now it's Brian Kennedy's thank you foreign foreign another life working foreign foreign changes yes I'll come around thank you did you see Martha please right there I'll sit here okay this is Joe can you say hi to Joe good morning sir how are you doing can you see my pride over there and say hi that's fine good morning new council member I'm gonna watch out for this one she'll be making all the Motions yes it's a little sided right now so please oh you're fine that's fine the other one smarter than me Jason Brian Hi how are you doing what great are you here she just moved here so sunrise yeah we're gonna have them come to the Pledge of Allegiance soon so what's your favorite subject I like it representative Kennedy thank you anymore it's a mini Cassandra amazing did you guys just get here you've been here for a little while we're glad to have you here we like that I know I have to plug myself in it foreign foreign foreign [Laughter] [Music] off thank you okay oh you gotta sit over here instead no I got my password thank you no not at all good morning good morning do you have a fan come here my friend how are you sweetie hey Henry how's school about yourself good to see you I love to see you thank you that's my resolution that's my reasons thank you like I'm spoiled I thought you did it for me you can have all my password you can have all of them so since I'm gonna read the resolution you want to give to him yeah go ahead just because you were here yeah you know what good morning everyone Mr Pine is at nine o'clock yes mayor good morning good morning good morning this is a meeting of the El Paso city council for Tuesday March 14 2023 mayor Lisa is present and presiding in council chambers along with representative Kennedy mayor Pro temanello alternate mayor Pro tem only not representative Fierro representative Rivera representative Hernandez is joining virtually representative Salcido is also joining virtually this morning it is 903 am well everyone please silence your electronic devices so as not to disturb the meeting and rise for the invocation delivered by El Paso Police chaplain David Mayfield good morning sir I would invite everybody to join me as I pray Lord we thank you for your wisdom as citizens of Heaven as well as El Paso 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 we acknowledge you as the creator of all and ask your guidance as we seek to fulfill our roles as stewards of your creation father give us a heart of wisdom may your wisdom produce in US creative ideas and solutions to problems may you give us sound counsel and good judgment to help us make 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 come in human and this morning to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance are the following students from Harmony School of Excellence Aubry Vega Gianna Vega Leanne almaraz Benjamin Duncan Ila for diagi Ximena Garcia Sebastian ruthmullen Audrey chavita Estrella ceballos Elizabeth Hugh and Adrian Hernandez Luna University [Applause] right after the populations and for the record representative Canalis is also present in council chambers um foreign very much oh thank you again foreign [Applause] foreign foreign good morning everyone I'd like to thank the the Harmony School of Excellence for the pledge allegiance it was wonderful and you know I I look around always and it's really important we we look and know our surroundings and I always say that um the youth is the future of our country and by getting to meet you all today I can tell you that our country's in great hands so thank you for being here and I do want to make a little announcement make sure everyone else knows in the room and also a counsel that um moving forward our microphones will be on prior to the meeting and after the meeting ends so and also for the people out here the marks will be live as long as there's council members in council chambers we will have life mics so I want to make sure everyone knows that it'll be moving forward and I think that's to make sure there's people that understand their own thank you for that and now um we do a I do want to have a moment of silence you know our city is um we have a lot of veterans and uh I know that the County Judge has declared El Paso the the veteran capital of the of the world and so it's always important to recognize our veterans and thank our veterans for always serving our country and today I want to have a moment of silence that 20 years ago the Iraq War started and there was a lot of men and women that went out to protect our borders protect our country and I thank them and I thank everyone that served to give us the freedom to become elected officials to be able to have the freedom of speech and I want to have a moment of silence for the men and women who sacrificed their lives for our military in our country thank you and may God bless them and may God bless America Miss Brown thank you mayor council for this meeting uh there is a limit of 10 minutes for debate you may speak twice per item please speak into the microphone and refrain from site conversations at the Deus while the meeting is in session for those of you joining us virtually please make sure your microphones are muted to reduce any background noise that brings us to the mayor's Proclamation the first Proclamation is World TBD representative molinar good morning Proclamation city of El Paso Texas whereas each year the city of El Paso Department of Public Health recognizes World TB day on March 24th to commemorate the date in 1882 when Dr Robert coach announced his discovery of microbacterium tuberculosis the bacillus that causes tuberculosis TB and whereas tuberculosis is an infectious disease that infects the lungs and other parts of the body causing serious illness and death if not treated and whereas multi-drug resistant TB mdr-tb remains a Public Health crisis as only one in three people access treatment in 2020 and whereas an estimated 66 million lives were saved through prompt TB diagnosis and treatment between 2000 and 2020 and whereas one quarter of the world's population has a TB infection individuals with a compromised immune systems and other health conditions such as HIV malnutrition diabetes or tobacco users are at higher risk of TB infection and whereas in 2022 the Department of Public Health tuberculosis program managed and treated 31 cases of active tuberculosis and 88 latent tuberculosis infections among the people from the city and county of El Paso now therefore be it proclaimed by the mayor and Council of the city of El Paso that March 24 2023 shall be known as World TBD signed the honorable Oscar Leisure mayor city of El Paso anyone here yes please thank you good morning good morning everyone good morning on uh our mayor Oscar Lisa and all our council members thank you for uh joining having us here today for our Proclamation for World TB day we want to go ahead and uh thank you on behalf of all our tuberculosis team that's here behind me on the program manager Annette Gonzalez and nurse practitioner for the program uh we are continue to service the community that's what we're here for we are anticipating obviously an increase in patients that will be coming through our Clinic due to this influx of migrants okay currently so far for this year 2023 we are currently at nine active TB newly TB cases that have been diagnosed so again we are here for the community we are available Monday through Friday eight to five so anybody that might need assistance in uh go ahead and come into so they can get screened and evaluated for a tubercle possible tuberculosis thank you thank you thank you for you I'll do [Applause] and if this morning's honorees will please remain in Chambers Council will have an opportunity to take photos with you once all the ceremonial items have been completed the next Proclamation is National Public Health Week Proclamation the city of El Paso Texas whereas the week of April 3rd through 9th 2023 is national public health week and the theme is centering and celebrating cultures and health and whereas the goal of National Public Health Week in 2023 is to recognize the contributions of Public Health in improving the health of the people and achieving Health Equity in Texas I'm sorry in El Paso and whereas a person's health status can differ drastically by ZIP code due to difference in the built environment Environmental Quality Community context access to healthy food access to education and access to health care and whereas public health professionals have worked tirelessly to help communities prevent prepare for withstand and recover from the impact of a range of Health threats including disease outbreaks such as covid-19 pandemic measles natural disease disasters caused by human activity and other public health emergencies and whereas public health professionals collaborate with Partners outside of the health sector including city planners transport officials education officials and private business is recognizing that other sectors can influence Health outcomes and whereas communities across the United States individuals are changing the way they care for their health by avoiding tobacco use eating healthier increasing physical activity and preventing unintentional injuries at home and in the workplace and whereas efforts to adequately support public health and the prevention of disease and injury can continue to transform a health system focused on treating illness into a health system focused on preventing disease and injury and promoting wellness and whereas we call upon the people of El Paso to observe this week by helping our family friends neighbors co-workers and leaders to better understand the value of Public Health in supporting great opportunities to adopt prevention lifestyle habits in light of this year's theme centering and celebrating cultures and health now therefore be it proclaimed by the mayor and the Council of the city of El Paso that the week of April 3rd through April 9 2023 shall be known as National Public Health Week signed by The Honorable mayor Oscar liser [Applause] good morning mayor and Council my name is Joy Leos and on behalf of the Department of Public Health and my colleagues I would like to extend our deepest thanks the public health field is challenging even in the best of times these past three years have been anything but it takes a multidisciplinary team to address numerous complex and complicated problems I'm grateful for our Public Health Team and other public health professionals Nationwide who have worked tirelessly especially in recent years our Department's main priority is the health and well-being of the El Paso Community we will continue to invest our time and efforts to ensure that our community is taken care of because it matters to us this National Public Health Week is an opportunity to call upon our community mostly our leaders to understand the value of Public Health we invite them to support opportunities that will allow everyone to adopt preventative lifestyle habits that can help improve the health of our community I would also like to take this moment to thank each employee of the Department of Public Health past and present for their tireless work and dedication to our community thank you to our colleges and universities who are helping to create future Public Health leaders and our community-based organization and partners who are crucial in public health Owen Arthur and Dr Leanna Nguyen once said Public Health depends on winning over hearts and Minds it's not enough to just have a good policy you have to convince people to actually follow it that is what we will continue to strive to do Dr Wen also said for he who has Health has hope and he who has hope has everything thank you very much for this Proclamation we appreciate all of you thank you thank you and thank you all for being here the next Proclamation is National infant immunization week representative Fiero thank you Samir whereas giving children the recommended immunizations by the age of two according to Childhood immunization schedule it is best ways to protect them from 14 serious childhood diseases and whereas the Center for Disease Control and prevention recognizes immunizations as one of the 10 great Public Health achievements of the first 10 years of the 21st century because they have presented more than 42 prevented at least 42 000 deaths and 20 million cases of disease in the United States whereas one-time vaccinations is critical to provide protection against potentially life-threatening diseases preserve Health among infants whereas the city of El Paso Department of Public Health continually seeks ways to improve access and overcome disparities and delivering of vaccines to reduce the portion of immunized children and adults in our community and whereas a city of El Paso Department of Public Health provide education guidance and Technical Support to 107 local providers to implement and maintain high quality immunization practices across our community whereas in 2022 the city of El Paso and the public health department successfully administered 14 776 vaccines to 4968 patients and now therefore be it proclaimed by the mayor and Council of the city of El Paso that the week of April 24th through April 30th 2023 shall be known as National infant immunization week signed honorable Oscar leaser [Applause] good morning good morning the immunization program would like to thank the major and the council for this National environment immunization week Proclamation this event is celebrated at the end of the uh April and it's um a great opportunity for us to educate families on the importance of vaccine preventable diseases and also to create a community free of vaccine preventable diseases once again thank you very much for this Proclamation and on behalf of all our staff thank you thank you Miss Prine and I'd like to take item 22 please item 22 is discussion in action to approve a resolution recognizing March 21st 2023 as World Down syndrome day representative Rivera thank you mayor whereas World Down syndrome day is being observed in the city of El Paso on March 21st 2023 to promote awareness of the many ways that we benefit by ensuring that persons with Down Syndrome are supported encouraged and included in communities in our communities and whereas Down syndrome the most commonly occurring chromosomal condition occurs in individuals who have a full or partial extra copy of a chromosome 21. one of every 700 babies born in the United States each year is born with Down Syndrome and whereas medical advances have significantly increased the life expectancy of people with Down Syndrome which is now approaching that of peers without the condition in addition to the advantages of modern medicine support groups and other resources are now available in nearly every community in the United States and whereas when provided with quality education programs a stimulating home environment good health care and support from family and friends people with Down Syndrome can lead fulfilling productive lives much progress has been made through the vision and hard work of parents researchers medical professionals and other Advocates who have helped secure the rights of people with Down Syndrome to live at home attend schools access appropriate Health Care get married find work and contribute to society while research and early intervention have dramatically improved the lifespan and quality of life persons with condition more weak more work remains to be done fully comprehend to fully comprehend the causes and to explore potential treatments and whereas in 2011 the United Nations General Assembly declared March 21st as World Down syndrome Day this year the city of El Paso Texas is joining with other cities and countries around the globe in recognition of the special events and all El pasoans are encouraged to take part by helping to build a cultural of Greater respect and inclusion for those living with Down Syndrome now therefore would be resolved by the city council of the city of El Paso that the city of El Paso Texas hereby recognizes March 21st 2023 as roll down syndrome day in the city of El Paso and honors the accomplishments and contributions made by men and women with Down Syndrome thank you [Applause] before you speak Mr smoothie and with that I make a motion to approve second there's some motion and a circle in this part thank you Mr we're gonna you want to take the action first sure again one second judge remember never tell the judge one second but there is a motion made by representative Rivera seconded by representative Fierro to approve the resolution on that motion call for the vote representative Hernandez yes thank you representative Salcido I thank you in the voting session and the motion passes unanimously thank you Council thank you thank you you should note mayor that I did not attempt to say wait a minute to the judge no um thank you represent Rivera it's uh this is um a charity that I'm very involved with and a lot of it has to do with the kids and you know I know that they're special and I love meeting them I like going to all their events when I can and but you know I love the kids that their attitude their Outlook is incredible and I give back a lot to the community but I can honestly say and I know that judge Moody will tell you this is definitely my favorite charity that I'm a big part of your honor thank you thank you so much mayor city council Representatives uh in fact we're back here as we've been here many many times uh that you've had resolutions and proclamations uh helping and assisting and recognizing and most importantly accepting uh people with Down syndrome in our community we are probably one of the most accepting communities in all of America because of city and county officials such as you taking the time and and opportunities to to make our community aware and first and then later as we have seen uh being so accepting and and generous to us and so we want to thank you for the resolutions uh celebrating World Down syndrome day on March 21st coming up next week there are now over a thousand individuals living in El Paso with Down Syndrome these are children and adults and they have incredible abilities and and talents and they are achieving wonderful things because of the advances because of the acceptance uh and and we want to thank all of you so much for the work that you have done and you know we we many of you have have participated in our events and uh particularly mayor Lisa you know we've we've enjoyed having you at many of our events and uh we we welcome all of you to come out uh to our Down syndrome achievement center located on uh uh at Sunland Park Mall that is the Gigi's Playhouse we have our founder here I think I see her somewhere there's my wife Maggie so thank you all so much I thought Melissa was the founder Melissa and then of course yeah the boss here is good the boss for a minute here so Melissa you want to say a few words [Music] thank you as a solution from um I worked at some day and that's it [Applause] um your honor can you um introduce all the kids to us please yeah if they can come up and say their name it'd be great the share Heart of the council you guys want to say hi there hi um good morning Elisa good morning we have a lot of our board members here today so thank you thank you all for being here anyone else want to say hi thank you all [Applause] Miss Prine and I think we need the research for a minute yes mayor is there a motion to recess there's a motion in a second to recess a city council meeting all in favor anyone opposed aye the meeting is in recess at 9 32 a.m so Council can take some photos with this morning's honorees council members if I could get you we're going to go ahead and take a photograph of the world Down syndrome Day first if I can get all of the health department stuff we're going to take group photos outside in the entryway leading um into City Hall so if I could get you all outside I'm going to set you all up there momentarily but if we can get the world syndrome uh Down syndrome day folks um right here behind this podium Prime and just for the record uh will The Moody family get a copy of the town okay thank you thank you okay there are two minutes right here to my feet thank you 25 minutes memories oh I know um Council can I get you thank you recently yeah it was pretty cool I'd never been in here like with my GPS trackings and then I think because I didn't know that was weird yeah it's good really nice was that the um I want to investigate [Music] activation if my house well again don't hear that yeah I know yeah they're crossing the street what are they doing okay I know they're doing it right yeah but you hear that because I mean there's freaking energy product s yeah so I was gonna wait I knew there's a reason just because they have a lot of pictures thank you because they're recording that we captured but it is here let me know um foreign since you're here actually we took a photo that we would excuse you whether you wanted to be or not foreign foreign the meeting is back in session at 9 50 a.m that brings us to the consent agenda all matters listed under the consent agenda will be considered by city council to be routine and will be enacted by one motion unless separate discussion is requested by council members prior to the vote members of the audience may ask questions regarding items on the consent agenda when the vote has been taken If an item has not been called out for separate discussion the item has been approved Council May however reconsider any item at any time during the meeting mayor Pro Tem I make a motion to approve the consent agenda with the following revisions page three item two delete request or excuse page three item three move to the regular agenda per representative Kennedy page four item four move to the regular agenda agenda per representative Kennedy page four item five move to the regular agenda per representative Canales page 9 item 21 revised Pro representative Canales and that revision is to add mayor Pro temanello as a co-sponsor of the item thank you page 9 item 22 move to the Forefront for representative Rivera page 9 item 23 moved to the Forefront per representative Kennedy page 9 item 24 move to the Forefront per representative Rivera page nine item 26 take item at 10 AM per economic and International Development page 10 item 27 take item at 10 AM per economic and International Development page 10 item 28 take item at 10 AM per economic and International Development page 10 item 30 take item at 10 AM per economic and International Development well miss Prime is getting that I know that uh congresswoman is going to be doing a presentation but I do want to welcome you to city council chambers thank you for being here [Applause] there is a motion made by representative mayor Pro town and I love seconded by representative Rivera to approve the consent agenda as revised on that motion call for the vote representative Hernandez yes thank you representative Salcido I thank you in the voting session and the motion passes unanimously mayor would you like to move to the first item that was moved to the Forefront yes ma'am please that will be item 23. and this is discussion in action regarding the procedure for appointment of Kerry Weston as interim city manager effective June 30th 2023. representative Kennedy yeah I'd like to make a motion that we Carrie Weston is the interim city manager second we have Motion in a second we do have some public comment yes mayor before that I got a question for uh Retton is is that uh at the at the end of the 120 days yes sir okay that's uh it should be on the backup or it could be on the on the reading show so it's effective uh June 30th okay yes sir he'll work with Michigan Scholars to transition at this point we do have public comment yes ma'am from Mr arnulfo Hernandez well thank you sir good morning sir you have three minutes thank you madam clerk I think this is the first time I've been number one on the uh whatever riding was um 80 percent of the voters voted for you folks mayor Lisa Mr Fiero Mr Canales Mr Kennedy and they gave you a mandate move the city forward not backwards the arena is no longer a distract distraction lives and we will have a new city manager interim city manager July 1st 2023. but there's no guarantees that Mr Gonzalez will stay until June 30th therefore it's prudent it's proactive and smart to appoint an interim city manager can I see that the city manager that hits the ground running and there is little or no learning curve therefore a point in interim city manager now not later Point number two retired Colonel Carol Weston is the right choice for interim city manager he is currently an employee of the city of El Paso which means the appointment comes from within the ranks of the employees I wholeheartedly support it because it promotes morale of the employees good morning Colonel Western has a sterling resume and background he's a combat veteran he served his country someone said 24 years but I extend corrected I looked it up 24.9 years a few months short of 25 years in the United States Army in January 20 2014 before the arrival of Mr Gonzalez as city manager he was appointed the managing director of economic development for the city of El Paso he was promoted to Deputy city manager in 2017. he was promoted to senior deputies city manager in 2019. Colonel Western will now assist Mr Gonzalez until he takes over as interim City Manager on July 1st 2023 the the appointment of an interim city manager is not new to you folks in fact it was used with the appointment of Sean McGlynn and center and city manager in 2014 called the search for a city manager ended with the hiring of Mr Gonzalez a city manager finally I know Mr Weston I've worked with Mr Weston I have observed his work with him I've said with him in hours in a meeting I find him to be a listener I find them to be a problem solver he quickly grabs grasps the issue and provides Clarity with his comments yes Colonel Western is the right choice for the interim city manager mayor Lisa and members of the city council move us forward and do the people's work thank you very much thank you sir the next statement was submitted by Mr Richard Dave to be read into the record and it reads good morning Mayor Lee certain members of city council for the record I am Richard Dave and I'm a registered lobbyist with the city of El Paso please accept my apology for being unable to attend the meeting today due to personal commitments thank you for the opportunity to speak to you regarding the selection and appointment of Mr Carrie Weston as the interim city manager I have known Kerry Weston for a number of years dating back to when he first retired from the Army and began working with Bob cook with Redcoat the predecessor organization of the Border Plex Alliance since then I've had the privilege of working closely with Kerry for the 10 years that he served in city government I consider Kerry to be the most qualified individual in our community to serve in the position as city manager he has the expertise and background to step into the position without missing a beat he has a trust and respect of his colleagues at the city city council members and the business Community importantly from his military service at Fort Bliss he has a deaf in-depth knowledge of the operations at Fort Bliss our community's largest employer the city is going through an unprecedented period of a strong economic growth it is also going through a period of transition and change in my opinion Mr Weston is the only person who can help the city's employees navigate through the many changes occurring and ease the uncertainty that accompanies such periods I strongly urge city council to unanimously approve the appointment of Mr Weston to the position of interim city manager thank you respectfully Richard dayu Thunderbird management consulting thank you Miss Pine yes sir and with that we have we have four members of council to speak starting with representative Kennedy followed by mayor Pro Tem um the job of an interim is a couple of fold is to act as a bridge and it's to calm the waters and I don't know of anybody that I would have more confidence in than Colonel Weston as a matter of fact I pulled the proclamation for Colonel Kerry Weston day a year ago which talked about his three years with border Plex El Paso Regional Economic Development Corporation as vice president of Business Development for defense and clean technology sectors responsible for attracting new industry obviously he was a senior Deputy city manager 25 years I'll give you the other tenth of a year okay 25 years active duty in a variety of critical command and staff a four-year assignment director of Air Defense Artillery test directive a U.S army operational test command at Fort Bliss let a team of 200 Military Department of army civilian and contractor personnels and design coordination execution of operational tests and field experiments to support the weapon systems this is from Colonel Kerry Weston Day last year May 24th and I think that we would do well to have Colonel Weston calm the waters and act as the bridge and provide the comfort and expertise that he brings to the table and I look forward to working with him starting the transition and continuing through until we finish the process and have a a permanent city manager thank you sir mayor Pro Tem thank you mayor so um really excited to see this item today I know there's been um I mean there's been a lot of questions about what the priority of the council is and the plan for the council is and I think this you know is a really great way to transition we are in a really unique position and we're very lucky that we have Mr Gonzalez here for another 120 well it's a little less than 120 days till June to really help with that transition I have heard a little bit of concern about how that transition will work out specifically when it comes to executing contracts with the hiring firing of staff and so my concern with this item is that it makes the interim take effect in June and I think really understanding that we are in a kind of lame duck city manager period is more appropriate and I think that transition should start sooner um limiting the current city manager's ability to execute contracts and to hire and Fire Staff within that lame duck period and so if that is an amendment I need to make to the agenda item I can do so now mayor uh if I may um representative there would be some issues related to how the charter of the city is structured into the contract if you we need to go into executive session for legal advice I can provide no I think that um I understand your concerns and I don't disagree with them but I think that those need to be taken in the item that representative Canal has put on that will show process and procedures moving forward okay I will hold my my comments I apologize I think that it was a good item that represent canola has put on there because we need to look at the next step and kind of move forward on a process as you said you're a process guy so that's what we want to look at is to continue the next process and how do we do that I've had numerous conversations with um the city manager I mean City attorney and I've had numerous conversations with Ms Rheem on that process that we were looking forward to sharing with you all so thank you represent Canales yeah I think uh some of my colleagues have covered uh a lot of the the praise that Colonel Weston deserves for the the incredible amount of work he's put in here at the city over the years uh you know I had the pleasure of working with him as as a staffer and now uh as a representative and so I think he is an excellent an excellent choice to bring us a much needed continuity uh during the time that we conduct a a search for a permanent city manager um whatever form that that search end up ends up taking and we'll discuss that in a little bit here in the next item um so uh again I just uh thank you mayor for the work you did in getting this on the agenda and and getting us to this point and I plan to support Colonel Weston's appointment as interim city manager thank you sir uh next is representative none this followed by representative molinar hi good morning sorry my mic kept going on and off good morning um so yeah good morning mayor good morning members of council um I am you know one of those people who also have a lot of questions um you know like all the deputy city managers I believe Carrie Weston is one that is really really well respected I think that he's he can help with our strategic plan I think he can guide this this uh City uh through you know tumultuous and uncertain times and so for those Reasons I'm very supportive of Carrie and his background but um I can't like ignore the fact that there has been no process here and so I'm certainly um disappointed in the in the way this was was approached because mayor heck you uh came to council uh in an inclusive and transparent way I think you would have been able to secure all of our support hands down for Mr Weston just based on his accolades and his experience um and so I am supportive of him I'm just not supportive of the process that's been brought forward I have questions about what an employment contract would look like I have questions about um you know how we got to this point um you know members of not all members of council were engaged you know I take that very seriously mayor when you bring someone to a point for a interim city manager role I think it's important that we have a discussion with all members of council so that we're not accused of any violations of open open meetings act and so I know that this Council has problems with that in the past and so I take that very seriously because we need to be able to have these discussions they're very tough discussions lead in a very transparent process but also look out in the best interest of all past funds but that's my opinion and I wanted to share that because I think the process is going to be very critical moving forward this isn't a strong mayor form of government it's a council manager form of government all members of council should be involved in this process and in the discussion of it and so I just wanted to share those concerns but I did want to lend my support to Mr Weston I think he's a wonderful a wonderful nomination I just really wish we had a clear process that we could have had a dialogue before we got to this point but thank you for letting me share my comments thank you ma'am represent molinar followed by representative zivetta thank you very much Mir um Colonel Weston when you are leaving our city or employment through the city of El Paso and it was my turn to speak I just said two words well done that was it today I say welcome aboard thank you thank you sir representative Rivera thank you mayor I uh I kind of have to express the same views that my fellow colleague representative Hernandez has just said uh I'm very uncomfortable with the posting the way this item was posted where we weren't included we weren't including any discussion whatsoever uh this is very important item and I've got nothing against uh but praise for Mr Mr Weston but it's the process that was carried out that makes it look Shady and I I wouldn't want to wish I wouldn't want to welcome Mr Weston under those conditions or have Mr Gonzalez leave under those same conditions I believe that uh this could have been handled a lot better I believe that if we all were included and discussion was had I think you would have been you've had you would have had a unified Council instead you have those for example just now that wanted to to turn me Mr Gonzalez right now without you know considering the ramifications of of uh of a contract and you have me for example in in doubt in in the way that it was carried and it's just the process that was that was carried out today to place this item on the agenda it was just going you go back to when Mr Gonzalez was terminated Without a Cause you go back to that that that same realm of cloud the the black cloud hanging over this this uh this Council um I just wish that you would have included us and this this Council because the one matters you know that I like to have this Council look unified just as much as you do and at this point it's very difficult and again nothing against Mr Weston I have the utmost respect for him but I also have the utmost respect for Mr Gonzalez in his position as well he's still the city manager this is still a city Forum a city manager form of government and I field oh so we're looking for the I feel the we could have been we could have had a more successful transition had we all been included those of us that weren't thank you mayor thank you sir and I think it's important to notice that I did meet with the city attorney three times I met with his dream College to make sure that we do have a processors make sure that we follow the process and be followed and as elected city-wide I want to make sure that we do which you all feel the same way whether you're in District or city-wide do we do the best for the city do the best for our team members in the city and also the business community so based on that the MS Neiman and I worked really hard to make sure we had it clear in a clean process like I said we met three days in a row we met with Colonel Western Tosh and miss riem and I met twice so I want to make sure that we do see that it was something that was very methodically thought and gone through the process and it was worked through our attorney which is somebody that was leading me through the process and make sure we did the process properly and with that representative anello thank you mayor I just want to be very clear nobody has made a motion or a comment about firing Mr Gonzalez outside of his contract I don't appreciate whether it's in the media or at this council meeting being spoken for by other Representatives we have a code of conduct I speak for myself only thank you mayor thank you now remember you all have two opportunities to talk on each item so that's it wasn't meant to discourage you to to degrade you miss uh representative it was it was just the fact that that when you start off uh Miss Hamilton did have to clarify that contract issue and so I was in speaking for you I was speaking for myself and uh this isn't to to sound confrontational I'm just sounding reasonable about this whole issue and how people were left out from this conversation and and uh the mayor has his own reasons there thank you sir without Miss Pine can we take the item yes mayor there was a motion made by representative Kennedy seconded by mayor Pro tem anelo to approve item 23. on that motion call for the vote representative Hernandez yes thank you representative Salcido I thank you in the voting session the motion passes 721 representative Rivera vodine the remainder of council