County Council - Session - workshop

Okay, so this is going to be work session as I indicated. So we're going to be doing it in hybrid format. We're going to have counselors or presenters and public participation either in person or on Zoom. Remember there's always phone lines are available too for people if they would like to do that. We'll be taking public comment at the beginning of the meeting for items that are not on the agenda. We'll take public comment for items as we go through the meeting agenda too. We'll have Mr. Rayal look for attendees who are virtually attending and just make sure that you include your names to be properly addressed on Zoom. Please limit your comments to three minutes or as otherwise directed. And also please make sure that you address the comments to the chair and be relevant to the topic being discussed. So our goal is to complete the meeting no later than 10 p.m. And if we're still meeting at 9, we'll check our progress at that point. I think now we're ready to go on to item number two, which is the pledge of allegiance. So if you are willing and able, please join us in the pledge. Okay, so now we're on to item number three, which is public comments. So this is the opportunity for a public comment for items that are not on the agenda. So do we have anybody here in person at the fire station that wants to make public comment? Not seeing anyone in person. Mr. Riel, can you check online for us?

If you're online and you'd like to make a public comment, please raise your hand. Not seeing anything, Chair.

Thank you. So now we're on to item number four, which is approval of the agenda. Is there a councillor interested in making a motion on the agenda as presented?

I move that we approve the agenda as presented.

Do we have a second?

Second.

Okay, so we have a motion by Councillor Cole, I guess if there's any other mic on it might pick it up the background So there was a motion by councillor Cole second by councillor Herman Not seeing any discussion Can the clerk please call the roll for us?

Councillor hand yes Councillor call yes Councillor Regan yes Councilor Haberman? Yes. Councilor Herman? Yes. Councilor Reidy?

Yes.

Councilor Neal-Clinton? Yes. Motion passes 7-0.

Okay, let the record show the motion passes unanimously. So we also have noted that Councilor Neal-Clinton has arrived. So with that, I think we're ready to go on to Item 5, which is Presentations, Proclamations, and Recognitions. So first item is 5A21140-26. It's a briefing presentation to council, and I believe it's going to be by Connor Tharp. So whenever you're ready, we'll get the slides up for you.

There we go. Chair Reedy, members of the council, thank you for having me tonight. My name is Connor Tharp. I am the vice chair of the Lauder's Tax Advisory Board. And Ellen and I are here to present to you what we've been up to for the last year. The Lodgers Tax Advisory Board has been around for a little while, and it exists in every county in New Mexico. But our purpose is to impose a tax on lodging establishments in Los Alamos to gather the funding. And then we use that funding to advertise our community and fund things that are happening in our community in hopes of bringing more people in to do it all over again. So the way we do that is you have your base room rate. We have a little formula here on the bottom right hand side. BRR stands for base room rate. To that is added our GRT amount and then our LTR, which is our lodgers tax rate, which brings us to the total cost of our room. The lodgers tax is collected by each hotel or establishment. It could be a Airbnb, it could be a bed and breakfast, and then they pay that out to the county. And we have that in our lodgers tax bucket, and we spend it as we should. So the lodgers tax advisory board has been established to advise the county manager and the council on how we spend this money that we've collected. We use it for advertising, publicizing, and promoting our tourist attractions within the county. So up until recently, our five-member board was fully staffed. We've unfortunately lost a member. She's left our Sweet County. So we are looking for and recruiting for a member of our lodging community to fill that seat. It's a little bit difficult because it is a pretty demanding job. The Lodgers Tax Advisory Board is not demanding, but being a hotelier in this county is difficult. So we're actively working towards that. Otherwise, the other folks who sit on the board represent tourist attractions, another lodging facility, and then a community at large member. These are our lodgers tax revenues from 2020 up until now. There's a lot of lines there, but we're looking at June, that little hangy line up there towards the top. We're looking at similar numbers to 2024. Oh, wow. can hear myself. We're looking at similar numbers to 2024. What's interesting, we'll see later with our visitorship numbers, is while our revenues are going up, our visitorship is dropping a little bit. We think that we can attribute this to lab contractors coming in and staying at our lodging establishments. However, we don't classify them as tourists. Correct.

All right.

This is the way that we're spending this funding. So everything here is the same as we've always spent it, except for one brief change. That top right column under responsible party, where it says destination IQ, that is our new contractor who's doing our community outreach and social media and advertising campaigns. Otherwise, our visitor services contracts, our materials and displays, and our strategic plan projects are all consistent with what they were before. When we look at our top accomplishments over the year. When the tab board would meet we provided insight on the scope and deliverables of our tourism marketing services to that. contractor destination IQ and we helped Ellen and the rest of the Community engagement staff on providing a scope of work for that rfp to make sure that what we wanted to be advertised and how we wanted the money to be spent was. in line with what was actually going to happen. We were able to hold seven meetings last year. I think we planned for 12, but we had a government shutdown, which made it a little bit difficult for those of us who worked for LANL to participate. And then we also worked on our NM True Grant program. The NM True Grant program provides us with a two-to-one match for our money that's spent. So every $1 we spend, they provide $2. For some reason, I was thinking $3. And so that provides us with a lot of ad spend money that we wouldn't otherwise have to allocate for. They provide us with collateral. They take great photos. They make videos for us. And we use those across all sorts of different venues. And they've been putting out some really great investments for us, I think. As far as our data reporting goes, this is our Placer AI data. You'll see these four columns, or buttons up at the top that say 407.2. All of these are trending downwards. So these are total trips, average monthly visitors, visit nights, and total visitor spend. We believe that there's a likely decrease in these numbers because of cost of living, gas prices, and then, of course, we had a government shutdown. So we had quite a few people just not traveling very much during that time. This continues on with a little bit more of that data. You'll see that our average nights per trip is 2.7. So we're seeing a little bit more of an extended stay type of visitor versus a day tripper. We'd see a lot of people coming up from Santa Fe just for the afternoon or down from Taos just to check out our trails and things like that. But we're seeing that increase just a little bit year over year. Our total visitors are down a little bit month to month. That's a little different from what I had in June. But this is at June overall. Sorry. So our month over month is a little bit down. And again, gas prices. People are not doing their day trips like they were in prior years. Our destination visits year over year is always fun to look at. We get to look at these every time we have a lodger's tax advisory board meeting. They're pretty down. We were riding the Oppenheimer High for a little while. And it's kind of dropping off. So Ellen and Destination IQ have been really great about coming up with creative ways to entice people to come visit us. We have a great outdoor recreation space. Our community does a lot for people. So there's a lot of good reasons to come visit. And they're doing a good job of highlighting those things. But we're just down a little bit. You'll see on the next slide, we look at visitation by location. And this includes Bandelier, the White Rock and Los Alamos Visitor Centers, the Caldera, the Bradbury, all the places in town that track their visitor numbers. The only one that is increasing is the Caldera, correct? And that is because they have up until recently. They've changed their software to track visitors. So we're not sure if it's the software, if there's people being missed, what the double digit increase in percentage is for them. But Bandelier continues to be our big driver to get people to drive through our town. I know that for the Bradbury, when I checked last, we were almost 7,000 visitors down compared to last year, year over year. And we're just attributing that to people not taking the day trips, which is really kind of discouraging. This is 2026. The last one was 2025. You can go to the next slide. OK, this is our work plan, projects, and assignments. Logistics Advisory Board has a pretty narrow scope of what we can do, but we'll continue to do the oversight and reporting of our expenditures. And we've been able to complete the year seven review of our strategic plan to kind of see what we should be addressing in the coming year. Our review kind of took into consideration what the county can has the bandwidth for what we have the ability to do and what we have resources for moving forward. I believe that was sent back in March from our council chair with what our recommendations were. We'll continue to promote tourism, sponsor special events, and support community events by enhancing our amenities, utilizing our indoor and outdoor facilities, and encouraging our local businesses in their support. And then, as always, we work with Destination IQ on a weekly basis to grow, identify, and enhance our tourism opportunities here in town. Our other projects and activities will continue to evaluate and identify potential projects and work on projects and initiatives that can effectively increase our visitor spending, extend our visitor time that's spent in the community, and hopefully maximize the benefits of tourism and visitation to Los Alamos County. We'll continue to work with Destination IQ to grow, identify, and enhance our tourism opportunities here in town and provide them the information that would enhance their efforts so that the public can access it a little bit better. Continuing a project that the county has been working on, with Destination IQ. We've started highlighting small businesses in the community to visitors to help increase their, not their participation, but people to go visit them and to enhance the visitor length of stay. And to do this, we've had the events directory and the business directory, which I use at least on a weekly basis for the events at least. And I think that there's been a really good buy-in from the community on that directory. So really appreciate all the time that you all have taken to do that. Looking ahead, the latest data that we have from our hotels is from 2017. We've had a hard time collecting average rate of stay, length of stay, where people are coming from from our hoteliers. It's just difficult for them. with all that they have on their plate to direct that information towards us. I think that it would be helpful to have that information from sort of boots on the ground people who are talking face to face with their visitors every day and who can get a better gauge on what's happening from our tourists. We had a hotelier on the board who was willing to kind of Rally the troops and do all that for us and she's unfortunately the board member who left us recently But that will be an effort in the coming year Like I said, we have one term that is vacant and we are continuing to solicit for that opening That concludes my presentation, but I'm happy to take any questions Thank You mister That's maybe if any other mics on it starts echoing I

That's going to be a little bit annoying. OK. So thank you for the presentation. So this is not an action item. So if councillors have questions or comments, just go ahead and let us know. Councillor McClendon?

I only have two, and I think you answered this. I just want to be sure. For the social media coordinator, did I understand you to say that you were getting a two to one grant on that, so there's not really an outlay of funds?

so currently specifically social media is being done by myself with a little bit of input from destination IQ as to what's been working really well for us on the social media side when it comes to marketing those efforts that's actually not state monies that's money through the destination iq contract that is being spent on meta as well as google and i can tell you we kind of have a variety of different things we kind of break it down with and we give that to lodgers tax every month but the kind of big lists are we kind of have a demographic for Albuquerque Santa Fe so your day trip driver and then Texas essentially all the way east to Dallas we found that there are people traveling that far and in our numbers you can see that when we're looking at where people are coming from and then we have essentially Denver and south is another kind of location that we're promoting that information to through ads as well as what we found been doing very very well for us and we've started adding more funds into because the cost is so low per click when people look at it is events people are very interested in events and that's across all the different markets, that new category that we decided to bring on board originally, it was to highlight some of those events and hope we can work on that economic benefit. People come for a whole weekend and stay even if the event might only be one day, especially summer concerts. Summer concerts are only in the evenings. But if we can catch people just a little bit longer, there's really a benefit there. And so we've just kind of been increasing the events and what that scope is and what we're helping promote through those ads because it's clearly something that's doing really well for us and we can see that on our roi great segue roi so you're you're you commented that it's been a good ad spin what's been your roi on that so we're looking at almost all of our campaigns on um meta this is all from my head because i just had my call with them yesterday about uh 11 cents per click, which the average is much higher than that. You usually see at least, I think it's 15 to 20. And so for us, seeing things anywhere from 10 to 12 for all those different ones shows us the campaigns are doing very, very well. I will add something that's kind of interesting that we've had some conversations about more recently. is that Meta has integrated some sort of AI into their ad software to see what's doing well, and they kind of make recommendations based off of that. The thing with that, it's kind of twofold. So either you ride the wave of AI, which seems to be the way Meta wants you to go, or you kind of fight against it and you say, no, I want to do this instead. And right now, we are opting to just kind of ride that wave because we are seeing the cost benefit because it will kind of flip which campaign it's spending more monies in based on what's doing so well for us, which is why it's kind of changed from making that focus the day tripper to more into events as a whole across all three different markets that we're trying to hit.

OK. Thank you for that. Appreciate it. Absolutely.

Thank you, Councilor Newton. I think you might have to turn that off because it Yeah. Council call.

