County Council - Session - Regular Meeting

Okay. Wanna welcome everybody to the, April 7, 2026, County Council regular session. So we're here in Los Alamos at the chambers, and, we're gonna have some people participating online using Zoom or other devices. And we're also gonna have people obviously here in person. So I wanna thank everybody for being here tonight.

Just briefly go over the process for the meetings since we're have people joining us different ways. So if people are on I guess, first of all, I just wanna make sure that people are aware that public comment will be accepted as we go through each item tonight. And that if you have a public comment for items that are not on the agenda, we'll have that opportunity of being in the meeting pretty soon. During public comments, mister Rael will be looking for virtual attendees that use the raise your hand feature on Zoom, and you can also press, I star six if you're on the phone line. We're gonna ask that you limit your comments to three minutes unless you're otherwise directed, and just state your name for the record for the clerk to record.

And I also ask that virtual commenters include their name on Zoom's to be properly addressed and just also request that comments are addressed to the chair and and stay on the topics being discussed. Our goal is to end the meeting, no later than 10PM tonight. And if we're still meeting by 09:00, we'll check on our progress. So, since we have, some counselors, in person and on Zoom, I'm gonna ask that the clerk please call the roll.

Councilor Hand? Here. Councilor Reidy?

I'm here.

Councilor Cole? Here. Councilor Neil Clinton? Here. Councilor Rigor?

Here.

Councilor Havamand? And councilor Herman? Here.

Okay. Let the record show that we have four counselors here in person. Two counselors, counselor and counselor Neil Clinton on Zoom, and counselor has been excused for this part of the meeting, and she may be joining us a little later. So she was absent currently. With that, then we're moving to the pledge of allegiance. So please stand as you're willing and able and join us in the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the

flag of The United States Of America and

Okay. So now we're on to item number three, which is a statement regarding the closed session. Is there a councilor council call?

The matters discussed in the closed session of county council held on 04/07/2026 that began at 5PM was limited only to the topics specified in the notice of the closed session, and no action was taken on any matter in the closed session. We request that this statement be included in the meeting minutes.

Thank you, councilor Cohen. So, item number four is, public comments. So this is the opportunity for public comment for items that are not on the agenda. Do we have anyone present that wants to make public comment for items not on on the agenda? Please come forward. Just remember to state your name. We'll get the timer going for you.

Thank you very much, mister Turman. And thank you very much for the opportunity to speak. My name is Greg Mello. I am the director of the Los Alamos study group. I'm a resident of Albuquerque and very much appreciate, again, the opportunity to speak.

I am concerned, about a couple of things. Under this president, uniquely, Los Alamos risks, becoming having a poor reputation and even becoming a global pariah. There's now talk of using nuclear weapons in The Middle East, which I have attempted through all the context we have to tamp down. But, nonetheless, intelligent people are, hearing rumors about this. We want the council individually and as a group, if that were possible, to try to tamp down some of the rhetoric, to express dissent.

That is really the theme of my talk tonight. We look for dissent from this very important county, which plays a global role as well as a local role. Want you to be conscious of that global role. When I first came here in 1971, there was more dissent. There was, a lot of discussion.

There was, throughout the laboratory. And gradually in ups and downs, that has disappeared. We are disappointed that Tom Mason does not push back. He's too proud of the nuclear weapons that are made here, And Ted Wiecke doesn't push back as he, really, perhaps he can't, but we still we'd like to see it. We'd like to see a little personal risk.

We think it's your role to do that. Now the president of The United States issued a genocidal threat this morning. This is the dole specialis referred to in the genocide convention. This is a very serious matter for this whole country, and pretty much all of our 2,000 members are terrified and concerned about it. So my first request is for members of the council to take whatever steps you feel you can take personally or as a corporate body to descend dissent, because the this reflects back on this community when there is talk of using nuclear weapons.

I was at the Heritage Foundation debating their nuclear specialist. We organized a debate with, the administrator of the NNSA, and we all debated these kind of things with heritage and with, the NSA administrator. I have sat through a lot of dumb speeches by lab directors and high IQ dumb speeches. You know? Understand what I mean.

If you could wrap up, please.

Yes. I will. Everybody's gonna be looking at Los Alamos that pulls a lot of GRT from, from the Trump, budget increases, tens of millions just from the increase. So people are gonna ask, is this county silent because of the money? And so that's it really, and I really appreciate your efforts to try to model a real democracy here, in Los Alamos County. So thank you very much, and we're always at your, if you have any, if we can be of any service, we would be. Thank you. You know.

K. Please come up. Just remember to state your name for the record.

Good evening. I'm Sam Gardner. 191 Dome Road in the Jemez. Good evening, council Roddy. I'm just, kind of going along the same lines of the recent news that Donald Trump wants to obliterate Iran.

And J. D. Vance, made a reference that, he might, use some special tools in his toolbox, and, that reference, was, of course, to nuclear weapons. In the Santa Fe, New Mexican, I saw this on on your desk, and and I just took took me back to basically, what I've been saying in the last two meetings is that this is, just pretty crazy that right here in Los Alamos, we are made to put aside science and make the emphasis of what we do here in Los Alamos nuclear weapons. And that's again, that is just not why we were here as, residents of Los Alamos and, people that work at the lab.

Ted Wika, in the last meeting that I was I attended said that, we attracted some of the best scientists in the world still, and and that's just not true. In the last three weeks, I've asked at least 10 different people that are higher up at the lab, and they said they're losing scientists. And I I I wanna leave you with this. So in this article, it you know, Llano could land 1,700,000,000.0 more for nuclear arms, with a whopping 1,500,000,000,000.0 recommendation for the Department of War, partially offset by cuts to domestic programs like health care and education, as well as what the federal government calls green new scam or climate related work. And the other side of this paper, it says, project Jupiter will need millions of gallons of water a day.

And Elena says, so how will a hyperscale data center project in Southern New Mexico find the water to quench the needs? Well, it's it's not coming from Los Alamos lab even though we've spent hundreds of millions of dollars on climate research. It won't come from the lab because we can't say that at the lab that climate change is is is here, and it's and it's affecting us. Anyway, I I hope that you'll consider what mister Mello said and and then push back a little bit. And I I I I wanna call out Tom Mason too.

He he should be defending the science that we've preserved for so long at the lab, and and nuclear weapons should take a back seat. Thank you. We appreciate it.

Thank you, mister Gardner. K. Do have anybody else in chambers? Let's make public comment. I'm seeing anyone else, come forward. Mister Rao, can you check online?

If you're online and you'd like to make a public comment, please raise your hand.

Not seeing any chair. Okay. So next thing on the agenda is the approval of the agenda. So does our councilor make a motion? Councilor.

I move that we approve the agenda as present. Is there a second?

Second.

Okay. So we we have a motion by councilor call, second by councilor Neil Clinton. Is there any discussion needed? K. Seeing none, colonel clicker, please call the roll.

Councilor Reidy?

Yes.

Councilor Hand? Yes. Councilor Cole? Yes. Councilor Rigor?

Yes.

Councilor Herman? Yes. And councilor Neil Clinton? Yes. Motion passes six to zero.

Okay. Let the record show the motion passes unanimously with councilor Abman absent. Okay. And then we have six. It's item six of proclamations. Item six a is two one one four eight dash two six. It's a proclamation declaring April 2026 as International Dark Sky Week. So we have listed here, DTA Salon and Heidi Morris accepting it. And, I think councilor Call has the proclamation to read.

Thank you, chair. Whereas the aesthetic beauty and wonder of natural night sky is a shared heritage of all humankind and fosters an interest in science and nature, especially among young people. And whereas 80% of the world's population lives under a dome of light pollution, excessive artificial lighting that disrupts natural darkness, may never experience a dark sky and may suffer scientifically established economic and environmental consequences such as annual $3,000,000,000 of wasted energy in The United States alone. And whereas Los Alamos County is home to scientific facilities dedicated to observing the night sky and and Valles Caldera National Preserve, an international dark sky park. And whereas the Pajarito Plateau is home to dozens of nocturnal wildlife species who rely on undisturbed night environments, and whereas the International Dark Sky Association is the globally recognized authority on light pollution and has created International Dark Sky Week to raise light pollution awareness and provide free education, resources, and solutions to encourage the protection of and enjoyment of dark skies.

And whereas the Los Alamos High School Astronomy Club is presenting at the Los Alamos Nature Center on April 17 on light pollution, Bayes Caldera National Preserve is hosting an astronomy evening on April 17, and the Pajarito astronomers are hosting a star party at Overlook Park the evening of April 18. Now, therefore, on behalf of the Council of the Incorporated County of Los Alamos, I do here pry hereby proclaim the week of April 2026 as International Dark Sky Week in Los Alamos County and ask residents to join us in observing and pondering upon this important week as well as in raising awareness of and support for protecting our precious dark skies. Dated the April 2026 and signed by Randall Reidy, the chair of Los Alamos County Council.

Thank you, councilor Cole. Try to make some remarks.

Hi. I'm Heidi Morris from the Paredo Astronomers Club. I wanna thank you for the proclamation and for everything that Los Alamos County does to preserve the natural beauty of our unique home. The Parrido Astronomers Club enjoys collaborating with Los Alamos County on the dark nights, and we often hear from visitors that they appreciate the opportunity to enjoy the night sky here because that is often not possible where they live. And as the community grows, it's good to keep safe and aesthetically pleasing lighting practices in mind so we don't have to sacrifice our starry skies.

I want to thank you for the improvements made to the Los Alamos County lighting ordinance with special thanks to Galen Gisler, who's now moving to Boulder, and DDA Simone, who is here and has also helped improve lighting at Lantel. So I see him as a valuable resource moving forward. Thanks so much.

Thank you. Okay. Now we're on to item six b, proclamations, two one one four nine dash two six. So it's, proclamation declaring April 2026 as National Library Week in Los Alamos County. So we're gonna have that accepted by some of the staff at the libraries, and council reader's gonna read the proclamation.

Whereas the Los Alamos Public Library sparks joy and creativity, supports learning, and provides welcoming spaces for residents of all ages, and whereas the library serves as a vital community hub connecting people with knowledge, technology, and cultural enrichment, and whereas the library strengthens the community through partnerships that expand access to essential service and ensures free and equitable access to books, digital resources, services, and programs, and whereas librarians and library staff uphold intellectual freedom and inspire curiosity, discovery, and creativity, and whereas libraries nationwide celebrate National Library with this week under the theme, find your joy. Now, therefore, on behalf of the council of the incorporated county of Los Alamos, I do hereby proclaim April 2026 as National Library Week in Los Alamos County, and I encourage all residents to visit their libraries and celebrate the many ways they serve our community. As the library staff there she is.

Make some comments, please.

Yeah. I'd like to invite library staff who are here as well as our newest library board member, Katie Jones Gulsby, to join me. And I would just like to thank the council for your support, not only during National Library Week this this month, but also throughout the year. The the the support and resources that, you fund, for the library are very appreciated by staff in the community.

So thank you.

Thank you, miss Collins. K. Got a photograph with.

Gotta hold the petition now.

Yeah. Face the camera. Alright.

You gotta face the camera. Hold the petition now.

Yeah. Alright.

Thank you.

So as you can hear, the community really loves the library, so thank you for being here and getting the proclamation again this year. So I think we're on now to the item seven, which is petitions. So this is item seven AP0074Dash26. It's a citizen petition requesting to make North Road and Urban Street intersection a four way stop. So we're gonna have Nora Hosser as the petitioner, and I'm also re we're neck recognize that she wrote a letter of the air that we should all seen as well.

So thank her for both of those. And if you wanna come up with your family and other members of your troop and wanna say anything in support of the province, certainly, citizen position.

My friends and I are here to ask the county if we can have a four way stop up at North Road in Urban Street.

Okay. That's good.

Hi. My name is Cece, and there are a lot of reasons why there should be a stop sign near Urban and North Road. Like, people go so fast down that hill, and there's a school close by, which means it's not exactly safe for the kids that walk home that way. And that is some of the reasons why we think it is important to get a stop sign. Hello. Hello. My name is Christine Hickey. The county

Hello.

