Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Yeah, I'd like to call tonight's regular governing body meeting to order for September 9th, 2026. We will be led with the Pledge of Allegiance by Councillor Garcia, Salute to the New Mexico Flag by Councillor Chavez, Invocation of Remembrances by Councillor Chavez, or Castro. Please stand as you're able.

Pledge of Allegiance to the flag by Councillor Chavez.

Well,

Good evening to everyone. Thank you all for being here, for participating in this wonderful event that is our democracy. I had a very interesting conversation this week about the perception of this governing body and how we are working or not working together. And I, as usual, want to commend all of us for the hard work that we do every day, for the study session that we did yesterday, for the pieces of legislation that we'll be introducing tonight, and for standing with the residents of this city. We may not always agree, but we are doing the work of this city wholeheartedly and with good intentions. So once again, I want to start this meeting and this conversation with invoking What is collaboration, which is Santa Fe, a place where even though we're not able to always get everything we want, we find places where we agree and we're able to compromise. So with the sense of compromise and with the idea of that, let's move forward together tonight. Muchas gracias.

Are there any remembrances that we're inviting members of the show? Seeing none, let's just take a moment of silence to remember those that are in need and need our support. Thank you, everybody. Madam City Clerk, can we get a roll call, please?

Yes, Mayor. Councilor Bustamante?

Here.

Councilor Cassett? Here. Councilor Castro? Presente. Councilor Chavez? Here. Councilor Faulkner? Here. Councilor Fegelli? Here. Councilor Garcia?

Here.

Mayor Garcia?

Present.

Mayor, you have a quorum.

Thank you. Next up is approval of the agenda. Any changes from staff?

No changes from staff, Mayor. Motion to approve. Second.

We've got a motion to approve and a second to any discussion. Hearing none, Madam City Clerk, can we get a roll call vote, please?

Certainly, Mayor. Councilor Bustamante?

Yes.

Councilor Cassett? Yes. Councilor Castro? Yes. Councilor Travis? Councilor Faulkner? Yes. Councilor Figali? Yes. Councilor Garcia?

Yes.

Motion passed.

All right. Next up, we've got approval of the consent agenda. Any items pulled that were reported to you, Madam City Clerk?

No, Mayor, no items have been pulled for discussion.

Last call. Governing body members? No. What's the will of the body?

Motion to approve. Second.

We've got a motion and a second. Any discussion? Hearing none, Madam City Clerk, can we get a roll call vote, please?

Certainly, Mayor. Councillor Cassett? Yes. Councillor Castro? Yes. Councillor Chavez? Yes. Councillor Faulkner? Yes. Councillor Figali? Yes. Councillor Garcia? Yes. Councillor Bustamante?

Yes.

Motion passed.

Thank you. And next up is presentations. Will you, Madam City Clerk, please read the first presentation into the record?

Yes, Mayor. First presentation is the general plan amendment. And it looks like we have Mr. Don Esquivel here to present.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you members of the governing body, Mayor. We have a quick presentation to give you a Santa Fe Forward general plan update. With me today on Zoom, we have Joel Cruz-Haber, who is a senior planner in the current planning division, who's currently a project manager of this, and from WSP, Manjeet Ranu, who will also be making the presentation to the governing body right now. Manjeet, are you with us? You are?

Yes, Sam. Good evening, Mayor, Councilors, and Dan.

Go ahead.

Thank you again for the opportunity to be here to provide this update on the visioning and framework steps of the process toward comprehensively updating the city's general plan. We were last before you in January to provide an update and a preview of what has been prepared for tonight. So we'll be talking about the about Santa Fe Forward, its mission, vision and strategies, frameworks and the themes we got from the most recent engagement period, and then next steps for the project. So our approach again to Santa Fe Forward is recognizing that it is an advisory plan under New Mexico law, and it's intended to be aspirational to express what the present should be and the future to attain for Santa Fe, and that it needs to be something that's useful, a plan of action to guide both public and private and partner and institutional investments in Santa Fe by is, and part of the policymaking process is to understand those trade-offs and to set those priorities in line with this community, ultimately with the decision made by the governing body. And the other Key part of the general plan is that it will inform the city's department work plans and align how services are delivered with this umbrella general plan. And to ensure that that's most effective is that this plan would be concise so it could be usable daily and very clear language and graphically laid out. One of the things to always emphasize as part of this effort, since there's a concurrent initiative to update the land development code along with the general plan and the coordination that's occurring between both is that the general plan is policy focused and therefore advisory. And so it's less detailed because it's much more broad in purpose versus the land development code, which is regulatory and mandatory. So it must be much more specific. So the draft mission of Santa Fe Forward, so the purpose of the general plan update is this statement here, faithful to our heritage, focused on our present and forging our future, Santa Fe Forward shapes the city different, sets priorities and creates opportunities for all. And the aspirational vision that's been drafted for Santa Fe Forward states that Santa Fe supports- Hold on one second.

Were you intending to share a presentation or just- Is it not sharing?

I'm sorry, folks. Let's try it again. Is it working now?

It's starting to load, yes.

Okay. All right. Let me just flip through this real quick so you can see it from the beginning and for the record. I apologize. panelist mode. So this is what we're here talking about today, the mission, vision, strategies, and the frameworks and how we're going to get to the finish line and the overview that I mentioned. And then the approach to Santa Fe Forward about it being an aspirational plan and one of action that can be used daily and is distinguished from the Land Development Code, which was much more specific and regulatory versus the general plan being policy oriented. And I walk through the mission statement, which is the purpose of the general plan, and then mention the aspirational vision statement here as Santa Fe Forward is both present and forward-looking while being mindful of Santa Fe's past. Now, we've caught up with the screen sharing this time around. Again, sorry about that. There are eight strategies that have been identified based on all of the public engagement that's occurred since the onset of this initiative in September of 2024, and also the technical work that was done that's available on the assessment report, which is on santafeforward.org. And these first two on the screen here are about people and housing and history, culture, and the arts. So one of the key strong themes that, of course, the governing body is familiar with is the sense of urgency about addressing housing and ensuring that a variety of attainable housing types are available for current and future residents and that they're much more affordable in range than exist today. And then, of course, Santa Fe is a great center of history, culture, and arts and wanting to support that and nurture it and make sure that it is one that broadens the availability of contributors to also be innovative and further express the strong arts culture in Santa Fe. These next two strategies are about engagement and governance and the Santa Fe, like many communities, but especially in Santa Fe, very much values how it engages with the community and to ensure collaboration for efficient delivery of services across the many government agencies and partners that exist. And for education, social and economic opportunity, Diversifying the economy has been a key theme throughout this effort and what can be done to provide that direction here with these strategies to diversify the economy. These next two, nature, sustainability, and resiliency, Santa Fe is in a beautiful setting. And the key theme, of course, is to enhance and preserve what makes Santa Fe special and also the resources that Santa Fe needs to thrive while it's adapting to climate and socioeconomic changes and community services and essential utilities. The city is a municipal corporation, provides many essential utilities, and there are other providers that also provide services for supporting Santa Fe as a community and its economy and ensuring that these strategies work to provide the best services possible for its residents and businesses and visitors. And these final two strategies and the outcomes that are associated with these are about transportation access to opportunity. A very strong theme that we keep seeing through this process is to ensure that transportation choices are available and that when you make that choice, It's a safe option to use and how that can also improve socioeconomic opportunity and placemaking in Santa Fe. And finally, the eighth strategy is to continue the wonderful pattern and design flexibility that exists in Santa Fe and making that more easy to attain throughout. Santa Fe and also distributing activities that are more accessible throughout the community and therefore guide quality public and private investment to address needs and opportunities throughout Santa Fe. So these are the eight strategies that are an outcome of the engagement and technical work and represent Next are these frameworks. So the frameworks approach is to help start to break down the work that has been done with engagement and the technical study into more of a spatial look at the city and how we can start to set those priorities and also establish where change and investment is is uh areas that could meet best meet santa fe's needs and opportunities so as part of the prioritizing public and private investment these three areas of established areas enhancement areas and investment areas were identified through the process to show where the focus could be in throughout santa fe using this construct of these three frameworks here now Just because it says established areas, investment areas, and enhancement areas does not mean that it's exclusively about how you see it written on the screen here, but those reflect the existing conditions in Santa Fe and projections for looking forward. and therefore where to emphasize, but every part of Santa Fe will be planned in a way that it can contribute to maintaining how it is a healthy community today while also addressing the needs and opportunities that exist. And then from that prioritization framework, there are three frameworks that start to provide some structure to the city based on what's on the ground today and some changes that could improve and strengthen Santa Fe for all. So connections has to do with mobility here, where there is a strong movement across the city, along Cerrillos and airport, and also making those connections regionally. and then making what we call community connectors into the neighborhoods and business districts that provides for safe and healthy connectivity so people can get around Santa Fe comfortably and safe safely as well. And you see, too, that there are these equity priority areas as part of the assessment report. We looked at areas of Santa Fe that were most at risk for displacement for socioeconomic reasons. And therefore, there are these overlays that align to what we saw in that assessment report and study. And we'll provide additional policy guidance to make sure these areas around Airport Road and Hopewell Man receive the resources to stabilize and support those neighborhoods so there's a strong action The next is places framework. So this is about three strong places throughout that are accessible throughout the city. Of course, everyone's familiar with downtown and a very, very strong place there. And then the emerging. place at Midtown that has synergy with the Siler Rufina area across from Soria's. And then looking at how the south side could have its own special destination place. And so that has what you see there, these three strong places in Santa Fe where residents and visitors to the opportunities that exist in Santa Fe in these areas of the city. Lastly is this resilience framework. This is about both resilience regarding nature and also the economy. So there are these natural features that are mapped in that lighter green. The darker green has identified areas that could accommodate meeting the needs and opportunities of santa fe and the defining edges around santa fe and how those contribute to the identity and and success of the community today so these represent opportunities to look at bold moves and all these frameworks are helping to support the development of what will be the plan map and There has been a lot of engagement throughout Santa Fe Forward beginning in getting prepared for that in September of 24 and really launching that in January of 2025. There's the formal community partners program where organized group that represent underserved communities are intentionally resourced and supported so they can work with their networks to contribute to Santa Fe Forward. There's a technical working group that has been established to provide, based on lived and worked experiences, feedback on the technical nature of the plan. And of course, the planning commission in its advisory role and other city boards and commissions that have been all participating in this effort. So the engagement theme, so in July and August, there was a public comment period on the vision framework and the spatial frameworks themselves. And the overarching theme is people are anxious to see the plan. These are components of the plan that are helping to define it and break it into bite-sized pieces so there's a natural progression to when we develop the full plan. So that is the main takeaway, is the excitement of seeing this plan come to the finish line. The specific themes, of course, are housing and wanting to see more homes and expand choices and growth and investment to clarify where the growth and investment should occur. And there's a lot of conversation about making sure all areas of Santa Fe contribute to its current and future needs. and mobility about infrastructure that supports more than just moving automobiles and goods efficiently and effectively but moving people and other ways of rolling and moving across the city safely and comfortably and sustainably And nature being a good steward of the natural resources and the outdoors that makes Santa Fe a special place. And speaking of a special place is to meet those needs that exist today and tomorrow while retaining the special qualities that is Santa Fe. And then wanting to see that the community, wanting to see that there's this plan can be trusted to deliver what's committed to it as a policy document and aspirational document so that the public and private sector deliver results tied to santa fe forward and in fact there will be an implementation action plan that will come after action on santa fe forward so in terms of next steps toward the finish line this fall there'll be a public engagement period that will look at the character frameworks or the different types of essentially land use designations Throughout the city, there are 12 that have been prepared now, and so those identified rather, and the full preparation of those character frameworks will be provided for public review along with the vision framework map, or what's commonly called the future land use map. But this vision framework map will be more detailed than just land use. And so that'll be this fall. And then in the winter, meaning December, January timeframe will be the finish line appearing where a planning commission will be asked to make a recommendation to the governing body, which will then take action. So that's a quick overview in the time allotted to provide an update where things are at. And we look forward to engaging with the governing body again. And Mayor, back to you.

Thank you so much. Any questions from the governing body? Councillor Cassatt.

Thank you so much, Mary. Thank you so much for the presentation. I was hoping you could go into a bit more detail around the difference between a vision framework map and a future land use map. I know in some of the conversations I've had with people involved in land use and planning and development, et cetera, et cetera, there's been a lot of conversation and interest in the future land use map because it really does dictate what can happen, where and how. And so you mentioned this is going to be more detailed, and I would love to hear more about what that would provide in terms of opportunities as well as restrictions.

Yes, thank you, Councilor Kacik, for asking that question. So the 12 character frameworks that have been identified and are in the process of getting ready to go out for public review this fall have three main components. One is to address form, so the physical design form of those character contexts, character frameworks, rather. Another is about function. So how do they actually work? What are their activities compared to the rest of Santa Fe? And then the last is about investment. So those three, form, function, and investment priorities, comprise those character frameworks, which you could think of in the past as land use designations, but these are more. Because Santa Fe is not a blank slate. Yes, it is growing. but it's not a blank slate. So how do we focus on working within the context and what's on the ground in Santa Fe while also addressing tomorrow's needs? And so those character frameworks will then be applied on the map at a parcel level to show what the emphasis is or the key theme for each of those 12. And they'll be flexible. So, for example, housing will be allowed in just about every one of those character frameworks. The ones that you would expect would not would be preservation oriented of natural resources. And so that's about how we're approaching the character frameworks. So those apply to the map, to the vision framework map. And I apologize for all this terminology, but we are doing our best to make the terminology as simple as possible. But then we're going to add layers to that map, annotating it essentially. So showing where these community connectors should be to focus on investments to make those safe and comfortable for more than the automobile, to show where the major movement corridor is and how do you invest in moving vehicles and goods and transit along those corridors. And then calling out areas where there's great opportunity and annotating that all on the map. So it's not just a map of color, but it's a map of form, function, and investment with these other layers that are on top of it in a way that's annotated. So it's a long answer to your question, but it really is intended to show an aspirational vision of the form, function, and investment priorities in Santa Fe, and then guide the land development code to prepare zoning districts and land development regulations accordingly.

Okay, interesting. And I appreciate that. And I'm happy to hear that the land development code should hopefully build off of that. Because one of my major pet peeves has been when we, you know, have to rezone something that the future land use map has already said that we want this zone. I have, I get very frustrated about that. Because I, you know, the general plan in theory is supposed to be the policy that's driving chapter 14, not the other way around. Um, I've heard, and they're slipping my mind precisely, there's been some, I know, criticisms around the way the general plan has been moving forward. I'm curious how those voices are being brought in at this time, what those collaborations are looking like. Sometimes it's just simply, you know, people want this to move faster, but just curious how some of those community engagement pieces are going with potential dissenting voices and how you all are learning from that and being able to, you know, apply and have those conversations. Because I think a lot of times it's just a matter of sitting in a room together and having an understanding of what's happening.

Yeah, great question too, Councilor Cassett. Sometimes those dissenting voices result in change right away. body says it's final by taking action on the plan so we do this public engagement as a transparent check-in with the community and its key stakeholders and of course as part of what we're doing today with the governing body as we've done with planning commission and the technical working group so sometimes those dissents are what we want to hear and we make changes accordingly So there's going to be a difference of opinions, particularly when that map and those character frameworks are out for public review. And we're actually going to call out areas where we think there's going to be a good, fair debate about what to do in certain parts of the community. So the engagement process, the robust engagement that's been done for Santa Fe Forward since really kicking off in earnest in January of 2025, with engagement has been informing this process carefully. Ideally, we'd love to see 100% consensus. And when we bring that to you and the Planning Commission, but policymaking, there's generally some disagreement and that's okay.

