City Council - Regular Meeting

Representative Fierro. Thank you, Mayor. Kelly, thank you so much for you, for your team. Each and every one of them, the strong union members that you have on your team. When you go out in the community and we go to events, there's always such a strong presence of El Paso Electric employees volunteering. And I had no idea it was 12,000 hours worth of it. And let me tell you, you all did a heck of a job at the Pride Parade. Thank you, Kelly, for all your leadership. Thank you.

Thank you Mayor and I wanted to just take this moment to thank your crew Kelly because there was a light pole in District 1 that got hit four times within one month and uh you know didn't uh affected the neighborhood quite uh severely because they were without power four times within one month your crew was out there quickly you act you like move the pole to a complete different location just so that it wouldn't get hit again and again so Your team is very responsive. I appreciate you taking care of our neighborhoods and our community. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Mayor. So I have the honor of reading this proclamation. I think there's a big crowd in the audience today. So it is a long proclamation. I will read it. No, it's okay. This is a major milestone ever. We got to celebrate it. And I'll read it and then we'll give you the mic. Proclamation City of El Paso Texas whereas the borderland Rainbow Center known throughout the community as the center was founded in 2016 to create a safe affirming and welcoming space for LGBTQIA plus people in El Paso and the borderland and for 10 years has worked to ensure that people have access to community

incredible uh represent nino thank you mayor and amber thank you for your leadership um it's it's always great to see when community comes together and the crowd that you brought with you the community partners really shows the type of leadership that you've brought to the organization into our community you're always just text message your phone call away and you always hold us accountable so thank you for doing that as well And thank you everyone who helps the organization. You provide a lot of different resources. I know Rep Acevedo covered a lot of different things, but you know, you do fo

Reference ambassador Thank You mayor and I just have a lot of love for you amber for Stan I think both of you have really step into these important critical Leadership roles and you're doing an incredible job and I understand that it's not all just you it's all the people that are behind you and you guys are leading them and working with them and you're in the trenches hand-in-hand with them and just really appreciate that I could always reach out to you and kind of figure out a solution when something's going on and I have so many I'm so grateful for both of you and all of you for showing up

Representative Fierro, real quick. Thank you, Mayor. Chris, thank you for everything you do. Thank you to my almost cousin, almost relative, but that's a whole other debate. But thank you all so much for everything you do on a daily basis. Chris, we didn't get the opportunity to introduce the photographer.

Representative Fierro. Thank you, Mayor. Welcome, everybody come down please. Whereas on June 26, 2001, the El Paso City Council adopted the City of El Paso Clean Air Ordinance to protect the public health, safety, welfare of residents, employees, visitors by prohibiting smoking in indoor public places and workplaces. Whereas the ordinance established El Paso as a leader in Texas in advancing the comprehensive smoke-free protections, demonstrating visionary leadership in creating policies that protect health of all who live, work, and visit the region. Whereas the ordinance was achieved throug

representative fiero thank you mayor you know thank you for that great description of what happened historically and i want to personally thank a former councilman larry medina who had the courage and the to champion this along with the entire except like with the entire 2001 city council it was a very courageous effort it was a courageous move i remember a couple years after you talked about houston following us austin followed us and after it was passed here and we got used to it i went to austin um a local food establishment that had some adult beverages. I left there reeking of smoke, whic

Thank you, Mayor. I'm gonna give them an opportunity to come up. There we are. Good morning. Good morning. Welcome. I'm gonna read your proclamation. Whereas National Deaf Awareness Month is observed each September to recognize the rich culture, language, history, and contributions of deaf, deaf-blind, and hard of hearing individuals, while promoting accessibility, inclusion, and equal opportunities throughout our community. And whereas access to effective communication is a fundamental right, and the promotion of American Sign Language accessible services and communication equity strengthens

Thank you, Ms. Prine. I make a motion to approve the consent agenda with the following revisions. Page 3, item 2.

Page 3, item 3, delete for purchasing and strategic sourcing. Page 10, item 29, revised for Capital Improvement Department.

Thank you, Mayor. And I just wanted to let the public know that there's been a lot of questions around item three, and it's being deleted. But Ms. Mack has sent out a press release as of Friday explaining more around that item. So I just wanted that on the record. Thank you.

