thank you good morning good morning everyone Miss Prine good morning mayor good morning this is a meeting of the El Paso city council for Tuesday August 29 2023 mayor Lisa is present and presiding in site council chambers along with representative Kennedy mayor Pro temanello alternate mayor protemolinar representative Salcido representative Fierro representative Hernandez is also making her way to the Deus and representatives Rivera in Canales are running a few minutes late it is 904 am I will any everyone please silence or electronic devices so as not to disturb the meeting representative Rivera is also present and mayor of the chaplain had technical issues this morning so he will not be joining us thank you thank you everybody for being here and um every every city council meeting we do have chaplain that um kind of blesses over the council and the proceedings and it's also over our community and we're having a technical difficulty with logging on um so I would like to um really first of all before we get started uh I'm going to pass it over to representative molinar and then I'll move forward represent molinar good morning thank you very much mayor um need to make an announcement that the El Paso Police Department but really the city of El Paso has lost a giant in law enforcement a gentleman by the name of Dwayne Johnson Sergeant Dwayne Johnson retired from the El Paso Police Department his ID number is 300 and so he was my mentor he was my good friend he was my supervisor when I was a homicide detective and crimes against person so we lost him and today is our services and I wish that you express a little bit moment of your time on all this service and some of you may remember from Crime Stoppers so he and former Sheriff Leo salmonego started the Crime Stoppers program here in El Paso thank you mayor so with that I'd like to start with a moment of silence for sergeant Johnson thank you thank you and also um I want um I'd like for everyone to really think of good thoughts and great things that have happened within our community what has happened within our lives um I think it's important that um we all continue to think positive about I'll um I'll tell a quick story and and I think it's important um I was talking to a good friend on Saturday and he goes man it's been tough you've had a lot of tough things happen you know and things are rough and I said you know what I'm going to tell you something that in my life I've had some really tough things in my life I've had some things that probably could never talk about that's happened and some things that have been tough but one thing I'm really proud of is my life and nothing I would never switch my life for anyone's else's life I'm proud of who I am and what I've achieved and I think that's something we all need to be proud of who we are and you know it's not always going to be the best it's not always going to be great but at the end of the day should be proud of who we are and what we do and we what we achieve day in and day out and that's what I want everyone kind of think in their minds of the great things that have happened to us within our lives within our community and things that we can be really proud of and I'm proud of our Council I'm proud of our city and really I'm proud and humbled to have the opportunity to be the mayor of this great city of El Paso and I wouldn't trade my life for anyone else's life because I'm proud to have this opportunity and I'm proud who I've become and I think we all should have that attitude in life that we have that opportunity to be here day in and day out so with that I'm allow everyone to please have good thoughts and then but then you got to radiate them to us so until I have really good thoughts and thoughts of happiness and good things and we can put things behind us and move forward in life so with that I'm going to have a moment of silence so we all can put our thoughts together thank you everyone and may God bless you and may God bless this wonderful city of El Paso thank you mayor and I believe chaplain Morada is is in the Q the cube tablet Morata can you hear us chaplain Morata are you there no sir I don't believe he's able to connect well everyone please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance thank you ma'am would you come up and lead us thank you pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States thank you oops please do that's um I'll give representative good morning that brings us to the mayor's proclamations the first Proclamation is National preparedness month who's first National preparedness month whereas the city of El Paso and its residents are vulnerable to the impacts of natural and man-made disasters and whereas emergency preparedness and Readiness is a personal family and business responsibility and whereas National preparedness month is held each September and aims to empower citizens to take simple steps to prepare for emergencies in their homes businesses and communities and whereas the 2023 National preparedness month topic is focused on helping older adults to prepare for disasters and whereas the Department of Public Health will educate and Empower older adults and community members to uptake emergency preparedness behaviors with emergency preparedness carnivals set up at different events across the city through the month of September and whereas the city of El Paso encourages all residents to consider the state of their personal family and work preparedness and uptake preparedness behaviors to increase resident self-reliance in case of any emergency now therefore be it proclaimed by the mayor and Council of the city of El Paso the September 2023 shall be known as National preparedness month in Witness by The Honorable mayor Oscar liser [Applause] good morning hi good morning mayor and Council Ruth Castillo program manager for the public health emergency preparedness program with the Department of Public Health thank you so much for issuing the polka Mission today preparedness month reminds us how important it is for all of us to be ready for emergencies primarily for our children and our older adults the preparedness program will be at different events across the county so that way we can promote emergency preparedness with different preparedness topics primarily the um the celebrations that we're having for the city as well are the senior centers we're going to be able to provide emergency kit along with all the resources that will help the community to be ready for emergencies we also would like to thank our partners that will be joining us in these efforts primarily the Red Cross the office of emergency management some other department of public health programs and of course we want to thank all the organizations that day to day they do some type of emergency preparedness or response for our community thank you thank you and I think it's really important to note that even though it's preparing this month we're prepared year-round and this is just more an awareness to make sure that we show the things we are prepared for and and bring light to it but 12 months out of the Year we're prepared to make sure we protect and public safety for our community so thank you for that let's pray yes sir the next Proclamation is suicide prevention Awareness Month representative Mr Mayor I need to say that I'm very honored to be allowed to read this Proclamation and how important it is for to our community and how many lives is touched in our community let me begin there where suicide is the second leading cause of death for people aged 10 to 14 and the fourth leading cause of death for people age 15 to 24. whereas suicide is the 12th leading cause of death over on the U.S whereas 46 percent of people who die by Suicide had a diagnosed mental health condition but research shows about 90 percent may have experienced symptoms of of mental health conditions and whereas the friends and families of the individuals who die by Suicide are left behind navigating the tragedies too often experiencing feeling shame and the stigma whereas together spreading public awareness educating families and friends advocating for mental health care expansion improving our Behavioral Systems and helping the lives of individuals living with mental health conditions and their families whereas as a community it is vital and we learn to identify the symptoms of mental health conditions warning signs of suicide in order to step in and help individuals to get help before it's too late as well as the mentally dismantling the stigma and misinformation whereas El pasoans can text n-a-m-i or 741-741 to access the crisis text line and whereas El pasoons can call 988 or emergence Health Network crisis line at seven seven nine one eight zero zero if they or loved ones are experiencing Mental Health crisis whereas a community or organizations will hold a suicide prevention awareness a month Candlelight visual at San Jacinto Plaza on September 21st at 7 pm now therefore it be it proclaimed by the mayor and Council the city of El Paso that the month of September be known as Suicide Prevention Awareness Month thank you all please [Applause] good morning mayor good morning Council uh thank you so much representative for reading that in and for your support on that uh we're very grateful for the support of the city of El Paso the public health department in our work in bringing mental health awareness um excuse me executive director of Nami El Paso we're a local affiliate of the National Alliance on Mental Illness our staff our volunteers and our team are individuals with lived experience with mental health conditions or family members who are providing care to someone with a lived mental health condition and many of them have stories of suicide whether they've lost someone to Suicide or have seen someone try to die by Suicide and are on journeys of recovery through that and processing that grief processing going through the behavioral health system and and focusing on recovery and so we're very grateful for their work in helping spread awareness education here in our community we are also grateful to be up here with emergence Health Network we work with them to help bring our stories to CIT The Crisis Intervention team and so we're are grateful that our volunteers get to bring their stories and connect with law enforcement to ensure that they understand what they will be encountering when they go out in the field we will be holding our vigil with partnership with the public health department emergence Health Network the VA the American Foundation For Suicide Prevention and emergency health networks at the San Jacinto plaza where we will be honoring those who we've lost to Suicide but also honoring and showing our gratitude to those who are still with us today and continuing on their journey to recovery thank you Council thank you hi good morning Christy Doherty I'm the CEO of your emergence Health Network your local Mental Health and idd Authority again thank you for recognizing uh this this important topic I think awareness is is wonderful but as we were talking about disaster preparedness it's all we have to address this issue all the time just I want to give you some great uh statistics on some of our Partnerships as you know we are currently co-located in the 911 center that is where the 988 uh hotline is answered as well as emergence Health Network crisis line so that is a true integrated partnership there's other models across the state and Across the Nation but I have to tell you our El Paso model is one of the best because we are truly integrated where the emergent staff is able to communicate with the 911 staff and law enforcement through the cad system and there's so much information shared that does save lives so since um the launch of 988 in July of 2022 we've answered almost 10 000 calls on 988. at the same time our local crisis line has answered approximately 24 000 calls so that is a significant number of people that are reaching out for help uh we're of course we're grateful for our Partnerships with nami and other agencies across the city in the county really addressing these needs uh we really want to thank the city for our continued partnership on CIT um it's been going strong for several years now we're growing a lot of good happening there but I want to also let you know that since we brought that model the city was the first to step up and partner with partner with us on that model we now have CIT with the sheriff's department with the city of Socorro and we're very excited we're one of the first to actually start school-based CIT so we now have CIT with El Paso Independent School District Police Department as well as Canutillo Independent School District Police Department it's a little bit different we don't have them in the cars like we do with our Public Law Enforcement but they do have a team that responds with them to the schools because the schools are a place that need a lot of support uh we really want to encourage everybody in our community to make sure you're checking on folks you know it's not always about getting professional help sometimes it's about just that support network whether it's a friend clergy just check on people and it's okay to say are you okay ask because if you don't ask there someone's probably not going to come forward and talk to you so again thank you for your continuous support and we just appreciate everything you do representative vanilla's on our board we really appreciate her support and again just thank you I can't say it enough because we wouldn't be where we are today as a local mental health authority without our wonderful elected officials so thank you thank you and I want to thank you all because it's so important not only awareness but also expanding you know the services in working with other people and understand the importance so I know that uh since I took office in 2013 we've been meeting since then and we see the importance in how much public awareness and mental health has meant to our community that the service you provide and um every day it seems to be different challenges but you all have been able to step up to the challenges and we need to continue to adapt and change because you know the safety of our children and the safety our community is our number one priority and I thank you for doing that and continue to do that and I'm very glad to see that uh all the partners that we've been able to partner with you all and continue to be partners and I know this is just only the start of something that will continue to grow and make sure we protect our community and make sure that we're there for people so thank you for that thank you mayor um Christy I want to just thank both of y'all for being the face for stepping up and and letting us informing us keep business posted but you have such a great Dynamic team that are there um above and beyond and whenever our office needs information or or somebody to to recommend information from we can reach out to your office and we get a response immediately so I want to thank you for your team for your staff because they do such a great job for you all thank you again for everything you do thank you [Applause] this morning's honorees will please remain in Chambers Council will have the opportunity to take photos with you once the all the ceremonial items have been completed the next Proclamation is Chico's Tacos day good morning everyone yeah so the if the Chico's Tacos family can come up please um I'll read the proclamation into the record and I have a couple comments mayor um yes ma'am thank you uh the proclamation reads the city of El Paso Texas whereas Chico's Tacos was founded on July 4th 1953 by lifelong El Paso in the late Joe B Mora and whereas Chico's Tacos has grown to fame as a local favorite restaurant chain and is run by Joe and Emma Mora's son Richard Bernie William and Grandson Brian and whereas their famous tacos are as distinctive and exceptional as El Paso itself the signature tacos along with the other popular dishes including their green sauce and their original unique hot dogs my favorite have provided comfort food to generations of el pasoans and whereas Chicos tacos has been recognized nationally by the food net Network and the Cooking Channel bringing positive attention to the Sun City and whereas Chico's Tacos is an El Paso tradition and for over 70 years the Moda family and their employees have provided delicious meals hospitality and a Gathering Place for countless El pasoans and visitors to this city and whereas we celebrate 70 years Chico's Tacos has been serving El Paso and now therefore be proclaimed by the mayor and Council of the city of El Paso that August 29 2023 shall be known as Chico's Tacos day signed by honorable mayor Oscar liser wow thank you all so much it's such an honor good morning good morning now you know it's never too early to eat Chico's Tacos I hope we got them right now because it's never ever been too early well I got to tell you um hearing you speak this morning Mr Mayor you said let's think good thoughts and that's exactly what I'm thinking I'm bringing love and light to everybody here it's such an honor 70 years anyway it's hard to hard to put into words when I was 15 years old it was a Saturday I think I was still watching cartoons and my dad said to my brother take Bernie with you he says where he says to work so I had 10 minutes notice and I've been working ever since and I tell you he was a quite a man quite a Visionary you know I'm I'm so proud to keep the Legacy going with the help of my family and El Paso was just such a multiculture special place and we've become part of it and you know there's so many anecdotes I won't even go into them I loved everything that you said in the proclamation my dad always said keep it simple and I'm still doing that we still have the same menu from 1953 and we try not to change everybody goes well you know what you need and then sometimes they say you change this well we don't change anything on purpose that would be dumb um sometimes you just don't have a choice and once again it's truly an honor and Chico's Tacos day wow it's got a great Ring to it I thank you guys so much and I think it's a wonderful City [Applause] um and and that's okay he can our um we're sponsoring and I should say um to correct the Deeds of actor Mario Lopez we're sponsoring 70 um uh singles tacos Chicos tacos to provide for City staff today uh to enjoy that delicious and and in honor of the 70 years uh we'll be purchasing 17 singles so uh we don't agree and that was an unfair statement because Chico's Tacos is what makes our community great so so thank you and congratulations thank you and you know one of one of the things that's so important in life and you know when you got a little choked up it means a lot that a family business and there's nothing like family and they have a family business and be able to carry on the tradition and continue to not only carry on a tradition but the quality and the quality a lot of times comes from the heart so and I felt it while you were talking and I understand family business I understand what it means to be able to pass down from generation to generation and you couldn't have said it better and sometimes words without words you said it really well so I want to thank and congratulate you and may God bless you [Applause] Miss point the next Proclamation is library card signup month in El Paso hold on the representative Salcido yes ma'am thank you mayor um just want to also say thank you and uh an honor for you to be here for us to honor you here for Chico's Tacos I know that when you said Chico's Tacos everybody's face lit up I like that the mayor said uh uh you bring light and love and that's what we need here right now and so small little request uh one of the my res my my district always requests restaurants and District Five would love Chico's Tacos so small little request there uh we want to thank you for your your service to El Paso and and thank you for everything you do [Applause] we now move to library card signup month in El Paso Proclamation Proclamation city of El Paso Texas whereas the most important school supply of all the library cards and whereas a library card opens up a world of opportunity for people of all ages as well as cultural and social backgrounds and whereas children who have library cards and use the library perform better in school and whereas a library card provides access to a gold mine of books magazine CDs videos computers and internet and more whereas library cards are a ticket to a variety of free programs and services for the whole family to enjoy now therefore be proclaimed by the mayor and City Council of the city of El Paso that the month of September shall be known as library card sign up month in El Paso signed by The Honorable mayor Oscar liser good morning good morning mayor and Council Norma Martinez director of libraries it's a privilege to be here in front of you celebrating Library month and we have this year we have a limited edition that we're going to be unveiling next Saturday September 2nd at the chamisai library at 11 o'clock and you're all invited to come join us and get your limited card Edition I also want to give a great shout out to all of my fellow workers my colleagues behind me here for all the work that they do and for making all of this possible thank you so much for all of your support thank you thank you all for being here Mr Prine the final Proclamation is El Paso International Airport's 95th Anniversary good morning Proclamation city of El Paso whereas El Paso International Airport was dedicated on September the 8th 1928 and has Faithfully served West Texas Southern New Mexico and Northern Mexico for 95 years throughout its history this vital Gateway has supported millions of passengers spanning generations of people living traveling and thriving and whereas El Paso International Airport has been recognized over the years as the best airport in North America for customer service attributing this achievement to the airlines federal agencies rental cars concessions hotels and other key Partners El Paso International Airport is poised to continue its Legacy of excellence in customer service and financial and environmental sustainability and whereas El Paso International Airport has consistently upheld its commitment to ensuring safe and efficient air travel for passengers and cargo alike it's unwavering dedication has supported countless businesses spanning a wide variety of Industries including Hospitality Recreation entertainment Transportation manufacturing Aerospace and defense thus creating a significant economic impact for the region and whereas El Paso International Airport has embraced Innovation and advancement making strides in non-air non-aeronautical Land Development the legacy of progress continues with projects like The Innovation Factory and the advanced manufacturing District which promised to redefine the landscape and cultivate essential stem skills and high paying employment opportunities that will shape the Region's future and whereas the city of El Paso recognizes the enduring contributions of El Paso International Airport to the community the economy and the spirit of Aviation the airport's 95th Anniversary is a testament to its enduring significance now therefore a beer proclaimed by the mayor and Council of the city of El Paso that September the 8th 2023 shall be known as El Paso International Airport's 95th Anniversary signed the honorable mayor Oscar leaser city of El Paso good morning good morning mayor city council San Rodriguez director of the airport I want to thank you this morning on behalf of our airport staff and our Airline Partners some of which have joined us this morning in the lobby I want to thank you for the proclamation today uh 95 years we're really proud to be part of the history of El Paso International Airport surfing millions of passengers on an annual basis just to give you an idea of the big economic Hub that we are we're close to 3 000 airport-based employees those are the employees that have a badge and they work at the airport close to 500 businesses small to large operate on Airport land as well but first and foremost we are an airport and we've done 95 years of history of preserving and working really hard to provide a safe and secure environment for our passengers and our partners to operate out of I want to thank our partners some of which are here today our Airlines our cargo carriers our fixed-based operators our federal agencies that work very closely with us on the security and the funding side and everybody that makes flying for our community possible I want to invite the council the mayor the community as well on September 8th but we'll be having a photo update at the airport to celebrate our official 95th Anniversary plus uh we'll be providing treats to our traveling public that day and then on September 22nd we will be celebrating our 95th Anniversary as well in conjunction with insights Museum as part of the El Paso space festival at The Innovation Factory this time I'm going to introduce Nancy versalda who will speak on behalf of our Aviation Partners Nancy good morning good morning um I'd like to thank everybody on behalf of Southwest Airlines and the other Airline carriers behind me here um to be part of this El Paso Community and the awesome 95th Anniversary Milestone that we're celebrating today thank you so much the relationship between Southwest Airlines and the El Paso Airport allows the community to grow and our families giving them the opportunity for prosperous careers the relationship has been a positive experience between all of us I've been with the airline industry for over 23 years and I have felt the most welcomed here in El Paso since being here just a short two years it has been a great relationship and a very welcoming so thank you for that um I also want to thank everybody for coming in today and supporting the El Paso Airport all of the airlines behind me and to another great more 95 years it's been a great pleasure and to many many more thank you so much thank you for your partnership thank you you know Miss Rodriguez before you you go I think it's important that to kind of talk about we're an Enterprise fund the airport's an Enterprise fund and it's not part of the tax base for this year possible you go through that a little bit because I think it's important that we have made it 95 years improved it and then also I think you left out a big part of it uh our ratings and what we've been recognized for it's something that I'm very proud of that you've all have been able to achieve and I love the shirt with I think we're like three people away from capacity in here which is a great crowd for you to be able to kind of boost of what a great job your team and the team that's standing behind you has done to become you know nationally rated and recognized for the incredible work but it's because of public service and and safety but also what we provide for our citizens I've always said that in life we only have one opportunity to make a first impression so when people come here and a lot of the military you know their first impression of El Paso is when the land at the El Paso International Airport and they walk through those doors and and come down those stairs so I think it's important to kind of talk about some of the great things you've all been able to accomplish as partners you have your partnership that helped you achieve that because we couldn't do it alone so I'd love of the hear from them but also the public under knows that it's an Enterprise fund that's funded through its own doings and not you know through the taxpayers so I think that's something really important too so if you could just brag about yourself for a few minutes I'd appreciate it absolutely I think it was a lot of it was in in the uh in the proclamation itself mayor but the airport is an Enterprise fund it is a city Department it is so funded there's no property tax that goes towards the operation or the Improvement of the airport the Innovative over the nine to five years the previous directors and administrations have been very Innovative and really furthering the non-aviation development when you think of our our budget we are a model across the the nation when it comes to non-aviation development two-thirds of our Revenue comes from non-aviation revenue which is really important for us because this allows us to do the type of things that like the Innovation Factory that we're moving forward as we move to the 100th year anniversary but also to do things like Safety and Security uh programs that that um that really help our passengers with disabilities as well like the sunflower program they kicked off a couple years back those type of programs and the collaborations that we have with the aviation their Airlines their federal agencies are really important and has and has really allowed us to be recognized as one of the best airports the best airport in terms of customer service across the nation in North America for airport size our community obviously we serve Northern New Mexico northern Mexico southern New Mexico and West Texas it's really a hub of of Transportation of innovation and economic activity mayor as you just stated I'm really proud to be part of that Legacy and we're kicking off our our our next five years towards our 100th year anniversary thank you and I appreciate everything I'll do I'm not sure if you're aware of it but in 1980 I was an airport employee so as a former employee you guys are doing a great job congratulations thank you America thank you yes and they're still looking for the bags he sorted they're still looking for the bags he sorted so uh representative Kenny I don't think you were called on the speaker [Laughter] send agenda all matters listed under the consent agenda will be considered by city council to be routine and will be enacted by one Motion in less separate discussion is requested by council members prior to the vote members of the audience may ask questions regarding items on the consent agenda when the vote has been taken If an item has not been called out for separate discussion the item has been approved Council May however reconsider any item at any time during the meeting are you a pro tip I make a motion to approve the consent agenda with the following revisions page 5 item 13 moved to the Forefront of the regular agenda per representative Rivera page 5 item 14 moved to the Forefront of the regular agenda per representative Fierro page 10 item 26 moved to the Forefront of the regular agenda per May or leaser thank you and I know we have a lot of people here president 10 and I want to make sure we move it up so you all can go back to work and and sell all those houses out there um I'd like to postpone item uh my item for uh till next agenda item okay next agenda please so I'm going to revise the revisions thank you so page five item 14 postponed two weeks per representative Fiero all right there's a motion made by mayor Pro temanello seconded by representative Rivera to approve the consent agenda as revised combat motion call for the vote [Music] representative Pierro aye aye thank you and the voting session and a motion passes unanimously that brings us to page five to item number 13. this was moved to the Forefront item 13 is discussion in action to approve a resolution titled Grandparents Day resolution that honors all grandparents for their contributions and selfless efforts they provide to their families and society as a whole and this is representative Rivera's item thank you sir yes sir I'm working here that's all right no I'm gonna turn down for you sir okay go ahead thank you thank you could I have the senior adult program from EPCC a friend please thank you and uh since this is a resolution I'm going to make a motion to approve thank you okay thank you all for being here appreciate that Mr fiero's always having problems with this computer thank y'all for being here today's resolution is honoring Grandparents Day whereas Grant's Grandparents Day is celebrated nationally since 1978 on the second weekend of September today we honor our grandparents and recognize them as our families Community treasures and whereas just as we celebrate Mother's Day Father's Day each year today we celebrate grandparents day and we acknowledge our grandparents for their unselfish contributions to Society for passing on our cultural Traditions our family stories and for teaching and modeling values to Future Generations and whereas grandparents are considered the Cornerstone of the family and are deserving of our respect and admiration given that they are the link to our past and guides to our future and whereas the greatest Generation kept our country strong during the Depression area era I'm sorry and now we also recognize the baby boomer generation for their contributions and whereas the El Paso Community College senior adult program and Humana are sponsoring this year's Grandparents Day celebration on Saturday September 9th with many other AG Network organizations serving the elderly and community volunteers to provide information entertainment and fun for grandparents and and their families now therefore it be resolved that the city of El Paso recognizes September 9 2023 as a day to celebrate and pay tribute to all grandparents in the city of El Paso so thanks you want to take your boat good morning mayor city council and members and of course guests I just want to say first of all I was 10 years old when Chico's Tacos opened its doors and it's hard to follow that act really that's right we want to thank you for the opportunity to present today and thank you council member Rivera for introducing our resolution and El Paso Community College senior adult program has been celebrating grandparents day since 2004. so and of course we can't do it alone so we have had hundreds literally hundreds of Community Partners that have joined us each year of course we were shut down during covet so we were missing a couple of years there but that's okay we're back in back in business and so you know Grandparents Day in serves a couple of purposes or three or four purposes and one of them is is to honor grandparents for their wisdom and experience also to have an opportunity for grandparents and great grandparents I'm sure to to love show love for their kids kids right and also we're aware that they are a source of strength and guidance for all of us there are about a hundred and thirteen thousand over a hundred and thirteen thousand sixty five-year-old seniors and many of them hopefully will be partaking of events and also partaking of the classes that senior adult program offers uh free for seniors 55 years and older and maybe only some of you are eligible for our program because they're tuition free I want to ask you to raise your hand butt down but I'm looking at one of them [Laughter] also um the idea of grandparents day was first first brought to light in 1970 when Miriam H McQuaid a homemaker from West Virginia while advocating for lonely elderly seniors in nursing homes and shut-ins started the campaign to establish National Grandparents Day so finally eight years later in 1978 grandparents day was officially proclaimed by President Jimmy Carter a great role model and advocate for the elderly and I want you to also to know that the Forget Me Not is the official flower of Grandparents Day in case any of you are thinking of taking flowers to your grandparents to forget me not is the official flower you can also make a homemade homemade is always better a homemade card from grandkids uh for for the grandparents as always very welcomed also schools are encouraged to do activities to plan activities for grandparents plan a lunch with the kids and have the grandparents all show up on a special day also Hobbies skills and a lot of other things you do have a couple of programs that are here at the city the RSVP the senior volunteer program and the Foster grandparent program and I know that the Foster grandparent program sends abuelito's through the schools I'm I'm sure you're familiar with that but anyway so the goal is to enthusiastically enthusiastically celebrate Grandparents Day like we do Mother's Day and Father's Day and Mother's Day is probably the most celebrated day of the year and I'm sure mayor Leisure and his mom celebrate it and and I remember her so well so well so thank you for helping us to promote this day we're also going to be handing you a flyer for our hands of wisdom Grandparents Day celebration