Yeah, and I appreciate that. That's actually one thing. There's been a number of topics that have come up recently that I found it really helpful to hear what the different viewpoints are. There's something being presented to us, and then there's voices that were like, hey, we don't like this, and understanding what those are because they're not always brought to our attention. I think it's really... a helpful way for us to think about it. So I'm happy to hear that. I'm happy you'll be calling that out and I'll look forward to hearing more about those conversations as this moves forward. My last question is to do, I've mentioned this before, we have so many plans in the city. And they touch on every single, you know, strategy that has been called out. And I was really happy to see the economic development strategic action plan was, you know, part of this process so that we do see that alignment. But just off the top of my head, we have transit plans, we have multimodal plans, we have our sustainability plans. We have park plans. I mean, I just want to make sure that these various plans are being considered. I have a sneaking suspicion that this will be a can of worms that will maybe discover, hey, we actually need to probably revisit some of these. But I want to make sure to the best of our ability that we don't have two plans that are contradicting each other and the general plan saying one thing and our multimodal plan saying something else. So can you tell me a little bit more about how those existing plans are being assessed? For one, are they still current? You know, economic development had last been touched, I think, in 2008. And two, how are they informing some of the decisions that are going into the general plan you'll be presenting us?

I appreciate that question too, Councilor Cassett. So when we prepared the assessment report, which is quite in-depth and very comprehensive, those types of more functional master plans were considered as part of understanding the existing baseline for Santa Fe and what to work from. and what is perhaps not meeting Santa Fe's needs and its opportunities as well. And also in a lot of cases, these are more detailed plans. And so those details are separate with the general plan. So I would imagine that a lot of these existing plans are probably still relevant. In other cases, they're going to need to be changes made because the general plan is the umbrella advisory document for all of Santa Fe for its form, function, and investment priorities, and will be used to help link the city's operating and capital budgets And so, you know, again, I would expect to see that there's some changes that will need to be considered as part of implementation. And the implementation action plan will develop in the first quarter of 20, first calendar quarter of 2027. Then the governing body will see what those priorities are for implementation and how those might affect some of the existing functional master plans.

Got it. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. And it makes sense why some communities call it a comp plan, a comprehensive plan, as opposed to a general plan, because it really does encompass a lot. Again, if these are things that you guys are able to call out to us to say, hey, this doesn't necessarily align or this aligns very well as we're getting those reports, I think that's really helpful for us to understand some of the future work that we may need to undertake. to make sure we're all rowing in the same direction. So, but thank you all so much. Really appreciate it. Very excited that we'll be getting this presented to us by the end of this year. Thank you. Thank you.

Any other questions from governing body members?

Not seeing any.

So Madam City Clerk, can we move on to the, thank you to the team for the presentation. Truly appreciate it.

Mayor, because we have a very, very long night, I'd like to call for the 10-minute rule.

Okay. When we come up, if there's comments or questions, we can do that. Let's go ahead and move on to the next presentation, please, Madam City Clerk.

The next presentation is the Mayor's Homelessness Summit Report. And here to present is the Community Services Department Director, Sandy Emery.

I have the, oh, there we go. Hello, Mayor, members of the governing body. Thanks for having me tonight. I'm here to discuss the Mayor's Homelessness Summit and the report from it. But before I get into the meat of the summit, I really want to kind of look behind me and probably embarrass the staff of the Youth and Family Services Division and ask them to stand up quickly. The Mayor's Homelessness Summit happened... I would clap longer and louder, but that's perfect. Thank you. The Mayor's Homelessness Summit could not have happened without everyone you see behind me. And I am going to do my best to present their hard work tonight. So Grace and I also might look back to them to ask them some questions because they are the experts and I'm up here to share the work that they've done. So thank you guys. And in addition to the Youth and Family Services staff, I really wanted to thank the mayor, members of the governing body, and also the other departments that helped put this on. This was something that we haven't done City, as far as I know, and it really took really cross department coordination. Gee, thank you so much. All of constituent services, our comms team, everyone. It was a real, true, monumental and group effort. So thank you guys all for your participation in that. And thank you to mayor and council for letting us do the work. So the summit occurred on June 29th, right at the end of the fiscal year at the convention center. We had over 300 attendees. So the summit was a both day two part event. We had a daytime event that was focused on providers and leadership from throughout the community. and an evening event where we invited members of our community, the general public, to come and learn more about issues of homelessness and for their voices to be heard. So it was a pretty ambitious agenda, and we managed to get through it. So we had, obviously, community members, elected service providers, housing experts, behavioral health partners, you know, you name it. And what we wanted was to be sure that we weren't wasting anyone's time. We didn't want to have a summit for the sake of getting everyone in the same room to talk about things and to then say, okay, well, we're done. We solved it now. We wanted to have outcomes from each breakout session, each event. So we wanted to advance a collective impact vision. We wanted to strengthen the homelessness response system. And we wanted to work to stabilize existing services and scale the solutions that we have in community. So each breakout session, there are eight of them, were meant to, they're all cogs in the wheel of the homelessness continuum. So again, a pretty ambitious session we had. We had providers from all of these different areas come and speak to their level of expertise. And again, you know, this summit was really meant to be a community catalyst, right? This isn't solving everything at one time, but we're springboarding into strategic planning around homelessness and really working on solutions that will lead us into the future. So these eight program areas are all areas of the housing continuum that we wanted to and meant to address. So first, we have emergency shelter and transitional housing. What the summit work group established is that everyone who attended agreed that expanding the low barrier shelter capacity is a top priority for our community. We understand that we have Over 500 people on our by names list. We have very visible homelessness in all areas of our community. And expanding low barrier shelter is really a top priority. In that, there was also a lot of discussion on ensuring that we're using a connected referral approach, such as Unite Us. Sometimes it's called, you know, Note. No wrong door. So anyone who is in need of services can access services and provider groups are working together to ensure that those all available options are available. And you'll see as we go through this presentation, we do have time frames, which are also pretty ambitious, on all of these work areas. So one of the biggies is finding an appropriate facility for congregate sheltering. We understand that our facility at 2801 is not suitable for the work it's currently doing. And that's where we could really use some community support to in finding a suitable location to have congregate living and really meet the needs of our community. within the prevention and diversion work group. We really talked that, so this started with a short presentation from the Chainbreaker Collective. They discussed their eviction prevention efforts within the community and how they advocate for their members. And then From that, the session participants broke into two groups to discuss potential next steps. So there were a few things that came up. One of them is regular and recurring funding streams for individuals and supportive services, deployment of eviction prevention funds, which Youth and Family Services is currently working on, connection with the Connect Network and the cash assistance available there. Increase of tenants' protections and strengthening our internal or our city policies. That includes, you know, enforcement of those protections where policies exist and the introduction of legislation that could potentially create an office of tenants' rights. You know, you'll see that's, you know, plus 12 months because that is, you know... That is big dreams, something that it would be wonderful to look at into the future. But so, yeah. And then. we had a breakout session. This was the largest breakout session in camp and management and outreach. So like I said, there's a lot of visible homelessness in our community and it is the tip of the iceberg of what homelessness really looks like in this community, but it is the thing that impacts most people emotionally and in many other ways. So there were 37 people in that breakout room. And in that session, there were small teams that reviewed different policies and plans from other areas so that we as a community could learn as a group from what other communities are doing for that. And so the plan for encampment management is that we are looking into an encampment management policy. We're going to continue to work on it as staff and bring it before a governing body. And really the, with the goal to create consistency and equity and how encampments are managed in the city and to really better resource and use our resources. Right. Um, so looking at them through, you know, a public health lens, as well as, you know, ensuring that, you know, there's, we're meeting all of our needs for safety and environmental safety. In our permanent and supportive housing work group, the group created the definition of housing first, which is in this blue box here. So I'll read it to you all. Housing first is an approach that prioritizes getting people into stable housing as quickly as possible without preconditions of sobriety, treatment, participation, or other require. So, you know, with permanent and supportive housing, you know, that... That's something that Fabulous Shop really works closely with, but it is part of the homelessness continuum and part of what we're working on as a whole city. So we'll incorporate these definitions and the priorities into the five-year strategic plan and really look at what those expanded landlord partnerships could look like. A little photo break. And then we have supportive services and behavioral health. So this was also a very well-attended group because I think that many providers that attended really understand the need for supportive services and the deep behavioral health needs that we have in our community. So a lot of the conversation. So the session started with a 25-minute presentation from the county on their behavioral health initiatives, including the Behavioral Health Study Connect and La Salle Crisis Center. There was also a presentation on Connect as one of the most important city and county collaborations that we have. the impact of connect really can't be understated, and there was a lot of consensus on that in the group. So following the presentation, the group was broken into tables where they would identify one coordination gap they experienced between behavioral health and housing, and one concrete opportunity to strengthen those connections. There's a whole list of them, but the top four are wraparound services for life skills, MAT, community inclusion, transportation. The second one is an increase in case management training and support for case management. Next, of course, transportation services from shelter to services, huge need that actually our transit department is really working on too. So not to leave them out of this. And then Really, the last of the top four is a focus on everyone using the Unite Us Connect platform to ensure that we are all using the same system and we are coordinating as best as we can. coordination and infrastructure. So that's a really important piece right you know, we see how well providers work together to address the needs of their clients and the greater community that's, I mean, what they are able to do with the limited resources that they have available really is just phenomenal. And while we can't do that and be as nimble as our providers can in government, what we can do is we can support and uplift their collaboration. So coordination and infrastructure was really focused on the opportunities that the city has to continue to serve as the bridge to support this work. And so there's, you know, we have, we're working on creating a dashboard, cross-sector coordination, and really making sure that we are doing our best from our vantage point to meet the needs of our providers. Because they're doing the hard work and they're doing it really well. And there's only so much they can do with the resources they have. So the better we can support through coordination, the better we can support them. And protection and advocacy. So we have convened a cohort of individuals with lived experience of homelessness. One important thing in this work is that there's often a lot of people in rooms making decisions for people who who are living through something or have lived through something and their voices really deserve to be elevated in a way that is meaningful and doesn't serve to further marginalize them. So in the protection advocacy group, we had a cohort that was able to share their experiences and we are continuing to convene that cohort so we can learn from them and elevate their experience in a way that is meaningful and supportive. And last, this is the biggie. This is where we send it back to the community a little bit. So, you know, with community backing, you know, what we understand, like I just said a couple of slides ago, our provider community is amazing. They do really phenomenal work and they're passionate. And so a lot of times what happens is they'll take on more and more and more and then they there reaches this critical mass point, right? So the more our community can, and the more we can also educate our community in matters of homelessness, strengthening neighborhood partnerships, organizing volunteer pathways, there are lots of different avenues to garner more community backing and really, you know, help our providers with that piece, right? So they're not, you know, in addition to doing the hard work that they're doing, having to do the additional work of, you know, navigating community perceptions. So we want to do a really good job of, you know, allowing our providers to ask for help when they need it and also doing our best to set them up with community support and educating our community on these services, so. And finally, so this is just a top page there. We have immediate action steps. We have action steps for zero to three months, all the way through 12 plus months in the full report, which will be shared with council and the larger community. So I just shared the top ones that are actually, you know, already in process. I'm happy to say and very proud to say, because like I said, this crew behind me does an amazing job of getting the work done every day. So, you know, we really want to be sure that we are using what we've learned at the summit, putting it into action with a strategic plan, but also not waiting for the strategic plan, right? There are many things that we can take action on right now. That makes sense to take action on. And where we can, we absolutely will. So thank you. And just some up-to-date statistics too. You know, I mentioned the by names list. So just a really brief little... Statistic update in June 2026, there were 566 tracked homelessness individuals, slightly down from what was reported in April during the summit, which was 578. And then between January and June of 2026, Santa Fe is averaging about 564 tracked homelessness, homeless individuals per month. So that is a large chunk of our population that we want to make sure that we are providing the best for. Thank you.

Thank you, Director Emery and team. Any questions from the governing body? Councillor Faulkner.

I would just note, I think it's pretty common knowledge that I am a huge fan of continuum of care. And that I do think until we have a continuum of care campus, we're going to be, this is going to be an uphill battle for the city of Santa Fe and for our homeless community members. And so I am personally vested in working towards getting a Continuum of Care campus somewhere in Santa Fe that provides wraparound services and provides a space where we can have a low barrier shelter and then transitional Continuum of Care help through the process and then transition people into housing throughout the city. And so that's something I will be working on diligently.

Thank you, Tom.

Councillor Kesset.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, everybody. I know this was a huge lift, and it's always a challenging issue. I mean, we're, of course, not the only ones struggling with it. Just to clarify, Sandy, you just gave information on our average tracked homeless per month. Tracked, I'm assuming, means on the by name list. And can you remind me, and you may not have these numbers on right now, how many of these individuals are currently in shelters? I mean, because this includes people at Consuelos, at CLC. Do you have those numbers of who's agape? Yeah. who's camping somewhere.

Thank you, Mayor Garcia, Counselor Cassa.

We actually do. I love that. Thank you. I like numbers. My name's Jasmine. I'm the data and policy manager. I just wanted to share from the coalition, the by names list currently is undergoing revision. So we do have the number that we shared for our average actively homeless population. And at the summit, what we shared for the breakout between the unsheltered and the sheltered was a 60-40 split. So about 60% of that 578 number were the unsheltered and then 40% were sheltered. And we're in the process of getting more updated information on that as well. Got it. Thank you so much.

I really appreciate you having that information. I also want to follow up. There were, you know, there were already some initiatives underway that, you know, we were, that I'd love to get updates on that I hope we're continuing to move on. I know that we're moving forward with Richards and we've gotten some great updates there, so thank you. But we did also, you know, pass a resolution stating we wanted, you know, some pallet or micro communities, keep changing the name, um micro communities in i guess it'd be districts uh one and three at that point two has one is that still something that we're looking at sites we're moving forward with those we have these palettes just hanging out in storage we should use them thank you mayor garcia counselor castro or sorry casa i was counselor castro shaking her head yes because she just received an email from me this morning

So staff are working to identify locations. District 2 is not excused, as a matter of fact, even though we do have the Arroyo Tomiso site. So all District 3 counselors and youth and family staff have been in pretty good contact on identifying a spot. The counselors have a vision for the micro community they'd like to see in District 3, and Districts 1 and 2 Yes, wanted to. We're looking there. And I'm really glad that you brought that up because it was in my notes and I skipped it. That's where we really could use support from our council, from leadership, from the community. The community knows spaces better. So there are certain things that make deployment of a micro-community a lot easier. One of them is pavement, to have a paved parking lot. We do, like you said, Counselor Cassett, we do have the pallet shelters ready to deploy. So as soon as we find a space in each district, as long as it meets the criteria, definitely we are looking at our faith-based partners for that too. An accessory used to a faith-based organization is one of the least restrictive pathways toward deployment. So thank you for bringing that up and questioning that because we definitely are

working on that full full steam ahead because we are hitting that three-year deadline great thank you i appreciate that and then the other two that i always bring up as you know city has has locked in and committed consuelos uh and we need to figure that out i just want to stay as a counselor you know i think this is something that the city me personally i'm only one of But, you know, we need to commit to making sure we stood that shelter up. It has been extremely successful. I want to make sure that we are not in a position where it's closing. So whether that's renovating a site, finding a new one, and then of course Agape. And we are on a timeline for that. And as demonstrated by these numbers, we can't lose beds at all. I mean, we have to add them, not lose them. And so I know Councilor Faulkner has had some success in looking at areas for the continuum of care campus, which potentially could help with especially Agape. But do we have any updates on what is going on with making sure that we are taking care of these two projects that that are ours and that we really want to make sure that we don't lose them in the process. Thank you, Mayor Garcia, Councilor Cassatt.

