yes mayor we are having trouble with a live stream so it is currently rebooting the system so it'll just be a couple of minutes before we get started thank you we're good okay good morning mayor we're good to get started whenever a quorum is on the dais yes sir good morning everyone we do we do have a quorum we need one more person on the dais um representanello please thank you good morning this is a meeting of the el paso city council for tuesday july 19 2022 present and presiding in council chambers is mayor lisa along with representative annelo representative salcido representative rodriguez representative lisadaga representative rivera mayor pro-tem schwarzwein is running a few minutes late representative hernandez is joining virtually and representative molinar has requested to be excused it is 903. am now will everyone please silence their electronic devices so as not to disturb the meeting and rise for the invocation delivered by police chaplain david mayfield good morning good morning sir good morning i would invite all president who wish to to join me in prayer lord we thank you for your wisdom we ask you to fill us with wisdom and revelation by the power of your spirit enable us to know you better to know your will and your plans for our lives and our city lord give us a heart of wisdom may your wisdom produce in us creative ideas solutions to problems and new answers to old questions may you give us sound counsel and good judgment to help us make those good decisions and grant us the courage to do what is right may you also give us greater knowledge and understanding so that we may live skillfully and give back what is good and excellent to our community amen amen and now the pledge of allegiance thank you and this morning we have three special guests to join us in the pledge of allegiance at the invitation of representative lizard present are audrey samir chloe sameer and josephine one nation under god indivisible with liberty thank you very much for coming thank you very much for coming here you guys did great use that you see yourself on tv your certificates chloe okay representative lasagna thank you very much you know those are your grandkids and they're very beautiful congratulations and you know we always talk about and i and i say this but we really mean it that uh you know there's a lot of things we do and there's a lot of stress in life day in and day out but when you see those beautiful children we realize that everything we do day in and day out is well worth it so thank you for sharing them with us and making and starting our day beautiful thank you and uh now we always start with a moment of silence and i want to you know we have we all have a good friend that sat next to me for many years and mr robinson and mr robinson seems to be a little bit under the weather and i tried to talk to him yesterday he had a really hard time speaking with me and i'm really very concerned with them and so we all have somebody that we really care a lot about and somebody that's impacted our lives day in and day out whereas our mom our dad our brothers our sisters or someone like mr robinson that sat next to me for four years and has continued to be a good friend and so please uh keep him in your prayers or anyone that you believe today needs a little help and a little love from someone from us so if we can just have a moment of prayers for everyone thank you thank you everyone and when he called me last night he couldn't speak to me and i said well what can i do for you says please put me in your prayers so hope you all did thank you mayor that brings us to the mayor's proclamations the first proclamation is alberto ronquillo's 100th and i have it right here go ahead thank you mayor um okay go ahead sir thank you sir this is an honor going from one extreme from beautiful children we just saw to the other extreme a very vibrant gentleman who will be celebrating his 100th birthday soon right sunday sunday is the day 100 years old mr lukiel oh i know on behalf of the the city of el paso can you hear me okay on behalf of the city el paso a proclamation on your behalf sir proclamation from the city of el paso texas whereas alberto ronquillo was born in camargo chihuahua in 1922 to alberto and refugio ronquillo and whereas he married his wife in karna i hope i said right on on october 20 1947 delicious chihuahua and they later moved to swedar juarez chihuahua he worked at a grocery store in el paso texas where they bought a home in 1959 and whereas mr monkey will learn to speak english through the texas congress of parents and teachers education for family living in 1964. and as the years passed he partnered with his brother roberto to purchase an auto mechanic shop named roberto's automotive and whereas in 1972 alberto sold his half of the automotive shop and ventured to islera independent school district as a custodian for north loop elementary she was transferred to parkland high school as head custodian and retired from riverside high school as head custodian in 1990 after gaining u.s citizenship in 1985 and whereas mr ronquillo raised four successful sons alberto arturo jose luis and mauricio and is devoted and is a devoted grandfather to 10 grandchildren and 20 great grandchildren whereas mr ronquillo alberto enjoys playing pool and socializing at the jesse moreno happiness center where he has been a member for over 15 years and whereas alberto ronquillo celebrates his 100th birthday on july 25th 2022 along with his friends and family and the city of el paso is proud to call him one of our own now therefore be proclaimed by the mayor and council of the city of el paso that july 25th 2022 shall be known as alberto ronquillo's 100th birthday you want to say a few words sir good morning sir congratulations see you know what you want you want to say a few words for him thank you very much thank you very special honor thank you mayor can we sing those to him can we sing las manianitas to him you're more than welcome to do it i just i just won't join you how's that just to spare everyone else [Music] go ahead senor senor mr he can't hear very well okay but you all go ahead okay ready yes [Music] [Music] [Applause] mayor i just like to add that this is a this is a a a blessing to have mr here and this is what our senior citizen centers do this is uh allows them to engage with people you know close to his age the other youngsters look up to him but this is this is really really a testament to our senior citizens uh our senior citizens and the senior citizen centers that el paso provides you thank you and you know i always say and i said it a minute ago that the future of our community is the youth so you're a perfect example thank you thank you very much miss prine the next proclamation is gardner hotel 100th anniversary recognition day representative thank you good morning thank you mary lisa good morning everyone it is my pleasure to read this proclamation this morning whereas the gardner hotel is the oldest continually operating hotel in the city of el paso texas whereas the stylish downtown hotel was first opened in 1922 by lawyer and eventual mayoral candidate preston e gardner meaning that this year it celebrates the 100th anniversary of its founding and whereas the gardner hotel has hosted several famous guests and historical personalities including notorious bank robber john dillinger shortly before his capture in january 1934 and pulitzer prize an academy award winner and famed american novelist cormac mccarthy who wrote several of his works while living in the gardner in the 1970s and 1980s and whereas the city of el paso would like to recognize the nebhan family who have operated the hotel for four generations providing excellent service to el pasoans and visitors alike for a full century now therefore be it proclaimed by the mayor and the council of the city of el paso that july 19 2022 shall be known as gardner hotel 100th anniversary recognition day congratulations thank you very much and to all city council members and mr mayor there's so many people to thank this is the first one's my grandfather and my father but all the staff we've had all the guests we've had it's been a wonderful life for me and uh it's turning out to be a wonderful life for my daughter who's taken over of the hotel and uh it's only beautiful today because of the work of my lovely wife and my beautiful daughter who have taken such good care of the hotel and has maintained and exemplified its color its legacy to the city of el paso i thank you very much thank you and congratulations now mr navham i'm not sure if you knew this but mr ronquillos was there for the grand opening he's the only one that was there out of all of us [Laughter] thank you very much thank you congratulations again please don't leave because we'll be doing photos okay thank you very much and the final proclamation is americans with disabilities act awareness day whereas the americans with disabilities act ada was passed on july 26 1990 to ensure the civil rights of citizens with disabilities and whereas el paso texas affirms the principles of equality and inclusion for persons with disabilities as set forth by the state of texas and as embodied in the ada the laws of the state of texas and ordinances of el paso and whereas numerous organizations in el paso and texas work with constituents and communities to bring forth the promise of hope and freedom that is envisioned by the passage of the ada and whereas july 26 2022 celebrates the 32nd anniversary of the americans with disabilities act with the celebration of 32 years of fortitude inclusion equality and liberty and whereas we publicly denounce all forms of discrimination against el paso and with disabilities and will make every effort to enforce equality inclusion and access to all city operated services now therefore be it proclaimed by the mayor and council of the city of el paso that july 26 2022 shall be known as americans with disabilities act awareness day thank you thank you everyone for being part of this 30 second celebration of the ada the ada is a huge aspect of my life it has allowed others and i to excel in our daily lives and given the opportunity to reach our milestones we thank you on behalf of a large center for independent living and all el pasoans with disabilities thank you so much thank you thank you for being here second there's a motion and a second to recess all in favor anyone opposed the meeting is in recess at 9 22 am in order to take some photos with the this morning's honorees if we could let's go ahead and start with um the first one the mr ronquillo if you and your family can all gather in the back of the room followed by mr ronquillo we're going to go ahead and then take up the what was this and then we'll go ahead with the gardner hotel and then we'll go ahead with the ada accessibility recognition may we have a motion to reconvene again there's a motion and a second to reconvene all in favor anyone opposed the meeting is back in session at 9 34 am mayor we do have some individuals that sign up to speak on the ada proclamation yeah i would love to have them come up and yes sir the first person is mr josue rodriguez good morning sir you have three minutes first of all thank you mayor city council for the proclamation um and just to emphasize again my name is josue rodriguez and i'm with el paso desert adapting grupo digni and one of uh we want to thank you for the proclamation today uh for salinas redondo um submedia uh the proclamation but we also want to emphasize the importance of keeping that dream of the ada alive um that the fact that we still need we still have issues to work towards um to fulfill that dream or or what the expectations that the ada hat has we need a lot more affordable accessible integrated housing we need our attendance to get better wages and to be able to live and have one job instead of having three or four just to make ends meet we need public uh places to be a lot more accessible and inclusive of people with all types of disabilities but again hopefully this council will help us move forward with that we need reliable accessible transportation we need avenues for transportation that are available for other people to be available to individuals with any type of disability and that's what we hope that this council moving forward will help us do as the people with disabilities here in el paso strive towards that a more inclusive and independent lifestyle for individuals with disabilities thank you so much for the proclamation today and um hopefully we'll keep moving forward together thank you thank you the next speaker is luis enriquez he's joining us by telephone mr chu star six please thank you mr rodriguez for being here mr chu star six please good morning sir good morning mayor good morning and he's training mean we appreciate your support since you began your first term of mayor and i i fully support what mr rodriguez just mentioned there's a the ada but we still need to keep an eye on making sure that everything is the city programs and services and running like h2 we appreciate also that we finally have a full-time ada coordinator than marikos chavez and well it's it has been 32 years since this act was as like president bush and it has made a lot of changes and benefits for us but like i say we still need to keep an eye that there's no anything that prevents the a28 to be fully intuitive and and fully compliant for everybody in the business community and with the city and the county thank you very much uh everybody for supporting us and we are going to have a on tuesdays at 26th a little celebration that will happen for independent living having a little barbecue with hot dogs and burgers and we will be sending you your flyers and hopefully you can join us for a small celebration over there thank you very much thank you mr truth and the final speaker is mr john eager good morning mr eager good morning mr eager the mayor and council for being very generous with your time and giving us a proclamation thank you thank you mr eager mayor that brings us to the consent agenda before that i just want to remind counsel for the rules of order you may not use any electronic devices other other than your desktop computer once you obtain the floor from the mayor you will have up to 10 minutes for debate you may speak twice per item and please refrain from side conversations at the dais while the meeting is in session everyone else please make sure your phones are silenced and your microphones are on mute if you're joining us via teams 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 good morning mayor pro tem morning thanks mary thanks uh miss prine propose revisions for the july 19 2022 meeting as of july 19 2022 at 8 30 a.m mountain standard time uh page 10 item 23 revised per representative schwartzbind and page 13 item 29 move to the forefront of the regular agenda per representative hernandez uh council are there any other revisions at this time that you would like to propose and the revision on item 23 was to the district it should be in district eight not one yes that is true um is there a second thank you there is a motion made by mayor potem schwarzwein seconded by representative li zaraga there is a member of the public that signed up to speak on items seven and eight mr ron coma i don't see him in in chambers i don't see steven that's the motion made by mayor pro tem shortly and seconded by representative zaraga to approve the consent agenda on that motion call for the boat representative manelo sorry i was waiting for it to come up aye thank you representative hernandez yes thank you in the voting session and the motion passes unanimously we now turn to page 13 item number 29 that was moved to the forefront and this is a public hearing on an ordinance adopting the el paso complete streets policy july 2022 as an addendum to the city of el paso's comprehensive plan plan el paso good morning mr rodriguez good morning marion council how are you joaquin rodriguez transportation planning administrator for the city of el paso for the record um today's item on adopting a ordinance amending the comprehensive plan of the city of el paso to include an addendum for the complete streets policies before you today let me go ahead and share my screen okay so we also have with us today kyle ibada within our planning group he is the city's complete streets coordinator as well as jerry saved representing the american heart association who has been really pivotal in bringing this complete streets policy forward we feel that the complete streets policy really does touch on all goals within the city's adopted strategic plan in a number of ways having healthy streets really does impact the community in a number of different ways so the complete streets policy doesn't stand alone as a policy it is part of an overall strategy to really achieve our goal of vision zero we are treating the complete streets policy as a continuation of some of the city's ongoing work in terms of transit public safety recently we brought forward the street design manual as part of the city of el paso east side master plan and earlier in 2016 the city adopted the city of el paso bike plan all of these really worked together to complement the complete streets policy with that ultimate goal of zero fatalities zero serious injuries on all of our roadways again complete streets principles really support safety for all users and all modes of transportation and this policy not so much strict requirements for all of our design projects but creates structure for informing our operations and our design standards going forward in terms of previous council action in 2012 the city did adopt plan el paso as its comprehensive plan for the next 25 years with specific goals to implement complete streets concepts within our transportation network again in 2016 the city adopted the bike plan in 2020 there was some discussion uh on the city's quarterly fatality analysis cross-functional team which included briefing on the development of a new complete streets policy in 2021 the city council directed the city manager to develop an intersection safety improvement program which you saw a few council meetings back with some specific recommendations for safety interventions additionally as part of that action the city council did commit to funding for the el paso vision zero action plan as well as an implementing city traffic safety programs and aligning those with federal and state vision zero programs in fiscal year 2022 the complete streets and vision zero programs were funded and then most recently not a council action specifically but in support of complete streets this presentation as well as the policy did receive a unanimous recommendation of approval from the city plan commission again there are some specific goals within plan el paso our comprehensive plan that support complete streets policies this policy is a continuation of those goals and really creates more specific structure to to implement complete streets principles design principles and values within our design process i will now hand it over to who i believe is there in person jerry savedra with the american heart association to give you some background on how the program came about and what the policy is intended to do thank you joaquin mayor least you're members of the city council my name is jerry savidra and i'm with the american heart association but i'm here representing the el paso complete streets coalition and just on complete streets i did want to level set you know we talk i've heard a lot of the council meetings discussion on different projects and bonds and complete streets get mentioned but when we're talking about complete streets it's not about any one particular project or design element or bike lanes when we're talking about complete streets it's really focusing on the process and shifting the city's approach from designing and building our roads and our streets and sidewalks with the sole focus of cars and traffic to looking at it as how do we build and design our roads to be the best and most effective for all users whether it's a driver who's driving a car but also not forgetting about the pedestrians who are using the sidewalk to get to the grocery store that's in their neighborhood folks in wheelchairs that are trying to cross the street people that are riding bikes and so there's really a holistic approach of considering all users when it comes to looking at complete streets and so as the city designs and puts together projects are we having a conversation about does it make sense to include a bike lane here does it make sense to add you know x safety element or a different safety element and so it doesn't necessarily mean that every single one of these types of improvements happens on every single street if it doesn't make sense to have a bike lane on a particular street you shouldn't add a bike lane there if it doesn't make sense to if it costs way too much money to do a recommended improvement then obviously that would be a factor in it so it's not about saying every single project needs to have every single one of these things it's it's it's putting together a process in place to make sure that the folks who are making those decisions also get the input of the community that city staff is better coordinated where the the office that focuses and works with the disability community or the older adult population that they have a seat at the table to say wait a minute you're not going to include this but let me tell you why this would be helpful for someone in a wheelchair or if someone in from that's representing the water system for example if they're going to be digging up a street and they have a project coming up where they're going to be messing the street up and then instead of just putting it back the exact same way that it was we say is there an opportunity here to maybe make an adjustment here or there to save the city money and improve the street at the same time so it's more about that framework in improving internal coordination and making sure that the community is also better involved in the process and has that opportunity to weigh in so the i'll talk next slide about the the coalition and how we came about walking next slide so about two years ago the we established the el paso complete streets coalition it's all the different organizations that you see on your screen it's really a partnership between national and local community organizations the there's an organization called city health that evaluates the top 40 cities in the country based on a variety of health measures complete streets is one of those policies that they look and see whether or not cities have the uh a standard of a good complete streets policy in place out of the top 40 cities el paso is one of three that does not have a metal or is not recognized as having a good complete streets policy and so that was really the the beginning of this along with reports coming out showing that there's a high rate of pedestrian fatalities el paso the most recent report is ranked as the 18th most dangerous city in the united states regarding pedestrian uh accidents and so that was the impetus on it and there's national organizations that are the really the experts on what a good strong complete street policy should include and that is a smart growth america american heart association so we partner together and also wanting to make sure that we're bringing in local organizations to give their input because there's not a one-size-fits-all model el paso has unique geography unique uh you know relationships with the our neighboring communities and the the the unique travel situation so really wanted to make sure that we customized a good complete streets policy for the city of el paso and that's what we did it's over the past two years uh through the pandemic have done been doing a lot of community education we had a webinar over the pandemic educating the community about complete streets gathering input we did a a pop-up project actually the rendering you see here is just one example of the design or it's car focused it does a really good job of extending out for a car but if someone was trying to cross the street um there's that barrier there and if someone was in a bike they would have to go all the way around or if someone was in a wheelchair they would have to go around to cross so that's just one example of kind of how a better design for all users is something that is a conceptual rendering and so next slide walking i'll stop there and uh just again appreciate this we've been working on this for over two years so we're just really excited that we're here today and uh the timing with uh everything couldn't be better so thank you so much and also just wanted to identify myself as a i am registered as a lobbyist for the city to specifically advocate for complete streets so thank you thank you thank you jerry i'm hi council members mayor it's pleasure to be here and present our implementation plan the complete streets policy was broken down into a program and it's basically broken down with the the key points that we we list here which is to create a division and intent is to create a connected and resilient equitable transportation network that includes commitment in all projects with the listing the implementation steps of the following committees as well as developing the performance measures next slide please the vision and intent is is to create an interconnected street network that safely accommodates all anticipated users and transportation modes it would require that the city be committed to prioritized transportation investments which would make walking biking public transit and shared mobility safe and attractive and viable for all options in el paso next slide the guiding principles that we've set in the policy include safety accessibility equity diversity inclusivity and land use next slide the other guiding principles that we've listed here are also environment and economic vitality the commitment in all projects and phases would require that the public departments and private contractors provide accommodations for people using all modes of transportation to continue to use the streets safely and that would include any new construction reconstruction resurfacing restoration or rehabilitation the implementation steps requires that we set up two committees those two committees uh one has already been identified at this at this phase the other one would be identified within 90 days that include the mobility advisory committee and the technical review committee uh they're they're they're they're they're they're they would run in tandem so basically within 90 days of the policy adoption uh cid sam and planning and inspections in consultation with the technical review committee shall draft enabling policy that creates the new mobility advisory committee this would clearly define the roles responsibilities that make up the committee uh the the document would describe how the trc would interface with the mobility advisory committee next slide for land use and context sensitivity the implementation of complete streets must be done with respect to the surrounding community complementary land uses and zoning ordinance would require some review and potential change next slide the performance measurement reporting and accountability the city would track and evaluate progress of complete streets policy implementation the trc would establish performance targets and identify performance measures some of those performance measures we've already established some we'll have to implement in in future planning studies next slide these are some of the suggested performance metrics for for both the near term midterm as well as the long term next slide our next steps would be to establish the governance structures for the two committees identify and assign personnel for the trc which we've already done and then the formation of the mobility advisory committee and then the implementation will policy follow the policy documentation thank you thank you thank you kyle uh so again this is joaquin rodriguez with cid um thanks for taking the time this morning council i really appreciate the time to present this policy as mr savada said this has been uh in the works for quite some time and finally having the final draft of this document to put forward i i think really gives us the staff uh you know the clear direction that we need to establish these committees and make sure that we're working within departments to to really prioritize complete streets infrastructure and design aspects and values throughout our design process so with that we're happy to take any questions you have on the policy itself and on the presentation we do have a lot of questions we do have three city council members but we have some members of the public mr prime yes mayor we do have a few members that signed up to speak we'll begin with stephanie mccoy ms mccoy submitted a written statement and it reads i am the project coordinator for the el paso healthy schools project through action for healthy kids and the paso del norte health foundation we work closely with school districts to keep students safe and healthy automobile collisions are a leading cause of death and injury among school-aged children in el paso county during 2018 2019 of the 861 pedestrian and cyclist-involved crashes that resulted in non-injury serious injury and fatality almost one-quarter of them were under the age of 18 of crashes that involved children and youth under the age of 18 seven were fatal passing the el paso complete streets policy will help ensure students have safe routes to school i asked city council to vote yes thank you for your time steph stephanie mccoy thank you miss mccoy the next speaker is ana acosta followed by ismael herrera good morning miss saco say you have three minutes good morning good morning my name is arna costa and i am the injury prevention and education specialist and safe kids el paso coordinator for the trauma department at umc el paso as a level one trauma center part of our goal is to reduce preventable injuries and deaths in our community as pedestrian and bicycle incidents increase we prioritize educating children teens adults and older adults in vulnerable neighborhoods on the importance of staying safe on the road through presentations awareness campaigns events and other evidence-based interventions while having the knowledge on how to stay safe is important it is also important to provide el paso and the resources to practice these safe behaviors complete streets complements our efforts by addressing the factors that make streets less safe for pedestrians and cyclists design features help reduce speed provide ramps for easy access to people who need them wider sidewalks and buffers from traffic medians and pedestrian islands for safer crossing thank you for your time and we hope you continue to support our injury prevention programs to make our city healthy healthier safer and more equitable thank you thank you the next speaker is ismail herrera good morning sir you have three minutes good morning sir good morning my name is aarp texas i'm here to encourage you to consider older adults in el paso and vote for the complete streets policy complete streets play a great part in creating livable communities building infrastructure with alternative transportation in mind like walking bike and transit creates a safe space for both older and young pedestrians safe streets for a person in a wheelchair or a walker are also safe for a parent with a stroller complete streets also supports aging in place an aarp survey found most older adults want