So a number of businesses decided not to be open on weekends during the COVID era and have continued to stay closed on weekends. Is there any effort to communicate to them the numbers of tourists or visitors that are here on weekends so that they might reconsider?

I think that's definitely a conversation that we're continuing to have with our business community, especially with different things like these bigger events that we are bringing in. For example, the New Mexico single track race, I think, is a great example of this. So it's a weekend event. It's going to be on a Saturday when we know a lot of these places either close early or they're not open at all. And we've reached out to them directly, and we're continuing to do boots on the ground efforts to try to get those people interested and involved with being open. Because when you have a situation when you know there's going to be at least 260 people who have registered, at least I would say at least 10% of those people are probably going to want breakfast before you go on a massive bike ride that's 15 plus miles, if not 20 or 30. And so recommending to some of these businesses that we know offer things like breakfast burritos giving them the opportunity for that. And the other really great thing about our partnership with the New Mexico Singletrack folks is that they opted for the first year that if you wanted to be a vendor, that fee would be waived. So the only fee that people actually have to pay as a business if they wanted to have an actual booth at Ashley Pond Park on the day of would be they'd have to pay for their regular business registration, which a lot of them already have. And then aside from that, they just need the proof of insurance. So kind of how much you have to put in in order to potentially receive benefit. Or the other kind of side of that, not only with the ones that are local, but some of those food trucks and things like that, if they wanted to test out our market and see is there an interest in this, it's a great opportunity for those people as well. So it's definitely a continuous conversation about what that data looks like and where that benefit could be. But between that and obviously the different arts and craft shows, I mean, especially I think all of us were at the county fair and rodeo. And what you see is that the people who have the vendors at the arts and crafts fair completely sell out and you've still got people who are hungry. So they do go to those businesses that are open. And I think it's difficult because We have businesses that have multiple locations, so they don't really feel that need to be open on the weekend. They're getting what they need as a business owner. But it's definitely a conversation that I think we're going to continue to have with those businesses How can we work together even if we know there's a big event in town? For example, I think it's Blue Window that every time there's a Christmas parade, you know they're going to be booked solid. And so just things like that and communicating with them when there are these additional streams when we know there's going to be an influx of visitors to help try to remind them, if you do stay open, it could be a great benefit for you.

Mm-hmm.

Thank you, Chair.

So when you say you're trying to get information from the hotels, what kind of stuff are you looking for? Is it competitive that they don't want to share, or is it

It varies place to place whether they feel the information is competitive. So what we do know for certain is that in our market, there's definitely a flux even day to day how much they're charging a room because it's based on what that availability is as a whole. So if there's a lot of hotel rooms booked, then they're going to have a much higher rate because it's like the demand of a product, right? And because of that, It's really hard for them to just say, here's how much we charge for a room every single day. It's easier for them to say, here's how much our average charge of a room was in a month. The other part of the data that we would be interested in knowing, there's a lot of different software that exists when it comes to people paying that you can see where the credit card is even from. So that information is something we're kind of interested in. We can see on our side some of that data and what that looks like with Placer AI as to what those top DMAs are and what those markets are that people are coming from. But there could be a situation where those people might be coming and going every single day from Santa Fe, perhaps. And we just don't know that. I mean, I think the big thing is just knowing what is the charge of a room, but also how full are they? That's the other thing we really don't have an answer to. They can tell us left, right, and backwards, and we've heard it, that they are much busier on weekdays than weekends because of the lab. But actually seeing those numbers, we don't have accurate data from almost the last 10 years to kind of validate those comments that we're hearing from the different hoteliers.

But is it realistic? Because they don't want to share that data with everybody else. They don't mind you seeing it, but I mean,

I think it really depends on the conversation and the people. I know my understanding is prior to me starting, there was a time, 2017, everyone was willing to share that information. And then there became a time where the people who were in those seats, who were the managers, When one person said no, then they all said, well, if you're not going to, then I'm not going to. Yeah, sure, sure. And it kind of turned into a domino effect. But I think we've really changed who our managers are. And the ones that I have spoken to, I don't know who the replacement is for Dana at the Holiday Inn since she retired. But the other two larger hotels, the Wingate and then the Hampton Inn here in town, I know they are kind of willing to help share that information to gather for us. And I can tell you there are other communities especially speaking with Max Kudiakov, who's my boss, that Red River was very willing to play ball and share that data with people. So there are communities where it exists, and it's not really a competition because a lot of them are still filling their rooms, but I think it's definitely something that is interesting in terms of... I really think...

It's useful to the competitors to see your profiles of what people you have, and I would imagine that's going to be very hard to get them to do, but yeah.

But yeah, our conversation right now, at least we know there's one on board to share.

At least the details. They'll give you gross numbers or something.

Correct.

You already have that, I think.

Yeah. I think it's a conversation that we're continuing to have with those hoteliers. And I think it's one that it sounds like Again, there are different people in those seats now that perhaps they might be willing to share that data again on what it looks like, even if it might just be, what is your occupancy? I think that's the big question that's really on the table is, what is your occupancy? We know what our current lodgers tax is. And granted, we know some of those are probably lab employees in temp housing. But how much occupancy is left that perhaps we haven't tapped into yet that could help us increase our lodgers tax?

Yeah, well, good luck getting him to share that. That would be difficult. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Rieger. Any other questions? Okay, not seeing any. I had a couple questions. So, thank you for your presentation. So, the lodger's tax has very specific uses, which you basically alluded to. So when we get lodger's tax or get more lodger's tax, it's basically to help with tourism. And I think in some cases, some communities have done things that were tourism adjacent. We've never done that. I don't think in Los Alamos because we don't generally get enough lodger's tax income. Do you recall how much sort of tourism efforts are supplemented by general fund?

compared to lodgers tax revenues but it's not insubstantial right it's so essentially the parts how about I break it down as the parts of tourism that are not covered by lodgers tax is that helpful as what buckets exist out there so there is Now I'm drawing a complete blank, which is great. There is funding that is spent on what we call SWAG, so the giveaway items. We have some additional printing and binding funds. These are all within economic development. And then we have additional funds, which is what helps supplement the rest of the New Mexico True program that we participate in. So through lodger's tax, there's only $15,000 that is included that is utilized for New Mexico True through Destination IQ's Contract I know it's a little bit long-winded as to how we get there But there's 15,000 there and then whatever the rest of that amount is is essentially what we have so I would say that usually is about 50,000 and Then we do have a little bit Extra for advertising what that exact number is I don't want to quote it since I don't have a budget book in front of me But I would say I believe it's not more than 15,000

If that helps understand where most of our chair comes from unless yeah, you've got more check the only thing I'll add is that You in the past I want to say since I was been in the county managers over the last ten years There was a time when the lodgers tax revenue didn't cover even half and of our contracts, our tourism marketing contract, our Visit Los Alamos, our visitor center contract and such. So we are now at a point where, in general, the fund does cover almost 100% of the tourism marketing and the Visit Los Alamos contract and additional items like Ellen said, banners and printed materials and such. So it's actually swapped quite a bit over the 10 years that I've been involved in tourism.

Okay. So as you know, we're going to be voting on LIDA and MRI projects. So one of the things that gets mentioned as a benefit is lodger's tax revenue. So given the lodger's tax, though, has a very specific purpose, it seems like, so that's what we're trying to find out, like how much are we supplementing county funds, because then we could use it readily. So we would have to be expanding, which isn't a bad thing. If we have more rooms, then we can have more marketing. But I just wanted to understand where we were relative to revenues on lodgers tax. And then if we had more rooms, or there was more occupancy, we'd have more lodgers tax revenue. So I guess the number of hotel rooms, though, is probably no different than it was in 2017, right? But there could be short-term rentals?

I believe there is actually fewer, because Canyon Road, no. Is that what it is? Canyon Road Inn? North Road Inn closed, OK. Well, North Road Inn closed, but also the Canyon Inn, the one that was downtown Los Alamos that had about 7 to 10 also closed in the last six months.

So we lost the flood?

And then North Road Inn.

And Motel 6, I don't know, 2017. I don't know when it closed.

Yeah, I'm not sure when Motel 6 closed.

I don't think Motel 6 was open in 2017.

I can almost guarantee that. But I will say if those additional funds existed, another way that people utilize their lodgers tax that we don't have the ability to do yet is to help fund advertising for events that other people are promoting and putting on. And that's where the idea of if there was more monies aside from just paying for our contracts, we could give back to the community in terms of those nonprofits that are running things, you know, like an arts fair, that are running a bike race, that are running, I don't know, a horse show, a rodeo. Yeah, all these different things that we have in our community on any given weekend, even if it's a Tuesdays at the Square, for example, they could potentially, you know, get funding for that and that's where we currently don't have a fund and we have heard with that that our business community would love to see that for the events that they put on or you know help promote that sort of thing and with additional hotel rooms then you have additional revenue which could then help source that and i know connor on the other end of the spectrum with her job has applied for those funds in other counties from my understanding so she she understands the benefit on the receiver side through santa fe and rio riba and taos there you go um i think something else to keep in mind for our hotel rooms is our um why can i not not stipend the federal reimbursement rate your our per diem rate is lower than santa fe's per diem rate

And so we have a lot of contractors who will stay in Santa Fe and get their per diem rate covered at a higher rate than if they stay here. That's something that's out of our control, but we do lose a little bit of revenue because of that as well.

Okay. So I think that probably before 2017, there was sort of an assessment of how many rooms we could easily absorb. Right? So how many more hotel rooms do we need? So we obviously lost some along the way. But there's been no discussion about evaluating that, lodger's tax, because it's, I mean, do hoteliers really want more competition? If they're booked, I guess they don't mind, right? But I remember that was an interesting discussion. It seemed like there was support for having, you know, another hotel, and I guess the two projects, if I'm remembering right, they were like 60 plus about 20 rooms, so not a lot of rooms, of what we've heard so far. So it doesn't sound like that would be maybe much more than we had when Hotel 6 was opened and some of the other properties you mentioned. So you mentioned short-term rentals. So do we know, when I've checked before, there weren't very many. And do we know if, I guess, does anybody check to see if they're paying lodger's tax?

So the way that we operate is we do not have a policy for short-term rentals. I want to say it was probably about five-ish or so, or even in between five and seven, because it was around the time of the tourism strategic plan, because it was an action item to look into what having a policy could do for us. When it was kind of looked at back then, I'm not sure the exact number they were at. Right now, I would probably estimate there's at least 25 to maybe 35. I haven't looked in a minute. But we do not require those people to opt in to pay lodger's tax. And so because there isn't a requirement that makes them sign up to say, yes, I am a short-term rental, I'm considered lodging, therefore I must pay lodger's tax. It's an opt-in program, essentially. But what I can tell you is that we have had probably at least a handful at this point in the last year or so choose to kind of opt in to doing that to just make sure they're abiding by their own conscience of having a short-term rental location. But there isn't any formal policy that exists, and I don't believe, since we first looked at it, there's been a study again about what is the total number that there was back in 2020 or so, or whenever that study was done, and we worked with the company to look at that. There are so many different services out there that exist. You might just think it's Airbnb and it's Vrbo and that's probably about it. But you've got the ones that are, I can't even think of what it's called, but it's like the one if you wanted to camp at someone's property. There's all kinds of different ones like that that exist now where you basically park your camper for a night, that sort of thing. Yeah. that exist. And so because of that, it's kind of hard to determine on our own what that number actually looks like and what that potential missing revenue might be.

Okay. I didn't have any more questions. So if there's any public comment or questions. Okay. Not seeing anyone here. Mr. Brielle, can you look online for us?

Chair, I'm not seeing any hands raised online.

Okay. Well, thank you very much for being here and the presentation. Thank you. All your work on waters. Okay. So I think we're on to the next item, 5B21139-26. It'll be a briefing presentation to council by David Hampton, personnel board member.

