Good afternoon everyone. If you'll take your seats please, we can get go ahead and get started. Good afternoon. This is a special meeting of the El Paso City Council for Monday, February 23rd, 2026. Mayor Johnson is present and presiding along with Mayor Pompem Chavez, Representative Aso, Representative Boyco, Representative Nino, Representative Fiero, Representative Plemon, and Representative Canales. It is 1:10 p.m. This is also a meeting of the Youth Advisory Board. Present we have board members Madison Miller, Ariana Hime, David Dorsy, Alana Akuna, Leon LMA, Rebecca, and Madison Selva. Item one on the agenda is presentation and discussion on an update to the strategic plan, including but not limited to the proposed pillars, goals, objectives, and core strategies toward a two-year action plan. All right, everyone. Welcome. Welcome to the 2026 strategic planning session. One question. Thank you. Thank you. One question. Are we ready for it? Yes. Ready to jump in? And so I have the honor of welcoming up Mayor Johnson to kick things off for us. Well, good afternoon everyone. It's good to see everybody and I hope everyone had a good weekend. Make sure I don't knock anything off here. All right. So, it's great to be with everyone uh this afternoon. And as many of you know that yesterday was the Paso Marathon and some of you might have ran the 5K, the half marathon, or even the full 26 miles. Although I didn't run yesterday's race, what I didn't know, and no one told me that my first year in office would feel like I was running a marathon, but completely uphill in high heel shoes. It's one of my little dad jokes there. Getting my kids with it. So, as we kick off the 2026 strategic planning session for the city of El Paso, and I can't believe just over a year ago, I stood before this great community for the first time as mayor with an incredible deep sense of gratitude and an even deeper sense of responsibility. Over the past year, I have often asked what made us choose public service and why the city means so much to us. Most of us did not end up working for the city of El Paso by accident. Somewhere along the way, something pulled you here. A family member, a teacher, a neighbor, or a friend, or just simply a love for the place we all call home. and a belief that El Paso deserves our best. Like many of our city council members, when we were campaigning, we spent months listening at doors stops doorsteps in neighborhoods, at small businesses, and in community meetings. And we heard from partners. We heard from parents, seniors, small business owners, and young people trying to decide if they could build their future here. All the conversations were meaningful, but one has stayed with me. I met a woman named Maria who lived in District 1. She told me that she absolutely loved El Paso, but she was worried that she might have to leave because she could no longer afford to live here. her utility prices were increasing and her property taxes were on the rise. She said she might have to move to New Mexico, not because she wanted to, but because she had to. And I remember thinking, this is not the El Paso we believe in. That story reminds me why this work matters. People want opportunity. They want safe neighborhoods. They want streets that work. They want parks and spaces that bring families together. They want a city that works for them and for their kids. Those conversations did not end on election day. They are with me every day and they are the work in this room that matters so much. Because none of this is about one mayor or one city council member or one department. It's about all of us working together, showing up every day for the city we all call home. And we also have to be honest. There's a lot of misinformation out there about El Paso. People who have never been here think they know our story. We know better. We know El Paso is defined by its people, its neighborhoods, and its sense of community. That means we have to own our story and tell it with pride. Not just from city hall, but across our whole community. El Paso is special. We are unique even among border cities. This is a city with a story worth telling. This strategic planning session is not just about budgets and priorities. It's about choosing what kind of city we want to be and how we show up for the people who trust us. City council is here to set direction, to be clear about what matters, and to give our city manager and our organization the clarity to move forward. This year's theme, greetings from El Paso, says a lot. It's a message to the world and a reminder to ourselves of who we are and what we stand for. We are not going to fix everything at once. But we can choose to move in the right direction. We can choose to be thoughtful. We can choose to be disciplined. And we can choose to lead with people like Maria and families like her in mind. Fiscal responsibility is part of that. Not because of numbers, not because numbers matter more than people, but because being good stewards is how we protect the people who call El Paso home. As a firsttime mayor, I have learned that the that progress is not driven by one voice. It is driven by the people who listen, who care, and who move forward together. This is what I see in this room. So, as we begin the planning process, remember this. We are all in this together. Not because we share titles, but because we share responsibility for this city and its future. If we do this work well, people may ne may not remember every meeting. People may not remember all of our names, but they will feel the difference in their neighborhoods, in their opportunities, and in their pride in El Paso. So, before we get started, I want to give a very special thank you to Julie and Amy for all the very hard work that they did in putting this meeting together. So, please join me in giving them a round OF And again, today is, you know, greetings from El Paso. And on the screen, I was asked to do the greetings from the mayor and why I chose to live here. The warmth of El Paso, the opportunity that El Paso brings, jobs, and the ability for me and others to start businesses. What I want most for El Paso is the opportunity to showcase how beautiful El Paso is to the rest of the nation. If I were writing the story of El Paso today, it would say El Paso may be small to some, but it is mighty, strong, and very capable to grow into something truly special for everyone. We are going to have a very good strategic meeting today. Thank you guys for coming and we're looking forward to everyone's participation today. Again, we can move our community forward. We all work together as one unit. So, with that said, I'm going to ask our city manager to come up and say a few words. Thank you guys. >> Mayor, thank you for setting the tone this afternoon. For anyone who has participated in a citywide strategic planning session, it can feel like a lot. Um, there's a lot of data and presentations and structured dialogue and process mapping, but at the core, the process comes down to one simple question. What are we going to focus on over the next two years? And are we prepared to fund it? This is the work before you today. Over the past several months, staff has laid the groundwork so that this conversation is informed, not theoretical. We conducted district level engagement. I want to thank mayor and council for having given so much of your time um along this process. I've been here for 15 years and I can't recall us ever having the districts be this involved in the process. And so although it was a heavy lift, I feel so confident that we've captured so many voices in a different way to really be able to help you feel well informed in the decisions that you'll be making next. Over the past several months, we surveyed residents and employees. Uh we looked at service request trends and performance metrics. We looked at workforce capacity. We aligned everything to our brand new performancebased budget framework. We started with the evidence to hear the voice of the customer, to hear the voice of Maria, to ensure that this work really reflects the things that are important to our community was really important for the staff to prepare council to be able to make these decisions in that framework. Residents care deeply about this community. As the mayor mentioned, what we heard through the survey was that they value safety. They value neighborhood character. They value belonging. They are frustrated with some fundamentals. Street conditions, traffic, looking to Chicago, cleansiness, um access to good paying jobs, and whe they're receiving the value for their tax dollars. These are not they're not asking for complex things. They're asking for reliability in their government. So, this session is about producing a document that becomes the guiding plan for us, not just another document that we're posting on our website. something that's going to be a living document that helps to guide our organization over the next two years. From an administrative standpoint, strategic plans planning answers three basic questions. What can this organization realistically deliver within 24 months? What must be funded to make that delivery credible? And what risk do we carry if we delay action? As we consider the proposed pillars and core strategies, I encourage you to look through an execution lens. If we prioritize infrastructure, are we prepared to sustain? If we expand public safety visibility, what does that mean for long-term personnel cost? If we elevate economic mobility, what internal process improvements must incur occur to support that outcome? These are not abstract decisions. They affect staffing levels, contracting timelines, technology systems, maintenance obligations, financial sustainability. A small number of wellfunded priorities will outperform a longer list that stretches the organization to them. That discipline is the purpose of today. Let me summarize. Let me summarize what we plan to focus on. We are going to be focusing on people, community perspective, internal perspective and financial perspective today. In other words, we start with people. We listen to the community. We assess our internal capacity. We examine financial constraints. And then we map strategy. This is discipline governance. It is now my pleasure to introduce our first speaker for the people segment. Miss Laya Melendez, former El Paso team El Paso now serves as chief executive officer of the workforce solution. She brings a deep regional expertise in workforce development, employee alignment, and economic mobility. Her perspective will help ground our discussion and what it takes to build a workforce ecosystem that supports both residents and employers. Thank you so much for being here today. Thank you for being a part of this process. Um Ila and her team took months to really develop and align the data that you're about to hear to the things that we knew would be important to you. So, thank you so much and we really are pleased to have you here and I welcome you for we are such nice people. Greetings from El Paso and you're welcome America. And I'm going to explain that in a minute. So, um, just so you'll know, um, the order of my slide deck, I made a few tweaks last night, so it might be a little out of Afternoon, City Council, department heads. I'm going to start with the primary question companies ask. Do you have the workforce for my company? What do you answer? Absolutely. Over 405 people are working and about 17,000 are looking for work. Over 86% have at least a high school diploma and over 65% are of prime working age. This question is the beginning of a new business relationship and the decisions you make this week will determine how you answer that question in the future. Are they ready for work? Yes, absolutely. Our workforce is ready for the jobs of the future. But to create upward economic mobility at the city level, it must first succeed at the family level. We have several groups of the workforce that can benefit from different types of jobs, but they need different types of support. I also know that won't be the only question you are asked. There is a lot to think about when trying to attract a company. Today, I will focus on the workforce and how it can be used to strengthen your priority pillars. Are we ready for economic mobility? Are we building systems that elevate people or keep keep circulating them at the bottom? Economic mobility is the entire community's mindset to continually believe and invest in itself. And I believe the community is becoming very aware of its chronic undermployment mindset. And I believe the community is poised, ready, and demanding a change. Good afternoon, city council, city manager Mack, and all city leadership. I'm Laya Melendez, CEO of Workforce Solutions. I am honored you asked me to speak to you today and to represent not only Workforce Solutions, but our entire workforce, the employed, the unemployed, and employers. I congratulate you on the amount of work you have done so far. You have spent months studying the landscape, listening to your constituents, and approaching this with good intention. As a fellow citizen and taxpayer, I truly admire and appreciate your diligence. I also want to thank Dion and Julie for their guidance and sharing with me the insight gathered so far. It has helped me better understand what is important to you and I am honored you consider Workforce Solutions as your thought partner. For those who don't know me, I want to share just a little of myself. I am a product of this community, of the education system, and of the tight-knit family values. I started working when I was 16 and I've worked in many different industries including transportation, international manufacturing, trade, business advocacy, and local government. I was fortunate to work for the city of El Paso for nine years in economic development, engineering, and the city manager's office. I saw this organization from the inside out and where I met some of the hardest working professionals, many of whom are still a part of your team. It's great to see so many familiar faces and thank you all for your dedication to our community. I read the planning guide for today's session and I can understand the sentiments and priorities shared by fellow citizens. You are the subject matter experts in your fields and I have tremendous respect for each of you. I don't claim to know it all, but I do try to understand it all and share my ideas. Workforce Solutions is boots on the ground creating jobs by understanding business needs and responding with a prepared workforce. My remarks today come from my lived and learned experiences as a resident and as a community leader. Today I am sharing data and ideas that I hope serve you well as you respond with the strategic plan. Today we're going to think big. I'll cover a lot so don't worry about taking notes. I have provided a summary document for you. So let's dive in. Do we have the workforce? Of course we do. Many believe this is a great place to live and have a family, but not a great place to work and make a good living. Many are skeptical we can have all of those things in one place and they express it when they question the job the jobs that do show up. You don't have to raise your hand, but how many of you have been asked the whatabouts after you announce a company coming to El Paso? That sounds great, but what all about all the DWIs and bad drivers? Wait a minute. What about our infrastructure? Hm. What about the wages? Are they going to pay us a living wage? Why this sentiment? Don't they understand we need jobs? Of course, the community understands the importance of jobs, but they don't want just any jobs that come at the expense of what is important to them. These things that they ask about are what's important to them. If we keep creating jobs without responding to what's important, the community remains resentful and feels unworthy. As you've read, they want jobs and public safety and infrastructure and quality of life and economic mobility. Yes, this work is hard because these pillars are not siloed. They are interconnected, deep and complex. Now, the city is not responsible for all of it. Part of the plan is reminding the community that they are part of the plan. As I read the guide, I thought of several ideas. Challenges in one pillar can be tackled with assets from another. When we align and connect these pillars, we are showing the community that it is worth investing in. Site consultants and companies are watching and listening to us. Do we want companies that are attracted to frustration, apathy, or desperation? Or do we want companies that are attracted to pride, challenging work, self-worth, and investment? One of the first things we promote is our public safety. El Paso is one of the safest cities in the country. It is something we are very proud of and we must work hard to protect. But although we have low violent crimes, we have a high rate of driving crimes, DWIs, and drug tests, which negatively impact employment and erode community and employer confidence. Transportation, logistics, and government contractors are a key labor sector. These issues knock people out of the workforce, and those employers are rightfully frustrated because they lose out on revenue, spend a lot on turnover, and that slows their growth. Self-destructive behavior comes from low self-esteem. But when folks make these mistakes, Workforce Solutions is there to help them, working with the courts on jail aversion programs that prevent recidivism and a pathway back to work. We hear from employers that need workers, especially in construction companies, looking to bid on government contracts. Is there an opportunity here for chances? Chances for small companies to hire just as involved workers for small government contracts and second chances for people to get back on their feet. Now, write this number down. There are 11,000 opportunity youth in El Paso today. Opportunity youth are between 16 to 24 that are neither working nor in school. If we don't re-engage them quickly, we risk finding them on crime stats. Chief Pacillas, that 11,000 number might be making you nervous. But let's talk about some opportunities to engage them. These opportunities youth are in the Gen Z population. Hold on. I know what you might want to say, but hear me out. Through a program funded by you, last year, we did a study on Gen Z, and we learned that their values are not much different from ours. Gen Z absolutely wants to work and go to school, but they don't just want any job. They seek jobs with purpose, jobs and make them feel like they are contributing to something. The city is already a large employer of youth and parks and libraries. Perhaps expand opportunities for for youth to work in jobs like IT and maintaining streets and medians. Imagine how proud homeowners would feel if they saw young people working to improve the city landscape and public spaces. And don't forget with PD, you recently hosted but didn't keep an opportunity youth marketing intern that brought in thousands of new followers to the police department Instagram account, bringing visibility, awareness, and interest in the police department. Fortunately, you are hosting two other opportunity youth interns in accounting and psychology, and we thank you for that. Workforce Solutions can serve as your partner to provide more of these purposeful jobs for youth. This is a priority population, so we need to work together to prevent crime by redirecting them back into education and into the workforce and enhance infrastructure. At the same time, the most important thing when hiring youth is to utilize flexible schedules for them to attend school. We strongly urge employers to embrace education and not fear it by hiring tech school, college, and university students for jobs in their field of study and encourage them to contri continue their education. This is done with different work schedules. Rather than an inflexible works workplace, let's create opportunities for them to persist in education and succeed in life. Speaking of infrastructure, you all know that well planned infrastructure is the lifeline of a modern economy. We can't expect a modern economy, a modern quality of life if we don't design modern infrastructure. I believe we can design