The answer is not a great one, unfortunately. We're looking at our inventory of what we own. We're looking at, you know, what could potentially be for sale in the future. Obviously, there are some bigger conversations happening with the county around some shared sites. But as of right now, unfortunately, the factual answer is that we don't have sites identified for either of those, you know. um, really important and vital services.

Okay. I mean, that's, as I've said a thousand times, if this were easy, we would have solved this one already. Um, especially Pete slash Agape. It's, you know, that's been on the radar for a while. So, um, I look forward to hopefully getting some updates, you know, as always, please reach out, let us know how we can, uh, assist with that. Again, I think Councilor Faulkner does have some ideas, so I encourage you to go chat with her, but, um, You know, when it comes to Consuelos, you know, I'd keep it on Midtown if that's our only option. You know, my support would be there for that project. So I just want to put that out there that it's highly important, whether we move it or re-renovate, you know, I want to make sure that we stay true to our commitment to both of these shelters. So thank you so much for all your work. And I know there'll be more updates.

Any other questions from Governor Garcia?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Director Emery. Just kind of a couple of things that I've picked out of the presentation that you have in regards to timelines. And we know how slow things move. I mean, you take a look at emergency shelter and transitional housing. And you have a 18 to 24 month window of opportunity to try to address this. Okay, I'll be close to the end of my term, which I'll be history by then, because who knows if I'll be up here still. You look at permanent and supportive housing. Oh no, not that one. The supportive services and behavioral health, you have a 24 to 48 months period for that. These seems to be some of the obstacles that we're facing because, you know, we, I'm not a huge proponent of housing first because I do realize people have to be stable. They can't be stable if they're not stable and We have to enforce laws and enforce communities and we have to take care of those communities that they reside in, obviously in our own districts, in the city altogether. So the timelines for these should be parallel. And they don't seem to be parallel here. So my personal recommendation and suggestion is how do we make them work like this? Because if we don't, we are setting ourselves up for failure. Just providing a space for somebody to stay. Yes, we are being good human beings by doing that. However... we're also setting them up to not be successful in their own habitat. And so I think those are the things that are very, very concerning to me. You know, I made a note, 564 was the number. Of those 564, how many are actually... willing to transition into a stable environment? Because there's a lot that aren't. And I know there are a lot of people out there that just, they will just want to be on the street. And then it ends up into our area of enforcement. And then, you know, we know where that goes. So do we have an idea of how many people of the 564 are even or capable of being self-sustaining in an environment that we're going to provide for them.

Thank you, Mayor Garcia and Mayor Pro Tem Garcia. I want to make sure that I'm answering all of your questions. So if I'm forgetting any, just remind me. But I think as far as the parallel tracks for behavioral health and permanent supportive housing, what we're seeing and feeling very acutely in particularly in Youth and Family Services, which is the division of the city that works to address these issues, is that behavioral health needs are increasing far more rapidly than funding is available. If you look at any of the RFPs that have been released in the last couple of years, the application of need has just skyrocketed past the amount of funding that we as a city have available for these services. Um, and as, as many know, you know, the federal funding landscape is not supportive of this type of work currently. So, um, you know, looking at the timeline of going up to 48 months for behavioral health, you know, that's looking at, you know, what, what's going to happen for that funding landscape, what, you know, the impacts, the longer term impacts of Medicaid cuts that things like that are happening in real time right now, we don't know. So, you know, the long runway around behavioral health support has to do with the fact that we're in kind of unprecedented times where things are shifting really rapidly. So, you know, I know our providers are working to meet and fill the needs as quickly as they can, but also, you know, things are changing pretty quickly. As far as individuals who are unhoused, but their interest or willingness in becoming housed. I think actually, and I don't know if she's still here in the back, Jen Lopez shared back in 2020, I think, a statistic around the time that a person spends unhoused and what that means for them getting into permanent housing. I think if you ask anyone who is living in conditions of being unhoused, they want to be housed. But I think that's where that behavioral health need comes in, where we need a lot of support to get them the resources they need to be ready. It's not a matter of want so much as what we can provide to get our community members who are unhoused where they need to be. Is there a third one? I'm sorry.

That was pretty much it. And I'll move on to my other question. I'll just give you an example. I encountered two individuals who I had a conversation with over the last month. just want a place to stay because they're going to either be out of, out of the ability to rent a place for whatever reason, where they're currently staying is terminating or changing into something else. And another person who is just on the streets. And then I know these guys personally. So they need access to talk to people about, to get them into places. But I'll move on to my last question, which would be, do we have any potential places that are going to be a suitable building or facility to replace the 2801? Because obviously, it's huge. And personally, I would rather it not be a low barrier shelter. because that's where we have run into very many issues. So just that question.

Thank you, Mayor Garcia, Mayor Pro Tem Garcia. Again, the answer is that we don't have that location identified yet.

Thank you, I think that it's something that we really need to work on identifying.

I agree.

We'll be having to create a facility somewhere.

Email me your suggestions. Community and Council.

Yes, thank you. I know it's a huge lift, but you know, aside from federal funding, I think there's a lot of support from the state just getting them to to understand and comprehend that they could help to and working with them. So thank you very much.

Any other comments?

So one thing that I would suggest, and maybe you're already doing this because you're really good at your job. I have spoken to several cities. I've been studying this since I got elected. There are cities that are doing continuum care response to COVID. identifying facilities, working with the private sector to help fundraise. There's a list of things that other cities are doing. They're willing, and I've talked to the city managers and the director of homelessness in Albuquerque, they're willing to give us their entire programmatic packet about how to manage this stuff so we don't have to reinvent the wheel. And what I found interesting in my research is that other cities want us to be successful because then they will not have to take on our issues eventually so i would suggest you reach out to albuquerque and you reach out to las cruces i can tell you that if you speak to ancorum interfaith um I forget what other organizations. There is a property that has been identified that would be successful. And it is the right size. All of these organizations have been looking for this space for years, like two or three years. And there is a space, and we can talk about that offline. But I do think there's also a lot of interest from... very wealthy people in having legacy projects and helping the city of Santa Fe. And so there is private funding available to help with this as well. And so maybe you and I can talk offline, but there is a very promising opportunity And there are people who are outside of the state and outside of government who want to help with this. And so not only can we easily access programmatic things and all the ordinances we would need from other cities who are willing to give it to us and all we have to do is make it Santa Fe appropriate, there's also private funding available to help with this cause. And so I get really anxious because this problem is not going to get better in 48 years. or however many months we're looking at to try and solve this problem. And there is a possibility that we have an answer at hand. And so I've talked to the mayor about this. I think a lot of counselors know about this. From my perspective, we already have an answer and we already have templates. And so maybe we can have a conversation offline about this, but there's more opportunities than waiting for the state to help us or waiting for something to just appear. There is one opportunity for certain that is viable. So I'd like to talk to you offline on that.

Thank you. Mayor Garcia, Councilor Faulkner.

Councilor Chavez.

Thank you. And I always talk about this because it's a reality. Just because you don't see the problem doesn't mean the problem's fixed. And I'm sorry, but Housing First in New Mexico is hiding a problem. These people, these individuals have... significant needs that we're not addressing because we have a broken behavioral health system but nobody talks about that so we have individuals with housing but they're not independently sustaining that housing we're not actually addressing their need um i think there's maybe cities in new mexico that have models that have made the problem less visible but i would argue that that problem is actually addressed and i say that because all of the research around housing first comes with very, very intense wraparound services. That is the only time Housing First has been successful. In all trials included in the research that backs Housing First, wraparound services are... are so very much present, where in New Mexico, that is not the case. Those practices or those services are very limited. We talk about funding like housing or providing housing i always say like it's a band-aid right but we're not addressing the root cause and for whatever reason we don't make a lot of noise about the root cause which is like we do really have a behavioral health issue that is um spiraling out of control and then we're putting pressure on municipalities about house them house them house them and there's no funding to actually give these individuals the help they need so you know There's a lot of work on homelessness, the housing summit. All of this work is really important, and it puts a lot of pressure and a timeline on city staff. But I just want to emphasize the reality that we do not have enough behavioral health services in New Mexico To support the success of any of these programs. It's just not not existent. So we could talk about addressing homelessness. We could talk about addressing housing, but it has to come from the state and it's not a priority. A lot of this state is really focused on. And making a very real problem less visible. And I just have to emphasize that I, you know, have experience with behavioral health. I've advocated for kids. It takes me six months to get help for someone. And that's me advocating for them. That's me searching, that's me having connections. Like this problem is real. We have 564 people, high percentage of them probably require pretty intense services. It is a non-existent in New Mexico to the degree we need it. So I think like that's the shift that we need to start having in our conversations. And in all honesty, it's really outside of what we can offer. We're funded by the state. Behavioral health requires a lot of funding. Providers aren't in New Mexico for a reason. All of this is out of our control. So I love the timeline, but I also want to say until the state makes behavioral health a topic that should be emphasized to the extent it needs to be, No municipality is going to find success in addressing this problem. New Mexico is going to continue to be in the state that it is and it's going to continue to grow. The behavioral health concerns are outgrowing. Every other need that we have in front of us, and there's a reason to that. And it's really frustrating. I feel like this work is amazing, but I am sad that it will be compromised by the reality that we're not funding the right thing. And there's not much we can do as a municipality. I think we need to acknowledge that and say that enough. There's not a lot we can do. We have great community partners. They're also funded federally and by the state. So if the federal government and the state government aren't prioritizing behavioral health, We're not going to get anywhere. And the community needs to understand that. So this work is amazing, but I wish you guys had the baseline support you need to actually ensure your success. Because those of us that know the magnitude of the behavioral health problem realize like these are our best attempts, but really it's just hiding a problem that's going to take place in a house, which is not really helping an individual. So I just want to emphasize that. Thank you.

Councilor Castro.

Thank you so much. So wonderful topic. I think this is a very important conversation. Thank you, Director Emery, for the presentation. And I'm excited that all of us were able to be part of the summit in particular because I think we're modeling the housing summit on that. So kudos to you. Though I agree that I think that we don't have enough services in behavioral health, we're sort of having a sidebar in saying we are actually a very wealthy community. And that's one thing that I want to underscore is that, yes, as a municipality, we could do better on getting more fees, on making sure that we're covering our costs, but we're also not in this alone. And so I'm not going to call out any individual funders, but there are lots of funders that are potentially not using their dollars in the most effective strategies and potentially have caused a little bit of chaos in our service provider community that has also caused us to not be able to provide the services we want. Behavioral health and service provision is a policy decision. Where we spend our dollars is a policy decision, yes, at the state level, at the municipal level, but also in our public-private partnerships. And so I think it's really important that, to Councillor Chavez's point, we cannot do this alone. And we are calling to all of our partners out in community, organizations, funders, even private donors. To Councillor Faulkner's point, if you want to have a legacy building and you want to build us this giant space, welcome. But I do believe that as the capital of the state, as a place that we ultimately want to feel that we are welcoming and that we're taking care of our own, it is our job to provide as many services as humanly possible. Thank you.

Thank you. Counselor? Anybody else? Counselor Fugali.

Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, I think there's a lot that we need to do, clearly. I personally think that the Housing First strategy is great. I don't understand how we are asking people to be sober, to look for jobs, to do any of these things. without having a place to sleep that feels safe. So I realize there are lots of challenges, but as a first step, I think Housing First makes a lot of sense and has done well other places. So I realize it's not going to fix everything, but it does... especially in a place where you need thousands of dollars to get into housing. How are you going to get that if you don't have a place to live? How are you going to get a job? How are you going to be sober? How are you going to get any sleep? So thank you for working on this. I really appreciate all your efforts. The timelines are very ambitious, but I am hopeful. If anyone wants to donate some buildings to us, please talk to us. So Thank you.

Or parking lots. Yeah, or parking lots.

Councillor Bustamante, then Councillor Kessler.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Director, for the presentation and you and your staff's hard work. I don't want to really get into this right now because it is a bit of a holy war, as we found out. But during the discussions with ARU, there was some discussion about overlap. and just exactly how much overlap should be between service providers. Again, turns out it was kind of a landfill, but I just want to make sure we're looking at that as we proceed to say that, you know, especially organizations that we're giving money to, you know, are we paying for duplication of effort across the board? Is it just, you know, with one or two providers and how much of that is necessary, I guess? Yeah.

Thank you, Mayor Garcia, Councilor Bustamante. I'm happy that you brought that up because I think one of the things to remember with our providers is that they do collaborate together very well. Unfortunately, there are... you know, like as we're talking out about really complex behavioral health needs, you know, any one individual can have needs, whether behavioral health, basic health and safety, that one provider can't meet, right? So while, you know, we want to make sure that you know, on the contracting side, we're not, you know, funding to organizations to, you know, to buy apples. Right. But we do want to make sure that, you know, if there's two different types of apples that are needed for, for, for a person in need that we are, are meeting those needs. So, you know, it's, it's a little bit of a, it is a little bit of a landmine because we don't want to be duplicating services for sure, but we also, part of that is the role of, you know, as we're entering into contracts that we have, you know, really good safeguards around that and that we have an understanding of what the providers are doing so that we're, you know, that there there's not a perceived um duplication of services so that we can actually as staff who are investing our city taxpayer dollars that we can articulate hey this is this is not a duplication of services and here's why thank you director uh thank you thank you mayor um

I just I want to I appreciate Councilor Chavez bringing up the role of other government entities and the challenge that it poses for us. I think this has been really important that we we bring this up in a lot of different areas. I think I've mentioned this in homelessness and housing. a lot of what happened is that over the last 40 ish years, it's about Reagan. Um, a lot of our social safety net programs have been cut. Um, and public health, we used to say, you can blame everything on Reagan. Um, a couple of things on Nixon, but mostly Reagan, um, but, um, So obviously they would have that viewpoint. But I do agree with Councillor Chavez that we are in this detriment of we need other governments to invest in this. And we know the federal government is they're not playing in this field. There are some moves that have been made at the state and I think getting some updates and maybe having, you know, bringing somebody from the state so we can understand what happened with the, you know, they have their behavioral health investment funds that they've, you know, and they have their, the teams across the state, I think it would be really worthwhile for us to be able to have these conversations with them to say, hey, here's what we're seeing on the ground here. How do we collaborate with you? How do we align our efforts with where you're going to put funding? Or actually, how do you align your funding with where we need to put our efforts? So if we could arrange some of those conversations, I think that that would be really helpful. Thank you, Mayor Garcia, Councilor Kasich.