Evening, Chair, Righty Council. So personnel board is currently at four members. We had member Wernicke and member Hauser term out in March, and we were able to replace one of them with Chair Kakko, who we made chair in June, replacing me. She's unable to be here tonight. And also the term of this report, I was largely chair of. Our county liaison is Councilor Neal Clinton. Our purpose is primarily to serve as an appellate in an appellate capacity for employees protesting personnel actions. We also are advised upon occasion changes in personnel policy. So one thing is that for the first time in my tenure, we actually had an appeal last March. So we meet every Thursday at 1130, or I'm sorry, four Thursdays at 1130, except for a couple of months. And we usually cancel a meeting because there's not a whole lot of reason to have it. We're fully trained. We complete our work plan. And at the meetings we do have, Ms. Martinez presents us with certain metrics that we look at, including, I thought this was kind of interesting, we look at the number of job postings, applications received per job posting, total applications received, promotions, new hires, and then we look at years of service and how many employees fall within that. So if you look at the last three or four years, we've had a lot of new employees. In the near future, we're going to be looking at also, we've been told we'll be looking at some revised personnel rules. Our current vacancy rate is 6.4%, and we were at a point where we had almost all positions filled, but I know we've been struggling with a lot of retirements this year, which is good for the employee, but they're hard to fill. Ways that council can help with, and you guys have been doing a great job, I think, is addressing the housing issue. And a more difficult one is maybe addressing the competition with lab. And with that, are there any questions?

Okay, so again, this is just a presentation update from Personnel Board, so councillors have any questions or comments? Okay, not seeing any here. So I guess there are no questions or comments. So thank you for the presentation. I guess we'll see if there's any public comment before... Not seeing anyone coming forward in the fire station. Mr. Grayl, can you look online for us?

If you're online and you'd like to comment, please raise your hand. Not seeing anything, Chair.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Hampton, and everything you're doing on the personnel board. Thank you. So now we're on to item 5C, 21995-26. It'll be briefing on the electric coordination agreement. So we have Mr. Holbrook and Mr. Shelton.

Okay, so good evening. I'm gonna have Ben walk through the slides, and I'm here to support on Thank you Mr..

Chair counselors, I'm Ben over deputy utilities manager utility manager for power supply So you can flip the slide please? So this picture here is a cartoon representation of that, in a nutshell, captures why we even have the electric coordination agreement between the DOE, NSA, and the county. It's because our electrical system is complicated. Unlike a typical utility, the county electric utility does not own all of the assets needed to get energy from generators to the users, whether they're residences, businesses, or the national lab. You can see here, it's color-coded. The green parts, part of it's off-screen, but shows that we have county contracts for resources, generating resources. We have county-owned assets, Abiquiu Hydroelectric Facility and Alvaro Hydroelectric Facility. But to get those generating... resources and the electricity they produce to the actual county and the national lab, we have to go through other transmission providers, mostly PNM, but also Northern Rio Arriba Electric Co-op, Jemez Mountain Electric Co-op, and others for when we buy power from distant areas. So that's what the yellow block is there. Those are those other third parties that provide our transmission, the actual wires that get our electrons to us. And then the next key part is that the DOE and NSA actually owns the final leg of transmission that gets all the energy both to the National Lab, but also to the county businesses and residences. We don't own that transmission, none of it. It's either DOE, PNM, or another party. Finally, DOE owns the substations that provide the energy to Los Alamos town site. We have the White Rock one just over here. We do own that, but again, the transmission lines and the backup power feeds are provided by DOE facilities. So I just wanted to put that in context. We're not a typical electric utility. We don't own everything. And the DOE has a lot of the pieces that we need in order to get the power to us. And that's why we partner with them through the electric coordination agreement. It's coming together to blend the resources that we both have, the generation and the physical hardware and transmission and substations, to get some efficiencies that we wouldn't have if we had to go and transact for all of those things separately. Next slide, please. So since 1985, when the ECA that we're currently operating under through extensions was started, we've been doing this for over 40 years now. It's the contract that allows us to combine those resources, like I said, and squeeze out any cost efficiencies we can. Next slide, please. So it's been modified over the past 40 years. As you can imagine, it's not a static agreement. We've made updates to address changes in markets, changes in resources as new generating resources get acquired. For example, the latest one was the Foxtail Flats contract. for solar energy and battery energy storage. A big one prior to that was the Uniper deal, which we no longer have, as well as the addition of the low-flow hydroelectric facility, the third turbine at Abiquiu. All of those things worked through the ECA process, and contract modifications were done to accept those resources into the power pool. So we have an overriding goal is to get what's called economic dispatch, which means we're trying to find the lowest cost energy we can get. We always do that. That's our guiding principle for it while maintaining reliability and balancing the needs of the markets and our piece in it and making sure we maintain reliability and maintain all the functions we have to do as a prudent utility. So 40 years on. 41 years, that ECA is not something that the DOE can continue. Their procurement rules have changed, as you can imagine, over 40 years. The contract structure is, while similar, has new requirements. Therefore, we need a new ECA if we want to continue this arrangement. And the new ECA is what we're calling the 2026 ECA. And it's intended to take the place of the 1985 ECA. Next slide, please. So drafting of this started. Over four years ago, the earliest record I can find of it was in April 2022. DOE, NSA, and county staff worked together through the operating committee to get all the changes in place that we thought were needed at the time. This really kicked off into a new level of final review and revision in December of last year, 2025, when we were able to get two Board of Public Utilities members to thoroughly review and help refine the entire ECA package. It consists of, I believe, six documents. So we had to make sure. Due to DOE's current procurement rules, the ECA was considered an open, active procurement, and we were not allowed to share the documents publicly. Therefore, that's why we, back in December last year, we could only share it with the subquorum group of the Board of Public Utilities. We did have an opportunity to individually share it with the rest of the board, but that was a one-time review process there. We've looked at all the electric needs of both parties. Oh, yeah, we're ready to go to the next slide. And we try to procure power with an improved economy of scale. So that provides some benefits. As a small utility, having 80% of our load customer pooling with us on these generation resources allows us to get into larger projects, which brings economies of scale that we otherwise wouldn't have. We are able to share power operations staff to eliminate duplicated roles and lower costs for operational needs. And we have a coordinated joint control over separate assets instead of them being independently managed. So we have our operating committee that meets approximately every six weeks to discuss any issues that we're having and future plans. And so we resolve those and get them all squared away in advance of bringing them to the board and the council. It allows us to bribe. provide longer-term plan management and operation stability to the way we do run our electric utility. As I mentioned, the operating committee is key to that. Instead of making short-term reactions to external forces, we can plan out strategically. Like I said, we have a 20-year asset that we have signed up for with Foxtel Flats. 40-plus year commitment to Laramie River Station and a lifetime commitment to our hydroelectric facilities. All of those have been enabled by the existing ECA and will continue to be covered under that as we manage the power pool. Next slide, please. So I do want to say that there are specific responsibilities for both parties. Both parties in the ECA have to participate in the operating committee. They each have one member. Mr. Philo Shelton, the utilities manager, is the representative for the county, and Cassandra Begay is the representative for the DOE and NSA field office. The county provides the power generation, management, and scheduling staff. I am the operations manager, so I run the operating committee and manage those meetings and handle the bulk of the day-to-day type operations, with the exception of my power systems supervisor, Nick Nelson, who handles the operations staff. The DOE, as I mentioned, the DOE and NSA has the transmission lines it gives the county. One-sided relationship there. The county provides all the billing and accounting functions to the ECA. And the DOE and NSA provides the bulk electric metering. They are all the meters that register into our system and what comes out to town site and Weyrock. Next slide, please. So we have a new ECA. I've talked about the old ECA and why we have the old ECA. So the question is, why are we doing this new ECA, and what does it give us now that we didn't have before? If we're going to go to the trouble of having a new ECA, surely it provides some added benefits beyond just keeping it modern. It does. So we have new provisions for mitigating the county's risks of procuring long-term generation resources. Structured into the agreement is a way provide cost allocation. So normally we allocate the cost based upon how much of the electricity is used by each party. Typically 80% plus or minus is used by the laboratory, and the remaining 20% is used by the county. And that's generally the way we've treated it in the past. What we're changing now, this is a big change here, is we're going to The county takes a risk when we sign up for long-term resources. That's unavoidable. We have a big customer for most of our load, but we're signing on the dotted line for these resources. And what do we get from that? Well, we take some risk because the DOE, they're our biggest customer and they're a reliable customer. They've been a great customer for 40 years, and we expect them to continue to be so. But you never know what could happen in the future. So we're trying to mitigate some of that cost risk by changing the way we allocate costs to the DOE. When we make these long-term procurement contracts, We have a new mechanism in there to capture some of that risk as a cost premium to the DOE in exchange for us taking the county, taking that risk. Now we're building in a premium. If we provide power that is at a below market rate because we took those long-term commitments, we get a financial compensation for that. And there's a formula that goes into it in detail. I can answer any questions if people want to go further into it, but I'll leave it at that for now. The other big piece is that we are bringing Sandia National Laboratory and Kerland Air Force Base into the fold of our power off-takers. Beyond just the county with the 20% and the DOE, well, at its 80%, we're also going to be selling 30 megawatts nameplate. So it could go up, could go down, depending on what their actual power needs are. of Foxtel Flats, PV, and energy storage to Sandia National Lab, Kirtland Air Force Base. And that's in the new ECA agreement. So that's a new, they think of it as a new big customer for us to reduce, additionally, the risks of buying into these big long-term contracts. It also includes new language to address recent and coming electric market costs that are both known and unknown and how we will allocate those costs equitably to the two parties. And it has a specific way of allocating costs from DOE-imposed compliance costs. There are some requirements in there primarily about security for staff who is working on laboratory facilities. We have obligations to meet safety and security and personnel rules. If there are any costs there that are explicitly to the benefit and solely to the benefit of the laboratory, they will bear the burden of those costs as determined by the operating committee. So potentially, if it benefits them and doesn't do anything for their county ratepayers and customers, then the DOE will pay for that entirely. That's built into the structure to allow that to happen. And the last item I want to mention is it provides a method prescriptive method for how we're going to address new resources. Like I said, the DOE's procurement rules have changed over time. They are limited into the duration of power contracts that they can sign up for, utility contracts. They can only sign up for a maximum of 10 years. And generally, when we sign up for long-term resources, it's at least 20 years, potentially longer, up to 40 or 60 years in some cases. And so this new ECA provides a method for how we will address that to maintain and mitigate those long-term risks additionally. And that includes generating resources as well as new transmission resources and other things such as if the county electrifies enough and we need to build a new substation for the county's needs, how will we handle that? So those things are the template is built into the new ECA of how to address those types of changes. that we either know are coming and ones we don't know. Next slide, please. Everything that has an upside also has some downsides. So as I mentioned, there is a limit to the county to the DOE's length of procurement that they can do, 10 years max. So we're taking the risk, I've mentioned that repeatedly, of long-term resource commitments. They can't have 40-year power contracts like we've had up until now. So the new ECA is only a 10-year agreement. However, built into it is a DOE's option to extend the contract for an additional 10-year term beyond that. So this contract, under the first section of it, would go out for 10 years through 2036. And then if the DOE chooses to exercise the option to extend, that could be up to what is expected to be for an additional 10 years. Now, I would like to say that we We would be 100% confident that they will exercise that option. But I can't say that with 100% confidence. But based on the historical precedence, I believe it's a fair risk to take. The last thing I want to add, oh, wait, I have another bullet here. I already talked about the DOE compliance requirements, so I'll move on past that. And the last item I want to mention, and something we're currently working through the final pieces of resolving, is that there were some limits on the DOA's liability for what's called termination for convenience. The federal government has a quite unique opportunity to terminate any agreement that they're in at their discretion. There are clauses and provisions that go along with such termination for convenience that regulate how they make the other party whole when they elect to terminate for convenience. And there were some details and nuances in how the language was implemented in the new ECA that we've been working through to clear some hurdles about limitations on liability. on the DOE such that it raised the risk to the county of not being able to get fair compensation if the DOE were to terminate for convenience. So I believe we've got that largely worked out. Philo and I were in a meeting just today to do that. So he may want to elaborate on that a bit.