to age in place in their homes and communities safe and accessible streets support their independence and access to essential services for many older adults walking walking opens opportunities to socialize and interact with others thus helping them avoid the negative impact of the negative impact of severe social isolation lastly street design that keeps pedestrians and cyclists and others in mind could save lives older adults are over represented in pedestrian fatalities caused by vehicles i hope you will keep older adults in mind when voting for complete streets policy thank you sir thank you in council uh mr mr savada submitted a letter from the el paso complete streets coalition to you to each of you and he just wanted to let you know that the letter was signed by aarp texas action for healthy kids american heart association centro san vicente el paso border coalition for fitness el paso diabetes association el paso independent school district frontera land alliance green hope project medical center of the americas moms on board paso del norte trail quantum engineering race el paso rio grande area agency on aging university medical center of el paso velo paso velar center for independent living and y mca all in support of the complete streets policy the next statement was submitted by yvette lugel and it reads good morning mayor lisa and city council representatives i am yvette lugo and have the honor of serving as a director for the rio grande area agency on aging a division of rio grande council of governments on behalf of the agency i stand in support of the el paso complete streets policy it coincides with our agency's mission to support older adults with their independence and ability to continue to reside in the community for as long as possible with the rapid growth of our older adult population that is occurring across the united states as well as here in el paso we need to integrate the needs of older adults into our future planning and design so that all citizens can safely navigate the community which includes streets and sidewalks for some older adults the ability to safely walk to the grocery store pharmacy and doctors offices would not only allow them to maintain their independence it also eliminates the need to rely on others thus preserving dignity as we age supporting safe streets ensures that older adults drivers benefit from enhanced engineering meant to improve mobility and help them to arrive at their destinations with confidence and without fear mayor lisa and city council representatives i respectfully request your support and to vote yes to adopt the el paso complete streets policy your vote will ensure that el paso continues to be a great place to grow old thank you for your consideration event logo director for the rio grande area agency on h thank you mr lugo the next statement was submitted by veronica flaherty and it reads i am writing to submit the following written comments in support of july 19 2022 city council agenda item number 29 and an ordinance adopting the el paso complete streets policy july 2022 as an addendum to the city of el paso's complete planned plan el paso i am unable to participate in the meeting and would like to request for you to read my comments on behalf when the item comes up i am a routine walker in the coronado country club neighborhood i have been walking here for the last 11 years and have always had to be very careful and aware of my surroundings our neighborhood is lacking sidewalks this is especially alarming since a large number of cars speed and seem to be distracted while driving in my neighborhood i have to dodge vehicles on more than one occasion honestly our neighborhood has attracted many young families who walk with their strollers witnessing this is worrisome and disturbing our neighborhood unfortunately just isn't walker friendly bicycle friendly please vote yes to the ordinance el paso complete streets policy july 2022 thank you veronica flaherty the next speaker is scott white followed by susan sink and eva olivas good morning mr white you have three minutes good morning mr white how are you good morning mr mayor and my bike buddy good morning everyone thank you for this wonderful opportunity norm for the record first my name is scott white i am deputy director of farm and city which is a statewide nonprofit which promotes quality of life issues including transportation reform and also hosts the texas vision zero project we and of course i'm also with as you all have heard me so many times before with fellow pass a bicycle pedestrian coalition we have an opportunity here to really change the nature of this community in the past we've gone out and said we want bike lanes we want this we want that and we can talk about safety we can talk about health but we can also talk about the economy of this community because one of the true factors of companies wanting to come to el paso is the quality of life issue that complete streets does bring people want to be able to walk they want to be able to bike they want to be able to access transit they want a community that is livable and so when we go out and recrea these companies we can talk about the fact that we now have a complete streets policy we can talk about how this is going to reshape many of our streets not just the new ones but the ones that need to be fixed and even the height in the high injury network where people too many people have been hurt or killed this isn't just about walkability either it's also making our streets safe for drivers this past weekend we had too many people die on our roads making our streets safer for everyone is the goal of this project it's great that we're starting with walkability and bike ability and access to transit but it's making our streets safer for everyone because when we design our streets for people we can cut down on the history of designing just for traffic that we've had for the past who knows how many decades it's time we design and build the city that we all want for our future that we want for our children we want for our grandchildren so they can enjoy this city as we know it can be enjoyed and should be enjoyed so i hope you will vote for this i hope you will support this i know thanks to the iija there is a lot of funding out there that we can now access to make this vision a reality thank you thank you the next person submitted a statement to be read into the record and it reads my name is susan sink and i walk my dogs for their health as well as for my own how pestilence should be able to walk our streets without worrying we're going to be hurt or worse killed i've lived in el paso my whole life and traffic and speeding drivers have increased along with our city's growth we need safety measures in place to help bicyclists as well as walkers enjoy our city streets thank you for helping this very important quality of life and safety health issue susan sink the next speaker is eva olivas good morning ma'am you have three minutes good morning good morning sabri city representatives and mayor liser my name is eva olivas and i'm a community impact director for the american heart association our priority is to improve the heart health of our community through different policy system and environmental changes and some of this work could look like smoke-free environments that are being brought here in el paso and or ensuring our community has access to healthy and affordable food just to name a few we also have educational efforts such as our annual conference for women where we're able to educate and empower them to take control of their heart health by making healthier choices and prioritizing their own health as well i mention all this because complete streets is a policy that would also help us improve the health of our community by providing safer routes to everyday destinations our community will be able to be more physically active they'll be able to safely walk or bike to the grocery store to access the healthy food that i just mentioned our children will be able to have safe routes to school which would encourage them to be more physically active but will also give their parents a little bit more peace of mind to allow their children to bike to school so i ask you today to think of the health and the safety of our community and i ask for your support with a policy that will positively impact our lives thank you thank you mr levis mayor we have one additional speaker miss dorothy byrd good morning miss burke good morning city council and mayor my name is dorothy bird and i am here representing aarp the local branch of it i would like for you to know that we encourage you to please vote yes on this plan because it will be a good uh plan for our community thank you thank you miss byrd and i i know i don't think you believe this but i'm gonna tell you i do qualify for aarp i don't believe it yeah burly [Laughter] mayor that concludes public comment on this item thank you now we have representative followed by representative anello thank you public speakers that came in and also a great presentation it is really great to see you all working together i want to thank all the partners that joined in and really shared their input in regarding to this i think this is coming at the perfect time we're talking about streets that's what the most complaints we get is streets and and really being for thinking and really planning i really really love how this policy set forth and i think definitely you are looking at not duplicating efforts i do have some questions i don't know who could possibly answer these in regards to the bike lanes i'm happy to answer your questions perfect on this policy because i don't see anything i know that bike lanes um you got to definitely plan ahead um when you're planning for for these these uh bike lanes and let's say it's a 2016 and then four years come around and and things have changed in an area in this policy do you have a process that can kind of identify an area it was deemed to be safe back in you know four years ago and when it's being deployed where we make sure that it's a safe you know bike lane for people to use so what's what the policy does first and foremost is creates that uh technical review committee which is going to be an interdepartmental committee where a lot of uh our staff is going to come together and discuss these specific design proposals um that's when we would really examine the recommendation from the city's adopted bike plan to ensure that it is still relevant in today's context um you know this policy the complete streets policy also is going to rely heavily on the street design manual which we adopted recent which you all adopted recently that sets force what those design standards are the street design manual points specifically towards natto standards for bicycle facility design so those would be the standards that we implement there's also a pretty robust robust process in the street design manual for the design process of city facilities again a lot of coordination between different reviewing departments that's where that you know that sort of gut check of does this recommended facility still make sense that's where that will happen um the street design manual also puts forth a a process for reviewing exceptions so even though the bike plan may require a very specific facility through the street design manual processes we can look to other facilities that maybe are more appropriate for the area perfect and how um if of course i i don't see this not passing it's a great policy um how fast do these committees get deployed so the the trc which is more of the internal committee by adopting this policy today you would be giving staff um you know the green light to put that committee together we've already identified who those committee members would be not the you know individual person by name but sort of the position and title that is most appropriate for it and then the policy does set out that within 90 days that trc would develop a you know structure for the mobility advisory committee that structure would likely come back to council for approval before formalizing the uh sort of the the founding documents for that committee perfect that's really really great to hear uh just want to thank all the public speakers that came uh before us i think this is a great policy um looking forward to deploying it and i do want a motion to to accept this policy there's a second second thank you representative um felicito representative vanilla everyone thank you so much um i also want to thank everybody who came and spoke i think that um there's a really great coalition of people behind this and it shows really the importance of this policy uh i think representative celsius questions are a good segue into mine so joaquin i had kind of a question about what this mobility advisory committee looks like i know that it's being selected by the trc but i wanted to kind of understand how you envision those members so i think i'll actually let um jerry take a stab at that the mobility advisory committee is really sort of the the external component of the complete streets policy so let me let me share my screen again so you can see the presentation that gives a little more detail on how those committees are broken down okay can you all see that yes sir so the the stakeholders and representatives on the mobility advisory committee and again you can see that the complete list in the policy but they're really coming from the general public they're folks that are already dedicated or in the transportation space in the public health space we'd be looking at including members from the education community members who are focused on social justice and equity economic development environmental justice as well as folks from the construction industry the trades and different sectors and in industries but their real purpose and responsibility is to make sure that the trc is doing their job to make sure that we internally are continuing to uh you know evaluate complete streets proposals continuing to update uh our policies where necessary update our design standards where necessary uh to include those different uh requirements uh jerry or carl i don't know if there's anything you all wanted to to add to that but that's sort of the the mac in a nutshell representative vanello yeah well keen i would just add that the really the vision of these two committees is like joaquin mentioned the technical review committee is the internal city department official you know people that work for the city and then the mobility advisory committee the thinking behind that is that's really the communities committee so you know we have a coalition right now if this policy was to pass we would look to you know people that are interested in continuing to not you know no longer advocate for this policy to be adopted but to move forward with helping support implementation you know a role for them would be to be you know potentially a member of the mobility advisory committee and we wanted to try to keep it with a diverse representation that our coalition had so that's not just focused on all transportation people are all health people but that we're bringing in folks with different perspectives from the disability community from the older adult community from the environmental community like every you know the streets and transportation impact so many different types of people that we just want a diverse representation so that everyone has a seat at the table and like joaquin mentioned it would really be working in tandem with the technical review committee to also be a resource for the city so that through the technical review committee's work they have they can take things to the mobility advisory committee and get real-time uh feedback from the community so that we can try to get in front of some of the issues that sometimes if you know once things are already designed they're already approved and the community is coming in at the very last stage then there's really no opportunity to influence that we're trying to avoid that and get the community involved in the front end and be a partner can you do me a favor also when you all come up to the microphone just for the people online introduce yourselves who's speaking yes and this is jerry savadra again with the american heart association thank you and i think that's really great i think that also identifies kind of a flaw we have in our system as it is and so wanting to really highlight to you joaquin the need to include our current ada committee right whether that's encouraging them to be a part of this committee that you all are going to have or reporting back to them what these projects are looking like but i think that that's you know i'm so excited to hear you say this jerry like i'm really excited about that possibility of having a community input into projects before they're finalized and it highlights to me that this is something we should have been doing with our ada committee the whole time and i really want to push for us to do that right to take this as an opportunity to include them as appointees of this council in that process so thank you very much for that update what can i also want to understand just for the public um you know when when the complete streets when this policy will be implemented on what kind of projects we're talking reconstruction projects only correct so it wouldn't be limited to reconstruction projects um i think you know and this is something that our streets and maintenance staff already looks at in their resurfacing program and even just in the striping program when there are opportunities to implement facilities beyond just automobile facilities on our roadways the complete streets policy creates the structure for us to make sure that we have all the stakeholders at the table to examine what those options are and again streets and maintenance does a great job of looking at you know pavement widths that can accommodate more facilities during restriping or resurfacing they're already looking at that but through this we can we can ensure that we continue to have those conversations um so it would not be limited to just reconstructions i think when you look at some of the the more capital intensive elements like widening sidewalks um you know if it's going to be something where where it might make sense to to reroute a transit stop either temporarily or permanently because of new construction those are things that you know that would would be a little more involved and a little more limited to larger capital projects but you would see through this policy complete streets elements um throughout all of our all of our capital improvements as well okay what can can i add one thing to that uh again introduce yourself sir yes sir this is jerry savedra again with the heart association i just wanted to add and kind of bring me back to my my first point where this is more about the process and so we actually got questions all the time from community members like well when is this going to happen am i going to auto like start seeing bike lanes pop up all over the place or whatnot and i just want to level set expectations that as you all know transportation is a very long term planning thing and so this is not going to change anything overnight i think the city is already doing a lot of stuff a lot of things moving in this direction and so this is more a continuation of trying to put a formal structure and process in place to more systematically uh think about this and not just have you know a complete street element added at this project and maybe we had a complete street element on that project but more of a holistic systematic approach and this policy is putting that framework together and so that as the city moves forward whether it's new construction whether it's reconstruction whether it's any other opportunity um through maybe there's main routine maintenance routine maintenance is one of the low cost options to kind of get some of these things improved because there's a lot of improvement that could be done with cheap paint that uh it just it's a matter of painting the street a little bit different as opposed to you know the capital intensive projects that oftentimes get all the attention and so we just want to make sure that folks are thinking about this in the right way where we really want to make sure we're utilizing all those low-cost um short-term opportunities while at the same time putting the plan in place and the process in place to make sure that we're building it for the long term as well great thank you that's exactly what i was looking for i really appreciate it thank you all for your time on this i know it's been months of work uh i'm really excited about this i think this has really helped me as a council person right because i i envision these projects when we talk about capital projects in my community but i think that um this organization has put together a really comprehensive uh kind of i feel like i've taken my like very limited understanding of construction and and ada accessibility and put it to reality so i'm really excited that this is a process that we're starting so thank you so much thank you representative mayor pro tem thanks again um great great great news here about what we're looking at in terms of updating our policy and processes i think ultimately to to really focus on some of the main pillars of what our community is concerned about and that is raising the quality of life but most important having safe neighborhoods and when we talk about safety it's not just about making sure that our police and our firemen are fully funded they have what they need to keep us safe but it's also walking to a park being able to walk to school being able to to walk for exercise or mental health as well and the complete streets is a great and effective way for our community and for this council to address those very real concerns that we hear from our community i've had the fortune to attend a number of different conferences both as attendees and speakers relating towards transportation relating towards mobility and so it's very exciting to see el paso really take a big step forward and continue the progress and the momentum that we already have in relating towards our streets and how we think about them being accessible for all el pasoins um one of the things that i do want to ask a question of is is as part of this process are we looking at at other resources or other ideas towards towards mobility and design as it relates towards um charities pass bike lanes that sort of thing um i guess to clarify you know i've been to a number of different cities actually was even in juarez uh this past weekend and they have a number of different ways that they create protected bike lanes and stuff in ways different than the white bollards that we have or just the spray paint on our streets so i know that necto and there's a lot of different ways that cities can go and create better bike lanes for pedestrians for for cyclists but also for vehicles as well is that going to be part of this process as well looking at what other options we have so so that part of the process representative shortspin is really uh you know speaks to the the core reasoning behind having these two committees established the trc as an internal committee will take guidance from the mobility advisory committee um in updating our design standards and making sure that as you know emerging technologies or emerging you know design methodologies come about that we're being proactive and implementing those into our own design standards as well of course there you know there's a process when it comes to any sort of traffic signalization we have to work closely with our traffic engineer at streets and maintenance and ensure that there's justification for that type of traffic infrastructure and transportation infrastructure but part of the reason that we have that tr that the trc now is is that we can facilitate that interdepartmental communication while also bringing in the outside voices from the mobility advisory committee um to help give us guidance there okay and so um and i don't know if we have slide 19 that you can bring up it's the next steps so i just want to be clear so our action here today would be would would be to establish um a technical review committee to establish a formation of a mobility advisory committee correct okay so the policy as a whole okay i just wanted to make sure that that was that was clearly defined there because i do think that this is such an important project that we need to have these kind of actions one thing that i would want to suggest to my my colleagues is as part of this mobility advisory committee i know that we have um i know that that this has a number of um people there that are are experts in terms of technical places i just wonder um to go beyond again to have that that um input from the public if there's an ability for for uh for us and i would suggest for each of us to be able to place our own um person onto the mobility advisory committee similar to other advisory committees that we have i don't know if that was discussed but that was something i wanted to bring up as a as an amendment to this i don't know what the the makeup is joaquin that you're envisioning at this time so the makeup isn't set in stone um the policy provides recommendations for how the committee should be made up in terms of representation on the committee um but ultimately the you know the final makeup is something that we can bring back to council within that 90-day window okay um and if you know if the if the direction from council today is is to include you know sort of the appointed representatives from each council district uh we can definitely go down that route uh well i would i would say in addition to what what y'all are proposing so i do think that it's important to have those folks from the other sort of related committees as well be there and the technical advisors but i also think too again when we have when we have the ability to appoint somebody from each of our districts i think it it enhances interaction with the public um and creates better bonds of communication as well so that's something i would i would like to suggest i don't know if i need to make a motion because you all are coming back i don't know if any other council members have anything that they would like to opine um but that's something i feel strongly is that we have that technical components but also have the ability to for our k for us to appoint someone as well for each of our districts thank you sir thanks representative thank you mayor thank you joaquin and to your team for this presentation i have a question i guess it's for joaquin um a constituent sent me an article about a a town in new jersey called hoboken and they use a street planning process called daylighting is anybody here familiar with that process i am not familiar with that process i would need to okay i i'm going to send you the article joaquin it was a very interesting article they haven't had a traffic facility fatality in four years and they started implementing this daylighting street planning process so i didn't know if anybody here had ever heard of that before but apparently not okay i will get you that information joaquin thank you so much for all your work and thank you to your team as well thank you so please no side conversations thank you um representation and with that i want to represent manila no okay i do want to thank everyone for being here i think it's uh you see how the government private sector continues to work together to maximize you know our resources and that's the important part you know you talked about you know before so we can influence we don't want you to influence we want you to work with us you know so i think that's really important how we work together to come up with a product that's best for our community and i think you do that so it's different to where it's really but still the same thing but i think it's important how we do work together and how we're able to um to come up with something that really fits all the communities you saw from the young to the aarp to the heart association to ada community it it's so so important we have the weather not last couple days but we do have the weather to go out there and really make a difference but we we need to make sure that we're all safe i love to go out there and exercise and walk and and and be out in the community so it's important that i think that we continue to provide what's uh what's good for the community and working together it's the best way of doing it and and being able to share our resources to make sure that we do come up with a product and i think this presentation today um does indicate that so i thank you all for being here thank you for everyone that was uh here with public comment it's important that we continue to to move our city forward and this is a perfect way thank you and with that we have mayor potem yeah i i just want to be clear city manager do we need to make a motion to look at the makeup of the mobility advisory committee to include um appointees from local from the the districts in addition to the other technical advisors or do you feel like there's clear direction at this point because i know it's coming back we have what we need okay and then those come back and give updates like these because i know it's coming back within 90 days the structure for the mobility advisory committee and so i think too that the the the different departments ada um probably bike the public are all the other ones that were suggested make a lot of sense but i do think again um to to add the ability for the the council each appointment is important too so just ultimately it's up to the council but i think that with joaquin and the team and what they put together i'm very confident that they'll come back with some very strong recommendations and okay that that works really well for the council because i think they're meeting the council's objectives okay thank you yes thank you um representative thank you thank you sir real quick uh is it mr scott's group the bicycle club working with you all they are so why can't they be our representatives we appointed to them as well i mean i think staff is going to come back with with what they suggest i mean i i just think that again something as important as this important to have folks from from the different groups whether it's a bicycle advisory committee or the ada committee as as having technical representatives on this but i also think too that giving giving us the flexibility to bring other people involved from our community get more support whether that is that is citizens that are engaged already with cycling with um with accessibility with moms on board or other children groups as well that are concerned about school safety issues i think us being able to appoint somebody only adds another layer of robustness to this committee and i think that's important when we're trying to represent the voices of our community right so i mean thank you for your presentation i think you all did a great job so far i mean you will include other people as you go along right yes sir jerry spader with the heart association i'm learning i would say that everybody that you all could potentially recommend or a point from your districts brings their own unique perspective and so if someone that you nominated from your district is also happens to bring experience of someone who rides their bike in the neighborhood frequently then they also bring that to the table so i think there's a lot of overlap we just want to make sure that when we're looking at