Council - Regular Meeting

. Thank you. Well. Good afternoon. The work session today is Monday, May. 11th, 2026 at approximately 1 p.m. I'm Mayor Eric Enriquez. We will start with a moment of silence for the brave men and women of the United States Armed Forces that protect. Our. Interests around the globe, as well as the courageous men and women of the Las Cruces Police and Fire Department. If you join me.

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. Okay, we. Have three items. On our agenda today. But before. We get started, we need a motion and a second to allow Councilor Bencomo to attend via Zoom. So moved. Second. This is on the motion to allow Councilor Bencomo to attend via Zoom. Councilor McClure. Yes. Councilor Mattis.

Yes. Councilor Harris yes. Councilor Bencomo. Yes. Councilor. Koran. Yes. Councilor Munoz. Yes. Mayor. Yes. Okay. So. Transportation. Kyle.

Mayor. Council. Good afternoon. For the record, my name is Kyle Oren, your interim public works director. What you have here today is a presentation on where we're at with the active transportation plan, as well as some discussion about Vision Zero, which you have patiently waited for us to bring to your attention. With that, I will introduce Vanessa Morales Romero, the engineering manager, and she's going to introduce the rest of the team.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. Today, I'll be giving a brief overview of our active transportation team, our coordination efforts. And then well, as we'll be going over Vision Zero. Our active transportation team within Public Works consists of myself, Vanessa Morales Romero. I'm currently the interim engineering and serving manager. Oscar Guerrero is our main point of contact, so anything after transportation goes to him and he routes it all to the rest of us. He's an engineer with public works. And then we also have Jeremy Varela. He's an associate engineer with public Works, and he also sits on many of the meetings that we have. Natasha Bailey, who is not here today, is a senior engineer with public Works as well. She's the project manager for our Safe Streets for all Grant. And just to go over some of the coordination efforts that we have, Parks and Rec and community development. We work with them monthly. We have monthly sitting meetings with them where we go over, you know, our different projects and how they align. We also have quarterly quarterly meetings with Las Cruces Public Schools and the DOT any dot projects within city limits. They provide those to us and we review those as well as the county and Nmsu and the DOT. Those are all stakeholders in many of our major projects providing input. And so we align a lot of our visions. Some of the roles we play in some different meetings, groups, committees that we have going on, the newly started bicycle and pedestrian pedestrian friendly community meetings is a partnership between the city

and Las Cruces. We're holding those monthly right now. We're myself, Oscar and Jeremy all all attend those. Oscar Guerrero also sits on Bpac, which is part of the MPO, the Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee. Jeremy Barela attends all monthly meetings for Safe routes to schools. And then we also have just regular public engagement meetings, whether they be project specific or district meetings. We are also there to address any questions from residents. And then Oscar Romero also sits on the DRC with community development. He's a voting member. And then we also provide design review for CIP projects to ensure they align with our new code and elevate recommendations. And finally, just to give a brief overview of our Safe Streets for all and where we're at right now, we have chosen a consultant that is tool design. We held our first stakeholder meeting on April 2nd. Our next steps are to identify opportunities and events for public engagement and come up with a public engagement plan. Right now that consists of nine more or nine public engagement opportunities. And we will be holding three more stakeholder meetings. They're also in the process of putting together all the data to compile our high injury network, which will be used. All of this information will be used to develop our safety action plan, which we will go over later in the presentation as well. And with that, I'll turn it over to Brant for the remainder of the presentation.

Thank you. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. My name is Brant Crowther. I am with the firm Kimley-horn and Associates, and I'm have an opportunity here to talk to you about Vision Zero and the integration with the safe streets and roads for all, and the Safety action plan. First, what is vision zero? Vision zero? Vision zero is a high level goal. It's a strategy. It's a it's a framing. It's a it's a vision to eliminate fatalities and serious injuries. The principal acknowledges it not not even one death on our streets is is is is acceptable. The overall framework, the vision is to eliminate all fatalities and serious injuries over the.

Last 14.

Or 15 years. You can see fatalities on. Across the United States remained fairly consistent throughout the first part of the the 20 tens decade, and with a little increase there about mid-decade. And then we had Covid in 2020, and our fatalities and serious injuries took a large increase. Therefore, at the national level, the safe Streets and Roads for all program was established to help reverse this trend. You can see since 2021, our fatalities have remained elevated above the pre-COVID levels, but there is good news that we have seen them to start to come down over the last couple of years in response to the elevated number of fatalities and serious injuries, New Mexico's Dot adopted their version of Vision Zero, branded as target zero, New Mexico. The purpose is to emphasize the the importance of safety, the. The messaging of safety throughout many of the initiatives that New Mexico Dot is is taking on through their safety programs, through their travel programs, through their planning, just really to increase the emphasis and the message that everybody has a role to improve safety.

Some of.

The implementing framework of Vision Zero is first completing what's referred to as a strategic highway safety plan. Every state in the nation completes a strategic highway safety plan on a on a annual, on a daily basis of every four years, the Strategic Highway Safety Plan can be thought of as the long range Safety Plan. It provides what is a long term vision for how we reduce fatalities and serious injuries on on the on the state's roadways. The second implementing framework of the Vision Zero is what we call the Highway Safety Plan. It's distinct from the Strategic Highway Safety Plan, which is mandated mandated by the Federal Highway Administration. The Highway Safety Plan is a requirement of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and it focuses on the behavior focused strategies such as enforcement. Alcohol reduction, etc. and it provides grant funding to those those enforcements and education agencies to reduce behavior focused crashes and serious injuries. As part. Of the Highway Safety Plan. They. It. It is required to establish safety targets and you can see here in 2020 17 to 2021, they projected that there would be 415 fatalities in New Mexico. And when they extrapolated the trend line, they brought that up and projected actually in 2025, there would be 470 fatalities. However, they did not view that as an acceptable target. And so there was a decision to reduce even though the trend line was increasing to 470, they established a

target to reduce that to 450 in the 2020 to 20 20 to 2024 period, and then reducing by five fatalities each subsequent year. The good news is, a 2025 data is showing that around 444 fatalities in New Mexico. So it's it has come down from what their target or what their projection was five years ago. Here in Las.