at the El Paso Community College on Saturday September the 9th from 1 to 4. thank you for happiness you know one thing though I um the definition of grandparents is you now you have the right to be as silly as you want every day of your life without justifying it I certainly thank you all for being here and allowing me to be honored to read this resolution to you all and hopefully uh we're we're going to take a vote on it but before we leave I'd like to say I'm a proud grandparent of Katie Brandon Cameron Everly and Ensley five five kids so thank you very much you will soon graduate to great grandparents which I'm one of them it's not let's not get ahead of ourselves thank you I was going to say that I intend to run copies of the hands of wisdom and give it to all my grandkids so just to remind them and I'm also I'm a big fan of lifelong learning as you know we've talked about this before and I want to thank you for your program and making it available sometimes people can forget that the Mind still is active for our whole lives as long as you keep it active so thank you very much thank you thank you motion to recess wait we need to vote there was a motion made by representative Rivera seconded by representative Fierro to approve the resolution on item 13. on that motion call for the vote representative Fierro thank you in the voting session and the motion passes unanimously thank you Council motion to recess is there a second second there's a motion in a second to recess the city council meeting all in favor anyone opposed the meeting is in recess at 9 49 A.M Council if we could go ahead and get everybody into the lobby area we're going to go we're going to take photographs as follows it's going to be the national preparedness month first Suicide Prevention Awareness Month Chico's Taco State library card sign up month the international Airport's 95th Anniversary and then we're going to do the grandparents um Grandparents Day resolution so again we're going to go in the order that they were presented in terms of proclamation starting with national preparedness month in the lobby I'll ask folks to come out in groups because it is a large collection of folks thanks you want to try it again Council will will be convening the mass transit Department board meeting next excuse me everyone if we could miss partner if we could continue please thank you good morning this is the special meeting of the El Paso mass transit Department board for Tuesday August 29 2023 it is 10 16 A.M present and presiding has board chair Lisa also president council chambers our board members Kennedy anello Hernandez molinar Salcido Fierro and Rivera we did have one member of the public signed up to speak and they say he's here now Mr Jose barriga yeah there he is there he is and his topic is title VI requirement and guidelines for Federal Transit Administration recipients good morning Mr Rodriguez thanks for being here likewise you have three minutes yes on February the 27 2020 the federal attracted Federal Transit Administration updated the title 6 circular to 4702.1b then I saw the reading that I saw that as usually the series uh tend to combine Ada and the title six procedures when somebody complains then I saw the grantees there has been loan required to have procedures for processing complaints from members of the public as alleging discrimination based on race color or national origin on the third sixth of the Civil civil Civil Rights Act of 1964. FDA knowed the note the agencies can use the same process for accessing and investigating Ada and title assist complaints while acts agencies make fine consolidating the process more efficient Ada complaints may be categorized distant distinctly frontal assist complaints in inter internal and external communication it is not appropriate to have a title 6 complaint from that includes this ability as one of the basis for filing a complaint this incorrectly implies that disability is a basis on the title VI instead an agency may elect to have a one discrimination Complaint Form or similarly title form that covers both the title VI and Ada basis and clearly distinguish the two the two the two two status sorry I got the and clearly distinguish the two status the reason that I came here to say this is uh because right now we have the migrants coming coming from the across the across the fences and they tend to spend more time more time commuting on public transit than non-immigrant and they do have that even that they may not have the proper documentations they had the proper rise to um defend themselves with the title six so so just yes ma'am we'll move on to item number two of the regular agenda and board member Canales walked in at 10 18 a.m he's joining us item number two is discussion in action to amend the FY 2023 and 2024 mass transit budget resolution to amend paragraph 27 to clarify in revise to allow the city manager or designee to waive fares for bus service for a maximum of 10 days per fiscal year for City designated holidays and events and then schedule B and address any mine address minor scribe nurse heirs and Mr barriga also signed up to speak on the site thank you go ahead Mr Cody Nicole Cody managing director good morning Council mayor and Council this item is as was read into the record is just that to clarify language we did remove the word streetcar from that exception because currently there will be no charge to ride on the streetcar and so then we correct it also schedule B just so it's very clear and transparent to the public thank you for that thank you hi Ms Rodriguez would you like to speak on that sir yes keep in mind what I say early and just keep in mind that that you wave in the bus service for the Max and uh for 10 days the Public Public Transportation is going to be way and you are waving the the the fare for the the street card so basically you are allowing any any migrant to use as many times they want the street card when it's cold they're gonna be able to use so just keep that in mind so there shouldn't be this shouldn't be a rest on this should be installed to stay away from the street cards so just keep that in mind yeah the only reason I'm saying that is because last year the streetcar was empty so many times and they were freezing and so now that they're just gonna be free that is going to be the best way for them to stay warm because it's a free service and if you basically failed to do that then thank you thank you and I think point of clarification uh Mr Cody the streetcars were we were not charging for streetcars last year correct correct man okay so nothing has changed you just clarifying the language yes sir thank you there's some motion in a second and we do have a motion made by board member Rivera seconded by born member Salcido to approve the voting session is open representative Rivera all right board chair and yeah the motion has been approved with uh board member Fiero not pressing for the vote that's all the items is there a motion to adjourn two motions and two seconds that's pretty definite and there is a motion to adjourn the special mass transit Department board meeting at 10 24 am thank you Miss Prince can we um can we get a motion to return there's a motion in a second to reconvene the regular city council meeting all in favor anyone opposed the meeting is back in session at 10 24 am with our council members present to include representative Canales we now turn to page number 10 to item number 26 this was also moved to the Forefront of the agenda and item 26 is presentation discussion in action on short-term rental public Outreach meetings to include the greater El Paso Realtor Association El Paso chamber and the El Paso short-term rental Alliance thank you and I think I know we have a lot of people who signed up the public comment but I think it's important that before any comments uh we allow the staff to go through the presentation and then we'll go from there thank you mayor thank you thank you Cody thank you mayor Nicole Cody managing director thank you all for joining us today we do have additional speakers they're standing behind me and they will introduce themselves as they come up but we would like to thank of course the El Paso chamber the short-term rental Alliance as well as the greater El Paso Association of Realtors along with a cross-functional team that worked on this item which they're also here so we do have environment enforcement code enforcement I.T planning and inspections of course PD and Fire so today we'll be discussing the process the steps we took to get here today as well as the results of the feedback session along with the survey and then there are presentations from our partners so just to ensure we're all talking about the same item our common property definition as we presented back in January is a short-term rental which is a residential dwelling unit apartment condo or accessory which is the little Casita in the back which I always call it my Casitas is the sleeping area rented to overnight guests for a period of less than 30 consecutive days so our approach and process to this item is really looking at last year with there was an identified need or concerns in the community from that we were asked to create a cross-functional team to look into best practices and research other cities and what they were doing in their city in order to address the community's concerns we did draft an ordinance and then we were asked by Council to ensure that we're capturing our stakeholder input we did host as I'll get into more detail feedback sessions surveys and in addition they'll pass a chamber also conducted their survey we have a hot mic I just don't want it to be staff if you're in teams please make sure you're on mute so you don't disturb the meeting thank you thank you Miss Prime and then also we'll talk about the co-creation workshop along with our Partnerships to focus on solutions for our community so the current conditions as of last week were 1653 and and please note that the number does fluctuate along with a number of short-term rentals that are using Airbnb as their platform which is about 74 or more the approximate occupancy rate which also fluctuates is around 58 for El Paso so when we were looking at ordinances we did look at comparative cities throughout Texas in addition to Albuquerque our neighbor city in New Mexico and so we did see and we have seen struggles that they've encountered over the past years as well as changes that they've had to make to their ordinance so the community feedback we wanted to ensure that we were inviting all community members along with our hosts and guests of short-term rentals the hotel motel Association was invited along with our Chambers the Hispanic chamber and the El Paso chamber both hosted meetings in addition our neighborhood Coalition member and our developers were also presented to so the public Outreach included we still have our City website page along with thank you all for your invitation to your District representative meetings as well the community meetings and then reach we reached out to our communities of Excellence partners and so here's a list of our feedback sessions and you'll see they were both in person and hybrid and so let's just jump into the results so the results of our community feedback sessions really the responses were overwhelming at the meetings of no ordinance for El Paso no permits or restrictions no Hotel occupancy tax and really looking at short-term rentals as if self-regulatory organization the city of El Paso short-term rental survey which was available online also indicated at 75 percent that the of respondents indicated that the city shall allow short-term rentals with no regulations at 17 percent was allow short-term rentals with regulations followed by seven percent to ban short-term rentals completely or no preference so the responder description so you'll see this includes of the 960 individuals that responded to our online survey uh 698 were homeowners and you could select more than one so they may be also renters we also had short-term rental hosts as well as realtors in our top categories the ZIP code distribution for the survey shows at 79912 at 17 which is the largest percentage of responses that we received in that zip code followed by 79936 at 11 and 79938 so when we also offered an opportunity for those who responded to the online survey to provide a written response and so when we looked at the written response we developed this word cloud the survey of responses and really taxation was the most common topic it really Rose to the top as the common theme and concern of individuals who filled out this survey whether it was property taxes whether it was Hotel occupancy taxes or whether it was a permit as a form of tax so next I'll pass it over to Nicole Ruiz with El Paso chamber good morning mayor and city council Representatives Nicole Reese director of government Affairs for the El Paso chamber first I want to start off by recognizing the great collaboration that has taken place over the few past few months between your offices your city departments the greater El Paso realtors association specifically nesso Garcia who has been at the Forefront of this issue the El Paso chamber and of course our short-term rental owners 14 Community engagement meetings countless workshops and internal meetings were all held this year in preparation for today's city council meeting I think this is a perfect example of what we can accomplish when we when we all have a seat at the table earlier this year the chamber received many calls from our members who were very concerned about how potential regulations may impact their businesses and really their livelihoods the chamber did what we always do we sent out a issue alert which is our survey over 77 percent of the responses received from the chamber survey were against any kind of regulations on short-term rentals next we took the issue to our board of directors on February 28th the El Paso Chambers board of directors also voted to oppose any regulations on short-term rentals I think today's presentation will address many of the concerns we've heard from a few of you earlier this year the chamber is very supportive of the El Paso short-term rental Alliance and the leadership position that Heidi the president of the alliance has taken which you'll hear from her in just a bit The Alliance has now has over 200 members um we really feel that the leadership of this Alliance has gone above and beyond to be proactive and ensure that a lot of our that the members of our short-term Rental Community are good neighbors and that is it for my slide thank you so much for the opportunity good morning Nicole so thank you thank you Nicole so we also wanted to make sure that we're addressing Community concerns and really try to understand what are the community concerns that we're seeing so we did include as part of the survey a question that asked of the following issues related to short-term rentals have you personally what have you personally experienced in your neighborhood and these are really the ones that Rose to the top looking at the nuisance issues as far as noise or parties or excessive trash and parking shortages and possible traffic so Tony De La Cruz from planning and inspection along with his team went back for the past four years to identify and have we received some complaints to have we received any concerns and what do they look like and so as part of that data mining he looked at keywords that are part of the Present part of the presentation they're actually in the in the graph you see here that are related to short-term rentals that are related to Airbnb or at various platforms depending on how the individual identified the property so based on that we saw 25 concerns since 2019 over the past four years and so those also align with the concerns that we saw as part of the survey so we looked at these as being the the majority of the concerns that we have seen and we'd invited over um I appreciate it thank you we invited as part of a co-creation workshop those that had attended more five or more of the presentations or feedback sessions and so what we wanted to do is really have an understanding of the problems and then also generate and deliver Solutions as a partnership as a collaborative and so Julie Baldwin Munoz of the performance office facilitated this co-creation workshop and we had them in person after after work of course developing what are those Solutions what would the solution look like for El Paso and throughout this process we've really focused on what is short-term rental what does short-term rental look like for El Paso and so as a result of that co-creation Workshop we were able to look at the concerns or issues that were expressed through the feedback sessions as well as the survey and what we had seen as concerns uh come to the city as you can see we also included um we wanted to really ensure that we're fostering a collaborative environment between the city the short-term rental host and of course our neighbors the pilot will address three major areas so the first area and I'll get into more detail in the next slide is really looking at our 311 focus and so we were working with of course IIT and 311 in order to really capture the data and the complaints and the issues we needed to change our process to ensure that we were capturing it in order to really ensure that we're keeping our finger on the pulse of short-term rentals in El Paso and that way we're able to escalate it to the interim city manager to you mayor to council if we need to in addition to that it was really identified that we we want to ensure we have a good neighbor industry action plan what does it look like how can short-term renters sorry how can posts of short-term rentals be good neighbors in our community and then we want to continue to identify and reach out to our stakeholder groups so the 311 Focus we have changed the script to include a question if the caller believes that a property is a rental first if they do believe it's a rental then we should be asking if it's a short-term rental or a long-term rental it's important that we include language to track the public safety responses as well so in order for us to be able to um have the the short-term rental responses we want to make sure that we're tracking also going back a year and that's that cross-reference for potential short-term rental properties to identify with existing complaints in addition to that we offer an opportunity of course to continue to track complaints and concerns of short-term rental properties also on our website so next I'll pass it over to Scott Kesner with the greater El Paso Association of Realtors good morning sir good morning thank you for allowing us to present today and I need to reiterate how great it was to work with the city staff short-term rental Association the chamber and everything it was truly a community group getting together to help find a solution I'm going to go over some Market detail some Market data if I get this PowerPoint up okay okay this is a snapshot as of August the 4th as far as what's going on in the real estate market in El Paso uh you can see definitely an inventory shortage as of this morning of the it's up to almost 2200 active inventory only 888 898 are active resale the rest are some new homes and every and other things still strong on median days on the market 14 days median sales price is 252 and we have probably about two and a half months of inventory currently the next slide shows what we call the El Paso household economic stress index going all the way back to 2006. insurance rates were good large inventory home ownership was not an issue uh 2009 2010 2011 the bubble burst and housing became a great stress for the people of El Paso and across the nation and as you can see 21 22 23 is leveling back off where people are more comfortable looking at Price appreciation the last three years you can see a steady increase from 21 22 and 23 and all indications are that will continue the next slide is a 16-year snapshot of housing appreciation in El Paso and this is the median sales price and you can see going from 2006 a pretty much a huge incline from 2018 to present the next slide is where we kind of talk about real estate in Texas and what I really want to call your attention to is 50 of the property sold in 2021 in Texas sold fhr V8 V8 that's less than five percent down y'all that is owner occupant that means 50 of the people are buying a house in Texas or going FHA or five percent down conventional there's another 16 percent where it's 10 percent I mean less than 10 percent down which also includes some primary residents normally if an investor is buying they need a minimum of 20 down asking why they buy a house 85 percent think it's a good Financial investment fifty percent thinks it's better than stocks 28 thinks it's better or as good as stocks where did your money come from for your down payment for your closing costs 44 came from savings 43 came from the sale of a primary residence I think all of us know Texas and El Paso is a great destination for people leaving other parts of the country the next slide I broke it down this is El Paso uh 21 22 23 I also want to look at 2019 to kind of get some some some comparison to what happened before pre-covered uh what really stands out there is you look at 2023 52 or fhr VA 52 percent of the people buying a house in El Paso so far in 23 are buying either FHA or VA which is owner occupant 29 are conventional and remember 29 percent of conventional now a large portion of those are going to be less than 10 percent down which is going to primarily be on our occupunt and then 16 cash and I've said this earlier I think that number might be a little bit skewed locally in El Paso we saw a lot of transactions written as cash that were really alternative financing maybe Mom and Dad maybe hard money lending that problem was so relevant across the state of Texas at the Texas Real Estate Commission went back in in Divine cash to show cash is Cash Cash is not selling a stock not hard money not borrowing from Mom and Dad so I think that number could be inflated as much as 40 or 50 percent unfortunately there's not a way to to truly get that number rental rates over the last three years have certainly steady steadily incline increased from 1444 to 1623 I want to spend just a couple minutes talking about institutional purchasers okay that is a company a corporation LLC S Corp any type of business entity that purchases a house in 2021 Texas led the nation with institutional purchasers 28 of all houses purchased were purchased by institutions okay now remember that's any business entity I broke it down by county Tarrant County LED it with 52 percent Rockwall 45 percent Midland 44 Dallas County 43. El Paso County was below 13 percent and I want to take a moment to explain that this was a survey put up with the National Association Realtors there's 254 counties in Texas they listed all these counties and they said okay if your county is not listed less than 13 percent of the sales include were institutional purchasers so I don't know if it's two percent or twelve percent but let's below 13 percent I want to add one more little caveat to that we personally bought a house last year as an investment property we have an LLC so we are counted as an Institutional purchaser so if you have a mom and pop and they buy a house and they put in LLC it is an Institutional purchaser there's actually a bill introduced that was going to try to Define of the institutional purchasers in Texas how many currently owned five or more five to ten ten or more 20 plus unfortunately that bill did not did not pass hopefully a m Research Center will certainly get those numbers El Paso is a very strong owner occupant market and I'll be glad to answer any questions oh one question I was asked how many houses sold in this diagram had a second residence and so I searched on the MLS I searched Department guest quarters mobile home second residence Cabana cassetta I even searched Boat House in case a house in El Paso had a Boathouse and it was 260 nine which is 0.9 tens of a percent so not a huge number have the second residences on the numbers we have definitely an inventory shortage could be caused by a number of factors interest rates people afraid to sell at three percent and buy six seven or eight but definitely inventory shortage but I do see the inventory increasing a little bit over the last probably four or five months I'll be glad to answer any questions we're going to go through the whole presentation right okay thank you Heidi I know you're the boss of deer of uh Century 21 but we'll um we'll move the agenda thank you thank you Scott so the next presenter we have that was posted is the short-term rental Alliance and so I'd like to introduce Heidi sayones oh good morning good morning thank you for having us today I'm really happy to show that we are all here today but this is our board members um perfect so will you introduce them to us yes of course do you want me to introduce them or can they introduce themselves they can introduce themselves okay good morning my name is Samantha Maldonado thank you for having us thank you thank you good morning Erica Rocha thank you I'm Juan Carlos andreques good morning Good Morning Jasmine Rosales good morning all righty well thank you so much for having us today I'm delighted to announce the establishment of the new El Paso short-term rental Alliance which is the result of all of the community efforts that was put in place during um early this year and so what is the El Paso short-term rental Alliance you know we believe on the power of collaboration fostering strong relationships among short-term rentals owners and the local residents and businesses so today I want to talk to you what is the importance of the alliance so the alliance is created as a resource to everyone and for everyone so anyone can join the alliance on our website which is El Paso stra.org and anyone can attend our monthly meetings which is our short-term Rental Community meetings happening every last Thursday of every month we also have newsletters that are sent out to all of our members and more importantly we want to be proactive and responsive to the community so during those public meetings that were held thanks to you all we were able to pinpoint certain situations that were happening and we were very happy to help we were able to help the community and listen to our neighbors correct so that I think that's one of the most important thing that we wanted to do was to be able that we're all listening and that we're all in this together so why is the alliance so important we founded this Alliance to be imprisoned peace and prosperity between all the stakeholders and the local community and so we are in the very early stages of the alliance but right now we have about 200 members and this is a pilot program that have just started this Thursday will be our third community meeting and so we're really excited about how things are turning how we're growing in numbers and what is it that we do as short term rental owners so short-term rental owners I believe and we all believe here that we are ambassadors for El Paso we are that friendly phase that people that are coming through or coming back to visit family or coming to visit our soldiers that's what they come and where the we're there for them and so it's really important for our neighborhoods that we actually have this um the properties for short-term rental and today um you know as ambassadors we don't we are not just growing as a community but we also recommend each other and not just each other as short-term rental owners we also recommend each other for different businesses for example you know in in our short term until we recommend restaurants we recommend contractors we hey you know what I need a cleaner I need a plumber so all of those things are super important and we are actually growing the local businesses as well through recommendations through recommending the Better Business bureaus um all of those businesses are important for the community and I think that we as a community recommending them and standing by them it's really important and it's such um and importance to the neighborhood community so how can we help and I'll go to the next light I don't know how to click on it awesome thank you so here we have what we have uh the data that we currently have as of right now and we came to the realization through those Community meetings that 90 of us 90 of the short-term rental owners most of them just have one property and they only have one property so we are definitely on a mom and pop Market most of the people here in El Paso that are short-term rental owners they have retired they are empty nesters and they decided to you know have some supplemental income and with the supplemental income they decided to rent their property and maybe they have a guest house in the backyard a mother-in-law quarters or they decided to buy a secondary investment home and so when they decided to buy this home they're like hey let's rent it out and then they started to be able to make some cash flow and some money so I think it's super important for them because we don't have many investors that are coming to El Paso and taking over we actually what we have been doing and what we've noticed is that their mom and pop their empty nurses that they need that for for their supplemental income and to have some pocket change but also you know we are paying some sort of of occupancy tax and that's the six percent and so what we have done here with the alliance with the short-term rental Alliance and we could go to the next slide is that through the short-term rental Alliance we have many Community Resources we have it's it's a free membership it's open to anyone anyone can can join the the membership anyone can join the alliance as well as all of the resources that are available on our website are completely free one of the most important things that we have on our resources website is the OTA neighborhood support and so on that OT neighborhood support what you can do is actually you can go in and you can submit a report directly to the platforms so OTA means other traveling agencies and so if you're able to submit that report then it goes directly to the platform of the short-term rental uh property and another thing is that as of right now what we are trying to do for our community and what we all the members that have joined the community they have pledged to be outstanding neighbors to follow the best practices that we have stated to follow the local ordinances that are already in place and to be able to be transparent with our neighborhoods so we are willing to let them know hey you know this is what's happening with this property this is what we're trying to do and most importantly through this website we also offer educational events and and webinars we offer many many resources for them to learn really what's all about short-term rentals and then like I mentioned we have our monthly Community meetings we have our newsletter that goes out every single week and one of the things that we're working on on right now is how we can involve all the city officials right how can we involve them within our neighborhood in our in our short-term Rental Community meetings so we are are willing and open to have City Representatives come and talk to us because if there's any complaints that are happening we want to be there for everyone and we're willing to be helpful and so all of these things are all the resources that we have going on a site that it's not just me we have abort all of our board members here and then we're we're really strong community and it wouldn't have been without all of you this wouldn't have been created and so I really want to thank you all for for really uh doing that public Outreach and you know I've met people here today that I wouldn't have met otherwise and we've grown together we've actually you know grown this community and and now we're friends and now we're neighbors and I think it's so important for all of us to continue understanding the importance of short-term rentals to the city we're not a big tourist City we have many soldiers here in El Paso we have many uh families of soldiers that come to El Paso and we have to be able to provide this opportunity for them to stay within their neighborhood so I want to thank you all for your time thank you thank you and I know there's no question I just want to say that everyone was very thankful for your contribution to the process so thank you thank you so Nicole Cody again Marion Council we're asking for the council action is to direct the city manager to monitor this pilot program and we do see it as a pilot program we're going to continue to um to work together in order to ensure we're addressing the complaints we're going to continue to monitor any complaints or concerns that are brought forward and then bring back to counsel and update in one year thank you ma'am with that I would like to do public comment yes mayor the first person that signed up to speak on this is Rick Snow followed by Tiffany Menifee Juan Carlos Enriquez Lisa Turner good morning sir you'll have three minutes good morning Mr Mayor city council uh I'm my name is Rick Snow I'm the president of the El Paso Association of Realtors and I'm here this morning representing our 3000 plus realtor members and we want to start by expressing our heartfelt thanks to the city council of El Paso for your unwavering commitment to engaging with the public on this issue to listening to their concerns and charting a course towards a brighter future for short-term rentals in our city your willingness your willingness to listen to truly hear our residents voices and act upon the feedback that received that was received has not gone unnoticed we commend the diligence and the dedication of the city staff workers who orchestrated the workshops hosted public meetings and envisioned the groundbreaking pilot program that we're here to discuss today you know we know it doesn't always happen but the city has taken to Heart the sentiments that are expressed by community members and the extensive public input sessions revealed a resounding opposition to regulations that might stifle the spirit of innovation and Entrepreneurship that are inherent to the short-term rentals in the same way that we have the spirit of Entrepreneurship that that was with Chico's Tacos embracing the values and the collaboration and co-creation El Paso's authorities initiated workshops that United vital stakeholders including the Association of Realtors the El Paso Chamber of Commerce and the Proprietors of the short-term rentals these workshops have given birth to this El Paso short-term rental Alliance a testament to the power of partnership and shared vision the proposed pilot initiative pending your approval stands as a beacon of promise for our City's future this initiative that's facilitated by the short-term rental Alliance seeks to Foster cooperation among the city the short-term rental hosts in our local neighborhoods and stands on those three pillars that promise the harmonious coexistence the 3-1-1 focus The Good Neighbor industry action and identity and Outreach stakeholder group through this program we aim to cultivate a sense of compliance with regulations and genuine commitment to best practices and we envision a landscape where educational resources flourish in the short-term rental Proprietors find the support that they need to thrive within the fabric of our neighborhoods and we invite and encourage those short-term Proprietors to join the alliance without any financial burden and contribute to the growth and prosperity of our city in closing let us remember that we're not just shaping the future of the short-term rentals we're forging a path towards a stronger and more United Community as we stand on this the beginning of this transformative journey I I encourage you esteemed members of the council to stand with us and to believe in the power of collaboration and to Envision in El Paso that shines brighter than ever before thank you very much thank you the next speaker is Tiffany Menifee followed by Juan Carlos Enriquez good morning you have three minutes good morning Tiffany Menifee and I am a small business owner here in El Paso Texas and I am also a short-term rental owner I just want to thank you for the chance for speaking today and that you do and all that you do for