Representative Acevedo. Thank you, Mayor. I think what's also kind of added to the confusion here is that it doesn't really say what happened. There's deficiencies, there's something that they reached out, cure process, but We're not really addressing what what happened and and I think this has kind of led to more people asking questions because we're not giving the best answers and I remember at least one other time that we were in this position and The PowerPoint the backup didn't say anything. It kind of just said the losses we could do this So we're doing this right and so I would just ask

Thank you. This is not unusual. I've seen it happen with the airport in regards to security contract where it was a long drawn out process and there was a plan shared with them they they worked it. It didn't happen it came back from the agenda then we address it then we had had we address any type of improvement plan with with this firm before.

So we're not talking about an unusual process or or or a way of doing business.

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Margarita. I think this is great for our community to ensure that we're equitable between hotels, short-term rentals, and all spaces that people can have access to. But I wanted to just touch base quickly on our audits. I know that you're not the city auditor, but I just want to put on the record that these will also be audited as all other hotels are in our community. I'm assuming the short-term rental tax that we collect.

Okay. Well, we look forward to that. Thank you.

I had the same questions, Representative .

Thank you so much, Mayor. And I agree, these are very worthy opportunities to support the community at large. However, I do want to note that since I supported the adopted budget, I do feel that it's very important for me to commit to maintain that fiscal responsibility on my end. So I'm going to respectfully decline to support these funding requests.

So this has been a long time coming since I've been in office and even prior to me being in office the community has been calling Lincoln Park Chicano Park and there have been many people that have used the park as we know it has a lot of rich culture a lot of rich history at the park and As we've been having different discussions throughout my time in office, we were kind of saying, how can we make this secondary name official primary name for many people? And so our Lincoln Park Conservation Committee has done an outstanding job for many, many years at the park, whether it's cleaning it up,

THANK YOU, MAYOR. I RECEIVED AN E-MAIL ALSO OR E-MAILS FROM A DIFFERENT GROUP, I'M SURE, BUT THIS IS FROM THE EAST SIDE. MS. MACK, WHAT IS THE PROCESS TO CHANGE THE NAME? THANK YOU. I guess my question is twofold. Is there a process? Was it? I'm sorry. I thought Ms. Limon was talking. My question is, is there a process? Was it followed? And can you please describe it if there is?

Thank you mayor and thank you probably for the explanation. I'm happy to support this item as well, but I do want to recognize the fact that I also received some emails this morning, I'm not sure why they were directed at me specifically, but just to recognize the fact that this particular person for example said that although that 59 people signed the petition to change the name of the park. That's probably fewer than the number of people that visit the park on any given day. Again, I know it's very hard sometimes for us to communicate everything that we're doing as a city, although we try ou

I'd also like to recognize that I received an email from Bertha Ontiveros this morning, and both my office and myself have sent her two emails within the last hour, kind of clarifying what happened here. So I would like to read what I wrote to Ms. Ontiveros. Thank you for reaching out. This name change has been something that many park users have wanted for several years. For a long time, many people have been calling Lincoln Park Chicano Park. As you know, there is a lot of rich history at this park. That history connects this park to San Diego's Chicano Park, which you can learn more about h

I know he signed up for public comment, but I want to give him some of my time. I still have eight minutes and 21 seconds. So I want to give him some of my time so he could explain a little bit more on.

well i i think i want to have that conversation with him mr prine i could do that can i we'll go ahead come on up hector i was going to give you plenty of time at the end to talk all about the great yeah i think it's just important for the context of the council members that have brought up the email to really explain this part because i know you probably prepared some remarks but if you could say why it's important that we don't postpone this today i would appreciate that because we want those signs up for the the 20th

And Hector, you're paying for the signs?

Okay. Thank you for that. And you could still do public comment when the mayor calls public comment.

Thank you. And I just wanted to say, you know, I really appreciate Hector really bringing this up on economic development and how that contributes to our community. Hotel rooms get filled for many different events that happen throughout the park So that's really important and just to also harp on the process a little bit more It takes 50 signatures from people that live one mile from the park, the radius has to be a mile. So that was a challenge within itself, because we, like you were saying, you had thousands of signatures and that was community wide, but it had to be within that one mile ra

Thank you, Mayor. Thanks, Hector. Thank you, Gabriel, for all the work that you all have done and the rest of the Conservation Committee. I was very happy to support the effort to add to the name. I think renaming is so, it just gives it a different understanding when we really are just adding to enhance what those of us that have been around and have taken part in several events, understand what the community really at large within not only the city of El Paso, but those that travel to come to El Paso for several of the events that are held at currently Lincoln Park. So I'm very happy to supp