, members of the audience with a group or an association that would like to speak to this subject?

Thank you for opening up the opportunity for us to speak, Mayor, city council members. My name is Marissa DeWolf, and I coordinate the Kinder to Career Coalition of the Success Partnership. And I'm also here in partnership with several other community organizations in the room. The Kinder to Career Coalition created the Supported Success Internship Program, what we call SSIP. And the program is specifically for students furthest from opportunity, English language learners, students with disabilities, those who've experienced homelessness. I'm sharing this because what makes SSIP different is exactly what I urge you to consider as you build a youth advisory board or committee and address gun violence and other issues in our community. Our students told us that they want caring and supportive adults who know them as whole people and to guide them to become productive community members. Similarly, our city is full of young people waiting for us to effectively respond to gun violence and other community issues that are devastating our neighborhoods. So what can we do that isn't just temporary or topical? I ask that you intentionally share power with young folks who are closest to the pain, who will no doubt provide the strongest solutions. We're talking about justice involved, opportunity youth, disconnected youth, not just those who are already comfortable in leadership spaces. This is ethical power sharing. We represent local organizations engaged with these youth now. And we commend this council for intentionally prioritizing youth voice. We heard a lot about this through this advisory board. And as decisions are made for our young people, we urge you to ensure that diverse youth are actually at the table To ensure that the board is substantive rather than ornamental, please anchor it in the community-based organizations around us who have the operational experience and the existing trust to keep the most impacted youth at the center. We share a common agenda in that we want our city to feel safe and our youth to feel supported and community-based organizations can assist the city in achieving this through intentional partnership. We're here as a resource. Our goal is lasting safety and opportunity, and our ask is that this advisory board is nested within the community-based organizations who are already serving these youth, and that youth voice is championed ethically. If we do this right, we won't just have a board, we'll have a path for youth-led solutions to the crises we face. We'll have a program on policy solutions that are directly informed by those living through the moment. And I'm hopeful about what we can achieve when we center those closest to the issues. And I thank you for the chance to contribute to that vision.

All right, thank you.

Hello, Mayor and City Council. Thank you for having me here today. My name is Jose Calderon. I am speaking on behalf of Somos and No Somos and in partnership with organizations in the room. I hear support of the Youth Advisory Council, but it must not be just for show. Young people like me don't have enough role models in our neighborhoods. We don't have enough resources, and that's true whether you're in the city or out in rural parts of this country. There aren't enough spaces, enough mentors, enough programs that actually reach us before something goes wrong. If I have been able to identify what I actually needed back then to support could have been looked different for me. And I could have different other young people too. We know what is missing because we've lived it, but too often. No one has asked us before deciding what we need. It wasn't until I started working with Somos o No Somos that I had gained more mentors and people who have actually understand what I have gone through because they lived it too. The connection changed for me. but not every young person gets that chance. Decisions about us are usually without us. Youth voices are tokenized all the time. We get invited to a room to share our story and that's when the real decisions happen after we leave. Young people who've actually lived through the justice systems who know what's missing are rarely the ones with actual influence. A young advisory council can't just be symbolic. It has to give young people with a real life experience and real power over these solutions, because we're the ones closest to the problem, which means we are also the ones closest to the answer. Invest in us, put us in the room, and let us lead. Thank you.

Hmm.

Good evening, mayor and city council members. My name is Andres Uribe, and I'm part of a collective group of organizations, but I'm also here as just as a young person, as a community member concerned to speak about this topic. I am a lifelong resident of Las Cruces and have had the privilege of working with youth in this community for several years, beginning in high school as the chair of the Las Cruces Public Schools Student Advisory Council, and even as a mayor top teen and working alongside other young people. And later on, in my adulthood, getting to work as a youth leader, strategist, and expert to several New Mexico nonprofits and coalitions. This evening, as I mentioned, I'm here today as a young person of this community in support of the council's intention to build and formulate a youth council while also asking you to listen to a few very brief recommendations that I wanted to highlight today as you consider moving forward. First, I commend the council's intention to integrate youth voices into its decision making. This is no small feat and requires meticulous planning, resources, evaluation, and an ongoing commitment to social justice as you become adult allies to a group of people who have historically not been involved in the government system. Youth-adult partnerships are vital mechanisms for valuing young people like me as collaborators in decision making. According to Ramsey 2017, youth-adult partnerships have shown to increase collaboration among youth, improve self-regulation, attention, strategic planning, and have been associated with positive identity formation. Yet these results largely depend on how these structures are formulated. As the council moves forward, the two primary items I would like to elevate is power dynamics and community collaboration. So first, youth-adult partnership models are largely predicated on the notion of shared control and the degree of participation. Authentic youth-adult partnerships don't just ask youth to show up, they ask them to decide how projects are carried out. And there's a fine line between manipulation and collaboration that can be crossed very easily, and so my request is a clearly outlined pathway to engagement and power sharing that is provided. Secondly, successful youth-adult partnerships recognize that the knowledge held within their communities. All youth-adult partnerships are informed by the unique community needs of our municipality. My request is that while the city council considers a youth council, that they should one, center the youth closest to the problem in this initiative, and two, that they look towards community organizations who possess the connections to and expertise working with the most disadvantaged youth through a trauma-informed and culturally responsive lens to guide this initiative. So if we do this correctly, evaluating how we share power with youth and young people and integrate community partners, this won't just be a place where youth come and report out to the council, but are given a gathering space where they can collaborate with their communities to investigate and devise solutions to the problems that we're all noticing and facing today. So thank you so much for your time and for the opportunity to speak to you today.

Amanda, you had anything else?

That's all for me. Thank you.

All right. Well, thank you. We'll get on to the next agenda item, 2.2, gun violence reduction and crisis intervention. Robert Nunez?

