hmm one more minute get good morning mayor good morning mayor it's nine o'clock would you like to get started thank you good morning this is a meeting of the El Paso city council for Tuesday October 25th 2022 mayor Lisa is present and presiding inside council chambers along with representative anello representative Hernandez representative Molina representative Salcido representative Rodriguez and Alternate mayor Pro Tem lisarada it is nine o'clock am and I will everyone please silence her electronic devices so as not to disturb the meeting and rise for the invocation delivered by police chaplain and Sun Valley Baptist pastor Dennis Kaufman thank you for the opportunity to open this meeting in prayer and I pray that you'd all bow with me as we go to the Lord in prayer in heavenly father I thank you for the opportunity to come before this Council and to pray and I just pray that you would give them each wisdom and guidance and understanding as they seek to do your will for our great City and I pray that you would watch over this time and we give it all over to you and I pray that you would keep these members safe and their families just watch over them and I says thank you Father for your love that you have for us your mercy and your grace give them again wisdom and father it all is said and done here this morning would be in your will I pray for those who as early voting started that everyone would take their and utilize their opportunity to express their desires and we thank you for that freedom that you have given to us in this country and we just come in this time over to you and we thank you for your mercy your grace and your love and the Forgiveness you've given us in Jesus Christ in Jesus name we pray amen thank you I've said none this one lead us in the pledge please through the fire of the United States of America thank you and for the record representative Rivera is also present in council chambers good morning everyone and I know that um this month is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month and um you know I think it's important that um I know we're going to have a proclamation and there's things we're going to talk about but I think it's important to know that um any type of cancer we need to be aware of and to make sure that uh we um we continue to test and look and make sure that everybody is um understands the severity of any type of cancer so so we do celebrate National Breast Cancer Awareness Month let's be aware of other symptoms other signals that will will help us and you know in al pastor we have a lot of sun and it does create a lot of problems for people so I do want to have a kind of everyone have a moment of silence pray for make sure that all everyone that's been affected one way or another whether it's a family member yourself a friend or anyone for a quick and uh prompt and successful recovery thank you may God bless everyone and may God God bless our wonderful City Miss Prine thank you mayor and mayor Pro tem shorts mine is running a few minutes late this morning that brings us to the mayor's proclamations the first Proclamation is title line 50th year anniversary and celebration week of utep's 1974 first women's volleyball and basketball teams Dr Senator mullinar good morning Proclamation city of El Paso Texas whereas Congress passed Title IX in response to the market educational inequalities women faced prior to the 1970s Title IX was signed into laws in 1972 as it outlawed gender discrimination and all publicly supported educational programs and whereas in the 50 years since this passage Title IX has expanded opportunities for women and girls in sports and in the science technology engineering and math stem fields and whereas the very first UTEP women's volleyball and basketball teams in 1974 are being honored as groundbreakers Paving the way for countless opportunities for you UTEP female student athletes for many years to come and whereas the UTEP women's volleyball team members were coach Kevin sherlin and players Lisa Allard Phelps zebra Hemet Wills Gloria Estrada Kathy Dickinson Linda Bagby Gomez Silvia Montano Lily panic Panic Rock Linda Gwen Carter Rosalia Lali Marquez Chavez Barbara grimpy and whereas the UTEP Women's Basketball team members were head coach Carol ammerman assistant coach Wayne Thornton and players Gloria Estrada Kathy Dickinson Sylvia Montano Linda Bagby Gomez Lily Pond Nick bar Linda Gwynn Carter Shirley Acosta Leanne ritual Beck Emma Berry Barksdale Lupe Garcia Terry Anderson Angie Sierra Sanders Rosa Rodriguez Judy Marsh zibia Bailey Cindy Jackson Sherry crane Ann whereas a special Thanks goes to UTEP athletic director Jim Bowden and to Donna Lewis for their Visionary ideals back in 1974 and whereas both teams were recognized by the El Paso athletic Hall of Fame on September the 24th through the support of utep's president Dr Heather Wilson and UTEP success athletic director Mr Jim Center and inducted in utep's Hall of Fame and now therefore be it proclaimed by the mayor and Council of the city of El Paso that the week of October the 23rd 2023 shall be known as title time 50th year anniversary and celebration week of utep's 1974 first women's volleyball and basketball teams signed the honorable Oscar Leisure mayor of the city of El Paso foreign good morning sir you want to put it around our necks for the record mayor Pro tem shorts line is also present in council chambers the only question I'm going to have to ask is that um if um was Wayne a good an assistant coach as he was a basketball player wait I got a giggle out of that Mr Thornton Wayne and I played basketball together in 1977. and um I know he loved UTEP and he loves sports and one of the you know I want to thank you all for what you all did and you know I know that um back in the 70s Show wasn't as easy as as we see today and it's equal equality as we we see today which uh you know thank goodness that uh Title Nine and other uh things have happened to make sure that equality in sports has happened and um I thank you all for you know being there and having the vision and um congratulations and I'm trying to picture Wayne though 50 years ago so hi [Laughter] somebody like to speak okay um Catherine Dickerson and I graduated from Coronado High School and that's okay and so does Lily the Sephora Hemet wills and I graduated from Austin High School Leanne ritual Beck from El Paso High retires Lily punikvar there you go from Coronado High School Sylvia montagno I'm also a panther and just to say thank you for everything all of you all do for us okay thank you Emma Barry Barksdale from Lovington New Mexico a UTEP grad foreign Strada Fabens High School go Wildcats Sharia Costa from Austin High School mom of the Panthers and thank you for all you do go miners thank you and all of you all look like he could play again today I think um pickleball yeah that's right foreign team we all know when we use the word dream team but these young ladies truly are the Dream Team and I want to thank them for what they accomplished back 48 years ago and it's this great City if you see these ladies just to say two words just say thank you because they overcame so much at that time and they were so special and you know a special thanks to UTEP president Dr Heather Wilson and to athletic director Jim Center because of 1980 1974 these ladies never received a leather jacket so in September 24th they were inducted to UTEP Hall of Fame along with that they were each given a souvenir leather jacket as you see here today so on behalf of Carol ammerman the head basketball coach for the women at that time along with Kevin sherlin who was the head volleyball coach at that time and I was very fortunate to be a part of something very special at that time before I started my 43 career 43-year career with the El Paso parks recreation department but it's something I will never forget and I will never forget these young ladies and I just want to say one thing to all of you Title IX it's more than the Roman numeral Title IX highlights the fact that women are the saviors of our life women are the saviors of our world and women are the saviors of our heart and our soul ladies and gentlemen thank you very much God bless and go miners thank you thank you and congratulations for having the vision to where we're at today for one for you all I can't see you know women's sports being where it is today so thank you again the next problem the proclamation of the city of El Paso whereas communities Across America have been plagued by the numerous problems associated with illicit drug use and those that traffic them and whereas there is hope and winning the war on drugs and that hope lies in education and Drug demand reduction coupled with the hard work and determination of organizations such as the west Texas Young Marines of the Marine Corps League of to foster a healthy drug-free lifestyle and whereas governments and Community leaders know that citizen support is one of the most effective tools in the effort to reduce the use of illicit drugs in our communities and whereas Red Ribbon has been chosen as a symbol commemorating the work of Enrique Kiki Camarena a Drug Enforcement Administration Administration special agent who was murdered in the line of duty and represents the belief that one person can make a difference and whereas the Red Ribbon campaign was established by Congress in 1988 to encourage a drug-free lifestyle and involvement in drug prevention and reduction efforts and whereas October 23rd through October 31st has been designated national Red Ribbon Week which encourages Americans to wear a red ribbon to show their support for a drug-free environment now therefore be a proclaimed by the mayor and Council of the city of El Paso that October 3rd through the 31st 2022 shall be known as Red Ribbon Week signed by honorable mayor Oscar liser we would love for you all to come up and say a couple of words please and introduce your name please as well hi my name is Staff Sergeant Rivera I would like to thank you for officially recognizing this week and we hope the the rest of the Youth of El Paso will follow and we're red ribbon in honor of Kiki camera thank you y'all want to introduce yourselves come on up uh my name is uh Sergeant Vasquez and I just want to say thank you for approving this uh Proclamation uh we're going to try to strive higher and maybe get it accepted to uh even higher areas to maybe Texas and maybe one day the entire United States thank you good morning ladies and gentlemen my name is uh niceros I am the unit Commander for the west Texas Young Marines and I want to thank you all for having us here and be able to have this Proclamation on behalf of the West Texas Young Marines it is an honor to be able to show the city and the youth that we have a group of children that are continually pushing forward and honoring Kiki Camarena and striving against the war against drugs I appreciate it so much thank you thank you Nelly thank you very much and it's it's important what you all do and we want to thank you and thank you for being here [Applause] and the next Proclamation is Isleta Education Foundation week is representative thank you mayor approximation for the CEO of Paso Texas whereas the Education Foundation has been operating for over 30 years providing scholarships to exemplary graduating seniors from the Isleta Independent School District a yisd which has attended Bel Air Del Valle Eastwood Hanks Parkland Riverside Via Verde Early College young women's Leadership Academy and Isleta high schools within the Sutter Independent School District and whereas in partnership with Y ISD border trustees why is the superintendent Javier De la Torre why is the employees Allstate Insurance Oscar Dieter Dell Technologies El Paso Electric hunt Family Foundation and Isleta Del Sur Pueblo the Isleta Education Foundation recognizes the goal of its board of directors in raising funds for scholarships and fulfilling dreams and whereas donations made to Isleta Education Foundation in the last 30 years have totaled 4.5 million and 1888 scholarships have been granted to students pursuing a college education and whereas Education Foundation Scholars are academically ambitious and nearly 60 percent are first generation college students who enrolled to some of the most selective colleges and universities universities in the nation these Scholars are awarded are awarded based on three categories which are academics community service and overcoming life challenges and whereas we are proud of the Isleta Foundation Scholars who have successfully pursued a higher education to include 55 students who earned a doctor doctoral degree 184 students who earned a master's degree 674 students who earned a bachelor's degree and 154 students who earned an associate's degree and whereas we honor the unceasing dedication of the Isleta Education Foundation and recognizing donors Scholars staff and board of directors now therefore be proclaimed by the mayor and Council of the city of El Paso that October 16th through October 22nd 2022 shall be known as Isleta educational Isleta Education Foundation week thank you sir good morning good morning mayor in City reps my name is Marcela and I'm the board president have been for three years been on the board for 12. so instead of standing here talking about yes I'm going to have a video of one of the young men and he's at Harvard right now so he's a scholarship recipient and then I have another young lady she'll tell her story as well so if we can get the video going and we'll see Gilberto at school Jimenez and I am a graduate of the Hawaii High School class of 2021 and also recipient of the Cynthia Memorial Scholarship um I'm thankful for the Isleta Education Foundation and the scholarship they provided to me because has been able to help me with a lot of personal expenses um since my time I got here living in Boston can be very expensive um something definitely my low-income family cannot afford and so I've been able to use my funds for things like textbooks and hopefully soon now a jacket because it's also it gets very cold here during the winter so once again to the side Independent School District this Education Foundation and you know they saw the community in general and the light especially thank you so much hello so I am thank you and now I have Asia and her mom good morning my name is Asia magayanes I am a proud graduate of Isleta High School class of 2020. I am currently a senior at the University of Texas at El Paso where I am pursuing a bachelor's degree in criminal justice with a double minor in intelligence and National Security studies and Mathematics through the Isleta Education Foundation I was awarded the Allstate Foundation scholarship this scholarship has helped me financially by providing me the technology needed to complete my coursework I also use this scholarship to offset the cost of tuition and textbooks receiving the scholarship has motivated me to stay focused on my studies so that I can complete my degree and pursue my dream of working with the FBI I anticipate graduating in December of 2023. I would like to extend my gratitude toward the Isleta Education Foundation Mr arieta from Allstate and the generous donors that support the educational dreams of students like me without the Isleta Education Foundation I would not be where I am today thank you for your time thank you good morning my name is Gloria magayanes and I am just very grateful for the opportunity for my daughter she worked hard while in high school and the award she received serve to motivate her to succeed as a sign of gratitude to the many generous donors in the Isla Education Foundation we both truly appreciate the investment toward her future thank you so thank you again we also have a golf tournament November 4th if you all want to sign up thank you so much thank you [Applause] the final Proclamation is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month thank you mayor Proclamation city of El Paso Texas whereas National Breast Cancer Awareness Month is an annual campaign in increasing awareness of disease through community outreach public education collaboration between organizations advocacy and research in El Paso and whereas the Rio Grande Center Foundation is dedicated to reducing the human and economic impact of cancer on the citizens of El Paso County to the financial support and development of effective programs for advocacy education early detection and other services to cancer patients and their families and whereas the Rio Grande Cancer Foundation is the foremost center for the enhancing the quality of life for those affected by cancer and whereas the National Breast Cancer Awareness Month the Rio Grande Cancer Foundation reaffirms its commitment to support local organizations in order to provide breast health breasts cancer services including education awareness early detection resources support services and whereas the Rio Grande Center Foundation promises to serve the women and men of El Paso County especially those who are medically undersured and uninsured and whereas the Rio Grande Cancer Center declares it solidarity with breast cancer survivors co-survivors Advocates health care workers and researchers by observing National Breast Cancer Awareness Month in the city of El Paso now therefore be proclaimed by the mayor and Council of the city of El Paso that the month of October shall be known as National Breast Cancer Awareness Month signed by The Honorable mayor Oscar liser thank you Miss Henry good morning good morning um mayor council thank you for having us here today and thank you so much for the proclamation so yes my name is Carol Henry but my married name is volley but because uh mayor Lisa and I go back a long way it's always fun to to throw all those histories in there but um I am the director of the Rio Grande Cancer Foundation so during this month across our great City we've had numerous organizations including hair salons public and private schools restaurants sports bars and breweries hold events and do what they can to bring awareness to breast cancer breast cancer can affect you at any age of course increasing age is the greatest risk but just because you're under the age of 60 does not mean that you cannot get breast cancer mammograms of course are the best method for early detection and the earlier you can catch breast cancer the better the chance of it being treatable so my message to you all and to the entire Community is please schedule a mammogram in solidarity with all the women and men mothers sisters friends and neighbors who are courageously fighting this disease I'd like to introduce you to Diane Medina who will share with you how the Rio Grande Cancer Foundation can support those going through a breast cancer Journey good morning everyone my name is Diane Medina and I'm the program assistant yoga on the Cancer Foundation at rgcf we are committed to serving our breast cancer community Through providing Services through our programs 40 percent of the women that we serve through Pats and four seasons have had a breast cancer diagnosis through these programs they are free of charge to everyone we are able to provide financial assistance wigs mastectomy garments and Prosthetics thank you thank you I just want to thank you again for having us here today thank you Ms Prine yes and we can ask all the honorees to please remain in Chambers Council would like the opportunity to take a photo with you once all the recognitions have been completed thank you thank you 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 thank you mayor Pro tem and I just want to watch part of the meeting yesterday and thank you for your leadership by you did a wonderful job thank you sir thank you um proposal Visions for the October 25th 2022 meeting as of 9 10 a.m page three item two delete um page seven item 22 moved to the Forefront the agenda for representative vanillo page 9 item 33 take after item 23 per represent Rivera page 11 item 40 delete per Communications and public affairs page 12 item 41 postponed two weeks for represent vanillo and page 13 item 47 delete per the city manager's office those are the revisions I have Council are they near the revisions at this time yes okay okay um I'd also like to move item item 23. what would you like to do it I'd like to move item 23 after representative Rivera's item okay and I would ask uh wrap another since we both have resolutions so if you want to wait for that or you I've got one before you you want to go first it's okay I think that's the way it's set up right now we have item 21 followed by 22 followed by 23 followed by 33. so that's the way it's set up anyway yeah so there's no need okay there's no need to change that I do I recognize what representative Rivera is saying because my item is a little bit me others I think that it may make sense to take that one okay 22 21 23. thank you representative okay um is there a second second thank you there's a motion and a second to approve the consent agenda as revised on that motion call for the vote mayor Pro tem aye thank you and the voting session and the motion passes unanimously that brings us to item 22 is that correct no Miss Pine we're going to take 22 last of the three revisions I got it okay so that brings us to item 21. item 21 is discussion and action on a resolution that the city of El Paso proudly honors and recognizes the Detroit Iron Street memories and Borderland muscle car clubs for their positive contributions and volunteer work in the community of El Paso and this item was submitted by representative Rivera Maybe thank you Mr Guerrero I'm comforting can you come up real quick okay we also have the perceptions of car clubs being a tough troublemakers and all but this is a group that uh I think you we can all be proud of and all at all times are helping their community in some sort of way so I felt this was necessary oh I got the wrong one here ready so I start with whereas in 1982 Angel orkis found it and has since then been oh sorry let's start again whereas in 1982 Angel Ortiz founded and has since then been the president of the Detroit iron car club with Rob Bender now serving as vice president and whereas in 1995 the streetcar memories Club car club was founded and since 2013 John Guerrero has served as president with Jesus Hughes as vice president and Lalo Rivera as media relations director and Ken Murphy as sergeant-at-arms whereas in 2015 Robert Pacino founded the Bordertown muscle car club and Mike Nunes now serves as president and whereas in 2019 the three organizations formed three-car Club where they interact gather together but remain autonomous and whereas the goal of the three-car Club is to help the community persons with life-threatening illnesses and help charitable organizations raise funds by displaying their classic rides and whereas to date the three-car Club has raised over thirteen thousand dollars for retired police officers with more reaching out for assistance whereas the three-car car club has participated in many car shows for the El pasoans fighting hunger food bank the Alzheimer's Association and the Christmas Trails for toys a group of Socorro Independent School District mothers that collect toys food and clothing for needy families in the Mission Valley and whereas this year on October 23rd in partnership with the district 7 Office uh and thanks to several Partners sponsorships from Alberta vieta Allstate Insurance Agency Advanced Auto Collision El Paso mail and Print Service five-star Collision ago Logistics and Fanatics Bar and Grill the Detroit iron car club the street memories car club and the Border Town muscle car club were able to host a trunk or treat car show to benefit the Alzheimer's Association of El Paso and also participate in the 2022 walk-in Alzheimer's at Lavinia Winery on October 22nd 2022 now therefore be it resolved by the city council of the city of El Paso that the city of El Paso proudly honors and recognizes Detroit Iron Street memories and Bordertown muscle car clubs for their positive contributions and volunteer work in the community of El Paso thank you thank you with that I make this motion to approve thank you second you all want to speak Mr we're all ready to take you on outside any one of you come on these Old-Timers here are ready to get it up thank you very much uh mayor Lisa we saw you at the national light out for the police officers I served with these two young men here in the police department these people behind me Grace he can Lalo Ray it takes a lot to put on the car show you know it's uh everybody needs to just go and you look at the show and it's a good time and all that but we put in countless hours and we make ourselves available and I put this out to all of you we make ourselves available to any charitable organization any person that is suffering with cancer we saw on channel 7 last night that a young lady is suffering from a very rare form of cancer in Las Cruces we've been in communication with him and we're getting ready to head out that way and raise some funds for them so again thank you very much it's very much appreciated um it's an honor to help the people that are less fortunate than we are and like the mayor said there's different types of cancer there's a all kinds of diseases that we are there for thank you very much and my friend Georgia Poe would say muchas gracias can uh y'all identify yourselves so before you all can can you all identify yourselves I'm sorry my name is Lalo Rivera and I'm with Street memories and I just want to thank you all thank you hi I'm rage Rivera brother over here and put him over here no Street memories thank you thank you I'm Ken Murphy with Street memories and I want to thank you mayor council for everything thank you I'm Gracie Nunez and on behalf of my husband Michael Nunez in Border Town mosobi thank you thank you thank you and thank you for what you all do and thank you for believing in our community and mayor and Council uh I just want you all to know that this past weekend's event raised over one thousand dollars for Alzheimer's thank you thank you [Applause] are you ready representative there is a motion and a second to approve the resolution in item 21 the motion was made by Representatives seconded by representative Rodriguez to approve on that motion call for the vote foreign thank you representative lizard in the voting session and the motion passes unanimously we're now going to item 23. item 23 is discussion in action on a resolution that the city council recognizes the month of October as breast cancer awareness month and this item was submitted by representative Rodriguez yeah good morning and thank you everybody the Melendez family will you please come up to the podium and while they make their way up I just want to say that you know Esther and I go back a really long time um I met her when I was a freshman in Montwood and she was a sophomore we were both in the a team and she was my I think she was like my big sister kind of thing where she was the one that took me under her ropes and she taught me so I'm very proud of her and I'm very happy to be doing this for you today for you and your family so whereas October is known as Breast Cancer Awareness Month an annual campaign to raise awareness about the impact of breast cancer and whereas in 2020 an estimated 276 480 new cases of invasive breast cancer were diagnosed in women in the United States as well as 48 530 new cases of non-invasive breast cancer and whereas in October 2020 during a worldwide pandemic more commonly known as covid-19 Esther Melendez a then 37 year old mother daughter sister friend cheer coach and wife was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer and whereas Esther Melendez began her journey with treatment that included six weeks of radiation followed by five years of treatment at the El Paso Texas Oncology Clinic with the support from her family and friends staying strong under the constant reminder prayer this too shall pass and whereas Esther Melendez a strong Latina female presence in the city of El Paso a resident of district 6 a Montwood alumni and a woman who has committed to giving back to her community when she first started her team cheer Force back in 2018 when she was first approached by the city of El Paso's Parks and Recreation Department to start a City team and whereas upon accepting to volunteer her time as a cheer coach Esther began to cultivate and grow the program at Marty Robbins Rec Center where the success of the program outgrew the space available for the young athletes and Coach Esther had to move the team to a larger facility to keep up with the demanding growth for aspiring young cheerleaders in the cheer Force program grew to over a hundred athletes from the original 12 and whereas Esther has always been about giving back to the community either by being a devoted coach or by being an involved leader Esther has taught her team about the importance of giving back to the community Through the means of voluntary trained by hosting an annual canned food drive during the month of November and whereas even though her battle with with cancer and all the challenges that chemotherapy brings about Esther a 37 year old young mother young wife and a young coach persevered and pushed forward for the success of those around her including her children her husband but especially for the young cheer athletes who proudly serves and whereas presently even though Esther is still in battle with breast cancer she is letting cancer know that she is not a victim of cancer but instead proudly Sans with the thousands of women across our country to tell her story and to let cancer know that it will not stop her from living her life to the fullest she will not give up and she will prevail now therefore be it resolved that the city council of the city of El Paso one recognizes the month of October as breast cancer awareness month and two thanks Esther Melendez for her service to El Paso Parks and Recreation by investing and devoting herself to cheer Force Athletics and bring he stands with Esther Melendez in her battle to beat breast cancer God bless you and congratulations you already won would you like to say something hi thank you so much good morning everyone and thank you so much for having me um I want to bring awareness more to this awful disease that no matter what how old you are no matter your background your history your race everyone should get checked even at my young age of 37 years old I was diagnosed with this awful disease stage three so no matter how old you are I challenge you to get checked bring awareness to this awful disease men I challenge you to encourage all women in your family such as your wife your girlfriend mother aunt or friends please bring them awareness to this disease so that we compete it thank you so much thank you congratulations thank you and with that I'd like to make a motion to approve there is a motion made by representative Rodriguez seconded by representative Salcido to approve item 23. on that motion call for the vote in the voting session and the motion passes unanimously now we go to item 22. thank you Miss Pine item 22 is discussion and action to recognize Judy Ackerman as she has been a benefit to both El pestilence and visitors to our city and recognition by the city has more than merited through her professional and personal contributions this item was submitted by representative anello thank you mayor name and I read the resolution before we take public comment and discussion so whereas Judy Ackerman has been a Force for good in El Paso for over 15 years and El Paso should feel fortunate that she chose to stay in our city when she retired from the United States Army in 2007 with the distinguished rank of Sergeant Major after 27 years of service and whereas Judy has worked tirelessly to ensure the conservation and preservation of El Paso's natural Open Spaces on the mountain and down to the river with programs such as the Franklin Mountains Wilderness Coalition the friends of the Rio Bosque the Sierra Club the Frontera land Alliance and the cast and range National Monument Coalition and they have all benefited from Judy's participation and whereas Judy has rendered significant service to her many causes which deserve a special recognition with one such instance being in 2008 she stood in front of Machinery at the Rio Bosque Wetland for many hours protecting it from the encouraging border fence oh and whereas in recent years Judy has been a dynamic force in the Caster range effort traveling outside El Paso is needed to press for the Declaration of This Magnificent magnificent Mountainside range as a national monument and when this finally does happen Judy will deserve much of the credit and whereas volunteering one's time and resources has traditionally been and continues to be an element of part of essence and tradition of our country and it's essential to its spirit and vitality what are you with the rest of us now therefore it be resolved by the city council the city of El Paso the city of El Paso is proud to recognize Judy Ackerman she's been a benefit to both El Paso and visitors to our city and recognition by the city is more than merited through her professional and personal contributions approves his 25th day of October 2022. you have a motion yes ma'am go ahead go ahead we have come on up please my name is Betty Ann Halliburton proud member of District Two with Judy Ackerman a tribute to Judy looks like you're stepping over into another dimension a place with Yahweh where you will have a perfect body where there's a utopian environment without developments and pollution I will miss your compassion for the city's environment to conserve the Franklin Mountains and cashner range I will miss your courage to visit the Secretary of the Interior in Washington D.C to conserve a federal owned mountain range I observed your volunteer service that encouraged me to join the El Paso League of Women Voters I will miss your service to the league and to the community farewell until we meet together in the other Dominion with Yahweh in heaven shalom thank you I'm Pat White I first met Judy and illegal Women Voters meeting this was shortly after she retired at that time this building was the El Paso Times building they had a meeting room which is kind of in this corner and they showed up that day in that evening for the meeting to and join the League so I've known her ever since then she got me involved in the Franklin Mountain Wilderness Coalition saving casner range and all these other environmental things plus all the stuff we've done with the league and I consider a good friend and she's somebody we don't want to lose we need her she's done a lot for this city and saved it I also have a letter here from our league president Carol Wallace who couldn't be here today that I'd like to read Judy Ackerman El Paso's North Star what can be said about Judy that hasn't been said before she was our desert transplant not a native but a fierce Champion for our Northern Chihuahua Desert mountains she loves this desert it's Community its people she was not only a friend to our El Paso but one of our greatest advocates what did she advocate for for just just causes social justice was her bedrock with her clipboard in hand she was always asking us for to sign a petition for clean air clean water safe highways she stood tall and advocated to protect our mountains women's rights the women's basic rights to choose voters rights to free and fair elections Judy has been a friend to our League of Women Voters of El Paso since I can remember when did I first meet her I'm not quite sure but I'm sure it was at a March a protest or maybe she asked me to sign a petition to protest log to protect long lost dog Canyon or at a party for Planned Parenthood Judy has always fought the good fight and she was always there when you needed her Judy we were here are here for you now to honor and to commend you for what you have done and for what you mean to those who love and respect you thank you my friend I love you more than words can say Carol s Wallace thank you Judy yes Judy's a good friend to all of us and we're going to miss her very much thank you I don't like to see her go good morning I'm Lawrence Gibson I'm the chairman of the El Paso group of the Sierra Club we have 500 members and I will not try to recap all of Judy's accomplishments I will simply say that she is our and environmental champion and our go-to person for anything we that needed to be done environmentally or any questions that we had and we are going to miss her thank you sir good morning I'm Marshall Carter Tripp I have only to to say we've been speaking about cancer this morning and as most of you know Judy is battling cancer despite her physical problems she has always been a force Beyond Comprehension for the causes she believes in and yes we will miss her terribly dozens of people have written to the frontier land alliance with stories about what Judy has done I'm on the board of that group now we are compiling a booklet which we will present to Judy's family and it will be on the Frontera website for others to read so that you can comprehend the incredible number of people who love and admire her and yes we will all miss her terribly thank you for what you were doing today thank you Mr White this is not the reason we want to be here um sometimes we forget who does so much good for us who changes our community who makes our life better simply because they're better than the rest of us and they give so much we need more duties is Mr Richard teschner here he also signed up to speak no I believe that's everyone that signed up that's in person and I'll read a statement from Miss Marilyn Guida which reads Judy Ackerman has been not only a leader but also a worker and the glue that brought people together to do what needed to be done for El Paso if no one was available to help she simply did what needed to be done herself and never criticized others for their absence Judy didn't concern herself with people on the other side of an issue she just focused on a clear simple message she went about joining others and Gathering people of like mind in the service of El Paso issues she felt were important the emails social media phone calls face-to-face contacts door knocking attendance at city council and open space Advisory board meetings it seemed there was never a moment where she felt she had done enough Judy led the effort to save the natural open space called the nap land on the northeast side of the Franklins simply by going door to door and informing residents they became volunteers who joined an effort and today there is a city council approved conservation easement on about 350 Acres of the nap land along with many others Judy continued her trademark process on behalf of the lost dog area on the northwest side of the Franklin's going door to door to get out the vote along with dozens of volunteers the result was over 80 percent of El Paso voters voted for a citizen-led initiative to protect about 1100 Acres of natural open space through a city council approved conservation easement Judy was a long time long time volunteer at Rio bolsk as she brought the idea for an annual Poppy's Fest to the El Paso Museum of archeology director Dr Mark Thompson in 2007. Papi's Fest attracts more and more participants