My name is Sarah Halzer. So, basically, what, Noah here has to say is that her and her friends are here to ask the county if, we can have a four way stop up by, North Road and Urban Street. She thinks the county should do this because someone, like, literally died up there, because of an accident, and I don't want any more people dying from, accidents.

Doc and doctor Easton

It's okay.

And doctor Easton was also a pedestrian just like everyone who lives here and me.

If people can't stop at, Amazon if people can stop at Amazon, they can stop up at this intersection.

I'm Erin Lay. I'm helping these, girls. I've, lived at, about two and a half blocks from this intersection for ten years, and I've been a pedestrian and a bicycler and a driver. And in all cases, I've experienced dangerous situations and often thought, why isn't this a four way stop? But it sadly took this death and more positively a 10 year old girl scout to make me stop thinking about why why isn't this a four way stop and to try to work on doing something about it.

So I applaud these girls for taking the initiative. They do walk to school every day and have to pass that intersection, and it's also right by a park. So I hope that you will consider this, and I I I'm sure that there are counterarguments. And, especially, I've heard stopping on a hill and snow, although I do think that there's a lot more dangerous locations even in Los Alamos stopping stop signs on a hill and snow, like at the bottom of Urban And Diamond and bottom of Quemazon and North Road. I think it's worth it for us all to drive a little slower and put the put the effort in to not have another situation like this.

Thank you.

My name is Joseph Hickey. 4875 Yucca Street. So I live just up the street from there. Christine and I were at the birthday party that day when the right after the accident happened, and we saw the aftermath. We saw the the ambulance and the police cars and things of that nature, and it was very moving.

And she was talking about how afraid she was and all the friends there at the birthday party. And the other thing that nobody has brought up at the point here is that's at the, right at that location on the Mountain School side is where the junior high students are picked up. Right? And so they're oftentimes running across the street in that area in the morning, and it's, I think it's just due to the vigilance of the parents who are dropping their children off at Mountain that they have not intersected with one of these students during that time. I've seen that happen many a times where they're doing that, especially when, Mountain is being their drop off or pickup during that time.

It's an issue with the parents leaving and things of that nature so much so that you can actually look at when the police are sitting there and, stopping people at the running that stop sign. It's it's an issue. I think you can pull up those records, through the through the police station. So I know a stop sign four way stop sign there might not solve all of the problems, but may maybe it'll, help people to understand that they need to slow down. And as been stated, right, there's a school right there. There's a park right there, especially in the evening, dusk, animals, and people walking. And, and it's a drop off place for the junior high schools and and pickup as well. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Okay. Well, thank you. So do we have any technical or clarifying questions from council, not just a petitioner, but a county staff on any of this. Sorry. I forgot to look there. Councilor Ham, did you have a question?

Yes, chair. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to ask about, whether or not we have any kind of traffic study that was done that, justifies why we only have a two way stop sign, situation now. And, you know, if it was ever, studied regarding a four way stop, sign intersection.

Chair Reidy, members of council and councilor Hand, at this point, we're unaware of any previous studies. We have been looking over records to see if there were past studies performed at that intersection. But so far, that has hasn't provided any any information yet. We are prepared to study the intersection at council's direction here tonight for the petition if that's council's direction.

Thank you. And I I was just wondering, if we are going to study it, I I, I realized that sometimes, you know, the public may seem like or they may, you know, get the impression that we study a lot of things, but we don't get anything done. You know, not that that's true, but, you know, I've heard that comment before. And I was just wondering if we do study it, how long are we going to study it? How long would something like that take?

Mister chair and, counselor Han, the data collection will probably take us at least a couple of weeks. Okay. We'll gather the the data and and perform the evaluation and run a report. I would say that could take anywhere from, you know, two to six weeks. And, of course, that council direction if you also wanted us to run that through the transportation board and get a recommendation from them as well, we're we're happy to do so.

That sounds like a a reasonable thing to me. And, you know, of course, that's not a question, but just my own opinion. But I, you know, I hope that we can get some input back to the community as soon as possible regarding, you know, what we can do to possibly make that intersection safer and try to prevent any other types of accidents like that. Thank you.

Thank you, councilor Graham. Do we have any other questions?

Councilor Cole? This is probably for manager or Laurent. I do do you know where we are on the the traffic cameras and speed cameras and deploying those?

Chair ready, councilor Cole, we are in the procurement process phase, and, we have made some progress, but there's a lot of different components. So it's still being worked through. So we haven't actually completed that procurement yet. We did, however, hire additional police, and, we are doing we have been for several months doing additional, patrols and they're specifically assigned to traffic duties, to to look for speeding.

Okay. Any idea when those might be deployed deployable?

I do not have a date until I complete the contract with the and get those delivery dates, for the materials and then the installation.

And, mister Martinez, do you know exactly where the middle school bus stop is in that in relation to that intersection?

I'm not sure of it exactly. I think there's a a stop a little further south on, North Road near the park, but I I haven't reviewed that recently, so I don't wanna misspeak on that.

And given that the park has multiple access points, we're not just looking at potential pedestrian concerns at that corner. I mean, that that is certainly a concern because we just had a fatality there. But there are other entrance points that I think should be looked at for that park. I think this one's a high priority because of the location of the school and now hearing about a bus stop nearby. But I would hope if we did a traffic study that we would look at other parts of or around the entire park for any other pedestrian access issues, and or concerns. That was really not a question. Sorry.

K. That's fine. Any other questions? Councilor Rieger?

We have enough budget to do this? If you think it's necessary, isn't that part of the department budget already? Is there another does it come back to us for a vote, or is it?

Mister chair, council Rieger. So it would be utilizing, Public Works staff and operating budget to perform the study and make any installation of any, traffic devices.

So there's no budget action on us. It doesn't mean we can come back?

I would just I

would say at this point, no.

You've you've finished the study yet, talk to the county manager, and it'll be done.

Yeah. And we'll have a decision point and get a recommendation from the transportation board. And then, depending on council's motion tonight, come back to council and report back. I would say that the ninety days that's in your recommended motion, tonight would be adequate time for us to do all the legwork and and get all the data and perform the reports and look at, you know, the surrounding areas as, councilor Cole had alluded to. Thank you.

Yep. That's a call.

So here's my question I forgot to ask. Ninety days is a little ways out. There's obviously some concern right now. Is there anything that you think can be done to mitigate the hazards while we're doing a more in-depth study?

Councilor Cole, currently, what we have done is talk to the police department and try to gather some data as to the facts of the accident that occurred at the intersection. It seems to me that it's still under investigation, so there's not a lot of information yet available to us to give us some indication as to the cause of the accident and give us some information about, you know, was it, you know, related to anything on-site. We have reviewed, you know, the devices, the signs, the the pedestrian markings at the location, and everything is in good condition. So that's what we have done up to this point just to ensure that, everything that's supposed to be there is there. And but until we get more information, you know, through the police department and gather some more information on, you know, maybe a cause, you know, we can do a a study on the on a stop sign warrant analysis, and look at other, you know, pedestrian issues and gather some data, as part of this process, but, that's what I would have to how I would respond to your question.

So I heard, potential concern of people running the stop sign that's there, and then the other concern I heard was speeding down urban. So police presence might help with the speeding concern. Is I I believe in other communities, and maybe I don't know if I've seen any in New Mexico. I've seen lights on stop signs just to bring that stop sign to the better to the attention of drivers. Have you seen something like that? Is that is it feasible to put something like that up right away?

Counselor Cole, normally, we'll do in in situations where we have seen a lot of speeding is we will put temporary speed trailers, and then we gather data along with alongside that, or we'll install speed signs like what you see on Central Avenue as you're heading east into downtown. There's a speed sign there, and we have several speed signs, you know, around the county to inform drivers of their speed as they're entering, you know, an area. So those are some countermeasures that how we've addressed, you know, areas of speed. But what we'd like to do first is collect the data and see if there actually is a speeding issue. And then as temporary measures until we can put permanent measures up, we've employed or deployed, temporary speech trailers, for that purpose as well.

We have done that, in instances near Mountain School, where that's, you know, proven to be effective, and we did some measures there with speed signs as well. So

Is that too far away from the school to extend the school zone to that area?

I would say off the cuff, likely so, but that's something we can look at as well.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you, councilor Cole. Councilor Anna, do you have another question? You're muted.

Excuse me. Thank you, chair. I the way I understand it, we have, several different options on how we can move forward with this petition. You know, we can, either, take no further action, or we can, you know, try to get some additional information, research, and then, come back to counsel with options and recommendation within a certain amount of time, or we can just take an action tonight. And so I was just wondering if you know, what what is the staff's recommendation?

Can can you move forward with a study? You said, like, within two weeks. Can you move forward with a study, that that affirm you know, basically provide some affirmation that, you know, four way stop would be a positive, approach to the the safety concern and move forward and basically cover all the expenses for that through your operational budget? Or would you need to come back to counsel for some additional funds to do that?

Yeah. Did you wanna

Thank you, chair Reidy, councilor Hand. There there is a county manager recommendation in the staff report. There isn't always one on a something like this with a petition, but this is something where we do have a standard process when we have road safety issues to address or, and we also have a board, the transportation board. So our rec my recommendation would be to defer it to staff and the transportation board to come to evaluate it and come back with a a recommendation. And we we do not at this time have any concerns that we couldn't address what we need to within our existing operating budgets.

And I'll just, add, mister chair, that, we do utilize national engineering standards on the installation and placement of traffic control devices. So that is why, you know, as engineers, we feel that the studies are important to validate the reasoning and the, and the warrants behind installing any kind of traffic control device. So

Okay. Thank you, mister Martinez. I don't think I see

Chair chair, I do have one comment I'd like to make. I understand the urgency of where we are now. And I also am keenly aware that if we move too quickly without having the information, the data points, that could be detrimental. So I think we need to balance the speed at which we're trying to solve this problem with having the information that is foundational to us moving forward and it being in the best way possible.

K. Thank you, councilor. Councilor Hand, do still have are you still got more comments or questions? Or okay.

Sorry about that. I still have my hand up. I Yeah. Did make some comments when I was on mute. Okay.

So, basically, all the things that, the county manager said and, and, the department manager said, they all sound very reasonable to me. And, so, you know, it just sounds to me like, you know, if we have to determine a number of days, it's at least going to be a month if we're talking about getting it on the agenda to the transportation board. That's my understanding. So I was just throwing that out there to see if, staff had any other ideas about that.

Did you wanna comment on the schedule for the transportation board?

Mister chair and councilor Hand, I would I would agree with the recommendation in your staff report as far as the ninety days. That gives us sufficient time to include the study and evaluate the data, hopefully get some more feedback from police department at the same time and allow us to go to the transportation board, you know, at least once, if not, maybe twice, and then come back to council if needed.

Okay. Thank you, councilor. Don't see any other questions. So I was wondering if the, pedestrian master plan, which we just approved, like, last August, if it identified any safety issues on in this neighborhood or, at this intersection?

Mister chair, no. It doesn't specifically address any issues at this particular intersection that I could easily find today.

So Okay. And then I guess in terms of maybe following up on what councilor Keller was asking about. So there is nothing that we would be recommended to do before the ninety days are up. Is there some action that is basically temporary that also helps click? So would it be like the speed cameras that could help maybe let people know that they're speeding and they might slow down? So this is not something that can be implemented. Like, right away, we have portable ones. Like, there's one right now on Trinity that can be moved. People are shaking their head by let them why won't

people Yes.

That's something we could ask the police department to

Okay. And how many of those do we have? Do we have more for, like, other neighborhoods?

I believe we have two. I I could be wrong.

Is that something that we can look and get some more of? And before we get the so we have the the speed speed cameras that would be issuing the citations. They're but before those come, because we've been waiting now for about a year for that, can can we look at maybe that maybe not in your budget, but is that something you bring back about having additional mobile ones?

Chair Brady, I I can check with the police department, and any purchase is gonna have some sort of lead lead time, but we can certainly look at that.

Okay.

