City Council - Regular Meeting

Welcome to our city council meeting. We've been asked brother uh city council for April the 9th, Thursday 6 p.m. If the uh clerk call the role, please. Council, here. Councelor Arnold, present. Councelor Cabin here. Councelor Gas Cruising. [clears throat] Councelora here. Councelor Kin here. Councelor Johnson here. Councelor Helen present. Councelor Halverson here. Councelor Moore here.

Mayor you have a quum.

Thank you. Have a [clears throat] quum. If we would like I'd like to have the uh pledge of allegiance by counselor cabin kind of today. It's uh his son just returned from his National Guard duty and gets to go back to work at our police department. So we're uh we're working on that. So Ceram, if you'll leave us with a pledge and and Carlos, would you please lead us in a prayer? Mr. Mayor, thank you for the honor. Please join me in honoring our great nation, our flag, in its 250th year.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Father God, we come before you, give you all glory and honor, Father. Thank you for allowing us to be here and also for the people out in the audience, Father God. Father God, we ask you to bless our leaders in the nation, state, and our city, Father God, that they do the right thing for our good. Father, we ask you to lead us, Father God, our choices tonight through you, Father God. We give you all glory and honor. In your name we pray. Amen. Amen. Thank you, counselors, uh, Kevin, and Marugo. Thank you very much. I tell you, it was a real thrill to see uh officer uh cabin come back and come back home after his tour duty. Uh he's done real well. He's lost quite a bit of weight. He really looks good. You haven't seen him and uh it's pleasure to have him back and and we certainly thank him for his service in the National Guard. [clears throat] Um, and so we do have just kind of where we're kind of looking right now. We we've gone a long time with uh waiting on FEMA and so we're we're looking at we're looking at getting some things putting some things together. We have got to get uh FEMA moving. And uh and if not, we we're going to look at some plans and uh our city manager is looking at some plans so we can see to get going and and get this back. We've had all our uh all our information in FEMA for a long time and and they haven't acted and and it's time it's time we get put this flood behind us. And so uh and then also in that the uh Mr. Tellings is here tonight which is really good because our air races we're working on our second year and Fred it's really we're really honored and glad to have you back and thank you very much

for being here. We also have some guests from Lino here which is one of our largest employers in town. Thank you very much for being here. And everybody else, uh, you know, anybody who hasn't, if you have any problems at all with parts, just look for the guy in the kind of orangey shell shirt and you can take him out behind the wood shed or whatever you need to get whatever you need there. Mr. Bur, you see, that's him right there. Everybody knows. But anyway, thank you all for coming. So, next moving right down our agenda for approval of the agenda. Uh, the approval of the agenda. Mr. C,

I don't know how to do it. Chad, mayor, we got a few little You need to come over here and see me and figure it out. I can hear you. What? Somebody's on. Okay. We've got a couple of little housekeeping duties on item agenda item number 14. The number 3778 one I've already worked it out is in is not consistent with the desire of the finance committee. The correct number is 438 921 and41 and41. 41. That's $438,92141.

Yes, sir. Replacing the 37789120. Correct. Okay. And then I don't know that yours may have already been corrected when I picked mine up on item 40. Uh your recommendation for appointment to the cemetery board. Is that correct? is correct. Should be Sarah Reese. That is correct.

This is correct. Sarah Reese is the correct name. E [clears throat] R E S E. So, we need to do that. And I've got one more here. Uh item number 34. 34. And you're what you want to go back item 34 counselor.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Uh, Mr. Mayor program I'd like to add to go back to either finance or legal committee or so it can be readjusted so that we don't adjust that here in council pulling it but you want to send it back to a committee. Send it back to finance committee. Send that. We'll get to that point and we'll make that motion finance. Well, you're pulling it from the agenda. We won't ever make that motion. Keep resending that. I told you I withdraw that amendment. Listen to me. I withdraw pulling item 34. We get to that agenda then we can have a discussion on wherever you want to send. Okay. Okay.

Easy to get along with just [clears throat] we got can't have an argument right now. It's too early. Yes. Council. had a counselor on the other end waving their hand to go. Someone raise your hand down there. They all deny it. All right. Well, I'm getting blind. Can't hear. Can't walk. Can't dance. Hold me under the water if I show up.

All right. So, with that, with those amendments, Mr. Move the agenda. Don't we have a motion to approve the agenda as amended? Is there a second? Second. Who's that?

Okay. Any further discussion? Seeing none, if uh the clerk can call the role. Council moto. Yes, ma'am. Councelor Arnold. Yes, sir. Councelor Cabin, yes. Councelor Gas, are you online? Councelor Oropesa, yes. Councelor Korn, yes. Councelor Johnson, yes. Councelor Henbrand, yes. Councelor Halverson, yes. Councelor Moore, yes. Motion passes 9 to zero.

Okay. So next next we have item two on today's agenda that is the uh approval of the [clears throat] consent agenda. Councilman Korn movement of the entire consent agenda from item 3 through 30. Second. And we have a motion by council Korn, seconded by councelor Cavin. [clears throat] Is there any further discussion on approving the the adoption of the consent agenda?

Okay, if the clerk will call the role. Councelor Malupo, yes. Councelor Arnold, yes. Councelor Cabin, yes. Councelor Oropesa, yes. Councelor Korn, yes. Councelor Johnson, yes. Councelor Helen, hi. Councelor Halverson, yes. Councelor Moore, yes. Motion passes 9 to zero.

Okay, so by vote nine, confirming none, negative, that item two, the approved agenda has been approved. Next to item three, excuse me, 31. Airport updates. Okay. Mr. Omar, it 31, airport update.

All right. Good evening, mayor and members of the council. Thank you for the [clears throat] opportunity to provide an update on the air center. Tonight, I will walk you briefly through recent progress, current activities, and what's ahead. First, I want to start off with demolition and safety. I I'd like to start with an important milestone, and that milestone is the demolition of buildings 112 and 115. Um, they've now been completed. [cough and clears throat] Um these these buildings have been a concern to the air center for it's been almost two years and so the removal represents progress um both in important safety and overall appearance of the air center. So I don't know if you've ever drove out there and just seen the two burn well the burn building and then the other one is falling down. Both those have been removed from the from the property. Um, so now our attention is now on building 66, but at this time it's still under investigation by the ATF and hasn't been released for further action. However, earlier this week, we met on site with Aerosell's insurance adjusters along with our team to evaluate conditions. As a result of that meeting, we we're now exploring limited cleanup options and additional safety measures that we can take while we're waiting for a formal clearance to to start moving the building. But we'll continue to keep the council uh updated as situations evolve. And so all of this is all taken to part to ensure that we maintain a safe, compliant and high quality facility for both uh regulators and the community. So tenant and facility updates. On the tenant side, we still have a

vacancy 1081 is nearing completion and should be ready for the museum occupation soon. Uh there have been minor delays related to the fire suppression system. Uh but we've been active act actively working with the contractor and expect to move forward shortly. Building 66 has been identified as a future home for Life House out of Carlsbad. Um we recently had a tour of the space and we show and they showed strong interest and we're very encouraged of the the potential of that building. Um we'll also we also have a few vacant buildings including the ideal building but we are currently in discussions with uh prospective tenants and are hopefully to have more updates here soon. So in closing the air center continues to make a steady progress across infrastructures operations and tenant development. Uh we appreciate your continued support and we will keep you informed as these efforts move forward.

Thank you and I stand for any questions. Have any questions coun? Yeah. Could you give us an update on the status of flight status out there as to the do you are you knowledgeable of the the load factor for the new United flight? Yeah, the so the new United flight was I think for the month of [snorts] We in March the month of March it was around 1,500. Um that was departures to to uh Denver. [clears throat] So it's kind of up and down a little bit as we've been actively um doing advertisement for that flight. So we're hoping that it's going to go up.

Does that represent what percentage? The 1500 [clears throat] just I'd have to check on that sure on the percentage about 50. about 50 50%. Yeah. It's a smaller than Okay. Thank you. Thank you. [snorts] [clears throat] Yes. Um if you have time, I know you're super busy, but when you talk about the buildings, is there any chance we can see pictures of the buildings?

Of the buildings? Sure. And uh do we have any do we have any [clears throat] of the museum properties in in that building? The museum has had a few deliveries there. Um I know they got shelves, that kind of stuff been delivered [clears throat] to to the building. Um

what is the estimated completion date on that? So, so right now all we're waiting on is for a company out of I believe they're out of El Paso, El Paso or Los Cruises, but they're supposed to come back down and check the the fires the fire alarm the monitoring system because the the panel isn't it's it's got a bunch of uh lights on it. So, it's in fault. So, they're going to come down look at that. Once they get that done and completed, we can get everything turned back on and then get the fire marshal up to to do his inspection. And I think that's the last thing that we're waiting on. Okay, lady.

Yes. I'm sorry. This actually is not a question for you. Um, can we scoot down? I'm almost on the edge here. Everybody take one step to the right. One step to the right because she'll be over the edge. Are you feeling claustrophobic? I'm sorry for [laughter] Thank you very much. Here. And this is Mr. Fred Teller. [clears throat] Mr. Talons. Welcome. We're glad you're back. Glad you're back, sir.