every year Judy never failed to staff a booth for Earth Day she consistently supported insights and participated in public events to introduce people to the dinosaur footprints most importantly she has been a key volunteer over many years in the effort to have castner range named a National Monument Judy has been a long time member and activist for the league of women vote to get out the vote campaign every year during her last day in a hospital I was on the phone with her when a hospital worker came into her room she had a bunch of voter registration forms and immediately said to the worker are you registered to vote no well here's the vote voter form your vote is needed and the person happily took the voter for Judy loved to dance to live music and routinely drove up to Las Cruces to participate in their Contra Dance and folk dance events she was always taking Olli classes at UTEP and love learning new things she made time for local Museum visits and live theater it seemed like the Franklin's were her best friend even after a painful recovery from surgery she started by walking to her mailbox and slowly but surely was again climbing the mountains she especially loved introducing people to the Franklin's and all the plants and animals as well as the geology the soils the Arroyo said carried stormwater and the history Judy would drop everything and respond if a friend needed help once I had a serious injury due to a fall when I called Judy she was ready to take me to the doctor in the emergency room and stay with me until it was safe to leave me back at my home I've never met anyone like Judy Ackerman and I think I never will she never drew attention to herself yet her imprint on El Paso is deep and white we are all in her debt Marilyn Guida the next statement was submitted by Kathleen Stout and will be read by representative lizard yeah thank you Miss prying a true a tribute to Judy Ackerman Judy Ackerman is and always will be my hero in heroine we share many of the same common interests in Social and environment Justice we want to preserve our Region's beautiful land historic buildings and the people who live and work therein we want Representatives who put people first especially people who have long been neglected by all levels of government as an individual I became instant friends with Judy some years back I can't even remember when but I proudly sat next to Judy many times challenging the excesses of business profiting that would undermine El Paso's press precious resources and people some examples of her challenges challenges to voter suppression with the aim of better representation Judy stood for fair elections as a committed member of the League of Women Voters she worked with the league in Fair Maps Texas to educate people on redistricting local and state boundaries in Fair non-partisan ways a deputized voter registrar I remember so many scenes with Judy holding her constant sign asking people whether they were registered to vote Judy registered thousands of new voters challenges to I-10 widening downtown which TxDOT attempts to impose Upon Us despite the lack of congestion there the disaster construction would bring to El Paso's downtown and the undoubted additional pollution that attracting more cars and trucks would bring to the area El Paso roads need to be fixed and maintained not widened Judy attended teachings made posters and joined people at City Hall to say no to this ludicrous initiative challenges to the threats to reproductive health and planning for Parenthood Judy started the network of the heat does for choice and I became a proud participant Judy always stood for freedom from patriarchal control over our bodies as did many of her veteran friends who joined her at city council as recently as several months ago challenges to ignorance and inaction on climate change I do it all the time I have one here I'm sorry well everyone in teams please mute their microphones thank you Judy no doubt signed and collected signatures for the sunrise petition for a climate Charter that would make El Paso the first in Texas to take Serious action toward Greener jobs Greener development Common Sense solar wind building incentives and environmental health Judy always sought to preserve Open Spaces in our beautiful region all in all Judy Ackerman is a true hero she does not merely talk the talk but she walks the walk El Paso needs so many more duties in our midst as co-moderator of the Community First Coalition I can speak for our broad-based Coalition in appreciation for all that Judy has done for all passowans and its natural resources Judy participated in many of our speaker events in general meetings thank you for listening and putting this statement into the public record Kathleen Kathy Stout PhD professor emaretta of political science the next statement was submitted by Miss Sylvia carrion and it reads this is Sylvia carrion president of the Mission Valley civic association and I know Judy Ackerman through all her work projects for the Upper Valley but I am most familiar with her through the League of Women Voters and the redistricting of the State of Texas and the city of El Paso she was very instrumental in teaching me the process in getting involved in redistricting if we wanted our voices heard in the Mission Valley I did not know of her illness and it took it was a shock to hear of her situation Judy taught me not to give up on a good fight if I believed we could get things approved in our favor Judy is a true God sent Trailblazer and I feel honored to have met her acquaintance thank you Sylvia carrion the next statement was submitted by Veronica carvaja to be read by representative anello Judy ackerman's love for El Paso are people in our natural environment is incredibly powerful her love for this community is powerful because it transcends Generations her love for this community is powerful because it reminds us that the fight is worth fighting her love for this community is powerful because it is Relentless Unapologetic and joyful Judy has committed her time her intellect and her money into making our city government more fair and more sustainable her investment in our community will continue to Bear good fruit for many more years to come the proof of that is in the young people who consider her a mentor mentor and an icon of El Paso's Progressive causes thank you Judy for serving our country and our community we love you sincerely Veronica carbajal thank you the next day my was submitted by Melissa Kirkham and it reads I support recognizing Judy Ackerman and her work on land conservation Judy has worked tirelessly over the years to save open space and to preserve the Franklin Mountains thank you Melissa Kirkham the next statement was submitted by Diana Moy and it reads first I want good morning representative anello first I want to thank you for sponsoring the resolution to honor honor Judy Ackerman Judy is a very outspoken and passionate icon in our community who supports many causes from women Reproductive Rights human rights to the conservation of our natural and Open Spaces which is how I got to meet and collaborate with her Judy has played an important and essential role in the conservation of natural spaces like Franklin Mountain State Park casner range lost dog and naplan not only has she worked hard to help conserve those areas but she has inspired and will continue to inspire many of us in El Paso young and not so young to be actively involved in conservation issues in our area once again thank you for taking the time to support this resolution Diana Moy the next statement was submitted by Don Baumgart and it reads hi Alex I just heard of Judy ackerman's condition and your agenda item Judy has done so much and meant so much to El Paso that I can't choose one memory to describe her Judy is not a force of nature she is the force of nature for decades she's led the fight for democracy and conservation in El Paso no one person can step in to replace her efforts in this wide variety of causes it's up to all of us to pick up a piece of her work to carry it forward and with we must teach our children grandchildren and those around them to pick up pieces as well thank you Judy Don Baumgart the next statement was submitted by Rick lobello and it reads hello just a short note to let you know that I support your efforts to honor Judy Ackerman at city council I have known Judy longer than any anyone when it comes to the environmental Community we have worked together for so many years and I am thankful that I got a chance to meet her for all she has done on the phone this past Saturday Judy and I met sometime around 2004 when we were organized the first poppy celebration and we did all we could to stop the border wall from being built at Rio basket Wetlands Park she quickly became one of El Paso's conservation Heroes when she changed herself to a bulldozer at the construction site and was arrested after nearly two decades of working together to engage our community and valuing land conservation I would say the most memorable and most important thing we did together was one in 2014 she asked me to attend a Franklin Mountains Wilderness Coalition meeting to talk about the casner range at that meeting I encouraged the Franklin Mountains Wilderness coalition to move in the direction of asking President Obama to declare the castner range of the Franklin Mountains as a National Monument for several years earlier I crafted the environmental platform for Congressional candidate Bethel O'Rourke and was confident that he would help in addition to Beto who played a major role in protecting the range congresswoman Veronica Escobar later introduced legislation in support of creation of the National Monument none of this would have happened without Judy's leadership and drive without a doubt I can confidently say that Judy Ackerman is one of the greatest El Paso Texas conservation heroes in our history of the city Rick lobello and the final statement was submitted by Paulina guile and it reads I would like to express a strong support to honor Judy Ackerman who has worked endlessly to protect parks and Open Spaces Pauline Aguirre mayor that concludes public comment on this item thank you and Miss Ackerman I know that um the city meant a lot to you and you meant a lot to the city and thank you for oh you've always continued to do and I think Mr White I couldn't agree with you more that this is not why we want to be here we want to be here to celebrate and I continued on our our citizens and represent our citizens but representative thank you for putting it on the agenda and for again the sacrament thank you for being a voice of our community mayor Pro Tem come here um you know Miss Miss Ackerman and and her being here on Council for the last seven years she's clearly shown that she lives by her values and she speaks for what's right and that's something that she's lived both as a veteran serving this country and also as an El Paso and serving this community in the Jewish faith we have when someone passes we have a saying May their memory forever be a blessing and you think about what she's done her memory and her actions will live on past all of us in this room because of her unending yielding for doing what's right not so that her memory would live on not for for her own personal um interests but because of doing what's right for this community and generations of el pasoans will be able to experience everything that made Judy So Special by the thousands of acres of land that have been conserved in perpetuity for generations of el pasoans to live and again for doing for what's right for living by our morals and our convictions and um you know may may she go in in good health and may her memory forever be a blessing and we're all um wiser and luckier to have her presence in our lives thank you representative Hernandez thank you um Mrs Ackerman means a lot to to many people and I started getting messages as we this Proclamation was brought up and so I'd like to read a message I received who is from Elisa Cervantes Benavides and she says we have all benefited from benefited from Judy's Relentless work and advocacy throughout our community I've been inspired by her work firsthand as an open space Advisory Board member and a league of The Women Voters of El Paso though I fondly recall seeing her and join El Paso and expressing her passion for all that it offers in numerous local organizations throughout the years there is one day with Judy that I particularly hold dear over Thanksgiving break one year Judy invited my son and I to explore the Franklins together on the hike she taught my son about local plants animals that we saw along the way and helped him to appreciate the beauty of our natural environment my son was experiencing a difficult time in school that year but he seemed so free during that hike it was as if he forgot about his worries and returned to just being a kid with Judy she spoke to him so caringly to Pink his interest and all that we taught my son about excuse me lost my lost my spot she spoke I was unable to share precious moments of just being present out there in our beautiful surrounding landscape with my son listening to Judy's descriptions the Wonder in her voice passion to preserve our natural landscape and gratitude to Mother Nature for her provisions of it to us it was one of the best days that I've ever spent with my son and I have Judy to thank for it I know Judy has taken hundreds of us on such hikes throughout her years but to my son and I Judy with her storytelling and her hikes is one in a million my son my son still brings up the facts that he learned out there on the range with Judy he is now he's a teen now but I know he still sees our Franklins through her eyes of Wonder and appreciation a perspective and lens that I know Judy had so much to do with and she she attached some photos and she sent that to the Frontera land Alliance um Judy um we we wish you the best and the the amount of of um advocacy and what you mean to El Paso has been invaluable and we thank you for all all of the love and and all of the um fight that you have instilled into all of us we really we're gonna miss you and we and we care deeply about you representative um thank you Richard and the disruption of molinar and before you start a little bit I do want to you know I've been to a lot of functions um opportunity to speak at your breakfast and Mr Robinson prior to that and I don't remember ever being there without Miss Ackerman so represent Eleanor thank you very much mayor so if you know Judy one of the things she had always started a conversation was how she got to El Paso and she would say Ackerman you're going to Fort Bliss and of course she was serving the military at that time and she did not really know where Fort Bliss was at however upon getting here she looked at our beautiful Franklin Mountains and guess what she fell in love with our mountains and she fell in love with her City she fell in love with her people our culture our community and from there everything that was the Catalyst for change positive change the fact that this lady was a doer this lady was a is really I should say is a person who takes a vital interest in everything that she does and whether it's at the Franklin Mountains the Seva Sierras conservation preservation it doesn't matter she gave it 110 all the time and if you know Judy she was a very strong person and I do miss my friend thank you thank you representative thank you mayor so um I'm gonna try to get through this make it quick um a part of this job I think people don't talk about is that we get to meet so many amazing people I think a lot of the speakers up here are an example of that and they're people that have become really important to you Judy isn't someone I knew before I ran for office but I can remember the very first time I did meet her and after that like many people went on Hikes with her she showed me the mountain she was a part of a lot of the things that I've done here at Council and and there was not an issue that I couldn't call or expect to hear from Judy about and it seems unfair that we have to go on and do this without her but that's not true I think like Scott said is as we all have a responsibility to to fill her shoes and and remember her message and keep that with us every day on this job um but Judy is someone I love dearly she means a lot to me and I'm very grateful to to be able to do this today but to have been able to be her friend thank you and without Mr Prime we have a motion this second and Judy may God bless you was that your motion representative motion made by representative anello secondary by representative Molina to approve the resolution for Miss Judy Ackerman on that motion call for the vote representative Rodriguez yes thank you in the voting session and the motion passes unanimously Council would you like to race us at this point move to recess second there's a motion in a second Teresa's the city council meeting all in favor yes anyone opposed and the meeting is in recess at 10 13 a.m to take photos with this morning's honorees Council if I can get you all behind me on the photo wall we're going to go ahead and start with the utep's 1974 first women's volleyball and basketball team followed by the Red Ribbon Week then the Isleta Education Foundation week National Breast Cancer Awareness Month and then we're going to jump over to item number 20 one with the Borderland muscle car and sweet memories and the Detroit Lions and then also the breast cancer awareness month resolution and the Judy acreman recognition [Music] yes Council if you'll return to the Deus the meeting maybe we convened police Council can we return please is there a motion to reconvene there's a motion and a second to reconvene the city council meeting all in favor anyone opposed the meeting is back in session at 10 33 a.m we're on item number 33 that was also moved up and this item is discussion if this is a presentation by Christina ipas Chief Executive Officer of Central San Vicente on the services offered to the El Paso Community by the Centro San Vicente Clinic and this item was submitted by representative Rivera mayor mayor good morning mayor message thank you Council mayor of I've invited Miss spaz the CEO of the central Vicente which is a staple in our community and uh the updates and everything will be provided by many Spas but uh it has grown into a magnificent location it it serves so many in the community of that area and Beyond and I'll let her tell you the rest response thank you representative for being here for allowing us to be on the agenda today to discuss the important meaningful work that Center San Vicente has done thank you representatives and mayor for allowing us to do so it's an honor to be here and to discuss with you what fqhcs in our city do particularly santo San Vicente federally qualified Health Care Centers Drive is to provide high quality Primary Care Services to the nation's most vulnerable individuals to include those that are home free our Center which is a non-profit 501c3 Clinic is operated by a patient majority governing board and I'd like to thank chairman boras also for being here for as support Health Centers like ours are largely funded through human resource and services Administration there were they were funded so that we can provide primary care services and other services to our community that are much in need while we are funded by hersa it is only a fraction of the price of what we we operate at santosavi sent this operating budget yearly is about 18 million dollars hersa provides us 4.4 million to continue to operate and serve our community we also have support services to continue to Aid in our in our services through the community to include Medicaid and Medicare 340 drug pricing program vaccines for children program and National Health Service Corps which is a loan reimbursement for those individuals who choose to work at Federal qualified Health Care Centers like ours this is where we need your help and advocacy your voice is critical at the federal level to support for long-term funding for federal qualified Health Care Centers like Santa San Vicente Medicaid reimbursement Medicare reimbursement protection of 30340b program servicing pricing for back for prescription medications vaccines for children and the protection of the National Health Service Corps did you know that Across the Nation sentosami said well excuse me Federal qualified Health Care Centers serve more than 28 million individuals 91 of those fall under the 200 percent poverty level at Centro San Vicente alone 95 percent of our patients fall under the 200 pop 200 poverty level and in 2021 without any furloughs for 2020 or 2021 no shutdowns no layoffs we were still able to serve 14 275 Unique Individuals in tune in 2022 we've also been able to serve 802 homeless individuals 59 of our patients at Central San Vicente are unfunded individuals we do offer 24 program services to include Primary Care Pediatric Dental Pharmacy Behavioral Health Outreach and enrollment and our latest and what's most dear to my heart is agenda affirming Clinic we also offer hepatitis C treatment medication assistant treatment programs lgbtq Health Outreach and enrollment Radiology hepatitis C treatment health education and a transition program there's many many more unfortunately we had some I.T issues this morning so our presentation is not up but I'll make sure that every single one of you get our presentation so that you could see all other unique Services Sentosa San Vicente has to offer we employ five Physicians one one physician's assistant and proud to say like myself 15 nurse practitioners at santosan Vicente with four different locations across the city our main one is at Alameda and Yarbrough which is is under Representatives uh Rivera's district and our other at Pebble Hills and Lee Trevino which is under representative Hernandez's District we have a clinic in San Elizario which is a unique place and I would invite everybody to come visit us that land was donated to us so the clinic it sits right in a residential area and it's in a trailer that we make shift to be able to provide Health Care Services there we also have a clinic inside the Opportunity Center on Myrtle Street and that particular Clinic sees individuals that are home free 802 individuals is what we saw last year and we continue to increase our census in that area because as we see that a lot of our home free individuals do need Primary Care Health Services at the Forefront of covid I'm so proud to be able to say that next to UMC Santa San Vicente was the first in the city to have been able to bring the coveted vaccine to the city we were very active in the beginning with vaccinating all of our health care entities to include ourselves our sister fqhc's bien Vivir dental offices and other pediatric offices across the city to date we have vaccinated close to 20 000 individuals and we have a team that is being deployed throughout the city to be able to take the vaccine to meet the patient where they're at January to date we have vaccinated 1 200 babies and we continue to vaccinate little ones through a drive-through service on Alameda that's completely open Monday through Friday with no appointment needed before covid-19 we were busting at the seams we had no room we were in dire need for spacing issues with the help of your advocacy and your realization as to what Cedar San Vicenta does for our community we have been able to expand our services and are spacing within our Clinic with cdbg funds so today I'd like to to stop and say thank you for helping us grow and continue to grow our latest renovation was the pharmacy it housed 20 individuals that and they were shoulder to shoulder and now they're able to to move within the pharmacy and serve our individuals that need medications the most so thank you again for for your advocacy with the cdbg funds will continue to grow so that we can continue to serve our community the best um and at this time I'd like to entertain any questions and again thank you for your support and I look forward to meeting every single one of you so we I can expand on what we do at Centro San Vicente thank you thank you very much for the great presentation representative again thank you thank you for being here miss boss I know you have a busy schedule Mr Butters like to say a few words and himself or this is this board is fantastic good morning mayor and City Representatives my name is David Porres and I'm the chairman of the board of San Vicente clinic and yes we have a tremendous working uh support from our board of directors our CEO Dr Christina pass and the staff there do a tremendous job to individuals who are either either underserved or have no insurance and so it wasn't for clinics that are funded by hersa we wouldn't be able to give Medical Services to the much needed services that are required here in the community so once again we're asking for your advocacy for your support and we thank you for your support that you've given us so far so thank you for allowing us for being here this morning thank you thank you very much thank you so thank you representative Mr Prime yes mayor we now return to page seven to item 24 on the agenda and representative Rivera submitted the next three items so I'll read them into the record item 24's discussion in action to direct the city manager and City attorney to impose a moratorium on article 27 of the city's municipal code for residential property owners who have filed an over 65er persons with disabilities homestead exemption with the El Paso Central Appraisal District this moratorium will protect a person over 65 years or a disabled person from receiving a citation from the city for overgrown weeds at their Homestead Property to go into effect immediately and expire on December 31st 2022 item 25 is discussion in action to direct the city manager and City attorney to create an amnesty period for residential property owners who have filed in over 65 a person with disabilities exemption with the El Paso Central Appraisal District that have received a citation for overgrown weights in the last 60 days and item 26 is discussion in action to direct the city manager and City attorney to create a permanent moratorium on article 27 of the city's municipal court for residential property owners who have filed in over 65 a person with disabilities exemption without El Paso Central Appraisal District from July 15 to September 30th of every year calling it The 65 for 65 plus moratorium the moratorium will protect a person over 65 years or disabled person from receiving a citation from the city for overgrown weeds at their Homestead Property during El Paso's monsoon season go ahead representative thank you and that was 17 maybe I think you said 27. it's okay you're correct all right uh Council mayor deciding was placed on the agenda after having it had a the long and and thought process about the Rainy monsoon season which was coupled with the city's unable uh ability to keep up with the uh with the uh maintenance of the old grown weeds in our city in our city medians the uh the city opted to financially incentivize organizations and ask volunteers to help clean up the medians therefore I felt it was unfair to cite some of the side refine some of the people here in our community especially seniors over 65 and persons with disabilities who have filed over 65 years of age or disabled homestead exemption with Central Appraisal District I felt that uh the help was uh necessary for them to be honest and I had a little presentation silly did you could you have the it could you bring it up please okay so go to the next page please so an additional impact issues impacting residential property owners 65 Plus or disabled we had to more rain in the forecast as was reported by El Paso matters on the 18th of October inflation Rose in El Paso by nearly 10 percent according to Consumer Price Index this was reported on kvia September 26 22nd and a substantial portion of our residents are considered very low income with the City's power poverty rate at nearly at or nearly 20 percent higher than the state of Texas state level reported in the annual action plan city of El Paso Texas 2022 23 which was prepared by a department community and human development next page please with a continued additional issues impacting residential property owners 65 or Plus or disabled 25 percent of the El Paso households or house housing costs burden meaning that they spent more than 30 percent of their household income on housing costs in other words the rent mortgage utilities Insurance Etc a particular concern is a prevalence of severe housing costs burden for households who at our below 30 percent or on the era of medium income 50 percent of these extremely low income households expend more than half of their income on housing costs and this these individuals and families are likely to be forced to make difficult choices to meet their basic needs for food shelter and warmth city of El Paso 22 23 was prepared by the department of human again Community Health and Human Development nearly one out of five persons live in poverty as as Miss Foster stated 90 percent of the people they serve are are in the category of poverty right now so reporting the uh this was the the number one out of five opacities was reported in the annual action plan which also was reported by the Department of community and human development for the Syria El Paso in 2022-23 next slide please here's a list of ZIP codes in the area where nearly 52 percent over 65 or disabled residents Homestead exemptions properties are filled with the El Paso Central Appraisal District are are filed with us I'm sorry or filed with the Central Appraisal District uh item 23 of city council presentation site five the top five ZIP codes in the area with residents of 65 years older are 79936 which has 12 342 79912 which has 10 466 and 79907 who has eight thousand seven hundred and thirty six uh homestead's medium household incomes who are grouped in the income of 27 166. this is through the United States ZIP codes organization information was obtained 79924 as 8246 while 79 799 one five has seven thousand three hundred twenty two also medium household incomes at the uh income level of twenty seven thousand one hundred thirty four again obtained from the United States uh ZIP codes organizations next slide please and what happens when your weeds are too tall is we all find out found out this past weekend you're out there volunteering with the city several meetings were clean throughout the community so far and I understand when it's left um the El Paso generally when they find that when we have a complaint El Paso finds the public for overgrown weed overgrown vegetation and weeds as was reported by kvia on July 7 19 20 1920 2022 I'm sorry uh we each taller than 12 inches Property Owners will get a notice from the city code enforcement that says that they have seven to ten days to correct then they go back to inspect the property if not fixed it will turn it over to they will be turned over to Environmental Services who uh well after a second warning will clean up the property for a hefty fee average fine for the cleanup is 200 and just as an example I don't know that's what that was the case on on our consent agenda item number four there was a in in District three that was Eileen was placed on it at that point the homeowner will be charged with the expenses incurred by the city if someone fails to pay those then they are looking at having uh to pay interest on the charges they have accrued homeowners who do not pay the fines could also face liens making it harder to sell the property later next slide please therefore I'm asking a council support to protect our vulnerable population and I make a motion to approve item 24. item 25 and item 26 with a slight Amendment which I do we came up with at the end and that was to do to have to direct the city manager City attorney to create a permanent moratorium on article 17 of the city's municipal code for residential property owners who have filed and over 65 or persons with disability exemptions with the El Paso CAD Central Appraisal District from Seventh from the time of uh June 15th to September 30th every year and develop a program and or partner with a non-profit organization that can provide free of charge Landscaping yard cleaning services to home property owners 65 or older or persons with disability who are unable to clean the physical activity necessary to keep up the overgrown weeds and with that I make a motion to to approve all second trying representative um Rodriguez thank you so my question is I I think that you know this is um a great way to help our community but logistically how can this be pulled off is that directed to either a city manager or City attorney typically when Council places items on the agenda they they put it on and then Council votes on it as to whether or not we're going to research it and come back with recommendations on how to execute I think we would have to look at this the same way and be able to come back and explain the council how we would be able to execute the item that that was approved if it's approved by the city council okay so I know that you know as mentioned earlier we we started this volunteer program with Environmental Services um I don't know if next year in you know future years we can potentially maybe look at the surrounding high schools and partner up with them where we if you know some of their student organizations need community service hours where we'll provide them for them by them coming and helping us clean the neighborhoods of these individuals close by we can grow the program we already have a variety of organizations that are involved I know that several of you have been out there with the different groups and you've seen a variety of different groups that have participated in in the project in this initiative and so we can continue to grow the program and continue to add others as you've as you've indicated okay so logistically this is something that you all can can do the item that's being voted on or what you just asked me what the the item that we're voting on today we would have to go back and look at all the different uh parts to the the request or the item that the council potentially approves there would be you know different things that we'd have to look at from a code's perspective in terms of how we track all the addresses and things of that nature and it's thousands of of addresses as the representative pointed out so we would come back with a with a workable plan if indeed we could do it across the board and we would explain how we would be able to do that or what challenges there would be when we brought it back I would hope that's how it would be passed giving us an opportunity to look at it and come back and make any kind of operational suggestions in order to make sure we execute it properly uh ma'am I direct myself to representative Rivera so with this is there a time period that you're you're allowing staff to come back with um I guess a plan of how this could be logistically executed uh yes I would ask for at least to give four weeks because I know we found it we found it on the cad where they're registered already with a cat the 65 Plus or disabled so that would make that a lot easier for a staff but we want to give you enough time for you can come back and and and you know give us a positive spin on this to come back in four weeks yes sir yes sir then my second question to you is is last for expires in 22 so is this just oh no it's a cat that's for this time uh this this year and and give giving him a 65-day uh so which would end at December the 31st and then eventually start one with a permanent time frame for for monsoon season okay so just this is actually being done in preparation for next year actually starting now immediately so we're representative Rebecca if I may ORS that are being asked so moratoriums have to be done by ordinance so we would need to come back with an ordinance that would allow for a moratorium of this type as you all know moratorium the ordinance our two readings of council so we will need to do an introduction and then a public hearing before it would be instituted permanently and then we would also need to do additional research to ensure that were actually capturing the people that you're intending to capture I think that there are times on the cad rules where people have claimed a 65 over an exemption and either the person has passed away and the exemption remained and then other people are living in the household so it's it's going to be a little bit more research than than just doing it immediately um but well the more income can can come in immediately can it if they get a citation uh if they get a citation from this period for this period right now that we start or no so moratoriums are are instituted by ordinance sir so in order for us to do moratorium is Council may direct us to do we would need to come back with an actual ordinance that says a moratorium is in place that would not issue citations of these types for these individuals okay because I remember also when with the PD and I uh representative can uh support me on this we had amnesty periods where people with warrants were giving amnesty to to either come in and pay the fine or or you know pay one at a time do you remember that and so I think that would be uh applicable to this right and I and I remember the amnesty periods we haven't done in a while but I believe that those were also done by notice of council like posting on an agenda and then there was a publication period in the newspaper where people ran and we knew that there was an advocacy period so there's still a process that we would need to follow that it wouldn't I just wanted to be clear that even if Council votes to approve this today the amnesty period wouldn't begin now or there wouldn't be a moratorium starting today so actually actually I didn't ask for four weeks I think that the representatives yeah said that they would give us four weeks um as I pointed out there's a lot of different parts to this request uh we would we would do everything we could within that four week period but the City attorney is pointing out that once it gets executed if it were indeed to be executed you'd have to have two readings on top of that so that would be two Council meetings so if we were to come back in four weeks that would put us into the end of November first meeting in December then you'd have two readings after that which would put you into January and then that's moving really fast in terms of the ordinances and then reporting back to y'all on the on this particular item could it be retro on an ordinance to the date that it was introduced we would have to research that mayor again as Council on the city manager just informed you all when council members put items on the agenda of this type it's intended for you all to deliberate and provide us with feedback we're not required to do any research or have answers today simply because this is the first we're hearing feedback and then understanding what what you all intend this to do so we go back and figure out what the workings are going to be and then come back with our approach to executing your your requests and