the committee that if there's any gaps where there's not we realize hey none of the council members appointed someone that represents the ada community we need to make sure we have someone that can do that or or whatnot so like staff has said i think we the the technical review committee will work to figure out how exactly to structure that to be able to achieve the overall result which is having a diverse uh an inclusive uh community that can represent both your the dish the council districts but also the different um you know true and i and i get that and i appreciate the fact that you have 90 days to bring back some of those suggest other suggestions too you know what i'm saying but you all are doing a great job thank you so much chris thank you thank you sir mr rivera if i may uh to you and the mayor pro tems kind of line of questioning we have a lot of existing committees i think that's kind of what you are pointing to let us uh the senior team work with this team and and come back when we come back with the with the 90 days we might come back sooner with a recommendation of how to utilize existing boards uh as well as the input we've heard from council today and that's what i was mostly suggesting on that but thank you yeah because i mean there's a lot of overlap as he's pointed out and setting up another uh committee in instead of possibly looking at existing committees and when we do set this up maybe it's more administrative and it works with those other existing committees that are already looking at a lot of these different things because we have a bicycle committee we have an ada community uh committee rather and we also have one with sun metro so there's those are at least some that we already currently have but let us skip with the team and get the input that we've heard today and come back with some officers thank you mr thank you mr gonzalez representative thank you um so on that thought mr gonzalez i guess i just um am wanting to understand i'm going to rephrase that i'm i completely agree with representative schwartzman i think that we know people who are very involved but may not be on the level that i think are people who you're probably already going to pull from um i am concerned though with us as a council of each appointing someone from the committee because then it changes the kind of committee it is right once you have like a council appointed committee um there are very serious like rules and processes that have to be followed um which i think would just really change the process and so while i do think that if we if we know people and recommend them um i would really appreciate you all saying yeah of course if you recommend someone we will definitely engage them and see how they fit but i do kind of want to avoid um each council member appointing someone and thus creating another committee which is uh not what you all had envisioned and it's not the most productive product productive product you know what i'm saying uh productive advancement of the i think you're calling it the mac or um so i just i appreciate y'all coming back in 90 days with recommendations but i do want to avoid this becoming like a council appointed committee and like i said um to your point i think what we're hearing from all of you is that i think the the existing committees that we have i think we can draw from a lot of them and they can move as swiftly as they can with kind of what they've they've recommended but what i mean by coming back would just kind of give you an idea of kind of how we're going to do that going forward thank you sir thank you so much mayor pro tem thanks mary um so um yeah i i think again i think giving us some options about what might be best practice sarah i know that scott white is over here i'd actually kind of be interested to hear from him what what he thinks would be um a a smart smart way to to organize this again because i do think that there's technical experts there's also people that we already have in existing committees that we could appoint to this as well but i'm kind of curious what you what your feeling is thank you representative sportsblind uh scott white for the record as someone who walks and bikes uses transit i think we need a diversity of voices and experiences not just the people who have the tech kind of technical knowledge that i do but we need people who are interested in our but don't know how to do these kind of things because the things they see will be different from what i will see will be different from what our professional staff will see and by having that diversity of views and experiences i think we can find solutions that we might not have considered otherwise because they're go we want everybody to be included and have a voice but we know there's only so many voices that can be a part of this process but the greater the voice diversity in the voices i think gives us a much better understanding and i know as far as the cycling community there are many people out there who ride for different reasons there are people who walk for different reasons with our ada community they have a huge variety of experiences and their needs certainly need to be considered as well so i think if there is a way to include as many voices as possible that's the approach that we should be looking for and and i mean whether this was a committee that was purely administrative or this was one that was a hybrid that had both technical representatives from different committees as well as council appointed committee members it still would take up i mean there still would be an investment in staff time right because i know that that's a concern some folks have when we're discussing creating a new committee that this would take up staff time but whether this was an administratively run committee or this was a committee that was that was citizen appointed as well as having representatives from different existing committees there's still going to be that commitment from staff time so again i i think that in terms of in terms of the concerns of the council on this i think having staff come back again within the 90 days was something that can give us flexibility and really be able to have those passionate experts that are there on our bicycle advisory committee on our ada committees but also give us the opportunity to represent other voices as well i think will only strengthen the goal of this mobility advisory committee on this complete streets initiative thank you mayor pro thanks thank you without mr prine we have a motion in a second yes sir the motion was made by representative salcido seconded by mayor pro tem schwarzwein to adopt the ordinance on that motion call for the vote representative hernandez yes thank you in the voting session and the motion passes unanimously mr prime can we go to mass transit please yes may we have a motion to recess the regular city council meeting in order to convene master second there's a motion in a second to recess the regular city council meeting all in favor anyone opposed the meeting is in recess at 10 43 a.m good morning this is the mass transit department board meeting and it's a special mass transit meeting for tuesday july the 19th present and presiding as me board chair leezer and board members short spine angelo salcido rodriguez rivera and lisaraga and board member hernandez is joining us virtually all matters listed under the consent agenda oh yes we do have one person and call to the public and that's mr diego gracales mr diego gracales if you're in the queue will you please press start six to unmute yourself but you signed up to speak in person mr diego grajales i don't see him so we'll move on to the consent agenda all matters listed under the consent agenda including those on the addition to the agenda will be considered by mass transit department board to be routine and will be enacted by one motion unless separate discussion is requested by board members prior to the vote board members of board 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 the mass transit department board may however reconsider any item at any time during the meeting do we have a motion to approve the second agenda um i did click on consent there you go okay we do have a motion made by represent by board member rivera seconded by board member salcido the voting is open we don't see i don't see it i don't see it there it is board member hernandez yes thank you mr schwartzbind thank you the item has been approved unanimously yes now we're going to move over to the first item on the regular agenda and that would be item number three and that is presentation and discussion on the fixed route performance indicators for quarter three of fy22 period ending may 31st 2022 good morning mayor council ellen smythe chief transit officer for sun metro on the screen is the sun metro fix route performance measures for the third quarter fiscal year of 2022 the third quarter ended on may 31st and so we're currently in the fourth quarter and will bring the final year performance measures forward in just a few months so on your screen you can see we compare the ridership and total passengers and thousands compared to last year 2021 versus 2022 and you can see that we're definitely significantly up we're in full recovery well not full but we're in good recovery from covid and we expect to finish the the 2022 year really strong with over 5 million 5 million 180 000 passengers the passengers per hour of course is completely dependent on the number of passengers and so you can see where the significant increase in passengers per hour from 9.5 at this time last year to 14.3 so that's also very good very very good numbers the more riders we have the cost per trip goes down last year it was averaging 11.60 cents per ride and now we are at 8.31 cents per ride so that's also very good um our fares remain the same 1.50 from last year to this year and our fairbanks recovery because of the increased ridership has also gone up which is good news for the revenue from six point four five percent to nine point two four percent um on our safety our safety numbers are higher and the more miles we run the more incidents we have so they have increased from 1.96 to 2.339 the worker comp claims though for the employees are down which is good from the safety point of view preventive maintenance now this is on time our on time is we're missing a little bit we're down 10 points from last year all the maintenance is taking place it's just we're missing it by a few weeks on getting to the basic oil changes but we do track it as on time maintenance performance and so that's what's slipping but not to tell you that they're not getting maintained because they are road calls um are down which is good because we did get an influx of new vehicles so the newer our fleet is the fewer road calls we have to go out on and then of course customer satisfaction is at 90 percent and these based on the phone calls we get at our call center miss service is one half of one percent um some of that is typically based on road construction or other things that um we had to reroute the buses uh and we didn't go where we normally go so it's a very tiny percentage that occurs and then customer complaints is down and the bus sell shelter stops and where our goal is to put a bus shelter at every stop and so currently of our 2616 stops we have 531 with shelters and we did make a considerable increase this year with a contractor we had on on call black stallion they were able to pour a lot of concrete pads where we've been able to install the shelters so that is the statistics for the fixed drought are there any questions before i move over to the paratransit lift no ma'am no question let me just go ahead and read item number four and that would be the presentation and discussion on the paratransit lift performance indicators for third quarter of fy 22 period ending may 31st 2022 okay so and on my slide here is the symmetra lift performance measures again for the third quarter which ended may 31st um the total trips for this third quarter is up um from 40 528 last year to 41 847 this year and this is just the quarter so you can if you um times four would be about a 160 170 so we're expecting to end the year strong at 175 000. um the collisions per 100 000 miles is also up a little bit again the more miles we travel traveled statistically the more incidents we have and the passenger incidents um are also up um to point from 0.04 last year to 0.9 again preventive maintenance this doesn't mean they're not getting maintained but it does mean that we're not hitting them on exactly when they're supposed to be change their oil and rotate their tires um again this is due to a staffing it's difficult to been very difficult for us to hire and maintain our mechanics the road call revenue miles between road calls is down we did get an influx of new vehicles here as well over at the the lift our on time performance is down a little bit um to 86.9 percent on time is measured both if we get there too early and too late and so we do have instances where we're arriving before the window and after the 30 minute window that we give but still almost in you know in the solid b plus area and we continue to improve on that the customer complaints is up um to 14.6 that's directly related to this on-time performance and then our customer service ratings this is a survey that we do um from the ridership and so you can see they're a little less satisfied with the performance and then the cost and response time these are from one minute and a 10 seconds last year to just 17 seconds and we are our goal is to pick up all our phone calls within 20 seconds when you call in so um these are the statistics for the paratransit lift system are there any questions for me no ma'am okay and then the next item i believe is purchasing no actions on items three and four and item five last item is discussion and action on the request the director of the purchasing and strategic sourcing department be authorized to issue purchase orders for 2022-0511 remix software to remix technologies llc for a term of three years for a total estimated amount of seven hundred and fifty five thousand and eighty dollars and this is a sole source service contract is purchasing on the line yes good morning claude garcia with purchasing a strategic sourcing uh this item it is linked to strategical number seven and hasn't sustained el paso's infrastructure network the link is to the strategic plan it is subsection 7.3 enhanced regional comprehensive transportation system and as indicated by requesting that the purchasing director it is authorized to issue purchase orders for the remix software at the remix technologies llc the sole source and authorized distributor for their remix software um motion shift motion to approve and i can't see it again yes okay there you go we have a motion made by board member rivera is there a second seconded by board member anila the polling is open board member hernandez yes thank you mom there and the item has been approved unanimously that is the last item is there a motion to adjourn second thank you motion made by representative rivera seconded by representative saxido to adjourn the mass transit board meeting for july the 19th at 10 56 a.m thank you thank you um where motion to reconvene is there is no motion to reconvene the regular city council meeting second there's a motion and a second to reconvene the regular city council meeting all in favor anyone opposed then the meeting is back in session at 10 56 a.m miss prine i think we'll continue with the meeting and break at 11 30 for um for lunch come back at 12 for public comment as we have 26 constituents that would like to speak and then we'll resume the yesterday's meeting after that thank you sir thank you so we'll move on to page six item number 15 and this is discussion in action on a resolution that the city council declares the expenditure of district 1 discretionary funds and an amount now to exceed 5 000 to purchase decorations for the 2022 el paso winterfest serves a municipal purpose of enhancing quality of life to approve thank you thanks bye mo mayor pro-tem schwartzman seconded by representative lisa on that motion call for the vote representative hernandez yes thank you in the voting session and the motion passes unanimously item number 16 is discussion and action to direct the city manager to identify additional budget adjustments to further reduce the proposed property tax rate for the next fiscal year and present the recommendations no later than august 1st 2022 special city council meeting this item was submitted by representative salcido hernandez rodriguez rivera uh who would like to speak first representative salcedo thank you mayor i just want to thank my colleagues for for sponsoring this item with me i think that we continue to to keep taxes in the forefront and make sure that we're providing some solutions or some alleviation to our our community um wanted to bring this forward i think that we can look for more savings as we continue to do this budget session so i wanted to really bring that up so that we we could definitely aid and still continue to help our community at a very trying times we keep seeing the gas prices inflation is high so want to make sure we are are really keeping the community in mind for the last three years we we have not raced we have not increased the the tax rate so we've we've been really keeping uh and doing the best we can as the community so i want to thank the colleagues that that decided to join on in on me on this and uh wanted to just to really look at this budget as we're going through this and find uh some possible more savings for this community as we we continue to still go through troubling times thank you thank you representation and um mr gonzalez i know that um the the tax rate will be i mean the evaluations will be out the 25th is that correct and and we um we're looking forward to seeing that and seeing what yes sir 25th thank you representative rodriguez thank you mayor and also you know i think that um we have a very we're very fortunate to have a staff that really listens to this council and really listens to the community i think that it's no secret that right now everybody's going through a very challenging time groceries are really expensive fuel is expensive inflation is expensive everybody's seeing the results of their of their taxes increasing due to the evaluations of their properties um so in any way that we can help out our community to be able to save some money you know we definitely need to push forward with that i think that you know right now with this whole situation with again fuel food um inflation everything that's costing a lot of money people need to realize that we're not here to hurt them we're not here to further burden them we're trying to do everything in our power to bring some sort of relief to them and i don't know what this relief is going to look like but i trust that our staff will do their best in looking into how much more they can lower the property taxes as mentioned earlier property values i'm sorry the tax rate for the city has not increased in the past two years even though we were in a pandemic even though we were in a really hard situation we did not increase those property rates and you know i'm looking forward to actually bringing them some down some more and bringing some relief to the city of el paso thank you thank you representative i also did want a motion to to move forward with this item second thank you upstairs i'll see though and with that i think there's no other questions and i think every example and every item both of you talked about is so important to continue to look at ways of saving says uh it's so impactful on all our homeowners so thank you for that we have motion in a second let's just speak represent i'm sorry i did see you here representative hernandez that's okay um and so i just wanted to quickly recap um some of the progress the city of el paso has made i've just been very proud of this administration and this council uh who has worked uh rigorously to ensure that there is no significant impact to taxpayers as my colleagues mentioned earlier there have been significant blows to their pocketbooks residents have have been reaching out they're they're struggling and now is the time that the city council needs to take both decisions to reduce the tax rate so i'm very proud to to help lead this effort we're going to reduce the tax rate we're going to bring some relief to to taxpayers but it hasn't stopped there in the prior years this council has put significant savings to our fund balance that's our rainy day fund that is indicative of a strong and vibrant economy when your local municipalities are able to put millions of dollars into a rainy day fund to ensure that there's operations we're also showing a decrease in our in our debt service rate the notion that the city of el paso is being fiscally irresponsible is not true and disingenuous we are reducing the tax rate we've also seen the reduction in our debt service rate that is also a clear sign of a vibrant economy we also are helping our senior citizens our persons with disabilities last year this council took a decision to increase the homestead exemption and an exemption excuse me not the homestead exemption the exemption for persons with disabilities and persons over 65 we increase that by 2 500. these are savings back into the taxpayers pocketbooks so that they can redivert those funds so they can provide for their families so we're we're increasing your savings we're decreasing the debt service rate we're decreasing your tax rate this council is hearing the concerns of the public and we are here to serve you so i'm really proud that members of council are considering this today we do need to bring forward a strong reduction so that it could bring so much relief and as representative saucillo said we need to find that alleviation that relief for for ratepayers so thank you representative saucido for your leadership on this i'm proud to help co-sponsor this but um to to city management to mr cortinas um and to mr gonzalez um you all have have helped shape this you all are doing a great job um so we're really appreciative of your support so so bring back a good proposal so that we can share the good news with with el paso repair taxpayers thank you thank you representative thank you sir thank you mayor and everything's pretty much said and uh just to add to what what uh representative hernandez uh all the lists that she she gave the the public to hear of still no tax rate uh in the last couple years and services have been provided and restored in several areas of the city that were requested by the the citizens themselves during this pandemic uh staff has done a great job i mean for them to say that staff isn't working oh true they they they're here day and night sometimes you it seems like that with them they're working every 24 7. so again i thank staff for that and i thank representative representative salcido for placing this item on the agenda and allowing me to co-sign as well thank you mayor thank you council thank you sir and uh with that uh mr gonzalez i know you and i have talked about this that um there's so many things our city still needs and continues the need and um you know they're every council member and everyone has a huge wish list that we'll continue to want but you know to be able to do what the council is asking will um you know we won't be able to do everything we want to do at this point but and i like i said you know i've had more than one discussion about that and we'll continue to the work forward to make sure we represent our community so thank you for that sir and with that ms prine yes mayor there was a motion made by representative salcido seconded by representative rodriguez to approve item number 16 on that motion call for the vote representative hernandez yes thank you in the voting session and the motion passes unanimously the next item is number 17 and this is an annual report to the city council on the storm water utility mayor i i thought after mass transit we were going to return to the previous the previous work session no we're going to we're going to finish through we're going to break at 11 30 and then we have a call to the public at noon we have 26 uh constituents signed up to speak so we're going to go through 11 30 so we don't have them waiting so the next 15 minutes will break and then that way we don't have 26 people waiting to speak after 12. when will we go to the work session hey how are you sure good morning mayor council gilbert trejo chief operations officer for el paso water i'm here today to provide the annual update on the stormwater system i will keep my comments brief to allow as me as much time as possible to answer questions i am waiting for the presentation to come up before you get started i know representative and i are very thankful to you and i'll pass the water i know that um we um we've had a issue at um at uh rose's cantina in the neighborhood in that area and representative brought up the issue and we we called you guys and we met with them numerous times and i've called them during the last storms and uh it's um there's no complaints i want to thank you on behalf of the city council and assistance for really reaching out and taking care of that that issue that's been there since before you were born thank you you've welcomed me and again i will get started when the presentation comes up it is posted on the on the backup on the web if you want to bring it up through the city's web page it's attached to the to the item in granicus i i have it on a thumb drive too if it are they helps it i'm not sure okay gilbert don't worry we don't have lunch until 11 30. you're okay no pressure okay thank you mayor okay i'll go and uh jump right into it so in today's presentation i'm going to touch briefly on the history of the stormwater utility then update council on the capital improvement projects that have been completed an update on all the emergency projects that emerged out of last year's monsoon and then we'll look at next year's capital projects i'll touch on the outlook for the current muslim that we're in right now and then the operations report and then we'll finish up with how the community can help and you all can help as council members and the stormwater utility was created in 2008 as a result of the devastation of storm 2006 at that time council created the stormwater utility invested the management of the utility into the public service board that included creating a fee structure so that projects and the o m budget can be funded and projects can be completed and the system can be maintained in 2008 as part of that creation of the utility in 2009 i'm sorry the an advisory committee was then created that consisted of engineer and experts community leaders council appointed folks to this committee as well that allowed them to inform the projects that would be done the order that they would be done in and that's what guides el paso water as as we make our way through this the capital improvement program this stormwater master plan that resulted from this committee again identified upwards of 650 million dollars worth of improvements that needed to be done to the system currently that number is fast approaching a billion dollars worth of infrastructure that needs to be done in order to protect property and the citizens of el paso we're approximately about 200 million dollars into that billion dollar problem and again not only are the initial master plan projects still in queue but every monsoon more projects are added to this to this list as well this is a snapshot of the last eight years of the capital improvements spending and expenditures after the initial influx of funds from 2009 thanks to nad bank build america bonds you could see that the cip budgets started to reduce over the next several years that's really an indication of the lack of revenues that were needed to build and continue the capital improvements program it's also an indication of the debt service that needed to be paid down as well as a result of that initial influx of of bond funding in 2022 this year you could see that sharp increase in the capital improvements program that's not only a reflection of the rate increase that was approved by the public service board last year to get more projects done but is also a reflection of the stormwater bonds that are needed to do the projects again for to provide some perspective we have about 28 million dollars in revenues that are collected from stormwater fees every year of the 28 million approximately 10 go to fund debt service or to pay down debt another 9 million goes to the o m budget which leaves about 9 million dollars to do capital improvements projects nine million dollars will not get many storm water projects done several of you have council members have attended and visited storm water infrastructure that we have these are huge structures nine million dollars to fund just from revenues is not enough and that's the importance of stormwater bonds to our utility i'll go quickly through these projects so these projects in in green all these green flags show completed capital improvement projects across the city last year some of these to highlight are shown up on your screen i would say don't be fooled by the dollar size the dollar size is not an indication of the importance of the project all these are very important a lot of them are fixing erosion issues broken channels repairs to infrastructure that needs to be done and of course there's the larger infrastructure projects new infrastructure than that was installed in order to convey the large amounts of water that are seen across the city highlighted some of the projects the sam snape project is completed large conduit box along sam snead delivering water to biconnor de pond morehead dam is a project that is uh there's two parts to it one has been completed this is the dam structure up on the mountain uh without the with destruction now in place the type of destruction that we saw along for boulevard and elm street will largely be mitigated there's about four million gallons of water storage behind the new dam that has been completed and again for a matter of perspective we need upwards of 15 to 20 million gallons worth of storage up on the mountain to fully protect downstream uh property but this is uh certainly a step in the right direction uh donovan uh at frontera this is a on donovan there was an inlet that had sunk in had failed due to ground water undermining the structure that has now been fixed and the large conduit underneath donovan has also been replaced as well old spanish trail another project large amounts of water collected from the neighborhood in the area conveying it down this steep slope to its final detention place corrugated metal pipe is a significant issue across the city this is the pipe material that would be used by new developments back in the 60s and 70s even well into the 80s this metal pipe gets corroded it collapses causes street failures after the pipe itself collapses we fixed three of these the more damage the more the ones that have failed already uh here on grissom carolina and samoa and tahiti were fixed last year we have a whole program in place to fix many more of those across the city nemexis drain again another project in the upper valley uh road crossings that need it to be fixed borderland drain uh um below gomez road is another project um where the pipe had sorry we just lost a quorum we're gonna lose a quorum if thank you reprimera thank you mr trejo another project that needed to be