Welcome. Well, good evening, Mr. Mayor,

honorable members of the council. Well, first of all, I have to say it's an extraordinary pleasure to be back here in Brazil, my second home. I uh was chatting with some of the members of the council earlier and I was reminded of a discussion a friend of mine had with me last summer at Asha because it's always better to be seen than viewed and u I couldn't agree more. I apologize for my voice. Um in early January I had some neurological brain surgery. We removed a golf ball tumor from my brain and the good news is it's completely removed. The bad news is I am left with a few neurological challenges, one of which have been balanced. But that physical accommodation and rehab has worked better than my speech. But I just decided that being here with you to talk about the races was more important than my ego. And so you get me as I am. And I hope you can understand it. We have very exciting news. Some of which you've already seen. So I apologize. It will be somewhat duplicate. But the races are on for September 16th to 20th. We have worked extensively with both the sport and the unlimited classes. We have signed agreements with both of them that they will be back in part because with the Holly Fields continued support from the Brown Brothers Ranch. They have

given us the right working closely with Bobby and the Hollyfields to put a new emergency runway on their land. It will be 5,000 ft long, 60 ft wide and 500 ft over at Ban. It was a compromise. down London would like 6,000 ft. A Hollyfield I was pleased to say would be willing to go to 500. We propose overruns at both ends and suggest that they try not to land on they're in favor. Everybody will be back. And on top of that, once that announcement came out, I think on March 25th, we've seen a significant uptick in activity both on the chicken front and on communications front. The second important feature is the US Thunders will be with us. We are delighted. I understand they were here in the 80s, so it's been a long time, but they are, as you all know, one of America's two leading premier military demonstration team. and having them here I believe will substantially increase the participation from the drive side community as far as hopefully Albuquerque and love and other directions taking some of the pressure off our housing situation with the hotels with the help of the city we're continuing to make progress in expanding the RV B facilities providing power and water which is one of the other ways and

with every based on last year before the unlimited pulled out I'm confident that almost all of the RV parks downtown will also be well occupied. So we're tremendously excited about all of this and I can't thank the cities and state enough. We have some exciting military history coming. In addition of Thunders, we've now been told by our military coordinator that we are likely to have a B52 bomber present on the field. I can't tell you necessarily one of them that was based here in the sack days, but it's of the same type. As you know, B-52 bomber is older than a good number of the pilots, virtually all of the pilots. They're 50 plus years old at this point. They've gone through seven different reconigurations and as you've seen, Epic Fury, they have continued to play a role. Today we're working with this uh commemorative air force to bring back 50 B29. And if [clears throat] I can raise enough money, I hope to bring a B17. And in the process we would have each of the most significant leading bomber aircraft in one place at one time for all the people to get chance to see, tour and experience. [clears throat] So that excites us a great deal. Ticketing has been opened first for the people who have booked tickets in the past and early response has been very

positive on I have to check my date April 23rd ticket will open to public. So we're looking forward to it by the main meeting. I expect to be able to have some early plans come on ticket. Um so throughout all of this we couldn't be more excited. We think we are in the best position for a phenomenal year this year. [clears throat]

We're presenting to Secretary Lancing tomorrow uh our complete marketing plan and indeed we'll be working closely with a number of people here and as you know New Mexico truth and the city of Roswell appear all of our advertising as two of our significant sponsors. We deeply appreciate it. So with all our excitement about what we have going, I'd like to share a couple of slides with each of you. So if I could have this is our poster for this year [clears throat] and we have given center stage to the Thunderbirds and we have representation of all seven classes on this poster. And so I won't we I've been asked not to distribute it because the poster is not final. It's in draft, but I think that this will be very much the poster that we have going forward for the year and we're really really excited about it. The second thing is with the support that we received in the prior year although we could not because of some discussions with the FAA we could not build the permanent granite last year we utilized temporary one but now under Bobby and my nephew's guidance and everybody the grandsons are under construction if I have next two slides this gives you an idea for the permanent grand sanction 9,500 people completely ADA compliant as you see that rank going up these are way better from that point of view than what we had available in Roswell because it

built to modern standards in the middle they're not there yet but there will be our timing booth and our media booth for for all of the TV activity that we have. But I believe the completion date is late April, early May, possibly the third week of April.

Possibly third week in April. [clears throat] The uh other improvements that are being made to the facility are [clears throat] eliminating some of the soils and managing some of the drainage water. There's no doubt that in my next life I like to joke I want to come back as a weather forecaster because it's the only job that I know you've been wrong more than half the time you keep your job. So, as you saw last year, we were unfortunately blessed with an enormous predicted rainstorm on Saturday, which end up causing all kinds of challenges. But the good news was there's nothing like a great rain to show you where all your drainage challenges are. And we learned that in great order. and as a result working with the city engineers and body and all of the others we're working on mitigating that. So we're very excited. I'll close with one little bit of fact. Last year we had 14 chalets. Uh two of those are donated back to the state of New Mexico and one to the city and we will do the same this year. So of the 14 and one was rather chalet. We are now looking at a list that is perhaps 19 chalets including those. So we are expanding to the south side of the runway to the grand scenes. We think we can fit all of it in, but Bobby and the airport people are going to give me a detailed tour of some of the work in progress soon. And if all

that works out, if it doesn't work out that way, we'll add the North Pad. So, I conclude by saying number one, thank you all. Your dedication and continued support helps make this possible. We're looking at as many as 75,000 attendees next year. We have challenges. You know all about them. We're working to overcome them. But the reality is we'll make certain that nobody in West Texas or Texas in general all the way to Arizona and throughout New Mexico does not know that Roswell, New Mexico is the true home for the national championship air racing. now and forever as long as we're here to make that happen. So, thank you very much. I'd be delighted to take any questions and I appreciate being able to be here today.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thanks. Pleasure to have you. Any questions of Cer?

So, Fred, thank you for everything that that you've done with this and everything. you know, your your poster. I can't imagine how it would [clears throat] look any better than to have you and the mayor and your Corvettes coming off that screen. Maybe this year and and for the next few years, [clears throat] we can have you guys do a Corvette race out there and I think you could raise some money doing that. Um, but I think that would be an awesome awesome event with our our two corvettes that that both you and the mayor both own. That would be pretty spectacular, I think.

Well, I picked mine up at December. The mayor, we couldn't bring his down. I wasn't here very long, but actually it wasn't December. It was back in February. And well, any event, the reality is we could go on the highway, did a spin up the rel down through the center of town. And I talked to [clears throat] Tony today and I said, you know, didn't work out last year to have the one on the runway scheduling, you know, their shoes. I said, this year, I think the mayor and I might be able to do something. Well, the problem with people that are closer to all the problems than I am some days, he said, "Well, you know, I'm not sure under our insurance policy that we would allow you and the mayor to race each other down the runway. We might have to get professional drivers." And I said, "Well, do me a favor. Look into that for me, but that would be great." But I I just I love the poster. I love what it represents and I I can't be happier to say it. Any other questions?

Glad we do have room for a sponsor, prime sponsor right there. We do. We do. And you know, we're still looking for one. So, thank you. Take good care. Appreciate being Thank you, Mr. Collins. Thank you very much. Uh next we have uh Mr. Bud couple please for airport advisory updates. It's sure good to have Fred back and Fred you did just fine speaking.

So thank you. Good evening, Mayor Jennings and Rosal city councilors. The AAC had our April meeting this past Tuesday on April 7th. We had most of our air center employees in attendance, including Omar Gonzalez, the deputy airport director. He presented most of the information for the meeting uh from the staff and thanks to everyone who attended the meeting in person and several who attended online. Our agenda was fairly typical in length with 21 items to be addressed. The ADB lighting and electrical vault project continues. As you will remember, design and construction of the uh new electrical vault project are funded under separate federal grants. [clears throat] Design is now complete and the vault project has been put out for bid. The RAC is currently waiting uh issuance of the federal grant to begin construction. Lochner Engineering has met with the FAA [clears throat] and has submitted documents needed to issue the federal grant. We're currently waiting on the FAA to issue the grant [clears throat] so that we can actually begin construction. Um, as with all things federal government, we were told that that could be delayed due to the ongoing government shutdown. [clears throat] However, to our knowledge, the shutdown did not include the FAA. So, it doesn't appear that that's a very valid concern by the FAA.