Just to elaborate a little more on that. Our biggest risk is the 20-year PPA that we signed up for with Foxtail Flats. That project goes online next spring. So this agreement closely matches that 20-year term that we have with them. And so that's probably the benefit. I think today, through our legal team and theirs, we worked out an amicable solution We're going to receive that tomorrow by noon, and then we're going to walk the board through what changes were made to the contract and hopefully receive their approval for that agreement. I think it's at a point where we need to make a decision to continue with this long-term partnership that we've had with limiting our risk the best we can. It's no different than our You know, federal government is kind of like the county government. We have annual appropriations. They have similar appropriations clauses and termination clauses. But we got some closure on reducing the damages that, you know, should they terminate for convenience. you know, on our foxtail flats. That's our large obligation the county signed up for that we have to protect our rate payers from any potential exposure or reduce that to the best we can. So that we worked through today. Everyone seemed to be in agreement, but we'll see the final words on paper hopefully by noon tomorrow. So then we'll walk the board through the changes from there. That's probably our last slide because I think we didn't quite get there. Let Ben finish.

Thank you, Mr. Shelton. This next slide here, it poses a question of if we don't renew the ECA, what happens? We don't really have a identified path forward without the ECA. It's a necessary thing, as I mentioned, just because of the inextricable linkage and connection between the resources of the DOE and the county. Losing a partner of 80% of our load would leave the counter with far too much power and generation And as Philo mentioned a key part of that is our contract for Foxdale flats resources We would be left exposed with those resources, and I have to seek either to sell them or Assign the contract in some fashion at whatever price we can get from the market Maybe tool to a profit or maybe to a loss unknown There's no mechanism, we would have no mechanism for cost recovery on the county's long-term electric assets. There is no mechanism for delivering power to the county residences and businesses. As I mentioned, we don't have an arrangement outside of the ECA for getting that power through the laboratory system. There would be no staff and systems in place for replacing the DOE and LANL staff and resources, and vice versa. The DOE doesn't have the resources to do all the power scheduling and power operations resources functions that our staff provide, the county staff provides. They don't have that. Any alternative approach to the ECA, I would expect to bring some chaos to the way we get our power, and it would just be uncharted territory at this point. Next slide, please. And then this one says, moreover, not reviewing the ESA would impose costs and complexity on the DOE and NSA and LANL, which is our customer for 80% of our load, as I mentioned. there'd be no power supply for the lab at all, which is a critical national asset. Potential disruption to Lionel's mission. As I mentioned, they have no transmission agreements in place with PNM to even get the power to their piece of the transmission system, and they don't have any power scheduling functions like we do. And I believe that wraps us up. I do want to point out that this statement here was aspirational. DPU staff do strongly support the approval of the new CEA, but we haven't got DPU support yet. We hope to get there. Thank you. Any questions, please? I want to stand ready to answer.

Thank you, Mr. Holbrook and Mr. Shelton. We have any, this is just informational for basically next week, right? We have this back for actual consideration. So are there any questions or comments from council? Councillor Abbott.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Mr. Ulrich and Mr. Shelton. Could one surmise that our electric rates that we charge our residents, it includes the cost of power, but it also includes some kind of an overhead burden to have a staff who makes sure that the power gets to our residents' homes. And a whole bunch of things have to happen to make that happen. that one of the things that staff has to spend resources and time on is managing the ins and outs of having a large customer such as DOE slash LANL. And that includes, especially in the last couple of years, specifically since 2022 it sounds like, although I think this has kind of been an ongoing thing since the 1985 ECA. There's like a renewal every year, right, where you tweak some things. Correct me if I'm wrong on that, but this is a big one because it's a whole new contract. What I'm getting at is part of what our county Department of Public Utilities staff spend time on is negotiating this, managing this, administrating it, And that is just a cost burden that we all have to pay for the benefits that you just had on a prior slide that we get from that relationship that's mutually beneficial. And so I just want to make sure that I'm not misunderstanding that we all need to understand, I think, that that is one of the costs of providing power that maybe other utilities in our state don't have to budget for. Would you say that that's all kind of correct, or am I just kind of really wrong on that?

Chair and Councillor Havenman, I think what you're asking about is the staff has cost allocation. My salary, Ben's salary is primarily put to the power pool, which anything power, is charged to that, the time. I'm done by an allocation by dollars, et cetera, but we do have allocation. Our finance and administration deputy as well as our business manager primarily work on issues around the ECA and the billing, their time allotted to those activities as well. It's an equitable cost share. But if we didn't have the agreement, there's a lot of staff hours that are allocated to this ECA, you know, for that 80% of the power used by the lab. So that's what's unique about us is we have one large customer. That's the federal government and other, you know, co-ops or other smaller like Farmington. They have more industry. They don't have a large federal off-taker of power for their community. But this ECA allows all those costs are shared. You mentioned about other aspects. When you look at our budget, we have the power electric production element. and we have electric distribution. So when you look at distribution, that's after the substations comes into the community distributing electric. That's solely paid by the Los Alamos rate payers because that infrastructure only supports the county customers, not the one laboratory. So the laboratory does their own electric distribution work, and they have their team that manages it. There's little areas that cross over, you know, special customers like Elk Ridge, probably the biggest one with electric because it's on LANL system, and then there's a meter and spurs in. But we have a, you know, as Ben mentioned in the slide, a lot of metering. Bandelier is another one. They have a few sites where, you know, we have to do. And then there's several telecommunication bills. So there's a lot of metering done where we built. Any of the private customers in the DOE is one customer that we bill. Hopefully that answered your question.

It does. Thank you. And it sounds like then when managerial staff time is spent or administrative staff time is spent on anything related to the ECA and or our agreements with LANL to provide power to them, that gets charged to them. So it's a net. It balances out. Okay.

Right.

Okay. Good clarification. Thank you.

And I might add one more thing. I think, you know, the benefit of a large, by pooling resources, Sandia, Kirtland, the laboratory, and us, is we're able to participate in a large project like Foxtail Flats, you know, and deliver that energy to the community. If we were trying to procure that by ourselves, we'd have to do probably 10 or 20 small little projects just to get a renewable resource in the town. So there's benefits to have in scale, too, to meet our renewable energy goals. I know we wouldn't have been able to do the Foxtail on its own.

Thank you. And I would presume that they're also glad that they're going to have a renewable energy source in their portfolio too.

Thank you sure ready council have a minute. I'd like to add build on what Philo mentioned with Sandy or Kirtland They also we provide what's called a scheduling agent services for them meaning we schedule the power We don't procure all of their energy But we schedule it on a daily basis and on an hourly basis and that means that when you mentioned staff we have our power operations staff who work a 24 7 7 days 365 schedule around the clock Not only do we allocate that you know with our normal 80-20 split between the laboratory and the County but Sandia Kirtland also Weighs in for that function so that cuts down the county's cost for those staff down to less than 10% of the cost of those people We'd still need to have those people even if we're utility not serving the DOE and So those costs would still be there, but we'd be bearing 100% of them.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Haveman. Councillor McLean.

Thank you, Chair. I just have two quick questions. And Mr. Ulbrich, you alluded to both of them. So one is how will the county protect rate payers from the mismatch between the ECA's 10-year term and then the county's longer-term generation transmission and debt commitment particularly this is the part and you alluded to this earlier if Doe in an essay declines the optional 10-year extension I Know that you know we've had this long-standing relationship, but you know but chair righty and counselor Neal Clinton that that's the one hurdle that you know we have is the

they have the option to renew. And that's where Mr. Ulbrich mentioned that. He's pretty 99%. I don't know what number he'd want to put to it, but very confident given the long-term relationship we've had. That's how we funded projects in the past, too, with the hydroelectric projects. The county went and issued bonds for those projects. We had transmission line upgrades in the past. Is there 100% assurance? No. But we worked hard to have it as easy as possible for them to renew that option by doing this new 2026 ECA agreement. So it should be much simpler than what we just went through.

Okay. All right. Second question. And this is about the termination for convenience. So before council's asked to act on the final ECA, will the staff provide the final termination for convenience language and a written estimate of the county's financial exposure?

Yes, the language, we should have all that in place tomorrow. We haven't done an estimate. Primarily, the estimate is going to run the value of the Foxtail Flats contract is the majority of the cost of this agreement over the life of the 20-year term.

Okay. All right. So we're using Foxtail then as our collateral, for lack of a better word?

Right. And we, with the DOE, we did have the discussion. With owned assets, they're not able to, do risk mitigation with our hydroelectric plants, for example. But since we own those assets, we have the ability to use or dispose those. And so the asset's there. So it's not a huge liability because we own it. So those are the things you have to think about. And then we have Laramie River Station where we're required when that closes in approximately 2042 there's decommissioning costs with that and we do assign costs for decommissioning each per megawatt hour built into our current rate structure so we have funds set aside to handle that so you know if they cancel we still have those funds in the bank to help with that and then we'd have to figure a way to reassign that usage.

Thank you, both.

Thank you, Councilman Yelkin. Any other?

Thank you, Chair. So is there any real opposition at DOE to this? I mean, there's really, it would be terribly complicated to untangle it. So when they're negotiating with you, what is their real what is their point? It's the side details of the agreement?

Is that the only thing they're talking about? Yes, it's basically the work that we did was try to bridge what the 1985 ECA and what we can do with today's contract language to make it look as close as possible. It's not the same agreement, but it's we've worked hard to try to mitigate the county's risk to the ratepayers through this agreement, this new agreement. And it's taking time. But the tenor of the discussions has always been productive to move towards that end of continuing this relationship and partnership. It's not adversarial. Well, how will they get out of it in 10 years?

Except that would be a really complicated thing. It's still the same way to unwind it, right? Because you have all this stuff that's on it. You have to build whole new power lines and whole new generations. Go ahead.

No, you're right. If they decide to do something in 10 years from now, they'll still have the same issues to online. All the same issues, yeah.

So it's quite likely this is a 20-year deal. Yes, very likely in my opinion. How did they get out of it? And then what is our margin on the power we sell the DOE that we pass through to them? We're buying it and then selling it. What is the difference?

Today, it's all cost share based on kilowatt hours used, proportional. And Mr. Ulbrich, why don't you explain the other one with the Palo Verde index?

Chair, Councillor Rieger, excellent question. Let me get into some details there. So as Mr. Shelton mentioned, currently under the 1985 ECA with extensions, it's a strict cost share. There was a mechanism that got outdated to provide some, as you mentioned, some margin to the county, as you would expect of any utility, but that never materialized and it didn't actually come into practice. So given that that was an original spirit and intent of the first EECA, the 1985 EECA, we have added a new provision into the 2026 EECA that what it does is it looks at a, for the month, for long-term contracted resources, not, again, as Mr. Shelton mentioned, not for owned resources, but when we sign up for a PPA, such as Foxtail Flats or the Energy Storage Agreement thereof, when we sign up for that we have a fixed price that prices that go along with that energy this was energy cost is a storage and they pay the same price now yes so in theory there is but what we've done is we've added some market pricing awareness so if market prices rise such that foxtail flats winds up being a much cheaper alternative than or cheaper alternative than market purchases, then the county gets half of that cost difference as a benefit to it, as a margin, as you say, a return on our efforts.

Does that make sense?

No, I don't follow it, but go ahead, try to finish. Let me give you a dollar example, although I don't remember my dollar example. But the point was, say there's a $10 difference between what we procured Foxdale flats for, what we're paying for Foxdale flats, and the market price is $10 higher. What we'll say is, okay, we went and made this contract agreement. We want some return on that investment and that risk. What we'll do is we'll take that $10 difference, we'll cut that in half, $5, and the DOE will pay $5 more than the county paid for those resources for Foxdale Flats specifically.

Oh, so there is a small margin based on an index.

Exactly. It's based on what's called the Palo Verde Index, which is a major trading hub in the southwest. The flip side to that is what if market prices fall? Well, the DOE just pays what the actual cost was in that case. So we have upside and no downside there.

