City Council - Regular Meeting

Okay. Okay, Mayor, I think we're ready to go. We're ready? Okay, if the person calls the roll.

Councilor Kevin?

Here.

Councilor Maruco? Here. Councilor Corn? Here. Councilor Johnson?

Here.

Councilor Heldenbrand is absent. Councilor Oropesa?

Here.

Councilor Halverson? Here. Councilor Moore is absent. Councilor Gass?

Here.

Councilor Arnold? Here. Mayor, you have the floor. All right, okay.

We have that, so we would rise, and we'll have the prize released by Councilor Johnson and the invocation by Councilor Brownlee.

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, we come before you and we give you all the glory and honor. Father God, we thank you for this great city, this great state, this great nation that we live in, Father God. I ask you to bless everybody that's here tonight, Father God. I ask you to bless us and guide us in our passages tonight, Father God. We ask you to bless our police officers, our ambulance service, our firefighters, Father God. And we give you all the glory and honor tonight. In your name we pray, amen.

Item 3. Item 1, approval of the agenda.

Councilor Corn. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Item 3. Item 11. Item 16. I'm going to speak on the mic. I can't hear you. I'm not charged by it.

Is the mic working? I can't hear it.

You've got to speak in it. It's not working. It's not working. I spoke in it. I've been playing with this microphone with my old friend.

I don't know if it's going to work.

Maybe it does. There you go. Okay. Now, Mr. Mayor, if we approve the agenda for August 13th, Gregor City Council With the following amendments, remove item 3, item 11, and item 15 from the Senate amendment. I say that item 3, item 11, and item 15 from the Senate amendment. I say that item 3, item 11, and item 15 from the Senate amendment. I say that item 3, item 11, and item 15 from the Senate amendment. I say that item 3, item 11, and item 15 from the Senate amendment. I say that item 3, item 11, and item 15 from the Senate amendment. I say that item 3, item 11, and item 15 from the Senate amendment. I say that item 3, item 11, and item 15 from the Senate amendment.

I say that item 3, item 11, and item 15 from the Senate amendment. I say that item 3, item 11, and item 15 from the Senate amendment. I say that item 3, item 11, and item 15 from the Senate amendment. I say that item 3, item 11, and item 15 from the Senate amendment. I say that item 3, item 11, and item 15 from the Senate amendment.

can i ask why we're taking these off the consent agenda there's not unanimous consent so counselor can ask to take them off thanks there was unanimous consent if there's not unanimous consent in the council so under the rules of order counselor can just ask to have them removed i'm not sure which counselor removed what

whoever asked to take off doing the reason i'll have to get it so counselor gas i asked uh for agenda item 3 at 15 to be taken off so that the uh full council can discuss and have conversation about those those two items from our finance committee and so i thought it was fair for all of the counselors to be able to make a decision on those two items i'm not sure about 11 11 is the budget resolution, correct?

So, yes. So if there's anything in the other ones that's taken off that changes the numbers, the budget resolution can't be part of the consent agenda.

I guess what surprises me is you make the motion to write a 3. and voted yes for it. I think I seconded that.

But I think I know. Okay. Any further questions? Okay.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. The agenda has been approved as amended. OK, so. Thank you so. Don't forget.

And Mr. Hildenbrand is trying to . Yes, sir. They're working on the . Thank you. So for Hildenbrand, I keep working on it. OK, so item two. Mr. Merrick. Yes, we . Consent agenda. Consent agenda.

Okay, we have Councilor Korn. Korn has moved to approve the consent agenda as amended, seconded by Council Lady Arnold. Is there any further discussion?

Seeing none, we'll call the roll.

Councilor Marujo? Yes. Councilor Corn?

Yes.

Councilor Johnson?

Yes.

Councilor Alvarez?

Yes.

Councilor Halvorson? Yes. Councilor Gass?

Yes.

And Councilor Arnold? Yes. Motion passes eight to zero.

Okay. So, we have approval, what can you say? All right, so next we go to item 7, resolution 7. Item 22.

Yeah, we're on item 22.

It's a pleasure to be back, Mr. Mayor, the Honorable Members of the Council.

Thank you. I feel a little out of place and used to following the airport group. But I must say, it's an opportunity for me to just, first of all, kick it off by saying, when I arrived Tuesday afternoon, the airport was a beehive of activity by all of the employees engaged from the airport staff, public works, doing extensive work, fixing some of the things we wanted to have dealt with. The swales and the pits have been taken care of. People are working aggressively to address some of the drainage challenges. And of course, you all appreciate the old adage that if we do all this work, hopefully it will not rain next year during the races. That's my hope. But I just want to thank, on behalf of the Racing Association, all of the hard work that's going into this. Secondly, the... Current count is roughly 85 to 88 registered racers. We lost two MiG-17s when I say lost. Fortunately, they did not crash, but they will not be available to race. I was telling the mayor last night that the one benefit is, as many of you probably know, the MiG-17 has the capacity to have an afterburner. which in the first year of racing, which I thought would have been this year, I was urging the jet class to not utilize during the race. But I was looking forward to them demonstrating on 1735 just how impressive an afterburner kicking in is. But we may have to wait till 2027 for that. Ticking pace has continued to improve And all I can say is we are running into some problems with hospitality, but nothing that can't be addressed. One of the positive things, we have seen nearly twice as many vendors signed up to participate. It was in the prenatal days, we usually had about 120 vendors. Last year, we only had something less than 16. I'm delighted to say that's doubled this year, and I'm hoping it continues to grow. We also have gone from one aircraft exhibitor to five, so there'll be a lot more presence out there for people to take interest in. There are some challenges, and we've had a lot of help working with the airlines. The good news for Roswell is America and the United States have service. The challenge we're running into is twofold with America. They've added a fourth flight for Wednesday and Saturday, and they added that their time is conflicting with our races. But the bigger problem is two of their arrival times actually conflict with the Thunderbirds. So we prepared a ladder and we worked with America to see if we can move their flight arrival. If we cannot, we would run the risk of the U.S. Thunderbirds team not participating. That would be a significant loss. The emergency runway, I apologize, I didn't bring pictures, is all but done by micro-sealing, right?

I'm actually now just painting the center line.

There you go, just painting the center line. It's 5,000 feet long. It looks absolutely beautiful. 500-foot overruns at both ends. And we had a complete meeting with the Unlimiteds and did their preparations for the Grand School for Racing via Zoomed. brief them on it. They're all looking forward to coming, and we think it'll be an exciting year. So I'll be glad to take any questions if there are any, but I will close once again by just saying how much we appreciate everything the city has been doing to make this race possible this year, and we're really quite excited. So with that, thank you.

Senior, Mr. Collins, if you have, last year we had 44 races.

We've doubled it essentially.

We've doubled the size of it. So for anybody out there that saw it last year, I mean, that's really, it's really coming along well. And when you, people, if you drive around the base and you see the amount, the numbers of power lines, and things that are being buried and it's amazing to see what's going on to make this the safest place that people have ever raced in. The racers were so happy after their first year seeing that there are so many places that they have an engine problem or a problem with their plane that they can land it is extremely safe for these pilots. I mean, they're going fast, and so you have to get down the stall just above the ground, but the safety of this facility absolutely could not be better than anywhere in the world in here.

It really is delightful, and the second point is because of the course geometry, one of the reasons for the fans, when they're on the line, they're looking out. They can see the ratios all the way around the course much better than they could at Reno. At Reno, it was an awful long like this. So the furthest point from the grandstands to the furthest point of the course was nearly a mile longer than it is here. So everybody's really looking forward to it. In regard to the power lines, I will rely on the airport people to keep me accurate, but I believe it's true now. Virtually all power lines on airport property have been buried. And so overall, that's just a significant improvement. And when the emergency runway was put in, there were two or three areas where between In the lead-in to the landing, we had to bury those three lines. They've been taken care of. And I think if I'm not mistaken, to keep the cost down, much of the trenching was done by your airport personnel, right? So that's a good example of your teams going above and beyond to keep the total cost of doing it in conjunction with Xcel Energy. So it's been a wonderful partnership. Thank you.