our community I encourage you to vote in favor of this item I think it takes a person with an open mind to see the rules and regulations that other cities have put in place may not be the best solution for our city I applaud you for hearing the community out and thinking outside of the box to find a solution that will work for our community I know the short-term Rental Community has taken note of your fairness and will continue to support our city council and to help grow our wonderful El Paso Community so please I encourage you to vote in favor of this thank you thank you the next speaker is Juan Pablos Enriquez good morning you have three minutes my name is Juan Carlos Enriquez I'm a member of the short-term rental Alliance and I'm delighted to be here again with positive results and more than six months of hard work to bring our community together this Alliance was funded thanks to you guys giving us the time to listen to the concerns of the community and uh is is because of you guys that we can present this as a as a solution for us it is important to maintain a strong collaboration between all stakeholders and neighborhoods of our city our strength as a community is the only thing that we can lead us through growth in our city in prosperity I would like to express my gratitude to those who have already joined us and have demonstrated a commitment to become part of this Alliance in the manner that benefits both our community and our local businesses we will continue our efforts to refer hosts to these Alliance and help him then take the pledge to becoming good neighbors thank you the next speaker is Lisa Turner followed by Leopoldo atalejo and Sergio Campos and Ralph Krause good morning you have three minutes good morning mayor and Council good morning Miss Turner what we're doing is we're turning neighborhoods into commercial areas we are going to destroy our neighborhoods this group wants a free ride you heard it a free ride no taxes no regulations no nothing no oversight if they intend to rent then I expect them to be treated just like any hotel I expect inspections for safety for fire Electrical Plumbing that means you know overhead Sprinklers and they all have to be Ada compatible in other words you need to be able to roll your wheelchair in through the door through the house or whatever you're renting and into the bathroom if you don't do it you're just telling a large population to go away we don't want you because you're not ambulatory ah you know what I've listened I looked at the backup I looked at the community feedback you don't know what I wanted to say but basically it I would call it garbage it's a nice setup to justify what we want you know I don't know what to say about this but you come in here asking for a free ride putting neighborhoods at risk people coming in having parties neighbors getting herped or property damaged maybe their kids hurt but nobody wants to be held responsible because we're going to give them no regulations and they're not going to have to pay for anything it's wrong it's wrong you need to start listening to the regular folks in here not the people there's more of us than there are of them and you never really take us into consideration I never even knew this group existed I never knew there were any meetings and I come down here every couple of weeks I read the papers I read the news I never heard of it but I can tell you why I never heard of it all you have to do is look at that Community survey it was set up it was created it was packed and stacked it wasn't a true survey you know come up here with real stuff and I can support you one way or the other but come in here and do this a stacked survey and then asking for no regulations and no taxes no oversight no nothing I mean I'm going to rent it to any whoever I want to and who cares if you're in a wheelchair who cares you're not wanted it's unacceptable thank you speaker [Applause] good morning you have three minutes good morning sir good morning my name is Leo arthelejo I'm a retired pharmacist and I'm coming here to address the strs I like many of you here we're not aware as to what a short-term rental is I've heard everything being referred to as a BNB as a bed and breakfast which it is not they do not serve breakfast nor does the owner live at the rental property I became involved about six months ago because the property next to my property became an Str and I didn't even know what that was I went over to introduce myself to my new neighbor to be told that they're not new neighbors they'll be there for three days during that time the last six months my home is My Sanctuary to be woken up in the middle of night because you've got trailers backing up coming in at two and three in the morning and also leaving very early in the morning because people want to get a head start wherever they're going it's like having a motel at least a motel has Management on site it has what's being asked for is to be given Authority as a neighbor when in fact they're not Neighbors they're people that don't really have an understanding of our neighborhood and we're losing our neighborhoods I find it my own home is in Kern I find it very disturbing that I can have no input all these surveys I never knew that the property next to mine was going to be Str and there's numerous people in in here I'm asking that there be accountability to the Str to the neighbors themselves if in fact we say that we're neighbors a neighbor is a relationship it's not a transactional business we have business within a residential area and that's being overlooked I find it enough for us as families to be good neighbors but now to have people coming in and going out who have no vested interest other than to I had one person tell me that they're here for two day two days and I've already paid for what it is that I'm here for the only reason I knocked on the door was to tell him that he left the back of his U-Haul truck open I'd like for you to please consider thank you Mr be accountability thank you sir point of contact and I thank you for this opportunity thank you for being here the next speaker is Sergio Campos [Applause] followed by Ralph Krause Ray Rocha and Jenny solo good morning you have three minutes good morning again good morning I'm Ralph Krause um I recently retired and I purchased two homes as a short-term rental I am a member of the new alliance I have spent tens of thousands of dollars on paint repairs furniture and appliances and all those purchases were made locally making my homes some of the nicer ones in the neighborhood short-term rentals are lower cost alternative to hotels to attract people to El Paso where they too will spend money in the local community based on the mental minimal issues we've had in the past there's really no reason for additional taxes and ordinances it is an our best interest as Str owners to keep the property nice and issue free thank you and God bless you thank you sir the next speaker is Ray Rocha good morning you have three minutes Council first of all I want to thank you for allowing me to speak on this item um a few months ago Council gave uh uh direction to your city staff to go out and get feedback from the community this has been out for months so this is not the first time that it comes up so many people that are not aware obviously I don't know where where they've been but we've been meeting since January we've met with most of you here as well um after many many meetings long meetings a city staff that has been very patient and has hurt all of us myself as an Str owner as a constituent as a taxpayer as a board member of this new alliance and there's many of us here in in the audience that are owners as well and host we're here to tell you once more that we love our city we love our neighborhoods and we love our neighbors uh our properties if you go through our neighborhoods if you go through through them you drive by you're able to tell which ones are an Str a short-term rental why because we maintain our properties we invest in our properties because if we don't guess what we can't rent them we we work with a city we recommend restaurants we're here also as an alliance to do the same thing and work closely with the city and and we love the fact that we're able to contribute to the Integrity of our neighborhoods and we have a great relationship most of us have a great relationship with our neighbors and I just want to tell you and come to you this morning thanking you for allowing us to create this to come together and and for the public to be aware that you know what uh there's more to be done but you know what we're heading on the right path we're moving forward and and and it's a great opportunity for the city to to join with our alliance and and work together for future issues that come up I thank you thank you foreign speaker is Jenny solo good morning you have three minutes good morning good morning um thank you for taking the time to hear us I bring a little slight different view I don't own an Str I just I'm a homeowner I went to all the meetings that were held I wanted to find out more about what was going on um and I'm here to kind of give you my spin on things as a writer for today El Paso a Blog dedicated to highlighting the vibrant events and activities for our city I understand the significance of maintaining an environment that Fosters growth and enjoyment for both the residents and visitors alike today I want to address the matter of short-term rentals and potential implications of ordinances short-term rentals have become a prevalent aspect of the modern travel experience they offered alternative to traditional accommodations allowing visitors to immerse themselves in the local culture and truly experience what our city has to offer while some areas have made face challenges related to short-term rentals I believe the El Paso stands uniquely positioned to benefit in from to benefit from embracing the trend without imposing executive regulations rcd thrives on is the rich culture warm hospitality and unique attractions short-term rentals complement these qualities offering tourists a chance to live like locals and contribute directly to our community and our economy by not imposing astringent ordinances on short-term rentals we encourage more visitors to choose El Paso as their destination increased tourism can have a positive abdominal effect boosting local businesses restaurants and attractions additional local residents can take advantage of this opportunity by participating in home sharing generating additional income that can be reinvested into our community course responsible hosting is key to maintaining a harmonious balance which is why the alliance was created platforms that facilitate these short-term rentals often have a built-in mechanism for guest reviews and host accountability on top of that unlike some other places they're charging a six percent tax so they are paying taxes um and encouraging hosts to uphold high standards of cleanliness safety and respect for our neighborhood can mitigate any potential concerns let's remember that our City's charm lies in its authenticity and welcoming atmosphere imposing overly restrictive organizes will potentially stifle the spirit of sharing and Hospitality that El pasoans are known for instead let's work together to find a balanced approach that preserves the character of our neighborhoods while embracing the opportunities that short-term rentals bring thank you thank you is said Hill Campos in the audience if not that concludes public comment on this item mayor thank you thank you everyone for being here and participating representative Fierro followed by representative Salcido thank you Mr Mayor you know I need to start by I was opposed to this item from day one and for many reasons I believe that from day one that we were creating um a solution where there wasn't a problem having said that I would want to send Kudos out to miss Cody and the cross-functional team because they did an absolutely excellent job I went to the first three or four oh please let's get rid of that yes Miss Cody we can mark this day in history um so I went to a handful of meetings and each meeting got better and better and stronger and stronger the data that was being shared the information the stories were just it was amazing um you know and when we look at what's resolved or what's come out of this it's great the the alliance has been born you know and and Mr Abdullah mentioned something about who's going to hold who accountable my understanding is 3-1-1 is going to be a source to hold the short-term rentals accountable although I don't understand why we have two rotos on the board I think that's stacking the board but that could be another reason Mr Mayor thank you for allowing me to say a few words um and I I hope to be able to make the motion to approve this when the questions are done have you made a motion motion temporary second thank you second uh representative Salcido thank you representative thank you mayor and I want to thank everybody that came to public speak here we see a greater Association of Realtors we see an array of people here also homeowners that are taxpayers that came to really join in in the conversation I want to thank also all the all the organizations that participated I believe El Paso Chamber of Commerce and we needed all the stakeholders to join in so we can kind of craft and kind of listen to everybody's concerns I think that I know that this is a very fluid situation either way if we have concerns could we be reported to 3-1-1 and as we get concerns and we hear them from our constituents they mentioned that they're open doors to listen to us and and see how we can mitigate and really find Solutions one of the suggestions I had made in I believe uh to to the when they were briefing me is one of my one of the biggest things I I like to see is um you know just uh Public Safety Not Public Safety and also the the Privacy for the cameras I'm very big on that I just wanted to share with you all like uh there's this device it's like 15 and it just really shows you if there's any cameras any hidden cameras just for privacy um I think that that's very important when people um are in other people's homes I know we there's a the law that says you shouldn't do it but let's just uh verify right to feel more secure and so I encourage the homeowners and taxpayers that are here that have airbnbs to to get one and uh put in a place where where your guests can feel very comfortable using it but um I know that right now we're looking to continue to work together and I like this partnership and I want to thank everybody that came new to speak today thank you thank you man representative Canales thank you mayor um yeah I'll start off also by acknowledging all of the work that's gone into this uh I think it started uh before my term even started uh when when there was an item on the agenda last year and that continued into the the process of the many public meetings 13 maybe 12 or 13 14 uh in in January and February um and so uh thank you to everyone who was able to participate in those and uh I plan to support the pilot program today so I'll start there um that said I think there are three main concerns uh that we sought to address when we started the conversation about short-term rentals one is the the nuisance issue right uh having uh short-term rental next door and then having parties or somehow being bad short-term neighbors um I think that this pilot program addresses that pretty adequately um I think I think it's a relatively small issue we've seen that in the number of complaints we've received uh it's still an issue but but I think it will be addressed pretty well by what's proposed today but there are still two other issues that I think are not really even touched by what's being proposed today um one and and I'll say in advance this isn't the one that's very important to me but I still think that there's an outstanding Hotel occupancy tax question um you know we we've seen even in the presentation today uh sdrs in El Paso are remitting their six percent tax to the state and I I don't totally understand how they can say yes we recognize that we are entities that should be paying Hotel occupancy tax to the state but we shouldn't be paying that to the city um again that's not the the main issue that's that's most important to me I think the the big one for me is is the issue of housing preservation and availability and affordability in El Paso um our most recent study uh of housing here shows that we have a real lack of housing stock both in terms of uh homes available for purchase and for rent um and and really a crisis of affordability that we see all across the country but it has really hit us hard here in El Paso as well um the presentation today showed that only about half of one percent of the housing Supply in El Paso is is short-term rentals but those rentals are really heavily clustered in certain neighborhoods um you know we heard from a resident of current today Kern is one of those neighborhoods several of them are in District 8 and in the the broader Central Area so Sunset Heights and the Rio Grande area and current and rim those those neighborhoods um and that leads to very high concentrations of short-term rental properties in small areas and that leads to some of the problems that I think uh are left unaddressed by what's proposed today so multiple of the neighborhood associations in my district have taken both formal or either formal or informal positions in favor of regulating the the further proliferation of sdrs within their boundaries essentially to preserve the opportunity for new permanent neighbors to move into their neighborhoods I've heard comments from folks who live next to a short-term rental property who haven't had nuisance issues right it's there's no loud parties or something or anything like that that they're complaining about but they are dismayed that they don't have a neighbor they don't have a permanent neighbor there's no one to uh you know collect their mail or their packages when they're out of town there's no one to keep an eye on their street or their local park or join the neighborhood watch um and there's no one to essentially just you know strike up a uh neighborly conversational relationship with um because they don't have someone living next door to them permanently um it's exactly for this reason of housing preservation that our current zoning ordinance requires a special permit for short-term rental use there are two types of what we Define as bed and breakfast establishments in our code one is a bed and breakfast in I don't think that this applies to the majority of strs in El Paso the bed and breakfast Inn is an owner occupied or manager occupied residential structure providing nine or more rooms for temporary overnight lodging with or without meals for paying guests obviously those are larger establishments nine you know nine or more temporary rooms but then we have it's and this is uh it's in Title 20 20.02.126 the bed and breakfast residents I think that this is closest to what uh is currently being discussed as an Str it's not exact but America fist resident means an owner-occupied or manager occupied residential structure providing eight or fewer rooms for temporary overnight lodging with or without meals for paying guests that pretty pretty well describes these strs except for the owner occupied or manager occupied part our code has no provision at all for establishments with eight or fewer rooms for temporary overnight lodging uh that are not owner occupied or manager occupied so there is no permitted use in our zoning code for any type of property like that I think one of the things that was discussed at the initial meetings in February was trying to create a definition of a short-term rental and what that would look like and I know one of the one of the things we heard again and again I think it was chanted at one point was no definitions no regulations um a lack of a definition makes it really hard for us I think to move forward with a lot of other things again there's not any currently allowed use in our zoning code that allows for for short-term rentals and I think that's a problem that we're going to have to reckon with um moving on from that point I'm a little bit disappointed in some of the process here as well again it's it's not a bad thing at all to see a really high engagement from from certain segments of the of the community um but I will say I've been asking for updates uh about this issue for for months I bring it up periodically and the first time I learned about a lot of the additional Outreach that was done was in reading the agenda backup that was posted uh last Thursday um the I know the bulk of the public meetings were back in February I believe the one that I hosted in in late February was the last of the of the initial 14 meetings um Miss Cody do you know how many public meetings so not invite-only meetings or presentations to specific groups like true public meetings how many public meetings have we had since that one the 14th meeting back in February so we have not so it was February and it ended on March 2nd those were the public meetings all of those were everyone that was invited completely open meetings yes sir okay I do have a little bit of an issue with um you know essentially new policy being created uh the the establishment of a pilot program without going back to the public for additional additional feedback on what was going to be proposed I know that this is a public hearing opportunity for folks to speak about it but I think with an issue that's as polarizing as this one and we did see you know some some really strong feelings from from both sides at those initial meetings that it would be prudent to bring this back something like this in the future uh again I'm willing to support this part of it today but I think it would be prudent to bring that back to the public um before it's on a city council agenda for for a vote uh in the future and so I I think there are a lot of questions that are left unanswered by what's proposed today um and a lot of remaining issues that that are still unaddressed by this um I honestly plan to bring something forward I think there are reasonable solutions to this um again the presentation today showed that 90 of the strs in El Paso are uh mom and pop type establishments they only have one one unit uh whether that's you know the spare room or the Casita or even an investment property if it's just one I think those can be Exempted from a lot of a lot of things that are proposed that I plan to propose um but I do think that we need to have conversations about uh limiting density within certain areas again grandfathering or offering illegal non-conforming status to a lot of the to all of the existing properties but I think going forward we need to make sure that we're addressing some of the issues that can arise if we see greater and greater densities of new Str is moving into neighborhoods that are already you know experiencing a much higher density of them and so again I plan to support this today I think this is a good solution to the to the nuisance part of the of the issue but I think that there's still a lot left unaddressed yeah representative let me respond uh to what you said and that's for the very reason that there are concerns on both sides of this issue that we believe that the pilot program is exactly what we should be recommending I think that there's some ways that we can tailor that so that we can provide you know more frequent updates to the council we can do a quarterly update I think we could that the whole reason we want to do this pilot program is to really understand all the issues and the emerging issues and not disregard some of the things on both sides of the of this issue that need to be discussed quite frankly when we looked at other cities that have done this one of the problems is then they jumped right into a solution before they really understood all the issues in the community that led to a lot of different things happening either either this program being put in litigation or just failing and so if you really look at this pilot program some would look at it and say well you're not really doing anything well I think we are it's we're opening the door now to be more inclusive with the community to understand there may be a direction that this issue has been going for those that don't like any regulation but I think we need to hear from the people people that think that that's necessary to include some of the concerns you're bringing up right now and so I think that a year pilot program tapping the brakes on this before we bring back firm recommendations to you is precisely for the issues that are being addressed whether you're either for or not for regulation which is exactly why we think that we need to to have more of this Outreach and and hear what these issues are from the community and then bring you recommendations once we've had an opportunity to look at look at that and examine other cities as well where this program has gone well so I don't know if there's anything you want to add to that but that's that's why we wanted to construct this the way we're doing it now and and I will tell you that I have no problem with us Taylor in this program if we need to do additional public meetings and let others that that feel they need to have a voice in this uh raise their concerns thank you for that Colonel but I think it's also important that even though there is a recommendation that people have the opportunity to call 3-1-1 and and tell us what's going on what they believe and would need to do and we'll continue to to make sure we stay proactive and and just because we say we're going to bring it back in a year I really want to hear from people if there is any issues so we can address it prior to a year I think that's going to be very very important to the success of any program we do right now yes here ma'am absolutely thank you representative Hernandez followed by mayor program yeah I just wanted also to um thank City staff for your collaboration with the public and the private sector it's really important to hear from all parties um I'll share with with you and the public what I shared with the groups that met with me prior to this meeting the briefing is that I think this is a good first step but I truly do believe that we need to be honest with ourselves considering that we are a rapidly growing Community you we need to see the data and we absolutely need to give the opportunity to Residents to share their concerns so I think this is a good first step but I agree with the the comments of Representative Canales is that there there is a major concern with residents and in specific communities and neighborhoods that have a concern about the preservation of their neighborhoods and and that's not this is not being addressed today but I do believe that getting that data will help us make more informed decisions in the future future so with that said I do have just a couple questions for you Mrs Cody about the internal processes and perhaps someone in management can help understand so so your slide says let's change the script um but I think we need to go a little bit further than that let's allow for the police department to start to receive any non-emergency calls related to that and there's got to be a way that we can collect that data the minute that they respond to a call and or they get a non-emergency call because it happens to me when I call 3-1-1 and you wait and you wait and you wait it'll get transferred to the non-emergency calls so so we need to to update that do you need a motion for me or is that sufficient enough information so that you can do that internally no ma'am I believe that's enough information and we're currently working with PD to be able to track those responses as well great and and then the 311 app how can we modify that so that residents can report on the 3-1-1 app and call in as well I have constituents that exclusively work with the 311 app including our office we we submit through the app good morning Carolyn Patrick with City I.T so the modifications that have been made for 311 for the service request types that were identified as being the most reported as an issue have also been modified in the app already so when someone submits via the app for those request types they are prompted to identify what type of property it is if they know they're also given the option to respond I don't know okay so like for example I'm a resident I'm calling because there's no ways next door I'm submitting a noise complaint um on 311 well probably that's not a good idea let's say weeds or something because you know you can call the non-emergency line for that as well it'll give you the option to determine is this a short-term rental correct so we offer multiple options we don't explicitly ask is this a short-term rental we give several options is this a short-term rental is this a long-term rental do you know they have the option of saying I don't no is this not a private residence so there are multiple options for them to select from as a mandatory question okay thank you for that clarification I think that address is my concern um so the conversation about short-term rental has been surrounded around airbnbs and vrbos which are the more popular sites I got a call from a constituent over the weekend asking what about backyard rentals for pool parties because those are platforms that are available now and the direct complaints that we hear about short-term rentals are very similar to the complaints about backyard rentals will um there was there's a constituent that's concerned about all the parties at pools in the backyard and they're using like some kind of background back I don't know the names I'm just trying to make sure that we are covering all types of rentals to include backyard rentals even if it's for three or four hours so we'll we'll ensure that we add I don't think at this point current point we do have for them to be able to select you heard Carolyn on what is the caller is able to select at this point we can definitely add that to the list so that way if it is just the pool rentals and and we've heard about those so that way planning and inspections can be aware of of what's occurring and then I don't know Kevin if you want to talk now about thank you Kevin good morning mayor council Kevin Smith with uh planning inspections so yeah that during this whole process that was another item that came up um previously that we were made aware of um and that's something we're monitoring that is something also very new um so just just on the zoning code when when a zoning code was established it was a snapshot in time and obviously throughout time it it needs to evolve and change and so that's why we come to you periodically with new Need for new definitions and recommendations um on on this one the one that you're noting is something that we are monitoring and and as Nicole mentioned that we'll have to also look at as well because that's another one that we heard as well we have some some I'll say we have some concerns with with them and and how in terms of how they operate within residential neighborhoods so that's something we're monitoring back in we'll have to report back to council at a later date to determine how to address those as well okay I mean I think there's an opportunity to incorporate that script and changes is is this exclusively black hair backyard rentals is it things of that nature um that that is an outstanding question that I think needs to be addressed as well agreed thank you thank you and then um okay so uh for co-compliance um you know there are a lot of the um Mr Alvarado thank you for being here um you have a resident that has a concern about noise they're complaining about strs and nuisances what is a response from the city after this pilot program is implemented is there a an expectation from your department to respond yes good morning Steve Alvarado code enforcement director good morning mayor and Council Uh current uh protocol is to respond like any normal case whether it's a short-term rental a privately owned home um if we get a call after hours and I had mentioned previously in previous Council meetings that we have the nighttime enforcement team working Wednesdays through Saturday so we have the ability to respond we respond to the 3-1-1 complaints when they come in we also get calls on channel one PD Dispatch so we would treat these accordingly whether it's a short-term rental private property business bar you name it we're going to respond thank you and as part of the the pilot are you going to be implementing or is the city management implementing training so that we are adequately documenting that strs are a reason for the response we haven't researched that but we could look definitely look into it okay as a response yeah I know again I think that you know when we make these proposals that we also have to incorporate training um to ensure that everybody is aware there's a pilot we want to get all the data and and ultimately what it comes down to is the factor of administrative costs to respond as a result of a business operating in neighborhoods and so just like um uh the businesses the city has a direct cost Associated to responding to nuisances and so when us as policy makers and we're setting the budget we need to be informed with the amount of resources that are being expended so that we can make better informed decisions which is why I'm asking if the department can document the time and resources so that we can determine the administrative costs related to a business and neighborhoods definitely and so that that um if we can get as part of one of the updates uh Colonel Weston um looking at those administrative costs yes we can provide that and I think that's a good idea we should be documenting that we'll do it okay and then um just finally just uh again want to look at the data want to make a a data-driven assessment um not only for our budget but for our density preservation and neighborhoods and ensuring that residents have the opportunity to express their concerns and so if we can have the opportunity to have an open-ended question so that it doesn't necessarily have to be it doesn't comply with X Y and Z other explain the concerns so that we can further do process Improvement when documenting any concerns from the public but I do recognize that there is Extreme hardship for some residents I'm very appreciative that the short-term rental Alliance wants to step up and and and address uh you know expressing good neighbors and good values but we have to acknowledge that there are Bad actors out there and we need to be able to provide that relief to Residents and so which is why I'm happy to support this issue today um but I don't think it goes far enough but I'm looking forward to seeing what the data tells us thank you for your hard work appreciate your help thank you man uh representative I mean feral we um we often get confused mayor thank you just two things real quick one is um as we this is a pilot I mean we all agree on it we're going to move forward I think it's very positive I I do believe that we we I don't want to see it get muddied up with this issue and that issue and this item and that item I think we need to have a focus on what we're talking about on the short-term rentals and then and then we need to focus on the other things we focus on the other things but just to address the the issue on the hot tax I mean if if short-term rentals are going to pay hotel motel taxes I think they need to benefit from the tax incentives also so those these are all just this is why it's a prolonged conversation and and something we need to work on so thank you thank you and I think this is a good step forward but we need to make sure that as we move forward we listen and I think we have and we'll need to continue and listen to everybody on both sides and I think it's always important to have an open dialogue and an open mind moving forward so and I know you all did that and thank you for the presentation you all did a good job here and when I heard it a few days ago it was equally as good so I thank you all and I thank you for taking your time and being prepared to move forward in and continue to serve the community as needed so thank you and with that Ms Prine his mayor the motion was made by representative Fierro seconded by representative Salcido and this is to direct the city