infrastructure to be efficient, complement public safety, economic development, and quality of life. Well-lit surface streets, safe roads, connectivity, maintained parks, libraries, centers, and a well-run mass transit system create community pride and a sense of safety. Maximizing a great asset, the mass transit system, as an economic mobility resource is a great opportunity. Partnering with companies to cost share bus fairs for employees, especially those youth we just spoke about, will increase wrership, provide safe mobility, remove transportation barriers, and reinforce the commitment to climate. something youth are especially passionate about. Plus, it sets up youth writers to become confident adult writers. Another opportunity between us is in sharing libraries and making them neighborhood job centers. Thank you for affordably leasing the downtown library to us. It serves this area very well. We would like to extend to as many libraries as possible. I know space is limited, but even one desk at a library will be closer in the neighborhoods of the people that need them versus driving out to one of our large centers. Shorter driving or bus ride distances and efficient use of taxpayer dollars highlight infrastructure as a community asset and not a burden. In your strategic planning guide, infill redevelopment and an anti-displacement policy are identified as strategies. Maximizing infrastructure is going to be key as we face demographic winter. In El Paso, our population growth has slowed over the last few years. What's most concerning is what's happening across the country with sharp decline in birth rates. Plus, El Paso has had chronic out migration, too. We are losing people from this community, and it will be hardest felt in the core and in aging neighborhoods. Let's think about incentivizing companies to locate in the core and supporting people with housing affordability in the core as well to spur redevelopment. Use infrastructure efficiently and promote public safety. Housing affordability, health, and essential services all contribute to our quality of life. We have many positive things happening here. Median household income is on the rise. El Paso was recently ranked as the most affordable housing market in the country and home ownership is on the rise. It's true that El Paso's cost of living is lower than our competing cities. Although housing costs less, other things cost more. The cost of living is just that, how much things cost. We need to remember how much things cost in relation to wages. Overall, we may have a slightly lower cost of living, but we cannot perpetuate the myth that because we sometimes have a lower cost of living, we can settle for low-wage jobs because that's just not true. There are other things happening that we need to be aware of. There are indicators of the K-shaped economy. Yes, some wages are increasing, but mostly at the top highincome jobs. Those folks have been able to absorb inflation. This indicates that growth is rising faster in highincome jobs than in low-income jobs. In other words, the gap is widening and the middle class are falling further behind. It's evident by more single parent households, more women than men in poverty, and bad credit scores on the rise. Wages are ultimately the key to economic mobility, but we'll talk about that in more detail in a few minutes. We have an access to health care gap. We need to address better access to doctors, nurses, radiology, and surgical techs. We have a medical school, two nursing schools, and a dental school. Healthcare practitioners have been our number one job posting for years. We produce great talent here, critical talent. So why can't we build up our healthcare capacity? We can't expect the community to be supportive of the medical and nursing schools. Donate to them if they are not going to benefit from them. Crossing the border for healthcare ends up being a solution. But why though? The point is that we have a medical professional factory here that we paid for, but we aren't keeping the talent they are producing. Did you know that when medical residents are matched, they are asked where they want to go? Why don't we offer them El Paso as an option? Perhaps with a partial med school debt grant or a housing credit. Let's start thinking how to incentivize people and not just companies to stay in El Paso. A challenging in a challenge in improving our work health care pipeline is the fact that most of these professions are held by women. Women are a large portion of several critical jobs and the responsibility of child care often falls on the woman. So it's not a matter of addressing just the education system but also the child care system. The childare system is infrastructure working families need for economic mobility. There are 9% less or 3500 less women working and child care is the main reason why they aren't working. To add insult to injury, women earn significantly less than men in most occupations. So it's that much harder to afford childare. And when it becomes too hard, women end up not working at all, which hurts our economy. Child care is a complex issue that requires many structural and changes and committed advocacy. Workforce Solutions invests $55 million a year into supporting 6,500 working families. Some of those parents are essential employees that work at the city of El Paso, El Paso County, UMC, the school districts, and many others. We need to encourage employers to add child care to their benefits menu. Employers can cost share child care just like they do healthcare and retirement. Working parents will choose a child care benefit until their children are school-aged. After that, the benefits shift to retirement savings. We are doing that ourselves at Workforce Solutions, and our young parents are very thankful and loyal. On to education. We have a great education system here. We produce many high school and college graduates. The education machine works. But we all know people that graduate and leave. They make us so proud somewhere else. You're welcome, America. I believe the best thing we can do for the parents who are paying property taxes and to the school and community college districts is to keep their talented degreed children here, but in their own homes. I know the city is not responsible for the education system, but you do have the influence as leaders to get their attention. It's important for the school districts, community college, UTP, and tech schools to get behind your strategic plan so they can align their curriculum. Every dollar spent in our education system must produce ready workers in our key sectors, not Austin's, Houston's or San Antonios. I'm happy to go on a road show with you and present to all the school boards. Let's shift now and focus on the workforce. Economic development planning done right democratizes opportunity. done hastily, it widens gaps. Our unemployment rate is relatively low, but this isn't the only data point that matters. The labor force participation rate counts those that are employed and those looking for work. Our labor pool is smaller than our competing cities, meaning we have a lot of people that aren't even looking for work. So, why aren't people working? Well, where does anyone start working? At the bottom, right? No one starts at the top. We all start at the bottom and hopefully work our way up. The strategic planning guide reflected younger residents and lower income residents report the highest levels of satisfaction. That might be because they are happy to enter the workforce. They went from being non-earners to earners and they are glad to have a job. This is how our workforce has been built over time. Our workforce broken into four bands ranked from highest skilled and highest paid to lowest skilled and lowest paid. 63% of our workforce are on the bot bottom half of this chart. We have more people in the bottom than we should have, about 6% more. They're working, but they are stuck there. Why? And how? Wages. Low wages are the reason and our biggest challenge because they hold us back from making significant progress. The median county wage is the middle of everyone's income. This measure eliminates the absolute highest and the absolute lowest. Being excited about a company willing to pay the median county wage is being excited for more of the same, but not demanding better. This sends the wrong message to those who want and can have better. So they end up binding finding better somewhere else. The living wage reflects how much it costs to live here without the need for government assistance. And that's the goal, right? Tax makers, not tax takers. We don't have to sell ourselves as low wages. Using the living wage represents the true ability of our workforce, and it is still a better deal than our competing cities. Starting at a living wage ensures no one falls behind. The answer isn't moving to a living wage overnight. That's not realistic. But we need to ensure businesses that start here or move here factor in the living wage into their business model. If their businesses cannot run without paying at least the living wage, it's not a sustainable model for their workers or for the city of El Paso. Earning less than the living wage will stick them in the red band and they will not be able to afford essentials like housing that pays property taxes. They will stay stuck in poverty or leave. But both are bad for the city. Why would we even incentivize and give them our resources to only perpetuate the problem? We have to stop believing and talking like we are lowwage town. We must become a living wage town. It is possible to move people up. Between 2022 and 24, we move 10,000 workers from the bottom to the top and increase their wages by 13%. But, and this is a big butt, when people do move up, they move out. They take their education and move to our competing cities. Why? Again, wages. Because they can earn more in almost any job in another city than they will earn here. It's not enough to move people up because even if they climb to the highest paying band in El Paso, they are still the lowest paid in the state. This is where and when brain drain happens. Again, you're welcome, America. Creating jobs is important, absolutely, but it's the types of jobs that makes a difference. When you receive an incentive application, map it to this chart. Are they adding more to the red, blue, yellow, or green? Adding more to the red without a plan to move them up. The plan that aligns education, affordability, and childare. We are just adding more to the red, crowding it in and making it that much harder to get out. And the red is already packed. It's oversaturated. Remember that question, why aren't people working? Because there's no room at the bottom and people aren't moving out to create space to enter. I need to dispel another myth. The myth that the red and blue are uneducated or unskilled. On the contrary, a large portion are considered the hidden talent. Over 94,000 workers in just these two bands have a high school diploma and some college. They have the skills for blue and yellow jobs, but are stuck in the red. Well, what happened to them? They likely started working young, earning a low wage, started families, and that was enough to keep them from going back to school. So, they stopped out and kept working. But now they can't stop working to go back to school. These folks are middle school skill ready, ready for upward mobility. They are your selling points to the industries and companies we need for our future. So what is in our future? Fortunately, we are sitting on several opportunities that the city has already primed. Advanced manufacturing provides a foothold in high-skilled emerging technologies like the supply chain for data centers and aerospace. Fort Bliss mission modernization is a great opportunity for local businesses to grow with government contracting, but the Department of Defense requires capability. The city could support local emerging businesses with funding to obtain defense industry credentials. The hire local plan is a great program, but I urge you to include payment terms in it. Small businesses cannot wait more than 30 days to get paid. AI is here and it's everywhere. Teaching digital literacy and AI in everyday use and in every classroom will keep us on pace with the rest of the world and healthcare. We have a tremendous opportunity to keep our healthcare workforce and improve our overall public health. When a company looks to our city, it's because they know our assets will help them make money. Their mission is not to create jobs. Their mission is to make money. And our workforce is the asset that helps them make money on day one. The proof is in the companies that expanded way past their initial plans. Our workforce has helped Amazon, Schneider Electric, ADP, and others expand. I understand the need to be a businessfriendly community. I'm not saying no incentives. I'm saying strategic incentives. When considering incentives, be ready with an ask every time. And that ask needs to be something directly tied to what resources they will be using. Whether it's our infrastructure land mobility or workforce. Incentives should not be used as welcome mats. They should be used as levers. Size them right. Push and pull them until you get what we need. Then study the economy again and modify your levers regularly and strategically. We need several things to happen right now. People to stay, businesses to expand, and businesses to create quality jobs. When a company is seeking incentives, ask for things like benefits, which are already in the policy, a living wage on at least 60% of the workforce and not the average of everyone, including the general manager. training funds or a training center to upskill, transportation services like discounted bus fairs, a tuition assistance program, especially for stopouts that can pay for tuition and clears out old college fees. These incentives are investments and homeowners, property taxpayers, and a stronger workforce. If a company is going to create a lot of entry-level entry wage jobs, like for youth, that's a good thing. Getting youth into the workforce and staying out of trouble is supporting our commitment to public safety. Ask for an education center on site so that their employees can take classes at the same location. Your incentives will pay for that new training center and also foster education. Whatever you ask for is to serve the future employee, not the new hire, but the person that new hire will become in 2 to four years. What will that person need? That is your ask. What about small companies? We hear a lot from small companies asking for financial support and frustrated they aren't considered for incentives because they are not adding to the property tax base. Let me introduce you to an example. There is a small biotechnology company located at the MCA Cardwell building. Small company with eight employees not making a large capital investment. Their economic impact analysis shows they will return to the local economy 3.6 6 million in their first year from compensation sales indirect induced and property taxes. We are working with this company to hire UTIP and Texas Tech bio research engineers likely between the ages of 25 and 35, but don't have their own homes yet. Using this biotech company for parks turf, there's that higher El Paso program, is a great opportunity to rewrite the narrative about El Paso's role in advanced research and emerging industries. At a time of global competitiveness, talent retention matters more than ever. This company is getting calls from New Mexico. Don't let this one get away. How can we keep this talent here? How about a housing starter fund? A creative incentive for this company is to support them by helping them keep their employees here. Funds that can be can be used towards their first home closing cost or a little more if they buy a fixer upper in the core. There's redevelopment. Now you're planting roots, helping affordability, creating infill, keeping our talent, earning good wages, and yes, growing property taxes. It's a good thing to invest in El Paso. Every tax dollar you spend is an investment in us first. The best parks, the best streets, the best services. You are just like investment fund managers. You are making the best decisions to grow our tax dollars and secure our future. Share the strategic plan, the investment plan with the community regularly. Transparency is tremendously important and the public investment will serve as a catalyst for private investment. For every $1 of public investment, private investment can follow by 1.6 to $2. Where the city leads, the private sector will follow. Our underemployment mindset requires healing. It wasn't created overnight and it's not going to change overnight. We know this has spanned many years and despite well-intentions of leaders past, we have not been able to break it. You have inherited their legacy, but will yours be the living wage legacy? We've all heard how companies lose money when employees are not engaged. They are not engaged because they don't feel valued or a part of the organization. Guess what is happening to El Paso? Turnover. If citizens are not hearing positive things, they hear only negative things. We need to remind this community we are worthy and capable of living wage quality jobs. Negativity spreads, but positivity grows. Show us we are worth investing in and we'll want start to believe it. I will soon open up the floor to questions, but I don't want to leave here without our ask. Don't look away. It's not money. What do we want? We want to be your think tank and your thought partner, but know that we won't come alone at this. We are research partners with the El Paso Community Foundation and the HUD Institute and share our research capabilities. Use us to study the community and the economy and report back to you regularly. Refresh the plan and keep it current and relevant. We aren't claiming to have all the answers, but rather all the questions. When you are speaking to a company, think of workforce solutions to help you question storm and come up with a list of questions to ask the company to help you make the best decision. El Paso has all the talent and resources to take care of itself. We are fortunate to have such a strong community. Let's not rely on fortune, but on a strategy to align and level up. As stated in the guide, residents want to feel that opportunity is for them, not happening around them. Share the strategic plan with citizens, neighborhood associations, school districts, higher education, community organizations, Fort Bliss, the medical school, the chambers of commerce, everyone. And hold us accountable to our goals and ask if our plans align with yours. You have the authority to lead us and ask us to contribute our resources towards the community plan. Give the community action items. We will get in line and push forward with you. That's what we signed up for. On behalf of the staff and board of directors, two of wh are with me today. We are tremendously honored to speak with you today. Thank you. Let's get into some questions. One two three. Any questions? Thank you. I probably don't need the mic. Thank you, Laya, for the presentation. Um, you just gave at least me some great questions to follow through as we get some of these incentive agreements. >> It's a great guide and and certainly have given us a lot of information. I'm also very very interested in the 11,000 opportunity youth. Yes, ma'am. >> You know, in Spanish they're called they don't work and they don't study meanings. And so that is also such a great problem in Mexico and it's a problem around the world. That's a >> a group that I'm certainly going to be looking at in our district and thank you again for the information. Appreciate it. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. In regards to meeting with the school districts, have you met with them already? We do. So, we actually uh one of our employees uh were youth manager uh is a member of the career and technical education committee. So, all of the school districts have career and technical education committees and we are members of that. Um it's been a few years and we've gone to present our hot jobs and our target sectors to the school boards. Um it's it's uh tremendously difficult. There's been a lot of turnover open at the school districts for some time but uh yes we have but it's we want to do that regularly and all the time. So if anybody wishes to join us the invitation >> have they been receptive? >> Um they they're they're yes they they appreciate the information. They're very receptive. Um but I think that so yes they do appreciate you know what we provide. What we need to just figure out is how to be strategic right amongst all of the school districts because we have so many school districts. We have a lot of need. But what we need to do is not have not have the school districts compete versus figure out which school district is going to teach what and then divvy up the work. And that is that that's ultimately what we what we want. Thank you. Thank you. >> Yes ma'am. Hi. >> Hi Leila. Thanks for the presentation. I think it's great. You touched on a point that I've been uh thinking about lately. I've brought it up to the city manager. I know through economic development as well, which is this incentive for the fixer uppers in the core of our city. Um I've spoken to some of my constituents. I have some areas in my district that have very old homes that is very costly for people to to purchase and basically redo electricity, plumbing, everything else to get it back up to code. plus the cost and time of of building something in the core of our city. And I know that there are many areas like this all over our city. So, can you speak a little bit more about that because that's something I'm very interested. >> Sure. So, I'll actually tell you my story. I moved back into the 79915 um zip code. That's where I grew up. I grew up near Loorthy Park. Um and I when I um you know, when I was young, I wanted to have my own home and I purchased in the 79936 Hanks neighborhood. So I had my family and I was there for many years. My mother still lives in the home that uh I grew up in. But the American dream of having your own home for me that changed when I became an empty neester. Um so I wanted you know to downsize a little bit. But I I made the decision to move closer into my my neighborhood which a lot of the people that I grew up with moved out. So I bought a home uh right up the street from my mother's house and I fixed it up. It took me a year to fix it up. Uh but now it's like energy efficient, right? Which is uh which is awesome. So that and being back in the neighborhood, um back in the park that I grew up in, back in a very familiar neighborhood, closer to work, um utilizing that infra, I know it probably costs cheaper for the city to serve me where I am now than I was in in the far far east, right? um you know a lot of benefit has come from uh being in the core and back in my neighborhood. So, I think encouraging that um especially for um individuals like me that maybe our lives are changing a little bit um wanting to be closer closer into the core, closer to work, closer to our families might be a benefit. Um so, I I think there's a lot of creativity that we can have. Okay. Bottom line is that city of Phoenix the microphone >> for 15 years and your idea that you stated about u the economic development people asking in um the companies to participate in community funds is a very valid one that we had in Phoenix when companies came in and they wanted to apply for a new market tax credit program we would ask them in exchange for that we're going to get this at the end of the day we ended up with a million dollar scholarship fund for low-income people and and it was it's only about asking. If you don't ask, you don't know if you're going to get it. >> You can do that for other programs as well, but you have to ask. >> That was only my my only point. >> Thank you, >> Leila. I I want to thank you. This is Ivanino, District 5, city representative. >> That's right. >> Um you know, even when we started our budget process, we talked about what people don't know, what they know, and the exper individual's experience of government on the way to school, at the roads, at their park, the will follow. And um really taking consideration once we finalize our strategic plan and really building those, you know, collaborative efforts and communication, further lines of communication to empower the private sector or empower other government organizations to really highlight El Paso and and not work in silos is at least extremely important for me. Um because when we're more we're we're even more powerful, right? >> So I wanted to thank you for for your presentation, your time and same I I resonate what my colleague said. I'm going to have a lot of questions even further when it comes to uh you know incentive policy that I know that staff is working on and and thank you for your work. >> All right. Thank you. >> Hi. >> Hello. >> Hi. >> Um thank you for this presentation. It's insightful. There's a lot of data. Really appreciate how much data you have. >> I have a lot more if you want. >> Okay. Um, but I wanted to focus a little bit on the 11,000 youth, um, 16 to 24 and you are kind of saying Gen Z is not that different, um, from millennials, Gen X, etc. because the internet has made us think that they are, right? Um, but they're looking for quality jobs. And so out of the data that you collected, do you know what kind of industries they're looking at in terms of what a quality job looks like for them? >> I I don't think it's um they're necessarily following a specific industry or industries, the job itself, what experience matters to them, being a part of that uh moment, giving the like giving them trust in doing that job. We'll use the example of the police department. That marketing intern is a opportunity youth. So we have this opportunity program and we found this person. She was a social media wiz. And so when placed at the police department, the police department entrusted her with the social media account, you know, >> um she knew exactly what to do with it. And I think that that was really helpful for for her in particular and the others that we're placing in other jobs is they want to be able to contribute to that job, not just do the task and just here do this. They want to be a part of it. So it's not necessarily any specific industry. We are placing young people uh students. So I want to just opportunity youths. Sometimes that number goes up, sometimes it goes down because sometimes I work, sometimes I don't. Sometimes I go to school, sometimes I stop. Um so we try to identify those um uh opportunity youth and get them back into work or school. Um and when we do place them, we've placed them in engineering jobs in um healthcare research clinicals. So it's really anywhere that that we can find them an opportunity, but they like to feel like they are learning something and actually contributing to something. And that's what makes a difference. >> And and that makes a lot of sense and I appreciate you clarifying that. And I guess the second thing that I wanted to mention was I I think it's a great idea to go to the school boards and do that on a regular basis, but then I'm also thinking how can we get you in front of more youth, right? And right now we're having this joint meeting with the youth advisory board and city council. So is there capacity that you have to go before the youth advisory board to kind of hear directly from them on a lot of the work that you're doing? >> Absolutely. Absolutely. We'd love to do that. >> Okay. Thank you so much. One more. >> I have another question on slide uh Cynthia from district 4. Cynthia Buardo uh on page 29 of the slideshow uh presentation. >> Is it the hidden talent? What is >> hidden talent? You mentioned there's 94 approximately 94,000 residents that have some college education. >> Yes. >> And and then we're looking at the at the lower end here where on the red how does that compare to the rest of the state? >> Um I have that data off the top of my head. I I couldn't tell you what that number is. Um what I can what here there there was one chart that shows overall the percentage. So here on this one, you can see the red band in El Paso is 31.1 and in Texas it's 26.3, but what that how many of those in Texas have a high school diploma that I I don't have with me, but I do have. >> Okay. I'm curious to know how we rate with the rest of Texas if our wages are lower, but we still have the same or if not more educated individuals. Okay. Thank you. >> Okay. Thank you all. Thank you all for >> I'm sorry. Leila, I have one more for >> Sorry. >> Sure. >> Sure. So actually we've done this uh we've we run the child care uh program but we are partners with uh early matters El Paso and a part which is a group that we partner also with with the community foundation and so we've done quite a bit of research and studies on this and are trying to find ways for employers to contribute to that. So, it stemmed from employers knowing that child care is costly and it's an issue, but they don't want to get into the child care space. You know, like opening up a childare center anywhere, whole other world. It's it's not as easy as it sounds. So, we've said, well, why don't you just um you know, you're you're already sharing a portion of health benefits or retirement benefits offer this as an option. So, it becomes just on their menu of benefits, right? So, an employee will pick so many um so many benefits. Um and as I mentioned, the young parents, they're not thinking about retirement when they've got critical needs like child care. So, they absolutely will take that benefit first, and it ends up being the same dollar amount, right? What what the employer would have contributed to to retirement is what they're contributing to child care. So, it's not paying for all of it, but a c any help from the employer for that is a is a big move. and a strategic move for employers because those are loyal employees >> and they're able to shift their enrollment between the different benefit programs over time. >> So I think that yeah like once you commit to the child care I would s just in our it's at least a year right >> um at least a year and then the next open enrollment they can move that back for sure. >> Okay. Thank you. >> All right. Yes ma'am. >> Hi my name is Ariana. I'm the district representative for the youth advisory board and I just wanted to A lot of us mentioned how your research was very extensive, but I wanted to know how your youth engagement was for that data. Did you conduct surveys or interviews? How did you get that data? >> The 11,000 number >> that related directly to the youth. Yes. >> Oh, the the Gen Z survey. >> Yes. >> Oh, yeah. So, we um uh received a uh through one of the uh contracts from the city of El Paso, we worked with a local consulting company and we did have a lot of focus groups and um we did a a survey. I think we probably surveyed over a thousand local youth and we had focus groups, virtual town halls over a span of several months and they collected all of that data and then we um we put this into into a report. So the report is on our website borderplexjob.com and you can see that report in totality and when we were speaking to youth uh back to what um the representative was mentioning earlier is this perception that you know um there you know there's difference in values or different than in desires but what we learned is that's not the case like they do want to work and they do have dreams to to going to school and having careers um they just want to to um you know be let in the the thing that is really important for our youth program is the flexible schedules. We have to encourage youth to keep going to school. I worked when I was 16 and I started work at 4 p.m. Working from 4 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. Going home, sleeping, going back to school made all the difference because I was one of the few high school seniors that graduated with a full-time job um the day after, right? Those are big, big differences. And so we really need to encourage employers to create these opportunities and give them the flexibility to continue with their school. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Is it on? Yeah. Um I'm sorry. My name is Anna Tala. I am representing the mayor for the youth advisory board. Um I guess my question was how do you all reach out to like younger people? Because I know that if I wasn't in this room right now, I wouldn't know any of this data. I wouldn't have any way to even think about these questions that are being asked here. So, I know that my peers have no idea what's going on. And the thing is that in high school, you think like, oh, okay, I can just dilly around, but then you're thrown into the workforce and you don't have any idea what's going on in your city or the things the questions that are really crucial that you need to understand. So, how do you all reach out to them? >> I'm going to be really honest. this is you are the hardest folks to find uh because you're not looking for us, right? You're not going into a government office or a public, you know, so it is really hard to first find opportunity youth and youth uh without you thinking like we're your parents and we're going to tell you what to do. That's the challenge that we have. So this moment and this opportunity, everybody in this room, wherever you all go, that's where we need to show up. I don't need for you to come to me. I need to go to where you are. So tell me where you are and I'll go there versus you finding me. I don't need to find you. I need to find you. You don't need to find me. So where do you all go? So if if you're at rec centers, if you're at libraries or wherever you are, that's where we need to go. >> Do you all have a social media page? >> Yes, we do. >> Who runs it? >> Oh, somebody on our staff. Yeah. >> How old are they? >> Um, good question. >> He is a UTF student. I don't know how old he is, but he is an he is a student and he works part time. >> Okay. Because one thing I'll tell you for like anyone who's in this room is that like a lot of apps or businesses, they'll have social media accounts and they'll have like little joke videos, but it's really informational. You're like, "Oh, I didn't know that." And I think if you know, like the city of El Paso, I feel like there's a lot of things that El Paso has that um again, younger people aren't really aware of because they don't come to these meetings. They don't seek out this information. But um yeah, I think you could really use social media to >> absolutely put it out there and we do that on like purposeful, right? We have this young person can speak to young people. So he knows how you all are speaking. I'm not going to be um I'll say like look at this chart and nobody sees it. Um so yes, absolutely. But but if I can hear from you all and you tell me where to find you, I will go to you. >> Okay. >> Okay. All right. >> Thank you. >> All right. Thank you all. Yes. Oh, one more. Sorry, I had one more question. My name is Alana. I represent district 5 for the youth advisory board. Um, I just wanted to ask what incentives or I guess programs you have that are targeting our youth specifically. I know that you're having programs for career ready people that have just gotten out of college or maybe they've just gotten their GED. But in terms of like the outreach that she was talking about, how are you targeting that maybe at the high school level? Yeah. So we we work with our high schools and uh we we work with uh youth that are not just opportunity youth but they might be in school um in in school students. So what we do is we pay um we identify jobs in that field of study or to provide even work experience. There may be some opportunities that have never worked before and you know the first thing we do is we've got to get them at least a high school diploma. We work with our literacy partners on that. But then we find them employment and we pay the wages. So we work with an employer, an employer that's willing to work on that schedule and we pay the living wage for that person for a few months to get them experience, get them back into school and get them back into the system. So we actually provide the jobs money wages. Okay. Thank you all so much. This is a great day. Have a GREAT SESSION. ALL RIGHT. SO, I'M GOING TO MOVE US OVER TO THE NEXT SECTION, community perspectives. And so, we'll be covering uh first and foremost to kick off the section. In keeping with our greetings from El Paso, we thought it was critically important to hear from each of our representatives your postcard. You may have noticed as you walked in the gallery wall that also reflects um your sentiment as well as feedback that we collected from the districts, but I'm going to turn it over to and you're welcome to either come up to the podium or from the table recite your postcard. But we thought it was critically important to start with this message and mindset first and then we'll shift into some more data that we want to ensure that we share. But with that uh want to welcome up Mayor Pro to kick this off for us. Good afternoon. Thank you. So, my name Alejandra Chavez. I represent District 1 very proudly. Why I choose to be here? I choose to be here because I believe change is possible. I want to turn doubt into hope and trust, complacency into progress, and hesitation into action. We need to have a bold vision and be future focused so that the decisions we make positively impact our community for generations to come. I believe this can be done through thoughtful investment and responsible planning. What I want most for El Paso is I want it to I want El Paso What I want most for El Paso is sustained investment in our future that creates opportunity for our youth, strengthens our public spaces, and delivers both quality of life and safety for every resident. It means leading with accountability, making thoughtful decisions that respect taxpayer dollars, and ensuring our neighborhoods, schools, and shared spaces reflect the pride we have in our community and the standards we expect for our families. If I were writing the story of El Paso today, it would say this is a city that shows up for one another, believes in its future, and never stops working to make life better for the next generation. It would say this is a community built on grit, kindness, and the determination to keep moving forward together. Thank you. Good afternoon everyone. My name is Josho. I am the representative for district 2. And so I kind of wanted to talk a little bit about Leila's presentation cuz her slide that said, "You're welcome, America." Really hit me hard cuz I have really worked my entire career in public service in many different roles toward staying here in El Paso and working to bring people back that want to be here but can't be here. And so I've been in El Paso my entire life. I have never left. This is my home. I did all of my education here. I've done my whole professional career here. I kind of went to Utah four times. And some people look at me a little weird sometimes, but I I'm very dedicated to this community and it is really important to me. So anytime that I can talk to an expat, I'm always kind of saying, "Let's let's bring you back to El Paso. I know you want to be there. what can I do to help in that sense? And so in that sense, we have a border community. It is so unique. It is so different from any other place in the world. We have incredible people, culture, language. language is really important and we get to celebrate that on a daily basis here in our border community and we need to continue providing more opportunities and I want to work toward doing that and seeing true progress in our city. What I want most for El Paso is the city of El Paso receiving a UNICEF child-friendly city designation. That's something we started at the last strategic planning session two years ago. So I had been on council for a few days at that point and in November we were awarded a pilot and over the next two years we're working to make that a reality and we restarted the youth advisory board last year. It's really nice to see progress from the last strategic planning session to today that we are having a joint meeting with the youth advisory board and I think we should all celebrate that. Overall, I think we need to have youth voice in everything that we're