Community Services - Regular Meeting

Did you have a good holiday?

Alrighty. Take a breath. We are good.

I just stayed here. Yeah. My son's in So

much caffeine. Hello, everyone online. We are just getting started. Let me know

if you

can hear me. Thumbs up. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it. Alright. It is 12:04, and I'm gonna call the meeting to order. And I am

Oh, hello?

Oh.

Are we in the camera? There any way to send that on

the camera?

I can't control the cameras. She can pin the her

You and Martha are on camera. Marna Did I move?

No. Oh, no. No. No. Think she's saying stay on. Need

to move.

The end. I think

I'll leave our hands. Not

really. Okay. So roll call.

We'll do the roll call. Let me get the folks online first. Alright. Joyce is here. Leah, here we go. Hello. Leah is here. I'm here. Tyler is here. Leticia is here. Hello. And I believe that is all of health council members online.

Is Heather on the

Nope. I'm not seeing Heather.

Joyce Leticia.

I'm Joyce

I'm Leah. Hi, Leah.

And then in the room, we have Lisa, Leslie, Marna. Hello. Elizabeth, we don't have you on here.

Get you

added to the official agenda. Welcome. Jill. And Giselle. One, three.

I'm not oh, that was from last month. I'm sorry.

On the agenda,

you are.

You're right. I was in

I know Barbara is out today at a competing meeting, which is also very important. So we definitely have quorum. So we are good to begin. Hello, and happy New Year, everybody.

Happy New Year.

Happy New Year. Welcome to the back. I'm happy to take over. Thank you.

Okay. Over there.

So welcome

back. Stephanie, love those little

your jet lag is not too bad, Jessica. So we'll call to order. We already did the roll call. First, I'd like to say farewell to Giselle Martinez. She's terming out of her second term this week. And so we are so sorry to hear her go. But later on, we're going to talk about

maybe Changing the rules.

Recommendations on changes to term limits and such. And we're going to present those to county council and former chair of the call. So first, we'd like to have public comment. Do we have any public comment online or in the room on anything that's not on the agenda? I just I went DOH, the health promotion specialist. So I brought gun locks and the flyers I go with them. I meant to bring a 100. The box that I had in Espanola did not have the full 100. I'm CFOs to you. So there is yeah, I brought you some with the flyers. Thank you, Christy.

Thank you.

Thank so much. And you can use those for our table in advance. And I'll definitely get you guys a lot more. Perfect. Okay. Does anybody have have you all had a chance to look at the meeting minutes from the last meeting? Does anybody have any comments or additions or changes to the meeting minutes from the December 4 meeting? Okay. So the meeting minutes are approved for December. And the next thing on November is the chairs report.

So I will go ahead here. First of all, I just want to remind you all that these meetings are being recorded. And they are published in registrar once a month after the meeting. So you can go back and review previous And And I just want to remind everyone and we'll get into this a little more once we talk about the election again for chair and vice chair and so forth. I wanted to go over the roles a little bit more.

But one of the things in the Board's and Commission's manual is I just wanted to remind everyone, in addition to not responding by email to everybody on discussions to start a rolling forum, which is not public. We aren't really supposed to task any of the staff, the county staff, to either do anything for us or provide information or ask them to help us with work and stuff like that. And if we have any requests like that, those should either come through me to Jessica, or

you can go

to Jessica directly and copy me on it so I know what's going on as the chair. These guys are really busy. And I think January is going to be a hectic month. So let's just respect their time in that way, please. Okay. So first of all, a roster was sent out with a meeting minutes, but that does need to be updated. So please be patient with us on that. We're in the process of updating that and changing some of the terms. We've had a few interviews since then. And I was approved on the consent agenda for second term.

And then we interviewed Celeste Raffin, and she will be on the consent agenda probably the next meeting or two. Congratulations to Counselor Reidy, who is now the chair of the County Council, and Brynn Herman as the vice chair of the council.

Is that a good thing?

Congratulations. We'll let him tell you and his counselor. Mike,

Zen, or like a short straw. If you can also maybe

tell us if the liaison's going to change and all when we

do the

So I am going to send out a table for 2026 for people who are interested in writing and having articles published as sponsored by the Health Council. So that would be awesome if you're interested in that. And also as events come up, we will be contacting you guys to see if you would like to volunteer there. There was a regional behavioral health workshop in Santa Fe. And this one was focused on meetings. So all of the different health councils and tribes in the region one met in a two day session I'm able to go. She's going

to report on it

because she was able to go. And we really appreciate all of your time. I know that was huge right before this is. The Alliance of Health Council statewide meeting is on January, I know, in Santa Fe. And they are booked up for in person. But I believe they have spaces online. So if anybody else would like to join Jessica in that virtually, please let me know. I'm going

try to get you all

in for that. It's quite exciting and interesting. It's great to see what all the other tribes are doing. As well. I think that's all I have. Did I miss anything from my side? No. That's great. Okay. So next would be Jessica's staff update.

Sure, sure. I will give my update, and then I am going to turn it over to Jamie Albach to introduce herself. So Jamie, this is your five minute in the Green Room waiting to come on. And I'll get to her in just a quick second. But I'll give the updates first.

One second. Yep. Okay. So we also had discussed Jill and Jessica and I, we're going to be postponing the presentation at the Yes. End of the

forgot to have enough time for discussion today.

Because we want to have enough time to talk to do the voting and talk about the board. And we want to give her a full hour at the next session plus question and answer. We'll do that in a

Why don't we have the whole time

to kind

of go

through social services. No, thank you. And the Health Council one hundred one. So to segue from what Lisa said, at the December, right before I left for my extended holiday break. And for those that don't know, my son goes to college in Spain. And I was really, really lucky to have time off and the great staff. And from my boss on down to go for two weeks. So I've been all over Spain. We literally got back at 10:45 flight landed at 10:45 last night. And then we drove home and so got home a little after one

So

I'm a little bit still out of sorts. When I woke up at 04:30 this morning, I was like, let's go. And now suddenly my brain is like, woah, your optimism has faded. You're right. It is siesta time where I would like to be. And I was just joking with somebody like, who made today such a crazy schedule? I've had literally nonstop back to back meetings. And I was like, you idiot. Like, you scheduled all of these meetings. Oh, that optimism in December.