manager to monitor the pilot program through 311 for complaints concerns or any Community issues and to bring an update to City Council in one year on that motion call for the vote and the voting session and the motion passes unanimously thank you all and thank you for being here and I want to make sure that people again I'm going to repeat myself that there is an Avenue for people to continue to be Advocates of it one way or another and we don't need to wait for one year to be able to report any anything we need to be able to to know about so please let us know thank you would you like to continue with the go back to the where we left off do you remember yes sir page five item number ten and this is update and discussion on item from June 20th 2023 city council meeting agenda to direct the city manager and City attorney to develop a plan to uplift the lgbtqia plus voices and Community by creating a plan to include four recommendations to ensure a safe Community for everyone and with particular emphasis on recommendations three and four in relation to State legislation going into effect on September 1st 2023 this item was placed by Representatives Hernandez and Rivera thank you um and I know that there's an item place before and I appreciate it uh I know I've had the great opportunity to meet with Amber Pettis from the Borderland rainbow Center Reverend Curtis and also Reverend Shalom and and the you know talk about the niche and the watch and how we can move together as a community and also we've um we have a meeting set up on September 5th at 2 p.m with Nicole ferrini to kind of talk about uh some of the things that the community can do to collaborate together and uh possible partnership so we've been working on it and we'll continue to work on it and I know that representative Rivera and representative Hernandez put this on them on the agenda but I did want to let you know that we understand the importance and I've been working on it and had the opportunity to meet with some of the members and we'll we have a meeting planned to see if cdgb funds are available and how they can apply for them and how we can work together as a community so I thank you all again for being in my office last week and look forward to meeting with you all again as we continue to work together um representative Hernandez mayor I was going to ask if um if there was public comment yeah it would that be okay to go for that did it first yes mayor we have nine individuals that signed up to speak on this item the first person is Catherine bokudo followed by neria reveles Wesley Lawrence Lorena Edwards Catherine bokudo neria reveles thank you good morning good morning good morning mayor Lisa city council members and fellow El pasoans a proud lifelong from Teresa District 4 Resident homeschooling Mama Bear of three I represent the El Paso hub for equality Texas and I serve as a volunteer for the Borderland rainbow Center thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak with you again about these issues that directly affect the well-being and safety of my family and families like mine well I understand that today we will only be receiving an update I wanted to be sure to be here to stress the urgency of these matters I am speaking today in support of developing a plan to uplift lgbtqia voices and urgently ask for your unanimous support of all four recommendations I am speaking today particularly in support of recommendations three and four which address the ill-informed hate-driven legislative bands on gender affirming care and Drug performances recently passed in our state I am honored to be here today as we recognize September as National Suicide Prevention month I am sure you're familiar with the statistical fact that the lgbtq youth are an especially vulnerable population when it comes to self-harm in fact as cited by the Trevor Project according to John's at all lgbtq youth are four times more likely to attempt suicide than their peers the good news is that receiving the proper gender affirming care has been shown to reduce suicide risk on lgbtq youth by 73 percent this is from a study out of the University of Washington the department of epidemiology unfortunately for us our state legislature has banned this life-saving care sb14 is deadly already doctors are refusing to provide care for minors who need it gender affirming care for minors is supported by over 29 major medical associations including the American Academy of Pediatrics the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the American Medical Association among others legislators in our state have acted out of willful ignorance and sacrificing our god-given constitutionally protected rights to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness at their illegitimate Altar for cheap political gain using our very lives of spawns they have advanced their agenda I ask you to please stop and look up for a moment imagine that like me you are trying everything in your power to keep your child alive where would you stop please join us in the fight I urge you to help protect my family and others Like Mine by supporting all four recommendations the next speaker is Wesley Lawrence followed by Lorena Edwards Andy Rose this careno Aurelio Valdez Jr Lisa Turner good morning you have three minutes good morning members of council mayor liser it's good to see you this morning I can tell you that good morning sir the work that you are doing to make our community a safer place for the lgbtq community is means a lot to me I want to thank specifically Representatives Hernandez and representative Rivera for putting this item on the agenda back in June the the time for Action I honestly believe was then but of course this is a lot of work that needs to be done and needs to be done not only diligently but it needs to be done with the best interest of the community in mind since we last met um in June SB 14 and sb12 was signed by Governor Greg Abbott and supported by 100 of Republicans in Austin since the signing of the bill I have met with countless families with countless members of our community in the lgbtqia plus Community small business owners and concerned citizens who have been left behind by a rogue state government that simply does not want everyone to have their god-given freedoms and their god-given rights I can tell you that the work that the city is doing is very important but as a concerned citizen I really wish that the city of El Paso would have joined organizations like Lambda legal P flag and the ACLU and suing the state of Texas and joining the Amicus brief because right now a lot of us in the lgbtqia plus Community feel like our government has left us behind and I can tell you that simply because I care I know that you care just as much as I do but it's time that we put our money and our fight where our mouth is that we get involved legally as a city to fight bad laws that are impacting members of our community who are often seen as vulnerable members of our community who feel voiceless to every member of the transgender Community to every drag queen into every local business owner that feels that they've been left behind I want you to understand that every representative in the mayor has your back and that they're listening to your thoughts to your concerns and as someone who speaks with a lot of them on a weekly basis I promise you that they're going to do what's right at the end of the day and now while I don't know what the Attorney General's office is going to be doing in terms of the injunction I know that the louder we get the more respectful we are and the more conversations we have that we can defeat SB 14 and sb12 and again I urge our city to lead and be the voice for diversity equality and inclusion and again thank you president Fernandez and representative Rivera for putting this item on the agenda back then and for having an update today thank you thank you sir our next speaker is Lorena Edwards followed by Andy rosters Valdez Jr good morning you have three minutes good morning good morning mayor and members of council my name is Lorena Edwards this will be my third time speaking uh in front of city council the first time was actually about 25 years ago when I came to the city to ask them why they were willing to pay Paso's Waste Management Department a living wage but not the Emergency Medical Services Department the mayor at the time mayor Carlos uh reminisce Ramirez was very kind in letting me know that the reason was that trash thinks and his cons his constituents let him know that afterwards he was gentle in telling us that the reality was that this squeaky wheel is the one that gets the grease um the fact of the matter was that El pasumans were more willing to pay extra to guarantee that their trash was picked up regularly then to guarantee that somebody would be there for them in the off chance they had an emergency of some type the second time I came to speak in front of you guys I had three minutes to try to convince you that my daughter's life was worth protecting in three minutes I needed to summarize the beautiful life that I brought into this world 16 years ago it wasn't enough time and as I sat here what I found was as I watched members of my community come up here and Bear the most vulnerable parts of themselves to you was that we failed in being heard by you all we weren't squeaky enough for you guys as I watched our community sitting there being exposed the voices that you guys were listening to were each other uh the voices that were creating any kind of dialogue were more focused on getting the name just right and then the conversation quickly derailed into the realization that we weren't going to be able to provide recognition 100 of the time to everybody that wanted to be recognized in it I keep hearing that the city's hands are tied in this situation but what I'm not hearing from you guys is that you're even interested in having them untied to begin with you have the chance to say that Although our hands are tied although the city's hands are tied civil rights are not like a slice of pie just because you say you want some for one group doesn't mean you're saying you don't want it for everyone else you have the chance to say that the wheel doesn't need to be made squeaky just to deserve the grace that it needs to function you have the chance to say that a trans life does not have to be placed in danger just to be worthy of your protection I thank you so much for your consideration and your time today thank you thank you man the next speaker is Andy Rose please careno followed by Aurelio Valdez Jr Lisa Turner Andrew Nunez Rupert and Amber Perez good morning you have three minutes good morning mayor good morning Council I just want to take some time to reiterate just how dire Things Are children are being denied truly life-saving Health Care simply because the power that be do not believe that transgender people exist and instead are these terrible scary people coming after children that is further from the truth and an effort to continue the long fight in undermining erasing and villainizing the transgender Community as well as the drag performer community with these recommendations we can continue to be the safe City that our community loves that our community calls home with the these recommendations we are not we are not asking you to break the law just continue to help us keep us safe we are your people too we are your citizens too these are families that are being driven out of our state kids being targeted and forced to be who they are aren't in an effort to try and get them to de-transition to try and get them to be what these uh powers that be want them to be and not who they say they are trans kids know exactly who they are and yes they have the ability to change they have the ability to grow that's part of growing up but these pieces of legislation uh being passed are not to protect children they're just to continue to erase transgender people and to erase the idea that people are born in the wrong body it happens and for those who continue to push the argument of biology and um and the way we're born nobody is ever cared about about biology until transgender rights and issues started coming up because most of us are born without the ability to give birth most of us are born without the ability to perform normal bodily functions that everyone else can but we have procedures to be able to fix those we have drugs that are able to to supplement those and no one bats an eye at those yet when someone is trying to be exactly who they are and to rectify a mistake that they feel was made at Birth then all the guns start coming out and all the all these laws start coming out to try and prevent us rather than giving us actual Solutions rather than giving us actual help so I urge each and every one of you please look at us we are your people all of the transgender Community all of the LGBT plus Community all of the drag performers that continue to put on education and entertainment for everyone of all ages we are your people please protect us thank you the next speaker is Jr [Applause] Junior Lisa Turner good morning again you have three minutes good morning again miss Turner several months ago this came up there were a lot of things from certain people up here uh well we gotta get all these other people involved because we got to make sure there's something for veterans and blah blah blah blah well there's there's multiple things out there for everybody unless you're trans unless you're gay today I want to ask you I'm here to implore you that I do want an official representative from the ark Police Department with our community somebody's assigned a liaison now SB 12 and sb14 it's in a violation of at least Federal three federal laws this is my favorite deprivation of rights under the color of law section three excuse me section 242 title 18. can't do it it's sb12 SB 14 violates it it also violates Section 8 excuse me U.S code eighteen six and two third twenty three forty a torture torture is both mental and physical and when you hake and deny these people like myself our Medical Care is torture you're torturing us it's bad enough there's a restaurant down on Mason next to uh Taco Cabana that tampered with my food over 10 years ago I don't eat at that chain ever again it's difficult being trans because you straight people don't like us simply because you're unwilling to take the time to educate yourself so because I know our lawyer will say well we have to follow state law well there's federal law that says you don't have to and you can't act under that so you've got your legal cover there's at least three federal laws and it didn't take me five minutes to find them I can tell you what this is one of the best places in the world or someone like myself to transition because of who we are we've always had to deal with the fact that we were isolated and we had to deal with each other and we didn't have the luxury of discriminating against somebody simply because of the color of the skin the religion or who they were because when it came right down to it something happened we are all that we have thanks Ms Turner the next speaker is Andrew Nunez Rupert followed by Amber Perez good morning you have three minutes good morning good morning everyone for allowing me to speak today my name is Andrew nunez-rooper I'm the president of the brand new Pride board here in El Paso Mountain star Pride I actually would like to take a second and welcome my executive board to come and introduce themselves to you as well good afternoon mayor city council my name is Matthew Garcia I'm vice president of mountain star Pride good morning good afternoon mayor and center console my name is Ronald Nunez Rupert and I am the secretary for Mountain star Pride good morning thank you good afternoon I'm Nicole Haswell and I'm their Sergeant at Arms good morning good morning I'm Thomas Greene I am the treasurer good morning thank you for letting me introduce them our organization stands here today to speak on behalf of our community to ask the city to consider the impacts of these legislations like sb12 and sb14 not just only on individual performers and businesses but the mental health as we were talking about earlier for an entire group of human beings who are being targeted for simply being themselves what message do we send to our use our lgbtqia plus Community Partners and to everyone when we say it's not okay to be who you are to live your truth these bands will bring more mental health crises to the Borderland which will also bring more incidences of hate and discriminatory Behavior we hope that you all as representatives of us will do the right thing and stand up for what is right not simply what is told and what is easy thank you thank you the final speaker is Amber Perez [Applause] good afternoon you have three minutes you're our first afternoon good afternoon yes good afternoon Council mayor uh my name is Amber Bettis I'm the executive director of the Borderland rainbow Center uh and uh We've Come I've come today with an incredible group of people and more people who wish they could be here today but they couldn't just to remind you once again that we are here we understand that there are things that the city can and can't do we also understand that um oftentimes we need to make good trouble right and that's what you see us here trying to do but the statistics that you heard today are true and not only are those statistics true there is an entire slew of Statistics that are true as well of which we'll be providing you with the mayor did ask for some statistics so we will provide it to his office we'll also provide it to each and every single one of you speaking about the fact that one in four youth transgender youth have contemplated or attempted suicide 82 percent of transgender individuals have thought of suicide and how HRT especially early HRT and puberty blockers can help with that it actually reduces the suicidal ideations but again that's a that's a letter that you guys will all receive what I really wanted to talk about today is the fact that we've had this great moment within the community where you're seeing us come together and you've seen three different organizations here today and there's plenty of others but one of the things that I have noticed is that I have not necessarily seen you all at our brunches I haven't seen you all necessarily at our at any of our events as of late we did have D.A Hicks come by he and his office came and they talked to us afterwards they did mention how what the center is doing and what our community is doing because when I talk of the center I just don't mean the organization that I have the ability to lead at the moment but all of us that we have come together and we have created this place that is open to all whether you are lgbtqi Plus or an ally and that that is one of the most important things that we can do and that what we do is that instead of segmenting ourselves we are literally sitting here and helping others it's like we're not the ones who are making the issue it's everybody else okay and so today what I really want everyone to do is I want to see each and every single one of you come down to the center to meet the people that you are talking about to meet the people that we're actually affecting so you can hear families like media and Lori and Andy so you can actually meet them and see them in our space as well because we have come time and time again here to your space and now I am inviting you to ours because I want you to see and I want you to hear what we see and hear every single day because every day I receive comments every single day I receive texts and whatsapps people asking what's going to happen and my answer is time and time again we are going to keep fighting and one of the things again is that we are all part of this community it's like you are us and we are you please come out and get to know us thank you thank you mayor that concludes public comment on this item thank you representative followed by representative thank you Marin thank you representative Rivera for joining um and getting an update I just first had a couple comments and then some questions um first I'd want to applaud the state district judge Gunther hexel for her injunction uh but however I don't know where it stands and and we'll ask some questions from the city attorney's office on on the matter but for the parents who have to continue to come here to fight for your families and for your children know that we remain steadfast in our commitment to join you in your fight for your rights for your children and you know let's let's call it what it is this is unconstitutional this is unconstitutional attack on trans Youth and it saddens me that families consider themselves to be political refugees of their own state in the United States it is a time in our history that will forever be a dark place but with good trouble I think we can do more Amber and so just just some quick questions because you know September one around the corner there are families seeking information specifically from your leaders at City Hall and and the police department unfortunately wasn't able to meet with um with staff ahead of time but we want to hear what the the city attorney's office has to say as it relates to what we know um from this new law that should go into effect and then would ask the question to our city manager if they consider this to be a high priority for a police department we've been monitoring the case that you mentioned in in Austin we are aware that the lawsuit was filed against the state of Texas there were several plaintiffs on behalf of various um it was parents on behalf of various children that are being represented against the state of Texas we are aware that the trial court issued an injunction against the state and did call the gender the battle gender affirming care unconstitutional immediately after that rolling the state of Texas did file an interlocutory appeal to the Texas Supreme Court we are monitoring the case um hourly now because we believe that maybe the court is going to issue some sort of order instructing the parties on what they are expected to do as a result of the appeal however there is no longer an injunction against the state of Texas to prohibit the enforcement of this law the defendants include the state of Texas as well as the Texas Medical Board and then the Texas Health and I'm going to get their name wrong the Texas Health and Human Resources I forget the name of the other administrative agency that is charged with the enforcement of the law we have also and if you want me to stop and then ask me another question I was gonna no go ahead in addition to the gender affirming care there is a a second lawsuit that we've also been tracking and this is all very timely because it's happening as we speak the injunction hearing happened on Fridays to regards to the gender affirming care and then in Houston various drug drug performers companies as well as the pride organization out of Houston filed the lawsuit in Houston against various cities regarding the constitutionality of the drug the drug ban as we call it bill um they're actually still in court as we speak there there was testimony yesterday that was heard but we have not heard um from the court of from the the what the the federal court in Houston as to how it's going to rule on that issue we do expect that if they rule against the state of Texas that there will be an immediate appeal as well um that is the extent of what we know in regards to both of those lawsuits we did also as a result of the work the direction that the council gave us a few weeks ago we've been reaching out to various cities and police departments in regards to whether or not they were going to do a deep prioritization resolution like we did during the abortion rulings there have been no cities that have done that as you will recall we met with you and also spoke to our State lobbyists who said that no other city is doing it we believe that the reason that is the case is because everybody's watching the two cases that I just mentioned I don't know whether other cities will want to do a deep prioritization bill in regards to gender affirming care considering that and that's now at the Texas Supreme Court however if Council wishes to move in that direction that's something that we can come back with depending on how the rulings go in the next couple of days just one question question on that because we had received some inquiries on whether or not and and this item isn't posted for action it's just a question on this council's ability are we able to direct depending on the status of the case to direct the city attorney's office to issue an amicus brief in support of those families the council would need to give us that direction to move forward depending on what the language is um to join in that litigation but that would require a different action from the council I'm not talking about joining litigation but rather economicus I mean and I'm not sure if that requires significant resources but you know I do truly believe this is unconstitutional and these fam and our families in El Paso need to know that their leaders support all trans youth and I understand that so we would need to receive that type of direction from the council I haven't um we I think that various entities are watching the litigation I spoke to outside Council on a different matter who is watching the same case and I think that you're going to see a different direction after the rulings that took place in Austin and then what happens today in Houston okay I'm not aware of what the County Commissioner's Court is considering either but I believe there's some conversations uh surrounding around an abacus brief as well and I think we have an opportunity to stand in unity and in solidarity with trans Youth and so that's something that I'll be exploring um and I'll and I'll meet with representative Rivera and others who want to join to consider that as well but but for now we were just here trying to understand what's the state of the the case and what options we have to consider in the future was there anything else you'd like to share no we can also reach out to um our cohorts at the county attorney's office to ask what they're doing and we can do that great thank you um and uh city manager Weston um for my time's up um just want to reiterate you know that gender affirmative care is evidence-based it is absolutely a necessity for life-saving care doctors and Health Care Professionals should not be targeted by our Police Department I know that we are a council manager form of government and so we'd like to hear um you know from from your from your words you know what is the position of the department and City manager's office yeah I think Miss Neiman uh spelled out exactly where we stand operationally on this right now we are certainly following the issues very closely and what's happening within the courts I think it's uh it's it's too early based on that with a with such a fluid situation legally for us to to to take a stand operationally as a city I think that's the reason you're seeing other cities do the same thing and and uh really paying close attention to how uh this uh comes to pass within the courts and I and I appreciate that and having an intimate understanding of Priority One calls which are highest level priorities you know if there was ever an attempt to to consider this to be a high priority um the welfare of a trans youth not receiving gender affirming care is a high priority for families and so we would send a strong message again to to reiterate that this this attack on trans youth is is not what we stand for as a community that is what we stand for as a as a country and my hope is is that there's some kind of intervention from the federal government because enough is enough families have their lives to lead children need to have their gender affirming care and so I just want to thank the the families for your commitment to fight for your children we hear you we care for you and we'll do what we can within the confines of the law to respond but I appreciate the update we just want to make sure we give some families some updates thanks thank you ma'am representative um so she though followed by mayor Pro Tem private um stories with us here today I want to thank representative Hernandez and Rivera for putting this item before us for an update I know as mentioned they mentioned that it's perfectly legal within what's being proposed and it's not breaking any laws but what we do know that is a sb12 and SB 14 that's that's within the purview of the state but whatever we can do within our city and our municipality we're looking to to work with you all in in bigger ways that we find Solutions in providing safety for your you all and your families as well so we want to make sure that everybody everybody's protected right all the people of El Paso so I want to thank you all for for coming in and thank you so much for putting this item before us thank you representative Salcido I want to address very quickly um Miss Neiman you had you said you don't know about other cities that are working on these policies as you know the decriminalized abortion was something that was a Statewide effort across cities they're waiting for us on this um because I think this is a is different than the abortion issue on where with abortion we could de-prioritize and that's all we could do with this this issue there's a lot we can do we can be looking at training you heard Miss Turner talk about the liaison and our Police Department which I think every advocate here has complained about we need to be looking at that we're in this anti-trans bill really is more directed towards Health Care Providers how and the mayor said how are we using funds to help people travel that can to access that medication those medical resources you know how are we even situating our our facilities that have single stall restrooms to be more welcoming to individuals right and so my office has been working with a lot of individuals happy to work with anyone else on this Council but we'll be putting up an item at next council meeting to address some of the things that we've heard from the community in regards to what they would like seeing but I'm going to say this again and we hear this often and I really want to highlight Miss Turner because she has mentioned this training is going to be really essential amongst our city staff and Facilities on how we are welcoming to people and how we are creating a safe space for individuals and I know we talk about training a lot and then we never really see the result of that but I think in this case it's going to be really important because you're going to hear a lot at next council meeting about creating safe spaces which is what the city of El Paso really needs to be in addressing these issues at the state when it comes to anti-drug I mean Miss Newman you and I have talked a lot about how we're looking at our our planning documents and how we're doing our certificate of occupancy kind of based around the wiggle or I shouldn't say that based around the language and the state law um and and I know that we're still talking about that one and so that might take a little bit longer but I do think that outside of decriminalizing there are things that we as a community and as a city should be doing and I look forward to working with everyone on Council to do that so thank you very much for the update thank you ma'am thank you everyone and there is no action on this item but I look forward to continuing to meet with you all thank you now we have call to the public I do want to break for lunch but I know we have a lot of people here for calling the public so after calling the public we'll break a little bit for lunch thank you mayor council is a local government body charged with serving all of the citizens must be focused on the meeting of charge the City Council meetings are public meetings under the Texas open meetings ACT public comment is on accommodation and not a requirement of city council all persons and attendants are expected to displace Civility and decorum that is respectful to other persons without the use of insulting profane threatening or abusive language public comment will not be used for personal attacks against a person or group's character or Integrity which are not pertinent to City business nor May any member of the public use this foreign for political statements or campaigning please note that during call to the public the city council may not deliberate or decide any subject that is not on the agenda however Council May propose that a topic brought forward be posted on a future agenda this afternoon we have 21 members of the audience that signed up to speak mayor if all 21 take three minutes it may exceed the 60 Minutes as posted on the Rules of Order it'll be okay yeah thank you sir thank you ma'am the first person is Elizabeth Crawford I don't see her in the queue the next person is Benjamin Alba topic is cats and dogs animals Strays and Animal Services good afternoon you have three minutes good afternoon everyone I've been trapping cats and sending them to get spayed or neutered for over 13 years doing this is not easy it is tedious it takes lots of coordination and lots of time throughout the last couple of years I've seen more loose cats and dogs than I've seen before more dead animals than I've seen in the past dead animals on the streets on the sidewalks near my uh my neighborhood I have fostered 14 cats from the El Paso Animal Services shelter and kept 11 of them El Paso Animal Services director is asking us the public to Foster and or adopt animals most people are not going to do this I've already got 11 cats that I have taken in from El Paso animal services and I cannot take in any more my colleagues are here to offer suggestions and and I sincerely hope you are city leaders will listen to these suggestions we are not trying to make things difficult or put blame on anyone we are here because of the love that we have for these atoms these folks here are the experts if our city leaders accept our suggestions it will be a win-win situation I've noticed our City Animal Services shelter makes people feel guilty about turning in a loose cat or dog people are being asked to Foster or adopt an animal but unfortunately for whatever reason most people just cannot do this we are asking our city leaders to please listen to our requests and helping these animals these animals are not at fault with your help the help of our city leaders we can make El Paso stand out in a positive direction El Paso can be the center place in helping and showing other cities counties and states how to develop and Implement ways to stop the overpopulation of loose cats and dogs on another note people are selling cats and dogs on Facebook Craigslist even at the swap meets or flea markets we need to you need to hold these people who are selling puppies and kittens accountable whole people accountable who let their dogs out Loose thank you thank you the next speaker is Rene Quran Rene Coral topic is loose stray and abandoned animals on the streets of El Paso good afternoon you have three minutes good afternoon good afternoon in February of this year El Paso Animal Services posted a distemper outbreak notice on their website and stopped taking in stray or loose dogs which is Animal Services basic function it's been more than seven months since then and animal services still refuses to take in stray dogs it's no secret that animal services has been dysfunctional for a very long time and during this time the increase in dogs and cats on the streets has exploded people that can no longer take care of their dogs or simply don't want their dogs anymore have no other resource but to abandon these dogs on the streets caring people that see these dogs often will pick them up why because it's the right thing to do only to find out that the majority are not microchipped which is required by law yet rarely enforced by the city then they have no other option but to call the only other resource available to them El Paso Animal Services only to find out that El Paso Animal Services turns them down and says it's your problem now We're Not Gonna we can't pick it up because of this December outbreak for seven months the El Paso animal shelter again not performing its basic function now the El Paso animal shelter has a sign outside their door this is a sign it says notice abandoning an animal