Mister chair, if I could follow-up. As far as deploying any sort of device immediately, what I would say is that we would like to collect some data without any influence of any device and capture capture, you know, what people are doing currently, to get some accurate data, you know, without any temporary devices, and that would give us kind of a a better feel for if there is actually a speeding issue, on that roadway as we collect the data. Okay. And that's kind of a typical, criteria in evaluating data is that there's not undue influence by other factors while you're collecting that data.

Okay. I see miss Hosmer coming up behind you. Would you did you wanna make some more comments about any of this? Or

Yes. I do. There is an a speed camera already along Urban Street on the Northwest Corner of Urban Park, and this was installed following a traffic study in 2016 following a citizen petition asking for speed control along North Road in Urban Street.

Mhmm. Yeah. I have I'll say I've had heard about issues in this neighborhood before with people speeding. So okay. I I don't think anything else I have to say is a question. So seeing there's I

have one more question.

Hey, counselor. Did you have one more question, please?

I'm sorry. I have another question. But, so we keep on talking about the speeding. But what I understand is that, this accident that happened where we, you know, had a fatality wasn't necessarily caused by speeding, but it was on the side you know, the the vehicle was actually on the part of the road where they had a stop sign. And they stopped, and then they made a left turn, and then, you know, they hit the pedestrian.

And so is that I mean, if they were at a full stop and then they, you know, accelerated to make a left turn, you know, that's possibly a different issue than speeding, especially you know? So I don't know if we can tie that particular totality and situation to a speeding problem in that intersection. I'm no traffic engineer, but, you know, that that was one question that that I had in my mind is, you know, was this really speeding that caused that fatality as far as anybody can tell at this point?

Mister chair, councilor Han, how you describe the accident is how I understand it as well, that it was from a stop condition that the vehicle made a left turn and, had the the, collision with the, pedestrian. So at this point, I can't say for sure, but it appears that there is not a speed related issue. It was a more a a yielding type incident. But, again, we're awaiting more details from the from the police department, through their investigation.

Okay. Thank you. May I ask a technical question about since the petition identifies one this one particular intersection, is the council limited to dealing? Basically, we can have a broader evaluation. Okay. So now I'll look and see if there's any public that wanna comment on this. It come forward and just have to restate your name.

I'm,

Sam Gardner, 191 Dome Road in Jemez. So, I I believe it was in 2016 I I brought an issue up with, the traffic, adjacent to Mountain School and, tried to get, speed bumps and, and a light. And we were able to get, you know, the the light there that says, you know, 25 miles an hour and then 35. But that's it's it's it's kinda, not that effective. And I'll I'll point out that that whole area needs to be reexamined because I believe it was the day before yesterday, there was a major accident at Arkansas and Diamond, and the police had most of the traffic coming through the school zone.

And some of those people were coming through the parking lot of the school where the kid drop off is to turn around because they weren't making any progress, and it just exacerbated the whole issue with that that whole area. So I I appreciate that, counselor Ruddy, that you might look into the whole area being, reevaluated for for safety. But, that's all I have. Thanks.

Okay. Thank you, miss Gardner. Can of course, we have some more people in President Chambers who'll who's coming up and just state your name, the clerk.

Thank you. My name is Bob Hauser. I live in the thing locale is the other Hausers here. Habitually, I know it may sound anecdotal, but I have been many times nearly hit traveling up urban by people coming from North Road even though they have a stop sign. They assume I have a stop sign, and they just go. They stop, wait, and then go. Several times, I've they just cut right in front of me and just go right from one side of assuming I'm gonna stop. I've learned to approach that stops, area with my foot on the brake because I do not wanna be involved in one of these traffic accidents. So, I witnessed it. I have not yet gotten into a problem.

I try not to, but, it does take work for me. So I thought I would just mention that.

Okay. Thank you. Mister Holler.

I'm Erin Lay again. I've as I as I said, I've approached that intersection from so many directions, and oftentimes, being at the stop sign and knowing that cars come speeding down and speeding up the hill, I'll get ready to turn, and then I'll have to make that turn pretty quickly because even if I can't see them yet, they're gonna come sliding down the hill. So I think people who turn learn to do it quickly also, which makes the situation more dangerous for pedestrians.

And if

it were a stop sign, a four way stop, they I think it would allow people to have more consideration in their in their turning and not being worried about getting hit when they turn, onto that road. In addition, I agree that people do think that I think they it it is a confusing intersection in that a lot of people on the stop sign sides think that the other the urban traffic should stop. It seems like it should stop. And I have off also incur had that happen to me where people just turn right in front of me. In addition, when I was collecting, signatures for this petition, I would say that people were, like, were clamoring to sign this petition.

They they were just like, oh my god. Thank you. I want to I want to sign it. Please give it to me. And they would tell me their stories, and it was all similar. It was, cars coming in front of them. It's just a very unclear intersection. And if we could just make it so that it's clear that we stop, then I feel like it would just be a lot less confusing, and the confusion can cause, issues. So thank you.

Okay. Thank you, miss Mike. Okay. We haven't any any else in chambers? I'm not seeing anyone right now. Miss Riel, can you check online?

Yes, chair. But before I do that, just wanted to mention councilor has joined the meeting. Okay. Thank you. If you're online and you'd like to make a public comment on this item, please raise your hand.

Not seeing any chair. Okay. So this point, see if there is a counselor interested in making a motion. It's like I saw councilor Ham. Do you want, like, to make a motion?

I'm willing to propose a motion. Basically, I move that council acknowledge the petition, thank the petitioners for, the recommendations and request, and, request that staff and or an advisory board investigate and research the matter and return to counsel with information and options and a recommendation for action within ninety days.

Second.

Okay. So I'll just note that the county manager recommendation was more specific on the board and personnel, but we could discuss this one if we wanna go ahead. I think is it clear from the county manager perspective who the board and people would be? Okay. Do you want me

to do you want me to change it to transportation board instead of advisory board?

No. I I think I think you're fine. I just wanted to make people aware. Then I got I'm nodding that as Miranda's okay with that motion. Okay. So so the motion is specific to this intersection, or is it the whole area?

The intersection.

Okay. I know I'm going out of order, but I would really prefer that the information address the area since we've heard issues with the area. But is there a way to clarify this so the staff understand what we're looking at, or is that clear from the comments? I'm not sure if the staff understand whether or not council want them to look at this one intersection or look at the whole area.

Chair ID, I would say if you're wanting to look at the whole area, you inform us what specific area that you'd like us to look at. Okay. And if you're requesting us to look at stop signs, or other items. Okay. I would say at this point, if you could focus it on the on the stop sign issue, we will be looking at speed as well through that study.

Okay. Okay. So, are there any other comments about this motion as stated? The motion as stated is only at the intersection.

Yes, chair. This is councilor. I'm sorry for joining late. I just want to clarify. I would hope that this that we're talking just about the intersection of Urban And North Road.

And I wonder if counselor Hand and counselor Neil Clinton and staff and please please chime in if this is unreasonable, but I would prefer this be a sixty day. I just don't think it's that complicated. I'm, but I'm also not a traffic professional, but I'm super familiar with this intersection just based on where I live and where my routes go and where my kids play tennis for years, etcetera. So for my familiarity with it and understanding the incident, I'd prefer sixty days, and I'd prefer we'd be specific to this intersection and a four way stop sign intersection, just period, if that's if that's an an amenable amendment.

Friendly amendment from councilor Haberman. Councilor Hand, you had your hand raised already. Are you

I do.

Recognizing any of these comments? Thank you.

So, you know, what I'd like to say, I'll first respond to, counselor Haberman and say, I don't know if you entered the conversation after we talked about the, level of time needed, or amount of time needed, but talking to, you know, the county manager and the department manager, you know, basically, when you consider going to both the transportation board and getting it back on an agenda for council as well as doing the study, that it's really gonna take more, like, ninety days. That's why we didn't go any shorter, you know, just to be able to get on these different agendas. And the other thing about the scope regarding comment is I'd I'd just like to say that, you know, we are addressing the petition. That's part of, you know, why we're here discussing it. You know?

Tonight is it's based on the scope of the petition. And, you know, if we tried to really expand it into something else, I think it's going to be very difficult for us to do that on the fly, you know, because we, you know, we would have to dictate what those other intersections or what what those other traffic patterns would be. So I, would highly recommend that we stay within the scope of what the petition is asking for and that we also go with the recommendation from, county staff on the amount of time that it is going to take to, have a turnaround on this, on this request.

Okay. Thank you. Councilor Hetman, does that answer your so it sounds like there's no

Yeah.

Flexibility in the time.

Sounds like we're in agreement on the scope. And, sure. I I I get the ninety day thing. I just I guess, I was just trying to show that I have a sense of urgency on this. So they

all do.

Yeah. I'm exactly. No. Yeah. I'm not trying to imply

I totally agree. Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate it. No.

I appreciate the I appreciate the homework in the background. Thank you.

So it's the part about returning to council. Right? I mean, that seemed so is this really a sixty day thing with another thirty days of getting back on our agenda? So where did the ninety days come from?

Mister chair, I'll I'll answer, and then I'll allow county manager Laurent to to to also chime in if she like. But so a sixty day window would be a tight window to thread because to get something in front of transportation board by May, the first Thursday of the month, is a tight window. And then, you know, following that would be, you know, some, getting in front of council. So doing the data collection and getting the report done and doing the work we need to do to get to Tboard, is a tight is a really tight window for that time frame. So just to kinda put that in perspective.

So our our our time window, to get to t board would be their first meeting in June, the June, and then the council sub subsequent to that, and it could be, you know, before the ninety days at some some time.

Yeah. Well, it's basically ninety days almost Almost. Between yeah. Okay. Well, I'll just comment on the motion so I understand, but I don't want citizens to have to come with every intersection, every traffic measure they wanna come to with us. And that's why I thought we had had other recommendations about just the park. There's a number of places, you know, where there you know, other bus stops, and this came up, you know, in White Rock, you know, around the school there. Just seems like with our pedestrian master plan, I understand it's supposed to be flexible and get new information. These are priorities. Because I could say about Central Avenue, we've we've gotten a lot of comment about that.

And that's that's one that seems like you could fix, like, temporarily. I understand the most of them is more difficult to fix temporarily because of the nature of the traffic control, but I would just hope that we could, you know, take advantage of that pedestrian master plan. And since there isn't even anything in this neighborhood and there are known issues, we've had a fatality that are very unfortunate. Like, I would hope that we don't have to have, like, serious injuries or things like that before we have to, know, reactive to things and just make safer streets. You know?

That's our, you know, zero zero, you know, fatalities and injuries is our goal. So I understand that we're responding to the petition, but there are other known issues just around here besides this intersection. So I'm I'm a tad disappointed, but I'll vote for it. But I just wanted to make that comment that I think we could probably, you know, look at this more broadly. We're gonna have, I think, the transportation board coming to council to a work session in May.

So we're not gonna have any of these issues resolved, and I don't wanna be, like, sitting another ninety or a hundred and twenty days on that. We're trying to, you know, resolve some of this. So whatever we can do sooner rather than later, I understand some of the issues with this particular intersection. So, anyway, I guess I had most of the discussion there. So, councilor, did you something else you wanna follow-up on?

Yes. I just wanted to, mention that what we could do is we could just vote on, you know, the scope of the petition tonight. And, you know, I'm happy to suggest, a broader, you know, presentation or or, agenda item, you know, on, you know, pedestrian, planning and and, you know, traffic safety for a broader area. And and we would could discuss that, at a later date, you know, as part of a council agenda item.

Okay. Thank you, councilor. We'll be we'll be having that discussion at the work session. There won't be any action plan, but we can look at that topic and see. But so that's I just that's, like, another month out. So Okay. I don't wanna waste too much time on things that we know we need to work on. So thanks. Thank you. So if there's no other comments, can we please call the roll?

Councilor Reidy?

Yes.

Councilor Reigor?

Can you read back exactly what the motion is right now? What are we voting exactly?

I can't, councilor, I can't read it back. I'd have to stop the recording and replay it. Would you want me to do that?

I can I can re, I can say it again if you want me to?

We're still on the original motion that you

There's no it's the original motion. So there's the ninety days, and it's to it it's the more general language, but it's the intention is just going to the transportation board and the county engineer.