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Robert Nunez, Deputy Director, Parks and Recreation. Today I'm going to provide you a presentation regarding gun violence reduction and crisis intervention. The following presentation outlines the purpose, challenges to address, and the guidance from Council needed to align program priorities, confirm key objectives, and ensure the initiative remains adaptable to community needs. Council feedback and discussion will help shape implementation, evaluation measures, and long-term sustainability. Again, during the budget retreat, $100,000 was identified through Council in regards to I would say, addressing this violence reduction and crisis intervention that we are seeing in Las Cruces. Famous African proverb, it takes a village to raise a child. And that's all of us sitting in this room today. Our schools, our organizations, our families, our friends, Those mentors that impact us all. I think we can all look back in our lives and identify one, two, or a few individuals that truly impacted your life and assisted you through the roadways of growing up. So that all includes those partnerships to create that safe community. to eliminate certain siloed efforts that we see in our community, to fund a synchronized network to provide the youth flexibility, support for community partners that will be involved. The challenge, we're seeing increased youth involvement in violence, conflicts escalating through social media, mental health and trauma affecting youth decision making, and the need for coordinated intervention before violence occurs. And again, the impacts is for our community, and I speak specifically to Las Cruces, but we're southern New Mexico. We're unique. We're one of a kind. So I look at throughout Dona Ana County as youth come to our community in Las Cruces, to our city, as well as our youth through Las Cruces are also traveling throughout the valley. how we address those conflicts, and how do we create stronger neighborhoods. Again, the prioritization of $100,000 that we're asking today are the program components regarding prevention, mentorships as I mentioned, a near peer program. We have a number of organizations that we have exceptional youth, just as these two young individuals just recently spoke, that we could connect to our younger youth to discuss these experiences that our younger generation is going through. Leadership development, as Mandy just mentioned, regarding the council board. and other opportunities throughout the community that we can develop those leaders. Workforce opportunities. We have a number of youth that need those basic skills to identify the avenue, the roadway that they would like to pursue. And it could start as young as 10, 11 years old. And how do we assist them in those types of opportunities? And then I am Parks and Recreation, as I mentioned, and it's sports, arts, and recreation. But that safe space, that social space that we're able to provide for them. I think of mentorships as big brothers, big sisters. I saw our PAL boxing program is here. A number of other programs in our community that can impact. That crisis intervention, the immediate response to high-risk youth. And at-risk youth, all of our youth in Las Cruces are at risk in New Mexico. in our country today that we need to impact them in a positive manner. The support services, the number of professionals in our community that can provide those excellent and exceptional services, we need to connect everyone together to make it stronger. Conflict mediation, mental health referral, community engagement. Neighborhood outreach. How do we go knock on our neighbors' doors? That doesn't happen as often anymore. How do we have those block parties? And I know we did that a couple of times in the last few years, but how do we as City of Las Cruces engage our communities, our neighborhoods, our districts with the support of all the partnerships throughout Las Cruces? Inform and educate. I think this is the educational component of guns in our society today. Informing youth of when to speak up, how to speak up. how to address those interactions with their fellow peers. Youth involvement and outreach. Again, I think we need to hear from our youth in our community. What is that life experience that they are witnessing every day at home, in the schools, in our community? And how can we assist them? How can we strengthen them? Community events. How do we offer more for our community? And there is, there's plenty out there. You go to social media, and I ask my daughters to go look to see what we can do this weekend. And there's plenty out there. How do we get involved? How do we provide additional events and support? Strategic partnerships, key partners, of course, Las Cruces Public Schools. Every one of these students are going through their doors. and interacting with one another on campuses. Behavioral health providers, as I mentioned, in our community, we have a number. Community nonprofits, how do we partner with them? How do we assist them in accomplishing what their goals are? Faith-based organizations, local businesses, university and college, I say that regularly, We have experts right across University Avenue. How do we get them involved? How do we gain more information from Dona Ana Community College? Shared goals, increased opportunities for youth, connect families with services, build safer communities and reduce violence. As service providers, there's a number of resources, outreach, and support that we look for from the professionals in our community that we can provide direction, a warm handoff of families and youth. I have the youth development and diversion program is under our youth services section and that is something that we regularly working with are those service providers to get what the families and the youth need to be successful. Measuring success. Every young person deserves access to positive opportunities, guiding figures who offer a positive and nurturing presence. And the support needed to choose a path free from violence. That's what we hope for every day our kids walk out our doors. And that we're blessed that they walk back into our homes. Call to action, support youth during times of crisis. The pandemic was not that long ago. Our youth struggle, adults struggle, our community struggles at times. How do we find that support for everyone? Strengthening families, providing those services, creating a safer neighborhood, As I mentioned, knocking on your neighbor's doors, looking out for one another. Prevent violence before it starts through education, through understanding of what that violence can do, and build a healthier future for our community. That is our goal overall. Additional measuring success is expected outcomes, immediate crisis response. We have that available in our community. Increased youth participation with a board, with our programs, accessibility. We have our teen connection program and we have approximately 60 to 70 youth that show up every day. young adults, and a large number of them, we're picking them up at middle schools and high schools with the resources that we have in the city. Some parents are dropping off. We have a handful that ride the city transportation. So how do we get those youth to participate when they say there's nothing to do in our community? And I believe there is. We just have to get them involved. And how do we do that? We listen to them. What are they looking for? What do they need? What do they want? Reduction in violent incidents, reduce juvenile justice involvement, and of course, improve school attendance. Performance measures would be the number of youth we're able to serve. How do we go from 60 to 70 daily teenagers to 600 or 700 in our programs? Crisis interventions completed, recidivism reduction rates, as well as improving school attendance. Those are a number of things that we're able to address and identify. Options, again, Council, we're coming to you to ensure we move forward in a way that aligns with Council priorities. We ask that Council identify the pathway you wish for us to explore or prioritize as the next steps. A request for proposal, a program design, needs assessment, strategic plan, data collection, trends, evaluations, and measurable outcomes. Over the last six months, I've been able to speak to a number of service providers, professionals that work every day with youth, and I've learned a tremendous amount of what is happening in our community and how we can impact our youth. And I think that's something that we're asking for today is how do we impact our youth more? Prevention programs, again, Parks and Recreation, Las Cruces Public Schools, the number of organizations and nonprofits that are able to offer those programs. Let's get them involved. One area that we are going to be receiving is some legislative funds, grow funds, that we're partnering with Las Cruces Public Schools to expand our teen footprint. And we're asking for their partnership to get into some schools in the evenings and on the weekends to be able to interact with our youth and provide that space for them to recreate, socialize, just hang out. And be involved. Mentoring and counseling. Again, I talk of near peers. One of our team programs is there at Frank O'Brien Papen Community Center. And we have connected with NMSU and various programs there to bring in those college students to provide them their experiences when they were 14, 16 years old. And then also where they're at at 20 and 22 years old, and even 18. Workforce initiative. I had an amazing conversation with Dona Ana Community College workforce and the availability and what is there that we need to get that message out there more to our young adults if they do hiccup. And we're looking to implement that program, that workforce initiative program within our youth development and diversion program. inform them, educate them, and see what they want to do as the next steps. Is it a four-year university? Is it a college? Is it a trade? Learning those basic skills that are needed, how to fill out an application, where to look for a job. how to dress for that first interview. And I think we've connected and we're gonna build and grow off of that to be able to offer those types of services to our young adults. And so with that, council, we ask for your direction. As I mentioned, I am not the expert up here today. I know there's a number of experts in the audience that can provide additional information, some specifics. also up here on the dais, and I will do my best that I can, but I will also, depending on what questions may be asked or the direction that we do want to go, defer to some of those subject matter experts as we move forward with this discussion.

All right, thank you, Robert. Council Member Como.

Thanks, Mayor. Thank you so much, Robert. I quickly turned my mic on because I want to give some context for how we got here. That feels very important to me. And I'm very passionate about this because much like I love that proverb you named at the very beginning, just how I think it takes a village to raise a child, I think it takes a village to fail them as well. And I think right now, we are in a very urgent moment when it comes to justice-involved youth. I just very quickly paint a picture for how we got here. Last year, I was approached by an advocate who works for a very powerful organization called Deserving Life. Denali Wilson, who is probably one of your subject experts here, Robert, approached me because of her work in Southern New Mexico Correctional Facility. She's working with men who are serving life sentences for crimes that they committed when they were young people, when they were youth. And they approached her and said, you know, we work with young people in Bernalillo County, but we're in southern New Mexico. Where are the opportunities for us to engage with young people here so that they can get to hear our experiences for, you know, how they got here and how they're truly healing and working through what they did many years ago. And she approached me about what is the city really doing to address these young people involved in the justice system. We've obviously had a lot of conversations with legislators. LCPD has presented many times. And I think I want us to have a commitment to young people to divert them from a life in prison or from death. I want us to make a serious commitment to what it means to provide second chances to people and I don't see anybody else having this in terms of stakeholders and government entities having these conversations. And so often people come here and they want us to address crime and so often it's like that's not us, that's the DA, that's the state. Here is an opportunity for us to take a lead on this. So when Denali approached me about this, I approached Councilor McClure because of her role in the Juvenile Justice Continuum Committee. And we did our homework. We talked to people. I certainly read all the research on diversion programs and their efficacy and how important they are for especially youth. We met with YDD staff and park staff about their capacity and how this isn't about replacing anything they do, but really supplementing what they do already. We even met with the folks in Bernalillo County who do diversion programming. And while we didn't love it, it was still so important for us to talk about, great, so then what can we present? And we initially thought about, let's ask for 50, let's ask for 60. And then we said, no, we're going to ask for $100,000 at the budget retreat, which is what we did. And so now that we are here, I just want to rename the commitment that I had in bringing this forward for this money being used specifically for program design for a diversion program that hopefully can live within somewhere in Dona Ana County, a program that has buy-in from city, from law enforcement, from the courts, from the district attorney's office, like all of these justice-involved entities that have a serious impact on the life of young people. And my hope is that My hope this entire time has been that we can create an RFP that we put out so that an advocacy organization whose expertise is in this area, that they present to us what they think this should look like. and that they do the work you presented here, Robert, that they are the ones doing the needs assessment, that they are the ones doing community engagement and talking to youth who are justice involved, talking to their families, talking to survivors, talking to people who've caused harm, that we are really working with organizations to mold a program that is deeply intentional in diverting young people from violence. And I feel like we are in a very urgent moment in that. We don't have that right now. It's my understanding that the juvenile drug court that exists currently is ending at the end of this year, in December 31st, because federal grants are restricting. We just really are in an urgent moment. And these conversations, of course, should have happened a year ago. But here we are. And I said quickly, so I'm going to wrap up. But I just want to rename that intent for why, at least myself, really fought for this money to be included in the budget even as our budget was constricting, this felt very important and that is my recommendation that we continue to move forward with creating an RFP with YDD staff, with city staff that can go out to the community so that advocates can apply and give us their ideas for how they would create something like this. Thanks, Robert.