doing. We need to have opportunities for our youth, but at the same time, we also need to figure out streets, right? Increase quality of life through our neighborhoods. Um, we need adequate accessible parks and effective public transportation. So, that's really important, but I think if we are diligent and intentional, we could get all of that done and see that for El Paso. If I were writing the story of El Paso today, I would tell people that it's not just El Paso, it's Siluades, it's Lasuses, and then together we're all a community of over two million people. And that's important. It unites us as one community. We're continually always talking about the border and the border extends across those three states, those three cities, those two countries, and it's all one community, right? And so that's really important. Um, we need a better El Paso because no other community has what we have. A place where nations, families, cultures, and community come together to make a place uniquely situated to handle adversity and nurture growth. In community, we can achieve new heights and improve our beloved city day by day. Thank you. Good morning everyone. and I am Cynthia Buertjo district 4. So district 4 is northeast from hundle pass to railroad all the way to the state line and why I choose to be here. I have a very similar story to Leila. I actually moved back to my community. I got married, moved away and raised my children and when my husband and I became empty nesters decided to move back to my district uh with family in the beautiful mountains. So, why I choose to be here? I choose to be here because I love El Paso and our Konid. It's important to me to give back to the city that shaped me by being of service, helping shape a better future for our children, and elevating the voices of community that feels like familia. What I want most for El Paso is I want El Paso to grow in ways that support economic growth, deliver strong wages, and long-term opportunity for our residents. Quality of life should be something people feel every day in safe neighborhoods, dependable infrastructure and spaces that buil that bring us together. I envision El Paso where residents take pride in seeing themselves reflected in its story and feel inspired to help shape what comes next. If I were writing a story of El Paso today, it would say El Paso is a place of connection, rich in culture and defined by the strength of its people and an El Paso strong spirit of resilience and dedication. Family is central to our way of life, often extending to close families and colleagues, and grounded in deep respect for elders and our community. Those who experience El Paso are drawn to the m drawn to the mountains, the people, our culture, and the sense of belonging because it feels like coming home. Thank you. >> Good afternoon everyone. My name is Ivan Nino. I am the district 5 city representative. It's an honor to be here with all of you and I know I've been counting down the days for us to work on a comprehensive strategic plan with this council and the community al together. Thank you Miss M Julie. So greetings from district 5 from representative Iano. Why I chose to be here? I chose to be here because El Paso is a community that raised me and shaped me my sense of purpose. The city taught me resilience, responsibility, and the importance of showing up for others. I'm here because I believe El Paso's best days are ahead, and because leadership means investing your energy, where your roots and your values run deepest. What I want most for El Paso is what I want most for El Paso is a city that fully believes in its own potential and acts on it. a city that delivers strong services, protects affordability, and creates real pathways for people to build stable, successful lives. I want El Paso to grow with intention, ensuring that progress strengthens neighborhoods, supports families, and expands opportunities for everyone. If I were writing the story of El Paso today, it would say, "El Paso is shaping its next chap chapter with intention, rooted in community, driven by results, and focus on building systems that serve its people effectively every day. Thank you. >> Good afternoon. Um, my name is Art Pierro. I'm the representative for district 6 and thank you for everyone that that has to be here but more importantly thank you for all the public that's here that that make time in their schedule to come join us and have their input u taken in also you know if u why I chose to be here you having the opportunity to live in other communities I've always been drawn back to El Paso and one of the most import important things to me is that my children have the opportunity to come back to El Paso and that's one of the reasons that I ran for the seat. El Paso's culture, this is preaching to the choir, is like no other. This is the only place where you can look out and see three states, two counties, but really all one community. And my love for the community is what inspired me to represent, run, and serve in District 6. What I most what I want most for El Paso is what I want most for El Paso is a city where opportunity is not determined by zip codes where every family has access to good jobs data um a safe neighborhood parks and of course um there's a theme here safe streets if I were writing the story of El Paso today I would say El Paso is a story of great culture great people, great food. You can tell by my waistline. Uh when challenges arise, we all unite and we become El Paso strong. The last thing I'll leave you with is we we need to support and I and I one of the phrases I love most that Mayor Johnson uses is El Paso is open for business and that's what's going to take us to the next level. Thank you very much. Good afternoon. Lily Lemon, representative for District 7. If I had known I was going to read this, I would have written less because the print is tiny. So, greetings from District 7. Why I chose to be here. why I choose to be here. El Paso is my home and I've had the privilege of living in district 7 for 69 years. My husband and I selected this area based on my career and the excellent schools available for our children. District 7 is filled with great diversity from the upscale homes in East Ridge and Desert Ridge to the 100year-old homes in the Mission Valley. It is a district that serves families. Our parks are very wellmaintained and they're used continuously to serve as a gathering place for sports leagues and families. Our two libraries are centers for citizens of all ages to learn, share, and prosper. District 7 has the benefit of hosting numerous top restaurants, including establishments with a history of more than 50 years. We are blessed to have the new alongside the rich historical gems. From the oldest active mission in the state of Texas to the newest buildings, we're a proud community that we share alongside the Pueblo Desur tribal nation. We are district 7. And what I want most for El Paso is I want a community that reflects the standards of our district 2026 strategic plan which mayor was fortunate to have attended and seen the work along with our city manager of three months work for our district put our own strategic plan in place. And this is what it covers. A secure environment for all residents. An environment that fosters local businesses. Affordable and attainable housing that meets residents needs. Equitable education support for all students. That includes repurposing closed schools to benefit the community. Improved lighting and safety on the Independence Hike and Bike Trail and the Roseway Street project. and preservation of historic buildings, canal systems and asas. And if I were writing the story of El Paso today, it would say, "We are a city rooted in history that has overcome so many obstacles, yet we have remained strong, resilient, and friendly to our neighbors. Our future is bright as long as we continue to focus on the needs of our residents and maintain our legendary status as great hosts. Thank you. All right. Hello everyone. Uh, greetings from District 8. Literally, welcome to District 8, uh, here in beautiful downtown El Paso. Um, why I choose to be here. El Paso is a city shaped by one of the things that I value most, connection. Connection among and across neighborhoods, cultures, and a border that is not just talked about, but lived every day is what has always driven El Paso forward. We're a border community that understands resilience, compassion, and interdependence. El Paso instilled those values in me, and to stay true to them, I feel the responsibility to give something back. That's why I choose to. What I want most for El Paso is for us to be a city where success is shared and growth is thoughtful. That means investing in people and neighborhoods, furnishing residents with promising opportunities, and preparing them to seize those opportunities, connecting them to robust services, and planning for the future in a way that's inclusive and sustainable. I want El Paso to progress without losing what makes it special. our famous friendliness, strong communities, affordability, and a sense that everyone belongs and has a true stake in where we're headed. If I were writing the story of El Paso today, it would say that we are a city rooted in our historical identity and increasingly intentional about our choices. It would tell the story of a border community shaped by quiet resilience and shared endeavor where people show up for one another and are pushing for more care and deliberation in how decisions are made. It would reflect a city that understands its past, values its people, and is deciding in real time, really here in this room today in many ways, what kind of future it wants. And it would be a story of progress measured not just by what we build, but by who we bring along as we write our next chapter with integrity, foresight, and respect for the place and the people who call it home. Thanks. Good afternoon. There we go. Thank Chris. You could have set it up a little bit better for me. Kitty, Chris. Good afternoon. My name is Diana Maldonado Rocha. I am the representative for district 3. As you can see, my postcard is really short, so I will uh just read it to you. But, uh, why I chose to be here, and it's very simple. was we started the strategic plan with uh with Julie and with Amy last year last year. It was uh really interesting to see what came forward through all of the not only mine and my office's views but what took place in our community meetings and it's all really centered in service. So I believe that my choice to be here is directly reflected by my passion to serve my community. What I want most for El Paso is to thrive through meaningful and sustainable economic development. I want a community that takes pride in our Sun City and all it has to offer. Most of all, I want to showcase the beauty, talent, and potential of our people and our hometown. And if I were writing the story of El Paso today, it would say, "In a city of almost 700,000 people, we are a city that is rich in culture, talent, and possibility. We are a resilient border community that prides itself on turning challenges into opportunities. Our next chapter is about believing in ourselves and investing in our people. It is a story about building a community that is here for all the generations to come. Thank you. >> All right. So, thank you so much for sharing those personal reflections. Um, we saw that there was a lot of thought and meaning um that you all put into um sharing that with us. And so before we jump right into the data, we thought it was important to start with heart, right? Because we're gonna we're about to cover a lot of information and I want to make sure that we keep that data-informed culture that focuses not just on data but also context, lived experiences, reflections um to really set the tone for community perspectives. So let's jump right in. I'm Juliano Balden Munos. Um April marks my 20th year in public service. So very excited to be uh with all of you in this convening. As I look at our our youth advisory board members, first time we've ever done a joint meeting. So really proud that you all are here and that you're participating in this experience with us. Why does it matter? It matters because it helps ensure that we focus our efforts. And it is in fact an art. Right? While we're going to be talking about a lot of data and a lot of um operational um requirements, in the end it's that art of selecting where to focus and it ensures that we have a plan of action that as operators becomes our work plan. So your guidance, your vision, the conversations throughout this experience will ensure that we're aligned especially as we get ready for the budget development process and resources as well. So it's ensuring we have that alignment. Um, we shared this with you all um, recently, so I won't get into a lot of detail, but we're very proud of redesigning this process completely. And so over the last few months, a lot of it has been an intentional effort to ensure that we're not just capturing data, that we're really being mindful about what is the insight and how does that insight then inform the strategies that you all will be developing as we move into the second day. So, we focused on that. We didn't shy away from the areas with the highest dissatisfaction. We saw that as an area of opportunity and an opportunity to really focus our efforts. Um there are some new uh we have pro the pillar profiles that we're going to review tomorrow as well as some personas. There's a repository. These are all new improvements that were brought into this cycle and we ensured that this helps to set the tone for the new program-based budgeting approach that our city manager referred to earlier today. And this is just the cycle at a glance, right? A quick recap, um, all of those various data points that we're going to go over in just a bit and data dialogue conversations, it started with that assessment phase and that was really the heavy lift over the last few months, ensuring that we were able to look at multiple variety of methods and while we understand nothing will ever be exhausted, you know, we can't have a direct connect to every single resident in the El Paso, but we can certainly endeavor to ensure that we use multiple methods and that we can take a collective look and that the conversation doesn't stop here. That this is an ongoing discussion as we move through the phases of the plan. But we are very much at the convening um which is something we've been working towards um for the last several months and so excited to be at this point in the process where all of those conversations come into focus. And so um we did undertake a pretty expansive environmental scan and this just reflects that. It's looking at internal perspectives, external perspectives. Yes, looking at the data, um, but also ensuring that we look at our workforce capacity, that we look at our financial perspectives. And that's why we have our CFO, DCM, Robert Martinez, closing out for us to ensure that we keep that financial perspective in mind as well as we look at implementation. The bubbles, Amy, your bubbles. So yes, we have um here captured in your guide um a quick overview of all of the various different types of methods, mostly qualitative, right, that we utilized in order to gain a pulse of what keeps surfacing to the top as the areas that we need to really zero in on as we talk about that art of focusing our efforts that I talked about, the strategic thinking that ties it all together. So everything from the strategic planning conversations that started this process with all of you um then shifting into resident conversations. Each one of our operators directors also participated in um initial action planning for key strategic priorities to ensure we have a strategic outlook and also a close uh view on our operations outlook as well. And then we included also um a new repository on all the large communitywide um engagement efforts that have really resulted in a lot of heavy lifting across departments um to ensure that those priorities and those conversations also um are incorporated into this thought process. I'm going to dig into the new community survey in the next slide. So I won't I won't um get into additional detail there, but very happy that the youth advisory board will be here to share in their own words um that initial strategy session that we had with them. And so I'll leave it to them to share with with you um what came out of that conversation. This is just a visual snapshot, right? That initial conversation in September that helped set the initial tone of what are those key priorities when we're considering the shortterm planning horizon two years. And so this was our initial visual visualization. But then what we found is as we started to look at where does alignment exist, it began to tell the story of possible pillars, right? And so that's new to our strategic planning process this year. And we saw that there was a good amount of alignment as that starting point. But what did the additional insights tell us in terms of our resident conversations? um the postcard, right? That was one activity that we had included in our strategic planning um sessions and we saw that our residents really took to that. There was um much of what you heard earlier today by the representatives as well. A lot of pride, a lot of connection connection uh repales aligned in a lot of these key points that came up and so that really helped to frame out um what this session was going to be. And what I will say is that the takeaway is that it's very hopeful. Even though there's recognition that there are areas we need to improve, it takes courage to think strategically, right? When you talk about strategic planning, it's that optimism for a future state. And so now it's what are we going to do to ensure that we're able to continue to grow on that pride, on that hope, on that connection, and all the various things that we love about our community. Speaking of loving our community, this is a visualization of um put this one in for you, Dr. Seedo, the word clouds just to ensure we have a way to gather all of these hundreds and hundreds of data points. But what did it tell us? At a super high level, zoomed out, strong sense of community and family. Sounds familiar, right? We heard quite a bit of that earlier. Um but also safety, calm, and stability, tranquility kept coming up. And so I even asked Amy as we were shifting through the data, did tranquility really come up quite oft like that exact word and sure enough when we went back and forth that was something that surfaced as well. Um so that sense of calmness um and all of these key elements that you see depicted here are some of the things that our residents and I think all of us right can agree to. But then what would we change most? Because we do need to have a clear line of sight of the things that we need to actively be working on improving. And so opportunity right in the middle. And you see economic stability and affordability really centered. And that was one of the reasons why as we went through this assessment phase, we thought it was so important to have Leila come in and give the presentation that she gave to talk about that people piece and how that translates into possible right strategic opportunities and areas of focus. And yes, streets continues to be a top resident request and we'll see more of that in the data. But what we saw, the takeaway is whether we were, you know, fl like we were looking at it from a flare perspective or a focus perspective, there was really good alignment and consensus around um what the data was beginning to tell us. All right. So, new community survey approach. So, we um have talked about this a little bit for this cycle. We made also a couple improvements. We're going to be um undertaking this approach on an annual basis. And so we were able to get a,079 validated responses. Uh meaning we were able to use um utilize the responses that provided or yielded a represent were representative of our community demographics. And so some questions about methodology just to address that upfront. Um so in moving over to a digital type of platform where an ad is depicted on this picture here was issued out um concerns about what what will that mean for our older residents, right, that may or may not have access. Is that a question? um or you know just having concerns about whether this was going to cause um issues with getting uh responses for everything from like our local income lower income individuals as well as our older um individuals as well. And what we found in this approach is that they were actually over represented. So, we're using weighted responses to make sure that it's represented. And in both categories, both uh lower-income individuals and older adults, which tends to be a concern about using an approach that's so digitally focused, they actually um came in over represented, which was which had to be weighed down in order to ensure that it was representative. So it what it signaled to us is that this approach was helpful and successful in ensuring that we captured um voices throughout our community. All right. So I'm going to jump right into three strategic strengths and three areas of opportunity that surfaced. Um certainly there was others that surfaced in the comprehensive report, but we're going to zoom in uh for a bit for purposes of this conversation. Now as you see the headline here, 60% are satisfied with their quality of life. And you may think, okay, what does that mean? Does that mean we're just slightly above average? What does that look like? And so in considering about 160 cities as part of the benchmarking data that we had available, that is slightly higher, right? 