I'm sure that's got a lot to do with the impact on your budget Mr Gonzalez that you'd like to I'm sorry for the impact on your budget also right I mean it to me the moving Parts would be the codes inspector making sure they don't give a ticket to someone who's on the list who's disabled as an example the City attorney gave another good example of perhaps some elderly individuals who might be renting it out or renting it out to a family member or not renting it out to a family member and maybe it'd be a younger person in that in that building or in that house rather and simply not mowing the lawn or whatever but so there's a there's a lot of different things like that that I don't necessarily want to get into right now but you know if you want I mean I can give you more examples but those are the type of things that come to mind and we don't want to make sure that excuse me we want to make sure that we don't attempt to do something positive and they ended up with a negative if you give someone a ticket that you're not supposed to or someone that can take care of the lawn that is actually living in a home that's owned by someone who's elderly there's just a lot of different things like that just want to make sure that we research it and vet it appropriately so that we can execute exactly what the council wishes to do thank you for that absolutely and and I will say that you know we have moved on on different fronts not only with the staff that we have I know that we've talked about covet having an impact on our organization from a health standpoint from a financial standpoint and then now from an operational standpoint and I know people are becoming impatient and that's the reason why we didn't wait we created this other program where we could have volunteer groups show up it's it's worked out really really well people who have showed up have been extremely positive and again the work's getting done and I and I don't disagree with Mr uh Rivera this is a good idea you know in terms of how we execute it that that's in the in the details well just like I said oh you know with RIT capabilities I mean and and they're already on the on the uh on in the cad system as well does that make it a lot easier for to to eliminate those few homes it's like with everything else you know you you have the item once it's approved then we can take action on it as as a staff and execute the different details that you're asking about uh like the City attorney said when she said we're not required what she meant and I'm not speaking for her but the bottom line is you know Council has to approve the item that's in the council's rules and procedures you know we we can't go off and start working for one council member uh that's you know has a great idea uh until the council approves it in One Direction or the other and makes any kind of amendments to it and then we'll come back and and come back with an execution plan okay thank you and therefore I asked my my hopefully my colleagues will support this with me thank you mayor thank you representative um followed by representative thank you mayor so to I'm curious about do we know how many fines have been issued do we have that information at all on overgrown weeds representative this is the lead World from the Municipal Court um and I'm sorry Ellen I don't know if you were going to address that no well first of all Ellen Smythe um Chief Transit and field operations officer it's not a fine so the the bill that we sent us an invoice for services rendered it's based on the number of hours that we're at a property and the number of tools and then the tonnage at the landfill so it's not a fine and we're not allowed to find we don't have the power that the courts do or the police officers so it's based on the actual services rendered and then Lily did pull up the records on how many were actually filed and they go ahead Lily see it's there but there were just two and they were both commercial properties neither one of them were residential so the thing is the we give them a notice of violation it's not a citation it's just a notice that says your weeds are not within the limits of the ordinance and we do give them their seven to ten days correction and then the off the officers go back and either you complied with our request our notice or you didn't and then what if you haven't it gets transferred to environmental services for cleanup and then we actually invoice you just like a yard service and ninety percent of people probably more pay that invoice we do a good job cleaning their yards and so um for the few who don't pay it many of them are protected by Homestead we cannot file a lien so we just have those invoices and we send them out every 30 60 days just to remind them you still owe us you still owe us and then the ones who are not homesteaded they're owned as rental properties they are those are the ones that you see it posted on city council so I just wanted to clarify the terms um as y'all discussed this thank you and you said there have been two commercial properties we've actually taken to court with a citation and a fine by the judge but those are very extreme typically Residential Properties don't go that way and Alan this is Lily so from last September 2021 until October 26 citations were issued but 22 of those were dismissed so there was only four citations that are two already pending trial and and two did become warrants but from what I could see from what I researched I do not think they were over 65. oh I'm not done with my questions sorry um so city manager I guess you're going to come back and give us the information on how much it's going to cost for to provide the free landscaping and the yard cleaning service we would look at all of those different um things that are in the item yes Okay so go ahead and Miss Newman sorry just for purposes of getting more information from from the representative on this item earlier you mentioned amnesty period or an amnesty but no that was that was for the traffic violations the example I gave you right so so then this would be a moratorium where moving forward we would no longer issue that type of citation to people who are disabled or have a homestead exemption over 65. even during the months and what we call the monsoon season okay okay so so just for purposes of of me Gathering more information so we know where we're headed as Ellen just explained the city's providing the service so it's already work done and the reason the city seeks to recover it's because it's using public funds to repair or fix a property that the cities now would be out that service so we would need to have different discussions about whether that's permitted under the law or maybe addressing overgrown weeds in a different manner where we're not cutting the grass right and then not exceed not using public funds to do that and then addressing in a different way in order to avoid this from happening is just another thought process that we would need to work through well and also with respect to the thousands that you mentioned Mr Herrera and in the way you've got it written that if we paid for all of that that would be a pretty big number in terms of cost if we're not charging them one of the things we could do that we could add to what Ellen Smith has indicated to you all that we're doing now we could have a program where people are eligible just like we do with recreational programs and other things of that nature throughout the city where people qualify that with they maybe are under a pro poverty level just a different criteria that we look at in order for them to qualify well we could work with different charitable groups and or just volunteer volunteers within the the city as well and Ellen and her group do some of that already with some of the other programs that they provide that could be added as a feature for people that are disabled and elderly in in they live in different homes that could be added and that could be a feature and still kind of Meet the objective that you're that you're after because if we did it for all the thousands that you've mentioned we'll come back and show you what that'll cost it will be significant okay because uh this question was for Miss Miss Smyth because you said nothing uh yeah I get it you haven't given any citations out but yet there's cases out there being investigated correct do you have those numbers by any chance I don't have them today but we can run a report okay because I've got them here from from the code enforcement Bureau so far in the last 90 days if you wanted to read them to you I will it's uh 8862 bushweeds cases investigated 622 cases compiled with the initial inspectors inspection 2640 notices of Corrections were issued to to bring the properties into compliance 429 referred to clean up El Paso to clean El Paso and 23 cases referred to Municipal Court I guess those are the ones she mentioned 21 cases were resolved before the court hearing and two cases were pending for their litigation that's what I have and so I believe what Miss Naaman is saying is when you talk about the citation it's those two those are the ones that actually become the citation so if your intention is to address it earlier in the pipeline that's why it's trying to cover the terminology but when when officers are out there they don't know which house you live in you know they're looking they're just going down the street and so when they create a case which is the big number um the research on who lives there isn't done until we decide it needs to go to a lean process which is way after we sent the bill and you didn't pay that's we find out you're not homesteaded that's the only time we go to the Central Appraisal District is to send the certified letters but before that we're not going into the computer and like you said with technology we certainly could go in if the question would be at what point do we go into the computer to see who lives in in which house so just to give you more um in the field the actual how we would um Implement any you know after we do our research where how and when and who and and I get it because I'm not just trying to uh advocate for the uh for the Mission Valley area but every one of us has our group of seniors I know uh District Four in our in our research they also have the disabled vets out there and uh I think they they were well not mistaken they came in a close second to the rest of the districts here so uh we all have those that vulnerable group that I'm trying to to protect from any you know any citation whatsoever so I I thank you for your your information thank you represent Rivera we'll go to representative Rodriguez and then we'll come back representative on this thank you mayor I just wanted to finish because I wasn't done from before but thank you um I miss my so I actually remember when um I used to represent part of the Mission Valley I did have a lady that would tell me you know when my when my weeds get really tall I just have the city come clean them I rather them do it they do a great job and they send me a bill and I'd rather just pay them so I mean I I guess I'm just trying to figure out if we're already kind of doing what representative Rivera is suggesting what is it exactly that we are voting on because even if we approve this today Miss Neiman it's correct it wouldn't really go into effect it has no no power right so not not as as you all are speaking about it today we would come back to Institute the actual moratorium to stop issuing the citations so basically the the by stopping to do that then we no longer can offer this service to like the constituent I used to have to be able to clean her her yard yeah I I we would have to research options but if if I could remind you back before covid we had a really um active program with keep El Paso beautiful where we would host the gift to the river the gift to the mountain the Great American cleanup Pride day and those four events were mostly staffed by the high school students who needed their their credits for graduation and with the Advent of covet and then the you know schools not being in person and just coming back into the regular classroom settings we haven't had the opportunity this year to re-establish all those relationships that we intend to go back to have on the full-blown High School volunteers to help us also we do have if you call our 212-6000 environmental services customer service line if you absolutely cannot clean your yard and you've received a citation a correction notice there's a phone number on that notice to call and we will try and hook you up with volunteer groups already we already offer that we get calls from various churches and non-profits who want to do something and so when they say we have you know 12 people on next Saturday who can help and then we also have this list of people who've called we can't we got it by a notice of violation we can't do it we can't afford it we do we hook them up already we're already doing that program and so it's not a formal because it's it's between the resident and the say the church I mean it's not a city program we just exchanged the phone numbers for them and I think that that's a I mean those options that you just um spelled out for us are great options and I think maybe we need to do a PSA of some sort a campaign of some sort to let people know that hey this was on before covid now that it's gone we're back this is what we're doing this is how we're willing to help you um and just give people more options right because the last thing we want to do is be citing people for for having weeds but at the same time we want to be we want to have a beautiful city as well and I think everybody's neighbors would appreciate if everybody's homes looked nice right so I guess my final thing I'm just very not clear I'm sorry representative I'm just not clear I'm not giving you a hard time as to what it is that we're we're approving here today where uh if approved it's the direction to get the direct direction for the city manager and staff and City attorney so we can somehow protect our 65 and and plus and are disabled from getting a citation when they're the most vulnerable that can't go ahead and uh and have the work done themselves you know what I'm saying and of course with that with all prices going up Landscaping prices are also going up so I mean it's that some of those aren't a little medium income like I told you I showed you and others are are in desperate need of they make the decisions of what what they're going to do are they going to pay the hospital or electric bill whatever and so then to get hit with a with a warning or citation like that is is you know even harder on them and when we're when we're Environmental Services also offers the neighborhood cleanup um dumpster to each one of your offices I think each one of you have actually had it one or two of those events earlier in the Summer where we'll bring the the roll-off box and provide the gloves and bags and then you're able to pull together a neighborhood association or whoever and um so those events also lend themselves to helping this population that representative river is talking about because a lot of those neighborhood associations already know who is living in the area that may need a little bit of extra help with their with their weeds and so those events are still you know they're available on request for you I know that these last several weekends have been focused on the medians but we do still offer that other program if you want to look at that okay so just final statement comment this is just to ask direct staff to come back with a potential ordinance change is that correct yes that was when that by me again please this this item that you have placed it's just to direct staff based off of the conversation that we all are having right now this is just to direct staff to come back at a future date with information on how we could do a potential ordinance change so so as we're sitting here talking through this yes if if that's the best approach but as I'm sitting here listening to Ellen there may be a fix without having to do an ordinance just in terms of what we're gathering information from Council in terms of what Mr Nevada's concern is and it's a matter of how we we're not issuing citations to these folks so it's a matter of understanding the problem and then approaching it in a different way does that make sense sir well in essence this is all coming across also from the media as far as you know reporting all these weeds and everything else and so I understand what you're saying but after we're after we after I'm not here you know we have these continuous Monsoon seasons and we don't want anything to change out because we don't know who's coming in or or you know whoever sits in whatever chair that is up during the diet decides to change your mind inside people like that I would like to that's what I would like to do is formalize this issue to where it it it has life well after we're gone Mr Rivera can yes representative I'm sorry um can you make a motion based on what you would like to see I made the I made those I made the I made the three initiatives but I also amended 26 where it says especially what I'd like to see is if they you know if at some point if they're already partnering with a with a non-profit that was my my uh extensive point to hear for 26 is to say developed a program partner with non-profit organization that can provide free of charge Landscaping cleaning services to Property Owners 65 year old 65 Plus or older persons with disabilities who are unable to complete the physical activity necessary to keep up with the overgrown weeds sir okay so that's your motion that's my Amendment and and of course the motion was to approve all three okay great is there a second second all right so that's the motion so we know what we have now yes sir so we don't continue to go back and forth so so with that I know we're we go to representative anello followed by representative alcido cleanups are we doing for residents right now well we have the staff that's working all the different medians I mean in terms of you asking for specific houses as far as what we're doing well no I mean that's what I'm getting at right like we know that right now we're having a shortage of of personnel to be able to deal with the medians right and so I'm just wondering like with the reality of our situation yeah but I think that Mr Rivera is referring to homes yeah and I'm asking what we're doing what we're doing is meetings with staff that we have we also have a contract and then we've also started doing uh with volunteer groups cleaning up the medians as well they run a report said I don't want to speak for you Mr Rivera so please stop me if I'm if I overstepping but I I get what the intent of this item is right I think there's a lot of frustration um from everyone right there's frustration from us there's frustration from staff they're under staff the the brain for some reason is just like not stopping this year um it's never rained this often this late like we're all dealing in a situation that we're not used to um residents are getting upset they're complaining all the time to us about medians and so then if they get this notification whether it's a citation whether their yard has been cleaned or not you know they're getting frustrated because they're like well y'all are having issues so why aren't you recognizing the fact that we've had issues my yard I've had claimed three times this year that's never that's unfounded right it doesn't usually rain that often and so I I understand the public and Mr Rivera's point is that you know we all kind of on all sides need to understand that this is a this is a different year right it's harder for people this year it's happening more often and so I think the intent of Mr Rivera's request is is that is for us to understand as well whether that means you know we put a hold on cleaning people's yards for a little while and sending out those notifications whether that means we do do an amnesty period what that means and what I think would make much sense but I am not the expert here is that we stopped doing residential cleanups and we put all of our Personnel towards our streets and our medians and things that we're hearing a lot about but that is I think what Mr Rivera is asking for is y'all to make that recommendation obviously something needs to happen in the next couple months everybody on all sides are very frustrated I would say hopefully it's going to stop raining but it just rained a lot yesterday so we don't know and I the reason I'm supporting this and I seconded it because they think that we need to make reasonable adjustments to our policies to deal with the situation at hand and I don't and it's very hard for us sometimes if I'm being honest because we don't get a lot of information and when we ask questions we're kind of stonewalled in the fact well this is the policy and we don't have a lot of staff and so I understand the surveyor is like I'm trying to find a reasonable Amendment but all I can look at is the actual ordinance and there's not a lot of guidance um so again I'm supporting this because I would love to hear staff's recommendation on how we can all as a community as a city staff as a city government work to understand that there sometimes need to be reasonable exceptions when the planet is actually you know changing the course of things so that's all I wanted to say I thank you Mr Rivera for putting it up because we do think it's an important conversation thank you representative Salcido followed by representative Molina thank you mayor and we definitely have seen unprecedented rain and that doesn't stop right so that's an issue but my question Mars in regards to addressing um who cleans the Arts and how we can go through the best process um I wanted to see if we could possibly find a way that we would look into people that actually have citations in the way of them to pay those citations that they get for other things to do community service for us like you mentioned like The Yards the medians I don't know what the legal thing we would have to do but I think that that would be a good way of people being able to pay their Their fines right if they don't have the money they can do community service for our community and and help us also to keep El Paso clean beautiful and we all know that weeds medians are always an issue and of course right now it's more in front of us because of this rain so I just wanted to see if I can how would the approach be for us to look at that kind of way of getting that community service so it's kind of more for sure and it also it allows people that you know they don't have the funds to pay those citations they can do it with community service we can we can include that when we do our research when we come back yes and it's not a fine it's a it's a bill so yeah to pay off their invoice no I'm I'm talking more about like the fines regarding like people that gets traffic tickets and so they know that that goes more into the court system like if somebody gets a you know a speeding ticket and they have to pay it and they don't have the funds so that they can in lieu of that to do community service for El Paso to pay the fine I I think that yeah we the how we get there many of the cases that are prosecuted go through trial we could talk to the judges and discuss whether that could be part of a plea agreement but again we would need to do the research in terms of of whether those folks would be part of a volunteer group to clean up properties oh okay perfect and and for that do I need to amend anything or that's something you all will look into doing already give them direction if and I I didn't catch the entire motion that Mr Rivera made earlier I think that what what I think and I won't speak to the city map for the city manager but what I think what I would request is that we come back with as many different options that are as are available to address this issue where it exists and then other options in terms of how do we address the real concern which is overgrown weeds and we can also come back at the next council meeting with a report on the weed situation just like we do with streets I mean we have talked about what we've done so if there's questions that y'all have if some of y'all feel like y'all haven't gotten the answers then we'll do it in a public meeting that way you can everybody can see the same thing but what I described earlier is taking place and what Ellen has indicated they're doing at homes where they get invoiced after they get advised of the high weed situation but yeah we can come back and give a report publicly so that everyone hears the same thing okay thank you thank you representative thank you very much mayor so um representative thank you very much for putting this on the agenda I know our office received many calls on different places and I'm going to talk about the um Marcos Uribe so if you know Marco's YouTube it goes in North Hills there's It's a Long Street but a lot of that street is has what they call the double fronts or whatever words you want to use it and so people recent people that moved in people who have been even there for quite some few years they're getting these notices and they're they're upset and there I've been told they're veterans they're elderly they're disabled and that's fine but they don't know anything about it they don't know anything about the ordinance so I really believe that there needs to be some type of education component that we're educating the public on this that's happening now this 2022 I believe was a very unique year where we did have substantial rainfall and I don't I don't know how much it was compared to last year uh or maybe other previous years so it doesn't happen all every time every summer the monsoon season comes but we really need to do a better job as far as educating the public those people who have a double front property you are responsible for that it's in the ordinance but they don't know about it and so when they get hit with a notice all of a sudden they're like they're screaming at us as Representatives what what are you doing how can you take this away from me you're giving me seven days to do this and you know we have to listen to them and we have to provide them with an answer so um the other thing too is so for example I know Helen you were talking about the weeds and different properties I can tell you there's one property at the 4700 block of GT powers in District Four the last 10 12 years that I'm aware of that house has never been lived in the owner resides I'm going to say in the east coast in New York New Jersey or something like that the 4700 block of GT powers and so I know code enforcement has received many calls on that 3-1-1 has received many calls on that right now the weeds are bad and they will continue to get worse and next year is going to be a cycle and I'm not sure if that there are notices on the door posted there but everybody lives there I mean some windows had one point been broken into and you know they're a little bit boarded up and those boards come down it's it's it's it's bad so I don't know what you can do about repeat calls for service and that one particular house and I'm sure there's many houses and various districts throughout the city it's just not unique to that one block and so when you also talk about others that can help I know there's a gentleman by the name of Israel Dana who works for the county of El Paso and he's the charge for the juvenile probation department and they're you know they do require community service hours as part of their adjudication and so they're a great resource to reach out to and say hey on a Saturday we've got six juvenile offenders let's put them to work three hours four hours and they get service credit as part of their probation period so just something to add to that yes we do use community service volunteers from the courts at our five drop-off sites rather than in the yards because it's more contained and we have more supervision at those sites but yes we and I know that the downtown Management District also uses court-ordered service hours to help them in the downtown area one more thing and also um I know I was at a community meeting someone mentioned that um and I guess in years past I don't know how many years that uh there was call it a chain gang if you will where inmates that are serving time in the Paso County Detention Facility for whatever fence I'm not sure misdemeanors felonies that they were put to work I don't know that's something to be able to explore or not we can look at we have looked at it previously then we can look at it again thank you that's all happening thank you representative Hernandez and then we'll call the question after this okay thank you um so I was listening to everyone's dialogue and just um I had to step away for a minute but if I can address you representative Rivera did you make an amendment okay so for 26 what was the amendment program and or partner with a non-profit organization that can provide free of charge Landscaping pain service to home property owner 65 or older or persons with disabilities who are unable to complete the physical activity necessary to keep up with the overgrown weeds representative I heard you say June 15th on that one is it June July on the initial on the initial initiative here it had from July 15th to September 30th so it'll be July 15th thank you okay with that Amendment thank you and um based on what um Ellen excuse me you got a really long title officer Ellen Smith and the City attorney and city manager is it your intent today to approve as is or is it the enchanted that to come back and to provide recommendations it's too direct to see if they can come back with recommendations okay so voting guests today would give them the opportunity to do their due diligence in-house to do a legal review to to check out operations okay and so um just my my other my other comment is just to thank you for doing this we do hear a lot of these complaints I do believe that there is some kind of resolve some kind of program even if it's not the idea from representative Rivera or close to it I really do believe that if if we're going to hold residents accountable we need to be in lead by example because this year has has been incredibly frustrating to hear about weeds but and I've said this before it's just been extraordinary and unprecedented times that have called for thinking out the box and but also recognizing that there are some residents who may take issue with this because there's a myriad of issues whether they're homeowners whether they're renters maybe they just didn't get the exemption so there's a lot of concerns that could rise from this so I I would feel comfortable having the administration do their due diligence internally and then report back but I'm happy to support this I think this gets the ball rolling and it allows for everyone to to start to think about how we can bring fairness and equity in our policies but also think a little bit more Innovative with families or persons who are struggling and so we appreciate your your willingness to to do a deep dive on this but I am supportive to do that deep dive at this time thank you thank you Mr Prime thank you representative and Council there's three separate motions that you want to take them together separately together together okay so I'll read on item 24. it's a motion in a second to direct the city manager City attorney to establish a moratorium on article 17 of the city's municipal code for residential property owners who have filed in over 65 or persons with disabilities exemption with the El Paso Central Appraisal District to expire on December 31st 2022 and the motion on item 25 is to direct the city manager and City attorney to create an amnesty period for residential property owners who have filed an over 65 or persons with disabilities exemption with the El Paso Central Appraisal District that have received a citation for overgrown weeds in the last 60 days and the motion item 26 is to direct the city manager and City attorney to create a permanent moratorium on article 17 of the city's municipal code for residential property owners who have filed an over 65er persons with disabilities exemption with the El Paso Central Appraisal District from July 15th to September 30 every year and develop a program and or partner with a non-profit organization that can provide free of charge Landscaping yard cleaning service to home property owners 65 or older or persons with disabilities who are unable to complete the physical activity necessary to upkeep with overgrown weights and return to Council in four weeks is that correct okay on those motions call for the vote in the voting session and the motion passes unanimously thank you Council thank you thank you sir if Council wish to recess for lunch until noon until noon there's some motion in a second to recess the city council meeting until noon all in favor yes anyone opposed and the meeting is in recess at 11 36 A.M thank you how are you okay I think well they got it all yeah I need one of those uh be ready yes yes sir council is there a motion to reconvene there's a motion and a second to recombine the regular city council meeting all in favor anyone opposed the meeting is back in session at 1204 PM we are on 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 these 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 displace Civility and Decor that is respectful to other persons without the use of insulting profane threatening or abusive language public comment will not be used for personal attacks against a person or group's character or Integrity which are not pertinent to City business nor May any member of the public uses foreign for political statements or campaigning please note that during call to the public the city council may not deliberate or decide any subject that is not on the agenda however Council May propose that a topic brought forth be posted on a future agenda this afternoon we have seven members of the public that signed up to speak the first person is Miss Wally Schick followed by Stephen Strummer and Ron Cuomo good morning Mission good afternoon you have three minutes good afternoon good afternoon God bless every one of you and I put the you back to the United States of America because we lost you to Unity and today I would address you and don't put the Gizmo on it okay please this is everybody's concern in El Paso and everyone of it in the United States what I say today first let me explain this flake my mama at age 80 became a U.S citizen because I wrote to President Ford why I want my mama buried in El Paso and Richard C white our Congressman helped me and he sent her the flag that was flying over the Congress on her day October 18 1977 and uh Mr Mayor this is a flag for you to put in The Greenery of your pot at home or at their business or here and this is the flake my mama held and she wanted to be buried with the flake that flew over the Congress I as an American not born here knew that it was the gangster law to disgrace the flake my mama is at the summer Theory with the American flag the Florida and Congress and I mean it with the sincerity heart I took the consequences and when I had her covered at the funeral I told the people the heck with the rules and the regulation I want you out of here and I want to close the coffin I pay for it and this is the way I did it I put the flag on her chest I put the Blessed Mother in there and then they can dig her up if they coach me problems and today I'm asking every one of you in unity to put you back to the USA and here is from the artists three minutes three minutes man no no no I'm sorry I know we'll see you in two weeks thank you very much for being here no yes I I thank you and I got your letter here and um I I can't get a hold of number three and uh my representative and I don't want anybody to representing me the beliefs in birth control forgive me hello but thank you very much today they have to arrest me I want I can also be a citizen thank you thank you very much thank you the next speaker is Ron Cuomo thank you Mr Cuomo will be followed by Carlos Carmona Georgia Paul Barbara Valencia and Susan Martinez Mr Como's topic is poor decisions by city council good afternoon Mr Cuomo you'll have three minutes sir thank you I walked outside because what is on fire thank you Miss shark like always does not count this is my 353 I know and I look forward to number 354 and so does so does Ron thank you Miss check I'll see you next two weeks Mr kamu hello everybody how are we this morning this afternoon whatever it is I lose track um I'm here to have some conversations about things that are happening and let me apologize Mr Mayor I wasn't aware you were going through things again but these are things that need to be said um you in your dealership you're you have a general manager a service manager a parts manager sales managers every single one of those people had years of experience before they were put in a management position you and I both know it for a company for a business for anything to succeed in today's world the person that is running the business the facility has to be qualified to run that business the rate of success by a person who is not qualified to run a business an entity whatever you want to call it is not a good average and you and I both know that you and I are both businessmen we've both been in the same business you cannot hire people and put them in charge of something if they have absolutely no clue what they're doing we have situations in our city where an entity is failing miserably and we have no plans on how to fix it I've tried to come up with Solutions we've had a couple of meetings so we haven't had any more we can't adopt our way out we can't kill our way out we need to get some concern in care Mr liser you wouldn't hire somebody off the street because they were afraid to run your dealership why do we keep doing it why does the city keep doing this you need qualified personnel the upper management teams and some of these things are not qualified and we need to fix the issue please look at what's actually happening on the streets ma'am you brought up a good point about on Nextdoor app and I'm glad you looked but you all need to look at next door apps lost and found Pages we have a crisis in the city we need to fix it we can't ignore it if you look at the shelter numbers the last two months you can no longer ignore this problem we need to fix it guys what's it going to take what do we need to do we're begging you this isn't right thank you Mr Como thank you thank you sir appreciate your time the next speaker is Carlos Carmona Mr cardamona's topic is rising cost of retiree health insurance good afternoon sir you have three minutes Mr Carmona go ahead Carlos caramona your phone is is unmuted go ahead sir can you hear me now yes sir um problem here in Council thank you very much for what you do and thank you for having me I'm a retired City employee I've been retired for almost 31 years oh well I got it backwards I've been I worked for 30 almost 31 years with the city of El Paso and I've been retired for about nine and a half and the reason I'm calling it for you to please consider retiring this year when