So in mid December, I attended three days of meetings. And part of when I was thinking through all of this, I would like to add a slide to next month's presentation to go through this in a lot more detail. Because one of the things that I think has been really fascinating just in the three years that I've been here and I know Crystal and I have talked about this a little bit too is how the state is really helping the health councils do both a ground up grassroots approach under a coordinated state umbrella. And so I had three days of meetings in Santa Fe. One was exclusively on bringing together Los Alamos County, Santa Fe County, Rio Arriba County, and a whole bunch of other organizations all related to justice involvement, justice related things, to plan regional efforts for criminal justice involvement.

Somebody may be in our detention center here, but they're a resident of Santa Fe County. But the place that they may need to go for detox services as part of their probation may be County. And so Judge Beshed and Judge Lichard were there. Several other court administrative folks were there. It was several Williams and Sergeant.

One of our police officers whose title I am blinking on was there. He has been really, really helpful on a lot of social services type stuff. And so it was a really big planning exercise on just the criminal justice piece. And if you've been here for a while, you've also heard we did a similar two day process just in Los Alamos County back in June for adult related systems. So this was a day to just focus on criminal justice involvement.

And then the following two days in Santa Fe were totally different organizations, but a lot of the same county representation to look at youth serving organizations and youth serving systems. Everything from after school programs to when a youth is in a mental health crisis and goes to Christa St. Vincent for behavioral health care and then gets a telepsych appointment, then where does that child and family go for inpatient or outpatient services? It was like if you could reimagine the whole system. So three really, really intense days.

And the reason I bring this up and want to dig into it a little bit more is, one, it aligns with our Department of Health initiatives. It also aligns with the Alliance of Health Councils and the work going on across the state. It definitely is impacted by the state budget process that is coming up in the next session that kicks off very soon. And it feeds into the work that social services is doing to build relationships with our court staff, with our police staff. I recently Counselor Rady, I don't know if it got sent to county counsel, but I sent a note to the county manager.

We had three incredibly positive interactions with our local social services, with our local police department, one involving a family with a lot of intense needs and getting them connected to social services. One, a detention center staff thought somebody might be suicidal and called social services to try to get that person a psych assessment, which in the three years I've been here has never happened. They looped in social services right away and I think honestly kept that person alive. And so it's like building those relationships over time. And the reason I mention it is because the state has committed funding to supporting regional initiatives that align with the comprehensive health plan that we had approved at council a year ago.

More focus on affordable housing, more focus on crisis networking between social services, police, hospitals, ETs, etcetera. And so if you can't tell from my enthusiasm, this is not sleep deprivation. All of these systems are really coming together and supporting it. It has seemed like when I've talked to other folks when I've gone to these conferences, there have been all of these silos in the past. And one stream of funding here and one stream of funding over here.

And it really feels like between Department of Health and the Alliance and now the regional administrative office of the courts, these things are kind of all coalescing together. And so it was three to to Lisa's point, three very intense days. I mean, was literally out of words Friday afternoon at five I met so many people. I had so many ideas. No joke, my husband's Christmas party was that Friday evening. And he started a new job and was like, do want to come meet everybody? And I was like, no. I've met so many people. I have no more words. I just need to lie in a puddle.

My introvert self was done. But I think it's really fascinating that these approaches for if you think about it very locally, if somebody calls 988 having a mental health crisis, we have materials and trainings from DOH on crisis interventions. Calling 988 is one of them. Somebody calls 988, it goes through a telephone tree. A trained professional answers it.

If they think that person is at harm is at risk of harming themselves, they will alert local EMTs and police who will go to that house and ideally take that person to our medical center. We don't really have a crisis team yet in the future, as we've been meeting with dispatch and EMT and police and fire. Would that involve a social services person? Could it involve telepsych in the field on a secure something? Could it involve some other interventions? And then once they get to the medical center here, something happens. And then we usually lose that person. They're kind of discharged. They're told to follow-up with their doctor. We don't really have a good plan to get them to Christus St.

Vincent or to some other type of help in our region. But these building blocks are forcing us to look at that at a much bigger scale and work together. And the state has said, we will give you money because at the very base level, how does that person get transported there? Well, we've to figure out a transportation network. Is that a regional mental health ambulance? Maybe. Maybe that is. But we don't have to solve it as Los Alamos County. There's literally 150 people. There are a lot of cooks in that kitchen.

But there are a lot of people looking at this from the state on down. And so much, much more to come on that. And hopefully, it gets really encoded in the state budget. Yeah. So anyways, clearly a lot of enthusiasm about that. Tyler, I see your hand is up. Go for it.

Yeah. I know recently, just talking with some of the people in Santa Fe and statewide, there was discussion about having on call crisis response Mhmm. Kind of similar well, not fully staffed, but similar to what we do in Santa Fe where we would have on call people out of your office that would be able to kind of intercede on emergency calls with PDM fires so we don't I mean, we're far less qualified than you guys are, and that would kind of help with a warm handoff

Yep.

From ER to Saint Vincent. Is that something that is being explored funding wise through the state? Is That that

is one of the things that is being explored. Another one is transitions between 18 to 25 year olds that aren't quite in the pediatric system but are just transitioning to the adult system. I think everything is currently being explored. And where things stand right now is the state there's a representative from UNM who is taking the youth report that came out of that December meeting, the adult report that all three counties did individually, the planning that the eight northern tribes, Priblos, have put together and the criminal justice report from the one day meeting and building a master regional plan. But then we are expected to then say, Okay, state, we have our regional plan and request funding from the dedicated behavioral health regional investment funds.

So yes. But back to your point, Teller, then they all got ideas were thrown out. Then it was like, well, do all three counties have the same software to be able to tap into those on call people? What are we talking how would that actually work? And then we were like, woah, woah, We don't need to get in the weeds.

You can imagine, like 100 people in a room getting into the weeds. So much, much more to come on that. It was really, really just very invigorating. I think for the health council, we've talked about having somebody from Think New Mexico maybe come and give a presentation after legislative session is done on how some of those health related legislative priorities went during the session. I know there are some days when Lisa and sometimes Jill and I send lots of emails.