But things are really going well for everybody. It's nice to have everybody working together in our city crews. Kind of a funny thing when we get our city crews out to work with a backhoe digging those lines. It's good training for them fixing our water lines. We have 161 miles of pipe, 12-inch, 10-inch, and 8-inch pipes. It's a cash tire that's used for life. It's 40 years. It's been in 85 years. So we're going to go to Washington and ask for money from things that happened when they put the base in. They put a lot of things in here. There were a lot of things, and then they walked off and left them, and we had no way to pay for the maintenance of them. So we think we can get some money from them so it won't be anything on people's water bills. The only thing I would tell anybody out there at the base is that while we look at all these power lines we're digging and burying, and when they built this base, there are a number of power lines with 480 volts that are just bare wires. We have a sleeve on them a little bit. but they're not in conduit or anything else that are buried anywhere from eight to 12 or 14 inches under the ground that no one knows they're there. And that's kind of the real safety thing that happens when they go to base. And it's something that we have to always be mindful with our crews that are working out there because those lines can be found anywhere. And so it's really one of the things they did Because the war was going on, it was pretty strange, and we had to be careful for it. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

Omar? Yes, sir. Mr. Omar Gonzalez.

All right. Thank you, sir. Mr. Mayor, councillors, I want to thank Fred for that. He pretty much did all my updates for me, so with that, say thank you. No, I'm just kidding. So, I'm going to start off with the flights from SkyWest. I got an update for that. The flights, the departures for the month of July, we have 1,756 passengers. American Airlines was 4,645 for the month of July. As we move on to Top Light, the Top Light Tavern for the month of July, they sold $13,847.13 is what they reported. What you can see by the graph here, it's been steadily moving up and we kind of leveled off from the month of June to the month of July. But they're doing pretty good. I know I've seen a few of y'all out there. Councilor Gass, I've seen you out there. Councilwoman Christina, I've seen you guys enjoying the food and beverages. So now I'm going to move on to some of the projects we have. So if you're looking right here at the pictures that we have, this right here is the taxiway, the VLM. the new taxiway that they're building by the BLM. They've kind of run into a standstill, kind of slowed down. A few of those concrete slabs that was laid down have cracked, and they cracked all the way through. And so we're working with Lockner, and we're also working with the construction company that laid them down to have them removed and have the new slabs laid back down. They're not quite sure why. They cracked, but there's about eight. About eight panels that did have cracks all the way through, but we were able to catch them before they continued on with the project.

The next slide is... Oh, man. Yeah, they're pretty big slabs. They're about 12 by 12, maybe. 12 by 12? Right. And then how thick?

I'd say maybe two feet, two, three feet. They're pretty thick. And the crack goes all the way from the top to the bottom. So they're not surface cracks. So that's the main concern. And that's why we're going to have them replace them. Because if they were surface cracks, they said that they could do grooving and kind of fix the surface cracks on them. So we're going to move on to the drainage swells. They're actually just preparing right now to work on the drainage swells. We do have POs that I'm waiting for, and I should have those today. Maybe we can get started on the project tomorrow, which will take them about, I've been told, two weeks to go ahead and put, to get these drainage swells addressed. Mr. Telling was saying that we went from 48 pilots to 84, so we doubled, right? We're going to need to double the size of space, right, for the planes to park. That's what the need is for part of the drainage wells. And I don't know if any of you were there last year, but if you were there last Saturday, I mean, last year on Saturday when it rained, you almost needed a boat out there. The drainage wells did create rivers flowing through the taco chip, as they call it. So this is what we're trying to address so that way we can avoid that this year. So we don't have the lakes that we had out there. And it's also not just for the air races, but it's also safety for the airport. Because as you know, we have large bodies of water out there. It brings in and attracts the animals, right? It'll attract the birds, the fox, if there's coyotes out there, it'll attract them to the water because that's where they come to drink. And those are too close to the runways and the taxiways. And so we would like to get those addressed. The next slide, we're gonna move into the RV parking. This one right here is last year, they had the water and electricity. This year, sewer department was out and they're actually installing sewer hookups. So now this RV parking is gonna be full hookups It'll be sewer, water, and electricity. And we're going to have two different spots. The other spot is going to be over by, we call it the SRE building. And so that one is only going to have water and sewer. It's not going to have electricity yet because just with everything we've ran out of time, we're putting electricity in there. But this is going to be, I believe there's 84 parking spaces. about 84 RV parkings that are going to be full hookup. Electricity, like I said, water, and sewer. Another good thing from that is that with the RV parks, the RV parking, the city gets $50 per full hookup that's bought or that's rented, right? And for the dry camping, which we have plenty of dry camping as well out there, the city gets $25 a week, a week. So last year, last year, the city made 5,000 over $5,000 just off the RV parking, just by people, uh, renting spots and staying out there. Um, this right here. Yep. This is the dry, the dry parking, this one. If you're out on the, at the base, it's just north of a react park. So that streets was out there, flattening that out, putting the asphalt down and the millings. So that's, that's the dry, the dry storage, which is nothing, no hookups. Right. And this is where here is where we're Mr. Telling was talking about where we're burying the power lines that are on the airfield. which not only pose a threat to the air races, but it just poses a threat to any aircraft that's coming into the airport. If they're coming in on the west side, that's where all these power lines are at. If you can see here, you can see all the lines that XL's already laid into the ground. So the city, the guys out at the airport, we had to dig 26,000 feet of power lines is what the city, what the city buried. So 26,000 feet at 18 inches wide and 59 inches deep. So there, I know my guys were out there digging for almost three weeks straight, just with the backhoes. Water plant, Andrew did call and he said, hey, you know, I need some, like Mayor was saying, I need some training for some of my guys. So they did come out and We did a little bit of training with the digging of the ditches. They're pretty much done now. And finally is the concrete barriers. And so last year, what we did is we had, we sourced it out and they put out the concrete barriers for us. They put up the fence. So this year with some of the new purchases that we bought, we're putting them out ourselves. So needless to say, we've been pretty busy out there at the airport the past couple of months, and I don't see it slowing down any time soon. Maybe when after the air races are over, because as soon as the air races are over, we're going to have to pick all these barricades back up and stack them again like this. But like I said, I've been blessed with a crew that just works nonstop and They pretty much got it all pulled back out. There's a few areas that they couldn't put out yet, but we hope to have it, everything up by the 24th, which is what, next Friday? So they've been working pretty around the clock on that. And I believe that that's all I have. I don't stand for any questions.

Okay. Councilor Patterson and then...

The bleachers, yes, but the bleachers have been, they've been completed for a while already.

Thank you, mayor. Yeah, we're over there. Correct. and you're saving probably a quarter million dollars for all that yourself.

Yeah, you know, I was just talking with Paul on that and he goes, how much did we pay last year for them to come put it on? Because the guys have gotten into a rhythm and so they're getting it down pretty quick.

Yeah, I remember the number. Yeah. So, I would like a contrast if you have one and that would be comparing the different flights coming in on your new report versus the one on the old report.

Is there an increase or... I think it's there's an increase. I don't have that on me, but I can definitely. Yeah, I could definitely get that to you though.

I can I know it flatlined on your. Was it on the the the chart? The chart left out on your eatery, but I was hoping that flights kind of increased.

I thought I thought we had sent in a.

Yeah, I thought there was a slide on it, but... Yeah, I think the flight slide was right before that one.

Yes. If we can't pull it up, then I can definitely, I can email it to you. Right on. And I appreciate that. And so the work was put on the runway for the cracked slabs.

I don't know if they're precast or they want them there, but is that a warranty word?

Yes, it's good. Well, it better be good. We're going to, yeah, we're going to, we're still talking to them about that.

Oh, this is it. Yeah. So we've got a, uh, you know what? I,

Now that you said that, I do have one more thing for you guys. I kind of skipped over that. We have a new project coming out. It's the Alpha Charlie Hotel Golf Juliet project, the multi-taxiway project. So what they're going to do on that one is, you know, the airport's been neglected for so long. You know, we're just kind of baby steps. You know, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time, right? So we're taking these taxiways here. And we're going to be doing crack ceiling, fog coating, fog ceiling. And then they're going to repaint all the edge lines on them. And that went out to bid with Lockberry. It went out to bid on the 11th, which was Tuesday. And we had about five bids. And they all came in way under what the projected cost was for the project. Should talk to Lochner today and locker and they told me that they'll have us all the paperwork tomorrow we can file it to get a grant to get you know all of it paid for which It's a little over $5,000. I mean five thousand five hundred thousand right for the project The with this grant it's gonna be 95% FAA it's gonna be 4% state which leaves the sponsor which is us well the 1% which is You know, it's pretty good. Like I said, we're going to file that paperwork and go for the grant tomorrow. Once we get that, then I'll let you guys know more on that.