Hopefully, the new electrical vault project can proceed to replace the two older vaults which [clears throat] currently control all airports runway lighting. The lighting portion of the project uh for updating, installing, and replacing the original lighting and wiring continues two weeks out of each month. The BLM taxiway Lima project is about 65% complete. The contractor resumed work on the project on March the 30th after reinstallation of electrical conduit under the under the taxi way. Concrete pouring and asphalt paving along with the required upgrades associated with change order three are in progress. Construction is expected to reach substantial completion by the end of this month. Taxiway Charlie rehabilitation had a pre-construction meeting on April the 1st. The contractor is expected to begin construction, including milling the surface. Repaving the asphalt is expected to begin soon after with completion, possibly later this month. The completion of the restroom rehabilitation in the terminal is moving forward. They were to be completed by the end of March, but due to the uneven concrete floor issues on the east restrooms, that will be delayed until the end of April. [snorts] punch list item on the west or items on the west restrooms are being completed and fixtures are being installed uh currently on the east restrooms this week. The terminal emergency generator

project now has plans and generator specifications are complete. The engineering firm of Mosen Corbin is waiting in the city for the method of procurement. uh complete bid documents are executed within two or will be executed within two weeks once the procurement method has been resolved. The Southeast Air Center water line project continues to move forward. The sewer line portion of the project is still on a partial hold with the electrical service portion of the project now scheduled to be completed by June the 26. The air museum taxiway and gate project is currently being coordinated with Mosen Corbin and the city engineer. The design of this project is expected to be complete by the end of April. This project will rep will provide access from the air center to the proposed air museum air museum site south of Wo Road at the southeast corner of the air center. This has been a brief summary of the main projects currently ongoing at the air center. Some of the other projects have previously been addressed by Omar Gonzalez. Uh and just as a short history, uh air center activities on an ongoing basis have been presented to the city council over the past four years. I want to note that this information was not previously presented as I have done for the past four years. During the two and a half years that I

was a member of the AAC under the previous administration, this type of report was never presented. So, I appreciate Mayor Jennings and the council allowing me to present this info on a monthly basis. At a minimum, this has provided the council with current ongoing project information at the air center and it has also kept the council informed about the nu numerous actions taken by the AEC that have hopefully [clears throat] benefited the local taxpayer. I've personally appreciated the opportunity to serve as a volunteer in this in this capacity as the AAC chair. I've learned a lot about our air center over the last several years. I'm also convinced that the AAC serves a valuable purpose to the air center and city government, allowing the AAC to investigate various aspects of the operations and activities at the air center has benefited the taxpayer and allowed uh our air center to continue to improve. improve many aspects of its operations. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to assist our community at our air center. This concludes my presentation and I stand for any questions.

Thank you, Mr. C. Thank you very much for your for your longtime service on the air advisory on the air airport advisory commission. You've certainly brought a lot of worthy items to us and you certainly have kept enough suppressed. Thank you much very much for your service. Are there any questions from members of the council? Councilman Hillbr, I just want to reiterate the mayor said I really appreciate Mr. what you've done over the last eight years. I [clears throat] assume it's been six and a half

six and a half years that you've done out there that you have been very informative to this council and I know you've spent a tremendous amount of your time and devotion and it's people like you that live in this community that make it a better community. Thank you for your service to the city.

It's a team effort. Thank you. Any further? Okay. Thank you very much, Mr. Coco. Appreciate it. Uh, next we have [clears throat] out of state travel is on page 288. It's only informationational. Do we have any in the for out of state travel on page 288? Any questions?

Okay. James McCormick went to Washington DC to get an award. for um special project.

Yeah, it's on page 288. Okay, [clears throat]

we have requirement out of state attachments are here. Here we have state travel water wastewater Andrew [clears throat] and for out of state capital for wastewater. Uh Andrew Valdez went for excellence and innovative financing. you received an award there in DC and um James McCormick went to Washington DC travel to attend the 2026 CIFA water infrastructure summit and to receive the 2000 PICES award from the city of Rosland emergency sewer project completion for 2024. And then we had the RA police department. We Is the chief here? Did he want to go through this or

He's outside.

He's outside. Okay. Um Um Miguel Beritos and Matthew Shepard. Uh they're detectives. They're going to a training program for National Missing and Unidentified Persons Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. uh is can provide update training on the best practices and technologies in Ton Gen and Cisco Santiana and I mean uh there's a a large number of people the SWAT team is receiving training in a SWAT conference in Round Rock, Texas uh this week for the police department and Um, officer Steven Willis uh will receive travel reimbursement request to Round Rock, Texas. That's for that. That's all the Round Rock officers [clears throat] and uh Bobby Thompson, our airport director as Adam State airport travel going to Dallas for Paul Beville uh to discuss updates the airport certification manual and um Caroline Brooks uh is going out of state travel for uh our museum. camp to Austin, Texas. Uh it's a tennis for mandatory workshop for federal compliance with the National American Graves Protection and Registration Act for the Museum of Need of American Collection. So, everybody's pretty busy. Um and it's really good to see our Miss Brooks going. you know, our our museum is accredited nationally and we

need to make sure that we maintain that accreditation. So, I'm real happy that she's uh going there uh to maintain that accreditation while we're going through our flood problems. Um any other comments, questions, members? Okay. Okay. Thank you. Seeing none. Okay. We will move on to public participation and items. We have two people signed up uh to talk. We have Sarah MacArthur from 609 Mimosa Drive in Roville data center. Sarah.

Oh, okay. Sherry got your time here. I got a lot of time. Hi, mayor. Hi, counselor. Three minutes or something. All right. Go ahead. Right. your best you can.

Good [clears throat] evening, counselors, and thank you for your time. Um, I want to raise an issue that most residents in Roswell and Chavis County are not aware of because nobody's told them. Across our county and through our state and district economic development offices, there are efforts underway to pursue industrial revenue bonds for large-scale industrial projects, including hypers scale AI data centers. These discussions are happening before the public has been informed and before our community has had any meaningful opportunity to understand the impacts. This is not unique to us. Across the country, communities are fighting to protect their water, their electrical grids, their air quality, and their property values for massive resource intensive facilities that are still largely unregulated. Many cities and counties have learned the hard way that once these projects are approved, the long-term costs fall on local residents, not on the corporations who build them. Roswell and Chavis County do not have limitless resources. We do not have limitless water. We do not have unlimited electrical capacity and we do not have the luxury of absorbing rate increases, infrastructure strain or quality of life losses. so that outside companies can benefit from tax advantaged financing. The public is not being informed of these efforts and that's not really acceptable. Transparency is not optional. It's the foundation of public trust. If industrial developers want to come here to Roswell or to the county, they must demonstrate that they will not raise our utility rates. They will not consume water we cannot replace. They will not degrade our quality of life. and they will not undermine our property values. They must show that they can operate without shifting costs onto the people who already live here.

Until this happens, the answer is no. We do not want hypers scale AI data centers in an already fragile geographic area. Not without full transparency, full public participation, and full protection of our community's resources and our property values to say nothing of our quality of life. Thank you. Thank you very much. Any questions? Council lady Arnold, just one one quick question. Um I am familiar with them coming, but I do um do you have any feedback on what they are? What is the benefit of them coming? Is there any community benefit for living here other than,

you know, there there are people that say that there is a tax benefit, but there's really not because, you know, fire and roads and emergency vehicles, those come out of the county budget. Those come out from taxes. They're not paying those [laughter] unless we get ahead of the game. And we do it the way they do it in Europe where we demand that these companies that are billionaire companies and I don't know if you know how big billionaire is, right? But they these people that come here that want to use our resources. I'm not against ever having somebody come here and do that. But put up sound barriers so you don't ruin the quality of life and and tell us how much water you think you're going to use because if you take that water then the agricultural sections and all the other places they don't get the water. So I'm hardressed and I've read more than 40 articles on AI data centers. I am hardressed to see what a very fragile area like ours is why why we're on the radar other than they get a tax incentive and that should be a no-go that should never happen. You want to come here then you give us tax money for our schools for our systems because the jobs aren't there because once it's built that's it. So, I am hardressed, but I will do more research if you have more questions and I will I will do more reading and and learn about this. But I I'm very worried. Do you have a question? Um, counselor.

Well, I'd like to Oh, sorry. [laughter] Are you counselor? [clears throat] Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, are we talking about that issue coming before the the this council or perhaps in a future? I am really okay. So, it's not here in this council yet,

but there are things happening in our county and you guys need to know about it and and um I've done some ifas and I see that there's there's things happening. There's emails going back and forth between companies and newly formated companies and and you know through our economic regional area and from our state and they're having discussions and I do know that there's a pipeline company that's expanding their their infrastructure. I mean these things don't happen without somebody already knowing that something is happening. And so if you guys don't know that I'm happy to provide that information to you in a form of a written pamphlet. But but we need to be aware and we need to get on the other side of it so that we're not one of those communities that's like, "Wow, that was really bad." And look at how we are now. I just just curiously, if you know, Memphis, Tennessee couldn't produce enough stuff for for Elon Musk's big data center. And we're talking 13 square miles. That's what that's what the people that want to come here right now have planned for us. A 4 gigawatt kind of system. and four gawatts if it was just an energy company would would actually um would actually give enough energy to 4 million homes which we don't even have 4 million homes in New Mexico. Just saying. So I think it's important to to to take advantage of them as opposed to being the ones taken advantage of. And that means we have to update our laws. we have to get behind and we have to start from a local point of view and bring it all the way up to the state and say we are not going to take this without getting the benefit of it. I mean I don't want to take all your time but thank you.