calculating our health insurance uh premium as you know as a demographic we are more vulnerable to that increasing prices overall inflation and of course medical costs and uh Health Care coverage you've done very good and I appreciate you for holding the line for current city employees and not raising their premiums in the last couple years thank you for that so please I add that you do the same for us retire to the employees so that's all I had and I think again thank you for your time and may you all have a great day thank you the next speaker is Georgia Paul Georgia Paul star 6 please to unmute your telephone and the topic is increase in property taxes good afternoon you only have three minutes good afternoon my name is Georgia Paul uh I was looking at the news on the oldest weekend and the people was uh talking about them raising their property taxes on the elders and one lady said that you know everything that we do in El Paso come from the property tax so I figured we need another uh taxable income where you don't tax people out of their houses where where everything that the hospital need you taxing the peoples everything the city needs you're taxing the people I mean the people don't get a break so I figure if you guys had another taxable income then you wouldn't have to tax the elders out of their houses where they got to move to Santa Teresa and other places that's undesirable for them so I figured everybody in El Paso are in the state of Texas smoke weed smoke pot marijuana whatever you want to call it so why can't that feel taxable income why can't you release some of the burden from the taxpayer from the property taxes I mean the peoples and the peoples in El Paso pay for the people that's come across the border we pay for the hospital the schools everything your salary that comes out of the property taxes so why can't you do something to help the people instead of hurting the peoples all the time that's all I gotta say you need to come up with another solution and I figure the solution everybody smoked marijuana you could you could deny it all you want to but they do they smoke it in El Paso in all parts of Texas so why can't that be a taxable income that you could take the taxes from that and pay for some of these other items y'all want to do and not tax the elders and the disabled out of a home that's it thank you man bless you miss Valencia is not present so we'll move on to Susan Martinez Susan Martinez star six pleased to unmute your telephone and the topic is Frontera Road concerns good afternoon you'll have three minutes yes good afternoon this is Susan Martinez I'm with Jack White neighborhood association and also with the El Paso neighborhood Coalition um and I'm speaking on behalf of my neighbors did you know that El Paso was ranked the 20th most dangerous city for pedestrians with 215 pedestrians killed between 2010 and 2019 so the proposed use of Frontera Road by the New Mexico developer with over 100 acres of residential development is going to bring about an additional 2 000 vehicles to Frontera Road from theater road is an East-West local Street providing one lane of travel in each direction from Doniphan to La Adelita and it's a distance of less than one mile speed limit is 30 miles an hour so we can't support these dangerous New Mexico proposals we've already mentioned to you the 224 House Development on 60 Acres in Sunland Park it's going to dump into Frontera we've mentioned the 50 houses under construction in New Mexico Boy Scout in the San Gabriel streets these three streets all intersect with Frontera road now there's 40 acres in New Mexico approximately 550 feet away from the 224 House Development that's waiting for development did you know there's also a gated community all in Sunland Park adjoining the Texas railroads neighborhood it's got one road from Texas to get in and out and the gate code is privacy and the code is only known to New Mexico residents inside this area there's a street sign it says Appaloosa Street but there's no Street it's a dead end and it's blocked with thick roads of salt Cedars Appaloosa was originally designated the access and egress for the New Mexico portion of the Willows so the neighbors have come up with some recommendations for you and we hope that you will consider them and collaborate with us we're happy to work with you but we propose you close from Theta with a cul-de-sac a Frontera and Girl Scout Teflon did I comply with the complete streets ordinance and promotes health and safety and Welfare of the community and incorporates trails and bike paths close Hacienda Roja Boy Scout Lane and San Gabriel streets all of the Texas border see the original cul-de-sacs that were there they're still in the street you would like to see New Mexico use eminent domain they can keep the Privacy gate in the Willows but cut through the salt Cedars and build and pave Appaloosa Street so that access and egress will be into New Mexico we suggest they also use eminent domain and design and pave new streets for adequate traffic flow flow in the 224 House Development don't use Frontera and Girl Scout this is substandard Frontera and Girl Scout intersected about 1500 feet so there's only one entrance fully paid Futurity Street New Mexico residents then can easily reach Sunland Park mcnuts I-10 and the toll road for Access and egress so bottom line for antenna Road can't support the traffic from over 100 acres of proposed New Mexico development this is going to cause unsustainable traffic hazards and could lead to injury and even death let's work with some of those things thank you redesigns with Excellence you've reached the three minutes thank you so much for your help thank you very much Council that concludes call to the public thank you thank you everyone for being here and with that Miss Pine yeah uh yes can we go to item 48 which is the State Legislative um agenda update yes sir item 40 eight is discussion and action on the city of El Paso's legislative agenda for the 88th regular session of the Texas state legislature good afternoon Council excuse me um great to see you all again so this item today we're going to be talking about the final adoption of our legislative agenda I believe Snapper and Lupe are joining us on teams I know Snapper was running around at another council meeting so hopefully when he was able to join us believe it um that is the incorrect presentation it should be item 48. good afternoon Miss Adams [Music] all right so the purpose of today's presentation as you all know we've been coming to you all to all of you um since May it feels like it's been such a quick time frame bringing the legislative agenda to you and today we're ready to finalize the entire agenda so today I'm going to go over one additional priority as you all know in August you approved the 12 initiatives that we went over as well as the council um support and oppose items so today we want to talk about one additional priority legislative initiative as well as the revisions to the support in a posts section that our staff initiated and then of course our final goal for today is to adopt the legislative agenda um excuse me so in terms of the additional priority um or in terms of the entire agenda so we sent you all an email maybe last week or the week before that that had the entirety of the agenda it's about 10 pages long so I didn't want to do a presentation that would bore you all and take forever to go through every single item so for the sake of time today we're only going to cover the changes from the 87th session to the 88th session so you all have that in an email as well as in the backup the red line version of the agenda is available for you all to view um so like I said our goal for today is to adopt this the legislative agenda as you all know session begins in January um and I wanted to remind you all that as we move closer to session we'll continue to come back and update you on what's Happening bills can begin to be filed in November so once that happens things are going to start moving really quickly and we'll be sure to stay on top of everything that's happening any bills that we may need to come back to you all for um I do keep in mind that this agenda is just our guiding document it's not final and it's some of the things are going to be rather Broad and that's just to allow us to work through the session on anything that generally supports the city as a quick reminder as you all know um there is the priority legislative agenda our priority legislative agenda includes sections including the priority initiatives and then the oppose and support section so these are just general principal principles that allow our legislative team which is myself Lupe and of course Snapper and his team to work through this session so um we don't know what type of bills we can anticipate there's hundreds of bills filed starting in November so like I mentioned very very broad principles and this is just going to enhance our ability to work through the session in terms of a timeline you guys have seen this multiple times so um but it's moving as we're moving along so in August you all approved the priority legislative initiatives the 12 of them as well as the four Council recommended support and oppose items today um here in October we're looking at one additional priority initiative as well as the final adoption including all of the revisions for the support in a post section as I've mentioned November 14th bills can begin to be filed and the in session begins January 10th um we'll be sure to come back with periodic up periodic updates anything that we thank you all may need to take action on if it's not already covered in our agenda and then of course those amendments can be made as we go so overall today's requested action is just to approve the final agenda with that one additional Transportation writer which I'll go over right now and the revisions to the support in a post section so in terms of the additional priority legislative initiative it is a writer and it's going to be very broad so just to seek writers for any construction or improvements to the city's Transportation infrastructure system and examples of this can include Street extensions obsolete Bridge reconstruction arterial Corridor reconstruction the Northeast railspur and of course our International Bridges so this one's very broad so in the event there's an ability for us to sign on to a rider we'll be able to do so so that is the additional priority legislative initiative we're asking for your approval for today moving on to the support and oppose section as you all know the documents rather lengthy there's a lot of sections in it this just lists every single section that's in that support in a post section so we've been hard at work coordinating with all of our departments our eight external agencies and anybody that we need to partner with we've met with the chamber the Border Plex just to work through each of these areas and make sure that our agenda is solid so we can move into the session successfully so like I mentioned I'm only going to go over the revisions from the 87th to the 88th so one thing we're going to do is add a pension section this is a section that was not previously in the agenda so we're adding that section with did I skip okay no I'm sorry my slides are out of order here we go um so we're going to add a support item that enhances our city ability to provide pension benefits to our retirees and employees and oppose anything that would restrict the pension's ability to manage our pension program or oppose anything that would affect the city's pension liability unless you all take action different to that and I want to mention I do have multiple staff members if you guys have any technical questions about any of these items I have the subject matter experts for each of these ready to go here's my okay so the next section under the utility section we're going to add a support item that would increase the proportion of renewable energies and the state's renewable generation requirements this do we support any legislation that would do that next under the environmental section we're going to amend it to read sustainability and environmental because that helps us cover a more broad understanding of sustainability and environmental sections under that we're going to add quite a few quite a few things I'm not going to read them all to you but mostly any legislation that's going to support climate change goals renewable energy the deployment of electric vehicles charging infrastructure and net metering caps so this is all stuff that we've been talking about the council has been talking about for quite a while um basically anything that's going to increase our Energy Efficiency next we're going to amend public health and safety to read Public Health and Welfare and the reason for that is because we already had a public safety section so it was a little redundant and we needed to separate what the two were trying to do so we're going to amend that and add to the Public Health and Welfare section any legislation that supports the simplification of the process to apply for SNAP which is food stamps and then we're going to have two deletions I'm sorry one deletion under Public Health and Welfare and this would be to delete um legislative or delete the support of legislation that reduces background check requirements for Telecommunications and then delete one item from Public Safety which is to a this is confusing sorry we're going to delete the opposition item under Public Safety to oppose legislation that will allow U.S border agents to be carried as state peace officers so both of those will be deleted next we're going to add to the airport section point of point of order we would have to go we would have to make an amendment to delete those at this point no sir so um once I go through all the changes we'll ask for it to be amended as recommended by staff so they'll all be included in there okay next we're recommending to add under the oops I'm sorry under the airport section to oppose any legislation that would limit municipality's ability to regulate peer-to-peer car sharing companies and then under Animal Services add a support item that would allow shelter animals to be spayed and neutered by veterinarians that maybe have a license from a different state that's not from Texas we're also looking to add an affordable housing section section this has not previously been on the agenda so under that section we're asking to support legislation that prioritizes viable transactions for four percent low-income housing tax credit applications supporting legislation that would repeal the two-mile same year rule or either support legislation that repeals it or that allows the municipalities to repeal it and then lastly support legislation that would limit the Housing Finance corporations to operate only within Municipal city limits next we have our higher education section so every year we work with UTEP and utep's board approves a list of their priorities so this list comes from them we're just supporting them in their efforts I'm not going to read them to you because it's two slides worth of information but some of the big ones to point out is supporting them in their appropriation for advanced manufacturing and then also they also have an appropriation for the law school planning study so with that our recommended motion is to approve the legislative agenda agenda for this Ada session as presented by me and then really quick um just a couple next steps so like I mentioned bills will begin to be filed um November 14th session begins January 10th so right around the corner as I've mentioned multiple times I feel like a broken record I'll be sure to come back and update you all with anything happening throughout the session anything you all need to be aware of and then of course if there's anything we need either further clarification modification or revision on the approved agenda we'll be sure to come back um as a quick resources reminder if you will I just wanted to let you all know if you don't receive the newsletter from Focus advocacy I encourage you all to sign up for it they send sometimes at least weekly sometimes twice a week and it has information that's really really important um I recommend that you all sign up for that and if you need help please let me know I can help you do that I also wanted to let you know that we were able to set up a website for intergovernmental relations where people will be able to access the agenda and just have make it easier for the public to find information on our agendas as well as some of our lobbying contracts so it's under the government section I just wanted to show you all really quick um under government and intergovernmental relations it's a very basic page we just were able to launch it this week but it's going to house this agenda it houses once approved and then last year's agenda as well and then just some resources and then um of course my contact information and information so people can find out who their state and federal representatives are and then finally the last thing I wanted to let you all know of is El Paso days in Austin has been scheduled for February 14th through 16th so um hopefully you all will be able to join us out there and we're working with the chamber to get all those details finalized so we'll be sure to send that out once we have it and with that I will take any questions thank you from shannonella thank you Lindsay um I also I know I bring this up often but I really love the focus advocacy newsletter it's very helpful um I want to so I have a couple questions one's a general um kind of keeping us informed and so I know last year uh there was uh some of the council wasn't aware I think of hb14 um which was a bill that specifically impacted municipalities um so I want to know if y'all have a plan to just I know they're online I know that they're searchable but just to make it absolutely impossible for us to miss any bill that's filed that involves municipalities absolutely so one of the biggest things that we're working on is getting a bill tracking system that will help us support us to track them because there are hundreds of them but I am hoping to do a better job of ensuring that you all have that information if not weekly maybe bi-weekly information on anything that is relative to the city we want to make sure we protect our interests both for the good and the bad so we'll be sure to stay on top of all of those and keep you all informed yeah I mean it's right because you I mean you remember it was hard to have a conversation when some council members more than aware of the bill and others are more informed and so yeah I think that you know just some kind of spreadsheet or email would be helped helpful but I want to go back to one of your changes that you mentioned I think it was when representative schwartzbein he may be asking about this do ask for a point of clarification so we are removing the opposition why are we removing that so I don't know if Chief D'Agostino is still here because I don't know that I support that so I would be interested in why we wouldn't be opposing it yes a subject matter expert yeah for this very good Mario D'Agostino for the record opposing legislation allows U.S border patrols to be carried out of state so we're deleting that so we want them to be recognized as data we do want them because they assist our community as we've talked about we we do everything we do here is based on that Urban Island and we've talked about our Partnerships across all the different entities and they're a very big partner so like when we had the August event at Walmart they were able to come in and assist us without that it makes the processing and the tracking of that difficult by giving by making them to be recognized by the status peace officers it allows that better cooperation and a lot more seamless so if we get in a time of need and we need to call for additional units they could come in and do that because they'd be walking under that state process and I respect your opinion but we collectively do not want that I do not agree with that and I think using the Walmart shooting is a little disingenuous example of of what could also be happening so I'm going to ask Lindsay that we take these individually so thank you okay yes ma'am remember Pro Tem thank you representative thank you um I have a number of of items to bring up there as well and I would echo my colleague um I think that the border patrol does an absolutely essential job for um dealing with our federal border and dealing with issues of federal government however um I do think that it's important that there is a separation between our different law enforcement positions here in this really muddies the water um in a way that I don't really understand it right now I don't think the council really understands it I again appreciate um the Chiefs the chief's perspective on this but without understanding it further there's no way can I support can I I can support this and I think that it's important to keep it as is so that would be something that again I would want to vote on um it's one of the questions that I have is relating to slide 13. for affordable housing yes so the support legislation that prioritizes viable transactions for four percent low income housing what is a viable transaction as defined by the four percent low income housing tax credit applications so I believe we have Abraham um on the line from Community human development I think he can answer that better than I can good afternoon America's assistant director with Community human development for the record you pretend that is basically oftentimes on four percent uh light tech applications they get approved but then the project ends up being not viable and so this is very challenging since it's a very limited pool of four percent deals and that reduces the participation from other folks that are shoveled ready so we would we would want to essentially limit the number of corporates and applications to only have individuals that I should have already uh projects I don't know if that answers your question sir so this would essentially prioritize it would essentially limit the market of people that could apply for this because if they hadn't done a four percent project we wouldn't support it that is correct sir yeah again I I think we need to take these individually I don't know why why would we we would take such an activist role in this um when there isn't necessarily such an issue that we're seeing or lists have been made made aware of so we're going to take these individually um one of the things that I'd heard from some other elected officials in the state is Snapper on on here maybe there's somebody from our lobbyist group or just I just have a couple and then I would like to make a motion to add something else on on here as well but we'll get to that as well he was scheduled to be on I don't know if the rescheduling of the presentation go to another meeting okay he's joining right now right now all right well there's a there's two items and as we wait for him I'll just bring them up in general um one is we know that the that the state legislature in the past has done a number of preemptive bills meant to limit the ability for municipalities to do a wide variety of things from Banning styrofoam to Banning 5G to I don't even know what um at this point and there was a number of items that I know that was discussed that I don't necessarily see on here so I'd like to understand a little bit more one relates towards um the the the the discussion about uh the state legislator or the state um Banning cities from hiring lobbyists in the future so that is one item that I don't see on here um if it it is I obviously think it's very important that we clearly stayed up pose preemptive Banning of lobbyists for the for the cities to the state legislature and then another item that I heard from a couple of elected officials in the state not in El Paso Texas relates towards a preemptive a measure of preemption for cities to charge for Park fees um and park minimums for development projects and so I was hoping to hear from Snapper somebody about both of those items if they're hearing any chatter relating to this I think it would be um pretty scary that cities would not be allowed to do a sensible minimum of requiring park space for for developments um that we're actually totally shutter it makes me makes me kind of sad that that would even be discussed um what I think that might be Lupe legislative attorney hello I may be able to help out here uh good afternoon council members so before I answer more specifically your question representative I do want to point Council out to within our legislative agenda there is what's called a legislative principles and in that legislative principles section city council gives us the the authority to oppose any bill that would that tries to reduce or preempt city council from taking any action that it currently can take using its homeroom Municipal Authority so there already is a a general principle that allows us to do that so the two the two examples that you um that you cited those would be items that we would definitely oppose now as far as that first item more specifically the one that deals with and and what we'll call this is community censorship so so in the past what the legislature has tried to do is it it tries to limit municipality's ability to hire people to assist them during the legislative process and and so using taxpayer funding to to higher lobbyists but really what it is is it's Community censorship it's limiting our ability to represent the community um there at the Capitol and so so there is a lot still there's a lot of talk we do anticipate something like that uh coming up again during this legislative session and we'll be working with other municipalities um as well as other organizations to to oppose that bill they're more likely than not we'll hopefully be submitting um as we have done in Prior sessions um written testimony on that as far as the second example that you cited the the uh what you're hearing that there might be an effort made by the legislature to try to limit the municipalities authority to pass Park fees and then I'll transfer some Snappers joining us I do know that there has been a lot of talk um prior to the session concerning affordable housing and and and from the building Community there's been a lot of talk from from that Community basically saying that there are a lot of regulations that municipalities have that prevent them from being able to provide more affordable housing so the the park fees and municipalities may be charging that might be one of the things that they have talked about but in general that is something that that more likely will also come up during this legislative session um the the legislature will be looking at whether or not there really are regulations ordinances that municipalities have that may impact the ability of Builders um to provide affordable housing for example in some of the fees that municipalities have so so we are working with other municipalities in anticipation of of some some type of Bill coming up um and based on the the principles that Council has adopted you would have given us the authority to oppose those types of bills and I'll transfer it over to Snapper if you've got any additional uh information to add snapper uh thank you Lupe and mayor and Council thank you for for letting me join today and I apologize we just finished up another Council briefing um on Tuesdays they're a busy Council day uh and so thank you um Lupe is exactly right the issue of um what cities and how we're going to calculate our fee across the board there will be bills filed that that have limitations from our standpoint to do that that absolutely will be a an item of discussion and the bigger topic of uh what is driving housing affordability issues across the state unfortunately uh throughout the interim some of the Builders Association and development Community around the state have testified that cities either the delay in processes are the cumbersomeness of their process is what they deem to be a major factor in that I will say that they've not presented a whole lot of testimony or evidence to that fact that it's it's more rhetorical in nature or kind of highlighting bad examples that might be outside the norm um but but the issue of of housing affordability City fees and development process the attempt to preempt local Authority there will be no doubt be a major I don't know the discussion Okay so so is this something that that we need to take an active opposition of in terms of these these these two items relating to the preemption of lobbyists and preemption of of Park fees I I think under under the general principles you've already given us authority to oppose anything that comes up um as as Lindsay stated earlier in any Bill not only these two bills these two items or issues that you that you mentioned representative but any bill that gets filed any legislation that gets filed that seeks to remove your rule making your ordinance making Authority or preempt you in any manner um you have given us the authority to oppose and we will be opposing it those types of bills during this legislative session as we have done in the past and and I know my my 10 minutes is probably running out right now but I am I know that we've had in the past have put as some of our priority items relating towards um film incentives and film economic development in our community and so I am going to make a motion um to add that as one of our priority items I know that I don't know if you guys have the language that we've done previously in terms of carving out an area within you know a city above 500 000 people within 25 miles of the Texas border uh to look at at an additional film incentives if that doesn't pass and I would like to make a motion to have an item for us to oppose anything that would limit or shut down the the current Texas State film incentive program and to support any any items that would increase it and I don't know if you all have that language um maybe by the I know there's a couple other people signed up to speak that we can we can read that there on the record we have a very Dynamic Film Community again it's important for people to understand that Netflix is right around the corner from where we are right now both in Las Cruces and Albuquerque there's major Studios there are dozens if not hundreds of el pasoans that are employed by the film by the film economy in New Mexico and we are are positioned here regionally to be able to take advantage of those dollars here we need help from the state to be more competitive but we'd be doing a disservice to our creative economy here in El Paso and those El pasoans who are being supported by this work yes sir so um the film and moving image industry incentive program is in the support section I didn't cover it today because it's not changing unless you all want to vote to make it a priority it's under Economic Development um letter F and it's appropriates money for the moving image industry incentive program and create supplemental tools for local communities to attract moving image projects and related jobs so I'd like to make an amendment at this time to make that to make that item a priority I don't know if there's a second thank you absolutely there's my comments for right now thank you sir representative Hernandez thank you um and this will be a question for um Lupe and and snapper are you hearing anything or in the past legislative session did you did we was there any decisions made on um limiting a public health authority or and or any legislation that would give precedence or exclusive authority to any political subdivision or Governor the right to implement mask mandates or the opposite the prohibition to limit Mass mandates is I'm not sure how like if the bills have been filed yet or if that's if the Committees have discussed this at all but that's something I'm interested in granted that we've already expended time and money and we're an active lawsuit and litigation against these prohibitions of mass mandates foreign Lupe I'm happy to to answer the representative's question uh take a shot at it first the issue of uh Emergency Management Authority um uh declaration Authority and jurisdiction and in the times of declared emergency there will undoubtedly be again in legislation filed uh on that topic um it's been a major it was a discussion point last session during the course of the pandemic which we of course were actively in still and then I would say that that due to the winter storm some of that debate was cut short and kind of refocused uh and not really settled um I would say that there will be bills that are filed that further clarify what the governor's Authority or though some that we would probably support and some that would probably be against the positions that we've taken in some of the aforementioned litigation um uh in there will likely be bills that are filed that looked preempt local governments Authority uh to act outside of of it in times of declared uh emergencies and so the issue will again be back uh it often gets you know there's the head now become a distinction between Public Health orders and pandemic management and management of let's say a more typical disaster that were more common to to dealing with like a hurricane on the coast uh or tornadoes or something along those lines and so this will be something that that's debated and back to loop-based point that she was making on a couple other items I think that overall our first mission and the way we helped look at this for you and evaluate things that are being proposed is to try to retain local Authority for community and Council based decision making as it relates to all topics including Emergency Management and so that's kind of where it is those bills haven't been filed pre-filing will start November the 14th um but but you we will absolutely see a large number of proposals both good and bad likely from our perspective on that topic could I add Snapper um so technically this would be local control but it is I guess where our our arguments and facts of our cases differ from other communities is that you know we're leaning on the public health authorities authority to make this decision so would that differ from local control in terms of a political subdivision or is there something where we need to specifically call out that we want to respect the authority of a public health authority as opposed to a city council a judge a County government or a mayor making that decision through emergency or disaster Acts you you certainly could add that provision I think that there will be a debate um state level about where that jurisdiction lies as it relates particularly to say a Public Health crisis like a pandemic management and so um having a specific items supporting uh the authority of local Health entities to to make those calls is certainly something that's doable I would think it in Lupe or Lindsay please jump in I would think if we see bills that are filed that limit local Authority whether that be via the the local government officials or the public health entity which I think we will see that that we would be in position to oppose those under the the current provisions of our of our agenda but but certainly had any sort of clarification yes so on the very oh sorry let me really quick on the very last stage of the um agenda that I sent you all that's also in the backup it has our general principles and um I believe the third one um is opposing anything that limits the city's Authority so it's kind of broad to cover any of those bills that may come up sorry Lupe go ahead and so I just want to get clarification from you representative and and and I might need um city attorney's help or the city managers help on on this issue but it's it's my understanding that that during the pandemic and and under the existing um statute the health authority has the authority to issue a mandate or a health order um and then I I think it's it stays for 10 days or a certain period of time and then I think it has to go to City Council I think that's the way it closed so the clarification that that that I kind of need from you representative is are you seeking to to change the existing law um or or or what what is it that you want to accomplish do you want counselor to make that determination first or do you want the health authority to make that determination first or or what what um what is it that you you want to to either prevent from happening so that we can ensure that we watch out for that type of legislation um or what do you want to change if anything sure um Mrs Neiman I can ask you to jump in um it's been a little while since I've seen that area of the of the law but our interpretation allows for the local health authority to issue Health orders that address public health safety and Welfare issues so during the pandemic Dr okaranza with our assistance in the health department we're issuing Health authorities in regard Health orders that would address the pandemic at different locations so we did it for nursing homes we did it for homeless shelters we did it for schools Etc right in places where we knew that he needed to provide additional assistance in order to prevent the spread of covid under that same Authority the city council supported his direction to issue a county-wide mass mandate and and then those are reviewed periodically however there aren't any expiration dates set by Statute it's simply The Authority given to him under state code and the health code to issue those types of orders to protect the public health and safety that's what the authority was that Dr okaransa issued his county-wide mandate and then it doesn't come back to counsel in terms of approval but then to further provide context um if those orders were essentially ignored because then the governor's executive order took precedence and so the question that we have posed in the courts today is who has the clear authority to issue those Health authorities is it a non-public Health official like a a governor or political subdivision or should that Authority rest heavily on a medical expert a medical order as opposed to a political if you will order so if I can represent please representative and this is something Lupe that we can discuss moving forward Council as you know directed our office to file litigation against Governor Abbott in regards to the mass mandate issue by Dr okaranza in the question we believe Still Remains open and potentially open for the legislative session to delve into these issues and either clarify the emergency disaster Act or strip away powers from our local Health authorities in terms of this type of power so it may not necessarily be in regards to mass mandates in general but in the future when you have another pandemic or another type of Crisis that affects people's healths the question is going to be Council I believe is interested in having a discussion about us being vigilant of any changes that would strip a local Health Authority's authority to issue directives or orders that would protect our local inhabitants [Music] but so as I understand it then really what you're looking for is it it we may need