They route it out, they seal it, and then the fog seal actually makes it look like it's all granted.

Yeah, so we're pretty excited. I mean, it's going to help out with the vegetation as well.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you all. Yes, sir. You know, one thing on your... for the next yacht meeting or send us all the status on the difference between the number of flights that American has and the number they have in Denver and see how the Denver flights are going and how the American flights are going.

Yeah, absolutely.

Just so we can look at the difference about which way people are going.

Right.

Yeah, I can get that for you.

You know, one thing about the, on this, in this 660 feet for the BLM, It's actually what, in this fire season, I mean, that facility will allow us that we can do three of those, I mean, tanker tens at a time to fill them up when we get there. And that whole thing costs $7 million to go 660 feet. So it's amazing that they've had a problem with it, but I'm glad we're on top of it to make sure that they put it back.

Mr. Mayor, if I may, I have an update that doesn't have a chance to even talk no more about yet. The allowance for the taxiways he was talking about was up to $950,000. So we have that one boarded and covered. We've been notified when we received that. We did have that one in budget. But then I also found out today we've got what's called entitlements, which every year an airport of our size and activity This one has a minimum guarantee of $1 million. However, this year we're going to give $2,424,574 because of our increased activity at the airport. And that money can be used for safety, capacity, security, infrastructure, pavement, signage, lighting. So a number of things that airports really need. So we've really upped our game in being able to increase that entitlement money.

Well, that's good. And it says a lot for the staff, because we're also Not just the airlines are doing better, but we're still going to get another flight of Navy pilots from Florida.

We'll have that again this year as well as the Boeing Tuscan again this year. And that $2 million is an addition to our budget.

Yeah. That's great. Thank you all. Thank you, Omar. Yes, sir. Thank you. Thank you.

Good evening, everyone. I am Dorothy Helms, and I am the chairman of the Commission on Aging. I'm just here to give you an update on what we do, what our commission does. I appreciate your time and the opportunity to speak to you. We do meet every other month, and we meet at Senior Circle, which is 300 West Country Club Road at 12 noon, and we meet for an hour, and we keep it to an hour. Our next meeting is September 17th. The members, obviously, are myself, and I have two members that came also today. Brooke Stevens, I don't believe, is here. Jimmy Masters is here. Lorraine Wilby is here. And Brandy Candelaria is out of town. We are short one member at this time on the commission. We also, I'll say this a couple of times, we have no representative from the city council to come to our meeting. It's very disappointing to me. We only meet for an hour every other month. I'll tell you a little bit more about our meetings, but I would really, really like to see a representative of the city council and maybe staff or a staff member. Pardon me? No, but we don't serve lunch. Sorry. We could bring cookies. Our task, as I understand it, when I was Asked to apply I guess for this Commission and was approved I was Put on and then one month later our chairman left and so they Elected me as chairman and I said don't really know what's going on Since I knew but I said I can run a meeting. So here we go so I'm not sure of our task, but what we understand is it's to inform and address any issues that is brought to us by citizens or really anyone else. Our meetings are open and we welcome participation and comments at our meeting. Let me just tell you a little bit about, we have guest speakers every single meeting that have an effect on our senior citizens in Roswell and really anyone else. Jimmy Masters, thank you, Jimmy. has been taking this task on, and it's been very good to get speakers for us. Just to mention a few, last month we had Natalia and Maribel from the Joy Center talk to us about their activities and services for the elderly. Bobbi Thompson came the time before that. She's our assistant city manager. She gave us updates on the city activities and future plans, and we really enjoyed that time visiting with Bobbi. Jeremy Hurley, who's with the Veterans Association, told us how the organization assists and supports our veterans. Rita Camacho with United Way told us about local support of the United Way. And Joanne Palomino with the New Mexico Department of Health spoke to us. In September, we have Attorney Matt Bristow is coming to talk to us about trusts and wills and also has Antima, has volunteered to come. He's forgotten, but I'll remind you. I was voluntold, Mr. Mayor. Yes, he was voluntold. To give us an update on the upcoming, hopefully, new adult center, which obviously is a concern. We write and distribute tips, senior tips. They look like this. You should have found them in your box. because we distribute them to the council members so that you're aware what we're addressing. And just so everyone knows and can see, it is English on one side and then Spanish on the other side. So hopefully we reach quite a few. Our distributions, our main distribution is through the Joy Center, the Meals on Wheels. So we give these to them and they are delivered with every meal that is delivered. We also, all other points include Peachtree, Senior Circle, the City Visitor Center, Humane Society, Assistance League Thrift Store, Sunny Acres, Roswell Homeless Coalition, Salvation Army, and Bulletin Boards at Cerritos and Stellar Coffee. These are printed by the city, and as I stated, hopefully you found them in your box and informative. I appreciate April Hunter for helping us. She's there every meeting and kind of keeps me on task as I need to be. We feel that we are a hidden gem. We have addressed a couple of issues that people have brought to us and that we've been able to solve those. Hopefully to their satisfaction because they haven't gone back to us about that. So those were solved. Um there again a council member uh I would request a council member be present uh and be our representative and bring the voice back to this council as needed. We're open to suggestions and we thank you for this opportunity to inform the public about the question on aging.

Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. I think I may have said that.

And you're, and you're, they meet like the third, third Monday of the year. The third Thursday. The third Thursday. Every other month. So we meet September 17th is our next meeting. as i stated we have two speakers thank you appreciate you thank you thank you thank you

can you speak into the mic testing testing

Okay, Abraham Landfill.