voting I the motion does pass thank you and welcome uh I know you're you've still been with the city and I thank you for accepting the position the the continue to work and have a seamless transition and thank you Mr Gonzalez I know that I've been working with you in the last couple of weeks and thank you for your professionalism and I know I made a comment I I think it might have been to um um I'm having a to one of this it's one of the cities and they said Michigan's always works for the professional manner because you have been it and I thank you for that sir and with that I know it's 10 o'clock so we'll take the next item and then after that I'd like to take representative canalis's item after that because I think just as uh representative um vivetta and representative Hernandez rash that we need to have a process and a procedure and they'll want to be involved within that and I couldn't agree more with them so thank you for that yes sir that brings us to item 26 and this is Mr Jerome hold on one second I meant to say your name but I so thank you for that thank you sir thank you item 26 is presentation and discussion from the office of congresswoman Veronica Escobar representative of Texas 16th congressional district on the upcoming FY 2024 Appropriations process and other federal legislative updates good morning mayor and Council Lindsey Adams legislative liaison I just want to quickly introduce we have she needs no introduction but congresswoman Escobar is here with us today but I'm going to introduce Eduardo who's going to be giving a presentation and legislative update thank you thank you Council for good morning sir allowing us time today to discuss the Appropriations process and I'll um I want to just go through our agenda today I'm going to turn it over to the congresswoman in just a second but I want to introduce our our team um Eduardo Lederman the congressman's chief of staff out in DC born here in El Paso and lived in DC for the last 15 years working in Congress want to introduce our team Emily Loya our district director right there Zara sahib our legislative director she'll be taking the mic in just a second to talk about the appropes process uh najita Khan our military Legislative Assistant who handles all our armed services work and make sure Fort Bliss is protected and and funded Priscilla they're there Priscilla Contreras who we actually had the opportunity of uh of stealing her from from rep Rivera so thank you Roberta thank you that was a great exchange for the body cameras and then Rodriguez in our district office as well he handles all our grant work obviously um Lindsay introduced the congresswoman um I want to intro want to turn it over now to the congresswoman uh Congressman Escobar good morning mayor council cityman manager thank you all so much for the opportunity for my team and I to present this morning what you have in your backup is a really lengthy PowerPoint we are going to go through it quickly because we know you have a lot of business to get to today but we wanted to be sure to put on your radar as well as your staff's radar the the Appropriations process this is budget time for us and there's some some things we want to make sure that all of you uh and and we're doing this uh with other partners as well we want to make sure that all of you know the opportunities that exist for our community to capitalize on some really important pieces of legislation I want to begin by reminding you all that I have the privilege of serving on three committees that are really key to our community the first is the house armed services committee uh the second is the house Judiciary Committee I also serve on the house Ethics Committee as well um and through those committees we do we focus on much of the work that ends up impacting our community um we have over the last two years in Congress passed three very important pieces of legislation in the next couple of years we're going to execute around the implementation of that key legislation and while at the federal level securing this funding was really important the other component is making sure our community is ready to compete for that money and to apply for that money and to make sure that we capitalize on those funding opportunities the three key pieces of legislation are the bipartisan infrastructure law the inflation reduction Act and the chips and science Act I want to begin briefly with the bipartisan infrastructure law one of the things to note about this is that 50 of this funding will come through normal funding formula channels um so you know much of that is a process laid out in Austin we we have to be vigilant though to make sure that none of that money is redirected we have seen Austin basically usurp Congressional intent and redirect money that was intended for other purposes and we don't want uh Highway money for example to be diverted for wall funding you know we need all of that money to go to its intended purposes so I ask that you please join me in making sure that that we communicate that priority to our delegation who is fantastic they will safeguard that but we've we've got to remain Vigilant now the other 50 of that money however is up for grabs through grants and through a competitive process and I I would be remiss if I didn't mention that we've we've had uh really great working relationship with the city of El Paso I've been so proud to collaborate with uh this government with your leadership um with the the team and staff the city manager and to capitalize on as many of these uh um uh opportunities as possible so please don't hesitate to reach out to us if you have questions about the funding opportunities if you want to talk directly to the agencies we will be there for you to help facilitate that um the other thing that I mentioned very quickly about the bipartisan infrastructure line I'm not going to read this it is broader than the way that we have historically thought about infrastructure so Broadband as an example is included in infrastructure now all of you know what pockets of your District may not have access to broadband for example so please give some thought to all of these categories and the needs that exist in the districts that you all represent the chips and science Act is another really key component of the work that we did over the last two years and the the other aspect of the bipartisan infrastructure law that I didn't mention was addressing the climate crisis um so there's really great opportunities in the bipartisan infrastructure law on climate funding the chips and science Act and the inflation reduction act also have some of those components as well but the the chips act really is about bringing manufacturing back to the United States we saw how supply chain issues really made it difficult post the pandemic really were a significant cause of inflation and so the chips Act is really critical to ensuring that we bring that manufacturing back home so you know for your Economic Development Department as we're thinking about reshoring please think about the the chips in science and Innovation act the inflation reduction Act um that piece of legislation as I mentioned is kind of the other half of the bipartisan infrastructure law on climate so there will be a lot of incentives available uh for addressing the climate crisis in the inflation reduction act and so we want to make sure that our community um takes advantage of this and it's not just local governments like cities and counties but School boards for example we want to make sure all of our school districts know about the clean bus program we we brought the EPA administrator so that they could get their questions answered we want to transition to a clean economy and at the federal level we really know that incentives are a key component of that I'm going to turn it over in just a sec to my um uh Team to continue talking about some of these Federal funding opportunities but where El Paso has really excelled and again it's I want to express my gratitude to all of you and everybody who works at the city but the city has really our community has excelled in capitalizing on community Project funding and just as a quick reminder Community Project funding used to be known as earmarks many moons ago earmarks went away but two years ago house Democrats worked on bringing it back we worked in a bipartisan manner to make sure that we had support to bring back Community Project funding and what that is basically is ensuring that members of Congress are able to identify defies specific pots of money to help their Community with various projects that might not otherwise receive federal funding or that may have to wait in a long queue for federal funding the good news is even though the house Democrats lost control of the house we kept Community Project funding the bad news is that my Republican colleagues have significantly cut the amount of money available so the same amounts of money are not available these next two years they have also cut some of the agencies that fund infrastructure for example for veterans that fund projects in education that fund access to health care and those were really key and critical for our community so while I'm disappointed that those those cuts and those new parameters were put in place I want you to know that we will work with you to try to figure out a way to fund your projects and to find a creative Avenue to making sure that El Paso continues to get the money and with that I'd like to turn it up back over to my chief of staff Eduardo Lema thank you ma'am thank you congresswoman and you know just a couple big wins from from Biff from the bipartisan infrastructure uh Bill we got a raise grant for the city for the Isleta Bridge um and then obviously the reconstruction or not reconstruction the uh revitalization of the bridge of the Americas we were able to secure 600 million dollars um for that uh project as we're working through that for um I believe April 4th there will be a community conversation at the chamisal with General Services Administration or government services Administration they're going to be overseeing that so we'll make sure the council gets that information if you want to share it with your constituents moving forward uh so what we're going to talk about next is the actual Appropriations process uh you all have probably received an email from myself or Zada or somebody from our office on the Appropriations process we work very closely with City staff and and you're all's individual staff um on on soliciting ideas for that so the Appropriations uh project these are all the 12 accounts sorry the the 12 pieces of legislation that uh we will uh be covering some of them have been um like the congresswoman said have been banned from moving forward with Community Project funding um but I'll turn it at this point to zarosa have our legislative director she's our points uh person on the Appropriations process to kind of go through the next couple slides and then I'll and then we will uh turn it over to Emily Loya to talk about our constituent services and how we want to partner with each one of your all's districts to better serve the El Paso Community thank you so much Eduardo and thank you so much uh for this time today all uh my name is Zara sahib I'm the congresswoman's legislative director based in Washington DC and I will be going over uh just very quickly the appropriation process in the house this year some of this information uh you're familiar with others were continuously conversing with your staff about the different guidelines and restrictions that have come out so I'll just provide a very quick uh Topline overview if you're all familiar through the appropriation process uh there are three three different requests or mechanisms in which we can request funding or influence the process programmatic requests are plus-ups to existing programs and agencies those are not tied to The District in any way or any specific local projects language requests are directing the agency to take a different course expanding programs expanding eligibility for existing grants agencies etc those are also National levels so we can't anything that ties El Paso to those requests would trigger the earmark or what is not known as the community Project funding request and I'll go through that briefly because that's I I would think with most interest to our community and we've been very successful in securing a lot of funding through this process that as a congressman said was brought back by democrats two years ago uh and as you're familiar I'll guess I'll click next on our website uh there's a lot of information that we'll go over today but a resource guide that provides very extensive information as far as the accounts that are funding eligible uh the restrictions that Republicans have put together this year and all the different eligibility uh uh guidelines that we're working around this year uh so that'll be escobar.house.gov and it'll have all the information and a dedicated web page just for Community funding projects very important uh dates that I want to flag between now and March 17th which is this Friday we're accepting projects if you do need more time as you're continuing to generate ideas for things and you're looking through accounts which were very accessible to help you find as well as the congresswoman said please let us know we're more than happy to work with you and extend that deadline as much as we can we do have internal deadlines that the Committees have put forth that we have to work under but please do reach out to our office and we're more than happy to work with you as far as letting folks know of projects that are submitted by our office those Communications will come out later this month very quickly I'll go over some of the guidelines so we will be working under in addition to some new that Republicans have put forth of course like last year uh we'll be able to only submit 15 projects how did the projects being submitted to US state local travel governments and nonprofits are eligible and nonprofits are not projects of courses always have to demonstrate Community Support so you might be getting uh communication from other stakeholders in the county and the city requesting for letters of supports uh because those do go a long way in terms of making a very robust and strong submission state and local matching is of course a requirement for some of these accounts depending on the account that you're applying under all of this information and what the percentages are are in the resource guide as well each project has to be spent or obligated in the next fiscal year so think of these as one-time infusions of fundings and in your proposal you have to prove that you're not requesting multi-year uh funding for these projects and these are one time only and has to be spent within that following year of course as always neither the congresswoman or her immediate family can benefit or have any sort of financial interest in the projects that we submit we ask that you provide a budget breakdown so that the committee can see where the funding is going towards this year with the added criteria that the house appropriators have put forth there is a lot more vetting and scrutiny when looking at these projects so we're asking uh individuals who are submitting requests to bring in as and share with us as much information as possible the two new uh guidelines that have been put forth have from Republicans include a ban on memorials museums and commemoratives from eligibility in addition to a federal Nexus so this year we've been asked to essentially provide a an existing authorization that links your project to existing Federal Authority that is a requirement that we're more than happy to work with individuals with so please don't uh you know don't trouble yourself too much with that but use it as kind of a framework to kind of build your projects around because Republicans are going to want to see how this kind of supports ongoing Federal authorizations and laws and of course we always sell individuals you know please make sure that anything you submit you're comfortable being disclosed because that is the requirement we have to work with this is an example of a project that got funded last year this is the letter that we have to put on our website in addition to a breakdown of what the project is address recipient Etc this is all on our website as well but this is a breakdown of all the projects that the congresswoman secured last year a total of 25 million we've also identified next to each project the districts where this funding will go so some incredible uh funding that was secured last year through the process under the Democrats and then of course I'll go through this year uh the different accounts that are funding eligible as a congresswoman and Eduardo alluded to this year unfortunately house uh Republican appropriators failed communities like ours by completely Banning projects within the defense subcommittee within financial services and general government labor Health and Human Services education and related agencies so that's DOD for a community like ours completely banned Department of Education Department of Health Department of Labor small business administration completely ineligible for funding and so just to kind of give you a visual of what these restrictions would have uh the position that they would have put us in last year and the funding that we would have lost out on as a community this is a list of projects that we were able to secure under Democratic guidelines and this is what would have been ineligible under Republican guidelines this year so very unfortunate and next I'll go very quickly all the different subcommittees that are eligible the different accounts that have been added in addition to the different accounts that have been removed under those different subcommittees of course for the AG role development we have a new account that's been added that's a roll of water and waste disposal grants I also want to highlight that this is the account that is essentially the healthcare Outlets that we're using this year so as the congressman said we're thinking through creative ways in which we can get around some of the restrictions that Republicans have put so please work with our team on ideas you have and we're happy to look at accounts that might work and then Commerce Justice science we have one account that's been removed the National Institute of Standards and Technology the construction accounts energy and water development a complete ban on all Department of energy projects Homeland Security you still have the two FEMA accounts from last year and an interior had a lot of accounts that were removed this is above and then military construction and I think this was the most disappointing to our team is Republican appropriators completely Banning Department of Veteran Affairs minor construction accounts so for a community like El Paso which is a huge veteran defense Community this uh this one I think was the hardest to swallow and then Transportation there were two accounts that were added they Consolidated rail infrastructure and safety improvements account in addition to the port infrastructure development program I do want to highlight that does not include for the port infrastructure account specifically does not include lend uh ports of Entry that's only uh doc Rail and terminal and that concludes my uh presentation again if you have any questions please reach out to our office we're very accessible and we'd love to hear your ideas stuff here and I'll just note our grant Services we work very closely with the city in in working on advocating at the federal level uh the different grants available to the community making sure you secure them that's we've been very successful at that for a whole host of city and county grants that we have been able to get back for the uh for the community so please reach out to Manny Rodriguez introduced him earlier if you want to learn more about that also if you know of non-profits in your community that would or in your District that would we have a we have a distribution of a list of about 700 individuals throughout the community that Community project fundings would be applicable for if you know of any more please email us work with us we want to get that information out as to many people as possible I'm going to turn it over to to Emily Loya our district director to talk about how we can partner with you all as we move forward to make sure that all constituents in this community are are best engaged by all levels of the Federal and local level Emily good morning everyone um I'll be brief we've shared this before with Council but want to make sure we have some new council members and also maybe some new staff so I want to make sure you and your teams are aware of how we assist constituents and um how you can refer any of your shared constituents over to us as well as some of the programs that our office runs um so um we a big area where we help is with um federal case work so any issue that um your constituents having with um Social Security veterans um Affairs um with um the IRS it's tax season right um many other areas um um USCIS other areas we are we're here to help with that um if a lot of times your staff as well as ours are helping people navigate what is federal versus State versus local um we're happy to help field that and we you know redirect folks back to your offices a lot of times too um so thanks for your partnership um for folks that do have a federal issue um we have a privacy release form in the past it was only via paper and agencies required wet signatures but now almost every single agency takes a digital signature so there is a digital form on our website which just increases accessibility but for those who aren't comfortable with digital there's still an option for paper that folks can come to our office or we can mail them a form to their home and then they write out their concerns and then they submit the request we help them clarify anything before it gets submitted to the agency our office cannot change the outcome from an agency but we can make sure that our constituents are responded to and that their concerns are addressed or that they create any Clarity that they need um if it is a legal matter we cannot intervene in that aspect um so just to note there it can take up to 30 to 60 days to get a response sometimes but often much faster than that too we continue to work on our relationships with each agency just a copy there of the kind of information on the digital privacy release form and then on Beyond casework we do a lot in the community with young people um and and with other levels and constituents and so wanted to make sure you you're aware Priscilla who many of you know is the point of contact on our art competition you see in the photos there on our most recent Congressional winner for our competition her artwork hangs in the tunnel when you come visit in DC you'll see it as you walk and and 435 pieces from across the across all congressional districts so that's a great opportunity to showcase students work we invite you to help share that information out we'll be launching this year's contest um in the coming weeks and that's a spring activity and then we have Congressional app challenge around stem and coding specifically it's for sixth through 12th grade the the our competitions High School only and we had over 80 students participate this year which was a record number and that's a typically a fall activity so we'll be launching that um over the summer and then awarding in the fall and um this one I really invite you to engage with us we were out at the city you see the photo there with them City Library Services I'm kind of a a quick opportunity to visit the west side the West Side Library that just reopened and visit with the team but the Library of Congress Surplus books um we're in communication with the city library staff but if if one's in your District we're happy to um join up with you um and deliver some books and um and to just promote literacy and um these are free books um we can't pick specific titles but um genres in different areas and probably mostly children's books for our libraries is what they've been telling us in bilingual books um so contact Priscilla if you're interested in um doing that with and Community groups are also eligible anybody that has a you know a library um in schools as well and then we also highlighting that we have service Academy nominations so young people in your community that are interested in um serving in the in through a service Academy and getting an appointment um they have to get a nomination as well for any of the um for academies so um that is a pretty lengthy process we encourage them to start early we reach out in the schools um consistently but um want to make sure that you know you can direct them to our office if anybody reaches out and interests on those areas and our deadlines are in December each year so we're actually having our reception later this week for this year's nominees and um young people are always interested in internships and I know you guys connect with a lot of folks and you may have internships in your own office and um our summer internships are our deadline of the 31st um but we it's on a you know every semester we have new internships they're both in DC and in our district so um great opportunity to learn to serve and sometimes folks might do both as well um and a great foot in the door for Congressional career also something new um to our office is that we um this year launched congresswoman um encouraged us to launch a youth advisory Council so we just met with them for like our fourth or fifth time yesterday and it's a group of young people that were competitively applied to um to talk about Federal issues that they're interested in and learn more about federal government and um and Tackle those issues and advise us on their perspectives on on a variety of topics so that's our youth Council and that's for high school students a couple of additional Services is my last slide um if you're headed to DC or any of your constituents are in know that they can reach out to us for White House tours Capitol Building tours Library of Congress we need a couple weeks notice to make sure you know it's pretty busy on the hill now people are traveling a lot more so make sure you reach out early but we'll do our best to fit everybody in we also do can assist with presidential greetings for Milestone occasions and flag requests and then um just any type of congressional Commendation um we're happy to assist your offices with those so um there's a list of the different topics that we can do and partner with you and also congresswoman loves to get out to your community meetings I know we've been with several of you but know that um Priscilla is our point of contact for helping schedule those out throughout the year um and so she can do kind of a town hall with your city city meetings with your constituents as well so thank you for your partnership and um any questions thank you for the congresswoman thank you so much Emily um and that's it uh thank you I know it was a lot of information thank you for your Indulgence we wanted to put all of this on your radar my team you know has done this in years past uh but this meeting coincided with my time here at home so it's a privilege to come before you a privilege to partner with you and support the work of the city and any way that we can continue to uplift your work and help pull down the funding that we appropriate that that I vote on in Washington we're delighted so unless you have any questions we'll let you get back to your city business thank you again for being here thank you all have a great meeting and thank you for the team for that Miss Prine I know that uh we did have some public comment on consent agenda that we skipped and I apologize for that can we reconsider consent agenda please may [Music] um yes you know which one it is I know which one it is you know which one you want can we move 25 to follow 28 yes I knew that's the one you wanted thanks um and with that do we have a motion do we consider consent agenda please so moved there's the motion and a second to reconsider the consent agenda all in favor anyone opposed can we do have public comment on item 9 11 18 and 19. Miss Turner yes sir item number nine is a resolution that the city manager is authorized to sign an amendment to the lease agreement with the government of the country of El Salvador for the lease space located at 400 West San Antonio sorry about that Ms Turner good morning good morning mayor council I was just curious uh is this an embassy or are they just here for our good food I'm sorry I didn't hear you is this an embassy of Ecuador the consulate huh a consulate a consulate okay there was nothing in here that said it was so I'm just curious uh 11. yeah it's just to read a new release now we're gonna go to 11 can you read 11 into the record Mission 11 is a resolution finding the art craft project will have no adverse impact to the Sunset Terrace linear Park I saw nothing in the backup and then actually proved that there's no such impact I'm assuming there's going to be Construction and if there's construction there's going to be an impact especially if you take parts of it so how did you how did they come about with the decision that it would not impact the area um I'm asking if Yvette Hernandez is on the line from CID um Tracy that is not it's Jerry demuro but Jerry demiros Jerry could you address the um the question please yes thank you the the question is it it's there will be construction the amount of just land disturbance amounts to about 800 square feet and when TxDOT is has completed their construction they will restore the linear Park to its original all right thank you uh item 18. 19 I found interesting 18. Ms Turner you signed up on 18 also and this is the requested director of purchasing and strategic sourcing be authorized to issue a purchase order to El Paso County Hospital District DBA University Medical Center of El Paso referencing contract 2020-268 El Paso County Hospital District Lab Services uh my question is what kind of lab services pardon me what kind of lab services I'm not sure if anyone from health department is on the line they're here okay they're here to answer she's right behind you hello Vanessa lagunas from purchasing and strategic sourcing the lab services will include rapid testing covet testing TB testing as well as STD testing thank you for that yeah also on the Laboratory test and this is Dr Carranza for the record and the level testing that we sent to the University of Medical Center is specialized testing in regards to some other STDs salsa strategic purchasing set some of the other testing is very complex tested in that University Medical Center is going to be doing for us I just want to know what what we were doing right that's it and you answered my question yeah UMC has been a great partner to the city and we continue to reach out to them to help us execute our next item would be item 19. item 19 is the award of solicitation 2023-0307 heavy duty vehicle and tank repair services to Frontera radiators and Parts Inc do we have tanks do we have what tanks tanks it says award solicitation heavy duty vehicle and tank repair I'm just curious do we have tanks right behind you Mitch Turner fuel tanks this is Nicole Cody yes that was the confusion I figured I was going to ask you if you had the last version of the what grew into from the Sherman was the m60a forge or in Abrams I just was just curious thank you Miss Turner for your time and with that do we have a motion to approve do we have a second thank you there's a motion made by representative Rivera seconded by representative Fierro to approve the consent agenda and this is to include the previously red revisions to move items three four and five to the regular agenda to revise item 21 to move items 24 20 27 28 and 30. to the Forefront and I believe also item 25 to the Forefront on that motion call for the vote representative Kennedy thank you representative Hernandez yes thank you Representatives Salcido hi thank you in the voting session the motion passes unanimously mayor Pro tem anelo not present mayor would you like to go to representative canalis's item item 24 yes sir item 24 is discussion in action to establish a defined process with formal input from members of council and the mayor for the selection of both an interim city manager and ultimately a permanent city manager this item was submitted by Representatives Canales Hernandez and Rivera have we I thought we'd so at the representative Gonzalez and then we moved ehn to follow that and then we had presentation I didn't see you there um we'll do that next I didn't see him there item 27 is presentation and discussion from the office of Congressman Tony Gonzalez representative of Texas's 23rd congressional district on the upcoming FY 2024 Appropriations process and other federal legislative updates good morning again mayor and Council I'm just going to introduce Rodrigo he works for Congressman Tony Gonzalez and he'll be giving a presentation and legislative update and good morning Sharon I know everywhere we go every ribbon cutting every opening of a park here at every one of them and I thank you for that it's not a bad Omen don't worry mayor we're always happy to see you welcome thank you thank you for being there thank you Council city manager Tommy Gonzalez Rodrigo Estrada Regional District director for Congressman Tony Gonzalez proudly representing Texas's 23rd congressional district the congressman sends his apologies for not being here today he is currently in Fort Davis surveying the damage caused by recent brush fires in the county but he is kind enough to send a video message for the council to view if we could pull that up hello this is U.S congressman Tony Gonzalez 20-year Navy veteran representing the 23rd congressional district of Texas it is my great honor to represent over half of El Paso County including Parts in northeast El Paso Fort Bliss and the Lower Valley I want to thank all of you for your hard work on behalf of the city of El Paso and look forward to our continued partnership in Congress I'm proud to serve on the House Appropriations Committee which has allowed me to secure critical funding for regional priorities for example in partnering with representative Escobar I helped secure 700 million dollars for the construction of a new VA Health Care Center at Beaumont Army Medical Center this new facility is expected to begin construction next year and will be instrumental to providing our veterans with the services they need recently I also secured 2.5 million dollars to deliver first-time water services to more than one thousand people in El Paso County this is an addition to the nearly 1 million I secured for concrete lining in El Paso County to improve irrigation for farmers in addition to my advocacy on behalf of veterans and our AG Community I also stand strong with border patrol customs and our local law enforcement that's why I helped secure billions of dollars for border security including critical funding for surveillance technology operation stone garden and additional hiring at CBP finally El Paso is home to a variety of incredible schools in light of the horrific Uvalde shooting that occurred in my district last year I've worked tirelessly to secure funding for improved school safety that is why I voted yes on the bipartisan safers Community act last year which resulted in billions of dollars for improved Mental Health Services and Security in our schools Although our nation is faced with many crises I will continue working to deliver solutions for the El Paso Community if you ever need anything please do not hesitate to reach out to me or my staff thank you hello this is U.S Congress the congressman is proud to Proclaim that the state of the district is strong from Uvalde strong to El Paso strong communities across our district have demonstrated remarkable resiliency in the face of adversity and tragedy for that reason as the congressman mentioned he was proud to support legislation such as the bipartisan safer communities act which I will be elaborating on later in today's presentation before delving into the legislative update for the congressman I'd like to First brief the Council on the new District boundaries and what that means for representation here in the city of El Paso and in El Paso County in the next slide is a map of the new is a map of the newly redrawn District that the congressman represents the map in the next slide points to the representation that the congressman has here in El Paso and across 29 counties in Texas as you may know Texas 23 is the largest congressional district in the state one of the largest in the country spanning nearly half the U.S Mexico border from El Paso to Eagle Pass and up to San Antonio including 112 unique municipalities not all as friendly as this body here today as well as eight International Bridges ports of Entry two national parks 14 state parks and sites as well as West Texas greater West Texas and our El Paso district office serves not just El Paso County but also hudspeth Culberson Reeves Winkler and even Loving County with its 57 people in the next slide is a more detailed map of the district boundaries in El Paso as you may see here the congressman's footprint has increased in the city of El Paso the congressman now represents over 60 percent of El Paso County and we do stretch into city limits as you see here into the upper Northeast as well as the Mission Valley and as you may see on the right side of the slide is a more detailed description of the neighborhoods that the congressman is proud to represent both in the Mission Valley including the Rio boss Wetlands as well as the Northeast where North Hills Sandstone Ranch Estates as well as Newman and the El Paso Electric Plant up near the New Mexico border the congressman is also proud to represent a large portion of Fort Bliss including Biggs Army Airfield as as well as the third infantry division artillery headquarters and of course we represent the outlying suburbs of Socorro San Elizario Clint Fabens torno and a portion of Horizon City and so this is just just an overview of the boundaries we have met with all the neighborhood associations active in our parts of the district we've met with the Civic groups as well as our city council members representing that portion of the district in the next slide is a more detailed address information about our office locations we are spread out across 29 counties we have six district offices the main office for the city of El Paso is our district office here we recently relocated we're now at Casa Ortiz which is beautiful art gallery and historic