Robert, first of all, thank you so much for the legwork I know you've done. It's been a long couple of months, and you've done really your homework on talking to all the people who are already doing the work here. And I will just say I concur with Councilor Bencomo on all of it. I just think that we have, as much as we have urgency, we also want to create something that's long term supporting what the work is already being done. So I don't want this to be one off that happens and then we just say we finished it. This is going to be a longer process and I want to see what that looks like with partners here. I just wrote a couple of thoughts down. Specifically peer support is what I, you know, I was really excited about learning that NMSU has. What can we do to get partners in that are already doing it, right? And who are they trusting? It's not going to be the government, right? It's going to be people that they already see and understand and that have lived their life. Some of the programs that have come up already, I'm going to pronounce it wrong, Somos y Somos? Somos no Somos? Yeah, they know. They're giving me thumbs up. Thank you. People like that are crucial to the work that we want to do, but what is that going to look like? More to, like, the system that we embody, right? I also think of, you know, I've heard of conversations about we are in a unique way that we can offer safe spaces where people don't have to be consumers. where students do not have to be anything but themselves. And how can we expand upon that, right? What is that gonna look like to have that space? Where can we create it? What can we supplement? And I think too, a lot of those opportunities will then be a form of diversion that we can support in sort of meaningful ways with our partners. I do think that we need to get really focused on what that looks like. Who are these? We don't know, right? We can't get that finite information, but our partners can. But we do need to get the information of how to best serve what we're looking at, what the problem is. Especially when we're doing our homework, we're getting to that barrier of exactly what is the problem, right? Who are we talking about? Where are they? And what are they going to tell us that they actually need? And that's where we need to get to. So that's the final sort of idea that I want to have is that the youth voices are going to be part of that, that crucial part of that data that we need to have. And we cannot do that alone, and I just want to make sure that we all know that we get those community agencies already involved. helping us do that work and that's what I've heard over and over again and we have the capacity to be that sort of neutral ground to say let's let's see how we can all come together break down some of those silos that you were talking about so again thank you for your work and let's if I have anything else I'll jump in but I think that's kind of what I had okay

Thanks and thanks Robert for the presentation. I have some thoughts that I'll share but I'm also really looking forward to afterwards if there's people who want to share out in the audience too. Obviously they'll have more experience than I. So my thought is kind of listening to the presentation here, I understand your ask for kind of prioritization of things. Reading through the research that we've been given and conversations with other groups in the past, there's a couple kind of themes that keep coming up. One is accessibility to these third places and programs where people can just exist. and have a safe space to go. Personal safety and feelings of stability are a big thing that comes up in the research as well. And then kind of getting the most bang for for your buck, I suppose, in kind of a cold way, which is finding folks who are at risk and getting in there and providing the conflict resolution, the mentorship, the services that they need. That's kind of the number one suggestion in these papers. I also agree that we need something that's stable. In government terms, $100,000 isn't a whole lot of money, but maybe we can use some of it to add to that accessibility and make sure that people can get to all the programs that we've got already. And then definitely reaching out to the folks who know what's going on and provide these services already and going out for grants and other funding to just keep these programs going. So that's what I got.

Council member, go ahead.

Thank you. Again, thanks for bringing all of this together and thinking about this. And again, we've been having these conversations for a while. I think I want to sort of also elevate and echo what Councilor Bancomo said, that I think that the urgency is I don't know that we need data to support the urgency of this issue and the need to systematically address it. And so I would also support the support of community organizations to build a framework to do something more meaningful in the future. So I don't think going from 70 participants to 700 in any program, is going to be quite a bit more than, I understand government math now, that's not $100,000. So I think that that's true for all of the community organizations that are working on this. I hope that this money can be used to really um work with the community to figure out um the best type of sort of systematic program that could be something going forward so to me this 100 000 is really just an investment something to show that we're thinking about it and to to really understand the landscape very clearly i i have been slowly learning this you've been learning it more More quickly, Robert, since you've been assigned this task, and you work in this world all of the time, but I think once we have a really strong understanding and we are all sharing the commitment to think about the urgency of this, I think we can make different pitches to legislators. I think the way that we talk about how the city is addressing youth violence, youth gun violence in community, that framework will be really helpful for us to move forward in future conversations to see a place for where the city falls and to see a place where the community organizations that are doing this work really successfully now can be supported and maximize their capacity in ways that make a real difference. So I support the idea of an RFP for program planning or to develop a program and then with the idea that that is a promise or a commitment to a future more systematic understanding and knowing that next year in our budget conversation we might have a different kind of ask in that and how we frame this work or support organizations in doing it. So that would be my...

ask as well so thank you again thank you robert thank you mayor counselors um Again, I go back to wanting to pause for a moment, wanting to pause and listen to our young adults who are experiencing this every day, who maybe have experienced violence, listen to families, to the parent or parents or guardians who experience violence, to ensure we're on the right path. So I'd like to understand what how we gather this feedback and how we came to this conclusion. I think that's important that we listen and invest this money where we're going to see the most impact. One of the things, and this might be a question for Stephen or you, Robert, I mentioned earlier that young adults are breaking into our fields because they want to play. They want to throw around the football or kick around the football, the soccer ball, and play. They want to be outdoors and experience that. So I don't know, Stephen or Robert, One of the things, I don't want to negotiate or legislate that, but I know our superintendent is here. We have such a great partnership with the school districts. Do we have any MOUs where we can borrow or work with each other's fields to increase that capacity? Steven?

Mayor Pro Tem, Mayor Steve Bingham, Parks and Rec Director. We do have some MOUs with the school district to use some of their facilities. We have not addressed. The discussion that we've had recently about opening up some of the elementary schools, some of the schools that have turf to create places for youth sports teams to practice, to fill in some of the park gaps. But that is something that we're committed to having.

Wonderful. I'd love to continue that conversation. Thank you, Steven.

If I may add, this school district has just recently opened the doors to more of their buildings. And they've come to the table and are willing to be part of the solution.

Wonderful, great to hear. The other piece, I don't know if Natalie's here, but as we look at other grants, specific to third places, but as we're looking at things like housing, I know some of that is wrapped in there as far as having spaces or green areas. So I would like to go ahead and continue as we work and launch other initiatives that they kind of be interrelated with what we're doing for our youth here in Las Cruces. So thank you, Robert. Thank you, Steven, for putting this together. And let's see what good we can do in our community. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor.

You good?

I'm good, and again, thanks to the young adults that came up and mentioned kind of what hit me was that you're closer to the problem, but also closer to the solution. So I just want to ensure that we're committed to listening to you and sharing in those decisions. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor.

Councillor Brinkholm.

Thanks Mayor, I just had one more thing to add. And yes, Mayor Pro Tem, that's the people closest to the pain are the people closest to the solution. And that is absolutely the principle that should be guiding this conversation. Anyway, to the concerns of sort of longevity and making sure that this lasts for the long term, yes, of course, I didn't think I'd have to clarify that by no means do I think $100,000 is going to magically fix this. This $100,000 really is... The intention should be to create the framework for a program that then we can continue to invest, not just us though, not just the city, the county, the courts, and especially the legislature. The one thing I wanted to, that I should have had Christine hand out to everybody, but the Legislative Finance Committee earlier this year in the summertime had a Session specifically focused on juvenile justice and legislators have put millions of dollars towards evidence-based programming that is just sitting there that we haven't tapped into yet and so if we can in partnership with community organizations and young people, especially those directly impacted can shape something and because this is urgent, but it does need delicate shaping, and take it to legislators and say, look, we've done the work, now you need to fund it so that we can continue to divert young people from violence. And that to me is what will, That's why it's so intentional for someone else to do it outside of local government to do that groundwork so that we can get buy-in and commitment from all the stakeholders, including the legislature. And I'll make sure to send this to Christine so that she can send it out to everybody. The data is there on how we got here and what we need to do. The money is there. We just need to put our pedal on the gas and create some action around this. I just wanted to add that last piece, Mayor. Thank you.

All right. Thank you, Robert. I would say that everything starts out with a good plan, and I would say the program design would be first, because it is limited funds at this time. It's something that we'd have to grow and develop and utilize all the partnerships and resources in the community to really attack this problem. And with that, I'll open it up to, you provided a list of individuals and groups or associations that would like to speak? Mayor, yes, sir. Okay, I'll go ahead and start out with, again, our superintendent from the Las Cruces Public Schools, Ignacio Reese.

