Council - Regular Meeting

8:40 – 9:41•EEEric Enriquez

in music and writings, participates in sing-alongs, and encouraging the flourishing of joyful connection, culture, and community. And whereas Musica del Aire will be giving a free hands-on intergeneration music writing workshop at Nopalito's Galleria, and a free public performance at the Hilton Garden Inn on Saturday, October 24th, whereas Musica del Aire will be sharing songs and stories at a local Las Cruces nursing home on Sunday, October 25th. Now, therefore, we, the mayor and city council of Las Cruces, New Mexico, do hereby recognize the power of music, literature, art, and culture to he

12:22 – 20:51•EEEric Enriquez

Next is the proclamation for Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Is there anyone here representing the group? Seeing none, I'll go ahead and read their proclamation. Whereas it is vital to recognize that domestic violence does not discriminate, to acknowledge this is also understand that it is our collective responsibility as a community to break the silence, challenge social norms and promote a culture of respect, love and justice. Let us be motivated and inspired to take action. And whereas La Casa Incorporated mission since 1981 has been to support individuals impacted by domestic violence b

22:16•EEEric Enriquez

Okay, there are no departmental highlights today, so we'll go to pets of the week, Jasmine.

26:16 – 26:30•EEEric Enriquez

All right, thank you. Next is a conflict of interest. Does any member of the city council, city manager, or any member of the city staff have any known conflict of interest with any item on the agenda?

26:38 – 26:49•EEEric Enriquez

Next is public participation. Katrina will usher you to the podium, allow you three minutes, no pending litigation or items on the non-consent.

34:27•EEEric Enriquez

Could you state your name for the record? Oh, I'm sorry.

1:11:08•EEEric Enriquez

Next is the acceptance of agenda. Move to accept.

1:11:33 – 1:11:53•EEEric Enriquez

Yes. So the first one for discussion is resolution number 27-070.

1:17:46 – 1:18:31•BCBecky Corran

No, I appreciate it, and I defer to the insight of our Parks and Rec Advisory Board. But I do just want to say that I think having a dog named in any of the trails, since we are literally dogged by dogs on trails, I would have objected to. So sorry, bulldogs. I don't actually know if anyone here is a bulldog, so they're not going to stand for that anyway. I'll see a bulldog tonight. I'll probably hear it from them. But I just want to say thank you for thinking about this, talking with the Parks and Rec Advisory Board, discussing the pros and cons, and having serious bravery to just say we can

1:18:39•CMCassie McClure

Just out of curiosity, what are some other names for trails that we got going on? Is there a unifying theme that we have already?

1:19:39 – 1:20:20•JMJohn Munoz

Thank you, Mayor. Catherine, thank you for your work on this. And thanks to the advisory board for the work they've done. And I know it was a... a spirited discussion. So it's totally appreciated. One of the things that as you work on, as I have mentioned and we heard today, these spaces are very important to young adults, to kids, to adults, and to our mature citizens. So as we're working through this, I just want to make sure that You keep in mind it's possible, and I understand it's a trail and a terrain, but also to be cognizant of ADA and all abilities, access to these trails. Thank you,

1:20:30 – 1:22:14•EEEric Enriquez

Well, thanks, Catherine. Yeah, somewhat of a dilemma, but as a responder and understanding location and direction and things like that, definitely a name has to be there. As a responder, I would be moving towards South Main because it gives a direction, but at the same time, that could change as we see our city grow and we talk about the east side, we talk about the west side, and now, Probably a lot of things that were in the west or east at one time are now central so I I would have to go with staffs recommendation on this and go with the heritage farm trail because We don't know what the fu

1:23:17•EEEric Enriquez

Next is resolution number 27-071. Move to approve.

1:24:29•EEEric Enriquez

All right, thank you, Isaac. Councillor Harris.

1:24:32•MHMichael Harris

Thanks, Mayor and Isaac. No real questions, just looking forward to getting this property and getting it cleaned up and using it for something useful.

1:24:49 – 1:25:12•JMJohn Munoz

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Isaac, for putting this together. I know it's speculative, and I appreciate your doing the appraisals and making sure that we're getting the best value out of taxpayer money. If it's speculative at this time, just tell me that. But if you can figure out what are some potential uses for this property?