is cruel and against the law El Paso Animal Services indirectly breaking this law by forcing people who can no longer take care of their animals to leave them up back on the street because they have no other place to do what let me ask city council what are they supposed to do with these dogs what other resource is there their only resource just told them we can't take them in not only is this cruel but these dogs are breeding spreading disease and forming dangerous packs on the streets of El Paso which is a serious serious safety threat to the community including our children your constituents your constituents have finally had enough and are sick and tired of the city council not addressing this issue my question is why was there no contingency plan in place for this type of scenario so we could have avoided this this this crisis why has city council allowed this to go on for so long this crisis has to stop now so that we can concentrate on the root cause of loose dogs and cats which is Affordable spay and neuter programs enforcement of current laws including backyard breeders and irresponsible pet owners will the city council action take action or how long do we have to wait thank you thank you the next speaker the next speaker is Gerardo Molina Gerardo molinar star sixth place to end major telephone good afternoon you have three minutes the topic is City's policy on not accepting or picking up looser straight animals yes good afternoon um their leader in the city council I'm calling on behalf of these animals for the dogs and and loose dogs and cats something needs to be done you need to start holding those charts accountable to a higher standards just like to do to our public uh First Responders start holding uh some kind of programs where you can spay or neuter these stray dogs and cats old people accountable that abandoned them those agreed for monetary gains you need to start holding accountable and higher fines something and they look guided from charge of the animal services it's not doing his job pulling him accountable or get somebody else so we need to start doing something if I by getting some of these animals off the street you will also be protecting the children and pets when people take them off to dogs from attacks you'll be cutting down sufficiently and kind of outbreak there might be you need to find the funds get more funds whatever needs to be done to help get this problem in you know in order please try to get some kind of program year after year after year nothing's done I urge you to start doing something put something in agenda some kind of plan instead of just hiring people who just won the seats and collect the paycheck thank you for your time thank you the next speaker is Christopher Corral Christopher Corral's topic is dangerous of not accepting or picking up looser stray animals good afternoon you have three minutes good afternoon good afternoon I can't go on walks comfortably with my dogs because Animal Services refuses to pick up any dogs unless they're sick or injured that unfortunately has led to more dogs being loose out there on the streets and it's ludicrous because we pay taxes to have Services done for the city which includes keeping the roads clean and the sidewalks clean Road killed dogs is not what I call clean and stray loose dogs is what I call dangerous and bothersome I mean what am I supposed to do not feel comfortable walking the streets I question if El Paso is still in pandemic mode because loose dogs are a good way of keeping me locked in my own home part of my tax is go to animal services and I expect them to do one of their jobs and one of their jobs is picking up all stray dogs but because it's all no kill shelters they claim they have no room for any new dogs so instead they let the current stray dogs just die gradually of dehydration and starvation or better yet they leave it up to us to accidentally run them over their policy is so flawed towards a joke as they're fully dependent on people adopting dogs in order to make rooms for new ones but yet they only pick up the sick and injured I mean really who wants a second injured dog to adopt and the once they stuff in there already are just growing older by the second which incidentally makes people want to adopt them even less because let's be real not very many people are looking to adopt an old dog it honestly makes me feel like they're just looking for a way to not do their job it's funny because if I catch a dog Animal Services advises that I either keep the dog or just put it back out on the streets if I wanted to keep the dog I wouldn't have called them in the first place and they want me to put it out there where I just don't want them in the first place to release it back on the streets you know where I want it off of I did have to work for them already and to finish this off I just want animal services to start doing me and the people of El Paso are service I want to be able to walk comfortably with my dogs and enjoy the streets of El Paso I've seen the damages that dogs can do lost fingers have eaten faces I live by a school where lots of children go by so why put us at risk I shouldn't have to risk my dog's life or nor am I whenever I go out so quit putting this in danger and get these dog catchers to use thank you thank you sir the next speaker is Ron Como Mr Como's topic is Animal Services good afternoon Mr Como you have three minutes it's good to see you good afternoon sir ladies and gentlemen you're going to hear a different speech for me um as we all know Mr Lisa and Mr Western I have been having meetings every couple of weeks and I gotta say in the short time that Mr Weston has been the city manager there has been a great Improvement as far as what tomorrow's going to bring they removed best friends from an embedded program that was a major step for the city of El Paso we did have to get rid of the old city manager to get that and we have a new city manager and you I if you've investigated what we've been saying all along and you've recognized the issue I know you're going forward with buying the school so that we can have enough space to pick up all these Strays that we've created over the years I mean I've been fighting this since June of 2020. you know think about that think about all the dogs and cats you left on the streets because you wanted to follow Tommy Gonzalez here's a hint you want to follow him follow him Midland's going to be looking they're already flipping out because he's no personal taxation I'm sorry that's easy with that one no I know thank you um I I but I I honestly want to thank you for everything you've done you're moving forward like you said you would in our meetings I this is the first time I've gone publicly and said this is what you said you were going to do and this is what you have done you have to the letter followed what you said you would do during these meetings this is very important to get the city out of this mass is going to take years and we're going forward so I want to thank you because for God's sakes we're finally seeing a Light Of Hope to get this problem resolved and you guys have my support I hope the city council understands it enough's enough we did the right thing get rid of best friends now we need to get rid of the Haas program out of our shelter we are not running a no-kill equation we are running the Haas program that is also best friends in Austin Pets Alive that was also sold to Best Friends by our ex city manager three months after we headed in at our shelter he was telling them how great it was how do you know in three months something's great now that we don't have a city manager and best friend's pocket I'm looking forward to the changes again please no personal attacks um again I'm sorry I can't hope it I I trust me it's a lot nicer than what I'd like to say but I appreciate you all I really do and I'm looking forward to the next change and let's get this done we need to get it fixed thank you again thank you [Applause] the next statement was submitted by Rosemary Dolan and it says I am Rosemary Dolan I've been a resident of El Paso County since October 2020. since then I have encountered a minimum of 10 loser stray dogs in my neighborhood I have contacted animal control for almost all of those until I realized they weren't coming to help save me nor did they care in the beginning I was even willing to trap the Strays for them I encounter loose dogs who live in the neighborhood but are not confined to their yard there is one home on Earl Street that has four dogs of all of which maybe loose at any given time and start harassing you on your daily walk I've been rescued by Neighbors when this has happened even though I call 9-1-1 for assistance no one showed up and no one can was nice was not enough to keep them from leaving my dog and I alone I've asked animal control for the report on these incidents and never ever received anything it's almost as if we are confined to our homes because of these irresponsible pet owners you tell us to keep the stress to help you out by keeping the Strays I have one small one now you promise vaccines microchip and to fix the dogs no one ever gets back to you on how to accomplish it then when you look at the next door you read that animals get sick when they go in for their vaccines and injured after being fixed why not offer to reimburse this person so they can go to a trusted fit lastly my dog had to be put down because an unrestrained dog ran up to my dog jumped to defend himself as a dog was easily a 70 pound dog running up Unleashed dog he had a bulging disc said ended up rupturing I still have yet to receive the animal control report for those hold these irresponsible pet owners accountable for their dog's Behavior the owner of those loose dogs say no harm no foul except I have adrenal inefficiency insufficiency that encounter makes me have to Triple my daily steroid dose for the three days due to the physical stress cost and adrenaline I use respectfully Rose stolen the next speaker is Elena lemon Elena lemon's topic is also Animal Services need for volunteers good afternoon you have three minutes hi um one of the things that I wanted to see or find out is are the dogs ever going to get feeding bowls I think it's so inhumane to feed them on the floor where they pee and poop that's that's an abuse and it's a cruelty so I just like to know if at some point they will have a bowl that they can eat from and then you you say you want the community to help out with all these Strays well the only ones that help are the responsible ones and why are we held accountable for the irresponsible ones maybe we need to do some change some laws have high fines for other backyard breeders and not just the backyard breeders but people that buy the dogs they're more responsible for them breathing than the ones that are breeding them if there's no support then there's no merchandise these dogs are treated like just a piece of just money and that's not what it should be um so I think even if it's a city ordinance or whatever we need to do we need to 500 whatever and if they don't pay then it's jail time but it's very um it's out there if we can see it you all can see it on Craigslist like everybody you know here saying everybody sell the dogs so if you will do something to punish the backyard breeders and people that support them we can probably at some point have some kind of limitation on all these trays and sick animals that are out there um I for one if the city would provide some kind of spay neuter I you can put me on a list to volunteer to pick up that dog take them to Gates Bay and neutered because people irresponsible people you can charge them a dollar show it for free their inconvenience they don't want to do it so I I for one am volunteering to pick up dogs to go door to door if we have to educate people take their dog to get Spain neutered and return them to the owner you know and we just need to be those people need to be held accountable thank you the next speaker is Josie Guzman Josie Guzman coming up topic is lose straight abandoned animals good afternoon you have three minutes good afternoon um I wanted to begin by saying that animal services are not picking up Strays just like everybody else was saying and these poor animals are fending for themselves I was thinking to propose maybe once every certain amount of years we our taxpayers maybe we should be allowed to have our animals spayed or neutered this would help to control the pep pop pit population second leash loss they also need to be mandatory and enforced people no longer feel safe walking at the park at the neighborhood at the track due to becoming vulnerable victims these people that go walking like myself I used to go taking my own dogs in a leash and then I have other dogs running around loose and their owners um don't take responsibility for their actions according to Animal Services our pets our domestic animals are considered property and we need to remember that they are living beings and they should be treated as such from personal experience I had a cat who was in front of her own house when she was brutally attacked by five of our neighbors dogs I also had a sun attacked by two pit bulls and that was another neighbor my son was in his own backyard when these two pit bulls jumped on jumped in I feel people that own aggressive dogs should be made accountable to get some kind of an insurance policy that will hold them accountable and hopefully make the owners more responsible these dogs have more Tendencies to attack and even kill I personally feel that dogs that come into another family's private property and attack and kill whether it be another animal or a person should have some serious consequences and finds an animal that kills another animal or brutally attacks or a person even needs to be Humane their dogs need to be humanely put down immediately and euthanized it is not right or ethical for us to be without our beloved pets and yet these are responsible and non-caring pet owners get to keep their own and continue to allow them to be negligent without consequences I would like more strictness with other animals for example that are abused you see people that are they are recently I've been reading about puppies and kittens that were being boiled or dogs that were being tied to the vehicles and and they drive off with them on their leash things need to be more thank you accountable thank you very much for your time the next speaker is Mark Pierro Mark Piero topic is Animal Services ignoring the obvious good afternoon you have three minutes good afternoon good afternoon sir thank you and thank you for bringing your mom my pleasure so this right here is just a printout of something that we got yesterday from the city Zone website frequently asked questions this question was asked back in 2019 are you a no-kill shelter the answer in 2016 mayor and city council approved a reform plan to move El Paso Animal Services to become a no-kill shelter since then we have implemented numerous life-saving programs improved operations and implemented new policies and procedures to push us to the no kill goal and have currently saved an average of about 87 percent of the pets that have come into our care we strive to provide a life-saving outcome for every pet that comes into our care but as an open admission shelter we do provide Humane euthanasia for pets truly suffering from extreme injury illness or those that pose a threat to Public Safety so what is an open admission shelter open admission shelters are operated by municipalities and Animal Control contracts foreign municipalities and are paid for by tax dollars open admission shelters May decline owners surrender animals if their role is strictly limited to stray animal control or certain species like cats dogs so open admission is to admit every stray animal in their jurisdiction regardless of health age breed temperament how pretty they are or aren't everyone's tax dollars pays for this shelter so every stray or owner surrender pet should have access to the shelter we are ignoring the obvious problem closed intake for three and a half years has left these animals on the streets to fend for themselves or die somewhere so desperate that they are dangerous to the community so who chooses who lives or dies capacity care another topic what is capacity care caring for what you think you can do the very best with so capacity care is not the solution by selecting only 400 pets to receive the finest possible care you're leaving thousands of pets on the streets to die to me thank you Mr Piero thank you sir the next speaker is Barbara Valencia Barbara Valencia's topic is Animal Services recap it will need the Elmo for Miss Valencia's presentation please you don't have to worry about it yeah yeah okay go ahead Miss Valente you have three minutes okay okay thank you [Music] next upside down [Music] next [Music] next [Music] [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] thank you the next speaker is Isabel Arata [Applause] topic is Animal Welfare crisis in El Paso good afternoon you have three minutes good afternoon my name is Isabelle alverzarada I'm a journalist and writer specializing in the pet industry I want to start by recognizing the Animal Services Workers and volunteers for their efforts working with homeless animals is very difficult it takes a toll and their efforts must be recognized I want to continue by obviously addressing my concerns first and foremost dogs bite even the best dog can become aggressive as a result of subpar living conditions and perceived threats which a child can be a perceived threat additionally stray and feral animals can transmit diseases rabies for example is a very real zoonotic infection which means that it can affect humans as well rabies by its very nature inspires the host to infect other hosts which means other animals other humans children and that's just rabies there are thousands of viruses and bacterias that can be transmitted not only to other animals but to humans as well as you may know there is a Veterinary shortage in El Paso that's the case in the entire country if we were to have some kind of outbreak that would mean that most of the animals would not get the care they need in the time that they need it right now veterinarians are turning away low-level emergencies when I last went to the veterinarian with my cat there were four dogs that had been attacked they obviously took precedent but that didn't make my cat any less worthy or dignified of care as we've heard animals are being abandoned at high rates forcing El pasoans to step up putting themselves and their families in danger of injury illness using their hard-earned money to face something that shouldn't be their responsibility in addition as I'm sure you've heard dogs that are running on I-10 are a danger to drivers the more Strays we have the more they're going to reproduce and the more they're going to pose a public threat finally trap neuter and return programs aren't being leveraged there are programs all over the country that would help fully functioning shelters but unless we're fully functioning we can't even apply for these programs on top of all of that I'm raising children in this city and I know based on Research that teaching empathy for Animals creates good citizens today tomorrow into the future we need to prioritize pets abandoned animals Strays our shelters our animal services our workers and volunteers to create a harmonious City for everybody thank you the next speaker is Nadia Hernandez Nadia Hernandez star six please tune on mute your telephone Nadia Hernandez star six please to unmute your telephone Nadia Hernandez star six will unmute your telephone you're still on mute we'll see if Miss Hernandez can unmute while we move to Andre shannenstein Andre shonnenstein star six pleased to unmute your telephone good afternoon you have three minutes hello go ahead do you have three minutes sir thank you for having me I hope my voice will be here to clear and far I speak to you as a neighbor friend and business owner but most important as a shepherd and fellow father to children with two and four legs this is what defines me I can no longer block ignore or turn away from what has become of this community compassion love or gun helping others and stepping back to make room for the ones in need to lead it from our dictionary values and morals to be proud of our Vanishing day by day you might wonder what is this guy talking about well let me share my last nine months trying to make a difference fighting for those with no voice and choice I went from one dog to six dogs the smallest being 56 pounds I spend 25 487.97 embed both medications Foster rescue support cremations and transports I had a euthanized six dogs and hospitalized several others I have witnessed dogs that have been rescued with gunshot wounds I helped rescue shelters and independent Rescuers and I want to believe that 46 souls are now in in a better place I have scanned seven dead animals and contacted dot for removal not one of them had a chip the latest was just a Sunday I keep following up and the body is still there I gave up hobbies and I spent most of my time in the evenings to browsing through social media trying to happen trying to share and raise awareness I'm not a rescuer I'm just a helping hand I have not counted the hours and days that I've spent chasing trapping waiting at the vet or groomer and driving poor souls from one place to another I have been sprayed by a skunk the skunk bit and scratched by dogs and cats I have lost sleep and hair unfortunately not weight because I'm a chocolate of ours I cannot stop thinking that I'm just a smidge in this struggle there are real Rescuers out there that are 100 times doing more than I do how can they keep up as you know what um and you know what I feel like I have done nothing I have to move not moved the needle an inch quite the opposite I feel defeated as people keep breathing and abandoning in their pets in our community and we're not doing anything to change it shelters and rescues are full in closing we're exhausted our City and County shelters are not our mess and Beyond repair our laws are not being enforced and criminals are hurting innocent creatures walking free doing this over and over again I have several examples that is correct animal cruelty neglect is a crime the FBI released in 2016 a report collecting that on crimes against animal and guess what the name's Jeff Dahmer Dahmer Ted Bundy and David Berkowitz rings a bell you guessed right is this animal abuse and animal abuse is directly the link to domestic violence child abuse and even murder all evil starts with animals because they do not have a voice the shares Association published a very similar finding just years prior and there is much more try going down this rabbit hole for once uh you will be surprised so what do we do El Paso do we keep teaching our children that's okay to dump a dog or run over a cat or do we show them how to care for an animal and teach them valuable lessons about responsibility and caring for others you have been elected by El Paso and is your duty to make sure that our laws are important Stein you've reached the three minutes thank you thank you thank you the next speaker is Nadia Nadia Hernandez the topic is Animal Services concerns about stray animals good afternoon Miss Hernandez you have three minutes good afternoon I'm sorry about the 36 it wasn't working my commentating of course Echoes not of everyone there in the room and it's concerning uh the number of stray animals the dogs and cats that we have here in the city and again the refuel we feel the love animal services to take them in too overcrowding my question is what are the immediate plans to solve this problem besides relying on caring citizens like all these folks here in the room um taking care of them you know then we're being told that we either take care of them or release them back to the streets and that is just not acceptable I I do not blame the Frontline employees or the volunteers that are at the normal service they are only there and be being told what to do this is always a top-down problem how is the theory enforcing breeder permit are they even enforcing the permits I see them all the time in Donovan on the west side and then when I made I make a call to report it nobody goes I get no follow-up no nothing and these breeders backyard breeders are just continuing to be a huge problem these trays it's not their fault it's our fault that humans you know we're the ones with the brain here with the logic with the tools with hopefully the money to tackle this problem and so we need stricter fines on illegal backyard breeders a responsible pet owners and for animal services to really step up their game and there's grants out there for spay and neuter programs and microchipping why aren't these being tapped into love my comment thank you thank you the next speaker is Karen Washington [Applause] Karen Washington's topic is animal services and not picking up dogs good afternoon you have three minutes good afternoon hi awesome I haven't been here in a while first I'd like to say thank you that best friends is no longer operating in El Paso however that is just the tip of the iceberg that we're up against here um we have got to start picking up all the animals this little guy right here this 12 pound Chihuahua was attacked by a larger dog last week okay he was found on a school campus by one of the employees okay that's what these pictures are here these are from a video this is him laying here covered in ants okay I have a video I won't play it but the video of this employee picking up this dog leaves this dog squealing screaming out of Terror sheer Terror and fear plus a lot of pain we have got to make room for these dogs Animal Control has got to start picking up dogs as a rescuer for of 20 years here I'm no longer even angry about this I I am just dissatisfied I'm heartbroken I I I've come to a standstill right now I cannot pick up any more dogs somebody asked me to go scan a dog for a microchip just at the base of the mountain on Sunday there there's no chip what am I going to do leave the dog there to run around the streets in the mountain I had to pick the dog up you know I don't have a facility I have to find Fosters or I pay for my rescue dogs to go into boarding Okay and like everything I do comes from donations so the more dogs that are picked up out there the less it is taxing for us us local Rescuers okay so please Mr Mayor get animal control back to where it needs to be we need to start picking up all these dogs please okay thank you thank you the next speaker is Diana Valenzuela Diana Valenzuela star six pleased to unmute your telephone topic is discontent with animal services Diana Valenzuela star sixth place to a major telephone good afternoon you have three minutes good afternoon this is Diana um thank you for this opportunity to speak today and I also want to thank my neighbors for showing up and helping to organize um this effort and I am a homeowner I'm a resident of District three I'm a dog owner I have four four dogs I had four dogs and two of them came from Rescue here or the shelter um so I think we've heard a lot of passions today um so again I think my my neighbors for sharing their thoughts there's pretty much nothing that I can disagree with so I just want to emphasize what they've said I'm also interested to hear about what we can do going forward and I ask um our representatives to put this on the agendas as an item to look into and to really start investigating what's going on with animal services um on the more analytic side I have looked on the website to see um what's available and there's some reports um I'm not sure how much I believe those numbers they don't really seem to add up for me so I'd like to learn some more about that um I'd also like to see more about the enforcement I think everybody has mentioned that there's a problem there as well with actually being enforced what are we teaching our children and our other neighbors when they can get away with breaking the law um so again I I want to re-emphasize everything that has been said today I appreciate everybody coming out um and I'd really like to see some improvements for Animal Services I saw on the website as well there's a strategic plan that is very out of date so I think that um I would really like to see like I said some effort put forth to make changes I believe change starts at the top and uh Mr Weston I've been impressed I've talked to you before um so I think that you've done a great job so far and I look forward to um to some great things so I really appreciate this opportunity today thank you thank you [Applause] the next statement was submitted by Bonnie Galvan also discontent with animal services Council I've shared the entire statement with you but I'm going to read the highlights as it may contain some personal attacks and it says city council mayor and paid politicians and agents of government as a citizen civilian and concerned human being I like many other El pasoans have agreed to pay our share of taxes for your salaries and the salaries of all public servants to ensure that public works and or Services needed in and around the city are taken care of with due diligence by using resources carefully to ensure our safety and to promote lawful laws that benefit us all El Paso and its surrounding areas have become a Dumping Ground for unwanted and neglected animals cats and dogs that are thrown away like trash despite the enormous budget Animal Services is not actively working to solve this issue and city council does nothing but hire Consultants because they can't make informed decisions and a consequent and disgusting number of abused animals with no red ready in sight there is no work or talk of providing low-cost vaccinations spay or neuter Services foster care and or tougher penalties that are enforced on people who do not care for their pits and for those hurting neglecting or seen or found to be dumping these animals I suggest that in the words of Tom Brady you all do your job and stop waiting until the sky is falling to act if not for the rescues in the city we'd be closer to looking like a third world country in 2023 El Paso has never looked so filthy and been so complacent about the well-being of these animals and so it's time Time for Action because we're tired of your excuses respectfully Bonnie galban the next speaker is Crystal Rocha Christo Rocha star six pleased to unmute your telephone topic is Animal Services good afternoon you have three minutes good afternoon I wanted to bring up the issue regarding El Paso Animal Services refusing to pick up animals off the street unless it was a quote-unquote serious case meaning sick injured aggressive or endangered animals this is still the case after six months of a distemper virus outbreak as a shelter I recently asked them if the outbreak was still ongoing and I did not receive an answer the shelter should have been prepared with a Disaster Recovery Fund I believe that any reported case of a loose animal should always be taken seriously and you lose dog or cat can become a danger to the community whether it be crossing the streets and causing car accidents or intentionally hurt people no animal should be left to die in the streets and this is what the Apostle Animal Services is telling people to do when they have found lost pets without owners and are unable to care for them temporarily or find them homes in the past I have been left with no other choice but to leave a loose dog I had bumped out on the street because of polynomial Services was not willing to take it in and I was not able to temporarily take care of it because of my own aggressive dog now imagine thousands of Apostles in the same scenario how does the animal shelter receive up to 10 million dollars from this past year and now proposing 12.5 million and yet cannot accomplish to rescue loose animals off the streets unless it's a quote unquote special case we as a committee try to do the best we can to help these animals out settle past one of those Services should do their part as well I also wanted to point out that there should be more enforcement from the city on backyard breeding this is an issue that should be addressed to the citizens of El Paso we should be able to report others who are breeding dogs or cats to sell them for their own Financial gains we should not put innocent life on the hands of ignorant irresponsible and selfish individuals people will intentionally leave their dogs or cats and even kittens and puppies out in the desert to die as I have seen it for myself this should fit them where it hurts the most which is their pockets only then will they realize their wrongdoings and this will help reduce the overflowing of pets at the shelters we should also highly encourage to educate the younger Generations the importance of protecting our pets by spaying or neutering them microchipping and adopting from shelters I am aware of the many things El Paso Animal Services have done to try and improve the situation so we can do better El Paso thank you the next speaker is Iver Acosta is Animal Control assistance with spay and neuter Iver Acosta I'll move on to the final speaker Eddie Chavez Eddie Chavez he's walking up man Mr Chavez topic is illegal dumping at my property good afternoon Mr Chavez you have three minutes hello city council I'm back again I still have uh issues with our illegal dumping uh and my property that I'm in charge of the only thing is they dumped it inside the dumpster but it's not my my my trash we have a witness that caught him he not only went one time but he had the nerve to go the second time so we confirmed that it was the same person at dumb District we found that where he lives we got the license plate we've had several people from code enforcement go out there and they haven't done anything they even had some police officer to go out there I gave them the full report they said we'll get back with you nothing has happened I called this morning they said that the case was dropped because they couldn't do anything and advertising to uh for citizens to report illegal dumping well I'm doing that I've helped the city I was a I given a lot of my time for the city I even became a vice president for the neighborhood association I've done other things I adopted five Rottweilers that I found running around like they're like our children maybe they should become one of our dependents on our income tax maybe that will help some of the problems but well that's just my opinion I'm only asking for uh for people or I mean you guys I'm sorry the um no disrespect but to uh with their powers maybe have uh the sanitation department go and pick out at least some of the trash that was illegally done so I can finish my job because I have to pay for that dumpster and I think it should now come down to uh crimes against persons since it can be under illegal dumping but something has to be done because I mean I'm not the one at fault but yet I'm the one that's going to pay for this and the guy that we caught that we think or know that did it has gone around free so I want to see what uh what you all can do and helping me out on this um this endeavor or I know you got other things to do but uh I'm just asking you one more time to see they opened a call this morning and they open another case number they're gonna go and look into it again but that's only it was just a receptionist that took my information again so maybe we can get somebody else to look into it I appreciate it thank you so much thank you for my city thank you the final statement was submitted by Raul Escobedo and it's on the property tax rate and it says this comment is regarding the new current and previous property tax rates not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth want to thank Steph and mayor and Council on the adopted no new Revenue tax rate for FY 2024 but to the mayor's comment on a real tax rate when you are saving money in the general fund every year including 37 million in FY 2023 to the taxpayer it means we were overcharged and not that money was saved this includes every recent fiscal year where the general fund had savings anywhere from 5 million to 9 million annually if indeed 37 million was saved it means that the FY 2023 tax rate could have been significantly reduced instead of basically approving the highest rate allowed under the new truth in taxation regulations and calling it a reduction we all