Adobe Hacienda on the Mission Trail again reflecting the Partnerships and the stewardship that we hope to show towards the community the address is there as well as the mainline phone number in the next slide is the committee assignments for the 118th Congress the congressman is proud to serve on two powerful committees he's the only member in from West Texas to serve on the House Appropriations Committee the congressman serves on three subcommittees of interest to the city of El Paso is of course military construction Veterans Affairs and related agencies as well as Transportation the congressman also serves on the house Homeland Security committee and there are several subcommittees of interest to the city of El Paso including border security as well as counterterrorism law enforcement and intelligence as a matter of fact the congressman will be in town tomorrow hosting a round table for law enforcement to discuss public safety concerns as well as funding requests that will be assessed through Community Project funding in the next slide is more detailed information about Community Project funding as you had already heard from Congressman Escobar's staff I'll keep it brief as the protocols and procedures are the same across all congressional offices the congressman is limited to around 15 projects to select for Community Project funding however we try to distribute funding in an equitable manner across 29 districts for Geographic Equity as well as demographic diversity and so we are fortunate to have received several requests from the city of El Paso for Community Project funding both in our district in the Mission Valley as well as in the Northeast and the congressman also encourages applicants including the city of El Paso to submit letters of support we want to see that the community is behind the projects that the city is pitching for the congressmen to fund we've met with the city's legislative liaison we've met with the city's economic development director and team to discuss the projects that are top priorities for the city of El Paso and we look forward to finding as many projects as possible here in El Paso as you all may know the congressman delivered over 62 million dollars just last year in community Project funding across the district so there's more than enough to go around in the next slide is detailed uh description of the congressman's recent funding wins for El Paso last fiscal year we funded a Riverside Canal concrete lining project in partnership with El Paso County Water control Improvement District 1 the Irrigation District this was within city limits to line a one mile stretch of the Riverside Canal to promote sustainability and conservation for our farmers down in the Mission Valley in addition we funded Sandhills Wastewater collection system that is a Colonia in the city in the city's e t j and that is a Colonia that was needing Waste Water and Sewer services in the next slide is a recent announcement that the congressman was proud to support and that was six hundred thousand dollars for the mpo's Safe Streets for all project and this is a project that Garner honored support across not just the city of El Paso but also our outlying municipalities to create a comprehensive plan and safety action plan to leverage technology and other solutions to reduce traffic fatalities which I understand is is a major issue not just in El Paso but across Texas and the next slide is another recent announcement that actually we just announced this morning with Workforce Solutions borderplex in the Northeast 1.5 million dollar Department of Labor Grant to support dislocated troops in El Paso to support service members who are transitioning back to civilian life and are seeking to receive proper training as well as find job placement that pays competitive wages here in El Paso so of course keeping Talent local in Fort Bliss and in the Northeast in the next slide is a couple more detailed legislative updates the congressman was proud to introduce the reducing excessive vetting authorities to maintain our ports act basically it streamlines the repair process at our ports of Entry of which there are several in El Paso and the congressman is proud to represent the Isleta Port of Entry and thorneoport of Entry basically it removes GSA from the equation when making or submitting for minor repairs at our ports to keep them up to standard the second is the and as the congressman mentioned uh through the National Defense authorization act for last year he was able to secure critical funding for our military installations in Fort Bliss but also in San Antonio and also not mentioned here as the bipartisan safer communities act the bipartisan safer communities Act is intended to keep our schools our children and our communities safe some of the main Provisions are 250 million dollars for community-based violence prevention programs as well as establishing enhanced background checks investing over two billion dollars in mental health services for schools and allocating 40 million to the National child traumatic stress Network we've been in constant communication with our superintendents our law enforcement Partners at El Paso Police Department to encourage them to pursue this funding through competitive grant opportunities as the funding will not be available forever so in closing I just want to reiterate the congressman's desire to continue cultivating close relationships with the city of El Paso as well as working in a bipartisan manner to secure legislative victories for the community as a native El pasoin I look forward to serving you all serving the community making sure that we are a constant presence so if you ever need us feel free to reach out thank you thank you we do have one question representative mayor Pro tem thank you hi Rodrigo thank you so much for being here for the presentation I was wondering if you could tell me about the event tomorrow that you mentioned yeah so the congressman will be convening a law enforcement Roundtable at 1 30 p.m the Roundtable will be for our law enforcement Partners both in the city as well as Socorro Clint and our school district police forces and we've extended invitation to the city as well we look forward to seeing the city represented and hearing what the city's specific funding requests are for law enforcement as again as we consider Community Project funding okay if you could just send me that location that'd be great I would definitely love to stop by thank you mayor so much blue flame at 1 30. yes blue flame got it I didn't I didn't know if it was closed off that's why I didn't want to ask but uh thank you so much and we'll see you tomorrow thank you thank you sir for being here and with that Miss Prine the next item that was moved to 10 o'clock is item 28. and this is discussion in action on the fy24 community Project funding request to be submitted for consideration through the House Appropriations Committee process Ary good morning mayor council it's me again I'm going to Omar and Ali up with me either at this presentation but as you've heard from congresswoman Escobar and Congressman Gonzalez's office Community Project funding is open and available so we will be applying and we have a couple of projects that we want to go over with you all so like I mentioned you guys can come a little closer we have Omar Martinez and Ali Gorski they've been helping to write these applications I'm sorry I'm sorry Lindsay mayor Miss Turner signed up for item 27 as well okay Mr Turner sure about that I'm sorry Lindsay I'm gonna get your seat up front Miss Turner please do I've always wanted one I know that's what I'm saying I need more up here up there do I get to talk twice no you won't let me up there for that I'd like to get the the young man's attention uh Mr Strada I needed your attention my name is Lisa Turner I'm a disabled veteran I'm also a transgender woman so I would really like to know why his party is attacking active duty transgender individuals who are serving With Honor why is his party attacking veterans because they're transgender why is his party wanting to take children away from their parents why is his party wanting to take children away from active duty service members because they may be transgender why are they wanting to deny them medical necessary necessary care I mean I am at I attend a local VA it is to say transphobic would be polite the transphobia that's come from my ba over the last couple of decades has run veterans away they go into Mexico for their medical treatment or they don't get treatment at all so you tell your boss that this disabled Army veteran wants an answer and inform him that the actions of the Republican party right now in all these red States amounts to genocide you've met the definitions thank you thank you mayor council we appreciate your questions Ms Turner thank you nowhere resume now we go to item 28 and this is discussion and action on the FY 24 Community Project funding request to be submitted for consideration through the House Appropriations Committee process perfect thank you so much hello again excuse me so as I was introducing we have Omar Martinez and Ali Gorski who have helped me to come up with the projects that we will be submitting to the community Project funding of course this falls under strategic goal six so I'm going to start by handing it off to Omar he's going to give a brief overview of some of the overall Federal grant successes that we've had good morning mayor good morning Council Omar Martinez grants and strategic initiatives manager with the city of El Paso today we're going to talk to you briefly about the success of the discretionary grants program uh by the city and so in the last few years this program has secured 71.6 million dollars for for the city of El Paso uh projects are listed in in the presentation I'm happy to answer any questions regarding any of them a lot of these do come from the community Project funding requests that were submitting in previous years so through both the uh through the office of congresswoman Veronica Escobar now with the congressman's new borders we are submitting to his office as well and so the discretionary grants program is a very ambitious for more than 450 million dollar uh plan to Target as much Federal funding as possible with the understanding that we have to be responsible with taxpayer dollars meaning we want to get the best deals the best cost share from the federal government and and apply to Priority projects for the city projects that are aligned to the Strategic plan and so as I mentioned 71.6 million dollars have been received in the last few years we're working with more than 20 partners and we're also supporting other partners such as the University of Texas at El Paso I'd apply for more than 160 million dollars as well and so I'm happy to answer any questions regarding these uh these different projects we are currently working on 15 applications and now with Community Project funding we need to increase that to 23 applications in this Federal fiscal year and I'll hand it over to Lindsay again thank you Omar um really quick Omar uh when is the when are you submitting these when is your deadline the deadline to submit Community project fundings is this Friday is this Friday well I'd love to meet with you before that because I have some projects that I'd like to get submitted I think every year we ask um that we kind of be briefed and are allowed to submit some that's yet to happen um so we'd love to sit down with you before Friday because I've got a few or maybe at least one I'd like to add in there yes thank you thank you mayor Pro Tim Miss Adams perfect so in terms of being more specific with Community Project funding um so the House Appropriations Committee as you all have heard has opened the program as of March 1st so we are working to come up with the projects that we will submit on behalf of the city and um we're going to be submitting to the congresswoman Escobar and Congressman Gonzalez so just a little recap of previous years funded in fiscal year 22 we received money for the pasado north day trail as well as money for the body worn cameras for the police department and then more recently in fiscal year 23 we received 1.75 million for the solar covered parking garage at the El Paso International Airport so you've heard this multiple times today but the federal guidelines for the community Project funding include making sure that the projects have Community Support that the matching funding is available and that it has to be obligated within the the one-year for fiscal year 2024. of course we're working to make sure that the projects are high quality and each Congress person can only submit 15 projects so we're kind of competing with our own community in that aspect but we're making sure that all the projects that we submit that we'll go over here in a little bit meet the eligible criterias I know congresswoman Escobar's presentation kind of showed those criteria and then of course the funding and match requirement is going to be dependent on the committee that we submit the project to so I'm going to pass it over to Ali Gorski she's been helping us to determine the projects that we're going to be selecting and she's been instrumental in help making sure that City staff goes to the selection criteria that the federal government requires but also that ties into what we want to see in those projects hi good morning mayor city council city manager my name is Alejandra Gorski I'm with economic development as Lindsay mentioned I've been supporting as an analyst on this effort uh so in addition to the federal criteria that you heard from our Congressional Partners I just briefly wanted to note that in addition to this we also implemented some criteria on behalf of the city so among those that I'd like to just highlight for you first We examined whether projects are tangible so if they follow the sort the sort of smart criteria and just within those smart goals thinking about the T the time-bound piece we really ensured that our projects that we are looking into could be implemented within a one-year time frame and on top of that we also worked with departments to consider or evaluate whether there is actually a match available so we ensure that there are funds that can City funds that can accompany these efforts and just lastly importantly we wanted to note that in addition to the federal criteria we did incorporate whether the projects tied into our strategic plan so if they tied into components of any of our City's strategic goals was very important in our selection so with that in mind I'll pass this along to Lindsay again and she can talk through the timeline for implementing or rather submitting all of this work so in terms of a timeline it's a very short timeline we received the call for request on March 1st and then as Omar mentioned the deadline to submit is the 17th which is this Friday so we are working to finalize the requests and the projects that we all go through right now and like I mentioned we are submitting to Veronica Escobar and Tony Gonzalez's office so with that I'm going to hand it back over to Omar he's going to go through each of the projects that we will be submitting thank you so we are submitting five projects a one in Partnership we're offering partnership to the El Paso chamber and then we're submitting one language request and so I'll go over each of them briefly the first project is is the iselecta Port of Entry feasibility study what this will do is will give us the funds necessary to perform a conceptual design and cost estimates necessary to then on future years tap into construction dollars with U.S Department of Transportation funds the matching uh I'm sorry the the total project cost is three million dollars of which we're requesting 2.4 million from the federal government matched by six hundred thousand dollars from the bridges P3 fund the second project is a Airport Terminal Drive Bridge payment replacement project this is a 3.75 million dollar project for which we're asking for three million dollars from the federal government matched by 750 sorry 70 50 750 000 um in local funds from the airport Enterprise fund the third project is the Sun Metro Transit project this is a resubmission from a a project last year that was not selected this is through Sun Metro Total project cost is nine hundred thousand dollars of which 720 000 comes from the federal government uh the the funding source is the Sun Metro capital investment account and this is to provide uh additional Transit oriented solutions for for people that cannot access uh your traditional Transit routes like your Brio's and Metro and Streetcar the fourth project is the economic and International Development uh business One-Stop shop this is a one million dollar request submitting through HUD and it comes with no match it is just a stipulation of the program other programs do require a magic a non-federal cost share and this is to to do planning design and implementation uh work for the the business One-Stop shop or the boss program final finally the the fifth project is a Northeast rail spur phase one this is a 3.75 million dollar project of which we're requesting three million dollars from the federal government matched by 20 and the funding source is the impact fund these next two projects are a little bit different so the sixth project is a language request to the existing Ford infrastructure I'm sorry Port infrastructure development program this is a large a billion dollar level uh Federal program from the U.S department of transportation that funds major port of entry improvements however these are only Maritime or River ports what this means is that there is no specific funding source for our bridges for our International bridges that are land-based to be able to make those larger 200 million dollar worth uh Project funding requests and so through the office of both Congressman Tony Gonzalez and congresswoman Rodriguez Escobar we are requesting language changes to the program that would expand the program and allow us to apply and compete therefore favorably under this criteria and the seventh project is a project being submitted by the El Paso Chamber of Commerce in partnership with the city of El Paso and the El Paso mpo they are requesting funding to perform a regional master plan for all ports of entry in the region and the the city is not a fiscal participant of this project however we we are willing participants uh with this this project has already been vetted through the bridges department and it we're requesting is a statement of to allow them to submit a statement of support on behalf of the city at this point I'm happy to answer any questions regarding any of the projects represent milinary thank you mayor sir gentlemen um I think it's number five the Stan Roberts are we talking the entire length of San Roberts so we're talking just a certain portion of Stan Roberts this is a certain portion of the Stan Roberts only um I have to go back and check the exact length and the reason for it is because the railspur is involved and so we have right-of-way issues and design issues so I'll have to check to see how much it's going to be it should be a little bit more than one mile however it is a phased project this entire Northeast railspur so this road would get as much further ahead in developing that uh their project no Omar is um absolutely right so it would be the the mile that will you introduce yourself please sorry Elizabeth Triggs with economic and International Development so it would be the portion of Stan Roberts that would run parallel to the rail spur coming off of us-54. so just approximately one mile yes sir thank you by the way Mr trigger I did recognize you yeah and they'll be a thank you very much for the presentation a couple more slides if y'all mayor do you have a question oh yes ma'am um no go ahead thank you um Omar and um uh Mrs Triggs uh so related to the the process you said the deadline was this Friday so today's vote is only going to be for these five items or seven proposals rather it's gonna be for the seven proposals yes ma'am okay and um in terms of the matching requirements you'll and I'm sorry if I missed this and you're repeating it um are you all you already have the designated funds for the local match within the respective departments that's correct they have been vetted and approved so will this approval also secure the local match required dollars yes it'll be a commitment well it'll be a statement from Council saying that should be re-awarded this funding then we will come back to you once uh just letting you know that this funding was awarded and then at that point the funds would be appropriated in the event we're we're actually we actually are Warden we see the funds you have the approval at least the initial approvals to do the local match but then if we're awarded you'll come back for a formal approval is that what you're saying yes ma'am so like we do with many grants um we bring them to council ask for for your okay to submit our application if they require a match highlight what we think that match will be where it will come from and then if the grant is awarded we return to council with an actual agreement to accept the award and then also um to to formally allocate from Council uh the the match the funding match source so it will come back to you all if a word okay yes ma'am thank you well I appreciate that I also wanted to to give my sincere thanks for getting ahead of this being prepared with proposals I know it's a very short period of time but with that um advanced notice and planning that you all do behind the scenes puts us in a better position to apply for these funds so I didn't want to you know leave without you know thinking your team for being prepared and for bringing these much needed projects to help offset the property tax burden to El Paso and so thank you very much and for the um you know all of the collaboration with our congresswoman and Congressman um and and these needs for our community so good job everyone thanks thank you thank you so just very briefly um our next step of course is today to obtain support from you all to submit these projects and then we will be sure to submit them by the deadline of this Friday um and then we will be sure to come back to you with the final list once we submit and then of course if they are awarded we'll come back um to present that as well um this is the requested action very simple just to direct the city manager to submit the eligible projects that we went over because they are in line with our strategic plan and do have that matching fund available Rivera thank you mayor yes um I'd also like to take the time right now to congratulate you all this is a great presentation and for the projects as you bring forward to us that's very very nice and and the fact that you all have the funding in place um like I said I'd I'll probably following you even more closely for that but I thank you so much for that the presentation was great from all you and your staff appreciate that and with that I'll make a motion to approve sir Mr Prime yes mayor there was a motion made by representative Rivera seconded by mayor Pro tem anello and this is to approve the eligible projects presented by staff on that motion call for the vote representative Hernandez yes thank you representative Salcido I thank you in the voting session and the motion passes unanimously thank you Mr Adamson thank you do we have anything for 11 no sir okay good well there's there is a quest to go to item 25 next is that correct yes ma'am but item 25 is presentation and discussion by emergence Health Network of their 2022 annual report on activities collaborations and Partnerships with local entities uh we meant to hi good morning first thank you so much for pulling us a little good morning ma'am earlier on the agenda uh Christy dardy I'm the CEO for emergence Health Network and we are really happy to share with you today our 2022 annual report um with uh there was a so many amazing things that happened in the past year it's hard to just narrow it down to a few but I think we did a good job of doing that so the next slide um just really highlights the community impact and the difference that we make here in El Paso for uh the folks that we serve am I changing okay thank you I don't know am I changing this life oh okay thank you thank you because see as many times as you've been here you know but normally I don't have it and I'm usually just called up on the spot for something so just I apologize so um let's see um I think we wanted to just highlight a couple of Partnerships first of all we are very happy that we launched a project with the um with our veterans One Stop Center and partnership with Fort Bliss so we've actually been very active with our active duty members which is it's relatively new and so we're very happy to announce that we've worked been able to work on post especially with uh troops returning back to El Paso to really help them understand the resources that they have in the community that they can access off post next we were very happy to be part of the Roundtable discussion with Senator John cornyn he was very interested in our CIT programs and one of the highlights that I'd like to make now that we have our wonderful CIT program with the city with the county but we've launched school-based CIT as well so now we're in both episd and cantio ISD with their law enforcement partners uh a segueing into our Partnerships with the school districts we are now providing services on campus in in five episd schools as well as Canutillo ISD we are on campus and we have little mini clinics on campus providing services to those kids and so the five schools for epist we also serve the feeder schools so really it's about access and we want to make sure that families have access to services so typically the school is much more convenient for the family than taking them across town to a clinic uh we're really excited about our podcast vodcast initiative that we um launched this year it's called mindful of your health so any of your podcast Services we are on there we'd be uh happy for you to download and listen we have a various topics that we talked about with regards to being um mindful of your health uh looking at self-care substance use treatment things like that so it's a very um interesting listen next another highlight is we were very happy to host the Army Surgeon General Scott Dingle he actually visited our El Paso our veterans One Stop Center and was very impressed with how we collaborate with our veteran services as well as our active duty members so we were really honored to have him at one of our sites um I was very honored to receive the women of impact award this year along with five of my distinguished colleagues in the community so something I'm very honored to represent El Paso for our MST program which is our multi-systemic Therapy Program which serves youth that are at risk of out of home placement we actually received a national award uh for our intensive in-home therapy which is um again really what we're trying to do is work with those kids that could potentially be placed out of El Paso so we're keeping them in the home and working with the family and so we were very honored that our program received a an Excellence award next up we were very happy to host a back to school TV special it did uh air right before school started you know there was a lot of anxiety kids going back after being you know doing school at home so we really wanted to help get in front of some of those issues with anxiety and and work with our our school districts to make sure that the resources were available uh next I kind of jumped ahead but we did launch school-based CIT I can tell you that's one we're one of the only school-based CIT I know we're the only one in the state right now and so really what that is is it's a way to help the school district police forces respond to any sort of psychiatric emergency it does not have to be just a student it can also be a parent that may be on campus or a teacher that may be struggling with something that day so it's a little different rather than having the clinician in the car like we do with our El Paso Police Department we have a team of clinicians that are designated to the school-based program and they are called out by that law enforcement and whenever they need help next was another great partnership with this city we had a mental health here a superhero event at the El Paso Zoo and we did that during Children's Mental Health acceptance day a wonderful event we were able to bring a lot of children into the zoo have some fun events and we actually are planning that again for this year we were also awarded a a recertification for joint commission so the Joint Commission is an accreditation body that accredits mostly hospitals but we are an outpatient program that's accredited so what that they focus on is patient safety and infection control so we're very happy to say that back in July we were re-certified for three more years as a joint commission accredited program next up another partnership with the city that we're happy to be part of is our 988 so we the 988 rolled out in the fall which is a a easy number for folks to remember when they're having a psychiatric crisis or they're needing support well just recently we brought forth to the council that we are now co-located in the 911 Center so it makes a lot of sense to be able to support each other because if a call comes into 988 that really needs um emergency response then we can patch over to 9-1-1 and vice versa if a call comes into 9-1-1 that really is a psychiatric emergency or something we can handle without sending out the fire department and EMS will be be able to do that and do it very quickly so we're happy to have that partnership uh we were very happy to be awarded this was our very first hog Foundation Award and we um were able to fund a fellow in partnership with nami so we do have a policy fellow that works for ehn that also does advocacy work for Nami and again this is the first time that we were able to El Paso was able to receive something along this line next up our annual report is actually a digital report so you can get on our website and take a look at it we always like to share some of our our um our events and numbers one of the really cool things we were able to do this year is we were focusing on the how our employees make a difference in the community we really went along the lines of this is us working for you so if you attended any UTEP football or basketball games you were able to see some of our our advertising you know we want to make sure everybody knows where their services are we had Billboards throughout the community showing where we provide different services and in different areas and we do also have let's see the next one is a very great a wonderful partnership we have with UTEP Athletics so we are the mental health provider for UTEP Athletics if they are in need we help those athletes out because think about a student coming from another country or even you know Far East the United States coming to El Paso they may be 17 18 years old there may be some issues that they they need to address so we do that but what they did in return for us is they were part of a campaign about getting help and so we had football UTEP football players soccer players some of the tennis team just out there really doing PSAs for us and so those are on our website as well for anybody to use when young people see an athlete at Collegiate level athlete talking about their mental well-being it makes a huge impact so we were proud of that partnership and that partnership can is also continuing we had a lot of presence on social media through our vodcast and so um we you're you can get on our website and see those vodcast videos we had different presentations from different folks talking about different areas of our of our services and then lastly um sorry we we always try to put out our numbers and this is really small I realized that but if you get on our website you can look at it where it looks at the demographics based on different Services as well and we break it down by age and ethnicity so you can see the impact that your local mental health authority has in the community next we have our total revenues and our total expenditures so as you see the your local mental health authority is very financially stable we're very solid we are in a good fiscal position I can tell you um going into our next fiscal year or ending this fiscal year will will end as well as in a good fiscal position and we are very healthy with our cash reserves and that's something I'm very proud of is we're running about 140 days cash on hand at any given time and so that really makes a difference if something was to happen and we needed you know those those emergency funds that were set for um about 140 days and that is all I have for today I went through it very quickly again get on the website look at it's a very interactive there are videos we have a commercial that was airing if you saw that for a little bit but we really make our our annual report um interactive we don't want it to be a print glossy you know thing that you just toss kind of to the side anytime you need information it's really easy to access there on our website so I'd be happy to take questions um thank you for the presentation and I think that um we see that your work show has been very important but just now it's just become that much more important to be proactive and involved in the schools and with the kids and so I do thank you for that because as like I said it's always been a very important job you've had and the job you've all done within our community but your Partnerships as we got to see a minute ago with you know City County and law enforcement and UTEP but I think the important part in my opinion is that the involvement with the schools and and with the youth so I thank you for that we do have representative Hernandez followed by mayor Pro Tem hi good morning um I just I don't have a question but more of to share some feedback on a personal level I do have a child that utilize the services at emergence Health Network and I wanted to share with you that um your team and the counselors and therapists and doctors you all have first class really wonderful wonderful customer service very understanding and caring staff that has made my life incredibly uh just more hopeful because you know having a child uh you know that has challenges you know it becomes very um it just becomes very uh isolating and scary as a mother to try to provide those services so so ehm has certainly been a Lifeline for my family and I wanted to give you that feedback because you all really do deserve a great amount of um congratulations and support from this community I really enjoy the Partnerships that you have with the school districts as the mayor said earlier we we really need to have that template across all school districts I have four children in the Isleta school district and that partnership is not available there so I would encourage that mou to have those medical professionals in the school when crises are happening it would be a lifeline and support for our Educators who unfortunately after the pandemic have had to become counselors in their own way in their classroom and so there's so many disparities and injustices as it relates to mental health but you all are making a significant difference and I wanted to share with you that it's helped my my child significantly and for that I'm very grateful for your services thank you thank you representative mayor Pro Tem just say thank you all so much I think it's uh you know because she's always really great at getting up and showing the work that ehn does but even as a board member of ehn I'm always really amazed at how ahead of the game the staff is right we talked about school-based mental health the staff came out and have been working on that on their own for years now right and it's just coming to fruition and that's really I think reflective of a team who cares about the community who understands the issues and really see where they can insert themselves to give make us a better community and so I really want to recognize Christy for the work that she does but also kind of the environment she creates and the support she has for her staff and for the city I mean there are many times alcohol I mean Christy Coleman the other day was like I heard you're working on this thing I have this information and I'm like what okay great very helpful um and so again they're just a very dedicated organization the individuals that work and the staff are very very dedicated and there's really an environment there of lifting up each other in this community and so I just wanted to say thank you thank you thank you mayor I also want to thank you for that as well I work with the uh with the body the hn there oh in the regarding the CIT which represented another little championed on that and since then having worked with them and looking listening to all the uh everything that's been implemented to make that program that much better uh I understand that incidents are down and uh people are getting their getting treated as they should and uh such as you know having to be taken down to the work down to the medical facilities to get their meds and and everything's just turned out for the best as far as that's concerned and I wanted to thank you for that that's a great program and I hope it continues well beyond our our years here thank you thank you thank you sir and I do want to thank representative Fierro for putting this item on the agenda as um I know that's right thank you you know and you see the importance of the Partnerships of Representative Fiero thank you for putting that on the agenda representative Canales thank you Mary yeah thank you for uh having me over at your office last week uh I uh I'm someone who's I I thought very aware of all the programs you have and uh you've exceeded even uh the ones that I knew and I was incredibly Blown Away by uh well and this makes sense given the amount of work that you all do in the community but by how large of an organization you are in terms of the personnel and how many dedicated people you have uh serving our community how much staff is it that you have there we are about a 750 team right now right so that's 750 people dedicated to helping El pasoans and everyone else from the region with with mental health um and and various other health concerns Behavioral Health and Beyond so um I think there are probably a lot of other people in the community too who don't realize how large of an organization you are how many different uh aspects of Health that you have your hands in and uh you know you you should be getting the recognition