But there is a ton of good information that comes from the Alliance of Health Councils on advocacy, pressing issues. Can somebody give a comment? Can somebody come to the roundhouse? We're all meeting in so and so's office. Not quite advocacy coming from the county, but the alliance of health councils. We pay dues to this is their job to get health council funding and health priorities funding in front of legislators. So be on the lookout. They have compiled trainings and talking points and cut and paste letters you can send to the newspaper editor. So keep an eye out for that. And then the last thing I will say is tons of energy around the new year.

There are lots of very, very interesting things coming up, including a youth summit that will take place the March, a high school planned by high schoolers for high schoolers. We did one two years ago that really focused on the opioid reduction and Narcan. This one, they've expanded the idea of harm reduction a little bit that includes healthy relationships and setting boundaries. And it's just fascinating. I actually have the meeting right after this to go to the high school and plan the next meeting for that.

The high schoolers are so engaged. It's fantastic. But they're dealing with stuff like, I tried to break up with my boyfriend. And he said if I dumped him, he was going to kill himself. What do I do? And I will tell you, the adults around the table that are helping to plan this were like, yeah, that's a lot for a fifteen year old to have to know how to navigate, right? And so building in a bunch of it's mental health and opioid. And what we're talking about is healthy self esteem and how to build the foundations of that. So more to come on that. And then also, Giselle and Jill came to social services with an idea for intergenerational collaboration.

Christy, the new executive director at Firstborn, also was there. I happened to be at a meeting with the folks from LARSO, the senior center, and they have a new executive director, Ramon. And they were like, oh my gosh, we've been talking about doing intergenerational stuff too. And so I think this year, there will be some big intergenerational type activity. Know. I go away for two weeks, and I come back to like, we've already planned the first series of things. This is so so exciting. So much more to come on both of those initiatives. And with that, I'm going to put Jamie Allback on the spot to introduce herself. She is our new program specialist.

You have heard me talk about her partly because we made the recommendation. The health council made the recommendation, and council approved it in the last budget session. She's our latest hire at social services and will be the point person for outreach, training, education, programming. She will be the brain, the hub behind all of that. So, Jane, I don't know if you want to do like a three minute introduction.

Yes. Thank you. So I guess I have all of you to thank for my job. I appreciate it very much. I am coming here after spending the first ten years of my career in elementary education.

I loved being a teacher, but then as I moved away from Western North Carolina, started exploring some other options. When I landed here in Northern New Mexico, I began working for all the nonprofits in town in a variety of ways. I have worked with several different groups. And then most recently, I worked for Tewa Women United as their gender and generational healing program manager. And I love to hear the discussion of intergenerational efforts.

We offered intergenerational workshops on, cooking with ovens. We did intergenerational CPR and first aid where we taught folks who were either too young or had aged and gotten a little bit weaker in their upper body strength. So we taught modified CPR with those folks. So it's really exciting to hear that intergenerational efforts are already underway. I'm hoping that I can be a part of all of these efforts.

And my primary area of expertise is in gender based violence prevention, which really means sexual violence prevention and domestic violence prevention. But I have dabbled in all of the prevention areas, and so I'm happy to blend all of that into this new role. Any questions?

You look very shiny.

You look so healthy. She does. I'm like The fluorescent lighting in the office looks they're like glowing on our screen.

Thank you, Jamie. Oh, good. I'm glad the fluorescent lighting is doing something for my complexion. That's rare.

Welcome. Thank you. Thank you, Before we put Chair Ridey on, I just wanted to mention you mentioned Think New Mexico, Jessica. So tonight, Christine Fisher from Think New Mexico is speaking at the legislative preview at Dolly Lodge at 07:00 with the League of Women Voters sponsoring that. And so everybody is welcome. Spread the word. Refreshments at 06:30. We usually have great refreshments. Do you wanna say anything about that as the coming in president of the league? Come in

come at 06:30. Yeah. Coffee and snacks. And it's a standard format where the state representative and the state senators that represent Los Alamos County speak about what they foresee the legislative session dealing with. And then there's usually a special speaker, and it's going to be Christina, because you're from And their emphasis seems to be health policy,

health legislation. So everyone's welcome.

And you don't have to be registered to vote, but we'll help you with that.

Yeah, sure.

And you can

join the league.

I have a quick question before we jump. So great overview of all of this. In your head, do you already have one, two, three things that you see the health council playing a critical role in? I mean, all of that was social services stuff. Do you have a short list

think What you're thinking. I wanted to make a crosswalk. For those of you that are not online, because I'm

in the

corner, imagine me trying to gesture with my hands to make a spreadsheet.

But

taking our action plan from our comprehensive health plan and then building where the state priorities overlap. So crisis intervention comes up over and over and over. And we've had a couple of conversations with the state folks about, no, no, no, we've already started working on this because we put it in our plan. Like, we're not because, you know, they started with, like, crisis intervention one zero one. Like, there are different models. And we're like, no. We are a year down the road. We have the blessing of the police. They come to every meeting. We have the blessing of fire.

They come to every meeting. Seth Martinez is the data guy behind all of the data that feeds into the dispatch units. Like, wants to figure out how social services would get tapped in. And so I think that remaining a health council priority, does that become a working group? Does that become that Tyler's input does Tyler jump off? Just giving him a shout out. Hopefully, he can jump back on.

I'm here.

There you are.

I'm listening. Yeah. You're here. And thank you for the shout out.

So maybe, you know, right, there's a working group that's how we would look at doing that.

Pete Blitzenberg, the new LAFD chief, used to work in Santa Fe as our chief. And I think he's actually going to be I think we could contact him and run some I think he'll be huge for us.

Fantastic, fantastic. The work group brings itself, right? Workforce development and affordable housing came up over and over because we can plan to have all of these places for people to go to get help. But if we don't have the workforce for it because of all of the reasons that are hard to develop a workforce, because lacking places right? All of these things.

Prevention was And I think right. Thank you. And so I think then I think maybe making a grid of what we're trying to do and then where that aligns with the state would kind of crystallize where we focus. And I think some of the action items back to the direct so then where do people go when you're having after a mental health crisis, where do you go? Right now, the answer is the moms group on Facebook.