Cruces, you can see this is the number of fatalities and serious injury crashes that there was an increase in during Covid, and it's remained slightly elevated up through 2024. Some of the the locations where those crashes occurring, you can see here on this map and part of the the purpose of the upcoming safety action plan is to really dig down into these details and identify those key corridors where crashes are occurring and more importantly, where they are occurring with more frequency than on similar corridors. So it will compare arterial to arterial collector street to a collector street, and a local street to a local street. This data here is purely based on the density of crash, and it is not adjusted for traffic volume, which would be looked at within the safety action plan. This is a similar map for injury crashes, and you can see, again focused on some of the major corridors. And the safety action plan would again, deep dive into which corridors, which roadways are are where crashes occurring with more frequency than we would expect based on similar facilities and similar traffic volumes. When we look at some of the data in Las Cruces, you can see that 22% of fatal of of alcohol involved crashes resulted in a in a fatality, whereas only 11% of alcohol involved crashes represent resulted in a serious injury. You can see similar data drug involved 30% of drug involved crashes resulted in a fatality and no serious injuries. You can see pedestrian involved crashes. Almost half of the crashes that involved a pedestrian resulted in a fatality. And you can see those that data also for for bicycle involved, motorcycle

involved and heavy vehicle. So the question is how do we reduce and eliminate fatalities and serious injuries. First, establishing that that the goal, the desire, the vision to do so. And that's what the purpose of Vision Zero is. It's it sets the why of, of what we want to do. Why do we want to reduce fatalities and serious injuries? We then begin to determine some of the, the actions of strategies to do that. And those are largely evolved. What we around what we call the safe system approach, which I will address here in a few more minutes. Building on that system approach, some of those key strategies. We developed a safety action plan, and this is the endeavor that the city is just beginning. The Safety Action Plan identifies a specific projects and strategies to reduce fatalities and serious injuries. The Safety Action Plan is implementing framework and can be customized and focused on what works best in Las Cruces. Some of the key elements of that safety action plan. First, leadership commitment a, a, a a resolution, or a publicly stated goal of what do we want to do? How much do we want to reduce crashes? How much do we want to reduce fatalities and serious injuries? The Safety action Plan is overseen by an implementation group, a technical advisory committee, other city departments, law enforcement, emergency services, etc. the. Next part is a detailed analysis that really looks where crashes occurring. Why are they occurring and what are the key contributing factors? It's also important to solicit engagement and collaboration from the public to identify those perspectives that may not be evident in the data.

We also.

Identify what policy and process changes, whether it's design guidelines. Policy changes could help us to better improve safety holistically throughout the city. We also identify what are those specific projects that could be enhanced crossings. It could be enhanced lighting, pavement markings, signing, striping, etc. and the last part of the safety action plan is reporting what is our progress identifying how are we doing in relation to the goal that's established within the safety action plan. I mentioned that first part of that leadership commitment, the safety action plan, has an element that that asks a high ranking official or governing body, such as a city council, to, to do one of two things to either establish a goal to eventually reach zero fatalities and serious injuries by a specific date, or eliminating them by a specific date. There is no mandate to adopt Vision Zero specifically within the safety action plan, but it.

Asks. What do we want to do to eventually achieve a serious and significant reduction in fatalities and serious injuries? The way we go about that now, implementing. Once we have that safety action plan, is to identify those high risk areas based on that safety analysis, identify the projects and strategies that are needed to address safety at those locations, identifying how will they be phased, how will they be funded through capital improvement programs, grant programs, maintenance programs, etc. We want. To.

Focus on cost effective solutions. I'll show there. Share those in a minute. But focusing on those low cost effective strategies that have the highest potential to improve safety. And we identify what other funding sources, even outside of the city, whether it's additional grant programs, etc. And then certainly soliciting the community engagement throughout the process. I want to talk more about that organizing framework.

Of, of how we identify those specific strategies. And it's really a focus on a paradigm shift from what we've done in the past, rather than just focusing on where crashes have occurred, but being more holistic and strategic across the, the entire roadway network, really looking at how do we improve not only. Safe roads.

You can see here at the bottom of the pie chart, but how do we reduce speeds? How do we improve emergency services? How do we take advantage of improvements in vehicle safety? And how do we help road users take responsibility to improve their own safety? One of the key foundational elements of of the safe system approach is reducing what we call kinetic energy. When a vehicle collides with a pedestrian, that's a high kinetic energy on a vulnerable, vulnerable user. There are strategies we can do speed management, traffic circles, roundabouts, etc. to reduce the the speed of the collision or separating users, sidewalk, shared use paths, etc. you can see here this chart. When a pedestrian is hit by a vehicle going at 50mph, 75% of the time, that pedestrian will will not survive when. Reduce speeds to 23mph, only 10% of the time that results in a fatality. So that is a benefit of of the system safe system approach and really focusing on speed management and helping us to reduce that kinetic energy. We identify.

How to do.

That within the safety action plan. It could be enforcement, it could be roadway modifications, it could be education. I mentioned those proven safety countermeasures. We also want to focus on federal Highway Administration identifies 28 of these that are low cost, that have demonstrated effectiveness. And some of them are low, low cost and can be widely widely deployed, such as larger stop signs or. Back plates around the back plates at intersections to reduce the sun glare. Implementing a network of enhanced crossings with pedestrian hybrid beacons or rectangular rectangular rapid flashing beacons, etc.

I want to show some examples of. Some some other similar cities that have adopted safety action plans and some of the impact. And first is Albuquerque, New Mexico in 2019 committed to eliminating fatalities and serious injuries. And they completed their safety action plan in 2021 with a goal to eliminate fatalities and serious injuries by 2040. The most recent data shows a 7% decrease in fatal crashes. El Paso.

Adopted a Vision Zero goal in 2022, completed a safety action plan in 2023, and the most recent data shows a 15.7 decrease in fatal crashes in 2024, with an additional 25% decrease in 2025. Midland, Texas Adopt. A resolution in 2024 to eliminate traffic fatalities and serious injuries by 2050. Completed their safety action plan in 2024, and the 2025 data shows a 4.9% reduction in crash severity. Some of the benefits of. Vision Zero. It really reframes traffic deaths.