The the reason that I'm asking the question is because I think it's very important that the public understand who to contact the the decision makers

right now. I think it'd be the county and and the people there and and and like every county across the United States that there are 4,000 AI data centers and every county [clears throat] commission has been caught unawares. But I think our commissioners are starting to realize, oh wait a minute, hold on a second. This is not my it's not necessarily a good thing for our county because you know if they take all the water where we what are we left with, right? And so I think our county people and our county commissioners are the ones that are being approached about all that and I think um I don't sleep well at night so I mean to me it's not a good thing but thank you.

Okay. Thanks. Any further comments? Okay. Thank you Miss MacArthur. I know uh we do on our taking all our water. We are an adjudicated basin and I believe it's all been adjudicated.

Yes sir. And so whatever whatever water they get, they're going to have to buy it from a willing seller. And uh whatever and I don't know how much they use, they it takes a lot of stuff to to cool and make electricity [laughter] generally takes quite a bit of water to cool it. Uh and I assume probably for data centers it takes quite a bit but um we don't have any areas probably that large inside the city limits where we would be affected much. So this is mostly going to be probably to the county and uh but it is it certainly is we should be aware of how much is water it uses and everything else just like we should for any other any other facility that comes in here about where we are. So,

thank you very much, Mr. McCarthy, for bringing that item to us. You're welcome. And next, we have the last one on our agenda is Daniel Rubio from 6027 Old Public Highway. Mr. Rubio,

good evening, [clears throat] Mr. Mayor. Council person, thank you for having me. Um, I I hope I won't be that long. Uh, I just want to introduce myself and my name is Daniel Rubio. I'm 56 years old. I'm a lifelong resident of Roswell, New Mexico. Proud lifelong resident of Roswell, New Mexico. Let me rephrase [clears throat] that from the south side of Roswell, New Mexico. I grew up a few blocks away from here, you know. And why I say that is where I grew up, we we were poor. But the one thing that we did have, we had work work ethic. We had our integrity. We were honest. We were respectful. And what we held most highest was our character. And to this day, we still hold that. I have three kids. I'm proud to say all my kids graduated from Rosal High. Now, they're in the professional world and they're all doing great. Thanks to God. I mean, they're doing awesome. I'm truly blessed. I have three grandkids who recently graduated from Rosal High. Um, next month I'm going to have a granddaughter that graduates from college. He's she's getting a degree in business. Next month I'm having a grandson that has a he's going to get a degree in teaching and he wants to work for the Ros Independent School District. Um I've never been in trouble. I've never I don't even know what inside a police car looks like, jail, anything. [clears throat] I've never I I can't even remember the last time I got a traffic ticket. And you guys are all probably wondering why why I'm going in so indepth on explaining myself. And the reason I I'm going is I want you guys to know that my roots and my family's roots run deep in this community. And the reason I went so indepth to explain who I am. I'm standing here before you because I will not be attacked by any city official ever again.

Ever again. And the reason I say that, you're not going to attack my character, my my my character, my integrity, my honesty. And the last thing you're ever going to do is is uh slander my name. I I don't deserve that. Nor does my wife. Nor that does not. And And you're probably all thinking, how did we get here? And I And I'll And I'll do a brief synopsis. My wife and I like to golf. [clears throat] We're at We're always at Spring River. We work in merchant services. We're at Spring River one day and we overheard the folks there talking about, "Oh, we need a tractor and we need this and we need that." I really wasn't paying attention. My wife was. She goes, she goes, "Why why can't we help the city? Why what we do, why can't we help the city? Why can't we see what their fees are being paid and how we can save them money?" And I was like, "Great question." So, we finished our round. We went to the city. Long story short, we um we got with the city and uh did a proposal and that's where it ended. We were blown away with the amount of money that we could save the city of Rosal which equated to $4.5 million over 3 years. That's $126,000 a month. So what did we do? We said, "Hey, let's help our neighbors. Let's go to Arkeesia. See see if they're on that. see if they're on the on this getting pretty much on the bad plan that the city of Roswell on. Guess what? They were worse. So when we went there, we've been working with them for 6 months now. Same amount of time that we've been working with the city of Roswell.

Differences three minutes are up. Go ahead. Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead.

Um, thank you, Councilman. Um, that being said, we've been working with them. Um, everything's been great. I get a call out of the blue um, yesterday, as a matter of fact, and it was a person from the city of of Artisia, one of their finance managers. And I'm I'm here to tell you, he was almost in tears. He goes, "I don't know what happened." He goes, "I don't I don't know. I don't know where we went wrong." And then he went on to tell me that either a person from there called a person here or vice versa. And that that person said, "Do not under any circumstances go with these folks. Do not do business with Daniel. Do not do business with his wife and definitely do not be do business with their company." Again, we've never heard back. I have countless emails, texts for the for the city of Roswell. Why? I'm a I'm one that's my business, but two, I'm a part of this community. When I know that we're losing $4,000 a day, and we and and I come to these meetings and I hear, "Oh, I I need money for this and I need money for that." or I look in the newspaper and and the zoo needs money and the and we're going to raise the water and I know for a fact there's a literally a virtual bag of $176,000 sitting out in front of the city hall and nobody will return my call. Nobody has the decency, the respect, the integrity to at least give me a call and say, "Hey, you know what? We're going to put it out to bid. You guys didn't win. We found a better deal." Okay, fine. But not even that that I mean these are questions that you might want to ask being you know this everybody's here you know elected

official maybe that's something that you might want to ask maybe you want to ask what else is on that desk that's just sitting there cuz that's 4,000 that was $4,000 a day and that was 4 months ago $126,000 times four simple math that's a half a million that the city loss and us as taxpayer had to pay. I didn't want the key to the city. I didn't even want the thank you. But the one thing I didn't definitely want is my name ran through the mud. And that is not acceptable to me. That is not acceptable at all. I quote you what one of the officials in Arkeisia told me yesterday. It was almost unbelievable the horrible things that were being said about you, my wife, and your company from the city of Roswell. That being said, what I want, I want an investigation. I want an investigation of why that money sat on that desk. I want an investigation of why nobody called us. I want to the last time we were in a in a finance meeting, Tony said, "I'm renegotiating with the I'm renegotiating with the current current provider." The current provider who has fleeced the city of Roswell over millions for the last 10 15 years. You're really really renegotiating with them and it's taken four months. It's taken us as as as citizens costing us half a million dollars. So you can renegotiate. What? I mean, come on. If somebody was stealing out of your house, are you going to renegotiate and say, "Okay, you can't steal my TV, but I'll allow you to steal some forks in a toaster." No. A thie's a thief. Like, I I I really want some answers. And I And what I do want, this is what I want. I want whatever whatever city official that Artisia

talked to and ran my name and my wife's name through the mud. I want them fired immediately. And another thing that I want you you have time you have time to run my name through the mud. You have time. But another thing that they were told don't do this with them. Use these people. Call this person. you don't have time or the common decency or the corn to even call me, but you can go to our neighbor city and say don't do business with that Rosalite, but use these people.

Mr. Rubio, um, you've said a lot of things about a lot of people and there's no names or specifics or anything with it. If you have something, you'd be glad you can come to me and I'll be glad to look at and see what uh see what we can find out. But uh there's no way that I don't know I don't know if you've talked to any of the counselors. Anybody else talked to you? Okay. But I I have and and and it's and it's you know um it wasn't I don't I didn't know where to go. I mean I thought I was dealing with the direct person but obviously I wasn't.

Well I just tell you that I don't uh I don't think anybody unless council will would do anything like that. And I I I believe our staff is good. I have a great deal of confidence in Tony and and you know, I'll be glad to look at it with you and see what what we whatever's out there and see what you're

Well, we we have the we we have again this happened yesterday. And I find it ironic that when I was called yesterday from the city of Artisia, I said, "Well, when did this happen?" They said, "Friday." And I started laughing. They said, "Why Friday? Why are you laughing?" And I said, "It's so it's so funny because I was just looking at Facebook that on Friday the the the city dump could not take any any people over there cuz their credit card machine was down." I was like, "So, we can't even facilitate our own citizens, but we have time to run me through the mud."

Well, okay. Well, I think you made your point, sir. And uh we'll be glad to stay on work with you. just this is not the time and the place to do it, but we'll be back to sit down and work with you about it and I don't have any problems with it. Uh, council Maru, Mr. Rubio, can you provide the information where we're losing money and because we don't like losing money period show I have it here and it's date stamped and I made I made a copy for everyone and and here's another thing I mean all of us don't we don't like losing money. We know the city's losing money and we don't want to lose money. We just save money somehow.

We'll always get it. It's the virtue services. So, if you'll provide that to the clerk, she'll get it to us and and we'll have that for each one. Council lady Arnold, if you're Thank you, Mr. Thank you. And yes. Yes, ma'am. So, thank you for coming out tonight. But, um, and it it was all very impactful except for it was kind of like not understanding part of the puzzle. I'm sorry. What is it you do?