The city actually is engaged with the BRIA work, the SB3 BRIA work. So we are working. The plan is actually has been confirmed by the state. I believe I sent it to council, but I can send it again. So you can be sure. I miss things. I apologize. Sorry, that wasn't a call out moment. That's okay. I appreciate it because it helps me search my email. Yeah. And it helps to reshare too. So, you know, the updates that you get from my department alone are endless. So I can put it to the top of your inbox for all of you. That money is being invested. There is a plan for it. um and so i welcome you and and it's also available online it's on the county website i can share it with anyone who is interested so it is it is readily available online as well as well as like the sims mapping that led to the plan wonderful wonderful thank you i appreciate that and thank you for for resending that um and yeah i just say this to the public you know we of course need to do as much as we can um and we have a number of other priorities that take our funding as well

And so please, of course, continue to reach out to us. Tell us what you're seeing. Tell us where there's opportunities. But you have representatives at other levels of government. Put some pressure on them, too. They have larger coffers than we do. I wanted to make sure that we are all on the same page out is what does housing first mean? Because there's a couple different models. There was a model where you simply gave somebody an apartment and you left them there and there was no support. There's housing first plus where it has the wraparound. So when we're talking housing first, what does that mean? And what is the process by which somebody gets there?

So thank you, Mayor Garcia, Councilor Cassatt. So in the permanent supportive housing slide, one of the things that we did accomplish at the summit was that shared community definition of what housing first means in this community. So and I'll share it again. It's an approach that prioritizes getting people into stable housing as quickly as possible. without preconditions of sobriety, treatment, participation, or other requirements. So it is very much oriented around getting someone into housing first so that they can have a safe place to sleep, rest their head, and working through the other pieces as they come. And I agree, very comprehensive behavioral health support is 100% necessary to make housing versus success.

Okay, thank you. Because with that definition, I don't hear that component being explicitly called out. That it is not just, you know, let's give you a safe, and then, you know, you're on your own. Um, it really does require that wraparound service. Um, and it does require, you know, those different types of supports. Um, and that piece when it has been missing has failed. It also, you know, there's conversations around, um, and I actually have really, really wonderful conversations with, um, Michelle over at Consuelos about, um, What does it mean to make sure somebody's making progress? And what is the responsibility on the individual? How do you provide them with a safe place to land But also, you know, there's expectations there. And it doesn't mean that there's, you know, harshness or we're kicking you out in three months, you haven't done anything. But there is, you know, a lot of opportunity for, and everybody's at the different stages of change and, you know, all the jargon that goes into all of this. But I do think that that is another important component, that there is a responsibility that the individual has. We want to give them this opportunity. We want to give them support. We want them to be successful. And they have a responsibility towards it as well. That's my two cents on housing. Thanks, Mayor.

Any other comments or questions from governing body members? What I was going to mention has been a lot covered. You know, SB3 and staff is definitely working on this. This is resources we are going to go after. And this is a big reason why we're developing the action working groups with this joint city-county project. And so I'm looking at Councillor Garcia, Councillor Kasher, and Councillor Faulkner, please, as we work towards establishing common goals with the county, make sure that that is a focus as well as those conversations. You know, conversations with Albuquerque are happening, and staff, we've been to Albuquerque, you know, I'll be meeting with Mayor Keller and mayors of North Central New Mexico tomorrow because this is, whether it's homelessness, crime, these are issues that are not impacting one community. And At the mayoral level, we're looking at how can we ensure that we're leveraging each other's resources to ensure that as one community is successful, we're not pushing, you know, unwanted activity into our neighboring communities and so This is a whole regional effort that's starting to take place. We're at the initial steps. As mentioned, it's going to require a lot of funding. SB3 is not going to be able to cover it all, but it will be helpful. And I think this is where having kind of that common sense approach in regards to collaboration happens. Leveraging of resources and ensuring that there's not duplication or competition of resources will help us as we work to address these social issues. These are social issues that didn't just pop up last week. They just didn't pop up five years ago. They've been compounding over decades. And as illicit drugs such as fentanyl come into our community, it only makes things worse. And this is where we need to ensure that we're addressing this issue with compassion, but also with strategy and ensuring that we're not only working to help folks you know, lift themselves up. And we work to lift ourselves up as a community. But most importantly, we're holding ourselves accountable in regards to the goals we want to set. So lots of work. I appreciate everybody's engagement on this. It's going to take every single one of us helping with the lift, every single one of the person in the community helping with the lift. And, you know, I know that folks want to see change within the next three months. But as exhibited by some of the goals that were set, especially with behavioral health. These are issues where these are a complete reconstruction of the system that need to take place. And that is the whole intention of SB3 is it's restructuring our behavioral health system in New Mexico. Because far too long, what we've done is we've pointed the finger at Reagan. We've pointed the finger at former Governor Susana Martinez. What we're doing is we're not... taking action ourselves and stop pointing the finger and setting up the systems that ultimately need to be rebuilt. And I think we're starting to do that. Lots of work to come. And I look forward to working with all of you on this. So with that, thank you, team. And thank you to the team sitting there. With that, I don't see any other questions. Let's go to move on to the next presentation, please.

Next presentation is the Benalus Lamplighter update and here to present is Andrea Phillips, Deputy City Manager and Jen Lopez from Project Moxie.

The floor is yours.

Thank you very much, Mayor Garcia, members of the governing body. Just pulling up my presentation here, if ITT could help. There we go. It's like he's already on it. So it's showing on my screen.

It's coming out. I know it's bad when he's coming out.

While Michael's coming to help get this on the screen, I wanted to introduce Jen Lopez with Project Moxie. She has a presentation that she's going to go over on the lamplighter, Bella Lou's project. And then later on in your agenda... And then later on in your agenda, you do have an item, an executive session, where you can talk more about the proposed forbearance agreement and get advice from the city attorney. Thank you so much.

There we are. Hi, good evening. I know the mayor stepped away. And council, it's nice to be with you tonight. My name is Jen Lopez. I am going to take a moment to introduce myself and some of the work that I do. I have a very personal connection to this room and this community. I went to UNM, and I got a planning degree. And my first job was as an affordable housing planner for the city of Santa Fe. So I started my career here. I've been doing it for 26 years, and I've been back in New Mexico for about nine. And so again, my kids were born here. My in-laws are here. So I have a very special place in my heart for Santa Fe. I run a small consulting firm, and we work on homelessness to workforce housing across the continuum. So I really loved the conversation before I stepped up here. It was really heartening. So you're on the right path. um anyway we i'm based in southern colorado but our work is in new mexico and colorado which allows us to kind of understand two systems which is lovely and right now our clients in new mexico include las cruces albuquerque santa fe county taos county and uh four set in san juan county we also work with two foundations and the office of housing I want to walk you through some good news. Do you want some good news? We have updates on the Belaluz project. We had some challenges closing the project this spring. We'll talk about that. But we think we found a path forward. So we would like your help in moving forward. Thank you, Marcos, for all your help. I haven't met you yet in person. Thank you so much. So I'll walk you through that framework. I'm going to talk a little bit about low-income housing tax credits. I'm going to try to hit the right amount of information because it's a very complex program and I don't want to put you to sleep. And then we'll talk about sort of the timing and the next steps. so i was brought into this project in 2021 which a long time ago right lots of staff changes on both sides um and at that time i had a relationship with the new mexico coalition and homelessness because i'd been doing a lot of supportive housing work with them and quorum called me and said hey would you help us do another motel conversion we really like the santa fe suites model we think we should do another one And at that time, motel conversions were pretty new. And so I was working on one in my own community. And so anyway, I said yes. We helped select a developer to do the conversion of a motel. At that point, we didn't have a motel selected. But we chose JL Grey, Jeff Curry. And then we had a number of project funders. And again, I love this model. And it's kind of what you were talking about before. How do you get a larger group of stakeholders together so it's less of a lift? So that's what happened with this project. I also had Marisol Atkins, who's a friend of mine at the time, she was new to me, who did a lot of the engagement with the community. And so, again, I think you all are really good at community engagement. Again, it was the lamplighter to begin with. It was renamed as Bella Luce in 2022. And again, this was sort of a best practice in 2021. Take ARPA, American Rescue Plan Act funds, convert motel rooms into housing. And it sounds really easy, right? So we'll tell you what happened. Again, the development team, which was Ancorum, and I'm standing here today as Ancorum's housing consultant, was Ancorum, again, the developer, city and county giving us feedback on how to think about the project. But we thought, there's one-time funding at the state. Let's get our hands on it and let's do something. From 2022 until 2026, the development team continued to package the deal, go through land use changes, get the permits, do all kinds of things. And we were preparing to close this spring when there was a gap identified. Again, whenever you have a project delayed, you're going to see costs go up. So we had a $2.3 million gap this spring, and Coram asked me to start convening the stakeholders again to help fill that gap. And I am so proud to say that the county, the city, Thornburg came together, and you were able to close a $2.3 million gap in a month. So again, I think this project is a really good example of how to pull stakeholders together to do something. So we were ready to close. Unfortunately, DFA let the team know in March that the $4.2 million, they had the wrong deadline for expending the funds, and they had to pull them. So that's another story. We're not going to go there. But the team saw how much work had gone into the project, the fact that it was permit ready. We said, is there another way to fund this? So in March, is this a good pace? I talk fast and I've had cappuccino. Okay. Anyway, so Jeff Curry and myself, we started working on, could this be a low-income housing tax credit funded conversion instead? Took us a couple months. We did our research. again we did not want to waste this opportunity in a community that needs how so much housing so uh we're happy to say that we uh i'm gonna show you why we think this is a nine percent tax credit and how we can proceed with the project The low-income housing tax credit program is the most popular program in the country to provide affordable rental housing. It was actually created by Reagan. Isn't that crazy? So he did one really good thing. No. And so it's been around for 40 years. It's a process complex and funding program to use, but it's well established. Again, when you do a tax credit project, you find a developer that knows how to do tax credits and you bring them in. The tax credit program is a complex process that basically provides a tax credit to a private investor, typically a bank, They invest in the project because they're investing those equity into the project that can be between 50 and 70% of the costs of the project, you borrow less debt, which means you keep your rents lower. So that's the simple mathematics of a tax credit project. That make sense? In return for getting this equity, the developer says, I will keep my rents low, right? And then there's lots of compliance with this program. funny story in 2021 if we knew what we knew now then we would have just done a tax credit back then but back then tax credits were harder they've gotten a little bit easier and that that's another story too but they're easier now than they were then and again this is really the only financially feasible approach we see in the near future to activate the site and get housing Again, the program is administered by Housing New Mexico. It's very competitive. They have scoring criteria. We've scored the project a couple of different times. We think the project not only demonstrates and meets baseline eligibility, we think it's going to score well because of where it's located. It's right on Cerrillos. It's got access to transit. It's a reuse, et cetera. And again, because it's a known program, ARPA was not. So there was a lot of things that we couldn't control with state ARPA funds. This is like you apply, you go through a process, you get an award or you don't. So it's a much more known process. Again, the concept for the project, 59 units of housing. It'll be a mix of studios and one bedroom serving households between 30% and 60% of area median income. So think about rents that are between 500 and 1100 a month. Not great and and you all provided funding through arpa we were allowed to do a little bit higher household income, but with the tax credit program it'll be a little bit lower. The need is always at the lower income so we're excited about that again it's an adaptive reuse of an existing motel great location it hits a lot of the different scoring criteria. But 20, 20, so something about housing, we have the worst acronyms. They're just awful. Anyway, so this thing called the Qualified Allocation Plan is the plan the state puts out every year, Housing New Mexico puts out specifically, that says, here is what we care about in terms of affordable rental housing in New Mexico. So they just put that out a few weeks ago and solicited comment, and we still are scoring well with the changes that they're proposing. And again, it's because of who we can serve, the incomes, the location, adaptive reuse, commitment to long-term affordability. So JL Grey has been incredible throughout this process. They're a New Mexico organization. They're primarily known for property management, but obviously they do development from time to time. Jeff is ready to step back and have a more experienced or deeper pocket developer come in and help get this to the finish line. And so working with Jeff over the summer, First thing we always do when we're working with tax credits in New Mexico is we try to get a local developer, right? So we talked to Yes Housing. We talked to Ed Romero at Santa Fe Civic. They both have their own pipelines of projects, right? So TWG is currently working with Santa Fe County on the Nueva Ezequiel project. They happened to reach out this summer looking for their next project. And we said, boy, do we have a project for you. Anyway, they're national. I'm going to share a little bit more about them. But what I think is really important is Jeff and I modeled the project as a tax credit, thought it looked good. They did too. And they said, you're right. This looks good. So their leadership reviewed the financial projections and gave an approval for them to move forward as a developer as of late August. In order for them to move forward with this new financial structure, we need a forbearance agreement to be executed. And I'm going to talk a little bit about that. And then again later tonight, you'll get to talk to Marcos. A little bit about TWG. Again, the orange is where they cover. They have a concentration in the southwest. And they actually did a motel conversion for me in Durango. All of our projects, we usually RFP out, et cetera, et cetera. So when they suggested they would be interested, I got excited because they do have the experience both with tax credits with motel conversions in Santa Fe, in New Mexico. So I thought, well, I think they can pull this off. I don't know how many of you have seen this and maybe you have from planning commission moving forward to council, but I wanted to show you what their current Nueva Secchia project rendering looks like. So you can see the quality of the project. This is a 159 units senior family. It's an intergenerational project. It's gonna be really cool. And it's the first time in the state of New Mexico we're able to combine two different tax credits to do it. And so again, I just wanted to show you the quality of the work. This is the residences in Durango. This was a Best Western. It's actually built. I just haven't taken a picture. But you can see the Best Western in the front. We were able to convert 71 units and then add another 50. So it's about 120 units total. So again, they know how to do this model. Okay, what is this forbearance agreement, right? So it says, hey, Bella Luce, you said you got these resources from the city and the county to provide affordable housing and you missed your deadline. And we're willing to give you time to meet that deadline, but only with certain conditions. So again, you'll get more details later tonight, but it allows us to bring in TWG and allow JL Gray to step out of the deal. It confirms that the obligations don't change, even though we're using a different financial model. It describes when it would terminate. So it terminates if we're successful funding and building the housing. It terminates if we're not successful, right? So there's conditions. And then it describes an orderly workout if the project does not receive funds within two years. And it protects the city and county rights in the project. It is a three-party agreement, city, county, and Belarus. And again, there's been multiple meetings between the city attorney and the county attorney and GL Gray's attorney. Project timeline, we're hoping to get the forbearance agreement negotiated by the end of September. So I've got a couple of date things here a little off, but why do we need this to happen now? The first tax credit round is January. So again, the only reason we can move this fast is because we've got our permits, we've got our numbers, we've got developer knows what they're doing. TWG wants to start packaging that application, but really has to have the forbearance agreement executed in order to have that they're not wasting time or money. And again, that'll give them three and a half months to get their application in. Once the forbearance agreement is signed, there's a couple other steps. We're gonna work with Santa Fe County. They're gonna help us have property tax exemption, which makes the operating of the building sustainable. There's a small gap in the project. We'll be looking for gap funding once the tax credit awards go through. And then if we were awarded next spring, the financial closing and construction would be end of 27, early 28. The forbearance agreement asks for two shots at LIHTC, and that's pretty common, because it's a very competitive, thank you, it's a competitive program. And so we think we're gonna have a really good shot in January, but if we don't, we wanna have one more shot at it. So we're very excited because this should happen. It could happen with support. I know that was fast, but I also know you have a packed agenda, so I hope that was helpful. Do you have any questions?