Yeah. Well, it's also such a good deal for them that I can't imagine, again, why there wouldn't be any internal opposition at DOE that you ever heard. I mean, did you ever hear any?

I personally have not. They've been very supportive.

It's just lots of details to work out that have to go with their rules.

Yes.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Rieger. I'm not seeing any other questions here. So I guess just to comment about, so Department of Defense can do 30-year PPAs, and I think we had some advocacy for Department of Energy to have the same authority. It won't help us next week or what you're doing right now, but wouldn't that be a beneficial thing to be able to have the department engage in the longer term? Because the agreement could match whatever the primary resources were. contracting at that time. So is that something that we have been discussing?

Chair, I can tell you when I was working on the CFPP project, I went to our congressional delegation many times about asking for that longer-term provision. This current ECA, the new one that's going to be before you next week, actually has some to outline guidance language where we could contract an energy project with WAPA, the Western Area Power Administration, for up to 30 years. And then WAPA could contract back with DOE for the energy. Yeah, because they could contract WAPA. So it would be federal to federal. So there's a mechanism to do that. And that may be something we pursue if we did, for example, an investment in a large geothermal project We needed a 30-year term.

So is that something that could be amended if they were given the authority hypothetically?

Well, sure.

Yeah. Okay. I'd be very interested in seeing this termination in convenience language. So have you gone back like any number of years to this Palo Verde index and look at how we would have done? with you know how beneficial would it have been to have had that you know the upside with the resource for just going backwards in time is that something that that you looked at and just in terms of like you know providing that additional assurance that it does sound good but does it work out to be beneficial financially good question chair um i haven't done a full detailed analysis historically what i can tell you is that

When we signed up for Foxtel Flats, we also signed up for a two-year PPA with market purchases. That was priced at, I believe, around $78 a megawatt hour for a two-year period looking forward. Prior to that, our blended cost of what we pay for all the resources that we had procured previously was in the neighborhood of low 60s to mid 60s, $65 per megawatt hour. So you can already see there was a difference there. Subsequently, after getting that PPA, prices, as you have heard, as I've been buying, as we've been extending the ECA a month or a few months at a time, I've been only able to contract for short-term PPAs of a month to three months. And if you've seen the pricing that I've been getting, it has ranged anywhere from about $30 in April up to about $74 for this month. So there's a whole wide range of what the prices have been. So if you compare what we actually spend historically when we owned a lot of our resources and before San Juan Generating Station was retired, Yes, there would have been some delta for us to make a margin there.

Okay. So there's actually, my understanding is there's a very small, as you indicated, there's the federal funding is allocated basically annually, right? So this agreement is due to start soon. September 1st, 2026. September 1st. So there's like 30 days before. You know, there's no, I mean, right now we don't have a budget. So when there have been, you know, government shutdowns, has that ever affected the ability for DOE to fund the PowerPool?

Chair, I know last year we went through the continuing, or no budget for, what, three months or so? The lab was getting close. They had funding through the end of November at the time. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, there's some risk there, but it's also a necessity that, you know, I have to pay.

Okay. Okay. I think that was all I just wanted to ask you about. So, let's see if there's any public comments. Yeah. I have to state your name for the record, as you know.

Robert Gibson, Chair of the Board of Public Utilities. But I'm going to speak here primarily as a member of the board because the board hasn't taken any position on anything yet here. The board just saw this last month. So we've been trying to digest it ever since. At that time, actually, DOE wanted us to vote on it right then, which has been their approach all along. They generate it, and the county is supposed to approve without much consideration. We're doing our best to try to understand it before we vote on it. I'd just like to make a few comments here. One, if you go back before the agreement in 1985, power did get delivered to the county. I mean, that could be done. I mean, yes, physically it comes through the laboratory and the laboratory's facilities, but agreements existed then to get the job done. So that, yes, more agreements would need to be done, but it wouldn't necessarily be a showstopper. As I understood it from talking to people who were involved at the time, the primary purpose of this ECA was a little different than I think was just presented, and it's perhaps relevant when we're looking at the risk issue going forward. In the early 80s, county and DOE looked at electric power and the future requirements and future costs, et cetera, and determine there would be to the advantage of both to own assets, to own generating assets, not just to buy power off the market. So there was actually a $100 million bond issue floated If you can imagine what that would be in today's dollars. And it went to a public vote. It was quite controversial at the time. And that bond issue was for three purposes. One was to buy a share of the San Juan Generating Station. One was to build the two low head hydro plants up in the Rio Chama. Both of those of course were of great benefit to DOE, but it was They had procurement issues then as they do now. It was easier for them to have the county procure those resources. The third, which really didn't benefit DOE, was to buy the White Rock. distribution system, which up until then was owned by PNM. And because it was built by PNM, that's why it has a different voltage in the feeders that you'll every once in a while hear about, because it was a different system. But the county could not contract for those, make those big commitments and bond for them without having an assured customer. So hence the ECA came about to basically bind DOE for 30 years and then it was extended because there was some additional bonding for environmental upgrades to the San Juan Generating Station. it became 40 years, and then 41, but you know all about that. So it was a big part of the reason for this ECA was originally to mitigate risk to the county. It was a risk far beyond what the county itself could have taken on at that point.

I think you might be like a minute over your

Okay, well, I will try to wrap it up very quickly then. I would like to reinforce the comment that was made. I don't think there's been any malevolence on DOE's side. The big challenge here has just been the bureaucracy. You know, they've been more loyal to their rules and their regulations than focusing on getting the job done. So this agreement, if you try to read it, will look like a whole lot of square pegs hammered into round holes. It doesn't fit anything very well, but they tried to put it into a standard procurement formalism. It just hasn't worked very well, but we're trying to make it go. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Robert Gibson. Let's see, do we have anyone else here? I'm not seeing anyone else coming up. Mr. Rao, can you check online for us?

If you're online and you'd like to comment on this item, please raise your hand. Not seeing any chair.

Okay. Thanks again for the presentation and the comment from Mr. Gibson. Okay, so I think we're ready to move on to item 6, which is business. 6A is 22053-26. It's possible action to suspend council rules for the work session. Is there a councillor interested in making a motion? Councillor?

Thank you, Chair. I move that council suspend their procedural rules for this work session, August 18, 2026, so that formal action may be taken.

Second. Okay, we have a motion by Councillor Herman, second by Councillor Cole. I'm not seeing any discussion. Can you please call the roll?

Councillor Cole?

Yes.

Councillor Rigor?

Yes.

Councillor Hand?

Yes.

Councillor Hafferman?

Yes.

Councillor Herman? Yes. Councillor Neill-Clinton?

Yes.

Councillor Redding?

Yes.

Motion passes seven to zero.

Well, the record show the motion passes unanimously. So now we're on to item number seven, which is public comment for the items on the consent agenda tonight. Do we have anyone interested in making public comment on any of these items? Mr. Rauch, can you check online?

Please raise your hand online if you'd like to make a comment. No hands, Chair. Thank you.

So we're on to item number eight, consent agenda. So I believe there are no changes to any of the items. So they'd be looking for a motion for approval of as presented.

I move.

Yeah.

I move that council approve the items on the consent agenda as presented and that the motions and the staff reports be included for the record.

Thank you. Second? Second. So a motion by Councillor Nielsen, second by Councillor Cole. Okay, not seeing any discussion. Can you please call the roll?

Councillor Haverman? Yes. Councillor Redding?

Yes.

Councillor Hand?

Yes.

Councillor Cole?

Yes.

Councillor Regor?

Yes.

Councillor Herman? Yes. Councillor Neal-Clayton?

Yes.

Motion passes 7 to 0.

OK, let the record show the motion passes unanimously. So now we're on to item 9, which is introduction of ordinances. So 9A is OR 1155-26. It's introduction of incorporated county of Los Alamos ordinance number 762, an ordinance repealing ordinance 754 and granting cable franchise to Comcast Cable Communications Management LLC to instruct, operate, and maintain a cable system right away and provide cable service within the incorporated county of Los Alamos. So is there a councillor interested in Bring this one record.

I introduce without prejudice incorporated County of Los Alamos ordinance number seven sixty two an ordinance repealing ordinance number seven fifty four and granting a cable franchise to comcast cable communications management llc to construct operate and maintain a cable system in the public RIGHTS OF WAY AND TO PROVIDE CABLE SERVICE WITHIN THE INCORPORATED COUNTY OF LOS ALAMOS, ESTABLISHING THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF THE FRANCHISE AGREEMENT AND ESTABLISHING CERTAIN REMEDIES FOR THE VIOLATION OF THE FRANCHISE AND ASK STAFF TO ASSURE THAT IT IS PUBLISHED AS PROVIDED IN THE COUNTY CHARTER.

NEW SPEAKER THANK YOU, COUNCILOR COLL. THIS ONE WILL SOUND VERY FAMILIAR BECAUSE WE ACTUALLY HAD THIS ONE A FEW WEEKS AGO. MAYBE IT WAS IN JUNE. So the public hearing, I believe, for this one is scheduled for the September 8th meeting, if I'm remembering correctly. Okay. So I think we're ready to go on to the three public hearings we have on tonight. So 10 is public hearings. 10A is RE0689-26. So it's incorporated County of Los Alamos resolution number 2609. an election resolution setting forth ballot question number one to be submitted at the November 3, 2026 general election to the voters of the incorporated county of Los Alamos. Which question would amend the term limitation for standing boards and commissions and ad hoc advisory committees? So this is, I think, the third or fourth step in the process we've had. So Ms. Matheson, did you want to make a couple comments?

Chair, yes, I would. You are correct. This is almost the final step, but this is the final step of action that council would need to take to get the question on the ballot for the general election in November. If you read the resolution, it clearly states what the ballot question would be. If this resolution is passed, our county clerk then would have the ballot question translated to Spanish for the ballot as well, and then would submit both ballot questions to the Secretary of State to get it on the ballot for the November election. So with that, I would stand for any questions.

OK. Thank you, Ms. Masson. So we will be taking action on this item. So we'll just be, if there's any technical or clarifying questions on the resolution? OK. I actually have one. It might pertain to both of the ones. So what's going to show up on the ballot is what's in the box, correct? So when we look at the bottom of the resolution, the first page.

Chair, that is correct.

Okay. So I think this is a clarifying question. So is there a reason why it couldn't say, because it says two currently. So when you read this question, you don't know You're changing it to three, but you don't know what it was. So there's a reason why we wouldn't have changing from two to three? I guess the other technical question is you can change the language of the resolution if you so decided. So was that discussed at all for this one? I think it pertains to the next one, too.

chair i am seeing at the top bolded portion it's saying increase the number of terms a person may serve on the same standing board of commission from two terms in succession to three terms in succession so i actually am seeing where you we do note the change i'm just wondering about i think what's in the box that's in the box okay so the the bolded stuff the bolded at the top

Yeah, so serve from two terms to three terms, okay.

Correct.

It just doesn't say that, I guess, down below. But I don't know. I... Understood.

And I'll defer to Ms. Thwaites.

Chair, I have nothing further to add, but if you had any questions about changing the actual question, that could be up for discussion.

Okay. So I was just curious as to why, because when I read the question, I mean, I read the part that wasn't bolded as opposed to the part that was bolded. I don't know if it, these don't happen very often, so I don't know. Anyway, so that's why I was wondering about that. Council Member Neal-Clinton.

Thank you. I do have one question. So the item's title refers to ad hoc advisory committees, while the proposed amendment text refers to standing boards and commissions. So which bodies and members could be covered by the proposed change?

Chair, Righty, and Councillor Neill-Clinton, if I'm not mistaken, I'd probably have to go. We could look in Chapter 8 that defines the standing boards and standing committees. So I don't have that off the top of my head.

Okay. Okay. Thank you.