from from everybody for the important work you do so thank you very much thank you and thank you again appreciate the presentation thank you I need to thank the council mayor you know all of the you know city managers office the Police Department we could not be successful as we are without the Partnerships we have in this community I can tell you that I have colleagues across the state of Texas that don't have the support and the Partnerships and so we would not be successful without you so thank you so much and I'm just a lucky one that gets to steer the ship I have 750 amazing people that work for us every day and they're out there making sure people are safe thank you have a great day thanks thank you here we have public comment from history mm-hmm ly morning or afternoon morning it's still morning good morning my question is is there anything that we can do or you can do to provide like a 24-hour 24-hour a day place for a woman who may have been suffered domestic violence or sexual assault especially if there are active duty uh to go to because somebody in uniform is not somebody they're going to want to deal with so is there any way that can exist because everything seems to close at five o'clock and if something happens to you at seven where do you go thank you thank you for that question so we actually do have an extended observation unit that would take someone that was in a psychiatric crisis however Center against Family Violence has shelters and has places for domestic violence for that particular example to go to and we work closely with them um the whole goal of CIT was to soften that approach and I think we've done a very good job of of softening the approach to where it's not the command presence of a law enforcement officer but you have a more therapeutic approach to things so I do believe we're doing that we do have 24-hour units that are available we have the one that we have on Montana that again there it is more of a psychiatric crisis and then we have Community Partners that do provide shelter care for folks that are victims of domestic violence so those are available thank you for that and again thank you Miss Prine yes mayor can we recess can we recess until noon there's a motion to recess second there's a motion and a second to recess the city council meeting until noon all in favor anyone opposed the meeting is in recess at 11 38 a.m and will reconvene at noon for a call to the public no she got a board with us David very nice of course all right um foreign it's called a good nap location foreign thank you is okay foreign foreign thank you it's good it's here some of your cards something but foreign everything in there Texas are you doing there I'm good how are you sure I feel bad foreign I would have provided him with his own Wildfire right here yeah I'm gonna love every minute of it you can show up tomorrow I looked at my emails out there I got it yesterday and I was like oh because I wasn't here for consent so I was going to fall out who is today and then I saw you I'll do them is um saying that yesterday but they didn't say the other way how are you doing happy birthday Friday ultimately and uh they don't I don't know tell me that secret later because thank you a program that we project out with and Municipal for foreign the other one good morning sir and any of them are over two years old and they never tried to take care that's interesting yeah if rpr is going to put it on the um when you get a chance but I don't care I appreciate it that's not addressing literally okay okay yeah yeah perfect Mr Prime we do have a quorum and it is noon yes is there a motion to reconvene so move there's a motion in a second to recalling the city council meeting all in favor anyone opposed the meeting is back in session at 1204 PM it is now time for call to the public the El Paso city council is a 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 propane 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 form for political statements or campaigning please note that during call to the public the city council may not deliberate or decide any subject that is not on the agenda however Council May propose that a topic brought forward be posted on a future agenda this afternoon we have 13 members of the public that signed up to speak the first person is Albert Rivera his topic is sound decibel limits Albert Rivera Andrew Torres Mr torres's topic is anaerobic digesters organic food waste converted to biofuels for El Paso good afternoon Mr Torres you'll have three minutes and it will need the Elmo please good afternoon sir Council and mayor as well as the city manager it's going to be bringing it uh displaying it on the screen so I'm a seventh grade English teacher with Harmony Science Academy and essentially we had to read a passage that was part of their test as well as one of their assignments in my class about a machine called an anaerobic digester so what is an anaerobic digester you may ask very very uh common question for this subject anaerobic digester is essentially a machine that acts as a stomach does so it's basically a machine stomach and as we all know when we eat food we release methane you all know how methane is released from the human body now methane is one of the driving factors of the climate crisis and so an anaerobic digester is actually a way to answer this problem and the reason why is because it's a machine that actually captures this methane and uses it to create either biofuel or to generate electricity for the grid So currently in Europe there are over 30 000 of these machines in the U.S there are approximately three to ten thousand of these machines and I'm hoping that El Paso can add one more to the list So currently uh the city of El Paso has a measure in place to try to eliminate food waste we donate it to a charity and that is done by local organizations uh and a non-profit here in El Paso but what about the food that is not edible and is not able to be eaten anymore it's basically thrown away and ends up in the landfill um so the driving question for us was how do we get one of these machines here in El Paso because all of my students were able to fully understand how this machine works and they asked me sir you know why don't we have one here in El Paso so I looked it up and the closest one that we have in Texas that I saw is a new one that's being built right now in Houston see and uh you can see that one of these machines is going to divert approximately 300 000 tons of waste of organic waste from non-sustainable Outlets providing companies in the region who wish to make their operations more environmentally friendly uh a sustainable Choice by using biofuels to either fuel their cars or to power their businesses so uh the business that we read about in Europe is called the sainsbury grocery store and they actually power their grocery store entirely off of the waste from the grocery store which is revolutionary so and this is where we're trying to stop food from going um so I hope that my seventh grade class inspires you all and hopefully with one of these funds that I read about we can uh fund this uh through something thank you sir thank you for your time thank you so much is Ron Como Mr Como's topic is poor decisions by city council regarding Animal Services good afternoon Mr Como you'll have three minutes good afternoon sir go ahead Mr Como you have three minutes sir good afternoon everybody good afternoon as usual I'm here because of the situation in the city of El Paso we discussed some numbers at the last meeting one of the ones I didn't get to put out was we live intake the 9 400 less Strays in 2022 compared to 2019. we killed 707 more so I'm a little curious to how we could still be at 80 percent live release rate when those numbers just don't add up somebody's doing some somebody's got to you know actually do some real math we have a problem the other thing is we know that you all signed a contract with best friends best friends uses the Haas program the Haas program is what we've been on since 2020 contrary to our city manager our director and Outlet people at Animal Services I firmly believe they kissed the Blarney Stone before they come up here and talk to you all but they're they're not telling you the truth the Haas program was implanted and has been implanted since 2020. now just so we understand I I've heard questions about whether best friends is using a Haas program I sent a message to best friends for more information on how to help big dogs and other homeless pets visit Haas website and best friends Network proven strategy strategies they're running the Haas program we've had three years the Haas program that's what put us in this situation we don't need another year I mean I get it we need somebody to run the shelter that can actually run it obviously you think that Terry can't run the shelter either because now you've hired somebody to take over the shelter so I think we agree that we need somebody competent to run the shelter we need to eliminate best friends get them out of our city out of our shelter do you know that best friends is going around the state of Texas and trying to implement their way of doing business and saying look at what we did for El Paso it's such a great success I've had 15 phone calls in the last four days going we thought your shelter sucked pardon my French it's like yeah it does and let me give you stats so and Oscar you know I don't open my mouth unless I can prove what I'm telling you it's a lot different than what we're hearing from the shelter it's a lot different than what we heard from our city manager he went to Best Friends conference after three months of Hospital shelter read in Austin Pets Alive script about how great Haas was in El Paso he sold the program to best friends and it was all done so that Paula Powell could get a high-paying job with best friends and not work here anymore it's time to get a new shelter which we already knew in 2015 was too small we need competent people to run it we need best friends out of our shelters today the next speaker is Barbara Valencia is Valencia's topic is the whole picture no kill versus pause three minutes ma'am I will pass out the handouts ma'am in the future these are due the day before the meeting please go ahead Miss Valencia I am Barbara Valencia with Huckleberry Hound Dog Rescue the whole picture no kill versus Haws for the contract with the city and best friends best friends program is the one being implemented Haws because best friends on Haas are one in the same to calculate live release rate each month in the simplest form you take the number of outcomes for the month and you divide it by the number of intakes for the month but what about animal services that's a whole let's look at the whole picture on that first first page of that handout this is the percentage of total outcomes for the animals at the shelter each month in 2019 under the no kill plan more than 50 percent of the animals in the shelter left monthly when houses implemented in 2020 we start to see the shift of lower animals leaving and in 2022 two years in nahaz we see only about 25 percent of the animals are leaving each month the second page that is your 2019 versus your 2022 comparison of the percentage of animals remaining in our shelter system each month the third page that's our average intake on a daily basis for each month in 2019 more animals are coming into the shelter versus 2022 we have more animals coming in more animals going out fewer animals being warehoused at the shelter and thus saving more lives in 2019. in 2022 even though we had less animals coming in we left more Strays on the streets less animals leaving the shelter and more animals being warehoused at the shelter resulting in less lives being saved so what does all this mean with Haws less animals even the shelter resulting in more animals being warehoused at the shelter every month severe overcrowding rapid spread of disease and filthy living conditions for the animals at the shelter staff are overwhelmed resulting in mental and physical stress and a high employee turnover and the shelter has distance itself from local rescues because the local rescues are the biggest attractors of Paws and with good reason with the no kill plan the shelter and rescues work collaboratively more animals even the shelter so more lives saved wasteful taxpayer expenditures are reduced and shelters standing the community improves because animals at the shelter are healthy and happier with the no-kill plan the goal for the shelter is to commit to saving more lives while striving for no kill with Haws the shelter is operating to just obtain the no kill Benchmark at the expense of the animals in their lives in closing when best friend says save them all I guess that means save only the 25 percent that are leaving out the front door the other 75 percent don't matter can you tell her she doesn't matter where'd she go tell her she doesn't matter because Animal Services did exactly that they said she doesn't matter leave her on the street to fend for herself thank you ma'am the next speaker is Elena Perez her topic is also Animal Services Elena Perez will be followed by Nevaeh Martinez Randolph Rivera also speaking on Animal Services good afternoon Miss Perez you have three minutes good afternoon good afternoon mayor and city council my name is Elena Perez I'm an independent dog rescuer for five years in El Paso I have sat back and watched Australian loose dog situation deteriorate and enough is enough I rescue dog after dog puppies as well every dog that I rescue gets great vet care some have parvo some have broken bones some die because they are beyond help I send all of your stray dogs on transports out of El Paso that myself and my husband drive across country all that I do comes out of our pockets along with some donations Animal Services came to my home yesterday for the seventh time I allowed them inside so they could see firsthand how clean my home and kennels are the officer also agreed he and his Pets Alive representative left with nothing to say I am tired of being harassed I hit my breaking point yesterday your animal services is failing not only the dogs of El Paso but those of us who continue to rescue out of the goodness of our hearts I am here to tell you that something has to give and it starts with all of you I know I have some time left on that's all that I wrote but you know I put everything on the back burner for these animals I sacrifice everything that I have my family and it's not my job to pick up these Strays Animal Services the city is leaving healthy unaltered Strays on the street and they are reproducing more rapidly than we can handle there's only a handful of us we need help something needs to be done I never come to city council but I am at a point where I am tired of coming out of pocket to help these dogs it is sickening to see these dogs hit by cars run over dying of sickness on the street it is so sad we cannot keep up I need help we need help this city needs to come together and do something what more I'm up here shaking I have dogs that came in the other day dying of Parvo six puppies dumped in a dumpster I went out immediately to get them four hours later declining out of six only four made it you know they need somebody to speak for them I'm here speaking for them they are they they're helpless I understand that they're animals but they also have feelings please help us help them thank you thank you man the next speaker is Nevaeh Martinez followed by Randolph Rivera Arnold for Hernandez Martinez topic is also Animal Services good afternoon you'll have three minutes hi good afternoon Mr Mayor and city council my name is novere Martinez I am 14 years old and my mother is Elena Perez who you just heard from as an upcoming member of society in El Paso please allow me to share my personal views and experiences with you in regards to loose and straight and stray dog situation in my city and El Paso is my city I grew up loving animals I always have supported my mother in her rescue efforts sometimes she has been gone for hours setting traps sometimes takes dogs to the vet and sometimes more often than not hearing my mom cry because puppies that she rescued did not make it due to parvo our family unit has always been very has always been a very strong unit but honestly we too are at our breaking point there is absolutely no support from our elected officials instead my mother is being constantly harassed by your Animal Control Officers I am not understanding why nothing is changing allow me to quote change hurts it makes people insecure confused and angry people want things to be the same as they've always been because it makes life easier but if you're a leader you cannot let your city Hang On by the past by Richard marxenko thank you for your time thank you man thank you the next speaker is Randolph Rivera Mr Rivera star six pleased to unmute your telephone Randolph Rivera he will also be speaking on Animal Services good afternoon you have three minutes good afternoon my name is Randolph Rivera I'm uh proud rescuer with the El Paso Community and um I just want to discuss an issue that we've been having going on as a as an independent rescue along my wife that uh yesterday we had Animal control officer come to our house on what I call as a bogus call at all I mean it was basically for a smell and odor that was emitting from our house which when they came that wasn't the case and I mean those times those Animal Control Officers could be going to a call to help an animal every time they waste a moment to come harass another rescuer there's a time that they can go out there and help another animal or help another individual it's sad to see that the resources from this city has been misused and misguided in a way that does coming to our house to check a welfare check holds higher priority than an animal that is in need and of their time and their service that they could be providing so another thing to talk about as well too is that we need to work hand in hand with animal services it's very sad to see on social media that when you see people calling out for help saying I need help with this dog I found this dog this dog's abandoned this dog is sick everybody deters them from the city services don't call 3-1-1 don't call Animal Services they direct everyone to the El Paso Rescuers that's including my my wife myself Karen Washington and Loretta Hyde Diane Avery and it's just one of those things that we all need to come together and stop find out the priorities as far as what is considered to be helping the community with the Straits is it coming to my house to do a welfare check or is the animal out there suffering more importantly you tell me thank you very much thank you the next speaker is arnulfo Hernandez and Mr Arnold is signed up with a topic how did we get here so today I asked him for clarification on his topic and he said it's related to the present city council composition good afternoon Mr Hernandez you have three minutes it will need the Elmo please thank you madam clerk that was a very good question that you asked and I'll answer for you with a little bit of History it may explain perhaps why the meetings have been so contentious within the last few months by by saying here you mean the apartheid like El Paso city government for a small few older white rich and super rich men ruled over the 80 percent plus Mexican Americans in El Paso until the last the elections of 2022. they these folks ruled like the white minority in Pretoria South Africa under the apartheid formal government over the overwhelming black African majority the little history 1959 to 1961 Raymond teas became the first Mexican-American mayor of El Paso in the last century in the 1900s the pictures of the Mayors in the back wall where we are in is a reminder of that in the book The Making of a Mexican-American mayor mayor Raymond takes the credit for changing the election of the mayor and City representatives to a non-partisan basis not Democrat not Republicans the rulers had read the writing on the wall They concluded we can't beat these Mexicans there's too many of them but we can elect a few of them of us and buy a few of them to take control of City Hall they did until November 2022. the rule ended with the election of 2022 mayor Lisa becoming mayor representative Kenny Kennedy Fierro Inc and Canales had the audacity to oppose the rulers hand-picked lesser qualified candidates and they won it would have been a clean sweep had a former state representative Joe Pickett not pulled out of District Five right before the elections distracted by the former mayor and the former first lady publishing a dog whistle letter calling for the recall of Representatives Ken and Kennedy and Fierro they were followed by an appearance of the same mayor on ABC channel 7 news extra bootstrapping his dog whistle argument to say my phone has been ringing off the hook calling for the recall of fear of pharaoh and and Mr Kennedy well mayor Lisa my phone has been ringing off the hook in opposition to that recall I call upon Saul's um who is the science who is the host and producer of news expert to invite mayor former mayor awarding Veronica Escobar of uh from Theresa and Dr Max Grossman it's the three minutes thank you thank you for being here the next speaker is Lisa Turner Miss Turner's topic is U.S code 18 section 1091 related to genocide good afternoon Miss Turner you have three minutes I apologize I have to change what I want to say because I do need to take up for my city council the gentleman said we've been contentious he doesn't know what contentious is he should have been here when we were dealing with the same-sex health benefits for city employees now that was a knock down drag out fight I loved every moment of it uh do we have an issue here of the money people getting what they want getting the money from the treasury and enriching themselves yes but City Council made that decision and it's a decision that we have to live with city today city council can make changes to that I mean if you're going to give tax dollars away how about making sure that they donate two dollars for every Dollar in benefits they get back in cash to non-profit organizations within the city in other words we get something for it because what happens is when we give the property tax abatements they'll have it for like 10 years and then 10 years down the road the property that was new is now no longer new and by the time it they get through the the challenges on the values of the property it is basically garbage and we get no money till we lose all the time in this time that we start getting some of our money back I mean recently we gave a company who wanted to come here for by our bilingual our bilingual speakers we paid them for that you shouldn't have to have paid them for that they came here because everybody hears bilingual it's an asset we have so why should we have to give them property tax or sales tax abatements they came here for that let them you know spend their money and the other thing is especially with the hotels you've built a hotel you put your money in you never had any tax abatement sale tax abatement somebody else comes in and they getting all this that's unfair competition in my eyes if it's just the first one the initial one that's fine but you get new ones coming in they're getting these benefits the others who never got the benefits are at a disadvantage so an equal playing field is all I would like to have and I'd like to see less money going out more money coming into our general fund thank you the next speaker is Chris Arellano Chris Arellano his topic is police reform good afternoon Mr Arellano you have three minutes thank you good afternoon everybody um I'm just going to make this quick for everybody hello my name is Chris Ariano and I run a consulting firm here in El Paso the reason for me speaking today is because I want to present an idea to the mayor and the board on a new approach to police reform this approach won't only help the city's backlog prop but it will also give the police department the opportunity to be more in the field and have more time to get getting things done like training and uh continue to serve our community with efficiency being the former Marine and a part of my background working with border patrol and ice has helped me realize the need for a new approach to current issues our city faces now this idea is a bipartisan approach and even though here in El Paso we don't deal with Republicans and Democrats bumping heads as much as in other cities this approach can be implemented all across the state and the nation with El Paso being the leading City in this new approach to police reform now I know I don't have a lot of time so I figured I'd just leave my business card with whoever um and hopefully talk to everybody soon that's it thank you the next speaker thank you sir Municipal Court Judge Steve Fisher topic is traffic deaths and a solution good afternoon sir you have three minutes thanks first um I don't know if anybody ever does this but I want to thank you for that appointment two years ago and I know if people come back and ever thank you guys and I'd like to leave with with some improvements we have a serious problem with traffic accidents and deaths and people driving without a license last year there was 17 250 citations for no tickets even though driver's license even in a covered year with with not enough police not enough uh you know not that many people on the road there's been a hundred thousand accidents in the last five years and last year 2393 were accidents that are considered serious over a thousand dollars with people with no license so I go to this Jail court you know and I've done it about a hundred times because I I'm the go-to guy when someone else can't make it and we get maybe 20 people a day a lot of them have tickets that are years old old well I spoke to you know Chris is one of his groups um it's better almost not to have a license in this time or Insurance because what happens is they get all these tickets they have five or ten thousand dollars or more in fines and court costs and they throw them away and because it costs 100 a day to house them most of the judges just let them go the next morning so they come back and do it again what's worse is if you look at these cases if somebody's not going to pay their their tickets and they know they're going to toss them they also have the worst speeding 90 miles an hour 100 miles an hour I see it every time I go to court um so I and I do have a solution but first one problem is revenue we could be getting revenue from some from these people and we probably throw away what ten thousand dollars a day 363 days a year two is the seriousness of it and people who know they're not going to uh pay their tickets or go to court why shouldn't they just throw them away and then the five years later they'll be caught spend the night I I make good money don't let this job fool you it's for the IRS so they think I'm poor but uh if I had ten thousand dollars worth of tickets I'd turn myself in at one get out at seven and maybe find some new clients while I'm in there um but the other thing is for the police I've talked to a lot of police officers my son-in-law is a detective it's really demoralizing to go and give these tickets when we're understaffed and response time is low low to know that 45.6 percent are not going to appear so it's really a serious problem I've been looking at different ordinances I've vetted this with police with the head of courts in San Antonio Fred Garcia who's also an attorney and with the Texas Justice Association and I I'd like to see an ordinance where most places and this constitutional issues most places after three uh they'll get impounded El pasos thank you Judge Fisher I'd like to present that sometimes thank you sir thanks the final speaker is Jose barriga topic is respect for each other good afternoon Mr barriga you have three minutes hey there good afternoon everybody good afternoon welcome back sir thank you uh we all know that we are currently living in uncertainty two weeks ago we had a lot of heat created this in these Chambers it was really intense however there are so many things that they are there they are affecting not just the the city that's affecting the whole the whole country itself you got banks that they're closing you got you got a you got crimes with the juveniles but here right now elected officials for not to be oppressed physical present here in these Chambers I see it as a disruptive behavior city council gathered here in these Chambers twice a month for approximately six to eight hours per of those days you know in the secretive session if they are not pressing how do I know if somebody else is not there listening on that bison I think to me that's questionable character uh usually you don't see me here he had he had come out here because I see something is irregular or something they bothers me impatient the resistance of work collaborate in collaboration are ways to disrespecting me as well I noticed to me this is the whole society to the whole Community itself there are so many problems soils has increased you you got individuals that crossing the border Legally Legally don't matter what the mayor has seen me that I had been on the streets that I had taken so many photos that you when the president came nobody saw those photos the most disgusting and most disrespectful photos that I ever take that nobody has seen them yet but that's the respect because unfortunately that's a social social developmentation that had to be has to be addressed one way or another but the problem is is that there's a respectful this is respectful that in these Chambers occurs because because they start it resonates they creates an unhealthy and hostile environment because for them to abandon their professions for them to harm the customers with this and this constituents you got individuals that you got you got potential companies that probably trying to come out here but they see that in this do you know that there is a lot of a lot of drama here they're probably going to change their mind you got individuals they're made they're probably going to have medical errors they're going to compromise safety patients safely the other thing that you have you have to consider what happened in Palestine not too long ago you have a train that passed through here and you got all these areas that trying to be developed consider them practice you got a potential chemical chemical Hazard talk to the military you got a good good relationship right now I appreciate it do that thank you thank you sir mayor that concludes call to the public this afternoon thank you and thank you everyone for being here the next 10 o'clock item was item 30. would you like why do we have to take 31st I thought it was before two you missed one before 10 yeah um there were several items at 10 o'clock I know I moved ehm before this item so she's been waiting the uh item 30 is a management update on the office of climate and sustainability All Is Forgiven just because I'm multi-talented sir uh so good afternoon uh mayor and Council Nicole farini climate and sustainability officer I am absolutely Overjoyed to be in front of you today to talk about an issue that has been very important I think not only in our community but I'm going to say to me personally in my entire professional career I don't know that you all know this but for 12 years before I chose to become a public servant I was a practicing architect in this community and an advocate for the environment so it pleases me no end to be standing here in front of you with this title I see the presentation here thank you I.T and I will drive so I want to say first that in November of 2022 El Paso voters approved Proposition C as part of the community progress Bond five million dollars so that this community could move forward towards results driven climate action Proposition C indicated that we were charged with doing two things number one creating El Paso's very first formal climate action plan now I'm going to talk later in this presentation about a variety of plans and work and achievements that have been really pressed forward with great Vigor over the last 20 years all leading up to this formalized plan and I'm going to tell you why El Paso's plan is going to be different from any other plan in the nation the second mandate out of the voter approved bond in November was that we invest in immediate action demonstrating results that do things like increase the shade canopy across this community addressing some of the issues of urban Heat having more open space more discussion about why that open space and green space is important in our community we've spent a lot of time talking about how we can enhance our role as the Sun City and invest in things like renewable energy and energy efficiency but we also need to recognize what it means to be in the desert environment and taking a look at the natural resources that are so incredibly limited things like water so our mandate from the voters in November was to do those things in order to do that we established the office of climate and sustainability formally this office and my role will be the vehicle to execute the will of the voters from November and the vision of a sustainable future for all El Paso and El pasoans so how do we do that there's three objectives here these are the first three objectives that we've established for the office of climate and sustainability number one we have to address the specific impacts of the global climate crisis but not as they relate to any other place on Earth but as they relate to the urban desert environment and the vulnerable populations of the Chihuahuan Desert region you'll notice that I say Chihuahuan Desert region because climate action is not something that respects jurisdictional boundaries uh air is air water is water the decisions that we make as a region as an ecosystem make a difference and so as we embark on climate action planning this office we'll be driving that work as it relates specifically to our environment our second objective will be to ensure that communication is consistent transparent and collaborative with all interested stakeholders that means being inclusive inclusive of all the dissenting voices all of the voices that disagree with each other our role as the city has always been and frankly from coming coming from where I come from in community and human development as the chief resilience officer that's what we do we bring together those differing opinions and we had we advance this community for the better we intend to do that as a core objective of the office resulting in tangible action tangible results things that we can touch taste feel and understand and experience as a community but we will be also looking at appropriate public accountability for those actions and for our progress to address the global climate crisis finally objective three is that we will be pursuing a wide range of both policy vehicles and funding resources this is really really important to understand climate action yes is about investing dollars and yes as a mandate from November we have these five million dollars to begin that work but at the end of the day we really have to be collaborating with other public institutions the community the state the federal government so that we can create policy pursue policy vehicles that can create a sustainability of that work we hope to establish our community as a leader in addressing the global climate crisis while balancing things like affordability addressing Equity social justice and vulnerability for the community of El Paso and that means everyone as I mentioned earlier this work is not just starting we have spent a little bit of time I'm going to go ahead and say the last two decades advancing efforts that address climate change and reduce the city of El pasos that's very important the difference between the organization and the community as a whole we have done a lot of work reducing the city of El Paso's carbon footprint and that again that dates back more than two decades I want to point out something very specific the first thing on this timeline is the Green Building ordinance and I just want to share a personal story with you all when the Green Building ordinance was being drafted a group of community stakeholders Advocates was at the table and they invited a certain uh young redhead to sit at the table and draft that Green Building ordinance my red lines as a community advocate were on that ordinance so proud the day the city council adopted that because that was a true Community effort that was a great beginning for this community and it has produced results over the course of the last 20 years in terms of how our buildings operate how they are more efficient in terms of energy water Etc but that was only the beginning we also produced a livable City sustainability plan which in many ways could be considered El Paso's first pre-climate action plan we then proceeded with a number of other plans like Plano Paso which if you take a look at that really emphasizes all of the actions that we're going to be talking about in the next several years a lot of that is embedded in Plano Paso we need to go back and not forget the Precedence that we've established and the Community Driven effort that was that comprehensive plan followed by the resilience strategy now resilience took a little bit of a broader lens but it was very much based in addressing climate vulnerability but we also reached out to make sure that we were addressing the social issues that really created disparity in who is impacted by climate change there's also a number of things that you see to the right of the slide that have been accomplished and and really in partnership with the community that you may not identify as climate action the regional housing plan is one of those things in 2019 we released El Paso's first Regional Housing plan that was in collaboration with a number of other public entities why was that climate action why Nicole is this on this timeline today the regional housing plan is on that timeline because we started to look at what creating housing affordability and building new affordable housing in the urban core of our community in five priority areas that really reduced the footprint of housing in our community in terms of materials built in terms of reusing existing building stock these are all climate action initiatives we also looked at prioritizing housing developments that are oriented around Transit we call them Transit oriented developments also climate action my point is that there are many things that the city of El Paso does on a regular basis that just because it doesn't have the word climate on it doesn't mean it's not an initiative