a pipe that needed to be replaced along with the erosion around the pipe moving on to monsoon recovery so last year's monsoon was devastating especially to the tensional part of town the chart shows the the maximum recorded rainfall in the area and this was within hours and and this is com this is compared to the annual rainfall that el paso sees so el paso annual average rainfall about 8.92 inches per year and you can see central el paso yesterday saw 52 percent of the annual rainfall that the entire city is supposed to see so again devastating rains um and in central northeast as well east el paso none of the city was spared last year with the strong monsoon rains uh storm water investments that have been uh that have been completed since 2008 uh worked well gateway ponds prevented flooding on i-10 there was a temporary flooding on i-10 but due to the pump stations in place that water receded quickly there are many more structures up near the mountain to complete the full protection of i-10 these projects are complicated there is real estate involved this is highly densely populated parts of town which have made it difficult we know which projects need to be done and we're working on those to continue the protection of i-10 silver springs dam also completed in west el paso that protected all the downstream properties this is an important dam because in 2006 it was this uh structure that was not there that caused a lot of the damage on mesa the images of the blockbuster that i think are all ingrained in our head thanks to silvering springs dam now in place uh protected all this property downstream uh fair uh fairbanks sediment catch basin also performed well in the northeast uh to protect the the the residents along fairbanks in the northeast and northeast channel prevented stormwater from inundating several neighborhoods in the northeast that's the way the northeast system is designed and again not only did it protect people and neighborhoods it also removed thousands of homes from the floodplain overall the completed emergency projects we've got set we've got 22 projects that were completed since last year's monsoon several projects have been identified we reacted quickly hired contractors brought in additional help so that all these projects could be done quickly and efficiently these more these emergency projects here i'm going to show a couple here on the screen alabama and harrison significant erosion along alabama a thunderbird channel destroyed by last year's monsoon we've already rebuilt it clark drive at el paso drive again large amounts of erosion along near the railroad which needs to be protected at all costs and that that work has been completed another image of clark drive in el paso the channel there the culvert there destroyed by the rains now been completed uh going on to east el paso edgemere and airway channel completed as well also damaged by the rains san marcos the siltine basin this is near executive empisano where there are significant amounts of flooding you can see the before the channel itself was completely silted in there was issues there with illegal dumping as well we have since then cleaned it out and rebuilt the the great and the channel there silver springs as i mentioned just such an important structure this is what they call the spillway with energy dissipators so these are large concrete reinforced concrete blocks there to slow down the water slow down any boulders that may be coming down the dam itself in last year's rains the boulders were so large they completely sheared off those energy dissipating structures those have been rebuilt as well so we could regain the protection and slowing down of any debris large debris coming down the mountain agua channel also completely this segment of it destroyed by the reins has now been rebuilt high ridge channel same story here velocity of the water coming down the mountain with large debris destroying the channel now completed keystone dam and osborne this is important we have flow coming off of txdot right away that if not protecting this uh dam structure without this berm here it could damage the dam structure itself and that is a core of engineers dam structure that we must protect roxbury drive at kent street failure due to collapse pipe that has all been completed maple street inlet a grant again they may look small but you could see if that that inlet serves an important purpose for this neighborhood it has now been rebuilt the pipe underneath was in good condition we just needed to get the water into the ground canterbury crossing another good project here large debris is just so much debris and sediment coming off the mountain clogging up this crossing at canterbury channel it has now been cleaned out as well upper memphis dam again another dam that has been since rebuilt the channel upstream this is important so how we convey the water to protect downstream property and the public health has been rebuilt this is done there's ongoing work on lower memphis dam as well where we will store water in the area that in the property that we own to further slow down water and protect the property downstream mesa park arroyo this is important protection of fire station 31 was destroyed during the reigns and this has now been completed paragon channel another important project for the paisano executive interchange this project again rebuilding energy dissipators slowing down water slowing down the sediment that rushes down all helps with downstream infrastructure from getting plot from getting plugged copia pond we get a lot of issues with standing water in copia pond there is underground streams that keep this water full so we keep and installed pumps so that we can keep pumping down this ponding and retain and maintain its capacity we installed a solar powered pumps here so that we can maintain the capacity of this pond and keep that standing water down flow path 23 again near executive empisano another project and channel that was taking up capacity due to debris from the mountain we've cleaned it out emergency projects still underway again those are just a snapshot of the 22 some of the 22 but still underway kilcarney pond lower memphis dam i mentioned more work at moorhead to build more capacity there van buren dam and the fort bliss channeling the silting basin next year yellow flags show on the screen projects that are due for construction or for upcoming the construction i'm sorry i'll just hit on a couple of these so central dams is an important set of structures in central el paso to further protect uh again not only downstream property but interstate 10 and we are working with the army corps of engineers for funding for all of these dams those are the ones with the name followed with the pound sign and the the number uh next year will ruth pond will enter construction after the environment environmental remediation is complete that which is ongoing right now palisades is another very important project for downstream uh uh protection not only of utep but you have minor plaza you have stanton uh the new york channel which also was impacted last year by the reigns again just uh just a few of of of example of how all these projects work in tandem to protect downstream property moving into design next year fiscal year 23 or fiscal year 23. out in the east side um the sac one and two that is this uh we it is the sac off of joe battle near their facility there's two detention basins that are needed in that area to protect property south of i-10 that'll work in tandem with the rv channel as well projects all across town as you could see are scheduled for design next year the outlook for monsoon 22 again this i've attended a couple presentations with mr james laney from the national weather service and again our monsoon is heavily influenced by la nina in the winter when la nina is entering a neutral state as it did this last year it is indicative of a strong monsoon we've seen some of that already it's been raining quite a bit since june into july and we're in a heat spell right now but it it had been raining it's the rain started early in june so they that is the indication on the forecast for monsoon increased rainfall is expected during the monsoon el paso averages about five and a half inches of its of its 8.9 just in the monsoon months with this increased chance that rain chance increases to about seven inches that we may see of the of the 8.9 just in these monsoon months so that's that's what we're expecting this year and again we've seen the rains come early this year already moving on to our stormwater operations so what i just talked about was the capital improvements program so moving on to operations um here are some statistics on the ponds that we've um or just on the infrastructure that we have that we're maintaining just from a matter of perspective so the acreage of ponds the acreage of dams in our system we have over 4 000 acres of ponds and dams that we have to maintain so here we've maintained 425 acres of ponds and another 420 acres of the dams again there's a lot of manpower that's needed for this every year we exhaust our o m budget for the stormwater utility so we're maxed out in terms of the amount of work that we can do always searching for efficiencies so we can do more but at the end of the day when it comes to o m we the more funds we have to do in them the more we can do but right now we we are over matched in the sense of how much we have to maintain and the the budget that we have to do it overall when you just look at channels or i'll say miles of channels miles of levees and of drains agricultural drains that we have to maintain we last year we accomplished 21 percent of those maintained of the 4 000 um 400 miles i'm sorry we have total 400 miles of linear infrastructure that we have to maintain and again 7 000 inlets across the city and we got to 62 percent of those that we had to clean up again here's some photos on the infrastructure that we've been able to maintain last year the magnolia pump station cleanup grant drainage easement cleanup in district 8. chrome great cleanup as well this major issue with illegal dumping here in district 3 but we were able to clean it out this great in inlet great in loma terrace completely covered up with vegetation this last year we cleaned it out again more issues with clearing up encampments with illegal dumping and issues with illegal dumping this is citywide just examples of the infrastructure how it's clogged and how and how this leads to flooding in the area but we've been able we get to all to as much of this as we can to avoid the issues that we have with with illegal dumping 30 000 sandbags distributed last year against sandbag sites will remain open through uh the monsoon and all year long in central el paso um they are available year round in central el paso but the available sites west east and central northwest during monsoon they are available for pickup partnerships and community engagement i think we hear a lot about augmenting our budgets for these large infrastructure projects using external funding this chart here shows the successes that we've had with the corps of engineers we've have a really strong partnership with the army corps 15 million dollars worth of successes they funding our projects to reduce the burden on on our on the taxpayers submitted request in the queue we have 32 22 million dollars more that we've submitted to the corps and to fema combined for additional funding of our projects towards i mentioned earlier i want to thank you all for attending our stormwater tours these this infrastructure is significant large in size it always helps to see it firsthand so i just want to thank you all for who attended our stormwater tours it's just really helped a supreme perspective it's on of course it's always nice to spend time with you all and hear your perspectives and your concerns or your constituents so that we can uh address them in any way we can i want to take the opportunity as well to talk about illegal dumping a lot of the photos that i've shown show what illegal dumping can cause not only is the dumping an issue but then it leads to encampments as well so again just a reminder if you see legal dumping please report it you can call 3-1-1 to to report illegal dumping if you see it in stormwater infrastructure especially please call so it could be reported so we can get our crews out there to clean it up and of course our turnaround don't drown campaigns to urge drivers and the traveling public to not drive through flooded streets the flood will pick up the cars it doesn't take much to pick up a car and move it and then get the driver into serious trouble along with all of their passengers this is a campaign that we continue to do we do it annually and again just a reminder for everybody to turn around and don't drown during flood events so response is key to flooding issues that's happening across the city ongoing we get calls while the events are still happening and we deploy our our our contractors and our staff as quick as we can of course 9-1-1 when it's an emergency so that emergency help can arrive 3-1-1 of course will help with non-emergencies they will get in contact with dust as well they will also get streets and maintenance involved when needed or we work closely with streets and maintenance as well so that we can react to the to the urgency at hand and of course our password water dispatch our dispatch directly can send out crews to the area and the number on the screen is the direct line to our dispatcher how you can help of course your help is always needed we're sharing this information with your constituents i think getting impact from them getting their feedback getting their perspectives you delivering it to us is always very helpful so that you are also our eyes and ears across the city so that we can react quickly to any issues that are happening around the city i think part of this too a lot of the complaints are just flooding on the streets flooding for a a constituent it's just water on the street during a large rain event if it's contained within the curb that is what the street is supposed to do so as you discuss with your constituents it would be helpful to remind them maybe to ease their stress that when there's water on the streets the streets are designed across they are designed to do that we use the streets it's an effective way to avoid putting buried infrastructure underground but streets are used and are integral to the stormwater system so that will be helpful as well there are non-profits around the the city and even the country that help people that have been damaged their private properties after flooding flooding events so just identifying those and supporting those nonprofits that help people repair their private property after flood events is something else that can be done the city's a drainage design manual a lot of the questions we get across the country now when we do presentations is about climate change so there's climate change is on everyone's mind what are we doing to combat climate change least 14 standards so noaa has issued new standards for rain intensities that should inform engineering standards so frankly climate change is leading to higher more intense rain events more rain events in or or more rain just flood out more rain in in parts of the country that aren't expected and we saw that last year just the intensity of the rain events so updating the drainage design manual to the new atlas 14 standards again that'll make an account for handling these more intense rain events but it will mean larger infrastructure to be able to handle this the effects of climate change the storm water increase so supporting annual stormwater budgets supporting any increases that staff is recommending all the feedback that we get from you all through your constituents from your constituents we've heard you and that did lead to a nine percent stormwater fee increase last year to speed up the rate of infrastructure and and the rate of completion of projects in the stormwater master plan so again supporting stormwater fee increases would also help us achieve our mission and lastly encourage the use of green infrastructure not all green infrastructure will work in el paso sand and silt in town here in el paso clogs up a lot of the green infrastructure that does work in the greener cities whether it's out east or in the pacific northwest but there is green infrastructure that will work here in el paso so supporting those will also help keep cost of projects down with that that completes my presentation and i'd be happy to answer any and all of your questions mayor potem thanks again uh mayor and thank you again um for the for the informative presentation i think all of us are still um you know living through what we had last year and every time it rains i think we all look up at the sky and wondering what's next you know six months we were dealing with an environmental catastrophe in the rio grande and driving by and seeing the the water removed and seeing um the the mud and ground being removed over the spring was a small console but the fact is is that we were all dealing with what was an environmental catastrophe there um i think it's it's clear that uh obviously there's there's a lot of need in this community um and the the funds that are used for this maintenance come from from where again revenues from the revenue so this is separate from the stormwater fund so the stormwater fund revenues funds the the maintenance okay what was the percentage and i think you made mention of the percentage of this year of the sort of gutters and outlets you were able to clear on the inlets um seven round numbers 7 000 inlets across the city we got to 62 62 and do you know what what that percentage you got to um was in the year prior i don't have that number but i can tell you representative it was higher we we made it a focal point to get to as many inlets as we could so we got 62 percent but the previous year you don't know offhand like not often because i'm trying to under i guess what maybe you can share it with our offices but i would want to know and get a better sense of what is the what we're looking at over the last 10 years or or of how many inlets we we get to percentage-wise so just to get a a better baseline of that and understanding a little bit more where the ratepayers funds are going to um the the other thing too and this is something that that that i'm pretty passionate and brought up is that um i know that we have been working together to identify a conservation easement and to preserve um over 800 acres off of mlk in the northeast currently the currently the water utility paid themselves 14 million dollars of storm water funds for that and with the amount of need that we're seeing across our our our city how can you justify that 14 million million dollars being used when there was a clearly identified municipal use for that which would mean that it should be a 25 appraised value not a 100 market value that the y utility pay themselves with storm water funds mr jambalu is going to address that directly next month when he addresses council representative sportsmail um okay yeah and this was something too that that we had made a request because we had the open space advisory board um and we asked if john ballou could present to that as well and from what i understand he wasn't able to attend but i think it's important to hear about that because that is something that is coming it's probably not your decision it's probably not it's probably not renee's decision who is about to speak um looking very dapper as well sir thank you thank you for being here but that's something that i think is an ongoing issue and concern because it was something that has been a big concern we know that it's a chief priority about one utilizing our funds in the most fiscally prudent way but also looking at those opportunities for other sort of ways of storm water maintenance and open space preservation and as you said not every single green infrastructure works in our desert community however um setting aside open space is a form of of stormwater maintenance is a form of green infrastructure so representative schwartzbein uh rene leon legislative liaison with el paso water uh i just wanted to clear up something on the use of the open space fund the 10 fund for the purchase of the mlk land uh use of the 10 percent fund in no way takes away from any storm water construction or storm water operations and maintenance that 10 percent fund is set aside specifically for the purchase of open space and will only be used for the purchase of open space so in any budget year 10 of revenues are set aside for the purchase of open space it is money that cannot be used for operations maintenance it is money that cannot be used for construction of projects so use of that money to compensate the water utility system will not in any way take away from any stormwater infrastructure or maintenance and even then use of that money or i'm sorry reimbursement of that money to the water utility system will only be done in years when there is an excess in the fund so on years where a purchase of open space has made a priority uh compensation to the water utility system will not be made from that fund it'll just be pushed to another year so that 17 million dollars wasn't used all at once and it wasn't taken away from other projects so i just wanted to make that clear it does it does handicap the open space the 10 open space fund in the future because you are charging the open space fund 17 million dollars or 14 million i was under pressure 14 years saying it's 17. i believe it was 17 okay i and we can provide a correction at the next osap meeting that's fine uh we did have a designated point of contact uh as our representative to osab uh we lost that employee to another organization just last month so we are planning on going to osep to present the information they did request so we will present that information to osep and share it with council too yeah because i know that when the council it was a request for for mr baloo to to be able to address those have just because we're hearing these concerns and whether it's 14 or 17 million dollars that's a tremendous amount for this 10 open space set-aside again and what i'm trying to understand i think the public is trying to understand as well is the 17 million is at 100 appraised value however we have an mou with el paso water that for city-owned land that it would be if there is a clear municipal use it would be a 25 appraised value so that's something that i think there while it may not necessarily as you said affect some of these stormwater investments it's still something that that handicaps and hinders our our ability for strategic open space purchase into the future because essentially the city's being overcharged or the community is being overcharged at the 100 percent appraised value and we'll have more information on the valuation process uh presented to osab and again shared with council but i think it is important to note that there's no handicap to the open space fund again it was designed and it was approved by the psb to be done in a way where open space priorities and there's a list of open space priority purchases that osap has we will work through that list we'll continue working through that list and if there's years where one of those priorities is presented and we have the opportunity to purchase that land then money will not be paid to the water utility system that will just be deferred to another year so it is a very flexible payback structure and again priority and deference is given to the open space purchases that osap is working yeah and i just want to be clear when i say handicap i mean if you're taking 17 million dollars out of that fund as opposed to say three or four million dollars that's that's millions of millions of dollars less of open space we're going to be able to purchase which also helps to deal with runoff coming off the mountains um with strategic investments in dual water open space so that's just going to clear that i understand the concern thank you thank you mayor thank you and with that miss prine we have no other questions uh gilbert thank you as always uh you um you do a really good job and we appreciate everything you do what's your title on you're on a board the board you're on i am a past president of the water reuse association for the for the us for the united states yes congratulations thank you thank you for that mr pine yes sir may we have a motion to recess please be back at noon i appreciate it okay the meeting is in recess until noon at 11 43 a.m you okay uh council it is noon if you can return to the dais the meeting can be reconvened for call to the public wrench council we need three more members for a quorum please at the dais not can we have a motion to return there's a motion and a second to reconvene this city council meeting all in favor anyone opposed the meeting is back in session at 1206 pm the el paso city council is the local government body charged with serving all of the citizens of the city 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 against a person or group's character or integrity which are not pertinent to city business nor may any member of the public use this 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 place a topic commented on on a future agenda mayor this afternoon we have 26 members of the audience that signed up to speak we'll begin with miss wally sheck followed by monica benjamin deborah quintana amy goldner ella goldner brayden golder meshech thank you miss brian and i know that we have 26 members signed up and uh we do have an hour um set up for public comment but it's important i think we hear from everyone so um but um so we will keep it to three minutes but if you don't need to use all of them we appreciate it but we do want to hear from everyone and there's miss shack thank you good day may god bless you all and may god save america i am pleased to announce my books are importation and i'm on the fifth one and this be the last one and everyone who ever helped me in the past so i gonna recognize and the little 20-foot steel cross is on the way to austin only the governor doesn't know it yet and i try to make my speech short i wait on the end and then i would like for you to see something that gonna buckle your mind and this is a preview wait a minute i got 20 rules of complaints of this is not political this is you the father of the city and our representative has gone wrong and i got 20 rules to prove each one is 6 foot tall and this is where they complained about president trump and we are correct this is what i have gone to 36 47 agendas and i want you to see it after because this is no publicity okay so i'll wait and relax thank you miss scheck the next speaker is monica benjamin followed by deborah quintana amy goldner ella goldner good morning miss benjamin you'll have three minutes the timer will show green once you get to 30 seconds it'll turn yellow and once you have five seconds left it'll turn red okay thank you very much my name is monica benjamin excuse me i am a community member i am a mom of some swimmers i am on the border swimming board and i was on our team board i am speaking to you today to express my concern over budgeting issues through our pull system so i want to take you back to 2008 when we first met at one of the meetings that we had over at galatzen and we talked about the pool and mr stanton was there and he was organizing it we had the builder there as well and they were like what do you want we want this we want that we want the other it was all these asks of what do we want this pool to look like and we gave them all the answers and i remember asking excuse me what's the budget for this and i got blank stares at that meeting at galatzin so i knew we were going to be in some kind of trouble at that time so as the pools opened we found out soon enough at the west side auditorium that we were developing some issues with the bulkhead the timing systems the chlorine filters yadda yadda yadda and when we ask the facility manager when is this stuff going to get fixed the answer is always we don't have the money we don't have the money so we have this beautiful natatorium that is not working to its potential and it is extremely frustrating as a citizen and i'm not sure if i'm allowed to ask but has anyone been to the westside natatorium in the spectator area it is unbearably hot it is so hot that i don't even know how those parents even stay to watch their kids swim so that rules out us ever having serious competitions coming to el paso if we never get that air conditioning filter fixed so my ask is we need money for repairs we need to increase the budget for maintenance on the west side natatorium pavo pretty much all the pools that we have specifically the pools that we just built that we've just put all this investment in and we're already having maintenance issues my second issue is that swimming is the only sport in the city that we rely on the city pools baseball football basketball all those kids can show up at a city park or work out a contract with the church or a school and show up and do their thing but you have us where it counts when it comes to city pools you know we cannot enter unless we're part of a team or we pay the dues so i ask that we have someone that is qualified to run the programs so thank you benjamin thank you speaker is deborah quintana quintana if you're in the queue star six deborah quintana deborah quintana hi um i my name is deborah quintana i'm in line with uh monica benjamin uh yes we are part of a community a swim community here in el paso we want our swimmers to continue to thrive in the swim community i think it is unfair that as our tax dollars go to facilities like such as this that we would potentially be limited our children work hard they are positive contributors to the el paso community they represent us when we do travel to other cities in this uh swim team league the swim teams provide community service for our children when it comes to their academics and school and i really hope for somebody's support to be able to support us so our contri children can continue to be positive members of the el paso community thank you ms quintana the next speaker is amy goldner followed by ella goldner braden goldner sarah wallin todd roberts all these speakers have signed up to comment on the city pools good afternoon ma'am you have three minutes good afternoon good afternoon thank you for allowing us the opportunity to speak to you i come to you amy goldner as a mother and as a member of our community needing the resources that were built for aquatics in el paso to be available to the swimmers the citizens of our city we have over 1500 swimmers that are being served by a program directly from usa swimming and non-profit organizations those swimmers rely on the ability to have access to the facilities that we supported to have built we are asking that they be maintained we are asking that you allow the swimmers to continue to have access in a way that is meaningful for their competition their development by limiting the availability of these pools to our swimmers we are putting them at an unfair disadvantage not allowing them to be able to be competitive with swimmers in other areas like like said by the previous speakers this is how we have access to pools it is unreasonable for individuals to have the facilities and the funds to build them we rely on the funds of our public we are your public two years ago the cities dropped another program that was related to aquatics usa swimming