Well, good morning everyone. We are going to get started. Want to welcome everyone to the city council chambers. Miss Prime, we're ready to go to work. Yes, sir. Good morning and welcome to the presentation of the mayor's proclamations. We begin this morning with a pledge of allegiance and to lead us we have Rodulo Garcia IVth from America's high school at the invitation of city representative Lily Limo I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Perfect. Another one. two, [Applause] Miss Frank. And for those receiving proclamations this morning, your group will have up to six minutes collectively to receive the pro proclamation at the podium. That brings us to the first proclamation and it is El Paso Matters Day. Represent. Thank you, Mayor. It's great to see all of you. Good morning. I'm going to read this proclamation. Proclamation City of El Paso, Texas. Whereas journalism plays a critical role in preserving democracy, ensuring accountability, and informing the public with transparency and integrity. And whereas El Paso Matters under the leadership of veteran journalists Bob Moore and Cindy Ramirez has become a respected and trusted nonprofit newsroom dedicated to providing in-depth datadriven and community focused reporting on issues that matter to the people of El Paso and the Paso North region. And whereas the El Paso Matters team have consistently demonstrated a commitment to public service journalism, elevating local voices, uncovering important truths, and producing award-winning coverage that empowers citizens and fosters civic engagement. And whereas El Paso Matters was recently recognized by the Texas managing editors as newsroom of the year, an honor that reflects the organization's excellence, ethical standards, and impact across the state of Texas. And whereas El Paso Matters was recently recognized by I I guess this is repeated, sorry. Um whereas the city of El Paso honors El Paso Matters for its outstanding cont contributions to journalism and congratulates them on being named newsroom of the year in Texas. We extend our deepest appreciation for their commitment to truth, accountability, and the betterment of our community. Now therefore, be it proclaimed by the mayor and council of the city of El Paso that July 8th, 2025 shall be known as Al Pastor Matters Day, signed Honorable Mayor Renard Johnson. Good morning, Bob. Good morning, Mr. Mayor. Thank you very much. Uh uh uh Mayor, Council, uh Representative Vosto, thank you for uh reading it and the uh the quick editing job on the fly there. That was really impressive. Uh and and thanks to Representative Roachcha uh for for organizing this today. Uh this is something of a homecoming for me and actually for many of the people here. I think most of you know that this used to be the El Paso Times building before it was city hall. And I want to start with a story about how that came to be to talk about how or why journalism is is so important. Uh uh I know Representative Leone was here for for a good chunk of this, but this may be a different a new story for some of you. Um, when the city made the decision to buy this building uh from Digital First Media, which was the company that owned the El Paso Times at that point, they reached a sales price agreement uh and because we are journalists uh uh the newsroom in the El Paso Times filed an open records request with the city uh for the appraisal that was done by the city on this building. And much to our surprise, uh, we found that the city had agreed to pay significantly more, uh, for this building than its appraisal had showed. Uh, so we ran that story on the front page of the newspaper. It stopped the sale of this building for several weeks. Uh, and led to renegotiations that eventually lowered the sales price of the building uh, by about a million half dollars. Uh I I will be honest with you, the ownership of the newspaper was not particularly thrilled with those developments. Uh at one point the CEO of the company called uh Sergio Selenus, who was the publisher of the El Paso Times, and said, "I understand that you have to uh cover this issue, but do you always have to do it on the front page?" Uh and Sergio, to his credit, said, "If Bob says it's a front page story, it's a front page story." Um, I say all of that because having good healthy journalism brings a lot of benefits to a community that we don't often think of. Uh, among other things, we've seen studies in recent years that strong journalism helps lower the cost of government borrowing uh because it tends to lower corruption in communities. Uh, having strong local journalism helps to depolarize communities. Uh, these are all important things that we need. But above all else, as a community, we all need to understand what's happening in El Paso, and we need strong local journalism to do that. As a nonprofit news organization, El Paso Matters is very much owned by the people of El Paso, and it's supported by them. So, I want to thank everybody who's donated to El Paso Matters, who's uh read our work over the years. It really helps make this work possible. El Paso is a pioneer in this nonprofit news space. Uh uh we were doing this before other communities ever got around to doing it. And uh it's not a cure all for what we need. Uh we still need strong local television. We still need strong local newspapers, but a lot of that isn't in our control in El Paso. Having a strong nonprofit news organization is in our control. Um uh so uh we have several members of of our team here. The thing that makes me proudest is that uh everybody you see u behind you has deep roots in El Paso. We choose to be here and to be part of this community and to help tell the the most important stories of of the community. Um that that makes a big difference uh because it allows the voices of El Pasoans to be heard. U so I'm very proud of the work this team has done. Um the proclamation mentions the uh newsroom of the year award we got. We're the first nonprofit uh news organization to ever win that award. We're the first non-traditional newspaper to ever win that award. So, uh it really is a testament not just to these folks here, but to the people of El Paso who found a new way to make sure that we stay informed. Uh um one last note on an award that I think really recognizes uh El Paso in in particular, but also El Paso Matters because we build from this community. That means we have a lot of talent on on our team. And I just want to share an award that I was fortunate enough to pick up a couple of weeks ago from uh Investigative Reporters and Editors, which is the largest uh international organization um that uh uh helps uh journalists really do the hardest work, which is investigative reporting. Um, uh, El Paso Matters along with our partners at Lra Verdad in Sedatu and Lighthouse Media in the Netherlands won the award for outstanding video investigation for a project we did looking at what caused that tragic migrant detention center fire in Huades that killed 40 people. Um, was great recognition for for that work. But I think it's also worth noting that second place in that contest went to the New York Times. Um, that's the talent that we have in this community. That's something that we can all be proud of. We all talk about the challenges we face and we're aware of that and that's part of our job at El Paso Matters is to make people aware of those challenges and possible solutions, but it's also our job to celebrate the things that make us unique and that always comes back to the people of El Paso. So, thank you for this recognition and thanks to um everybody in El Paso who's made this possible. And I just want to wrap up with giving uh Cindy Ramirez, our editor, who's the leader of our newsroom that does all of this important work to say a couple of words. Good morning everybody. Thank you for having us here today and for recognizing the hard work that all of my colleagues do. Um this has been uh a new journey for me even though I've born and raised in El Paso and I've been in this um uh area uh for all my life. Um but doing with doing this work with El Paso Matters has been really really life-changing. I think um like most of you here it's it's a calling and it's a public service for us. Uh so thank you for allowing us to do that. A big part of what we do is government accountability. Uh so uh we are here to hold you all and everybody else accountable, but we also do a lot of work that celebrates our culture, that celebrates our artists, that celebrates our people. and uh we're always here to tell those stories. But thank you for this. Y congratulations. You guys want to introduce yourselves? Everyone else that's with you. Um I'm Diego Mendoza Moyers. This is my first time up here. Usually I'm sitting over there paying attention and taking notes, but appreciate you all having us and looking forward to working with you guys in the future. Good morning. Good morning. I'm Pablo Via. I'm assistant editor of El Paso Matters. I appreciate the recognition here and thank you all for the work that you do. You got it. Good morning, Daniel Pettz. I'm the higher education reporter at El Paso Matters. Thank you very much. Yeah, good morning. Hi, my name is Bill Pitchkull and I'm the business development director with El Paso Matters and I want to thank the business community for all their support. Thank you. Got it. Good morning, Representative Lemon. Thank you, Mayor. I'm going to go back a little bit in time and there was uh back around 1993 or four there was a young reporter that came out to visit and do an interview and it was about an upand cominging school that turned out to be the first alternative school in the state of Texas came to be nationally recognized and Bob had his finger on the pulse on that story and all through the time Bob you have really been able to reach those special stories in our community that make us what we are. And congratulations on such a successful venture. Thank you, Representative Chavez. Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to take a minute to thank you. Um it's definitely my go-to every day to see what what I need to know. Um and so I appreciate you keeping us all informed and um accountability is one of my core values. So I appreciate that. Thank you. Well, I just want to say it's so nice to be on this side of you guys this time and and and not not being interviewed by you guys, but uh in all sincerity, we we do thank you for all that you do for this community. And and I think Bob, if if my memory serves me correctly, you started this right before CO or right after four weeks before a brilliant plan. Yeah. Yeah. So, you started this right before CO and you've grown it into a very very successful um online publication and you mentioned a couple things that kept coming out about excellence in in and journalism and you're certainly your team are are some of the excellent uh journalism that we have here in our community. We can't thank you enough for all that you do and the accountability accountability that you hold uh your government elected officials to. So, we appreciate everything you do. Welld deserved. And I think I got to make sure I got this right. Bob, you said that the investigative reporter story that you did, you received number one and New York received number two. Is that correct? Yes, sir. That's huge. So, congratulations. That speaks volumes for you and your team. We are so proud to give you this proclamation today. And again, big congratulations. Welld deserved. [Applause] Take a pill. Is she getting the ladder or no? Most of them have the same paragraph. Okay. Yeah. And I'm surprised he didn't catch it. The ladder. Thank you. I knew it. I was like, "We're so I thought I could do it, but I'm only 5'." Thank you so much. All right. Sorry. Had to get the ladder. You guys are tall. All right. Representatives, can I have you all shift in this way for me, please? Representative, can I have you come one over for me, please? Beautiful. All right, that's great. Ready? Big smiles. And one, two, three. We'll take a couple more. One two three. Three. Thank you so much. [Applause] I'm okay. How are you? Good to see you. Okay, Miss Prime. The next proclamation is International Chihuahua Desert Celebration Day. Representative Chavez. Thank you, Mayor. And we have uh Rick Loello here. He's the co-founder and chairperson of the Chihuahuan Desert Education Coalition. Good morning, Rick. Good morning. Good morning. Okay. My name is Rick Leavell and I'm the co-founder and the current chair. Thank you. I'm going to read the proclamation. Yes. And then you'll get to introduce yourself. Thank you, Rick. I appreciate it. Okay. Whereas the people of El Paso and El Paso County deeply appreciate and enjoy the unique beauty, biodiversity, and recreational opportunities of the Chihuahuan Desert, which forms an essential part of our region's natural heritage. And whereas outdoor recreation areas such as Franklin Mountain State Park, Castner Range National Monument, Rio Grand, Boske Wetlands, and the El Paso Zoo and Botanical Gardens and Chamisal National Memorial provide a permanent protection for desert lands while educating the public about the ecological and cultural importance of the Chihuahuan Desert. And whereas community organizations, educational institutions, and city and county departments have long supported cultural and environmental awareness through public events such as the Chihuahuan Desert Fiesta engaging residents and visitors in the celebration of our desert environment. And whereas since 2004, the Chihuahuan Desert Education Coalition in partnership with the El Paso Zoo, City Parks and Recreation Department, UTEP, Transpecco's Ottabon Society, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, Texas Master Naturalist, Texas Master Gardeners, El Paso Water, Rio Boske Wetlands Park, Fonta Land Alliance, National Park Service, and many other local regional and federal organizations in both the United States and Mexico have successfully organized annual Chihuahuan Desert celebrations for over two decades. And whereas the continued celebration of the Chihuahuan Desert fosters stewardship, environmental education, and crossborder cooperation, enriching the quality of life for all who call the borderland home. Now therefore, be it proclaimed by the mayor and council of the city of El Paso, encouraging all residents to take part in honoring and protecting this treasured desert landscape through education, celebration, and conservation efforts. September 26th, 27th, 2025, and the fourth Saturday of each September thereafter shall be known as International Chihuahuan Desert Celebration Day, signed the Honorable Mayor Renard Johnson. Congratulations, Rick. Thank you. Congratulations Rick. Good morning. Good morning. First of all, I want to thank my representative, Alejandra Chavez, for including this resolution on the agenda. Uh 21 years ago, a group of El Paso representing the city, including the zoo and city parks, local environmental groups, Texas Parks and Wildlife, the National Park Service, and El Paso Water. We all gathered in the old Cisanos Parah to form a nonprofit organization that would be dedicated to helping people connect with and value the Chihuahuan Desert eco region, which is our big backyard. The Chihuahuan Desert is the largest desert in North America and a region of significant biodiversity and ecological importance. It's crucial to supporting a wide array of plant and animal life, including many species found nowhere else. Additionally, the desert plays a vital role in carbon capture, and provides valuable natural resources. However, the Chihuahuan Desert faces numerous threats, including climate change, unsustainable water use, and land development, highlighting the need for a high level of education. With the help of people like Judy Acriman, my good friend, and Sal Kintania, who was a volunteer with me at the zoo, we organized a series of annual educational events celebrating the Chihuahuan Desert, including the poppies uh fest that continues today at the archaeological museum and the Chihuahuan Desert Fiesta, which is now being held at the zoo. Now that the Chihuahua Desert Education Coalition has partners on both sides of the border, it is only fitting that we work to reach more people by designating a day like September 27th this year and the fourth Saturday of every month thereafter here in El Paso and around the world and Chihuahuan Desert region of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and a very huge part of Mexico as International Chihuahuan Desert Celebration Day. Thank you so much for agreeing to this resolution. And at this time, I would like to introduce Gerald Gonzalez, who is the superintendent of Shamiselle National Memorial, Hila Cliff Dwellings National Monument, and the acting superintendent of White Sands National Monument. Wow. National Park, excuse me. Thank you. Great correction. Good. Good morning. Good morning. Uh, Mayor Johnson, Council, uh, first of all, thank you for this opportunity. Um, I am not, unlike the young man behind me who's well decorated, I am not a boy scout. This is the official uniform, green and gray, of the National Park Service. Uh, just want to make that distinction. Thank you for having us uh here today. And uh um, Councilwoman uh, Chavez, thank you for actually putting this on the docket and helping us get here. Thank you so very much. Uh like my partner said, uh my name is Herardo Gonzalez. I am a native of El Paso Teas. Um born and raised here. Uh so I'm proud to represent uh not only my city, uh but also the National Park Service and the Chihuahuan Desert. Uh I know Mr. Bob Moore and the El Paso Matters team has already left, but I want them to thank them for being a champion for the National Park Service and helping us tell uh our story. Um, so Chamisal National Memorial is a representation of the Chihuahuan Desert from our our sage bushes to our pomegranate trees to our chamiso bush which is the name uh that the chamisal took after um to our over 500 trees and bushes and one of the greenest spaces in El Paso. We are nestled between Buouie High School and the Bridge of the Americas. a great place for families to gather and come and enjoy some of the what the Chihuahuan Desert has to offer on a daily basis. Also, as we move forward, uh, as we see the um the northern tip of the Chihuahuan Desert, as Rick stated, is is quite a large area, but the northern tip hits up to the Tula Rosa Basin up to uh what is now White Sands National Park. Uh, another park under my purview. And there uh we continue to see the marvels uh that the Chihuahuan desert has held under its clung for so many years as we continue to find megapa and humid trackways uh ranging back up to 23,000 years. Uh so we know that we have a tribal history here that used the Chihuahuan desert uh not only to hunt some of those giant sloths uh uh shortfaced bears all of those megapaa that live throughout the Chihuahuan desert in the Tulerosa basin out here. So that's what the national park does here. We uh we are the keepers of our most most precious cultural and natural resources that and uh we use we take the land like our tribal nations have used for so long. And we respect that land and we respect and honor uh those that came before us that uh used this land to thrive on to make it what it is today. uh and now given us this great uh secret, this great land for us to to keep and to protect. So what I want to uh do is these last few seconds is welcome everybody to go out and explore find your park in Quentra Park across the United States. We have 433 park sites. So come and visit Chamisal National Memorial Hil Hilaft dwellings or White Sands National Park uh and see what this region and your country's cultural and natural resources have to offer for you every day. Again, I thank you for this opportunity. Thank you so much and I look forward to seeing you in one of our parks. Well, congratulations you guys on a well-deserved um uh proclamation. And I have a question for you. Uh to get into the national parks, is there something we go online and do or how do you get uh into the parks? So, um absolutely. Uh we have the nps.gov site which uh or uh if you have a smartphone, download the NPS app which will direct you to any park and it'll tell you if it's a fee free park or if it's a fee park. Chamisal National Memorial is a fee free park. So, anybody can walk through there anytime and just go see it. White Sands, there there is a charge, but uh if you come visit us at at uh if you're a veteran, uh uh disabled, we have passes that we can issue you that'll uh wave that fee for you uh for any of 433 parks across the United States. Fantastic. Fantastic. And um Rick, we just met today and I was hoping we we I was hoping we were friends. Rick invited me to go uh hiking and walking in some of the Chihuahuan desert, but he forgot that it's 105° outside. But maybe he uh represent Fier said you didn't forget you were doing it on purpose. But uh I'm looking forward to uh the invitation and going out to the Chihuahuan Desert and and wherever you decide you want to go hiking. We're looking forward to taking you. Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. And you know, you mentioned the uh the poppy fest and things like that. So, my parents live on the on the uh north side of the the mountain there and we get the poppies that come through and it's absolutely gorgeous. So, it is one of the the most beautiful uh deserts in in the entire country is the Chihuahuan Desert. So, thank you guys for safeguarding it and keeping it so so we can enjoy it for years and years to come. So, thank you guys and congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. Lead the way. I'm okay. Thank you, though. All right. And the next proclamation is nighttime cheer magic represent Lima. You'll hear all the medals. This is an incredibly talented team that's coming up for a proclamation. This is a proclamation from the city of El Paso, Texas. Whereas Nighttime Cheer Magic, an all-star youth cheer team based in El Paso, achieved national recognition by being named Triple Crown Champions and Youth Summit Champions, placing first at three separate national competitions and completing an undefeated season, which is a first in El Paso Cheer history. And whereas the team composed of dedicated athletic ages, excuse me, athletes ages 7 to 12 traveled and competed across the country in cities including Colorado, Atlanta, Dallas, and Florida, demonstrating exceptional talent and teamwork against elite teams from across the United States. And whereas under the leadership of coach Emily Kannaba, the team maintained a rigorous practice schedule, training two hours daily year round, and scored high marks in tumbling, creativity, and showmanship, consistently earning top marks through commitment discipline and sportsmanship. And whereas nighttime cheer magic not only brought national attention to the city of El Paso, but also set an inspiring example for youth in our community, proving that with perseverance and unity, excellence can be achieved at the highest level of competition. And whereas the city of El Paso commends nighttime cheer magic for their outstanding achievements and extend heartfelt congratulations to the team. Now therefore, be it proclaimed by the mayor and council of the city of El Paso, that today, July 8th, 2025, shall be known as Nighttime Cheer Magic Day, signed by the Honorable Mayor Renard Johnson's. Good morning. Good morning, Mayor. Good morning. No, good morning. Go ahead. Good morning. Uh, thank you um, city council members and mayor. I am Emily Ganava, the coach and all-star director here at Nighttime Cheer. I wanted to thank you guys for this opportunity. Um, we stand here this morning filled with gratitude, joy, and overwhelming pride as we gathered to honor an extraordinary group of young athletes, the amazing team we've had the privilege to coach, nighttime cheer magic. Um, this past season was nothing short of historic. Our team went completely undefeated, a perfect season from start to finish. But more than that, they achieved what no other cheer team in El Paso ever has done. We were crowned both triple crown champions and youth summit champions. Two of the most prestigious titles in all of competitive cheerleading. Nighttime cheer magic is the only team in El Paso to ever accomplish this. These athletes showed up early, stayed late, pushed past obstacles, supported one another, and competed with heart and determination every single time they stepped onto that mat. And they did it with class, sportsmanship, and love. Whereas their dedication and unity have made them role models for our youth in our city. Therefore, on behalf of all who have supported us and in partnership with our city leaders, I'm honored to recognize July 8th as Nighttime Cheer Magic Day in El Paso. May this day serve as a celebration of their commitment, perseverance, and the legacy they are building, not just in cheerleading, but in life. To our athletes, thank you. You've taught us as much as we've taught you. To the families and supporters, this journey wouldn't be possible without your unwavering belief. and to our city. Thank you for lifting us up and sharing in this moment of pride because at the end of the day, love is what separates us and we thank you for this opportunity. Um, I'd like to introduce my fellow coaches and owner who have made this possible as well as our athletes who worked hard to get here. So again, I'm Emily Canava, the nighttime cheer also director and coach. Good morning. Good morning. My name is Brianna Delgado. I just wanted to say thank you. Most of the time cheerleading is not seen as a sport, but we are so proud of the hard work that our athletes put in. And so I just wanted to thank you guys for this opportunity. Absolutely. Good morning. Good morning. My name is Christina Biones and I am the owner of Nighttime Cheer. I do want to thank you all for this opportunity and just to for us to be able to just pause and recognize all of the hard work that it takes for these athletes to get here. As she had mentioned, cheerleading is often not seen with um the athleticism and commitment and dedication that's required. Um but we are super proud of everything that they have done. I also just want to um acknowledge all of the hard work that both coaches have put in. Um it takes a huge emotional toll um on an individual to carry a team this far and uh they've done a phenomenal job of not just being coaches but role models for these athletes. Hi, my name is Emily Cortez and I'm 11 years old. Good morning. Hi, my name is Ruby Rivera and I'm 11 years old. Good morning. My name is Andrea Campos and I am 12 years old. Good morning. My name is Sabrina Matan and I'm 12 years old. Good morning. My name is Lyanna Moreno and I'm 5 years old. Good morning. My name is Kaylee Barber. I am 12 years old. Good morning. My name is Andrea Kades and I'm 9 years old. Good morning. My name is Aubrey Enriquez and I'm 10 years old. Good morning. My name is Mia Zuniga and I'm 10 years old. Good morning. My name is Kiana Helen and I'm 13 years old. Good morning. My name is Molina Sanchez and I'm 12 years old. Good morning. My name is Ariana Martinez and I'm 13 years old. Good morning. Morning. My name is Sophia Vigeroa and I'm 12 years old. Good morning. My name is Mila Cardinas and I'm 13 years old. Good morning. My name is Maline Maldonado and I'm 12 years old. Good morning. My name is Daffany Adidas and I'm 12 years old. Wow. Is that it? [Applause] Represent Lemon. Thank you. It is it is really an honor to welcome you all here today. I know it's been a while since the last competition that took place, but there's a real special group of people in this room right now. And that's all the parents in the back of the room. And so your championships, your winnings, your prestigious medals and honors, it also is reflected on the work of your parents, uh the people that carpool, that fund raise, um that travel with you. And so to all the parents, we say thank you. Thank you for raising these wonderful wonderful wellpoised uh ladies. I I'm just in awe with how professional and beautiful you all are and congratulate you. Congratulation on this special day for you. Thank you for being here. Yes, congratulations and welld deserved and thank you young athletes for putting El Paso on the map. We are very very proud of you and you know triple crown champions that is fantastic. So we cannot thank you guys enough. And again as representative Lemon said I know the amount of time that you guys put in. I know the injuries that you guys go through because you are athletes and I know the sacrifices that your parents have have made to to get you to where you guys are. as she mentioned, the fundraising, the all the practice hours, all of the things you guys did, but it paid off. You guys are champions. And I would love to hear a little bit more about some of the medals we hear kind of ringing here. So maybe one of them can come up and you can tell us what those