that advances that work in 2020 as the covid crisis was descending upon all of us and we were all focused on how do we continue during this emergency we continue to look at different things that could Advance social justice and climate action during that time the entire city Workforce well the majority of the city Workforce went hybrid during covid-19 now I'm not going to say we intended that as climate action but that certainly was and we have now learned how to work more remotely how to reduce our footprint how to transport ourselves less often that is climate action also in 2020 at the height of the pandemic we activated volunteers across this entire city and we had volunteers map Urban heat across the community of El Paso we didn't do that alone we did that with Community We Now understand how and where heat is impacting our community more severely and I'll tell you it's primarily in vulnerable populations vulnerable neighborhoods in 2021 release we released the regional renewable energy advisory Council strategic plan again not a plan that was driven by staff rather a plan that we guided the members of the council appointed react to build their own vision of what renewable energy could be and should be and should deliver for this community that was released in 2021 and we have been working on it ever since in Spring of 2021 we reached out and partnered with congresswoman Escobar's climate crisis advisory committee I will say that the city of El Paso and our team took an extremely active role we had Representatives on every single one of the task force work teams for that committee and we're very excited to see the fruit of that labor I believe the congresswoman mentioned it this morning in terms of how she has been advancing climate action at the federal level we have been with her every step of the way we created a municipal energy cross-functional team that brought together stakeholders from across this organization to really brainstorm and create action around how do we use use less energy within our city facilities how do we do better in operating our city facilities that took a whole lot of City staff primarily across the Departments that manage our facilities in Fall of 2021 we did a number of facility energy audits one of the things that folks struggle to understand is that you can't set goals until you know where you are and so doing those facility energy Audits and understanding which facilities were using more energy which facilities were using less where did we need to focus our very limited resources those energy audits occurred in Fall of 2021 and we have taken action in since then in knowing where we should invest in early 2022 we launched El Paso's first solar energy Co-op it was known as The solarize Campaign we did that in partnership with the community the solarized campaign basically brings together and makes more accessible solar energy installation for a group of community members that sign up for that that opt into that program that program is still ongoing Sun Metro received a grant to Electrify our Lyft Vehicles this is one step in a very long journey to take a look at again how do we reduce our footprint how do we invest across the board and not just in our buildings but also in our Fleet another item that you may not immediately identify as climate action but it truly is is the Fantastic work done by our Economic Development Department led by Elizabeth Triggs launching The Innovation Factory not that long ago The Innovation Factory is about advancing new technologies Innovative Technologies that are ready to go renewable energy is a part of that and not just renewable energy but clean energy Clean Water Tech these are the kinds of technologies that we need to invest in so that we can build opportunity for our community while we're addressing climate action in our economic development team has shown leadership in that space and I'm excited to see what comes out of the Innovation Factory and that brings me to where I started the voters in 2022 approved Community progress Bond Proposition C and early this year I believe it was the end of January I can't believe it's already March I was named as the new climate and sustainability officer how are we going to do this this has to be a community climate action plan I mentioned that two things that came out of the bond is that we have to start this work we have to create a plan and we have to demonstrate how it's going to work well the first thing that we need to do is make sure we understand what our community's expectations are in this space this plan is not only climate action but it is an adaptation plan centered on equity and Community vulnerability it is not a mistake that your resilience officer is now working as a climate officer we understand vulnerabilities we understand environmental justice and we understand vulnerability and we will be utilizing that to provide this road map forward towards climate action sustainability for our community we'll be hiring a consultant that will develop this community-wide climate action plan again Community centered it will focus on local climate change impacts we will be developing greenhouse gas inventories we will be providing climate strategies that are Equitable and consider the most vulnerable but we're also going to be looking at Best Practices from across the country so that we can implement the plan in a way that works for us we will be defining strategies for use by city government in in concert with the consultant the plan should be a unique reflection of the community of El Paso so while we will be looking at other communities and those best practices we will also be adapting that to make sure that it makes sense for our community and I'm going to get out there and say that what I have observed in other climate action plans for other cities particularly in Texas is they set very audacious goals and if you read those plans there is no roadmap to achieve those goals we feel that it's important to understand where we are where we're going and frankly how to get there because we are accountable to the public for achieving that what is a climate action plan this is extremely important a climate action plan has four critical components it's a community-wide inventory of emissions where are we today what are what are our missions today what is our carbon footprint today what is our energy use today what is our renewable energy uptake today that's how you set goals it has to be a resilient it has to have a resilience and adaptation Focus meaning that many of the impacts of global climate change are already occurring it is getting hotter water resources are getting scarcer we are experiencing flooding we're not going to change those things overnight so our plan has to include how do we adapt as a community to those things that are already happening we need to prioritize that mitigation and adaptation and take action we also need to be looking at funding mechanisms and implementation pathway that fourth piece is what other climate action plans typically don't have they have the goals they don't have the path we will this is the scope of work that we're going to be looking at putting out to solicit a consultant with an RFP process I'm allowed to talk about that today because we have not started that process this is the beginning we are conducting extensive community outreach so that we can understand what the community's expectations of this plan are so that we can embed that in the requirements for our consultant I would say that today I definitely seek you all's feedback on this scope of work and I want to understand what your expectations are out of the climate action plan we'll be beginning with Community engagement once we bring the Consultants on board we'll be doing a climate perceptions assessment what does what does our community think is important and what are the existing Community assets and that's not just the city of El Paso assets frankly that's going to be the actions the assets the resources from all of our Community Partners and our public Partners school districts County state federal what assets do we have at our disposal to try to address these issues getting out there and laying the groundwork is where you start you then do a local impact assessment which means looking specifically at the urban desert environment vulnerable populations and the potential economic shifts that could occur as a result of investment in climate action this is really important because when you take a scientific approach to work like this you start to understand what all the impacts are across the board both good and bad and then you weigh the your decisions based on that information so until we have that information it really becomes impossible for us to move forward so this is step two with the Consultants three is a baseline data capture where are we today I've said this a number of times already in this presentation where are we today in terms of energy generation Water Resources air quality we have to know where we are to know where we're going we cannot approach this work with a blindfold the next step is to assess climate risks and vulnerabilities this occurs at a number of different scales the neighborhood scale which I think for a lot of el pasoans is the most important this is how does climate action and climate change affect you in your household what can you do and what effects will you be feeling as this continues to occur we will be looking at the commercial sector what are the impacts in the commercial sector again looking at those economic shifts of the actions that we take what does the public sector going how is the public sector going to be affected what kind of policy do we need to advocate for at a variety of levels through all of that we have to prioritize equity so when you establish risk and vulnerability these are the areas that you look at finally say you see not till step five do we actually get to the strategies this is very important and I walk you all through this because you don't start before you have all of the basic information at your disposal this is how science works and this is how we will be approaching this work the climate strategies will be in the areas of adaptation as I mentioned mitigation trying to mitigate the effects of what is already happening we will be looking at Equity as a major driver we need to make sure that whatever actions we put in place whatever initiatives we invest in that those initiatives are resilient to change because if we as we have experienced in the last five or eight years is that we cannot anticipate everything covid-19 everyone so we have to be resilient to changes that we cannot anticipate and ultimately the work and the investment has to be sustainable not from an environmental perspective necessarily that's almost inherent but it has to be sustainable we have to be able to continue to do this over a period of time we have to have the resources to be able to do it and we need to make sure that everyone everyone goes in Eyes Wide Open about what that means finally you get to the implementation plan and this is the piece as I mentioned that's missing in most climate action plans not only will we be asking for long-term implementation plans that take us over the next 10 20 30 40 years but we will be asking this consultant to identify along the way projects that can be executed before 2030 how do we align and amplify projects that we've already identified as part of our 30 by 2030 and how do we leverage Federal support that's on the table right now as the congresswoman mentioned this morning to get work done not 18 months from now but now that will be part of the scope of work for this consultant what is the proposed timeline well community outreach has already begun since the day of my appointment I have been meeting with many different community members of different opinions we have put up several uh tools for folks to engage with one of them is a community Jam board where we're just taking comments about what is on your mind when you're talking about climate action I'm trying to understand where the community is what is some of the initial feedback from that Outreach what I will tell you is why do they think climate action is important well I think all of our community sees that our essential resources are being depleted and they're being impacted by that whether it's cost or environmental conditions whatever it is our community is concerned about our resources and how we're managing them why is the work important or relevant to them because it's about environmental justice equity and ensuring climate justice as we move forward these are the words that are coming out of our community right now and we need to be responsive to that another question we're asking is what are the barriers well there's definitely economic barriers to be able to address this work but there are barriers that we can knock down if we if we approach it together and that's the whole idea of this community outreach you'll notice that we're doing community outreach before we advertise for a consultant so that when the consultant comes on board we're prepared to tell them what our community expects we'll be advertising for that consultant right around May of 2023 we'll be conducting an information session later that month there will be a submission deadline June of 2023 so this summer we will be receiving those proposals from Consultants we'll be evaluating those proposals in July and we will be awarding a contract likely towards the end of July that means that we'll do a planning kickoff later this fall with the first interim report from our consultants in those first steps of the process that I mentioned being due in Fall of 2023 I'm sorry Paul 2023 that's not right spring of 2024 so we will be kicking off in Fall of 2023 my apologies and then coming back to you all very swiftly in Spring to say this is where we are this is what we found these are some of the initial actions we can take the second interim report will come later in 2024 towards the fall and the final report in the call to action we are targeting we would love to see the beginning of Earth month 2025. please notice that a climate action plan does not take a few months a climate action plan takes almost 18 months to complete if we are to do this right if we are to use science and data and we are to include the community it takes 18 months what are our next steps more Outreach and engagement engaging with stakeholders so that we understand the high level vision and mission for the work we will be looking at engaging that Best in Class Consulting team I I will personally be attending a number of Converses in the next month or two before we advertise so that I can make sure that the Best in Class Consultants that have done this globally are aware that we are seeking that service and that they will be competing for that we want to leverage our communities of Excellence Partnerships in addressing this again if we don't have everybody at the table we're not going to be able to execute this work and we have a fantastic foundation that we have built over the course of the last two years with communities of Excellence both of these plans that we'll be working on I say both because it's climate action and disaster mitigation we intend to be refreshed annually and Revisited every three years I want to emphasize this because there's this seems to be a notion that you should redo a plan every year that's actually not the case the work takes longer than that and so yes you should refresh it annually yes we should be accountable to the public and say this is where we are with the goals we set but you don't rewrite it every year you rewrite it every three years and then ultimately in those next steps is to develop those tactical and measurable actions that work in tandem to the strategy those immediate pieces we want to minimize redundancies across departments and and partners want to make sure that we're not working at Cross purpose right that all of our partners are working together and that we're communicating and that we're not functioning in silos that wastes resources and it minimizes impact and that's not what we want to do finally again I can't say it enough we will equitably be supporting the most vulnerable Frontline communities that are often under resourced for these kinds of efforts so you will see us leaning into those communities as a priority this last side is more than a list of accomplishments this last slide speaks to a number of things that have been done in recent memory that had Advanced our climate action work I started it with the timeline I want to close it with this list of results this list of achievements for you more than a list of achievements this slide indicates that climate action and impact does not happen in a single Department so please don't think that the office of climate and sustainability is going to solve the global climate crisis and call it a day that's not how that happens this slide indicates that it takes every single Department in this organization this is not even an exhaustive list this says we need everybody at the table I need 27 departments all pulling in the same direction as Guided by you and the community and with that I'm happy to take any questions again thank you very much for the presentation also what you do I know you wear a lot of hats and and you um you do a great job and I and I appreciate the team you surround yourself with because it's always enjoy working with you and your team so thank you again for that thank you sir thank you uh representative Canales followed by mayor Pro Tem thank you mayor uh Nicole I wanted to say congratulations to you publicly and I already said congratulations to you privately uh but this is an excellent evolution of the work that you've been doing as we've seen on the timeline for for years and years here at the city and thank you also to the city manager and Mr Gonzalez and the leadership team for recognizing the importance of this uh uh to the council previous city council for for placing Proposition C on the on the ballot uh which has made this all possible and and uh you know I um I'm very grateful for the privilege to to be elected to to represent District 8 here on the city council but in my great plan for my life I might have been doing your job and I'm a little bit I'm a little bit jealous that you're the one who gets to approach this now um I think this is a great road map for how we developed this plan uh over the next 18 months and I look forward to you know I'm someone who comes from a background of sustainability Consulting and green sector Consulting and so uh I look forward to helping in whatever way I can and uh maybe involving myself more than you'll want me to be around um I think uh the focus here on community involvement uh is very important this is something you know we're the the funds that are backing up this plan are things uh were voted on by the public right in the end uh these are bond funds that people want accountability for and they they want to be able to be involved in this process and so very glad to see that the Outreach has already started and we'll continue throughout the 18 month 18 month process whatever help that my office can give you in in getting the word out getting folks to participate we'd be happy to offer that because that that portion of this is is so important um again I I think it's uh the first few slides are really important in showing all the work that's already been done um I think uh every once in a while there there are times when I think that uh you know I think back to all the things that have happened and and uh the story isn't always told as cleanly as this as when you can lay it out sequentially and see all the the big impact items that we've gone through in the past so thank you for putting this together I think this will be an excellent tool to show people all the work we've done and an excellent way to Benchmark all the things we're going to do thank you again Nicole I will just tell you uh representative Canalis that we will absolutely be taking you up on your offer to help engage the community because um definitely a lot of vulnerability across the entire city but we definitely see some very specific kinds of vulnerability in District 8 and so we'll we'll absolutely want to work with you to identify what district a constituents also want to see in their neighborhoods thank you very much thank you mayor yeah and I think would representative Canalis said I think it's important to realize that it's uh you know it's a learning experience for us so it's really good to have someone with a great game plan and uh and really a vision so we do thank you for that because it's uh like I said for all of us it's a big learning experience so thank you for the guidance thank you sir uh representative mayor Pro tem followed by representative molinar I'm excited to be starting this conversation so I have some pretty general questions at first um so I'm looking at your timeline and that is for the actual sustainability plan and wanted to understand because we've got a lot of sides a lot of outcomes and a lot of ideas kind of what exactly we're wanting that contract or the the organization to do for us in that plan I'm assuming it's like more of slide four correct so if I go to slide seven seven the scope of work this is really um a high level view of what we're going to be asking those Consultants to do and so if I go to the timeline when we advertise all of that information all of those requests will go into the RFP so we're going to be specifically asking for those deliverables and it's part of why I ask the council today and of course following today give me some feedback here if there are things here that are missing we need to know it right now so that as we engage our Consulting team they are aware of what that looks like and what deliverables we expect from them I mean I don't think there's anything missing but I do think that there's some work that we as a council on some policies that we could be bringing alongside this RFP that I would like to work on you with to get some policies in place prior to this RFP or this contract being awarded okay so I was like we're gonna I was looking at these slides drawing and thought you were not gonna finish the RFP until April 2025 but that's how long the company has to contract but I still think that there's a lot of work that we need to be doing alongside of the work that they're doing um and especially you know their first interim report let's have some policy recommendations from them as well and so um some things that I want to focus on today is just really water policies right um I know you've heard me talk many times about the redlining communities and how they live in concrete jungles what are our street and Landscaping policies for those previously Redline communities and how are we helping their air quality which includes water in the way of like irrigation um you know looking at conservation policies that are similar to Tucson I know this Council well previous Council reverse kind of our water for the city you know we're using more water now than we were in 2017 we need to go back right we need to be looking at the whole city and how we're conserving water and how we're using that with irrigation which you know let's look at things that we're so behind on as a community where it comes to composting I don't have composting right most cities are now turning their composting into free programs because people are taking such advantage of them and we don't even have that but another thing also when it comes to water is working with the water utility on the impact fees I know representative Hernandez brought that up yesterday to John Ballou and I think it's really important that we as a council when we're talking about climate change we're talking about things like water conservation are looking at very large policies and how they're impacting the everyday Citizen and impacting the outcomes of this initiative and so those are some policies that I'd like to look at with you I don't think we need another company to do that but I think it's good to work alongside them with those policies I'm not I don't want to say that I don't agree with this RFP and I think it's bad no I think it's great but I think we on the policy level can be working to coincide with the success of this program and so yeah those are some of the things that I wanted to talk to you when it comes to water conservation you give me a couple days I'll probably have like 20 more but those right now I think water is a huge issue yeah yeah we're excited to run out in the near future and so we need to not be you know watering more than we were before right what are we planting how are we as a city addressing that and and I'm disappointed in myself because I did vote to support letting the city of El Paso water more right that's a mistake I made and I do think we need to be looking at that and it's a larger picture in this community so just a couple of comments on that happy to work on policy happy to hear 20 more ideas happy to hear 200 more ideas keep them coming I think that in terms of the water piece and really this extends to whether it's water air whatever I think that what we have lacked in our community is a really solid scientific understanding of where we are I hear a lot of anecdotes I've been guilty of using them myself on occasion I think that we need to back away from that if we're going to invest in a long-term plan we need to do it based on real data that can be validated and I think I want to be able to come to you and say this is how many days we have left of water I bet you John belou can probably tell us that but I feel like you know those are those that's information we need to have that we don't necessarily have widespread and so that's part of the effort and I'm really pleased to hear you talk through that thank you mayor Pro tem uh representative molinar thank you mayor Nicole thank you very much for your presentations and congratulations on your new position thank you sure you're going to do great work um you started part you started part of the presentation right now when you mentioned the Chihuahuan Desert and I was nodding my head I don't know if you saw that or not because if we live in the desert we are very unique in this aspect here of El Paso of course South of us Chihuahua north of us New Mexico different things like that so we need to identify that it's a very different type of place in the world and we have unique needs we have unique challenges so I'm very grateful that you mentioned that the jewellen desert and so we heard earlier from public comment gentlemen Mr Andrew Torres wake up Sir anyways the Earth is still there I'm just kidding anyways um is there going to be any um collaboration with at the school so this gentleman's a seventh grade science teacher and he's got his students engaged already and that's wonderful news sir just to let you know congratulations to your class and your all your students there your principal and so I'd like to see yeah not only just you know middle school but high school perhaps the University of Texas at El Paso you know just the different universities coming together and say hey what can we do there's a new new things new work new challenges new opportunities that we can probably tackle some of this all together so I'd like to see some something like that as well 100 sir so I just want you to know that um I I politely accost as he left the podium earlier introduced myself and I saw that we're definitely on the same page about exactly you know I feel like one of the things that is really beautiful about the fact that I've been with community and human development for six six years um is that we live in that engagement space we live in that Community dialogue Space Center for civic empowerment we didn't build it by accident and so that's where this work starts is with the youth with our seniors with our Advocates with our business Community with all of those folks that have been part of that communities of Excellence narrative for so long we absolutely are going to reach out and I think I hope that UTEP is is is ready to get their students involved as well because we need that brain power at the table yes and I'm sure they're listening so that's always a good thing I also like to um divert a little bit for example here on the I-10 so towards the end of the day so you have a lot of southbound traffic and so you know there's been on the news recently hey what's happening what's not happening and how it's happening and that impacts us as well so Tech stock is working on that so hopefully we can get something taken care of that and so to help spread your word I also invite you and anyone else from your office to be one of our guest speakers at our community meetings do part of that public engagement and so that we can help spread the word and once again just like representative Canales mentioned is that my office The District 4 office is ready to stand up and help you and all your team so thank you you've got it sir um we got that scheduled which one of the twins is that twin is not here sorry Jack everyone representative definitely something there's ordinances that we need to be looking at and and those um cross collaboration with the Department as well as our open space master plan right that kind of hasn't been updated since 2010 maybe and how we're engaging that Committee in those groups and looking at that yeah I would just say to that that I I already have staff working on kind of an inventory of all of the different plans that have been done in the last 20 years and you'd be surprised how many there are but not just inventory them but sort of looking at you know what can we pull out of that what's already been done what what do we really need to revisit so we'll definitely be doing that as part of the initial work great thank you thank you and thank you again for the presentation and you know I'm looking forward to learning I think this will be a big learning experience but anything we can do let us know thank you very much thank you mayor I made a request hi Mary this is Cassandra Oh go ahead ma'am I'm sorry it's okay um hi thank you for your presentation spirini I'm really excited about the work that we have to do and the approach that the city has taken um certainly I I appreciate the community centered approach um and so you asked for some feedback and so some of the things just listening to this conversation just made me realize that the work is going to go beyond just putting together a plan I do believe the culture of the city um our staff along with all of our ordinances and departments really need to buy in to make this successful for our future and so um things that I wanted to mention because it predates your time in that role in the specific role as the sustainability officer um climate and sustainability officer excuse me is that um it was last year members of council brought forward an Initiative for sustainable sustainable development goals and so I would ask if that can be incorporated if that has not been looked at already um we also in the past have had conversations about the street drainage and the storm water drainage policies design manuals um you know I think it certainly needs to be rethinked uh given the the amount of rain uh that we've had just in the past couple years we had last year that had two 500 year flood rainfalls in my district and it was really uh catastrophic the type of um the type of a work that happened there and then all of the work just was wiped out by rain so I'm very concerned about our policies not being adaptive to The Climate impacts of extreme weather events happening in our city um also looking at um our planning department we have subdivision codes we have you know how our neighborhoods are are designed you know everything within our development uh ordinances I I you know I truly believe needs to be re-looked at I'm not sure that that's part of you know of the you know discussion points of the stakeholders but rather some of the strategies and how we get there um so I do believe that we have tremendous opportunity with changing some of those uh standards that are Equitable but I do have a question related to um the process uh you mentioned you know you're going to have equity in mind it's going to be Community centered and you know quite frankly I have a lot of constituents and a lot of uh folks who've reached out very concerned about this discussion of climate change system sustainability plan what does that mean how can we communicate that in a way that doesn't scare specifically businesses who think that they're going to lose business as a result of any changes from climate action um and you know the unknown and there's every time there's unknowns or uncertainty it comes with a lot of fear yeah and uh so you know I would just ask how would you how could we approach you know our business sector utilities and constituents who have concern about the notion that there's no such thing as climate change although we have seen those impacts in Texas pretty significantly so I love that question and I think that the the simple answer is that you approach the work with no one that is at the table is right or wrong it's not right or wrong black and white that's not how this works and I would go as far as to say you don't even have to um sort of subscribe to what you may have heard about climate change globally you you may not um you know personally subscribe to that but I think what is what we present and how we bring people together is around what is undeniable the fact that you've made investments in your district and um you know those those Investments get washed away because we've seen this level of flooding so we don't necessarily need to talk about this always in the context of the global crisis what we can talk about with people with human beings and with business is what have you seen and I think that again I just go back to the strength of of what community and human development has built and why that supports this work so much is that that's the space we live in we live in this space where we put people in a room that vehemently disagree with each other and we try to find the common goal what are we all after well we're all after a healthy and environmentally Healthy Future for our community now we can disagree about why change is happening we can disagree about a lot of things but I think we need to find those things that we can agree on and move forward I also will go back to what I was mentioning to Mayor proteminello is that we need to have data and we need to have facts I think we are past time and it's irresponsible to utilize anecdotes we really need to have the information so that we are working transparently with folks based on science and so that's the approach we're going to take I don't anticipate it will be an easy Road and it's it's also why we need to make sure right here at the onset that everybody knows what we're doing they know where we're going and that you all are with us and that our community is with us as as we make some pretty tough decisions and that's why it takes as long as it takes but we're we are ready to do that we're anxious to have that Community or excuse me conversation with all sectors of the community you notice our scope of work is written so that we mandate that our Consultants address all of those sectors and the impacts to all of those sectors so that we can have that conversation in as as data driven away as possible so Council I'd just like to add that if you remember in last year's budget which is our current budget the council put dollars aside for climate action and the work to be done there made a lot of sense to hire nicofarini and promote her into this position because of the work she had done with Community Development but also the resiliency work that was done prior to that so I haven't worked with her all these years and the work that she's doing we've really felt like a cross-functional team could really back up the efforts that she's going to be doing and also highlight and underscore all the work that's been done up to this point so I think as you can tell she gave a very comprehensive report of the things that we have done and things we have planned to do so it was a very prudent move to put set those dollars aside in the budget and I think she's going to do an admirable job in her new position she's reporting to Dion Mack through the quality of life portfolio because it makes a lot of sense to continue that quality of life through the through the climate action efforts that we've been undertaking over these last several years and where we're going to be taking it to new levels thank you thank you again thank you and just to finish my my thoughts uh Mrs Fiorini um I do I want to congratulate you you're You're such the perfect fit for this role um and as we're having these conversations about um our sustainability plans I really do believe that we when you're looking at baselines and data is what the cost is today um for not taking any action I I don't believe that we can't afford not to do something we are seeing um dollars being hemorrhaged away and literally washed away where we have had to put significant amount of investment back into our roadways into our drainage systems and so the cost of the taxpayer is clear to me climate action is very real in the city and across the state we are experiencing extreme weather conditions every single day and those impacts are costing taxpayer dollars today and so we need to have that plan our best foot forward and so I'm very proud of the the presentation that you've demonstrated today I think we're on the right track and so I hope you'll consider some of those suggestions I've considered and demonstrated today thank you Mrs verini thank you representative keep them coming Mr Price yes mayor the last item that was moved to the Forefront is item number 24 this is on page number nine item 24 is discussion in action to establish a defined process with formal input from members of the council and the mayor for the selection of both an interim city manager and ultimately a permanent city manager this item was submitted by Representatives Canales Hernandez and Rivera Professor Canales go ahead sir thank you Mary um yeah I think there's a a clear public interest here in making sure that we have a process going forward and when we have time right we we've uh now appointed a very capable interim city manager uh who can begin uh after the the tenure of Mr Gonzalez and and carry us forward into the time that we need uh in order to have a good robust process for hiring a permanent replacement uh for for the city manager position um I I do have a few uh questions uh specifically related to contracts and compensation that