border swimming picked up that program for two years in a row now making it possible for over 500 swimmers to participate in an event this last weekend it was pure joy watching those athletes swim now where are they going to swim their pools are being closed outside for the for the public or for the private pools that they've been in they're looking to the city facilities to be able to go and to continue their practices with their teams and to be able to progress in their in in their sport we have to make sure that this is available we are the public we are not a privatization we are not trying to privatize things we are there to put our youth in the water this is our only option and we ask that you adhere to the traditions of the lane allocations that we've had before in the past and not cut them when we cut those lanes we are telling swimmers that they can no longer participate when we take those lanes away from them we are telling them that the sport the activity that they've chosen is not valued by our community i urge you to make sure that we are not put in a situation where we have to tell young athletes in this community that they cannot participate in the sport of their choice and be in the pools that they are here for as well we are the public just the same as any other individual that walks through that door thank you thank you the next speaker is ella goldner followed by braden goldner sarah wallin todd roberts julian moreno daniel perez they will all be speaking regarding the city pools good afternoon you have three minutes oh good afternoon i've been swimming since i've been five years old and seeing the developments through uh my team and like them being able to swim some of them have become truly incredible swimmers and they take true joy in being able to participate in the sport taking away those lanes and not being able to let them swim would not give them the opportunity contin to continue doing something that they love so much and wouldn't give people who are going to get into the sport the opportunity to find out what an amazing thing it is thank you thank you very much for being here the next speaker is brayden goldner followed by sarah wallin todd roberts julian moreno daniel perez brayden goldner okay thank you we'll move on to sarah wallen good afternoon you have three minutes good afternoon good afternoon my name is sarah wallen i'm 15 years old and i'm going to be a sophomore at el paso high school this year i've been swimming since i was six months old and i've been competitively swimming for about 10 years now i've been on the fighting frogs the el paso blast club team i was on the ywla swim team in the isleta district i'm part of the el paso high swim team and i've been a part of the el paso border swimming zones team and i have swam in california arizona north carolina mississippi new mexico and all across the state of texas i have swam at a majority of the el paso pools including the natatorium marty marty robbins hawkins armijo pat o'rourke cohen and many more one of the goals that i have set for myself is that i would like to swim in college club teams are a vital training ground and giving us access to the city pools allows us the opportunity to attain our goals please help your swimmers get to where they want to be thank you very much thank you very much for being here the next speaker is todd roberts followed by julian moreno daniel perez penelope reese camilla alva escobar jose luis pepper trujillo good afternoon mr roberts you have three minutes okay good afternoon we're going to start by asking for a little bit more time i think i'll help clarify what everybody is speaking about today um thank you mayor and city representatives my name is todd roberts i'm the head coach of the el paso aqua posse the oldest 1957 and most prolific youth sports program in el paso and parent of highly of three highly active boys who currently participate in swimming basketball and baseball my objective today is to increase the budget for park and rec and aquatics 20 to 25 percent each year for the next five years i originally was going to talk to you about the difficulties we are having with the aquatics department and dealing with finding enough swimming pools to rent and being able to rent facilities for competitions then last week i was at my son's basketball game at acosta it was then that i realized that my frustration extended to the entire park and rec department youth sports took a huge hit during covid our children have learned to spend more time inside and on electronics devices being influenced by who knows who on social media our youth programs have been have seen facilities being closed down for entire seasons fields in disarray and not maintained understaffed facilities and reduced hours of operation on those facilities our job as coaches and parents is to bring up these children to lead intelligent and productive lives youth sports is a big proponent to that it is important for our kids to lead a healthy lifestyle so they can fight off disease and obese obesity i've heard time and time again how the city would be able to do something more but they do not have the staff i have sent five high school kids to become lifeguards for the city all five went elsewhere because the city process is too long i hear of current talk i hear of current staff the work that work other jobs because they are blocked at 25 hours i'm sure that with your dealerships um mr lisa that if you need to have workers you are aggressive about hiring i am sure sam's club and amazon work hard to hire and have figured out how to hire in this new environment the city needs to be more aggressive in hiring and figure out ways to keep staff and increasing the number of full-time employees the city needs to train the staff that they have so that they are more qualified for the positions i'm just giving you example even the head of park and rec has never really done that before thank you very much sir extended time no thank you sir we got 26 speakers we appreciate your time and most of them are on this so thank you sir the next speaker is julian moreno followed by daniel perez penelope reese camilla alva escobar also speaking on the city pools good afternoon sir you have three minutes hello my name is julian moreno good afternoon sir good afternoon i'm from parkland high school i live in northeast el paso texas growing up in the northeast you know there's not that many opportunities sports is all that we have down there not going to lie a couple names to name here tyrone mcduffie dj crest lj martin tavares jones dion hankins jeremiah cooper and jayden wilson these are all division one athletes um that grew up playing in the parks and rec leagues in northeast el paso texas and you know this extends to soccer baseball basketball and even swimming so i believe that if we invest more money into our programs that we will have more opportunity the more input that we put in to our programs the more output we will get by investing into our community all these kids they take sports very serious and you know it puts in a lot of it puts in a lot of character into these kids so you know there's a lot of kids out there that use sports to develop their their skills as people and it's helping them grow into young great young men and women so if we want more great young leaders to come out of el paso we should invest more into our youth parks that i've played at since i was little are tobin park veterans park and northeast regional park i believe by bettering these facilities bettering the staff that we have on board and bettering the leagues that there are the competitive leagues we can have a better outcome for our communities especially the northeast uh thank you for your time thank you for your time sir the next speaker is daniel perez followed by penelope reese camila alvila escobar jose luis pepper trujillo alonso larcon and massimo alarcon good afternoon you have three minutes mr bettis good afternoon good afternoon sir um for the first three years of my high school career i was playing high school basketball at san diego and i have currently transferred to hanks and in the summer i played with nike pro skills i started playing basketball when i was in the second grade for a team named the athletes when when i started my young career we used to practice and play basketball for parks and recreation i remember going to the city gyms on delta and carolina to play there and now those gyms aren't even around anymore and it makes it hard for us to practice playing in town and have access to gyms i have so many memories from those gyms they have built me up to where i am today a few years they have built me up to where i am today and after a few years once those gyms closed down we were forced to play at bethel and dream arena and i remember my dad always saying how those leagues were really expensive and how he wished the city leagues would come back because it was more affordable especially for a lot of the kids that didn't have that weren't blessed enough to have a good source of income to play on these leagues gyms are scarce around the city and now we're forced to practice at high schools or pay a hefty price to practice at bethel and i think with greater funding we would be able to bring great things to the city not only in terms of sports but also academics basketball has been an avenue for me to learn character and learn hard work and currently i have a 102 gpa and i hope to get accepted and attend west point once i finish my high school career however without basketball i don't think any of these dreams would have even crossed my mind because i wouldn't have had the foundation that was set from playing at these at these gyms in in and around the city so i really hope you guys would consider to facilitate the growth of basketball and um character in the future generations of el paso and thank you for your time thank you sir the next speaker is penelope reese followed by camila alva avila escobar good afternoon you have three minutes good afternoon good afternoon hi my name is penelope reese i'm a 12 year old student at wigs middle school and i've been swimming for almost seven years now with my club team blast during these years i swear i'm at the majority of the city pools the west side natatorium the beast padark armijo cowan hawkins paw real and marty i've grown up in the sport so i can give you a perspective of the younger swimmers as well as the kids my age okay so i'm part of many swimmers that are going to represent el paso at a state level competition we would not have gotten to the level we are at without proper accessibility to a number of lanes for our team each team at the moment usually has about eight lanes to practice in and i think that that is the perfect amount on blast we split the lanes in half giving four to the younger or less advanced swimmers to work on dives turns the technique to get them better and the other four lanes is where the older swimmers do more advanced workouts if we were to reduce lanes we would be forced to merge the practices that would not work out we would have about 20 kids in each lane which is a safety hazard and no one would get their full potential of their workout fewer lanes will hinder the goals of our many swimmers that are trying to get scholarships for college and our younger swimmers will not get the proper technique training they need to improve with all the things going on with our youth i truly believe that sports are a necessity it gives an outlet to get to get rid of stress anger and any negative feelings and to just be with your teammates and forget about the not so great things going on in life it betters both physical and mental health thank you for your time and willingness to hear our opinion thank you very much for being here the next speaker is camila avila escobar followed by jose luis pepper trujillo alonso alarcon also speaking on city pools good afternoon you have three minutes good afternoon good afternoon i'm camilla velasquez i'm a graduate from civil health magnet high school and i'm a member of el paso aqua passing i've been swimming since i was probably four years old swimming has become more than a sport to me swimming is more than just saving lives swimming has taught me how to keep my body healthy and by hydrating eating well and avoiding things that hurt me swimming also offers me a break from my daily life i know that whatever my day was whether it was good or bad i know that after swim i'll feel better swimming has taught me discipline going outside my comfort zone the determination to accomplish my goals and work through my frustration when i fail i also learned to manage my time due to the busy schedule that swimming has and you would think that by spending too much at the pool would hurt my academics but it's actually the opposite i maintained good grades and a high gpa all throughout my high school years which allowed me to get both academic and athletic scholarship offers being a part of the swimming community gives you bonds for life not only do your teammates become your friends and family but also the coaches and the swimmers families but above all i can tell you about the sport swimming is fun i'm so fortunate and grateful to have swimming be a part of my life thank you thank you ma'am the next speaker is jose luis pepper trujillo followed by alonso alarcon and massimo alarcon good afternoon you have three minutes good afternoon sir good afternoon hello my name is luis trujillo i'm a swimmer for wet i also uh i'm also a bellair high school student i've been swimming for roughly seven years now we have two new state-of-the-art facilities yet we're still fighting for lanes and accessibility for these facilities we pay for to use these pools multiple teams like mine swim six days out of the week i should have i shouldn't have to be here asking uh to use these facilities because it's supposed to be in the best interest as an adult to want us to perform to the best of our ability now swimming has helped me time management and i enjoy swimming and i know a lot of my teammates do and if worse we'd walk to practice if we want if we had to because that's how determined we are thank you for your time thank you thank you for being here the next speaker is alonso larcon followed by massimo alarcon followed by julia krampe barbara valencio mr corral's topic is the number of loose dogs in el paso good afternoon you have three minutes good afternoon i was here maybe about two months ago talking about the amount of loose dogs in this city the amount of abandoned dogs in the city animal services is dysfunctional it's been dysfunctional for way too long and animal services relies on the public to take care of these dogs because they are not picking up these stray and loose dogs and we're at a crisis we really are i'm asking for you all to increase funding to the el paso animal shelter help these animals if you haven't been to the shelter lately i urge you to please go and not just the front go take a look at the barn where animals are stacked upon one after another and in their own feces with no air conditioner think about that it's 106 degrees outside these animals are suffering is this who we are as a city is this who we want to represent as a city i know el paso is better than that i mean what is this what is it going to take how long is this going to go on there's a petition circulating on change.org with over 1872 of your constituents that have signed for change to the el paso animal shelter things have got to change it's been going on for way too long and they're not getting better the community cannot be held totally responsible for this because they are not the same people that are rescuing rescuing these animals from the street are those are the people that actually are good pet uh responsible citizens and what the city and the el paso animal shelter is telling them is hold on to that pet how do you tell somebody that lives in an apartment to hold on to that dog where there's no dogs allowed so what do they do they release that dog and then that dog has eight dogs and then those eight dogs have 64 dogs and it goes on and on when is it gonna stop i'm asking you to please do something about this we are better than that we are better than that so i ask you again if you haven't gone go take a look and look at this petition look at all your constituents that are signing this petition and that are urging for change because we desperately need it these dogs continue to suffer they continue to suffer in extremely high degree temperatures they're getting run over this is not right this is not who we are i know you all have a heart i know i know el paso has a heart let's act on that let's increase funding higher vets and increase spay and neutering which is the key route of the problem thank you the next speaker is julia cramping followed by barbara valencia ron cuomo karen washington good afternoon you have three minutes good afternoon sorry i'm a little emotional i got a lot of urns at my house too good afternoon did you know that question 4 on the application for employment at animal services states the majority of your job duties in this position will be assisting in animal euthanasia and dispensing of animal carcasses and are you comfortable with this one of the major issues that animal services right now is staffing and this question doesn't help as someone that volunteered there for six years i know the majority of the job is cleaning and not killing with three times the number of dogs they should have shouldn't they have three times the number of staff is that even allowed now imagine going in for your first day on the job and attempting to clean a candle meant to house one dog and instead you're met with three to five large breed out of controlled dogs these dogs have been running in their own urine and feces for more than 12 hours and they're jumping all over you they've had zero enrichment because there is no time no room and you cannot provide enrichment to dogs that are so starved for it that they will fight over it you push your way into the kennel praying that none of those dogs manage to slip by you meanwhile they're splashing you with urine and feces it's getting in your mouth on your clothes you're getting soaked most likely during this time you'll have to break up a fight you get done with that one and you've got 50 more just like it outside in the heat battling attention starved dogs the entire time after taxes what you're getting for an hour is 1109 you get paid more at mcdonald's how long are these people going to last how about in the barn where they have kennel stacks so close to each other that you can't even maneuver having to push all the kennels to one side clean push them all over to another all while sweltering in the heat of a facility meant to have housed livestock at the end of an eight hour work day you're bringing home 88.66 you have got to get those working conditions down to a reasonable level and the bottom line is not really whether you're able to find people to clean up in those conditions it's whether or not those conditions are even humane to begin with and they're not in 2015 animal services was an asset and i would not have minded my dog ending up there had they gotten loose now it's the last place i want to see him unfortunately too many people don't care and until they do there's no purpose in housing these dogs in horrific conditions for months and leaving others on the streets the dogs left on the street are making more each each female can make like 12 a year each male can make hundreds animal services needs to become a service again and not a warehouse for unwanted dogs they should be the place the public looks to for standards in the animal care industry and right now they're an abomination get the working conditions down to a reasonable level so that they can hire staff and pay them a decent amount thank you for your time thank you the next speaker is barbara valencia followed by ron cuomo karen washington paula wright maria vera all speaking regarding animal services good afternoon you have three minutes it will need the elmo please go ahead miss valencia i.t will work on bringing up the elmo each one of you should have gotten this so you each have a copy to follow along with me today i'm going to tell you a story about a local dog named nissa whose story has gone national nissa came into huckleberry hound dog rescue as an abuse case she was only eight months old very pregnant and living outside in the dirt she had no shelter or a safe and clean place to give birth on niece's third night in the rescue she gave birth to nine beautiful puppies sadly four of the puppies did not survive due to her previous living conditions and poor dietary health five of her puppies survived and with proper care they grew strong and healthy even though niece was still a puppy herself she was an excellent mother to her puppies lisa's puppies had a purpose four of her puppies became full service dogs or emotional support dogs her fifth puppy is in a wonderful home getting lots of love and attention now it was nisa's turn at finding a fur ever home and she found it just like her puppies nissa had a purpose too she was going to be a support dog for her new dad who travels and needed her to travel with him due to an unforeseen mishap nissa found her way out of her new yard where a kind gentleman saw her on the street while he was on his way to work he didn't want to leave her on the street so he put her in his car and went directly to animal services at animal services nissa was denied intake when the good samaritan explained he was on his way to work and had no means to secure her he was instructed to put her back on the street she was never scanned for a microchip by the animal services employees with no other options the good samaritan did she was instructed and released nissa onto the street with a couple of sightings we were able to search in an area near animal services for nissa but our searches proved fruitless after two days nisa was denied after two days after nisa was denied intake due to animal services protocol nisa's body was found she was wearing her little pink harness the rescue gave her at the very least if nisa had been scanned at animal services her chip was registered with the rescue when isa would have been picked up within 15 minutes she would have not have taken up any kennel space because of animal services nisa was denied intake and never scanned for a microchip because of animal service his niece was put back on the street to die because of animal services nissa and countless other innocent dogs and puppies have died needlessly due to their inhumane protocols animal services is causing pain and heartache to families throughout our community animal services is leaving innocent animals to suffer on the streets and let's not forget about the youngest victims of all the puppies animal services is the safety net for the animals in our city animal services states on their website they are the leader in animal welfare a leader does not leave the animals on the streets to fend for themselves and die a leader does not take away the ability for the citizens to take animals to our city's designated safe place animal services is failing the animals and today we are all standing here to say enough is enough thank you nissa rest in peace we love you the next speaker is ron como followed by karen washington paula wright maria vera good afternoon mr cuomo you'll have three minutes it will need the elmo once again the picture on the screen is another failure animal services it's it's on here in front that's on the front right here we can see it sorry this dog got on facebook had been run over on railroad the young lady was on her way to work she put a red flag up on on the side of the road so the acos could find the dog four hours later the dog was found dead make sure you get the family in there this is what you're doing because you're not picking up the strays this dog was injured according to the memo you guys all received they were going to pick up injured and aggressive dogs this dog was injured i think it got hit a second time because it was out on railroad for over five hours before the rest of us figured out what was going on i didn't get it and the family didn't get it until five hours later there's no need for this this is ridiculous our pets are paying for the ignorance of our shelter we've gone backwards we got rid of ramon now we've got our moan too now the other day i talked on asac one of the young ladies said that el paso used to be on the national stage they're right we were 2018 2019 with your program everybody was looking at el paso let me read you something was on facebook i know i've mentioned this before over the past few years occasionally i'm compelled unfortunately to mention it and to mention it occasionally still as i see these pose roncamo i cannot fathom how awful the tragic this issue is these beautiful dogs please read this this is insane why do we hire friends with absolutely no shelter experience we need a qualified director to run our shelter and not take advice from the four people that he's taken advice from at the shelter because all they're doing is going right back to the haas program the haas program is an absolute disaster why do you think austin city does not have the haas program from the austin pets alive i mean think about that for a minute it was built and created in their backyard and it was kicked out of their city within three months but their their tv stations showed what was happening they weren't afraid like ours their city council their asac committee they got up in arms and got rid of it we're two and a half years behind we have created the mess that we are in now it's up to us to get the problem fixed i will give it 100 of my effort to fix this issue thank you thank you and i will remind the the public please this is not the forum for personal attacks the next speaker is karen washington followed by paula wright maria vera good afternoon you have three minutes hey good afternoon all of you good afternoon i am karen washington i am positive rescuers of el paso back in 2019 i became a 501c3 non-profit i rescue i focus on stray dogs abandoned dogs neglected dogs and dogs that are dumped in our desert areas i do hope by now that all of you are aware of how dire the situation is for the dogs on the streets of el paso three weeks ago i picked up my friend betty new i picked up her beloved dog bailey off of us 54 with a shovel okay animal control saw her two dogs they were both microchipped that animal control officer had every opportunity to pick up those dogs but he decided because they didn't look injured he left them on the street okay um bailey was betty's deceased husband's dog he died four years ago by suicide he was a veteran that suffered from ptsd there's no easy or quick way there's no solution to this that's going to happen overnight but we are here today begging for some change a few years back we rented a building to house the overflow of dogs at animal services why why haven't we done that what is taking so long and i know that this current system is failing us something's got to change i don't know what it is but they've got to start picking up the dogs in 18 years of rescuing i've never seen things this bad the 311 operators are telling people we can't pick up that dog take it back to where you found it let it go it is not the public's responsibility to hold on to these dogs so please if you haven't taken a walk through the shelter i challenge each of you get out from behind your desks go to the shelter unannounced because they're going to show you what they want to show you show up unannounced you'll be appalled at what you see so we need some help and we need it now thank you so much thank you the next speaker is paula wright followed by maria vera katie holt good afternoon you have three minutes good afternoon i found it strange that my 20 year old daughter carolina called me while she was walking her fur baby bruno i answered only to her scream for help i rushed to the raid as she was trying to get bruno away from a loose pit bull we both fought the pitbull as we were screaming for help as the pit bull knocked me to the ground i saw him grab bruno's tail then got a hold of his stomach crushing his ribs then passing his neck the pill bill let go after a long while and carolina got bruno into the car she remembers seeing people around including a sheriff's car and an off-duty police officer in the car bruno fought to breathe but he stopped he passed away in my daughter's arms i've never seen my daughter in such shock in a shattered state of mind this is just part of the letter given to me by the family of bruno i've passed on i'll give you a copy so you can read the rest of it bruno's horrific death could have been avoided prior to this attack five calls had been made to 311 animal services all within a two-week period to report that this dog that was continually loose in the neighborhood this dog prior to killing bruno is seen on video scratching up a car trying to get to a cat killed a neighborhood feral kitten and tried to get at my mother's smaller dog while she was walking her and these are just instances that i am aware of it was my mother who made four of the calls to 3-1-1 with nothing ever being done no follow-through follow-up or investigation the director of animal services was made aware of these multiple calls and also chose to do nothing multiple people were injured during this attack incurring pain suffering loss and medical bills and in her anguish and grief carolina has been going to therapy to help her deal with the loss of her beloved bruno of eight years in the trauma of seeing him killed sadly the police never filed a report on this incident nor has animal services followed up with them these people deserve better bruno deserve better and our community just deserves better thank you thank you the next speaker is maria vera she's joining us via telephone ms vera star six please two and mute your telephone good afternoon you have three minutes good afternoon yes good afternoon city board my name is maria vera originally from new york city but el paso has been my home for the past seven years or so and as part of this community i am taking a stand today for all the dogs that are neglected abused abandoned thrown out of a moving car puppies thrown in the trash left outside without food in our water used as a source of income by illegally breeding them i normally have had one dog at a time which was more than enough for me but thanks to the rescuers in particular lena perez i have been blessed with not one two three but four beautiful dogs that otherwise could have starved in the desert like my honey they each have a story of their own like my gem that because of neglect lost a limb but that missing limb was replaced with love but don't feel bad for her because she actually thinks she has five legs instead of three she outruns all her sisters she's amazing the rescuers are overwhelmed with work with no one backing them up for doing something they're not obligated to do but they do it out of the goodness of their hearts they do it because it's the right thing to do they do it out of love and respect for the animals the rescuers and everyone else involved are the voice for the voiceless and today i hope you city council become part of that voice you have the power to give these animals a second chance at a decent and happy life by making the necessary changes thank you very much for allowing me to speak today have a wonderful day the next speaker is katie holt followed by marcia margario good afternoon miss