After cancer. Right? We don't have support groups for after your child leaves a rehab facility and is reentering a maybe not healthy school environment, we have to build some of those resources. Great question.

Yeah. My $02 on this is we have a very strong board right this very second. And I think you have a lot of people on a, we'll call it, a leash ready to help in any way, kind of barking, let me out, let me out, let me out. And so you have an opportunity to show us as a board the top three things or whatever. Do they need a working group? Do we need to engage the you know, give us a little bit

of a road map

because the talent and skill that's sitting on this board right now is powerful. We need to empower them.

And as we do hand off

the action, whether it's in a group, whether it's in committee, whatever that is. They show up at noon. So we need to find really easy Without

saying come to more state meetings, come to more, like what's the action?

And that includes those that are rotating off. That includes us.

Think would be Feel free to delegate. Because you have so much on your plate. And there are a lot of people, like Joe said, that are talented. And we'd love to kind of get a little more involved in specific areas.

So it's your chance.

A great kind of call to action. Because we have been so focused on the comprehensive health plan and getting all of that. So let me take a stab at doing that. And then we'll dedicate the next meeting to just talk with the team and then have that be

a piece

of Give

me pictures, please. Show me how this thing works.

And we did approve the work.

I'm a big fan of graphics and not

Yeah. Words. Yeah. Counselor Brady. Chair Brady. Chair Brady.

Okay. So yeah, I think I still want to appreciate your terms. And so that is one of subjects. So I guess I'll cover that. Some people already covered some other things along these things.

Go ahead. That's okay.

So Chair Cole, former Chair Cole, sent me the compilation she had so far. So it'll be good to get the health council's take on the question she had, which one was like the length of terms. Think in general, harder to recruit people. He said, well, you have to serve ten years. Doesn't make

sense. So

having more

terms And suddenly, like ten years.

But unfortunately, it looks like it's a charter change. So that doesn't mean we can't do it. It just means that it's a process. And so there are some other things that I wanted counsel to consider in terms of the charter or changes. And so we'll Try to schedule that to look at dates for getting there's, I think, three methods for Charter. So one is council, basically, appointment a conferter. They go under the whole thing and come back. And I think there's a whole thing called log rolling. So I don't know that they could propose like, here's replacing the whole thing, right? They have to come back with individual changes.

The council could just do that work themselves and say, well, here's some things we know that need to be changed. We can discuss it. If we agree, then we would see that to the voters for a vote. So it doesn't forever. It's the timing and making sure that getting it into for we don't have to wait, like, another two. So that's the process for that. So when you have your recommendations, definitely send them to the former chair plus me since you just send them. So I think it's good for her to see what

it is. We'll get them to Jessica, and then she

can So then I guess the question was, did I want to do this? I'll put it that way. So yeah, I'm looking forward to some things that we're working on. A list of things to work on this year includes development code. And so everything is kind of related. Right? So code relates to density and transportation and and some providers be. Right? So where people are located and businesses located. So it is a pretty holistic thing.

And so plan is to try to get that done this year. They're from the code update from four years ago now, we have a number of. Plan is to have comprehensive plan and code updated. I think it makes sense to try to do it with a council that has more been on for a while as opposed to let's start over again next year. So that's the plan.

Let's see. It asked about assignments. So those have happened in the last meeting. I think it's twenty seventh. So the terms I believe are one year, two year, three year, or five years. The only one that's five years of work.

Three years is planning itself.

Two and three years. And I think there's another one that might be three years. Might be lodgers tax, if I remember right. But so two and three years is common. And so it's in so you don't have an ordinance for this one. It's not in chapter eight. Chapter's right. So it's a resolution for this health council. So that could just be modified. And resolution refers to and and all other things that are in for the code.

So theoretically, you could change that and say, well, we don't reference that. There is no unless we then we could have stated the resolution, oh, well, the limits are this. So that would be a possibility.

It's like easy lives.

I haven't, I haven't, I don't know if the attorneys looked at that. Because this one's different. It's like when you talk about something, oh, that's, there's always something that's an exception. Right.

Yeah. So

this one is the exception where it's by resolution, but there's also the state. So we have to look at what the state has since we're doing this by resolution by the state. The state might have, it's like we have a border registration that is really the state. So that's not on the list at all. They're they're They have different requirements for

parking. Thank you.

Yeah. When we get to that, I'm sure there's

going to

be a lot of questions for you, Chair Vardy.

Can I ask to have a Sure? A few other questions? Yeah.

So I'm aware that the County Council just passed a should you speak up a little louder? New law raising the sales tax

Yeah. For the

citizens of Los Alamos County. Yeah. And I'm wondering about the role of this board in weighing in on how that affects people that we are trying to help. Is that something that we as

a board should consider doing?

Mean, what Yeah. I mean, sure.

Mean What's the mandate

for this board?

Well, it would be related to social services if so people so basically, it's a regressive tax, the gross receipts tax. What is taxable? So, yeah, that would be And it is an action that we've already taken.

A point 6% that goes into effect

July 1.

Yes. And also, it's not going to be on food.

The gross six tax is very complicated. Right? It's not on it's not on food, though if you buy your food at a convenience store, it is taxed.

So Leslie, I think to your point, I think what you're asking correct me if I'm wrong when this came before council in October, give or take, fall, could health council have at our September meeting see you, Tyler. Thank you. Taking it up as a discussion item and possible vote and said, we would like counsel to consider these factors when they make their vote. And then we could have submitted something to the county council for or against or neutral or whatever. But we as a health council could have.

We could have done a study or whatever, done a survey or figured out how that would negatively impact

And then made recommendations to counsel.

The post the indigent disadvantage and what that's going to how that

impacts Social services is trying to help and all the nonprofits also. I was just amazed at the explanation that came from a county staff person about this legislation. And I was like, you never took Econ one zero one. And it's like, I wanted to have a role either as an individual or as a member of this council.