Thank you again, City Council Mayor, Mr. Tomopeo, for the opportunity really just to support these efforts, right? You know, what's important is that although for us as a school district, you know, we've installed things as weapon detection systems, you know, we have a very important partnership with the city of Las Cruces, Las Cruces Police Department, with our school resource officers. But it goes just beyond the crisis response, which is very important, and that presence, that safety presence in our schools. For example, our SRO is also part of their efforts is the mentoring. So mentorship is a key piece to this as well. What you see in these type of environments with our youth is mentors are very, very important. And just the prevention piece is what I'd like to just also mention. We have some key partnerships with some of them that are here, FYI Plus, La Clinica, So that mental health, that well-being is so important, right, to our youth. And what we find is that, from the district's perspective, again, is that school attendance. When kids feel connected, when they feel that they have someone that they can go to, an adult, a mentor, something that they can connect to in our schools. That's very, very important in reducing these type of things out in the community. As a district, we've reduced our chronic absenteeism over the last three years, and we're seeing the impact of that. At the end of the day, this is not just, as we well know, this is not just a school issue, it's a community issue, Again, how do we work together and we're ready to sit at the table to lead around this? I know it was mentioned earlier about some of the grow monies that we partnered up at the legislative, when we were up there in Santa Fe during the legislative session, and looking forward to how as a school district we can partner with the city to open up some of our buildings and help with, again, we also need help with the maintenance and those type of things, but how can we make that work Because we understand when kids are connected to something, something positive, because they can connect to something negative, right? When it's something positive and that they feel that they have that support and that wraparound piece, that's where the impact happens. So I just wanted to mention that. And again, ready to support this, to be at the table in any way. And again, just appreciate the investment that the city is making around this. Thank you.

Thank you, Superintendent. Was Dr. Roberto Lozano, was he here today?

He was not able to make it, but I'm here to also answer any questions that anyone may have around these efforts.

Okay, thank you. Okay, thank you. Thanks for all your support.

Perfect.

Chief Richard Johnson, State of New Mexico Juvenile Probation. See here, Robert. Liz Bennett, an MSU professor of social work.

Hello, mayor and city councilors. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I wanted to just emphasize a few points that have been made and also share a few key details that I think are important when considering our problem solving approach to the crisis of violence and deferment from detention. And speaking to the Legislative Finance Committee report that Councilor Bencomo mentioned, the report directly speaks to prioritizing funding for evidence-based delinquency prevention and therapeutic interventions shown to address root causes. And this is because the report also emphasizes that punitive programs are quote ineffective at reducing recidivism and associated with increased recidivism. So if one of our goals as a community is to reduce youth violence, then evidence supports the fact that the more likely that young people are detained, the more likely they are to reoffend. So to Councilor Bencomo's point that we need to be identifying particularly low risk young people and making sure that they have access to therapeutic services instead of Automatically sending them to detention. That is how we genuinely reduce crime in our community and there are risk assessments that the CYFD juvenile justice program distributes for young people that are in their services that can be used to assess who is a good candidate for diversion programs. I also want to emphasize the importance of public health approach to something like violence. and understanding that the people who are involved in the juvenile justice program are going to be the people who are most likely to potentially continue to perpetuate violence, and so they need to be at the heart of who is receiving these interventions. And I understand the need for us as a community to invest in young people overall and to build a community that is, you know, worthwhile and feels safe and engaging to all young people. And if we are trying to prevent gun violence, we are talking about a very specific group of young people. who we can authentically partner with, as you all have mentioned, because they understand what conditions led them to that point, and it is through their peers, their experiences, wisdom of their families that we understand how to best prevent them from continuing down that path. So I want to emphasize the need for authentic engagement for young people at risk of detention. I also want to mention some of the evidence based strategies for reducing gun violence. There are very many. They include summer youth employment for justice involved youth. They include gun safety regulations that address safe storage and child access prevention. And they include addressing structural determinants, such as reducing the number of abandoned properties, reducing the density of alcohol distribution outlets, and improving street lighting in areas with high rates of gun violence. They also include expanding accessible culturally relevant behavioral health services, including cognitive behavioral interventions and wraparound supports. And to this point, I also want to mention that we do have a lot of services and service providers who are doing amazing work. And they are already stretched thin. They are already asked to provide services for more people than they have the capacity to serve. And so part of this strategy of leveraging state funds and local funds needs to be expanding our capacity of service providers. We need to be hiring and training more people who are doing healing work in our community, and individuals with lived experience are great candidates for those positions. I also want to mention that another part of the urgency of this moment is that detention is becoming more perilous for young people. There is a trend that low level offenses are being responded to with harsher punishments. There's also trends that have been reported by the Public Defender's Office of children receiving federal charges and moving through the federal court system when previously they would have stayed within the state court system. This is particularly concerning due to the lack of pretrial release options in the federal system. resulting in children being held in adult for-profit facilities for months at a time because they cannot be released before their trial. Federal court offers no specific juvenile justice inpatient placement, and children can only be held in federal custody until the age of 21, at which point they are returning back to Las Cruces after spending time in adult prison or completing their sentences outside of New Mexico. And myself and a coalition of providers I work with strongly encourage city counselors to contact the Office of the Federal Public Defenders to understand this trend further because there are less than 20 children in contract federal prison nationwide and three of them, three of those children are from Las Cruces. So we think this is an important thing to look into. I'll just close with a statement from a young person in solidarity, in speaking from solidarity with our young people. I want to share a statement from a young person who grew up in Las Cruces, experienced trauma, and benefited from a diversion program, and is now advocating for other youth by establishing a nonprofit to provide restorative mentorship. She says, when we talk about youth and violence in Las Cruces, I think we also need to look at what young people are facing before they ever get to that point. Youth in our city have expressed that they feel unseen, unheard, and judged for their mistakes. Some youth are growing up in neighborhoods with fewer resources and not enough safe spaces or positive things for them to do. Youth have also expressed that they sometimes turn to things outside of themselves like parties, drugs, or other distractions before seeking help because they feel judged and do not feel like anyone is really listening. If we want to address youth violence, we have to reach young people before they become involved in the justice system. They need safe spaces, mentorship, support and opportunities to make positive choices. We cannot expect youth to grow and make better choices if we're not giving them the resources and support to do so. A young person should not be defined by one mistake or the circumstances they grew up in. They deserve the opportunity to be heard, supported and given a chance to become more than what they have been through. Thank you.

I'd like to call Denali Wilson.