I think would be appropriate to ask in executive session since they're a Personnel matter um and and so I'd like to move to retire to Executive session uh that'd be pursuant to section 551.071 consultation with attorney and section 551.074 Personnel matters yes sir can we have a second there's a lotion and a second to return to Executive session all in favor anyone opposed and the city council of city of El Paso May return to Executive session pursuant to section 3.5 a of the El Paso City Charter and the Texas government code chapter 551 sub chapter D to discuss item number 24 discussion in action to establish a defined process with formal input from members of council and the mayor for the selection of both an interim city manager and ultimately a permanent city manager under 551.071 consultation with attorney it is 1 29 pm thank you and I do want to again allow Council to know that your microphones will be up as we get up and when you come back in your microphones will be hot are the cameras left on me are the cameras left on yes sir okay absolutely so they're they're left on all the time they're specifically always watching I know well you know we're gonna have to put a little hat on um listen you just log in do you like no can we you mind if I ask anything oh yeah thank you foreign community Enterprise foreign thank you um okay we talked about it no okay put a Sharpie here media they used to have something you should turn around oh foreign foreign description you're not on that one no yeah thank you it's all flat now except for so obviously not right now but like all the stations because during the basketball yeah um that's like a 20 second delay all right ideas just be a single and everything or was it his like foreign very detailed wallet foreign something happened I don't know that's right that's right foreign is that I think today I always remember fingers oh my God I know thank you foreign okay put it next to you physical marketing I just don't live kids together with you yeah but um foreign thank you um her friends California no because we can bring it so nice as well foreign stole your account s Jerry in the uh okay take care foreign get a reason able you can set the camera in one spot corn The Roots foreign beautiful foreign okay foreign auxiliary I agree what I don't work questionable what are you all right foreign foreign oh otherwise come here foreign resources from everything hahaha foreign thank you later oh my God foreign Robert foreign and that's the next item correct okay we'll go to that because representative Kennedy has to take a call we do need a cafeteria I have there's Pizza in my office if you want some I'd have to bring you down some Miss Turner you want some pizza would you like some pizza okay so we'll do the budget update while he's there yeah Let's Get Down The Monsters out of here man I'm turning everyone's mic off do we have motion to return is there a second there's a motion and a second to come out of executive session all in favor anyone opposed the meeting is back in session at 2 55 pm representative Fierro left the meeting at 222 we're on item number 24. represent Canales thank you mayor um let me I have a motion to make let me start with that and I have a few comments afterwards as well um so first I'd I'd like to direct I'll make a motion I move apologies I move to direct staff to schedule briefings with individual members of the city council with regard to past executive Search solicitation processes in advance of any future decisions of the city council regarding a scope of work for a solicitation for an executive Search firm to do to conduct a national search for the hiring of a permanent city manager um oh sorry I'm sorry I I plan to bring if not an item with this exact wording an item with very similar wording back to the next uh regular city council meeting agenda in two weeks I think that these briefings from staff will be very helpful for us to understand what this process has looked like in the past what these processes look like elsewhere and uh hopefully it can Empower us to uh make sure that we have a very robust process that works for everybody that considers input from ourselves from the public and again it will give us a strong understanding of uh what this process might look like and should look like thank you and I think this is I think I already made that second previously I think it's important that the reason why we want to make sure that all of council has a lot of input and the scope of what it's expected of the next city manager and so it's important that we get the input from the staff on what we did last year what are the responsibilities and then they can bring back recommendations moving forward so this is so Council has the opportunity to to um make a request as how they are prfq will go moving forward and have input us to this council's decision and with that we have a motion and a second in this point in mayor if I may clarify with representative Canalis the scope is the scope for the firm for the recruitment firm correct yes correct thank you Mr Price mayor we do have public comment on this item yeah Lisa Turner yes sir I knew good afternoon mayor council I fully expect you all to do a national search and carry it out like you the last time you did when we hired Mr Gonzalez with a committee and then you know kind of a meet and greet from the public so the public could actually meet who you all are wanting to who you're looking at for city manager okay thank you thank you Miss Turner Miss Prine yes mayor there was a motion made and read into the record by representative Canales second day by mayor Pro Tem anelo on item 24. on that motion call for the vote representative Hernandez yes thank you representative Salcido hi thank you in the voting session the motion passes unanimously representative Fierro not present okay next item is fine I don't know where I know we're everywhere so I think we're on item we can either go back to the consent agenda and pick up the items that were moved from regular oh yeah continue on I think representative Kennedy has stepped out for a minute to make an emergency phone call so we'll wait for him to come back budget update while we're waiting yes ma'am budget update the budget update that's item number 29 yes ma'am and this is a budget update on fixed costs and quality of life how are you sir well sir thank you good afternoon mayor council Robert cortinas City manager's office so this presentation is it brings it up this is a continuation of again our integrated budget process you all again are familiar with this we've talked about this over the last several meetings continue to provide you all information we've covered different topics over the last several weeks some of the things we've talked about for example we've talked about the workforce and the investment that we've made in our city employees not only with the wages but on the benefits and the professional development opportunities and talk about how that makes up almost three quarters of the city's budget we've talked about public safety and investments in police and fire departments not only from the Staffing levels but also the vehicles and equipment that go along with them and then as well as the facilities and the improvements that we're doing with the bond projects this presentation is going to focus on a couple of different things we're going to talk a little bit about some of the fixed costs some of the things that are we're budget drivers in the current year things that we're going to look at as we develop the budget for next year and then also one of the other key budget drivers that we've seen over the last several years and we'll see some of next year is again the completion of some of those quad of Life projects so again this information is important because this is all going to lead up into our five-year Financial forecast and that's an important tool that the budget office works on because this is really going to provide the city council that future outlook of What Not only the revenues are going to look like projected over the next five years but also the projected expenditures primarily those big things that we've talked about with the workforce and the police and fire Investments that are really going to drive the budget over the next five years and so that's important because we want to make sure what we talked a lot about is again long-term Focus long-term sustainability because we want to make sure that the council and the community has all of the information so that the decisions you all are making today are based on solid recommendations that are not only going to benefit this community in the organization for the coming year but again ultimately for the again at long term outlook for the organization and so again as I mentioned we've already covered the investment in the workforce and the public safety so those two topics alone so just on the workforce and Public Safety account for 80 percent of the overall general fund budget so we've already covered a large portion again this presentation is going to focus on the remaining uh 20 and talk about some of those fixed costs and then again some of the things that have driven the budget over the last several years and what will continue to drive the budget in the upcoming year with the opening of some of these quiet up life projects again just another way to look at the budget visually again that large bar on the far left hand that's salaries and benefits for our city employees again that making up large portion of the city's budget almost three quarters of the overall General budget one of the things I'll point out here we had a little bit of discussion this morning in regards to Grant match on looking at those Community projects congresswoman Escobar talked a little bit about also just the amount of federal funding that's available you can see if you scroll all the way over to the third from the right you see Grant match right now on an annual basis we have 1.5 million dollars in the budget for Grant match a large majority of that Grant matches in two departments it's going to be in well three departments police fire and public health the three large departments right now that budget Grant match but one of the things that we need to discuss more about as we developed the budget for next year is that the city needs to be in a position that if grants are available we need to ensure that we have the funding source available to be able to go out and have the match to apply for some of those grants so that's an area that again just building upon the success that we've had you saw in the presentation this morning almost 72 million dollars of grants that we've received if we need if we want to be competitive we need to assure that we have again the match to be able to apply for those grants and be successful I talked a little bit about this already I um just some of the points let's begin again develop the budget for next year and look at that five-year forecast some of things we need to be aware of obviously the impact on revenues again as we deal with the economic situation we're currently experiencing and then also ensuring that we're staying in compliance with Senate Bill 2 the three and a half percent property tax cap which has not impacted us over the last several years but something that we need to be aware of again the potential impact on Revenue we're already continuing to Monitor and keep a close eye on bridge Crossings we've seen a little bit of a decrease in Bridge Crossing Revenue as well as licenses and permits so as we're looking at residential commercial building permits those are key indicators that we could potentially be experiencing a Slowdown in the economy in the El Paso area again we know what's going on nationally but again as we focus on our local economy some of the things that we're kind of keeping an eye on again we know that we're feeling pressure on some of the things we're going to talk about in this presentation not only increased in the cost for our city staff for our city employees but also looking at just the cost of the contracts whether it's labor increases or in the goods and services as well going to continue to have budget pressures we developed a budget for next year over 160 quantity of Life projects and so this is significant as far as what we're providing to the community so whether it's new parks whether it's new Duck fields which we just recently had the grand opening of the new dog park over at the Joey parasavino we just had the diction Skate Park opening up all of these projects with this it's not just the cost to construct a building but you heard the city manager talk about the operating the maintenance costs that go along with it so I'm going to show you a couple of numbers here of what's Driven the budget over the last several years but with all of these amenities to the community comes the cost to maintain and keep these facilities in a high quality conditions so that these can be a huge benefit for a community for for decades to come so this is significant 160 over 160 quad of Life projects over the last several years and so with that again comes to Staffing The Contract Services the utilities all of the equipment some of these projects require some capital investment whether it's for example taking on more Park acreage we need to buy the ensure that we have the vehicles to be able to maintain these new parks and amenities and so we've been building this into the budget over the last several years and this is where we are at currently in the current budget and so you can see the cost this is cumulative continue to increase as we add these operating dollars into the city budget and so for the current year we're at 20 million dollars of cost that we've included as far as operating costs so the day-to-day staff Material supplies everything that it takes again to maintain all of the facilities and the new investments in the community and then Robert I'd just like to add some of the council members might remember this is no the mayor does uh when they were he was here during his first term when we talk about this in the 2012 capital projects uh budget that was approved by the voters it did not include o m in terms of the discussion points and that was one of the first things we told Council that the operations and maintenance was going to be an impact to the budget we also talked to them about four or five projects that were not budgeted correctly and so those were a couple of things that were brought to the council's attention as well as when we've done projects since then like the 2019 bond package we made a significant effort to ensure that people knew there was going to be an operations and maintenance cost and then when we just did the the most recent Bond there was only just one a couple of items that was going to have an o m cost to it but we made it very clear about what it was going to cost with respect to the streets and then that one Parks project and then the the shelter coverage so I just wanted to make that one point thank you Robert yeah it's an excellent point sir so absolutely when we did the 2019 Public Safety Bond and actually in the presentation that Ms Cody did a couple of weeks ago when we were talking about police and fire she actually had the slides in there that showed the projected operating cost for the new facilities and the Staffing that was going to be required for both police and fire departments and again that information will be updated and refreshed as we bring the five-year forecast to council here in the near future so a list of some of the upcoming bomb projects that we have that will be opening up within the next year or so and so these are things that you're going to hear discussion about as we develop the budget for next year some of these projects will obviously require operating costs that go on whether it's at the zoo some of the new parks and some of the other new amenities for example the Mexican American Cultural Center we had began building some of the operating costs down for some of the Staffing executive level Staffing but there'll be some additional operating dollars that'll need to be added into the budget for this coming year so as we move on to looking at the the fixed costs and so these are the things that we did this use this slide a few years ago really breaking down the budget to not only for the again the council but for the community's benefit because we hear a lot about well just reduce the budget just cut the budget but no recommendations or when you do community meetings and so a part of this process as well and why this budget process works so well as not only does it provide the information for the council but it's very useful for the community as well so when the city manager myself Miss Cody go out and do community meetings and do presentations it's very educational and very enlightening when you share this type of information people understand and have a really good idea oh okay wow I didn't know that that makes sense now I understand the challenges that you're facing so on that left-hand side there in the box there these are just some examples of our fixed costs that we have in the budget on annual basis so the pie you see there the public safety again almost 60 percent the remaining salary benefits of all of our Workforce that's the 80 so what's in that other 20 so these are some examples on the left hand side utilities this is the electricity that it is required to operate on our city facilities this is the street lights which is a large obviously consumer of electricity all of the water that goes along with our parks and our Sports Fields the gas that goes along with some of our facilities over 18 million dollars in the current year there's budgeted for those utilities as the utilities whether it's to pass electric or pass the water as they continue to increase their rates the city is not immune from those rate increases and so in the current budget with what you all adopted last year we had about a 500 000 increase 573 000 is actually increasing utility so it was one of the cost drivers that we saw Appraisal Services you see almost five million dollars of a cost there that's the Central Appraisal District which does the appraisal services for not only the city but they do it for all of the tax and entities in the area so Appraisal Services is 4.9 million that was a 425 000 increase from the prior year hey so there were several of these items that we saw pretty significant increase is the security and janitorial contracts which we've talked a little bit about over the last few Council meetings as well over a 600 000 increase in those contracts and again being driven by the increase in those labor costs there are obviously labor intensive and so we've seen increases in those as well the animal shelter 4.2 million dollars there something that is to transfer from the general fund something that again we need to continue to explore and look at if we need to increase that transfer to have the general fund help subsidize some of the Animal Service improvements that are going on currently and so you see there are just in these few items 72 million just a few of the examples of what makes up that remaining again small portion of the overall operating budget after you look at what's left over after you take care of please and say uh police and fire and our city employees and I know we've heard a lot of feedback from some parts of the community with regard to the shelter that was a lot less in 2014 for the shelter we were actually at 20 23 no kill and now we're at 74 which I know should be still better before covet we're in the high 80s so there's been significant movement there and obviously we're having some challenges right now but that's a significant amount of money that we're putting in there that we weren't putting in there before so I did want to make that that point so the next couple of slides just provide a look at again the utilities that I mentioned and so this is a comparison of just the first five months of this current fiscal year compared to the five months in the prior years you see we're about four hundred thousand dollars higher than we were at this time last year and so this is looking at again electricity water and natural gas as well and so we knew that was going to Trend upwards just based on the rates of what the utilities had and so again we know a pestle water already has planned increases for next year as well and so we know that the city will continue to see increases in our utility costs next year again this is just showing a year-over-year comparison on utilities you see in the last couple years again as the utilities are raising their rates again the city is not even made from those increases and we need to build those into the budget to be able to operate again whether it's electricity water or gas that goes along with all of our city facilities and all of our parks and so as we look to again the Aging facilities something that the city manager has been asking Ellen to ensure that we have that refreshed is looking at again all of our city facilities we do know that we have an aging inventory of City facilities we do have the public safety bomb which is looking to renovate and only add new but also renovate a lot of those stations but we do know that we still have a huge need the city council has been very proactive of adding those dollars into the budget to be able to do a lot of these improvements using annual dollars in the budget so for example the city council last summer approved the three million dollars so a million dollars for vehicles a million dollars for the parks amenities and then a million dollars for facilities to be able to begin addressing some of those issues however we know that again just based on the need that that's not near enough but that's three million dollars in the budget now that part of this current year had not been in the budget to be able to do some of those things so again being very very proactive and financially responsible in the way we're doing a lot of these adjustments and not again having to go out and finance or utilize debt to do some of these improvements or purchases but because we've had like in this particular slide you have to remember that Police and Fire Equipment replacement wasn't being replaced on an annual basis and when it was being replaced it was with Bond packages that were more costly and and not as effective we also had to implement the 2015 300 plan for 300 net additional officers and then when we looked at the fact that the east side is growing so fast and we did the East Side Regional Command Center that number is going to go up higher that that 300 net amount of officers so I wanted to bring that up and then also the commitment to streets and how much we're setting aside for that so facilities is also on that list but it's Fourth on that list and we've briefed that message several times just something again to consider because in the future that's something that also needs the attention as well as the fleet replacement in all other departments because we've placed a priority to police fire streets rightfully so but we have those other two areas that need attention as well that might be something that Council needs to consider in the future and then I've talked a little bit about these again some of the things that are going to impact the budget for next year again working with our it Department we did see a pretty large increase about three million dollars in the current year budget of what was adopted by the city council and our I.T contracts and then my second to last slide here so this slide is important because we hear a lot about again on the right hand side they're not impacting city services that we're providing but it's actually more than that because as I mentioned earlier in the presentation we're actually expanding services whether it's through the quality of life with all of the new amenities or whether it's due Public Safety of adding the new fire station which is going to come online here in the near future the new East Side Regional command which is going to come online in the near future it's not only maintaining existing services but it's actually expanding services of what the voters approved while at the same time again minimizing the impact on our taxpayers and this Council has been very very proactive in minimizing the impact on our taxpayers whether it's increasing the homestead exemption for our seniors and disabled whether it's all of the work that legal and the senior team did in keeping the utility rates low um not passing those on to the ratepayers the economic development efforts and you know we had some comments in during public comment but those Economic Development incentives not only bring in new jobs not only bring in higher paying jobs really benefits all of the other taxing entities who don't participate on those Economic Development deals which again brings in new property tax revenue to the community which helps again the other 70 percent of those tax bills that are taxpayers are paying we also again have our lean Six Sigma which we talk a lot about because that helps us become more efficient helps us reduce our operating costs I talked a little bit about the grants and how important that's become and leveraging the grants whether it's federal state we just had recently the safer Grant which is awarded to the fire department over four million dollars which is going to help fund some of the staff being required for the fire department so again being very proactive about how we go out and utilize all these different Avenues to be able to minimize the impact on our taxpayers and then one of the other Keys is also the refinancing on the debt and so again being very proactive and strategic about how we do that again to be able to do all of the projects but in a very fiscally responsible manner with all the refinancing savings we've been able to generate again to be able to keep that tax tax rate particularly on the debt side down and so we do have speaking of that of refinancing the debt we do have an item that will be coming to the council probably within the next month or so mayor you'd be familiar with this it's related to the ballpark when that deal was originally financed and structured they had that 17 million dollar Bloom payment in 2023 we did refinance a large chunk of that in 2016. but we have a 5 million dollar outstanding payment which is a bloom payment that's scheduled for August of 2023 and so we're going to be doing some restructuring on that to bring that cost down so that we don't have a large one-time 5 million dollar payment for the ballpark so again doing everything that we can to be proactive and how we're managing not only the operating side but the debt side as well and then my last way here is just a reminder again on the calendar of where we're at all of the information that you've heard focusing on really the cost drivers is what we've been talking a lot about over the last several meetings is Public Safety our Workforce remaining part of life projects and then some of those fixed costs that will continue to have an impact will lead up into the five-year forecast again to provide a good outlook on where we stand with this upcoming year but again really focusing on the long-term sustainability of the organization financially and operationally so that's important as a council begins to hear more detailed information over the next over months related to the budget and you all eventually make the decision in August when you all adopt the budget for the fiscal year 2024. um just just I just want to reiterate what he said about the ballpark and the balloon payment on that that was something I know the mayor is aware of and I know some of the council members who are new even the ones that aren't new may not be aware of the fact that when that was put in place that that that bonding package we've refinanced it a few times and we've been able to save about 21 million dollars we knew that this balloon payment would be coming up in August 23 so that's going to have to be restructured want to make sure you you know that and hear that several times so that's something we've been working on and something of which we'll we'll stay on top of so that again we can restructure that so that that doesn't that can be blended into the budget thank you yes thank you Mr cortinas thank you Ms Prime we'll go to 20 and then 21. yes mayor item number 20 is discussion in action on a resolution that declares the expenditure of District 8 discretionary funds in an amount not to exceed thirty five hundred dollars to fund registration costs for the El Paso neighborhoods USA conference for presidents of 17 recognized neighborhood associations serves a municipal purpose this is representative canales's item you have a motion no proof motion to approve second there is a motion made by representative Canales seconded by representative Molina to approve item number 20. on that motion call for the vote and I was notified that Representatives Hernandez and Salcido have left the meeting in the voting session the motion passes unanimously with Representatives Kennedy Hernandez Salcido Fiero not present I forgot mayor you said item 20 item 21 is discussion in action on a resolution that the city of El Paso sets a goal to reach a minimum hourly wage of 15 for city of El Paso employees by the end of FY 2026 and that the city of El Paso will monitor progress towards this goal and consider future increases increases to ensure that city employees are able to earn a wage that allows them to support themselves and their families this is representative analysis item and I think we have called it a public on this item Miss Turner we'll go ahead and take you first so I don't forget you good afternoon Maryland Council I just would like to know what parallel universe you were in that you would actually think 15 an hour is going to pay and support somebody at fifteen dollars an hour today you're talking about that paycheck minus taxes not taking anything else out you're talking about it being a a one-bedroom apartment will take about 40 percent of that if not a little bit more then you have to throw in utilities and food and transportation clothing all the other things of life it don't float the boat it makes no sense and then turn around and tell me we're going to do this in 2026 you can't do it today on fifteen dollars an hour Miss Turner you might want to ask what 725 an hour Pace takes care of even less well that's right that's our state minimum wage and I know that Michigan's always and this team have worked really really hard right now currently we have it at 12.11 cents and he has proposed to continue to escalate move it forward so it's really important to see that it's a real joke to see that our state is at 7.25 an hour and really believes that somebody would be able to support themselves or their family so all I know is you have children going hungry in this city and you have let's just say it's a single mother working two and three jobs trying to raise a child and it doesn't have enough money just to cover the basic living expenses and if they happen to work for the city it's it's a black eye on you because nobody working for 15 an hour today can make it it's just that simple if you're a single mother and you've got one child you're not going to make it on 15 an hour and that's in 2026 you can't do that today in 2023 I beg you to reconsider what you're doing and see if you can't get it higher thank you thank you Miss Turner um we also received a statement yes for the record from Melissa harcrow and it reads good afternoon please read into the record if I'm not online good afternoon mayor and Council my name is Melissa harcrow and as the chair of the Veterans Affairs advisory committee I express my support for this item and urge to support as well not only does it increase wage align with Goal one to build a strong and sustainable economy but also goals for innate enhance quality of life and create a healthy and sustainable Community respectively low wages have been noted as a key area for improvement in the 2022 Community needs assessment conducted by community and human development additionally the combined arms veterans needs Assessments in 2020 identifying almost 40 percent of veterans think a wage of between fifteen dollars and eighteen dollars is a livable wage and many expressed a desire to leave the community in search of higher wages with that working towards a 15 an hour wage will attract and retain veterans spouses and families it will also continue to guide the city to its goal of having at least 15 percent of its employees as veterans by 2025 of which we are currently standing at 12 percent finally a wage increase may help veterans and families from being a risk of homeless and other insecurities thank you again for your time and thank you for your consideration thank you um um I want to thank Miss Turner for her comments I think everything she said is 100 correct um I do want to point out however that we are currently at the city at 12 an hour um this action today would not discourage counsel for moving above the 15 an hour at any point um but there's been a lot of conversation about can we get there should we get there how do we get there and this at least sets a path for us moving into the budget cycle to say okay we need in and so let me actually back up a little bit I believe we put about six million dollars in the last budget to get us 212. right we were at 10 before that and so this at least puts us on a path through that budget cycle to get us there again does not discourage this Council future councils during any future budget to go above that at any point but I think it's important that we still at least set those those goals to get to 15 an hour would I love to see it by 2025 love to see it Robert love to make it happen um but I know that the the request is to action to put Council till 2026. um is that what the agenda item is yes ma'am okay I'm like I'm saying this I wanted to make sure I'm correct and so I think today this is an important step but it doesn't mean we're not going to keep trying to go above and beyond Miss Turner I promise you that and I think Mr cortinas is there and that's a very good point and I think and I believe that it's an important point and so we don't speak with City matter you could speak for himself but I believe that we've shown we've brought forth recommended budgets over the last eight years that it included some form of an increase for our employees we've gotten really aggressive as far as the increases over the last couple of years the council has been very supportive of his recommendation has improved those increases but it needs to be done in a fiscally responsible manner because as I just showed on that last slide you have competing interests where we have not only maintaining current service we have expanding services and we're also working to minimize the impact on our taxpayers so it's a balancing act not only are we dealing with that one of the key points and I had in the presentation I went pretty quickly but I want to make it now is Senate Bill 2 the three and a half percent property tax cap that we currently have to face that's the state law that we have to be in compliance with we can't adopt a tax rate with that over that three and a half percent if we do the city council does then it has to go to the voters and the voters have to approve it so that's that's unfortunately a challenge that we're faced with now this Council has been very supportive of I guess I mentioned what we've been doing with the employees we'll continue to bring forth again those recommendations on a year by year basis depending upon the available Revenue but the Senate Bill 2 is an important new factor that we're having to work with as we develop the budgets and bring forth to City management proposed budget so the only thing I would add to that is part of our Economic Development strategy has been to increase wages and the community's wages have increased by almost 20 percent over the last several years so that's due to the council's approval of those policies and those those budgets that we put in place for those Economic Development agreements but in addition to that you know we've we have raised a minimum wage multiple times over the last several years we do have plans to do it in the next fiscal year as well that's part of the discussions that I've had with our team but it'll it'll it'll be determined by what you finally or ultimately vote on in August thank you Mr cortinas and with the 15 an hour and being a team member of the city of El Paso there's benefits what are some of the benefits that are received you know not only an hourly wage but also that city employees do benefit from that's a great question so you all may recall presentation that we did a few weeks ago about six weeks ago we're going to be very competitive on the actual salary but we've implemented new incentives so for example we have our incentive for our CDL position so our bus drivers our sanitation drivers provide an additional incentive of up to twenty four hundred dollars a year it's ninety dollars a paycheck we implemented a new with this current budget new incentives for Animal Service employees and for employees at the zoo that require certain immunizations to work with animals again some of the new incentives we have are you matter recognition program we have tuition assistance we have not raised the health care rates for employees in the last four years oh gosh I don't want to leave anything out but I don't have the pool but there's a long list of different shape It Up program the shape it up 150 dollars a year and so there's a lot of different incentives that from the sign on the senate for a thousand dollars so a lot of different areas where the city is really focusing on obviously attracting and keeping our existence out but then also it's taking it to the next level of encouraging them to take care of the health encouraging them to go back to school to get their education because that helps them be prepared to promote in advance through the organization and again it's all part of that succession implementation that the city manager likes to refer to so that we have leaders that are ready to step up as people move on throughout the organization and so and then we also put a program in place it was an employee committee that put it together and that's in addition to the across the board pay increases they also ask for a merit increase on top of that we put that program in place as well again listening to our employees bless you and then what we uh have been doing in addition to that is employee surveys as well as Town Hall meetings with employees and we get their feedback and that's another source of data points that we