Mayor and council, thank you very much for the opportunity to speak to you. We're here to present a couple of updates. We got some critical initiatives that we got going on at Solid Waste that's really, it's not as fascinating or exciting as the airport, but it's still something that we do every day and we appreciate that. We have an amazing team as well. A COUPLE OF THE CURRENT INITIATIVES I JUST WANT TO GO THROUGH, AND I'LL TRY TO KEEP IT BRIEF, AND PLEASE ASK ME AS MANY QUESTIONS AS YOU WANT. THE ROSSELBORN NEEDS VALLEY, WE'RE ABOUT TO SUBMIT A PERMIT RENEWAL FOR THE NEXT 20 YEARS. SO THAT PERMIT RENEWAL IS VERY EXTENSIVE. WE JUST HAD OUR KICKOFF MEETING, SO I'LL GET INTO THAT ON THE NEXT SITE. ALSO, THE COUNCIL APPROVED ARCHITECTURAL ENGINEERING TO BUILD not to build, to design the construction drawings for a tipping floor and for a transfer station at the landfill. So we can give you some ideas of what that's going to look like and also the costing going forward. And last but not least is kind of my favorite. The city of Roswell has a front load trash truck now that's going to change the service delivery for a lot of our commercial buildings as well. Next slide. So, like, I was saying that permit, we know it takes about a year. We had our kickoff meeting on Monday and 1 of the main things we want to do is permit. No, it secures our solid waste operation at the landfill for the next year. Number 2, we're going to be able to accept multiple special ways. Most of the waste streams. 1 of the ones that we do want to target is asbestos. It's a very controlled process. It's a very safe process, but it's another. avenue of revenue that we can develop for the landfill to help support itself and stay sustainable as well. It's an enterprise fund so whatever we generate there we put it right back into the enterprise fund as well. So it takes a year to complete the Peru NOA. It's about 37 binders, about this thick, Stacks about this high. Takes a lot of people, not only us, the state, our regulators, and then our partners that are helping to build this permit renewal. And as we get new updates, as things go forward, I'll be bringing updates to the infrastructure committee or any other committee you might want as well. Next slide. Next is the transfer station. So if you've seen in other communities, like we visited Las Cruces, we visited Albuquerque, El Paso. Transportation is a giant building where you can drive into, dump your waste and drive out. The intent of that is to house everything in one area so we can pre-process a lot of our garbage, our bull trash, our household hazardous waste, but we'll be able to separate the public from the commercial and also our government operations, make it a lot safer for us as well. Right now, currently what we do is we get the garbage into the landfill and we take it directly to the back into a giant pit and where we dump it off and we have a lot of activity going on right there. So with this A&E that we're going to put forward with architectural engineering for this ground station, we'll be able to show you a rendering. We will be able to show you a cost and kind of a game plan where we're going to go forward. So we have a multi-use building. It's going to house the admin staff. It's going to have greenways. It's going to have A shredder in there as well, not only for tires but for both trash and it's going to be a completely enclosed a lot safer operation for our garbage trucks instead of going to the back and working in inside of the inside of the mud. And, as you know, very well or winds are very high or rain or snow is pretty significant here, so when that happens to our operation, especially lightning as well, we shut down. we're trying to avoid that we're trying to provide a lot more service be more readily available, not only to the community, but to a lot of our customers, not only Roswell, Chavez County, Dexter, Hagerman and the surrounding communities as well. So the enclosed tipping floor would be a great opportunity for us to provide a better service throughout the entire community and a lot of our residents as well. One of the big things is We're hoping to the future to kind of look at an area within that building where we can, we can collect, process and ship out recyclables. It's always been a goal since we've been here. So we have a centralized location where we can do that. We'll have an opportunity to bring that forward. And hopefully with the council support, we'll be able to, we'll be able to do that. Next slide. If you can see here, this is a small primary example of what inside of a tipping floor is. You would drive in. You'd back up. If you notice, there's natural lighting. There's also a misting system there. You can't really see it, but it'll keep the dust down. But it's more of a control setting that we can monitor, keep clean, that we can accept the customers as they come in and kind of work with them directly in a more controlled environment. Next slide. Last but not least, like I said, this is one of my favorites. We've been working on this for six years. A lot of our commercial buildings here in the community have rear door operations. You've seen our trash trucks where two guys will come out, they'll hook up the can and they'll flip it. We're going to go to a front load operation now. So that front loader that we've already procured, it's already sitting on the ground. We have all the containers that came in. I think there was a total of about 37 containers come in. We're doing hands-on practice tomorrow. Anybody in the council wants to come out and see it or anybody in the community, we'd love to have you out there to come check it out. That's going to reduce the footprint of the containers that are in the back of the businesses and make it from a two-person operation to a one-person operation. Everything's going to be done from the cab. Besides opening the doors, we'll be doing everything from the cab. It'll be a lot safer, quicker. We'll be able to cover the entire city as well. One of the biggest thing is I think it's the efficiency and the reduction of safety. So when our employees get back to us can they hook them up sometimes they don't look at my correctly they'll fall an empty container that's there now that we pick up it's 800 pounds when it's full of. refuge or something from a commercial business, you can exceed 1200 1500 pounds and that thing drops it's not a very safe operation as well. Excellent, as you can see here on the left, those are containers that just showed up again through Council support. Through our administrative support, we're able to procure this with the money that we had on hand and get the containers in. And also, the truck on the right, my staff calls it the beast. This truck is huge. It's big. However, we've done practice runs in our city. We already pulled the measurements. We will be able to serve a lot of the city when coming to dump to the landfill one time. It's that big. Next slide. And with that, Mayor, Council, thank you for the opportunity to speak to you. I really appreciate it. I know we live out there on the edge of town. We appreciate it coming and talking to you, and I'll take any of your questions.

Question. Question. The front loader, does it have scales or anything on that? So, you know, a lot of times when we get these round barrels, people put engine loaders in there. They put concrete blocks. And everything else, which goes in and just there's, there's the heck out of the trading machine.

So we chose a commercial business for a reason. They have a controlled area where they control what they put in there. And a lot of times there's they're locked behind gates and they're secured. That's why we want to target that first. So we can do that run. We're hoping to work with the community businesses, talk with them, meet with them, lay out the expectations, not only of us, but of also the ordinance, but not introducing stuff like that as well. So we're trying, we're going to be working with them closely. help serve the community. The front does not have a scale on it, but we'll be monitoring this process closely. If you're going to see it around town, it's going to be probably two people in there and a supervisor. So we can get a kind of a rhythm going and make sure we're doing it safely and productively. And we're going to be checking those counts like we do now as well.

We just have an awful lot of people that are leaving mattresses, couches, tires.

So illegal dumping is something that we take care of daily. We're your stewards on the alleys. We're the eyes and ears of the entire city. We see all the alleys, all the streets, vacant lots. And that's something that's a challenge that we're working through. It's a cultural mindset here. Hey, I'll throw it in the alley, I'll forget about it, and somebody will pick it up eventually. So we're trying to change that, maybe through education, maybe through some outreach. You know, in the last resort, it kind of needs some type of regulation as well. But working with the community, having the council support going out there, showing them, hey, this is who I am. Hey, bring it to the landfill. Great example for us is your green waste from your lawn, trimming your trees, you can bring it out to the landfill for free. We segregate that. We process it, create mulch. You can come pick it up, load up a trailer. We'll help you load it, and you can take it back to your house. So thank you for that, Mayor. Appreciate it.

Thank you. Any further questions? Thank you. Thank you, sir.

Good job.

Okay. Now we're about to get to public participation, but before we get to that, we're going to have Officer Fry is going to come up and let all the public know what our police department is doing. And he's in charge of it. He knows all about it. Yes, sir. Thank you.