medals. Can we do that? Mila. Mila. Mina. Yes. Um so uh this was our first like big competition. It was taken place in Atlanta, Georgia. And um this is like the fifth time we've been here and it's a very big opportunity that we're able to go out and compete and actually win cuz it's very very like big competition there. So we're very happy for that. And then this was in Florida. Florida. This was the maybe the third time that we went and this was one of our toughest competitions because there was this one team that was very very good. So, and we were winning maybe by 08. So, it's very very tough. And then at NCA, this competition, we've had 23 national titles. I think this uh is a very tough competition. And it's very blessed that we could win. We did win by a lot. So very good by that, but also very happy that we all came out safe after what happened in Dallas. So yeah. And all three are fantastic. Yes. And these all three of these competitions led to our triple crown. So very nice. [Applause] Well, Christina and coaches, you guys have so much to be proud of. Yeah. And we're super proud of you guys. So, congratulations to the young athletes and congratulations to you guys as well and the family. So, and keep making El Paso proud. Your city's behind you guys. Okay. Thank you. Welcome. Okay, Miss Brian Mayor, the next honore was unable to make it, so that proclamation will be uh rescheduled. Okay, so we're going to go into recess until 10:00. That concludes the proclamations, and the regular meeting will begin at 10:00 a.m. Okay. Thank you. Yes, sir. unknown participant is now joining. Unknown participant is now exiting. Unknown participant is now joining. [Music] Good morning again, Miss Pry. I think we're ready to go. Yes, sir. Good morning. This is a meeting of the El Paso City Council for Tuesday, July 8th, 2025. Mayor Johnson is present and presiding in council chambers along with mayor prom chavez representative ao representative nino alternate mayor promo representative lemon representatives threjo and representative canales have requested to be excused and representative maldonado rocha is running a few minutes late this morning. Will everyone please silence their electronic devices so as not to disturb the meeting and rise for the invocation delivered by Al Paso Police Senior Chaplain David Mayfield. I invite those present to join me as I pray. Gracious God, we gather to serve our community. We ask for your presence among us. remind us that true leadership is found in service, in listening well, acting justly, and placing the needs of others above our own. Grant each council member the wisdom to lead with humility, the courage to make decisions with integrity, and the compassion to care for all, especially those whose voices are often unheard. May our work today not only reflect the responsibilities of governance but also the higher calling of servant leadership. Let unity guide our discussions and may the good of the community always be our shared goal. We ask your blessings on this meeting on our city and on all who call El Paso home. And we pray this in the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit. Amen. Thank you, Miss Frank. Yes, mayor. That brings us to the public comment portion of the meeting. We don't have anybody signed up for any agenda items. So, that brings us to call to the public. Okay, let's take El Paso City Council is a government local government body charged with serving all of the citizens and the meetings must be focused on the meeting at charge. The city council meetings are public meetings under the Texas Open Meetings Act. Public comment is an accommodation and not a requirement of city council. All persons in attendance are expected to display civility and decorum that is respectful to other persons without the use of insulting, profane, threatening, or abusive language. Public comment will not be used for personal attacks, nor may any member of the public use this forum for political statements or campaigning. Please note that during call to the public, the city council may not deliberate or decide any subject that is not on the agenda. However, council may propose that a topic brought forth be posted on a future agenda. This morning, we have eight members of the public that signed up to speak. The first person is Maria Seedo. She will be followed by Anna Maria Rosales and the topic is El Paso's flower shops rapid economic decline in closures throughout the years due to monopoly practices. Good morning. You have three minutes. Good morning. Good morning. I am speaking on behalf of Maria aso. Um we have have developed a consortium of 30 florists in the city and we all seem to be having the same troubles. Um since the pandemic, the floral industry in El Paso has not fully recovered. Um also we have been undergoing a combination of financially hard hits um supermarkets, box stores, discount stores andarmacies along with unlicensed street and Facebook vendors have um dealt us a hard blow. um these the box stores are able to purchase um inventory cheaper than even the wholesalers. So the wholesalers are also flailing. Um and then the unlicensed vendors who are given free reign, they're not um they don't have to pay taxes, they don't have to pay um registration fees to the city for their businesses. Um and then they also sell on Facebook. So those are also undercutting us. Um we are a consortium of 30 of 30 florists. Some of us have been in business since 1948. Um so we are pleading with city council to make our issue known and to ask for some guidance and help. You are all business people or come from a business back. If you come from a business background, you would understand that we are small familyowned businesses, most of them, and um we just wanted to make this issue known. Thank you. Thank you. The next speaker is Eddie Chavez Jr. He will be followed by Elizabeth Crawford, Claudia Contrailer, Frank Tiseno, Max Gman, Luis Ruiz. Mr. Travis's topic is El Paso electric rate hikes. Good morning, sir. You have three minutes. Good morning. Good morning. I'm a leftover from last week. I came too late to talk about the city. I'm very proud of you guys that you didn't give him the raise cuz uh I don't know if you saw uh me and another lady. We're not related, but Mr. Chavez, we come out talking about the grievances that we have against the the the not only the the raise and rates, but also the the rates that we have now that are hurting. I call it it's a hemorrhage of all our economy. I got churches that we're doing, they're paying $3,000 a month. Businesses, meat markets, they're paying three $3,400 a month. This is ridiculous. I mean, I know it's a monopoly and I've heard of it throughout the nation of of other electric companies that I know that they say a positive electric is separate from all of us. I got a for I was fortunate enough to meet a uh uh an ex member of the energy uh commission and he told me some stories. I'm not going to repeat them because I think we might get in trouble but um there is very partial to where you can't really express what you feel. You can only go by what is presented to the council, the committee. So I urging people, apos anybody, please write to your your uh representative and tell them how you feel and the experiences that you've had with Apos Electric. So this will curb or influence the decision that the commission does to keep our rates down because this is ridiculous and they're not going to stop. They're a stockholder company and they're out there to make money for their stockholders. They don't care about El Paso. Matter of fact, I think you should put it on our agenda. We should change their name to something else like I don't know. Well, the name's already taken casino where they just take your money. But anyways, I got a funny story because my my aunt would always come back from the from the casino and said, "How did you go?" "Oh, we lost." I said, "Well, what do you expect?" It says there on the top casino. It means cas you're not going to win. And that's the way the El Paso Electric is. We should name them casino cuz El Paso, they do not really care about El Paso that I see. And uh I'm trying also there was a bill that is uh from it's an Obama bill that was 2016 that's supposed to help the financing of solar systems that I hope it comes back again. It was overlooked because it got Obama uh name on there. I guess Trump kind of overlooked it, but I'm hoping that you guys will write to their Congress people or to their energy commission and tell them that we want to bring that back to finance help finance these solar panels. Thank you. The next speaker is Elizabeth Crawford. Miss Crawford's topic is toxic abortion pill residue in our water supply. Good morning, Miss Crawford. You have three minutes. Good morning. Thank you. We're told in God's holy word in the book of Proverbs that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. I recently found out about the El Paso plan of being uh one of the first, perhaps the first in the nation to initiate a toilet jet tap water system. Long before I read about this, I was reading articles about abortion pill residue in the water supply across our nation. The uptick in abortion pill usage is astronomical in the US. There's deep concern being expressed by a number of experts regarding the effects of this on drinking water. With abortion pills, a common Texas scenario is that pill number one is often ingested at at an out ofstate abortion facility. Pill number two is ingested at home. The woman's body expels the little baby into the toilet as well as a chemical residue in her body fluids from the abortion pill. She flushes and in it goes to our water system. What effect will this have on fertility for women wanting to get pregnant or women who are already pregnant? You can naively say that the water purification process will be so excellent this will be a non-issue. That is naive. Just recently in the Los Cruz's area, there were major water supply issues, issues with pH levels and arsenic. And right by us in Dona Ana County, New Mexico, um there were issues with systemic failures of water. God's word warns over and over again that when people choose to live in violation of his holy standards. In addition to to the eternal irreversible consequences, there are also temporal, often unforeseen consequences. That is where we are as a nation. We're told of this in the book of Romans, but also included is the remedy, a new life, a new way of life. Romans 6:23, for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Thank you and hope you have a good morning. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The next speaker is Claudia Contra Siller. Unknown participant. Claudia Contas Siller. I don't see her coming forward. We'll move to Frank Teno. Mr. Tiseno's topic is police enforcement. Good morning. You'll have three minutes. Good morning all. I'm talking about the lack of police enforcement of last weekend. Last weekend was the 4th of July. We have personnel out there with PSD with all kinds of there are veterans. If El Paso always say they care about the veterans, thank you for your service. why the police are not enforcing the laws. I called the police 311. And then after that, I talked to a cop. I can't call my police. Cop Reyes and Lopez. They say it's up to police discretion. And it sound like a war zone by my house. I live in the far east side. And uh and I was infantry. I don't know if he was infantry is, but I know what it sounds like. Sound like a combat. And they just passed around and rode around. And that was officer. That was cop Lopez and Riaz and they say it's up to my it's up to their discretion. I just saw a woman from this office just walked jaywalked across the street. I just saw yesterday I was driving from here when I came contact here uh to get the information here how to talk to y'all. Uh woman a woman where a person did a freaking uh change lanes in the middle intersection and you know it's against the law. It's against the law to fire fireworks. It's against the law. Do just simple driving and the police are the cops are right there looking at it and they won't do nothing about it. That's all I have to say. Thank you. Thank you. The next speaker is Max Gman. Mr. Gman's topic is property tax increase. Mr. Gman, star six, please to unmute your telephone. Good morning. You have three minutes. Can you hear me? Yes sir. Hello. Okay. Mayor and city council, good morning. The city issued a press release July 3rd claiming the preliminary budget for fiscal year 2026 maintains quote a structurally balanced approach with no increase to the property tax rate unquote. In the next sentence, we hear quote, "We're committed to transparency." Oh, really? Then why does the press release omit the 6.5% property tax increase resulting from a 5.6% rise in property valuations? And why did our mayor, who campaigned on lowering our property tax, failed to mention this during his comments yesterday? That's right. The mayor spent more than 1.5 million getting elected and promised the public again and again to lower our property tax. But yesterday, instead of standing up for the taxpayers and sharing his secret plan to lower our property tax, all he did was praise staff for the $300 million reduction in debt principle and the 8-cent reduction in the debt service rate since FY2020. Who cares about that? In any case, that was the work of the previous administration. Thank them. Our debt is going to shoot up past 1.6 6 billion anyway, just as soon as the city issues the nearly half billion dollars for the 2019 public safety bond and the 2022 community progress bond. And what about the streets the mayor promised to fix? This budget still falls 30 million short of what is needed for street resurfacing. So far, the mayor has not uttered a peep about that either. But let's return to the preliminary budget for FY2026. The city's messaging is a repeat of Tommy Gonzalez, who repeatedly misled the public about the property tax by citing decreases in property tax rates even as valuations skyrocketed and our property tax burden increased. In August 2022, Gonzalez audaciously told El Paso Matters that the city was providing tax relief even as our taxes shot up. And that was immediately followed by a report bragging about the lowest tax rate in 35 years. Same old hogwash. Look, Gonzalez was fired seven months later for this kind of behavior, you know, and I'm already starting to miss the leadership of Lee Sir Kennedy and Weston, who gave us two years in a row of zero tax increases and never once misled the public on policy matters. And the the media can no longer be finessed. Uh, ladies and gentlemen, Powell got it right in a report he published this morning for the Times, and so did KTSM. They are not paring your talking points, but instead focusing on the 6.5% tax increase. I will do my part to continue to keep the media informed about city finances with laser precision and combat false and misleading statements from elected leaders and staff. El Paso taxpayers deserve better. Do not raise our taxes. Mr. Mayor, keep your word. Thank you. The next speaker is Luis Ruiz. Mr. topic is warning against no kings protesters turning violent. He will be followed by Claudia Contra Siller. Good morning, Mr. Dres. You have three minutes. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Um, thank you for um entertaining me today. Um, I just spent about uh two weeks in Los Angeles uh during the uh protest turned riots. And I've got to tell you, I'm very concerned. yesterday or no over the 4th of July weekend uh there was a ambush on an ICE facility in Alvarado. Um there they found uh one person shot uh a officer in the neck. They uh found mass goggles, tactical gloves, more body armor, weapons, spray paint, and fireworks. It was a planned ambush with the intent to kill ICE corrections officer is the uh comment from uh the ICE representative. Um the uh one thing that I've been looking at local coverage of the uh and there the local coverage is almost non-existent. The coverage that they do have they don't use the word Antifa. So Antifa, this is a really important word that we all uh get to know. I I personally witnessed in Los Angeles for two weeks as Antifa members uh worked really hard to escalate violence against ICE officers. Firsthand witness. um stuff that I turned into federal law enforcement. Now, Antifa has a cell here in El Paso. I don't know if people are aware of Antifa here in El Paso, but Antifa has established a beach head that is linked to our local Congresswoman Veronica Escobar. The groups that they uh talk with, Mr. Fiero, I see that you're smiling. I hope that you uh pay good attention to this. Kasa Carmelita, that is a organization that welcomes immigrants, the not the good ones. They welcome them here. They house them. They um back in 2019, they organized a uh 10-day border siege that they were very smart to abandon. They had planned to um have people from around the country here for a 10-day border siege right after the mass shooting. Um they organized for about 6 months in major cities like Seattle uh Chicago, Portland, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Phoenix, and uh once again, thank God that they uh cho chose to abort that mission in 2019. But I have to tell you, I think it's very important, Mayor Johnson, that El Paso Police Department looks very closely at Kasa Carmelita. They are literally right there. Right. the first thing that when you cross over the border on Stanton, that group, that uh place has been used as a safe house for militants from across the country. And they're they're coming in all the time. They're linked to national radical groups. And I will be following up with all of you folks with uh screenshots, information that I've been compiling over the last 6 years. We cannot let what happened in Los Angeles even begin to start here because the fact of the matter is is that there are rogue elements in our government who are working with non-governmental organizations and they want blood. Thank you for your time. The final speaker is Claudia Contra Siller. Her topic is back the blue and the cats. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Today I brought the best flag uh with the blue line and I want to give thanks to the El Paso Police Department. I went to their memorial ceremony and I could understand a lot. I loved how the chief pacas explained that they put others first and that they defend people who cannot be defended and that it's true. Uh about a month ago, I had to make a 911 call. There was a crash outside my house. I just heard the crash. I called 911. I told them, "Hey, somebody just crashed. I don't know if it's in my street or in the following one." So, I finished changing and there was already four police cars there and someone was arrested. So I came to back the blue and I think uh El Paso should have like um culture of backing the blue and the bigger voices are the leaders and also since I'm a cat lady I want to say that El Paso Police Department uh works with animal services and I think they're super um work loaded. Yesterday, a friend uh called me to ask me for gas money. She's a cat lady like me. She needed to take a kitten to animal services and I helped her out. There's a lot of stuff that goes on behind the scenes while helping animals. Also, another friend was waiting. She was waiting 3 hours. This was just yesterday at animal services. So, I want to express my full support for animal services and right now it's kitten season and I want to encourage the people that need a hobby or they need to spend their time in something valuable to help out the animals in the shelter. Um also saying this and talking about justice and honor. I think um the bigger voices need to be stronger because there are a lot of small voices in social media like Nexor talking nonsense. Uh whenever people are giving away animals, I just tell them to do responsible adoption and people attack me practically. Uh, one of the persons was saying that we need to treat cats like rats and to call an exterminator and that he used to uh help someone cook cats as tamales and this was my middle school teacher. So, I think it's very bad that this is going on. Also, I want to give a huge shout out to FitFam, the real FitFam Instagram page for giving us all this wonderful coverage. And I think the leaders need to team up with fitfam because the society looks at them and I think it will be a magnificent uh weapon to use it and educate the city about animal cruelty. Thank you. Thank you council. That concludes call to the public. And per the rules of order, no use of personal cellular devices nor personal communication should take place on the day while the meeting is in session. Once you obtain the floor from the mayor, you will have up to 10 minutes for debate and may speak twice per item. Please speak into the microphone and refrain from side conversations at the day as well. The meeting is in session. For those of you joining virtually, please make sure your microphones are muted to reduce any background noise. That brings us to the consent agenda. All matters listed under the consent agenda will be considered by city council to be routine and will be enacted by one motion unless separate discussion is requested by council members. Prior to the vote, members of the audience may ask questions regarding items on the consent agenda. When the vote has been taken, if an item has not been called out for separate discussion, the item has been approved. Council may however reconsider any item at any time during the meeting. Mayor Proim. Thank you. I um make a motion to approve the consent agenda with the following revision. Page three, item two, request to excuse absent city council members. Excuse representatives Cynthia Boyjo and Chris Canales from the July 8th, 2025 regular city council meeting. There's a motion and a second. Any discussion on the consent? All right. Hearing none, seeing none, Miss Pry, call for the vote. Yes, sir. The motion was made by Mayor Prom Chavez, seconded by Representative Nino to approve the consent agenda as revised. On that motion, call for the vote and the voting session. And that motion passes unanimously. That brings us to page five. Items 14- 16 are the first reading of ordinances. Mayor, I make a motion to approve the introduction of the first reading of ordinances on our agenda. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Any discussion on the first readings? Miss Prime. Yes, sir. The motion was made by Representative Lemon, seconded by alternate mayor Proen Fiero to approve the consent agenda. I'm sorry, to approve the first reading of ordinances. These are items 14 to 16. On that motion, call for the vote and the voting session. And that motion passes unanimously. Mayor, the next two items are related. Would you like to take them together? 17 and 18 are Miss Prime. Sure. Thank you. Item 17 is a public hearing of an ordinance dissolving tax increment reinvestment zone number nine and terminating the board of directors of the zone. Item 18 is a public hearing of an ordinance of the city by council of El Paso dissolving tax increment reinvestment zone number 10 and terminating the board of directors of the zone. Motion to approve. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Is there any discussions on item 17 or 18? Representative Nino. Thank you, mayor. Um, and this is just for the benefit of the public. Um, as this ordinance is to dissolve tax increment reinvestment zone number nine within district 5. TUR number nine was originally created to support the development around the eastight sports complex or to fund the eastight sports complex. And the funds in questions were generated directly from the growth and the investments within the surrounding community within the zone's boundaries. To honor that intent and to reinvest in the very community that contributed to this fund, I have requested that $2.3 million be allocated for the public infrastructure within District 5, especially that includes the installation of street lights along Manga Drive between Ridge Beam and passing John Hayes adjacent to the East Side Sports Complex and that addition and the addition of shaded canopies within the park. These are requests that my constituents have brought up to me over and over again. These improvements will significant significantly enhance public safety and accessibility. Currently, this stretch of Mongwood is completely unlit and are pitch black at night, creating unsafe conditions for both pedestrians and drivers. The addition of these street lights will address serious safety concerns within the area with heavy traffic, frequent speeding, and while shaded canopies will improve comfort and usability of the park for families, especially during our hot summer months. In total, there's $4.3 million currently in the TUR 9, which will become unrestricted. And of that, $2.3 millions will remain within district 5 for the improvements mentioned, while millions of dollars will be used to help balance the general fund, freeing up dollars and reducing our debt starting in the 2026 fiscal year. This strategic action would generate over $2 million annually for the general fund moving forward, dollars that were previously unrestricted or restricted. It's important to note that public improvement district number two will remain intact and will continue to fund the operations and the maintenance of the east side sports complex ensuring long-term sustainability of the site. There's over 2,200 homes that are located within the boundaries of Turstein. And this motion respects the original purpose of the zone, reinvest in the neighborhoods that fueled its success, and brings long-term public safety and financial benefits for the city as a whole. A vote in support of this motion is supporting public safety, needed infrastructure, quality of life. It's for our youth, our seniors, our veterans, and it's a vote for affordability. Thank you, councel. Representative Chavez. Thank you, Mayor. And I don't know if Robert wanted to say something because I saw you standing. Representative Nino covered everything for TERS 9 on TUR 10 right now. Currently, there's about $100,000 that's been built up in that fund as well in that zone over the last several years since it was created. Um those funds obviously have no intended purpose now that it's going to be dissolved. So within the ordinance you'll see that the remaining amount of funds within that zone are recommended in the ordinance to stay within projects identified in district one. Again property tax revenue that was generated in the zone in district one. And so we'll set up a project within district one to be used in future and um again no different than what you all do. Those projects would come forward to the city council in the future for approval. Thank thank you Robert. And and I was going to just reiterate that as well. The funds were generated by this zone were meant to be used for public infrastructure and to encourage private development. Um and so I um after meeting with you and with a few others um we were able to add language to this ordinance that that does just that that will bring um the the remaining balance to redistribute for those purposes within district 1. Um considering that the funds were generated by taxpayers in the district. So, thank you for your help and um I look forward to continuing working with you and other departments to see where these funds will best be allocated. Thank you. We have a motion. We have a motion and a second on item number uh 18 17. 