I don't think she said transportation board, but she said appropriate board. She said appropriate board and then interview board. And then staff and ninety days and and just the one intersection. That's it. Okay. Yes. Well, yes on the motion.

Councilor Hand? Yes. Councilor Cole? Yes. Councilor Hafferman?

Yes.

Councilor Neil Clinton? Yes. And councilor Herman? Yes. Motion passes seven to zero.

K. Let the record show the motion passes unanimously, and I wanna thank the petitioner and all the people that spoke for coming tonight. So I think with that, we're ready to go on to the next item. So we're gonna have a couple presentations. Item eight is presentations. Eight a is two one three two five dash two six. It's gonna be a presentation on the twenty twenty six state of New Mexico legislative session. So we have our intergovernmental affairs manager, miss Duran, here.

Yes. Good evening, chair, members of the council. This evening, we actually have our state lobbyists, your state lobbyists, Mackie Campaign Solutions here this evening to talk about the state legislative session. The two members of that organization are Daniel Mackie and Luke Otero. I am going to leave it to them to present, and then all three of us will be available for questions. I just wanna thank them and also county management. I had some family issues in January, and they've they were wonderful to work with. Thank you.

Thank you. Good

evening, mister chairman, members of the council. My name is Danny Mackey, with Mackey Campaign Solution. This year, we had a thirty day, session, which is basically a budgetary session unless there's a call put in by the governor. In this session, there were about 812 pieces of legislation introduced. 686 of them were bills, a 105 were memorials, and 21, were resolutions.

Of of those, 70 of the bills passed and and signed by the governor. 46 memorials were signed and four resolutions. The resolution that the county commission passed for setting us giving us guidelines on where you wanted us to focus our resources. Of those 812 bills, 78 of them were were supported by the county position, three opposed, and two, we monitored. And 706 of them were no position on those.

This next slide shows a breakdown exactly by how you guys set up your the resolution to set to guide us on this on this past legislation. So as you can see, health care was the number one piece of legislations that were were introduced that we supported. There was 46 of those that we supported next with improvement to education outcomes. And of the two that that were monitored, dealt with tax reform and federal funds. Of of the major legislation that passed this session, There were three major bills that we're following, h b 99, which was sponsored by Los Alamos' representative, Christine Chandler.

That was the Medicaid Malpractice Act that passed and was signed into law. That took up most of the energy of the session was the medical malpractice in the compacts. Senate bill two, which we strongly supported, was the state highway project bonds that passed, giving the highway department $1,500,000,000 in large scale investment for highway funds throughout New Mexico. Memoir a joint memorial that passed, dealing with IPRA, was house, joint memorial two, which, studied the IPRA, give setting a task force for the attorney general to to evaluate the IPRA process. That was passed and also signed.

In the next slide, we're looking at different compacts that were introduced. We had quite a few compacts. Medical compacts was on the call. Of those, only two of them passed, house bill two and senate bill one, the social worker licensors compact and the interstate medical licensors compact. The rest did not get out of senate judiciary or other committees.

For capital outlay, we focused on the the housing infrastructure that was deemed priority, and we were able to get $1,100,000 for the housing infrastructure. At that time, that is the end of my presentation, and, I have, Luke Otero with me, and, we're open for any questions.

Okay. Thank you, mister Mackey, for the presentation. Do we have any questions or comments from council? It's not an action item. So, council again, do you have a question or comment?

I do. Thank you very much for the presentation. I'm always glad to see, you know, some of the things that we are able to progress on, like the medical compacts. I I was just wondering regarding the housing infrastructure. You know, you, mentioned that we had $1,100,000 that was, approved. And I I'm just wondering how will Los Alamos County see that money? Where where is it going to be? Is it something that, you know, goes into a fund that that, you know, people have to apply for, or how is that actually allocated?

Councilor Han, chair Reidy, that, project is actually defined as, infrastructure for the North Mesa housing project. So, right now, we don't have a contract yet. The money is flowing through the New Mexico Department of Transportation. We've already talked with them about who our contact will be for that contract. And, beginning in the new fiscal year, Dan Osborne will be the main contact for that project and responsible for that funding.

Thank you very much.

K. Thank you, councilor. Any other questions? K. Not seeing any from any others. So, I guess, to follow-up on the, compacts that didn't get didn't go through the senate. Is there, some potential that there's gonna be a special session again this year, and might those come back?

Chair Reidy,

counselors, those other compacts that did not make it will be reintroduced in the next sixty day session. The potential of a special session between now and the end of the year is unlikely. There's a lot going on. As you know, we're we're fifty three days away from the primary election.

Uh-huh.

The interim committees that will start meeting, at the May, which we will be active with, under the guidance of Danielle, will start to give us a flavor of what they're gonna look at, especially the health and human services committee because that's what we're gonna see where these compacts will come back. The senate judiciary takes a really hard look at them because what's written in other states currently and what's written in our state statutes, sometimes they don't mesh. So, they agreed to just get those other two done because they were able to get enough input both going both ways. So Okay.

Thank you. That makes sense. I guess we'll see if there's any public comment. Seeing anyone come up. Miss Rial, can you check online, see if there's any comment on this part of the presentation?

Sure. I'm not seeing any hands raised.

Okay. So thanks again for your support and the presentation.

I might add, mister chair

Yeah. Please.

I wanna on behalf of Danny and I, we wanna thank Danielle, for her guidance and her, willingness to navigate us through your eyes during this session. It's a it's a pleasant thing to happen, and this is coming from a lobbyist of thirty nine years that they're focused. And we were we were able to, we think, be effective on your behalf of the county. So thank you. And thank Danielle.

Yeah. Welcome very much. Thank you. Okay. So we'll go on to the the next item. So eight b is 21513Dash26. It's the quarterly intergovernmental affairs presentation. Hi. This will be mister Ann.

Good evening, chair, members of the council. I have a very short update. As you know, the first quarter of the year usually is very busy with the state legislative session, and it sort of precludes a lot of other things. However, I do have updates on a few items on the regional update. The things that we continue to keep track of, and I I do host a meeting with my colleagues called the regional roundtable, where we talk about housing, infrastructure, quality of life issues, social services, transportation, energy issues, workforce, and health care.

And I've given you just a few items on the next slide, the specific regional projects, but I'll go into some additional detail. So in housing, we're usually working with Dan Osborne and his team. We've continued to talk to the Hakona land grant, people about the development they'd like to, see move forward in their area, and that's right across from the Poway High School area. Also, in Rio Riba, Alcalde, area, they're still looking at a potential housing development. The they've had some issues that or some challenges, but they continue to look at, I think, zoning for the area to make sure that they can move forward.

And then I don't think that Pewaukee Pewaukee has moved forward. We're not as engaged with them because they have specific sort of mixed use project plans, but we continue to talk to them on occasion to make sure that we know what kind of housing might be available in the region. On social services and behavioral health, in, this twenty twenty five state legislative session, a bill, senate bill three, was passed that created an opportunity to, focus social services and bay behavioral health in districts by judicial district. So we are in Judicial District 1, and we would work we are working with Rio Riba County and Santa Fe County. Our social services manager, Jessica Strong, is doing a great job in sort of navigating that issue.

Because of the large number of tribal members that exist in this area, there was a lot of discussion, and they eventually agreed with the judicial district that they would, have the opportunity to present their own, proposal for the area for behavioral health. I know that, Jessica and, the two, Anne from Santa Fe County and doctor Dodzi from Ria Riba County continue to work together on a plan to utilize the funding that came through senate bill three, and we should hear more about that in the future. The other issue that, in terms of infrastructure, we continue to hear about the landfill project, that Public Works is in charge of. They have finally moved forward. Espanol has had a very hard time in gathering the data that they need in order to move forward with a feasibility study, but most of that work has finally been accomplished.

And I expect to hear more about the next steps on the landfill feasibility study. I don't have an update on transportation right at the moment. I'm not sure why I put it on

my slide. I guess I was hopeful.

And then on the state update, which is the next item and just going back one one slide, I didn't have anything on tribal issues. The Pueblo De San El DeFonso and Los Alamos County has been talking with our county and with DOE and others specifically about the hexavalent chromium plume, and that has taken up most of the conversation. However, there are projects regarding broadband and other issues that continue to move forward as well. On the state update, as you've heard from Mackie Campaign Solutions, I think we had a pretty good state legislative session. I think the work that this council has done in the past, especially on the health care compacts, there was a real sea change where, two years ago, we saw, just a few organizations working pushing really hard to see those passed in the state.

And, you know, the following year, the governor, realizing that this was a huge issue for the entire state, actually convened a group of legislators to work on those, specifically on the inter state medical licensure compact to make sure that those issues that exist between our constitution and our laws and other laws, from other members of that compact would actually mesh together. So that came with a lot of updates to our own state laws in order to pass that compact or joining of that compact. Now as you've heard, we're going to start seeing the interim committees start meeting probably in June, late May, June. They'll be formed now in April. And I think we're gonna hear more about the the other compacts that didn't pass this year.

We'll probably hear more about social services and behavioral health because despite s b three passing, I think most of the judicial districts, as they've gotten together, have found that there's still a lot of challenges informing district wide social service hubs. We'll also be talking with legislators moving forward about capital outlay, what we'd like to see for the county, and and how we should position our needs. For instance, we continue to talk to our legislators about the emergency operations center and what that means. And I would say that the manager, our EM manager, Bev Simpson, has done a terrific job of gathering regional supporters for that. So moving forward, we'll have not just our county talking about it, but also Santa Fe County, Rio Riba County, and hopefully, Calisan Wara as well.

So I think that that would create a very strong narrative for our emergency operation center. As you know, with since we do this every year, the ICIP yields the capital outlay requests. That is due the ICIP list is due to the Department of Finance and Administration at the state in early July. So we've already started setting up meetings internally to make sure that we start talking about prioritizing that list. However, talking to finance and budget in the future, we may want to actually rearrange our priorities after that initial submission.

It is very hard on budget, though, if we do that. So we'll have to I'll talk to county management about what that process looks like this year. And then just very briefly, I know the chair has an update on our fly in or our advocacy trip to Washington DC that we just completed. Just wanna just briefly say that we had 15 meetings in four days. We got a lot of steps in walking around the congressional offices.

We met a lot of new committees and congressional member meeting had congressional member meetings. And we also met with our delegation as well as the Department of Energy, management, and NNSA as well as the National Park Service. That is my report or my quarterly report for this period.

Okay. Thank you. So are there any questions or comments from council? Not seeing any on this one. So, yeah, thank you very much for the information, and appreciate that. I guess we'll check and see if there's any public comment. Not seeing anyone here. Can you check, mister Rao?

If you're online and you'd like to comment on this item, please raise your hand.

Not seeing anything, chair. Okay. Thank you. So now we're on to item number nine, which is gonna be public comment for items on the consent agenda. I'm not seeing anyone present. Can you check online for public comment on the consent agenda?

Not seeing any hands raised here.

Okay. Is there a councilor interested in making a motion regarding the consent agenda?

I will.

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. Second.

K. Thank you. So we have a motion by councilor Neil Hooten and a second by councilor Herman. Do we have any questions or comments or discussion? K. Not seeing any.

Can the clicker please call the roll? Councilor Rigor?

Yes.

Councilor Cole? Yes. Councilor Haberman? Yes. Councilor Herman? Yes. Councilor Reidy?

Yes.

Councilor Neil Clinton?

Yes.

And councilor Hunt? Yes. Motion passes seven to zero.

Okay. Let the record show the motion passes unanimously. So now we're on to item no. I think I was I was trying to skip something. My iPad won't cooperate.

Now there's an we have an introduction in ordinance tonight. So we're on to item 11, which is introduction of an ordinance. Item a 11 a is c zero zero seven five three dash two six introduction of a corporate county Los Alamos ordinance number o two dash three seven eight, or it's mendering the code of ordinances of corporate counties in Los Alamos by amending sections 38 dash ninety two and thirty eight dash three fifteen of chapter 38, traffic and vehicles related to the penalty for use of handheld mobile communication devices while driving. Is there a counselor, willing to, read this into the record? Council call?