holt you have three minutes hi can i get everybody to check back into actually what we're saying because i've noticed a lot of you you guys do have a lot of other things going on but so do we we have abandoned dogs at our homes we have sick dogs i have injured puppies you know so we come here to speak to you guys because you're supposed to be representing this county council we need a forum at the dais please i would we're missing one member really like for you guys full of time member of council i mean carla can you pause her time please i'm sorry laura it is possible we need one more council member on the deus and and counsel i'll remind you no side conversations please during the meeting thank you mr giber go ahead ms holt thank you ma'am okay so friday there was a dog that was posted that was lost three days prior the dog came walking down my street my husband and i we didn't ignore it like animal services does we picked the dog up within less than 30 minutes that dog was put back home not injured completely healthy your animal services here in this town and i'm going to say yours because i don't support it is horrific the dogs in there besides chewing each other apart and living in filthy conges conditions you have employees in there that are refusing to clean what is going on when is the last time this place has been audited let alone it should be audited every year y'all ain't paying attention you're not listening to your city your city and your community are what should be important you know you've got your swim team over here with things that have been cut are you even did you team over here with things that have been cut are you even did you listen over there i mean those kids they deserve better our animals deserve better you guys are picked for to represent us but if you're not going to listen to your community then what are you doing here so in the end us rescues are tired of being the blame we're getting blamed the community is getting blamed when in reality animal services the programs they're putting forth are horrible nobody's checking them nobody's auditing them where's their money going how can the county afraid afford free spay and neuters when the city can't there's something wrong there they're getting nine million or more a year where's the money going and the dogs are living in filthy conditions no building has ever been made big enough for them i mean who's going to take care of this you get all of us rescues up here to complain about everything that's going on but in the end what's actually being done what are the steps being taken and you put somebody in there this is the third person that i've seen since um moving here that's been in charge that has no clue about animal welfare and the expectations that are made for these people they can't do them because they have no knowledge a degree gets you so far but when you actually are in the rescue business or even just care about animals you know what needs to happen and you need to make it happen and i want to actually thank tommy gonzalez for being here in this meeting today because the other day he did leave when we talked so thank you the next speaker is marcia margario marcia margario good afternoon miss margario you have three minutes thank you i'm marcia margario good afternoon city leaders prior to the 2016 no-kill resolution el paso animal services functioned as a catch and kill facility impounding 25 to 30 000 animals a year and destroying nearly 70 percent of them the community blamed the shelter and the shelter blamed the community nevertheless we saw that the shelter was able to make significant changes using best practices in animal welfare gradually increasing live outcomes an average of 85 percent for the last four years while simultaneously decreasing euthanasia i'm sorry can you hear me yes ma'am i'm marsha i'm marcia margerio prior to the 2016 no-kill resolution el paso animal services functioned as a catch-and-kill facility impounding 25 to 30 000 animals a year and destroying nearly 70 percent of them the community blamed the shelter and the shelter blamed the community nevertheless we saw that the shelter was able to make significant changes using best practices in animal welfare gradually increasing life outcomes an average of 85 percent for the last four years while simultaneously decreasing euthanasia again el paso animal services is subject to criticism by animal advocates rescue organizations and the ever plenty social media commentators criticism that has spiraled into unwarranted vitriol while it suggests we are in much the same unpleasant situation as before one notable difference from then and now is the number of people upset because animal services isn't euthanizing enough animals as opposed to euthanizing too many animals isn't it ironic animal services is one of thousands of shelters in dire straits two years into a pandemic historic inflation staff challenges the cost of vet care amid a severe shortage of practitioners whatever the inciting cause it's led to a domino effect of epic proportion in order to provide safety quality of life and most importantly continued life to animals in the shelter and the community the path onward requires collaboration the shelter helps the community and the community helps the shelter instead of thank you miss march your animal services thank you ma'am you've reached the three-minute limits in nigeria we need to see you've reached the three minutes work together we'll move on to uh mr rick bonard mr barnard's topic is extension of wrestler road good afternoon sir you'll have three minutes thank you all for being here can you hear me yes sir okay so real quick i know you're busy um i had heard during the presentation um that there was an attempt to add the extension of wrestler road north of trans mountain to a housing development and include that with the bond that's coming up four streets i think that's inappropriate and it's inappropriate for several reasons number one it's going through private property and that private property and those owners around there would have their proportionate share of having to pay for that street it shouldn't be the duty of the citizens of el paso additionally that parcel is part of ters 10a and that ters is supposed to generate 18 million dollars in money to be used for street projects this is exactly why you created that ters was to cover these costs so asking now for the citizens to pay for it by borrowing money and again paying is a double dip at best so i'm very sympathetic to the need for that extension but i don't feel it should be paid for through a bond it should be paid for through that ters thank you very much but thank you dr monarch the final speaker on call to the public is efrain saucedo mr saucedo's topic is pay protection program good afternoon sir good afternoon all of you and before i start i want to tell you that uh god bless you god bless you thank you because you are the handkerchief of the city i'm not gonna talk about my my project because um i appreciate you very much and uh like i say god bless you god bless your family and i want to have a strong government run by the mayor and you please get together and get going with my mayor that's what i'm doing and i'm gonna be a thousand percent behind you mayor and you give me a chance i have a program that i can get to the city millions of dollars for the city so a way you can help all the people that i hear i'm frustrated they are complaining about all the things that they need i will promise it's a volunteer like like i did with some other mayors especially ray cavallo who save a lot of millions of dollars to the city that way i will decrease the city property tax all the taxes and i'm gonna start going to visit the the jails so i way i promise to you that i want to make el paso the capital of the world and i will i will i don't need a a lot of help from you guys i really need to help my next governor if you want to be a governor now just give me a chance i got good programs i will bring at least 50 million dollars a year so that way you can distribute the money whatever you want god bless you again god bless your family and i'm here i'm here for you i thank you very much and i'll be back thank you thank you michelle volunteer yes god bless you again and god bless your family thank you and keep on doing the western job thank you mr mayor that concludes call to the public thank you and thank you for everyone who's here can we can we just clear out the the first readings and then we'll do the can we move up the uh yes sir yeah oh i'm sorry he would like to do the first reading and then item 34. okay the first reading of ordinances are items 18 to 21. is there a motion second there's a motion made by representative lizard iii representative rivera to approve the first reading of ordinances items 18 to 21 on that motion call for the vote representative hernandez yes thank you in the voting session the motion passes unanimously mayor you said item 34 is next yes ma'am okay item 34 is discussion and action on a resolution approving recommendations as set forth an exhibit exhibit a and b for the neighborhood improvement program around five projects funded under the 2012 quality of life bond around four adjustments are they ready you you think not be ready oh there she is there's nicole um one of the nicoles hello yes and the other nicole will be joining us just shortly so how are you good uh good how are you sir fine thank you good hello everybody give us like one second there she is right behind you good afternoon man good afternoon mayor and council um i didn't want to approach the podium in my chunkless so [Laughter] so good afternoon nicole farini chief resilience officer i.t if we could bring up the presentation please thank you so much so we are here this afternoon to represent the staff recommendations for the neighborhood improvement program round five which i'll remind everyone is the last round under the previous allocation of funds i do want to do a quick introduction next slide please speaking a little bit to where we have been and kind of where we want to go the neighborhood improvement program is a program that was put together very very specifically to address a very niche need within our community it's an opportunity to engage with our established neighborhood associations in order to really understand at a very small scale a neighborhood scale a street scale how we can collaborate with our residents to introduce permanent physical improvement projects that enhance quality of life again at that very small project scale that's reflected in the amount of money that's allocated per district on an annual basis and then over the years we moved to a two-year cycle there's been an evolution of the program um nip is funded at 10 million dollars under that 2012 quality of life bond it's allocated as you know per district so we work very closely not only with the neighborhood associations in those districts as those requests come in but we also work with the district representatives as we work through the process and ultimately establish our recommendations at the end of the day in round five each district had a budget of 375 thousand dollars plus whatever remaining funds existed from previous rounds and so that varied from district to district at this time i'd like to hand it over to nicole rodriguez and she's going to walk you through the presentation that i believe you all have seen a couple of times but as a refresher we want to walk through that one more time nicole yes and i promise to be brief next slide okay so this process started roughly in in 2021 when we did the pre-application uh submission and and that's important because um this process began prior to the council redistricting boundaries that were just approved this past may um and so right now we're in the in the final stages which is uh the legal review and and hopefully council approval today and so in round five we had approximately four million dollars we received 47 applications of those applications we we scored 29 and those were the eligible applications so total all in total project request a total over 4.6 million but today we're here asking for and recommending for 19 projects and those total awards will totals about 2.8 million dollars that includes previous round rollover next slide do i have okay um that rollover was approximately four hundred thousand from round four going in uh to round five and so that gives us a 3.4 million dollars in in money to use and so there's a variation that we plan on using for contingency um and any um contingency in in the inflation that i'll kind of go over in just a second um also as previously mentioned this uh we're asking for the deletion of a round four project um this is the upper mesa hills uh neighborhood association request this project budget that was approved in 2019 was about 67 thousand dollars and ultimately in order to complete this project it would have been over budget and so we're working with district one and and the neighborhood association and so ultimately the recommendation is to delete this project from round four so we can reallocate those funds to round five and so there are 19 projects uh listed by district that we're asking to recommend um you know we worked with each of the neighborhood associations and the council representatives to come up with this list and as i talk about that and and those recommended projects um you've seen these sites before these we're asked uh to be presented by our partners with cid um you know about the impacts that covet has played on construction this is important because these are all construction projects and so we're seeing significant impacts on cost labor and materials and so we just want you all to know that and we want to manage expectations with our project list so that we can because we're anticipating uh delays on materials and shortages so i specifically want to um direct your attention to the first two lines which are steel and plastic those are shade canopies and and our park amenities um we're seeing a 127 percent increase in price increases for construction in steel and we're also seeing about a 34 percent increase in plastic so these are impacting our construction projects and so we just want to manage expectations and so we know what we're going into this this round thank you so much nicole and so i just want to close by re-emphasizing that you know we work really really closely with the community to make sure that these projects come to fruition in a way that meets the expectations of the residents and that's something that we've held really hard and fast to over the last several years and that's why we felt it important to bring forward um those potential cost increases that that we may be looking at but at this time i'm happy to take any questions uh that the council may have we do have um some call to the public some public comment then we'll do questions thank you very much yes mayor we have miss sylvia carrion that signed up to speak she will be followed by debbie torres maria you can go ahead yes ma'am i need to let you see that okay go ahead mama if you'll begin we'll distribute thank you sir go ahead miss cutter and i'm starting the title right now yes silver card with the mission valley civic is good afternoon hi the first eight pages of those presentations is the rules and regulations that uh us neighborhood associations have to follow that are put forward by the department the meeting with mr gonzalez and mr rivera did not go very well for me and so i decided to do an individual study of every neighborhood association i spent six hours on sunday and i took copies of every presentation of every district including the presentation the signatures and everything that was applied to them i did this diligently found a lot of mistakes and so i wanted to address some of those mistakes uh the second a couple of pages they'll tell you that district four was allotted um metal canopy and tables and something like that i couldn't find a signature list for district 4 nor a structural scorecard and the reason being is because it's not an nip it's a cdbg and you have proof there because it is a cdbg on district 4 and the application was signed january the 5th of 2022 by bin fife it's not an nip okay the rancho del sur neighborhood association i made that proof there their only request was for the trees the bench and a walking trail i spoke to a person from that a neighborhood association said they did not request anything to the playground that was added by the representative ms claudia and i understand from the rules and regulations that the reps are not supposed to be involved in nips in cdbgs yes but not nips and so the the resident says that was on our request she put that on so that's what you do he i also get got your copies of the district seven and they have on district seven they also have a shade for a playground and it's bleachers it's not playground i also submitted that i need these canopies for capistrano park and in the email that i sent you out last week you saw the problem the public having games and games and games thank you ma'am you've reached the three minutes thank you miss cardio thank you we need to look at this the next statement was submitted by debbie torres and it reads good morning mayor lisa and city council members my name is debbie torres and i'm a resident of the mission valley and a board member of the pueblo viejo neighborhood association my comments concern the list of approved projects for district 6. i see that capistrano park is not included this is a highly utilized park by the community for such activities as athletic practices and games as well as social and community gatherings currently the park does not have even the basic amenities such as permanent shades and seating especially the need for canopy shades for the baseball bleachers the nip request for this project was submitted by mission valley civic association president sylvia carrion in november of 2021 for district 6 prior to the redistricting of the area to district 7 in march 2022 it is my understanding that the district 6 representative did not approve the request because the area was no longer part of district 6. this project was in district 6 at the time of the nip submission deadline and as such should not be disqualified on that basis as you know there are many areas in the mission valley that need to be brought up to the exceptional level expressed in the city's vision and parks are no exception please reconsider funding this project to provide a pleasant gathering place for the families who enjoy it respectfully debi torres pueblo viejo neighborhood association the next speaker is on aduenes good afternoon ma'am you have three minutes good afternoon mayor city council city manager um my name is anna doing is i'm president of the el paso lower valley neighborhood association and i am have a project which is balsam street i do want to talk to you a little bit about that what's going on there we do have an issue there uh there have been two incidents already we don't want any more actually three we had a lady that was attacked she was walking with her two dogs one and she was attacked from behind one of the dogs if it hadn't been for her dogs she would have had gotten i guess left there for a long time without us knowing that that street is very dark we're asking for 10 lighting poles and in order to have that this is right next to the border highway because of the wall barrier we can't see anything even when we call the police and we say they're dragging in that street uh they don't uh they ask us what kind of vehicle is it we can't even see the only thing we see is the lights and the only thing we hear is the engines of the cars it is very unsaved we also had another incident one of our football players from riverside high school they practiced at night he was walking home and he got beat up and attacked his mother when i was getting the petition for this project she said i'll have my whole family do it because i don't want another child or another student uh be involved in a situation like this uh be after i i did the application and i brought it up uh there was a an incident a car ran into a house fence almost hit the window of the house of the living room please we're asking for your help we're asking for you to please accept the nip i want to thank nicole farini nicole rodriguez they have done a lot of good for this program we need this program please do not take it away it it helps i know a lot of our city doesn't get funded for all this but we have gotten a lot of things done with this program please help us and and please uh don't let this program let go it's i know it's a federal funded program but please do not let go of it it's like cdbg we need this program for the a lot of the neighborhood associations in our community thank you very much thank you the final comment was submitted by maria boucher and it reads good morning mayor lisa and city council members as president of pueblo viejo neighborhood association and resident of the mission valley area of el paso i am expressing our disappointment and concern about capistrano park not being included on the current list of approved neighborhood improvement projects capistrano park is a highly utilized venue for athletic programs athletic leagues and community activities however the park is lacking inadequate permanent shaded spectator bleachers and other amenities this park is in close proximity to capistrano elementary school within the isleta independent school district and it is used by school and neighborhood groups for various activities the mission valley area of el paso continues to be an overlooked part of the city when it comes to meeting exceptional quality of life standards as mentioned in el paso's city division pueblo viejo neighborhood association asks you to please reconsider approval of the capistrano park nip the approval of this project will be a mere start to improving quality of life standards within the parks of the mission valley area respectfully maria dolores boucher president of pueblo viejo neighborhood association thank you miss prince and with that we have um representative rivera followed by representant rodriguez thank you sir i can't i can't hear you sorry sir there it is i'm sorry okay thank you all sorry i apologize for that as you can see uh apparently there's a there's a bit of controversy with that one project that we talked about and uh i appreciate you all talking to it to me extensively about it but um we were provided with the original application do you all have that i don't have it in front of me sir but yes we have access to the original application okay because i understand that all that was asked for was the uh the the trash can the park bench and the walking path and then in in conversation with y'all uh you were telling me that uh the other equipment was added correct from the from the money from the funding for 2021 for the capistrano park and uh there was a funding there before that wasn't used and that was that was initiated for capistrano and then he all you all said that uh your your words that the you know the representative decided to put it there correct okay so um i understand that we can't we as the representatives can't can't do that so how did you come about that so i'm really glad that you asked that question sir because um i was very anxious to talk about how closely we followed the council adopted process in this case um so as i mentioned earlier and as nicole reemphasized we have in round five 375 000 per district this process started in 2021 and so it started under the old district boundaries and we made a decision very early on that we would maintain that process under those boundaries for this because it started uh prior to the redistricting so each district had 375 thousand dollars plus rollover from previous rounds that occurred in all of the districts at varying levels and i want to refer you to the policy that discusses what happens when any funds remain in a district's allocation if any funds remain in a district's allocation when staff recommendations have been finalized council representatives may add to any vetted proposed project within their districts components that are consistent with the goals of the original application as submitted by an association and are feasible within the funds available so each of the representatives and that's why we have such extensive conversations with each of you once our recommendations are finalized we want to make sure that if there are any additional funds that are available or or can enhance a project again it has to be components that are consistent with the goals of the original application but that in fact sir as part of the policy is at your discretion as a district representative and so you felt that that uh the request made there was substantial enough to to eliminate the capital external park and uh did you even look at rancho del sol park and the amenities that already has in place so what we do sir is we take a look at the applications that are submitted and then we run it through the council approved scoring process we're very careful to adhere to the process because it's not about what staff feels or doesn't feel it's about the score the scoring process and adhering to the rules of the policy and procedure so when we have uh projects that are scored you have ranchos del sol that came out in first place for that district you then actually had a project that was in second place which was pueblo viejo that was a sports court resurfacing which also is part of the policy we were able to fund that through another source and so the policy reads that if there's another source available we don't use nip for it capistrano park was actually ranked in third place is in its original application that original application was also downsized as in order to be feasible under the amount of funding that was available and so at that time what we do is we sit with the representative and we talk about what is most beneficial for the constituency of that district and it is ultimately at that point up to the discretion of the representative and that's the conversation that we had okay well see this is a problem i have i i know i my staff provided it with a little presentation i t can you can you bring that up please and and i have the original the original application made by the uh by the rancho del sol okay and and then i have the one that was modified what what it's it's disturbing to to to say that that uh equipment that's already in in the rancho del sol park was requested and i and i know my my colleague has knowledge of her area but i can't see why it was approved in that manner knowing that the need was also at capistrano i i can you go to slide number three can you that's that's the original application made by rancho del sol okay we're just it mentions that all they wanted was the walking path the bench trees and the playground okay no i'm sorry that wasn't it it was the other one uh slide number seven i apologize to you slide number seven and the darker yellow it shows that it's the trash can the park bench the crown creek walking in the trees so um you all don't take into consideration the uh the the fact that that the need on on another community another part of the community and which needed need uh wouldn't have worked over there as and and consulted with with with us as if i was a brand new representative and you know didn't know the area that well and and so you wouldn't you wouldn't take into consideration in consideration that that you would do that what we take into consideration sir is the components that are available to us in the council approved scorecard again this is not something that is at staff discretion we adhere to the scorecard and the scores play out in ranking order and the ranking order is the order in which we present them into the to the council representative under which they fall and at that point we have that conversation with the council representative i believe sir we we did present all of this to all of the council representatives and we spoke specifically to the projects that fell within um your jurisdiction then let me direct your attention to uh just uh slide number four rit which is what i know my colleague wouldn't have wouldn't have asked for this had if you know she was aware that this was already there the park the canopy the the wood chip fibers all she was asking for was a walking uh concrete walking trail and the trees and this is what what's there right now that's that's that's all that's there uh so i i have a bit of a problem with that and if i would i would suggest that well if the yeah you know i would suggest that we we really take a a deep look at this and and you know i know my colleague wants to talk so i'll reserve that my conversation for later sir if you want to let district representative rodriguez talk representatives followed by representative thank you so i find this conversation a bit ridiculous we just heard from the swimming community with from a bunch of children that they're having issues not finding quartz to swim in or swimming pools to swim in we heard from the animal shelter community that animals are dying they literally brought their urns and so it's clear to me that there's a lot of need in this community for a lot of different things and i think that the basic problem that would or the basic solution to all of it is money if we had money we wouldn't have any of these issues yes but to imply that i added a playground did i do that miss miss farini nicole can you help me what exactly was added from the initial application after the conversations new playground material wood fiber which is the playground materials and that was to bring that that particular project up to the 375 000 budget right and so so again i'm sorry to interrupt you had there been enough money if we gave all of that money to the campus toronto park would there be enough money to to fund that project no there would not and it scored what place according to ural's recommendation it initially ranked third um after we took the pueblo viejo project out of the running it became second okay so this is what i'm willing to do you know as as a parent i'm always putting my my children's needs before mine my children's comfort before my own i know that when we travel for my my son's soccer games for example we go to black chester park and every single parent there is carrying lawn chairs is carrying canopies and it's happening all across the city and it's something that is not unheard of but i do want to take the time right now and actually donate some of them how much money is there left in nip from district six in district six is this success um as recommended there are there are not dollars left in district six i don't have the actuals there is a little bit of remaining um i don't have that actual but i can provide we can come back to you okay if you could please if you could please what i want to do is actually donate canopies to the families that use campistrano park whether it comes from the nip funding or from discretionary funds from district six i want to go ahead and donate that money for them and and i think what we'll need to do ma'am is circle back with you to be clear on on what you'll want to do i will say that the nip regulation well regulation policy excuse me i'm talking cdbg over here the nip policy requires that the expenditures be for permanent um fixtures and so i'm not sure that you would have enough dollars to be able to do that and and that's fine if not i would like to donate from my discretionary funds towards canopies for