So with the press release earlier today, and many public comments on Facebook and other places, we wanted to get ahead of it and just share out all the information with what the Real-Time Crime Center and what our automatic license plate readers are doing. So there's going to be a lot of information. I will then stand up for questions afterwards. The mission of the Rolls-Royce Police Department Real-Time Crime Center is to get firsthand real-time information to officers prior to and during calls for service. By doing this, we can enhance officer safety and citizen safety, increasing the solvability of crimes and reducing the overwork of officers. Currently, the real-time crime center has two operators which work from 1600 to 2 a.m. or 4 p.m. to 2 a.m. seven days a week. We are hoping to add two more so we can expand our coverage to almost 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The real-time crime center operators do monitor the automatic license plate readers, traffic cameras, and they operate the drones that we have for the police department. This is their current setup with the workstation and then what we like to call the jumbotron. If the command staff is in there and they need to get information, they can just see it on the TV rather than looking over their shoulder. I'm just going to cut right to the chase and tell you what the ALPRs do not do. The Roswell Police Department has discussed a contract with FLOC, but at this time we have not presented it and we have not approved it. We do not have FLOC. FLOC is different from Axon. The ALPRs cannot see inside vehicles. They cannot hack your phones, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, listen to your conversations, or facial recognition. There is not a patterning prediction feature. They cannot predict crime and make it a pre-active policing. These are all terms that I've seen on Facebook and comments and they're just flat out wrong. It cannot detect your speed. It does not record your video. It only takes a snapshot of the license plate unless we are tied in live, in which case we have a live view, but even that is not recorded. Axon does not have a national database of license plates. How did we get here? In December 2025, City Council approved a five-year contract with Axon for FUSIS. It was on the consent agenda. This contract was valued at $477,147. It's been paid for by a $1.4 million state grant for the Real-Time Crime Center. Some of the other comments, why didn't we use that money elsewhere? That grant obviously was for the Real-Time Crime Center. We can't use it for anything else. This includes the FUSIS platform, which gives us the ability to stream our body cameras It gave us 24 automatic license plate readers and the ability to stream 25 city-owned security cameras, i.e. our traffic cameras and security cameras inside city buildings that we already have. 225. The streaming body camera allows officers to have a second set of eyes if the situation warms. A local success story includes an officer struggling with an individual, not being able to get out on his radio, but us hearing a little bit of radio traffic knew something was going on. The real-time crime center operator was able to tap into the body camera, stream it, see that he was struggling with somebody, and call for help and let that officer handle business without having to worry about communication. The ALPRs were installed the first week of August. We are still familiarizing ourselves and training on it. It's only been a week. The ALPR data is stored for 30 days unless it's deemed as evidence, in which case it will be stored in conjunction with our already established evidence procedures. At this time, we are not sharing with any other law enforcement agency or third party. However, we do intend to share with law enforcement agencies once we figure it out and we get it up and running. We have no intention in sharing with third parties. Axon, I really don't think even allows that. All officers will have access to search license plates, but they will require an active case. They will have to submit a case number prior to searching, and there will be regular audits conducted to make sure there is not misuse. Axon does have a custom hot list, which allows us to enter vehicles that we're looking for for more local crimes, not just the AMBER alerts, missing people, and stolen vehicles, which will generate additional leads for us. The system is an investigative tool. Therefore, no warrant or reasonable suspicion is needed. The standard is simply to have an active case and the belief that it will generate a lead. Axon's policy is that RPD owns the data and it will not be shared with anyone without our consent. This actually includes warrants, subpoenas, and IPRA requests. If that gets forwarded to Axon, they send it to us and then say we have to deal with it. Some other success stories from other agencies around the country are including the stolen vehicles, missing persons, additional leads for both big and small cases. Again, this is not going to mean RoboCop is coming to your house, this just gives us an avenue to find other evidence. As with all alleged police misconduct, residents are encouraged to come to the police department and file a formal complaint which will be investigated. There was more but it looked like it got cut off. Again, I'm going to show you everything we got. So this is what a live view looks like when we tap into it. You guys can recognize that this is at College and Garden. One of the reasons we picked these locations is because they're four-way stops. They're major thoroughfares. We tried very hard not to put them in neighborhoods or face them anywhere at someone's direct residence. That would be illegal. So we put it in major thoroughfares, and it gives us the opportunity that if there's a call for service coming at Allslips right there, we can tie in and potentially see where the suspects are going immediately, which the real-time crime center then can relay that information to the officers responding and potentially increase the solvability and us actually catching the bad guys. This is what a search will look like. It's a little hard to see, but on the top left, it requires the field. That's where the case number has to go. If you don't put a case number in there, you can't search. Below that, it will give you the license plate information, the state. If you don't have it, you can search by make, model, and color of the vehicle. And then that is the returns that it gets. Those are the pictures that it takes. If anyone can actually see inside the vehicle, please let me know how you got x-ray vision because I want it. That's kind of cool. Those are the pictures that we get. If we do have additional leads or we want more information, we click one of those panels, this is the picture that it pulls up. Again, it'll show the picture of the license plate, what the system believes the license plate to be, and we can verify that it is correct. It'll show us when and where in the direction of travel, and it'll show that it has crossed any other license plate readers. These license plate readers, even though they're in various locations, only detect one lane of travel. You may drive past it and it doesn't even capture your license plate because you're driving in the wrong direction or you're driving parallel to it or perpendicular to it instead of parallel to it. If we need to determine that it is evidentiary value, then this is the report that it prints out. It tells us who downloaded it, what day and time they downloaded it. Again, a picture of the license plate, a printout of what the system believes the license plate to be for us to then verify it, the location that it was seen, and any other general information with the make, model, and color of the vehicle. This is a public-facing app, or not app, but I guess a website that we will be able to turn on. We haven't turned it on yet because we haven't gotten to that point yet. But it shows, again, that we do retain that information for 30 days. The hit alerts are retained for 30 days. It'll show what type of alerts we're getting, how many alerts we've gotten, how many license plates we've ran, and how many license plate readers we have out there. Again, we plan on turning it public-facing. We just haven't gotten to that point of deployment yet. This is the proposed map that we initially had. It's not all these locations are exact. We did tweak a couple by the time it was all said and done. But at this point, the internet knows where they're all at. So there it is. That's the map. Again, when we strategically located these we tried to put them on major thoroughfares at four way intersection, so we can see if a vehicle goes left right or Center and we wanted to place them close enough. To these cameras and the other cameras that we already have so that we can use them as breadcrumbs to connect to the next one, so even if you. Even if the suspect doesn't necessarily drive in front of it so that it trips the license plate, if we're able to track it and tie in live, we can see it coming from the other direction. So as a view back from College and Garden, if the vehicle's going north on Garden, we can tie into that camera, see it continue north on Garden, and relay that information in real time to the officers. These are the actual addresses. The number 11 did not get installed. There was an issue with some wiring underneath. The bottom one, number 25, also didn't get installed. There is still one camera that needs to be installed. Its location is to be determined. That is what it looks like. Solar panel with a camera on about a 10 to 13 foot pole. In addition to the ALPRs, we already monitor the traffic cameras. With the FUSIS platform, we're able to stream traffic cameras directly in there. And what the FUSIS program allows us to do is instead of having one program for the traffic cameras, one program for the drones, one program for the ALPRs, it puts it all in one program on one map. We can see the body cameras, the ALPRs, the traffic cameras, the drones, all on one map without having to switch back and forth. It streamlines things, it makes things a lot safer and easier for our operators. Those are all the locations. Again, we're able to stream up to 225 of the city-owned cameras. These are cameras that the city already has, that we already have access to. But instead of using a different system, we now have it streamed into FUSIS streamlining. So we already have it at the aquatic center, the IT is working on the airport, and we are working in plans for the water department, golf course, the zoo, city hall, animal services, and others as we have available. Real-time crime center FUSIS allows commercial businesses to purchase cores and tie into the FUSIS system. Businesses control when, if, and what cameras RPD, real-time crime center, can stream. Businesses will also receive the ability to receive motion notifications and use of alert notifications to their phones. So it'll actually upgrade some of the security systems in town. If they have an old standalone silo DVR system, this will actually give them an opportunity to make it into a smart system without having to redo their entire system. When the video evidence is needed, it is much easier for us to pull it directly from FUSIS rather than going with the USB and trying to figure out each individual business's varying systems. I have personally had to go and do that. It is not fun, and it is taking several hours sometimes because the owner doesn't know their password, and we have to figure out their password for them to be able to download the video that we need. This program is a 100% voluntary program. In addition, citizens can register their cameras. This does not give RPD direct access to their cameras under any circumstances. All this does is creates a list of locations and contact information if we need to reach out in the event of a crime. I know recently there was a string of vehicle burglaries in the area. And had we had this more robust registry, we can actually send a mass link out to everybody and say, please check your ring cameras. If you see something, let us know. If you find something, click this link and upload the video. And then it goes right to our evidence dot com instead of officers having to go door to door to door knocking on doors. Someone's not home. Let's go back again. Oh, again, they don't know how to do it. It's too big to email. It streamlines that whole system. Um, this helps with, again, with canvassing communication officers. This is again, a 100% voluntary program. It does not tell us where your cameras are. It does not give us any access to your cameras. And I know cause I went and registered my personal cameras just to see what it did. It shows my name, my address, my phone number, my email. That's all it shows. It doesn't show anything else. In addition to the ALPRs, the real-time crime center has three drones. And again, how we got there is April, 2025 city council approved a five-year contract with Paladine drones valued at $496,350. The contract allowed us to place three docks and drones at city buildings. One of the police department, one of the fire station three up north and one of fire station five down south. These drones are flown by the real-time crime center operators. These drones are used to respond to calls for service prior to officer's arrival. These drones give additional viewpoints that officers on scene may not have even once they've been on scene. The drone video can be streamed to officers on scene and officers in command. All drone video is used as evidence in court. Some success stories include when we had a stolen vehicle. It fled from us. We were able to disengage, let the vehicle slow down, follow it with the drone, pull into the Home Depot parking lot, watch the driver and his girlfriend get out of the car, walk through the parking lot, and then be surrounded by eight cops. It did not exceed speed limits. We didn't go through school zones. We didn't drive through people's neighborhoods. It took the pressure off the suspect. It took the pressure off the officers, and we were still able to make an apprehension and an arrest. Paladine drone was also able to connect our pre-existing mobile drone, which allows us to stream that one when we need to use it. Is that it? Sorry. And with that, I stand for any questions.

Okay. Thank you for all the work you've done.

Yes, ma'am. And this was a learning experience. I had a conversation with a gentleman earlier today, and he brought up some good points, and there were some lessons learned. Um, I think if we continue with this and we expand it, I think we can learn from it and we can do better next time. Um, certainly this was no way to skirt anything. We followed all the open meetings act. I can also point out again, this started in December of 2025. I don't know that the flock and debate was as heated 9 months ago, but it took us 9 months from approval from city council to put poles and grounds. And now the timing is just unfortunate.