As preventable. It sets up vision of why we want to do it, and it helps people recognize that we can make a difference. Second, it helps to. Focus resources on a on a limited set of high injury corridors as identified in the Safety Action Plan, helping to prioritize resources where they can provide the most benefit. Third is prioritizing safety over speed. It will help us to determine what is the right posted speed limit or the right design speed on a corridor when it's maintained or or goes under significant improvements. The Vision Zero and Safe System approach recognizes that even moderate changes can have major benefits. And lastly, the the the documenting of a goal is aligned with the national goal to reduce fatalities and serious injuries help to to send the message to and grant applications in pursuing other funding that the city is committed to improving safety for all users. Some of the. The potential concerns of. Of Vision Zero can be viewed as as unrealistic. We recognize that it is very difficult to see zero fatalities and serious injuries. We often use messaging like that in other areas, like we want to eliminate disease. We want to eliminate. We want to make sure that every child receives an education. We know that there will be those who we don't achieve that goal, but we set the the vision of Vision Zero to reduce and eliminate all fatalities and serious injuries. Second is a perceived impact on on congestion. Speed management is a is an important part of improving safety. But that doesn't necessarily mean we lead to congested roadways. We can even out the speed on a

corridor, for example, to 30 or 35 and reduce those outliers that cause that have a higher likelihood of being involved in a crash. Third is it can receive pushback as being perceived as anti-car. In contrast, Vision Zero identifies a role for everyone. Vehicles, bicyclists and pedestrians. Yes, bicycles and pedestrians are vulnerable users, and you can see when they're involved in a in a crash, half of them result in a fatality, whereas those involved in a vehicle crash has a much likely more higher likelihood of survivability. Last is implied increase of improvement costs. Vision zero sets out vision, but it really is a safety action plan that's going to be completed that identifies what's going to be done, what projects and how that's going to be cost. It's not the Vision Zero that that that identifies a cost. It's the actual plan of how we want to implement Vision Zero, where you determine those costs. Lastly, there's a potential impact on on maintenance, recognizing that to maintain a high quality of pavement markings, striping signing does have a cost. Again, that's an outcome of the safety action plan to focus those needs and identify what can be done to reduce fatalities and serious injuries. So just to summarize, the Vision Zero does provide that structured vision, that goal, the why for a community to reduce the most severe and preventable traffic fatalities and serious injuries within their city. And with that, I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have.

Thank you. Thank you for your presentation. I'll Councilor just. Councilor. You did that. Okay, a few questions and then just a few thoughts that I share. I just want to say, have you are you familiar with the police department and their traffic problems and what they're doing? When people don't have registrations, they don't have licenses, they don't have insurance. And, and they're spending well without help. What are you doing not to understand that data, to cooperate with law enforcement? Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. Part of the development of the Safety action plan does bring all stakeholders together. We've been working on a on a project in a different state, and law enforcement has been our committee and the corridors that are identified within the Safety Action plan have been referred to law enforcement. Then they can help prioritize enforcement on those those corridors where they're seeing a higher frequency of crashes.

And then another application is maybe if you could bring it back to 11. Maybe the one where I showed. The I think it was 30 7% of. And 22%, 37%. James, is that will there be a preliminary effort by the Council to help. I think what our judges and sentencing. And for some reason I. I have a friend and I think he's been stopped on 17th. And I don't have can, can can I address as well?

Yeah. The safety. Action plan will identify. It brings all those stakeholders together and and the committee I'll defer to to determine to answer who is on their committee already. If if you'd like to address that.

Yes. Again, this is Kyle, Mayor Councilor Mattis. That committee hasn't been fully established yet. The safety action plan is part of the Safe Streets for all analysis, which is just getting started. And so we will identify those other members include fire. It's part of their response to crashes is a big is a big issue. Enforcement, education, engagement, all of those are key elements that come into play as you implement the safety action plan. But that's all forthcoming in the next phases of what we're going to be doing now. I think that's great. I mean, when you look at the percentages and if we could adjust your dose to the getting up to April 25th.

Yeah, absolutely. I just want to be clear that. This is 22% of crashes that involved alcohol resulted in a fatality.

Yeah. So I mean, a death. And a death. Exactly 22% of all crashes. But I mean, that's the. Like this death. So 35 right. And that's, that's the important part. I mean, there's another pedestrian, I think, socialist. And so you how to report to. Overcome that the same. And you know, I like to have a plan. I have district two. For medical centers, 25 miles an hour and no one goes 25 miles an hour. No. So we have to find 45, 55 and 65. And I see a lot of people on cross-border. And that may be another opportunity for how expensive this study. We have to be careful because it's not really funny. Yeah. So and and so they're going to deal with the flashing lights. Civil rights that could slow down. And talk about that report on just right now, just painted lines. Is that possible?

Those are the types of strategies that we're looking at. Yes. Enhanced crossings as a as a low cost systemic measure where you can establish the criteria within the safety action plan of when you would do that, where they're needed and where they would be prioritized. That's all outcomes of the safety action plan that that is just getting. Can I.

I have a quick. Strong foundation, the, the pine tree is blocking the flashing 125. If they could just maybe chop those around, that strategy with. Outside traffic. So that's just a suggestion for the mayor. We will take note of that. Okay. Thank you, thank you. Council member. Thank you. And thank you for the presentation. During the campaign season, somebody.

Asked me like, what's one thing that's you find out that you want to change in the city? And I said, traffic because this is absolutely an area where we have like virtually 100% control over our, our traffic management and engineering is done in the city. I know there's some state highways and stuff that have a little less say, but for the most part, like we can just decide this. I think so, yeah, I really. Like that. There's a good focus on controlling speed because that's, that's the square root term in the kinetic energy equation. And, you know, there's, there's no reason, I think, for any corridor inside the city proper to be more than 35 miles an hour. And we've been eliminating some of those, you know, I'm also.

Totally on board.

With design changes to, to slow traffic and leaving it out. I think the, the. Point I, I think you made about evening out flows increases throughput. Anyway, I, I read a thing last year about actually replacing Signalization in a lot of cases with stop signs actually increases throughput because it's a little more predictable. I don't know if that's appropriate or places that that was probably a very specific case study. But you know, this, this stuff helps drivers as well. And I think, I think to another slide that you had that point in there, that's an important point to make because you can you can go as fast as you want.

On the. Highway, but there's an episode on there. If I'm really serious about closing. And then increase your commute time from five minutes to an hour. So, you know, that's making streets safer. Streets for everybody helps everybody. And I guess. A couple of specific. Things to mention and to note, one is, I think on those maps, there's no surprises there.

I think everybody, everyone looking at these maps can kind of can kind of get that. That's, that's not surprising at all. And I think it's good that we're mapping this stuff. And I would be very interested to see as part of our safety action plan or just, just something that we can start throwing a type of crash analysis studio, those that kind of group that's, that's been floated on the space to take a look at each crash, what happens? And, you know, with all of our stakeholders, with police, with fire, with members of the community, to really think about why that happened. You know, we know that those the hot spots here. And rather than just say there's a hot spot here, we should do something about it, like looking at all those individual crashes and what led to them and what led to the outcomes too, I think is, is very important. You know, there was a traffic crash in district three on Nolan and McDonald's that was like an accident, right? That was a medical emergency, complete accident. But there were other extenuating circumstances around that, around the area and the environment that led to some of that outcome. So I think that's, that's definitely worth looking into. And also some symmetric cutting. That's another issue that I've seen a lot, on Shaw also, where people are cutting across the street where it is not safe to do so away from the intersections. And, you know, it's one thing to put signage and striping and flashing lights and tell people what to do. But when we buried our streets and we build our

structures in the community that we send different messages sometimes. So looking at that, I think is very important. And then budgetary point of view, I think this came up when we were talking last week. A lot of it in a lot of cases, like it's cheaper actually to do some of these things. So instead of making our own two lanes wide and making the lanes, you know, 12ft wide, we make them ten feet wide and everyone can still get down there. It sends a signal that you should drive slower. You still have 20, 30ft of rope and agency vehicles and stuff to pass. That's perfectly fine. But we also have, you know, you got 40 plus right there. They have to keep paved and maintained. So yeah, we're doing this stuff I think can also have positive budgetary impacts. It doesn't it doesn't just cost money. So yeah that's a question. Thank you.