Good evening, Mayor and members of council. My name is Denali Wilson. I am a lawyer and a policy advocate. I am primarily a lawyer for people serving long adult sentences for crimes committed when they were children at the organization that Yoana, that Councilman Bencomo mentioned, Deserving Life. I am also a policy council with All Safe New Mexico, which is a coalition of direct service organizations and advocacy organizations in New Mexico committed to root cause solutions to public safety. And we really want to encourage the council to consider directing these funds to support a community design process for a youth gun diversion program. In the legal work that I do, every day I work with people in adult prison for violent crimes. most involving firearms. And those were crimes committed decades ago when people were 15, 16 years old. And there's a couple of things that I have learned from that work. One is that a young person's first exposure to violence is never committing it. We know that the biggest drivers of violence are exposure to violence and trauma, and until we have systems that address those root causes, we will not have meaningful safety in our communities. We need systems that ask, why do our young people feel unsafe? What is the unmet need here? How can we help them access safety and a feeling of belonging in a positive way? The second thing that that work has taught me is that no one is more motivated or well positioned to prevent or disrupt violence than someone who has done something that they can never take back. I see that in the people that I work with every day. And there are people in this room who have been released from prison for crimes of violence who are now among the most effective mentors to others who are doing creative, community-centered work to help young people find community and find purpose outside of a culture of violence. And I hope that you have a chance to hear from some of them. We're recommending an investment to design a gun diversion program, and that would be a program that recognizes and responds to those root causes of youth violence, that engages people with lived experience to help interrupt and prevent future violence. There is significant evidence, as others have mentioned, that when a child decides to pick up a gun, Our default system responses to that, whether it's expulsion, arrest, detention, punishment, our default responses to that do not reduce the likelihood that a child will pick up a gun again. In fact, they increase it. It is one of our greatest system failures that our system responses to harm often create the very conditions that lead to the harm that they are purportedly designed to prevent. But we do know what does work. We know that community interventions, interventions that address the very real reasons that young people decide to obtain guns and to become involved in gun crimes, that address that and strategically and compassionately and through connection work with young people. Those are things that work. Unfortunately, it's not something that we're seeing a lot of in New Mexico, and especially in Las Cruces. There's a reason to that for that that others have alluded to and is tied to the pitch that we're making about these funds I shared by email and others have referenced this Legislative Finance Council policy spotlight on juvenile justice the Legislative Finance Council provides policy analysis and recommendations, oversight, other things to improve policy and performance on critical public safety issues. And they last made a focused effort on juvenile justice. And I think it's really, there are a couple of things from that report, I do hope that folks review it, that are really important to the guidance council's being asked to provide today. One is data. We've been talking about what the data shows, and there is a tremendous amount of data about what works and what doesn't work. And it's just so important if we want to be safe, it is so important that we make policies that are based on evidence. of what keeps us safe. So that policy spotlight by LFC is an overview of New Mexico-based data on what works and what definitely does not. And it is a settled public health conclusion that young people who are diverted from the juvenile justice system and met with services that actually addressed the underlying causes of their behavior have better outcomes than those who are arrested and incarcerated. and that those who are arrested and incarcerated are more likely to commit crimes again, often more serious crimes each time. This is actually something that New Mexico has recognized for a rather long time. that that you know the best safety outcomes come from community handling of delinquency and it's something new mexico has since the early 2000s built tremendous infrastructure to divert children from the formal juvenile justice system but the problem is and this is is what the conclusion is and recommendations are based on in the LFC report, that as a state, we have not matched those diversion policies, the laws, with actual infrastructure for community services and programs for young people who are struggling. And so we have the legal mechanisms, for diversion. We have the data to support that it's what works, but we have very few programs to divert children to. As an example, and one that I shared, and I'm so grateful that Councilwoman Bencomo was responsive to my ask, there's one gun diversion program in the whole state, and you will not be surprised where it is. Like many things, it's in Albuquerque and nowhere else. Without the infrastructure for diversion, it should come as no surprise that young people are returning to the system after informal case handling. We created diversion laws, but didn't invest in services and support that are necessary to make them effective, and it's why we see designing a diversion program as an effective investment for the city. And of course, as others have said, $100,000 definitely cannot solve these systems failures, but it can support a well-designed community engagement process for diversion around the issues that we're hearing so much about, youth who are choosing to engage with firearms. To be effective, this design process should be led by the community organizations that are already working to meet the direct service needs of young people struggling. and who will work with young people to co-create a diversion program that meets their needs. Because, again, $100,000 is, you know, more than that will be needed to implement a plan and stand up the program. Council should follow another recommendation from the legislative council. Legislative Finance Council report that that report found that Dona Ana Council and Las Cruces are greatly underrepresented in the delinquency prevention grant that is run by the legislature. So based on the number of referrals that we have as an accounting and as a city, we are not receiving that amount in in grant funding. And so in Directing funds to plan for, in direction that the council can provide on this planning, I'd recommend council also direct the plan to include recommendations for expanding capacity in order to apply for and maintain those grants so that not just the diversion program designed can be implemented, but many other support services that we know are really critical to keeping us safe. I also shared by email to council a report about similarly designed diversion programs across the country, and those initiatives are just tremendously effective. I want to walk through some numbers. Boston that implemented a program saw a 63% reduction in youth homicide. 32% reduction in New Orleans, 41% in Cincinnati, 50% in New York, sorry, 73%, 73% in New Haven, These are tremendous numbers that speak for themselves, and they're proven strategies, and they're what our community deserves. Part of the reason that our systems of punishment are so ineffective is that punishment is something that's passive. It's something that happens to young people. It doesn't require anything of them. These are programs that engage young people in accountability, in violence prevention, in purpose, and in community. It's active. It's not passive. I want to say too that we don't have to choose between diversion and third spaces diversion and peer support diversion and mentoring. A strongly designed and implemented diversion program is all of those things because those are the things that keep our communities safe. That's all I have and I can stand for questions.

Is there a Lindsay McDonald Benatar? Mary Ulrich from the Executive Director of DACC.

Good evening. Mayor, Council, thank you very much for the opportunity to talk a little bit about some work we're doing at DHCC and about the topics today. My name is Mariel Rick. I'm the Executive Director of Workforce and Community Engagement Division at Dona Ana Community College. We focus on job training and community engagement projects. We recently applied for and received the contract through the Workforce Innovation Opportunity Act, commonly known as WIOA sometimes, through America's Job Center. DACC applied to be the service provider for the youth and young adult programming. So we are happy to now be in a position where we have some funding to partner with other organizations that are working with youth. And one of the things I wanted to mention is that the program is highly focused on disengaged youth or disconnected youth. The Legislative Finance Committee this spring also did a special report on disconnected youth in our communities. And in Dona Ana County, that represents 5,000 youth. It's about 13.9% of the youth population in Dona Ana is what they would term disconnected. There's another word for it. By the way, these are youth ages 16 to 24. And there's another term that is NEET, they call it, N-E-E-T. And that's not in employment, not in education, and not in training. And those are the youth that we're primarily focused on. These youth have significant barriers to employment. uh... of course justice involved also homeless youth foster care pregnancy more parenting disability low-income basic skills deficient and english-language learners that these are are are you set where uh... going to be working with and are working with i wanted to mention Three things, really, I think. I wanted to, with the advisory council, the youth advisory council, encourage focus on this age group. Don't stop at 18. I think the youth 16 to 24 would be a good target population for that council. graduate from high school or finish a GED, they can often remain or become very, very isolated, especially if they have these barriers to employment and education and training, such as disability is a very important one, as well as the other issues that we've been talking about tonight. The other thing I wanted to mention is that, and other people reference this, when we ask for input from youth, we have to be prepared to address these issues. And some of the legislative finance committee referenced, the report referenced a survey conducted with the disengaged youth or disconnected youth. And they mentioned, the survey respondents mentioned, the barriers to employment, number one is housing. So that can be a tough issue. Everyone knows and people are working on it very hard in Las Cruces. They also mention lack of skills and training. That's where the community college steps in. Other training institutions step in. Health and disability is, like I said, it's huge. It's a big problem to not only their own health, but family members' health. It's amazing how many youth are taking care of family members who are ill. Also, low wages of available jobs. And that's an issue that addresses, is important in workforce development. We're training people, but there's not jobs that pay livable wages. So we need to encourage our businesses to provide living wages as well as good jobs with benefits. The last thing I wanted to just mention is with the RFP, I believe I'm seeing kind of a gap in we don't have a good map of community assets around youth services and that might be a good place to start because it's becoming very clear to me, partnerships with the Diversion Committee or the Diversion Program the Justice Continuum Committee, as well as FYI and Fostering Connections. That's where DHCC is going to make a difference with this program. So thank you very much. I really appreciate the opportunity.

Ashley Chavarria, Boys and Girls Club. I also recognize and see our District Attorney Macias, Fernando Macias. Did you or Mr. Wells want to say anything?

When given the opportunity to speak, I turn it down. there isn't one solution there isn't one track strategies have to have multiple approaches When we talk about employing youth, this council is very familiar that there was a summer youth program, employment program. At its height, it put 1,500 juniors and seniors in this community, in this county, to work for the summer. It cost $5 million to do it. until it was basically undermined and i don't think it really kind of exists any longer in any kind of real substantial way certainly uh... i was speaking at another group so i missed a lot of the comments that were being made I just, from my experience, and again, it is considerable, because when I was a district court judge for at least eight of the years, I presided over almost all of the juvenile delinquency cases. And for, I think, 10 years, almost all of the dependency cases. So I'm kind of familiar with success rates in different programming. I just want to suggest to you that if the commitment is $100,000, and I'm not here to be critical, I'm not. Any kind of effort is worthwhile. But you're talking, and you can say, well, the legislature has money. You can say that other groups have money. If you're going to really want to make a change and be a player in this area, you have to be willing to commit the monies. There's, you could easily, easily, without a lot of cost, bring together every single entity in this county that deals with children. You could bring them together. When I was on the bench, we put together a strategic plan in terms of intervention. It was called the Promise for Success. We never were able to get it funded. Obviously because there was a downturn in the economy, so there wasn't really money to support the effort. But I think that it is worthwhile at a time when revenues are increasing to basically bring together, and you can coordinate it. You can ask NMSU to do it, you can ask the schools to do it, you can put your staff to do it. Basically identify every organization in this community that deals with children. Bring them together in terms of what should be the strategy. Be open to the different approaches. It is very serious in terms of the level of violence and the attitudes among young people. I'm not a real believer that you're waiting until they're 17 or 18 years old. I'm a believer that you're working with a seven-year to 10-year group if you're really wanting to look at a change. Every year, at least when I was on the bench, 3,000 children in this community had contact with law enforcement. 3,000 on a yearly basis. At least a third of them were having two or three contact with law enforcement. People can criticize that you shouldn't be sentencing youth. Look at their siblings. Look at their younger siblings. They're going in the same direction with the same problems. If you don't intervene much earlier, If you allow the different interest groups to advocate for what is best interest of their program, if you don't have a neutral barometer that says this truly will impact the numbers, diminish, because ultimately, I don't know that we don't discuss this clearly, the ultimate goal is to reduce the number of victims in this community. And yes, you can identify those that commit crimes as having been victimized as well, but that is the goal. And certainly, this is not a novel issue. The benefit of having participated as long as I have is that we have been discussing this issue for as long as I've been involved at a public service level, and that's been for the last 40 years. And we're still discussing the same issues. And it hasn't changed. No matter what approach you want to use, it hasn't changed. So I think we certainly as a community have the ability to come up with options. But you can't be looking at things in small, segregated pieces. You can't get up here and say, I helped 15 kids, knowing that the number that you really need to be reaching is 3,000 kids. And yes, you can say, congratulations, wonderful, you've helped some children. But if you're looking for the systemic change across this community, which I believe is achievable, You have to be willing to say, no, I'm not going to put up $100,000. I'm going to put up $5 million. I'm going to put up $10 million because it is worth that to change what is occurring in the community. But if you keep looking for just grants, hopefully the legislature with a little bit of extra money can be of assistance. It really is going to take far more than that to have any notable impact within the community. So again, thank you for the invitation to make a comment. I know that other people, I'm sure, want to come up and talk.