What we do is merchant services. So, we help businesses lower their fees. I'm sure you you've seen every business in town, whether it be a restaurant, a auto shop, if anybody runs a credit card in their business, the fees now are astronomical. So the the way to save that is they'll they'll be able some some merchants can pass a fee onto the customer whether it be 3% 3 and 12% 3.9%. Um so that's how you get your savings. Okay. No, I was just trying to gain some relativity because the story I appreciated everything you brought in but the bigger context is kind of letting me understand what you do and how that came to the story. So thank you very much. I appreciate Thank you.

Thank you. And I please uh we had to sit down and work with you. Mike, uh I'm going to turn them when I park in front of everybody. I I have one last thing. Why wasn't Why wasn't it put out to bid?

Why put out this the Why wasn't it put out to bid? I mean you the the city was quick to say tell a citizen no we're not going with you and don't anybody else go with you. Why wouldn't it at that at that type of dollar amount why wouldn't it put out to bid? Why wouldn't it? And you know I'd have been perfectly fine. You put it out to three companies and they two other companies beat our bid. Okay that's fair. I guess why I'm so upset is one we've been treated so unfair it's unreal. And two, I didn't deserve to get get my name, my wife's name dragged through the mud. And and it and this isn't I mean, you might not hear from me again, but you'll definitely hear from us.

Well, that's why I have no idea about who said what to who, her, and I'm sorry. This is you've got to get us the name of the INRT who told you that. We'll look and see look in see but this is not the place that's going to happen tonight. So I mean that's all I'm telling you. We'll sit down and we'll figure it out and we'll look at it and work with you. We have looked at a lot of the issues that are out there about water bills about whether or not you people pay with a credit card, how much money we lose or gain or whatever. I mean, we've looked at all that and there was some of that was supposed to gotten fixed and it didn't, but we we're working we will work for forward with that and uh

that is exactly that that that what you're seeing right there entails all of that and covers all that all utilities, all mids. Okay, I'm sorry. Miss Moore, did you have I just I guess being from the staff side, I want to apologize for remaining famed that that's what happened and the way it happens. Um that is never okay. We're all about being professionals. Um I hate that that happened to you. Um and I you heard that mayor asked for you to come directly to him and we can figure out where to go from there. Uh I'm not sure what the beat you're talking about. You spoke with Miss Tony. That's the only person I've ever talked to

was to tell Tony. Okay. Uh see then most of us are unaware of those things. So um so I think once you go to the mayor we probably know where to go to from next. But it's never okay to defend no one's character for whatever the reason may be. And we know we have to be careful as as as professionals that when you tell you know you never know who you're talking to. So you have to be careful cuz it may be your cousin you're talking to. you know, when you talking about each other. So, we just need to be careful with that and let us be more professional, more professional as elected officials for sure. Um, I don't know if it was an elected official or if it was staff, but it doesn't matter. Uh, it's not okay. Um, and we I apologize that that happened to you, Mr. um Mr. Rivial, to you and your and your beautiful wife over there. But uh the next thing for you to do is set an appointment to meet with the mayor and the city manager and get it done and see what your questions are. Uh this is not a place for such a long endeavor conversation and nothing can be had or voted or said on it tonight, but we thank you for bringing your concerns to us cuz that's that's what we're here for and I think you're actually my board actually. Uh so you know thank you for your concerns and just make an appointment and meet with the mayor and city manager and you can go from there and we can see how those your concerns can be addressed. Now we can't say you can just you can't tell us who we can fire and stuff. You can't you can't I know how you feel. You may feel that way but you don't have the power to say you know just say we need to fire so and so and so and so. Uh, I don't even know if I got that power. But anyway, we we appreciate your concern and your cander and uh it will be addressed and we thank you. I think your three minute you got way over your 3 minutes and so but we wanted to hear just want you to understand we wanted you to hear what you had to say and so we got your information call the mayor make an

appointment with him and his manager and then we'll all know what how that comes about and what to do next for you. Okay, sir. Yes, ma'am. Thank you for feedback. Johnson, I'm sorry, Mr.

Yes. Uh, I apologize that nobody ever got back with you. I mean, we're we should always under I don't care if we don't have the right answers or if we don't know them or we don't have a clue. We start to answer everybody. Every every time our phone rings at city hall, we have to answer it. And I apologize, but we'll get better at that. Uh, we have to answer our phone calls. we have to return. Even if we don't have the right answers for you, we still have to communicate. We do work for you still. Please don't miss and I apologize. I really Thank you, Mr. Johnson. I do appreciate it. Thank you very much. Have a good night. Thank you. Have a good night.

Okay. Okay. Any other public participation quickly? Any other person? One once, twice. Okay. Thank you very much. Next, we have item Um 34 ordinance number 26-04 authorized to advertise for public hearing on ordinance number 26-04 an ordinance submitting the purchasing city's purchasing procedures on page 296. So

good afternoon or good evening mayor and city council members. Uh this is ordinance 2604. Uh before you today is are two separate uh potential amendments to uh the city's proposed amendments to the city's procurement procedures. It is tomorrow is tomorrow. What time is it there John? Oh, it's about 10 in the morning.

Uh, so, uh, this I don't know if I anybody needs to speak on this because I believe the counselors wanted to put a motion on the table. So, Oh, yeah. So, what what was his motion? because I didn't understand his motion when that was made. He No. So during the if if he wanted to send it back to committee, that would be your motion now. That would be the motion on the table. [laughter] Yeah, he didn't. Yeah. No, nothing was made to the agenda. No change was made to this portion of the agenda. Mr. Mayor, Council Hel, I move that we put this back to the finance committee for further advancement.

No, I'm sorry. I thought we had to have some discussion. Why would we vote at that? Well, number one, this is says that we're going to advertise for a public hearing. That's not the true statement. The statement is we should be having a public hearing because we voted last time to have a public hearing. So, you're wanting to put it back because of the verbiage on the current agenda.

Yeah. [sighs] So, we have a motion to refer this to finance committee. Is there by councelor Hillbrand? Is there a second? Second.

Okay, we have a motion to move by to by to finance by Councilman Hilderbrand and a second by [clears throat] Council Lady Moore. Okay, now we're on discussion. Um, any discussion on referring that bill? Uh, yes, council lady.

Cuz I'm a little bit thrown here. So, I don't understand why we move it back to legal committee when you have a grammatical error and it's already made it this far readvertised. So, you're wanting to take it back to legal to correct words. Finance finance I'm sorry. So how is finance going to correct the verbage? What is that? How is that even correlated? I mean I postponing [clears throat] it to correct it and then put it out there. But I'm not sure where the error is for that on that ground. Well the air council

thank you Mr. Mayor. The error was that the city internal auditor is working on some processes and procedures to update this and they're not complete yet and at the request of city manager to move this back and when we talked about this at the legal committee or finding one committee we talked to send this back till this morning is corrected or till it gets the process for the internal city officer is writing to help identify these purchase requirements.

Can you please update me on that because I think I think there's a bunch of council members who haven't been included on some information.

Yes. So, uh, Mr. Mayor, if I may. Yes. So, the audit committee met last week. It was discussed what to do. Uh, as far as management goes, [clears throat] Joshua was in there. I gave a number of options. one of which is to table, one of which is to send back to committee. If people didn't want to hear this because they're not policies and procedures. So, as far as the aspect of what you want to think, I say generally speaking, I am in support of the ordinance I've written. However, if counselors don't want to deal with it yet without policies or procedures in place that are not necessarily tied to it, that's the council's prerogative to send it back. So I'm just advising that since Josh a little hard to hear advising procedurally if you don't want to deal with this until the auditor has done things sending it to committee makes sense. If you'd like to just take vote for it now you would vote to not send the committee

question you guys. So this is the thing that we're talking about in legal where the our internal author came and wanted to change some numbers and and stuff. This is what we're talking about. So we're not just talking about that word is changed today, Miss Arnold. She's we're talking about the actual wording of the uh the or the ordinance itself, not just that one word, the advertise.

So that's not what we're talking about. That's what he just said. But that's not what this work the change is that we want to uh some of us had some concerns with the numbers the 250,000 to 100,000 and those number that our internal auditor brought forth at a meeting and so um that's not what I don't think that's what M council said but I think that's kind of why I was have some questions is because we had not finalized what she had she want that the numbers that she wanted to change remember she wanted to change something from a to 250,000 and all that y'all that's what we're talking is that what we're talking about

Mr. Mayor Coun. Yes. So, yeah. So, this ordinance is about would be about codifying the contract amount I can enter into

before as the manager without going for council approval. The at the previous meeting a number of counselors had spoken about how procurement side doesn't have established policies and procedures which the auditor is presently working on. So those counselors at the last meeting wanted to defer this until those policies are in place. that didn't pass on a five on a 65 vote to advertise today to hear what to my knowledge the auditor has not changed her proposal as to the word of this ordinance but she's concurrently working on policies and procedures

and I think policies and procedures if I'm are are are necessary everybody keeps saying we're going to follow these these this direction so if we're going to have a policy of how we're going to handle it every time it happens then I think I do think that we should let her get her finish those steps so that every time we give it we don't have to go through this every single time we know the steps when it comes to you next time you know you do ABC and so I kind of I'm kind of okay with waiting that but I think to my understanding everybody has voted not to wait no so there hasn't been a vote yeah the motion on the table is to send it to legal which is where the auditor will be presenting

the motion is to go finance to finance [laughter] finance. Now, are you through More? Yes, sir. Okay. Now, anyone who hadn't spoken the first time before we go back council councelor Pressa. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I I guess I'm a a bit confused [clears throat] as to why we are sending it back to finance rather than legal because it seems to be like a legal issue. I'm not making the motion so I can't

No, no. Well, I'm I'm I'm just putting it out there that I I don't understand whoever made the motion quite back to finance. Mr. Ran, you made the motion. Would you

I go I made a motion has to place it back there. It's got it's a monetary procedure process and so and you can take it out of out of finance and put it into legal if you want, but I made the motion to put it back in into finance committee. Well, and I I I think we do have to send it back, but I'm just kind of confused as to whether it needs to go back to finance or legal or both. I'm not sure.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. Anyone else who would care to speak for the first time? [clears throat] Anyone else? Okay, Council Lady Arnold, for the second or third time.