I introduce without prejudice incorporated county Of Los Alamos code ordinance number zero two dash three seventy eight, an ordinance amending the code of ordinances of the incorporated county of Los Alamos by amending sections 38 dash ninety two and thirty eight dash three fifteen of chapter 38 traffic and vehicles relating to the penalty for use of handheld mobile communications devices while driving and ask the staff to assure that it is published as provided in the county charter.

K. Thank you, councilor Call. So now we're on item 12, business. 12 a is two one three dash nine four dash two six, presentation possible action on the Los Alamos County assessor property evaluation and maintenance plan. We have our assessor and deputy here.

How you doing? Thank you, mister chairman, members of the council, George Chandler, county assessor, and I'm here with the new chief deputy assessor, Nnedi Grudelet. He'll be he'll be getting into the meat and potatoes of this, so I'm just gonna make a few comments, to get started. When the I don't know how long ago it was, but when they passed the statute that requires a 1% take for the assessor out of the property taxes, they required a report on that. That 1% is intended to fund an annual reinspection of every property of 20% of the property.

So we have to inspect every property at least once every five years. And so we do 20 per 20% every year. That's property valuation. And we do and then every year, we do not funded by that 1%, but every year, we do, not an inspection, but a re reappraisal of every property using computer techniques. Okay?

So that required that then we required us to do an annual report to the council. And we've actually expanded that to just be an annual report on everything we do, including both the annual and the five year reinspections. So that's what you have. I assume you've all seen this. You have this somewhere. Right? And that's what Nerdy's gonna describe to you how things have been going this year. On a personal note, this is my last time to do this. I'm not running for reelection. So I won't be back doing this again.

And I just wanna thank the council for your support during this during my term. Very, very appreciative of your support. So thank you. Nerio, go ahead.

Good evening. Nerio Gurule here, chief, deputy assessor, council Reidy, chair Reidy, and members of the council. So like George was saying, this plan is required by statute to be delivered to the council as part of the budget process. The objective of this plan is to assist the council in fulfilling its oversight responsibility. The plan's purpose is to ensure that the office is fulfilling its statutory mandates, has a sufficient budget to achieve those mandates, and is being operated efficiently and effectively.

The next slide, is the parcel count and net taxable value. In this slide in 2025, we appraised about 9,400 properties, including mobile homes, livestock, business personal property. The net taxable value, which is the total taxable value after resolving protests, is approximately $6,031,163 more than what was reported to the Department of Finance and Administration in June. So that increase is due to successfully defending the protest amounts by the assessor. Okay.

The next slide is our 2025 sales ratio study. The sales ratio study serves three main purposes as required by by by law. Firstly, it helps us test and fine tune the models we use to assess the value of properties. Secondly, the assessment level indicates how closely our valuations align with the actual market situation as of January 1. Finally, the assessment uniformity demonstrates the fairness and equity of our valuations across all properties excluding the impact of the residential cap.

The key takeaway from this study is that we have valued 100% of the properties in Los Alamos, and we have done so fairly and equitably. We also meet all equitable standards, which means our automated valuation models are precise and well calibrated. The 2025, tax rates. So this chart presents a comparison of tax rates between 2024 and 2025. Whenever there's an increase in value, we should expect to see decrease in the mill rate and vice versa.

Although some proper although property values have increased in recent years, the tax rates have remained more consistent due to what the Department of Finance refers to as yield control. Voter imposed rates such as UNMLA are not included in the maximum rates allowed. When tax rates are enforced, are distributed equally between residential and nonresidential properties. However, time the tax rate becomes over over time, the tech rate becomes even, uneven due to the application of value increase caps and statutory limitations. So 2025 property tax revenue.

This time, we presented the net taxable valuation net valuation and mill rates figures in earlier sites. When we multiply the net valuation by the mill rate, we get the property tax revenue. So as you see there compared to 2024, the revenues increased 5.53% in 2025. But if you look at the bar chart, you will notice that the changes in revenue are not as significant as the changes in net valuation. The this is because of the yield control as balanced out the income streams.

Finally, the part the pie chart illustrates how these funds are distributed among various entities. So in the next slide, the building permits and new construction. So this slide shows the value added by building permits and property assessments that were omitted in 2024 and 2025. The permits issued in 2024 and 2025 were valued in their respective years. This this value includes new homes, commercial improvements, additions, and then other changes resulting from our annual property inspections.

The 2025 protest. So when property owners receive their annual notice of value in April, we encourage them, you know, to contact our office within thirty days mailing of the notice of value, the questions related to the property valuation, the classification of their property, exemptions, and other tax saving opportunities that they they can inquire through our office. If we are not able to resolve those issues within the thirty day window, we offer them the opportunity to file a formal protest that will extend their their window to resolve these issues to a hundred and eighty days. The objective of the assessor's office is to arrive at a fair and equitable valuation rather to win in specific valuation. As indicated in the table, almost all protests are formally resolved and the protests are withdrawn.

So, like, you could see the difference in protests in 2024 to 2025 from '31 to 01/2006, and, only one was heard by the board in both of those years by the the valuation protest board. And it's just important to know that the valuation protest board is entirely unconnected to the assessor's office. Pursuant to law, the county council is responsible for recruiting and selecting members of the valuation board. 20, 25 notables are offers received a positive yearly evaluation from the property tax division. However, many members of the public are sometimes unaware what the assessor office, role entails.

An assessor's primary responsibility is to assess properties fairly and equitably to determine their value for taxation purposes. It is important to know that the assessors do not impose or collect taxes. This is why we have, you know, public outreach where, you know, that that that we encourage the staff to participate in public, in public outreach, you know, attending, you know, the the fair and rodeo chamber fed. So they put up a booth at, you know, the farmer's market and stuff. And they're also in different county committees.

So the projections 2026 projections. So this site explains the difference to two methods used in property valuation, reappraisal and the value maintenance. Reappraisal involves conducting fieldwork and is used for properties that require a new appraisal or construction. Valuation maintenance, on the other hand, relies on modeling to determine the value of the property. Data collected during the reappraisal process is fed into these models along with the other data to keep the models updated and calibrated.

This ensures that the models continue to provide accurate property valuation. Like, George was saying at the beginning of the reappraisal work, you know, in the White Rock area down. Let's end up this year, we have about 1,261 parcels that we'll be inspecting. We do that every so we'll inspect those these same parcels in another five years. Yeah.

And then last, we mailed out our notice of values April 1. And then, again, property owners have until April 30 to file a petition of protest and apply any exemptions that they may have. And then we encourage them to come in by to our office, call, and, you know, ask about any exemptions that we have. And our our team is always ready to assist and help them out. So I'll stand now for any questions.

Okay. Let's first start by thanking miss Chandler for his service, and, thank you for the presentation, mister Perle. So we have any, so we're gonna have a motion on this. Are there any technical or clarifying questions? Councilor Ann.

Thank you, chair. So regarding the protests, it says that the value, increased by 1.1%. So that leads me to believe that people are protesting that the valuation that they receive is lower than what they believe the property should be. And, I would imagine that the reason why they believe the property value would be higher is because they have an independent appraisal done on their property. What advantage does, someone have for trying to protest the value if they're taxed at a higher rate?

Yeah. Let's see. Most people protest because they're they think their value is too high. They want it to be lower.

K.

Right? And that would lower the taxes. There are other you can also protest the classification of the property. It's residential or nonresidential. You can protest the the allocation of the funds from your taxes, are a lot of things besides the value itself that can be protested. So, and a lot of the protests that we get are from From recent commercial entities. Yeah. There there's a class of people out there. What do we call those guys? Not vultures.

What's the right word? Consultants.

Consultants.

Yeah. Consultants who who offer who go around the property owners and say, sign up with us. We'll try to we'll get your property taxes lower. You give us, what, half usually. And so savings is. We get a lot of that. Doesn't it doesn't cost Smiths or whoever it is. It doesn't cost them anything for these guys to do it. They just rely on on taking a piece of the action. And so a lot of people sign up for that. And we talk to those guys, and sometimes we make a change. Right? Yes. These the settlements those settlements often include making a change. Right?

Well, they don't have to. Or if we can also sometimes when we show show them that we're well prepared to, defend our value, they'll walk away. So Yeah.

You know? So so, yeah, we just wanna, you know, have it be fair and equitable. Like, as I I mentioned earlier, we it's not it's not to win the the protest, but it's to be fair and equitable and make sure, you know, the taxpayer is is getting treated fairly, we value that property what it needs to be valued at.

Okay. So why would we have an increase by 1.1% if people are protesting that their value should be less?

I think that one that 1.1% was on the on the building permits and the new construction value.

Okay. Yeah. Building permits. Okay.

So we we picked up that value in new construction, meaning, you know, new homes that were constructed and you we have when we have the appraiser out there doing the five year reappraisal, you know, they pick up a new garage, a new a new wood deck that that we see out there, that that's the value that is picked up on that. And that's the that's the increase that you're seeing there.

Okay. I get it. Thank you very much for for clarifying that for me. I was always kind of wondering. So, I appreciate all your work. Thank you so much, and, thank you, Mr. Chandler, for your service to Los Alamos County.

K. Thank you, councilor Han. So I guess one of the things I usually ask about is the head of household exemption. I think it's hard to know how many properties would qualify. It seems like there's a larger fraction that qualify than take it. So I think we have what like, it might be up to, like, almost 40% now of the properties.

All qualified. Yeah. Every almost every homeowner qualified.

Could qualify, but I think in terms of how many people take it, though

You don't have to be married. You don't have to have kids. You just have to be a person.

Yeah. Because I thought I thought we were still I mean, it seems like the number's going up.

We we recruit them. Yeah. We we're at when when Yeah. You to the fair and rodeo and all

that stuff. Cheaper.

That's what we're doing. We're recruiting people to apply for head of household exemptions for veterans.

The veterans exemption. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. That head of family exemption. Right now, we're at 2,549.

Okay. A third of the

A third.

Yeah. Roughly. Right.

Yeah.

So But

This year that we've done, we sent out the notice of value. They should be coming in should be getting more now.

Okay. So do they have to be resident mixed resident or not?

You know what? Yes. And they can be applied. To order. Yes. Yeah. So

the out of state owners don't qualify. But if you own so it seems like I don't know. It seems like we know based on do we know based on the addresses? Right? So there's an address of record for the owner of every property.

Resident in that house.

They have to live in the house. They can't be renting it out. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. And I would think there's more than a third, like, owner Oh,

yeah. Yeah.

Occupied. Right? Well, I

hope so.

I hope yeah. So

It's an interesting question.

So I I appreciate all the efforts you're doing. You can't sign them up, but this is one place to remind them. So they do have a thirty day window now. Right? If I'm looking at your timeline correctly

Correct.

Well, it's already some days into that, but they have until the end of the month Correct. To come in and just say and it's just a piece of paper to file. Right?

Correct. Yes. Yeah. And if they do come in after that, that window, we do we do have them sign up. We save them in a folder, and we'll apply it for next tax Right.

Next year, they said they can do it. They come May 1. They're a day too late. But

We'll still sign them up.

You can sign them up. Okay. And then I was curious about the veterans exemption too. And, again, we wouldn't know how many people qualify for that either, but you do the same outreach and we just We do

that too. And we work with the veterans, Office of Veterans Affairs in the state to help them get certified. They have to get a certification that they got some first, that they're a veteran. That's the first thing. And then if they're disabled, then they get an exemption that's equal to the the proportion of their disability. If they're 50% disabled, they get 50% exemption.

Right.

And that's another certificate. And we and so we have to work with the Veterans Affairs Office. Yeah. And sometimes they come up here when we're when we're recruiting.

Yeah. They're coming up Friday. We hear they'll be having an event here

Okay.

Friday. Yeah.

Good. So I just I asked about it because I wanna make sure people are aware of this. I appreciate all the work you're doing to ask and get that board out. So just curious about livestock. Are livestock self reported?

Correct.

Yes. Okay. Yeah. We sent out a Yeah. A rendition form in the yeah.

They Okay.

Report back to us.

So If they want, we will send them a letter.

Okay. Have you seen one?