a clarification um of the existing law to ensure that the authority to issue local emergency orders is uh retained or um is held by the local health authority that's correct that's stated in current statement yes as currently and in Lupe if I can jump in it was back to what I was uh commenting on and follow up on the city attorney's uh discussion there will be bills filed that men the emergency declaration Authority Act which empowers the governor uh and there will be bills filed that severely limit local government including Public Health authorities to go against those orders as they come out of the state whether that be the governor's emergency declaration Powers coupled with advice and guidance from the Texas Department of Health and hhsc that that is the position that the governor and legislature took and of course not our case that was filed but several pieces of litigation during the pandemic did work its way to the Texas Supreme Court that were on similar questions not exact as it related health for what it did relate to local orders and of course they the Supreme Court cited with the governor's office in those instances that again ours is different I'm not saying that but but the issue of this will be there and what we're gonna I can guarantee you it won't be a discussion of clarifying it in favor of the local government it will be in the it will be discussed in the context of saying you do not have that afford that because that's the position that leadership currently takes and took during the pandemic uh and it expressed very strong resources there wasn't a bill that passed this last session I think again primarily because of the complications I think just of the session but also because the governor and the legislature were in a disagreement some members of the governor's own party and of the legislature did not agree with how broad of application the governor was applying is his authority and expects to leave her executive order Authority and so that is I think not because they were unwilling to clarify one way or another for local governments it was because of that executive level uh officer the governor and the legislature that could be being on so that nothing happened this time around I could see a greater push to set that dispute between the legislature and the governor aside and unfortunately go after local government Authority in this regards and that in the back too that the legislature has made a distinction now management of pandemic as a Public Health crisis versus a more natural disaster sort of public clantity like the hurricane fires tornadoes Etc okay no um all really good feedback and and I agree that it's it's gonna It's Gonna Come forward the discussion is going to be framed in a way that you know it's not preempting local um local rules or laws or or authority but rather um elevating or empowering Governor's executive orders which you're right it'll be framed in that way so I'm just curious now under the Public Health and Welfare section it mentions nothing about protections for public health authorities or even further elevating or empowering a public health authority to issue Health orders um I so long as it's tracked I'm fine I don't think it necessarily needs to be here but if you feel like you need direct guidance from from this body to place it on there than we can but I'll leave it to your discretion if you feel just having the discussion is sufficient well since this is slightly different because we're talking about the authority granted to the health authority not necessarily to city council um so it wouldn't be necessarily preventing City councils so much as preempting the health authority but we can add into the into the health section is support legislation that allows the health authority to retain authority to issue emergency orders oppose legislation that removes the authority of the health authority to issue emergency orders go ahead hey I might make one suggestion that you put and I like that framing it as a support but support the continued Authority um okay of the local health authority to issue that's correct um so members of council I I would entertain a motion to add the support um as mentioned by Mrs goyard Mrs Prine did you get that or would you like a repeat of the language so the motion would read to support the continued authority of a health authority can you repeat that Mrs so it would support legislation that gives a health that gives a continued authority to the health authority to issue emergency orders and then and this Prime afterwards also because I know this is a lot of information I'll I'll send you um something in writing thank you and then oppose legislative and then to pose a legislation that removes the health Authority's ability to issue Authority issue emergency orders I think it's existing Lupe Authority yeah existing existing okay existing correct so we have a motion is there a second and then and I'm mayor I just have one more question is that okay to continue okay um regarding the opposed um for the public safety section and so there's a recent event that just took place which is the unfortunate mass shooting at a school in urvalde and there were border patrol agents that were on scene uh and you know so despite the the politics of that in the event of emergency events is this is the is there like an intent or is there um some form of legislation or concern from the public safety legislators or the public safety stakeholders that are seeking to actively have border patrol agents who were not with this item we're not asking border portray agents to do um the law enforcement work of a police or sheriff is what I understand but you're you're saying in the event of emergencies you you want to give authority to a border patrol agent to be able to respond to local events and so can you just please clarify on that Mr D'Agostino yes ma'am so that is correct we're asking for them to be recognized as state police officers Texas is one of only a few states that do not recognize them as peace officers so while they can intervene for felony type events this would just allow them that that further where they can they could intervene for for other items as well it's only it's not intended for border patrol to do El Paso Police or Sheriff's job or for El Paso Police or Sheriffs to do border Patrol's job this is for an emergency extra genuine circumstances if they're right there and they're seeing an offense being committed we'd like them to respond and then for by all means for emergency situations such as the unfortunate Vivaldi incident or any other incident where we might need that extra response Force at the time right and then and I would just add it's just simply another strategy it's a force multiplier instead of hiring additional officers you if you can't hire them fast enough this is just one more Force multiplier so I just would add that to the context of what the chief just said what I also think in the August 3rd shooting there was a patron at Walmart who was a border patrol agent who was not armed but she had I believe she had her Duty weapon in her vehicle at the time would in in that event would she had been able to respond without of uniform and what I understand yes because that's a being a felony in progress to be able to respond to that I have chief talamantis on the line if you'd like to ask him is there any yeah is there any added protections to murder partitions if they're considered peace officers like let's say there's a dispute or there's a let's say there's a some type of like after an event there's always lawsuits of something that comes up is is there a purpose for this for the peace officer is it just to respond or is there a protection for U.S agent board which are agents yes ma'am and I'm gonna let Chief talk about this expand on that but it should offer the protections of a statement I'm sorry mayor it's just thank you I've gone over my time out just a little thank you if we can hear from um it's good afternoon everyone um yes as far as like de agosina was mentioning uh border patrol like other federal agents have uh the authority to arrest powers and search and seizure powers for felony offenses only however uh since uh at any checkpoint or at any point of entry and within 100 miles of that border patrol moments also will have the authority to intervene on certain Texas laws for example uh DWIs driving well intoxicated public intoxication even though it's a misdemeanor it's a public safety uh offense so they also have the authority for that um and uh to to answer your question ma'am as far as voter patrolman that's why you see them on occasion that they they stop a driver that's driving really Reckless and they might stop him and call for police to to take over the investigation or take over the the individual as well does that answer your question ma'am as it relates specifically to a peace officer designation is there any added protections or I mean I guess it sounds like they already have the authority so can you explain what change happens if there is a designation of a peace officer they're not they're not considered peace officers in the state of Texas there's a few other states like California that I know but they're not considered but they do have like a mentioned arrest search and seizure powers for all felonies also for a certain misdemeanor offenses but as far as they're they're to to be able to intervene on any breach of the piece which would be any assault in progress or any uh fighter going on assaults going on in their presence they can also intervene the only difference would be that they would turn them over to the local police authorities but they can intervene and all this I don't I don't see any any uh um and they obviously would have the protections from their from the government as far as when it comes to civil lawsuits but Chief if the if the state took an action to to classify them as peace officers in the state of Texas would that not offer them protections under the state of Texas for responding to a a crime that they currently can't respond to so wouldn't that give them the protections I believe that's what representative Hernandez is asking it in that case it would certainly give him some other uh recognized protections from the state uh how however uh as far as enforcing misdemeanor laws and and uh uh aside from the felony offenses uh they can still intervene like I mentioned on breaches of the piece or DWIs very well intoxicated but they uh I think where it comes to answer your question I think where where it comes a little bit of a challenge for them is their policies their individual agency policies as to uh being armed and and being able to intervene on certain offenses thank you sir yeah um I want to thank uh Chief talamontes because I think that you really pointed out what the issue was right I think we originally had brought up the August 3rd but we know that border patrol has the authority to intervene in a situation like that um but I think you really articulated where my concern for this was is is what happens to an individual when border patrol intervenes right if if something like this is passed they will no longer have to turn someone over to the local authorities which then you have border patrol in this community that is bi-national you're you're allowing them to intervene in civil cases and then take that person into their Federal custody and I just think that we owe this community a lot more you also mentioned a really great point that I hadn't even thought of was that they have jurisdictions 100 miles from the border for certain things right when we need them they can respond I think that opening up to allow border patrol to do civil any kind of be involved than any kind of civil situation is just the long-term very harmful to this community and so again I would just like Lindsay I actually I asked to take these all individually is it easier if I just make a motion to delete that one uh yes I'm because there's quite a few sure yeah I'm sorry I thought about that so I would make a motion to delete that item is that the one with the peace officer yes sir second and then I also since I still have the floor I know representative schwartzburn had brought up some question about the house the the four percent I do think he's right I have a lot of questions about that that I don't know can be answered today and so I actually wonder I know that y'all want to finalize this as soon as possible but bills haven't been filed yet can I make a motion to postpone that one item those or was it all the tax credit ones only the one about the viable transactions really into four percent because I I would love to learn a lot more about that I think it is a it's just a very sensitive situation and I'm I'm also just not I think I support it but I'm super not comfortable voting on it today so I would like to make a motion to postpone um the item referenced by representative schwartzbein in regards to the four percent housing credits I don't know if there's a second second thank you Miss Adams yeah thank you and with that we have motions of commotion amendments so miss Pride you have 10 minutes yes ma'am I'll try to I'll try to remember everything that we're just doing all the Motions representative Rivera you had your your thing did you wanna did you want to talk about the peace officers no he's already um representative um okay thank you for that though mayor Pro Tim but uh you know I've covered that form and so he he pulled his name out the first motion that I have was made by mayor Pro tem short spine seconded by representative Rivera and this was to make the legislation a priority related to I'm Sorry Miss Adams you'll have to help me with this it's not on the side it's in the agenda under economic place so so just for clarification representative swords launch So currently we have it in the support section so what you'd like to do is um remove that from the support section and add it as a priority legislative initiative so what we have in the support section you want to move over to the priority legislative initiative section is that correct yes okay I can so that should be the motion do I need to read the language that it's already written or no yes please so the language is um support legislation that would appropriate money for the moving image industry incentive program and create supplemental tools for local communities to attract moving image projects and related jobs again the reason for us is we've gone and supported the film industry and the film Community here previously I think it's important to continue that thank you so this motion is is to as Ms Lindsay read into the record and this is to move that legislation from the support section to the priority section on that motion call for the vote in the voting session the motion passes with seven affirmative votes representative Rodriguez votesne the next motion I have was made by representative Hernandez seconded by mayor Pro tem shortwein and this is to support legislation that removes the local Health Authority's existing authority to issue emergency orders and oppose legislation that would remove the local Health authorities Authority to issue emergency orders is that correct existing or authority exactly most of local Health authorities existing Authority correct I'm sorry on the support when did you say removes when did I hear that right I'm sorry it would be too important a post legislation that removes the Health Authority's existing authority to issue emergency orders and support legislation that gives continued authority to the local health authority to issue emergency orders that's right yes I apologize I was on mute so let me just jump in real quick so so it should read support legislation that gives continued authority to the local health authority to issue Health orders and then it should also the the second one is oppose legislation that removes a local Health Authority's existing authority to issue Health orders is that what you read I just want to make sure yes yes and yes correct this motion was made by representative Hernandez seconded by mayor Pro tem shorts fine on that motion call for the vote in the voting session and the motion passes six to two with representative Salcido Rodriguez the remainder of council voting I the motion carries the next motion is was made by representative anello seconded by representative Rivera and this is to lead to delete the legislation under the public safety section that will allow U.S border Patrol agents to be carried as State peace officers is that correct yes ma'am and I want to thank you for being able to articulate whatever we're trying to do over here this motion was made by representative anello seconded by representative Rivera and just just in terms of how this present this is originally was something we were going to oppose yes so yes sir with this motion it would stay on the agenda as opposing Mark okay with this motion the the shin would stay on the agenda on that motion call for the vote in the voting session and the motion passes five to three representative shorts Salcido Rivera I Representatives Hernandez Rodriguez the motion does pass and then the final motion was made by representative anello seconded by mayor Pro tem short spine and this was to postpone and I'm sorry representative it was to postpone the section I'm not entirely sure exactly which one it is what representative Schwartzman had referenced I think Lindsay has that yes it's the first item under the affordable housing section so it would be postponing the item relating to supporting legislation that prioritizes viable transactions for four percent low income tax credit applications okay and this is to postpone the section under affordable housing that supports legislation that prioritize prioritizes viable transactions for four percent low-income housing tax credit applications for two weeks is that enough time I think we would have to ask Abraham actually actually in looking at this I I don't know if we can already do it if not I'd like to make a motion to to actually postpone all three because in looking at them I'm still trying to understand how Housing Finance corporations as well as the same year Rule and waivers for that so I'll amend my motion to postpone all items under the Housing section maybe we can get briefed by staff for letting their second for our legislators I had a second I think it was representative I will I will I will uh support her friendly amendments so this is postponed for how long two weeks postponed for two weeks the three items under affordable housing section to support legislation that prioritizes viable transactions for four percent low income housing tax credit applications that support legislation that would repeal the two-mile same year rule for low-income housing tax credits or allow municipalities to approve a waiver of the rule and support legislation that would limit Housing Finance corporations to operate only within the municipal City Limits and this is to postpone those three items for two weeks and this was and and Steph is asking if we can move these items to the next work session November 7th work session yes okay thank you on that motion call for the vote mayor Pro tem thank you and the voting session the motion passes six to two representative shorts find anelo Hernandez Salcido Rivera I Representatives molinar Rodriguez the motion does carry and Council before you approved the legislative agenda we do have public comments Miss Droid we have comment from Mr White good afternoon Mr White you have three minutes sir thank you good afternoon Council for the record my name is Scott White I am the deputy director of farm and City a Statewide non-profit that is focused on not just safety but quality of life and as of a few days ago I'm also now director of vision zero Texas um so of course I'm very proud to see what's going on to into this agenda but we're also working on some legislative agenda items that we think the city would be interested in last session I worked with representative schwartzbein to reach out to the council to get the safe neighborhood streets bill on to the uh let your legislative agenda this bill would lower the speed limit in for residential streets making them safer and aligning with vision zero goals not just at the state level but with the vision zero program here in El Paso this uh this year's version would be an opt-in version so the city any City could choose to opt in or not and they could choose to lower the residential speed limit from the unposted 30 miles per hour to either 25 or 20. this would make our streets safer as it would lower the speed limits there across the board and it would not require the use of any studies require any additional signage only all that would be required is some education to let the public know if this is something that the city would then choose to do as they would opt in we also have other agenda items that we think might be beneficial especially in regards to safety and one is eliminating parking minimums at bars this way we reduce the potential need to have encouraged people to drive to bars and this would also encourage people not to drive home afterwards which is not a healthy situation as we all know but this also leads into some Transportation reform right now the state does not fund Urban Transit they only fund rural Transit and we would like to see the city support using prop 7 funds the mobility fund to support and help fund Urban Transit and this would also potentially help work better with what the county is doing with their Transit program this would also impact affordability of housing as some people would no longer need to worry about getting a car and have to decide whether they want a car or they want a place to live that has a fixed resonance and of course we also need to make sure because I have not seen the full legislative agenda to make sure anything that supports complete streets or Vision zero is part of the city's agenda thank you mayor thank you for the public comment did you have a motion in a second well you okay there you are go ahead hi Lindsay um based off of the public comment I know we don't normally address it but that's during call to the public but some of the statements that he said some of the ideas that he said all the public you're more than welcome to to ask questions okay on um yeah this one I can I mean I'll call it a public no but on this you can okay thank you so um I know that we have supported lowering the speed limit in the past which I think is a great idea I have kids I live in a cul-de-sac and we can't be outside because people are spinning through our cul-de-sac um the other one was the parking lot the reducing the parking for parking at bars I think that's a great idea too are those two items already part of our of anything that we're supporting no they are not they're not so how can we get them on there so we can definitely come up with the language and we can either do it today or since we're coming back in two weeks we can definitely come up with that language and vet it through staff and then bring it back to you okay so I'd like to make a motion to bring it back in two weeks with language to support those two items please was there another one I'm sorry those were the two that really caught my attention and then excuse me sir excuse excuse me Mr White can you uh come up to the microphone please yes it's the uh using the prop 7 uh Statewide Mobility fund to support Urban Transit so then I would also like to add that one please destroyed people on the line count here we can but they can't thank you and these were the two items on Urban Transit and I didn't catch the other it was for lowering the speed limit from 30 to 25 in residential and lowering um lowering the threshold for parking at bars to encourage more responsible driving thank you and you want these two to postpone him to the November 7th work session as well yes please okay foreign was made by representative Rodriguez seconded by representative anello and this is to postpone those two items for two weeks to the November 7th work session it was to bring bring them back right to postpone yes we'll bring the language sorry we'll bring the language on November 7th for y'all's review okay thank you the Boating session is open Council in the voting session the motion passes 721 representative Molina voting Nate the remainder of council voting I I'll make a motion to approve the agenda motion was made by representative anello seconded by representative Rivera to approve the legislative agenda as revised call for the vote well we're voting I would just like to thank Lupe Snapper and Lindsay and wish them luck in the upcoming session thank you so much in the voting session and the motion passes unanimously thank you councilor fine we'll go back to the agenda yes sir well that brings us to back to page eight to item number 27. item 27 is discussion in action to direct the city manager to Outsource companies to help with the weed cleanup efforts across the city and this item was submitted by Representatives Rodriguez and Salcido Rodriguez thank you mayor so this is just another um idea that we can put out there for Council to help the community as we heard earlier the weeds are a huge problem in our community um and I understand that it's not because we're not trying it's because we do have a shortage in staff the other thing is is that I am full aware that especially on Montwood there's a lot of Frontage that belongs to the homes so a lot of that problem was because we can't we we're not addressing the issue I should say because we were not cleaning up our weeds again not because we didn't want to but it was because of lack of Staff now that our medians are being cleaned up on Montwood specifically in District Six we can now go back through code enforcement and ask the front of the people that have those homes hey we cleaned up ours please clean up yours and so to help continue with those efforts we are asking our city manager to come back with um Outsourcing the some of the week clean up efforts throughout the city right um Ellen's my chief Transit and field operations officer so yes ma'am um we do have funding for contracted help and this year we did go out for bid twice and we didn't receive any bidders and we inquired as we know we always get four or five of the same companies every year and why they didn't bid and they told us they don't have the people to fulfill the obligation and they would they don't want to get a report card or or get terminated for not being able to comply with the contract so what we're doing now are small jobs instead of doing a whole year we'll just say fifty thousand dollars until that money Runs Out so and so then they're able to find enough workers for a very limited short period of time so we have tried that as well but absolutely you know we we will continue to go out for bid we will continue to solicit help from our partners the other businesses that have historically always helped us okay so um by them not being able to I guess fulfill a a contract we're not terminating them we're not penalizing them we're making it easier for them correct we're understanding because we have the we're on the exact same boat as them right so we're trying to adjust the terms to be a shorter term you know less money um even you know just seven weeks if they can just find enough people to work for us for seven weeks that type of thing right yeah so it's a short obligation and they feel better about accepting the the terms okay so absolutely this is this right here this item is a short-term solution it's just to help us catch up with all the weeds that we have across the city and it's to show the community that we are absolutely trying to get our city cleaned up yes ma'am thank you okay so with that I would like to make a motion to approve second so miss smart so you're telling me that you've already you're already doing this yes we're already trying so this item is something you're already doing right now and you're having a little bit of an issue because of the workforce and people are having a hard time getting people to do it but uh so you're starting to downsize the scope of the project to be able to do small certain areas exactly but this one that you so you've been doing this all year yes sir we've been trying to hire all year and contract out all year and so um like the city manager reference we're always trying to adjust our approach to be more inclusive and meet the needs of what's going on in the community and so we're hoping that these smaller little contracts 50 000 and under will be our our short-term answer and I think you'll see that as the colder weather starts to occur which we're in the 30s this morning we'll see a lot of that vegetation and stuff continue to die on its own attrition so thank you for that you're welcome represent anello thanks Ellen you you actually answered a lot of my questions but I still I just want clarification because we can't hire anyone outside of the um like the bidding process right so the the rules that you you bidded according to the Texas procurement rules and after the second attempt if you still don't have any bitters then we can negotiate so but that's still the rule so I'm just I if May if I can ask the representatives directly I'm I'm wondering what you want staff to be doing differently because they're already we can't just go out and hire someone to clean up weeds we need to go through a bidding process and so I'm I'm wondering what you want them to do outside of that okay so our actions sorry all we're asking for is to continue with you know the creativity the great work that you all are doing and finding Solutions and I know that this is this is what this item is about it's about finding further Solutions um I know the volunteer programs were a huge success just really trying to emphasize on hey you all are doing a great job but a little bit more can be done and that's all this is doing okay so Ellen um I mean I agree you know y'all are trying very hard no one can deny that um glad to support an item that asks you to keep doing what you're doing um but also if I can um I I have a question about other things that we can do so we have to go through a bidding process to hire anyone are we able to partner I know we talked partnering with the non-profit for volunteers um are we able to profit uh partner with a non-profit who can then go hire and contract out themselves under their own rules um uh yeah did that make sense to you yes of course and that that basically is what we do have some basic requirements on their insurance and insurance and non-discriminate so we have our basic requirements that they cannot you know they can't ignore those because we do that with like exceed for janitorial services it's actually one of my best Partners they help us at the landfill with litter they help us on the the roadways I know they've worked at the airport so they are a consistent wonderful but you still need to go out to bid for those Partnerships for those there are exemptions um but but again that they they're working with us already yeah and I would love to put you in touch with the um cogs Area Agency on Aging um they cover they have a foundation that previously color covered three categories one being hearing aids when the federal government started covering hearing aids there was a conversation about what can we do with this extra money can we do home repairs or landscaping for individuals um so I'll send out an email today and maybe that can be a solution to trying to help with the dollars that they have thank you thank you thank you representative representative uh Salcido followed by representative thank you mayor um yes this this mostly put it here just to find short-term Solutions additional to seeing this proactive Council suggesting a lot of solutions and and other items but that's really the intent of it I know that you mentioned that we needed to change some of the wording that you were having some issues getting these long-term contracts and so that really is this to to make sure we're pushing forward for that to get done and for us to get these small businesses to help us out in in a time like this so so I definitely we see the need we very proactive we're trying our best so I want to say good job and and you trying your best to to address this and uh and also for this Council to come up with Solutions then that's what we need to be doing so thank you so much foreign Rodriguez for bringing this to the table so for so we can have this discussion today I am during our cleanup event um there was a lot of folks who had a lot of solutions and recommendations and just been profoundly proud of the way the community has responded I know Ellen you were at the volunteer recognition event along with representative Rodriguez and Rivera and just hearing the stories from those families and why they wanted to be part of their Community to be part of the solution is it was really encouraging and so but with with all of those events and cleanup events um heard a lot from the public that they would like to see a little bit more Innovation so put potentially and possibly as you mentioned going into direct negotiations because you said already there was no bidders right so as a result we don't have to work with someone who bidded with us is that correct because we can just go into direct negotiations and the uh the some folks who came to my cleanup event said could we could we partner with the city on contract to do community-based cleaning so hey I would like to partner with the city so that I can go clean my neighborhood and then you would have captains of blocks and captains of neighborhoods or what have you and I said those are also really wonderful ideas and in the event we don't have responsive or responsible or any bidders then I really do believe we have an opportunity here to Pilot with those small-scale contractors neighborhood by neighborhood or District by District however you want to do it and there's a lot of interest there is a ton of interest because I heard from also churches and you mentioned this earlier who said you know we will actively do this on a volunteer basis because we see there is a need and they want to be part of the solution so I do think that the the idea from City manager's wife Sandy these neighborhood scale cleanup events may be the way we go given the fact that our weeds grow overnight like I've seen them grow overnight in my house I don't know how they always come up and then they're also really hard to pull out and so I've heard about that option the other option I heard were some from some of the attorneys they said we might have an opportunity here to partner with the County Juvenile or adult probation Community Services in lieu of an arrest or in lieu of pain of fine can we go out and partner with some of these entities so that we can have those folks who are looking for second and third or four chances like I have in the past be willing to do cleanups to clean my clean my neighborhood but also in lieu of a fee or lieu of of incarceration I would be willing to do that but it takes a little bit more organizing it takes a little bit more you know work through our city attorney's office and and administration but I think that the success that we've seen these past couple of weeks it just merits that we should get a little bit more Innovative and because we're experiencing Staffing shortages we may not have a choice folks we may absolutely have to go through these small scale contracts partnering with these these courts and then getting those commitments ahead of time because we already know spring is in by March February or March you're already starting to see the weeds come back up right that's right and so you're very short you have a short break from the weeds and so I do want to thank representative Rodriguez and Salcido for bringing this to the Forefront because it is going to take it more Innovative outside of the box thinking to address address our weeds we we tried warning y'all that it's gonna happen but I appreciate it and I'm happy to support this today our pro thank you representative yeah no I I think it's a good idea to look at what's more done I mean we're already hearing stories about some of the pothole issues as well and we know that we still have a deficit how many how many vacancies we currently have in the department oh gosh I don't know that number off the top of my head I I'd have it changes every day okay so I can send you that information so I think too that's something important to help the public understand as well is that like many other institutions and companies we're dealing with vacancies as well so and that's obviously impacting service thanks thank you thank you for that um I'm sorry representative uh we better thank you mayor thank you on on the industrial on the commercial side predominantly catered to the industrial area or is it strip malls and or anything goes on the cleaning you know we're we do try and patrol all of the top 50 corridors that's the most traveled areas where you know it's most visible for the keep El Paso beautiful and um predominantly those are businesses strip malls and and what have you but we also have our complaint based you know Collins and if a specific address is given in some industrial park off the side then we'll investigate those as well okay and is there a special while is there is it stricter than we would it would be to a residential area or a park or wherever you else no we we don't we do both residential industrial commercial all I mean but you get those non-profits would be although the industrial they should if they're really make a for-profit they should be able to afford to do their own weeds but then we'll deal with that on an individual basis okay thank you thank you mayor thank you remember that we have a motion in a second yes sir the motion was made by representative Rodriguez seconded by representative Salcido to direct the city manager to Outsource companies to help with the weight cleanup efforts across the city on that motion call for the vote voting session is open in the Boating session and the motion passes unanimously representative anello not present the next item is 28 and this is discussion in action on a resolution that declares the expenditure of District 2 discretionary funds and an amount not to exceed sixteen hundred dollars to be used towards a district 2 fall festival mayor Pro Tem proof second Motion in a second this motion was made by representative Rivera seconded by mayor Pro tem shortwing to approve item 28 on that motion call for the vote and the voting session the motion passes unanimously item 29 is discussion and action on a resolution that the city council declares the expenditure of District 1 discretionary funds funds and an amount not to exceed twenty five thousand dollars to improve the West Side Community dog park and lower tomly dog park to serve a municipal purpose I was one ahead of myself now mayor Pro Tem um no this is just uh there's a number of dog parks are there uh current uh district one cdbg program calls for a dog park in lower tomly and so um this feels like this would be a prudent opportunity to add shade um additional benches in an area where there's tight budgets already thank you is there a motion