Very I'll keep going. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Actually, I think what I'm confused is in the last cuz I I'm very aware of what's happened. What I'm confused on is why the auditor reported to the audit committee when at the last meeting, the city council meeting, it passed for her to come back and just to go through public hearing. And I'm surprised she's not here. And I have a feeling the reason she's not here is because she advised five counselors of something when she was supposed to advise a full counsel from the last meeting. And so I think there was a decision by five counselors to actually postpone this in the proper policy and procedure. I hit it cuz I have the actual ordinance for the auditor right here and actually we have done um that is the standard but I don't think it was for her to report to the [clears throat] committee. I think it was for her to report to a full council. And so I'm real confused as to I get postponing it, but there was a whole lot of information and tidbits in there that weren't conveyed to all of us when she presented to all of us. That's what I'm saying is this looks it it looks squirly.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Sherman. Mr. Counc.

So, Mr. mayor and council Harland. Um it was the so it was four city councilors and the mayor that were in that meeting so that we understand that we didn't have some type of reform to make some type of decision. It was a suggestion and I I personally I feel like we should move forward with the recommendation from uh our internal auditor. But that's up to all of the city councilors to make that decision on whether we move forward or wait for her because she had some really good explanations in that meeting on why we should move forward. but she wanted to be able to give it more uh substance for everybody to understand why she was recommending that.

So, I'm not I'm not I'm not opposed to voting on this tonight. She should have been saying that to all.

Excuse me, ma'am. She the we had an audit committee did not have a majority of counselors on it and that's who she made these suggestions to was to that it was an audit committee that we had doing it and now that's where she made these suggestions and that's that's ended up where we are I guess today and I don't think anybody I don't think I don't I don't I don't know. I'm not a counselor. I don't know. I don't think anybody went through here and said to run this back. I don't know if they did or not. That's something that you all would know. I wouldn't um I I do think that where we are right now, I have significant questions in my mind. I feel that our city manager should be ripped is going to have to be given a great deal of leeway and what we contract for and how we contract on putting things together as we go through go through this flood uh this flood disaster that we're going through on moving things together. Uh I I wish she was here as well, but uh she's not. But uh I do think that the city manager is going to have to have some some leeway to work this to work this whole thing out. That's why I voted the way I did in the last meeting. And on on procurement, I think we have to have something there. So, so now uh is there anyone that cares to speak the sec first or second time that had first time that hadn't spoken? Anybody here speak again? Councelor Korn, I haven't spoken yet. So, Mr. Mayor, I hear what you're saying. We've got a lot of things we need to get started with. If Congress ever decides

to fund FEMA, we have a TSA and the Coast Guard and whoever else is in that suit. That would be helpful. And and we we're behind on this flood and it's not our fault. We're ready to go. They're not. And you can't buy a hamburger if you don't have the money in your pocket. And that's where we're at. We want get started and get moving. This is this is can be a very complicated issue. There's other facts that need that that I raised with the city manager this evening about the way we go about our process. We we vote on yeah, this is maybe a good idea. Let's go out for our FP. And then 30 or 60 days later, we get the the the bids back and we decide which one we're going to go with. And then some somehow another 60 or so days, then we actually vote the money. There's more more to this process than just giving him the signature authority for whatever amount of money. And and I think there needs to be more discussion on this issue because there's a lot more other facts that you don't see immediately. How many times did we talk about the library playground that they're building? How many different committees went through that, voted on it? We just broke ground on that project. That took a year. And we need to we need to look at our whole process, not just this one little piece of it and and come to a conclusion. I don't care where it goes.

I just it needs it needs some more discussion and it needs deeper [clears throat] thought in my opinion. That's all I got to say. Thank you. Any further comments? Seeing none, we have a motion on the floor by councelor Hillerbrand to send it to finance and a second move seconded by council lady um uh more. So I believe we're at that point in time. We're going to have have we'll have the clerk call the role on that motion. No, pardon. Voice. Just do a voice.

You want you want to do a voice vote? Okay. All those in favor? Well, it says we have to have a six majority of six members. So, but okay. All those on the final all points of clarification, at least my understanding is if we were voting on the on the issue on the issue and chief, then we would need the numbers that you're talking about. We're just talking about moving it back to a committee. So, we're just moving it to a committee. That's what we're doing.

That's true. You're right. All Okay. All those in favor, will you want to just a roll call or you want just a straight voice vote to either side? All right. We have a voice vote. All those in favor of referring this bill to finance signify by saying I I opposed. All those oppos. Okay. This bill has I would rule that by voice vote this bill has been sent back to finance. Item number 34 will go back to the finance committee for its earliest meeting.

Okay. Thank you. Okay. Next we have 935. And this item 35 is to hold a public hearing and a vote on the transfer vote exchange of locations of a dispenser license number dis897 on the premises the patio on on premises consumption only with patio service to two maget LLC doing business to Gayla Event Center at number three petrol drive in Rosville, New Mexico. Okay. So, we have [clears throat] uh this is the this is the new u the new building over off about

kind of straight across the street the street from the Anderson Museum on petrol drive is a little quarter circle drive that goes between uh college and garden council Mr. Mr. Mr. Mayor, so this is a quasi judicial hearing. Uh, as with liquor licenses, you have to in order to deny this, you have to make an affirmative determination that there is a public health, safety, or welfare issue with it. Um, so again, if there's nothing on the record, then you can't make a negative reference. We do these once every couple of months. You're probably getting used to them by now. Is this one of those things if we do nothing, it goes forward? That's correct.

Thank you. Go forward. motion. Okay. So, is there any anyone who would care to speak against this or none? Okay. So, then we don't have to do anything. He's going to ask for a motion. Does he? Is there any anyone have a motion? Motion to approve. Motion a motion to approve. Motion to approve. I'd make a motion to be approved. Council motion to approve by council lady Albertson. Second.

And a second by councelor Kevin. Okay. All those in favor signify by saying I. Oppos. I opposed. Oh, and the record should reflect that councelor Gas is on the phone for the last two votes. So with no descending votes, this is pass is duly passed. Next we go to votes. Who had vote?

Oh, I didn't hear it. But by a vote of nine in the affirmative and one in the negative. Who was two? No. You voted yes or no? Yes. Okay. Maybe his was Mr. Mayor. I I think uh councelor Ar was not present for the for the vote. I was not. I went to the bathroom. [laughter] Okay. by TMI. [laughter]

Okay, we have by a vote of eight, eight in the affirmative, one in the negative, and one in the bathroom. [laughter] This is duly pass. Okay. Next, we'll go to item u item 36 to approval for a per permanent change to the floor plan of the licensed premises for Walmart stores on [clears throat] uh East LP doing business as Walmart Super Center number 61 1611 located 4500 North Main. Councilman Korn.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Move to adopt the uh change of four premises to Walmart. Second motion by council corn, second by council hillrand. And is this just a change in the floor plan for their liquor sale? Is that all this is? Anyone in favor? Anyone care to speak out in favor of this or oppose to it? Proceed. Okay. So, all those in favor signify by saying I. I. Opposed. I

opposed. No opposed. So, by a vote of 10 confirming, none negative. [clears throat] Uh, this has been approved. Item 37, approval of a 5-year water rights lease agreement with Laprino Foods uh for,200 acre feet of City Ralph Water Rights, including the option for one 5-year uh renewal term. Mr. Mr. Mayor, I'll make a motion to approve agenda item 37, the approval of 5-year water rights lease agreement with LRO Foods Company for 1,200 acre square feet, excuse me, 1,200 acre feet of city of Rosal water rights, including an option for one 5-year renewal term.

Second, council lady, your second by council lady Arnold. Okay. Is there any council?