understand that reluctance to have a substantial drop in the rate under the new guidelines but when you either understate revenues or overstate expenditures by 37 million something this SQ for example why would the city budget 112 million for sales tax in FY 2023 when the FY 2022 total was 126 million plus point being a higher budgeted sales tax could be offset by lowering the property tax rate resulting in a real rate reduction and I understand the political benefit of having saved money at year end taking kudos for it due to Grace strategic planning and or efficiencies and funding Council projects with these funds to earn additional praise but again as mayor Lisa stated in his first term there is no better than under budgeting Appropriations and the city having to make adjustments in mid-year which city manager constantly criticized the previous administration for doing and I would propose its worst cause is the taxpayer making the adjustment by paying higher taxes when revenues are under budgeted and or appropes over budgeted as we all know it's a city manager and dcms that make final decisions on what is presented and not always steps recommendations also with so much an annual Journal fund savings maybe someone should propose that the general fund pay for the streetcar because the quality of life departments repay more direct benefit I.E museums Parks CVB what do you think albate not general fund where Sun Metro receives no benefit not even fare box Revenue indeed it would appear even the ballpark pro teams and adjacent businesses are reaping the benefits and Sun Metro is paying the expenses with no return and although we recently saw a report with glossy projections of the streetcar impact on future property taxes again Sun Metro will reap no benefit from from an increased inset taxes although it does not repay benefit from the area's sales tax and I've reached the three minutes but I did email the entire statement to council mayor that concludes call to the public this afternoon thank you and thank you everyone for being here and with that I'd like to have a recess to two o'clock checking there's a motion in a second there's a motion in a second Teresa's a city council meeting until two o'clock all in favor anyone opposed and the city council meeting is at recess at 1 13 pm and will reconvene at two o'clock can you first a second okay okay the next and we noticed that is there a motion to reconvene the council meeting is there a motion to reconvene the council meeting is there a second is there a second there's a motion in a second to reconvene the city council meeting all in favor anyone opposed the meeting is back in session at 206 pm so next item is representative we'll skip that one we'll skip 12 we'll go to let's take the MCA I know they're here and they want to go home I don't know what item that is they're looking to go home I can tell I can't tell them let us find the item come on up but I think this item 23 I believe okay 23. it's the lease item 23 is discussion in action that the city manager on behalf of the city be authorized to sign a written agreement between the city and Medical Center of America's Foundation necessary to finalize a consolidated loan any contract amendments documents releases and related documents and liens against the properties located at the Cardwell collect collaborative building afternoon ma'am good after the medical center of America's Foundation can come up and speak on this item but this is a resolution as a city clerk mentioned to authorizing the city manager to sign the documents and agreements necessary to assist the MCA in refinancing its loans for the construction of the Cardwell collaborative and I think even more importantly allowing the city to release its subordinate liens what that means is that the the new lender has taken a look at refinancing and does not feel that the city needs to be the backstop any longer to the loans just based on the mca's growth over the last seven years their financial stability and and present and future credit worthiness so I'm happy to turn it over to Carlos before you do that I want to make sure that um by us releasing the liens and I talked to Mitch Neiman so I already know the answer I guess but uh I want to make sure and maybe Neiman can there is no there is a covenants that we had agreed upon at the time of sale which is not restrict or change the covenants this is just for them to your concern was under the terms of the sale agreement they agreed to always use the property for the medical center and it's similar uses they're not permitted to change it if the property is sold to another entity they have to give us notice prior to selling and then give us the opportunity either by the property back or consent to the sale okay and that didn't change anything no so that does not change the terms of that agreement this this today's action has nothing to do with those existence the term of their loan has nothing to do with the term of our agreement no sir exactly okay I just want to make sure that because I think that's important when and I think our agreement expires in 2029 is that correct I think I think so the I believe it's in it's in 20 30. okay December 31st at midnight yes sir and what what Carlo was mentioning um is the purchase agreement where we sold the land to the MCA foundation and the terms of that agreement survive closing so and still all all operating um agreements as far as Matrix said we talked about I remember when we did it as far as how much they pay back the city based on the money received is still everything will stay nothing changes yes sir okay so really it's just so um just to refinance the property at a higher rate if if it can bring up the presentation please why don't you take your chair to lunch I've seen the presentation I think everyone it was but if you would like to to share any words outside of the presentation yes good afternoon Tina good afternoon mayor council city manager City staff thank you for allowing me to speak today my name is Carlos Ortega and I'm with the MCA also today with me from Westar bank is Arlene Carroll senior vice president of Westar Bank I'll start out with a couple of just quick background comments on the MCA Tech Park and the Cardwell collaborative many of members of council and mayor have been to the Cardwell collaborative many times the cardboard collaborative is a sixty thousand square foot biomedical research Technology commercialization Building developed in 2016. and was a required building component as stipulated in the city Grant agreement specifically it was Project e in the city Grant agreement that we developed the carbo collaborative the three-story building features twenty thousand square feet that is dedicated to biomedical incubator space uh including wet and dry Laboratories lab support space private offices open offices and collaboration spaces in a building that is meant to bring together private startup companies with MCA Personnel together Under One Roof to collaborate and to assist these startup companies the building has the leadership in energy and environmental design lead silver certification the building is located in central El Paso and at the medical center of the Americas campus it's a 140 acre City Inner City Academic Medical Center and the MCA campus is a revitalization project led by the city of El Paso and MCA for 2022 employment within the Cardwell collaborative totaled 138 full-time jobs having an annual payroll of approximately 9.1 million with an average annual wage base of 65 604. the tenants principal tenants in the building which occupy approximately 98 percent of the rentable square feet is the medical center of the Americas offices on the third floor which is about four percent and the MCA Innovation Center which is also on the third floor occupying about 11 percent Texas Tech University Health Science Center El Paso occupies the entire second floor which is about 39 percent of the rentable square footage and then just recently the University of Texas Health Houston's Center School of Public Health became also another major tenant in the building occupying the first floor and the third floor which is approximately 21 percent as well as a dry lab on the third floor exoba is a Diagnostics private Reference Lab that occupies the wet some wet lab space on the third floor approximately 12 percent and also small amount of offices of about two percent exoba as I mentioned is a private lab testing lab that moved to El Paso during covet from California and started doing significant covet testing for the community as well as for other counties around Texas and they're also involved with other biomalic but they're also involved with other biomedical molecular testing in that Laboratory infinite elements is a startup company that occupies space on the third floor a laboratory space as well as office space they are a startup company a success story that has attracted Capital uh and now as a startup company is able to pay rent and utilize the facilities that the Cardwell collaborative that's the idea that's what we wanted to do and also PJ Rex techs another startup company that has come through the Innovation Center at mca's Innovation Center has attracted capital and now is a paying tenant and occupies lab space in the cardboard collaborative that's quickly a little bit of background information now I'll get into why we're here we're here as Elizabeth mentioned and introduced to get the release of the subordinated lien agreement the existing debt structure at the MCA consists of two loans totaling approximately 20.5 million dollars the two loans are what 9.3 million dollar Term Loan with Citizens Bank of Las Cruces and then 11.2 million dollars in qualified loans eligible to receive the benefits of the federal new Market's tax credit program under section 45 D of the internal revenue federal tax code which were used to finance the Development and Construction of the Cardwell collaborative the new market tax credit loans consist of two series of notes series a and series B notes and are subject to a seven year compliance period prohibited prepayment the period started in August of 2016. that's when we started out with the new market tax credits here we are seven years later in August of 2023 the series notes according to the New Market tax credit structure the series a notes of 7.7 million dollars mature and then require refinancing which is what what we're talking about and then the series B notes totaling approximately three and a half million dollars are extinguished pursuant to the New Market tax credit exit process Westar Bank has agreed to refinance the 7.7 million dollar loans under the series a which matured with the end of the new market tax credit period as well as the 9.3 million dollar Term Loan from Citizens Bank so the total is 17.1 Million Dollar Loan that we're refinancing Westar bank will have a secured first lean deed of trust on the property and the guarantee of MC America's Holdings the original series of loans were secured by a first and second lien of trust deed of trust as well as the city's Amendment to the mca's impact fund agreement which specified that the city would direct redirect impact funds to continue to pay the Citizens Bank Loan and the new market tax credit loans if MCA defaulted under either a the loans or it's a grant agreement with a city so the city that's that's the backstop that was required by the lenders in the beginning as you can imagine in 2016 the MCA was just starting out didn't have any track record didn't have any credit history there we were building a 27 million dollar Cardwell collaborative so the banks at that time did require some credit enhancements Western Bank today is not requiring those credit enhancements Restaurant West Star Bank is relying on the strength of the MCA credit and will not be requiring those prior credit Advance enhancements as well as the the strength of our tenants that occupy the building um therefore the MCA is requesting a release of the subordinated lien that was created back in February of 2015 and then amended on July 26 2016 when we restructured part of the loans on the new market tax credit and so that's that's what we're here asking for the release of the loan the the subordinated lien agreement was only meant to come into play if the MCA defaulted either defaulted in the payment of the loan or defaulted in under the grant agreement so that never happened we're here today uh refinancing it because it's the end of the new Mark tax credit period um Arlene I don't know if you have any comments you'd like to add um you still has a first ride if you're going to sell any of the vacant property yes and that does that affect the bank loan by any means or is that needs to be part of your bank loan no no that the the the covenants with respect to the purchase of the land that we bought from the city back in 2014. those remain that agreement remains in effect it's not part of this uh make sure the bank agrees with that yeah I know you do we got to make sure the bank does no no we do and I just and you know just to further reiterate that um this is a direct loan from Westar bank and so we're you know financing a total of 17.1 million for to the MCA Tech Park Inc um and of course we have the guarantee of of MCA Holdings but and so in the underwriting process we were looking at the Historical financial performance of the MCA along with the quality of tenants almost at 100 percent occupancy level and the strong loan loan to value collateral position and therefore West our bank is not requiring any further Amendment to the economic development Grant we just want to move forward only with our first lien thank you thank you for that council with that do any questions should we have a motion again thank you there's a motion made by mayor Pro tem anello seconded by Representatives on Sido thank you thank you mayor thank you Carlos next time if you can make the writing a little smaller be sure of course here questions I don't know it's like on the motion and second to approve item 23 call for the vote in the voting session the motion passes unanimously representative Molly not not present if we may return to page five our next item is number 11. thank you all for being here bye thank you mayor 11 are related three into the record yes ma'am thank you item 11 is update and discussion on the status of the final motion of item 24 from the March 14th 2023 city council meeting agenda to direct staff to schedule briefings with individual members of city council regarding the scope of solicitation for an executive Search firm to conduct a national search for the hiring of a permanent city manager item 12 is discussion in action to direct the city manager to bring the recommendation of the firm to conduct the search for the permanent city manager position to city council for approval those items were submitted by representative Hernandez the addition to the agenda is discussion and action on the award of solicitation 2023-0468r executive recruitment Services city manager to Baker Tilly us LLP okay um I know that um when when we originally had the item back in probably when was that item originally put on in pardon me yeah I know that uh our biggest priority was to make sure that um we ended up getting the uh the budget done and making sure that um before we did anything else that the budget was finished and move forward I know that the RFP RFQ whatever went out and uh that we did not to get the number of I guess request or whatever that we really wanted and needed and instead of I know you all were looking at it and I know I've talked to you all on it that uh it was really important that we finished the budget and make sure that it's basically almost the same team I know Nicole you were a big part of it Miss Cody and so I'm gonna let Colonel Wesson kind of explain it but I know it was really important for us and I know I said it when we were talking about this item that we move forward and make sure that we did get the budget get the budget done and make sure nothing interrupted the process of the budget and again we we did exactly what council had asked for you all to do which is no Revenue budget and find different revenues of money to be able to to fund a lot of the things that need to be funded in the in the city so I thank you I know that now it's probably time to we move forward and uh and continue to get out there and find an agency but I do want to thank Colonel Weston for the great job you all did during the budget season and I and and took that as the number one priority for the for the community and and make sure that we did that right but this is still something that's out there opened and represented on this uh brought this up because rightfully so we do need to look at it and and move forward and and look at what the process is and how we're moving forward with it so with that uh I can um let you uh represent I mean uh Colonel Western kind of talk about the process and and why we're where we're at today yes well you covered it I mean we went through as you directed uh you gave that direction I think back in the when we were going through the transition of city managers um and so staff did go through the solicitation process took that to conclusion scored and evaluated and scored and had come back with a recommendation you are correct that the message is clear to me that we needed to focus on the budget get through the budget process and then that this would become a a priority on the city council and so we're here today we've we've uh we've done what the council's asked regarding the solicitation thank you and and I do thank you for that because I think it's important when when Council voted uh to have you as the interim city manager that we it was a seamless transition and that we didn't lose any continuity especially when we were in starting the budget and again to you and your team I think you all did an excellent job making sure there was a very seamless transition and and make sure that we did take the priorities of the city forward and now again it's time to move to the next level and move forward representative yeah I have a have a perspective on on this that there there was a unilateral decision to remove it from the agenda so I I certainly want to reiterate to the public that this is a council manager form of government our city Charter preserves that right to city council to hire their next city manager so I was disappointed to see that removed from the from the agenda because city council has a right to vote on that having a permanent city manager is imperative we need to not only do the recruitment but it's going to send a message to our city employees those who feel that they're into Flex businesses who feel like the city has you know kind of just coasted and you know I really do believe it's it's part of our overall strategy to have that recruitment process and so I'm happy to see that the item was placed on the agenda but I do want to talk about the process and so I'm not sure if you know someone in the HR department or to see where we're at today and then what the expectation is moving forward forward specifically looking at like an advisory committee hiring committee similarly to what we had in the past thank you Mary Wiggins Chief Human Resources officer good afternoon good afternoon so at this time today what's been brought to you is the award of the RFP so before we can move forward it would have to be awarded uh that's kind of The Next Step so if it is awarded then we will go into working together with the executive recruiting firm and then going out and advertising for our next city manager and would you are you prepared to talk about just kind of like what the scope of services would be for the search firm if selected today um let's see if I have that in here for the most part what they would do is let's see the scope of services is they would meet with Council in the community regarding their expectations and strategic planning there would be you know a comprehensive a recruitment brochure that would be prepared we talked about how that would be in English and in Spanish they would spearhead an aggressive direct marketing campaign to make sure that they were attracting you know top talent from across you know the United States the United States or nationally um that would include different uh media types including targeted mailings selected advertising networking direct inquiries and then there you know many of the top executive firms already have a a nice little listing of candidates that they already know about so they reach out to those as well and encourage those to apply then once we have the close of the applications and they would screen all the applicants based upon you know criteria that we have outlined and our expectations they would make the recommendation of semi-finalists to us so that we you know would be able to evaluate and make sure that we're in agreement they would do the background checks reference checks any academic verifications or anything that we wanted at that point so they're going to do you know all the the leg work but in the end the ultimate decision of course as we discussed before is going to be city council um we we would have them meeting with the different groups that we talked about we didn't finalize the types of groups because we kind of wanted to leave that open for Council to be able to decide the different you know panels that we wanted to have involved but it was definitely going to involve the community and city council thank you thank you for that and I had asked my team to do a timeline on back in 2013 at the time of the resignation from our first city manager and so I just wanted to give you city council some contacts where we were at in 2013 2014 where we're at today and Mrs former city manager Wilson she tendered her resignation mid-october of 2013. the search began for the city manager that November of 2013. um the selection process was you know looking at comparables to the city of El Paso looking at the city size the budget even the qualifications to a certain extent were considered to have a minimum of five years experience as a city manager um four finalists were chosen in early May of 2014 and so that puts us about five months after the search firm was selected and four finalists were chosen for city manager and of course with with finalists comes with you know discussion and discourse um then that may after Mrs Wilson resigned um the May after 2013 so it'd be May of 2014 excuse me the public was able to meet the finalists Council held interviews panel interviews on May 14th and Mr Gonzalez was quickly appointed in May of May 20th of 2014 and his first day of employment was June 23rd of 2014. so as you can imagine you know some members of the public have questions as to why it's taking so long so you know that certainly that's in the past we have to move forward but we have a precedence already where when there is a resignation it is imperative that we start a recruitment process ASAP because the continuity and sustainability of programs and departments and including staff retaining staff and recruiting staff and recruiting business quite frankly and retaining business is um it is one of the circumstances as they consider when they think about who is leading their community and what that leadership looks like so November to May six months here we are six months later after the resignation of our city manager we're still into interim status which is why it felt it was my duty to to bring forward the conversation because again we shouldn't have waited this long but so now that we understand what happened last time do we have an understanding of what the timeline will be this time I would expect that timeline would be right about the same it's going to be I feel comfortable in saying anywhere from probably six to eight months from the time that they would be here because I mean you have to give time for them in their current employment to be able to give notice moving and all that kind of stuff there's no guarantee that's if the you know the correct candidate comes forward we could have a recruitment and we could bring candidates and it may not be anyone the city council wants and of course as we discussed we want the right person but I I would say from the beginning of once we once we execute um an executive Search firm I feel confident you know that if the we have the right person come forward we could finish it in six months okay um and then last question I recall we also gave direction to allow for Citizens advisory panel um after a firm is selected um how quickly can we put forward a panel does it depend on when the finalists are determined or we can be doing that during the process so we had listed whenever we went out for the um the RFP we listed I believe that a minimum of like three or four you know outside panels we didn't want to name them because we didn't want to tie our hands but definitely that was one of them that we um I believe that Council wanted um but while once we start the recruitment once we start you know trying to um advertise and all of that we have time during then to be able to establish who that's going to be and and so for the citizens advisory would be each one of you would select someone that you would want to put on that panel so I don't foresee that being a long process at all okay well I I appreciate you bringing forward the information thank you Colonel Weston City Manager for bringing that item on the agenda look forward to avoiding that thanks thank you ma'am now let me I'm trying to recall and I think I'm recalling correctly when we wait you left me I've been known to talk to myself before but when we asked for you all to go out and look for a firm and then bring options back to the council and those options would be multiple firms and then we would be able to determine based on their qualifications which firm we would we thought it would be best for the needs and wants of our community based on and that's what council took action on if I'm not mistaken based on that action how many firms were you able would you be able to bring to us today based on your recommendation that would give us the opportunity to make a determination well this difficulty is I think that we had taught before if we went out with the RFP then an RFP purchasing guidelines require us to establish a committee and then the committee evaluates all of the bids that are received they're graded and there's a certain process that goes through and on those we bring one recommendation back to council and Council either chooses to select or to reject the bid there's another process that's called the three bid process that's the process that was used previously the problem with the three bid process is it the bid cannot go over fifty thousand dollars so it's only for bids you know under fifty thousand based upon some of our more high-level executive recruitings that we have been doing they have been getting quite expensive and so there haven't been many that have been under 50. so not to tie your hands because again we we agreed that we wanted quality candidates we want to make sure we have a quality firm the agreement was to my remembrance that we would not going to do the three bids because of the fifty thousand that we were going to do the RFP because we were fearful that it was going to go over 50 and we wanted to be able to give you you know the the right candidate if I'm not mistaken and it could be it could have been done except that we had talked about that we wanted you all to bring us different firms so we could determine what which firm would be best fit us so you're telling me that based on your expertise what we voted on and what we agreed upon was not something you could do well um we did not think it was going to be a yes or no well uh that's not my remember I know that's what I'm saying so I'd like to go back and look at that because if I'm not mistaken that's what council had asked for you to bring us do you remember that go ahead ma'am I very much remember that conversation I don't remember ever having a follow-up conversation about the three bid and the fifty thousand right um which kind of goes back to some conversations we've had if that's the reality you know we're all adults here we can understand that but there needs to be a conversation about that with the body to understand if I'm mistaken and you did have that conversation that I'm mistaken but I do not recall the three beds conversation the fifty thousand dollars we're not disagreeing that's how you got to do it but I don't think that's what we were under the understanding how we're going to move forward got it so Nicole Cody managing director um currently had received a 20 I think there was 20 views we had five proposals there's only one because I think we're seeing all three items together right so we only had one score that passed based on what staff is recommending to award to regarding the previous conversation I believe as part of the evaluation Committee in the presentation Ms Wiggins did include who was going to be part of that evaluation committee and they were correct they were the ones that did the final scoring and again there was on only one vendor that did pass so that's again but we had asked to bring multiple So based on however we did it and that was not acceptable and we couldn't move forward to do that I mean we can go back and and watch what council had proposed or asked whether you know and at some point someone could have come back and said here also action and agreement maybe that wasn't what could have been done but I was under the understanding that based on councils ask and what council voted for we would have a selection of of agencies that we could determine and pick from and then we'd pick the one that we best thought it would work for us now I understand what you're saying that you know that wasn't going to happen but we weren't under that understanding at the end of the day Robert cortinas for the record Captain America Council so we went back and watched the video in in there it was pretty clear in the presentation and some of the questions that were asked was who are going to be the scoring committee and it was clear Mary Wiggins did indicate who was going to be the scoring committee who would do the scoring of the proposals that we received and then bring back the recommendation accounts for your consideration if the council chooses to go a different route then there are options that we can take as Mary just mentioned but that was based on what we went back and watched the video from that meeting on March the 28th again as a follow-up to the item that was put on the March 14th agenda was the direction that we followed so you talked a little quicker than I listened so well um so we did ask to bring back recommendations more than one because I'm going to go back and watch it of course but I just want to make sure so there was a question that was asked about who would do the scoring and so the response to that question was it would be um no no we know that we knew you would do that and then you would bring your recommendations because we didn't want to look at 20 or 25 we wanted to look at basically maybe your top four and then you say these are the ones that qualified for what we feel would be what council's asking for and that's what I was in the under standing not that you were going to bring one and say you know up or down because that's not what we wanted to see as far as I was under the understanding I mean I understand who was going to do the scoring and I understand who is going to bring it to us because I think we even talked about that we don't really understand how to do the scoring we're not that's not our job but our job is to let us look at who you all determine one two three or four and then let us determine which one would be best it you know if you only had one obviously that right then we wouldn't have that opportunity so post it in the back if it's all of the information that we receive from the five firms that submitted proposals and so you have everything that they submitted you can see the scoring free to the five different firms you can see the number one firm was pretty distinguish themselves from the other for the submitted bids I think it's a legal question as to I mean the council wants to have a reconsideration as to the staff recommendation and make another selection I was sure I didn't hear that I guess a lot of the five firms that were submitted staff did have their recommendation based on the scoring that was done by the committee Robert if I may Ward outside of the recommendations that the staff did to have you no we know that that's why we wanted more than one recommendation because we knew we we knew that and and that's why we wanted to make sure that based on their expertise and knowledge that would give us more than one option to look at you know so no we agree with you 100 we're not going out outside of that because I wouldn't be correct right you would you would be able to just start over start over if you don't agree with the staff's recommendation which is and they could bring us multiple recommendations that we could look at so that would be item item you would need to reject all bids in order to be able to move forward with another selection so we would need to have some discussion about that process because that's not the typical procurement process and how we go about awarding or scoring and so I think we need to have a some clarification as to what that process would look like yeah we don't want to do that and we don't want to have that process because we're not we that's not what we do that's what you all do we just want to you just say these are our top one two three four or whatever and these are their qualifications which one would you guys like best and then we'd go in executive session and and look at their ratings and then come out with a hopefully one that we all felt would be the best fits our Niche and wants now if Council wants something different that would be something today but what we talked about then was what I just said but so mayor if I could provide you a little bit more feedback from what I'm understanding what you're saying is you would like the counselor to choose from a pool of applicants who would be the final firm to do the selection of a city manager yes ma'am so we would have to put out a bid that notifies people who are bidding that's what we had asked originally that that if I remember correctly that they'd be made aware that that what they're bidding on isn't going to be the top award right so they would have to walk through that process so I want to clarify that even one step further not selecting from a pool of applicants I think which is what you're asking that we still go through our procurement process have an evaluation team like we always do in our with our procurement processes they score the top three that they bring them forward right into the city council and the city council can make the determination based on the top three that are being scored is that what you're you're yes that's what we had asked originally mayor can I I'm sorry to speak out attorney can I clarify a couple people in front of you like we had representative Fiero then uh representative Kennedy so we'll go with it I have I have been I have the minutes up from that meeting just pardon me I have the minutes up from that meeting in March I can clarify the language that we go ahead go ahead sir so just I I had made the motion on on the uh 28th of March uh and it was motion made by representative Canal is seconded by representative Salcido and unanimously carried to direct staff to use the scope of work to hire the city of El Paso executive Search services to hire a city manager including recruiting questions additional Redline recommendations and the recommendations from council members so I I do think that we gave them the direction to go through right and to bring it back to us right yeah and there was it was we had an open session all given our recommendations right and I think if we look at the open session that's what we all agreed that we wanted to see and then you made that motion for them to bring it back based on our prior conversation I would think based on our discussion I'm sure I would think that's where your motion came from hey I'm looking at the slide from the from the day as well and they had the firm timeline of evaluation negotiations award I just want to make sure we get the