1%. But I think to me what really stands out on this slide is only 11% are providing negative ratings of all U residents that surface. So that is an opportunity to really look at how do we continue to grow um that visibility of overall quality of life. But it is considered a strategic strength when we look at responses um favorable responses in rating um quality of life and um and it was highest among our young adults the 18 to 34. So going back to I think some of what Leila shared earlier and why we think it's so important to continue to incorporate the youth perspective. Um we're seeing that also reflected in different areas throughout um the data as we move into another key strategic strength um overall sense of safety. So this is eight points above the cohort average. Um and what we found to be very interesting as well the call out here is that whereas in the previous quality of life you saw our younger residents uh responded or rated more positively when it came to overall sense of safety it was actually our um older resident population groups 55 plus that had the highest u satisfaction rating um with regard to overall sense of safety. So just you begin to see some distinctions right depending on the different community characteristics. Uh next up we have also economic development. And so um what we found I'm sorry here acceptance of residents of all backgrounds in El Paso. So what I love about this one in particularly surfacing as a strategic strength is that we saw it in what residents love most of El Paso. You saw you know you saw a sense of community. You saw u that come up quite a bit. that sense of pride and that sense of alignment. Um it also surfaced in the community survey where we saw you know again a high satisfaction uh rating and then you see here a breakdown. Um also district 6 came up as our our happiest at 73% acceptance. Acceptance just calling it out. So just something to spotlight there. But those are three strategic strengths that we can certainly share in our messaging, right? And it goes back to not only are our residents telling us it's what they love most of El Paso, but when we look across demographic groups, um it came up pretty consistently. Now we're moving over to area of opportunity because I, as I mentioned earlier, we're leaning into those areas um so that we can truly focus on building out strategies that will help improve right these areas. So first one and so this was the area that actually had the lowest rating across our key community characteristics availability of jobs that pay a living wage. And so this was really uh core to how our proposed pillars began to take shape as we looked at the data here. Again though, um there is some good news in looking at while the satisfaction was relatively low, um it is our younger age demographic 18 to 34 that did rate it more highly comparatively. So it's like there is that sense of our younger residents seeing that there there is progress and so how do we continue to build upon um that that perception that rating? Okay, another area of opportunity. So economic development was pretty mixed and we saw that while 38 rated it positively, we also have a fairly high negative rating at 27%. We did ask a follow-up question to gain more insights and of course in the in the comprehensive report there's um you know further drill down but I think here we begin to see theme with that alignment of in areas um of economic growth viewer do say they've seen more job opportunities as we look at it in different categories and so again a link to that area of opportunity as it pertains to availability of jobs. All right. So, this one, no surprises, right? I think um I mentioned earlier 20 years in in public service and certainly street conditions has has been something that comes up repeatedly as an opportunity. Um and so here we find an area where we actually have um less positive rating comparatively, right? 31% rated it positively as compared to 38%. So it does give us um a very clear uh focus area that uh that we need to look at as we talk about strategic planning over the next two years. Um but also what we saw and we have this um depicted here is that perceptions of street conditions do vary quite significantly across the different district areas um with district 5 having the highest satisfaction um compared to district 3 at 19%. So this gives us some additional information as we look at um street condi condition conditions and strategies related to that. All right. So having said all of that and going back to those eight bubbles and all the different insights the data the conversations it started with a lot of conversations and then um getting all that information for this mega conversation right the convening that is the strategic planning session. But as we take a step back in looking at all of the above, it really began to take shape as pillars, right? And the insights guided what those pillars became. And so the first proposed pillar focuses on economic mobility, right? And the key piece being that mobility aspect. And so as um Leila also mentioned earlier, the framing for this as a pillar really surfaces around this sentiment that residents residents want to feel that opportunity is for them, not happening around them. Right? So it raises a lot of questions. How might we focus on these different opportunities that ensure individuals feel that there's that step, that growth, that opportunity? What might that look like? And so everything from higher quality job opportunities um conversation around lo elevating local businesses and what that might look like. Um we also heard about simplifying internal systems or permitting as an example um as we look at supporting our our local businesses. And uh and then the availability of housing options came up. And the reason why I call this one out is as part of this process, um, all of those different community characteristics yielded high impact challenges, meaning there are certain areas that are key indicators for quality of life and availability of housing was one of them that surfaced for us as an opportunity. And so you'll see that these items directly link to key priorities that were identified for this initial proposed pillar. As we move into public safety, one of the things that we saw uh reflecting back on the slide that I just shared is that while we do report a higher sense of overall uh safety comparatively, there are opportunities um to provide proactive and visible approaches which was called out in a lot of the feedback that we got in the open-ended side and also this connection to public spaces and how they're how they can be perceived more safely, right, through investments. and we're going to hear um about that piece a bit more, but everything from managing traffic conditions um and it it surfaced quite a bit and so a direct alignment there um with safety and safe um street conditions as part of the public safety uh proposed pillar. Infrastructure, people, places and daily life that feels connected. So this is a little bit of a departure from how we've talked about infrastructure in the past. I think in previous iterations um the focus was very much on those capital physical build improvements and what we found is when residents refer to infrastructure or when when infrastructure you know surfaces it's also about safe clean streets and spaces that bring people together. So being able to enjoy you know the facilities that we have available and thinking through that connectivity piece right the mobility piece um surfaced quite a bit. So as I mentioned earlier, street conditions um is still the top priority that came up as far as a rate a low rating of satisfaction and opportunities around that around that. But also with surfaced quite a bit is the cleanliness and maintenance of existing right infrastructure. So ensuring that we get the basics right consistently surface pretty consistently as an over as an overarching theme across the feedback that we collected. And then um lastly just the to enable safer easier movement for people of all ages and abilities. So that that was certainly a call out for the infrastructure proposed pillar. Quality of life a city that feels both livable and enjoyable. So when it comes to quality of life um and it's referenced here it's was really perceived as a unifying pillar meaning all things connect back to it right. So you can't have a high quality of life or you cannot support a high quality of life which is very much reflected in our mission unless we're thinking about safety infrastructure a sense of belonging right and that was very I think you had that as well repico in your in your earlier comments that sense of belonging is very centered in how we need to think about quality of life and so um we added there some of the data highlights but it's enhancing those community experiences that can allow for that um and also connection back to essential human services, right, that allow for that type of um connection. Um so it's that livable peace and enjoyable peace. And then lastly, we have our proposed pillar of good governance. And so all of these different pillars um have an underpinning that connects to the good governance that supports it. And so what what surface pretty consistently is a sense of leadership that is responsive and reliable, right? And so the responsive piece meaning ensuring that there there isn't just opportunities for input and conversation but that there is an understanding of where our process goes from end to end closing that loop. That's a lot of what we've heard in these different discussions ensuring that we're timely in our responses and that helps provide that reliability right because you begin to see that there's more of that consistency. Um, and the last piece I incorporated here from our workforce is really this sense of employees seeing them as themselves as stewards for El Paso's identity. I think that's that's part of the reason why we felt so proud that this year um and for this session the theme that resulted as greetings from El Paso because we we certainly see that reflected in the pride that we all want to carry to celebrate our community. But we also heard from our workforce and this is consistent with what I just shared on the infrastructure pillar as well as safety. well-maintained streets, infrastructure, and basic services signal care, right? That we care about our community and we're continuing to make those um investments so that in turn it provides that sense of um stability with the services that we provide. So, a lot of good governance is grounded in this sense of not only clear communication, but meaningful engagement. And so we're hoping today is an example of that, right? As we bring different voices literally to the table, but that we also recognize this is not the input that the end point. This is um just another opportunity to participate in the process that will shape our strategic direction um in the short term. All right. So I'm going to pause there, but very excited to move over to the next section, which is youth perspectives. Um and now you'll hear directly from our youth advisory board members. But before we do that, um just a quick recap. So when the um youth advisory board members met during their January 12th meeting, we had a a strategic conversation around what some of those priorities are that they'll share with you. We focused on a starting point for highest priority needs and they did a crosswalk activity. So they'll be sharing um that approach and what came out of that process with you today. Um but the intent is for them to really begin to share the insights as the part of our local action plan uh process. And so I'm happy to invite our uh primary partner and strategic partner in all things related to our childfriendly cities initiative in this work um Stephanie Otero which is the executive vice president for the El Paso Community Foundation to kick this off for us. Um, as Representative Asaveo already shared, the reestablishment of the Youth Advisory Board was driven by our community's commitment to achieving UNICEF's childfriendly city designation, an effort led by the city of El Paso, the El Paso Community Foundation, and the nonprofit Padanos. Um, for those of you that are unfamiliar, just give you a little background on UNICEF. In 1989, world leaders came together and made a historic commitment to the world's children. It was a promise that all children without discrimination would enjoy protection and rights. Rights that cannot be perceived as optional or out of charity. They adopted an international legal framework, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. The convention containing 54 articles explains who children are under 18, all their rights, and a framework for governments to follow. It aims to allow children the ability to grow, learn, play, develop, and flourish with dignity. The convention went on to become the most widely ratified human rights treaty in history and has helped transform children's lives. In fact, the only country that did not ratify was the United States. So oops. So, UNICEF is going city by city. Three have already received the designation. Houston, Decar, and Minneapolis. El Paso is one of six cities currently in pursuit of the designation. And ultimately we must demonstrate that the voices, needs, priorities and rights of children are an integral part of public policy programs and decisions. How do we do this? We involve the youth in an intentional and thoughtful way. For example, we ask them, "Do you feel safe? Do you have access to health care? Are there parks and playgrounds available to you? And most importantly, do you feel seen and heard? UNICEF created five priority areas. Safety and inclusion, child participation, equitable social services, play and leisure, and safe living environments. A city is first given the green light once it has demonstrated the readiness to begin the three-year process engaging stakeholders, developing action plans, and implementing those plans. We are in currently in year one focused on stakeholder engagement. The first step in that process was for the youth advisory board to conduct a crosswalk between the city's identified priority areas and those of UNICEF, which you'll hear about in just a moment. But to help ground our work, we'd like to share a special moment from the launch announcement this past November when we introduced our partnership with UNICEF to the community and youth from across our region shared their talents, voices, and perspectives. And to share this special moment, it is my pleasure to introduce our first youth advisory board speaker, Alana Akuna. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Aliana Kuna and I'm currently a senior attending Elorado High School in the IB program. I was uh appointed on behalf of Representative Nino to represent district 5 on the youth advisory board. Before I before I go over UNICEF's FCI by priorities, I'd like to begin with a poem that was showcased at the UNICEF launch event titled The City of Dreams by Arya Ruo. Close your eyes and imagine El Paso. A beautiful humble city. Picture how the big beautiful bright sun rises upon the mountaintops with all the colors filled with beauty. Every second a sight to see and everyone and everything filled with a spark of spectacular. I adore how everyone has a flower blooming in their heart, beating with kindness. All the buildings handcrafted with concentration and smiles. And by just sharing a smile every now and then, you're caring for our city. Everything is amazing, especially how the stars glisten in the night sky, just like a piece of gold. Now I know exactly what it is. It's El Paso, the perfect city just the way it is. We included this poem because we thought it was an indicative glimpse into the youth's perception of how they see El Paso and I couldn't agree more with Arya's inspiring words. At the conclusion of our last meeting, the youth advisory board was asked one question. In the next two years, what is one thing I would want to that I would most want to change about Ela about the life in El Paso? Now, think about this question and what your response would um the responses were organized into sections that fell into UNICEF's FCIC by priorities. Now, as an adult, I'm sure a few things come straight to mind. Maybe it's your water bill, your mortgage, or do you wish they'd stop building car washes everywhere? For the youth, it was this. Um, so right now they broke it up into five categories um that were priorities for the uh UFCI. Um, I'll read my own response. I'd like for El Paso to focus on more activities that bring the city together and other people like a festival and focus more on safety and prioritizing the DUI issue here in El Paso. Now, I worry about the same things that you adults also worry about. I worry about my healthcare. I worry about the programs that are being cut at my school and I worry about my my safety. This was my response. When asked this question, I was torn between what I wanted and what was the right choice. The DUI issue is a ser problem serious problem here in El Paso that's become more prevalent to not only the youth but everyone with every fitfam post that gets posted every day. Issues like this have now become normalized along with destruction and impact that drugs and alcohol have brought onto the youth. The issues limit opportunities the youth has. It discourages parents from letting their kids out and encourages poor behavior. Their responses reflected concerns across all categories, but primarily in the quality of life. Themes of education, overall health, accessibility, a community resource, public safety, and city appeal were all consistently presented as issues that concern the youth. Youth are not only concerned about their quality of life, whether it be hosting more fun events, creative outlets, but priorit prioritation inclusion and accessibility across the whole city. To conclude my part, the responses are just a small glimpse into what the priorities are in the youth. I'd like to introduce Leon Lurma, who will be presenting a more in-depth look into the youth priorities. Hello everyone. My name is Leo Mario Lerma. I am a junior at Mwood High School and I was appointed to the youth advisory board by Representative Art Fiero of District 6. On these next two slides, we are looking at the city of El Paso pillars and the trial friendly city initiative priority crosswalk activity, which maps and highlights the top priorities identified for the next two years by the youth advisory board during our last meeting in January. What stands out immediately is how often safe living environments appears across multiple categories. Whether it's public safety, infrastructure, or governance, you've consistently emphasized the importance of clean air and water, safe public