We see one that's not on the

list. Okay. Okay. What's

a herd of goats? 40 goats. Right?

Okay. I'm

not what is there.

Okay. Okay. Then I guess in terms of the numbers, and it's just a two year comparison, so I was misunderstanding, I think, one level. So when you're resolving the 105 out of the 106, in some cases, I know you're correct. We we did so you're making the a correction in their favor, right, sometimes. Like, they present the information so it's just that they've been resolved without having to go to protest board. So they're not always in in the assessor's favor. They could be in the property owner's favor.

Yeah. Correct. Yeah. We we we resolve them within an informal hearing after we do an appraisal on it. We meet with them in our office and we go over. K. Yeah.

Okay. Okay. Thank you.

We learn a lot, by the way, from these protests. Right? Stuff we can't get otherwise, we can get through a protest. Like, for nonresidential properties. Right? Yeah. They come in and protest. They have to give us information that we can't get any other way. Right. So happy to see protests Yes. At all sometimes.

Yeah. Okay. Okay. That's very informative. I'm not seeing any other or there's concern.

Thank you, chair. Thank you for the presentation. Quick question. The total number of protests filed went up quite a bit, as you noted, from 24 to 25. Is that just a normal variation? Or

Yeah. The the was pretty

old.

Up from '31 to a hundred and six?

Yeah. So well, that was the the news the new subdivision out in our our Bulaga subdivision. They protested all eighty eighty five of those

Oh, okay. Parcels.

So that that's what that big increase was.

Oh, gotcha. Okay. Thank you. And thank you again to mister Chandler for your service. Much appreciated.

K. Thank you, councilor Herman. Councilman Ninkland, did you have a question?

It's not a question. It's actually a statement. I I too wanted to, say how much we're going to miss our county assessor. He is diligent and inspirational and tenacious. I I am gonna miss you terribly, but I just wanted to let you know that I, as a veteran, have appreciated your because your office was very instrumental in making sure that we had our paperwork filed properly, and that's for my husband and myself. So thank you.

K. Thank you, councilor. Okay. Do we have any public comment? Not seeing anyone here. Is there anyone online? Not seeing anyone here. K. Thank you, mister Real. K. Is there a councilor interested in making a motion? Councilor Cole?

I move that council approve the Los Alamos County Assessor property valuation and maintenance plan.

Second. Okay.

So we have a motion by, councilor Cole, second by councilor Neil Clinton. Is there any, discussion? I'm not seeing any, in the clerk, please call the roll.

Councilor Hand? Yes. Councilor Reidy?

Yes.

Councilor Cole?

Yes.

Councilor Neil Clinton?

Yes.

Councilor Rigor?

Yes.

Councilor Haberman? Yes. And Councilor Herman? Yes. Motion passes seven to zero.

Okay. Let the record show the motion passed unanimously and thank you again for being here and presenting and all the work you're doing.

One more thing. Thank you.

I wanna thank these guys who have also been very helpful Poor Alvin. Well, I went to his office and said, Alvin, we got a problem. And and Anne has been and hers, the whole staff, actually, and he's always been very helpful. Yeah. Don't be long. Thank you.

Yeah. Thank

you. Thank you. Okay.

So I think we're ready to go on to item 12 b, which is 21435 Dash two six. It's discussion and possible action on single use plastics. And I believe that my name is listed for this item. So I think that so going back to last year, we had requested that the environmental sustainability board look into the topic for a council again, and then council left it open as to whether or not to take any action or not about single use plastics or other single use items in Houston, whether it's business, you know, stores or restaurants. So we didn't we didn't take any action.

And I think, kind of coincidentally, there was actually and other reports I provided, Pew actually had a session that councilor Rieger and I attended on plastics and the plastics issue, kinda more nationally across all the different counties. And, there's, you know, some counties that are much more directly impacted by, the plastics that are in the oceans in particular. Plastics are a problem basically everywhere. I guess that's why we're talking about it here and whether or not we actually want to take an action. So I think we have the information in the package.

It's been updated a little bit. So with some more current numbers on the number of bags in at the two major grocery stores in town that have plastic bags. So the Smiths here in Los Alamos and the Smiths in White Rock. So I think the total number probably isn't a whole lot different, but it's, like, 2,100,000 here per year and 800,000 in White Rock. And I guess the other piece that's updated is that so Smith's is not planning any transition away from plastic bags at this point in time.

So that was something that back when we discussed this back in 2019, 2020 was potentially imminent. This has not happened. You know, is collecting plastic bags, the ones that are groceries are in or other kinds of plastic bags or other food items. But there is a question as to what actually happens to them once they've collected them. They actually get reused in anything and what is the quality of that item, I guess.

We don't know that at this point. So that's you know, we've talked about this a few times and dating back over ten years. So, I guess, the the counselors have any, I guess, technical clarifying questions about, you know, the topic and and why we have it here tonight since we didn't take any action last year specifically. Yeah. Councilwoman?

Thank you, chair. I firmly believe that this county should be a leader in sustainability efforts. Single use plastic bans can be powerful symbols of a community's commitment to sustainability and environmental responsibility. When a community implements such bans, it sends a clear message that they value reducing plastic waste, protecting wildlife and promoting cleaner, healthier environments. My concern is always how this would impact our local small business community.

But I would like to suggest that we ban the use of plastic bags and institute a 10¢ fee for paper bags, exempting small businesses, restaurants, and doctor offices. 80 to 87 percent of plastic bags are not recycled, and they are used for an average of fourteen minutes. I think it's time that this county step up and send a message.

Okay. Thank you, council member. Do we have any other comments? Yeah.

I had a question. There's a waste audit that's referred to, that's gonna be conducted on October 17. Can somebody explain what that is?

Chair Rioty councilor called. There was a waste audit that was performed last year. So that the presentation the only slide that was updated was the updated plastic bag numbers from Smith's. But that audit was conducted, and we did find out. We did learn that it was a 17% contamination rate. That's been consistent with

So it was the recycle? Yes. Okay. Thank you.

Yes. That helps.

K. Thank you, councilor Cole. So we have I guess, councilor Anne and then councilor Edmund.

Yes. I'd just like to know, instead of paper bags, which, you know, kills trees, or I guess, you could use recycled paper for that. But, I was just wondering, do we have any other, faster decomposing plastic bags that could be substituted for the plastic bags that are currently in use in the county?

Okay. So you're asking about compostable type bags? Is that

There yeah. Compostable plastic bags. There there are other types that decompose I mean, they're starting to do it with, like, drinking straws, etcetera, where they decompose a lot faster than some of the, information we have on plastic straws and plastic bags, you know, that has been in the mainstream for a while. Now, you know, there seems to be more of an effort to create other types of, you know, plastic that that decomposes and is less harmful. Reason why I mentioned this is, you know, I don't know what the difference is between getting something that's less like, if you get something, you know, like a plastic that decomposes faster, you know, is it a better benefit than a paper bag?

I just know that paper bags don't always work really well, and that's why everybody started going to plastic is because, you know, paper bags don't hold up. I've been in a lot of, different, parts of The US where they have, paper they've gone back to paper bags, and, you know, you can't even get your groceries to the car without the bag tearing and all your groceries end up on the, you know, on the asphalt. So, you know, I'm just wondering why why are we going back to paper? You know? Would how is that going to be more sustainable?

You know? Can you give me, you know, more justification for why a paper bag and how that's actually saving the environment and if we're actually not cutting down more trees to make paper bags?

Okay. I know you wanted to address this, but I I just wondered, miss Gurley, did did you look at that, like, material that the bag is made out of?

Sure, Reidy. So just to address the paper bag issue specifically, we did learn from city of Las Cruces. They're offering a similar option that counselor Herman recommended, and they offer the paper bag for a cost. And what it's doing is it's incentivizing people really to stop using the paper bag, and they've seen a decline, as time has evolved in the, number of purchased bags. So it's actually a deterrent in a way, and people are wanting to use a reusable bag. But we did do a

little bit of research on the different material types. Yeah. So I think you all have the presentation from October. Yeah. So if you there is a a slide in there that from the Danish Environmental Protection Agency.

It's from 2018, so it might be a little bit outdated. But it does compare the different types of bags. So they look at, like, organic cotton versus bleached paper versus normal plastic, and they have different comparisons. So it kinda just depends on what parameter you're looking at. I will say when we talked to Santa Fe County, Santa Fe City, Las Cruces, one of their concerns was litter.

You know, you can put a paper bag in recycling, and it will be, like, recycled appropriately. You cannot put a plastic bag in recycling. And if you don't throw it away appropriately, it's just gonna end up littering. You know? And I think we have some photos of bags around Los Alamos County on on that first slide.

So, yeah, there there's gonna obviously be an environmental trade off for whatever product you're using. But I think if we're prioritizing, you know, having something that is recyclable and something that will end up in the proper receptacle instead of, like, yeah, that those pictures, Plastic is definitely not the best option in that case. And sorry. Can I so there are compostable plastic bags? I think we've all seen that.

Right? They're more expensive, and, typically, you need a commercial compost system, which we don't have that. So I don't know if that's necessarily, a good option either in this case.

Okay. Thank you. Did you wanna say anything further, or is that

I think that

That's it. Okay. Great.

Thank

you. Okay. Councilor Hetman?

Thank you, chair, and thanks for the initiative in bringing this forward from all the players involved. And I wanna thank ESB board member Blair for that comment about the paper versus plastic because there's there's one aspect is the environmental footprint for the production of the bag material, and then there's also the issue of the the environmental legacy of each material and whether or not one compost faster than another. But there is definitely the litter and aesthetic and impact on our natural surroundings impact. And paper, as as miss Blair said, is much more easy to recycle and then does not have a cost impact on our waste stream because there's no contaminant because there's not the contamination issue that costs our taxpayers money with our recycling. I wanted to the question I wanted to ask though when I raised my hand was, with with what kind of unintended consequence would we have if we kinda followed the lead of, I think, it was Taos, and there's one other jurisdiction that has opted to not charge a mandatory fee.

And what if we left that up to our the private sector into our businesses here? The okay. Let me back up. If if we were to proceed with some sort of a ordinance where we said we're not gonna allow plastic bags in our county starting on such and such date. What if we just left that up to the business then to decide if they wanted to charge a fee to their customers to help them offset the cost of having to provide paper instead of plastic because we were saying you can no longer do plastic.

Instead of us having this mandated admin burden of having to collect the fee, figure out how to account for it, figure out what percentage goes to the business, what percentage comes to the county. And and I suggest this while I'm all for having more resources and funding for education programs, I think that we are in a very lucky fortunate position in Los Alamos County to have a strong education program already through our sustainability manager's office, through our sustainability board, our Parvito Environmental Education Center, etcetera, etcetera. So I guess that's my comment or that's my question is how do how how does our sustainability director and how does our ESB feel about not having a mandated fee and having the businesses decide that on their own? Thank you.

So did you wanna did you have a response for that?

So the question is how do we how do I feel about there not being a fee collected?

Yeah. Not to put you on the spot, miss Grelay, but just or just to see if staff has a strong opinion either way on that, if the ESB does, if either your own feeling or or from your research, you know because I think Taos does not have a mandated fee, and there was there's no there's one other jurisdiction that does not, as I recall.

Oh, yeah. Mhmm. Think it can be.

Chair Reidy, I don't have a strong feeling either way about whether the establishment or the county receives the fee. I do think it's important to charge a fee just because it does incentivize the customer to not purchase another bag and to use bring and use their own reusable bag. As far as the ESB,

yeah, I I think ESB would need to discuss that because that's not something that we had previously discussed in our conversations. I mean, I'm sure we're happy to do that. I'm looking at chair Hampton. But if that's direction from council, we can certainly do that.

K. Does that answer the question, counselor Hedman?

Yeah. It just kinda helps me know what the perspective may or may not be because I would be inclined to first of all first of all, I mean, not just inclined. I emphatically echo the comments made earlier by councilor Herman. And I'm looking forward to hearing other people's comments, but I'm inclined to want to move forward with a single use plastic bag ban in our community with no fee required and leave that up to the businesses to decide if they would like to implement that on their own as other jurisdictions have done and not add an administrative burden on top of it. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilor Hannah, did you have another question?