Why? No, we've had several companies on this. That's true. that's lady arnold and then rural uh thank you mr mayor no i just kind of wanted to make it um just a consideration i think once we actually put something like this in and in due time as you guys begin to experience to understand the holes and benefits of it it might be good for the council to consider looking at policy policy that our PD has actually thought of and anything that we want to maybe consider just to make sure that we're minding the rights of our citizens.

Yes, ma'am. Our policy is based off of Lexapol. It is a private third-party company that's nationwide and has several best practices and best policies, and all of our policies are public-facing. So that policy is already public-facing. People can find it on the website, or I'm not exactly sure where, but I know when we get IPRAs for our policy, they direct them to the website, and it has all those policies forward-facing.

so possibly at the next public safety meeting or legal meeting can we actually review those or get us a link to that just so we have you know as a council have access to what we are putting through because i mean honestly this is this has been you know this has been around for many years so um precedent has been said that it has been put out there of what that policy looks like and considering how it affects our community and our constituents.

Yes, ma'am. Thank you, Ms. Prance. I just got a question. I was driving by and I seen the cameras are not very high. Now, I mean, I was a crazy kid back in the day. very high and knock them down. What is the cost of those things?

I don't know the exact cost because it's rolled into that contract agreement. I can find out if necessary. I believe it's over $1,000 if they make it a felony, if someone was to knowingly intentionally damage them. And again, they have video feed, so it'll alert us right away if there is an anomaly or the system goes offline.

Is there a way that we can put them higher? I mean, seriously, that's a lot of money kids are gonna be kids i was a kid once very good kids sometimes so i just think they're very local and i just i believe in my mind right away that they're very normal yes sir i believe that's where they're needed for the angle for the license plates but that is the poles that the company uh installs them on here and everywhere so i can certainly follow up and ask

but I believe they're there for the angle from the license plate.

Thank you.

I did have two more things that I remembered. Sorry. I thought it was on the slide, but I may have breezed over it. There was a couple other Facebook comments about people being able to IPRA and request the data of it. That is not a thing. They actually signed a law that said the ALPR information is not IPRA-able. Unfortunately, there were situations where people were weaponizing IPRA and using IPRA to then stalk. The other comment I've seen that I thought was a very valid question was what about the false alerts? So our policy and procedure as of right now is if there is an alert, the operator will verify that picture compared to what the system thinks it is. make sure that, yes, that's their own assessment, then rerun that license plate to make sure that it is still a valid warrant or a valid stolen vehicle, and then relay whatever information is there to them. So we're going to handle a stolen vehicle much different than somebody that's wanted for a hit-and-run crash. And so we're going to share all that information as fast as we can with the officers so that they can make the right decision when they come in contact with that vehicle.

I had a a group of women, a large group of women, 25 or so, were having a get-together and there was a drone that showed up and showed up right there by them and they were concerned that there was somebody flying their drone and staying in one spot and looking to see what all they were doing. So I called the police department and I asked them about it and everything. And, uh, when I investigated, I came back with, uh, there was a burglary in process of progress in someone's home. And there was a great deal of concern by the, I guess the people that were there and everything else. We, we had one officer that could get there and one officer who was there and we had no backups at that time. And so the drone was there. providing backup for the officer so he had, it was complete, the officer was totally protected in putting himself in a dangerous situation because he didn't have any idea how many people were doing the burglary or anything else, but he was protected by that drone. And when I came back and told the ladies what was going on, they were so glad that they were there because the last thing they wanted to do was see you know, a policeman who had to put himself in a dangerous situation to protect other people. They didn't want him to be there without somebody watching, so whoever, if anybody did anything to him or anybody else, you know, they recognized it was a safety thing for that officer to scare the heck out of somebody doing a murder that Hey, there are people watching and filming. So you are caught. And so it was very good. Absolutely.

If you could give details, I just want to make it clear that drones for the police department are not just roaming around looking for crime. Correct. If you could give some detail about that.

So the drones are deployed for call specific reasons. Once a call is put in, the operators have the same ability as the officers to see the calls coming in. and they make the decision if they feel they can get there faster than an officer if an extra set of eyes would be useful if they can watch the back of a house so somebody doesn't run out on a burglary they are not out randomly patrolling they are not flying looking for crime on a routine basis and quite frankly if you hear and see the drone we're probably not looking at you we're probably looking a mile down the road because we don't want the bad guys to see the drone So if it's flying over your head or your house, we're probably not looking. And we're certainly in a public airspace that anyone could go buy a Walmart drone and fly there just the same.

Okay, we're going to put that driver's board down.

Yes, Mr. Barton. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Lieutenant Fry, you're an operator to the drone, correct?

Yes, sir, I am.

And you're controlled by... I believe it's F-A-R-103? R-107. R-107. Yes, sir. Excuse me. I missed it. I'm not a drone operator. So before you get too wound up, it would be helpful for somebody, you'll get them a copy of 107 and see if there's any reason to get all excited because it's pretty fact-based. Yes, sir. FAA owns all airspace above ground and you got to fly by their rules. Is that correct?

Yes, sir. We have part of the contract agreement with Paladine is for them to do the COLA certificate of authority or I'm not sure the exact. And so that keeps us in full compliance with the FAA. And then we are part 107. So we have even extra training of specifically how to fly drones in the air.

i mean i'm a licensed pilot i gotta go to school to do drugs yeah that's what i want to do no well good luck to you i think it's worthwhile thank you i'm kind of curious about why people complaining but we can talk about that yes sir thank you thank you very much thank you very much okay

So now we're at that portion of our building meeting for public participation on agenda items and non-agenda items. So council rules are you're entitled to three minutes and we will go almost everybody here is about license plate readers. So we'll just put it on the list as you go and you can bring it up. The first one I have is, and if you can't read it, I'm sorry, but it's Dean Michaels. Is that right?

Dean Michaels. Hello, everyone. I'm Adam Michaels. I'm new here to Roswell.

Please give your name and address so we know your address and where you are so everybody knows.

I can't hear.

Name and address. My name is Adam Michaels.

I live at 1105 Katrina Drive, Roswell, 88201. I'm new here to Roswell. I come from California. I want to ask you all, you all live here in Roswell. Are you proud of what you see? When you walk out your door, Or you go down Main Street. Are you happy with what you see? This place is filthy. You have beautiful homes here. I bought one. It's an equivalent to a $2.7 million house in California. You have weeds growing all over the place. You have going up and down the streets This place could thrive. It could be huge if you built. If you built a major amusement park here, a major water park, which you turned down, didn't you, Mr. Mayor?

A water park?

You turned down a water park, didn't you? From what I'm seeing here, you go downtown. Where I'm from, you don't see cardboard on the walls. On buildings. For advertising. You see lights. You see a nice place. This place could thrive. It's got land that you can build. You told me on the phone. We had an argument. You want to keep it a retirement community. You have more children here than you. And they're riding around on minibikes without a license. Now they could thrive here. If you build. Places for them things to do. I'm 68 years old and I still have to do things. I got to go to Lubbock to enjoy myself. I got to go to read also to enjoy myself. Why? If you're worried about a retirement community, you could build five to ten of them here. All up and down the California coast, we have Dell Webb communities. We have three places called Leisure World. They have their own amphitheaters, their own performing arts centers. Bowling alleys, 24-hour guards, 24-hour nurses if they need them. They have their own condominiums. They have their own shopping malls around them. I went to the shopping mall at Christmas time. I walked inside that place and walked right back out. And my wife and I almost divorced over it.

Your time is up, sir.

The Santa Claus had nobody sitting on his lap. The place can be completely rebuilt. It's a dump. And if you're proud of that, excuse me.

If you're proud of that. No, your time is up. Your time is up.

You're done. Excuse me. Take a look at any other city. This place could thrive. It's a beautiful place. Everybody here is nice. You're nice people to deal with. But the bottom line is you're not doing anything to help yourself.

Sir, you were given the opportunity to speak. Everybody accepted that opportunity and they heard that. There are rules and regulations in this house.

Pardon me for that.

Yes, sir. Your time is up.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I just want to see a good place to live.

How about California? Actually, it's Bernadette Luna. So my name is Bernadette Luna. I live here at 503 South Pine here in Rosalinda, Mexico.