Questions? Councillor Castro.

No, just a great thank you and a quick comment. All of us, I think, on this day have been really worried and invested in this project, so this is great. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor.

Mayor Mrakas, Anybody else up Council cast it sorry.

City Council Chamberson, I think i'm i'm really excited I always hear about light tech, and thank you for explaining this i'm hopeful that we'll be able to utilize this to understand more how the city can take advantage of this so. City Council Chamberson, Thank you for for. I mean, I thought this project was dead. So this was a very lovely surprise tonight. Thank you so much for this work. And thank you for your expertise and really excited to see this move forward. And thank you. I know Andrea and Marcos, you guys were very involved in

trying to figure out how to save this so really really want to give you all kudos and i'm sure many other members um uh of various teams so um thank you this you guys i'm blown away so thanks so much thank you counselor thank you mayor for coming to the first meetings i know you were like who is jen lopez and why does she keep bothering me then you figured it out but anyway thank you and um also to heather lamboy for helping with permits so

Happy to join in on the fund. Any other questions? Well, thank you for the update. I truly appreciate it. Councillor Garcia, we're on to the question portion of this presentation.

Okay. Well, thank you.

I truly appreciate the presentation and update and I think we'll have a further discussion and executive session. Thank you all.

Sure.

Councillor Faulkner.

City Manager, do they all get gold stars?

okay with that being said madam city clerk next item on the agenda please next item on the agenda is action items discussion agenda 10 a is a request for approval of a budget adjustment request in the total amount of one million dollars from the half percent capital grt fund to fy 27 services contracts to support city enterprise systems and i will um Promote the ITT Department Director, Eric Candelaria, and he will answer your questions.

While we're waiting, I can make a motion, Mayor? Sure. Move to approve?

Second.

Okay. Is Director Candelaria in? Anybody has any questions for him? Not seeing any. Madam City Clerk, can we get a roll call vote, please?

Certainly, Mayor. Councillor Castro? Yes. Councillor Chavez? Yes. Councillor Faulkner?

She stepped out for a moment.

Councillor Figali?

Yes.

Councillor Garcia?

Yes.

Councillor Bustamante?

Yes.

Councillor Kasset? Yes. Motion passed.

Thank you. Next item, please.

Thank you, Eric. Next item on the agenda is a request for ratification of the city manager's approval to accept the U.S. Department of Transportation FAA Division Grant 68 in the total amount of $1,385,473, also for construction of the risk and safety area 33. and a request for approval of a budget adjustment request in the total amount of 1 million 385 473 dollars to increase the whip construction using u.s department of transportation funding for the risk and safety area 33 and here to answer questions is the airport director john dickinson okay um feel free if you want to give a presentation mr dickinson if not i can turn to the governing body

And if you all have any questions on the RSA project, address those.

Okay. Turn to the governing body. Any questions or what's the will of the body?

Move to approve.

We've got a motion and a second. Any discussion? Hearing none, Madam City Clerk, can we get a roll call vote, please?

Yes, Mayor. Councilor Travis? Yes. Councillor Figali? Yes. Councillor Garcia?

Yes.

Councillor Bustamante?

Yes.

Councillor Cassit? Yes. Councillor Castro? Yes. Motion passed.

Okay, and so then that was the ratification. Do we need to move forward with the bar request, correct? Two separate items?

I read them both into the record. Okay. Do you want me to?

No, no. If that was the intention of the motion maker. Okay, we're good. Next item, please.

Next item is a request for approval of a Municipal Arterial Program Cooperative Agreement HW2L500689 with the New Mexico Department of Transportation in the total amount of $285,668 for the reconstruction of Henry Lynch Road between Rufina Street and Agua Fria Street and a request for approval of a budget adjustment request in the total amount of $285,668 using $214,251 from NMDOT funding and $71,000 $417 in city road impact fees for the reconstruction of Henry Lynch Road. And here to answer any questions is the capital projects manager, Romella Glorioso-Mas.

Hello, Ms. Glorioso-Mas. Any presentation, or I can defer to the governing body for any questions?

Move to approve.

Second. Okay, so we've got a motion and a second. Any discussion? And is this for both items, counselor? Just make sure. Okay. There are none. Madam City Clerk, can we get a roll call vote, please?

Yes, Mayor. Councillor Faulkner? Yes. Councillor Figali? Yes. Councillor Garcia?

Yes.

Councillor Bustamante?

Yes.

Councillor Cassatt? Yes. Councillor Castro? Yes. Councillor Chavez? Yes. Motion passed. Next item is a request for approval of local government road fund cooperative agreement HW2L500665 with the New Mexico Department of Transportation in the total amount of $423,475 for the reconstruction of Henry Lynch Road between Rufina Street and Agua Fria Street. and a request for approval of a budget adjustment request in the total amount of $423,475 using $317,606 NMDOT funding and $105,869 in city road impact fees for the reconstruction of Henry Lynch Road. Move to approve. Second. Okay, so we've got a motion and a second. Any discussion?

None. Madam City Clerk, can we get a roll call vote, please?

Yes, Mayor. Councillor Figali? Yes. Councillor Garcia? Yes. Councillor Bustamante?

Yes.

Councillor Cassett? Yes. Councillor Castro? Yes. Councillor Chavez? Yes. Councillor Faulkner? Yes. Motion passed.

Okay, next item on the agenda, please.

Next item on the agenda is matters from the City Manager.

Mr. Mayor, Councilors, I have a few things tonight. Bear with me. First of all, I want to thank all my staff. Every single person for Zizobra on Friday. We had a great turnout. Everything went really well. I was involved in every part of it. So it was a great thing. So I just want to thank all the staff for being there and doing all their hard work on Friday night. Next, I want to thank more of the staff for this weekend. Fiestas, all the hard work we're putting into this weekend. Just another thank you. And then I just want to remind everyone, 9-11's on Friday. We'll be having our event that we've been doing since the day it's been our 25th year here at City Hall. It will be the first time it's at City Hall. I don't know if it's because I'm here, but we're having it here at City Hall on Friday at 10 o'clock. So we would love all you to be there to do the memorial ceremony there. The next thing that I would like to share is being very transparent. I'm working on the police chief hiring. We had a bunch of candidates. I only had one stipulation. I wanted all of them to be in person. So all the interviews will start next week. So we are doing those interviews next week. There'll be five candidates next week to be interviewed. After that, on October 1st, we'll do a meet and greet. That will be including all the public. We'll be doing a public announcement. They can come meet the candidates for the police chief. They can ask them questions. Then they can leave notes in the backs. At the end of the day, it's going to be on me to make the decision. So I'm trying to get as much input as I can from you guys as well as the public. And then by late in the fall, I will make a final decision and pick our police chief. So as we go through the process and every governing body meeting, I'll keep giving you updates as we go through the process. I just want to remind everybody, October 29th is the city county meeting. Tonight we'll be picking all your guys' appointments. So you guys will work together with your county counterparts to get that done. And our next meeting will be October 29th at one o'clock at the county chambers. So I want to do that. And the last thing that Councilor Chavez brought up and I've been working towards is I want to thank HR, especially Alvin Valdez at Sewer Side Prevention Month. We've been doing a lot of things with city employees to implement the resolution that was passed in September of 2025. We're working on getting all the city employees on the back of their city IDs, the 988 hotlines. We're also working on signage to put at the major facilities throughout the city. So I just want to recognize Councilor Chavez for helping bring that up to my attention again and to let everybody know it's Suicide Prevention Month and we as a city and especially the staff are working towards being very aware and transparent and making sure nobody has to think like that and always be able to get help so with that i have no other thing else mayor thank you councillor castro i can make a motion that we go move to public comment and then resume the um rest of our agenda after second okay so we've got a motion in a second any discussion on the motion hearing none madam city clerk can we get a roll call vote please uh can i confirm who second

Thank you.

Counselor Garcia?

Yes.

Counselor Bustamante? Yes. Counselor Cassett? Yes. Counselor Castro? Yes. Counselor Chavez? Yes. Counselor Faulkner? Yes. Counselor Figali? Yes. Motion passed.

Okay, now is we'll go ahead and move to petitions from the floor. Same cadence as always. Those of the members of the public that would like to speak, please step up to the podium. You'll be given two minutes. Please identify yourself by name, district, if you feel comfortable. The floor is yours, ma'am. Just make sure the light is green on the... Is it?

There we go.

Naomi Boylan, District 4. I'm here to speak about our recent immigration. As many of you know, I'm very passionate, and I am an advocate here in the city, typically for the youth and law enforcement. I saw that Ms. Counselor Castro has excused herself, and that's very disappointing. I want that on record, Mayor. as I attempted to reach out to her around immigration and advocate for immigrants. And I feel that this city has a major break in its link between what we are advocating for and what we are advocating against. And unfortunately, those two paths have now crossed. I work with immigrants every day, every single day. I am the only woman and white woman in my company. That's it, just me. I'm the person they call when they need help. And I've had two deportations out of that ICE incident. Many of you know about it because I reached out to many of you for help on the first one. And then on the second one, he chose to self-deport because of health issues. And in reaching out to that, I'm happy to see on the agenda that we're going to be discussing some clarifications around law enforcement and immigration. I think it's incredibly important that this governing body, Ms. Castro included, redirect her words. and address what is and is not factual when it comes to law enforcement and immigration, because we have immigrants who are being told to fear an agency that has sworn to protect them. I have sat in rooms and rooms and rooms with officers and chiefs and They have, and the sheriff, our current sheriff, not our sheriff-elect, who have all stated that their purpose is to make sure whether you're a citizen or not, you are a resident of this city, and you should lay your head down at night and be able to feel safe. When a city councilor is contradicting them, she owes the entire city an apology, she owes law enforcement an apology, and she should not be allowed to advocate if she's not going to advocate correctly. Thank you.

Just thinking about what she said. My name is Andrea Holly. I live in District 2. And I've actually been studying a lot of material we covered tonight with the discussion of housing in an effort to see how I, as a private citizen, could be of service. I discovered a word in the Hopewell Man Stabilization Report. I've pulled two particular pages, pages 84 and 86, about transitional and affordable slash attainable housing called Philanthrocapitalism. I've spent my whole life working nonprofits. I've only ever taken private donor and foundation money, and I definitely am encouraged to hear everyone here considering private money. The less state and federal money there is, I can promise you there's more private money. I'm here for that. I have never worked with the public entity, and the projects I intend to pursue do involve private money, and I'm hoping I can collaborate with the city in a way that minimizes obstacles and enhances progress. The materials I have, Hopewell Man Stabilization Plan, I think a lot of people have seen it. It's an incredibly powerful piece of work. The report done by Mercatus and Homewise talked a lot about land code and buy-write permissions. Very encouraging. I think that's a work in progress here in the city. I can promise you with my private donors, they want to see that cleaned up. Home-wise, right, the following report actually relates to the Coalition of Homeless Organizations. I believe they hired a consultant. It was sent to everyone here. St. Elizabeth, Consuelo's Place. It's quite a large document. It's 50 pages. It's basically an instruction manual of what happens next from their perspective with homelessness. And Consuelo's Place is certainly a high priority. Micro apartments, Thornburg and Pew. could be adapted in many ways. And last but not least, from April 24, affordable site house rankings commissioned by this government by a consultant who I believe is on Midtown. And I think some of these are in discussion for Pallet community. So I'm on board. Project management, let's get it done. Thank you.

Good evening. I'm Stephen Fox, founder of United Nations Center of Aid. I got some great news. Two weeks after she announced that she was running for Secretary General of the UN, the ambassador from Guyana, Carolyn Rodriguez Burkett, I endorsed her. And guess what? Now she's the front runner. It's a very bizarre system. They have votes for approval or encouragement. So she got eight. She met last week with the ambassadors from Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan over in Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan is where the first oil well was built. It wasn't in Pennsylvania with the Rockefeller. So I would like you to write to her before her election in January. Or are you the kind of people that just wait to see if somebody gets elected, and then you command, and then you can graduate? I don't think so. I think you should write Gianna. That's in Suriname, northern Brazil, east of Venezuela. OK, moving on. Greng Mello's plutonium. figure resolution. I know you can't vote on it tonight, but move it forward, because I let 400 people, international people know, UN ambassadors, including the foreign ministers of Russia, they take great interest in this. Why should they stop making plutonium pitch figures if the United States continues to do so? So do your part, and I know you won't and can't and wouldn't vote on it tonight. That's got to go on the agenda. Put it on the agenda. Okay. It's not just the Russians, but there's a lot of interest in South Africans, the Vatican newspaper. And I'm going to donate this flag to the city. I have more of them. October 24th is UN Day. So please look at this piece of art carefully.

Good evening, counselors. My name is Madison Figueroa. I am an intern with the Los Alamos Study Group, and I'm here today on behalf of Albuquerque Students for Nuclear Disarmament, a local chapter of UNM that I lead as president. I am here because we believe Santa Fe has a responsibility to ask what kind of future we are building and what we are willing to accept is inevitable. My organization supports the proposed resolution opposing pit production at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, including the proposed satellite campuses in Santa Fe. Because we do not believe expanding this institution and the manufacturing of plutonium pits is the only future available to us. For decades, New Mexico has been asked to accept the nuclear weapons industry as a permanent part of our economy, our communities, and our future as they continue to grow and grow. LANL's mission has not prioritized this level of plutonium pit or nuclear warhead core manufacturing since 1949. But something being established in order does not make it inevitable. And something being presented as economic development does not mean we have to accept it without question. As students, this matters to us. We are the generation that will inherit the consequences of the decisions being made today. We will live with the environmental consequences, the economic priorities, and the political choices that are being made in our state right now. And that is why the timing of this decision matters. The window for this council to influence what happens next is quickly closing. Once new institutions are established, once infrastructure is built, once these relationships become normalized and pit production begins in quantities we have never seen before, it becomes much harder to ask whether we should have chosen differently. You have an opportunity right now to say that Santa Fe does not have to play a part in the mass production of nuclear weapons. You have an opportunity to choose a different vision, one that invests in students, communities, peace, environmental responsibility, and a future beyond nuclear weapons. So I want to leave you with a question. Whose vision of the future becomes accepted as inevitable? Is it the vision that is handed to us because it is ordered, or the vision that we as a community have the courage to create? Thank you.

My name is Diane.

I've been an instructor, teacher at Santa Fe Community College for 19 years, now retired.

I still teach part-time at UNM in the School of Architecture and Planning. What I teach is that

students there consider how they want to build, what they want to build, that it be beautiful, that it be meaningful. I can't imagine that anyone in this room or anyone in the city of Santa Fe truly wants to see the building of nuclear weapons in this community or anywhere else in the world. I urge everyone to search your consciousness and think about your children, your grandchildren, and what we are doing here or for thinking about doing here and how we, I am sure, do not want to be a part of this production. I'm adamantly opposed to the pit production at Los Alamos. Thank you very much.