Thank you, Mr. Kuturn. Next, Janelle Carnero.

members of the city council, mayor, city managers. My name is Janelle Garnetto. My husband's a veteran. We're local business owners. And for over 15 years, our family has poured our heart and souls into working with almost every single organization that helps kids and families right here in Las Cruces. 168 days ago. Our son, Chris Carnot, he was the kid that you saw at events. He was the boy handing out presents, food, toys, Easter baskets to others. He was at the air show encouraging people to get on planes. He was a beautiful, giving soul. Chris was murdered in our home. He was sitting at his computer, safe in his bedroom. This was not an accident. Just one hour before, this boy stood over my baby. He took selfies with a gun he had stolen, a fully loaded revolver. while Chris was in the shower. Photos he later tried to delete. He deliberately removed four bullets and placed them in his backpack, left one in the chamber, and executed my son. The red flags were everywhere. waving in the faces of the agency designed to protect us. There were LCPD reports filed stating that this boy had previously threatened to shoot his own mother and another person. He was being investigated by the police for breaking and entering into vehicles and stealing guns. There was over a dozen CYFD reports filed by the school alone. and another 18 CYFD cases on the mother alone. But none of this was told to us until it was too late. Because our systems, and you've heard it today, you focus on protecting him and not Chris. Yet, there is zero accountability for this mother. Even with her son being expelled from school multiple times, and with 18 CYFD cases, she faces no consequences. Instead, she openly and publicly, as recently as two days ago, encouraged and celebrated what her son and other murderers have done. She's openly threatened my family right inside the courtroom. Because of her, we had to install additional security cameras in our home and wait for police escorts just to be able to leave safely. The system ignores. Parents cultivate the violence. You leave us in terror. She went as far as to mock my son's death on social media and state, I get to hold my kid and what, guess mine is better than yours, haha. But the state coddles violent criminals because of their age. The system operates on the deadly and naive assumption that 13 year olds are incapable of pure evil. Yet, we are seeing it every single day in our town. The state does absolutely nothing to protect our families from violent youth simply because they refuse to believe it. They look at statistics, not reality. What is the consequence for executing my baby? A maximum of two years in juvenile detention and immediately released back into society. It's not punishment. He was sent to a state-funded summer camp. Just days after murdering Chris, this boy In his private room, making video calls on his personal state-provided iPad, proudly brandished a new initiation tattoo to his mother, who explained he now had respect. He joked while holding onto one of the young park shooters on several video calls, calling him pops and uncle. He called friends, who are also teenagers, You can see them drinking with the gun visible and in their possession. This boy, four days after killing my baby, acknowledges the gun and calls it a nice piece and asks where he got it from. Not at all deterred by the violent and horrendous crime he had just committed. In less than two years, he will be released directly back into our society. He'll be sitting in public schools right next to the very kids who loved Chris. He will be given every opportunity to do it again. because the system has protected him and ensured that he can. The very punishment meant to deter him that I hear today being spoken about is too harsh. He now brags about on video calls which you could watch. When he gets out, what do you think he's gonna do? Well, this murderer gets three meals a day and a badge of honor. My husband and I had to carry our dying baby in our arms. We had to stand by his side. for the week preparing for organ donation, grieving and navigating trials and news headlines. And how did the system respond? CYFD validated a case against my husband and me for neglect after our baby was murdered. They didn't call a single person. They didn't even bother to step a foot into our home. They didn't even sign a case number. They immediately opened it and closed it and sent us a letter. It was a blatant and sickening attempt to intimidate and silence us. I will not be silenced. We are still trying to make things better even after losing our son and being so failing miserably by the city and the state. We have taken it upon ourselves to do the work that's desperately needed to be done. We have spoken with the schools, organizations, the public, city officials, businesses, detention centers, counselors to understand where things were so wrong and how we can stop it. No mother or father should ever feel what I do. Through the Lovelight Christ Legacy Foundation, we are creating programs that have been missing for decades. We are launching youth tournaments, events, opportunities that are focused on providing safe spaces for kids and the families. We are pushing for accountability and real change through laws and regulations. I am standing here tonight not just to share my anger and my grief, but to beg you to partner with us. I invite every single one of you to reach out. Let me show you the amount of true data that we've collected from the teachers, the principals, We've went to the actual facilities. We've met with every single person I could possibly think would have any kind of input. I'll share that all with you. Where is the outrage? We need you to demand change and demand better for our families, for your families. Do not let Chris's death be in vain. Look at what is happening in our city and join us in doing the work that will actually save our children. I heard today So many people talk about, how do we save the other kids? Not one single person, except for Messias, even mentioned how to save Chris. Because you're not focused on him. It just seems as though he doesn't matter, which is horrifying. Because Chris was beautiful. He stood up for every kid. He was adopted. He was abused. He had so many things that he had to overcome. And he fought. And he gave back. And he loved in enormous ways. And I am begging that you at least pay attention and remember him when you think about things. Yes, we want to save the children. I mentioned we've been doing the work for over 15 years. I can name every single organization that's a part of this community, and I can guarantee you I've worked in some way, shape, or form with them. We've built wonderful events and brought so much opportunities. We've done so much work. We just need you to do your jobs now and help us. I can't do it on my own, but I wanna do it with you. I wanna make it better in whatever way that looks, whatever way that's meaningful. for our community, for the kids, for the Chris's too, because they matter. It's easy to forget that.