the families that use campistrano park um i don't think it's it's okay that we have held these projects hostage for the rest of the community for going on a month now and they need to move forward now i would recommend you know just basically listening to the needs from the kids here today any future rounds of nip i think would be just to listen not to just to the the neighborhood associations but to listen to the children that use the parks that use the the swimming pools to see how it is that we can help them move forward in their in their athletics and that's all i have to say thank you thank you thank you very much representative please follow members representative be better i mean i do agree that we do need to look at a different way of doing nip i can't hear you my microphone is just not working there he is here we know um yeah i mean i don't disagree that we need to look at a a new way of doing nip if there are future funding i don't think this is the best way but this is how we've been doing it um and i apologize because i'm a little confused about what's going on here um and i know representative rivera you had a presentation is it on the backup or is it that's your staff i don't think that it is i'm i'm just seeing the cities ones um but if it still has that up can you go to slide five i was told to look at slide five but i'm not really sure why so so this was the original rec scorecard yes can we go to what the recommendation is now i'm sorry i know that we've gone over this a lot but there's a lot of conversation a little confused and while they're pulling it up i don't you know i'll say i want to first recognize that i understand staff is in a really difficult position right now and i don't think that this is um i don't yeah i don't think any of this conversation should be directed at them outside five so it i'm so sorry can you go back to representative rivera's presentation and pull up slide number seven is how i'm being directed um i i i also want to say you know i do know that there is conversations with the city rep we had a lot of conversation about my district and looking at reorganizing how that scorecard was but at no time did i ask to add two projects or remove from projects of the company it was either score this or don't score this based on the need of the community right i think that where i'm having or what's registering meet with me as the concerns of the communities is that things that were added outside of what the community asked for um and i you know it is funding is an issue i mean we had it with my district i i thought about taking out a project that scored higher um because i wanted to fulfill another project which i thought was you know an area that never got funding but again there was no adjustments or additions to the project and that's where i'm kind of understanding the concern but what i want to understand right now is what is the ask right what are we asking here today what are we finding a solution because there are other communities who i think are getting a little frustrated we saw one from my constituents today which i did not know that they were going to send but was concerned with the hold up so if we're going to continue talking about this project i'm for or this funding i'm fine to do that but i would just ask that we let the rest of the projects move forward and i don't know if that's allowable from from staff yes so um let me let me take both of your questions i think there was two um the the first is that it is absolutely allowable within the policy for the representatives to add to projects that have been submitted again as long as those additions are in line with the original original intent and the money is available within your district you cannot swap money between districts those are some of the things that you can't do and so the conversation for district two was was pretty different than with district six and so in this case what we had is initially three ranked projects you have ranchos del sol at number one with the smaller scope that was initially submitted you had a pueblo viejo resurfacing which scored second which would have eaten up the entirety of the allocated funds for district six and then you had capistrano at third which was was a reduced scope from what was initially submitted because the initially submitted scope was not deemed feasible within the entirety of the 375 thousand dollars at that time it was when the council elected to fund sports court resurfacing through a different set of funds so pueblo viejo came out at that time there was now an additional amount of funding available in district six at that point per the policy it's incumbent upon staff to work with the district representative to tease out what is desirable to that representative with those remaining funds and that's what we did with district six once the pueblo viejo project came out and that's why we went to the policy and allowed the representative to add to any of the projects that she had on the list that had applied and scored so that's how that happened and then the second piece to your question is a very simple yes we can move forward with some of the districts not all we will just ask for the council to be clear about how they'd like to make that motion but it is possible yeah i mean i think this just goes back to the fact that we need to revise if if this additional nip funding is awarded in the future we need to really look at that process because um you know how i would have done it is not how another representative would have done it that doesn't mean that's the correct way to do it and again i just want to reiterate the statement that i made that i want to recognize that you all in this department in this situation are in a very awkward position um and i i don't know why but i i just wanted to put that on the record uh because i know that this is hard um so i i'm just gonna go back to the two representatives who are also in a really hard position right now and it's what is the ask i mean can we move forward and keep working on this or is there a specific ask i also before that gets answered um representative rodriguez is very kind and i think wants to to solve this but i if there's someone who can get her the cost estimate for a permanent metal canopy um i think that would be helpful in making her decision because my understanding is that they are expensive and i just want you to have that information because if it's going to uh affect you i know and that's why i don't have enough money for for and just said or any permanent fixture which is why i'm understanding that there is a need for shade there and i am perfectly fine with donating that money towards canopies to give to the families so they're able to use them again we use them everybody across the city uses them and and you know they're practical you know they're you gotta have your little wagon and haul them over but but they're practical and and they help when there is no shade so that's what i'm willing to do and that's what i'm wanting to do no rep no i'm waiting for the cost because i had asked for that and they were working on that staff was working on that for me and so what i failed to mention to you all i used when that ex that money that was slated for capistrano supposedly i don't know what whether rank ranking or not that was then under 20 the the old districts uh that's when it was done and so when the new districts came in that's why i asked about this and so in a matter to resolve this issue we had i had a conversation with staff and and uh as to how we could do it as well whether whether it's resolved or not i'm still waiting for for the for the answer on the on the cost that you you just asked for yourself as well and uh i believe i'll miss uh representative rodriguez is also well you already know the cost on that because they yeah i think i think everybody let's go one at a time please just sir before we get reptianello are you done no you don't know i mean i just want to know what to ask like what are we being asked today how can we resolve this and move forward in the other districts at the same time and represent rivera you're done so represent rodriguez no you don't know i also want to know the the cost for for the canopies i know that obviously the bigger they are the the more expensive that they are nicole you one of the first things you mentioned is the increase in um steel and steel and so i don't know maybe also it would be interesting to see what uh the same canopy would have cost two years ago to what it's costing now or when when the process started a year ago to where we're at now and and just put real numbers out there um i'm ready to move forward with with these projects i think the community has been waiting for them like i said i would also want to know how much money i have left in nip so i can go ahead and donate towards those canopies and if not so i can use for my discretionary funds to donate canopies to to that park and that's it i'm i'm i'll make a motion to approve item 34. yes sir thank you is this still with the we all with all costs that i had i requested from from staff still coming to me and and stuff like that are we going to do that can we i can actually have those costs and i believe but representative nettle asked for those costs as well on canopies and stuff like that equipment the the most recent number that i was given by staff which it's a big number uh you know i remember when i started working here in 2014 we were talking about putting vinyl canopies in but it doesn't work in el paso because they'll they'll tear up with the wind so you need the steel canopies and so those back then were 85 90 000 per canopy if depending on what kind if it was over a playground it was if it was in a common area it depended on the on the size today those same canopies because of the inflation because of the high cost of steel metal and because of the supply chain that number believe it or not is 275 thousand dollars now the number as i'm as i'm told is a little under 200 000 staff is concerned when i say staff talking about cid they're concerned of that number going up and then that that item showing up and then y'all having a look on your face like what'd y'all do why didn't you calculate that so that that calculation is based on what they think it's going to continue to go up on based on on just this recent history with covet so it's a high number so i mean if i don't think nip is the solution for canopies uh i we have some thoughts on that if you want me to go into that but i'll just let the conversation continue sure can you can you go in on that well i think that you already have canopies in the bond issuance the bond election that you're considering i don't think adding canopies in high traveled areas would be a mistake i think that actually would be a strong recommendation from staff that in these high trafficked areas where more canopies are needed it would make a lot of sense because they're used more often than than most and and and they're heavily used right now they're not just used often but there are a lot of people that go to these high traffic zones in different parks and so ben fives already looking at that so we could very easily add additional ones based on the traffic and the volume at these different parks uh when you finalize the uh the bond issuance that you were considering so that would happen in august the other option would be just to determine on the values and what we're doing with the tax rate in terms of continuing to lower it and whether or not there's still any wiggle room there on the values that come in that we get on the 25th so those are the two options in terms of how to address it going forward you have talked about the nip and the nip does is included in the bond issuance an amount if you recall that is just for the next couple of years the idea would be as council instructed to come back with the quality of life initiative or projects that are more extensive broader i think all of you expressed concern about the maintenance of not uh not only the older facilities but as you heard today the newer facilities now we're already uh on top of that with regard to the west side pool that you that you heard about uh and and i've already am in communications with with staff about that and we'll have a we'll have an answer on that to council shortly um however i think one of the council council members i think was represented rodriguez mentioned it the money is the issue we have focused on streets public safety and yes some parks and there's just a lot of money that's needed to address a lot of the things that were they were quite frankly neglected for quite some time but again the the canopies because of the cost have they gone up exponentially i would recommend that you use other funding sources other than nip because the nlp is not not near enough to to address that it's just it's just made up for small projects for neighborhoods not for these large scale big cost items okay thanks but one more question when when capistrano was there what was the amount that was awarded to would have been awarded to that park in 2021 i believe it's on the slide the preliminary um numbers that we were looking at i think would have included one shade canopy and um was that it was just the one shade canopy and it was about 260 thousand dollars for a canopy one can be yes what is that what does that include the base and all that that's every that's everything that's associated with the steel canopy over the bleachers oh i definitely have to see the cost because over here you have on one of the reports also you had like a fifty thousand dollar it's it's okay it's uh it's you had like a fifty thousand dollar uh cost for a canopy before that but uh yeah what i what i'd really when you were you're asking me is uh what we can do is look at wait till the bond but i mean this has happened this has apparently been on going on for years and the the funding was there and all of a sudden uh it's gone so the deal is that um the added equipment that was if that was the case if i would have known that or if anybody else would have been told about this that you could add projects you can add amenities to to whatever park was you wanted to you know it's it first of all it's not fair for the rest of the community second of all i mean you'd build up the park that's closest to you and so the thing is that i i just i just totally disagree with this because in the long run copy star was being left out left down the coal and so i i will uh i won't be supporting this thank you thank you remember that this problem we have we have a question sorry again confusion just like a clarification um capistrano park you're saying they asked for one canopy no ma'am the original scope was i believe six canopies i don't quote me on that i'll ask nicole right now but it was multiple canopies and some trash cans i believe what we looked at the under the initial sort of analysis of what money was available is that it was only possible to do maybe one canopy again at the 260-ish thousand dollars that's where i'm confused because i'm looking at other applications you've got where was it so two canopies over bleachers at el williams park is a hundred and thirty thousand dollars um you have other projects i think it's five canopies and i granted they're over picnic tables which i know are smaller correct um and that's right here uh where was that one well you know but it was under the i mean even this one at 30 by 30 canopy picnic tables concrete slab irrigation modifications that's at 350 000. and i know canopies are different here's one canopy and picnic table is 172 000 right so i guess i'm just cheer there's there's all these elements to it and again i guess my motion is going to be um that we approve this item without the district six and we come back and we brief all council members to really understand what's going on here so again would i apologize this is not i'm not trying to really step on anyone's toes here i'm just very confused and i think that there's a lot of information that i'm getting at once and looking at your applications and these applications and i'm i'm not having um it's just a lot for me to to really understand and i haven't had the opportunity to speak with you all about this i have not had the opportunity to speak to the representative i've not had the opportunity to speak to the constituents um and i i you know we're having people out here i think that redistricting has really caused a lot of issues with this which again is not at the fault of staff whatsoever so just trying to kind of understand what's going on that's why i'm making that motion if i may just to create some clarification for the record the first and i'll take them in reverse order the first is that we knew that because redistricting occurred so far into the application and scoring process that it made no sense to utilize the new boundaries to make these decisions so everything that we are discussing under nip is being done under the old boundaries that's the first thing okay so that just to be very clear about that the second piece is in terms of what this it seems to be there's some confusion as to what discretion the representatives have it is embedded in the council adopted policy from 2014 that we all inherited and that we're all working with that allows for any council representative to make modifications based on available funds within their district as long as those funds don't cross district boundaries that is well within the approved council approved policy and so when we have these conversations one of the reasons representative that we would not have had this conversation with you is that we brief each of the council representatives on the details of the projects that have been submitted and rec will be recommended within their district because you have discretion over those things in the case of district 6 and 7 as a courtesy we made sure to create that broader briefing because we understood that the boundaries had changed and so i apologize if that briefing caused any confusion but anything that was submitted under district six would have been under the purview of the representative from district six same as district seven um and so i just i i cannot iterate strongly enough that count that staff is working with a council-approved policy and everything that has been recommended and pushed forward to this point has been been done under the auspice of that policy and the constraints of the funding source i get it i mean then i i'll remove my motion if somebody else wants to make it i'll support it but i'll remove it right now and just to be clear counselors back and forth about the canopies there's different pricing based on fabric canopies metal canopies the size of the canopy i'm just telling you the latest on the size and the diameter of the different canopies the bottom line is it's gone up it's gone up dramatically and and it's very surprising i mean you look at it and you should look at it with uh you know you should be uh incredulous to what you're seeing because it's ridiculous it that has gone up so much it it just simply is that's the world we live in today and so the you might not agree with the number it is what it is and we're simply just providing you that information the biggest issue is it's not you know what it's gone up also it's being dictated today by supply and demand well that too yes sir that's what i'm saying that that's driving the cost what i said earlier about the supply chain so so yeah you're correct i was just trying to get out like you know i found it finally five tables with canopies it's 176 000 they're smaller though right like there's a lot of information here that's not there's no reason for it to be on this paper to be presented to us um it's just impacting how i feel about making a decision here it's just all what i was trying to to get at in regards to that sure thank you representative zelda is followed by representatives south sudan so i want to thank you both again um you know i find it very discouraging that this whole council went through this entire process with staff you all briefed me like you briefed every single council member here and for some reason district six is being singled out as not making appropriate decisions and that is not at all the case the truth is i'll reiterate the money is not there and i don't think that the whole constituency of district six almost 90 000 people are being held hostage their fault they put in their application just like everybody else did i agree we we need we need to rectify this process because this process is the best and it's creating it's something that is supposed to bring joy to the community is bringing drama and not pleasant times people are waiting for these projects i really hope that that my colleagues can really look past this and be able to approve all the projects like i said i am willing to still commit to to campistrano park and donate canopies to the families which they can use at home they can use at the park they can use wherever they want i am willing to do that for them so with that you know i'm ready to call the question we got a couple more people that have spoken and now this will be your last really we have limit of two so this will be her she took us up off but um we have a limit of two times speaking this will be your third source so we'll make it quick okay that's fine and and again it's not a it's not a pick and choose uh representative rodriguez i'm not picking on district six it just came up because i i just happened to be assigned that district now as as part of the redistricting that came up to me and it was a concern it was a concern that that equipment that was already in your previous park was being asked for so it's it's not a matter of picking on you and making it a drama or what however you say if you want to say that that that was the initial uh request by the neighborhood association no ma'am it wasn't it wasn't it was a trash can a park bench concrete walking path and trees that's what it was and all this other stuff was added so that'll be the gist of it for me and and thank you mayor thank you sir with that can we call the question ms prime yes sir the motion was made by representative rodriguez seconded by representative lee zarga to approve the resolution on that motion call for the vote representative hernandez yes in the voting session the motion passes five to three i'm sorry five to two representative timothy not as absent mayor where would you like to go next um let's recess this meeting so we can uh continue our yesterday's meeting kami we have a motion to recess the city council meeting so moved there's a motion and a second to recess the city council meeting in order to reconvene yesterday's work session all in favor anyone opposed the regular city council meeting is in recess at 2 0 4 p.m we will need about 5 minutes so it can switch over to yesterday's work session and the folks in in teams will need to exit this link and rejoin yesterday's link hmm yes there council we're ready to reconvene yesterday's work session if you can please return to the dais we can get started uh council can we come back up so we can continue the meeting [Music] we need um we're missing mayor pro-tem short-spine representative salcido representative rodriguez rodriguez and i don't see representatives on this online yet council if you'll return to the dais the meeting from yesterday can be reconvened is there a motion to reconvene so july 18th work session so moved there's a motion and a second to reconvene the july 18 2022 work session all in favor aye anyone opposed and the work session is back in session on july 19th at 2 16 p.m we were on item number seven on the agenda yes ma'am this is discussion and action to review and amend the employment agreement for the city attorney and city manager this item was placed by representatives ribera hernandez and rodriguez go ahead yep would you all like to go to executive session second there's a motion and a second to return to executive session all in favor anyone opposed and the city council of the city of el paso may return to executive session pursuance to section 3.58 of the el paso city charter in the texas government code chapter 551 sub chapter d to discuss item 7 discussion in action to review and amend the employment agreement for the city attorney and city manager it is under sections 551.071 consultation with attorney and 551.074 personnel matters it is 2 17 pm move to reconvene again there's a motion and a second to come out of executive session all in favor anyone opposed the work session is back in session at 5 35 pm mayor pro tem we're on item seven i'm looking uh we're i'm in the wrong meeting all right so motion july 19 2022 motion made seconded and carried that outside councils authorized to continue discussions with the city manager and city attorney through their respective lawyers regarding their employment agreement and that city council authorizes the city attorney to continue to retain outside counsel for executive employment related matters approved on july 19 2022 there's a motion made by mayor pro tem and read into the record second it by representative rivera on that motion call for the vote representative hernandez representative hernandez in the meeting miss prince i would appreciate if you all wait until i get in i don't take a break while i'm up there so i do have to take a minute break i am 64 i can only go so long so if you guys don't mind i would appreciate that with that go ahead can you turn on i know i know we're continuing discussion but we didn't give a deadline that is correct um you could amend the motion on the floor okay so can we can i do that now we're in the middle of voting we're in the middle of the voting session so we would have to refer to the parliamentarian you would have to reconsider okay we'd have to be considered to continue can you repeat the motion please i want to hear the motion again please the mo was the motion on july 19th mostly made second and carried that outside council is authorized to continue discussions with the city manager and city attorney through their respective lawyers regarding the employment agreement that city council authorizes the city attorney to continue to retain outside counsel for executive employment related matters approved on july 19 2022. thank you sir did we get a second yes there is a motion and a second and the voting session is open i'm just missing representative hernandez's vote representative okay was that a question to me i'm sorry i was in the wrong link um i was in the other link but my vote is yes thank you in the voting session the motion passes unanimously okay i'd like to make a motion to reconsider there's a motion made by representative rodriguez seconded by representative rivera to reconsider item seven all in favor hi yes anyone opposed the motion carries okay so i would actually like to propose an amendment for the motion um to continue discussion and to come back and i guess another two weeks or what would be a good timeline um it depends on when council would wish to you know put the item on again if you want to have it be discussed again in two weeks you can put two weeks but the discussion i mean there's there's no uh conclusion you know so certainly we can come back in two weeks if that if that's your plan four weeks four weeks i think two weeks is two weeks okay two weeks whatever you prefer how many two weeks no okay so there's a motion made by representative rodriguez seconded by representative rivera and this is to amend the action to return in two weeks is that correct yes ma'am on that motion call for the vote representative hernandez yes thank you in the voting session the motion passes unanimously is there a motion to approve as amended move to approve as amended there's a motion made by representative rodriguez seconded by representative lizard to approve the motion as amended so you didn't have to reconsider it no we shouldn't representative hernandez yes thank you and the voting session and the motion passes unanimously is there a motion to during the work session [Music] is there a second second there's a motion and a second to adjourn the work session all in favor anyone opposed and the work session for monday july 18 2022 is adjourned on tuesday july 19th 2022 at 5 42 p.m council i.t will need about five minutes to return back to the regular city council meeting and those folks and teams need to exit this link and return to today's meeting link okay council i.t is ready to go is there a motion to reconvene the regular city council meeting there's a motion and a second to reconvene the regular city council meeting all in favor anyone opposed the regular city council meeting is back in session at 5 45 pm mayor you would like to go to which item next 32 thank you item 32 is discussion in action on a resolution to adopt the city of el paso infill and redevelopment policy good evening mayor and council joaquin rodriguez with the capital improvement department uh thank you for taking this item today i'll try to you know get through this as quick as possible i know we have had briefings with the members of the cft and with the other members of council as well so we can start with a little background on the info policy cft was established in march of 2021 to evaluate policies and ordinance changes related to infill it consists of representatives from district 1 2 4 and 8. we generally try to meet twice a month and the topics in those meetings really focus on best practice policy applications and real world examples and outcomes uh from infill strategies not only in texas but across the u.s this proposed policy that's before you today is the first deliverable from the cft so what's being proposed specifically is a city of el paso infill and redevelopment policy the city currently has an info policy specific to economic incentives as well as a zoning ordinance that's specific to a special permit for infill development this policy is different from those in that it's really a strategy document that sets forth a platform for infill development and mainly the the purpose is to centralize and consolidate recommendations from other plans and provide clear direction to staff on action items in support of infill development we don't foresee any conflict with existing infill policies whether the economic development or the planning item rather the intent of this policy is to inform future updates to those policies uh to ensure that we're in line with best practice for infill development the development of this policy was driven by the cross-functional team we did vet this policy with economic development community development planning and inspections and of course capital improvements planning the policy is structured in five sections the statement and intent section on justification and benefits of infill development some guiding strategic principles we tried to include measurable policy goals as well as a robust section on implementation of the policy the statement itself is here in bold this is a new statement but it is derived from adopted goals um strategies and other planning documents um really harkens back to some of the goals uh and policies set for policy recommendations set forth in plan el paso you'll also see you know an echo of recommendations from the eastside master plan the recently adopted alameda corridor study as well as a city strategic plan so the intent of the policy really focuses on identifying those specific action items to encourage and facilitate infill development our goal was that this policy through formal adoption from council really gives staff