Buenas tardes, Mayor and Councilor. My name is Felicia Guillen and I'm here to give a statement on behalf of New Mexico No False Solutions. We also support the proposed resolution opposing plutonium production at Los Alamos National Labs. Our coalition is a statewide coalition. We're building collective power to challenge false climate solutions. Our coalition members include Los Salinas Institute, Pueblo Action Alliance, and Indigenous Lifeways. um for generations new mexico has carried a disproportionate burden of the united states nuclear weapons complex from uranium extraction on indigenous lands to the trinity test to weapons production radioactive waste and contamination our communities have repeatedly been expected to bear environmental and human costs of policies made in the name of national security The expansion of plutonium pit production at LANL must be understood within this longer history of nuclear colonialism. New Mexico did not become central to the nuclear weapons complex by accident. For generations, our lands, water, labor, and communities have been repeatedly treated as available for extraction and experimentation, while decisions about their use are made far beyond the communities that experience their consequences. And today we're watching this history continue. At a time when New Mexico communities are facing water security, climate disruption, housing insecurity, environmental contamination, and the urgent need to transition away from dirty fossil fuels, we reject the idea that economic security must come through deeper dependence on extractive and militarized industries. Our communities deserve investment in life-sustaining economies, which means investing in environmental remediation, community-controlled renewable energy, water protection, affordable housing, health care, education, and dignified work. For too long, we have been treated as a sacrifice zone. And Santa Fe has an opportunity to reject the assumption that also that must define our future. And so we urge the governing body to support this resolution and oppose expanded plutonium pit production at LANL. Thank you.

Somebody left some information, quite important.

My name is Elizabeth West, and I have to say where I live?

Yeah.

318 Santa Street, Santa Fe. I have two things to mention. One is, I actually think a version of the resolution that these folks you've just been hearing from would be something that would be rather marvelous. And if it could also include renaming the War Department, which is what they're calling it now, instead of the Defense Department. I remember as a teenager thinking, let's not call it the Defense Department, let's call it the Peace Department. But I'll be 82 the day after Halloween, and so I know I have to be realistic. So I'd like you to consider that because I think if that were a very public announcement of the resolution, as we know, resolutions don't necessarily go anywhere terribly fast, but they would help people talk about, they would feel better about themselves, about being part of a community. And so I think some version of that resolution would be great. The second thing is I have a present for each of you all, and I know that if I gave it to you now, first of all, I would give it to the clerk first, but you would want to read it. So I'm going to wait until the end, and then I'll hand it to you personally. I have to leave by 5.30 in the morning because I'm going south of town to cook breakfast for my ex-husband. try to get done by then. Thank you.

All right. I don't know why I even come to these meetings anymore. Because you guys don't listen. You don't care. Every time I come, it's a roll of the eyes. It's a yawn. It's a this. It's a that. You know what? You don't understand. Do you want to know what our housing problem is? You're making us a generation of renters, not owners, renters, because we can't afford to buy a house in Santa Fe. You want to take and do that property. You know you are going to affect every single house in that neighborhood is rental property. You are going to affect their value of their homes. So by doing that property, you don't only affect a small group. You affect a whole neighborhood. But you don't care about that. You don't think about that. You just think, oh, great, $500 houses, $1,300 houses. You know what? That's just creating a renting community. We don't need a renting community. We need an owning community. We need people to have pride in our city. We need people to want to live here. I've lived here my whole life. I have lost pride in my city, which I am sad to say. We are no longer the city different. We are the city the same. You wanna turn us into Albuquerque. You wanna turn us into Denver. You wanna turn us into LA. You wanna turn us into New York. We are not those places. This is Santa Fe, the city different because we're different from all of those other places. We take care of our own. You forgot that. And now you want to take care of stakeholders. That's ridiculous. Take care of our community. Take care of the people that surround us. Take care of the people that pay you. Take care of the people that support all our locals. You guys need to pay attention and listen and stop taking advantage of us.

My name is Greg Mello. I'm the director of the Los Alamos Study Group. I now live in Albuquerque after living here for more than two decades. What the gentleman previous to me said about a city of renters is important. And you should probably know that up in Los Alamos, a windfall capital value increase accrued to the approximately 8,000 households up there, totaling approximately $2.4 billion since the advent of the pit production project. There was a recent letter to the editor up there by James Wernicke, who's a longtime Los Alamos person and public figure, with a photograph of the 1964 general plan of Los Alamos, and it has a chapter there that says we're finally going to solve the housing problem in Los Alamos. They aren't going to solve the housing problem in Los Alamos because they can push it off on Santa Fe. That's the thing. So the banks, the individuals, the NNSA that wants an exclusive community in Los Alamos that will attract research scientists is very happy to push off the people who can't pay for a million dollar house, can't pay for even a $750,000 or $800,000 house, push them down to Santa Fe where they can compete in the rental market with people here. That's the reality today. And I think that Santa Fe is being the chump here. There are 12,000 people commuting into Los Alamos County every day, according to the county. People can't afford to live there. The service people, many LANL people themselves, the blue-collar workers, people who work for Los Alamos County, they live elsewhere. A lot of them live here in Santa Fe. Oh my gosh. So... Let's not be chumps and appreciate your attention and leave the rest for later. Thank you very much.

If you wouldn't mind just pulling the mic down, Barbara, please.

Can you hear me now?

Yes.

Hi, my name is Barbara O'Connor and I'm here to ask you to oppose anything more to do with the production of of plutonium pits at Los Alamos. That's if it's not too late because this city, to me, has been overrun by the government and the labs for the production of new pits. This is not what Santa Fe was meant to be. During the last few number of years, the former mayor and the city council Let a whole bunch of corporations from out of sight move in here and build all these apartments that the local people can't even afford. They have to move out of town, like a lot of these people have been saying. Santa Fe has become a bedroom community for the labs. And I'm so disappointed and brokenhearted what this city has turned into. The traffic is terrible now. The air is being polluted from all the cars. We don't have enough water. And now with more of the growth we've had, we'll probably have more of a problem with water. The city has lost its character, its culture, and its charm. In a few years, we probably won't even recognize what Santa Fe was. We need the city to resolve to a resolution opposing the plutonium warheads that are being produced up there. We don't want Santa Fe to be a city that promotes war. We're a city of peace, I hope. People have to realize that peace is not weakness. Peace is strength in Christ. The weapons of mass destruction are just being forced on Santa Fe. We need a resolution to stop this horrendous takeover, this awful nuclear weapons program, if it's not too late, I hope. The people of New Mexico have suffered too long ever since the nuclear industry came here in the 40s, were being polluted by the radiation.

Ma'am, if you would please wrap up your comment. Your time has expired.

Okay, I'm sorry, but I did write to my council people, and I'll write to all of you, too. Thank you for your time.

Good evening, Mayor and members of the City Council. My name is Sharon Argenbright, and I've been living in Santa Fe County for over 30 years. I'm a registered nurse for almost 50 years, a Veterans for Peace member. I carry the torch, the flag, that Ken Mayers carried for over 20 years to stop nuclear pit production. Ken Mayers, presente. To whom does the future belong? What of this earth will be left to future generations? What will our global carbon footprint be? It is our behaviors which will dictate what of this living planet will be left. The future belongs to future inhabitants too. Stealing from future generations their air, their water, their soil will not be tolerated. We live here, we live here, in close proximity to where these pits are manufactured. Therefore, we are responsible for initiating the change. Thank you.

My name is Marina Lenny, and I'm a new resident of Santa Fe. But I've been involved. with the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation in Santa Barbara for many years. And as I said, I'm living here now. I just came out tonight to talk about my disappointment and despair around what we've become with regard to this nuclear proliferation. You know, one of these bombs is about a thousand times more than what we dropped on Hiroshima. has that potential. Just one. And the United States has about 6,000. Russia has another 6,000. I mean, what are we doing? This is absolute insanity. You know, what are we doing for our children? How can we be a part of this? It's just beyond my understanding in that Santa Fe, the city of Assisi, should participate in And it's all about money. We know this. It's about the war machine and how it serves to make people's livings. But can't we make living by undoing all of this? It would take years to undo this. Let's do that. And that's my request.

Thank you. And I thank you for everything you do for the city.

I love it so much.

Thank you.

Good evening, everyone. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Karina Julig. I write for the Santa Fe New Mexican newspaper. And I just wanted to briefly talk about something that New Mexican does every fall, which is called 10 Who Made a Difference. And if you haven't seen it, it's a series that starts on Thanksgiving Day, where every year we profile 10 people who, as it says, make a difference in Northern New Mexico through some type of volunteer activity. I'm just here to encourage anyone in the room to submit an application for this year. Applications for that are open through the whole month of September, and that is how we select who we recognize every year. There's 10 people, and the committee looks at the people who were nominated by their peers here in New Mexico, and then we, the reporters, get to talk to them and write about them and recognize them for the things they've done for our city. In the past, that's been Chaplain Joe, Ray Sandoval, Richard Martinez, the Trash Pandas. But I know there are way more people out there who still have not been recognized. So if you know someone who you think that deserves to be a 10 Who awardee, would love for you to submit them for consideration. And yeah, if you have any questions, happy to give you information. But the link on the website is sfnm.co slash 10 dash who dash 2026, excuse me. And that has all the information. So thank you so much. And please read about the candidates starting on Thanksgiving.

Are there any other members of the audience that would like to provide comment? Madam City Clerk, can we go online to see if there's any virtual participants?

Yes, Mayor. We'll start with Stephanie Beninato.

Thank you. Stephanie Beninato, PO Box 1601, Santa Fe. Three things that I wanted to talk about. I am in support of the immigration resolutions that they're going to come in front of city council this evening. I also am, I know you know, but I'm bringing to your attention that we now have two pools that are closed without definite dates of reopening. One of them is the Chavez pool that just closed the other day. because of an HVAC problem that occurred, started on Sunday with no emergency team to be able to respond to it at all. People are using the outdoor pool, but it's not who knows how long that can be used. And even though there's been hiring of new lifeguards, Fort Marcy is still operating on a somewhat limited basis today. with at least three days only open till one o'clock, even though Perez actually was open till four, and then another two hours for swim teams. The other thing, I have been told that sometimes when I do speak that people that as people on the council roll their eyes, make faces, I can't see when I'm speaking on Zoom. But I think if you are respecting people's opinion, wanting to listen, that you don't do that. And also, I want to point out that I understand that some people, some of the counselors are going to meet with the historic board and have a discussion with them. I think that's great. But I think you should have a study session that's open to the public. Meeting in these private little tete-a-tetes is always one of those things that raises questions. And then the very last thing I want to talk about is that 9-11 Roybal appeal issue. where it seemed that the applicant kept stating over and over that a staff member helped them design their project. That is totally inappropriate. A staff and the board should never be designing a project. It's very clear precedent procedure. And the staff member that was assigned to that case has absolutely no expertise in design or architecture to even begin to do that. and relying on a staff member who has no expertise as opposed to- Ms. Beninato, your time is expired.

If you can please wrap up your comment.

Yes, thank you. Instead of relying on the staff member, I think you should be relying on the board who actually you appointed them and they do have certain areas of expertise. Thank you.

And the folks that are, I'm assuming you're lining up to provide public comments as well. Okay. Let us go to the folks online and then we'll come jump back to you.

Okay. We'll move to Seneca Johnson.

Good evening, Mayor Garcia and members of the governing body. My name is Seneca Johnson and I'm a resident of District 3 here in Santa Fe where I've grown up. I'm a recent graduate from Yale University with a degree in environmental studies. I'm currently working as the New Mexico Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies. Today, I'd like to urge you all to support the proposed resolution opposing plutonium pit production at Los Alamos National Laboratory. New Mexico has long acted as a sacrifice zone. Our people and environment have been subject to the harms of uranium mining, radiation exposure, contamination of our land and water, and generations of health crises because it was deemed acceptable in LANL's risk assessments. Previously, the public and our municipalities largely have had the choice made for them. And generations have had to live with the consequences of investment in the US nuclear arms. And today, I think we have the privilege of knowledge and the privilege of choice. And I believe it's imperative we do everything in our power to prevent further harm. So through this resolution, I ask you all to oppose LANL's plutonium pit production. I ask you all to call on our congressional delegation to prioritize the removal and disposal of legacy plutonium waste from Lionel and work to decrease federal spending for nuclear weapons activities. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Okay, the next speaker will be Marsha.

Hello, my name is Marsha Emerton. I live in District 4. I want to make a comment about the slides. that were on the homeless summit charts, which I did attend. There was one that said convene the lived experience cohort. This has been done for a couple years by the Santa Fe Housing for All Collaborative. I know some of you have attended these because I saw you there. So I hate to keep... us repeating things that are already in the works and wasting our time doing that when they're being done by very good people already. The second thing I want to talk about is some of you have mentioned that you have some plan for a shelter. Well, there's something called the rock that you guys blew off in one of your meetings. It's already in the works. And I know you said, it's not ready. Well, tell them how to get ready then. They have the plans. They have the land. They have the staffing. It's there, but you guys won't participate with it. You just keep blowing them off. The other thing is the Pallet Homes. I don't know if you guys know or not, but the Pallet Home Company has gone out of business as of last week. Henry Hammond Paul tried very hard to have these put up at different religious church kind of things in town and kind of beat his head against the wall trying to do that. And it was mentioned again, it would be a great idea, but no one ever stepped up to do this. So I don't know what we're going to do with those. My idea is to put them all inside or some of them inside of a building. Other places have done this. You actually put them indoors. And there's a lot of empty spaces in town where this could be done, where there's already plumbing, there's already heat. And it would be temporary, but you won't run into this thing of trying to find a place for them to be and then have tons of people having discussions that we've had roundtables and discussions ad nauseum. Those are my thoughts. Thank you very much.

Mayor, no other hands are raised in the Zoom room.

Return to the chambers. We've got some folks that would like to provide comments in person.

Hello, my name is Miriam and I'm working in Edgar over there in Salt Lake. Just I'm coming to give you the invitation for our Convivio Latino Americano. I know some of you guys already received my email the past week or the last weeks. So hopefully you guys help us, join us, and support us in this event because it's the unique event that we're doing here in Santa Fe for our Latino American community. You know we have a lot of struggles in the past days and weeks, so we want to celebrate all together. This day, it's September 18th in the Sweeney Elementary School. We start at 6 p.m. We have a different kind of music, entertainment, also food, Mexican, Guatemala, Salvador, Peru, different Latin American places. Hopefully you'll join us. And also, hopefully the next year we can do it over there in the plaza. So it's, I think, the perfect time to start making something for our community, but in the plaza. And thank you.

Good evening, Miguel Acosta, District 3. I also work with EarthCare. We've got a project right now that we're organizing in 20 different neighborhoods called vecindades. So it's primarily the areas that were annexed into the city. And so there's a couple of things I want to share about this. One is that it's in direct line of impact from the chromium plume, that area of the city. It's already, you know, the pollution and everything coming out of the contamination out of Llano is not only going through Pueblo lands, but it's a direct risk to Santa Fe, especially those communities that provide the workforce for Santa Fe. The other thing that we wanted to also mention is that thank you for the work that you all are doing and coordinating with the county and others around increased resources and protections and what have you for Santa Fe residents who are the workforce of Santa Fe. I just wanted to add, and I know the mayor and others have made comments related to this, and there was a study done a year and a half ago, two years ago by Somos around economic impact. But other countries or other states and cities are now documenting the impact of the increased raids and the increased kidnappings by ICE. Chicago just released a report, I think it was $1.3 billion that it's cost the Chicago economy. And these are direct costs to immigrant businesses, but also immigrant businesses relying on immigrant labor. So that's something else to keep in mind as we talk to the public and all that, that this is Santa Fe that we're protecting, Santa Fe's interests and Santa Fe's economic base. It's not just immigrant folks that we're providing resources for. The other thing that I would like to, before the pearly gates music comes on, right, is to encourage you all to consider investing in those communities as well. There's bond elections that you're proposing. There's other investments that are happening. Very little is actually reaching those neighborhoods. And it's something that we really need to consider. So there needs to be some rethinking about economic development and investment. Thank you.