And there was public comment. There was extensive

But not from health council position. That we could have

What is the position based on data and facts of that

It's up to the health council really to determine, because it does include the social services kind of more broadly at some level, right? So I think it's up to the health council members to decide what they want to comment on. So if they had decided, yeah, let's because that had been in the works for a couple of years before that. And certainly that topic did come

up. I

can't control what people have to say about what the impacts of taxes are in general or not. But that would be fair to make the comment and to say, what are alternatives? I mean, I don't think it's just theoretical, but I think without the increase, then we wouldn't be looking at certain things. We're already looking at so it it is so it's the pro and the con, I think then. But I think it's good to bring it up and make sure people are aware of, well, here's the issues or where are the priorities. Because it was even the discussion about the action center. So what's worth doing?

And it was a lot of focus on the revenues from the national lab.

Right. So

it was a

big factor. Everybody spends money that is subject to GRT.

What is Albuquerque's pain? Right?

Right. Basically, it's little

bit more.

That was actually 7.6 is what Albuquerque's pain.

I mean, I think this is part of the health council to always stay conscious and awake of these kinds of things. Right. So hopefully data

should I be did mention it. It was coming up. You did.

That was on us.

So it's a matter of the timing and getting it on the agenda and all the other things you're doing. But know you had discussion about how long the meetings could be. But if you just want to have it, make sure that council is aware of something, there's probably quicker ways of doing it. Going through the council, health council to comment to county council is like changing the charter. It's not super easy, but you can do it. But if you know it's coming, you just have to get it on the agenda and get it voted If you want a formal recommendation, or if you just want the liaison to pass along, well, had a discussion item about this. We want to make sure you understood these concerns.

And it doesn't

So I guess that's my question. Could there be a more informal way? Like you, as the health council liaison, do you have the opportunity when council meets to say, health council discussed it and has concerns without us filing a Right.

No, it doesn't have to.

There will be no resolution.

I don't

know what the term is.

Having a motion and saying we

Right. We take an official position.

We're concerned about this and want to make sure you're

Well, we can discuss it as a health council.

This is what the impact could be to our clients and

that sort of So I think that's the simplest way to do it is just to make sure that it has to be an item that you're discussing in order for me to like Otherwise, other people would like to have commented.

Right. That's all all

If somebody says, I just want to have discussion item, and it'll be for ten minutes or whatever. If you have limited amount of time, whatever amount of time. I want to present this and make sure county council is aware of this. And that's the simplest way. Otherwise, yeah.

So for any other board, there's more projects like parks and rec, huge number of projects. And people come and say, well, we'd like to have my park or whatever. And then they vote on it. And then there'll be a presentation to counsel where they say, you know, there's no formal accreditation, but they could still ask. They still ask to get on the agenda, but then that takes whatever number of months.

Because it was there was a request to get something on the so it it will take two or three months, and that will be, like, not timely. So the most timely thing is just telling the liaison. And then and then say, I wanna make sure that

Maybe part of our public

And you could ask liaison to say, please inform the chair of the council, county council, we want to make sure that this is And

we don't have to ignore it. I mean, we can track the impact as it goes forward starting And in that even is more powerful of going, okay, we missed our boat, but we've now tracked it and this is of concern. Or there's some other ways to deal with it.

I asked the question, can you reduce the tax?

Yeah.

And the answer is

yes. Yeah.

So it can be reduced.

Yeah.

But it would not be you would not be able to reduce it frequently until another day. The state only allows the GRT rate to be changed on July 1. It used to be January 1 and July 1. First. It's the Sounds so confusing.

Could just change it every six months.

Yeah, that's a good question. Mean, that's but for anything that's a policy matter, hopefully, the council liaison's letting you know. And then it's a matter of like of getting it. Even if there's like if I mentioned something and you say, oh, well, I have a comment about that, you can make it more informal.

Hi, Stephanie. Thank you.

We're the next you.

It's going to be you.

So we're going to have to move on because we're losing people. Thank you for answering that and explaining the process. Before we go into I would like to

just Yes, we have seven of twelve.

Talk for a few minutes. 12356. Then we have Reticia and Jazelle. Eight.

We're still good. We're still good with Quorum.

Jazelle's still good with you.

Oh, no. We've all been, like, totally scarred by Katie's presentation. 13. We're good. Okay,

good. So before we go into the vote, I'd just like to go over a little bit the handout that I gave you. I really don't think you guys need me to read the whole thing. But on the first page of the handout, it just talks about what the chair's responsibilities are. These are just kind of general responsibilities.

This is from the boards and commissions manual. I think it's page 30 it starts on. And then the next page is the vice chair. And basically, the vice chair shall assist the chair in the performance of duties of the chair and act in the chair's place when the chair is absent from the county or otherwise unable to perform the duties. So basically, that's the responsibility of the vice chair is to assist and support and kind of back up the chair and all of those duties listed.

And then following that is just some duties and responsibilities of board and commission members. If you guys can just take a look at that at your leisure. And then I printed the next page because it goes on to actually number five, ex officio members. I don't even know what that is. And then the following page is, let's see, another excerpt of board and commission member responsibilities.

So this is just basic generic stuff about the work plan, making our meetings public, attending any county council meetings that might be related to what we're doing, making sure you're not voting if there's a conflict of interest. We have attorneys on board to make sure that that you know, if we have questions. And then basically, I attend the boards and commissions luncheon and it's not monthly, it's quarterly. And we have to give a report for that. And then just liaison in collaboration with other board members and staff.

So that is fairly generally what the roles and responsibilities are. I did want to talk a little bit about just what other stuff that I've been doing in this role, just so you're kind of aware of what's going on. And then if someone else were to be chair or vice chair, they would also know. And these are not mandatory, but they're sort of optional. Attending the Alliance of Health Council meetings and also the statewide meeting and the community collaborative forum, which is actually very interesting and exciting. And they had cabinet members from

all the

different organizations like the aging and long term services, the mental health, Howie Morales spoke, a lot of the other secretaries Housing, did

you say housing,

the aging?

Yeah, the aging, long term housing,

Education.

Yeah. Yeah. And so there it was a lot of really good information. They had those they had that one was a live one and virtual. And then another one, they had virtual in the fall. So Jessica and I have both been attending those. In addition, coordinating volunteers for tabling and

coordinating them

edited and ready for publishing. Staff liaisons, I think that was in the original one. You also have to present accomplishments to council. Regional behavioral health planning, I did at the Los Alamos County Meeting. I wasn't able to attend the regional meeting. But you're going to give us more of that next It's transpired.