a green light to start coming forward with things like ordnance changes different programs and administrative changes that would support infill development additionally the policy would address and counteract some of the negative impacts of continued outward expansion support developments and investments to activate the city's urban core and again capitalize on existing and recent investments in transit and infrastructure in areas that are currently underserved by residential and commercial markets the justification and benefits this is is nothing new i think you've heard a number of staff talk about the benefits of infill development over the years reducing the cost of service and infrastructure associated with outward growth increasing the value of vacant and underutilized land within older areas of the city that speaks really to our tax base and taking those uh underperforming parcels uh putting them back on the on the tax rolls you also see here in bold achieving transit support of density to capitalize on the city's investments in brio and streetcar and re-establishing a vibrant urban core among other justifications and benefits um the document itself goes into a lot more detail than i'll go into in this presentation the guiding strategic principles were really a driving force behind the policy ensuring that as we develop these new ordinance changes um administrative amendments and what have you um that we're ensuring that the city isn't directly contributing to displacement or gentrification uh to ensure that we're preserving the existing affordable housing stock to ensure that we are mitigating the challenges to infill whether they be affordability related or regula or regulatory challenges this third bullet here is something that that really we need to focus on as we move forward with implementation and that's developing context in area sensitive design standards and land use regulations to ensure that that we are promoting development that is compatible with existing neighborhoods in terms of measurable measurable policy goals we're really focusing on monitoring analyzing and publishing uh trends related to infill development as well as trends related to planning and to planning administration um so we can do that in a number of ways that are outlined here things like looking at population in the targeted areas looking at the increase in number of building permits and looking at the number of your special permit and rezoning applications that are coming before council as well in terms of implementation this is a really high level view at what's included in the policy uh first and foremost is identifying and prioritizing those targeted areas in the past i think the city's approach has been uh to develop maps and uh you know approach kind of either you're you're within a targeted area on a map or you're not the approach of this policy is more qualitative and context-based um so areas that maybe don't exhibit uh you know that weren't developed uh you know pre-war or post-war but still exhibit some of those walkable and traditional neighborhood patterns would still qualify for any programs or ordinance changes that come out of this adoption of this policy we also want to focus on taking guidance from real world data and markets you'll see this included in some of our planning studies already specifically alameda and downtown where we have associated market studies that are informing some of the recommendations in those policies the implementation phase also looks at incentives it looks at our infrastructure investments and targeting some of our targeting those infill areas with strategic infrastructure investments looks at zoning and regulatory reform pretty extensively how can we remove some of those development hurdles to hopefully encourage the development community to take the risk on an infill project rather than continuing to expand outwards there are section there's a section specific to to housing and ensuring that we are again being mindful of displacement and gentrification while at the same time promoting an increase in the number of housing options and housing availability throughout the city specifically in the info targeted areas there's also recommendations for outreach and coordination and the timeline that's provided in the policy is not specific to month and day rather it's more of a phased approach so phase one focuses on short term minor code amendments things changes that may be relatively easy to implement phase two is more major code amendments things that may still require some additional planning work and some extensive public outreach and then finally phase three is long long term so more along the lines of uh development of new programs one of the recommendations specifically from the study is to explore the feasibility of a land banking program for the city of el paso so with that our next steps really are to start doing some outreach not only for the adoption of this policy but as code amendments and different ordinance changes come up ensuring that we're doing outreach to the general public as well as the development community but moving beyond just the the broader development community and focusing on small developers who are currently the driving force behind infill development we also discussed doing some outreach to the lending community throughout the city to ensure that their lending requirements as much as possible that they're they're being the city's infill strategy as representative are represented within their lending requirements for uh the types of projects that we want to see for infill and then the final piece on the next steps that we're already this is already underway is developing a code amendment implementation schedule we are working with a consultant clarion and associates who is an expert in uh in code work they are already under contract and developing that code implementation schedule for us um step one of their process really is to do a deep dive and an audit of our existing code to identify strengths and weaknesses and then after that they'll start the drafting of those code amendments again that's going to require a lot of coordination with the city's legal department a lot of public outreach and interdepartmental coordination as well so that's all i have for you today if you have any questions i'm happy to take those now yes we'll represent the saga followed by represent followed by representative joaquin thank you so much you know i really wanted to thank you for your patience and your professionalism with the cft i just am always amazed at how well your presentations go i learned so much being on the cft along with my colleagues from district one two and four it was just a tremendous learning process for me so i just wanted to take this opportunity to thank you and your staff for a job very well done this is exciting i'm excited about this new policy that the city is going to be implementing so kudos to you joaquin thank you very much thank you representative mayor potem yes thank you um first of all thank you again joaquin and all the staff it was quite an adventure of urbanism of history and of the future of our community um taking a deep dive in and fill development and all other sorts of things as well and not only did i learn more about my colleagues but i learned a little bit more about myself through this infill cft process so thank you again uh for being such a sage guide uh through this journey of infill development opportunities thank you um i also just say too that i'm happy that this is here now i think that the cft process is one that has been probably very rewarding for those that have been on it for the most part my big question is we've talked about these big ideas we're now coming into having policy come out of these cfts and so i don't have a timeline but i think again the the more we're able to see some of these policy initiatives come into into actual policy would be best for our council to vote on and for our community again to give people the opportunity of uh of a more robust development opportunity throughout our city i think it's it's not a question of well do you guys don't want to build on the outside or not it's about giving people the opportunity uh to to invest in both parts and all parts of our city um in a more equitable way and i think that we all recognize the investments that we've been made already through the public and private sector and this uh this cft and the policy initiatives out of it i think can really further strengthen and bring us more opportunities there so i want to thank you again for all this work and i hope to see more initiatives coming out from the cft process too for us to vote on and adopt as a body thank you sir representative writing on this uh thank you mayor um to joaquin i mentioned this earlier um on our one-on-one i couldn't agree more with representative lisa raga the way you've all approached this has been very methodical i really appreciate the methodology that you are adopting for this policy um i i didn't have an opportunity to to meet with you all last week to address some of my concerns so i wanted to share with council our discussion joaquin related to to some of the areas of improvement where i feel like our code can help address and identify i don't sit on the cft however i do feel strongly about the future of our planning and development um and so what i wanted to to just mention to council is that i wanted to add to two topics and i've worked this out with joaquin and so so part of part of the discussion i had was how do we address public improvement districts so those are the pits um for already developed areas and it and our code really doesn't address it but i think the the the stage of where we are where we're at and development in our community has been emphasized on info but there are other taxing increment tools that we can utilize that some of my constituents have brought to my attention that they're interested in however our code doesn't really address how to shepherd that process along or how to incorporate that for our already developed areas and so i did i did urge um uh joaquin if he can help uh with establishing language to add so that it's a is not in conflict it's still in the spirit of the resolution and doesn't seriously like change the the the verbiage um and so i wanted to read that uh related to the public improvement districts which is development of a formal guidance for the establishment of a public improvement district to fund infrastructure investment in support of infield development and redevelopment we just don't have a process of that and i feel like our code can strengthen um and so i would ask if i can move to to add that language but i do have a second point i'd like to make so that would be my first motion is to revise um section five part d of infrastructure adding a new subsection related to the public improvement districts second thank you and then the second one is related to zoning and regulatory reform for my colleagues who have a lot of farmland and in their districts this this would point out to how do we address um farmland and the development of farmland while also um balancing the need for more agriculture but also industrial use and farmland use i live in a small farming track i have irrigation rights there's a lot of these places throughout the lower valley in the upper valley but there has to be some form of balance plan el paso has has identified some efforts but i really do believe there's got to be a little bit more reform there so i would ask that as part of this policy review we would look at that and so some of the language that was recommended to add that would not be in conflict of the spirit of the resolution would be under section 5 part e zoning and regulatory reform i would move to add the language develop a transfer of development rights program to preserve farmland and ease development pressure on agricultural land receiving areas of transfer development right should align with targeted info areas as described in this policy i just want to make clear that this would not deter development but rather call for responsible development in farmland that would be my second motion i don't know if i have any second there but uh yes representative thank you um and joaquin if if you wanted to share with council um if if you if you feel like this aligns with the work that the cft has done and and if this isn't conflict to any of the objectives the city is trying to pursue yeah absolutely so so i think it absolutely aligns um with the work we have discussed you know ters and the cft but we we did not go as far as discussing pids public improvement districts are another valuable tool in making those upfront infrastructure investments that can really support infill development you know creating more walkability creating more traditional neighborhood patterns public improvement districts are are a strong tool in in achieving that um as far as the you know desire to to sort of expand preservation of farmland and agriculture um i think that the transfer of development rights tool um and forgive me i'm not entirely sure if the city has used that in the past i think there may have been a development where where it was used but a lot of cities are effectively using that for exactly the reasons uh that you laid out representative fernandez which is to preserve agricultural land farmland and even open space essentially what those receiving areas are are areas where someone who is an owner of agricultural land who wishes to engage in a transfer of development rights program takes their development rights to that parcel of land you know it could be a number of units or it could be a density amount that they're willing to transfer to another area of the city where they can then increase density in areas that we've targeted for for that added density so this would be a program that would really take some time to to hammer out but i think as far as you know keeping within the the subject matter of infill development and adding that layer of preserving uh farmland and agricultural land i i think the transfer development rights tool is probably the most appropriate and i'll also commit to to the cft to ensure that uh maybe at our at our meeting this week or the next meeting we can go over those tools in more in more detail but i am confident that they they both align um very well with this policy thank you joaquin no other comments mayor thank you for the time thank you representative manila followed by mayor pro-tem thank you and joaquin thank you for clarifying that two of this the infill the cft infill members were talking like we were done and i was like a little upset um because i don't know if you heard today than in spokane washington they allowed all zoning all residential zoning by right which i think is a a huge win for housing equity um and a place that we can get in the future too right and this is this is just kind of the first steps of looking at how we address infill how we address housing and how we really grow the core of our city it's it's it as my colleagues have said it's been a really a real pleasure to be on the cft i've learned a lot from you i think we've had some really great discussion amongst ourselves too i think the the the cft is made up of very different kind of representatives with different ideals and i think we've had great conversations and come to a great place so so thank you for your guidance on that sometimes you really need to push us to interact which is surprising um but but we really appreciate all the work that you've done and i'm excited about continuing on with this this is a good first step thank you representative mayor pro temp thanks um just a couple first of all good points raised by representative hernandez um i know there was some discussion about about the idea of land banking as it relates towards here is that something that's addressed um in this document yes yes sir the land banking is addressed in the documents um i believe it's in the housing sub-chapter of the policy and it's really addressed at sort of a very high level the state law has very specific requirements for land banking programs throughout the state so any you know any effort that goes into that is going to require um some some really specific thought as to those first steps that are outlined in in state law i don't want to give the impression i'm giving legal advice but the first step is really a land bank feasibility study um so i believe the policy is specific to uh encouraging that first step take place absolutely and then the other point i had is i think one of the one of the better conversations we had was the idea of the suburban retrofit and looking at some of our first ring suburbs especially areas that already have multi-family duplexes quadplexes as an opportunity again for strategic infill and so just want to make sure that i i believe i read through this this is something that's also addressing as well but those areas where we see you know that sort of middle housing already there's an opportunity for further density that is may not necessarily be within the historic core but also as accessibility to existing infrastructure gas water and the like as well as accessibility to mass transit and i believe that that's also addresses oh i don't know if you wanted to touch base on that too that's correct representative schwartzman it is addressed in uh the section where we uh outline the the strategy to identify and prioritize those targeted areas again this isn't a one-size-fits-all approach you know where we have a map that outlines whether you're in or you're out it is context-based and area sensitive so i think one of those bullet points and i'll read it for you here existing areas and neighborhoods with a concentration of middle housing options where there currently exists the trend of development or redevelopment activity that supports increased density or expanding neighborhood commercial uses sounds great um i think this is wonderful again want to appreciate thank you again for all the work that you've done and all the staff that was there and um once again uh thank thank you for those thoughtful amendments representative hernandez and uh thank you again representative rivera for all your support as well thank you mayor pro te remember that we have um two amendments and a motion yes mayor i also have a statement from mr harrison plourde from mpo that he'd like me to read into the record and it says dear mayor and council the el paso metropolitan planning organization would like to express support for the proposed infield and redevelopment policy land use patterns and policies are integrally tied to the transportation decision making and policy development process as the agency responsible for coordinating transportation planning efforts across the el paso region the mpo is encouraged to see the city take a thoughtful and proactive approach to a land use planning through the adoption of this policy as many of you are aware the npo has recently started a scenario planning project that will explore the interaction between land use policy and transportation policy and the impacts of such policies on a variety of important fields from air quality to mobility to economic development and public safety in adopting this infill policy you are signaling that the city will be a leader in developing solutions to these issues the mpo looks forward to continuing to work with the mayor council members and city staff to identify and implement those solutions in ways that are beneficial to our entire region sincerely harrison plourde assistant director el paso empio thank you and with that we'll take uh the two amendments first yes sir the first amendment was made by representative fernandez seconded by representatives and this is to amend section 5 and representative hernandez if you'll restate that please representative hernandez can you restate the amendment i'm sorry i was pulling it up i had it written down um so the first amendment with state um it would be in addition to the proposed policy to add the language and section five part d infrastructure development of formal guidance for the establishment of public improvement districts to fund infrastructure investments in support of infield development and redevelopment thank you so this is the amendment to section 5 part d infrastructure as read into the record by representative hernandez on that amendment call for the vote representative hernandez yes thank you in the voting session the motion passes unanimously the next amendment was also made by representative hernandez seconded by representative anello and this is to amend the policy section five part e representative anandas if you can restate that once again please it would be part e under zoning and regulatory reform to add the language and bullet point develop a transfer of development rights program to preserve farmland and ease development pressure on agricultural land receiving areas of transfer development rights should align with targeted info areas as per described in this policy thank you on that amendment call for the vote i think so is there a motion to approve yes representative hernandez yes thank you in the voting session the motion passes unanimously there was a motion made by representative rodriguez seconded by representative li zaraga to approve as amended on that motion call for the vote representative hernandez yes thank you in the voting session and the motion passes unanimously mayor would you like to return to item 22 i think rather start back with the proclamations okay 22. thank you sir item 22 is discussion in action on the award of solicitation 2022-0672 runway 8r-26l rehabilitation to jordan foster construction llc move dude in a second made by mayor pro tem shortly short swine seconded by representative rodriguez to approve on that motion call for the vote representative hernandez yes thank you in the voting session the motion passes unanimously representative lizard not present the next item is number 25 this is discussion in action second on the award of solicitation 2022-0402 canterbury trail improvement improvements to black stallion contractors there's a motion made by mayor pro tem short spine seconded by representative rodriguez to approve on that motion call for the vote okay mayor pro tem representative hernandez yes thank you in the voting session the motion passes unanimously america we take 24 please not present 24 and 25 can we take them together they're the same yes sir you'd like to take 24 and 25 together man thank you sir item 24 is discussion in action that the city manager is to sign an agreement for professional services between the city of el paso and consort engineers for a project known as architect and engineering services for arterial lighting package 5 wrestler and edgemere item 25 is discussion in action that the city manager be authorized to sign an agreement for professional services between the city of el paso and consular engineers llc for a project known as architect and engineering services for arterial lighting package six trey wood hunter mccombs and rojas motion to approve second there's a motion made by representative rodriguez seconded by mayor pro tim schwarzwein to approve we're ready to go this is items 24 and 25 on that motion call for the vote representative hernandez yes thank you in the voting session and the motion passes unanimously uh miss prime um on items representative blizzard are not present yes uh you're about to read item 26 i'd like to postpone for two weeks i haven't i haven't been briefed by staff on this item so item 26 is a public hearing on an ordinance changing the zoning from r5c residential conditions to c2 commercial conditions from our 5sp residential special permit to see two commercial and imposing conditions generally north of trans mountain road and east of interstate 10. there's a motion made by mayor pro tim shortstein and seconded by representative anello and this is to postpone the item for two weeks blessing this is to postpone for two weeks call for the vote representative hernandez yes thank you in the voting session the motion passes unanimously rightly zaraga not present item 27 is a public hearing on an ordinance granting special permit to allow for a governmental use building for environmental service department citizen collection station at 9135's tahala drive move to approve second there's a motion made by representative rodriguez sorry representative manila uh yeah is there um i don't know if there's a staff member here for this item but i'm just wondering if there was any opposition to this yes roller coaster fine inspections uh we did get one uh one letter uh in opposition um but it is important to note that uh esd representatives did conduct some outreach on this item uh going back to about a year ago conducting a public uh meeting a public meeting with the neighborhood as well as most recently uh through the efforts of this district four representatives office there was a public meeting conducted uh june 25th as well okay um and after all that yeah we did uh receive one one letter in opposition okay i just wanted to make sure because when we even rezoned the one on hondo pass it's been there for a while i got a lot of opposition i know this is a new one um so if that makes me feel better thank you i'll second that if there isn't one there is a second already ma'am it was so we had a motion in this in two seconds yes meredith motion was made by representative rodriguez seconded by representative salcido to approve there's no public comment on this item call for the vote representative arnello thank you representative hernandez yes thank you in the voting session the motion passes unanimously representative lisa got not present the next item is number 28 this is a public hearing on an ordinance changing the zone from r3 residential to c2 commercial and imposing conditions at 8100 north loop drive motion to approve second and staff does have uh four amendments yes i'd like for staff to read and conditions i believe we have mr monsanto also representing the applicant yes thank you again roberto plan inspections so the the revised condition is uh for condition number three a and that condition 3a shall read that a minimum 500 foot distance be required between any establishments providing the following a on-premise consumption of alcohol except establishments holding a mixed beverage permit with a food and beverage certificate and defined as a restaurant that is the the amended condition 3a thank you we do have public comment mayor we have ms sylvia carrillo and i believe she left already followed by mr ray mancera good evening sir you have three minutes mayor uh city council my name is good afternoon my name is raymond said i'm here representing the owner as per the lobby ordinance i am representing him and i would like to let you know that we concur with staff comments and uh just briefly on the property itself it's uh the old jj arms property on north loop and it's 5.8 acres the actual house mansion is about 13 387 square feet it will be demolished to make way for a shopping center neighborhood type of shopping center the we did go around the prop the area asking for signatures and we were happy to report that even though your report says that you have one letter of support and one email in opposition and one uh email we do have five letters that were submitted at the city plan commission here with me so i'm sure it was just a small type on the part of planning but we did have support of the community we actually also had two community meetings and they were very well attended and i got some comments saying that it's uh it's nice to have been to that property even though it's been there for years that nobody had ever invited them in so we are concur with a 30-foot setback and just keep in mind that the setback it was something that we also proposed but in addition you have about 15 foot setback of a lateral so you have 45 feet a buffer between the residents and the commercial enterprise and i'm glad that planning did make a correction on the distance because we did not we agree and i believe this is the first time it's been imposed that we have a 500 500 foot distance between us a place that out that is offering uh like a bar and so we agree with staff that we don't want congregational bars because they it creates a problem not only for the owner but for the area there's fighting things of that nature no not always but it tends to happen so we we are we are delighted with that we also are happy that the mission valley uh naval civic association miscella de carrion and her group supported this and also the corridor 20 civic association headed by fabula campos lopez uh they also supported this and the only other thing that i'd like to to add uh is the following is that um on the correction uh and we were kind of perplexing it reminded me of the of the adult entertainment ordinance that was created in 1989 so we concur as long as that provision that is being requested raul uh and council is that it applies to our property that we will not put another bar next to next to another bar that is only within our property and not outside other than that thank you so much and i uh appreciate your support thank you mr munson thank you sir thank you sir and with that we have a motion and a second correction motion was made by representative rivera seconded by representative rodriguez and this is to approve with the condition right into the record by staff on that motion call for the vote representative hernandez yes thank you in the voting session the motion passes unanimously representative lizard not present that brings us to item number 30. and this is a public hearing on an ordinance authorizing the city manager to sign an offer to sell add and any other documents necessary to convey approximately 1.432 acres of land to the united states of america and it's a science department of homeland security u.s immigration and customs enforcement did you call it is there a second second there's a motion made by representative arnold seconded by representative salcido i'm sorry representative rivera was the second to approve on that motion call for the vote representative hernandez yes thank you in the voting session the motion passes with four affirmative votes representative schwarzwein anello voting nay representative lee zadraga not present that brings us to item number 31. this is discussion and action that the city manager be authorized to sign a chapter 380 economic development program agreement between the city of el paso and iseran llc madrid thank you 3-1 31 this is item 31 the motion was made by mayor pro-tem schwarzwein seconded by representative rodriguez to approve on that motion call for the vote representative hernandez yes thank you in the voting session the motion passes unanimously representative lee zaraga not present that brings us to item number 33 and this is discussion in action on a resolution authorizing the mayor of the city of el paso to sign letters of support on behalf of the city council in support of el paso water utilities public service board ep water pursuit of specified funding opportunities second motion made by representative anello seconded by representative rodriguez to approve item 33 on that motion call for the vote representative hernandez yes thank you in the voting session the motion passes unanimously representative lizard not present and i believe that brings us motion to germany the agenda there's a motion and a second to adjourn the regular city council meeting all in favor aye anyone opposed the meeting is adjourned at 6 27 pm thank you