17. Is there any further discussion on this item? All right. Hearing none. Seeing none, Miss Prime call for the vote. Yes, sir. The motion was made by Representative Nino, seconded by Mayor Prom Chavez to adopt the ordinances on items 17 and 18. On that motion, call for the vote and the voting session. And that motion passes unanimously. All right, let's take item number 19. Yes, sir. Item number 19 is a public hearing of an ordinance amending the 2025 proposed thoroughfare system as incorporated into plan El Paso to delete the extension of Nin Street from Frank Avenue to Lamesa. Delete the proposed collector connection from Horizon Boulevard to I 10 and downgrade Gomez Road from West Terminus to Upper Valley Road to Collector. Representative Chavez. Thank you, Mayor. And um I'm looking forward to hearing from Hain. I just want to say that um I have received numerous calls and emails from constituents that live on this street called Gomez Road. I even received uh videos of people racing up and down the street. The people that live in that area have long wanted some speed humps installed in that road. But because of the classification of the road, that was not possible. And so in conversations with Haqen and others, we discovered that um and he can speak more about this because he's he's the expert in this area, but we were able to change the classification of the road to install uh potentially these speed humps in that area and improve the safety and quality of life of the residents that live around there. So thank you so much for working with me on this and and if you want to say a few words. Thank you. Absolutely. So the ordinance before today and walk before you go uh represent Chavez, you want to make a motion to approve this motion to approve. Thank you, Mayor. W Rodriguez with the capital improvement department. Um the motion before you today is actually three changes to our major thoroughfare plan. One that Representative uh Chavez mentioned in her district. Um another in her district that supports development at the outlet mall area. Um and then a third one which is in the city's east side extr territorial jurisdiction. Um all of these are you know essentially routine amendments to uh allow development to take its natural course. In terms of the Gomez road application, uh Gomez is currently classified for this portion as a major arterial even though um it's fully developed around that road. Gomez does not currently serve a major arterial function and because of the existing development and just the the nature of the upper valley um it's unlikely that in the future it would ever be developed as a major arterial. Um it does carry a lot of traffic and it's built in a way that um really supports high speeds which we know um is not very desirable. So downgrading Gomez for this portion to a collector allows us to um do more traffic calming activities on that roadway. Um whereas a major arterial is restricted from some of those traffic calming activities, specifically speed humps. Um this actually just classifies Gomez Road as a collector. The the remainder of Gomez Road has already been classified as a collector. So this is just one portion that was kind of a hold out. Um a collector can still be a four-lane road if say 20 or 30 years from now that needs to happen. Um it's unlikely but um a collector can still carry the same amount of volume as a major arterial roadway just does so in a different fashion. Perfect. Representative Chavez. No, thank you. And um you know creating a safer environment for our constituents is obviously of high priority and thank you for your expertise and guidance on this. I consider this a very meaningful win for the people that live in that community. So and I look forward to to continuing this conversation. Thank you. Thank you. Any questions for walking? Okay. All right. We have a motion in a second. Seeing no further discussion, Miss Prime. Yes, sir. The motion was made by Mayor Pro Tim Chavez, seconded by alternate mayor prom. And this is to adopt the ordinance on item number 19. There's no public comment. And for the record, Representative Maldonado Rocha joined the meeting at 10:35 a.m. Voting session is open. Representative Maldonado. Hi. Thank you. And the voting session. And that motion passes unanimously. Let's take item number 20. Yes, sir. Item 20 is discussion and action on a resolution authorizing the expenditure of district 7 discretionary funds and an amount not to exceed $1,000 to supplement the cost of a mural commission by the mission trail association to be located on Nester Valencia transfer center. This expenditure will serve the municipal purpose of fostering community pride and enhancing the quality of life of the citizens of El Paso through the development of fine arts and cultural properties and by encouraging the implementation of art in the architecture of municipal structures. This item was submitted by Representative Lemon. Representative Lemon. Thank you, Mayor. This is uh probably well it is the largest expenditure of district 7 discretionary funds um for this year. Um, this is a great opportunity to feature a local artist, a young man, um, who was a a student and a teacher at Isleta High School. Um, Robert Dosal. The Nestra Valencia Training Center, transfer center has a a nice location on it. This mural will be visible on Alameda. It's almost caddyy corner to the Isleta Mission, uh, Saragoa and Alamemeda. And I think it's going to be a great, beautiful site for that community. And so like to make a motion that we approve item number 20, please. Second. We have a motion and a second to approve item number 20. Is there any further discussion on this item? All right, Mr. Bryan. Hearing none, seeing none, please call for the vote. Yes. The motion was made by Representative Tulimon, seconded by alternate mayor prompo to approve item 20. On that motion, call for the vote. in the voting session and that motion passes unanimously. Let's take item 21. Yes, sir. Item 21 is discussion and action directing the city manager and city attorney to coordinate with the city of Sunland Park, New Mexico to draft a memorandum of understanding and presented to council within 60 days establishing procedures for the mutual exchange of development and public safety related information for coordinated communication along the shared Texas New Mexico boundary border to actively manage growth and maintain transparency for both communities. This item was submitted by Mayor Prom Chavez. Representative Chavez. Thank you. Uh motion to approve. Second. Okay. Thank you. Uh today I'm bringing forward an item I believe is essential for improving communication and coordination between the city of El Paso and our neighbors in the city of Sunland Park, New Mexico. As you might know, District 1 shares approximately 10 miles of border with the city of Sunland Park. That means that whatever happens on one side of the state line can and often does directly impact the quality of life and safety on the other. The purpose of developing a memorandum of understanding is about establishing a proactive and collaborative partnership with our neighbors in New Mexico rather than a reactive one as has been the case in just in the last 6 months that I have been in office. The goals for thisou include open and formalized lines of communication between the two municipalities. Ensure that we are notified in a timely manner about new business permits, zoning changes or developments along our shared border. uh promote a collaborative and public safety infrastructure and development issues and foster joint problem solving and planning where both communities are impacted. In the last six months um that I have been in office, I have been in several um in-person meetings and communication with the city of Sland Park. I think a total of around five times there have been instances in which development happening in the city of Sen Park have had a direct impact on the lives of my constituents and the city of El Paso. Um whatever the city of Sen Park decides to do in terms of their infrastructure um directly impacts not only the safety and quality of life of the constituents in District 1, but also our traffic flow. It impacts our roads. Um, and so there was an instance just recently where they were planning to open a dispensary and I sent a letter of opposition because of uh the need for an increase in safety in that area for the residents that live in district 1. I had met with chief pas regarding uh what the impact would potentially be for opening this dispens dispensary so close to uh the Texas border. So, this is an opportunity for collaboration, for communication. Um, like I mentioned, it's it's an opportunity for us not to just react to a decision that they're going to make, but rather to uh open the dialogue of communication between both municipalities. Um, for them to be able to offer us information uh in a timely manner so that we can um you know, be a part of that. um and understand exactly what developments they're going to be doing both residential and commercial that could impact uh district 1. I know that there is also um a community on Fonta Road which during my campaign uh spoke a lot about a development that was happening just down the street from them. Many of the streets in the valley are not or have not been designed to, you know, tolerate that big traffic flow that could arise from those developments. And so these are conversations that are um continuously occurring in my district and that is why we want to just have thisou in place so that we can collaborate with the city of Southernland Park and be more proactive about things that happen on both sides. I think that's very good. Um Representative Asavetto, so I I've seen you um working on this issue for the whole time you've been in office basically. Uh, I I just have a just more I I understand where where you're going with this and I'm wondering more just on the legal aspect, Miss Neman. How does this work? Cuz it's it's a different, you know, government entity, but also it's a different state. So, has this been done before? How? Just some historical knowledge on it. Good morning, Carla. Neman for the record. Yes, the city has the ability to enter into either memorandums of understanding or interlocal agreements under state law with other government entities. Um, traditionally that is done if we're produ we're providing services to the other entity. In this instance, it's not that type of agreement. It'll simply be an agreement that we will notify one another of upcoming development so that both cities can evaluate the impact that one will have on the other and coordinate for whatever need there is in terms of infrastructure etc. Yeah. And I I totally get you know I think there's been a lot of economic development in Sen Park and I think it's been really great for them and the the money that they're they're generating there. So I I also understand the balance of the residential with the business aspect and economic development. So I just want to make sure that we're not completely interfering with with this and it's really just information exchange as far as public safety. Is there issues around public safety or what what role does that play into this? That's where I'll defer to Miss Mac for those questions. Okay. So, we initially came into a discussion when there was an establishment that was going to be created that sat in Sunland Park, but the parking lot was in El Paso. So, we would have been responsible for managing any activity within the parking lot. And so, that really spurred us to really talk about, you know, how can we make sure we're cooperating together? How can we make sure we're having these discussions and really understanding the impact on both sides? You know, it really isn't getting into, you know, the details of laws, but really thinking about the impacts that it has on the neighboring community. Um, which really sits very close to the businesses that are being established. Okay. And if this moves forward today, I guess I I want to have a better understanding in 60 days on what kind of data and information is going to be shared because I I think by that point you'll have that understanding more under wraps, right? and that that'll help me in two months. I appreciate it, Representative Chavez. Thank you, Mayor. And I do want to clarify that um this would in no way interfere with any city ordinance that we have in place. Um we would always abide by whatever city ordinances already exist and whatever laws we have in place here. Um again this is just a mutual exchange of information so that we take a more proactive instead of a reactive approach when um any type of development is going to occur you know along district 1 in our shared border. Um this has never been done before but frankly you know it's something that that is very uh much needed. um council and leadership from the city of Sunland Park have been, you know, very collaborative so far and we've had very open and meaningful discussions and I just want to continue on that path but in in a more structured way with the support of uh Miss Neman, Miss Mack and others at their city as well so that we can really collaborate and and and be um transparent in in what we're planning to do. Very good. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Mack and Miss Neman for your guidance. Thank you, Representative Chavez, for putting this on there. Any further discussion on this item. All right, Miss Prime, call for the vote. Yes, sir. The motion was made by Mayor Prom Chavez, seconded by Representative Lemon to approve the action on item 21. On that motion, call for the vote and the voting session. And that motion passes unanimously. Let's take item 22, which is representative Canales's item. Yes, sir. Item 22 is discussion and action to approve a resolution that the city council declares the expenditure of district 8 discretionary funds in an amount not to exceed $10,000 for cost related to stage rental audiovisisual equipment entertainment. Hiring of offduty law enforcement officers or private security officers barrier rental for vehicle pedestrian control. permitting fees and/or portable restroom rental related to the holding of the Seagundo Bario Community Block Party by the Southside Neighborhood Association, which serves a municipal purpose of fostering community pride, encouraging civic engagement, and celebrating the heritage and culture of one of the oldest neighborhoods in El Paso's history. Move to approve. Second. I was going to ask you first. No no no no. Yes, I agree with Representative Fier. No, I was just going to ask if anybody's from this officer was going to speak on it, but there's already a motion second. Okay. All right. So, yeah, I know Representative Canales is not here, but I know how important this is to his district and this this party that will occur. And I understand it's a it's a big celebration for his area. So, um I know if he was here, he would tell you a little bit more about the the event, but I think it's something that's important for that neighborhood and something we should strongly consider um supporting. Representative Canales. So, there's a motion in a second. Is there any further discussion on this item? All right, Miss Brian. Hearing nine, would you please call for this vote? Yes, sir. The motion was made by Representative Lemon, seconded by Representative Maldonado Rocha to approve item 22. On that motion, call for the vote and the voting session. And that motion passes unanimously. Very good. Let's take item number 23. Yes sir. The final item is number 23 and this is discussion and action on the request that the director of purchasing and strategic sourcing be authorized to issue purchase orders for solicitation 2025-0485 sports officials to Georgiaia DBA Paso USSSA for an estimated amount of 3,27,222. This contract will provide services for for sports officials and assigners for city sponsored softball leagues. Mayor, this is a local vendor. Move to approve. Second. There's a motion in a second. You guys want to step up and say anything? You're good. Okay, we have a motion and a second to approve item number 23. Is there any further discussion? All right, Miss Bryan, please call for the vote. Yes, sir. The motion was made by Representative Lemon, seconded by Representative Nino to approve item 23. On that motion, call for the vote and the voting session. And that motion passes unanimously. Representative Pierro not present. That brings us to the end of this agenda. Mayor, yeah, there's a motion. There's a motion and a second to adjourn the regular city council meeting. All of in favor? Anyone opposed? And the regular city council meeting for Tuesday, July 8th, 2025 is adjourned at 10:49 a.m. All right, Miss Prime, let's uh move into the next work session. The continuation special meeting. Special meeting. Yes, sir. Good morning. This is a special meeting of the El Paso City Council for Tuesday, July 8th, 2025. It is 10:49 a.m. Mayor Johnson is present and presiding in council chambers along with Mayor Prom Chavez, Representative Asdo, Representative Maldonado Rocha, Representative Nino, Representative Lemon, Representatives Strejo, and Canales have requested to be excused from this morning's meeting. Item number one is for presentation and discussion. The FY2025 2026 budget as presented by the city manager. And we continue with the department municipal court presentations with municipal court miss Annabel Casas. Good morning. My glasses cuz I need a little ice. Good morning Annabel Cases municipal court uh director and happy to kick off the second day of our budget presentations. Um and also the other half our mayor um Mario de Gustino's public safety team. So what do we do? We hold ourselves responsible and are held responsible by the citizens of this community to provide what we do day in day out with dignity with impartiality, equity, courtesy and efficiency. What you've seen through yesterday's presentations is an increase in salaries which is again to retain our talent. And what you see here is also on the variances is a decrease in restricted security and technology funds. And again that's due to uh our case filing. So it's just matching what is coming into our court. What you see on our general fund and not general is just an adjustment to uh not having amnesty this year. So it's just kind of reverting back to where normal is. Um on positions we're really good at maintaining and and really uh recruiting and and keeping our talent. Um so we only have right now uh one actually one uh intern that we had part-time. Uh we completed a grant successfully from the El Paso Bar Foundation. Texas Bar, I'm sorry, the Texas Bar Foundation. And um we have um that that pretty much our team is intact. Next slide. Where's the Where's the Oh, sorry. Thank you. Some of the highlights that we have um for this year are to expand our virtual assistants. Uh we started with a lens uh project um actually that we added a virtual assistant meaning kind of like what you see um in our uh banking uh that you can talk to somebody and this is actually talking to our downtown office which is our busiest one. Uh we started our with our west uh west office bond station um with this um project and now we're adding to the additional uh bond stations even to the newest one which is on the upper east side. Um also we're adding an enhanced texting uh texting program to ease the case of resolution. So less clicks more what you can do with your phone. We learned that a lot with our amnesty what is working for our community and not and what we still need to look forward to get some feedback to know what to do better. Um, one of the other areas that we wanted to improve on is connecting with our community. Uh, by reaching out, having a person reach out. I know we use the phones a lot, but our community and being there as long as I have. Uh, you want a human sometimes to remind you that you have, um, something pending. We all forget, and I know I've had family members who've had a parking ticket, parking ticket, they forgot. Very windy days have caused that that issue. So what we want to do is try to uh reach out to the community and case manage the cases meeting before they get to an enforcement before they get to anything that might may impact the individual. So we're working actually in creating efficiencies within the department to add that and give time to our team uh to do it calmly and respectfully with our community. Um also we want to reach out to all of you going to the community and really get to know municipal court. That's something that um also we we've noticed that we haven't done and we need to be better at. So, we are going to be reaching out to all of you. So, you'll be seeing more of us and hopefully have more time to get to all of you and get to know my team as well. Um we're also working on a parking um self schedule. You can do it yourself. It's one of our uh the tickets that actually you can control yourself and it it's has a faster timeline. So, we want to be able to give you that flexibility flexibility to actually schedule yourself. Um, of course, if anybody needs any help, they don't have to do that, but they can always reach out to us. Uh, one of the major uh, cleanups that we're doing is also the web page. It has a tremendous amount of information, but a lot of legal jargon that we really need to clean up to make it a little easier to navigate and also use the page with maybe new innovation after a cleanup to actually be able um, um, to go forward with that. I'm sorry, I just clicked on it. Um some of the key the key performances that we have uh key performance indicators is the percent of court payments received um through the web. This is through going to our web page and making payments. Um our target for this year is 70%. U we usually reach our targets. Um the community is always communicating with us, showing up or calling us. Uh but that this is very useful. So right now we're at 67%. Um the total online options of what um someone can do when there are actually the options to request are the payment plans as you see the as driver safety course uh or emailed attorney uh motions and on an average I know this is something that I've seen as important as and and is very important to us as customer service is the average of calls answered. um we usually are hitting our targets and this is in combination of we have three cues call cues that is uh our general line our warrants which is 247 and our also our payment plan so we combine those to determine this number so I think maybe next year we'll go to 100 because we're already at 98 our team is really fast at responding to those calls transferring calls uh we also have and I didn't put in here we have our our uh chat where somebody can reach out and ask a question and if it's not uh actually uh 247 um can assist. It'll be the next uh business day. I can take any questions. Very good presentation. Any questions? All right. We look forward to you reaching out to our offices. Thank you. All right. Thank you. And I'd like to uh actually introduce Mr. Steve Alvado. Uh code enforcement. Okay. Thank you. Sorry about that. Good morning, Mayor Council. Steve Alvarado for the record, code enforcement director with the newly created code enforcement department, which will go live September 1st, 2025. What we do, more so who we are, uh creating a partnership with our community to enhance the quality of life for all El Paso residents, businesses, and visitors uh by promptly addressing public nuisances, health, safety, and property maintenance issues within the city. As you can see, we have no variance because we're going to be starting the department once the budget is approved of September 1st, 2025. We look forward to it. It's an exciting opportunity. Uh new challenges, but more so new opportunities to overcome these challenges. So, what's going to consist of this consolidation plan? We're going to consolidate eight different enforcement sections which are housed currently which were housed currently in five different city departments. Um so we're going to bring it to create one code enforcement department for the city of El Paso which will be the first. Um we're going from 46 team members from the previous El Paso Police Department code enforcement bureau to 140 team members once we consolidate everybody. Uh those section those sections will include nuisance abatement, property maintenance and zoning, fire code inspections, also vehicle for hire, food safety, parking enforcement, recycling vector, and that'll include everybody within this department that we're creating. Oops, did I skip one? Let's see here. We go that. So we're going to focus on customer deliverables. Uh we're crossraining team members currently and we'll continue to cross trainin team members. So we provide a multiaceted function when we go out to a property. Instead of sending multiple inspectors, we're going to send one inspector that could handle multiple different issues within that property. It builds on the customer deliverables that we we promised to provide to our customers. Um the customer service which is highly anticipated to increase uh make our residents more happy, the complaintants more happy and resolve issues in a prompt efficient manner whenever possible. Uh we're taking or an adaptive enforcement model. Basically um one process doesn't fit all. that fits most of what we do within the city of El Paso, but code enforcement as we continue to evolve, we will continue to address issues and take on more challenges and uh look to overcome them. We'll work with our partners within the other departments who have been very receptive to this whole process and we continue to work on those internal and external relationships that we have within the city of El Paso. Like I said earlier, this is a development opportunity to provide service deliverables to every single person within the city of El Paso, both our other departments, all the residents, businesses, and visitors here. Um, with that, I'll open it up to any questions you may have. Representative Lemon. Thank you, Mayor Steve. I I'm not sure who thought about this process or who came up with this idea of putting all of these um departments within one. Who where did that come from? That that came from our our wonderful city manager, Miss Mack, who uh gave us the opportunity to create this. We've been in conversation uh for many for a long time and and it's actually coming to fruition and I'm excited. I think we're in a wonderful spot to provide services to the residents. I think that I just want to give a correction. So the team had actually been studying this with the concerns that we had had for many years. We were looking at a lot of our feedback surveys from the citizens and uh weed abatement and some code enforcement things were the least areas of satisfaction for our team. Um so um under previous administration we knew that we needed to move towards having our very first code enforcement director and that was Mr. Alberado and he was hired in uh and he uh fell under the police department for several years and then when I came into um uh uh leadership it was the opportunity to really bring all these together. We can't continue to just think that we can add additional positions. We've got to utilize the resources we have and make sure that we have the best opportunity to provide that to our community. And we also saw this as an opportunity for people to cross trainin and get different certifications. And I think that'll help them to stay with the city. And we saw we saw it as being a real big win-win. But really, I would not have been felt comfortable doing that had we not had the wonderful leadership of the Colorado. And you have one more slide, sir. I do. Oh, I'm sorry. Sorry. And let's see. Okay. Program based budgeting. I apologize. I thought I was done. Uh, so excited to get back to work. So, I was asked during a meeting which three departments were the most or which three enforcement sections were the most important within my department. And my response was they're all equally important, but we did have to highlight three of them. So, we have public nuisance enforcement, which is the previous El Paso Police Department code enforcement bureau. Uh, also food safety and facilities and property maintenance and zoning. Um, like I mentioned earlier, we're already starting the cross training process. Um, multiple teams are going out. We're learning about other people's responsibilities, what are violations, how can we address them while we're there instead of sending it to somebody else and, you know, not kicking the can down the road, if you will. But, uh, that is kind of where we're at and I'll open up to any further questions you may. Representative Lemon, would you like to finish? Yes. Thank you, Mayor. Well, congratulations. As I look at this, I can think of all the different constituent concerns that we receive that are really bulked into this one area right here. Um, Steve, I know that your projection is that you'll hit the target of 80% in 2026. I think it'll be a little bit of a start, but I wouldn't be surprised if you hit much higher than 80. I think that you're going to be very, very successful with this. you have a team that's going to be really focused on the key issues, the key concerns of our community. I think that you've only got one way to go and it's just straight up. And so I look forward to looking at this a year from now and and making some comparisons and and thank you thank you for sharing the leadership and guidance that we've needed in our office. I really appreciate the work that you do. Thank you, Representative. Truly appreciate it. Represent Fiero. Thank you, Mayor. Mr. Can you go over the timeline when when you plan to kick off? I I thought we had already started this, but you're saying you're not going to start this until uh September 1st. So, September 1st is the official date. Once the fiscal budget is approved, we will have the official department. We started March 31st. The team is already under my enforcement umbrella, under the enforcement umbrella, excuse me. Um, so we're already doing this and we're looking at opportunities to change, overcome challenges, and like me, city manager mentioned earlier, continue our cross functionality and train everybody so we know what to do when we're out there. Your team will also focus on bars, music, you'll have all the equipment to take those those um readings by then. Yes, sir. When we have the equipment now um as part of the adaptive enforcement efforts. So, you're doing it now? We are doing it now. Yeah. Including looking at uh residential venues that are being rented out as well and including the residential venues. That is correct. Yes, sir. Okay. The the swimming pools, the entertainment homes, the Okay. We are we are out there on the weekends doing this now and during the week as well. M I I don't know if you could um work with our offices like the police department does. They send us weekly updates on on where they visit, what the results were. Uh and and one more question for um Mr. of is how does the public know where do they call? Do they call 311? Is it do they call 911? How do they reach you? Excellent question, representative. So, we've completed the scripting with our 311 partners so they can report these residential, entertainment, and pool rental venues through 311. They'll ask the appropriate questions. We kept it simple. Four questions. That's all the information we need. and they have the opportunity as well as on the app to upload pictures, give us further informations that they may want to provide and that data would be through Mrs. Mack. You'll direct that office to share it with the the city reps. Yes, we'll formulate a report that can give you some highlights of what's been happening. Okay. It doesn't have to be weekly like the police the police has a really great report we get weekly, but we just need some I know our office I can't speak for everybody else, but our office needs some sort of communication on the followup. We'll do. Thank you. Thank you, M. May. Excellent question. Thank you, Rep. Yeah. Representative Chavez. Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Steve. I know that um we've been in close communication regarding uh pool rentals, which we also know are not permitted in the city of El Paso. Um and I know District 1 has has many pools. So, I appreciate um your just your your cooperation and information that you've given to me that I've been able to give to my constituents. Um, so the FTEES that you have, those are all coming from other departments. Correct. We we started with 46, which was the previous code enforcement bureau under the El Paso Police Department. All the other FTEEs are coming from other departments. Our only ask was for one more position in this next year's fiscal budget. Um, but 139 was the number that is existing within the city. Um but one more we're asking for to make it to a total of 140. Okay. And did all those come from fire or from? Uh eight positions will come from fire. Um 17 from vector, 17 from recycling, 46 from code enforcement. Um 12 from property maintenance and zoning. Uh 11 from parking enforcement, three from vehicle for hire. Um and I'm probably miss and 23 from uh food safety. And I appreciate you knowing your numbers. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Um, as a former restaurant owner, I have over 20 years experience of food safety. So, if I could ever assist you or help you, it would be my pleasure. Thank you. Appreciate it. Representative represented. Thank you, Mayor. Hi, Steve. It's always great to work with you. Morning. Good morning, sir. I was looking at your KPI and I'm kind of wondering what the methodology behind closing something uh a case that's closed. What what is a case closed look like for code enforcement? So there there's several things that that transpire that impact the ability to close a case. Um ultimately we want compliance. So, if we could get out there and speak with the the the homeowner, the resident, the business owner, whoever that person may or may not be, um explain the process, issue a notice of violation, and get it closed as promptly as quick as we can. Uh there are certain factors that impact that. um whether it may be some further legal action where we have to go on the property and get a warrant to abate a nuisance, things along that line, but a majority of them homeowners are coming into compliance uh is what what what we want ultimately. We want to build those relationships and continue to foster a you know sense of collaboration within our city. And and so I I ask you that because I think that District 2 has a ton of code enforcement issues and I probably annoy you with everything that we send in, right? And I could just start thinking of some properties where we are are sending out code enforcement and then they're continuing to go out or we just can't find a resolution. Right. and and I think about those properties often and I don't think it's your fault at all, right? I think there's there's complex issues that that arise whether it's the state property rights in Texas, which is something that I tell my con constituents very often, right, or just other issues where we can't find that resolution. And I I really want to have a better understanding of of how we can track those cases cuz I think there's some that are very easy like clean up your weeds, right? But then there's other egregious situations that that you know what I'm talking about around my district on how that has happened. And then I I also think another part to it where I want to have more of an understanding on being strategic on sending it to the board that can say we're condemning the house and then now we could go in. I think we need to start really capitalizing on that where we can send it to our board. It's sanctioned by the state and then we start moving on it. I I'd really like to see that more in this year, especially now that you're going to be on on your own as as your own department, which I'm excited about. It seems like you're very excited about. So, if we could start getting more into a process, I would appreciate that. And and I think the the other aspect to this is that a lot of what we are sending into the CR process is also getting lost in translation. And I I've been very critical of the CR process for for a while now. And and I think what ends up happening on our end is that we just get told that we're in an endless queue and then we see you in the hallway or we have you in a meeting and you're like, "Oh yeah, let me let me get on that. Um I didn't realize that that was happening or and you're extremely responsive, right?" And so I I think we need better better systems and processes in place. If we're going to use the CR system, it needs to work because it's disastrous. It has some of the worst customer service in in the city. Um it it it's just been a really awful experience. And then at at the end, we still don't find that resolution, right? And so, um, it it just feels that we send it into the CR, this weird cue that I'm assuming the queue is, let me send it out to all the DCMS and all the directors and then we'll wait for somebody to respond. If they respond, they respond. But then now we sent in another 10 issues into the CR system and then we forgot about the one that we sent last week, right? So, something needs to change and and your your department is going to be really critical, but if we could have more of that communication or something, we we need to figure that out. And I don't think it's any of your fault. It's how the system is is functioning or not functioning at the city. Certainly, thank you. And uh part one part of it is just creating the department. That's our first step. Um we're also looking at uh cross functional teams across the city. How how do we resolve issues in a timely manner? To other departments, I would like to apologize in advance because I'm going to be calling y'all. Uh we're going to be setting up meetings and and we're going to be looking to resolve issues. It's not just code enforcement that I work for. I work for the city of El Paso, which is multiple departments. So, um I wear many hats. I'm an expert in some areas, not an expert in all, but we'll continue to build, develop, and look at bottlenecks and address those bottlenecks and see what's the best plan of action moving forward. Great. Represent Nino. Thank you, mayor, and thank you, Mr. Alvarado, for always also the consistent communication that you have with my office. One of the things I wanted to ask you when it comes to the program based budgeting pilot, um, are you also taking into account campaigns or educational campaigns for the community? The reason I'm asking is because I know that we've had a lot of challenges in District 5 when it comes to weeds and and, you know, unkempt double frontage homes. And I know I've mentioned that with you know, Miss Mack and yourself as well. And I just want to ensure that, you know, we brainstorm of how we're communicating that to the community. A lot of my constituents often times may not know or understand that it is the responsibility. Perhaps even navigating um I'm seeing here that, you know, we have an environmental fee fund that we will be getting some of the cost right from. Um perhaps having communication with like El Paso Water, probably putting an insert in there of what, you know, the responsibility of being a property owner is. Um I definitely think that would help us. you know, we've constantly visited that, you know, the community and El Paso see their government and works as on their way home, on their way to school. So, I really want to see how we can navigate that conversation even further because I know that there's challenges when it comes to, you know, property rights and having to go through the court system to clean up different double frontage homes and it's been a challenge for my district. So, I really want to ensure that we are able to figure out what we could do in the development of this new uh pilot program. Certainly, we'll we'll continue to work on that. And we do have current outreach programs that we reached out to the community. Um about a year and a half ago, we created a a door hanger basically talking about double frontages. A lot of people aren't aware that they're responsible for the property behind their property if there's a major street there. Um so we have it both in English and Spanish and we do sweeps all the time, but the community outreach, whatever else we can do, maybe PSAs or something along that line would help as well. Um but we'll we'll look to develop that further. See, we're excited to see how this consolidation works. I think it's going to work out better. Um, one of the things when I was uh campaigning is when there's a car parked on the sidewalk and they, you know, a lot oftentimes they didn't know how to get a hold of you guys. They would call 911. You know, they there's a car parked on the sidewalk. So, I'm glad you that representative VO asked you how do they get a hold of you, which is good. So, we're excited to see what happens in a year. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. But congratulations. Thanks sir. Thank you, council. Good. Thank you. You got an introduction. Uh the next department, I'm not sure who it is. I apologize. It is Rodriguez with Capital Improvement. And Gilbert Guerrera. Good morning. Good morning. Council Rodriguez, grant funded program director with the capital improvements department. Um, kicking off Iet Hannernandez's uh, I'd like to affectionately refer to us as the public works department, but it's not really catching on quite yet. So, as you all know, the capital improvements department uh, we provide project management services for city staff and other city departments. Uh, essentially focusing on constructing capital assets for residents and visitors to El Paso uh, in pursuit of high quality of life uh, health, safety, and welfare. So, as far as budget variances, you'll see a large outflow from the capital improvement department this year, uh, $874,000. Really, what that is, uh, is the transfer out of our urban planning and design team, uh, into a non-EP departmental, uh, staff. We also have one FTE transferring out into strategic and legislative affairs to focus on, uh, grant work, grant work within that department. Next slide, please. So, our highlights and initiatives for this upcoming year um of the eight remaining 2012 quality of life projects, we are focusing on closing that uh that bond out. So, four projects will start this year. Um projecting to start those projects sometime this month. Those are mainly trail projects. It can you go full screen please? Um, we're also focusing on the 2019 uh public safety bond. So, we currently have 10 projects in design and expect to have uh or we do have six currently under construction um with more coming under construction later this year after design. Um, we're also focusing on community progress bond. Get it? Uh, as you all know, the 2022 community progress bond included three signature roadway projects. That's the Wrestler uh airway and Montwood extensions. Both of all three of those projects are currently under design. Montwood is nearing 100%. Our focus right now is rightway acquisition. Um, Wrestler and Airway are nearing 60%. On the federal side of the house, we are focusing on uh submitting to the RMS 2052 call for projects. That's our next uh 30-year plan for federally funded projects in our area. We've also focused on establishing a sustainable funding source for our grant match um using the Sib loans. Um you know, with council's leadership, we were able to identify that earlier this year. Um and then on the transportation planning side of the house, which lives within our federally funded group, um we're focusing on implementing complete streets into all of our roadway projects by adopting uh updated design standards and design methodologies. Um and then finally on vision zero um we're really looking towards implementing in this next fiscal year a formal vision zero project uh project program something similar to what our NTMP looks like today but for the $750,000 a year that council allocates to vision zero projects. Um so those are our highlights for this year. Happy to answer any questions. Um Gilbert Getto with the capital improvement department is also here um if we need any backup on that. Okay. Representative Chavez. Thank you, mayor, and thank you, Hain. Um, I'm glad you mentioned Wrestler because it's, you know, the biggest project I think currently in District 1, but I do have 17 active projects, and I want to thank the team for always keeping me updated on all of those uh projects. I um have a question for you, Quake. I don't see anything in the presentation regarding the upper deck. Is there anything in our budget for next fiscal year for the upper deck? So the the deck plaza right now we've identified um non-traditional funding sources for that things like the TED fund, the tourist fund. Um our focus right now um is to work on building those partnerships with both other uh entities and philanthropy um to execute that. Um as you know the downtown tourists board allocated uh $1 million towards grant match. um we plan to present to them, I think in their upcoming meeting this month, um to sort of remind them of that commitment. Um we've also worked closely with some of our state and federal legislators to draw down some state and federal funding to support design of the project. Um I think right now our our approach is to really take it one piece at a time and right now the priority is uh on design working with Tex to um use their consultants to get us there while at the same time building a broader understanding of what a funding scenario looks like in the future. I just want to add that we have no line item that is attached to deck plaza in the budget. We have publicly had the conversation regarding the $1 million for design that's coming through TUR 5. Our process right now will mean that the design process will take at least 14 months and so the discussions and conversations among council will not happen before October or so of next year. So it is not in this budget in any way and the action to even uh allocate the 1 million will still come back to council along with the advanced funding agreements that will allow us to move into design. So those are the only things you will probably see most recently moving forward. It's not in this budget. Okay. So there is nothing in the next fiscal year's budget regarding the upper deck. Correct. Except we time and labor. Thank you. And again, thank you for all your help with the 17 active projects in district 1, especially the rest of connect. I appreciate it. Represent Nino. Thank you, mayor, and thank you for your leadership and all your help as well. I know that I constantly follow up on the Mongwood project. Um, one quick question for you. In 2022, council, uh, and this is also for Miss Mack, maybe she could give me some guidance on it. In 2022, council did um approve an item directing the city manager to work on a traffic mitigation study for the east side. I know that we briefly mentioned on that. Have we kind of figured out what the future of that holds? And I know that you briefly mentioned about possibly navigating it into the NTP plan. Correct. Correct. Um we're currently working on finalizing what those submissions are. Um I think that one project we will submit for uh service transportation funds is an expanded eastside congestion study. Um we had worked in the past with um Jose Andos at the county um and Marty Boyd at Texot to get their uh buy in on a project like that. um because of the you know the the scope of that project is going to include a lot of county uh development, county roadways and state roadways. So to to develop a clear understanding, we need to have buyin from all of those entities. Um there are some sort of obvious projects that would help address that. Um so another thing that um you'll see when we um you know follow up with you all on those 2052 projects are a number of traffic circles and roundabouts within your district to help address that congestion. Um you know we really tailor our solutions to to the context of a given district, right? You'll see a lot of traffic calming and more pedestrian uh friendly type projects within our urban core. So district uh 8 and three and then out in the more vehicle oriented development areas you'll see strategies to really improve congestion and facilitate vehicle movement. So right now we've identified a few corridors where we think that roundabouts will will be really effective. No, thank you for that. And I think overall, you know, kind of what you mentioned, all the projects are happening, the Mwood extension, John Hayes extension, um the Monwood Express, the Montana Expressway. I want to ensure that if we get to working on that traffic study, it takes into account that that's also going to help the traffic mitigation that we communicate that effectively. So, thank you for that. Absolutely. Representative Lemon. Thank you, Mayor Hain. You have this huge plate on your lap of all these projects that you oversee. Um, as one or two or more are completed, will you look at district 7 to find at least one project that we could do with upcoming money and upcoming budget throughout the year? I think that many times some of the districts are neglected when you think of such limited projects that are available. Um, so I would just ask keep us all in mind, bring some equity into the project so we can put together a first sort of a history of funding that's been invested in on the transportation side in district 7. Um, I can tell you in that 2052 call for projects, there are a number of projects um in district 7 as well. Um, our focus in the past years has really been um, you know, within district 7 on expansion of the Basel Norte trail system. Um, we also through federal funds executed a lot of bridge projects in district 7, u, bridge replacement projects. Um, I know there've also been funding for, uh, some street reconstructions. Um, one of the big projects that we have been aggressively trying to fund for quite some time um, has been the great separation at Zadagosa and rail, which I believe is still district seven. Excuse me. uh Zadagosa and the Union Pacific Rail Facility there. Um that is a would be a huge project, huge investment um for that area, but it's incredibly expensive and we've been unsuccessful in securing federal funds for that so far. Um but absolutely not. And I'll reach out to your office um once we have a better understanding of that the 30-year project plan so we can brief you on what we're looking at for your district. You know, there's a there's a lot of logistic companies coming in on the east side and so many of them are building. They're not huge necessarily, but we've seen a lot of traffic congestion, espec specifically on John Longmire, where you've got these logistics companies using the road, but not just using it, but using it as um as a waiting station where we'll have 10 or 12 18-wheeler trucks on the road and yet it's supposed to be um a community. you know, people are supposed to be able to go through there. That to me is one of the biggest areas that I'm concerned about that maybe in a few weeks we could sit down and talk. Maybe you could help us try to figure out a resolution of how we can work as we build these uh or we do these infill projects and build these businesses, but also take into consideration the needs of the community. They're the residents there. So, we've been able to have at least one of these projects uh flow directly out onto John Logmire versus Sokoro, which was a big victory to the neighborhood. But now we're putting all of the traffic on another road, and we really need to think about it. Um maybe there's a waiting station, maybe there's something that we can do. um collaborate with the logistics firms to to really help them, help us, and help our citizens as well. Absolutely. Um one other thing I can share with you all, we received um it's been about two years since the award, a $900,000 award for a comprehensive countywide mobility plan that would give us the opportunity to really look in depth at some of the situations like you just mentioned and and develop solutions for that. Unfortunately, that's one of our federal grants that is sort of tied up in this uh you know period of inactivity from Federal Highway Administration. Um but as soon as you know that frees up that that mobility plan gives us the opportunity to spend time on public engagement, reaching out specifically to stakeholders um like the freight industry, the logistics industry um and start to figure out what sort of solutions we can come up with for with what sort of solutions we can come up for those issues. Um and that you know our our focus on the transportation planning side has been to sort of move away from the big ideas concept of planning and move towards specific projects, right? We everybody's got big ideas and and we can have all the big ideas we want, but if it doesn't guide our investments in the future, then they're not really that useful to us. Um, so we're hoping that that planning study will identify specific projects that we can then pursue federal funding for um that are going to have a meaningful impact on our our transportation system. Represent Basto. Thank you, Mayor. Um, hi Quain. I just had a question. You said you have eight remaining projects for will start construction this summer. I am wondering about the Sun City Sun City Lights project at Washington Park. I was under the impression that was going to happen last summer and I haven't really gotten an update on where we're at with that and when that's going to start. So, Sun City Lights isn't part of those eight. Those eight were specifically the 2012 quality of life. Um, Sun City Lights is a mixture of 2018 and 2019 capital improvement plan funding. Um, I know that that project is under design right now. There was some back and forth of whether we could design it all in-house or whether we needed uh consultants to do some of that work for us. I think we've settled on a combination of of the two of those things. Um, so some of the more artistic elements are going to be um designed inhouse through uh not in-house but in collaboration with vendors. Um and then we have contracted some professional services for um other elements of the project related to you know sidewalks and and irrigation and that sort of thing. I'll reach out to um Gilbert's team, our urban design manager is managing that um so I can have them reach out and give you an update specifically on that. There's sort of two elements to that, right? There's the the physical infrastructure piece that the city is leading. Um and then through the the working group with uh Raymond Tea and the group at the RMA, that sort of collaborative um Reynolds beautifification study that that they'd like to complete. Um we're working on what that agreement looks like between the city and the RMA and the other funding partners. Um and hope to bring that forward to council uh soon so that we can get that piece moving as well. Okay. So that'll probably happen in the next few months. the RMA piece in the next few months and then um I would expect design and maybe Gilbert can jump in on the Washington Park piece to wrap up within the next few months as well, but probably not go out to procurement or construction until maybe spring of next year. Okay. Okay. Yeah, I'd appreciate a follow-up. Thank you. Okay. Any other questions for Walking? Walking. Thank you. You want to introduce anyone? talking. Okay. Um, next up is Randolph Garcia with Streets and Maintenance. Thank you. Good morning, Mayor Council. Good morning. I'm Randy Garcia, streets and maintenance director. I'm here to present our budget profile. So, if you look at Streets and Maintenance, we are one of the larger departments. We have over hund00 million budget, over 440 employees. with that uh resources that you are given to us, we utilize it to do maintenance activities on our fleet, our facilities, our street infrastructure, our traffic infrastructure, and our illumination. So, when you look at the highlights for our budget this year, one of the big key things that we've received is a $250,000 additional money for our striping program. This will enable us to roll out a four-year continuous program to restripe our arterial roads. That will be very beneficial to us because that is a big public safety issue that we have seen throughout the years. Additionally, we are looking at uh the $10 million that we get for roadway resurfacing. That is the key element, the key resource that we use to maintain the pavement throughout the city of El Paso. Finally, we have the $ 1.5 million for rideaway safety. That's to align ourselves with the city's uh safe roads u vision zero and intersection safety programs that helps us to bring those traffic elements that wim brought to the table to actually bring them out as actual wheel installations that you guys see in the streets within your districts. Finally, being a pilot uh program based uh budgeting pilot program department, we look to really want to quantify the resources resources you are giving us and give you guys actual um KPIs that you guys can go ahead and measure for us and determine how well we are utilizing the resources that are being provided to us. So, one of the first ones we look at is our fleet management group. We're responsible to roll out over 75% of the mark PD units and 85% of the ESD ASL trash refuge loaders each and every day. So, we have to make sure that those key um units are out there on the streets performing services for the city of El Paso and the citizens. The next one we want to look at is illumination program. We've had lots of complaints about roadway lighting, safety, uh street lights being out for long periods of time. So we want to focus this year on bringing that number down for approximately 28 days to respond, repair or maintain a roadway illumination to about 21 days. So we really want to actively be really proactive on utilizing that budget to make sure we can bring in quantifi quantifiable results to you guys. Finally, I just want to highlight again the signs and markings program. I can't emphasize how much so little money, a4 million dollars, how far it can go to establishing a continual program that will help the citizens of El Paso and making sure we are keeping those roadways safe. With that, you guys, I'll open up for questions now. Represent Lemon, Miss Mack, is this the largest department in the city or is this number two? [Music] No four. You might be five. Five. Police fire metro Sun Metro. Sun Metro, ESD, emergency services. Really? Um, I I I had a chance when we met with Randy to look at the organization chart. It is huge and everything that you cover is just amazing and all I could think of was how in the world are you able to manage each and every single one of those uh departments that are out there. I am really very very pleased with all that we have seen as any kind of a concern any kind of an issue that we have encountered. Um, we appreciate and and and you know, I see like some of these timelines when you start talking about or like the goals, the days to complete a street light repair or replacement. Randy, there's no secret that we are dealing with constituent concerns