And I wanted to comment in regards to the real crime center. I think it's something that's going to be positive. I think it's something that's going to help law enforcement. I know similar technology did help law enforcement help solve my son's murder, our son's murder, and his friend. So I think it's really beneficial, and it's going to really help with the crime. And I support it. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. Oh, oh, you were both there. Okay, there was one after the other. So, Brandon, do you want to say anything? No, sir. She didn't let you have it.

All right. Thank you, sir. Thank both of you. And your, your, you gave your street address. Okay, thank you.

Okay, change efforts.

I don't see, oh, there it is. Mr. Edward.

Good evening. James Edwards, 208 South Stanton, Roswell, New Mexico. On the east side, representing the south side. What we're here to do is to give some information out. Hopefully it'll be less than three minutes. For the gentleman that was here just a minute ago, we do have some informational items and you're more than welcome to attend. Eastern New Mexico Roswell will be hosting a Constitution Day on September 17th from 12 to 1 in the ITC Commons. councilman gas we will have coke floats and nachos so we do have some refreshments for you to show up in and enjoy well if if you can make it yeah the other thing that we're going to be having is uh hold on On August 15th, 2026 at 730 at Lions-Omdo Little League Baseball Field, they will be having a video of the Little League World Series. I believe that was the 12th team to win the Little League World Series. It's the only team from the state of New Mexico that has ever won a Little League World Series. There's going to be a big screen and I'm pretty sure they're also going to have some refreshments, hot dogs and sodas. And it's to recognize those young men that are now older men. For their for their accomplishment, it's a long time coming and long overdue. So, on that date, the historical society and lines hondo little league will be having that. And a lot of the few of the councilman we've recognized y'all at those events. So we expect to see you there. It's a 730 on the 15th. Here's my colleague.

Mayor, councilmen, and women, my name is Veronica Muñoz. I work with Mr. Edwards at E&MUR Roswell, and we have an event coming up that we would like to invite the community out to. So on August 27th from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m., we will be out at our campus, and we'll have a petting zoo that's free to the community. We'll have different booths and resources for people to visit. And we'll have quite a few food truck vendors out there. So we'll have a wide variety and then a live DJ and a mechanical bull. So this event is for students and coming back to the college and then open to the community. So everyone is welcome to come out and enjoy that day with us. And with that, I'll stand for any questions if you have any. And if it's OK, if I can give you all a flyer. OK.

Yes, sir.

Okay, so thank you. Thank you both. Next we have Brian Davis. It says license plate readers.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. I'm kind of opposed to him. I'm an old guy. When I grew up, it was required reading in school. I don't know about you guys, but 1984, Animal Farm, all these kind of books. I mean, Big Brother, Surveillance. I'm terrified of that. I mean, it's bad enough I got a cell phone that keeps tracking me. I drive my truck, it keeps tracking me. I got a wife that keeps tracking me. I'm not a public speaker. I'm real bad about this. They talk about public safety. They give public safety to me in the Second Amendment. That's my public safety. I mean, I protect myself. The police will come up and they're going to chuck out my body. That's their job. But that's not going to keep me safe. They'll look for the parent. But that didn't help me. I mean, if they want public safety, what they really need to do is start incarcerating all these people. The judges are the weak link in this. You can ask the cops. They bring these people in. The judge goes, send them out. I mean, this is just a revolving door. I mean, so we get more surveillance and more surveillance and more surveillance, but we still let the criminals out. If the cops had their, the police had their way and bureaucrats, we'd all have those air tags stuck on us because that way they'd know where we are, who we're talking to. I mean, no. They talk about the license plate readers and all this stuff, but yet they let these guys run around town All the time with these blacked out license plates. How many of you have you seen? I mean, you just drive down the main, blacked out plate, blacked out plate. They don't do that. I mean, come on. Or like me, boom, I'll drop my tailgate. Can't read my plate. So we're going to need a law to say you can't drop the tailgate off your truck because big brother needs to keep an eye on you. I mean, I'm tired of being surveillance. There's things I volunteer. I volunteer to carry a cell phone, volunteer to have a wife. It's her truck, so if they think I'm going out shopping all the time, I appreciate the time. I really hope you don't do these cameras, but I know you probably will. All the young people are going, yay, let's get more safety. And like our founding fathers say, Those who give up their liberties for safety deserve neither. Mr. Davis, can we have your address? Can we have your address? Can we have your street address? Oh, I'm Brian Davis, 500 North Brown Road. You can send a surveillance. Thank you.

Thank you very much. How many times? Okay, next we have Richard Sweet.

All right, I guess I'm gonna belabor the point. We're talking the flock cameras or axon or something like that. My name's Rich Sweet. I live at 1512 North Washington Avenue. I'm a member of Ward 1, represented by Councilor Arnold. I live in the heart of the city with respect to the good lieutenant. There was a flock camera put up, I think two or three houses down from me. It's in my neighborhood. So I'm just not, I'm not going to bury the lead. I want the camera moved. please respectfully take the camera out of my neighborhood. It's severe government overreach. I think it's absolutely ridiculous. But having said that, I got three minutes, so I'm gonna give you a little background about myself. I'm a US Army vet. I'm a retired law enforcement officer. I spent over 31 years serving my country. I think that just because we can do something Doesn't mean we should do something. With respect to the lieutenant, he says, this is a public space. It certainly is. It's a public space. Put the camera there. Doesn't mean we should. Take that camera, put it on 285. If you want to track me going to the gym in the morning, that's cool. But I guarantee you, none of you would want that camera two houses down, seeing who leaves your home at all hours of the night, or... You know, God forbid we put that in front of one of the head shops that's downtown and see who's a habitual marijuana user. You know, like, this is absolutely crazy. So, anyway. Real quick, USA Today, and I understand it's not Axon, it's Flock, tomato, tomato, same technology. It is what it is. This is from USA Today, so I'll cite my source. Georgia police chief arrested for harassment and stalking. Never went to court because he committed suicide. Apache Junction, Arizona officer resigned after tracking his wife. North Carolina police officer charged with stalking her boyfriend's ex-wife, tracking her 31 times. That could be you. That could be you. That could be you. We don't have to go along with this. We can push back against this culture. We can push back. You have the power to do it. What else we got? I would... As I look at you, there's an assumption of competence. All of you have accomplished things in your life. I can't believe that you are supporting this. Certainly public safety. I am pro-law enforcement. I've been a cop for, like I said, 31 years. I respect what the police do. They need your full support. I think we could probably get a lot of stuff done by community patrols, putting up a sidewalk, scraping off the bums and tweakers from Main Street. So anyway, this is a work boots and Subarus issue. This isn't a right or left. If we're talking about which side of the political aisle you lean, I'm certainly more of a conservative libertarian guy. But the left, the ACLU, is not on board with this stuff.

Excuse me, your time is up.

Thanks, guys. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

This is MacArthur.

I'm going to need more than three minutes.

Well, you get three minutes.

Okay. All right.

I just wanted you to know my name is Sarah MacArthur. I live at 609 Mimosa Drive. I'm not going to be here next week, and that's why I put what I want to talk about down today so you can hear from me. But it just gels right nicely into the whole flock or axion or phusis or whatever. Number one, police should always be safe. Your tools should be good. All I am saying is that the briefing we got tonight should have been the briefing that you got the day it was on the consent item in January. We need more transparent information from all of our government and elected officials, period. That's it. But now I'm going to read my speech because I made it under three minutes. Good evening, mayor and counselors. I want to be very clear tonight about what the public expects when it comes to the proposed gross receipts tax increase and the letter funding attached to it. When taxpayers are asked to contribute more of their income, the city has an obligation to explain exactly what that money is for, not in general terms, not in broad concepts, but in specific verifiable detail. We need to know, first, what projects or purpose this money is intended to support. If a department, an entity, or a partner is expecting this funding, the public deserves to hear that directly. Second, whether this tax is meant to pay for something the city is already legally obligated to fund and it's simply back to an existing responsibility, that should be stated plainly to the people that you're asking to vote on this. Third, whether this tax has a defined end date. Is it permanent? Are you asking for a permanent? Or is it not a permanent? If it's temporary, what's the goal? What amount of money are you seeking? And when are you going to end it? Those things need to be explained to your taxpayers because you work for us. the constituents so fourth letter funds in the future should be communicated to the public letter should not be a black box if public money is being used for business incentives or development support residents should be able to see where it goes who receives it and what the expected outcomes are and I may have some of this a little improperly and I apologize because I was expecting to do more research but then I'm having to go out of town so This is not an adversarial approach to y'all. I appreciate everything that y'all do for us, and I don't think the city looks like crap. I think it looks great in a lot of places, and that it could use some improvement in other places. I'm just saying, I want more transparency, not just for this, but for future projects, especially industrial projects coming forward, and we need to communicate. Thank you.