I'll go back to councilor. I think Councilor Corrine was are you sure? Okay. I'm I'm just curious. At a certain point, I heard the data on some of the streets, and I'm just curious how you are working with the MPO.

And this data comes directly from the MPO. They collect all of the data. They share it with Nmsu and UNM who correct and adjust the data for outliers that maybe a report was written down a little bit incorrectly or, or, or it was listed at an intersection, but it's actually in a parking lot. So they kind of correlate and correct the data and give it back to us. Part of the, the next strategy with the safety action plan and the safe streets for all is to further look into that data and to see exactly what's happening and where and the whys, and create a heat map, as well as the safety action plan of this is this is where you should be prioritizing your efforts.

And for my brief time on the MPO, I would say that if you aren't already attending those meetings, I would like to have somebody as a representative there. It is helpful to have that sort of larger conversation with the county than to. And I think we were looking at an hour long presentation that was really valuable, you know, things that we kind of know anecdotally, you know, Telshor is a beast. At certain hours of the day they had data on that was actually really helpful. And I say this more as to give people a sense of that data that you guys can work with is already happening and being crunched at this point, but I'd like to see that we work in those spaces too, because it's not just the city, it is the county as well. Thank you.

Thank you councilor.

Thank you. I was actually going to say something similar, but also I just had a couple quick follow ups. MPO does have a lot of good data that already exists that people can look at in their safety plan, including a really cool, in-depth breakdown of, of a lot of those crashes that are alluded to. So thank you for this presentation. I really appreciate you bringing this forward. I think this came from MPO. I mean, we were really horrified when that 470 number appeared on the screen and we were like, wait, we're going to agree to a goal that's 20 deaths more than our existing number. And it really brought, I think that if a board of pretty boring elected people talking about maybe stuff that is really boring to people can get mad. That was one of the most mad meetings I've ever experienced was the MPO. When they showed that that data point of like, yeah, sure, it's going to go up however much. And we have to accept that as the federally mandated goal setting process or whatever. So I appreciate you providing some of that context. And also, I acknowledge like, there are a million externalities that aren't necessarily within our domains of control. I think we might have also had a reduction in fatal crashes similar to the places that adopted Vision Zero, if you actually look at that. So I don't imagine that this is the answer to, to all of those externalities that we can sometimes control and sometimes not. And. So I guess I, one would direct folks who are really interested in this to check out the MPO safety reports for the last few years. They're really in-depth and powerful. The second part that I would ask is, or point out is this is almost, I mean, if, if we wanted to put this map of on the socio economic status of our city, you would see on the place where the, the places that are the hottest you would

see. It's very similar, right? My district doesn't doesn't have any lights up. It also has streets that were designed in the last 25 years, intersections. We have a roundabout. When people come to complain to me about the roundabout, I always say like, I'm so glad you're alive to complain about that roundabout to me, because I know that that's saving people's lives. But I say this to point out like this is also a variable of our history. We 80% of our streets were probably built before we thought about vulnerable road users, right? Like, or 85%. I can't even imagine the percentage of our streets that are from a different time of thinking. And so now we're reckoning with that history of design that wasn't thinking about pedestrians or cyclists. And so I guess I am curious what our ask, what, what you all are sort of looking for here today. I would like us to start right away with any low hanging fruit of things that like in the safety action plan, we know that things like reducing the speed wherever we can, can make a difference. We know that markings perhaps changed markings. I would, I would hope that we can take action before we even go through this process of, of establishing things to do the low hanging fruit as much as we can, updating paint, making sure that I have faith that we are now designing things better and thinking about that in our planning. But. Those are bigger things. Speed, speed, reduction in terms of cameras, other traffic related things that we that we might have conversations about. I hope we can do that sooner. It sounds like we would be on track to have a goal in the distant future, where some of us might not even be around anymore, depending on how we

drive, probably less or more proportionally. But I think that I hope that we can set a goal. But I also hope that we can just start doing the things that we know are already called out in this, in this idea framework. And I'm curious what you are looking for from us in this discussion. Like, if anything, I would say, yes, I would like us to go to this just because it will give us something to focus on, not because I think it can solve all of our problems. I know that it doesn't, and I understand. I think we understand the multitude of factors that go into this, but I would like us to take a step like establishing, moving forward on the safety action plan, going toward Vision Zero, resolving to reduce fatalities as much as we can. So whatever other things you'd like from us, please speak now, I hope.

Mayor Councilor Ken, what I can offer you at this moment is that the safe Streets for all process has started. So that's collecting all the data and it will produce a heat map with better maps and better data, but it'll also produce the safety action plan along with prioritization of how to implement that. So that'll be forthcoming. There isn't anything specifically we're asking of you today. Thank you. Thank you. Councilor, did you have anything.

I did thank you mayor. I appreciate calling on me. Thank you for the presentation as well. I agree with a lot of what my colleagues have already said, especially Councilor Corrine. Thank you for always bringing in that equity lens over the map. I think that's really important, and that is something we should talk about a lot more. I wanted to ask you about, as we move forward with all of these plans, thinking about the reporting of it all. You know, a few months ago, our police chief sent Council some reporting of like pedestrian accidents and fatalities. And, you know, part of the reporting talks about, you know, whether it's the total crashes, non-injury injury, fatal. And then there's one column that talks about pedestrian error. And that always just makes me deeply uncomfortable, to be honest with you. Right? Like it feels very victim blaming. And so I'm wondering how like, as we go through this, how do we reframe some of that, you know, like moving away from who was at fault to what made this crash predictable and preventable, right? So like, for example, pedestrian was at fault because they failed to use the crosswalk, reframing that to, well, the nearest safe crossing walk was, you know, this many feet away. So I, I also just really want to engage in a conversation about reporting and how we can do that in a way that informs us a little bit better.

Thank you for that question. I that is one of the key tenets.