thank you mayor thank you for allowing us to share the time my name is marcy dickerson i know many many of you one of the things that has come out of chris's murder and the education that we have received after that is that we have begun a program called the chris canaro juvenile justice league and we will be seeking for laws to be changed and i want to agree with all the people that spoke before us that said that when these children are sent to juvenile detention, that it does not work. You're absolutely right. It doesn't. Let me tell you why it doesn't. And where this information is coming from is the hours and hours of videos that Janelle has obtained from the detention center, from these iPads and things. And let me tell you why it doesn't work. Number one, they're only in there for a very short period of time. And during that period of time, when she made a reference to summer camp, she's not wrong. They're receiving regular meals every day, unlike what a lot of them got at home. They have their own room. They have their own bed and they are in there with their peers. They are in there in a manner where instead of it being a focus on why you should not be here and how we should get you to a better place, what is being focused on is how cool your action was. The child who murdered and took the life of Janelle's son received his first gang tattoo, He was told on a video call that now when he got out, he would be a higher ranking member of the gang and he wouldn't have to be jumped in. He's very excited about this. His parent, his mother, very proud as well. You're absolutely right that the system that we have now that looks at criminals and only takes into account the age of that criminal and not the crime that that criminal did is broken. We will be asking for more. We will be asking for longer terms. We will be asking for our justice system to consider the crime, not the age. We remember, and I think we all have the same memory, we think back to 12-year-olds, 11-year-olds, 13-year-olds, and we think of them as these simple, simple young children that are playing with Barbies, playing with cars, you know, playing baseball. They're just innocent. That unfortunately is not what our world is now. And you can blame it on the internet. You can say it's on parent disengagement. You can say all kinds of things. But the fact is, it doesn't matter how we got here. This is where we're at. We have 12 and 13-year-olds stealing guns, dealing in stolen firearms. The illegal arms trade is alive and well in Las Cruces. And in our adult minds, we think of it as, well, it's the cartel or it's these people. No, it's not. It is minors that are able to access and buy firearms over the internet. We are currently working on an operation to get you some video for that, just to show you how exactly easy it is. We've got kids that are going in for two years where they can receive no meaningful therapy. I'm sure every social worker, you know, Councilman Boncomo, we know that two years is not a lot of time to make serious changes through therapy, through education, through rehabilitation, we don't have that time allowed. So one of the things we are asking for is that there is an extension of time to offer those services in a captive environment, to make sure they attend them, to make sure they get them, to get the help and really give them a chance to overcome the other mentalities and the other forces that are working against our community on being safe. We're also going to ask for parental accountability. We're going to ask that when these early interventions happen, I remind you, 18 CYFD cases against this mother, that when those early actions happen, there is an intervention component where that parent, if your child skips school, if your child has an altercation or an incident that the police are involved, that you as the parent are now required to attend therapy, parenting classes. How can we support you? How can we make your family life better? How can it be better than this? That's another thing we're going to be asking for. The other thing that I'm not sure all of you are aware is in our current juvenile laws that this particular child that murdered Janelle's son can come out of jail, after just three years he'll be 15, can come out to jail, he can get out, he can walk up to you, sir, because you're standing next to me, he can walk up to you, he can shoot you the exact same way, and guess what? When we go back to court, No one can have any mention of his prior bad acts. So every time a repeat offender, a repeat juvenile offender shows up in court and District Attorney Macias has to prosecute it, and I will tell you, they did an amazing job on this one, and the Young Park shooters, they can't mention what this child has done before. They can't mention what this criminal has been convicted of. It's a brand new slate. These are things that limit us in our ability to do our number one focus. And our number one focus, as Janelle said, should not be making sure those criminals Lives are better. It should be protecting the upstanding citizens in our community and their children who follow the laws, who do pay their taxes, are good students. We stop at stop signs. Those people that do all of those things, that's what our job is. Our job is to protect those people. Our job is not to protect the criminals. Yes, absolutely we need earlier intervention, we do. Absolutely we need youth programs that when we see things going bad when they're little bitty, and I mean seven to 10 is the exact correct age. Yes, we need to have something for them. We need to get in there and we need to help them. But we've got to be more aggressive on all of the levels. And we've got to make sure that we keep our eyes open and that we understand the people that we're supposed to be protecting are the Chris Caneros of the world. Thank you for your time. I appreciate the opportunity to speak.

Thank you, Marcy. Thank you, Janelle. Thank you for your strength, your courage, and our condolences. At this time, we'll go ahead and open it up to any groups or associations that would like to speak on this topic.

Hello Mayor, City Council, my name is Eric and I'm a reentry provider here in our community. I'm speaking today on behalf of Somos or No Somos alongside community organizations across the city. I'm here in support of a gun diversion program and getting to the work of addressing the moment we're in. I speak not just as a provider but as someone with lived experience in the justice system as a young adult. I know firsthand what happens when a young person doesn't have someone to help them find another path. So like the story you heard earlier, I do come from a place of extreme violence at a very young age, and I went to juvenile prison. And that place doesn't teach you anything but more violence. And you get more deeper into the ideology of what you've already been taught in the streets, because that's all that's around. I ended up giving up over 20 years of my life to the lifestyle. I've been home a little over two years. And upon release, I was able to take a program at the ACC workforce with Mary Ulrich and Kay Lilly. And we came up with a reentry program that has been really successful out here. Hispanic youth and young men in our city are incarcerated at disproportionate rates. Behind those numbers are young people who have had access to guns and gangs, but not access to the services that could have changed their path. When young people involved in gangs don't have resources, mentorship, intervention, a way forward, we lose them to the system. Incarceration doesn't just remove someone from their community, it institutionalizes them. It teaches survival inside a system instead of preparing someone to thrive outside of one. The longer someone stays in that cycle, the harder it becomes to imagine a different life. This work matters because it meets people where they are and reminds them accountability doesn't have to mean a life sentence inside a system that was never built to heal them. I've walked this path. I've also walked young people back from it. This work saves lives and it saves this city resources in the long run. We're asking you to invest in gun diversion. Give people in this city another option besides the one I almost didn't survive. Thank you for your time.

Hello, Mayor, Council. I want to thank you guys. My name is Louie Burke. I run the Police Athletic League PAL program, boxing program for the city. And I want to thank the Mayor, City Council, Parks and Rec for the support and collaboration that you've given us to allow us to work with at-risk, underprivileged youth. The demographic that we work with is a demographic that was at the Yonge Park shooting, teenage Hispanic youth. That's The majority of our demographic, we have a diversity of all, females, males, everybody comes to the gym and works out. But it gives us just an opportunity to work with these kids and try and mentor them. I think that's the big challenge that we have. is finding good mentors, trying to find programs that these kids have a passion, that they can cultivate either whether they're interested in the arts, athletics, academics, technology, and try and cultivate whatever, that passion they feel. is their calling. So just something to give them, something to look forward to and try and get them into that direction. I really don't have a lot to say because everybody here pretty much has said already how I feel and what I'd be saying. So I just want to keep it short. I just want to thank you for allowing our program to help these kids. And I want to also thank Becky Graham, who initiated some of the support and collaboration when she was in city council. But I just want to thank you all for giving me that opportunity and giving our program that opportunity to help the kids. Thank you.

Hello, Mayor City Council. My name is Ruben Garcia. I'm the board president for the boxing club. I'm also a sponsor for the statewide. School safe summit, which is going to be in Albuquerque next next week. So I've been heavily involved with doing prevention work for the last 15 years with my company. And the great thing about this power program, when I moved here, I met Louie, is that it's not just about getting the kids help, but it's also connecting them, always making sure they're connected. So when someone, a kid doesn't show up, there's a coach that tries to find out why didn't he show up. So he feels missed, he feels connected to the program. So I think that's really important for, any of the diversion programs that you have or that you want to run, that the kids know that they're being missed. And that connection that they do at the POW Boxing program is just phenomenal. You know, I've learned a lot about the program since I moved here. They're best in class. They're winning a lot of awards and boxing events in Albuquerque and across the nation where they travel. So we should be very proud of what you guys accomplished with that power program. And I think that's a good benchmark for what other programs can look up and get involved with. um it's something that's evidence-based it's if you've heard of the uh iceland uh study done in the mid-1990s they talked about the importance of what communities can do to help kids stay involved and stay committed to whatever they want to be involved in and yes the money just like the Attorney General, the attorney said that that's super important to have that money, and I know you guys are really committed to trying to make those happen with the PAL Boxing program, so I just wanna say we really appreciate that. So anything else we can do, let us know.