with issues that are two and three years old. Um, I don't know what happened. they just slip through the side. But, you know, to to look at the at the email thread that we receive that things that have been going on for such a long long time, it's really demoralizing because, you know, people deserve to get an answer and then to get an answer of yes, it's going to be done or even we can't do it or it can't be done or whatever it is. But constituents need to get a response one way or the other. And so I'm looking at this where it went from 2023 of 61 days for the completion of a street light to repair. And our goal, your goal is going to be for 22 days. Um it gives me renewed hope when we respond to constituents that yeah, maybe we've been backlogged, but it's coming. It really is coming. My staff is very diligent, very diligent about reaching back out. We don't allow two weeks to go by without having some kind of a response. We just don't do it. I mean, it's easy to say, "Well, it's gone through 311. Good luck. Thank you very much." No. When they call our office, they want us to do something about it. And so we follow the process whether it's a 311, a CR, whatever it is, but on a two-w weekek basis, we're back and we're responding to the constituent. If we haven't heard from the department, then we will, you know, reach back out, hey, can we get an update on this? And it's only by reaching back out to the constituents that they feel like their voices are heard, that we're in tune to the needs of our community. And most important because this is our community. This is our home. This is our street. This is our sidewalk. And so I I really appreciate your helping us to make sure that we get that information back. Campaign mode, like the mayor said earlier, the lane striping. To me, that's one of the biggest things in our district. We have no idea what lane we're traveling on and it's only because we live in that area that we more or less know where it is. There are some really key areas that that in the evening going down Springwood from Yarro to Sumac, it's good luck because there are no stripes on that street and you're going down a hill. So that has been a real key focus of mine trying to look at it. When when I look at the streets, if I'm traveling down Yarro and I'm turning left onto Alamemeda, there are really two lanes for turning left, but only one lane has a designated signal. The other one doesn't have it. And so you have traffic that's there that many times doesn't know, am I turning? Do I go straight? Which way is it? And it's those little little things that promote good safety measures on our roads and that you all are able to look at very very quickly and help us identify them. Um give us a good response and then we're able to to res to respond. So, you've got a huge huge in my eyes huge department and I thank you for what you're doing and keep focused on that and let's continue uh number one to increase the lane markings and number two to decrease the amount of time of repair for our for lights. I appreciate that. Thank you, Randy. We will work on it. And you know, it was great working with your staff, having them come over to our department and understand to see our process. I want to give a shout out to my boss, Miss Hernandez, who really worked with us on making sure that we have established responses so we're not just letting those CRs that come into our office just hang out there. Thank you, represent. Thank you, Mayor. Uh, hey, Randy. Always good to talk to you. I I really like this KPI on the the street light repair and really kind of seeing that progress with the number of days going down. I know that this is one of the the biggest things that we we send into the CR system and the they're the most passive aggressive about these street lights telling us about this famous Q that we don't none of us know what the Q is at all other than a textbook definition. Right. I I know that when you gave us this um presentation, the the longer presentation, you had said that you were going to start measuring the number of miles paved, I believe, or you were looking at doing a a different way of looking at how many streets have been paved. So, right now, the number you guys got previously for the paved was the number of streets, and we're going now to the centerline miles. So, if you look at it, um, excuse me. So, 2025 for some of the bond money you look at, we've already done about 12 and a half, uh, centerline miles of paved roads. Um, typically we've done about 24 miles the past couple years. So we do expect to at least get get to that point, but we are switching from centerline miles which is a uh indic indicative of the distance and not just the number of streets because the number of streets could have multiple segments within that street that would kind of mislead you because if we said I did 20 uh 20 streets and it's a long road um say like Alabama that has different sections that are broken up, you know, it wouldn't be indicative of us saying we did four or five miles of of center line miles of one road. So, and and that makes sense and and I'm very supportive of of changing the measurement toward that. I'm just kind of wondering why you didn't make that a KPI. Oh, uh with our so our KPI for resurfacing is we tal you know we've talked about the bond money and getting additional funding and having our POG money. So, what we're trying to do this year uh to focus on is to catch up on some of the spending that we've had on the bond money. We went to a little bit of a low in 23 going into 24. We want to catch up. So our goal is to to catch up about over 60% of those roads that we weren't able to do in 23 and 24. So we really want to really make sure that for all that bond money that we have that we're spending it all that our spend down rate is is going up and we're spending that money and it's just not sitting there. So that is our KPI for this year. Okay. So we would look like hopefully 60% would be about 14 uh sunlight miles give or take. That makes sense. Okay. that. Thanks for the the extra context on that. I overall on on streets, this is honestly what keeps me up at night the most cuz we need to figure this out. The status quo on how much money we're putting in every year really really needs to change. And we we need to see how we get to the $45 billion. I know that there's been the street maintenance fee for I I forget what it was being called like are we not going to look at that? I I don't know if I'm honestly if I'm supportive of that, but I I feel that this is the number one thing that people I see them in the community and they're like, "My street hasn't been paved in 50 years, right? We've all heard the stories." And so to really just remain at this status quo is really concerning to me and we really need to figure this out. I don't know if you have something to say, Miss Mac. Yes, we've been uh talking about uh allowing council to take a deep dive into understanding what that process will look like. Um we are preparing to set those meetings with you all to help you to understand that. I made the decision to kind of get us through budget a little bit before we sort of made that dive. uh knowing that that process, whatever you choose to do, will take quite a bit of outreach. And I think it'll take our focused effort on that, but the the presentation is ready to go. We're ready to to dig in to understand what those levels might be, to understand what the impacts might be. Randy has done a really good job of helping us to understand what we might be able to do within a year. We're also looking at uh road conditions and other formulas that we wanted to be able to bring forward to you so we could say if we were to do this in one specific year, here are the types of things we will be able to talk about so that it's very plain for the community, but we're prepared to do that within the next 30 days or so. Okay. So, so would it be fair to say with the amount of outreach that you want to do other than speaking to us and giving us a full breakdown of everything, you want to go into the community? So, absolutely. you know, my my thought is, you know, that's a very important aspect as we saw in our um chime in surveys. It has been the highest priority and we saw this year it is really street maintenance. Um and so I I want to make sure that people clearly understand what that is. I think it's really important for us to help people to understand that historically we've been putting that on debt and that cost um that we're paying in debt would have gone so much further had we been able to just pay for it through a fee and been able to do much more. So I think the messaging is going to be really important and then understand the complexities of what those formulas look like. And so we just want to make sure you all can understand that first and then uh bring it to council and with the will of council if you wanted to have us go out and do that study. We think that's going to take several months. Okay. So would it be fair to say that you envision this kind of starting in the next fiscal year and then a year from now we're going to be talking about the results of the community outreach and breaking it all down and trying to implement it or would it be before the budget that you would want to implement it for fiscal year 27? I don't think that it has to align with our fiscal year and in some ways I think that the messaging should not be mixed with fiscal. I think that it's a lot that goes on with our budgets. I think this is kind of a standalone item that kind of deserves its own conversation. So my thinking was that we start that discussion in September if you all are comfortable by the beginning of the year. We're already sort of saying publicly, let's go ahead and do our roundings. And so really our public conversation doesn't sort of overlap and mix because I think it's so easy for people to look at the budget and you see these dollars and you think, well, why can't I use it for that purpose? And so I want to make sure that we think that through a little bit. But what we'll do is when we'll give you a timeline of what we think that roll out should look like when we meet with you individually and if you have some input in terms of what you think we should tweak um it'll be a good opportunity to do that. We don't believe that it should take a whole year of outreach. I think people forget about things and so I want to make sure that the timeline is tight enough for us to be able to do the outreach that's necessary, get the feedback that's necessary and then bring it back for adoption. And and I think overall where I'm kind of seeing this going if we do move forward with that or not. And let's say we do move forward with it. I also think that that's also another budget hit with with capacity, right? People capacity to be able to do this where I want to turn to my constituents and say, "Okay, now we are at $45 million a year. You're going to see your street paved." And then my constituents are going to say, "Am I really going to see it paved? do you have the capacity? So I think that's the biggest puzzle piece in all of this where it's like okay yeah we need the money but then now we need to execute. So that's the formula. So what you'll see us um bring forward to you is really understanding what the capacity is um in our city right now. We do believe if we had a program like this you would see businesses come to the city but understanding what our capacity is right now. Coupling that with some of the projects that we think are important from my perspective. We talk about street maintenance. You can't expect a a person in the community to say, "Oh, that's a resurfacing versus a reconstruction." Right? And so looking at how we look at reconstruction, look at resurfacing. How many of those can we do in one year? What you historically see for these type of programs is that it's very transparent in what you're going to do over the next year or year and a half is fully published for the community. And so we want to make sure that we're really clear on what that might look like for people. We don't want to overpromise. And then the fee structure will be dependent on what we believe our capacity will be. And so it really is about getting to a place where we're delivering. We're really understanding. You know, as you saw this year with with Randy and his strategy, we went out for bid before we're having a public conversation because we don't want to be in a situation with streets where we've made this promise and we've published our streets and then we're like, "Oh, we don't have a bidder." and then you're out there in your community meetings telling people that it's coming soon and then you know we we have some hiccup you know that happens and we're not delivering. So we want to get really clean about how we time our messaging around this. It is going to be a complex issue but I think it's going to be a worthwhile conversation for our community because I believe it's going to resolve a huge issue for us in the most um affordable and strategic way in terms of being able to deliver for the entire community. Thank you. Representative Chavez. Thank you, mayor. Hi Randy. Morning Repres. It has been a true pleasure to work with you, honestly. I mean, you have been so helpful since I took office, not only in educating me about, you know, uh how the city selects streets and um how we go about making changes to improve our infrastructure. So, infrastructure for district 1 was the number one priority according to the chimman survey. Um I know it was top three for other districts as well. So, I'm I'm listening to to my colleagues here, and I know that um we all understand that streets um have been a concern for many years for our constituents. Was there ever a time or have we always invested this much in our streets, Randy? Like, how did we get to where we are today? So, now I mean, we established the PGO funding, the $10 million we get annually about five five, six years ago, almost eight years ago. So, we didn't always have a dedicated funding stream for it. We were always going to bonds. I think 2012, we had some money that was given for us for resurfacing. So, it was always kind of a peace meal. And with the $10 million PGO money getting it every year, we're able to allocate that to specific streets throughout the city of El Paso. So, we haven't in the past, but now we are. And then we do have our bond money to supplement that. So, it's just more money that we have to do the the resurfacing. And one thing I want to say is really being aggressive this year, this fiscal year coming up, and not having just one or two contractors, but getting up to three contractors contracts going at once to have multiple paving um components out there in the streets like you see right now that our contractors have two paving comp two paving uh units going at different locations simultaneously is a big win for us. So, if we can do that with three different contractors and really push the limits of what the industry is able to do for the city of El Paso, I think is really important and really pushes us internally to make sure that we have the resources in place to make sure we can get it done. And how many lane miles do you oversee? We have 20 around 2400 lane miles. And how many um how many lane miles qualify for resurfacing? Off the top of my head, I can't remember. Off the top of my head, I'm not going to remember, but this year we looked at everything that was between 20 and 50. And just with those alone, it was it had to be around 30 40% of our inventory. 30 or 40% 40%. So, we're looking at trying to at least the goal would be to do 4% of that, which is over close to two uh 100 lane miles a year, 7 miles a year. And like I said earlier, we're getting about 24 or 25 center line miles of of resurfacing this year. So we would want to do at least 100 and we have more than 100 that qualify. Okay. I don't know if I followed all that, but maybe we're doing about 25% of what we should be doing or what what do you think? Yes. Is that correct? That's that's correct. Okay. So we're we're So of the 100% that qualify for resurfacing, we're able to do 25% with the budget that we have. Is that more or less what I'm hearing? It it'd be less than that because if you look at it, we have 2400 uh center line miles, okay, throughout the city. So, if we wanted to do each and every one on a periodic 20 year, 25 year uh basis, which is kind of the industry standard, that's 4% of our inventory, and that's about 100 miles. Okay. And what is the life expectancy more or less of a street? It's about 20 to 25 years. So in El Paso, you'll see a higher range because we don't have as much extreme. We do have extreme weather, but the rain is what really causes the rain, the snow, the freezing temperatures. That's what really causes deterioration. When that water gets below the asphalt into the subgrade and breaks it apart, that's what you see in El Paso. Fortunately, we don't have a lot of of moisture, a lot of rain, and a lot of the freezing temperatures that would attribute to that. So, but because we didn't have the PO fund, there was like a gap, right, where we weren't doing what we there was a big gap. So, when we looked at the PCI study from 28 to 2018 to 2022, you saw a huge drop in in our PCI. It went down to it was like at 69, I think, and went all the way down to 66, right? And then that's where we saw that our PCI is just absolutely plummeting over the years where if you even go back years before that it was at a good range where it was three 4% higher than it is now. So what is the average PCI right now? Right now it was 66 in our last PCI. So if I was we we would need to do the actual study for me to give you the exact number but a guesstimate and based on what we've seen it's about a 5% 3% aggregation rate for so for the past four years that's it would drop 12 8 probably another six points I would say so in 60 60 61 that's a guess I mean we can all see that you're very challenged and we appreciate you taking on that challenge Um it's it's a hard job that you have. I mean um it it's the number one concern for for constituents, for our community, right? Fix the streets. And um because of that gap, we're trying to play catch-up. And it's it's definitely tough, but we appreciate you, you know, being proactive. We appreciate you setting a high standard for our community. I know that you would love to see all of our streets ranked at an 80 or higher. And and I appreciate you setting that goal. Um because if you have that expectation, you know, it makes everyone want to want more. So that's that's how we should be operating. I also want appreciate the fact that you helped me change the lighting on Country Club Road, one of the main streets in District 1. Um it has those specialty lamposts. They had been out for forever. Um, and thankfully we were able to go in and or you you changed all of them and and now that whole street is is lit up and it's beautiful and I and I appreciate that and I know we have a lot more work to do. I really look forward to to working together with you uh Randy and improving our infrastructure in District 1 and I appreciate it. I know it's a tough job the one you have but thank you so much for always pushing forward. I appreciate it. I appreciate that. And a lot of the work is is from the team and the department. it is from the the field crews getting out there and working day and night regardless of the weather conditions, regardless of the temperature, and making sure that the things that you guys are requesting are getting done timely. Yeah, it's a tough job. I mean, uh I I went out and did a pothole. That pro patch truck is awesome. Um but it's a hard it's a hard job. So, we appreciate all the work that your department does. Thank you so much, Randy. Thank you, Represent. Thank you, mayor. And thanks Randy for the presentation. I just have a couple of uh questions more than anything. Is there a location right now where we can find out what bids are out? That's more for purchasing, but I I know what it is. I received this question a few days ago. We're going to have you all registered in ionwave. Okay. On the team will take that lead so that you'll get those notifications. Previously, it used to be on our website and it was pretty easy to be able to get to, but now you have to go through a registration process. Thank you. So, that leads me to my next question. Is there a a way once the work starts to find out or even for the public to find out how the progression of the work being completed? Is that even possible? And it's just goes more to the transparency piece because I think infrastructure is one of those important pieces, right? that um I I think the the belief is that it's not done fast enough or it's not you know you're not what are you guys doing and and those questions you know I can understand how how fast and the work that that your staff is doing Randy but I want that to be shared with the rest of the public absolutely so that's one of our key priorities you heard Mr. Roman Sanchez talk about a pilot program and what we were going to do to help us to be able to use data and make those connections. We have those heat maps internally, right? So, I think it really is about us cleaning that up in a way that makes it much more accessible for the public. And so, I think that's going to be probably one of the easiest easier projects in terms of having data um accessible. And so, we've already begun those conversations with Randy and the team about some of that work. And so, you'll start to see some of those results as they start to dig in. Perfect. Thank you. And then um also before the bid goes out does is that going to also come out on the access that you provide us just to make so we have a conversation with the contractor and the contractor comes I don't know the bids out so the conversation continues so are we able to understand where we are in that process to keep the risk level down yes we we will work through that process with purchasing they're going to be doing a presentation for you and so we'll talk about a good process for letting you know what those notifications might look like through the system. Perfect. I'm not as familiar with Iron Wave and how that sort of notifies, but I'll make sure that we have that ready for our next meeting. Thank you. I appreciate it. And and one last thing, Randy, I think that that you all had a great start. I know when you were working on the Lroino project, you had a really great story. You were doing like stories or lives or video recordings and stuff. I would really love to see that continue and it's just to be able to solidify the amount of work that you all do. Um because you know I know that Rep. Nino and I have had conversations about light poles down and signs down and so it's it's a situation and I and something that that each of our districts goes through. But I think that that adds value to the work that you and your staff do day in and day out that we may lose in the in the in the big business of government. And I think it's super important for everybody to know the work that you that you all put out because it is very important to to all of us and so we're very grateful for all the work that you all do. I appreciate it. And and to that today we're actually filming at Eastwood Heights for our our crosswalk. Thank you. I'll be right there. That's exactly I think they're already done. They were starting at 11. But I think bringing things engaged. Yes. Bringing things to social media was something that I heard from the the beginning from from the mayor's from mayor's office, from Nino, from a bunch of the reps just saying, "Hey, you guys do tons of work out there making make sure yes that the public knows what you're doing, where you're at." And I think the PI office partnering with them, they've done a really, really great job of getting our message out there. You've seen the Levino ones, you've seen the Hawk videos, you'll see the crosswalk videos. So, it's just been a tremendous help to have the PI office get our message out there and let the citizens know that we're out there working and not sitting in in our desk. Thank you so much. Thank you, mayor, and thank you, Randy, for all your great work as well and to all the team behind it. Um, you know, I'm grateful that District 5 does have a lot of good streets overall. Um, but you know, one of the challenges though I will say is, you know, District 5 experienced that growth from 2010 to 2020. And I am catching up on different things that are needed within the district. So, I'm curious to navigate the elimination program. And kind of what, um, Brett Maldonello mentioned is I've seen a lot of my street light poles down. Um, you know, people crash into them. And I know that I briefly mentioned it to you as well and I know I mentioned it to Miss Neman of ensuring that we're recovering cost whenever there's an accident and you know there's police report that we follow up and ensuring that it's not on the taxpayer. But um you know, one of the things that I'm more interested in navigating and it was one of my council requests is you know, this year alone I've submitted over 78 inoperable street light posts that were in my district. And um when it comes to public safety, you know, clean and safe streets, I have a list of streets that I feel don't well they don't have street lights. I know that we just passed an item to get street lightss on Monwood, but some of those communities have lived or members in that neighborhood have lived there for six, seven years. Um, an example is Edmir Estee in front of Elorado High School. That high school, I went to that high school 23 years ago and there's still no street lights at all in that street. And so where I'm getting to is I really would like to navigate um an inventory of street lights that are not just in my district but El Paso as a whole so that we could kind of navigate what that means um so that we're not relying on constituent reaching out to us that you know the street lights are not working. And I know there's a lot of challenges behind that where we have you know some street lights that are operating by El Paso Electric in the city of El Paso. But it's really navigating how do we establish a system where we know how to, you know, there's a cue that that comes in naturally of the street lights that are being reported rather than uh relying on the constituents following up with those street lights that come in. So, I'm glad you mentioned that. One of the things we're going to look at this year is actually implementing a new software that will detect when the city owned street lights, not the El Paso electric ones, but the city owned street lights are actually out so that our staff and our crews can go ahead and start planning the day or the week. Um, not based on the on the service requests or the council requests, but actually on what they see out in the field. Um, I've asked them to go out to your district specifically to look at the lighting elements to see what's going on there, if there's enough lighting, where it's missing. Um, unfortunately, our department is just that, a m maintenance department. So, we don't do typically the big projects that we're we're trying to do on Mountwood. We just typically do maintenance projects, but we can through our traffic engineering group and working with Mr. Rodriguez's group, we can submit requests to text to look at these larger projects as offsystem, off-grid uh texttop projects for the highway safety improvement program. So, it's something we'll look into. So, yeah. And I'm grateful for you. I I I went through and read the street manual and kind of seeing the standard of how we accept streets and I know that there was a lot of streets that were in question, but grateful for your work and and also Miss Mack, thank you for all your leadership and guidance and everything that's taking place. Thank you. Thank you. And Randy, I I don't need to I don't see any other comments, but I don't want to continue to to beat a dead horse here. So um you know, for those of us that recently ran in campaigns that are sitting on the the day here, we, um, didn't take a survey to tell us that people are unhappy with the streets. I think everyone I see a lot of head shaking because when you knocked on the doors, this was the number one issue that they had. Uh, and you know, did the chime survey, I think, is showing the the same thing. So, no one's proud of our streets, but I'm very glad to hear that. Uh uh Miss Mack is putting together a plan to to try to to try to get at this. You know, you've got $10 million. We need $40 million to to get this fixed. But I I do want to focus, you know, on the positive of what you've done, you know, and and Representative Lemon was was going in that direction. You're going to uh lane miles. You're going to your target is 550 miles this year, which is significant. You talk about the street light repair going from, you know, you when you started in 23 is 61 days. 