Thank you.

we have a council connection series coming up on august 31st and the topic is city projects in the queue so i please have you guys is it going to be streamed because i'm not going to be here on august 31st no but i just want to put it out there we're actually talking about what we know you're going to august 31st be there okay all right okay thanks

i'm sorry but we need to take about a 10 minute break and then we'll be back we have three more individuals on this um so let's uh so we'll be right back let's go ahead and finish the public participation and then we can go on a break if that's okay okay okay well doing this okay then next we have cody Keith? From 1600 North Sycamore Island.

Hello, everybody. Thank you for letting me come and talk.

You're welcome.

My name is Cody Keith. I live at the Spring River Apartments. I would like to apologize first. I try to watch all the city council meetings, but I happened to miss the one where this was discussed previously about the APLRs. The reason that I'm here and kind of why it came onto my radar was I was out walking my dog. I live at the Spring River Apartments. I was out walking my dog, and one of them got installed right at our exit to our apartment complex. And so it kind of put me into a research mode to figure out what exactly is going on and see what all the plans were. I don't have an issue with RTCC. I don't have an issue with the police having drones. I don't have an issue with CCTV. My issue specifically is with APLRs because of the AI layer that's on top of it. We've seen them misidentify cars. We've seen them misidentify certain things. And they're also tracking features that aren't just license plate. I think on the post from RPD today, It said that it's only tracking license plates. But if you look at it, it's identifying things such as roof racks or bumper stickers. And those are vectors for possible issues with misuse and the system actually moving on to a next step of actually trying to predict what's going on. I don't think right now they're doing prediction patterns, but this technology is only two years old from like a grand. Axiom partnered with Flock to provide the feeds originally. They left in early of 2025. Now they have their own product. So the Axiom product is actually relatively new. And so I think what we're in right now is an experiment to see what this does. I don't think there's enough information for us to be putting it in the community. My wife and I moved from Austin, Texas, two years ago. I am a New Mexican. I was born in Albuquerque. So just coming back and we were driving through town to head further north in New Mexico. And we love the community. It's been a very welcoming community. We've met some really great people. My issue with this is the technology. I was raised by lawyers, I'm in tech. And so between all of that, there's so many potential issues that can come up with this. And again, I don't have an issue with the other parts of the RTCC. It is literally just the APL lawyers. And that's because they're, they're basically sending the information and then it's being acted on. And I understand that there's policies in place, but we've seen within the last week, a license plate gets misidentified, the car gets felony stopped, there's kids in the car, that can lead to so many issues that our officers don't need to be dealing with. And so I don't think that the APLRs are in a position where we should have them installed yet or turned on, but I don't disagree with the RGCC as a whole. And I think it's really easy to understand that. This is really, really, really immature technology. We don't know what it's fully used for. I understand that there's priorities, but as you'll notice in the news yesterday, the flock CEO came out and said they are realigning their policies due to public feedback, which means that at any time, we could be subject to those policy changes as well.

Excuse me, your time is up.

Thank you so much.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Actually, I have Jeffrey Kavanaugh.

Hello, Council Mayor. You're looking brighter than usual today. I don't know if you've been out in the sun a lot, but you're pretty bright. So I'm just going to briefly talk about the ALPRs. I'm not going to give up my Fourth Amendment in order to exercise my first. Thank you very much. He had the officer come up and basically he had to read it from the screen. You know why? Because he didn't write it. I've seen like 70 police stations across the country release almost that exact same thing. Like word for word. It was tweaked just a little for Roswell. Okay. So it's all propaganda. We don't want him. You said you saw the comments. You know, you guys are aware of the comments. Are you guys aware of the comments? Have you been watching the country for the last six months? We don't want them. Plain and simple. Gaslight us all you want. Tell us for safety. Tell us anything you want. We don't want them. Okay? And that's all I got to say about that. The next thing I want to talk about is the GRT. We're back again. Here I am again. Opposing. Raising the GRT. You know, keep going from GRT to the goddamn water price. To the GRT to the water price. You're just squeezing every single citizen in this city for every dime they have. Every chance you get. Do you guys hate poor people? Because that's what it seems like. Obviously, none of you ever struggled in your life because there's a lot of people in this town. About 60% of them struggle, live check to check. You're going to take every goddamn dollar you can from them. And now you're ushering in, you know, basically the Chinese communist like surveillance state. So you're nothing but a bunch of dirty goddamn commies until you prove otherwise. Thank you.

Okay, next we have Christian Emling.

You got it right. Probably the first person to get it right on the first try. All right. My name is Christian Emling. I live at 916 Davidson. So Roswell started putting up acts on surveillance cameras all across our town, and I oppose it. Simply put, I oppose it. Not because I support crime. but because they represent exactly what's wrong with how the city chooses to spend our tax dollars. We're told there's not enough money for water infrastructure even after the flooding we've lived through. We're told there's not enough money to improve drainage. The police department has been regularly telling us that it needs a new station or major renovations. It feels like feet are being dragged when it comes to that one, honestly. But there's always enough money for another surveillance camera. Every budget tells a story. The story this budget tells is that City Hall thinks surveillance is a higher priority than infrastructure, higher than drainage, and higher than a new police station. Give me a break, guys. Roswell still has dangerous drivers. Roswell still has trap houses. And Roswell still has neighborhoods that have been asking for action for years, especially when it comes to water. These problems won't be solved by tracking the license plates of ordinary folks going to work, school, church, or the store. If this city truly doesn't have enough money for all the things we've been told it doesn't have enough money to afford, then why does it have enough money to build an entire surveillance network? This tells me that the problem isn't revenue, but it's priorities. I grew up in a small town in East Texas. I know exactly what it looks like when local government loses sight of purpose. High taxes, wasteful spending, abusive government, and more and more excuses. I moved to Roswell because I wanted something different. I don't want to see this city become the same place many here hopes to leave behind. Times are hard and families are struggling to pay their groceries, their rent, their mortgages, their utilities. I'm blessed to work in education and even with my study work, I still feel financial pressure every single month. Imagine what the other families and workers in this town feel who make way less than I do. People work hard for every dollar they earn and every dollar that's given up in taxes. They want those dollars directly reinvested into our city. They don't want it spying on law abiding residents. It's just wasteful. Thankfully, the people of our town know better than that. And Roswell came out tonight to say something about that. We deserve better than this. Tear the cameras down, guys. Spend that money on the infrastructure we desperately need. Spend it on helping RPD solve real crime instead of monitoring everyone. And honestly, if this council believes that spying on its residents is a higher priority than serving them, perhaps it's time for y'all to just step aside and let someone who knows that the people's liberty is to be respected and not monitored serve on the council. Do the right thing. Tear the cameras down, especially the one on Union and Davidson that points directly into a yard where kids are always playing. Thank you, and thank you for serving our community.

Thank you. And that's our last speaker that we have signed up. So we will take a 10-minute break. We'll show their bounce as quick as we can, and we'll come back and start. Thank you.

Is this? no feedback no feedback Testing. Testing. Testing. Testing. Testing. Testing. Testing. Testing.

Thank you. Everybody wanted to see .

let me join the meeting and talk about it

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. . .

Thank you very much.

Well, my favorite is the dining area.

Sorry.

Well, he was telling me, he was telling me, you guys, you have here, you have here, you have here.

So.

No, that camera.

Let's see.

No, I was joking. I'm covering the camera with this. I didn't say you cover the camera. Frank. Frank. That was awesome.

I was like, what is he doing? That's awesome. I was trying to figure out what you were doing.

Okay, you're being recorded.

Thank you.

Mr. Williams. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Right.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Somebody. Oh, no. Yeah.