Any other group or association? Now I can open it up to the general public. If there's any members of the public that wish to comment, they can come up. OK. Seeing none, at this time, I'd like to ask Chief Story if he has any comments that he'd like to share.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. Jeremy Stewart, Police Chief for the Las Cruces Police Department. I appreciate the discussion and the comments that have been made, both by the individuals, the youth, the organizations. And I agree with, foundationally, with much of what has been said. I know we've already acknowledged the need to be here, and I appreciate that. I do wanna provide just a little bit of perspective that I think will help all of us, and we'll agree on it, on why it's so important to change What we're doing to change our approach from what we were doing a few years ago, because the landscape has changed. So just some quick statistics from Las Cruces, this is not Dona Ana County, this is the city of Las Cruces. From 2014 to 2019, we had zero children, zero juveniles charged with homicide or manslaughter. Zero. From 2020 to 2026, we have had 18. 2026 year to date. 2020 to 2026, we have 18. That's a significant shift when we're talking about the most serious offenses that actually results in the loss of a life. A life of someone who is a son, a daughter, a brother, a sister. It's somebody's family member. And that's irreversible. That's a bell that cannot be unrung. When it comes to juvenile weapon violation offenses, in 2020, we had 10. In 2021, we had 26. And just for context, because the schools were partially closed and a lot of those offenses do happen in the schools, I'll go back to 2019, we had 29. In 2022, we've had 50. 2023, we had 50. We had 43 in 2024 and 40 in 2025. We're at 24 year to date. Almost doubled the weapons violations committed by juveniles. And the last one I'll give is drive-bys, because this one is extremely concerning. When I say drive-bys, I'm talking about structures or vehicles being hit. I'm not even talking about the juveniles that are driving around and shooting out the window of a vehicle or shooting into nowhere, purposely targeting a house or a structure or a vehicle. In 2017, we had 13. In 2018, we had 22. In 2019, we had 18 drive-bys. Fast forward 2024, we had 95. 2025, we had 92. We're at 52 year-to-date. Now, I say that just to set the context. What's changed is not just the frequency, but the severity that we're seeing. The reality is the officers on the street are the ones who are dealing with this violence day in and day out, both with the juvenile offenders, but also dealing with the victims and their families. They're having to tell parents that their loved one is seriously injured and their life is gonna be forever altered if they're lucky, or they're telling a parent that their child is no longer here. They've lost their child. I think something that's been mentioned, but I don't know that we've put enough emphasis on it, is what we see when it comes to these offenders and families. We cannot talk about prevention or intervention or diversion without addressing the family situation. If you look at the 2024 census data, the American Community Survey, 41.6% of Las Cruces households are single parent households. It's rare when we see a child who's engaged in significant violence that comes from a two parent household where both parents care. I'm not saying they have to be perfect, none of us are. But that is the exception, not the rule. And when we implement these programs that are evidence-based and we put the kid right back in the environment, whether they spend time incarcerated or in a residential facility or not, and then we put them right back in the same environment, it's no wonder why we see the same behavior eventually. If we don't address the family as part of the solution, we're not going to actually change what's going on. I want to mention a meta review that's from 2021 PAPA's indent that takes over 40 years of evidence when it comes to juvenile offenders and what works. There's over 3,100 primary studies that are looked at. And I'll push back a little bit on what was said. Although I agree with much of it, one thing that was said is that punitive programs do not work and in some cases increase crime. I don't disagree with that. Purely punitive programs tend to have no effect or even slightly increase crime. But what that review of 3,100 primary studies found is that some of the most effective recidivism reduction occurs in residential facilities. When kids are in custody, if they have high support and there's good programming, if you put a kid and lock them up and there's no support and there's no programming, they will likely reoffend when they get out. But if the programming is what it should be and there's high support, a lot of times you see higher rates of recidivism reduction in those programs than in some of the not-in-custody programs that are out there. The other thing that we have to acknowledge is that all of us hopefully agree that we want to reduce juvenile recidivism. So if we cut it in half, let's say, which is a pretty good number to cut any of those statistics I gave in half, that's success, although we still have to deal with what's left behind. No matter how effective we are, there are going to be kids who will engage in violence regardless of what intervention is done. And my question is, what do we do with those kids? when the kid kills another child, or they shoot another child and paralyze them, and then they drive a vehicle through a gun store, and then they drive vehicles through dispensaries, and then they commit a robbery, an armed robbery, or they do a carjacking and shoot an innocent person, or they engage in all that behavior, at some point we have to protect the community. And if we can't stop that kid from engaging in that behavior, We cannot accept the consequences of that. I agree, if we can stop that behavior the first time or even the second time, that's better than allowing it to continue. But some programs will not work for some people. And we still have to have an answer for the people that are left behind where all those programs have failed. Federal charges were mentioned and those are exactly the juveniles who have been in the federal system are the juveniles I just described. Now the district attorney has done a phenomenal job of having more accountability along with the support side of things. But some of these kids were before his administration and some of them were ones that were found incompetent and in the state system for juveniles there is no other choice. A kid could kill a kid every single day and if they're found incompetent there is no other option except to continue to release them. Indefinitely. And these kids, when they go to the federal system and they're challenged competency, they are found competent in the federal system, which calls into question the procedures that we use in the state system. Those are not kids that have shoplifted or really have even committed one mistake of violence. We're talking about kids who have committed a series of violence and will not stop, and for whatever reason, the state system has failed. Those are the kids that are in the federal system. Now, on the positive side, I agree that we have to find a better way to do prevention work, to do early intervention. I'm not an opponent of diversion. I can back this up with the fact that we went for grow money last legislative session for our youth prevention intervention coordinator for the police department. Because we want to work with all the organizations that are out there, many that are in this room. There's a lot of good people in Las Cruces doing great work when it comes to adults and also juveniles. but we also have a lot of room to grow and to work together, because sometimes it can be siloed, sometimes we're not even aware of what exists, so we're not using those programs effectively, and that's true for other organizations. That person that we're hiring is through background, so I'm very excited that hopefully they'll start very soon. And if anything, they're overqualified. I think they're a great person to help us do our part and work with the organizations that are in this room to find a way to do better, to find a path forward, regardless of what funding sources are out there, what grants are available. Obviously, it takes money to do a lot of this. I wanted to end it on a positive that we are willing to, and I believe in the work that's being done by people in this room. I just also think we need to acknowledge the reality that the violence that's happening on the streets, when it gets to that point, we have to have an answer for it. I cannot allow it to continue. I cannot allow more victims and more families to lose a loved one when there's a way to stop it. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Chief. Robert, anything else? Wrap it up?

That's all, sir. You're clear on? I have clear direction of where we want to move. provide some designs, work closely with prevention intervention coordinator, with our community experts to get something moving as quickly as possible.

All right, thank you. With that, I want to thank you all for attending this evening. Mr. Mayor.

Yes. I had a comment.

You have a comment?

Yeah. So thank you again. I'm sorry to interrupt, but I would like for us to To look at funding source, I understand the intervention piece of it, and we should definitely do that. I understand that people also want accountability, I think we should do that as well. I think that from both groups, it's not one or the other, it's all the above. From both groups, I would like to see a more proactive approach that before someone gets hurt, that before a life is lost, that there is that intervention. Janelle, thank you for sharing your story. If we haven't hugged you enough or acknowledged Chris enough, and reached out to you and your husband and family enough, I apologize. Thank you for sharing your story. I don't want to see, we don't want to see another Chris situation happen, unless Chris is anywhere here. If my colleagues would agree, maybe we look at looking at additional funding, another $50,000 or $100,000, if it's out there. I know we're strapped for money. I know that we're going through our financial issues as a city. Those are a few potholes. a life is worth much more than that. And so I would say that just in a final comment, if we could direct, if my colleagues are okay with that, and Mayor, with your permission, would like to direct the city manager to look at additional funding to look at other programs that could assist as well as the 100,000. When we were talking about the 100,000 and we were talking about this program at our budget discussion and we were talking about the youth council, we were looking at a very different budget process. I understand that piece. But we're talking about our youth today, our leaders of today, not tomorrow. All of us want to see our young adults grow up, be healthy, live a long life. Some people won't get that. But we can prevent other situations like that happening. So Mayor, I thank you for allowing me to speak up. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. Robert, if you go back to that slide where you had the options. I think what we're basically looking at is we want to do everything, but we've got to have a starting point. And I think without the design of the program or a strategic plan, it's like we don't know which one, because they're all important. They're all things that we need to look at to really make this a better and safer community and for our youth. But we've got to start with a design. We've got to start with a strategic plan. We've got to start it at the beginning. And it's going to take more funding. And I think we all are on board with whatever it takes. We will continue and we will look for external funding. We will do everything we can to try to make this program very successful and to encourage and make it a safe place and a quality of life place for our youth. I think that's where we're starting at so we can start with the design and then we'll continue and grow from there. I think are we all in agreement with That the rest of council I think that's what no, thank you marriage program. Thanks I think it just may be that little clarification that yeah, we want to do all that It's not just do this and then put that design on the shelf. That's not what this is about We need to implement we need to do the activities we need to get the community involved and we need to bring all the resources together because this is an important topic and And we also need the police department and Chief Story and all them involved and all the data, all the information that he gave is so concerning that we need to address those things. We need to look at everything. But we start with the design and then we move from there. I want to just say, again, thank you all for attending. This was one of the things we wanted to do was to have an evening work session, council meeting. We've done that, and I appreciate you all taking the time to come out. But more importantly, thank you for being a caring community. That's what it's really about. Thank you all for caring. I'll look for a motion to adjourn.

Move to adjourn. Second.

This is on the motion to adjourn the work session. Councillor McClure? Yes. Councillor Matisse? Yes. Councillor Harris? Yes. Councillor Bencomo? Yes. Councillor Curran? Yes. Councillor Munoz? Yes. And Mayor?

Yes.