Yes. I did. I I, would like to support, the comment that Councilor Hammond just made regarding, the fees for the bags. I think that, you know, it's the businesses that you know, they ultimately are the ones that are purchasing the bags to give to customers. You know?

And if they want to, charge a fee for those bags, and and we don't have to somehow transfer over to the county any fees collected that that that just simplifies any kind of process with, you know, all the administrative, you know, ins and outs of of implementing some sort of a a plastic bag ban. The other thing I'd like to mention, and I don't know, you know, it's kinda going off onto a tangent, but I'll just I'll just mention it, is that, we're talking about, you know, single use bags, but yet so many of the products in the stores that we buy are already, packaged in plastic or, you know, plastic covered, plastic coated cardboard boxes. You know? There's plastic everywhere. You know?

Plastic bags. You know? By getting rid of the plastic bags is not going to, eliminate plastic in our environment. You know, there's still plastic trash that that's going to be, you know, an issue if we've got an issue with plastic bags. So, you know, on the other, side of things, I'd like you to know that I personally, I always try to take my own recyclable bags wherever I go.

Even if I'm traveling, I have my bags, you know, that are readily available to use at stores. But I can just tell you that there are times, you know, especially if you're a visitor to another, you know, another city or whatever, you don't always have your bags with you. And, you know, it it can become, an inconvenience, especially when some stores won't even provide you with a bag at all. You know, it's like you either bring your own bag or you get no bag, and you have to carry everything out, you know, just as single items. So, you know, I I think we really need to look at what we're doing, whether it's really making an impact with the overall issue of plastic in our environment, and, you know, how that is going to impact our, our tourist, industry as well.

Maybe tourists are getting used to it. You know, they maybe have these bans in their own communities. But, you know, it's just one more thing that, just is a a little bit harder to deal with. You know, you want people to purchase things in your community, and yet you won't give them a bag. Or you make them pay for, you know, a a less, functional paper bag.

Anyway, I go both ways on the on the subject. You know? I I understand what people are trying to support, but I just think it's it's not necessarily the full and complete answer to the problem. So thank you for allowing me to to, you know, express my my concerns.

Okay. Thank you, councilor Yan. Councilor Rieger?

I have an actual question.

Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead. How

many times this has been around in the county? I think it goes back long before I was on the council. About ten years ago. There was a whole lengthy debate, and it was finally voted down. And then several times, it's come back and been voted down. What's new here that, or is it like a shotgun? Eventually, something will get there? I mean, what what's the idea? Why are we bringing this up again? It's all been voted down in the past, decisions that have been made. You know?

Chair Reidy asked that we brought it forward tonight.

Well, then asked chair Reidy, are we how many times do we have to consider the same issue? It's a lot of time on the council, and I'm I think it's been voted down a number of times because you get very complicated issues about all the different ways you see plastics, and this is one tiny sliver of it. And, yeah, I've asked many questions about food health and how it's packaged and and what are we doing here and why why are we doing this again? I think the other councils considered it very thoroughly, didn't they? And they came to a decision based on lots of facts. So I'm I'm not prepared to reduce all those arguments right now, but I think

Well, I I can I mean, I I guess I was on transportation board when the ESP considered it back in, like, 2015 ish time frame?

Yeah.

So, yeah, there was basically, it was, I think, a bag fee, bag ban discussed. I I think it was one that was not, you know, strongly you know? So we we didn't have, like, the new argument now about what about just not allowing single use plastics for shopping bags and not requiring businesses to charge for whatever what if they wanna offer, you know, a paper bag, they could. Every egg can be made of one any number of materials, and they could offer for sale, you know, reusable bags. So, like, currently most, you know, stores do that.

So what I think was different is what when we had approved the climate action plan, one of the items that was listed that we didn't do was addressing some of the used plastics. Now it isn't the biggest contributor to, you know, the climate climate change. Now that's not a good issue to convince you of anything, but we did vote to do that. And I thought, well, we should have the the ESP look at this again in particular because in terms of helping fund sustainability initiatives, one of the uses for the money, if we were to collect money, you could use it for sustainability issues. The way that the Las Cruces wrote their ordinance was it was specific to education regarding single use plastics, not more broadly sustainability initiatives.

So that's one reason why I brought it back for them to look at so they could gather more information. And there is there is frankly a cost to us directly, and it's the cost of that stuff in that system. You know, the recycling system, in particular, has a cost. And probably one reason why our recycling is less valuable is we're not even being charged for that directly. We're just this is there's a tipping fee for the contamination, which by weight bags don't weigh much, but they can create tremendous havoc.

Every bag that's in there that they don't catch can gum up that system. So I think there's a number of reasons for looking at it again. Just the fact, well, we just went to the Pew session where they talked about a whole bunch of additional information. That's something that's, you know, some communities haven't done it. We haven't we haven't instituted any kind of ban on single use plastics, but a lot of places you go, you don't have them. It's like they're not been available for, like twenty years in San Francisco. There's people still going to visit San Francisco. So I don't think tourists are bothered too much by it. They they handle it. People go to Santa Fe.

They've had a band for like, a decade. So yeah. I mean, that's the reason why it's brought back because we left it in limbo. We didn't say whether to do something or not. And I think it's just time to say, you know, does this council wanna do something or not? So we didn't take any action about plastic bags or, you know, single use items for restaurants. Right now, the only kind of thing on the floor is whether or not we should do something about single use plastics. So that's you might take on why we're bringing it back is just to have some resolution.

Yeah.

Councilor Rich, can I sorry to interrupt? Can I add something to that? Sure. Okay. So the the political landscape is a little different too in New Mexico.

There was a statewide plastic bag ban that was introduced in the last legislative session from October, so not this past one night in the fall sometime. And it it didn't pass, but a lot of the people that we spoke to felt that there was forward momentum. And if more counties and entities in the state passed their own bag bans, then people would be more inclined to pass it at the state level. So if that is a priority for the county, I think we can kind of set a good example as we move forward with statewide legislation. Oh, thank you.

Okay. Thank you. That was that was in the report, so I'm ready to that. So thank you for reminding us of that. So I think I've seen I'm not sure whose hand I think it might have been councilor was first and then councilor.

Right.

Councilor.

Thank you again, chair. To address a couple questions councilor had. Councilor, mentioned you were on the t board, transportation board back in o fifteen. I was actually on the environmental sustainability board at that time, and the the plastic bag ban was considered as a result of a petition brought forward by representatives of the Sierra Club, the Los Alamos chapter, Parito chapter at the time. And council asked ESB to consider it and open and host a couple open house town meetings.

And then we actually had a public meeting, and we took a vote. And it was a very close vote. It was four to three. So it was not, like, unanimous to not proceed. It was and then it ended up being a decision to recommend education.

And I think what's happened in the last ten years and maybe to support councilor Reidy on in the reasoning be for bringing this back is that we have more information. There are more jurisdictions across the planet that have plastic bag bans and single use plastic bans. More jurisdictions in New Mexico have them. As board member Blair just said, the state legislature has tried to enact something statewide as I think 32 other states in our nation have already done. Color you know, neighboring state of Colorado has a ban.

California has a ban. As councilor Reidy said, Santa Fe has a ban, and I don't think that affects I just really would be hard pressed to think that that affects anyone's shopping habits or visitation or tourism habits in Santa Fe, for example. So that that's kind of the history on it, and and I was there. And I think for a whole lot of reasons and, you know, the fact that we've got a climate action plan in place and we wanna reduce our footprint, This is not gonna solve everything. I agree with councilor Hand on that, but I I think that we're not really going rogue here.

I think we're just trying to catch up, frankly, and I think that the data supports that we should all do what we can. And the less plastic that's out there littering our environment or increasing our carbon footprint is something we should try to control and mitigate. Thank you.

Thank you, councilor. Councilor Ham?

Thank you. Chair, I'd just like to say that, you know, we have some suggestion suggested wording in our motion that says, you know, how we want to move in regards to, quote, single use plastics research. Okay? So we're talking about impact. Okay?

You wanna make an impact. If you say single use plastics research, does that mean all the packaging of all the products that you buy that's currently in plastic that once you take the product out of the plastic, they throw it away. Okay? That's single use plastic too. You wanna make an impact, that'll make an impact.

Say you don't want anything in plastic anymore. Okay? But that's going to also be a big inconvenience to everyone because everything mean, not everything, but a good majority of things that we buy at any store is in plastic. You know? Even when we get something in the mail, it's mailed in plastic.

So, you know, we're talking plastic bags that you carry all your products that are already packaged in plastic? Anyway, we probably need to think about how we wanna make this motion so that it's, specifically, focused on what we're talking about here, which is plastic bag use, not single use plastic, which is much greater.

Yeah. Thank you, councilor Ham. We're now almost ready for motion, I think. Councilor Cole.

Yeah. I mean, we can't control all the plastic, although you can control some of that with your with what you purchase. And you don't have to purchase things that are wrapped in plastic. There are usually alternatives, and and in some cases, there may not be. But what we're talking about here is what we can control, and that's the the bags that people use, or businesses use to to put items that have been purchased, before they leave the store.

You know, if if you leave it up to businesses, I kinda like counselor Haberman's suggestion. If you leave it up to the businesses to decide what they wanna charge, maybe we need to put a cap on it, but I know that that was done in some cases. But if you leave it up to them, some of them may choose to purchase cloth bags to to put purchased items in with advertisement on them. That that might be an incentive for some of the businesses to consider. I've seen paper bags with advertising on them as well.

I, you know, I just went to California, and I can't believe my son did not have a a paper bag or a a cloth bag in his car, so we bought one at the grocery store. It's not that hard to do. I think it costs us a dollar. And I I know that some of the information in here says that the plastic bags take a thousand years to break down. If you've ever done any, litter cleanup and you try to grab one of those plastic bags whole, you're gonna find that they do not take a thousand years to break down.

They'll fall into pieces. They'll be everywhere on the ground. And it's almost impossible to get every piece up. So, you know, I'm I've, I'm some I know there's trade offs. People who, like my mother, like to use those plastic bags to to bag her trash will now have to figure out some other way to bag her trash before she puts it in the dumpster.

You know, folks make adjustments, And I and I think there's enough precedent in enough communities in New Mexico and in other places that folks travel that folks have been able to accommodate the various requirements that are that are there. So I'm I'm for some kind of incentive to to get rid of plastic bags. And, you know, I think the motion needs to be that we we come back we ask the environment the environmental sustainability board to come back with a proposal for for us. And I and I will make that proposal after everybody's had a chance to complete their comments. Thanks.

Okay. Thank you. So we're we're not making comments yet, but there's been some preliminary discussion about motions. So I think that's appreciated. So I think we need to see if there's any public comment on this item.

Mister Rial, can you check online to see if there's any public comment?

Not seeing any hands raised here. Okay. So

is there a councilor that would after hearing the discussion, would like to make a motion? K. Councilor Cole?

I move that the county council direct the environmental sustainability board to propose a plastic bag ban for Los Alamos based on, other communities in in New Mexico and return to council in I don't know how many days. Ninety days with the proposal. Second.

Okay. Do we have any discussion on that motion? Okay. So is the motion specific enough so it's on single use plastics only? So plastic bags, not plastics in general. Right? Okay. Okay. So I think people know what we're voting on. So if unless there's any counselor, you want me to comment?

Yes, please. I mean, some some could interpret single use plastic as single use plastic water bottles, but I think we're just really talking about single use plastic bags. Are we not?

Yes. That's what I said. Yeah. I I think I and and I added

there was more councilor Reidey's or chair Reidey's inter when he said, I just wanna last.

And, also, added in based on other programs in New Mexico. So those are some things that were brought up as well.

Okay.

Yeah. I'm

sorry. Sorry if I misheard what you said. Sorry about that. Thank you.

I misread misread back back. I think we if we want to them to look at no fee, we should maybe state so, because I'm not sure. I looked at what was in the package for Taos, and, actually, Taos does have a fee. Is that correct? So are there any communities that do not have a mandatory fee that are in the list? Because I think that is what's different about this one.