26 you're down to 22. But when you look at the street light repairs, you know, I had the opportunity to come out and visit you. You look at some of the equipment that is inside the the boxes to repair the street lights and getting the equipment and the logistics problems and the things you you do to to repair a street light. So to get it down to 22 days, you guys should should be applauded for for doing that. Uh Miss Leone also uh mentioned yesterday um about the the hard work that your department does. Uh I can tell you that uh I had no idea what it took to to repair uh a pothole. I know what it takes now. and and and to know how dangerous the job that your men and women are faced with on a daily basis is is something uh we owe them a huge creative uh gratitude and thanks for for what they're doing. So, we know that you're working on it. I I will tell people, you know, I would like the folks in El Paso to know that we hear it, we feel it. Um but our expenses are going up, your revenues are declining, so something has to give. So for those that are out there saying, you know, um, don't increase certain, this is an area we have to to increase because this is what the the community wants. So I'm glad there's a plan in place. I'm super excited about that. But you guys are doing one heck of a job and continue to do the great work that you're doing. You you're doing the best you can with what you have and we thank you for that. Thank you guys. Thank you. And that's it. Next is Tony Airport. That's Airport airport. Good afternoon, Tony. Good uh good morning. Afternoon. Afternoon. Yeah. Um Okay. So, what do we do? We provide uh our customers with a safe, secure, and efficient airport operating in a uh environmentally conscious and self- sustaining manner. So this year, uh, for the next year, we're asking for a $1.3 million increase. Uh, for the budget, it includes salary increases, uh, made up of collective bargaining agreements for our police and fire and then for our civilians, that compression rate that we've talked about. Um, also includes an increase in contractual services due to passenger boarding bridges and um, our bag lifts for the airlines. uh there's a slight decrease in capital equipment purchases that we were able to purchase last year um such as a paint machine and then uh let me jump to the next slide. So we do have a uh continued effort to uh add direct and international flights. So we plan on doing this by keeping our airline um costs low to attract new uh new routes. So the uh in plane passenger cost for us is about $5 and the national average for airports our size is over $7. So um that's kind of our KPI wraps up everything together. We bring in enough revenue. We keep cost low and and that's why we try to stay attractive. We're also focusing on sustainability. Uh as you know we have the solar projects on the rental car and the short-term lots that you approved and then uh actively working on that 16 $36 million grants. Uh so our capital improvement projects include uh rehabilitation of runways and taxiways. You know, we want to remain safe and then uh upgrading the terminal seating and then uh renovate the foreign inspection station to accommodate the new Chihuahua flight coming in summer of 2026. Um and then of course the AMD, we're collaborating with key partners to attract businesses to airport. Um, we're working with to attract aerospace and defense and advanced manufacturing tenants. Uh, we're doing that with uh partnership with the economic development team and all of your help. But that's it. Um, I'm probably between you and lunch. So, if you have any questions, uh, represent Lima. Right. I'll hold up for just a few more minutes. Tony, thank you very much. My staff and I had the great opportunity to tour the airport and your staff is really outstanding. It gave us such a good perspective. So, we think about the airport and we just think about getting on a plane or arriving, but there is so much that goes around, so many things that are happening. I think one of the neatest things was um to recognize that there's like a actual fire station out there that's I mean ready for any kind of an emergency. Additionally, a little bit later on, we had an opportunity to tour the air traffic control tower. I'm very proud. One of my former students is one of the key people over there, Cesar. Um, and that was also an interesting process. Now, I understand there's going to be a new air traffic control tower that is going to be built. Is that correct? That's correct, ma'am. We're at about 60% design and we did work with uh Caesar CEO and Natka and the FAA to to bring that in. So, a lot of work behind that. It's probably uh Monica Lani was still the director there. So, we've been working on that for a for a long time. Uh but we're excited. It's um it's going to increase efficiency obviously um and then better visibility throughout the the terminal as we expand. And that's good because I I noticed uh when we were up there that visibility is not complete in the whole pattern in the whole area that's up there. And it's those little blind spots that can cause such a tremendous uh danger. I'm very happy to see that we're going to have the the connection from Sudat from I mean from El Paso to Chihuahua and then of course there travel out to many other areas in in Mexico is coming up. How many um airlines do does the airport serve? So, currently six and then we'll have seven with tar and last uh yesterday when I was with in here in the meetings, we had another airline from Mexico reach out. So, there's so much buzz in Mexico right now that Mexican airline is very very early in talks, but uh we're excited about that. It's it's you know, everything you guys are putting out. So, uh Mayor, I know that's one of your your hot topics. So, we may catch up a little bit later to see how we can help with the business community like you did with TAR. That's that's really great to hear. Um, just the the ability to travel into Mexico directly from here is is such a thing. We used to have that. We used to have the connection there with I think Frontier Airlines many many years ago and for some reason that was stopped. But this is a good way and TAR is a good company, a very very good company that that'll provide good service. I'm wondering is there any plans for expansions of um United States airlines like right now so you have Southwest Delta American United United and Alaska and Alaska and then TAR and I'm sorry Frontier and Frontier okay and then TAR will be number seven okay what um what guides whether we get another airline coming in. How does that work? So, um you know, we we do our part. Uh it's the numbers. So, it's a numbers game. We have identified the top uh underserved markets and we we go meet with the airlines at least twice a year, sometimes more. Um we've we have brought them out here to meet our community because we know how vital that DC flight is for us, a DC area. Um, you know, right now it's just the more seats we can get in the planes. Um, we met with, uh, one airline that was really a new airline that was hoping to come out here, but they didn't want to overfly their hub. So, you know, to for the DC flight. Um, so, but we're still working with some good partners. um you know without throwing any airline under the bus, we are we are uh in we have some hopeful uh uh communications with them. So we're excited. Good. Good. That sounds really good. Tony, thank you very much for the presentation and for the tour and for your staff, you know, taking the time to visit with us on that day. We really appreciate it. Thank you. I have a bunch of people here who are going to disagree with me, but I have the best staff in the city. All right, let's see. repres. Thank you, mayor. So, two things I have heard anecdotally, you know, throughout the years that there was a an action that the council took 20 25 years ago to increase the landing fees and that created a lot of issues with Southwest Airlines and it kind of got us into our situation today. And so I'm wondering how we can really understand what your plan is to bring more flights here. Does that involve landing fees? Does it What is What is that plan? Cuz I think we're long overdue and this is something that is is really important to our community to have more more business here. Yeah. Um I'm glad you brought that up. So, um, this is one of those rumors that that just has not just gone away. So, our landing fees, I don't have I think Debbie, um, do you remember what the number is right now? Not off top. We'll get those to you, but we are again the lowest in our in in hubs. Um, so for our size airport, we're we're lower than any than than the average. I'm sorry, not than anybody, but we're lower than the average. Uh, I know we just checked uh Albuquerque, we're lower than them for landing fees. So, that cost per claimment kind of wraps everything up. You know, uh, the the amount of rent we charge them uh, landing fees. So, it's it's it's really getting that word out that we have to um that we're not expensive for landing fees. And and I'm familiar with um what happened uh a long time ago. Um, I think we have to dispel that myth and we have to do our part to do that and and we do that. We when we go meet with them, we show them the numbers and and the airlines can see as well. So, do you think it's a capacity issue that they're worried that their flights are not going to be full? It So, I I think that's part of it. I I don't want to speak for the airlines, but um, you know, we had a a really good opportunity last year with the Long Beach flight. um here to Long Beach and it never went about above a 50 um 50% load factor and and that we really need to be about 70 to keep flights. Uh the other one of course is overflying their hubs. That's a that's really difficult for us to do. uh you know the the airlines will will want to go to Dallas on a three and a half hour flight, recycle that plane and then use the other one to continue to um to like DC for example. And again the one airline that said well why would we fly two flights to get from here to DC here and back when we can you know turn that plane several times over. Um, but the more people we have taking those flights, the the more attractive we're going to be. And I mean, do you ever get to get in front of the revenue management teams at airlines as they're looking at at those routes? Right. We we do. Okay. Again, so they'll send route planners. Um, but we do meet with the team. We're actually meeting with uh the revenue teams at the end of July. They'll be coming out to the airport so we can discuss their rates and charges. Uh we meet with them every year. So they they're coming they're all coming out here to to discuss the rate and charges and they're not um shy about letting us know if if we're out of place, but they're they're usually very good conversations. Yeah. I mean, I don't I don't think that we're we're asking to have a daily every hour flight like there is from Houston, right? But we we really need we really need something. So, I'm hoping that in this next year we get more routes and more direct flights cuz I I think our community has been asking for it for too long. Yeah. And I I think again with the buzz that the Chihuahua El Paso flight has created, um it it was an airline that we had never approached that that reached out to us yesterday and and we we approached a lot of airlines, but this was a an airline that uh reached out to us out of the blue and and we're excited about that. It's a getto flight. So um and we know that Tar their plan is to eventually become a hub. So, not just Chihuahua, El Paso, probably uh other flights into Mexico and other flights kind of be a regional hub for for the north as well. Okay. The other thing that I wanted to kind of discuss was the FAA. I was also able to tour the FAA and really it was a a very enlightening experience. you know, everything from the Fort Bliss air traffic control to the Huades airspace to El Paso airspace and how you just have the the radar of all these flights coming in. And as I was kind of looking through that, the the issue that was raised is that this design that you have at 60%, they're opposed to it and they are are worried about um planes kind of backing up on on the runway by closing off that that area. I don't have the map in front of me. And I asked if this could be a potential safety issue. And they said maybe, but not completely clear. I I think there's a lot of um heartburn that the FAA has in terms of flights being delayed and pushing pushing back flights. So I I really want to have an understanding of what is going on there and how we can reach some sort of middle ground agreement with FAA on on this design. Sure. And I think they're there two different things. The FAA tower is the one that's 60% in design. Uh they're talking about the five node configuration which is already been in design. It's in it's already out to bid. The project has already started. Um and the FAA it FA itself has signed off on um all the paperwork that was needed to be signed off and they had no objections to the safety. There were a couple of the the NATa reps that have that had raised the concern. Unfortunately, it was raised after uh the design was already full fully designed. The project was funded. So uh there was some disconnect but we are working with them. We had uh I had um lunch with them the other day. So, we were trying to come to a mutual agreement. That taxiway that they're talking about is a taxiway hotel. Um it was a modification to standard. It's not a true high-speed taxiway, which is what they use it for and is very effective that way. But it is um I think the best way I could put it is you know if you were to design a curb today uh without an ADA ramp um or you couldn't design one, right? And if you have to go in and retouch that and put an ADA ramp in there, that's what we would have to do. So the funding to redo hotel um would have increased the price. The estimates about $10 million that wasn't in this one. So again, those conversations that we're having to maybe go back and do a high-speed taxi way are conversations that that we're uh we're willing to have with the FAA and with NAKa so we can you know come up with a solution especially if there if there's if there's concerns now on um I think it's the the major concern that when we talked to him there was a safety component but there was also a um you know uh speed getting aircraft off the runway. Right. Okay. Yeah. I I would really like to um be kept updated on what what's going on there and I'm glad that you're having those conversations. I will also reach out to the FAA just to kind of see where where things are with those conversations. Yes. Okay. Of course. Thank you, Represent. Thank you, Mayor. Thanks, Tony. Sorry I missed part of the presentation, but I'm catching up here. And forgive me if I'm asking this question if it's already been asked before, but um and I need my glasses just to see this. Sorry. So the growth projections on volume of travelers, right? Do you is that built into your KPIs? It's not. It it is we didn't use that as a KPI and uh pretty there was there's a reason we didn't we hit four million passengers last year. Mhm. Um we don't we won't know until this year how many of those were um flights affected by migrants being uh moved around. So I don't think those are going to be uh true numbers. So we'd like to see where we are. We know we're at about uh 3% lower than we were last year. Mhm. So, um you know, if you if you kind of take out those factors, we're still growing, but to have those, uh flights, full flights with u migrants being taken to other parts of the country. Uh it was a hard one to throw in here and I didn't want to skew those numbers there. So, there wasn't anything there wasn't any data that was separating out the type of passenger that you were getting? No. No, ma'am. And that you know, we we didn't ask, TSA didn't ask, the airlines didn't ask. it wasn't it just wasn't something but we know for for a fact that um the the NOS's and the uh the government organizations were were moving several several thousand people a week so you've and correct me if I'm wrong so you've built in a 3% decrease when no we didn't build in a decrease but if you if you if you kind of factor in um where we were year-over-year uh between 2023, 2024, and 2025, it looks there's a 3% decrease that we have right now, but a slight increase over the numbers that we would have we would have had for uh for growth. So, okay, you know, we're still growing. Um but but we're not growing to the speed we did last year. So, they're not aligned then with passenger growth or anything like that. If you look at the charts, so we've got um I love Miss Mack and she's inspired us to do some dashboards. So we're we've got some preliminary dashboards. That's my that's my love language, Tony. So yes, and you could see the growth although we're on a lower line, you could see the growth are almost um parallel. Okay. So then are there any additional KPIs outside of this one which is just the cost per inplane passenger? Are there any KPIs that are used to evaluate the return of investment on capital investment that you are making? um you know we we could we were thinking about doing um leases and what else we can do on to bring in the revenue side but because we really wanted to focus on bringing new flights in this year we we wanted to wrap everything into one. So for us, it's a it's a factor of how we're doing, right? If we have um 60% of our revenue, more or less is non-aviation related. It's just land leases. Um and so if we keep that number high, we can keep the other numbers low. There are some air uh airports with $55 cost per employment. They're larger airports, but they're just um running people through. So, um, you know, for our size, for the story we're trying to tell, this is a big one to us. It it also, you know, talks to the to the narrative that we are not high in landing fees. We are not high to put people in in seats to the airlines. It's going to be great to see where we and I don't know if we can add to it, but not only just what the landing fees are, but in comparison to to similarsized airports. Um, that would be interesting to just kind of get the variance on it. But I I guess the the capital investments I'm I'm interested because part of the advanced manufacturing district is built in to your budget, right? And so that's why I wanted to see if you if you could give me um that metric or that KPI on the ROI of the capital investment. So, okay, that was my question behind it. Thank you. We'll put some together. We'll get the numbers. Yeah. um for that and then we'll we'll send you um we'll send everything to Miss Mac. Thank you. I appreciate it. Any bet. Thank you. Well, Tony, I think that's the end of the the questions, but thank you for what you're doing and we stand here to help you with recruiting the airlines and anything we can do. So, keep up the good work. Okay. I don't have anybody behind me. I think it's in you section. So, uh we're going to go to it next, but Thank you, council. We have four more items that we we need to get through. Then we have public comment. So just we got some on these items. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. So this is the last group of the day. Um this is uh DCM Maraseleras portfolio and as was mentioned we're starting with IT. So it it is a support services department providing technology and solutions to all city departments so they in turn can deliver quality services to the community. That is what it is. The majority of the IT budget variance majority being uh 2,745 plus dollars of the figure that you see here the variance figure is due to changes in IT contracts i.e. Schedule E. Uh, I'd like to note that schedule E is comprised of approximately 170 line items with it being directly responsible for managing almost 45% of those contracts. Um, it also performs reviews of all techreated uh contract renewals and newly proposed uh additions to schedule E. And so contract management, negotiations, contract scoping and consolidations are a year-round effort for it. Variances for next year include a 5 to6% average annual increase in licensing and maintenance costs across the across all contracts. Also includes costs related to existing and new cloud software solutions and also includes major upgrades for some software solutions. We have seen a phasing out of the option to self-host in our own data centers uh for some systems by some vendors thereby forcing the move to cloud in some situations. Uh as mentioned in a previous update to this council, we've already seen and continue to expect to see increases due to federal and state mandates and actions. also mentioned previously, it is a necessity and must be funded appropriately annually. As we look at upgrading IT solutions, key focus areas are do the basics well as was stated by the city manager and optimizing the customer experience uh as was discussed yesterday. One major project for next year that aligns with these focus areas is the implementation of new uh planning and permitting portals which will provide residents, businesses, and event organizers with an intuitive step-by-step online process for submitting permit applications. The portals will provide clear cost uh information enhancing transparency uh reducing time to complete applications and reduced application errors. Another maj major initiative already in motion um also focusing on the basics and improved customer experience is the modernization and redesign of the city website and specialized department sites. The redesign of the city site will include the addition of an online services and mobile apps catalog, a modernized appealing look, and a design that will make information easier to find. The website revamp will include incorporating an AI virtual assistant while meeting uh uh continuing to meet ADA compliance requirements. I'm going to turn it over to Ernesto at this point to cover security. Thank you, Carolyn. Uh, Ernesto Riola, chief information security officer. Uh, I am in charge of the security assurance program for the city of El Paso. Um, and work very closely with uh, IT. Uh, we also review contracts uh, and any initiatives that the uh, city has to make sure that we have the best security uh, practices and uh, data security in mind. um initiatives for this coming year are uh protections and tools. So Caroline talked about uh cloud migrations. Uh part of that is looking at the architectures and making sure that security is uh embedded in all of that uh security miss uh risk mitigation initiatives uh which really ties into the security awareness training program for for the city and not just training all employees but having individual conversations with departments looking at their initiatives. uh cond conducting tabletops uh risk assessments and providing some recommendations for whatever uh initiatives that they have. Um also with that is a lot of compliance uh support fulfillment. For example, we we've worked very closely with the uh airport uh the last couple of months for TSA requirements. Uh and then lastly um some force initiatives due to federal funding cutbacks. Um so we work very closely with uh CISA which is a security and infrastructure security agency and uh a lot of the funding and services that they provide local agencies is is no longer going to be delivered at least uh there's a lot of unknowns so we have to plan and uh prepare for those things. Um, I have a few key KPIs and and primarily I'm going to focus on the fishing t uh test click rate and that is uh all city employees get sent emails that are uh fake uh and their test to make sure that our security awareness training is is in fact working. Um our goal is to be under 7.1% of people actually clicking the uh percentage overall all employees and uh for the last few years we've we've met that goal and that concludes my presentation. Any questions for it or security represent thank you mayor. Uh I just really wanted to start this off by advocating for Mr. Cortinas to get a new laptop. He's at one hour now. We put the order in yesterday. Sorry. Yes. Okay. I just wanted to make sure he has a computer cuz we need him on the on the numbers. Um the the other thing is I kind of want to have an understanding of where I I see your contracts line item line uh in the budget is is really low and I just feel that sometimes maybe contracts could really help move your work forward. I I always appreciate city employees in all departments trying to make miracles out of what the budget that they have, right? And and so I kind of wanted to have an understanding of what your process is to determine what you outsource and what you do in house. Um so I'm glad you mentioned that because we have really started to leverage outsourcing to third parties for the very large enterprise systems. Those really are taxing to our team and we lean on those vendors that are expert in their systems. They do one thing, they do one thing only and they do it very well. And so we have faced in the past those challenges where we um have trained our staff, developed our staff and then they move on. So this is now where we have really started leading on these uh third parties. So the criteria is enterprise mission critical large systems. Okay, that makes sense. And I I would be supportive of any other efforts where you would identify that we need to outsource that, especially with AI coming in. I saw how you sprinkled that in a little bit into the website coming in FY27, but I I really think we we need to take advantage of AI and and be intentional on how we take advantage of that, right? And I know that a few years ago there was those efforts to create an in-house CR system. a lot of money was spent on it. It wasn't used and and so I feel like at that point an outside contract could have come in and we wouldn't be kind of having the issues that we have with the CR system, those dependencies on externals. Correct. Yes. Yeah. So I I just hope that you have that in mind and um if we could kind of have that mindset, I'll be supportive of what you want to do next year in terms of those contracts. heard the conversation about the CRS and we appreciate the support. Okay. Thank you, Rep. Chavez. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you so much for the presentation. I had heard that uh your requests for this next fiscal year were a lot higher than what was allocated. So, I'm just wondering how you prioritized um to make sure that we were able to balance the budget. So one of the items we uh reduced by about.7 and one of the items um is tied to our AI initiative. What we did was actually scale back not eliminate. There are a couple of different options to move forward with that and we actually found one that our licensing already supports. So we thought we'll go with a phase one and then look at next year into bringing um the next level. But that was one area where we were able to reduce what was initially proposed. Okay. I um I know that we regularly reach out to your office in case we need things, you know, with our laptops or phones or other things, but I would like to have a more in-depth conversation about, you know, um what things that you foresee happening at the city level in terms of technology and advancing and and how we implement those in our day-to-day operations even on council. So um I would love the opportunity to to speak with you further and and like representative as was saying supporting you in that because I think there is a lot of potential of how we can integrate technology more. So uh absolutely happy for the invite. You know it is usually in the background unheard unseen. So we are more than happy to have that conversation. Okay. Thank you so much for the work you do. Representative Lemon. Thank you mayor. Actually, Carolyn, the aside from Laura Prime, the very first employees that I worked with were the IT people. Um, it's thanks to them to Laura that that I was able to figure out the new system and how to log on. The incredibly long password that I was assigned and I when I thought I knew what it was, I heard it's going to be changed next week. And so, Ernie, thank you. Um, I promise I don't know that I can remember it, but you know, for some reason a lot of the IT people, they're all over the place. And so, you know, there we may have a little problem, a little question, a little something going on. And it is so neat to be well I have an excellent view out into the hallway and I can look out and see one of the young people out there and I they wave and I wave and then I say come and then they come over and we're able to resolve some things really quickly like you know what you need to call someone you need to do this you need to do that thank you very much and other times it's really like I can take care of that right now and I really appreciate the fact that they're wanting to do that and to help us out. You've got a fabulous, fabulous team and several months in staff and I were sitting around staff meeting and then we started talking about the different departments and uh we tried to pinpoint who had helped us the most and uh I'm sure that that you may recall that we honored IT department. Yes, ma'am. by bringing refreshments over one afternoon and celebrating and uh Miss Mack was able to join us for a few minutes and it was just a very simple way to say thank you for helping us and for going beyond the measure of oh you got to do a CR7 or oh you got to do this oh you got to do that. It was it was something simple but it was very very meaningful. I really appreciate that. Both you and Ernie are doing a spectacular job with this department. But I have a question, Carolyn. How difficult is it to hire IT specialist people for your department? How difficult is that? It is a challenge. We are competing with private industry. Um, so we currently are at probably one of our highest staffing levels over the past few years. So, as you've heard from HR, our efforts not only to hire, but to retain and we have a number of different um takes that we do to to try to ensure that um I have to um piggy back to what you said. We have a phenomenal team. Phenomenal when you consider everything that they're doing for this city. Uh things have gotten better, but it continues to be a challenge. I think that one of the and looking at that kind of looking at a variety of things. I am um a proponent of coming back to work. I was never one of virtual learning or virtual although I had to use it a couple of weeks ago because of my injury. But is virtual working one of the characteristics that um IT personnel value that could make a difference between accepting a position or not say within the city. For some it is we are seeing a lot of um going back into the office throughout the industry but for some um yes that is a a valuable incentive. Is it valuable enough to hold um for conversations? And I'm know ultimately it's it's the city manager, but I think this is one of the few fields that the virtual working or the out of office working really works. Um it's very difficult to have a receptionist working from home because you're not going to be able to do the kinds of things you normally do. But someone who has a project who may start working on a project at 9:00 in the morning and not stop till 11:30, 12:30, 1:00 the following day just because of the ability to continue working. I think that's of great value and it might be something that we may want to consider within this particular area. how throughout the country this is so important for IT people um the ability to work from home the ability to complete the projects and those kinds of things so I'm not supportive of virtual working but in your case and in this department's case I see it's a tremendous opportunity and hope that um you know that that could be something that would allow you to hire the personnel know the really qualified, talented people that are out there that maybe are being lured obviously with um perhaps better salaries, but that let's not make this a condition for them to move off to somewhere else. And again, we value it. We think greatly of you and the team and the services that you do, and I really appreciate all that you and Ernie do. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you guys. Next up is Mary Wiggins for HR. Good afternoon, Mary. Good. I was going to say morning, but you're right. Good afternoon, mayor and council. Mary Wiggins, chief human resources officer. Okay. So, human resources, um, most of you know what we do, but, uh, human resources is to provide workforce strategies that promote, support, and recognize the success of our valued team members throughout their employment with the city of El Paso. What does that mean? You know, what what does that encompass? So I want to just point out the different sections that we have under human resources in case everybody's not aware kind of all the different functions. So under human resources we have recruiting, employee relations, classification and compensation payroll benefits risk management, HIS, learning and development and then we're also responsible for all the federal regulations such as FLSA, FMLA, ADA and so forth. So, just kind of an all-encompassing things that that take place in HR on a daily basis. Regarding our budget and our budget variances, we're pretty much um static for ours. We have our only increase is going to be due to the increase in salaries for the upcoming year. As far as the um the budget increase, you will see a decrease um in the non-general fund. And so that is going to be due to we talked about briefly yesterday the prescription rebates that we have that we uh joined the co-op and so we we were able to get those prescription refunds and so that's allowed us to be able to decrease our budget as well as some workers workers compensation um for a while they they've been a little high so we we've adjusted to properly reflect what those salaries are and so because of that we've been able to take a decrease in those areas and then we have one position position um that we had hired more for a temporary basis and so that position has phased out and so we're decreasing that from our budget as well. So what are some of the highlights initiatives there? There's many things going on and so I I I cut it down you know and just want to hit on some of the top ones. Um we talked again yesterday about phase two and phase three of the civilian increases. So, that's going to be one of our highlights that we'll be working on in the coming year. Um, we're also going through a Kronos upgrade, our software for our timekeeping. Uh, it it may seem simple, but it takes a lot of man-hour to upgrade. We're going to the cloud. So, a lot of testing and work goes into creating that to ensure our employees are paid properly. Um, we have departmental mental departmental mental health fairs. I can't say that. We started that um in the last year due after COVID um and what we were seeing an increase in mental health issues. And so quarterly we pick a department um and we go out to those departments and you those of you in the downtown quarter should have gotten one yesterday email because it's going to be over at city2 tomorrow. And so what we do is we have different activities during that. We we go out we bring in like chair yoga. Um we have therapists that come in. Um, we have like painting. They do different painting things. So, there's a lot of services. And so, what we want to do is just kind of a downtime for employees to go over work on their mental health. Um, have some stress relaxation during that time. And we have gotten um I believe we started, if I'm not mistaken, I think we started at 911 and just got rave reviews. So, it went so well that we've continued. Now, we've built it into our quarterly um budget for those. So, we're excited about that. um going through a health plan claims audit. Those are always really exciting. Um we're having an annual service award banquet for our employees. Um that's going to be on the 18th. I'm hoping all of you are going to attend. And it's for 25,30, 35,40, and 45 years of service for our employees. We talked yesterday about how service time increase or service time is so important. We want to honor those employees. We need tenure. We need to retain as Carolyn was saying. So we are this it used to be they came to council you might remember that repon we used to bring them to council but during co we kind of had to stop that and so now we're we're starting we're going to have a banquet and though a lot of the employees what they value most at those is actually getting to see you. A lot of those employees don't have that opportunity that don't work in the downtown corridor and so having these are their times to actually see you meet you and you are their reward. So, we're looking forward to being able to honor them. Um, on the 18th, we have a, you know, different trainings that are coming up and everything, but just lots going in on on in human resources that we're working on as far as, you know, leadership. And so, as far as our KPIs, we always try to monitor our turnover rate. We we talked about that yesterday. Staff is already working on getting you some statistics from other cities, so that's already begun. While I'm thinking about it, Rep. Leone, you asked about hourly employees. 77% is our employees that are hourly, so a large percentage. Uh we also monitor our sick leave hours. Um you can see well under the turnover rate you'll see like so far we're at 2 point I mean 10.4 but we're going to we're targeting we're looking at probably 15% for this year. Uh sick leave hours we monitor those. Those are going to be up this year. um if we are on the trajec trajectory that we are on now. And workers compensation claims, we uh try to monitor those as well because we like to be able wherever we're having those to go out and try to remedy those situations so we're learning from those mistakes or not mistakes, but I mean it could be just accidents, but we want to have different skills so that they don't happen. And so those are th those vary from year to year. So those are targeted to be at about 1,356 at the end of this fiscal year. And so I'll take any questions. Representative Rocha. Thank you, Mayor. And thank you, Mary, for the for the update and and um the discussion of what what you've provided today. One question that I have on on the human resources side, is there any appetite at this time to soften the educational requirements that sometimes are in job postings in order to u maybe widen the talent pool or even just bring um somebody that can directly jump into the position and and start without, you know, with limiting the amount of training or on the job training that's required for it. We've talked about it. Um mainly because you know we're keeping up with kind of like what what's going on in the industry as well. Um and in some of those we have I mean we do whenever an employee whenever we have an opening for you know a specific position we always go back to the departments and say you know what do you need because they're the ones who know you know what it is that they're looking for and if they're getting the um applicants that they're looking for in that pool. So in some cases we have lessened some things. Um there are some that we probably don't want to. Um but there are some that we probably can. Um we've started being more lenient on for example it may say a bachelor's degree in business public relations or you know or whatever. Um and so a point was brought up a year or so ago that you know we we've hired some great people who and I can't remember what it was his his degree but let's just say chemist you know. So we have a chemist in a very nice position right now that you would have never thought a chemist and it wasn't chemist but you know that that would be a great So we're trying to be more um allowing and not be so specific so that we can you know open that applicant pool up in that way as well but we're always open to um to being able to be more flexible to to make sure we meet that pool. I I appreciate that. I know that there's several companies, larger organizations that do make that part of their requirements and so I'd like to see maybe I I haven't experienced it here at the city and so I'd like to see maybe an opportunity for that to to be made possible. Okay. Thank you. Definitely look at that. Appreciate it. Representative Ato. Thank you, Mayor and Mary. Um you know, Rep. Mandala Rocha always steals my thunder because I wanted to say something along the lines of what she said. So I'll I'll add to what she said because I I I agree with everything she just said. I I think that there has been a lot of um you know people that I have interviewed or gotten on their resumes and I run into that issue and I don't know if we can look at how we can improve the the job postings. You know, sometimes it could be or related field or adding that little phrase that could really make the difference. And and I know that sometimes there are questions like well do you have 2 years of X experience and then you say no that automatically makes them disqualified right so I feel like looking at those systems would would really be helpful to us even when we're looking at people in our office right that's my experience at the city with HR and hiring I have hired two people from the disqualified list and right now one of my employees employees was disqualified. But if you look at what his his background was, he he's a teacher and he was teaching history and there were components to him that had public policy to it and he's been an excellent employee. And on the other side, I've gotten the list of qualified applicants and some of them I'm like, how did they make it to the qualified list? It doesn't make sense. And then on the flip side of that, you have people in the disqualified list. I'm like, well, how are they not on the qualified list? Right? So, I I really think we we need to figure that out and it kind of goes to what I was saying as well yesterday where I do think that the positions that are are working for council, not the council members, are are underpaid and seeing how we could have that study and create a better profile. I know there's the legal challenges of the of the charter, but I I think when we're looking at these, we I I think a conversation with, you know, somebody is hiring in their office. Well, what's the profile that you're looking for? Do you already have somebody that is great with the press? Are you looking for that policy person? Are you looking for somebody that's good with constituent services? I think that would strengthen these job postings as well. and I only speak for council but um or at council positions because that's what I see on a daily basis or my experience but I I'm sure that we could improve that across the city and all departments. I I I don't disagree and that's why we are trying to as we open those positions just reaching out to the departments and wanting to see what it is they're needing and and is that not the industry standard anymore. I can tell you that staff has again already um started on that um survey as well. So we are pulling that together. So we can pull that data not only with the county but we're going to do it with comparator cities just so we have some data and not only what the types of positions like how many positions so that we can you know have something for you to look at. That's great to hear. You should look at us and even have like chief of staff and like great like several staffers. I mean I know we can get there from one day to the next budget but but thank you. I appreciate you. Absolutely. Representative Chavez. Thank you, mayor, and thank you, Mary, because I know that you and I have worked closely and you've always been extremely helpful. So, I appreciate that. Um, I'm just wondering about the number of sick leave hours used, the ones that are projected for next year. It seems a little bit high compared to other years, and I don't know if there's something I'm missing here. I don't It could be different things. Also, um, another factor that comes into that is, um, like for uniform employees, they also get paid out. So, um I'm trying to determine if those are in there as well. So, that could be a factor. Um there there's different things that could go into, you know, those criteria. Okay. I mean, it just looks like there's a big jump compared to other years. And I don't know if that was Mary, it may be due to the police incentive on the sick payback that goes into effect September 1. That Well, that is a very good point. Thank you, Robert. So, so the fire, you know, is able to do a payout, you know, each year they can choose to roll or pay theirs out, but in the last um in the CBA that went into effect this year, um the police now have the ability to pay out. So, that hap that took place December for the first time this year. So, that's going to be an additional um incentive that we didn't have before. So, that's going to affect those hours as well. Miss Miss Mack or Robert, do you think I could get an like can we get an estimate of what that's going to cost the city for those payouts? I don't know if we have that from the police department, it's about a million dollars increase next year. And that goes into effect September 1. And so that was built into the agreement, but it was built in to start September one of this year. And for fire, what the cost is for that? We can get you the estimates. So that's been in place for quite a while. Okay. I believe it's about $3.5 million a year on that particular Okay. For them. And that's where that leap is coming from then that difference in that that's one of the drivers in the budget for next year. So we talked about you know a lot about that yesterday when you heard the police department it's the staffing uh the pay raises from their collective party agreements and then they do have that new incentive and then the master peace officer incentive as well. Mhm. Okay. And then um the number of workman's comp. I know that's always tricky and training and it is you know things that are unforeseen but I know it also affects our TWWC rate and um our insurance in general. So I don't know maybe initiatives to help uh proactively try to lessen those numbers I think would be financially very beneficial to the to the city. Exactly. Exactly. No. And that's something um we do have a new risk director that's starting at the end of this month and so that's one of the things we'll be working you know with her on as far as on the workers comp you know putting together you know a more comprehensive we have one um but a more comprehensive training program and going out and being able to identify you know just what those indicators are in order to try and prevent. Yeah because that does impact directly your TWWC rate plus your insurance. So correct. Thank you Mary. That's That's all the questions I have. Thank you, Mary. Thank you so much. Thank you. All right. Any other questions? Thank you, Mary. Thank you. You're supposed to introduce somebody. We We have Miss Nicole Rodriguez, director of community development. Hi Nicole. Next year, I propose the atbat walkup songs. Thunder struck. All right. All right. Uh yeah. Good afternoon everyone. Nicole Rodriguez, I get the incredible privilege of talking about community human development today. Um, and so our department is really committed to improving the quality of life for El Paso's most vulnerable residents. And we do this by investing in housing, families, and neighborhoods. You'll notice a reduction of about $67,000 in our total budget for FY26. This is primarily due to the transition of climate uh and military affairs going into the strategic and legislative affairs newly created department. Um our department is also overseeing or seeing an overall reduction of about eight FTEEs. This is for the same reasons. As you all know, a large portion of our funding comes from federal and state grants. We didn't see any cuts this year and we're grateful for that. Uh, however, the the future of of the federal and state grant funding landscape remains, you know, very rocky and so we we're staying on top of that and we're doing a couple things to prepare for that. First, we're identifying which programs are most essential based on community needs and that way it allows us to protect core services. And then second, we're building in flexibility in how we structure our programs so we can scale appropriately if funding levels fluctuate. Some of the highlights and initiatives in our department is that we'll continue uh supporting community partners and agencies that deliver these critical services across the city. Um programs for affordable housing, mental health, and revitalization remain a top priority. One key program that I'd like to highlight is our Al Paso Helps initiative. Uh this initiative brings city departments and organizations together to connect individuals experiencing crisis uh with immediate assistance. It's really a strong example of how we respond quickly to local needs. And in addition to emergency response, we're also focused on long-term neighborhood investment. We continue to build our neighborhood leadership and foster civic empowerment through efforts like our neighborhood leadership academy, our annual summit, and support for our over 100 registered neighborhood associations throughout the city. Moving on to our key performance indicators, uh this year nearly 16,000 low to moderate income individuals have been served. This is up significantly from up from past years. Our FY26 projections are lower and it's not because need is going down, but because we're winding down one-time federal funds that were injected during COVID, like our ARPA and CV grants. We've also expanded our reach significantly. This includes individuals reach through construction of our public facilities, affordable housing, and infrastructure improvements. And then lastly, we continue to build our neighborhood leadership program, which gives community members a behind-the-scenes tour of their local government and continuing our investment in grassroots leadership. With that, I'm happy to take you all's questions. Questions for Miss Nicole. Boom. All right. Uh, and now I'd like to introduce my colleague Nicko. Thank you, thank you all. Good afternoon, Nick. Good afternoon. Hopefully, LA, well, last but not least, uh um I'm with uh Nicholas Evvada, director for environmental services. Uh so, what we do is we provide environmental health and integrated solid waste management services to the greater El Paso community so that they can enjoy an healthy, clean, safe, and beautiful environment. Our major budget uh variances um as everybody mentioned is the increase in salaries. Um, we also have a increase in our El Paso water utilities billing system. So, as many of you know, because you receive it on your monthly bill, we have a partnership with the water utilities that do all our billing for us. So, that goes through them. They integrated some new software. So, we're um as part of the deal with them. We're paying for part of the maintenance and uh the the use of their software uh which increased approximately it'll be an increase approximately 1.3 million for next year for a total of 2.6 that we're paying annually currently for their their system. And then the increase in uh fleet maintenance charges. So, uh, Streets and Maintenance increased their hourly rates by $10 an hour for us, which we're perfectly fine paying because they do such an amazing job keeping us on the streets on a daily basis. So, they do a great job. So, hopefully that'll help them uh maintain employees and update their facilities. And then we have a $7 million increase in capital, which includes a new landfill permit, uh, east side municipal service center, and citizen collection station design and landfill equipment. Um, as you could see, uh, we do have a decrease in, uh, in positions, but those are the, uh, code officers and vectors officers that are going to the new, the code department. Our highlights and initiatives, uh, we're increasing the residential rate, uh, 50 cents per month and two, uh, for residential rates and 250 for commercial rates. The reason it's 250 is when we increased the rates last year, we forgot to include the commercial rates. mistake on our part, but only affects approximately 750 commercial accounts that we service throughout the residential neighborhoods. Um, the rates will help cover fleet replacement costs, operational costs, and capital uh project costs. Um, we'll be starting design on the new municipal service center, which is located off of Bob uh north of Bob Hope on 375. Uh, this will help house uh environmental services, streets, and maintenance, and parks. uh providing them a far east side hub so we get to the the sites a little quicker and you know reduce a little wear and tear on their vehicles and have another center for us. Uh as if if any of you have been to our Lafayette site, we're we're close to busting at the seams there. We don't have any uh parking so we're trying to figure things out. So this will help out a lot for all three departments. Uh we'll be working on a new landfill permit to provide the city over 100 years of landfill capacity. Um, we own the,200 acres adjacent to the to the west and uh to the east and to the south of the greater El Paso landfill. So, we're planning to start permitting those those 1,200 acres. Uh, as a general rule for anybody uh in environmental services, you want to have over 20 years of landfill capacity before you start pl uh planning for the future. Currently, with our current landfill permit, we're at about 12. So, we're a little behind, but we have plenty of time. It takes typically about 2 to 3 years to get a new landfill permit. So, we'll be well in the the time limit to get uh the new permit going before we run out of any capacity at the Greater El Paso landfill. Uh we increased the outreach funding um as many of you know and attended, we had over 6,000 residents at the Earth Day celebration, but we also increased it uh because we're doing two community cleanups next year. We're doing one uh as you many of you participated in. We just had one in AP April and May time frame and then we'll be doing one in late September, early October. Um, we're going to try to do something different this go around, break it up into two different weekends so that way it's a little less chaotic for everybody. But that that's the reason for the increase in the the outreach budget. And then we're investing in our street sweeping program. Uh we're including an extra additional 1.5 million to um purchase more street sweepers to replace some of the older fleet. Our key performance indicators um we're currently at 22.88% contamination rate. out of the top 15 most populous cities in the state of Texas, we have the lowest rate in the in the state of Texas on contamination and recycling. Uh the only one uh that has it a little lower than us is the city of Denton, but their population is at 150,000. So for the size of our city, we're doing an amazing job when it comes to recycling contamination. And then for our first time collection rate, we're at 99.97%. So, if you set your bin out um in the morning, you're 99.97 uh% that we're going to get it collected unless it's put next to a car um next to a electrical pole or anything like that. So, we're very proud of that. That's something our our staff really strives to take care of on a daily basis. And as I am the last uh speaker here, I could say I do have the best staff at the city of El Paso because nobody can argue that after this. So, I do have an amazing staff. Without them, environmental services wouldn't be doing as great as they do right now. You can drop the mic now. Any questions? Representative Chavez. Thank you, mayor, and thank you, Nick. I'm I'm debating whether I should say my joke about Nick, but I'll I'll hold off on it. Um, will we ever do glass recycling again? Yes. Uh we're purchasing um it's it's part of our budget for next year to buy actually a larger glass crushing uh uh machine that will be placed at the the Delta transfer center. So we are we are have it in our budget uh to get that installed and purchased next fiscal year. Next fiscal year. So when will our community be able to start taking things there? Um we're still collecting glass at the facility. So we they could continually take glass and we're just stockpiling it right now. Um, I'm hoping that it'll be operational by end of October because it does take time to procure the equipment and get it installed. So, from what all my staff has been uh doing all the research on, it shouldn't take more than two to three months to get it down to El Paso. When when we get that up and going, can you send a graphic or something we can share because I think our constituents would really like to see that. Yes, we'll do. Okay. Thank you, Nick. Thank you, Represent. Thank you, Mayor. I wanted to ask a little bit about the street sweeping. So, you're increasing it by 1.5 million. Yes. So, does that mean that you'll buy them and then we'll get them in two years? Um, typically street supers can it takes approximately about a year to get them in and that's most equipment every equipment of that size. So, um, currently we technically we have 17 Supers, but currently we typically have eight to nine that are on the road on a daily basis cuz that's, um, you know, a lot of the the fleet is, um, at least 15 to 17 years of age, so it doesn't make it on the road on a daily basis. So, um, currently since uh, street sweeping have been taken um, taken over by environmental services, we have purchased five new sweepers that are on the road already in the three years that it's been taken over. So, we're just trying to keep it continual at ordering at least two to three supers on an annual basis to make sure we build up that that fleet altogether. But, yes, it will take approximately a year, maybe 9 months if they've