1:26:22•JMJohn Munoz

Makes sense. Thank you, Chris. Thank you, Isaac. Thank you, Mayor.

1:26:48 – 1:27:01•EEEric Enriquez

Yes. Next is Item 7.3, Council Bill Number 27-010, Ordinance Number 3126. Move to approve.

1:41:54 – 1:43:52•BCBecky Corran

Thank you, and thank you to your team and doing all of the work. I know that this has been a lot of work related to this. And it will continue to be a lot of work, which is part of my, I guess, acknowledgment of how this is going to fit into all of the things that the team is working on. I just hope that's part of the conversation as ever, creating additional work. in in that context so thank you and also thank you for including city property i don't think we should make rules that that we exempt ourselves from so i really appreciate you including that and the other things that we talked about

1:44:57 – 1:47:24•BCBecky Corran

okay that sounds great so then the second question that i have is really kind of in the operationalization of this uh when in prepping for this i i went around my neighborhood to see the nat properties which i know nat and vacant are not the same but i those were addresses that i had in my neighborhood so i went to see all of the places um in district five my dog quit wanting to walk after about half of this adventure. But one of the places, there was a place that wasn't on the NAT list that I think would be on this list, a vacant lot. And it was noticeable because in a neighborhood where all

1:50:35 – 1:51:13•BCBecky Corran

Thank you. appreciate that and I just trust you all to sort of figure out the nuances of that and I don't I'm very excited about this ordinance I don't want it to have any unintended things happening like that would be more harm than good in the process so I really appreciate you paying paying mind to that and giving those examples and thinking about I think it sounds like a really labor-intensive like it's all about the conversations with people and that's a very long and intensive process. So I understand and acknowledge that and I appreciate and trust you all to really engage in those conve

1:51:19 – 1:52:07•MHMichael Harris

Thanks Mayor and Chris. So I'm also very excited about this ordinance. I think we definitely need to encourage the development of our properties and that'll just improve the city for everybody. I'm also happy to hear that you're ahead of me on the sidewalk ordinance so I can scratch that off my list and look forward to hearing more about that. I also agree with the one-year review. It'd be really nice to come back for another work session in a year and hear how this is going. And then I had just a couple clarifications. On slide 21, this might be a question for Henry, it's on the percentage of

1:52:29•MHMichael Harris

There might have been a typo in a summary email or something so. Whatever the ordinance says, that's fine. That might be part of our one-year review.

1:53:38 – 1:54:29•MHMichael Harris

Great. I'm I'm I'm fine with 1 15. I think that this is a very small quibble. I think the conversation was we didn't want people saying, well technically it's for sale, but it's double what anybody would possibly pay. So I think that's great. And then the other one was on the multi-tenant fees, that's like per building, not per unit. So if you have a eight unit building, five of them are vacant, we're not gonna charge $10,000 just two for the building Mayor Council Harris that is correct and yeah I think that's it thank you Councilman

1:54:30 – 1:55:11•CMCassie McClure

I'm gonna add to, I'm also excited about this one. I think we talked about this right when I started, honestly, because District One is so heavy with properties that seem to be abandoned that could be used for housing. I was gonna offer support for the one year as well, but then I kind of evolved into a question as I was sitting here. Is there any sort of time sensitivity? And let me back up a little bit. Some of the homes that we have in the Mesquite District are adobe and they're falling apart. So a lot of the conversations that the constituents have are we want to save some of our historic

1:57:16 – 1:57:42•CMCassie McClure

thank you the only other thing i would ask then too is to make sure that we do some sort of advertising to say have that conversation with us what does that look like and how can we help you from the city side to make this productive for housing for commercial for all these futures that we want to see in our districts so thank you i thank you did you have something no okay

1:57:43•EEEric Enriquez

All right, well, thank you, Chris. How many properties have been identified?