Of the safe system approach. Recognizing that our our multiple layers, multiple facets that all can contribute to improving safety and reducing fatalities and serious injuries. One of them is safe road users. And you mentioned pedestrians specifically. So it is important to understand. What behaviors they are choosing to engage with. That is leading to the the crash and the fatality or serious injury. And like you said, understanding what's causing them to make that decision. Is it crosswalk spaced at 500 zero feet so they don't have a choice to do that. The bottom piece of this pie here, safe roads does that. And it says if we if we have a high frequency of of pedestrian fatalities, we need to identify what's causing them, make that choice. And then what infrastructure can we do to help them make a different choice? And so it's not just victim blaming, but understanding the process through their decision making so that they're not forced to make bad decisions. Another example is putting a raised median in a roadway. You can put a raised median that extends for several hundred feet. You don't doesn't mean you have to mark the pedestrian crossings on that. But if a pedestrian chooses to make chooses to cross the road away from a signalized intersection, they would at least have a refuge or a place to wait for the other traffic. It's not legalizing the crossing, but it's giving them the opportunity to survive when they do make choices like that. And so it's all those different layers helping us. Helping the driver or the pedestrian make good decisions, and then dry,

and then designing the infrastructure to reduce the impact of poor decision making. And that's done through reducing speeds. It's it's another example is roundabouts, where reducing the kinetic energy vehicles, instead of colliding into each other, that they may collide, sideswipe the speeds are less, the result is less. They still have collided, but the result does not automatically lead to a fatality or serious injury.

Yeah. Thank you. I really I really appreciate this core principle of this because I think as a city, we have to internalize this shift away from pedestrian error towards like shifting responsibility to the planning, the building, you know, the maintaining of how we move in our community. So to me, that feels really important. And then I think the other, the last thing I wanted to lift up today, since you're not necessarily asking, looking for any guidance today, given the new GR funding that, you know, we've really said traffic calming is a big priority for that funding. I want us to really think about how we're going to prioritize certain projects for traffic calming. You know, for me, this is one of the biggest, the most important pieces because it's one of the things I get the most constituent concerns about. Like in my email, I get calls about traffic calming pretty consistently from neighborhoods from all over district four, about this being a problem in their community. And, you know, fearing walking to the park, fearing, you know, being in just walking around their neighborhood. And so I just really would love us to think about how we incorporate the conversation about how we're going to distribute those funds as we plan out this whole safety plan and active transportation plan.

Again, Kyle Mayor Councilor Bencomo. What I can tell you is that we have addressed a plan in the future for the safety action plan, but that does not mean that a lot of these things we're not doing right now and trying to do more of. So with the traffic calming, we've implemented several new locations where we're trying some different things out. We intend to do a lot more of that. The designs, the striping, the all of these other things, more enforcement. We've been cooperating with PD to time our pilot programs with their enforcement programs to try to drive home the message of, you know, we need to address these speeds. So a lot, all these things that we're talking about, we're trying to do more of right now. We're not waiting to start it.

Thank you both so much. Thank you mayor. Thank you. Mayor.

Mayor, councilor Brant, thank you very much for putting this presentation together. It is, I think, very thorough. And I love the aspirational goal of it. So, one, I don't have a request. I think, on slide 12, we're in the middle of a data bank. But what I'd like to see is a ratio of per capita ratio. So in 2004, as I mentioned before, we were a city of 74,000. That's around 120,000, right? Maybe 240, 260 with the county. So as you look at the whole numbers and what, you know, we're right is acceptable, but we will see an increase in 25 or 20 or 26, because the population as a whole is driving that. Right. And so I would recommend that we're looking for signs to I think I saw some of it, but when you present and read out, I would love to see that as well. And thanks for the. It's a good work. I know Kyle, you and your team have a lot on your plate and appreciate the focus. Thank you.

Okay. Seeing no other Bencomo appreciate you. Thanks. Next on the agenda is City of Las Cruces Register of Cultural Properties. Caitlyn.

Good afternoon, mayor, councilors, staff and members of the public. My name is Caitlyn Beasley. I'm the historic preservation specialist with the City of Las Cruces out of the community Development department. I'm here today to present on our city's Register of Cultural Properties, the inaugural nominees for the city Register will come before you next month, and are currently available online for reading. But today I'm just going to be introducing the register and discussing the process for nominating properties. The City of Las Cruces Register of Cultural Properties was established via ordinance between 2019 and 2021. There is a local designation process that is required as part of becoming a certified Local Government or a CLG. We are a CLG. We achieved CLG status in 2021, and so the process for designating and identifying historic properties is included in that designation. Our ordinance is chapter 35, section two, subsection D of our development Code. Some of the things that are established as part of that ordinance and are required as part of CLG status are establishing and enforcing a historic preservation ordinance that includes a process for designating historic properties at the local level, designating historic properties at the local level, maintaining a qualified body to review alterations or demolition applications for designated properties. One of the first questions that people often have when we talk about a historic register is what is it? What purpose does it serve? A historic register of historic buildings is essentially an official list, or a database of properties that have been evaluated as worthy of preservation or designation for their historic or architectural

significance. Some of you may be familiar with the National Film Registry. It's kind of the same thing, but it's for film. So other historic registers exist around the country. This one will just be located for Las Cruces. The first one people are primarily familiar with is the National Register of Historic Places that register, frequently called the National Register, was established in 1966 as part of the National Historic Preservation Act. The photo on this slide shows Lyndon B Johnson, then president, signing the bill into law in October of 1966. Standing beside him is former First lady Lady Bird Johnson, who was an advocate for the bill and for preservation initiatives around the country. The state of New Mexico also has their own cultural register, which is called the State Register of Cultural Properties. That one was established by law in 1969. And then, of course, we have our local register, which, as I mentioned, was established in 2021. Now, a historic register can serve many purposes, primarily formal designation of buildings that are deemed worthy of preservation or historically significant assists in the administration of historic preservation priorities. These include maintaining an inventory of properties and documenting properties for posterity. A register will help with both of those. It also helps to boost recognition of individual property significance. It also increases public awareness of preservation and preservation objectives. It affords various protections against improper alteration to historic properties or demolition of historic properties, and it reinforces local ordinances as

well as encouraging designation through economic or other incentives for listing. The photo on this slide is a photo from the Armijo House, which is now owned and operated by the Chamber of Commerce. It is on the State Register of Cultural Properties, as well as the National Register of Historic Places. And that photo is of both of those plaques. Another question people frequently ask is what kind of properties can be designated historic? The types of properties that are eligible for designation include buildings, which are primarily defined by human occupation or for sheltering human activity structures such as gazebos or linear resources such as roads or acequias sites, or the location of significant events. These might include battlefields or public parks, objects such as signs, sculpture or monuments, and districts, which can be a related collection of all of the above properties. The City of Las Cruces currently has three historic districts that are listed at the state and the national level. Those are the Mesquite Street Original Townsite Historic District, the Alameda Depot Historic District, and the Mesilla Park Historic District. As part of the designation process, properties have to be identified under certain criteria. Eligible properties are designated using the following criteria, which is done at the National. The local and the state levels. Criterion A is for significant events such as important periods of construction or development during a city or a municipality, or a state's history. This can include period of development, period of construction, or it can be