given us a good schedule depending on where we're at when we put the order in. Okay. And so, the new ones that got here, they got here in December. Uh I I I don't remember the actual delivery date cuz they got they got switched around. They um when we ordered them, we got put into different slots cuz we were just trying to get them here as quick as possible. Like our initial order one time they had extra sweepers available so we were able to get them within like 3 months but this time we had to put them in to get them officially built for us. Okay. So out of the 17 sweepers that you have how many are newish? Five. Five. Okay. So the five that you mentioned. Okay. And then 12 are very old. Fair fairly old and and run um like I said fleet uh streets and maintenance fleet does an amazing job to get as many vehicles out there as they can. But the these equipment typically you're only supposed to run a sweeper approximately 8 years and a majority of them are over the 13 year age already. Okay. And the second thing that I had and I forget if I've brought this up to you but I know I've talked to Miss Mack about it. The citizen collection sites. Yes. I I know that people need to use their water bill to access them. Yes. But again unintended consequences of the of needing the water bill. Not everybody has a water bill. There are people that live in apartments or they're renting and their landlord might be paying their water. So, they don't have access to it. So, when I mean unintended consequences, those people are putting out their old couches or any furniture. They're putting it on the sidewalk and hoping that somebody will come by and and pick it up, right? And so I've done some writearounds on Fridays in in my district and usually we come up with about 20 to 25 311 CRS and pretty much the whole 25 or 20 are all trash that is left on the sidewalk from people that are not um having the ability to dispose of stuff. And so I know we could get into the semantics of well if they live in an apartment they have a big dumpster and they could get into that dumpster but they're still not doing it right. So I I think as as a city we should really look at expanding that citizen collection to to more people. I know one of the training videos that I did when I got to the city was if people show up and they forgot their water bill then we should just let them in. you know, that was one of the HR training videos that that I had. So, but I I think we really need to take into consideration what El Paso Water is doing right now. They're giving out sandbags because it's monsoon season. And they said, "Well, you know what? You could use your water bill to access these sandbags or you could use your ID, your Texas ID to do it. But as we're expanding our program on enhanced library cards, I think this would also be a perfect opportunity to say you could use your water bill, your Texas ID, or your enhanced library card to access the citizen collection site and drop off your trash. And then at the same time, people will be happier in our neighborhoods where they're not having to call 311 to report their neighbors for having trash outside with big furniture or a couch or whatever it is. and and I think that would make it easier in the long run if we opened it up. So I wanted to hear your thoughts on that. So So we could look into this. Um the main drawback to that is that we do have a lot of commercial customers that work within the city that do charge people to collect their waste to do different services and then they do try to go to the citizen collection stations to use them. So there is a lot of third party commercial people that uh or customers that don't pay into the the residential fee which covers the the um the citizen collection station. So we do have to deter a lot of them away from the citizen collection station. So we we'd have some difficulty working with them but I I feel like we could determine a way to to get it going uh and look into it so further. Yeah. And I I I understand the third party commercial um turn them away that that's fine. I'm I'm talking about the the resident that lives in an apartment or a rental house and they show up with their pickup truck and then they're like, "I don't have a water bill." And then we say, "Okay, sorry. Turn away with your couch." And then that ends up on the curb. I I think that that's what's really important here. And our enhanced library cards could really our our numbers are great over 6,000. That's what Norma told us yesterday. But I think this would give citizens in El Paso to have more access to other services. Okay. So, I'm hoping we really can can work this out in the next year because a lot of my constituents are are are talking about it. Yes sir. Okay. Thank you, Represent. Thank you, mayor, and thank you, Nicholas. Um, I took part of the community cleanup and it was a huge success and I'm excited to know that there's going to be two of them scheduled. Now, um, one simple request that I would make is if we could promote the community cleanup ahead of time, maybe about a month out. You know, a lot of my constituents did say, "Hey, I wish I had a little bit more time so I could clean my yard or whatnot." And I think overall this is going to definitely help with the illegal dumping. You know, District 5 being connected within the county, there's a lot of desert. I do uh witness a lot of illegal dumping. And one other simple request is I know that we just had Fourth of July and all on Saragoa there's leftover fireworks everywhere. there's piles of fireworks and I know that there's a challenge to that because it's private property but um I think you know planning ahead of time of next year I know fireworks were not legal within the city limits but uh there was a lot of firework stands on Saragoa within the county jurisdiction and now you know one of the things that I worry about is that you know there's going to be storms there's rain and whatnot these fireworks are going to go in through the the the storm water systems and whatnot so I think definitely we could look into that I would truly appreciate that and let's keep El Paso clean. Thank you, sir. Thank just one represent. Sure. Thank you, mayor. Um I think I was talking to Rep. Chavez yesterday and I just proposed that we uh become like Japan and have no trash cans anywhere and just everybody take care of your own trash and take it to this take it to the stations. Yes. That would be such a beautiful world, right? Yes. And I have seen if everybody would pick up after themselves. Yes. I'm calling those people out. Thanks, Nick, for everything you and your staff do. Thank you very much. Any other questions for Nick, Nick, great job. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Brian. We have public comment. Yes, mayor, we do, sir. We just have like one more wrap-up. Okay. And then Robert, good afternoon, Mayor and City Council. So, just a few slides just to kind of wrap up um some of the key points that we talked about over the last couple of days and then talk about the next steps that we have. until we adopt the budget. So again, um some of the key points that you heard during the eight hours yesterday during all the presentations and what you've heard today. Again, part of the discussion on was on the reductions that were taken in the prior year and we talked about how those reductions have not been restored. Uh whether it's the funding for the vehicles and the facilities or the funding for the vacant positions. Uh we talked a little bit about the additional adjustments and efficiencies that we have built into the budget for next year. So, the $26 million in reduction across the board and you have that list of items in your presentation you saw yesterday as well. So, again, city manager, all of our city departments worked very hard to identify those reductions again to bring the budget down as low as possible without impacting city services. Um, we've talked a lot about police and fire, the two most important departments that we have in our city, the services that we provide, and those two departments alone accounted for over $19 million of increases. Um overall general fund again is going up by 24.8 million. So these two departments represent about 80% of the overall increase in the general fund budget next year. And again that's everything from the additionalies and you heard from the police chief talk about getting back to precoid staffing levels on the police department side. You heard the fire chief talk about the 911 communicators and getting back to precoid staffing levels for our 911 communications. So essential critical services that we're significantly investing in. um going into next year in addition to the new fire stations as well. So again, completing completing those public safety bond projects for our community, we have uh the new east side regional command. We opened this past year. We have two new fire stations planned to open in this coming year. So again, it's the capital and the staffing side. Uh we talked about the additional tax relief for over 65 and disabled. So again, the city's being very thoughtful about how we're again minimizing the impact on our t taxpayers, focusing on over 56,000 almost 57,000 homes that have uh the city exemption currently $42,500 again providing them additional tax relief. Um the use of fund balance, something that want to be very very clear because I think a lot of people don't maybe understand what that means. Essentially, the city is using reserves, money that is um our savings essentially. You could think of it as to balance the budget. And so, when you think about how you're utilizing your savings on a daily basis to manage your budget, not ideal. You want to ensure that you have adequate money throughout the year to be able to pay for the services that you're providing. So, again, it is not best practice to utilize onetime revenue to be able to balance your budget. And so, the budget that we have recommended for next year reduces that amount again reduces that amount by $3.2 2 million next year. So essentially what that means is that that's $3.2 million less in revenue that we have in the FY2026 budget because again we're working off again structural balance which means you have ongoing revenue to support your ongoing cost. Couple of the slides you heard from Miss Wiggins and what we have planned for our city staff. again really focusing on maintaining our current city services of providing um again those adjustments for our professional managerial adjusting the compression and then providing the 1% pay increase but you also heard and represent talked about this but it still doesn't get us to the the median income wage where we need to be but we've made significant investment in the overall uh wage increases for our organization identifying new revenue so you all took action at the last council meeting and then the further action today to dissolve two tur. So essentially taking restricted funding uh making that funding now unrestricted again to provide additional revenue for the general fund and representative Nino summed it up perfectly with all of the points that you made this morning and again that's one of the strategies that we've utilized is how do we take restricted funding pay these items off early to provide additional funding for the general fund again to further complement what we're doing to try to offset the impact on the tax rate. Uh, a lot of discussion about maintaining the investment in our infrastructure, a lot of discussion about streets with Randy Garcia, not Randolph, Randy Garcia. Um, but on the capital project side as well. So, the investment in all of our infrastructure, when we think about infrastructure, it be physical, it could be our technology. We talked a lot about that. And I'll make my laptop work. I promise. No matter what I have, it'll be fine. But you all saw the presentation from the IT department back in March that they did for you all and talking about the needs for the department. And if you go back and look at that presentation there, their ask for FY2026 was over $5 million of identified funding that they that they needed that is currently not funded. And so that means we need to come up with alternatives and try to identify funding so that we're able to provide them the resources that they need to again uh be able to provide the services for not only the community but all of our internal departments as well. Um finally the last one there. Yes, we have talked about the debt and you know there was a comment about what does that really matter? Well that matters because that is a key component of the overall property tax rate. um those are long-term liabilities that we should be focused on paying those um liabilities off early and again that's what's provided us the ability to be able to decrease the tax rate in the last couple of years to be able to hold the line on the tax rate next year by paying debt off early again creating new revenue sources while at the same time again I keep saying it because it's important not impacting the services from all of the individuals that you heard today who are leading all of the city departments and so with that the next steps that we have so again we I've been taking notes from yesterday and today we have compiled or will compile a list of questions or things that we have uh to provide you all as far as responses. Uh we'll providing those or will be providing those to you over the next couple weeks. Uh we'll be sending out the chime in information. So, and the link that you have currently with all of the documents. Uh we'll add the chime in data uh to that link for you all. Uh we're still compiling council budget requests. So, you have until this Friday to finish uh submitting those. uh staff is working on putting together estimates and responses for those particular items and we'll bring those back on July 31st at that special city council meeting that we have scheduled. Um so as far as the next states, so July 22nd, next city council meeting in two weeks, we'll have the ordinance to introduce the exemption increase for the over 65 and disabled. So that'll be the introduction and then the public hearing for that item will be on August the 5th so that it will be approved in advance of the adoption of the budget because we need to provide that to the appraisal district so that they can get that built in on July the 25th. It's our Christmas day for what we do. We get our certified values. We wake up every morning very very excited waiting for central appraisal district to send us those valuations and then we get to work and there's a lot of work that goes invol that is involved in that. Miss Maria Pacillas and the staff over at the tax office. Again, they don't just provide that service to the city. They do it for all of the 44 taxing entities. So, they're doing all of the calculations for the no new revenue rate, the voter approval rate, and so they're uh working very very hard to get us that information. Uh so, we take that information and we'll come to the city council July 31st. Again, that's on a Thursday. We do need a quorum of you all because not only will we do the presentation of the certified values but there will actually be the ordinance to introduce the tax rate on that day. Um and so that'll lead it um into the requirements that we have to meet the state statutory requirements. Uh we have to do a publication in the newspaper for that public hearing that will be held on August the 12th and then August 19th will be the date that we will adopt the budget and the tax rate. So, with that, that completes the wrap-up. And know Miss Mack and I appreciate all of your time. It's been, I think, a very, very good change in the budget process, the way we've gone about doing it. Everything from uh the strategic budget development session to all of the different community meetings that we've done, the committee meets that we have scheduled over the next few weeks, again, to really really get out and make sure that, and I got to give kudos to Miss Mack because she attended every one of the community meetings that we did. So for her to actually be there and take the time, I mean, I think it says a lot about, you know, really leading the organization. So just want to thank our public for doing that. Very good. [Applause] We got a few closing comments here before we do public comment. Representative Chavez. Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, I have a question real quick, Robert, just to clarify. Um the 3.2 2 million that we need to use uh to balance the budget. How will that affect our rainy day fund? So, I will bring that back at the July 31st meeting because at that meeting as well, one of the items we'll have on the agenda that day is we'll actually bring our third quarter update as well. And so, we'll have updated projections. We'll show you what we're expecting to use from our fund balance in this current fiscal year because then that obviously impact the number of days when we close off this fiscal year and then what the impact from using the $40 million in FY26 would have on the overall days. I anticipate we're probably going to be with this year and the 40 million next year around 75 76 days. Okay. But I'll we'll update that on July 31st when we show you the projections for this year. Okay. And we did use some money from that fund to balance this fiscal year and last fiscal year as well. That's correct. So we used it to balance the budget and so some confusion about that as well. So thank you for asking. So we were fortunate in FY24 that we did not have to use our fund balance. We were projecting when I presented to you all back in March to use about 2.2 million 2.2 2.24 million of our fund balance this year. So we will more than likely have to use some of that fund balance this year. But that's a revenue source. So when we develop the budget, you have to have revenues and your expenses have to balance. So we do have a use of fund balance plugged in next year as a source of revenue to balance the budget next year. Again, that is not an ongoing source of revenue to fund our ongoing expenses into the future. So it's something that, you know, we're going to work very hard to get off of that. It's not a best practice. It's not something that you want to do. But I mean, we did um a few years ago, and you heard this mentioned yesterday, create the pay for futures with that intent, but that intent was over a 5-year time period. And at the end of that five years, we should have gotten off of that practice of using the fund balance. So, but yes, we'll bring that, but we're reducing our debt burden and we're doing other things absolutely to compensate. So, and it's not just talking points, it's facts. So, I mean, our debt rate being at the lowest it's been since 2012, it's it's not a talking point or message. It's a fact. And it's something that we've worked very hard to to accomplish. You hear a lot about the 6 and 12% increase. That's on the average tax bill, but that's just a percentage. You ask me, I can throw out 20 other percentages that tell a completely different story. Uh we talked about the $43 million in property tax relief that we're providing for disabled veterans, over 65 disabled in our homesteads. Not all of our disabled veterans will see a 6 and a half% increase in their property tax bill next year or over 65 and disabled will not may not see a 6 and a half% particularly with uh what the state is putting before voters in November to increase the exemption on the state bill. So it's all of these different things that it's it's all dependent upon your perspective. You know, people have different narratives that they're trying to get across. I think ours and the city managers is really about again it's the balancing act protecting as much as we can our taxpayers but at the same time not impacting our critical city services that we're providing and you all have seen it already in the you know for those of you that are new you've seen in the short amount of time that in a lot of those critical areas we're not at the level that we need to be at as an organization there's still a lot of work to be done uh to get to where we need to be whether it's the staffing whether it's you know the technology the actual resources to be able to go out and fix streets So just across the board. So I mean I think every department here and I I think it's really you know the individuals in this room that are really doing what they can with what they have to you know provide the services at the level that they are and we want to thank you for that and thank you Miss Mack and everyone else for the time and effort that you put in in putting this together for us. So we appreciate that and and we'll continue the conversation with our constituents in our community meetings. Thank you so much. Welcome Representative Lima. Thank you mayor. So, as we come to the closing of this day, Robert, this is my fifth rodeo doing a budget process. And Dion, I got to hand it to you. This was the most comprehensive, fully compacted, but very understandable process. I really like the two-page for every department. I love that we were hitting on the exact same things for every department. It was standardized. It was something that we could follow through and you gave us such excellent information that it it just it was a very good good process. I especially like to see all of the department people here yesterday. It was really it was just very nice because it's everybody. We're all together in this and we're all going to be uh responding to the constituents about all of this process as we go through. You know, there's people in here that and I asked Roberts, who are all those people in the back over there? Who is that team? And it's all the OM people. And it's we never see your faces. And it's so nice to have you present today. I really appreciate the time that you took. And to those that were here the whole day yesterday, chief and chief and chief, thank you for being here because it could have been so easy to say, you know, I've got things to do, but I guess everybody has things to do. And Anthony, I know you run a very big important department as well and you were here and it just it it is really good to see that we have a great team in the leadership of this city. I believe that nothing is impossible right now and I have great hope great great hope for the passing of what we need to do but that we've already established some points where we want to go back and we want to keep those in minds hourly salaries what are we going to do about our streets what are we going to do about other issues in our community but I just want to say Robert thank you Dion Thank you, Carla. Thank you. And to all our leadership out there, thank you for all the work that you put in together. This didn't happen two days ago. You have been working on this for months. And it takes that kind of work and that type of detail and love for what you do that brought us forth to this day. Muchimas. Gracias. Thank you, Representative Rocha. Thank you. I'm gonna follow up with a question. That was beautiful, Rip Lemon. So, Robert, I have a question for you. Is it legal in the state of Texas to increase property taxes 6.5% without voter approval? No. Okay. And uh so the number that's that's being kind of tossed around out there was the projected value of a home that you're projecting, right, which is actually very conservative, I think. And it's it's projected based off of a baseline that the average home is, let's say, today. And when you divide the new tax rate based off of the new property value and the old tax rate or same tax rate really, right? It's the same tax rate between the new projected value and the old projected value, the value that I get is 6.5%. So, I want to make sure that that that the public is very aware that the city cannot legally go and increase your property taxes 6.5% without voter approval. And so, that's that's not I just want to make sure that that is crystal clear because I know I've gotten some questions about it. And so, I want to be sure that that everybody knows if that was even possible that it's not. It's impossible. And so, thank you, Robert. Thank you, staff. Thank you, Miss Mack. Did you want Did you want to add to that? Thank you, Miss Neman. Thank you, directors, and all the deputy city managers for all the work that you've done to bring this budget. It was my first and I have to say that it was while I sat there and I thought, you know, how are we going to get through all these departments, you all did an amazing job. So, thank you for that. and thank you for the thoughtful way that you brought about and took the questions and have all these requests to take back and then bring back in in a month or later this month, I should say. We'll hopefully finalize um the the budget. So, thank you, Robert, for all the work. Please stay at the city. We need you. You're very valued in in the job and the way that you've approached it. very appreciative and just I'm just amazed. So, thank you, Robert. Well, before we take the public comment, Miss Prime, I just want to also say um this was many of our first budget uh cycle that we went through. And I know I speak on behalf of all the council uh members and those that are even not here, but wow, this was very, very impressive. And we cannot thank you guys enough for the amount of time because we know that you had to go to each office and brief us on the budget and um it's a lot of work. It's it's truly a lot of work. Um I also want to thank my council members for their attentiveness and asking the questions that they did. Some of them were were tough questions and you guys had uh good answers. But the amount of rehearsing again that you guys went through, we cannot thank you guys enough because the the hard work does show and it's very much appreciated. So, uh you've got a lot a lot to be proud of. A lot to be proud of. And you know, it's u it's a tough budget. We're going to get through it and uh we're going to only get better as we go uh uh through next year as a city. And uh we're very very proud of you guys and and I'm going to ask my council members to join me in giving you guys a round of applause. [Applause] With that said, Miss Prine, public comment. Yes, Mayor. We have two members of the public that signed up to speak. The first person is Sam Ario. Samikho. I don't see him coming forward. We have Miss Jenny Solo via teleconference. Miss Solo, star six, please to unmute your telephone. Good afternoon. You have three minutes. You're back on mute, ma'am. Star six. Okay, now your microphone is ready. Hi. Can you hear me? Yes, ma'am. Okay. Um, hi. Good morning, mayor, council members, and staff. My name is Jenny Solo. I'm here today because this proposed budget doesn't just raise concerns, it raises our tax bills. I know some people are saying, "Wait, if the tax rate didn't go up, how can there be a 6.5% increase?" Well, here's how. The rate stays the same. The value of your home went up, and you're taxed on that new higher number. So, yes, the rate didn't change, but your bill did. This isn't a theory. It's happening. And it's not just the city collecting on that higher value. We've got county taxes, school district taxes, hospital district taxes, and they use the same inflated property values to calculate what we owe. So, no matter how you spin it, families across El Paso are going to see this. Now, zoom out for a second. El Paso's population only grew by 150 people last year. That's barely a blip. People are quietly moving out to Los Cusus, Chaparel, Sunland Park, where they can live more affordably but still work and shop here. And this is where I get worried because this is starting to look like a mini California where I'm originally from. Out there, years of rising taxes and cost of living drove out working families and now it's become a playground for the wealthy, but without the support system to keep things running. And we're headed in that same direction. If the people who make the city work, teachers, city employees, service workers and families, can't afford to stay here, then it doesn't matter how nice the parks are or the projects are, who's going to use them? Who's going to maintain them? We're building big things like the deck plaza, but we're losing the people who make the city function. This isn't about resisting change. It's about asking for balance. Asking for a plan that doesn't rely on o overt taxing residents who are already struggling to keep up. Because if they find an easier option, many will take this. And this path is not sustainable and it's not right. Please consider the bigger picture before El Paso becomes a place people used to call home. Thank you. Thank you. That concludes public comment this afternoon. Do I have a motion to motion to second? There's a motion and a second to adjourn the special city council meeting. All in favor? Anyone opposed? and the special city council meeting Tuesday, July 8th, 2025 is adjourned at 1:36 p.m. Thank you, council. Unknown.