Mr. Mayor, thank you. Uh at the uh LA at the previous committee hearing, we discussed that the acre feet value of the water was sort of up in the air still. Uh we've met with LRO and we've agreed that uh neither of us know exactly what the value is still and this is partly due to the nature of how water rates are highly proprietary when it comes to leases. Uh we've agreed that for one year this should be $50 an acre [clears throat] and that we would revisit within the year to present you guys with the updated amount and then execute it a second time. Um LRO's here. Are you guys still doing that? Okay. They'll they brought a whole team in case I tried to pull something. [laughter] Uh but in the so if the council's immunanable if if the motion could just be amended to um that the city will uh insert appropriate language uh oh sorry that the 50 pardon [clears throat] me that the price will be $50 uh dollar per acre foot of water and that the city within a year will come uh to terms with LRO on the rate for the next 9 years thereafter. So move to the amendment

and bring it back. We'll come back to councelor in just execute it. Okay. Second. We'll let you know what we do.

We have a motion by council cabinet. Second by councelor Arnold. Is there any further discussion? Um, I have some concerns and uh for LRO when you all came and when that when the cheese plant came here, I mean it was a really good deal and for a long time we have we had 53 to 55 dairies here. Today we're down to about five. And I I think you [clears throat] know th those dairies I mean you all really stabilize stabilized this area and it was extremely beneficial to our community when we started with the cheese plants and all those dairies moved here from California. It really stabilized our agricultural community and uh and I I just look around with with no dairies left here. Uh maybe it's I mean you do maybe you provide us a good job. I'm one of the closest I have one of the closest houses to your plant. I can look out there and see those green dots on those 24 27 [clears throat] uh shipping tanks. But I'm concerned that we don't have any dairies left. And I understand with dairies comes a lot of things including the nitrates and uh everything from all the manure and everything else that comes with it. But uh I would hope that we could find some way uh to stabilize our dairy industry in this area. Um, I mean maybe I'm might be the only one that uh

pretty much grew up in agriculture but it [clears throat] it's uh it's very beneficial for us to have those have strong dairies here and uh I would hope that Mr. pass in this deal. When we look about this, I hope we would look uh about ways what we can do and in pricing agreements or something whether it's no one cares except what AMPI does. uh I don't know but we have to have a very vibrant economy and uh with the uh with the adventure cheese plant and [clears throat] one feed mill I mean we had to buy you know the county had to buy a huge hook and ladder fire truck and put a barn to put it in and train people in it just so we could not change the uh the fire rating for all the citizens who are around you out in the county. And as a county fire chief, I can just tell you that that's that's very important. So, I would hope that we would expand when we look at this, see what we can do to have a viable dairy uh crop in uh in Chavis County, Chavis and Navy County. Uh it's very viable. It's And I I'm glad you're here. I mean, you've got you've got 670 employees here. I had a nephew that worked for you for a long time and uh used to work a great deal with Mr. Burcham [clears throat] over at New Mexico State about getting employees here for them. Uh Mr. Mate, I I don't I know a lot of I'm glad you're here and I I I when sometimes you have a pop off, it doesn't smell real good. That's all right. I understand that that's part of

agriculture and I I'm just saying that it's uh you know please help us make a vibrant strong agriculture community in our area and I don't know how you do it. You all know more about pricing and how things go and but I would hope that you would help us do that. So that's all and uh okay so now we're on we have a is there any other comments? Seeing none if the uh clerk could call the role this on the amendment. Yes. Is it on as amended at 50 as Mr.

We never voted I never voted on the amendment. Now you can ask unanimous consent if you want to. Well, would you vote on the motion to motion? You want to change it? He already did. He made he motion as amended. And Mr. Hammond made a motion as amended. And Mrs. Arnold seconded. So I believe it has been amended. If that's the way is that the way you have it, Mir. Okay. So, I think we're okay. We have not voted. Okay.

We haven't voted on the amendment. Now, you can ask for unanimous consent if you want to, Mr. Mayor. But you you Well, let's just do it real quick and we'll just do on the amendment. Is that okay, M? Let's get it done. Okay. semantics for amending the motion as was described by our city manager, Mr. Inma as about 58 $50 per acre foot. So, we have a motion by councelor Cavana, second by councelor Arnold uh to adopt that amendment.

You agree? Okay. Yes. Clerk, call the role. Yes.

All those in favor signify by saying I. I. All those opposed. Okay. By vote of 10 in the affirmative and none in the negative. It is duly passed. The amendment is duly passed. Now back on the bill. As amended as amended cabin, would you make another motion? Just would you We're back on that. So would you

as amended make a motion that the agenda there's an approval of 5ear water rights lease approved for 1200 acre as amended per city involvement water including option 5. We have a motion by council cabin as amended with a 5year second or with a $50 fee and it's seconded by this time by councelor Johnson. Any further discussion? Yes, sir. Council [clears throat] present.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. You know, I I uh I read the email that was sent to us, and I don't know if this is appropriate to bring it up in public or not. Uh a letter from something like lawyers,

Mr. Mayor C. Uh yeah. So, LRINO has an IRB with the city. So, whenever LRO has any type of issue with a vendor that could possibly affect title, which it can because of how our IRBs are written, we get notified, but it's not actually an issue we're we need to address. It's a courtesy notice as the land owner that we have no obligation to reply to and no way to hurt the city. So the the the information that we received by email has no bearing on nothing. Whether they [singing] they uh pay up or they don't. Nope. Yeah. It's totally internal for Okay.

Yeah. We again we only get these notice these notices happen every now and then for any group that has an internal revenue bond because technically we own the underlying land as a result of the bond. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Any further discussions? Okay. You want to do another voice vote? All those in favor of a motion by councelor Cavin, second by councelor Johnson uh to approve item 37 uh as amended. Uh signify by saying I I opposed. I

opposed. By vote of 10 in the affirmative, none of the negative. Uh item 37 is duly passed. Next we go to item 38 and this adoption of resolution number 26-21 approving the 20 fiscal year 24 audit and corrective action plan. Uh councelor Gas or well excuse me he's gone. Uh Tony, would you like

Yes. Good evening, Mr. Mayor. Council members, agenda item number 38 is resolution 2621, adoption of resolution 2621, approving the FY24 audit and corrective action plan. The city has received authorization to release the FY24 audit. The state of New Mexico under the New Mexico state audit rule requires the final audit to be reported and presented to the governing body um this evening. And I do have um Chris here from Pilico and Brown um to go through his slideshow on this for you guys as well. Um this will need to be approved by the resolution. Um and this will have to be forwarded over to DFA for their um records as well. I stand for any questions and I have Chris here to present for you.

Okay. Mr. Thank you, mayor and counselors. What I have here is uh just highlights from the exit conference that we had which goes over [clears throat] required communication that we as auditors are to make to those that are charged with governance. So we'll get to the first slide. In New Mexico, every audit has to follow two different standards. So the top two boxes relate to regular auditing standards. The bottom two boxes relate to government auditing standards or more commonly referred to as yellowbook standards. Again, state audit rule requires that audits throughout our state follow both of these standards. The top standards, what we're hired to do is express an opinion on your financial statements. And as you can see on the right, what that means is we get what's called reasonable assurance. So the numbers in your audit report could have errors, but those errors are not going to be big enough to alter the opinion of the readers of the financial statements. And so with our opinion, we cannot look at every transaction. We do statistical samples. We look at internal controls, but we're definitely not looking at every transaction that runs to the city. So therefore, there could be again errors, but those errors not going to be big enough to change the opinion of the readers of the financial statements under that top slide. When it comes to internal controls, technically all we have to test is one transaction from each significant cycle. So a sign significant cycle is like cash receipts, cash dispersements, payroll. So technically we only have to test one. State audit rule has us do a yellowbook audit because they want us picking samples. So, not only do they want us picking samples over those significant accounting cycles, but they also want us testing. There's about 20 um state laws for the most part that they want us looking at compliance with procurement, travel, and perdeium. So, again, it's expanded in our state. So, when we do that yellowbook audit, as you'll see on the bottom left, we're testing those

internal controls. We're picking samples, but we're not picking samples big enough to give an opinion. All we do in that report is we're not giving an opinion. We're spelling out what we do above what auditing standards require and then we have to communicate significant matters. Well, state audit rule changes that up a little bit. The threshold of significant items goes basically down to the ground level. Any exceptions that we know as we go through our audit process and we're picking our samples, we have to report as a finding in the state of New Mexico. So, a little bit more stringent requirements in our state. So if we go to the next slide, what we issued was what we call an unmodified opinion. Exactly the type of report the city wants to receive. Our report states that your financial statements are fairly presented in accordance with the standards that we have to follow. We go to the next slide. There's two other reports in the audit. That one on the left is that yellow report. Again, there's no opinion. We're just spelling out what we do differently. And then we do have some findings that we'll talk about at the very end. The report on the right is that compliance audit. It's over your federal grant funds. So in 24 we had to if you spent more than 750,000 of federal funds, we had to do a compliance over those federal funds. The the federal government establishes how we pick grants, which grants to look at. We pick those grants. We go through and we test them and we do give an opinion. And in this case, we have a clean opinion on the the uh federal grant awards. So both opinions that we issued are unmodified. They're exactly what you want to receive as a city. If we go to the next slide, difficulties encounter forming the audit. We had some issues with a single audit that federal grant. Um we we first got a listing of the the federal awards that had to be modified and then we had a hard time getting out of the system what were the transactions that were comprising those totals and the grant