right confirm and affirm that uh you know is to the agreement of the council and whatever the one they have they feel it's the best one that's it but I just that's not what we had discussed originally and you know and again we're not qualified to we'll do a procurement process we're not going to do that we're not asking you to allow us to do that because that would be a bad idea you know just you know give us options and if I could based on what representative Canales is discussing the the only thing that you should be aware of is it's it's quite out of the ordinary for the council to to make a decision out of the top three because then you would be in Open Session having to make decisions about right which firm did better than the other and then there's a level of scrutiny that you all fall under in terms of those types of interviews and I'm not going to disagree anything on what you're saying obviously because you're the attorney I just know that that was a discussion back then if that was not something we needed to do or could do that would have been the best time to to kind of discuss it at that time I'm not disagreeing with you at any time when what's the best and legal because we want to make sure we do the best in legal way I just trying to remember what we talked about and I know that's that we had said then if it wasn't possible then we couldn't do that I'm okay with that not just something we should have had that discussion back at that time I'll go with um I guess a representative Bureau go ahead sir okay uh represent Kent uh mayor Pro tem yeah I mean I just I wanted to reiterate that we all met with staff previous to that meeting and that was a conversation that I had one-on-one that is what I was looking for I'm not comfortable approving this today um I'm not going to and I would like to move forward with having a more participatory role in the search I mean I was clear about that when we met one-on-one and it's clear about that at Council I don't really know what the confusion was if there's if we cannot do this process it should have been related to us before this meeting today and I think that's where the the confusion is because that's a discussion I had also so um representative Kennedy yeah I um I mean I don't care what the process was 10 years ago I kind of care where we are now the one what's the the bid on this 37 000 right yes sir so it is under the 50 000 cape and while I understand I agree that having an open discussion on a bid um could be problematic could any of that be done in executive or does it all have to be an open meeting a deliberate an executive session about why you want to select one over the other we would have to have a discussion with the selected firms in open and then if you all needed legal advice about why you were leaning one way or the other we can have that discussion in executive and obviously we can't make the decision an executive because correct that'd be all kinds of problems the other thing um and I'm not trying to you know shoot hostile questions at you guys seriously um I I wonder if when we look at this process if it might we if we might also be able to look at who they've placed each of these firms um oh I see having worked with executive search firms before there are some people who are favorites and I just was wondering if they provided a list of who they had placed previously Mary Wiggins Chief Human Resources officer I don't know that they specifically gave us names I'd have to go back and look but we did have requirements like they had they needed to have done either like city manager or like like major CEO type positions and they had to have done so many and so you know a certain time frame they did give like references so we and they needed to be at our level so for example we um we wanted ones that they had placed those kind of positions in you know like 7 000 employees not a 200 you know employee it needed to be at the same level that we were looking for but I don't know that they gave us specific names of like you know the city managers that they had placed okay I just I mean I understand the option of having more than one to look at I also understand the pitfalls about trying to negotiate in an open session uh it would seem to me that we're probably below the threshold of the 50 000. and before we go any further I want to thank Colonel Weston for I don't think dragging your feet and I don't think this is a you know people think that we've coasted I think that people realize our number one goal was to try and get the budget in shape and everybody was involved in the bid was also involved in the budget and I thought this Council made it pretty clear that that was our priority so I want to thank you for that so do we have any type of motion so um Nicole Cody so what I'm hearing is that you want to do a second evaluation essentially right is that is that what I'm understanding we had an evaluation committee but then we would so this one we had one vendor of course I mentioned that passed so if we wanted to start the process that would require for Council to reject the bids and then we would have to start from the beginning and include a part of that second evaluation step and what that looks like and so we'd have to bring that back to council with our recommendation on what that would look like first before we would proceed now just help us and guide us to make sure on YouTube is Newman to make sure what we do is uh is very transparent and it's the right way of doing it that's all I think that's all I care about that it's a transparent process and the way we're doing it is the absolutely the right way of doing it for the community so mayor just so that we're clear about what the council is directing what I'm understanding is that the solicitation or the RFP or whatever we want to call it is going to be very explicit that the the firms who are applying are going to be told that they will be ranked and then maybe the top three not behind closed doors right no absolutely and then Council would be able to make a decision based on those presentations by each of the top three ranking firms no absolutely and that would be great that they would come in front of council and in front of the community and do their presentation and when I said we'd go to the executive session it'd be of course for legal consultation Miss Neiman uh representative um I'm going to go to representative I've done this then you representative um go ahead thank you I want to the record to reflect that you all did your job you all took explicit direction from Council not only does the agenda item reflect your clear intention on bringing this item today what's being proposed is incredibly inefficient unordinary not a process that is a best practice your Texas City Managers Association your Texas Municipal League makes clear that to follow the procurement processes within the city of El Paso what is being proposed today is not only inefficient but lacks transparency I don't feel comfortable making a procurement decision outside of the support of the procurement Department not only do I not have the experience or the expertise it's just not appropriate and so I think I feel strongly that we should adhere to the recommendations based on the direction we've already given you in March and so I'm going to make a motion to approve the addition number one the award discussion and action for the award of solicitation 2023-0468r executive recruitment services to the the the recommended bidder who is titled Baker Tilly us LLP for the amount of 37 200. we have representative I'm going to go to represent Rivera who's not spoken and then we'll go to represent pronounce thank you mayor thank you Ms Cody is that firm that you chose now is that the best one that is that what you guys decided on so it was based on the scoring from the evaluation committee and so um Miss Wiggins was part of that evaluation committee each of them do an evaluation independent based on the scoring um parameters that we include as part of the RFP since the very beginning once it's advertised and there and this was among a group amongst a group of other other firms that applied yes sir okay I would have to agree with uh representative Hernandez on that thank you man thank you sir representative Canales followed by representative thank you yeah I'll second the motion um I yeah I I share some of the discomfort uh with first of all uh going against the direction that I think we gave you fairly clearly again it was it was my motion on uh March 28th that we passed unanimously to to give you what I thought was very clear direction to come back with exactly what you've come back with today um and also again I do have some heartburn with the idea of of making procurement decisions based on interviews in in open sessions really really unorthodox in terms of uh you know how we conduct our procurements um and how any City anywhere can would conduct procurements um and and so uh again I I second representative I know this is a motion and uh I hope that we'll have the support to continue the process and not necessarily delay here longer thanks thank you sir representative manilo followed by representative Kennedy copy with the two processes for city manager previously I don't think it's not transparent to interview people publicly I don't think it's untransparent to say this is a council manager form of government and the council should be at every part of this process I think that's exactly what we're here for if you're unqualified to do the job I apologize but it is our job to pick this person I have a lot of heartburn over the fact that one person scored so highly over the others it doesn't seem like it was very competitive if we're going to do what's best for this community we need to be a part of the process we need to have these conversations publicly we need to allow the public to be a part of this process that's why we'll not be supporting the motion at hand and I will be making one that follows thank you Miss Cody thank you represent Kennedy yeah I agree that it's it's not against transparency to ask questions in public I mean I don't know that the process was good bad perfect not perfect previously but I think more transparency is better I think asking the questions publicly albeit uncomfortable at times is I think this is too important a decision to pop forward because my concern is I think everybody on Council should have a shot at asking questions before we award who's going to search for one of the most important positions for the city of El Paso I mean we've watched in my personal opinion contract amendments pop from the you know fully cooked up on city council for employees and I'd like to go through if it takes a little more time I'm okay with that to make sure we make the right choice not that we won't end up in the exact same place I mean we could end up in the exact same place but I think that we owe it to the public to ask those questions and find out from our constituents what they'd like to ask you know because I'm sure we're going to all get the phone calls on questions that they'd like us to put forward and yes then we can talk to legal and get some advice from the legal department and then move on with it and we could like I said we could end up in exactly the same place so that's kind of where I am and I think you're correct transparencies allowing the public to come ask questions we do a lot of public comment on all items and I know we have one right now and so to interview and kind of give our opinion of what we're looking for and then look at who brings that to light and allow the public to hear it there's probably more transparent than anything I've seen so someone say it's not transparent is um kind of hard to believe do we have any public comment yes mayor we have MS Turner that signed up to speak on these items Ms Turner good afternoon Miss Turner you have three minutes one first question for any of these firms that you hire is how many women have they put into a city manager position how many have they recruited I will tell you right now the top 25 populous cities in this nation do not have a single female city manager like the selection committee how they selected the police you know the finalists for the police nobody bothered to ask the women's rights excuse me the Women's Rights Commission if they had any input it didn't bother to inform anybody it's like an afterthought oh you can come when we after we make all the selections no need to be involved from day one same thing with this you need to put the Women's Rights Commission in the loop you need when you bring these candidates forwards to select a 50 50 selection male and female because there is institutional bias against women and hiring them to be a city manager it's unacceptable it's unacceptable and I don't I want you all to go back I know you won't do it but I want you all to go back and say how many have you put in the city manager position how many women have you put in what cities did they go in I want the best of the best and we don't always get the best of the best when we only think about putting men in for the selection so y'all need to get your act together you need to start recruiting women for these positions there should have been women because I know we've got qualified women in our own Police Department who could have fulfill that position and others around the nation but we got four men because well they don't like women as police officers or chiefs and all this has to change all of it has to change you have to give women an equal chance and this institutional bias in these hiring positions for high-level jobs you're not giving them an equal chance thank you thank you I know Ms Newman Ms Niemann you'd like to go in the executive session mayor I would I would ask that you give us an opportunity to give you additional recommendations and advice before you vote on the item there's just more questions and and things that I would like for you to be aware of this um I can tell you that the last time we picked a firm I was very disappointed in what we did and how we did it and it was after me interviewing The Firm after it was picked I didn't want to even give my opinion because I felt it was a one-sided pick and it and I I really believed that I want to make sure that didn't happen because the last firm we picked to do a job for the job was very disappointing to me and when they called out my opinion I didn't give it because I felt it was very one-sided and I it didn't matter what my opinion was at that point after it was picked and that's where I'm coming from today that could be a lot more blunt on it but I'll keep it to that because I think you know what I'm talking about can can we move into executive session briefly further discussion thank you Miss demon there's a motion and a second to return to Executive session all in favor anyone opposed and the city council the city of El Paso May return to Executive session pursuant to section 3.5 a the El Paso City Charter and the Texas government code chapter 551 sub chapter D to discuss item Edition one discussion and action on the award of solicitation 2023-0468r executive recruitment Services city manager to Baker Tilly U.S LLP under 551.071 consultation with attorney it is 303 pm sorry we don't know if it's rainy or not there's a motion and a second to come out of executive session all in favor anyone opposed the city council meeting is back in session at 3 35 pm thank you Mr Prime we do have a motion on the floor can we take that motion please yes sir and this is on Edition one there was a motion made by representative Hernandez seconded by representative Canales and this is to award the solicitation on that motion call for the vote thank you in the voting session and the motion fails three to five with Representatives Hernandez Rivera Canales voting I Representatives Kennedy anello molinar Fierro voting me well Tim you said you had a different motion is there another motion or did we bring it back at a later date um I would just motion to bring it back in two weeks no motion and a second to bring do you have questions about what we're bringing back um yeah I think that we were given two options today on what we can do I think there was one and I don't know exactly what the process is called but you said where we take the top three options so just so I understand Representatives so that way we would bring back the proposal and how we would do an a new RFP to be able to do the what you all had discussed that you wanted to be part of that yeah that's not where my motion is okay for everybody you know individually yeah that's something that's important to have a one-on-one conversation with you and I'm not comfortable with that so we can take no action so we need a motion to reject the bid yes thank you oh motion to reject a sorry who made the motion to reject the bits representative anello seconded by representative uh is that is that the only motion is to reject the bids yes okay there's a motion made by mayor Pro temanello seconded by representative Professor to reject all bids on Edition before we do what uh representative Hernandez would like to speak yeah so I I think it's important that city council gives not only the public information as to you know why they're considering this but secondly staff needs clear Direction because you know certainly they don't need to be yelled at again for following the motion in the direction that you've been given so from what I unders I am understanding is that you want to reject the bids because of some confusion or you know the inability to read minds but clearly the this procurement process has already been done so here here are the consequences with rejecting the bids um you can't if you reject the bids then we have a competitive disadvantage of those who have already submitted a solicitation and their bid you you already know the types of of services that are going to provide and now you have their price points there is a concern that if you do another procurement or solicitation that those companies who've already submitted a bid they probably are just like we're not going to work with the city we're not going to put the time and effort to submit a procurement if anyone has ever submitted a procurement you will know it takes extensive time and it's disrespectful to those businesses it sends a signal to the to the business community that the city is not open for business because we're going to waste your time we're going to reject your bids and we're going to make you do the process all over again for already conducting a fair process and so um this is inefficient this is a waste of time as staff this is a waste of time of businesses and it certainly sends a wrong message to the community I won't support rejecting the bids because you've already done your due diligence you've already followed Direction and I appreciate your time thank you ma'am yes ma'am we have a motion in a second yes sir the motion was made by mayor Pro tem Manilow seconded by representative Fierro and this is to reject all bids on Edition one solicitation 2023-0468r on the motion to reject the bids call for the vote in the voting session and the motion passes five to three Representatives Kennedy anello molinar Fierro Salcido Representatives Hernandez voting the motion does carry thank you we can go to the next item please yes sir so item number 12 11 had no action item 12 there's no action either correct so now we're at uh to item number 15. mayor one one more item I think we need direction for staff on how soon you want them to come back when with what I think representative nello and she walked out mayor Pro 10 said they just come back and brief everybody on the options that we were discussed you want an item in in Open Session to have the discussion and then come back in Open session after that yes ma'am in two weeks okay that brings us to item number 15. item 15 is a presentation and discussion on the neighborhood traffic Management program FY 2020 to 2023 update all right good afternoon mayor and Council Olivia Montalvo Patrick with streets and maintenance department here to provide an update on the neighborhood traffic Management program thank you just waiting on the PowerPoint so the neighborhood traffic Management program is part of vision block of the vision block of safe and beautiful neighborhoods under strategic goal number seven the mtnp is a formal application and review process for residents to request speed cushions in their neighborhood there it's looking I.T this is item 15 please there you go the mtnp for my application review process for residents the MTP was originally adopted in 2008 and was recently revised in April of 22 the goal of the recent revision was to simplify and clarify the mtnt process with the focus on small-scale traffic calming so it's basically restating the criteria criteria for the program as pre-qualifications as listed as items number one through five we lowered the petition criteria from 66 to 51 percent and we also lowered the speed traffic speed criteria from 15 to 10 percent which translates if you met the minimum value of 500 50 of those cars need to be going five miles or more over the speed limit all of the new criteria was replied to all applications under review since 2020 the impact it was a 17 increase to eligible applications due to the lower speed and there was also an increase of traffic studies requests due to the lower partition criteria this is a brief overview of the applications over 700 applications submitted since the initiation of the program the main thing to highlight here is the blue is all the eligible that installed and the Orange is eligible pending installation and some of the key points to highlight here for the timeline is in 2018 we lowered the volume criteria which used to be a thousand so as you see the blue is a little smaller before you got to that line and then when they brought it lowered it to 800 it brought a peak back for eligibility that's also when they shifted away from capital projects like the formerly known as tier two and they also remove the right ranking system and when as the first come first serve in 2020 we applied the the lower speed criteria and the lower petition criteria also in 2020 that's also when the program also received annual funding from the general funds and also as we know from 2020 the pandemic also hit which halted all traffic studies during this time period so since 2020 to current we've installed 57 projects five of them are currently in installation phase so we average about 14 projects per year and each project has about two to seven locations and so that breaks down to about an average of 44 individual speed cushion locations per year and we average around a little over two and a half years from application to installation and we last reported back in April 22 we were averaging three years so which we have seen it in a decrease in time and this is the list of completed projects that we've installed and the kind of correlation here is that when they were deemed eligible got their eligibility notice about 2018 and the two-year time frame for them when they reached installation and then the last project that we set out their notices back in August we've already worked through about 11 of them and 16 are in progress this brings us to the current active list we have 44 eligible projects in queue projects are ranked in the order of their submittal and we were just kind of breaking it down by parts of town and so our bottleneck area whether if we have the most applications is on the east side and if we look at that 20 right there that kind of breaks down to the ZIP code 79936 for 14 of those projects are within that zip code and this is the active List Right Now notifications for them went out last August of 22 and a recent notification also went out in July of 23 where all the applicants were notified of their process and their their place in queue and staff is currently working on the speed placement locations for about the first third of this list so just to recap on our challenges and improvements to the MTM process to address the common concerns for program time frame we increase of eligible projects when we lower the criteria back in 18 and 22. we had a gain when we started getting annual General funding in 2020 2020 pandemic also hicked which halted all studies so basically no studies for 18 months and then just to show that effect on the program before the pandemic we would average about 50 days to get a traffic study post pandemic we're looking almost just under 200 days we had to go to an outside consultant to help us get out of that backlog and so that's why the notices came out in two blocks like so we did an outside consultant to help and they got their notices last August and in this July because we were going through an outside consultant with help with the the backlog studies one of the process improvements that we did back in April of 22 is remove the additional consent and so that actually saved over a hundred days the process I already have to submit a petition and now we just move forward and if they're eligible the project is in the public right-of-way and the city has authorization to install and so that's actually saved quite a bit of time there so moving forward this will also see the increase of this saving time in the process moving forward with the new application is posted on the website we had one of our staff do a white belt project to help simplify the search on the city webpage staff calls them speed cushions or we know by the MTP public calls in speed hump speed bumps you put that in the search it's going to take you directly to the application right from the city home page we're also part of implementing Vision zero where the mtnp falls under the umbrella so streets of maintenance is part of the cross-functional team for vision zero we're looking there could be potential updates to the criteria and project prioritization as we look at the focus of the high Injury Network the him which was roadways have the greatest number of serious crosses with our processes with how Vision Zero moves forward we might be coming back with additional big way to expand and enhance the program and we're also continuing to explore continuing Solutions like the use of third-party like we did for the traffic studies to help us get out of the temporary backlog and as we saw where we had the backlog on the east side partly utilizing a third party to help with the pavement Cuts in the asphalt which the photos kind of Illustrated the the process of installing the cushions and think the operation managers for sharing some of those photos with us and this takes it to the end if there's any questions foreign thank you for that presentation um I just want to clarify a couple of things um it says 500 to 7 500 cumulators a day oh the volume the volume 500 the minimum of 500 to 7500 cars which is the volume okay so the minimum is still minimum still 500 yeah you have to delete 500 the that's the height okay um you mentioned the a third party consultant they were just responsible for free payment Cuts or were they coming into we did them for the traffic studies the past two years to help us for the backlog when we couldn't conduct them during the pandemic and the active list that's there everyone followed every street on that list has complied with the process with the current criteria okay so so there's uniformity they all have the 51 petition minimum they all met the 10 percent so they met the least minimum 500 car got it so and and the you also um uh the traffic study so I get I'm been getting some inquiries I guess maybe you all launched a big uh response to constituents um who have applied so there's two questions that have come up and the first one is related to um the the amount of time for the traffic study uh so I have constituents asking for reconsiderations and say look two days is not enough it could have been like a down period things of that nature um is there a recommended amount of days to do to conduct a study uh previously all until about a year ago it was 24 hours for studies and that's typically what's done and that's what our other studies for multi-ways are also done we increased it to the 20 48 hours just over a year ago and so that is unique to our area so and they are they are done during the school week or Monday through Friday when schools are in session and these all the schools switching year round has actually helped as well because that gives us more time and they don't do them during the intermission and then now Summer's only the two months so so is there a current process for um some kind of reconsideration for the denial of an application left him oh for denial there's process they have to meet the if they don't meet the pre-qualifications so that's like a paved Street within the city right away I'm not a residential or local and so we let we do that the way we we have a petition verification form so when they submit we do fill that out and we provide that information back to them if they even know if they check no one any of these top five or these five boxes they are not eligible for the program and if they are we let them know if they bet the petition criteria and even if they're short one or two we send it back to them we map it out we let them know where they have it so that way they know where to target their area to get the additional signatures and if they do have additional signatures we've given it's like the receipt that they receive and letting them know that their traffic their application is in queue now for the traffic study and we give them General time frames like tentative for fall of 23 or coming up so based on how the city's overall queue is so I know we make up half the bulk okay yeah that's just something for consideration for the for the future because we do we have constituents who always call to to say they disagreed it wasn't enough time or the days that they attended you know there was a fluke or you know there's always some kind of a reason the second question is related to I have um constituents who are wheelchair-bound and they have expressed an inability to collect signatures so they have asked if they're a virtual option was possible to collect signatures or if there was some support system like a representative office to go and collect signatures with that disqualify the applicant if they had support to go collect signatures right now it is just the petition form for door to door yeah and even during the pandemic we didn't have a virtual option either as well and so but it is only the homeowners that are directly above the street too so we're so it is basically just the door-to-door option but we did lower it from 66 percent to this simple majority 51 of lowering the petition criteria so yeah no and it's also something to consider as we're considering process Improvement because um I it was difficult for me to address his concerns because they were very valid but he was a disabled he is a disabled veteran unable to go door to door and so um you know it's just when we think about Equity I think you know that's really important to think about how can we address persons who are in wheelchairs and their inability to go door to door or perhaps allowing a a person to do it for them a represent or a representative in an office to do that for them that's open for anyone to help them as long as the signatures are from are from the area so they can get support um if there's their neighborhood association or church group grandkids yeah and so that was the the I just received a call from a church as well they said are they eligible within a neighborhood to apply for Speed cushions they can apply as long as the signatures are coming from the household stuff okay so they can initiate that they can initiate okay be the point of contact but the signatures is what we're checking that make sure they're at the those are the households abutting the requested Street kudos to demonstrating the the benchmarks that's I think that's really important to to improve um you know it just takes it still just takes too long so I hope that and it's not enough um speed cushions we're installing a year and so I would just ask for um you know a gold so that we can increase those as we get you know requests almost weekly for Speed cushions so thank you for your time thank you thank you and I think it's also important that if people that filed a petition and it was rejected and guidelines have changed since then they they probably need to to kind of check to see if any guidelines or attention slash time it was submitted so I think that would be important to see if at any point the guidelines do change so go ahead represent Malinois thank you mayor a couple of questions your traffic study besides the number of vehicles passing driving through uh you said 20 48 Hours uh do you take in account any type of motor vehicle crashes that have happened maybe let's just say in the last year or two years fresh criteria is not part of the curfew criteria is that the traffic has to meet okay another thing that we do receive a lot of calls where you know the the applicant is required to get the signatures but for whatever reason there's fences and there's dogs and so they're not able to move forward to ring the doorbell or yeah a lot hey I'm here trying to get a signature because of the dogs of course they are scared so they move on uh is there any process that we could think of to move forward with that whether it's a mail or anything like that debris look at the time so okay we are able to help if they do write to us and how many signatures they need to get we do help them in addressing them like between this boundary and this boundary so many households this is how you should Target this many households as a minimum so all right thank you man thank you there's um representative thank you mayor thank you for the presentation quick question in regards to the signatures um is there any way we can do that um electronically and is does the state prohibit us that in any way that was an I.T issue we were trying to get through through the pandemic time and it's something we weren't able to address because we're also looking it has to be from the residents from the a budding street so that would have to be looking into the process of what other options that we have for that so right now it is just the door-to-door the old-fashioned Signature Collection so the state doesn't prohibit us right it's something an option we can definitely look into if there is technology for that yeah we would have to re-explore because we'd try during the pandemic and we didn't have any options at that time that were available for us so okay I'm just looking at waist like yeah I think uh representative Hernan has mentioned like people that are disabled and they cannot get signature so I'm trying to think of ways like how do we address that community and help them out but you know I'm just trying to think of options and solutions so just kind of with her with uh that being mentioned uh looking at ways that we can use electronic signatures um but uh just wanted to make sure that state doesn't prohibit us so I could do some research on my own yeah because it'll be validated into the signature coming from the property owner do we have to validate through the past Appraisal District like who's signing it that sure that we know it's from that household could we only count one signature per household as well so we can't have the you know everyone in the family sign it as well so we also just look it's one signature per household so perfect thank you thank you very much we're good okay thank you thank you again for the presentation and uh to appreciate you and again Mr Briscoe thank you again for thank you and what you're doing you ready for call to the public well no sir we're down with call to the public that brings us to the first reading of ordinances these are items 16 to 19. potential proof there's a motion made by representative Rivera secondary by representative Fierro to approve the first reading of ordinances items 16 to 19. on that motion call for the vote and the voting session and the motion passes unanimously next item is number 20. and this is discussion in action on the request that the managing director of purchasing a strategic sourcing Department be authorized to issue purchase orders to Wagner Equipment Company DBA Wagner Rents Inc Wagner Power Systems Second steel used parts scitec Rocky Mountain the soul and authorized