At the usual meeting? Yes. Yes. Okay.

Perfect. And then just authorize any working groups or subcommittees and interviewing candidates and recommending appointments. And then also, it's not mandatory, but it's really good to attend the county annual strategic planning meeting that Councilor Reidy was talking about. And then just to collaborate with other guys. The commission's up. I think going to the Senate task force meeting and some of the sub. They're working with the semi economic equity. That's all I have as far as rules and responsibilities. Does anybody have any questions? Anybody online? So

Leticia and Joyce and I think it's by charter the chair and vice chair positions are each are one year. We do this every year. There is no Right. It's a year. That's my entire sentence.

So that's all I have. So I guess since I am the chair, I'll turn it over to the staff liaison. Do we need to leave the room or anything?

No. So my understanding is, at least the way we've done it in the past when I've been involved the past two years to do this, is we ask, is anyone interested in being the chair for the 2026 calendar year? And if anybody is, they can raise their hand, say me, whatever it is. It's a blurb about what you want, what your qualifications are. If there are more than one person interested, we'll have more than one person.

But then once we have all of those names, then we hold a vote that is open. And I am realizing everyone except Jill and Lisa, everyone here is new. Oh, Leticia, you were maybe here a year ago.

We've had

so many new people. But it is a public everyone raises their hand. It has to be a public vote. It was in the record. And then we will do the same thing for vice chair. And then that's that. And then I will follow-up with you about the next time we all meet. And if we don't have anybody, I don't really know what happens. I'd have anybody nobody wants to do it. I don't know. I picked straws. I just walk around the room and hit somebody. Sign it to

someone. But

really it. You work with me a lot. You get a ton of emails from me. I can't believe Lisa didn't mention that as one of the pluses. You get my cell phone.

Jessica once a month.

Yeah. You get to have coffee with me once a month to set the agenda.

Another thing is that we've also been meeting with the new members.

Yeah, and trying to bring everyone up to student We haven't met with you

yet. What her presentation is.

I'm so busy going to Spain. I'm so sorry.

Oh, we're May. January 14.

Way. See.

We can

meet in the

next meeting. We're getting ready to lose another one.

And before we vote

Oh, yes. Let's make sure

I have to tell him.

Yes. You're not getting rid of So That's right. You're going to say no. Bring it back. And also, we'll need for quorum. Do we need her for quorum? We don't

need you for quorum. So if you need to

go, go. You say, come back to the meetings. That's what I'm saying. You're not getting We're getting any work.

Yeah. Good. In the intergenerational work group. Reapply.

Fantastic. Thank you for

your work.

Yes.

Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you, Giselle.

Bye, Giselle. Thank you.

Can I take a quick minute to say why I'd like to do the chair?

Yes. Throw your head in. Let's go.

Oh. So vice chair has been a really good moment for me. This has been the first

I think you might just need to speak up a little bit for the people online.

Okay. Vice

It's a blog fan.

Vice chair has been a great learning curve for me. I was certainly not prepared to throw my hat in last year for any kind of chair moment. But I I feel like I'm in a position place and a and a passion to kind of step in to do this if the board wants to see that happen. I'm basically a dreamer, a doer, and a dot connector. And I know a lot of things that Lisa has done in the last year I probably will suck at, but I will try to bring a better game and do what needs to be done because I do know all these things are one year terms.

And so this seems like a logical thing for me. I am incredibly passionate about this globe, as I think just attest to. Leading this region, we're in a position to do that. And I would love to see two or three or four working groups. I'd love to see ways to engage the board.

And basically, we have a role ahead. I mean, it's big. We've got a lot accomplished this year. But it is a long list of opportunities that I think this board needs to step into, be proud of, and keep the momentum going. So my hand is up if this meets the board's requirements or philosophies or whatever. Would be honored to serve.

I will open it to the group. Anyone else interested in serving as chair?

I'd like to continue the efforts that I've started. I feel like I have made a lot of connections, not only within the community, but also throughout the region and the state and working with folks in this Ministries, the interfaith coalition, which I didn't mention on the list of things that, you know, I've been doing as well. I understand the county processes. I understand structure. I'm learning about the county politics.

I've attended a lot of the council meetings as well. And I think I've worked health action center become a reality. We spent a lot of time in the community. We also have a passion for crisis response. That's really important to me.

And also the prevention efforts. I did not know that there was another suicide recently. You kind of don't hear about those publicly. And then the newspaper, that is a part of the problem. So I'd like to focus as well on Susan. I just wanna thank the social services for all of her. It's just been fabulous. And, Jamie, welcome to the team. That's about all I have.

Thank you. All right. I will open it up again. Anyone else? Anybody care?

Raise your hand. Speak up. She's like, I

haven't even had my interim meeting yet.

I have

no idea what I'm doing here.

None of us That's for us.

So Leticia, wanted to make sure, since you're not in the room, you're not speaking and on mute.

I'm not interested at this time.

Local. All right. All right. So we have two people interested in chair. And I think like, now we just open it up for a vote. Correct? I mean, that's my knowledge. We've done

it before.

Yeah. I don't know if you need to take a motion or just the instructions.

Okay. So the oh, so I need someone to make a motion to proceed with a vote for chair.

Okay. So just to make sure, we have seven out of 13.

Just still Have a core. Half plus one.

Six, seven, out of 15. Okay.

So can I get someone to make a motion to proceed with a vote for the chair for the 2026 calendar year? So I think you have to say I make a motion.

I make a motion to proceed with the vote for the chair.

Thank you. Elizabeth made a vote. Thank you for the technicalities of it. Can I get a second? Second. Thank you. All in favor of proceeding with a motion to

vote? Aye.

Yes.

Thank you. All right. Great. That's procedurally done. Now we need to open it up to a vote for one of the two choices. You're allowed to speak, so they can't compete.

Because everyone can't force

people to vote.

So you can't explain that?

They it'd be nice if

you voted. Feel like you're crazy. Thank you.

It would be nice if

you voted.

Please vote.

All right. Can I start with Jill and work around the room and then jump online?

Jill? Jill votes votes for Jill.

Making the assumption, but yes.

I have a question.

Yes.

So I like the idea of everybody having a chance to do something if they're interested in it. So based on what we've talked about today, there's like, how much time have you been on before?