spaces, access to quality education and healthcare, and protection from violence and environmental hazards. Safety is clearly fundamental for our youth. Another strong theme is safety and inclusion. Youth want systems that are inclusive, equitable, and responsive, especially for marginalized children. This includes removing barriers to services and ensuring every child feels valued and supported in our community. We also saw a major emphasis on play and leisure. But not just playgrounds, youth highlighted interconnected development, creating opportunities for creativity, problem solving, family connection, and safe gathering spaces around the city. In addition, child participation emerged as a key priority. Young people want meaningful involvement in decision making. They are asking for integration, empowerment and rightsbased approach grounded in children's well-being. Moving on to the next slide, we are focusing on quality of life. Here, safe living environments appear most reinforcing that safety, access, and equitable forms the foundation of youth well-being. We also see a strong alignment around equitable social services, holistic development, accountability, and child- centered decision making. Overall, these slides show the youth priorities, our interconnected safety, inclusion, participation, and development all work together to improve quality of life in El Paso. Next, I would like to introduce our next presenter, my fellow youth advisory board member, Madison Miller. Good afternoon everyone. My name is Madison Miller and I a sophomore at Franklin High School and I'm the district 1 representative from the youth advisory board and was appointed by Mayor Prom Chavez. I am super excited to be here with you all today and I am thankful for the opportunity to speak on the behalf of the fellow youth in my community. The youth advisory board and I have identified three specific areas regarding El Paso becoming a UNICEF youth friendly city. These three areas are not isolated issues but really are interconnected and we wanted to describe a total focus from the youth for the youth. The first is public safety. The second is economic development and the final point is city social engagement. Together these all come together to define what quality of life truly looks like for all the young people in El Paso. I want to begin with the first point, public safety. Public safety is truly such a foundational issue because if the youth of El Paso do not feel safe, then there can be no positive development. My fellow youth needs to feel safe on our public transportation. A fellow board member commented directly on this issue, and she told everyone how her and her friends never ride city buses because they do not feel safe on them. Public safety also includes kids not being endangered by DUI, specifically DUI and drug use by my fellow youth as well. I speak here from personal experience that many of the youth in El Paso are routinely using alcohol and drugs and driving while intoxicated. This is not good and we need to improve on this in this area. This teenagers who drink and or use drugs are at greater risk for almost any negative thing that a person can think of and this needs to be mentioned with more frequently and the city can get involved in here. The city needs to remind the youth of this and the schools need to reinforce this in classrooms. I would now like to discuss the economic discuss economic development. Almost all of the accomplished teenagers I know tell me how they want to leave El Paso as soon as they graduate. The desire to leave is primarily based on economics. The best and the brightest teenagers that grow up in El Paso leave and we call this the brain drain. One of my closest friends, Ally, is currently an undergraduate student at the University of Kansas. She tells me and everyone all the time how she feels that El Paso has given her so much in her youth that she just wants to come back and bring it and give all that back to El Paso. And this is the mentality that all our youth should have. The youth want to stay, but we want good jobs, too. The city should get involved here by encouraging new high-paying jobs for young people in El Paso. In addition, the city can improve local educational and job training opportunities for all the youth. This can all be accomplished by creating a more economically friendly environment focused towards the youth. Addressing economic development is not just about today, but it's really about planning for the rest the future of El Paso and giving young people a reason to stay, return, and invest in the city, just like Ally always says. Finally, I would like to discuss city social engagement for youth, specifically the city of El Paso engaging its youth in a youth in a socially positive way. A lot has been done here and I can remember when I was little we would go to the dog park and we would play at the little water parks and I always had so much fun at them and also the city has built plenty more water parks and from what I've seen we really have one of the most amazing park systems in the US. However, there's still always room for improvement. I would encourage the city to collaborate with different school districts to encourage cross city social engagement. So where a student from Franklin High School could attain attend the same social activities as a student from Chapen High School. In addition, the city can also encourage more uniformity with extracurriculars and social clubs within the various schools. For example, I'm a member of Key Club and DECA. But why is it that only a select few number of schools in the city have that opportunity? In fact, recently I was just uh I was a DECA state finalist and I believe only about five students were called up to stage from El Paso. And this is that competition with thousands of people being called up. And I feel that if we have more students going and having the opportunity to participate in these kinds of things, then we can get more people to go further and go to ICDC and qualify for things like that and truly represent El Paso to the rest of the country. Next, this work requires collaboration between city leaders, school districts, educators, and youth themselves. Each playing a important role in creating a community-led approach. Efforts should be made by the city to create new kid-friendly social activities as well. Wholesome social events where youth of El Paso can gather together like dances, movie nights, board games, things at libraries, etc. with the events that we do have. Also, because we do have a lot of them and the youth always say there's nothing to do in El Paso, but there are things to do in El Paso, the city should create a central online platform that youth can go to to find these events. Specifically, creating an Instagram page that covers things for youth to do in El Paso weekly would be really helpful here. I recently started Cougars Off the Clock at Franklin. And it's basically an Instagram like slideshow that we post every week now of things to do in my area of Franklin. And I think it would be really beneficial for all students to be able to see this because also you can have students from across town from the east side and west side come together and really start to get to know each other. Finally, in order to constantly improve, the city can also have feedback sections on these platforms where youth can express their opinions on what events and things that in general they want the city to change and to improve on. These concerns come directly from youth voices and meaningful change requires the city to continue listening to young people throughout this process. So far, El Paso has been such an amazing place to grow up in, but everything can be improved and I hope the youth advisory board's advice will give some helpful guidance to the leaders of our city um in improving the life of the youth from the youth. I now would like to pass the microphone back to Miss Baldwin Mos. Thank you. All right. Aren't they wonderful? And so very proud. So I know not all of our youth advisory board members were presenters. So I wanted to invite um the others that are in attendance if you just want to call Ernie Madison is our our chair in the mic and then just share with us your school and uh yeah in your position. >> Yes. >> Okay. So good afternoon everyone. My name is Madison Serda. I am a junior at El Paso High School and I am the delegate for the district 8 of um representative Mr. Gonales. Um and in general, this city youth advisory council means a lot. And I hope that within the future of El Paso, we can make change. But in the end, change starts with not only the youth, but it starts with every adult in this room. And as everyone says now, the the youth is our future. And with this um with this event that is going on right now, I truly believe that change can be done and it will be done with the voices of our youth and with your help and with the city of El Paso. Thank you. >> Thank you, Madison. And she is the current chair for the youth advisory board. And then we'll turn it over to Miss Rebecca. Hello. Can you hear me? >> Can you hear me? >> Yeah. >> Hello. My name is Rebecca Oligin. I attend Va Verde Early College High School and I represent Representative Lily Lemon for District 7. And I just want to thank everybody for the opportunity to just be in this room. I know a lot of people, especially people that I know, don't even know that this is a thing. They don't know that they can be involved in the community, that they can speak their mind and ask to make choices for the betterment of their life. And I think that it is such an important role and I want to thank that I am able to be here because I think that the youth plays a very important role in the city because we are the future. We are the people that are going to be growing up and making decisions when we get the opportunity to in the future because I don't know if I can just speak for myself when saying this, but I feel a lot of people don't take the youth seriously. They consider us kids and we don't they say we don't know what we're doing because we're so young. But I think that it is very important thing that the youth gets involved that they get to make these decisions within the city and that they are able to help with the betterment of the community. That's all. Thank you >> for Oh, there you go. No, let's start over here first. Yes, please. >> Hello. Okay. My name is Adley Yanes. I represent Joshua Zavo for district 2. I attend El Paso High School and I'm a junior and I truly believe that this has so much potential to to be such a big thing. Um, and we need everyone in this room's help to just make El Paso kid-friendly and just do have so much more opportunities for the youth in this city. That's it. >> Thank you very much. Or >> Hi everyone, my name is Anata and I'm representing um Mayor Renard Johnson on the youth advisory board. And um first off, I just want to thank everyone for being here and everyone who presented. There were a lot of really insightful things that I heard today and a lot of things that I think are going to help all of us in this room. Um I also want to thank everyone just for the opportunity to be here. I feel really I feel really honored that I can be here and sit here and speak on behalf of um my peers. Um, I want to particularly thank Madison Miller because she was talking about an Instagram account for like the city and I think I urge all of you in this room that no matter what you do, you all need to have more outreach with younger people, you know? Um, pretty soon like you're going to realize, oh, like, oh, I thought that person was just a kid and now they're working with you, you know. Um, more people are starting to work and more people need to work. So, it's really important that in one way or another, you find out a way to reach out to them, whether it be through social media or surveys or whatever it is. But yeah, thanks everyone. That's all. >> Uh, hello everyone. I am David Dorsy. I am the uh youth advisory board for district 4 with Cynthia Buyer. I'm from Andrew High School. I'm a junior and I'm really happy to be on this board. Uh, it's an opportunity that not a lot of people get. It's an opportunity to help El Paso grow, to help our fellow generation grow, as well as to learn things that you might not learn in school, such as the wonderful economics presentation we just had. Um, it this is a very big opportunity especially for our youth and if it was to be shown to these people, I think it would be I can't speak. I'm so sorry. >> No, I think this is a really good opportunity that not a lot of our generation is taking because obviously there is u many members of our generation that are passionate about what they're doing. We have exhibit A over there. >> I really I really like this board and I really like the people on here. I think these are very passionate people and I would love to work with them to help out. So, thank you. >> Thank you, David, Miss I'll just >> Hi everyone, my name is Ariana Himeit and I'm from Eastwood High School. I'm a senior. I'm representing Miss Diana Mrocha for district 3. And I just want to say I'm so proud of everyone on this board. I know everyone here is very involved and I'm so proud to be representing El Paso in my district and the youth voices. And something that I also mentioned when we have meetings is um the importance of education and also nutrition in our schools and I know we mentioned a lot during the but also financial literacy for those wages teaching kids the importance of managing your money and if you're getting paid a lot of money then having a plan to have that money saved in the future so that you can be accounted for because this is something that's just not starting for the youth but it's for the future of El Paso and I'm extremely grateful ful to be here with everyone today and again I'm so proud of you guys. I'm so proud of Madison and Aliana. You guys are just you guys are like my role models. Okay, but thank you guys honestly for being here. Um and I'm honored again to be representing district 3 with Miss Vienna and Rocha. Thank you guys. >> Thank you so much. All right. So then that leads us to our first um recess before we get into some more conversation. So I'm going to invite the one, the only Miss Laura Prime. >> Yeah. get excited. >> Council, may we have a motion to recess? >> Second. >> There's a motion in a second. Can I have someone uh from the youth advisory board members make the same motion to recess? >> I second that motion. >> Okay. All in favor? >> Anyone opposed? And the meetings are in recess at 3:19 p.m. So, please make your way back in a couple minutes. We have an activity planned for you all. So, please take a couple minutes and make your way back to your seats. And then They're like, "Don't mess with it." >> Everything's in white. >> Yes. Okay. All right. Everyone, make it back to your seats, please. If everyone can make it back to their seats. Okay. Then I'll >> Who's going to announce the ro section? Okay. And then you'll tell them about the first section. Okay. >> All right. Everyone, we're about to get started. Please make your way back. Just one mic. Yeah. All right. All right. So, as you make your way back to the table, we're going to have um the lovely Jasmine Flores that's going to go over our activity rolls. So, here we go. Over to Jasmine and Lausa Costa for this activity. Jasmine, guide us on what we can expect. All right, we're combating that 3:00 slump with some El Paso Jeopardy. So, let's hear it. El Paso Jeopardy, come on. We're excited. We're happy. We might win some prizes. Oh, now I got your attention. All right. Okay. So, here's how the game works. We have three teams. These teams along the back, these three tables, your team one. Hi, team one. These four along the middle, your team two. Hi, team two. >> And these three along the side, your team three. Yeah. So, each team is going to have a designated captain to answer the questions. So, team, pick your pick your representative. All right, team three. Who's your captain? >> I'm seeing a lot of fingers of different people. Madison. Okay. >> All right. We got Chris, Nicole, and Madison. >> Yay. TEAM CAPTAINS. SO, WE'RE going to start numerical order with team one. Uh, if you don't get the answer right, we're going to move on to team two and so on. And then we'll circle around back. However, if you're Ken Jennings and you get three in a row, we're going to have to pass it on to the next team because fair is fair and we want to make sure everybody gets a chance to get some points. Does that make sense? Okay. So, team one, go ahead and pick your category. >> Oh, you had 20. That's right. You had 20 seconds or the length of the Jeopardy song to answer your question. >> I'm Alex Tbeck. >> Yes. >> Are there Are there doubles? >> There are not any doubles. You're already in the double round. >> All right, let's go. School pride for 500. >> School pride for 500. This Elorado High School mascot is named after an ancient Mesoamerican ruler. 5 seconds. Four, three, two, one. >> Who is Mezuma? Wait, I thought we >> I thought we could >> judge judges roll. >> Is this off >> that? >> No. Sorry. >> Like >> group two. >> I thought we could steal. >> What do we What do we take? >> Nicole Rodriguez. City government for 500. >> City government for 500. >> No, wrong one. >> The other one. >> Oh, we get it by default. Thanks, guys. >> We are gathered here today to help shape El Paso's future. >> Strategic planning. >> The answer is in a a question. >> What is the strategic plan? Thank you, city manager Mac. >> For school price, >> you have another chance. >> I'll take city government 10,000. >> Oh, >> this is the most popular form of government in Texas. City. >> What is the city manager form of council or council government? >> City manager form of government. >> Judges say yes. >> You have the floor again. >> I'll take city government for 900. >> City government for 900. Before launching a public survey, this team can connect you with the chief data administrator to ensure it's set up for meaningful communitydriven feedback. >> What is communitydriven innovation? >> What is community? >> I I'm not going to say they're I'm not going to say they're cheating, but they have the city manager at the table. I'm just saying. >> I'd like to call it strategic placement. Thank you. >> Group number three, please. >> PRIDEOUS. >> Group three, Miss Madison. >> It doesn't work. >> It's not. Okay, there we go. School pride a thousand. >> School pride a thousand. >> This sports team became the first all Africanamean starting lineup to win the 1966 NCAA championship. What is Texas Western basketball? >> That was in the 1900s. >> We're talking about today, but we're going to give you the points because yes, you're correct. >> You have another opportunity. School Pride 900. >> Go ahead. >> School Pride 900. >> Before it was called UTEP, the university focused on this field reflecting UT El Paso's industrial economy. Okay. What is the school of minds? >> What is mining and metallurgy? >> I I didn't write these. >> Judges judges rule. >> Judge says no. All right, group one. >> Team one. >> Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. You lost >> the original M on the Franklin Mountains was painted in 1923 just to the east of what is now known as Merchesen Park. What does the M stand for? >> I don't know. Do you remember? >> Yes. >> What is minor? >> What is the college of minds and metallergy? >> Judges rule. >> No. >> The room says no. All right. Moving on. Group two, team two, Miss Nicole Rodriguez. >> I'll take city government for 800. >> City government for 800. >> City employees visit this place when they feeling under the weather. >> The city's wellness clinic at city 1. >> What is that? >> Oh, there's three city wellness clinics. ones at >> what? I'm sorry. >> Oh, what is the city's wellness clinic? >> Sorry, I forgot what game we're playing. >> All right, you have one more chance. >> Two more. Sorry. >> Which one? >> Okay, we're gonna switch it up and go City Teams 500. City Teams 500 is this newly established department champions city priorities and advocating for its interests at the local, state and federal levels. >> What is the strategic and legislative affairs