in specific events such as a specific day or a specific week, that sort of thing. Criterion B is related to significant persons. These may be people that are familiar at the or are are famous at the local level, at the national level, or at the state level. For Las Cruces, these individuals may include individuals like Pat Garrett or the Brannigan family, or even maybe some people sitting in this room today. Criterion C buildings under listed under criterion C include ones that are nominated for a distinct style or a unique style, or for association with an important architect. And criterion D is the potential for new information to be discovered. These are usually relegated to archeological sites. Sorry archeological sites. An easy way to remember this. Not that there will be a test, but an easy way to remember. The different criteria are a simple word association that my one of my professors taught me in grad school, which is criterion A is awesome events or amazing events. Criterion B is big names. Criterion C are cute buildings or cuties and D are. We don't know. Now for our city register, we have some additional criteria and additional standards that we have to follow. Additional criteria include properties that are added if they are at risk for demolition or alteration, or for other qualities that are not identified that we consider important. Another thing that we require at the city level is owner consent. Owner consent is also required at the state and national level. Some

municipalities choose not to include owner consent when nominating buildings, including neighboring Messiah. Messiah does not require owner consent, but we do now. The city register level nominations can be produced by individual property owners with assistance from myself, or they can be produced by a subcommittee that we've created off of the Historic Preservation Committee for for the local Register, the Historic Preservation Committee subcommittee dedicated to the local register is made up of committed locals and researchers and preservationists who have worked towards establishing a local register for a very long time, and I wanted to recognize their efforts and their contributions. They've made a big impact on this so far. Here's the process for how a building is registered or nominated. Sorry, designated as part of the nomination process, an eligible property is either identified by application from a property owner or an interested member of the public, or through recommendation. Next owner consent is required. This is essential to finishing a nomination because we can't put forward a nomination if the property owner does not consent. Next, the nomination draft is produced again, either by the property owner or another applicant or the local register subcommittee. A public meeting as part of the Historic Preservation Committee is set aside for discussion of the property nomination, and at that meeting, the Historic Preservation Committee will make a recommendation for City Council on how to move forward with a nomination. City Council action is required. A resolution granting or denying property designation with a simple majority will be your

role, and we'll have that discussion again. Like I mentioned next month. What designation means at the local level is a little different from what it means at the national or the state level. Properties that are designated locally fall under local ordinances, which generally involves some sort of protective measures. This can mean plan or design review for alterations or review in advance of demolition permits. This does not impact city owned properties as much as it would privately owned properties, because city owned properties, including ones that are already designated already fall under design, review and demolition review, per our ordinance. The other benefit that designation brings is public information buildings that are nominated, properties that are nominated are included on, maybe included publicly, and will be made available to the public, and the building may be elevated in the public eye. So those are some benefits as well. Some property owners that I speak to, they invest a lot of time and money and energy into maintaining their property, and they want to ensure that future owners can't undo that work or demo the building. And so that might be one reason why people nominate their building regarding design review and plan review preservation objectives are not opposed to historic buildings being altered. We, of course, recognize that buildings change over time and have to suit new functions. Design review is simply a way to guide alterations, and to give the public an opportunity to comment on those proposed alterations. So next month, we're going to be bringing the local register or city register nominations. These are the inaugural nominees and they include the Rio Grande Theater

and the Phillips Chapel, which are the two images at the top of the slide, the Rio Grande, sorry, the railroad depot, the Claribel Williams property, and the Branigan Cultural Center at the bottom. Those nominees will be discussed at this month's Historic Preservation Committee meeting on May 20th, and nominations, like I mentioned, are available online through the Agenda Center, or I can make copies available to people if they would like to read them. And that concludes my presentation. If anyone has any questions, I will be here.

All right. Thank you. Any questions? No. I just want to thank you. Very complete, detailed presentation. I learned quite a lot today. Thank you. Councilmember clerk. Just ditto. I just want to thank you for coming on and taking on some of this challenging work with the community, getting their feedback, but also kind of giving a vision to what this could look like and how it could benefit so that we don't lose more of our identity in the future. So thank you. Councilor.

Thank. I do have a question. Is there a timeline for eligibility for a property? Like, does it have to be older than X amount of years? Mayor Councilor Harris that's a great question. The general rule of thumb is 50 years, but there's no actual rule. Buildings can be nominated that are younger than 50 years. Buildings, of course, can be nominated if they're older than that as well. That's kind of just a general rule of thumb. Okay, thanks. Otherwise, yeah, very informative. Councilor.

I also want to thank you for bringing this forward. We I don't think we've ever had a class of buildings. I don't know, maybe you can tell us this. I don't remember us ever saying there are these are going on the city's register. Do we have any existing city register buildings? Councilor mayor we do not currently. So our inaugural nominees will be the ones that I mentioned in the last slide. There have been attempts in the past, but they've never made it to City Council.

Oh, awesome. I'm so excited that you. Thank you for getting this done. It's very exciting. And I think it's I want to just comment on the monumental tongue in cheek work that you must have done to get these things before us. So I'm very excited for this to go through. I also just want to thank you for calling out Clara Belle Williams with her full name. As I know, in Las Cruces, there are many monuments to Clara Belle Williams that don't actually make it clear who the Williams in the name are, so I, I appreciate that, and I look forward to that consideration as part of our of as part of our conversation. So I would love to hear more. When you present to City Council about the properties that are highlighted here, if that's possible, I think the community would love to hear it too. So thank you again for our inaugural class. This is really exciting. So thanks.

Councilor. Nothing for me, mayor. Thank you and thank you for the presentation. Mayor Pro Tem, thank. You for the wonderful presentation and suggestion. Since I resolve 50 years in available, revenues, I would like to thank you very much. So can. Do your presentation. That was a joke people.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. I. And again, partnering with the county to get some of these nominations and working together with the community is very important. So I thank you for that. I was looking for the old post office here. And when you said we don't have any, I thought maybe that was one that was already in existence or already registered mayor.

That one is on the state register. And I think, okay, in the future, we'll definitely be looking at that one to list on the local level. All right. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Next is. Geo Bond City.

Okay.