I believe we've reached everybody in chambers. There's nobody else online. If that's the case, let's go to move on to a regular order of business. Madam city clerk.

Next item is matters from the city attorney.

Thank you, ma'am. Mayor members of the governing body. I recommend that the governing body convened to executive session as noticed in the agenda.

In accordance with the Open Meetings Act, 1978, Section 10-15-1, Subpart H-7, meeting subject to attorney-client privilege pertaining to threatened or pending litigation in which city is or may become a participant, including, but not limited to, a state of Grayson, Coon, and Lily, Gordon, versus city of Santa Fe, D-101, C.V. 2024-17. 02345 and subpart H8. Meetings for the discussion of the purchase, acquisition, or disposal of real property or water rights by the city, including but not limited to the Bella Luz Lamplighter Project. Second.

Got a motion and a second. Any discussion on the motion? Hearing none, Madam City Clerk, can we get a roll call vote, please?

Certainly, Mayor. Councillor Bustamante. Yes. Councillor Cossett. Yes. Councillor Castro. Yes. Councillor Chavez. Yes. Councillor Faulkner. Yes. Councillor Figali. Yes. Councillor Garcia. Yes. Motion passed.

Okay, we will now enter executive session.

Pursuant to the Open Meetings Act Section 10-15-1J, I move that the governing body convene an open session and state for the record that the matters discussed in closed session were limited to those specified in the motion for closure.

Second. We have a motion and a second to any discussion on the motion. Hearing none, Madam City Clerk, can we get a roll call vote, please?

Yes, Mayor. Councillor Cassatt? Yes. Councillor Castro? Yes. Councillor Chavez? Councillor Faulkner? Yes. Councillor Figali? Yes. Councillor Garcia? Yes. Councillor Bustamante?

Yes.

Motion passed.

Thank you. Next item on the agenda, please, Madam City Clerk.

Next item on the agenda is matters from the city clerk. And I just want to wish my buddy, who's hopefully in surgery right now, getting a double lung replacement in Colorado. So I just want him to know I'm thinking about him. I talked with him earlier today. He's in good spirits. And I just want to wish him a successful surgery and a successful recovery. And with that, we'll move on to communications from the governing body.

Okay. Anybody want to start first? Councilor Bustamante.

Thank you, Mayor. Just want to echo what City Manager said earlier. Thank you to all the staff, fire, police, clerk, everybody involved planning to get Zerber off. It was a great event. Thank you for pulling it up. That's it. Thank you, Mayor.

Councilor Cassatt.

Thank you, Mayor. Also, you know, thank you again to everybody, Kiwanis, staff. I mean, it's just such a production. The entire city seems to have a role in it. So really want to thank everybody for that work. Fiesta's coming up. Again, a lot of effort going into making sure that our city can safely have these celebrations. So Really want to recognize staff and all the people that are doing the invisible work, as well as these volunteer organizations, the Fiesta Council and Kiwanis, who really care about this community and want to put these celebrations forward. Last time I got to wish my mom a very happy birthday, and now in our next city council meeting, my father will also have a birthday, so... September is busy. It just keeps going. So I really, really want to wish my father a happy birthday. Unfortunately, he's across the country all the time, but I miss him terribly. And I am very, very grateful to have such wonderful parents that raised me and that I get to celebrate both of them this month. Thank you.

Dr. Castro.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Governing Body. I just wanted to make a few announcements. One is that we were able to partner and thank you, Mayor, for your support with Santa Fe Trails. So we will have two buses leaving from Santa Fe to join the Gerito celebration at the Hispanic Cultural Center on the 15th. So if anyone is interested in joining us and celebrating Mexican Independence Day with the consul, please reach out. And as we heard today, EarthCare is also going to be having an event to celebrate all international Latin American Independence Days on the 18th. And I'm looking over at my co-counselor to see if he's going to perform with me potentially. So come check us out at that event. And also... If folks want to, we had a great presentation at Quality of Life. The $250,000 that was invested in services for the immigrant community was well spent, and we were actually able to get legal services and support to all 15 families of the folks that were affected with the folks that were taken from our community. So thank you all for that support. Thank you.

Mr. Faulkner.

I want to thank the city staff as well as Kiwanis and all the people who participated in Zozobra to get it off the ground. It is a huge, huge lift and it happened safely and with, I think, with good order. So good job, City of Santa Fe and Kiwanis. I also want to just, I'm not going to mention anybody by name because of where we sit right now with certain things, but I'd like to thank all the advocacy groups and the large number of numbers of leaders who are leaning in to try to protect our immigrant community. I think it's important that the community knows that their leaders care about them. And one thing that we're seeing is we're seeing legislators and County commissioners and city counselors and activists, grassroots organizations, advocacy groups. We're seeing a bunch of people who've kind of worked separately sometimes on this issue coming together to, um, again, protect our immigrant population. So I'm just grateful that that's happening.

Mr. Garcia.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I want to thank the fire department for serving enchiladas and inviting us to your meal and viewing of old man gloom the city for all that they do to support those events. inviting everyone to Fiesta this weekend. It's no secret. I served as the 2012 Don Diego de Vargas, and it's something that's near and dear to my heart in regards to celebrating the city, the city of Holy Faith. And, you know, La Via Real de la Santa Fe de San Francisco de Asis is the official name, right? And so, and... Shout out to all those that put it on because it does take a big lift from the city with help. But those Fiesta Council members, as my colleague stated earlier, they work very hard at this. And I get volunteered, not on the council, but or voluntold, whatever you may call it. But come out and celebrate a lot of these things because the majority of these events are all free. So you just have to come down and see what they're about and partake in an event that is the longest annual celebration in America. So thank you so much and see you all on Fiesta Friday, Fiesta Saturday, and Fiesta Sunday.

That's for Chavez.

Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, I want to shout out the staff of Kiwanis, Fiesta Council, everyone involved in just putting together all of the events that have just been part of Santa Fe for so long. I always tell my parents, like, just how... it defines how we were raised, right? Like the memories, all of it, growing up in it. I participated in many ways, in different ways, just through my different work with youth. And I don't know, it's just a beautiful thing. And I don't think people realize how much work and thought goes into it. I also wanna really recognize during this time, public safety, not just because I'm the chair of public safety, but because like, I don't think people realize every single police officer is on duty during these events. Like there's some of them work 10 days straight just to keep Santa Fe safe while we are celebrating. So there is a lot of time and work and investment from public safety. I also wanted to shout out public safety. I did this at our last committee meeting, but for their work around ARU, because I haven't publicly like really acknowledged the leadership and fire So Chief Outterkirk and DC Rizzo have been amazing. Watching their leadership and the thought with getting ARU where it needs to be, in my opinion, to be as effective as possible and as collaborative with the people that know the work best, it's just been phenomenal work. And to be able to just listen and witness their leadership I feel very honored to have been a part of that. We will be kind of reintroducing ARU next month at public safety for anyone that wants to come. We're doing it at our October meeting. So you could kind of see how it's changed, hear from the staff. We're trying to get everyone that is part of it or has been part of this work to be there just so, because it's exciting and it should be celebrated. So we're going to use the public safety committee to do that. I want to thank City Manager for working on the resolution around suicide awareness prevention. They say that the way we save lives is just putting the information out there. It's inevitable people are suffering. It's a real thing. It's a real crisis. And if they just see the help available in that moment of distress, we are saving lives. So if you think about just the visibility with city staff and how many people will have eyes on help if they're ever in distress. And I think us using city facilities to put that signage up says a lot about our care and our priority around behavioral health. So I want to just thank you for jumping on that right away. I want to thank NAMI as well. They kind of gave some feedback and collaborated with the city attorney's office to kind of brainstorm and advise us on what kind of crisis information should be put out there, what would be best for the community. So just a great job, city staff. You guys are incredible as usual. That's it. Thank you, Mayor.

I'm Sir Pagali.

Thank you, Mayor. Would like to echo everyone's sentiments on Zozobra and Fiestas. And then we had some birthdays in the room this past week. So our Deputy City Manager, Andrea Phillips, and Councillor Barrett, who I hope is out celebrating today. And we also had some actual babies in the community. So our Assistant City Attorney, Ruby Cruz, had a baby in the last couple weeks. And also our former city clerk had a baby in August. So congratulations to everyone. Andrea Salazar. I know we have several former city clerks, but one of the more recent ones. So thank you.

Mayor, I forgot a couple things.

Sure, sure, sure. Councilor Cassidy.

Thank you. I forgot the couple events coming up. 40 Under 40 on September 19th, put on by the Hispano Chamber. So I know that we have some past recipients in this room, but it is really, you know, such an opportunity to uplift the youth because in Santa Fe. You're actually in your 40s. You're still kind of considered youth in the city. So but I really, you know, so please, you know, go in and support these individuals who are making such an impact. And then it's also the state fair coming up in the next couple. So starting this weekend and over to next week, my partner's father serves on the the state fair commission and the amount of work and effort. that those individuals go into putting this on um is is really incredible so if you're able to get down to albuquerque and celebrate everclear is going to be performing so i'm really looking forward to a throwback to my youth so if anybody wants to join me at everclear and remember the early aughts i'll be there thank you

Also, our illustrious city lobbyists will be performing at the State Fair. A lot of people don't know this, but JD is a really talented musician and singer. So Saturday afternoon, I can't remember the name of the band, but he's going to be performing at the State Fair.

Lots of entertainment to go watch. In that vein, there's also a opportunity for folks to participate in a citywide cleanup. Tosno Moss is September 19th. So if you haven't signed up, sign up with our conservation and sustainability team. They'll get you all the gear you need to go clean up our community. Other than that, everybody have a safe, yes to weekend. Que viva.

Yeah, Councillor Bustamante. Thank you, Mayor. Just remembered the Fishing Derby Lottery opens this weekend, so it'll be on the website, right, where they can apply, right? Yes. Yeah, okay. So anyway, just a reminder, opens this weekend. Thank you.

Okay, any other announcements? Going once, going twice. We'll move on to the next item, please, Madam City Clerk.

Next item on the agenda is introduction of legislation. This is a consideration of a resolution sponsored by Councillor Pilar Faulkner, Councillor Lee Garcia, Councillor Amanda Chavez, and Mayor Michael Garcia. It's a resolution affirming the city of Santa Fe's commitment to past resolutions supporting immigrant communities in Santa Fe and recognizing the city's police and fire department's roles encouraging all residents, regardless of immigration status, to rely on law enforcement and emergency services, encouraging all community members and community leaders to fact-check public safety information.

I'm going to start with Councillor Faulkner.

I wanted to bring this forward because during the big event that happened a couple Wednesdays ago, there was so much misinformation that it was just exploding, and it was really, truly terrifying a population that was already scared. And there were some comments made about our police department that weren't factual in nature, but you might be able to see how these things... are believed but they are not factual in nature and so in an effort to make sure that the police and fire can be relied upon by a community that needs them we just wanted to introduce a piece of legislation that kind of would remind all of us as leaders to fact check before we spread information i don't see counselor garcia's not back yet so counselor chavis

Thank you, Mary. Yeah, basically what Councilor Faulkner will say, but I will say, especially with community partners and leaders of Santa Fe, we have huge nets of people that we can reach out to. Our platform is huge. And I think when we make large announcements that are not... completely true. We can literally put large groups of individuals in danger. If we have community members that are scared to reach out to police, and there is an emergency where lives are at risk, it is a huge issue. And so it was very disappointing when I came across about across some information, especially targeting a group of individuals who are already very scared who are already vulnerable, and then us and then them being put in a more vulnerable situation by false claims that our public safety personnel will endanger them further. You know, with large platforms, leaders, community partners, our job really shouldn't be to create chaos in our community, but it should be to really lean on truth and offer support and make it so that our community trusts us. And if you don't have proof that that is not the case, then using your platform for false information is incredibly dangerous. And so it's just a huge concern. I think this is important. Like we have to keep our community safe. That should be part of our responsibility. False claims is the opposite of that. So I think this is just necessary during this time. Thank you.

Councilor Garcia. Thank you, Mayor. I joined this legislation also for the reasons that my colleague here just explained. I think that misinformation a lot of times creates fear in our community. And as leaders, I think we need to be We need to be leaders. We need to be there to identify situations and go and support our community through factual information. I think that some of the stuff that happens is there's reports that happen and social media gets involved. And I mean, it just snowballs into a... an issue. And I think as leaders of this community, we need to be able to calm the nerves of individuals and be there to support them because there is definitely a fallout from actions that are taken in our community. And let's just say a family is now broken apart. And so there has to be support mechanisms for these individuals. They are the individuals that live in our community. We see them every day. They work in businesses that we patronize and they contribute to our communities in many different ways. And so I think that as long as we are following law and identifying what the rights are. I think that's where this piece of legislation does a lot to address those issues. And so we can address instances that arise and actually have the right information, not just a rumor that has already grown into something very large, and then everybody's fearful, and fear creates a lot of issues in our community, very dangerous issues. So that's why I'm supporting this. Thank you.

Thank you all. I think my colleague said it all. So we'll go to move on to the next.

next item is consideration of a resolution this is sponsored by counselor alma costro counselor elizabeth barrett mayor michael garcia and counselor paul bustamante it's a resolution amending resolution number 2015-31 to update the immigration committee rules and procedures hey counselor castro

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Governing Body. So I worked closely with members of the Immigration Committee in particular to make a couple changes. We were able to change some things last year in terms of making this a standing committee as opposed to an ad hoc committee and adding some clearer guidelines previously Their mandate was to monitor civil rights, and so we were able to use other committees, in particular BPAC, as a model so that we could really clarify. We're also adding a PD officer. So right now, there is currently a liaison that's going to the meetings, but it hasn't been put into the resolution, so we're formalizing that. And in particular, it has to do with reporting back. So we've spoken a little bit about public safety and the interface with the immigrant community, And though they potentially are rumors, I was hearing some concerns that U visas were not being certified in a timely fashion, that folks were not getting a lot of good information. And so this is an attempt to create dialogue and communication with those members of the community who are feeling unheard and potentially unsafe. Thank you, Mayor.

Councillor Bustamante.

Thank you, Mayor. I think Councillor Castro covered it. So thank you.

Councillor Barrett's not here and I will I have the same response Thank you counselor Castro for that overview next item, please.

Next item is consideration of bill number 2026 dash 16 and adoption of an ordinance. This is sponsored by Mayor Michael Garcia, Councillor Paul Bustamante, Councillor Anma Castro, Councillor Elizabeth Barrett and Councillor Pilar Faulkner. It's a bill prohibiting and regulating the use of city property for immigration enforcement purposes and requiring notification of immigration enforcement and I-9 audits.

Okay, I'll go ahead and start off with Councillor Bustamante.

Thank you, Mayor. So I wanted to co-sponsor this and support this because while I realize that we're somewhat limited in actions that we can take with federal law enforcement and authority, I feel like this is a good step in enforcing our city rights and what we can do as a city to help protect our immigrant community. Thank you.

Councillor Castro.