I'd like to make a motion to approve there's a motion made by mayor Pro tem shorts fine seconded by representative anello to approve item number 29. on that motion call for the vote in the voting session and the motion passes unanimously item number 30 is discussion in action formalizing the name of the city of El Paso Open Space Preserve to Read Lost Dog Nature Preserve this is representative shortswain's item thank you colleagues um thank you colleagues this is a item that was a leftover item when the nap land was of course officially named naplan Nature Preserve this does not change um the the abilities and the activities within lost dog or with naplan passive recreational uses as well as a conservation easement is still fully acceptable and allowable this just gives it a formal name moving forward which again aligns with the naplan Nature Preserve and other open space areas within the city of El Paso and now with that I'd like to make a motion to approve White good afternoon sir you'll have three minutes good afternoon thank you once again um I'm in full support of naming this land the lost dog because before the only name it really had was the lost dog because that was the trailhead and so it's great to take that and extend it across that whole region so I think you're representative schwartzbein and I hope the entire El Paso Community I was hoping to see those who supported that come out in support of this because these kind of changes need to be fully recognized and fully honored and the people who did the work to make it Preserve do need to be recognized as well and though Judy wasn't part of this one so much it was part of her agenda and I would have liked to have seen the other people who worked so hard out here to support it because that shows their continued support for these things so but that said um I support the name change thank you very much primary Motion in a second yes there is a motion made by mayor Pro tem short time seconded by representative anello to approve item number 30. on that motion call for the vote in the voting session and the motion passes unanimously representative lizard not present item number 31 is discussion in action on a resolution that the city council declares the expenditure of District 1 discretionary funds and an amount not to exceed twenty five hundred dollars for a sponsorship of the Vanguard conference hosted in our community to promote visual image of city of El Paso marginal proof the motion made by mayor Pope Tim schwartzbein seconded by representative Salcido to approve item 31. on that motion call for the vote and the voting session and the motion passes unanimously item number 32 is discussion in action to approve a resolution that the city council declares the expenditure of District 8 discretionary funds and an amount not to exceed five thousand dollars for the painting of a mural on the basketball court service at Tula irobali Park in collaboration with local muralists Jesus Simi Alvarado serves a municipal purpose second this emotion made by alternating by representative Rivera to approve item 32 on that motion call for the vote voting session is open thank you and the voting session and the motion passes unanimously that brings us to the operational Focus updates item 34 is a presentation and update on accomplishments and capital project impacts good afternoon Mary Council San Andreas chief operations officer if it can bring up the presentation please I mean is it bringing up the presentation if if I may see him if I can just um do a prelude for the council we have the capital projects update on this list on this agenda and then we're going to give a streets update as well and also the pavement condition index study as you know there's a bond election that's coming up in November I want to show you the work that's been done on capital projects the work's been that's been done with the streets and then how the criteria is used in order to do those Street improvements because I know there's a lot of discussion a lot of questions that you have a lot of questions that you get from your constituents and so these presentations are set up in a way to be informative but also to be instructive relative to what's been done and what's going to be done if if the vote is positive in November [Music] thank you so what this presentation will cover is the accomplishments over the last eight years looking at the community community impacts um in a lot of discussion obviously with the bond program coming up with climate action you know some of the things that we're already doing in the capital programs are going to be tied into some of the policy recommendations that are anticipated to be in that plan also looking and reinforcing the federal and state grants that we received you just received the presentation from Elizabeth Triggs two weeks ago just to show you how con that how that funding is being used to again further the investment in our infrastructure and then also talk about future investment as well with the new facilities that we've just built and some of your existing assets the facility and the Investments that we're going to have to be making as a as a city to be able to maintain those facilities will be important and there'll be a follow-up presentation from our streets of maintenance department that that dives into more information about facilities that we have in our city so we're very close to a thousand projects that will be accomplished over the next next fiscal year we're anticipated to complete an additional 70 uh over in fiscal year 24 I mean 23. in third 50 are anticipated to start construction so we've completed to date um since 2015 461 capital projects that range from facilities to Parks Street reconstruction uh you name it to and also 483 resurfaced projects that are part of the almost a thousand projects that we've completed today the community impacts our Capital program is a significant component of our economic activity in our city we've stimulated or created almost 40 over 42 000 jobs here since 2012. these are jobs that are strictly labor related to on what we track in our labor and our wage Software System that are tied to construction projects and then you have all the ancillary jobs that are also created through Consultants inspections a lot of the projects require security guards and whatnot it's a it's a very significant aspect of the jobs that we've created here in our city within the investment that we've had the capital program is a big component of of our economic activity as well tied to some of the other incentive policies with economic development the capital program has helped the city be able to track and the amount of visitors that we have throughout our new facilities when we build them whether it's a trail whether it's a new facility the visiting public is uh is uh is making their effort or making use of the facility than the Investments that we're making in our in our city part of the bond program that's coming up as we recommend in the city council adopted is the top 50 arterial program that will be part of proposition a we estimate that about 15 of our daily trips travel through these roads so we're going to make a very significant impact into the daily lives of our a lot of our population out there and once we uh if this Bond passes on the expenditure side we have because I was starting to mention a part of the policies with economic development the investment that we're making has also helped the city overall tracking a 40 increase in retail spending by being tracked by replica one of the systems and softwares that we use for data again just a very important part of our economic activity as well as tying into our infrastructure I mentioned climate action this would be a big part of the bond program if it passes to develop that you know one of the things that we've been implementing as part of our capital projects is tree planting whether it's in our Parks or streets and our medians that we've done in our top 25 corridors all tied into the tree canopy that that helps with the heat island effect Energy Efficiency is also a big part of it led conversions whether it's in our streets our facilities the runway that we're currently resurfacing at the airport for example is going to replace all the lights to LED as well so Energy Efficiency is something that we track and Implement as part of our projects HVAC systems as well we have an energy management system that we use at most of our city facilities that allows us to track and be able to set certain temperatures again the overall Energy Efficiency and building performance will be something that will be tracked in the upcoming plans with the federal state Grant programs since 2015 we've received almost 250 million dollars in federal grants from the various agencies whether it's FAA FTA fhw and TxDOT with an additional investment from the state at 86 million dollars you you saw this slide from Elizabeth tricks presentation a couple of weeks ago but just to highlight and remind you all that we have a very different approach to these grants it's very integrated across multiple departments as well as other agencies and partners around the region that's allowed us to receive 66 million dollars just this past fiscal year tied into a lot of our strategic planning our strategic initiatives that the city council has adopted to include the airport the advanced manufacturing campus we started discussions with the Eda already on that development as well as additional funding for Sun Metro to for the lift and the electrification of their Fleet on the future investment um part of the discussion that we had with city council as part of the 2012 Community progress Bond included the quality of life Bond program and we received direction from city council to begin the development of a future quality lifelong program to that effect we started the development of the two Master plans Mary Francis kiesling and Memorial Park those should be coming to city council for adoption here within the next two Council meetings we've also uh outline funding to begin the development of updating our existing Master plans for parks open space and trails planned so that we can have a good understanding of our facilities and where the surface gaps are at as well as uh also look at the facilities from a usage standpoint understanding where the where the population is the age of the facility so that we can right size of services to match their population within facility maintenance just to remind you we've opened new facilities multi-generational community centers that are going to need investment in terms of maintenance and operation and capital replacement our ballpark continues to operate and as in need of replacement dollars as well the mac and Children's Museum are scheduled to open next year and even though the children's museum is going to have the partner that's going to basically provide the funding for the operations two-thirds of the funding it's still going to require capital investment in the future our water parks and spray parks specifically the spray parks are likely going to be the investment and an inflexible funding for paints and upgrade of equipment in the near future as I mentioned there will be an additional presentation that we'll dive into some more of the info facilities that we have in our in our inventory I'm going to turn the presentation over now to Robert cortinas for the next several slides thanks Sam so obviously as a part of executing these capital projects is how we go about paying for them in a fiscally responsible manner shifting away from some of the old practices of the city financing a lot of these projects and the shift towards utilizing our annual set-asite funding or utilizing cash on an annual basis to pay for these projects so I've got a few slides here just to go over some of the financial numbers I talked about this at a budget update a while back and really highlighting The Importance of Being able to utilize that cash in the annual annual budget and not have to go out and finance whether it's some of the residential street projects we're doing the purchase of the police and fire equipment replacement instead of financing utilizing those on a cash basis so you see the bullet point there at the bottom this is past practice if we had gone out and finance those items you're talking about an additional 49 million dollars of Interest costs built on to that 70 million dollars of expenditure so that's real life savings not only is it providing the police and fire departments with the equipment they need but again it's doing so in a cost-efficient manner for our community in order to keep our taxes lower so not insignificant what this Council has approved the annual 10 million dollars for streets seven million dollars on the annual basis for police and fire equipment and then with what you all approved this year the general fund Capital maintenance start to put dollars towards Park amenities facilities and vehicles as well so not only utilizing that cash basis but also again refinancing opportunities last year very very strategic and how we went about doing our two debt issuances last year we did one in the early spring we did another one a little bit later in the year allow us to take advantage of not only refinancing no debt to get historic low interest rates but also allowed us to move forward with issuing some bonds for some of the projects that were in the queue at a much lower interest rate of what we had seen historically and so what that does is plays the q1 what you all adopt as part of the budget of being able to minimize and actually lower the tax rate and the current fiscal year you all have seen this slide several times before this is the current status of our CIP of what's been issued what's pending to be issued over the next several years the far right hand column there shows just over 470 million dollars of debt still to be issued a large majority of that related to the 2019 Public Safety Bond just um slightly under 246 million and again this debt is to be issued between 2023 and 2028. so Robert if I'm a council if you can just take a look at this particular Slide the 2020 2012 rather quality of life bond package is almost complete we essentially just have one big project left everything is either complete or in in on schedule to be completed the street infrastructure one the 17 and the 18 that you see up there a lot of those are filled with streets obviously the 2012 is a street infrastructure but the capital plan in 2017 and 18 that a lot of you came in with the idea of let's let's be more aggressive with streets it's a lot of discussion about streets and potholes there's a lot of neglect over decades and so that lack of investment led to what you see up on the screen this screen is catching up with the street needs that we have in our community as well as the potholes you see so just want to make sure that you take a look at this slide closely because you've been paying attention to the needs of the streets it's just that it's such a big need and there was so much neglect that took place over years that even the last seven or eight years we've been focused on this effort there's a lot to catch up on as the staff has indicated to you before 44 million dollars is what the PCI the pavement condition index says that's needed on an annual basis we had zero dollars in 2014 that were set aside with cash on an annual basis now we have 10 million still 34 million shy on an annual basis of investing in our streets so that's why you see these bonds that the majority of them that I just mentioned on 2012 17 and 18 were for Street improvements that were vastly needed and yet you still see a lot of needs in our streets just wanted to make that point go ahead Robert so I included the slide it's an old slide it's 10 years old just a little bit older than 10 years so this was presented October 16th of 2012. so I may be asking why am i showing a slide that's 10 years old because it's important it's important because not only are we talking about an upcoming Bond but it's the highlight and really show not only accounts but the public of what we've managed to do over the last several years and so this slide is a copy and paste what was presented 10 years ago and what they were highlighting here was what the impact potential impact was going to be with the 2012 quite of Life bonds passing and the 2012 Street CIP that was done through CEOs and so again this was 10 years ago at the time they were projecting that in 2023 the debt rate would be at 31 cents so they did no different than what I do now what I've presented you all the assumptions and so they were projecting the debt rate to be at 31 cents our current debt rate right now with what the council adopted August 23rd of this year the debt rate is at 27.7 cents so just under 28 cents so we're about three cents lower than what they were projecting at that at that time 10 years ago not only are we lower on the on the rate on the debt rate but you've done a lot more projects over the last several years as well so we're talking about all of the street projects Sam's talked about all of the investment in public safety the investment in animal services facility the investment yes and so many parks and museums that we have signature projects underway so not only about keeping that rate lower but also doing additional projects as well to continue the momentum of getting some of these things done believe you have a question mayor or I was going to wait for you to finish talking are you done you're almost I have a couple more slides left okay go ahead and then we'll go to the questions go ahead so I showed this slide again so they were projecting to be at 31 cents at that point in time this is again only incorporating 2012 quiet life bonds you saw this slide here which is all of the different couple of projects stamps presented on that were included in those various cips again primarily focused on the investment in streets this is what the current debt model looks like again only projecting to get to about 31.6 cents again just slightly above what they're projecting to be at 10 years ago and not factoring in all the various capital projects again that are included in all of these various cips so again a much much lower debt rate and then more projects being done at the same time this is the city's tax rate historically and you've seen this slide several times but again really just highlighting that of what we've seen as far as the tax rate increase over the last several years 29 of that over the last several years or 13 or 13 cent increase since 2015 is on the operating side so the operating side is the day-to-day activities it's the investment in the police force the investment in our fire department the investment in our streets our Parks our museums our libraries all the various City departments for the operating side of the budget the debt rate has increased over that same time since 2015 by about four cents or 16 of that total and again that's really a result of a lot of things I talked about so the refinancing utilizing the pay go achieving those low historic interest rates that have allowed us to not only do the Kepler projects but also minimize the impact on the tax rate so also what that's allowed us do by being so proactive on the capital side as far as the issuance of that debt now we manage that being very strategic it's provide the opportunity to continue to invest in the operating as I just mentioned since 2015 the police and fire departments have gone up by just under 90 million dollars those two departments alone almost 90 million dollars that's additional funding for Staffing Vehicles equipment materials supplies all the equipment they need to do their jobs on a daily basis that's the equivalent of almost 24 cents on the tax rate 90 million dollars is equivalent of almost 24 cents the actual tax rate as I showed on the slide on the operating side has only gone up by 13 cents so the actual rate's only gone up by 13 however we're investing almost double that in two departments alone again really absorbing a lot of that the savings at Julie Baldwin and her 10 percent at the last meeting but then also again very strategic and forward thinking about timing on a lot of those debt issuances and then how we go about long-term planning for a lot of the key areas that we're investing in aside from police and fires you all are very familiar with this as well the heavy investment in our Workforce you saw a very lengthy presentation yesterday highlighting a lot of the key areas that we continue to invest in our Workforce not only through compensation but also through various benefits very various incentives all of the different trainings through our LinkedIn learning which provides access to over a hundred it's about a thousand different courses that are in place to take advantage of those are different courses that typically you have to pay for the city is providing that as a service in order to encourage our employees to continue to profession professionally develop learn new skills learn new ways to go about not performing their job but things that they need in order to promote throughout the organization so again the city council has been very aggressive with what we've done as far as to pay you've listened to the recommendations we've had two increases on the minimum wage since May alone we have another one coming up in March again about a 17 increase in that short time frame alone so with that we have about a 30 second video that if it can play that for me thank you [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] followed by representative on this thank you so Robert in slide 26 which is a graph that shows the operations and maintenance and that graph the red part that's the debt that we have as far as like bonds that's the current tax rate the current well the very top one but like for example that red part that includes only the debt right correct okay so Debt Service tax rate so in 2012 I guess it was very steady for like I don't know a couple of years three years and then that's when we started to see that increase um does this also include so I'm assuming that increase was due to the quality of life Bond correct and the street CA the 2012 Street CIP and all the other CEOs that the city issuing every year and the city is issued like didn't include in this presentation I'll do it in a future presentation but every year I went back to 2007 and I have every year with the city of District CEOs not only CEOs but pension obligation bonds that were issued in two thousand 7 and 2009 212 almost 230 million dollars for police and fire pension obligation bonds which is also a key in this increase in The Debt Service rate and I know I think you presented before right to see a similar model to include what could potentially happen if voters approve this 20. correct it's not in this but it was on the presentation that we did in August 16th it's uh about 2.7 cents on top of what I presented on the step model so instead of 31.6 pushing close to 34 cents which if the council remember back in August of 2019 before the public safety Bond was approved we did increase the maximum amount of The Debt Service rate allowed for the management policy we went up to 40 cents in anticipation of what that 2019 Public Safety Bond would do at the time we're estimating getting close to 40 cents we're nowhere near so this is included in the Tails and remaining amount for all of the debt we have addition we're only going to get 232 cents so even with the community progress Bond up for a vote in a couple of weeks would still keep us around 34 cents which is still well below 40 Cent maximum amount and that's the maximum allowed by whom the state our debt cities debt management policy okay and so if I go back to slide 23 it was showing that it was predicting that we'd be at 30 points that was back in 2012 correct when they were presenting the the quality of course they were they were showing what the estimated or potential impact was going to be from the 473 million dollar quality of life and the 212 million Street CRP that was done through CEOs so it was 0.30 93 correct they were projected at that time that the rate would hit 31 cents roughly and it didn't it did not come anywhere near as I mentioned right now the current debt service rate is 27.7 cents which includes all of these projects so all of this debt that's been issued in that middle column so the 2017 Capital plan 71 million 2018 Capital plan another 84 million 2018 Capital all of that all of those projects are in addition to what they were projecting at that time so not only are you getting more projects done but is coming in at a much lower estimated Debt Service tax rate okay so I guess all I would I I mean I really this is a very telling graph right here on the one on slide 26. um all I would want to see I guess is maybe like a super impotent on this graph or this slide of the of the one that we're predicting if this if this Bond passes um this election and that's it thank you thank you representative thank you and I'm sorry to make you repeat this but I just want to be clear on slide number 17. Mr cortinez um this was the projections from the 2012 quality of life Bond The Debt Service model yes oh that 17 was a slide that was presented in 2012. it's actually slide number 24. and I just saw I was able to zoom out of the slide and I saw all of the language on the side and um so and it's interesting that you bring this up because I I have not conducted an analysis but just based on experience every time there is a forecast or model I have seen historically for bonds or even Co debt issuances they're incredibly conservative and I know that it's what you have to do but it's it's frustrating because when when I talk to constituents I say these are just models I mean they vary every year they vary four or five times a year but you have to look at the current um I guess the current state of the financial markets in order to come up with these models and it doesn't predict any future variances or any future policy changes or even Congressional acts to help reduce inflation we can't take that into consideration but it is clear that the voters of El Paso are and even this body that even though we see these projections these are worst case scenarios and we should be prepared for that however in my experience I have seen time and time again that in fact it's quite the opposite that we never hit those high points and even when we get close to those high points of the debt model we then find a a favorable market and we refinance the debt further saving taxpayer dollars and it's just incredibly frustrating to hear self-proclaimed budget analysts who say the opposite um because the reality is is that if you don't issue the debt my alternative would be to to artificially increase your tax rate so that I can pay for these which are significant Capital Improvements which would even be more expensive to taxpayers to increase their tax rate so that I can pay this on an annual basis with cash no one does that in their household unless you're independently wealthy so that's a good point that's the point I made on the KV I A7 extra comment was that some of those projects that are in not only in those various cips but what we have in a community progress Bond when you first time talk about particularly in those reconstruction projects these are very very expensive projects The Schuster project alone I know I'm very happy about that my kids go to the city so they can drive on that road it's a 13 million dollar project for that one street alone and so I mean it's like buying a house and you know a lot of us can't go out and pay cash for a house you finance it it's a very high priced thing that you typically use financing for but the thing that we've talked about and what we're doing is utilizing that cash basis now for a lot of those resurfacing projects no we're not to pull them out yet but the council is Shifting towards that that methodology which is what we need to be at but even then it's not your property taxes their fees right essentially in my opinion in a more Equitable way so that that sole burden is not placed to just property owners and by doing that you save on interest you save on interest whenever we do the cash we when we use cash for streets so I know there's a lot of discussion the council has and y'all get emails and everybody talks about all the interest because of all this need that's out there and when you Bond it you have to pay that interest so by putting cash aside annually to pay for these improvements is what Robert was saying and what you're talking about I believe as well in the long run saves the taxpayers that interest that they have to pay or they don't have to pay in this case when we have the actual dollar set aside to pay for those improvements absolutely and I just wanted to um reiterate to to the public even though folks don't listen to these Financial discussions as much as they should is that this is the most prudent and fiscally responsible thing to to issue out low-cost interest certificate of obligations or voter approved debt whatever it may be so that the impact to homeowners is not too significant in one year and that we can accomplish more city-wide because the need is great and there have been concerted efforts year over year to de-invest into our streets and to our public facilities and if we don't pay for it now it's going to be Monumental in the future these costs are not going to go away they're only going to increase and these decisions are critical to make sure that our infrastructure and our public spaces are good this is also an economic development concern if you don't invest in two communities of color if you don't invest into our infrastructure then the greater cost down the line will disproportionately impact your most vulnerable citizens because then the cost will be greater down the line and so these these decisions today and I hope that the voters of El Paso agree that these investments into our infrastructure is going to save money in the long run and so it's unfortunate that that misconceptions and and misinformation is circulating but the reality is is that we have to play catch-up and if you don't make these Investments today it's going to cost taxpayer dollars more dollars in the future and so so my hope is that we can continue to share this information our debt models and then not to mention Mr Cortina as you mentioned earlier the debt management policy are there limits in your debt management policy that protect taxpayers further from over debt issuances based on the the amount of revenues you bring in yeah and only in the city's debt management policy there's also state law that we need to follow as well as far as the maximum amount of debt that we're allowed to carry and we're well below those thresholds right now and so what that means is you can't over issue debt if your revenues are not there correct so like in our household I can't just go ahead and issue go and buy everything I want under a credit card or debt if I can't demonstrate that I have the income to pay that back that's no different from a government you can't just issue an over issue debt if you're unable to demonstrate that the revenues are there to pay back that debt so that those are state laws and those are embedded into our city debt management policies so the notion that this body is being fiscally irresponsible not only is untrue unfactual but Incorrect and should be corrected especially by those who are self-proclaimed budget analyst but the other thing I wanted to mention and just kudos to you I spent a lot of time talking about our debt management policy our debt issuances and just our state of the finances to professors at UTEP through budget analysts at UTEP and students and they have nothing but good things to say not only about our bond ratings and these are folks who are experts in this field by our bond rating decisions they confirm some of our bond rating decisions and then they also believe that our debt issuances are reasonable and necessary and could be demonstrated as a public good because those dollars are being invested to the people these are your these are your goods these are your public spaces these are not myspaces there are spaces so I do want to commend the capital Improvement department the city manager and and all of the work that you do in your Finance team Mr cortinas because it is incredibly invaluable what we're doing thanks it goes back to a lot of things you hear Mr Gonzalez myself say it's about the long-term sustainability not only on the operation side but on the capital investment side as well we need to continue investing again for when you're we're not in office we're not here when Mr here the streets will be here forever hopefully so we need to continue to invest in in those things and one of the other things Mr Hernandez that you said that was very very important and that um that I want to just add con context to what you said and that is that we talk about our budget being 1.2 billion dollars that's with all funds A lot of people don't don't don't get what that means less than half of that actually it's closer to the third is just what comes from people's property taxes so when we talk about the general fund we we mean what hits the people's pocketbooks and their property tax so these other funds are things like the airport which doesn't hit the general fund things like Sun Sun Metro that doesn't hit the general fund things like that that are outside of the fund so it's less than half of that 1.2 billion and we've I say we the council has made the the good decisions and votes to make sure that about 10 percent we're Now setting aside Cash Wise so that we can lower our costs on interest and then invest in things like Police and Fire Equipment replacement that we were bonding in 2013 and 2014. now we have money set aside cash to pay for that that's not interest and that shouldn't be something you put up on an interest uh loan type of situation that would include the police cars right whenever we that was purchased all at one time that was done with bonds and it shouldn't be done that way it should be done with cash and so those kinds of things that the council has has steadily voted on and made these kind of uh tough but but good financial decisions this was places in the position we aren't in now financially we're in a strong financial position the bond Raiders and and the comments demonstrate that and the fact that you know the budget is sound and when we put that in front of you and we do the kafir the comprehensive annual financial report that shows that that we're doing it the way that the citizens want it to be done lowering the interest and and placing more dollars into Cash uh set asides for actual improvements thank you thank you Mr Gonzalez thank you Mr cortinas remember that Mr I'd like to take item 45 because I Know Chief D'Agostino's here on it any him and myself and uh um Miss um Neiman have a meeting in a few minutes yes sir item 45 is a presentation discussion in action by the city's manager's office and office of emergency management providing information on Key activities efforts and processes related to the migrant crisis and that the city council ratify the increase of contract 2022-0971 charter bus transportation services for an additional 2 million dollars for a total amount not to exceed eight million dollars good afternoon motion to approve their second Motion in a second put that mission a second there is a motion second would you like me to call the question pardon me go ahead is there a presentation on this yes go ahead sure good morning mayor and Council Jorge Rodriguez Emergency Management coordinator for the office of Emergency Management so just a brief update on the current status so as we've seen through the most recent Department of Homeland Security policy we've seen a significant decrease in CBP encounters at the border as you can see from our last report in October 11th we were at 2100 encounters at the border and we seen a dramatic drop as of October 20th uh also a decrease in our community releases those coming to our local ngos as you can see we've also seen a significant reduction there and of course we haven't seen any Street really systems September 15th um also in terms of our unsponsored migrants we've also seen a significant decrease uh and that's that's contributing almost to to uh almost uh zero unsponsored migrant scene within the community and that's primarily based on the Department of Homeland Security policy this was implemented on October 12th and this essentially just provides a safe orderly way for Valencia Nationals that are seeking Asylum and they have a process where they can take up to twenty four thousand Valentine to the United States this gives them a two-year parole where they can be within the U.S and that will Enlighten that a little bit further so for those to be eligible they have to have a financial supporter uh sponsor essentially someone that can account for their expenses during their parole period there's an extensive background checks that they go through and they also have to meet certain requirements for vaccinations and other public health requirements they will be ineligible if they have been removed from the United States in the previous five years also if they cross without authorization in between the ports of entry and of course other other actions that if they take will will make them ineligible um if for example if they don't meet those vaccinations in public health requirements uh for the beneficiaries so so to participate they have to be a valence of the national uh they have to possess a valid passport they have to be outside of the US when they apply they need to have a sponsor and then of course you have to go through the background checks and then also they have to be have the ability to pay for their own commercial travel to the US if and when they are approved uh they uh the the sponsors um have certain steps that they have to take to once they identify their the valence will end Asylum Seeker uh they have to fill out federal forms they have to show proof that they have Financial that they can financially support the valence well in for during that two-year parole period and that would include any any immediate family that that might make up that family group foreign so to be eligible of course like we stated they have to uh for the sponsors they have to be a U.S citizen uh they have to have protected status or be an asylum or parolee recipient of deferred action and deferred enforcement departure uh they the sponsors themselves have to go through their own uh security background screening and of course they have to demonstrate that they have sufficient Financial Resources to to support uh the the Asylum Seeker for the beneficiaries and immediate family those are the spouse or common law of the National for excuse me for the Venezuelan National and if they have children they have to be under the age of 21 that are unmarried if they're 18 they have to travel with with the parents these remaining steps are essentially just a summary of what I just covered these are are included in the backup and in terms of the messaging that the Department of Homeland Security is providing to