also known as sleigh? >> And your department head wasn't paying attention. >> You have one more. >> Yep. What do you want? >> All right, we'll go city teams 1000. >> City teams 1000. >> Residents who need lift paratransit services can apply for this free program through this department's website. >> What is Sun Metro? >> That is correct. >> We're moving over to team three. places and spaces for a thousand. >> No, I'm sorry. That one is on hold for now. Can we move on to the next one? >> You You'll You'll get it later. You'll get it later. >> Okay. >> 900. >> Yeah. For 900. for 900. >> This real bar on Donovan Drive inspired this music hit in 1959. >> Sorry. What is Rosa's Canina? >> That is correct. >> You have two more. >> Okay. for 800. >> Same category. >> Yes. >> Many believe that El Paso earned this nickname because of its popular cultural movement >> in the 1930s and 40s by Mexican-American youth. >> Okay. What is Eluko? >> One more question. history. >> I don't know anything about >> history. Um, El Paso, right? No. El Paso through time. >> El Paso through time. Thousand. This sculpture celebrates a time when these live animals lived in a pond at San Jose Plaza. >> Loss. Okay. What is lotos? >> Mayor I'm going to give you an opportunity um to >> to to play >> to play. >> All right, let's go. >> Yes. >> Because because the team behind the the table behind you keeps >> All right. Can I pick the category? >> Yes. >> Uh famous spaces, places, and spaces >> for a thousand. >> THOUSAND. >> OKAY. Go ahead. This mascot lights up a room when he makes a friendly appearance in the sun city. >> Who is the amigo man? >> Cue the amigo man. costume. >> All right. Shake your booty. SHAKE YOUR BOOTY. ALL RIGHT. SO, >> thank you. All right. So, um we're still in recess councils. Uh so, now we're going to go ahead and take a group photo maybe with the Amigo man. Um if we can go and join us outside next to the Amigo Man sign. Oh, the winners of this of this game has been >> that goes to >> that goes reluctantly to team two. Yeah, >> we're going to have a rematch, but for the for now, let's take a group photo because we've got to move on to the next item on the agenda. >> So, meet me outside in the in front of the Amigo Man sign. You'll see it just as you walk out >> with the youth advisory board. Yes. Robert doesn't get >> 30 minutes Nobody can take If everyone will please take their seats, the meeting can reconvene. Is there a motion to reconvene council? There's a motion and a second to reconvene. Youth Advisory Board, is there a motion and a second to reconvene? There's a motion and a second to reconvene the meetings. All in favor? >> Anyone opposed? And the meetings are back in session at 3:54 p.m. At this time, we will hear from the public. We'll take public comment. The first speaker is Miss Kathleen Stewart. Kathleen Stout. Miss Dr. Stout, you'll have three minutes. We'll bring a mic to you. Thank you. Thank you. Uh uh thank you everybody, especially the young leaders, our future in this community. Uh my name is Kathleen Stout, Kathy Stout for short. I'm a retired professor uh from UTAP and co-founder of the Community First Coalition, which celebrates its eighth year as an alliance of 25 organizations and leaders actively engaged in local issues such as climate action. We have closely monitored local government since our birth in 2018. The Community First Coalition stands firmly behind working with the community and city to expand affordable housing citywide both for the environment and for the national quote unquote affordability crisis. Last fall, we held a CFC forum with residents, organizers, neighborhood associations, nonprofit organizations, and housing experts on affordable housing. There are many tools and strategies available to address our community needs. As a 40-year professor at UTP, veteran teaching, polyai, and public administration, I appreciate the city adapting other adapting other models from groups like the National League of Cities. For example, Austin's Housing Finance Corporation uh facilitated small developers initiatives, a public private partnership to widen opportunities for those developers who had been historically excluded. San Antonio's collaboration blends multiple funding sources and tax credits to create and preserve affordable housing. So, we hope you will make affordable housing a priority in all of your districts. Thank you. >> Thank you. The next speaker is Roberto Franco. >> Good afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity to give you some input on some programs that I ran when I was in the city of Phoenix for 15 years. I was right there. I was economic development director of city of Phoenix for 15 years. And we were the first municipality who applied and received $170 million of new market tax credits. And we created a commercial real estate fund for nonprofits, forprofits, and developers. If you ever gone to Phoenix recently, all that downtown area was a medical school, medical school, University of Arizona, was redeveloped through this program. I left there in 2017. My wife passed away of 38 years and I said, "I'm gone. I'm going back home. See if I can do something here. City manager said, "Bobby, you can do whatever you want to do." Bless you. The long and short of it, my first project was the Des Pueblo, the Tiguay Indian Clinic. I brought them $55 million, 1% for seven years. At the end of the seven years, the note disappears and they get back $68 million. This program just got10 billion dollars recently from US Treasury. I'm helping in Lasuses in Vad and Bino Rose Garcia. I don't know if you know Rose, but in Vado we're doing about 50 to 60 uh affordable homes for LMI folks, low moderate income people. And then also in Bino, we already have people that are interested in helping us fund that program. One's about $12 million and the other one's about $8 million. With the equity that we get from new markets, we buy down the mortgages. So, if they're like 270, which they are, they're going to be like maybe 250 to 240. They make it affordable. Rose has a firsttime home buyers assistant program that she's developing over there and she wants to bring it to El Paso. We've already talked to the county, Project Vida, and the city of El Paso. Miss Elizabeth Moya is interested in working with us. She has about 11 million dollars that we can work with that we can find people to be able to take that money. So that's what we're here to hopefully you all can make affordable housing a priority because we we know of different programs that we can be able to make you aware of and we want to do that. Thank you very much for your time and thank you mayor for allowing us and city manager for allowing us to be here. great popcorn and peanuts and everything else that you can. >> The final speaker is Miss Carmen Rodriguez. >> Thank you. The reason that we decided to come today was because when we saw the agenda, we saw that you had already uh identified some priorities and we noticed that the housing uh was identified in three districts. I believe it was two uh seven and uh eight. We believe that all the districts should identify housing as a priority as you will see one of your one of your uh presentations. Um and this is from the housing uh needs assessment. All of the districts have housing needs. They have identified 37,000 for now and I'm sorry 18,000 for now and 37,000 in the next few years. So in summary, we ask that increasing and improving affordable housing be incorporated during this session as a specific strategy. So, so it so all of the districts can uh can benefit from such a from a program that we are trying to um tell you about. The info provided for this sessions uh indicates the three districts identified. And so just consider that up to 30% of our residents don't have adequate housing. It may be in disrepair, crowded, too hot, too cold, and even sandy surfaces all over our interiors. Quality of life for them begins with an adequate, safe, secure, comfortable home that I'm sure all of us, most of us enjoy. At the present time, we rely largely on federal HUD funds which go to home which then builds large apartment complexes of 300 to 500 units at a time. And we know what a challenge it is for neighborhoods to welcome or even accept new thousands of new tenants into their areas. With a local foundation, the city will have wide discretion and flexibility to build or rehab existing homes in smaller quantities in areas of greatest needs. By initiating such a foundation right away, you will begin to address the problem sooner and not before the needs for units increases to 30 or 50,000. From what we have seen, substantial amount of quality work in collecting, analyzing and developing housing strategy has already been completed. Your departments are doing a a great job with this. The community the community needs assessment and the city design lab staff uh including the consultant, Mr. Processer, Mr. Proer did a a great job with the housing needs assessment. Let's not wait longer for implementation. The need will only get worse. Please include affordable housing as a priority strategy. Better housing opportunities may be the key to keeping our working families here and contributing to our city. Thank you very much for your attention and we hope you do consider it. I'll come back tomorrow and see how things go. Bye. That concludes public comment and for the record, Representative Maldonado joined the meeting at 2:20 p.m. Okay, thank you. If we can get the presentation called back up. So, for the final two sections for today, um we're going to move into internal perspective. So you're going to hear from our operators and we're going to talk about um some the key priority areas. So we talked about earlier the proposed pillars. So making those connections to current key programs and services as well as some opportunities, policies and funding considerations aligned with those pillars. So with that I am happy to welcome up our first uh presenter which is uh Miss Nicole Cody. Cody Good afternoon. Um, thank you so much, Julie. As I as we get started, this is the city's role in addressing these key prior priority areas. And so just to touch on them lightly, they were part of the slides that Julie presented earlier, but the number one is expanding workforce pathways and the availability of jobs that pay livable wages, supporting people, small local businesses, and key industries as well as ensuring the availability of housing options. So what's the city's role in this? And when we attract and grow businesses, we create jobs. And so it matters what kind of jobs and development that brings higher wages, stable roles with career ladders and creating that opportunity for mobility because this is the economic mobility section. As we look at that, part of that is of course economic development is truly the engine that's going to drive economic mobility and opportunity for the city. And so by providing small business and entrepreneurship with essential tools and resources, we're actually able to allow residents to build assets to not just earn wages, but also build wealth and help them with long-term mobility and intergenerational wealth. The last point we have is to create conditions for job growth, workforce participation, and upward mobility. By focusing investments in these areas, we're reducing the barriers for our community. As we look at our key programs, these are just four of the key programs. We have a lot of programs that work across the city and multiple departments that are going to work in this area. But the four that we're touching on today is the city's role as an employee retention, our economic development department's role with economic development programs along with um housing strategy implementation. As you as we've heard before, we did have the housing assessment that was presented and that comes also with Envision El Paso along with implementation of that which we'll talk about on the next slide. And then community and human development's role with community infrastructure and the availability of affordable housing units and a crit critical infrastructure citywide. As we look at the last slide for economic mobility, we have key opportunities, policies, and funding considerations. And so, just to touch on a few here, it becomes that adoption and implementation of the Envision El Paso, which is our updated comprehensive plan, as I mentioned, along with a continued alignment with our regional workforce boards and major major employers. We have other policies that are also going to be um coming up. Policies in supporting small businesses to include our infill development policy, our 380 policy that's also coming up as well as in continuing our key partnerships through the business one-stop shop which brings together of course over 30 entrepreneurial support organizations and provides that centralized platform for resources to come together for our local businesses. And so next I'd like to introduce um Chief Mario Diagustinino. >> Thank you, Nicole. And so looking here at the city's role in addressing our key priority areas of sustaining El Paso standard for a safe, we're prioritizing on prevention. And so we looked at expanding our visibility of of police presence in our neighborhoods. We want to improve our response times and have an overall impact on how long it takes our our all of our response crews to get to the scene to get to that emergency so they can start being proactive. We want to make sure they have the resources, the communications, and the public messaging so that they know what to do in an emergencies and make sure we're staying on top of those those issues. So looking in those areas, improving emergency response times and reliability, managing traffic conditions to enhance safety for all users. And so with that, that gets into our vision zero and neighborhood traffic management plans. When we look at our current key programs, we want to look at at how we're strengthening those crime prevention programs. And some of our key programs in looking at that is, you know, we have our CIT teams, we have our DWI task force. We want to make sure that we continue investing into those areas to make sure that we can have that positive impact. If you look at the fire's mobile integrated health units, those are taking people our community some people in our community utilizing 911 as their their health care provider. What we're doing is we're proactively going out in advance of the calls. And so we're getting them and we're connecting them with the services that they need so they don't have to call 911. What does that do? That gives us an overall reduction in response times because now we're not sending units to all those calls. That's being handled on a non-emergency nature. Our 911 response times, priority ones, reducing that officer availability time, substandard uh structures. And so that's with our code enforcement team working on working along with our property owners and holding quarterly meetings to make sure that they understand what what's going on and what what avenues they have to correct the situations they're in. And then again talking about our neighborhood traffic management program or NTP. And so when we go into key opportunities, policies and funding considerations, you know, this is where we we look at public safety is a shared operational responsibility across all departments. It doesn't just fall under the the programs in my portfolio. It's across the entire organization. And we need to remember that our investment in prevention will lessen the cost of response in the future. So by preventing those emergencies upfront, we're able to better utilize our dollars in the future as we respond to these emergencies. So with that, we'll continue to work with our partners and our collaborators, and we'll make sure that we we have those connections with whether it's our MIH team working with EHN, it's our NIH team working with um sorry, working with UMC. And so it's making sure that we have those connections so we continue going forward looking for those grant funding opportunities, not just for equipment and personnel, but really looking at that prevention mechanism and how can we put those dollars to work now to prevent expenses in the future. With that, I'll invite Iet Hernandez up to Good afternoon. Um really excited on the way that the feedback kind of structured and framed um infrastructure, right? So it really came out people and places. Love that. I've never thought of infrastructure just in those two terms. So really thinking how do we invest in our places but then how do we get people there safely and efficiently. So really setting it up for tomorrow. What are our key uh priority areas? Right? We all heard Julie said she said a little bit too many times street condition and that it's a room for um opportunities and improvement. So key priority areas uh street maintenance is the top infrastructure investment in overall cleanliness maintenance and enhancement of our spaces easier and safer movement. So what are our roles tomorrow as we start looking at our key priorities and what we can do in two years is really looking at the street condition. So, we just passed the two-year plan for resurfacing. And so, really talking about having more contracts out there, looking at the data driven, what does the PCI and coordination with other utilities do so that we can improve our street condition also mobility safety, our uh vision zero action plan. So, to highlight on safe routes to parks, that is something that's really driven by data looking at where we have um incidents. How do we get our children our our community to our parks? Um and then also investing in our community spaces. We want clean, well-lit, maintained citywide parks and sports fields. So then looking at programs, right? What does that look like in terms of all the departments that serve these key priorities? As I made mentioned, the resurfacing program, planning, design, and construction management. So we want to identify these projects but we also want to deliver quality projects and we need all these three working together to ensure that for our residents. So really looking at holistic planning. When we think about transportation it's looking at a transportation network and how does the network um get everyone to those places that we're investing in safely and really making sure that we're setting ourselves up not to just deliver quality projects but looking at design criteria. Right? So, we want to make sure that should we need additional grant funding, additional um state and federal funding, that we're setting ourselves up by being thoughtful in our design process. Um, ensuring that we are taking care of our investments, our green spaces are safe, and our city parks are visually appealing. So, what does that look like in terms of opportunities? So, really leveraging our grant dollars. You heard that in some of the other U pillars and making sure that if need be, we do have that potential for alternative funding sources. You'll hear from Mr. Cortinos as he goes into the financial that we have these plans, but how do we make them a reality and implement them for our community? So, when we look at grant funding, the raise grant is providing us a comprehensive countywide mobility plan. That's us working with our partners uh Fort Bliss stakeholders, the de delurul uh pueblo RMA to make sure that we are thinking once again holistically of how we move um people updating our design standards so that we have smart transportation networks and complete streets. And then lastly, just looking at spaces that bring our community together, which we heard resoundingly in um the meetings that Miss Julie hosted, is finalizing our parks master plan, identifying short, mid, long-term uh projects and also repurpose repurposing our underutilized assets. And lastly, uh, collaborating with our larger partners such as El Paso Water, making sure that when we're spending money on our CIP that we're working together so that our limited funds are, uh, making more of an impact for our residents. And with that, I will turn it over to DCM Richard Bristol for the proposed pillar of quality of life. facility is both livable and enjoyable. Our key priority areas are enhancing community