Thank you, Mayor. In particular, I was, well, thank you for bringing this forward. And I was working on the I-9 section of this legislation. We did lose some regulations at the federal level around how long folks needed to be anticipating some of these inspections. And so we're trying to, at the municipal level, really help business owners and workers feel that they have enough time to respond to some of these audits.

Councillor Faulkner.

I think my colleagues covered what I would have said.

And the only thing I'll add is this is the recommendations that have come from our immigration committee. And so we're just showing that we're standing in support of our committee and moving forward legislation that they support and recommend that we pass. So with that next item, please, Madam City Clerk. Thank you.

We are moving on to final action on legislation. This is a public hearing. 19A is consideration of bill number 2026-13 and adoption of an ordinance. This is sponsored by Councillor Alma Castro and Councillor Paul Bustamante. It's a bill amending the city of Santa Fe's public campaign finance code, chapter 9-3, SFCC 1987, to increase the amount of funding available for publicly financed candidates for municipal office, increasing the funding amounts for city council, municipal judge, and mayoral candidates, repealing section 9-3.12, SFCC 1987, qualified small contributions and repealing section 9-3.13 SFCC 1987 additional reports of qualified small contributions, additional matching payments from the fund.

So we will begin the process. Madam City Clerk, did you want to give a presentation? If not, we can go ahead and move into public hearing.

I have been to present, I think, What we're looking for was to increase the amounts for the candidates for a fair race and eliminate them having to seek additional funds.

Okay.

So then I will defer to Councillor Castro or Councillor Bustamante.

Thank you, Mayor. Partially, it is also to make this legislation a little clearer for both candidates and for the city clerk. And I assure, I just want to make a little bit of a correction. We still have the small contributions to qualify at $5. This will only affect and remove the reporting of the $100 small contributions. That is the second round of reporting.

Okay. Councillor Bustamante.

Thank you, Mayor. So, yeah, just to follow up with Councillor Castro, there was a lot of confusion. It can be very confusing, and having used public financing before as a first-time candidate, the terminology was a little too close. So there was qualified contributions, which are the $5 amounts, and then there's qualified small contribution, which was the $100 amount, and it just made it really confusing for anybody who wanted to pursue that option. So this helps clear some of that up, and as the city clerk stated, it helps make it a bit more of a fair race. So thank you, Mayor.

Okay.

Thank you. This is the public hearing, so now is the time if any members of the public would like to speak to this particular item, now is the time to do so.

Hold on one second.

Madam City Clerk needs to swear you in.

Let me swear you in, ma'am. Please raise your hand and state your name. Elizabeth West. Do you solemnly declare and affirm that the testimony you have in reference to this item shall be the truth and nothing but the truth and do this under the penalties of perjury?

I do. Thank you. I'm wholeheartedly in support of this. I think it's... It's been something that should have come along earlier, and I appreciate that you're doing this, so thank you very much.

Are there any other members of the public that would like to speak to this item? I don't see anybody in chambers. How about online?

Yes, Mayor, there is online Stephanie Beninato.

Stephanie Beninato, I'm assuming you want to swear me in.

Yes, if you'll please raise your right hand and state your name.

Stephanie Beninato.

Do you solemnly declare and affirm that the testimony you have in reference to this item shall be the truth and nothing but the truth and do this under the penalties of perjury?

Yes, I do. Thank you. I'm actually disappointed to find out that you're not doing away with the $5 contribution. I think that's very difficult and just repetitive on some level in terms of when you're getting signatures. And do you do it at that time? Do you do it at some other time? I would rather see the number of signatures being raised and doing away with the $5 donation. I also, there was a comment, I think it was from Councilor Bustamante about, you know, volunteers are nice, but you need paid staff. I would have to remind you that paid staff does need to be paid the living wage. There's all kinds of considerations like workers comp. and gross receipts tax and things like that. So it does get a little more complicated. And although I understand that you want to somehow make it fairer for people who have private donations, I feel like it's just getting to be more and more about money. And we're just going to get more and more campaign materials sent to us in the mail or left on our doorknobs. And I think it's better to connect with voters personally, which I did appreciate both counselors in my district actually doing that. Thank you.

Are there any more hands raised in the virtual room?

No other hands are raised in the virtual room, Mayor.

Okay. That will go ahead and close the public hearing portion of this item. Any questions or Councilor Pagali?

Thank you. I just have one question, which is one thing that when I was doing public financing for my campaign, the deadline for the $5 contributions and the signatures to get on the ballot for public finance campaigns is earlier. And I saw that that is not addressed in this. Is there a reason? Is it just there are too many other factors?

i mean there's a different process of memorandum agreement with the county that would take care of that and so we are currently in communication side there's a lot on city clerk's plate but we will talk to um the county clerk to help us get that through an mou okay thank you answer garcia thank you mr mayor i um so with the increase in funding obviously we have to budget for

That allotment, so where are we pulling, or is it, where does that budget money come out of?

It's the public campaign financing fund. Okay. And I believe there is an increase, we are requesting an increase to that fund to allow us to give more money to candidates.

Okay, and that would be I mean we wouldn't have to address that until next year, so it wouldn't be until the next fiscal year appropriate okay I just kind of wanted to make sure there was the funding there without having to bring for the different bar you.

Yes, absolutely.

One thing that we haven't discussed but that City Clerk and I did talk about when we were writing this legislation and Councilor Bustamante as well is that any non-expended funds, so say somebody doesn't reach the threshold or decides to drop out of the race, all of those funds go back into that public financing fund. So there is a threshold of sort of success and to the point of the $5 contributions also support in the district before anyone gets any money.

Any other questions? Comments?

Motion to approve. Second.

All right. We've got a motion and a second. Any discussion on the motion? Hearing none, Madam City Clerk, can we get a roll call, please?

Mayor, Councilor Castro? Yes. Councilor Travis? Yes. Councilor Faulkner? Yes. Councilor Figali? Yes. Councilor Garcia?

Yes.

Councilor Bustamante? Yes. Councilor Casse? Yes. Motion passed.

Thank you. Next item, please, Madam City Clerk.

Next item is also a public hearing. This is consideration of Bill No. 2026-11, an Adoption of an Ordinance. This is sponsored by Mayor Michael Garcia, Councillor Alma Castro, Councillor Pilar Faulkner, and Councillor Lee Garcia. It's a bill relating to the Santa Fe Homes Program and requirements for rental units amending section 26-1.22 to make certain technical changes to clarify the calculation of fees paid in lieu of providing onsite affordable units to amend the fee in lieu calculation to use the 30% of the area median income instead of 65% when determining base fee amount. and to specify that the developers may work with the Office of Affordable Housing to establish a payment date.

Okay, so this is a public hearing. First of all, if staff wants to give a presentation, and then we can move on to the public hearing portion.

Thanks, Mr. Mayor. Appreciate it. Sherry Boucher is on the call with me today. IT, can we put her on?

I guess let me ask this question while Director Chavez is setting up her laptop. Would governing body members like a presentation? I know we've discussed this.

Okay.

So I'm happy to just have you stand by if that's okay, Director Chavez. And then I'll go ahead and defer to any of the folks. Councillor Castro, any comments?

No, I think that we've spoken about this at length. Thank you.

Councillor Faulkner.

Ditto.

Councillor Garcia. I have none. Okay. With that, we'll go ahead and move on to the public hearing portion of this item. Any members of the public that would like to speak to this item now is the time to do so. I do not see anybody in the chamber rushing up to the podium. Madam City Clerk, is there anybody online?

Yes, Mayor. Stephanie Beninato.

Thank you, Stephanie Beninato. I always wish that you would have somebody do at least a short presentation on these bills so that people could be refreshed as to what is actually happening in them. I am in support of changing fee in lieu of to make it so that it's more, what do I want to say, more affordable. applicable in a wider range of projects and also that developers can't clean up as I would say we go their way out of it rather by using the in love rather than providing affordable housing, thank you.

There any other members of the public and city clerk.

No mayor, no other hands have been raised.

With that being said we'll go to close the public hearing portion of this item. We'll go ahead and defer to the governing body for any additional questions. I do have an amendment that I'm bringing forward. A community member had concerns that the way the legislation currently reads that this individual felt the city could go back and retroactively charge folks. It's a consultation with the city attorney that would be in violation of the law. We absolutely could not do that, but just to make sure that it is crystal clear that that is not the intention, nor would we want to do this. The amendment is to propose just to strike the date and the resolution or the proposed ordinance change. And so with that, I'll go to make a motion to move forward. Amendment C. Second.

Second.

Okay, so there's a motion and a second. Any discussion on the amendment? Hearing none, Madam City Clerk, can we get a roll call vote, please?

Councillor Chavez? Yes. Councillor Faulkner? Yes. Councillor Figali? Yes. Councillor Garcia?

Yes.

Councillor Bustamante?

Yes.

Councillor Cassett? Yes. Councillor Castro? Yes. Motion has passed.

Okay.

Move to approve as amended.

Seconded. So we've got a motion and a second to approve as amended. Any discussion on the motion? Hearing none, Madam City Clerk, can we get a roll call vote, please?

Certainly, Mayor. Councillor Faulkner? Yes. Councillor Figali? No. Councillor Garcia?

Yes.

Councillor Bustamante?

Yes.

Councillor Kasset? No, and I'd like to explain my vote. Councillor Castro? Yes. Councillor Chavez? No.

Motion passed.

OK. Councillor Kesset, to explain your vote.

Thank you, Mayor. Only explaining because this has been such a bifurcated process, and I want to make sure that that no vote is not misconstrued in any way. I do not think our current program is working. I think that has been very clear. I think there probably was a time that this, and there was a time when our Santa Fe Homes program was working. It was designed during a very different period. what i did not see during this process was economic projection financial feasibility and in fact some of the numbers that i did see through a variety of talks lead me to believe that this could have a negative effect on housing in this community What I am encouraged by is I know in January we'll be doing our started calling it a housing professional summit. We'll be bringing forward a lot of individuals who work in this industry. They are very eager to work with us to find solutions that will actually result in not only more affordable housing with a capital A, but also a healthier housing market so that it is more accessible across that spectrum from deeply affordable into middle income, which, as we know, we don't have at this time. So look forward to working with my colleagues and the community on that. Thank you.

Thank you. Next item on the agenda, please, Madam City Clerk.

next item on the agenda is appointments 21a is appointment to the joint city county working group on affordable housing councillor jamie cassett councillor alma costo and mayor michael garcia okay we got a motion in a second any discussion or none madam city clerk can we get a roll call vote please yes mayor councillor figali yes councillor garcia

Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes.

Motion passed. Next item is 21B, Joint City-County Working Group on Homelessness. This is for Councillor Lee Garcia, Councillor Alma Castro, and Councillor Pilar Faulkner.

Move to approve. Second.

Second.

A motion and a second any discussion or none madam city clerk can we get a roll call vote.

Yes, my counselor Garcia.

Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Motion passed. Next item is Joint City-County Working Group on City Boundaries Regional Planning. This is for Mayor Michael Garcia, Councillor Paul Bustamante, and Councillor Pat Figali. Move to approve.

Second.

Got a motion and a second. Any discussion? There are none. Madam City Clerk, can we get a roll call vote, please?

Yes, Mayor. Councillor Bustamante. Yes. Councillor Cassett. Yes. Councillor Castro. Yes. Councillor Travis. Yes. Councillor Faulkner. Yes. Councillor Figali.

Yes.

Councillor Garcia.

Yes.

Motion passed. Next item is 21D. This is a joint city county working group on senior services, child care. Councillor Paul Bustamante, Councillor Amanda Chavez, and Councillor Elizabeth Barrett. I have to approve. Second.

I've got a motion and a second. Any discussion? Hearing none, Madam City Clerk, can we get a roll call vote, please?

Yes, Mayor, Councillor Cassett. Yes. Councillor Castro. Yes. Councillor Chavez. Yes. Councillor Faulkner. Yes. Councillor Figali. Yes. Councillor Garcia.

Yes.

Councillor Bustamante.

Yes.

Motion passed. Next item is appointment to the Planning Commission. Cameron Crawford, appointment to the District 4 seat with a term ending June 2028. Move to deny. Second.

Okay, so we got a motion to this. Any discussion. I guess my discussion is i'd like to know why folks are requesting to deny.

May I, Mayor? Sure, absolutely. Thank you. So we had the Planning Commission. There was a call for people interested in joining the commission. It closed June 30th. I do have a concern that when District 4C on the commission came up, we didn't do a call for that to the community. I don't think that we're... being equitable in these opportunities to participate in the city when we are picking and choosing when to to do a call for these seats i think we should give every community member the same type of opportunity it should have mirrored the one that closed june 30th and that did not occur for this position i was completely unaware that This person was interested in coming before us. Nothing was posted publicly. And the last thing I saw posted publicly, like I said, for the planning commission closed for applications on June 30th. And then we have this in front of us. So I think we have to create the same opportunity for all community members each time we have something like this available for people to participate in. So I will ask that this be posted so we truly can assess who would be interested and give all community members equal access to apply. Plus, we also have no information on the candidate here for the planning commission. There's no resume, there's nothing here. So I think there's just missing pieces to the process that I would like to be addressed before we appoint someone to this seat. Thank you.

sure thank you councillor uh councillor cassett and then councillor figali yeah thank you so much mayor and and thank you councillor chavez as you she outlined it perfectly um as the uh other district four candidate i want to make sure that every member of our district has the opportunity to know that that seat is open um the last one that i saw called districts one two three and at large which i understand people you know could but i think that they're It brings a different awareness. So I would encourage this individual to apply. Obviously, they are interested, but I also would like to see who else from District 4 is potentially interested. And I've already expressed a desire to see individuals on the Planning Commission who have a strong background in related projects. uh, areas. So planning and land use development, um, contracting real estate, you know, we're, we're really at a crossroads that the planning commission is going to be playing a big role. And so I would like to see if there's somebody from district four who potentially, um, would be a better fit and has the opportunity to apply. So, um, my request is that we could get this posted as soon as possible so that hopefully by the end of September, we could, uh, make that final appointment because I know having a full commission is important. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Vigali.

Thank you, Mayor. I would like to echo the points, but in particular, the fact that we have no information about the applicant in the packet. I mean, most of us do know Cam in some capacity, but I do not know his resume. And I would like to have that available at least to the public before I take any sort of vote on him. Thank you.

Thank you.

Anybody else? Councillor Castro.

Thank you so much. I'm just going to take the opportunity. I actually, um, I have very little opinion on the district for appointment because it's not my district. And I think that folks have the opportunity to recruit folks that they know that want to be a part of it and have the right skills. That's wonderful. Um, I just think that this is a great illustrative moment, um, for how we appoint planning commission members. Just as an example, both district one counselors voted no on the district one appointment. And I think that it was for similar reasons. We would have liked to see some expertise. We knew that there were people interested that did have that expertise. So I would just suggest that maybe in the future for appointments that we check in with counselors on what's happening in their own districts, especially if it's district based. Thank you.

Any other comments? Hearing none, Madam City Clerk, can we get a roll call vote, please?

Yes, Mayor. Councillor Castro. I'm going to pass. Councillor Chavez. Yes. Councillor Faulkner. Yes. Councillor Figali. Yes. Councillor Garcia.

No.

Councillor Bustamante.

No.

Councillor Cassatt. Yes. The motion passed. So I'm going to vote yes. Okay. Motion passed.

Okay. With that, I believe we've completed our agenda. Have a good night, everybody.