receive and enact upon that and then go back and report that out to the employees as well and we'll include all that information when we do the fire forecast showing all the different incentives that we provide as an organization and also the the benefits that we provide to our city employees thank you Professor Canales thank you again for putting the item on the agenda thank you mayor um I'm going to get a reputation for doing this but I I want to read the resolution so that we have the full text so I'm going to read them I'm going to read the text the resolution this one's not as long as last time so where resolution whereas the city of El Paso recognizes the importance of providing city employees with a livable wage that allows them to support themselves and their families and whereas the MIT living wage calculator suggests that a single adult in El Paso in 2023 would need to earn at least 14.67 cents per hour to cover basic expenses and whereas the current minimum hourly wage for city of El Paso employees is twelve dollars and eleven cents which is below a true living wage in El Paso and whereas increasing the minimum hourly wage for city of El Paso employees can provide benefits such as increased purchasing power causing more dollars to circulate in the local economy reduced poverty and inequality and improved employee morale and productivity and whereas the city of El Paso has already taken steps to increase the minimum hourly wage for city of El Paso employees including a total increase of one dollar per hour approximately nine percent during fiscal year 2023 now therefore be it resolved by the city council of the city of El Paso that the city of El Paso sets a goal to reach a minimum hourly wage of fifteen dollars for city of El Paso employees by the end of fiscal year 2026 be it further resolved that the city of El Paso will monitor progress towards this goal and consider future increases to ensure that city employees are able to earn a wage that allows them to support themselves and their families so just Ms Turner addressing your comment the Monitor and and uh consider future increases it shows this is an absolute minimum we want to commit the city to meeting at least this minimum goal without this there is no goal for continued increases and so we want this to be a minimum goal um uh this would necessitate a one dollar a year increase in today dollars that's 9.8 million dollars per year each 50 Cent increment that we made in fiscal year 2023 cost us 4.9 million dollars um and so uh we're looking I mean to get to 15 it's it's in the ballpark of a 25 million dollar expense for the city um again I think if we can do it faster that'd be great uh but phasing in 25 million dollars into our budget over three years is a reasonable minimum goal in my opinion um to to reach what I think is is what we should be paying our employees um again that's both because it's the right thing to do but also for the benefits for the organization I mean this will hopefully improve employee morale and lead to not even higher quality of service that that our employees are giving the public it'll help us with retention it'll help us with recruitment you know we we're carrying uh vacancies still especially in certain quality of life areas that that we've had vacant positions since the pandemic um that uh not for want of trying you know we we have those positions advertised and and I think a higher wage um will help us to attract employees that that want to work in those positions and so to me this is a very reasonable goal for us to reach uh by the end of fiscal year 26. to get to 15 and and again uh this is something we can we can continue to monitor uh you know we're talking today dollars that the uh uh again MIT has developed a tool that that works City by City And and provides what it thinks is the uh the the minimum livable wage in 2023 for El Paso that is 14.67 as it says in the resolution um very likely that by 2026 that number will be higher and hopefully the council can continue to evaluate this and look to adjust upward as we need to thanks mayor thank you sir representative Kennedy followed by represent Molina I think that the goal of of getting to a higher wage rate is a good goal but I would also say when we start looking at the compensation package for the employees some of the things that we were talking about need to be looked at also so the question the question would then be do you raise the pay to the detriment of the benefits that they're getting because are you then you know moving them from one line item to another I would also caution I think it's a great goal and I agree with the goal I do you pay more money you've got easier for for the city to hire people my concern is on the fiscal end we do have a new Police contract that will be coming in very soon and is also at a critical weight so I would say I agree with the goal I would just say when you're looking at the entire package to make sure that we look at the entire package of compensation and benefits for the individuals and not just the sheer wage rate because you could say I'm going to pay them more and make them pay fully for their health insurance as a way to to shift that that burden and I have they really won anything in the meantime so I think that that's a cautionary Tale excellent point that representing it's one of the things I didn't mention one of the things that we we point out but we probably need to draw more attention to when we do these presentations we do it when we go out and do recruiting recruitments and job fairs the city's pension so employees can plays are interested but pension is a very very attractive tool to be able to get people to come work for the city the employee contributes nine percent they the city employer contributes over 14 percent pretty significant investment if you're looking to make a career out of coming to work for the city and that's again why we highly encourage individuals that work with the city currently to go back to school get their education so they're prepared and they're able to advance throughout the organization and make it a career you don't have to be stuck in one job you can be able to advance and promote whether working in different departments or higher levels so the pension is a very very attractive tool a lot of people don't know about it they've maybe not be familiar with how it works but it is a very very attractive tool for a lot of city employees and that's one of the reasons why we have a lot of employees that have 15 20 25 years of service because again that's something that not a lot of Corporations offer anymore a lot of companies have started to do away with pensions or any form of retirement I mean even trying to get decent HealthCare coverage nowadays is a challenge from some private employers so point point taken on as far as incentives thank you representative thank you mayor um representative Canales thank you very much for bringing this item onto the Forefront appreciate that very much um what I would like to say is the word monitor gonna also mean can mean different things you know uh and of course who can predict the future what's going to happen or not going to happen or how it's going to happen but it doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to be in an increase there could always be a decrease so Mr gardena's if you don't mind coming back up front so you mentioned the pension that uh anything you know pensions are volatile anything can happen and so we need to be careful with that as well representative Kennedy mentioned a collective bargain agreement right now with the Police Association and members of the El Paso Police Department so I know where talking about that I know Mr Gonzalez you and I had a conversation about that and I'm not here to disclose anything or want to not ask you to right but we're pretty close to that I believe yes so the negotiations have been completed we spent all of February doing it our last meeting was March 3rd and it's up for a vote right now with the membership the union membership and so that should be coming back to the council at the next council meeting okay well thank you for that by the way yes sir yes sir and and if you're alluding to the fact that it's gonna I mean that's what uh representative Kennedy was saying as well it is it is going to cost more uh cost us uh but it's going to help with attrition it's going to also help with recruitment um and and we obviously need help with the attrition rate that's been going up and we needed to be very competitive in this agreement that we negotiated is very competitive and definitely I I haven't been a law enforcement I agree with you and what you hear from the people a lot in the streets and things like that what's happening in in the community not just the streets so I am supportive of this item but I think we just need to be careful on moving forward how much more what we can do because there's always going to be challenges and so um I will be supporting this just to let you know representative Canales but monitor can mean many things to different people and always the makeup of this board or this Council can change at any time in the future so we need to be cognizant of that as well we do need a second second thank you go ahead sir um yeah I I understand representative representative Kennedy's point but I will say uh this this item sets a goal right this doesn't adopt an increase that would have to happen year to year through the budget process and uh if a representative wanted to put out the idea that they wanted to uh decrease the benefits for city employees they could do that through the budget process in my opinion to their own detriment uh in in in their political future and so this this is uh again just setting a goal uh I think it's something that we should look to incorporate if we adopt it today as a formal goal of the city council I think it's something we need to look to incorporate in our strategic planning going forward um and and make sure that this is something that that we're realistically aiming for and that continued increases are something that are at the Forefront of our minds as we move into a next phase of the city's strategic plan as well um well I was just going to just say that representative Canales we would never uh at least we our position and what we've been recommending we would not take money from the benefits in order to make up on another side of of payment to the employees certainly that hasn't been what we've heard from them and I don't know that that's what was inferred by the representative I think it was just talking about how that could be an option but I will just tell you that's something we wouldn't recommend and I don't think the staff would recommend that going forward either so I don't think that's a concern that you should have right and again I think in setting this goal we're saying essentially that um we look to as if as we uh realize any potential future Revenue growth that this becomes one of the priorities for for where that Revenue growth uh will go to fund um that that's the intention of this item again it deliberately doesn't talk about benefits or anything else because I think increases in wages uh should be a priority for for future Revenue growth to fund right right and the reason why we do the budget updates all the time I know sometimes it gets tedious but we do that during the budget or during the calendar year and the fiscal year throughout the year so that Council has all that information and they're very familiar with it so when they get into the budget cycle we don't we don't have to go into those levels of details because it's about the priorities mentioned before about Police and Fire Equipment replacement how that wasn't being done annually streets is another example of that the 300 plan for the police officers the facilities you're going to get a presentation and a subsequent council meeting about the needs of the facilities and obviously the pay not only for police and fire but also all our employees and we've been aggressive with that in the last several years we've also been aggressive with that with economic development policies that the council has supported and passed in order to increase wages in the community by almost 20 percent in the last several years so you're right this has been a priority for the council it is a priority for for this Council as well and that is something that we'll be looking at and we appreciate the challenge then one final comment too is that the other thing that I deliberately didn't discuss in this resolution is the compression and how uh you know I guess the the goal here uh involves uh lifting up the bottom so to speak uh but not necessarily uh that the same increase of uh Cascades up through the entire organization I I want to leave that entirely up to staff yeah it happens of what makes the most sense and how we structure that yeah of course continued increases yeah uh throughout the entirety of of the city's Workforce are important um but I think that uh you know again this focuses purely on the on the minimum wage and and looking at how we can uh lift lift up the bottom earners in the city right but you're exactly right about the compression which means that if you if you lift the bottom and it gets up closer to someone who's supervising them then the supervisor asks why I'm only making 30 cents more per hour than you need these five people I'm supervising so compression is a real necessity in looking at the budget overall when you look at these kinds of pay increases I had that discussion with the mayor and some other council members who asked me about this item and so yes that to your point that's a very real issue and one in which you can't ignore when you make these adjustments so when we have been making these adjustments to the minimum wage we also have been doing those adjustments upward as well and there's some areas there might be some Pockets that we still need to get to and that's the reason why we've been so aggressive with pay across the board and again I deliberately leave that that compression question to experts in the Office of Management budget and and the rest of City staff again I think this goal I just wanted it to pertain very specifically to yes sir to the minimum wage understood but just for the council's edification that ripple effect or that compression is something that's built into the budget we can't ignore it because then we have other issues we have other problems with those other layers of positions and we've seen that already and we see people jumping into other departments and so that's something that has to be considered as well and we would consider that when we come back with any additional recommendations right and that would be considered to uh year by year in the in the budget conversation yes sir that's correct all right thank you mayor thank you sir um representative um Kennedy followed by mayor protem uh I was going to say I wasn't suggesting that they have ever moved benefits over but I do think when we look at the compensation for people we need to look at it holistically where there have been raises many times in many businesses with the amount that they're paying for their health insurance and retirement and things like that and I know the city has been very sensitive to try and hold the line on that so I just think that we need to do that and I was just going to say you said to the detriment of our political Futures you're presuming we all want a political future with regard to uh I'm glad you you uh noted that with regard to the Health Care increases because in the past I know one of the complaints from the employees in the town halls was that whenever they got increases like in 20 I think 2009 because they had like five years with no pay increases but that yet they had increases to the health care so they actually got pay decreases for almost like five years in a row so that's the reason why we uh Robert mentioned that because we're very sensitive to that so the last four years we've just paid for it and typically when you have paying excuse me Health Care increases in the organization in any organization the size of this one half of it the city pays or the organization pays the other half the employee pays and we have not passed that along to the employee in the last four years so when they see an increase it's actually been a true increase just want to make that note thank you mayor Pro Tim thank you mayor yeah I just wanted to reiterate so this isn't again anything new uh the council this was an item that was put up about six months ago um the council directed staff to do a study to see what the wages were and where we needed to be and this is just the next step but there are more steps to follow this we also need to be looking at those we do contracts with and what their minimum wage is we do need to be looking at our benefits package the reality is we are not come full circle out of the pandemic we still have facilities that are closed and that's due to staffing issues right this is a very much needed action to get us to where we need to be previous to the pandemic is it the best way to go I mean yeah I wish we could be a little bit more aggressive but it's extremely important that this council is investing in its Workforce and its future right these should be our biggest goals moving towards the budget is the investment in our community to getting us back to where we were if not better and so really happy to have my name on this item it's something we've been talking about for a very long time and I'm just really excited for this vote so thank you everybody who worked on it thank you and the last thing I do want to say I think some important that the city manager talked about that the police contract is has been done and because I was a big concern of a lot of people that were in the middle of negotiations with the police that contract has been done and it's in the hands of the police officers and it's been taken for a vote and will be brought back as Michigan's always stated for Council approval in the next city council meeting hopefully sure I think that's something I should caveat that depending on how they vote that's what I said hopefully yes sir I didn't caveat that so I'm glad you mentioned that that's right I did but I know that you all worked really hard and I know that there that the union was pleased with the negotiations of your team so thank you again for that uh and with that Miss Prine we have a motion and a second I heard the second but I didn't hear it the motion was made by representative Canales seconded by mayor Pro Tem anello and also co-sponsored by mayor Pro temanello to approve item number 21. on that motion call for the vote in the voting session and the motion passes unanimously thank you for that thank you Council represent Canales and mayor Pro tem thank you for bringing that item I I thought it means a lot I know to our team members in the city and uh with that I think we're getting ready for a call to the public right no sir if we may return to the to the items that were moved from consent to regular we have three items um item number three is a resolution authorizing the city manager to sign an agreement to the chapter 380 economic development program agreement between the city of El Paso and the gate company Texas LLC for the renovation of a mixed-use building located at 201 e San Antonio Avenue Kennedy yeah I brought this up my concern was um we went from a five-year retail sales and use rebate scheduled to a 15-year property tax Schedule absolutely um so Karina brescala with economic and International Development and so this original agreement was approved November 8th of 2022 as we transitioned the agreement over into our compliance section we were notified of that issue with exhibit D um referencing the sales tax use and rebate schedule that does not reflect the text of the language of the agreement which is a property tax rebate so what we're doing is aligning the language that's written with the referenced exhibit so it does not make a material change to the agreement the property tax is what was presented what was adopted by city council and executed it's just to avoid any confusion okay I have no problem I just want to make sure absolutely okay is there a motion yeah I'll move to approve great yes there was a motion made by representative Kennedy seconded by representative Molina to approve item three on that motion call for the vote in the voting session and the motion passes unanimously Representatives Hernandez Salcido Fiero not present the next item that was moved to regular is item four this is a resolution authorizing the city manager to sign an amendment to the chapter 380 economic development program agreement between the city of El Paso and 309 Mills LLC to support an infill renovation project for a building commonly known as DeSoto located at 309 East Mills Avenue representative Kennedy I'm back um okay on on this one my concern was I realized that the investment went from a million two to two point four on their part however Bob obviously this was the building that burnt and I'm wondering if the other million two came out of an insurance so there's actually no additional funding for it we're just sacrificing more tax dollars for it great question Karina presgola again economic and International Development so with this one as you noted the DeSoto Hotel a initial agreement approved in December of 2021 just a few months later in February of 2022 they're the building did catch on fire and sustain some pretty severe fire damage and then we've got a breakdown let me click through the slides here so I can show you so as you noted the minimum investment has doubled here you go project cost comparison so the city is increasing our incentive to 100 for 15 years the county will be participating it has not gone to Commissioner's Court but they do intend to assist DMD has already issued Grant funds and then the insurance is about 6 26 000 and then the developer cost has increased about 34 percent um so in the developer and insurance combined are paying 85 percent of that cost for that uh Rehabilitation of that building and that includes restoring it as you know originally planned Under The First Agreement Hotel ground floor restaurant but also remediating all of that fire damage my concern is we went from if you're looking at the property tax sure right City incremental property tax rebate went from 42 to 158. correct and I get concerned when it would seem that some of the additional funding was from insurance to help bring that up to you know back to where it was but we're forking over a hundred percent for and I realize that the county is now involved also for some additional but I am concerned that that we went up you know a couple of hundred percent on our portion of it and I just wonder if that makes sense at this point so whenever we assess our incentive agreements we are always looking at the total tax benefit with the and the amendment does um the intent has always been that the project will be developed as a hotel we are making that a requirement of the agreement which guarantees the city that hotel occupancy tax over the 15-year period we are not rebating that and then in addition that ground floor restaurant space would generate sales and use tax so this is the chart showing the estimated tax revenue to all taxing entities over the 15-year incentive period so the city is still generating 1.2 a little over that total tax benefit to City County school districts all of our other entities 1.8 almost 1.9 million dollars and then at the end of that 15-year period of course the alternative I'll be quite Frank would be a tear down of the building possibly or demolition we wouldn't be generating nearly as much revenue off of a vacant lot and so what we're looking at is at the end of the agreement we'd be seeing a dramatic increase to our tax revenue in terms of property how much increased tax impact are you seeing from what was originally estimated to what is estimated now it was like yeah so we can pull up the uh you introduce yourself I don't have them off the top of my head Elizabeth I told you I do recognize you but I forget all the time um we we can definitely pull up those numbers for you though the one thing I just want to clarify is that under this amendment we're requiring that this be a hotel throughout the term of the agreement so for the full 17-year term of the agreement that was not something that was required under the original agreement so This 1.2 million you see on the slide was not guaranteed to the city under the original agreement however under the amendment it is now um guaranteed so long as it remains a hotel so my concern is that we're for our hundred and eighteen thousand additional we're getting a guarantee it's going to stay a hotel which it probably was going to do anyway right not necessarily I mean if it didn't work as a hotel what could happen is it could have transitioned to residential which then you wouldn't be collecting the hot off the residential it would be the property tax revenue only which is much lower than what we're expecting to collect from the hot and I'm happy to pull up the numbers it would just take me a moment to do yeah my concern is I understand fairly comfortably about hotel tax sure and I know that they're restricted funds and I understand that but my concern is we've tripled the amount of money we're kicking in from our property tax and it seems like the one thing that's happening is it's a guarantee it's going to be a hotel unless that it that LLC goes under anyway at which point it's a moot point because they're out of business and and what I would say to that is that this incentive is Performance Based so it's rebate based only he only receives an incentive if he performs if if it doesn't perform then there is no incentive received I think additionally I I would just highlight once again though that the hot revenue is is really huge and that's where we saw the value in looking at this amendment and then finally what Karina mentioned before the alternative really is this is a heavy cost this is really a smaller developer a small business owner for him to take this on by himself would be very challenging which is why the county also came in to contribute to it so the alternative is a is more than likely a tear down of the building except he was willing to do it before with the first package that was sent correct yes sir for substantially less cost insurance too correct but he's still covering 373 additional of which were kicking back about a hundred no sir this is after the fact I know it's just you know when you look at the net numbers and I understand that hotel tax is a real benefit but it's hard to to allocate that benefit to the taxpayer that's saying you know I'm paying on one end and hot tax is the benefit on the other so I just understood sir yeah I have a concern about it 100 Canales yeah I think it's just important to remember too that this is this is a rebate right this isn't there's no existing taxpayer funds that we're handing over to uh the the property owner without the rehab of the building there is no Revenue here you know the revenue doesn't exist and so if we're I mean he's covering a much bigger Gap we understand that right and and we are helping to cover part of that gap insurance the insurance money that he receives is helping to cover part of that Gap as well but if the alternative is a tear down then we're left with essentially nothing uh I mean I I think this is one of those cases where we see very clearly because the alternative is a tear down of the building we see very clearly a built-in Roi here in terms of future tax revenue that's just my opinion um I think there are other knock-on effects of having a vacant lot uh in in the middle of downtown um and and uh you know we already have a surface parking lot next to that location that we're creating a larger and larger hole uh if we have a potential tear down in that building and so again this is a rebate nothing nothing is paid to the uh the property owner until they fulfill the terms of the agreement and so if the risk is low that we end up somehow in the red on this right sorry Robert I know you you're waiting there oh I was just going to make one comment I thought Elizabeth was gonna say and she didn't say it so one of the things that we talked a lot about when city manager gets asked or I get asked Economic Development it's not my in my portfolio but it's a question that I'd like to address because one of the key things is that the city putting up the incentive benefits all of the entities all of the texting entities so remember there's five text and entities on your tax bill in City County University Medical Center El Paso Community College in your school district School District makes up about 46 percent on average the school districts are not participating in any of these economic incentive deals school districts are directly benefiting from these incentive agreements with this additional property tax revenue this is a rare exception where the county did participate in this deal and the DMD did participate as well but typically they do not participate on on economic city deals so yes it is a city the one that's putting up the money to do this deal but ultimately it is in a betterment of the entire entire Community when you're looking at what the taxpayers are getting for this particular agreement representative Kennedy and I understand it's a rebate and but if it's generating no property tax or we rebate all the property tax the net to the property tax fund is the same because if we're rebating at all we're still not getting any of it and and I just I always have a concern when I see you know it made it may double the investment in reality his investment went up 25 percent but our rebates went up triple and it just that was that's my issue with it you know and I understand we don't want to hold there we don't want it torn down but um that's my issues okay and I'll just note that the the current estimated property tax revenue is about 2.2 thousand well yeah 2200 annually um after the and then we're anticipating during the term of the incentive agreement 67 000. so again through that through that sales and use tax we're still anticipating a revenue increase over what if we just left the building as is we'd be looking at but concern noted thank you cannabis can you remind me one more time of the the term on it's the same term as before correct it's a 15-year term what we are doing is we are modifying um the completion date so we are giving them the original agreement would have required completion of the project in February of this year we are pushing it out to February of 2024 to allow them time to finish the construction and Remediation but it would be a 15-year term so we're just pumping everything so it was a 15-year term from the previous date and now it's a 15-year term for the new day understood and so again it's this will be off the off well not off the rolls we won't be uh we won't realize the revenue gains from this for 15 years but after 15 years then we do as opposed to the uncertainty of what's left in an open in an empty lot and someone builds there or someone doesn't but I mean I think we've seen uh unfortunately time and again in in our downtown if there is a tear down and a vacant lot very often that becomes a surface parking lot or stays vacant for an extended period of time yeah so that's what I'm concerned yes and I'll note that the original the current agreement is in force measure right now the property owner the developer has been very uh eager to continue working on this project has been operating in good faith with us you can see that there's construction right now happening at the front of the building they've been doing remediation inside but they've just started on kind of the porch structure for that you know those improvements near The Pedestrian and then I was also just given representative Kennedy under the previous well I'll say current existing agreement the estimated it was a 10-year agreement the estimated property tax revenue to the city was uh 19 772 dollars with that I'll make a motion to approve thank you Mr Turner I'm going to call you representative Turner thank you my question is simple my representative thinks oh well downtown and blank empty downtown lot has no value I can't think of a developer that wouldn't want to rush in and build something on an empty downtown lot and then we would have full tax revenue I see it from a different for 15 years 15 years from now the value of that building that may let's just say it starts out at a million dollars taxable 15 years from later when it comes time for us to start getting tax money off of it Maybe 750. maybe less may burn down again I don't know but I do know in open commercial lot in downtown is valuable plain and simple tell me how many open lots that you can build on in downtown El Paso that exist you've got one right now that I know of that people can build on I think the one right now this is the point I think you get more value by selling it to a developer and then collecting full tax value on what they put build just my opinion though thank you Miss Turner thank you and with that Mr praying we do have a motion in a second yes mayor the motion was made by representative Canales seconded by representative Rivera to approve item number four on that motion call for the vote in the voting session the motion passes four to one representative Kennedy voting no Representatives voting I Representatives Hernandez Salcido fierona present now we're ready for call to the public no sir we have one more item from consent this is item five and this is a resolution at the El Paso city council authorizes a submission of a Grant application to the office of the governor of the state of Texas Homeland Security Grant division Grant application number 2998209 for the city of El Paso Police Department project identified as local border security program and it was moved to regular by representative Canales representative um your pro Tem oh I was going to say representative Canales can go first if he wants uh yeah I have a lot of questions about this and I don't want to duplicate questions for representative Canales is it okay if I do yeah you can go first sure go ahead representative Canales yeah and chief I I wanted to I know I said I wanted to meet with you yesterday and I just couldn't make it happen so that's that's my fault by the week I can ask the questions now um again so I guess let me start where my area of concern is and then I'll work backwards from there um specifically I'm looking at page 7 of 13. uh which is the the out the objective output and objective outcome measures um there are uh just above that is the the description of of uh the activity that we intend to use that for it's 100 of the grant funds to be used for enhanced Patrol um and it says there El Paso police officers will identify and target areas of criminal activities in support of the local border security program officers will Target criminal activity involving money weapons ammunition automobile crimes ganks narcotics wanted subjects and other activities related to Crime enhanced operations will include but not limited to direct Patrol surveillance gang and fugitive roundups counter auto theft measures and our Joint Task Force operations with other local and federal agencies all in conjunction with the suppression of criminal activities and so that's I'm fine with all of that um but what I take issue with then is is down below uh in the outcome measures one of the well I have issue with two of them I see number of adult apprehensions transferred to U.S border Patrol custody made by Grant funded peace officers Target level one and then number of minor apprehensions transferred to U.S border Patrol custody made by Grant funded peace officers also Target level one so that's a goal for I think that means a goal for one of each of those types of transfers to border patrol custody during the term of this grant yes or so assistant chief Umberto talamantes good afternoon mayor and Council um so as far as the funding that we use for this grant we we enforce state law there's no immigration law whatsoever that's enforced however our officers do come across incidents like the numbers that you're looking at the total 11 adult apprehensions that was an isolated incident in which officers try to make a traffic stop the vehicle evaded and the driver of that vehicle was transporting 11 individuals in that vehicle so they were crammed up on the floor mats on the seats and very unsafe conditions but when the vehicle evaded and finally stopped we took the driver under State violations into custody but the the individuals that were with him were trafficking of persons we did not investigate or take over that case we did border patrol showed up and took custody of the individuals that were undocumented but as far as the individual driving we did arrest them for evading and and not stopping for the traffic stop sir well and so I'm not asking about any particular incident what I have issue with is that their outcome measures specifically regarding transfer of of but I I don't you know adults apprehended and and miners apprehended to U.S border Patrol custody when that's not in the description at all of what we intend to use those Grant funds for it doesn't make sense to me that that's an outcome measure um that we specifically have it's a specific goal to transfer at least one adult and one minor uh to U.S border Patrol custody um as a as a measured outcome Target for this it's not what ostensibly the the goals are of this uh grant program uh it's not what it says in the funding I understand that we need uh to enforce state law that we sign a commitment to doing so as part of receiving this Grant and that we you know we we commit that if we do come across uh individuals in the course of of the officers overtime Duty funded by this grant that that you know will follow the procedure outlined in state law but that doesn't necessarily mean that we should have that kind of transfer to border patrol custody as a specific outcome measure a specific goal that we need to achieve or an achievable I guess that's funded by this grant program and I'm going to have trouble supporting this if that's included I don't know if I know this is just our application uh it doesn't seem to me in in what I look at above that it's mandated in reading through it's possible I missed something in all of the requirements it doesn't seem like it's a requirement to transfer a certain number of apprehended individuals into border patrol custody it's just listed in the outcome measures uh I I don't know if that those these Target levels for these outcome measures are something that we're proposing in in