Like, is

this your last opportunity before your dining call? I'm gonna I'm gonna

So this is Jill's first time. She has a second.

But I can't I mean, I'm running

for office.

So I don't even understand how you stay on in an officer position for more than one year. I thought you had to rotate off. At least change positions.

I don't

know if that

So, Marta, you said two termed women. And I started my second term. Your first term will be up in May. And then she would apply for the second term if she wants to continue. And then she'd have a two year term in May.

We're voting officers today.

Right. For the year, right?

So yes, for the calendar year, regardless of terms.

So the answer is, yeah, I can't. I mean, whoever gets it today stays on it today.

Yes. You

would have to reapply.

And I already have done that. Yep. But I can't come back in May to do something different, I guess. Does that make sense? I mean, this really is gonna

be I think I think it's just

What I'm what I'm basically asking is is is if there's an opportunity later, like, for next year for you

to do it,

then I like staying with the momentum. But if this is your only chance to get to do it, I like everyone to have the opportunity.

So She has to she can reapply for a second term

in May.

For a second term.

She would have to to continue her year as chair anyway. So her second term would start in May and be through '28.

I'm not sure how

Yeah. I don't know how that works. But, yeah.

Does that make sense?

They don't If If there's going to be opportunity for later, then I'll call.

I'd like to vote for you.

Lisa. I would vote for myself.

Just wanted to to make sure. Leticia? Jumping online?

So we're voting between the two. Is that what you're saying?

Voting between Jill and Lisa for chair the chair position, and then we'll jump to vice chair.

Okay. I guess I'll say Jill.

Thank you. And Joyce.

You guys make this hard. I'll say Lisa. Alright.

So I have it, with about four to three, Lisa as chair. Thank you, everyone. Thank you for both volunteering to be Jill, Leslie, Leticia for Jill, Elizabeth, Marna, Lisa, and Joyce for Lisa. Alright. Thank you. Okay. So now vice chair. Less frequent coffee with me, but still happy to meet frequently for coffee is really the big difference. Anyone interested in being vice chair for the calendar year?

Can we nominate?

Have to accept. Someone's

not here.

I'd like to make a nomination. I'd like to nominate Morna. I think her background and her experience could be really beneficial. Her connections with the medical community. I think her organizational skills are excellent.

And she has also helped us out already on the directory. So she's demonstrated typical role is to assist in the duties of the terror, which I laid out. And then there were some additional duties and also to facilitate the demons.

It's backup

for lunches. Did you have questions on that too?

I had read through this.

Tried to

go to some of those meetings too. I think

Is that a yes? Yes. Okay.

Yes. Accept the nomination? Yes. Alright. Thank you. Anyone else want to put their name in for vice chair? Okay. I'm gonna take Joyce and Leticia. Silence as a no. Alright. So I think I same process as before. Can I get a motion? There's only one. I think we still need to make a motion to vote on the vice chair role. I know. Whoever Robert was

I'll make a motion

to have

a vote on the vice chair

for the

2026 calendar year. Can I get a second on that motion? Second. Jill? All in favor? First name of the vote. I'll take that as a yes. Otis? Nay.

Is that seven?

Yes. All right. Jill?

Yes. Vote

on Myrna? Yes. That's a yes.

Heidi? Yeah.

Yep. Yes.

Marna? I'll vote for Marna.

All right.

I vote for Marna.

Leticia. Vote yes or no for Marna as vice chair?

Yes.

All right. And Joyce?

Yes.

All right. Thank you,

So we're not done, kids. But we have 10 talk about

change to terms.

And so basically at the meeting, what council call asked is if we would vet this with our board or commission as to how they feel about the terms. As councilor Reidy said, most people aren't interested in a five year utilities. Correct? And the only ones that are three year terms are planning and zoning and the LTAP, the Ledger's Tax Advisory Board. Is that correct?

That's my report.

And everything else, I think it's two and two. Two? Two. Two. Of those. So three. That's what I said. Planning and something else. So there are only three boards that don't have the two and two. Okay? So we're open to suggestions. What do you guys think? Do you think we should have longer initial terms? Do you think we should be able to have a third term after the two year term? We're speaking specifically

for Just for boards and commissions.

And for our particular commission, for our particular council.

We're looking at general recommendation to counsel for all the boards

and commissions

or just Just us.

They want feedback. A point?

Said that it was

Why not go that route? Two three. Three two.

And we don't have to have consensus for your

ones. Gonna

pass your ideas along so that I know that that planning and zoning I'm sorry. Transportation was in favor of a third two year term and also personnel. But I don't know what more impact that is.

I like the three year term twice. It's still six years. It's still what we're trying to do at the last day. I think for most people, it takes the first year

what you will just need.

So I think having a third year in Castle, stay on it. Three years is not a huge commitment. Starting to four and five, it's just really But

three two year terms. They're saying two or Wait. But I'm saying what others have said they like is an increasing Three

year terms. That's what I just said. But you're saying two

No, I'm saying two,

I three three years. Agree with that.

I do too. Because I am saying the other is an additional burden on staff to

keep It's still six years.

Yeah. I mean, especially for months.

Been stable. And I think it helped allow this board really to look at spin offs

We have 15 positions. And if we have to re up them every two years, that is intense, time consuming, not only for staff, but for the and for our chair. Right?

I would guess, and I don't know this, changing just the three years versus the terms, keeping the same term between three years seems like less than

a year or or not. Not. So like I said, hopefully I can compare. The So this is a resolution that has to do with the state. So I don't know if the state has something about two year terms, but I think we could research it and we can find out how we have to do a third term anyway. But it will be something to explore that if it's just a resolution we have to pass, that doesn't even have a thirty day period to be effective. That's just effective. I never really would revise it. Right. So I I think that that makes sense.

It seems like we should be able to do that. I don't know why the state would preclude a three year term. And then I think we would want to try to, at the same time, maybe structure the

Of finance.

The number of people and say and not have it, like, during the year. Make it more coordinated. I'm gonna try to do a three year term, and there's 50 positions, but you might split them.

Third of the Sure. Month. Half of them would be appointed at the beginning of the year and half of them July.

There's no other board that does six months.