the region for within Mexico but also directly to the Valentine Nationals regarding this program so there's been broad communication out and we've seen that um but there's more information on on this website listed here and in terms of impacts we look at at October you look at September we were close to a thousand day releases those weekly releases were upwards to 6100 and of course for the month of September we're right at 21 000 for October we really didn't start seeing the effects of this until I would say the the weekend following the passage of the new policy and we saw a pretty dramatic uh decrease in in apprehensions at the border but also in community releases so this graph kind of gives you just the terms of in terms of scale of the reductions and you can see that that prior week when the policy was was not in place we were close to 5800 per week and that's dropped down to uh about 2700 so we've seen that Chief uh Diego Sino will cover some of the ongoing migraine operations that we're doing now as we look forward and he'll cover that you know before Chief the other Casino comes up there's just a story that came on one of the local TV stations that said report by the motor Patrol which will be on their next report but chain that Venezuela Crossings have decreased by 80 percent and since this new program came out go ahead sir very good thank you Mario D'Agostino so covering the key areas as we've talked about before we focused on welcoming welcoming into to the community we looked at a Sheltering and how we could handle Sheltering we used a hotel system we made sure there was foodie food and feeding operations that they had the basic necessities they might need from the minute they were welcomed into the center we provided transportation both local and long distance and we've as we have been for months now we're providing City Staffing within the NGO shelters so our welcoming Center our last CBP drop-offs were on October 18th last Tuesday our last Charters went out on the 20th which was Thursday so those last two charters did go out we have since shut down completely been demobilized and we're remain our efforts in helping those ngos as we've talked about whether it's in the shelters themselves or in the food bank or the uh Salvation Army our Welcome Center looking at the numbers since we opened on on September 7th we were open for 44 consecutive days we saw well over 19 000 people and we provided transport for just shy of 14 000 individuals there are Transportation cities of choice where first was New York City followed by Chicago um we also assisted those over 5 000 with Travel Assistance so those are the ones who have sponsors and that's what we've talked about where we gave them the connectivity we gave him the the charging station so they could power up and that's how we assisted them with their endeavors our transportation transition so we've been doing for a long time we've been utilizing Sun Metro and they've been providing transportation between airports bus stations between shelters and and now welcoming centers and they also supported it directly out of the ngos to those same locations our long distance Charters as we just talked about there was over 290 Charters at 294 sorry 13 900 plus unsponsored migrants were transported and again our last Charter did leave on October 20th our Charter coordination from the from the onset we were providing daily manifests with real-time etas so that was whether it was through Chicago or New York City we made sure we were communicating with those who needed to be communicated with to include their ngos on on the ground who were actually going to be receiving these individuals again looking at our transition you know we have our NGO Sheltering Hospitality sites and we have our search hotels our city staff is embedded to provide the support at those locations and it what it does is that increases our shelter capacity within the ngos as we've talked about several times volunteerism is low Cova did have an effect on volunteerism just as has with the workforce and so that is an ongoing operation where we are supporting with through Personnel these Personnel were hired under that that same grant that we're seeking reimbursement is the FEMA emergency food and shelter grant and they have been approved for these long-term operations our city Sheltering so our our own Emergency Operations Sheltering hotels we were utilized to throughout this operation we made sure that we provided them food had the security and the shuttles they needed our last day of operations for that was as well on October 20th and in our covet isolation and quarantine hotels as we've been doing throughout the covet Pandemic those continue to go on and that's to make sure we don't have those large outbreaks in a congregated setting so whether it's in the NGO or our homeless shelters we're making sure that we can isolate then again we've covered this Slide the last couple of presentations but but I think it's important to talk about hotels versus emergency Sheltering it allows us to scale when needed when you're looking when you're doing hotels we just enact one of the contracts we do have currently in place and we can start reserving rooms at that rate when you look at a large facility and you start looking at rent you're having to hold that for the what ifs and so this more cost effective but most importantly it's about the privacy and the safety and the individualism as of those who are utilizing the service so it provides their own personal restrooms their showers and it allows that isolation as we've talked about as well a lot of what we a lot of the people we saw passing through our community were single adult males and so it does allow that separability so you don't have them all congregating in one large area when we did the cost rundowns we're looking at about 118 dollars per day per person when you're utilizing a hotel situation when you're looking at the emergency congregate Sheldon which is those large term places we we asked for us defer we ask for bids or proposals so we can look at what those costs would look like and so this example right here was based on 500 people and so when you look at that that's costing about 167 dollars per day per person are feeding um as we talk about our feeding transitions so we provided the food at the emergency Sheltering hotels and that was three meals a day we also looked at our migrant welcoming Center and we made sure that everyone had a a hot meal before they actually embarked on their Journeys so we made sure they had that and we also made sure that we had provided them with the snack and meals to last them for their Journey as they took on the charter again as I talked about earlier we do we do have staff embedded with the food bank and the Salvation Army we've provided over 39 000 meals and our isolation and quarantine hotels again that's three meals a day and we still provide those operations as well our dashboard this last week we did it we were able to add and update it where we're including the financial piece so I think that's an important piece as we're winding down now I understand that but at least we have that financial piece so we can track we can all track at the same rate I want to pass the presentation over to Nicole Cody Nicole Cody managing director of budget and strategic sourcing so here you can see the cost recovery for third quarter we're still working on the submission for the 4.6 million dollars through October 20th we saw expenses of about 4 million dollars please remember we did receive the two million dollars on October 12th so here on this slide you've seen it before but what I'd like to highlight of course is that working with congresswoman Veronica Escobar's office to continue to request new or additional funding for the fsp grant to support the Southwest border under the humanitarian relief guidance we did receive word from the chairman of the board on October 20th as well and this remember this is regarding the percentage of the population that is served so it has been increased from 30 percent to 75 percent through the end of this calendar year and then lastly we'd like to highlight of course the our partnership in collaboration with El Paso County they did receive an award of 6.3 million dollars for the fourth quarter from October 1st through December 31st included in that in those costs or in the estimated award was both the migrant support center the lease for the facility that they're located at Amistad Transportation as well as the Personnel to support they do have a contractor running the current migrant support center they do have the ability from what we understand to be able to scale up to 400 to 600 people per day as well as included as a million dollars for the rescue mission to provide shelter for the migrants after December 31st of course there's no funding yet identified and I'll pass it back to Chief D'Agostino she went through that slide rather quickly um on the third quarter of the four point I think it was 4.4 million it's still owed we haven't submitted that yet I want to be clear and then we've spent money in October so the total outstanding and six point six million I believe but again we haven't submitted the third quarter yet because the staff is still reviewing that because they need to make sure that there's no issues with the request or anything on the items they're submitting and that'll be submitted within the next two weeks or so so in closing on this final side before I check if you have any questions moving forward so as we all know the County Processing Center is up and running it's been running for a couple of weeks now and so looking at that they they started earlier this summer they they sought out Grant uh funding and they also worked to to take in bids and contracts so they could look at how they do this operation while they were doing that we had this crisis come come upon us we had to stand up we had to do what we the operations we did and we're at a point now where the numbers of unsponsors has dropped so low that's why we made the decision to close down at this time that couple with CBP I mean their numbers went from from from hundreds to zero overnight and so being being proactive and how we do things we're looking we're looking at going forward and so with that County Processing Center open it allows us time to get reimbursed first and foremost as city manager talked about third quarter we have expenditures over 4 million for this fourth quarter already yes we did get some upfront money but we want to make sure that we're able to recoup everything back that we've spent on this and so at this point in time we're going to go we're looking at besides those reimbursement is focusing on an advance and funding opportunity so we want to make sure that we can secure those fundings the 2 million was was was a start but we want to make sure going into the to the next operation that we have that money up front so we don't have to be at risk of this and having to have this this money out ahead of us we want to make sure we have it on our side so we can operate safely in our tours of the Rio Grande Valley we did talk to other communities they did receive some some money a large sums of money this time last year so they've been operating off of that funding this entire period what we want to do is we want to secure that same type of funding because as we know we've seen this we've been preparing for months on title 42 going away so I'm going to go back to that second bullet title 42 is what's changed this today is that Venezuelan population where they now have a process an orderly process where they can come into the country that's very important that orderly process was captured under title 42 that's what allowed them to expel them right now and so just a key point to remember is we're planning for when title 42 goes away so this this crisis we saw right now is just the tip of the iceberg to what we might see if they do get rid of title 42 or or these these safety precautions or these laws that are in effect today if those were to go away and we did see that that open up to a broader category we could see numbers that made this look to a small scale so we want to be prepared for that again I'm going to close up by talking our our Focus now outside of reimbursement is making sure that we can we can lay the groundwork and the fight so that we can get that future funding that upfront funding for any future operations thank you is that is that your final slide yes sir thank you again for um per you know I know it took a lot of work but um I I want to thank you all I know that working with a lot of your partners in the county and Mr Gonzalez and your team and I think you all learned a lot you know in 19 and you know move forward continue to the work and continue to learn the process and procedures and um I think that we took a humanitarian crisis and made it a manageable crisis and and I think that's really important you know and I thank you all because everyone went above and beyond you know time day in and day out and you know whether you know it wasn't an eight to five job and and I know that uh I was talking to the border patrol and they had some people come in from out of town talking to him and the question they asked him is do they work at nights and weekends so you know it's uh it's a seven day a week 24 hour job and uh I think it this community really stepped up and did an incredible job and um and not only you all but also the citizens in in the county and everyone else that was able to work together so again I want to thank you all for taking a humanitarian crisis again and making it a very manageable crushes where it was never our citizens and and our um visitors were never endangered at any time and that was the important part to make sure that they had shelter food and that our community was always safe and they were always safe and I thank all our law enforcement and all the partners for doing again an incredible job of making sure people were were treating treated properly and it never became an issue within our community thank you and uh I'm very thankful to you Mr Gonzalez and your team Chief and chief behind you for all the hard work that you guys have done and again all the partners who were able to work with that I think we found new partners every day that were willing to work with us so thank you and I really appreciate the the job that's been done and now we can uh you know we can't forget what happened because I think that there's like you said Chief we don't know what's coming you know right behind but we need to continue to be prepared so couldn't agree with you more on that uh representative Rodriguez followed by representative anello so just clarifying on on the money situation again on slide 25 um fourth quarter we're still pending the submission but it says 4.02 million dollars where the estimated cost and then reimbursement status um those two million dollars that's our upfront money right that's not that's not part of our reimbursement is that correct let me before you go so you don't get the fourth quarter it's not over yet so we're not submitted in fourth quarter yet we're we just finished third quarter and what Mr Gonzalez is saying we're talking to submit is third quarter one fourth quarter inch which will be on December 31st and we'll have the opportunity to submit that our hope since you know the operations have gone down that we'll be able to submit for upfront money on that quarter but uh right now we're only working on third quarter and that's the one that Michigan's always was talking about that we can hopefully uh get uh expedited and refunded once uh how the documents are prepared and everything is other T's across and all the ice are dotted moving forward so I just want to make sure on that I appreciate that mayor but on their graph here it says fourth quarter I did see that yeah so so that's why I'm asking that question those two million dollars received on 10 12 and then it says pending submission are those two million dollars are we subtracting that from our estimated 4.2 million or is that in a Edition too they work it is subtract it so we've received 2 million up front for this quarter so all we would be submitting if we were to submit today but the mayor is correct we wouldn't submit until after December 31st if we were to submit today it would be for two million dollars and 2.02 but the but the third quarter which we haven't submitted yet okay we're going to submit the next week or so is 4.6 million okay so the first two quarters we've already gotten reimbursed and those were very small amounts as you can see up there 157 and 81 000. the third quarter we haven't submitted yet it's 4.6 what they've said is through the fourth quarter already we spent over 4 million and then we did get the 2 million that confused things with the way the federal government gave this to me and for future expenditures so in essence you can take the 8.86 you you subtract the 2.2 million and that's where you get the 6.6 million that's still owed so far but as the chief said both Chiefs they're still expenditures that we're in incurring every day so that's the reason why this slide shows to you and everybody's watching we're still owed 6.6 million but we we've been reimbursed for everything we've submitted to date but it is important to note that October 1 is a new fiscal year for the federal government and so it's just dependent upon how that funding is in place and right now I believe they'll be doing a continuing resolution at the federal level to continue funding of the budget so that's what's up in the air in terms of so what funding is available and how it will be made available for reimbursement so essentially we already expended the full two million dollars correct yes sir yes we already said that okay so we're back to general fund money again and so then my other question is on slide 27 um where we finally got clarification the 30 of the migrant population served it was um that cap was raised to 75 this is is this only on travel expenses or what is this on yes it's really regarding um the number of migrants who traveled so for example um right now we're gonna the item called the action on this item is to increase our limit from six or yeah six million to eight million dollars that's a 75 that we're gonna get reimbursed we are submitting for reimbursement for all expenses that are related to the migrant surgeon crisis so the 75 percent is only related to the population served so it's the number of migrants that were released to our community during the third quarter it's related to the people so this is good news what it says is everyone that we transported we're very confident that we probably will receive reimbursement based on the way this guidance is stated so this slide is good news because the transport were the Lion's Share of our costs and now we're within the guidelines we were within the guidelines before but this gives us even more assurances and the chief can and or Miss Cody can add to that but this is a very um important slide because it's good news for us so the eight million dollars that we're going or the extra two million dollars that that came before us today for a total of 8 million that's not included in slide 25 correct so can you please repeat what is what's your question the eight million dollars so right now we we're at six million dollars for for travel costs the total cost is 8.86 million like you see up there that's the total cost for everything okay so does that include the eight million dollars the additional two million dollars that we're going to expend today so they're not separate accounts right it's not separate so 8.8 represents everything that has been expended for this effort including first and second quarter that we've already received reimbursement for so third quarter at the 4.6 we we need to look at it as separate because right now as the mayor said in the city manager we are working at creating that packet so it it's a lot because it's reimbursement we have to make sure everything is paid everything is reconciled everything is down to the penny right yeah and so that is based on what has been expended for the third quarter so we're just looking at the fourth quarter at this point right so the fourth quarter is four million dollars and we receive 2 million up front okay no I don't think you're okay so or maybe I'm not understanding let me try and let me try and rephrase this question so right now the item that we have before us is to increase that budget of um six million dollars to not exceed eight million dollars to the bus scene service um charter bus transportation services that that account that those eight million dollars that were essentially approving is that included in this cost recovery analysis on slide 25 or is that a separate cost okay so to be clear so you're approving it yes so what you're approving is the ratification because you've approved to spend up to six million dollars for Charter services in the resolution of what you're approving we're at six million ninety five thousand I believe the number so just under 6.1 million that we spent on Charter services we need to get that ratified because we've exceeded the six million dollar amount that the council approved we're doing 8 million because we've been doing two million dollar increments we do not anticipate going up to 8 million like I said we're at 6.1 roughly right now that's 6.1 million dollars of expenditures related to Charter expenses are included in what you see on the screen okay yes that was my question thank you because up until now it was my understanding that it was two separate I guess bills no all of those costs for Charter services that's 6.1 million dollars for Charter services that we've used are included in third quarter and fourth quarter I believe we started in August utilizing Chargers okay and then this one that it was the items were coming before us it was saying for it was for the next 16 months that's not that's not stated on here but it is for the next 16 month months correct the time period has not changed only the dollar amount okay all right I have no further questions thank you and I think it's important to um and I'll go to represent a little bit that right now our transportation assistance is at six million ninety five thousand dollars they're two million dollars which is really the item on the agenda really wasn't this thing the item on the agenda was to approve to extend the transportation funding if needed right now it's not needed right now we have no Transportation needs right now we do not trans have any transportation for anything so the only thing we have right now is that the transfer without be we have not audited obviously but uh so we can we'll do that when we get done with the third quarter but right now we to our best our estimation is six million ninety five thousand dollars the two million will not be used it's not money that we're going into to have as a negative is just if we do for some reason need the funds for any transportation moving forward it'll be already approved to move forward forward no other there won't be into up here that this two million dollars all sudden it will become a negative right now it's up to 8 million it's right now we've only spent six million ninety five thousand dollars and if we do continue to need we'll have the room to do it that's Greg mayor that we have the last day I think that's really important because we're talking about yeah we have elasticity if you will like you've stated correct we have the local emergency ordinance it gives us the ability to spend this gives us the elasticity to do it if we have to because we don't know what could happen next week or after the elections if you will and the policy changes and then we could have the Sky Fall so absolutely that is correct but right now we have ceased transport operations and we just have that elasticity just in case Chief do you have anything to add to that because our two million dollars was not a debt at this point no it's a cushion no no it is it's nowhere here and it won't be anywhere because we haven't spent it it is number one to cover the 0.1 of the 6.1 Million number one for that and then secondly like you've already stated like I've already repeated uh if we need it it will be there uh depending on what occurs in the next 30 to 60 days thank you and it's important to also note that the local taxpayers have not spent any money if it's been reimbursed anything we've asked for to this point has been reimbursed by the federal government to the taxpayers of El Paso the first and second quarter which is a small amount yes sir has been reimbursed we did get the 2 million ahead we haven't submitted the third quarter we're hopeful that we submit it that we will get reimbursed for 100 percent and the other slide that was shown that was good news that they increased the percentage of the numbers that you transport of the population that we receive from the region so that that was good news but we have no reason to believe we won't be reimbursed but yeah I mean until we get it we don't have it right and we and that's exactly we said with 2 million and we got it two weeks ago tomorrow so like I said the local taxpayers are not at any money anything we've submitted for we've been reimbursed month to date year to date yes but we do have 6.6 million so far that we've spent thank you yes sir hey y'all um I want to take a second to really acknowledge the congresswoman I think it's a good conversation that y'all were just having um we don't have the money yet but we have been reimbursed every time she has gone really above and beyond to make sure that we are all in contact with FEMA that there is every opportunity to have a discussion I know I've done it two or three times I imagine you all have been in those conversations a lot more um and and again we don't have that money but but she has done everything that she can and gone again above and beyond to really to help us out and so I just want to take a second to acknowledge her um I don't know if you had something to say about that yes yes ma'am and I I I'd like to highlight too she's also assisted she's bringing some members of the House Appropriations Committee to town this week so we have an opportunity to speak with them later on this week time to talk about those future expenses that upfront funding other funding streams other opportunities we can look at so those are some of the conversations but that's been through her office coordinating that yeah and I think that's a good transition into kind of what I wanted to discuss next which Mr Gonzalez had kind of hit on is is the the fiscal year ends up November 1st the election October 1st and in September 30th okay their fiscal year starts October one it's a month later than ours okay um but also you know the elections will change the outcomes on us potentially getting funding in the future I know we were all in a meeting um last week about really having the conversation now so we don't end up in this situation again um I don't know what what is I had to leave a little bit early so I don't know what the end result of that is but you know as a member of this Council in this community I would really love to see OEM really take on that role it's like County city and I don't mean in any way like running their shelter or anything but really facilitating those conversations and really being a part of the solution in that regards obviously not directing you to do that I know you are all doing that already and a part of all those conversations um but I do really think this is an opportunity you know Jorge I've worked with you for years outside of this Council I've seen you really step up when you're passionate about something and I really think that this is a moment for you to shine and I would love to see you in that role and be really proactive in those conversations I I again I've seen you work I have all the faith in the world in you and I know that you can can do that well so before you respond Chief I do want to say that you know that the office of emergency management has been working issues since 2018 with immigration crisis and also we've dealt with August 3rd event as well as the pandemic when the council when the mayor issues a state of emergency OEM does take over all of the operations there hasn't been one declared and so they have been coordinating with all parties so they've been as Miss anello said they have been coordinating all those efforts with all different entities to include the county and when the chief the other Chief when he mentioned that we stood up the migrant welcome center and that we were Sheltering through the hotels we had to do that because we had we just had to respond we couldn't just allow as the mayor pointed out a humanitarian crisis to go unmanaged and because the council approved the local emergency ordinance that gave us the ability and again thank you all for doing that because had you not done that we would have had people on the streets and we would not have been able to go outside the scope of of what we are authorized to do to be able to really assist like we were able to do now with regard to the funding the reimbursements we're working on that we have mentioned the congresswoman every single meeting we're about to today but miss anello beat us to it but she is right we have been working with her office she has helped us to attempt to shorten the time frames expedite it and we believe also that the 25 to 75 percent that was in conjunction with her office working with us and pushing for that the mayor has been in constant conversation with the White House and also with other entities as have we with the other with the other federal agencies all of that combined has really gotten us to the place we are today we we are going to be very Vigilant on those dollars that are still owed to us because it is a federal issue and we want to make sure that we go after that and we know that the congresswoman is going to be extremely helpful with that as this Council and and as if you know the the time that we started this the mayor also has been very engaged in this go ahead Chief thank you and then manager essentially covered it but I appreciate your comments uh representative anello and OEM will continue to to coordinate those efforts so thank you thank you representative thank you very much mayor so a couple of things number one um it's hard to begin to thank everyone that's been involved I was there on Thursday August or excuse me October the 20th to say the last people leaving I believe there was 50 or 60 leaving and so that was uh quite different from before when we were there the first time release when I was there the first time in many of us as well but I'd like to thank everybody that really did a fantastic job and to see these people their faces and everything that's happening a huge huge transition in their life and so I know the city managers stepped out but Ms Jerome so I'm not sure if you can handle this or not well you can't handle it I'm sorry sorry you can't handle you can handle it anyways um just for posterity's sake that if let's just say using this call it the Venezuela humanitarian crisis here in El Paso or whatever you may want to title it but if there could be for example a a paper done on this that'll cover all the aspects of this so not all of us will be here should something else come back again I know the city manager uses a talent Pipeline and he uses it well very well but people are going to leave people are going to retire people are going to change their minds about different things and so we need to have some type of a living document that says hey this is what we did in the past this is where it works well these are the stumbling blocks that we came across however we overcame them whatever way and whatever needs the financial aspects what we're covering here today and just small things like that so it'd be a part of like maybe a the end of the road part but a cross-functional team to and that analyze that and come out with a written product as far as that and then of course to be filed with a city clerk yes sir I'll start and then city managers come back and then of course we'll we'll defer it to Chief D'Agostino but um it's incredibly important for us um you know as a with our commitment to continuous Improvement and as a learning organization that we do document everything that we do we have been dealing with this crisis for many years now this this is not the beginning and um I I don't mean to be the downer in the room but it's definitely not the end either we are going to see more of what we've gone through and so yes there are Lessons Learned there are best practices again we've benchmarked we've had other organizations and other communities come to us we've gone to them because we want to make sure we're doing the very best that we can it is incredibly important for us though that we are not only responsive in a in a dignified and way to those that find their way Crossing but also that we're providing a safe and fiscally responsible environment for our community members here in El Paso so with that said I'll pass it to city manager and then to Chief D'Agostino to to continue with the response so Mr Miller after after every event when it's completed there's an after action report I mean it's very good of you to bring up you probably remember that with the police department's paramilitary operation so is the fire department so is the office of emergency management in the military for the rest of you that they do after action reports on virtually everything right after the right after an operation is complete in order to learn from it and get better and so yes sir we will do what you have talked about that's part of the process of what the office of emergency management does it's just that this operation is that Mr Rome has pointed out is not over yet so they're not going into a full-blown scale after action report but we're certainly taking notes as we go along thank you very much that's all I have thank you and you're right Mr Gonzalez you know it's um it's an ongoing moving process and and will continue to be prepared and that's one of the things that last meeting we had chief that we talked about that um you know we need to be prepared for what comes behind and uh this is um it's uh this is a perfect example that uh this came after a lot of other things that had happened that we'd been prepared for so I agree with you 100 so you're you're right on that uh representative um followed by representative Salcido I already talked once I don't know if you want um representative to go and I'll go after her you're right you're right about that upstairs I'll see you thank you mayor again just wanted to uh reiterate basically the good job that this staff has made done for for the migrants and in the center that we had in place again I I do want to say I know you mentioned something about us asking for future funds uh in regards to FEMA um and what is that process is that you said that's something that we're going to be doing this last quarter so so we asked in September we asked him for 10 million they were able to come up because it's the end of that funding cycle as Mr Gonzalez talked about they were able to get us that two million dollars up front going into this quarter so what we're doing now is going back and asking for that additional funding not just what they owe us as far as reimbursements or what they're going to owe us in reimbursements at the end of the fourth quarter but also that future funding so we're looking at that and and we'll be asking once they get their their Appropriations once they get refunded We'll be asking for that future funding as well okay that's uh something I'm greatly in support of uh just having some funds from FEMA we know this is going to happen we just don't know when it's going to happen so I think that we need to really look at those numbers I think we have really good numbers now of and and I think we're not being overreaching I don't know if 10 million is really what we needed I think it'd be more of that more than that but yeah I'm in great support of asking for those edition of fundings and being proactive and not reactive and using general dollar funds monies I think the the amount of money we really would be looking at is probably a 20 to 25 million dollar number um McAllen got a big number up front so it's important also that what Ms Jerome said that we all that we all take note of and that is that as she pointed out it's not over it's going to continue and our costs continue we have to embed people into the non-government organizations and non-profits because if they fail this whole system will come apart because they are a large reason why we've been successful because they've been doing their job and and then some throughout this entire process so that's the reason why it's important that we in that we did embed people into their operations so we have ongoing costs even though the transports have ceased we have ongoing costs with this operation still because there's still migrants crossing they're still we're still working with them and and yes the county did get some funding from from the feds in order to do the The Welcome Center they're doing but they're working with people that are sponsored only so the fact that we pushed this out that we're not transporting anymore and that's being supported at every level so that they know that that's something that we're taking a hard stance on and everyone's supporting that that that change in trajectory is changing the costs that we're having to incur okay thank you and to your point thank you though it would be great to have that funding up front because if we had sat there and waited for an answer from the federal government we would have had incredible amount of Street releases because we've not been able to do the incredible job that you ought to achieve so uh I think it's important that you know we look forward to to having that but if we had waited and waited we would have had the street releases which we have not had in over 30 days representative Salcido followed by representative that's what I said almost um okay so sorry going back to slide 25 just something that caught my attention one more time um the first quarter that was reimbursed which was from January to March was that strictly um cost in relation to the migrant situation or was there some covet stuff also in there or other things that was covered as well so that was our covet isolation rooms and our feeding operations for that okay so that was a I guess a mixture of well actually that was probably the majority of what was going on at that point right was covid during that okay um also for future presentations would it be okay or actually can you all please include when we submit it for reimbursement and exactly when it was received just so that we could have a better idea of how how long the government is taking to reimburse us we could add that column okay and so right now I know we're still pending submission for both third and fourth quarter um as far as the third quarter we haven't even submitted correct that's correct okay so once we do will you please let us know that hey we've officially um submitted and again do we