our Grant application or if those are conditions that are imposed on us when we apply for this grant right now I understand your concern representative Canales so the reason why it's only left at one for each adult and the miners is because almost since 2012 uh being a Border Town and investigating State Crime uh there are going to be locations almost at every year that we come across at least one individual that we don't take into custody and we don't enforce so border patrol takes a custody of them um like in this case that I gave you we couldn't leave those individuals in the Highway 11 of them in a car so we left make sure that border patrol passes them as far as their policies but our Police Department's policies is that we don't enforce an immigration laws and we do contact the appropriate authority too to intervene in that case again I understand but in saying then we have a Target level of one on each of these we will have failed to meet our targets for this under our performance uh in carrying out the activities uh that this grant funds these Grant funds will fund uh if we don't transfer at least one adult and one minor to U.S border Patrol custody over the term of of the year of this grant um I just don't again I don't see how that jives with our intended our description of what our intended activities are under this grant or the requirements of what the but the uh the state imposes on us in the award of this grant yesterday says we don't enforce immigration laws we do have to prepare policy we do come across like I mentioned a lot of our task force is going to be coming across being a Border Town unfortunately those isolated incidents and we do have to train them over to the appropriate Federal authorities yeah I think we're going in circles a little bit here but again I I understand that and I understand that we have to commit to doing that under the the terms of receiving this grant but again making that an out a measure of our performance an out an outcome measure to me is a is a Step Beyond just having to comply with with state law um this is saying we have we have failed to meet our our outcome targets if we don't transfer one adult and one minor to Customs and Border Protection or U.S border Patrol I guess yes sir no I do understand and the reason it was left at one because it's almost every every year uh because of the activity of the task force investigating state law there's always always uh almost going to be at least one isolated incident where we come across okay I guess then my question is can it be zero can these Target levels be zero for in our submission of this Grand application I I believe since we don't enforce federal law I don't see why that couldn't be the case can we omit that part of the language yes yes I'm almost certain uh we can and the reason I explain this with historically we always do are going to come across being a Border Town but we can certainly look at that and leave it I think that would be this isn't how many do we anticipate we'll come across this is what is an objectively good outlook what is it what is a measure that we need to reach in order to you know I I guess it's our own Target level but in order to say we have performed under the terms of this Grant and I think that should be zero if we don't enforce uh immigration law then we can be successful in our performance under this Grant and still have transferred zero people to border patrol coasts we don't enforce immigration law so I I don't know why we couldn't take that out right is that something we would Chief we would be okay to do an amendment today and pass it today or would you want two more weeks or we can bring this item back and make sure that the the granting agencies that I don't I don't see it either I don't see an issue that we could we we only did it because historically this always going to come across that uh situation but uh we can always let us bring it back if it's not sure we'll just bring it back at the next council meeting and we'll check that item and unless there's any additional items that Council wants us to look at can you guys propose um to move there to bring the item back in two weeks uh yeah I mean I think staff can pull it too right and just bring it back yeah we'll bring it back to the next council meeting so can I have a motion to do that yeah sure I mean uh well no because if we postpone if we postpone this it will come back with the same numbers to change the language to bring it back what you're saying that's what it is we're postponing the item bring back different language and just to clarify uh you adjusted exactly I understand okay okay then I'll um so what you want can get in other words what you're asking for can get done because the backup will be adjusted perfect if it indeed is what we say it is that we can make those changes okay then I moved to postpone this for two weeks when is that two the 28th of March uh regular city council meeting do I have a second a little bit of a motion in a second to bring the postpone the item for two weeks yes sir there's a motion made by if if you're going to make allow additional comments I would need representative Kennedy to withdraw his second because then the conversation will be limited we're going to change we're going to bring it back and change the language sure thank you representative Kennedy how are you good thank you man you know I'm excited to see that we're finally utilizing these grants I know that I share this with the city manager last year that's just not the one that I would hope that we are utilizing I mean in response to representative canali's concerns the entire intent of this grant is for individuals to be transferred over to border patrol so I think we should change that uh I don't think we're going to get the funding based on it but I think um it's pretty clear that that's not the director of this Council to be transferring people over I also though just like going through this grant um and I'm sorry I just ran in here uh and maybe because I'm familiar with looking at these grants I have no idea what this grant is for like what are you what will you be using the dollars for it just says you know ammunition and but it's a grant I mean you know how Grand applications are you need a full out spreadsheet of how the dollars will be expended and I just don't see that in the backup right and I know and just to address your concern I mean like I said we don't enforce immigration law we don't investigate immigration law and that incident in which uh the 11 individuals were were transferred to border patrol that was the the an isolated incident which we were investing in state law the individual evaded officers and when the vehicle stopped um the driver was arrested uh the individuals were in the highway so we have to border patrol showed up and they took custody we didn't process we can't process or enforce any immigration law just wanted to make that no I know and just really quick but that's the intent right and so I'm really quickly going to read off of the governor's grant website where it's so for this one the local border security program which is right under stone garden we all know what that is it supports intelligence sharing and enhanced law enforcement presence in communities across the border region um and so it's it's literally really to and share that intelligence I mean the intent of this grant is to involve yourself in Immigration um but sorry go ahead well the the purpose for this funds uh the funds from this grant for the since 2012 every year we've been receiving this Grant and it allows us to assign officers to to work proactive law enforcement operations through in high crime areas in the city and uh what this uh task force does it helps us um and criminal Target criminal activities involving illicit money ammunition weapons narcotics uh doing warranty roundups from fugitives wanted subjects narcotics and other uh Joint Task Force operations that we have with our partners from federal and local law enforcement our main goal is to suppress crime activities for those of these state laws that I just mentioned and to enhance the border security and help us maintain the the status of uh say this one of the top safest cities in the nation understand that and I appreciate that clarification but how like how exactly are you expending the dollars to do what you just said this we so we don't have the the Staffing to to do this on a continuous basis so this grant funding help us do extra Opera officers we assign officers on extra Duty operations and some other strategies that we use this directed patrols surveillance uh warning roundups of wanted subjects fugitives like I mentioned we use uh Target automobiles crimes such as out of thefts burglary vehicles and that's what we the task force focus is on thank you thank you mayor for allowing me to ask this question yes ma'am thank you representative thank you very much mayor assistant chief Donald mantis thank you very much so uh just a couple of questions so this uh Grant has been utilized by our city our Police Department for the past 10 years approximately yes sir since since 2012 the CD has applied for an accepted this grant for for this type of law enforcement obligation in 10 years uh would you say that the results of this Grant and other grants have been a positive Public Safety measure for the city of El Paso and its citizens absolutely I mean it helps our supports our our goal in our on our sub goals to keep the the city safe and address crime and in the last 10 years have we ever not met any goals or any of the objectives or anything else that we were not in compliance with it no sir never okay and so uh do you feel that turning over one adult one in juvenile would be reasonable within a one-year period that we could meet that goal it's highly probable that it's going to happen like I mentioned being a border City and and unfortunately it's a reality traffic uh trafficking a person's reality that we deal with right so it's very highly highly powerful that's what's happened hence that one one target level was was entered there and we saw just recently what did and did not happen uh with our ports of Entry there where we had different migrants of whatever nationality trying to come over to our country legally through the border and that could be used that Grant could be used for operations such as that to repress crime should they pass the Port of Entry and federal properties correct yes you're correct okay and out of those people because I did see children I did see teenagers I did see women I saw you know different people different age groups coming over attempting to come over do you think we would be able more than reasonably status Factory to meet the goals for this grant should it pass yes sir absolutely thank you Chief appreciate all you do thank you thank you representative Molina thank you representative Loretta thank you mayor chief of I know that you mentioned that and I appreciate you I like representative oh we're familiar with this since 2012. and the results that it has netted the police department is the city of El Paso's benefit is safe City immensely the uh occurrence of having your language of local border security program was that just implement this year or have you used in the past the local border star program that's been the the name of the task force for of this program for for since the beginning that has that has been required was is it required by the state or I'm not sure if it's a required mandator but uh uh I know it's since the beginning that we've applied for this grant but I can definitely will check into that but in any case uh let's let's say that uh like my district was having problems with migrants making it across the border without being detected and then infiltrating the the neighborhoods in the area where some of the patrols did encounter and so they called border patrol which is very common practice since I can remember back in 82. and so the thing is that this common practice for us to turn over a a migrant who's in the country legally is not is you're not you're not just putting it on there to say hey look I did this one and one correct it's an automatic thing where we turn or I'm sorry I still say use we where the police department turns these over to the proper authorities because they have to like I said we would uh like if an officer would go uh and have an arrest process the individual's for identification and all that they have the equipment for that they have the proper questions for that that's why we turn over the individual unless they're not involved in any criminal matter absolutely correct then to that's an excellent point that you make representative River does tend to address Mr Canal's concerns it's very common for officers unfortunately it's a reality of officers that come across with undocumented uh migrants that are involved in crime it's very very common so that's um like you said it's very highly probable that this task force of officers working out there are going to come across again and uh but we follow our policies we don't enforce immigration laws we don't investigate immigration laws and of course call the appropriate authorities for that so with that said also isn't it I've I've kept up with the numbers and and of course from p 80 personnel and and of course the media with this certain with this grant that you've utilized since 2012 there's been some success uh these last year and a half I believe 98 98 felons yes sir I have the ten years yes sir so with this group of officers that we've uh assigned them to high crime areas to address uh this crime uh state law crimes so far this year there's been 13 felony arrests here today um there's been five misdemeanor arrests there's been several successes that will help that's helping us keep crime down in the city and like I mentioned those are the not only the burglar Vehicles the theft of vehicles any uh weapons and ammunition trafficking so being very successful and I can share more more statistics with the all city council that you like in New detail so it's been that joint effort that has successfully uh uh above the uh having this grant where you assign uh and I believe you call it extra duty but there's an overtime basis absolutely okay so uh and that generally again explain it that's that's when an officer is off duty and he can work this job in other words he's not on his regular Duty Patrol Duty he works at off duty so that this benefits the El Paso Police Department this benefits the the safest city in the country here and so with these results I mean this is this is something uh colleagues my counsel that that it's done since 2012 it's much needed there is no cash match Grant the the police department hasn't been penalized since 2012 or nothing nothing not even beyond that year correct all these you're you're meeting all the requirements that are required by the state of Texas to to get this grant correct sir IRG I urge you to pass this today and not have to wait because wait does waiting will waiting make a difference uh just removing that language it's very highly probable again like I said being a border City and and officers come across the situations uh it's very common uh so so not only the task officers but officers in the streets so it's very common with this migrant search we've been reporting to council that they come across migrants unfortunately that's the few the few yeah that come become involved in crime scene and I see cheapest yes uh on the screen do you want to say something sir yes sir so the the policy of the El Paso Police Department is we do not enforce immigration law but if an officer during the course of Investigation uh uh determines that somebody is in the country illegally we will make the um the phone call to uh United States border patrol uh to make them aware and that's been the strength of making El Paso one of the safest cities is all law enforcement agencies uh work together uh to to handle the different issues it is not our jurisdiction but just like they'll turn over DWIs to us if we come across these types of issues this uh this grant we're talking about right here helps us uh Target uh serious crimes that are occurring we do not go out there looking for any immigration issues we're looking for uh like Chief delamonte says narcotics uh violent criminals uh weapon violations things of that nature and getting these individuals arrested that have warrants out for their arrest so that's how this helps us out thank you sir uh thank you for that clarification um good afternoon sir again I urge my colleagues to approve this today uh this has been in place since 2012. uh it it assists the police department in carrying out their duties and and carrying their due diligence as to protecting this community and those that they serve and and uh that's that's very important um is anybody else going to speak otherwise I'll make a motion to approve sir of Canalis pardon me you asked if there was anyone else to speak but there are literally people signed up to speak I know but you know if you make a motion the problem it's not a motion to delete you can still speak right right which is yeah again I want to clarify I I said nothing about the the benefit I unders fully understand the benefit of receiving these funds what the police department can do with with additional overtime hours uh I have one specific problem and that is with setting a Target level in the outcome measures for how many uh people will be transferred to U.S border Patrol custody uh has nothing to do with opposing anything else that's involved with this grant if we can make the change to zero then I plan to support it uh if if we can't then I don't like setting a Target level for this I understand again that we we have to uh you you are required to enforce state law uh you're required to um and and it's very likely that you will have to uh in the course of of Performing the the duties uh uh under this grant will encounter people that you'll have to transfer to border patrol Cassie what I have a problem with is setting a goal for how many and that being a performance measure of our performance on this Grant and that's the only that's the only part so uh I know my colleagues have spoken about the the benefits of this and they urge the passage today because of the benefits I'm not disagreeing with the benefits at all it's just the specific issue of setting Target levels for how many people we should transfer to U.S border Patrol custody in order to be successful under this grant which I have a problem with and it's just that one specific issue so I I would urge uh my colleagues either to I mean I if if they would be comfortable with with an amendment instead to just make these changes today on the floor and make the target level on both of these zero then I have no problem going forward with that today if staff would prefer to take it back and look at it and make sure that that doesn't have a knock-on effect with compliance uh and or the requirements of the Grant application that was why I wanted to give them the the time just to make sure that if these change to zero that's not impacting the the their their potential compliance with with the Grant application that's the only reason you know thank you yes sir Flores has has her hand up Pardon Me Miss Flores from our office has her hand up hi yes thank you uh Miss Hamilton Karen I just wanted to point out on this particular part of the description the document does state that the answers that you're discussing are supposed to be about expected activities and it actually includes the word expected in all caps meaning expected pay attention to this word um it is not about mandatory or required I think they would have said that had they actually meant that so it's expected not required or mandatory thank you I just wanted to make sure we focused on that word is that expected uh how many we will encounter or expected Target level because the target level to me is it's tied to Performance it specifically says expected activities expected activities of of the police department can you just refer me to the to the page in paragraph if you don't mind it is uh exactly where you were looking for the outcome measure go up about a page in a quarter where it says project activities information page six of 13. page six of 13. in the introduction it says this section contains questions about your project uh skip the next sentence unless otherwise specified answers should be about the expected activities to occur during the project period that's the part I'm mentioning uh right but that's for the that description is for the section project activities information and then the start of the next page starts a new section called measures information and these tables fall under the measures information section and not the one with the description that says the expected activities correct and there's nothing different about that particular section I think that the introduction applies to that that whole section so that introduction explains the items below correct yeah I mean I I'm just I'm trying to lay out how I feel about this um my opinion won't change on this if we can make that zero I will support it if we can't make it zero I'm not going to support it if they need two weeks in order to make the changes and and make sure that they have the compliance down that's fine if we can make those on the floor and my colleagues are comfortable with that I'd be happy to entertain an amendment on this as well I guess all right that's it thank you mayor thank you we have representative uh molinar followed by representative Kennedy um no disrespect to anybody here but it's when you're out in the field as a police officer and even those days are gone for me and Henry's represent them in Nevada those days are gone for you as well but you just don't understand or you may not understand what actually does or doesn't happen in the field and so if you are make a traffic stop or even we've seen in Pursuits vehicle Pursuits foot Pursuits what do you do with someone that's not here in the country legally so if you just release them on their own you may have already had a potential for them to commit some type of crime and so if not turning them over it's the best and most prudent thing to do our action to do we police officers have that responsibility for Public Safety and so I think the representative Canal is the numbers I don't really believe we will meet that goal we'll trust me that goal will be met and I just finished asking the chief dalamantes has that goal been met in the last 10 years and the answer was yes and I mean no disrespect to you sir I'm just saying that it needs to happen there's no cash match it's been in effect for 10 years we've been made in all the goals and responsibilities for that and exceeding it probably and so I just urge all my council members please let's pass it today and let's move forward thank you representative Kennedy and this will be everyone's last time I'll make it quick it's not a required goal it's just what you think the expected activity will be correct I will have to is that one double check with a granting agency sir if it'll affect us as far as the grant uh been award but based on the awarding that we read we don't see that that might be an issue but I do uh if we if you decide to go this uh option we we do I would like to check with the granting agency it would affect our our application and potential receiving that fund because if it's expected but not required I would think that making it zero would not affect getting the grant at all right it's just an estimate of how much your activity is going to be thank you so we're thinking the same thing yeah that's why we want to double check it before we answer it because it's 511 000 grant that we've been getting for the last decade and we just want to double check it we just want to be prudent about that I was going to say that personally the two weeks doesn't blow you past the deadline does it on filing this grant I mean we're not gonna We it's not like we can't make the decision in two weeks and still be in the window to get the grant he's double checking I think we we still have uh uh verifying that to see when we have the deadline for the application some metal sir but Okay so to me I think you could get support up and down the line if it's able to make zero and if it's expected activity nobody here is saying that you shouldn't enforce the laws you've already got a policy on you don't enforce immigration laws yes if you do run into that situation you take the correct action I would say I'm in support of let's take the two weeks make sure that we're okay with the grant it's not going to blow it out so we make the decision then correctly knowing what the results of that is if it comes back and says if it's zero you're not getting any money then I think I'd be comfortable knowing that before we take the vote because that's your motion if the first motion fails if the first motion fails I would would say you know to Echo what representative canala said is that we come back in two weeks and we see if that would void out the grant or not and then if it's if they say they don't care it's an expected activity it's not a goal it's not a required caveat then I think you find support all the way across the board here so so I would make a motion that you come back in two weeks we find that information out which I presume city manager probably will have pretty quickly or legal when they have to and bring it back that would be my motion if the first motion fails per second on that well mayor if they take the second on the postponement that has to go first boneman has a higher order of Precedence in rubber tools then okay if I could add huh yes sir thank you um we have till Friday to submit this grant until this Friday yes so we can we can look if we can do an amendment to change it to zero if it's allowable and we can proceed at least something so we can apply because Friday is the day otherwise we miss the opportunity by this Friday yes which motion do we take first Mr Frank can I withdraw my motion I'll withdraw my emotions so I make a motion to amend to remove [Music] if possible in the grant so if we find so we find out that it doesn't affect the the grant then we'll put zero I think is what I'm hearing and if it does we will leave it as is yes butchered I just butchered what the chief so eloquently recommended but but that's what I just said you agree with okay I'll second that if the first motion fails would a little bit longer help if we tabled this till the end of the meeting and you bought a little time to understand the impact I'm just just trying to make sure we give we give you every every bit of time that you need to double check to see if it'll affect our Grant application sir is 543 in Austin yeah it's a little late now huh anyway so um Miss Pinewood motion are we taking now the amendment sir okay there's the amendment does did you get a second on the amendment okay so can we take the amendment now there was a motion made by mayor Pro temanello seconded by representative Kennedy to amend the Grant application to change the target level from one to zero and I'm not sure in which fields no she said if possible correct yeah if possible if it's not possible then well it is possible to amend it no no obviously you can amend it but if it's going to hurt you from getting the ground well then you don't want to amend it you just that's why I should say if possible it's not I know you can amend it but if it's going to say you amended but you're guaranteed not to get it then so that's why she said if possible so with that we have a motion can we make that kind of conditional Amendment where an amendment only applies if something else happens well we need to take this amendment first no no I'm I'm asking a legal question if is it possible to make a motion that it's approved if possible to change it to zero and if not it's approved without the change yes I am yes yeah thank you representative canelas uh the yes you can make a motion that is conditioned Upon A factor that we can that staff can understand so if your factor is change the numbers to zero if that does not affect our ability to get this grant they can determine they can call if they can determine that it will not affect so they can make that determination by calling the agency tomorrow and determine in asking the question of whether putting zero will render our Grant application less lower lower rated will lower the rating for the Grant application so if Council moves it takes that motion and passes that motion Chief can call tomorrow and and ask for that information I will say that Grant is is kind of saying if you expect to have border have these issues that the chief explained a part of the the conditions as a part of the reason that the city is is in the Runnings because we have those concerns in this location so it may affect the quality of the application and again it's always it's there's always a couple of cases a year that that happens I think that when we said earlier is if we put it to zero and find out that that doesn't affect the outcome then we'll submit it like that if it does affect the outcome we'll leave it as is right is that acceptable to the council right I think that was her motion I yeah and I would like written follow-up by by I guess Thursday before the grant is submitted right just let us know what way but we wouldn't yeah we wouldn't be able to change the outcome either way we would just know we'll send it we'll send it to the tower Council uh what we find out yes sir absolutely all right Miss Prine okay so if I understand correctly the motion is to amend the Grant application to change the target level from one to zero on the number of adult apprehensions transferred to usbp custody and the number of minor apprehensions transferred to usbp custody is that correct on those two if possible if it will not impact the rating for the grant award yes ma'am is that correct I'm sorry mayor Pro tem Manila I can't hear you I mean I'm just concerned like how are you going to determine if it's going to impact you you're going to call Austin and say if we don't Deport people is it's going to impact us the entire point of the grant is to do that I mean it well they would tell you if it's part of the guidelines if it's part of the guidelines and they say you remove it then you don't qualify because those are the guidelines to apply for the grant if it's not part of the guideline supply for the grant then you're more than welcome to remove it and that's what they're going to tell you so so if it is then you leave it if it's not then you take it out but that's what they're going to tell you okay I didn't recognize you without your glasses chief thank you um just uh had a conversation with our grant writers here at the headquarters and going to zero will not affect the application okay okay so then I amend my motion thank you Chief I'm sorry I just don't want to keep dragging this on I amend my motion to leave the motion as it is but take out the part as if it does not impact the grant since we have authority that it won't so the motion thank you Chief yeah thank you very much for the clarification Chief appreciate it the motion is to amend the Grant application to change the target level from one to zero on the number of adult apprehensions transferred to usbp custody and the number of minor apprehensions transferred to usbp custody is that correct thank you from one to zero to change the target level from one to zero on the outcome measures for the number of arrests I lost my place on the number of adult apprehensions transferred to usbp custody and the number of arrests misdeme minor apprehensions transferred to usbp custody so changing the target level on those two fields from one to zero on the Grant application yes sir so on the amendment call for the vote are you having trouble with the voting yeah you said I okay and your vote is I thank you in the voting session and the motion passes unanimously this is for the amendment Representatives now there wasn't a motion by representative Rivera seconded by representative molinar and this is to approve as amended thank you on that motion call for the vote this is to approve as it was just amended correct correct that's correct to approve as amended okay thank you where's your code where is she is she upstairs okay no the voting session is still open in the voting session and the motion passes four to one representative or mayor Pro temanello voting the remainder of council voting aye your motion does carry I'm sorry we're all just losing our minds over here miss Pine I'm sorry we are not going to have side conversations thank you chief what you like to reconsider Oh I thought that's what you were talking about okay thank you thank you that brings us to thank you chief chief thank you very much thank you Council thank you that brings us to the first reading of ordinances these are items 31-34 there is a motion made by representative Rivera seconded by representative Canales to approve the first reading of ordinances these are items 31-34 on that motion call for the vote in the voting session the motion passes unanimously Representatives Hernandez Salcido Fiero not present that brings us to item number 35 and this is discussion in action on the request that the managing director of purchasing and strategic sourcing be authorized to notify Sierra Machinery Inc that the city is terminating contract number 2021-0742 Volvo Gradle and doosan parts and service for convenience do we have a motion there is a motion made by representative Rivera seconded by representative Kennedy to approve item number 35. on that motion call for the vote in the voting session the motion passes unanimously Representatives present the next item is 36 and this is discussion in action on the request that the managing director of purchasing and strategic sourcing Department be authorized to issue purchase orders to Sierra Machinery Inc the sole and authorized distributor for the 2023-0157 Volvo Gradle and doosan parts and service go ahead ma'am go ahead I know this is a contract they're renewing we're counseling one and renewing another one on this but I don't so I don't understand so we just cancel the contract for 400 000 with Sierra Machinery but now we're approving the same contract for 320 000 more uh Gretchen Garcia purchasing and strategic sourcing the reason why we're uh terminating the existing contract is because the expenditures have already been met and we're is we're establishing a new contract for additional scope the backup is just not really detailed to understand that um of any reasoning okay so and the life of the new contract it will be for three years okay and the one that we just declined so all of the parts were purchased how long was that for uh the current contract was for two years I guess I'm just wondering okay all right thanks I'm just in Just for future if you could like put more of the backups there's an understanding and or brief us on something like this because the backup just doesn't say anything okay thank you I'm sorry uh representative Canales yeah just to clarify then there was a it was a contract with a maximum of 400 000 we expended all four hundred thousand dollars so we're terminating the old one and awarding a new contract with a new that's correct ceiling essentially spending on it okay um In fairness rep vanilla sorry to call you out they did they did say something yesterday okay yeah but um okay no problems with it thank you I apologize I wasn't here I completely forgot that meeting and it happened yesterday it's been such a long day already moved to approve second there's a motion made by mayor Pro tem anelo seconded by representative Canales to approve item 36. on that motion call for the vote but also that's why we should put stuff in the backup in case someone misses the agenda of you in the voting session the motion passes unanimously Representatives Hernandez Salcido Fiero not present item number 37 is discussion in action on the award of solicitation 2023-0087 Magnolia's parts and service to Magnolia's Financial Inc DBA mcneilius truck and Manufacturing Company there is a motion made by representative by representative Rivera to approve on that motion call for the vote in the voting session the motion passes unanimously item number 38 is a public hearing on an ordinance amending Title IX health and safety public chapter 9.4048 public swimming pools and spas move to approve there's a motion made by representative Canales seconded by representative Rivera to approve item 38 there's no public comment on that motion call for the vote in the voting session the motion passes unanimously Representatives Hernandez Salcido Fiero not present item number 39 is a public hearing on a nordinance granting to Jessica sotobrado and Hugo Prado dbaps ads a non-exclusive franchise for waste containers on sidewalks and other city property move to approve we had Miss Turner sign up to speak but I believe she left there's no other public comment motion made by representative Canales second day by representative Kennedy to approve item 39 on that motion call for the vote in the voting session the motion passes unanimously Representatives Hernandez Salcido Fiero not present item number 40 is discussion in action that the city manager be authorized to sign a two-year on-call agreement per Professional Services to perform planning public engagement and Urban Design Services on a task-by-test basis by in between the city of El Paso and six firms Collision rtkl Inc asakura Robinson LLC Kimberly horn and Associates Inc surrounding Studio LLC able City LLC and Men collaborative Inc move to approve D there's a motion made by representative Canales seconded by representative Rivera to approve item 40. on that motion call for the vote and the voting session the motion passes four to one representative Kennedy voting nay Representatives Representatives Hernandez Salcido Fiero not present item number 41 is discussion in action to approve an amendment to the city of El Paso's 2021 2022 annual action plan in order to add the home investment Partnerships American Rescue plan allocation plan there's a motion made by representative Rivera seconded by representative Canales to approve item number 41. on that motion call for the vote did Steph want to present we're ready to go sir if you want okay appreciate that in the voting session and the motion passes unanimously Representatives Salcido Fiero not present there is a motion and a second to adjourn the city council meeting all in favor anyone opposed and the city council meeting for Tuesday March 14 2023 is adjourned at 502 pm thank you thank you everybody [Music] I did so the mayor hosts this off he was leaving at 4 30. change the sounds good yeah no problem [Music]