reports expended. We had several meetings. We finally got that. that we were able to get through it. Other than that, we really didn't have any issues um wait other than waiting on the uh special audit that was done. Um but everything else we were able to get through. If we go to the next slide, [clears throat] this one I think is important to the council because if we as auditors are having to make lots of adjustments, then you should be made aware of it. And the state of New Mexico requires that you adopt a budget on cashbasis accounting. Well, cash basis accounting is not generally acceptable accounting principles. So, in essence, if we were to audit how you keep your books throughout the year, how you report to DFA, we couldn't give a clean opinion. So, what has to happen is your staff has to give us adjustments to give us from that methodology to two different other methodologies in your financial statements. All the adjustment related to those types of adjustments, then there was not a single adjustment on your budgetary basis. So what that tells the council is that the numbers that were being accumulated on the budgetary basis, we did not have a single adjustment. If we go to the next one, if we had disagreements with management, we'd have to let you know. And I'm happy to say that we didn't. If the next slide, if management went out and consulted with other auditors, we'd have to let you know. I call that opinion shopping. If they were trying to get a different opinion to conflict something we came up with, we'd have to notify you. and that did not happen. If we go to the next slide is uh our findings. The first one we had one transaction when we picked our cash dispersements where the PO was dated after the invoice. So it happened after the fact. The next one was controls surrounding payroll. The person personnel files um have a change of status forms. There were 13 of them that did not have the proper rate that was included in the pay. the documentation just not being

maintained and or we could not recalculate because there are sometimes blanket raises given by council. We could not come up with the rate on 13 of those. Travel we had two out of 10 where it's a city policy that those reimbursements have to be done within 30 days. We had two instances where that did not happen within 30 days. The next one is is there was during our testing of dispersements, actually our testing of uh travel, there was one item that was incorrectly coded uh coded. It was an airline ticket that was charged to a fuel line item, so it just went to the wrong account line. The last uh the next one is the filing of tax returns. Um there was a I believe it was a $1,300 actually $1,200 penalty for late um submission of IRS quarterly reports. there were some um a lot more in the prior year. So, it's was getting resolved, but there were some things that went into this fiscal year where we did have some penalties. And if we go to the next slide, I guess that's it. I'll stand for any questions. Anyone have any questions about doing [clears throat] better than we did before in the last from May 17 to 22 or whatever it

those are included in the report but it's it wasn't as a result of stuff we did it was a result of that special a lot of yes I believe that uh um you know just with the IRS issue that I think that had happened a couple years before things like that are slowly getting dealt with and moving in the right direction.

Thank [clears throat and cough] you. Well, thank you for for giving us I It's pretty clean on it. Not perfect to understand, but we're moving in the right direction. So, I to this council, to the staff, thank you very much. Uh we're getting turned around and really uh getting getting our act together. Uh cuz when we started in this, you know, when I started in this 5 years ago or whatever it was, it's we've come a long way on getting things cleaned up. Thank you. Thank you all very much. And the committee and the counselors, all of us together working together. Thank you.

Okay. Any further comments? Any questions? Okay. So, council. Yeah. I move that uh we adopt the resolution 26-21 approving the fiscal year 24 audit and corrective action plan. Second. We have motion by councelor.

And who seconded? Anybody

in Maru or El Paso? Which one? Who? one. Okay. So, why don't we thank you for finally doing something [laughter] on a motion by Councilman Haylor and second by Councelor or Pressa. Uh, clerk. Well, all those in favor of approving uh the adoption of a resolution approving fiscal year 24 audit and corrective action plan signify by saying opposed. Okay. Bye 10 affirming none and negative. I'm getting better at that voice thing. You are.

But look at see look at this. Every time I have a check mark where it says a six deal roll call has a check mark then it has a line through it there. Move forward. You know I mean it's really I don't know what happened over here. Okay. But I'm not going to make a recommendation you go to the clerk's office tomorrow morning and she'll give you instructions on [laughter] how to [clears throat] Yes, ma'am. At direction of council Hillbrand, you will be in the office in the morning at a There goes your vacation, right?

Yeah. Okay. Okay. We have um to [clears throat] con item 39 to consider the approval of May's recommendation for appointments to the flood to mass boards as follow. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Commission ask for unanimous consent that we consider items 39 40 41 42 and 43 and one motion second I don't want a second then I'll make my motion okay consent council board has asked you said that we do 39 through 41 no 43 43 in one vote

in one vote is there any objection to unanimous consent Yes. No. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Okay. Mr. Mayor, I move we approve your recommend your recommended appointments for the Flint Passport Cemetery Board occupancy tax report and the planning and zoning and the airport advisory commission. Second. Okay. We council Korn has as unanimous and made a motion that we approve item 39 through 43. Uh second one motion and it was seconded by [clears throat] second it councelor Moore.

Council Moore. Is there any further discussion? Seeing none all those in favor signify by saying I I opposed. I opposed by 10 affirming none items 20 uh 39 through 43 are done. Next we have uh council comments information only. Any councelor want to make any information. Seeing none council for [laughter] counsel lady. Thank you.

As many of you know we're working on the Rosal 250. So we're working on events throughout the entire year to celebrate the 50th birthday of the United States. So next item that's coming up is Arbor Day. That's this Saturday from 9 to 11. you can go to the zoo and get um your trees. Um we are working on a mural. We're going to have painting parties for people in the community to help paint the mural. That's an American flag with an eagle. Uh also we have fire hydrants downtown. Um the the fire department has created a map for us. Nancy Fleming, God bless her, from the miniatures museum is um taking charge of this project and Allison's is donating the paint. So if you want a painted fire hydrant, it's free. just pick up a form from the miniature museum. I have some here tonight. If you want some for the Roso 250, we are also still looking for sponsors and we are creating an official publication. So, if you want to buy an ad on the official publication, you can do that, too. So, if you want to follow us on Facebook, we're under Razer 250. If you go to the city's website and do a search 250, all forms you need for the fire hydrant sponsoring advertising are on the city's website. So,

Council Moore is looking for her hat. Council Moore never emailed me back. You want the camo or the white or this one? Um, but that's all I have for you. So, again, follow us on Facebook. Um, you can sign up for email updates, too. So, we constantly let you know when we need volunteers and what events are coming up. Max, we had Council Lady Arnold. Did you care to say something? No, I'm sorry. I thought it was um I realize it was information not sermon. I had a sermon. So um [laughter] you make a motion to adjourn. God bless America. [laughter]

So we have that now. Any further council any comments? Okay, we'll go forward. Mayor Pro. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just got one question. I guess councelor Gas still on the phone. I noticed on this agenda that they had all of the five-year plans on their agenda. Did they pass? And when are we going to see him here at the city council or what's the plan? You won't see him until he gets here. Wait a minute.

We There were on the consent agenda. There were a bunch of the five-year plans. are putting them all together and they were presented to the finance committee and I believed in the consent agenda. Uh we approved a bunch of them today, but they we do we are getting all the five-year plans and uh I think we have most of them. They've done a pretty good job and any we're missing we'll get to you uh that we haven't yet. As soon as he returns, we'll have them.

All right. I'm just not at all. Okay. Uh for city manager report, uh Mr. City Manager.

Thank you, Mr. I will keep this brief. Um we have received a statement from United. Uh so, uh we're doing a lot better than we started. The first months were pretty blue or the first few weeks were blue as you can imagine. Uh in any case, we will be getting invoiced in the near future. The federal grant uh SCAD that grant will be covering the entire loss. So there will be no cost to the city. Um [clears throat] uh please look forward to an infrastructure. Uh Mr. M. Rogers is going to be putting together a master appropriation request uh so that we can get moving on anything that is about to be or has been obligated by FEMA. That'll be coming to you this uh in the next 10 days or so. Uh similarly at public safety uh we have finalized the uh dispatch uh salary grade. So that will be presented at public safety next week. Um internally we've [clears throat] not been able to hire any inspectors and for electrical and building. We I've authorized internally to increase their compensation and hopefully we'll be able to actually have that. For those of you who know that relying on the state for electrical inspection or plumbing inspection or building inspection is a fool's er half the time. So our grant writer starts on Monday and she'll have lots of work. And um uh finally just on the ambulance front, we're looking very good. Uh we're doing final legal review of the billing contract and then we will also be sending to you this month or probably hopefully this month a Medicaid reimbursement contract which could have a value up to about 5.5 million over a full year of service. So that uh that right there gets it going. Um so [clears throat] please let me know if there's anything you guys need to be prepared for a council meeting or for a agenda. But otherwise I hope that's brief questions. Okay. Any

the electrical? Can we outsource that the inspections or are we backlogged? Is it a bad situation? Yeah. So, well, the county poached our guy. No, thank uh yeah, so he left. We had one person who signed on and then he ghosted us. Uh we were looking though. So, and it's partly it's an Eddie County issue for us. They are their their starting pay is $9 an hour more than what we were offering. So, we're just going to match it and hopefully we'll have somebody. Okay. Any further comments? Thank you. Thank you. Next time.

We have a motion. Anybody? I move we adjourn. Any objections? Go.