experiences and amenities that invite discovery and enjoyment, making essential human services easier to access and navigate, reducing friction in daily life, and creating and activating spaces that encourage gathering, recreation, and cultural expression across our neighborhoods. Now, our role in doing this, we provide a wide range of programming and it caters to a lot of community interests such as recreation and exercise programs for all ages within our parks and recreation department. We have sports leagues, also multigenerational leagues, educational enhancement programs, cultural programming, artistic programming, and of course, health and welfare programming. uh we create inclusive spaces where our community can create and build a sense of belonging. We develop programs that support cultural connections and we encourage inclusive activities and in doing so we promote helless health wellness and and promote health along the way. We have wellness and and and health as a consideration in many of our signature community programs because we invite them to participate in these types of events. and I'll touch on that in a second here, but organizing events and programs that reflect our unique identity and our community values. And then we make enhancements to our spaces and our programs to make sure they're open and accessible to all community members. So moving to um current key programs and services that are aligned. We ensure services and programs are responsive to resident needs by collecting and analyzing information that we get from our citizens. The parks master planning processes and it's going on right now. That'll set the tone for the next 10 years of park services. We've done community surveys through animal services which helped us set the tone for how we're going to implement the first 100 days of expectation with our new comm animal services director. We've done customer service uh customer journey mapping. We use that with uh Mr. Satcha Roman uh performance team I'm sorry through uh the uh performance office they they were able to make significant improvements for senior programming through customer journey mapping and of course the advice and their recommendations of our boards and commissions. We're very fortunate to have one here with us today are valuable information as well as our digital platforms. We want to provide programs that enrich the quality of life of our res of our residents and we have signature proming events that do that. our winterfest, our holiday of life's parade, chalk the block, di muertos, the lunar new year, the dios nños. And then at these events, like I said, we we also promote the wellness and the access of health services such as our immunization programs. We bring them to the events and we can tie it all in a little bit. Some of our key opportunities and policies, leveraging funding opportunities is a key consideration here because well, our our our resources are limited. Um, we want to create a sense of belonging and ownership among our residents because when we do so, we can get their buy in. That can help us with getting more volunteers, with strengthening our relationships with neighborhood associations, and sometimes you can even get philanthrop philanthropic opportunities out of that as well. Our policies that support access to services are essential for providing resident experiences. Um residents or relationships with our community based partners and our collaborators are important because they help us to understand things that we sometimes overlook or we don't look at because we're taking a different perspective as the organization as opposed to someone who might be a user. And of course again our our boards and commissions, our neighborhood associations and our civic groups are going to be key collaborators in helping us create new experiences as well. With that I have the privilege of introducing Miss Arisela. >> Good afternoon. So for our good governance pillar I don't know where there so for a good governance pillar we are addressing the following key priorities for the city which is providing clear communication and engagement options with the ability for residents to give input. We are also sharing visible quality of the services provided. So what is our role in addressing these different priority key areas and it is to make sure that our residents understand and can navigate all of our services utilizing all of the different services and programs that we offer as a city. We also provide services that are efficient with accountability ensuring that we have a fiscal responsibility outcome and provide a long-term financial sustainability which you will hear about a little bit from Mr. Cordinas. We also have a role in utilizing data, making sure that we have datadriven decisions and we have adjusted our performance-based budgeting to ensure that we have that process. So, our key programs and services that are aligned through this good governance pillar include community engagement, providing clear and timely and easy to understand services so that all of our residents feel that they are included in the process. our strategic data alignment. We've improved our datadriven decision makingaking process by building in our staff to ensure that we all understand how we're including this data and improving the services and programs the city provides. We are also a financial steward of any funding that we have in our possession so that we're making sure that the residents feel like we are providing a tax-based service that they feel has quality. And then our enterprise risk management framework is also addressing which will be coming up. They've already um also provided this information during our financial oversight committee. There is a framework that is being worked on so that every risk or is addressed through the city program services that we offer. And finally, our procurement of goods and services through efficient process that's open, fair, and competitive. So lastly, what are our opportunities? We've heard it a lot from our youth this morning where we talked or this earlier this afternoon. We talked about fostering a collaborative environment, making sure that everyone feels seen and heard and that their feedback is folded into the processes the city offers. We also are committed to finding an opportunity to share tools that provide a clear and concise offering of where we are when we make decisions, how you can track those decisions, and where the feedback comes into it as well. Lastly, our funding opportunities or considerations are always going to be our modernizing our technology. This is the foundation of how we provide these services to our community. So, making sure that we continue to take those funding considerations into account. And lastly, continuing to build sustainable revenue strategies. As you've heard in previous budget presentations from Mr. Cortinez, it is always going to be an important foundation that we need to continue to invest in. And with that, I will go ahead and turn it over to Mr. for the financial perspective. >> All right, good afternoon everybody. So this will be the last section wrapping up this afternoon's session but we can look forward to a full day tomorrow. A lot of work to be done tomorrow. So in this section covering a couple of things. So these are the questions that we asked ourselves when we developed this presentation. We're really looking at one some budget realities and then two get you all to start thinking about some of the key decisions that are going to be made to make these things happen. We heard a lot of really great ideas. Now it's going to be our job to how do we put these things in place and actually implement them to be successful. So why this matters? One, we've done several presentations to the council over the last several weeks really providing more input and data as to where we currently stand as an organization, right? And so now we're looking at where do we want to be as an organization and then how are we going to get there. That's going to be the most important thing that we talk about over the next um couple of hours and then whatever time we take tomorrow to get to where we need to be. So that's really going to be the key thing is one you have a good understanding of where we are but then two now it's going to be where is it that we want to be as an organization and then two again those budget realities. How are we going to get there? So, I think the mayor really summed up really well with the the story about Maria. And so, the affordability, you'll see at the top of this slide here, and no, we did not coordinate this. I did not know he was going to share that story, but it's something that we hear a lot about as mayor, city council, city manager, myself, when we do a lot of community presentations, we hear a lot about the affordability factor. Uh so a lot of things we've talked about with the council. We have obviously revenue limitations not only locally but also with what's imposed on us by the state. So there's some challenges there but as I said a few weeks ago where there are challenge there are opportunities. So it's up to us to have the discussions about what those opportunities are. We continue to see increase in labor costs. A lot of discussion this morning about workforce and unemployment and what we're doing to attract new jobs. Those costs never go down. labor costs will only continue to go up. Again, something that we need to focus on again as we're thinking about really shaping the future of our organization. Some of the other things, we'll talk a little bit more about these, but again, some of the big cost drivers that we need to think about um long-term liabilities. And so, not just looking at current um things that we have as far as cost drivers, but always looking at the long term. So whether it's a long-term contractual obligation, whether it's how we manage the city's debt and our finances, or how we manage our pension, we had a little bit discussion about that this morning as well to ensure that we have properly funded pension programs for all of our city employees. This slide, I I use this quote. I I love this quote because I think it really sums up kind of what we need to start thinking about is that we can't be afraid to take take risks. Obviously, they have to be very thoughtful, very strategic, very calculated risk, but I don't believe that we can move forward unless we are bold and take action. You heard some of again some of the things the council members shared this morning and you know why they choose to be here. And it's that bold action that's going to take whatever we need to get to where we end up at the end of the strategic plan session tomorrow. So looking at the a couple of points on some of the the pillars again. So these are some of the discussion points some of the things that we should be thinking about um over the next day or so and longer if we need to as we talk about economic mobility focusing on the city as a large employer. So one of the top 10 largest employers that we have and what the city can do to contribute to help the employment in the area. We provide thousands and thousands of job opportunities at every level. And so as the city is one of the targets that we've implemented, but as the city continues to move to increasing our minimum wage, something that we want to continue to strive to. Currently, we're at $15.75 an hour. We've made tremendous progress in the last couple of years. Um, and actually in the past year and a half or so, we've increased it pretty dramatically, but we still have a long way to go. But compared to the state minimum wage, we're more than double as an organ organization. So it really starts with the city setting the tone and setting uh the example for others to follow. Uh don't want to repeat a lot of what you all have already heard, but there are a lot of different policies that we can utilize, utilize as well that are in the works to be refreshed or revised. So our economic development policies currently under revision, our infill policy, the housing strategies going forward. So, a lot of opportunities to take advantage of revising and refreshing those policies um over the next several months. One of the things that we talked a little bit about as well and so I talked about the revenue limitations. We have some revenue sources that aren't um going to last forever. So, they have an end date and so our economic development or a portion of our economic development funding will expire in 2036. So, you're saying, well, that's 10 years down the road. You know, why are we talking about that today? we're focusing on the next two years again because we need to make sure that we're being very strategic in how we're utilizing those dollars because again 10 years from now we don't want to be kicking ourselves saying oh we should have thought about this or we should have thought about that or invested in this and not so much in that. So again it's important that we're taking that long-term approach to developing this plan. Public safety obviously one of the most important or if not the most important pillar we know you ask anybody who lives in El Paso why do you live in El Paso? It's because it's a safe community friendly community. So we need to ensure that we continue to be competitive when it comes to compensation for our first responders or police and fire departments. But with that comes the responsibility to ensure that we're not making contractual obligations above and beyond the revenue that we have to fund the city city's budget because we have other priorities as well that we need to ensure that we have that budget flexibility to be able to fund those items as well. And so this slide is going to be very very important. We're currently under uh or will be under negotiations with our fire union for a new collective bargaining agreement. Again, this will more than likely end up being a four-year commitment or contractual obligation. So again, very very important that we get it right to where one, we're able to be competitive, that two, we're not limiting the city's flexibility of managing a budget going forward. I'm going to join Evette Hernandez's party on the street infrastructure. Again, we hear it, you know, every day. Street condition, you social media, you see articles, news coverage, potholes, um different street issues. Current strategies are not sustainable. of what we have to actually improve the condition of the street. So we really again going back to what I mentioned the real risk is not doing anything or you can say uh doing the same thing over and over and expecting different outcome that that's not going to work. That's not a real strategy. Our city facilities so maintaining all of the city facilities that we have. We've continued to expand and add more whether it's new police stations, new fire stations, uh new health facilities. With those obviously come additional costs that are going to be required to maintain those facilities. The city has aging infrastructure that has been deferred for many many years. Um we've had instances where we've had to actually close facilities. Uh fortunately for us we've uh been able to include some money in the annual budget to be able to address some issues proactively. However, it's not at the level that we need to be at to properly maintain those facilities. Quality of life. So obviously very very important that we're providing a a wide range of services through our parks and recreation department. Um you can add museums and the programs that they provide. So one of the things that we're looking at is the cost recovery. And so as the city's costs continue to go up, the city has now been looking at increasing fees for those services as well. But we're going to be very thoughtful because not every service should be 100% cost recovery. We know that. And so we're currently working on um a policy or philosophy that will come back to the council here in the near future to really start looking at at what levels and what type of services should we be recovering 25% 50% 75% 100% whatever the case may be. So that'll help us get a plan in place to where we're actually again ensuring that consistent level of service. And then finally good governance. U you heard a little bit about this from Miss Ga as well. program based budgeting. It's really shifting and changing the way that we talk about the city's budget. Making it easier for your everyday citizen to understand and look at the city's budget by all of the programs that we provide. So, not just 30 departments, but when you start to look at the over 250 services that we provide, really starts to change the narrative about, oh, why doesn't city do this or why doesn't do that? instead you'll see well they do do it maybe just not to the level currently with the funding that's available for those particular services I talked a little bit about those fiscal levers so what are the tools that we have to make some changes so whether it's through those policies uh looking at revenue enhancements so that's code for revenue opportunities so we have as I mentioned not just challenges but there's uh plenty of opportunities out there for us to take advantage of and then finally we talked a little bit about what the city can do to be more practice to change the narrative about El Paso as a community and what we are and who we are and what we can bring to the table. And so whether it's through the social media, by having uh younger people helping us out to make sure we're getting the message to the right people, a lot of work that we can do again to really change the perception and get more information out to the community. So finally, what does success look like? And hopefully by the end of day tomorrow, we'll have a clear direction on where we want to be as an organization and then most importantly some of those decision points that we're going to have to address in order to get there. So with that, I'll now turn it back over to Julie. All right. How are we feeling about day one? Yes. Okay. So, as I mentioned earlier today to it was all about strategy mapping, right? So, you heard the people piece from Leila. We got into community perspectives um and was able to talk about data dialogue, how it all intersects and what at the end of the day um it yielded in terms of the proposed pillars. And so, um we heard internal perspectives as well ensuring that we incorporate that operational outlook as well within the decision-making process tomorrow. And then we closed out with that financial perspective. Those four elements are critical for any strategy mapping discussion. But tomorrow we move into as you all know strategy development. So this is just a preview. You all have it um as well in the backup and the deck. But for tomorrow we need to be ready with that high level of engagement. Charge your social batteries overnight because it's going to be a lot of discussion as we get into our pillars. but really excited to hear um from everyone as we work through that closer look at each of our proposed pillars. So, this just gives you a quick snapshot um and ready to move into during the afternoon conversations formalizing the action plan that then becomes our two-year our two-year plan. So, um, with that, I'll turn it back over for any additional, um, questions or comments as we wrap up the first day, and then if not, we can turn it over to to Miss Prime for anything further. Are we doing okay? Yeah. Okay. So, special shout out to our YOUTH ADVISORY BOARD MEMBERS and your first strategic planning session. Thank you all so much for being here dedicating the time and energy and we understand this is the starting point, right? And so we'll be back to talk about our local action plan. I know we'll be working alongside Stephanie Otero to ensure that we guide that process and that we're able to provide the support needed. But with that, um, I'll turn it back over to Miss Prime. >> Council, is there a motion to adjourn? Youth Advisory Board, is there a motion to adjourn? There's a motion and a second to adjourn the special meeting. All in favor? >> Anyone opposed? And the special meeting for Monday, February 23rd, 2026 is adjourned at 4:35 p.m. for both city council and the youth advisory board. Thank you everyone. >> Perfect timing.