I mean, half of them would be appointed in so their term would be for the whole year. And then the next half would be from July to June. So there's overlapping. So we're not doing interviews. Literally, doing we get interviews every time

last year.

I think the opposite way is five people every three Every

three, yes.

Yes. So it'd be five, five, and five. Those five then either rotate off or

So you just have to advertise. So the other

In November, there's only

five slots a year that would open up unless people Yes. That would make it so much easier.

Well, keeps So I

think that we want to try to structure it. If we're going to revise the resolution, let's make sure we get that coordinated so that people you know, whatever it turns out to be, we should we should make it coordinated.

Yes. Maybe

if we could deal with, you know, 15 people, eight and seven. Right? Mhmm. That would be possible if we can't change that. But I I think it would be more ideal for you to have because that's basically so the way the affordable facilities is they have five positions

in five years, and there's a one up every year. And there have been people where there's a vacancy, and then it gets just gets filled with that pool. And you can decide whether or not with your council liaison, say, well, we'd like to fill these vacancies or not. Because you've had vacancies in the past. That

that's has been the source of so much confusion.

That happens with county council. And that would make the terms easier

to track.

100%.

It would just move into someone else's term. Then when that's up, it's up.

So it was a matter of I think that they so in terms of tracking it from the staff side and the manager's office, they keep track of you all have a number right on your position. Right. So it's health council one through 15. So I think it would be a matter so I think we could do that, and we just have to verify that we're allowed to change. So the resolution can change it, and that would be a separate action that wouldn't require this other thing with having a third time. And then I think it's more of an internal process with Jack to bat. So if 20 people apply for five positions, obviously, everybody's interviewed. And you

can't give preference to

somebody who's been on the health council group versus people who are. Right? But they generally don't have 20 people on file. So for any board. So you can simplify the reapplications. Everybody has to interview at least once to be on a board. But if there was some people that want to continue on and there weren't more applicants than physicians, then you can just say, well, you don't have to have another. That's been another thing that's been floated. And that's more of a that isn't even in the ordinance. That's just the policy.

That's how we do it. You know, it's important for mission. So that's the problem. That's we just realized that recently, there's a little work. So anyway, yeah. So if that's so I don't know if you need to vote.

Think they're gonna pass the ideas.

Yeah. I think they're just gonna ask it.

Online. How many more questions or suggestions?

Yeah. So if that's one suggestion, and if that's what most people like, if there's another one that would work too, we could see. No,

we're good. Thanks, Congratulations. Congratulations. Thank you.

Yeah, don't think we need a vote.

I think

it was just a discussion from each board and commission what

would be ideal. Ideas.

Well, and I don't know. This was something that had come up, I think, before that was party affiliation.

Yes. I was gonna ask you about that.

Is there

any way to the health council without changing the charter?

No. That's a change for energy also. We can we can discuss that and say, you know, this council wants to change it. I can tell you, it's really weird with Lodgers tax. Because Lodgers tax is a great example because there are four identified position that are category positions. There's one member of the community that's a general one. It's anybody who lives in the county. For the for the members that are not in the county, we even keep track of their partner relationships. Oh. Which seems kind of weird. And so the question is

But they're exempt from that requirement to have it. Oh, and they

aren't. But

it's Any board and commission under the county falls under the Because

that because that criterion, it When

they establish border registration,

like I said, that's the exception to that rule because there's a different state rule to that one that is even more restrictive

My joys. Thank you. Than the county.

So I think we'll probably discuss it. I don't know I don't know if the council will wanna have any charter changes at all. But

Could we request it? We say that the health council has absolutely nothing to do. Why would we want? Politics. I don't we can't

It's set up to

We can't bring on.

Some of us do, which is say we're independent, and we should judge it. Because most people are independent up here.

There's a handful of hard you guys, because then we can get a full board.

I am going to vote in the interest of time to not bring up the political charter changes we may want to make. But I think for a agenda item, if there are charter recommendations that the health council wants to bring up,

we put

it as an agenda item because it is 129, and we've lost another member. Now we don't have any type

of court. Just to point a order, is there gonna be a chance for us to do announcements? Because I have an announcement.

See the roundtable?

Yeah. Roundtable. Go for it real quick.

Do it.

Because I

feel like Okay. So we put a pin in this. That's our recommendation.

Yeah.

Everybody's happy. Leticia, are you good with that as well? Okay. So that's why we're gonna say that this board would be interested. And and we can put up with the political party. And quick quick question. Will that impact the current board members? That's a good question. It's Would it be retroactive?

Well, would be are retroactive. People

existing, would they be able to have a three year term?

I think they're

gonna be

the resolution.

Like Do we wanna re

Are we Do we wanna say we'd like for it to be retroactive?

I'm fine with it applying to

current work with Rosenzweiss. Yeah.

That that would interest me. So I would redo it. But I feel it's gonna be six months to get my

card under. Because we only

need one.

So if possible, it could apply to the people who are arguing. We

we have to ask the

can ask.

Suggest whatever we want. They can decide.

Because we're

a feature of statute too. There are statutory restrictions on what that's a kind

of deity. Yeah, it's created by a statute, but I would be kind of surprised if the statute told you exactly how to run your county. But sometimes the state does that, and then we can't deviate. And then some people argue we're a homeowner, so we can deviate.

Well, Thank you for

being here.

Leslie has an announcement.

So as part of the roundtable, which I only figured out after a couple of meetings of coming what they even meant, I want to tell everyone there is a health forum that's gonna be sponsored by the lady on February 24. So location to be determined, but date is February 24 at 06:30 with refreshments again. And then it's going to be a panel discussion with various Professionals. Prominent health

professionals.

It's oriented towards Northern New Mexico.

Do you have a flyer?

Flyers being prepared. Perfect. All just back from Christmas.

Thank you.

I was not doing Canva over break.

Yeah. We're trying to figure out a place. But just so you know, put up your calendar, February 24. And it's sponsored by Los Alamos Immunity Foundation.

Folks all heard Brandy Weiss. She's very involved

in this. Yep.

And the legal workers.

Perfect. Because if we can help them with press or the county line or those kinds of things, getting the word out.

It should

go out on all of that.

Yep. Yes.

Can ask both