have an ETA of when we will get that reimbursement once we've submitted we don't have an ET at this point in time but we will not till we submit it we got to submit it first that's where you can vote speak to them to your reimbursement the the first quarter took nine months the second quarter was done quicker because there was more attention paid to the res the reimbursement the 2 million I think but when we asked when we received it 30 to 45 days less than that that was probably about a two-week process a two-week process for the second quarter for the two no for the two million oh so so there's more of a hyper vigilance from all parties and we've brought that to the attention of the federal agencies and the federal our federal congresswoman as well so we we believe that when we submit the third quarter we want to get that certainly before the end of the year okay so again just for future presentations just um just more information on on that graph because I think that's important that's an important detail for we'll let the council know when it gets submitted that's a good question we'll submit we'll send an email out to the council okay thank you thank you for that representative anillo and then we'll take the question thanks I think my answer is going to be similar so the answer to my question is going to be similar but you saw that the reimbursement percentages are about 75 percent did you say that no no no okay I thought I heard that the 75 is on long distance Transportation so out of the population that's coming to the community the the federal government allows reimbursement to transport up to 75 of that total number of people there okay so my question though is we haven't done that under those guidelines right we were doing it previous to those guidelines does it impact how much we spent Mark can I chime in real quick the 75 missanello is really confusing everyone yeah the public the council the bottom line is the transport reimbursement request that we submitted so far uh you know we expect 100 percent the 25 that was in place before 75 percent we keep talking about the the population number so I I think that for the sake of this conversation uh we're going to submit 100 of our costs associated with transports that slide where we show the um the vacillation from 25 to 75 percent was good news because it said the numbers that we receive and what we transport in other words if we receive 10 people and and we transport seven we'll get 100 of reimbursement that that's what that 75 rule means and we have not been transporting 100 of the people we weren't even transporting 75 and we weren't even transporting 25 uh with with the numbers that we have been using up to this point so that's what that percentage stands for how many people that you receive are you transporting has nothing to do uh that we haven't been getting or we were not going to get 100 reimbursement for the people we transport because this this this percentage helps us with that yeah that was really confusing thank you for that clarification that's not what I understood at all but oh okay cool thank you and we're still receiving um people and we're not we're way below that percentage man right that's what I'm saying so we're still receiving all right we're right below that percentage thank you so we're like I said we're not even at 25 so thank you for that and with that we have a motion and a second Miss mayor the motion was made by representative to approve item 45. on that motion call for the vote foreign session and the motion passes five to two Representatives anelo Hernandez molinar Rivera is representative Salcido Rodriguez and mayor Pro tem short swine not present mayor um may we go to items 42 and 43 the applicants are have been sitting in Chambers thank you item 42 is a public hearing on an ordinance changing the zoning of lots of 17 to 20 from a3sp apartment special permit to C4 commercial at 2101 Texas Avenue and item 43 is an ordinance granting a special permit to allow for infill development with a reduction in rear yard setback and side street yard setback and 100 percent parking reduction also at 2101 Texas Avenue there's a motion made by representative lizard got seconded by representative molinar to approve the ordinances on 42 and 43. there's no public comment on that motion call for the vote in the voting session and the motion passes unanimously mayor Pro tem shorts mine not present Council if we can return to page nine the next item would be 35 item 35 is a streets and maintenance department Facilities Management update good afternoon I was just waiting to see if mayor was gonna okay good afternoon Council Victor Morales facility engineer for streets and maintenance and I have a facilities update an operational facilities update for you let's see so the facilities division basically touches on goals four and seven uh just to give you an idea um we recently created the facility engineer position because there was an identified need for a liaison that sort of thing uh the user departments and management those are three very different groups of people that someone needed to kind of help coordinate the information additionally I'm also the facility engineer is also going to be providing additional analysis in order to do better planning and development of any of the facilities that we have that need any of the work done and we're going to take that information in order to develop strategies to address the maintenance challenges we have which are significant and once we Implement those strategies we'll be able to also work those into a continuous Improvement program so that we can be improving our our processes so the facilities management maintenance responsibilities we take care of most of the facilities for the city except those that are covered by the airport Zoo Sun Metro and El Paso water that still is the majority of the inventory it's about 240 City buildings and structures which corresponds to about 3.2 million square feet of buildings this is things like the regional commands fire stations libraries rec centers administrative buildings pretty much everything we also help the parks department by dealing with the bathrooms parking lots the electrical system and to include the Park and trail lighting and we also manage the utilities for all the the city-owned facilities we're the ones who make sure that everything gets paid and we also administer third-party facilities contracts like the janitorial and Security Contracts we're the ones who make sure that they're doing their job correctly and recently we're also taking care of covid-19 contracts so um and in years past we've given you an idea of how old our buildings are and I thought this time around it'd be helpful to give you an idea of how that age applies to the maintenance needs so from the day a building opens to about when it's old enough to drive you would expect to not have any major Renovations needed there'll be maintenance needed at all times but the big stuff won't really start happening until you get to the 17 to 29 year mark for instance HVAC units tend to last 20 to 25 years so that's when you start seeing the need to spend a decent bit of money to keep your buildings functional and then from 30 to 49 more work is needed and it's worth pointing out that from 17 to 49 that's about half of our inventory right now is between that is in the age range and then after 50 years ideally your buildings would be refreshed brand they'd be like like new kind of like the Mulligan building was when when that was dealt with unfortunately that's not really where we're at right now there's actually a very large backlog of Renovations that are needed and it's worth noting that this is a backlog that developed over many decades and we have buildings that are over 100 years old that haven't received enough maintenance for most of their lives and so it came from multiple previous Administrations so in order to deal with this sort of backlog we perform a facilities condition assessment basically that's something we do periodically every five to ten years or so to really go in depth and look at exactly what's going on with every one of our facilities we walk every foot of every building we check every roof we check every possible part of it because it's so in depth we can only do it every so often but that is on in top of the regular maintenance and inspections that we do on a day-to-day basis this assessment helps us find issues that we normally wouldn't find through day-to-day operations and ideally it gives us an idea of what needs to be addressed before something breaks the the best case scenario a lot of times is that we find a problem we identify that it needs to be corrected we can order the parts get ready to do it and then during a downtime we can potentially go in there and get it done so that none of the users notice an interruption service previously we have completed a condition Assessments in 2007 to 2017. those have generally been used to develop the facilities capital projects things like Renovations additions the the larger scale projects that CID takes care of often have the Genesis from the the condition assessment unfortunately at that time we haven't really set up a regular funding for maintenance needs we've generally been taking care of improvements but we have a we have a budget to do maintenance to do the actual maintenance out into buildings and we have the Improvement budget we haven't covered things like a maintenance Capital maintenance needs like new roofs new HVAC systems those have been ancillary to things that are handled through Capital Improvements so if Capital Improvements is doing a renovation project we might also include an HVAC system or a roof as part of that project or if there's an emergency if an a-track system stops working in the middle of summer that's an emergency we jump on it it gets taken care of but that's not the ideal way to handle it um so we started a new assessment this year it's probably going to take us about a year to do it and it's like I said earlier it's going to be an evaluation of every part of every building obviously focusing on major systems like the roofing electrical HVAC Plumbing those sorts of things and and others and it's also going to cover smaller things so it's really thorough and it really gives us an idea of where we are with our facilities and we're going to use that in order to establish a capital maintenance program similar to what you have with Capital Improvements and I'll cover more of that in a moment but so far what we've found in the assessment is there's a lot of Need for new HVAC units new roofs additionally there's a lot of painting that's needed and that's that's an important part of Maintenance new electrical systems pretty much everything you can think of one of our buildings need to and just to put it in perspective the money that was budgeted this last fiscal year for some of the maintenance needs would cover maybe two or three roofs so it's a pretty significant cost that we need to help we need to plan for and budget for over multiple years some of the Strategic challenges that we've found as we've been doing our assessment is like I said before we've got a significant backlog of deferred maintenance that's probably one of the biggest issues and since there's no funding for Capital maintenance this year we're going to kind of be limping along a little bit but ideally in future years we'll be able to give you an idea of what needs to happen so you can help us with funding for those things we've also seen a significant growth in our inventory and the variety of buildings and functions things like the splash parks museums all of that it it's fantastic for the community but we have to understand and learn how to maintain some of those parts some of those buildings and and venues and finally actually this is probably what is the the biggest concern for us right now is Workforce Recruitment and Retention I know you've heard it from multiple departments um you know everybody's having a shortage but unfortunately the facilities Department was particularly hard hit by the pandemic as you can imagine you can't really work from home and you can't really isolate in a bubble if you have to go to every building in the city to to perform maintenance so unfortunately that meant that a lot of our staff ended up retiring or finding an alternative employment that they felt was was more suited to what they wanted to do during the pandemic and we lost over half of our staff over the course of the pandemic so I mentioned the capital maintenance program Mike can you please use yourselves if you're in teams we're going to base it off of the information from this assessment we're performing right now as well as the maintenance inspections we also perform that's going to allow us to update it every year so that we can keep you up to date as to what's going on what needs to happen and how buildings of their condition has changed over time it's not uncommon for something to be looking just fine one year and a couple years later you realize that something is breaking or something's not working right and now that has to be bumped up the list so we're going to work to give you that information on a regular basis which is going to include establishing measures and indicators so that we can prioritize things this will be things like the severity of the facility issue like I mentioned a few times HVAC systems are pretty major and also the impact on the usability of a facility if it's going to completely if something's going to completely shut down a regional command or a fire station that's top priority other things of course have to have to be slotted in behind that but we're going to figure out how to give you that information so that you have a list of these are our top priorities these are things that need to be addressed and that'll help with planning and budgeting which is going to be data driven it's not going to be based on an opinion it's going to be based on what actually needs to happen and this will allow us to get regular funding established for the capital maintenance needs and so moving forward we'll finish the conditions assessment we're going to develop the capital maintenance program address our Workforce needs and we'll be coming back regularly to provide quarterly updates to city council and Leadership and that's the presentation at this point I would just like to to just add an underscore that this isn't the first assessment we did we did one back in 2016. it was actually started in 15 and completed in 16. so if you're thinking in your head why are we just now doing an assessment an assessment was done before just realistically the the ones that got priority were police and fire not only for police and fire police in particular for personnel Police and Fire Equipment replacement also streets and then there has been some money set aside for some departments like the quality of life departments like parks in particular and others but it hasn't been enough as you can see we showed you a slide earlier with almost 90 million dollars have been set aside for police and fire and and we showed the tax rate and we juxtaposition that next to it so you can see the need and how great it is just for those two departments of which constitute over half of the city's budget in terms of the general fund which is more driven by property taxes so that's significant in terms of the amount of money we've invested in it but as you can see even though we've done that and done a bunch of investment in streets there's also more investment that we need to do in our facilities we haven't forgotten about it it's just something that you know it's going to cost more money and so we keep it top of mind and that's why we're presenting it to you that's why these Bond packages are put together I mean I think it's very easy to say that we're going to you know cut this cut that and do this and do that but when you look at the reality of what has not been invested because there's been so much of that kind of um you know talk out in the community and not have the education of these different issues things don't get funded and so now we are funding things but as you can see we're still behind in a lot of areas because it's been neglected for so long thank you Mr Gonzalez thank you Victor I just wanted to commend you on your beautiful PowerPoint it's it was really I love the graphics that you used and it was very appealing so kudos to you and your team um representative Hernandez has a question oh I I just wanted to um just to agree with Mr Gonzalez and there's there's so much need and it's so important that we're at least have a plan and we're prepared and so I'm I'm thankful that you all have conducted those assessments I just just wanted to go back on your initial comments you mentioned that your department is also responsible for Parks maintenance yes for the amenities like bathrooms rec centers parking lots Etc um are you also overseeing the um the reporter John's porta potties no okay it's because it's at parks because bathrooms at parks um okay no I was gonna ask a question about that I frequent Parks I have five children that I take to soccer practice all throughout the city um I'm essentially a taxi driver for them uh but I do use a lot of the bathrooms and and I do have a lot of problems with the state of the bathrooms and so um so for for the folks who are listening um often there's no toilet paper there's no hand sanitizer there's there's just nothing available so I have because I have a baby I always have wipies with me I just I just get frustrated that if we're going to have these contracts at all of our Parks if we can just make sure they're stocked because they're never stocked ever um and if they're if there ever is I'm like it's a miracle these are stocks so um our parks are popular and they're even more popular after the pandemic so I think we need to stock and maintain them at a higher level yes ma'am thank you Richard Bristol streets of Maintenance yes ma'am we've had a lot of problems with vandalism and with theft in our bathrooms at the parks in a couple as we do these management briefs we'll bring in the Parks group and perhaps we could do a series on the vandalism the type of issues that we're seeing any more questions no I'd like to move Miss Prime I'd like to postpone items 36 and 37 for two weeks okay I have a second on that second there's a motion by alternate mayor Pro tem lisarga secondary by representative Hernandez and this is to postpone items 36 and 37 for two weeks I just have a quick question before we do that um Mr Bissell I was just looking at at the website I'm sorry for presentation and just to look at the website and I'm going crazy finding the website yes ma'am um it's under the Community Bond Community progress board link okay do you have the exact address yes on the city's website okay so City's website and if you go to the community progress Bond section there's a little area it says view PCI results and part of our presentation would have been navigating you through that and show you that how to access it yeah I know I can't find it but I mean hopefully it's right there on the website yeah okay thank you no we're postponing it for two weeks there's a motion on the floor to postpone items 36 and 37 for two weeks on that motion call for the vote the voting session is open representative thank you in the voting session and the motion passes unanimously representative shorts fine and anelo not present that brings us to the introduction of ordinances these are items 38 and 39. or before you go on to those items um for the record Laura Cruz acosa communications director for the city uh Steph have asked me to bring forward real quick for you in terms of how to use a PCI so I wanted to bring forward that item very quickly just that discussion did you want to reconsider I think we just postponed it we already voted okay items the introduction of ordinances these are items 38 and 39. second there's a motion made by representative Rivera seconded by alternate mayor Pro Temp lizard to approve the first reading of ordinances items 38 and 39 on that motion call for the vote in the voting session the motion passes unanimously representative schwartzbein and anelo not present that brings us to item number 44 on the agenda item 44 is a public hearing on an ordinance changing the zoning at 8636 North Loop Drive from A2 apartment to C3 commercial and imposing a condition there's a motion made by representative Rivera seconded by representative Salcido to approve item 44 there is no public comment on that motion call for the vote in the voting session the motion passes unanimously representative schwartzfein and anelo are not present that brings us to item number 46. item 46 is discussion in action on a resolution adopting the El Paso complete streets policy Mobility advisory committee enabling policy and we do have public comment on this item good afternoon mayor and Council Joaquin Rodriguez with Capital Improvements Department could we hear public comment looking sure we have Mr Scott White good afternoon sir you have three minutes once again good afternoon everyone thank you for what you've been doing I want to thank Joaquin for his leadership on this project I believe we're moving in a good direction the only thing I would like to suggest is just a reminder that when we formed the bicycle advisory committee everyone was on a two-year term which meant that when those terms ended almost every we had the potential of losing every member of that committee and which would have meant losing the institutional memory of what happened as a part of that committee so I know right now it's proposed to have two-year terms but I would certainly encourage you to keep that in consideration that perhaps this first round of nominees be staggered in some fashion so that we don't run into that issue in the future thank you go ahead Joaquin let me go ahead and share my screen you'll see the presentation yes we can well can you make it full screen full screen I think that might be on it's it are you able to full screen that if it's easier to just share from from what's in the backup it you can go ahead and do that as well I have no preference okay that'll work and go to the next slide 19. so just a few sort of background slides again the complete streets policy really touches on all of our strategic plan goals more specifically goals two three and seven next slide please and some quick background the complete streets policy was adopted June 16th of 2022 since adoption of that we have established the technical Review Committee which is made up of internal Department department members we have analyzed the roles and responsibilities provided by those technical Review Committee members and reviewed and voted to essentially mirror those same roles and responsibilities onto the folks that we would be looking to assign to the mobility advisory committee from members of the public so again are the complete streets policy this quote here is within 90 days of the adoption of that policy Capital Improvements streets and maintenance planning inspections in consultation with the technical Review Committee shell draft enabling policy that creates the new Mobility advisory committee and clearly defines the role's responsibilities and makeup of that committee so that is what we are here to do today next slide please in terms of the technical Review Committee again it's made up primarily of internal departments plus one member of the complete streets Coalition now the intent is for that member if you remember the complete streets Coalition was a group of members of the public different industry professionals who helped advise us while developing the complete streets policy so the intent would be for that complete streets Coalition number to be replaced by a member of the mobility advisory committee once it is formally established so this is a list of the different departments that are currently involved in the technical Review Committee again these are the Departments who have a vested interest in our streets programs our Capital Improvements programs related to Transportation infrastructure and the complete streets implementation next slide please Society so our recommendation for the mobility advisory committee really is in keeping with the complete streets policy that you all adopted uh back in June our recommendation is for there to be 18 members total uh two members per representative district and then two members Citywide our recommendation at this point is not to have Council or the mayor's office directly appoint those members but we would work while reviewing applications for the mobility advisory committee to ensure that we have that geographic distribution across all districts and including those Citywide members we do recommend a two-year term uh for each member but there is a two-term limit so members could carry over and uh serve the mobility advisory committee for a total of four years and no holding over past 30 days this is consistent with the uh bicycle advisory committee and with a lot of other committees here within the city so again the selection of those members they would be selected by the technical Review Committee uh what our proposal is and what's reflected in the mobility advisory committee uh enabling policy that you're acting on today is that we would establish sort of a call for applications members of the public and Industry would submit their applications the technical Review Committee chairs would shortlist those interested prospective members to ensure that their uh that their their qualifications align with what we're looking for in the mobility advisory committee and then finally the TRC as a whole would vote on that final membership as far as the interface between the mobility advisory committee and the technical Review Committee the complete streets policy really does call for these two committees to work in tandem in implementing the complete streets policy so once the mobility advisor committee is formed they would appoint a member of their committee to serve on the TRC next slide please 19. and finally looking more specifically at the responsibilities of the mobility advisory committee they will really serve as a resource for the TRC not in it as an advisory committee to council but as a committee that acts in tandem with the TRC as a resource for the TRC is we look to amend or update any policies or design standards within the city or as we look to you know those different programs that are impacted by the complete streets policy and its implementation uh our recommendation is the Mac the Mac will meet at least quarterly unless the TRC needs to meet with them for some reason more often than that their focus will really be on implementation of the complete streets policy ensuring that they're holding the TRC accountable to hit those Milestones that are within the complete streets policy that was adopted by Council they will be working with the TRC to review standards and methodologies uh standards as they relate to our street design standards the recently adopted Street design manual and methodologies for project selection and prioritization within our different street and transportation related programs again they will not have direct review responsibility of individual projects their input would be more at the program level next slide please and as far as the interface between the technical Review Committee and the mobility advisory committee the TRC will provide support for the mobility advisory committee in terms of preparing agendas and provide them with updates on the status of complete streets policy implementation again the mobility advisory committee will appoint one of its members to serve on the TRC and then finally the TRC will prepare an annual report for the mobility advisory committee the annual report will really focus on the different steps outlined in the complete streets policy and progress towards implementing those steps next slide please so again our recommendation is to adopt the mobility advisory enabling policy as presented as it is consistent with the complete streets policy and intent the bicycle advisory committee which served a similar similar role does sunset at the end of this year so our recommendation would be that Council not take any action to re-establish that committee as the mobility advisory committee will now serve a similar function but will sort of have have a broader scope than the bicycle advisory committees um again if Council does approve of the mobility advisory committee in this form we would then put out that call for Mobility advisor committee applications we'll work with the Pio to develop an Outreach strategy maybe some social media posts something along those lines to build interest and make sure that we get a sufficient amount of applications and then we would move forward to review those applications and that is the end of the presentation I'm happy to answer any questions if you all might have thank you Joaquin representative anello has a question thank you um thanks for the presentation Joaquin I think this is a great idea to Sunset the bicycle advisory committee into this however I'm having a little bit of heartburn about there not being a council um appointed person I guess my question is if staff is appointing members to the committee who has the ability to remove them to remove them yeah or do or can they not be removed so when we have committees right there uh this city doesn't do it other cities either you cannot remove a Committee Member um all of our committees the the person can be removed or someone else can be appointed by the council member since this is Staff appointing uh I I you know I kind of have some concern over that I don't think in any way you would do it I'm about to say Joaquin but there could be the idea if someone was asked to leave the committee that they were asked to do so because they didn't agree with staff and we want to make sure that people that are interacting with these kind of committees have the ability to give their opinion whether it differs from those presenting to them right and so I guess yeah my question would be can someone be removed from this committee by staff if appointed by staff so the enabling policy as it's drafted doesn't have a you know any specific language for removal of members I don't think that's something that we accounted for um but the TRC would be responsible uh through a biannual application review process to establish what that membership is um I think if you wanted some specific language to give the TRC the authority to remove members we would have to amend that no I I don't want you I don't think that would be appropriate so that's why I was asking it yeah so that's not in there now I I don't foresee us being in a situation where we need to remove someone if someone is you know not showing up to meetings not being responsive to you know to what the TRC needs in terms of supporting our implementation of the complete streets policy I would foresee us just having a realistic conversation with that person rather than needing to have any sort of formal removal or granting anybody authority to to perform a formal removal okay and I don't know if legal has any if there's anything like in our Charter any other ordinance that would so as a board it would still be subject to the Charter Provisions but then they're also um sorry this one that's all for a city attorney's office there would also be subject to Robert's Rules and Robert's Rules deals with um individuals who don't necessarily continually or miss a lot of meetings yeah those Provisions would regulate I guess the attendance or the ability for an individual to remain on the board as it's drafted that would be the basic revisions it can't run afoul of our Charter and then of course Robert regulate as well what is the language in the charter that you're referencing that because it it speaks it's more generally about like term limits uh holdovers um information like that okay okay um representative that helps no I will add in the enabling policy there is I feel like it's section three terms um it's Part D which does say that the max shall follow Robert's Rules of orders for conducting its meetings so so yeah correct there would be some removal procedures within that four absences I just again and I you know if I'm being honest I'm really terrible with uh reappointing people to a board so I completely understand that y'all wanting to make this a successful and streamlined as possible but again we don't want to see I mean we've heard it about other boards where staff doesn't agree what members of the committee have said again I don't think that you personally are going to do any of the things that I'm about to mention um we just don't want to you know have a committee where people are being removed by staff because there's some disagreement but you're saying that that's not possible or outlined in the policy the only way to be removed is if you have consecutive absences which I think it's for Robert Rules of Order it's too unexcused so it would be three unexcused absences I'd have to check on that I'm not doing something like that yeah and I think that's reasonable I have no problem with that um but I just want to confirm that that's what we're saying that the only language for removal is based on Robert's Rules and absences it's Roberts and then obviously the the charter Provisions sure so they would turn out based on this they would have two consecutive turns and they'd probably have to okay we would defer to the Charter to help us interpreting okay thank you I feel a lot more comfortable with it then I I appreciate y'all's answers and and just to to sort of add something to that representative now the the purpose of not having counseling point was not necessarily just for streamlining but also to to Really reinforce the equity component of the complete streets policy I think by ensuring that we're appointing folks to the committee based on their qualifications and what their roles and responsibilities would be within the committee we're sort of ensuring a more equitable distribution of membership rather than appointees who might not be you know chosen by by members of council specifically for their uh you know for what they're contributing to the the committee um so we've worked um Kyle Ibotta our complete series program manager has worked to develop sort of a a couple matrices of membership that ensure that we're checking off um all these different subject areas where we where we think members of the public or of Industry would be helpful to the TRC in providing that feedback that we need to sort of broaden our you know our understanding of what complete streets means and how to implement those goals and policies from the adopted complete streets policy within our daily programming and thank you very much thank you Joaquin representative Salcido has a question yes ma'am thank you um in regards to the staggered terms or I know that those are not staggered in regards to like institutional knowledge who's going to be there that is going to be able to continue to reiterate what the board has done or wants to continue to do so I think we addressed that in a couple ways um first of all the the two-year terms we do have the um two-term limit so it's very likely that a number of the community members will hold over for more than just their initial two-year term but additionally that the mobility advisory committee is going to work closely with the technical Review Committee that is comprised of City staff so City staff will provide that support that's needed to make sure that that knowledge base does carry on and does hold over we also intend to record all of our Mobility advisory committee meetings and upload them to a website that we're currently developing for the complete streets program and the transportation planning program as a whole so a lot of that you know background will will remain in place on the city's websites and sort of be memorialized in that way okay thank you thank you Joaquin representative Rodriguez has a question thank you so Joaquin I just have a very simple Logistics question how much is this going to cost us um so as far as you know outside expenditures there's no funding source for the complete speech program specifically right now um this is Staff time that you know is sort of a part of our uh you know our daily responsibilities as staff the technical Review Committee will also meet quarterly and it's about a one-hour meeting so if you you know if we wanted to get into weeds of it we could come back and give you what that staff time is costing us but um you know Council adopted the complete streets policy unanimously to to us that sort of direction that this needs to now become part of our streets and transportation program culture so it's not something that is going above and beyond what we feel is our within our regular scope of work okay thank you motion to approve there's a motion made by alternate mayor Pro temities I don't got seconded by representative to approve item 46. on that motion call for the vote in the voting session the motion passes with six affirmative votes representative Rodriguez voting nay and mayor Pro tem Shortline not present that brings us to item number 49. and this is discussion in action on a resolution that the city reviewed and approves the issuance of the unlimited tax bond series 2022 by Paseo De lesta Municipal Utility District number seven with the acknowledgment that the issuance of such bonds does not constitute debt issuance by the city of El Paso move to approve there's the motion made by representative representative Rodriguez seconded by alternate mayor Pro Tim Lee zaraga to approve item 49 on that motion call for the vote representative salsula has a question Mr cortinas thank you alternate mayor Pro tem um just wanted just to get clarification that this year will not constitute debt issuance by the city of El Paso so I just want to make sure that that's that's correct correct yeah these are political subdivisions of the state and so they again had their own property tax rate individuals who live within these muds do not pay city property taxes they pay the money mud property tax rate thank you the voting session is open thank you and the voting session the motion passes unanimously mayor Pro tem Shortline not present and the last item is number 50 and this is discussion in action on a resolution that the city reviewed and approves the issuance of the unlimited tax bond series 2022 by Paseo De Lester Municipal Utility District number five with the acknowledgment that the issuance of such bonds does not constitute debt issuance by the city of El Paso move to approve there's a motion made by representative Rodriguez seconded by alternate mayor Pro Tim lisarada to approve item number 50. on that motion call for the vote in the voting session and the motion passes unanimously may your pro tem short swine not present Council I believe we've gone through all of the agenda items that brings us to the end there's a motion and a second to adjourn the regular city council meeting all in favor anyone opposed and the regular city council meeting for Tuesday October 25th 2022 is adjourned at three at four o'clock P.M