distributor for the 2023-0411 caterpillar proprietary parts and service this is a sole source but it did give me a little heartburn to see 328 percent increase in in due to carts I mean I read what you put on there but still gives me a little bit of a heartburn thank you yeah we do have to go ahead item 20 from Miss Turner Ms Turner you're up thank you good afternoon Miss Turner you have three minutes my apologies trying to find out about getting a crosswalk in my area and just trying to figure out what I have to do to do it did you do any good we had about 14 people who are using Wheelchairs and scooters and that the place that I see is the only safe place but uh what item are we on now 20 20 and what is it 20 is the one that's assault source for Street and maintenance Wagner oh the caterpillar what is the previous contract amount good afternoon Rene Barraza streets and maintenance the previous amount was a million 50 for the three years a million 50 for the three years it's 4.5 million now for the same time period that's on there 321 increase it's nearly 400 increase to me exact 328 Miss Turner 0.57 and a question that I'll show in this it's due to to start with it's a sole source and then of course it's uh it sounds like price gouging to me unless anybody has given you documentation item by item and a reason to me it's like you're being gouged so I don't know good afternoon Nicholas you've got our Environmental Services the majority of the the cat contract goes for our landfill equipment the majority of the equipment we have at the landfill is cat we do have other products but the larger equipment compactor dozers are all CAT equipment and a lot of the parts and labor have prices have increased significantly ever since covet started so a lot of it goes to repairs and I have equipment going down on a daily basis so it's a constant repair on equipment there's been some issues with the def systems for the cat compactors so a lot of that repair is a lot of the cost has been going to repairs for the equipment again there's no documentation to justify this increase and that's what I'm asking I mean I can understand the 50 because of that I can under 75 percent but not over 300. Derrick Rose with purchasing strategic sourcing department so all the pricing that we're getting from cat is coming from the catalog so it's all documented uh from that thank you without Miss uh Mr Fern I think we do have a represent Canales thank you mayor yeah from what I understood a lot of this cost is going toward the compact the compactors which this is a an attempt to replace I mean to repair older compactors instead of procuring new large Machinery no we actually we're doing a rebuild fund our 2012 compactor but this is just for the equipment that we currently have right now which includes compactors dozers uh scrapers there's a lot of equipment at the landfill that we have to keep running on a daily basis just to make sure that the landfill is running right but what I'm saying is the alternative to procuring parts and this maintenance would be procuring new compactors at a larger cost right correct so this is to keep what we have running yes keep our current equipment running and the increase because again it the the listed increase uh in the backup it said it was both increase in unit price but also increasing quantity is that just due to greater maintenance needs as the equipment has aged further yes the great um the the older the equipment the more um repairs that need to be done like I mentioned we're doing a full re-uh on a separate contract before we build on uh we did one on the 28 2008 contractor in the 2012 so with the newer equipment unfortunately it's required a lot more maintenance uh than the older equipment that we have okay so this is just to keep it going yes sir thank you thank you sir Mr Prime yeah so there was a motion made by representative Hernandez seconded by representative Molina to approve item 20. on that motion call for the vote in the voting session the motion passes seven to one representative Kennedy voting nay the remainder of council voting I the motion does carry that brings us to item number 21 and this is a public hearing on an ordinance amending title 19 subdivision and development plots adding article 8 chapter 8.1 conflict of laws in order to specify that in the event of a conflict between title 19 and chapter 212 of the Texas local government code at chapter 212 controls it's a motion made by representative Fierro seconded by representative Rivera to approve item 21 there's no public comment on that motion call for the vote in the voting session and the motion passes unanimously item 22 is discussion in action on a resolution authorizing the city manager to execute a sub-recipient agreement between the city of El Paso and Workforce Solutions border place in Inc to administer arpa act funds to provide training to infrastructure workers to strengthen the workforce with the opportunity to upskill and Advance into higher paying skill jobs second some motion in a second and I think we'll see if we if I know I talked to Layla and um the biggest thing that the Border Plex really has done and it's a really good thing for our community is child care and it's really important for the family Chanel Pastor to be able to provide that so I know that I look at your budget and it's a big part of your budget so thank you for that with that we have a motion in a second we do have public comment on this item mayor Turner's goodness crosswalk right now Turner she's getting a cross look by Leila Melendez Bianca Cervantes and Dr Patty Delgado good afternoon Miss Turner you have three minutes this is the workforce yes I'm 100 for it thank you for that we have a motion in a second we have Miss Leila Melendez good afternoon good afternoon good afternoon mayor council Leila Melendez CEO of Workforce Solutions borderplex thank you all for your support on this item and congratulations on supporting this and investing in our Workforce and in our infrastructure so I'll be brief with my comments thank you all thank you for the work you do we have Miss Bianca Cervantes good afternoon Council just wanted to say thank you for the support and really for instilling morale into the business Community we will not let you down thanks thank you the final speaker Dr Patty Delgado good afternoon Council thank you my name is Dr Patty Delgado I appreciate your support we're looking forward to reporting back some great information data and research thank you thank you thank you that's probably yes sir the motion was made by representative Fierro seconded by mayor Pro temanello to approve item 22. on that motion call for the vote in the voting session and the motion passes unanimously item 24. move to approve is discussion in action that the city manager be authorized to sign a grant agreement between the city of El Paso and project Arriva Advanced retraining and Redevelopment initiative in Border areas Inc I'm a chairproof for a second there's Motion in a second there's a motion made by mayor Pro temanello seconded by representative Fierro we did have public comment on this item from Mr Roman Ortiz Roman was getting ill when I spoke to him no it's Ramon Roma Northeast I don't see him in the queue he's a little under the weather I think he's in favor thank you mayor motion made by mayor Pro temanello seconded by representative theater on item 24 this is to approve on that motion call for the vote in the voting session and the motion passes unanimously and Mr Craig thank you for the briefing on this item I know you're all your team did a really good job of briefing this thank you item 25 of unlimited tax bond series 2023 by Paseo Del Este Municipal Utility District number six with the acknowledgment that the issuance of such bonds does not constitute debt issuance by the city of El Paso second Motion in a second motion made by alternate mayor Pro temolinar seconded by representative Salcido to approve item 25. on that motion call for the vote in the voting session the motion passes unanimously representative Hernandez not present the final item is 27. this is discussion in action on Texas Gas Service grip reimbursement show cause hearing HQ number utility-13 Ms neimanas asked if we could take this to Executive session so if we could do all executive sessions inside them now it would appreciate it so move to go to executive or will you read priority of the yes so there's a motion and a second to return to Executive session all in favor anyone opposed and the city council of city of El Paso May return to Executive session for soon to section 3.5 a of the El Paso City Charter and the Texas government code chapter 551 sub chapter D to discuss any of the following item 27 discussion in action on Texas Gas Service grip reimbursement show cause hearing HQ number utility -13 executive session item 1 United States of America versus city of El Paso Texas United Road Towing Inc DBA you are Vehicle Management Solutions and Rod Robertson Enterprise Inc 323-cb-00044 under 551.071 executive session item two application of El Paso Electric Company for approval of the green energy plus tariff HQ number utility-18 under 551.071 executive session item 3 Texas comptroller sales and use tax audit HQ number 23-1283 under 551.071 is that get a session item 4 purchase exchange lease a value of real property for location of El Paso Police Department headquarters HQ number 23-1100 under 551.071 and 551.072 executive session item five purchase exchange lease or value of real property for location of El Paso Police Department Central Regional Command Center HQ number 23-895 under 551.071 and 551.072 these matters are taken into executive session under 551.071 consultation with attorney in 551.072 deliberation regarding real property it is 4 12 pm thank you is there a motion to come out of executive session there's a motion and a second to come out of executive session all in favor anyone opposed the city council meeting is back in session at 5 22 PM we're on item number 27 discussion in action on Texas Gas Service grip reimbursement show cost hearing I think we have a short presentation Don Davey for the record city attorney's office we have a short presentation this item is related to Texas Gas Services order to appear to show cause as to why they should not reimburse for grip charges representatives from Texas Gas are here today and they will be giving a short presentation after my short presentation to discuss this item and they'll be available for questions as well if it could pull up my presentation foreign itea was sent to presentations this morning thanks can you all see that presentation no yes okay uh Don Davey for the record again city attorney's office to discuss Texas Gas Services grip interim rate adjustment show cause hearing um as Council knows Texas Gas Services files these grip filings every year it's an interim rate increase to recoup annual Capital Investments made in the prior year the purpose of this hearing today is for Texas gas to come and show cause as to why they should not refund certain grip charges made during dependency of an appeal so Texas Gas filed their application for a group interim filing on March 11 2022 the city statutorily moved to suspend those rates on April 11th of 2022 ultimately the city council decided to deny those the grip application on June 22nd of 2022 Texas Gas appealed that decision to the Railroad Commission on July 22nd of 2022 but they began charging the rate during dependency of the appeal starting on July 1st of 2022. the Railroad Commission made their decision in in favor of TGs on August 30th of 2022 on June July 17th of 2023 this Council moved to send a notice to Texas Gas to appear in front of them today to show cause as to why those amounts should not be reimbursed importantly from the August 30th 2022 Railroad Commission appeal that was granted to TGs I think it's important to point out what uh was what was uh in that order um the order says that the grip was approved to be effective for bills rendered on or after the date of this order which was August 30th of 2022. there's a Mother Hubbard Clause or a catch-all closet in in there that says any portion of tgs's application not expressly granted herein is overruled I think the ultimate question um this will be my last night ultimate question at the end of the day is was TGs ever authorized by the city or by the Railroad Commission a regulatory body to collect the grip revenues from between July 1st 2022 and August 29th of 2022 and I'm happy to take any questions if there are none for me I'll be here to answer but I believe representatives from Texas Gas services are here to give a short presentation and to answer questions I.T the presentation is in the backup material posted online foreign good afternoon mayor City Council Members Alejandro Limon I just want to thank you for having us here to appear in front of you and we're gonna be it's important to provide you the subject matter experts are behind me so I'm going to introduce them my name is Alejandro Limon I'm a vice president of operations for Texas Gas Service I've been a native El pasoan attended UTEP civil engineering degree and I've been working for the company for 27 for 24 years I'm sorry today I have the honor in overseeing uh the operations for Texas Gas Service throughout the state and more importantly on the operation side natural gas system distributions throughout our our territories uh in the other the other the physical uh territories approximately we have a 697 000 customers in Texas and 277 000 customers are here in El Paso we have about 300 employees approximately 300 employees here in El Paso serving our community and not just serving our community they're serving throughout the Texas and also Oklahoma and Texas more importantly from the customer service Representatives we also have uh here with us uh Anthony Brown here's he's our rates uh expert for Texas he lives in Austin but uh more importantly he oversees the the rates for for Texas Gas services El Paso Texas so Texas Gas employs uh the 300 customers as well but the show cost right now the matter before you involves the legal issue that is outside of my area of expertise however we have the subject matter experts here behind me and in our outside legal council uh who's going to respond to questions regarding any any questions that you may have related to this show costs one of the first things that I'd like to introduce is Elizabeth O'Hara she's our manager of community relations she's back here and there we have Mr Anthony Brown who already introduced he's our rates manager out of Austin and more specifically for El Paso he's been here with us for with the company for eight years and also we have Mr Jeff Houston right here Mr Jeff Houston he's been with a company for 20 years and he's the vice president of rates and Regulatory for one gas so he covers uh Oklahoma Texas and uh in Kansas that he can Pro he's going to be addressing any any questions that you may have related to Associated to the Show cast then we also have a Judy Heights who's our managed in-house managing attorney she has been with a company since uh 2014. and uh she went 2014 served here in Texas as our managing attorney then she went to uh Kansas for our division office then she's back now in Austin managing for us so but she works closely with uh Miss Kate Norman Miss Kate Norman is back here and she's going to be presenting for us she works for a coffin and Renner and Mrs Norman and Cuffin and Renner may have many years of experience helping Texas Gas Service on rates and Regulatory issues so Ms Norman is our primary on this issue that would like to present on our behalf so Mrs Norman's going to be doing the the presentation for the show cast good afternoon Mr Mayor and council members we do have a short presentation it may take me a second to figure out what buttons I need to push to make that happen okay great thank you good afternoon as Mr Lemon said my name is Kate Norman and I do work for Texas Gas Service on rape matters throughout the state and we're here to respond to basically what's a difference of opinion on how the grip process is required to work in Texas so at a high level that program is designed to allow utilities to make annual investment in their systems and to provide a timely way to recover those costs that's what Mr Davey already touched on by Statute cities like yours and the Railroad Commission have two opportunities to review a grip filing the first is a simple ministerial review for compliance with the statute that's where all of this comes from and that's done at the time the grip filing is first made at the end of that review period the goal is for TGs or whichever utility it is to know which rate it's supposed to charge to recover that annual investment after five or six grip filings the law requires a utility to file a full rate case where the investment in the grip filings is looked at with finality by cities like yours as well as the Railroad Commission now as Mr Davey already explained we're here today because the city's questioning tgs's recovery of grip amounts from July and August of last summer um and the company charged a grip rate while a p an appeal was pending at the Railroad Commission of the city's denial last Monday we filed a detailed memo with the city clerk and provided it to the city attorney's office and those I understand that memo is also in your materials today so I'm just going to try to speak at a high level about how we view these issues so We Believe recovery of those group revenues last summer in July and August of 2022 was lawful because the manner of the filing was consistent with the law as interpreted by the Texas Supreme Court and the Railroad Commission and the rate that the company charged was properly calculated I'll start first with the rate itself in July and August of last year TGs charged El Paso customers the group had just approved for areas outside your city after El Paso denied the application in early June of 2022 TGs appealed that denial to the commission as Mr Davey already mentioned on appeal the Railroad Commission confirmed that the rate that it originally approved her areas outside the city should also be charged to the areas in the city so for that two-month period TGs was charging the rate that the commission ultimately approved now I apologize the font small uh but I want to turn to the law itself so it provides the formula that the utility is required to follow to calculate grip cost recovery the full process under the law is designed to last about 105 days and this allows for a city like yours to conduct a review for compliance to confirm that the filing complies with the law and the law makes clear that any grip rate revenues that are collected are interim in nature said differently all grip investment and that cost recovery is subject to a full review in the next full rate case until that happens those group charges are are subject to refund but the final review that's conducted in the rate case determines whether that investment in the grip filing was reasonable was necessary and was prudent after the grip investment is reviewed in that following rate case the interim group charges are no longer in place here tgs's filing which was made in March of 2022 that's the filing that is the focus of the show cause order um that filing complied with these statutory requirements and we know that because TGs filed the exact same grip application with the Railroad Commission as it did with the city of El Paso and the Commission in its own order back in late June of 2022 confirmed that TGs complied with the statute it was around this time that El Paso had suspended and then denied the rate again as Mr Davey already mentioned with his timeline TGs appealed the city's denial to the Railroad Commission once the city denied the filing its authority over the group the grip filing ended and TGs was left with no feedback from the city on which rate it should be charging so it relied on the rate that the commission had just approved for the areas outside the city next I'll turn just very briefly to the Texas Supreme Court decision that explains the grip law the law has been in place about 20 years and immediately after it was implemented there was some litigation and some uncertainty around how the process was supposed to work those those disputes ultimately made their way to the Texas Supreme Court and we got a decision in 2011 from the court the core issue for the Texas Supreme Court was whether the Railroad Commission could look at City denials on appeal um and the court found that the that the Railroad Commission did have that appellate Authority it could review that and the court explained that if the commission could not review local actions taken against grip applications the utility would be left in a state of uncertainty if your municipalities tried to unjustly delay rate implementation basically that would frustrate the legislative purpose behind the statute which would result in more frequent and more expensive base rate cases the court is the one that explained that interim grip filings are subject only to a ministerial review of the statutory requirements until that next rate case and the court in making its decision focused repeatedly on the streamlined process for implementing interim rates under grip which is what the legislature was trying to do when it passed the law finally there are a couple commission orders that we believe confirm the reasonableness of the company's actions in July and August of last summer first in each commission order in a grip filing or a grip appeal filing the commission always states that amounts collected from customers under grip are subject to refund until the end of the next rate case that's required by the law the commission made that finding in August of 2022 in the order that Mr Davey identified when it confirmed the rate TGs should be charging in El Paso and of course that's what the law requires any refund issues are to be addressed in the subsequent required rate case so the other order that's important for today's discussion is the commission's order in tgs's recent rate case the commission issued that order in January of this year and the grip filing that the city made is I'm sorry the grip filing that the city is disputing and having questions about was the last grip filing TGs could make before it had to file that rate case as part of that rate case TGs asked the commission and cities like yourself to perform a final review of six years worth of grip filings the commission did that and determined that all of that grip investment was reasonable and prudent but for a small amount that it told the company to refund due to the change in the federal tax rate in late 2017. the city itself was a very active party in that rate case but no party entered statements evidence or otherwise challenged the 2022 grip rates and no party raised the issue of refunds for the 2022 grip rates that the company charged Last Summer with that order from the commission and the rate case the law says the chance to consider refunds for the that grip filing has passed this means that legally the investment and the rates that are subject to review in that case can no longer be subject to challenge so we believe that it's the law itself that supports tgs's collection of revenues last summer and it's not tied to the date in the commission's order on appeal we'd be happy to answer any questions either myself or Mr Houston on specific rate matters and we appreciate very much the time to be here today with you thank you I got one quick question on the fact that we're a representative um we were when we were briefed in back we were basically told that you guys and I would think you guys know this that you cannot change the rate arbitrarily without coming to the city prior to changing it and you did that for a couple months even though when you went to the Railroad Commission they gave you that amount you still did not come to the city prior to changing it correct so we did come to the city in the form of the grip filing itself yeah but did we say go ahead and raise the rate no you suspended and then you denied that's what I thought yeah thank you representative Canales thank you mayor um in my understanding 2022 was the first time that TGs had ever uh or at least in in uh a long time uh had ever collected uh grip Revenue during the dependency of the appeal why did TGs do that for the first time in 2022 when they hadn't in the past there had also been also been TGs appealed and it did not implement the grip rate while that appeal was pending and that was an issue actually in the the company's rate case that I mentioned and so by the time we got to the summer of 20 to 2022 the company had concerns that if it didn't implement the rate at the time it would not be in a position to ever be able to go back to collect the revenues that the commission ultimately deemed proper because it agreed that the rate that the company charged was the right rate and if that was a little circular I can try again no I understand what you're saying um so T but TGs did not have that concern in 2021 after the uh denial from the city on the the group filing in 2021. the way I would say it is there were a different set of circumstances in 2021 that did not exist in 2022 and the company chose to implement the rate because of the impending rate case yes the right case was a part of that okay and I mean I I share a question that's I think very similar to what the mayor asked but just for clarity at the time that tjsbn collecting in in July 2022 they had not received uh any authorization from the city or from the Railroad Commission correct we did not have an order no we instead were relying on the law and the legal Authority that I described thank you mayor thank you sir representative Kennedy okay you're gonna have to help me through this okay sure um the presentation we had from Mr Davies said that the Railroad Commission I think August 30th said go go ye forth and start charging the rate right right the railroad commissions the date in their order said that the rate they were approving was effective as of August 30th under the order itself did they back date it to July 1st they did not no what what Authority did you collect under from July 1st August 29th so we believe again the the way the law is set up to provide an expedited process for annual investment um we believe the law itself supports that as well as the Texas Supreme Court interpretation that talks about um having a streamlined process that the utilities can rely on to get certainty on their both the amount of annual investment as well as the recovery of that annual investment so to put it in different terms um which may sound a little blunt we didn't think we needed an order because the law supported what the company was doing didn't their order say that the The Collection approval started from that date forward the railroad commission's order did have the August 30th date and so in the meantime in July and the preceding days of August we were relying on our interpretation of the statute itself and the way that the Supreme Court interpreted how there wasn't a specific Authority that said go ahead and start collecting it you just we did not have the law said that I'm sorry you just figured the law said that uh yes we believe that our actions are consistent with the law okay I mean you talk about the legislative purpose in the atmos but Atmos doesn't say that you can collect without specific approval right that was not an issue in the case so no that's not something the court addressed okay yeah um how much did you collect from July 1st August 29th I think it's roughly seven hundred forty thousand dollars okay that's all I have there's no other questions thank you thank you very much thank you all for being here appreciate you and with that um Mr Prime I think we um we have a motion on this representative Premiere Pro Tem Eleanor thank you mayor um do you have a motion August 29 2023 motion made second carried that Texas Gas Service Company a division of one gas Incorporated provides National Gas Distribution service within the city of El Paso the city of El Paso has original jurisdiction over the rates and services of Texas Gas Service Company on March 11 2022 Texas Gas Service Company filed a request with the city of El Paso for an interim rate increase pursuant to Texas utility code section 104 dat or 0.401 for gas service within the city of El Paso on June 22nd 2022 the city council denied the requested interim increase Texas Gas Service Company started charging its requested rates for bills rendered between July 1st 2022 and August 30th 2022 without authorization by law or from any regulatory Authority Texas Gas Service Company appealed the decision of the city council to the Railroad Commission of Texas which case was docketed as case number zero zero zero zero one zero one nine five order dated August 30th 2022 the Railroad Commission of Texas granted the appeal and approved rates for bills rendered on or after August 30th 2022. Texas Gas Company estimated the additional revenues it was charging were approximately ninety one thousand seven hundred thirty dollars per week or an approximate total of seven hundred and seventy thousand five hundred thirty two dollars for the period between July 1st 2022 and August 30th 2022. on July 17 2023 the city council ordered Texas Gas Service to appear before them on August the 29th 2023 to show cause why it should not immediately refund the revenues collected from the charges between July 1st 2022 and August 29 2022 on August 29th 2023 representatives of Texas service appeared before city council to show cause the city council of the city of El Paso after consideration of the testimony of Texas Gas Service orders Texas Gas Service to refund city of El Paso ratepayers the revenues collected from the unlawful charges between July 1st 2022 and August 29 2022 with interest the refund should be completed via customer bill credit within 60 days of this motion stating with bills excuse me starting with bills sent on or after October 1st 2023. red adopted and approved this 29th day of August 2023 second yes mayor we do have public comment on this item Mr Turner we have Miss Turner good afternoon Miss Turner you have three minutes I must say Texas gas is better dressed than the last ramp they sent down and they're actually prepared unlike our last rep that we got from Texas Gas who folks from Texas Gas it should look like she was getting ready to scrub the floor she wasn't properly dressed her demeanor was insulting she insulted my mayor she insulted my city council she insulted my city and she would not answer a question when asked uh I look at your company as one that likes to discriminate against Hispanics discriminate against folks who actually live here if it was me you'd be doing this virtually because I would not allow you within my city hall that's how I am upset with you all from your company you do not come down here and disrespect my city and this is another form of disrespect to our rate payers you know I don't know how we take care of this but I do believe Texas gas is discriminating against us simply because we're a minority population that we live on the border and we're Hispanic that's just where I'm at right now I have great distrust and disgust for this company and the fact that if there were other options I would choose somebody else other than doing business with Texas Gas I think you all have a lot of mending to do with our community thank you thank you Miss Turner without Mr Pine we have a motion in a second yes the motion was made and read into the record by alternate mayor Pro temolinar seconded by representative Kennedy on that motion call for the vote in the voting session and the motion passes unanimously representatives anello and Hernandez not present ex1 yeah proton thank you mayor motion August 29 2023 motion made second and carried that the City attorney in consultation with the city manager be authorized to hire retained outside counsel and the lawsuit style the United States of America versus the city of El Paso Texas United Road Towing incorporating doing business as you are Vehicle Management Solutions and Rod Robertson Enterprise Incorporated cause number three colon 23-cv-00044 and to take all steps necessary including the execution of any required documents in order to effectuate this Authority was made by all to the record on that motion call for the vote in the voting session and the motion passes unanimously representatives anello and Hernandez not present EXP thank you mayor may just give me a motion August 29 2023 a motion made second and carried that the City attorney in consultation with the city manager be authorized to approve the filing an authorized intervention and hire outside Council and the and experts as needed in the El Paso Electric Company petition for approval of the green energy plus tariff under the Texas Public Utility Commission and matter number utility dash one eight and to take all steps necessary including the execution of any required documents in order to effectuate this Authority Ms Turner good afternoon Miss Turner is this my understanding is they want to charge you extra for using greed energy is that what this tariff is for it's only for uh the users it's not for the it's for the who for the people that are actually going to use it not for be added on any other bills seems counterproductive to me or may I seems very counterproductive to me this is only for very very uh high power users more than 25 megawatts this is the highest class of of user still seems counter protect productive because they don't that green energy you're going to have to go that way anyway uh making it more expensive to me again is counterproductive and sends the very wrong message this is this is a preferential rate for very high volume users of green energy it's still a tariff especially for green energy that that's what I'm saying thank you thank you Mr do we have a motion there was a motion made by alternate mayor Pro tem only not invited to the record seconded by representative Rivera thank you sir on ex2 on that motion call for the vote in the voting session and the motion passes unanimously Representatives anello Hernandez not present EX3 motion August 29 2023 motion made second and carried that the city attorney's office in consultation with the city manager be authorized to engage in settlement negotiations and or settlement with a Comptroller of Public Accounts of the State of Texas and the sales and use tax audit and matter number High Q 23-1283 and to take all steps necessary including the execution of any required documents in order to effectuate this Authority what first letter it is number High Q what's the motion in a second there's a motion made by alternate mayor Pro tem only in our seconded by representative Rivera as read into the record on EX3 on that motion call for the vote in the voting session and the motion passes unanimously Representatives anello Hernandez not present EX4 motion August 29 2023 motion made second carried that the city manager is directed to take all necessary and appropriate actions to locate the El Paso Police Department headquarters at the 300 acre property east of Martin Luther King Junior Boulevard in northeast El Paso together with the city's police and fire academies and the El Paso Fire Department headquarters there's a motion made by alternative by representative Rivera as read into the record on that motion call for the vote in the voting session the motion passes five two one alternate Representatives Kennedy Salcido Fierro Rivera Canales voting I the motion does carry Representatives anello Hernandez not present ex-5 motion August 29 2023 motion made second and Kerry that the city managers directed take all necessary and appropriate actions to locate the El Paso Police Department's Central Regional Command Center at the location identified as site a an executive session item number 23-1187 on August 29 2023 there's the motion made and read into the record by alternative by representative Rivera as read into the record on ex5 on that motion call for the vote in the voting session the motion passes unanimously Representatives anelo Hernandez not present move to adjourn no second second there's a motion and a second to adjourn the council meeting all in favor hi anyone opposed and the regular city council meeting for Tuesday August 29 2023 is adjourned at 5 58 pm thank you