Chair, Councilor Neal-Clinton. So in the charter, Section 305 talks about all of the standing boards, commissions, and ad hoc advisory committees. Only Section 305.4 is what's being amended, which is the limitations. But 305.3, the subsection right above that, talks about the composition of standing boards and commissions. It says no more. Actually, no, that's the same political party, sorry. 305 is standing boards, commissions, and ad hoc advisory committees. And then 305.1 talks about the creation. 305.2 talks about county employees cannot be on boards. 305.3 talks about the composition, which is going to be the next thing that we talk about, about political parties. And then 305.4 talks about the limitations. Thank you.

OK, thank you, Councillor Naigleton. So no other questions? Okay, so I think we're ready to hear if there's any public comment. Does anyone at the fire station have public comment on this item? Okay, no one present. Mr. Rell, can you look online for us?

Chair, we have two. I'll start with James Warnecke. You're now unmuted.

Okay. My name is James Wernicke. So I just wanted to also second what Chair Reidy said about the question not having all the information directly in the question, specifically with the change from two to three terms. I just think that should be more specific in the question itself. Yeah, that's all I wanted to say.

Thank you Next we have Greg white I Hope you can hear me because I can't hear you I can hear the other people like counselor and james that are on zoom also but i can't hear a thing that any of you speaking in the microphones there are saying uh read the closed captioning which hopefully is accurate but my main comment comes from the next agenda item so i hope somebody can fix your microphones there so i can hear them at home

Okay, so you can't hear what I'm saying right now?

I can tell because of the captioning that Chair Righty is asking me a question about, and yeah, I can't really hear you. I mean, it's like, I can barely tell somebody's talking. No idea what you're saying without closed captioning.

Okay, so we're testing that again. Mr. White, can you hear me now?

Not really.

Okay.

As long as you can hear me for my comment on the next slide.

oh now i can hear you oh so no now that worked okay yeah hopefully i'll be able to hear the other council members also okay i hopefully everybody's on the same sound system here so okay uh thank you kindly so sure thanks for the letting us know okay do we have uh i think we have counselor is there anybody else public comment We have a councillor hand, I think.

No other hands.

Chair Righty, I just wanted to make a comment about the audio as well. I have my audio all the way up as far as it'll go, and I can barely hear you, but I have the captioning on. And so that helps me understand what people are saying. But I just want to let you know that from my computer, I'm also having a little bit of a problem with the audio.

Okay. Is it more audible now?

I CAN HEAR YOU. IT'S JUST, YOU KNOW, VERY LOW.

BUT I CAN HEAR YOU.

OKAY.

THANK YOU. I DON'T THINK WE HAVE ANY OTHER PUBLIC COMMENT. NO? OKAY. SO IS THERE A COUNSELOR INTERESTED IN MAKING A MOTION ON THIS FIRST RESOLUTION?

So I heard a possible amendment to the second part, the unbolded part, to make it clear that we're going from two to three. Is that correct?

I believe that's correct, yes.

And it's okay to do that?

Okay.

So I move that council adopt Incorporated County of Los Alamos Resolution Number 2609 as amended. An election resolution setting forth ballot question number one to be submitted at the November 3rd, 2026 general election to the voters of the Incorporated County of Los Alamos. Which question would amend? Just for the record, we...

Chair, I heard two different sentences, so... Yeah, we'll have to write something down so that we read the same thing. I wrote it down and then you added another word, so I want to make sure I get it right. Would I have, if I may?

Yeah, please.

So question one, shall Article 3, Section 305, Subsection 305.4 of the Charter of the Incorporated County of Los Alamos relating to standing boards and commissions and ad hoc advisory committees be amended to allow a person to serve on the same standing board or commission from no more than two to no more than three terms in succession?

Yeah, I think that's the same language as what's in bolded. Is that correct? Is that clear? I mean, that's just a matter of is that going to be clear enough to the public what the change is?

It works for me. Do I need to?

Repeat that?

Yeah, but I don't have the wording in front. What I'm saying is for some reason I'm not able to pull up the ordinance.

I have it if you want to use what I said and say as amended based on how I restated it. I can do it again if you'd like.

Yeah, so we need to make sure it's clear for the clerk.

Okay, so can I start with be amended, or do you want me to read the entirety of it?

I think as amended.

Okay, so be amended to allow a person to serve on the same standing Board of Commission from no more than two to no more than three terms in succession.

So you want me to restate the motion basically saying as amended by by our current, what? Thank you, legal counsel, that was the word I was looking for. Okay, I move that council adopt Incorporated County of Los Alamos resolution number 26-09 as amended previously by legal counsel. An election resolution setting forth ballot question number one to be submitted at the November 3rd, 2026 general election to the voters of the incorporated county of Los Alamos. Which question would amend the term limitation for standing boards and commissions and ad hoc advisory committees?

Second.

Okay. Thank you. So we have a motion on the amended resolution. by Councillor Cole, seconded by Councillor Neill-Clinton. Do we have any discussion on the motion? Councillor Hadlam.

Thank you. I mean, the county attorney would know more, but I don't feel like this was amended by the county attorney. It was amended by council. She just kind of read it for us for clarity. Then number one, and number two, I don't think this is language that needs to be added. keeping things short is better on a ballot. And I just don't think it adds enough value adding these words when it's just there above it in bold meant to be read by the voter. So I support this motion. I support this concept in general, but I'm not really excited about the amendment in language. So whatever it's worth.

Okay, any other comments? Well, I guess I thought it wasn't clear with having it, it's incomplete below if it's complete above, but I understand that. So I think the motion is valid because it was stated by legal counsel, so. Any other comments? Okay. Can the clerk please call the roll?

Councilor Wrighty?

Yes.

Councilor Regor?

Yes.

Councilor Hand?

Yes.

Councilor Cole?

Yes.

Councilor Haberman?

Yes.

Yes Yes Okay, let the record show the motion passes unanimously, so I Think we're gonna just keep going here. That's okay, so 10b re 0 6 9 0 2 6 So it's incorporated counting rest Los Alamos resolution number 26-14 Election resolution setting forth about question number two to be submitted in November 3rd 2026 general election to the voters the incorporated County Los Alamos Which question would amend the composition of standing boards? and commissions, so Not sure if there's much else to add on this one so the same process So I guess because this one doesn't even, in the bold text, this one doesn't state what it was. So this is one where it doesn't state what we're changing it from to. So it seems like it's equally, but that's just an observation about it. Okay, there's no other questions about it. So let's see if there's any public comment. So I know we have Mr. White wanted to comment on this one. We have not seen anyone present.

Go to Zoom, please. Mr. White, you're now unmuted.

Thank you, Congressman. You can hear me, I'm assuming. If somebody can just wave their hand or something so I know you're hearing me. Okay, cool. Thank you. This one more so than the other one. I think something should be added, maybe not necessarily to what actually appears on the ballot, but any explanations as to why this is being done in amending the county charter? And it also applied to the previous question, but more so to this one, that The reason you're wanting to do this is because saying in a delicate way to the public somehow, I'm not sure how to phrase it. There just aren't enough people in the public interest that in serving on these boards and committees and ad hoc advisories and stuff. And that's why you don't want, you're not trying to create something where And everybody knows this is a heavily Democratic county. You're not trying to create something where everybody on a board or commission is a Democrat. You simply want to be able to fill all of the empty positions that constantly go on on the boards, commissions, committees, advisories, et cetera. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Okay. Thank you, Mr. White. Do we have any other Public comment on this item?

Chair, I'm not seeing any additional hands. We have one in the audience.

Yeah. Please come up and just state your name for the record.

There, right? Thank you. Good evening, council. My name is John Courtright, business owner of J&L Storage and resident of Branca Mesa. I JUST WANT TO MAKE KIND OF A GENERAL COMMENT. I READ SOME OF THE STATEMENTS IN THE REPORTER AND THESE COMMITTEES THAT HAVE BEEN PART OF THE, I THINK THE CITY'S ORDINANCES OR WHATEVER FOR A LONG, LONG TIME FOR INPUT INTO THE, TO HELP know what's best for the county or try to figure out what's best for the county let's put it that way and I think it's in the and those people spend a lot of time learning and understanding those restrictions or however you want to call but they you know they want to do a good job for themselves they're not there just because to fill a to fill a hole and some I guess I What I'm concerned about is when I read some of that, you said you wanted an equal amount of the parties. Well, what about the independent parties? You're not going to include that. And I objected this all the way to the state legislature. Those people there are not really there to serve one party or the other. They are there to serve the people of New Mexico. And I think that same rule should be applied to any kind of county government, local government, is that you're trying to do what's best for the county. If you're going to try to fill it picked on, depending if you're a Democrat, Republican, Mickey Mouse Club fan, or whatever, you're never going to get something done. And I would object to people that don't consider the whole public but i also think that is part of this of the administration in this in the county council but more the administration right now some of those people on those committees that i've spoken to don't get enough guidance of what they want done, or feedback, if you want to call it that. I mean, it's just a general comment, because if, and I would say this, you know, Susie mentioned something about the county attorney not checking on it. Well, okay, so if you're going to say the county attorney's got to put a stamp of approval on it, then we're all wasting our time. or we need feedback to tell us what is wrong or why don't we go down this path or why we shouldn't go down this path instead of getting to a point that says no. And by that time, everybody spent a lot of time trying to learn those things. Now, I don't have a solution. I'm sorry. I know that's a bad thing to come up here and complain and not have a solution, but I think There is a solution in the sense that there's got to be a way to get more feedback to the committees as well as people who work or trying to help you guys make a decision and not just at the last minute. That's my comment. Thank you very much for your time.

Thank you, Mr. Courtright. Okay. Anybody else present or online? Okay. Okay, so is there a councilor interested in making a motion on this resolution? Councilor?

Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Chair. I move that council adopt Incorporated County of Los Alamos Resolution Number 26-14. an election resolution setting forth ballot question number two to be submitted at the November 3rd, 2026 general election to the voters of the incorporated County of Los Alamos. Which question would amend the composition of standing boards and commissions?

Okay, do we have a second? Second. A motion by Councillor Herman, second by Councillor Cull. So I guess as I noted, this one's even more, so it doesn't state anywhere what it was. So I'm just wondering if people are going to know what they're voting on when they vote yes on this one. What does it mean? As in both parts, the first one just says composition, and then down below it does say what it's being changed to. So the strikethrough is not going to be on the ballot, correct?

Correct.

So yeah.

Well, apparently, people already know what this is about. People are already commenting in the paper. Admittedly, the full documentation is there. But there's nothing that says that the public can't be educated about what each of these ballot items is for. And there's also something to be said about people who go to the polls actually educating themselves on what they're voting for. I mean, if you're suggesting that it's too ambiguous, I think that there's opportunities for us to educate the public on this. And we have talked about what this means in previous meetings when we've had these items on the agenda. So there are good reasons to do this. Talk to folks that are on boards and commissions that have had to cancel meetings because they didn't have enough people show up. because they were already shorthanded, because it couldn't fill certain positions. Talk to folks that had to change their party affiliation just to serve on a board. I think you're going to find that there's plenty of justification for this and opportunity to understand what it's about.

Okay. Any other comments? Council member?

Thank you. While I agree with Councillor Cole about the justification for this, I don't think that we should rely on every voter who shows up in November reading a midterm ballot with lots of sections to know what this is about, even if they did educate themselves you're kind of just trying to hurry or on a break from work you're reading through it all um you might forget and i think this wording is really confusing especially on the question part that's not in bold my preference would be that we amend this so at least says to amend the political party composition requirements of standing boards and commissions And then question two, when it says to amend only to include P&Z, BPU, and personnel, then that even got me more confused. And we've been through this. I had to go back and read, like, why is it worded that way? Like, oh, yeah, because really we're saying that what you see right above there with the crossout under Section 305.3, I feel like the ballot question should really mirror what is in that sentence. So I support this in concept. I'm not, I'm even less thrilled about the wording on this one than the one we just amended on the last one. I think it's confusing, and I don't think that does anybody any good.

Okay, thank you, Councilwoman. Councilor Reid?