1:59:04 – 2:00:33•EEEric Enriquez

Okay, thanks. No, I apologize. Maybe that's when I stepped away. But This ordinance I feel strongly about because it's a proactive approach. And I view these properties as I've mentioned before, it's like at a traffic light. It's red, it's yellow, it's green. If we don't do anything, all these properties are at a red light. So I'm happy that we can do a work session in a year and see where those properties are at. But this is a proactive way to get involved with the property owners. As you mentioned, Chris, this starts up the conversation. then also all the exemptions and everything else gives

2:03:21•EEEric Enriquez

Thank you, sir, and I think getting with Mr. Faber and identifying some of those exceptions and things that can be done is part of the process.

2:03:33•EEEric Enriquez

All right, thank you. Was there any other members of the public? Seeing none, Christine.

2:04:01 – 2:04:48•EEEric Enriquez

Yes. Next is board appointments. There are none. Notice of proposed ordinance. It's council bill number 27-011, ordinance number 3127. Bring it forward. Next is city council board, member board reports and comments. Councilor McClure. Thank you, Mayor.

2:04:48 – 2:06:10•CMCassie McClure

I just wanted to give two shout outs. First was to Velo Las Cruces who held a bike mechanics workshop last week and helped me bleed my brakes. Super helpful. We got to talking to about something we had talked about earlier in the week. They have an active transportation advocates group. and talking about what a bike boulevard could look like on Hadley. And having that conversation with them from sort of a, what does that mean for us? And getting to the point of talking about biking as transportation, and a lot of times we don't talk about it in that way. So I know that that'll probably be comi

2:06:16 – 2:08:37•MHMichael Harris

Thanks, Mayor. So I have several things in no particular order. One, we had a good Transit Advisory Board meeting last week and heard a lot about what's going on. And in particular, I was struck by the success of our electric bus fleet. A couple numbers that I wanted to share is that It has cost us $4,300 per month approximately to run all 11 of the electric buses that we currently have. And at the same time, it costs $28,000 per month in diesel fuel to run the remaining nine diesel buses. So as we approach budget season and we're going out for grants and stuff, It looks like the more that we

2:08:40•EEEric Enriquez

Thank you. Councilor Garland? None. Mayor Pro Temp?

2:08:45 – 2:10:18•JMJohn Munoz

Thank you, Mayor. I also want to thank the Public Works and Parks and Rec's team and everyone who has put in some extra hours and extra effort giving our weather events recently, so that's totally appreciated. Also, I had an opportunity to attend a gathering called the Ideas That Inspire. really I really enjoy that mainly the speakers were were young adults were youngsters from middle school to high school and appreciated the ideas that were brought forth the passion that they came out one of the ideas and we'll have to talk some more Katrina it was actually about a student Council idea as wel

2:10:20 – 2:13:43•EEEric Enriquez

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. A few things I wanted to mention with board reports. I attended the Mavito, the Mesilla Valley Economic Development Alliance board meeting. They were happy to announce equipment share company coming to the industrial park. They're a national recognized company owning and operating heavy equipment and they also do innovation technology and training so it's a great thing for for our city and a lot of momentum going on the industrial park now with the canadian endurance coming in with the new mexico southern electrical institution being built there i know we're looking a

2:13:45 – 2:14:31•EEEric Enriquez

And Mayor, oh, okay. I was let out on good behavior. I'm kind of shocked. But no, it's a fundraiser to raise coats for our kids in the community, partnered with the Knights of Columbus and other partners in this community. It's a good program and event, and the links will come out. We'll get our communications department to also look into that and get a lot of sponsors and people willing to donate for that cause. And Chris, just wanna say we just agreed on the SHUC, so the clock just started. All right, with that, I'll turn it over. You have one other thing, Mayor Proctor?

2:14:31•JMJohn Munoz

Oh, Mayor, I also wanted to stress that we were locked up at different times, so there was no quorum, so we were good.

2:14:39 – 2:14:52•EEEric Enriquez

That's good to know. I think our city clerk was worried about that, but we were all in individual cells. So there's nothing anyway All right, I'll turn that over to Sonia to give the city managers report

2:17:05 – 2:17:24•EEEric Enriquez

All right. Thank you, Sonia. Again, it was great to have the air show and have it so well attended. And the weekend before, again, the whole Lynch Law softball tournament, which is always a great turnout and a good event for our city. So city, keep up the good work. Thank you all. And I'll look for a motion to adjourn.