Yeah. Sure. Righty. So Carlsbad doesn't have a fee, though they specifically allow businesses to impose a fee. Silver City does not have a fee. And then I can't remember if it's Santa Fe. Santa Fe County does not have a fee, but Santa Fe City has a fee.

Right. So if you're in the city part, then you charge a fee. So I'm happy with the motion, I guess, as it is, but I I think if that was the direction we were going with no fee, That seems like that's direction we had to provide ESP unless I misheard what people prefer.

I believe that's why we're having comparable counties weigh in so that when the ESP brings it back, then we'll be able to move forward.

Well, I believe we are I'm sorry. I I know we would like giving this back to ESP, but, I think we already have the information on the no no fee option. It seems like it's just being modeled based on an ordinance with the county with no fee. No mandatory fee is we're not planning on collecting a fee. We should direct ESP to state to go after those as opposed to the other ones where there is a fee. But

So I can add to the end of my motion with a preference for no mandatory fee.

Okay.

Second as amended.

Okay. Thank you. So appreciate that. Because I I want to be more specific to the ESP if that's possible here.

And, sure, righty, I think the other piece that was missing for the ESP was the public engagement. We didn't really do that this time around. So I think that's really important to the board to make sure, they know the preference of the community.

Okay. So that would relate to the ninety days probably.

Okay.

Is that right? So we need more time, or is that is that what you're telling us?

No. I just wanna make sure that

That it's included. Okay.

That it's included.

It doesn't have to be in the motion, but it's understood, I think. Right? People are nodding their head. Yes. Okay. Can the clerk please call

Councilor Haverman? Yes. Councilor Reidy?

Yes.

Councilor Hand?

Yes.

Councilor Cole? Yes. Councilor Reigor? No. Councilor Herman? Yes. And Councilor Nell Clinton?

Yes.

Motion passes six to one.

K. Thank you, Ruha. Motion passes in of six to one with council Rieger in opposition. So thanks for being here. So I think it's past 08:00.

So we're going to take a short break, try to keep to about ten minutes, possibly. Okay. So we're back in session. So I believe we're up to item 12 c two one five three one dash two six. It's the consideration and possible word of bid number 26Dash49 in the amount of $17,905,000 plus applicable gross receipts tax to Spartan Construction of Mexico LLC for the fire station for replacement project, establish a project budget in the amount of $22,250,000 and approve related budget revision twenty twenty six dash fifty nine.

So yes, mister Martinez is gonna start us off.

Alright. Thank you, mister chair and members of council. With me tonight are many of our project team members. Behind me is fire chief Litzenberg, Javier Anderson, our admin administrative services manager with fire department, Miguel Jimenez, who's our senior engineer in public works, and Sylvia Sayeda, who's our project manager that's managing this project. And so with that quick introduction, I'll turn it over to miss Sayeda to give you a little more details about the project, then we'll hand it over to chief Vincent Litzenberg to talk a little bit about the operations of the fire station itself and how they coincide with with their needs.

And then I'll wrap it up with a with a brief discussion about the project budget. So thank you, mister chair.

I'm gonna be like children. Sorry to interrupt. She's writing. Right? Thank you.

Thank you. Good evening, council chair, counselors. It's my privilege to be in front of you tonight to talk about Fire Station 4 replacement project. I will go over some of the logistics and have chief Flitzenberg talk about the overall need for this this project itself or the replacement project. So in terms of the scope project scope and size and layout, the this new facility is a two story building totaling approximately 25,000 square 25,500 gross square feet.

The main level around 18,000 square foot includes residential space for ten first responders, which is an increase from our existing facility by a couple of people, an exercise room, and a 300 square foot outdoor patio space. While the lower level, which is around 7,500 square foot, is dedicated to equipment storage and other special specialized logistics, related to EMS, wildland fire, and other divisions. And we can go into those details as needed. We have an apparatus requirements for the modern firefighting apparatus. The design includes five double depth front loaded bays and to accommodate modern equipment and to meet specific service needs for this facility.

Building structure itself is designed as a risk category four non combustible steel framed building with a masonry and a metal panel exterior for durability. This building is designed to accommodate airlock and climate control needs of various functions within the facility. Sustainability measures that we took for this project. This project is committed to high environment environmental standards aimed at LEED gold certification. The building envelope is designed to meet the current energy codes, including, IECC standards.

It will be the first fully electric county facility featuring photovoltaic panels and level two EV chargers serving five parking spaces for both staff and general public use. The site utilities, there are existing utilities running across this site, including electrical, sewer, and water that needs to be up updated as well. They will be routed away from the building footprint, to make room for, to accommodate this, this new facility. It also includes site drainage that comes, across, Diamond and goes through through the site. So we will be relocating that drainage as well.

Demolition of existing fire station and revamping the vacant space as green open space will take place at the end of this the end of the construction of this project. I'll go over the site selection process. We the existing site is the 4401 Diamond Drive, which is the existing fire station facility and the annex building. So this this site is the new facility is located at the existing site over to the west. The evaluation criteria for this site was given to design team as three potential county owned sites, And the we evaluated the infrastructure availability, construction feasibility, civil impacts, such as topography and natural resources within those sites, and impact on emergency response time.

Those were some of the criterias that we, we evaluated for these three sites. So option a for the site was existing fire station, four property, on Diamond Drive. Option b was adjacent to the eastern end of the golf course on Sao San Alfonso Road, and option c was open space off North Mesa Road. Rigorous, public outreach process back in 2024 at the 2024 via several public meetings including site surveys, grading reports and response time evaluations were included during that process and that information was brought to County Council and after evaluating those criteria for these options, Option A, the existing site was recommended by counsel for the design team to move forward with this design. The schedule for design and entitlement included design process.

Vega Architecture LLC were contracted in June 2024 to provide comprehensive site assessment, design and construction administration services through this process. Entitlement process for this project involved future land use map update, a minor zone map amendment, and summary plot process to properly entitle the property and to accommodate this this development, this facility. This process included approval from the Planning and Zoning Commission and meetings with neighboring residents. A subsequent site plan approval was granted in 2025 by Planning and Zoning Commission. Now we moved on to construction document phase after that, and we spent a few months putting together our design development documents and construction documents.

And here we are at the bidding phase for this project at this point. The process for the bidding phase included, you know, the county issued a formal competitive solicitation, IFB 27 dash 49 on 02/10/2026, which closed in March 24. So the bid stayed open for almost a month and a half. Various questions were answered, and the outcome for for that IFB process was two bids were received. And Spartan Construction of New Mexico LLC was identified as the lowest responsive bidder with a bid of 17, million 905,000.

The total established, project bud budget is $22,250,000, which includes 15% contingency and New Mexico gross receipt tax. And that's the gross receipt tax projected as of July. Now funding and grants, there is a $2,000,000 grant, state capital outlay appropriations that was utilized for for our design services. And there's another $2,000,000 grant in State Fire Marshal funds for design I'm sorry. The capital outlay appropriations would be used for for the construction itself, and then the State Farm Marshall funds for design and construction administration were used.

Next step at this phase, if approved tonight, notice of award is slated for April 8, which is tomorrow. Pre construction activities agreement signatures, permits, construction schedule, bonds, and insurance will take place. Mobilization, the exact date will be confirmed once we make contact with the with the contractor. Substantial completion for this project is expected to be 09/30/2027, and final completion by 11/15/2027. I would like to make a correction to my staff report.

I believe the staff report states this to be 2028, but the correct time frame is 2027. And and then once the project is completed, demolition and final site work following the occupancy of news new station. And the legacy building will be demolished, and

the

area transitioned, into landscape, green space, and open space. Now with this, I'm happy to answer any questions, but I would like to invite chief Lutzenberg to come up here and, and talk about the, importance of this project and the need, that the county has currently. Thank you.

There's a there's a bit of diversity in the speakers here. Chair, counselors, thank you for hearing this item tonight. It is much appreciated. But we also appreciated the fact that most of you, did station tours with us recently. So I would guess you would recognize that Station 4 is an old station, and I would guess that you would recognize that it is ready to be replaced, and we have recognized that for some time.

The team here and others, as was described, considered multiple sites. And with public input, the site right next to the old station was selected, and they considered multiple designs. The design that is in front of you is proposed design. Is it meets the industry and professional standards. And I'll say a couple things specifically about that.

It has spaces that accommodate and are appropriate for a diverse workforce, which the current station does not. It has a design that contemplates the health and safety of our responders in ways that facilities didn't when that old fire station was built. It has bigger apparatus bays, bays that give space for the function of our responders and the big trucks that are much bigger than existed when this station was originally built, and it does contemplate future growth. Again, I appreciate that you all are considering this tonight. I'm happy to answer questions about its specific operation or design, but I'll keep it brief.

And with that, I will turn it back to director Martinez.

Thank you, chief. I'll go this a little bit. Not as much. With that, I'll I'll, say a few words about the project budget. We realized that the budget revision request associated with the project is not a small amount.

It's fairly significant, but we worked to kinda split that amount amongst several sources. Like, miss Sayeda mentioned, we are requesting as part of the project budget a 50% contingency, which is a large amount. But considering the project size, some of the site work involved, the utility relocations involved, we felt comfortable with that amount, just in case, and that's what it's for. And any unspent funds will revert back to to the unallocated fund balance. So with that, we're utilizing several other sources of funds to transfer to provide for the project budget.

First, we're looking at utilizing 1,100,000.0 from the sustainability enhancement fund, which is part of the CIP. And then there's another fund that's part of the CIP, which we call CP 9,007, and that's entitled cost increase for all categories. And that was specific included in the CIP to accommodate for cost escalations associated with construction projects such as this. So we're utilizing almost 3 and a half million from that portion of that CIP allocation. And then lastly, we're also looking at, there's a bit of an error in the amounts as that relates to the, the budget revision.

So, we apologize about that because there were some last minute changes. But, the other part is we're utilizing some funding from the, Betty e Hart project, and splitting that allocation, not taking the money away from it, but just splitting it between fiscal years and then utilizing funds that were allocated in '27 for the RV park. And that's shown in the very last attachment in the packet, that shows the, I forget what it's called. Juan, if you could oblige. The CIP fund that shows the balance.

Yeah. And so with that, mister chair, we are I'll stand for questions, regarding the project, and any clarifications council may have. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you everybody for the information presentations. So are there any technical or clarifying questions from council? Council Cole?

So, yeah, I was a little confused about, attachment c and d, the budget revision 2026 dash five nine and the project budget spreadsheet. One refers to deferring the RV park project, and the other refers to, the Betty Ehart, renovations. And I I can can you explain that a little bit better? I'm just I'm not clear where we're trying to take the money from.

Chair, I'll I'll answer that. So the reason you have a CIP fund statement revised here included was to kind of explain that. So the project budget funding is as mister Martinez described. But because this we're trying to fully fund this project in fiscal year twenty six, and some of our flexibility were from the proposed fiscal year twenty seven budget that's coming to you at the end of the month. And we were trying not to change the the, imbalances and keep it all balanced as currently in the proposed budget.

It it it is, deferring or looking for other funding for the, extended stay RV park. But because that wasn't funded till fiscal year twenty seven, we had to use some of the Betty e Hart funds that have not currently be funded in this current year, fiscal year twenty six, but then we replenished them in '27. And so it's just a little bit of a I don't know what the right word, but balancing between the two years. But the funding source, really, the only project that affects at this point would be the, the RV park infrastructure that we're looking at, for along 502, and that project is not currently designed sort of at a preliminary evaluation phase. And we we also think we have some opportunities either through economic development fund or, potentially future revenues or grants to fund that project when we're ready.

Thank you. That helps. Appreciate it.

And, mister chair, if I could also add, I forgot to mention that, you know, with the fire department's assistance, we're also, adding 500,000 from the fire marshal fund to also supplement that remaining balance needed to accommodate the the full project budget.

Okay. Thank you. So that's in the budget revision? No.

It's mentioned in the budget revision, but it's a separate fund.

It's a separate fund, so it's not in this we're not seeing it there. Okay. Thank you. Clarification. Any other technical or clarifying questions?