Yeah, besides the issue of it being very confusing. I think it'll work out exactly the way Mr.. White said it wouldn't I think you form sort of social groupings and the chair and the County staff will have a group of people they interact with and that's the people they'll recruit And a lot of other people won't even know about it, and you'll end up with some very confusing board decisions and then boards that just don't have any diversity of opinion and They'll just be people that are all on one side of something who formed a social grouping to get on the board. And other people won't even know about the position being open. So I think this is a very bad thing to do for the council. And on top of, of course, the wording, which is very very confusing it will work out very badly for the county in terms of just not getting good input into all the boards and commissions that have to prepare things there recommend things to counsel and this will lower the quality of that quite a bit and this is just a very poor idea to just start off on this path where it'll just run away until you have no different kinds of opinions on some of these boards thank you

Okay, thank you, Councilor Rieger. I think I did see Councilor Hand.

Chair, I lowered my hand because a lot of my comments are similar to what I'm hearing from the other councilors. So I'm not supportive of this particular comment. coordinates at this point, the resolution. I'm not supportive of this right now. The resolution 26-14. Okay.

So the consignment, did you want to?

So could I, would Councillor Herman, I think she made the original motion, would she be open to an amendment, a friendly amendment, if I'm allowed to do so?

Yeah, go ahead, please. Okay.

So I would, the part that's in, we're looking at the box because this is what's going to go on the ballot. The part that's in bold. I would amend it to say, yadda, yadda, yadda, yadda, yadda, pursuant to county ordinance number 757, comma, to amend the political party composition requirements of standing boards and commissions And then the question would be what it says here. Related to standing boards and commissions be amended to remove party affiliation requirements for all standing boards and commissions with the exceptions of

PNC BPU personnel I agree, okay So comes look call you with the second degree yes, okay So we have a revised motion on the floor so The bold part to amend the political party composition, I believe, right? Was that the words you added, political party?

Yes, Chair, in that bold section, yes.

And then you added more the... Be amended. She'll be amended to exclude, except for, right?

to remove political party affiliation requirements with the exception of P&Z, BPU, personnel.

Yeah. OK. So I just want to make sure everyone knows what's on the floor. OK. So I think we're good with the motion. I understand what we're voting on. I don't see any other. So maybe we're not good on the motion.

Chair, if I could just clarify, because I believe we're using two different phrases, so I want to make sure that that's intended or if not intended.

Between the two parts?

Yes. So in the bold part of what we're amending, the bold caps, we say to amend the political party composition requirements of standing boards and commissions. And then on the question part, we say, what I wrote down at first, to be amended to remove party affiliation requirements for all standing boards and commissions with the exceptions of P&Z, BPU, and personnel board. So we're using different terms of political party composition and then party affiliation in the question. So I just want to make sure that that's the intent.

Oh. Yeah, maybe political party affiliation could be repeated, if that's right, so it's consistent.

Okay, so we say political party composition requirements.

Oh, composition or affiliation, yeah.

Party affiliation. If we want it to be different, I just want to make sure that... That it's intentional? Yes.

I think composition is kind of what we're fixing, because if you think about a ratio.

That's the title of the section.

We're getting rid of the ratio requirements, which is kind of like composition.

The title of Section 305.3 is Composition of Standing Boards and Commissions.

And then I intentionally did not call out the three exceptions in the bold part, because I just found the reason to be redundant. No, that's fine.

In bold, political party composition requirements. And then in the question, party affiliation. So do you want it to say, in the question, be amended to remove political party composition requirements to match the bold?

Composition requirements. That's what you said in the first part, right?

Yeah, I think it should be the composition one, so my bad, as long as that's okay with the motion presenter.

So maybe you, so I think even though it's, we need to have this correct for the, what goes on the ballot, and for the, you know, because we.

Our office will be tasked with changing this to get to the clerk, so I just want to make sure that.

I think it should be the same wording.

So if I can repeat what I think I heard based on this discussion.

Can you repeat it with the wording the same?

If I'm if I may if that's okay, that'd be wonderful. Thank you. Okay, so in the bold County bold capitalized all caps County question Sorry I need to move my screen Amendment to the Charter of the incorporated County parentheses County of Los Alamos comma pursuant to County ordinance number 757 comma to amend the political party composition requirements of standing boards and commissions I And then for the question, shall Article 2, I'm sorry, shall Article 3, Section 305, Subsection 305.3 of the Charter of the Incorporated County of Los Alamos relating to standing boards and commissions and ad hoc advisory committees be amended to remove political party composition requirements for all standing boards and commissions with the exception of the Planning and Zoning Commission, Board of Public Utilities, and Personnel Board.

And I'm glad you said and Personal Board instead of or.

Yes.

Thank you.

Yes. Thank you. OK. So I think we know what we're voting on then, right?

OK.

So, OK. So I think we're ready to call the roll.

Councillor Regorn?

No.

Councilor Cole?

Yes.

Councilor Haberman?

Yes.

Councilor Herman? Yes. Councilor Reidy?

Yes.

Councilor Neal-Clinton?

No.

Councilor Hend?

Yes.

Motion passes five to two.

Okay, let the record show that the motion passes five to two Councillors Neil Clinton and reaper in opposition, okay, so I'd say we let's move on to the next one 10 C re 0 6 9 1 2 6 It's incorporated County of Rose County and corporate County Los Alamos resolution number 26 dash 1 5 and the election resolution setting forth ballot question number 3 to be submitted at the November 3rd 2026 general election For the voters of the incorporated county of Los Alamos, which question would amend the priority of budgeted expenses? Okay. So there is no, it's the same information as for the other two. And I am not going to make any comments about this one being not clear. So any questions from councillors? So, I'm not seeing any questions. Is there any public comment on this item? Okay. Looks like we might have someone with their hand raised.

Mr. White, you are now unmuted.

Thank you very kindly, Chair Reidy and the councilors. The first thing I want to say about this question is the section that's going to appear in the ballot says absolutely nothing about that this is for the Department of Public Utilities. And granted, like one of the counselors stated, people should educate themselves before voting, but that The fact of the matter is there's a lot of people that vote and don't educate themselves about anything until they're there reading the ballot. The other comment I wanted to make was that, and I don't know how you would reconcile these two because they're both so important, but part one and part two, Obviously, the first thing that needs to be done is for the utilities to continue operating. But also, and the first thing that needs to be done, and I don't know what the county's Moody rating is, but I assume it's pretty good, is you don't want to end up defaulting on one single bond, let alone the whole set of bonds becoming due and payable, and for some reason, And in this day and age, there's all kinds of unforeseen reasons that you wouldn't be able to pay. I think one and two somehow got to be merged. And then as far as funds going to the general fund, I honestly think that should be the absolute last thing because I know there's been a number of years when there's been no money being transferred to the general fund from public utilities. So it's not like the county's going to suffer if there's not a transfer of funds. But whether something's coming up in the next year or the next five years or the next 10 years, number five here where It says for additions and improvements foreseen, I mean, that should definitely come before any money's transferred to the general fund. And the one thing I don't see in this at all, but it might be buried somewhere in the whole funding scheme of things, is money for emergency repairs. because I mean, just in the last year, we've needed emergency repairs on large sections of electrical underground utilities and apparently gas underground utilities. And I don't know how much is budgeted under current needs for operating, is you know line item one but i mean i think i think the public should be given the benefit of the doubt and have added somewhere in there that funds for emergency needs are going to be before any kind of transfer funds to the general fund and that any foreseeable issues ARE ALSO GOING TO BE FUNDED BEFORE ANY TRANSFER TO THE GENERAL FUND. THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

NEW SPEAKER THANK YOU, MR. WHITE. DO WE HAVE ANY OTHER PUBLIC COMMENT ON THE ITEM?

NEW SPEAKER NOT SEEING ANY OTHER HANDS, CHAIR.

NEW SPEAKER OKAY.

Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to mention an observation. So basically, these three resolutions, these questions that we're putting on the ballot, they're just questions to the public. So, you know, we all have our own opinion of, you know, like I'll use the last question as an example, you know, where Councilor Rager talked about diversity and maybe we wouldn't have as much diversity if we, you know, didn't have a balance of parties on each of the boards. The thing is, is that's for the public to decide. We're just here, in my opinion, to clarify the language of the questions so that we get an accurate understanding by the public of what they want us to do. And You know, on this last question, I think it's the same type of situation where the question isn't clear enough of what's going on, that it involves utilities, etc. So we need to start working on clarification of the question that will be on the ballot so that it's very easy for the public to understand what they're voting on. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Hamm. Okay, so hearing the comments, I guess, is the Councillor interested in making a motion on the resolution?

I think we need to suggest some modifications to make it clearer.

Yeah. I think when I read it, I didn't have any edits, but I understood what it was all about. So I think that's a good feedback we got. Since it doesn't mention anywhere, it's priority budgeted expenses for the Department of Public Utilities. So does anyone want to give it a shot to Councilor Adman?

Sure. Thank you. I move that council approve Incorporated County of Los Alamos resolution number 26-15, an election resolution setting forth ballot question number three to be submitted at the November 3, 2026 general election to the voters of the Incorporated County of Los Alamos, which question would amend the priority of budget expenditures, comma, as amended tonight. And the amendment I would like to propose is that in the bold section, again, this is on the ballot question, the ballot box, to amend the priority of Department of Public Utilities budget expenditures. And then in the question part, relating, yada, yada, yada, relating to the priority of budgeted expenditures, comma, of priority of Department of Public Utilities, budgeted expenditures, so add those words please, and then be amended to omit the provision for all remaining operating profits, maybe to omit the provision for all remaining DPU, maybe earlier we could say that Department of Public Utilities parentheses DPU operating profits be transferred to the County General Fund so really sorry about that but just adding the words DPU in both places okay we have a motion does there second on that one so we can discuss it second okay

Do we have any discussion on the revised wording? I believe it is just basically the goal that is to amend the priority of Department of Public Utilities, parenthetical DPU, budgeted expenditures. And then down below, priority of DPU, budgeted expenditures. So is that what we're looking at? Or is there more wording that I missed? Okay. Thank you. And we can use the acronym down below? Or do we need to spell it out both places?

Chair, if, so I had two changes to the actual question, not the, that we've added DPU twice. So I just want to confirm. We probably will say Department of Public Utilities parentheses DPU in all sections, or at least in both sections, not just one and not the other. So for clarity, in the bold caps, the beginning of it, to amend the priority of the Department of Public Utilities, parentheses DPU, budgeted expenditures. And then in the question, this is where I have it in two places, but it was only recited again for the second time in one. So shall Article 5, Section 509 of the Charter of the Incorporated County of Los Alamos relating to the priority of the Department of Public Utilities, friends, DPU, budgeted expenditures be amended to omit the provisions for all remaining Department of Public Utilities operating profits to be transferred to the general county fund? Is that accurate?

Okay. There was only the two additions, right? Okay. And I might have heard a second one.

One addition in the bold and two additions in the non-bold, in the question part. And maybe that's overkill, but it was just to make sure everyone knows we're talking about DPU's money, not general fund money.

Right. So, Chair, before, in the question, before budget expenditures and then before operating profits. Okay.

So put in DPU both places.

Right.

Okay. That's fine. So I think, well, I was happy with it before, but I think that helps clarify it some. So, I mean, the only question I have is whether or not it would just become too long to indicate that we're retaining the five priorities that are in the charter. But that's probably part of what the educational information could be, I think. But there's no, so when the ballots are printed, they would have this question, but there's no, like, supplemental information provided. We would, people would have to, because we just, when we had this resolution printed, it included all the, you know, the six. The six ones struck out. So people would have, in some sense, access to that, but that's not gonna be part of the ballot materials.

Chair, correct, it won't be on the ballot. Yeah, it's not on the ballot. Whether it's in a voter guide or that is either put out by the county or legal and voters or that's typically where that education lies.

Right, they could have that information, okay. They're be happy with it as a sported. I guess we could take a vote. I guess to make sure Okay, we're taking the vote please call the roll Counselor hand yes Counselor righty yes counselor call Yes Counselor Neal Clinton yes

Councillor Regor?