Good afternoon, mayor city Council, my name is Cynthia, Capital Improvements program manager. And today I have a couple of proposals for you related to the next cycle of 2026 general obligation bonds. I first want to start with really touching base as to what is a general obligation bond or general generally called Go bond. Geo bond, which is a voter approved financial tool that allows the city to fund large capital projects. So this is a great opportunity for us. The bond is secured by property tax capacity already in place, as this will be the third cycle that the city is doing. Go bonds. It is a voter approved. They approved the project. They it's not a tax increase. Every project is presented as a separate ballot question that will go to the general elections in this coming November. And committee members decide what gets built. Therefore, that's. It goes to elections. So on how we use the bonds. This past fall, we had multiple community meetings where we addressed the opportunity to learn from community members as to what capital projects, what infrastructure projects the community sees a need to. How can we prioritize a long list of projects that we know we have pending, given that we have the new funding source, but we also mentioned the existence of bonds as an option to fund projects. So this is where we are right now. We have identified a couple of projects that we would like to consider for the next cycle of bonds. We have identified four cost estimates. So then the next thing is to work as a city to identify those projects, refine those projects, move on with the ballot questions, refine

that project, work with community members, and work with city staff to make sure that we follow a process. If the projects get approved by council, the next thing will be to actually go to voters in the November elections. If the options are proposed that we propose are approved, then starting next year, we will process the funds and construction begins. We will have four years to complete the proposed projects. Then, tentatively in 2029, the new planning begins for the next round of projects. I first want to start with a recap of the first cycle of bonds that happened in 2018, so there were four approved questions and four projects that were completed within the cycle of this bond, we had 35.6 million. The first project was for park and and sport fields improvement, which this included the Hadley Rec Center. It included multiple courts like the Lions tennis fields. It also included Unidad Park dog parks and of course, the East Mesa Rec complex. It had the new animal shelter. It had fire station three and several trail improvements. The second cycle was in 2022. Here, we also had four approved questions and all of these four projects will be completed this year. We had Fire Station nine, where you see the picture of the art that was placed there, Park improvements. It was Las Park. We also had a ribbon cutting where we had restroom

and enhanced amenities. We continue projects in East Mesa Rec complex, which included basketball courts and of course we had affordable housing with Peach Tree Canyon, phase one and two. Phase one will have will be having a ribbon cutting this month. So again, all of the projects for this go cycle will be completed this year. So now for the next cycle. This is our new opportunity, an opportunity to allocate 26 million. This will be the go bond capacity, which is the money that we have available for capital projects. The framework that we use to identify the proposed projects is that we went back to those community meetings and identified projects from the top five raised by community members. We wanted to make sure that the projects proposed deliver high impact investment that serves residents across all age groups and neighborhoods. And lastly, we want to make sure that those projects are positioned for completion within the four years that the bond has to execute. So with that, this is the first option. It will be to have one project, the library expansion and renovation. This is a project that has been in the community conversation for a few years, years now. It is was listed as a top project in the last set of community meetings. This will include phase one and phase two of the project, which is the whole project. The library during that time will have will be relocating during the construction and will continue to provide services at interim

locations. Last year, the library staff presented the schematic design of this project, which is just the initial set of drawings. They have also have an adopted master plan and construction project documents are underway, meaning that for next year, the project will be ready for construction. The design and construction documents have been fully funded by Tidd Funds and from capital outlay funds from 2005 and a portion of 2026. So if we allocate the total bond capacity for this project, the library, that will be the 26 million. In addition, they have a remainder of 1.3 from this year's capital outlay and the recently approved 2 million from GR funding for a total of 9.3, which will allow the project to be completed. This project also will have the opportunity to have one high impact project for the community in this next cycle. Option two has a different approach. This will be to split the bond capacity in two projects. We will be phasing out the library in two phases. Phase one will include the new entrance, atrium, lobby and first floor renovations, with an allocation of 16 million with the existing funding sources. This means that phase two will have to be will have to keep an eye on the cost. And we could consider that as a second phase for the next cycle of bonds. Option two is multi-use gymnasium. Phase one. Community members and staff have recognized the need for additional enclosed space in

our city. Our current facility is completely maxed out as thankfully we have a lot of participants in all of recreation leagues, including basketball and volleyball. So for this approach, we would like to do a foundation work in identify potential sites. It could be 1 or 2. As we develop the need for that facility, it will include the land acquisition site prep and access improvements, which will be if needed, and a road to access the facility and its associated parking lot, among other things. This project will have 10 million from the bond capacity. Recently, council also approved 2 million for plan and design for the new rec center, so this will be applied to that for a total of 12 million. This option two will then advance to community priorities. Option three we continue with phasing out the library project with phase one. Same numbers apply. Same elements of phase one. But now the emphasis for the second project is general park improvements. As we know, our parks are heavily used by our community, but we also need to enhance them, and we need to make sure that the amenities in in them are upgraded and meet our standards. This project will have an allocation of 10 million for the Go bond, and the emphasis could be and limited could be in, could be included the young park. We also have a multitude of playground replacements that we need to do. We have several playground sets that are over 20 years. We also have the opportunity to remodel sport

fields and just enhance our parks overall. So this third option will also continue with past efforts in continuing to improve our parks across the city. Our next steps is after this work session. We would like to continue working with Council to ensure that we can move forward with preparing the ballot questions, which is the language that voters will see at the election. At the July 20th City Council meeting, we would like to present the resolution with the exact bond questions so we can meet the county deadline of August 25th to submit with the. Submit our documents in preparation of the November 3rd Election Day. At this work session, I would like for us to continue the discussion and get direction as to what community project we would like to move forward for the next cycle. As a recap, this year we have an opportunity to allocate 26 million for a community driven, high impact project. Option one is to get library expansion and remodel project, which includes phase one and phase two. Option two is to introduce two projects library phase one and a foundation work for a future multi-use gymnasiums. Option three again, library phase one with an emphasis in continue park improvements. So with this mayor and council, I would like to open up for discussion. Myself and staff from the corresponding departments are here to answer any specific questions you might have.

All right. Thank you, Cynthia. Appreciate it. We'll get to that. I just want to mention something. I'll go first then. So one of the things that I'm extremely proud of for the city of Las Cruces is that we go to the general bond, the general obligation bonds. We have fulfilled the commitment. When we put the question on the ballot, we complete things, as you can see in 2018 and what we've done with that, from the ball fields to the fire station to the animal shelter and the trails, even through Covid, the city was able to fulfill the obligation. And so for me, that's important to gain the trust and to make sure that we fill those obligations. What I see in our options, even though right now, I would say option one is for either of those so that we can fulfill the obligation and. And take care of things and not split our funding and give it to the finish line the first time around. That's, that's where I'm at. And I just want to share that based on not so much the project, but the trust in what we can do now the project is. Important because it says everything else that we're trying to get back to in this community. So I just wanted to share that on on I would be with option one. Anyone else? Councilmember.

Let me just say that perhaps the bias is because district one is the library, but option one is really the only thing I can believe in right now because of the fact that we have kind of let it go. And it is the only I know we have satellite libraries, I get it, but it is the only library that a lot of people recognize and see as a safe space for doing things that enable democracy and enable workforce development, enable just a generation of people understanding what literacy means for their lives. And there's nothing else I can really say that, that I know that a lot of other people with purple shirts in this room feel. But I think that's I think mayor has it right that it's we have to complete it. We have to do the things that make it a visible difference, and this will do it. So thank you.

Yeah. I concur, we can get that going. And it'll be great and we can deliver it. And then in the next cycle, we can pick another project and get it done and it'll be great and deliver on it. Councilmember says. Well, this is pretty.

Close to district one. So again, I fail to offer, I just want on the record that, and I'm not a fan of robbing the telephone or network, but I know I'm a fan of youth programs. I mean, these recreation programs, we have to bring them recreation and afterschool programs to Cruces. And I just want to thank the board for that. And. School programs and and trying to get that. I think that that I just want on the record that we've been wanting that fund for so many years, just keeping that. And we hope that you can get the census and for that and. Thank you. Council.

Thank you. Nope. I'm in agreement. Agreement. There's consensus. It sounds like across the board, I, I do want to say, having been through several bond cycles and I'm very excited and love many of the facilities which are also in district five. But I do want to say that we have done a really good job of, as they say, splitting the baby, not to use a horrifying metaphor, but we have done a really good job of getting things done as we as we do that. But I think our community, I think what you said, mayor, really about being accountable to our community and having a very concrete, visible sign that we're investing in all people, investing in our literacy, investing in our understanding, investing in technology, investing in a future for, for a range of different folks is a really powerful symbol. And so I, I just for the sake of doing something different for the second bond cycle, I really support us going all in for the library. So thank you for considering it. And I do think I do have hope and believe that we have a range of other funding opportunities that we can leverage to get those to, to get recreation facilities built as well. I have faith that those might be sooner rather than the next geo bond cycle. And I think I think we can figure that out. But I also support option one. And thank you for the opportunity to have this discussion. And and I would also ask if I know the folks are here to speak to to it. Even even though there is consensus, I suspect they might want to share their insight from the community perspective, but I would like, I would love oh, I hope you didn't change your mind, but I. But I hope we can hear from community folks as well. So thank you.

Councilmember.

Thanks, mayor, and thank you, Cynthia. I think that option one is the right option. I think it's an exciting option. One, high impact project. We haven't done that before. And you know, we've seen how difficult it is to do things in phases. So I also think it's just being responsive to what our community has very clearly said they desire to see. So I but I really also want to just appreciate staff for providing the three options because I think it shows additionally, the high need that we have in our community for different kinds of facilities that. That make a community, a community, right? Like, like these third spaces are so deeply valuable for so many people in our community. And whether it's the library or rec facility or more park improvements, all of those things are so important. And, and at the end of the day, I would just rather see us do get one project done. And so I, but I do want to thank staff for lifting that up and showing the community that we're being thoughtful with this process. And honestly, just for the community that's there, I just really want to thank you for your advocacy for so many years and, and getting us here. Thanks, mayor.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem.

Thank you. And I just want to thank Carol and her team for just creating a wonderful culture and what they've created within the ecosystem. One of the also the friends of the library and everyone who who is involved. Jen. I think it helped sway me. I knew it was the right thing to do. So thank you, I appreciate that while we're looking at the funding, one of our our financials to look at the staff to consider as we move down the road like. Having all abilities, all access park programing for young adults and for. Girls. Those are those are key public safety. So there's so many, so many projects out there that actually provide them the right way. And when we walk through our community and to see it come to fruition. So I, I can't wait to participate in the ribbon cutting. I have to find a nice purple shorts. It's not in my work. And I will get some purple soon. Thank you.

All right, Cynthia, I think you got the consensus. I think you. Yes, mayor. Thank you. So our next step, like I mentioned, the city will work together in refining and identifying the appropriate ballot language. We will work with communications to identify a plan so city staff can be on the same page, and they will help us promote or create the awareness of the upcoming ballot questions. We will then come back to you with the actual resolution to adopt the adopt the resolution with the questions and move forward to elections.

Okay, okay. At this time, I don't know if Carolyn, anyone from the library wanted to share anything else or speak on the project or anything.

Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor and Council. Carol Bray, director of the Quality of Life Department. This is a very proud moment for us just to hear your comments. We have worked very hard, as you know, to get this project to this point. We are almost at 50% with our construction documents, meaning that by the end of this calendar year, we should have our entire design and construction documents and be shovel ready. So I know our hard working friends here would like to say something. I think they will also help us get this over the finish line. Thank you for your support and this is going to be an amazing thing for the city of Las Cruces. Thank you.

Thank you Carol. Okay, anyone want to come up? This is anticlimactic, but I worked on this, so I'm going to do it. By the way, in this fiscal year, that's coming to an end, over 170,000. About to start. All over. Oh I'm sorry. Thank you for the record.

Yes, I'm just excited. Mayor city Council, I'm Jennifer Cry, just one of the people in the crowd. And over 170 000 people have access to the library in the fiscal year, online and in person. So when we want something that's going to have high impact, you know that this is one you can do so many things. At the library, I checked out a book on how to write poetry, and I'm going to share with you today. Now I have two poems. One I plagiarized, but I have no idea who to give credit to for the majority of this, roses are red, violets are blue. Funding is critical. We need you. Roses are red. Milk duds are brown. Renovate the library. ER, I'm in the ground. Then how to write? How to write haiku. Only three lines. Five syllables in the first line, seven syllables in the second, and five syllables in the third. This was a struggle for me. Council has vision. Library renewed serves us. Community wins. Thank you very much.

Mayor. Yeah. Thank you. Yes. I'm glad you're through. I, I. Knew it came from you. Yeah. Was there anybody else with, you know. Okay, well, we got a lot of across to the voters. That would be the next thing. And we'll need everyone to, to work on that. So. All right. Well thank you. Thank you. I think that's it for the agenda. So we'll take a motion to adjourn. Second.

This is on the motion to adjourn the meeting. Councilman McClure. Yes. Councilman Mattis. Yes. Councilor Harris. Yes. Councilor Bencomo. Yes. Councilor. Koran. Yes. Councilor Munoz. Yes. Mayor. Yes.