Yes.

Councillor Haverman? Yes. Councillor Herman? Yes. Motion passes 7-0.

Okay, let the record show the motion passes unanimously. So there's really only one item left, so I don't know, are people okay with letting Mr. Martinez go ahead without having to wait 10 minutes? Okay. So we're proceeding. Item 11 is council business. 11A is county manager report. 11A1 is 22065-26.

Oh, did you want to have it?

Okay. We're taking a short break. Okay, we're back. Oh, that's really loud now.

We raised it a little, Chair, so we might get a little feedback. We're trying to adjust the volume for in the room and online, too, so.

Oh, okay. So we were only meeting for two hours before we heard that they couldn't hear us. So, okay, I'm not sure what that says exactly, but so I had already introduced Mr. Martinez, so you can just go ahead and you have a presentation.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good evening, Chair and members of Council. At your request, Mr. Chair, I'm here to provide counsel with the report regarding street lighting. So we assembled this presentation that provides an overview of street lighting operations and maintenance. So next slide, please. Joining me is Keith Wilson, our Deputy Public Works Director, who directly oversees the Traffic and Streets Division, along with Mr. Tim Walker, our traffic and streets manager, and Mr. Aaron Park, who's our traffic manager. He's the one who provides direct oversight of our field crews. That includes various operations, including signing and marking, traffic safety and permitting, as well as signal and lighting maintenance. I may be calling on them later to help answer any questions you may have. So the signal and lighting crew includes two traffic electrician positions, which require specialized training and certifications, as listed on this slide, to safely perform the requirements of the job. I'll note that due to the risk of working with electrical power that comes with street lights and traffic signals, the team is required to work in pairs. It's also worth noting that these positions, along with our transit drivers, have been the most challenging jobs to fill within Public Works, as the lab has a higher pay structure for similar positions. And this is something that Mr. Hampton noted earlier in his presentation. Over the last several years, we've lost three traffic and streets team members to the lab and in several cases to the utilities department as well. So we compete for kind of similar positions. During periods while these positions have been vacant, we utilize electricians from other areas to assist with emergency situations, but this is difficult to do with regular day-to-day maintenance of signals and street lighting given the priorities of their respective work areas. Next slide, please. I mentioned vacancies, so this slide details the more recent vacancy history associated with both electrician positions beginning in May of last year. Each time we advertised, we did find candidates to fill the positions, but all declined due to salary. As the recruitment process and negotiating takes time, the new year came around without any luck in filling these positions, so we turned to HR to help develop a recruitment strategy to help with our recruitment efforts. This effort resulted in a sign-on incentive. The strategy worked, as one candidate started in early July and the second just started on Monday. So good news there. Next slide, please. In case you wonder what Mr. Park and the signal and lightning crew do exactly, they maintain all the traffic signal equipment at 12 signalized intersections in the county. And some of this equipment is shown on this slide. The one on the lower left is actually a signal control cabinet that you might see. It's those big boxes next to traffic signals with a variety of pieces of equipment in there. And hats off to Mr. Park and his team for knowing how to work and maneuver this equipment. Next slide, please. They also maintain, of course, school flashers, rapid flashing beacons, speed feedback signs. We say four on this slide, but it's actually six. airport lighting and the windsocks at the airport, my commute cameras, utility line locate requests for excavations within the right-of-way to comply with state law for locating underground electric lines, and in this case, particularly for street lighting and for traffic signals. I'll speak to more about that in an upcoming slide. And of course, they maintain 1,673 streetlights across the county, which includes 513 streetlights mounted on wood utility poles. Most of them you see are on aluminum poles. When fully staffed, this crew performs night patrols about twice a year. Next slide, please. So the yellow and black dots in this map illustrate all the streetlights in Los Alamos town site, with the black dots indicating lights that have active work orders recorded in our Asset Management System, which totals 38 work orders currently. Next slide, please. Similarly, this slide shows the streetlights in White Rock with 23 active work orders. In total, about 3.5% of our total streetlight inventory has an active work order associated with it. Some may require straightforward fixture replacement, while some may involve repair or replacement of the electrical circuit, which takes more time and is a little more involved to perform. Mr. Park has developed a priority list with safety issues being paramount, like high pedestrian areas and crossings, school areas, which becomes more important as the days grow shorter, along with the time change, and even areas where there's been high bear activity. With our crew now in place and using a contractor to supplement their efforts, they're committed to resuming this important work to address the current backlog of work orders within the next three months or so. Mr. Park has also been working with our procurement office to solicit what we call a smart street light control system that can notify him in real time when a street light is out or malfunctioning. It also gives him the ability to control lights remotely, turning them on, dimming them, things of that sort. So we're looking really forward to the progress on that in the near future. The complexities with that is the procurement of the software system that's associated with it. So the contractual requirements are a little more involved. Next slide, please. So this slide details some general information about county code, which had a major revision in 2022 and some cleanup in 24. I included this information as a reminder of our ongoing streetlight replacement efforts to comply with the code. and which involve replacing almost 1,000 existing high-pressure sodium lights with LED fixtures. These fixtures are funded through an NMDOT grant with 350 of those fixtures already purchased and in stock and installation to be performed by our crews, supplemented with the use of contractors. This has taken some time to roll out as our procurement team was exploring using a state price agreement as a mechanism to procure these specialized services, but experienced issues with that process. However, it was determined that an existing on-call contract that we have can be used to help with this large replacement effort. So we're in the process of acquiring proposals to do just that. Next slide. So before we put our new electricians to work, important safety training must occur. That's one challenge, but it's really not a major one. The LED upgrade project is a significant effort that will likely continue over the next several years as funding for this was previously intended to cover several fiscal years. The biggest challenge we see is with competing work. I mentioned utility line locating earlier. which can take a lot of staff time as we receive about 50 requests a month and are time sensitive given state mandated requirements. So essentially our crews have to have a certain amount of time to go out and locate underground lines so that contractors who may be digging or doing excavations know that there's a line in the area. signal and lining staff and the bucket trucks that they utilize also assist with the wayfinding sign installation effort, as these signs are very large and require the use of this equipment and personnel. This team and their bucket trucks are also utilized for tree trimming and for banner replacement and repair along Central Avenue, so at any time they may be pulled in different directions. Lastly, There's a push and pull when it comes to street lighting requests between traffic safety and requests to be a broader dark sky community. We have new code requirements that govern things like light temperature and illuminance, which has helped find that balance. But we still field requests towards being more dark sky forward, meaning the removing or turning off of street lights. Next slide, please. So there are a variety of ways that we receive requests for streetlight requests or outage reports. But the most direct way for residents to submit a request is to call or email the Traffic and Streets Division at the number and email address shown. contacting customer care is still a good method, as well as using the Los Alamos Now app, which is undergoing some refinement to make this easier and a little more straightforward to reporting a streetlight outage or a concern. So with that, Mr. Chair, that concludes my presentation, and I, as well as my team, are available for any questions. Thank you.

Okay, thank you, Mr. Martinez. So we had some questions about street light outages and repair. So I thought it was useful to have some information tonight. And you had responded to a couple of citizens' main comments. So I thought it would be good for everybody to kind of hear what we were doing. And so are there any questions, comments from Councilman Cull?

So you said, so what is fully staffed, two electricians? Two journeymen electricians?

Mr. Chair and Councillor Cole, yes, within our signal and lighting crew.

Right. And you have to have both of those people available anytime you go out to do work?

When one member isn't available, we do supplement that crew with other members. That way there is another member available in case there's a safety issue with electrical power. They're there to feel the call for help or assist with bringing down the bucket truck, things of that sort.

Okay, so you're not required to have two journeymen on every job. You just have to have two people.

That's correct. But the ideal is to have both electricians.

So could you have an apprentice who is that you're bringing on board that is eventually going to become a journeyman so that you have a little bit of flexibility at some point in the future?

Mr. Chair, Councilor Cole, actually the second hire that just started on Monday is the electrical apprentice.

Okay. So could you hire another apprentice if you had the funding? And would it make sense to do that in case somebody's out sick or something?

That would certainly be helpful.

Yes Okay, those are my only questions. Thank you.

Thank you. Can we have other questions?

Council rigor Yeah, I thank you chair. It's just a quick quickly you how many of you mentioned dark sky But then you didn't show any data on it like are the black dots in here dark sky requests or are they

Are the black dots on the map, are they dark sky requests? Mr. Chair, Councillor Rieger, no. Those are just showing the lights under current work order currently. So some of them, does the dot mean it's off? Is that the idea? That's most likely the idea, yes. Yeah.

So how many do we have that are just turned off on purpose because of dark sky requests? Do we know?

I'll pass that on to Mr. Park if he might.

Councilor Reidy, Chair Reidy, Councilor Reeder. So currently we are working towards a dark sky across Los Alamos County. The 995 new fixtures that we are purchasing and installing are dark sky compliant. Which means they're under 2,700 Kelvin. They're a little wider than a standard high pressure sodium street light. Dark sky requirements also have a cut off of 80 degrees so you're not projecting light up into the atmosphere and causing night glow throughout the county. So we have selected a fixture that meets all those requirements. We've got a grant through the DOT, and we've got the first 350 of those fixtures in stock. As we ramp up with our two new electricians, they're going to focus first on the outages, which is the diamonds on the map. Those are outages that we have in our work order system that have been called in by the public. A few of them are night patrols, which we try to have when we do get that list down. We go out and do night patrols in different areas of the county looking for outages. We can put a work order in, and then we can address those before the public calls them in.

How many do we have turned off on purpose?

We've had one petition here in White Rock to have the streetlight removed There are some requirements in ordinance 16 We've got to have a consensus of the residents within like 400 feet 300 feet of that streetlights with the majority of them wanting it removed or This hasn't even gone through yet.

This is just a petition and It's not, it hasn't, so none of the lights have actually been turned off on purpose is what you're saying?

No. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we had the one here in White Rock where they petitioned to have it removed.

So one petition has gone through? Yes. And then the rest, and there are other petitions coming is what you're saying or not?

Not that I know of. Oh, okay. No. So basically the map that showed is just our current work orders. Yeah. That we need to. NEED TO ADDRESS. THERE'S ABOUT NINE HIGH PRIORITIES THAT HAVE BEEN CALLED IN BY MORE THAN ONE RESIDENT. THERE'S ANOTHER 45 THAT ARE BEING CALLED IN ONCE REPORTED. AND THERE'S ABOUT TEN THAT ARE ON OUR NIGHT PATROL LIST FROM LAST YEAR.

NEW SPEAKER OKAY.

THANK YOU. NEW SPEAKER THANK YOU, COUNSEL RICKER.

ANY OTHER QUESTIONS?

So I guess following up on what Councillor Cull was asking, so I think what you said was it was going to be about three months to get through the backlog?

That's what we're projecting. Yeah. I think Mr. Park feels pretty confident in that. I'd like to give ourselves a little room for unanticipated things, but yeah.

So assuming you could find another journeyman, journey person, I guess, would that be shorter?

Mr. Chair, I would say potentially. Ideally, again, it's good to have at least two staff members. But again, those can be supplemented from other areas. What we're doing currently is using contracted services to supplement our field crews. So we think we can make some pretty good headway utilizing both in-house and contracted methods.

So before you had the So that's about 60, right, lights out. Roughly. That's out of the 995. That's the same denominator. So out of about 1600 and... Oh, so there's more.

Yeah.

There's other, okay. So what was the backlog before you had the hiring issues? Was it about the same?

It was about the same. We did have the same... hiring issues before our last crew came as well. Okay. So this is ongoing problem.

Okay. I'm not seeing any other questions. Is there any public comment? Mr. Rao, can you look online?

If you're online and you'd like to comment on this item, please raise your hand. Not seeing any hands, Chair.

Okay. Thank you, Ms. Rael. Thank you, Ms. Martinez, and your staff in waiting around for the item and all the information you had for us tonight. Thank you, Chair and Council. Okay. So I think we're on to item number 12. And if there are no objections, we are adjourned.